Aquarius

Pluto conjunct your Sun

Pluto occupies your Sun for roughly two years, reaching the exact degree at least three times as its retrograde loops swing it over the spot again, and the pressure lands on the centre of the chart. Your Sun is shorthand for the self you return to when no role is required of you: your purpose, your will and the place you act from. Pluto works slowly and from underneath, stripping away whatever cannot bear its weight.

Neptune sextile your Sun

Neptune sextiles your Sun at Neptune's pace, which means at least a year, with a slow back-and-forth of several passes. The Sun is your self and your purpose; Neptune dissolves outlines, softens certainty and opens the way to imagination, compassion and faith. In a sextile the meeting is gentle and cooperative.

Uranus trine your Sun

Uranus trines your Sun for roughly a year of on-and-off contact, usually three passes, and change comes with the door held open rather than kicked in. The Sun is your centre and your purpose; Uranus is the break from habit, the new idea, the freedom to be odd. A trine lets them cooperate.

Saturn sextile your Sun

Saturn sextiles your Sun across several months; a retrograde nearby can open it twice more before it closes. The Sun carries your will and your sense of who you are; Saturn adds patience, structure and a feel for what lasts. Joined by a sextile, they make slow, sensible effort on your own aims pay off, and they do it quietly, without the drama Saturn brings to its harder angles.

Jupiter opposition your Sun

Jupiter opposes your Sun, typically for some weeks; a retrograde can bring it across the point three times over several months, so the theme returns rather than passing once. Jupiter makes whatever it meets bigger, and here it meets your Sun, the self at your centre. Facing each other, they turn the volume up on everything around you, mostly through other people — the generous friend with a large plan, the confident stranger, the offer that sounds a size too big — and invite you to say yes to it.

Mercury square your Sun

Mercury squares your Sun briefly, two days at most, and your meaning and your words come slightly apart. Explanations land crooked, messages get misread, and a point sometimes has to be made twice because it did not land the first time, which is its own irritation. This is easily taken personally, as if your ability to express yourself had suddenly failed.

Sun trine your Sun

About four months before your birthday, and again about four months after it, the transiting Sun trines your natal Sun; each visit is over within two or three days. The Sun is your purpose and your character, and here it meets itself at the friendliest angle available. Nothing new arrives.

Mars opposition your Sun

Mars opposes your Sun across two days, sometimes three, while someone else's will comes at you head on. Your Sun carries identity and purpose, the light you steer by; Mars is heat, push and the wish to win. In opposition the heat arrives from outside: a person who wants their way, a challenge nobody asked you to accept, a remark that seems aimed at your whole character when it was probably about the washing-up.