One would think I would have an enormous amount of first hand experience when it comes to Neptune as its so prominent in my chart. But, like the large blue planet, its difficult to grasp the shape of my Neptunian experiences. The memories are vague, misty and it takes a huge amount of effort to recall the details.
Neptune is romanticized only by those who benefit from it because they subconsciously don the neptunian veil and proceed to, intentionally or not, deceive others. (Neptune is a significator of deception too).
Those who have been swept away to self destruction by its fogginess know what it is to be in a neptunian fog which eventually, like it or not, lifts. When the mist clears, enter disillusionment. If I have to explain the power of Neptune to someone who has a very strong Saturn (and no dominant Neptune), I would compare it to Myopia. Those who wear glasses to see clearly will understand the experience of seeing the world in a blur when the glasses are taken off. The blurring impacts the memory. If we see everything in big grainy pixels, and cannot for the life of us fathom the shape of an object, can we trust what we’re seeing? It feels like since one cannot trust our own eyes, can we trust our memories and thus experiences?
Neptune entered Pisces in 2012 and will stay there until January 2026. Social media exploded in the decade between 2010 and present. Although Facebook and its competitors began a good 5 years earlier, they didn’t gain that exponential rise until late 2009/2010. Is there a link between the two? For sure. Despite my usual skepticism and tendency to err on the side of hard evidence, I’m quite convinced that there is a definite correlation between Neptune and rise of social media.
The rise of social media also birthed a very curious phenomenon- the social media influencer.
Now I’m old. Old enough to have known a world when Yahoo ruled the search engine. A time when ones personal influence extended to the people you surrounded yourself with and the personal power you commanded over your circle. If I were a celebrity, maybe this influence would have extended far beyond. Even so, influence was contained because people weren’t Neptunised yet. Neptune was in Aquarius until 2012 (Except for 4 months in 2011 where it ingressed into Pisces) where it was under Saturn’s thumb so it couldn’t really pull the veil, so to speak, over unsuspecting eyes. Saturn, for all its notoriety of being a first class malefic, does not allow for illusion because he is too concerned with physical reality on earth.
But, once Neptune entered its own sign (in modern astrology anyway) of Pisces; it was home in its watery depths. It started making itself comfortable.
Note that Neptune will transit out of its own domicile and comfort zone and enter Aries around 26th January 2026. Sun is exalted in Aries and this is the domain of Mars, with its fiery, passionate warrior like energy. Expect social media to lose its grip over the masses and celebrity worship and stan culture to dissipate when the Sun comes out.
How does this neptunian flavor affect the individual chart holder? In true Saturnian fashion, and because only Saturn(earth) or the Sun (fire) can dissipate neptune’s fluid and slippery nature, I’m going to limit the scope of this section to prominent neptune placements. And also share a caveat: In modern western astrology, Neptune is credited (or debited?) with delusions or illusions. While In Jyotish, the shadow planet-which-is-not-a-planet Rahu (or North Node) is conferred this dubious honor. That’s another long post for another day.
Neptune placed in the angular houses.
Neptune in the 1st & 7th
With Neptune in the 1st (whatever the sign), the chart holder is a natural at obscuring their authentic self, to others and themselves. The energy is more potent the closer Neptune is to the ascendant.
Although sometimes this placement causes frustration because the chart holder is misunderstood or not seen clearly by others, many Neptune in 1st housers ultimately enjoy the benefits that come along with this placement. The benefits virtuous qualities like kindness, generosity, gentleness etc, that may or may not exist, are attributed to their personality. The massive flip side is that once the neptunian fog lifts when the Sun eventually comes out, the chart holder might get burnt badly by the the very people who placed them on a pedestal. Although its not fully the chart holders fault, it might feel like it once disillusionment sets in. Sometimes, its the chart holder who coats the other person with these “ideal” characteristics that they don’t possess. And its the chart holder who is disillusioned.
This placement is self destructive if the chart holder is not self aware. And very often, self awareness is a steep challenge as they cannot see their ‘self’ (1st house) clearly. They often encounter experiences where they feel like victims without realising their own part to play in the situation. A warped false narrative is internalised and eventually replaces the truth.
As an aside, can you guess how many film actors and social media personalities have Neptune in the 1st? This placement works really well in a domain which necessitates a person pretending to be someone they aren’t. Actors, maybe even crime lords or secret agents/spies.
With Neptune placed in the 7th, the shoe is on the other foot. The chart holder with this placement might idealise their partners, their friends, their family members, their colleagues, their business partners.. All one-to-one relationships are idealized. The ‘other’ is not seen for who they really are, flaws and all, and when the flaws become too large to ignore, the chart holder feels extremely disappointed and let down.
Neptune in the 4th &10th
In the 4th, Neptune affects our emotions, our inner core of self and our immediate environment. If the 1st house is how we present ourselves to the world, the mask we wear in public; the 4th house is who we actually are authentically. Neptune fogs up our sense of our ‘self’, which mystifies and coats everything in our environment with a hallucinatory, glowy light. The chart holder might think of their childhood as ‘perfect’ or their mother as the best mother in the world. Or others in their home might see the chart holder as this ideal human being. Eventually, reality dawns and disillusionment sets in, and then the chart holder could spend the remainder of their lives trying to escape reality, unless they have other strong placements to offset this one.
The closer Neptune is to the IC, the more potent its effect on the psyche and subconscious. Because the 4th opposes the 10th house, Neptune casts its dreamy, fog into the 10th so that the chart holder might find it challenging to get a foothold in their profession.(Unless they are capricorn rising or have dignified saturn or unafflicted Sun).
Neptune in the 10th spiritualises your life’s calling or purpose. Spritualises is a positive spin, negative would be to say that the chart holder could be aimless or lacks sufficient ambition to establish themselves in the world. This would be considered very challenging in a world that places a very high premium of productivity and wealth accumulation. The chart holder might find it easier to channel this neptunian energy into a creative, slightly unfocused career and go with the flow without setting any expectations or goals, which is easier said than done.
Whether Neptune is placed in the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th at birth, with maturity and life experience, and with outer planet transits to the angular houses, the chart holder (hopefully) gains perspective and maturity in managing this energy and restoring balance in their life.
Neptune square Nodes
There’s an element of martyrdom with this placement. There’s a bit of confusion about ones life purpose and calling. It’s likely the chart holder feels unable to handle the harshness of the world and tends to escape into fantasy at every given opportunity. They have a vision for utopia in their minds eye which they escape into because it is so alluring compared to reality, which is often dystopic.
The escapism goes un-noticed and un-acknowledged until one fine day, transiting Neptune conjuncts one of the nodes and Bam!, the chart holder has an epiphany and thus begins the process of spiritual alchemy.
Like all Neptunian transits, this one too is mystifying, even more so because the planet stays in one sign for 13-14 years and passes over a point multiple times by going direct and then retrograding. If Neptune transits over a node, this entire transit could easily take upto a year to complete. The effects would be felt from as far as 2 degrees away and the most intense period would be the conjunction. It is very very very, can I say very again?, critical to practice grounding mechanisms during this transit as Neptune might cause dissociation or hallucinatory effects. Almost drug like. Rarely, depending on where the Nodes are placed, this transit could lead to psychosis. So, if you have this particular placement in your birth chart, please consult a mental health professional if you feel an onset of depression or spacing out.
12th house stellium
This one seems easier but is actually far more insidious than the lone Neptune. The 12th house is where planetary energies dissolve into the collective. If the Sun or Moon placed here along with a few other inner planets, the chart holder might feel invisible or unseen in their lives. They could need or crave solitude, and could be very sensitive to environmental stimuli. Stable menta1l health could be a challenge and the chart holder may feel constantly misunderstood. How to express the 12th house energy appropriately? Maybe developing hobbies and habits that root oneself to the material realm yet direct that creative energy like working with hands (sculpting, cooking, sewing, welding and so on), or full body movement (dancing, yoga) or playing an instrument etc.
What Good Is Neptune?
If one has to harness the energy productively, constructively without destroying the self in the process, then it becomes imperative to find an avenue where this energy is of value in some way. There are a few ways to approach living with neptune in this very physical world with hard physical boundaries. Whatever you do though, and this applies to those who are neptune dominant, avoid mind altering substances like alcohol and drugs.
Escape into and transcend.
Escape into a creative project. Maybe try your hand at acting on a small scale like the local theatre to begin with, if films frighten you. Or write! Let your imagination wild. There’s no boundaries in the fictional world and escaping into writing a fantasy or a sci-fi would be very neptunian.
Escape into the minutae of everyday life, especially if you have inner planets in your 61th house or 12th house; the routine of everyday with all its trivialities is a good balm and push back to the urge to escape. Do the opposite- get totally involved and find yourself in simple routines of doing chores, cooking, cleaning, folding laundry. The repetitive physical actions will act as a grounding force and prevent the spaced out, zoned out feeling that possesess many neptune dominant chart holders
Study philosophy. Nothing like studying the ancients in any civilizations to contemplate and wrap our minds on questions that have interested humans and humanity as a collective forever.
Escape from and transcend.
Meditate. If you have the resources, spend time at a spiritual retreat. Practice yoga. Remember not to idealize or romanticize the world as you get deeper into spirituality. You know the social media sorts with messages of “love and light”; but the spirituality that stems from a authentic sense of self with full acknowledgement of the dance of light and darkness in each of us. The complete and full acceptance of negativity, darkness and impurity, which are as divine and real as light, positivity and purity.
Shadows on a cave wall
Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is.
The Republic, Plato
In Plato’s allegory of the cave, which is a dialogue between Socrates and Galucon, the former describes the situation of prisoners who are chained to the wall of a cave their entire lives while facing a blank wall. They cannot move any part of their body. A fire burns behind them, which casts shadows on the cave wall when objects pass in front of the fire. The prisoners consider the shadows as reality, not knowing any better. Only when the prisoner is released or releases himself/herself, do they realise that what they assumed was reality is not real at all, only shadows of the real world.
So, how does one release ourselves from the cave and shadows and move towards the light (or truth).
I would leave that to you, dear reader, to contemplate and analyze. Oftentimes, one needs to walk the path alone to reach the truth.
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