Astro Forecast 7.25.25: New Moon Fall Out, Pluto, Karma, and Bonus Horoscopes
The new moon in Leo faces off Pluto in Aquarius as powerful men work to keep sordid truths buried, but Hades suffers no fools...and certainly not these fools.
What is happening?!
The perennial triptych of misery, Mercury retrograde, is back and better than ever, y’all. Hermes second backwards tableau of the year is hitting just as we begin to wilt alongside our gardens and national pride; steeped in sweat, contemplating violence. These are the weather patterns of apocalypse, giving us too much of the climate that kills and not enough of the kind that heals.
Too much and not enough is a song title from some lame Soundcloud artist, I’m sure, and also the vibe that threatens our sanity as a vampire class of assholes slouch rather biblically toward August. That rough beast isn’t simply on his way, he’s here - fleeing job responsibilities that might damn him and his donors, tossing tall tales into the collective as cheesy distractions, and playing golf in Scotland so whispers of his depravity might evaporate from public consciousness. Good times are still rolling in 2025, but only for the people who can pay.
Dog day distractions for the plebes are decidedly less dramatic and costly by necessity. Normal people’s ‘trip to Scotland’ is just scooting out of work early to spend time by any body of water that isn’t threatening them with death, packing budget picnics for the kids, then dragging themselves to work the next day to do some version of it all over again. As an added bonus, we spend our minuscule free time torn between two polarities; feverishly doomscrolling real time atrocities, or hiding our phones beneath our beds to better cosplay Amish children, blissfully ignorant of anything beyond a ten mile radius. We are trapped in a killing field between the violence of a dystopian future and a pipe dream of the past, with no decent option but to hunker down and shield our most vital organs from the live rounds.
Decent people suffer flesh wounds and bullet grazes in a war they didn’t start; price gouging, terrorization by masked men, death by Israel, death by tooth decay, death by pregnancy, death by cop, death by mass shooting, death by whatever the ruling class decrees. It’s enough to adopt the prey call of the compliant, cowardly citizen that America calls a ‘moderate voter’.
These things happen in war, they say.
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
We don’t care what you do with your life, we just don’t want to pay for it.
What an interesting empire we’ve become; one whose inhabitants will pay three times the going rate to see their neighbors die but not a single penny to help them live.
Part of this is down to Mercury, trickster extraordinaire and ancient speed demon, sliding backwards in humid, loud-ass Leo and dragging us along for the ride. The showiness, the non-stop chasing of greatness that defines Leo’s parameters ensures that any retrograde occurring here will itself be obnoxious, while simultaneously forcing us to face our own obnoxiousness from a forgotten past. And boy, is that past getting the glorification treatment now, as the vampires and their thralls wax nostalgic for the world as it was circa 1935. As if our past isn’t what directly lead to our present.
The healthy ego of a fire sign believes that anything worth doing is worth doing bigly (to use the parlance of our time), which means both the quality and quantity of information getting chucked at us during this retrograde is large - dramatically so. For example, the WSJ published a damning bit of communication between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein the day after Mercury’s official station on July 17th, and since then:
Trump has sued the WSJ and accused a former president of treason
Israel has killed many more Palestinians under the guise that mummified babies are actually Hamas
House Rep. Mike Johnson did a damning Shaggy and Scooby run out of Washington D.C. to avoid admitting that someone named Jeffrey Epstein ever existed
A well-known television show host was cancelled the day after accusing his network of paying off Trump to grease the wheels for a merger (a merger that was approved mere days later)
A pregnant woman in Tennessee was turned away from receiving pre-natal care due to being unmarried
The man whose eyes scream you can have fun and influence people through murder, ask me how! was sentenced to consecutive life sentences for killing a four college students in Idaho
Thailand and Cambodia began firing missiles at each other
It has only been. Eight. Days. Did I say Mercury moved quickly? I meant that it breaks the speed of light, then chews that light up and spits it out, jabbering like a maniac the entire time.
As if all that weren’t enough, our luminaries joined Mercury in Leo yesterday to form a deeply weird new moon, which opposed Pluto in Aquarius shortly after perfection. No worries here, it’s just little Pluto, lord of the dead, existential zaddy and sneaky criminal of the solar system infusing a very activating lunation with his disturbing charm. I’m sure everything will be fine.
If you hadn’t noticed, much of the current drama here in the United States doesn’t concern recent atrocities but sordid events from years ago, i.e. the arrest and subsequent jail house ‘suicide’ of slime ball pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone from your MAGA uncle to the blue-haired baristas of Seattle are re-examining his relationship to our expired cheeseball of a leader and coming to conclusions that implicate not only him, but many other powerful people in the ruling class. The entire case of curdled dairy, if you will. It’s the kind of darkly salacious gossip that grabs hold of a zeitgeist with a mercurial zap of electrocution; buzzy, violent, and inescapable, due in no small part to the QVC-quality denials his administration is hawking at us in response.
It might seem superficial and exploitive when compared to the world’s current grotesquerie, but the Epstein case is one filthy link in a chain that shackles atrocities to each other in this foul year of your lord 2025, forming a depressing ouroboros of gross humanity. Less ouroboros and more human centipede, maybe. Everything is connected, you see; the macro and the micro, the predators and the billionaires, the capitalists and the genocide. Mercury is the slick talker bringing us Epstein gossip, yes, but our luminaries, Saturn, Neptune, Jupiter, Uranus, and Pluto are also active participants in this shit show, and damn, have they been busy.
Consider the following:
Saturn and Neptune are getting combative and paranoid as they retrograde through Aries, reflected here on Earth in the onslaught of floods, maritime disasters, renewed warmongering between ancient geo-political rivals, mass death, and heat waves. If you’re sweating your balls off right now, it’s because Kronos and Poseidon are snooping through Ares bedroom, and he keeps the ambient temperature at a mellow 95 degrees Fahrenheit, like all good psychopaths do.
Jupiter is expanding the influence of anything the moon is doing due to his Cancer transit, which means this new moon in Leo, the whole sign house of being fucking extra, will have an even bigger, louder signature than usual.
Uranus just entered Mercury’s masculine domicile of Gemini, compounding the irresponsible tech-bro vibes of the current retrograde and making shockwaves in digital communication systems a matter of when they will occur, not if. Downed airlines and hacked government agencies are an opening salvo to massive technological disruption that has seven years to escalate to nuclear winter. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
Pluto is doing what he does best, slithering onto the main stage from his shadow pit and whispering, “Not so fast,” to egotists, billionaires, and authority figures all over the world. Hades is locking eyes with our luminaries immediately after the new moon perfects, illuminating secrets, criminal activity, shady business practices, and all other manner of perversions that leaders, paternal figures, and wealthy assholes the world over have been keeping close to the vest. Only the deeply stupid underestimate Hades’ reach, and since at least ninety percent of humanity appears to fall into this category, I’m guessing we’ll have QUITE the show to watch over the course of the next twenty years. Those of us who survive and remembered to stock the bunkers with popcorn, anyway.
Enough malaise, though; we’ll have plenty opportunity to get angry in the future. Let’s get proactive, instead, and examine the best way to work with these rebellious, volatile archetypes.
NEW MOON OPPOSITE PLUTO WANTS YOU TO STOP SWEATING, START SERVING…
Prominent Days: Thursday, 7.24, Friday, 7.25, and probably some weekend fallout through Monday, 7.28
Sun in Leo: Class president at a prep who wins ‘best hair’ award throughout entire life, annoyingly confident about future success, ability to fuck supermodels
Moon in Leo: Award-winning actress with a luxury hair care line, children’s charity, and string of sad exes who still send her presents
Pluto in Aquarius: Campus criminal, has a bone to pick with authority, keeps dirt on everyone, basically a sociopath
THE LIGHT - Like an undergrad theater production, these are all very showy characters, which makes late July’s lunation excellent for initiating things we’ve always wanted to do, but have been too embarrassed or self-defeating to attempt. Endeavors that require physical charisma will benefit from the energy of this moon, so anyone trying to build a digital dating profile, give a revolutionary speech, or audition for your local production of Sound of Music (fascism is trendy right now) will have the wind at their backs, so to speak. This is fortunate, because many of us would give our right arm for a breeze right about now.
Since it’s Leo we’re talking about, we’ll also have good luck with physical transitions, aesthetic updates, and the like, so wear something daring or let your girl at the salon get experimental before you prowl about town looking for attention. You’ll probably like the results.
THE SHADOW - Did I mention that Pluto is giving this lunation the thousand-yard death stare? It’s not nearly as creepy as Idaho murder-man’s eyebrows, but it will deliver the same sort of existential misery by revealing vomitous secrets and depraved motivations. The sun has always been a proxy for fathers and leaders within astrological cannon, so Hades opposing our golden boy often signals death that can be physical or spiritual, falls from grace, conflicts, financial ruin, and other sordid surprises.
For the rest of us, this aspect can punish egocentrism, myopia, and rash decision making, so be sure to intermittently nibble some humble pie while you’re getting all zesty and leonine with new projects, risks, and aesthetic upgrades. The Hades of Greek myth was especially brutal when judging liars and blowhards, which means confidence is hot, arrogance is not.
…BUT MERCURY IS STILL RETROGRADE IN LEO AND SKIPPING TOWARD A REVEALING CAZIMI
Prominent Days: Thursday, 7.24 thru Thursday, 7.31
Mercury in Leo: Busybody theater kid who knows everyone’s business and never shuts the fuck up about it
Sun in Leo: Class president at a prep who wins ‘best hair’ award throughout entire life, annoyingly confident about future success, ability to fuck supermodels
THE LIGHT - The best thing we can say here, given what’s happening around the world, is that travel snafus, tech meltdowns, and poorly worded emails are really not the end of the world. That comes in 2027! These little irritations are meant to bring our attention to errors and missteps that we still have time to correct, so take those Delta miles and exercise more caution the next time you book a trip.
In the realm of communication, Mercury the psychopomp knows everything about everybody, so enjoy the gossip about others, but never forget that your business is also up for grabs as the newest water cooler fodder.
THE SHADOW - Like every other planet transiting Leo, arrogance is the biggest obstacle to enjoyment of Mercury’s blabbermouth. It’s possible that an offhand comment about someone’s outfit will come back to bite you in the ass, or that a secret, drunken confession will become headline news if you’ve behaved boorishly around your confessor. Watch your mouth as though everyone is listening at all times and keep the incendiary social media comments to yourself until mid-August, unless you want to find yourself blasted across TikTok or ostracized from your work clique. Because it is Leo season, you may get the urge to snap racy selfies or send cringey sexts and FOR THE LOVE OF THE GODS DO NOT DO THIS. Unless you’re doing it with Benjamin Netanyahu, Stephen Miller, any billionaire or member of Congress, and planning to publicize it. In that case, sext away, but warn us if anything contains pictures of these people naked.
…ALSO, SATURN AND NEPTUNE ARE NOW IN AN ANGRY, DELUSIONAL FIRE TRINE WITH THE SUN
Prominent Days: Tuesday, 7.22 thru Monday, 7.28
Saturn in Aries: Military grandpa, reinvigorated and nostalgic for combat, spends his days teaching martial arts to young whippersnappers, yelling at clouds, fools, and solicitors
Neptune in Aries: Esoteric, geriatric painter in the middle of his third wind because his weed was spiked with coke, hides knives in his clothes
Sun in Leo: Class president at a prep who wins ‘best hair’ award throughout entire life, annoyingly confident about future success, ability to fuck supermodels
THE LIGHT - When we contemplate the possibilities that might arise from a combination of easy charisma, martial discipline, and balls-to-the-wall creative impulse, the idea of our transforming into the next David Bowie or Prince doesn’t seem too farfetched. Saturn wants us to get our shit together, Neptune wants us to take risks, and the sun is forcing us through charm school so that we can achieve all of this without getting too obnoxious about it, so those of us that harness all of these archetypes at once will make serious strides toward dream achievement. Appease Saturn by making check lists and knuckling down on time frames if you’re trying to level up in your chosen profession, but incorporate Neptune’s creative audacity at the same time to stand out from all the other candidates. Holding the tension between Type A and Type S-for-Stoned archetypes in a winsome, leonine way will do wonders for your progress in any area of life.
THE SHADOW - These are not the most, one might say, humble of archetypes, and each of these planets have a tendency to get high on their own smoky farts in a fire trine. Neptune in Aries can make us paranoid and delusional, and his retrograde might bring back some old standbys like The Satanic Panic (newly refurbished into The Trans Panic) and McCarthyism (which is very excited to meet the new communism, pro-Palestinianism). When the sun gets in on this fire fun, a sense of entitlement can pollute the charisma of Leo and and exaggerate Saturn’s militant tendencies; remember that Kronos had zero compunction about snacking on his offspring to preserve power. Be wary of conspiracy theory bandwagons, manufactured crises, and egotistical combativeness both personally and collectively.
Quicky Horoscopes for the Next Four Weeks on the Leo/Aquarius Axis
Horoscope time, bitches. These breakdowns will be relevant for the next four weeks, and I recommend reading your rising sign for the most accurate information. You can read your sun and moon if you feel like being a contrarian, though. I won’t judge.*
*Not aloud anyway. I’m definitely judging you in my mind.
Aries - Time to intensely engage with hobbies and creative pursuits, Aries…not that you know how to engage in any other fashion. Stop pussy footing around and lay claim to the things that make you happy - draw the drawing, sing the song, join the team, have the baby, whatever. Be mindful of your self-absorption, though, and stay engaged with friends and associates. Sowing your joyful oats will become less thrilling if no one else is around for showing off, so make concessions for other people’s passions every once in a while, or, better yet, invite your friends to take part in your zesty extracurricular activities.
Taurus - Taurus isn’t normally one to make spontaneous changes to their physical space or domestic situation, because the bull finds comfort in safety and stability. A little gusto could kick off much needed improvements, though, and you’ll find yourself warming up to the changes once you execute them, you just need to have a little faith. On the flip side, Pluto might create chaos in your public and professional sphere, which will increase your desire to luxuriate in the comfort of your own living room. Soothe your nerves by procuring the perfect, overstuffed, velvet sofa with a matching footstool and armchair. Some tasseled throw pillows would be nice, too.
Gemini - New modes of local travel and communication might become available to you, Gemini, which means this lunation is essentially your Christmas. Maybe your internet service gets upgraded, or a new place opens up around the corner from your house that hosts open mic nights; either way, you’ll be gifted new opportunities to talk. And talk, and talk, and talk. Pluto will be opposing this from your ninth house of education and philosophy, though, and with your ruler in retrograde I would be careful not to slack off on your deeper, longer-term endeavors. It’s also possible that your personal philosophy is undergoing disappointment or a paradigm shift, and you’ll feel more grounded focusing on your eternal strengths; engaging with your community through the gift of gab.
Cancer - Start something new in the realm of finance and creature comforts, Cancer! Jupiter is in your first house, and he is pulling for you to win, but he needs you to get off your ass and put some effort into securing your resources. There is no reward without risk, so steal a little solar vitality and start a business, develop a service, or apply for a loan, because odds are you’ll get it. Conversely, Pluto is opposing your abundance from the eighth house of debt, inheritance, and other people’s money, so best not abandon due diligence quite yet. Take risks to grow the old bank account, just in case there are surprise expenses coming down the pipeline.
Leo - It’s your time to shine, you sexy kitty, but be wary; old hang-ups and desires will probably resurface from now thru September, which could jazz up your self-image or sabotage some of that infamous confidence, depending on how you feel about former you. How do you feel about your evolution through the decades, Leo? Focus on the parts of yourself that, when viewed objectively, might evolve positively when faced with a new challenge. Don’t be afraid to level up. Conversely, Pluto hanging out in your seventh house of relationships might provoke friends and partners to present you with existential ultimatums, which suggests that the way you balance your individuality (or don’t) with necessary compromises in partnership could be what needs evolving.
Virgo - You’ve pushed something to the back of your mind that no longer wishes to be contained in the subconscious, Virgo, and the longer you ignore it the likelier it is you’ll be blindsided when it breaks free. This moon invigorates your twelfth house of dreams, secrets, mental health, and hidden enemies, so it might be time to find that therapist or come clean about a fib. It’s also possible that someone in your life is a secret frenemy, but you’ll only figure it out after reviewing their past behavior in a different light. Remember, your ruler is currently skipping backwards like a lunatic in this house. Pluto might trigger an investigation from the sixth house by forcing assessment of daily tasks involving health, home, or job routines, and you could discover that some people have been making those things harder for you instead of easier.
Libra - The Leo new moon has a gift for you, Libra, and it’s one of your favorites…new friends! Internalize this kick in-the-pants and mingle in social circles to which you don’t normally gravitate, or shake up the way you connect with your old reliables by surprising them with something left-field like an evening of performance art. Pluto is making it weird over in your fifth house of creative fun, so perhaps you, too, need to explore a different mode of artsy gratification. Socialization and personal fulfillment don’t need to exist in a forced dichotomy, especially when your tendency is to prioritize connectivity over individualism. Drag your homies to one of those paint and sip art nights, or something!
Scorpio - Zesty changes might be coming to your public and professional sphere, Scorpio, and knowing you, they’ll all present opportunities to increase your power and influence. You share a kinship with Pluto, being comfortable with the dead and all, but he’s skulking about your domestic sphere and intensifying tensions between home and work. A financial element might be present, considering the excessive generosity of a Leo lunation, so you’ll need to weigh your domestic expenses against a variety of vocational benefits before you embark on a new, possibly lucrative professional endeavor. Flexibility and an open mind will be key in balancing home and work, so try to loosen up your typically rigid approach.
Sagittarius - This Leo moon will be invigorating your approach to exploration, both mental and physical, which might manifest as a book club, yoga retreat, exotic vacation, or educational adventure. Simultaneously, Pluto is fucking with your third house of communication, neighborhood, and siblings, so it’s possible there is friction between your mundane conversations and your need for new stimulation. Archers get antsy very quickly when areas of life threaten boredom, so if the day-to-day is feeling stagnant it may be your brain that needs expanding. You know what they say Sag - if you’re bored, then you’re boring.
Capricorn - The eighth house is a strange place for this new moon, but it’s landing here so you can get a clear picture of any outstanding debts or I.O.U’s that are floating around like loose threads on the breeze. (Though I’m sure you have a spreadsheet to track that sort of thing, no shade.) It could also kick over funds that someone else owes you, which will come in handy if Pluto corrupts any of the good things you have going on with wealth building and resource security. Although Capricorn is rarely the victim of financial surprises, the god of underground wealth could definitely upend that and trigger your money management O.C.D., so repeat after me; money isn’t everything and what is lost can always be found.
Aquarius - Pleasant surprises and new beginnings are possible in love and relationships, Aquarius, if you could get out of your own goddamn brain and live a little. Pluto is glaring at you from your house of self and threatening to decimate your ego unless you step out of your comfort zone and embrace connection. With people. Real people, not theoretical people. It’s true that much of humanity doesn’t understand you, but how often are you making an effort to be understood? If you do, you might find that rare specimen who vibes with your aloof esotericism enough to ask for a second date.
Pisces - Okay, fishes - you need to take this opportunity to get a handle on life’s drudgery while the Leo moon invigorates your sixth house of service, because completing mundane tasks has never been your strong suit and it’s high time you fixed that. Commit to changing a routine or starting new habits involving all the tasks and commitments that you absolutely loathe if you want to feel better about yourself. Why, you say? Well, the old adage about a cluttered physical space contributing to a cluttered mental space is actually pretty accurate, and Pluto is poking at wounds in your twelfth house of dreams and mental health. When you procrastinate or lean too heavily on your vices, it exacerbates anxiety, stress, and self-loathing, so do the practical stuff to mitigate such things; chores, doctor appointments, flossing, etc. Not exciting…but necessary.
Great read. Everytime I hear pluto mentioned.... I just imagine the movie House that jack built by Von Triers.