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 October 18th through the 24th of 2026, and Venus is Retrograde. You know Venus is Retrograde. There's so many things that get activated within a Retrograde cycle.

Now, when I look at Retrogrades by transit, I'm focusing on the personal planets in general. So I don't really care about when Saturn and Pluto and all the outer planets go Retrograde, personally. Some astrologers do find that it is impactful and something that they really want to focus on. For me, it has meaning, but it's not like when the personal planets go Retrograde.

So we are very much in the middle of our Venus Retrograde. And just as a quick check-in, what this means is you are meant to reflect on your values and to really reflect on your relationships, like what is and isn't working in your close relationships? What is and isn't working for you in the way that you are relating to intimacy in general? Maybe in context of some of the other transits we have going on, you're finding that there are power struggles or difficulties coming to the surface.

Whatever is coming up at this time is coming up so that you deal with it. And when it comes to Retrogrades, it's your assignment to reflect, to not just act or react, but to take time to sit with things and to reflect. And what is reflecting? To reflect is to mirror, which is very Venusian on its own. And in the context of this Venus Retrograde reflection, your assignment is to look deeply within at what's really bugging you if something's bugging you, of what's really working, of what you truly want.

Venus is related to your values, the value that you hold in yourself, in regards to other things and people and things happening in the world, as well as the value of your relationships, of your work, of the way that you spend your time. This is happening to help you. It's not happening to fuck you up or to make your life worse. It's happening so that you can become more aware and that you can pair that awareness with presence. As you practice being more aware, you also get to tap into your agency so you can make better choices. And when I say better choices, I mean better suited to your needs and the needs of the things that you care about. Venus Retrograde, right?

So keep that in mind as we move through this week's horoscope because Venus comes up a couple times, and so does the theme of Retrograde. So let's dive in. Okay. So our first exact transit I talked to you about last week, and it's exact on Monday, October 19th, at 11:56 p.m. Pacific Time. This is when we have our Venus square to Pluto. Venus will be at 3 degrees of Scorpio and 4 minutes, forming an exact square to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius.

So Venus square to Pluto is a transit that happens about two times a year every year. And of course, it happens in different zodiac signs. It happens at different degrees. But it's a transit that happens twice a year, generally every year. But because Venus is Retrograde, we are going through it three times this year and in a relatively short period of time. And so this is our second out of three exact hits between Venus and Pluto where Venus and Pluto are very close in degree throughout all three of these hits.

For those of us who are having this directly impact our birth charts, it's going to be really something you notice. Venus square to Pluto brings up a lot. It essentially takes dynamics that are simmering between you and someone else and it brings them to a boil. So it can intensify passions. You may hear passions and think, "Rawr, that's fun." Maybe, or also fighting—you know, any kind of passions.

This transit kicks up power struggles. So, if you have resentment that you've just kind of been like, "I'll deal with it later.  I don't know what to do about it with my person, so I'm just going to sit on it," this transit makes it harder and harder to not act on or react to the resentment that you hold. Therefore, you may act in ways that reflect your resentments. You may do it passively—it's called passive-aggression—or you may do it really assertively—it's called aggression.

And so whatever it is that is coming up inside of you, know that your assignment is to deal with it. So a great place to start is your therapist or your dear diary or a person that doesn't trigger you and that you're not triggering in this particular situation. In other words, what I'm trying to say is talk it out. Write it out. Sort through your feelings, the sensations associated with those feelings, your resentments, your behavior, your needs, because sometimes we resent things in our relationships that we've actually co-created or that we have really, in practice, consented to. And in that case, it doesn't mean you're not entitled to your feelings, but it takes a different remediation than coming at someone and being like, "Damn you and your thing."

So it is never the answer to just shove your feelings down. I mean, sometimes that's your best coping mechanism, but it's not your greatest move, right? In order to figure out what is needed, what is appropriate, what brings healing, what is in alignment for you in your relationships, it requires reflection. It requires sitting with your feelings and your actions and your words and kind of holding them, holding them in your own stewardship, recognizing, "Okay. This is what I'm doing. What needs to be adapted from here? What needs to shift?"

Our tendency in relationship issues is to focus on what they're doing, on what they said, on what they're feeling, on what they didn't do, on how they did it. And it's very tempting to really just focus on them. You can't change other people.  I don't know how much of a wizard you are, but you can't change other people. What you can do is assess what you're consenting to, what you're participating in, why you're participating in it. What are you getting out of the shit that you're dealing with? What are you getting out of the difficulties in your life, the patterns playing themselves through your life?

This is in your stewardship. You have agency here. So resist the impulse, which Pluto will intensify on and around this date—resist the impulse to fixate on what other people are or aren't doing and what their secret motives and thoughts and feelings are. That's actually—it's not your business. Your business is you. Focus on your own homework.

Now, as you can imagine from all this, Venus square to Pluto kicks up relationship problems, relationship breakdowns, and the energy needed to heal relationship problems and patterns. Not an easy transit, but a really helpful one if shit is tense, if there are power struggles. Now, you may be in relationship with someone like a coworker or boss or something like that where you can't really process with them because you don't trust them. So, instead, what you've got to do is figure out within the confines of your stewardship, within the confines of the relationship you're in, what is your next best step, not what is the best step, not what is the final step. What is your next best step?

This, this approach, can be really helpful. It's not going to magically fix things that are broken, if in fact something is broken. But it can help you to have a sense of agency, to recognize that you can do something but not everything. Pluto governs all-or-nothing thinking. It governs extremes and survival mechanisms. And during a Venus square to Pluto, all that shit is triggered inside of you, inside of me, inside of everybody.

And so how you engage with that energy, how you engage with those impulses, is really important. And your ability to assess, "Am I being activated right now, or am I actually being threatened? Am I in actual harm's way?"—they are both really valid. They are both very real. But they take different remediation. They take different action. They take different medicine. They take different approaches to cope with in a healthy way.

Anyways, don't give people ultimatums. Don't give yourself ultimatums. Ultimatums are a control mechanism. They are a mechanism to try to control other people and their actions as a way to control how you feel. Ultimatums to yourself are same-same. It's all bullying. Ultimatums really can boil down to bullying, even when you are in the more victimized position. Instead, practice healthy boundaries. It's not easy. When Venus squares Pluto, it's fucking messy. That's the transit. That's the energy. And it is, therefore, even more important to practice healthy boundaries. That's what we're meant to be learning through a transit like this.

Pluto governs pettiness, resentments, manipulation—all that kind of heavy shit. And so it's important to also notice where you're being petty. You can notice where I'm being petty or they're being petty, but focus on yourself. Where might you be being petty? And what is pettiness? Pettiness is really taking something that is small and attributing big importance to it, big emotions to it, big reactions or big consequences to little things. We usually act petty when we have larger resentments that we're not really honoring and unpacking and navigating in a healthy way.

Ultimately, your pettiness fucks up your day. It doesn't fuck up anybody else's day. I mean, I don't know. Maybe you're really good at being petty and you act like a menace and you fuck with somebody else. Maybe that's what you do. But generally speaking, your pettiness, your resentments, your rage, eats you. It doesn't affect other people. It fucks up your life.

So Venus square to Pluto, in a meaningful way, activates the need to really focus on values. What do you value? Do you value off-gassing shitty emotions over your own welfare? The truth of the matter is all of us do sometimes. You know what I mean? And so, in the moment, if you can catch yourself doing that, if you can ask yourself that question, you might make a different choice. And you might not.

You never want to use astrology or self-awareness as a way to be punishing towards yourself or  towards others. You want to use it as an assist. This is an assist. Slow down. Feel your feelings. You feel toxic feelings? You're dealing with a toxic situation? Yeah, there's an astrology for that. So how do you want to show up? If you're going to be in the energy one way or another, might as well do your best to do your best, right?

Now, more of what Venus square to Pluto can do—it can find you in situations where you don't feel safe. If you don't feel safe, honor your fucking feeling. Skedaddle. That's my advice. Another thing that Venus square to Pluto can do is trigger major financial issues. It is important that you don't get involved in financial dealings or contracts during this transit, in particular when it's in exactitude, especially if it's hitting something in your chart. And as I said, it's 3 degrees of fixed sign, so Scorpio, Aquarius. That would be Leo and Taurus. If you have anything around 3 degrees, yeah, I would avoid any kind of major financial dealings, basically. So, if you have to deal with debt or your issues around owing people money or how much money you have access to, it's the transit. So all the advice I've been giving applies.

Finally, Venus square to Pluto can represent a time in the world where we see major developments around the rights of women, which includes the rights of Queer people, gender nonconforming people, and Trans people. This transit may coincide with some major fuckery, abuse of power, subjugation of basically people who are not cis men.

This transit can also represent a time when we see major financial shifts. One way or another, because Pluto is involved, we see power struggles and abuses of power. And because Venus is involved, we may be seeing this along a gendered line, but again, Venus is values. So we are also seeing this in regards to who we as societies, who we globally, who we as a community—so on all the levels, who we value and who we're willing to throw under the bus.

Here's a fun fact. If you're willing to throw anybody under the bus, it is equally fucking problematic. People do best when they are not thrown under buses. And we actually need all of us to do better. A rising tide lifts all ships. We do need better for all of us. And so, again, we're back to the themes around pettiness and resentments and keeping your values system, your ethic, your integrity in alignment and clean, as clean as you can in a messy fucking world. In a messy fucking world.

We will be feeling this transit through the end of the month, and then it's going to go away for a little while. It's going to come back. And so these themes—you don't have to be perfect around them, and you don't have to have everything figured out. But know that this is a long-term project, not super long-term, but long enough term that we're going to return to it November/December.

So that brings us to our next exact transit. At 3:27 p.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday, October 21st, we have a Sun opposition to Chiron. This will be with the Sun at 28 degrees and 32 minutes of Libra sitting opposite to Chiron, who has retrograded back into Aries. This transit is a lot. It's an intense transit, and especially as we are experiencing our Venus Retrograde square to Pluto. It's not exact anymore, but it is active.

So let's talk about Chiron. A lot of people, I have learned over on my Patreon where we have a lot of in-depth conversations about astrology and all kinds of other things that are happening right now—people have expressed to me difficulty in understanding the difference between Pluto and Chiron. And that kind of makes sense because if you're going off of a lot of keywords, Pluto and Chiron have some similar keywords because they are related to key wounds.

This is where it's important to understand that astrology is not just an analytic practice; it's a practice of understanding energetics. It's not just about energetics; it's not just about analytics. It's the sweet spot between the two. So Chiron is related to those wounds that you hold, that just hold you, that don't get healed in this life. They're wounds that you live with and you hopefully learn to reorient around/you learn how to live with.

The very experience of being a human is the experience of pain at times. This idea that there is some spirituality or life hack that can absolve you of pain—eh, I don't fucking buy it. Part of being a human is pain. This is not bad or good. I mean, I'm not stoked about it. But what it is is real. And it's not like other living organisms don't experience pain. We all do. It's part of life.

And so how you respond to and react to, how you organize yourself around, pain—experience of pain—is part of being human. And Chiron—it specifically teaches that some pains you come into this life with, whether they're through ancestral wounds or they're through early developmental experiences that, really, you didn't create but you become the steward of. That's Chiron.

Pluto is your flight-or-fight mechanisms. These are coping mechanisms. It's a radically different thing. And again, keywords sound really similar. The energy is so different. What Chiron really teaches us is you don't have to fix the ouchie; you have to figure out a way to live with the ouchie that is as healthy as possible, that centers self-care and self-worth as much as possible.

This is life. And if you have been lucky enough to experience very little pain, very little suffering, I say yay you. But all life includes suffering and pain. And learning how to cope with suffering and with pain and developing the capacity to tend to your suffering in such a way that it can transform into pain instead of suffering—that is a great lesson of Chiron. What is the difference between suffering and pain? It's meaning. It's meaning. If you feel that your pain has no meaning, it becomes deep suffering. And if you can find some meaning in that suffering, it becomes pain. And they both fucking hurt, but one is a lot easier to bear over the course of time. This is key to the lesson of Chiron.

So let's get to the transit. We've got Sun opposite Chiron on this day. We're going to be feeling it for a few days—day before, day after, and this day. Sun opposite Chiron kicks up identity and self-worth issues. And because it's an opposition, this may come up in a relationship dynamic. Doesn't help that Venus is Retrograde and our Venus square to Pluto is active because that further intensifies the likelihood that this will come up in relationship to other people. Now, it could be in your relationship with your bestie or with your partner, or it could be in your relationship to your idea about somebody from your past or your idea about who you would have been by this time.

The Sun opposition to Chiron really tests the value that you hold in yourself and your capacity to treat yourself and the people and things that you identify with and where you really show up with real integrity and honesty. Now, why honesty? Why honesty? It's because the Sun opposition to Chiron can make you feel like there's no room to be who you are. It can make you feel like there's nothing you can ever do to evolve, change, or heal, to belong. And that is unlikely to be true. Now, it might be true in an individual relationship or in a situation, but that does not define you unless you allow it to define you.

So what do you do? What do you do? You notice how you feel, and you do your best to track the patterns in your own lived experience, in your behavior, around your self-worth, that are coming up between you and others. And as you notice those patterns, see if you can orient yourself in a healthier, more honest and authentic way.

If we're not looking for blame and defense but instead for alignment and truth, purpose and meaning, life gets easier. And it doesn't get easier because your pain magically goes away. It doesn't get easier because you are some sort of witchly, wizardly person who can only make good choices. It gets easier because you understand what's not working, and that empowers you to make better choices over time. Hear me say "over time." Chiron—little cutie-pie Chiron—sits in between Saturn and Uranus. It's very oriented around time.

So meet yourself, during this Sun opposition to Chiron, where you are, when you are. Meet the people in your life, whether they're colleagues, comrades, partners, besties—whatever—meet them where they are, when they are, not to see if it's good or bad, but to see, "Is this aligned or not? Is this fitting or not? Am I acting in ways that reflect my integrity and what's authentic for me or not?" That information will empower your life. It will empower you. It won't take away your problems, but it will empower you.

And from a place of empowerment, it's easier to hook in with your agency. And your agency, your capacity to make choices, your willingness to take accountability for the choices you make—that's where your life becomes more and more a reflection of you. Your life becomes more and more your own. And a Sun opposition to Chiron is a powerful, transformative transit that can help you to achieve just that—maybe not, again, in an overwhelming, dramatic way, but in a meaningful way. We don't need big, sweeping change. We need self-appropriate change. We don't need everything to heal all at once. We need to choose the path of healing. That's it.

Now, that brings us to Friday, the 23rd. And on that date, we enter into Scorpio Season. I refuse to call it spooky season. I'm sorry. Please don't. When the Sun moves into Scorpio, it very swiftly meets Venus Retrograde. At 8:44 p.m. Pacific Time on the 23rd, the Sun will be at 0 degrees and 45 minutes of Scorpio, hooking up with Venus, same exact degrees—it's a conjunction.

Sun conjunction to Venus—lovely transit. It's a great time for making amends. It's a great time for saying, "I'm sorry for all the things I said or did during our Venus square to Pluto and our Sun opposition to Chiron." It's a good time for getting along, connecting with people, having a fun time.

On a deeper level, Sun conjunction to Venus Retrograde is a really powerful time for doing values-based work. So, if you're one of those people who's like, "I don't know what my values are. I don't really understand values," Sun conjunction to Venus is your moment to shine. And by shine, I mean educate yourself. Take notes. Talk to people about it. Work on your relationship to your values because the Sun is your sense of self and identity, and Venus is your values. So, when they're together, we have the opportunity to have greater clarity and access to that kind of information. Wonderful thing.

Because Venus is Retrograde, you may encounter old patterns around how you relate to people, around self-worth issues, insecurities, aesthetic struggle stuff. This transit is an excellent moment to reflect on that, to make shifts based on greater self-awareness. Sun conjunction to Venus won't do the work for you. In fact, it's kind of like a little bit of a self-indulgent transit where you just want to recline, eating bonbons—just not work that hard. But if you do show up for the reflection opportunities that exist during this transit, it can be really powerful for you.

This transit can, when Venus is in Retrograde, suggest that you have a fun flirty time with somebody. Now, that somebody could just be a friend that you like flirting with, and it could be a new lover or an existing lover—whatever. But because Venus is Retrograde, you want to watch out for your patterns, your romantic patterns.

Whatever it is that is kind of the thing that you have been working on through this Venus Retrograde Season, Sun conjunction to Venus is likely to make that more present for you because the Sun is so much about your vitality and your vital energies. So it's something to be on the lookout for.

Now, that brings us to our last exact transit of the week, and it's important. At 12:12 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, October 24th, Mercury goes Retrograde. Well, shit. Mercury goes Retrograde at 20 degrees of Scorpio and 58 minutes, so now we have both Venus and Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio. What do you think about them apples?

Mercury Retrograde—you know about it. People have been talking about it. If you mess with astrology, you know Mercury Retrograde. Mercury Retrograde is when communications get wonky. This is where you're meant to follow the rule of re's in regards to your friendships—which Mercury governs—communications—like what you say, how you say it, what you've been saying, and whether or not you mean it—how you listen and what you're listening to, who you're listening to, and how you're processing data, how you're processing information.

Mercury Retrograde is a difficult time for communications. It's difficult for you to figure out what to say, what somebody else is saying. And it's really important that you listen well. Another thing about Mercury Retrograde is that it can activate anxieties and worries because what you're really supposed to be doing is reflecting. What you're supposed to be doing is looking inside and considering what you have said, the plans you have made—that kind of stuff. And a lot of people just don't do that. And so there can be anxiety as your system is trying to get you to slow down and tune in. So slow down and tune in, okay?

In general, Mercury Retrograde is a time where we have technology problems. So, if you have problems with technology or with plans, like missed plans, missed understandings, missed communications, try to take it in stride. It's all part of the Mercury Retrograde. If you expect it, then it might be a little less activating when it happens.

And it's just generally not a great time for signing contracts. So, every single Mercury Retrograde, I get asked, "But I have to start a new job," or, "I have to sign a lease," or whatever. "What do I do?" You just read the fine print. You just double-check. The reason why it's a poorly starred time is because we're likely to miss out on important details. We're likely to make weird, random mistakes that can be very annoying in the future. So triple-check, eh? Eh. Okay.

Now, I'm actually going to cast the chart of Mercury Retrograde and talk about it on the free page of my Patreon. So you can find it over there. It's free. It's accessible to everybody. To learn more about this Mercury Retrograde if you're interested in it, it is at my happy place on the internet. So you can check all that out.

Okay. This week's TL;DR starts with our Venus square to Pluto. And you want to reflect on your resentments and engage in power struggles with care. Thanks to our Sun opposition to Chiron, you want to examine your self-worth issues and how they get projected onto your relationships. Our Sun/Venus conjunction speaks to relaxation and leaning into diplomacy and ease with yourself and others. And then, because Mercury goes Retrograde, you want to communicate with care and lean into self-reflection.

Something worth noting about that Mercury Retrograde is that it will be Retrograde during the midterm elections in the United States. And so double-check to make sure you are registered to vote. Figure out where you need to vote, and do whatever research you need to do to know who you are voting for because voting is the least you can do. It's not the most. It's the least. And a great time to put that mask back on, if you haven't been wearing a mask lately, is when you go to the polling place. You know what I mean? Protect yourself. Protect others. Get in the way of surveillance. Just put on that mask and get your buns out to vote.

Thank you so much for joining me this week on Ghost of a Podcast. If you like this show, do make sure to hit Subscribe or Follow or whatever the button is wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can check out the video version of this episode on most platforms, but if your favorite one doesn't show video, you can go over to YouTube or the free page of my Patreon, where I always post the video version of this episode. On my website, you can find the free transcript that is written by a human, so it takes like 24 to 48 hours for it to come out.

Now, I'm going to drop my next episode in a couple of days. I hope you take really good care of yourself and others, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.