When the Pisces Sun conjoins Neptune at 2:18 am EST on Thursday, many of you will be asleep. That will probably be a good thing. Neptune’s association with dreams, and the Sun’s connection with consciousness, makes the combination suitable for the wee hours (though the conjunction is already in effect).
Regardless of when you sleep on Thursday, however, when you awaken it would be a good idea to observe the Sun’s conjunction to Neptune by giving thought to your relationship with truth as you know it.
Neptune’s relationship to the truth is double-edged. The outermost gas giant of the solar system is often associated with delusion and deception. Yet, there is another side to Neptune: the truth you have the power to make.
As Robert Hand once observed, “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.” Astrology indicates that your part in that influence is greater now than at any time in living memory. That’s because Neptune currently resides in the sign it rules.
Neptune is the modern ruler of Pisces. Prior to Neptune’s visual identification during the Libra equinox of 1846, Pisces was considered to be the second realm of Jupiter (Sagittarius being the first). Even though the expansive nature of Jupiter still gives us a great deal of useful information about mutable water, Neptune has earned its distinction as dispositor of Pisces, beginning with its virtual discovery. (The term ‘dispositor’ is used to indicate when one planet superimposes its influence over another. In this case, Jupiter’s influence on Pisces is itself, in turn, influenced by Neptune.)
In the two centuries prior to 1846, Neptune was observed a number of times, but repeatedly astronomers did not realize what they were looking at. Finally, through the virtual reality of mathematics, a formal and structured form of dreaming, its existence was first surmised then located to the degree. That is where Robert Hand’s astute evaluation derives its validity.
By 2010, Neptune had completed one full orbit of the Sun and one full circuit of the zodiac since its discovery in late Aquarius. That cycle has only served to verify Neptune’s emblematic affinity for the sign it rules, and their mutual, ambivalent relationship with the truth. So, too, the correlations astrologers have made since Neptune returned to Pisces twice (in 2011 and again in 2012, due to a retrograde).
As Eric wrote in yesterday’s Daily Astrology, “Neptune, like Pisces, is easily corrupted.” Such corruption is more likely to take place in the field of what you think is true, even though it isn’t. That leads down a long road toward the less savory side of both Neptune and Pisces, where disillusion, disappointment and cynicism take the place of your dreams. The alternative route is to eschew hand-me-down truth for that you make yourself.
In order to make your dreams come true, first accept that you can. That’s where the Sun will shed some light on the situation later this week. The Sun is light, and the role light plays in your life. With light you can see. The Sun is day, and the part of your life that day represents. Daytime is the natural time to get things done. Therefore, the Sun conjunct Neptune symbolically provides both the illumination and the opportunity to realize your relationship to the truth as you know it.
If the truth as you know it is something you bought or accepted as your inheritance, it will probably take you to where your own dreams will die. That will leave you among the many who feel they have no alternative but to spend their precious lives in both labor and loss.
It does not have to be that way. There is room in the world for your dreams. Indeed, the continued existence of the world could depend on your dreams. That’s how it is important to all of us that you employ the symbolic light of the Sun to see your dreams as the origin of the only real truth you can ever know. That’s how it is vital that you make the most of the decade and a half, every century and a half, when it is daytime for both Neptune and Pisces at the same time.
The last time Neptune was continuously in Pisces, from 1848 to 1863, saw a lot of dreams die, especially in the United States. Huge fleets sailed the world to kill whales for lamp oil. That oil illuminated the conscious corruption of a nation’s dreams, leading to the murder of its First Citizens and the exploitation of those who came (or were brought) to the United States only to labor and lose while serving the dreams of a privileged few. A conscious few, however, availed themselves of what the Sun represents and made true the dream of abolishing formal, structured slavery.
Now, the pieces are in place again, and there is more work to do. While slavery is not what it was before the United States Civil War, it still plagues humanity. Slavery still exists, especially in prisons, among immigrants, or for displaced women and children. Perhaps even for the places in your mind where the Sun rarely shines.
The Sun is back, just as it always is one month a year at this time. Pisces is the same place it has always been, and Neptune is there to amplify the energetic field of dreams that it rules. You are not only alive to see it. You are alive precisely because you have a place in it, but it’ll be a place that you define by what you see and what you do. You would do best by starting with your dreams. As you see your dreams, so you can make them; and as you make them so, the truth as you know it can be.
Offered In Service
Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.
“Yet, there is another side to Neptune: the truth you have the power to make.”
Yes, this is what has been speaking to me of late, seeing the possibility of creation and the frame of consciousness through which the creation occurs. Thank you Len.
Daniel- Thank you for your words about your date, they resonate very strongly for me right now, and you say it so clearly and from a neutral place. I hope you had a wonderful time with Ms. Cappy.
Carrie: i am so very sorry for all of the unpleasant things you are currently enduring. i cannot pretend to be an authority on how or what hardship teaches us, except to note that it does pass one way or the other, leaving each of us (as our turn comes to endure) with how we handle it. i have faith that you, in turn, will be able to pass those lessons on to help others just as you have always done, with generous grace.
I am with Miss S, all this stuff in Pisces is in my 6th house and my health is suffering. My digestive system is messed up, I am in constant pain since my fall in December, and nothing is working to alleviate either of these. At least the UTI seems to be getting better.
I have no dreams that I remember; lack of sleep is messing with them. Lack of sleep in turn makes me weepy and less able to cope. I just want my life back. I don’t know which of these things in Pisces triggered it but it started after I fell on Dec. 19th. of last year. What is all this supposed to teach me?
thanks Lizzy, I hope so. I have a date tonight with a wonderful Cappy gal. I’m not sure where it’s going but I like her enough to hang out and be patient with her and her process. I’m trying not to be attached to an outcome here.
Vince, that is an awesome story man.
And Vince, that’s just amazing!
I loved your comment, too Daniel. Sounds as if you’ve come a mighty long way!
DivaCarla: Thank you for your lovely and inspiring comment. I love this, “We can handle the dream state in the midst of real life better than most”. I’m not a Pisces, but have always been on the dreamy side, and I too ran up against this as a child and was often called Daffy Duck by my father, which always made me burst into tears! But hey, we’ve got Chiron in Pisces and Saturn in Scorpio to help structure the dreaminess. Good luck!
beleclaire – thank you, that felt like a warm, accepting embrace.
DivaCarla – my grateful thanks for shifting my perspective. It’s true about the backbone; we can maneuver log jams with grace. I observe most people in my life want to see the backbone that stands erect, or at least stoops a little, it is more familiar, I’d guess.
Dear Len,
I enjoy the comments almost as much as your articles. You create and nurture a place where people can share and support each other through your writing.
Thank you!
Mia
Lizzy: Thank you for noting the Saturn retrograde and for the generous compassion you have offered to another, even when times are not the best for you.
Daniel: Thank you for noting Mars. Last year at this time, it was not only in Virgo, but retrograde, hence part of the reality check you refer to. Now, in Pisces, the sign opposing Virgo, reflection is part of the scenario. i think you have done an excellent job of bringing that to our attention, and am grateful for your words.
vince: Thank you so very much for your moving and timely contribution. A very powerful experience, very powerfully written.
DivaCarla: Love your guideline for awareness of a transformative decision. Thank you for so eloquently bringing us a glimpse of the truth.
beleclaire: It appears that you have integrated your Pisces mid-heaven very well. Thank you also for recalling Eric’s cogent observation of a prominent cultural discrepancy.
Daniel – thank you for flagging up this time last year to reflect on.
I have had a similar experience to you.
oops…does not value
Dear Len
I found this piece both poetic and profound, thank you..I echo aword’s comments about your capacity to stimulate a new understanding/perspective on the chart..what a gift you have!
I have a Pisces M/H and very little water in my chart so one of my lessons has been to give space time and value to the watery realms….astronomers who ” did not realise what they were looking at” certainly struck a chord.
As Eric so rightly said last week we do not live in a world – well in the West – that values vision creativity or imagination..to day dream is some sort of expression of inadequacy or problem…and certainly not encouraged.
I will ask for a dream tonight.
This for Miss S and Lizzy, and anyone else:
I wrote something this morning:
How do you know you’ve made a decision for tranformation? The shit hits the fan (shortened version)
I have been (am) there, and it’s devastating. So easy to back away from the decision, the change, the dream. I am counting on Saturn and Chiron aspects to help put bones under my decision, a form and structure that will last.
And I have to keep making decisions to do difficult things I don’t want to do, or don’t know how to do.
I was told as a child I lacked backbone… that dreamy thing annoying those around me. Fish are vertebrates. We’re ALL backbone, and we can do the very difficult things. We can handle the dream state in the midst of real life better than most.
Take heart. Len offered good words to us, about those things going wrong. It’s actually a good sign. Keep swimming!
Len – thank you for reaching out to me with your kind and encouraging words. I will carry them with me.
Lizzy – thank you for your empathy and compassion. I so needed it.
My dreams never make memory come the light of day, except for this one i just experienced. Basically it was about awaking in my parents house on my 17th birthday feeling totally loved and accepted for whom i am. This is not how my life has played out. Its like i drempt of the way i wanted my youth and parental acceptance to have been. I awoke feeling blessed and forgiven.
Hours later I received a card from my parents saying how proud they are of me because I took my own path and not the one they wanted. My mom called hoping I’m not mad at her.
How utterly cathartic, releasing, mystifying … i just turned 64
Len, I can’t help but think of this past year for me. Last year, we had a similar Sun/Neptune conjunction BUT with Mars in Virgo. I remember a lot of articles describing this as a reality check. I embarked on a path that turned out to be the wrong one. This time, I’m at a similar yet vastly different place in my life. With Mars now in Pisces during this Sun/Neptune conjunction, things feel so much clearer, at least with my self awareness. Mars is offering a clue here about our journey since 1 year ago, and how we have or have not been doing our work. What do you think?
Miss S, as Len said, you are not alone. I’m not a Pisces, but am very watery indeed, Cancer with Scorpio rising and moon, Chiron in Pisces. Like you I’ve been knocked for six these last few days – seemed to be doing better, but suddenly the rug has been pulled out from under my feet again – and all just seems so bloody hard. Am thinking also that Saturn has just gone retrograde, and Mercury is on its way. Hang on in there lass – time to dive into those waters again and come up with some more pearls!
And thank you, dear Len (((()))
michele: It is for me to thank you. You honor me by referring to me as a friend. You humble me by quoting my words. You make my heart leap when you write that my work has served you well.
Amanda: Thank you for your clients, for your skill as an editor, and for noting the “dream trend” on recent nights for many people.
jinspace: Thank you for validating the dream space.
aword: Thank you for sharing your new realization, your upbeat outlook, and your generous appraisal of my service.
be: Thank you for an example of how dreams can manifest in unexpected ways, and for proving us with a glimpse of the astrology to come. Most of all, your idea of circulation versus stagnation, which should be watchwords for many this year.
Miss S: Most of all, please feel safe here at Planet Waves. You are not alone in your perspective and your experience. Astrology is not one-size-fits all. You are unique and you matter to the rest of us. Your day will come. It may come soon. Please accept our support to buoy you through these intense first days. Nobody in at least three previous generations has the experience you (and the rest of us) are even now gaining. It will not be all bad. Have faith in yourself, you were made for this time and this place. Thank you for having the courage equal to your passion. Please feel free to share more as needed.
Lunesoleil: It gives me joy to know you found my service useful. Thank you.
Len… Your light was the extra guiding hand needed to write a difficult 2-minute (!) talk/request for tomorrow morning. And you cannot know just how apt, on so many levels, this piece is. I am asking them to see 100 years ahead. And you quote devastation that began 150 year ago…
And them… born somewhere in-between. And me… Somewhere here. And then… well… there’s a vast unknown future.
I will be quoting this, as coming from a friend, if that’s OK… “You are not only alive to see it. You are alive precisely because you have a place in it, but it’ll be a place that you define by what you see and what you do. You would do best by starting with your dreams. As you see your dreams, so you can make them; and as you make them so, the truth as you know it can be.”
Thank you a million-fold. (And even that is not enough thanks.)
xm
In the discovery of Neptune in 1846 Saturn was in conjunction with Neptune, which would mean that mankind would have the possibility to realize these dreams?, but need to maintain awareness of the wishes to see then what make, thanks Len of have illuminated me by reading your article
Maybe the dream with Neptune is not of this world, Neptune protects those who keeps a soul of child and does not take life too seriously
Beautiful magical night under the Sun/Neptune conjunction to the trigone of the Moon 🙂 ))))
Are there any other Pisces out there not enjoying Sun in Pisces either? Day 1 and 2 so far have been fairly devastating for me. It feels like I am being broadsided by my dreams which were just delusions after all. The line seems so thin when you are Pisces. It is quite like I am suddenly thrust “down a long road that leads to the less savory side of Neptune and Pisces, where disillusion, disappointment and cynicism” are taking the place of my dreams. Most of my life I have felt that All-things-pisces is my fundamental flaw. The world has not offered a safe or friendly place for a dreamer like me. Sun in Pisces 2013 for me is sounding more like a call to ‘snap out of it’ than permission to dive deeper and dream/believe more. What does making the most of this mean?
They can come true Len, those dreams of ours. When I was a kid I wanted to work in an airport observation tower with windows all around, tending lots of equipment providing data (probably saw that in a movie!) that kept airflights operating smoothly. I was in my 40’s when one day I realized that I was doing what I had dreamed of, only instead of airplanes it was a hospital’s HVAC system; pumps, fans, chillers, etc., but I had the windows all around! It took just about the length of a Saturn-cycle from when I had that dream to when I realized that somehow, magically, reality can be dreamed into existence. As different as their functions are, Saturn and Neptune really can work together, although Saturn won’t always match the Neptune dream exactly, he can and will do his best to make it real.
When Neptune and Saturn exact their trine again this June, we can make it really personal when first Mercury and then Venus and then the Sun move into Cancer to form their part in quick little grand water trines. Do you suppose the gods and goddesses planned that or did we just dream it up?
Whatever we dream about tomorrow night with the Sun conjunct Neptune, it will need to circulate. We know water stagnates if it doesn’t move, and during June, it could become a rushing river-flow. Aword reminds us that there’s a grand trine between Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn coming, so whose to say we can’t dream big?
Thanks for this beautifully written “heads down” (on the pillow) Len. It just might be what the doctor ordered.
be
Hi Len,
I have to laugh with amazement because your writing so often points out something (in my personal chart) that seems oh so obvious and simple once you have opened my mind to see it. Of course this is in-part why you are such a great teacher – pointing out what is right smack-dab under my nose.
Today is the first time I realized my stellium of Jupiter/NN/Neptune on IC in Scorpio is all about Pisces! How funny. And come late June-ish I’ll have something of a personal water trine all round when Jupiter and the Sun enter Cancer,, while Neptune is still reverberating on natal Sun in Pisces. (Our transiting Saturn, the nodes and the moon seem to want a part of that too.)
What a water-y year indeed! -and I am so happy for it – it does feel like the time is ripe to (once again) push forward with creative pursuits, and that (this time) there will likely be (public) receptivity. When Pluto crossed that Scorpio stellium awhile back, then squared himself and sun as he transiting out of Scorpio and into Sagg, regeneration was forced such that dreams seemed distant. But re-evaluation, new experience and re-creation have been cooking inside the cocoon; perhaps the warm light of Sun will soon be drying off newly emerged wet wings for a glorious flight or two.
Thanks, Len.
I actually had an amazing and unusual dream this week, that gave me a clear, creative and pragmatic solution to a situation I’ve been grappling with. (Now, if I can just get the other people implicated to agree to it…)
also, be sure to check out google’s fun doodle today!
it’s nicolaus copernicus’s 540th birthday…
🙂
when i read len’s opening paragraph, the first thing that popped into my head was the fact that yesterday at least 4 or 5 of my friends were posting on FB about their weird dreams the night before.
now, one of those friends posts her wild dreams quite regularly (and she’s a writer/filmaker). but i don’t think i’ve ever noticed such a trend before. seems quite fitting, given the sun sidling up to neptune!