MARS AND NEPTUNE – THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION

translation: Ida Popovski

This text is mostly for those of you who have these two planets in a difficult aspect in your charts. They are in conjunction in Sagittarius in my chart.

The chord on the guitar will snap, but will be replaced. This is a paintbrush soaked in paint, but the lines are no longer straight- they have a more oriental look, like waves. A multitude of colors. Spaces are being filled. Boundaries of the intuitive and transcending are being brought together. There is another world outside the world of senses. Mundus Imaginalis where there are no boundaries and which is impalpable to the intellect and the ratio. Fantasy is becoming more powerful, and the active imagination as a form of communication is talking through us with intuitive knowledge. Even though we are physically present we are not all “there”. What kind of worlds those are and spaces in between that we will discover; not from the outside, only when we go in – I do not know, I only know that I can see, hear and sense them. Let us be sucked into the whirlpool of those depths, which gives us energy only when we are dragged into it- and this is a creative energy. Because this is Creativity- to invent and not reproduce, paint something for the first time, write, play for yourself- meaning to compose. This is the aspect of a skill that cannot be taught or mastered. A skill that has always been there.

This is an active imagination “ a magical space between thoughts and existence “. A space into which a person with a Mars/Neptune aspect enters. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, or she just finds an open window, a crack in the cave and enters it. The problem with those having a bad aspect is that they forget to exit it. Balance is the key word here. Getting back to reality to be able to fly out again. The body just senses that moment, the energy, that drives it to get up, sit down, then get up again without knowing where to go, most of the time just going round in circles, starting to overwhelm it with images, dazzle it in that chaotic motion in this dreamlike state, but in fact it isn’t a dream- but a trans even though it seems to others that he has just awoke. Through imagination she converts what she sees inside since it is always visual and in images, or sensations, and with stimulating energy which like a gulf stream rises and takes her further where she will be taken over by the world of associations, chaotic thoughts that do not form a sentence but become part of a picture. She doesn’t know where is the beginning or the end, since a person does not naturally believes in beginnings, endings and boundaries. This is why she chooses art, psychology or mysticism, because it is boundless. But then again, it is not the illusion then, while we are creating, not a wandering thought but the truth torn from the context and so true, that the search for the whole context seems like the only true mission, the only thing that matters. Without analyses and doubtful reconstructions, only by receiving and accepting to enter that space-between where the imaginary lives. Imaginary, so called by people but in fact is Real and True. The sole act of creating that rushes towards us from the imaginary and through us, like a giant wave of unstoppable strength. Having this difficult aspect in your natal chart  (conjunction, square, opposition) means to be born for creativity – creation of the unseen, the writing of the unwritten, painting of the invisible, publishing secrets. Maybe like Orpheus – be an astrologer or a mystic, maybe be an instrumentalist, find your own lyre, guitar, violin, fiddlestick, or piano – since the piano also has strings. This is painting; these are fractals in mathematics that can be enhanced to infinity where with every new enhancement they will reveal new details. Or writing, the feather dipped in ink, and the letters rushing as Mars would over the pages, and the person who is writing asking herself – where is this thought coming from? Where are these words coming from? A trans. Surrender to your inner self to be able to express yourself. This is the eternal flame, the holy fire in Jerusalem, and this is every string of every instrument, but this is also the overly sensitive person, strung as an arrow, who has this aspect, the one that will tell you if the music is loud enough or if the lights are dim enough to create the needed atmosphere. Master of creating the right atmosphere, of trans, ecstasy, almost as if he was seducing – although not aware of it most of the time, everyone with this aspect seduces others with their songs, poetry, paintings, writings, movies, with their creations while entranced and presently unaware, they speak while creating their world:

“ I must build my own philosophy or else be imprisoned in another man’s “ (Blake)

Now, something else is becoming significant and important for me to say. This aspect carries within so much sorrow, given as a pure gift, and still makes life impossible to live in the simple and real world. Unconcern for simple things, for everyday life designed by the medias, chatting with the neighbors, gossiping, shopping. How many times have ordinary people who see him as a wandering Odyssey pitied him. But people do not see what he carries within, only one side of him, dreamy and absent-minded who cannot focus on a normal conversation, who asks what no one else dare to ask, who over the years considers his home his temple, where he nurtures his energy and soul, this is his shelter, his shrine. Everything outside, and beyond, everything excessive is what he doesn’t bring into his home. He leaves it on the doorstep, because this is every doorstep, every door, like the Lion Gate in Mycenae, but this also the tree headed dog Cerberus that guards the entrance to Hades. These are also all the sacred swords from Excalibur up to the sword of Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian’s knot. This is always the solution which to be solved demands involvement, entanglement, getting caught into the web of our own images to be able to then, shred them to pieces. To loose oneself in the wilderness of the imaginary only to find a sword then and there, or like me with my Mars/Neptune, two years ago while on a cruise, a knife at the bottom of the sea, – as if Mars/Neptune was whispering in your ear “now, dive in, head first to the bottom!” And so millions of people live with this aspect, not knowing when, but knowing that the right moment for that dive will come, and that they will either find themselves, or discover some new truth that will carry them into new battles, because these people will never be WORKers but WARriors in this transcending space that others do not even suspect exists.

All that needs to be done is to let go. Everything with Mars/Neptune comes and goes on it’s own. Mars/Neptune learns through life that nothing can be kept or tied down, because it means restricting its energy. To release and allow. The door opens and closes almost without a sound. It opens the same way. There is no grip, no possession – this is what tires young people with this aspect the most, because they get eternally involved in co-depending relationships. From infatuation, to seduction, to trapping themselves and their energies at the end, into relationships where they have set the wrong goals- to “possess” and to “keep” something that by it’s nature cannot be owned by them, since it is universal, omnipresent and that there is enough of it everywhere. Sadly, many do not realize even later in life that the sublimity of this of Mars and Neptune difficult aspect is to dive into the profound depths of the unconscious and the imaginary, to discover inner treasures and share, give them; become an energy that multiplies by giving, and grows by spending it. And then, even love relationships cannot be covered with mummifying bandages of possession because they will only render them more lifeless. This is why on a simple, down to earth level this aspect can present itself as the worst of all, if in time, the person does not start to explore her unconscious, starts dealing with intuitive knowledge, design, creativity but stubbornly stays trapped in this make believe image of her “self ” that isn’t growing in any way but is being glorified to sacredness as a example of idolizing and worshiping oneself- it can lead to a schizophrenic hell and negative thoughts, a need to control others, submission, lead to psychoses, pathological lying, sociopathic disorders and so on .

These are herbalists, fakirs, healers, who need to help themselves first (due to this difficult aspect) and then heal others. These are the ones that have first lost then found themselves, and now are helping others do the same. This is the sole mission and the greatness of this aspect, because people with this aspect go through the doors of perception alone. They know that they will not return the same, but forever changed- and that risk of not knowing whether they will return as someone who has known and seen the truth and found / saved themselves, or crippled with a shattered psyche, is what is worth of admiration, of this extraordinary Martian courage to let the man fly into realms outside of space, to places far away from the ones that we are used to, where he would be strong and powerful in the physical sense.

This is why this aspect will make the people that have it, blessed or doomed, depending on how they choose to carry the sword that was given to them at birth, as a gift.

“The intellectual is always showing off the lover is always getting lost…love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.” Rumi

This is why, in April, even now when it can already be sensed in the air, dive in, open the doors of perception, instead of concocting plots, setting traps, instead of focusing your whole animal energy into the realization of earthly goals, just let go – look at yourself, play with the imaginary, turn your creation into something alive and what is from this world will come then. Just find your way to the door. Find a way out of the labyrinth. The labyrinth is this ordinary life made of work- home humdrum, which is where the energy is trapped. You will only free it if you let it in from the outside.

Stay clear off trivial arguments, especially, religious ones or about faith… because each and everyone of is a “soul of all souls” (Rumi):

For the end a little” homage” – here are all those who had (or still have) this DIFFICULT aspect of Mars and Neptune (conjunction, square or opposition) in their natal chart:

Richard Strauss, William Blake, Gustav Klimt, Paul Klee, Juan Miro, Ludwig II, Niccolo Paganini, Sergei Prokofiev, Keith Jarrett, Antoni Gaudi, Frida Kahlo, Mikhail Bulgakov, Pablo Neruda, Jean-Michel Jarre, Le Corbusier, Andy Warhol, Leonard Bernstein, David Gilmour, David Brubeck, Handel, Camille Saint-Sens, Beždih Smetana, Igor Stravinsky, P. I. Tchaikovsky, Walt Disney, Stephane Grappelli, Robert Plant, Jerry Lee Lewis, Alan Price, Pavaroti, Steve Jobs, Galileo Galilej, Bethoven, Carlos Kastaneda, Alister Crowley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Nicolas Kopernik, Jacque Yves Cousteau, Robert Luis Stivenson, Rabindrant Tagore, Will Durant, Goya, Henri Matisse, Florence Welch, David Bowie, Johan Sebastian Bach, Lord Byron, Charles  Baudlaire, Johnny Cash, Peter Gabriel, Mark Knopfler, Donald Byrd, John Coltraine, Chick Corea, Ella Fitzgerald, John Lennon, Kate Bush, Nina Simone, Steve Ray Vaughan, Jean-Francois Champollion, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Gary Kasparov, Nostradamus, Voltaire, Marguerite Duras, Tolstoy, Charles Bukowsky, Monserat Caballe, Oscar Wilde, Marguerite Yourcenar, Steven Spielberg, Ernesto Sabato, Albert Camus, Truman Capote, Paulo Coelho, Ernest Hemingway, Alexandre Dumas, Dante Aligieri, H.P. Lovecraft, George Orwell

written by Aleksandra Sanja Peric, 2012.