The malefics: Aries stellium 2026
The malefics get a bad rap.
The astrology of February to April has stirred a lot of pots. A YouTube astrologer long referred to the astrology of February 2026 as the astrology of World War Three. One of my astro heroes Chani Nicholas called last week’s seven-planet Aries stellium a once-in-a-lifetime week. Early 2026 is pressure cooker astrology. The last time I recall this kind of astro-social buzz was during the Jupiter-Saturn Grand Conjunction in Aquarius circa 2020’s right around the time the COVID-19 pandemic became a global emergency. Global emergency is a concept apt for the current times too.
Mars and Saturn are the malefics of the zodiac. Mars rules Aries and Scorpio and exalts in Capricorn. Saturn rules Aquarius and Capricorn and exalts in Libra. When dignified in the signs of their domicile or exaltation, malefic planets teach the discipline, courage and focus needed to overcome the difficulties that come with being malefic-led. When malefic planets are in distress, such as being in the sign of their fall or detriment, or in stressful aspect with each other, it can take longer for growth, grace and insight to arrive.
Planets in fall are planets that feel powerless and insecure. These are planets without confidence, self-conscious gods if you will. Saturn in Aries is a fallen Saturn. Aries is the sun’s exaltation sign so here we find a Saturn that questions its most cherished values. Saturn values authority, hierarchy, process, standards, patience, the tried and tested, the long game. Saturn rejects short-term thinking, acting on instinct, recklessness, leaps of faith. For Saturn, hope and faith are not strategies. If Mars (Aries domicile) and the Sun (Aries exaltation) regard the self and the heart as reason enough to do things, Saturn (Capricorn and Aquarius domicile, Libra exaltation) will always treat the self as a suss cause. What Saturn believes are the only good reasons to do anything: higher principles, community values, tradition and legacy.
Now Saturn falls. Saturn is forced to rethink its idea of what’s worth doing and how. The phone calls and e-mails to elected representatives, while still an essential methodology in documenting public sentiment, has turned out to be insufficient and too overwhelmingly slow to achieve political and economic changes that needed to have happened yesterday. Laws and rulings around public protest change constantly. Infighting, call-outs, cancellations, comebacks—remember Pluto (inner transformation and resourcing) in Aquarius (community, social transformation, technology) is sextiling this Aries stellium. Escalations in genocide, war and war crimes are textbook Aries stellium with the stellium ruler in his own house. “Beef” Season 2 premiering in this stellium is astrologically apt. Me catching up on “Cobra Kai” during a flight delay a day after a flight cancellation a day after tearing open my front knee during a fall on sewer-water stained rocks is peak Aries stellium. Mars, after all, is the planet of the cut.
Saturn is not only fallen but in the house led by fellow malefic Mars with a very different operating principle. Mars conjoining Saturn in this Aries stellium brings a sense of urgency to a planet that refuses to rush. Time might feel faster or slower this week, depending on your usual experience of the ticking clock. Observe and reflect: how have your daily rhythms changed since February this year?
The malefics are strong and angular in my birth chart so this stellium feels like my life story on steroids. Malefic-led charts can feel like a psychedelic bender on a turn for the worse (don’t forget, Neptune is part of this Aries stellium too!). Recall your last bender: I’m still thinking of mine. The body feels like it’s pitching back and forth at a nauseatingly increasing pace; to an onlooker you’re sitting still spacing out. You’re convinced, though, that the sensation of wild bodily motion is real. You feel there’s greater distance between yourself and other objects in the room than there is. You think you’re lifting your limbs but you’re not. There are pinpricks all over your skin but your complexion looks the same. The inner world is at odds with how you’re seen. Paranoia and dread are the realest things you can know before vomit ejects from your mouth, your body a creature beyond your control.
Hear it from a malefic-led astrologer: malefics are not ‘good’ per se but they’re good for you. They tell you the hard truths the benefics won’t. Time won’t always be on your side. Bad people often win (at least on the outside). Good things don’t last. No matter how hard you work, you might not always get there, not because it’s your fault or because you fell short in any way but because life can be like that. People lie, cheat, steal. The ones you love will let you down. You will repeat mistakes you swore you wouldn’t.
Knowing all of this about life, what’s worth doing? Who’s it worth doing with? What do you desire? Who are you and who do you want to be?
Benefic-led charts are charts led by good fortune in the areas of life the benefics touch. To be led by good fortune means that opportunities, networks, friendships and love come earlier in life and more easily. Benefic-led charts aren’t necessarily “privileged” in the conventional sense—they’re not necessarily millionaires or dating the most conventionally attractive people—but it means they are luckier than a larger percent of the population in the areas of life that are benefic-led. The lesson for benefic-led charts is to be humble, generous, and recognise a good thing when it’s there. The worst thing that can happen to benefic-led people is for them to think that initial good luck means eternal good luck, succumbing to the gambler’s compulsion that often becomes their undoing. Think Colin Farrell’s character in the film “Ballad of a Small Player” (Dir: Edward Berger) or Rishi in the HBO series “Industry.”
Malefic-led charts are charts led by adaptation to difficulty in the areas of life the malefics touch. The good things that happen in their lives arrive through the purposeful deployment of wisdom and skill over time, not luck or privilege. Note: wisdom and skill don’t necessarily mean the point is to work harder. Malefic-led people often realise that working hard doesn’t always work out. The sooner you learn that a good work ethic and an even better strategy and support system are the way forward, the sooner you blossom where you’re planted. Malefic-led people need to draw the gaze inward, resist the impulse to compare their journeys to others, and be led by their own authentic longings and not the desires projected onto them by parents, partners, teachers, bosses, and colonial capitalist heteronormative structures.
Malefic times call for resets and rest. Not the escapist rest beautifully written about in Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, but the active recovery undertaken by athletes and physical workers recovering from injury or the disciplined time-out required to overcome addiction. Malefic times remind us it’s never too late to change direction, turn away from bad choices, or ask for help.
How has this Aries stellium shown up in your life?
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Cover photo by Rohan Makhecha, used with the Unsplash Licence
