On my birthday—February 1st—there was an almost quintuple conjunction of planets in Pisces, right after the Aquarius New Moon. This calling of the Piscean Waters took me to the Indian Ocean and to sacred waterfalls in Bali, where a wonderful priestess led us in a Balinese ritual of purification and blessing. In a secret Bali, away from tourists and crowds… A blessing beyond measure… I love this island of gods and goddesses, and not even the heaviest traffic can dilute its mystery in my heart.

Yes, this Aquarian New Moon, together with the Chinese New Year of the Snake—transformation—conjunct with Pluto and the day of Imbolc (the Celtic Spring), where the goddess Brigid, of alchemy and the arts, is celebrated, offers us profound metamorphosis. It is one of the most beautiful moons of 2025. A year ruled by masculine elements, with the transition of more planets into Yang signs: Aquarius (air), Gemini (although a hermaphrodite sign, which contains both polarities, air is Yang), and Aries (fire, Yang). There has been a lot of fire in the world… we certainly need its most inspiring manifestation.

Despite the fire, this New Moon had a lot of water, a receptive feminine Yin element. As if life were asking us to dive into these baptismal, uterine waters of the Great Mother—healing, redeeming, and transpersonal—like the collective unconscious, to cleanse physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual debris and prepare ourselves for the air of a new Aquarian mentality, an amplified creativity for the good of all, a more conscious planetary communications network.

With the waters of violent instinctive emotions transmuted, qualified, and vibrating in higher resonance, the healing of wounds, the weight of the past, and the magnetism of pain are processed and blessed by clarity, consciousness, lucidity, and love. This lunation is therefore fabulous for all types of healing, and the Mercury-Pluto conjunction brings to the solar surface whatever needs to be repaired, recognized, purged, and healed. Let us therefore take a conscious and ritualistic dive into the waters, purify ourselves, and revive the intentions of our soul.

A new personal and collective cycle has begun with countless layers and relationships, complex, transformative, and intense. When Pluto was last in Aquarius, from 1778 to 1798, there were many revolutions that changed our civilization: French, American, Haitian, and Industrial. This period included the Enlightenment, a European intellectual movement that emphasized reason over reaction and abstraction over intimacy—very Aquarian. Pluto will be in Aquarius again from January 20, 2024, to September 1, 2024, and again from November 19, 2024, to March 8, 2043.

When Neptune was in Aries for the last time, from 1862 to 1875, there were several wars with very decisive geopolitical consequences (such as the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, and the War of the Spanish Succession in the previous cycle, 1702–1714). But as we have experienced several wars in recent years, globalized in the context of the strategy of the various national blocs in coalition, the greatest revolution may not be yet another war—only if it is nuclear, God forbid!—but a major change in values that transforms lifestyles, ways of conducting international negotiations, solutions, and important decisions for humanity.

The revolution of migrants returning to their origins, for example, could be part of the Aquarian Revolution—probably unsuspected. Instead of Western countries giving millions to source countries in Africa or Asia to contain their migrants, they can use that money to support their own taxpayers. As the President of Kenya said a few days ago when the U.S. stopped giving money to help curb AIDS in that country: “Compatriots, stop crying and get to work; let us take responsibility for the behaviors that will help solve this problem of ours.” Instead of Western countries giving money—much of it through NGOs to support developing countries, much of which is allegedly going toward corruption—they use it to improve the social state in their territories.

The territories from which migrants come (and I am generalizing) need these nationals to overthrow their tyrants, end the corruption of their elites, implement democracy, revitalize the economy, and restore the joy of living in their own land. We in Portugal had our revolution, just like the French, Americans, Spanish, etc. The territories from which migrants and refugees come—and yes, I know these are different and complex situations—need their nationals, and their natives should not be forced to leave their lands. I hope those who want to and can return to their roots can feel that joy again. My son is an emigrant too, and I know how painful it is for him to be away from his roots.

If people continue to flee en masse, change does not happen. I lived for a few years in wonderful Zimbabwe, once called the breadbasket of Africa. Today, with a territory larger than Germany and with (only) less than 16 million inhabitants, the lands are abandoned, either because they didn't want to work them or didn’t know how, or both. So much land, so much wealth, so much beauty—these must be for its natives to work, develop, and enjoy. Not just for some to benefit.

I know it's a controversial subject, full of rough edges and prisms, but this is just an invitation to open up dialogue. Pluto in Aquarius until 2043 is the power of and from the people—we the people, with the degree of consciousness that we have. And Aquarius is traditionally ruled by Saturn, which reminds us of the hierarchies, rules, and responsibilities within every human community. It seems to me that Pluto in Capricorn sought to transform rigid conservative values and outdated civilizational structures, and that in Aquarius, it can come to make the revolution… among the revolutionaries!

The themes of multiculturalism, monoculturalism, and critical race theory—racism is not characteristic only of the white race, but, as history proves, of all—from African tribes to Muslims, from Asian ethnicities to American Indians, all have killed and enslaved each other and one another. In my view, these will be themes to be deconstructed and worked on over the next 20 years. Cultures are not the same—some have developed more in some fields, others in others. They all have strengths and weaknesses. And everyone has the right to evolve and respect others.

Globalization has shown us our differences and also where we are all exactly the same: we all want to be loved, supported, to love, to have opportunities, and to share who we are. It may be time to make the Soul more global—in the Aquarian Utopia of a society that works to become ever more supportive and fraternal. But without what globalization has shown on its dark side—human and other trafficking, religious and other intolerances, invalidation of countries’ regional autonomy, and peoples’ own idiosyncrasies.

Saturn leaving Pisces asks us to align the desire of the personality with that of the soul—and be aware that Neptune in Aries can, in its negative polarity, make us prone to idealizing the ego's desire to unheard-of levels; dangerous. On the positive side, the expansion of consciousness and spirituality can be magnificent, expanding the gifts of the spirit and of creative, inspired, “r-evolutionary” solutions.

Of course, Pluto in Aquarius will also bring incredible innovations in science and technology, particularly artificial intelligence. Uranus in Gemini—Air—from 2025 to 2032 will make sure of this too, and other things. This year, 2025, is an awakening for masculine, yang elements of action, inspiration, and initiative. And this Aquarian New Moon, with Pluto at 1 degree, may well be the seed for the entire 20-year cycle that follows.

A seed that will certainly call each one of us—yes, you!—to be the change we want to see in the world. To be the Master, or to allow this Presence that inhabits us to be, every day, observation, lucidity, and work for the common good. No utopias of wanting to save the world, because I don't want to anymore (I know now I can't, and it seems to me today, after decades of “trying to do it,” that it's not the best use of my service). In other words, by saving myself—that is, by working on myself, to the best of my ability, with the discipline of the disciple, with the perseverance of the samurai, and with the patience of the saint—which is not an Aquarian virtue, I assure you—I can be of better use to the world.

I am living—and it is not by chance—in Indonesia, which, for me and until now, is an example of some success in unity in diversity—religious, cultural, and social. And because these issues are, in my opinion as an astrologer, central to the next 20 years, I remember what Sukarno, the mythical first President of Indonesia, formulated in the principles of Pancasila, the state philosophy of this country—presented on June 1, 1945, in the preparation for independence:

  • Belief in the One God (my note: in accordance with the practices of the country's various official religions);

  • Just and civilized humanity;

  • Indonesian unity;

  • Democracy guided by wisdom: Democracy is a matter of ethics and responsibility in education;

  • Social justice for all.

To take note in your journal/diary:

  • On August 9, 2025, we will have the full moon of this luni-solar cycle: the culmination of what was sown on January 29, 2025.

  • On February 10, 2043, we will have the final culmination of this great cycle of Pluto in Aquarius.

May we, individually and collectively, have the most blessed harvests!

Love Poems to God

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.

I want to free what waits within me

So that what no one has dared to wish for

May for once spring clear

Without contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,

But this is what I need to say.

May what I do flow from me like a river,

No forcing and no holding back,

The way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,

These deepening tides moving out, returning,

I will sing you as no one ever has,

Streaming through widening channels

Into the open sea.

(R.M. Rilke)