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, the astrology and advice show where I unpack your horoscope and also answer listener questions. And a quick reminder to you all, I love hearing your questions. Send me whatever questions you’ve got at ghostofapodcast.com, and I can read your chart, theoretically, potentially. The only thing is I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately where people are forgetting to include their state or province of birth, and astrology requires it. So remember when you fill out that little intake form on my website to fill out all the damn pieces. Fill them all out, okay? Because you know I want to hear from you. So ghostofapodcast.com.

This week's question is all about sex. So listener beware: we are talking about fornication today. Okay. Cool. Let's go.

So this week’s question comes from Oh No Libido, and it goes like this. “As I settle into my late 30s and look back, there’s been a huge change in both my sex drive and my relationship to sex. In my late teens and through my 20s, I loved sex and had little shame around it, even if others tried to shame me for it. I both enjoyed sex and having new partners, and it was a big part of my life and the relationships I was in. Now, I’m married to a person I deeply love, and we have two young children together. These past several years, my sex drive has almost disappeared entirely. I’m satisfied in my relationship and still very much attracted to my partner. I long for physical connection, but the idea of sex just doesn’t appeal to me. I know having small children and being an adult in general can take a toll on the sex drive, but I’m also wondering if it has something to do with my age or even placements or transits in my chart. Thank you for any advice you can give me. I really don't want to feel this way forever.” And Oh No was born on September 9th, 1984, at 5:32 p.m. in Riverhead, New York, and uses she/her pronouns.

Okay. So here we go. Before we get into your chart, Oh No, I want to say a couple of things. The first is it is healthy and normal to, over the course of one’s life, have ebbs and flows with your sex drive and with what turns you on and what you want and how frequently you want it and if you want it at all. For a lot of people, sex is not linear; it’s cyclical over the course of life, even through the course of a relationship. So I just want to hold space for, yes, it can be related to age. And many people, as we age, we experience fluctuations in our sex drive and what works for us in bed. But it’s not a bad thing. It would be a total bummer if you were the exact same in your 40s as you were in your teens. We want to be able to evolve. So, for whatever it’s worth, there’s that.

Now another thing, very broadly speaking. You didn’t say anything about the quality of sex you have with your partner. I’m assuming it is good when you’re doing it; otherwise, you would have complained about that. You also didn’t say how old your kids were and whether or not this change coincided with getting pregnant if you did get pregnant to have kids or ever since the kids arrived. Right? But I think, since the history of time, having kids has not been like a great boon for most people's sex lives, not just because you got people in the house, you don't have privacy, you’re not sleeping, but also just because your priorities change. Your energy changes. What you’re focused on changes. Your body changes.

Whether you procreate or not, your body changes because your life changes. What you do changes. Whether that’s good or bad is super irrelevant from my perspective. It’s just an inevitability. It’s part of life. To assume that you would have the same level of energy for sex and play in general when you have small children as you did when you were unfettered by responsibility—it’s not super realistic, right? And some people can pull that off. I don't think most people do, honestly.

And finally, before I kind of get into the details of your question, I want to say I am so happy for you that you’re happy in your relationship and you’re still attracted to your partner. That is really wonderful. Now, you didn’t mention whether or not your lack of sex drive is in any way bumming your partner out or is a relationship dynamic. I’m going to assume it isn’t because you didn’t mention it, okay? These are a lot of assumptions, but this is what’s happening based on your question. Okay. Let’s get into it.

So you’re a Virgo. Everybody knows that, right? You were born September 9th. You’re a Virgo. And what’s also true is, in your birth chart, you've got Sun in the seventh house, and it’s intercept the seventh house, and it’s opposite the Moon. You were born on a Full Moon. The moon is in Pisces intercept your first house. And so, for you, when you get into intimate relationships like serious partnerships or bestie relationships, it accesses a part of you that’s really private. And it is not the same part of you that is particularly randy. This is a part of you that’s more contemplative, a little bit more self-protective, a lot more romantic.

This particular placement inclines you being a bit hot and cold in intimate partnerships. So I don't know if this is your first major long-term relationship, but my guess is that when you get into long-term committed relationships, especially if they are monogamous, that sex is likely to ebb and flow for you. That Pisces Moon is not inherently randy at all. It’s not inherently driven by sex for sex’s sake. It’s more driven towards intimacy and closeness, so snuggling, dancing, spooning, that kind of shit. That’s what the Pisces Moon wants.

Now, luckily, when we’re looking for sex and sex drive and what’s pleasurable in the boudoir, we are not looking to the Moon. However, the Moon in astrology governs your feelings. It’s your heart. And so it’s really important to take a pause and take stock of what does your heart want? And it sounds like you've got this healthy, happy family life right now, and your heart is saying, “I want to focus on this.” And I think that’s really a beautiful thing. But because your Moon is intercepted in the first house, it would inevitably be uncomfortable for your identity.

You've got this great Aquarius Rising. Your identity is not super sensitive and emo, but you are sensitive and emo. You have a devotional way of loving when you actually let someone in enough to love them. And it sounds like you've done that with your partner and also probably with your kids. And that’s just going to change you, and that change is likely to be pretty holistic. But let’s talk about Mars because Mars describes fornication in the birth chart. It’s what drives you, right? It’s passion and ambition and athleticism. It’s how we bone, how we like to bone, frequency with which we like to bone. It’s all kinds of—it’s sex. Okay. It’s sex. Okay.

So, in your birth chart, you've got Mars in Sagittarius, and it’s conjunct to Uranus and, coincidentally, the focal planets of a T-square from your Full Moon aspect, from your Sun/Moon opposition. So Mars in Sagittarius, that’s a little huntress, a little hunter position, if you will. This placement of Mars in Sag, especially conjunct to Uranus, it inclines you to like to make things happen, to be really turned on by the process of meeting people, flirting with people, and making a thing go down. Having new partners or multiple partners is a big thumbs-up for this placement. This placement is very sex-positive and able to love them and leave them, if you know what I mean.

This is not inherently a monogamous placement. Now, just because we have certain things in our charts that are super poly-inclined or monogamously inclined doesn’t mean that we as a person make those choices in our individual relationships, right? But that part of you that existed in your teens and your 20s that you referred to where you loved having new partners, whether or not you did that from within a relationship or you did that from a single place—you really just are well suited to getting in there and spreading around the love. And that is a wonderful thing.

The Mars/Uranus conjunction and Sagittarius in your birth chart really enjoys unfettered sex, and so sex that is athletic, that is an experience, as opposed to super emo and intimate, which is much to the chagrin of your Sun in Virgo/Moon in Pisces. So I’m not surprised that you are identified with the Mars/Uranus because it can feel more powerful. Again, it’s a bit of a hunter’s position, so it can feel powerful—it’s exciting, and it’s also not intercept. It’s right at the top of your chart in your tenth house, and it’s bright and shiny. It’s some bright and shiny shit.

So okay. So you've told me that your sex drive is kind of gone and that you want it back. This is what I can tell you. Step one, do you want it back now, or do you just want to make sure you'll get it back sooner or later? Because there is no shame, there’s no harm being in a phase of your life where sex is not the most important thing and you’re not super in contact with your sexuality. Unless it’s causing some sort of harm to your or your partnership, I just want to hold space for you don't have to be sexual all the time, even if you were sexual all the time for 15 years, right? It’s okay. So I want to start with that.

And then I want to say this. You like a little variety. If your life is very safe and your relationship is very safe and it’s quite predictable because it’s been going on for some time and you really know your partner and you know their moves, yeah, that’s not the thing that’s going to get that engine going for you. So I’m going to give you a couple pieces of advice based on your birth chart for how to access and stimulate your sexual drive from within a monogamous, safe, and loving relationship.

The first piece of advice I want to give you is, honestly, take sex off the table. Take sex off the damn table. Stop pressuring yourself to be more sexual. That’s the first thing. Just stop with the pressure because I don't know if you've noticed, but pressure is the opposite of hot. It is not hot at all. So first step is giving yourself permission to be where you are.

The second thing I want to point out is when you were in your super sexual phase of life and you were getting out there and you were getting yours, that’s what you were doing, right? You were going out and you were pursuing sexual experiences that you enjoyed. Being in a committed relationship, sex is not just about you anymore. It’s about the relationship itself. It's about both parties, right? And that is not good or bad. It is what it is. I mean, I think it’s great, and it also can be difficult at times.

But for you, in this situation, what I would say is it is probably a boner killer to lose track of your own sex drive for you. And so I recommend that you get into porn or erotica or spend some time with ye olde imagination. In other words, prioritize creating some space and time in your life to be alone with sexual thoughts and sexual fantasies that are not about your partner, that are not about your relationship, that are not about obligation, that are simply about expanding the fantasy landscape that exists inside of you so that you can connect with or reconnect with what is hot to you, what sounds fun to you, what is exciting to you, because you’re different. If you've had kids, you’re different. If you’re partnered and happy and in your late 30s, then you’re different than you were in your 20s and teens, hopefully. Right? You’re different.

So explore your fantasy landscape. Really get in there and become friends with it, and not for your relationship and not with the goal of jump-starting your sex drive, but because it’s fun, because it’s interesting, because you want to. And if you try to do this and you’re like, “Yeah, this isn’t fun and I don't want to,” then stop. But to prioritize your sexuality in a new way will require you to get to know yourself and to prioritize yourself. Remember Mars is not just a planet of fornicating. It’s also the planet of selfishness, the self being at the center, right? The planet that governs what works for you and what you want to do. So prioritize it in a healthy way.

Now, another thing that you can try, if you and your partner are talking about the lack of sex in your relationship and wanting to change it, if you both have that goal, something that I often recommend to couples is to take intercourse off the table. Take fucking off the table, and instead agree that for a period of time you’re going to make an effort to be more sexual. You’re not going to let it get past a certain point. What this does is it changes what you might do. It takes away the pressure from having to have certain kinds of sex, which take more energy emotionally speaking and sometimes take a lot more desire. It’s really about exploring and playing with getting to know each other’s bodies again and just being sexual. If you start to do that and you’re like, “Eh, it’s not working for me,” then stop.

There’s nothing worse for sexual drive than pressure for most everyone, but seriously especially for you. You need to come to it in your own way and to give yourself the freedom to come to it in your own way. I love to hear that you didn’t let anyone shame you for being a highly sexual person and sexually active when you were younger, so don’t shame yourself for being less sexual now. This isn’t forever. Your sex drive isn’t gone away. But it is for now, and within it is a hidden opportunity to get to know yourself in a new way. And, honestly, you might go through phases like this cyclically in life. For you, that cycle might be once every 15 years or 20 years, and it might be more frequently or less frequently. What’s important is to not place a value judgment on it and to get interested in it, to get playful with it, and a little bit innovative. You know what I mean?

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You know, as a medium, not as an astrologer—although kind of also as an astrologer, but certainly as a medium—I’m pretty consumed by the impact that COVID is having on humans and people, also as a fucking person, like I say, empathetic person and also person who doesn’t want to get sick or make other people sick. Yeah. I’m real fucking concerned about COVID and about the toll that it’s taking on human life and quality of life. We’re more than a year and a half into this mess, and it doesn’t look great for the rest of the year at the very damn least. It doesn’t look great.

I just think it’s really important—I know I probably say this every fucking week. I think it’s really important for me to reiterate that in order to be spiritually well, to be spiritually in integrity, it is essential that we do not only consider our own individual wellness and needs but also the wellness and needs of those around us. Because this is a pandemic, not an epidemic, and also not just something that’s happening to people you don't like or people across the street—it’s like a fucking global event—we have a really big responsibility, right? We have a responsibility. And I’ve noticed this incredible burnout from a lot of people, a lot of doubling down from a lot of people. And I get that, and it is perfectly human and normal, and that’s—it is what it is.

But I want to encourage you to consider how you’re coping with the spiritual, psychological, emotional, and maybe even physical impact of COVID on your life, to really think about it, to be honest with yourself about it, because pretending that it’s not happening is not coping. It is happening. We’re still very much in a pandemic, and it’s really dangerous. This is a very dangerous time for the pandemic. That’s for everyone, certainly for unvaccinated people but also for vaccinated people. We all have a responsibility to ourselves and to others to care. And we all have a responsibility to the best of our ability to not add to the problem—to not add to our own problems, to not add to the problems of the world. So mask up, my loves. Mask the fuck up. Double mask. Make sure that mask is tight. Make sure it really hugs your sweet little moneymaker, and wash your paws like it’s your damn job.

This is a time to be really considerate and concerned. And if you find that you’re having burnout, that’s okay. That’s human, and you’re in good company with millions of people. Everybody’s fucking burnt out. And it is reasonable to point fingers, and it is wise to research where things are going wrong and to understand them and all that kind of good stuff. Also, it can be a deflection from dealing with the very real trauma that we’re all going through with this fucking panorama. Right?

I know I talk about it a lot. I tried to pause on talking about it too much for a minute there, but I didn’t pause on thinking about it or caring about it. And it’s really just too important to not talk about. So I did it. Blah, blah, blah. There I go again. Care. And if you’re finding that you’re totally burnt out from caring, that is a symptom of a much deeper problem that’s your problem, and it’s one worth prioritizing, tending to, to the best of your ability. Just do what you can. That’s all you can do.

So, that said, that light little beginning done, let’s get astrological, as we are wont to do. We’re looking at the week of August 15th through the 21st of 2021, and your horoscope starts off with a Mercury conjunction to Mars. This transit is exact on the 18th at 8:28 p.m. if you’re counting, which of course I am, and it’s in the sign of Virgo. So this transit is irritating. Mercury is your mind. It’s what you say. It’s what you think. It’s your friends. It’s how you listen. It’s moving through your neighborhood kind of shit. And Mars is impatient and urgent and passionate. It’s me first. It’s my way. And Virgo, well, that’s pretty concerned with details, isn’t it?

And so you may find that you are in a position where you are really fucking irritated, you see. You may be feeling irritated, which may make you be a shitty listener, or it may make you say things wrong, read things wrong. Impatience plus urgency tends to equal accidents, mistakes, and words uttered that should never have crossed the lips or the fingers or the whatever. So here’s what you do with this. Know that on and around this date, you will be annoying, and also, other people will be annoying. That’s because the energy is just frenetic and turned up. And, as you know from every Mercury Retrograde, which—don’t worry; this is not a Mercury Retrograde moment. But when Mercury goes Retrograde, you can totally notice it. Whenever we have Mercury transits, you can notice it because it’s such a huge part of the human way. It’s all about communication.

This transit may find you having to argue with someone or stand up for something that you believe or a way that a thing should be done. It may find you having ego battles based on kind of identity arguments that may or may not be really valid. The best way to check in with this transit and to make it work for you is by checking in with your motives. If you’re fighting with somebody, if you’re irritated by somebody, is it a displacement? Do you really need to be talking to your dad, but instead you’re talking to your friend? Really be honest with yourself about where things are coming from for you so that you don't start shit you don't want to deal with. If you find that you’re just too irritable to deal with things, work with that. You can work with that because you know the transit’s coming, and you’re basically several steps ahead of the game because you know it’s coming. So that’s cool.

Mercury conjunction to Mars is a great transit if you need to be brave or courageous. So, if you want to start saying something to someone, if you want to start something new, if you have a project that takes some measure of concentration or, again, courage and energy to get engaged in, this is a great transit for those things. You just want to double-check your work. Again, nothing like Mercury Retrograde, but the impatience and the busyness of this transit can incline us to make mistakes or have misunderstandings. If you’re a skimmer—you get an email and you just skim it—yeah, you want to double-check. Double-check this week, okay? So it’s exact on the 18th, but we’re going to be feeling it throughout the week.

Now, if you’re in the market for giddying up, I’ve got something for you. On the 19th, we have an opposition between the Sun and Jupiter. So the Sun is in Leo, and Jupiter is in Aquarius. This transit will overlap with the Mercury/Mars conjunction, so it’s just, again, a pretty giddy-up moment because the Sun opposition to Jupiter can really stimulate a lot of opinions, you see? Like a lot of opinions. This transit is one where, if you are inclined to soapbox, basically tell people what they’re supposed to think and feel and how they’re supposed to perceive the world, yeah, you’re probably going to be very busy. You’re going to have a lot to do this day, and you might have to deal with somebody else who’s doing that towards you or around you, and it’s intense. It’s a lot.

The combination of these two transits can lead to really intense entitlement. When we think about individuality, which—me personally and those of us at Ghost of a Podcast Industries are huge fans of individuality and really, truly being yourself and being true to yourself. But toxic individuality is certainly not on brand here, right? So this is a time where we may see—depending on what you’re dealing with, whether it’s in your personal life or in the world at-large, we may see movement in a direction that is what we need, but it took that extra push. Or we may see some real toxic individualism, some real shit that is like, “I shouldn’t have to compromise myself for you or for them.”

And, again, we’re all in this together. We’re not all in the same position of this, but we’re all in this together. And on a spiritual level, our wellness is intertwined irrevocably. If you have been feeling entitled, if you've been feeling really judgy, if you've been feeling this really strong passion to just blame and point fingers, these two transits are for you. These transits will kick that shit up. If you want to make the most of the Sun opposition to Jupiter, make sure to consider the need for self-control or intention. Be really intentional about what motivates you. Be intentional about how you approach what you do.

Now, the good news of this transit is really lovely because the Sun opposition to Jupiter can really bring about positivity, expansion, good fortune—can even be windfalls. When it comes to Sun opposite Jupiter, could be a little easy come, easy go. So read the fine print if you know what I mean. But this transit can stimulate something really wonderful happening, something really wonderful shifting. So, if you've been working on healing something in your body, in your psyche, in the world, there can be some sort of gains or movement if this transit is hitting your chart or, if we’re talking about something in the world, the event chart of that thing.

Sun opposite Jupiter is really great for reminding us that life is meant to be lived, that whether your greatest growth comes from taking more time to relax and tend to yourself or going out and doing shit, wherever you’re at, whoever you are, growing and evolving is life-affirming. And life is this limited-time offer. Transits like the Sun opposition to Jupiter can really remind us about being alive. They can just spark little moments of joy or big moments of joy, and who couldn’t use a little bit of that, I ask you? I know I sure could.

That brings us to the next couple of transits and the last couple of transits for this week. On the 20th, Mercury forms an exact trine to Uranus, and on the 21st, Mars forms an exact trine to Uranus. Students of astrology will note that it makes sense that Mercury and Mars both trine Uranus only a day apart because they were conjunct, but only a couple days before, right? So it makes sense that they’re right around the same degree.

So this is actually really lovely. Also, let me give you some caveats, okay? Mercury and Mars both trining Uranus suggests that there will be an ease and flow of energy, aka a trine, that is innovative, that again is life-affirming. Jupiter and Uranus, they both can be very life-affirming planets. They’re both very concerned with freedom and liberty and expansion in different ways. And so, when we look at Mercury and Mars forming a trine to this planet, what we can expect is that there will be energy for seeing things from a new perspective, approaching things from a new perspective, trying new shit.

This may lead to you being able to do something that you wouldn’t have thought possible or just hadn’t occurred to you. It may inspire you to just talk to someone or ask someone a question, and that might open not just a door—a series of doors. These transits are lovely transits, and they can help facilitate things that are really just wonderful. They’re really positive and help things move forward.

So I mentioned a caveat, and here it is. The caveat is, given that it crosses over with the Sun opposition to Jupiter, and Mercury and Mars are really close in degree—and, also, did I mention it’s fucking Leo season? Right? So extra, extra, read all about it. Because of all of these things, it can empower and embolden arrogant thinking. If you don't have access to empathy and care, if you are not able to be nurturing and present, these transits can actually make it a little worse because they can promote, especially in the context of the other transits, egoism, self-centeredness.

On the one hand, self-centered on its own—I love it. Yes, be centered in yourself. That is healthy and wise. But when you lose track of perspective and when your motives become exclusive to your own welfare or abundance, that’s when we have a fucking problem. Right? And so this is a really important week, just overall, to, again, check your motives. Be honest with yourself. You don't have to tell everybody your motives. Be honest with yourself about what is motivating you. What is happening for you?

In doing so, you can achieve some measure of healing, and it might be too subtle for you to even notice, but trust me. This is worth it because the energy that is at play this week will absolutely support us or support you in making some headway if you try. But headway, growth, expansion, they sound like great words, but they’re not necessarily. You can make a lot of headway, you can expand, in the wrong direction. So check in with your motives because it’s not just about what you have, what you achieve, or what it looks like. It’s about what it actually fucking is—right?—how it feels from the inside, how it serves you, because this, my loves, is your life. For better or worse, this shit is your life. Make sure that it’s a life you want to live.

And just as a quick reminder for all my fire sign friends and my impatient friends, that doesn’t mean it all has to happen today. It doesn’t. It doesn’t, and it’s unlikely to for most of us most of the time, right? We want to be pointed in the right direction. We want to be living a life that is at least authentic, that you can have a sense of alignment with, right? And I want to be clear you cannot control your circumstances all the time or most of the time, but you can control how you position yourself in response. So this is a great week to try to do just that or to garner greater understanding about what’s motivating you, what has been motivating you, and whether or not it’s authentic, whether or not it’s right, because life is—it’s a funny thing. It’s like you grow and you do all this fucking work, and then you get there and you figure something out. You've got some sense of self. You've got some sense of stability, and then what happens? The universe is like, “That’s great. You’re ready for the next step.” And then, yeah, there’s another step. There’s another step. Some of us may think that’s terrible. Some of us might think that’s glorious. It’s kind of both.

Okay. So quick recap. On the 18th, Mercury and Mars meet in Virgo. On the 19th, the Sun sits opposite from Jupiter. On the 20th, Mercury forms a trine to Uranus, and on the 21st, Mars forms a trine to Uranus. And I will just give you a quick little spoiler. Little spoiler alert. On August 22nd, 5:02 a.m., we’ve got a Full Moon, the second Full Moon in Aquarius this summer. That’s a lot. It’s a lot of Full Moons in Aquarius. It’s as many as we ever get. So I will drop an episode about that, of course, asaply [sp], but it’s coming.

So, if you thought, “Oh, wow, this horoscope sounds kind of intense. Maybe there will be a lot of intense energy,” why don’t you also add to that the Full Moon vibes? You can expect on the 21st, if you are somebody who’s really sensitive to Full Moons, as many of us are—you may expect that you sleep poorly. There’s a lot of energy going on. If so, you want to work with it. Try not to schedule anything for too early on the 22nd if you can avoid it.

That’s your horoscope, you see. That’s your horoscope. It was crafted with love. And hey, listen. I want to remind you I have a book. It’s a book. It’s so cute and also very good. It’s called Astrology For Real Relationships. It is queer-inclusive. It’s not just about love and dating, although it is for sure about that. It’s also about friendship, and I fucking love the astrology of friendship.

Also, if you haven’t already subscribed to Astrology for Days, my pro tool for astrology students and professionals, I’m very excited for you. Another very cute, high-quality self-learning tool. Get into it.

Okay. I’ll talk to you next week. Buh-bye.