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- [00:00]
A
Chris hey, my name is Chris Brennan, and you're listening to the Astrology podcast. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about the astrological forecast for June of 2026. Joining me today is astrologer Leisa Schaim. Hey, Leisa.
- [00:12]
B
Hey, Chris.
- [00:14]
A
All right, Leisa is filling in for Austin this month, who, as he announced last month, is away writing his book. We're gonna spend the first hour of this episode talking about news and events that happened since our last forecast episode and giving an astrological perspective on some of those news stories. Then in the second hour, we're gon talking about the astrological forecast for June and do a deep dive into this month's planetary aspects. So before we jump into the news section, I want to give a quick overview of the astrology of June. All right, so for those watching the video version, here is our planetary alignments calendar for June. And I wrote a little quick overview of the astrology of June. So the astrology of June opens with one of the most auspicious planetary alignments of the year, which is a Venus Jupiter conjunction in the sign of Cancer, which remains active for the first two weeks of the month. Venus Jupiter conjunctions are excellent for relationships, marriages and partnerships, as well as peacekeeping efforts and the confirmation of good things. Then in the middle of the month, there's a distinct tone shift when Venus enters Leo and begins opposing the planet Pluto. This aspect can bring up issues related to power manipulation and control within the context of partnerships and relationships. At the same time, Mercury enters its shadow period and begins slowing down and preparing to station retrograde. While at the same time Mars moves within a 10 degree orb of a volatile conjunction with Uranus. Then the later part of the month takes an unexpected and explosive turn, especially once Mars officially enters Gemini in the conjunction with Uranus Titans before it will go exact in early July, on the final day of the month, Jupiter enters Leo, beginning a one year transit through that sign and completing its one year transit through the sign of Cancer. However, this transit starts with an opposition to Pluto that will culminate in July, which will highlight themes involving the manipulation of the truth and attempts to control knowledge. Simultaneously, Mercury slows down and stations retrograde. And at the end of the month, just before it reaches a conjunction with Jupiter, effectively revoking and delaying a beneficial alignment, just as a much more malefic Mars Uranus conjunction is forming and going exact in the sky. All right, so that's the quick overview of the astrology this month. So let's get into and let's talk about some news and events first. Thanks for joining me, Leisa. Thanks for filling in for Austin. Austin, like he announced last month, is taking a month off to work on trying to finish writing his book, but is supposed to be back next month. He also had a loss this month, but I'm gonna leave it to Austin to sort of talk about that if he chooses to next time he comes back. But in the meantime, yeah, thanks for filling in, especially in a big month. You just happened to get to fill in during one of the best planetary alignments of the year.
- [03:25]
B
Yeah, that's pretty nice. I appreciate that. And best wishes to Austin. I know that finishing that that second version of that book is long awaited. So good luck to him while he's gone this month. But yeah, I'm glad to be here, definitely.
- [03:40]
A
All right, so let's jump right into the news segment. All right, So a lot has happened, a lot of news stories happened, so we can't cover everything this month. And I'm mainly gonna focus on some of the major news stories where I noticed a notable astrological correlation that I wanted to point out and to talk about where I have something astrological to say. So the big one, of course, the big ongoing one is the war in Iran. And in our May forecast, we highlighted the two most difficult aspects of the month, which I called the peace shattering Mars Jupiter Square around May 4 and the destructive Mars Pluto Square around May 26, within a few days, give or take, since the orb of those goes into effect in a range around those dates. And what was interesting is that while negotiations have been ongoing and major direct conflicts for the most part didn't start up again fully this month, what was interesting is that the two Mars squares actually did end up coinciding with points where things flared up and open violence broke out between the US And Iran again despite the ongoing ceasefires. So, for example, right on May 4, which was the exact day of the Mars Jupiter Square, US Forces destroyed six Iranian in boats after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard directed them towards a US Navy vessel that was escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz. And then this set up a string of events for the next few days where on May 7, the US fired on Iranian missile and drone launch sites. And this was reportedly in response to Iranian attacks on three U.S. navy destroyers. Then on May 8, a U.S. navy plane fired precision munitions at the smokestacks of two Iranian Iranian flagged oil tankers that were transiting towards an Iranian port, supposedly in violation of an ongoing US Navy blockade. So it was really Striking in that three day span of time where there's just this string of open shooting back and forth between the two right on the Mars Jupiter conjunction. So that peace shattering keyword that first we encountered in January under the Mars Jupiter opposition really worked out in this instance. So then later in the month we had the Mars Pluto Square which went exact on May 26th. And then right away, as soon as that went in with an orb, within 24 hours of it going exact on May 25, the US did strikes in southern Iran targeting missile launch sites and boats that were attempting to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz. And then this action basically drove the news cycle the next day, the exact day of the conjunction or the square. Then a couple days later, on May 27, Iran fired five one way attack drones near the Strait of Hormuz. And then in retaliation, the US launched a direct airstrike on the Iranian drone facility near Bandar Abbas. The following day, May 28, in the early hours of the morning, Iran retaliated by launching drones and a ballistic missile towards Kuwait where the US operates an airbase. So it was again just like this explosion of sudden direct combat between the two countries that was already notable on the Mars Jupiter Square, but then became even more intense on the Mars Pluto Square.
- [07:11]
B
Yeah, I noticed that as well. I wasn't even following it closely, but I could see that lining up with both the Mars Jupiter Square and the Mars Pluto Square. And unsurprisingly. Right, because if there's a Mars thing going on already as the month begins, then Jupiter is just going to expand, Mars signific it bigger and then Mars Pluto intensifies the Martian nature. So yeah, I definitely agree that those were the two hotspots of the month.
- [07:40]
A
Yeah. And then you had noted that as of today, I think Iran said it was breaking off negotiations with the U.S. right?
- [07:47]
B
Yeah, it said just as we're recording today, things can change hour to hour. But as of right now, Iran said that it was breaking off talks with the Trump administration to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz following an escalation of Israeli military action in Lebanon and renewed airstrikes around the Persian Gulf by the us.
- [08:09]
A
Got it. Okay. So that kind of leaves things like where things stand now is like, you know, supposedly most of the month peace negotiations have been ongoing, but it's not clear how much progress has been made. And the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to put this ticking time bomb on the world economy, basically due to the loss of 20% of oil supplies for different countries. And that's something we've talked about a lot over the past few forecast episodes. So different countries. What came out this month is that part of what stopped this from completely wrecking the world economy over the past few months, as people were sort of talking about, is that different countries have been draining their oil reserves, some more than others or some faster than others, in order to stop the price of oil from skyrocketing. But we're getting to the point where once those reserves are fully drained, the temporary solution that that's provided will basically evaporate. And that's the big thing that a lot of oil and economists are talking about. That's a looming thing over the next few months. So in terms of the next flashpoints to pay attention to astrologically, the next two major ones are especially the volatile Mars Uranus conjunction in late June and July seems to be particularly important for the US as we'll talk about more. But also because the last two squares between Mars and Uranus both coincided with the start of first the 12 day war in June of last year with Iran, and then the most recent war that started right on the Mars Uranus Square in February. So that really has this entire conflict tied into the Mars Uranus cycle. And so the next Mars Uranus conjunction and hard aspect is gonna be probably the next installment of important pivotal turning point in terms of that. So we've got that coming up in the near future and then in the longer future. The next eclipse season in August and early September should represent an important new development in terms of some of the ongoing saga that's been playing out over the past few years. Where originally we had predicted the upcoming war with Iran, because every six months on the eclipses, they kept getting one step closer to open conflict between the US And Israel and Iran, and then eventually culminating on the eclipse season with this latest war that started in February. So the next installment of that eclipse cycle happens in August and September. So that's what we'll be paying attention to. And I'm sure we'll be talking about one month from now when we do the next forecast, which will be happening right near the Mars Uranus conjunction.
- [10:59]
B
Mm. And something I've been really struck by in the past month is how you know when the Mars Saturn conjunction happened mid April, how it was very close to Neptune at the same time by conjunction. And I've been fascinated by how even though those have been separating further and further, even during the month of May, that's continued to play out in terms of a greater than usual nebulousness of like, what exactly is happening at any given moment with this conflict. And you have a lot of like, conflicting reports, which on the practical level you might expect from different countries wanting to put themselves in the best light. But it's still been kind of striking. It's been strikingly nebulous feeling, even though they've separated by degree.
- [11:42]
A
Yeah, for sure. There's definitely a lot of nebulousness, a lot of fog of war stuff, a lot of different misleading things so that it's hard sometimes even to account what's actually happening, as well as different stuff going on in the news. But yeah, we'll see what happens in the coming months. Okay, so another thing that happened in connection with the Mars Jupiter Square and the Mars Pluto Square is we noticed that there's a bunch of explosions around both of those aspects this month in the news. And this is something that you started tracking and documenting at one point, right?
- [12:21]
B
Yeah. We would expect with Mars Jupiter Square and Mars Pluto Square, just like with the Iran war hotspots, that there also might be the tendency for potential explosions of other sorts. And there indeed were. There was one major one. Early in the month on May 4, there was an explosion at a fireworks factory in China and it killed 37 people and injured 51 others. And I actually found the exact time for it. It happened at 4:43pm local time, which was weird and extra accentuating the Mars Jupiter because I found that the descendant and the midheaven respectively at that time, that time had Mars and Jupiter approaching the angles within 4 degrees. So it really was like an expansion of the Mars principle. It was already a fireworks factory, so it was already something that's supposed to be explosive. But this just expanded it further.
- [13:17]
A
Yeah. That's incredible having both of those planets on the angles at that time. I'm pulling up the chart right now. Does this look correct with Libra rising?
- [13:28]
B
Let's see. Probably. So it's close to, I think. Yeah, yeah, it's close to.
- [13:38]
A
Okay. I might have gotten the exact location. It was asking about location questions, so.
- [13:45]
B
Sure. Yeah. But it was just about like this. It was Mars about 4 degrees from the descendant and the midheaven about 4 degrees from Jupiter.
- [13:55]
A
Okay, got it. Nice.
- [13:56]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
- [13:57]
A
All right, moving on.
- [13:58]
B
Okay. Then later in the month, there was a whole string of explosions. So first on May 22, there was a gas explosion at a coal mine in China that killed 82 people. Then the night of the 23rd, going into the morning of the 24th, Russia sent 60 missiles and about 600 drones to Ukraine. So it's a bigger bombardment than usual on one night and morning. And we were kind of expecting something accentuating these themes around this time of the month because Zelenskyy has his sun at 5 Aquarius in the 9th house. So this Mars Pluto Square was exactly on top of that. And indeed, this was a greater bombardment in Ukraine. It killed a couple people, it injured 90 other people, and significantly damaged a lot of important museums and culturally significant buildings in Kyiv, including oddly, a museum memorializing the Chernobyl disaster that had just opened a month prior.
- [14:57]
A
Yeah, and it was really striking how much this month, especially around that Pluto station and then especially building up to the Mars Pluto Square, how much things did escalate between Ukraine and Russia and some of the major exchanges and firefights that happened around those times.
- [15:19]
B
Yeah, it's not that it's stopped, but just like with the Iran war, there's bigger hotspots when these Mars aspects get accentuated. So then on May 21, there was a 34,000 gallon chemical tank in Orange County, California, in Garden Grove, at an aerospace facility. It was found to be unstable and overheating, which is really dangerous. It was threatening to entirely blow up and blow toxic materials over a very large populated area. So there were evacuation orders issued for 50,000 area residents for serious threat of it potentially blowing up soon. And they were trying to cool it down because it was overheating, which was another Mars Pluto principle. Then on May 24, it was suddenly found to have a small crack in it, alleviating the internal pressure. Normally you don't want a crack in something like that, but in this case, it actually introduced possibility that it might not blow up after all. And they were sort of cautiously optimistic, but still watching it 24 hours a day. And the temperature finally started going down. And that was really, of course, great on a human level because that would have been catastrophic if that blew up. But also it was really interesting astrologically because there was this little mitigation of the Mars Pluto Square that I had been talking about the month prior, which is that that as Mars Pluto went exact, there was a little sextile from Venus to Mars with reception. And that is like a minor mitigation that could in theory, kind of help cool down the otherwise overheated Mars Pluto aspect. And at least in this situation, it did actually do that. And so by the 26th, all evacuation orders were lifted and they were like, it's not blowing up after all.
- [17:12]
A
Yeah, that was nice having that sextile so that maybe not just this, but maybe some of the other major things that happened could have been worse than they already were if there wasn't this aspect that was offsetting things to some extent.
- [17:26]
B
Yeah, that's actually a really good point because oftentimes with benefic things or mitigations, we don't know what didn't happen. That could have been even bigger problems.
- [17:38]
A
Right? For sure.
- [17:40]
B
Yeah. Okay, so then right after that on May 26, there was another chemical implosion in Longview, Washington at a packaging facility. Eight people were confirmed killed, three missing and eight more injured. And then finally on May 28, Blue Origin, which is Jeff Bezos owned space company, had a rocket test and it actually, the rocket instead blew up on the Florida launch pad. And it was actually, I don't know, depending on if you've seen this picture, it looked really crazy. It was like this huge fire cloud.
- [18:13]
A
Yeah, it reminded me of Alan White, always had this thing about Pluto takes small things and makes them big. And Mars is already like a fire or sometimes an explosion. But in this instance it was like one of the largest fireballs and actually mushrooms clouds that I've ever seen. That wasn't a nuclear explosion. And I don't know if I'll put it up in post, but people should search for that because there were these just really fantastic images of this huge, huge explosion that wiped out the launch pad and everything that were circulating that day. That was really striking because the Mars Pluto square was still so close.
- [18:57]
B
Yeah, it was actually a perfect picture of a Mars Pluto square.
- [19:02]
A
Right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well I think that's good for that section.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:09]
A
All right, let's move on to the next section. Another major news story that happened this month that fulfilled some predictions actually that I made and that we made in the year ahead forecast. And then the April forecast was that there were two major virus outbreaks that were really in the headlines this month. First with the hantavirus outbreak that was really in the news at the beginning of the month. And then later with a major Ebola outbreak that was really in the news later in the month. And in the year ahead forecast. I had predicted the possibility of a virus outbreak under the Mars Saturn Neptune alignment in April and May. And then I reiterated this prediction with Austin and Austin added to it in the forecast for April. So one of the takeaways from this was that it had to do with the Mars Saturn conjunction acting as a trigger. Especially when Mars came in and was co present with The Saturn Neptune conjunction. And what happened in the beginning of the month was there was this rare outbreak of a human to human transmissible Andes strain of the Hantavirus, which emerged on a cruise ship in the South Atlantic in April, especially right around the Mars Saturn conjunction. And especially it started ramping up as soon as Mars moved into Aries. And it resulted in a cluster of at least 13 cases and three deaths among international passengers, as well as a scramble to clamp down on it and stop it from spreading further. Then later in the month, what happened is there was a major outbreak of a strain of Ebola, and specifically a variant which currently lacks an effective vaccine, which made it even more problematic. And it rapidly spread throughout a remote, conflict heavy province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and into Uganda, which resulted in over a thousand suspected cases. So I did an episode, I actually released an episode on May 8 talking about the astrology behind the hantavirus outbreak. So I'll point people to that for a much more detailed treatment than I'm prepared to do here today, or to reiterate here today. But what was funny, not funny, what was striking, if you go back and watch that episode, is that one of the things I brought up in that episode is I went through and pointed out other instances because I was trying to show why I had predicted a possible viral outbreak around the Mars Saturn conjunction in April. And it was because of things like remembering the Mars Saturn conjunction in 2020 during the COVID lockdowns, and remembering a 2014 Ebola outbreak that really blew up in the news during a Mars Saturn conjunction in Scorpio. So I specifically went into the Ebola outbreak that had happened back then before the Ebola outbreak this time actually became major international news later in the month. So I think the explosion of the Ebola outbreak later in the month ended up being a nice confirmation of my central premise, which is essentially that while major outer planet cycles are sometimes necessary to indicate major pandemics or major worldwide pandemics, Mars Saturn conjunctions can sometimes act as a trigger for outbreaks in different ways, both connected to larger pandemics or sometimes in a more localized sense. And part of the keyword that I was noticing is that the Mars Saturn conjunctions sometimes coincide with a period where there's a virus that's spreading rapidly like wildfire, which is the Mars part. But then there's the Saturn part, which is like the authorities and people trying to clamp down on it and contain it and stop the spread of the virus at that time. And sometimes there's a lot of fear and sometimes a lot of hype or in some instances, like overhype in the news cycle during the Mars Saturn conjunctions. But sometimes that's part of the side effect or what's necessary in terms of the people that are trying to clamp down and stop it from spreading at the same time.
- [23:24]
B
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I was really struck by, you know, you were already documenting the Hantavirus chronology with the Mars Saturn. And at first it seemed like the Ebola thing hit later because there was a big announcement about it mid maybe. But then actually when you tracked back, the first reported case with symptoms happened on April 24, which was less than a week after the Mars Saturn conjunction. And they said that they didn't know what it was at first. And so it probably had been spreading for weeks before that. So that really lined up with the Mars Saturn retrospectively.
- [24:02]
A
Yeah, that's brilliant. And here's the chart for that. For those watching the video version, here's April 24th, and it's like right after the Mars Saturn conjunction had gone exact. And what's crazy about that is that's also the point where the ship docked and some passengers right around the conjunction got off of the ship and started spreading the hantavirus, potentially by getting onto planes and stuff and flying around the world. So this is a really interesting case study. If people want to study outbreaks sometimes in the transmissions in connection with Mars Saturn conjunctions. I think that could be really fruitful. One thing I noticed about the Hantra virus is I found a couple signatures for it that were interesting that I'll just reiterate briefly here. One of them is that it was connected with the Saturn Neptune cycle, interestingly, which is that it turned out in the early 1950s when there was a Saturn Neptune conjunction in library. This is when the Hantavirus was first discovered and recognized as this mysterious illness among troops that were fighting in the Korean War. So during the Korean War, there was a major outbreak of the Hantavirus, and it was the first time it was widely recognized as this distinctive thing. Except there was something that was mysterious and uncertain about it because they couldn't really pin down the origins and other things like that. So that was the neptunian component. But then, interestingly, in the early 1980s, there was a Mars Saturn conjunction in 1980 and another one in February of 1982. And what happened is under these two Mars Saturn conjunctions, the virus was officially named the Hantavirus on the first conjunction in 1980. And then it received its formal WHO classification on the 1982 conjunction. So as a result of that, what happened this past month when we had a repetition of not just Mars Saturn conjunctions, but also Saturn Neptune conjunction, is we get a major instance of the Hantavirus, like in the news, and affecting things globally in some ways in an outbreak, when we had a repetition of both of those cycles, for sure.
- [26:21]
B
And something else I noticed is this is really the first major set of outbreaks that have happened since the USAID cuts that happened during the previous Mars retrograde cycle in cancer in early 2025. Because of that, the outbreak is early detection and even containment is hampered by those cuts, even to the extent of having enough protective equipment for healthcare workers. So lots of healthcare workers are getting sick with Ebola, and that obviously is catastrophic in terms of them trying to contain it, as well as terrible for the individual people themselves. So it's an interesting. And terrible, of course, but interesting alignment along with Mars Saturn being in Aries, because I know you guys have talked previously about Saturn in Aries being like the authority figures are kind of not up to the task in terms of Saturn being in a sign that it's not happy in. And I was just thinking about those two pieces here. And perhaps since Jupiter is transiting through cancer, I don't know that there's necessarily anything that's ramped up quickly in terms of putting back into place some of those aid monies, but certainly it's reminding people why it was there in the first place.
- [27:42]
A
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Okay, I think that's good with that story. Why don't we. There's probably other stuff we could say or go into, but why don't we move on to keep it moving? All right, so moving on to the next news story. On the very day of the Mars Pluto Square on May 25, the Pope issued an encyclical about AI that was a really striking and sort of like stunning news story that came out that day. Right?
- [28:09]
B
Yeah, it was really interesting. So it was called Magnifica Humanitas, or in English, Magnificent Humanity, and basically was a vision of how human beings should. Should approach AI and new technology more generally. And he was outlining what the real harms potentially and realistically are while redirecting how to make things better, how to make that relationship better, and have new technology serve humanity rather than vice versa. He also apologized for the church's long delay in condemning slavery, discussed war weapons destroying the natural environment, the dehumanizing effects along the supply chain which could in fact fuel new forms of slavery, which is kind of what that segue was about. And he writes about this is actually a really perfect quote for the Mars in Taurus square, Pluto in Aquarius. So he writes about a quote, frequent imbalance between the speed of technological growth and the slower development of awareness, norms, safeguards and institutions capable of governing its effects. So doesn't mean opposing progress to just slow things down in terms of the development and implementation. And I just was really struck by that quote because obviously I think we sort of collectively associate AI with Pluto in Aquarius. There's a component of Uranus in Gemini trining it. But the Mars in Taurus is known for slow movement and also the natural environment. I don't know if it stands in for humanity as a whole whole, but it was such a perfect square quote.
- [29:49]
A
Yeah, I liked that. And just the contrast between ever since Pluto went into Aquarius in 2023, 2024 timeframe, shortly after ChatGPT first really became popularized, and we've seen the rise, the rapid rise of AI and the rapid sweeping advancement of artificial intelligence which we've connected with Pluto in Aquarius and then just having it collide through that square to Mars in Taurus with the realities of the Earth and of things like resource consumption and the embodied human workforce, that was just a really perfect metaphor for Mars in Taurus, conflicting with Pluto in Aquarius.
- [30:36]
B
Yeah, yeah, I love that quote. And just more generally, you know, he actually did talk to a bunch of AI companies in refining his research and thinking before writing this. So it wasn't supposed to be so much like a, you know, we hate AI, we hate new technology and don't use it. It's just about trying to balance that with considerations for, you know, human life and the well being of everyone.
- [31:03]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. And it was interesting though, this month with Pluto stationing retrograde in Aquarius at the beginning of the month and then the Mars Pluto Square building up later in the month, there was this notable. It did seem like a notable or pivotal turning point in terms of a growing AI sentiment in some sectors of the world and of people in the population. Especially with there were a bunch of graduation speeches this month where there were different speakers that would get up and then start saying things positively about artificial intelligence and then they would get booed by the students or some of the students. And some of those clips went viral, including one from the former CEO of Google, for example, just getting booed. And then to contrast that, towards the end of the month on May 23rd which is just like two days from the Mars Pluto Square. There was a comedian, one of the hosts of the Daily Show, Ronny Chang, said in his graduating speech, he took the complete opposite end of the spectrum and he said, the mission of your generation is to destroy AI, kill it, end quote. So I thought that was incredible. To the extent that we've connected Pluto in Aquarius with AI over the past few years, because that correlation's been so strong, it was really stunning to see somebody give a commencement speech right on the Mars Pluto Square. Literally figuratively talking about destroying AI.
- [32:42]
B
Yeah, that is striking. Yeah, I definitely noticed a ramping up of some of that polarization as well this, this month around AI. There were those few graduation speeches that got booed, like you said. And some of the people interviewed afterwards were like, we've been spending a lot of money to go to school for four years to get our skills taken away and automated. You know, so there was some of that going on. There was another graduation where they had an AI bot reading the graduates names and actually missed a bunch of people, just left them off completely, such that they had to redo it with. Not redo it, but have human beings come in and finish it and get the proper graduates names in there. So it was kind of noticeable this month. And I think part of why that was is Pluto stationed early in the month, the first week of May. And then since it's an outer planet, excuse me, it takes so long to change direction that it's vaguely stationary for a while. And then Mars squaring it near the end of the month reactivated it, right?
- [33:51]
A
Yeah, definitely it reactivated that station and yeah, reactivated the or just brought into clear focus that there's an increase on the one hand, there's increasing advancements and AI is growing by leaps and bounds. And it's being on the one hand, embraced by large parts of the population and rapidly integrated into so many different technologies in different ways. But then on the other hand, there is a growing divide and an increasing polarization of those who are not happy about AI or are wanting to push back against it or other things like that for various reasons.
- [34:34]
B
Yeah, exactly. And you know, Pluto transits. Oh, sorry, go ahead.
- [34:38]
A
And just that to the extent that this is like about Pluto in Aquarius and we're still in the early phases of this, that this is probably like the early phases still of some trends and themes that we're gonna see develop in both directions more over the course of the next. What is it like 15 years now that we have of Pluto in Aquarius before it leaves in the early 2000-40s.
- [35:02]
B
Right? For sure, yeah. I mean, and Pluto going through any sign can kind of supercharge it, superpower it, but it also can bring up the kind of dark underbelly of whatever it is, which there is one for any industry. So one more thing I noticed this month around that. So as Pluto was stationing early in the month, it was actually just before May began, but Pluto was already stationing. The environmental activist Erin Brockovich launched a community source data center project. So the stated purpose is to give people a voice and help everyone across all states see the bigger picture of how rapidly AI data centers are being developed. The public should not be the last to know. So it was basically just like a crowdsourced thing where different people, and I think there's hundreds to thousands of reports at this point on the map of people write in about their local community data data center projects that are either already happening or in the proposed stages or anywhere in between. And they, you know, write in their concerns about water use issues, energy consumption, higher electric bills and noise and things of that nature, just so that it's kind of all out in the open, which is an interesting kind of Pluto thing as well, like digging things up to see the light of day that were maybe hidden. And I thought that this was interesting also because while I had seen this online, the first major article I saw about it was actually on May 25 with the Mars Pluto Square. Newsweek published an article about it immediately followed by a bunch of others. So it really seemed tied into that whole theme this month.
- [36:47]
A
Yeah, definitely. All right, well, yeah, and we'll see how that goes. Like I said, over the next 15 years, with some of those current trajectories, as some parts of that continue to become more polarized in different ways. All right, so let's move on. I noticed this month that there was a string of anti astrology stuff. And one news story that came up, just to give one example without going into all of the others, was there was a politician in India that was elected and he appointed his personal astrologer to an official government advisory role who had helped him during the campaign. And this caused a huge outcry and backlash where there was critics who argued that this contradicted the administration's secular and rationalist ideological foundations. And there was this whole science versus astrology argument that kind of broke out during the course of this while Mars was still in Aries, activating the Saturn Neptune conjunction. And what I ended up realizing from that, and a few Other things that came up over the past month or two around the Saturn Neptune conjunction is going back a year ago when I did the Saturn Neptune episode with Nick. The Saturn Neptune episode in history, where we looked at all of the conjunctions every 36 years, going back over 2000 years is we kept seeing this, this recurring theme about stuff coming up during those conjunctions that was like anti occult, anti secret societies and attempts to suppress them, anti magic stuff coming up. But it turns out that the Saturn Neptune conjunctions also coincide with an anti astrology signature as well. And I was able to trace this all the way back to the first century, where in the first century the three Saturn Neptune conjunctions that occurred in that century, each one of them coincided with the Roman Empire passing significant anti astrology laws at that time, like 36 years apart on all three conjunctions. Or to bring it more recently to the 20th century, there was a Saturn Neptune conjunction around the time of World War I. And there were two really famous anti astrology cases that happened at that time. First in 1914, Evangeline Adams successfully defended herself in court in New York and was successfully able to defend astrology at the time after being caught up in an anti fortune telling case. Whereas in 1917 Alan Leo was famously involved in a court case involving astrology which he lost. So there was a major signature that continued into the 20th century there. And then I found some interesting stuff in the early 1950s during that conjunction 36 years later where there was a major critique of sun sign astrology written by a philosopher named Adorno that's still mentioned sometimes today. And it turns out that was on a Saturn Neptune conjunction. That conjunction also saw the beginnings of the Gauquelins doing their research and the discovery of the Mars effect. So there was this sort of like science and astrology attempting to validate astrology through science theme. Then you jump forward 36 years to the late 1980s Saturn Neptune conjunction. And that's when the Satanic panic happened. And part of what happened at that time is some of that got directed towards astrology where there were religious groups that were saying that astrology was satanic. And especially one of the main incidences was in 1988 it came out that Ronald Reagan had been using an astrologer in the White House. And this led to severe blowback from both the religious as well as the scientific communities against that at that time. Which is kind of like echoes of this Indian case this past month of using astrology in governmental roles. So we've been talking about this for a long time as astrology became more popular that there would be a period of pushback soon after that. But what I'm starting to realize is that this is a specific signature of Saturn Neptune, so that this will probably become a larger thing. And I'll probably do a follow up episode to go into this in more detail, but I wanted to note it now because it's both something I'm seeing in the present and seeing coinciding with Saturn Neptune, but it's also something I realized has a historical signature that stretches back over 2,000 years.
- [41:42]
B
Yeah, makes sense. It's a little concerning, but yeah, that's a striking pattern that you noticed.
- [41:49]
A
Yeah, yeah. So we'll see what happens in the future. Okay. So moving on to other news. A major piece of news that happened this month was Trump visited China and met with the President of China between May 13 and May 15. And this was a major, major visit. The President of China welcomed Trump in an elaborate ceremony overlooking Tiananmen Square, which I thought was interesting because that was famously in the news back in 1989 under that Saturn Neptune conjunction. And one of the things is that President Xi Jinping mentioned in his welcome speech to Trump, the concept that's been going around in political circles over the past at least several months, but past few years was this idea of Thucydides trap, which is a political science theory about how a conflict can develop when a rapidly rising power threatens to displace an established ruling hegemon. And she was basically saying, let's avoid that, that doesn't have to happen necessarily, but was directly invoking and mentioning that as a thing that's talked about a lot lately, which was interesting. So I found some really interesting astrology in connection with this trip, which is I didn't know that it turns out the US actually severed some diplomatic ties with Taiwan in early 1979. And what's striking about that is that this is the 47 year Mars repetition of that right now. And we've talked a lot about that 47 year Mars cycle from early 1979, because that was the same period when the Iranian revolution was happening in early 1979. And so we'd been talking a lot over the past few months about how some of that's coming up and being revisited and how it's an important turning point in a row, Iranian history, again, Potentially with that 47 year Mars cycle repeating as closely as it is now. But it turns out that that's also tied in with themes having to do with the US's relationship with Taiwan as well as China. And what's interesting about that, that I found is that it turns out that President Carter, In December of 1978, he made a surprise announcement while Venus was stationing direct after retrograde in Scorpio and it was conjunct Uranus when it's stationed direct in December of 1978. And he surprised Congress basically by announcing that they were going to pull back and on some level cut some diplomatic ties with Taiwan, including closing the embassy there, and shift their allegiance or their alliance more towards China in the interests of building a larger alliance with China or trade relationship at least. And this set off a major fight with Congress at that time. And then what's interesting about that as well is that this began the era of what's called strategic ambiguity in terms of the US's relationship with Taiwan and the question of whether the US would defend Taiwan militarily if China was to invade it. And the US has this sort of bizarre strategic ambiguity policy of hinting that they will defend it militarily if there's an invasion, but not officially saying that. And this policy really came into place at this time in 1979 under a Saturn Neptune square. So that's really interesting because it ties it in with the Saturn Neptune cycle cycle then that's recurring now. And it gives us a new keyword to keep in mind for Saturn Neptune alignments of strategic ambiguity. And then also it ties it into the Venus retrograde cycle in Scorpio, which we have another one coming up later this year in October and November. And it implies that some of the questions that are being discussed in the news right now about, about Trump using Taiwan as a bargaining chip with China and whether he's going to do that, that that may become even more relevant later this year when Venus goes retrograde in Scorpio and repeats that period of Carter shifting some of the alliances that happened in 1978 and 1979.
- [46:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting, especially because of the historical repetition later this year, but also just, just the nature of Venus retrogrades in general being about reevaluating relationships or reevaluating alliances. And then in addition in Scorpio, which can bring in elements of betrayal or suspicion or whose side are you on? So, yeah, that's a really interesting finding. And then the Saturn Neptune strategic ambiguity. I laughed so much when you found that because it's just not. It's astrologer. Good, right. Just laughing about the literalness of the symbolism because, yeah, it's very Saturn being strategy And Neptune being things that are ambiguous. And that does seem to be continuing so far. It seemed like right after Trump got back from the trip or was leaving from the trip, he kind of echoed very similar things, kind of like mixed messages or like, yeah, we don't really want Taiwan to declare independence, but then sort of going back and going like, well, I don't think we'll really do anything. Yeah, that's fascinating.
- [47:29]
A
Yeah. So we'll keep that keyword in mind. We're just learning so much about Saturn, Neptune, alignments just by paying attention to what's happening in the news and how it's a repetition of things from the past. I want to do a follow up on Saturn, Neptune, and just all of the things we've learned over the past year from watching it and finding new signatures. But in terms of this story, the dates to watch out for then in the future that we're paying attention to in terms of China, Taiwan and the US Is the Mars Uranus conjunction that's coming up in late June and July. Because as I talked about in the last forecast or two ago, I found that during World War II in 1943, when there was a Mars retrograde in Gemini conjunct Uranus, the that the US promised Taiwan to China after World War II. So there's some sort of Mars Uranus signature that may be important there. That's gonna start coming up again as we start getting four Mars Uranus conjunctions in Gemini between now and 2032, with this first one taking place here in July. And then the other timeframe to look forward to in the future or look out for in the future is the Venus retrograde, retrograde in Scorpio, especially in October and November of later this year as a repetition of that one from 1978 when the Carter administration made those shifting alliances and made that announcement and then eventually closed the embassy in Taiwan as a result of that in January of 79. All right, let's see. Moving on, another major news story that happened is the ongoing situation with with Cuba, which as I've talked about in the past few forecast episodes, we have our eye on because there's been a blockade of Cuba for oil imports, which is causing major internal issues in Cuba, both with the population, obviously, as well as the government. And there was a major development this month on May 20, when the US Department of Justice officially announced criminal charges and unsealed an indictment against former Cuban President Raul Castro. And the charges against Castro were seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to kill US Nationals, destruction of aircraft and Four counts of murder. And the charges stem from an incident that happened February 24, 1996, when there was the shoot down of two unarmed civilian planes operated by by a Miami based humanitarian exile group, Brothers to the Rescue. And the attack by Cuban military MIGs resulted in the deaths of four Americans. And I mentioned that because I went back and looked up the date and there was a Mars Saturn co presence in Pisces at the time of that incident. So then of course we get a Mars Saturn recurrence when what happened is that in terms of the timing in the present, a federal grand jury in Miami officially returned the indictment on April 23, 2026. So literally just like four days after the Mars Saturn conjunction happened, thus being a recurrence of the Mars Saturn conjunction from when the plane was shot down in 1996. So I thought that was an incredible recurrence.
- [50:52]
B
Yeah, definitely. That's fascinating. While Saturn was in Pisces for the actual incident back in 96, there were subsequent hearings in D.C. about it. And this is actually the Saturn return of that. It was Saturn in Aries by that time.
- [51:09]
A
Okay, nice.
- [51:10]
B
Yeah.
- [51:11]
A
So I noticed in researching this more that there's some important stuff coming up in terms of timing, things we want to pay attention to, to which is I was researching the independence charts for Cuba because they saved the indictment and released it on May 20th deliberately, because this is a historic date that's regarded by some factions as Cuba's actual Independence Day, which is they say May 20, 1902. And on this date Cuba officially gained independence from Spain following the Spanish American War and ended the Spanish colonial rule as well as a four year US military occupation. And what I found notable about that was at the time Mars was at 17 degrees of Taurus after a recent eclipse at 16 degrees of Taurus. So that's creating a really special set of degrees around 17 degrees of Taurus. That could be important. And then there was another anniversary, anniversary date on January 1, 1951. And this was the day that the Cuban Revolution was successful. So this becomes the date that the current Cuban government recognizes as their true Independence Day. And Mars was at 17 degrees of Taurus that day, which is exactly where it was during the 1902 Independence Day. So again, that sets up 17 degrees of Taurus as being really important. And the last part is that Raul Castro has Venus at 16 degrees of Taurus and Mercury at 18 degrees of Taurus. So that creates it as a personal sort of special signature for him as well. And why I'm mentioning this, of course is because Mars is in Taurus at this point, and it's getting ready to read 17 Taurus around June 10th and 11th of this coming month. So I'm gonna be paying attention to that date as being particularly activating some of those earlier charts.
- [53:16]
B
Yeah, definitely. That's coming up really soon. And it's interesting that it's happening at the same time as some otherwise positive astrology, which we'll talk about in the second half. But, yeah, that's a really striking repetition.
- [53:28]
A
Yeah. And then the other one I'm also paying attention to is that the start of the Cuban Revolution that's always celebrated by the current government was July 26, 1953. And this was a Mars Uranus conjunction. So that also makes the upcoming Mars Uranus conjunction that starts later this month and peaks in July, another potentially important hotspot for what's going on with Cuba right now, as well as potentially an important turning point, because that'll be a recurrence of transit for Cuba.
- [54:00]
B
Mm.
- [54:02]
A
All right, so the next news story that you wanted to talk about was the Supreme Court decision about the Voting Rights act of 1965. And you did some work on the astrology of that, right?
- [54:12]
B
Yeah. There was a really important Supreme Court case that happened right after Uranus ingressed to Gemini at the end of April, and that cascaded through the month of May. So I need to give a little bit of background backstory for a moment. So, obviously, the Voting Rights act of 1965 was set up to address ongoing issues with disenfranchisement throughout US History, particularly with Jim Crow laws in the south not allowing black people to vote. So Voting Rights act happens in 1965. That's a good thing. Then there's a 1980 Supreme Court case case that the Supreme Court decides that you need to show actual deliberate intent of racial discrimination in drawing maps instead of the effects. So Congress wasn't like. Didn't think that was. Thought that was weird, I guess. And in 1982, they passed a congressional amendment on the VRA declaring that you actually just needed to show that the effects or the results were that there was racial discrimination in drawing maps, regardless of deliberate intent. So that had held all the way up until recently. When this Louisiana Supreme Court case happened at the end of April, just a few days after Uranus ingressed into Gemini, they reversed that 1982amendment and kind of doubled down. Even now, it means that if a voting map has a discriminatory amount effect, it's actually legal as long as the state claims that it was due to partisan redistricting, which is apparently legal federally, which is kind of weird in itself, but it forces people to once again prove explicit racial discrimination intent, which is a very high bar. Except they made it even harder this time, oddly. So it was a really important court case. And I wanted to show a couple charts. I think you had the couple charts to compare because it was like a really eerie reversal of the 1982amendment chart. So the first one. So this was the 1982amendment chart. It had Mars, Saturn, Pluto in Libra. Mars was also in Libra during the initial 1965 Voting Rights act chart. And then it had Uranus at the beginning of Sagittarius. And then when you put up the chart for the Supreme Court case that happened just before the start of May, it has the reverse. It has both a recurrence of the Mars Saturn conjunction, but they're actually opposing as well. So it's both a recurrence transit and an opposition. And you can see Uranus at the very beginning of Gemini is opposing Uranus at the very beginning of Sagittarius in the previous chart. So it's kind of like the midlife transits in a person's chart. There's often reversals of what people were doing up to that point. It's both that and a Mars Saturn recurrence here. So it's really striking. But the important part in terms of the month of May was that just a cascade of. Of states, especially southern states, started redistricting like mad. Like Tennessee immediately voted to redistrict. Louisiana stopped in early voting even though votes were already cast. Alabama, just near the end of May, voided results of a primary that was already finished. And these were all basically to eliminate black majority voting districts, largely in the South. So there's been a whole bunch of other ones. I'm not going to get into all of the details, but. But it really struck me that that happened right after the Uranus ingress into Gemini, Both because of how rapidly all the states were suddenly trying to redistrict after that happened, and because, of course, this is the Uranus ingress into the Uranus return of the United States chart. And the Uranus return, of course, has coincided with a lot of major economic, external, and internal, major conflicts and wars. And this seemed like a really sudden acceleration of the internal kind Right after Uranus went back for good for this full transit through Gemini.
- [58:38]
A
Right? Yeah. And it also harkens back to the Uranus in Gemini period during the Civil War era. And also The Uranus in Gemini period during the Revolutionary War era, where you have the creation of the country, but then you have these themes of enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of different groups that's kind of like baked into the core DNA of the country. And the conflicting and sometimes hypocritical themes of liberation and freedom from monarchy and tyranny in the Revolutionary period. And like all men are created equal and all these high minded ideals, but then also the reality of disenfranchising and enslaving a huge part of the population and then the periodic revisiting of that during every Uranus in Gemini period.
- [59:35]
B
Yeah, absolutely. It is obviously an ongoing major tension in the United States and just kind of built into its core of like we're rebelling for freedom, but freedom for whom? You know, with the Mars Uranus in Gemini. And there's actually an interesting cycle I noticed of different voting rights things happening with Uranus going through the immutable signs because it was successive hard aspects to that original Mars Uranus in the independence chart, like Uranus in early Pisces, for example, which was in close aspect to a couple of these charts, was like the 1920 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, at least white women the right to vote. So there's a lot of, there's kind of a strong cycle around this that I'm noticing. I didn't finish researching it. But yeah, this was a major landmark thing that was unfortunately in keeping with the pattern of Uranus, but in a backsliding way.
- [60:38]
A
Right, yeah. And Uranus was in Virgo doing this square in the 1960s during some of those major civil rights acts and legislations as well.
- [60:48]
B
Yeah. And the Voting Rights act itself was that Uranus, Pluto in mid Virgo. So these were successive hard aspects to that.
- [60:56]
A
Yeah. And obviously this is also tied in with, in terms of the future, like the next big political turning point with the Venus retrograde in Scorpio and the buildup to the midterms, and that being a final culmination one way or another of which direction things are gonna go politically in some significant ways. And I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of drama surrounding that with the Venus retrograde in Scorpio in October and November.
- [61:26]
B
Mm, yeah, I'm sure.
- [61:29]
A
All right, I think that's good for this news section. Yeah.
- [61:32]
B
Yeah.
- [61:33]
A
All right, cool. Let's move on to our last news story, which is there's been a major breaking news story in the astrological community over the past week where there was an individual in France who officially attempted to trademark the terms astrocartography and astrocartography in French, both with a Y as well as an IE as their personal trademark. And what's surprising is that somehow this slipped through the cracks and the French Trademark Office approved it last November during a Mercury retrograde conjunct Mars in Sagittarius. And now the person has applied after that was approved for an expansion of it by getting it approved in the entire European Union. And that trademark application is still pending. So this is really problematic because what they then did, once they established the first trademark in France, after applying for the pending trademark that may be approved soon in Europe, is they started sending multiple. We've seen at least two instances where one person received a cease and desist letter, and then there was another person who also received a letter from them talking about them owning the word astrocartography and all professional things basically related to it, that was threatening them to stop using the word or face legal issues, basically. And this is really crazy because astrocartography has become this standard generic industry term for a type of locational astrology that's been used for decades. And there was a specific teacher named Jim Lewis who really pioneered and developed a unique form of astrocartography in the 1970s and 80s. And he did trademark a stylized version of the term, which is like. Like astro cartography with asterisks in between astro and carto and carto and graphi. But he was never able to successfully trademark the non asterisk version of the term, which became a generic term for doing astrology lines across maps. And Jim Lewis passed away young, tragically of cancer in 1995. And then his trademarks lapsed over a decade ago in the early 2010s, and then they were never renewed. So this is like a new astrologer, basically, that's come along that has no relation to Jim Lewis, the original founder of that or anything else, who's trying to trademark the term and then starting to send out cease and desist letters to other astrologers saying that they can't use it, which is just absolutely wild and caused, when it came out, a huge amount of controversy and outcry from the public over the course of the past week.
- [64:55]
B
Right? Yeah, definitely. And I know you've spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what's happening and so forth, and talking to people who used to be involved with Jim Lewis back in the day, right?
- [65:08]
A
Yeah, I've been trying to piece it Together, because on the one hand, it's like a community issue that somebody's trying to trademark a generic term, astrocartography, and say other astrologers can't use it or have to license it or whatever it is that they're supposedly trying to do. And from that perspective, a community issue, and to raise awareness of it, especially because the European trademark is still pending. There's time to stop the this and reverse it. And so people should do what they can to do that, I believe. But also because I realized that there's a Saturn Neptune signature there, again, which is the ambiguities surrounding ownership and attempts to trademark and make official something that is ultimately kind of ambiguous and kind of mushy to begin with, which is like, who owns and can anybody truly own an astrological technique? And so it's like, in some ways, this controversy coming back up again now goes back to Jim Lewis's original decision, which some people question, to attempt to trademark a technique to begin with. And there's different pros and cons and other things maybe we could get into in a separate discussion or episode about that, about why he did that at the time and what the pros and cons are of that or whatever attempts he did to copyright or trademark something that was partially his. But what I noticed is that there's a Saturn Neptune signature also, because in tracing back the history, I found that there were some maps with planetary lines drawn in two different articles, one by a German astrologer in 1919 50, and then another by a French astrologer in 1952. And that was right around that Saturn Neptune conjunction that was happening in the early 50s. So there was some form of something similar to astrocartography that was already existing at that time in the 1950s. And I don't know what the full story is, because this isn't my area of specialty in terms of the question about what Jim Lewis developed on his own, that was unique versus what Jim Lewis inherited from earlier astrologers. But I did notice that he published little pamphlets about astrocartography in the late 70s and early 80s. But then from what I can tell, some of the first major books on astrocartography. He authored a book with Ariel Guttman on astrocartography that came out in 1989, which of course was right on a Saturn Neptune conjunction. And there was one or two other books on astrocartography that came out around that time in 1990 and 1991. So there was some sort of very important turning point with astrocartography during the last Saturn Neptune conjunction 36 years ago. And now all of a sudden not only has astrocartography really taken off and become a really major and more popular thing. I feel like over the past few years, ever since Saturn moved into that sign based conjunction with Neptune, ever since it went into Pisces in 2023, but now that we're at just after the exact conjunction of Saturn Neptune, suddenly there's a whole controversy about it surrounding ownership and trademarking and other things. And I find that really fascinating. Just as another Saturn Neptune case study.
- [68:37]
B
Yeah, it does feel like another one of those Saturn Neptunes sort of trying to pin down the ephemeral or how you even put lines using astrology on the land of the earth itself. But yeah, especially the ownership issues. And you had noticed, right, that even in this current timeline there were distinct points that were coinciding with Saturn and Neptune coming the closest together. Right?
- [69:04]
A
Yeah, I mean I think she originally filed for the trademark last July, which was right after Saturn and Neptune had moved into Aries and become co present and then they stationed there, which was really interesting. And then there were other developments. I think in December she applied for the European Union trademark and other things like that. So there's probably some other specific timing things surrounding that. But yeah, in terms of the, the current community response, I've talked with some of the different organizations and other people connected with Jim Lewis and his legacy and stuff and they seem to be completely blindsided by this and not on board. There were also representatives from Kepler College connected with astrocartography that didn't seem to be on board with this because they were both surprised because it seems to be an attempt to monopolize the term, which is inappropriate given how many hundreds or even thousands of astrologers that use this as a technique at this point or the way it's integrated into different software or other things like that.
- [70:21]
B
Yeah, definitely it is a generic term at this point. And yeah, perhaps the French trademark office people just really do not follow astrology enough to be able to know that. And but yeah, the EU one is still pending so it is worthwhile for people to raise their voices before that goes through.
- [70:45]
A
Yeah, so at this point it's good. There's social media posts over the past week that have highlighted it. I've highlighted it. One of the main astrologers that was the subject of this that received a letter about it was Helena woods who I've had on the podcast to talk about astrocartography. But before and it Turns out that this woman that is attempting to trademark it was a student of Helena's who lists HelenaHshaving passed Helena's course in her biography as part of her certifications. So it means, functionally, from what I can tell, that this person who trademarked it took a course on astrocatography with Helena and then turned around once she trademarked the term and then served her own teacher, essentially with an email saying that she owned the term now, which is just wildly inappropriate. I was so floored because I was trying to, at different points, be objective and be like, is there some kind of charitable explanation for this? But then every time I get to that point, I'm just like, no, that's really sketchy. I can't really come up with a good explanation for that that makes any sense.
- [72:01]
B
No, that's really wild. It takes a lot of audacity to both sue your teacher that you learned these things from and to keep that teacher in your bio as who you learned at least some of this from.
- [72:16]
A
Yeah, so it's like that. And then there was also another French astrologer in February who received an actual cease and desist letter that I read. So I know this is at least applying to those two, and we'll see if there's other people that come forward talking about it as well. So it turns out that a bunch of organizations are stepping up and getting involved in this. So the Astrological association of Great Britain has officially launched a petition to oppose the trademark, and they're looking into this. You can find that petition@astrologicalassociation.com astrocartographypetition and I'll put a link to it in the description page below this video on YouTube or on the podcast website. The International Society for Astrological Research is also looking into legal options and ways to address this. And specifically, if there's anybody who's been personally impacted or have received one of these cease and desist letters, you can reach out to ISAR directly by emailing infoastrology.com to let them know if you've received one of these letters. The French organization, the fdaf, one of the main organizations in France, I'm told, is also investigating this and looking into what can be done to challenge the trademark and hopefully reverse it. So there's definitely a lot of things that are happening and yeah, hopefully people can. And one of the things is submit evidence that this has been used as a generic term, as well as submit a formal complaint to the relevant offices, either in France or the eu, in order to Let them know that this is something that shouldn't have been approved.
- [74:03]
B
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Because it affects the livelihood of the entire community. So it's nice to see, given that everyone kind of coming together and raising a quick outcry not to, you know, not really to attack the original person, but just to be like, this isn't okay. You can't own this. The whole community owns this.
- [74:23]
A
Yeah, definitely. And I think that's the bright side, is it's great seeing the community come together to reject this. But also, you know, that brings up the broader discussion about this, that really trademarking astrological technique like that, that there's something problematic about attempting to do that, especially a generic term that lots of astrologers use and that you didn't invent, and that's been around a long time before. So that may become part of the broader discussion. But for now, I think this is gonna be a really important test case just in terms of setting an important community standard for this, in terms of what's appropriate and what's not.
- [75:04]
B
Mm, definitely.
- [75:07]
A
All right, cool. Well, I think that's good for the news section for now, so why don't we take a break?
- [75:11]
B
Okay.
- [75:13]
A
I wanted to give a shout out to our sponsor for this month's episode, which is the LA Astro Fest. So this month, Art of the Zodiac presents the second annual LA Astro Fest. This year's festivities kick off at the Philosophical Research Society on Tuesday, June 23, with a talk by Dr. Ali A. Elomi titled Once and Future the Astrology of Today and Tomorrow. Then on Friday, June 26, Astro Comedy Troupe Planets, Planets Planets returns to the Pacific Opera Project stage in Highland park to perform the Night's Chart Amidst a fever dream of food, new friends, kissing booths, crying booths, a guest appearance by Marvel a Rex, and other surprise activities. Saturday and Sunday feature workshops by a dynamic collection of astrologers and storytellers, including Gemini Brett, Cameron Allen, Blair Bogan, and Michelle T. Secure your tickets today by visiting laastrofest.com use the code Brennan. 10 for 10% off tickets. Space is limited. All right, so shout out to LA Astro Fest. They held that last year as the first one, and I heard it went really well, so it's cool that they're doing it again a second year.
- [76:28]
B
Yeah, sounds like a fun multimedia event. And I love the name of that comedy troupe.
- [76:33]
A
Definitely. All right, why don't we transition into talking about the astrological forecast for June then?
- [76:42]
B
Sounds good.
- [76:44]
A
All right, so let me put the planetary alignments calendar up one more time to give an overview. So there's the planetary alignments calendar of all the major stuff this month. And just to briefly reiterate our breakdown, because I think this month is gonna have a pretty clear breakdown into three parts where you've got the astrology at the early part of the month, which is primarily that really auspicious Venus, Jupiter conjunction that's happening in Cancer, although it's a little bit complicated by a Mercury Saturn square that goes exact around the same time as Venus, Jupiter. Then mid month, Venus enters Leo and begins opposing Pluto. And this is a definite vibe shift, because right around the same time, Mercury begins slowing down in preparation for stationing retrograde, and Mars begins approaching uranus, especially within 10 degrees. That volatile conjunction, we're gonna start feeling it and seeing it in news events. Then the big explosions are later in the month when Mars enters Gemini and really begins the conjunction with Uranus in late June. And then Mercury stations retrograde and revokes its conjunction with Jupiter at the same time. And then on the final day of the month, Jupiter enters Leo and begins that opposition with Pluto. So it's a pretty clear breakdown in terms of some of the outlines of this month, I feel like. But we'll go ahead and go through some of the stuff chronologically here just to give people the natural evolution of the month.
- [78:24]
B
Sounds good. Yeah. And I definitely agree with that kind of segmenting. It's very specific, different energetic vibes early versus later. And the middle is kind of that transition point.
- [78:36]
A
Yeah, absolutely. All right, so let me put the chart up then for the month, and we'll move it to the beginning of June. Oh, yeah, I forgot to say we were recording this on June 1st, 2026, and I'm gonna release it on June 2nd. Usually we record episodes earlier towards the end of the month for the month ahead. But due to a mixture of bad electional charts with the Mars Pluto square happening, bad natal transits, and other personal stuff, this was like, the best we could do was recording on June 1st and then releasing on June 2nd. So apologies for the late recording this month.
- [79:20]
B
Mm.
- [79:22]
A
All right, so here is the chart for where we're at right now. We can kind of see the dynamic stuff going on in terms of where we're at today. We have Venus has cleared that square with Saturn and is heading straight to the conjunction with Jupiter, which is really exciting. Today we had Mercury chain signs, and it departed from its home sign of Gemini on June 1 and has moved into the sign of Cancer, where it's very quickly going to form a square With Neptune and then a square with Saturn. We can see Mars is separating from that square with Pluto. And finally starting to move out of the of orb of that to some extent. And later in the month, like mid month basically, is when it starts getting in the danger zone of Uranus. Once it gets within 10 degrees especially, what else is going on?
- [80:18]
B
I think those are the main features.
- [80:20]
A
Okay, so let's do the chronological breakdown then, which is basically Mercury's in cancer already June 1, by the time it opens. Our first big aspect of the month that's notable and will have a real notable essence Is that Mercury Neptune square, which goes exact on June 3rd. So here we can see Neptune is at 4 degrees of Aries. And Mercury will hit 4 degrees of cancer in square Neptune. So this is usually kind of a tricky day. Archetypally, for communication, there can be miscommunication. Communication that's either not clear or in some instances that's not true. Like people bending the truth or other things like that. So that'll be kind of a problematic aspect on that day, Especially if you're shooting for clear communications.
- [81:14]
B
Yeah. Mercury in Cancer on its own is more emotionally tinged communication. It also fluctuates a lot more depending on the moon sign, which is the fastest moving planet. So the lunar rulership of Mercury as it goes through cancer will continue to shift kind of sub colorations of how people are communicating and thought processes and so forth. But especially compared to when Mercury was just before this in Gemini, it was in its home sign. Now it's you're thinking and your communicating is much more colored by emotions which can be good or bad. I actually really appreciate the people I know who have that natal placement. Because there are always a lot more emotionally attuned to how communications will land, which I think is a really useful thing myself. Having the Mercury in the opposite position. I'm always kind of impressed by that. And then that's square to Neptune. It's kind of like. I was thinking of it as though your thought process is kind of in an impressionistic painting. Like, you know, those where it's supposed to be sort of more vague, but give you the impression emotionally of what's happening in the picture versus having things like exactly right and factual. And that's what it feels a lot like to me, that Mercury, Neptune, square. It can also be sort of temporarily. You could be thinking temporarily, more idealistically, but alternately more anxiously depending on what's going on. Because Neptune is just like. Your thoughts are not necessarily grounded compared to usual.
- [82:51]
A
Yeah, definitely and you're right that it can be good for artistic and expressionistic type ways of expressing that energy at its most positive. One of the things that it also just emphasizes is how much activity is happening in the cancer sectors of our chart this month.
- [83:09]
B
Month.
- [83:10]
A
And that Mercury, even though it's getting those squares early in the month from Neptune and Saturn, it is co present with Jupiter and Venus at this point. So whatever the cancer sector of our chart is, is not just going to be having a lot of really positive stuff happening this month with the Venus Jupiter conjunction happening there, but also just a lot of activity and increased discussions and movement and other things like that with Mercury as well.
- [83:36]
B
For sure, for sure. I'm also curious whether we'll see anything temporarily in the news having to do with the idealization of Mars related things, because that's been a really clear theme as soon as Neptune went into Aries. And so we'll have kind of a brief meeting of communicative things and that sort of idealization of martial valor.
- [83:59]
A
Yeah, well, that makes me think of the cancer themes we've seen can also be themes about the homeland and things like that. So that would kind of go along with that. And the Mercury Neptune square is really reactivating the whole Saturn Neptune complex in general of that Saturn Neptune conjunction, which is still within 10 degrees. Saturn's only 8 degrees away here at this point, with Neptune being at 4 Aries and Saturn being at 12. So that conjunction is really still potent and is still liable to activation whenever inner planets hit it like this. And Mercury will square Neptune on the third, but then it'll very quickly move into a square with Saturn. And that Mercury Saturn square is the one kind of confounding thing that makes the Venus Jupiter conjunction not. Not as good as it could be, just because even though those are some of the best electional charts of the year as we'll get into here shortly. When we talk about Venus Jupiter, the one tricky part is just that Mercury Saturn can inhibit communications or hamper communications in some instances and make it flow a little bit less easy as it would otherwise.
- [85:18]
B
Yeah, definitely. There can be obstacles to thinking or communicating. There could be more stern or formal words happening. It's kind of a briefly passing thing. But you will probably notice something around that. And it's interesting that it's happening so close to the Venus Jupiter, which we'll talk about more in a moment, because I was thinking of it as potentially at least in some instances, you or someone else you're relating to could be having more warm Feelings than is actually coming out of your mouth. Mouth or their mouth. There may be something really positive going on, but you might have a harder time putting it into words and communicating it as well.
- [85:58]
A
Right. It's like a lovely wedding where you misspeak when you're saying the speech or something that you had prepared in your head.
- [86:08]
B
Exactly, yeah, that kind of thing.
- [86:10]
A
Yeah. Somebody that gets flustered from public communication. You had a funny Saturn Mercury thing not too long ago. Right.
- [86:21]
B
I've had multiple Saturn Mercury things lately. Yeah. One of my ears is completely blocked. Were you referring to that?
- [86:28]
A
Yeah, just that you had an unspecified Saturn Mercury aspect recently and it caused issues both with your ears as well as your hands.
- [86:38]
B
Yeah. And I was thinking because the ear thing was obvious and that actually happened seven years ago when Saturn transiting Saturn was conjoining my Mercury. My ear was blocked for a while like this. So I'm looking forward to that alleviating. Hopefully soon. But yeah, Then weirdly I also have like a skin thing on my hands and I was like, wait a minute, what rules hands? Yeah, I have. Yeah. Saturn hitting both.
- [87:02]
A
Yeah. Sometimes it's very literal that Mercury can be not just speaking the speaking part of communication. We often think about it being like writing, speaking, things like that, like the external outward focused version of that. But it's also the receptive part of that, which is like hearing, understanding and the two way process of communication. And sometimes when Saturn gets involved in that, it's always like traditionally, even in ancient texts been a signature for something hampering that process.
- [87:37]
B
Yeah, definitely. That is the thing. Well, thankfully the transiting Mercury Saturn aspect will go by relatively quickly.
- [87:45]
A
Yeah, it shouldn't be the worst case scenario here, especially in day charts where Saturn aspects are less problematic. Okay, that kind of brings us to. So we had to mention the Mercury stuff first, but we should get to the main event, which is the Venus Jupiter conjunction, which finally goes exact on June 9th at about 25 degrees of cancer. And this is one of our loveliest aspects of the year between these two planets. Where some of my keywords are like, it's good for relationships and partnership and unions. The reconciliation of people that had been split apart previously. Traditionally it's associated with peacemaking efforts between those two planets. And generally the confirmation of good things is one of my general keywords for this alignment.
- [88:44]
B
Definitely. Especially in cancer. I kind of like to think about it as an extended cozy hug. That's kind of how it feels like to me. Or a high level offering of empathy where people at least for A temporary moment in time can really feel each other's struggles and joys more than usual.
- [89:10]
A
Definitely. Empathy is a really great trait, especially of cancer. And then also another keyword that I had that I noticed very vividly last summer was the nurturing or the taking care of another.
- [89:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. Because the conjunction last year was I believe on August 11th and I had surgery just a few days after that. So you were literally taking care of me.
- [89:36]
A
Yeah, that was happening in my sixth house. And yeah, it was a really vivid thing about just the positive side of cancer and of Venus, Jupiter conjunctions. And that really stood out to me at the time.
- [89:52]
B
Definitely, definitely. I also think about. It can be a moment in time when your focus is on the good things in life, in your life. You know, it doesn't really cancel out like everything else that's going on in the world and so forth, but it can be a moment where you can more vividly feel like the positives.
- [90:13]
A
Yeah, definitely the good things stand out, especially coming off of the Mars Saturn conjunction, which is literally the opposite end of that. And one of the keywords that came out of that was letting go of something or giving up on something. Letting something literally sort of pass away or in some instances die in some specific area of your chart. And this is the opposite where the energies of life building and confirming and things like that are at their peak.
- [90:50]
B
Definitely. And you know, speaking of the one last year versus this year, I was really interested to compare the two because the previous one in August of 2025 was actually really hampered by both malefics. We had Venus, Jupiter at 14 Cancer, but it was T squared. Not only Saturn and Neptune, Neptune at 1 Aries, but also Mars at 3 Libra. So we had like hard aspects from both malefics which kind of. It's not that there weren't good things at the time, there were, but it kind of like didn't let the Venus Jupiter as fully express itself.
- [91:27]
A
Yeah, for sure. And this year it's like we do have Saturn making a superior square to the conjunction, but it's much further away by degree so that it gets to breathe a lot more I feel like than compared to the one last year. Especially for the day charts.
- [91:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I think just the alleviation of not having both malefics there. And especially if you're using day charts, say the election, electional charts with this kind of configuration, you often want the day chart to get the most out of Jupiter. But then Mars was a. Are really right there last year. So this year While we don't have a completely freed up Venus Jupiter, we have it more freed up than last year.
- [92:13]
A
Yeah. And one of the things that this conjunction is associated with is marriages, because Venus is the traditional planet of love and relationships and Jupiter is the greater benefic and is also associated traditionally with legal things and with the confirmation or the stabilization of things. And there's no higher form of that than the partnership or the union between two people being fully confirmed and validated in that context of officially getting married and becoming a unit in some ways. So last summer we actually saw some notable proposals where, for example, the Venus Jupiter conjunction coincided with. With the Taylor Swift proposal, where Travis Kelce proposed to Taylor Swift and they announced that they were getting married. And there was those social media posts of the two of them that went viral because they were in a garden or something like that was where the proposal took place. And it was a really beautiful cancer like sort of setting for that. So in the year ahead, we were actually predicting that we would see some notable marriage and or proposals around this time in late May and early June. And I just learned yesterday that Dua Lipa just got married yesterday, very close to this Venus Jupiter conjunction as it's moving together. So she's one of the biggest pop stars in the world and it's notable to see her getting married at this time, right?
- [93:53]
B
Definitely, yeah. People kind of like in the spotlight or at high levels of society can be a big piece. One of the several. I looked back at the last Venus Jupiter conjunctions in cancer that we had before last year. We didn't actually have one 12 years prior because of Venus retrograde in Leo. So I had to look back to 2001, 2002. I'll just mention one now, but London hosted the party at the palace, which was a massive concert at Buckingham palace garden to Commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's 50th year on the throne, which I thought was very much in keeping with the Jupiter exaltation, signifying people in high places or at high societal status as well as a very big party.
- [94:45]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things where celebrities or royalty comes into play is when a planet's in its exaltation, it's literally thought to be raised up to its highest level. And we've seen really vivid instances of that with celebrities or royalty over the past few years. And that's a really good example of that. So the other thing that this Venus Jupiter conjunction that's doing and the function that it's serving, that's really important is it's the final piece of fixing and cleaning up some of the things that were broken last year in 2025 when Mars went retrograde in Cancer. And I think that's a really important function for each of us on a personal level, where there may have been some stuff that was wrecked or broken or some problems that arose in late 2024 and early 2025 when Mars went retrograde in Cancer and caused some problems in the house that matches the Cancer sector of our chart. But over the past year, Jupiter's been transiting through that sign and has been attempting to clean up some of that mess essentially. But now we're at the very tail end of the last few weeks of Jupiter moving through Cancer. And then we get this lovely transit of Venus coming through there for one last embrace or one last kiss in order to help tidy up some of those things towards the very end of that transit, which is nice and is also encouraging in terms of something that we could each attempt to use this energy for proactively is to think about where the Cancer sector of your chart is like what whole sign house it is basically especially and think about a way that you could improve or clean up or confirm the positive qualities of that part of your life in some through some specific action or some tangible thing that you could do.
- [96:46]
B
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Can I share the other two real quick that I found from the past Venus Jupiter conjunction for inspiration?
- [96:55]
A
Sure.
- [96:56]
B
Okay, so one, I was curious what a Venus Jupiter conjunction that wasn't hampered by either malefic looked like. And the one in 2001, August 2001 was on August 5, the Hallmark Channel began, which was just like made me laugh. But it was such a perfect, actual pure expression of the Venus, Jupiter and Cancer. I feel like without malefics involved, which is heartwarming, family oriented kind of pure positivity. And also that must have been a good election for them because the channel has continued and still is out there. And then the other one I really liked. There were two conjunctions in 2001, 2002. So this one was June 3, 2002. Some of you may have heard about this, but it had been a while, so I didn't remember a group of Maasai in Kenya, which was semi nomadic people in Kenya, had only heard about 9, 11 happening the month prior. So in May 2002 and they felt sad about it and so they wanted to do something. And so on this day they held a solemn ceremony blessing 14 cows that they were symbolically giving to the people of the United States and more than 1,000 people gathered for the ceremony. And cows are actually considered sacred to the Maasai. So I really appreciated the divinity piece, which I feel like is the Jupiter. So it says cows for them are a symbol of life, wealth and divine blessing. And it's one of the most cherished things that can be offered as a gift. And it just caught my eye because this quote in particular, there was someone, one of the Maasai who donated One of his 12 cows said, we're out with our cattle every day, so we're not always up to date on the news. We'd heard about a disaster in America, but we didn't know much about it. Now we feel the same way we would feel if we lost one of our own. And that just felt like such like the high level of empathy. Right. Like otherwise seemingly completely disconnected people on another continent were just like, we need to do something for these people and we need to show our empathy and solidarity. And I just thought that was like a beautiful expression of that. And also kind of a fascinating cross country cultural manifestation of the Venus Jupiter in cancer.
- [99:23]
A
Yeah, definitely. Like empathy and understanding are really good keywords for this. Yeah. And some of the keywords also are like, yeah, good doing and things like that are just some of the general acts of beneficence or of charity are some of the traditional associations with the conjunction as well as.
- [99:49]
B
Mm.
- [99:51]
A
All right, so this conjunction is really operative. Let me put the chart up for the first third of the month or the first couple of weeks. By the time we Release this on June 2nd, Venus is already at 17 degrees of cancer and it's applying straight to that conjunction with Jupiter for the next week. It eventually does peak and culminate around the time of the exact conjunction on June 9, but then they continue being co present all the way until June 12th or 13th when Venus breaks the sign based conjunction and moves into Leo, where that's kind of a vibe shift, not just because it's changing signs and breaking the sign based conjunction, but just because by that point it's really applying to that opposition with Pluto. So that's one of the reasons why I draw the the line here in terms of that conjunction especially primarily being localized to the first week or week and a half or so of the month.
- [100:55]
B
Yeah, the first week, week and a half of June is just strikingly more positive. And then it starts changing energies a bit. But as long as Venus and Jupiter are there together, I mean it's still separating at that point. By the time of the chart you have on the screen, but so it'll still kind of linger, you'll still kind of feel that, although not as accentuatedly, if that's a word, it won't be as accentuated. But definitely we will appreciate that feeling, I guess, depending on your own chart. But by and large we'll appreciate that feeling more than, you know, after it goes away.
- [101:32]
A
Yeah, for sure. So one of the things related to that is I wanted to highlight the best electional chart of the month that we could find using the principles of electional astrology. And this is actually one of the best charts of the year, not just of the month. So our electional chart for this month is set for June 8th of 2026 around 3:30pm local time, which should give you Libra rising. And Venus is the ruler of the Ascendant and it's placed up there in cancer in the 10th whole sign house applying to that conjunction with Jupiter. This is an excellent chart for 10th House matters especially that relate to career, public reputation, overall life direction, interaction with superiors like bosses or other people involved in your work. And the ruler of the 10th house is the Moon, which is placed in Pisces in the sixth, sixth whole sign house, applying to a trine with Venus and Jupiter and having a mutual reception with Jupiter itself. Because the Moon is in Jupiter's sign and Jupiter is in the Moon's sign. So even though this is the day before the exact Venus Jupiter conjunction, this is the most optimal date this month because the Moon is more well placed in Pisces than it will be the following day, the day of the conjunction once the Moon has moved into Aries with Neptune and Saturn. And also on this date, the Venus Jupiter conjunction is still applying, so it's still positive things indicated for the future rather than it being something that's moving into the past once that conjunction separates.
- [103:16]
B
Definitely. Yeah. This is one of the clearest, most positive elections of the year for sure. I like that concentration in the 10th house for like those topics you mentioned, career, public reputation, but also just whatever you're starting at this point will be very publicly positive. Right, because it brings that ascendant ruler Venus into the 10th house, the most visible part of the chart, and then conjoins with that exalted Jupiter. So it's going to be like a publicly positive thing. And I also like that in particular if you're using this for work, work related matters. I like that both the 10th house and the 6th house are both really good because you don't often get both of them together. So the sixth house can pertain to things like co workers or people you hire to assist you. Either or as well as just work environment. So yeah, this is a really lovely chart.
- [104:13]
A
Yeah, definitely. The thing it's not as good for is eighth house things because we see that Mars is in the eighth house of shared resources and other people's money. So it would be more problematic for that. Anything involving a partner's finances or finances in a partnership, like shared resources, as well as taxes, debts, loans, and other things in that area.
- [104:37]
B
Yeah, definitely.
- [104:40]
A
All right, so that's the electional chart for the month. We just released our electional Astrology podcast through our page on patreon.com, where we picked out a bunch of other electional charts this month. If you need other dates besides just June 8th, you can find that at patreon.com astrologypodcast to get access to that private episode. And then also because we're halfway through the year, I just discounted our Year Ahead electional report for 2026, where we picked out the best elections for the entire year, including the next six months. So if you need to plan further ahead, you can get a hold of that report now for 50% off by going to theastrologypodcast.com 2026report and you can get access to it for that discount.
- [105:33]
B
Yeah. Useful for future planning for the rest of the year for some of the best charts of those months, as well as the best charts of navigating the more difficult months later in the year.
- [105:44]
A
Definitely. All right, so I think have we beaten it into people enough, like how good this Venus Jupiter conjunction is, or do we need to keep belaboring how much it's awesome before moving on? The one thing we do need to mention, and even about that electional chart, of course, was that Mercury is squaring Saturn. So that's the one downside with that electional chart. Besides the Mars and the eighth, there's just some possible hampering and communications, but especially with that chart. If you make it a day chart, then there should be surmountable difficulties to some extent.
- [106:21]
B
Mm. For sure. For sure. I did want to say one more thing about the World cup coming up, because it's scheduled very close to that. Okay, so the World cup begins June 11th and 12th, so Venus Jupiter is slightly separating, but it's still pretty close. And I was really interested to see this, partly because it seems like a really interesting parallel to previous events this year that have brought something positive that people can Collectively celebrate amidst otherwise challenging times or a sense of general malaise or what have you. It's kind of similar with the Venus Jupiter in February, for instance, Venus in Pisces was trine. Jupiter in Cancer with the Winter Olympics. And that was during the month that otherwise had the Saturn Neptune conjunction and the Mars Uranus square. And I was just really struck at that time by just the collective high spirits, especially around, at least in the United States, Alyssa Lu's gold medal win and her individual win was a few days before that. That aspect went exact. And then in April as well, the Artemis mission to the Moon happened with Venus in its own sign of Taurus sextiling Jupiter in Cancer. And there were a lot of people mentioning how poetic and surprisingly poetic it felt and heartwarming. And that ended. It was like the first week and a half of April. It ended just as Mars Neptune Saturn conjunction was starting up. So this feels really similar to me in terms of there being a bright spot that people are kind of collectively coming together around to celebrate something, even if it doesn't kind of make everything good.
- [108:09]
A
Yeah, absolutely. It'll be nice to have something like that. And it's nice to have those bright spots, especially in a year like this, which is sandwiched in between so many really challenging aspects. Like we had the Saturn Neptune conjunction in February, for example, and March, and some of those hard aspects that coincided with the outbreak of major war. Or we have the Mars Uranus conjunction coming up in July. So it's really nice to see the bright spots that happen in between. There are some good things.
- [108:43]
B
Yeah. And I like that they're starting it with Venus Jupiter, even though the World cup has lots of matches. And so it'll go on for a while into July, but at least they're starting it with both benefics and a sign of inclusivity and celebrating the world's people and teams.
- [109:01]
A
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I'm sure there's gonna be a bunch of other notable things. And it'll be interesting paying attention to who does launch things around this time. Cause sometimes when there's really auspicious alignments, you'll see all the astrologers launching things deliberately using electional astrology. And sometimes, though, with other things, there's like an ambiguity with just like public celebrities or other people. Like who's using electional astrology versus sometimes people, especially prominent people, just do things naturally around the time of notable alignments or around the time of auspicious alignments. Not necessarily because they're doing that deliberately, but Just because something is gonna be successful at that time. So I noticed that. I think Spielberg is launching his new movie. Steven Spielberg has a new movie coming out on the 12th somewhere around there. And I noticed there may be one other big launch around the 12th as well. So it'll be interesting to see some of the things that naturally arise around this time.
- [110:03]
B
Mm.
- [110:06]
A
All right, so I think that's good. Why don't we move on to the vibe shift that starts happening mid month, especially around June 13, when Venus enters Leo and departs from that sign. And then we get our first lunation of the month, which is a new Moon in Gemini. So this is pretty late to be having a lunation in the month. And it's because we had a full Moon in Sagittarius right at the end of May, which was interesting because that was also when the astrocartography thing really popped off on social media. After I shared it and Helena shared it, I noticed that there was just this huge awareness and discussion about astrocartography just all over the world suddenly, with a full Moon in Sagittarius. And that was kind of striking just around that lunation. But this new Moon happening here in Gemini is one of the reasons why there's a vibe shift that happens at this point, because that starts the new lunar month. But also, we see Venus at this point is at 1 degree of LEO, moving into 2 degrees of LEO, headed straight for that opposition with Pluto at 5 degrees of Aquarius. And then we also see that within 24 hours of this lunation, Mercury starts moving slower than its average daily motion, which means that Mercury's slowing down and getting ready to station retrograde later in the month. And it's also just past its shadow degree at 16 degrees of cancer, because that's the degree it will retrograde back to. So that means we're already entering into the period where people are going to start taking actions around the middle of the month that they're gonna be forced to revisit and come back to later on during the course of the Mercury retrograde.
- [112:02]
B
Mm, for sure. Yeah. The new Moon in Gemini, it's not doing a lot on its own. The Moon will change signs and then square Neptune and Saturn as its next aspects. But what actually seemed more notable about it to me is that it begins an opening of the Gemini sector of chart, both individually in our own natal charts as well as the country's chart and so forth, where there's going to be a lot of activity and important activities soon with Mars entering Gemini later. This month applying to conjoin Uranus and the new Moon itself actually happens conjunct the US Mars within 3 degree which is already co present with natal Uranus in the US Sibley chart. Anyway. So it's just kind of like opening that door to what's coming through soon.
- [112:58]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So it's a new moon ruled by Mercury. And there's something about this Mercury in this new moon where it looks initially optimistic. It's like what we have forming is just like with Venus and Jupiter, there was that conjunction that forms and builds up and then eventually completes and culminates. But Mercury here is headed towards Jupiter. So it looks like it's headed towards something extremely positive and auspicious. But then as we'll see later in the month, Mercury ends up slowing down and stationing retrograde before it actually completes that conjunction with Jupiter. So it has this feeling mid month that there's something positive forming, but there may be something either illusory about that or there's something that gets interrupted because of circumstances that are sort of like outside of people's control.
- [114:01]
B
Yeah, it's a little bit of a fake out. Although. Yeah, in the middle of the month where we are now, it's still looking more positive. It's just it's not going to finish.
- [114:12]
A
Right, right. And then the other thing mid month is we see Mars hit 22 and 23 degrees of Taurus by like the 19th, which means at that point it's within 10 degrees of Uranus. And at that point the degree based conjunction starts becoming operative between those two planets and things start becoming much more volatile. So that's why the middle of the month is important. Let's focus on this Venus Pluto opposition that goes exact around the 17th first though.
- [114:50]
B
Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. So Venus ingressing into Leo itself is kind of nice. It is actually bringing a positive transit to the area where we're going to have increasing activity the rest of the year. Because we have a lot going on in Leo progressively as we go through the second half of 2026. The last Venus in Leo transit was from late August to mid September 2025. So you can think back to what was going on for you at that point. And yeah, so it brings something positive to that area. It will be joined by Jupiter at the end of the month and then through July, or at least they'll overlap by about a week, week and a half. So we'll have a temporary blip of both positives in Leo. But one Venus has the overcoming square from Mars by Sign. So it's not quite as positive as it could be otherwise, even though there's reception. And then more closely, Venus is of course applying to that opposition with Pluto. And that can bring up things like on the positive side, it can amp up personal magnetism, but it can kind of intensify Venus. But it also can bring up things like jealousy or power struggles or bring kind of like underworld themes to relationships or love. It actually made me think of, I was thinking of like keywords and I was thinking of like a bouquet of flowers versus the bomb, which made me think of that suddenly that famous picture of like a peace activist putting a flower in the, in like the barrel of a gun rifle when they, they were like against a line of armed military police. And I looked it up, that was from a Vietnam War protest and Venus was in Virgo applying to Pluto, supplying by conjunction that time. But it's that kind of, you know, especially with the opposition here, it's more like flowers, creativity, you know, heart centered things against, you know, Plutonian things.
- [116:55]
A
Yeah, that's really beautiful. Yeah. And you know, the Venus, Pluto opposition is tricky because an opposition oftentimes can be externalized and experienced as an external person that you're having some sort of tension with or some sort of conflict with. And Pluto tends to act in ways that sometimes are either underhanded or are sort of secretive or manipulative in some way. So that even though there's like a power play that's happening sometimes, it's not always obvious what that is. And one of the other themes I was reminded of this month when I was doing the Biography with Linda Goodman was sometimes, sometimes Venus. Pluto can have themes of obsession, of becoming really deeply obsessed with a romantic partner or something like that. Or sometimes having a hard time letting go once a romantic relationship has ended.
- [118:00]
B
Yeah, that's true. That can be one of the less pleasant ways that can play out another way. I just think of. It's a basic opposition, right. And so typically when we have an opposition transiting in our natal charts, there's like a tension between two different areas that simultaneously need attention. So in this case, it's like one area of your life is wanting to flower. It's wanting positive things to suddenly be happening while the other area is undergoing excavation or death and rebirth energies or some sort of major overhaul. And you somehow need to attend to both.
- [118:39]
A
Right, that makes sense. And it's like this aspect comes and goes pretty quick. It's just like a few day period that peaks on the 17th and the moon Happens to swoop in there and conjoin Venus and oppose Pluto at the same time on June 17. But the only reason we're kind of emphasizing it is just it's one of the first aspects that's really obviously tricky this month that happens aside from the Mercury Saturn square or the Mercury Neptune square early in the month. But those are very quick.
- [119:13]
B
Right, right. One other way I'm expecting this to play out. Is there being attention or some attention on individual people shining out versus the collective? Yeah, we'll see. Because LEO sort of represents central figures. It also can represent like people in charge, the king, et cetera. And so I think we'll see some of that tension. And I'm mentioning that also because we'll have more of that to come when Jupiter comes into LEO and applies to oppose Pluto as well.
- [119:48]
A
Yeah, Like I said from the opposition with Pluto, this is the beginning of a really positive period to some extent in the LEO sectors of our chart. Once Jupiter goes in there and we have like a month or so, month or two maybe of some good growth and expansion type things happening in the Jupiter sectors of our chart When Jupiter's transiting through that sign alone, Aside from around the opposition to Pluto, before we get some tricky or some problematic stuff later this year when Mars goes into that sign and ends up going retrograde partially in Leo.
- [120:27]
B
Yeah, we'll have more of a mixed bag in the LEO area later in the year. So here at least we have just some. Some more purely positive things moving through, Aside from the brief period where it's more closely opposite Pluto.
- [120:40]
A
Yeah. Okay. Other things that need to be said about this period. Is there anything else? So we get the New Moon, the Venus, Pluto opposition. The sun enters cancer on the 21st. There's the sun going into Cancer and the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. Venus clears that opposition with Pluto, which is nice, but we start getting into the end game towards the end of the month and the more volatile and tumultuous part of the month.
- [121:17]
B
Mm, right. For sure. Yeah. The sun entering Cancer can bring more tender feelings, you know, coming to the forefront. We've already had some of that, of course, with Venus and Jupiter in Cancer, but it kind of brings more. Your central being shifts into a more tender mode. It can feel more protective of others or yourself. It's a good nostalgia time. There's often like family reunions and things like this time of year.
- [121:48]
A
Yeah, it's further reactivating the Cancer sectors of our charts and whatever whole sign house that is which had received A lot of positive stuff at the beginning of the month, but there's some other things that are starting to develop and be highlighted at this point, because Mercury is slowing down and is about a week from stationing retrograde in that sign. So at this point, there's gonna be some things that start slowing down and that we start to feel almost grinding to a halt as we're reaching for something, but something that escapes our grasp just before we obtain it.
- [122:25]
B
Mm. Right. And it's not that it won't ever come back, but it'll take a while if it does.
- [122:31]
A
Right. Okay. So as we get towards the end of the month, one of the last little aspects is that the sun will square Neptune here around June 25th. So there's some fogginess or nebulousness around this time that may come up, especially around that day, a lack of clarity. But by the time we get into the last part of the month, this is when basically everything goes haywire. And the big thing we need to talk about at this point is the Mars Uranus conjunction. Because by the time we get into this final week of the month, it's getting really close. And especially when it goes into Gemini, by June 28, that conjunction is going to be at its most powerful and start ramping up very significantly once it gets within that 3 degree range and moves into the same sign as Uranus. And one of the things that we'll talk about the volatility of that conjunction in a minute. But one of the things that up until that point is a little unclear, is that while Mars is still moving through the later portions of Taurus, while things are going to start being. Getting kind of crazy, I do notice that Mars is making this sextile from 29 degrees of Taurus to 29 degrees of cancer. So that there's this mitigating aspect. It's a very weak mitigating aspect from Jupiter, but nonetheless, there's almost something there that's attempting to hold back the worst impulses of the Mars Uranus conjunction. But then all of a sudden, once Mars changes signs on the 28th, it's not being held back anymore. And that conjunction really comes to the forefront in a very significant way. And I think that's gonna be a major vibe shift around June 28th. And simultaneous to that, we can see that Mercury is stationing retrograde at 26 degrees of cancer. And yeah, it's just a whole ordeal that takes place around this point in the month.
- [124:43]
B
Yeah, the harsher things get louder and the more positive things get that Fake out aspect of revoking. I know that you had a little quote about that, right?
- [124:58]
A
Yeah. So an astrologer on Twitter Alina astro on Twitter LenaAstron pointed out that this is a really classic case of what's known in medieval Islamic astrology as revoking. And I'm just gonna read Alina's quote because I thought it was really good, where Alina says ancient astrologers said that this meant intended matters shifted due to accidental circumstances, breaking a promise, disloyalty, going back on one's word, cancellations, changing one's mind, or the inability to commit to plans. And she continues and says revoking is one of the clearest ways we see the effects of reversals when a planet stations retrograde or direct because it involves a broken aspect connection. Here Mercury is well received by an esteemed Jupiter, like a student seeking a scholar or a scientist seeking funding. But something occurs in Mercury's realm that requires revisiting, rescheduling, revoking, or stepping away. And I thought that was a brilliant description here. And when I take that into account with the fact that the Mars Uranus aspect, which is one of our most problematic aspects of the year, is just going into alignment right at the same time, it really paints a problematic picture because basically a really positive aspect gets revoked just as a really negative aspect is coming into alignment, which seems like a bad scenario.
- [126:38]
B
Yeah. And on the world stage, this feels like there's almost a peace deal in some arena and then it doesn't happen, and then Mars Uranus goes forward.
- [126:50]
A
Yeah. Well, let's talk about Mars Uranus and what the energy is of that conjunction to begin with. You know, this is something I talked about extensively. We talked about extensively in the year ahead of forecast. And I actually dedicated an entire episode to where Nick Dagan Best and I in December did a whole episode on Mars Uranus conjunctions in Gemini in US History because this conjunction has historically been incredibly important in US History whenever it recurs. And it's tied in with the broader cycle of Uranus transiting through Gemini for seven years in approximately every 84 years. And during those times, whenever Uranus is in Gemini, the US tends to get involved in a major war. First the Revolutionary war, then the second time was the Civil War, then the third time was World War II, and now the third time is now. And what Nick and I found, when we went and further specified, that is we found that there's an especially important turning point within those seven year periods whenever the planet Mars moves into the Same sign as Uranus in Gemini. And that's because it goes right back to the founding chart for the United States during the Declaration of Independence when there was a Mars Uranus conjunction, conjunction in Gemini in the sky. So this is baked into the very birth chart of the US and therefore every time this specific alignment of Mars Uranus in Gemini recurs, it always ends up being a hugely important turning point in US history. So some examples of that are the Civil War started, literally the very beginning of the Civil War started under a Mars Uranus conjunction. And then the Civil War also ended under a Mars Uranus Uranus co presence in Gemini as well. During World War II, the atomic bombs were used on Japan during a Mars Uranus conjunction in Gemini. So it coincided with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but then also the end of World War II as a result of that at that time. So what we found historically is that the US usually gets involved in a major war around the time of either the first Mars Uranus conjunction in Gemini or the second Mars Uranus conjunction in Gemini in some instances. And this will be our first of four conjunctions in that sign between now and 2032.
- [129:31]
B
Yeah, some pretty sobering historical precedents, but it's good to be aware of what's going on and what's repeating here.
- [129:40]
A
Yeah. So some of the keywords of just like Mars Uranus conjunctions in history that Nick and I found in general were historically there were things like especially sudden, unexpected violent events, rebellions, revolutions, issues of secession, sudden violent uprisings, issues related to like guerrilla warfare, massacres, the unveiling of new military technologies was a really common theme as well as the radical liberation of previously oppressed people was a major recurring theme in US history around these conjunctions. Like for example, the largest slave revolt in US history occurred under a Mars Uranus conjunction in Scorpio. There's also sometimes major technical innovations that happen around the time of these conjunctions. And it is notable that this Mars Uranus conjunction in Gemini is trining that Pluto in early Aquarius. So there's some sort of confluence there technologically, probably at the same time.
- [130:48]
B
Yeah, for sure. And on the personal level, best case scenario, it can be good for versatility, moving quickly, inventiveness, thinking quickly. But it's also like the planet of assertion or aggression going into like a scattered overdrive mode. It's not really in an area where it's good about making sober long term plans.
- [131:14]
A
Yeah, for sure. And one of the things we see whenever this aspect happens is just a lot of stuff starts happening at once, especially once Mars gets within the 10 degree range of Uranus for the entirety of that range, both applying and separating. And then especially it gets more intense once it's within 3 degrees. And then it gets its most intense around the 1 degree exact aspect. And one of the things that's made this aspect stand out to all astrologers as soon as we started paying attention to this timeframe is that the aspect goes exact on July 4, 2026. So this happens to fall this year, right on the nation's birthday, which means that this aspect will sort of be baked into the solar return chart for the US this year.
- [132:09]
B
Yeah, yeah. So it is really front and center. And you know, one of the problematic things about it is Uranus is such a wild card. So it's like you don't really know. You can see possibilities of what might happen, but you don't really know until right in the moment what actually is going to happen.
- [132:29]
A
You don't know in the sense that it's usually something unexpected that comes out of left field, in that sense that you know something unexpected is going to happen. But also that sometimes one of the things that commonly happens is that there's like an unexpected violent event sometimes that occurs around that time. Like, you know, we talked about the Mars Uranus squares that happened, and one of them happened last June, that was the start of there was a surprise attack by Israel and the US on Iran that happened at that Mars Uranus square, and then within 24 hours of the very next Mars Uranus square, that was in late February of 2026 when the US and Israel again launched a surprising attack on Iran. So sometimes that element of surprise, or the last Mars Uranus conjunction that we had to give you some idea of the surprise element of it, but also the element of lots of really consequential things happening at once. The last time we had this conjunction was In July of 2024, when there was a Mars Uranus conjunction in Taurus. And what happened is that this one really got kicked off with, with the attempt on Trump's life that occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania. That was this unexpected violent event that came out of nowhere that suddenly, completely changed the course of the presidential election, for one. And it's like, if you remember the sequence of that event, because I documented it at the time, it was crazy. It was like that assassination attempt took place. And then just a few days later, Trump picked Vance as his vice presidential candidate. And then the same day, I believe Trump was nominated, and then eventually accepted the nomination that week at the Republican National Convention. The same day he had a major court case that was dismissed out of nowhere. That completely freed up one of the most problematic potential court cases for him or legal cases. And then that same week, Biden got sick with COVID and then eventually announced that he was dropping out of the race. And then very quickly, Harris became the nominee. And then everything that happened after that. But it was all happening in this relatively short time span around the time of that Mars Uranus conjunction.
- [134:56]
B
Mm, definitely. Yeah. So yeah, while the specifics are unpredictable and things can seem to come out of the left field, I mean, you're obviously totally right and that we know the kind of shape of things, especially based on past Mars Uranus conjunctions.
- [135:15]
A
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Go ahead.
- [135:20]
B
Well, I was also gonna mention that while Mars Uranus doesn't go exact until July 4th, and it doesn't go into Gemini until late in June, we're going to have a bit of a buildup in part because of the 10 to 15 degree range applying to Uranus, but also because if you think about using the president's chart as a temporary overlay of the nation's chart, he does go into a Mars year on his birthday, which is the 14th, which is the same day that we have the Gemini new Moon roughly conjunct the Mars in the US Chart. And then that makes Mars transits in his chart more important because he'll be in a Mars ninth house year. And Mars is then simultaneously continuing its transit through Taurus, his 10th house. It'll hit his midheaven around June 20th. Then it'll shortly afterwards square his Mars and ascendant and then go into the 11th house and conjoin Uranus. So there's a bit of a potential lead up for reasons to have more Mars y things happening even before Mars goes into Gemini, potentially at least right
- [136:32]
A
in the second half of half of June and leading into early July. Yeah, definitely. I think that's really important. And conjunctions are sometimes the end of one two year cycle and it's the beginning of a new two year two year cycle. So sometimes in the Mars Uranus conjunctions in history, sometimes at the beginning of Mars Uranus conjunctions, in Gemini we would see wars start. And then other times towards the end of Uranus in Gemini we would see major wars end. So there'll probably be some symbolic beginnings as well as endings happening around this time. But we'll be paying especially attention to any new beginnings because sometimes conjunctions act as seed moments where something that started at the time may not seem super significant at first, but if it's a symbolic new beginning, then sometimes it'll grow and develop into something much more significant over time. So all of us should pay attention to not just in a mundane sense, but also in a personal sense. What seeds are planted at this time that may grow and develop over the next two years?
- [137:44]
B
Mm, for sure.
- [137:45]
A
Well, it's like the two years of the immediate, you know, one conjunction to another, but also. Yeah, the next seven years of Uranus through Gemini as well.
- [137:55]
B
Mm.
- [137:58]
A
Okay. Is there anything else? One other thing in terms of potential flashpoints on a global level that we're paying attention to is any countries that were born under a Mars Uranus conjunction, this could be a potential recurrence transit for them, where sometimes if a country was born under this transit, then it makes that transit more personally important for them. So that's true, of course, as we were just saying, with the United States being first and foremost, especially because the United States was born the summer of a Mars Uranus conjunction in Gemini during the. The committee that created the Declaration of Independence was started very close to the day of the Mars Uranus conjunction. And then it was eventually signed in early July of 1776. So it's like it's the US especially. But earlier this year, I pointed out that Venezuela was born on a Mars Uranus conjunction, which was interesting because just like the US Was the first country in North America to suddenly liberate itself and declare its independence from a colonialist empire, in that instance with Great Britain, Venezuela was the first country in South America that did the same when it declared its complete independence from Spain around, I think it was like 1810 near a Mars Uranus conjunction. So Venezuela has that in their chart. Cuba celebrates the beginning of its revolution in 1953, also under a Mars Uranus conjunction. So this Mars Uranus conjunction could be very important as a flashpoint for Cuba. And then finally you noticed that Lebanon also declared its independence from France or gained it around a Mars Uranus conjunction as well, right?
- [139:54]
B
Yeah, I just noticed that the other day. And it was really striking because it's not just a Mars Uranus conjunction, but it's Mars Uranus Saturn for them in 1943, but it's in Gemini just like the US and I was like, oh, that's really striking and sobering because they're already in the news, obviously, and are getting hit pretty hard right now. And so because they have Mars Uranus in Gemini and not just alone Mars Uranus, I expect that they will continue to be in the news.
- [140:24]
A
Yeah, for sure. And I guess the last one was just. You had found that that was the 1943 Mars Uranus conjunction, which was important because Mars was also retrograde at that time. Or it was around Mars retrograde in Gemini. But that was the same one that I found where the US Made that deal that China would get Taiwan from Japan, basically after World War II, under the same Mars retrograde in Gemini conjunct Uranus. So there's something about that that's important as well. And we will see pretty soon, over the course of the next several weeks, which ones specifically or what combination of different ones come into play around this conjunction. All right, so is there any final things we can say about this to take it out of a mundane realm, Just to personalize it in terms of individuals? Let's say just some constructive things about. Uranus has just recently entered into Gemini. So that's moved into a new whole sign house over the past year for all of us, which is bringing, in many instances, greater feelings of needing freedom and liberation and innovation in the Gemini sector of our chart. And that may already be a process that's happening, or it may already be a feeling that's latent in many of us that we're starting to sense over the course of, Especially the past few months since Uranus made its full ingress into Gemini. But when Mars goes into that sign, it's gonna really emphasize and pour gasoline on that little spark that may already exist. And for some of us, it may be some internal thing that arises at this time that pushes us to suddenly want to break free of or to sever some relationships in order to achieve the greater sense of freedom and liberation that we're already starting to develop on the inside. But to externalize that more through taking direct action.
- [142:35]
B
Yeah, definitely. For sure, those things, it can also be like innovating or experimenting in a certain area. And Mars is just adding greater activity to that longer process of suddenly speeding that up. So you're suddenly learning about how to do some new thing in some area of your life. And then Mars comes along and is like, no, you gotta do this now. Yeah. So I think that's the most constructive way it could come about. Again, as I was saying, versatility, thinking quickly. We'll just have to be careful not to get too scattered because it's. It easily lends itself to that.
- [143:14]
A
Yeah, that's a good point. That there's more of an urgency and a desire to want to do it now and do it quickly. Mars is all about speed, and Uranus also speeds things up. So when you put the two of them together, suddenly a lot of things are happening at once and we're ourselves feeling pushed to be part of that and to sort of lead the vanguard in taking direct action and making changes in that sector of our chart.
- [143:41]
B
Yeah. And I don't want to dwell on this too long, more than a moment, because it'll get too complicated. But given that Uranus itself is already transiting in a trine to Pluto in Aquarius, then Mars joining Uranus, it's like there's two areas of our charts right now that are connected, but Mars coming in there is going to speed up whatever that Uranus, Pluto, trine is about in our charts and. And so potentially also adding fuel to the fire in terms of deeper transformations in some area of our life.
- [144:14]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And accelerating the technological transformations. There'll probably be some major technological breakthroughs around this time and around that conjunction. So let's see, Mars, though, sometimes can bring problems. There can be a conflict or a separation or an issue that arises in that area of your life. Life that prompts the need for change if that's not something that was developing internally within you. And sometimes Mars can be cutting or severing, and sometimes, actually, we learned this month, it can also be spicy and like burning things or burning sensation. Right?
- [144:54]
B
Yes, yes, we did. Some of us more viscerally than others. Yeah. So transiting Mars has been just recently opposing your sun, which is the ruler of your seventh house of partnership. And a couple nights ago, we got some takeout food and I did not know that there were some incredibly spicy peppers in there. And like our lights weren't fully on. It was kind of dim. So I'm just like, oh, red vegetable, whatever, you know, I'm like, I just like entirely chew up one of the hottest. No, not one of like the hottest pepper I've ever tasted in my life. And I went to. Went into like huge, like overheated overdrive and. And you had to ply me with ice cream and milk to calm it down.
- [145:37]
A
Yeah. Luckily I have been a fan of the YouTube show Hot Ones for years. So I'm just sitting and eating dinner, and you get up and walk away to get some water, and I'm not paying attention. And then you come back and you're just in tears 10 seconds later and you've eaten the hottest pepper you've ever eaten in your life. And luckily I leapt into action and I grabbed some milk. And how do you start Chugging that, because that neutralizes the pepper oils. And then also gave you some ice cream. And that's funny, because I discovered the host of hot ones, his birth chart, a few years ago, and that he had Mars in a day chart in the seventh house. And I was always so entertained by that and how he interviews people and basically burns their mouths with spicy hot sauces as his job with the ruler of the 10th and the 7th. And then under a Mars transit afflicting the ruler of my seventh. You burned your mouth?
- [146:36]
B
Yeah. It was quite striking. It lasted a little while. Yeah. And I was like, look at. Oh, go ahead.
- [146:43]
A
Well, and then we were having a broader thing about how it's funny how sometimes you see things happening. Sometimes you can see things in a person's chart, but sometimes you see things happening in the charts of the people around them. And that was definitely an instance of that or another instance of that. It can be more major things sometimes if a person passes away, it's like you see the loss in the charts of all the people around them in some ways. And that's a really fascinating and common thing that's noted by astrologers for many, many years. But it made me want to do an episode discussing that phenomenon.
- [147:21]
B
Yeah, it's a fascinating meta issue. And, yeah, I've definitely seen a bunch of. Of examples of that before, because in the moment, well, after it started calming it down a tiny bit, I was like, what's the chart right now? What's happening? And I was like, there is nothing in my chart that says this right now. This is purely your Mars transit.
- [147:40]
A
And it wasn't that there was nothing. It was just that it was obvious. It was more striking in my chart that I was having a transit pertaining to my seventh house, but it wasn't directly me. It was representing you.
- [147:53]
B
Yeah, for sure.
- [147:56]
A
So spiciness sometimes in the Mars sector of cause, when Mars leaves Taurus, on the one hand, it's removing the sort of spiciness and suffering and conflict factor from the Taurus sectors of our charts, but it's shifting that towards the Gemini sector of our charts for the next couple of months. And it starts off very explosively with that Mars Uranus conjunction and something coming out of left field that we probably didn't anticipate or didn't expect that forces us into action, for sure.
- [148:29]
B
And I guess one last note that I have about that. It's not that you can really control that, because Mars and Uranus together are like, something's gonna happen. But given that they Both have sort of an urge for independence. They both have an urge for moving quickly. While you do want to, as you were saying, kind of like maybe it puts more gas on the fire in an area where you were trying to innovate or you were trying to become more independent. You might want to just in your head, have a tiny moment of counterbalance because it can cause people to act recklessly as well, to not hesitate when it might, when you might think up a smarter course of action if you didn't just impulsively react.
- [149:14]
A
Yeah. Or to get in an accident as a result of acting impulsively or recklessly.
- [149:21]
B
Mm. Yep.
- [149:23]
A
Okay. So yeah, that conjunction's gonna peak in early July, but the co presence between Mars and Uranus is gonna last all the way until August 9th. So we'll be paying attention to some really important events, both personally as well as in world events and historically during that entire phase of Mars being co present with Uranus in Gemini. But it's gonna start with a bang since Uranus is so early in that sign. Okay, so that brings us to the last thing that happens this month that happens on the very last day of the month. And it's that Jupiter ingress that takes place where Jupiter moves from Cancer where it's been in its exaltation for the past year and it moves into the sign of Leo. So hold on a second. There we go. So Jupiter switches on June 30 into 0 degrees of LEO. This is gonna begin a one year Jupiter transit through the sign of Leo and Venus at the this point is later at like 20 degrees of LEO still transiting that sign. So one of the things that's kind of nice about it is it does re engage a sign based conjunction between Venus and Jupiter. Then that will last for about a week until Venus departs from Leo and moves into Virgo around July 8th or 9th. So on the one hand it's like we have some really positive stuff happening in the Jupiter sectors of our charts. Whatever whole sign house LEO code coincides with in our chart and the growth and expansion and the themes of the confirmation of good things in that area of our life. But the downside is that Jupiter this begins this opposition between Jupiter and Pluto that's gonna culminate in July. That is a pretty tricky aspect.
- [151:21]
B
Mm, for sure. So I'm sure you guys will talk more about it next month since we're just getting, you know, Jupiter ingress into Leo on the last day. But we had some brief thoughts about it. On the one hand, it's really nice Jupiter itself going into Leo, there's an expansion of creativity, sort of externally expressed warmth rather than sort of more introverted warmth like with Cancer. It's very bright and cheerful sign. So it expands all those qualities. It's a. It's a good time to both celebrate yourself, celebrate other people around you. It's very warm hearted. Although if you don't need any more of that. It can also on the flip side be like too much self centeredness, like needing to hog the spotlight, that sort of thing. But on the whole it's a nice transit. But this opposition with Pluto, while it'll only occupy the early part of the transit, it will start opposing Pluto as soon as it goes in, at the end of the month. Month. So that can be things like a feeling of expansion versus going deep. It can be. What was my other keyword? I know you had a couple.
- [152:35]
A
Yeah, like seeking the truth in dark places. I saw themes during the Jupiter pluto conjunction in 2020 of the manipulation of the truth and the attempts to control different narratives by sometimes spreading ideas that were false in order to influence people in different ways.
- [152:58]
B
Right? Yeah. I've also noticed that there's a lot of correlation with the concentration of wealth economically and with the opposition than like natural, you know, cultural opposition forces to that concentration of wealth, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Like for instance, when we had the Jupiter PLUTO Together in 2020, at least in the U.S. we had that paycheck protections loan program. It gave forgivable loans to businesses in order to continue paying their workers while the businesses were closed, which was really helpful. But major studies later showed that most of the money actually ended up going to the people who already had the most wealth, the business owners and the shareholders. Like 75% of the funds went to the top 20% economically. So that can be a Jupiter Pluto thing like in natal charts as well, concentration of wealth. So I looked up not so much Jupiter in Leo per se, but Jupiter Pluto oppositions in the recent past. And in 2013 we had an opposition from Cancer to Capricorn. We had the Fight for 15 labor movement. I don't know how many people remember that, but it was the largest strike like in history of the US fast food industry. There were 50 to 60 cities where workers walked off their jobs nationwide, which was kind of unheard of, demanding the right for 15, $15 minimum wage and then the right to unionize without employer retaliation. So it wasn't like immediately successful, but did actually provide some wins over time, which is interesting. So you can see that kind of opposition of, like, people power versus concentration of wealth. There was also a U.S. justice Department sued to block proposed $11 billion merger between a couple airlines because of antitrust concerns. But then on the other hand, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post a couple days before the opposition went exact. So you kind of have some of one, some of the other.
- [155:06]
A
Yeah. And, you know, we saw the Mars square, Pluto being like, tensions with AI and this Jupiter going into Leo, where Leo emphasizes, like, the individual and sometimes like, the individual creative effort. As opposed to Aquarius, which can sometimes be like, the collective in some ways. And I think, like, I. To me, that feels like that tension coming into the forefront more about generative AI and how there's become this growing tension about how much, especially with AI Generated images and video with Pluto in Aquarius are like, compiling everybody else's stuff and then creating new things that are kind of, like, ripped off from that. And maybe a growing tension or trend versus of the individual creative effort as opposed to those things that are being collectivized and some sort of growth or push towards the singular and the individual.
- [156:10]
B
Yeah, I definitely agree. I can see that easily coming more to the forefront as well. Especially with artists. Sort of on the flip side, because it can go both ways. Kind of like I was saying, with the Venus and Leo opposite Pluto. There can be attention or focus societally temporarily on rulers versus the collective of people, the collective population. Because that's an easy Leo, Aquarius opposition.
- [156:40]
A
Yeah, definitely. I mean, we're gonna see some, especially in the first few months of Jupiter in Leo, some Leos becoming aggrandized under this transit. And coming into greater prominence in different ways. But it's interesting how it's like a reverse of the sequence that happened last year. Where last year we had the Mars retrograde in Cancer. And then later they kind of wrecked some things. And then Jupiter came into cancer and attempted to clean some things up. But this year the sequence is kind of inverted because it's like we have Jupiter in Leo initially. But then starting in August, we get that first eclipse in Leo. That will further put the spotlight on people with LEO placements. And sort of the aggrandizement of LEO placements. But then we'll get that Mars retrograde in Leo. That brings in some element of trouble with those with LEO placements later in the year. So it's an interesting kind of sequence that there's a raising up and spotlight that's put on people with those placements as well as that sector of each of Our charts, whatever whole sign house LEO is. But then we know that there's gonna be some tricky stuff that comes up later in the year in that sector as well.
- [157:58]
B
Yeah. So this is introducing the more positive parts as we were saying before. And Jupiter will be there all year, but it will be more of a mixed qualitative bag later with those additional elements in the fall and winter with Mars retrograde and with the eclipse.
- [158:16]
A
Yeah, for sure. Okay, so that kind of brings us to the end of the month though it's a little tricky because we did the forecast at the end of the month. So I'm gonna have to do the next forecast a month from now, towards the end of June. Right. When all of this is popping off. So by that point I'm sure some of the major news stories already have happened and started to develop and things will start getting really crazy by that point. So we'll have a check in right in the midst of it as it's about to hit a crescendo. But yeah, this is the kind of preview heading into that and luckily we all get to have a bit of a breather hopefully for the first week, week and a half of June to sort of take steps stock of some of the good things and to stabilize the cancer area of our life before things start getting a little crazy towards the end of the month.
- [159:13]
B
Mm, definitely. Yeah. I'm looking forward to the Venus, Jupiter for sure.
- [159:18]
A
Oh yeah, and we didn't mention there's a full moon in Capricorn that just happens to fall at the end of June. That's our second lunation of the month. Right. As all of that's happening. But that just further adds to the energy and the high strung tensions and stuff that'll be happening by that time.
- [159:34]
B
Yes, that's true. Yeah, just like a little bit more heightened energy. It's otherwise not doing anything super interesting. It's squaring Saturn just like the first lunation.
- [159:43]
A
Right, right. All right, well I think that might be good in terms of the astrology of this month.
- [159:50]
B
Yeah, I think that's good. That's a pretty thorough introduction.
- [159:55]
A
All right, cool. Well, thanks so much for joining me for this month for doing this forecast with me and filling in for Austin who is I'm sure writing and doing some really productive stuff. Austin should be back next month. We'll see how that goes. And yeah, we had a lot to cover in terms of major news stuff that happened this month and then a ton of forecast stuff. So we did a lot of preparation for this. We Tried to pack a lot in and do our best, but thanks for putting this together with me.
- [160:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, it was fun. Thank you for having me.
- [160:30]
A
All right, before we wrap up, Leisa, what are you working on? What do you have coming up?
- [160:34]
B
I'm actually working on my UAC lectures for UAC 2026, which I know we're all excited about happening in this September. So I'm doing a couple lectures I hope you all attend if you are going to uac. The first one is about planning your day with electional astrology, which we normally talk about on our monthly electional podcast, but this will be focused on the nitty gritty of planning your actual day if you have one day to do things. And then I have another lecture on the topic of chronic illness in astrology, which I feel like is a topic that's both been underrepresented and sometimes not talked about very well. So I'm hoping to rectify that. I'm also looking for example charts, a few more example charts for that. So if you go to my website and sign up for my mailing list, which I hardly ever send out unless I have a major thing going on like this, then you'll be notified when I send out the solicitation for charts very shortly here.
- [161:33]
A
Nice. And yeah, what's your website And UAC
- [161:37]
B
website, lisasheim.com is mine. And you'll see the link because it's not phonetically spelled. And uacastrology.com for the conference.
- [161:48]
A
Okay, awesome. I'll put a link to your site in the description for this episode. And yeah, you've been finding some brilliant quotes from astrologers about chronic illness. They've been saying some things that are not great that you'll be helping to improve. How to talk about those issues astrologically, I hear.
- [162:11]
B
Yeah, both basics of how to identify potential chronic illness in the chart if you have clients that are dealing with that, as well as how to talk well about it. How to talk well about it, and perhaps better than some examples of the last bunch of decades.
- [162:28]
A
All right, brilliant. Well, that'll be great lectures. So people should definitely sign up for those when they attend the United Astrology Conference in Chicago in the September. All right, everybody. So I guess the only thing to promote is just the electional astrology reports on sale for 50% off. Now, if you want to get the best elections for the rest of the year, you can find that@theastrologypodcast.com 2026report. Otherwise, I think that's it for this episode and I'll be back again soon with some other episodes in June. So thanks a lot for watching or listening to this episode of the Astrology Podcast and we'll see you again next time. If you're a fan of the podcast and you want to get access to bonus content, then become a patron through my page on Patreon, where you can get early access to new episodes, attend live recordings and webinars, access the monthly Electional Astrology Podcast, the secret Astrology Podcast that's only available to patrons, or you can even get your name listed in the credits. Find out more@patreon.com AstroNYPodcast Special thanks to the patrons on our Producers tier, including patrons Kristi Moe, Ariana Amour, Mandi Rae, Angelic Nambo, Issa Sabah, Jeannie Marie Kaplan, Melissa Delano, Sunny Baz Baz Kwatsi Alibarahu, Annie Newman, Ginger Sadlier, Berlin west, and Nikki Crawford. If you're looking for good dates to do things this year, then be sure to check out our 2026 electional astrology report, which is a guide to the most fortunate dates in 2026. You can get it at theastrologypodcast.com 2026report. If you're really looking to take your studies of astrology to the next level, then consider signing up for my Hellenistic Astrology course, which is an online course in ancient astrology where I take people from basic concepts up through intermediate and advanced techniques for reading birth charts. There's over 100 hours of video lectures plus live webinars and Q and A sessions each month, and at the end of the course you get a certificate of completion saying that you studied with me. Find out more information@theastrologyschool.com if you're looking to get an astrological consultation, then check out the new consultations page on the podcast website where I have a list of astrologers I recommend for birth chart readings and other types of consultations. You can find that@theastrologypodcast.com consultations the astrology software we use and recommend here on the podcast is called Solar Fire for Windows and you can get a 15% discount on it by using the promo code AP15 at the website alabe.com for Mac users we recommend the program called astro gold for macOS and you can use the promo code astropodcast15 to get a 15% discount at their website, which is astrogold IO and shout out to our sponsors for this episode, including the Northwest Astrology Conference, which is happening in Seattle and being livestreamed online May 21st through the 25th, 2026. Find out more information@norwac.net, as well as the United Astrology Conference, which is happening in Chicago this year September 3rd through the 9th, 2026. Find out more information about that at uacastrology.com Palm.