Every year the sun walks into Aries, and astrologers cast a chart for that exact moment over the capital city. For the US, that’s Washington DC. That chart becomes the forecast for the year. It’s called the Aries Ingress, one of the oldest tools in mundane astrology, and I love it because it doesn’t care about your feelings. It just tells you what’s coming.
This chart picks up where the Capricorn Ingress forecast leaves off, so if you haven’t read that one, start there for the first quarter of the year.
And what’s coming this year is a lot. When I put this chart on the Uranian dial, the first equation I found on the world axis showed heads of state wielding extreme executive power, a food and agriculture crisis forcing government intervention, and propaganda so thick you could spread it on toast. So grab your beverage of choice. Let’s talk about the rest of 2026.
A year that runs on information
The chart has Gemini rising at 13 degrees, so the year is oriented around communication, media, trade, and transit. Picture a tornado made entirely of news alerts and group chats. That’s the vibe.
Mercury rules this ascendant, which means Mercury speaks for the people, and Mercury is stationary in this chart. On March 20th it was standing still in the sky: not retrograde anymore, not yet direct, just frozen. In Pisces. Conjunct the North Node. In the 10th house, the house of the president and the government.
A stationary planet in a mundane chart is like turning the volume knob all the way up and then breaking it off. The planet that represents how the public thinks and processes information is maxed out for the entire year, in the sign of confusion and overwhelm, stuck in the house of leadership. The people cannot stop thinking about the government, and they’re confused while doing it. Expect negotiations that drag on forever, a collective nervous tension where nobody can get on the same page, and a public that’s overstimulated to the point of exhaustion.
Power, exercised loudly
Now the Uranian layer. On the axis where the ascendant meets the midheaven, we find Sun-Vulcanus and Vulcanus-Aries. In plain English: supreme, overwhelming executive power exercised by heads of state, loud and in public, because it’s on the Aries point where the whole world is watching.
On the same axis sits Venus-Kronos, which is very specifically the great helping hand: charity, welfare, state-sponsored aid (it can also be a woman in power). So the government is wielding all this force in the name of helping. Massive relief programs and large-scale public assistance are on the table.
Why would the state need to step in like that? Because Neptune-Ceres is on this axis too. Ceres is food, agriculture, crops, the systems that feed the population. Neptune dissolves things and makes them leak. Something is going wrong with the food supply. Separately, Ceres = Pluto-Vulcanus: forced, rapid, potentially reckless transformation of agriculture. Farmers have already been struggling as immigration policy stripped the labor force from that sector, with crops dying in the fields for lack of workers. The administration says 2026 will be better for farmers. Does the chart agree? It’s complicated.
The tailored suit with holey underwear
The 4th house in a mundane chart is the land: agriculture, real estate, infrastructure, and the common people. Its ruler here is the sun, exalted in Aries, which looks amazing on paper. Exaltation is the sun showing up in a tailored suit with a fresh cut. Except the sun is conjunct Neptune and Saturn. The suit looks good, but underneath it the sun has on holey underwear, and that crispy hairline you saw was sprayed on.
For farmers, the promises will sound good and the headlines might say things are improving, but Neptune means reality is murkier than the press release, and Saturn means results arrive later and deliver less than advertised. For real estate, same energy. The market is going to look like it’s bouncing back. Do not get swept up. Neptune creates mirages and Saturn delivers the bill 6 months later. If you’re making major property decisions this year, do your homework twice, then twice more.
The sun also sits on the world axis, so these domestic stories go international. The common American story is a global story this year, for better or worse.
The information war
Pluto is in the 9th house, which covers publishing, broadcasting, religion, and every platform where opinions get publicly proclaimed. Pluto here is group seizure of public opinion: propaganda, the deliberate suppression and distortion of facts to manufacture a narrative. Pluto’s worst trait is inversion, making the false appear true and the true appear dangerous. And Pluto splits groups into two rival factions, so the ideological warfare will be relentless.
Stack the equations: Moon-Poseidon on the Aries point shows a public heavily influenced by media and ideological rhetoric. Mercury-Pluto on Mars shows propaganda tied directly to military action. Add stationary Mercury in Pisces and the full picture is a foggy, overstimulated public, deliberately controlled information, and a war machine with a media department.
Finding the truth this year takes real effort. Vet your sources. Think twice before you share things. The chart is begging us.
The pressure cooker
Saturn on the dial equals Admetos-Vulcanus: in the forge of fate, a mighty hindrance, a compressing load. The structural reality of the year is a pressure cooker with no release valve. You’ll feel it as that heavy ambient pressure where you can’t point to one thing, but everything feels harder than it should.
Moon-Hades on the ascendant points to a grieving public, poverty, a general atmosphere of loss, combined with Hygiea-Apollon: health issues spreading and multiplying. Health, hygiene, and wellness become a first house story this year, whether people choose it proactively or circumstances demand it. Vesta = Admetos-Transpluto adds a workforce absorbing a paralyzing crisis: labor stoppages, supply chain paralysis, workers asked to sacrifice comfort for survival.
And the military threads run all through this chart. Zeus = Chiron-Eris shows armed forces acting like rule breakers, using unconventional tactics with open disregard for established rules of engagement. Juno = Chiron-Eris means diplomacy gets the same treatment: traditional alliances breaking apart, new ones forming that nobody saw coming. Meanwhile the big Aries stellium sits in the 11th house of the legislature and national alliances, every planet in it ruled by a confused, reactive Pisces Mars in the government’s house. That’s the energy that takes everything as disrespect and doesn’t realize its own intensity is creating the hostility it thinks it’s responding to.
Uranus in the 12th house rounds it out: sudden crises in prisons, hospitals, and institutions, whistleblowers using unconventional methods, and surveillance or AI systems doing things the public doesn’t know about. Something in that space surfaces when nobody expects it.
The life raft
After all that, is anything good happening in this chart? Fair question. The midheaven, the stated aim of the year, is anchored by Venus-Jupiter. That is the signature for joy, financial success, diplomacy, and abundance. It’s the nicest thing in this chart, and I’ve been holding onto it like a life raft, baby. Moon-Pluto is there too: deep transformation of the masses, women in positions of power, a fundamental shift in public consciousness.
So the destination is good. The road there is dicey. And the Sabian symbol on the midheaven captures the whole year in one image: a woman, disappointed and disillusioned, courageously facing the future. The dreams don’t come through the way anybody expected. The illusions fall away. But you face it, and you keep going.
Take care of yourselves this year. Be smart about your information. Watch the food and agriculture space. Don’t trust the housing bounce-back just because it looks good in a headline. And hold onto that Venus-Jupiter, because we’re going to need it.
Want to know how this year’s chart lands on yours? Book a consultation and we’ll map it together.
