In the Spring of 2011 Neptune entered the sign of Pisces, a sign that acts as a kind of amplifier of Neptune's effects on the world. This is because there is a deep affinity between the symbolic qualities of Neptune and those of Pisces. They both relate to dreams, spiritual aspirations, altered states of consciousness, and overwhelming emotional currents. While Neptune and Pisces are connected to spiritual unity and clarity of presence, their shadow sides include suffering and sacrifice to a delusional ideal, the delusion itself, and the deceit that ensnares those susceptible to it.

Confusion about what is real and true is another common shadow feature of Neptune in Pisces, and we have certainly experienced this during the past fourteen years. The assertion of lies as truth, truth as lies, and shouting blame at others for the wrongs committed by the shouter, seem almost emblematic of these times. Branches of media that exist to deceive and distort have swamped over voices of reason and reality.

However, with Neptune in Pisces, the message is that what we've long taken for granted as reality is going through an essential dissolution. It is not simply that liars have taken over the consensus conversation, or that social media influencers have supplanted a common-sense vox populi, but that these phenomena are an expression of a more subtle and fundamental shift in our collective consciousness. Our most primal perceptions that uphold and constitute reality have been undergoing a kind of dying process. What we took for granted as durable and foundational has slipped from our grasp like vapor, and as Neptune crosses the final degrees of Pisces we are left adrift in the despair and confusion of that loss.

It is all about to change. We are ready for a rebirth of imagination that will inspire new visions for our shared reality. It may not come easy. We may need to courageously stand for the spiritual truths we have won through hard sacrifice these past few years. We may need to let go of a dead dream for a living one, or a lower love for a higher one. But the renewing waters of these new and fundamentally spiritual visions can refresh our hearts and clear our minds, reinvigorating us like a collective baptism. This is the promising potential as Neptune transits Aries these next fourteen years.

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Neptune entered Aries on March 30th, will dip back into Pisces in October and reenter Aries in December, where it will stay until Spring of 2039. The last time Neptune transited Aries was over 160 years ago, which I wrote about back in 2023:

The last time Neptune entered Aries was on April 13th, 1861, just one day after the start of the Civil War. The United States was being threatened with "dissolution" — a preeminently Neptunian word that flowed from the pens of the day's leaders, including Lincoln, Lee, and Frederick Douglass. Neptune rules idealistic vision...The Civil War was a time where the idealistic vision of the United States was being decided on the battlefield — either a vision of caste supremacy, or one of democracy.

More recently, as Neptune has transited Pisces, a sign where its power is greatly amplified, we have experienced many unfortunate Neptunian themes: delusional ideologies, grave deceptions, global disease, and mass death. These terrible events have generated a great deal of pent up need for clarity, moral courage, and higher purpose that will drive the events of Neptune in Aries.

That pent up need for clarity and moral courage, combined with the mass grief from the losses of war and disease, brings about a rise in Aries-like spiritual leadership. Think of the spiritually invigorating works of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Walt Whitman. Or the morally courageous siblings Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher, who stood openly against slavery on ethical and religious grounds. Or the spiritual societies begun by Madame Blavatsky, leading to the Theosophical Society, founded just after Neptune's culmination in Aries. Or the rise of popular interest in occult spiritualism and seances that spread like wildfire across America and the UK throughout the entire transit.

From another view, Aries Neptune brings a revelation of lies and the liars who tell them. The days of mass deceit hidden in the shadows are ending as Neptune steps out of the murky Piscean sea into the growing daylight of Aries. But then, a new shadow expression emerges: An army of martyrs willing to kill and die for the liars' cause. We see this at the start of the Civil War, with so many men drawn into a fictional "Lost Cause" to fight, kill, and die for a false nobility at the behest of oligarch enslavers. It seems that a similar strain of psychosis pervades America today, amongst both the political leadership and those who fervently support them.

There are a few hopeful differences between the 1860s and today: Neptune's ingress into Aries in 2025 and 2026 is supported by Uranus on one side and Pluto on the other, suggesting enthusiastic popular push back (once we have found our footing after all three planets land firmly in their new signs). We do not see today the stressful alignments of the 1860s, such as Saturn squaring Uranus and Mars, that strongly correlated with a breakdown into war.

Moreover, in February of 2026 Saturn joins Neptune at 0º Aries, making similarly supportive alignments to Uranus and Pluto. Even more hopeful is the alignment of Jupiter with Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto in July of 2026, all at 4º of their signs, filling out an alignment pattern that is highly stabilizing.

Astrology, like any other divination system, is a collection of symbols that point but do not cause. Consciousness, whether individual or collective, aware or unconscious, human or otherwise, is the ultimate cause and creator. True to Neptune, to serve that essence of consciousness that creates and inhabits us is to strive to be aligned with values of compassion and unity, even, or especially, when the world around us has been darkened by the opposite. Every bit of light we bring into the world, every sincere offering from our hearts to the soul of another, is a gift to all.

But living a spiritual life is not for the feint of heart. Retreating into the sleepy conformity of division, resentment, and fear is easy. It takes fierce courage and commitment to act compassionately in a dis-compassionate world. Compassionate action leaves a wake on the ocean of being, sending ripples out to others who receive its blessing. Thus, acting compassionately wakes us up, and keeps us a-wake. To quote Jack Kornfield: "Wherever it is practiced, compassion brings us back to life." This truth is at the heart of Neptune in Aries.

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