Among all of the major planets, Neptune is arguably the most difficult for astrologers to interpret. If there is any non-planetary factor even more challenging than Neptune, it’s probably your own part in the cosmic scenario. Interestingly, both Neptune and your place in the celestial order are in the spotlight this week.

Having Neptune in the astrological spotlight is usually akin to driving your automobile on a foggy night with your headlight beams aimed high. Accurate information is hard to come by, and it’s necessary to proceed with caution.

After all, Neptune has made only a little more than one full circuit of the 12 astrological signs since it was first sighted in 1846. That’s not very much experience. In addition, Neptune’s astrological identity has proven itself to be nebulous at best. As a case in point, witness just how far off the mark many astrologers were when Neptune returned to Aquarius, the sign in which it was first sighted, in 1998.

At that time, the Internet and associated technologies were still a frontier of exciting potential. It is therefore not surprising that a large number of astrologers looked forward to Neptune’s Aquarius tenure as a period that would fulfill Richard Brautigan’s 1967 poem envisioning a future in which we were “all watched over my machines of loving grace.”

What we got instead was an era of interminable war and the beginning of unprecedented surveillance into every detail of your life. The result was a widespread disillusionment that dealt a severe blow to the idealism and hope that informed Brautigan, Bobby Kennedy, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr, and many other Sixties icons.

By the time Neptune left Aquarius behind to enter Pisces in 2011, hope was passe, and idealism had been rendered all but quaint. Now, about one-third of the way through its Pisces domain, Neptune is reaching at least two metaphorical turning points. On Thursday, Neptune will share precisely the same degree of Pisces with a calculated point known as the mean descending (or ‘south’) lunar node. Then, on Nov. 19 (or Nov. 20, depending on your time zone), Neptune’s 2016 retrograde will come to an end.

If we learned anything from Neptune’s time in Aquarius, it was to eschew astrological prediction. Were we to salvage something from Neptune’s most recent Aquarian era, it might well be to embrace astrological participation. Astrology is but an indicator of potentials that can go either way. Hope is not fulfilled as a matter of course. Only actions can result in hopes being realized. Likewise, ideals are not manifested as if by magic. Only a strong desire to make ideals real can see ideal outcomes through to completion.

It is worthy of note that Mars, the planet most often associated with action and desire, is currently in a position of indicative strength. During the next seven days or so, Mars will be concluding a tour of nearly six weeks in its Capricorn exaltation.

During the same period of time, the Sun (an emblem of conscious awareness) and Mercury (a symbol of not only mind but also cybernetics) will be moving through the thick of Scorpio — a sign traditionally ruled by Mars. The net implication is that Mars will factor in for good or ill with Neptune’s turn-around, largely depending on you.

Among the many things you can do during the week or so to come is to begin an intentional recovery from the hangover left by Neptune’s most recent trip through Aquarius. The period from 1998 to 2011 was more than just an era of disillusionment. It was also a time when action (especially political action) was too often forsaken, and desire (especially sexual desire) was devalued — especially in comparison to the 1960s.

As with any form of recovery, coming back from what we have wrought so far in this century will take time. You should not anticipate changing the world in one week. You can, however, make a start. The first step would be to act politically according to your ideals, even if only means casting a ballot. Potentially even more important than political action would be any steps you can begin taking to emancipate your desire.

If all you do this week besides vote is begin to feel a little better about what you desire in your heart of hearts, you will have joined with Neptune in bringing a long period of retreat a close. You did not come here to be frustrated. You came here to make an effort, and find a way — your way.

To paraphrase John Lennon, your way through your life need not consist of laughing in the face of love and other ideals. Neither are you here to live as a slave to pain and fear. You are here to experience something more that must necessarily be made to happen.

Among other things, the immediately previous period of Neptune in Pisces was distinguished by a movement to abolish slavery in the U.S. — culminating in Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. It was not the end of the struggle for those who had been brought from Africa to the Americas in chains, but it was at least a solid beginning. This time around, it is all of us whose freedom is to be won. This time through, the endeavor to win liberation must begin not in the halls of government, nor on fields of war, but within.

The chains with which you and everyone else must now be concerned are on the inside. Those bonds inhibit you from acting for the good of all. They constrain you from being comfortable in your own skin. If you can make only one effort over the next week or so besides voting, let it be to accept your own desires. If you can do just that, you will have at least initiated what must certainly be an ultimately fulfilling struggle to see your desires accepted in the world.

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