On the Erotic Ecliptic for June 2025
Pride is essential in the apocalypse
June 2025 Dates to Note
1st: Venus in Aries conjunct Chiron (4:11 pm ET)
4th : Venus in Aries sextile Jupiter in Gemini (10 :32 pm ET)
5th : Mercury in Gemini sextile Mars in Leo (6:10 pm ET)
6th: VENUS ENTERS TAURUS (12:43 pm ET)
8th : Mercury in Gemini conjunct Jupiter (4:12 pm ET), MERCURY ENTERS CANCER (6:58 pm ET)
9th: Mercury in Cancer square Saturn in Aries (6:48 am ET), Venus in Taurus square Pluto in Aquarius (1:20 pm ET), JUPITER ENTERS CANCER (5:02 pm ET), Mercury in Cancer square Neptune in Aries (6:54 pm ET)
10th: Mars in Leo trine Chiron in Aries (3:36 am ET), Mercury in Cancer quincunx Pluto in Aquarius (1:13 pm ET)
11th: FULL MOON IN SAGITTARIUS AT 20 DEGREES (3:44 am ET), Mercury in Cancer sextile Venus in Taurus (3:41 pm ET), Mercury Retrograde Shadow begins
15th: Mars in Leo square Uranus in Taurus (5:47 am ET), Jupiter in Cancer square Saturn in Aries (10:36 am ET) FATHER’S DAY
17th: Sun in Gemini sextile Chiron in Aries (3:16 am ET), MARS ENTERS VIRGO (4:35 am ET)
18th: Jupiter in Cancer square Neptune in Aries (11:16 pm ET)
19th: Mars in Virgo quincunx Saturn in Aries (8:06 pm ET) JUNETEENTH
20th: SUN ENTERS CANCER/SUMMER SOLSTICE (10:42 pm ET), Mars in Virgo quincunx Neptune in Aries (11:14 pm ET)
22nd: Mars in Virgo sextile Jupiter in Cancer (6:32 am ET), Sun in Cancer square Saturn in Aries (2:36 pm ET)
23rd: Mars in Virgo quincunx Pluto in Aquarius (1:00 am ET)
24th: Jupiter in Cancer quincunx Pluto in Aquarius (2:16 am ET), Mercury in Cancer square Chiron in Aries (3:16 am ET), Sun in Cancer quincunx Pluto in Aquarius (8:59 am ET), Sun in Cancer conjunct Jupiter/JUPITER CAZIMI at 3 degrees (11:17 am ET)
25th: NEW MOON IN CANCER AT 4 DEGREES (6:32 am ET)
26th: Mercury in Cancer sextile Uranus in Taurus (5:45 am ET), Sun in Cancer sextile Mars in Virgo (10:11 am ET), MERCURY ENTERS LEO (3:09 pm ET)
27th: Mercury in Leo trine Saturn in Aries (11:53 pm ET)
28th: Mercury in Leo trine Neptune in Aries (7:58 am ET)
29th: Mercury in Leo opposite Pluto in Aquarius (3:57 am ET)
Writing about joy, ecstasy and eros in a moment of apocalypse is rarely simple. I know the truth in my bones: that pleasure is more necessary than ever as fascism engulfs us. Still, it can feel like I’m constructing a logical fallacy when I tell my readers to dance as they watch the world burn through their phones. And because I am an elder sister, the daughter of aging parents, and have been a caretaker many times over, I struggle with my own guilt when I reach for something that delights me.
Being a caretaker again, at this moment, as billionaire techno-autocrats raze the entire world for their own pleasure, has a destabilizing quality. I must create safety when I don’t feel safe, in places where I once sought and found safety. The world is profoundly unsafe for most of us right now, except for the privileged few aiding and abetting the end of everything, to create a future that belongs only to them.
They are starving and bombing Gaza out of existence, trying to erase queer people, rounding up immigrants, ripping babies from their mothers (again), jailing non-criminals in facilities that offer fat government contracts to companies where each hostage they take equals profit, deporting children with cancer, collapsing our health care system, killing pregnant women and calling it “faith,” setting science on fire, killing children born with HIV who should have medicine to keep them alive, threatening to take away healthcare from millions of Americans, grifting in ways that are shockingly evil, even after ten years of Trump’s corruption on the world stage, threatening to collapse the judicial system, and all the while, attempting to replace our one refuge: love and connection, with AI that will destroy not just our minds, but also our water and soil.
Yet, another world is still possible, and we will eventually build it. That’s why I know we must find the joy, the dance, the sweetness, the love, the eros within us and with others. And in June, the planets will let us partake in at least a few sips of this elixir.
Put simply, the best news we get this month is that both benefics return to places where they are fully alive in their joy. Both Venus and Jupiter have struggled in signs where they are uncomfortable and unable to express their ease. First, Venus moves into earthy Taurus, one of the signs she rules, on the 6th. This offers us access to deep, delicious sensuality. Food tastes better, touch feels better, music sounds like medicine, and we see the beauty of nature in 3-D. All of our senses are lit up while Venus is in her home sign. This also signals the true end of the long Venus Retrograde saga that started when the planet of love entered Pisces in January. Now the pre-and post period are over, so you can close the book on those Venusian shenanigans and revelations.
When Jupiter enters nurturing Cancer for the first time in twelve years on the 9th, a year of much-needed comfort begins. Malefic Mars has been in and out of Cancer since last September, owing to a harsh and exhausting retrograde over the winter. Now Jupiter, exalted in Cancer, enters this part of our charts like a nurse tending to our wounded bits, offering succor and solace to what has hurt us over the last nine months. Jupiter here opens us up to our innate emotional intelligence, our instincts to take care of family and chosen fam, our relationship to home, and even our concept of “homeland” — ancestry is a huge theme when Jupiter is in Cancer. We’re all retracing our roots to find what makes us feel safe. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security was founded in 2002, when Jupiter was in Cancer. I hope this doesn’t mean we’re going to have to see a lot more of Kristi Noem and her Rolex, but alas.
Jupiter was last in Cancer from June 25, 2013, to July 16, 2014, during the first year that Obamacare opened enrollment. 40 million Americans who were uninsured (hi, I am one of those Americans) before the Affordable Care Act are under threat right now. As the reverse Robinhood Republicans attempt to steal away our healthcare with Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” during the next few months, I do wonder if Joni Ernst and the others who want us to die will get a big fat surprise when Americans once again rise up and demand the most basic kind of care.
The Full Moon in Sagittarius lands on the 11th, the same day as a sweet Mercury-Venus sextile. I like this because Jupiter rules Sagittarius and has just moved into Cancer, where it’s happiest. This invites us to dance with the archetypes of freedom, idealism, hope, adventure, and expansion. This lunation feels rather lovely if taken on its own merits, but that’s hard to do, because Father’s Day weekend is a fucking shitshow and it’s just a few days later. Also note that the Mercury Retrograde shadow opens around this time.
Early on Father’s Day morning, Mars at the end of Leo squares Uranus in Taurus. This feels sudden, violent, and disruptive. Incidentally, Mars is right on Trump’s ascendant and natal Mars at this moment, the day after his birthday/solar return, and the day after his planned “I wanna be Kim Jong Un” military parade. June 14 is also what promises to be the largest ever protest march of the second Trump regime, dubbed NO KINGS DAY.
Later on the morning of Father’s Day, Jupiter squares Saturn in Aries. I’m going to do a deeper dive into Saturn in Aries and the father archetype in an upcoming piece, but in short, Saturn in this sign can amplify our awareness of the angry, violent, dangerous side of toxic masculinity. Which, hello, is all around us right now. I sense that we’re about to entirely retool Daddy Culture in the next couple of years. But this aspect, coming on Father’s Day when the reality tv huckster who cosplays a strongman with his cabinet full of tiny, whiny men who clearly fear being laughed at more than anything else, men who wouldn’t know real masculinity if it punched them in the face like Elon Musk’s son x, is a fucking doozy for patriarchy.
Mars left Cancer in April, and finishes its time in Leo on the 17th. This is also remarkable, because Mars first entered Leo a few days before the election last November. June has a quality of closure, closure for some of the most difficult moments we’ve endured since late 2024, and this is yet another cosmic door swinging shut, hopefully ending something you’re ready to let go of. With Mars in Virgo for the next six weeks, we can become hyper Energizer Bunnies with to-do lists for our to-do lists. It’s a little bit neurotic, and we can pick on our partners, but also a good time for renewing fitness regimens.
The Summer Solstice is a golden moment, as the Sun dives into Cancer on the 20th, the longest and most languid day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, ripe for ritual and relaxing. It’s also Friday, Venus Day, and if we’ve survived the aspects of the prior weekend, this is a lovely time to take a summer Friday and indulge in what feels good.
Here's the most beautiful moment of the month: the sun joins Jupiter in Cancer in a gorgeous, uplifting Cazimi on the 24th, leading into the New Moon in Cancer the next day. If you ignore intention-setting the rest of the year, I urge you to tap into this opportunity, because it‘s pretty grand and beautiful. And I think right now, in this world, at this time, we need all the help we can get.
So use June to blast the kind of music that brings you pure joy, dance your fucking ass off, spread glitter like you’re fucking Tinker Belle, humilate the fascists, put TACO signs everywhere, kiss who you want to kiss, fuck who you want to fuck, hold who you want to hold, and remember: never let the bastards grind you down. Love your queer and trans siblings actively and openly.
For all my queer readers: I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, MAGICAL, AND PERFECT. HAPPY PRIDE!
Please read your sign-by-sign forecast in my WELL+GOOD monthly column. I promise that I will resolve my Substack renovation issues by July. Thank you for standing by and reading my work in the meantime.
