NEPTUNE ASTROLOGY TRANSITS

14/12/2018

7 Comments

Neptune Astrology

Neptune in Pisces

Neptune is currently in its own sign of Pisces; it is there for 15 years from April 2011 to January 2026. What does that mean?

Neptune astrology is all to do with illusion and delusion. It creates illusion by the use of glamour. We all have an image that we believe describes who we are and what the world is like. In Hinduism it is called Maya, in Sufism, Ishq. It is the illusion of desire, what we project onto the facts of outer life to give it personal meaning. Because we have or have not certain qualities or experiences some of us believe ourselves to be important, some believe the opposite that we are not important.

This can be physical strength or beauty, emotional drama, executive ability, teacher, leader, healer, wise man, fool…these are all examples of glamour; they are stories we make up about ourselves and the life we live. Just stories.

As Neptune moves through its 176 year cycle it glamorises different aspects of life – fashions in music, clothes, sexual attractiveness, political ideals, religious teachings and so on. None of it lasts forever and some of it passes very quickly.

Yet Neptune also has the ability to expose illusion, to dis-illusion us, and reveal the deeper mysteries beneath all the lies and false promises that life offers. So this transit is also likely to be the time for a seed to be planted of true spiritual liberation. When we know we are living in a dream, we can relax and enjoy the movie we have created for ourselves, without accepting the story as anything more than entertainment and symbolic guidance.

However, what is false is dissolved. We may therefore lose things we love and, even though they are unreal and temporary, that can be rather upsetting for the self-love of the ego. We must refocus to see that what has replaced the false is deeper, more precious and more real.

On a personal level, because it is so slow, Neptune is likely to cross any planet or angle only once or twice in a lifetime so we cannot refer back to earlier experiences to gain better insights, we must use intuition more and try to glean from historical events what Neptune does.

Some Neptune in Pisces events

47– 61
Paul begins Christianity
Buddhism introduced to China.

374 - 389
Nicene Christianity officially adopted by Rome

538 -552
Spread of Buddhism –official introduction to Japan.
St David brings Christianity to Wales 550.

701 - 716
Muslim expansion –Moorish invasion of Spain.
Muslim state established in modern Pakistan. 712.

1192 - 1207
Crusades. The 4th seen as final act in Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church.

1520 - 1534
Martin Luther condemned as heretic and excommunicated
Henry 8th cut ties with church of Rome.
Calvin starts Protestant movement in France.

1684 - 1698
Louis 14th bans all religions in France except R.C.
Salem witch trials.
Newton published “Principia,” most basic book in all science

1847 - 1862
Communist Manifesto by Marx & Engels.
Speed of light first measured
Darwin’s Origin of Species published

We notice a common thread…at these times the various belief-systems that dominate the world take important steps forward. Each of the movements that support these ideologies believes in them as though they were truth, yet Neptune doesn’t even believe in truth. Neptune wants us to know that the map we have of reality is only a story, only of local relevance, only temporary and never finally provable.

2011 - 2026
What about now? Can we yet identify Neptune’s current message? It is always hard to know about the transit that we are experiencing until after it has passed away. Objectivity is in short supply when we are in the middle of loss and confusion.

These ideas have come up among the comments:
1.      Binge watching of TV series
2.      Air B&B popularity
3.      Mindfulness apps' explosion in popularity
4.      Awareness of the oceans – too much plastic and melting icecaps
5.      Gender and sexuality questions

All of these relate to boundaries in some way. An Englishman's home was once his castle and is now taken over by paying guests; mindfulness has as its ultimate goal the end of all separation; oceans are being spoilt by the invasive force of consumerism, fish are dying off; women and men were thought once to have well-defined sexual orientation and now it’s a bit cloudier.

We could add a few more topics. For example Zuckerberg is answering awkward questions about privacy (at long last), and how about microchip implants? Scientist Mark Gasson whose team demonstrated how a computer virus could wirelessly infect his implant and then be transmitted on to other systems. Gasson reasoned that with implanted technology the separation between man and machine can become theoretical because the technology can be perceived by the human as being a part of their body.

Possibly the most poignant political issue of the day has to do with borders too – Brexit and the election of Trump. In both cases many lies were told and the result seemed to shock and even dismay the winners who had no sense that the need for strong borders was such an emotional question for the voters. When we discuss what dissolves boundaries, nothing is more obvious in astrology than Neptune in Pisces.

These main questions seem to dominate our sense of Neptune.
1.      How to find a working model of reality to explain what we hold to be of the highest spiritual and personal significance? This could well be religion, mysticism, communism or, for some people, keeping up to date with the latest fashion.
2.      Separation and boundaries
3.      The illusion of glamour and the glamour of illusion

All the other planets, even Pluto to a considerable extent, bring us into deeper relationship with normal everyday life, each in their own way, but Neptune’s focus is not that. It is deals with questions of reality and identity. What is real? Who am I? Am I real or an illusion? It is not only hippies and other druggies that are asking these questions; scientists at the leading edge of physics and technology have similar uncertainties. In Astrology, Neptune asks these questions of us and yet gives no answers. It is enigmatic in the extreme, it answers everything with the Zen wisdom “not this not that!”

Neptune astrology transits bring confusion and illusion – but also spiritual clarity and dis-illusion-ment. At first, gripped by, and gripping onto, our false sense of who we are and what is real, Neptune washes away all the anchorage points of our lives, and we lose traction. With Mercury we lose our sense of clear-mindedness; with Venus we become foolishly un-boundaried in the fantasy of romantic love; with Mars it disinclines us away from self-serving action towards the hidden self-gratification of altruism. Neptune-Sun connections rob us of the all-important definition of ego that allows us to operate safely in a dangerous world.

And these transits go on and on. As soon as we rebuild our lives another tsunami comes along and we lose all the structures of limitation again and yet again until we find within ourselves a place of surrender and willing acceptance. From that moment all is well – then we flow with the deepest mystery and ride the tides of change. The more we allow Neptune to carry us along the better it feels. There is a beautiful serenity, a blissful sense of sweet goodness and a tiny but spiritually-transforming glimpse of All That Is.

7 Comments

Gillian link

4/5/2018 03:01:12 pm

- Relaxation of drug laws in America?
- Exponential growth of mindfulness apps?
- Increase in new applications for virtual reality technology?
- Cloud computing?
- Success of epic fantasy worlds e.g. Game of Thrones offering escapism for 'Generation Rent' / Kidulthood?
- More emphasis on experience than material possessions. People are buying less stuff but travelling more e.g. through AirBnB which has disrupted conventional hotel trade by opening up people's homes?
- More harnessing of tidal /water power (hopefully)?

James Burgess

5/5/2018 09:34:48 am

Good stuff Gillian!
Two questions for your further contemplation...
Which of these do you imagine will be mostly discussed 200 years from now?
How do see Air B&B's popularity as expressing Neptune so strongly?

6/5/2018 02:07:58 pm

Re: AirBnB - It's the apparent dissolution of boundaries.'My home is your home from home, and by the way, whilst you're here, would you like to partake of an authentic London / Paris / New York 'experience' for an extra charge?' But it's a fantasy feeding an illusion - in the big cities the market has been ruthlessly exploited by property developers turning residential houses into micro hotels through the back door. Increasingly your 'host' isn't some old lady with a spare room, it's a management company. Maybe I've over-egged the analogy?

Actually I missed out what now seems to me to be the most obvious manifestation of Neptune in Pisces. The impact of theTV series Blue Planet 2 where David Attenborough showed a blue whale carrying its dead calf after being poisoned by its mother's toxic polluted milk. http://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2017-11-20/dead-baby-blue-whale-leaves-blue-planet-viewers-in-tears/ This has given great impetus to campaigns to reduce plastic waste in our oceans. Lots of new initiatives recently announced by restaurant chains and supermarkets to ban plastic straws and packaging

Another thing I thought of was gender fluidity and trans issues.

In 200 years time? The mindfulness / meditation stuff I guess.

Ruby Fumizki link

5/11/2018 04:27:45 am

What does Neptune transiting my descendant mean?
In 2019, transit Neptune are going through my descendant, so I want to know about it.

Jena

7/11/2018 06:53:55 pm

Neptune transits have been the most difficult ones for me, maybe because natal Neptune sits in uneasy relationship to both moon and mercury, and they have included significant and devastating losses.
When Neptune transited the ascendant I was 21. My father died of a massive heart attack, at the time I was finishing college and starting a career in teaching. When transiting Neptune squared my sun/venus conjunction my mother died and I lost my husband, my lover and my job. When transiting Neptune squared mercury an on/off relationship (never on really) ended and I was on antidepressants for two years. Now transiting Neptune is conjunct my Pisces moon and when the aspect was exact my dog died. I’ve also lost a lot of friends over the last 12 months but don’t really understand how this is connected to a 3rd house moon. In a few years Neptune will reach my IC at 23 Pisces - already I am dreading it.
I give you moments but what those don’t tell is the grief, the fear, and the loneliness which takes over my inner world. I find it hard to function in an emotionally sound way when Neptune is making some significant aspect.
Transits are said to make us better people: more aware, more evolved, more ourselves – I’m not sure mine have. And of courses these experiences are mine – yours Ruby, will be yours.
James, what happened for you when transiting Neptune squared your sun or was conjunct your angles?

9/11/2018 02:33:35 pm

Neptune transit Descendent
The four angles are primary in chart interpretations and when one of the slower planets transits an angle then we may expect major life reorientations, which have permanent impact. These angles are the two major axes: IC|MC and Asc|Desc. The first has a lot to do with home and career, the second usually refers to our sense of who we are, how we relate generally to the world, and specifically to a partner. Any transit to the Descendant is also a transit to the Ascendant, so we cannot separate the two aspects of this one transit. Neptune is conjuncting the Desc, in opposition to the Asc – the exact hit is in 2019, so already in 2018 the forward-echo will have been experienced, and even in 2020 the after-shock will be reverberating. It is not always easy to have any real sense of what is occurring during a transit because we are too involved subjectively, and this is truer for Neptune and Pluto than for say Saturn, Uranus and Chiron.
Neptune’s role in astrology is all to do with illusion and delusion. It creates illusion by the use of glamour. We all have an image that we believe describes who we are and what the world is like. In Hinduism it is called Maya, in Sufism, Ishq. It is the illusion of desire, what we project onto the facts of outer life to give it personal meaning. Because we have or have not certain qualities or experiences some of us believe ourselves to be important, some believe the opposite that we are not important. This can be physical strength or beauty, emotional drama, executive ability, teacher, leader, healer, wise man, fool…these are all examples of glamour; they are stories we make up about ourselves and the life we live. Just stories. As Neptune moves through its 176 year cycle it glamourises different aspects of life – fashions in music, clothes, sexual attractiveness, political ideals, religious teachings and so on. None of it lasts forever and some of it passes very quickly.
On a personal level, because it is so slow, Neptune is likely to cross and angle only twice in a lifetime so we cannot refer back to earlier experiences to gain better insights, we must use theory and intuition more.
We can see the Ascendant as a map of reality, a false personalised projection of our fears and desires crystallised into a set of behaviours and opinions that together make up the vehicle we are using to navigate our way forward; this is the personality. We create the circumstances of our lives by what we expect to happen, and that expectation is a powerful attractive force. The Descendant is the shadow of the Ascendant – all that we pretend does not exist – but in fact it does, as aspects of our hidden self. And we attract that too, typically through one-to-one relationship, either a lover or an enemy; and of course lovers can turn into enemies when they show us what we really don’t like about ourselves and try to deny. Relationship is always not so much about making us happy as making us honest.
During a Neptune transit to the Descendant we are very likely to be offered a relationship which seems wonderful at first and yet is not what it seems. The partner might be a victim, an addict or other type of needy person wanting to be saved. And we have the glamour of being a rescuer, a healer or whatever. It is so hard to resist because we can get caught into the false belief that we can be rescued or that we can rescue another person. We feel saintly and humble in our self-sacrifice, and that feels so very spiritual!
Yet Neptune also has the ability to expose illusion, to dis-illusion us, and reveal the deeper mysteries beneath all the lies and false promises that life offers. So this transit is also likely to be the time for a seed to be planted of true spiritual liberation. When we know we are living in a dream, we can relax and enjoy the movie we have created for ourselves, without accepting the story as anything more than entertainment and symbolic guidance.
However, what is false is dissolved. We may therefore lose things we love and, even though they are unreal and temporary, that can be rather upsetting for the self-love of the ego. We must refocus to see that what has replaced the false is deeper, more precious and more real.
I am aware that Ruby’s Ascendant is at Virgo 19, “A swimming race”. There is the sense of wanting to be in control (mastering the emotions of the water element), getting things perfect and competing for excellence. Neptune’s transit is across Pisces 19, “Master instructing his pupil” giving a sense of spiritual knowledge being passed to the next generation through the surrender of the student to the gentle state of having faith in the teachings.
So, in summary…
A period of some confusion is to be expected during which there will be disillusionment and loss of control, yet clear vision and faith will begin to replace them. The two main temptations that need

9/11/2018 02:23:58 pm

Neptune transits
Hi Jena,
Looking back I can see now how beneficial my Neptune transits were. The first, crossing my Ascendant, coinciding with my changing my name to a Sufi name, and this put distance between me and the normal world for 8 years until I resumed a standard appellation. Since it was voluntary, I had no great sense of grief when my old life dissolved.
Between 2003 and 2013 I did not know a time when Neptune was not squaring something important – Sun, MC, Mars and then Moon. I went through it all as if in a dream, neither good nor bad but simply outrageously strange, as I lost everything I had – position, reputation, marriage, home and even homeland, occupation, all my money, then both my parents - and finally ended up homeless, on the street and in serious debt. As it ended I felt totally free of the falseness and compromise that had been my previous life, which I could not bring myself to drop because I had no sense of what to replace it all with. There was grief, but not without a sense of freedom and truth.
I imagine other people with a better relationship with Neptune would not have such a hard time, but I had been living as though I was in control of it all – and I suppose Neptune transits are God’s way pf having a good chuckle with those of us who think that way.
James

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