Neptune square Neptune: please don’t burst my bubble
Transiting Neptune square natal Neptune is a generational transit that we all experience at around the age of 42. It’s known as a transit of disillusionment and, along with the other generational transits that occur around the same period (Pluto square Pluto, Uranus opposed Uranus and the second Saturn opposed Saturn transit), it is largely responsible for what is commonly referred to as the midlife crisis. Ah joy :)
Neptune is a very slow mover and takes approximately 164 years to orbit the Sun. Therefore we only experience a small number of significant transits from this planet during our life time. Exactly how many times, and in what way, Neptune triggers your chart will depend on where your other planets are placed in relation to Neptune. For example, if your natal Neptune is in the 2nd House and then you have a cluster of planets all in the lower half of the chart then Neptune will conjunct these one by one over the course of your life.
Personally, Neptune square Neptune has knocked me to my knees and left me feeling very humbled. With my natal Neptune in Sagittarius my dreams have always been expansive, idealistic, even grandiose. I’m the kind of person people smirk at during an argument thinking, and sometimes even saying, ‘you’re such an idealist.’ However I have a Capricorn Sun which means I get things done and with Neptune in my 7th House I’ve never had trouble finding collaborators in my dreams of a better world.
But now I find myself joining the cynics and it’s terribly depressing. I ask myself whether all the work I’ve done counts for anything at all, and whether I was deluded in thinking that any one of us can really make a difference in the scheme of things. It’s not a nice place to be believe me; I vastly prefer the rosy coloured glasses that had me believing we can really be the change we wish to see.
Neptune square Neptune has been particularly difficult for me because I’m exhausted by the huge changes brought about by the transit of Pluto over my conjoined Sun, Moon and Venus in Capricorn, and the current convergence of Saturn and the Lunar South Node over the same sensitive point. I feel like I’ve working so hard to build a meaningful life and now Neptune seems to be saying ‘what’s the point.’
Neptune square Neptune can kick your butt, but only if you let it
We can under estimate Neptune I think. Generally people tend to fear the transits of Uranus and Pluto far more, however as the Lord of the watery realm Neptune works slowly but insidiously to wash away our foundations. We can be left completely adrift as everything we stood for, everything we stood upon, is gradually dissolved beneath us.
Escapism is a typical coping mechanism during Neptune square Neptune. Personally I’ve found myself more than a little addicted to audio books, a medium I never bothered with until I had children. Now I find myself consuming several books every week, listening as I do the house work. It takes me into another world and I can forget my feelings of discontent and boredom. However escaping from my feelings doesn’t make them go away and ultimately I know that they will have to be faced.
Facing up to our feelings can look different for each of us. It all depends on what works for you. Some people journal, others meditate, take up yoga or work with a therapist. Personally I find my local womens circle an incredibly grounding space for working with difficult emotions and an anchor to reality when these emotions start to get the better of me.
Because it’s important to remember how deceptive Neptune can be. It may indeed seem that all our dreams are unattainable but is it really true? Neptune square Neptune, like any transit, will come to an end and with it will come a new clarity. Perhaps I will never be quite as idealistic as I once was but I will emerge with a more practical outlook and, hopefully, a better chance of achieving my goals.
In my chart transiting Neptune square Neptune ends with Neptune conjuncting my Midheaven in April 2020. At the same time it will sextile my Sun, Moon and Venus, who by that stage will be done with both Pluto and Saturn. Five years of extremely challenging transits will finally be over, transits that I know have brought me far, but that I will be very happy to see the back of! Yes, this too shall pass and in its place will emerge something new and beautiful.
Are you in the middle of Neptune square Neptune too?
Please share your experiences. I’d love to hear how you’re going. Or if you’re not sure and want to get started reading your own chart check out my free mini lessons.
For more, check out this post on Neptune square Neptune from Moonkissd Astrology.
If you don’t have one yet, you can get a free birth chart at astro.com. To understand how to read your birth chart, and follow the transits in your own life, download my free ebook The Language of Astrology.
Hi Faith, I was born a day before you and have a similar chart so it’s interesting to hear your experience of the transits. I’ve always identified with the Mercury/Neptune opp. Jupiter more than the Capricorn planets so having things dissolve and drifting feels kind of natural. And that’s been my experience: all plans and goals just fizzle out without leaving much to show for them. The Neptune sextiles I felt as quite positive, bringing a softening (following the brutal Pluto transit), focus on feelings and acceptance. Rather than trying to make things happen I’m having to surrender and make use of what comes my way. And what’s coming is Pluto/Saturn conjunct my Descendant next year… It’s also interesting that the Neptune transits are happening just as our progressed Sun is about to enter Pisces. Overall, my life is overflowing with yin energy that I connect with Neptune and Pisces.
It’s great to hear your perspective Eva, considering how similar our charts are. Your point about surrendering is spot on – I wish I could just remember that instead of struggling so hard!
Great read. Thank you for sharing your truth with this aspect, I hope things are feeling better and better for you on your journey. I’m experiencing my Neptune □ Neptune now and it’s been quite the adventure! Fortunately for me I have more than a year of faithful daily meditation practice under my belt and so my experience has been quite delicious. There have been a few tumultuous emotional storms but it’s all been worth it because this transit is assisting me in dissolving old karmic emotional foundations making plenty of space for my real solid emotional foundation with my Source withIn. Blessings Be!
Greetings Faith! I appreciate you sharing this information on how we may experience the natal Neptune in Sag to transiting Pisces Neptune square. I’m in the middle of this transit myself and definitely relate to having it described as: “a transit of disillusionment”, “midlife crisis”, “Neptune square Neptune has knocked me to my knees and left me feeling very humbled”…
With my natal Neptune in Sag, too, I had been an idealist for quite a while, and then – as the Neptune to Neptune square ensued, along with Pluto to Pluto square and the approaching Uranus to Uranus exact opposition in my chart – my rosy colored glasses cracked considerably, “washing away many of the foundations I had developed in my first forty years” of life.
At this point, I’m still finding that while “it may indeed seem all our dreams are unattainable”, life keeps showing me that nothing is absolute. So, I agree with your assessment that “Neptune square Neptune, like any transit, will come to an end and with it will come a new clarity. Perhaps I will never be quite as idealistic as I once was but I will emerge with a more practical outlook and, hopefully, a better chance of” enjoying my life whatever it brings. I guess the key is to hold up through the storm in order to see the light of day at the end of this tunnel.
So, I’ve come to the same conclusion Eva has – relax and follow the path of least resistance. Let go of whatever illusions have kept me blind for so long and (willingly) accept the transformation that life demands I undergo, with the help of the current yin energy. Of course, the whole process is not working out for me as painlessly as I would have wished it to, but it appears to be a necessary feature of the entire “game.”
Hello dear Anahit, it has taken me some time to respond to your message as life has not been easy on me of late, but coming back to it now I am really resonating with your description of the Neptune square experience. Being close in age we are experiencing several of the same transits and I find it really helps to share our conclusions on how to work with these energies. I notice I always seem to come back to the same basic key principle: surrender. Let go and accept the transformation that is occurring within you.
Hi. I had last years Neptune opposing my moon, and then Neptune squaring my sun. Which made me feel exactly as you described. Extreme boredom, disolution of ego and sometimes emotionally death…
This year starts my Neptune square Neptune and I wonder if it will be just 2 years more of the same meaningless living…
I had also last years Pluto square Pluto and Pluto square ASC…
Just trying to keep breathing…
thank you so much for writing this, am about to have neptune square neptune and really relate to the exact feelings you have described,
I have natal Neptune in Sagittarius conjunct Venus and square Saturn in Virgo. I am currently in the middle of my Neptune square, opposition to Saturn is still a year or so out.
I have recently found myself the recipient of an unlocked for blessing. Namely, a new relationship after eight years of solitude. Given my Neptune constellation, it should be no surprise that I have found myself in relationship with a woman who is just finishing up her apprenticeship as a shaman. My gods! My reality is warping palpably. This relationship has triggered deep shadow complexes within me around self worth, belief in a higher power, self discipline, and life dreams.
Every night is filled with anxious dreams, every day full of significant forks on the road. I’ve never been so aware of how each seemingly small decision can have huge ramifications. It is a blessed journey, but, wow, so exhausting right now…
Thanks for sharing your post, it’s relatable.
I’m experiencing my Neptune square Neptune currently. I’ve become addicted to reality TV as a way to cope. I’ve also struggled with depression in the last few years and when Neptune began the square, starting taking meds, which I had never wanted to do. Also using alcohol and sometimes weed to enter into a rosy colored fog.
I’m clearly not experiencing the more enlightened version of this transit (which doesn’t come as a huge surprise). The reality of life seems to be crashing down. I always had these big dreams about what life was going to be: finding a job I love, finding a skill I’m good at, finding a partner, having money enough to buy a house, finding creative satisfaction. You know what, none of them have come true. (Creative satisfaction is the closest), but the others, not even close.
I convinced my younger self, as many of us do, that wishing hard enough would make these things happen. Neptune is showing me that actually, they were just dreams. When we only see the work of artists, it’s easy to (at least for me) envision them living in a higher mode of being, an elevated consciousness, a more ecstatic pattern. And truly, some of them are. But we tend to always ignore the mundane shit of their lives. Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road when he came home and moved into his mother’s house. Annie Dillard wrote Pilgrim on Tinker Creek (a sort of adventurous nature exploration of wildness) while she was living with her husband who worked at a University not far away from these “wilds.” Henry Thoreau wrote Walden Pond during a time when he went home regularly for his mother to do his laundry for him. David Foster Wallace, Van Gogh, all endured incredible suffering that we tend to glamorize, in light of the genius and brilliance they produced.
But Neptune square is waking me up to the ugly reality of this mundane world we’re all trapped in. Sure, we use art to escape it (and other means) but we all continuously wake up to this mundane world, and have to do our laundry, and work jobs we sometimes hate, and sometimes there is no escape from that. Suffering is a way of life…and then bright things happen. But the 90% is that mundane shit. I always thought it was supposed to be the other way around: 90% rainbows, 10% mundane shit. I had it reversed.
Anyway, I guess this is the “adult” world that many of us saw as teenagers and always thought we would somehow be free from. “I’m never going to work 9-5 at a job I hate.” “I’m never going to be stuck in the same old town.” And Neptune shows us that sometimes we can’t escape from the reality, and that without hard work, those dreams are only dreams.
Anyway, rant over. That’s been my experience anyway. Thanks for reading.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience Tina. This is a long transit and the realisations you have shared here are part of the process. The ‘enlightened version’ of the transit may come more toward the end for you. It certainly did for me :)
Stay strong, it will pass! I believe this because we all apparently are feeling the same and if this is from the transit, then it meant it will pass. I feel exactly the same way – extremely bored, empty, dissatisfied and meaningless. Sometimes i wish i did not exist to not have to go trough this every day. I guess it is the Neptune square and I just finished my Pluto square.
Thanks a lot, Tina, for sharing your experience! It surely helps reading about it and reading all comments, as I relate to all. I just entered the exact transit and I cant even imagine how I will survive for another year of this, altogether with the retrograde.
As Neptune is ruler of my 4th, main issue has been the place of living lately and missing my family, as well as not having created my own. I greatly link my dissatisfaction with the country I been living in for the past 15 years. I guess by the end of the transit I might have actually left and gone back home. I feel like everything about this place and the reality I built is crashing down. I am trying to change something (I don’t like to stay passive) but no matter what I do I just keep losing things, people, whatever, and I cant change nothing. Its like I’m living in a movie and I even question myself if this is all real, or we are in some sort of Matrix (I wonder if the author had the idea for the movie while in similar transit :) ).
Apart from what all of you mentioned, figuring out what is real in this life and what is not real happiness, is main theme for me – deciding what really matters for the long term, and deciding what false “Gods” and ideas I need to bring down, in order to have a better second half of my life… hopefully.
In all cases, reality is painful right now, definitely not even a comfort zone anymore. But maybe that is the idea? – to kick us out of the current rut (that maybe has worked before for our previous versions of ourselves) and force us to build something more aligned to our present dreams for the future?
My best wishes to you and all :)
I meant “thank you, Faith*” :) for this article!
I have just recently learned of Neptune square Neptune as something everyone experiences, and boy am I in it. In some ways learning about this is helping to make myself feel slightly less like a crazy person. I have technically been in it for about 7 days now, but the lead up really began about 3 months ago. I had an injury which has seriously limited my mobility. This has called into question so many aspects of my joy, fitness, mental health, aging, career, future, relationship to others, foundations, etc. Some of these questions have been coming for a couple years now, so maybe that was some of the Pluto stuff? I made the effort to dive deeper into spirituality at this time, deeper than I have before. However this is heavy stuff and often leaves my brain feeling broken and even more confused. I have been trying to find relief with mind altering substances and fantasy TV & books – both of which seem to be a common poultice for this time. I have a pandemic puppy who is a year now. He helps to bring me back to the moment and an exercise of creating a joy jar is a physical reminder of bright spots of life. I am choosing to isolate more to see if that helps, as I feel unstable and not myself around others. I guess I just have to keep on, keeping on, through this mud…
I’m still far from this transit, I’ll only have it in 2026, but I’m already looking for information. I have neptune in capricorn on 5/6TH as opposed to moon in gemini on 11TH (moon at 28 degrees of gemini). It’s interesting that I made a comment about Neptune that you wrote in the text, I told a person who has Neptune in Sagittarius and will have this transit soon, because he underestimates Neptune. I found it very amazing to read this here.
At this time I’m guessing many have Neptune in Sag as I do. In the houses it is more personal. I have felt the ‘questioning’ of my dreams and if they are attainable since I’ve been working for them for a long time, as a artist. Thanks to my studies in astrology for over 10 years, I’ve been able to navigate this time much better than most people. Personally, the square occurs in my 5th and 8th houses. I have had to deal with my own imaginary scenarios around finances and inheritances. Suffice to say, I have to use more rational thought to not go off half cocked or throw away everything to pursue something entirely not for me just for money, like selling out for a contract. I am still under this square and have been sailing through it fairly easily. It is not as bad as it sounds. The pluto square pluto was a bit rougher for me honestly.
Hi Faith,
I’m a fellow Neptune in Saggitarius with Neptune at 24 degrees… last week Neptune squared my Neptune exactly for the first time and I felt like I was losing my mind. Anxiety, confusion, doubt… Not a fun time. I had just finished up Neptune squaring my Sun (Saggitarius) and my Moon (gemini) so I thought all the Neptune haze was over… I was so wrong. I’m now looking at about 2 more years of Neptune. I really resonated with what you are saying about being… jaded. I’ve become so cynical and jaded over the course of my Neptune transits I kinda can’t stand myself. Please let me know how that’s going for you now if you have time. I hope to not be so jaded someday. Thanks.
I left my husband during this transit, 2.5 years ago. In theory it should be a bad time to make such a big life decision! Funnily enough the transit was the first time I started to see clearly that after 13 years we were drifting along in apathy and we no longer had any meaningful connection. I’m Neptune rising in saggi so I guess I’m quite used to navigating the foggy energy. The time that followed was very confusing and disorienting but I gave myself a lot of space and time and have rebuilt, and can say confidently now it was the best decision. It certainly triggered a lot of revisiting and resetting of my hopes and dreams.
Reading this and all the comments helps so much! I am reading and crying, I have neptune square neptune and pluto square pluto and pluto conjunct mercury right now. I am sun capricorn and moon gemini and my neptune is in sag. I have fallen into what is considered heavy drinking, about a bottle of wine every day to fall asleep with my clothes on, smoking cigarettes and whenever there is someone with a joint I’d smoke on it to end with a blackout. Everyday I feel so sick from the withdrawal and desperate about not being able to resist drinking to self medicate, I even feel suicidal at times. One of my main values have always been health and I am a holistic trauma coach who actually helps people to get out of addictions. My self-image is shattered, I cant believe that I am doing what I am doing. So much shame, guilt and self-resentment. And I recently sold all I owned to downsize and relocate to a new country I actually never visited before, my boyfriend did not want to go with me but insisted I should “follow my dream”, now I am here extremely lonely, nothing here feels and looks like it did in my dream, I am unable to commit to my project as I doubt all and on top of that my boyfriend is reconsidering being with me and having a family with me because he is terrified by my drinking, self-destruction, and current emotional insecurity. He’s Pluto is in scorpio and 4th house. I now question and doubt what felt like my lifes work and calling – the trauma work. I feel tempted to say can it get worse, but I wont, as I know it can. It has actually been worse, in last december when I had a missed misscatiage and my fiancé 3 weeks later violently threw me out of the appartment with some of my stuff during a fight. I want to thank the author for writing and everyone who shared their experience too! This really helps to trust that this will pass.
Very insightful analysis about Neptune. I have natal Neptune in 29 Sagittarius in 5th house and at the same time I am going through Pluto square Pluto – Saturn and uranus transiting in conjunction and opposition with all my personal planets
Pluto transiting is in my 6th house
I really can’t tell if Neptune square is causing all the problems but definitely the combination of all the transits in my chart is making things very hard
What I can say about Neptune is that it depletes my energy as it has squared my solar arc mars in Gemini. It also left me confused without a clear direction as I realised my life has led me nowhere. It is very disappointing and dangerous as I find myself not having any motivation.