Transiting Neptune conjunct Natal Midheaven

This transit can have a very powerful effect on your life direction from this point on, as well as a very powerful effect on your view of yourself.

Very commonly this transit brings sudden confusion to people who have had a pretty clear idea of what they want to do with their lives. You may feel as if you have suddenly become lost, although the way had seemed very clear. If possible, do not make any permanent decisions about your career or long term direction during this transit.

Among the problems you may encounter is a feeling that what you have been doing is inadequate. You may feel that your work is too restrictive, that you have to be too concerned with ordinary mundane reality. You may suddenly be attracted to a wildly romantic, idealized way of life that seems very plausible to you now, although later it will seem ridiculous. You may be attracted to working with people in hospitals, charities or other social-service institutions. This is a perfectly positive direction, but you should examine your motives for doing this work. Are you doing it because you feel personally unworthy and think that working with the downtrodden will make you feel better by comparison? Or are you somehow going to bring them the "truth"? If either of these is in any way true, forget this kind of work, or at least wait until the transit is over.

During this period you may also be attracted to mystical and spiritual subjects, especially philosophies of ego-denial and abandonment such as taught in many Eastern sects. You may be particularly attracted to a movement led by a charismatic guru. In general, Neptune on the MC is a sign of idealized father figures. Little harm is likely to come of this, and there may be great benefits, but again, do not make a permanent commitment until the transit is over.

Above all, this is a transit of ego transcendence, that is, of climbing to a state of consciousness in which your ego needs are no longer the determining factor in your life. However, tour ego must be fully matured and completely developed before this can happen. Otherwise you will simply find yourself confused and deluded. Some of the greatest and fattest egos in history have been people who appeared to think they were giving themselves up for their God, when they were really identifying themselves with God. This is a negative Neptune manifestation.

If feelings of defeat and weariness arise during this transit, do not allow yourself to succumb to them. You are no worse than what you have always been. You may discover that you have been excessively concerned about yourself and made yourself too important, but you needn't berate yourself for that. Everyone does it at some time. Meanwhile open yourself up to the very splendid influences that can come into your life now and teach you much about the nature of the cosmos. Much of what you learn now will later prove to be of permanent value.

Transiting Neptune sextile Natal Midheaven

At this time in your life you are likely to change your objectives in a way that your friends may see as hopelessly idealistic and impractical, but to you it seems the only way to give your life real meaning. The chances are that both you and your friends are right to some extent, so your task now is to strike a balance between your spiritual and your material goals. No way of life will be good for you unless you can make it work in the real world somehow, although right now you may not be very concerned with the real world.

Often this transit signifies a new interest in spiritual, metaphysical and occult subjects. You have a great need for deep spiritual understanding, and you may turn to religion, probably a mystical sect that emphasizes direct experience of the divine, rather than an orthodox church.

The most positive effect of this transit is that it teaches you that you must get your ego out of the way before you can do anything good with it. That is, you have to learn to act without selfishness, to flow along with events as they happen without having a stake in a particular outcome. If you can do this, you will gain a great deal of wisdom from this transit without losing anything.

Some persons experience psychic ability under this transit, and there is evidence that most people have some psychic ability. However, you should not expect to necessarily experience anything more than heightened intuition, which can easily be destroyed by too much reliance on your rational intellect. In fact, one positive truth that you may learn under this transit is that even at best the rational intellect is limited and cannot deal with every aspect of life. You will learn this through you own intuitive faculties telling you, if you let them, things that you could never possibly know through the rational mind.

This transit is likely to be somewhat disturbing if you insist that all knowledge must come in neat, packaged categories, as happens with the Saturnian intellect. Neptunian truth comes in its own ways.

Transiting Neptune square Natal Midheaven

This time in your life is likely to be confusing and full of doubt and fear, if you are not very secure about your life direction. You will ask fundamental questions about what you are trying to do with your life as a whole. And if you, like many people, are not living for yourself and your own objectives, you will probably conclude that what you are doing is worthless and pointless. Even at best you will question your planned course.

In dealing with others, you may find it difficult to stand up for your own position because you are questioning it so much yourself. You may allow yourself to become the victim of other people, simply because you lack the confidence to fight back. But a far worse effect of this transit is that you might get into a routine of making yourself seem to be a victim in order to gain others' sympathy. This kind of negative aggression is characteristic of Neptune, because it enables you to avoid taking responsibility for your own actions. It is difficult to take responsibility when you are feeling insecure.

For this same reason there is a strong temptation to avoid direct confrontations with others for fear that you cannot stand up to them. Therefore you may try to get what you want from people in covert or subversive ways, usually involving some kind of dishonesty. Needless to say, this will only worsen your insecurity, not give you more confidence.

But all of the above concerns the worst side of this transit, which does have something positive to teach you. Even as you suffer apparent defeats, you may discover that what you are losing is not really anything significant. You may learn that the needs of your selfless action and spiritual self-denial that makes it impossible for them ever to lose in a way that hurts them. In that case you will learn that there is really nothing to lose. This transit can be the gateway to a very highly evolved spiritual understanding, and it is quite likely that you will become increasingly involved with spiritual teachings and disciplines. However, it is possible to go off the deep end spiritually, and this transit may very well delude you into doing so. But in the long run this is one of the less dangerous traps of Neptune.

Transiting Neptune trine Natal Midheaven

Under the influence of this transit you are likely to de-emphasize practical and material concerns in favor of spiritual understanding and truth. And this can be a very positive thing, so long as you do not completely ignore the affairs of the material world. You must remain connected with the practical world but keep it from overwhelming your consciousness.

Under this transit you become more involved in service to others, perhaps on a personal level by taking care of someone who is close to you or perhaps through an institution, where you can help take care of the poor or disadvantaged. You may have to take care of a sick friend or a loved one.

On the other hand, you may change to a field of work in which social service is the goal. Welfare or social work and nursing- particularly psychiatric nursing- are appropriate to this transit. What happens is that you identify your personal gratification with service to the larger social order. Personal reward or personal recognition for your efforts are not important to you now, and you may be quite content to work behind the scenes.

On the negative side, your own ego drives are usually not very strong under this transit, which is why you are able to engage in the kinds of work described above. But this means that you may not stand up for your own valid interests or take adequate care of your own world. Sometimes personal relationships suffer at times like this because you don't consider them important enough. You think that they are only gratifying to you personally and are therefore not significant. If that is the case, you are forgetting that you must take care of your personal needs, not merely to gratify your ego, but also to make you a healthy and happy human being. Only if you are happy and healthy can you really be effective. One can not live on self-sacrifice forever, and if you try, you are likely to become a depressing and joyless person. Those who are most effective in helping society are also able to enjoy themselves.

Transiting Neptune quincunx Natal Midheaven

Transiting Neptune opposite Natal Midheaven

The danger of this transit is that it is likely to kick your props out from under you. In your job or any other activity that is important to you, something may happen that will make it very difficult to continue in your present direction. This event is probably not something that can easily be foreseen, and it will be difficult to describe even as it is happening. It can take the form of a psychological crisis that results in your feeling that you cannot go on. You may feel suddenly weak and ineffectual, even though others may not be able to see any reason for this. It is also possible that events in your most personal life will make it difficult to continue in your profession with the self-confidence and assurance that you need to be at your best. There may be domestic problems or difficulties with members of your immediate family. Someone very close to you may be doing or saying things to you that are very discouraging.

But this transit can also have another effect. you may no longer feel like advancing in your external social roles now, because you feel they have become meaningless and empty. You may want to withdraw a bit and look at your life in terms of your own criteria instead of others' and ask whether you are accomplishing what you yourself want to, rather than what others want. Sometimes in life we go ahead too fast and lose track of our original purposes. This is an excellent time to sit back and look at whether this has happened to you.

Many important elements of your life may come to an end and pass out of existence now. Let them go, for it is the right time for this to happen, and it will ultimately be good. This is a time to renounce those things, for you will soon discover that you do not really need them anyway. As the saying goes, we are naked when we come into this world, and when we leave it. Therefore what we have inside is important. Now is the time for you to find the strength of what you have inside.