Today is Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. This is the last day of Neptune in Aquarius; Neptune changes signs into Pisces Friday just past 2 pm EDT, beginning an era that culminates in 2025. Let’s do a quick almanac check with the rest of the sky and come back to Neptune.
At the moment the Sun is in mid-Aquarius. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is a time of year called Imbolc — which means “in the belly.” We are in the belly of winter, and this is the midwinter holiday, which was in later times called Candlemas. It’s the midway point between winter solstice and spring equinox. The ridiculous tradition of Groundhog Day is a throwback to when these particular points in the cycle of the year were used for divination purposes — that is to say, this is traditionally held as a good time to read tarot, cast runes or throw the I Ching.
The Moon is now moving slowly through Gemini and ingresses Cancer Saturday at 1:03 am EST, where it will immediately pick up on Neptune, newly in Pisces, and Chiron in early Pisces, through a water-to-water trine aspect.
Yet before that happens, we have one more full day of Neptune in Aquarius, where it has been since 1998. In Tuesday’s subscriber edition we asked readers for their comments on this transit. Here is what some of them said.