by Steven Forrest

Know anyone getting close to having a baby? Anyone due in November? She might be carrying a saint in her womb. That’s my prediction: that we’ve got a good crop of fresh saints about to appear on the earth, right when we desperately need a few of them.

Saints are like that. They always appear on schedule.

“Saint” is, I admit, a dramatic word to use. It conjures up images of ethereal beings gazing up into heaven with never an impure or unworthy thought in their haloed heads. But I am not using the word that way. I am talking about flesh and blood saints, with attitudes, genitals, and personalities.

That’s who I see coming.

You very likely already know a few such saints – ones who are here already. How can you recognize them? They probably don’t walk on water. They don’t glow in the dark. You recognize them by their acts of kindness and their expressions of wisdom. They are the people who are always there when you need them. They give of themselves. They look you right in the eye. They don’t hit you over the head with their piety or with any supernatural powers. They don’t have “Highly Evolved Psychic Shaman Healer Astrologer” emblazoned on their business cards. Instead, their saintliness sneaks up on you. They are the school teachers who buy notebooks for the kids who can’t afford them. They are the psychotherapists who go the extra mile. They visit sick people. They suffer fools with grace.

Why do I think that more of these saints are on the way? It’s really very simple: November 2016 is an extremely Neptunian month and Neptune is the planet of saints. Kids born with this energy in their charts have the signature of the Mystic deep in their core.

There will be some drunks among them too, but we’ll get to that.

Two astrological factors come together to support this happy prediction. The first is that Neptune makes a station this month. The second is that it conjuncts the Moon’s south node. The former is common, happening twice a year. The second is somewhat more unusual, hooked to the 18.6 year cycle of the lunar nodes. Neptune’s conjunction with the south node is therefore not really rare either.

What strikes me is that these two separate events are happening just a couple of weeks apart and are thus reinforcing each other like crazy. That’s the “rare” part. Another way to say it is that Neptune’s position at its Station and the position of its conjunction with the south lunar node are nearly the same. They are separated by only five minutes of arc, just one-twelfth of a degree.

Let’s first look at these events independently, then put them together. In this case, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts.

Neptune’s Station

Planetary stations are not uncommon. With the slow-moving outer planets, every half a year or so a planet slows down and turns retrograde - that, or it reverses that motion and goes direct. Those moments of standstill are called stations. It’s simple to understand why. We are looking at, say, Neptune from one side of our orbit around the Sun. Six months later we are 186 million miles away, on the other side of our orbit. Neptune seems to jump back and forth just like your index finger jumps back and forth when you blink from one eye to the other.

That’s the astronomy behind planetary stations. The astrology is pretty simple too. When a planet is stationary, its effects are amplified. It gets more focused. It is as if the “amperage” of the planet has increased. (The significance of a planet being retrograde or direct is another topic, and not the one we need to understand here.)

Neptune made a station at 12°02' of Pisces and turned retrograde on June 13, 2016, just a few months ago. On November 19, 2016, its retrograde cycle ends as Neptune makes its station at 9°14' of Pisces and begins to advance once more. Like a train reversing direction, the planet takes time to decelerate and accelerate. That brings us to another important point: Neptune is very slow throughout the whole month of November, starting out retrograde at 9°20', backing up until the 19th when it stops at 9°14', then only getting as far forward as 9°16' by November 30th. 

The numbers are not important in themselves (except in the case where you personally have natal planets at or in aspect to those degrees). What is important is that Neptune is basically “stopped” all month.

And that makes it very powerful.

The Jupiter-Neptune Conjunction of 2022

Order Now

Neptune Conjunct the South Node

The conjunction with the Moon’s south node is our second factor - the one that ices the cake and makes this all so compelling. That’s why I’ve predicted the births of saints, but I am still a little ahead of myself in writing that.

Let’s start with a look at the nodal configuration itself. On November 3, 2016, Neptune and the south node form an exact conjunction at 9°19' Pisces. (I am, as always, using the mean node here, not the so-called true node.) As any of you who’ve studied with me or read Yesterday’s Sky would know, the south node of the Moon reflects a person’s karma. Pisces is ruled by Neptune in modern astrology, so having Neptune conjunct the south node in Pisces is about as “Neptunian” as anyone’s karma can possibly get. The nodes move slowly too. By month’s end, the south node will have only retrograded (it’s always retrograde!) back to 7°52', so even children born on the last day of the month will have a tight alignment of Neptune and the south node. Only 1°24' will separate them.

All this Neptunian mojo is even further amplified by Neptune actually being in Pisces now. With its 165-year orbit, you don’t hold your breath waiting for that one. It was there starting in 2011 and will not be completely done until 2026. That’s a long time! But this month marks a tremendous crescendo in the energy.

What does that tell us about the children?

Among them there will be many who have experienced deep spiritual initiations and profound mind-training. There will be far-seeing psychics, energy workers, and meditation masters. There will be visionaries, both spiritual and simply imaginative.

Even better, with their north lunar nodes in Virgo, they have come here to be of service. All that training and wisdom now needs to be offered to others. Good news: that means us!

With the south node, we always need to be aware of limiting karma, even dark karma. What can go wrong with this kind of spiritual sensitivity? Inner work can be addictive. It can create a quality of self-absorption. If you want to meet true egomaniacs, join a spiritual group. One of the reasons these children have a service-oriented Virgo north node is that there is no better remedy for spiritual self-importance than making other people’s needs more important to us than our own, at least for a while.

There is more here that calls for caution.

Some of these children will have simply “spent so long in a Tibetan cave” that emerging into the social world of human interaction is a challenge for them. They will require our patience. The ones carrying that part of the Neptunian nature will not lack compassion, but the various arbitrary formalities that constitute social “courtesy” will not come naturally to them.

It gets darker.

Mixed in with this crop of saints, we will also see some scoundrels, natural-born liars and deceivers, and people who are simply crazy. Those are dark faces of Neptune too. 

Among them, we will see “drunks” of various persuasions - and “drunk” doesn’t just mean booze. There are countless ways of escaping reality. Your Uncle Harry who died of an overdose in 1982 may be returning.

A critical point: among these children, there will be some who are sitting on the fence between getting it right and getting it wrong. They can’t quite handle their own psychic sensitivity - but with a little help, maybe they can learn. If they do, then they blossom into treasures.

More about that in a minute.

First, how can we distinguish among these different Neptunian types? It will be easy enough to simply see the distinction in their behavior as they reveal their true natures over the coming decades. Still, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that there is no technical astrological method for distinguishing among them! Every chart contains beautiful, high possibilities, and low ones too.

One point is virtually certain: by the very nature of the south node, almost all of these kids will have some unresolved issues around Neptune and Pisces. That’s what the south node means. They can benefit us all enormously, but we need to receive them into our world and our families very consciously. The irony is that, while humanity sorely needs them, they also need us.

Among them will be some truly lofty beings whom none of us could assist except by listening and receiving their precious gifts. They will take care of themselves. But here, I am thinking more about how we can support the ones in “the middle of the pack.” By that I mean the children who, while very gifted and evolved, might be overwhelmed by their own Neptunian qualities.

How can we help them? Each one is individual, but here are some general guidelines:

First and foremost, these children are extraordinarily sensitive at every level. Noise is going to be hard on them. Their sleep may be fitful and easily disturbed.  Dream-life will be intense. A chemical in the detergent, an out-gassing new carpet, or a Wi-Fi router might trigger hard-to-trace symptoms in them.

They will pick up on subtle vibrations too. If, for example, you are silently angry at your partner, the child will feel that energy.

Obviously, none of these realities can be eliminated from life or totally controlled. Being mindful is a help, though. Any reduction in those kinds of tensions really helps to welcome these children into the world. We want them to feel safe. The last thing we need to do is frighten them.

Secondly, pay attention and be open when the little Neptunian seems to be operating in “another world.” Even an infant might suddenly turn and stare at a corner of the room. Although to you “nothing is there,” go ahead and look that way too and behave reassuringly. When speech arrives in a few years, listen openly and supportively to stories about “imaginary friends,” past lives, and angels. Nothing alienates and silences such a child so effectively as mockery, shaming, or flat-out pig-ignorance in such matters.

Thirdly, your own example is a potentially huge and helpful element here. I can think of no gift as supportive to such a child as being born into a family with genuine spirituality and some kind of active practice. Quiet prayer, yoga, meditation - any of those behaviors can create a supportive, welcoming vibration. A little statue of the Buddha, a cross on the wall, even a plastic angel from Walmart - they all signal support to the child. “Religion” is not the point; it’s really more about any mode of acknowledging “the higher powers.”

What about the rest of us? Say you are not pregnant and no kid is on the immediate horizon of your life, then what does this very Neptunian month mean to you?

Broadly, in such times the “veil between the worlds” grows thinner for us all. November is an auspicious month for any kind of spiritual practice. You’ll naturally feel drawn in that direction. You can further focus that notion by seeing where the tenth degree of Pisces falls in your chart. Conjunct your Saturn? Maybe you would benefit from some solitary meditation. In your 11th House? Maybe you need some kind of fellowship, so take a yoga class, do some shared religious or spiritual practice. In your 6th house while triggering a Virgo planet? Service is a powerful practice for you now.

Usually, in these newsletters, we look at the “astrology of the moment” and talk about how best to navigate it. But there is always this second level - the newborn humans - which may in the long run be the more important one. The kids born under these energies embody them for a lifetime. This month, I’ve obviously chosen to focus on the children. In one way, that might seem to terribly narrow my potential audience. But not really - at least it shouldn’t. Among these newborns are a few who will be precious to all humanity.

The birth of a saint is a quiet thing. There may be subtle omens, but angels blowing trumpets only appear in the sky in Renaissance paintings, not in reality.  Yet a seed is planted. Give it a few decades and the world is changed.

Is a Messiah or an Avatar about to be born? Is that what this Neptunian month portends? I would not rule that out. But I would stake my life on the birth of spiritual teachers, yogis, and loving crusaders for generous causes.

Remember: these saints come along when they are needed. That is eternal law.

Ask yourself, in the light of today’s headlines, do we need some saints on the Earth now? And do we all need a reminder that there are worlds beyond this one?

Hold that welcome mat in your heart. That is this month’s spiritual practice for every conscious person in the world.

And if you are involved with a birth any time soon, count that experience as a blessing beyond easy reckoning.

- Steven Forrest

Get Our Newsletter delivered to your inbox every month!

Steven Gets the Rock Star Treatment in China

In case you missed it on Facebook, check out the photo below of Steven in China in front of a massive banner they made for him. It's pretty awesome, although it did make him feel a little awkward standing in front of that large of an image of himself! But I'm sure you'll agree he's well worth that kind of recognition.

Facebook Comments