On February 20th, 2026, at 11:54AM EST, Saturn FINALLY catches up with Neptune at 0-degrees Aries - the first degree of the first sign - starting a new cycle. It has been thousands of years since they have come together here.
Reality (Saturn) meets unreality (Neptune). The God of 3D meets the God of 5D. Now, they have been close enough to smell each other's toothpaste for many, many months, so how much of this we are going to FEEL/EXPERIENCE on this day would be anyone's guess. But the New World starts here. Astrologically speaking. There is no denying this.
It could be in late March when the Sun reaches the Aries point on the first day of spring with Mars applying or when Mars gets there himself in early April - that we can really see what is happening. When Mars - the trigger - gets there, the Moon will be in Capricorn and squaring the Sun from 20 degrees Capricorn (which might sound familiar to my long-time blog readers and astrology geeks from January 2020 when "time ran out", this is also where Mars and Venus met up when Russia invaded Ukraine, this is also tightly conjunct Epstein's natal Mercury).
I wrote about Neptune into Aries HERE - a 14-year cycle that started on January 26th.
I wrote about Saturn into Aries HERE - a 2.5-year cycle that started on February 13th.
We can all see the gnarly future collective possibilities since so much appears to be going wrong, although we have to keep in mind the stuff that we thought was going right, well now we can see that it really wasn't. The world was a much bigger sh*tshow than we previously suspected. There is a whole lot of upside to where we are now. A whole lot of ROOM to feel better/be better/do better. We aren't at the top with nowhere to go but down.
So where are we?
We have Saturn and Neptune at 0-degrees Aries - along with asteroids Heracles/Hercules, Urania and Borasisi.
We are in between two powerful Eclipses - an Aquarius Eclipse (during a North Node in Pisces cycle) pulling the future into the now and the final Virgo Eclipse geared to work/health coming on March 3rd.
We have a waxing Moon in Aries - initiation, energy BUILDING.
We have Mars (ruler of Saturn and Neptune now as well as the Moon, Ceres, Chiron and Eris) at the powerful 22-degrees Aquarius and exactly conjunct Chariklo. Asteroid Chariklo was also present back in January 2020 when Saturn met Pluto (time ran out) and the Sun and Mercury and Ceres. AND Chariklo was present when Jupiter met Saturn at the end of 2020 (and the world started up again).
Saturn and Neptune at 0-degrees Aries. This is the end of an old dream and the birth of a new mandate. Note - I did NOT say new dream. This isn't about a new dream. This isn't about something hopeful or inspiring or some kind of vague change. This is something that carries weight, authority, CONSEQUENCE.
Historically Saturn/Neptune cycles coincide with shifts in ideological structures - what societies believe is true, sacred or legitimate. Their last conjunction in 1989 (they met three times that year, this time we only get the one exact meeting) corresponded with (among other things) the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union/collapse of certain political mythologies. A dream dissolved - a new order formed.
This is BIGGER NOW at 0-degrees Aries/the formation energy is amplified. Aries says, “OK. If that’s gone, then what now?” And we aren't very likely to know just yet. Practically and personally, it can look like - a belief we carried for years quietly dissolves, a hope we leaned on thins out, a role we played no longer fits, a story about who we are softens.
Saturn internalizes responsibility and dissolves Neptunian fantasy. This can feel sobering. Lonely. Quietly adult.
But here’s the flip side - when illusion dissolves, our energy comes back (it is exhausting to prop up bullsh*t).
When fantasy falls away, STRENGTH returns.
When we stop trying to save what’s fading, that's when we discover what is SOLID.
A personal mandate - I am really liking this word mandate right now for some reason :) might look something like - I will not abandon myself while things change. I will not cling to being needed in order to feel valuable. I will grieve what’s passing without trying to control it. I will stand in my own authority now. That’s very Saturn in Aries. Very embodied.
Saturn will only be here with Neptune for a little while. Neptune will be here for many, many years. So, we want to get the beginning right and not just create another lalaland or ideological battle.
We have Hercules here so maybe we can expect some false heroes. Look at how the people we have looked up to are disappointing us. Who will the new/real heroes be? We have Urania to help connect us to the stars. We will have to see what she is doing here. And we have Borasisi/the false Sun God from the dystopian novel Cat's Cradle - warning about false saviors/Gods, AI, tech. Is this whole thing seeding AI as savior/God/hero - that's a possibility ... but there are many.
We are in between two powerful Eclipses - a time out of time. We have a Waxing Moon in Aries, so even our Luna is answering to Mars. We have Mars at a powerful degree in a COLLECTIVE sign (also the sign of technology/hivemind).
Mars sits with Chariklo - who seems to pop into charts at very big moments. Her name means Graceful Spinner. She was conjunct Saturn/Pluto Jan. 2020 (time stopped, power cemented, mortality). She was conjunct Jupiter/Saturn Dec. 2020 (time restarted, societal reset). She was discovered during a rare/incredible hexagram configuration in February 1997 as the Hubble Space Telescope launched. The Hubble correlation may be striking. Chariklo’s mythology - quiet wife of Chiron, keeper of sacred space, boundary-holder of healing. And astronomically, she has rings - like a miniature Saturn. She holds structure around something small and distant. Discovered during a near-perfect six-pointed star pattern (a macrocosmic mandala), she entered consciousness at a moment of geometric coherence. The hexagram is a union of opposites. Above and below interlocking. That feels very Saturn/Neptune. It also has very deep (and sometimes dark) roots. Connects to things like Venus's orbit, the iChing, Israel's flag, OpenAI's logo, etc.
Chariklo's hubby Chiron sits with Ceres and Eris. Chiron/the wounded healer in Aries is the wound of existence Itself. The wound around identity/right to exist, “am I allowed to take up space? The wound around initiating. Am I allowed to start/to move? The wound around competing. Am I allowed to win?
So, we have Ceres on one Side - the 'Mama Principle' (it's not a coincidence we have a missing "mother" now, who is actually a grandmother but we don't hear much about that part, you will remember Ceres and her missing daughter creating the seasons and I guess this is one big reason I should have seen this case would not be concluding before this conjunction and Eclipse cycle). Ceres governs nourishment, attachment, season of life cycles of loss and return, the grief of separation.
Eris on the other side of Chiron is the 'Disruptor' and exposes exclusion/marginalization. She is the truth that destabilizes false harmony and the outsider voice that will not be silenced. Eris in Aries is saying something like - "I exist whether you like it or not".
Symbolically, Chiron (whose orbit makes a natural bridge between Saturn and Uranus) is here making a bridge between mothering and rupture, nurture and discord, belonging and exile. This is profound in Aries and remember we have Hercules/our hero story sitting with the Neptune/Saturn, so this is all kind of echoing each other. This might speak of the ways our wound of identity is entangled with our need to be nourished and the rage of being excluded. Hercules! And we can see how this fits with the Saturn/Neptune - dissolving of old collective myths and crystallizing of new identities. It's truly amazing.
So, what might this look like practically and personally - maybe something about can we keep nurturing others at the expense of our own identity? situations transpire for us to feel/see this or the realization that our anger is guarding a wound? or the realization of the ways we are shaped by loss (Ceres) and/or shaped by exclusion (Eris) and now must integrate these wounded spaces into what we are becoming. This is some kind of DEEP ADULTING.
And on the collective level we are back to the themes of - who gets to belong? Who is fed? Who is excluded? Who speaks uncomfortable truth? We have talked about all this before. This is all gray-zone territory. Not black and white AT ALL. Chiron in Aries says - healing comes through courageous self-definition. Ceres says - you must feed yourself. Eris says - and stop shrinking to avoid conflict. This is all strong language, but Aries IS strong.
AND the caveat with all this me-me-me Aries is that Aries ruler Mars is in the sign of we-we-we. If all this was supposed to be personal Mars wouldn't be in Aquarius!
Mars in Aquarius does not act alone. He acts through networks and ideology and technology and movements and systems. Aquarius is not emotional belonging like Cancer. It is conceptual belonging - shared ideas, shared causes, shared futures. So, the Aries ignition/fresh start isn’t purely “Who am I?” It is also - who am I within the group? What is my role in the collective shift? Where do I agree and where do I dissent?
This is good news and broadens the picture. So instead of just feeling sad and disillusioned, and of course there will be some of this, this is more about questioning the storyline we have been part of. Being UNSURE WHERE WE FIT IN THE EVOLVING HIVE, no longer feeling at home in certain group narratives. We are blessed to have Mars here now. This is less about emotional rage (Aries acting alone) and more an ideological re-set. But it also pulls in the slippery tech slope, group-think crap and leans us collectively away from our heart and into our head, so there's that, too ... nothing is ever just one thing. If we want the Sun, we must deal with the shadow.
I have a natal fixed and almost exact Saturn/Neptune square and have been feeling this Neptune/Saturn conjunction strongly. Keep this in mind as you read my take on this - because astrology is subjective. No astrologer can truly take themselves out of the picture.
I recently had a 'falling out' (maybe not dire, hard to say at this point - I am not good at group-y things anyway, so this could actually be permanent, and I just can't see it, which would be kind of ironic) with a group that started when someone said something about 'everything being political' right now. The need for this. The need to drop who/what doesn't align. The need to fight for what we believe in and not 'fence-sit'. Drop your family members if you have to, etc. Desperate times call for desperate measures, etc. And we can see this has been happening for the last couple years. For me personally, this Aquarius Sun, Cancer Moon, Scorpio Rising - I am going to remain committed to my values and committed to remembering that people are more than their political labels and more than their opinions which are subject to change. Maybe because I am old enough to remember when everything was not political/when I could know someone for years without even knowing their politics and also because I have always lived in the great blue state of NJ that is actually more purple than blue and we all manage to get along with each other ENOUGH OF THE TIME. Engagement matters but so does perspective. Seeing nuance isn't apathy it is actually discernment. The feeling that we might be letting someone down by not being as activated is very Ceres/Aries flavored. It carries that undertone of something like, “if I don’t show up in the expected way, I’m failing the tribe.” But this is not really how Mars in Aquarius serves the tribe.
Anyway, for now - the Moon is waxing/growing and something in our life is, too - let's make it something we want to expand. Get enough rest. Take care of your health - Aries is the sign of our physical body, so stuff can come up here. Today may not be a day to decide or initiate. It may be a day to let the wave finish pulling out ...
xo all - feeling this is a bit choppy since I wrote it in pieces, but I guess that suits the cosmic temperature, too.
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