Whole Astrology–The Neptune Effect

For most people, especially people not practicing mindfulness, Neptune plays like pop music in the background. Neptune plays the role of a trend-setter as it transits in a single sign for around 13 years. It is also a generational marker much like Pluto which also stays in a single sign for around 13 to 20 years since Pluto is much further out than Neptune in the cosmos.

But in comparing the two planets, Pluto has a more physical effect as it manifests patterns and beliefs in our subconscious through projections and shadows. Psychology fits under Pluto, but Neptune represents our undoing when we lose our footing or mooring in the world. It’s like our sense of reality and stability dissolve under Neptune’s gaze since Neptune represents the astrological 12th House which rules dissolution of matter. Neptune leaves us hanging in the cosmos as we hang onto a thin thread of conscious reality as in astro projection.

So as I mentioned earlier, for most people Neptune plays in the background. It feels nebulous and we can’t articulate a Neptune event. We often blame Pluto or Uranus for changes that occur in our lives. I got divorced because Pluto transited to my Sun or my parents died when Pluto conjuncted my 8th House Saturn.

But Neptune also can bring death, just not as suddenly. With Neptune the person is there in solid form one day and then the next off to the other side of the veil. There’s a sense that the soul or spirit is still present and communicating telepathically as I found when  my maternal grandmother died in her sleep. BTW, she had a strong Neptune signature in her chart and would have made a gifted psychic.

So astrologers noticed Neptune humming in the background with the rise of therapies revolving around the arts such as music therapy (growing popularity), cinema therapy, and photo therapy, not to mention dance therapies. We have noticed autistic children taking up more space in the media and that too can fall under Neptune, especially if the child was born with several personal planets falling in the 12th House. That can also represent an artists savant.

Sound healing and musicians taking up causes to heal the planet also fall under a more mindful Neptune transit. With Neptune in Pisces we’ve seen much criticism about the use of fossil fuels and we worry about pollution of the air and water. Virgo brings discernment and critical thinking (polar opposite of Pisces). So when Jupiter or any planet transits in Virgo and opposes Neptune, we at least have someone bringing a dose of realism to the situation.

Now with the Saturn Neptune Square, Saturn in Sagittarius (a bit of a spacey sign as well and not grounded in reality), we have seen balls of confusion exploding in he religious and political arenas. We have seen politicians thumbing their nose at the law and getting away with it (or so they think). We have seen celebrated people suffering delusions of grandeur  at least until Saturn moves into Capricorn at the end of 2017. We have seen more narcissism and personality disorders that we can shake a finger at, but we gaze mostly with compassion. Then we realize we also suffer our own delusions of grandeur but on a smaller scale. People only have power over us when we project our victimhood onto them which happens a lot with Neptune in Pisces and locked in T-Crosses with Jupiter and Saturn.

So a less mindful person looks for a savior outside of themselves and proclaim him or her God as we have seen with the rise of Donald Trump (Republican Party candidate for US President) from the support of fundamentalists Christians and disenfranchised people who haven’t a clue how the political system is supposed to operate in a democracy. You don’t just toss out the baby with the bathwater and then expect not to drown the masses. A mindless Neptune is a narcissistic one who buys into his own glamour by aligning himself with a false prophet.

And I’m not letting the Bernie supporters off the hook either. As much as I have supported Bernie Sanders, he is also not a savior nor does he have all the answers. We can’t dump all our woes on a single person and expect him to rescue us. That is called escapism and denial which revolve around a mindless Neptune approach. A more mindful approach involves having compassion for people who are deeply wounded and act out those wounds harming others or lording over them. Neptune rules forgiveness and spiritual practices that lead us en mass to transcendence. But the irony of that is that each of us must tune into our individual guidance.

With Neptune we float around in cosmic soup like herbs floating on the surface. We are not separate from others who like a clear pond reflect back to us. But we’re also are separate when we latch on to our ego. Then Neptune offers escapes in the form of tobacco products, pot, alcohol and recreational drugs. It offers escapes with computer games, mind-numbing books and movies or body-damaging music.

I think many younger astrologers gloss over Neptune transits simply because they defy a good headline and we can’t get an angle on the slippery planet. So few of us experience the Neptune effect mindfully and its transits are brutal in ways we can’t explain, such as suffering delusions that lead to a long hospital stay (mental hospital) or send us to the end of our life where we undergo meaningful hospice care.

So that’s Neptune in a nutshell. It’s the beautiful blue planet that rules our nightly dreams and daydreams. It rules our escape routes and our undoing. But it also rules transcendence and out of the body experiences. And even going back to our experiences in the womb through hypnosis. Neptune is also the rainbow bridge that gets us from Uranus to Pluto.