Happy Astrological New Year!
What the Spring Equinox is bringing
This post was written by community partner Hands of Mercury
Chuck the Gregorian wall calendar out the window, it’s the true new year in the northern hemisphere. Four cosmic thresholds initiate us into new seasons, cycles, and spirals of time each year at the solstice and equinox points. This is ancestral time, in eternal and devotional observance of our life-giving Sun. Just like the Sun, we have our personal and collective brightest days, darkest nights, and moments of equilibrium.
This equinox marks the Sun’s ingress into the fiery, initiating sign of Aries in the tropical astrological tradition, heralding the time of year connected to bold beginnings, courageous leaps, and the ignition of our most audacious visions. Just like the daffodil and hyacinth shooting up from the thawing soil to greet us, we too are invited to burst through our winter bubbles to point our hearts and heads toward the new season. What cosmic and earthly initiations are upon us for the next year?
Well, initiation is a fitting theme for not just Aries season but for the coming year ahead. We are on the brink of four major planetary ingresses, signaling a new era of culture, geopolitical movements, spirituality, and lessons. These planetary movements will slingshot us out of old stories and into new dynamics in our personal lives. The stage is being re-set, novel players and plotlines are waiting in the wings, and brand-new blocking will be shared momentarily by our celestial directors.
Key Ingresses of The New Astrological Year
Neptune in Aries
March 30th, 2025 – October 23rd, 2025 | February 20th, 2026 – March 2039
Neptune, our planetary ancestor and overseer of dreams, illusions, spirituality, and imaginative world building moves from the Piscean waters where it is most comfortable to the battlefield of Aries. This is a profound shift that will color the collective consciousness for over a decade. Initially, this energy might feel somewhat paradoxical – the empathic, dissolving Neptune tries to make itself at home in the gun slinging and blade throwing dojo casa of Aries. We may see a rise in spiritual and religious beliefs guided by traditional masculine leaders and symbols, as well as the archetype of the “spiritual warrior”. This can be the warrior for peace or the violent fanatic. New religious or spiritual movements may rise during this transit, as well as a collective conversation on our beliefs around war, violence, and separation. For the United States, the last time Neptune toured Aries was during the civil war, a time of ideological division surrounding slavery and economic strategy. I found this article on Neptune in Aries by Astrology from the Soul especially insightful for a historical perspective on this transit. Our faith may be shaken and tested during this transit to the area of life that correlates with where Aries resides in your natal chart, especially towards the beginning of this transit when Saturn is co-present here. As well, you may find a sense of psychic receptivity and sensitivity in this area of life.
Saturn in Aries
May 26th, 2025 – September 2nd, 2025 | February 14th, 2026 – April 12th, 2028
Adding another layer of force and focus to the Aries landscape, taskmaster Saturn will join Neptune in this area of the sky later in Spring before retrograding back into Pisces for a final run. Saturn in Aries requires us to take responsibility for our individual power and pull back on the impulsive tendencies of this sign. Saturn is considered in its fall in Aries, a place where it operates with less effectiveness and normal function. Boundaries, rules, regulations, and conservation of status quo will be challenged. Personally, we are going to need a more mature and strategic approach to the area of our life that correlates with where Aries resides in our natal chart. We might face challenges or limitations in our ability to initiate, but these are opportunities to develop self-discipline and learn to fight for what truly matters in a grounded and sustainable way. This transit can also bring a serious collective inquiry to the consequences of both war and peace, human rights, and the use of power and force. For those with Saturn in Aries in their natal chart, take heed! You are beginning a major initiatory transit known as the Saturn Return. Resources available for this transit below.
Jupiter in Cancer
June 9th, 2025 – July 20th, 2026
One of my favorite transits of the year begins in June when Jupiter parades into its place of exaltation and celebration. After a curious and chaotic mental tour through Gemini, Jupiter drops down into the body to spread the nourishing and fecund mother’s milk of Cancer. Lunar themes of home, family, fertility, and safety will ignite in our hearts and wombs as we weave the threads of new progress and protection for these vital areas of life. This area of the sky and our natal charts has been challenged and even threatened since October 2024 due to the Mars transit and retrograde in the sign of Cancer (We can look to the LA fires that swept through at a peak moment of the Mars Rx cycle). Jupiter glides over this scorched patch in a few months with unexpected gifts and cooling waters. One can hope that Jupiter’s tour through Cancer will also bring progress to the protection of our waters and universal access to clean water, as well as reproductive and child healthcare. I encourage everyone to work with this transit as we all can find a sense of expansion, hope, and benevolent guidance in the area of our life that Cancer claims in the birth chart for this time.
Uranus in Gemini: July 7th
November 8th, 2025 | April 2026 – August 2032
Uranus, the planet of rebellion, innovation, and earth shifting surprise, moves into the dual faced and contradictory sign of Gemini this summer. Uranus’ tour through Taurus since 2018 has zapped us with destabilizing shifts to our agricultural and economic systems – think bitcoin and blockchain and what has been cited “the world’s largest protest”, the Indian Farmer’s Protest of 2020-2021. Uranus in Gemini is set to revolutionize the way we approach communication, sales, and the education system, for better or worse. Uranus values unconventionality and freedom, which may pour through the Substacks, propaganda, and plentiful podcasts circulating during this transit. Historically, Uranus in Gemini has coincided with major wartimes for the United States, from the revolutionary war to World War II. Wherever you have Gemini in your natal chart, get ready for unexpected change and radical new ways of tending to that area of your life. You may find yourself or others who operate in that environment to approach with more unpredictability and non-conforming conversation during this transit. On the bright side, breakthroughs in the way we learn and retain knowledge may be a gift of this upcoming time through research and experimentation.
Beyond the Threshold
What celestial changes are you most curious or cantankerous about? Initiation is not comfortable, but it is necessary in the grand dance of evolution. As Austin Coppock recently shared on an episode of The Astrology Podcast:
“It’s not at all crazy to say that we are moving into over the next eight years the greatest, most significant rearrangement of the geopolitical situation that we’ve since World War II and we will also see equally significant rearrangement on an internal level in a lot of the major regions and biggest countries in the world.”
We have our homework ahead of us both personally and collectively in the ways we are being asked to show up and share. From fire to new form, may you face this new season and new era with courage and the flame of an inextinguishable spirit.
More about the Author: Samantha created Hands of Mercury out of her passion for the power of storytelling and intentional gathering to inspire personal growth and collective progress. Her mission is to provide personal and group offerings as a multi-disciplinary guide and facilitator for deeper self-inquiry and earth-focused community healing. She has been studying Western Astrology with a Hellenistic focus since 2015. She is a Reiki III practitioner with study through Santa Monica College and Minka Brooklyn, as well as a cacao ceremonialist under the guidance and initiation of Mayan wisdom keepers Tata Izaias and Nana Izabel of San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala.
Curious about how these upcoming transits interact with your natal chart? Samantha offers 1:1 Astrological Consultations to dive into your natal chart, current transits, locational astrology, and more. More info at www.handsofmercury.com. For questions, please reach out at hello@handsofmercury.com
