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, the astrology is a lot. It's intense. There's many things happening, including a New Moon in very emo Cancer. We're looking at the astrology of July 12th through the 18th of 2026. But before we get into the future, I just want to touch in on something that has been heavy on my soul really intensely this past week.

In the past week, with the death of Nolan Wells and the ruthless murder of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo—and forgive me if I pronounced that wrong—both of these people, a child and a grown man with children, are more than headlines. And it's essential that I say on this podcast, which is a spiritual podcast, that in a racist world, it is incumbent upon each and every one of us, but especially white people—which is to say people who are not racialized—to be actively anti-racist.

And this is hard to do. It's not just that some people do it and some people don't. On a spiritual level, on an emotional and psychological level, it's really hard to do. It requires interrogating your assumptions, your thoughts, your feelings, at times. It requires that you sit with assumptions, reactions, thoughts, feelings, actions that make you feel bad if you really explore them.

But I cannot stress enough how important it is to cultivate the skill set to be able to sit with challenging emotions. This is something I have really tried to center teachings around through the various things I do through my work and certainly throughout this podcast. When you feel bad and you have a reaction to those sad or bad feelings, it's really healthy and wise to ask yourself what you're trying to protect, what you feel bad about. But you can't do that when you're just reacting.

And in a racist world, it is important to recognize that we are all reacting to racism. For racialized people, it's racism projected at us or to other races. And for white people—the greatest beneficiaries of white supremacy—there is, of course, so many additional layers to it. But it is really important that I say here, on a spiritual podcast, that racism—whether we're talking about the systems of racism and white supremacy or we're talking about the internalized experience on an individual level of white supremacy and racism—these things are all spiritual sicknesses. There is nothing spiritually aligned or healthy about them.

And while dealing with racism is inevitable, that doesn't mean it isn't essential to consciously work on it, work it out of your system. Racism, white supremacy—it is a spiritual sickness. And it is not only corrosive to your spirit—but I can assure you that it is; it is corrosive to the spirit—but it is also corrosive to the people that you have direct contact with in your life and to society as a whole.

This might not seem connected, but I promise you that it is. What you think and what you feel—it matters. Again, on a societal level, on an intellectual level, on a behavioral level, sure, but I'm talking about on an energetic level. Your thoughts and your feelings have energy. They have power, and they have impact.

And you don't need to be perfect. You don't need to be immune to inherited traumas and systemic ills. That's not what I'm suggesting. But I am suggesting that if you do not actively work against white supremacy inside of you and in the world, it has an impact on you and the world.

We are living through really exceptional times, and some of that I'm going to talk about in an astrological context in a few minutes. But you only need to pay attention to the news and be even marginally educated about history to understand that these times are exceptional. And we are living through a rise—not the first rise, but a rise of white Christian nationalism, certainly in the United States and throughout the world.

And this is coinciding, of course, with mass surveillance at an unprecedented rate as well as environmental degradation in very dramatic ways. It is important to recognize that racialized people are deeply impacted by this and the most vulnerable in the context of this. And within that, it's important to be honest about the role of colorism or proximity to whiteness.

I want to encourage you to be brave and strong enough, to be spiritually connected to yourself and to the collective enough, to evolve, to grow, to be a part of progress in this world, to make progress from wherever you're starting from, whether that means creating space inside of yourself and in your relationships to be aggrieved, to feel grief, to feel what you're feeling, or that means actively unpacking and unlearning white supremacy. Whatever it means, I wish you the courage and the spiritual fortitude to do the work because it's necessary. It's always necessary, but my friends, now it's necessary.

Progress is possible. People love to say that people don't change. People ask me frequently, "Do you really think people can change?" Fuck yeah, I think people change. I know many people who've changed in many ways and sustained that growth. You can change. It's just not easy. It just doesn't happen overnight. It's not a magic bullet.

Change takes effort, and it takes courage. Whether you're engaging with progress on a personal level—you're working on your healing—or on a systemic level—you're working to shift things outside of just you—it's painful. It does encompass loss and grief. And the deeper your awareness becomes, the more you have to hold. Now, hopefully, as you do spiritual and emotional work on yourself, you deepen your capacity to hold the messiness of where we are, of who you are, where you come from, of your choices.

But the ocean, my friends—the ocean is not defined by each time that the waves crash at the shore. It is defined by the ebb and the flow of the waves. It takes many forms. And we are like that. The life of progress is like that. Sometimes it's loud; sometimes it's not. Sometimes it ebbs and feels like nothing is moving forward. And sometimes it comes forward so quickly it's undeniable.

And when I speak to racism and white supremacy, I hold this as interconnected with every other human rights issue, from misogyny to transphobia to homophobia to classicism to ableism. And again, you might hear me say these things and be like, "Fuck. Get to the astrology." But this is astrology. Astrology is simply the study of humans, of human evolution, of human society, of the psyche and soul of an individual. And because we live in these systems, these systems live in us.

And astrology, when we divorce it from reality—reality is in the systems. When we divorce it from reality, then what are we using it for? Then it becomes just weird checkout stuff. It becomes like a game we're playing, trying to avoid pain or get ahead of things. That's not what astrology is for, and it doesn't work, I can assure you.

You and me probably didn't create the world problems. You and me—we're probably not responsible for systemic issues or the worst things that are happening right now, even the best things that are happening right now. But we are inheritors of it. We are participants in it, one way or another.

Life is dynamic. Whether we're looking at the movement of the planets or we're looking at your individual progress or the progress of systems and societies, time marches forward. Time has a momentum. So much in astrology and in your life and in the world is governed by time. And so, when you are not actively working towards progress, you are creating momentum in rigidity and staying where you're at while the world progresses forward one way or another.

It takes a lot of energy to not change, and that energy does not age well inside of a person, inside of a community, a relationship, or a system. To quote Octavia Butler, God is change. Change is inevitable. And it is not to be feared, although it's scary. It is, instead, to be curious about, to embrace.

There is a spiritual cost to not actively engaging in progress. Now, I'm not saying you have to be changing all the time and progressing all the time. I'm talking about over the course of your life. I'm talking about in the presence of calamity, in the presence of major movements. If you are not actively moving forward, you're putting your energy into staying still, which is essentially holding yourself back. And a lot of people do that. Consciously or unconsciously, a lot of people do that. And it actively empowers the people and systems of power that seek to oppress and harm others.

The astrology of this period is actively facilitating growth, progress, and change. But that doesn't mean it will happen to you. You are not a passive participant in your own life. Astrology doesn't happen to you. You co-create. You participate. So you might not be able to control whether it's raining outside, but you can decide whether or not to go outside, whether or not to wear shoes, whether or not to try to get an umbrella or something to put over your head.

You choose to participate one way or another in the circumstances you find yourself in. And astrology speaks to free will as much as it speaks to predestiny. Healing doesn't happen on its own. Growth, happiness, progress—none of these things happen alone. They happen with your participation. So I want to invite you to be conscious about what you're participating in, to challenge yourself to participate in things of substance, things that matter to you and in the world, in addition to all the things you do that are maybe not that deep and more fun and frivolous. That's all good. But don't abandon this moment that actually needs you in a meaningful way.

And all that said, my friends, let's get into this week's horoscope. We are starting on Sunday, July 12th, when the Sun and Mercury meet. They're both going to be at 20 degrees of Cancer and 42 minutes at 6:26 p.m. Pacific Time. And important to remember Mercury is Retrograde. When these two planets meet—Sun conjunction to Mercury—it intensifies your opinions. You become highly identified with your attitudes and beliefs. And this can be a really great thing or a really bad thing.

You may find yourself or other people doubling down on your ideas and really feeling insulted or offended when somebody doesn't perceive you in the way that you perceive yourself or you tell people you want to be perceived. The Sun conjunction to Mercury—it takes your identity and your vital energies—the Sun—and your attitudes, your beliefs, your words—Mercury—and it smooshes them together. And in this case, it's in Cancer, so it's really emotional. It's things that we feel emotionally identified with.

And this can have you talking and talking and talking and not realizing that maybe you should keep some things private. It may have you revealing things that you actually weren't planning on revealing. It may have you excited, meeting with people, socializing, being active in communications, which is not just about talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah, but it's also about moving through your neighborhood or your immediate community and having interactions with people as a result.

This transit is not good or bad. Very few transits are. But what it is is active. And so the active nature of Mercury combined with the Sun means that you basically need to show up. Embody your beliefs, or change your mind because Mercury is changeable. And Mercury is Retrograde, so we know this is a time for revision, reconsideration, recalibration.

And this may look like being exposed to information that actually changes your computations. It might look like feeling like you're not being listened to and needing to clear the air. Mercury Retrograde is an opportunity to revisit your understanding and make sure that it is in alignment. If it isn't, get more information. Change your mind. Make an adjustment. Do what needs doing, see?

This is not a great time for making plans, and there's two reasons for that. The first is because it's just such a quick-moving transit that you're likely to change your mind. You're likely to be a little bit reactive. The other thing is it's Mercury fricking Retrograde, right? So we don't want to forget that it's meant to be internal investigation, internal evaluation.

And so, if you are in a situation with a person who's kind of pressing on you to speak your mind—state your peace—do that. But it's possible to do that without attachments or commitments. If you have to make commitments, then go forth and do it, but do it with as much consideration and attention to detail as you can, okay?

Now, one more thing I'll say about this transit—you may meet up or be connected to people that haven't really been in your life recently. This is not a Venus Retrograde where you're running into old loves, but it is a Mercury Retrograde where you may run into old friends or old peers, colleagues, comrades, etc. In this case, be open. Be curious. Mercury Retrograde invites curiosity. And the transit that's overlapping with this one, happening on the 13th, also invites curiosity.

On Monday, July the 13th, we have a Venus square to Uranus, with Venus at 4 degrees of Virgo and 18 minutes sitting exactly square to Uranus at the same degrees of Gemini. This transit is exact at 7:27 a.m. Pacific Time.

Okay. So Venus square Uranus—similar to Sun conjunction to Mercury, it speeds up the tempo of your day. But different from that transit, it's a little chaotic. It's a little, "Who fucking knows what's going to come next?" This is a terrible time for creating stability and security, much to the chagrin of Venus. Venus loves security and stability. Uranus is all about experience that is authentic. It is about progress. It is about change.

And so, when these two planets are square to each other, we have the potential for irritability, surprises, unprecedented dynamics. We have the possibility for flirting with people or catching vibes with people that are not your typical flavor of—I don't know—fucking around with the way you dress and playing with aesthetics. It's a great time for creativity and the arts. It's a great time for breaking through stuck dynamics, making it a shitty time for trying to make things permanent, stable, secure.

This is not astrology for security. It's astrology for questioning things. And whether you are setting about questioning your relationships, your relationship to money—because Venus governs your personal finances—your relationship to possessions, people, your own values system—whatever it is, it's a good time to just explore. That's what Uranus wants: exploration, innovation.

Uranus is associated with eccentricity and queerness—not gayness, but oddity, queerness—because it is not concerned with convention; it is concerned with self-expression. And were we a little less concerned with convention and a little more concerned with alignment with our values, then we'd all be a little more eccentric, and we'd all be a little more free. And I'm a fan of that.

Now, a Venus square to Uranus may mean that we are seeing some sort of surprise in regards to legislation—because Venus is related to legal matters—the rights of women, which encompasses the rights of Queer people, Gay people, and Trans people. So we may see some sort of surprise or change with the rights of basically everyone but cis straight men. This is something to be on the lookout for and to be an active participant with if you care. And I'm guessing here at Ghost of a Podcast Industries, we call care, right?

Okay. Now, the last thing I'm going to say about this—if you are in a relationship with a lover person, you may encounter conflicts, instability, surprises. This is not inherently bad, although it might be upsetting. What it is is change. When you get new information, having the ability to process that information and adapt if necessary—to meet the moment, essentially—is a meaningful part of what this transit has to offer you.

And I think that's pretty powerful. It's not necessarily easy or pleasant in the moment. But having the ability to meet the moment and meet your partner or your date or your crush in unexpected circumstances and dynamics is really wonderful, actually. It's, again, not always easy, but it is wonderful. So something to be kind of mindful of.

I want you to keep both of these transits that I just talked about at the top of your mind because on Tuesday, July 14th, we are going to be experiencing a New Moon in Cancer. And these two transits—the Venus square to Uranus and the Sun conjunction to Mercury—are active parts of this chart. Let's get into it.

All right. So we've got our New Moon on July 14th at exactly 2:44 a.m. Pacific Time. The Sun and Moon will both be at 21 degrees of Cancer and 59 minutes. And Mercury Retrograde is still really close by. It's at 19 degrees Cancer and 50 minutes, so it's quite close. It's not perfectly exact. We also have Saturn at 14 degrees of Aries and 34 minutes, which means it is squaring our New Moon—it's a little wide, but I'm going to encompass it, okay?

In our New Moon chart, we also want to consider some outer-planet aspects that are happening in the backdrop in a really big way in the world. But first, let's start with our New Moon in Cancer. New Moons are really important cycles for us. They are directly related to what happens in the Full Moon. In the Full Moon, shit is coming up. It's coming out. It's like you gotta deal with it now. But in the New Moon, you are setting intentions, planting seeds. You are investing in the beginnings of what comes up in the Full Moon. So, if you care about Full Moons, may I point your attention to New Moons? Because they really help you get ahead of whatever is to come.

This is a New Moon in Cancer. The Moon is in its natural placement when it's in Cancer, which means extra emotional. This is not good. This is not bad. This is just emotional. When we go through a New Moon in Cancer, you have the potential to be deeply in contact with how you feel. And that's so valuable.

There are so many times that I give readings to people, and I ask them how they feel, and they responded by telling me what they think. And it is so easy, in a world that really wants us divorced from our emotions, from our feelings, to confuse our thoughts and our emotions. We even talk about mental health as psycho-emotional health, like psychological and emotional health.

So this New Moon in Cancer is an opportunity to bring introspection and language, with that Mercury Retrograde so close to the Sun and Moon, to how you feel—not what you think about how you feel, not your theory to explain or justify what you feel, but actually just your emotions in this moment. If you have a hard time really figuring out what you feel, make it really simple. Pick four or five emojis and limit it to that.

I know it might sound like I'm being silly. I'm not. This is how we cultivate emotional intelligence, by keeping it simple. Simple is not unevolved, unintelligent, or lacking in depth. Simple is simply simple. And simple is powerful. And so, when we deal with a New Moon in Cancer, I want to encourage you to tap into the simple truth of what you're feeling, the simple truth of what you're investing in, who you're investing in. What emotions are motivating you?

This is a good time to reorient your energy so that you are in contact with what you feel. And you may feel many different things. You may feel grief about some things, joy about others. You may feel confused about some things and clear about others. Make room for the "and also" because, in the realm of emotional intelligence, it is always "and also."

And if you can be present with the complexity, the messiness of how you emotionally feel, if you can bring awareness and acceptance to that, now you have the capacity to assess whether or not to make changes. Strong-arming yourself, forcing yourself, convincing yourself to evolve or change—eh, it's, as they call it, lipstick on a pig. These are actions that can't be sustained.

And this is what a lot of us do a lot of the time. We force ourselves into growth or change without any emotional substance underneath it. Then we can't sustain it, and we don't know why. And it is really to do, in astrological terms, with the Moon. And because Mercury Retrograde is sitting right on top of the Sun and Moon, we have this extra value added to the Moon where we can strike a conversation between how we're feeling and what we're thinking, as long as you resist the urge to overintellectualize it, like overexplain or justify your feelings. If you ask yourself or someone else how they feel/how you feel and the answer is thoughts, ideas, theories—redirect. It's a New Moon. Start something new.

Now, because of Saturn's placement—it's square to Mercury and then, more widely, the Sun and Moon—what we can expect is consequence. Saturn is consequential. Saturn is about responsibility, obligation, maturity, wisdom. It is about the relationships you have with people who have power over you in some way, not in a Plutonian way, but, like, elders. We're talking about elders here. We're talking about people who are older than you, more mature than you, have more experience than you. And sometimes that lands you in a position where you're dealing with a boss or a landlord, and sometimes it's more related to your elder friend or something.

Saturn in Aries squaring all this Cancer stuff can make you feel like you need to move quickly, that you need to figure everything out, that you need to get it right or do it again. And you want to resist that. There is a meaningful difference between humility and guilt. There's a meaningful difference between responsibility and obligation. This is not a time to invest in guilt. Guilt—it doesn't help you. It doesn't help you heal. It doesn't help you take responsibility. And it doesn't help the people that you are feeling guilty around or towards. Humility does.

Humility is when you own the messy emotions; you hang out and are present for what's misaligned and why you feel bad about it. And humility empowers you to do better because it's not such an emotional fixation on what you did or didn't do that it consumes you. Humility requires that you're responsible and accountable, but it leaves you energy to move forward. And a New Moon is all about setting intentions, planting seeds, so that you may make progress, one way or another, on one level or another. And of course, with the Moon, we're talking about emotions, talking about innermost personal life.

You may find yourself motivated by or driven by fear, scarcity, insecurity, or perfectionism during this New Moon. And if you are feeling those feelings, may I encourage you to challenge yourself to stay present with them. It's hard to stay present with those feelings, but if you can stay present with them and show your feelings compassion, empathy, kindness, you are one step closer to living accountably—being accountable to yourself and your own needs and then being able to show up for others and in the world. This is really what it's all about.

I can tell you that the astrology of July has been a meaningful concern for me for a long time, and it is in part because of these major transits that are occurring. Now, I will get to them one by one as we go. But I want to speak to them in the context of this New Moon chart because New Moons are ripe with potential. And the potential herein is magnified by the fact that Pluto and Jupiter are opposite each other. These are not exact aspects, but they're close.

Pluto and Jupiter are opposite each other. They're also both square to Chiron. We have Pluto sextile to Neptune, trine to Uranus, and then Uranus and Neptune sextile to each other. That's a lot of energy between the outer planets, and it speaks to major developments inside of you as well as in the world.

That Jupiter/Pluto opposition T-squaring Chiron is a very big deal. It speaks to the potential for big growth, big ideological shifts, big transformation, and big wounding, unfortunately. The way us humans work—right? Because again, when we look at astrology divorced from humanity, then what are we fucking doing? Now, of course, I would say that I'm a humanistic astrologer. But my viewpoint is we must use the astrology in concert with what we understand about humans from the benefit of psychology and medicine and sociology, et cetera.

So what we know about humans is when our survival mechanisms, when our fight, flight, or fawn mechanisms, when our lizard brain is activated—and that's all Pluto; those are all just fancy ways of saying Pluto—gets activated in a big way, the Jupiter opposition—Jupiter is all about big. When that occurs, we tend to react out of activation. We react out of our survival mechanisms.

Now, who amongst us can say our survival mechanisms are our wisest instincts? I would say very few, very, very few, amongst us. Your wisest impulses are not found in activation or terror. Your wisest impulses are found from greater places of neutrality, wisdom accrued through time.

What we have in this configuration, what we have in this New Moon, and what we have in this period in history, what we have in this period in your personal life—all the same thing, right—is major activation.  And that major activation in relationship to Chiron speaks to who we value—because it's in Taurus—who we value in society and how we materially express their value, their worth. I look at this T-square, and I absolutely see the deep societal wounds of racism and white supremacy.

On a social level, this configuration of planets, this T-square, absolutely speaks to major and potentially rapid developments in the world and in society that kind of pulls on society's big fears and core wounds. And of course, white supremacy and racism is a big fucking one, right? It is a big fucking one.

We may see major shifts politically. We may see major shifts in society with how people treat each other, and even in the context of wars, like war machines. So Mars would be more like immediate battle. Pluto is like massive systems of oppression or systems of surveillance and bigger movements around fighting.

This aspect is one to watch out for. And what it activates in you as an individual is the potential to meaningfully confront your values system and whether or how you hold value in yourself. That's a big deal. So many of us apologize for our existence. So many of us have a hard time taking up space. This transit is going to activate that. It might not be about that. It might be about how you feel entitled to exploit other people or land.

So many of us feel entitled to do fucked-up things to other people or to things or places because—insert narrative. We're going to see a lot of that during this transit. The potential here, whether it's fun or not, is to actively, consciously experience your emotions, experience the present moment, what is happening in your life, what is happening in you, what is happening in the world, and be willing to learn and grow so that you can meet the moment.

Now, luckily, as I mentioned, Pluto is sextiling Neptune. It's trining Uranus. Neptune is sextiling Uranus. And even inside of that, Jupiter is trine to Neptune and sextile to Uranus. So we have a lot of outer-planet activity that is very good for facilitating empathy, progress, generosity, growth, and change—lovely. Fucking lovely, right? And in the context of this New Moon chart, I want to just kind of keep it there.

Now, this configuration—I will speak in a moment to, on a larger level, how it might not be all that lovely. But in the context of the New Moon chart, I want to say that this New Moon provokes a lot. It's meant to provoke a lot. And majorly inside of that, is your capacity to grow and change with empathy, humanity, care, in innovative ways, to take risks, to be bold. And your capacity to do that is somewhat inhibited by your emotional capacity.

So work on your emotional capacity. This New Moon is so helpful for that. And hey, listen. August is Eclipse Season. This is not Eclipse shit. This is precursor. This is pregame to the Eclipse show. So do your homework now. Do your homework now.

Now, moving on from the New Moon, let's talk about the next exact transit happening on Wednesday, the 15th. We have Uranus exactly sextile to Neptune at 4 degrees and 24 minutes. So Uranus is at 4 degrees, 24 minutes of Gemini, sextile to Neptune at the same degrees of Aries. This is where I'll speak more to this basket of energy, this configuration of transits that is occurring.

This is really important. When astrologers say something is really important or really rare, people will often get superstitious, lose track of common sense, and just kind of get weird and put pressure on yourself. Don't do any of that, okay? Don't get superstitious about this. Don't put pressure on yourself to rise and meet this moment astrologically like it's some sort of invisible plane that you can jump on; I'll take you somewhere. That's not it.

On its own, the Uranus sextile to Neptune is a lovely transit that sparks, both in instruction as well as in society, shifts in regards to human-centered technologies, greater empathy for social movements, and greater interest in engaging in social movements. This transit can coincide with a societal shift where people come together to actively seek new solutions for social ills, for the vulnerable.

In the context of this larger configuration of all of these transits that we have going on right now, the shorthand is we have this one on the 15th, Uranus sextile Neptune. On the 17th, Uranus forms a trine to Pluto. On the 20th, Jupiter will trine Neptune and will oppose Pluto. We've got, on the 21st, Jupiter sextiling Uranus, and on the 24th, Neptune sextiling Pluto.

I haven't mentioned Chiron in the mix here, which—if you want to be tracking the transits the way that I do, you can just subscribe to my astrologer's pro tool called Astrology for Days, astrologyfordays.com. And it doesn't explain the transits. It's a pro tool for astrologers and astrology students who want to have the transits delineated when they're in exactitude, and then there's a note form in there so you can keep notes based on your interpretations or compilation of other astrologers' interpretations. Yeah, anyways, astrologyfordays.com—check that out if you want to track all the damn transits.

But this configuration of outer-planet transits all happening at around 4 degrees of fire and air signs, plus Chiron in Taurus—these transits theoretically indicate major growth in society, major progress in you as an individual and us as a collective, which is beautiful. These transits can inspire hope, freedom, connection, transformation, empathy, spiritual connection. It can do all of these things. It's beautiful, right?

My concern is and has been, in practice, what happens when we go through a transit that is a sextile or a trine, the, quote unquote, "easy" transits, the benefics? What it does is these transits create momentum and movement. Now, it doesn't create momentum and movement of things that aren't happening. It creates momentum and movement for what is. So, if things are moving in a particular direction, it creates a spark of progress for that direction.

And when I look at what's happening in society, when I look at ICE, when I look at fucking masked white supremacists marching on the capital on the 4th of July, when I look at a number of things that are happening in the environment, when I look to the U.S. and parasites—what? Fuck, what? When I look at so many things that are happening, I feel frightened to see progress, a spark of energy of those things, because there are people who think those things are good. There are those who want the end times tout suite, okay?

People with huge amounts of power want things that most people in the population don't want. So, when we talk about progress, it's always a question, whose fucking progress? It is incumbent upon me as an individual, it is incumbent upon you as an individual, and it is incumbent upon us as communities and collectives, to be active parts of creating and co-creating the world we want to live in, the relationships we want to be in. We need to be active participants in cultivating growth and progress.

And so many of us, so much of the time, wait for things to get better, hope for things to get better, hope that someone is doing something about it. And this really is a win for the active, motivated, and organized malevolent forces in the world, of which there are many. And so my concern about the astrology of this period—which is not over in July, but it's hitting active exactitude in July—is that we may see a lot of things that I feel are moving in the wrong direction catch fire, because what happens when you add air to fire? The fire spreads, right? The fire spreads.

And so, again, I want to implore you, I want to invite you, I want to inspire you, to find a way to get involved. You're not going to save the world. Don't try to fucking save the world. None of us are the hero of the story. It's not about that. It's find something to do, something that you care about. You can't do all the things. You might be able to care about all the things, but not equally, and not at all the time. You gotta pace yourself.

Find inspiration to do something, maybe something new, something you haven't done before. Maybe try something in a different way. There's a lot of experimentation, a lot of potential for change and difference in these transits. Try. Try finding different ways of dealing with your life, dealing with your core wounding, your insecurities, dealing with your relationships, your relationship to money, your relationship to people—whatever the fuck it is. Try.

And on a social level, on a human rights level, do something. Try. Step outside of your comfort zone. Or if you are already actively engaged in social movements and in cultivating progress in the world, revisit your efforts, your approach, your motivation. Maybe it's time to adapt. Maybe you need to tend to your heart in a different way or more. Maybe you need to shift a bigger-picture way of holding progress and change. Maybe you don't. Asking questions is the only way to get answers. Don't be scared of asking questions. Ask yourself questions. Ask other people questions. Ask questions of spirit, of the Universe, however you think of it.

This is a period that has a great deal of potential, but potential is not driven by my morality or yours. It just has a lot of potential. To shape that potential in the direction that you want it to go takes active participation. And that's the most important thing I can tell you about this period and this kind of configuration of astrological energy.

So many times, when people talk about Neptune in astrology—and right now, on the 15th, we have Uranus sextile to Neptune. So many times, when people talk about Neptune in astrology, they're like, "Oh, spirituality." Like, what the fuck is spirituality? How do you define spirituality? It's such a Neptunian thing. It's hard to put your finger on.

For me personally, my spirituality is not separate from my psychology or my behaviors or how I think about my finances or how I relate to my health. They're all spiritual for me. Now, I'm super woo, so it might not be that same thing for you. But exploring what is spirituality, where is the soul, when you're hanging out with your thoughts and your feelings, where is the soul in that—where is your soul? How do you know you're experiencing something spiritually as opposed to emotionally or psychologically or physically? How do you know?

When you explore your own spirituality, you may do that through the tool of exercise or dance. You may do that through the tool of meditation or something more traditionally associated with spirituality. You may do that through the arts, like creating art or listening to music, or spending time in nature. You might not know how to do it. You might know how to empty yourself out—classic Neptune, escape, unplug, kind of divorce yourself from yourself, and call that peace. A lot of us do.

This is a good time to be asking these questions, to be exploring the answers, not to condemn yourself or judge yourself, but instead to fucking know yourself. Self-awareness is the point because if you have self-awareness, you can make choices. And when you can make choices, you have freedom. Now, you might have freedom in a box that society put around you, but you still have freedom because there is something essential inside each of us. It's our agency. And when we're connected to our agency, life is easier to live. Doesn't mean you have less problems. It just means that the way that you orient yourself in relationship with your problems is more aligned and more authentic. And that's easier long term. It's easier.

Now, on Friday, the 17th, we have a Uranus trine to Pluto. And this one—same thing. It's 4 degrees—in this case, it's 4 degrees and 30 minutes, with Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius. So this transit, on a personal level, can be really good for the cultivation of deep progress, psychological progress. This can be a good time for working with your nervous system, for being able to really explore something in a deep and meaningful way that helps you to heal. I mean, it's great potential in this transit, especially if it hits your chart directly.

And also, it can signify major expansion of technology. And with Pluto in Aquarius in the year 2026, we know we are living under mass surveillance. We know that technology is being used not to make our lives better but to make billionaires more money and to give them more power. So, when we see something like Uranus trine to Pluto, we want to understand that innovation of technology is likely to be empowered. But again, I ask you, who the fuck is that for? Who benefits from it?

And so, again, if you are invested in climate justice, social justice, this transit may spark something in you to adapt, to change, to come together. We may see movements deepen and expand under this influence. So there's a lot of positive potential, and there's also a lot of bullshit potential, in my opinion.

Now, we're going to be going through this transit very off and on through 2028. It's not like one and done, okay? This is a process that we are actively engaged in collectively. As you hear me say that, my hope for you is that you understand that you are actively engaged in the process of life and that within this process of life, there's going to be ebb and flow. But the energy at play for the next couple of years includes Uranus trine Pluto. And there's so much to gain. There's so much potential. And there are risks. And if we are well apprised of the risks, we can navigate them to maximize our potential.

So there's more to say about all this. I'll probably be blah, blah, blah-ing about it a lot more over on Patreon, where, of course, if you're interested in mentorship or a bonus episode of Ghost of a Podcast, opportunities to get a reading with me, and lots of other astrology and woo stuff, you can join me over there.

But for now, I feel like this episode has been very long, so we will end it here. Let me just run through the transits one more time. But please do remember I have a transcript available for free on my website that you can check out. It's usually out about 24 hours after the episode airs because it is transcribed by a real human, and we love that.

Okay. So, on the 12th, the Sun sits on top of Mercury Retrograde in Cancer. On the 13th, Venus and Uranus form a square. On the 14th, we have a New Moon in Cancer. On the 15th, Uranus is sextile to Neptune. And on the 17th, Uranus is trine to Pluto.

And your TL;DR for this week's horoscope is as follows. You want to explore ideas and relationship dynamics, expecting the unexpected with the transits on the 12th and the 13th. With the New Moon, strive to tap into what you feel, the truth of what you feel, in a deep and meaningful way. And with these outer-planet transits happening on the 15th and 17th, actively invest in creating a world inside of you and around you that is inspired by your humanity and your spiritual convictions. Facilitate progress this week.

And that's it. I hope you got a lot of value from this week's forecast. There's certainly a lot going on. And I want to thank you for joining me here for Ghost of a Podcast this week and every week. Go ahead and send me questions to be considered for the show to get a reading with me on the midweek episode. And take really good care of yourself and others, and I'll talk to you in just a couple of days.