Published July 18, 2026 04:04AM
After weeks of turning inward, this week moves us outward. The movement in our cosmos and in ourselves comes largely from a rare and much-anticipated alignment among outer planets known as Barbault Basket. We also experience the Sun entering Leo as Mercury concludes its retrograde, each contributing in different ways to our evolution. The purpose of these days is not to abandon ourselves but to express ourselves, trust ourselves, and ourselves and our intuition guide our way forward. Your weekly horoscope for July 18-25, 2026, explains how.
Weekly Horoscope, July 19-25, 2026, Preview
July 19 | Barbault Basket
July 22 | Sun enters Leo
July 23 | Mercury direct
Barbault Basket
This week delivers a rarely experienced configuration among outer planets that has come to be known as the Barbault Basket, named after French astrologer André Barbault. Between July 19 and 22, 2026, four outer planets form a series of sextiles, trines, and oppositions that create a geometric pattern against the backdrop of the cosmos resembling a basket.
For that moment in time, Jupiter in Leo, Uranus in Gemini, Neptune in Aries, and Pluto in Aquarius will all sit at exactly 4 degrees of their zodiac signs. From a visual perspective, this creates a basket shape. From an astrological perspective, this collision of fire and air brings tension, creativity, and collective change.
Our outer planets speak to collective evolution. The movement of the luminaries (the Sun and Moon) and the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars) relate more to immediate changes felt within our bodies. In contrast, the transits of the outer planets act more as markers of larger collective eras. As they take a long time for these distant bodies to move, they mark long chapters. As these planets align in this specific fashion this week, we meet a symbolic threshold as vast energies seem to shift us from one historical rhythm to another.
Although this rare alignment relates mostly to collective evolution, it also reminds us that we are inextricably linked to these larger rhythms. Just as history moves through eras, so do we. Inwardly and outwardly, tangibly and intangibly.
Rather than a singular event announcing a new chapter of self, the Barbault Basket asks us to tune into whatever is shifting beneath the surface. To holding space for it. To align ourselves with the future that wants to create itself through us. To notice what helps us feel alive and complete. And to trust that meaningful change often begins as an inner shift before an outer reality.
Sun Enters Leo
As the outer planets begin to tell a different collective story, the Sun entering Leo on July 22, 2026, begins to alter the inner landscape within us all.
Under the influence of Leo, we’re drawn to explore our relationship with our own spirit. What brings us more life force? What feels true and inspiring? What makes our frequency sing? It is a sign of the self, the unique spark that is each of us, the vitality that is our spirit. Leo is the longing to live and express ourselves within this world. It is light-hearted, playfulness, creativity, and self-expression.
As Leo season begins, allow joy to be your compass, allow inspiration to be your guidance. Explore where your energy comes alive and where it dims, where you are called to create freely and where old patterns that seek approval linger. Observe where your system habitually contorts and dims itself and where you subtly or obviously resist the creative force moving through you. This season is a chance to come home to yourself and your truth.
Mercury Retrograde Ends
The next day, Mercury finishes its retrograde on July 23, 2026, and begins slowly moving ahead once again in Cancer.
The moments after Mercury retrograde offer additional insight. For weeks, we have been reviewing, questioning, and reconsidering the stories in our minds and realigning with our innermost knowing. While we have been in this space of review, clarity has been patiently waiting yet just beyond our grasp.
In ancient astrology, it was said that as a planet retrogrades, it moves beneath the surface, through the underground, as if plumbing our depths in search of insights and wisdom, secrets previously unseen to the conscious mind. As the retrograde comes to an end, the planet has emerged and, once upon the surface, it can once again be seen under the light of the Sun. Here we can observe what we have observed and begin organizing, understanding, and integrating what was previously beyond our awareness and consciousness.
Moving direct in Cancer, Mercury brings intuition, feeling, and memory. It is here that clarity speaks to us. The planet of communication will remain in Cancer until August 9, 2026. Until then, we are offered access to emotional awareness, insight into psychological patterns, and the patience and presence for reparenting as we tend to our needs.
Weekly Horoscope, July 19-25, 2026
As new rhythms form in our cosmos and collective seasons change, we are asked to create space for what is changing without needing to understand, identify, or direct it. It’s a week reminding us that our bodies, our hearts, our nervous system, knows how to move through patterns, contraction, expansion, becoming, integration, and evolution when offered the trust, understanding, and compassion to do so.
It’s a week inviting us to feel life moving through us. To play with the world and observe how it plays back. To renew our vitality and tend to what has felt unsafe in the past so that we can offer it the safety of our presence. Read for your rising sign.
Aries Rising
This week reminds you to reconnect to play and creativity, self-expression and radiance. In response, you become more aware of the parts of yourself that are still learning safety and worthiness. Tend to each—not in competition with one another but partnership. Your happiness is the medicine for your fears. Your connection to your emotions is the antidote to your old patterns.
Taurus Rising
This week asks you to experience, as if for the first time, the warmth, beauty, and creativity inherent in you. It brings new self-awarenesses and asks old stories to fall away. And it invites you to explore who you are in this world when you’re grounded in belonging, worthiness, and safety.
Gemini Rising
Can you notice a flow of vitality through your words, communication, and ideas? This week invites you to find renewed inspiration and let it infiltrate your mind, your creativity, and your unique voice. As you let yourself inhabit your worthiness, you begin to remember your belonging and sacredness within the vaster universe. Let your intuition reveal your beauty and your true desires.
Cancer Rising
Who are you without the stories that no longer fit? Who is ready to emerge beneath the expired narratives of how you once saw yourself and felt beholden to show up? Let the structures of your identity begin to rewriting themselves. It’s a week for claiming your felt sense of self-worth, vitality, and creativity.
Leo Rising
As this creativity-inspired season dedicated to you begins, allow space to explore who you have become and who you are still becoming. Whatever emerges helps you clear away any old layers and asks you to trust your intuition. As you do, you find greater safety and confidence in being seen and building your dreams.
Virgo Rising
This week initiates a season of sacred closure. Consider it a celebration of who you have become over the last 12 months and a release of whatever no longer feels aligned. It’s a return to your intuition, your creative self, and your inner world as an alive and evolving space. Think of it as a conversation with your future self that’s ready to begin once again, this time with more information.
Libra Rising
This week invites an honest conversation with your heart. Where does it want to go? What does it want to create, build, and experience? As you begin opening yourself to your visions and desires, observe what within you needs greater support, nurturance, and safety so that you can move from a space of trust.
Scorpio Rising
This week wants you to experience desire. It wants you to experience courage, self-expression, and a sense of purpose and direction. It invites confidence and self-trust to take up more space in your body, and it invites the fears within your heart to share their needs. Tending to that fear while sitting in courage is your way forward this week.
Sagittarius Rising
Wisdom, belonging, aliveness and creativity, this week invites you into a conversation with life. With meaning. With expression and the deeper truth that sits within you. It invites you to take up space within your body and life, reclaiming your vibrancy. And it invites old patterns of unworthiness to the surface for love and healing
Capricorn Rising
This week asks you to liberate your life force. Through honesty and emotional courage, you can unshackle yourself from old patterns and access more of your light, confidence, and vitality. As you allow your internal communication to move more freely, your heart begins unravelling. As you remember safety, creativity flows.
Aquarius Rising
It’s a week of expanding your heart. Observe where your old ways of being cause you to hide. Pay attention to what new ways of being want to emerge underneath. Consider what supportive habits and routines want to become part of your days. All of this supports asking, how can you find courage and safety to share love, receive appreciation, and express happiness?
Pisces Rising
This week invites more self-love and creativity in your days. Consider what habits and routines support your vitality and aliveness. As you connect with this, your ideas and inspiration flows. And as you meet your old narratives, new stories aligned with your worthiness, safety, inherent belonging, and beauty can finally be written.
Explore the effects of the Moon, learn what your opposite sign means, and understand how astrology intersects with your everyday life through our astrology email newsletter.
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