Almagest

The library · The aspects

Mars opposite Neptune

Mars opposite Neptune, within one nativity or between two charts in synastry

What the tradition reads

Within a single chart Mars opposite Neptune is read the same way as the square: a genuine difficulty trusting one's own ability to go after what is wanted in a direct manner, drive and clarity of purpose kept apart by Neptune's own blurring effect on the will. Between two charts, Mars-Neptune contacts are generally read as indicative of sexual attraction, sources say, an attraction this opposition falls squarely within the caveat named for difficult aspects, disruptive and variable rather than steady.

The story

An opposition is a hundred and eighty degrees, half the circle, the two bodies facing each other directly across it; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs groups it with the square as discordant, and Wikipedia's own summary of the aspect describes oppositions as prone to exaggeration, their dichotomous quality keeping whatever they touch in a real and often tense relation rather than letting it settle. Mars and Neptune are bound to the horse very differently. Roman tradition consecrated the Campus Martius to Mars as horse pasturage and an equestrian training ground, held the October Horse chariot race and Rome's only known horse sacrifice in his honor, and sent Roman cavalry parading from his temple every July; Neptune's own tie to the horse came later and secondhand, Wikipedia's page on his mythology says, through the Roman god Consus, whose festival featured horse races and who was reinterpreted as Neptunus equestris under the influence of the Greek Poseidon Hippios, Neptune himself having no such direct connection with horses of his own. Facing each other directly, the war god's own horse cult and the sea god's borrowed one hold opposite ends of the same race, each fully in command of the animal only while the other, for the moment, lets go of the reins.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Mars:Neptune:opposition.