Mercury-Neptune

Merging with Something Greater

(A personal account of Mercury-Neptune)

In astrology Neptune is the desire to go beyond the self and merge with something greater. It is the urge to lose ourselves and dissolve all boundaries, to be one with all life. Neptune breaks down barriers and can overwhelm us by flooding our conscious selves with images of the unconscious and unseen. Under Neptune we feel that there is a deeper emotional connection to the world and we have empathy for all people no matter their class, race, or religion. Neptune represents our universal feelings and it is primarily the ruler of water, this element in astrology symbolises all that is emotional, feminine, and mysterious. Water has the ability to flow through, over and round objects, it can wear away anything which gets in the way, and water can create new life in response to it’s own inner urgings. Deep water often signifies being out of our depth or entering into our subconscious. Spiritual rebirth is represented by the cycle of water, and the sea represents our cosmic consciousness, the original chaotic state in which all life emerges. Inherent in that state is all knowledge and completeness, although it may be obscured by our fear of it’s depths. The rise and fall of the tides is to be conscious both of the passage of time and of the rise and fall of our own emotions. Neptune has a dissolving effect on personal identity, motivations, clarity and ego. When we are under Neptune natally or by transit, it often describes the strange feeling of being lost and hopeless in the great sea, and it becomes more and more difficult maintaining our physical reality.

Early Education

The Gifts

1. Mercury in combination with Neptune shows a powerful imagination. The storyteller.
2. The minds sensitivity & receptivity is enhanced.
3. There is often an interest in the spiritual and the occult.
4. A deep appreciation of art, music, and beauty, in general anything which uplifts the mind. They may favour fictional writing especially of the mystical kind.


Personal Creativity

During my school days I was alaways chastised by my teacher for drawing the same picture over & over again. I always used to draw a house. My school teacher called me unimaginative. Drawing a house is a pretty common theme for all children. A house represents security and safety, and it has been said to represent the protection of the great mother. Children’s early drawings are a form of non-verbal communication. I was terribly shy as a little girl and my head was filled up with all sorts of images that I could not communicate about to others, and so drawings, poetry or play are often expressions of this vivid and colourful world, and can it can also be used as a marker for a child’s emotional state. Mercury-Neptune is learning the “art” of communication on many levels, and learning how to communicate a symbolic world that is difficult for many minds to reach, this can be through literary pursuits such as storytelling, poetry, or spiritual subjects. Pursuits that allow the imagination free rein are favoured. Mercury-Neptune may simply mean the individual is overcoming emotional complexes and sensitivity around communication.

The Challenges

1. The mind can be distracted from the ability to focus or concentrate by the need to escape. Listening can be difficult, especially if the child is not interested in the subject or the person.
2. Thinking may seem vague and unclear.
3. A sensitivity to drugs, and may have problems with substance abuse.
4. Learning difficulties can sometime be indicated, speech and hearing problems, dyslexia and other related conditions which may refer to confused or disorganized thinking.

Neptune and the Quest for Redemption, by Liz Greene:

One of the most profound and disturbing ways of gaining insight into Mercury is to work with severely autistic children, who have appeared to put the planet into cold storage. Little or no communication passes from the autistic child to the outer world, nor does any external event intrude upon the child’s enclosure in uterine waters. Emotional experiences cannot make their way past the barriers to produce recognisable responses other than terror and rage. On some level we all have elements of autism within us, where the lines of communication have broken down, or where our perceptions are no longer of what is there. Mercury-Neptune can provide a channel between the imaginable realm and the intellect, and between the individual and the oceanic source. Equally it may reflect broken bridges and severed telephone lines, where the individual is locked into the paradise garden and can perceive nothing outside it’s walls except the threat of extinction.

Constant State of Confusion

The feeling of being in a constant state of confusion can mean that on a deeper level Mercury-Neptune is refusing to deal with mundane relaity, and they can be confused by external matters -  forgetting to pay bills, or losing objects and experiencing misunderstandings in communication. Outer events mirror the deep mental disorganisation inside. Mentally they can feel weakened and lethargic. Neptune dissolves the mental capacity and the level of clarity is decreased. In the worse cae scenario they can become abnormally forgetful and detached from reality. Such mental confusion indicates that inwardly they have lost direction and the ability to make clear decisions. To reach a state of wholeness in communicating Mercury-Neptune has to repair the bridge between thinking and feeling and between conscious awareness and unconscious motivation.

My personal Struggles in Communicating

As a child I needed a minor operation on my ears, and after the surgery I had to attend speech therapy lessons. I am completely healed today but I still found it difficult communicating to people verbally. I think this sensitivity has stayed with me for a long time and I still have that an internal fear that others would not understand me. I have always felt intellectually inferior, and this has been one of my greatest challenges to overcome. My communication is fine now, but those haunting inner messages still live on. I am very sensitive to people and the enviroment, too sensitive at times. Most of the communication problems may not be this evident with other Mercury-Neptune's and the level of disorganization may not be so servere. Someone can be completely business like at work and at home they can be disorganized.

Water on the Brain

The hard aspects involving Mercury-Neptune are more troublesome than the easy flowing aspects. When an aspect forms between Mercury and Neptune we are bringing the conscious (Mercury) and the unconscious (Neptune) into conflict. Some of the effects of this can be quite disturbing to the rational mind (Mercury). Fear, doubt, and confusion can take over the mental reasoning. And at it’s most extreme level the Mercury-Neptune individual can feel as if they are losing their mind. Yet Neptune can add a rich quality to the imagination, and such great sensitivity and receptivity can prove to be of immense value to the individual, and it is well worth developing. If the ego is not contained or strong enough to handle the oceanic waters then there is inevitably a severe threat to the individuals sense of reality in everyday life. Neptune clouds the conscious mind and rational thought processes are overtaken by emotional complexes that are unconscious. There is often a powerful need to escape from everyday reality through drugs, alcohol or losing the mind in television & movies and becoming absorbed (Neptune) in fantasies and daydreams.

The Collective Unconscious

Neptune in astrology is called an outer planet and this means that the planet has a collective meaning for all, to explain this further I will reference some of Carl Jung’s work on the subject. According to Carl Jung the collective unconscious contains archetypes. Jung believed that important creative ideas come from influences greater than those in the mind of a single individual. The images, figures, and characters seem to be remnants of the experiences of our ancestors, it’s a place were all souls are connected and have been through the ages. These are the archetypes you find in stories, myths and legends. According to Jung this explains the similarities of the creation myths, the resurrection and flood stories found in widely separating cultures. Jung believes the collective unconscious was inherited rather than developed. It’s a knowledge we are born with a container of our experiences as the whole human race. Jung believes that whoever speaks in primordial images (Neptune) speaks with a thousand voices, he enthralls and empowers while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and into the transitory realm of the ever enduring.

Jung believed that individuals tapping into the collective unconscious, are those most adept of high quality creative activity. Thus many individuals with Neptune connected to personal planets in the chart or Neptune on an angle or in the 12th house, have a connection to the collective unconscious where deep reservoirs of images and archetypes exist in a flowing motion. According to Jung, the aim of an active imagination is to find the middle position between “conscious” and “unconscious” having a quality of conjoined opposites. Jung also spoke of a transcendent function of opposites. A precondition for the success of active imagination is that it shall not be a pretext for flight from life. “Fantasies are no substitute for living” they are the fruits of the spirit which fall to him who pays his tribute to life. The shirker experiences nothing but his own morbid fear, and it yields him no meaning.

Collective Dreams

The collective unconscious (Neptune) has been likened to a “world spirit” or “world soul”. Something which flows from the divine into the human subject, and the unconscious begins when emotions are generated. Jung put his hypothesis of the collective unconscious on solid ground and in reality by observing and investigating the dreams of modern men and women. Unconscious material is often repressed and forgotten and it often appears in dreams. The individual with Mercury in aspect to Neptune can have a difficulty judging whether the conscious is predominating over the unconscious, or the unconscious over the conscious. According to Jung, in coming to terms with the unconscious the ego takes the lead but the unconscious must be allowed to have it’s say.

Fairies don't Exist: Disowning Neptune


Individuals with this aspect can deny the unconscious exists. There will be a deep fear of anything spiritual, psychological and what the person may call irrational. The intellect may be used to combat Neptune. The truth can be distorted in this area and the individual holds on desperately to what can only be perceived as logic. This type of individual may accuse others of being gullible wishy washy fools for indulging in the Neptunian world of dreams, fantasy, art, music or the whole of the imaginable realm.

Related Posts:

• If you like Jung, read Lynn Hayes great chart analysis here at Astrological Musings.