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What if May is about learning how to move with accelerating momentum?
In this powerful forecast, Rick Levine and Steve Judd come together to explore the astrology of May 2026 and why this month may feel like a turning point in a much larger unfolding story. As Uranus moves into Gemini and begins forming a powerful trine to Pluto, they describe a sense that we’ve crossed an “event horizon” – where energy is building, awareness is expanding, and the choices we make now carry real weight for the future.
In this conversation, Rick and Steve break down the key transits of the month, highlight the moments to watch, and offer grounded guidance for navigating a time that may feel both uncertain and full of possibility.
If you’d love to experience these conversations live, join the Shifts Happen TOO event (May 15-18) – a global gathering of astrologers and seekers exploring these exact themes. You can join virtually or in person and receive 15% off with code ASTROHUB15 here: https://astrologyhub.com/shiftshappen (LIVESTREAM) or https://astrologyhub.com/shiftsweekend (IN-PERSON TICKETS).
And if you’re ready to deepen your understanding of astrology alongside Rick, you can also explore his Foundations Series – now available at a special flash sale here: https://astrologyhub.com/foundations

🎬 IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR:
00:00 — May 2026 Themes: Momentum, Change & No Turning Back
03:25 — How Long Will This Intensity Last? What to Expect Through Summer
11:11 — Uranus in Gemini Trine Pluto: A Revolutionary Shift in Motion
22:49 — Capricorn vs. Aquarius: From Hierarchy to Collective Power
30:36 — Mercury Conjunct Uranus: Sudden News & Breakthrough Insights
31:45 — Taurus New Moon: Resetting Values, Stability & Direction
37:58 — Mars Square Jupiter & Pluto: Pressure, Power & Overreach
42:14 — Sun Conjunct Uranus: Breakthrough Energy & Rapid Change
43:27 — Summer 2026 Preview: Why July Is a Major Turning Point
47:05 — How Rick & Steve Navigate Intense Transits in Real Life
56:52 — Shifts Happen TOO: What to Expect from This Global Event
01:02:58 — Key May Hotspots: Dates to Watch & How to Work with Them
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“We’re inside the event horizon now – there’s no way back.” – Rick Levine

Transcript

Amanda: Alright, my friends, we are in for a very special month ahead treat. We always have Rick Levine here for the month ahead, but today we have a bonus. We also have Steve Judd, and so we have been doing these periodic panel events with Rick and Steve for, I don’t know, a couple of years now. And you guys always love it.

So we wanted to bring them both back for the May forecast. These guys are the best of the best. If you're new to astrology, the best of the best in the field. They are like—I don’t know if you guys like this or not, but I called you our resident wizards in the Inner Circle because they're just completely next level—and they're here to talk to us about May. I also gathered some questions from our Inner Circle, so we’re going to start peering into the summer and some… you know, there were some great questions that came through, so if we have time, we’ll go to those too.

May Overview

Amanda: So let's talk about May. If you had to sum it up—and Rick, I know you love this question—but if you had to sum it up in a word or a phrase, what would you say May is all about?

Rick: I would take two words: Ask Steve.

Steve: Yeah, now I…

Rick: You're… you know, Amanda, you're in trouble having the two of us together. You do know that?

Amanda: I know. I always get ready for this. This is the best. Okay, so “Ask Steve.” So Steve, what would you say?

Steve: Quieter with bumps in the road.

Amanda: Okay.

Rick: Right. I'm not convinced that it's going to be quieter; I think it’s going to be more… my keyword for the month would be momentum.

Steve: Less, um… less volatile.

Rick: I might agree with that, but I think if it's less volatile, it's only compared to how much volatility we've had over the last month or so. And so even extraordinarily high levels of volatility might just seem like more of the same, but I don't know if it's really… I, you know… Steve and I were actually talking earlier today just seeing if we were in agreement about some of this stuff and we are, but I'm not convinced there—this is going to be a double negative—I'm not convinced there will be no surprises, in other words.

The momentum is building and we are heading toward something that we've been talking about for better than a year. I've been talking about how the events that we're experiencing now are being pulled by some sort of “Great Attractor” in the future that's acting retro-causally, making the events happening now feel as if they're heading towards something. And I think that we're kind of within the tractor beam, and so it's like we're at a point now where it's going to become accelerating faster and faster as we get drawn toward the center of this black hole, this event, this quasar, this new world—whatever it is, and I don't know what it is.

Steve: It is an event horizon.

Rick: We're on the inside of the event horizon now. There's no way out. There's no way back.

Steve: Correct. Non-stop now.

How Long Is This Intensity Going to Last?

Amanda: Can I ask a question that came in from the Inner Circle before we go into the astrology and the breakdown of this? Because Ann said—and what you were saying, Rick, kind of made me think of her question—everyone I talk to describes the same thing, including me: restless sleep, feeling agitated, wanting to cry, feeling excited. Is this going to continue through the whole year or is this more of an April and then May intensity kind of thing?

Steve: April to July.

Rick: Yeah, April to July. Maybe even August and September. I don't think it's going to let up. I think what we've seen now—now being the beginning of May—I think what we've seen by now is enough information that we have the clues to get to where we're going, but we don't know yet what we're fully going to do with them.

And I think that's really what May becomes. May becomes a study in: what are we going to do with what we now know? And everyone—everyone knows more than they ever knew prior. And in fact, most people know more now than they ever wanted to know, and it's causing people to bump up against their realities. You know, Amanda, I've been saying for months—and I'm not the only one saying this—that what's been going on is not what it apparently seems. Things were coming out into the open more and more. Again, six months ago, I couldn't have imagined how much information would be out in the public about disclosure, about sex rings, about child sacrifice, about politics in general.

About the control of the military and the issues of craziness at the top levels of governments around the world; about the level of uprising of awareness and what happened in Hungary this week with the overthrow of a candidate that has been in absolute control for years, for almost a couple of decades now. Something is happening, and the real question is how do we take this “something” that is happening and do something with it that gets us closer and closer to the world that we can imagine, rather than the one that we're realizing that we live in.

Steve: In the real world, practical prices aren't going to go down. Neither are food prices; bills are going to continue rising. This is the “new normal.” As a result, we're heading into—using old-term language—we're probably heading into a global recession, possibly a depression. This is being sort of engineered, if you like. This is not a random factor. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Same as always. But this time, standards of living are changing so rapidly now that a lot of people are beginning to take notice and start using and finding their voice.

Rick: I agree. And you know, Steve, I think the rich are getting richer, but they're also getting more fearful of what they see happening as the poor, who are getting poorer, are also finding inklings of power from what it is they're learning or unlearning. I think both of these things are happening in both directions simultaneously.

Steve: And that's where we as astrologers have both a responsibility and a duty: to give people a different way of seeing things and also to be able to inspire them to still find hope in the world.

Amanda: And so if this is being engineered and done very much on purpose for various reasons, what would be the unexpected way we could respond that would throw off their game? Meaning, if they're expecting us to respond a certain way or react a certain way, how could we actually take the power and do something that just throws their whole little game off?

Rick: That's easy. They want us to be distracted by fighting each other, and we're beginning to realize that our differences are not amongst one another. Our differences are with some previously unseen controlling power structure system, and I think that's what they fear the most. And what can we do? We can continue gaining awareness. We can refuse to be afraid of what it is that we're learning.

Steve: I'm finding in this last year that my waiting list for readings has doubled, the numbers on my teaching student courses have doubled—the interest in astrology, I've never known it so big, and it's escalating rapidly. More and more people are turning to it every day. I'm seeing clearer and clearer evidence of this because it's something outside of human influence. It gives an objective, detached, impersonal perspective in a way that's outside of religion and corporate and governmental influence. In that way, people are beginning to finally, after millennia, take it seriously. So we shall see.

Amanda: I love that. And I'm thinking, you know, if we pretend we all had horrible, abusive, controlling parents who were trying to dictate our lives, what would be the way to just exit from their control mechanism? To me, it would be to become independent and make our own way, and not be so dependent on their little purse strings, and figure out new ways to do it where we don't actually have to be controlled by them.

Steve: Financial independence is always a good one, where you become more autonomous, less reliant on anyone else's backup or support. Yes, become self-empowered. That way you become your own catalyst. That's the acceptable and perhaps a bit simplistic way of doing it. Certainly, the idea of power structures… by just not buying into their rhetoric and their narrative, not getting caught up in their control mechanisms of fear and money and media. If it were my parents, it'd probably involve a sort of little bit of psilocybin or something… um…

Amanda: Don't do that!

Steve: Yeah, just a homeopathic dose, you understand. But…

Rick: I think that what Steve is saying is awareness, however it may be induced.

Steve: Tune in, wake up, drop in.

Rick: Drop in, yeah.

Amanda: Okay, love it, you guys. Alright, let's talk about May. Tell us about the astrology of May.

Uranus in Gemini

Rick: It's the first month that we will have Uranus in Gemini. And even though it'll take until mid-July for it to be exactly perfected in its trine to Pluto, the fact is that once it's tipped into Gemini, it'll be within a few degrees of orb and we'll start feeling its trine to Pluto, which is the underlying revolutionary flow that we are unavoidably in. That is the Great Attractor. Obviously, it's more complicated than that, but simplistically that's the important thing in my mind about the month of May.

Steve: And I just want to throw a little something in because earlier on, when Rick and I were talking a couple of hours ago, I dragged out “the Bible”—the Ephemeris—and found myself looking for it and thought, “Oh, look at that.” At the very start of July, just before the big planetary lineup, Mars moves into Gemini and will conjunct Uranus. I thought, “Oh, that's going to be really interesting.” But for May, I have noticed that there's a lot going on coincidentally around the time that we're putting on the “Shifts Happen” event.

New Moon in Taurus

Steve: It's a Taurus New Moon, conjunct Mercury, and it happens to be sitting on the Venus-Mars midpoint at that time. And shortly after that, Mercury will conjunct Uranus. That's going to be an interesting one.

Rick: By the way, the actual New Moon is on May 16th—that’s in the United States in the evening on May 16th—and the Mercury conjunct Uranus is on May 18th. So we're talking pretty much mid-May when that's all going on.

Amanda: Can you guys break down a little bit…? So Rick, you talked about Uranus in Gemini moving towards a trine to Pluto.

Rick: Right. Uranus is the planet of shock, surprise, awe, revolution, ingenuity, invention. It's the lightning striking—whether it's striking to burn down a forest that has too much overgrowth and just needs to be cleared, or it's the lightning striking that's the light bulb going off in our head where it brings a bright idea.

Uranus has been in Taurus for the past seven years. If you associate it with the lightning releasing tension, that’s change. In Taurus, it's been difficult to make change because Taurus is a solid Earth sign—it's maybe the most grounded and determined, it’s Fixed Earth. And so as Uranus moves into Gemini, an air sign, this shock and surprise and breakthrough is really connected with our minds becoming alive and breaking out of their boundaries.

On top of that, with Pluto having moved into Aquarius—from Capricorn, an Earth sign—as it moved into Aquarius in 2023 and then did the back-and-forth dance, and now it's solidly in Aquarius. We're getting this intellectual vibe of Pluto's evolutionary transformation and Uranus's revolutionary sudden change. And on top of that, Neptune at the midpoint, sextile both of them—both Uranus from one side and Pluto from the other—is adding this whole level of idealism and imagination and dreams. And Saturn having just connected with Neptune back in February is feeding this whole thing. So we have a complexity of energy that's almost like a confluence of energy that we've never seen in astrology before.

Steve: I would add Uranus in Gemini—we've focused a lot on this in recent times. And yeah, holographic tech, nanotech, new tech, new methods of communication, new media… great. But when we are looking at the Uranus trine Pluto, a lot of us have always been thinking, “Okay, so Pluto's going to be trine Uranus, therefore Uranus in Gemini is going to be doing this.” But Uranus trining Pluto in Aquarius… I suggest that with all the new media, one of the side effects of this is that a lot more people are going to start becoming aware of their own psychology. And that is going to empower a large amount of people.

And when you consider that Neptune is sextiling both Uranus and Pluto, it's bringing a practical approach to spirituality into the equation. Not “airy-fairy,” but a practical, grounded approach to it. So people are going to be getting more in touch with their own psychology in a way that says they’re going to be looking at themselves in a deeper way, less fearful way, more integrated, holistic way. And they're going to be connecting with their own version of divinity, however they may call it. That is going to lead to a much more overall, larger, grounded body of people becoming more and more integrated, assimilated, and holistic. And of course, there would always be the people that go, “Ah, this is rubbish, don't buy into it,” but they're part of what is called “dinosaur culture.”

Historical Context: Uranus Trine Pluto

Rick: And remember, the last time that Uranus trined Pluto without Neptune so integrated into the picture was in 1921. To add to what Steve was saying, this is the rise of psychoanalysis. This is the beginning of what we call depth psychology, when we had Freud and Jung and Wilhelm Reich and all these people delving into the subconscious. We had Hermann Hesse writing these books because he was a client of Jung's.

All of this was stirring back in the 1920s. And then the other thing is, in 1921, Niels Bohr founded the Institute of Physics in Copenhagen, which was basically the place where modern quantum physics—which destroyed our understanding of the causal relationship of the Newtonian universe—was born. And we are already seeing the edges with AI and AR (augmented reality). We're seeing the tinges and the edges of this because our realities are being totally destroyed. Whatever we thought humans were, whatever we thought life on Earth was, whatever we thought the physical universe was, is undergoing a dramatic change as severe as the change from Newtonian to quantum physics.

Steve: And also in the very early 1920s, we're seeing the Bolshevik Revolution—what I call Lenin's “gang,” because it wasn't really a revolution; it was a coup d'état by Lenin and his fundamentalists. But at the same time, by projecting that forward to the next Uranus-Pluto cycle, rather than suggesting a return to old fundamentalist communism, I'm suggesting instead a much softer form of socialism is coming in a way that's not going to be seen as political, but is going to be seen as a greater drive towards a global community.

Rick: And this is also fed by the idea of Pluto in Aquarius, that whole idea of globalization of small communities, a decentralization of power. With Pluto in Capricorn for the past couple of decades, we've seen the ending results of the hierarchy to a point where the hierarchy became so unstable with power at the top that we're seeing that begin to crumble and fall. A lot of what we're experiencing in global politics is basically the fear of the top level of that hierarchy fighting for its longevity, for its maintained existence. And it's in the process of falling, and it won't be an easy fall—even though it might guide us into a place that is much more harmonious than the one that we're coming from. At least that would be the hope. That would be why we are giving voice to so many of these things these days.

Steve: And I wonder if at the moment, now that Saturn's past aspect or clearing aspect to the three outer planets and Saturn's moving forward in May through into early-to-mid Aries… I wonder if that's sort of laying down markers for the next few years. As the outer planets come to those degrees, perhaps they'll be activating those markers and turning them into something much more potent. So I'm actually quite—I never thought I'd say this—but I'm actually, so far… I don't know if you'll disagree, Rick, but I'm liking Saturn in Aries, even though it's about to spend nine months squaring my Sun.

Rick: Even though it's going to spend nine months conjoining my Sun, Mercury, Venus, and Mars! No, but I agree with you. I think that this Saturn transit of Aries, and it being ahead of Neptune now, is very important because what Saturn in Aries does is it pushes reality into the unknown. That pioneering aspect of Aries pushes it right to the edge, but it doesn't fall over the cliff because it’s Saturn. It holds back just enough to maintain some semblance of status quo, even though it's got its foot on the accelerator.

The Difference Between Capricorn & Aquarius

Amanda: Let me go back to something. So Aquarius would be more… it's definitely community, but it wouldn't be top-down like Capricorn, right? It wouldn't be hierarchical?

Rick: Yeah, no. Capricorn is hierarchical. The Mountain Goat and the Sea Goat create the highest and lowest extremes, and that's the extremity of Capricorn. With Aquarius, it's egalitarian; it's a network. Every point is a node on Indra's Net, where every knot reflects every other point on the net. That's the concept of Aquarius.

Amanda: Right. So with Pluto in Aquarius, you said something, Rick, in a way that I haven't heard it considered before. And Steve, you brought this in too. You said the “globalization of small community.” Because when I think of globalization, I think, “Oh god, these crazy guys who have had control and power are just centralizing it into them and they're ruling the world.” So that's terrifying. But you said globalization of small community. How does that look?

Steve: In three weeks' time, we've got the “Shifts Happen” event coming and at the moment, we've got people from 21 different countries actually going to be there physically. The youngest is 16, the oldest is in their eighties. They're from four or five different religions, many different countries, different colors. At least four different genders are going to be there. The only thing linking these people is astrology, and they're coming for a love of astrology. And what we're seeing here is a microcosm of what's happening in the world where people are not judging. The future is about a community, not based on any markers, but based on intelligence and compassion.

Amanda: So I was thinking about this, and this kind of circles back to some of the things you've brought up, Steve, about astrology and how unifying it can be. And Stefan Burns and how he's looking at the impact of the cosmic forces on the earth. I just love how it actually makes all of us together under that sky. Because he'll say something like, “We are going to have huge electromagnetic activity on the planet and there will be earthquakes,” but we're talking about the entire globe now. We're not just talking about a specific area. We're talking about being influenced by these cosmic forces, and it's just creating this umbrella of: “This is the entire earth.” It doesn't matter where those earthquakes end up happening; it's the earth that we all live on. And I think astrology does the same thing. It just takes down the lines and the boundaries.

Disclosure and Disappearances

Rick: And you know that the person who is at the highest level of military in the United States, that had to do with the interface between the military and the… um… One Atlas… is one of now the 11 people who have disappeared overnight, that have been murdered or “suicided.”

Amanda: You mean three at Atlas?

Rick: Uh, he—the guy who was the interface at the highest level, you know, from the NASA interface—he's now one of these 11 people who have mysteriously committed suicide or disappeared. People who are working on propulsion… and I assume that you know, Amanda, that David Wilcock—and whether that's a suicide or not—he was, for those people who don't know this, a lead investigator in alternate forms of propulsion and energy use and contact with non-terrestrial intelligence, whatever that means to you.

And he had done a video just a day ago, positive and looking forward, and then allegedly he shot himself yesterday. So he's now the 13th person at this high level of people working to disclose alternate forms of non-petroleum-based energy that has disappeared. And I think that this is part… this is like the whole Epstein file scenario, like the petroleum wars that are going on. These are all things that we now know. And where would they go in the future? I don't know. But they're all pieces, they're all clues of what's unfolding between now and the mid-summer date that Steve and I and most astrologers have been looking at for quite a while.

Steve: History gives us a template. About a year ago, I was recording for a documentary series and we were—myself, my producer, and the video man—walking through central Rome and we came across a flower market, the Campo de' Fiori. Right in the middle of that market is a statue of Giordano Bruno. I recorded a video literally under the statue of Bruno, and the statue is where he was executed.

Rick: He was the last person to be burned alive at the stake by the Catholic Church because he predicted that the Sun was one of many stars that would have planets around them, and that they would all have their own religions or saviors—and the Church couldn't deal with it. Sorry for interrupting, Steve, just background info for people.

Steve: And he was killed in a particularly gruesome way. And I found myself recording underneath him and crying with just raw emotion while I was recording the video. And I still feel it now when I'm thinking of it because there are martyrs to the cause everywhere. And when you look back at how astrologers have been violated, crucified, killed, thrown to the lions metaphorically, and physically tortured to death over millennia for daring to suggest that astrology has as much valence, if not much more so, than an imposed doctrinal theology… and yet astrology has outlasted every empire, every religion, every dogma, and it's still there and gaining strength.

Yes, I live with the idea that by being public and being out there, as I'm sure Rick does, the knowledge that I could be metaphorically crucified at any time… is that going to stop me? No, of course it's not. So when I hear about these people that you are talking about, Rick, I think, yeah, it's wrong, it's tragic, it's bloody criminal. But these people will be remembered and vindicated in times to come.

Mercury Conjunct Uranus

Amanda: Okay. Wow, guys. Let's go back to something that you talked about earlier that's happening in May, Steve: Mercury conjunct Uranus. What's the signature of that? Why is that important?

Steve: Well…

Rick: Mercury moves into Gemini on May 17th. And then because Uranus is still at the very beginning of Gemini, Mercury conjuncts Uranus on May 18th.

Steve: And it will be the first conjunction to Uranus in Gemini of any planet. And for Mercury to be in its own sign conjunct Uranus, it's a… you know, making predictions in astrology is a fool's game. I do forecasts, not predictions. But with Mercury conjunct Uranus that tight at 0 degrees Gemini, I'm going to make a prediction: there's going to be some startling news or developments within 24 hours each side of that conjunction that is going to act as a catalyst—a light for the future. So it's amazing. And yes, that's right at the end of “Shifts Happen.”

Steve: So… and of course, it's going to have the signature of the New Moon with it as well, because that's happening a day or so before that. But what's also really interesting is that this is a concentrated period of time. It's like a sudden zit that comes up on the surface. Because not only do you have a New Moon, you also have Mercury conjunct Uranus, and the rest of the month is—well, I'm not going to say it's low key. As we were talking earlier, there is a Mars square Jupiter at the beginning of the month, and then there's a Mars square Pluto at the end of the month. We need to talk about that.

Rick: Yeah, both of them. Agreed.

Steve: But that period around the New Moon… compared to the two full moons, because it's a full moon on the 1st of May and a full moon on the 31st of May. But neither of them are making big aspects. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be quiet. But I'm really looking at that New Moon big time.

Amanda: Let's talk about it.

Steve: Well, it is loosely conjunct Uranus. I know it'll be intercepted by then because Uranus will be at the very start of Gemini, but it's going to be conjuncting the area that Uranus has been in for the year before. And it's a New Moon, so it is kind of like a new broom, a new seeding time to the area that Uranus has been plowing through over this last year. Uranus in Taurus hasn't had a good rep, but one of the things it has done is deep-plowed the fields of Taurus and brought up a lot of buried stuff around what really is of value and worth these days. So I suggest that the New Moon is going to launch some new ideas around what's important to us collectively and individually. What is of value and worth? Do we value ourselves by how much money we've got, or property, or land—or integrity and dignity and ethical morals? These things are changing.

Rick: There's two other things.

Amanda: Before you jump in, what's the date on that New Moon?

Steve: The 16th.

Rick: May 16th at 8:00 PM Pacific time, which will be May 17th in Europe in the morning.

Amanda: And Rick, you wanted to add two things.

Rick: Yeah, two things about this New Moon. First of all, the New Moon is at almost 26 degrees of Taurus and Mercury is at 28 degrees of Taurus. We have more—and I know Steve mentioned this at the very beginning, but I want to bring this up again now—because Mars and Chiron are conjoining at this New Moon at the end of Aries, while Venus is at the end of Gemini.

So we have this Mars and Chiron sextiling Venus with the Mercury, Sun, and Moon right at the midpoint, turning this whole thing into almost like a single event that has Mars in Aries—the energy of forcing ahead—the sense of: what are we going to heal and can we face our wounds? Can we forgive? Can we come up with some way of learning or teaching that can help heal these wounds? And then Venus, at the very end of Gemini, being attracted to new ideas and new thoughts… and all of this focusing back on that Taurus New Moon, which is in fact stable, determined, and in a way, the height of momentum.

Even though it's the new beginning, it's weird to have the sense of thrust of a new beginning, but in Taurus, which is absolutely going to get to where it is that it's going. I think this is all really good news. That's the first thing. The second thing is that this New Moon is also very close, within minutes of arc, of being a semi-square to Saturn. And this, again, brings in that Saturn in Aries as a motivator to make things real. Just because they're going into some new direction doesn't mean that it's going to just be a flash in the pan and then gone. I think it adds another layer of solidness and motivational energy to make something happen.

Steve: Yeah, I can see how Saturn will act as a little bit of a—not a brake, but it will stop that New Moon from rushing headfirst into trouble.

Rick: Yeah.

Amanda: Yeah, I like Saturn's role in both the Aries New Moon and it sounds like in this New Moon. It has been to help us make realistic, mature, sustainable plans toward our dream.

Rick: Exactly. That's what Saturn does.

Amanda: Right, instead of just “I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that” without having any discipline or structure around it and having unrealistic expectations. In my experience, it has been very positive in that it's like: “Look, you can do these things you want to do, but it's going to take time. It's going to take a lot more time than you think it's going to take, and it's going to take commitment, dedication, and discipline.” So how bad do you want it? If you want it, you can do it, but don't be unrealistic about what it's going to take to accomplish it.

Steve: And that is a good way of describing May because there is a background, but strong, Saturnine energy over May. And there's also a relatively light, even absent influence of Jupiter during May because he's doing his own thing—16 to 23 degrees of Cancer—not really impacting on anything else apart from one or two minor aspects.

Mars Square Jupiter & Mars Square Pluto

Steve: So it's more Saturnine than Jupiterian. Of course, we've got the Mars square Jupiter at the start of the month, but I disagree with most astrologers. I think that any connection between Mars and Jupiter isn't negative at all. It's just a bit over-enthusiastic.

Rick: Yeah, it can be over-exuberant, but I agree. I don't see anything… the negative possibility of the Mars square Jupiter, which is exact on the 5th, the only negative is taking a step too far, pushing something too far. That can be negative, but it's also the confidence and the exuberance of pushing through something. I agree.

Amanda: So we talked about Mars square Jupiter on May 5th. This was an important one. And then you also brought in that Mars is going to square Pluto at the end of the month. Can we talk about that one too?

Rick: Right, but before we do that, we need to remind ourselves that Mercury will square Pluto on May 5th, and that event will be tied to… again, when planets square Pluto, whether it was the Sun as it did back in April, those energies are difficult. And certainly, the Mars square Pluto, I think, is the most difficult. Steve, you can pick up from that.

Steve: Mars square Pluto is one of the most difficult transits because it's inevitably going to arouse primal energy. It's irrational. Anger can be managed with a sledgehammer or it can be managed with a homeopathic laser. Sensible people at this time will be being incisive, direct, and assertive, but not confrontational and aggressive. But non-sensible people are going to be going primal, getting in touch with raw rage.

Rick: And of course, it's the non-sensible people that seem to be largely in control of some of the larger events. I agree with Steve on this. I often say that when Mars and Pluto duke it out, if Mars doesn't win on the first punch, Pluto will always win. But they're both about force. Remember Mars ruled—or was at home in—Scorpio and in Aries until Pluto was discovered. What many modern astrologers don't know is that when Pluto was discovered and the dialogue was “What sign does it rule?”, there were many very top-notch astrologers, including Charles Jayne and Toby, who made a very strong case for Pluto to rule Aries, not Scorpio.

Now, I think the decision was certainly right; it's more Scorpionic than Aries. But the point here is that we have a Martian and a Martian energy—Pluto being the “higher octave” of Mars. It's like Mars on superhero steroids of some sort, and these two planets at 90 degrees… it’s a power struggle. Power struggles don't go away. But at times when planets square Pluto—particularly when Mars conjoins, squares, or opposes Pluto—something usually happens out in the environment, physically or metaphysically.

Steve: Yeah, “I'll die before I surrender.”

Rick: Yeah. Unfortunately, people do.

Amanda: When is this happening? Is this the end of May? What is the date and how long would you say this is active?

Steve: Mars square Pluto is on the 25th or 26th, depending on your time zone. And but at the same time as Mars square Pluto, the Sun is trining Pluto.

Rick: I was just going to say that! It's like the cosmos gives us a way through, maybe without too much collateral.

Steve: Because at the time that Mars squares Pluto, the Sun is conjunct Uranus, trining Pluto. So there's going to be the ones who just lose their heads and go mad, and then there's going to be those who go, “What's the intelligent way of doing this? What's the novel, original way? Let's think outside the box and come up with new ideas.”

Rick: Or maybe, Steve, it's those who have already gone mad go madder, and there's something that happens that helps ease that process of change that might need to happen when people who are mad and ruling the world are just off the charts. Who knows.

Steve: It's appropriate. I've been saying it for a few weeks now: in the coming few months, certain individuals are going to lose their heads. I may be speaking metaphorically; I may also be speaking literally. But there are certain world leaders who I do not believe are going to be anywhere near as strong by the time we're into early August as they are now. And I'm not just talking about one; I'm talking more than one. I do not include the Chinese Premier in this.

Summer 2026 Astrology

Amanda: You both have alluded to a very specific hotspot in the summer. Can we just peer over into that and see what you're seeing?

Rick: Yeah, I think Steve and I have both spent time with the chart of July 19th—maybe the 16th through the 21st—as a point at which the alignment between not only the first of five trines between Uranus and Pluto that play all the way through the spring of 2028, but on top of that, Neptune at their midpoint sextiling both sides of the trines exactly.

And Jupiter in the picture also, making four points on a six-pointed star. The six-pointed star being either the Solomon Seal or the Star of David—a sign of ultimate balance and harmony. And on July 19th, the Moon moves through that exact same degree, making five out of six points on that star. It's an extraordinary geometric energy that… I don't know what's going to happen, but the energy I think by then is flowing strongly.

Steve: Jupiter opposes Pluto. On average, because Pluto's orbit is not circular, but on average Jupiter opposes Pluto once every 13 years. I consider Jupiter opposite Pluto the Overworld versus the Underworld. The biggest planet versus the smallest planet. The brightest versus the darkest. These are two extremes. I do consider Jupiter opposite Pluto to be a very explosive aspect. But because of the sextile and trines from Uranus and Neptune, I believe that they will ameliorate the more volatile nature of that, and instead of a large, out-of-control explosion, we'll have something far more concise and surgical. And I think we'll get a hint of this around July 4th or 5th, when Mars will pass at 4 degrees of Gemini on top of Uranus.

Rick: On top of Uranus and sextiling Neptune and trining Pluto! Yes, because that's all part of this larger package. And I'm sure you were aware of this, Steve—by July 19th, when the other planets are all in that almost Grand Sextile, on that same day, Mars has moved through that point and Saturn has also moved past that point, and the two of them are sextile. That's another incredible cosmic saving grace to whatever it is that may happen.

Steve: Yeah. And that day happens to be my Jupiter return.

Rick: Happy birthday, dude!

Amanda: Okay, so now I like this question from T.L. We're going to be unpacking the summer, you guys, as we get closer. We'll continue to go into the details of why this is so important, why it matters, how you can work with it, all of that.

Personal Use of Astrology

Amanda: T.L. asked: “With all the big foreboding of what's coming, how do you use your own astrological readings of the times in both your personal and professional lives? Do you heed your own observations? And if so, can you give us a concrete example?”

Steve: I can't speak for other astrologers, but in my practice, I always have to weigh up the transits in the sky against each other as much as I weigh up their influence on a person's natal charts. For example, if I were dealing with someone five or six years ago and I saw that there was a Mars-Saturn conjunction opposite their Sun, I'd be giving them a warning for a week or two. Whereas this time, I'd be thinking, “Well, Mars conjunct Saturn conjunct Mercury, just after a conjunction with Neptune opposite their Sun… that's much more serious, much more intense.”

It does seem that in my readings over the last few months, I've been appealing to my clients to not just wake up and smell the coffee, but to act intelligently and deliberately—choose to say to people, “Okay, I've heard you, I've listened to you, and now I'm going to walk away and think about it and I'll come back to you in a week.” Because we don't need hothead energy at this time. There are enough “nut jobs” out there at the moment. We don't need any more. We need intelligent, mature people. And that's where the astrological community comes in. If you know your astrology, don't overreact to stimulus. Don't buy into the hype and spin.

Amanda: And so in your own life, you're doing that? When you see these things happen in the world, you're not buying into the hype and spin as much as possible?

Steve: Deliberately. I mean, I've taken precautions in my personal life. You have to respond in certain ways. I mean, I've bought a solar-powered mobile phone charger—you know, little things like that just in case. But that's the beauty of age, Amanda. You live through various crises and traumas where everyone goes, “Ah, the world's going to end!” and it's like, “Yeah, it didn't.” You know what? I don't think it will. We'll muddle through, but every time we muddle through, we just climb another rung on that consciousness ladder. And this time we're going in leaps and bounds.

Rick: I think your question is a really interesting question. Actually, it's one that Steve asked me if I would give a talk on at “Shifts Happen 2,” and we're calling it something like “Memories from the Astrologer's Notebook.” It's basically: what does it mean being a professional practicing astrologer, and how does that impact your life? How do you use it in your life, and where has it worked and where hasn't it helped at all? It's something that I've actually been thinking about because I'm giving a talk in three weeks on it.

But I think that in these times, the energy is so extraordinarily bifurcated and polarized to extremes that what Steve said is really the singularly most important thing. It's the “take a deep breath.” It's the respond, but don't react—because the reaction is what happens immediately. And I say this as an Aries who for years has been saying my Aries one-liner is “Ready, Fire, Aim” rather than “Ready, Aim, Fire.” And right now, it's easy to go “Ready, Fire, Aim” and aim afterwards. And that's exactly the thing that will get us into trouble.

It's the idea of—and I know I say this way too often—but think cosmically and act locally. Acting locally means being aware of how you apply the cosmic perspective. Hopefully, you increase the angle of your perspective more and more to include more. Normally our vision is laser-like, and yet as we widen our perspective and include more varieties, that gives us an ability to understand. My now-deceased astrology partner in crime, Jeff Jawer, used to say that many people mistakenly think that “Oh, my Mars is in Taurus and therefore I am blah, blah, blah,” when the fact of the matter is astrology shows us 11 other ways that I can react with Mars in 11 other signs, rather than just blindly following gravity pulling us down to the earth as fast as possible, taking the course of least resistance. So I totally agree with Steve that the most important thing we can do now is increase our awareness however we can and not react, but respond after we've had time to think about what the consequences or ramifications of our reaction might be.

Steve: I'd just like to quote two sentences—you're going to hate me for this, Rick. I'd like to just give you the opening sentence and the closing sentence of Rick's preamble for his talk at Shifts. He wrote the first sentence: “The most important tool an astrologer has isn't software or technique; it's curiosity.” And the final sentence says: “This talk is part storytelling, part wisdom, and part cosmic mischief.”

Rick: I said that?

Steve: You said that. I've got it in print.

Amanda: You guys… this brings me back to something that we talked about in the very beginning, the question from Ann where she was saying herself and all the people around her are having restless sleep, they're feeling agitated, they're wanting to cry, they're feeling excited. What you're talking about in terms of responding instead of reacting is harder to do when the nervous system is in that fight-or-flight status that she’s describing. So it seems like if the most important thing for us to do is to respond instead of react, and we know that's hard to do when we're not sleeping, it would be taking care of that “motherboard” of the nervous system through grounding.

Steve: Grounding. Plug your fingers like a socket into the earth. I've been gardening, hands in the ground.

Amanda: Yes, exactly. Gardening, walking, all the things.

Rick: Yeah, Amanda, what you're saying is absolutely true and important. If I don't have any water in my own cup, I don't have any water to share with someone who's thirsty. So we have to take care of ourselves and that means doing whatever we need to do to not burn out. I mean, I am a bit of a news junkie and information junkie. If there's new information out there, I want to know about it, but I've been consciously monitoring that just because it's such an overwhelm.

The Bible in Revelations talks about a flood. Well, we are in the midst of that flood, but it's not a flood of water or of rain. It's a flood of images in the sky, and you can think of it as fire in the air. And all the planets right now are moving into fire and air signs. It's what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called the “noosphere.” There's like this sphere around us: the World Wide Web, the internet, artificial intelligence, whatever you want to call it. And it's basically fire in the air. And these images are raining upon us in news, in Instagram, just overwhelming. And that flooding is basically turning us into paralyzed beings of just not knowing what to do. And we have to be able to take, as Steve said, the fingers off the control board and recharge in whatever way we can or need to.

Amanda: It brings me back to Saturn again. I feel like Saturn's here to say, “Look, if you know these things fry you, if you know these things disrupt your sleep, be mature and responsible and create your own boundaries and your own discipline around them.” We have to be sovereign enough to make those decisions. But the first thing, which we've talked about a million times today, is awareness. The first thing is just having an awareness of like, “Oh wait, if there's all this fire and air energy happening and everything's electric and fast and getting faster, how do I make sure that in that flood I can remain in myself?” I can remain in my center so I can respond instead of react. So I'm not a part of the problem of all the hot-headedness and all these things.

May Hotspots

Amanda: Tell us the hot dates. If we had our little calendars out and we're wanting to make some notes, what are the ones to pay attention to?

Steve: The 15th to the 18th—not just because of the event, but because it's the New Moon and Mercury conjunct Uranus in early Gemini. And then somewhere around the 26th, when Mars squares Pluto. These are the two hot points for me. I'm sure Rick's got a couple of others, but those are the two I'll be particularly paying attention to and encouraging all my clients not to go over the top.

Rick: Yeah, I would add the lunations: the full Moon on May 1st at 5:23 PM Pacific time, and the second full moon, being technically a Blue Moon, on May 31st at 8:45 AM Pacific time. I think both of those dates, even though they're not super consequential, are important. And the New Moon, of course, on the 16th or 17th depending on whether you're in the US or in Europe.

There's a couple of other periods though. On May 21st, the Sun moves out of Taurus and into Gemini, and as it does that, it will then very quickly line up with Uranus the following day on the 22nd. And that's kind of another reminder of how potent this Uranus release of energy is going to be, especially as Mercury conjoins it on the 18th and then the Sun conjoins it on the 22nd. I think Steve also mentioned the Mars square Pluto on the 26th, but the Mercury square Pluto on the 5th will give us some clues about that later Mars-Pluto square.

The other thing is that Pluto turns retrograde on the 5th. What that really means is that Pluto in the first two weeks of May is at the same degree and minute, even though it's technically stationary on May 6th. The fact of the matter is it moves less than one minute of arc from May 1st to May 15th. And when a planet is stationary, it has more power.

Steve: Yes, less than one minute of arc.

Rick: There are other aspects that happen, but I think those are some of the main ones. We do have a Venus square Saturn at the end of the month, which may feel a bit restraining as Venus is in Cancer and will be squaring Saturn in Aries. That may feel pretty tight for a couple of days about getting what we want or getting to go where we want to go. It may feel a little bit isolating leading into the full moon on the 31st. We also mentioned the Mars square Jupiter on May 5th—the over-exuberance and overconfidence.

One of the things that I did notice is that because so many planets are so close together, there are more semi-squares. I can hear Steve saying “Yep, these are minor aspects,” well, they're not minor in what they can create in our lives. We have more semi-squares (half-squares) and semi-sextiles (half of a sextile) because of how close the planets are. It may feel like a lot of the month has that high level of irritation, annoyance, frustration… kind of an anxiety and feeling like we need to do something, but not sure of what we need to do. I think the most important thing is to just keep aware that these energies will resolve and that inaction is not advisable, but over-reaction is even less advisable.

Steve: It feels like two bits of sandpaper going up against each other, creating not electric, but static.

Rick: Good one. And irritation.

Amanda: Okay, you guys are amazing. Love you so much. Thank you for giving us such an incredible overview. We talked a lot of astrology, but we also talked a lot of really practical guidance for how to work with the energies of this time. Thank you to all of you for being here, for being part of the global awakening of souls who are asking questions, who are looking beyond what we see, looking beyond what we've been told and looking to the stars for guidance. We appreciate you so much. Thank you for being a part of our community. Thank you as always for making astrology a part of your life. We look forward to connecting with you on the next episode.

Rick: And thank you for what you do.

Amanda: My pleasure. Thanks, everyone.