On March 30, the planet Neptune departed Pisces after a 14 year transit and moved into the sign of Aries. This move is guaranteed to bring a shift in tone for the collective.
Read: 3 Reasons Why Neptune Entering Pisces is Such a Big Deal
The three outer planets — Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto — move very slowly, and their transits through a sign tend to define and leave an impact on an era and a generation.
As Neptune kicks off the preview of its 14-year journey through Aries, the natural question is “what will this mean for us?” But before we start to speculate on the future, it’s important to harvest and digest the past.
The shift from Pisces to Aries is a big deal: it’s a shift from the final sign of the zodiac to the first sign of the zodiac — the completion of one cycle and start of a new one.
Elementally, it’s a shift from water to fire, from yin (introspective) to yang (outward focused), from the collective conscious to “me first” centrism, and from oneness to individuation.
In many ways, Aries as a sign provides a “corrective quality” to Pisces.
Understanding some of the core themes of Neptune in Pisces can help us see where we might be headed in this next era.
Although we still have one closing chapter left of Neptune in Pisces, we can see from our vantage point what the major themes have been that defined the era that is coming to a close.
While there’s much to say about Neptune in Pisces, I’m mostly focused here on how these transits impact the way we approach life and work, as that’s my framing for everything. The planets tell us where we are in time; understanding how to leverage those energies is a key part of working more effectively and in better alignment with the rhythms of nature.
Neptune’s Core Significations
First, what does Neptune represent?
In astrology, every planet is an archetype that exists within us. Archetypes are neither good nor bad — they encompass a full spectrum of traits. Some are constructive and some are destructive.
Neptune — named for the Roman god of the seas — is the mystic and the idealist. While Neptune is a planet and Pisces is a sign, they share a lot of similar traits.
Much like the sign of Pisces, it represents a space where boundaries don’t exist. It is associated with the immaterial and intangible realms beyond concrete physical reality.
This is the planet of fantasy, illusion, dissolution, dreams, intuition, spirituality, confusion, delusion, deceit, escapism, addiction, and intoxication, as well as compassion and empathy.
It’s also associated with things like music, dance, art, and drama — ways in which we express the intangible, as well as anything water related, including fog and mists.
Neptune is often said to bring fogginess and haze — states in which it’s easy to be confused.
Neptune is associated with the impulse to transcend the limitations of the human experience and connect with something greater and higher than ourselves.
Pisces is a sign that represents the ocean: it’s a place where boundaries are dissolved and everything merges into oneness. Pisces is a place of dreams, creativity, empathy, and compassion.
Neptune in Pisces Themes
Neptune first entered Pisces in 2011 and it settled in for good in 2012. While there’s still one more closing chapter to the Neptune in Pisces story, we can already see the hallmarks of that transit.
Here are 4 major themes of the Neptune-in-Pisces era that relate specifically to how we work.
(1) Dissolution of Traditional Boundaries
The great, boundary-less ocean of Pisces was a natural fit for Neptune’s mode of operation. Neptune in Pisces brought a dissolution of traditional boundaries. On a global level, we experienced an increase in globalization, migration, and cross-cultural merging.
In terms of how we work, traditional borders of time and geography became less relevant to doing work — even when we need to collaborate with others.
Work-From-Anywhere
Online and collaborative project management tools, better bandwidth in remote places, and the increased use of online meeting technology paved the way for digital nomadism, and remote or asynchronous work.
Expanded Audiences
The increased prevalence of social media opened up creators and thought leaders to audiences they couldn’t reach previously, generating a more robust sharing of ideas beyond traditional local communities.
Online Courses
Consider the boom in the market for online courses. In 2011, it was novel to engage in a telephone-based live course. By 2025, online courses are a multi-billion dollar industry. The technology has erased most barriers to learning and teaching. You can find courses on any topic that you can engage with on your timeline.
(2) Embrace of Inclusive Policies
Neptune in Pisces also brought a surge in policies meant to honor the benefits of including diverse viewpoints and experiences, as we saw with the rise of DEI policies. There was increased understanding of neurodiversity and the recognition that different brains need to approach work differently.
In many industries we saw a shift away from a traditional 9–5 and an embrace of more flexible schedules, with the recognition that it shouldn’t matter when and how you work as long as you can complete your projects.
“Face time” in the office became a lower priority.
(3) Embrace of Mystical and Spiritual
Neptune in Pisces also brought an increase in desire for mystical experiences, spiritual awakenings, and other forms of healing. We expanded conversations around trauma and its effects.
“Woo-woo” and the metaphysical have infiltrated the mainstream, with recognition that acupuncture, reiki, yoga, and meditation can have value as healing modalities, even if “science” hasn’t yet fully caught up.
Astrology also saw a big resurgence in the Neptune-in-Pisces era after years of being dismissed and sidelined.
(4) Lifestyle Marketing and Work/Life Integration
During Neptune in Pisces we also saw a trend toward “lifestyle marketing” — with influencers selling a way of life more than any particular good or service of value.
With the increase in the work-from-anywhere trend, work/life integration started to replace the concept of “work/life balance” — another effect of the dissolution of traditional boundaries.
Especially for the generation born under Neptune in Aquarius, life is no longer divided into chapters of “work hard” followed by “retirement.” Instead, we are seeing more efforts to integrate life into work and work into life.
Propelled by powerful devices we can carry in our pockets (which made their debut under Neptune in Aquarius), we can fit work into every empty corner of our days. Sometimes this means getting things done from a gym, a coffee shop, or you’re car while you’re waiting for your kids. Other times it means working while you’re on vacation.
(5) Deception and Confusion
On other hand, the increased prominence of social media during the Neptune in Pisces era also gave rise to “fake news” and disinformation campaigns. Toward the end of Neptune in Pisces, we learned more about how algorithms are manipulated to show us an agenda, causing us to lose the big picture perspective that Pisces offers.
The proliferation of easier to use technology facilitated the ability to create a website that “looks” official even if there’s no substance behind it.
Neptune in Pisces brought us scandals like the Fyre Festival, Theranos — grand visions of possibility that turned out to be pure deception and lies.
The final years of Neptune in Pisces brought the increase in AI, and with it a proliferation of photos, videos, and soundbites that blur reality with fakery — leaving us to wonder what we can truly trust.
What Will Neptune in Aries Bring?
As Neptune has sat on the final degree of Pisces, we’ve started to see the end of DEI policies and a push by many companies for return-to-office. This might be a signal of some of the tone shift we can expect as Neptune begins its journey in Aries.
How will it unfold over time? Stay tuned.
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