Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week, we're going to dive into your horoscope. We're looking at October 26th through November 1st of 2025. But I want to let you know a couple things. The first is I have been dropping video episodes of the podcast for maybe a month or two now, and they've been dropped on YouTube as well as Spotify. But because Spotify seems to persist in being Spotify, the video episodes are only going to be available on YouTube, and I'll also be posting them to the public page of my Patreon. You can also find the links on my website at ghostofapodcast.com.

So, if you want to watch a video version where it's not just my meat suit—welcome to what I look like because I'm not just a voice—I also share Astrology for Days, my transit-tracking app, on the screen so that you have a visual for the astrology. So, if you're an astrology student or a pro astrologer, this can be just another layer that is impactful for you.

I also wanted to share something that I've been thinking about a lot. I've been thinking a lot about progress, about how challenging it is to create real progress in your life, with projects, and in the world. Building up a relationship with progress is emotionally trying. It's a thing we don't talk about enough, how emotionally trying it is to evolve and develop something in your psyche, in your behavior, and, importantly, in the world.

But engaging with the emotions that come up, engaging with the things—there are so many things that come up when you're trying to grow or to grow something—it's worth doing. Engaging with the struggle of evolving, unlearning, learning, facilitating change—these things are worth doing. They're just not easy.

And after the No Kings protest, which millions and millions and millions of people around the world participated in, I have noticed a lot of discourse about something, which is always being talked about in progressive circles, which is what are the best tactics? What tactics work to really create social change? And I want to say as an astrologer, an astrologer looking at Pluto out of bounds in Aquarius, looking at the Saturn/Neptune conjunction that will be exact in 2026—I want to say that there's not one way to facilitate progress. There isn't, and there shouldn't be. There needs to be many approaches. There needs to be many voices, many pathways forward.

The reality is you may have an assessment about what creates progress in the world, and it may be totally accurate, and it may be the best possible thing for you to do. And it may not be the best possible thing for someone else to do. It may not be resonant with someone else. And in order to create true systemic change, we need all the people to engage in something.

And I want to just share my perspective as an astrologer. We're all different. We're all really similar, and we're all really different. And if you can hold space for different approaches achieving different things, but all the things are necessary in order for real change to occur—if you can accept that, embrace that, then it might make sense for you to accept and embrace your own evolutionary process.

As you age, as you go through different life experiences, as you go through different astrological transits, what occurs is you try things out. You figure out how to talk to someone and to be more assertive, and then a month later, a year later, a decade later, you figure out how you need to rein it in a little bit, maybe be a little less direct. You change. Circumstances change. We don't want to only use one set of skills for all of life's challenges. Being adaptable is really important.

And within that, knowing when to stick to your guns, to hold steady on an approach, on a values system—whatever it may be—is also really important. The astrology of these times and of all the times is reflected both in social and political realities alongside individual and personal realities. We see so above, so below, as the pagans say.

Because I have this podcast where folks send in questions, I see certain trends. And one of the trends that I'm noticing that has come up cyclically since 2020 a great deal is people writing in and asking me, "What is the way that I should participate? How should I show up for impacting collective change? What am I supposed to do?" And if you have been kind of struggling with that question, I have advice for you regardless of who you are and where you are and what is resonant for you.

It's to find a group—maybe a teeny, tiny group, maybe a big organization—that is doing work and needs volunteers and people to be actively engaged and fall in line. This is not a time for main character syndrome. This is not a time for centering your ego or perfectionism, both in social and political movements but also in how you relate to community, in how you relate to the ecosystem of your mental and emotional health. Your ego is meant to hold you up, but it's not meant to motivate and direct you, not all the damn time—only in very specific situations.

So where we are at socially and politically is, quite frankly, a frightening place. And it's easy to get helpless or hopeless-feeling, like very easy. It's easy to be burned out. In fact, it's kind of by design that you are to feel these things, that I am to feel these things. But finding motivation, finding connection, and finding a sense of purpose or clarity requires, for most people, being able to tolerate your emotions because if you're scared, if you're burned out, you're likely experiencing emotions that are really hard to metabolize, that are hard to stay with.

And so the way that you cope with fear or insecurity or overwhelm will directly impact how you show up with and for others and how you navigate the way other people show up. In order to have community, in order to have collective movement, we have to engage with people and we have to acknowledge our own shit, which is the hardest part of all of it, in a way.

So I want to invite you to hang out with the messy emotions. I want to invite you to sit with the nuance. We're just entering into the Mercury Retroshade period. Mercury will go Retrograde on November 9th, so it's not for a minute. But we are moving into a time of introspection and reflection. And without emotional capacity and emotional willingness to stay with challenging feelings, it can be a wasted opportunity.

So hang out in the mess. Hang out in the nuance. And challenge yourself to hold space for other people doing the same, other people being different, other approaches maybe not being the right approach for you but holding value. And again, I say this in the hopes that you will apply it to collective political and social movements and also your own relationship to your emotional and spiritual evolution, to your friendships, your love relationships, your community, because it's all kind of the same thing. It's all people peopling, right?

Okay. So let's get into this week's forecast. The first exact transit of this week is on Monday, October 27th, and it's exact at 11:19 p.m. Pacific Time. We've got Mars forming a trine to Jupiter, and it's Mars in Scorpio at almost 25 degrees forming a trine to Jupiter at the same degrees of Cancer. So this is a really positive transit.

Mars is the body, and Jupiter is growth and recovery. Because of this, and especially if you have something at around 25 degrees of a zodiac sign that is aspected by either of these planets and these signs, Mars trine to Jupiter is a great time for working with and on your body, for working with and on embodiment. So that could look like practicing embodiment of your emotions. It might mean really drilling down on your convictions and exploring what you believe and the motivations underpinning your beliefs or your behaviors.

Another thing that this transit is really good for is recovery. So you sprained your ankle, and you're supposed to be doing certain exercises or whatever? Mars trine Jupiter is a great time to start or recommit to a practice of recuperating your body. It's a really great transit for you to invest in growing or recovering your body—wonderful.

Another thing this transit is really good for is projects. Mars is motivation. It's passion. It's getting in there and getting it done. Jupiter is the big picture. Jupiter is expansive and growth-oriented. Now, you don't want to grow everything and anything. You want to grow the things that you truly believe in, that you are passionate about, that you are motivated around. So, if there's something going on at work or some sort of project you're involved in that you really care about, leverage this energy. Actively engage. That's the thing about Mars. It wants you to actively engage.

Mars trine Jupiter is a great time for running if you're into that kind of thing. It's a great time for any kind of exercise in which you break a sweat, which includes spicy times. This can be a great transit, especially if it hits your chart directly, for sex and sexuality, whether that's a partnered experience or solo. You know what I mean? You do you—I mean, or do someone else. Whatever resonates for you.

Okay. Mars trine Jupiter is a great transit for taking advantage of opportunities or creating opportunity—creating opportunity for yourself, for others, or for something bigger than you that you're engaged in and that you deeply care about. It's a great transit—no downside. We love it. So do your best to tap into it.

Now, that brings us to Wednesday, October 29th. And on this date, we have not one but three transits. Two of them are super supportive. One of them is a little destabilizing. Okay. So, at 12:26 a.m. Pacific Time, Mercury at 29 degrees of Scorpio and 51 minutes forms an exact trine to Neptune at the same degrees of Pisces. A couple hours later, Mercury moves into Sagittarius. And then, later that afternoon, at 12:36 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury sits opposite to Uranus at 0 degrees of Sadge and 22 minutes, opposite Mercury at the same degrees of Gemini. And then, in the middle there, at 12:05 p.m. Pacific Time, Mars at almost 25 degrees of Scorpio forms an exact trine to Saturn at the same degrees of Pisces.

Something to pay attention to here is that we've got the outer planets—Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune—all hanging out around the same degrees of water signs. This is absolutely worth noting, and especially noting in your birth chart to see what it's lighting up, if anything. So it might be lighting up planetary aspects in your birth chart, or it might be lighting up a house. So it's certainly worth looking at.

Okay. So Mercury trine Neptune is a gorgeous transit. It's another supportive transit with no real downsides. Neptune governs empathy, care, anxiety, escapism. And Mercury is your mind. It's your friendships. It's also what you say, how you say it, how you listen if you listen. Now, having Mercury trine to Neptune certainly suggests that it's a support for any kind of anxiety or escapist thinking that you've been struggling with. So it doesn't mean it magically makes it go away, but it does mean that this transit on this date empowers you to really hang out in the nuance of your anxieties, of your mind. Hang out in the nuance and have empathy and compassion and patience with wherever you're at.

Here's the thing, and I can't state this strongly enough: you cannot change something that you do not accept first. I mean, listen. You can strong-arm it. But in order to create real, sustained change, you have to understand what's going on. A transit like this Mercury trine to Neptune empowers you to have greater self-awareness because you're not going in with a hammer; you're going in with an open mind. And that's really powerful and really lovely.

If you can get your buns into nature, if you can listen to music or consume some sort of spiritual or artistic content that expands your thinking, that's fabulous. That's a great use of this transit. The overlap with the Mars/Jupiter trine—again, no downside. Lovely. Recovery, spiritual alignment, inspired thinking—wonderful transits. Very lovely, very lovely.

Mars/Saturn trine at 12:05 p.m.—that grounds all this energy because Mars is what you do. It's your motivation; it's your ego. And Saturn is stability and sustainability. It's fitting in. Saturn governs fitting in. And so, when we look at this particular transit of Mars trine to Saturn, it stabilizes your actions and your capacity to make sense of what you're doing and how it's connected to the larger whole. Again—lovely.

This transit empowers you to work effectively, to get shit done, and to do it in ways that actually work for you and with the people and situations of your life. So, again, very helpful. No downside.

And that brings us to Mercury opposite Uranus. So Mercury is your mind; Uranus is your nervous system. When these two forces are sitting opposite each other, you can imagine how it would be a little stressful. Because of the overstimulation to Mercury from Uranus, there is a risk of nervous tension, restlessness, abrupt communications, having difficulty listening well to others, maybe speaking before you think—that kind of stuff.

This energy actually is really good for creating change, for opening your mind, and for exploring possibilities. But it's an opposition, so it tends to be confrontational or oppositional. This transit can play out—especially if it's hitting your chart directly, this transit can play out in ways where you find yourself kind of at odds with someone. If you are somebody who is chronically online and you're big in the comments section, maybe take a step back because this transit can have you just spouting off, just talking at people. If you're going to communicate with people, a hot tip—try to have it be not just you talking at them but you actually listening, holding space, being willing to learn something, to have the exchange yield understanding or something.

You have a limited amount of time and energy. Do your best to spend it constructively, to not engage in bad-faith conversations. So, whether you're the one who's trying to make a bad-faith conversation occur or somebody else is kind of egging you on, my advice to you is to not let yourself be distracted by things that don't actually help facilitate some form of understanding.

Under the influence of this transit, things can be really hectic. Plans can change. Information can come at you really quick. You might have contact with lots of different friends, neighbors, peoples, and it can be disorienting. And when I say disorienting, I mean in a Uranian way, not a Neptunian way. Uranian disorientation is just too much data all at once, and you have too many competing theories. Neptunian disorientation is just such overwhelm that you can't really think through to the details. And for the babies of the Neptune/Uranus conjunction in Capricorn, that might be a hard line to kind of parse apart. But in any case, that is an energetic difference between those two planets.

Now, listen. Mercury opposite Uranus is a terrible time to make plans because of how hectic this transit is, because of how disruptive and kind of too much this transit is. It's a great time to listen—listen to what people are saying. Listen to what they're not saying. Listen to yourself. Listen to the way you talk to yourself. Listen to the way you talk to others, whether it's in meatspace, online—whatever.

And I mention online for a number of reasons. One is because so many people's lives exist so much online. And internety life is real life. It's part of your life. And the other thing is Uranus governs the internet. It governs technology. It governs AI. We may see some sort of important development that is unexpected around AI or technology on and around this date as well. But again, I want to reiterate not a great time for signing contracts and making plans because whenever there's a Uranus opposition, things are subject to change. So, if you can buy yourself some time before making something permanent, it's a good idea to.

Now, our next and last exact transit of the week is on November 1st. But before I tell you about that transit, I want to let you know that this week's midweek reading will actually not be a  reading. On the midweek episode of the podcast, you will get to hear a conversation I had on my Patreon with my patrons about what happens when you die. And I'm sharing it with you to share a little bit of what goes on on my Patreon, but also, it's Halloween, Day of the Dead. These days are here. It felt like a good time to share that stuff. Check that out, and if you want to learn more with me and explore more astrological and spiritual content, then you can join me over on my Patreon. Links, as always, are in episode descriptions, in my Linktree, on my website, and all the damn places.

So that brings us to November 1st. At 11:38 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, November 1st, Venus will be at 24 degrees of Libra and 10 minutes, forming an exact opposition to Chiron at the same degrees of Aries. This is a challenging transit, and it kind of sets the tone for the start of November, unfortunately.

Venus opposite Chiron is a confronting transit. Much like I said about Mercury opposite Uranus, which we are still very much feeling on the 1st, it's an opposition, so it is confronting. It is oppositional. It is likely to be experienced in relationships between you and other people.

Now, Venus is your self-esteem and your self-worth. It's your values system. It's also your finances. Chiron is inherent wounding. It's the core insecurities that you got from your early developmental experience. Chiron—it's not a planet. It's an asteroid. And it is a hard one for a lot of people to make sense of, understandably. It is associated with crisis, like a crisis of consciousness. And it's a part of one's nature that is not restful, not at peace. When it gets engaged, we are meant to kind of struggle. And people hear "struggle," and they think bad. And certainly, struggle is not peace. But struggle is what we need to grow.

I've been doing some planting lately, and I'll tell you what. The thing about roots is they struggle to break through the earth. And so struggle is not inherently a bad thing, but it is an active thing that is inherently about encountering resistance. Where we find Chiron in the birth chart and by transit is where we encounter internal resistance from early developmental messaging, whether it's modeled behavior that we saw from our parents or guardians or family, or it's from our lived experience.

Chiron is a really restless asteroid. And so, when we have something like Venus—the planet that likes stability and security and niceties—sitting opposite Chiron, there is a crisis around how you look, how you feel about the way you look, the value you give to the way things come across or look. There is a crisis in your relationship to your personal resources, which could be your money, cash in hand, or it could be your stuff.

Again, on my Patreon lately, we have been talking a lot about stuff and what's in the home and the energetics of clutter and cleanliness and all the things. Venus is related to that because it's related to what we own and whether or not it serves us or it weighs us down. Venus can be associated with being in a rut. And of course, Venus is associated with relationships, your personal relationships, your romantic relationships. It's sentiment. So there's a feeling of sensual love or like with Venus, which, again, can be sexy or romantic, but it's not necessarily sexy and romantic.

So Venus opposite Chiron is meant to confront you with a relationship, your relationship patterns, or your feeling of lovability—in other words, self-worth, because our relationships and self-worth are always kind of intermingled. This transit may confront you with any of the themes that I have named. And the opportunity here is to pair your values system with your struggles, so to respond to whatever it is that is activated inside of you or in your life with your values.

Now, on a social level, we may see attacks on the rights of women or Genderqueer people or Queer people in general. We may see a major financial event that is a reflection of the system itself, so it won't be like something brand new hits the stage. It'll be like, "Oh fuck. Here's the consequence of this inherently corrupted or problematic situation or system"—Venus opposite Chiron.

On a personal level, it's really important to show yourself authentic kindness. Honestly, I could say a lot more, but if you show yourself authentic kindness, then you don't have to have bullshit fights with people. Instead, you can just have boundaries. If you show yourself authentic kindness, then your behavior with and towards others is not self-sacrificing, and it's not cruel. It's meeting yourself and others where you're at.

The potential of this transit is to become really aware of where you're not aligned, of where maybe you're not being authentic, of where your self-worth or your self-esteem is struggling, and to pair that awareness with the willingness to struggle, to struggle against things that are false, values that are not true to you, and to come into greater alignment and embodiment. That's the potential of this transit. It's big, right?

But none of this shit happens on its own. You've got to participate. So my hope for you is that that Mercury opposition to Uranus that opens your mind and destabilizes things leaves room for you to show up emotionally and, as you show up emotionally, to engage more consciously with the things that actually matter to you and for you in the world and in your own healing process in your life—in all the layers, all the layers.

And that, my friends, is this week's horoscope. I'm going to run through the transits one more time, but as you know, the transcript is always available within about 24 hours of the podcast drop, so you can check it out, and it might help you to organize all this data that I'm dropping on you.

On the 27th, Mars is exactly trine to Jupiter. On the 29th, Mercury is exactly trine to Neptune, Mars is exactly trine to Saturn, and Mercury is exactly opposite to Uranus. And then we have, on the 1st, a Venus opposition to Chiron. And that's it. That's your horoscope for the week.

As always, I drop a bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast—you can find it in all the places, including my Patreon—where I look at the astrology of the month ahead and break down all the transits. So you can check that out. And I hope you take really good care of yourself and others, and I'll talk to you in just a couple of days.