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 looking at the astrology of September 21st through the 27th of 2025, and there are a lot of emotions that are on high. We start the week with a Solar Eclipse, and that Solar Eclipse—which I'll get into the details of in a moment—it sets things in motion that will take about six months to fully develop and take bloom. This is incredibly important.

Emotions are running high. You may feel reactive, defensive, overwhelmed, unwell. You may feel any number of things. But how you engage with those feelings, how you show up, what you do and don't do and why, is all really important. In fact, it can be kind of defining for you and for the world around you because—I need to tell you this, and I want you to hear it—because you really matter. Who you are and what you do and how you participate, the ways in which you hide, the ways in which you show up, the ways in which you are or aren't willing or able to learn and grow from your experiences—they're all really important. They're important to you and for you—I mean, I don't know. Maybe they're not important to you. I hope they are. But they're certainly important for you. And they're important for the world.

I'm an astrologer. I'm a psychic medium. I have the perspective that we are all connected and that our connection is political. Our connection is the fabric of communities and societies. But it's also energetic. How you feel, how you participate, what you put into the world, what you take from it and how—it builds up to be another thread in this really big fabric of the Universe, of this earthly plane. And you matter inside of it.

And part of what happens during Eclipse Season is, because emotions get so activated, a lot of times, a lot of people have a hard time showing up. And this is in part because most of us don't have great emotional intelligence and don't know how to deal with difficult emotions. And if you don't have self-worth, if you don't have a willingness to experience the whole breadth of your human complexity, your human emotions, then it's really hard to show up during Eclipse Season. But show up you must. And you can show up in any old way you want because you have free will.

Astrology—it speaks to the energetics of a person, of an event, of a time. But it does not strip you of your free will. You always have a choice. You might not always have a good choice, but you always have a choice. And so the choices you make at this time—I want to really invite you to be brave, to be mindful. The world is changing really quickly, like really quickly. And if you struggle to accept what is, then it's really hard to adapt in ways that are needed, whether they're really small or really big.

We have been talking on Ghost of a Podcast for years about this period, about the potential for domestic and civil unrest, the potential for world war and calamitous events in the world. We've been talking about the need to show up for social movements, for political movements. And within that, I want to be really clear that I do not perceive a separation between the personal and the political. And within that, I do not perceive a separation between the spiritual and the personal, and the spiritual and the political.

When we separate those parts of ourselves, we are not synthesized as individuals. And there's different times for different things, and there's different situations where different things are relevant and important. But make no mistake that when you are living in accordance with your values and you're shopping in accordance with your values, that is a spiritual act, and it is also a political act. When you are making the choice to take out your shitty mood on the person in traffic who cut you off or not, that is a spiritual choice. That is a social choice. And depending on who you are and who you're doing it to, it can be a political choice.

The shifts that are happening in the United States government, the shifts that are happening in many regions of the world, give us a lot of reasons to be frightened, a lot of reasons to be scared. And there are people who will tell you that fear is low vibration. And I don't believe that. Fear is a part of the human experience. There are not many animals that don't experience fear. We're animals. We're just these organisms, right? How you engage with your fear—that's really important. And yeah, there are healthier and less healthy ways of doing so.

The choices you make in the presence of fear, in reaction to fear, the ways you metabolize fear—those things are really important. When fear is so intolerable to you that it transforms inside of your system to panic, to disassociation, from separation from the self, when your insides shift from fear to blame and rage, or you collapse—all of those things—they're human things. But they're maladjusted coping mechanisms that don't help you to accept what is real, identify what you're feeling versus what's actually happening in the moment. And so it's harder to take care of yourself and others when you're in a reaction to fear.

So I'm actually inviting you this week, and in your life in general, to practice noticing when you experience fear and what your reactions are to fear, and to explore whether or not you can make a different choice—even if only a little bit—in response to your fear. Your reactions happen. Your actions are knee-jerk, right? But your responses—those are more intentional. Your responses are not just your responses to the stimuli but to the fear or the feeling that happens in reaction to the stimuli.

Let your fears remind you of what you love, of what you care about, of what you believe in. Let your fears even point you towards a practice of determination and hope. And listen. Some of us are really well wired for hope, some of us not so much. If you can't be hopeful, strive to be determined. What you don't want to do is waste your very precious and limited energy doing shit that doesn't help you as an individual or us as a collective.

These are humbling times, and you are here—I don't know why.  I don't know how. But you, with your very specific nature and history and thoughts and health concerns and all the things—you. You. You're here, and you're here now for a reason.  I don't know what that reason is, and honestly, it doesn't have to be grandiose. A lot of people get this idea that your sense of purpose is meant to be a job or a thing you do that other people can see. You may be here simply to figure out how to practice love, how to practice love in the small choices you make and the big ones. You might be here to break some family patterns.

It doesn't have to be some grandiose reason, but finding a sense of purpose requires connecting with your values system, not performing some sort of feat that gets shown on TV. You're here, and you matter. And so do the people that annoy you, and so do your friends, and so do your enemies matter, actually. This is a time, this week is a time, to tap into your emotions and to your spiritual values, your spiritual convictions, and to strive to embody those things because as you embody those things, you can show up with greater empathy and kindness and grace. And that's not nothing. It's actually quite a bit.

It's so much easier to practice holding empathy and care and grace than it is to hold hate and resentment and rage and pettiness. Those things will eat you up from the inside. I'm not saying don't be mad. There's a lot to be mad about. Be fucking mad. But let what you love motivate you, not just what you hate.

Now, all of this said, let's dive into this week's horoscope. As I said, we're looking at the astrology of September 21st through the 27th of 2025. Now, let me remind you, on Saturday, the 20th of September, we had a Sun opposition to Saturn in exactitude. This week's horoscope begins on Sunday, the 21st, with actually, at 11:42 a.m. Pacific Time, the Moon and Saturn being exactly opposite to each other. This is happening at 28 degrees and 28 minutes with the Moon in Virgo and Saturn in Pisces.

So let's look at the chart of the Solar Eclipse. Again, the Solar Eclipse is at 12:54 p.m. Pacific Time on the 21st. In this chart, we are looking at the Sun and Moon conjoined at 29 degrees of Virgo and 5 minutes. Now, this is very anaretic Virgo. If you have been experiencing health issues—and we want to keep in mind, what is your health? Your health is your overall well-being. It is your experience in your body and in your psyche. Your health is not exclusive to physicality. There is mental health, emotional health, spiritual health, and overall well-being in addition to physical health.

Now, this New Moon is a really important time for both setting intentions around your health and well-being, how you relate to yourself, how you care for yourself in a day-to-day mundane way—because Virgo is associated with the day-to-day and the mundane—but also, it's consequential. It's consequential because Saturn is sitting opposite to the Sun and Moon. Now, Neptune is as well—a little bit less tight, but it is as well. Now, the consequential nature of this very anaretic Solar Eclipse tells us that we are both encountering consequences for our past actions and attitudes as well as setting intentions around how we will both respond to current circumstances and engage and plant seeds moving forward.

So what becomes really important this Solar Eclipse is to take some time and some space to really sit with how you're showing up for yourself, how you're showing up for the situations and the things that you care about, including but not limited to your work—and when I say your work, it could be your job, but it could also be your work in the world, a project that's important to you, what have you—and to make sure that with intention, you are acting in ways that reflect what's most important to you.

A New Moon in Virgo is typically an excellent time for setting intentions and starting new projects, starting new things. Because we have Saturn opposite as well as Neptune, what we are likely to be experiencing is actually a great deal of anxiety and fear. Saturn is related to a fear of how things are going or will go in reality. Neptune is related to fear inasmuch as it's related to anxiety and panic. And so having Saturn and Neptune so close together, as we have been experiencing for quite some time and will continue for a long time—won't even be exact until 2026—it is intensifying our collective fear as well as our individual experience of fear. And again, it's not just one kind of fear. It's like fucking layers of fear.

And having this Saturn/Neptune conjunction—not in exactitude, but very much a conjunction—sit opposite to this Solar Eclipse, a.k.a. New Moon in Virgo, what we can expect is to be confronted by fear. Now, oppositions—in transit in particular—get experienced oppositionally, so between me and you or us and them. And because of that, we are likely to be truly scared or fear truly threatened by people with power. Now, why people with power? Because Saturn is involved. Because Saturn is related to hierarchies and systems and older figures, parental figures—that kind of a thing.

The systems around us are crumbling. Now, that may or may not be reflected in your individual life. In your individual life, you may be thriving. You may be dealing with things that are going well for you. You may be experiencing personal gains and opportunity—or not, right? But either way, even if you personally are thriving or you personally are struggling—or the reality for most of us is something in the middle—it's important to keep in mind that there are collective conditions at play. There are a lot of things happening in this world that are forcing you and me to confront some of our deepest fears.

And the thing about fear is it can be met. The thing about calamity or challenges is that they can be met. This Solar Eclipse in very anaretic Virgo vibes is an invitation for you to be intentional about the steps you want to take to cope with and engage with whatever it is that you're feeling and also your reality. And I'm holding these two things separately because you may be feeling really scared about something that you understand is coming or that you fear is coming, and those feelings of anticipatory anxiety are really different and take different kind of remediation than the feelings you're having about your lived experience in this moment.

These two things are equally valid, but they are different things, Saturn and Neptune. They're different things. Saturn is the reality principle, and Neptune is anticipatory. It can be paranoid. It can be illusionary or disillusioned. Saturn can get nihilistic; it's so realistic. But again, you can see how these are very different forms of fear.

The magic of Virgo is discernment. The potential of a Solar Eclipse in Virgo is that you use your discernment—a.k.a. you practice having healthy boundaries within your thinking as well as your behavior—so that you plant seeds with intention that will grow into the reality of where you are, who you are, when you are, and not just grow into that reality but tap into the possibilities that tap into potentially even hope. When you can't be hopeful, strive to be determined. The astrology of this Solar Eclipse supports hope based in reality, intentional, emotionally rich determination.

So the question is, what do you want to bring your most hopeful, humanitarian, empathetic intention and energy towards? How can you strengthen it with a damn plan? And different people plan in different ways. Know this, though. Saturn is opposite to the Sun and Moon in Virgo, so it does want you to have a plan, to set intentions. And that plan might just be the next best step. It might be the next 15 steps. What we want to remember is that Virgo can get really perfectionistic. So none of this is about perfection. None of this is about protection from the experience of fear.

This Solar Eclipse speaks to being confronted with things that are worthy of fear. How you engage is a reflection on you. How you engage this Solar Eclipse will play out very personally—emotionally, spiritually, psychologically—and collectively in our communities and the world at-large over the next six months. So, no matter how hard it is, I want to invite you to explore all of these themes.

Now, because—fucking life, right—there are a number of different transits that are very active in this Solar Return chart. Venus and Uranus are still very close to exactitude and squaring each other, creating disruptions. Now, these disruptions may actually help you to bust out of ruts and routines that inhibit you from living in alignment with your values. So the disruptions might be really helpful and productive, or it might just throw you curveball after curveball and have you feeling frazzled.

Mars is also square to Pluto. This is a transit that will be exact later in the week. This transit is hard, and what it indicates is a lot of conflict. Mars square to Pluto kicks up ego energies. It kicks up defensiveness. It intensifies Neptune's already pretty strong tendency towards paranoia because the Neptunian form of paranoia is anxiety and panicky-based, whereas Pluto's form of paranoia is resentful, petty, manipulative, and traumatized. Now, it might not be all of those feelings for you, but those are the energies of the planets we're dealing with.

Mars square to Pluto and Venus square to Uranus at the same time also indicate some red flags around gender issues because Mars and Venus are the two planets that govern gender, conventionally speaking. And so, because both of these planets are enduring challenges from outer planets, from generational planets, there's a real risk of some sort of social and political change that comes down from systems and the powers that be that are oppressive on a gender level. And we know that cis male gender never gets policed, so that means that it falls upon women, Queer genders, and Trans people. And of course, Trans people are the most vulnerable of these groups and requiring of the most protection, care, and uplifting at this time.

Now, listen. This Solar Eclipse chart speaks to a lot of challenges. I'm not going to lie. I want to remind you that you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. Learning from history in the context of social and community-wide issues—political issues, as well, of course—learning from your own personal history, your own personal lived experience—these things really help. You don't want to lose track of emotional presence in this moment, because we're going through a Lunar transit. A Moon transit, 100 percent of the time, wants you to feel your feelings, to cultivate greater emotional awareness and accountability.

But when you reflect—not analyze, but reflect—on your emotional patterns, on your emotional history, on how individuals and groups of people have responded to specific social and cultural and political situations historically—when we reflect on those things, we are doing the work of the Moon, and you are better equipped to handle whatever comes your way.

The thing about the truth is that the truth is true whether you want to deal with it or not, whether you know how to cope with it or not. Engaging with the truth of what you're feeling, of what you're needing, of what you fear, and of what is happening here and now is an act of self-care. It's an act of accountability. And it actually can be very empowering, even though what I am recommending is feeling challenging feelings should they arise and as they arise. And a lot of times, for a lot of people, it feels like an act of self-harm to feel bad, to choose to feel bad.

The truth of the matter is it is an act of self-love to practice not only feeling your feelings but being accountable to them. And again, the thing that this beautiful Solar Eclipse in anaretic Virgo vibes teaches is discernment. That discernment that Virgo teaches empowers you to recognize, "Okay. Here's the line between feeling my feelings and wallowing. Here's the line between being hypervigilant and working hard on myself."

A Solar Eclipse in Virgo can absolutely help you to discern your own patterns, your own participation, so that you can assess the best next steps. And as you go, because you're not perfectionistic, what you do is you adapt. If you find that the next best steps that you've identified are actually not the best, you can always pivot. Saturn opposite the Sun and Moon can make you feel like you have to write everything in stone. You have to decide now what to do and how to do it; otherwise, fuck it. Neptune opposite the Sun and Moon can make you feel like there's nothing that you can do; you are utterly helpless and hopeless.

And you want to remember that being accountable to the moment means not only doing things but tending to the feelings. You have agency. There is always something you can do. Maybe that something isn't much. Maybe that something doesn't do too much. But there's always some progressive way you can tap into your agency; you can take responsibility and accountability for how you're feeling and how you're treating yourself and others, how you're showing up. This Solar Eclipse is meant to stir the damn pot, like stir the damn pot. But it's also meant to help you cultivate the discernment and intention that you need in order to navigate challenges.

Now, before we move on to the next exact transits, I just want to remind you that after the Solar Eclipse occurs, it takes about six months for those energies to fully play themselves out. That said, we are technically in Eclipse Season until just before the next lunation, which happens in early October. And that will be a Full Moon. You can expect for intense emotions to stay at play for the next—about two weeks, just less than two weeks—and the effects of whatever it is that happens on and around the Eclipse to take about six months to fully play themselves out inside of you, in your life, and in the world at-large.

Okay. Now, that brings us to Tuesday, September the 23rd, where we have not one but three exact transits, all of them from the Sun. The fact that we just went through a Solar Eclipse and now we have a bunch of Solar transits tells you that you are meant to show up. You are meant to engage your self-worth and to act in ways that reflect who you really want to be. Now, when I say "act," I don't only mean physical behaviors. I'm also talking about how you talk to yourself, how you engage with your emotions, how you show up with others and why you show up with others.

I'm often talking about how Mars is related to motivation, and it is. But Mars and the Sun are similar in that Mars is the ego, and the Sun is the will. And so there is a similar kind of energetic connection between motivation. Mars is ego and therefore much more closely related to motivation. However, the Sun—your sense of self, your very identity—is, of course, connected to your motivation.

So this is going to be an important time for you to reflect on what is motivating to you—not theoretically. I'm not talking about your ideas. That's Mercury, maybe Jupiter. I'm talking about what is actually happening inside of you at this time, and how is it motivating you? How are you showing up?

At 5:53 a.m. Pacific Time, the Sun will be at 0 degrees of Libra and 45 minutes, forming an exact opposition to Neptune at those same degrees of Aries. Later that night, at 7:55 p.m. Pacific Time, the Sun will be at 1 degree and 20 minutes of Libra, forming an exact trine to Uranus at the same degrees of Gemini. And then, finally, at 11:05 p.m. Pacific Time, the Sun will be at 1 degree and 28 minutes of Libra, forming an exact trine to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius.

There's a lot to say about these three transits, and also, there's a lot to say about Uranus trine to Pluto. Uranus trine to Pluto is an umbrella transit that we are going through at this time. And it is a really powerful and positive transit that speaks to the potential for social change, for political change, for economic change, for change to the systems that govern your life, your psyche, your survival mechanisms, and also the world at-large.

If you have anything that is getting directly aspected by Uranus or Pluto at this time in your birth chart, you're going to feel this extra. But it's affecting all of us. The potential for progress, progress that serves the people, is huge. It's huge with a Uranus trine to Pluto. Similarly large is the potential for technology to accelerate and advance so quickly that it becomes integrated into policing, surveillance, and systems of oppression. Honestly, that's also very possible with a Uranus trine to Pluto in air signs.

And so we want to be as intentional as we can about seizing the potential of Uranus trine to Pluto. And the seizing of that potential is by coming together in community. It's by working with mutual aid. It's by supporting each other through our differences to facilitate and protect progress. Okay. Felt like I had to say that.

Now, having the Sun opposite Neptune is hard. When the Sun forms an opposition to Neptune, you are likely to feel fucking exhausted. You are likely to feel demoralized, burned out, just like—spoons? Where they go? No spoons. Spoon-free. This is a transit that can kick up feelings of victimization. So, depending on your nature and your situation, you may be a person who often feels victimized and you often feel like other people have power that you don't have or are forcing you to do things, and you don't have a choice. If that's the case, this transit may kind of turn up the volume on that and really intensify those feelings.

Your assignment is to assess whether or not those feelings are rooted in your actual situation or if those feelings are a coping mechanism, a way of engaging with the world, because we have to be realistic that if you have strong Neptune aspects, potentially a strong twelfth house or a lot of Pisces in your chart, you may have a tendency to feel like you don't have options or a choice, that there's nothing you could possibly do, even when that isn't the case. Now, if that is not typical to your nature, you still might feel this way.

The Sun opposition to Neptune will often kick up feelings of victimization, and that may be because you actually are being victimized, or it may not be. That's for you to assess. Luckily, because the Sun is trining both Uranus and Pluto, it does strengthen your ability to assess it and to look deeply into the situation so that you can really explore what's true and what's possible.

Now, unfortunately, the Sun opposition to Neptune intensifies susceptibility and gullibility. And that might mean that there is some sort of misrepresentation of data. It's important that you don't lie on purpose during this transit. I mean, in general, maybe don't lie a lot, but in particular, this transit, if you misrepresent intentionally, lie, evade, escape, completely unplug all responsibility of self, it's going to end up making you feel worse, truly. And it can have a really destructive impact on the world around you, whether it's in your personal life or the larger world.

Because this transit kind of drains your sense of willpower, it would be very easy to be like, "Well, there's nothing I can do. I'm just going to check out. There's nothing I could possibly do." I want to reiterate you are here, and you are here now. You are exactly who you are, where you are now. Don't convince yourself or let the powers that be or anyone else convince you that there's nothing you can do, that you have no value and you have nothing to add to the world, because none of that shit is true.

Find ways of participating in your life and in the world that reflect your will. If you want to facilitate progress, you don't have to be the hero of fucking anything. I'm just saying find ways—your ways, based on who you are, where you are, when you are—to show up and to participate in facilitating progress, facilitating empathy, facilitating kindness—whatever you can do.

Because of the Sun trine to Uranus and the Sun trine to Pluto, your ability to stay present with challenging things, to go deep, to innovate and explore potential is strengthened. So this is a great boon because the Sun opposition to Neptune can make you just feel like nothing's possible; nothing's possible at all.

And what's especially challenging, I gotta say, is the Sun opposition to Neptune, which makes you feel like there's holes in your bucket and you're losing all your energies. This transit is overlapping with the Mars square to Pluto that I told you about. So the combination—and I'll tell you more about that Mars square to Pluto in a second; don't worry. But the combination can intensify feelings of persecution and paranoia, especially if you're predisposed to those feelings.

So keep your attention focused on what's important. There are so many distractions in the world. We live in a world that is organized to keep you demoralized and distracted. And who does it serve? Who does it serve? It sure as hell doesn't serve you or us. So keep your attention focused on what's important, on what's consequential. And if you need to distract yourself with things that aren't that deep, okay, fine. But if you find yourself fixating on something that someone said and that person has no fucking power and you just disagree, know that you have lost the thread. This is not a time for doing that.

This week comes with so much power and intensity. It is such a consequential time. Do not waste it in the comments section of somebody who you just don't agree with. If you're going to put a lot of energy and attention towards something or someone, point it towards systems. Use your precious and powerful energy to move the needle, to not waste your energy and time on the distractions laid out for us by agents of the capital, agents of the empire.

With all of these outer-planet/these generational planet energies, this is a time for shifting things in the context of the big picture, in the context of systems. This is a time for considering your relationship to technology and even towards the surveillance state and how you do or don't protect yourself and others. There's so much happening in the world, and it is by design meant to activate, trigger, and overwhelm you. And so it stands to reason that cultivating tools and resources inside of you and in your life, in your communities, for coping with those feelings both personally and in relationship with others is a really good move, in general and certainly this week.

Okay. Now, on Wednesday, the 24th, at 4:52 a.m. Pacific Time, Mars will be at 1 degree of Scorpio and 27 minutes, forming an exact square to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. So we have undergone this transit before. Mars moves quickly enough that it happens. This is not a rare event. And also, Mars is related to policing and military and combat. As I always say, it's punch-punch, bang-bang. Pluto is related to nuclear energies. It's global. It's big. They're both related to conflict, power, and overpowering. They're both related to fight. Pluto is fight or flight. Mars is, "I fight because you can't fuck with me."

When Mars and Pluto form a square to each other, there is always the risk of further violence in the material world, physical violence. And when we talk about lone gunmen, there's never really a lone gunman, even though there might be one person with their own arsenal of weapons. Each individual is a product of the society that we live in. And when we consider the social context to individual experience, it is really valuable because none of us exist outside of the rest of us. We are interconnected.

Mars square to Pluto activates feelings of you and you alone because it so intensely and viscerally in your body activates your flight, fight, or fawn mechanisms, your survival mechanisms. It can be very easy under a Mars square to Pluto to feel like, "Well, fuck. I'm alone in this. If I don't protect myself and my family, then no one will. If I don't do"—insert x coping mechanism—"I'll never be safe."

We've been feeling the effects of the Mars square to Pluto since about September 14th, and we're going to be feeling it until around October 4th. But again, it's exact here on September 24th. It is a violent energy. And so, on a collective level, it is what's up. And you as an individual can make choices to participate in collective conditions. But on a personal level, Mars square to Pluto—it activates your drive to succeed, to prove yourself. It can activate existential terror inasmuch as it's related to your flight-or-fight mechanism.

Mars is the body, and Pluto is survival. So, for a lot of people, this will kick up physiological symptoms of fear or terror. And that sucks and is consuming. If this happens to you, if you can identify it, then you can start to cope with it. If you listen to the midweek episodes, where I give readings to people, I'm often saying, "Okay. Let's properly identify the emotion or the situation," because once we've identified it properly, then you can cope with it more effectively.

If you can identify that you are experiencing your own coping mechanisms to fear, then you can start to tend to the fear instead of the coping mechanism because if you offer your survival mechanisms something different and something better, you start to develop new skills, whereas if you're constantly just engaging with the symptom of a problem instead of the root of the problem, it doesn't really move the needle very far or very long term.

Mars square to Pluto—this transit gives you the drive to get involved. It can intensify your sense of courage and strength. Also, it can make you really resentful and defensive and to center yourself in ways that better reflect your fears than your intentions. So it can kind of go in any direction.

If your relationship to your ego is inherently defensive, this transit is going to really trigger defensiveness in you. You might be dealing with people who—they themselves are feeling activated and basically showing their ass. If that's the case, it's incumbent upon you to assess how to engage. I have a very strong rule: don't process with people you don't trust. Engaging in bad-faith conversations and arguments is a waste of your precious energy—that's not just if the other person is engaging in a bad-faith argument. If you're trying to talk to somebody or argue with somebody but you're not listening to them, you are engaging in a bad-faith conversation. You are not coming to the conversation with an actual willingness to listen and to adapt, right?

So take accountability for how you use your energy and the motivations underpinning your behaviors. That's what the transits are trying to teach us. It may be unavoidable that you need to fight on or around this transit. And again, it's affecting us for quite some time. It may be unavoidable that you advocate for or protect someone or something or yourself. But this is a time to be very mindful about how you go about conflict. If you're going to start shit, you better be willing to deal with that shit. Don't start fights or start entanglements with people or situations that you don't actually want to be involved in, okay?

This is a time where the energy is intense and activating. You cannot control how I behave. You cannot control how she or they or he behaves. You can only control how you behave. If you find that you act in ways that reflect your ass more than your intentions, then, my friend, you're always able to be accountable and apologize and take responsibility. Mars square to Pluto makes the ego not really want to do that, but it's an option, and it's one worth considering.

The combination of Mars square to Pluto and Sun opposite Neptune is likely to create a lot of psychological, emotional, and psychic chaos. So, if you're feeling really overwhelmed, yeah, that makes sense. And it's important that you use the willpower that the Mars square to Pluto offers and tap into the nuance that the Sun opposition to Neptune puts you in contact with and cultivate—whether it's presence, coping skills, whatever it may be—for engaging.

This is a time that is demanding that we engage with our fears and our coping mechanisms for dealing with those fears. This is not easy, and it's not fun. But you're not going through it alone. You're going through it. I'm going through it. We're going through it. And so finding people that are safe, that you can have good-faith interactions with, that you can turn to to offer whatever support you can and to ask for whatever support you need is really helpful.

I did a live recently on my Patreon, and something that came up that seemed to really resonate with a lot of people was this conversation around context. Being able to be accountable for how you feel is really important, but it's equally important that you respect the boundaries and context of others.

You may be feeling really activated and feel that you really want and need to talk to people and be in community with people and really engage with others, and the person or people who you are most comfortable relying on or really have the strongest expectations of may be feeling just as activated as you are. But they may feel the need to go into a hidey-hole and tend to their emotions on their own for a minute.

In this situation, it's not that one person is right and the other person is wrong and one person is being a good friend and the other person is being a bad friend. It's that sometimes the context of how we hold challenges and how we metabolize and cope with challenges is different. Being able to hold space for the ways in which we are different without personalizing it can be a really important step to being accountable to yourself and others, to adapting your expectations of people and situations and even of yourself so that your expectations and your behavior is more humane. Now, this is a practice and, again, not one that you're supposed to be perfect at.

Now, the astrology of this week overall is a lot. The Solar Eclipse is meant to kick up really intense emotions. The Sun opposition to Neptune is kind of confusing and can be quite demoralizing, and the Mars square to Pluto puts you in contact with your flight-or-fight mechanisms, a.k.a. your survival mechanisms. And that generally only happens through feeling really threatened or challenged.

Luckily, there are very supportive transits happening alongside these challenges to help you to be present for the intensity of this moment and to meet this moment with curiosity and depth, to support yourself and others to the best of your ability.

Now, I'm going to run through the transits one more time for your little note-taking joys, but I will remind you that on my website, there's always a transcript available within about 24 hours of an episode drop. So, if you want to check that out, it is available to you for free, obviously and always.

Okay. So, on the 21st, we have a Solar Eclipse in Virgo. On the 23rd, the Sun is opposite to Neptune and trine to Pluto and Uranus. And then, on the 24th, Mars forms an exact square to Pluto.

This is a lot, so be as kind to yourself and others as you possibly can be. And as always, if you would like to learn more with me and tap into the support and resources that I'm continuously offering, join me over on Patreon.

Okay. This is a big week. Take really good care of yourself and others, and I'll talk to you in a couple of days.