May 24th, 2025 - An Astrological Case Study in Emotional Instability
Allow me to be a bad example case study for the benefit of the collective, for just a moment.
Last Saturday night, I did something I haven't done in years - I publicly confronted someone, in a fiery, hotheaded, call-out. Did they do something wrong? In my personal, subjective opinion, maybe. Did they do something which *really* necessitated getting publicly lit into at a bar? Absolutely not.
Did I kill the night for everyone involved with my out-of-hand vitriolic vibe? Would I like to not do the same thing in the future? Yes. Am I grateful to have learned this in a setting where the person involved, graciously, did not take this opportunity to respond with even a fraction of the animosity I had towards them and no one ended up seriously injured with no property damage? Yes.
Not that I've ever been a beacon of emotional regulation and stability, but I can't recall the last time I've done something like that before. Wanted to? Yes. Carried it out and acted on it with certainty that it was correct or right? No.
Unique events make great case studies for evaluating unique, astrological event, and gathering datapoints for future reference.
Why then? Why that? What was so different about that than any other night? Where did all of these intense feelings even come from? When will I see similar aspects under different circumstances in the future?
This is where I should explicitly state: reflective astrology is about evaluating the energies we are being called to proactively respond to and take ownership of. It's about taking responsibility for what we're being handed, without inflicting harm on others or ourselves in the process. It's an accountability tool, not a justification generator. The transits described below are not descriptions of my behaviors or choices but descriptions of the settings and factors which I would then make choices in response to. The feelings exacerbated by certain transits, and placements of different planets, give us the lay of the internal and external landscape. What a person chooses to do with those factors are up to them.
In this case, the transits provide some incredibly clear indicators of what was going on that night.
To start off, here's a few simple facts about my chart that will hold true for all transits all of the time:
My natal Mercury is at the 29th degree of Cancer. Any time something transits my natal Mercury, it's making an aspect with a planet that's at a critical, intensified degree. Cancer is often described as the most sensitive sign of the zodiac, and in my experience, that is largely true.
The undeveloped expression of this sign analyzes the world through a lens of safety and defense from perceived threats. Undeveloped Cancer communication and cognition is used as a method to set up the world around oneself as an impenetrable fortress (materially, socially, and psychologically). A developed manifestation of this placement results in an individual with uniquely high-attunement to the most basic, fundamental needs of others, and a high degree of caretaking skill.
These placements would be especially benefited by regulating their sympathetic nervous systems, doing whatever is necessary to keep their more easily activated fight-or-flight response in check, and intentionally maintaining a conscious understanding that their view of the world as an intensely threatening place differs substantially from those without strong Cancer placements.
Chiron and my Part of Fortune (POF) are both in the sign of Scorpio, 1 degree apart from the other (nearly conjunct). Any time something makes an aspect to one, they are making an aspect to the other. Activate the ever-present trauma that Chiron rules over, and you will activate my material success and purpose in this life. Get in contact with the part of my chart that handles material success, and my trauma will be right there with it. They're attached at the hip, moving in parallel. Pain with a purpose, through and through. At worst, an inability to respond carefully to my trauma could doom my own attempts at achieving my goals. At best, through intentional healing and inner work, my ability to make my trauma into a source of transformation and rebirth (Scorpio) will bring me closer to my own success.
Mars and Saturn make an exact opposition in my chart. Subsequently, every transit square, opposition, or conjunction to either planet, will make an equally challenging aspect to the other planet. A conjunction to one planet creates an opposition to the other, and squares mirror on both sides. It's a tug-of-war between two masculine energies that never stops, and that other planets have to awkwardly walk through, flip-flopping between trines and sextiles towards either one in the process.
. Leo Sun, Leo Moon, Leo North Node - The fierce protection trope these signs evoke is not lost on me, especially with the emotional aspects heightened by my natal moon. The level of aggressive protection I feel towards my people is practically comedic, and paired with the aforementioned 29th degree Cancer Mercury, oftentimes unneeded, misplaced, and disproportionate for the situation. (This does, however, make me an excellent doctor's-appointment-dentist-office-used-car-lot companion, and I will always be happy to send the food back to your kitchen on your behalf if it's not right).
OK so, those are the ever-present, raw material, personality traits and temperament constants. What about the situational transits themselves.
Long-term Transits
When looking to discern transit timing, Robert Hand lays out a systemic approach in his work for identifying the point in time when a long-term transit is complemented by effectively averaging out the most intense energies of the faster moving inner planets to determine when astrological forces reach their energetic peak.
I have not gone to the trouble of making those kinds of exact calculations for this event. But this view of slower, more distant planets as setting the stage for closer, faster moving planets to act out their energies on, seems to be reflected in the transits of that night, where many long-term transits were coming into more-or-less exact placements, and faster planets were traveling through a series of intense, fast-paced, oppositions, trines, and conjunctions.
Note: When dealing with fast-moving so-called "personal" planets, an orb of +/- 1 degree is useful for evaluating astrological timing. When evaluating slower moving planets, which may take months or years to move through so much as a single degree, the effects of long-term transits tend to be more gradual and subtle, with effects manifesting over many months or years.
Many planets in this particular transit chart are within 0 degrees of exactness, but are yet to hit exactly 0 degrees and 0 minutes and may not be perfect for many more months, though their effects continue to manifest and play out in a building crescendo.
All transits described below (long-term and short-term) are within a 0-degree orb.
To start off, Pluto, the slowest moving, of all the planets, is (and has been) in the process of coming into a square to my natal Jupiter in Taurus. The transit will go exact on March 5th of 2026, but has been within a 0-degree square to my natal Jupiter in Taurus since April 8th of this year (2025). As the transit progresses, tensions rise between Pluto’s underhanded, secretive, power-seeking nature, combined with Jupiter's expansive will.
Plainly speaking, I am in a somewhat long-term process of confronting my desire for expanded power, position, and status, through significant personal transformation. Defrauding the collective to feed corrupt greed could be the worst expression of this transit (with Pluto in Aquarius, and my natal Jupiter in Taurus). At its best, this gut-deep hunger could be a source of unwavering, heavy momentum, drive, and motivation.
Transiting Neptune is currently approaching an exact sextile to my natal Neptune, and will be exact by April 10th of next year (2026) (and again in October, and once more after that in February 2027 - thanks, Neptune Retrograde). Neptune's negative qualities tend to relate to delusions, malformed thought processes, unaddressed cognitive dissonance, and unconscious forces. In a sextile, these qualities may be lightly-encouraged to run rampant together, feeding off of the themes of the signs in which they're in. This will be an ongoing feature of my life for quite some time.
Significantly, on the day of the event, Uranus, a planet of chaos, disruption, and revolutionary feelings, created a virtually exact opposition with Chiron at 0 degrees and 2 minutes, and 0 degrees and 53 minutes away from an exact opposition with the POF.
For reference, Uranus and Chiron each move particularly slowly, with Neptune spending about 14 years in each sign, and Chiron spending around eight. For the two to be in such close proximity to each other, on the day of an event, is noteworthy. The emotional equivalent of having a static-y blanket, fresh out of the dryer, shock you on the nose.
So already, we've got some prominent revolutionary, disruptive, system-challenging energy going on with this Uranus/Chiron/POF complex, delusions and unconscious drive aggravated by the Neptune/Neptune sextile, and an ongoing personal-power negotiation taking place in the long-term background with Pluto/Saturn.
Let's look at the faster moving planets. (This is where it really starts to get interesting).
Short-Term Transits
Approximately one hour before the event took place, Saturn left Pisces and entered Aries. At the same moment as Saturn entered Aries, the planet switched from making a trine from the sign of Pisces, to making a trine from 0-degree of Aries to my natal Mercury in the 29th degree of Cancer. Saturn leaving laid-back Pisces and entering arguably the most impulsive of all the signs was already an intense transit for the lot of us. The change was certainly not aided in my case by such an intensely easy flow between Mercury and Saturn. Where Saturn in Aries says, "Yes, lay down the law, hard and fast," and Mercury in Cancer says, "Yes, because this is the most severe personal threat imaginable."
And as if there were not enough of my Cancerian Mercury in the equation, transiting Mercury rapidly approaching the 29th degree of Gemini, was on its way to make an exact sextile to my natal Mercury - my communication wasn't just defensive, it was expressive, open, ready to articulate all sides of the problem, and explain it from as many lenses possible. The duality of Gemini, the twins' abilities to see both sides of a problem, did not make me question my stance, it just made it feel more educated, more informed, and all the more compelled to bring to the awareness of the collective group.
But would I consider the possibility that perhaps, a direct confrontation was not exactly the thing to do?
Oh no, not with Mars in Leo in conjunction with my natal Sun in Leo. I am right, I am regal, I am here to be seen and act out my desires upon the world, and shape it into alignment with myself. You can practically hear the Blues Brothers declaring "We are on a mission from God," playing in the background, while a full orchestra score plays in the background.
All the while, the Sun in Gemini was making an opposition to my ascendant, a direct conflict between the perceived self and my private core. Filters down, expression and animation ramped up to a ten. A personal astrological spotlight. Have you ever wondered who you are when everyone and no one is looking? Here you go. The private is pulled into the public, the public into the private, a messy time.
With the Moon making a sextile to the Vertex, it was certain that the emotional components of this night would have a heavy-hand in the course of my life. My choices that night will reverberate throughout future scenarios. While not nearly as fated of a moment as say a conjunction or opposition, it was a great example of emotions playing a key role in decision making and subsequent chains of events. This isn't just the kind of thing to immediately get lost with the passing moment, and a permanent mark in time was left.
The Lesson
So there you have it. A perfect astrological storm, testing the limits of my self-acceptance after the fact. An accelerated course in emotion, expression, and group dynamics. A lesson on using the power of thought and consideration towards pro-social aims, and not exclusively as a defensive weapon.
Had I taken my own advice, and been keeping up appropriately with significant transits in my own chart, I could have gotten ahead of these emotionally impulsive energies. I could have intervened in my daily life, to offset the fast-paced impulsivity or emotional sensitivity. I could have known to be more skeptical of my trauma-activated, emotional breaker-switch. I could have put some car lengths between myself, my reactions, and other people around me, and considered that I was certainly not firing on all cylinders when it came to emotional regulation, conflict management skills, and basic consideration of other people’s feelings.
Take note of any similar placements in your own chart, check in with your critically-placed planets, and be on the lookout for conjunctions between your sun and your descendant (alternatively - oppositions between your Sun and Descendant), as what you may feel called to openly express, may not be in line with how you would like to be outwardly perceived.
If you would like ahead-of-time advance warnings of similarly challenging transits, so that you may not blindly suffer the same fate as I did, I offer chart readings, and a monthly subscription transit report service here.
