Living History: the Astrology of 2026

If 2025 was the year where everything changes – mostly in the form of endings – then 2026 is the year where we fully step into a new era after the dust settled and the board has been set.

[As an aside to the Chinese Zodiac, 2025 was the year of the Snake, which sheds and is introspective, whereas 2026 is the year of the Horse, which acts. The synchronicities of the two traditions on the main significations of coming year I found to be uncanny].

All the major planets signifying wider societal level trends – Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto – shifted into new signs, often dipping back into their previous signs during retrograde periods. In 2026 all these planets will be firmly into the new: Saturn enters Aries in February until April 2028, Uranus enters Gemini in April until May 2033, Neptune enters Aries in February until March 2039, and Pluto (which entered Aquarius already in 2023) will be in Aquarius until 2043.

Pluto brings about evolutionary change due to its long cycle. Its last sojourn into Aquarius was in 1778-1798 which saw the evolution from monarchy to democracy in the Western world, signified most prominently by the US and French Revolutions. Alongside the inception of industrial capitalism and the comprehensive economic system as we know it – Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776 – most of the world has been living through the evolutionary changes to society and government brought on by Pluto in Aquarius 250 years ago. Prior journeys through Aquarius include the period of 1532-1553 and 1041-1063, both prominent for bringing about religious and scientific revolutions, permanently restructuring old orders of society. Both the original schism of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism and the establishment of the Church of England contrary to Rome occurred during these periods, as did the publication of the heliocentric model of the universe by Copernicus.

Uranus in Gemini has historically been significant for the US in being pivotal turning points in its formation as country and reshaping its social values and its role in the world – firstly in 1774-1782 during the Revolutionary War, in 1859-1866 during the American Civil War, and 1941-1949 during its involvement in WWII from which it exited a superpower. There is much to say about this maverick force that exemplifies the US and its 250 year history, and 2026 will be a year that the US is clearly showing its revolutionary core identity to the world.

For 2026, the major initiating force of this year, and why I think this is the year of action, is the Saturn-Neptune conjunction at 0 degrees of Aries on February 20, 2026. This cosmic alignment often signifies precipitous dissolutions of previous structures, ushering in the kinds of changes that have lasting impacts and effects. In Aries, a cardinal fire sign, the spark of the new era is singularly bold.

• Neptune breaks down boundaries, idealizes and amplifies the dreams of its environment. In Aries, these are dreams of a martial nature, of independence, the hero, of self-interest.

• Saturn constraints, regulates, and adds structure to its environment. In Aries, where it is not in its element, the impulse and spark is tempered to a cause, action favors resilience and grit, talk is compelled to turn to action, self-interest is hardened and turned cold.

If Neptune is idealism, Saturn is realism. The last time Saturn and Neptune formed a conjunction, it was in the cardinal earth sign of Capricorn in 1989, where many ideals were made reality, especially in the realm of governing structures, with the dissolution of the USSR, precipitating the end of an empire, and the Berlin Wall literally broken down between countries. (Looking at the news today with this comparisons, in 1989 the US also invaded Panama, ousted its ruler, in Operation Just Cause). Prior to 1989, the Saturn-Neptune conjunction was in 1952-53, in Libra, which saw dissolutions and realism applied to agreements and relationships: the intensification of Cold War in the form of nuclear proliferation in the US and USSR, the death of Stalin in USSR (and the subsequent revelations of his repression), proxy wars such as in Korea, and the paranoia of espionage and red scare in the US in the form of McCarthyism and legal prosecutions of individuals.

In Aries, a hot, cardinal sign, idealism and realism may clash instead along lines of independence, ideology, and in the name of individual self-interest (or self-defense) and freedom, with much more self-directed action (including fighting) than in previous iterations. Taken separately, Neptune was last in Aries in 1861-1874 coinciding with major fights for freedom and/or national sovereignty around the world, and the dissolution of slavery in the United States. Saturn’s last time in Aries in 1991-1994 oversaw multitude of independence struggles in the fallout of dissolved empire, individual migrations precipitated by the dissolution of borders and boundaries between countries, and individual self-interest, in the form of capitalistic markets took over previously communal enterprises.

Where planets in Capricorn and Libra, both governed by Saturn (and Venus), take steps within systems and structures, planets in Aries are ruled by Mars. Initiating, combative, and cavalier, Mars in 2026 will traverse half the zodiac between Capricorn through Virgo. In April/May in particular when Mars is in Aries, expect the first opening moves of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction to show its first effects most clearly.

But most prominent of Mars’ journey is its conjunction with Uranus in Gemini on July 4^th, which marks the 250 anniversary of the US. With Mars conjunct Uranus in Gemini, expect galvanizing declarations with consequences reverberating throughout Uranus' time in Gemini. This is a game changing moment, a flashpoint that ushers in a new order, the same way previous conjunctions in Gemini - in 1863, in 1945 - fundamentally changed the status quo. Without alarming, it is noteworthy that the Atomic Age began with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the month Mars-Uranus were in Gemini. While the conjunction in Gemini is every 84 years, every 2 years Mars and Uranus meet up in any sign. The last time Mars and Uranus were conjunct was in July 2024 in Taurus, when Trump was given the Republican nomination for President right after surviving an assassination attempt.

When Mars is in Leo in November, it will be conjunct Jupiter, also in Leo from June 2026 to July 2027. Expect prominent leadership to be making headlines. Power and authority get a mandate, following dramatic declarations, to be tested in 2027 when Mars goes retrograde in Leo for much of the first part of that year. Jupiter in Leo (most recently in 2014, 2002, and 1990) historically coincides with singular leadership moments, individual valor and shows of strength.

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Our individual lives go on in the midst of these societal level changes, as history unfolds around us. If you have prominent planets and placements in the cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn these societal shifts will mirror the rapid restructuring in your own life for the coming year. Those with Leo signatures too will experience the momentum of these changes, likely in beneficial ways, especially after June 2026. But especially for for those born in the late 1980s through mid 1990s, and those in the early 1950s, who were born with Saturn-Neptune conjunctions in Capricorn or Libra, or Saturn-Uranus in Sagittarius (the opposite sign of Gemini), this year will mark when you are called clearly into action unlike before. The collective becomes personal for you, with its momentum and turbulence jolting you individually into action, authenticity, or enlightenment.