This week the Sun- planet of the the self, identity, ego, and self-expression, has been making a trine aspect to Neptune- planet of dreams, spirituality, the subconscious, the occult, illusions, addictions, and the visual arts. The Sun is our brightest light, our strongest energy, but Neptune is misty, cloudy, difficult to see clearly. A trine aspect is when 2 planets are in signs that are 120 degrees (or 4 signs) apart. Trines are harmonious, they are jovial, they want to bring out the best in each other. In this case the Sun in Cancer has been trining Neptune in Pisces- two highly dreamy water signs. Collectively, we’re dreaming, we’re sensitive, we’re feeling all the feels. Whenever this transit rolls around it tends to be a v. v. creative time for me. Lately I have been pretty lost in a fantasy world. Dazed and confused. Always in my head, always day dreaming. Yesterday I was standing in my closet and a big heavy coat hanger leapt off the rack and clocked me on top of the head. It hurt, a surprising lot. And I thought, okay Neptune. Okay.
I am intimately familiar with Sun trine Neptune, because I have it in my own chart (perfectly described and me in a nutshell here). I was told once that this aspect gives a person the ability to “hear the harmony of the spheres.” It’s incredibly sensitive, intuitive and creative. It is the thing, I think, that most makes me a creative kook. The Sun is illuminating the planet of poetry. The God planet is touching the core of the self. Sun trine Neptune makes a born romantic. I am a dreamer, to be sure.
When I was a little girl we lived for a handful of years in a little beach town called Santa Cruz. I would spend most days digging in the sand, chasing the waves, building castles and watching the tide take them. Someone gave me a seashell and told me that if I put it up to my ear I could hear the ocean in it. When I tried it, there it was. There was no part of me that did not believe this to be true. It was a kind of magic I understood to be inexplicably but undeniably real. I spent a lot of time with seashells pressed up to my ear, letting the swirling waves resonate through me, imagining my feet planted in the sand. One day my father told me that it was not the ocean that I heard in the shell, but the echo of my own ear. He explained, in detail (hashtag Virgo), how the shell’s cavity captured the ambient noise and acted like an amplifier, echoing the sounds back. This was fully devastating to me. I think more than discovering Santa Claus was not real or that the world did not end because of Y2K. I mean, I really believed it. Whenever I see a big shell I still press it to my ear, and I can still feel that kinetic ocean magic rising in my chest. Even if I know something is not real, it doesn’t make it any less true for me. I don’t love it less. This is Sun trine Neptune, to me. I see the reality, but my heart always chooses the dream.
One of my favorite things about Neptune is the story of its veil. The veil hangs between this world and the next, between the spiritual realm and earth, between the clouds and the cold hard ground. We’re always trying to transcend it, to get high, to dissolve the boundaries between our bodies & the structures around us, but we can never escape the veil. If we try to go around it, it will pull us under like a wave. If we try to break into heaven, we’ll get thrown down to the depths of hell. Neptune can cloud our vision, make us see through rose colored glasses. We can get caught up in the movies of our minds, in our dreams. We can get so caught up in our dreams that we lose touch with reality.
I was thinking this week about the Spanish film Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes- remade and Americanized with plenty of Tom Cruise schmaltz as Vanilla Sky). It’s a movie about Neptune. A movie about dreams and illusions, about desire, about how a dream can be so beautiful, so sexy, so real. But a dream can quickly turn into a nightmare. You can get pulled down into the darkest places of your subconscious. In the end, the protagonist chooses to wake up. To take his chances on a wide open reality, to begin again. He has to say goodbye to his dream girl (Penelope Cruz, who is also my dream girl). He has to face his biggest fear and leap into the unknown. As he’s about to jump he looks back at the girl and says, “I’ll see you in another life. When we are both cats.”
I once had a teacher who said that Neptune is energy that must be accepted. You can’t control it. You can’t avoid it. It’s just there. I think about this a lot. You can choose reality, but you also have to accept that you will always dream.
Although the trine aspect is friendly, the Sun is not always bright & cheery, and Neptune is not all glamour and romance. Neptune dissolves boundaries, it is the planet of addictions and self-undoing. When Neptune touches the Sun it can have a self-erasing quality. The Sun can shine a light on our illusions. What was dreamy and magical in the night appears very different in the harsh light of day. Maybe your ego wants something that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe you’re doing it for the likes. Or maybe the Virgo dad in your head is telling you your dreams are not attainable. I say, let Neptune dissolve the boundaries of your ego. Accept your dreams. Dream your dreams. Don’t try to control them. Don’t try to suppress them. But respect that veil. Don’t let them pull you under. You might have to put them down sometimes, but you can always find them. Just hold a seashell up to your ear.
little golden age 