Do you feel like the world is wobbling under your feet right now? Like reality itself is shifting, and you can’t quite trust what’s real anymore?
If you’re feeling destabilized, there’s a reason: we are in a collective initiation. Neptune is stationing direct this week, and it’s the perfect backdrop to look at what’s happening in the world around us at large.
One of Neptune’s greatest gifts is clarity—revealing illusions and the things we’re trying not to see.
Today, we’re exploring why everything feels like it’s on the line and how your inner personal work is actually shaping the world to come.
Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing one of my longtime astrology heroes, Richard Tarnas—astrologer, philosopher, Jungian psychologist, and author of Cosmos and Psyche, a book that deeply validated my entire sense of astrology.
Modern astrology often feels too small to me—constantly predicting outcomes, labeling planets as “good” or “bad,” as if Jupiter and Venus are the glittering positives and Saturn and Mars the feared negatives. None of this matched what I lived or witnessed in my clients. When I discovered Tarnas’ work, it was like my soul exhaled.
The cosmos isn’t dictating events.
It’s mirroring us.
As above, so below.
During our conversation, Tarnas described this moment in history as a collective initiation—the initiation phase of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. This is the destabilizing, disorienting moment when you’re stripped of everything familiar… when you’re unsure what’s real… when you wonder if you’re going crazy or the world is.
Nearly everyone I talk to—clients, friends, family—is feeling these exact feelings.
Tarnas said, “There’s a great sense of potential danger. A feeling of tremendous uncertainty about the future. A sense of doubting what’s real, being destabilized as to what we know, and even a sense that we might be going insane, or that the world’s going insane. A confrontation with death, with mortality, with our finitude.”
We are living in the very center of this mythic pattern humanity has always recognized:
- the descent into the underworld
- the dark night of the soul
- the death before rebirth
- the crisis that incites transformation
He said, this moment isn’t meant to be comfortable. It’s meant to wake us up—to get so intense that we must transform or perish.
What Neptune Direct Really Means
Neptune dissolves illusion. When it stations direct, it pauses—like a tide pulling back—and whatever’s been hiding beneath the surface rises up where you can finally see it.
Because Neptune rules intuition, spirituality, and dreaming, this is a powerful moment to go deeper into your healing work.
Neptune’s gift of clarity—often arrives in uncomfortable ways.
Tarnas emphasized, “You have to have uncertainty if there’s going to be a moral transformation. If you don’t think everything’s at stake, you’re not going to change. You can’t have a pretend near-death experience at a weekend seminar and expect it to have the impact of really encountering your potential dying, where you come back with a whole different sense of… ‘Oh, it might be more important for me to be loving in my relationships than to increase my quarterly profit.’”
If everything feels like it’s on the line, that’s because it is.
This moment is the descent before the revelation.
Tarnas reminded me that uncertainty isn’t the problem—it’s a requirement for real moral transformation. If nothing feels at stake, if we don’t have any skin in the game, nothing changes.
The Center of the Universe Is Everywhere — Including You
I met Tarnas at a symposium in Aspen this fall where cosmologist Brian Swimme also spoke. He shared that science now understands the center of the universe is not a single point somewhere “out there.”
It is everywhere—all at once.
Creation is unfolding through each of us.
This means the change we want in the world cannot be outsourced.
We must become it.
Your inner work—our inner work—is not simply self-help anymore. It’s not a luxury. The inner work we avoid is the transformation the world needs right now.
This is why we must do our shadow work.
If the center of the universe exists within each of us, then the transformation of the whole depends on the metamorphosis of the individual. Without it, the rebirth remains impossible.
How to Work With Neptune Direct This Week
As Neptune stations direct, use its clarity not to escape the darkness—but to see into it.
Notice:
- what illusions you still cling to
- what truths you refuse to face
Creation itself is inside you. What you face within literally changes the world we are co-creating.
We cannot ignore this descent, this initiation.
We’re meant to participate in it fully—consciously, courageously.
And that work begins with each of us.
Coming Up Next Week
Next week, I’ll be sharing all about the Sagittarius New Moon arriving with the solstice, the true new year. And I’m hosting a free online Solstice workshop.
I’m Sheridan Semple, Astrology Life Coach and Moon Sister Circle Guide. If you want support navigating this turning point with intention, join me for my free Solstice Workshop:
🌞 Solstice Reset: Break the patterns running your life — and build a 6-month vision that sticks.
It’s happening live on December 21st, the true new year—the moment the light returns.
Before resolutions, pressure, and hustle… this is your reset point.
We’ll uncover what’s been running you beneath the surface and create a 6-month vision aligned with who you’re becoming, not who you’ve been repeating.
I’d love to have you there—sign up here.
Until next time…
Honor the descent.
It’s the doorway to revelation and our collective transformation.
✨ With love,
Sheridan
FREE SOLSTICE WORKSHOP — Online Dec. 21
Solstice Reset: Break the Hidden Patterns Running Your Life — and Build a 6-Month Vision That Sticks