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 is really big astrologically, so buckle in for a long and maybe a little complex episode, as we have an Eclipse this week, our first Eclipse of Eclipse Season, because as you may know, Eclipses always occur in pairs. There's never just one.

Before I get into this week's horoscope, though, I want to acknowledge something that has been happening in the astrology conference/astrology org community where an astrologer, Steven Forrest, went on a podcast and used racist hate speech. And regardless of context or intent, he used racist hate speech. And I personally have a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech for any reason.

It's important that I acknowledge this as an astrologer. I'm not affiliated with any of the astrological orgs. I'm not speaking at the conference that is coming up, the UAC conference, which is an international conference happening in the U.S., that he was scheduled to speak at and now will not be speaking at because of this incident. But I think it's important that I am exceptionally clear that this happened and this is wrong, and that not only is it wrong and was his apology deeply insufficient, but what I have seen online is a shocking number of people backing him up and defending his right to use hate speech because he's a, quote, "good guy."

And I think it's important that I acknowledge this and acknowledge the harm that this has caused in our astrological community, which you may or may not identify as a part of in this context, right? It's astrology orgs, astrology conferences. But it's also important for me to acknowledge this in the larger context of what's happening in the world outside of this little astrological community.

We are living through the rise of white Christian nationalism and neo-Nazism. There are lynchings happening in the United States of America in 2026, which is fucking devastating. It is violent and terrifying. It is literally terrorism. And it is really important to understand individual acts from individual people in the context of the larger world we live in. It is important to understand that because someone is deeply intelligent, makes beautiful music, knows how to talk about a Jungian shadow with nuance and complexity, doesn't mean they're a good person. Just because somebody is a great friend to you doesn't mean that they have not failed to excavate their internal racism or ableism or transphobia or whatever.

In order to combat white supremacy and its many tentacles, we must be emotionally brave, brave enough to sit with our discomfort, brave enough to sit with the ways in which our thoughts and feelings and convictions may be born from white supremacy. If you've been harmed a little bit or a lot a bit—any amount of harm—by this astrologer's behavior and the behavior of many other astrologers and astrology community members as a result or in response to this, I just want to acknowledge you. I want to say I am really sorry.

And I think it's important because we're not meeting up in a community room once a week or anything, but we are in community with each other. And it's really devastating when you're in a community that you want to be safe for you, and you find that it is fucking not. I have personally moved in and out of this astrological community of astrology conferences and astrology orgs over the course of—I don't know—25, 30 years. And there are a lot of problems in it.

And this is the thing. In spiritual communities, in artist communities, and in even social justice communities, it's made up of people. And us humans—we are problematic, all of us. I'm problematic. You're problematic. They're problematic. Everybody's fucking problematic. It's whether or not we're doing the work on ourselves. It's who we decide to give a pass, when we decide to give ourselves a pass and why.

I am not inside of the astrology conference world enough to be a person who's going to bring any kind of repair to it. But I can say as an astrologer and a person that, while I hold space for people making mistakes/people having a learning curve that is different from what I wish their learning curve was, when people make mistakes, when people cause harm, there must be consequences—not punishment. Consequences, because while you have the freedom to do and be whoever the fuck you want to be and to do whatever the fuck you want to do, there are always going to be consequences for your choices.

I'm going to move on to the horoscope, but before I do, I just want to, again, acknowledge those people, especially the Black community, who have been hurt by not just what this individual astrologer said but also by how much of the community has responded. We are in Eclipse Season, and that is a deeply consequential time. It is not just consequential for what we do and what we think but for how we process our emotions.

So all of this to say—and I understand this might be a little niche, and many of you might have no idea what I'm referring to. But I just want to reiterate firmly and clearly, here at Ghost of a Podcast, we hold space for mistakes when they are met with accountability and actions towards repair. What we don't hold space for is hate speech, period.

And now to your horoscope. We are looking at the astrology of August 9th through the 15th of 2026, and what we are dealing with is Eclipse Season. And this week, there will be an Eclipse. All of the transits that you're going to hear me talk about this week are transits that will be activated in the Eclipse chart. And the impact of that means that we're not just feeling the feelings we're feeling. We're not just going through the things we're going through. We're not just processing the things we're processing.

It's that the impacts of all of that will be felt over the course of the next six months. So do you hide under the covers? No. Do you assume the worst? Please don't. Instead, what you do with this information is you know that this week is the time to challenge yourself to do your best—not to phone it in, not to be reactive, not to be mean to yourself or mean to others, but instead, to really pay attention to your internal processes, your intentions, your sense of purpose or your values, and then what you do in response to all that shit.

So our first exact transit occurs on Sunday, August the 9th, and it's exact at 10:15 p.m. Pacific Time. We have Mercury that just moves into Leo about an hour earlier and then immediately squares Chiron, which is at 0 degrees of Taurus and 51 minutes. So both Mercury and Chiron are at 0 degrees, 51 minutes, of their respective signs.

Mercury square to Chiron is a challenging transit. This transit challenges you on a number of levels. One level is around communication. Now, when I say communication, you might think what you say, what other people say, what you read, what you type—that kind of thing. And that's correct, but it's not just that. It's also how you listen, what you're listening to. When Mercury squares Chiron, our minds—Mercury—get challenged by core wounds—Chiron.

So, as I was talking about in the context of what's happening in the astrological community, the core wound of white supremacy and racism is a deep one in most cultures, but certainly in the United States in a very deep way. This might be a core wound related to self-worth or insecurity or how you feel about your love life or your intelligence. It could be any damn thing. It could be many damn things.

But what I want you to know is that the challenge here is for you to explore your beliefs, to explore your psychology—not just your mind, how your mind works—to explore these parts of yourself so that you may heal. That's the point. Now, when we look at something like Chiron, we're not talking about a wound that goes from an injury to you wouldn't even remember where it was; it's healed.

It's more a wound that you develop a healthier and more evolved relationship to so that it doesn't continue to hurt you and others, but instead, it empowers you to be able to use the information, whatever that means, of your pain point to help you to help yourself and help others. That's how we heal in a Chironic way.

Now, this transit is excellent for talking to your therapist, learning about psychological concepts that apply to you and help you, for taking accountability. The Mercury square to Chiron can trigger conflict. It triggers conflict because Mercury governs not just your thoughts and your attitudes and communication, but it also governs your friendships, your peers, your allies, your community members. So it's the kind of relationships you have one-on-one as opposed to the community itself. It's the people that you meet when you're walking down the street.

When we have Mercury and Chiron forming a 90-degree angle to each other, we have the risk that you will trigger my core wounds and that I will act like somebody who's been really activated, or vice versa. You could be the one who's triggered. Somebody else could be the one who's triggered. Or if you're really unlucky, everybody's triggered.

The opportunity here is to grow, to really confront your thoughts, your psychological coping mechanisms, and maybe even the people you're in relationship to in a way that helps you to become more whole, more present, better aligned. And the risk is that you just fucking get at it with people, and it's conflict. That's the risk, right?

Because we are in an Eclipse week, because this particular transit will not be exact in our Eclipse chart but it will be present in our Eclipse chart, we know that this is more emotionally intensified than it would otherwise be. It's super fucking charged.

And so, if you find yourself triggered by something someone says or the way they say it or something that you're ruminating on in a relationship or whatever, my advice to you is to say to yourself, "Oh, what can I learn about myself in this situation? What do I feel called to in this situation?" and to not then jump to react, but instead to sit with your feelings, to sit with your thoughts.

These are fixed-sign placements, so it doesn't really promote adaptability and flexibility. But that is what I would encourage you to cultivate in your process and then say what you're going to say; do what you're going to do.

That brings us to Monday, at which time we have two exact transits from Venus. At 11:09 a.m. Pacific Time, Venus will be trine to Pluto with Venus at 3 degrees and 57 minutes of Libra, Pluto at the same degrees of Aquarius. And then, at 3:02 p.m. Pacific Time, Venus will be at 4 degrees of Libra and 7 minutes, and it's exactly opposite to Neptune at the same degrees of Aries.

So these transits—because we're talking about Venus—and we were just talking about Mercury. Mercury is your friends. Venus is your love relationships. That's not exclusive to the people you're having sex with or you're dating. It's your love relationships, the people that you have tenderness with, the people that you have a sensual relationship with. So it may be your art partner or something that you might not have a romantic relationship with but you have a creative relationship with.

Venus is also your values. When we are dealing with our relationships—any of our relationships—our values come up. Who you choose to spend time with, the kind of time you spend with people, the things that you do or don't give space for in that relationship—it's all a reflection of your values.

And so, when we are dealing with an Eclipse week—first Mercury, now Venus—we know it's deeply relational, and we know it's triggering your psychology, what you think, how you think, whether you communicate or listen effectively and whether there's room for growth. And now we have Venus. It's how you relate to others. We're talking about diplomacy, your capacity to be authentic instead of accommodating when it would be easier to be accommodating over prioritizing your values and what's authentic to you.

Venus trine to Pluto is a fortifying transit in many ways. It can bring about greater and deeper connection with your values. It can provoke meaningful, romantic, and sensual and creative relationships or dynamics in a relationship. So you may have a fucking moment with a person.

This transit also deepens your relationship to your values. So, if there is a struggle—thanks, Mercury square Chiron—that Venus trine to Pluto kind of provokes the depth that Venus needs to really stay with the hard questions and find one's values system, really, really pinpoint, "What is important in this moment? What do I want to center in this moment? What deserves my limited and precious energy and care, and what doesn't in this moment?"

Venus trine to Pluto is like a supportive transit for transformation. So we love to see it any damn day, but in the context of that Mercury square to Chiron, the upcoming Eclipse, and the Venus opposition to Neptune—which I'm about to tell you about—it's especially useful.

Venus opposite Neptune—not my favorite transit, okay? It's just not my favorite transit. It is a hard transit. Venus and Neptune, when they sit opposite each other, God, they get so devotional, just so parasocial, so idealistic and not super grounded. This is when somebody can sell you a bag of rocks and tell you that it's actually a bag of butterflies, and you want to believe them. Maybe you do.

Venus wants to be connected. It wants security and stability and to be together one way or another. Neptune is devotional. It is the planet that governs the concept that we are all interconnected, that we are all one. Neptune can be deeply humanitarian, deeply spiritual, deeply humanistic. It can also be deeply fucking selective because Neptune is all about the kinds of beliefs that you have that don't do well when they are questioned or challenged.

And so this is why Neptune is so associated with the parasocial relationship. When you can convince yourself that you are in a back-and-forth equal relationship with somebody who doesn't know you, that is classic Neptune. When Venus opposite Neptune happens, we always have the risk of putting other people on pedestals or putting yourself on a pedestal, having unrealistic, maybe inhumane expectations of people, for better or for worse, so whether you're either like, "Oh, they're better than everyone else," or, "They're not allowed to make any mistakes"—that kind of a thing.

Venus opposite Neptune is always a lesson in boundaries. It's always a lesson in boundaries. Boundaries—my friends, it's not about keeping other people out. It's about self-containment, self-possession. It's about taking accountability for yourself and what you are willing to take in, what you can do so in a healthy way, what you are willing and able to put out. Boundaries. Love boundaries. Love boundaries. They are not fences. They are about understanding your space and what you can receive and what you can't.

Venus opposite Neptune is a demoralizing transit. It can find you in situations where you just feel fucking like—you just feel off and bad. Don't hang out with your frenemies. Don't hang out with that friend that you have that you really like but you're always drained afterwards, not this week, but certainly not on this transit, not on this day, on Monday, the 10th, because you're likely to be more drained.

There is a need for energy boundaries during this week, and especially this transit on this day. This is something I talk about a lot on Patreon. This is something that you may already be actively engaged in, like thinking about, well, what are your energetic boundaries? Do you have the ability to have self-containment, to be clear about where you begin and end? If you don't, a transit like Venus opposite Neptune is going to be much harder, much harder.

You may find yourself at work, and somebody's in a fucking mood, and so they dump a bunch of shit on you. And then how you deal with that becomes your problem. Do you take it personally? Do you try to scramble to do all the work? Do you shut down completely? Whatever your coping mechanism is for being treated unfairly, for not feeling clear about how to navigate your own safety, your own connection to other people—that's what this transit will test. It's uncomfortable, and it's not glamorous and fun.

While this transit does not activate power struggles—power struggles are always Pluto's domain—they can activate dynamics in which you feel demoralized or defeated. And it's important that you work on your self-worth and your sense of value inside of yourself, your values system. That's Venus's domain.

Now, the final thing I'll say about this particular transit is Venus is also your money. It's the stuff you own, the currency you have in your pocket. And Venus opposite Neptune is a fucking terrible time to make investments, to spend a lot of money, and to try to buy yourself some happy, basically. It's a time you may want to do those things. It's a bad time to do it. Don't fucking do it, okay?

This is also a good time for me to remind you that Eclipse Season is not the time to do ritual work. My friend, don't do it, okay? Don't do rituals. Don't do spells. Don't manifest. I know there are people who are online selling you a lot of things to do on Eclipse Season. There's only one thing to do during Eclipse Season. It's practice being present and emotional accountability.

I did an hour-long talk on this over on my Patreon, which—you can join there. You can also just get that one—I guess I can call it an informal class, where I basically answered a bunch of questions from folks about the Eclipses. And in particular, there was a focus on this week's Eclipse. So you can check that out over on my Patreon.

Listen. Listen. Don't be doing magic. Don't do spell work. Don't make major purchases. This is not the time for that. This is the time for processing your emotions in as healthy way as you can. And according to that Venus opposition to Neptune, there's an essential component here about boundaries.

And in regards to that Mercury square to Chiron, there's an essential component about really confronting parts of your psychology or your communication or even your friendships that need to be met, that need to be acknowledged and faced, and to do so with healthy boundaries and with self-worth and recognizing the value and worth in others.

And that brings us to three more transits on Tuesday, August 11th. We're not even at the fucking Eclipse. We're not even there yet, okay? So, on Tuesday, the 11th, Mars moves into Cancer. We've got two transits from Mercury and one from Venus. So, again, it's deeply relational. It's about us. It's about them. And what's happening with the two of you, if I'm connected to you, is impacting me, right? I need to have boundaries with that, but it is impacting me because we're all connected.

So Mercury opposite Pluto, exact at 6:20 p.m. Pacific Time, is the first exact transit. Then Mercury forms an exact trine to Neptune. That is exact at 8:39 p.m. Pacific Time. And if you're not watching the video version of this episode with me, which—by the way, you know what I mean? Go for it. Watch the video version. It's available on a bunch of different platforms. I also post it on the free page of my Patreon, and you can also look at it on YouTube. I have my little astrology app, Astrology for Days, up on the screen so you can see the exact degrees and time of all the transits as I talk about them, which is helpful if you're a visual processor at all.

Anyways, back to Mercury. Mercury is exact trine to Neptune, exact at 8:39 p.m. And then, at 8:46 p.m., just a couple minutes later, we have Venus trine Uranus. Let's talk about it. Now, I'm going to start with the two, quote unquote, "easy" transits, the benefics.

So Mercury trine Neptune increases empathy. It increases your interest in and concern about spiritual considerations, humanitarian concerns, potentially social justice, and, again, spiritual matters. It's a great time to be in nature, to connect to nature, to touch grass.

Venus trine Uranus promotes adaptability, flexibility, curiosity. It empowers you to be open to finding new ways of connecting with the people and things that you value—fucking glorious, right? Right on time, thank you very much.

But Mercury is opposite fucking Pluto. Mercury opposite Pluto is a very important transit. It is overlapping with Venus opposite Neptune. It is overlapping with Mercury square fucking Chiron. Listen. Mercury opposite Pluto is such a dramatic transit. It's super dramatic. And it's dramatic because Mercury is your mind, and Pluto is obsessive. Mercury is your friendships, and Pluto is vengeful.

Because this transit is an opposition—it's Mercury opposite Pluto—it is likely to be experienced in an oppositional way—in other words, in relationship, me against you, us against them. This transit can provoke dramatic revelations. It can provoke cruel thoughts, cruel words. You really need to watch your tongue during a Mercury opposition to Pluto, a.k.a. all fucking week. Watch your tone. It's not just what you say. It is how you say it.

If you cannot lead with empathy, that is a reflection on you. If you cannot be kind to yourself, then how are you going to be kind to others? How are you going to ask other people to be kind to you? Now, is every situation calling for kindness? On the one hand, abso-fucking-lutely not. Sometimes we gotta fight. Sometimes we got to brawl. But if your motivation is not, somewhere along the line, related to empathy and kindness—fighting for something, for someone—then what are you doing? Honest question, earnest question. Question for you to answer for yourself on your time.

Mercury opposite Pluto provokes drama. It can be a time where rumors are spread, where shit is revealed and misunderstood or weaponized. This transit is one of conflict. Now, when we look at politics, when we look at social conditions, this transit and the two other difficult transits or challenging transits that we're going through are concerning because we may see people with power fighting amongst themselves in a way that is more reflective of their survival mechanisms and drive for power than it is of the truth of the matter. And that's a big thing.

Power on its own is not bad or good. Fighting for power is not inherently bad or good. But the drive for power, the fight and struggle for power, is easily corruptible in you, in me, and in them. And that's something for us to be cognizant of. That is something for us to be accountable to because you may be right, and you may approach a situation that turns your correctness into incorrectness.

We must take accountability not just for how we participate but our own motivations. We must allow space to consider the motivations of other people. And also, when Mercury is opposite Pluto, shit happens fast. Mercury moves fast. And Pluto dredges shit up from the past. It dredges shit up that stinks, okay? That's Pluto. That's Pluto's work.

This transit can find you really fixated on an idea or a concept or something someone said or something you said or did. Pluto is obsessive. It ruminates. And because of this, it can lead you down a very brambly path. We've all been there, where you're fixating and obsessing on something someone said or did or something you said or did, and then you just fucking spin out. You stop being as reasonable and rational as you can be, and you start being defensive and harming yourself or others. It can eat at you.

When the power of your emotions or your obsessions gets on top of you, you get crushed by it. It doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve your situation. So there's a challenge of self-moderation under a transit like Mercury opposite Pluto, especially during Eclipse Season. There is the potential for confronting things in an honest and deep way and achieving meaningful healing and insight. It's a great time for in-depth psychological investigation and work. But it's really important that you check your motivations, that you're doing it for healing, for the betterment of something, someone, maybe even you. Right?

One more thing I'll say about this particular transit is that the news may be especially bananas on and around this date. Now, we would expect that during Eclipse Season anyways. But the Mercury opposition to Pluto may mean that there is disinformation. Now, disinformation is really different than misinformation. Misinformation is spread when a person doesn't know that what they're spreading is wrong, which happens all the time.

Disinformation is on purpose to mislead people. There may be disinformation in the news. So we want to be mindful. I really—this whole fucking online thing of "Do your research"—it's like, what the fuck does that mean? When I hear "Do your research," I always think the person means Google it. That's not fucking research. That's not research.

So I want to say check your sources. Check your sources. If this is at all interesting to you, my goodness, please seek media literacy tools. The astrology of this week is good for that. Now, there also might be way too emotional and too triggering of a time to do that. But it is a good time in history to cultivate media literacy tools.

That brings us to Wednesday, August the 12th, where we have our Solar Eclipse. There's two other exact transits on that day. So I'm going to pull up the chart so you can look along with me just one moment. But first, Mars is sextile Chiron at exactly 7:42 a.m. on August 12th. Our Solar Eclipse happens at 10:37 a.m., which—again, I'll get to that in a second. And then, at 1:48 p.m. later that day, Mercury forms an exact sextile to Mercury.

Because these transits are exact on this day, we want to pay particular attention to them. But truthfully, all this that I've been talking about is big for the Eclipse. So Mars sextile to Chiron empowers you to heal, and to heal by checking your motivation, your sense of direction, and also your ego, doing these things by being in your body, maybe even using the tool of your body.

So I actually just gave someone a reading on the lovers tier of my Patreon the other day, and we were talking about how to get into the body when there are physical health issues that stop you from going out for a run or doing something really physically dramatic like dancing or exercising or whatever.

And what we talked about is how Mars governs the head. And so just scratching your head, massaging your head—not like hurting scratching. Nice scratching or massaging your head can be a great way to engage Mars, to engage the energy of this planet consciously, on purpose, and in a way that promotes circulation, movement, progress, because really, we want to be in an ongoing relationship with our ego, Mars, so that we evolve the ego because when the ego gets rigid, when it gets stuck, that's not good for anybody. That's not good for you. It's not good for America.

Now, Mars sextile Chiron can really help you to do that—shift your motivations, get into your body, and really kind of move through some difficult terrain. Mercury sextile to Uranus is really good in opening your mind up to different perspectives, having a little more analytic or psychological agility and being able to explore different ideas, different ways of understanding things, communicating things, maybe even listening to things, okay? So it's a progress-oriented transit.

And like I said, we want to pay attention to these two bad boys in our Eclipse chart. So let's look at the chart. Okay. So here we are. We're talking about the Eclipse. It's what you've waited for, right? So, as I said, Eclipses happen in pairs. Eclipses both obscure and reveal. So whatever it is that you think is going to happen during this Eclipse—maybe; maybe not. Whatever it is that you're scared of is the Eclipse. If you are giving emotional energy to a thing, that's your experience of the Eclipse.

Now, this Eclipse is happening, as I said, at 10:37 a.m. Pacific Time with the Sun and Moon conjoined at 20 degrees of Leo. So we have this New Moon in Leo is a Solar Eclipse. New Moons—always Solar Eclipse. A Full Moon is always a Lunar Eclipse. A Solar Eclipse in Leo is a time for you to take heart. I know the internet is so loud about Leo is leadership. I guess. Maybe. I mean, sometimes.

But really, Leo is the zodiac sign governed by the Sun. And whenever I think of the Sun, the best thing I can think of to describe what the Sun means in astrology is to point you towards the glyph, the circle with a dot in the center. That's the glyph. The glyph speaks to how it is your energy fields. It is your whole self. And that dot in the center is you. That dot in the center is your vital energies.

And Leo is deeply connected to vital energies. It is about courage and heart. It is about showing up. And sometimes that is about leadership, but sometimes that is just about alignment; that is just about being here to the best of your ability in a way that reflects your center instead of your loudest, most dramatic parts, which—let's all hold space for our dramatic, loud parts. But return to center.

Whenever we go through an Eclipse, we are going through a Lunar transit. This is a Moon transit. It's not a Sun transit. Although the Eclipses always involve the Sun, they are Moon transits. And therefore, we are talking about the heart in context of Leo energies. How do you emotionally show up for what is in alignment? What's at your center? What's at the center of your concerns, of your life, of the world? This is a major question of this particular Eclipse.

And in regards to aspects to the Solar Eclipse, to the Sun and Moon conjunction, we have a Saturn trine—very stabilizing. We love to see it. It's not in exactitude. It's like six degrees off. But Saturn is trine to the Sun and Moon, stabilizing its energy. This means there is supportive energy to getting grounded. And that might, for you, look like literally doing a grounding practice. It might look like just having greater access to anchoring yourself in yourself so that you may be centered. It doesn't have to look one way.

Importantly, in this chart, we have a Mercury/Jupiter conjunction, also in Leo, making your identification with your beliefs and attitudes, the things you say and the things you've experienced, very intense. And it is opposed by Pluto. Pluto is opposite Jupiter and Mercury, bringing greater intensity and drama and obsessiveness and resentments to the mix.

Here we have Pluto triggering off power struggles. That might be between you and others. That might be between this group and that group. And that might be your own struggle with your own beliefs, your own experiences, your own attitudes, what you said and how you said it, whether or not you listened, or maybe how you heard it wrong.

And within that, I want to say shame is such a bitch. Pluto governs shame. And this Solar Eclipse may trigger shame inside of you, or you may want to shame someone else. It's such a blunt tool. It really causes harm, and it does not leave a lot of space for repair. And a lot of times, people confuse accountability and shame.

If someone asks you to be accountable and you feel ashamed, that doesn't mean they have shamed you. It means you feel shame. But because shame is such a difficult feeling to sit with, to stay with, we tend to reject it, push it away like spiderwebs in your face, and now you've said, "It's not my fault that I feel ashamed. It's your fault that you've made me feel shame." So you want to watch out for that impulse, especially because Pluto is opposite Mercury, and they're both square to Chiron.

We have a T-square in the Solar Eclipse chart to Chiron. Jupiter is not involved in this T-square. It is Mercury opposite Pluto. Everybody's squaring Chiron, making this an excellent one for a healing crisis. Yay. Yeah, and crises are ugly. They are messy. You do not feel safe in a healing crisis.

But I want to make this really simple. I want to make this really simple. The way to engage with this healing crisis is through your heart. Your heart. It's a Moon transit. It's an Eclipse. As I've said a million times over on my Patreon because we've been talking about the Eclipse a bunch, the time to do complex astrological investigation about past Eclipses and the themes and the da, da, da, da, da that have happened—that was in July. That was in June. That time will come again in September and October. It's not in August.

August is not the time for doing an intellectual investigation into the astrology of your emotions. Keep it simple. Be in the feelings. Stay with your emotions. Stop looking outside of your emotions for justification and defense and explanation. Intellectual self-awareness is so important.

And how many people do you know that have all the self-awareness in the world but don't pair that with emotional integration? And so they keep on making bad choices, even though they, quote unquote, "know better." So they keep on causing harm to themselves and others, even though they can talk for hours on end about the psychological roots and the patterns and all the things. How many of us are that people?

I don't say this to shame or make anyone feel bad. I say this because this is how humans work. Doing the psychological work, doing the analytic work, without doing the emotional integration means you don't get happier or healthier; you just feel more frustrated with your own progress and with life because you, quote unquote, "know better," but you haven't done the emotional integration so you can do better.

Eclipse Season is a fucking brilliant time to engage in that sticky emotional work that helps you get healthier emotionally, more evolved emotionally. And so that's what I want to invite you to do. And it's going to be ugly. It's going to be sticky because fucking Pluto, fucking Chiron. And that's to say nothing of the fact that Neptune and Venus are still opposite. They're not even two full degrees off of each other. They're still aspecting each other. They're opposite each other.

Things are confusing, and they're not clear. This is a hard time. But luckily, Mercury is also sextile to Uranus. So is Jupiter. They're both sextile to Uranus. And this is really supportive because it empowers you to change your mind, to come at things from a different angle, to expand your worldview or your approach to hold more space for more people being different than you or for you to become different than the people around you or the person you once were. Uranus supports growth and change. So we are happy to see Uranus doing some supportive things.

This is not the time for creating stability, security, certainty. It's not. It's the time for being in your feelings. And being in your feelings doesn't mean absconding with accountability. It doesn't. It doesn't mean falling apart, collapsing inside of yourself. It means being in your feelings, listening to them, staying present, showing up. You are the dot inside the fucking circle showing up, showing up for what you need emotionally.

The Moon really wants a few things. It wants nurturance. It wants empathy, wants care. It wants some security. And some people achieve security by having total freedom. Some people achieve security by things changing all the time. Some people achieve security in more conventional ways where they're like, "I have x and y and z, and we all sit in a circle in a room."

There's a lot of ways of being. But this is a time for evolving how you show up, the intention that you hold towards yourself and others, the emotions, the things you care about that you are willing to center and prioritize. This is the language of the Moon. This is what the Moon wants from you and from me, from us. This is the work of Eclipse Season.

So practice being present. If you do nothing else, practice being present and self-regulating emotionally in the present moment. And once we get through this Eclipse, it'll be about two weeks and then we'll have another Eclipse. And these things are not here to fuck you up or to harm you. They're here to help you emotionally grow into the best possible version of yourself, if you want to be. It can help you dig in your heels so that you don't grow. That's also one of your choices. There's a lot of choices we have.

Keep it simple. Stay with your heart. Be brave. Leo is a brave sign. Be brave enough to stay with the mess of your emotions instead of rushing to turn your emotions—the Moon—into thoughts and theories and ideas—Mercury. Stay with your emotions.

Okay. That's your Eclipse. Let's talk about Thursday, August 19th, when we have a Mercury sextile to Venus. It's a chill transit. Honestly, I think its effects are very mild. And it is when Mercury—your friendships—and Venus—your love relationships—kind of are in this little sweet spot. So it's like you get along easier. This is a time where your creativity, again, gets a little juj, a little je ne sais quoi. It's lovely. It's easy.

Again, not too much to say about this transit. It's a nice thing to see in the context of how many transits from Mercury and Venus we are having this week and how some of them are quite conflictual and challenging. This just kind of creates a little more ease, so if you need to say you're sorry, if you want to tell someone you love them or whatever else, this is a nice time to do it.

And this brings us to our last exact transit of this week, where Mercury is exactly conjoined to Jupiter. So we saw this in the Eclipse. Again, all the transits I'm talking about this week are Eclipse transits. One way or another, we will be feeling the impacts of how we show up and cope with whatever is active in our lives or in ourselves or in the world—we'll be feeling the effects of it over the course of the next six months. Consequences of how you handle this period will show up closer to six months from now than later this week, okay? That's Eclipse for you, my friend. That is Eclipses for you.

Okay. Saturday, we've got Mercury conjoined Jupiter. It's exact at 4:23 a.m. And Mercury is at 10 degrees of Leo and 9 minutes. Jupiter is at the same of Leo. So this transit is a mixed baggo. The reason why is because, on the one hand, when the planet of details and the planet of big-picture ideas and plans come together, wow, you can organize a big project. You can organize travel plans. You can do detailed studying on a big-picture concept.

Also, you may talk before you think. You may jump into the swimming pool before you check to see if there's any water inside of it. You may pop off. Mercury conjunction to Jupiter can make you too highly identified with your beliefs, such that you don't listen to other people. And when I say listen, I'm not just talking about the sense of hearing. I'm talking about all of the levels and layers upon which we receive data and information from other people. We listen.

This transit can lead to soapboxing. You may feel that it is your duty given to you from on high to tell people what they should think and what you believe. You may try to shove your ideas down their throats. You may find yourself just dragging every horse you meet to water to make it drink. That doesn't work. That's where the expression came from.

It is a valuable time for learning. It can be a really valuable time for speaking your peace, for advocating for your beliefs. But if you're not listening and all you're doing is soapboxing, we got a problem here. You may be in a really positive frame of mind under this transit, or whatever kind of themes have been acting out in your life or playing out in your life around your psychology just may be expanded; they might grow.

A lot of astrologers will look at a Mercury conjunction to Jupiter and just be like, "Good news. Optimism. Funds from afar." And that is certainly possible, but it's not the only possibility. We want to be mindful that Jupiter expands things, and Mercury is your friendships and it's your mind. So, if you're having conflicts with your friends—thanks, Mercury square Chiron and fucking Mercury opposite Pluto and Eclipse Season—if you're having conflicts with friends, if you're struggling with ideas or communication, Jupiter will expand that. So something to be mindful of.

The tempo and pace of things speeds up when Mercury and Jupiter meet, especially in vibrant Leo. And so things might be moving fast. And depending on where you're at, that might be really fun and exciting and a great distraction or a great improvement in your life, or it may be a fucking shit show.

When this transit occurs, I'm always suspicious of what happens in the news because there is more of a risk of news coming out too soon, things maybe not being fully vetted. Things might be a little more propagandized than they would otherwise be on a different date or under a different influence. So that's just things to pay attention to, okay? It's shit that can happen.

This is not a bad transit. This is not a good transit. It has really great potential where your mind can be open. Communication can be expansive. Connections can be fun and dynamic. And you can find yourself helping other people, other people helping you. There's a generosity of spirit that can be provoked from this transit. It's great for therapy. It's great for dear diary-ing—diary-ing? It's great for dear diary-ing. But there are some negative things to look out for and to pay attention to.

Now, that is our last exact transit. But I want to speak to something about the Eclipse that I haven't yet spoken to, which is what it means for world events. Eclipse Seasons always create emotional disruption. And because governments and the people who uphold social systems all are run by humans with Moons, a.k.a. hearts, this means that things get activated and disrupted.

But because it's the Moon—it's not Mercury. It's not Saturn. It's the Moon. It's really about emotions and reactivity. And on a mundane astrology level, the Moon is related not to just feelings; it's related to boundaries and nationalism. And because of that, we may see major developments within nation borders and nationalism in general.

Because we are living through the rise of white Christian nationalism, because we are living through a climate catastrophe that makes many people in many places in the world incredibly vulnerable, the issue of borders—like domestic borders, national, international borders, whatever the fuck—borders becomes a bigger deal. That will be one of the consequences of the climate crisis, and it already is, right? We have seen, the last couple of weeks, just devastating things in the environment.

Because it's Eclipse Season—and in particular, I'm speaking right now to this Eclipse—we may see radical, swift changes that reflect some of the worst parts of humanity. We may. We may not. We may not. But we may. We want to recognize that things are moving quickly and not always in the right direction at this time, and that it can be overwhelming. And it can make you emotionally shut down, overwhelmed, frightened. And that's human, right? That's human.

But this is your time to show up. So that could mean a lot of different things. Find the thing that it means for you. Find the small way that you can show up today, and that small way may just be stay educated and informed. We may see world leaders act in emotionally reactive, defensive ways, not for the fucking first time, but we may see that this week, and in particular in the name of nationalism.

Stay involved. Stay informed. Understand that what you love, what you care about, is really important. And it's also really private unless you act in ways that reflect that care and love. Make sure what you do is a reflection of what's in your heart instead of of your biggest fears, because what you do is what builds your life. It builds your personality. And it builds worlds.

Now, that was a very long forecast. And I know you want a TL;DR, so here she blows, okay? Start off the week with challenging yourself to do meaningful psychological work and to deeply connect with your values. This is a time for practicing heaving healthy boundaries this week. Strive to meaningfully heal instead of engaging in power struggles by being adaptable and centering empathy. This Eclipse is an important time for practicing being present, to stay connected to your body as a source of healing, and avoid the temptation to shove your ideas and beliefs down other people's throats.

And that's your forecast. Listen. If you get value from this podcast, from my work, please make sure you hit that Follow or Subscribe button wherever you're listening to podcasts. And if you've gotten value from it, please do write an affirming review. It does help a little astrology podcast like this one.

And if you're like, "Wait. The Moon? Who's the Moon? I don't know the Moon," I do have a class on my website, on the shop page of my website, available that you can get that is all about the Moon and you.

And listen. I hope you're taking really good care of yourself and others, and I will talk to you in only a couple of days. Bye.