Astro Confessional -- Neptune Swells -- Swallows The South Node -- The God Sized Void

Sometimes, what’s going on, on the inside is more potent than the daily spin, though not always as easy to deal with than the decoding of phenomenon. I’ve decided to open my astro-veins and talk about some of the aspects that are coursing through my life. Sometimes at a glacial rate.

Back in 2003 I was at a small dinner party in San Diego and there was an astrologer there. We talked about various aspects, transits, etc., and I saw this transit well into my future, the Neptune conjunction of the South Node in my 4th House. I brought it up with a pre-mature sense of dread and we talked it out of my anxious field. Well, as of last month, it hit me like tsunami.

As an astrologer, I do my best to find the redemptive energies in just about every aspect, but to be frank, some are just harder to love than others and this transit is one of them.

NEPTUNE TRANSITS

One of my favorite transits from my past was when the ruler of Pisces was in Aqua, in my 3rd House. Aside from the occasional memory loss, I loved Neptune’s stream of consciousness slowly coursing though that mental sphere. When it trined my Mercury/Moon, my intuition was off the charts--I was pretty kind as well. Those were the days.

A month ago, I lost a seventeen-year-friendship as Neptune started to blot out my South Node and spin like a celestial whirlpool, creating a sucking vortex opposite my North Node, my worldly purpose. It wasn’t just the loss of the friendship but the words and feelings behind. Frankly, I was shocked by the level of cruelty, which morphed two days later, into self-pity and nearly suicidal contrition. Of course, Neptune’s elixirs were involved, spirits, summoning the demons of the past on demand, soon-to-be ghosts of the present. And just days after that, my relationship that I’d been in for the past year hit a deep trough, and I was searching for my own form of Neptunian liberation, via margaritas and avoidance. It didn’t work. Did I fail to mention that this transit is going to last 2.5 years? By the end of December, 2019, I’ll have been put through the Neptunian rinse cycle.

When working with clients, I do my best to elevate both understanding and the actual interpretation of a transit/aspect. Neptune is always one of the more difficult ones, because it doesn’t happen like the Uranian thunderclap, or the Plutonian forge that burns the dross of the soul. It’s not like the steady hammer and chisel of Saturn. Neptune is subtle, then forceful like wave at Mavericks, taking you under, then calm, tranquil, then another mighty swell of the soul. Neptune brings suffering unlike any of the outer planets and with suffering comes self-medication, which is where most of the planet is at these days with massive opiod addiction. I get it. This is a rough time on Terra and we’ve been in in deep trauma mode for the last fifty years. People are desperate for a way out of their suffering.

A GOD SIZED VOID

When I was in my twenties, I spent a day at Tassajara, tucked away in the hills of the Carmel Valley, an old German spa transformed into a Zen oasis by the SF Zen Center. I was in a hot pool with two other men. One guy was in recovery, the other looked like he was in recovery from retiring early ie, he had some cash reserves. The recovery guy talked about how he was trying to fill a void in his life through drugs and the sage retiree said, “Like trying to fill a God-sized void.”

This is Neptunian language.

We can’t have a discussion about Neptune unless we dive into acts of surrender, letting go, blessing, forgiving, humbling ourselves in the deep pool of our imperfections. The ultimate reward of challenging Neptune is measured by our ability to reflect and embody deeply important spiritual principles and inner realities.

So that’s where I am as I sort through not just the dissolution of life circumstances, but also a reality that exists in opposition to who and what I do in the world, what I’m not just known for, but is linked to my dharma/purpose. I have no idea how this is going to unfold, but the early weather report seems stormy and it looks like I’ll be in for heavy weather for a while.