When transiting Neptune strode into my 5th house of romance

and conjoined my North Node, I found my "soul mate." He was

a man with Neptune on the Midheaven, a former co-worker I

hadn't seen in years. Sean called me out of the blue and the

moment we first saw each other again, Neptune was hovering

on the western horizon-conjunct the Descendant, conjunct the

Moon, and square the transiting Nodes. In our composite chart,

Neptune was a major player, conjunct our 12th house Sun,

square our Moon, ruling our Midheaven. There had always

been this unspoken connection between us. And now, from our

first renewed contact, my life took on a distinctly Neptune

quality. The driven efficiency I'd maintained for years simply

dissolved. I found myself staring out of windows. Lost in

another world. Even before we declared our feelings for each

other, I decided to take a sabbatical from my astrology practice.

It was a 5th house thing, I told myself. I needed time to be

creative-or, in case it should happen, fall in love. As a full-time

mother, corporate manager, astrologer and writer, I had no

room in my schedule for falling in love.

And fall we did. The nights we spent together stretched till

dawn, talking, touching, laughing; we agreed it seemed, on

everything. In the wee morning hours we rewrote our childhood

histories so they seemed to converge-him on his schoolyard,

me on mine, developing along parallel paths, until the years

that had kept us apart finally brought us together. Soul mates.

One day Sean bought some books on Buddhist meditation-the

very books I might have bought. Were we One? In earlier days

he'd been a wine connoisseur and had acquired a fine

collection. We were drinking down the last of it, exquisite wines

fifteen and twenty years old. I wasn't much of a drinker, but the

intoxication seemed so integral to our Neptune spell, I joked

that when his wine cellar was empty, the relationship would be

over too. I took him to my favorite spot on earth, Big Sur. It had

never been so magical.

A week later, Sean had just one cabernet left. We were on the

phone when he suddenly stopped talking. He was angry, but I

didn't know why. This wasn't the first time he'd reacted with a

sudden interminable silence. But that night something turned in

me. Although I'd never been in a relationship lasting less than a

decade, after four months of this one, I didn't want to play

anymore. Our coupling had lost its magic. To the silence on the

other end of the phone, I said what I hoped was a cordial good-

bye, pressed the handset button, stared at the receiver and

shrugged. As suddenly as I'd fallen in love, I had fallen out.

Was it true love or was it Neptune? In the following weeks, as

the fairy dust dissolved, it seemed ever more incredible that I'd

been so crazy for this man. Why the soul-mate swoon? Is that

what Neptune wanted? Does he take delight in twirling us

inside out with fantasies? Astrologers often talk of Neptune

transits this way, as temporary derangements of reality. We're

advised to be wary of ourselves; we're vulnerable to deceit or

imagination's wiles. Western mythology has just a few stories

of the sea god Neptune, but the most famous one takes just

this view. Odysseus is a decent man, who after the Trojan War

wants nothing more than to return to his beloved wife and son.

Unfortunately he angers Neptune (aka Poseidon), and the sea

god makes him lose his way. Ten long years Odysseus

wanders in Neptune domains, among fantastic creatures in

imaginary lands, the Lotus Eaters with their magic fruit, the

Phaiakians, whom the gods visit openly without disguise, the

Laistrygonians with supernatural powers. He and his men are

waylaid by women of sorcery, Circe, Calypso, the Sirens. It is

Athena, the goddess of rational mind, who finally intercedes

and gets him home.

Athena's rivalry with the sea god is an old one, pitting the

conscious mind against the unconscious. It's said these two

battled head to head for the immortal possession of Athens,

and (name is a big clue), guess who won. It is strange that the

Greeks, as a sea-faring people, should leave us with so few

stories of Neptune, a once mighty god second only to his

brother Zeus. Of course, myths undergo constant revision, like

the canvases of masters getting painted over and over.

Philosophers agree that when the Greeks wrote Neptune out of

his leading role, this was a critical turning point in Western

mind, going towards the rationality of the city and away from

the wild of the sea. Poseidon appears only in fragments after

that, mostly terrorizing the shore with his brood of monsters,

demanding virgins in ritual sacrifice. A dishonored god will take

his revenge.

Over the centuries, civilization keeps taming Neptune's

domains, organizing nature's chaos into scientific laws,

structuring sacred passion into religious institutions, refining

imaginations' deliriums into culturally sanctioned forms of

literature and art. So we shouldn't be surprised at how the god

(via the planet Neptune) chose to re-appear in the Nineteenth

Century. The moment Neptune shimmered into view through

Johann Galle's telescope in 1846, the planet was gripped by a

tight conjunction to pragmatic Saturn in Aquarius, the sign of

science and technology-still strangled it seems by civilization's

preference for the rational, the structured and the real.[1]

Even so Neptune has made his presence known. After the

planet's discovery, he rippled through the culture, bringing us a

renewed fascination with ghosts and otherworldly dimensions,

the invention of anesthesia and the technology of motion

pictures, also Freud's and Jung's exploration of dreams and

the psyche. But culturally this is still fringe stuff, not the starring

role. And so Neptune continues to send his monsters to

terrorize us. He gets no small revenge by swallowing vast

numbers of us with drug and alcohol addictions, dissolving our

heroic leaders into media creations and con men, numbing us

via the trance of the entertainment industry, invading our

thoughts with the seductions of advertising.

Knowing Neptune's cultural history doesn't much help,

however, when you're sitting with someone in the midst of a

Neptune transit. Like my neighbor, who lost his younger

brother, his job, and had a heart by-pass when Neptune

conjoined his Sun. Or the client who lost her mother to a

sudden discovery of cancer when Neptune squared her Moon.

Or my girlfriend, who began an ill-fated affair with her married

boss when Neptune conjoined her Moon. I think of the

countless thirty- and forty-somethings who in the middle of their

Neptune square*, lost their dreams, their taste for life, their

sense of who they are. Try saying this is just delusion stuff, the

revenge of a dishonored god-or the more positive spin, an

opportunity to become more spiritual, to explore one's

imagination, to dabble in art. Try saying just grab onto reality

and don't get blown off course. The words will sound thin,

which is fair enough in a world that doesn't give much support

for Neptune tasks. But if the world doesn't understand

Neptune, as astrologers, we should be particularly wary of

making the same mistake. It often happens that the gods we

demonize are just the ones we don't understand.

Does Neptune want to punish us or deliver gifts? Perhaps the

best evidence of Neptune's intentions is not what happens to

people during his transit, but what happens within them.

Neptune does his greatest work below the surface. That's why

it's hard to reach those in Neptune's embrace. They may be

overcome with grief or delusion. If they've lost something dear-

their health, their motivation, a loved one-their eyes may plead

for direction, some way to make sense of the time. But no

matter how compassionate or brilliant your words, likely none

will hit the mark. Forget about waking up those who are

dancing on clouds. Whether it brings loss or euphoria,

Neptune's transit is an abduction to another world. The feelings

may be overwhelming, but impossible to put into words. If you

try to quiz someone about past Neptune transits, don't expect

much of a reply. It's not like a Pluto transit, where every

moment is etched in memory. It's more like recalling a dream,

or a drug experience, or an alien encounter. Much is lost,

sometimes the most important parts. When I asked my mother

about the year of her Neptune square, she got fuzzy. She

remembered the year before and the year after. The year after,

she said, everything changed.

Neptune transits are an archetypal trip into the belly of the

whale. When we enter Neptune's sea, it's as though the self we

thought we knew dissolves. What's left is swallowed into the

unknown. As Peter Gabriel sings, "When the flood calls, you

have no home, you have no walls. In that thunder crash you're

a thousand miles within a flash." So where do we go? Deeply

inward. Or a part of us goes there. That's sometimes the

trickiest manifestation of a Neptune transit. Maybe nothing is

happening on the surface-no loss, no grief, no intoxication. But

try as we might, we can't muster our whole self. This I learned

the hard way, endeavoring to write a book the year Neptune

squared my Mercury. I had hoped this would be an optimum

time to tap into new imaginative resources; after all, I was

writing about a Neptune subject, fairy tales. Consciously I was

motivated and determined, my agent eagerly awaited pages,

but the writer in me simply disappeared. Swallowed by the

whale.
The Neptune journey is so deeply inward, we can neither see

nor touch it. This is supremely awkward given our preferred

heroic style. We want to face it, fight it, do something-but

there's nothing to do in a Neptune transit, except have it. The

whale's belly is both a death image and a womb image. It's an

annihilation of self and a rebirthing. Joseph Campbell likens the

journey into the whale to the journey of a religious pilgrim, an

appropriate theme for the spiritualizing force of Neptune.

"Allegorically," says Campbell, "the passage into a temple and

the hero-dive through the jaws of the whale are identical

adventures, both denoting, in picture language, the life-

centering, life-renewing act."2 Life centering, life renewing.

These aren't the first words that come to mind during Neptune

periods, but should they be?

The month my friend Karen's progressed Moon met her natal

Neptune in the 7th house of partners, her solar arc Neptune

also changed signs. When a planet changes sign by

progression or direction it signals a major shift in the energy's

expression. The year of the shift often brings a significant

event. What did

Neptune invite? This married musician (whose natal Neptune

opposes her Sun) went to a party following a performance, got

drunk after heavily imbibing some Neptune brew, and placed

her hand on the thigh of an also married colleague whose wife

was out of town. Shortly thereafter, a very secret and, in her

words "deliciously passionate" affair began. It continues a year

later. Both claim to be content in their marriages, but this

connection between them goes beyond words. Each feels that

life without the other is impossible now. Their affair is all the

things we don't like about Neptune, a fantasy, full of deceptions

and denial. And yet, as I've watched Karen unfold over the

year, she's been neither blown off-course nor reduced to less

of herself. Quite the contrary, she's become more. Her love

affair has inspired new interest in all the Neptune things that

used to center her-her painting and poetry, as well as her

spiritual roots. She looks and acts like a Sleeping Beauty who's

been kissed awake. What did Neptune want from her? Nothing

less than being reborn into a greater life.

Life centering, life renewing. When you study the temporary

derangements of Neptune periods, this is where the ecstatic

ones begin and the harrowing ones often end. When I consider

the multiplicity of good and bad events associated with

Neptune transits, I'm reminded of the stories of gifted gurus.

Rather than teaching all students in identical style, they tailor

their transmissions to the needs of each, being compassionate

with one, cruel or abrupt with another, sometimes academic,

sometimes playful. The students are left scratching their heads,

guessing at the special wisdom of their guru. We often do the

same with Neptune. But however this archetype manifests, his

grace temporarily refocuses us-out of our familiar narrow world

into a broader world that matters. Through the initiations of

grief or ecstasy, Neptune brings us peak experiences that give

us astonishing visions of what life at a higher level might be

like.

When Neptune visited my North Node, I who had never

believed in soul mates thought I'd found one. And via this

mirage I was awakened from my efficient, machine-like trance.

The night my "soul mate" lost his glimmer, I opened one of the

spiritual books he'd given me. It was then a much more

enduring journey began. Perhaps Neptune gives us something

like "inverse transitional objects." Psychology desc

ribes the teddy bears and imaginary friends of children as

"transitional objects" helping to wean them from an

undifferentiated identity with mother into a separate sense of

self. These objects facilitate the separation process. Perhaps

Neptune's inverse transitional objects are significant to the

adult developmental process-helping to wean us from our

separate sense of self into a realization of unity with the whole.

Our separate self usually wins the starring role in youthful

fantasies, which is why at the Neptune square we must be dis-

illusioned of them. We must release the dreams of the smaller

egoic self, so that wiser visions can rush in. After our Neptune

transit, we often feel a greater sense of communion and

compassion, a boundaryless belonging, an overwhelming

gratitude-a state of grace. We reach an exquisite

understanding, like the drop of water who finally knows it is one

with the ocean.

When it brings enlightenment and bliss, Neptune takes us into

the heart of life-which began on our planet in the ocean,

ancient Poseidon's domain. Astronomers keep probing the

cosmos and haven't found this life-giving liquid flowing

anywhere else. Isn't this remarkable? Rivers and oceans are

mythological Neptune's gift to the earth. Dream is another. Our

nightly descent into Neptune's realm is an essential life-

renewing act; deprived of dream, we lose our grip on the world.

Our nightly swim in the invisible helps us process anxiety and

desire. We download wisdom from our higher self and tinker

with our daily dramas in order to bear them better.

Neptune is an ally. But how much of his gauzy world do we

need for proper balance? Typically we think of balance as a

fifty-fifty proposition, but more likely what's required is simple

harmony, the ratio that works. If we use the ratio of water to

land on our planet as instructive metaphor, the earth suggests

there should be seventy percent Neptune. And if this seems

too much, consider that our bodies are largely water too. Does

this mean we should forsake reality for the fluidity of Neptune

not just some, but most of the time?

It's a trick question. Consider the normal state of mind. If you've

ever meditated, you likely discovered your "normal" mental

state is a constant chatter of mostly self-important fantasies

and distortions. Most minds are caught in an endless loop of

fabricating stories and then believing them. Walk down an

average city street and the majority of "normal" people you'll

meet won't really be there, off on invisible journeys. Consider

too the countless modern addictions-drugs, television,

smoking, working, shopping, eating-that transport us to some

netherworld. If you're worried about upping your Neptune ratio

to seventy percent, relax. You're probably already there. But

these are "faux Neptune" activities. Vacant fantasies and

addictive behaviors offer none of the real treasure Neptune

brings.

Neptune wants nothing less than your genuine devotion.

Examine what's on your personal altar. Not what you'd like to

see there, but what you actually kneel to everyday. Where do

you spend your time? There's your worship. If it's a genuine

Neptune activity or done from an authentic Neptune spirit, you

will feel blessed as you perform it. Your life will have meaning;

you'll feel a sense of peace. Even when circumstances are

difficult, you'll soon right yourself with gratitude and renewed

understanding. But if you mostly worship the Sun, this grace

will be a fleeting state.

The Sun is an emblem for ego, the part of us that hungers for

personal satisfaction and glory. It's instructive that Neptune

orbits at quite a distance from the Sun, receiving just one-tenth

of one percent of the sunlight reaching earth. (One of the

imaging team members from the Voyager 2 mission compared

Neptune's light to the inside of an unlit cathedral on a cloudy

day3-how appropriate.) To honor Neptune properly, we must

keep ego out of it. Departures from reality are more often ego

trips than Neptune ones. When our visions draw from universal

sources and nourish the collective journey, when they

celebrate not self but the sacred in the cosmos, then we're

wrapped in Neptune's arms. To be there seventy percent of the

time would be heaven. Mundane reality would be a Land of

Bliss.

What is reality anyway? Today science gives us surprisingly

Neptunian descriptions. Solid materials disappear into quantum

mysteries, implying a unity of connections only mystics can

make sense of. Reality, the scientists tell us, is a flux, a

multiplicity of possibilities, dependent on its observers. It is

sourced in the relationship between seer and the seen.

Theoretical physicists sound like Buddhists when they say an

independent and objective world just doesn't exist. If we revisit

Neptune's discovery chart from this perspective, Neptune's

conjunction to Saturn takes on new meaning. Perhaps it was

Neptune gripping Saturn and shaking up Aquarius, demanding

a holy merger of science and the sacred. Perhaps it was a

visionary invitation for all of us to bring Neptune values like

communion, compassion, imagination, into the center of our

culture. Perhaps it was Neptune saying, "Drink up dreamers,

you're running dry."

Neptune will return to its position in the discovery chart in 2009.

It's not too early to start your celebration.