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.A

Welcome back to Ghost of a Podcast. This week, we are looking at the astrology of September 28th through October 4th of 2025. Listen. This week's horoscope is short—maybe not sweet, though. We are still undergoing the effects of the Mars square to Pluto that was exact last week, and this transit will impact us throughout the week until the 4th.

You may be feeling activated, agitated, motivated. This transit kicks up power issues and ego issues. So you could imagine how this could go sideways on a person pretty easy. There is, of course, a risk of increased violence in the world. But also, on a really personal level, you may just be having a hard time processing through your ego and your survival mechanisms, where they meet and how they meet. This might have you acting out or allowing other people to pull shit with you that you know shouldn't be pulled. The key here is to navigate your needs and the needs of others with integrity instead of in a reactive way. That's the key, okay?

Now, one more thing I'm going to say about this is—you may have heard me talk about this before. This is a thing I believe, which is that Mars in astrology governs the ego, but Mercury is a planet that governs the mind. It's your ideas, including your ideas about yourself. In this increasingly Mercurial world with technology and virtual life evolving in the ways that it is, I have come to find that Mercury has a more ego-oriented function than it used to have. As humanity evolves, as society evolves, so must our application and use of astrology, right?

The reason why I name this is because this Mars square to Pluto is active throughout the week, and we have two transits from Mercury to Jupiter and Chiron respectively. And what this means is that you or somebody else may try to rationalize or justify egotistical or cruel behavior. Logic is good. Understanding is valuable. But we don't want to explain away cruelty. And so, whether this is something that is coming up inside of you that you're rationalizing, justifying, obsessing, fixating, or you're the recipient of this kind of behavior from other people, just keep it in mind this week that how you listen, how you process your thoughts what you believe, how you communicate what you communicate—they're all a reflection of you and also truth. Truth has got to be in there somewhere, right?

Watch your defenses, and notice how other people are behaving, whether or not they're being defensive, what it looks like, and how it is about them, most likely, as opposed to about you. Choose your battles wisely. When Mars and Pluto are squaring each other, there may be battles, but you don't have to engage in every struggle. But you shouldn't be picking fights. And if somebody else is picking a fight with you, do your best to resist engaging in petty bullshit. Okay? Okay.

So, as promised, let's get into those Mercury transits. The first exact transit of this week is happening on Wednesday, October the 1st, at exactly 1:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Mercury will be at 22 degrees of Libra and 34 minutes, forming an exact square to Jupiter at the same degrees of Cancer. Now, Mercury square Jupiter is a little bit of a mixed transit, I think. On the one hand, it can make you feel really positive and optimistic. It can put you in contact with ideas or people who have an expansive impact on you; you can learn something that's valuable to know or really be able to have all the data click.

Mercury is the details, and Jupiter is the big picture. Mercury is the trees, and Jupiter is the forest. So you can see how, when these two planets are in a little bit of a tense show-off like a square provokes, it actually helps to integrate the details to assist the big picture or contextualize the details for the big picture. You get where I'm going here, right? So this can be a great time for exploring your plans, exploring ideas, exploring projects. Whether you need to focus more on the details or the big picture, that's personal to you.

The downside of this transit is it can make a person messy, so it's hard to focus on details. It's hard to concentrate. Your mind can kind of be interested in all the things, all at once, which means be scattered. The other thing that can happen is you can find yourself in a position where you are arguing with somebody, and when we keep into context that Mars/Pluto square, it's a little more likely where you're arguing with somebody and you're not listening to them; you're just proselytizing, or they're doing it to you, or—worst-case scenario—you're doing it to each other.

In this case, Jupiter's arrogance can really become a problem. So make sure that you are engaging in good-faith conversations. And if you're not, adapt and adjust. Jupiter can be gregarious and generous, and it can also be arrogant and showy. So do your best to make the most of this transit and its potential.

The other thing that can kind of go sideways on you with this transit is that the confidence and the optimism that it can provoke can inspire a person to take on more than they can handle, to bite off more than they can chew. And so don't overload your plate. Don't overpromise, because in doing these things, not only are you going to be bummed out later on, but you're also going to have to deal with the consequences of it. So explore your capacity as much as you explore your ideas or the potential in a situation.

There's so much positive in this transit, and if you are engaged in any kind of self-healing journey, if you're in any kind of therapy that explores your psychology, your mind, then Mercury square to Jupiter can be really helpful, especially if it hits your chart directly. This transit can help you to make big strides, to come to greater understanding and to have that greater understanding actually be really life-affirming.

This is a really useful transit. And whatever it is that happens, whether it's super easy or super hard or anything in between, don't judge yourself. Instead, just meet yourself where you're at. Work with the energy, whatever it is, without judgment. And because Mercury is in Libra and Jupiter is in Cancer, the energy is really there for you to be kind to yourself and others, to offer yourself grace, or to get really weird and judgy. I mean, the choice is yours. It's not always easy to make a good choice, but the choice remains yours.

And that brings us to the second and final exact transit of this week. On Friday, the 3rd of October, at 11:05 a.m. Pacific Time, Mercury will be at 25 degrees of Libra and 30 minutes, sitting exactly opposite to Chiron at the same degrees of Aries. Now, I should also contextualize this week is our last week of being in Eclipse Season energies. Now, the Eclipses are completed. But on the 6th of October, we're going to have a Full Moon. And so that will be like the official, 100 percent "We are done," so there's no Eclipse energies. So this week, this week of September 28th through October 4th, we are still feeling the Eclipse energies as they unwind.

Okay. So Mercury is opposite to Chiron. Mercury is your mind. It's your friendships. It's your thoughts. It's your attitudes. It's what you say. It's your tone of voice or tone of text. It's how you listen. It's your friendships, your siblings, your cousins, and it's opposite Chiron. Chiron is your core wounding. It's trauma, and usually that comes from early developmental experiences with parents or guardians—not always, but generally speaking.

When Mercury sits opposite to Chiron, your thinking may be really concerned with either your own psychology, your own past wounds, your own patterns in relationships that keep on coming up and what you fear it means about you, what you theorize it means, or you may find yourself struggling to work through ideas and relationships in ways that don't reflect your wounding. So we're talking about either you slip into old wounded patterns or you work towards healing. Oppositions can be really instructive for healing, but it doesn't happen easily. That's the trouble. It's a tense aspect.

And so this is a good time to figure out, what do you actually think? How do you actually listen? Your friendships are a reflection on you. Listen. Other people are other people; they are not a reflection on you. Who those people are that you are friends with—they are who they are, and they are separate from you. But the dynamics you've cultivated in your life, the people you choose to surround yourself with—these are all choices you've made. And your choices are a reflection of you.

You may find yourself struggling with people in your life, in particular friends, because Mercury governs the platonic side of our relationships. And here's the thing. When you have negative beliefs about yourself, when you are struggling with self-worth, a lot of times, the ways in which you build relationships with other people are built on the foundation of low self-esteem or whatever kind of struggles you have. And as you heal and grow, sometimes that means you outgrow dynamics with people or people altogether.

When Mercury forms an opposition to Chiron, there's often something that comes up. And so you may need to confront how you've changed in a relationship and, within that, not vilify the other person or yourself. That's hard to do. Most of the time, when we're in conflict with others, we are looking for a bad guy and a good guy, right? But a lot of times, it's not about bad guy/good guy; it's simply about changing needs and expectations.

There may be something really important that you need to hear, and there may be something really important you need to say. With Mercury opposite Chiron, it's not particularly easy. It challenges you in a place that you don't feel strong or resilient. But that just means that you need more care, more patience, and more curiosity. Be open-minded. And when I say open-minded, I don't mean without boundaries, obvi, right? I mean open-minded.

If we just, as a general part of our humanity, were more curious about our insecurities, were more curious about the beliefs that we hold, especially the ones that ultimately hurt us, life would be a lot easier. Life would be a lot better. Whether you feel called to explore your relationships, you feel called to explore ideas or beliefs you hold, or you're working kind of more deeply on your own psychology, this transit is confronting. And within that, it holds a great deal of potential for healing.

So tap into your sensitivities. Explore whatever it is that comes up, and strive to do it in a self-reflective, introspective, and open-minded way. This transit empowers you to explore old wounds and come to healing, keeping in mind that healing is not fixing. Healing happens in stages. Healing happens through little moments, not always big, spectacular events. Never forget that progress is progress. It doesn't matter if it's big progress or little progress. Progress is progress, and this transit can help to facilitate progress in your relationships, in your psychology, and in your life.

And that's it, my friends, a short and sweet week in the stars—I don't know. Not that sweet. A little salty. But it's short. I'll give you that. As always, you can learn more with me over on Patreon. I have dropped the third and final reading in honor of seven years of Ghost of a Podcast on my Patreon, available for all members. You can check out my shop page. I've got a bunch of classes that you can explore. Or hit up old episodes of Ghost of a Podcast because I used to do a series called Hot Takes, where I would teach astrology in quick, little hot takes. Maybe I should bring those back. I don't know. You can let me know. You can always send me a question for the podcast through the contact form on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com.

I hope you're taking really good care of yourself and others through these extremely trying times, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days. Buh-bye.