February Horoscope: Beware of King Midas’ Touch

Written with love by Mariah the Mystic

February descends like a mythic figure, offering us to either escape into our wildest utopia or dig for gold-plated rubbish in quicksand. While the first seems like the obvious choice, both contain their own traps. 

We see this dynamic mirrored everywhere this month, the thirst to get drunk off pageantry and forget our corporeal collective woes: The Grammys, Super Bowl LX, 2026 Winter Olympics, NYFW; a slapdash spritz of Baccarat Rouge over a heaping pile of $hit. While enjoying these surface-level shimmers might offer analgesic relief from Dante's inferno, they are as quickly fleeting as they are carefully curated. You can partake while still keeping one foot on the ground outside of the bubble. 

It is also a month of toil with ourselves, with our world. Through the generational shifts of Uranus, Saturn, And Neptune, we find ourselves bumping up against our own nature, and the systems that have been built and written, by us, or for us. This stretch feels epochal and inconsiderate, but it is largely needed and, frankly, warranted. We may find ourselves desperately trying to merge and re-orient to rapid changes on the grand stage, as we work to keep our mini personal orbits in check and functioning.

February exposes, and needles, the gap between our primal, reactive impulse and the actuality of our impact. Desire can and will feel limitless if not restless, but the actions, words, and choices of those in more power than us will affect us and indirectly alter our course.

As personal planets drift into Pisces, we cannot always achieve our rose-tinted imaginarium. But, we can still have very real, super delicious, and just as fulfilling encounters as earthlings. Turn away from the slippery world of evolving tech and chaos towards the human, authentic, tangible, and analog. Let yourself be swept up by music, film, poetry, genuine commentary, and powerful imagery as mirrors for past wounds, current desires, and the parts of you that yearn to feel witnessed or released.

Mid-month Mercury enters its pre-retrograde shadow. Avoid Rx drama by leaning into planning and triple-checking as your safety-approved life jacket. It plays tricks on travel plans, technology, and conversations. Be mindful of what’s rushed or triggering, keeping a gauge on stressors when you can. You have the power here to decide what battles or obstacles are best to ride out, reschedule, or refuse to engage with. (Like taking a beat before responding to the out-of-the-blue text from your past lover)

With all of the Piscean sleepytime tonic clouding the signal, you may find yourself drifting at times or feeling quite confused. Luckily, the Aquarius Solar Eclipse on February 17th is happy to let some fresh air in, conjuring a door, a window, a point of entry, or exit. The growing cracks in old orders, systems, and traditions are showing. Will they combust and loosen, or wait to be filled in with liquid gold, like repair work on old fine china? 

During your eclipse season process that will find its bookend in early March, give yourself permission to pause and simply be. Your personal orbits may be shapeshifting, contracting or expanding, showing exciting opportunities ahead, or pressure proofing your interior world. Allow your visions and/or plans to finish baking instead of being rushed by hypervigilance or a sense of immediacy. Notice what feels good and right without over-intellectualizing, rationalizing with logic, or measuring the potential capital value.

For us queer folks, this month may stir new fantasies, identity shifts, realizations, or doubts. Honor, share, or grieve what comes up while remaining present with what is necessary. Accept what can’t be changed, and trust that change will take care of what is not currently accepted. 

For BIPOC folks, this month may spark tensions and heighten your awareness around feelings of safety and security, your relationship to visibility and pride, your sense of belonging in systems and communities, and even your dynamics towards public trust, authority, and power structures. In this increasingly hostile public landscape of our world, who protects, ostracizes, attacks, or stays silent? Be blunt with evolving needs and boundaries, trimming what isn’t in alignment.

February’s Pisces-heavy energy is swimming you towards your center to excavate what is gathering: fear, pride, joy, burnout, shame, anger. Bear witness to it, make art fueled by it, release it, or give it grace to dispel when it's ready. As always, Astrology is a cyclical pattern we can tap into or tap out of as we please. You do not have to integrate everything to be in sync with the ethers. Let it be a validator of your experience rather than an omen or sentencing. 

Aries Rising: Wander out solo, becoming your own cell tower for allies aligned with your new route. Trust in your ability to transmute your rage and heat into tools that protect, aid, and create beauty.

Taurus Rising: Let chaos color identity for you, stepping towards a sensory wonderland. Swap nostalgia and knowing for hedonism that ventures out and pleasure that requires dalliance.

Gemini Rising: Let emotion course through your body before exiting your mouth. Step into an assisting role, making space for someone else to lead discussion, exploration, or execution.

Cancer Rising: Allow your ego death to dissolve into saltwater, clearing the channel to your core. Dig out the seed of wisdom in self-talk that bites, outdated beliefs, or wounds that still burn to touch.

Leo Rising: Get curious about ‘who’ the person you are performing yourself for is, especially when you’re all alone. Allow your guard down long enough to be bare to your own eyes in the mirror.

Virgo Rising: Turn away from the definitive of tradition, bias, and claim, towards the great modulating human experience. Speak, or let others speak, so you can understand better and more clearly.

Libra Rising: Bring your relationships into the pure daylight so that you can witness all of their facets. Indulge in risk; distinct choices, stepping out of character, shameful or embarrassing desires.

Scorpio Rising: Retreat to private, secure, or intimate spaces so you can undergo metamorphosis without expectation or explanation. Lay low, tend to your wounds, and keep a gentle touch.

Sagittarius Rising: Adventure off road by becoming a guest or bystander to the action, noticing where discomfort or restlessness lives inside of you. Let stillness reveal what you didn’t know you were seeking.

Capricorn Rising: Season your stability with disruption. Schedule in unscheduled time, commit off-duty time to nonsense, perform maintenance on your intimate and creative worlds.

Aquarius Rising: Reset and find flux by turning your habits on their head. Get a new perspective, mix up your daily routines, or shift around the furniture in your house until you feel inspiration coursing again.

Pisces Rising: When you feel tempted to disappear or escape, find breath, heartbeat, or a hand. Focus this season on embodiment, gratitude for tiny acts and blessings, and community that shows up.