The Astrology of April 2025: Ghost Town

Now that Neptune is in Aries we can begin to get a feel for what high saturation, cinematic, simulated, surreal and intoxicated parts of our lives and the world will be effected for the next next 13 years, despite this upcoming fall and winters’ return to he Piscean modality and back a house in our natal charts. Next time the Sun conjoins Neptune or Saturn (March 2026) they will both be in Aries, so in a sense the stories have already begun to take their future shape in pure potentiality. The Sun will conjoin Uranus in Taurus for the last time on May 17th this year, a date I’ve already noticed events in people’s lives accumulating upon and bearing conclusions of the outer planet’s earth element project of the past seven years, after which we will essentially be in the future era in essence, despite later this years unfinished business.

(still from High Plains Drifter)

Venus and Mercury’s retrograde stations, the Sun’s ingress into Aries and subsequent solar eclipse all foreshadowed Neptune’s arrival which in turn usher’s in the very slipperiness which Saturn is coming up behind to add solidity to. I’ve been contemplating the Man With No Name character born out of the collaboration of Clint Eastwood, Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone which burst onto the cinema scene first with a Fist Full Of Dollars (followed by ‘For A Few Dollars More’ and ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’) which was, fittingly to our current Neptunian themes, a plagiarism of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai classic Yojimbo. Both involve a rogue warrior turning killing into profit while playing both sides of rival factions after wandering into a remote town. Clint Eastwood continued with the themes of the selectively spoken gunslinger even as his own directorial ventures departed from the origin stories of how the severely sharped skilled and unflappable maverick came to be and extrapolated into more modern and mature themes. Life/death, forgiveness/unforgiving in religion, nature, race, and various spectrums of trauma bonding, reluctant empathy, common enemies and tense alliances as well as what it means to be young, old, experienced, expired, and ultimately mortal. This all comes with quite a bit of poker face dynamism, bluffs, quick draws, stealth, style, grit and guts as well as being able to hold one’s cards despite being put under most extreme pressures culminating in an edgy sexiness devoid of status quo morality. In fact, the very nerve it hits is of the fantasy of a cop-less reality and the fever dream which ensues as the contemporary consciousness attempts to adapt itself to an utter lack of effective authority in a world both distant in cultural shape but characterized by the same utterly familiar corrupt powers of politicians married to bankers in bed with criminal syndicates all possessing mutual sociopathy and sadism. It’s simply not about good and evil, its not the hero’s journey, in a way it dispels Jungian romanticism, as its not about conquest or even survival; it’s simply about not being fucked with on principle, and above all, autonomy. As the New Hampshire state motto states: live free or die.

(still from Bacurau)

2019’s Brazilian film, ‘Bacurau’, sources from these themes as substrata while spinning the story in an almost reverse order. Again we have a remote town, the presence of corrupt politicians, the murderousness of the wealthy, criminal syndication, but in this case the entire town resists being fucked with and asserts their autonomy in an intoxicatingly efficient fashion that’s rooted into authenticity, tradition, community, ancestry and animistic coherence instead of from the position of the singular, mysterious, wandering lone wolf. The dispossessed of Eastwood’s Josey Wales or the gold panning community of the Pale Rider or even the sinisterly pathetic townsfolk of High Plains Drifter require the vengeful gunsmoke of the No Name character to rebalance power and people but in ‘Bacurau’ community and culture requires not only no assistance from societal infrastructures but additionally no one from the exterior needs to arrive and save them, they take care of themselves without the trappings of paranoid libertarians and ammo stockpiling preppers (a young revolutionary hiding out nearby and origionally from the villiage is summoned back to town to make a stand with them, but the relationship is familiar and inclusive rather than unknown and othering). Firearms still play a key role in this defense but not in any excessive way, In fact, the underwhelm of artillery held by the locals converses the fetishism of arsenal touted by the intruders. In addition, the inhabitants of ‘Bacurau’ ingest some unnamed psychotropic drug which doesn’t seem to intoxicate them but instead serves as some kind of synergic medium which enhances their coordination. The intruders themselves are essentially the perverse far reaches of the global North invading the global South, something that marks this five seconds before Covid hit released movie as an interesting display of the post-covid condition of the global South’s particular admixture of corrupt syndicates versus everyone else in a world where the impact of extractive industry is clearly visible directly before your eyes now spreading to the global North where the un-sustainability of modernized society is gradually becoming obviously as clear and uimpossible to hide as anywhere else.

Katsushika Hokusai

These themes might all be threads woven into the Neptune in Aries tapestry which has begun to weave itself while it simultaneously unravels the fabrics we are currently used to. We may ponder what is the synergy contact drug ingested by culturally intact residents of autonomous ‘Bacurau’ as a neptunian inflection in an otherwise Aries/Libra laden plot. We might also extend some contemplation to Eastwood’s ‘High Plains Drifter’, as its protagonist (spoiler alert) may be the town’s heinously slain sheriff returned from the dead as a more martially adept reincarnation that only temporarily exists, riding out of the mirage inducing desert at the beginning and returning to it in the end, or, maybe he doesn’t exist at all, and maybe also the town is not real either, and ultimately maybe none of the incendiary events really happened to begin with. So then, what is the story, other than a movie? A dream? Who’s? Kurosawa’s ‘Yojimbo’ is set at the declining of the Edo period, known for it’s hedonistic and escapist culture, seclusion from western influence, shogonate military rule and age of the samurai. Yojimbo incorporates an antagonist with a gun which complicates the swordsmanship central to the plot. Eastwood’s canonical westerns deal with the close of the American Civil war and a society not yet reformulated into order while frontiers expand and are more common than their antecedents. The Edo period (1603—1867) begins with Uranus finishing up in Taurus as well as Pluto square to where he is currently and ends with Neptune in Aries and Uranus in Gemini. The American Civil War is situated within Neptune in Aries as well as Uranus in Gemini, so both Kurosawa’s final days of the Samurai exploration as well as Leone/Eastwood’s potency update to the Western genre both attempt to capture the essence of a time cognate to the one we are currently stepping into. Archetypally, the dreams of autonomy are more than simply whimsical wishing, with Saturn quickly approaching they are serious business, and as society reforms and disruptive new technologies are invented and incorporated, we will exist in a multifaceted polarization where, like in these films, good and evil or right and wrong are not at all black and white. The bottom line is empire is always corrupt and its just as easy to get yourself killed being inside or outside the law so the choice is up to you alone if you want to join the status quo power structure or live by your own code of conduct. ‘Bacurau’ takes this a step further, by rallying around place and belonging to it in antithesis to being a destructive tourist in the accelerated experience economy, and in this thriving to the point of making a mockery of the empire actors who attempt to infringe on this automatic, community held autonomy. This is essentially the heart of the post-political anarcho I spoke of in my 2025 article. Ironic that ‘Bacurau’s release got disrupted by the shutdown of theater's in 2020: the collectivist distortion of the moment couldn’t digest the message. No political ideology replaces the irrelevant and expelled mayor in ‘Bacurau’, life just continue’s on organically in the community with no representation or assistance necessary, as they are in no way polarized or divided.

(photo of Kolmanskop, Namibia)

I would love to draw more parallels along these lines with the weaponry components removed, as they can mislead, but in a Mars ruled sign martial metaphors are inevitable, especially when you glance towards the cinematic. You may, however, replace the signifier of weapon with the object tool and extrapolate martial skill with skill in a less combat oriented context of tactical maneuvering; simply being free to do things your own way and effectively get things done. Many of us may feel like we haven’t been able, due to external circumstances, to “kick ass” like we’re really born and able to since Mars’ retrograde in Aries in 2020, and this moment is specifically cued up to reference that, throw in some narrative tension and pour in an abundance of high saturation emphasis as well as obligation to finally get it together, essentially become once again the formidable foe we once were in a time when we could wield our power more unhindered, but now have to regain our prowess despite the external influences being entirely uncooperative. If you haven’t got your groove back in the past five years you are not alone. If you feel that those enjoying successes in recent times are mostly crooks and charlatans you are also not alone. If you have enjoyed recent success, congratulations, it’s probably been a long time coming. If you are coursing with the impulses of new dynamics but the old circumstances persist then you are with the moment. It’s like the new engine to run the old vehicle for now, but the swap is around the bend, at which point we learn to drive in a way we’re not yet used to. This mutable cardinal volley of a baton pass is off putting, especially with Neptune’s recent move having things tingling with the indiscernible, intangible yet somehow totally still effecting the very real. The thing is our parameters must widen to begin to see it for what it is with even semi clarity, and that’ll be a slow and startling process. Saturn’s upcoming ingress into Aries shows that we’ll need training wheels, and both planets return to Pisces for a few more months this next fall to winter describe that we’ll have to make some initial attempts and circle back for a bit before we fully integrate. We are not quite ready to permanently commit to high plains drifting or psychotropically defending our autonomous outpost all at once just yet. All our feelers are programed up but our legs turn to jelly still at the start line.

Paula Rego

This month brings much into alignment though, and right now is the awkward early stage of that process. A month from now Mercury will have met Neptune and already headed out of shadow, Venus will be returned to Aries and about to do the same and Saturn will be separating from the North Node, all of which should dispel much of the current queasiness in play, akin to the nervous nausea you feel after ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms but before the trip unfolds. Even Mars will be emerging from the shadow of his retrograde (which began on December 6th 2024) a month from now, signaling altogether new acts of bold power display. April is quite intricate; full of twists and turns, subtle touches, and simultaneous occurrences which tie complex knot-works seemingly by accident, as if the randomness of reality’s currents and tides loop story lines around each other just so to set us up for the next stage of our existences, and all we have to do, or all we can do, is just be empathically present with it and ready to kick into gear once the pattern washes up on shore and presents itself in its upcoming arrangement. It's as if we are asked three quarters of the way through April to show our cards, at which point it’ll be clear which way shots are fired and how you have to react to that moment, in the moment. Until then it’s better to remain loose and unaffected as we wait to let things shake out, so when the time comes you’re not all tense or preoccupied with preconceived notions.

Carl Bloch

April 1st

-Venus RX conjunct North Node: re-evaluation of desire, taste, value, aesthetic and quality fusing with compulsion to manifest in tides of immersive flow and ambiance of the general field

-Moon conjunct Uranus: subjective sensitivity to urgency to shift, change and experiment with baseline methods and material forms

-sextile Mars and Saturn: relating to tactics of nourishment and obligations to loosen control and strategize around a sense of the conditions

April 4th

-Mercury RX conjunct North Node: rethinking holistic logistics and impressionistic ideas surrounding what we’re compelled to immerse in and analyze psychically

-Mars sextile Uranus: critical sensitivity to resources we’re protecting and what we’re trying to grow in relation to what is on shifting ground or changing in permanent ways

-Mars trine Saturn: tactics to protect whats growing in harmony with obligations to go with he flow

-foreshadowed by Moon conjunct Mars day prior: subjective experience of critical sensitivity to abundance or lack spectrum.

John Everett Millais

April 6th

-Sun sextile Jupiter: orientation to direct, decisive action collaborating with expansion of options, choices and selections as understanding wormholes with info

-Mars trine Venus RX: tactical sensitivity surrounding resource gaurding harmonized with re-evaluation of the atmosphere and vibe amidst obligations to let go of control

April 7th

-Venus RX conjunct Saturn: re-evaluation of the aesthetic atmosphere and quality of vibe amidst obligations to let go of control

-Mercury stations direct: beginning to conclude rethinking process and feel satisfied with corrections to holistic logistics

(does not complete trine to Mars, sextile to Uranus and conjunction with Saturn)

Pavel Petrovich Svinin

April 8th

-Venus RX sextile Uranus: re-evaluation of vibrational quality collaborating with grounding experiments and shifting methods of productivity

April 10th

-Mercury conjunct North Node: holistic logistics in compulsion to fully immerse

April 12

-Sun conjunct Chiron: focus on awkwardness in integrating decisiveness and impulse oriented decisions

-Full Moon in Libra: culmination of subjective cycle in dynamic balance and harmony of he overall mix and equalization of the moment, sensitivity to mutually benefit and convenient alliances (CAT: slipping through thresholds and narrow or hidden passageways)

-Venus station direct: conclusion of re-evaluation process, atmospheric, holistic, immersive or empathic quality control, moving forward with nuance modulated tastes (KEY: access, renewal, procession)

Gaspare Traversi

April 16

-Mercury ingress Aries: direct, autonomous thinking and quick, efficient, unencumbered mental processing

-Moon in Sag trine: above harmonized with pursuits, trajectory or movement needs

April 17

-Mercury conjunct Neptune: thinking blended with the imaginal or unreal, suspension of belief required, blurry data

Paula Rego

April 18

-Mars ingress Leo: bold displays of power, bravado, belligerent, performative action, self sovereign actions

April 19

-Sun ingress Taurus: orientation to material matters, methodical momentum building, planning and focus on stability

-Mars trine Neptune: bold displays of power harmonized with autonomous fantasies

April 20

-Venus sextile Uranus: the beauty of everything fused with obligation to let go in collaboration with shifting basis and material experimentation

-Mercury sextile Pluto: independent thinking in collaboration with decentralized power dynamics

-Sun square Mars: focus on methodical planning clashing with bold power displays

April 21

-Saturn conjunct North Node: obligation to let go and flow in a formulated, disciplined way fused with compulsions to fully immerse, dive in and fast forward the plot

(still from Yojimbo)

April 23

-Sun square Pluto: orientation to methodical planning and focus on material based stuff clashing with abstract power dynamics and decentralized network conspiracies

April 24th

-Venus conjunct North Node: the beauty of it all compelled to dive in and fully immerse

-Venus conjunct Saturn: the beauty of it all obligated to let go of control and formulate a flow

April 26th

-Mars opposite Pluto: bold displays and self sovereign performances contending with abstract, decentralized power dynamics

April 27th

-New Moon in Taurus: new cycle of manifestation seeded in quiet contemplation of material basis and plans to work up momentum (BULL: honoring, sacrificing, feeding the flame)

Jan Steen

April 30th

-Venus ingress Aries: desire for autonomy, love of direct action, capable aesthetics