Open the Door to the Numinous

Combined color and near-infrared image of Neptune by the Hubble Space Telescope. 

As the Sun approaches Neptune proceeding its ingress into Pisces, we may be feeling a strong urge to drift in more ethereal realms. Artistic and creative inspiration is highlighted alongside a pronounced psychic and intuitive sensitivity. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, to feel the urge to withdraw into your own intimate chasm. Neptune is a beacon of inspiration but can equally tempt us to "check out" through drug or alcohol consumption. As always, moderation is the key.

Drift into this Solar/Neptunian conjunction with a certain level of consciousness. Exact on Sunday, February 23, the Sun and Neptune conjunction will be felt in the days before and after their precise rendezvous. Gather from these freely flowing wells of imagination and creative vision, quench your spiritual and visionary thirst. Neptune is a transcendental force that takes us beyond the mundane, crystallizing ideals into concrete and palpable constructs.

When Neptune touches us, we can become a vessel of higher energies--a mediator of physical and spiritual realities. But its presence is often confusing, mysterious and difficult to fully grasp consciously. When working with Neptune, it’s important to have a firm handle of reality, to stay grounded and centered within yourself. The next several days are far more conducive for abstract and subjective pursuits. Trying to pin down facts or attempting to deal with purely mundane material will prove difficult.

Our mind is elsewhere, floating in ethereal space. With Neptune so active in the collective psyche, we’re looking for larger and all-encompassing experiences or universal truths. Pisces, the end of the tropical zodiac cycle, symbolizes the apotheosis of conscious experience. At the end of the journey through the 12 signs we've reached a reflective state and a sense of having seen it all. In Pisces, we’re looking for something more, something often undefinable.

Mercury’s retrograde cycle, still going strong yet winding down, pulls us backward in time. Creative projects we may have put aside may suddenly reemerge, inviting us to bring them to completion or a more perceptible state. Familiar spiritual encounters with the unknown may break through the cracks of the veil separating dimensions. This is a moment calling for more awareness and sensitivity to the external and internal environment.

Use this time to connect with something just beyond your reach. It’s not every day that we experience such openness and fluidity with the world around us. As the Sun and Neptune meet, we’re encouraged to drift softly and freely through each passing moment. Subtle sense impressions are stronger and more ubiquitous than usual. As the barriers between each of us momentarily melt into a Piscean/Neptunian glaze, see reality with a renewed sense of vision; but keep at least one foot on the group, lest you float away, carried by the ethereal stream.