Why I Cannot Be Quiet About 2026

Notes from an unprecedented astrological era

I have been practicing astrology long enough to know when a year feels busy and when it feels different. 2026 falls into the second category. The scale of what is unfolding makes it hard to describe without flattening it, not because the symbols are unclear, but because too many long cycles are shifting at once. I feel a need to speak about 2026 in a way I do not usually exhibit. To go bigger and louder, and to let all my circles know what is happening.

I am a writer, activist, mother, wife, advocate, cat fosterer, lover of history and astrologer. For the most part, I am good at juggling the demands that come with following my authentic nature, which means going long on all the above. In 2026, however, I am realizing that being an astrologer is the hardest role to hold. Not because interpreting the astrological landscape has reached some personal internal limit, but because we are living through an unprecedented astrological era. There are so many signals activating at once that writing about them feels difficult because the scale is massive.

I launched an astrology blog twenty years ago, but I never had the desire, given my other interests and commitments, to focus only on astrology. I love astrology. I write about it. I teach astro workshops. At the same time, I am engaged in other pursuits. Anyone who follows my social media is more likely to see a foster kitten or a call to contact an elected official more often than my astrological perspective. I could pivot to astrology full time, but that does not feel true to who I am. And yet, I cannot stay quiet about the astrology of this moment because it is so big. 2026 is not like other years and I am writing this with all my circles of peeps in mind.  Those who know little of astrology besides their sun sign.   

Let’s start with mundane astrology which means world astrology.   It is not about “Oh Leo, you are really in the cross hairs with Pluto.”  That is personal astrology.  World astrology is what is going on the astro landscape and how it is impacting all of us.   This is my interest and for all of us practitioners of the mundane, we have known for a long time that the mid 2020s would matter in a big way.    It began with the intensity of 2020 astrology. I started writing about January 12, 2020 two years earlier in 2018 because of an aspect that we were watching with an eagle eye. We did not know how it would manifest, only that it carried weight. When I looked back historically, to find the previous date in the same sign that the aspect appeared I saw that it was connected to Martin Luther and the Reformation, alongside the codifying of the transatlantic slave trade by King Charles I of Spain.

What happened for all of us in 2020 was that aspect coincided with Covid. The World Health Organization announced a pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan during the week of the aspect, and like Martin Luther nailing his theses to the church door, the world shifted. Within months, the killing of George Floyd cast a long shadow that reached back to the formalization of slavery centuries earlier.   This is what 1517 looks like in 2020. 

Astrologers understood that the 2020s would open with force and that the decade carried the potential to reshape the world in profound ways.  Last year, I became more vocal about the astrology of 2025 and 2026 because I sensed that people who know nothing about astrology were feeling it anyway. I wanted to speak so people would know they were not imagining things. Yes, everything feels faster, stranger, and larger. Here we are, twenty-seven days into 2026, and it is already a loaded year. The National Rifle Association issuing a statement condemning the behavior of ICE in Minnesota is not something many of us expected to see.   Like I said, this year different.  

With that context, I want to offer some astrological insight into 2026.

On January 26, Neptune moved from Pisces into Aries, where it will remain until 2039. The last time Neptune entered Aries was the weekend of Fort Sumter, the battle that marked the beginning of the American Civil War.

On February 3, Uranus stations direct after five months of retrograde motion and begins its final approach to a new sign. Uranus takes about eighty years to travel the zodiac, and the last three times it occupied this sign coincided with the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II.

On February 13, Saturn enters a new sign which it has not traveled in since 1996 to 1999. During that period, early message boards and chat rooms became arenas of ideological conflict. Struggles moved from physical spaces into narrative and identity. Today, social media carries far more power and reach than it did thirty years ago.  TV programming loaded with shows focused on reality or at least produced reality including COPS and The Real World.   It will be in the new sign until 2028. 

On February 17, a solar eclipse occurs with strong ties to the United States chart. Themes of collective responsibility are tested and calls to conscience become harder to ignore.

On February 20, Saturn and Neptune meet at a point in the zodiac they have not shared since around 4700 BCE. That era marked humanity’s shift from hunting and gathering toward agriculture and settlement. Language itself was forming. What this looks like now is difficult to say, but we may be asked to act before we understand, commit before belief settles, and build without guarantees. Capacity matters here. This is a foundational stress test rather than a crisis of one issue. Institutions may falter, policies may contradict themselves, and old frameworks may fail quickly while new ones appear incomplete but functional, sort of and that will have to be good enough. 

On March 3, a total lunar eclipse brings focus to labor, systems, and sustainability. It functions as a check in moment. What is working and what is not becomes clear. Theory gives way to practice. The question becomes simple.  “Is this working?” and if it is not it will most likely be jettisoned. 

On April 25, Uranus enters its new sign, accelerating information, technology, and communication. Change comes quickly, and finding stable footing takes a whole lot of effort. We all will be pivoting and at times it will seem like a daily task.    This cycle continues through 2033 with some years more juiced up than others.   

May and June are softer, but we are all working hard in this new era.   It is no longer abstract and there is a demand that tests our competence, endurance, and ability to adjust.

In July, outer planets form connections with each other in sign combinations that have not occurred before in recorded history.   Yeah, that.  No existing models account for this pattern. These alignments may offer support and opportunity, though not before an intense opening to the month. 

August brings another set of eclipses. Inflated egos are challenged, while those who lead through service rather than spectacle are called forward.

September continues the rare outer planet connections, with emphasis on people finding strength through collaboration and shared purpose, especially around independence and self-determination.

October brings both Venus and Mercury retrograde, affecting money, relationships, values, investments, and legal matters. Tension returns between inner and outer planets, echoing themes from the beginning of the year (January) and summer (July).

November carries these retrogrades through the United States midterm elections, with further strain between personal action and larger systems.

In December, we revisit supportive outer planet connections while preparing for Mars to slow and turn retrograde in January. That will be a thing. 

This astrology makes for an extraordinary, strange, and intense year, and I want to share it with all my circles. I am not doing this to predict outcomes or to place fear into the zeitgeist. I am living my life as regularly as life allows. Meals need to be made. Houses need to be cleaned. Creative work needs attention. Foster kittens need to be petted. Life keeps moving.

At the same time, there are large changes underway. The ground is shifting. The air feels faster. The astrology suggests you are probably noticing it too. That is a good thing. It means you are paying attention. If nothing else, this year asks us to stay awake to one another and to the moment we are living in, because what we build now will carry further than we can see.

Now I am going to write something about public schools that I owe a friend, respond to a few texts from my political circles, and feed Danny, our latest foster, because life goes on.

And please consider fostering dogs and cats this year. They need our help every year, even the intense ones. I am certain people were feeding their animals back in 4600 BCE, too.