Happy New Year everyone! I wish I could tell you that 2026 was going to be a nice boring year, but astrologically speaking, it looks like one for the history books.  I’m going to give a broad overview of some of the year’s most interesting astrology this month and then dig deeper into some of these topics on a monthly basis as the year goes on.

Just a reminder that everyone’s chart is different.  In a column like this, I’m not going to be giving horoscopes for individual signs, rather taking a broad overview of major transits for the year ahead. If you know your birth time, you can look up your chart on sites like astro-seek.com or apps like Chani. I’m using Traditional Astrology and the Whole Sign house system (which is what Chani also uses so that’s a good fit). Once you have your chart, you can take a look at what houses each of the signs fall in your particular chart for more information. I’ll include a quick reference guide at the end of the article for what each of the houses mean. I approach these columns like a weather report. I’m not going to tell you exactly what’s going to happen more what the feeling of that time is going to be (in some cases informed by past patterns when similar aspects occurred) but there’s a lot going on in the sky at any given time, and me just talking about a few things, without comparing them to a specific chart may mean I don’t have enough context to find the aspect most personal to you.  If you have your chart, I recommend you keep it on hand while you read this and make some notes on what these transits might mean for you personally.

The natal chart I will sometimes use when I’m forecasting is the chart for the United States of America (the Sibley Chart for those interested in that debate).  Transits that have a major impact on the USA are likely to have a big impact on folks who live here and world events, so I’ve found that reading for the country is often an effective way to read for current events. And this year, that is particularly relevant, so I’ll actually be referencing history from time to time in these monthly columns to pull in additional context from some of these planets’ previous patterns. As the old quote often attributed to Mark Twain says:” History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” So, let’s take a look at history in progress…

The year kicked off with a full moon in Cancer on January 3rd. Why yes, that is the day that the United States government “captured” (kidnapped?) the president of Venezuela and his wife. What’s striking about this is that full moons often make things visible or bring things to light. Historically speaking, the United States involvement in things like Latin America regime changes would have been covert ops with potential for plausible deniability, but this operation was put on display to the whole world. This particular moon was also exactly conjunct the United State’s natal Sun (identity), in the 8th house (“Other People’s Resources”) of our country’s birth chart. And because a Full Moon is created by the Sun opposing the Moon from the opposite sign, that means the Transiting Sun was in Capricorn, a sign that carries the “greed is good” ambitious qualities of Capitalism. (Note: I love Capricorns, my fiancé Michael in particular, so I’m not saying Capricorn PEOPLE are greedy, but those are qualities the sign can carry, particularly in the “Personal Resources” 2nd house of the US chart).  So that’s quite the recipe for a very visible (full moon), self-aggrandizing (Sun), emotionally driven (Cancer) grab for “Other People’s Oil” (8th house Moon opposed by a 2nd house Capricorn Sun). This is what astrologers call “astrology good” even if it’s “global stability bad”.

What’s most striking about the rest of January is that all the personal planets (Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars) are moving together through Capricorn. So even if the sun is too bright for the rest of those planets to be seen, there’s a lot of interaction and mutual movement in the same direction happening behind the scenes.

On January 26, Neptune will leave Pisces for the final time and move back into Aries. Saturn will follow on February 13 and those two planets with have an exact conjunction on February 20 at 0°44 Aries.  I talked a lot back in November about Neptune and Saturn traveling together from Aries to Pisces and back again, and we’ll revisit that next month so I’m not going to spend too much time on it here.  But this will be one of the biggest conjunctions to watch for 2026. Neptune (illusion/intuition) meeting Saturn (structure/boundaries/time) on the battlefield of Action oriented Aries holds the potential for rash and confusing actions with long term consequences. And because these are slow moving outer planets, this will have a longer window of potential impact than just February 20 itself. So try to keep an awareness of those energies as we head into February and avoid knee jerk reactions in unclear situations. Michael (the aforementioned Capricorn) adds that delays (Saturn) to our instincts or idealism (Neptune) may lead us to brash and impulsive action. This will often be the case when we aren’t even clocking that we don’t have the full picture (fog of war). Beware the knee-jerk – major fuck around and find out vibes in Aries without much comfort or margin of error to cushion fuck ups. Take your mounting frustrations as a chance to separate and find inner chill. Think road rage at delays.

February also brings us our first pair of eclipses and the beginning of a new eclipse cycle.  February 17 will be a Solar Eclipse and the first eclipse in Aquarius since 2018. So think back to 2017-2019, and if you have your chart look at the houses for Leo and Aquarius. (Solar eclipses are always New Moons and Lunar Eclipses are always Full Moons so they happen across an axis of opposing signs over about a year and a half).  Were there major beginnings and endings that happened in your life around that time? Do they match up to the houses that Leo and Aquarius are in in your chart?  How might those themes repeat again over the next year and a half?  But don’t worry, it may be a variation on the theme not a direct repetition. Endings in your love life/partnerships back then could see beginnings now. (9 years swaps what is at the head/tail of the dragon, i.e. the lunar nodes. It takes 18 years for total cycle return.) Michael had a breakup of his longest lasting romantic partnership the last time eclipses were in Leo/Aquarius, but this summer we’ll be getting married just before eclipse season.

March 3 will have a Lunar eclipse in Virgo, taking us closer to the end of the Vigo-Pisces eclipses that have been playing out since March 13, 2025 (that axis of eclipses will fully come to an end in February 2027).  Same questions, are there significant beginnings and endings relating to the houses you find Virgo and Pisces in if your chart that have been happening since last March?  Can you see how they might be part of a longer story that will wrap up over the next year while the Leo-Aquarius story gets started?  It’s interesting that the Virgo-Pisces eclipses this year are both Lunar eclipses and the Leo-Aquarius eclipses are both Solar.  That means the Virgo-Pisces Lunar eclipses are Full Moons likely to bring conclusions, while the Leo-Aquarius Solar eclipses are New Moons more likely to bring beginnings.  A lot of astrologers will tell you not to do magic during an eclipse because they’re too unpredictable, but I’m a witch who believes you can do just about anything as long as you make an informed choice and are willing to accept the consequences.  I think of magic during eclipses as like…trying to sail through a storm. You can do it. Sometimes it’s even necessary. But up to a point it’s going to matter how experienced of a sailor you are, and past that point you just have to try to survive the chaotic ride. So, there’s your informed choice, make it wisely.

The first Mercury retrograde of the year is February 25 – March 20, 2026, also in Pisces. Mercury is going to have kind of a rough ride through March, and we’ll talk more about that when we get closer. But between Mercury Retrograde and that March 3 eclipse in the Mercury ruled sign of Virgo (opposed by the Sun in Pisces). March is likely to feel a bit unmoored.  Michael helped me out by describing this as “being submerged in a fishbowl and you’re trying to call out but everything just gets garbled.” It may feel extra difficult to connect and communicate, even with those who usually understand you easily. “Mercury is in its least favorite place here (Pisces), swimming the wrong way, and it’s tough to see what themes are even being confused with those matters being hidden by the sun. Even usually-helpful Jupiter is not in a position to help (also retrograde, slow moving, and in the decan and bound of Mercury), like Mercury is drowning and trying to grab on to another strong swimmer but just pulling Jupiter down too.”

April 25, 2026, Uranus returns to Gemini where it will stay until 2033. This brings an end to Uranus’s 8 years in Taurus (which began in May 2018).  Uranus is the planet of Revolution, Innovation and Surprise. So what surprising changes have you seen in the Taurus area of your chart over the last 8 years?  How has that area of your live been thrown off balance and what new solutions have you found as a result?  Keep in mind that for things that are usually chaotic, sometimes the only thing that would truly be a surprise is calm. Taurus is my 4th House of Home and Family. As someone who has moved every 2-3 years of my adult life the surprise was that I stayed in my current apartment for all 8 years of Uranus’s Taurus transit (except for 6 months of lockdown when I went to visit Family for 6 weeks and ended up staying 6 months: surprise!).

We got a preview of Uranus in Gemini last summer (July 7, 2025, to November 7, 2025) and you may notice that those dates correspond pretty exactly with the United States government shutdown. So, I’d expect to see that Revolutionary energy renewed and stretched over a much longer duration.  Uranus in Gemini is a long-term transit, but the next 3-4 years will be particularly significant as the Uranus Return of the United States. (“Does something important happen between 2026 and 2028?” she asked, coyly.) A Uranus Return happens every 84 years when Uranus returns to the same degree as Uranus in the natal chart. Previous Uranus Returns of the United States include The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. My research suggests that we’re looking at something a lot closer to a Revolution than a Civil War (that returns is as close to the status quo as it can), or an International Conflict that defines our identity at home for the next generation.  But…Uranus’s whole thing is Surprises, so not being able to predict exactly what “the war” is going to be or look like is an inherent quality of this transit.  There’s going to be a LOT more to say about this, and the Mars Uranus Opposition on July 3, 2026 (let’s call that an “inciting incident” – Mars throwing a match from afar onto whatever fireworks Uranus has been stockpiling).  But since we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like yet, I would just say prepare for things to heat up as spring turns into summer.

June is lovely though, at least for the first few weeks, with a meeting of the two most helpful planets Venus and Jupiter in the nurturing sign of Cancer on June 9.  Take this moment to connect with Beauty, Harmony, Luck, and Abundance in the midst of such a crazy year.  June 8 will be a half-moon, so that might be a great time to do any moon work that requires balance or tipping that balance slightly one direction or the other. On June 29, Jupiter enters Leo, closing out its year in Cancer (so the Venus Jupiter conjunction might be a kind of grand finale to that).  What wins or good fortune have you seen in the Jupiter house of your chart in the last year?  What intentions do you want to set for the Leo area of your life with the Luck, Abundance, and Expansion energy of Jupiter behind it?

Michael would like me to take a moment to point out that with Jupiter shifting into Leo all of the slower moving planets are in Fire (Saturn and Neptune in Aries, Jupiter in Leo) or Air signs (Uranus in Gemini, Pluto in Aquarius). This means that not only are they all in conversation with each other in the early degrees of those signs, but those conversations run hot and dry.  This may sound scary (particularly in a literal sense for California folks) but there can also be a positive symbolic connotation to things “catching fire,” particularly from an ideological standpoint. The thing about all of this happening in the context of Uranus in Gemini is that Revolution doesn’t perpetuate the status quo. That doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to lead to something better (though I am personally optimistic) or that it will not be without cost, but it does mean it is a time for change and magically speaking, wind is a tool of motion and fire is a tool of transformation. In the natural world, unlike water and earth which are determined by their shape, fire and air are harder to contain and defined by how they spread and move.  So, it’s a great time to seek out motion and inspiration in your life. What sparks in your life would you like those winds to fan into flames?  Stability and fluidity might be a little harder to come by in the general energetic environment for the next few years, except where they are being brought by the more day-to-day personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars).

The second Mercury Retrograde of the year will be in Cancer from June 29 – July 23 (yes, Mercury stations Retrograde the same day Jupiter enters Leo, so expressing emotions in particular may be difficult around that time.)  The second batch of eclipses are an August 12, Solar eclipse (20°01 Leo) and an August 27 Lunar eclipse (4°53 Pisces).  (See the eclipse paragraph above and we’ll talk more about them when we get closer).  September is pretty quiet except for Mars squaring Saturn on September 1. This is a tense Motion vs Stasis aspect that we’ll probably feel throughout August. Mars wants to run fast and break stuff and Saturn wants to take time and make things stable. A square is a contentious 90 degree angle between them. You could also look at this as “Action vs Consequences”. Mars is “fuck around” Saturn is “find out”. . Michael adds that “This will be a taste of a huge chapter of Mars taking the stage next year, and is worth paying attention to. We’ll check back in closer to then.”

In the fall the focus shifts to retrogrades October 3 – November 13: Venus retrograde in Scorpio and Libra and October 24 – November 13: Mercury retrograde in Scorpio.  Venus retrogrades reliably in the same sign every 8 years on a perfect cycle, so again I recommend you think back: what were you doing in October/November 2018, particularly as it relates to the Scorpio area of your chart? Venus is the planet of Love so revisiting past loves is a reputation Venus Retrograde has honestly earned. This does not mean these relationships should be renewed, but there may be something new to learn by at least reviewing them. Venus is also the planet of Virtue (and values) so sometimes, the planet of Harmony slipping into the underworld of its retrograde for 40 days can throw our lives into discord in such a way that our virtue and values are tested, arriving at some quintessence or truth within our core.  The Scorpio nature to dig deep into the heart of something that this Venus retrograde carries may amplify that. (This was definitely my experience with the 2018 Venus Retrograde in Scorpio. Scorpio is my “career” house, and I had a simultaneous career win and crash, while quietly in the underworld I was building the theatre company I still run today.) Both Venus and Mercury stationing direct on November 13 will likely create a surge of relief and motion as things start moving forward again.  But Mars will be slowing down, having passed over the degree it will retrograde back to as it begins its “shadow period” on November 5. We won’t get to the actual Mars Retrograde until January 2027, but don’t be surprised if you feel that riptide still starting to tug on you as the Venus and Mercury retrogrades end. (What will these retrogrades mean for the midterm elections? I’ll try to have some thoughts for you on that by the time we get closer!).

Thank you all for sticking with me through this long (and yet still surface level) look at the year ahead.  From an astrological perspective, there’s some very exciting stuff here!  Lots of potential for change, sometimes sudden and unexpected, but if anyone can thrive in an environment like that, it’s witches!  I hope this forecast helps you prepare for what you can and feel empowered to work with what you can’t prepare for when it happens. It will be another year of “interesting times” but as an old friend of mine likes to say, “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!” Happy 2026 everyone!

MAJOR INGRESSES

January 26, 2026: Neptune enters Aries (and stays until 2038)

February 13, 2026: Saturn enters Aries (and stays until 2028)

April 25, 2026: Uranus enters Gemini (and stays until 2033)

June 29, 2026: Jupiter enters Leo (and stays until 2027)

IMPORTANT ASPECTS

February 20, 2026: Saturn conjoins Neptune (0°44 Aries)

June 9, 2026: Venus conjoins Jupiter (25°46 Cancer)

July 3, 2026: Marc opposes Uranus (03°20 Gemini)

ECLIPSES

February 17, 2026: Solar eclipse (28°49 Aquarius)

March 3, 2026: Lunar eclipse (12°54 Virgo)

August 12, 2026: Solar eclipse (20°01 Leo)

August 27, 2026: Lunar eclipse (4°53 Pisces)

RETROGRADES

February 25 – March 20, 2026: Mercury retrograde in Pisces

June 29 – July 23, 2026: Mercury retrograde in Cancer
October 3 – November 13, 2026: Venus retrograde in Scorpio and Libra

October 24 – November 13, 2026: Mercury retrograde in Scorpio

November 5, 2026 Mars enters the “shadow period” for its January 2027 Retrograde

ASTROLOGICAL QUICK REFERENCE

Planets

Sun – You! What shines
Moon – Emotions, Intuitions, Femininity
Mercury – Ideas, Logic, Communication
Venus – Love, Beauty, Values

Mars – Action, Aggression, Masculinity
Jupiter – Expansion, Good Fortune
Saturn – Boundaries, Structures, Authority
Uranus – Freedom, Revolution, Surprises
Neptune – Dreams, Ideals, Confusion
Pluto – Transformation, Death/Rebirth

Signs

Aries – cardinal fire – Action
Taurus – fixed earth – Stability
Gemini – mutable air – Thoughts
Cancer -cardinal water – Feelings
Leo – fixed fire – Glory
Virgo – mutable earth – Details
Libra – cardinal air – Balance
Scorpio – fixed water – Mystery
Sagittarius – mutable fire – Adventure
Capricorn – cardinal earth – Ambition
Aquarius – fixed air – Innovation
Pisces – mutable water – Intuition

House themes

1 – You: your body, your identity

2 – Your resources: money etc…

3 – What you’re used to: your routines, communications, siblings, neighborhoods, 

4 – Private life: your home, parents

5 – What you love, create or enjoy: children, art, hobbies, dating, sex

6 – What you take care of: health, service, employees, pets

7 – Partnerships (of all kinds) and the partners themselves

8 – External resources (other people’s money), Crisis, or Dragon forces (sex, death, etc…)

9 – That which expands: Philosophy, education, religion, travel

10 – Public life: career, honors 

11 – Friends, community, society and socializing

12 – Secrets, enemies, isolation or confinement, sometimes mental health