I bought a surge protector the other day. I know that this is a strange way to open a post on Neptune, but bear with me. Apparently, I have a very sensitive refrigerator. If we have a summer storm and there is a little irregularity in the way the electricity distributes itself, the fridge will pretend that it died. This is extreme behaviour even for a refrigerator, who are universally known for being the drama queens of appliances and not nice and well behaved like stereo systems or washing machines. I thought my fridge died in the last storm. The repairman said it was only pretending 
and kissed it back to life again. But now, I need a surge protector, a permanent guardian for this temperamental (and frankly, a bit hysterical) piece of machinery.
Now, granted, I’ve been thinking about this piece during the week, so things Neptunian have been dominating my consciousness. Little did I realize how much influence it had. I know that Neptune and I are old (very old) friends, but I still wasn’t prepared for the length of his reach. When my surge protector arrived I found out that this was no ordinary surge protector. In big letters on the box it said, “This Surge Protector Will Sacrifice Itself For The Sake Of The Appliance.” I managed to order a Neptunian surge protector. I didn’t know they made those.
Ah, me.
You may laugh, but this is how Neptune works, when he gets going. He seeps into everything. He can be as welcome as that beautiful old Wisteria that grows from the neighbor’s garden and creeps its way along your roof and into your heart, or it can be as insidious and invidious as the black mold rotting out the dark corners of your basement. Neptune, when inspired, can overtake anything– even a life. Where Neptune is, we can lose not only our defenses, but our common sense, and that is when he becomes dangerous. Neptune in action is a cautionary tale at the best of times. He seduces us, and what he seduces us towards can be dangerous in the extreme. Neptune is not only out to remove our lesser awareness, like Uranus, or strip us down to our soul’s growth, like Pluto. Neptune is here to destroy the “I.”
We hear a lot about the negative affects of Neptune. Under Neptune, we experience confusion and lack of direction at best. There is dissolution, illusion, loss of identity and direction, self-medication of all kinds, the need to evade and escape. If we don’t seek some form of escape, we arrive at Neptune’s other option: sacrifice. We sacrifice ourselves, give ourselves over willingly to whatever is channeling our Neptunian urgings. When we don’t capture this embodiment of perfection, when we can’t seduce it, we become desperate. We bargain with the universe. We pray. We believe that if we keep giving, if we surrender our unique gifts, offer our all-encompassing love, we will be repaid with the love we deserve. This is the first lie of Neptune, that somehow sacrificing ourselves without discrimination earns us a receipt, a coupon we can redeem either here or in the afterlife, for love. If a big man with a curly white beard made of seafoam, carrying a trident, comes up to you and offers you this coupon, tell him to take a long walk off a short pier back to where he belongs. It’s a fake.
Like Uranus and Pluto, Neptune takes something away from us before he replaces it–but no, that’s not quite right. There is loss where the natal position of Neptune is concerned, but it isn’t the traumatic and sudden removal of Uranus, or the long and hungry struggle and tearing that is Pluto’s style. Neptune often gives us an early taste of what is possible, the deep and silent communion with it, the mind and soul-fulfilling joy of it, and then spirits it away, leaving the illusion of it dangling just out of our reach, forever lost, forever longing for the peace of that connection again, the strength of that fulfillment. It gives us brief seconds of what could be, and then, in our darkest moments, tells us that we will never know the like of that again. Not here. Not in this life. Neptune can be more brutal than Pluto, more ruthless than Uranus, and tops them both by never allowing us to let go. Where Neptune is concerned we cannot be healed, we must be transformed.
Neptune can have his shocking side, too. He has more than one trick in his pocket, more than one weapon in his arsenal. As if the longing and the sacrifice weren’t enough, he will go out of his way to destroy our illusions, and choose the most cruel way possible. One of the functions of Neptune is to shatter our naivete. Pisces is the sign of the fish swimming in opposing directions–the sign of polarity itself. Often, with Pisces, you have extremes and absolutes. Unfortunately, and sadly, we can experience the slaughter of innocence in Neptune’s realm–our happy bubbles get burst one by one, until there are no bubbles left and we are left clawing for meaning at the bottom of our emptiness. Neptune can churn up some very black storms–where the lack of boundaries and grounding leads to madness and extreme behaviour, Neptune’s domain can turn tragic.
Now, you may wonder, “What has all this got to do with Venus?” Venus is all about having, and Neptune is the ultimate in ‘have not.’
Something very interesting happens when we get to the bottom of our emptiness. We suddenly realize it isn’t emptiness. We were just looking at it the wrong way. We come face to face with The All.
It has been called “divine discontent,” this longing of Neptune’s. And the truth is that divine is the keyword here, not the discontent. Neptune’s sacrifices, whether accidental or deliberate or any combination of the two, have a goal, a purpose. Neptune wants you to get out of your own way, out of your little life, so that you know what it’s like to live life as a vehicle for “the All.” Neptune, ultimately, wants you to connect–and it wants you to connect with something which may have only vaguely whispered to you before this, perhaps in a song, or a dream. Neptune wants you to open your heart in the most vast way possible. As Jacques Brel wrote in “Les Coeurs Tendres”:
Y en a qui ont le cœur si vaste There are those with hearts so vast
Qu’ils sont toujours en voyage They are always on a voyage.
Y en a qui ont le cœur trop vaste There are those with hearts too vast
Pour se priver de mirages* To do without mirages.
I love those last lines, because they embody the essence of the way Neptune guides us to “The All.” The heart is opened and set on a journey to the unknown, with only our most delicate whispers and visions as a guide.
When Neptune is alive in the chart, we are on an endless journey that allows us to experience what is eternal and all-encompassing. It allows us to experience the fact that there is no such thing as separation, that our consciousness is merely a reflection of the greater consciousness. We contain The All and are contained by it. It lives within us and we within it.
When we have Neptune heavily emphasized in the chart, we learn that we must get beyond our ego desires and connect with whatever path our soul has chosen. We sacrifice the lesser for the greater knowing that we will be rewarded with a level of understanding that our ego-driven selves could not have known about. We begin to understand that all of our previous deprivations had to do with getting these lesser desires out of the way, so that we could be initiated into the deeper and higher levels of love. And at that level, we begin to realize something very important. That love isn’t an emotion, or an experience, or a state of being. Love is a power. A connecting power. It’s the ultimate creative force.
Think about it. Whatever we pay attention to in our lives, whatever we care about, grows in our consciousness. What our consciousness registers gets fed back to us in our lives. It may not be perfect, it will arrive in whatever warped fashion our ego has formatted for it, but the more honest and pure the love, the more honest the response from The All. Nothing would be accomplished, nothing created, if it weren’t for love. To create something, we must first envision it, and the visionary principle belongs to Neptune and its connecting power. What we do with it afterwards belongs not to Neptune, but to Venus.
Esoteric astrologers understand the power of Venus. In esoteric astrology, the ruler of Gemini is not Mercury, but Venus. Venus draws, Venus seduces, Venus magnetizes, Venus attracts. Venus is the connector extraordinaire. Venus ultimately is ego-centric, but this is no bad thing. We need Venus in order to stay strong in the material world. To negotiate this world successfully, we must maintain a grounding in the world, and understand what our value is, and where we belong. We all know that it’s impossible to attract someone, or some thing, if you don’t feel you deserve it, deep down. That’s Venus’s job–to connect us with the joys and the pleasures and the rewards of life and cause us to appreciate our material existence. Venus, is, ultimately, about our value system–what is it we cherish and how do we care for it?
The goal of Neptune is not to replace Venus’s value-system with its own, but to find a balance between our spiritual life and our material one. Ultimately, we need to understand that there is no boundary between the spiritual and the material worlds, they are one and the same. When Neptune drives us to surrender and to sacrifice, it’s in the cause of understanding that a greater love will take the place of a lesser one. We will feel that we have a place in the world, because we are the world. Neptune experiences, if we are properly aware and we get past the fog and the confusion, allow us to open the doors of our mundane existence and let in the transcendent and the eternal. Venus still acts as an attracting and connecting principle, but its range is now limitless. We no longer need to own, because we have what we need within us at all times.
We know that Venus has been elevated and strengthened by Neptune when her compassion has been aroused and she understands that compassion is not enough. Then Venus gets to work putting her considerable forming abilities to work, finally, as we say, ‘walking her talk.’ Venus, as an inner planet, has considerable influence in the material world. Elevated and empowered by Neptunian vision, connection and awareness, there are no limits to what she can be inspired to achieve.
If you’d like to hear Brel sing “Les Coeurs Tendres” to a background of photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson, look here.
But if you’re suffering a Neptunian deluge and you need deliverance and/or transcendence, I suggest you watch this video of Brel singing his best known song, “Ne Me Quitte Pas” (“Don’t Leave Me”) live. It’s almost brutal in its intimacy.
Les Coeurs Tendres copyright c Jacques Brel, Editions Pouchenel. Translation mine.
See also: Uranus and the Path of Mind, Pluto and the Path of Right Action
So the coupon is not a fake after all? 🙂
The beginning of your post reminded me of my favourite book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I remembered that it’s author Douglas Adams was Pisces too.
I’m comfortable with Neptune ways. After all it’s all about love even if you have to walk the cynic path initially. And yes I am Pisces too.
Uranus ways fascinate me – they are entertaining and Pluto – Pluto is all about cruelty.
I love reading your posts.
Hi, Helen. Well, like so many things where Neptune is concerned, it is and it isn’t. You get the keys to love, but they don’t open what you were expecting.
Pluto can be cruel, but Pluto can deliver the goods in a way the other two cannot. More next time…
Ach, Neptune is transiting exactly opposite my 1st house Mercury 0.19 Virgo now (rules my Virgo Sun, final dispositor of all in my chart), then dipping back in a last square to my 10th house Mars (natal 27 Taurus, pMars 28Rx Taurus) and then will be back to oppose my Mercury again as well as my Venus/Pluto (2 Virgo). This is a long set of transits to my oh-so-practical earth planets and, though my natal Neptune at 2 Scorp trines these planets, it’s not easy. My pMoon is also now in my 12th house, and my upcoming solar return chart in September will have Neptune conjunct the MC. I have Neptune all over the place!!
Maybe it’s just hard for Virgo to contemplate Neptune. I’ve loved some Pisces people I know for their ability to loosen me – they are so from somewhere else! I guess I have to see what Neptune brings. Any advice on handling these ongoing Neptune swampings is welcome!
Hi, Les. The only way to deal with Neptune is to open yourself to the Neptune experience and try to keep yourself grounded at the same time. Those of us who have gone through very heavy Neptune are always grateful for friends and family with a sense of humour to get us through. I once had a particularly tough Neptunian progression, and the thing that most got me through it, aside from meditation, was a friend who was happy to accept whatever it was I was going through and just listen, no matter how strange it seemed. And that’s what I wish for everyone going through a heavy Neptune time–an accepting friend with great ears.
This made me cry a little, but in the nicest way:
“That love isn’t an emotion, or an experience, or a state of being. Love is a power. A connecting power. It’s the ultimate creative force.”
Thanks, Dawn! That’s very helpful.
Neptune has been living in my 7th house for a while now (and it still has five degrees of Pisces to get through before it hits the 8th). It has been incredibly challenging to say the least. Many, many, many disappointments and reversals of fortune with dating and love affairs. It’s led me to therapy and a lot of soul searching and spiritual work, but I still feel like this transit has been a lot of pain and no gain (probably my perception and attachment to what I want out of my 7th). Natally, Neptune is on the cusp of my 5th on my Vertex, sextile Pluto and trine my ASC. It squares Mercury, but otherwise it’s well aspected. My progressed moon is soon going to be conjuct progressed (and natal) Neptune opposite my progressed Mars. I shudder to think what’s in store for me . . .
It’s true that those of us who have lots of hard aspects to Neptune usually have an easier time with him later, because we take our lumps hard and early. I think you’re right about focusing on your attachment to outcomes in the 7th house. Neptune has a way of giving you what you want, but in a way you’d never expect, so it’s best to just let go and stay open. The square to Mercury means that your instincts are probably stronger than your logic, so keep aware. As for the progressed Moon, I wouldn’t fret too much about it–it’s only a three month influence (one degree applying, exact, one degree leaving) to each of the positions it touches. The positive affect of Neptune to Mars is that you follow your highest desires, rather than your lower ones. You have the ability to pursue your dreams now, or fight for what you believe, or strengthen your inspiration–there are a lot of possibilities, particularly with natal Neptune in the fifth. Your ability to express yourself according to the higher self, rather than the lower, will be there as long as the progressed Mars is opposite either natal or progressed Neptune. While the Moon is there, try to discover what that higher self wants.
I really appreciated this post, Dawn – on one of my favorite astrological subjects. Neptune is not the benign character some imagine him to be. And delusion, illusion and enabling as well as denial, avoidance and blame are definitely not the same as surrendering to an all-loving power greater than our own self-interest, which requires a *mindful* leap of faith and action.
Neptune plays a big role in my chart (as do all the outer planets), and I learned some hard lessons early on through disillusionment with the many false gods I’d created. Just recently transiting Neptune was square my natal Mars and some of the battles I once thought worth fighting no longer seemed so. I still value the underlying principles involved but realized aggression was not the way to achieve them. I get surrender.
Thanks, Dawn – well said!
Thanks, LB. I honestly believe that Neptune is potentially the most damaging of the three outer planets. It asks more of us, and tricks us into thinking that the poison it’s serving us is ambrosia. We all create false gods where Neptune is concerned, and dealing with that disappointment is the fast track to understanding what is really wanted from us. Neptune is not only the point of our greatest sacrifice but can also be the point of our greatest contribution, once Venus is elevated.
I found your post interesting and illuminating for another reason. My 2nd house Libra Sun (conjunct Venus/North Node/Neptune) sits at the Venus/Neptune midpoint (also the Saturn/Pluto midpoint).
I strongly related to what you said about Venus “walking her talk” (one of my favorite expressions) and how true compassion requires practical involvement beyond merely feeling compassionate. I understand and am grateful you said it. 🙂
It’s important to understand, when we’re dealing with these octaves, that the activated inner planets have a job to do. Inner planets have a lot of influence in the material world, and they’re meant to be the carriers of the higher energy. Their new awareness has to have a result, otherwise, they can cause confusion and disorientation.
I sympathize with your Venus/Neptune positions. I have a Sun/Jupiter conjunction in the 12th sitting right on the midpoint of a Neptune (2nd)/Venus (10th) square. As I said, Neptune and I are old friends…
No wonder you get it. Thanks again, Dawn.
What a magnificent gift that song was “don’t leave me”. A loving gift of generosity from a ego-less soul.
I’m breathless and touched.
I’m glad you liked it, Sass. It’s been my favorite song from the moment I first heard it. It’s otherwise known as, “If You Go Away” in a rather bad translation from Rod McKuen. But nothing touches the original. If you want to deepen your understanding, Brel had a 7th house Neptune, Moon in Pisces and Venus conjunct Chiron, and was very conflicted about power dynamics between the sexes, but yes, this one shining song is a gift.
This post brings a smile to my face, because I have been chasing someone for 5 years now whos’ neptune is conjunct my venus.
” And delusion, illusion and enabling as well as denial, avoidance and blame are definitely not the same as surrendering to an all-loving power greater than our own self-interest, which requires a *mindful* leap of faith and action”
We have reached the avoidance step at the moment. Of course, it doesnt help that they are being slapped up side the head by Uranus at the moment. Neptune tells me to hang on, that eventually everythig will work out in some manner. Of course, it doesnt help that I have neptune in the unrelenting sign of Scorpio.
Hi William. I think you may have missed the point. Neptune teaches you to love better, but mostly through loving without reward. The illusion of Neptune is that you will receive what you desire in return for your devotion and patience. It doesn’t work that way. Where Neptune is concerned, we learn that loving is its own reward.
Yes, that’s what I have learnt. Loving is its own reward. But I have also learnt about boundaries healthy relationships.
When Neptune is working properly, it teaches us all about appreciation–appreciation of ourselves as well as others. This is very much Venusian territory. In mythology, you’ll remember that Venus never had any self-esteem problems. Her desires didn’t arise from lack or emptiness. When we get past longing and back to healthy balance and boundaries, we know that Venus has been elevated by Neptune’s higher vibration.
I am inclined to thinking of Mercury and Neptune as opposites. the inward surrender into Neptune and the resulting trust gifts the finite Virgoan mind with a freedom from its anxiety and hysteria. the infinite seeps into the simple and mundane things in a way that builds faith.
Neptune and 12 th house have an ability to receive and unify the workings of Uranus and Pluto along with all of the other tensions and difficulties in the chart.
By polarity, Mercury and Neptune are opposites as representative of the Virgo/Pisces dynamic. Opposites are meant to work in tandem, when they’re working well. It works with the other Mercury polarity as well, the Mercury/Jupiter opposition, as Jupiter is the co-ruler of Pisces. The larger knowing and the lesser knowing must come together. This is very much the story of the mutable signs, which moves through two levels of Mercury through to Jupiter and then Neptune. But that’s a tale for another day.
The Twelfth house is a repository for all that comes before it. It’s the repository for the wisdom of the All, and for that, it holds a great power–but in order to access that power, there has to be an exchange, a sacrifice or surrender. We have to give something of the ego’s stakes away. This is why the 12th house is so difficult to access–its entire process is antithetical to what is acceptable in this culture.
yes – this culture is about enabling the perpetuation of fear. it really helps to recognize the emotional hungers we hold that bind us to culture – they are the ones to be sacrificed.
”Neptune teaches you to love better, but mostly through loving without reward. The illusion of Neptune is that you will receive what you desire in return for your devotion and patience. It doesn’t work that way. Where Neptune is concerned, we learn that loving is its own reward.”
That’s exactly what happened.
Maybe Neptune is even more so a Trickster then Mercury. Mercury tricks because it doesn’t want to be restricted but what’s Neptunes ‘ excuse’ ?
Ironically, the true Neptune isn’t about deceit, illusion, delusion or fog. The true Neptune is about pure clarity, the absolute, stinging clarity that sees and senses beyond all boundaries. The Neptunian fog is the vehicle by which our blindess is revealed. If we are betrayed by others, in some way we have betrayed ourselves. This is what Neptune asks us to see.
Thank you for your answer. It’spossibly also vice-versa? If we have deluded ourselves it’s easy to get deluded by others since they thought they saw the real us but it was only a smoke-screen….
It says the same thing, really. The problem is that most people, when they are betrayed, look outside for blame, when the fault really rests within.
I love this: “If we are betrayed by others, in some way we have betrayed ourselves. This is what Neptune asks us to see.”
-A Reluctant Neptunian
Would it be safe to conclude that Neptune is an eye-opener?
All of the outer planets are eye-openers. That’s what they’re here to do.
TAlking of the Virgo-Pisces polarity what could Neptune Northnode conjunction in the sixth house mean? please! Wanting to interpret it for a long time.
I mean psychologically how does neptune in 6th manifest?
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to answer this question without a complete examination of the meaning of the Nodes. In general, with a sixth house North Node, we are looking for balance. We may need to learn to bring the universal 12th house energies into a useful form in the 6th. With Neptune there, we may need to understand that the material world and the spiritual world are not in opposition, but one in the same.
Hi Dawn:
Great post! I remember you talked about how some people try to deal with neptune by becoming virgo (being analytical etc). I have natal neptune on my sun/moon midpoint, so although I do not have other natal neptune aspect (I’m a scorpio), I have struggled a lot with neptune issues. I’m also a virgo ascendant with mercury in the 3rd house scorpio, so I’m very intellectual and analytical. But I can’t seem to find a way to “merge” my mercury side and my neptune side. I either daydream and experience the most beautiful and divine emotions through arts etc., or I get down to technical research. I’ve tried to find ways to show neptune through my research and writing, but whatever I can write/say in those contexts can never be as beautiful/inspiring as I want it to be. This makes me feel so sad. I’m constantly swinging between the two poles.
Vivien
Hi Vivien,
I’m not sure what you want to do here. Add more Neptune in your day to day life? Neptune is all about longing. It’s about the ‘divine discontent’. We are never satisfied where Neptune is concerned until we give up the idea of perfection. You may be after an impossible dream, or your expectations may be too high. Neptune is attempting to elevate us, but there are sacrifices along the way. The best and most creative use of Neptune is to always try harder to embody his goals of higher love, sacred life, and the unification of the one with the all.
Thank you for your reply Dawn! I guess the thing I want to do is learn to reify Neptune–how to concretize his higher and sacred ideals through the mastery of material or technical means. And yes, as a result I’m totally in the divine discontent mode all the time–Neptune can’t be captured and manifested that easily. But I think the impossible perfection thing is very prominent in my life–I always hated myself after a performance or public engagement of some kind, as I never felt what I did was good enough, and felt very self-conscious and shameful at a visceral level about the distance between what I thought was good and what I actually managed to do.
http://www.livescience.com/47737-stephen-hawking-higgs-boson-universe-doomsday.html
Just thought that Neptune is the higgs field and its lower octave Venus signifies higgs boson particle.
Hi Dawn,
Thank you so much!
I love all your articles. The articles about outer planets are my all time favorites. When i started reading your articles years ago, you brought the Divinity in to my understanding of astrology. Something did opened up in me and i started consciously communicating with ‘planets’.
Outer planets – Divine Masters have entered my life all together at once. Uranus had opened the doors to me through transit with Venus (my chart ruler). Oooh, that was big struggle. He woke me up from deep sleep. I realized it’s nothing to loose, because my life is one big mess any way ( you would not say so from outside perspective). Uranus gave me a fresh eyes, new sort of brain rewiring to see the world differently. I saw that even if it seems, that it’s nothing to live for, LIFE it does exist and has truth in it. I did not have the permission to lie. I had to set everything straight. Uranus did let me feel, how would it be otherwise…
Then Neptune came in ( it’s another story: i was speaking to Water a lot to wake me up after Uranus shacked me up). Neptune is ruthless one. He told me, if i do not ” fight” and will keep dreaming, stay in naive believe that somehow everything will be alright, – nothing will be OK. As a matter of fact, – Neptune has told me:” You may keep dreaming, but do not expect anything truly beautiful to occur.” Then i have read a quote : ” The definition of insanity is – keep doing the same things all over again and expecting the change”. The message was loud and clear.
Pluto came right after. I had to search for power, still remaining humble. Pluto turned me upside down, inside out. I was ready to die… I was loosing “it”…Then, the moment i gave up the thrive for power, i gained the power. After some certain ‘mysterious’ events i have written down on a paper and had putted outside my window for me to see every time i approach the entry of my house : ” The abuse of power is weakness”.
I did loose a lot: almost everybody i thought who was my friend are gone. Only few people are left. I went through this with my intimate partner. We almost lost each other. We have very strong Neptunian chart. Aspects of Pluto and Uranus are also there. We are happy now. We are not “there” yet, but do know what we are doing, where we going and if we are waiting, we know what we are waiting for; taking little steps, enjoying every little success, staying present and aware.
Deep appreciation and gratitude to you, Dawn. You are one of the few people, which were teachers to me in my utmost challenging period of my life.
Love,
Tatyana
Thanks, Tatyana.