The Astrology Of August 2026: I'd Rather Die Than XYZ

August opens with the Sun and Jupiter just having opposed Pluto, and Mercury joining in for a direct opposition as well by the 11th. The nodes moved into this axis in July with South Node in Leo and North Node in Aquarius, and over the next several months will be closing in on a conjunction with Jupiter and eventually copresents with Mars’ retrograde sweeps as well, so even after the oppositions to Pluto fades, the context remains; how do all the other outer planet positions heralding paradigm shifts and the introduction of dynamic newness on multiple levels contend with the “against” alignment to Leo’s spirit-sovereign, heart oriented, self-expressive and consciously aware nature fit into the bigger picture? The larger context is obvious, everyone except AI developers are against everything AI developers do. We don’t want it but it’s proliferating irregardless. Swap out AI for surveillance, drones, bioengineering, geo-engineering etc etc and it applies just as much, although, with August 3rd’s Chiron retrograde station in Taurus which Mercury squares upon entering Leo, the irksome truth is if you have any assets wrapped up in institutions then you are invested in this suicide inducing state of non-humanity. The very same set of fears, pressures, anxieties that have people desperately seeking bug-out properties that have already been acquired by Blackrock & Co.

Despite stock getting vacuumed out of the market by technocratic institutions, entities and syndicates in a variety of ways, sounding very real anxiety alarms, the larger astrology looks progressive in general, at least in the way it all shakes out, but we have to enact some seriously hypnotic and alien footwork to get from planet A to planet X. En route the Gutenberg Press might get frankensteined, the civil polarities might get swapped, the data might get scrambled, leading us to feel pressured to rush some archives together and learn some memory techniques so if not textual we can hold together a coherent plot orally. Memory palaces and brain supplements aside, we are well aware that the story is becoming rewritten before our eyes on a daily or even minute by minute basis, and if we want authorship of our own existence, then there’s going to have to be some changes made to how we even think to begin with, including what we share and what we keep to ourselves or under-wraps.

This has implications beyond being sick of social media oversharing and knowledge that what ever we upload ends up in an LLM. Around the time Jupiter ingressed Leo I was gifted Tom O’ Neil’s book CHAOS, a sprawling report on everything that doesn’t add up about the official story of the Manson Family, encompassing Hollywood scandal, the CIA, the MKULTRA program, and basically everything that happened leading up to and through the 60s. Where defensive surveillance turned offensive drug assisted mind control experiments, unwitted programming of courier/assassins, thoroughly infiltrated universities and funding foundations, social ideology manipulation, sex politics and lives of the rich and famous all juxtaposed in a fractalized paper trail of mass unconfirmability shattering the conventional narrative of everything, which concluded the 60s with paranoia and an antisocial turn towards increasing home surveillance seems to mirror the moment strikingly. Especially as, in this Leo twister we find ourselves, Manson would frequently refer to himself as a mirror and assert (paraphrasing) “I’m just you, when you look at me you see yourself”.

I was reminded of the stellium of planets in Aquarius in February 1962 (Mars, Saturn, Moon, Sun, Venus, Mercury retrograde, South Node, Jupiter) just as these US funded and deeply confidential illegal programs of intelligence agencies spying, experimenting on, torturing, killing and brainwashing their own citizens were beginning to get their swerve on. Six years later when Jupiter had made it to Leo (with Saturn strikingly also in Aries) Manson was released from prison and forming the Family in the Haight district of San Francisco copresent with CIA agents actively working on hippie subjects in

“free” CIA funded crash pads and “free” medical clinics (the latter Manson frequented). This seemed to parallel the next time Jupiter and Saturn would be copresent in Aquarius February 2021 along with Venus, Mercury retrograde, Moon and Sun during global lockdown and now six years later Jupiter is in Leo and the upcoming copresence of Jupiter, the South Node and retrograde Mars wafts of similar smelling storylines as laid out in Tom O’Neals exposé. Then was space race and hippie and free love and civil rights and communism and now is space X and woke and polyamory and BLM. Interestingly, the 60s episode began to formulate as intelligence agencies noticed liberal minded people were susceptible to being led by the idea of “medical care for all”.

Only a couple more days into Jupiter in Leo a friend suggested I read (as they just had) Clive Barker’s “The Great and Secret Show” which Barker himself has stated “"Succinctly put, it's about Hollywood, sex and Armageddon” and goodreads.com says it “explores the uncharted territory within our secret lives and most private hearts” via a decades long battle between an ultimately good and ultimately evil character the former wanting to preserve a “mystical dream sea” and the latter wanting to extract its power. The conflict distorts all of reality and effects all of humanity. The parallels to O’Neal’s CHAOS’ investigative reporting on the LSD soaked and hyper-sexed 60s, Hollywood and mass-formation counter intelligence and mind-control should be obvious.

Other than a focus on books becoming apparent, and where information and knowledge can be and should be stored, I’ve noticed a sudden surge of interest in older digital and especially film cameras. The majority of people want nothing to do with AI, and the main posturing is how to avoid exposure to it, with an even longer trend in place of preferring movies that either avoid CGI entirely or employ it selectively while being able to boast mostly analog special effects. The Leoline harmonization to Saturnian/Neptunian Aries seems to be attracting people to the high saturation realism of celluloid and roving time distillation of the lens. Juxtapose this with archetypal Hollywood, and not knowing who is acting and who is not, and we may be about to experience a notable episode of cinema history— yet to be determined but keep eyes peeled. Whole movies may bubble out of holes in the plot and then quickly sneak off to where they are nearly impossible to find.

What might get recorded into such a moment of film, as far flung we have already become into the typical gnostic freak out session of any given epochal Air Triplicity Period, there is sure to be apocalyptic mythology involved, born of the mapping of the unseen juxtaposed with information over-exposure juxtaposed with reasons to be paranoid. Again, the main thing we know is that we don’t know anything absolutely and there is no way to confirm that any one thing connects with another outside of what we can investigate first hand in physical reality. Aquarius events have us bristling with theories and conjectures and hypothetical scenarios and exponential projections. We do actually know though, because we have all now experienced it, that society is corrupt to the core, and that in that distrust of a thing which attempts to weave a whole reality around it, that we also then don’t trust reality, and at the duration which we’ve already had to persist within that schema we don’t know for sure who each other is or even who we are anymore either, so as we move towards a more real yet more impressionistic way of filming and photographing ourselves, we are likely going to grapple at this in real time, in the un-confirmable intersection where myth and history swap courses. This is a time-place we are used to being situated in our paganistic pasts, but not so much in our here and now. We could have blamed the blurring of concrete and elastic existence in the deep past upon lack of information, but as that has caught up to us in the present, something like the Manson Family debacle where there is more holes blistering the map than tacks holding it into coherent shape seems not so odd anymore. Consensus reality is obsolete.

A problem with this is its weird, and weird though provocative is typically agitating. When people not that many years ago were all expected to homogeneously groom, hold down regular jobs, and pass the baton in hierarchical career climbs the weirdest thing an average someone might have been exposed to was the Simpsons or a surreal dream they suffered after overeating. Now average someones gorge on alternative histories, avant-garde art and esoteric systems. Certain seekers, whose numbers were in the few, once stewarded these realms, dealing with the dissonances as they were inclined to naturally. Now that the cat is out of the proverbial bag in a big way, so is the dissonance, on a mass scale. The card deck is mostly Jokers and its difficult at times to locate enough trumps and pips to even play a normal hand. Enough to make you want to retreat into normalcy and run on only basic programs, but really that’s not an option, its just too bleak. So the challenge remains to seek out big, authentic energy that is no bullshit whatsoever. How does one pop the party balloons inflated in the likenesses of Outsider icons and resonate separate from the masses while the masses masquerade as the Othered? This is just one of the tripping spots between what you don’t want and what you also don’t want that triggers the gnostic-apocalyptic reflex when one touches base with one’s own heart and it cries “abort abort! Reality is evil, reality is fake”. We are not being given any viable options, so we somehow have to jailbreak the whole thing all over again and go in there a different way.

Last time Neptune was in Aries and Uranus was in Gemini in the late 1800s was also a time of option-less-ness catalyzing inventiveness out of wayward, mercenary gambling behavior. The suicide mission vibe was palpable, as it may be now. Suicide cults, suicide bombers, hari-kari, nothing left to lose or the Revolutionary War throwback toast and New Hampshire state motto “Live Free or Die”.

The month concludes with Jupiter in Leo trining Saturn in Aries on the 31st while Mars in Cancer squares Saturn in Aries on September 1st. Coherence of self-sovereignty, self expression, heart-centered conscious-awareness and Daimonic knowledge is harmonized with obligations to be autonomously effective and independently capable in a directly active and energy efficient manner. Oddly, tactics to guard nourishment, maneuvers to defend nests and nurseries are clashing with Saturn’s obligations even though Mars governs Aries and is informing Saturn. This internal conflict is likely not an outright clash but an intense fulcrum of narrative tension, an alarm that something needs to be done, action needs to be taken to resolve or settle some situation regarding where comfort and action disagree.

The Sun is in Virgo having just perfected a cazimi with Mercury, who rules Virgo. Acute and accurate material quantification, measurement and analysis is informing Jupiter’s coherence of our self-sovereign philosophies and spiritual growth, so we are well provided for there, even though Mercury and the Sun square Uranus in Gemini, we are aware paradigms are shifting and ideas are changing, that goes without saying. Mars being in Moon ruled Cancer perfects its square to Saturn while the Moon is conjunct Chiron in Taurus, so we’re feeling uncomfortable in terms of stability, grounding, permanence, plan, solidity and materiality which we may need to actively heal and integrate or at least take our bruised state into consideration.

The bruising likely occurred from Uranus attempting to wrench our baselines loose and radically change what we depend on in our lives over the past eight years, something which is leaving us feeling literally and figuratively mangled as far as safety and firm footing. Venus rules Taurus though and she is in Libra at that moment, also in rulership and informing the Moon who informs Mars who informs Saturn. So, we have integrity of evaluation when it comes to what is harmonious, fair, just, beautiful and balanced. Somehow, despite the gnostic-apocalyptic overlay on a world of unfamiliar and un-confirmable proliferations it appears we shake out of all this in a progressive way, and the opportunity to improvise ourselves into some agoraphobic-liberation-obstacle-course-rodeos are likely evolutionary in the end, as long as we choose from a daimonic approved lucidity, even though we can’t possibly know beyond doubt what exactly we are getting ourselves into.

NOTES:

8/3

-Chiron stations rx (back to 26 Aries in Jan): folding of healing/integrating story into the future/past between stories of autonomous action and stability/grounding. Likely a needed return to feeling itchy to be independent and not so over-sensitive about letting go of stability and material dependability signaled as what is transpiring via the other array of aspects

8/5

-Moon conjunct RX Chiron: Subjective experience of the above, embodied sense of needs regarding the above, might be good information

8/6

-Venus ingress Libra: desire for balance, love of cultural equilibriums, attraction to harmony and equality, fine art aesthetics, resonating with soirees, balls, galas etc., pleasure of hosting, exuding charm and grace, values of justice and diplomacy

-Sun trine Saturn: authentic self expression, centrality, orientation to the heart, trusting oneself, prioritizing oneself, self sovereignty, exhibitionism harmonized with obligation to be independently effective and autonomously capable in a direct way, conserving energy to perform competitively

8/9

-Mercury ingress Leo: attention logistics, self centered thoughts, visibility processes, charismatic speech, spirit/heart/conscious-awareness oriented mental operations

8/10

-Mercury square Chiron: the above in narrative tension with woundedness, healing, awkwardness, integration surrounding stability, planning, materiality, groundedness

-Venus trine Pluto: desire, love, attraction and value of equilibrium, culture, diplomacy, art and justice harmonized with ominous unknowns, fears, power dynamics, corruption, rites of passage and initiations into pioneering updates, innovative upgrades, new systems, collective concepts etc.

-Venus opposite Neptune: desire, love, attraction and value of equilibrium, culture, diplomacy, art and justice in harmony having to contend with fantasies of autonomy, myths of independence, projections of direct action, cinematic competition, perceptions widening of how things could be done

8/11

-Mars ingress Cancer: feeding, nurturing and nesting tactics, maneuvers to protect resources especially those allocated to what is sensitive and just generating, guarding the nursery

-Mercury opposite Pluto: self expression logic/language contending with ominous pressures of collectivism, isolation, exile, fears of the unfamiliar, otherness unknowns— the visible and invisible

-Venus trine Uranus: love, attraction and value of equilibrium, culture, diplomacy, art and justice harmonized with experimentation, disruption and radical shifts of ideas, exchanges, data, polarities, paradoxes etc.

-Mercury trine Neptune: self expression language, visibility operations, self sovereign logistics harmonized with fantasies of autonomy, myths of independence, projections of direct action, cinematic competition, perceptions widening of how things could be done

8/12

-SN Solar Eclipse in Leo: purgation, shedding, refinement, letting go of outdated expressions and energetics that are no longer authentic to exhibit or are not resonating with the heart, spirit or conscious awareness. May be derived from ones own history over the past 18ish years or have been an influence of what is most commonly celebrated or applauded. Sick of frivolous fun. Reduction of heat or warmth qualities.

-Mars sextile Chiron: guarding the nursery or tactics of nurturing collaborating with sensitive healing and integrating of stability and grounding

-Mercury sextile Uranus: self expressive language and self sovereign logistics collaborating with radically changing ideas, info, data and exchanges

8/15

-Mercury conjunct Jupiter: self expressive language and self sovereign logistics, visibility data, fused with coherence/understanding of authenticity, centrality, heart and attention

8/17

-Mars square Neptune: guarding the nursery or tactics of nurturing clashing with fantasies of autonomy, myths of independence, projections of direct action

-Mercury trine Saturn: self expressive language and self sovereign logistics harmonized with obligation to be independently effective and autonomously capable in a direct way, conserving energy to perform competitively

8/21

-Venus opposite Saturn: desire, love, attraction and value of equilibrium, culture, diplomacy, art and justice contending with obligation to be independently effective and autonomously capable in a direct way, conserving energy to perform competitively

8/22

-Sun conjunct SN: orientation to authentic self, heart, spirit, sovereignty, attention, celebration focusing on what must be shed, purged, released

-Sun ingress Virgo: orientation to details, engineering particulars, process visions, attention to what sensors indicate, logistical objectives

8/23

-Sun trine Chiron: the above harmonized with healing and integrating sensitivity or awkwardness surrounding stability, grounding and materiality/embodiment

8/25

-Mercury ingress Virgo: acute detail data, engineering information, procedural logistics, technical language

-Mercury trine Chiron: the above harmonized with healing and integrating sensitivity or awkwardness surrounding stability, grounding and materiality/embodiment

8/27

-Mercury cazimi: reset of logic/language, mental refresh, a possible ah ha moment, some idea dawns

8/28

-NN Lunar Eclipse in Pisces (NN in Aqu): compulsion to immerse, flow, improvise. Conceptual themes, liberation from outdated structures.

-Mercury square Uranus: Acute process details and precise instrument data or technical engineering language clashing with disruption, experimentation and radical change in ideas, info, exchanges— extreme polarization and paradox in tension with precision thinking

-Sun square Uranus: attention to detail and engineering objectives clashing with radical changes in ideas, info and exchanges—- extreme polarization and paradox in tension with awareness of material data

8/31

-Jupiter trine Saturn: coherence/understanding of authenticity, centrality, heart and attention harmonized with obligation to be independently effective and autonomously capable in a direct way, conserving energy to perform competitively

-Sun in Virgo copresent Mercury just after cazimi: acute and able quantification, measurement, assessment governing Jupiter’s coherence, understanding, wisdom

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9/1

-Mars square Saturn : guarding the nursery or tactics of nurturing clashing with obligation to be independently effective and autonomously capable in a direct way, conserving energy to perform competitively

-While Moon is conjunct Chiron: Mars above governed and informed by subjective needs to heal and integrate woundedness or awkwardness surrounding stability and grounding

-Venus in Libra: Venus in rulership in Libra in full power of equalization and evaluating balance, Mars’ activity ultimately guided by sound qualification, and this extends to Saturn which Mars rules.