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Everything Old is New Again, or is it?: this week on The Storyteller's Night Sky

The planets are parading through the night sky right now, putting on a spectacular show from the West at sunset and trailing East. Not in the order shown here. (Image by Mary Stewart-Adams)
Mary Stewart-Adams
The planets are parading through the night sky right now, putting on a spectacular show from the West at sunset and trailing East. Not in the order shown here. (Image by Mary Stewart-Adams)

This week the night sky is visually stunning, and astrologically dynamic.

It begins this Monday morning at sunrise, when the Sun ascends the horizon in the East in the company of the dwarf planet Pluto. Pluto will not be visible to us, but this is an interesting signature for this moment ~ celebrated throughout the US as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and here in 2025, doubling as the inauguration of the 47th president.

In the tropical zodiac, Pluto has moved into the sign of Aquarius, and this is its first meeting with the Sun since it’s come into this new place. If astrologers are correct, then such an encounter with the would-be god of the underworld will see the end of an old way of being to make way for what’s new. The trick is to find the phoenix among the ashes.

Each night this week, be sure to bundle up and get out in the twilight, where Saturn and Venus shine over the western horizon, Jupiter is brilliant overhead between the horns of the Bull with the shining star Capella just above, and Mars, still in its retrograde, is still nearly as bright as it can get, aligned with the twins Castor and Pollux.

Though not visible to the naked eye, Uranus and Neptune are also gathered into this scene, as though they’ve all come to attention to receive their orders and then disperse into the year ahead. Mars will act first, resuming direct motion in February; then Venus turns retrograde in March, to become morning star for the rest of the year. Saturn is next, changing astrological signs in May; then Jupiter resumes direct motion in June.

It's a lot of coming and going, back and forth, this way and that, the hallmark of a time when something old is loosed and set free, so that what is new can find its way to take hold.

Mary Stewart Adams is a Star Lore Historian and host of “The Storyteller’s Night Sky.” As a global advocate for starry skies, Mary led the team that established the 9th International Dark Sky Park in the world in 2011, which later led to her home state of Michigan protecting 35,000 acres of state land for its natural darkness.