” ‘Tis thine…to survey, well pleased, the monsters of the ocean play…and with prosperous gales, waft ships along, and swell the spacious sails; add gentle peace, and fair-haired health beside, and pour abundance in a blameless tide”. Greek Orphic hymn to Poseidon

The three outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, circling out there beyond the boundary of Saturn, were unknown to ancient stargazers. But they intuited the distant cosmic realm to be a limitless province of immortality, well beyond fate and time.

NASA/JPL

Neptune was first sighted in 1610 by Galileo who referred to it as a star of the 8th magnitude. It was then “discovered” as a planet in 1846 by the German astronomer Johann Galle. Neptune is a particularly beautiful blue-green planet composed of  gas – hydrogen, helium and methane. Its lovely blue color occurs because the methane gas absorbs red light. Neptune’s atmosphere changes rapidly as the strongest winds in the solar system whip up constant storms. A small white cloud known as the “scooter” spins around Neptune every 16 hours. Faint rings encircle the planet. Several moons have been discovered (14 so far and more to come) named after sea gods and nymphs. One of these moons, Trident, is the coldest known place in the solar system. Neptune is so slow moving that it takes 165 earth years to make one orbit around the sun. Voyager 2, launched in 1977, did a flyby of Neptune in August, 1989.

Neptune is named after the Roman god of the sea, rivers, floods and earthquakes. (Poseidon is his Greek counterpart). His brother Saturn (Zeus) rules the sky. Although the linkage with Greco/Roman myth has occurred only with the planet’s discovery in modern times, let’s be explorers of the archetypal energy that is now emerging in consciousness -fluid and mesmerizing. Neptune’s symbols are the trident (fisherman’s fork), the dolphin and the horse. In his underwater realm, Neptune drove a seashell chariot drawn by hippocamps – seahorses with golden manes. His own golden palace at the bottom of the sea, set amidst caves and grottoes, was splendid – adorned with jewels, crystal rocks, coral, fountains and sea plants. Glow worms lit it up by night.

With his trident, Neptune caused raging storms, tidal waves, earthquakes and upheavals  of land from under the sea. However, he would allow a calm and safe voyage over the waters for fishermen and sailors who invoked his assistance. (Pictured is “Ship in a Stormy Sea by the 19th century Russian artist Ivan Alvazovsky.) Neptune’s linkage to dolphins grew from a myth in which he is said to have wooed the sea nymph Amphitrite under the form of a dolphin.

As a transpersonal planet, Neptune is associated with the spiritual and transcendent dimensions of life, with infinity, myth and religion, images, symbols, dreams, visions and the depths of the unconscious. I invite you to ponder awhile with me on the archetypal energy and psychological associations that shimmer with Neptunian energy. Have you ever tried to look through fog or mist over ocean waves or placid seas?. The horizon appears mysteriously blurred, shrouded yet compelling. Remaining still, you look more deeply.

With Neptune, our feelings will be subtle, thoughts elusive and intuition strong. This is the planet of illusion, of Maya. Boundaries of the ego may begin to dissolve as longings for transcendence arise. We’re drawn beyond time toward the Wholeness of things, toward our eternal Source, the soul’s true home. Divine inspiration wells up like water from the deep, gently washing the silt of illusion away. Under the influence of Neptune we experience oceanic states of mind (be they numinous, mystical or psychic), mull over an inspired understanding given as a shift of consciousness or seek a path of surrender. (This water painting is the evocative “Sunrise” by Claude Monet.)

We become dreamers. Our imagination is heightened and devotion is a fine mist around the awakening soul. Lovely to look upon are St. Francis of Assisi the Mystic by El Greco and “Prince Subuddhi Meets Shiva in the Garden of Illusion.”

“Like billowing clouds, like the incessant gurgle of the brook, the longing of the soul can never be stilled.” Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century German abbess and mystic.

This view of Neptune depicts an ideal expression. The opposite, more problematic pole of the energy is foggy and darker. We might experience our own shadowy fragility. It could appear in us as something like this: confusion, disillusionment, escapism, anxiety, substance abuse (Neptune rules drugs and alcohol), vague restlessness, self-deception (just kidding ourselves). We may be over-sensitive or over-idealistic. Have you ever been in the thrall of illusion about life or romance, confused, lost in a fantasy?

Neptune rules the oceans, seas and fogs and all creators of illusion (and disillusionment) such as magic shows, movie stars, film makers and costume designers, hypnotists, infatuated lovers, photographers, impersonators (the images seem so real). Here is a slide show of some of these great characters dwelling within the psyche/soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credits: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, Deutsche Fotothek, CC BY SA 3.0 (except, of course, those infatuated lovers by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)

Neptune’s archetypal energy radiates the potential of consciousness to know the Divine within, to know creation as a sacred web of being in the One Reality, in Being itself.

“My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”  The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton

“Someday you will hear all things applaud your wonder, Life claps in awe of the Divine’s performance. When your veil is removed, you, dear- you, everyone – will see that your being is Holy.” Meister Eckhart, 13th century Dominican monk – brilliant and mystical

“in my soul there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church that dissolve, that dissolve in God.” Rabia, 9th century Sufi poetess

To all my friends, dreamers, and God lovers, bearers of mystery and inspiration – fishers of treasures from the deep waters – Shalom,

Mary Catherine