Neptune Direct

 With 'Big Blue' (Neptune) looming in the near distance, the counter-spin artist of our solar system - Triton

- is caught here in the foreground by NASA's Voyager spacecraft

(photo credit: NASA, JPL)

Given that Neptune will go direct early on November 11th (at 7:54 am, UT/+0), the several days leading up to and leading away from that date are likely to be filled with everything and anything you might want and not want to feel, imagine, find out…or otherwise have never conceived of.

Neptune stations tend to be very potent. Often they mark moments in our life when something we hadn’t realized becomes apparent. Representative of all which is ideal, that which inspires, enchants, seduces or disappoints, what Neptune moments are really all about are the truth.

The stone cold, unmitigated, steely-eyed truth. And how well we do or don’t deal with that truth.

Wherever Neptune is in your natal chart, that’s the real-time area of life which is going to fill your dreams and deliver the greatest let-downs. As for the house Neptune is currently transiting, that’s going to be the area of life which will be your ‘foggiest’ at this point and which you are likely to “blame” as the cause of all problems.

With Neptune now transiting Pisces, Neptune effects are particularly strong. So the good feels very good, the bad feels tragic and awful and the temptation to feel put upon or victimized is hugely strong.

But this is Neptune. So whatever the truth is, that’s what we will tend to deny, simply because we want so much for things to be better – a quality which comes from Neptune as metaphysical emblem of inspiration.

So getting back to that ‘victim’ thing…those who haven’t been victims are more likely to feel they’ve been ‘victimized’ than those who actually are (or have been) victims.

We just don’t want to feel that stone cold truth.

Yet when we don’t…if we can’t bring ourselves to face and feel the truth of those realities, Neptune transits (and stations) will represent times of upheaval and difficulty. When in the course of the play “Julius Caesar” Shakespeare had Cassius say "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings" he truly struck a Neptunian note. Most of us don’t realize it, but the Cassius of ancient Rome was apparently a follower of a school of thought called ‘Epicureanism.’

The Epicureans believed in an interesting blend of ideas. On one hand, they believed in pleasure. But Epicureanism was not hedonistic – they weren’t all about pleasure. Epicureans believed in knowing about your world – and your limits in that world. And from there they taught living a relatively simple life within those personal bounds without being incredibly tied to ‘worldly doings.’

And odd belief system for a Roman Senator, don’t you think?

Before you ask, the term ‘epicurean’ as used in modern society to refer to someone who enjoys the pleasures of the table comes from the original philosophy and its founder, a fellow named Epicurus who welcomed his small group of believers into his home and garden. There, we are told, they traded thoughts while enjoying the simple pleasures of the day, replete with lovely means.

With that, back to Cassius. It would seem to be a very odd dichotomy for a Roman Senator to be an Epicurean. And yet…that attempt to reconcile the taking of pleasure from simple and accessible things with the complicated, manipulative, seriously hard-core political work of helping to run the Roman Empire (while taking time out to conspire with the brother-in-law Brutus in killing Julius Caesar, Emperor among Emperors)…that’s pretty on-the-mark Neptunian as the one ideal obscures the other.

 Ever wonder what Julius Caesar looked like? Here's a bust of Gaius Julius Caesar which is

housed in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples

(photo credit: Andreas Wahra, March 1997)

Apparently Cassius spent a good deal of his life trying to find ways to reconcile his belief in simple pleasures with a longing and lust for power.

That this sort of internal conflict has made Cassius, his deeds and his conflicts the stuff of literary and historical legend is very much Neptune. Neptune, after all, is a primary astrological emblem of that very sort of fame which comes from people struggling with things we all know and understand. Things we’ve struggled with ourselves.

And what are we really struggling with?

Our feelings.

We humans are eternally conflicted. There is – and will always be something we don’t know how to deal with. How to leave behind. Our lives are filled with those things we love to hate and hate to love. Things we secretly love…but aren’t quite comfortable with.

The metaphysical Neptune is nothing we can fight. We can fight about it, yes. But there won’t be any answer. Neptune dynamics have no solution – only acceptance. The surrender as we deal with something we don’t want to feel with, the melting into love…the agony we feel in that very moment when we realize someone near and dear to us is gone.

It’s not the thing. It’s not the person. It’s not the death, the loss, the love.

Neptune is the experiencing of the inevitability of feeling.

In going direct at 0 Pisces, Neptune’s position says this is the ‘start.’ Of what? That probably remains to be seen. In conjunction with Chiron and Fomalhaut, Neptune’s station/direct indicates a revealing of results. Those who have taken justified risks will find their dreams being rewarded…and those who have been unrealistic about what life is really about should expect disappointments.

With the Nodes involved, we are guaranteed that Neptune's station has something to do with relationships. That may be 'a relationship,' or it may be a reflection of how we 'relate' to others, or where we stand in this world in 'relationship to' others - as people, in terms of their efforts...whatever.

With the North Node in Scorpio, as we have discussed, success depends on being able to give others what they want while negotiating for what you want or need.

Link to the blog post on the

Lunar Nodes moving into Scorpio

and Taurus

We are all 'aiming' to have what we want. And with Algol conjunct the South Node in a Neptune t-square, for some of us...well, let's just be honest here: some of us would really like to be able to say and do what we want regardless of how others feel about it.

In fact, for some that's a goal now. They're putting up with what has to be dealt with simply so they can get to that point where they don't have to care.

Or at least that's what they think.

T-squares being funny critters, the more we 'expect' and anticipate...the more 'plans' we make in based on something which hasn't happened yet, the more likely it is that things won't pan out the way we want them to.

Why would that be? That would be because all that projecting and longing and planning (and etcetera) will have distracted you from making the very (North Node) effort which would get you there.

Yes, this can be a time when we steal defeat from the jaws of victory. Alas!

 William Blake's painting of thieves based on Canto XXIV of Dante's 'Inferno.' And yes, sometimes we rob ourselves blind by being blind to all we can be if we will be mortal and real instead of a figment born of our own dream-state.

Some people will have ‘seen’ all such events begin to manifest back on October 22nd-23rd as the Sun’s entrance to Scorpio trined the degree of Neptune’s station. Act 2 of that drama would have played out around October 26-28 (depending on your time zone).

With this station in trine to Saturn, Medea and Hebe in Scorpio, much depends with how we feel about our relationship to the world. Those of us who think we can ‘operate’ the world and get what we want from it have a greater than usual chance of meeting up with difficulties.

This grand trine is the same one which was active when Ceres went on station and went retrograde…

Link to blog on Ceres’ station

…but now, Neptune’s turn to direct indicates an uptick in emotionalism and all things which evoke or provoke emotions.

Let’s face it, this could be a trying time for all – and particularly trying (read: bad news) for those who try to avoid high drama, getting involved in emotional scenes…all that stuff.

Remember: life is a form of boomerang. Sometimes it’s rather like a water balloon – you press in here and it pops out there. The point is that emotions exist. Just because you avoid them or suppress them doesn’t mean they aren’t there - especially where Neptune is involved.

Neptune embodies that moment when we tell ourselves we don't need to feel 'that way' because we're scared to feel 'that way.' And how many times do we finally get there and realize the reality isn't half as trying as our fear of it?

That's Neptune.

Neptune says you can feel your feelings...or force someone else (or life) to own the energy which causes you to feel those feelings, forcing you to feel the very feelings you were trying to avoid.

‘Things Neptunian’ have a very funny way of coming back to haunt us.’

(And here you thought Halloween was over?)

Between Saturn inconjuncting Uranus (stability having to adjust to change) and the incoming solar eclipse (the rattling of our conception of how life works) there are signals galore that we are in for some….

…some what? Confusion? Recognition of self-delusion? Disappointments? Inspirational surprises? Personal shocks when we look in life’s mirror?

I know a man who comes from a somewhat different metaphysical belief system than I do. He bugged me for all the data he needed to do his thing his way, and for a long time, I resisted.

I didn’t resist because I was afraid of what he would find. My reluctance was born of knowing that many look upon the challenging and assume that's negative.

The truth is far and away different from that. The easy life filled with either blandness or emotional high notes does not build great character. As a thousand great people have said (a thousand well-worded ways) is this, by Kahil Gibran: 

‘Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.’

- Kahil Gibran

I spent part of my today talking with a woman who in her 70-plus years has spent most of them helping others. She’s tackled family breakdowns which others would call catastrophes and ended up raising her grandchild, who is now happily placed in a good university. She’s helping chart a course for a handful of civic groups over plural decades and emerged bright and buoyant...as willing to see the darkness as the light because our greatest bonding comes either by surviving the hard times together or by surviving some hard time which allows us to appreciate others.

She's satisfied to be dissatisfied with some parts of life, as that allows her the perspective to enjoy other moments.

Light illuminates, yes. But without shadow and lacks of light, life could have no shape, no depth, no definition, no hue.

We owe beauty not to the brilliance, but to the shadows which allow beauty to have shape and convey meaning to us.

I write to you not because I am well off, but because I have survived enough to know that all human beings struggle, and that it is that struggle to reconcile our 'wish life' and reality - the Neptune Principle - which grants us strength and motivates us to try beyond tolerance, tumbling us into the depths of feeling.

And my friend...? He's a seeker, but young yet on the road. He sees me as someone who will be challenged but doesn't yet understand how that doesn't mean I will be crushed beneath life's weight.

What it means is this: I was created to weather those challenges.

So while he seeks a spiritual path upon which holy light shines from above, he refuses to feel himself tolerating his own inner pain - and thus misses the chance to experience the very mortality which so many have found bespeaks the existence of something beyond us merely because we exist.

Personally, I believe in Divinity. But you may not. The point here remains the same: to cling to a positive perspective alone is to be as blinded by Neptunian veils as clinging to despair is. Why? Because the Neptune precept is about acceptance. It's about that ever greater, grander and more humbling realization that we cannot define All because we can't even wrap our minds around what All is.

When we find Neptune, we let go of finding anything and instead...accept. So my friend's missing the point is Neptune. And if he finds it, that will be Neptune too. All he misses, all we gain, all which is and isn't reconciles us to the Neptune Principle. Thus we are strengthened through our pliability and made porous so that we can become more whole as life streams through our skin, our eyes, our breath and the wisdom of our consciousness.

A section of the Villa Doria Pamphili's gardens in Italy.

(photo credit: Alinti, 2006/photo cropped)

There’s a saying in metaphysics: that which you most fear you will manifest. Life wants us to know what we don’t want to know precisely because to be whole is to accept all that is.

Truth is truth. Real is real. I would rather know pain so that joy becomes a truer bliss than to never know sorrow or anger and live a life running from myself.

I wish you less running and more acceptance of the glory which is human life. Satisfaction is not about living, it’s about trying with a certainty of knowing that sometimes you’ll fail.

And that that’s okay too.

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