By Len Wallick
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. – Robert Hand, from Planets in Transit
Neptune retrogrades back to Aquarius overnight as the Sun draws very near the halfway point between the Cancer Solstice and Libra Equinox. Neptune re-enters Aquarius after having spent a preliminary foray of four months in Pisces. Neptune will come back to Pisces next year when the Sun is very near the mid-point between the Capricorn Solstice and the Aries Equinox. In Pisces it will stay until 2026. All of that is true. The brief return to Aquarius is a reminder of how the very end of the 20th Century, and the first decade of the 21st have proven Robert Hand’s pithy appraisal to be true as well.
Among other things, Aquarius is the sign of the collective. Traditionally ruled by Saturn, it is where the individual human encounters limitations which confer definition, role and place in society. Uranus, the modern ruler, raises the revolutionary question of the individual assuming conscious responsibility for the condition of society.
When Neptune began its Aquarian journey in 1998, the outlook was optimistic. Political, economic and technological developments encouraged the dream of material abundance and spiritual advancement for one and all. It seemed true that the world was on its way to becoming a safer, more peaceful place. At long last, we dreamed that ignorance and want were finally to be banished. Now, on the other side of nearly a decade and a half, things look a lot different.
The United States, which held so much of the new century’s power, came under the thrall of a criminal enterprise masquerading as the executive branch of government. That administration started two false and interminable wars as the megalomaniacs in charge assumed the mantle of fact makers and reality creators. The Internet, which held so much of our dream’s potential, was manipulated for profit at the cost of dependency. Everywhere, power exploited and the concept “We the people” somehow evaded those people caught up in ‘for or against’. Now we are faced with price instead of promise. Having gone through all of that, it is legitimate to ask whether six more months of Neptune in Aquarius is anything to look forward to.