Lanny Logan
Lanny Logan is a fellow astrologer specialised in studying outer planet transits. He has a club of his own where he posts articles about outer planet transits from time to time.
Logan's Club
Jupiter's Transits
Saturn's Transits
Uranus' Transits
Neptune's Transits
Pluto's Transits
Transiting Planets
Neptune�s purpose is to place you in a position where nothing is predictable in the area represented by the house energies and aspect to natal planets. During Neptune�s transit the areas of your life become clouded by mists of fancies and self-delusion. It will be extremely difficult to tell fact from fiction, or feel secure in your world view. Neptune works to dissolve all of the structures that you have put in place in your life. Confusion and illusions follow Neptune through the houses leaving the individual lost a feeling adrift in life.
What possible good could come from Neptune�s transit you might ask, when it causes you to question your sense of reality and the structure that you have set up to make your life manageable? In that question you have your answer. In order to grow and increase awareness, you have to question reality, or what you perceive to be reality.
The problem is that until a house transit is completed you will not be able to see clearly enough to reshape your reality in the House�s energy area. About all that can done at any given time is to observe the abundant input of information without making a judgement on it being right or wrong.
During a house transit, your intuition will be much more reliable than your intellect. This is because your intellect works with facts and you will be unable to discern between facts and illusions at this time. You will be more sensitive to the area controlled by the house than any other time.
Your ego will have a hard time of it under Neptune�s transit, often leaving you lost, confused, and insecure about yourself and life.
The old adage �when in doubt, do nothing� should be your operating principle. Stay open, but make no decisions on the area of this house until that transit is over.
I don�t mean to make this planet�s transits seem like gloom and doom, they can bring beautiful experiences to you. If you can live in virtual free-fall you can be extremely creative. Just don�t bet the family farm or make major life moves on anything effected by the House being transited.
Like Uranus, Neptune only effects a few of our houses during our life. It takes 164 years to complete one cycle, and its doubtful that many of us will see more than 6 or 7 houses transited in a lifetime. It squares itself when we are approximately 42 years old, trines itself at around 56 years old, opposes itself when we are 84, and if we live long enough, trines again at 98 years old.
Obviously, if you are born with Neptune in your 1st house you will never experience its effect on your 8th house and above and if born with Neptune in your 8th house, never know the experience of it transiting your 3rd through 7th houses. That is partly why some astrologers think that the outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have a great deal to do with karmic debts built up in previous lives. I�m not sure anyone has ever looked at the correlation between where these three planets are located in the natal chart and the individuals life, but it would be interesting to do so from that perspective.
But that isn�t our purpose here, so lets look at what effect Neptune has in each house.
Neptune transiting the 1st House - during this transit you will be constantly presented with a wide variety of feedback on how others see you. Do not accept any of these as representing who you really are as a person. Because of all the diverse feedback it will be important that you have a handle on who you are, and not try to match what you hear from others. Others will be confused by your changing self-image, but no more than you will be. Its like you are trying on different masks to see which one fits you best, or meets others expectations. You need to understand that the feedback from others only reflects feedback on the masks not who you really are as a person.
Neptune transiting the 2nd house - during this transits you will undergo a change in your attitude about your material possessions. Neptune teaches not to be excessively attached to your possessions. The best way to handle this transit is to try to remain detached from material things, and seek to learn more about your spiritual nature. You will come to realize that your material needs will be met when you focus your attention away from them and toward your spirit.
Neptune transiting the 3rd House - this transit will effect your ability to communicate with others. You may have difficulty make your points clear to others. Try to be as clear as you can about what you want to say to others, particularly close relatives and neighbors. During this transit your normal way of thinking will undergo a great transformation. Your thinking will focus on the metaphysical aspects of your life, your karma and incarnations, and how these principles apply to your life. How disruptive this period will be for you depends on how structured your way of thinking was when you started the transit. If you were very structured, you could undergo a series of upsets to show you that your thinking on some areas is entirely wrong. If on the other hand you can be flexible in your thinking, this transit will provide you with some deep and significant insights in to your true self. Latent psychic abilities are often heighten during this transit as well.
Neptune transiting the 4th House - this transit brings many strange and subtle changes to your domestic and personal life. Your own experiences during this transit may point you toward spiritual and occult studies. Your home becomes very important to you during this transit, and you will try to set it up in such a way that it reflects your needs. There may be someone in your home though who will work against your interest. Their actions may be subtle but the result will be that you will feel less confidence in yourself, and insecure. These feelings may be there even without someone working against you, reflects of the tremendous inner changes going on in your personal life.
Neptune transiting the 5th House - this transit has various effects on you. One could be your seeking a romantic relationship that meets your idealistic expectations. This relationship may not have a very strong sexual component, but will be focused more on a spiritual union or finding your soulmate. There is a danger of seeing your mate as someone who can save you from yourself, someone so far above you that they seem as they are almost a god.. This is a Neptunian illusion that should not be taken seriously. There is also the possibility of the oppose effect, where you play that part for someone else. Again, this is a false illusion. During this transit, try to relate to others on an equal basis, however difficult you may find that to do. If you have children, they may be an extra heavy load during this transit. You may have more difficulty than normal in understand and getting along with them. And finally, any artistic creativity that you have will be enhanced during this transit.
Neptune transiting the 6th House - this transit effects two areas of your life, your health and your work. You may try a particularly strange approach towards maintaining your health, such as strange diets. The problem here is that you may not fully realize the effects on your body from this approach, in fact you could cause health problems. In your work, you should strive to work for the good of others not in an egocentric way. If you enjoy what you do, and approach it in a sense of service for others, you can accomplish a great deal. If you strive to help only yourself, your in for a rocky trip.
Neptune transiting the 7th House - this transit effects your personal one-on-one relationships. It blurs your ability to communicate your ideas, needs, and concerns. In an intimate relationship you may have a lot of hidden feelings and resentments going on, but not be able to bring them out into the open where they can be worked on. You may also tend to over-idealize your relationships, seeing in them qualities that do not actually exist.
Basically, Neptune is causing you think that what you want to be true in your relationship, is true, when in fact it isn�t. That doesn�t mean that it won�t be one day, but it is at this moment. Care should be taken in relationships having to do with money. You are not thinking clearly now, and any major financial moves should be held off for now if the can be.
Neptune transiting the 8th House - this transit deals with the hidden areas of your life. You will be interested in learning more about yourself so that you can make needed changes. You may turn to psychic and occult studies to find your answers. This transit also effects financial matters, and great care should be taken in this area. There is a tendency for misunderstandings connected to these type of transactions, so you would be well advised to avoid borrowing from friends and family.
Neptune transiting the 9th House - your attention will be drawn to the areas of consciousness and spiritual truths, but there is a danger of adopting the wrong view. Your world view or outlook on life spring from your ego�s understanding of your uniqueness as a being. Neptune energy has to do with an area deeper than the ego and where you are one with all others, not an individual. Neptune�s energies effect the distinction between the two making it difficult for you to understand the world. The effect of that on an individual is usually a decreased sense of your place in the scheme of things. The problem comes about because you are exposed to so many different possibilities, that you can�t distinguish between the truth and the false. The bset approach during this transit is to not try to determine which is which. Wait until this transit passes, and you will know which path to walk. You will understand the oneness of everything, and that the ego�s need to be individualized, creates most of mankind�s problems.
Neptune transiting the10th House - As some other Neptune aspects and transits, this house transit makes you feel unsure of your path or goals in life. You may become disillusioned with your life�s work and think of chucking it all. You may not be getting any satisfaction from your work, and may even decide to change what you do to some other entirely different area of work. The problem isn�t in what you do however, its in how you feel about what you do. If your work is how you identify yourself, you will have great difficulties now. If on the other hand you identify yourself as an individual aside from who you are professionally, you should not have as much difficulty. Its your ability to separate your ego from your work that will determine the effects of this transit.
Neptune transiting the 11th House - Ideals will become very important to you during this transit. You will work hard to actualize them in your life. You will choose friends that share your feelings. You need to be careful with your friends however, make sure that you are relating to them based on who they are, not on who you want them to be. Don�t allow friends to take advantage of your idealism. That is not to say that all your friends will behave in such a way, only that you will not tend to deal with them on a real level. Some of your friends will indeed believe like you, and together you will be able to make a difference.
Neptune transiting the 12th House - This transit is a time of deep reflection and inner concerns. You will measure your life in spiritual terms now, not in materialistic or external terms. You will tend to withdraw from the rat race to evaluate your life in quite and peace. You will examine your life now, looking at how you have served your spiritual side, and you as any human may well come up short. Don�t allow this to cause you to become depressed or to think that your life has been meaningless. None of us makes all the right choices in a given cycle, that�s why we will reincarnate again and again until we get it right. Think of this as a chance to prepare yourself for the next cycle as Neptune passes into your 1st house.
Aspects
When Neptune aspects a natal planet, you can expect the energies associated with the planets to be an area of confusion. The planets associated with the ego drive; Sun, Mars, and Saturn , may have a particularly hard time of it if the aspect is a conjunction, square, or opposition. The best approach is to not make any life decisions concerning these planet�s energies during such aspects. Even the Trine and Sextile aspects will bring confusion, but not necessarily problems. In fact they may increase any psychic abilities that you have.
As indicated earlier, in mots people life�s, Neptune will only make 1 sextile, 1 square, 1 trine, and 1 opposition during their lifetime.
Neptune sextile itself- this aspect occurs about the same time as your first Saturn return, and the two work together to wake you to a sense of what your life is about. You will e drawn toward mystical concerns and away from the material side of your life. Saturn�s influence takes away some of the fuzziness that Neptune usually brings to your perspective.
Neptune Square itself - this aspect occurs about the time of one�s middle age crisis, age 42. During this aspect you will question your life, your goals, and what you have accomplished in life. Depending upon the answers you get, you may want to make changes. Neptune�s square won�t be particularly helpful, because it will make you unsure of your choices. This often leads to the person going off half-cocked in pursuit of a dream. The typical scenario of the mid-life crisis. The best solution is to wait until this aspect passes, like waiting out the rain-storm, before you make the kind of life defining decisions that your life calls for. Only time will clear the air so that you can see the truth and know the proper moves to make.
Neptune Trine itself - this generally occurs when you are about 55 years old. This aspect causes you to focus on your spiritual life in a way that you have never done before. You will start to see the oneness of all and how you are part of it. This will increase your empathy for others and your ability to work for others in a realistic manner.
Neptune oppose itself - this aspect occurs in your 80�s and brings with it an ability to perceive relationships between things that you have never seen before. Even at 80 some of us are still unable to release old ideas, and if so, this aspect will be difficult. However, if you can open yourself to the experiences that will occur, you will be able to bring much of what you have learned throughout this life together and reach a higher level of awareness.