Introducing our 2026 Astrology overview by Claire Morrison.
2026 feels like a year where reality is questioned and reshaped. Not in an abstract or distant way, but through our individual lived experience. The big backdrop is Neptune moving into Aries for a long stretch, with Saturn close enough to matter. This begins a new collective era around idealism, belief, and personal agency. Neptune dissolves boundaries while Aries wants immediacy and action. Together they raise the question: what is real, what is imagined, and what have we been fighting for that may never have truly existed in the first place?
This is where a feeling of ‘falling away’ comes in. Systems, identities, and ideals built on fantasy or avoidance struggle to hold their shape. Saturn’s involvement insists that belief alone is not enough. Something has to be lived, practiced, and embodied to survive. Spirituality becomes less about escape and more about application. An ideal must be brought into daily reality in order to become truly foundational. Neptune in Aries does not dissolve the self into the collective the way Neptune in Pisces did. Instead, it redirects idealism into the individual. Each person is asked to become a living expression of what they believe in and to act on it. Conviction must move through the body and into action. What you believe can no longer remain abstract or aspirational; it is tested through courage, risk, and initiation.
Saturn’s time in Aries reinforces this by putting pressure on stamina and discipline. Aries wants speed and immediate release. Saturn demands patience and responsibility for one’s impulses. This creates tension between restlessness and endurance. The lesson is not to push harder, but to train smarter. Anger, in particular, becomes a resource rather than a problem if it is expressed cleanly. Healthy anger looks like naming boundaries without cruelty and moving the body to discharge heat and fiery emotions.
The first eclipse season from mid February into early March lands right on top of the Saturn Neptune atmosphere, making it one of the louder turning points of the year. This period exposes where people have been living on autopilot. Something may become impossible to ignore. For many, it marks a moment of clarity that feels both sobering and oddly relieving. What dissolves here will likely have been based on fantasy.
At the same time, Mercury turns retrograde in Pisces from the end of February through to mid March, setting the tone for how we will stop and reflect throughout this year. This is the first of three Mercury retrogrades in 2026, all occurring in water signs and all while the Sun is also moving through those same signs. Pisces season, Cancer season, and Scorpio season will each host a Mercury retrograde for the majority of the season. This repetition matters. It signals that while 2026 moves quickly on the surface, our inner landscape requires slowness and emotional awareness. These water sign retrogrades ask for listening and sensing rather than reacting and rushing decisions. See them as a reminder to check in with yourself.
April brings another major shift as Uranus moves into Gemini. This is a fast, electric change in the collective nervous system. Innovation accelerates again, especially in communication, learning, transportation, and technology. Ideas move quickly, sometimes too quickly to integrate. Rule breaking becomes normalized. Expect experimentation with new ways of thinking, speaking, and connecting. There is potential for genuine breakthroughs in understanding between very different groups of people, but only if listening keeps pace with speaking. Otherwise the speed itself may become destabilizing. How you choose to navigate this pace will depend on you as an individual. Do you buck the collective trend and go as analog as modern life will allow? Or do you fl ow with this electric current of new possibilities?
Jupiter’s movement through Cancer continues this year, providing protection, care, and restoration. There is a desire to hold things together, to tend what has been depleted, and to create safety where it has been missing. This can be quiet and humble in appearance, but the results are meaningful and lasting. Early June’s Venus Jupiter conjunction in Cancer highlights tenderness, devotion, and emotional bonding. This is the softest and most romantic moment of the year.
As Jupiter enters Leo, the tone shifts. The second half of the year carries more confidence, visibility, and creative fire. Optimism becomes a strategy. People begin to manifest simply by believing they are allowed to take up space. There is warmth and generosity here, an urge to welcome others and to be seen in your own unique fullness. This is not just about ego, but about heart-led leadership and creative courage. However, Jupiter’s opposition to Pluto reminds us that power dynamics do not disappear just because the mood brightens. Confidence that is not grounded could be challenged.
The nodes changing in July and the first Leo eclipse in August further emphasize individuality and creative expression. Leo energy is spotlighted again and again, especially for those with Leo placements, but also collectively through themes of recognition and pride. The August eclipse season, spanning Leo and Pisces, begins to wrap up a longer Virgo Pisces storyline around service, sacrifice, and discernment. By the end of this cycle in early 2027, many people may be done shrinking themselves to being overly helpful or useful.
Venus retrograde through Scorpio and Libra in October and November is about relational review. People from the past resurface, not always to stay, but to be understood. Old patterns around intimacy, fairness, and emotional exchange are reexamined. Scorpio makes this process intense and brutally honest. Superficial harmony will no longer work. With Mercury retrograde overlapping, conversations matter. Words can sever ties or realign them, so be very mindful how you use them. Confl icts often center on values, especially where normative expectations clash with more unconventional ways of being and relating.
Mars moving through Leo and approaching a retrograde phase at the end of the year ties back into the broader Leo story. Action, desire, and assertion will begin to slow down and become more deliberate. Energy may feel inconsistent. This is not a failure of will, but a signal to reassess how strength is being used. Doing something hard because it is aligned, rather than because it proves something, becomes the real test of confidence. Across all of this runs a quieter but essential theme: preparation. The challenges of this period are not meant to be muscled through impulsively. They ask for training, conditioning, and self-knowledge.
How people respond to the changes that began in 2025 and solidify in 2026 depends on personal choice. Some will lean away from the accelerating technological world and choose a more simple, analog life. Others will merge with the collective current and help shape what comes next. Neither path is inherently right or wrong. What matters is whether the choice is conscious and in alignment with what you value.
2026 does not ask for certainty, mastery, or perfection. It asks for alignment to who you truly are and what you stand for.