Don’t Read this Article: There’s a Dragon Inside
Neptune opposition means it’s time to see what’s lurking in the waters of the Deep
As Neptune rises in the East at sunset, now is the perfect time to embrace the denizen of the deep. ..
If you don’t mind the sign: Here be dragons…
Today marks Earth’s closest approach to Neptune of the year, just hours before Earth slides directly between the Sun and Neptune tomorrow. Astrologers and Astronomers call it “Neptune opposition,” and it only happens once a year.
Neptune, and its twin planet Uranus, are relative newcomers to the astrological conversation. Still it helps to think of them as a pair when understanding their significance.
Uranus sits at the boundary of the visible and invisible. Similar in brightness to the faintest stars, if conditions are right, you know exactly where to look, and you have good eyesight, he can be seen without a telescope .
On the other hand, Neptune is only major planet in the solar system that’s impossible to see with the naked eye, forever unseen were it not for technology.
Metaphorically speaking:
- Neptune calls us to sink back into the vast sea of nonbeing, dissolving and unconscious.
- Uranus demands to be, to exist as an individual, to break through from the unconscious to consciousness.
In her book Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, Liz Greene touches on the human experience of pain of Uranian individuation. The response? To feel fallen from grace, outcast, and a desire to reunite with the sacred union — very Neptunian qualities.
We can also imagine the inverse. To be adrift in an unconscious sea, must give way to the Uranian urge to exist, like a struck match ignites the flame.
Our world of form and matter exists thanks to their eternal dance. “To be or not to be” is a polarity worthy of poets — a paradox. Both are mutually exclusive, yet still true; the tension creates an endless cycle, the snake eating its own tail.
Whenever our ego resists the paradox, seeking certainty, polarity becomes polarization. Like the right hand fighting with the left, the endless battle can never be “won.”
Recently I’ve been reading Elaine Pagel’s The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics.
She explores how early Christian sects classified those who didn’t believe as they did as forces of the devil, and an assault on Gods chosen.
This process of demonizing the Other isn’t exclusive to Christianity; it seems inherent in our egoic need to be superior to “the Other.” And, if history is any indication, it’s certainly well ingrained in the collective unconscious of Western civilization.
There’s no way out save one: to recognize that conflicting polarities hold truths necessary for the whole.
And that means recovering the lost parts we’ve demonized and pushed into the storehouse of the watery Neptunian unconscious…
Before the dragons devour us whole.
If you’re feeling brave enough to explore your own shadow self, I’ll show you how you can make it a part of your daily life In our upcoming training “How to Create a Real Book of Shadows and Accelerate your Magical Journey.”
How to Create a Real Book of Shadows and Accelerate Your Magical Journey
