Tick, Tick ……… Tock
At the first Full Moon in Cancer of calendrical 2026, on January 3rd to be precise, we see the Sun (Kings and Leaders) accompanied on either side by an ‘exalted’ Mars, the God of War, and an assertive Venus, who behaves as a Warrior Queen, rising as she does at this time before the Sun. Mercury (communication, thought and the mind), Venus and Mars are all ‘out of bounds’, suggesting their actions have a somewhat unpredictable and extreme leaning. With a heavy line up of planets in Capricorn this is an action-oriented chart.
But, as we enter the calendrical year of 2026, it is worth noting that the astrological 2026 does not actually begin until the Aries ingress, on March 20th, 2026. This leads us to the question - what indeed is time? Is it linear, as we tend to regard, or is it something much more subjective and even relational in nature? Both Capricorn and Aquarius (January and February) are months governed by Saturn, and Saturn wears the hat of Father Time. So this is a good opportunity to look at our view of the nature and quality of time, particularly as 2026 will be the year of an historic conjunction of Saturn/Neptune at 0 Aries, a point of global significance. Conjunctions of Saturn and Neptune happen like clockwork, but not one at the very beginning of the zodiac, kicking off a whole new way of being – that hasn’t happened for centuries. The exact conjunction occurs on February 20th, so at the end of our astrological 2025. 2025 in numerology is a 9 year, a year of endings, so the first Saturn/Neptune ‘hit’ is astrologically at the end of a year that marks endings. And then we have two further hits that signify something new will begin. The second ‘hit’ will be September 25, 2026; so what comes to a crashing end in February that will bring the green shoots of revival in September?
The chart for the beginning of the astrological 2026 has Leo, a fixed sign, rising which means that the chart is valid for the whole year. It shows the new Sun in the 8th house of crisis, perhaps symbolising that change of any kind is never easy, particularly if that change ushers in a new era for civilisation – which is what this historic conjunction of Saturn and Neptune is trying to tell us.
An astrologer’s life is centred around time, alongside place and date, in order to create a meaningful chart. We have been conditioned to think of time as linear – but is it? Time is the dimension that orders events and allows change to be measured, experienced and understood – physically, mentally and conceptually. Time is our memory of events, meaning we mark what happened the before, the after or the during of an event. Time is the framework of our memories and our experiences. Time structures our daily life and allows us to plan – that’s the Saturn bit. Sometimes time seems to drag and sometimes it just whizzes by.
Astrologically our beliefs on time are challenged particularly with horary astrology – a specific branch of traditional astrology that some of us astrologers practice and have found that inexplicably it just ‘works’. Horary works on the basis of the client asking an astrologer a question from a point of strong intention and desire. The astrologer then casts a chart from the moment he/she has understood the question; it is particularly useful for specific event outcomes and where there is not an exact time of birth to relate to. And, of course, back in the day people would be lucky to even know what day they were born, unless they were destined to be a King or Queen. It wasn’t really understood how Horary astrology worked – just that it did! In fact, horary astrology aligns with our growing knowledge of quantum physics and particularly quantum entanglement.
Horary is a model of living entanglement with the future. But it brings with it a different idea of our understanding of the past, present and future. It means the future is not fixed but rather echoes back to us so long as we ask a question with a deep intention of meaning. It is not intended for flippant superficial questions. It demonstrates that information exists beyond time and that the future is participatory, where we can enter into a co-creative dialogue with our futures. Instead it shows that we have to be active participants in our futures, rather than mere passive recipients.
Horary astrology also brings us into an understanding of something called retro-causality – the notion that effects can influence their causes backward in time. In other words that something happening in the present or future could affect something that has already happened in the past. The idea of retro-causality completely turns our idea of time on its head. Time does not have to be a one-way traffic just in one direction. And cause does not necessarily only have an effect on the linear future. Instead it is the concept that future events can influence past events, challenging the usual one-way view of cause and effect. However, it does not mean that we can change the outcome of known historical events. Rather, the future sends information back to us, exerting an influence on our thoughts. Quantum informed science lies at the root of retro-causality – time is not linear but the future informs the present in ways we had not realised because it does not conform with our beliefs of reality.
Space and time are woven together into a four-dimensional structure called spacetime; an event is not just where it happens but also when. Philosophy reveals that time may be as much about how reality is structured as how we thinkabout it. Time speeds up when we are engaged and slows when we are bored or afraid. The brain doesn’t measure time, it constructs it. Our sense of self is built from memory across time. Without memory the past collapses and without expectation the future disappears. The present moment feels special, but physics says there is no universal ‘now’. So human time is psychological as much as it is physical. Spacetime is underlined by a universal consciousness. Time is how change is ordered. Physics measures it. Philosophy questions its nature. Consciousness experiences it. Each perspective is incomplete alone – but together we receive the richest understanding.
It’s when we enter the realm of quantum and quantum entanglement that it all gets interesting as we look into how events are ordered when reality itself isn’t locally determined. This means that the universe may be fundamentally relational, rather than sequential. Quantum entanglement suggests that time is not the stage on which reality plays out, but a pattern that emerges from how parts of the universe are correlated. When two particles are entangled, they do not have independent states. Measuring one instantly determines the outcome of the other regardless of distance; the system behaves as one whole, even when separated. So, therefore, we have correlation but not necessarily cause and effect, irrespective of which particle was measured first – just joint outcomes rather than time-ordered causes. This means that the universe cannot be using a hidden global clock to decide outcomes. Entanglement suggests time is not fundamental, rather one system acts as a clock relative to another. For instance we might choose how to measure after particles have already been detected
And yet results behave as if the future choice mattered, bringing in the theory of retro-causality and the possibility that the universe does not commit to a history until observation. This deeply challenges the idea of a fixed past flowing into the present upon which the future is dependent.
What will happen to our consideration of time as we walk a path where AI plays an increasing part, particularly with the upcoming Saturn/Neptune conjunction? AI reorganises time mechanically, whilst the Saturn/Neptune conjunction will likely question what time really means. AI is fundamentally Saturnian in how it treats time, whilst Neptune erodes the very assumptions AI depends on, particularly the view that time is best understood as a straight line of optimisation. Under Saturn/Neptune symbolism there is discomfort with purely algorithmic futures. AI says ‘Here’s what is likely to happen” whilst Saturn/Neptune asks, “Is that the future we want to inhabit?” Essentially AI collapses the future into probability and Saturn/Neptune re-opens the future as possibility. AI treats time as something to simulate; Saturn/Neptune reframes time as something to interpret. We live in an AI-generated immediacy while simultaneously sensing we’re in a mythic or transitional era. This dissonance will perhaps be the hallmark of this period.
In short, AI accelerates and mechanises time – Saturn/Neptune humanises and mystifies it. Together they don’t cancel each other out – they force a reckoning. Will the future be something we calculate, or something we consciously imagine and choose?
For every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.[1]
[1] The Bible, King James Version, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8