neptune into aries until 2039 | who and what are we willing to fight for and who becomes collateral damage when we do

On January 26th, at 12:34PM EST Neptune finally leaves the final degree of Pisces (the home sign where he has been his most Neptunian) and moves into Aries. We had a sneak-peek of this for a few months last year, but Neptune's return to Aries next week is the REAL DEAL. 

He won't be packing his backs again for 13 years. 

This is the first time Neptune has been in Aries since 1861-1875 - this was the American Civil War era (Neptune entered Aries on the first day of the Civil War), the birth of modern nationalism, anesthesia, photography, a time when alcohol/whiskey was consumed like water (especially by American men/the Moon tight on Algol in the U.S. Civil War chart and Aries the ruler of men) and temperance movements kicked off, this was the time when there was a redefinition of 'who counts as human'. 

Neptune is a collective sign. He is connecting, spiritual, imaginative, mythic, boundaryless, anesthetic, devotional. Aries is a personal house - collectively our first house and ruled by Mars. Aries is singular, independent, leading, embodied, can be brave, can be impulsive/passionate/angry, is violent if unconscious and heroic if clean 

(and the definition of heroic' is something we need to think about because when Saturn catches up with Neptune in Aries in a couple weeks, we will have asteroid Heracles/Hercules there, too - we will talk about this).

With Neptune in Aries over the next decade - our clouded vision and idealization shifts toward our cardinal fire energy.

We might idealize or romanticize masculine energy, whatever is new and starting, youth, assertiveness, anger, action.  Originality. Independence. Standing up for ourselves. Ambition. Fighting for what we believe in. Fighting for an illusion. War. Independence. See, I already said independence and already can't see this clearly :)

 
All these things might look better to us, as if rose-colored glasses have been slipped over our eyes when we look at them. 

Neptunian things like art and music and spirituality and mental health get FRESH STARTS and passionate hearts. New action, treatments, etc for mental health. New action on alzheimers. New action on healthcare. New action on drugs and addiction. New music. New art. New spiritual movements. Water initiatives. New action on algorithms.  

Leaky boundaries can get firmed up/set afire and hot heads cooled off. 

And, maybe, over time, the hard edge of our youthful masculine energy is softened, its fire watered down and made more compassionate and connecting. And everyone will love young men more and that is much needed, too. 

Astrology teaches us that the way things start is the way things go, so let's take a look at the chart for Neptune's BIG move out of his home sign where he has been comfortable laid up in his easy chair since the end of 2011 - and into Mars' fiery sign of ARIES.

Let's unpack the chart!

Neptune is conjunct asteroid Borasisi (who just hours earlier moved off 0 Aries after being there for months and is now at 1 degree Aries). Neptune sextiles Mars (the new ruler of Neptune)/Pluto/Sun in Aquarius - applying. Neptune sextiles a retrograde Uranus - separating. Neptune exactly opposes asteroid Lachesis and squares asteroid Circe, retrograde in Cancer.  

NEPTUNE SEXTILE URANUS - Neptune is unwinding his sextile with Uranus in Taurus and now it becomes out-of-sign and separating. This tells us that something has ALREADY BEEN destabilized, invented, innovated, UNLEASHED. Think - Trump with his Uranus/Sun/North Node. Think - tech. Think changes with Taurean things - money, resources, physical bodies, property (who owns what and what is valuable). Think - disruption of material reality. 

With Neptune into Aries sextile Uranus, we can IDEALIZE THE DISRUPTION. See chaos as something 'good for us'. This feels like a slippery set-up for some very tech-utopia mythologizing (is this a word). 

THEY BROKE THE SYSTEM and now they/we mythologize why it was necessary! This is how technology stops being debated and starts being normalized. 

NEPTUNE SEXTILE MARS/PLUTO/SUN in Aquarius - Neptune moves into a sextile with Mars (2 degrees Aqua), Pluto (3 degrees Aqua) and the Sun (6 degrees Aqua). 

I had originally written 'trine' here and an eagle-eyed reader corrected me!

Mars/Pluto is compulsion, our survival instinct, power, brute force, total commitment. The Sun adds in light/what is happening is visible, identity, leadership, ego, fire (note these planets are all in airy/detached/intellectual/tech and system focused Aquarius). If these planets were squaring Neptune we would get some dilution here, but because the sextile isn't going to challenge the Aquarius lineup (that has a rather gnarly reputation) there is the potential for Neptune in Aries to be misused. It's not like we have to open this door, but 'this is a door that CAN be opened'.

If the sextile is used positively - we can get more PURPOSE, MEANING and VISIBILITY. Highly charged/volatile even violent situations have a place to discharge a bit. 

Used unconsciously we could get something like - belief is used to justify action. Neptune can offer a vision but it's not exactly a real thing. We believe this so we have to do that and with the Mars/Pluto/Sun - the that can be pretty explosive. It can also allow the Mars/Pluto/Sun strength/power, possibly brutality to be mythologized. 

So, power can be guided by compassion here, if someone chooses to use it, 

but also once something is framed as Aquarian/FOR HUMANITY then dissent can be framed as something like selfishness or 'going backward' or the dissenter called confused, crazy, scared or maybe unenlightened. It could be easier to erase Aries legitimacy (independence, leadership) with the sextile to these guys in Aqua in play. This kind of use of the sextile isn't inevitable/baked into the chart - but it is available. And availability isn't something neutral (come to the dark side we have cookies). Also keep in mind my Mercury is in Cappy and always on the lookout for dragons :)

The good news for Neptune (and us) is that Aries wants agency and the sextile respects that - here is inspiration, what will you do with it? There is opportunity for constructive and destructive use here, but in general the sextile is considered a positive aspect. There is creative opportunity. 

We'll just keep in mind that Neptune moves into Aries with Aries ruler Mars in a conjunction with Pluto and the Sun which is a very powerful line-up. And Neptune and Mars are in contact, so this is no joke. The sextile doesn't corrupt power OR redeem it, but it does give power a story (which yes make me a little nervous) which is probably not actually true. 

BORASISI CONJUNCT NEPTUNE - we have been talking about this for a while and last summer I re-read Cat's Cradle to get a better grip on this one. In the dystopian 'tech futuristic' book Cat's Cradle, Borasisi is a fabricated Sun-God (and let's keep in mind Borasisi is also trining the Mars/Pluto/Sun in Aquarius here). It is also a stark WARNING - because this book doesn't end well - of humanity's ability to invent delusions that feel real enough to kill for and die for.

Neptune/Borasisi might FEEL LIKE AWAKENING - that some kind of ascension is coming. It might feel like salvation (think about AI as an oracle/therapist or data as truth) but it is engineered and optimized. Borasisi/Neptune says that technology doesn't run amok by accident it is MYTHOLOGIZED. The book is about unchecked scientific advancement and the destructive power of technology. In the book a fictional substance called ice (yes ICE I can't make this stuff up) which can freeze any liquid it comes into contact with - destroys the world. 

(the author of Cat's Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut, a powerful Scorpio Sun who was born with an EXACT Borasisi/Mercury/Jupiter conjunction - Mercury rules writing, Jupiter expansion - in deep/dark Scorpio. He also had a powerful 1-degree Aquarius Circe - the enchantress/sorceress whose twists of her braided hair, knowledge of herbs and making of potions cast spells that included turning men into pigs and spinning time. You know who else is a powerful Scorpio Sun with a 1-degree Aquarius Circe - Erika Kirk)

NEPTUNE OPPOSING LACHESIS - Lachesis is the middle sister of the three Fates. She is charged with determining the length of one's life. We could think of her as determining (archetypically) WHAT CONTINUES. In Libra, this can be about partnerships, balance, justice, equality, women. So maybe we could read this as - severance from projected and inherited identities, certain feminine/beauty constructs, partnership endings, changes with the way we see/think about justice and equality, maybe even refusal of old destinies/contracts, savior/villain dynamics, etc. The Neptune opposition will make all of this super CONFUSING. Deciding what gets released is part of the new picture but will be unclear. Maybe the confusion buys us some time - to measure twice before we cut once. 

And then we have the APPROACHING DRUMBEAT OF SATURN - Saturn will get into Aries on February 13th and Saturn/Neptune will be together at 0 degrees Aries. Their 'exact to the second' meeting will happen on February 20th in between two powerful Eclipses. 

I think Saturn is good news here overall because he will slow and ground whatever Neptune in Aries is starting - whatever we have become all fired up about that isn't real. 

He will test this/show us what is REAL here. Brings a reality check. Limits. Saturn in Aries will act as a kind of container for the next year or so until we figure out this new territory. Saturn can't control Neptune, but he can SELECT WHAT GETS SEEDED. He will demand responsibility and boundaries and that whatever has us fired up have substance/form/structure. With Saturn in Aries, we will need to start before we are ready, so Neptune gets here first. The dream precedes the reality. 

Saturn moves much faster than Neptune and by the time Saturn stations retrograde in late July he will be at 15 degrees Aries and Neptune will be at 4 degrees. They will get as close as a 6-degree separation when they both station direct next December, so Saturn will have some back-and-forth influence for most of 2026 then he will move on and whatever has survived their conjunction - which again is strongest this February and March - will be what lasts. 

This will be both THE MYTH THAT GETS TO STAY and THE DREAM THAT BECOMES REAL. 

I hope something here is helpful. 

BOTTOM LINE - Neptune leaving Pisces will end the emotional exhaustion, victim mentality, compassion fatigue, ghosting/loss without closure because with Neptune in Aries there will be closure even if it is uncomfortable, confusions that never resolve, spiritual overwhelm (this ascension talk will be ending/cede the ground to something new). Neptune entering Aries means that spiritual questions become more personal, empathy more about action than feeling, we will have less tolerance for passivity and be more irritated when people and situations are vague, grief will need an outlet (doing over being) and NOT A CONTAINER. Many people will feel clearer but more agitated. Again, taking care of our nervous systems will be paramount. And, of course, some people will feel all of this more strongly than others, but everyone will be impacted. The Neptune/Saturn happening on the Aries point (zero degree of a cardinal sign and Aries is the strongest Aries point) says world events will have all our attention going in the same direction. This will be something visible. 

xo all