Your Guide To The Planets – Nautical Neptune In Astrology…

Discover the planet Neptune and what it means in your birth chart...

Misty Blue Neptune In Space…

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**Neptune In Astrology – It’s Where You Dream…**

The planet of illusion, dreams, delusion and disillusion, Neptune can idealise or create a sense of longing where it appears in our charts.

It represents spiritual awareness but also has a propensity for deception.

It is a visionary planet, sometimes lucid and gentle, sometimes overwhelming and overpowering – just like the sea.

It is linked to escapism, transcendence, fantasy and mysticism, and also to addiction – be it alcohol, drugs or slipping into the abyss of film and music or medications…

The planet farthest from the Sun (the Ego consciousness), misty blue Neptune is dark, cold and windy. It takes almost 165 years to orbit the Sun and is 17 times the mass of Earth.

Discovered by Johann Galle on 23rd September 1846, its appearance coincided with the discovery of anaesthesia (October 16, 1846, anaesthetic), hypnosis, and the daguerreotype – the first publicly available photographic process, widely used during the 1840s and 1850s.

Therefore, astrologically, Neptune rules over photography, cinema, the ‘soft lens’, and also notions or avenues towards escapism: music, religion, alcohol, opioids and medications, dreams and psychic matter.

It was first called Oceanus, then Neptune on 29 December 1846; in Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Korean, the planet’s name was translated as “sea king star” (海王星).

Not only do we enjoy the ocean blue colour of the planet Neptune, we can liken the themes of fantasy and illusion or ‘a mirage’, and our feelings when we are ‘lost at sea’ to this planet’s themes – sometimes fun watching a movie, sometimes terrifying and consuming…

The Myth Of Neptune…

Named after the Roman god of the Sea (and identified with the Greek god Poseidon), the mythology tied to Neptune reflects the vastness of oceans and bodies of water, and their powerful effect in nature, which are in turn tapped into collective consciousness (water flows through everything).

Think of the undertow that has the ability to drown a man, the momentum of great waves, engulfing us in the surf.

Water and mist, fogginess and intuition are Neptunian, as is consciousness and transcending the ego, stepping far away to get lost in selflessness.

Dreams, Sleep, Escapism…

Neptune governs sleep and places that involve a retreat – not only our bed and bedroom but a greater step back, i.e. from society.

Think of hospitals, prisons, mental institutions, and any other place that create isolation, such as a monastery, forcing us to meet our inner spirit, God or inner consciousness.

When we are anaesthetised, hypnotised, unconscious, asleep or in our dream life (daydreaming), we are in a way ‘dead to the world’.

There’s the potential for illusion, confusion, and deception but also great adventures or visionary quests, into the unknown mysteries of life.

In Summary, Neptune is our ideals, intuition, empathy and spirituality – the self-sacrificing saviour.

It is linked to suffering and martyrdom, to religious feelings and compassion…

It is our psychic or boundary-less experiences, drug taking, illusion, delusion, deception and scandal and glamour.

It is fantasies of the collective, and longing.

Neptune In The First House – Conjunct The Ascendant…

Modern Western astrologers associate the planet Neptune with sensitivity, idealism and compassion, but also with collective trends (from art, film and fashion, to religious tendencies).

Neptune has a tendency to glamorise or idealise people, ideas, even objects.

Read more about Neptune in the first house, here, with celebrities born with this aspect.

Down The Rabbit Hole…

Neptune conjunct Mercury can be a dreamy, poetic way of interpreting life; Neptune with Mars can indicate a warped view of men or masculine principles.

Where Is Planet Neptune Now?

From our perspective here on earth, each constellation of stars forms a backdrop to the planet Neptune, so it would appear that ‘Neptune is in the constellation of Aquarius’ when we look up to the night sky, for example.

Right now, Neptune is in Pisces. Scroll down for more dates, including where Neptune was when you were born.