Welcome back to your friendly neighborhood astrology forecast! If this is your first time and you’d like a little more context on how I approach astrology as a witch, you can find that here.  The short version is that I am both a practitioner of Traditional Witchcraft (with the Temple of Ced) and Traditional Hellenistic Astrology (meaning I use Whole Sign Houses among other things). I look at Astrology as kind of like a weather report, or like Traditional Witches think of the Tides.  It’s not going to tell you exactly what’s going to happen, it will tell you when the energy is going to shift and some of the qualities it is likely to carry. We can then use our Sight and our knowledge of the patterns of history (including our own) to try to fill in some details, using what happened last time to give a hints to themes we might see again. I often apply the patterns of history to the (Sibley) birth chart for the United States as an example because we are living in interesting times, and when big shifts in the energy of the country are likely to be felt by most of us in some way. Doing that, helps me feel prepared and manage my anxiety, but if it triggers yours, I totally get it and you do not need to read this column. I will not be writing horoscopes for individual signs, but I will give you some tools and context to apply to your own chart if you have access to it. The charts I’ve included here are from astro-seek.com and I highly recommend that site as a free astrology tool.

With all that said, let’s talk about January real quick before jumping into February…

January 19-January 29 we saw Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and Mars all make an exact conjunctions to Pluto. Pluto is the planet of death, rebirth, and evolution. It brings paradigm shifts, but on a much slower scale than Saturn or even Uranus, so it’s not always clear what’s happening in the moment. Pluto spends about 20 years in each sign, so that gives it two decades to slowly exert pressure on a single area of your life.  Each of these conjunctions will have their own significations, but viewed as a group, I would say each of those drives within us: love and values, thoughts and communication, identity and recognition, passion and action will each be passing through an gate of transformation. What role do each of those forces play in your life? What needs to evolve before the circumstances of how it changes, dies or is reborn become external factors over which we have less control. (If it sounds like I’m talking about the Tower card in the Tarot, you’re on the right track). Personally, all of this will be focused on whatever area of your life is represented by the house of your chart ruled by Aquarius. (There’s a cheat sheet at the end you can check for house placements by rising sign for Aquarius and Aries which will see most of the action this month). It may be difficult to see exactly what all of this amounts to because it’s all happening so close to the Sun (“combust” is the technical term) that that kind of blinds us to any of the details. Plus, it’s all happening pretty much simultaneously so it may be difficult to sort out “oh Monday was Venus stuff, Thursday was Mercury, Friday was the Sun…” instead it may just feel like a building pressure of SOMETHING IS HAPPENING but it isn’t a single event and the long term impacts won’t become clear until later.

In terms of world events, what jumps out at me in the United States’ chart is that this stellium (pile up of planets) is moving from the 2nd house of Resources to the 3rd house of Communications and Neighbors.  The 3rd house can seem a little broad at first glance but I think of it as representing”the stuff you’re used to”. It’s siblings, habits, routines, neighborhoods, short term travel, and daily communications. In this context (and astrology is all context) I read this (on January 22) as the news cycle making a shift from international battles over resources to something more local. Unfortunately that came in the form of the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24.  That Saturday fell right in the middle of this Aquarius stellium storm, and just before Neptune’s ingress into Aries (more on that in a minute) so we will likely see it continuing to make waves for some time to come.

February 1 kicks the month off with a full moon at 13°03’ Leo. This will be the last Leo full moon that isn’t an eclipse until 2028.  This is a great time to fully embrace your main character energy and shine as brightly as you possibly can. Allow your inner lion, or your inner leader to feel the full embodiment of your power so that you know what it feels like and can call upon that when you need it. (I recommend that you do this ritually and then put that energy back down to be picked up again when needed, rather than letting it just run rampant through daily life where an unchecked ego might cause some trouble.) Full moons bring culminations and, as we’ve discussed, bring things to light. So take a look at the Leo-Aquarius axis of your chart.  What needs to be shined or powered up? What needs a conclusion or to be brought under a spotlight? (If you’re wondering if this might spotlight a leader who has Leo rising as his first house of physical body and has his natal Pluto within 3 degrees of this full moon…yeah…I’d keep an eye on that.)

On February 3, Uranus is the planet of Surprises, Innovation and Revolution will station direct for the final time in Taurus which may put a final button on whatever Uranus has been surprising you with in Taurus since May 2018. A long term transit like this won’t necessarily present a cohesive narrative, but if you check the house Taurus rules in your chart, you may be able to see where that area of your life took unexpected turns. All the inner planets that made their conjunctions to transiting Pluto in that last week or so of January will make a square (a 90° contentious aspect) to Uranus over the course of February. Mercury will square Uranus on February 8, Venus on February 8, the Sun on February 15, and Mars on February 27. Uranus’s very nature is Surprise, so it can be difficult to predict, but February is a time to expect the unexpected particularly in conflicts that folks are coming at sideways rather than head on. Though Uranus is wrapping up its time in Taurus, those dates might give us some clues about how Uranus relates to those planets as a prologue to when they meet up in Gemini later this summer.  So make note of anything significant that happens around those dates, particularly if it’s unexpected or relates to the Taurus house in your chart.

On February 13, Saturn will re-enter Aries (which it previously visited from March 30 – October 21, 2025). Saturn is the planet of Boundaries, Structure, and Consequences. Aries is a sign of Action and Impulse. Aries starts things and Saturn finishes them, or makes sure they’re built to last. So this is the planet of “Find Out” entering into the sign of “Fuck Around”.  It may bring a serious vibe to Valentine’s Day (which already inherited some serious vibes from Lupercalia, and might have been better placed in a more Venusian romantic time like Taurus season/Beltane-tide, but that’s beside the point!) This year, the responsible adult energy Saturn brings will likely be necessary in childlike Aries, particularly since Neptune, the planet of Idealism and Illusion, made its own ingress into Aries on January 26. Neptune in Aries can best be described as “the reckless idealism of youth” or “the fog of war”. The Internet has been talking for years about the fact that Neptune last entered Aries on April 13, 1861, during the first battle of the Civil War. All wars are fought by the young, by the US Civil War has been memorialized as a particularly confusing time of “brother against brother.” With Aries ruling the 5th house of the United States’s chart, I think we are likely to see Children and/or Art as the land on which this new conflict will be fought.

February 20 is the exact Saturn-Neptune conjunction. We’ve been feeling them flirt with each other since March of 2025, getting close…but not quite exact, so these energies aren’t new. And though February may give us a clear look at what all of this has been building toward, these planets will remain within the same degree until May before coming back to within less than a degree between Thanksgiving and Christmas of this year. These planets both move so slowly that they only meet every 36 years. The previous conjunction in Capricorn coincided with the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (Capricorn’s connections to economics make that an interesting example: the ideals meeting the realities of the Cold War as well as the literal dissolving of a boundary). “The collapse of empires” is a common theme of Saturn-Neptune conjunctions (which master historical Astrologers Chris Brennan and Nick Dagan Best discussed for over 8 hours on episode 483 of the Astrology podcast). Often, conjunctions are harmonious aspects, but Neptune and Saturn carry such different energies that coming together generally brings forth conflict between Ideals and Systems, Illusion and Reality, dissolving boundaries and reenforcing them. Another way to look at it is in terms of Saturn as a Wall and Neptune as the Sea that wears that wall down over time. This meeting happening in the hot blooded impulsive sign of Aries may lead to rash idealistic actions without clear follow through, holding fast to ideals in the face of harsh realities, confusion around what’s real (whether in propaganda or AI) but I hope that the actual peak of these energies will get us slowly moving toward the other side. Saturn will move on much faster than Neptune, who is settling into Aries for the next 17 years, but hopefully set some early structures and boundaries within which ideals can flourish productively while it’s gone. On a personal note, witches, you may need to take special care with your hedges at this time.  Aries can also represent the individual and Neptune may make it difficult to keep tract of what’s you and what is everything else or make it harder than usual to go back and forth across the hedge (Saturn). 

February 17 brings our first eclipse of the year: a Solar Eclipse (Dark Moon) in Aquarius. This will be followed by a March 3 Lunar Eclipse (Full Moon) in Virgo. This is the first in the series of Leo- Aquarius eclipses that will carry us through to January of 2028, though we still have 3 eclipses left in the Virgo-Pisces series that started last March. Look at the Virgo-Pisces houses of your chart, did something come to a conclusion or a turning point last March that was then built upon in September? Turning Point was probably the wrong choice of words here, because the Charlie Kirk shooting did happen about three days after that September eclipse, so that may or may not be revisited some way in early March. The February 17 Solar Eclipse is happening square Uranus, so as unexpected as eclipse events can be, this one will have some extra surprise energy tied into Uranus’s farewell to Taurus.  Historically speaking, Leo and Aquarius eclipses have been particularly significant for the United States. During those year and a half periods we saw many events that shifted the country’s perspective particularly on leadership including impeachments, assassination attempts, Obama’s election, and again the fall of the Berlin Wall. I’ll go into more detail on all of that in a future article, once we see what surprised that first Solar Eclipse has in store,  but it’s yet another signal that the events of the next two years will be particularly significant.

February 22, though it sits between eclipses, has a harmonious trine between Venus in Pisces  and Jupiter in Cancer. This feels nurturing and supportive amidst all the uncertainty. A moment to drink some water and focus on all the good and hopeful things. What’s beautiful in your life? What are you growing? Take a moment to step out of the fray to check in with yourself and tend to your own needs so that you can keep going.

Mercury will station Retrograde in Pisces on February 26 and immediately turn around to conjoin Venus on February 27. Mars will also be squaring Uranus (which sets up one of the big flash points of the year on July 3). This last couple days of the month are going to be LOUD with a lot happening at once. It has a real “oh I forgot to tell you” energy (Mercury conjoined Venus) combined with “one last explosive surprise” (Mars square Uranus) that will carry us into the murkiness of March.

If one month isn’t enough and you’d like to read up on the year ahead, you can find that here.

Key Dates in this article

Jan 19, 2026, 20:04           Venus conjunction Pluto           Aquarius 03°19’

Jan 22, 2026, 09:14           Mercury conjunction Pluto      Aquarius 03°23’

Jan 23, 2026, 02:28           Sun conjunction Pluto                                   Aquarius 03°25’

Jan 26, 2026, 09:38           Neptune entered Aries                                   Aries 00°00’

Jan 27, 2026, 15:01           Mars conjunction Pluto              Aquarius 03°34’

Jan 29, 2026, 02:16           Mercury conjunction Venus    Aquarius 14°56’

Feb 1, 2026, 14:08             Full Moon in Leo                               Leo 13°03’

Feb 3, 2026, 18:33             Uranus Direct                                                      Taurus 27°27’

Feb 5, 2026, 04:13             Mercury square Uranus             Aquarius 27°27’

Feb 8, 2026, 01:48             Venus square Uranus                   Aquarius 27°28’

Feb 13, 2026, 16:12          Saturn enters Aries                         Aries 00°00’

Feb 15, 2026, 21:01          Sun square Uranus                        Aquarius 27°31’

Feb 17, 2026, 04:13          Solar Eclipse in Aquarius           Aquarius 28°56’

Feb 20, 2026, 08:52          Saturn conjunction Neptune   Aries 00°45’

Feb 22, 2026, 12:01          Venus trine Jupiter                        Pisces 15°31’

Feb 25, 2026, 22:48          Mercury Retrograde (R)            Pisces 22°33’

Feb 27, 2026, 08:20          Mars square Uranus                     Aquarius 27°42’

Feb 27, 2026, 21:34          Mercury conjunction Venus    Pisces 22°15’

ASTROLOGICAL QUICK REFERENCE

Planets

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