Why the Sun Conjoining Neptune is So Enchanting

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology. Happy Friday, everybody. Today, we're going to take a look at the Sun's upcoming conjunction with Neptune in the late degrees of Pisces, and in order to do that, I'm going to read a passage from Liz Greene's book The Astrological Neptune in the Quest for Redemption.

In my opinion, this is probably one of the better books that's ever been written on the subject of Neptune. It is absolutely fantastic, and I'm going to read you a portion of the text where she writes about the Sun Neptune's contact either natively or by transit, and I'm going to pause as we go and offer you my own reflections and you know, observations and commentary from my own practice and observing this transit or natal placement at work in people's lives and this should, I hope, prepare us for engaging with the archetype over the weekend. So that is our goal for today,

Before we get into it, do something special with the like button. You are free to be as creative as you'd like to be, and if you care to share how you engage with the like button, you know, we have a rich comment section that is now actively telling us about the myriad number of ways that you have been engaging with the like button, and you can share your comments, of course, and if you would like, there's a transcript of any of my daily talks on the website, nightlightastrology.com.

If you go over there right now, you know, speaking of Neptune last night, we had a webinar on Neptune in Love. If you go to the events page and click on live talks, you will see that under the live talk page, Neptune in Love is right there, and you'll see after the talk is over; I'm recording this just prior to it. But after the talk is over, you'll see the recorded talk version for sale.

So, if you missed it, you can still sign up and get a copy. We talked about Neptune in love and relationships in this talk from the standpoint of Natal placements or transits and really just trying to understand the outer planets in the way that they speak to us in love, sex, and relationships. So, Pluto and Neptune, we have now covered. You can get the recording of either of those on the live talks page. Or you can go to the shop, where we have a lot of different things that are there for sale, including some of the previous MasterClass series that we've done. My book is being released in one chapter at a time through audio and text. So your interest and love is next month, and I hope to see you guys at that one.

The other thing that I am promoting right now is Ashley's herbal apprenticeship program, which you can learn more about by going to skyhouseherbs.com. I'm very happy to be supporting my wife in her return to teaching herbal medicine, which she did for many, many years prior to a couple of years ago. She took a little bit of a break, and now she's back. So it's very good to have her back. There's like nothing better than, you know, like, I don't know if you guys are married or not. But when your spouse is in their purpose, right? It's just she's so happy that she's teaching herbs again, and I'm so happy for her.

Anyway, her herbal apprenticeship program starts on April 24, and you can learn more about the program on the page under the Course tab. There are flexible pricing options that you can find; we have need-based tuition for this program as well, and at the end of today's video, if you stick around, you'll see an interview that I did with Ashley, talking about the apprenticeship program if you care to stick around and learn more about it. So all right, now that we've gone through some announcements, and oh, you know, one more thing I should mention is that our spring Speaker Series is coming up here at the end of March, those are all free if you go to the live talks page.

Or, if you go to the events page, you'll see the speaker series. Click on that. All three of those talks coming up at the end of those end of month are completely free and open to the public. That is something that we provide thanks to your support through the Kickstarter. So check those out, too. There are some good speakers coming up here at the end of the month.

All right now, what I want to talk about today is the upcoming conjunction of the SSun and Neptune, and I titled this talk Why the SSun conjoining Neptune is so enchanting because it is it's one of the more magical, mystical, enchanting transits that we see and we do see it throughout the year. As the Sun moves through the Zodiac, Neptune moves very slowly. You know, you're gonna see the conjunction, the square, the trine, the sextile, the opposition, the closing square. It's not like something we never see. But when it comes around, it's easy to forget how magical the transit really is. So that's what we're going to refresh ourselves on today with this passage from Liz Greene.

This is today, Friday, March 15. We're going to move forward, and voila, they can join by early Monday morning, March 17. So you spread this out, give it a few days, and you've got about yesterday, Thursday, March 14, and then we'll give them about three degrees of separation to about Wednesday, March 20. But you'll really notice it on Saturday and Sunday, this weekend, the 16th and 17th of March. So, on that note, they are in the double body of water sign of Pisces; in modern astrology, where outer planets have been assigned, rulership is not a convention that I follow. But for those who do, Neptune is, of course, quite at home in Pisces, and so that's an interesting little tidbit because the watery sign of Pisces is sometimes associated with Neptune in our minds in modern astrology.

Anyway, I'm going to read you a passage on Neptune and the Sun that made such an impact on me that I revisit this probably 10 to 15 times a year in my own study and practice and I've actually had clients come in where if they're going through a Neptune Sun transit to their birth chart, Neptune transiting the Sun in their birth chart, I will often share a little excerpt from this passage, because I think it's so profound.

Now, this is, yeah, and about three and three to three and a half pages, and I'm gonna pause as we go to offer you my own little commentary, but Liz Greene says it better than I ever could. So we'll just we'll mostly defer to her, but I'm going to add in some of my own thoughts here.

She starts off when Neptune is connected with the Sun; the need for individual self-expression and the longing for the formlessness of pre-birth are forced into dialogue. The subject of the conversation, conscious or unconscious, is the purpose of one's life. So, for 1000s of years, the Sun has been associated with that sense of purpose. That gives our life something like a narrative arc.

Okay, so, in modern astrology, we often say, what's your Sun sign, right? What's your sign? For ancient astrologers, the rising sign and the ruling planets and the planets in the first house, sometimes the moon, were more indicative of character temperament and psychology. The Sun was really a description of something like the archetypal domain of life that defines one's sense of purpose.

Okay, so it's, it's really important to make that distinction because Liz Greene makes the similar distinction. Insofar as our ego is rooted in some sense of purpose. There's definitely a connection with our character. But it's important to think of the Sun as a kind of narrative arc. The Sun and Neptune are uneasy bedfellows, and it generally takes at least until the time of the first Saturn Return for the individual to begin to fathom how to live with this disturbing cohabitation.

She's speaking there about people who have it natively, that it is possible, as suggested by the Greeks who coupled the two gods in their joint shrine at Delphi, presenting the worshiper with an alternating rhythm of solar clarity and cathartic ecstasy, each with its own part of the year set aside for the appropriate rituals. That's another little important tidbit because when she mentions that there is a kind of unification between these two gods in the Greek imagination, it's important to understand what they each represented and how such a synthesis of the two gods is possible.

So, presenting the worshiper with an alternating rhythm of solar clarity and chthonic ecstasy, one of the words is chthonic. A simple way of putting in is that it means that there's, it's more like Ocean and Earth, and with the word chthonic, you often get the feeling of something very earthy and almost like, I would use the word pagan in a very respectful way, in an honoring way, like a rich pagan kind of feeling.

But it's earthy and sensual, and it's a little chaotic and magical; the chthonic solar clarity is more like the sense of enlightenment that you get sitting on a rock in a loincloth, you know, like just meditating and connecting with the transcendental ground of being. Right? That's the solar clarity. Well, that's what makes the pairing of the two a little bit difficult. You have these two Gods: one that represents going down in, and the other one that represents going up and out.

In fact, the sign of Pisces connects the two fish whose tails are tied together in some images. With one fish going upward and eastward, there's solar clarity, and the other one goes downward and westward down toward the Earth, which is the chthonic ecstasy. So that duality is actually present in Pisces, which is why we sometimes get like, what is the image, for example, of trying to escape the pain of the world through drugs? That's complicated. You'd imagine not just one that we can write off by saying, oh, that's an addict or something.

There's certainly addiction there. Right? That can be a disease and a real problem. But the desire to transcend the world, to transcend pain and suffering, is very solar, to go up to the top of the mountain, whereas the use of something that's very worldly, that eventually entangled you more deeply in the world, in the body in addition, to a material substance that also offers a kind of sensual, embodied, but temporary high. That's the chthonic ecstasy, a shadow of the chthonic ecstasy.

So drug addiction is a complicated image that is actually at the heart of some of the archetypes of Pisces as a sign, so anyway, that solar clarity and chthonic ecstasy This is why we see Neptune as not badly placed in the sign of Pisces as an archetypal Association. The Sun symbolizes those values and goals that develop at midlife, forming the bedrock of an individual's sense of personal destiny. The Sun-Neptune individual needs to include the Neptunian world in his or her chosen path in life; otherwise, nagging discontent, disillusionment, and apathy may undermine everything one tries to do.

When the Sun Neptune comes through, there is this nagging sense if your life is not inclusive of something transcendental, otherworldly, ecstatic, and infused with a sense of higher or transcendental ideal, an ideal that gives you purpose and meaning. There'll be this nagging sense of discontentment, disillusionment, or boredom that can kind of surface, and that's something to watch for this weekend, too.

All the aspects, hard and soft, require some expression of the pre-birth realm through an individually developed medium, preferably, but not necessarily, one that can be pursued as a vocation or profession. The Neptunian world might be simple; all one has to do apparently is think transcendent thoughts, but the Sun is a dynamic force that seeks to express and actualize. It must radiate out into life and make some impact, however small in the outer world. If the person is to avoid the illusory comfort of an escapist spirituality, he or she must find a vehicle that offers an outlet for Neptune, sensual, and emotional theatricality, as well as its longing for fusion with the divine.

Most importantly, this vehicle must be individual doctrines; however beautiful and worthwhile they might seem, they are not individual unless they are processed through one's own experience and values. So you can't sign up for Transcendental Meditation and think that that's enough, I love TM, but you can't sign up for a, you know, a yoga program or an astrology program or any kind of program and think that that's enough.

There's a way in which the Sun Neptune requires that the transcendental or spiritual or imaginative or artistic impulses be channeled through the very essence of your being that it be so personal and that it be that purpose comes through a marriage of something transcendental ideal, which maybe has religious and spiritual themes or elements. That's not like you can't go to yoga, you can't learn astrology, or you can't meditate, or do something to get there. But it has to be personal, and that's the sense that, you know, that many Sun Neptune transits will result in a person feeling like they found something otherworldly.

But in the end, it's it; the glitter wears off because there was something about it that left out the individual uniqueness of the soul, the character, and that, by the way, is not so different from saying that it leaves out the chthonic the realm of the Earth, because the soul as opposed to the spirit, a kind of dyad of our of our being, the spirit connects with the transcendent, but the soul is rich and deep and sort of earthly it is bound up in idiosyncrasies and uniqueness then so you can't like the call for something greater if it eliminates individuality which often these various you know spiritual programs will they will sort of erase individuality, and you'll just be gazing into infinity with people was always something that annoyed me about the New Age world when I was in it more intensely. Oh my god, Alright, anyway. You need individuality. So, if the person is to avoid the illusory comfort of an escapist spirituality, you must find a vehicle that offers an outlet for Neptune. Sensual, emotional, and spiritual theatricality is longing for fusion with the divine, but it has to be individual. It's very important, right?

This is why The same exact transit will of Sun Neptune will often be associated with people when they become disillusioned or disappointed with or disenchanted with something in their life that maybe offers something you know, something that you've bought into, or that you've become deeply identified with, but that has also sort of diminished your sense of individuality you'll start recognizing it like whoa, Sun Neptune may signify the musician the actor, the composer, the playwright, the writer of poetry and fiction, the painter, the filmmaker, the photographer, the astrologer, the experimental scientist who relies on inspiration as well as empirical research or the therapist counselor teacher who works with the products of imagination in order to heal.

Neptune may also feel at home nurturing or redeeming an environment, which echoes Eden. Neptune's empathy with human suffering and longing marks the Sun Neptune's individual individuals creative endeavors. With the quality of universality, he or she can communicate the language everyone understands. These forms of expression are solar as well as oceanic. They have body although they are fluid. They necessitate conscious effort, dedication, individual choice, sensual contact and imagery, and a subtle interrelationship with the rest of life. Neptune makes the sun ego porous, open to the waters of the unseen world. But the unseen is not just transcendent light; it is also primal darkness.

If one tries to befriend the little fish without the big one, the darkness may rise up through other channels, alcohol, drug addiction, compulsive eating disorders, sexual difficulty disabling or disintegrating mental or physical illness, where it may be experienced through projection and by some blackly, humorous quirk of fate one's partner or child will embody all the murkier Neptunian elements that one most strongly repudiates within oneself.

So here she's basically saying that there are all of these beautiful Sun Neptune endeavors that you'll find are common in the charts of people with Sun-Neptune, or during Sun-Neptune transits will, you'll see the manifest, the counselor, the healer, the artist, you know, all of these things that are so beautiful, they're truly like, so inspiring Sun-Neptune is lovely in that respect. However, solar clarity without chthonic ecstasy, along with the Earth, is a complicated place. It's a place of desire, fear, competition, hostility, pain, impermanence, and suffering, as well as tremendous beauty, right, compassion, and forgiveness.

So, the Earth you, you cannot go like you cannot paint a rosy picture of the Earth and try to cast it all in golden light. If you do that, then the repression of the chthonic of the complicated realm of the Sun Neptune, which involves the urges and impulses of the nature of the jungle of life, if you try to eliminate those, they will come up in some way, and they will often come up as, oh, I'm in a religious group, but the Guru is molesting me. I mean, this is real, this sounds terrible, but this is real, real sun Neptune talk here; you will find that to the extent that your spirituality is glazed over, your ego has become identified with Neptune to the extent that I'm so spiritual, I'm a healer, nothing is wrong here.

There are no complications, or you look at the complications of the world, and you see them as stains as sinful or bad, or there's a judgment about them to the extent that you repudiate those things rather than developing the complex relationship that's needed with them. It's a complex relationships like the What's your relationship status with the chthonic world of Earth? It's complicated, right?

That's the status. If you leave that out, the sun Neptune person, like Pantheous, may initially succeed in banning the chthonic but may end up marrying a manic depressive hysteric and alcoholic, giving birth to a little Dionysus who becomes a drug addict when he grows up. It is better to develop a difficult, complicated appreciation for the Chthonic realm than try to repudiate it. The individual of the Sun, Neptune, longs to want to experience speaking being taken out of himself or herself through a voluntary act of submission to something greater or higher. So she goes on I'm going to skip the next role.

The next part is a little bit here. If the Sun is swamped, she goes on for a little bit about stuff that's not super relevant to us. If the Sun is swamped and individuality can only make itself known through covert channels, symptoms that justify one's unconscious demand to be noticed, or a relationship pattern in which one specialness is measured by the degree of victimization suffered at the hands of a selfish and domineering partner, child, parent or friend. So the extent to which we identify with saving or helping people eventually, with sun Neptune, it comes around to bite us because there'll be a way in which we're constantly diminishing our own value or worth, and then the Sun Neptune becomes all about needing to set boundaries.

If you can follow that, that's one great Sun-Neptune pattern. If Neptune is suppressed, symptoms reflecting one's own helplessness and dependency may appear, or one may be repeatedly drawn to those who are themselves helpless and victimized, and one may experience an intolerable longing for something unknown and unseen. A longing for dissolution, which can only be satisfied by an act of what older astrology textbooks called self-undoing.

See, if we're repressing Neptune, then often Sun Neptune will come up as overwhelmed, confusion, feeling lost, feeling in need of help, feeling helpless, needing to rely on the forgiveness, charity, and compassion of other people because we've been so self-centered and so self-reliant that we have forgot that we are a dependent being connected with the web of being and that's a sun Neptune thing is gonna be very healing. The personal Father now goes on to talk about the father figure, which is also important for Neptune-Sun. The personal Father melded with the archetypal Father, is a symbol of every child's sense of confidence and creative power. This is why we expect so much from our fathers, who will inevitably get it wrong in one way or another because they are mortal. It is also why the Sun in the horoscope seems to personify what has been inherited from the Father as part of the raw material of one's own individual destiny.

Notice she says Destiny, not character; the mythic hero's quest is invariably the externalization of an attribute embodied by this parent, his parent God, or any planet aspecting. The Sun points to a particular facet of the Father archetype, which is the individual tasked to confront and express as creatively as possible. The Neptunian Father is the dismembered Orpheus, or the wounded Grail King rendered impotent by life's harshness or by his own burden of human sin. The internalized father figure provides the rudiments of a sense of purpose, just as the internalized mother provides the rudiments of an instinctive trust in life. The Neptunian Father is a spirit who has not embodied himself in life, and his child is left to find his or her own model for a confident life.

It is not surprising that many Sun-Neptune individuals take a long time to do so. Now she's talking about Dad's karma. There's also something to be said about the Sun Neptune's context with fathers who are incredibly compassionate, spiritual, or imaginative. So it's not all bad, but she's certainly talking about the shadows to watch for. There is often considerable creative potential inherited from the Father.

I have met many Sun-Neptune people whose fathers were talented actors, musicians, writers and painters that although frequently these fathers could not make their talents work in outer life, or abandon their gifts or never expressed them at all once they embarked upon marriage and fatherhood. The individual with Sun Neptune may pay for this dreamer father with an annoying internal sense of impotence sooner or later; they will have to develop self-confidence from scratch because the Father perhaps did not offer a strong enough example.

So again, like she's talking about how the sun Neptune contacts in a natal chart can activate various shadows or challenges that arise from the connection to the patterns in one's Father, but I will add as someone who's seen tons of charts and people with sun Neptune over time, many in many cases Sun Neptune contacts will show people whose fathers offered some very ideal sense of, you know, romantic, artistic, imaginative spiritual sensibilities and that will serve as a source of inspiration for the individual and at the same time, sometimes there is a way in which Sun Neptune contacts will suggest that you need to individuate and figure out who you are relative to this very beautiful and inspiring image that the Father created.

So it's not always that the Father is just a kind of failure, imaginative, spiritual, artistic, you know, kind of like a talented but maybe unrealized or something, which is definitely a shadow, but also that the Sun Neptune is such a strong example at times that it's hard to differentiate yourself and figure out who you're going to be. As someone with some Neptune contacts in my chart, you know, like I grew up, for example, with a father who was a in many ways a really great example of a spiritual figure, and figuring out how I wanted to take from that but create my own thing has been a real like that's been a real source of challenge at times.

That's just as common as the idea that there's some like your dad's in like Sun-Neptune, your dad's an alcoholic or sudden Neptune, your dad's inspired but not able to translate his gifts into the real world or something which are shadows but Liz Greene I don't think goes far enough to talk about the positive ways in which Sun-Neptune can leave this inspiring mark on a person, and it's not just Father either Sun-Neptune comes about in the sky like it is this weekend, at any point when there are people who are really inspiring as examples of what we can be or examples of a life filled with purpose that we admire that we want to take after, and yet the challenge may be there of defining for ourselves what that looks like. Because Sun Neptune, again, will require that anything ideal transcendental inspired, mystical, imaginative, still has to be personal. It can't. We can't just copy something; we have to realize what our own source of creative inspiration looks like.

So anyway, that is it. I wanted to just share a few little parts from that. I highly recommend that you check out that excerpt if you want to read a fantastic book about Neptune. The astrological Neptune in the Quest for Redemption by Liz Greene is one of my all-time favorite books on Neptune. The entire Center for Psychological Astrology series, the CPA series, is really good, including that book. So maybe you guys can check that out.

That is it for today. I hope you guys have a great weekend. I would love to hear your stories. If you have a story to share, use the hashtag grabbed or email us your story grabbed@nightlightastrology.com. Tell us how the Sun and Neptune showed up in your life this weekend, and don't forget that you can get the replay on nightlightastrology.com of the Neptune in Love talk that we did last night, and you can also hop over to Skyhouseherbs.com to learn more about Ashley's apprenticeship after I sign off. You can stick around if you'd like to hear the interview that I did with Ashley about her upcoming herbal apprenticeship program. That is it for today. Hope you guys have a great weekend. We'll see you again next week. Bye