Neptune : universalization and intuitive perception
- Sign attached, Domicile : Pisces
- Attached house : 12th House
- Exaltation : Sagittarius and Aquarius
- Detriment : Virgo
- Fall : Leo
- Element : Water (wet and cold)
- Polarity : Feminine Yin
- Harmonic or complementary Planets (excluding Aspects) :
Venus – Moon - Cycle duration : about 165 years
- Symbolizing aspect :
potentially “occult” aspects like Quintile (72°) - Corresponding life age : transcendence
- Physiology : feet, vegetative system, sleep, psychic disorders
- Neptune spends about 14 years per sign.
- Neptune is in retrograde 159 days a year or so.
See Planetary Rulerships.
Neptune in astronomy
Glazed gas giant like Uranus, Neptune is 17 times more massive than the Earth and 19 times less than Jupiter, it has a diameter of 50 000 km.
Neptune not being visible to the naked eye, it was discovered on the basis of speculation, by mathematical calculation from the Uranus transit, not by observation.
It’s funny because the discovery of this elusive planet has been missed several times, notably already by Galilea, by Lefrançois de Lalande, by John Herschel (son of the Uranus discoverer), so many missed appointments…
The Neptune atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, ammonia and methane. It is very dynamic and very changeable; more than 8000 km thick, its color is a beautiful deep blue due in part to methane and other compounds to be determined.
There are surface winds of almost 2000 km/h, with cloud formations; its temperature is extremely cold, below -330°F / -200°C.
Its magnetic field is very tilted, probably due to the inner fluxes in the depths of the atmosphere.
Like Saturn, Neptune has planetary rings but not very visible, and at least more than 10 moons.
As Uranus its formation is enigmatic, it seems that Neptune was initially formed closer to the Sun and would have migrated to its current position…
See: Neptune on Wikipedia
Neptune, astrological planet
Collective transpersonal planet, Neptune is a embracing diffuse energy tending towards a absolute communion, its principle is to refine all our perceptions, everything it touches.
Neptune represents the global perception, the collectivity and the community meaning, the holistic inclusiveness, the universalization…
Neptune is extreme sensitivity of perception, intuitive inspiration, imagination and daydreaming, feeling of the invisible close to the 6th sense, connection to our unconscious and telepathy, the mystical faith and the religious enlightenment, out of time, out of space, in silence…
This Neptune side is idealistic, utopian, artistic, romantic, delicate, philanthropic, altruistic, empathetic, uninterested in materialism, humanistic, in short spiritual…
But another Neptune facet is to sow confusion, blur, fog, cloudiness, the mystery, mirage, the veil of illusion (Maya in Indian philosophies)…
The planet plunges us into incoherence, doubts, irreality and sometimes obsession, hysteria, chaos and the crazy or the psychic disorders (the Depression).
Neptune represents drunkenness, drugs, alcohol, medication, anesthetics, hallucinations, secret life, imaginary inner world…
As if we were looking for illumination in artificial paradises or dreaming, failing to find it within ourselves, we abandon ourselves in an escape to parallel worlds, to an altered world.
Sometimes we find Neptune involved and intervening in strange, incomprehensible, troubled, inexplicable, inextricable things, hidden from the visible world, with indistinguishable outlines, with uncertain causes, such as corruption, a disappearance, any subversion operation or machination.
Neptune is the slow dissolution of the ego, the deterioration of individuality, erosion of the values on which personality was built in favor of a mirage, an idyllic hope, a utopian sweetness, a phantasmagorical world… it is the “Solutio” of the alchemical process.
With Neptune all the achievements of the planets of individuality and of social planets are questioned : the Mercury discrimination, analysis, selection, are shattered, even the powerful structure developed by Saturn does not resist the Neptune corrosion, whose extreme caricature can be found in the drug-addicted, junkies who love the whole universe…
With Neptune the risk is the awakening period, disillusionment, the end of the dream, with the loss of identity, a bit like sirens bewitching sailors, the return to a more “down to earth” reality promises difficult landings…
Neptune is therefore bivalent, it can lead to losing oneself and isolating oneself, just as it can lead to a deep, enriching and transcendental opening onto absolute unity.
Neptune is the upper octave of Venus, Neptune relies on its affectivity and feelings to dissolve the ego. Neptune is somehow in charge of concretizing the Uranus fraternal ideals by shining a collective dream of universality.
In a Birth Chart, Neptune indicates the faculties of inspiration, mysticism and also the risks of confusion, of bewilderment, of misguidance…
As a heavy planet, Neptune marks a whole generation of its same energy in our charts (like Uranus and Pluto).
Neptune in Birth Chart :
Neptune in Sign indicates the archetype of consciousness whose energy will be disturbed, potentially the sign character will not be frank, also indicates the “type of dream” pursued by the native.
Neptune in Houses indicates the activity field where miracle potentials and nebulous instability reign, or which tends towards universality and absoluteness.
In Aspect and in transits, Neptune is often the source of religious feeling, mystical enlightenment or strange, confused, incomprehensible periods… With Neptune we often feel false things that do not exist or are not as we perceive them…
Its action is slow and often insidious, silent, odorless, colorless, unsuspected, it is a fundamental test to overcome.
The Neptune’s cycle is too long to live it in its totality in 1 life (165 years); at best already during a normal life we can know in transit its increasing Square (around 41 years old) and its Opposition (around 82 years old), periods to be put in parallel in particular with the other long coinciding cycles (Uranus, Pluto, Saturn…).
Neptune as transpersonal collective planet (the second one), does not have the same impact as the individual inner planets or the social planets, its retrograde motion must therefore also be looked at from this angle, even if its interpretation in a Birth Chart is not prohibited for that matter !
Neptune Retrograde in Birth Chart indicates an introversion of Neptunian values (intuition, receptivity, universality, inspiration…), but the planet keeps all its evoked faculties : richness of the inner world, feeling of the unconscious.
The naturally introspective values of Neptune are even reinforced by the retrograde motion… for better and for worse ! at the risk of switching more easily into illusion, immateriality and dream.
On the other hand Neptune retrograde will be less collective in its influence, but will act much more at the individual level which can be a real chance for personal development if the native manages to master this energy input.
Watch for its direct motion resumption in Progression.
However, as a slow planet, the retrograde motion in Birth Chart is less significant.
In transit, its retrograde motion of a little more than 5 months per year signs a period which can correspond as much to a phase of awareness and inversion of Neptunian values (of illusion and mirage), as to a phase of psychic “escape”, of deep instability (against all appearances) or of sinking into the quicksand of unreality and the meanders of the unconscious… The confusion or the equilibrium reigning before the phase of retrograde motion are upset by it. These different elements can intervene at the key phases of the same retrograde loop.
In any case, the retrograde motion will be a period of internalization, introspection, reflection on our intuitions and felt more or less affirmed, some may feel the need for a retreat.
Do not forget that, being a slow planet, the same chart’s points will often be activated several times during its transit in a sign or a house, the transit unfolding thus taking place in several phases.
Astronomically, the retrogradation arc of the outer exterior planets corresponds to an Opposition to the Sun (tension with the will), Neptune being thus as close as possible to the Earth, it is advisable to monitor the loop development.
Once again, all this depends on its function in the chart and in transit, as well as the birth chart dominants (study concerned Houses, other Aspects and transits…).
Neptunian’s personality traits
A native whose chart will be strongly marked by Neptune will have qualities of generosity, sensitivity, gentleness, discretion, psychologist, observation, curiosity, intuition, dreamer, romanticism, disinterestedness, resilience, mysticism, mediumship, artist…
Mysterious, enigmatic, his hypersensitivity sometimes pushes him to have incomprehensible behaviors and to fall into one form or another of dependence…
Deep attraction for the ocean and water, music, magic, poetry, religious, divination…
Neptune also governs chemistry, oil, gas.
Negative Neptune : easily influenced, credulous, moody, enlightened, lack of dynamism and assertiveness, nervousness, depressive, fatalistic…
Character traits found in Pisces (its Domicile).
In the circle of life, Neptune does not correspond to a particular age, but is a sign of states of transcendence (like Uranus and Pluto).
Neptune in mythology is inspired by Poseidon the God of the oceans, see Poseidon on Wikipedia