The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 538, titled:

June Astrology Forecast 2026

With Chris Brennan and Leisa Schaim

Episode originally released on June 2, 2026

Original episode URL:

https://theastrologypodcast.com/2026/06/02/june-astrology-forecast-2026/

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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com

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Transcribed by Teresa “Peri” Lardo

Transcription released June 10th, 2026

Copyright © 2026 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

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CHRIS BRENNAN: 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! 

LEISA SCHAIM: Hey Chris. 

CB: 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 gonna jump into 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 wanna give a quick overview of the astrology of June. 

All right, so for those watching the video version, here is our planetary alignment 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 peace-keeping 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 and the conjunction with Uranus tightens 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 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. So 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 like, 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! 

LS: Yeah, that’s pretty nice! I appreciate that. And best wishes to Austin; I know that finishing 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. 

CB: Definitely. All right! So let’s jump right into the new segment. All right. So you know, 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 4th, and the destructive Mars-Pluto square around May 26th 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 4th, which was the exact day of the Mars-Jupiter square, US forces destroyed six Iranian 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 like, a string of events for the next few days where on May 7th, the US fired on Iranian missile and drone launch sites. And this was reportedly in response to Iranian attacks on three US Navy destroyers. Then on May 8th, a US Navy plane fired precision munitions at the smokestacks of two Iranian flagged oil tankers that were transiting through 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 like, this string of open shooting back and forth between the two right on the Mars-Jupiter conjunction. So that like, you know, 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 within orb, within 24 hours of it going exact, on May 25th, 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 27th, Iran fired five one-way attack drones near the Strait of Hormuz, and then in retaliation, the US launched a direct air strike on the Iranian drone facility near Bandar Abbas. The following day, May 28th in the early hours of the morning, Iran retaliated by launching drones and a ballistic missile towards Kuwait, where the US operates an air base. 

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. 

LS: 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 significations and make it bigger. And then Mars-Pluto intensifies the martian nature. So yeah; I definitely agree that those were the two hotspots of the month. 

CB: Yeah. And then you had noted that as of today, I think Iran said it was breaking off negotiations with the US, right? 

LS: Yeah, it said just – as we’re recording today. Things can change, you know, 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. 

CB: 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 timebomb on the world economy basically due to the loss of like, 20 percent 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 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. 

LS: 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 like, nebulous feeling even though they’ve separated by degree. 

CB: Yeah, for sure. There’s definitely a lot of nebulousness, a lot of like, fog of war stuff, a lot of different misleading things so that it’s hard sometimes even to account like, 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 was a bunch of like, 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? 

LS: 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 4th; 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 4:43 PM local time, which was weird and extra accentuating the Mars-Jupiter because I found that the Descendant and the Midheaven respectively at that time had Mars and Jupiter approaching the angles within four 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. 

CB: 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 —

LS: Okay.

CB: — correct with Libra rising? 

LS: Let’s see. Probably so. It’s close to – I think the — 

CB: I don’t know if — 

LS: Yeah. Yeah, it’s close to. 

CB: Okay. I might have gotten the exact location – it was asking about location questions, so. 

LS: Sure. Yeah, but it was just about like this. It was Mars about four degrees from the Descendant, and the Midheaven about four degrees from Jupiter. 

CB: Okay. Got it. Nice.

LS: Yeah. 

CB: All right. Moving on. 

LS: Okay, then later in the month there was a whole string of explosions. So first on May 22nd, 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 was 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 five 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 Kiev, including oddly a museum memorializing the Chernobyl disaster than had just opened a month prior. 

CB: 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 fire fights that happened around those times. 

LS: 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 21st, 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, you know, 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 is another Mars-Pluto principle. Then on May 24th, 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 the possibility that it might not blow up after all, and they were sort of cautiously optimistic but still watching it, you know, 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 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.” 

CB: 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. 

LS: 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. 

CB: Right, for sure. 

LS: Yeah. 

CB: Okay. 

LS: So then right after that on May 26th, 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 28th, Blue Origin, which is a Jeff Bezos-owned space company, had a rocket test, and it actually the rocket instead blew up on the Florida launchpad. 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 firecloud. 

CB: 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 like, mushroom 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 like, the launchpad and everything that were circulating that day that was really striking because the Mars-Pluto square was still so close. 

LS: Yeah. It was actually like a perfect picture of a Mars-Pluto square. 

CB: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, I think that’s good for that section, yeah? 

LS: Yeah. 

CB: All right. Let’s move onto 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 copresent 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 like, 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 8th 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 later 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 like, 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 over-hype in the news cycle during the Mars-Saturn conjunctions. But sometimes that’s like, 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. 

LS: 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-May. But then actually, when you tracked back, it’s the first reported case with symptoms happened on April 24th, 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. 

CB: 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 wanna study outbreaks sometimes and the transmissions in connection with Mars-Saturn conjunctions. I think that could be really fruitful. 

One thing I noticed about the hantavirus 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 Libra, 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, like, 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 like, 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 in the news and affecting things globally in some ways in an outbreak when we had a repetition of both of those cycles. 

LS: For sure. 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. And 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 like, 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 the 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 like, not up to the task in terms of Saturn being in a sign that it’s not happy in. And so 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 moneys, but certainly it’s reminding people why it was there in the first place. 

CB: 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 onto the next news story. On the very day of the Mars-Pluto square on May 25th, 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? 

LS: 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 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 it 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 we – 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, you know, is known for slow movement, right, and also the natural environment. I don’t know if it stands in for humanity as a whole, but it was such a perfect square quote. 

CB: 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 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. 

LS: 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, 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 wellbeing of everyone. 

CB: 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 seemed like a notable or pivotal turning point in terms of growing AI sentiment in some sectors of the world and of people and the population, especially with there were a bunch of graduation speeches this month where there were different speakers that was get up and then start saying things positively about artificial intelligence, and then they would get boo’ed 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 boo’ed. 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 Chieng – 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.” 

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 – or figuratively – talking about destroying AI. 

LS: Yeah. That is striking. Yeah, I definitely noticed a ramping up of some of that polarization as well this month around AI. There were those few graduation speeches that got boo’ed 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 that 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, 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? 

CB: Yeah, definitely. It reactivated that station. And yeah, it reactivated or just brought into clearer focus that 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’s 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. 

LS: Yeah, exactly. And you know, Pluto transits – oh sorry, go ahead. 

CB: 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 2040s.

LS: 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-sourced 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 crowd sourced 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 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 this was interesting also because while I had seen this online, the first major article I saw about it was actually on May 25th 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. 

CB: Yeah, definitely. All right, well, yeah, and we’ll see how that goes, like I said, over the next like, 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 like, a string of anti-astrology stuff. And like, 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 like, 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 like, 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 2,000 years – is we kept seeing 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 like, an anti-fortunetelling 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 a 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 this will probably become a larger thing. And I’ll probably do a followup 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 coincide with Saturn-Neptune, but it’s also something I realized has a historical signature that stretches back over 2,000 years. 

LS: Yeah. Makes sense. Is a little concerning. But yeah, that’s a striking pattern that you noticed. 

CB: Yeah. So we’ll see what happens in the future. 

Okay. So moving onto other news. A major piece of news that happened this month was Trump visited China and met with the president of China between May 13th and May 15th, and this was a major, major visit. Xi, 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 like, a political science theory about how a conflict can develop when a rapidly rising power threatens to displace an established ruling hegemon. And Xi was basically saying, you know, 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 is interesting. 

So I found some really interesting astrology in connection with this trip, which is I didn’t know that the – 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 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 a retrograde in Scorpio, and it was conjunct Uranus when it 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 like, 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 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 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. 

LS: Yeah. Yeah, that’s really interesting, especially because of the historical repetition later this year, but also 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 like, betrayal or suspicion or, you know, who’s 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 – yeah, Saturn being strategy and Neptune being things that are ambiguous, so. And that does seem to be continuing so far. It seemed like right after Trump got back from the trip or was leaving from that trip, he kind of echoed very similar things – kind of like mixed messages or like, you know, “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,” and yeah. So yeah, that’s fascinating.

CB: Yeah. So we’ll keep that keyword in mind for – we’re just like, 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 wanna do a followup on Saturn-Neptune and just like, 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, that the US promised Taiwan to China after World War II. So there’s some sort of like, 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 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 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 20th 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 24th, 1996, when there was this shootdown of two unarmed civilian planes operated 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 mention that because I went back and looked up the date, and there was a Mars-Saturn copresence 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 23rd, 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. 

LS: Yeah, definitely. That’s fascinating. It’s also, while Saturn was in Pisces for the actual incident back in ‘96, there were subsequent hearings in DC about it. And this is actually the Saturn return of that; it was Saturn in Aries by that time.

CB: Okay. Nice. 

LS: Yeah. 

CB: So I noticed in researching this more that there’s some important stuff coming up in terms of timing things we wanna pay attention 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 20th, 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 date on January 1st, 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 reach 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. 

LS: 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. 

CB: Yeah. And then the other one I’m also paying attention to is 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 transit for Cuba. 

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? 

LS: Yeah. There was a really important Supreme Court case that happened right after Uranus ingressed into Gemini at the end of April, and that cascaded through the month of May. So I need to give a little bit of 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 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 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 1982 amendment and kind of doubled down even. Now it means that if a voting map has a discriminatory 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, but it was like, a really eerie reversal of the 1982 amendment chart.

So the first one – so this was the 1982 amendment 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 quite the – it’s kind of like the mid-life transits in like, a person’s chart; there’s often like, 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 states, especially southern states, started redistricting like mad. Like, Tennessee immediately voted to redistrict. Louisiana stopped 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 gonna get into all of the details. 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 Uranus ingress into the Uranus return of the United States’ chart. And the Uranus return, of course, has coincided with a lot of major 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. 

CB: Right. Yeah. And it also harkens back to like, 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 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. 

LS: 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? And 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 mutable 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 the 1920 19th amendment giving women the right to vote – at least white women the right to vote. So 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. 

CB: Right. Yeah. And Uranus was in Virgo doing the square in the 1960s during some of those major civil rights acts and legislations as well. 

LS: Yeah, and the Voting Rights Act itself was that Uranus-Pluto in mid-Virgo. So these were successive hard aspects to that. 

CB: Yeah. And obviously this is also tied in with, in terms of the future, 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. 

LS: Yeah. I’m sure. 

CB: All right. I think that’s good for this news section, yeah? 

LS: Yeah. 

CB: All right, cool. Let’s move onto 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 like, 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 and 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 and that was threatening them to stop using the word or face legal issues, basically. And this is really crazy, because you know, 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, astro carto graphy with asterisks in between “astro” and “carto” and “carto” and “graphy,” but he was never able to successfully trademark the non-asterisked version of the term, which became a generic term for doing like, 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. 

LS: 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?

CB: 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 because especially because the European trademark is still pending, there’s time to stop this and reverse it. And so people should do what they can to do that, I believe. But also because I realized that there was a Saturn-Neptune signature there again, which is the ambiguity 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, you know, 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 1950, 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 you know, I don’t know what the full story is because this isn’t my area of specialty in terms of the question about like, what Jim Lewis developed on his own that was unique versus what Jim Lewis inherited from earlier astrologers. But I did notice that one of – 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, like, 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 like, one or two other books on astrocartography that came out around that time in like, 1990, 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. 

LS: Yeah, it does feel like another one of those Saturn-Neptune sort of trying to pin down the ephemeral or how you even put, you know, 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? 

CB: 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 copresent 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 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 and because it seems to be like, 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. 

LS: 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. But yeah, the EU one is still pending, so it is worthwhile for people to raise their voices before that goes through. 

CB: 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 before, and it turns out that this woman that is attempting to trademark it was a student of Helena’s who lists having passed Helena’s course in her biography as part of her certifications. And so it means functionally, from what I can tell, that this person who trademarked it took a course on astrocartography 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 like, wildly inappropriate. Like, I was so floored, because I was trying to like, at different points be objective and be like, you know, 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. Like, I can’t really come up with a good explanation for that that makes any sense. 

LS: No, that’s really wild; it takes a lot of audacity to like, 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. 

CB: 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 at AstrologicalAssociation.com/Astrocartography-Petition, 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 info@ISARAstrology.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, you know, 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. 

LS: 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 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. 

CB: 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 an astrological technique like that, that there’s something problematic about attempting to do that, especially a generic term that lots of astrologers use 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. 

LS: Definitely. 

CB: All right, cool. Well, I think that’s good for the news section for now, so why don’t we take a break? 

LS: Okay. 

CB: 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 23rd, with a talk by Dr. Ali A. Olomi, titled “Once and Future Stars: The Astrology of Today and Tomorrow.” Then on Friday, June 26th, 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 Marval 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 Bogin, and Michelle Tea. Secure your tickets today by visiting LAAstroFest.com. Use the code ‘BRENNAN10’ for 10 percent 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! 

LS: Yeah, it sounds like a fun multimedia event, and I love the name of that comedy troupe. 

CB: Definitely.

All right. Why don’t we transition into talking about the astrological forecast for June then? 

LS: Sounds good. 

CB: 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 like, the astrology of 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 definitely 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 the outlines of this month, I feel like. But we’ll go ahead and go through some of the stuff, you know, chronologically here just to give people the natural evolution of the month. 

LS: Sounds good. Yeah, and I definitely agree with that kind of segmenting. It’s like, very specific different energetic vibes early versus later, and the middle is kind of that transition point. 

CB: 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’re recording this on June 1st, 2026, and I’m gonna release it on June 2nd. Usually we record episodes earlier, you know, towards the end of the month for the month ahead, but due to a mixture of like, bad electional charts with the Mars-Pluto square happening, bad natal transits and other personal stuff, this was the best we could do was like, recording on June 1st and then releasing on June 2nd. So apologies for the late recording this month. 

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 change signs, and it departed from its home sign of Gemini on June 1st and has moved into the sign of Cancer where it’s very quickly gonna 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 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? 

LS: I think those are the main features. 

CB: Okay. So let’s do the chronological breakdown then, which is basically Mercury’s in Cancer already June 1st 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 four degrees of Aries, and Mercury will hit four degrees of Cancer and square Neptune. So this is usually kind of a tricky day archetypally for communication; there can be like, 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. 

LS: 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 subcolorations of how people are communicating and thought process and so forth. But especially compared to when Mercury was just before this in Gemini, it was in its home sign, now your 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 they are always a lot more emotionally attuned to how communications will land, which I think is a really useful thing. Myself having Mercury in the opposite position, I’m always kind of impressed by that. And then that square to Neptune, it’s kind of like your – I was thinking of it as though your thought process is kind of in an impressionist 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. 

CB: Yeah, definitely. And you’re right that it can be good for like, artistic and impressionistic 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 and that Mercury, even though it’s getting those squares early in the month from Neptune and Saturn, it is copresent with Jupiter and Venus at this point. So whatever the Cancer sector of our chart is is not just gonna 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. 

LS: 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. 

CB: 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 — 

LS: Right. 

CB: — you know, 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. Like, Saturn’s only eight degrees away here at this point with Neptune being at four 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 3rd, but then it’ll very quickly move into a square with Saturn. And that’s like, the one – that Mercury-Saturn square is the one kind of like, confounding thing that makes the Venus-Jupiter conjunction 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. 

LS: 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 or their mouth. Like, there may be something really positive going on, but you might have a harder time putting it into words and communicating it as well. 

CB: Right. It’s like a lovely wedding where you like, misspeak when you’re saying the speech or something that you had prepared in your head. 

LS: Exactly. Yeah. That kind of thing. 

CB: Yeah. Somebody that gets flustered from public communication. You had a funny like, Saturn-Mercury thing not too long ago, right? 

LS: I’ve had multiple Saturn-Mercury things! Yeah, one of my ears is completely blocked; were you referring to that? 

CB: Yeah, just that you had an unspecified Saturn-Mercury aspect recently, and it caused issues both with your ears as well as your hands. 

LS: Yeah! And I was thinking, because the ear thing was obvious and that actually happened seven years ago when 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. 

CB: Yeah. Sometimes it’s very literal that Mercury can be not just 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. 

LS: Yeah. Definitely. That is a thing. Well, thankfully, the transiting Mercury-Saturn aspect will go by relatively quickly. 

CB: 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 peace-making efforts between those two planets, and generally the confirmation of good things is one of my general keywords for this alignment. 

LS: Definitely. Especially in Cancer. I kind of like to think about it as like an extended cozy hug. That’s kind of how it feels like to me. Or like 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. 

CB: 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. 

LS: 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. 

CB: Yeah. It was happening in my 6th 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. 

LS: 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 everything else that’s going on in the world and so forth, but it can be a moment where you can more vividly feel the positives. 

CB: Yeah. Definitely. The good things stand out, especially coming off of the Mars-Saturn conjunction which is literally like, the opposite end of that. And one of the keywords that came out of that was like, letting go of something or giving up on something. Like letting something literally sort of like, pass away or in some instances die in some specific area of your chart. And this is like the opposite where the energies of life-building and confirming and things like that are at their peak. 

LS: 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 by not only Saturn and Neptune at one Aries, but also Mars at three 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. 

CB: Yeah, for sure. And this year it’s like, we do have Saturn making a superior square to the conjunction. But it’s like, 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. 

LS: Yeah. And I think just the alleviation of not having both malefics there and especially like, if you’re using day charts, say electional charts with this kind of configuration, you often want the day chart to get the most out of Jupiter. But then Mars was 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. 

CB: Yeah. And one of the things that this conjunction is associated with is like, marriages, because Venus is the traditional planet of love and relationships, and Jupiter is the greater benefic and is also associated with 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 like, 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 the Taylor Swift proposal where Travis Kelce proposed to Taylor Swift and they announced that they were getting married. And there was like, those social media posts of the two of them that went viral, because they were like, 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 marriages 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 — 

LS: Nice. 

CB: — one of the biggest pop stars in the world, and it’s notable to see her getting married at this time. 

LS: Right. 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’s retrograde in Leo. So I had to look back to like, 2001, 2002. But 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 like, a very big party. 

CB: 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 like, 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 through some specific action or some tangible thing that you could do. 

LS: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Can I share the other two real quick that I found from the past Venus-Jupiter conjunction for inspiration? 

CB: Sure. 

LS: 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 5th, the Hallmark Channel began! Which was just like, made me laugh. But it was such a perfect like, actual pure expression of the Venus-Jupiter in Cancer, I feel like, without malefics involved, which is like, heartwarming, family-oriented kind of like, 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. It was there were two conjunctions in 2001, 2002, so this one was June 3rd, 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 a semi-nomadic people in Kenya, had only heard about 9/11 happening like, the month prior – like, 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 given 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 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 a kind of a fascinating cross-cultural manifestation of the Venus-Jupiter in Cancer. 

CB: Yeah, definitely. Like empathy and understanding are really good keywords for this. 

Yeah. And some of the keywords also are like, 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. 

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. Like, 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 9th, but then they continue being copresent all the way until like, 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 line here in terms of that conjunction, especially primarily being localized to the first week or like, week-and-a-half or so of the month. 

LS: 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, 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 after it goes away. 

CB: 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 3:30 PM 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. 

So 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 6th 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. 

LS: 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 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 gonna be like, a publicly positive thing. 

And I also like that in particular for using this for 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 6th house can pertain to things like coworkers or people you hire to assist you – either/or as well as just like, work environment, so yeah. This is a really lovely, lovely chart. 

CB: Yeah. Definitely. The thing it’s not as good for is 8th house things, because we see that Mars is in the 8th house of shared resources and other people’s money. So it would be more problematic for that – anything involving like, a partner’s finances or finances in a partnership like shared resources as well as taxes, debts, loans, and other things in that area. 

LS: Yeah. Definitely. 

CB: All right. So that is 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 beside just June 8th. So 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 percent off by going to TheAstrologyPodcast.com/2026Report and you can get access to it for that discount.

LS: 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. 

CB: Definitely.

All right, so I think – have we, you know, 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 in the 8th is just some possible like, hampering in communications. But especially with that chart if you make it a day chart, then those should be like, surmountable difficulties to some extent. 

LS: For sure. I did wanna say one more thing about the World Cup coming up, because it’s scheduled very close to that. 

CB: Okay. 

LS: 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 was 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, right – Alysa Liu’s gold medal win and her individual win was like, a few days before 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 – like, 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 like, 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. 

CB: 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 and there are some good things. 

LS: Yeah. And I like that they’re starting it with Venus-Jupiter even though it’s a long – 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 in a sign of inclusivity and celebrating the world’s people and teams. 

CB: 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 like, who does launch things around this time, because 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 about 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 like, I think Spielberg is launching his new movie; Steven Spielberg has a new movie coming out on the 12th or 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. 

All right. So I think that’s good. Why don’t we move onto the vibe shift that starts happening mid-month, especially around June 13th, 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 you know, 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 is 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 the 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 one degree of Leo moving into two degrees of Leo, headed straight for that opposition with Pluto at five 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 gonna 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. 

LS: For sure. Yeah. The New Moon in Gemini, it’s not doing like, a lot on its own. You know, the Moon’ll 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 charts, both individually in our own natal charts as well as, you know, the country’s chart and so forth, where there’s going to be a lot of activity and important activity soon with Mars entering Gemini later this month applying to conjoin Uranus. And the New Moon itself actually happens conjunct the US Mars within three degrees, which is already copresent 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. 

CB: Yeah. Absolutely. And so it’s like, it’s a New Moon ruled by Mercury, and there’s something about this Mercury and 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 like, 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 like, 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 outside of people’s control. 

LS: 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 gonna finish. 

CB: Right. And then the other thing mid-month is we see Mars hit 22 and 23 degrees of Taurus by 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, yeah? 

LS: 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 gonna 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, you know, on the positive side, it can like, amp up personal magnetism. You know, 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 barrel of a gun rifle when they were like, against a line of armed military police. And I looked it up; it was from a Vietnam War protest. And Venus was in Virgo applying to Pluto! So applying by conjunction that time, but it’s that kind of, you know, especially with the opposition here, it’s more like flowers, creativity, heart-centered things against Plutonian things. 

CB: 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 like, 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 Venus-Pluto can have themes of like, 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. 

LS: Yeah. That’s true. That can be one of the like, less pleasant ways that can play out. 

You know, 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. 

CB: Right. That makes sense. 

So 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 17th. 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. 

LS: Right. One other way I’m expecting this to play out is there being a tension or some attention on like, individual people shining out versus the collective. And yeah, so we’ll see like, because Leo sort of represents like, 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. 

CB: Yeah. Like, aside from the opposition with Pluto, this is one of 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 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. 

LS: 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 more purely positive things moving through, aside from the brief period where it’s more closely opposite Pluto. 

CB: 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 like, end game towards the end of the month, and the more volatile and tumultuous part of the month. 

LS: Right. For sure. Yeah, the Sun entering Cancer can bring more tender feelings 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 of 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, you know, family reunions and things this time of year. 

CB: 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 like, escapes our grasp just before we obtain it.

LS: Right. And it’s not that it will never come back, but it’ll take a while if it does. 

CB: 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 like, 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 28th, that conjunction is gonna be at its most powerful and start ramping up very significantly once it gets within that three-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 gonna start 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 like, 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. 

LS: 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? 

CB: Yeah. So an astrologer on Twitter, Aleena Astro on Twitter @AleenaAstro pointed out that this is a really classic case of what’s known in medieval Islamicate astrology as revoking. And I’m just gonna read Aleena’s quote, because I thought it was really good where Aleena 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 a really negative aspect is coming into alignment, which seems like a bad scenario. 

LS: Yeah. And on the world’s 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. 

CB: 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 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 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 like, 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 copresence 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. 

LS: Yeah. Some pretty sobering historical precedents, but it’s good to be aware, you know, of what’s going on and what’s repeating here.

CB: 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 expected violent events, rebellions, revolutions, issues of secession, sudden violent uprisings, issues related to guerilla 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 trining that Pluto in early Aquarius. So there’s some sort of confluence there technologically probably at the same time. 

LS: Yeah, for sure. And like, on the personal level, best case scenario, it can be good for like, 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 like, good about making sober long-term plans. 

CB: 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 three degrees, and then it gets its most intense around the one 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 4th, 2026. So it happens to fall this year like, 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. 

LS: Yeah. Yeah, so it is really front and center. And you know, one of the problematic things about it is Uranus is such a wildcard. 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. 

CB: You don’t know in the sense that it’s usually something unexpected that comes out of left field — 

LS: Right. 

CB: — in that sense that you know something unexpected’s gonna happen, but also that sometimes – like, 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 surprise attack on Iran. So sometimes that element of surprise or, you know, 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 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, you know, everything that happened after that. But it was all happening in this relatively short timespan around the time of that Mars-Uranus conjunction. 

LS: Definitely. Yeah. So yeah, while the specifics are unpredictable and things can seem to come out of left field, you’re obviously totally right in that we know the kind of shape of things, especially based on past Mars-Uranus conjunctions.

CB: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Go ahead? 

LS: 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 gonna have a bit of a buildup in part because of the 10 to 15 degree range, right, like, 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 9th 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. 

CB: Right. In the second half of June and leading into early July. Yeah, definitely. I think that’s really important. 

And you know, conjunctions are sometimes the end of – it’s the end of one two-year cycle, and it’s the beginning of a new two-year cycle. So sometimes in the Mars-Uranus conjunctions in history, sometimes at the beginnings 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 especial 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 person sense what seeds are planted att this time that may grow and develop over the next two years. 

LS: For sure. 

CB: Well, it’s like, the two years of the immediate one conjunction to another, but also yeah, the next seven years of Uranus through Gemini as well. 

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 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 is 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? 

LS: 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 you know, sobering, because they’re already in the news, obviously, and 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. 

CB: 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 a 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, yeah, pretty soon over the course of the next several weeks which one 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 like, some constructive things about… You know, 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 us, it may be some internal thing that arises at this time that pushes us to suddenly want to break free of or some 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. 

LS: 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 like, suddenly speeding that up. So you’re like, 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. You know, again, as I was saying, versatility, thinking quickly. We’ll just have to be careful not to get too scattered, because it easily lends itself to that. 

CB: 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. Like, 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 like, lead the vanguard in taking direct action and making changes in that sector of our chart. 

LS: Yeah. And I don’t wanna 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 gonna speed up whatever that Uranus-Pluto trine is about in our charts. And so potentially, like, also adding fuel to the fire in terms of deeper transformations in some area of our life.

CB: 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 like, a conflict or a separation or an issue that arises in that area of your 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 burning things or burning sensation, right?

LS: 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 7th 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 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 into like, huge overheated overdrive, and you had to ply me with ice cream and milk to calm it down! 

CB: Yeah. Luckily, I have been a fan of the YouTube show Hot Ones for years, so like, 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 like, 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 had you start chugging that because that neutralizes the pepper oils. And then also gave you some ice cream. And you know, 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 7th house. And I was also 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 in the 7th, and then under a Mars transit afflicting the ruler of my 7th, you burned your mouth. 

LS: Yeah, it was quite striking. It lasted a little while. Yeah! 

CB: Yeah. 

LS: And I was like, look – oh, go ahead. 

CB: Well, and then we were having a broader thing about how it’s funny how sometimes you seen 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 like, an instance of that, or you know, in other instance of that it can be more major things. Like, 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 wanna do like, an episode discussing that phenomenon. 

LS: Yeah, it’s a fascinating meta issue. And yeah, I’ve definitely seen a bunch of examples of that before, because in the moment – well, after it started calming 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.” 

CB: Well, and it wasn’t that there was nothing; it was just that it was more striking in my chart. 

LS: Yeah. 

CB: That I was having a transit pertaining to my 7th house, but it wasn’t directly me; it was like, representing you. 

LS: Yeah, for sure. 

CB: Yeah. 

LS: So! 

CB: So spiciness sometimes in like, the Mars sector of, you know, because when Mars leaves Taurus, on the one hand, it’s removing the sort of spiciness and severing 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. 

LS: For sure. 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 wanna just in your head have a tiny moment of counterbalance. Because it can cause people to act recklessly as well, to not hesitate when you might think up a smarter course of action if you didn’t just impulsively react. 

CB: Yeah. Or to get in an accident as a result of acting impulsively or recklessly. 

LS: Yeah. 

CB: Okay. So yeah, that conjunction’s gonna peak in early July. But the copresence 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 copresent 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 30th into zero degrees of Leo. This is gonna begin a one year Jupiter transit through the sign of Leo, and Venus at 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 reengage 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 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. 

LS: 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 a very bright and cheerful sign, so it expands all those qualities. It’s a good time to like, 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 flipside 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 you know, 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. 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. 

CB: Yeah, like seeking the truth in dark places. I saw themes during the Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in 2020 of like, 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. 

LS: Right. Yeah. I’ve also noticed that there’s a lot of correlation with the concentration of wealth economically and with the opposition, then, like, natural 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 US, 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 percent of the funds went to the top 20 percent economically. So that’s like, you know, can be a Jupiter-Pluto thing, like in natal charts as well – concentration of wealth. 

So I looked up, you know, 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 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 dollar minimum wage, and then the right to unionize without employer retaliation. So it wasn’t like, immediately successful, though it 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 US Justice Department sued to block a proposed 11 billion dollar merger between a couple airlines because of anti-trust 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. 

CB: Yeah. And you know, we saw the Mars square Pluto being tensions with AI, and this Jupiter going into Leo where Leo emphasizes the individual and sometimes the individual creative effort as opposed to Aquarius, which can sometimes be like, the collective in some ways. And I think, like, to me that feels like that tension coming into the forefront more about like, 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 like, 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. 

LS: Yeah. I definitely agree. I can see that easily coming more to the forefront as well, especially with artists. Sort of on the flipside, because it can go both ways, kind of like I was saying with the Venus in Leo opposite Pluto, there can be a tension or focus societally, temporarily, on rulers versus the collective of people – the collective population – because that’s an easy Leo-Aquarius opposition. 

CB: 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 that 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 spotless 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 like, a raising up and a spotlight that’s put on that, 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. 

LS: 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. 

CB: Yeah, for sure. 

Okay. So that kind of brings us to the end of the month, though. It’s like, 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. Like, right when all of this is like, popping off. So by that point, I’m sure some of the major news stories will 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 right 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 like, take 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. 

LS: Definitely. Yeah. I’m looking forward to the Venus-Jupiter, for sure. 

CB: 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. 

LS: 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.

CB: Right. All right, well, I think that might be good in terms of the astrology of this month, yeah? 

LS: I think that’s good! It was pretty thorough introduction. 

CB: 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 like, 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! 

LS: Yeah! Yeah, it was fun. Thank you for having me. 

CB: All right. Before we wrap up, Leisa, what do you have – what are you working on? What do you have coming up? 

LS: 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’ll be focused on the nitty-gritty of like, 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 hasn’t – it’s both been underrepresented and sometimes not talked about very well. So I’m hoping to rectify that. I’m also looking for 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. 

CB: Nice. And yeah, what’s your website and UAC website? 

LS: LeisaSchaim.com is mine. And you’ll see the link, because it’s not phonetically spelled. And UACAstrology.com for the conference. 

CB: 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 that have been saying some things that are not great that you’ll be helping to improve how to talk about those issues astrologically, I hear. 

LS: Yeah. Both basics of how to identity potential chronic illness in the chart if you have clients that are dealing with that, as well as how to talk well about it, not – how to – yeah! How to talk well about it and perhaps better than some examples of the last bunch of decades. 

CB: All right. Brilliant. Well, that’ll be great lecture, so people should definitely sign up for those when they attend the United Astrology Conference in Chicago in September. 

All right, everybody! So I guess the only thing to promote is just the Electional Astrology Report’s on sale for 50 percent off now, if you wanna get the best elections for the rest of the year. You can find that at 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. 

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