It’s difficult to describe Aquarius as a collective. “Individual” is the factory setting for people born beneath the sign of the Water Bearer; eccentricity is expected. The primary trait Aquarians share is that they’re all so weird, each in their own ineffable way! To understand their shared astrological architecture, you’ve got to dig all the way down to the bones beneath their oddity.
Aquarians are collectors. Occasionally they accumulate physical objects; always they gather information. They remain ravenous to know more, but only about the subjects in which they, each singular Aquarian, are interested. If they’re into something, they will greedily grab up every bit of relevant data. But if it’s not related to one of their own personal fascinations, Aquarians simply do not care at all. That’s why they’re so often dissimilar to one another. Every Aquarius is a unique amalgamation of facts and trivia, gleaned from their own peculiar combination of interests. Their personalities are built from countless scraps, trinkets, and pebbles of knowledge. Thus, any given Aquarian’s composition may vary so broadly as to defy comparison.
There is a tangible quality to the attention of an Aquarius. It’s like a laser beam that they focus, or a huge vacuum that pulls reluctant details out of the object of their concentration. In social settings, this intent demeanor gives Aquarians their stereotypical “alien” reputation. Interaction with an Aquarius is liable to make anyone else feel like a specimen under study — perhaps especially if they like you. As a result, having a conversation with Aquarius might make you self-conscious. It’s not always comfortable to feel so seen, and most Aquarians never bother to turn off their X-ray vision. If you find yourself pinned by an inquisitive Aquarius, take heart: Aquarian curiosity is usually a compliment! For better or worse, they wouldn’t bother to investigate unless something about you compelled their notice.
In modern astrology, Aquarius is ruled by innovative, unconventional Uranus. Previously, back before Sir William Herschel spotted the seventh planet in 1781, Aquarius was associated with responsible, regimented Saturn. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but Saturn’s influence lingers with the 11th sign nonetheless: Aquarians tend to approach their unusual undertakings methodically. Their organizational systems may be incomprehensible to others, but they are vital for daily Aquarian existence. This weird regularity gives the average Aquarius an outwardly enlightened air— which is hilarious to Aquarians who have to live inside the welter of their own minds, I’m sure.
I met an Aquarius by chance earlier this month. She carries a notebook, which I asked to see as evidence of typical Aquarian function. First, it was a financial journal, she explained, then a regular diary, before it evolved into a detailed series of timestamps and notes on movies that she uses in the course of her work as a film projectionist. She began the notebook in 2020, and nonchalantly flipped through three years of tidily scribbled thoughts as I watched. Though her handwriting is small, so was the notebook, and as we reached the end of the portion she’d already filled, I was surprised to see how much paper remained. I exclaimed as much, internally calculating what year she might run out of pages (2027?), but then she responded and forestalled the thought.
“I’ve never finished a notebook,” she informed me serenely.
It didn’t sound like the impatience of an Aries or the distractible enthusiasm of Gemini, and certainly not the self-inflicted shame of a Virgo who failed to fill a planner to the final page. It was simply a statement, but also somehow a revelatory comment on the human condition. The notebook will never be finished and yet Aquarius, undaunted, continues to write in it anyway! There is always more information to be observed and collected.
Prepare yourself to pay attention; Aquarius season is upon us! What’s in store for you? Click here to jump to a sign: Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn.
The New Moon in your sign washes your slate clean and initiates the Lunar New Year. Moving through a sextile aspect with Jupiter shortly after its conjunction with the Sun, the Moon gifts you an auspicious start to a fresh cycle.
You’re currently close with Saturn in a season-long dance of farewell. After two and a half years of hosting the ringed planet, you’ll relinquish your former sign ruler to Pisces in March. Venus, the Moon, and the Sun each join Saturn in collaborative conjunction at the beginning and end of your season: desire, emotion, and your own self-conception will compel you to nurture boundaries and routine. The Moon and Sun double down on this push toward predictability as both square disagreeably with your current sign ruler, Uranus. Don’t have an identity crisis about it or anything: no matter how hard you lean into your mundane side, you’ll never not be weird.
You’re in for good luck as the Moon, Sun, and Mercury all create supportive angles with benevolent Jupiter. Your Saturn-influenced sense of structure will likely drive toward healing as the Sun is friendly with Mars and Chiron. Still, future progression will remain at a stubborn distance as the Sun and Mercury square against the North Node, and you’ve never been stretched farther away from your own dark side as the Sun and Mercury oppose Lilith in your showy sibling sign, Leo.
You lay claim to the Venusian activity of Valentine’s month after the planet of love moves to your sign in late January. Regardless of the visibility of the groundhog’s shadows on February 2, you’ll feel a gentle pull toward destiny as Venus aligns in approving sextile with the North Node, the representative of fate. Making good on that urge might be difficult when Venus and Mars fight later that week, but subsequent cooperation with Uranus should reveal an inventive workaround.
Your sign ruler Neptune floats contentedly forward over your space all season, supercharging your already extraordinary powers of intuition. On February 15, it aligns in conjunction with Venus, providing you with a very direct understanding of what you want.
Jupiter is direct! Chiron is direct! Your sign ruler Mars has reversed its retrograde over in Gemini! All systems are go! Chiron’s continued healing mission is favored by the fortune of Jupiter, and Mars will provide you with the energy you need to make it all happen.
That’s not to say that it will be too easy. The Moon in your sign squares antagonistically with Mercury and Pluto, interrupting daily communication and blocking significant transformation even as your emotions harmonize happily with Jupiter, the Sun, Mars, and disciplined Saturn. That’s fine by you; what’s life without a little friction? You’ve never liked playing on the lowest difficulty setting, and these obstacles will provide just enough challenge to make your victory feel satisfying.
You’re in for perhaps the most Aquarian season of everybody, including Aquarius themselves, once the 11th sign’s patron Uranus ends its long retrograde and turns direct in your constellation on January 22. Weird, weird, and weirder — that’s your forecast! The strangeness will certainly impact your ultimate life path as you also continue to host the North Node, representative of the future. You’re already as prepared as you could possibly be, having become acclimated to both influences throughout the past year. Now, Uranus will take it just a little bit farther and crank the bizarre dial all the way up to 11, assisted exuberantly by your sign ruler Venus.
The First Quarter Moon near the end of January also agrees with your oddball direction. Rejecting the rigidity of Saturn while embracing the imagination of Uranus, it launches you forward with momentum from Mercury and reinvention from Pluto, all while Venus smiles from the sidelines.
Mars is direct in your sign once again! Cue the dance break.
Mars has been turned right-way-around for a week now, granted, but the red planet’s retrograde is such a bummer that we’d be remiss to shortchange celebration of its rebound. On February 11, Mars lines in encouraging sextile with Chiron, the centaur of wounding and healing, and you’ll feel suddenly OK about something that formerly troubled you.
The Moon in your sign at the turn of the month is cool with Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, and Saturn, but Venus and Neptune are the stars of its burn book. You may want to limit contact with the Pisces in your life for a few days until the groundhog has safely completed its shadowy prognostication.
In 2022, groundhog weatherman Milltown Mel, the soothsayer of New Jersey, predicted continued winter so accurately and emphatically that he died immediately before his own holiday with no understudy prepared to continue his role, forcing his township to cancel their whole festival. Iconic, legendary behavior! Rest in glory, most regal of rodents. Punxsutawney Phil of Pennsylvania, conversely, has been functionally immortal since assuming the mantle of prophetic duty in 1886, maintaining his eternal youth by imbibing a “groundhog punch elixir of life” prepared by his Inner Circle of tuxedo-clad handlers. Is Punxsutawney Phil a vampire? How could he be, as he annually emerges into the sunlight to search for his own shadow? Is he a cannibalistic faerie creature? Some sort of lich king? What is happening in that burrow beneath Gobbler’s Knob?
Just something to think about as your ruler the Moon passes over your sign at the start of February! I don’t know what the groundhog will predict, but the Moon is set to move square to Jupiter, form a trine with Venus, and hit a sextile angle with Uranus over the course of February 2. Fuck luck, yes to love, and you won’t turn down a dash of weirdness, either.
You’re in for a hell of a Full Moon on February 5. Full Moons are always intense for Leo. The Earth’s satellite is illuminated by direct opposition to your sign ruler, the Sun, and you experience this as a confrontation between your emotions and your external self. For the first time in nearly nine years, this season’s Full Moon will be joined in your sign by Lilith, apogee of the Moon’s orbit and representative of the psychological shadow. Your projected exterior and internal selves will be ripped apart across the sky, while your own unconscious darkness hangs around cheering and jeering at the spectacle. The brilliant round Moon favors Mars — making you prone to heightened aggression — but squares antagonistically against Uranus, ruler of your sibling sign Aquarius.
Good luck with all that! Fortunately, the Moon does form a positive aspect with beneficent Jupiter immediately before embarking upon this campaign of chaos. Though unlikely to envelop you in a comfortable bubble of safety, that should at least toss you a little life vest.
Your sign ruler Mercury begins the season in Capricorn, postponing healing in order to make unexpected and exciting life progress. In mid-February, the compromise catches up to you, however, and Mercury forcibly pushes you to take a pause with a harsh alignment to the representative of destiny.
The Moon in your sign holds Uranus, Mercury, and Pluto — the rulers of innovation, communication, and transformation, respectively — in high esteem, but disagrees with Mars and distances itself from Venus and Neptune. You may feel motivated to work in opposition of your stated goals and confused about what you actually desire, probably because you’re operating at a remove from your own sense of intuition. Necessary change will find you anyway.
Your sign ruler Venus squeezes close to Saturn in an affectionate hug before departing the air of Aquarius for the waves of Pisces. After diving into the water, the bright planet just wants to float and soak up connection with the representatives of fate and creativity.
Your Moon this season is unconcerned with luck and pointedly disinterested in radical development, but instead insists you quietly funnel focus into yourself. In constructive trine aspects with Mars, the Sun, and Saturn, the Moon will inspire you to prioritize taking care of yourself as if you are your own toddler, houseplant, or pet.
You should begin to feel mobile again as your ancient sign ruler Mars continues to sail forward in reversal of retrograde. Your contemporary ruler Pluto will spend the season drifting inexorably through Capricorn.
You host the Last Quarter Moon of the season on February 13, and it’s a busy one. Trine with Venus and Neptune, square to the Sun and Saturn, and sextile with Pluto, it encourages an exploration of your own yearning. Respectability and social obligation can wait until you’ve resurfaced from this deep dive.
For you: the Valentine’s Moon! Fond of chatty Mercury and in love with your ruler Jupiter, the V-Moon pulls up opposite to Mars in your sibling sign, Gemini. Hopefully, this distance from the representative of initiative portends an absence of fighting, not a deficit of any desired fornication.
The Sun develops a little crush on Jupiter in late January and the Moon largely remains enamored with it, too, skipping away in coquettish disapproval of your patron planet a few times but always returning to smile at you again afterward.
You make a mad dash through the first two weeks of the season with Mercury. Rejecting the healing influence of Chiron, the quicksilver planet races through trine aspects with the North Node and Uranus, a sextile alignment with Neptune, and conjunction with Pluto in your sign before flying onward to Aquarius. Everything about this sequence suggests major metamorphosis. You’re focused on your future this season. You’ll discover a previously uncharted path toward your goals, your intuition will guide you accurately along the route, and, finally, the little dwarf planet of death and rebirth will sweep you up into its paradigm-shifting embrace.
Big things are coming your way before the Moon returns for its second shift in your sign. Both times, it dismisses the easy grace of Jupiter, but both times it also strokes Neptune’s shoulder, shakes Uranus’s hand, and spoons with Pluto. You will undergo profound personal evolution before you see the beginning of March.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.
