Neptune has been wading through Pisces since 2011/2012, and it will remain in this sign until 2025/2026. Neptune is the planet of dream, delusion, inspiration, mysticism, and escape. Like a stage magician, Neptune can entrance us with its sleight of hand. Also like a stage magician, its magic depends on trapdoors of trickery and distraction.

While these escapes from the laws of physics can be welcome, we can’t live forever in Neptune’s make-believe — not without missing all that reality has to offer.

Unlike Neptune in the steely air sign of Aquarius (1998-2011), Neptune in Pisces pairs like with like. Where Neptune is inspired, dreamy, emotive, and ethereal: so is Pisces. In fact, Neptune is considered the modern ruler of Pisces. The traditional ruler is Jupiter, who absorbs similar qualities when swimming through this mystical water sign, as it is in 2022.

Neptune takes 165 years to orbit the Sun, which means the last time Neptune was in Pisces was between 1847 and 1862. In this time, spiritualism gained momentum in the United States and Europe. Casual get-togethers with friends involved séances, table tipping, and attempts at levitation. Poets and mystics channeled otherworldly intelligences through practices like automatic writing. Opium dens also prevailed in this time — mysterious haunts where, as Oscar Wilde put it, “one could buy oblivion.”

The shadow of Neptune is a bit like this: how we buy oblivion.

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Sweet escapes

Neptune is an escape hatch. Nowadays, we escape through TV, social media, substances, video games, sex, dance, music, meditation, work — and anything else that allows us to eject, temporarily, from this world.

That’s the key word: temporary. When we stay anchored to the world, and our own lives, Neptune can provide a pleasant reprieve now and then. It’s bliss, bewitchment, ecstasy, imagination, and transcendence. When we forget ourselves for too long, oblivion enters the picture — and its cousin, obliteration.

Since Neptune has been in Pisces this time around, we’ve witnessed the 2012 “end of the world,” TV binge-watching, mass-market spirituality, neo-shamanism, the yoga industrial complex, as well as the profusion of social media and digital “metaverses.”

Neptune is at the mermaid’s tail end of Pisces now, but there are still a few special moments to come. Next up: the April 12th conjunction between Jupiter and Neptune, which hasn’t occurred in Pisces since 1856.

Now, as then, this is an intoxicating combination. While it may lead us to overindulge with our chosen escape mechanism, this moment is beautifully hydrating — especially for artists, creators, storytellers, spiritual seekers, and modern mystics. Against all odds in this wildly divisive world, we have a chance to feel united. Dreams come true. Miracles happen. What will we create together?