The Week Above is a weekly astrological "weather report" detailing the major planetary configurations for the week ahead. All times and dates given are in Eastern Time. There will be references to your birth chart and your Sun, Moon, and Rising signs throughout. If you aren't sure of what that means, check out Astrodienst for free online chart drawings, and Cups & Crowns for the basics of how to understand a drawn chart.

If you enjoy my writing and find it valuable, you can support me on Patreon. Future posts will feature horoscopes for all twelve signs if certain goals are met. I’m also available for readings.

General Notes:

This week is a wild one, with everything happening all at once, twice. Each of the events this week is notable on its own, but there’s a lot of them and they come in two big waves, one right after the other.

You’re going to feel some of these transits more than others, but the fact that almost everyone’s ruling planets have stuff going on this week (across many different signs) means that everyone will be energized and that energy will be bouncing off of all the other energized people for good, ill, and odd. Expect massive changes, breakthroughs, disruptions, completions, beginnings, events of all kinds. Eventful is the word for it.

Pileup of Aspects 1 - Venus trine Mars, Mercury conjunct Pluto, Sun sextile Chiron and square Uranus, Uranus semisextile Chiron - January 18th

Venus trine Mars

This is a fun, sexy, playful, here-for-a-good-time-not-a-long-time aspect. Venus hasn’t aspected Mars since November 9th, and back then she was retrograde. With these two back in aspect, we’re looking at renewed sexy party vibes for a lot of folks, particularly those with Sagittarius rising. With everything else in the air, this energy is nice and hot, and good for a night on the town.

This transit will be most fun if you have the ascendant in Sagittarius, but will generally affect you most if you have the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant in Sagittarius, Aries, Taurus, Scorpio, or Libra.

Mercury conjunct Pluto

Deep depths of mental energy. Analyzing secrets. Plunging into the dark and bringing back information. Thinking about one’s own mortality. You know, fun stuff.

Mercury likes to go in there and pick through all the pieces, sort through the information, learn what it can, and analyze and communicate what it finds. Conjunct Pluto, they do this obsessively with a focus on hidden information and knowledge. A good aspect for research and investigation. Try not to do this to your ex-partner or crush.

This transit will affect you most if your Sun, Moon, or Ascendant is in Gemini, Virgo, or Capricorn.

Sun sextile Chiron and square Uranus, Uranus semisextile Chiron

Uranus semisextile Chiron is technically exact on the 19th, but we’ll feel it when it gets pinged by the Sun on the 18th.

Uranus and Chiron have been semisextile for several months now, being as they’re both slowly moving into new signs together at the same time. Chiron’s speed varies a great deal throughout its cycle, sometimes taking two years to transit a sign, sometimes up to eight years.

There were multiple generations born with Uranus and Chiron in opposition (1960s to mid-1990s) thanks to this variation in speed.

Uranus disrupts, Chiron heals and is wounded. With the semisextile, the wounds and healing get activated invisibly. You don’t know why you’re suddenly crying about old pain or feel like a lifetime’s burden is lifted out of nowhere, it just happens. Things shift around the trauma story, and you didn’t see the shift coming, and you might not even know it’s happened until it’s already taken place.

This has been the vibe in the air for months now, but on the 18th and 19th it gets heightened as the Sun activates them both, shining light into the shadows of the semisextile aspect.

Expect increased awareness of the changes and innovations we make, and the deep emotional impact of those changes. Expect to see suddenly why things shifted the way they did, and what there remains to be done about these innovations and technological revolutions.

This transit will affect you most if your Sun, Moon, or Ascendant is in Leo, Capricorn, Aries, or Pisces, particularly if it’s near the end of Capricorn, Aries, or Pisces.

Pileup of Aspects 2 - The Sun enters Aquarius, Venus square Neptune, Lunar Eclipse in Leo, and Mars square Saturn - January 20th - 21st

Sun enters Aquarius

The Sun is not especially happy in Aquarius. The Sun wants to shine, wants to give light, wants to be the star. Aquarius is about everyone but themselves and their light is the harsh florescent light of the laboratory.

The Sun is not wholly afflicted in Aquarius, however. At least he’s now free of The Boneyard - the triple threat of Saturn, Pluto, and Ketu in Capricorn right now. And Jupiter, our saving grace in the sky this year, can see him now.

But unless you’re a Taurus ascendant, this is likely not the time to shine. This is the time to get right with your data collection, get your mind on the rigorous path, and think about not what humanity can do for you, but what you can do for humanity.

The Sun will be in Aquarius until February 18th. This transit will affect you most if your Sun, Moon, or Ascendant is in Leo.

Venus square Neptune

Love requires a bit of idealism, sure, but it also requires some measure of realism too. You can’t love someone else without a bit of dreaminess in there, but unless you’re honest with yourself about the faults and foibles of who and what you love, it’s just infatuation.

This is true whether it’s love for a person, an animal, or a system of belief.

Value is nebulous.. On a certain level, how much something is worth is arbitrary, or at least based on a huge number of arbitrary factors. Who’s to say how much a dollar is worth compared to a commodity? But value is also assessed in relation to very real, very concrete factors, and judged according to rational, serious assessments.

This weekend as Venus squares Neptune, love gets closer to infatuation and value gets a bit more arbitrary as the truths of these things get a bit harder to see clearly.

This transit will affect you most if your Sun, Moon, or Ascendant is in Taurus, Libra, Sagittarius, or Pisces.

Lunar Eclipse in Leo

When people talk about a “Supermoon Blood Moon” what they mean is a Lunar Eclipse (“Blood Moon”) with the Moon unusually close to Earth. If you want to see if a full moon (all lunar eclipses are full moons) is a supermoon in a chart, look to see if Black Moon Lilith is close to the Sun during the full moon. BML represents the lunar apogee, the point where the Moon is furthest from Earth. If the Moon is opposite Lilith it’s close to its Perigee, and if the Moon is full it’s opposite the Sun. Therefore if the Moon is opposite both Lilith and Sun, Lilith and the Sun are next to each other and it’s a supermoon.

T h e M o r e Y o u K n o w

Lunar eclipses are the worst possible times to charge anything under the full moon, so please please please don’t do that. The energy you capture will be nasty and might attract lizards. I’m not kidding. That’s a thing.

This lunar eclipse is our last of the eclipse cycle in Leo and Aquarius, summing up the story of the past few years around ego, dissociation, celebrity, humanity, art, and science. It’s quite the story we’ve been having, and I look forward to wrapping it up finally. At least for the next 19 years.

This transit will affect you most if your Sun, Moon, or Ascendant is in Leo, Aquarius, or Cancer, or if your Ascendant is in Taurus or Scorpio.

Mars square Saturn

I will be so glad to see the back end of this aspect, let me tell you.

Mars has been in Aries since New Years eve, and in Aries he likes to go go go move move move gottagofastvroomvroom. He’s also been applying to square Saturn this entire time with Saturn in the superior position and thus having the upper hand to tell that vroomvroom instinct “No” at almost every turn.

So obstacles and frustrations to forward movement have been a key theme of this month, and they come to a head before FINALLY starting to recede on January 21st. One last blast of frustration and then it’s vroomvroomzoomzoom time for realz.

This transit will affect you most if your Sun, Moon, or Ascendant is in Aries or Scorpio.