Incoming: 2025 Astrology
4 major transits of the year ahead
2025 is big.
That much is clear, whether you’re among the astrologically initiated or not. The astrology does bear it out though.
It’s a “before-and-after” year. You will remember before 2025 and you will remember after 2025 — a year of more-than-political transition.
The heavy hitters are on the move — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, even Neptune. As these planets move through the zodiac slowly, it is very rare for all of them to change signs in the same year. Their near simultaneous shift in 2025 has astrologers the world over scratching their heads. What the hell is coming this year?
At both personal and collective scales, each of these major energy changes is more than a singular moment or event. It’s more like a process initiating, a seed being planted. You remember when you planted the seed, but it’s only the beginning. For the rest, we have years to come.
Open your mind to strange possibilities in 2025.
Pay attention to what, before, you may have thought not possible.
Dream of futures you’ve yet to dream. Dream big this year.
With the Sun now passing through visionary Sagittarius, take a moment to envision yourself and your kinfolk on the other side of next year better off than you are now.
Hold on. Better how?
Could 2025 even change your sense of what “better” means?
Sure — we all need food on the table and like to have some money in the bank. But what if “better” is getting bigger. What if it’s an energy? A pattern? A force for good that wants to be your ally?
If you like what you’re reading and the rest of the article, then you’ll love my workshop FROM NOW ON: Building your Future in 2025 hosted by Vivi Henriette at Art of the Zodiac on December 14 at Noon PST.
UPDATE: The workshop was a hit! You can now pick up the recording here: 2025 workshop
So without further ado: here are 4 major astrological transits of the year ahead.
The year opens with Mars retrograde, leading straight into Venus retrograde
Saturn enters Aries, with Neptune
Jupiter enters Cancer
Uranus enters Gemini
1) The year opens with Mars retrograde, leading straight into Venus retrograde
Translation: we’re remaking our personal lives, echoing the second half of 2018
As the two planets closest to Earth, Venus and Mars have a great deal to do with our personal sphere — our wants and how we go about fulfilling them.
Put simply, Venus is what you want, Mars is how you get it. Venus is the wish, Mars is the sacrifice you put on the altar. Blood, sweat, tears.
During Mars retrograde, we check in with our sacrifices. Where do we draw the proverbial line in the sand? What are you not willing to sacrifice to get what you want?
This can be frustrating. We often face questions of futility during the backward trek of the red planet. After enough banging your head against the wall, the alternative becomes more attractive: live to fight another day.
If you’re chasing a dream, a person, or a path that’s not for you, Mars retrograde will show you the energetic cost of continuing the depleting chase. When he turns backward, Mars reminds us the limits of our energy, and thus the power and importance of choosing our battles wisely. (This basically starts now, by the way.)
Have you heard about the Mars Special, a session focused on Mars and Mars retrograde in your chart! I Click here to Book: Mars Retrograde Special
Where Mars retrograde brings frustration and futility, for Venus the cycle tends to precipitate soul-searching amidst disappointment. Venus retrogrades can also affirm love through the hard times, when love is the thing that keeps you going. (Cosmically speaking, isn’t it always?)
Interestingly, Venus and Mars retrograde the least frequently out of any of the planets — every 18 months for fair Aphrodite, and roughly every 2 years for our rogue fighter. Compared to the less-than-yearly cycles of Venus and Mars, fleet-footed Mercury enters this phase thrice yearly, while all of the others go retrograde once a year.
To help you reflect on what these periods have meant for you in the past, here are the dates of the last several retrogrades of Venus and Mars:
This year’s back-to-back Venus and Mars retrogrades create striking parallels with the second half of 2018. That summer, Mars traveled from Aquarius back into Capricorn, and Venus followed suit from Scorpio into Libra in the fall. This time around, Mars starts the year retrograde, concluding that cycle February 23 just in time for Venus to begin her own backward dance from March 1 to April 12.
In both cases, the first retrograde is Mars going from a fixed back into a cardinal sign, and the second is Venus going from a Mars-ruled sign (Scorpio in 2018 and Aries in 2025) into a place of her strength (Libra in 2018 and Pisces in 2025).
This is hardly the last time I’ll be writing about these upcoming transits. If you haven’t caught up on my writing on the current energy of Mars in Leo and how it relates to the Drama Triangle, here are the links: Part 1 and Part 2.
2) Saturn enters Aries, with Neptune
Translation: we’re perfecting the art of imperfection
Aries energy doesn’t get enough credit for perfectionism.
All of that stereotype goes erroneously to late-summer Virgo, when in reality, I think, it should be shared with her springtime cousin.
If you know a secret doctrine of the seasons, this Aries-Virgo connection and its relationship to perfectionism grows clear. That doctrine is antiscia, meaning “opposite shadows.”
Antiscia connects signs that are essentially mirror images. Aries and Virgo are reflections of each other, signs of “equal light”.
Consider this: The first day of spring is the same length as the last day of summer.1
Put another way, signs connected via antiscia are equally close to the perfect balance of the equinoxes. Edging ever closer to equilibrium, both of these energies are “perfective”. They want to get it just right.
Aries and Virgo perfectionism look a lot different, though. We can explain this through the “modes” or “modalities” of the two signs. Virgo is a mutable sign, and Aries is a cardinal sign.
Virgo’s nature as a mutable sign is to iterate and improve upon what already exists. Cardinal Aries on the other hand is all about starting, so in terms of perfectionism, the improvement instinct of Aries means the sign embraces starting over, to get it right with a fresh start. With the immense energy the first sign of the zodiac possesses, this willingness to go carte blanche makes sense.
How does Saturn — the planet of time, the past, and preservation — feel about starting over? Well, that’s not exactly in his job description! Saturn is said to be “fallen” or “depressed” in Aries. Both of these traditional terms describe the planet being in a physically low place, compared to the height of the opposite position, “exalted,” associated with high esteem and respect.
Here’s what I think Saturn in Aries is bringing to the equation this year: you don’t get to choose between easy and hard; you get to choose between hard and hard.
There is no starting over. We have no choice but to build, imperfectly, with the past.
Along these lines, I was inspired by the writing of
on Substack:
There is no perfection, only effort. And I would add, patience. Patience to accept the challenges dealt to me by the past. Patience for my boomer parents. Patience for my work to bear fruit. Patience for myself. Gratitude for the patience of the planet.
Gardener writes about his weaving practice: “My weaving is path dependent, because glob darnit, I never will weave back. If I do something wrong or have an issue that comes up because of a decision I made earlier in the weaving, I just live with the consequences and incorporate that into the weaving.”
He says this makes weaving more real to him.
Indeed, perfection is not real. It’s Neptunian illusion, it’s an ideal.
Perfecting the art of imperfection means being crafty with an imperfect inheritance. It means embracing trial-and-error and experimenting endlessly, knowing that even failed experiments are not failures if you learned something… even if all you learned is how to dance with your own disappointment. Maybe find joy in it. Learn how to be humble enough to accept mistakes. Humble enough to act.
Reminder to register for my year ahead workshop:
Register Here (live in-person and livestream tickets available; full recording will be sent to both kinds of ticket holders)
Stay tuned for the third and fourth points on Jupiter entering Cancer and Uranus entering Gemini!
I plan to share that with you in the next couple of days.
For now,
Drew
To learn more about antiscia, I recommend the work of Kate Petty.
As a Saturn in Aries native, I had to LOL at this.
"Saturn in Aries:
you don’t get to choose between easy and hard; you get to choose between hard and hard."
That is my old man, and my life, to a friggin T!
Mars/Sun in Aries, Pluto/Uranus in Virgo... I feel seen. And learning to dance with all my disappointments (Capricorn rising)
Mind. Blown.