This is the major transit in my life now. So far, I’m feeling the effects, and let me tell you: it’s far easier if you embrace the confusion, take it one day at a time, and focus on the invisible and the joy in the little things than on the fact that you’re kind of lost right now.

The latter is harder to do in a look-at-me culture where it’s all selfies and body art. I have a friend who works as a modeling scout and agent. At an open casting she did months ago, girls were sending in photographs of themselves plastered in makeup, photoshopped, with Snapchat filters. This is what they thought was attractive: the least authentic versions of themselves. But I suppose that’s the problem: the photographer, the eye of the beholder, is someone who only sees themselves, and thus thinks that making an exaggerated facial expression hidden behind filters and cartoons is the best they can do.

So really, the only rebellion left is to just walk away from it all. Don’t photo-document your entire life. Don’t permanently alter or etch your body. Don’t get in the fray of polarized, predatory social media. I’ve avoided it for a month now, and I’m feeling a lot less angry about life. Truthfully, I just want to live in the moment. Most of the time, the only thing I really think I could do all day and be happy is cook and study the occult, like some sort of hedgewitch who bakes magickal cookies and takes long walks in the woods and doesn’t speak to other people for weeks on end.

This might literally be what I am meant to do anyway.

But I am hesitant to write about a Neptune transit to the ascendant because it’s so unlikely that you will actually experience one, and yet there’s a lot of people in my lifetime and beyond who will experience one. Neptune has come home to Pisces, and we’re living in our own fever dreams and beautiful fantasies, but not more so than those who are having Neptune transiting out of their 12th house and into their 1st.

What happens when a planet leaves the 12th house and enters the 1st house?

A transiting planet in the 12th house tends to be a secret from the individual themselves. The expression of that planet may be obvious to everyone else, and if it’s a particularly strong  planet by dignity or because it rules one of the angles, the sun, or the moon, or because this transiting planet is natally prominent because it’s conjunct the ascendant or midheaven, then it’s going to have both a very strong expression in the 12th house and be strongly denied by the person who has it, until it’s no longer deniable when it enters the 1st house. When it’s denied or run from, the planet’s expression is strong and pure because instead of curbing or augmenting the expression so it has some use or some acceptable expression in the world, it just continues to do what it does best, with the individual simply pretending it’s not a big deal.

However, decisions and behaviors have consequences, and when it’s time to pay the piper, whatever that planet has been doing in the individual’s life is now undeniable because it’s now so much a feature of who they are, at least right now.

For example, let’s try an easy one: Venus. When Venus is transiting the 12th house, there’s a short period of time where the individual doesn’t take pleasure in the things they normally liked, or may not want to socialize much. This may appear as depression to others, but to the individual, it just may appear to be a Holden Caufield moment when the need to be authentic, no matter how raw or ugly, is more important than making things pretty and nice.

What then happens is as Venus transits into the 1st house, the individual realizes that there is beauty in the somber and serious, and that if there is beauty there, there is beauty everywhere, even in themselves, and they start to glow with a Venusian light, and others are attracted to it. They see beauty in others and want to engage with them. Now, they’re the attractive, social folks with Venus in the 1st house, but all the while, they were more concerned with and more focused on the nature of fairness, sharing, and beauty when Venus was in the 12th house than when it was in the 1st.

What happens when Neptune moseys out of the 12th house and into the 1st?

A lot.

First, Neptune is quite at home in the 12th house. Neptune in the 12th is like the hoarder who somehow knows where everything is in their messy, overfilled home, or the servant in the great estate house who moves about invisibly because they know every single nook, cranny, and dark corner on the property. Or, perhaps Neptune in the 12th house is like the ghost that haunts the great estate: always there, always effecting the mood, temperature, and place, regarded perhaps, even joked about or talked about in hushed tones, but not interacted with.

When Neptune enters your 12th house, it’s a time to be serious and to focus on the material world. This may be a time where the individual is trying to make something come about in the real world in order to gain worldly success or material success. Other transits and progressions may tell you more. This may be a time where the individual is focused on a career, or building a home, or something other than their own inner life, spirituality, and fear of dying and annihilation.

However, everything you do in the world will affect your inner life. You don’t really get to live in two layers of reality simultaneously without spillover, no matter how good you are at compartmentalization. The 12th house deals with hidden things, the things that we flee from, so likely whatever the individual is doing out in the world has some sort of truth or dark side that they’re refusing to see.

It could be as simple as simply not wanting to do what they’re actually doing (in which case, they will likely sabotage it or fail at it), or something more complex, such as digging up old karma that they’ve been running from for lifetimes. Whatever the case, something that they live on the surface as a truth is not actually a truth, but they either feel they shouldn’t feel that way, or they can’t, or that they’re now stuck in some sort of holding pattern or situation that imprisons them.

So, like anyone who is stuck, they dream. They escape in their minds, or by drinking or drug use, or in otherworldly things that help them transcend the stress and burden. It may absolutely interfere with whatever they have to do…or it can enhance what they have to do, adding a layer of insight that few others have, even if everyone else punishes them for it. Imagination and tapping into the collective unconscious, even into psychic ability, is entirely possible.

In fact, one of the silver linings of Neptune in the 12th house is the enhancement of imagination, psychic ability, and magickal ability. Emotional and psychological alchemy is possible, and the individual who harnesses this power may not even realize until long afterward that so many changes, imperceptible at the time, have dissolved who they were or the circumstances they were in, and that something new has come about. While alchemy is normally considered a Plutonian power, transformation requires dissolution in some sort of medium in order to become or to be fashioned into something else. Apply acid to fish, and it becomes denatured, as if it were cooked. Apply cosmetics to a face and it looks different – younger, more vibrant. Apply heat to ore to turn it into liquid and it becomes metal that can be fashioned into any number of things or mixed to create alloys. Transformation isn’t just Plutonian; there must be an intermediary to transform.

So, when Neptune moves out of the 12th house and into the 1st, all the feelings manifest, all of the undoing comes to fruition, and all of the things the individual did when they felt trapped have an effect on how they present themselves to the world. This can make the individual want to actually flee or go into a reflective state, avoiding the world. They may want to find a way to alleviate the entire world of the pain they feel. They may also want to be free of the ideas of the limits of the world. Unfortunately, having Neptune in the first house creates illusions and confusion, but not of the self – it’s literally everyone else’s problem.

Neptune in the 1st house looks like…Spinda.

Spinda is a spotted panda Pokemon. No two look exactly alike. In battle, this Pokemon defends itself largely by confusing their opponents, but they do that largely because they’re confused. They think they’re moving in a straight line and behaving in rational ways, but they’re not.

Neptune in the 1st house is easier to handle when you’re by yourself. Since it’s a slow-moving planet, you’ll start to feel the effects of Neptune in the 1st house when it’s about seven degrees behind your ascendant. It can take about a year before it’s full-on in your first house, but by then, there’s been no triggering event to let you know this. Nothing explosive happens, and if anything does happen, it’s either inside you, or you just didn’t see it or want to see it. Life is surreal, and the only thing that feels real is the inner life, love, connection, emotions, and the possibilities one dreams of. Night dreams, in fact, may become more real. You may be less interested in your appearance, or in conforming your appearance to social norms. You may also become more sensitive to drugs, alcohol, and tactile things, such as stiff and scratchy clothing. Surrounding yourself with things that make you feel protected or cozy may be more important, even if you don’t have any transits to your 4th house.

Forcing yourself to do anything won’t work. Neptune picks up things from the aether; you learn at your own pace through absorption. You may also require more sleep than usual, and this is a holdover from Neptune in the 12th house. You may also indulge in more television or movie-watching. Your taste in music could also change, and you may prefer more complex types of music, like classical or azz. Things that are too loud and too bright bother you.

You’ll want to spend more time alone, although it may not necessarily be productive time spent. It may be better to do the work for other people than for yourself, because then you’ll actually do it.

But you may come off as confused, suspicious, or untruthful to others. You may confuse things with other things, and you may be forgetful in the short-term and lose track of details. You may also, however, come up with very imaginative solutions to things that won’t work in reality. Then again, you may just have to wait for the right reality. Sometimes, the right answer comes much further down the line; quick thinking isn’t your strong suit right now.

There’s definitely more. I’m not sure how much more, because I’m a bit confused myself, but if anyone else has done this Neptune transit before, I welcome some insight.