Photo by Krystle Merrow
Dear readers,
Oh boy.
I haven’t written horoscopes now for several months, having hit a serious wall of writer’s block at the end of the summer coupled with the inability to write about astrology that felt increasingly spooky, describing a political climate that is indeed also quite spooky. OMG.BLOG approached me to write a 2026-upcoming-year astrology post that could deviate from usual form, so here I am doing so. I’m writing a long form introduction discussing this year’s astrology at large, followed by a few keywords for each sign to take into 2026.
An aspect of astrology I cannot participate in and deeply resent is doomstrology. As a counselling astrologer I always want to hear when clients have been told something terrifying about their own astrology that has made them feel doomed (it’s almost always bullshit). I avoid clickbait astrology sources that tell us every eclipse is gonna change our lives (it’s probably just gonna change our mood). So when I have to deliver truly not great news as an astrologer I can feel a bit resentful, or at worst like I’ve cried wolf on optimism.
2026 is one of those years. Astrologically this is a decisive year characterized by tons of change, dynamic planetary movements, and an unusual conjunction Chris Brennan is calling a “reality distortion field”.
Part of why I avoid doomstrology so much is that I know how seriously people take things. I can’t tell you how often someone has come up to me to tell me about an off handed comment someone once made about their astrology and how it’s always stayed with them. But when done well, astrology gives us a language for talking about hard things that we already know are happening. We already know this moment is tumultuous. I watch fascism emerge on my tiny glowing rectangle of bad news like an extremely bleak spectator sport while trying to work and keep my laundry under control. The astrological descriptors for this time aren’t telling us anything we don’t already know, just like telling someone that their Moon in Pisces means they’re extremely sensitive is not something they don’t already know about themselves. Astrology often surprises me in how a moment or personality unfolds (often for how literal it is), but never for describing something that comes out of left field.
The “reality distortion field” Chris Brennan describes is the conjunction of Neptune an Saturn in Aries occurring first February, and once again in April. They already came into this position once last August, so it’s familiar to us, but this year’s conjunctions will be important because neither planet will move back into Pisces as they did last fall. Think about this as these planets having tested the waters before but are now fully in it – or, as the case may be with moving into Aries, they previously lit a match that went out but now they’re starting a fire.
This conjunction takes place at zero degrees of Aries – the very beginning of the sign, and since Aries is often considered the beginning of the Zodiacal year, it’s sort of like Midnight on New Year’s Eve…but with this astrology, it’s like if a really major new item happened exactly at Midnight on New Year’s Eve. Saturn is structure and boundary, where Neptune is spirituality and illusion, so together they both dissolve structure and dispel illusion. The last such conjunction happened in 1989 – fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet Union and an astrological moment we’ve been referencing a lot throughout this decade. These signifiers combine to form an astrological sentence that’s about dissolution and newness, the need for bravery, and a shift into individual thinking.
Throughout Neptune’s journey through Pisces, that lasted from 2012 until this year, we saw a rise of interest in community care, collective action, and spiritual growth. We also saw this alongside weaponized therapy speak encouraging people to protect their own peace at the cost of relationships, a position not rooted in emotional bravery but in putting your head in the sand to avoid conflict (in my own humble opinion). The forthcoming astrology in Aries asks us to be deeply brave and to believe in ourselves. It asks us to consider the use of our anger, and how to be direct and structured with it. This year’s astrology rethinks our collective opinions about violence, with Aries the warrior always raring to go into a fight. I’m already noticing a lot more posts on my feed about violent vs. nonviolent resistance, as if a fog is lifting (or descending) around us asking how much peaceful protest has been accomplishing for us.
As an astrologer, I tend to follow the movements of the outer planets more than the inner. The fast-moving inner planets describe our day to day life and relationships: a Mercury retrograde describes your inconvenient day, a Mars square your energized afternoon, or a Pisces moon your foggy brain. The outer planets describe what is fated. We can’t control these events in our lives. The outer planets – Jupiter through Pluto – the signs they are in, and the relationships they form, describe the shape of the world we live in. We don’t think about them as much when they’re talking easefully to each other. But in years like this, when they’re all in conversation and they’re all changing sign, it’s useful to take note of what they’re doing and see how they can help us articulate the global moment we live in. This is a time to be brave, be honest, and be curious, and to take our heads out of the meme-ified sand they’ve been stuck in.
In solidarity,
Amelia
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