Neptune: Spiritual Awakening

Neptune can be your greatest source of enlightenment or your greatest personal challenge. It all depends on how you respond to this mystical (and mystifying) planet. Neptune is your spiritual connection to your Higher Power, but it also rules drugs, escapism, denial and deception. How confounding! Let’s delve into Neptune’s watery depths to clarify the planet’s role in our lives.

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With its subtle, ethereal energy, Neptune bestows great empathy, psychic ability and the desire to merge with the Divine. Psychics, ministers, medical professionals, artists (and con artists) often have Neptune strongly placed in their charts.

If you are in-sync with Neptune, you probably sense unseen forces around you. These forces may be spirits in the afterlife, negative vibes from someone you just met, or your relationship with your Higher Power. Additionally, compassion is probably one of your strongest values.

At its most powerful, Neptune can send you to the heights of spiritual bliss – or artistic inspiration. That’s right, Neptune is also the planet of divine inspiration. Great artists have Neptune prominent in their charts, which gives them the ability to “channel” spiritual energies from other dimensions for their work.

This brings up something you may have wondered about – why do artists often suffer from chaotic personal lives and substance abuse? It’s no coincidence that the planet of artistic inspiration also rules drugs, delusions and disillusionment. These Neptunian elements are often bound together with disastrous results (think Vincent van Gogh cutting off part of his ear and, finally, committing suicide). Neptune can make you exquisitely sensitive. As such, the desire to escape the challenges of everyday life can be a seductive temptation. Denial and a lack of boundaries is often part of the problem as well. Simply put, it’s not easy living on the material plane with such an ethereal planet guiding your life. Still, Neptune offers tremendous gifts.

One compelling example of someone with a strong Neptune is President Barack Obama. He has a Sun-Neptune affliction, actually. Since the Sun is a masculine influence, and Neptune dissolves boundaries, Obama’s challenge growing up was establishing his identity as a man without having a father in his life. What’s more, having a mixed racial heritage meant he had to find his racial identity as well. More recently, Neptune can be seen in his efforts to dissolve the boundaries that keep people apart, like striving for a bipartisan agreement for the stimulus package. Not an easy task, to be sure, but a worthy Neptune goal nonetheless.

So how does one work with this illusive planet? The best way to handle Neptune is to embrace your spiritual life while staying grounded. Balance is the key. After all, most of us have to work and pay the bills. On the other hand, if you get too caught up in the material world, Neptune may come knocking on your door in the form of an illness or job lay-off to remind you that nothing is permanent – and to remind you to look inward for answers. Neptune may rule denial, but its energy won’t be denied, either.

Developing your spirituality through meditation and dream analysis can promote a healthy relationship with Neptune. You can also take some quiet time each day to strengthen the connection to your HIgher Power. Also, staying in touch with your feelings, facing problems head-on and limiting your substance intake (no surprise there!) will help with clarity. Neptune is also associated with therapy, another excellent tool for living a healthy life.

Perhaps most importantly, Neptune helps us realize that we’re all connected, and that the material plane is just a stepping stone on our spiritual path.

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