High tides and low blows: July 2025 horoscopes for every sign

Welcome to July star seeds and the oceanic, homebound feels of Cancer season. As we embark on the month ahead, we will do so amid some interesting Astroweather.

We spend the majority of the month under the tidal influence of Cancer, a sign that has historically and in the kingdom of memes been reduced to the archetype of a prickly, nostalgia drunk, huffing their ex’s hoodie crybaby. Yet, in this quote, often and erroneously attributed to Charlotte Brontë, we are reminded, “Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.”

To be alive is to be present for pain, and our vitality is tied to our ability to feel each notch of the spinning wheel of the human experience and to respond in kind and in cry; at times snot-nosed, flush-faced, raw throat and wet cheeks to that turning.

Cancer reminds us that everything hurts and nothing lasts, but also that all art and meaning are mined from that beautiful, fatal truth. No one gets out alive, but we can choose to feel every footfall on the road to the end.

July plays host to a retrograde parade with Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, and Chiron all slowing their proverbial rolls this month. When the planets slow down, we are asked to follow suit, to turn our attention inward and spend time reflecting and course correcting.

On July 4, Neptune, our planet of hopes and haikus, delusions and drugs, wishes and watercolor painting, goes retrograde in Aries, asking us if we are building or burning our dream. On July 7, Uranus, our planet of inspiration and upheaval, leaves the plodding pastures of Taurus for the amphetamine hot air balloon of Gemini. Gemini rules language and Uranus the bold and the bizarre, setting the stage for all kinds of curious communion and eccentric expression to transpire.

On July 10, we welcome the Full Buck Moon in Capricorn, highlighting the polarity between intimate connections (Cancer) and external ascension (Capricorn).

On July 13, Saturn, our daddy planet of restriction, boundaries, and karmic debts, goes retrograde in Aries, calling us to question whether we have the gumption for the long game in games of destiny, a slow burn versus a brief flare.

On July 18, Mercury, our planet of the mind and the mouth, goes retrograde in Leo, heralding a time to quiet the roar and explore whether the way we express ourselves is rooted in performance for the sake of acceptance or authenticity for the sake of ourselves.

On July 22nd, the sun leaves the tidal, moon drop birthing pool of Cancer for the stage lights and kitchen of Leo. As the sun rules Leo, this is the Death Star’s solar homecoming.

Light the fires and gas the tires.

Two days later, we welcome the new moon in Leo, a potent time to polish what shines.

Good luck out there, folks, see you in August.

Welcome to the trials and tribulations of Cancer season, Aries. This month, Saturn, our daddy planet of tough luck and formative disappointments, goes retrograde in your sign.

You’re built for charging ahead and going balls deep and half blind into battle, but this retrograde wants you to cultivate a different kind of power.

In the months to come, if you can manage to marry your vigor with vigilance, you are primed to come through this retrograde refined and ready to face any opposition with the knowledge that winning doesn’t always mean a loser has to stagger away, and that our misses and fall shorts are always more instructive, and often more invaluable than our triumphs.

Ahoy Taurus! The sun in ‘the past is an opiate’ Cancer highlights your third house of communication and exchange. In honor of this, I encourage you to hurl yourself back to a time before you understood language and your physical body was your only vehicle for voice.

I don’t mean that you should grunt, although if that feels right, grunt on, but rather to see how your feelings settle in your body and how you can shift them through movement; dance, headbanging, leg kicking, slow breathing, pulling at your hair, or baring your teeth, any exercise can be an exorcism.

Holy upheaval, Gemini. Uranus, our side-spinning planet of sudden change, lightning, disruption, and inspiration, is setting up shop in your sign this month.

Buy the ticket, take the ride, my babies. This transit is a summons to break free and bust loose from the box lest it be broken in and around you.

The word chaos comes from the Greek khaos, meaning ‘that which is vast and empty, void’. I hope you will come to see this transit as that proverbial void, the flattened fertile earth after a furious storm, the spark in the dark, and the beginning of everything again.

Happy return of the sun to you, Cancer! The most dramatic of death stars alongside Jupiter, planet of expansion and excess, are shining in your first house of self-concept.

As the people of the crab maintain a near masochistic love of the past, a kind of erotic nostalgia, I bring you a passage from the banger children’s book “The Velveteen Rabbit,” wherein the horrifyingly named Skin Horse tells the titular character, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

In honor of your annual, annular solar baptism, I hope you will reflect on how you have been shaped by the circumstances of becoming real to yourself, the singular beauty born of having been loved truly and all the way through.

The sun in Cancer throws a light on the murky depths of your twelfth house dreams, delusions, and the unconscious mind, Leo.

As you prepare for your solar return, I ask you to consider what illusion has control over you. Be it a benchmark of success or a limiting self-belief, you would do well to clean house of the illusory to make way for the transcendent.

Close your eyes and loosen the reins.

Hello, Virgo! The sun in Cancer shines in your eleventh house of community this month.

I recently read Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files response to a fan who asked how he prepares for a live show. Cave shared that he closes his eyes and sits in silence for fifteen minutes and calls to mind those he has loved and lost and invokes their particular qualities, both godly and creaturely, that can and will move him across the stage.

As Cancer is memory and the eleventh house is community, I hope you’ll assemble a similar litany of departed, not to devote yourself to, but to draw raw power from.

Ahoy, Libra. The sun in Cancer lights up your tenth house of career and legacy. I recently read an interview with author and fellow Libra David Vann where he shared that he doesn’t subscribe to the idea of writer’s block.

If such a sensation arises, he argues that the person in question is either not a writer or working on the wrong material.

If you find yourself feeling blocked, creatively or psychically, maybe it’s time to choose a different road.

The sun and Jupiter in Cancer amplify your ninth house of philosophy and expansion, Scorpio, the domain of the open road and the open mind.

With the retrograde parade afoot this month, there’s never been a better time to explore the edges of your own emotional potential. When you lead with what calls you rather than follow the fear that controls you, you are limitless. Bear in mind that you are uniquely designed for depth and experience, positive or negative, is a prerequisite for growth.

Leave the cave for what you crave, my babies, it only gets better from here.

Happy summer, Sagittarius! The sun in Cancer kicks down the basement door of your eighth house of intimacy, resources, sex, death, and secrets.

Cancer is about the past, a history we are said to carry in the muscle matter of the hips, where we bear children and other literal weight, and the weight of all that’s come before. The hips are home to the sacral chakra, the energetic power center where sexuality and creativity are born. In many traditions, tight hips are a sign of obstructed sacral energy, congestion that can cause emotional instability and dulled pleasure.

No matter who you are, I’m willing to bet there’s something you’ve carried for too long. In addition to concentrated hip stretches, your recipe for renewal includes screaming out someone else’s secret and the long howl of your own.

Welcome to Cancer season, Capricorn! Saturn, your ruling planet, goes retrograde this month, heralding a time to turn your prodigious strategic energy inward and reassess the balance of your dreams and karmic debts.

I recently watched a Willie Nelson documentary wherein the Red Headed Stranger himself shared that he wrote most of the best of his prolific songbook while driving alone down back roads.

If you find yourself feeling uninspired, challenged by change, or worse yet, stuck in the stagnancy of a repeating chorus, may I suggest you let the sound of an ignition turning over set you right.

Happy Cancer season, Aquarius.

The sun and Jupiter in the cardinal waters of Cancer highlight your body and the rituals and routines that shape and support it. We often talk of healing in a broad emotional sense and at the expense of the physical. Yet, as neuroscientist Candace Pert reminds us, they are inextricable.

“Most psychologists treat the mind as disembodied, a phenomenon with little or no connection to the physical body. Conversely, physicians treat the body with no regard to the mind or the emotions. But the body and mind are not separate, and we cannot treat one without the other.”

As Cancer is the sign of maternal care, I hope you’ll fiercely defend your right to the rituals that put your mind and body in sacred conversation.

Happy summer sweat, Pisces. The sun and Jupiter amplify creative drive and carnal desire for you this month.

In “The Crying Book,” author Heather Christle writes, “Some mornings I awake with an enormous sensation inside of me and cannot identify whether the urge is to cry or write a poem or f–k someone. All at once. My body has cross-indexed the impulse.”

I hope you live this month in this glorious intersection and choose, again and again, all over one.

Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture, and personal experience. To book a reading, visit her website.