or, Neptune, is that really you….
The credits are rolling in the cinema of the unobliged – the king of deception and intoxication is leaving the building, abdicating his throne, at least for the next 160 odd years, and soon, hopefully, we’ll realise, it was all a drug induced nightmare, that is, unless the furies take us first.
How did Neptune get such a bad rap. We are used to seeing hype, addiction, gaslighting, intoxication and psychological manipulation as a part of the mental terrain in our times, but, are we simply projecting zeitgeist pathologies onto the Roman god of fresh water, a divinity propitiated as a bringer of life to the hottest of times, simply because we have yet to prove capable of actually eradicating such pathology from our own collective psychological topologies. Was it the moral mythological weight of the don’t fuck/can’t touch me greek oceanic godfather, Poseidon, that sullied Neptunus waters and brought him down to the dark angry deeps?
The war on our minds has been, and remains, very real since that association was formed and, by nature, fits the story of Roman religion and its place in their civil war, but Neptune is older than that, and at his own root was never associated with destruction or any form of mind games.
Liz Greene gives a fair overview of the indigene Neptunus (1) as well as the psychology of the astrological archetype of Neptune, naming redemption as the primary function, the verb. She asks us to go back to the earth connections that surround and feed Neptune’s root, and rightly so, as it is out of the very practical if not direct relationship under a seasonal Sun and cyclical Moon with the forces and powers of life on earth that the thread of divinity at Neptune’s core can be found growing.
But, that Greek connection. Unlike the Roman relationship with divinity, myth and deity, even at the outset of the Piscean Age was shot through with mystery in the Greek world, undisclosed darkness at its root, a fertile darkness, that fed moral obligation and kept the path of the initiate saturated with high octain emotional expectations. The Romans were much more interested in a practical working two way relationship with divine forces as a basis for living, tried and tested ritual practices in which naming the divine powers was of great importance and, if the name could not be remembered or found, a suitable coverall clause would be offered, if ever the legal ends of the deal were to be tied up, the Roman way.
Lies, violations, perilous alliances, and dangerous gifts, fear and dependency were the there too in Roman life – the usual mythological fair, yes but, Neptune’s spin on the divine role is somewhat watered down in comparison with Poseidon’s and I do wonder if we might not also be advised to deal with Poseidon as an astrological shadow entity when Neptune is at work in the charts, in fact, it was this kind of question that got me into the practice in the first place. He, Poseidon, was unruly, a violator of sanctity, a rapist, son of an infanticidal psychopath of a god with a family history – how useful to our interps does that shadow become?
But, not to get distracted from the matters at hand.
The deceptions and chicanery attached to the astrological archetype appear to have emerged not so much from the mythical entity, as from the curious circumstances of the planet Neptune’s discovery. A handful of astronomers were involved, not in identifying the planet ‘by commitee’ as much as by osmotic inference, words we might associate with ‘Neptunian’ traits in themselves, and this after a series of deflections and false starts among which Neptune was both identified but not seen, its position calculated, and correctly observed but not identified, a set of circumstances in which discouragement and dismissal as much as particulated scientific process played equal parts. In fact, famously, it was through the perturbation of Uranus orbit that Neptune’s existence was first astronomically postulated. An unseen but very real influence, on a planet that is itself associated with the unpredictable and unforeseen. Can we see Neptune as a lens, a magnifier as well as obstruce revealer?
In addition, illusionary as much as visionary as his atmosphere is, astrological Neptune’s attributes were primarily born not from archetype but from observation of its natal position, as an influencing factor in psychological make-up, as well as subsequent transiting effects seen through a cultural lens. Astrology is ever adept at creating reality through applying observation to method, but, knowing where to draw the line between imagination and the real has become more of an art than a science in astrological practice, and there are consequences, as the burgeoning swathe of astrological discourse and imagining now available online adequately demonstrates. Let it be an art, and see what it can create, but, with care not to get the imaginal and the real confused. And that is where the upcoming Neptune ingress to tropical Aries comes in.
Mars ruled Aries puts a road of fire before Neptune, an energy field that martialises while it warms, cooks, drives and determines. Headonism meets off-your-headism – sounds fucking dangerous, but, is it real? Neptune melts, evaporates, atomises, suffocates, intoxicates, conceals, obfusticates, casts nets of deception, according to the current spin, and propogates through clouds of substance as much as fields of programming, an ovewhelm on heat in Aries, inescapable and escapist in equal measure.
His cadre of psychological footsoldiers now range from chemical weapons and intoxication experts whose miasma inducing clouds appear to infect every culture that carries the western stamp, especially as Big Pharma knows no boundaries, to sociopathic propagandist zealots whose armoury of social engineering and gaslighting manipulation has so much become the frontline in the battle for the mind in more recent times that we hardly seem notice it most of the time, if the cesspit of social media is anything to go by. Remember, constant surveillance is the creeping effect of our willingness to get sucked into the paradigm of (controlled) connectivity that we are all (being) subject(ed) to, a technological infestation that carries more than a tinge of Neptune’s pervasiveness.
There are ecstacy inducing bliss bunnies with mermaid tails too, there always are in this imaginal realm, as well as specialists in that oh so needed spiritual commodity that can’t be commodified, Compassion, but lets get it clear, the Piscean Age has seen no real Peace, and Bloody War is forever being plastered on the pan-cultural billboards of our time, equally presented under the guise of weaponised “entertainment that packs a punch” by the media’s oligarchs and Jupitarian sleeze kings, otherwise known as ‘precognitive programming for the masses’, and endlessly spilling from the carefully dentured mouthpieces of the entertainment division of the MIC, politicians, as ‘the only bottom-line effective means of solving the problem’ that war itself creates, after all has been said and (usually not) done, to the contrary.
Word salads aside….
Can it end, now? Is this what Neptune’s exit of tropical Pisces and entry into Aries signals? Isn’t that like a frying pan/fire scenario? I mean, Mars ruled cardinal Fire…
…answer is, yes, it is, and Yes it can, it always can, but, not without significant effort and a very high, and I mean a ‘sky fucking painfully high’ degree of Honesty. ‘Cos it will be, painful, if there really is going to be a cessation to the desecration, for some time yet, in the house of Mars. Perhaps we should treat the house of Mars as the birth canal to some far more desirable outcome – I don’t know, but, I do know, we are going to be eaten alive if we don’t try. We must get with the rhythm, pick up the beat and PUSH, regardless. The contractions are real.
Concession to the upside, it will be so different, once the honesty has bitten deep enough into the vampiric jugular of our times to drain it dry of its death force, that we won’t even recognise the place – be like, ‘arriving where we started/knowing it for the first time’, to mess with TSE (2) and the birth metaphor. Well, hopefully we’ll have a little more Nous than that, for all our efforts, but, you get the drift.
Streetwise but chilled, eh?….NO, brothers and sisters, c’mon.
Remember, Earth can slap us down in an eyeblink, if She sees fit. Respect and love the Mother, Demeter. Be honest, are you an Earth denier?
So. Painful Honesty. Where’s that superpower coming from?
Saturn, Cronus/Kronos if you prefer his pre-roman progenitor (yes, that mo’fo child eater, Neptune’s dad along with N’s siblings, Pluto, Vesta, Jupiter, Juno, Ceres, to go the whole Roman way). Astrologically, Saturn demands a certain genus of Honesty, the kind that comes with a ‘no options – no escape’ clause, and not, certainly not without significant Effort. And, he too is on the spiritual warpath leading into Cardinal Fire, biting at Neptune’s heals.
These guys, uh? When they meet in tropical Aries, a ‘moment of truth’ is waiting to be claimed. Trick as ever is, will We get there first and make the claim? Beyond the paywall, at this link, is an overview on how that might look.
But, ok, a moment of truth is waiting to be claimed. Where and by whom?
“Well sisters and brothers, it can only be your truth that matters, the truth of your life, that is, and no other’s, in the final analysis, when Death comes a knocking”, says Saturn, “so, go figure.” “But, no time wasting.” “And, don’t touch that button, or open that door”….
Saturn can be Bluebeard, in the minds of some, but, here he’s offering the discipline we need to hold our shit together while all else are losing theirs, so to speak. And, we will need to keep our centre of gravity, in fact, create as much of our own downward hold as possible to keep our heads, and keep our feet on the ground.
“Create a structure. Your life depends on it. A practice to begin and end the day that intends and aims to cut the crap and clearly deliniates which shit is yours, and which not. And get whatis notyours out of your system. And, manners please – do it with Gratitude”
Say we accept this mission, can it be extended, as a modus operandi, become a net effect – can we grow it to global proportions? Who knows – if its ‘We’ you are talking about,its our call. But, that outreach sounds Neptunian to me.
No, actually, it can be, and will be, is being, right now, behind our backs, in our faces, under our very noses. The infrastructure is beneath your very fingertips. Neptune’s very own network. Wait a moment….which side is he on? Confused – that to, yeah.
Can you be discerning as well as honest? Do you know what’s real? Will you?
Have you been recruited to the Truth Police, are you enforcing ‘cancel culture’, without even knowing it? The ‘truth’ must be collective for this to happen, mustn’t it – recognise the ideology, anyone?
But. Everything represents truth here, doesn’t it my lovely, my precious.
So, yes, it can be mobilised, externalised, become endemic, as we now have ample examples of this late in the day, but, for this to be effective, as a counter, it must surely come from within. Each becomes the resistance, and redemption must unite with resistance, Neptune with Saturn. Above the thorns, the scent of the rose – Neptune can bring redemption, while Saturn rewards all the hard work accordingly, providing the work is done. That’s the formula….is it?
Make yourself a pledge – “allegiance to honesty, truth or be damned” – hold to it, as if your life depends on it, because it does, and watch what happens – Chaos, yes, as the walls crumble around the ‘citadel of the dead’, as their regime of oppression and mortal subjugation evaporates under the exalted Sun of your personal hegemony. Or, fall on your own damoclesian sword, for all your best intentions, fail magnificently and start again, erased but fresh and new. No, forget the pledge, because, Who knows?
What about Earth?
If we ally with the old cthonic Neptune, there is a chance……in the hot times, the cultural desert may just come to bloom with the right words, prayers if you prefer, but expressions of heartfelt truth nevertheless. Speak poetics of well and spring, of fresh rain and mycelial love as offerings to the divine waters, go to the spawning grounds, of your soul, of Life, yes, but, accept now, where we are headed, there is no map, and, like water, the ability to flow and change shape, to adapt and enter ‘the fourth state’ are the Neptunian attributes we will most need, and need to embody. At core, we’ll need to accept our own mysterious nature and trust that merging with the whole, with nature, does not mean losing our selves, but gaining a greater sense of self.
Philosophical interlude over.
There is no easy way forward, without a certain willingness to be ‘true to life’, that is, and there is no certain outcome, unless we sit on our arses and do nothing, in which case Saturn and Neptune will be more than happy to lock us down, for ev ah, and quietly put us out of our tiny minds – the future, in light of the Neptune/Saturn transit and conjunction in Aries, is a burning question, and the answer is in us – no pressure; it has already begun.
The planet Neptune enters tropical Aries on March 30th 2025 before regressing back into Pisces on October 22nd. Neptune will return again to Aries on 26th January 2026, entering a transit of the cardinal Fire sign that will last around twelve years.
The planet Saturn enters tropical Aries on May 25th 2026 and will transit to within 13 minutes of arc of Neptune before turning retrograde on July 13th. The exact conjunction of the two planets will take place on February 20th 2026 at zero degrees Aries, three days after an annular eclipse of the Sun in the last degree of Aquarius, less than one year from now.
main image :
‘Tapestry of Life’ mural, by Christine Thomas,
Battersea, London,
plus graffiti
(1) The Astrological Neptune – Liz Greene; imprint, Samuel Weiser Inc. 1996
(2) ref. Little Gidding, The Four Quartets – Thomas Stearns Eliot, published 1943
ROOT MEDICINE OF THE STARS ON EARTH 