Neptune in Broad Brush Strokes

Neptune in Pisces says, "Your radar has shifted from your electronic community into your deep personal heart space that permeates out into the ether.”




Neptune is often understood to have a spiritual resonance. Yet my friend and fellow astrologer, Ed Cannel, pointed out that there is nothing actually “spiritual” about Neptune. Within its glyph the symbol of spirit, the circle, is absent. The upward crescent of Neptune symbolizes receptivity, perceptiveness and contact with new realities. The energy of Neptune is towards the superconscious and its ability to link it with material realities. What separates Neptune from pure Spirit is the human quality of creating the “ideal” and the human trait of creating of myths and heroes. Herein lays the possibility for fantasy, illusion, deception coupled with the highest possible expressions of the human heart: compassion, charity and kindness.



Neptune in Pisces will trine the Neptune in Scorpio (1955-70) crowd over the next 15 years. The massive flow of energy will re-awaken the era that heralded huge shifts in the roles of men and women. What the energy of Scorpio did between Neptune in Libra and Neptune in Sagittarius was to deeply stir-up the bottom of relationships!



From the mid 50’s onwards Neptune in Scorpio set the earth quaking with music filtering sexuality.



Fevered change rumbled into the 60’s, sexuality openly displayed by the youth culture--abundant thanks to Pluto/Uranus opposing Saturn for the crisis and the crossroads.



Come 1970, Neptune was done grinding through karmic ties and began lifting to the intellectual highs of Sagittarius. Folks must have felt some relief--yet Uranus and soon later Pluto, were just beginning to bust through the relationship garden of Libra. Partnership rules were yet to undergo further re-modelling. Pluto through Libra spawned the intense desire and need for life-long relationships, simultaneously dividing ruthlessly contracts that were not deeply balanced within. The root awareness: sexual contests and gender roles between men and women again and again and again. Divorce rates proliferated into society and became an option from there on in. The male/female game really took a beating. …



I was a kid in the 70’s and watched with shock many families around us begin to break apart. It was frightening as well as awakening, a snatching of innocence. With Uranus and Pluto making tracks through Libra, that cardinal point, what broke apart in relationships - broke apart the individual - from the family setting and extended out to the societal expectations. Explosion! The illusion that the status quo was solid and immovable cracked and as if for the first time, there was room to step outside. As kids we were all wondering if the threat would break up our own homes, if it hadn’t already. I remember watching my mother watching Gloria Steinem on TV and sensing the electricity of new ideas. Change! I remember the novel The Women’s Room by Marilyn French sitting beside her purse. I remember her vacuuming to the voice of Helen Redding singing I am Woman. My mother has 5 planets lined up in Libra, including Neptune at 0 degrees.



The Neptune in Libra era does feel like a time so far away from my own. I don’t have the same triggers as they do, nor the same hopes or fears. My only scope of this time is through cinematic history and music, appropriately Neptune's rulerships. 1942-1955, the energy of Surrender, Idealization, Romantic Mist poured through Libra. This is the Base Ball DIAMOND of relationships. “Who’s on 1st? … Got a man on 2nd?” Competition was blurred by the fairness of the rules and the attractiveness of the uniforms: a game played between REAL Men and REAL Women. Their instructions were given through the movies and television of how to portray and perceive self and other. Semiotics, as a deconstructive device, was still yet unavailable to most average viewers. The masses were simply hypnotized. Whatever pieces of the game didn't fit were to be denied or avoided. If it hurt, then it hurt badly and playing the role of the victim heightened the score. How else would the saviour make the stage?



The underside to the overt game playing was the brutal sadness at the loss of authentic self for the sake of the relationship. The sacrifice of self for the prize of social acceptance, meant a huge amount of medicated depression was going on behind closed doors. Edith Piaf and Marilyn Monroe come to mind. Their pain, personal and projected, meant that they wore what others could not afford for themselves. Yet the veil of forgetting, nor the glamour, sadly could not protect these two women from their own suffering.



Alcohol (the spirits) and cigarettes (The fog) were trusted screens of the 40’s and 50’s. Note the television series Mad Men, ironically depicting male and females roles during this era. Neptune rules madness as well as advertising. Today we can watch this series in present time reading the through layers of meaning, entertaining all the more because the glamour still seduces us!



--Funny thing, when I see Trannies today, dress-up as glamour stars from the past, I get how constructed the ideal female was back then. So much so, that a handful of gay men with real enthusiasm for that kind of beauty, can pull off the look with more ease and grace than most of women of that era ever could.



Transition to Neptune in Scorpio: intensity, vice, seduction, vivid colors, aliveness, free-flowing sexuality, a heightening of all senses, a lack of inhibition. While each one of these qualities has something to teach us, leaving them to chance experience or to be channelled through illicit drugs, is likely to leak this potent energy and to weaken what we are capable of becomingThe doors of perception are no longer unlocked through drugs. In fact drugs are now obsolete. While the music and movie industries may never become totally ``clean``, awareness is there. We are clearer on the pain that leads to drug addiction.



Neptune in Pisces: innocence, universal love, music streaming, heart spaces-uniting with divine wisdom.



The flow of Neptune between Scorpio and Pisces is oceanic. The generation that waved the flag: Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll, will be sensing their feelings, still waving what runs deeply and flows over. Waters in Pisces lift to meet the sky --and breathe a little easier--taking their own course, through timeless music beyond what can be seen.

Air

                                                                             
The element air, is second of the five elements (pancha mahabuthus). It comes second because it evolves from ether, space. As the potential possibilities become active within space, the result is air.

The sense of touch and air are in separable. Air is associated with the 4th chakra, Anahata.

The skin is considered the associated sense organ of the element air as the hands are considered the organ of action, reaching out to touch and create the world around us.


"I was so touched!"

Astrologically, air is the element of commincation. We communicate far more through our hearts, what we radiate through our being and our gestures, than we do through words.  

Heathly air is maintained through steady routines.


Emotionally, surrender leads to the highest manifestation of air or motion, and this requires faith. Faith in both self and the divine.




Excerpts taken from:
Author: Dr. Marc Halpern

Published: Light on Ayurveda Journal

The Elements

Ether. Space. It is the space filled by the other elements: Air, Fire Water, Earth.


I am someone who really needs her space.


We create healthy ether or vata dosha by filling the emptiness in our lives. Our lives become full, not by being busy, but by being nourished physically and emotionally. Proper nourishment and regular routines act as a container for ether and the vata dosha.

Ether is said to be the vibration of primordial sound, or unmanifested sound. Within the chakra system, ether is associated with the 5th chakra, Vishuddha. Sound and ether are inseparable. Because of their intimate relationship, the ear is considered the associated sense organ and voice (mouth) its organ of action.

Ether has no boundaries nor does music. Music is a language that connects us all.



Excerpts taken from:

Author: Dr. Marc Halpern
Published: Light on Ayurveda Journal

Recent Rumblings

Getting in the swing of social media has been slow and kind of scary for me. Be it that my progressed Sun is sitting at 00 degrees Aquarius, I am now having dreams of the interconnectedness of beings through the electronic communication space. The dreams have showed the "numbers of units" that separate the personal profile from the electronic stream. The boundaries are becoming very thin obviously. In one dream I was shown how the connected field could save a car crash from happening. As one driver was on the verge of having a heart attack, this information was immediately released into the stream of traffic surrounding her, and before the heart attack took hold of her and her car drove out of control, the stream slowed down to buffer, protect and avoid an ensuing crash. Thats a definite positive outcome of the Technology's development!

Through-to-another=Year

If you mark your New Year on Jan. 1st, the tail end of December is complete with family, celebration, sorrow, joy, effort, indigestion and clean-up!

Its a birth. And with every birth there comes a passage. The last twelve days of December, starting at the Solstice, begin a period where our schedules start to accomdate the New Year's Energy. Decorating your home, making space in your calendar for special people and events, we all have our own  rig-a-ma-role: its a  time of Scheduled Disruption. A neccessary procedure. Twelve days of Disruption, sacred disruption, for its the celebration of the re-euion with "Sun of God". Astrology written in plain english within the Bible. Three days after the darkest night of the year, we find the days getting little by little, longer and longer. We unhinge the last year, be it through drink and merriment or degrees of sorrow, suppressed rage, unrest, and like any birth, death travels along side and we are compelled to take up the challenge of another year. 

With this New Year's Energy, may you find new feet, new ground, new support and new resistance.

Mercury Retrograde.

the Sun + your Spine

The most important line in hatha yoga practice is the spine. Astrologically, the spine relates to Leo and is ruled by the Sun. The spine represents our will; hence, “the spineless bastard” is a weak-willed individual. The Sun being our brightest Luminary, requires that we feed the needs of the Sun sign and it’s placement, in order to feel vibrant and alive. One’s biological age can be denied by the condition of the spine. How can you determine your age? Youthful is supple, open to new experiences, playful and flexible; aged is ridged, concave, narrow-focused and broken-hearted. Leo also rules the heart. Notice where the eye of your heart is pointing right now, and diagnose the present condition of your spine.... How best can you serve the needs of your Sun sign and it’s placement, today?                                                                              
Yogini: Tricia Keith

astrology + yoga + art

Today I am thinking of the symbols that represent the elements we see in nature and astrology: earth, water, air, fire and how they link to one's yoga practice. Earth is the element belonging to Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, as well as representing our body and our physical nature. Fire is the element belonging to Aires, Leo, Sagittarius, as well as representing our will, whose heat is contained by Air, and the signs Gemini, Libra and Aquarius.The atmosphere of our minds. We are nourished by the depths and rhythms of the oceans, our emotions and the rain, held within, Cancer, Scorpio and Picses which are then contained by the earth. The balanced interaction of these elements can be seen as nature (Spirit/Self). Our bodies communicate through our emotions. When balanced, we sense wholeness and connectedness with the centerpoint of our Selves. (The circle of Existence.)

The practice of yoga itself reflects the four elements: will (fire) is needed to carry out the discipline, to energize a sometimes sluggish body (earth) to perform postures and thereby shift, squeeze, damn up and then release the flow of fluids ( water) in union with the inner self (spirit). The asanas are the primary symbols created for the mind (air) to focus upon. The more awareness and skill the practitioner uses, the more the postures begin to take up both ends of the spectrum: lifted and grounded, forward facing and backward facing, ease and effort, of this world and not of this world.

Yogini: Tracy Hetherington