Neptune has been dragging his feet, and now has come to a halt and, figuratively speaking, turned around, preparing to go back where he came from. This period always feels to me like a baby elephant gently sitting on one’s chest, or maybe it’s like slow-motion drowning; in both cases the air is slowly, painfully, squeezed out, making for a dizzying inability to think straight, air replaced by something that’s less than water, but more than an oxygen-carrying gas. That is, we’re not quite drowning, but close!

Typically, this sensation surrounds matters of the House Neptune is transiting, and any natal bodies contacted by it at the time of turnaround, and to a lesser extent leaks out into matters of the House Neptune rules in the natal chart, bodies posited in Pisces, and the areas natally connected to this big, nebulous, gassy orb, such as its natal position and aspects.

And what kind of an atmosphere do we undergo this disorienting pressure in? One where we’re questioning whether our efforts, station, and personal authority are enough to get us where we want to go, where we are unsure if the social sphere or we are right, where we may be thinking we are weak, and where we are suddenly seeing surprising and original ways of benefiting, earning, or giving and receiving Love.

My advice: don’t struggle; let ‘it’ flow around, over, even into you; save the heavy lifting for later, but do take note of innovative, creative, and inventive ideas, as these hold the seeds of revolutionary matters you can engage in, manifest, or foment later, when the world doesn’t read as quite so repressive.

(Neptune stations retrograde, Ceres sesq NN, Jupiter contra-parallel Pallas, Venus nov Uranus, Mercury parallel Venus and contra-parallel Pluto, Sun enters Cancer)

For those born with the Sun at 00 Cancer. Check your natal chart for the correct Sun degree (you may want to read both the degree number and the one that follows, if you have minutes on your Sun position–together these offer a more complete picture of your year ahead). Dear Cancer, you may be restless right now, and especially concerned about issues from the past, but the one thing you musn’t do this solar year, through to your next birthday, is allow those worries, regrets, and attempts to ‘do over’ to run your choices in the now. It’s a bit of a wrong-headed attitude, to be looking back, and the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can attend to your real opportunities, which include enhancing your empowerment (chiefly through asserting yourself, and by showing what and who you truly care for) and adjusting to some changing emotional realities, with this latter having the potential to open the way to new relationships and to a stronger, clearer intuitive sense. In facing any darker matters you’ve been ignoring you’ll find some original ideas and some unexpected arenas for Self-expression and advancement, so don’t hesitate to excavate. Good luck!