Recently I’ve been working with a number of clients who are having major Neptune transits. One person asked me what the purpose of the transit was. Is it just to drift and be lost? Or is there something more Neptune can teach?
As far as I’m concerned, there are two purposes that can be wrapped up in one story.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is thrown into the tornado that takes her to the land of Oz. She watches the strange things fly by her – here a barn, there a bicycle, here a chicken or a cow. She might try to grab on to something, to get a grip on something solid and familiar, but it will quickly get ripped out of her hands. She’s in a tornado! The only thing she can do is surrender to the winds and have faith that she’ll end up in the right place.
Once she lands, she’s in a fantastical world where the rules she’s lived with all her life no longer apply, and the rules that do apply don’t make sense. No matter what she does, she can’t seem to find her way, at least not on her own. She falters and is awash in confusion. But along the way she finds guides, overcomes challenges, and vanquishes her demons. And that journey eventually leads her to her ultimate realization. She discovers that she has had an internal compass all along, and it points her to the only real home any of us could ever have – herself.
That is the point of Neptune. Have faith in the journey no matter how strange it seems. And when all is said and done, you’ll have a core, a little kernel of self that remains untouched by the fog. And that piece is the home we can return to again and again. We may get lost and we may falter, but our compass will always point us back home.
Have you had a major Neptune transit? What did you learn?
Neptune dissolves and spiritualizes. It melted my entire identity when it conjuncted my ascendant. Initially it was scary, but once I let go and went with the flow it was transcendent. In a few more years it will conjunct my Sun. Stay tuned.
‘She might try to grab on to something, to get a grip on something solid and familiar, but it will quickly get ripped out of her hands’
I have so many doubts about what I’m doing and everything.. I don’t know if they’re accurate or not. I am usually a person with faith (Jupiter in Pisces in the 2nd) but now that Neptune is hitting it I’m mostly feeling doubt and confusion and my intuition is broken. I’m at this age and other people have gotten it together way earlier than me, especially gen Z people who I’m so impressed by.. but the air emphasis in me lately just makes me jealous. People are sick of my slow pathetic progress. I’m not feeling connected to the people I once felt linked to. I’m getting advice from people I shouldn’t. I have no wisdom at this age other than ‘don’t date people who don’t like you’ from my 20s. People I know have been going to wilderness camps since they were 7, cooking their own food and building fires, raising gardens, building sheds. Saturn is transiting my ascendant as well.
This Neptune transit is painful because I don’t know what’s going on at all. Even my cameras blurred. And I’m not even a little brave anymore. I was convinced that I can liberate myself from my identity and baggage and try to be someone better, without the same self discipline problems and egoic blockages to connection. But I didn’t progress much at all. I tell myself that what matters is what I do with my time, day to day, in the now. With Neptune in my chart I repress the pressures and fears and all the things I refused to get to cause I was afraid or lazy. I don’t know if the path I’ve chosen makes sense.
I was born withNeptune conj midheaven and part of a grand Water trine with Saturn and sun. Had the asc/1st house transit The past 10+ years – my 40s, and currently Have transiting nep conj natal sat in 2nd in Pisces. I’ve always had a problem with time concept and was notedly chronically late- for work. They made start time flexible for me! I’m more grounded now and recently let go of irrational fear, through a vivid dream last week. It gets easier as you get older- I’m 55 in a few days and I love being cosmic 🙂
I’m watching the people I’ve met and admired reap what they’ve sown. I haven’t sown anything. I was told not to compare myself to others. It doesn’t make me act any faster. But every year I get closer to playing fast and loose with my fertility.
I was away from home and in college when Tr Neptune was conjunct my natal 11H Saturn. My classes and instructors taught me to dream (Neptune) of career possibilities (11H) and to set goals (Saturn) to achieve them.
Did it take you time to belong and find your dreams? I have Saturn in the 11th and it takes a long time to find ‘my people.’ I’ve had a very narrow focus and trouble with grand visions til recently. But I don’t have a very aspected Saturn.
Kri – My natal Sagittarius Saturn is on 19* on the cusp of my 11H. Yes, I did “lose” a lot of my childhood friends once I graduated from college and accepted a job out of my home state. Then, again, Tr Saturn was conjunct my natal Sun and trining my ASC on my birthday senior year of college. My SRC was challenging me to dream (Neptune) big (Sagittarius) and to set the course for my adult (Saturn) life. It took a few years to feel settled as I began my career, found a diverse new group (Aquarius) of friends, and met my future husband as Tr Neptune was in my 11H.
Good luck! Astrology helps to navigate your life passages. I wish I had this tool when I was younger.
I have Saturn in Sagittarius. I am working on living the life I want and creating vision even when it seems like it won’t work out. I didn’t have like minded people until recently, though a bit in school.
I only answered the call of my SR in some way after it ended. Maybe I’m just fucking slow.
When the Wizard of Oz was released in 1939, Hollywood movies were known to be the heighth of technology. It is my opinion that this picture was originally produced as an attempt to convey the Fourth Way teachings of GI Gurdjieff to the masses. This involves undertaking the way of the Fakir, the Monk, and the Yogi all within one lifetime without having to withdrawal from society as each of those disciplines traditionally require. Thus following THE FOURTH WAY or The Yellow Brick Road, along which Dorothy befriends the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man (Fakir, Monk, and Yogi) Ultimately the picture fails to convey its meaning as knowledge is finite and by its very nature can not be processed by all.
I’m experiencing a major Neptune transit and I know I’ll never think, believe or even dream the same. Neptune is conjunct my DC and moon; all seventh house illusions and delusions are swirling about. As Kri says above, I’m reaping what I’ve sown and the finished product is unclear. But riding a tornado must involve hanging on as tight as possible to what you do know as you release all you are unsure of.
Maybe I’m in denial of what I’m unsure of and have been clinging to it .. how do you know what to release? And that you’ve reaped what you’ve sown?
Pluto transits feel like riding a tornado to me.. and they also make you lose your grip immediately..
Maybe Neptune transits feel like a persistent feeling of losing.. a thing slowly slipping out of your hands that doesn’t fit.. and you don’t fit in the narrative and the world anymore.. but who knows where you fit
I’ve had a lot of coffee and chips today
I love the observation equating Neptune to The Wizard of Oz – one of my all-time favourite movies! It was a highly Neptunian film, all about wishes and dreams and illusions. And of course, there’s the scene where the main characters fall unconscious in a field of poppies! Neptune is Square my 9th/10th H Cusp MC for the next two years. 5th H Saturn is now directly Opposite my 11th H Moon, with Jupiter and Pluto joining in on the fun. Uranus is Square my 11th H Sun, also for another two years… Normally I’m quite sociable, and enjoy hanging out with friends and the various groups I belong(ed) to. Now, thanks to covid and my general aversion social media platforms, I’ve almost become a hermit. All my life, I’ve always had plans, detailed plans, for the next six months, year, five, ten years. Not any more. Surrender Dorothy! Whether I like it or not, I’m being forced to let go, completely. To live in the moment. Unfortunately, each of these moments feels like an eternity, as if I’m in some kind of suspended animation… This, too, shall pass. Eventually.
Love your Wizard of Oz analogy! I’m in the middle of a Neptune transit opposite my Sun (18 Virgo) and it will retrograde direct in October at 18 Pisces so yeah, 4 months of direct hit coming up October to January (it’s already been transiting for awhile of course). Plus Neptune is also squaring my Saturn (19 Sag). With Uranus now transiting my Midheaven I’m burnt out in my job and no idea what I want to do but unmotivated and alas a few years too young to retire. Sigh. Anyway, will remember that Dorothy finds her way home in the end!
I’ve been dealing with Neptune for a while now. It’s in my 12th house and first it was opposing my Saturn (made me stop running because my lower back started aching seriously badly), then it opposed my true node and now it’s squaring my natal Neptune. I learned a lot about yoga and meditation during this time and healed my lower back. I feel lucky though I haven’t succumbed to an addiction although alcohol is always close.
Love the analogy of the Wizard of Oz and Neptune. I have Neptune conjoin my moon and I am having very scary dreams. I am fearful with anxiety and feeling trapped by the awful Covid virus. As a Sagitarius, I am usually quite optimistic however, living in my private jail, Neptune has not been kind. I recently moved and not feeling happy in my new home. The isolation is depressing. I have the additional burden of taking care of my senior husband so I trust in the universe and pray that I will click my heels soon and return to rainbows and sunshine. Blessings to all. Astrology matters.
I wrote a big long comment that tried to trace what can’t be spoken, about my sun Neptune transit. Why I feel so sad and fragile and am always trying to fill the hole.
Namely that my ego deracination and the sadness in my heart is I’m losing my grip on my western hegemonic and human centric viewpoint. Or the idea of a timeline or a narrative where I am safe.
I think my ego deracination has a deeper weirder root. Not only do I feel like I don’t fit in anymore.. I feel like I am sadly getting my hands released from the idea of a western hegemonic order.. a western dominant world..
What does a world that is no longer built on humans believing they can master nature look like? The human dominion over nature just a broken illusion? I’m grieving my hegemony.
I think we’re privileged to be this dumb and poorly educated because we didn’t need to overcome bureaucratic hurdles. Or be looked down on in a bigoted way. Nobody would think that we’re visiting them to clean their toilets or marry their men.
I’m losing my grip on all the ocd rituals and boundaries to keep my world together..
Im listening to this album called UFO by James Sullivan. The song called Plain As Your Eyes Can See is the one I vibe with the most.
I feel alone in my timeline. UI feel like I’m slipping out of the narrative that worked. The narrativity of my life.
I feel like I’m breaking up with myself and something is slipping away from me slowly and uncontrollably.
DarkAquarian or X-rayed commented on a post about gen z (I will get this wrong sorry) that they’re so active because they have a desperate nihilistic understanding that the cliff is disintegrating beneath us..
And maybe Pluto in Scorpio people could still have a bit of denial that our narrative and human race isnt likely to be rocked by natural disasters and dissolution.. that humans aren’t at the center of the story after all
This is subtle for me and hard to explain.. but it’s a persistent leaking in my heart that makes it impossible to fit in the way I hoped
Looking back on my comments I never seem to know what I’m talking about.. now Midara’s post makes sense..
I have Mercury opposition Neptune and a lot of time perhaps I don’t know what I’m talking about.. but sometimes people seem to hear what I mean.. but then I don’t hear them..
Part of the continuing hole in my solar plexus is me refusing to do certain things.. I read some article that said Neptune exhausts you from doing anything you really at a soul-level don’t want to do.. which depressed me.. because I found myself not wanting to do the things I wanted to be the kind of person to do.. idk I wanted to want to do these things 🙂 I still want to.. my mars Pluto transit has been so tired of the flaws and hang ups and mediocrity of my core personality that it wanted to ignore it for a while and see what I can do.. but I’m failing my own expectations and not doing it
These days Midara’s post makes extra sense.. I have no idea what’s going on with me really or what I’m ‘meant’ to do
I don’t understand why my Neptune transit seems to be taking primacy even when I have a mars Pluto transit among other things.. but it shouldn’t be an excuse to be passive
It’s possible I have a thought disorder that makes it particularly difficult to make sense when I talk and communicate or look back and my thoughts and organize them. And couldn’t manage my time or plan, or keep a job, or even sweep over a black tarp today.
People used to be curious what it was like in my mind. They stopped and just acted like they couldn’t understand me.
Serendipitously, I’m playing a song called Waters of March which is very similar to the extreme stream of consciousness way I think and write things down. It’s very clipped.
For several years now, Neptune has been transiting back and forth across my IC.
The most directly visible outcome was a persistent and very bad leak in my roof that has taken more than four years to repair properly (Neptune in Pisces – such a HUGE amount of water!) In the meantime, my flat has turned into a slum because one whole room was completely unliveable during this time, and space was at a premium even before the roof developed this huge hole and wrecked half the ceiling beneath it. And I lack the funds to make my home feel like home again.
Many years ago, when Neptune transited back and forth opposite my Sun, my whole life dissolved in the sense that I was forced into early retirement, which meant I was earning infinitely less than I had before. It feels like this was when the whole downward spiral started.
I wish I could find the magic trick to change my attitude, which might just help me NOT to REJECT all this stuff that’s been happening!! I have a feeling that the change in attitude probably consists of embracing what happened… fat chance…
This is an excellent post, Midara – but then everything you write always is.
These have been painful comments to read. It doesn’t help to know that many people have been having hard times too.
I am really done with this Neptune transit starting with its opposition to my Venus and then several degrees later opposing my Sun, Pluto, Uranus, and now I am on the final stretch waiting for it to clear the opposition to my Mercury in 2023.
I’ve never felt such fatigue, purposelessness, low confidence, bleakness, and a complete inability to deal w/stress. I felt so burnt out from work and life in general that I quit my job of 2 decades to work part-time and now I am just reading novels and hanging out with my cats at home until this ‘whatever it is’ ends.