Saturn and Neptune are forming a conjunction in Aries, an influence that will carry through the rest of 2026. Let’s look at how these planets operate in cardinal fire and what we can do to work with their energies. Then I’ll leave you with the spring season timeline as inner planets transit through Aries, drawing Saturn and Neptune down into our personal world.

The Aries Hero

Everything begins in Aries. It’s the first sign of the zodiac, and it opens the door to unknown frontiers, previously undiscovered and unexplored. Aries is motivated to push forward like the ram sensing danger—horns down and headfirst. It’s fueled by a vital and forceful need to take action, to make a decision that leaves passivity and uncertainty behind. Planets in Aries activate the hero archetype, the root of courage and valor. The hero is brave and authentic, asserting strength righteously. The hero is self-sacrificing and protective, defending those who are weaker. There’s an authentic and instantaneous need to do what is necessary to ensure survival and to fight the perceived enemy. But the problem arises when Aries power gets distorted and manipulated.

The Aries Shadow

All signs have ‘shadows’—the side that expresses the lower, problematic tendencies. As my teacher says, “Every front has a back.” Aries, the opposite sign from Libra, aggravates our sense of balance and fair play. It puts stress on relationships. There’s an inability to see reason, a reluctance to compromise or consider an opposite point of view. The warrior cannot let its guard down and is resistant to receiving help, considering it patronizing or babying. This shadowy warrior looks at anything as a threat, encouraging a lack of empathy and provoking unimaginable cruelty.

“The headlong rush of Aries is sometimes a flight from the past, a fear of being ‘re-absorbed’ into the matrix from which escape is sought. This fear can generate violence, should anyone get in the way of the dragon-fight we may be engaged in, and which we feel we must win… or else become extinct. A compulsive adrenally-charged auto-response can also be a form of avoidance. Avoidance of the truth of our own vulnerability, our unresolutions and failures. Wanting eternally, indeed agitating to move on…” Melanie Reinhart, Poppies and Cornflowers: Chiron in Aries

True Aries Power

During Aries-saturated times, we are forced us to encounter the purpose that self-centeredness serves in our lives. Self-preservation and ambition can be positive and useful. It can help us go forward out of stillness, breaking new ground. Where has self-sacrifice and devotion dimmed your strength? Where has co-dependency and the game of social/political quid quo pro become sickeningly artificial? That’s what Aries can help expose.

But we will also be faced with intimidation and intense stress during these times. Aries energy requires that we be aware of what we’re truly afraid of. Otherwise we’ll find ourselves going off the rails, driven blindly by an adrenaline rush of self-defense and indignation, sensing danger but unable to conquer it. It’s time to do some spring cleaning in the internal terrain. The work is to look for places we’re sacrificing too much strength, and the other places where we are overcompensating for it.  Saturn and Neptune can help us move out of these ruts. It can inspire us to embody the hero who does what’s best for all involved, including us.

Saturn and Neptune in Aries

Next, let’s get into the conjunction of Saturn and Neptune. The two planets have been traveling through the zodiac together for quite a while. Their conjunction slowly started building as soon as Saturn first entered Pisces in March 2023. Neptune, a slow-moving outer planet, had already been in Pisces for decades. It was Saturn’s arrival here three years ago that marked the beginning of this time period.  

Then Neptune crossed the cusp from Pisces to Aries on January 30, 2026; Saturn followed on February 12. And they formed their exact conjunction in Aries on February 20, 2026, although both planets will remain within 15 degrees of each other this entire year. Saturn and Neptune are fundamentally opposite, so their close proximity to one another is (and has been) tough to cope with. It is defining an era of disillusionment with reality and a sense of losing ground.

The Conjunction

Saturn is reality; Neptune is fantasy. Saturn limits with literal boundaries of time, energy, and resources. It forces us to develop integrity and character while taking accountability and experiencing failure. Neptune dissolves the foundation of our ego. Neptune can be our conscience, or it can be the thing we use to escape our conscience. It inspires and consoles us with waves of loss, bliss, compassion, understanding, and remorse. It lowers the boundary between our ego and our soul. It can delude us with false promises, intentional deceit, and weakened morality.

“Neptune energies are extremely hard for most people to deal with, simply because to be successful in the mundane universe, one must be able to deal effectively with Saturn, and it is hard to deal effectively with both planets at once. Saturn represents the apparent reality of reality, giving what we call reality the appearance of truth. The universe of Neptune is one of unlimited possibilities, in which there are no rules except those created arbitrarily at certain points in the time-space so that the divine dance we call reality can take place…

To be able to handle Neptune and Saturn at once is difficult. One must be able to play the game of reality completely and with total conviction, exactly as if it were real in the ultimate sense, while at the same time knowing in one’s heart that it is not. One must be able to live in the universe of Saturn, being responsible and aware of its laws, while at the same time not requiring it for support. The addiction to structure that we referred to under Saturn is not permissible with Neptune. This is what is called detachment: playing the game for real yet knowing that it is not.” Robert Hand, Horoscope Symbols

Saturn and Neptune: The Fog of War

For example, let’s put this into the context of world events. Saturn symbolizes government structures and authority figures; Neptune symbolizes religious longing, fantasy, and delusion. Neptune weakens clarity and conceals reality. One literal symptom of Saturn and Neptune in Aries is the blurring of boundaries and rules. There’s an obfuscation of dignity and leadership, an undermining and manipulation of the military. It’s bullying behavior used for the purpose of greed and power.

The United States initiated an attack on Iran on February 28, 2026. That’s just one week after the exact conjunction of Saturn and Neptune. There has been no proof that the United States was under imminent threat, and no transparency about Trump’s military objectives. The U.S. State Department has been scrambling to evacuate American citizens in the Middle East. A U.S. tomahawk missile struck an Iranian girls’ school in error, and no one is taking responsibility.

Another manifestation of the Saturn/Neptune conjunction is the disturbing blurring of the human and the divine. According to reporting by independent journalist Jonathan Larsen on March 2, 2026, “A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.’ Over 100 grievances were reported to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation within three days of Trump’s initial strike on Iran, coming from different military sites in the Middle East.”

The Work of Saturn and Neptune

How can we work with Saturn and Neptune? Sometimes Saturn blocks us with our own inferiority. It holds on to tight to the memory of failure, crippling us from attempting anything else that may get us hurt again. But Neptune is breaking down some of those places where our ego was crystallized in fear. It may have done so in disorienting and unfriendly ways—deteriorating our sense of having two feet firmly planted in a familiar life. However, in that fear, there’s a void—a blank space for a new and more idealized structure to take root.

The most difficult part of the Saturn/Neptune conjunction is the exhaustion of losing faith, of not knowing what direction we’re going. It’s the challenge of feeling like the ground is always slipping out from under us. And that’s where self-defense gets too strong. The essence of the work in front of us right now is about not hardening to possibility. It involves holding firm to a new vision for our lives, and trying to carve out a reality that lives up to the dream. But it doesn’t mean creating enemies where there are none, except our own ghosts.

What to Try

There are these two cognitive blind spots that are defined in behavioral science:  the fundamental attribution error and the actor-observer bias. They are natural tendencies we humans have when judging other people’s actions, and they’re the source of much of our anger, discontent, and disappointment. Saturn and Neptune are accentuating Aries energy, making it more likely we’ll perceive situations as a threat or a competition. Maybe these tools can help us see that distortion

The fundamental attribution error is when we assume people’s decisions are based on their inherent personality traits, rather than the situational factors that are out of their control. For example, we react with anger when someone is driving too fast behind us, riding the bumper. But we fail to consider that they’re racing to get to someone in medical distress, or in an emergency themselves.  

According to The Decision Lab, “we assume that no matter what the circumstances, an individual’s actions will still generally reflect what they are like as a person. This can cause us to make unfair and incorrect judgments about people, discounting possible reasons that might have contributed to their behavior. This can lead to a deficit in our personal relationships as we do not afford others the benefit of the doubt when their actions are guided by situational factors

The actor-observer bias is very similar. We tend to judge people’s actions as though they are inherent to their personality, while easily justifying our own due to the circumstances we were dealing with at the time that will explain our shortcomings. The Decision Lab says, “While we like to explain our own actions in terms of the various external factors, when it comes to other people, we are quick to say that they act the way they do because that’s just the ‘way they are’.”

The Saturn and Neptune Blindspot

In either case, we’re not seeing the situation clearly. The archetypal hero of Aries is blinded by self-centered bias. In one case, we create an enemy when someone doesn’t deserve it. In the other, we judge someone as fundamentally flawed, while rationalizing that we are just coping with life and doing the best we can. Anger festers in this judgment, augmenting defensiveness and hatred.

Rather than the mindless, headfirst angst to make a decision, any decision, regardless of how painful… consider the hero. Watch for insincere outrage, as well as the denial and avoidance of personal culpability. Saturn and Neptune are guides, and they’re pointing us this way. Toward innocent desire, honest disclosure, and one simple virtue: treating people as an ends in their own right, not a means to get what we want, or as an obstacle in our way.

“Because heroism isn’t just bravery or guts or shrewd maneuvering. These things are common and are often used in unheroic ways. No, being heroic is the ability to conjure hope where there is none. To strike a match to light up the void. To take a situation where everything seems to be fucked and still somehow make it good.” Mark Manson, Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope

Find out how these transits are hitting your chart– book a reading with me, available locally and worldwide. Also, I’m returning to social media on the spring equinox. Follow me on Instagram if you’re in the hood.