Neptune in Pisces: The Spiritual Renaissance

On Monday morning, Neptune donned the cloak of Pisces (the sign it rules and, therefore, feels most comfortable in) for a new phase of spiritual exploration. As Neptune is a slow moving outer planet, it will stay in this sign for about 15 years. These are the years where we discover our true spiritual voice and its place in our material world.

Like everything, Neptune has a light side and a shadow side. On one hand, it rules idealism, inspiration, intuition, spirituality, mysticism, visionaries, abstract thinking, and all things related to water. On the other hand, it rules deception, delusion, disguise, escapism, the oppressed and abandoned, persecution, derangement, guilt, confinement, and addiction or physical intolerance to drugs and alcohol.

In Pisces, Neptune is operating at its highest vibration. During this transit, a spiritual renaissance is likely to blossom in those who are aligning with their own highest vibrations. For those that aren’t, or refuse to be…this period of time may find them working with deceptive aims, fearful delusion, or escapism in the form of addiction or fantasy.

Neptune also rules oil and liquids…so expect to see a lot more of these themes in the world news…our collective addiction to oil, its contamination of the waters of the world, and the torrential storms and natural disasters that Mother Nature responds with will likely get much heavier before it gets any better. As a collective (sad, but true), we don’t have a good track record for changing what we know we need to change right when we see it. Neptune can be a master of disguise…clouding the issues and making them appear other than they are. But don’t be fooled…we’re still in the same trouble we were in before. The powers that be are just going to be sweeping them under the rug as much as they can before the chorus populi can wildfire-voice it around the world again in a flash (as our current concentration of planets in Aries incline us to do). They’ve noticed the strength of the collective voice in this high-tech world, and they’ll likely use Neptunian shadow tactics to quiet or confuse it.

Coming together to pool our voices and activate awareness and solutions, outside of the technology of social networking, will be even more important in the years ahead. And so will transitioning from those outmoded beliefs, luxuries, and supposed needs that we’ve become so familiar with…and into ways and sustenance that seeks to harm none. Neptune suggests that the path toward this new wisdom is a spiritually attuned one.

Pisces is the sign of selfless service, imagination, sensitivity, dreams, intuition, and compassion. It can also be very malleable, secretive or vague. These qualities will color our spiritual journey for the years ahead, so while you are searching for your connection to the Divine…try to keep your wits about you. You can’t believe everything you hear, and you’ll need to keep a firm grip on reality so you don’t float up into the clouds for an extended stay in la-la land…or you’re likely to come crashing down into unfamiliar territory without your finger on the pulse of the state of this world.

There’s a lot to be said about Neptune in Pisces, but let’s wrap this up by talking about the creative flow of inspiration.

Delve into your subconscious mind, find your hidden motives and unmask them. Look for images you thought you lost and re-create them into something whole. Nurture your creative talent. Seek inspiration from your spiritual quest. Appreciate artistic communication. Find your sacred voice.

On my other blog, Cup of Kavi, I have just posted a musing that relates to Neptunian water imagery and the subconscious mind. If you have a moment more, the post ‘Catching Consciousness’ reveals the very process by which Neptune in Pisces can communicate to all of us.

Aries Ascending

There's no beginning like an end. Today begins a new cycle of Aries influence in the cosmos, but only after one more Piscean lesson.

In about an hour from now, Mercury (the planet of communication) exacts its conjunction with Uranus (the planet of innovation) in the last degree of Pisces. In this degree, discernment is key. Today is the day to strengthen your sense of self and project the image of the person you want to be. This is the first (mental) step toward the transformations taking place once these planets reach Aries. The insight you receive today, whether it is in the form of unexpected, strange, or liberating news, is part of your preparation for what is to come. With Mercury and Uranus (Mercury's higher octave planet) working in tandem, you'll want to keep an open mind this week.

About an hour after that (11:47am), Mercury enters Aries. The key phrase for this transit (which lasts until 5-15, as Mercury retrogrades through this sign between 3-30 and 4-23) is 'new ideas'. The key word for this transition into Aries is 'realization'. During this transit, we have knowledge being channeled from the unconscious to reality. This blossoming awareness provides comfort, and opens opportunities for creativity and independence. Fun, enthusiastic people who stimulate your creative thinking will boost your own unique talents during this time. Attend events or join causes where you can contribute your ideas and energy toward something co-creative. Use the retrograde time (3-30 through 4-23) to break free of habits that are holding you back or weakening your will. When summer rolls around, you'll want to be liberated from those things that aren't working for you...so set yourself up for some inside-and-out 'spring cleaning'.

On Friday (March 11), Uranus enters Aries at 6:49pm. We had a pre-cursor to this transit last year when Uranus waded into Aries briefly (May 27-August 13) before retrograding back into Pisces. But now we're approaching the 7-year long transit of Uranus in Aries...the beginning of an important cycle (individually as well as globally). Significant changes are ahead, and so are a lot of surprises.

Uranus rules inventiveness, social innovation, oddities, surprises, the unexpected, technology, independence, and rebellion. This transit signals a time to break free from limiting situations, ideas, and thought patterns. During this transformative transit, if you ignore the necessary changes in your view and keep doing the same old things in the same old ways, you'll miss a great opportunity to make your life more interesting and meaningful.

Dan Furst on the history of Uranus in Aries:

"The essence of the combination is Change. Uranus is the artist and trickster of Revolution, the one who brings change that is heady and exciting to those who welcome it and are brave enough to play it, and upsetting, even terrifying, to those who resist it, or think they will control it to their ends. When Uranus is in the zodiac sign of the impetuous, desire-driven Warrior and initiator of the new, he tends to witness, and perhaps to provoke, revolutionary changes that can go either way, toward freeing people, or enslaving them in new and more ingenious ways. Some recent exhibits in the Uranus-in-Aries wing of the History Museum:

1927 - 1935: The 1929 crash leads to worldwide depression, war and revolution. The new planet Pluto is discovered in 1930. Japan invades Manchuria in 1931, Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected president of the US the next year, and Germany goes Nazi in January 1933. A year later the Red Army in China survives the Long March, and the Stalin dictatorship begins.

1843 - 1851: Socialist and other anti-monarchic uprisings shake the regimes of Europe. The new planet Neptune is discovered in 1846, as the Baha'i movement begins. Civil unrest and the Irish potato blight propel a wave of German and Irish immigration to the USA, which wins a war of expansion against Mexico. The Communist Manifesto is published, and the labor movement begins.

1756 - 1764: Uranus is in Aries during the entire time of the Seven Years' War, as England, reaping the benefits of its recent Industrial Revolution, defeats France and emerges as the world's dominant empire. England imposes in its American colonies the mercantilist laws that will soon lead to revolt when Uranus is in the communicative sign of Gemini.

This is enough to establish the main shape of the picture: transformative events, often involving mass movements of millions of people, sometimes achieving the end of oppressive regimes, but sometimes bringing worse ones. One way or the other, when Uranus is in Aries, especially when he is in a 90° "square" to Pluto in Capricorn in 2012 - 2013, we may feel that we're being swept along by currents that we cannot direct or control. We are in the white water now, and it will get louder. We can choose to navigate it in a strong canoe with fit, resonant, well-equipped friends. We can get inside a barrel and shoot the rapids alone. One way or the other, we're in a fluid, turbulent water environment that requires us to get flexible and inventive if we're going to travel on the water's terms. This is the theme of my book Surfing Aquarius, which Red Wheel Weiser will publish in September."

-Dan Furst's Universal Festival Calendar for March 2011 on Hermes3.net

Dan Furst will be here in Omaha this October for his 'Surfing Aquarius' book tour and we will be planning an event together for the second weekend of October. If you're interested in learning more about the waters ahead, keep your schedule open that weekend and join us in Omaha for a mind-expanding, heart-opening, soul-stirring gathering of Spiritual Activism.

Love and Gratitude,
Felina Lune Kavi