The Astrology of 2026: Stabbing In The Dark

2026 has begun, and ironically the outer most planets inside of Pluto are still in the signs they’ve been in for 14ish, 8ish and 3ish years respectably. Spring and summer 2025 saw them ingressed into their new territories, and along with the dramatic costume change we were all introduced to new roles, stories, and scenarios in our personal lives which will run into the future for the next 3ish, 8ish and 14ish years. I talked a lot during this time about how the last round of Neptune in Aries and Uranus in Gemini lined up with the later end of the 1800s and was well depicted for metaphorical purposes in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns as well as Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films, particularly the inextricably linked Fist Full Of Dollars and Yojimbo, which depict wandering martial experts out to make a buck by keeping a tight leash on who knows what and being a master of the poker face, as well as effecting an unparalleled quick draw. This is a time period where the populace has been culturally cut loose, previous skill sets and trainings have become largely irrelevant, authority and order are in liminal suspension, moral code is mostly absent, boom and bust scenarios are more viable and reliable than steady work or stable security, and technology is about to reshape society enormously in the years to come.

Stanley Spencer

Similarly, when Saturn was in Aries last (April 7th 1996—February 28th 1999) there seems to be an ‘action taking place in the seeming limbo’.dynamic playing out as well. MTV became more RealWorld spinoffs and game shows, while the internet wasn’t anything that interesting yet, either wild west of code or dominated by centralized corporate platform services like America Online. In the wake of Nirvanamania and the explosion of commercialized alternative culture everything offered by status quo society and mass media seemed incredibly watered down and recycled. Televised life was boring enough to step away from the Jerry Springer and go be active, even stir up some trouble. This was of course in a world much less strict and surveillanced than today's.

Tirzah Garwood

The pre-gentrified societal scape, comparably devoid of cameras, allowed for people to lose themselves in what ever was directly in front of them worth a critical response to. Not much of Aries needs to be premeditated, its simply reacting to ‘what is’ with vital energy running the engine of impulse. In the Saturn Taurus years which come after we all begin to wrestle with material reality and are obligated to make a plan and get the ball rolling. For the time being we must test our chops in a trial by fire where if we are good we employ the discipline of taking stabs in the dark, hopefully with the mythological Prime Mover as our guide. These depth charges of energy expression catalyze obstacle courses for us to run in, like the extended drum solo style narratives of Leone and Kurosawa’s twin plots, and the rest, as they say, is history. Aries is the ‘spring has sprung’ seasonal haiku which pushes the something out of nothing tipping point, the increase of activity which stages the story, setting the plot and tone of the narrative action.

Master of Belmonte

Within this dynamic limbo of happenings we can choose to be both calm and alert simultaneously, keep our cards quietly to ourselves and above all strike when the iron is hot as well as remember to not strike when it is not. We have to be pointed about what we put energy into and deliberate about how we wield it, or else a burn out, teaching us a lesson the hard way. We may have already all run initiated some new pursuit in spring summer 2025 which wasn’t worth the effort and are not planning on repeating it. We may have also initiated other activities which sparked off and quickly catalyzed into a flint worth keeping for future ignitions nearing the blast of hour. Saturn hammers home the non-action end of the Aries ‘just do it’ dynamic, with Aries attention on nowness tunes our reflexes tightly. A lot of attention astrologically goes into Aries being autonomous, individual and solo in style, but it is always in a spectrum with Libra, and I find many people with Aries placements dance or spar, most often this requires acute awareness of others.

Peter Paul Rubens

Might you have seen worthwhile future forms activate across spring-summer 2025? Did you also carry out some exhausting exercise in futility? Well, there you go. Also, did you sense a mythological or archetypal source of power to identify with and draw energy or inspiration from? We’ll be back there soon enough, but in this initial moment of 2026 we are hyper focused on locating the puzzle piece that will make oppressive and outdated scenarios finally budge, shifting situations to make way for all the progression that Pluto is pressing at with ominous gravity, yet Saturn and Neptune lingering in Pisces are not able to take shape so as to turn the lock and get things moving. Secretly, we are holding the keys most likely, and looking at what we have differently might serve the purpose of making major change, as if the puzzle piece is only upside down or from a different set and once we realize we didn’t have the right idea or context for the critical component we will be surprised at ourselves for not having got things in motion sooner. The pace should pick up fast, with Neptune moving into Aries again by January 26th and Saturn by February 13th. Uranus on the other hand is wrestling to flip a table that has been resistant to flipping since 2018. Can you identify a baseline of your existence which has been tectonically quaking for change for up to eight years but has been essentially stuck in place? Taurus is very fixed where as Gemini is maybe the most mutable, so the ease at which every iota of reality’s arrays may wildly shift and flicker in the coming years likely depends on moving this usually stable and reliable part of our lives into a different order first, completing the mission Uranus set out on in 2018 with a momentous and substantial transfer of solid circumstances between now and late April. I’d say there is much more than foreshadowing surrounding this, as the medium upon which Uranus is acting has been rumbling and spasming for years on end and we probably feel it about to dislodge now that it has some wiggle room.

Stanley Spencer

2025 and 2026 are really a set, or, a two part act divided by the calendrical change. In spring-summer 2025 new story-lines and life shapes were introduced but as there was no room for them to appropriately land we ended up in the retrogradation of outer planets returning to their previous positions by fall into winter, and all the air and fire activity which brightened up the scene morphed back into water and earth, placing us back in the amorphous muck where traction is impossible, but only temporarily. The concentration at the last degrees of Pisces emphasizes that we must let go of the past and allow forms to dissolve for vitality rousing metamorphosis to occur, or else we cannot proceed into the future. For some this will be a choice, where others will feel forced along into new challenges. Jupiter being in Cancer from June of 2025 to June of 2026 adds layering on this attention to memory. Our subjective experience is leading our development as we review by feel how we got where we are and what is and is not serving us at this time— so much so that we may feel drowned in emotion and swamped in sentimentality. As the Moon rules Jupiter for this period it is as if we have been living through mini melodramas every few hours or days, like emotional eras dictated by mood. For a few days it appears development or fulfillment is happening in one part of life and then the next couple days its elsewhere, and all kind of slipping through our fingers as we go. In January 2026 there is a distinct awareness of life slipping by and time having been wasted. As this centers around cazimis in Capricorn, it likely arouses the impatience and impulsivity to act immediately which will initiate in Aries before spring, with Mars also catching up as all goes live and fires up considerably.

Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg

Jupiter moving into Leo, another fire sign, adds to the electricity, heat and bombast by the end of June, which puts the greater benefic and the greater malefic in trine, which along with Neptune means growing more boisterous and exhibitionary will be in perfect harmony with obligations to step on it and get it going, all laced with a perception widening high-saturation influence that is more hypnotic than it is clarifying. Worry that wildfires were being used as population control methods last August is a perfect example of the type of ‘impossible to tell what is real or fake’ inextricability we’re headed into. We smell and see the smoke, yet still, something unsettling sets in when our phones erupt in warnings and behavioral protocols which could cost more than our savings in fines if we don’t comply with seemingly irrelevant strictness. It may be that we find ourselves all as outlaws as the expectations of authority seem to become more absurd, irresponsible, mad even. I would not be surprised if we see physical police presence cut back considerably over the next few years, replaced by AI, drones, cameras and sensors, but this somehow backfiring and relative lawlessness ensuing.

Stanley Spencer

With Jupiter coming to spend considerable time conjunct the South Node in Leo trine to Saturn in Aries copresent Neptune there seems there might be some kind of benefit to performing how sick of it we have all become while forced to take action and be brash in a world where disguise and deception are par for the course. With Neptune out of Pisces for the rest of our lives we might not be subject to global immersion in the same viral pool any longer, meaning we are less likely to have a unified experience and won’t understand or empathize with memes, thought-forms and actions of others as much as we have gotten used to. This fracturing of the global hologram is significant and will likely take many forms. I’ve been talking about there being multiple internets rather than “The Internet” in coming days for a while, but more dominant at the moment is the phase where “The Internet” seems to be mostly dead, and running solely off zombie vapors. Much more of our lives is likely to begin taking place off line and away from surveillance in preferred obscurity. Here the real world becomes a vast wild west of activity and idea, refreshing yet challenging for those of us who remember the pre-virtual days, and utterly alien for those who don’t.

Only a few months go by before Chiron makes its presence felt in Taurus instead of Uranus. They have been moving at a similar pace, with their last change of signs having been a month apart in 2018. So Chiron in a sense represents for the time being the bruise left behind after Uranus gets done revolutionizing, frankensteining and hot rodding a zodiac sign, and by extension some part of society as well as an area of your life. I noticed a while back there is a kind of ongoing dance that Uranus, Chiron, Jupiter and Mars’ orbits do together which has about a 47 year cycle to it, at least for the past couple centuries. It got me thinking about the implementation of new technologies historically and how we are essentially injured or traumatized by them in some way and then require periods of healing and integration. Uranus in Taurus definitely fucked with prices and commodities and in a more subterranean sense the rhythm or regularity with which we live our lives, but it is probably light weight compared to how much Uranus will likely change once it gets moving across already multiplicitous, curious and highly varied Gemini. For now we’ll be licking our wounds in the material realm as the next Gutenburg Press gets invented and paradigms shift wildly. Indeed, Chiron signaling that we’ll be doing “reality therapy” I think emphasizes the return to analog which is portent in Saturn’s obligation for us to deal directly with what’s happening in front of our face, and Neptune out of Pisces suggests this probably wont be the glow of the screen, as streaming and social media feeds melt into memory.

With Pluto in Aquarius there is a very real fear that because of technocracy it will be not only an embattled pursuit to keep it real but also it may become against the law to enter the wilderness and that there is no where for us to express ourselves outside of formats that are actually digital prisons. As Saturn, Neptune and Uranus all trine and sextile Pluto it may be that what authority is doing in conjunction with power, what technological developments are taking place and how we are being lied to or deceived are all working seamlessly together. At the same time, the sextiles and trines of the outer planets may also suggest that we as people living amidst such plots and schemes are not necessarily having a bad time, and that the shift towards a much more exciting and dynamic state of affairs will feel like a lot in culture and the world is starting to come together and get moving and popping off. This is quite the opposite of the zombified and deranged stagnancy and immobility of the past several years. People being in individual trances of their own personal fixations has already taken hold. The past years of binging on YouTube and podcasts has made everybody an amateur expert of at least one thing or another, and these upcoming years will likely see people getting some experience under their belts with whatever it is we’ve been tripping on passively up until now. As AI seems to trigger an uncanny valley repulsion response in most people (except, it seems for the more old or the more young populations) screen time will likely dramatically diminish as its more stimulating to be out doing things and going off map, out of bounds, or even MIA.

Mark Gertler

The North Node eclipses in Aquarius with South Node eclipses in Leo return for the first time since Obama was elected. I’ve been thinking about how a liberal and progressive regime will likely be in store for the pendulum swing the other way from this Trump era, and with themes of employment disappearances, I would not be surprised, as I’ve discussed before, if defunding the police actually came about in some form, with the surveillance-bot-AI replacement mentioned above. Being incessantly tracked on your phone in this version of policing will only add to the reasons to not have a device you are already sick of and bored with on your person at all times and for furthering the totally unplugged feel potentiated in the next few years. This combination was also present during the 2008 Financial Crisis. I’m not predicting a crisis per se, but with AI bubbles and housing market stretched beyond conceivable limits some unforeseen context for correction is imminent. I would not be surprised if some of this played out while Jupiter was in Cancer, in such a way that resources weren’t entirely lost but making home was somehow affordable, or at least attainable. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius in an Air period being the slow degradation and entropic collapse of feudalism which set the stage for the Renaissance is really beginning to be felt rather than just conceptualized. I’ve discussed this as the Global North coming more to resemble the Global South as we transform more noticeably into a post-industrial society. With Uranus moving to Gemini it is becoming more obvious that the internet is not an archive of human knowledge, and in fact we are rapidly losing documentation of cultural mosaics even ever having existed rather than the whole of human intellectual achievement being stored and at our fingertips. It’s worth noting that Air periods are information ages and that this doesn’t mean periods emphasizing knowledge, but more data access and exchange. They seem to be apocalyptic and gnostic which doesn’t necessarily exalt sagacious and profound thinking or soundness of mind.

John Craxton

In that respect 2026 seems pivotal in the process of advancing us toward the next Water triplicity period. I think it is important to keep this in mind, that Air Periods are more appropriately described by a phase shift occurring than by existing block after block, meaning we are in an EarthWaning-AirPeaking-WaterWaxing period. Similarly, 1802—2020 could be described as a FireWaning-EarthPeaking-AirWaxing period. 1802 is pre-industrial, the proto machines of production having just been invented, but in not long the Earth period was ready to host telegraph, radio, television, computers and by the end the internet and by 2020 we were moving through the digital gates into AirPeaking. The previous Earth Period’s World Wars were like the last flashes of the Fire period which was by then waning but still in play. As we now are in a reality where we can choose to be a total charlatan and financially benefit or choose to stick to cultural equilibrium values and have-not, a code of ethics or way of being is beginning to bud which over time will transition from values to philosophies to spiritualities to religions over the current 200 year arch we are only a few years strode into. The “by 2030 you will own nothing and be happy” is the devilish technochratic premise which runs as the opening line of this novel about how religion returned in the post-digital period. How we exist within that is up to us, but I’m actively rooting for a nature integrated outcome rather than another anthropocentric one.

Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson

With Neptune, Uranus and Pluto all involved and wrapping solid and real Saturn into the arrangement this year, as well as philosophical Jupiter spending time with the ascetic South Node, we really get a chance to try on our mystical outfits in 2026, and also realize that for quite a while they have not only a warrior aesthetic but also utility. I would suggest getting into the vibe of this. If you were an extremely sage monk skilled in the art of combat what would that look like? This doesn’t have to stick too close to fighting themes, as kung fu basically means the skills and habits of someone with acutely dialed in experience and practice, so there can literally be the kung fu of serving tea, etc. What I’m saying is exercise the idea of aligning your spiritual principles with your actions. Not just codes of thou shalt and shalt not. I mean the outright mystical end of spirituality. Be hypnotized by what you have the energy to do, what calls your body to react and engage with, but in a vitality giving trance held into form by rigor and discipline at its center. Hold yourself together, but also be more than yourself, be what you imagine you are and live in that current up to your own critical standards. In 2026 we are pressured off map, out of known territory, into the unfamiliar; who might you be out there? Ideas are flying around wildly and curiosity is surging with high voltage, how will you respond? The same old way? Some of themes in play are no one is going to do it for you now, and no one is going to hold you accountable if you are underhanded, so how do you conduct yourself in a way that is of high resonance, and not likely to cross the wrong lines and bring about your own downfall. Being athletic is not enough with Neptune sticking close to Saturn, we have to essentially be results-drivenly shamanic, but never announce it. This is not for others to know. This isn’t for clout. It’s for our own good. In fact, telling the world will probably only waste your energy, dull your edge and make you more visible to conflicts you can’t sustain.

Juan de la Abadía el Viejo

For now rest well. Get your bearings. See what resources you have at hand. Keep calm. And choose your weapons wisely. Pretending can get you in trouble, escapism has run out of benefit, but imagining you can do more than you thought you could before from a spiritual resonance that is seated within yourself can lean you into the game in a more awake way than self limiting from materialistic prohibitions.