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 have another fucking intense week in the stars, and it comes on the heels of a really intense week astrologically after a series of intense years astrologically. I want to start off by saying a number of things. I sent out a call over on my Patreon letting folks know that I wanted to do a couple of couples' readings on the podcast where I give a reading to two people in a relationship at once, whether it’s a romantic couple, friends who love each other, family of origin—you know, that kind of stuff.

And so I started looking through these questions that folks sent me, and you are also invited to send me couples' questions if you want to be on the podcast with you and your partner. But something that really stood out to me as I was reading through these questions is that most of them—like, the vast majority of them—said, "We've been having an especially hard time over the past couple of years." And it was so many people that it struck me as really noteworthy.

Regardless of what's happening in the world, our personal lives, our relationships, our health, our finances, all that stuff, it continues. It persists. And it requires us to adapt. And while we are going through collective strain, we are experiencing it personally, individually. And to understand that you are part of a collective of people who are experiencing really similar things at the same time as you is valuable, but it doesn't really change the fact that you have to show up, that your relationships require care and attention from you, of you, that you may or may not feel equipped to navigate.

Things are hard, and I'm not going to tell you that they're going to magically get easier, because they won't. When you encounter a mountain and that mountain sits between you and your destination, you do not overcome the height and girth of the mountain through positive thinking and manifestation. You have to traverse the mountain. And that's where we are, individually and collectively. There is this mountain in front of us, and it is daunting, and it is scary. The world is at a tipping point. Are we in a world war? I think so. Will the history books say that we are? I think so. Is the United States at the dawn of a civil war? It kind of looks like it, kind of feels like it, but I don't know. Again, the history books will tell us, I suppose—if we can trust the history books. Depends on who's writing and publishing, I guess.

Listen. We are living through exceptional times, and it is healthy to be scared. It is healthy to be scared of scary things. Over the years, with this tool of Ghost of a Podcast—because I regard this podcast as, in many ways, a tool—I have tried to empower you to cultivate emotional intelligence because I'm of the mind that it requires emotional intelligence in order to navigate through fear in a way that reflects your wisest impulses instead of your strongest ones.

Fear is actually really healthy right now because there's a lot of things that are scary—domestically, internationally, in terms of the climate, and in terms of human-made crises. But panic, anxiety, outrage, overwhelm, burnout—these things are not especially healthy, and they're not sustainable. They're not sustainable. And so how do we navigate the 24-hour news cycle, the incredible crises that we're going through, the violent attacks from ICE, the instability and terror still plaguing the people of Gaza, the people of Sudan, the incredible crisis happening in Iran right now? There is so much happening in close proximity to you and far away. It is hard to stay connected and empathetic and to not fall apart. And it's not a skill that you can magically develop in an instant just because it's needed.

This is a time to center your humanity. Now, centering your humanity is not just about being humanistic towards other people. You have to hold care for yourself. You've got to figure out ways of taking care of yourself proportionate to your situation because the truth of the matter is we have to take care of each other, and how can you take care of someone else if you are falling apart and you can't take care of yourself? These are impossible questions to answer. But we're in impossible situations all the time in life.

And this is a time where we are in impossible situations, and we will increasingly be in impossible situations. But it's not the first time or the last time that this will happen to a person, to a group of people, to the world, unfortunately. We have endless—endless—examples of evil and cruelty, systemic, pervasive, and violent, from all over the world, from the very governments that are perpetrating harm right now. And in every crisis and in every human rights violation, there is a story of resistance. There is a story of humanity. Learn from history. Learn from movements and individuals who have survived and thrived, who have resisted collectively.

This is the time to not just inundate yourself with the bad news that is happening—but please do not turn away from the news. I beg of you, do not turn away from the news. But also educate yourself about movements that work, about approaches and strategies that work, both in terms of how to metabolize something that is ultimately poisonous and also how to come together with communities for vulnerable communities. It comes down to us, right? It comes down to us. It comes down to you.

No one of us is exempt for how we engage with this time, how we show up for each other, how we navigate the cruelty and injustices being perpetrated by our government. And in particular, in the United States, I want to gently, firmly call in white people. The United States is going through a really violent white supremacist takeover. And so it is white people who need to show up, to take stands publicly. And I know it's scary, and I know you might not feel equipped, and navigating through impossible situations feels impossible. But also, you're not the first person to do it. You're not the last.

Connect with community. Educate yourself about other movements. And take responsibility for yourself and who you choose to be in these ever-darkening days. Turning away from what's happening, tuning out what's happening, is siding with the oppressors, period. And in the words of John Lewis, it's time to get into good trouble.

Now, I know that I have not said a lot about astrology as I've said these things. So let me be clear about the astrology of this time, of 2026. And I know many of you have taken my class that I did with astrologer Tony Howard about the astrology of 2026. Let me just kind of give you this broad view for a moment. We are going through a period where there is great flow. And some astrologers will tell you, well, there's flow; therefore, things are going to work out. That is not how reality works, okay?

The flow—it's called a talent triangle. It's outer planets. I’m not going to get into the weeds in this moment. But the flow that the outer planets are creating this year is the flow of systems already in place, which can be exceptionally dangerous when you're living under corrupt leadership. If you've set things up in your personal life to be really healthy, to empower you to deal with hard things, then okay. There's going to be flow there. But if the systems you have set up for yourself as an individual within community is to kind of back off when things get hard, to shut down when things get hard, then that will flow, too.

The astrology of January, February, March is really rough. It's rough. I'm not saying that to scare you. It just lines up with the realities we're living with; does it not? And that doesn't mean when the astrology is challenging that good things can't happen, because they can and they will. It just means that it is confronting. It is challenging. And the astrology of this week, my loves, I'm so sorry to say, is deeply confronting.

Last week, we were dealing with Chiron. And this week, we are dealing with Pluto. Pluto governs your flight-or-fight mechanisms. It governs survival. Pluto is toxic. Pluto is poisonous. Pluto is survival. It is healing. But it is also trauma. And so, when we deal with Pluto transits, we are confronted with energies, dynamics, realities, and projections that are pretty scary and activating.

So, before I get into the details, I want you to notice how you feel and recognize this is a damn podcast. You can pause it. You can breathe. You can get grounded. You can connect with yourself. Learning how to choose to resource yourself is a life skill that you can't afford to not have. It is not enough to listen to or read about self-help. We must practice it when we need it. And that's hard. That's really, really hard. But that's the assignment.

So take a moment. Get here. Acknowledge what you're feeling. Recognize that there is a difference between being aware that danger is around the corner and being in danger in this moment. In this moment, are you safe? In this moment, can you actually take a breath? Can you actually feel the sun on your face or—I don't know—play with your hair or gently hug yourself? In this moment, what can you choose to do to resource yourself so that you can show up for your life, so that you can show up for the world? Again, none of this is easy, but it's—this is where we are.

Okay. So let's get into this week's horoscope. We are looking at the astrology of January 18th through the 24th of 2026. May I ground you into we are only in the third week of 2026, and it has been a bit of a doozy?

So this week starts with a New Moon in Capricorn. The Sun and Moon will both be at 28 degrees and 44 minutes of Capricorn at exactly 11:52 a.m. Pacific Time. Later that night, at 8:09 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury is sextile to Saturn in exactitude. And then, an hour and a half after that, at 9:38 p.m. Pacific Time, Mercury is exactly trine to Uranus. Mercury is at 27 degrees-plus, forming a sextile to Saturn at 27 degrees-plus of Neptune and a trine to Uranus at 27 degrees-plus of Taurus.

So those two exact transits I'm going to speak to before I get into the New Moon chart. Mercury sextile Saturn and trine to Uranus is really helpful. These transits ground your thinking and empower you to kind of explore what's possible, so to explore your ideas, to learn something new, to communicate effectively, which includes not just talking but listening. These transits are really useful in general, certainly in this period.

But let's not forget the crowning transit of this day, Sunday, January 18th, is a New Moon in Capricorn. And Moon transits are always about emotions. They're about your feelings—super important. Now, on a social level, the Moon is related to nationalism and boundaries because it's like my group of people versus your group of people. This is where the boundaries of my home begin and end, and I'm keeping you out and letting those people in. It's that kind of thing.

And so, when we think about the Moon, there's always, on a social level, a consideration for nationalism and boundaries. On a personal level, New Moons are always the time when we set intentions, where we can start something new on a really deep emotional level. And I want to invite you, separate from all the details that I'm going to give you in a second, to be really intentional on this day about the emotions you center and how you hold them because this is the seed-planting moment where you can start a new cycle. And that cycle ideally is going to be related to accountability, maturity, taking responsibility—and what is responsibility if not simply the ability to respond? The ability to respond. And that's what we need right now, is the ability to respond. And this is a New Moon in Capricorn, which is all about it.

So let's look at the chart. So this, as I said, is a New Moon, Sun and Moon conjunct, in Capricorn. And we have Mercury and Mars both in the 26th degree of Capricorn, just a few degrees off of the Sun and Moon. And then we have Venus and Pluto. Venus is at 1 degree of Aquarius, and Pluto is at 3 degrees of Aquarius. So the Sun and Moon are sandwiched between Mercury and Mars in Cap and Pluto and Venus in Aquarius.

This is really meaningful. This New Moon is going to kick up major activation. Mercury/Mars—we've talked about this recently—is a transit that makes a person feel defensive. It has you kind of feel like you're on your back foot, and it can really have you agitated, irritated, and defensive. This transit can be associated with violence, unfortunately, because people act out of defenses.

Now, the other thing is that Venus/Pluto conjunction, which activates major survival issues around values, around the rights of women or the role of women in the world. This transit of Venus/Pluto conjunction is activating. It's triggering. And so, whether your survival is actually being threatened or you feel like your survival is being threatened or you're watching somebody else's survival be threatened, there's a way that the brain holds it all the same way.

It's really important that you allow this New Moon to reflect your true deeply held values back to you. You may be confronted with something about yourself, about somebody you're in relationship to or with, or the world, that you don't want to face, that is hard to metabolize. And the truth is true whether you accept it or not, whether you deal with it or not, whether you like it or not. So I want to advise you this New Moon to be open to receiving information, even if it's not information that you like or that you want.

The intensity of these transits is so much. It's so much to metabolize, and on top of it, we still have Chiron at almost 23 degrees of Aries forming a wide but active square to Mars, Mercury, Sun, and Moon. That's not great. Again, it's very Chironic. And last week—not great, right? I mean kind of challenging. So Chiron is demanding that you show up for who you are now, to not be loyal to your core wounding, but instead regard it as information about yourself, about your past, that you can use to be here now.

Capricorn wants you to make plans, and not just plans for the next 14 minutes, but longer-term plans, plans that you can grow into. The zodiac sign of Capricorn, certainly at this anaretic degree, really wants you to learn from experience, to apply lessons. That's what wisdom is. Wisdom isn't information. It's the ability to apply what you know in the right way, at the right time.

A New Moon in Capricorn is a time for connecting with your own inner wisdom. And that's based on who you are—the Sun—and how you feel—the Moon. The Moon is all about how we digest information, how we digest our lived experience. Again, Capricorn is saying to us all, take responsibility. Show up. Respond. Be accountable to what you believe. Build towards what you want to see grow.

Capricorn is related to conservatism but also conservation. So where might you need to conserve your energies? This is a great question to ask. This is a great intention to set for yourself, but to conserve your energies to foster growth. All of the earth signs, in their own ways, are related to gardening and farming, to planting in the ground and nurturing growth.

This New Moon in Capricorn—the first New Moon, of course, of 2026—is your call to be intentional about what seeds you are planting and why. Your motivation, which is related to Mars—Mars is related to motivation. But on a different level, also, all the planets have their own motivations. Your motivations are really important. You can say whatever you want to whoever you want about what you're doing and why. But in the truth of it all, you know what your own motivations are.

And this is a time to be honest with yourself about what is motivating you, about what you believe and what you hold dear. This is a time for change. All New Moons are an opportunity to be intentional. So you may drill down on the intentions you've set for yourself previously and not feel the need to change at all, but even that in its own way is a change. Those Mercury transits that are exact alongside this New Moon—a few hours off, but alongside this New Moon—are here to help you to communicate, to process, to make sense of. That's really helpful, but don't make the mistake of thinking that you're meant to do this with your mind, that this is about what you type or what you say. It's not. It's about how you emotionally metabolize. It's what you feel and how you process it.

And again, I cannot stress enough how you cope with fear, with hope, with your emotions is the assignment. And it's foundational for all social justice work, for all your relationships, for how you feel about the successes you've accumulated and the struggles that you're facing. Our emotions are important. Your emotions are important. So hang out with them, as challenging as that is. Don't abandon yourself when you need you.

And because of the Venus/Pluto, which will be exact later in this week—and we will keep on talking about it throughout this conversation. But there may be relationship issues where you, again, feel really confronted and you don't feel held or safe. You cannot control who other people are. You cannot control what happens in your relationships. Trust me. If you could, I'd be doing it all the damn time.

But what you can have some measure of control over is who you choose to be, how you choose to show up, how you engage with your own internal reality and the foundation you create from inside of yourself to show up with and for others and the world. This New Moon is really important, and next month, we enter into Eclipse Season. Now, don't think about it yet. Seriously, I can't stress this enough. Spending too much time in the future robs you of the present.

This is the moment to set intentions, to be responsible and accountable for who you are and how you metabolize your emotions. And this is going to be important really soon, okay? Really soon. So stay here now. Show up now. Conserve your energies for what's important. Don't fritter them away on what's ultimately just a distraction from what's truly important and instrumental to your welfare and the welfare of others.

Now, let's go to Monday. So, on Monday, January 19th, which is also MLK Day—an important day every year, but in particular, this year, don't just do the three quotes that everybody does. Really strive to learn from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in the United States, the resistance movements that were occurring and the resistance strategies that really worked at that time. Now, listen. We're going to have to adapt and adjust.

This is not a one-for-one—it's not like a copy-and-paste situation. But we can learn from our ancestors. We can learn from not just Martin Luther King Jr. but also all of the people in the Civil Rights Movement who fought and struggled for liberation and human dignity. And there's a lot of people, and not all of them have books written about them and are famous. We want to remove main character syndrome from our metric when thinking about how to show up for the world in challenging times.

Okay. Now, back to Monday, the 19th. On Monday, January 19th, we have a Sun sextile to Neptune that'll be exact at 1:55 p.m. Pacific Time at the very anaretic degree of 29 Capricorn and 50 minutes with Neptune at the same degrees of Pisces. And then, at 5:45 p.m. later that afternoon, the Sun moves into Aquarius. At 8:04 p.m. Pacific Time, Venus sits on top of Pluto at 3 degrees of Aquarius and 19 minutes. At 9:19 p.m., Saturn forms an exact sextile to Uranus. We've got a Mars trine to Uranus at 9:56 p.m. and a Mars sextile to Saturn at 10:02 p.m. And if you'd like to track the exact degrees and you're not looking along at the video version, you can always subscribe to my transit-tracking app, astrologyfordays.com, to check that out.

Okay. So let's start big picture. This is a really important day astrologically. Not only do we have just a bazillion transits happening, but inside of those bazillion transits, we have Saturn sextile to Uranus, which is two outer planets having a conversation with each other. And the outer planets are also referred to as the social planets, Saturn and Jupiter, or the generational planets, which is Uranus, Pluto, Neptune. And honestly, I tend to find Saturn and Jupiter to be more related to generational issues, but potato, potahto.

Okay. When the outer planets form aspects or transits to each other, it shifts culture. It's really meaningful in that way. And Saturn sextile to Uranus is technically great. It means that the system encounters innovation and finds new ways to work more effectively. Sounds great, right? The problem is the system is corrupt. The system is inhumane. So will the system on and around this date adopt or employ new technologies to surveil, to control the people? That is a risk. That is a risk. And that risk is strengthened by the fact that Venus and Pluto are meeting here.

So Venus is very much about relationships and romance, and it governs women and femininity in many ways. It's also related to money, to currency. And so having Venus conjunction to Pluto can be something explosive, unexpected because we're dealing with Aquarian energies, and really transformational—thank you, Pluto—around the economy, around, in particular, if this hits your finances directly, your personal finances, or around your relationship to money in general.

Venus conjunction to Pluto confronts you with your values system. What do you actually value, truly? Not what do you believe, not what do you fear or what do you hope for, but what do you value? The way I always describe values versus ideals may be relevant here because, in astrology, Neptune governs ideals. They're like stars that light up the right sky. They do guide you. They inspire you. But you don't reach them, right? We don't actually touch the stars.

Values, by contrast, are Venus, and I relate them to lampposts. Lampposts also light up the night sky. They also are hard to access, but with a ladder and a little bit of gumption, you can change the light. They are achievable. They are more instructive and instrumental because they're more material. Venus is your values. And this is the time to really figure out what you value and who you value and how you prioritize, experience, and express those values.

I'm going to say a lot more about Venus conjunction to Pluto in just a moment, but Mars forming a trine to Uranus and a sextile to Saturn is really empowering for both clarifying your motivations—which, again, like all of this, is connected to that New Moon chart, right? So clarifying your motivations, acting with effectiveness—because Saturn is sustainable, and Uranus is adaptable. So, to me, it breaks down to effectiveness, so acting with effectiveness, acting with some measure of confidence. Now, confidence—maybe that's the wrong word here, but when I say confidence, what I mean is some sort of clarity of purpose.

Now, this could also mean, unfortunately—Mars governs militaries and policing. It could also mean that we see developments in militaristic action and policing that are very effective and very sustainable, that are adaptive to these times, and that really click into place like Lego pieces with the system itself, because Saturn is involved. So just because we see easy aspects like a sextile or a trine doesn't mean it goes the way you want it to. It just means we have a flow of energy.

And this is the thing. When broken systems thrive, we must acknowledge, well, these systems were in place already. So much of what we're dealing with is the volume turned up. It's extreme presentations of existing dynamics, existing situations. And that's true in the world, but it's also true in your psychology. It's also true in your emotions and in your personal life and in your relationship to the things that matter to you in your life.

Okay. So I want to say a word about the Sun sextile to Neptune, and then we're going to come back to that Venus conjunction to Pluto. The Sun sextile to Neptune is a transit that connects you to your ideals. It can empower you to be a little idealistic, which is not good or bad. But it's not by definition rooted in reality. It's rooted in the stars. And we need to connect to the stars, to potential, to dreams, and to possibility.

The Sun sextile to Neptune gives you that breath of inspiration, that connection to your humanity and to your spirituality that we all need right now. It doesn't give you chops. It doesn't give you roots. But the Mars transits do, actually. So we have a lot of really supportive energy here that you've got to tap into. Your outrage and your panic will burn you out and make you ineffectual. What we need now is to connect to a plan, to clear motivations, to clarity of purpose and clarity of our values and what we're willing to do to embody those values. That is the damn assignment.

So to this Venus fucking Pluto fucking conjunction—okay. I'm sorry. But the way to talk about this Venus/Pluto conjunction is to call it this Venus fucking Pluto fucking conjunction—fuck. Trust me. Okay. Let me tell you about it. Venus conjunction to Pluto kicks up power dynamics and power struggles. Venus is connection in many ways, and Pluto is—as I've named, it is your survival mechanisms. It is your core activation. It is depth and healing and intensity.

So, for some people, depending on how this hits your chart and where you're at in your life, this can trigger neediness, possessiveness, jealousy, kind of intense attachment stuff. For other people, it will make you feel this really deep call for a depth of connection. And depending on where you're at in your life and what kind of relationships you've cultivated in your life, that may make you feel lonely or shitty, or it might make you feel really like, "Oh shit. We're working together. We're making shit happen. We're moving forward."

Conjunctions are always the start of something connected to seed planting. And so being intentional about not just what you feel—because you feel what you fucking feel, right? You feel what you feel. You can't change how you feel, necessarily. But you can be intentional about how you respond to and engage with it. So this transit can kick up obsessive thinking, like, obsessive thinking, like cyberstalking, like fixating on something you see online or something someone said or did to you either now or 15 years ago—whatever—and fixating on it in a way that is basically like chasing intensity of feeling. That's a waste of your very precious energy.

Have I told you lately how precious your energy is? Your energy is precious, and it's finite. I mean, there's only so long you're in this body, and there's only so much energy you have inside of your little meat suit. Your energy is precious. It's time to treat it like that. Treat it as precious. Now, I'm not saying be fragile or protect yourself over the needs of others. I'm not saying let's spiritually bypass. I'm saying you are precious. Your energy is precious. Treat it like that.

That's your job. Your job is to treat your energy as precious. And if you are in relationship to other people and those people do not treat your energy as precious, it's your job to have healthy boundaries within that. It's fair to want other people to show up the way you want them to show up. But people are going to be themselves. We're all navigating through our own trauma, our own personalities, our own points of view. How you treat you is on you. Capisce?

So Venus conjunction to Pluto is going to confront you with your values and how you do or don't live in accordance with them. You can say whatever you want to other people, but you know deep inside of you how you engage with your values. This will be activated on this day and throughout the fucking week, if we're being honest.

You may feel really possessive, really jealous. You might find yourself comparing yourself to other people, imagining that if you had this thing or if you had that money or if you had that relationship, you would magically feel differently. But here's the truth. Everywhere you go, there you are. There you are. And so we must work on ourselves as we navigate through circumstances instead of waiting for circumstances to change so that our inner lives are different. Your inner life is different because you make it different, because you work on it, because you care. That's the assignment.

This is a terrible time for making spontaneous major purchases. If you are somebody who super cares about the economy or about your finances, if you're really dealing with your finances in a way that is invested in the system, there may be major or meaningful developments or scares on or around this date. So pay attention to that. There is a whole branch of astrology called financial astrology. I do not care about it, so I am not a financial astrologer. But it exists, so that's something you can look into if that's something that you care about.

Now, that brings us to the 20th. On Tuesday, January the 20th, two things of note occur. At 6:34 a.m. Pacific Time, Mercury hangs out in exact sextile to Neptune. Mercury sextile to Neptune, again, connects your thinking to possibility. It kind of takes some of the sting and intensity out of that Venus/Pluto conjunction because it puts you in a more empathetic frame of mind. It can also have you be more checked out and escapist, where you're just endlessly scrolling as a way to not be where you're at and not feel what you feel. So you want to be on the lookout for that.

But otherwise, it's a great transit for having difficult conversations. So the one kind of good thing I can say about this Venus/Pluto conjunction is, because it is overlapping with so many supportive transits, if you identify that something needs dealing with, there's a lot of energy to support you for actually showing up and dealing with it.

And then, later that morning, at 8:41 a.m., Mercury moves into Aquarius. So we have this shift this week. First, there's a New Moon, setting intentions. And we have the Sun and Mercury moving into Aquarius. So we're moving out of that kind of heavy winter Capricorn moment and into our Aquarius Season with the potential for some more adaptable, although also more stubborn, energies because, as innovative as Aquarius can be, it is still a fixed sign. And man, can shit get rigid during Aquarius Season.

Okay. Now, that brings us to Wednesday, January 21st. On this day, at exactly 7:49 a.m. Pacific Time, the Sun and Mercury meet. Now, this is a transit that happens pretty frequently. So, if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you probably already have a good sense of what to expect. The Sun and Mercury are your identity and your mind. And when they're meeting up, there's a potential for you to really make sense of things or to overidentify with your ideas or your words.

This transit can speed up the tempo of your life, so just a million emails and DMs, and you run into people you didn't plan on, and your plans expand and shift—that kind of stuff, which can be fun. Or it can be a time where somebody says something to you, and you're like, "Oh, no. I know who I am. You don't get to tell me what your experience of me is. I'm going to tell you who I believe myself to be." And that can be kind of bullshit. So you want to be open and adaptable. You want to listen, and not just listen with your Mercury, but listen with your Sun. Listen with your whole self. Show up. Show up.

This is a time where you can make plans, but you don't want to think too far in the future because Mercury is more about what's immediately in front of you. This transit can be fun. It can be a time for spontaneity and connection with other people, which is great. It can also be a time where you learn something of value, something you weren't expecting to learn, which, again, is great.

On the 22nd, we learn that the stars giveth, and then they taketh away, because on Thursday, the 22nd, Mercury and Pluto meet. Mercury and Pluto are both at 3 degrees and 24 minutes of Aquarius. Later that night, at 10:39 p.m. Pacific Time, Mars will be at 29 degrees of Capricorn and 55 minutes, forming an exact sextile to Neptune at the same degrees of Pisces.

So lots to talk about. Mars sextile to Neptune—this transit is a really lovely one because Mars is the ego, and Neptune is humanism. It's connection to all things, and it is kind of the "We are all one," whereas Mars is, "Yeah, it's just me." And so, when Mars and Neptune form a sextile to each other, what we have is the potential to act in ways that are inspired by your humanity, by your spiritual values. This is a transit that makes it easier to work with others, and to work with others for collective or heart-based goals. And while neither of these planets are, per se, associated with goals, we have Mars in anaretic Capricorn. So it's very goal oriented.

This transit is a lovely one to have on any day, but to have it with the Mercury conjunction to Pluto is especially helpful. During the New Moon in Capricorn, we had the Sun and Moon sitting real close to Venus and Pluto. We have since, this week, had Venus conjunct Pluto in exactitude. Now we have this Mercury conjunction to Pluto in exactitude, and tomorrow the Sun will conjoin Pluto in exactitude.

Listen. What this means is that this week's astrology is likely to confront you and us with what feel like existential threats, threats to your survival or our survival or both. That's Pluto's nature. Pluto is all about survival. Pluto is the phoenix rising from the ashes, but first, Pluto is the fire that destroys the bird. And so there is this larger context to each of the transits that we are going through, which is that you are feeling activated. You are feeling triggered. You are being forced to rely on your survival mechanisms.

And I've said this earlier in this episode. I've said this countless times before. Your strongest impulses, your strongest feelings, are not reliably your wisest ones. Your strongest impulses and feelings are often really primal, and they come from your survival mechanisms, which—again, not your evolved parts. If your survival mechanisms need to be online because your survival is being threatened, giddyap; get on it. But if your survival is not being threatened in this moment, it's really important to find ways of engaging with your survival mechanisms that are more present.

Now, when Mercury and Pluto meet up, we have the potential to go deep and heal. You have the potential—I mean, this is a great time for therapy, any kind of therapy—talk therapy in particular, but any kind of therapy. This transit confronts you with your intense thoughts. Now, the potential here is that you can heal. You have the capacity and the willingness to process deep, complex, nuanced, and important topics. This is why it's so good for therapy.

This transit can coincide with confrontations in a relationship where you have to have a really hard conversation. My advice to you—if you have to have a really hard conversation, have it in good faith. Be honest, and have it in good faith. The truth of the matter is, if you're being honest but you're not truly listening to someone else, that's a bad-faith conversation.

This is a time where things can get a lot better or a lot worse. So do your utmost to make things better. You may feel driven to get to the bottom of things. So, if you're going to go through some sort of online rabbit hole, use your digital literacy. If you don't have digital literacy, that's what you should go on a rabbit hole about, okay? Learning how to check the dates that something was written or spoken and check the resources, making sure that you don't allow yourself to be overstimulated around, again, overwhelm and panic is really fucking important, like super important.

This transit may coincide with some meaningful propaganda-style news. And let's be clear. There's propaganda coming from every corner of the internet. It's coming from every corner of society across the world. Whether we're looking at media blackouts like the one that's happening in Iran at the time of recording or news campaigns set to proliferate lies and false narratives, I mean, we are in a time where we have so much information all the time that it is so important that we are mindful, that we are careful about the information that we take in and how we react and respond to it.

You may find yourself fixated, like obsessed—totally fixated and obsessed on something. And I want to say to you, if it's not truly important, if it doesn't have any power in your life, why are you giving it power? Be intentional about what you are giving power to. A good way to give something power is to give it your attention and your care. Now, if there's something real going on that deserves your attention and your care and your thoughts and your research, then, again, giddyap. But if not, if it's some bullshit thing that someone said that you don't even know on the internets that may or may not be a bot, if it's some memory that you have about something you said to someone when you were in grade school that you now feel like was a shitty thing to say, remember your energy is precious. Do not waste it. Do not waste it.

The potential for this transit is that you learn something deep and meaningful, that you progress in your thinking. But it doesn't come easy, because fucking Pluto. So, if you're going to obsess, if you're going to fixate, do it on something that you want to see grow. Mercury, Venus, and the Sun are all sitting on top of Pluto this week. Be intentional about what you want to tear down and what you want to build up and bring forward because your energy is precious.

And that brings us to the 23rd. On Friday, January the 23rd, Mars joins Mercury and the Sun and moves out of Capricorn and into Aquarius. Again, we have this shifting of energy that's happening this week. And at 2:28 a.m. Pacific Time, the Sun hangs out at 3 degrees and 25 minutes, right on top of Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. Sun and Pluto conjoined. Okay. Let's talk about it. I should preface this by saying this is the last exact transit of the week, thank goodness.

Okay. So this transit is activating. Is it the most activating of all three of the conjunctions to Pluto? Honestly, maybe. Maybe, yeah. Kind of, maybe. Okay. So the Sun conjunction to Pluto can activate or trigger self-worth and self-esteem issues because—the Sun. It's your sense of self. And Pluto is shame. Pluto is resentments and trauma. Those feelings may be activated and stimulated inside of you, and it may be just by fucking overwhelm, and it may be by something specific, an experience that you're having.

Again, this is confronting. Pluto is—differently than Mars—related to violence. Pluto's form of violence is not limited to physical violence. It is terror, basically. And so there's a lot of terror in the air astrologically this week. The Sun conjunction to Pluto—it comes home to you, and it activates you. And whatever skills and tools you have for coping with your triggers will be really important on and around this date—I mean, all fucking week, and in particular on and around this date.

This transit kicks up intensity and power struggles. So you may be having a power struggle with yourself, with a belief you hold or something you've done or something you're doing. You may be engaged in a power struggle with something or someone else. And how you show up for that struggle is really important. Whether or not you betray your own values, your own ethics, your own convictions when encountering somebody else who doesn't share them is a reflection on you because you can be around really shitty people; does that mean that you then start mirroring them and acting shitty? It's really important that you stay true to what you believe and what is important to you during Pluto transits because the energy that you activate inside of yourself works like a boomerang, and it comes back at you.

Kind of as an extension of the power struggles that we often experience, there can be control issues. So you may be having control issues inside of yourself where you are really clamping down on yourself, getting really rigid. You might be controlling inside of your psyche in some way or within your behavior. Or you may encounter someone else who's being controlling.

What's important to keep in mind is that you—honestly, maybe it doesn't hit you directly. Maybe you're not feeling it too intensely. Maybe you're an angel who's never made a mistake or done anything wrong. Haha. But you're dealing with other people. You live in the world. And the way that your coworker or the person on the bus or your friend, or whatever, handles the activation of this time—that on its own may be the trigger you experience because some people get really people-pleasy. Some people get really defensive. Some people get really paranoid. This transit really kicks up paranoia, unfortunately. Some people get weird and waiting for other people to make a move, and other people get really like, "I'm going to preemptively make a move." You just don't know how other people are going to be.

It's all messy. It's all messy. Pluto governs messiness. And so this is not a good time for trying to make things tidy or controlled and perfect. It is instead the time for showing up with as much integrity and honesty as you can, to recognize that who you choose to be is a reflection of where you've been, but it is your choice. Pluto in general governs addictions. And so this transit, maybe more than the others, can activate your addictions. And let's be clear. Some people are addicted to drinking or drugs. Yeah. Sure. Other people—many of us—are addicted to scrolling on our phones or getting on a dating app or eating delicious little bonbons or being nice or being liked or being right all the time.

We have a lot of little addictions and a lot of big addictions. And addictive behavior—so I'm not talking about the thing that you're fixated on, but addictive behavior is always kind of like the scab over a vulnerable wound. It's a behavior or compulsion that is masking something much more vulnerable and tender underneath it. If you catch yourself in compulsive, addictive behaviors, whether they're psychological and very internal or they're more like actions, try to take a pause and take a beat. Can you wait 30 seconds? Can you wait three hours? Can you wait a day? And if the answer to any of those questions is, "No, the fuck I cannot," okay. Fine. Cool. That's information. But if you can wait, then you get this information about yourself. This information is, "Who am I? What am I feeling? What am I rushing to correct or redirect from?"

Being able to sit for 30 seconds with your feelings before you grab your phone, before you nom-nom, before you smoke—whatever it is, being able to sit with your feelings gives you information. Sometimes the things we do addictively are self-abandonment. Sometimes they're self-harm. Sometimes they're redirection. You don't have to be perfect. But striving to more deeply understand yourself will be powerful this week and especially on and around the 23rd.

You don't need to get it right all the time. You don't need to be perfect. My friends, you do not need to be perfect. Give yourself the grace of being complex and on a journey of living and trying your best in really challenging times. And try to do so in as healthy and well-adjusted way as you know how.

Now, I'm going to run through these transits one more time. But again, I always have the transcript available for you on my website within about 24 hours. And if you want to go deeper and you want to learn more with me, please do join me over on my Patreon, where I drop stuff both on the free and paid tiers in efforts to be supportive because these are really challenging times, and we need each other. And on my Patreon, I have a new tier called the lovers tier, and it is for mentorship. So we're going deep into how to use astrology, how to counsel, how to work with intuitive information. And I'm really enjoying it. So, if that's something you're interested in, you can join me over there.

But really, seriously, truly, deeply, really, my hope for you is that you resource whatever works for you to be as present, healthy, authentic, and aligned as possible, especially when things are hard. Especially when things are hard.

Okay. On January 18th, we have a New Moon in Capricorn. Mercury is exactly sextile to Saturn, and it is also exactly trine to Uranus. On the 19th, we have an exact Sun sextile to Neptune, Venus conjunction to Pluto, Saturn sextile to Uranus, as well as a Mars trine to Uranus and sextile to Saturn. So Mars is doing both of those things. On the 20th, Mercury forms a sextile to Neptune. On the 21st, the Sun is conjunct to Mercury. On the 22nd, Mercury is conjunct to Pluto, and Mars is sextile to Neptune. And then, finally, on the 23rd, the Sun sits on top of Pluto. And throughout this week, we have three ingresses. We have the Sun, Mercury, and Mars all moving into Aquarius.

Take really good care of yourself and others, and I'll talk to you in just a couple of days. Bye.