Another shift of energies is underway…and it’s Neptune. As with Pluto, this is a long orbital journey around the Sun; 165 years. None of us alive today has experienced Neptune transiting Aries, so, again, we look to the historical record to understand what may occur over the next 14 years. With Neptunian transits, things can be both obscure & illuminative depending on where the consciousness is focused. This may seem like a contradictory statement. But, in fact, it exactly demonstrates the often inaccessible energy of this archetype.

Of course, energy is constantly in motion, creating a kaleidoscopic arrangement. As Neptune moves into Aries in our current reality, it is in unique alignments with the other outer planets as well as the various trans and inner planets. This will affect how the energy is concretized in real terms. We also must keep in mind that the Aries transit follows a 14-year transit of Pisces and precedes a 14-year transit of Taurus. The confusion of Neptune in Pisces gives birth to the initiatory energy of Neptune in Aries, which will ultimately result in a concretization of dynamics as Neptune enters Taurus. Nevertheless, we can extract some insights as we look back to when Neptune was last in Aries.

What was going on?

The roughly 40-year period of Neptune transiting the above three signs covered the period of the late 1840’s to the late 1880’s. This was a time of spiritual uncertainty, rediscovery, and ultimately the birth of many ‘new’ religious movements and ideologies.

Creationism was roundly challenged by the concepts of Charles Darwin in the ‘Origin of Species’, published in 1859. Karl Marx published the ‘Communist Manifesto’ in 1848. The collective was exploring radical ways to realign themselves both politically and spiritually. And, I would say, that the dogma of so-called ‘marxism’ was not just political but also spiritual. People began to question ‘God’s Plan” as taught by the churches and turned more and more towards a rationalist view of life.

Because I align the energy of Neptune with our collective connection to the divine, I focused primarily on faith. During this period there was a great deal of activity in relation to our collective understanding of the divine. New approaches to the practice of faith were developed. New ideas about our collective origins were formulated. A new sense of human interaction was explored. Here are a few more interesting dates to consider:

1863:   Baha’ullah declared as a prophet

            Seventh Day Adventist church established

1875:   Theosophist Society established

1879:   Christian Science established

            Russellite Movement established

All of the above movements centered around new ways to express and re-formulate faith. What was the ‘truth’? Was there a God, or could we find security via a rational scientific way of understanding reality? The concept of the death of god was prevalent and, if god was indeed ‘dead’, what could take his place within the collective psyche? Intellectualism was on the rise. Society began to rely on the ability of the human mind to solve social problems; on the advances of science to address social ills. This technological advancement often led to alienation from any sort of divine connection. In response to this, there was a resurgence of fundamentalist movements and metaphysics, both of which were attempts at re-establishing a sense of divine connection.

As Neptune once again rounds the spiraling wheel of energy and enters Aries, we, as now a global society find ourselves confronting the same kinds of issues. Technology has advanced to the point that many are no longer convinced that there is a divine force at work. In response, there is now a rebirth of fundamentalist religion spanning diverse dogmas. Individuals are seeking security and meaning. Finding purposefulness is popular across all philosophies. Essentially, this time period will be one of exploration and experimentation in relation to our core belief systems and how we concretize them.

165 years ago, as Neptune was about to transit Aries, Pluto had just newly entered Taurus and Uranus was in Gemini. The collective need to experience a spiritual revival was supported by an explosion of intellectual discoveries (Uranus in Gemini) and a core compulsion to find a sense of concrete security (Pluto in Taurus).

Today, Uranus is about to enter Gemini, and Pluto has just entered Aquarius. At the most fundamental level, the collective is yearning for common ground (Pluto in Aquarius). Once again, new ideas, new discoveries (Uranus in Gemini) may aid the collective in its search for a new way to live in ‘faith’ (Neptune in Aries).

Will we realign to the Divine? Will we find common bonds? Will we use technology to benefit the global community? These are the questions that will be explored and experimented with over the next few decades.

Without a strong and concrete sense of connection to something that is greater than this material reality that we all perceive, the collective will flounder. We must agree that there is more to life than death, that the human soul aspires to something more than carnal desire. If we can do this, find a common bond based on love and compassion, then we have the hope of creating that utopian society that so many have longed for. But if we ignore the divine and come to the conclusion that ‘god is indeed dead’, then hope will be snatched away from us on the collective level. Let us all pray that the collective gets to the ‘tipping point’ in regards to faith in the divine. It is our only hope.