The blast of ‘letting-go’ energy in the first half of May seems to have left us with so many ends in the air that it’s been difficult to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes. Am I exaggerating?! In some ways, the collapse of my internet service provider for over a week was a welcome break, but not being able to send this e-mail to you before was potentially very frustrating.

With the New Moon on 16/17 May, being in Taurus, we may well have been trying to use our practical focus this month to ground our plans, and we probably found that each step in the building work was washed away by waves of uncertainty, and changing circumstances. A better use of the steady Taurus focus is just to take the practical side into consideration as we make our plans. Let’s remember also to take care of our bodies, to enjoy the physical side of life and the constantly healing touch of nature. The fact is that much of our effort to pin things down at present is premature (Mars, the energy of action, is transiting through Aries, ‘do it now!’ from 16 May to 24 June). It’s good to be active, but not to depend on the results being exactly what we aimed for.

The astrological weather was more gentle during late May, and continues into early June. So, as long as we take progress at the pace it goes, we have time to enjoy the season and perhaps even sort things out a bit. During the second week in June, we may find ourselves in a tight place (Sun in Gemini squaring Pisces Uranus). It will be a good time for meeting, and accepting, the emotional insecurity of ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ This feeling is based on the sense that we are being judged for what we choose to do, which is only a personality fear. Spiritually, it’s all OK, because we can learn from whatever we do.

The next New Moon on 15 June is in Gemini, so one would hope that communication (including use of the internet) would be smoother, but that communication is likely to be largely sorting out any problems that arose during the last few weeks (Mercury appears to move backwards just a few hours after the New Moon). The Summer Solstice on 21 June marks the day when the Sun reaches its furthest north of the year, followed three days later by the exact stand-off between Saturn (the structures we rely on) and Neptune (who dissolves structures!).

Throughout June, then, we are likely to feel a background confusion (our way of feeling Saturn approaching its second opposition to Neptune), not seeing the path clearly due to a fog of anxiety. To those who ‘read’ events for personal guidance, the writing may seem to have disappeared. It is there, but at the moment we can only find it in Neptune’s way . . .

Neptune’s guidance

Neptune rules the oceans, the sea of human emotion and psychic ‘stuff.’ We all swim in this sea – it connects us so that we are open to all human experience, to empathise and feel compassion. Neptune dissolves the boundaries we experience in life, the physical reality in which we seem separate from others, and from spirit. In the physical world, we follow timetables and believe what we see. So when Neptune is a major principle at work within our lives, a lot of what we take for granted turns out differently from expected. We need to trust the process, accept whatever is going on, so that we relax into the flow of life. It’s like floating down a river of time. Relaxing into the flow, we find that the river of life flows through us, and we experience life unfolding.

Flowing with the river involves doing what you do as relaxed and smoothly as you can, which needs conscious focus. As each action comes to a completion, it is good to breathe in at least once, before starting the next action on an out-breath. As this Neptune-Saturn opposition fades, we will be able to see the pattern more clearly again. If you are clear about what you want, don’t be too sure that you know how it will come about. Just hold steady to what is important to you. I often find that, during times of confusion, things change and move on much further than I would have thought possible, and certainly further than I could have done deliberately.

This whole year will probably go better for us if we take an experimental attitude to new ideas. Adventure into possibilities, simply to find out how they feel, and if they work, rather than relying on anything lasting more than a few months. Do what you do for now. It is easier to be light about trying out new things, when you remember that ‘every change is an opportunity for improvement.’

And if you want to ask Neptune what’s going on, get where Neptune is - through meditation!