Neptune is one of those planets I’ve struggled to get to know. It’s somewhat generational (an outer planet) and it’s in Sagittarius in my house of service. The terms “universal love,” “higher octave of Venus,” and “dreams and confusion,” are generally how Neptune is describes, but what does that mean in my day to day? How do I use any of this practically?
We look to Pisces (the sign it rules) and tap into this this mutable water quality, the big ocean of consciousness. How frustrating. Pisces is pretty unknowable too, and I have my Mars and MC there, confusing me at every turn. It is hard to know Pisces, because it’s ego-less, deep, porous, and infinite. Pisces is the end of the zodiac, so it has a bit of a dark quality. It’s hard to feel completely comfortable with Pisces, because with that kind of vastness, there’s nothing to hold on to.
How can the planet of universal love be ruled by the energy of death and dissolution? We look to overactive Neptune as confusion, substance abuse, but also to spirituality. How does a mere human in the cosmos come to terms with the fullness of this experience, of this planet?
A few years ago I had a near-death experience (NDE) in a ceremony. I was physically safe, but I went deep beyond the veil in a way I had never seen before. This wasn’t ego-death, it was more than that. It was my first experience of the void (what the Greeks called chaos.) The infinite nothingness. If you have not touched it, smelled it, or heard its sound before, it can be extremely jarring. Human brains are not good at understanding non-existence, which is why Neptune is confusing. As Laura Nalbandian pointed out on the Astrology Podcast "Neptune is confusion itself."
I didn’t smile for 4 months after my NDE. Once you’ve touched the void (most people do this when they lose a loved one) it’s hard to trust anything. It hurts to touch impermanence.
Neptune is the planet of spirituality and addiction. We turn to Neptune in our hours of deepest vulnerability, to survive the unthinkable in our human forms. Neptune is what carries many of us through the biggest traumas of our lifetime. Survivors, all of them, know Neptune. Many rites of passage speak to this. The ghost dance. Walkabout. Fasting. We take ourselves to the edge of the universe to find our place in it. Neptune is our collection of dreams, it confuses us and obscures what we take as reality. There is no reality with Neptune. We are unformed and in the womb.
If we have a physical trauma, we may turn to medications to help us, such as painkillers. That’s Neptune. If we have an emotional trauma, we may turn to faith or prayer, to help us, or meditation. That’s Neptune. We may smoke a joint or have a glass of wine, binge watch a show, play the slot machines, or play video games. That’s Neptune. Society deems some of these things “better” than the other, and some of our engagements with Neptune have higher consequences than others. Neptune says to us, you are safe, and whole. Reality is just a construct. You are everything. And nothing.
Neptune says, "come forget about existing for a while, you beautiful being"
We are reaching for the love, not the human love but the universal kind. The kind that we were each born with in our chart. This is BIG LOVE, the kind of love that comes through you whether you know it’s there or not. This is your ticket to what we call God or Source or Creation. But God is a slippery fish.
We can and do call upon Neptune daily, and right now Neptune is transiting through its home waters in Pisces. Neptune is the modern ruler of Pisces, and the ancient ruler, Jupiter, is also transiting through. Jupiter is an expansive and growing energy. The two will conjunct April 12th 2022, but we start to feel it days before and after. There is a lot of talk about how fortunate and expansive this transit will be, but I’d like you to consider it’s healing powers. And, as Demetra George pointed out– the potential of delusion.
We spend a whole lot of time avoiding death, or talking about it. A lot of our traumas surround our fraught relationship with it. We cannot contemplate a world without our own contemplation. Neptune fortifies your channel to universal love. That nothingness is the dual force that allows this love to exist. The enormous struggle that we can feel when contemplating our own mortality, abuse, physical pain, emotional pain can be soothed with this glorious transit. But we can also get lost on our way.
We’re not all in a place in our lives to receive a windfall manifestation, and anyone who knows anything about the mysteries of the universe knows that it’s not all fancy cars or nice digs. You are being gently led by your own karmic contract and the more you know how to follow its path and it’s guidance, the more Neptune’s love will reveal itself to you. Just be careful that you aren’t being sold a bill of goods. It’s easy to fall for false prophets under Neptune. In our race for the healing love, we might stop short of the finish line.
What trauma are you trying to heal? Which planet does Neptune aspect in your chart? What do you think the great womb is trying to say to you? Do you feel safe? Do you feel whole? Is someone telling you exactly what you want to believe to feel safe? Who can you trust?
Our souls are soft and calling out for healing. How will you stay rooted during these confusing times? Where is Neptune in your chart?
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