Remedys for difficult transits?

[Sharla]

I was wondering if anybody knew of any books, online articles, etc, of remedies for difficult transits. I currently have Neptune square my asc and it's hella tough to deal with. I feel like I'm walking in a swamp. Im drinking alcohol more, struggling with motivation, have become lazy, lacking life direction, (just living day by day, almost as if I'm floating on water). Feeling easily deflated and over-emotional at the smallest little things. Im usually quite motivated, persevering and a tough cookie. So this Neptune energy is not welcome at all.

To help me with the transit I was thinking maybe I should use the positive manifestations of Neptune. Maybe I could do some art, something musical, do some charity work etc. But would something like this even help?
Strangely enough, I keep having this 'fantasy' of going jogging around my neighbourhood thinking it might be good for pushing myself out of this fog. But as of yet, I've not done it.

[Jim Eshelman]

Neptune is squaring your Ascendant. You have my sympathy It's quite wise to look now for a way to navigate this process. Next year, Saturn and Neptune will be travelling close to each other for several months, and that combined transit will be harder to navigate.

You have the right concept: Of all the possible Neptune expressions, pick expressions that serve you best. A hard one for you - given your Leo Sun and strong Saturn aspects to both luminaries - is to let it dismantle you. I don't mean let it ruin you or weaken you - but Neptune needs to dissolve boundaries and specifics, to create situations in which we feel less sure because we don't have concrete definitions or more certain assurances. The more controlling someone is, the harder it usually is to let control and definition dissolve... and yet, for long-term health, it's probably good to "dissolve" every few years. A lot of major Neptune transits work by creating conditions of uncertainty and feeling lost (or something similar) as (ironically) a "get real" period as you come out the other side having let go of stuck reality stuff.

Does that make sense?

So one clue is to be willing to live in a persistent state of insufficient definition and specificity, less certainty where you thought you had things pinned down... and know it will pass. (Like taking a long vacation and really refusing to think about work.)

It's usually only when resisting the dissolution that Neptune transits hurt (though, of course, you can also make bad choices with too little information).

Neptune requires that we be ABSORBED into something or someone, IMMERSED in something or someone, or LOST in something or someone. It's even easier when these are Neptune topics. Deciding to get lost in (immersed in) some new kind of music or an absorbing interest or indulging temptations you've resisted or meditation (which helps dissolve those stuck, rigid boundaries).

The main thing is that you're on exactly the right track by looking for ways to have a very Neptunian time without resistance - just picking what kind of time that is. I suspect a lot of the issue for you personally is that you like to be in control and feel like you know what's going on and have everything well-managed.  

[Sharla]

Neptune is squaring your Ascendant. You have my sympathy It's quite wise to look now for a way to navigate this process. Next year, Saturn and Neptune will be travelling close to each other for several months, and that combined transit will be harder to navigate.

Oh don't remind me, I'm not looking forward to this transit at all next year. I've already had a taste of it with Saturn/Neptune foreground in my current SLR.

You have the right concept: Of all the possible Neptune expressions, pick expressions that serve you best. A hard one for you - given your Leo Sun and strong Saturn aspects to both luminaries - is to let it dismantle you. I don't mean let it ruin you or weaken you - but Neptune needs to dissolve boundaries and specifics, to create situations in which we feel less sure because we don't have concrete definitions or more certain assurances. The more controlling someone is, the harder it usually is to let control and definition dissolve... and yet, for long-term health, it's probably good to "dissolve" every few years. A lot of major Neptune transits work by creating conditions of uncertainty and feeling lost (or something similar) as (ironically) a "get real" period as you come out the other side having let go of stuck reality stuff.

I don't believe transits happen to destroy us but to teach us lessons. So with my rigidity you've picked up I believe Neptune's transits is to help me loosen up, so to speak

Does that make sense?

It does.

So one clue is to be willing to live in a persistent state of insufficient definition and specificity, less certainty where you thought you had things pinned down... and know it will pass. (Like taking a long vacation and really refusing to think about work.)

That's my problem, I always need to be in control of my emotions, life and actions. So Neptune is possibly helping me with letting go a little.

It's usually only when resisting the dissolution that Neptune transits hurt (though, of course, you can also make bad choices with too little information).

Neptune requires that we be ABSORBED into something or someone, IMMERSED in something or someone, or LOST in something or someone. It's even easier when these are Neptune topics. Deciding to get lost in (immersed in) some new kind of music or an absorbing interest or indulging temptations you've resisted or meditation (which helps dissolve those stuck, rigid boundaries).

This is interesting because with the guy I'm 'seeing' I say seeing because we have been seeing each other for almost 6 years now with no concrete relationship. We met for the first time on the August 2018 eclipse. It's a very complicated situation. But with him, I always need to be in control, and if I'm upset with something he does I straight block him. I want things on my terms. But when we get back in contact things become toxic again.

The main thing is that you're on exactly the right track by looking for ways to have a very Neptunian time without resistance - just picking what kind of time that is. I suspect a lot of the issue for you personally is that you like to be in control and feel like you know what's going on and have everything well-managed.  

Yes I do have control issues, Because I don't want to be hurt, so I'd rather hurt them. So is Neptune squaring my Asc a lesson to be more open and immersed in them and become less controlling? Does Neptune want to loosen my boundaries positively?

[Danica]

One simple step ( a "baby-step" seeming, perhaps, but a *huge* one!) is: to exit the psychological {intellectual, but emotional also} paradigm of perceiving some of the planetary-ergies --- any of the planetary "principles' or factors, and whether observed in transits or as natal factors, etc.! --- as inherently "problematic", "difficult" etc.

... I've written this about 8 months ago, but at the time it ended up in the Archive, instead of being posted on the blog or the FB page, and thereafter I forgot about it, so never came to be published (until now, as I'm posting it here); --- as these things with writing go, if I'd to write it now, it would surely come out in a different form -- the same central message would be conveyed in some different manner; but since it already exists as a written text, and it addresses exactly this question/subject, here's the full contents of it as it is - in hopes you -- and other reading here as well -- can find it of use:
[what is said about "natal planets" applies as well to planets observed in framework of prognostics, in synastry, etc.]

Ad-astra or dis-aster

An Astrological chart (Natal, etc.) by itself, as such, is inherently Harmonious.

It is a symbolic representation of the harmonious functioning of conditions (at any such-and-such moment of time-space) of the wider environment of which Earth itself is a part.

There are no 'malefics' nor 'benefics' in it; there's no 'auspicious', or 'lucky', neither 'ominous' or 'unhappy', etc. --- nothing such whatsoever --- in an Astrological chart, or in "the heavens".

A human person - and collective - can be aligned, or not, and aligned more or less so, with this, that the chart is a "picture', a representation of: the actuality of Harmony of movements of bodies through time-space, to which the Earth belongs functionally, and are in most-immediate sense the most-relevant in our observations here on Earth from practical perspective: the Sun, the Moon, the Zodiac-area, and the Solar-system bodies.

Although there indeed can be an intellectual argument, an "undecidedness", or an eternal-vagueness-seeming condition, about: by what "measure", what referential-framework, to ascertain what is the degree, or the presence or absence thereof, of Alignment (or: harmonious being) of a human person/collective, there is the "measurement"-referential which is indisputably and universally factual:
Is the human, its being/existence, in a sustained manner, and in longer-term scope, thriving - in the sense of: authentic Joy, Beauty and lasting-Vitality, such that it supports the same condition of everything around it, within the ecosystem that the human is a-part-of?
-- It is easy to ascertain by this the actuality of whether there has been the alignemnt or the misalignment ( = dis-aster).

Only for a fragmented, dispersed perception this is something elusive-to-see, something that can be "argued about" and perceived (and presented) as "an equally yes & no", or such. This is perspective of the intellectual airy-charade, which has no actual foundation, or in other words: is characteristic for the bio-psycho-vehicle devoid of such vital-energy-movement through-it which is the-living-Beauty: the whole-&-full functional *connectedness* with everything else around it that isn't itself. -- It is this cut-off state, this dis-connectedness that nurtures the conditions for such perspective to at all exist -- but this is, necessarily and naturally, very limited in its existence in time-space.

The next evolutionary-stage for Anthropos is emergence from such (limited, isolated, fragmented, cut-off) state/condition as its mode-of-being, into existing such that fully-aligned with the Harmony of Nature ( -- "Nature" in sense wider than a human-body, or the conglomerate-mass of these bodies, with their generations of self-replication over time, i.e. "blood-lines".)

The exact nature-&-quality of the ideas, notions, concepts and intellectual-patterning operative -- as an aspect of the human functioning -- is of importance:
these can be such which tend toward further greater-and-greater blurring, into fully-disabling, the capacity for Connection (not only the capacity for seeing/noticing/registering the Connectedness, but for the *connectivity*and *connectedness* as such*!), that is: these can be the energy-movements & patterning thereof, within the human conscious and subconscious mind, such that supports further the cut-off condition;
or they can be the energy-movements and patterning thereof such that supports the human existence in Alignment with the Harmony of the wider-Natural-phenomena, and their rhythms and tides.

When it comes to Astrology, in this process of emerging into the aligned-condition, the first-next immediate step from where we are collectively now is: recognizing and discarding of all such notions, concepts, ideas that are inherently oriented to train-the-psyche-for the cut-off condition.

The 'astrological benefics & malefics' comes merely as the tip-of-the-iceberg: perceiving the wider-natural-phenomena as somehow being of an "inherently-tending-quality" to operate *against* the human is at the basis of the mis-aligned patterning. (Solely such a human that itself in its being *operates-against*, rather than *for* and *in-accord with*, these wider-phenomena and their rhythms, can come up with such an idea/notion, and take this -- its own limited, fragmented, blind and selfish, isolated perspective -- as a "measurement" or some "undisputable factual-reference" of the reality of Natural-conditions in a universal sense!)

As 'easy' as, by-habit-established, the existence in fear-of-the-astrological-factors may come to be, or perceiving them as "cause" of this-or-that that we are experiencing, or to simply proclaim how "these are not actually functioning" --- none of that leads to something good for the human being, whatsoever; on the contrary, it explicitly leads further away from the condition of our existence which is in- and by- the Harmonious-Alignment.

The master-slave dynamics --- as a locked-in, self-enclosed loop of energy-movement-patterning --- keeps the psyche within condition of blindness and cut-off-ness: the Astrological factors are perceived as either "divine-rulers", or as something that is to-be-overcome/fought/worked-against by the side of the human [ - whether by rejecting to recognize their functionality, or by 'acknowledging' it in such a way that is motivated-by & oriented-toward one's-own-self being in position of controlling-the-conditions]; at the basis of it is: will/orientation to be-active (operational: to function - to perform Activities, or simply put: to exist) whilst *simultaneously* to not-be-responsible for these activities. (Whatever one does, and from whichever of the two polarized stand-point positions within this dynamics-patterning, there's always the *far-away*-another who is presented as the actually-responsible-faculty, and one's own self is thus being kept within what feels as a "safety-net", but is actually a kind of an iron-wall-tower: built and kept-maintained to protect the 'all-preciousness' of such a "self", and de-facto functioning as the active mechanism of it existing in a misaligned, cut-off condition.)

... The process of emergence into the Aligned condition of being is not something transpiring (in our at present-day accustomed manner of perceiving/experiencing Time) in-an-instant; it first of all requires Will for it: the inner adamant-orientation of directedness-toward what's Harmonious; and along with this, requires effort: in very practical sense, on daily basis, the in-actu expression of this internal adamancy of will/orientation of such quality, in approach-to/interaction-with/presence-to *everything* that comes-up as an-Otherness in one's experience.

It requires continual, sustained conscious effort to train the psyche out of the tendency to perceive this Otherness as something inherently-antagonistic/inimical, that as such exists and/or 'by nature' tends to operate-against oneself as the observing-point.

It requires such I-Thou relating with the Otherness which is not based on the "self" side of it existing via the dynamics based on overcoming/domineering/demeaning the "otherness"-side. ...

This goes far beyond what the (as numerous and as voluminous as these came to be) writings explicitly related to Astrology, and the various schools/traditions within it as a human scientific-endeavor, have been addressing.

Learning about --- consciously getting to know, as thoroughly as one can --- how the mammalian limbic-interconnection functions is one small, but very important starting-point step, for those willing to get out of maintaining-the-loops of the dis-aster patterning, and to actively start moving toward and along the alignment-patterning.

... The fundamental discarding --- not merely as a single-moment-consideration, but entirely, and *practically* --- of each and every myth-story & notion about the astrological factors as 'in-themselves malefic or benefic' (with all the related, inherent-to-it, misalignment-oriented mental constructs), isn't some "process on its own", it is simply but an aspect of the human evolutionary "growing pains"-process; for the vital, it is a necessary part of the journey.

And the journey transpires *step-by-step*.

Some steps come as huge leaps, some as just-a-tiny-movement; and occasionally -- for as long as the primary collective-patterning is of such quality -- a loop-in-the-road appears.
But if *each-and-every step* is inherently-oriented to Harmony, performed with adamant, whole-hearted willingness for coming-into-Alignment, with the consequences-side of one's own activity being properly recognized & fully adequately honored-&-accepted, it's the journey of the-Living: out and away-from the dis-aster, existing by moving Ad-Astra.

[Jim Eshelman]

Yes I do have control issues, Because I don't want to be hurt, so I'd rather hurt them. So is Neptune squaring my Asc a lesson to be more open and immersed in them and become less controlling? Does Neptune want to loosen my boundaries positively?

Well, it's action is aimed at loosening your boundaries. There's no inherent morality (goodness or badness) in any of this - that depends on the choice you make.

[Veronica]

I absolutely think that you should do some charity work.
That is a great idea! It will absolutely be helpful.
I encourage you to use that big heart and throw yourself into it. I especially think this a great idea because of the conjunction approaching us. The hard work dedication and love you put into your charity will be a very nice place to be when that aspect unfolds.
Do you have something in mind? I found it interesting that you brought it up and wondered if you had.