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. We are here to get astrological, but you and I both know—I mean, hopefully we both know that getting astrological is really just about getting present and strategizing for the present and the future, in part by learning from the past and in part by tapping into the energies that are at play. And as astrology nerds—yeah, I'm calling us all nerds. As astrology nerds, we know that astrology is about signs and planets and houses and aspects, but we also know it's about your lived experience and mine. It's about the collective conditions we find ourselves in as much as it's about your innermost personal life, your relationships, your work—all the things. All the things, your health—all of it.

Astrology is a tool and a system for understanding this life we find ourselves in, in all of its complexity, in all the layers. But not all tools are perfect for all moments. Not all tools can be useful in all contexts. So I hope in your journey, as you engage with astrology, you use common sense and that it helps you to navigate choices that you make in life. That's my greatest hope for you, that it's a tool that you use with wisdom.

Now, I want to give you a little high-level astrological take before we dive into the astrology of this week. Here we are, middle of August-ish, middle/late August. Right now, we have the outer planets. We've got Saturn and Uranus and Neptune and Pluto all in early degrees—like 0, 1, and 2 degrees—of the zodiac signs that they're in. So this is a moment where we are adapting to the new energies of the slower-moving planets in their new signs. It's—"dawn of an era" is a fair term to use. I don't love such a dramatic term, but I'm going to say it is the start of a major shift inside of you, in all of your life, and for us as a collective. No big deal. Kind of a big deal.

Okay. But in September, like September 2nd, Saturn moves back into Pisces. By later October, Neptune moves back into Pisces. And then, by early November, Uranus moves back into Taurus. And I should say, "And Pluto continues its move through Aquarius for many years to come." But what this tells us is that we have been going through a period that gives us a sense of what's yet to come, what we're on the verge of doing, but it's not a straight shot forward. The energies are about to meaningfully shift in just a couple of weeks. And there are many things happening astrologically that point to September being a pivotal month of change.

And the thing about change is that it's scary because you genuinely cannot know what's on the other side. You can consult all the psychics. You can read all the tea leaves. You can study all the astrology. And you still don't know what's on the other side. You can tell yourself you know. Someone else can tell you that they know. But the truth is the only way to know what happens is to reflect on it with hindsight. That's life. That's life.

What can you do to prepare? What can you do to prepare for Eclipse Season that's coming for us in September? What can you do to prepare for something you may have heard of, Pluto going out of bounds? I promise I will talk to you about it in depth soon, not right now. What can you do to prepare for the unpredictability of these outer planets, one after another, retrograding back into anaretic degrees of their respective signs? And in this particular case, we're looking at Saturn and Neptune retrograding back into Pisces and Uranus retrograding back into Taurus.

The answer for what you can do is so simple that it's hard to integrate, metabolize, and act upon. And a lot of times, a lot of us think simple means not nuanced; simple means not worthy of your time and efforts. Simple things can be the most powerful and the most essential at the foundational levels of anything.

Here's the thing. This is how you prepare for Eclipses. This is how you prepare for shifting astrology and unpredictable world and all the things. Step 1, you acknowledge how you feel. How do you feel? Give yourself permission to feel what you feel when you feel it. Once you have some awareness and acceptance of how you feel, be a good friend to yourself. As you understand what's up for you, provide for yourself, whether that means providing some space so that you can recline, so that you can languish—I love a little languishing space now and again; don't you?—whether that means you need more mindfulness around how you engage with your body, how you relate to other people, how you're navigating stresses. Provide for yourself. Strive to identify what you feel, what you need, and then strive to identify how you can support yourself around what you feel and what you need.

And from there, it gets a little more personal. I don't know exactly what you do next given the particulars of your situation, but what I can say is this. When you learn about astrology and you learn about things that are coming for you and you think, "Oh shit. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?"—you've lost the thread—almost every transit—not all the transits, but almost every transit we go through require, first and foremost, your presence. That's it. It requires, first and foremost, that you are here, that you are aware as you are here, that you can accept this moment because this moment is the only moment from which you can mobilize, from which you can activate.

There is nothing that you can do to insulate yourself from the complexity of this particular time we are living through, and you shouldn't. But you can identify your needs. You can identify your values. And you know I talk about values a lot. Being values-driven is what I believe to be a meaningful step towards happiness, self-satisfaction, and not just being successful but feeling like you are successful. When you live in accordance with your values, regardless of your circumstances, you're driven by a sense of purpose. That purpose fills you up. I believe this through and through.

So, this week, as we are on the precipice of even more big changes—they're not here, per se. I mean, trust we're going to get into the horoscope; there's changes. But September is a whole new fucking thing. So the more you can do to care for yourself, the better. And this is something I kind of unpacked a little bit more than I'm going to do here on my Patreon in a live recently. But if the way that you know how to maintain positivity or optimism is by being uninformed, by sticking your head in the sand, by not taking in information that is real but is also negative, is also challenging, is also frightening—if that's the only way you know how to protect your positivity and optimism, I regret to inform you that's not positivity, and it's not optimism. It's escapism.

And listen. To a certain extent, we all escape. We all check out. And that's not a bad thing. But if that's your primary tool or one of your primary tools for maintaining a positive outlook, I want to challenge you because I actually don't think that's a positive outlook. And that can way too easily lead you down a path of spiritual bypassing and toxic individualism and all kinds of things we would love to leave in the early 2020s. Developing the tools for tolerating uncertainty is a part of being an adult in this world at this time. Developing tools for staying informed and connecting your awareness to action, positive values-based action—that is a meaningful step towards being happy, having a sense of purpose. And having a sense of purpose can help you in your lowest moments. It really can. Anyone who's only gotten out of bed to walk the dog can attest to that.

The tides will be turning. Will they be turning in the direction we want? Will they be turning in a truly terrible direction? Time will tell. But in the meantime, how you deal with your thoughts, how you deal with your feelings, how you deal with the unique realities that you find yourself in, both in terms of your inner world, your relationships, your sense of safety and place and belonging and all the things—all the fucking things—all that stuff is yours to cope with now. And if you dilute your energies by trying to fixate and predict an unknowable future, then you miss out on this moment. And this moment objectively really needs you. It requires you.

And so, this week, where we move into Virgo season, hunker down into the mundane, the day to day, the here and now, the material, but not just material stuff—the material like, "I get up in the morning. I boil water. I make tea"—the material, the day to day, the things that hold you up, the rituals, habits, and behaviors that you consistently engage in. Bringing more awareness and more care to those things creates foundations inside of yourself and in your life that you can cope with things from.

Last week, I asked you to think about progress. And this week, I'm going to invite you to think about, what are you doing here and now? What are you doing? Is it serving you? Is it healthy? Is it working? What are you doing? Not in a big-picture sense. This is not Sagittarius Season. This is Virgo Season. What are you doing day to day to day to day to day to day to day, hour to hour to hour, classic Virgo vibes?

And if you look at your behavior and you recognize, "Okay. For the past couple months, what I'm doing is not consistent with what I want to be doing or what I think works for me," great. That's the awareness you need to be able to make a change. And if you look at what you're doing and you're like, "Yeah. That feels right," then yay. Give yourself a little pat on the back, a little hug. Either way, give yourself a hug if you can. Awareness is a foundation upon which you can meet this moment, whatever it is. And in this moment, you can strengthen yourself and the people and things you care about with actions—passive actions, active actions—there's lots of layers of different kinds of action. I'm not just talking about one kind of action. But the zodiac sign of Virgo is busy, busy, busy. It's ruled by Mercury. So inquire. Explore. Acknowledge. Discern, discern, discern.

Okay. Let's dive into your horoscope. We are looking at the astrology of August 17th through the 23rd of 2025. The first exact transit of this week starts on the 17th. At 10:33 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be exactly sextile to Mars. This happened in exactitude on the 14th, which was Thursday of last week. So this transit has been really influencing us the whole damn time. We are likely to have kind of a repeat and reiteration of the themes that were occurring on and around the 14th. So it's all very recent.

Mercury sextile to Mars speeds things up. It gives you busyness of the mind, busyness of activity. It can just find you connecting with lots of people, being exposed to different ideas, having the opportunity to engage with different projects. Things tend to happen fast under a Mercury sextile to Mars, and it doesn't tend to be overwhelming. This is a great time for reflecting on your ideas and plans, for cleaning up messes, communicating with people, socializing, mobilizing around your neighborhood or your community—that kind of thing. And I say mobilizing because I'm trying to get at the energy of Mars.

There's a lot of different ways of moving through—again, Mars term—"moving through" your community or communities, and that depends on whether we're talking about getting in your car, which is Mars, or hopping on a bicycle or walking—both Mercury—whether we're talking about engaging in online spaces or in meat suit spaces. It's going to look differently. But this is a time for moving through community, connecting with people, connecting with ideas.

Now, that brings us to the next transit that will be exact on Tuesday, the 19th of August, at exactly 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time. At that time, the Sun will be at 26 degrees of Leo and 59 minutes, and Chiron will be at the exact same degrees of Aries. That means we are looking at a Sun trine to Chiron. This is a really useful and positive transit. But whenever we're dealing with Chiron, kind of similar to Pluto, there's a little bit of intensity or heaviness to it.

The Sun is your identity and your vitality. It's your sense of self. And Chiron is related to your core wounding, and Chiron in Aries in particular—it's like your embodiment around your core wounding. And so, when the Sun forms a trine to Chiron, you have the opportunity to tap into your personal power, tap into the parts of you that have come through some shit—and not just come through shit, because you can survive things. But when you survive something and, through the process of surviving, you accumulate wisdom—not just you learn shit, because wisdom, as opposed to just knowledge, is something that you can apply. It's something that is synthesized in you. The Sun trine to Chiron can help you to tap into your power, as is derived from coming through some shit. It's a really beautiful thing.

This is not a transit for being perfect or trying to be perfect. It's a transit that affirms who and what you are and your capacity to show up. Again, to me, this is a really beautiful transit. Something to ask yourself on the eve of this transit is, what do you need to be showing up for? What do you need to be showing up with? Is it around self-care? Is it around how you treat yourself? Is there a need for you to show up in relationship to other people? Is there a project or a larger goal that it's time for you to tap in and tune up for? This transit is going to help you.

This transit is a good time to tap into your self-worth, your self-esteem, and to build up your sense of self. Now, depending on where you're at and what's going on for you, that might be really internal work and very psychological and emotional and all that kind of stuff, but this transit may very much be related to action, to you embodying your wisdom, and mobilizing from self-awareness and integration. And that integration is kind of like the result of that alchemical process of going through something difficult and meeting that moment, showing up for that moment, and allowing yourself to be changed by hard things.

This transit, and in particular this transit as it overlaps with the Mercury sextile to Mars, is a fantastic opportunity for you to show up. When I say "show up," I mean show up without attachment to what this moment is supposed to give you, who you need to be. Alignment requires acceptance. And acceptance requires presence. These things—they're all so simple, but they're so hard. But luckily, this transit, the Sun trine to Chiron, is supportive for all of it.

And that, my friends, brings us to the last two exact transits in this week's horoscope. On August the 22nd, there will be a New Moon in Virgo. Now, on that same day, the Sun moves into Virgo. We enter Virgo Season on Friday, the 22nd. And then, at exactly 7:29 p.m. Pacific Time, Venus will be at 26 degrees of Cancer and 55 minutes, forming an exact square to Chiron at the same degrees of Aries.

And then, a couple hours after that, at 11:06 p.m., we have an exact New Moon between the Sun and the Moon, both at 0 degrees of Virgo and 23 minutes. That's a zero-degree New Moon in Virgo. Now, listen. I know you prefer a Full Moon. I know there's so much more chatter and excitement about Full Moons. People say, "Happy Full Moon." I don't know why, but people do. But I want to share this not-secret secret with you: New Moons—if you're doing rituals, if you're trying to call in circumstances, if you're trying to manifest, if you're trying to plant seeds, you do it on a New Moon. New Moons are for inviting.

If you are a ritual work/spell work baddie, New Moons are your time of the month. And in particular, a New Moon in Virgo is a very fertile time. If you're able to set intentions based on the discernment and groundedness, presence, of Virgo energies, those seeds are likely to really grow. But when you think about it, Virgo Season—it's autumn. It's the end of summer, autumn days. It's not our biggest planting season on the material level. And so it speaks to the energetics of Virgo and the ways in which we plant are internal. You plant intentions inside of yourself. That's the invitation and the invocation of the moment.

So, first, let's talk about the Venus square to Chiron. This aspect is the strongest aspect in the New Moon chart outside of the Sun/Moon conjunction, of course, because it's in exactitude a couple hours before the New Moon. And the Venus square to Chiron, on its own, is a very important transit, and it is intensified by the fact that we are starting to feel the Venus opposition to Pluto that is coming early next week. So we're already feeling the energetics of that transit, which basically just brings about greater intensity and compulsiveness from Venus.

Now, a Venus square to Chiron triggers your values. Venus is values. Related to that, or kind of as an extension of that, it triggers self-worth issues, which is related to insecurities and such. It triggers issues you may have about the way that you look, and when I say issues, we're talking about fucking Chiron. So Chiron is the wounded healer. It's struggles that you have with the way you look and the value you attribute to how you look.

It is also related to your relationships. So relationship patterns get activated during this transit, and in particular patterns that come from struggles around a lack of shared values and/or insecurities that you have. The insecurities that you have may incline you to consent to being in dynamics that suck for you. The insecurities that you have may incline you towards being mean to people or pushing people away or eating shit.

A lack of self-worth has this amazing cascade of consequences on our lives and have a meaningful impact on how we relate to others and what we are willing to take risks around. So many of us are willing to risk loneliness but not being hurt by someone else, or—flip that—so many of us are willing to be hurt by someone else because we're so scared of being alone.

There is a way that a transit like this, Venus square to Chiron—and in particular on such a powerful day of intention-setting, like a New Moon in Virgo—creates this opportunity for you to turn a corner in regards to your self-worth, in regards to your values system and how you hold it in your life, in relationship to yourself, and to others, to your dynamics with others.

This transit can be really fucking triggering, okay? Not only is this transit just fucking triggering, but Venus is in Cancer. So Venus in Cancer can kick up feelings of neediness and a bit of a clinginess. And it is squaring Chiron in Aries. And so there is a way that feelings of belonging and a need or a drive for validation from other people may rear its head during this transit.

Venus square to Chiron is meant to trigger emotional hurts, self-esteem issues, and have you questioning where you belong. Do you belong to yourself? Do you belong in the relationships that you've invested in? Are your values something that are centered in your life and in your relationships? And the awareness that this shit coming up can provide is foundational to making changes as much as they are needed.

A New Moon in Virgo is a time when your awareness and your discernment are strengthened, and a Venus square to Chiron is a time when you are going to be in contact, or you're likely to be in contact, with the ways in which your values are more a reflection of insecurities or low self-esteem than they are of your actual value that you hold of yourself, of others, or of things in general. In other words, this is a time for healing. This transit is not fun or easy, but it is so valuable.

The potential that this New Moon brings for you to mentally understand—because we're talking about Virgo; it's Mercury-ruled—to mentally understand what you're experiencing, to show up emotionally and materially for that struggle, and to identify what of your values are in alignment with you, and what have you maybe been centering or focusing on that is not in alignment with you? Maybe you've been acting in ways that are needy, but you're actually not needy; you're just struggling with insecurity or impatience or whatever.

This New Moon in Virgo with the Venus square to Chiron is an invitation to be here now and to be open to whatever it is that you find is active and alive inside of you, mentally and emotionally, and—because of this Venus transit—in your relationships. I know this is not exactly what you want to hear, but this New Moon in Virgo is, I feel, an invitation to be sad. There is so much happening in the world right now to be very fucking sad about. There may be things happening inside of you, in your life, to be sad about.

Being sad is not a personal failure. Being sad is a healthy response to things that make you sad. And having the skill set to experience sorrow and sadness and to nurture yourself through those feelings without losing yourself or overindulging in them in a way that is actually harmful or pushing past them and shoving them down or working through them before you actually experience the feelings—this New Moon—it's a day. It's a damn day, 24 hours. I want to invite you to feel your sads, to not confuse what you believe, what you're doing, and what you're feeling with each other, because they are actually unique things. Give yourself the spaciousness if you need, if you can, to identify what you think, to identify separately how you feel, and then to acknowledge what you're doing.

This kind of self-awareness is easy to lose track of in the busyness of life and all of the responsibilities that we have to so many people, situations, and things all damn day. But that's the assignment. Meet the moment. And if the moment is sad, feel sad. And with all the wisdom that Virgo brings, use that discernment because Virgo is all about discernment in its highest good. Discern for yourself what needs nurturance, what needs adaptation, where you need support, and whether that support actually needs to come from inside of you, like you need to make decisions to care for yourself.

Whether it's time to open up to more spiritual support, to ask for help from a person you know or a resource available to you, the interconnectedness of our need to be of service to others and to receive service, to receive help, is so important. If you only know how to take and you don't know how to give, that's a problem. But guess what: it's also a problem if all you know how to do is give and you don't know how to take. We call it "give and take" for a reason. It's this beautiful flow of energy, of giving and taking, of holding and yielding, of pushing and releasing, that makes up happy, healthy people and happy, healthy communities.

This New Moon in Virgo is an opportunity for you to check in with your self-esteem, to discern where you're at, and to nurture and support yourself as you have human emotions that may be a little bit on the sad side. If you're going to be doing ritual work or setting intentions during this New Moon, don't hold too tightly. Don't be too fixated on outcome. It's a New Moon in Virgo. A New Moon in Virgo wants you to be thinking about the process.

The long and winding road of practicing alignment or being kind authentically to yourself and to others is paved with lots and lots of different decisions and adaptations and moments of rest. This is not a time for being fixed. We have a New Moon in Virgo. It's a mutable moment. Set the intention about how to traverse this path, how to be as values-based and even trauma-informed as you can as you traverse this path. Insulating yourself from ever feeling bad is not healthy. It's escapist. Some of Virgo's magic is our ability to meet the material here and now as it is and, from that place, to discern what we can handle in a healthy way, what we need to do, what we don't need to do, etc., etc., etc.

For New Moons, generally speaking, I find candle work to be very accessible and pretty and impactful. And if you're interested in that kind of thing but you don't know where to start, I've got a bunch of content about how to do intention-setting candle work on my Patreon. So you can join me there.

And I should say, while it's on my mind, last chance as we come to the close of August for you to drop a joke that actually makes me laugh out loud and get a reading with me over on my Patreon in honor of the seven-year anniversary of Ghost of a Podcast, which is this month. August of 2025 is seven years of continuous, week-after-week Ghost of a Podcast magic. And the way to do it is you go to my Patreon; join at the kittens or puppies level of my Patreon. And you can drop a joke on a post that I have. And whoever makes me laugh the hardest will get a reading with me, and that reading is being published on my Patreon.

There are now two readings published on my Patreon that I've given to folks who made me laugh. Those readings are going to be published and available for all levels of my Patreon, so for free members as well as paid members. So you can access those readings for free. And those readings are video readings, and they're totally unedited. So that's fun. That's a little different.

Okay. Back to this New Moon in Virgo. There's one last thing I want to say. Don't let the perfectionism and tendency to overthink things that Virgo can inspire get in your way. You don't want to let perfect be the enemy of good. You don't want to let yourself believe that things have to be complicated in order to be impactful, because they don't. The downside of Virgonian energies is getting so in your head that you lose the damn thread. Don't do that. Instead, tap into the best parts of Virgo, which is about being able to meet the moment in all its complexity, to discern what is in alignment, what's not, what's important, what's not, what needs your care and attention and what can wait for now.

Discernment is, I think, one of the best qualities of Virgo. And we want to tap into that this New Moon because emotional discernment is kind of key to emotional accountability and maturity. And I will remind you that because it's a New Moon, it is all about emotions. It's not magic. It's not psychological. It's not behavioral, although those are all parts of it. It is inherently about your emotions, your feelings, your emotional development, presence, accountability. That's what New Moons are about.

So tap in. Get present. And use your skills of discernment to assess what needs more nurturance and what needs more structure, what needs space to just be, versus what needs your attention and direction. You don't have to have all the answers, but this New Moon, I want to encourage you to invite in the space to explore the questions both emotionally and mentally.

And that's this week's horoscope. It was a little bit of a shorty. On the 17th, Mercury was sextile to Mars, just like it had been on the 14th. On the 19th, the Sun was trine to Chiron. And then, on the 22nd, we entered into Virgo Season. We had a Venus square to Chiron and a New Moon in Virgo.

Strive to approach your personal growth and evolution, as well as your engagement with the world at-large, in ways that are sustainable, empathetic, and impactful. And use astrology as much as is helpful in doing that, but don't forget all this shit is ultimately an inside job. So stay connected to your insides, when they're happy and when they're sad.

Thank you so much for joining me this week and every week for Ghost of a Podcast. I will talk to you in just a couple of days.