Astro Review 5.26.25: Neptune, Saturn, and Venus Have Been Fucking Shit UP in Aries

Neptune gave voice to the wild violence of our collective subconscious when he entered Aries. Venus gathered victims for it. Saturn will shape it into a living weapon.

For Aries, the right answer can always be violence

What is happening?!

There are so many disparate threads of bullshit unraveling in this foul era of humankind that it’s impossible to track them all, astrological or otherwise, and the rapid fire media updates of Gemini season aren’t helping. We’re being smothered beneath a heavy blanket of Weltschmerz - none of that modern, manmade fiber shit, either, I’m talking about a heavy, cotton, triple-layered quilt of existential suck. I think back to being ritually suffocated by my asshole cousin during summer sleepovers; just because it was familiar didn’t make it any less demoralizing.

We’re four months into a rapid, chaotic U.S. transformation from fake democracy into a reality t.v. authoritarian regime, and I still can’t track down any of the people who laughingly told doomsayers in November of 2024 to calm down and quit the hysterics because none of their overwrought, worst case scenarios would happen. It’s not because people have rethought their position; a hilarious notion in 2025. No one has rethought their position on anything! It’s more likely that Trumpies, tech lords, and Bible-beaters always knew that normal people’s fears were absolutely going to be made reality; they just wanted to gaslight harder in the lead up to Trump’s inauguration. You know, for old time’s sake, before they make gaslighting an irrelevant practice by openly torturing dissenters. (Very Neptune-in-Aries of them.)

No violent new* crises have assaulted us in the last two weeks; instead, everyone has had to passively swallow the shards of long-running socio-political shenanigans as they continue to unwind and inflict misery, like an infinite spool of razor wire. We’re being shredded, but we’re behaving like we’ve come to expect it, as have the landlords, arms dealers, bankers, and bosses around the world. Stop being a baby, get a glass of water, and get back to work; those immigrants aren’t going to deport themselves, Robert.

Right now, Israel and Iran are warming up their nuclear death machines, children in Gaza are screaming in agony from hunger, a woman’s dead body is being kept alive as an incubator, nine million people in the U.S. will probably soon lose healthcare, innocent men are being tortured in CECOT, and the current box office dominator is a fifth installment of that paean to existential stupidity, Final Destination, or as I call it, Death by MouseTrap.

This is the kind of astrological weather that befalls us when major planets enter Aries; the immature, combative domain of the western zodiac’s resident alpha-hole, Mars. Decisions get made rashly, hackles are raised, conflicts escalate, and things begin to literally catch fire. Though there were several aspects and transits over the last few weeks that manifested subtly in the collective, Saturn, Venus, and Neptune in Aries have been loudest and brashest , so let’s see what everyone has been up to…

*To be clear, we are all still dealing with the ongoing horrible, violent crises of 2025, we just haven’t been introduced to a totally novel horror like aliens, yet. Probably coming, though.

Venus is in her fall in Aries, stuck in the dirty, smelly bachelor pad of Mars

5.13.25 - 6.5.25: Venus Picks at the Scab on the 9th degree of Aries, Settles on Revenge for the Wound

Venus Retrograde in Aries - Patriarchy madam with knives for nails who lets her husband convince her that oppression is good, actually

Venus Direct in Aries - Patriarchy madam post-divorce, now jobless, down-trodden, gorgeous and fucking pissed

Between the new moon in Taurus and the full moon in Scorpio last month, world governments and the ruling class leaned enthusiastically into the creation/destruction cycle of the second and eighth house axis, creating new civic norms for us and new riches for themselves while destroying aging institutions. Venus, our love, art, and value planet, rules the sign of the bull and has been in Mars’ domicile, so had an outsized influence on our lunar cycle. Plus, she’s has been in the throes of a brutal retrograde that reflected our unstable money markets, growing sexual inequality, and speech suppression. Now that she’s direct, our sexiest sky orb has sped past that tricky, 9th degree of Aries and issues with trans rights, gender equality, abortion, freedom of expression, and market valuation could quickly accelerate in one direction or the other, but the parking place is anyone’s guess. Given the impressive velocity of 2025’s authoritarian winds, the trend of curtailing such rights is likely to continue, but no worries - you and your gal pals can get ahead of this by running out to the nearest, barely alive Joanne Fabrics clearance sale and customizing your own handmaid robes in flattering colors and weather-resistant fabric. Mine has pockets!

Speaking of fascist fashion, every blonde, diamond-eyed harridan on the Fox network is absolutely dripping with Venus in Aries energy; Femininity as a weapon? Check. War-monger dressed in an ill-fitting Ann Taylor shift dress and doing her best Jackie O impression, if Jackie O was a muscular drunk? Check. Conversational skills that make Sarah Paulson’s character from 12 Years a Slave seem like a gentle art school teacher? Big fucking check.

Social injustice ramps up whenever Venus speeds through Aries, usually to detrimental effect in any community outside the cis/white/male sphere, and these harpies are the traitors attempting to reverse midwife 2025 back into the vaginal canal of the Dark Ages. Women’s corpses used as incubators? Women tossed in jail for involuntary biological processes? Trans people dehumanized and kicked out of their chosen professional calling? Yes, yes, yes! Certain people are super into it, apparently, just like certain people were into picnicking beneath lynched Black bodies and setting innocent people’s livelihoods on fire, circa Venus in Aries of 1953 and 1921, respectively.

Additionally, our planet of connectivity is often a celestial harbinger of air travel tragedies like the Hindenburg flambè of 1937 when she is careening through Aries, and she seems to be continuing this tradition. This go-round, Newark Airport broke, more planes have been crashing, and more lives are being lost right on schedule as DOGE and the Confederate Christlickers Brigade fire all competent people from the FAA. You can’t make this stuff up, and even if you could, you wouldn’t.

5.4.25 - 10.13.25 Pluto Gets Tired, Stands Still For a Bit, Then Retrogrades in Aquarius

Pluto in Aquarius - Campus criminal, has a bone to pick with authority, keeps dirt on everyone, basically a sociopath

Pluto, not wanting Venus to have all the fun, has also just gone retrograde, but that chilly wiener moves backwards for like, half of every year, so personal impact should be insignificant. This particular Pluto retrograde has more bite in the mundane realm, though, due to its novelty as the first full retrograde in Aquarius since the late eighteenth century. Both the initiatory and final degrees that any planet spends in a sign tend to be the most intense, so this first retrograde in Aquarius could be viewed as a harbinger for what the next twenty years will look like. If it’s anything like the late eighteenth century, the answer to the that question is, unfortunately, lots of war - during the last cycle, British colonizers killed huge swaths of indigenous people in Australia and the Americas, Russia fought Poland, Ireland fought Britain, and France fought itself. Aquarius’ concern for the collective is easily perverted by Pluto, resulting in a few megalomaniacs thinking they have the right to impose their will on large swaths of humans, and if that doesn’t sound hauntingly familiar to you, please see the button below to send me some of the drugs you are taking. On the brighter side of Aquarius, it was during Pluto’s last sojourn through him that Mozart and Beethoven wrote some sweet tunes, Ben Franklin invented bifocals, and Joseph Priestley unraveled the secrets to nitrous oxide, delighting dental patients and nascent addicts everywhere.

5.15 - 5.20: The Sun and Uranus Met Up in Taurus to Ask…If Shit Sucks, Why the Fuck are We Still Following the Rules?

Sun in Taurus -Ferdinand The Bull except a lot bossier and a little full of himself

Uranus in Taurus - GreenPeace dude who loves nature and will absolutely blow up an oil pipeline and an ocean freighter to protect it

Uranus the disruptor tossed a little bomb at our dying solar figure last week by revealing Joe Biden’s very aggressive prostate cancer (thanks, Mercury). Uranus, we should keep in mind, is also in that sticky, drippy, murderous last degree of Taurus, and the House of The Bull pays special attention to material and financial security. Someone’s big, beautiful bill, the one that guarantees a massive dismantling of the already meager social safety net in the U.S., is was already causing Uranian friction in the legislative branch, and will likely continue to do so until the weird rebel planet enters Gemini. Then we’ll have an entirely, differently shitty reality to contend with.

5.16 - 5.19: Mars in Leo and Mercury in Taurus Loudly Compared Teeth, Claws, and Horns in a Dominating Fixed Square

Mars in Leo - Formidable class bully who also happens to be extremely good looking and charming, also; psychopath

Mercury in Taurus - Like normal Mercury if they ran at half speed and preferred their couch to literally anywhere else

This was a great aspect for politicians, middle managers, and whatever passes for a journalist these days; basically, anyone whose livelihood depends on repeating provably false horse manure in such a way that they sound sincere and believable, even though we all know they are not. This played out to varying degrees between Israeli government officials and the rest of the world as they kept insisting that starving millions of people on purpose isn’t a genocide, as well as between Vladimir Putin and the rest of the world as he lies, boldfaced, about ceasefires and proceeds to do whatever he wants. Mercury can be lugubrious and ineffective in Taurus, reminiscent of the simpering that Trump’s cabinet does anytime he convenes his traveling fellatio crew in front of cameras to a chorus of this is all because of your glorious leadership, sir! Like a bully who punches you at the same time he admonishes you for crying, Mars in Leo forces his will on people and Mercury in Taurus is too stoic to give voice to the pain of impact. This was a great aspect for assholes, basically.

Uh-oh, Grandpa Saturn found his second wind and he’s ready to rumble

5.18 - 5.22: The Sun in Gemini made a sextile to Saturn in Pisces and Turned Changeability Into an Asset

Sun in Gemini - Loose Cannon Valedictorian Whose Persona Changes with Every Animal Crossing Update

Saturn in Pisces (last degree) - Grandpa re-living the war during a ketamine trip in his armchair lounger

The last degree of Pisces, the very end of a life cycle, is always trippy and disturbing, even for a beloved pretty boy like the sun. Think of mid-March in the northern hemisphere - volatile, extreme, stormy, and inconsistent. Transitions are destabilizing, and their true nature is unknowable even to themselves; we white-knuckle through March, never knowing what to expect as we are forced to live strictly in the moment, and that moment could be sixty degrees and sunny until all hell breaks loose and you wish you brought a sweater and a rain jacket.

Now take Saturn - patron saint of cannibalism and cranky old guys - and stick him in that nebulous, pre-dawn place at the end of Pisces. He’s having war flashbacks, he’s hallucinating light tunnels, he’s confronting the sins of his past, and because he’s Saturn, he’s making it everyone’s problem, not just his. The sun in Gemini lent a helping hand and acted as trip director, soothing Saturn as they both sifted through data. Unsurprisingly, the collective has witnessed rapid fire proclamations and deal-making from politicians and world leaders in the past week that suddenly become moot, change course, or morph through different goals and iterations at the speed of light. Ah, mercurial Gemini.

5.18 - 5.26: Venus and Mars Got a Fiery Trine Going and Strengthened Our Resolve To Be Flirty, Awesome, Terrifying

Mars in Leo - Formidable class bully who also happens to be extremely good looking and charming; also, psychopath

Venus in Aries - Patriarchy madam post-divorce, now jobless, down-trodden, gorgeous and fucking pissed

These two get extreme very fast, thanks to mutual-ish reception and a particularly volatile, post-retrograde Venus. (She’s undoubtedly exhausted from crashing all of those fucking planes.) This aspect reflects two sides of the same energetic coin who bring out either the very best or the worst, abrasive, most awful control freak in each other. Thankfully, Venus is in the superior position of this trine, which means Mars got to be the submissive pool boy over the weekend. (About time, I say.) This means people will be applying martial confidence and assertiveness to social connectivity, creative pursuits, and justice, so you can expect them to get loud and annoying about their pet causes and peeves.

5.20 - 5.24: The Sun in Gemini and Neptune in Aries Make Artsy Moves Via Sextile

Sun in Gemini - Loose Cannon Valedictorian Whose Persona Changes with Every Animal Crossing Update

Neptune in Aries - Esoteric, geriatric painter in the middle of his third wind because his weed was spiked with coke

Psychic downloads, waves of unique inspiration, and extremely left-field ideas erupted as we synchronized beneath a sextile between our big yellow star and everyone’s favorite ice giant. The sun has us elevating meaty conversations and intellectual prowess to the top of our priority lists as he strolls through Gemini, and Neptune is still getting warmed up in restless, forceful Aries, but they are both in a place to further each other’s goals. What are those goals, you might wonder? Well, they’ll be tripping the light fandango and receiving visions in the areas of your chart that contain Gemini and Aries, probably encouraging actions that go against your usual grain. As an example; people with Aries rising experienced this in the first house of self and third house of local activity and communication, so strange, artistic Neptune was adding a new dimension to the persona of these natives and coloring their interactions with neighbors or social media friends. As an Aries rising, I myself completed my paper mache, three-eyed, mystical ram’s head, then wore it to introduce myself to my cool ass looking neighbor, the only one on my street with a pentagram wreath on their door. Who says pagans don’t build community?!

5.22 - 5.26: The Sun and Pluto Form an Influential Air Trine, Flirt With Power Hungry Tech Lords

Sun in Gemini - Loose Cannon Valedictorian Whose Persona Changes with Every Animal Crossing Update

Pluto in Aquarius - Campus criminal, has a bone to pick with authority, keeps dirt on everyone, sociopath

This is an archetypal combination that can create very cool things together. They can also create very horrible things, and the trouble is, they see no difference between the two. The element of air, to which both Aquarius and Gemini belong, doesn’t make value judgements on information or communication, which means deciphering fact from fiction and truth from conspiracy theory has been nearly impossible. Expect to continue hearing unsavory rumors and unsettling headlines.

5.24.25 - 4.12.28 Grandpa Saturn Joins Neptune In Aries, Stoked To Bum Us Out In Totally New Ways

Saturn in Aries - Grandpa, reinvigorated and nostalgic for combat, spends his days teaching martial arts to young whippersnappers

Neptune in Aries - Esoteric, geriatric painter in the middle of his third wind because his weed was spiked with coke

There will be oceans of material to discuss throughout the next few years as Saturn and Neptune wreak havoc in Aries, but I don’t know if any mundane incident could more perfectly encapsulate this combination than the recent, bungled launch of a North Korean naval destroyer during a ceremony graced by the original porcine dictator. (Trump is a cheap knock-off, in my humble opinion.) The beached and broken ship is clearly the result of an old-fashioned Saturn smackdown, designed to force warmongers and ship launchers to be a bit more disciplined before they mess around in Neptune’s realm. Shenanigans are exactly what we should expect to happen when the above archetypes get together and muddle around in the whole house sign of combat, which provides a tiny glimmer of hope in this increasingly violent era. Perhaps Saturn will restrain the worst impulses of nation states by handicapping their martial impulses with incompetence. We should laugh at those in charge as often as possible; amidst the deadly tragedies of 2025, authoritarian buffoonery could be the closest thing we get to relief.