Significance of Transiting Neptune

Neptune is usually one of the most difficult planetary influences to handle. It causes life to become confusing and unclear, and under its influence people often believe what is not true. At the same time, Neptune often has an ego-denying influence, which may make you feel discouraged, futile, undeserving and unworthy. Or it can lead you to perform great acts of selflessness and self-martyrdom. Neptune can also expose you to some extremely beautiful and ideal influences, which may not always be real but are worthwhile because of their beauty. Everything that man dreams of making come true as well as everything that man thinks is true, even though it isn't, comes under the influence of Neptune.

The difficulty of the planet's influence arises from the fact that Neptune dissolves whatever Saturn builds, such as your ego, your sense of duty and responsibility, your sense of definite reality and everything else about the world that is definite, clear, and predictable. Neptune works against all these structures. It dissolves or threatens to dissolve your ego, so that initially you feel lost, confused or defeated. But this effect can also make you feel exhilarated and at one with the entire universe. It depends on your level of c. It is safe to say that most prople experience the first effect more than the second.

Neptune dissolves your sense of reality, leaving you prey to confusion and doubt. Vague unreasoning fears can result from a Neptune transit, especially if Saturn is involved. Neptune can destroy your sense of responsibility and make you feel that others should take care of you. Yet at the same time, because of it's ego-denying effect, you can feel responsible for all the sins of the world. This energy makes some people spend their lives in social service, trying to make the world better without any thought of personal advancement.

As Neptune transits each house, watch the affairs ruled by that house. In those areas of your life, you will have to be careful not to fall prey to mistaken illusions. Anything connected with the matters ruled by that house may dissolve and pass out of existence in the subtlest, most imperceptible manner.

As Neptune transits each of the planets, you can expect matters ruled by that planet's energies to become confused or idealized. The planets pertaining to the ego drives- Mars, the Sun, and Saturn- may produce fear, insecurity and anxiety when transited by Neptune by conjunction, square or opposition. Neptune transits in general are not good times to make permanent committments concerning matters ruled by the transited planet or house, because you are rarely in possession of the pertinent facts. You may be right about a belief that you hold under a Neptune transit, but you will not know for sure until it is over.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 1st House

For the next several years you will be changing your ways of interacting with other people. During this period, self-knowledge is difficult but essential. It is difficult because you will constantly be presented with new aspects of yourself as others see you, and you will try to incorporate what they see into your view of yourself. This is nearly impossible, however, because you are going through a chameleon phase in which you quite unintentionably present a wide variety of faces to people.

It is essential that you know yourself during this transit, presicely because others will not know you clearly. You have to learn who you are in your own terms and to recognize that the way you project your personality to others is not the true inner you. It is only the aspect of yourself by which you relate to people.

The changes you are undergoing at this time may confuse you and certainly will confuse others. Consequently your relationships may become quite difficult, because the people you attract relate only to the currently projected image of yourself, not to your real needs. And just as you may confuse and delude others, perhaps inadvertantly, they may do the same to you. Be wary of getting caught up in weird schemes and projects that others propose. Your sense of reality is not at its best during these years.

You may also operate very idealistically during this period, acting on the basis of what you want to be true rather than what is true. You may get involved with very idealistic projects that have little basis in reality, with unfortunate results.

Another effect of this transit may be to stimulate your compassion for others. You may take care of someone you love who needs help, or you may work in groups with others for people who need help. There is a tendency to want to save others under this transit. But avoid having people become improperly dependent upon you, for that may prevent them from fully realizing themselves.

You may also want to seek out someone who can help you during these years. If in your confusion you become demoralized and feel that you are a totally unworthy person, you may look to someone who seems stronger in order to be sustained by his or her strength. The chief problem with this is that you may become permanently dependent upon that person.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 2nd House

During the next several years you will have to undergo a fundamental change of attitude toward your material possessions, which will coincide with and be reflected in a change in your sense of values. The more you are attached to what you own, letting considerations of their value determine what you can and cannot do, the more likely you are to lose whatever you consider important. Neptune works against the ego and the objects it is attached to by muddying and confusing your ideas about them prior to bringing about a complete reorientation of your views.

This does not mean that you are going to lose everything. Probably you will experience considerable confusion about property matters, and you may be deluded into making some very costly mistakes, but there is no reason to expect that all your possessions will be lost. You will experience the worst trouble only if you totally identify yourself with your material possessions, giving them an inordinate importance in your life. Neptune rules the mystical principle of detachment, of not being excessively involved with the things of the world, giving them no more importance than they deserve. Whatever Neptune transits, it is ultimately teaching this principle.

You may be tempted to gamble with your possessions or to become involved in risky speculative ventures in an effort to increase your holdings. If you are able to do this in a playful spirit, you might do rather well. But if you are very serious, determined and care a great deal about the outcome, you will probably lose. You cannot gamble if you worry about losing.

Another effect of this transit is that your sense of values may become spiritualized and idealized. This is the positive side of Neptune's second house transit. You learn that material possessions are not so important, and that what you need will be provided to the extent that you are detached from it. Needless to say, most of us have been educated to believe that we must struggle to attain possessions, which makes it very difficult to learn this principle.

Whatever your orientation to this issue, during this transit you should be careful about managing your money and possessions, and you should avoid gambling unless you are truly detached. Also, avoid becoming involved in risky schemes proposed by others. You could be swindled under this transit.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 3rd House

Your dealings and communication with your everyday world and the attitudes by which you function in it are seriously affected by this transit. Be very careful how you communicate with others. Be as clear as possible, because at this time it will be dificult to make yourself clear to others. Serious misunderstandings may occur that disturb your personal life. This is particularly true in communicating with immediate neighbors and relatives. Enter into any kind of negotiating with extreme care. Misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation could get you involved in projects you otherwise wouldn't have anything to do with, and this can lead to losses.

Aside from these manifestations in your relations with the outer world, this transit will also have a powerful effect within you. It will alter your ways of dealing with the world and cause your thinking to be very profoundly transformed. Most positively, this can happen through an increased concern with metaphysical and spiritual truth. You may begin the serious study of a metaphysical discipline during this transit. You may become very interested in such ideas as karma and reincarnation, and you will learn as much as you can about how these ideas apply to your personal life. Your imaginative creativity will also be greatly increased. Only make sure that imagination doesn't interfere with your ability to see the truth!

However, if your thinking has been excessively structured and inflexible, this period will bring a number of upsets, as you discover that what you thought was true is not. This can lead to confusion, self-doubt and uncertainty. If you encounter this problem, try to put off making any rapid decisions for a while. If you can afford to wait, your view will eventually clear, and you will be able to develop a completely new view that will better conform with the truth.

Also, if your mind is basically flexible, Neptune's effect may be the reverse of the above description. Neptune can confuse, but it can also give you very subtle insights. You may find that you immediately understand ideas that your rational mind could not usually comprehend, because Neptune transiting this house can stimulate latent psychic abilities. In fact it is this attribute that makes Neptune so confusing, because if you are not ready to receive psychic input, the input will simply seem confusing.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 4th House

While Neptune is in your fourth house, your domestic and personal life will undergo many strange and subtle changes, reflecting psychological changes that are going on within you. During this transit psychological forces will be changing your inner self quite noticeably. You may become attracted to spiritual and occult subjects as a direct result of your own experiences.

If you have not had much of a home life over the last several years, during this transit you may begin to create in your mind an ideal of what your home should be. And you will work very hard to make a home that represents what you want. However, if your mental picture is too ideal, it may be difficult for anything in the real world to live up to it. Certainly, with Neptune in this house you will seek to make your home a very beautiful place.

Unfortunately there is another side to this transit. Your home life may become a source of confusion and difficulty because someone in your home is working against your best interests in some way. It may be difficult to find out exactly what is being done, but it often has the effect of demoralizing you and making you feel less confident and secure. In fact you may experience these emotions without any problems at all in your personal life. In either case, these feelings are a sign of the tremendous inner changes that are taking place, which are reflected in your personal life.

During this time communications with your parents may become difficult for some reason, or one of your parents may begin to have difficulties that affect your own sense of wellbeing and security. Sometimes this transit coincides with the illness and hospitalization of a parent, but that is not likely unless there is a difficult transit involving the fourth house.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 5th House

During the next several years this transit may have various different effects on you. First, you will be inclined to seek out relationships with the opposite sex that fit a very romantic image. You will not want any relationship that does not meet your highest expectations. Curiously enough, sexual satisfaction may not be your highest priority in a relationship at this time. Because of neptune's antimaterialistic nature, you are concerned with creating a spiritual union rather than a purely physical one. And it is possible that you will find such a spiritual relationship, if you don't confuse what you are actually seeing with your ideal.

One rather difficult pattern that often arises when Neptune is in the fifth house is that you may tend to idealize a lover as someone who can save you from yourself, a person so far above you that he or she almost seems to be a god. Needless to say, this is a most Neptunian illusion and should not be taken seriously. It is highly unlikely that anyone could really live up to such expectations.

On the other hand, the pattern may be reversed, so that you become involved with someone who regards you as a savior. Under such an influence you could have an alcoholic lover, to cite an extreme example, and spend all your energy trying to reform him or her. This is an exercise in futility, because it is very unlikely to succeed. Try to relate to people as equals during this transit, however difficult it may be.

Avoid getting involved in risky financial ventures now, since the fifth is the house of gambling and speculation. Under this transit you may enjoy the illusion that you cannot lose, but you can lose and probably will as long as Neptune is here.

Children may be a source of difficulty during this transit. They may have illnesses, or you may simply have difficulty in understanding and getting along with them. Above all, avoid a tendency to idealize your children, for they are only human beings like yourself. You may idealize them as being innocents, but in truth they operate from the same crazy motives as adults, only a little less skillfully.

This transit stimulates artistic creativity. If you have artistic ability, your imagination will be very much improved, and you will be able to come up with new ideas for your art work in any field or medium.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 6th House

This transit will affect two areas of your life - your health and your work- very strongly. Be especially careful of your health now, for you may be more subject to illnesses and passing infections than at other times.

This is not to say that you will be constantly sick, but you should be careful. Usually you will not have health problems unless there are difficult transits to planets in your natal chart at the same time. Be especially careful of diseases caused by poisons and toxins in the body from drugs or alcohol.

People often get rather strange ideas about nutrition and hygiene while Neptune is transiting this house. Because of Neptune's nature, this usually takes the form of a dietary regimen in which you abstain totally from a particular kind of food. Vegetarian, fruit and low mucous diets all fit this description. These diets are not bad in themselves, but you should observe their effects upon your body carefully and not follow them blindly. Also you may be inclined for religious reasons to follow a diet that has nothing to do with your bodily needs.

In the area of work, this transit is best handled by working in a field of social service, perhaps with sick people in hospitals or asylums or with the poor. This is not a particularly good time for advancing your career for purely egotistical reasons. The ego-denying effect of Neptune often means that the harder you work for your own benefit, the less you get out of it. You can make great achievements while Neptune is in this house, but only if you are working in a spirit of service to others.

With this transit you may encounter serious misunderstanding with employers or employees and general difficulties in dealing with them. Your path to advancement may be mysteriously blocked by someone who will not confront you directly or state the reasons for opposing you. You may not even be aware that this person is acting against you. It is possible at this time to become involved in work that is dishonest or subversive, although you may not be aware of it at the time. But these effects are minimized if you regard your work as a service to others without worrying what you will get out of it personally. If you enjoy your work and do it creatively, this transit will not interfere, because that is ultimately the best way to make your work a service to others.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 7th House

This transit can have several effect, but in general it affects all the one-to-one relationships in your life. These include your marriage or living with someone, other partnerships (including business), conflicts with others and relations with people whom you consult, such as lawyers, physicians and other counselors. In any or all of these relationships there is the danger of poor communications, misunderstandings and misrepresentation.

In a marital relationship you may have problems because resentments are not brought out into the open where they can be handled. Instead, one or both of you keeps your feelings hidden and acts surreptitiously, making it difficult for the other to help solve the problem. There is also the danger of overidealizing your relations. You may think everything is just fine when it isn't. This is the old Neptunian problem of thinking that what you want to be true is true already. If you are attentive to what is really happening in the relationship, you will be able to see the truth.

Also during this transit you may have to take care of someone close to you who is sick or has some other problem that requires care. This person is most likely to be your living partner, but it could be someone else who is close to you.

If you are in business, be very careful about forming any new partnerships at this time. It is not very likely to work out as you want it to, and your partner may be more of a problem than a help. In extreme cases this transit can even indicate being swindled or even taken by a partner. An established partnership that has worked out well in the past will probably continue to do so, but be careful to communicate clearly with each other., because misunderstandings are a standard consequence of a seventh house Neptune.

This transit is normally not a good one for dealings with lawyers and lawsuits, because the seventh house rules people whom you consult, as well as lawsuits. You probably wont get a good deal if you hire a lawyer to represent you. Also the factors that will determine the outcome of your case would be difficult to discover, let alone deal with. This same advice applies to other people whom you hire for consultation.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 8th House

During this transit your attention will turn to the hidden areas of your life and the deepest aspects of your subc mind. Your interest in psychic and occult sciences will increase as you try to find out more about the hidden underpinnings of the universe. By the same token you will want to learn more about yourself and make changes that will help you work with your unc drives more successfully. This is a good time to begin dehypnotherapy, if you feel that it would be of benefit to you.

During this period an old order of your life is passing away and a new one is coming into existence. But the process is very subtle, and you may not notice the effects until several years have passed. Someone close to you may die, which may change your life considerably.

One area that this transit may affect adversely, however, is that of joint finances. The eighth house rules finances and resources that you hold with someone else or another person's resources that you have access to. Neptune in this house may cause misunderstanding with others concerning money or other property. There is the danger of misrepresentation and fraud. Hidden forces may be at work behind the scenes that prevent you from knowing what is happening. Because of these energies, this is not a good time to borrow money. You may have trouble getting a bank to lend to you anyway. Certainly you should not under any circumstances borrow more than a little money from friends. The strict business relationship of a bank loan mitigates the fogginess of Neptune considerably, but the more casual nature of private borrowing from friends leaves the situation wide open for the worst type of Neptunian misunderstandings.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 9th House

For the next several years this transit will stimulate your interest in higherc and spiritual truth. But if you are not careful, it may totally misguide you and confuse your outlook upon the world. The effects of this transit are rather abstract, so the discussion of them must also be a bit abstract.

You live in the world as an ego, that is, as a self that is consciously aware of being distinct from other beings and of having its own life course. One way in which you are distinguished from others is in your point of view and general outlook upon the world, which are symbolized by the ninth house. Neptune rules an energy that comes from a deeper realm of being where there is no ego and no differentiated being. All is one under this planet. Consequently Neptune blurs the distinctions between yourself and others, and even blurs distinctions in the world itself. For most people the effect of Neptune in the ninth is to expose them to ideas and influences that blur their usual viewpoint and make it harder for them to make distinctions. You may become less confident about your way of dealing with your universe, or you may become confused and disoriented. But these are not inevitable consequences of this transit.

The problems that this transit creates arise because you are desparately trying to replace the ideas that the transit has invalidated with new ideas. But because of the influence of Neptune, each new idea appears as invalid as the old ones.

The way to handle this dilemma is to wait and allow yourself not to know, to give yourself permission to be ignorant. In time, new mystical and spiritual ways of handling the universe will crystallize out of the neptunian fog. You will begin to understand your relationship to the universe, and you will see that everything really is one, as Neptune shows. It is only the frantic survival efforts of your ego that confuse everything.

However, there is still a pitfall with this transit, even when you deal with it as just described. Unfortunately, once you accept the spiritual lesson of Neptune in the ninth house, you begin to use it as a way to be superior to others, which puts you back into the ego game again. You begin to wander off alone into your own little intellectual world, becoming more and more removed from the feelings of others and less compassionate toward those who think differently from you. Eventually you will come out of this phase, but you may not gain much from it. Neptune transiting the ninth house is not a good time for playing any ego games with others. It is a time to learn and be grateful for what you have learned.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 10th House

This can be a very confusing and disorienting time, but it can teach you basic truths about life, if you are able to get over the fear and confusion that sometimes accompany this transit. The problem is that this transit makes you feel unsure of where you are going in life and why.

The effects of this transit depend upon your attitude toward what you do for a living (in the broadest sense). if you regard your work as a justification for your existence, something that gives your life a purpose it would not otherwise have, then this will be a very difficult time. Neptune will make you wonder whether there is any purpose in what you are doing and whether there is any particular reason to go on. Your disillusionment may come about through personal defeats with others or through some incident that shows that your work was not what you thought it was. Perhaps another person may misrepresent something or deceive you. No matter what you do during these years, be careful about deceiving others or being deceived by them, for such actions can have very negative consequences. You may also feel discouraged, because people oppose your efforts to get ahead for no apparent reason.

You may decide that your present calling is not adequate, that you should change to an area that will have more meaning for you. However, you really need to change your whole attitude toward what you are doing. You should not be doing something just because it justifies your life or gives you a sense of purpose. It should be an appropriate form of self-expression that allows you to be yourself most successfully. At the same time you should try to be less attached to what you are doing. You are not what you are doing. You are not what you do, even though people often respond to the question "What are you?" by giving their profession. Probably it is the fact that your ego is wrapped up in your work that is causing problems with others.

This transit favors certain types of work, for example social service work with poor or disadvantaged people or with those who have emotional, drug or alcohol problems. This transit will not be destructive, if you work in spirit of helping others.

This transit can also bring you a great interest in psychic, spiritual and occult matters, and you may even become involved with these subjects in your profession.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 11th House

During the next several years your ideals will become more important to you, and you will work very hard to actualize them in everyday life. You will be attracted in friendship to others who share your feelings. However, because of the idealistic nature of Neptune, you will have to be sure that you are dealing with reality even as you attempt to actualize your dreams.

Be careful particularly with the people you choose as friends. You may be relating to what you would like them to be rather to them as real people, which lays you wide open to disillusionment and deception. Also be careful not to become a martyr to your friends by letting them take undue advantage of you. Even though this transit arouses your compassion, make sure that the people you help with your time and energy are worth helping, that both you and they will get something out of your effort.

New friends may enter your life who will share the ideals that you are coming to hold at this time. You can give each other moral support and pool your energies to work together. Only make sure that you aren't helping each other foster an illusion that keeps each of you from achieving real growth.

If you are at all interested in psychic and spiritual matters, you will probably be attracted to movements that work for these causes. These efforts can be very useful and helpful, but again make sure that you dont join a mutual self-delusion society.

Transiting Neptune in the Natal 12th House

The next several years will be a time of reflection and deep inner concerns. You will no longer consider it adequate to be successful on the external or material plane of your life. Now you must question and evaluate what your life has meant in spiritual terms. Have you been inwardly fulfilled? Or has your life been a shallow masquerade, with little meaning for you as a spiritual being? Whether or not we like it and whatever our feelings about the existence of an "immortal soul," we have to deal with this dimension of life.

At this time you may want to withdraw from the rapid pace of normal everyday existence in order to find peace to examine yourself and see what you have accomplished. It is very hard to meditate upon your life in noisy surroundings. If you have been working hard on your career, for example, you may want to slack off now. You will be more concerned with meaning in life, and it will be necessary to find that meaning.

For all of these reasons, the transit of Neptune through the twelfth may stimulate a concern with religion and faith. You will very likely discover the inadequacies of your rational intellect and decide that other aspects of your mind, such as your capability for belief, intuition and sensitivity, are more important now. If you have any psychic inclinations, you may discover that your psychic abilities are aroused by this influence. Probably you will take a great interest in the psychic sciences at this time. You will be concerned with any means for getting in touch with the deeper dimensions of existence.

You will encounter the most difficult effects of this transit if you examine your past life and find that you have not served your spiritual needs very well. You may become subject to depression and periods when your whole life seems meaningless and empty. If this does happen, make changes that will facilitate encountering the spiritual dimension of life. It is never too late to begin this effort, and it will help you. One of the greatest diseases of the modern age is alienation, the feeling that life is meaningless and that we have no connection with anyone or anything else. Neptune in the twelfth is your opportunity to discover that this is not true for you and that you share an essential oneness with all being.