2025 is the greatest show in town and January sets the stage. Fortify your base with Mars retrograde in Cancer, ease yourself into the future with the North Node in Pisces, and let the Cancer Full Moon and Aquarius New Moon prepare you for take off…

January 2025 Astrology Forecast
We’re about to enter a brave new world and January wastes no time in preparing the ground. The Lunar Nodes, which reflect the most important issues of our times, change signs on January 11th and magnetise us all toward a new North, as we're headed toward the perfect storm...
Mars is still retrograde and we’re in a process of frantically trying to sort out our internal world and fortifying our base in readiness for a powerful year to come.
With a juicy and energising Cancer Full Moon and an exciting if somewhat nervous Aquarius New Moon we’re well on our way.
Read up on the January 2025 astrology highlights, including the bit about Venus, and should you need to zoom in more closely, you can check out January’s astrological calendar to make sense of particular dates in the month.
Lunar Nodes enter Pisces-Virgo January 11th: Spiritual Awakening In A Grey World
The big news this month? On January 11th the Lunar Nodes enter Pisces and Virgo shifting away from Aries and Libra, where they have been since mid-2023.
This completely changes the themes that grip our world now and until July 2026.
The Lunar Nodes are the points where the eclipses happen. They act like magnets literally pulling our world into a completely new direction from now on and for the next eighteen months.
With the North Node in Pisces and the South Node in Virgo, what humanity needs now is a true spiritual awakening to battle the increasing automation threatening to stamp out what makes us human.
Read up on what to expect with the Lunar Nodes in Pisces and Virgo now and until 27 July 2026.
In other news...
Mars Retrograde re-enters Cancer, January 6th: True Motives!
Mars retrograde enters Cancer on January 6th and it's time to fortify our base, ready for a big push this spring. It's also time to dig deeper to uncover our true motives!
Mars has been retrograde since December 6th and we’ve entered 2025 ready for a major redo, as we shuffle around, change and re-energise major aspects of our lives. Now on January 6th Mars regresses back into Cancer, whilst coming off its opposition to Pluto on the 3rd.
What may have felt like a grand bold endeavour up to now, suddenly feels deeply personal, with the potential to activate deeply seated insecurities.
The ongoing Mars-Pluto opposition is a slow-burn kind of anger borne out of back-against-the-wall kind of scenarios. Now with Mars in Cancer, it's time to dig deeper to find out what truly makes us tick. It's imperative we delve more deeply into our true motivations now, rather than react or snap. It is also time to fortify our base and examine how our current plans and endeavours affect our home, family, and our sense of security.
Mars in Cancer, where he will stay until April 18th, can be quite defensive as it seeks to protect its ground and secure its base of operations. This is a good time to work through any hang ups. It won’t be until Mars turns direct February 24th that we will be ready to move ahead more fully with re-arranging our physical and emotional space for a big push forward.
Mars-Sun opposition, January 16th: Crystallised Desire
True desires are sure to crystallise around the Cancer Full Moon of January 13th and the Sun-Mars opposition on January 16th.
This can be a moment of great clarity as to what we truly want.
A seething undercurrent of anger could find outlets of release during this time - but if so, only to free up energy and put it at our disposal down the line.
Mars-Pluto opposition, January 3rd: Face Your Fears
Fear is sure to rear its ugly head in this entire journey and may have done so already around January 3rd as Mars opposed Pluto. This is an aspect that has been active on and off since November 3rd (the time of the US election) and won't be completely over until April 27th when Mars opposes Pluto for the third and final time.
Deep fear, and the accompanying colossal strength it takes to rise up to the occasion are the hallmarks of this aspect.
This is a brutally galvanising combo of super-hero action, stress and potentially physical exhaustion - but it can also be hugely satisfying as we overcome the odds and expend a great effort toward some monumental goal.
Mars remains within range of Pluto all of January and will oppose Pluto once in April, once he is back into Leo, this time in forward motion. We’re not out of the woods yet.
It is crucial to face our fears now, while Mars is dormant, and not be dominated by them, ready to fearlessly move forward in spring.
Mars Out of Bounds until April 7th: Do It Your Way
Mars is also ‘out of bounds’ during this entire time and until April 7th, i.e. he’s veering way off North of the apparent path of the sun, literally sitting bright and reddish overhead in the star-studded night sky! This makes the warrior planet even stronger right now, especially as he also reaches his perigee (closest to the earth) on January 12th.
Mars out of bounds gives us the devil-may-care attitude to march to our own drum, ignore the norm and go our own way.
This can be a time of stubborn and immature wilfulness. But there is also the potential here to accomplish something great. It's time to say "I did it my way".
Cancer Full Moon January 13th: Inner Rebirth
This month’s Full Moon is in Cancer at 23:59 degrees at 22:26UT on January 13th - a hugely energising moment! The Moon is conjunct Mars retrograde and opposite the Sun and Pluto. Both the Sun and Moon harmonise with Uranus, Neptune and the Lunar Nodes with the Sun-Uranus trine near exact.
This lunation is a great motivator for change and progress.
It reinforces this sense of being pitted against indomitable forces, thanks to Mars-Pluto, which only serves to strengthen the will and steel our determination, and which will keep us going until May this year.
This Full Moon also brings great inspiration with it, thanks to Neptune, and makes it easy to innovate and make changes, thanks to Uranus. As this Full Moon activates the mini-grand-trine in the skies, energy flows!
This Cancer Full Moon sets us on our first steps toward a great renaissance that’s slowly building up in our world and won’t be fully completed until 2032.
Cancer is all about our base, our inner world, our history, our home, our family and roots, our foundations and our very source of protection, nourishment and sustenance in life on all levels - physical, emotional, spiritual. Cancer represents our home. And it represents our sacred source.
This lunation crystallises a desire to protect and defend what is most sacred in our lives.
As the source of all life, Cancer is also the source of all birth and creativity. Time to let the wellspring of life swell within, uncovering our true motivations, and leading to fruitful action. This is no time to mindlessly react to external events. It’s time to turn inwards and reconnect with our true will and impetus.
The Moon is strong in Cancer and is sure to exert a powerful emotional pull - more so with warrior Mars present. If it is anger that wells up within, then it’s time for it to be (safely) released so that creative energy can flow again. Time to expel whatever blocks stand in the way of our own private renaissance.
This lunation has a curious Sabian Symbol, “a woman and two men castaways on a small island off the south seas”. This seems to reinforce the importance of turning inward (castaways), so that we can re-integrate the distinct passions and impulses of our nature.
This Full Moon facilitates a great release of energy that has otherwise been held back or expended in repression.
It is the realisation that every aspect of ourselves is dependent on every other, and that only the whole can allow us to move forward, that restarts our engine.
Aquarius New Moon January 29th: Great Expectations
On January 29th we have an Aquarius New Moon at 09:51 degrees at 12:51 UT.
This New Moon is full of hope and excitement for a new beginning!
It’s a little nerve racking too… Jupiter, almost stationary and breathless in the skies, closely trines both the Sun and Moon, while Uranus, Aquarius’ ruler, also stationary, is about to turn direct on the 30th. This is nail-biting time. There is such a rush of exhilarating energy, such a nervous thrill of anticipation that we may be barely able to sit still in a chair, let alone concentrate or sleep!
This is a hugely forward-looking moment, an awakening from sleep, and an innovative turning point as we prepare to implement all sorts of new ideas - and ideals - in our lives.
This New Moon is also conjunct Pluto in Aquarius, and Mercury right on top of it, signalling the depth and life-or-death intensity of thought or planning now occupying our minds. These are big life issues we’re contemplating and could even seem scary as we navigate a newly unfamiliar world.
This a good moment to set a powerful and transformative intent for the year ahead.
The Sabian Symbol for this New Moon is “a man who had for a time become the embodiment of a popular ideal is made to realise that as a person he is not this ideal.” Politicians, leaders and icons, take heed! Aquarius stands for the ideals we hold and that shape our world. These are abstract in nature and detachment is a key Aquarian quality. However, forcing others to fit the utopian image in our minds, and not seeing people merely as, well, people with flaws is often Aquarius’ downfall in relationship. Worse perhaps, a personal identification as the personification of a collective ideal itself is the greatest Aquarian hubris.
Time to detach our ideals from the person or persons representing them! Time to pull back all projections, dispel hero worship and banish all delusions, so we can carry out an honest self appraisal.
This could be a moment of dark, shady, even scarcely believable revelations hitting the news. If so it is a totally liberating moment. It’s time to fearlessly embrace all kinds of truth, face facts, good and bad, and simply move forward.
Venus in Pisces Enters Retrograde Shadow January 28th
Amid all this, Venus spends January in Pisces (from January 3rd) exalted, romantic, loving and aesthetically refined. Venus meets Saturn in Pisces on the 19th, a day to consider matters of love, money and personal preference most seriously!
Venus then begins treading super-sensitive ground that she will go back over in March, as she heads toward Neptune and the Lunar Nodes toward the end of the month. For Venus is soon to go retrograde, on March 2nd (a one-in-eighteen-month-event) urging us to revisit relationships and spending-patterns and re-evaluate life on many fronts.
With Venus entering her retrograde shadow, the end of January eases us into a multi-month evaluation process of our finances, relationships and anything else that is of value to us.
This process will get fully underway in March - a seminal month this year in so many ways! - which is also when Venus turns retrograde, and won’t be completed until May, when Venus is fully out of the woods.
So, as January draws to a close, it’s time to wrap up loose ends around finances, relationships with people, places or things, and agreements of all kinds and get ready for a major realignment as we head into Spring.
January’s Astrological Calendar: Check That Date!
With January's key highlights behind us, use this calendar to check out any dates that may interest you. Each time has a quality!
WEEK 1
3rd Venus in Pisces: a loving, romantic, artistic time begins (until February 4th)
3rd Mars opposes Pluto: fears flare up, great effort, anger.
4th Sun (at perigee) sextile Saturn: a chance to organise and implement plans
5th Mars trine North Node: great energy, time for action, achieving great feats
WEEK 2
6th Mars Retrograde back into Cancer (until April 18): time to understand our desires at source, build our defences, regroup around house and home, family and country.
6th Mercury square Neptune: wishful, imaginative, creative and romantic thought and talk
8th Mercury enters Capricorn & squares Nodes: back to business, key decisions.
9th Sun square Chiron: healing and authenticity, expressing past hurts.
11th Lunar Nodes into Pisces-Virgo: humanity enters a new phase of development.
12th Mars at perigee trines Neptune: highly energising, inspired action
WEEK 3
13th Cancer Full Moon / Sun trine Uranus: Energising, liberating clarity on personal matters, time to make decisions and act on them.
14th Venus square Jupiter: excess in love, pleasure, spending - nothing’s enough
16th Mars opposite Sun: the crystallisation of desires and plans of action
17th-18th Sun sextile Neptune/North Node: A chance to align goals and dreams
19th Venus Conjunct Saturn, both sextile Mercury: a very serious day of financial or relationship planning and an opportunity to seal the deal, sign on the dotted line, liaise, communicate and organise your world.
19th Sun enters Aquarius: Happy Birthday Aquarius!
WEEK 4
21st Mercury square Chiron: express hurt in words.
21st Sun Conjunct Pluto: A first inkling of a brand new future in the making. Can be slightly intimidating. Laser-like focus on a goal.
23rd Mars sextile Uranus opposite Mercury: Find innovative ways to align word and deed! Potential anger.
25th Venus trine Mars: passion, heat and desire for love and pleasure.
26th Mercury sextile Neptune + Venus sextile Uranus: a great fun day of inspired conversations and exciting encounters.
WEEK 5
27th Saturn's last semisquare to Pluto + Mercury sextile North Node: Time to spread the word. Ideas seeded in early 2020 (pandemic) that have been thwarted for a while now are free past this point to start taking shape.
28th-29th Mercury enters Aquarius conjuncts Pluto: Serious futuristic thinking and conversations, convincing arguments, transformative ideas
29th Aquarius New Moon: an electrifying fresh start.
30th Uranus Station Direct + Sun trines Jupiter: a time of great excitement and anticipation!
Image by Heather Shevlin from Unsplash
Article by YourAstroGenes
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