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 June 28th through July 4th of 2026. There's a lot happening astrologically that I think is really important and consequential, but a gentle reminder and a little announcement.

My gentle reminder is for the Gays. I am still inviting questions from my Queer listeners to be considered to get a reading with me on the podcast. I am centering Queer lives, Queer love, Queer complexity on the podcast. And here, my friends, is to a radically pro-Transgender Pride this year and fucking every year, today and every damn day.

Now, my quickie little announcement is I was scheduled to speak at UAC in Chicago in 2026, and unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to make it. So, just in case you had purchased a ticket with the expectation of seeing me there, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. There will be a ton of really great speakers, and I am sad to miss it. But miss it, unfortunately, I shall.

Okay. Now, I want to talk about a bunch of things that are deeply related to these times and, of course, to the astrology of the moment. This year, we are experiencing a Neptune/Saturn conjunction. We've talked about this before. Now, this transit, amongst many other things, really speaks to your internal structure as a human being—Saturn—being overwhelmed and feeling like it's falling apart—Neptune.

And related to that, we are seeing a strategy called flooding the zone from our overlords. I don't like the word "lords," but I feel like in this context, it tracks. Flooding the zone is really effective. It's an effective strategy to weaken and demoralize people. And it works for many reasons, not the least of which is because, when the realities of empathy and overwhelm, fatigue, anxiety, emotional capacity—when these things get activated in you as an individual, your capacity to deal with the things you absolutely have to deal with, the realities of life—Saturn—can feel like they are too overwhelming to cope with in real time—Neptune.

And when governments pile shit on, just thing after thing after thing after thing, it isn't realistic or possible to stay connected to, to be mobilized around, and even to care about everything for each individual. And when we are splintered apart within our communities, as a country, as a world, that strategy works even better. And I think it's safe to say splintered apart we are.

In the last week alone, just the last seven days, we have witnessed really intense environmental shifts—record heat waves, intense earthquakes. My heart is with the people of Venezuela. We have had major shifts around drought and heat domes and other dramatic environmental extremes. Things are swinging in a chaotic way.

And at the same time, the United States has rolled back environmental protections, because of course it would. Again, in the United States, the rulings against the Prairieland, Texas, ICE protestors are chilling, so chilling. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, pause this podcast. Just pause it and find out. What happened to those protestors is so important for you to know about and to understand. The implications, not only for the people convicted but for everyone who's concerned about the violence of the state, free speech, and in particular ICE—it concerns all of us.

There are so many things that are happening in the world. There are so many ways that the United States is rapidly devolving deeper and deeper into fascism and authoritarianism. And it's a lot. It's a lot to take in. Now, I'm an astrologer, so a lot of you may expect that I would be motivated to make an astrological prediction or a series of astrological predictions about what comes next. But if I'm being honest, I am exhausted by how flooded we all are with talking heads and their/our predictions—like, genuinely.

The truth of the matter is all you need to do is study history to know what comes next. You don't need a crystal ball, and you don't need astrology. Astrology is helpful. Astrology is fascinating. But there's something about really getting practical about what is and learning from what was. And this is a truth that I want to encourage you to apply to your own patterns and relationships, to understanding the world we live in, and understanding what is most likely to come next for you, for us, for them. You know what I'm saying?

Listen. Bottom line—things don't get better on their own. If you're waiting for things to get better in your personal life or in the world, I want to tell you that's just not—it's not the best approach. It is instead important to take pains to make things better. Now, sometimes in life, that means adapting your expectations, adapting the way you think about things, the way you emotionally process and hold things. And in the context of global events, domestic events, community events, it's about what you do. It's not just about what you think and what you feel, because thoughts and prayers are really important, but they have to be part of a larger package of engagement in your life and in the world. They can't be the whole fucking thing.

And so let me tell you this. We are astrologically, at this moment, outside of the Saturn/Neptune conjunction and other smaller but meaningful transits. We are in a flow state, my friends. We are in a flow state. We have Neptune, Uranus, Pluto just making nice with each other. We have them sextiling and trining each other. These sextiles and trines of the outer planets indicate that systems, as we have them established in the world, are flowing; they're working well.

So it's not like new things are coming at us. Existing things are getting stronger. Now, that is true for really horrifying and terrible things as a result of capitalism, eugenics, racism, transphobia, homophobia—all the fucking things. But also, it's true in terms of our resistance movements, our community-building, our innovation and creativity. It's true for all of it.

But we cannot thoughts-and-prayers our way out of systems. Systems have, much like the outer planets have, a lot of power behind them. They have the power of generational efforts. This is where we see systems and outer planets connected because they speak to generational efforts, not just individual efforts. Generations are built of individuals. And so we will make things better or we won't, but they won't get better. Do you understand what I'm saying?

The level of surveillance that we have been living under for a very long time now has been ratcheted up by technology. But it used to be that there was no way that systems and corporations could possibly aggregate all the information they have on us. But now, with AI, they can. And they are, and it is concerning for each of us. If you think to yourself, "I'm innocent. I've got nothing to worry about. The government doesn't care about me," that may be true—I mean, it may not be true, but it may be true. But it just speaks to you only thinking about yourself. And if you're the only one who's safe, if you're the only one who's okay, what kind of world are you living in, my friend?

This is a time where the realities that we are living in and the ways in which we cope with those realities, the futures that we imagine, and the presence that we collapse under the weight of have momentum. Now, your life, your choices, you digging in your heels and resisting change, you striving and making big moves, and everything in between—these things also have momentum.

And I want to invite you, not just this week, but in general moving forward, maybe even starting this week, to be intentional about the momentum that you're cultivating, okay? This speaks to how you are living—like in practical, Saturnian terms, how you are living—the beliefs underpinning the choices you do and don't make—that's Neptune. I want to invite you to consider what you are bringing to the world and what you are taking from it.

This is not a guilt-trip situation. That's not at all what I'm speaking to. It's about awareness because the more aware you are of the choices you're making, the impact you're having, the way you actually feel, what's actually happening inside of you and through the vehicle of your behavior—the more aware you are of those things, the more choices you're going to have. A lack of awareness—it shrinks your choices. It shrinks your options. So we want to expand awareness, however we can, whenever we can.

I am not encouraging you to try to be a savior. None of us as individuals can or should even try to dismantle systems. The work of dismantling broken, harmful systems is a community project. It is a group project. It is created by groups of individuals. And so setting the intention that you are going to act on purpose in ways that reflect what's important to you and help you to co-create the world you want to be living in, the life you want to have, be the person you want to be—that's an individual project. And it's an individual project that happens in collaboration with/alongside a ton of other individuals. And that makes it a group project.

My work as a spiritual practitioner is really to help you understand what's happening inside of you and to also understand what's happening in the world so that you can use your agency, a.k.a. your free will, to act in ways that reflect your wisest, bravest, healthiest, happiest parts instead of your loudest and strongest parts. It's no small feat.

Ultimately, I think so much of life is about choosing love over fear. And that doesn't mean happy over sad. It doesn't mean high vibration over low vibration. Sometimes the strongest and most powerful acts of love you can choose include severing things, include anger and rage. Love is not happy. Anger is not sad.

I want to invite you to confront the world, to meet the world, as it is—not as it was, not as you thought it should be, not as somebody else tells you it is. As it is. And I want to invite you to be brave enough to not only cultivate a vision for what it could be but to act on that vision, to take material steps towards the building of your vision, and again, to not do it like a savior, to not do it like a martyr, to not be toxically individualistic about how you go about it. It's a community project. Real change most always is.

Doing nothing—it's abetting the oppressors. It's aiding and abetting the oppressors. This is not the move. Listen. You can't do something all the time, but I want to really encourage you to think about, "What is an action I can do once a week, something I can do that has meaning to me, that helps to move the needle in some way, big or small, in my community, in the world?" and then to think about, "What's a thing I could do once a month?" Maybe it's a little bit bigger, and maybe it's a little more inconvenient; it's a little more emotionally taxing. It doesn't matter.

Think about what you can do once a week. Think about what you can do once a month. And if this isn't exactly the right strategy, tweak it so that it is the right strategy. What I'm encouraging you to do is to come up with a plan—Saturn—and to be mindful of the energy that you actually have—Neptune—in order to follow through. Thoughts and prayers, spiritual work, emotional work—these things are deeply important. But they're not the whole thing, just like voting, I think, is very important, but it's one small action in a huge array of actions needed in order to make a dent in the systems that are not serving us as a collective.

So we're about to talk about a Full Moon in Capricorn. Whenever the Moon is full in Capricorn, we are being emotionally confronted by material realities. We're being emotionally confronted by the systems in the world that are and aren't working and the systems you have running inside of you and whether or not they're fulfilling their purpose to not only make things happen efficiently but to be emotionally sustainable.

I don't want to say any of this to insist that you should have the answers. Nobody's got the answers. Sorry. What we have is awareness, intention, and a way to approach things. Do your best. Do your best, and on the days and weeks and months you can't do your best, pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Try again. That's the fucking move, right?

Okay. All of this said, we're going to dive straight into the details of this Full Moon and Mercury Retrograde that we start off our week with. Okay. So we are looking at the astrology of June 28th through July 4th of 2026, and there are two important colonial holidays this week. We have July 1st as so-called Canada Day. We have July 4th as so-called Independence Day. People are really into it. There's a lot going on.

But the astrology of this week begins in June. It begins on June 29th, where Mercury goes Retrograde at 26 degrees of Cancer. And it goes Retrograde at 10:36 a.m. Pacific Time. It'll stay Retrograde until July 23rd. So we have a month of Mercury Retrograde.

What do we know about Mercury Retrograde? It is a time of wonky communication. If you have major emotional issues, if there's something major physical going on, it's less likely to do with Mercury Retrograde. Mercury is the mind. Mercury is communications. So it's what you say. It's what you type. It's what you read. It's what you hear. So it's what you put out and how you receive the incoming data in your noodle.

Mercury Retrograde is a time when the planet Mercury appears to be moving backwards, so we are moving back through zodiacal degrees that we've already gone through. Now, what this means is that it's a time to follow the rule of re's. We reflect. We recalibrate. We reassess. We reconsider. Capisce?

This is a bad time for making decisions, for signing contracts, and making major purchases. Now, the reason why is all the same. It's because you are less likely to have all the important information, and you're less likely to sort through that information in a wise way. So a lot of people sign contracts for a living; that's all they do. They are making contractual negotiations in a variety of ways. Do their lives fall apart during Mercury Retrograde? No.

You want to use this information not to be superstitious—don't be superstitious—instead, to be like, "Oh shit. This is a sticky time. If I have to make a major decision, if I have to accept a job or make a major purchase or sign a contract, I'm going to triple-check the document. If I have any confusion or uncertainty about a conversation I've had with somebody, I'm going to ask questions, make sure I understood properly." That's all. Don't make it weird is what I'm trying to say. Just use this information to make your life and the world a little better.

The reason why Mercury goes Retrograde is so that you reflect because the truth is nobody's plans are so good that they don't necessitate reflection and reconsideration. Returning to important conversations can happen during this transit. Sometimes people from the past—and it tends to be more platonic-style people with Mercury—will reemerge, and again, you revisit things; you revisit plans, concepts, relationships, etc.

The work of revisiting is the work of curiosity, of adaptability. Now, Mercury is in Cancer, which is very—the crab is self-protective. We know that the crab is self-protective. And so what you want to do is be willing to have some measure of investigation into the emotional reactions you have in response to information that is coming your way, ideas that you have, things people say, how they say it.

Cancer can be a little self-protective in a way that's pincher forward, which basically means defensive or passive-aggressive. So, if you catch that in yourself or in other people, instead of being like, "Oh no. It's Mercury Retrograde in Cancer," try saying to yourself, "Oh shit. I fuck with astrology enough to know that this is a thing that happens sometimes in myself or in others. How do I want to respond to it? How can I most effectively deal with it?"

There's a way that a lot of people use astrology that is really, again, superstitious. It's like the abandonment of common sense and critical thought. I mean, it's not just astrology. People do that with all kinds of spiritual content, from religion on down to New Age. And what we want to do in general, but in particular this week, is bring that common sense back online. Be a critical thinker.

If you send an email and it doesn't actually hit Send, if there's a misunderstanding, if plans are missed and appointments are fucked up, eh, it's Mercury Retrograde. Try not to take it too personal. It will make the whole transit easier, okay? And then, of course, if there is a major decision that you can put off making, try it. That's not a bad idea, because Mercury Retrograde is time for reflecting on your major decisions instead of making them, broadly speaking.

Okay. So that's happening at 10:36 a.m. Pacific. At 4:57 p.m. Pacific Time, we have our Full Moon in Capricorn. Now, there's a lot to say about this Full Moon. The Moon will be at 8 degrees of Capricorn and 15 minutes, sitting exactly opposite to the Sun at the same degrees of Cancer.

Now, I'm going to really unpack and explain this Full Moon, but first, gentle reminder—what you start at the New Moon really comes up at the Full Moon. So this isn't a bad moment to pause. Think what was up at the last New Moon. "What did I have going on, really, in my interior emotionally and mentally? And what was going on in my life? What was going on in the world?" And that's just a broad-strokes hot tip for a Full Moon.

This Full Moon is particularly interesting and noteworthy because the Sun and Moon T-square not one but two planets. It T-squares Neptune and Saturn. Saturn is, of course, the ruling planet to Capricorn, making that a really important thing to note. Now, another thing that's really important to note about this is that the T-square to Saturn and Neptune emotionally intensifies and activates this conjunction between Saturn and Neptune, which is—I mean, they're 10 degrees off right now. It's wide, but it's a larger transit that is activated throughout the year.

And so this Full Moon is likely to activate global events, social and political events, as well as the events of your heart and the events of your personal life. So we want to pay attention to the world. I mean, don't we always want to pay attention to the world? But really, let's pay attention to the world.

Okay. So another thing really worth noting is that Mercury Retrograde is active here. So, already, it's more of an internal, reflective placement. And it's sitting really close to Jupiter, which is expansive. And so there is the risk in this Full Moon that you or others may jump to conclusions—also equal risk that you will have the details and the big picture of a thing kind of neat in your mind or in your plans or in conversation with others, and there's real growth and learning that occurs. They're equally possible, and you can see how they're connected, right?

Jupiter is sitting opposite to Pluto. This is a time of big moves, big energy. And also, Jupiter and Pluto—Jupiter much more closely—are forming a square to Chiron. So it hurts right now. A lot of us—most of us—are dealing with pain in a meaningful way. And so what this means on a collective level is different than what it means on a personal level. But what it means on a collective level impacts you personally.

And so there's so much in this Full Moon chart that speaks to how challenging it is to metabolize what's happening in the world and how quickly it's happening. It speaks to the contrast between what's happening in the world and how quickly it's happening and what's happening in your life or inside of you and how quickly it's happening or slowly it's happening.

So this is a lot to take in, but it's the kind of environment in which our Full Moon occurs. Whenever we have a Full Moon in Capricorn, which means the Sun is opposite in Cancer, what you need in regards to your responsibilities—both your responsibilities to yourself and to others. And what are responsibilities to yourself? You gotta floss your teeth. You gotta brush your teeth, right? It's a responsibility to yourself. Responsibility to others is—I don't know—if you have kids, you have to feed them. I've heard that. It's a rumor. If you've got a job, you're supposed to come in as frequently as you've agreed to. If you've got friends, they do expect you to treat them with respect and care—those kinds of things. Responsibilities.

When we have a Full Moon in Capricorn, our responsibilities feel a little bit at conflict or at odds with our needs, our sense of safety, what you feel right now. So you may feel that it's really hard to show up for your responsibilities because of your emotions at this moment, your mood at this moment. We've all been there, where you're just like, "I really want to come at this in a particular way, but my mood—I just can't. I just can't."

The Sun in Cancer—and I'm not talking about people who have the Sun in Cancer; I'm talking about the transit of the Sun in Cancer—activates attachments. And those attachments are often to the past, the way they were, the way you once thought they would be. They can have you so turned inward that pulling yourself outward so that you engage with your responsibilities feels awful.

So, when we have a Full Moon in Capricorn, that tension between these things—it pulls at you. And it might not pull at you. You might not experience this in any kind of noticeable way, but the people at the grocery store, the people that you work with, your parents, your partner, your friend, might be experiencing these things, all in completely different ways from each other, because we are all different.

So questions to consider this Full Moon are, do you have strong enough roots to support the work you're trying to achieve? Whether that work is trying to quit a habit, trying to use puppy talk rules and be nicer to yourself when your thoughts turn kind of to the evil side, whether it's work related to how you show up in the world or your actual job or a creative project that you're doing around all the other things, do you have strong enough roots to support that?

And I'm not talking about your childhood roots. I'm talking about the roots you built up in yourself. The way that you create roots inside of yourself is through your relationship to yourself in an emotional and deep psychological way. So psychology is a really big topic. I am talking about your innermost psychology. That's where we get into Cancerian energy. So it's your reactions.

When a Full Moon in Capricorn occurs, you are going to be confronted with ways that your roots need tending to. Maybe they're too spindly. Maybe they're too clumpy and rigid. The investigation is not so that you can punish yourself or reward yourself, even. The investigation is so that you have self-awareness. And through the foundation of self-awareness, you can assess your options in a realistic and sustainable way.

The fact that both the Moon and Sun will be squaring Saturn—and I'm starting with Saturn, although the square to Neptune is a little tighter. But I'm starting with Saturn because Saturn comes first, and also, Saturn is the ruling planet to Capricorn. But the fact that the Sun and Moon are squaring Saturn means that your sense of reality is being challenged. Your sense of consequences is being challenged.

The truth of the matter is that security and growth, work versus personal life—these things are not exclusive to each other. They're, in fact, directly connected to each other. But we often treat them in an adversarial way. Saturn is going to show you what is and isn't working. That's not fun, right? But a Capricorn Full Moon should not be fun. It should be instructive. And this one will be, I imagine, for us all.

The reality is that Saturn's energies can be demanding and punishing, but they can just as easily be consequential in such a way where you are both understanding the consequences of your choices and actions but also that you act in ways that have positive consequences short or long term. Saturn governs maturity and wisdom, and a Full Moon pointing to Saturn, T-squaring to Saturn, can activate your wisdom, your maturity, your accountability. It can help you to not just learn and to kind of build but to support others as they learn and build.

It's not easy. Saturn governs depression. Saturn is harsh. But it's also really important. Saturn literally governs our bones and our teeth. It's our structure. It's the things that help you not be a jellyfish. And by contrast, Neptune is fog. It is that which is immaterial. It is probably closer to jellyfish than human. Neptune has us questioning what is real, what is imagined. Yes, there is potential. Is that potential achievable? I have the potential to be besties with somebody from history that is no longer alive, but does that potential have anything to do with reality? Neptune has a hard time answering that question.

Neptune is related to anxiety and empathy, spirituality and bypassing accountability. Neptune being squared by the Sun and Moon will activate, in a meaningful way, questions around whether your ideas and ideals are motivated by fantasy, saviorism, or martyrdom, or whether or not they're rooted in a shared reality with people, places, and time. Time is an important one. Saturn governs time. Astrology is the study of time, essentially, so of course I'm a big fan of time. But not all things are in alignment for all times.

The fact that the Sun and Moon are pointing at Saturn and Neptune means that we are being challenged to really consider and reflect on whether or not this is the time for a particular thing and whether or not what we're doing is sustainable over time. Neptune is related to capacity. And capacity is a concept and a term that can be weaponized, and it's weaponized in a really Neptunian way where people can slip into martyred ways of thinking where they're never responsible for anything, and nothing's ever their fault. And then they can say, "Well, my capacity is zero. Therefore, I don't have to show up for you. I don't have to do what I said."

And it's really important that we as individuals look at our own behavior to make sure that we are not bypassing accountability as a way to tend to our own individual welfare, because that's not really about tending to your welfare. This kind of conversation, this tension between what's yours to manage and what's ours, what's real and what's imagined, is so hard. Who gets to decide what's real? How do you know if this is a good idea or a bad idea? These are really difficult questions to ask, which is why most people just check out and slip into Saturnian depressiveness, bitterness, nihilism, or Neptunian disillusionment, anxiety, or complete fantasy life where you're just off in the clouds somewhere.

This Full Moon is activating all of these issues in a deeply emotional way. And I want to kind of bring it together, encourage you to notice what's sustainable. What's sustainable? Are you in contact with your empathy? And are you not just feeling empathy, but are you acting in ways that clearly articulate and reflect your empathy?

Boundaries are incredibly important. We talked about boundaries last week on the podcast. In the past week, I have dropped a ton of content on my Patreon around boundaries and gave an hour-long talk about boundaries, just responding to everybody's questions in the comments. And if you want to check out any of those things, you can go over there on my Patreon to check them out.

The way that we are dealing with boundaries this week with this Full Moon is deeply consequential. The relationship that you have between structure and disillusionment or falling apart, having a vision that things can be better and having the care to put into things to make them better versus rigidity and the tried and true—this is a lot of the tension we're dealing with now in the world and in our own individual selves.

On a more collective or global level, we are likely to see more spiritually induced rigidity. We are likely to see less of a separation between church and state. We are likely to see very real problems feeling so overwhelming that we don't feel that we can do anything about them. And that is by design.

It is important that you recognize that you always have a choice. You don't always have choices you like. You don't always have good choices. But you always have a choice in how you think about things, in how you hold them, in how you act in your expectations, and how you react. You always have choice. And if you are telling yourself that you don't have a choice or you only have one of two choices, then you know that you're not seeing things clearly.

A very important point about making choices, about activating from a place of agency, is that if you don't accept where you are, who you are, right now, when you are, then it's very hard to make choices. It's very hard to have a healthy relationship with reality. Acceptance is a really important foundation for your emotional health and even for creative or political engagement. Acceptance helps you to be here now. And here and now, whether you like here and now or not, is where you have the most power. It's where you have the most agency. It's where you can take the greatest care of yourself, the people you care about, and the world around you. And that shit's really valuable, according to me, anyways. It's value according to me.

That brings us to July 1st. On July 1st, we have a Jupiter square to Chiron, with Jupiter at 0 degrees of Leo and 24 minutes forming an exact square to Chiron at the same degrees of Taurus. This is exact at 8:02 p.m. Pacific Time. Now, this transit has occurred twice before in our recent memory, December 21st of 2025 and October 23rd of 2025.

I'm going to tell you what the transit means, but whenever we have outer planets—now, Jupiter is a social planet. Jupiter and Saturn—they're both social planets as opposed to generational planets. But from Jupiter to Pluto, I tend to hold them in a generational bucket, if you will. And Chiron exists between Saturn and Uranus, okay?

So, when we have these outer planets in aspect to each other, transiting each other, we always want to pay attention to what's happening in the world. We always want to pay attention to global events, social/political events, as well as what's happening personally. So what we did was we created a little list with resources of what happened in the news on those two dates, October 23rd and December 21st. I'm going to post it to my Patreon on the free page. So, if you're interested in it, you can go to the free page of my Patreon, and you will find it. It's certainly interesting and relevant, what was happening then and what's happening now.

Now, you can also check back and see what was happening in your personal life, what was happening at work, during the last hits of these transit. Now, in October and December of 2025, Chiron was in Aries, and Jupiter was in Cancer. So now we have an energy shift because now we have Chiron in Taurus and Jupiter in Leo, which—those particular ingresses I will talk about on a less busy week.

This transit, Jupiter square Chiron, activates the tension between healing and expansion, which can mean that it helps you to heal in big ways, or it can mean that you spiritually bypass yourself as a way to be like, "I'm supposed to heal, and that means I can't feel bad. I don't want to hang out with the realities of how I feel because I want things to be better quick." Jupiter can make you feel like things aren't happening quick enough; therefore, don't try.

And Chiron—Chiron is the wounded healer. We don't, quote unquote, "heal" our Chiron issues. We heal how we hold them. We heal how we relate to them. That is a subtle but fucking powerful difference, my friends.

We can expect this transit to be confronting on both personal and collective levels. Confrontation of core wounding can be very consequential. There is a risk of the expansion of coping mechanisms and behaviors that come from hurt and insecurity or, on a more social or political level, that come from broken, oppressive systems.

Now, when we have an expansion of what comes from hurt, we tend to perpetrate more hurt. The expression "Hurt people hurt people"—it exists for a fucking reason, right? This transit, ideally speaking, is invoking your willingness to evolve, your willingness to grow, your willingness to excavate old stories that you tell yourself about yourself or about the world and to heal them, to reposition yourself to them.

You can focus on the terrible thing that happened and why it was terrible, and there's perfectly valid reasons for doing that. But there are just as valid reasons for looking at what strength it inspired you, for understanding that you have the capacity to break a cycle of harm, for deepening your capacity for empathy, growth and care, to be more generous and kind to yourself and others as a result of having suffered in some way.

It's not just the story. It's what we tell ourselves about ourselves and the world in reaction to the story. This transit is an invitation to be honest with yourself about the beliefs and motivations that have been birthed from your experiences and the stories you're attached to. The way that you become the wounded healer, the way that you embody your Chiron in the best possible way, is by evolving past how you've held the story of your wounds, of the things that are really hard for you, and allowing those things to inspire you to learn and to grow. This is kind of peak Chiron shit.

Now, on a more social and political level, unfortunately, we might see some big swings from some insecure players—not naming names, but I'm going to let you guess. Jupiter is related to legislation, and so we may see some disappointing—or not; I don't know—legislative developments. Because of Jupiter's involvement, the potential for evolving the story is big. So, if you're a journalist, if you're an artist, if you are in politics, if you are in litigation, if you're somebody who has the power to move the story forward, to educate people or yourself, this transit can be really powerful.

And it's a power I want to encourage you to lean into—not in a savior way. I'm not telling you to change the whole world. But lean into what your skills are. Lean into where your creativity gets inspired, and act and do something because, again, we're in a very Saturnian moment. So moving the needle forward is really about not reinventing the wheel but using your resources, your insights, as you already have cultivated them. We also want to remember Mercury is Retrograde, so it's not the easiest time for detailed communication.

And that brings us to the 3rd of July. Okay. So the 3rd of July—I don't fucking know why this is happening, but we have a really explosive transit, okay? And I guess I say I don't know why this is happening because I know that in the United States, on the 4th of July and around the 4th of July, it's a big time for fireworks. And what we have at 11:08 p.m. Pacific Time on the 3rd in exactitude is this Mars/Uranus conjunction, and that is an explosive transit.

In fact, technically speaking, it is a bad time to set off fireworks when Mars and Uranus are sitting on top of each other. It's a bad time to fuck with explosives because of the unpredictable nature of Uranus alongside the fiery nature of Mars. Let's add do it that this is all in fucking Gemini. Gemini is trickster. Gemini is a mutable air sign. It can just kind of go in any old direction. If you live in a place that is dealing with drought, that is hot, and you're setting off explosives, please use your fucking common sense because this is—like I said, it's an unpredictable energy.

So Mars conjunction to Uranus is a transit for breaking free or breaking shit or even starting shit. Mars conjunction to Uranus is combustible. It's reactive. It's aggressive. It's irritable. It's defensive. Mars is motion and movement, and Uranus is jerky and erratic. What could go wrong? I mean, literally, what could possibly go wrong?

Mars is related to combat and fighting. Uranus, again, is explosives, but it's also technology in general. So I am recording this less than a week before the transit is in exactitude, and I read this morning about drones being used in new ways by Ukraine in Russia. This is not surprising. The use of technology in surprising or new ways in combat is very Mars conjunction to Uranus.

This transit is one that we are definitely going to want to pay attention to in regards to the world. If you are invited to do something and it doesn't feel safe to you, don't do it. Things turn real quick with a Mars conjunction to Uranus. They just turn on a damn dime. So, related to that, if you pick a fight with someone, you better be willing to fight because everybody is going to be irritated. Everybody is going to be defensive. This energy is agitating.

Uranus is your nervous system, and Mars is your meat suit; it's your body. And so this really stirs up irritation and unpredictable reactions in you and others. So you might be like, "Well, I'm fine. It's not really hitting my chart. I don't really feel it. That's cool." Unless you live in a bubble, you're going to have to deal with this energy, unfortunately—or fortunately, because Mars conjunction to Uranus can be innovative. It can be dynamic. It can be great for having fun, weird sex. And weird, for me—no negative connotation, just for clarity.

Mars conjunction to Uranus is good for stirring up excitement and motivation. This is a great time for starting something, something that you do with your body especially. This is a great time for mobilizing. And it can be mobilizing yourself as an individual or mobilizing collective action because Uranus is related to the collective; it's also related to the individual. And then Mars is very much the ego, so it's about me and what I do. It's about the individual. And so collective action made up of passionate individuals—peak Mars conjunction to Uranus. This transit can be sexy and eccentric and exciting, and it can be irritating as fucking hell, full of conflict and fighting and feeling like things just are not going the way you expected or planned or you want them to.

Now, luckily, on the 4th, at exactly 5:44 p.m. Pacific, Mars forms a sextile to Neptune. Now, this is because, as I said earlier, Neptune and Uranus—they're in a really sweet little dynamic with each other. They are sextile to each other. It'll be exact in a minute, but not this week. So Mars sextile to Neptune is a great transit for empowering greater empathy, greater creativity. So it brings a little bit more—I wouldn't exactly say patience in a time-related way, but emotional and spiritual patience. It activates feelings of care and generosity, which is really important.

Now, for some people, it will activate spirituality. And that's not inherently a bad thing or a good thing. But for one person, that might mean that they have more spiritual empathy for themselves or others, and so they use that to motivate towards more aligned action, putting their ego aside so they can work in a group. For somebody else, it might mean, "Oh, you don't believe in the god I believe in? You don't do what my good book says you should do? Fuck you. I don't care about you at all." It can really lead people to extremes around religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs, and it won't do that from somebody who doesn't already feel that way. It just will kind of create flow and ease for those who do already feel that way.

This transit is, generally speaking, a lovely transit and a real asset to the Mars conjunction to Uranus. The Mars conjunction to Uranus is disruptive, and it's activating. Neptune is there to help ease some of the spiky parts of your reactions or your activation. And I feel like we could all use a little help with that, so this is good news.

And that, my friends, is your forecast. Here's the quick summary of this week's forecast. Okay. So your TL;DR—you want to slow down, reflect. It's Mercury Retrograde. The Full Moon in Capricorn activates feelings of structures falling apart. Do your best to be a loving, kind, and reliable adult to yourself and to others. Because of that Jupiter/Chiron square, you want to be open to growth, even if it means confronting old wounds and old stories that you hold. And then, finally, with Mars forming a conjunction to Uranus and sextile to Neptune, don't start shit if you don't want shit, first of all. And do your best to respond to your reactions with empathy and care.

And that's your horoscope for this week. It's kind of a lot to take in. As always, I drop the full transcript on my website within about 24 hours of the episode dropping. And we will continue to have supportive, in-depth conversations over on my Patreon. So go ahead and join us there if you are interested in going deeper.

There's a lot going on in the world and a lot to be concerned about. Do what you need to do to stay actively engaged and connected to your empathy and your determination to co-create a better world for you, the people you care about, and everybody else here on this vulnerable, beautiful planet that we live on.

All right. I'll talk to you in just a couple of days.