Aquarius Insights
January 19
Before the Sun enters Aquarius:
Sun sextile Neptune
Mercury trine Uranus
As Mercury and the Sun prepare to leave their respective astrological signs they encounter Neptune and Uranus. Big energies reinforcing the feeling that we aren’t ‘there’ yet. These reinforcements come as support: what kinds of opportunities come with having had the experiences of the last while? How can we think outside the box of so much change? The challenge is and always has been, to navigate change with equanimity.
Sun enters Aquarius: 08:44 PM EST
Venus conjunct Pluto
Consider ‘The Age of Aquarius’. What you want it to be, as well as what you fear it might be. Aquarius has two sides that don’t easily meet. One is innovative, humanitarian and knowledgeable. The other is structured, controlling and rules-obsessed. You could say that one colors where it wants and the other only colors inside the lines. To actually make it to the next Age/Stage of human development we have to include or at least acknowledge both aspects of Aquarius. We have to understand that there are blueprints and they are useful. We have to also be willing to use what we have at hand even as we expand our notion of humanity to include all that lives upon this earth (at least).
Pluto is an agent of destruction in aid of the inevitable creation that follows. It will spend years in Aquarius as it aims at the monoliths of power and the rigidity and attachment we have to our perceived understandings of reality. ‘Good’ you say. Certainly it’s time for such a reckoning. All we can do, most of the time, is be aware of our own monoliths and perceived understandings. We can’t just throw them out like babies in bathwaters. What seems to be clear at this moment is that the best way to grapple with these things is to talk to each other. Group mind calls to us from the future. How we build it is the challenge.
As the Sun travels through Aquarius it will conjunct Pluto and Mercury, and square Uranus. Not so busy you might think but these are powerful aspects offering many significant considerations to humans of all sorts.
January 20
Saturn sextile Uranus
Mars trine Uranus
Mars sextile Saturn
Mercury sextile Neptune
Mercury enters Aquarius
The need to learn from our mistakes, to look back at what might have been different, to understand our choice points always shows up as we encounter the next one. We might also reflect on what we did right. What unfolded the way we wanted or even better than we imagined? When you look back, how much do you think you made these good and bad choices on your own? How much depended upon circumstance over which you had no control? Included in this notion of circumstance is the conditioning, your own as well as other’s, all that brought you to that point and this one. All points are connected like angels on the head of a pin. Life experience is always a combination of conscious will and unconscious conditions and conditioning. Here we are. Here it is. What are your choice points telling you? And how do our particular choices ripple out into the world around us?
January 21
Mercury conjunct the Sun
Mercury is not retrograde but it is cazimi, just as Venus and Mars were earlier this month. We pay less attention to this conjunction when Mercury isn’t retrograde. Possibly it is even more mysterious at these times, given that we are less attuned to it. In the heart of the Sun our thoughts are purified, so the symbolism suggests. We could say that it’s an opportunity to wash them in the fire of the beating heart of love itself (the Sun). What happens at this time is that Mercury appears to shift from rising ahead of the Sun (in the morning) to setting after the Sun (in the evening). As Mercury shifts from morning to evening star astrologers imagine a shift from intellectual thinking to a more poetic and playful kind. We are invited to think in less linear and more cyclical ways. Time to use our imagination, to consult our inner wise fool and allow for a ‘both/and’ perspective rather than the ‘either/or’ variety. Once Mercury goes retrograde at the end of February it will shift from evening to morning star once again. And on and on it goes.
January 22
Mercury conjunct Pluto
It’s an oxymoron: The aspiration of Aquarius pulled to the depths by Pluto’s mandate to transform via the power death. Mercury is fascinated even if humanity’s ultimate potential for extinction comes to mind. Extinction isn’t the only possibility. Might we consider the transformation of humanity as we enter a New Age? Time to consider deep science, alchemy and the opposite of transcendence. Could be immanence, might be surrender. Our thoughts and imagination takes us where the rest of us cannot dream of going – yet.
January 23
Mars enters Aquarius
To the depths of our understanding and the paradox of high-minded Aquarius we add impulsive, aggressive Mars: god of war and action; headed for a conjunction with Pluto in a few days. We are not meant to shy away from our fear of endings. We might be well advised to tackle the overly opti-mystic notions that confuse will with power. Perhaps it is better to find wealth in that we give away than to perpetuate the delusion that we can force the Universe to bless us by controlling our thoughts as if reality is some kind of vending machine.
January 26
NEPTUNE ENTERS ARIES!
Here is a transit we have been waiting for. In this sign Neptune promises a real mess of identities, a collective soup, rich with ingredients. One step further on the journey of our collective urge to get on with change. For those who see change as reestablishing the good ole days it will soon be clear that there is no there, there. To affirm hierarchies is to sign our death warrant. Aries is combative, war is riveting. We definitely have a fight on our hands. We are fighting for or against diversity and yet we cannot make it into an either/or battle. We are immersed in a collective struggle to resist seeing the world as good guys and bad ones, dark skin and light, us and them. Neptune loves paradox and ambiguity. It leans into the full catastrophe, the Great Big Sea. Aries inclines to singularity, like the game we played as children: King of the Mountain. Neptune promises to wash away the One Powerful Person and embrace the essence of individuation: to honor and include all identities. I doubt it will be easy and it is already quite messy, but it is our mission, should we accept it.
January 27
Mars conjunct Pluto
Mars, like Pluto, ends things to make room for something new. Mars is associated with the head (think: headstrong) as well as the sword (off with their head!). The spiritual warrior understands the head to be our ego identification. Cutting it off allows a greater life to be lived. In Aquarius this so-called head is the way we imagine that we have the answers, that we know it all. Science as God! But not science. Ruthless destruction of knowledge leads to throwing babies out with bathwater. Aquarius asks us, demands of us, that we do the research. We must consider what we know as well as what needs to be learned. We find wisdom in the ashes that remain after fear of the unknown burns to its end. In those ashes is the wisdom of inviting and including all living things, all ways of seeing, rather than only those that support the status quo. I rant on.
January 29
Mercury conjunct Venus
You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within.
There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting.
Hadewijch II
February 1
Full Moon: 13* Leo: 05:09 PM EST
There is a future and it holds great promise. A lot depends on who we associate with as we head in that direction. People united is indeed a powerful notion. Look around and notice who your people are. If the conversation doesn’t interest you, if their values and aspirations are not ones you share and respect then what kind of world arises from that?
February 2
Mercury sextile Chiron
Apply your greatest understanding and wisdom to the experience of the moment. That is all we ever get to do. Applied Wisdom 101 is the course. We are perennial freshmen. Beginner’s mind allows for the greatest learning.
February 3
Uranus stationery direct
As 2026 reveals itself to us we are aware of the chaos that has befallen the world. Economies, trade between people, climate disruption, humanitarian horrors perpetuated by world leaders seems to be in free fall. Time will come when we will apply our clever human ingenuity more fully, more willingly but here and now we have something to finish. Revelation is unfolding if we can stand to keep our eyes open and see what we have wrought.
February 6
Venus sextile Chiron
It is my nature that makes me love you often,
For I am love itself.
It is my longing that makes me love you intensely,
For I yearn to be loved from the heart.
It is my eternity that makes me love you long,
For I have no end.
Mechthild of Magdeburg
February 5
Mercury square Uranus
When thoughts get scrambled we can acknowledge it or we can pretend it’s not happening. Acknowledging when we don’t know or understand allows us to learn something new, possibly to shift perspective. Faking it has the opposite result and tends to make things worse.
February 6
Mercury enters Pisces
Pisces is water. Water remembers, ruminates on the past, dreams and mostly feels. Mercury, the mind planet, tries to understand, to express these mysteries. We are dreamers, dreaming the future through the fog of past and present. To be continued…
Mercury will be retrograde in Pisces and so it will spend longer than usual in this manner. (Mercury will be in Pisces until April 14th.)
February 8
Venus square Uranus
It dazzles our understanding of human nature to witness the perpetuation of greed and self-interest when it is so clear that we feel best and good things happen when we consider the welfare of others. There is no way to make a dollar out of 99 cents. We will not solve this puzzle today. It’s enough to consider whether you think you are an original sinner or an original blessing.
February 10
Venus enters Pisces
Longing is one of life’s greatest mysteries. It can take us into addiction, and an endless craving for dopamine: a mean taskmaster. Down another road it’s quite different. Longing can be the foundation of profound spirituality, when we understand that all craving is for the divine, the sacred, the eternal, unknowable, infinite emptiness out of which arises everything.
Perception of beauty allows us to hold longing without succumbing to addiction. Turn toward it, see and sense it in all things. Venus in Pisces understands how longing and beauty take us to the divine. Do not confuse beauty with glamour.
February 11
Mercury enters the shadow of the coming retrograde period
Sun sextile Chiron
Mercury in shadow (until February 26th when it actually appears retrograde for a few weeks) is the ‘set up’ for issues that might appear during the actual retrograde period. It’s a bit like seeing something from the side rather than head on. Subtle.
As we step into this shadow it serves us to seek the wise ones. Consult with your astrologer or the I Ching? Perhaps a tarot card reading is in order or just a good book. Who are your wisdom teachers?
February 13
SATURN ENTERS ARIES
This is one of the tectonic shifts of 2026, inviting us deeper into the New Year and humanity’s next chapter. Saturn joins Neptune in Aries with no intention to revisit Pisces for another 26 years or so. The time for reflection is passing. Aries is about action, Saturn defines things. Aries can be a war sign and Saturn is all about defining what kinds of wars we are fighting. Aries is more than war. It is also about individuality and assertiveness. Aries reminds us of the importance of saying NO in aid of defending that which we value and say YES to. There is a world of difference between assertiveness and aggression. Saturn will be in Aries until the spring of 2028.
February 14
Valentine’s Day
There are no exact astrological aspects today. If there is anything which astrology offers to this day it is simply the veneration of friendship as a very high and necessary quality of true love. We are more than half way through winter. Spring is quickening beneath our feet. We aspire to love each other as well as all living things. And so, what is love? Possibly it lies scattered like sand or dust motes – everywhere, in everything.
February 16
Sun square Uranus
Mercury trine Jupiter
A good-news, bad-news kind of day. We are frustrated by the mess that has been made of our world (perhaps collectively, perhaps up close and personally) and yet there is also a bright sided way of seeing things. Hope may be the ‘thing with feathers’ but todays bird is a water bird, more like a giant manta ray, rising up from the depths. A felt sense of a possible future, known with the certainty that only feelings can have, something to be trusted.
By jon hanson from london, UK - Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
February 17
New Moon: 28* Aquarius: 07:01 AM EST
Someone took a wrecking ball to our Utopian dreams. Don’t be afraid to create new ones. Make an intention toward the ideal that calls you onward, from the future you want. All futures proceed from the present.
These are my words. I like to think of them as ‘astropoetica’. I hope they give you something to consider. I love that word because ‘con’ means ‘with’ and ‘sider’ means ‘star’. If you are a student of astrology I encourage you to make your own astropoetica out of the planetary offerings. It seems that when we talk to the cosmos, it responds. (BTW: Disaster is the opposite of consider. Dis=against and aster=star…)