I started writing this post back in December and planned to get it out by early January. But then I got Covid, and then Canada decided to go through some unprecedented historical events including descent into full-blown tyranny. So, my astrology research/writing was totally hijacked over the last few weeks – not that I’m complaining, because these are extraordinary times and I am grateful to be able to engage with them on an astrological level.
However, I still want to post something about the upcoming Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Pisces, because it’s one of the year’s biggest transits – and one of the more positive ones too, maybe? With Jupiter well into Pisces already, we’re feeling these energies ramping up. The conjunction goes exact on April 12, 2022 at 23°58’ Pisces.
I have been daydreaming about how Jupiter’s transit through the watery sign of Pisces might manifest, especially his conjunction with Neptune. I began to think of it as a Dreaming – like Jupiter having a Neptune Dreaming, or maybe Neptune having a Jupiter Dreaming. Or maybe the two of them having a wholly new Dreaming together? (I was sick at the time so this was a feverish daydream, to boot. Honestly, that’s pretty apt for Neptune.)
This may sound bizarre if you’re not familiar with the concept of Dreaming from Australian Aboriginal spirituality. I learned about Dreaming a while ago but only briefly; after I had this flash of insight, I read Munya Adams’ lovely book Journey into Dreamtime. It’s a wonderful and very accessible primer on the subject of Dreaming and Dreamtime.
As Adams describes in the book, everyone has their own Dreaming. The stories associated with your Dreaming guide you through life. She compares Dreaming to the Native American concept of Totem and considers them to be essentially the same principle. Dreamings provide personal and social identity to an individual or group, and foster a sense of kinship between humans and the more-than-human world. She writes:
Everyone and everything has Dreaming, as strange as that may sound. Crows have Dreaming. Barramundi have Dreaming. Clouds have Dreaming. To say that everyone and everything has Dreaming is to say that everything is consciousness […] Indigenous cultures do not restrict consciousness to just living things but extend it to so-called ‘inanimate’ objects such as cars, crystals, rocks and stars.
~ Munya Adams, Journey Into Dreamtime
She also describes Dreaming Beings, which “are what other people might call gods or goddesses. Although Aboriginal people don’t use those terms as such, they are effectively the same. People pray to them, seek their guidance, love and revere them. Some are described as human while others take an animal or plant form.”
In this framework, then, the planets are Dreaming Beings who live in Sky Country. And they have their own Dreamings too, because they are persons like you and me.
I won’t pretend to know what Jupiter or Neptune’s own Dreamings might be. But we can think about what Jupiter Dreaming or Neptune Dreaming might be for humans.
The planet Neptune was named after the Roman God of the Sea, whom the Greeks called Poseidon. While the water imagery is apt, a better fit for the astrological significations of this planet would be Morpheus, God of Dreams. Among his many significations, Neptune represents dreams – so in many ways, Neptune Dreaming is a dream’s Dreaming. (Stay with me.)
Richard Tarnas gives an excellent description of Neptune’s associations in his seminal work Cosmos and Psyche:
Neptune is associated with the transcendent, spiritual, ideal, symbolic, and imaginative dimensions of life; […] with all that which transcends the limited literal temporal and material world of concretely empirical reality: myth and religion, art and inspiration, ideals and aspirations, images and reflections, symbols and metaphors, dreams and visions, mysticism, religious devotion, universal compassion. … with tendencies towards illusion and delusion, deception and self-deception, escapism, intoxication, psychosis, perceptual and cognitive distortions, conflation and confusion, projection, fantasy; with the bedazzlement of consciousness whether by gods, archetypes, beliefs, dreams, ideals, or ideologies; with enchantment, in both positive and negative sense.
~ Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche
You can already see now Neptune’s attributes are very aligned with watery Pisces, and indeed modern astrologers consider Neptune as the ruler of Pisces.
But in traditional astrology, Jupiter rules Pisces. In this sign, he is the benevolent but formless all-encompassing king on an ever-shifting throne of ocean surf. In Pisces he unites all things, the way water will always seep into the tiniest cracks of dry earth, dissolving the boundary between earth and liquid. These droplets melt the soil and form little rivulets, then a small stream, then a rushing river and finally a vast sea. Jupiter in Pisces penetrates to the very essence of things, as truth-bringer and life-giver.
A union of Neptune and Jupiter, then, is the union of dreams and truth, illusion and expansion, fantasy and extravagance; deception and devotion. A Jupiter-Neptune conjunction is a time when the we see the truest manifestations of so many different Dreamings. Note that in this context, “true” does not mean good or bad. Dreamings do not have morality. They simply are.
These conjunctions often herald times of peak nationalism, patriotism, loyalty and other forms of intense devotion to a common identity/cause within various groups. This is a time when we can clearly see the Dreamings of these groups on full display. Some will buy into the “truth” of those groups. Others will see them as evidence of mass delusion, or psychosis, even.
As we move through this period, spend time finding and exploring your own Dreaming. Look to your dreams, for sure, but also to the creatures, symbols and themes that keep coming up in your life. Are there certain birds, animals, plants, rocks or anything else that you always seem to come across, whether in physical form when you’re out on a walk, or in books, TV and other media?
Then consider what might be your city’s Dreaming. Your province’s Dreaming. Your country’s. Russia’s. Ukraine’s. Your company’s; your ancestor’s; your land’s. All have their own Dreaming.
As Jupiter moves to conjoin Neptune, all Dreamings are energized with a potent expansive boost. Now is the time when it’s easiest to see how the boundaries of our Dreamings are not consigned to “mere” imagination or philosophy. The Dreamings are here, they are now. During this time, the Dreaming Beings are closer than ever to our waking minds.
The few days around the exact Jupiter-Neptune transit get an added beneficial boost as Venus will be in Pisces too, the sign of her exaltation. Overall, there is some real potential for this to be a very lovely transit for a lot of people. Depending on your chart, you may feel a heightened sense of connectedness and unity; it may be an excellent time to work on art, music, poetry; to spend some time exploring your wildest fantasies and what your life might look like if you pursued those fantasies.
There is the potential for overindulgence here too, however. This is a powerful dose of divine mysticism and transcendence that some people may be prone to transmute into drugs, alcohol, and other escapist pursuits. If you are prone to the more destructive manifestations of these tendencies, take extra care around this time.
The real buzzkill to the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction is that Mars conjoins Saturn in Aquarius on April 4. The two malefics coming together right before the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction might put a damper on things; the combination is akin to having one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes.
However, the Mars-Saturn conjunction occurs a week before the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction; by the time the latter goes exact, Mars has already separated from Saturn quite a lot and therefore that energy, while intense, will pass fairly quickly.
The two pairs are also in side-by-side signs, which means they are averse. There are no connections between the two either; Jupiter rules the goings-on in Pisces; Saturn rules the happenings in Aquarius. There’s no reception between them, so they’ll each be busy within their own houses and not have time to glance next door to see what’s going on over there.
This means there are likely to be two very different and unrelated things happening at the same time, one quite possibly really good and the other probably kind of shitty. Look at the topics of your Pisces house – that’s likely to get some boons or good vibes, or maybe even just be pleasantly confusing. The topics of your Aquarius house are likely to have some setbacks, frustrations, and other obstructions.
I compiled a list of the approximate dates of the Jupiter-Neptune cycle, going back through the zodiac to the last time they conjoined in Pisces (in 1856). I included some of the highlights of major historical events that happened around each conjunction and it’s really interesting to see how similar themes recur each time, just in slightly different ways. Click here for that post.