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Neptune opposition Neptune

the transiting Neptune's arrival, at roughly the halfway point of its cycle, in opposition to its own natal place, or one person's Neptune opposite another's in synastry

What the tradition reads

A natal chart cannot show Neptune in opposition to itself, since a single body cannot stand at an angle from its own degree; the tradition instead reads this key through transit, at roughly the halfway point of Neptune's own approximately one hundred and sixty four year circuit. Cafe Astrology's transit reading describes transiting Neptune's opposition to its own natal place as a turning point regarding a person's spiritual beliefs, ideals, sense of meaning or wonder, and wisdom, a moment when a person may see the light in some manner as new ideas in these areas fill out or unfold, with changing dreams and ideals part of the picture. Between two charts, an opposition from one person's Neptune to another's sets the two placements at opposite ends of one axis; because Neptune moves so slowly, a synastry opposition of this kind asks the partners to be roughly half the planet's own cycle apart in age, so that one person's dissolving idealism stands, quite literally, a generation across from the other's.

The story

An opposition sets two points diametrically apart, a hundred and eighty degrees, half the circle; Ptolemy's chapter on the mutual configuration of the signs calls it, together with the square, discordant, and Wikipedia's own summary credits the medieval astrologer Ibn Ezra with calling the opposition the most powerful aspect, relational rather than blending as a conjunction does, its dichotomous quality often read as tense, though like any axis its two ends can be read as complementary as easily as oppositional. Neptune meeting Neptune has no myth of doubling to draw on. Neptune's own page instead gives his single story: son of Saturn and Ops, and, in the Greek-inspired tradition the page also names, a brother of Jupiter and Pluto with whom he presides over heaven, the earthly world and its underworld, and the seas, the sea and fresh water falling to Neptune as his own particular share. His festival, the Neptunalia, fell at the height of summer, when water ran shortest. Neptune reaching the far side of its own circuit is read through the same fluid, boundary-dissolving character that page gives Neptune's watery domain, a turning point in what a person believes and hopes for.

Written from

Corpus key aspect:Neptune:Neptune:opposition.