Neptune’s symbol in astrology is the cross of matter piercing the crescent of personality, setting it free to manifest at a higher level than personal ego. The cross represents life on Earth and the opposition of the separated will to its evolutionary destiny: the individual will linked in consciousness to all mankind. In the Aquarian age this union will come about through personal evolution and mastery of the personality, rather than through the crucifixion of the personality as has been the case in the last 2000 years.

Neptune, divine compassion, is the higher octave of personal love, Venus. Where Venus says, "I’ll love you if you love me." Neptune says, "I love you because it’s my nature to love. You are worthy of love because you exist." Neptune’s vibration is neither of matter nor of this Earth. It rules all that is subtle, mysterious, ill-defined and not material: sensitivity, suffering, compassion, music, dance, theater, film, dreams, fog, mist, drugs, alcohol, anesthesia, illusion, deception, obligation, the psychic, mediumistic and the mystical. Neptune rules Pisces, the sign of compassion, and the pineal gland and the feet in the human body; it is exalted in Cancer. Its key phrase is "Serve or suffer."

Jesus, a Neptunian master, said, "He who loses himself [the personality] shall find himself [the spirit]." Neptune’s house position in your chart shows where you are being asked to sacrifice something personal and emotional, so that you can feel a larger part of what it is to be human, or to identify with more of life or humanity. You may also be involved with illusion or deception in that house, or feel like you’re operating under some obligation. This is a good place to use Virgo to discriminate between what’s real and what’s illusory. The final attainment of the last sign is universal love. Then sacrifice is joy and there is no suffering, as there is no personal self left to suffer.

Neptune symbolizes sensitivity, psychic and mystical capacity, dreams, illusion, delusion, deception, the higher octave of Venus, drugs, alcohol, obligation, bondage and fog.  In the physical body it rules the pineal gland, the thalamus, the spinal canal and general bodily nervous processes. Famous people with a close (orb > 4°) Neptune-Sun conjunction are/were Susan Anton, Christina Applegate, Yasser Arafat, Clara Barton, Hans Bethe, Lisa Bonet, Rory Calhoun, Carlos the Jackal, Rosalynn Carter, Sean Connery, Michael Douglas, Cass Elliot, Werner Erhard, M.C. Escher, Carrie Fisher, Rhonda Fleming, Buddy Holly, Julio Iglesias, Frida Kahlo, Persis Khambatta, Art Linkletter, Peter Lorre, Louis Pasteur, Ginger Rogers, Susan Sarandon, Red Skelton, Pierre Teilhard De Chardin, Harry S. Truman, Lech Walesa, Sigourney Weaver, Esther Williams, and Keenan Wynn.

This Neptune in astrology page and the entire website are excerpted from You and the Universe, a handmade, individualized fine art book on astrology, mythology and astronomy through which the recipient's complete astrological reading is woven.

Neptune: mythology