TRANSCRIPT Ep. 337 | Saturn and Pluto: Healthy Skepticism!

TRANSCRIPT Ep 337 | Saturn and Pluto: Healthy Skepticism! (03.23.26)

Hello Invisible Friend, April here, and the date today is March 23rd, 2026. Welcome to Episode 337 of the Big Sky Astrology Podcast.

This week, Saturn makes a rare sextile aspect to Pluto, with the Sun aspecting both of them, and this combination represents opportunities to create a solid foundation and handle matters related to authority and control. The Cancer First Quarter Moon also connects with Saturn, as well as Neptune, introducing a warm emotional element, and I answer a listener question about reconciling contradictory astrological interpretations.

Sun conjunct Saturn (March 25, 2026, 1:55 am PDT)

The Sun makes a conjunction with Saturn on Wednesday, March 25th at 1:55 AM Pacific Time. That’s at 4º43’ Aries.

This transit comes only once per year, and it encourages productivity and builds character. It is not light-hearted. This aspect can feel like you’re carrying all the weight of Saturn on your shoulders. You find yourself doing hard and important work, maybe not getting enough recognition for it, and it’s common now to have to confront your old insecurities. The goal isn’t to just tough this week out, but rather to deepen your compassion for yourself and not let yourself be brought down by self-doubt.

Even if no one else notices everything you’ve been doing and giving, acknowledge your own achievements and leadership and maturity. Give yourself a gold star for overcoming obstacles and working hard behind the scenes. It is an excellent transit for building strength and endurance and for proving to ourselves that we can keep going even when things get tough. We just need to show up, keep our heads down, and do the work.

Sun sextile Pluto (March 25, 2026, 11:16 am PDT)

The Sun makes a sextile to Pluto on Wednesday, March 25th at 11:16 AM Pacific Time, at 5º06’ Aries and Aquarius. This is a potentially powerful aspect, but Pluto does have a way of numbing things that are already outgrown or dead. It’s like getting a deep burn that causes no sensation because the nerves are dead, while we get other, smaller irritations that really can sting more.

But that numbness isn’t the problem; it’s the invitation. We always look for the invitation when we get a sextile aspect. And this aspect brings an opportunity to burn away whatever is false, to let go of psychic waste, to cleanse ourselves of what we no longer need. Having nothing to hide can become deeply empowering. So, if we use it well, this can be a potent transit, as long as you don’t try to seize power that isn’t yours, which is something we can sometimes see with the Sun and Pluto. Instead, place yourself in the presence of powerful people or transformative forces and watch the doors open organically.

The Sun is on the Sabian symbol 6 Aries, “A square brightly lighted on one side.” And it’s a symbol that speaks to the idea of crystallizing your life purpose and claiming your individuality with focus and intent. Meanwhile, Pluto is on 6 Aquarius, “A performer of a mystery play.” And it reminds us that we’re not just living ordinary lives – we also serve as channels for deeper timeless mysteries, bringing higher archetypal forces into the world in our own unique way.

Cancer First Quarter Moon (March 25, 2026, 12:18 pm PDT)

And now for the Moon Report. And we begin, as always, with the week’s major lunation. This week, that’s the Cancer First Quarter Moon on Wednesday, March 25th at 12:18 pm Pacific Time at 5º08’ Cancer and Aries.

The First Quarter is the first strong action point connected to the previous New Moon. And in this case, that was the Pisces New Moon on March 18th. The First Quarter Moon asks us to begin doing something tangible with the intentions that we set at that New Moon.

This Moon is at home in the sign of Cancer – it’s the sign that it rules. And this gives this particular lunation a supportive and nourishing vibe. Even though the Cancer Moon is in a square to the Sun in Aries, as it always is at the First Quarter – the Moon is square the Sun – the Moon’s interactions in this First Quarter chart with Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto bring up feelings around authority, power, and hope. And they might stir a little bit of nostalgia as well for the good old days.

At the same time, helpful aspects from the Moon to Mercury and to the lunar nodes can suggest emotional insight and perspective, and even a sense of karmic alignment.

While the Moon is in Cancer, it’s a perfect time to go after your New Moon intentions through personal rituals, self-care, home and family, and comfort. So at this First Quarter Moon, eat what you like. Surround yourself with softness, familiar music, old movies, and people who feel like your tribe.

Lunar Phase Family Cycle

This is the First Quarter in a lunar phase family cycle that began with the New Moon on June 25th, 2025, at 4º07’ Cancer.

Think back to what you were trying to set into motion at that New Moon. It probably had something to do with where you live, the people you live with. Depending on the house of your chart where 4º07’ minutes Cancer falls, those people could actually be part of other areas of your life.

If that degree of Cancer falls in your 6th house, maybe it’s people you work with. If it falls in your 9th house, it could be people who are very different from yourself.

So take a look back to that New Moon, and especially the house that falls in your chart. And look back through your calendar and your journals and your records to remember what was important to you at that time. Because now is the moment, at this First Quarter Moon, to take action on the things that you were thinking about, hoping for, initiating at that New Moon.

Nine months from now, there’s a Full Moon just before Christmas on December 23rd, 2026. That’s at 2º13’ Cancer. And that is the moment in this lunar phase cycle where you can begin to really see and appreciate exactly what is coming forth from those dreams or intentions that you set back at that New Moon.

And then nine months later, on September 23rd, 2027, there is a Last Quarter Moon at 0º10’ Cancer. That is when we take a final important action towards achieving or resolving the things we set forth at that New Moon on June 25th, 2025.

Now, the qualities of that particular New Moon also follow through this three-year period of the lunar phase family cycle. And that particular New Moon, June 25th, 2025, was in a close conjunction with Jupiter, and they were both square Saturn and Neptune in Aries.

The Sun in this chart is in a conjunction with Saturn and Neptune, and the Moon is square Saturn and Neptune. So we see the continuing influence of that New Moon chart now in the First Quarter chart as well.

Void-of-Course Moon periods

Let’s look at the Void-of-Course Moon periods for this week.

On Tuesday, March 24th, the Moon in Gemini sextiles Venus in Aries at 3:37 p.m. Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course then for 11 hours 56 minutes, then enters Cancer on March 25th at 3:33 a.m. A sextile between the Moon and another planet as it’s going Void-of-Course represents an opportunity or an invitation. If you are single, this could be a great Void-of-Course period for getting out and mingling, being more sociable than you might even normally be.

Venus in Aries and the Moon in Gemini are light-hearted and kind of a hoot to be around, and they love to flirt. This probably wouldn’t be the very best time to connect with others on a deep level, and that’s perfectly fine. You’re under no obligation to be serious and committed 24-7.

So use this Void-of-Course Moon to kind of initiate a little more of a habit of enjoying some light socializing now and again just for its own sake.

On Friday, March 27th, the Moon in Cancer sextiles Uranus in Taurus at 4:40 a.m. Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for 2 hours 30 minutes, and then enters Leo at 7:10 a.m.

This is another opportunity aspect, and this falls in the early morning here on the West Coast of the United States, a little bit later back east. And since both the Moon in Cancer and Uranus in Taurus are kind of food-centric, and if you happen to be awake at this time, it would be a great opportunity to try something new for breakfast. Because Cancer is associated with food, and Uranus wants things to be new and exciting. It could still be comfort food, but maybe with a little bit of a twist.

Use this Void-of-Course Moon period to get in the habit of starting your day with a good, healthy breakfast and taking the time to sit down and savor it. Not just bolting something quick on the drive to work. And bonus points if you experiment with a new recipe or an unfamiliar breakfast spot.

On Sunday, March 29th, the Moon in Leo trines Venus in Aries at 10:28 a.m. Pacific Time. It’s Void-of-Course for two hours, five minutes, and enters Virgo at 12:33 p.m. When the Moon makes a trine to another planet as it’s going Void-of-Course, we say that it will bring you a gift or a reward. The Moon in Leo loves to play, and Venus in Aries never shies away from competition.

So this particular combination would be a great time to get together with friends or family for maybe some kind of sports event. If the weather permits, maybe something like playing frisbee golf together. The pace can be pretty mellow, so all ages can participate.

Or you might all want to just be watching a sports event on TV. If physical exercise or sports are not your thing, consider firing up the grill and inviting some of your favorite people over for a nice Sunday brunch. Use this Void-of-Course Moon to get in the habit of enjoying the company of others in a casual way and enjoying the great outdoors.

Saturn sextile Pluto (March 28, 2026, 3:11 pm PDT)

On Saturday, March 28th, at 3:11 p.m. Pacific Time, Saturn sextiles Pluto at 5º09’ Aries and Aquarius. The last exact sextile between Saturn and Pluto occurred in September 2013, so it’s been a minute or two. And the next one won’t be along until December 2047. So clearly this is a transit that doesn’t happen all that often, and that means it’s really worth paying attention to.

This aspect teaches healthy skepticism about the systems, individuals, and institutions that you may have looked to in the past for moral guidance or for definitions of what success looks like. But even the wisest authorities are human, and that means they’re imperfect. No one can make your ethical choices for you; that’s up to you.

Having run-ins with bosses or with bureaucracy is actually pretty common when Saturn and Pluto come together in an aspect. But since this aspect is a sextile, hopefully these run-ins will bring some opportunities that will benefit you in the long term.

Saturn here represents the moral framework of your life, the ways in which you work to uphold fairness and accountability. And Pluto then insists that you have to live up to those standards. This is a transit where cutting corners is likely to get noticed.

Even if you could normally get away with coming in to work a couple minutes late or something like that, it’ll get noticed most likely during this aspect. So you really have to try to do your best. This aspect can also bring out trolls, the kind that pester you on social media, and the ones inside your own psyche that tell you that you’re not worthy, that you don’t deserve success or any good things.

So you get to decide whether you will internalize those messages and accept them, or stand firm in your confidence in yourself.

Listener Question: Reconciling opposing information in a chart

I’m so happy to say that we are back to listener questions this week. In this week’s listener question, listener Barbara asks via Speakpipe: “ April, I’m a longtime listener, and I have enjoyed your views of astrology ever since we first met at the San Diego Astrology meetings.

I have had one question, though, that has always confused me. When I look at charts, and I look at interpretations, I wonder how do you combine two opposite views? Especially when you’re looking at synastry charts, and you read something, and it sounds like a couple was a match made in heaven, and then I’ll read something else or see something else in the chart, and it looks like a complete disaster. How do you combine the two?”

Barbara, that is such a good question. And it really goes to the heart of how astrologers practice their astrology.

It can be really helpful to look at something like an automated report. And I sell those on my website. I think they can be a really effective opening step to understanding astrology a little bit better. But the problem is they aren’t able to synthesize what you see in the chart. You will get a description of one thing and a description of another like thing, and you can get really good basic information about the potential of such a combination by looking at an automated report or even a horoscope that somebody’s written.

But there is no substitute really for getting an actual reading with an astrologer, because it’s our job to figure out how to combine those opposite views and delineate them in a useful way and to decide – based not just on that element, that transit, that aspect, but on the entire chart – how much weight to give to one delineation versus another.

It’s rarely completely easy and straightforward to do this, by the way. And especially in the case of a couple and their synastry, comparing their two charts and figuring out which is the quality that really should be given precedence over another one. So it is not easy, and especially when it comes to synastry, and the reason to be completely honest that I don’t give synastry readings and I haven’t for a lot of years. It’s because they’re very complicated and there are so many things that you have to weigh one against the other. At first, you have to weigh things within an individual chart and the other individual chart, but then, bringing them both together, it can be massively complicated.

I have certainly had the experience, including in my own life and my own marriage and our synastry charts, of looking at our charts together and thinking, how are these two people together and have not killed each other? Because you see things like an aspect between Mars and Pluto, for example, or the Sun and Moon. And you look at those and go, oh wow, these people can’t possibly make a go of it. But the same things that can look really forbidding to us from the outside can be the source of excitement within the relationship.

So, I always approach these things with a sense of humility. And I want to talk to the person or people about exactly what their experience has been of these things. And you know very quickly once you’re talking to a person or a couple, how these things are playing out and which aspects perhaps are taking more precedence and are really being felt by the two people.

There’s also so much to be said for current transits and progressions. Because an aspect that sits there in your own birth chart or in the charts of yourself and another person, lying there dormant for months or years at a time, can suddenly get woken up by a difficult transit to one or both of those planets. And then it comes to life and becomes a moment where the couple themselves are trying to reconcile the things that are difficult in their relationship versus the things that are sources of ease and joy.

I think the most important thing, especially in relationship astrology and in synastry, is the spirit that both people bring to the relationship. Because the best-looking charts in the world are not going to make a happy relationship unless both of those people are firmly committed to making that the case. And the same is true of those difficult aspects that we see between two charts. We think, “Oh my gosh, how are they possibly making it work?”

Well, they don’t always make it work. And you can talk to anybody, and especially anybody in a relationship, and say, ” Wow, how are you making this work?” And they might say, “At the moment, it’s really not working.” Because that’s sometimes how it works, too. It’s not that there are aspects that always bring ease and joy and aspects that always bring disaster and trouble.

People and relationships have their own tempo and their way of moving through the world. And sometimes that’s easy, and sometimes it isn’t. And if you’re talking to a couple that are really struggling, you don’t have to go back very far, usually in their relationship, to find a time that they were getting along really well.

And in fact, sometimes I found that’s helpful if I’m talking to a couple together to say, when was the last time you remember really having fun together and getting out in the world and really experiencing life together with a lot of joy? And they can usually locate a moment like that in their past.

So there is no hard and fast rule, Barbara, I don’t think, for which wins out in a reading between the things that look joyful and affirming and the things that look disastrous. People and, therefore, relationships are very complicated, and so by necessity, the astrology that describes them is complicated as well. It has to do with individual choice, current transits and progressions, and lots of other things that are leading people to make the particular decisions that they make.

I hope that helps. It is a complicated but wonderful question that you ask. And again, as I often say at the end of these listener questions, if you ask 10 astrologers, they’re going to give you 10 different answers based on their own charts and how they were taught and how they view astrology.

But that’s the best answer I have for you today, Barbara, and I hope that it has been helpful.

If you have a burning question about astrology that you would like me to answer on a future episode of the podcast, please leave a message of one minute or less, as Barbara did, at speakpipe.com / bigskyastrologypodcast. Or you can just send me an email to april (at) bigskyastrology.com and be sure to put “Podcast Question” in the subject line.

Donor Thanks

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