Neptune and Other Outers: This Time It's Personal

Dear Everybody,
I've just bought the Liz Greene book on Neptune but as I read through it I'm hoping to connect it with whatever the AW community has to say on the subject.

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are slow moving, generational planets, and so - I often hear - their effects in our charts are usually less personal, more to do with the sweep of our lives and the generational ideas and shifts we're born to. When I go about looking for a deeper sense of how an outer planet (in this case, Neptune) is colored by the sign it's in I wind up reading things that de-emphasize the personal effects. Even the Liz Greene book doesn't really discuss signs.
But then of course we're also constantly talking about "my Pluto," "my Uranus," etc. affecting our particular personalities and lives.
Here's my question: I'm wondering what folks think about the outer planets in a personal chart particularly when they appear to be in a position that seems deeply personal, or having a deeply personal affect?

My personal reason for asking is this: A few months ago I started a deeper exploration of my own chart and, by extension, astrology in general. In the past I tended to focus on a few aspects in the chart, but astrologers on this site have been opening my eyes to wider possibilities. One of the planets I tended to neglect in my chart but I'm beginning to think is very important for me is Neptune - in my case just a degree off the I.C (on the 3rd house side). The I.C. itself is a point of the chart I've neglected. But I've seen it suggested here that the I.C. is very important, our root, "who we are." What do you do when a very personal chart point like the I.C. - no less personal than our "root," than "who we are" - is conjunct an outer, generational planet?

Hi. You've probably already dipped into the section on Neptune in the 4th house in the Liz Greene book that you mentioned, and I doubt there's much anyone on the forum can add to what is written there.

The important thing is, having read through that, to consider how this placement gets on with other parts of the chart. If you are a watery person, then you have a head start in integrating Neptune into your life, but if other elements are strong then you may have to work on relaxing the defences associated with those elements so that Neptune can operate more consciously in your life.

The IC is one of the more watery points of the house cycle, but the IC symbolises experiences through which we find a sense of personal stability, and Neptune is at odds with having a sense of self-hood at all. Even so, we need to mediate Neptune as consciously as possible, rather than just be puppets of collective processes; and conscious mediation requires a strong sense of individuality. Neptune can bring deep satisfaction and fulfilment, or it can expose us to the ghosts lingering in our unconscious. A good way to move from the latter to the former is to cleanse one's consciousness through some kind of meditative practise.

Your domestic life may mirror back to you any issues with your sense of stability as a person. You may need to have a home-life which is free of too much of other people's emotional baggage, so that you can cleanse your own consciousness in peace. This is the area of life where you are most like a sponge, and thus where you need to keep an eye on your personal boundaries. Is your home/room a messy and disorganised place, or an indoor Zen garden, or somewhere in between? It might be useful for you to consider how you express the Neptune archetype at home, how this reflects your internal relationship with this archetype, and where this is taking you in the medium and long term.

Relocation charts are relevant to angular planets.

There is another book by Greene called, The Outer Planets, which may interest you.

It might be a good idea for you to post your chart to get more relevant comments, plus a relocated chart if you now live away from your birth location...

In my experience (and my opinion based thereon) I make no distinction (practical distinction) between "personal" and "generational": for me, all planets (in a given chart of an individual) are "personal", ie, directly influence the chart of that person.
For example, Neptune is every bit as "personal" (in a natal chart) as the Moon, from my perspective...

Neptune at the IC is very personal indeed.

I find the distinctions between personal, social (Jupiter and Saturn) and transpersonal planets very useful. The fact that the outer planets are not visible to the naked eye is very significant in interpretation I believe.

Having said that, it is possible to mediate the outer planet archetypes in a relatively personalised and conscious way; and it is possible for a personal planet to function in an impersonal way.

Birch Dragon said:

Dear Everybody,
I've just bought the Liz Greene book on Neptune but as I read through it I'm hoping to connect it with whatever the AW community has to say on the subject.

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You think that this community can improve upon Liz Greene???

Here's my question: I'm wondering what folks think about the outer planets in a personal chart particularly when they appear to be in a position that seems deeply personal, or having a deeply personal affect?

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It's a personal belief that outer planets provide a 'Spirit of the time'
(zeitgeest) that everyone of the sign generation shares in making
'conscious' upon the outer world for the future that follows. This 'spirit of the time' takes on a very personal effect if aspected to a personal planet or angle. The outer planets are what provide the 'generation gaps' that those older often cannot fathom, let alone follow.
Only yesterday I made the comment to my husband that our age group is now becoming 'the forgotten generation'; our views no longer count.
Almost considered to be a hinderance than help. A natural development process even if it does feel as degradation towardds uselessness.

Neptune literally may be difficult to grasp and get a handle on because of its non-physical as opposed to inner sensitive associations. Can one touch gas, take the ocean in one's hand, hold onto dreams in sleep, capture cyberspace? Yet one can be sensitive to how they are effected by, e.g. their 'usefulness in service' (Virgo) 'romance in companionship' (Libra), 'deep emotional content' (Scorpio), 'belief patterns' (Sagittarius), 'societal norms' (Capricorn), 'technological advancement'(Aquarius) and 'unison in universal understanding'(Pisces). The individual is able to identify with that something within the outer planet's collective function and meaning of 'identity'. It's very hard for most of us with Neptune being the planet of egolessness. Its vision for tomorrow cannot be merely personal rather than how it can effect everyone.
I guess it's only natural that Neptune follows Uranus 'one for all, all for one' mentality.

My ½cent's worth.

Birch Dragon said:

I'm wondering what folks think about the outer planets in a personal chart particularly when they appear to be in a position that seems deeply personal, or having a deeply personal affect?

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I have hunch that the themes of prominent outer planets (confirmed by observation) are echoed by the inner planets as well. If you are having trouble seeing this, just ask a "traditional" astrologer. Chances are they will come up with a similar interpretation without considering the outer three planets.

FYI, I do not condone ignorance of the outer three. As with mathematics, there is more confidence in a solution that is derived from more than one method.

Hi All,
Thanks for the great responses! I plan on replying more directly and substantially to everybody, but I'm swamped with work this weekend (and I didn't quite do enough yesterday - reading about Neptune!). So I'm posting now to keep this thread from dying while I try to pull out from a pile of work and grab half an hour to think and respond.

After I posted this I found a thread started a few years ago called "Are Outer Planets Personal or Generational? " (link below.) but it degraded too quickly into a fierce debate between traditional astrology vs. modern astrology. Also, the question was essentially whether outer planets can count as personal or not.
This thread has already gone past that debate - which is what I was hoping for! I accept these are generational planets with BIG energies that can fall in very personal places in our charts and affect us in very personal ways. As I stare at my three big Outer Planets I'm wondering what it means when the outer planets go personal. You all have already suggested ways to think about that (for example, exemplifying a zeitgeist, questions of self hood, etc.).

As I read Liz Greene she's giving perhaps the most personal read possible of Neptune. From a Freudian/Jungian angle, she essentially sees the energy of Neptune as a powerful manifestation from within our own individual psyches! (Well, from the collective unconscious.) So I see that and appreciate that. But I take the psychological view - Freud and Jung-like - to be only one aspect - a key aspect, but only one aspect - of our lives. And so, not to be all serious about what Frisiangal said that was really funny, actually I do hope the AW community can supplement whatever I read in Greene nicely!

I realize now I might have called this thread "Neptune on the IC???" - needing to figure out more about the IC as well as the outer planets.
Or "Neptune (on Fire?) in Sagittarius. How are the essential energies of an Outer Planet qualified by elements and signs?"

Again, I'll come back when I have more time, post my own chart and ask more about this. But as I read - both the Greene book and on AW - I see more points I'd love to discuss with people. How does an individual - a limited, contained human psyche - deal with the essentially TRANSindividual energies of outer planets? (I think miquar is getting to this.) What happens when the IC, which I understand is the forming of an "I"s unconscious, is blotted out with the blurring energy of Neptune, looking to do away with a self in merger with a Higher Other? (I'm realizing this is particularly pressing in my own case because Neptune is both on the IC and closely trine my Moon.)
Some of what Liz Greene says in her cookbook section is spot on for me and other things make sense if I read between the lines or translate for my own story. But I'm looking to go beyond that as well... In Greene's book Neptune 4th house for example has a lot to do with family and the Father. Which I see as important and valid but particularly Freudian in focus...

That link: http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39021&highlight=Outer+planets+personal

Birch Dragon said:

What do you do when a very personal chart point like the I.C. - no less personal than our "root," than "who we are" - is conjunct an outer, generational planet?

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It makes that planet more personal and shows how. What you do is work with it with awareness.

Planets at the IC/in the 4th generally show how our early life was, what we must grow through and outgrow before we can realize the full potentials represented by the opposite point, the MC/in 10th.

If you want to get more specific on this than what is in the Liz Green book, best to post your chart here for a view of your whole Neptune picture.

In my own natal chart Uranus is the most significant planet-and it has had decided impact upon my character and my life experiences (Saturn is #2, for me, about "tied" for influence with Mercury)

Ram, I have sympathy with that thought. With Neptune in particular it seems like there’s a lot of emphasis placed on addiction, self-delusion (or self-dissolution), destructive irrealism, etc. But I have a lot of good feelings about Neptune.
If Freud has us driven by Eros, an unconscious desire to merge with others, and if Venus is Eros contained within the “I” – coming close to the other without dissolving the boundaries that keep us separate beings (and here I think of Libra) – Neptune seems to me to be the massive, oceanic sweep - the end-game, perhaps – of Eros: merging with the other to the point that we loose our self. Greene has it as the longing for redemption, and I can see that… but it also looks to me like agape – the love of God and the love of humanity. Or life itself. The sense I get is that the outer planets introduce energies into our psyche that are bigger than us – bigger than the limitations of humanity. The notion of love that we see in the greatest visions of Buddhism or Christianity, for example, are beyond mere mortals. Yet still we try for them. We have to. I can see the visions of Uranus or the dreams as Neptune as utterly utopian, but humanity needs its utopian heights to keep spurring us, or drawing us, to something better than ourselves.

On one hand, I’m wondering why I don’t find very much about the signs the outer planets are in. With the Sun or Moon, for example, we always find their essential qualities colored by the sign their in. With the outer planets I’ve read about different qualities by sign for generations. But usually when I hear people talking about an outer planet in a chart it focuses on the essential quality of the planet. I’m probably wrong here. But I’m wondering about, in my example, Neptune in Sagittarius. In a fire sign. The planet of spiritual love and mystic communion in the sign of religious philosophy.

More, though, I’m wondering about Neptune at the IC. Well… at the moment, my IC, to be honest. This is the second thread I’ve started thinking about a particular point in my chart. The other was about my nodes, the NN also in my 4th. And I realize a lot of that discussion was actually about this Neptune position. And so the question for me comes back around.
After that thread an astrologer on this site rectified my chart in a way that shifted my house cusps about 2 degrees, with the IC moving closer to Neptune. There Neptune sits, right at the “root” of the chart, trine the moon, the planet of the personal subconscious, and here’s the Sabian Symbol for the degree (8 Sagittarius) as Dane Rudhyar has it: “Within the Depths of the Earth new Elements are being Formed” – keyword “Psychic Gestation.” In my chart Neptune seems all bound up with the unconscious. What sort of condition does Neptune leave a human subconscious in - it's oceanic feeling too big for a single unconscious to contain?

I’ll admit that I learn a lot just by reading and having discussions on this site. Less than looking for “yes/no” answers I’m trying to figure all the puzzles out through dialogue with people more practiced at astrology than I am.
I think I need to figure more about the power of angularity in a chart (planets on angular cusps, since I have at least two and maybe three).
I think I’m trying to put my finger on things here that are inherently and maybe inescapably elusive (Neptune, the unconscious).
I think I don’t get the IC well enough yet. (It seems strange to me that the IC is usually square to the Asc., if the IC is the root of the psyche and the Asc. the personality.)
Kannon suggested the goal is to move from the IC to the MC. Is that a common notion? Is that the goal? These are the sorts of things I’m hungry to know…

And thanks everybody for making this again another interesting, informative thread.

Hi B.D,
No analysis of the chart, yet I do wonder if a total lack of the Earth element that provides evidence through its physical tangibility....of which I have too much..... but for an Ascendant with its ruler in Pisces, could mean that any 'rational' answer regarding Neptune's (and outer planets) meaning is not as 'personally' important as it would be to many. Without Earth, one is not 'grounded' by and to societal conventions which can govern one's actions. Opportunity to follow one's ideas (mental and of spirit) without restriction, as long as it doesn't get 'out of hand'.
I liken the outer planet influence in such cases to a balloon(function) without the attached string that is always felt to be 'just 'out of reach.

Angularity is very important, very powerful.
How was your chart rectified? The Angles played a primary role in the process.

In considering your Neptune on the IC, the aspects to Neptune and condition of his lord must not be ignored. Your chart does not show Mercury square Neptune or Saturn opposing it (the aspect lines). Yet all three planets are angular, Mercury is lord of the Horoscope, Saturn is elevated.... and Neptune has affinity with Pisces, the home of powerful Mercury, and stands directly on the lower angle....Ignore this T-square at your peril.

I don't think that the term 'generational' is a cop-out. Saturn represents boundaries, including the boundary of the individual self. This boundary manifests in time as well as in space - time and space being inseparable.

The outer planets remind us that there is more to us than the individual self- that we all share in a larger life. In terms of space, this is the collective(s) of which we are a part. In terms of time, it is the life-cycles that we are a part of but which will continue to unfold after our death (Saturn). Interestingly, we now tend to just about make a full Uranus cycle on average, and Uranus is just visible to the naked eye in ideal conditions.

The sign positions of the outer planets show us qualities that we share with other members of our 'generation', and that we express by opening ourselves to be larger life of which we are part. These positions show the role of our generation in the unfolding of the outer planet cycle as a whole. We all should try to do this in an individual way, but it is still something that we do as part of that generation.

I disappeared for a couple weeks after I posed my chart, and this thread faded out. Maybe it doesn't need to be revived, but I wanted to respond to the last few posters, and maybe drop another thought or two.

Frisiangal, have any interest in passing some of that excess Earth energy my way? So is that why I tend to flout social conventions? I have to guess it's coupled with all my Aries energy, which I think - like a child - profoundly resents the feeling of social convention diluting any genuine, authentic self-expression.
That said, I'm baffled by Earth energy and I'm increasingly sure that getting over this bafflement is exactly the point of my chart. While my understanding of the moon's nodes have been complexified as I've been on this site and learned more about looking holistically at the natal, I still take the moon's nodes seriously. My NN is in Capricorn, and I can't help but feel I'm wandering through this life, nearly earthless, trying to learn how to activate (Cap = cardinal) that earth energy. I love that you mentioned a string and balloon, because it harkens back to a metaphor I used in that earlier thread I alluded to about my nodes (which actually became as much about Neptune on the IC. You actually made a few key posts on it). Confirmation, confirmation, all the time confirmation.
(http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showpost.php?p=522561&postcount=46)
That said, there's something to that Virgo ascendent, figuring into an otherwise earthless chart looking to learn about earth. But I guess that's for a future thread I hope you respond to...

Birch Dragon said:

Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are slow moving, generational planets, and so - I often hear - their effects in our charts are usually less personal, more to do with the sweep of our lives and the generational ideas and shifts we're born to. When I go about looking for a deeper sense of how an outer planet (in this case, Neptune) is colored by the sign it's in I wind up reading things that de-emphasize the personal effects.

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While I understand the rationale for this idea, I think it is nonsense. We are highly influenced by society, religion, social pressures, job pressures, technology, and more. These have a profound affect on our psyche at any given time.

"But, but, these planets weren't even known a few hundred years ago. How could it affect us now but not then?" Easy. 500 years ago you didn't have technological pressures, women didn't work and have careers, there were no "Joneses" to keep up with, and so on. There was no global economy, no travel to places 20 miles away from your home, and so on. As the world expands, so has the points we need to use in our charts. When I study the chart of a historical person, I only use the planets that would have been known to them, as their world would have been exactly narrowed in the exact same fashion.

So yes, while these outers can be viewed in the macro as generational planets, those different generations also shape us. If your planets were exactly the same as a person born in 1475 (minus the outers) you would NOT be the same person, emotionally or mentally, because the world that you are born in is radically different from the others. That world change is seen in the addition of the outers. A person born in 1475 as compared to someone born in 975 would be far more alike than with you.

My opinion only.

greybeard said:

Angularity is very important, very powerful.
How was your chart rectified? The Angles played a primary role in the process.

In considering your Neptune on the IC, the aspects to Neptune and condition of his lord must not be ignored. Your chart does not show Mercury square Neptune or Saturn opposing it (the aspect lines). Yet all three planets are angular, Mercury is lord of the Horoscope, Saturn is elevated.... and Neptune has affinity with Pisces, the home of powerful Mercury, and stands directly on the lower angle....Ignore this T-square at your peril.

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On the rectification, I'm going to open a thread on that asap and see if anybody wants to pitch in or discuss... I have two charts now five minutes apart and I'm not sure which to use.

On the T-Square: yeah, that's been smacking me in the face since coming to AW. Once upon a time I didn't think it counted as a T-Square because Neptune's degree is pretty wide of the Saturn/Mercury square. But now I realize that this T-Square may describe the conundrum that increasingly, greedily, overwhelms my adult life --- a conundrum that I see slotting right in with my efforts to understand the earth element.
Without going into detail (because I could write a book, and hope to...) the grand conundrum is that of Universal Love vs. Earthly Power, and sometimes Universal Love vs. Justice.
As human beings we want to love. We are called to love by God and each other. Ask any random group of our highest moral and spiritual purpose and I'm pretty convinced the number one answer is going to be "to love." And yet, as human beings we live in an earthly plane that seems to demand (don't know if it has to demand) all sorts of organization - institutional or otherwise - all sorts of boundaries, and importantly, power to get things done, that are perennially creating conditions and demands antithetical to universal love. In a capitalist system of limited resources, somebody has to not eat. In any hierarchical institution - from a business to a university - somebody has to be the bottom-end whipping boy. We have to make choices about where to put our necessarily limited resources and means.
Grand heroes of mine like Gandhi and Martin Luther King spent their adult lives figuring out how to integrate power and universal love. Nonviolence is nothing if it isn't an attempt to infuse the earthly, the institutional, the political, with universal love. And yet (and this I think is Pluto's influence) I simply can't take an honest, penetrating look and the conundrum and not think that Love and the institutions of Power - from the elite to the local - are at war. Saturn's weapon is the power to crush. Neptune's weapon is just to dissolve Saturn and all it's boundaries and institutions right out of existence.
So as Mercury sits in the middle of this battle of the Titans, trying to study, theorize and sort it all out, it naturally sides with Neptune (because it's in Pisces?) But it sees that, enacting this battle in the earthly plane, Saturn is on home ground and has the advantage. Perhaps because Mercury is in the 7th (?) - I already see the most pragmatic answer is some kind of compromise and negotiation between these two Titans.. but I just don't want to dilute Neptune's higher effects. (Alcoholism, grand delusions: I'll let Saturn take those away.)
Maybe this is why I really want to know if what Kannon said about moving from the IC to the MC is the general lesson. Is this chart of mine saying something about the need to move from Neptune at the root to Saturn in the heavens???

mdinaz,
As per another thread we were just passing posts on (where we were discussing the "corporate" nature of the human family), I completely agree with your thoughts here. I see every individual as profoundly shaped by their location in time and space.

miquar,
I get the sense this is also what you're saying, emphasizing the generationality of these charts. (I think I just made up the word "generationality." Cumbersome!)
I've realized through this thread that all my personal planets but one (Mars) are in the 8th house or on the descendent (Mercury), where the 7th and 8th houses - as I understand them - are the place where the experience of meeting and merging with others is most concentrated. And on perhaps the flip of that, my three generational planets are in the most person-oriented houses: Pluto in 1st, Uranus in 2nd and Neptune in 3rd (only just!) on the IC. I wonder if there's something in here about being particularly shaped by the ideas and energies of my g-g-generation? (And you have to be of a certain generation - before mine, even - to get that stutter.) After the Liz Greene book I started Stephen Forrest's book on Pluto and have to admit what he writes about Pluto in Libra is shockingly spot on for my outlook and even career (along with what he says about Pluto in the 1st).
Is this why I think the 70's was the heyday of film-making and can't getting into anything on the music scene - hard as I try - after about 2000???

Birch Dragon said:

mdinaz,


And on p Pluto in 1st, Uranus in 2nd and Neptune in 3rd (only just!) on the IC. I wonder if there's something in here about being particularly shaped by the ideas and energies of my g-g-generation? (And you have to be of a certain generation - before mine, even - to get that stutter.) After the Liz Greene book I started Stephen Forrest's book on Pluto and have to admit what he writes about Pluto in Libra is shockingly spot on for my outlook and even career (along with what he says about Pluto in the 1st).
Is this why I think the 70's was the heyday of film-making and can't getting into anything on the music scene - hard as I try - after about 2000???

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Our charts are very similar, Virgo asc, Pluto libra first, Uranus second ,,and Neptune, NN, at IC but far removed from the conjunct like 8 and 10 degrees separation. And my Neptune is mutual reception to Jupiter. I wonder how close our birthdays are.? Just trying to butt in with my plutorian nature! I read Liz Greene's "Saturn", and I think I just bought the Neptune, I forgot I have a few new books. I liked, "Saturn", she definitely takes you on a journey through the cycles of one's life. It was cool to read because I don't know how she managed it, and maybe I should research it more, but while I read it the Saturn transitory aspects that she initiated coincide with my cycles perfect, it was very synchronized and astute in Psychology/Astrology. I was impressed with that part.

Seriously though, wonderful writing! Especially since I related practically perfect to everything you said. Although, my Saturn is inconjunct my ruler Mercury/Libra Uranus next door to my outraged at the injustice, Pluto.
I also share your goal, to write, however I only just began a formal higher education. Your reflections were inspiring for me.