Being Invisible

If only I were Hugo Wolf. - Hugo Wolf (Sun conjunct Neptune in Pisces)

Many Neptunians are forced to accept the fact that they are sometimes almost invisible to others. Or seen as different or even opposite than they truly are. Because of this, and also to keep their self-images and identitities intact, many Neptunians learn to refuse uninvited character analyses and diagnoses. They know by experience that others often have an annoying habit of accusing the Neptunian of anything going on in themselves or in their own lives. The Neptunian may be, for instance, accused of being deceptive just when he or she tries to be as honest and direct as possible.

Neptunians may never learn to avoid all those projections - and thus accusations - but becoming conscious of the process helps somewhat. It doesn't make a Neptunian immune, but it may help the Neptunian to live through it or even to rise above it. But it depends, of course, of the type of projection. When a Mars-Pluto accuses a gentle Neptunian of aggression, or a strong Leo for having a pushy ego, it may be easy not to be affected. Or if somebody with several Plutonian friends, keeps seeing even the Neptunian (Sun conjunct Neptune) as a Plutonian and not as a Neptunian (read more about this: Pluto in Action), it may be easy to see what is happening.

But many projections are much more insidious and subtle than that. Often people interested in spirit worlds may insist on seeing the Neptunian as a medium ready to burst out new spirit revelations, althoug the Neptunian, having her or his hands full with this world, couldn't care less about spirit worlds. All those projections may just confuse the Neptunian.

Sometimes the best advice for a person with Neptune either on the Ascendant or conjoined with the Sun, would be: When any body analyses your personality - or interprets your astrological chart - think always first: That is not what I am like, this person may be seeing herself or himself in a mirror. Or he or she may be tuning into something else and thus speaking about my sister, my dog, my neighbor, or the person I just met. Thinking this way you avoid a lot of confusion. Then later on think for yourself what you really are like. And also whether there was something in the analysis that really was about you. Often you'll find that the interpreter really was, at least partly, talking about someone or something else, not about you.

This may sound exaggerated, but the advice above is based on a real advice given by an American astrologer to his Neptunian client (Sun-Neptune conjunction) in studying her astrological chart. The Neptunian says that the advice proved to be invaluable, it really helped her to know herself better and to get a more realistic self-image without being constantly too much influenced - or even 'brainwashed' - by others.

H.L. Mencken (a Virgo, Neptune on the Ascendant) is a good example of a Neptunian's environmental pressures: "I am by nature one of the most orderly of mortals, I have a place for every article of my personal property... yet the women who have been cursed by God with the care of me have always maintained and cherished the fiction that I am an extremely careless and even hoggish fellow... On my death-bed, I daresay, I shall try to make up for my life-long cantankerousness by doing what is expected of me. That is to say, I shall swallow a clinical thermometer or two, upset my clan-broth over my counterpane, keep a Ouija board and a set of dice under my pillow, and maybe, at the end, fall clumsily out of bed."

Another Neptune conjunct Ascendant example is Warren Beatty, who said of himself: "The image people have of Warren Beatty bears no reality to me. It's amazing. It's nice. But it's rubbish." For Beatty the image was nice, for many ordinary Neptunians it may not be so nice. Sometimes Neptune on the Ascendant is easier to handle, it may just mean that people have a strange image of you, but they get over it learning to know you better and starting to react to your Sun-sign. Sun-Neptune conjunction has a deeper effect and is thus often much more difficult to avoid.

As a collective planet Neptune often describes what a larger whole (for instance the astrological community) is projecting onto you. You may be like that and you may not. It is often said that there must be some kind of hook where to hang the projections. With Neptune that isn't necessary - the hook may be just a strange Neptunian illusion in the mind of another person or in the collective unconscious mind, nothing more. But the suggestible Neptunian may still have a hard time struggling to avoid all those projections. Usually the Neptunian has to find some exceptional methods of self-protection, if nothing else helps, that may mean distancing oneself from surroundings for a while, sometimes even permanently..

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. - Henry David Thoreau

Read other pages: Invisible identity < Neptune and Uranus < Family victims < Misdiagnoses < Being invisible > Escaping invisibility > Visible to God

Neptunia, May 2003

Read more about Neptune: Neptune in Anyara

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