As a horoscope writer, I look forward to months that have one big, clear astrological theme in them, one dramatic take-away for us all to chew on throughout the month. Months that are astrologically quiet can be harder to write about. I sometimes wish I could pull a substitute teacher move and say, hey, no class today, we’re just going to watch a movie and then go home. And then there are months like this one, where there is so much happening that it’s more like a substitute teacher has walked into a classroom already in chaos: someone’s crying the corner, people are throwing books out the window, everyone is running with scissors, and ten kids at once are trying to get the teacher’s attention.
So let’s dive into this abundant chaos, shall we? Maybe if we can all settle down we’ll still get to watch a movie.
To begin, this month brings not one but two sign changes for slow moving planets. Saturn will move into Pisces on the 7th and Pluto will move into Aquarius on the 23rd. Each of these on its own could be a headline for the whole year, but we get them both this year and both in the same month. If the stars respected my job they would have spaced this out better. But here we are.
Saturn changes signs every two and a half years, and as it moves through the signs it highlights what we as a collective need to get serious about: where we need to focus, put in the work, problem-solve challenges, and show up for the hard things. For the past five years Saturn has been in first Capricorn and then Aquarius — both signs where Saturn is strong, and that whole journey has been focused on how we move from the past (Capricorn) to the future (Aquarius) as a culture that’s in the death grip of capitalism and facing climate change. These have been fraught, divisive, and fairly heavy years. Trump took office at the beginning of them, and here we are in our current political mess at the end of them. Saturn is always about reality testing and structure — it’s like the engineer of the zodiac, wanting to make sure the bridges we build are stable and strong. But as Saturn enters Pisces, the water is rising up over those bridges. Where Saturn builds, Pisces dissolves. Where Saturn focuses on reality, Pisces swims through our dreams, highlighting our wishes and our anxieties. If Saturn is the cop in our head, Saturn in Pisces is that cop on an acid trip.
This could be a good thing. In the 1960s the US military dosed soldiers with LSD and noticed they couldn’t stay in formation or follow orders — in so much as Saturn represents oppressive forces in our world, this move to Pisces could herald a less lockstep acceleration of violent systems and regimes. It can open the hearts of people who usually disdain empathy. It can defang institutions with historic weight and power to do harm. This could also be a bad thing — I personally don’t want to be anywhere near a cop with a gun who’s having a bad trip. If the powers that be are getting dissolved into the psychedelic soup of Pisces, they may flail about wildly in response. Those who are in power don’t generally respond well to loss of power of or control, even if it’s just a perceived loss.
And Saturn has a lot of faces, not all of them oppressive — it’s also the planet that helps us set meaningful boundaries and be mature enough to show up for our responsibilities. Saturn can speak to our collective willingness to make sacrifices and take responsibility for halting the speed of climate change. As it moves to Pisces, we may struggle to access those part of ourselves that can do the adult thing, behave ethically, and take responsibility when things go sideways. This isn’t because Pisces is an unethical sign, it’s just a place where Saturn can get lost in dreams, fantasies, and fears. Ultimately, though, Saturn’s move to Pisces signals a time when we need to take seriously our culture’s relationship to all things Piscean: collective care and empathy (broken health care systems, more elders with less elder care, the rise of chronic illness among the young, etc), the role of art and artists (what kinds of art are priviliged? who’s making money off our art? will AI make it even easier to steal from us?), how religion and spirituality can help our harm us (up the witches, but I’m also terrified of the woo-to-QAnon pipeline), how drug use can help or harm us (see the opiod crisis vs. the benefits of therapeutic psychedelics), and our collective escapist fantasies (let’s colonize Mars! green capitalism can save us! etc).
Now for the second major headline of the month, and of the year, and possibly other orders of magnitude: Pluto’s sign change. Pluto has been in Capricorn since 2008. If you were born in 2008 as some of my youngest friends were, that’s been your whole life. If you’re in the crew of people having your first Saturn return this year, Pluto has been in Capricorn for half your life. Those of us who are older may remember the financial crises that ushered in this Pluto phase and how we’ve had mass movements focused on Capricornian themes since then: the destructiveness of capitalism (Occupy Wall Street was an early example), ecological preservation (Standing Rock and new waves of climate activism), and preserving the status quo (the January 6th insurrection, among many other MAGA debacles.). You may notice those are two leftist and one right-wing movements — both Saturn and Capricorn are without political affiliation, they just speak to the desire to preserve or rebuild what we consider important from the past. For some people, that’s clean air and water, the Amazon rainforest, glaciers, affordable housing and the like. For others it’s white supremacy, global capitalism, permanent war, and the like. And I want to be clear, we all have helpful and harmful expressions of Capricorn running through us, whether or not we have planets in Capricorn. Capricorn is concerned with our survival, and so much of how we relate to it depends on who we consider “us” and what we’re willing to look at as we make decisions.
You may notice we’ve gotten into some heavy territory. Thank Pluto, the kid in the chaotic classroom who is definitely running with scissors after having given a few other kids unwanted haircuts and made them cry. Where Pluto moves by sign, it exposes corruption and hastens decay and transformation. A lighter way of saying it is that Pluto helps us shed our skin or compost our dinner scraps — it works in service of transformation, but the process can look ugly. Pluto in Capricorn has exposed the nasty underbelly of global capitalism and the reality of climate change, and reminded us that hate groups founded in white supremacy haven’t gone away. As Pluto moves to Aquarius, we’ll be getting wake-up calls and opportunities to transform our relationship to all things Aquarian: technology (AI, quantum computing, tech bros like Elon Musk, etc.), collective liberation (can we unify into a larger “us” without excluding some kind of “them” or ignoring the meaningful differences in our positions? How do we move toward liberation while acknowledging the harms that happen in activist communities, from FBI infiltration to our own scene schisming?), and the whole concept of the future — I’m not going to speak to that one because I imagine there will be so many new ideas and cultural issues throughout this transit that what I’m tracking now might be way off base from where we end up. That’s the nature of Aquarius: it brings in the new. Something about our way of moving toward the future is ripe for change, though.
We don’t know yet what this will mean. We don’t even know yet what Saturn in Pisces will mean, this time around. Astrological weather can point to themes that have happened in the past, but we will always be surprised. In many ways, being at the very beginning of both of these sign changes is like being a kid who’s in a new grade of school, in a brand new school. We don’t know the ropes yet. We haven’t gotten comfortable in a routine. The best we can do right now is keep our eyes open, avoid that kid running around with scissors, and start learning where our locker is and who will be our friends. There can be something exciting about all this beginning, if we think of how much needs to change in our world. And change is always hard, especially if you have planets in fixed signs, any kind of trauma history, or both. Your best way to navigate this month? Stay open to interesting surprises. Welcome what you don’t yet understand. Soothe your anxieties when they try to predict a worst-case-scenario outcome. And look around for who’s going to be your friend in this new place.
My friends, I am available for readings so please get in touch. For more astro details you can follow me on Instagram or join me on Patreon. Remember to stay curious about anything wild going on this month and not jump to the scariest conclusions!
Aries
It’s okay not to know: What the future will look like — for you personally and for the larger world. You’re moving toward taking your intuition more seriously, which may mean facing doubts and doing some reality testing in the realms of the unreal. Get curious about collaborating with the less rational parts of your mind, without giving them license to run the whole show.
Taurus
It’s okay not to know: How to show up for the world without abandoning yourself. How to balance your personal needs and the needs of the collective. How your role will be shifting in coming years as you step more into your power and competence. What it’s time to let go of in your work life, or how you have been holding status in your community. Let all these questions just be alive for now.
Gemini
It’s okay not to know: What it all means. Your beliefs may be changing rapidly, and that’s okay. Your default worldview is expanding, which means you’re needing to reappraise what you thought you knew and what you thought your priorities were. The more freedom you grant yourself to pivot, to be patient, to gather information and sort through it, the easier it will be to find clarity enough to show up for what matters to you.
Cancer
It’s okay not to know: What’s ending and what’s entering a phase of new beginnings. Something is deeply in process, deeply in-between right now, and that’s fine. Decide for yourself what you need to handle uncertainty, which might mean getting clear on timelines and boundaries: How long can you tolerate the discomfort of living into this unknowing? When is it time to make a decision, however provisional? What is your gut telling you about what feels right and wrong?
Leo
It’s okay not to know: If you’re ready to say yes and make a commitment. When at all possible, give yourself some spaciousness and room to experiment when it comes to high-stakes life decisions, especially if they involve teaming up with someone romantically or as a collaborator. Try on how things feel, test the waters, and don’t sign any binding contracts just yet if you’re not feeling 100% sure. And remember if you need to call a time-out that “not right now” doesn’t mean “never.”
Virgo
It’s okay not to know: The ideal balance of daily rituals, rest, and retoration that will grant you eternal health. Whether you’re fretting about your body, your relationships, your work, or the larger world this isn’t the time to try to optimize anything. Rather, pay attention to the anxieties that run underneath that urge: what do you need to be feeling right now? And is it time to reach out for some care and support as you do this? Saturn moving to Pisces highlights all the ways that it’s necessary for you to let go and rest.
Libra
It’s okay not to know: How to express yourself best right now. If you’re any kind of artist, your medium might be changing. If you’re a friend and lover, your love language might be changing. If you’re feeling stuck or confused, ask yourself: What actually inpsires me right now? What kinds of connection actually feel good? You have a tendecy to focus outward on what other people want, this month is calling you back to your innate desires.
Scorpio
It’s okay not to know: Where you belong. Your ruling planet’s move to Aquarius may trigger a sense of dislocation. If you’re feeling growing pains around current communities and friend groups — or even more literally, where you’re living right now and whether it’s right for you — stay with the trouble until you can trace the thread of what needs healing right now. You know how to look at what’s hard, but part of your mission this month is to move what’s stuck toward release and healing.
Sagittarius
It’s okay not to know: Where your ideas will take you. Stray snatches of inspiration, secret ambitions, books that you plan to write someday, even to-do lists — it’s best not to get to restrictive because you’re entering a time when your focus can change, expand, and generally integrate previously unknown and important themes. Stay curious and keep researching and asking questions, especially when you think you already know what you need to know.
Capricorn
It’s okay not to know: What you’re willing to ditch and what you need to hold onto. This month is like a good friend trying to get you to throw away a closet of vintage clothes: first of all, the audacity! But they may have some good points if you’re holding onto to pieces that are moldy and wrecking your health, or that don’t fit your size or gender and just trigger dysphoria. Don’t feel rushed into any big decisions, but be open to purging something that has felt important to you if you realize it’s actually getting in the way of your health, joy, or creativity.
Aquarius
It’s okay not to know: Who you are becoming. As Pluto moves into your sign this month, you may be aware of something in your life that’s ready to change. It may be something you’re been ignoring for a long time, you may feel a little spooked at first, but as you live into what you’re learning you’ll be moving toward more meaningful ways of doing what only you can do. Make sure you’re prioritizing being well-fed and well-rested this month, and take whatever time you can for paying attention to what’s coming up for you.
Pisces
It’s okay not to know: Your priorities. As Saturn moves into your sign, you’re entering a period of adjustment when you may need to reasses your goals and revise your plans for reaching them. Saturn is always concerned with cause and effect, but remember that your goals can include “I want to feel free to float through my days without answering emails.” Remember, it’s your life and whatever compromises you may need to make with capitalism and linear time should, ideally, be on your own terms.
amazing!