The
following is excerpted form
Liz Greene's
The
Astrological Neptune, and the Quest for Redemption
The point
of the Ascendant is the point of birth, and the 1st house, the natural house
of Mars, represents the entry of the individual into the world. It is not
only the physical experience of birth, but every birth which occurs
throughout life
— every situation in which, through an act of independent
will, we attempt to impose our own personal reality on the world outside.
The 1st
house therefore deals with the individual’s sense of potency and
effectiveness in outer life. The manner in which we express this potency is
identical with the image we have of the outer world; our methods match our
projections, because what we see in the environment is actually our own
interpretation of it. Over the course of time, our perception of the world
thus shapes the world, vindicating our preconceptions.
We
attribute to life the qualities of the sign on the Ascendant or any planets
nearby. It is the lens through which we perceive existence, the focus we
bring into life, the way we “bracket” the world. And since we see the
world in this way, we invariably act and behave in accordance with our
vision. What’s more, life obligates our expectations and reflects our own
point of view back to us.
Neptune in
the 1st house, especially within 10 degrees of the Ascendant, poses an
immediate dilemma, for the nature of Neptune is antithetical to the nature
of Mars. Where Mars seeks to assert its power over life, Neptune seeks to
avoid birth. Where we experience Neptune, we feel helpless and impotent, for
we are in the hands of powers greater than ourselves.
The
experience of physical birth may be felt by the person with a 1st house
Neptune as a process in which they have no volition and no choice. It is the
mother’s will, or perhaps that of the doctor or midwife, but not one’s
own; and the archetypal Martial component of struggle, inherent in the birth
process, is often curiously absent.
Neptune in
the 1st may secretly feel emasculated and deeply anxious when confronted
with choices and challenges that require a definite decision or act of will
— particularly if there is any risk of separation or loneliness.
Instead of
real potency, Neptune in the 1st may generate false potency as a defense
against victimization. The individual may use their gifts of empathy and
imagination to become what the world expects, acquiring power through
enchanting, pleasing, and mirroring the emotional needs of others. This
behaviour may mask a personality of considerable strength, but the strength
may not be visible, nor even recognized by the individual.
Neptune in
the 1st often reflects gifts of tact and subtle diplomacy; one navigates
rather than shapes the outer world. The needs of others take on the shape of
the redeemer; to merge with others in an ecstasy of mutual pleasing is a
form of redemption. Everybody likes a rising Neptune, for it aims to please.
Neptune in
the 1st has a reputation in astrological texts for blindness and
self-deception. Ebertin mentions “hypersensitiveness, confusion, a person
without aims or objectives.” This is understandable because Neptune
projects a mythic experience of redemption onto the environment and the
people in it. Every personal interaction with another individual thus
becomes a potential experience of salvation; and clarity, judgement and
initiative dissolve as a result.
But this
destructive extreme of self-effacement can only occur if there is no sense
of self to balance Neptune’s longing. If one has one’s own feelings and
values, the need for others will not swallow up the outlines of the
identity. The challenge of a 1st house Neptune lies not in any intrinsically
malevolent property in the planet, but in the task of balancing its
chameleon-like inclinations with a healthy dose of self-value and
self-preservation.
Neptune in
the 1st can also be the special gift of the counsellor or healer, because of
its unique capacity to enter into the feelings of others. But the individual
may become addicted to those who are needy.
This is a
chronic problem with many people in the helping professions; their secret
dependency upon others’ dependency upon them causes them to overwork,
undercharge, ignore their personal needs, and ultimately build up an
enormous unconscious reservoir of anger and resentment toward demands which
they cannot refuse.
They often
become sick themselves, and are in desperate, albeit unadmitted, need of
help for their own problem because their problem is the same as their
patients’. Somewhere along the way, the ordinary everyday self has been
lost in the name of saving the suffering.
Behind
this characteristic pattern, we can see the secret identity of redeemer and
redeemed, with its accompanying loss of contact with the reality of personal
limits. It is no different in kind to the dilemma of the film star, who may
no longer remember what it was like to live without fresh injections of
Eden-stuff to feed the increasing tyranny of the habit.
NEPTUNE IN THE HOUSES
You see me standing
here beside you, and hear my voice;
but I tell you that
all these things
— yes, from that star that
has just shone out
in the sky to the solid ground beneath our
feet
— I say that
all of these are but dreams and shadows:
the shadows that
hide the real world from our eyes. There is a
real world, but it
is beyond this glamour, and this vision,
beyond these
‘chases in Arras, dreams in a career,’
beyond them all as
beyond a veil.
—
Arthur
Machen, The Great God Pan
The house in which Neptune is placed in the birth
horoscope is the arena of life in which we seek redemption
— the ‘real’ world beyond the veil. If we wish to
understand Neptune’s varying expressions through the houses, we need to bear
in mind its archetypal core.
Every planetary symbol portrays an essential meaning, distinct from that of
any other planetary symbol, and consistent whatever the level of expression
—
physical, emotional, intellectual, imaginative
— in outer and inner life.
Neptune
portrays our longing for Eden. This longing renders the individual’s
ego-boundaries porous, and the ocean of the collective psyche seeps in.
Through Neptune we seek fons et origo,
Paradise lost and Paradise to one day be regained.
In our
yearning we also sense our danger, and fear the devouring Ti’amat-mother who
will intercede for our sins. Where Neptune is placed in the birth horoscope,
we are both redeemer and redeemed.
We may
identify unconsciously with those who are helpless victims, and fail to
recognise the secret link between the victim and their persecutor. We may seek
to save these victims, who are secretly the same as our own wounded selves,
from a destructive power in the world outside which also lies hidden within
our own souls. And we long to be released from suffering by a redeemer who is
in fact the property or our own souls.
In the sphere of life described by Neptune’s natal house, we find ourselves in
a hall of mirrors, healer, persecutor and victim all at once
— while perhaps
glimpsing, through the experience of compassion, a sense of unity which offers
redemption from the lonely prison of our mortal existence.
Where we meet Neptune, we are inclined to lose our objectivity and our sense
of separateness. We are both blinded and blinding to others, deceptive and
deceived, but always pursuing the goal of fusion at the end of the road
— even
if we deny such feelings.
We cease
to be individuals, and merge with the collective sea. Both the opening of the
heart and the emasculation of the will can occur with the loss of individual
boundaries.
Sacrifice,
often concrete, may be required; but ultimately it is our dream of redemption
which must be sacrificed before we can begin to differentiate between our
cherished fantasies and what is really out there, and cease our
self-victimization.
This is the great challenge of Neptune.
Projective identification
—
the attribution of bits of ourselves to another and then experiencing fusion
with that other on an unconscious level
— is the natural
process of Neptune. And because, in Neptune’s world, we do not distinguish
between I and thou, we may not recognize our longing for redemption in the
objects and people with whom we have fused.
The
Astrological Neptune, & the Quest for Redemption
Mindfire