Vedic Astrological Monthly Newsletter: June 2025

The Month of June 2025 offers some planetary breathing room:

While the entire year of 2025 is an astrologically tumultuous year, June is one of the best months of the year for stronger planetary transits, offering a bit of a break. The planets separate and get some breathing room, all for the better:

#1: Mercury moves to its own strong sign of Gemini on 6/6 and will transit with Jupiter until 6/22. 

#2: Venus is now transiting through Aries until 6/29, and has left its conjunction with Saturn. 

#3: Mars leaves its debilitated position in Cancer, transiting through the friendly fixed, fire sign of Leo between 6/6 - 7/20.

Mercury's Gemini Transit 6/6 to 6-22-2025:

     Mercury's transit through its own sign of Gemini is excellent for all types of communications, digital, verbal, written, and negotiations in general.  This is also positive for business and trade.  In general, this is a good month for getting projects started, making purchases, signing contracts, legal mediation and overall getting projects and activities to move forward and at a more rapid rate. This also benefits travel, information processing, making presentations, offering lectures, all types of educational endeavors and for writing and teaching. It is a nice time to learn a new subject, as the atmosphere is conducive  for learning, introducing new ideas, and seeing different sides of a situation or topic.  This is a month where "change" is viewed as a "positive" and curiosity and exploration are welcome.  Communications should improve, be clearer and logical during the month.  Mercury in Gemini promotes a lot of conversation and examining a wide variety of ideas and approaches to all domains during June.

Venus Transits through Aries until 6/29: 

     Venus moved into Aries on 5/31 and will transit there until 6/29. Venus is unafflicted, other than receiving the trinal aspect from Ketu. Venus in this position is beneficial for all types of "self-improvement" activities, with more attention placed on individuality, rather than on group development. June is a good month to start a new exercise program, work on improving one's health on all levels, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. There will be greater focus on beautifying the appearance, especially involving the face and hair.  There might be more emphasis on trying to regain a youthful appearance, especially while Venus is transiting through Aswini nakshatra until 6/13, when Venus then moves into Bharani nakshatra. 

     There is a story regarding the deity assigned to Aswini, the "Aswini Kumaras," who were known as the twin physicians of the gods: they had magical healing powers and had the ability to bring back vitality, vigor, vision and youthfulness to an aging sage who was quite old and became blinded by accident. Hence, Venus, the planet governing the arts and beauty transiting through Aries, the first sign of the zodiac (governs the head/face), in Aswini, points to benefits for health, especially regarding youthfulness and regaining vitality. In general, unafflicted benefic planets moving through Aswini are excellent for promoting rapid healing. June is a good month to put energy into improving one's lifestyle habits, nutrition, diet and getting started with a new exercise program, for example. 

     Planets in Aries focus on "the self" and developing one's identity, independence and direction. Whereas, Aries is ruled by Mars, Venus transiting in Aries is very passionate, fearless, direct and outgoing about achieving desires on its own, without getting permission from someone else to proceed. This is an excellent transit for starting new projects, especially gardens, creative, artistic work, house design and also charting a new life direction or path you might be contemplating during June. Anything that draws your attention and you feel passionate about starting, gets a bit of a boost this month.

Mars' Transit through Leo: 6/6 to 7-28-2025:

     On 6/6, Mars leaves its weakest sign position of Cancer and moves to the friendly, fixed, fire sign of Leo. Mars will transit there until 7/28. This gives "fuel to the fire" since Mars is considered a hot planet and gains strength while transiting through a fire sign position. As Mars gains strength, so does willpower, energy, motivation, fearlessness, drive, competition, desire to win, achieve and move rapidly without delay and restrictions. 

     For June, combining this strong Mars energy with Venus in Aries and the strong Mercury in force, makes it a great month for strategy, sports, games, competitions of all kinds, taking on a challenging project, moving forward with plans, being courageous and trying new activities that you may have felt hesitant to experience previously. Overall, Mars is freer to express itself without restriction. That can yield some highly positive results, as well as increased aggression simultaneously. In Leo, a "fixed" sign, Mars does not act like a loose cannon, blasting its energy all over the place. The Mars energy can be more precisely directed and targeted. This produces deeper, persevering energy, which is why it is beneficial for taking action this month and moving projects and plans forward.

The Transit of Rahu and Ketu into the Aquarius/Leo Axis until 11-25-2026:

     Rahu and Ketu always move in tandem, 180 degrees with each other, and together, they change constellations approximately every 18 months. On 5/29, Rahu/Ketu transited to Aquarius and Leo, respectively. The nodes mostly retrograde, so they appear to move backward through the zodiac. They both just left the Pisces/Virgo axis on 5/29. In this newsletter, I'll focus on the Ketu side of the transit for now and leave discussion of the Rahu side for another time. 

      Ketu will transit with transiting Mars in June and for most of July, until 7/28, when Mars moves into Virgo. Mars and Ketu will form an exact conjunction at 25 degrees Leo on 7/20, definitely a time frame (late July 2025)  to monitor for the enhanced probability of aggression, war breaking out, terrorist acts, explosions, intense fires, accidents and violence/anarchy/riots getting out-of-control in various forms. This aspect of the Mars/Ketu conjunction reflects the negative side of the transit.

     The combination of Mars with Ketu is interesting since Ketu is known to harbor many of Mars' qualities. However, Ketu handles them differently than Mars. Both display strong impulsive tendencies, want freedom and independence at all costs, and both have the inherent potential to turn anti-social, irritable, angry and violent if restricted or confined.  Ketu represents internalized fury, while Mars is much more demonstrative and external in terms of its expression. Put them together, and you have both internal and external restlessness boiling up. It reminds me of a dormant hidden volcano which is loaded with hot red/orange lava sitting there for thousands of years, ready to explode from beneath the earth. Combine that with the Mars trigger, and you get the outward expulsion of hot burning lava flow, bringing out the internal build-up into the open for all to see and experience. We may literally witness more than a normal number of active volcanic eruptions while Mars and Ketu transit Leo. 

     Both Ketu and Mars tend to go their own way and are not interested in social decorum or following conventional rules. They have an agenda to fulfill and that's all that matters. On a higher level, this does not have to be completely destructive, as this can lead to great discoveries, going very deep and gaining great insight, while achieving new and miraculous feats. On the other side of the coin, this can also be a highly destructive transit, as Ketu and Mars can seek revenge at perceived enemies. Ketu has a deep karmic/genetic history that it carries and the build-up of resentment and anger can fester for a long time. Mars is not like that, as it releases the anger at will, without harboring it forever.  When Ketu and Mars combine, as they will in June and July this year, Mars gives Ketu a stimulus to release its old, deep, built-up issues, wherever they manifest in the individual's chart. 

     Ketu is a more hidden, private, alienated, and detached energy which is where it differs from Mars' approach. Ketu is not particularly comfortable transiting in Leo, which is governed by the Sun. While the Sun gives us light and represents the personality in human form, Ketu obstructs, darkens or negates the Sun during a solar eclipse, taking away the light. As we know, the Sun in Leo represents having strong leadership qualities, and takes pride in expressing its greatness. If you take away its light, then what becomes of these external qualities as they are not seen by others. The personality loses its former sense of identity and attachment to this aspect of himself. Ketu's energy forces the person to go deeper, go inward and detach, while the ego dissolves in the process. This is not necessarily negative, if the person is able to understand and work with this energy in a constructive manner. One's identity becomes transformed, is centered into a deeper understanding of oneself, not just from a purely material transitory level.

     Thus a strong Leo character can be an effective leader, make a strong impact on the world at large, and demonstrate greatness, without requiring others to respond with praise, accolades, awards, recognition and parades in his honor to demonstrate and prove that "I must be great if everyone says I am great."  Ketu's influence while transiting through Leo checks on the attachments an individual has to being honored, praised and recognized for being "great." 

     Ketu will simply dissolve the opportunity for this to occur, or the person is left feeling dissatisfied with the reactions coming from others, feeling ignored, disrespected, hidden and alienated. 

      If truly detached, then Ketu allows the individual to go deeper, and to get released from the bondage of needing to feel admiration from others, thus getting free and able to see beyond the ignorance that permeates this material world we are all connected to for a fairly short time in the grand scheme of one lifetime.  For this reason, Ketu is also known as the "spiritual karaka" indicator, or a "planet" representing spirituality in the Vedic chart. Ketu has its higher spiritual octave, which can potentially transport an individual into a greater awareness and understanding, shedding excess baggage and attachments that no longer have a place within that person's consciousness.