2025: The Year of Flux

Icarus by Henri Matisse.

It was a shocking development. They knew that she was the Sultan’s favourite, the mother of his children, but who would have thought that he would actually marry the Ruthenian woman? 

In the year 1533, Suleiman the Magnificent wed his concubine Roxelana, making her Sultana, the most powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire. She would be his closest advisor, beloved, and wife, until her death 20 years later. 

The Redheaded Sultana by Titian. It’s unlikely that he actually saw her, but this is Titian’s idea of what the Ukrainian-born Sultana looked like.

Suleiman’s wedding initiated the “Sultanate of Women”, a period when women held the power behind the throne, and perhaps coincidentally — or not — when the Ottoman Empire was at its strongest.

In that year, Pluto was in the first degrees of Aquarius, and Neptune moved from Pisces to Aries. The times were changing, Those planets are on those same degrees this year, 2025, for the first time since then. So it is worth noting just what a consequential year 1533 was. 

Across the seas, the last Inca, Atahualpa, was murdered by conquistadors at the end of July, ending the Incan empire and beginning the Spanish dominance of South America.

Meanwhile, Ivan, at that time literally in his terrible threes, acceded to the Russian throne upon the death of his father. There he would stay for the next half-century, becoming actually Ivan the Terrible and the first Tsar of All Russia.

Roxelana’s wedding was not the only unorthodox marriage to take place in the year 1533. 

The king of England, Henry VIII, secretly married Ann Boleyn on 25 January (for the second time) — although it was not validated by the archbishop until the end of May.

Some say this sketch by Holbein is of Anne Boleyn. Others disagree. Hey ho.

In order to marry Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII had to annul his first marriage, and in order to do that, he had to break with the Pope in Rome. He declared himself to be the head of the church in England. This had an excellent side-benefit from his point of view. It gave him free rein to pillage church property. A massive transfer of wealth took place during the rest of his reign, as his henchman went from monastery to nunnery confiscating gold and silver, throwing out the occupants, and moving into the abbeys and priories themselves. Echoes perhaps of the conquistadors in Peru who pillaged the Inca gold.

Throughout western Europe, the struggle between Protestants and Catholics that began in 1517, with Pluto’s entry into Capricorn, would continue through the coming decade.

So you can see that power was shifting. Wealth changed hands. Ideologies were overthrown. National identities changed. And the real consequences of those power shifts in 1533 were unforeseeable. In Denmark, that year, King Frederick I died. Who knew that he would be that country’s last Catholic king? Who knew that the Church of England would be building churches in India and Lagos a few hundred years later? Who knew that the murder of Atahualpa would be the beginning of Latin America?

Anne Boleyn herself was arguably a Protestant revolutionary, but unlike Roxelana her grip on politics ended a few short years later. So you see, one marriage thrived, and another ended quickly and miserably in execution and shame. The noble woman was decapitated, while the ex-slave became the mother of a dynasty. Maybe not the outcome that might have been predicted at the time.

This year
The dance of the planets is extraordinarily complex in 2025 and into 2026, as they weave back and forth around our bright Sun. Everything is changing. In fact 2025 is much more complicated than 1533, with every single outer planet — from Pluto to Jupiter — in those early degrees.

All the outer planets, except Pluto, which is now firmly in Aquarius, are changing signs, and some then change back again.

• Neptune moves from Pisces to Aries and back again.
• Uranus moves from Taurus to Gemini and back again.
• Saturn, also, moves from Pisces to Aries and back again.
• Jupiter changes from Gemini to Cancer and stays there.

This means that the beginning and end degrees of the signs will be activated by these transits several times. If you have any planets or points between 28° and 2°, they will be stimulated — no matter what sign they live in, because there will be other aspects too: trines and squares, oppositions and sextiles.

So we can already feel a year of more beginnings and endings ahead, a continuation of some of the themes of 2024, since Pluto’s major shift over the last 12 months has led the way for the other outer planets — as he wavered back and forth between the end of Capricorn and the beginning of Aquarius. 

(Chiron stays in Aries all year.)

Starting Up and Completion
One of the two signs most activated by major transits this year is Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac, the sign of beginnings, youth, initiative, excitement and raw energy. It’s also a sign of war — yet for a good part of the spring and summer, Aries will be occupied by the planets of peace (with caveats) — Neptune and Venus. 

Venus, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn will cross the threshold between Pisces and Aries multiple times in 2025. Venus and Mercury retrograde here in the spring — March and April — both spending an extended period in Aries and Pisces. 

Neptune will be in Aries from the end of March to October; Saturn from the end of May to September, and the asteroid Ceres from mid-May until 2026. Chiron, the centaur, has been in Aries some time, and will stay here all year. There will also be one final eclipse in Aries on 29 March.

But what we mustn’t overlook is the fact that the end of Pisces is actually getting more planetary rays than the beginning of Aries. Mercury and Venus will both also spend an unusual length of time in the sign of the fishes in the spring. Ceres will also be in Pisces from 23 February to mid-May. Neptune is in Pisces until 30 March, and Saturn until 25 May. Neptune and Saturn will return here after the summer. In Pisces, there will be an eclipse in September, and the North Node will be here from 11 January.

All this adds up to an intensely busy part of the sky for everyone.

Since Neptune and Saturn will not remain in Aries this year –– they have work to complete in Pisces before they both finally move in 2026 –– there may be some false starts or beginning that don’t quite take off.

Pisces is the final sign, the sign that contains multitudes, the place of ultimate dissolution, dissolving, of all matter eventually becoming one, a place of disappearance, mysticism, magic, and universal love, self-loss, and magnification. What is it that you need to complete? What is vanishing? What is connecting?

Inaction and then action
Mars begins 2025 retrograde, and on 6 January retreats into Cancer, where he stays until 18 April, turning direct on 24 February. So one way to divide the year is between this quite intense focus on Cancer and the more even distribution of active Mars energy for the rest of the year. 

Mars is where there is action. Even when he is retrograde, Mars is active inaction, active surrender, active cutting of ties. This may be a place of release. Cancer is the sign of tribe and family, so there may be a cessation of hostilities for a while, or even a lasting peace for some. Maybe pick up the phone and call…

Mars retrograde began in Leo at the end of November 2025 and continued in that sign for the first week of January. Mars returns to Leo on 18 April to finish off the things he put on hold at the end of 2024. He takes his time in Leo, moving slowly and deliberately and staying here until 17 June. This may be a very productive time. As he moves through Leo, he will make good aspects to Neptune, newly arrived there.

Magnify, Sanctify
The transit of Jupiter, the planet of expansion, divides the year neatly in two, spending the first half in the sign of the twins (until 6 June), before moving smoothly into Cancer. This is a switch from sociable air to introspective water, from verbal to emotional. It may feel like quite a tangible change of atmosphere. This is one useful way to divide the year into two manageable chunks. Jupiter will magnify two parts of the sky for you. Mind you, since Mars is activating Cancer also in the first part of 2025, this part of the sky is quietly turbulent too.

While in Gemini, Jupiter is working well with Pluto, his brother, and this may be especially potent for all the air signs.  When he moves into Cancer, he harmonises with Saturn and Neptune when they return to Pisces in the autumn.

Revolution
And then there’s Uranus, the planet of rebellion and innovation, moving back and forth between Taurus and Gemini, where he follows about a month after Jupiter leaves. His turn direct in early January will switch on the things of Taurus — including perhaps some practical technical advances.

Uranus has been in Taurus for seven years, and he is not finished yet, since he will return for a solid stint from autumn 2025 through into 2026.

While in Taurus, he is harmonising with Neptune and Saturn in Pisces, and Jupiter in Cancer, but clashes somewhat with Pluto; while in Gemini, he works nicely with Pluto, but clashes with planets in Pisces. You probably don’t need reminding that the last time he was doing this dance between Taurus and Gemini (and Jupiter was in Gemini), Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War Two. Gemini is associated with flight.

So you see, it’s a year of endings and beginnings. Maybe a year of consequential but unconventional marriages, as in 1533, transfers of wealth, overturning of ideologies. But our year, 2025, is much more turbulent and unpredictable. “The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast, the slow one now will later be fast, as the present now will later be past. The order is rapidly fading.” 

This is a year of flux. The one certainty is change. Be sceptical, brave, steadfast and flexible, ready to meet the cosmic waves which crash over us with as much curiosity and nimbleness as you can.