Neptune’s Dreamy Drama of Love: Wedded Bliss or Romantic Fantasy?
By Philip Brown
(First Published in Dell Horoscope, October 2007)
TO: Wedded Bliss Magazine
FROM: Neptune
RE: The Future of Love and Relationships
I am writing to you because recent issues of Wedded Bliss, although filled with wonderful and informative articles about getting married, have missed a very important character in the romance drama. Of course, we need two lovers, rings, rice, and all that. But who makes two hearts sing as one? Who gives Cupid his cloud? Well, without working up too much steam, I’d like to say that…I do. And I would dearly love to be included more often in your discussions of romance, weddings, and marriage.
You probably know all about past love: Romeo and Juliet, Abelard and Heloise, Jack and Rose. But what about love now, in the 21st Century? And why should I, Neptune, be asking this? Well, if it is true, as Shakespeare wrote, that “In love the heavens themselves do guide the state” 1 of romantic partnerships, then I must indeed be a heavenly god.
I know that people tend to associate me with a lot of things. I have been linked with mysticism, drugs and alcohol, and scam artists. But I’m also your wishes and dreams, your champagne, golden rings, silky white taffeta, and orchid boutonnières. I’m the flow between two hearts and I’m marital bliss. Yes, bliss—or at least the hope to be happy, someday, if all goes well and the Sun, Moon, and other planets cooperate. But I can also be an illusion, a world of make-believe, something that seems perfect and ideal but turns out to be just a castle made of sand.
Let me tell you a little about myself. I’m a king, believe it or not. You’ve probably seen me, holding a trident while being pulled across the water in a chariot by a team of dolphins. King of the seas, I’m the ruler of watery Pisces. I’m deep, oceanic, and can overflow.
The Greeks associated the ocean with death, the unconscious, and the unknown. In romance, I’m a sort of death, because when we fall in love, our little ego selves die and we are able to merge with another. I can cause the boundaries of the heart to be breached and overflow.
As marriage and relationships continue to evolve and change, you can trust that I will be right there, doing everything I can to make sure that true love triumphs—or at least comes out on top most of the time.
Wishing you a ♥felt future,
Neptune
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We need all the planets to help out in a relationship, from communicative Mercury and the nurturing Moon to responsible Saturn and transforming Pluto. But what about love? Not just friendly love like you sign at the bottom of a vacation postcard, but the falling-in-love love that makes you feel like you are walking on air—when just holding hands makes your spine tingle, and an ordinary restaurant suddenly seems to have five stars.
For that kind of love, we need Neptune. Neptune blends and one way this happens is when we fall in love. Mars and Venus—the planets of male and female energy—are most traditionally associated in astrology with romantic relationships. But it takes more than these to make the heart sing. For love to happen, we need Neptune. Neptune is what enables us to merge, to go beyond the boundaries of self, to lose our own identity in another—even if it’s only temporary. Neptune helps to dissolve parts of our individual selves, facilitating the shift from “I” to “We.”
Neptune also has to do with issues of trust, illusion, and deception. We sometimes fall for the illusion of love and the chimera of walking-on-air romance without building the Saturn foundation. When the illusion fades, we need to have something solid to catch us as we fall. Neptune can be a fantasy world, far different from the nuts-and-bolts world of “ordinary” relationships and marriage. Neptune can also be a planet of idealism and when we have high romantic ideals, they can indeed be impossible dreams—but they can also become the hopeful vision that helps sustain us in a relationship.
This article will look at Neptune as a generational love-and-romance planet; Neptune in love relationships, using as examples the horoscopes of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; and finally, a peak at some future romance trends.
Neptune Generations
Neptune is a generational planet, taking fourteen years to travel through one sign. Its sign placement reveals where we place our generational ideals and romantic notions. Neptune tells us a great deal about where our own generation gets starry-eyed and where we can find its door to romance (as well as disillusionment). Neptune’s sign shows where we have our generational fantasies and illusions, and it describes what we tend to glamorize. Although love does not change, each generation finds its own unique ways to express romance.
Here is an overview of the past eight decades of romance trends.
Neptune in Virgo (1929-1943): A hangover from the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition created a tendency to idealize moral cleanliness and chastity in romantic relationships. The 1934 Hays movie code, for example, was an early attempt to clean up sexual overtones in movies. Hollywood musicals and “screwball” comedies showed chaste paths to love and marriage. The impact of the Great Depression on personal economics meant that many weddings were low-key affairs, often performed in a local courthouse. Warm fuzzy: dancing cheek to cheek.
Neptune in Libra (1943-1957): The Neptune in Libra generation was born while classic movie romances light-heartedly blossomed on the silver screen—Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, Bogart and Bacall. These suave, debonair screen couples became a generation’s internalized templates for ideal romance. The search for idealized love also became one of this generation’s greatest illusions. Warm fuzzy: sharing a soft rug in front of a quiet fire.
Neptune in Scorpio (1957-1970): The “pill,” free love, intense merging (sometimes through drugs), soul mates, encounter groups, psychodrama—the Neptune in Scorpio generation was born and grew up while relationships were being transformed. They are searching for total sharing, loss of personal ego, and rebirth with another human being—an almost impossible quest. This generation glamorizes any process which promises to completely transform a relationship. Warm fuzzy: hot tubs.
Neptune in Sagittarius (1970-1984): Big, lavish weddings were popular during this time. In addition to being a party sign, Sagittarius is ruled by moral, ethical, and legal Jupiter. During Neptune’s transit through this sign, the legal and ethical underpinnings of relationships were challenged and changed. Palimony suits, community property, and no-fault divorce laws were enacted. Sagittarius is the sign of the explorer and this generation is beginning to lead the way in exploring new types of relationships. Big warm fuzzy: limo rides and hot air balloons.
Neptune in Capricorn (1984-1998): Capricorn is the business sign, and the business of weddings grew during this time. Wedding planners, designers, videographers, and bridal stores flourished. Couples tried to merge careers. Movies like Working Girl and Pretty Woman showed the mingling of Neptune and career in modern relationships, and financial planning books were written for couples. Warm fuzzy: a candle-lit table at a five star restaurant.
Neptune in Aquarius (1998-2012): There is a trend toward weddings in exotic locales, multi-cultural weddings, and oddball weddings (at a favorite ballpark, a NASCAR racetrack, etc.). Celebrities, who often set the cultural tone for weddings, have been getting hitched while wearing swimwear or cutoff jeans. The Internet is very much associated with Aquarius. Since Neptune entered Aquarius, there has been a big trend in online dating and matchmaking sites. Warm fuzzy: text messaging each other every hour.
Neptune in Love
Individuals bring their own horoscopes to any relationship, so a good way to begin understanding a relationship is to look at the individual horoscope. Neptune’s aspects with other planets in our horoscopes show how this illusive sphere can have a tremendous impact on our individual lives, showing our openness to romance and to merging with another.
Through their individual charts as well as the inter-aspects between their horoscopes, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are good examples of how Neptune can help love bloom.
Brad Pitt is a 43-year old international film star, recently nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role in Babel. He was married to Jennifer Aniston—star of the hit TV show Friends—when he became romantically involved with Angelina Jolie while they were both filming the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The celebrity tabloids soon dubbed them “Brangelina.”
Angelina Jolie is 32 years old, almost twelve years younger than Pitt. One of the world’s most charismatic movie stars, she is known for her ability to play a wide range of characters, from aggressive action heroine to demure wife. The ruler of Jolie’s 9th house—which has to do with foreign lands—is Neptune, and Neptune is in her 5th house of romance and children. With Brad Pitt, she has adopted two children, one an Ethiopian and the other a Cambodian. She gave birth to her and Brad’s daughter, Shiloh, in May, 2006, and Pitt has become the adoptive father of Jolie’s other children. Pluto has also been moving through Angelina’s 5th house for a number of years.
Intensely concerned with global issues, Angelina is the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and has become a spokeswoman for African refugees.
Brad Pitt is a member of the Neptune in Scorpio generation. Angelina Jolie, on the other hand, is part of the Neptune in Sagittarius generation. Neptune in Scorpio looks for love that will transform the soul and shake one’s core. Neptune in Sagittarius wants love to be a grand adventure, to carry one to unexplored continents of the heart.
Angelina’s horoscope is loaded with fire, air, and cardinal signs. On her own, she just goes and goes with nothing to ground her. She has no earth—except for her 7th house cusp which is Capricorn. We would expect that for a relationship to work for Angelina Jolie, a romantic partner would need to have plenty of earth. That’s what she lacks—and needs.
Angelina Jolie has a Sun-Neptune opposition, and Neptune closely trines her Moon-Mars conjunction. Neptune trining the Moon (which is the ruler of her Cancer Ascendant) shows an easy flow between these planets, giving her a great deal of sensitivity to the feelings of others. Her feelings merge with—and are stimulated by—others. She values a relationship built on wordless communication, looking into another’s eyes and reading a partner’s soul. With Neptune-Moon contacts in the horoscope, there can be a spiritual component to romantic relationships. She may feel a karmic or fated bond with her partner. On the other hand, Moon-Neptune aspects can also show confusion and uncertainty involving one’s feelings.
Neptune can denote giving and compassion. Aspects with Neptune, especially involving the Moon, can show the need to sacrifice or to be compassionate—attributes Angelina has exhibited in her work with African refugees and as an adoptive mother.
Angelina’s Mars-Neptune aspects show a person who is idealistic, seductive, and thrives on exciting fantasies—the latter a definite quality of her movie persona as videogame heroine Lara Croft.
Her Neptune aspects with the Sun, Moon, and Mars reveal someone who is in many ways lacking strong boundaries, including in her romantic relationships. However, this has enabled her to be open to a fuller exploration of human relationships.
Brad Pitt has a very close sextile of Neptune and Mercury, showing that he idealizes language and communication. He is also good at romanticizing through words. Not surprisingly, he writes poetry and gave Angelina a book of love poems for their first anniversary. He also has a Saturn-Neptune square, indicating that he is challenged by the illusion of responsibility and the desire to transcend boundaries. He has the capacity to merge with others in very real ways.
Brangelina
Chart synastry means over-laying one person’s horoscope on another, looking for inter-aspects between planets and seeing where planets fall in each other’s houses. It’s one way of judging compatibility. Seeing where another’s Neptune splashes into our horoscope can tell us a great deal about how that person can make our heart go pitter-patter.
However, we need to be cautious with Neptune in chart synastry, especially in houses, because it is such a slow-moving planet. For example, if someone else’s Scorpio Neptune happens to fall in your 7th house of relationships, so will millions of others from the Neptune in Scorpio generation. Does that mean that you’re going to fall in love with the 1960’s generation (Neptune was in Scorpio in the 1960’s)? Maybe in a broad sense that could be true, but on an individual level it is Neptune’s aspects with the angles and personal planets in your horoscope which are more important predictors of compatibility. Someone’s Neptune in aspect with your Sun, Moon, or one of the angles of your horoscope can have a pronounced effect on that relationship.
A close look at the synastry between the horoscopes of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt shows how this can work.
Brad Pitt has six planets in earth signs, four of them in Capricorn. Recall that Angelina’s horoscope lacks planets in the earth element. Brad Pitt’s Venus is close to Jolie’s 7th house (relationship) cusp—evidence that relationship astrology can be incredibly accurate. Brad’s Capricorn planets provide Angelina the grounding which is lacking in her own horoscope. Likewise, Angelina’s Cancer Ascendant and Venus in Cancer help to water Brad’s earth.
Angelina Jolie’s romantic 5th house Neptune is right on Brad Pitt’s Ascendant, meaning that it was a classic case of love at first sight. Her Neptune makes a very big impression on him and he feels it in a personal way. She expands his outlook. When someone else’s Neptune is on our Ascendant, we can get tingly, dizzy, and lose sight of our own view of things. The world seems a bit out of focus. Someone’s Neptune hitting your Ascendant also means that you could be willing to sacrifice a great deal for that person. Brad Pitt’s relationship with Angelina Jolie has certainly enabled him to give of himself in some highly unexpected ways. He sacrificed his marriage to Jennifer Aniston and a comfortable Southern California lifestyle to join Angelina.
Angelina’s Neptune very closely trines Brad’s Jupiter, showing an easy, intuitive relationship between them. Brad’s Neptune trines Angelina’s Saturn (an echo of Brad’s own Saturn-Neptune square), showing the blending of ideals and reality in their relationship. This connects to the theme of elemental balance mentioned earlier, where Brad’s earth planets complement Angelina’s lack of earth. The quincunx (150° angle between two planets) can indicate friction which leads to a change of direction. Brad’s Neptune quincunxes Angelina’s Midheaven planets, and she has undergone a big change of career direction—from movie actress to mother and humanitarian activist—since meeting Brad Pitt. She is on a search for greater meaning (Neptune) in her life.
Through their individual horoscopes and synastry, we can see how Neptune has helped these two to bond and merge their separate, individual identities, finding love and new partnership roles. (Author’s Note: The subject of this marriage’s end would entail another article, but suffice to say that Neptune’s romantic haze can also lift—and reveal a terrain one could not see before).
Future Romance Trends
Although love does not change, the way we love and how we express our love through relationships and families is undergoing a huge transformation. The erasure of old relationship boundaries (gender, ethnicity), “blended” families, and a heightened personal concern with the larger human family have all been pronounced themes as dissolving Neptune has traveled through Aquarius. The Internet—which has many of the qualities of Aquarius—has become a popular meeting place for single adults..
If we look to the past, we can see how Neptune had similar effects. During Neptune’s previous time in Aquarius (1834-1848), a number of people embraced Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas on nonconformity. This resulted in the development of Utopian colonies and unconventional romantic relationships. In the Oneida community, for example—founded by John Noyes while Neptune was in Aquarius—adherents practiced “complex marriage,” which meant that every man was married to every woman and vice-versa.
In 2012, Neptune will enter Pisces, the sign it rules, and it will become even more important in romantic relationships.
Pisces is sentimental. Business merchants, travel agents, writers, and others will cater to a sentimental trend in relationships through cards, books, magazine articles, flowers, and romantic getaways. Although Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was published during Neptune’s last sojourn through Pisces in the 1850’s, the best sellers of that decade were actually works of sentimental romantic fiction. (Author’s Note: Since Neptune entered Pisces, sales in the romance novel genre have skyrocketed).
Pisces also has to do with loneliness and as the population ages, individuals will search for ways to overcome loneliness and social isolation through relationships.
Pisces is a spiritual sign. We can expect to see, when Neptune enters Pisces, a renewed emphasis on spiritual relationships. That is, partners will seek spiritual (but not necessarily religious) compatibility. Popular movies will begin to show the spiritual nature of romantic love. There will be much more emphasis on two hearts flowing as one. In fact, it could be a paradise for true romantics who stay close to the best spirit of Neptune.
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- William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, Scene 5, from the website The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, http://www.shakespeare-literature.com.
Chart Data and Sources
Angelina Jolie: June 4, 1975; 9:09 AM; Los Angeles, CA; Rodden rating: A (from birth certificate); from AstroDataBank
Brad Pitt: December 18, 1963; 6:31 AM; Shawnee, OK; Rodden rating: A (from memory); from AstroDataBank