Whenever an outer planet moves into a new sign, it is a signal that an important shift in the zeitgeist has occurred. But, this year, all five outer planets move into a new sign, signaling that this shift is no minor thing, but instead may indicate a major historical shift. In Part I of our series exploring the outer planetary transits of 2025, we look first to Saturn’s ingress into the sign of Aries, which occurred on May 24th, 2025. There, Saturn will conjoin the planet Neptune, also recently ingressed into Aries.
Introduction
When looking at the planets to determine how they might behave in each of the signs, it is helpful to imagine the planets as actors, performing a particular role in an ongoing story. In any story, the protagonist is the primary influence and the way in which they behave, express, and react to external events and other characters shapes the narrative.
In Astrology, the planets are the primary influence and each planet carries with it certain themes unique to that planet. The sign in which the planet moves shapes the way in which that planet expresses itself. The houses in which the planets operate in describes the areas of life that planet will affect. The roles these planets play have an eternal quality, but the manner in which they express themselves differs in each sign. Thus, in the metaphor of the actor upon the stage, the signs can be thought of as the mise-en-scène (wardrobe, setting, set design, lighting etc) which influences the performance of the actor and how it is received by the audience.
The Actors
Like a lot of great actors, despite their ability to perform as any character in any scene, the actor often retains a certain essential quality that is unique to their person. Although Jack Nicholson is a fine actor and has played a wide variety of roles, there’s still something inherently him in every film. It is like that with the planets. They retain their essential qualities despite the roles they play.
Saturn represents duty, responsibility, hard work, pragmatism, and the hard, cold truth of reality and physical world. Saturn limits, restricts, binds, and bounds. He is the heavy weight of burden, the labor and the toil, and all the things we have to do but don’t want to do. He represents death, old age, poverty, solitude, and the limits of time. He is considered the Greater Malefic and as such, we often experience Saturn’s themes as negative and thus approach his lessons with some amount of fear and trepidation. But life is not always joyous and often Saturn’s efforts to stress test particular areas of our lives make us stronger and more resilient.
Neptune represents dreams, mysticism, the dissolution of boundaries, idealism, the striving to transcend the Self and to be subsumed into the Godhead. It is the expansion of consciousness, altered states of mind, and exploring the very limits of consensus reality. But, like someone on a bad trip, Neptune also brings delusions, illusions, and beguilement through self-deception.
The Setting
The Mars-ruled, diurnal, cardinal, fire, sign of Aries represents the season of Spring, the enthusiasm of youth, and the spirit of freedom. The sign of Aries encourages risk-taking, boldness, daring, competition, and spontaneity. It is a place of intemperate heat and combustibility and can bring out a certain reckless, contentious, aggressive, and belligerent quality to the planets.
To give the sign of Aries a more human readable form, we imagine it as a place or setting. The setting of Aries might resemble a field in Spring, populated with young soldiers, dressed in armor adorned with rams, readying themselves for battle. Historically, the war season coincided with the start of Spring, when young men were full of vigor, and an ego-centric desire to carve their name into the world with blood.
The Performance
Saturn struggles in the sign of Aries as it is the sign in which Saturn has its Fall. When a planet is in its Fall or Depression, it means they are in an environment that is not conducive to the way in which the planet can best bring out its significations. Something about the way their responsibilities are carried out in the sign of their fall continually backfires in some way.
In Aries, Saturn, a planet which prefers to operate on long-time scales, is asked to act in a more spontaneous, short-sighted manner; to enthusiastically build structures without much thought and to take unexamined risks. This can lead to taking on heavy burdens and responsibilities that one is, in some way, not wholly prepared for. More constructively, Saturn in Aries may encourage one to go it alone and to have the courage to boldly push through any obstacles placed before one’s path.
In Aries, Neptune, the dreamer and the idealist, may easily become inflamed by the bold, courageous, and ego-centric passions of this Mar-ruled fire sign. It evokes a spiritual battle and, experientially may be likened to taking a heroic dose of mushrooms while listening to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie’s”. Neptune is eternally open and receptive to the environment in which it finds it self in and here, Neptune becomes inspired by the dream of the warrior, the valor of a hard-won fight, and the glory of victory over one’s enemies. But, as Neptune brings a susceptibility to delusions, there is also a sense in which this vision of heroism may lead one astray, to become too militant in one’s ideals, and/or to allow oneself to become lost in the fog of war.
This month, Saturn and Neptune will be conjoined within one degree in Aries, which marks a moment in which their two influences may be most acutely felt. When two planets are conjoined, their natures become intertwined, for good or ill. But here, Saturn and Neptune make strange bedfellows. Saturn represents boundaries and hard reality while Neptune represents the dissolution of boundaries and the desire to escape reality. Here, Neptune may provide the creative vision for Saturn to bring one’s dreams into reality or delude Saturn into building new structures upon shaky ground. More troubling, in the martial sign of Aries, is the suggestion of the dissolution of old boundaries and/or the demarcation of new boundaries. As the world careens head first into more and more wars, the appearance of cold malefic Saturn, conjoined with the martial vision of Neptune in malefic Mars’ sign of Aries, there is the suggestion a retrenchment and valorization of the nationalist impulse, to close one’s self off to the other, and the urge to take more territory under one’s control.
Neptune and Saturn will briefly retrograde back into the sign of Pisces for the latter half of this year before returning in earnest in 2026. Thus, this summer offers a preview of some of the themes we may expect over the course of the next few years.
The Scene
Continuing our metaphor of the stage performance, the particular scene in which a planet carries out its performance can be analogized to the house within one’s natal chart. Each house in one’s natal chart represents a particular area of life in which that planet is most active. To better understand how Saturn in Aries will affect one’s life, look to the whole sign house in which Aries falls in within your natal chart or consider booking a one on one astrology consultation for more information about how this transit might directly affect you.
Parting Thoughts
The story of Saturn in Neptune is only one aspect of a larger shift in global history. Saturn and Neptune will both make supportive, sextile aspects to Pluto in Aquarius and later this summer, Uranus in Gemini, adding fuel to the fire in Aries. Return again in the coming weeks for parts 2 and 3 in this series.