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 May 24th through the 30th of 2026. And I've been thinking a lot about the world. I've been thinking a lot about this week's upcoming astrology, which I will unpack for you in pragmatic detail. And in thinking about these things, I've been thinking a lot about emotional regulation.

And the reason why I've been thinking about emotional regulation will become very clear when we get into the astrology, but also, because as my awareness and education about the ongoing bombardment and torture of Palestinians from the State of Israel, the concentration camp-like conditions that ICE is putting people in in the United States, the ongoing crises of AI data centers and oil leaks and a myriad of other things—what comes up for me and I'm guessing comes up for you is how hard it is to stay emotionally regulated, to take in information and really sit with the complexity of it. You may also struggle with this in your personal life, going through a difficult relationship dynamic or some other personal thing.

When we're going through a rough time, when we understand that things are hard or bad, the human response is to recoil. It's to recoil from pain. It's to recoil from problems. And some people's natures will say, "I'm going to recoil, and then I'm going to jump in and I'm going to really fix it." And other people—we will bury our head in the sand. We will kind of fall apart, and there's so many ways to fall apart.

But so much of this, as normal and human as it is, is a result of maladjusted coping mechanisms. So I've been thinking about, how do I regulate emotionally? How can we sit with our feelings long enough and in a meaningful, substantial way enough that your feelings feel heard by the rest of your system, but not so long that you're wallowing or losing track of, "Oh, look, there's a relationship in my life that needs attention. I need to deal with it," "There's a terrible thing happening in the world, and I want to participate in the world to make it better, even in the teeniest, tiniest little way"?

The thing to know about how we humans work—and this is something you've heard me say before, especially if you listen to the midweek episodes where I give readings to listeners of the podcast. It's that what we don't transmute we transmit. In other words, when you don't work on your shit, it stinks. Everyone can smell it. It has a negative impact on you and those around you. Pretty simple concept, right?

And so, as we are living through a lot of catastrophes, some very established, some developing, it's really important for you to consider how you are emotionally navigating what you're learning, what you're engaging with, what you're avoiding, and strive to find healthy and sustainable ways of engaging with the things that are important to you in your life, in your relationship to yourself, relationship to others, and certainly in your relationship to the world, because it's not an either/or. It's kind of a joint project.

The higher functioning skills that you have for sorting through emotions and tending to your feelings, the better empowered you are to learn things that are valuable, to unlearn things that are keeping you stuck or holding you back or that are just straight-up wrong. It's really important to have adaptability and flexibility in your nature. And true adaptability—it comes from your emotions.

And this is part of why, as we age, a lot of people become more rigid, because if you're not working on your emotional life, your interior life, your capacity to experience and regulate and care for your feelings, then your coping mechanisms become more Saturnine over time, more rigid, inflexible. And ultimately, that can tend and lend towards conservatism. And I think conservatism exists under a really big umbrella. In the context of self-care, being conservative might mean not taking risks, not putting yourself out there, not trying new things.

So this week's astrology will kick up some shit. We can expect that. And if you are hurting, do your best to treat yourself and others with kindness. That's the move. If you are hurting because of what you see happening in the world, it is tempting and the internet encourages that you focus on the problem and who created it. And there's value in that. I certainly think there's a very deep value in that. But it is more empowering to tap into your internal determination and your internal values system so that you are motivated to figure out what you can do.

This is not connected to some sort of saviorism where you alone are the only one who can carry the load of a relationship or a global catastrophe, but instead to understand that it takes many, many hands and often many generations for us to evolve and grow as communities and societies. And on a personal level, it takes deep and meaningful work, which often takes time, to authentically evolve and change and grow.

So this week is likely to be a lot. And within that is always the opportunity to either show up in new and better ways or stay present with the old, not-so-great ways that you're showing up and strive to better understand them. Understand them as choices you're making out of some sort of maladjusted coping mechanism. That's interesting. What is that maladjusted coping mechanism serving? What are you getting out of it? And the more aware you become, the closer you are to evolving, to outgrowing something that keeps you stuck or unhappy so that you can grow in the direction of what is aligned for you, which helps you to become happier in yourself, happier in the relationships you have, the work you do, and your participation in co-creating the world that we live in together.

Okay. Now, all that said, I have my little cutie-pants TL;DR, which is a quickie breakdown of the four astrology transits we have in exactitude this week. And it's this. Tap into your intuition. Watch out for power struggles. Don't be scared to go deep. And this is a time for consequences.

Okay. So, actually, before I really dive in, let me just quickly say one thing. I got a comment on one of the last horoscope episodes where somebody said that they always felt transits leading up or after the exactitude that I name here on the podcast. And I just wanted to let you know that what I'm sharing with you is the date of exactitude. And every planet is going to have a different orb, and so that translates in English to a different time frame of influence. But what I'm sharing here is the date that the transit is exact, and so it's peak of that transit. But days leading up and days after, you're likely to still be feeling that transit. And sometimes it's more the days.

And if you're somebody who wants to learn more about astrology, you can always check out the hot take episodes from a couple years back that I did here on the podcast where I explained a lot of this stuff. I also have a book if you're in the market for reading books or listening to books; I also have an audiobook. It's Astrology for Real Relationships: Understanding You, Me, and How We All Get Along. And you can check that out.

Anyways, on the 24th, at exactly 7:22 p.m. Pacific Time, we've got the Sun at 3 degrees and 55 minutes of Gemini, forming an exact sextile to Neptune. Now, this is a lovely transit. There is not a single downside to this transit. I guess, if there's a lot of things you need to do that require a lot of focus, it doesn't really help with focus, but it doesn't hurt focus either. So, again, no downsides.

The Sun sextile to Neptune is a great transit if you need rest, if you need to just really turn inward and really connect to empathy, to patience, to care. This is a great transit if you are an artist, if you are a creative at all, if you are somebody who loves to immerse yourself in film or beauty or music or nature—anything that helps to transport you and stimulate your imagination.

This is also a really good transit for spiritual matters. Now, the transit exact on the 25th contradicts that, so I wouldn't lean too heavy on the spiritual stuff. This is a good time for remembering that empathy and kindness and care isn't just something that you offer to others; it's something you offer to yourself. And these things exist outside of conditions. Now, that doesn't mean you don't have boundaries. It doesn't mean you don't know the boundaries of what you can hold in a healthy way and what's right for you and all that kind of good stuff. But true kindness and empathy is not conditional. And so it's a great transit for you to practice being empathetic wherever it's needed in your life, to practice embodying empathy that is well-boundaried, deeply felt, and well resourced. This transit is great for all that.

And then we get to the 25th, which is just the next day. So we're Monday, May 25th, and Mars will be at 5 degrees and 25 minutes of Taurus, forming an exact square to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. This is exact at 9:02 p.m. Pacific Time. So you may be seeing this transit as happening on the 26th early a.m., but I'm doing West Coast time.

So fucking Mars square Pluto. Okay. This transit is challenging. Mars, as we know, is punch-punch, kick-kick, bang-bang. And Pluto is toxic. So, when we see Mars and Pluto at a 90-degree angle, a.k.a. a square, it's cause for concern because it can indicate war. And we can think about this in the literal context of war because there's certainly a lot to be fucking concerned about, but also in the context of starting shit with people and having power struggles and battle.

Under this influence of Mars square Pluto, which we'll be feeling all week, you may be feeling competitive, agitated, aggressive. You may be feeling brave and motivated. So some of these things are really wonderful. Some of these things are a little more challenging. And when you put them together, it can add up to defensiveness, paranoia, anger, aggression, and a lot of other fucking fucked-up feelings.

Because of this, you may act in ways that make people defensive. So you might be feeling really fucking agitated by something at work and then be like, "Okay. I gotta tamp it down, tamp it down," but your tone or some look on your face comes across. And because everyone else is going through this transit, somebody might react to it in a way that you're like, "Where did that come from? I didn't do anything." Or it may be that you do not experience this, and you may be an angel sent from heaven above, but other people are acting intense.

And this is the thing. Mars governs actions, motivations. And so, because of this, it tends to be like an outward action thing. Somebody's energy might just feel fucking toxic because Pluto governs toxicity, and Mars gives off  heavy energy. So what do you do with this transit? Mars square to Pluto is a bad time to pick fights that you don't want to fight, because a fight can turn into a battle, a war. And if that's not what you're looking for, then don't start shit. Don't get involved in shit.

Now, sometimes the best thing you can do is fight. Sometimes the best thing you can do is assert yourself, your convictions, fight for something or for someone, for yourself. And in that case, the key is to watch your motivations and to really take responsibility for how you're navigating. People are not going to respond well at this time. There's no chill to this energy. I mean, the Sun sextile Neptune is happening. It's a sweet little overlap only for the 25th. So we'll be feeling that Sun sextile Neptune specifically the 23rd, 24th, and 25th. It's just not strong enough to meaningfully mitigate the Mars/Pluto energy.

Powerful men with weak egos will act out. A less gendered way of saying this—and of course I say men because Mars, right? A less gendered way of saying this—and there's great value in looking at this from both contexts—is powerful people who feel that they are entitled to taking up space or directing how things go are likely to feel easily threatened and react intensely without really parsing through those impulses.

Mars square to Pluto is a hard transit. It can reveal to you things that are hard for you to sit with in yourself. It can provoke things that frighten you in a meaningful way. And it can provoke confrontation. Again, you might have to, with a Mars square Pluto, engage in confrontation. That might be necessary, and it might be the best possible thing. You just want to be intentional about how you do it. That's the move.

And there is a lot that you can learn about yourself and your ego and your sense of entitlement and your relationship to anger and your relationship to intensity through this transit. And knowledge is power. You might not like what you learn, but knowledge is power because when you are aware of something, even something you don't like and you wish wasn't true, that knowledge empowers you to make choices that are informed. And that's a really important thing to stay connected to. "What am I learning right now about myself? What am I experiencing about this person? What am I understanding about the world that is provoking such strong emotions inside of me?"

Because this transit can be associated with violence, and in particular physical violence or environmental violence, use your best judgment. Use your best judgment. Terrible fucking time to take a trip. I'm talking about drugs. Mars/Pluto square is just bad trip. It's a recipe for a bad trip. It's not advisable. And people sometimes say, "Jessica, will you tell me when it's a good time to do drugs?" And the answer is no, I will not. I'm not on a podcast telling people when to do recreational drugs. That's not my personal calling. But I will tell you when it's a particularly bad time. So, if you are taking trips and doing spiritual work through the use of drugs, you are advised about the astrologically inadvisable times, right? I'm assuming that's helpful for some folks, even if you wish I would tell you when it was a good time. This is not a good time. This is reverse good time. They call it bad time.

Okay. So Mars square Pluto. Now, I want to say one more thing about it, and this one is positive. Because this transit intensifies your courage, your stamina, your willpower, your capacity to do hard things and go deep, this transit can be really helpful and coincide with you moving through something that has been really hard for you or that has been really stuck. So there's a great amount of energy with this transit for progress. It's just not likely to be easy or chill, the path there.

So this is a good time to remember that what's hard for you is not inherently bad, or what's hard for you is not inherently what's wrong with you. What's hard for you is what's hard for you. And the more you're willing and able to have the emotional capacity to sit with what's hard for you, the better equipped you are to figure out, "Oh, is this where I need more attention, more care, more learning, more unlearning, etc., etc.?"

Do your best during this week, and in particular on and around this date, to create a little bit of space between your reactions and your responses, okay? You don't want them to be too close together, because if your responses are just kind of in a simple breath apart, then what can happen is you act in ways that best reflect your strongest and most defensive impulses instead of your wisest and best-informed ones. So hot takes for you, Mars square Pluto.

Now, that brings us to Tuesday, May 26th. And on this day, at exactly 8:53 a.m. Pacific Time, we've got the Sun at 5 degrees and 25 minutes of Gemini, forming a beautiful, sweet little trine to Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. So Sun trine Pluto—lovely transit. It deepens your capacity to be present. We love this because the Mars square Pluto does not inherently deepen your capacity to be present.

The context of this transit, which empowers you to do healing work, to reform things/parts and feelings—it's great for therapy, as an example—really is helpful in context of that Mars square Pluto. Because Mars square Pluto is so much energy and reactivity, the Sun trine to Pluto helps you to really stay present with what's happening now inside of you or dynamically around you and to be more intentional, to be better resourced.

The best thing I can tell you about this transit is it will help you to not just be like an insight collector but to actually practice using the insights and information that you have about yourself, about healing, about participating in the world wisely, actually use it in the moment when you need it, which—fuck, I mean, who couldn't use such skills?

And that, my friends, brings us to the last exact transit of this week. On Thursday, May 28th, we have a Venus square to Saturn with Venus at 12 degrees and 0 minutes of Cancer, forming an exact square to Saturn at the same degrees of Aries. So this transit is exact at 8:03 p.m. Pacific Time. This is a challenging transit, if I may say.

It is a challenging transit because Venus is fucking tender. Venus is your self-worth. It's your values. It's feeling valued. It's your relationships. It's love and care and affection. And Saturn governs constriction. Whenever we see Saturn by transit or in the birth chart, you know that there is a meaningful risk of constriction and calcification. When we see Saturn, we know that we have the capacity or the potential to build. But when Saturn is in a fierce state, it goes into scarcity mode, which is restrictive, and it's really—it's a calcification, like the hardening process of things.

So Venus in tender fucking Cancer is a transit where we're just like, okay, we want to be connected. We want to spend time with people who we feel sweet with—square to Saturn in Aries, which is just like, "I have to figure out who I am and what I am, and I have to do something about it."

This transit can be really uncomfortable, as it makes you feel lonely even if you're surrounded by friends. It makes you feel uncomfortable with the way you look or uncomfortable in your body in some way. This is not inherently a body transit, but it is related to appearances. And in the world that we live in in 2026, a lot of focus is placed upon appearances. And so this can make you feel lots of different kinds of ways about yourself and your worth or your place in the world.

This transit can coincide with things not working out. So that might look like plans canceled; something you thought was going to happen is put off because, again, Saturn slows things down. And so there can be delays or impediments of some kind, like some sort of thing you have to do in order to get to the sweet spot.

This transit is uncomfortable, and it will illuminate problems that exist between you and other people, which sucks. But that's what it does. It illuminates problems between you and others. This transit requires that you show up, that you show up for the people and things that you value. That's what this transit tests, the sustainability, the stability, the efficacy of your relationship to relationships and values.

This transit can also sometimes coincide—and it would have to hit your chart directly in a particular way to affect you this way, but it can coincide with financial shortages, unexpected expenses, some sort of financial issue that essentially tests how well you've organized or navigated your resources.

The opportunity of this transit is to tend to your grounding, tend to your security, and not at the expense of innovation and creativity and love and tenderness, but in a meaningful way. We want to remember that we're still feeling that Mars square Pluto, and it's separating, which means it's weaker. But the consequences of what happened a couple days ago are still very much active today.

So challenge yourself to spend some time alone. Honestly, this transit can make you feel a little needy, like even though you feel lonely around other people, it can make you feel like you want to be connected to other people. But this is actually a good time for self-reflection. Saturn gives you the kind of grounded and practical energy you need to sort through what's active inside of you, what your values and priorities are, and how you are or aren't living in accord with them.

This transit tends to trigger fear, insecurity. And those insecurities can lead to being too externally oriented. What I'm trying to say is it can make you look for approval outside of yourself when what you really need is to develop a relationship within yourself. Your sense of your self-worth is meant to be anchored inside of you and not in other people or in situations. A transit like this is going to activate that issue for you, wherever you're at in relationship to it.

If you are somebody who is worried that you're too much or that you're not good enough or that you're not enough, this transit can activate that. So don't spend time around mirrors. It's not the transit for it. This is not a good time to be comparing yourself to others, your relationship to other people's relationships, where you thought you would be now to where you are. Comparison is the great thief of joy. Do not compare yourself to anything. There's just no value in it.

Instead, strive to identify what's real and present in your life and where things need more care. Whenever there's a square to Saturn is a time for pruning, for going into the garden, assessing what's getting enough sun, what isn't, what's getting too much water, what needs more, maybe digging some shit up so you can replant it somewhere else, right? It's about tending to the garden and recognizing that in order for real growth to occur over time, we need to adjust. We need to cut some shit back. We need to sometimes dig some shit up and replant it elsewhere or just kick it out of the garden. You know what I mean?

This is a great opportunity for that, and in particular, you want to make sure that you are being informed not only by recent events but also by the big picture because recent events are activating, thanks to Mars square Pluto, and Saturn has the capacity to consider the big picture. And that is my recommendation to you, my friend.

That's your whole, entire horoscope. That's it. Those are the transits of the week. It's a lot of energy. So it's not a lot of transits, but it is a lot of energy.

I want to let you know something that I think I've told you before but maybe I haven't said in a long time. There is Ghost of a Podcast swag in the world. I have Ghost of a Podcast T-shirts over on the shop page of my website, along with classes for sale and good stuff like that. And if you would like to learn more with me, I hope you will join me over on Patreon, where we have a really strong community and we connect and learn together. And it's really sweet and smart, and I just love it over there. So, if that sounds fun to you, join me there.

All right. That's it for this week. I hope you take really good care of yourself and others this week and beyond, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days.