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 is somehow Episode 626, which means, yeah, for 626 episodes, we have been talking about astrology, how to use it in a way that hopefully actionably improves your life and not just in a way that is lacking in nuance, which unfortunately a lot of astrology discourse can be.

Now, we are going to talk about the astrology of this week. We're looking at the week of May 10th through the 16th of 2026. But I just want to say really briefly I know that there is a lot of concern that people have around hantavirus. I gave a live one-hour-long talk over on my Patreon where I answered a bunch of questions from folks, including stuff about the hantavirus. It is available for free to members, so if you just join for free, you can watch that at your leisure and convenience.

That said, I'm going to give you your quick, super simplified breakdown of the horoscope of the week ahead, which includes a bunch of Jupiter stuff, a Mars/Chiron conjunction, and a New Moon in Taurus. And this quickie TL;DR is for those of you who really like a little snack before the meal. And here it is.

More is only better if what's expanding what you're getting more of is aligned. And make sure to check your motivations so that you can be intentional and stay working towards what you actually want to see grow and develop. And now let's dive into this week's forecast.

On Sunday, at exactly 7:14 p.m. Pacific Time, the Sun sextiles Jupiter. The Sun will be at exactly 20 degrees of Taurus and 25 minutes, forming an exact sextile to Jupiter at the same degrees of Cancer. Now, I know that this is Mother's Day in a bunch of places. You may be a mom. You may have a mom. You may be—I don't know—partnered with a mom. There are so many ways that mothering comes up. And so, for some people, this might be a really wonderful time of celebration. For other people, it may be bittersweet. And yet, for others, it may be really challenging and triggering. So I just want to kind of acknowledge that, because it is a sticky, tricky holiday for many.

And also, we have a beautiful Sun sextile to Jupiter. And that transit—what it does is it brings about the potential for growth and expansion. The Sun is your sense of self, and Jupiter is expansive. And what this can mean is that you can become more self-aware and not just have more self-awareness, but pair that self-awareness with your willingness and ability to adapt and grow. Gorgeous, right?

This transit can coincide with feeling good, feeling resilient, feeling optimistic, feeling social and easy and chill. And that energy tends to make other people feel more at ease, and then they feel more easygoing and chill. And so it kind of generates these lovely experiences with others often—not always, because the thing about Jupiter is it expands. So, if you have a million resentments, if you are in a dynamic with somebody who is toxic or troubling in some way, it expands things.

The Sun sextile to Jupiter is a lovely transit. We should not expect any kind of difficulty or hardship. But also, what this transit does is it grows things. And so you want to be really careful—and when I say careful, I just mean full of care. Be careful about what you bring your energy to and what you seek to expand because not all things that feel good are good for you, and not all things that are confronting or challenging are bad for you. And this can be a time of great growth. You want to be as intentional as possible about what it is that you grow, though. Capisce me?

Okay. Now, that brings us to Tuesday, May 12th, at exactly 9:44 p.m. Pacific Time. Now, at that time, Mercury is at 20 degrees of Taurus and 45 minutes, forming an exact sextile to—you guessed it—Jupiter in Cancer at the exact same degrees. I personally am very partial to the Taurus/Cancer sextile energy. It tends to be very nurturing, very heartfelt, and very sense-based. And what this means in practical terms is it's good for relating to people. It's good for relating to environment, for making your home feel more cozy or spending time in nature. It's nice for being creative and for creatively connecting to others or receiving care and connection from others. It's tender. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Another lovely transit. You should be zero percent surprised because, any time we have a sextile to Jupiter, it's likely to be real good news, okay?

So Mercury sextile Jupiter is when the details of our mind and our philosophies, our beliefs, and our capacity to synthesize big-picture information are in happy conversation. There are sparks of connection. And we love that. This is really great news. Mercury sextile to Jupiter is a great time for having conversation, making plans, reviewing plans and infrastructure in your life, in a project, whatever the case may be.

Mercury is communication. It's your friends. And Jupiter expands. And so this transit can coincide with a fun, busy day, lots of texts, lots of connections, running into people—that kind of stuff. The one word of warning with this transit is to not overextend yourself, because the good-times train that Jupiter chugs along on—it passes. It comes; it goes. You know what I mean? And so don't overextend yourself. Don't make plans that require you to have more resources, more energy, more time than you actually have. So just—little bit of common sense will go a very long way with this transit.

 And that brings us happily to Thursday, May 14th. At exactly 7:24 a.m. Pacific Time, the Sun will be at 23 degrees of Taurus and 48 minutes, forming a conjunction to Mercury at the same degrees of Taurus. So note we're in Taurus vibes. It's fixed-earth sensuousness. It's planting season, right? It's springtime.

And so the energy that we were really—I'm going to say assaulted by in April with all that Aries stuff—this is not that at all. It is grounding energy. If you are burned out, if April handed you your ass, this is a really great time to be intentional. This is a really great time to get grounded, to do little things to fortify yourself. So, when I say fortify, I mean strengthen, nurture. Strengthen, nurture. It's like classic Taurean energy. You don't have to be a Taurus or have Taurus in your chart to tap in and connect to that energy.

So, back to the transit, Sun conjunction to Mercury is one of those transits that I think is a little bit of a double-edged sword. It's a time when your ideas can really come together, where you may just—it makes sense. You know what you need to do. You figured out a plan. You're ready to say what needs to be said—that kind of shit.

The struggle with the Sun conjunction to Mercury is that it can have you overidentified with your ideas. And this is a problem in the modern world for a lot of us in a lot of contexts. This transit can find you in a state of rigidity—no thanks to the fixed-sign energy of Taurus, it can find you in a state of rigidity around who you believe yourself to be or the narratives that you want other people to identify with you, because it's the Sun and Mercury.

And so other people might not get you. That's a thing. And that's not them harming you, even though it might hurt your feelings. It's them not getting you. Our identity is partially a really internal thing, and it's partially a really external thing. But your core, your true self, is more than your identity. And our identities shift and evolve with time and in context of different people, places, and things.

And so a transit like Sun conjunction to Mercury can be a time where pieces of your identity, parts of your identity, kind of come together for you, or you feel some kind of way about how it's not being validated, how it's not flowing in your life. This transit can, similar to the other two transits, coincide with busyness, lots of engagement, lots of information coming your way.

And the key is to be connected to yourself and to be self-reflective without being an egomaniac, without making everything about you. Something that is right for you may not be right for someone else. Your perspective requires a person to be exactly where you are. And we're all kind of unique in our own ways. And so we don't all have the same perspective. We don't all have the same points of reference.

When the Sun conjoins Mercury, it's tricky to really lean into that. But it's a very good thing to do because Mercury is adaptable, and Mercury's adaptability is—some of it's magic. Your ability to learn, your ability to evolve, is connected to adaptability. Sun conjunction to Mercury—great time for adapting. Great time for adapting based on information, based on data. So be open. Be open. Be open to talking to new people, making new friends. Be open to really listening to what other people have to say, letting things kind of bump up against your sense of self, your identity, the way you expect them to be, because that's expansive. And maybe in the end you end up agreeing with yourself 72 hours ago, but the process of being open and questioning things is on its own quite expansive.

And I'm not talking about doing this from a demoralized place where you're like, " I don't know what's true," but instead from a place of, "I'm exploring different information. I'm exploring different possibilities so that I can adapt if there's something that I need to learn or unlearn."

That, my friends, brings us to Saturday, May 16th. So May 16th is when shit gets serious this week, okay? We're going to be feeling the Mars conjunction to Chiron that's exact on this day all week long as it builds and builds. At exactly 12:34 p.m. Pacific Time, Mars and Chiron will both be at 28 degrees of Aries and 24 minutes. So we're back in the Aries energies, right? So hot. So hot it sizzles.

Mars is the body. Mars is punch-punch, bang-bang. Mars is sex and sexuality. It's chemistry. Mars is motivation and anger and competition. Mars is not good, and Mars is not bad. None of the planets are. Now, Chiron is wounding. It's your core wounding. It's that insecurity, that struggle inside of you that just doesn't heal. You evolve, hopefully, in your relationship to it, but it's literally the wound that doesn't heal. That's what Chiron is.

Now, on a global level, in context of the world as it is at this time, a Mars conjunction to Chiron is certainly noteworthy. We should all be paying attention to what happens on and around this date. Now, Mars, because it is related to anger and defensiveness and combat and war, and it's also in Aries, its ruling sign—right? So it's really quick to react and quick to express itself. When we're dealing with Mars, something needs to be done because you're feeling this energy in your body. Something needs to be done.

And so this may mean that we see some violent acts, keeping in mind that violence exists in a really big umbrella. There is systemic violence, which can often be done legislatively. It can be done in ways that are not specifically like punch-punch, bang-bang. And then there's punch-punch, bang-bang. Then there's that kind of violence, right? And so there is a risk with this transit that people will act out out of their own pain, which is truly where some of the most egregious behaviors come from. It's our own pain.

On a more personal level, there's a number of things that are really valuable about this transit, and there's a number of things that are really challenging. Now, I would be remiss if I did not gently remind you that we also have a New Moon on the same day. Now, I'm really wanting to unpack this Mars conjunction to Chiron first because it's a stand-alone transit, and also, it meaningfully impacts our New Moon in Taurus.

So, sticking with Mars conjunction to Chiron, Chiron is the wound; Mars activates. And so you may be feeling some shit in your body. That might mean that you're just feeling really activated emotionally or mentally and it shows up in your body. That could be a tummy ache, a headache. It could just be restlessness of the body. It may mean that something gets activated, like inflamed. Now, if you were to have any kind of meaningful physiological response, then it would probably be activating something that exists in your birth chart. So it's not going to happen for everyone on the planet.

But you want to pay attention to things becoming inflamed inside of you because those things that are getting inflamed are inherently Chironic; they're wounds. And our wounds don't need judgment. They don't need bullying. They don't need cruelty. They need care. They need appropriate identification because if you appropriately identify something, then you can diagnose it. Then you can treat it. Then you can heal it. So that's the move.

If something gets activated inside of you, instead of reacting and immediately doing something in an externalizing way, take a beat, if you can. Hang out, and let the thing that you do be—explore what's actually happening. Just notice what's happening. That way, you can be really intentional about whatever actions you do or don't take.

This transit can really kick up ego conflicts. And again, it's ego conflicts in the realm of wounds, insecurities, feeling bad off like it's hard to be in your body, it's hard to be present, and you don't deserve. Or conversely, it can have you being like, "I deserve everything. This situation, this person—whatever—is trying to take something from me that is mine and not theirs." Right? So you may be on either side of this equation.

Now, in either case, what you want to know is that because of this transit kicking up ego battles, it also kicks up passive aggression. So, if you are somebody who can be aggressive, you're likely to be aggressive during this transit towards yourself, towards others, towards environment. If you are not comfortable with aggression, you may be passive-aggressive, in which case, again, you're going to be acting out towards something/someone.

This is not a time for giving up, but it's also not a time for sucker-punching yourself or others. It's also not a time for starting fights because you feel bad. And a lot of us, a lot of times, start shit just because we don't know how to tolerate how we feel, so we just act out. This transit stimulates eke. It stimulates hurt. It stimulates struggle. And how you meet that moment is a reflection of you. Now, the moment itself, your circumstances, are not necessarily a reflection of you. But how you show up, the energy with which you show up—that's you. And so I want to invite you to try. Start where you're at. Do your best from there because that's really the best-case scenario with a Mars conjunction to Chiron.

This transit can coincide with you meaningfully healing—like meaningfully healing—something that you struggle with, something that hurts. But I want to be really clear that healing is not like having a headache, taking a pill, and then you feel better. Healing is a process. It's not a destination, exactly. Listen. There are elements of it which are very destination-oriented, but ultimately, when I say that this transit can coincide with healing, I don't mean fixing. I mean healing. And if you've ever had—I don't know—a bone heal or a cut and then the wound heal, it's uncomfortable. Your best-case scenario is uncomfortable. Your worse-case scenario is super painful with healing. That's just how it works.

Do your best to notice how you feel and then hang out there and be curious about what's underneath that feeling because it may be the thing that's hard is actually the best thing, and it may be the thing that's flowing is the best thing. I don't know. But you want to do your own investigation so you can find out.

Now, again, we're about to talk about this New Moon in Taurus. So the overlay of our New Moon in Taurus and that Mars conjunction to Chiron in late degrees of Aries is really important because it deepens and intensifies and kind of heats up the healing potential of this New Moon in Taurus. So now let's pull up the chart of the New Moon in Taurus. And if you are listening to the audio-only version, that's great, but if you like a visual aid, you can watch the video version on lots of different platforms that support video. I also post it to the free page of my Patreon and over on my YouTube.

Okay. Let's pull up that chart. It's exact at 1:01 p.m. Pacific Time, when the Sun and Moon are both at exactly 25 degrees of Taurus and 57 minutes. A New Moon in Taurus is always an opportunity to set intentions, to plant seeds, to create greater stability and security, to invest in the people and things that you truly value, because of course, Taurus is governed by the planet of values, Venus.

The good news about this New Moon is that it is a fertile time. It is a time where you can really do your intention-setting work. It's a great time for any kind of ritual work you might want to do. Mercury is sitting really close to the New Moon. It's at 28 degrees and 41 minutes of Taurus. And so it's bringing in this added layer of noodling, okay? So what I mean by that is the Sun is the identity, the Moon is the feelings, and Mercury is the mind.

And so there is the potential here for being able to not just feel into things but make sense of things, make plans, learn something new, communicate something important. This is a really powerful thing to have happen on a New Moon. But we also have Uranus there. Now, Uranus is out of sign. It's in Gemini at 1 degree. It's a little wide from the Sun and Moon but still conjoined. It's also quite close to Mercury.

So there's this added energy present for bringing in something new, exploring possibility. This is not a time to fall into fixed-sign rigidity but instead to fall back on what you know of yourself, your relationships, other people, situations, whatever is activated in your life. By connecting to what you know and not attaching to it, but instead learning from it, you can be more adaptable.

The trick is to be open to possibility, to be open to potential, to be open to innovation. And this New Moon actually brings the energy for that, keeping in mind that our Mars/Chiron conjunction is exact. It's a minute off of exactitude during this New Moon. And so we have all of that intensity and activation of the Mars/Chiron conjunction. That transit is confronting and hard.

And inside of this much more gentle and nurturing and supportive New Moon in Taurus, we have the capacity to check in with our values system. If you have a sense of purpose, if you are connected to your values, then it is much easier to navigate triggers and activation, ego conflicts, etc.

So, this New Moon, strive to be intentional about how you do what you do and why. And this may be really challenging for you, but it also may not. There may be a sense of flow and ease. Let's not forget Jupiter is at 21 degrees of Cancer, forming a sextile to the Sun and Moon and, most widely, Mercury. And so that Jupiter sextile is still supporting you to grow, to tap into the expansion and growth potential of this moment, which is fucking lovely.

When I look to this New Moon, I see the potential to move through really challenging activation around self-worth and embodiment from that Mars/Chiron conjunction and to meet it with the kindness and the stability and the staying power of Taurus and the New Moon in Taurus. The potential here is really strong, but I kind of am coming at it a little bit gentle because there is a tenderness to this New Moon that you want to pay attention to, because if you come at your feelings and your needs and the tender things that you care about too hard and too fast, you kind of lose out on the potential here.

So part of the assignment is to hang out in vulnerability. Go a little bit slower than you're naturally comfortable with. Just stay present. We can often be in such a rush to turn our insights into actions, our actions into commitments, our commitments into plans, etc. What I want to encourage you to do this New Moon is to allow things to be where they're at. New Moons in general are a great time for, like I said, ritual-setting, manifestation work, but again, that Mars/Chiron conjunction is trying to get you to hang out, be present in your body, with something that's hard to be present with.

And so, if you're too focused on doing external spiritual work, if you're too focused on following through on a plan that you came up with before the Mars/Chiron was in effect, then you might find yourself actually just powering through instead of being present step by step, because when you're doing energy work or spiritual work, when you're doing emotional work, if you're not actually present for all of the steps, then you're in your head and it doesn't actually work. So take this New Moon as an opportunity to be more present and to hang out in the vulnerability of that presence.

And that, my friends, is your horoscope. It's your forecast for May 10th through the 16th of 2026. As always, I invite you to send me your questions so that I can maybe give you a reading on the midweek episode of the podcast. You can always join me over on Patreon, where we do lots of learning, and I have a ton of content on there, including two full Tarot classes of the Rider-Smith-Waite deck and the Thoth deck available at the $5 per month level, the puppies level. So you can check that out there.

And I don't know—do you know? Do you know? I have a couple books, astrology books, if you're interested in astrology. My first book came out in 2020—excellent timing. I don't take credit for that. And it's called Astrology for Real Relationships: Understanding You, Me, and How We All Get Along. You can check that out wherever books are sold. I also have an audiobook available called Meditations for Your Sign, and it's guided meditations through each of the 12 zodiac signs. It is available on Audible exclusively. And I've got lots of astrology classes available over on my website.

This week's midweek episode is going to be really special and unique. I'm sharing an interview I did on a sobriety-focused podcast called Sobriety Sisters. And so, if you have an interest in the topic of sobriety and substance use and astrology, then make sure to tune in.

All right. I hope you take really good care of yourself and others this week, that you tap into the energetics and potential of the transits that are occurring, and I will talk to you in just a couple of days. Bye.