Neptune Transits and Loss of Ego

 

April 15, 2005

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/apr15.html

 

Dear Eric,

 

Help, Neptune is kicking my butt! And in this mist of love and compassion, I can?t seem to find my ego.

 

Recently, I received an astrological analysis for the year, and in a well written, computer generated synopsis of the year?s trends, I was told that the most relevant thing that I could do this year would be to find my voice, my essence, my personality, my uniqueness. Not to rely on relationships of any kind to define who I am. True, this is great advice, especially for me, but my question is, how do I find that uniqueness when I can?t find my ego or its discrimination?

 

I hope that I have been blessed with a kind and loving nature, but this Neptune transit is overkill! Neptune opposes Pluto, Neptune conjuncts my Sun and ascendant, Neptune here and Neptune there. I do believe that I will welcome Saturn with open arms to my sign!

 

I guess my question is, do you see any semblance of me in my chart? You advised that we live our chart. I feel like my chart is living me.

 

I have an abundance of love and compassion, and I am sending you some with this letter.

Thanks,

Donna

Oct. 12, 1948

 

 

Dear Donna,

 

Okay, let me see if I understand you. You?re looking for your ego? You could find it quickly by tempting yourself with a little greed, envy, fear or guilt. There are plenty of people on the planet who can show you how to do that. But I don?t think you would feel any better.

 

You seem to be describing the long conjunction of transiting Neptune to your Aquarius Moon, and opposite your Leo Pluto. Or, said another way, your natal chart has an opposition (180-degree aspect, two planets in opposite signs and at full polarity to one another), and Neptune in Aquarius is making a conjunction to the Moon and an opposition to Pluto.

 

The natal aspect alone is what one could call ego-dissolving, or certainly rather trying over a long period of time. It is likely that you based your whole idea of yourself on this aspect. Moon-Pluto is deeply psychological, there is a cosmic longing for contact, love and expressing your emotions. There is such yearning for empathy in this aspect that I can barely begin to describe it.

 

At the same time, I would have to stretch to think of two placements more opposite in quality than the Moon in Aquarius (which tends to focus on groups, collective themes, shared responsibility and be fairly easy going) compared to Pluto in Leo (a generational placement of the Baby Boomers, which focuses energy intensely on oneself, one?s goals, one?s identity and one?s personal state of existence -- and has a somewhat egotistical quality to it in a way that about 100 million Americans and quite a few Europeans express as part of their normal lives). But the Moon in Aquarius is going to cool this off, because it understands there is ?more to life than me?.

 

The two placements working together will serve to push you out of your shell (as a lifelong project) and compel you to find your real community.

 

There are, essentially, two very different self-concepts functioning in your chart, even without looking at the Sun or the ascendant. And because of the Neptune transit, the whole theme of ?self-concept' is up for reassessment right now. I suggest looking closely, because the desire to have your self-concept be the source of your true voice is a little like expecting your Microsoft Windows browser sit down and write a novel. It is true that you can use your browser to go to different web pages and write a novel, but something else is driving the computer along, and that something is you -- not your idea of who you are.

 

It's true that Neptune gets the keywords love, compassion and 'higher octave of Venus' attached to it all the time. But I don't think that any of those really applies. How we experience Neptune has a lot to do with who we are, how it's placed in our chart, our strength of character, and many other factors. Most outer planets are not so cozy or private. They will however compel us to make big changes, or to push our selves in entirely new directions. They will change the shape of who we are and the world that we live in. But to give one example, you can have plenty of Uranus in your chart and be brilliant, and if you don't learn to use your Mercury and express yourself, you may seem or feel insane.

 

Neptune in transit tends to wipe the slate clean. They also tend to have a sink or swim quality which compels us to develop what I will reluctantly call spiritual resources: boundaries, discipline, honesty, and a focus on the more important things in life rather than the petty ones.

 

I can say this for certain. Your Moon-Pluto opposition represents a long, ancient psychological legacy from your mother. I suggest you do a close investigation of what that is, even if you feel you already know. The presence of Neptune is like a healing balm that's saying it's time to dissolve all those old ego-concepts and let go of your ideas of who you were that were built with and based on this struggle. And Neptune always ?brings things out in the wash' so that we can deal with them in a healing context.

 

But the initial loss of identity can seem genuinely disorienting, because there can be an interval between when we lose an old identity system or structure and find a new one. And the new one will be very different than the old one. This transit is an opportunity to let go of your childhood ideas about yourself. It's an opportunity to go deeper into who you are and find something within you than is more real than an ego concept.