Venus-Neptune

Venus-Neptune joins together the pleasure, love and beauty of Venus with images of water, and the spirituality, the inspiration, the enchantment, and the imagination associated with Neptune.

The Venus-Neptune combination can show up in ways that include, but are not limited to, the ideal (Neptune) beauty (Venus) that is a dream and a longing, and yet not manifest, though can inspire beautiful art and beautiful acts of devotion; as well as the experience of love as a “melting” into a “union,” or love and art as a transcendent experience. Those born with this combination often place a sublime (Neptune) value (Venus) on the selfless devotion (Neptune) aspect of love (Venus). One challenge of this combination involves seeking in the mundane world a value and beauty (Venus) that is transcendent and ideal (Neptune). This can result in a frustrating pursuit of perfection. This can be alleviated by recognizing that the actual underlying urge is to experience love and beauty in this mundane world as embodiments of a transcendent divine.

 

Below are examples of famous people born with this combination in their natal charts (natal chart is another word for astrological birth chart, or pictographic representation of the sky when they were born). When we witness how this combination shows up in the lives of others, we can become more self-aware of how this combination shows up in our own lives. The more we are conscious of the ways astrological alignments (otherwise known as “aspects”) show up in our lives, the more the archetypal tensions involved can become integrated in our lives, thus revealing inherent strengths to us.

Please note that the tension of this archetypal combination, as illustrated in the lives and creations of the famous people in the examples below, may be demonstrated in ways that are more integrated or less integrated.

  • The Venus-Neptune combination can create of love (Venus) a spiritual inspiration (Neptune) often invoking poetry, such as beautiful (Venus) images of water (Neptune). The Venus-Neptune combination in the chart of musician and poet Leonard Cohen can be seen in the following lines:

“And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.”

 

  • The Venus-Neptune combination in the chart of Sophia Lauren can be seen in the following quotes which join together themes of love and beauty (Venus) with the immaterial, the imagined, and water (Neptune): “Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got.” “Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.” “If you haven't cried, your eyes cannot be beautiful.”

  • Neptune aligned with Venus can lead to one being seen as the ideal (Neptune) beauty (Venus). In 2011 and 2012 Olivia Munn was ranked #2 in Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 Women. When Olivia Munn joined David Letterman on Late Night on December 9, 2014, David Letterman said, “You look wonderful. You know what you remind me of is an actress from the 30’s or 40’s when movie stars ruled the planet—the glamor and beauty.”

  • This combination in the chart of Johnny Lydon, otherwise known as the “Johnny Rotten,” front man for the punk rock band The Sex Pistols, in the song titled “Submission” by The Sex Pistols, with the following lyrics that associate the Neptunian imagery of the sea and water with Venus’ association with love and beauty:


I'm on a submarine mission for you baby
I feel the way you were going
I picked you up on my TV screen
I feel your undercurrent flowing

Submission
Going down, down, dragging me down
Submission
I can't tell ya what I've found

You've got me pretty deep baby
I can't figure out your watery love
I gotta solve your mystery
You're sitting it out in heaven above

Submission
Going down, down, dragging me down
Submission
I can't tell ya what I've found

For there's a mystery
Under the sea, under a water
Come share it


Submission
Going down, down, dragging me down
Submission
I can't tell ya what I've found

'Cos it's a secret
Under the water, under the sea
Octopus Rock

You've got me pretty deep baby
I can't figure out your watery love
I gotta solve your mystery
You're sitting it out in heaven above

Submission
Going down, down, dragging me down
Submission
I can't tell ya what I've found

Submission
Submission
Going down, down, under the sea
I wanna drown, drown, under the water
Going down, down, under the sea 

  • Neptune’s tendency to spiritualize and/or idealize the other archetypes it combines with can be seen as the spiritualization and idealization (Neptune) of love (Venus) in the following lyrics of the song titled “A Higher Love,” by singer/songwriter Steve Winwood, born with the Venus-Neptune combination in his natal chart:

Think about it, there must be higher love

Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above

Without it, life is wasted time

Look inside your heart, I'll look inside mine

Things look so bad everywhere In this whole world, what is fair?

We walk blind and we try to see

Falling behind in what could be

Bring me a higher love

Bring me a higher love (oh oh)

Bring me a higher love

Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?

  • The Venus-Neptune combination can reflect an idealized beauty associated with those born with this combination. And it can also reflect an ability for those individuals to recognize idealized beauty in others. This can be seen in the chart and life of Stevie Nicks, who has been herself viewed by the public as a figure of idealized beauty, and who has sung songs such as Rhianon and Gypsy which chronicle the lives of female personas of idealized beauty, and similarly the song Sara, which includes the apt Venus-Neptune lyrics, “Drowning in the sea of love, where everyone would love to drown.” Popstar Rihanna also exemplifies this dynamic in her chart and life: she is a symbol of idealized beauty, while also expressing the recognition of this beauty in others in her songs, such as in the following lyrics of This is What You Came For, “Lightning strikes every time she moves, and everybody’s watching her, but she’s looking at you.”

  • The Venus-Neptune combination in the chart of Marie Antoinette, last Queen of France before the French revolution, can be seen in this quote of her’s supposedly referring to her starving subjects: “Let them eat cake.” The quote reflects a value (Venus) on sweet things (Venus) that is not grounded in reality (Neptune). This potential for Neptune to reflect a fantasy not grounded in reality, can be seen in the following quote by musician/rapper Tyler the Creator, born with the Venus-Neptune combination in his chart, “I want to make as much money as I possibly can so that when my day comes, my mother and sister is fine. My close friends are fine. They don't have to worry about anything ever again.” Here the value (Venus) placed on money is unrealistic (Neptune) way of addressing the worries and sufferings of his friends and family. Though in this quote the selflessness and compassion associated with Neptune is clearly evident in his love (Venus) for his friends and family.

  • The Venus-Neptune combination in the birth chart of performer Josephine Baker can be seen in her self-less devotion (Neptune) to those who she loved (Venus). When Baker was herself in a difficult financial position, she still managed to give a villa and financial assistance to her friend, actress Grace Kelly. Baker married a frenchman who was a Jew, and during the second World War she fought against the Nazis in the French Underground Resistance partially out of devotion to her love.

  • The Venus-Neptune combination in the natal chart of spiritual teacher Ram Dass can be seen in his emphasis on spirituality (Neptune) as a path of love (Venus) and devotion (Neptune).

  • The Venus-Neptune combination in the natal chart of Hope Sandoval, lead singer of the band Mazzy Star, can be seen in the refrain to the song Fade Into You, which repeats how the singer wants to “fade into” her lover, reflecting Venus-Neptune’s tendency toward a dissolving and and a uniting (Neptune) with the lover (Venus): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImKY6TZEyrI

  • The challenge of enchanting dreams and longings associated with this combination is captured well by Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin, who was born with this combination in his birth chart, in the following lyrics from the song Going to California:

Made up my mind to make a new start

Going to California with an aching in my heart

Someone told me there's a girl out there

With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair

…

To find a queen without a king

They say she plays guitar and cries and sings, la-la-la

Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn

Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born

Standin' on a hill in the mountain of dreams

Tellin' myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems

  • The Venus-Neptune combination in the natal chart of Indian film director and producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali can be seen in the elaborate and ostentatious sets of his movies that are manufactured facsimiles of Indian mansions, palaces, and brothels which are literally studded with sparkling gems and adorned with glimmering chandeliers, dazzling costumes, and other ornamentations, all of which is artificial and is created to present the illusion (Neptune) of a beautiful (Venus) dreamy scene (Neptune). Examples can be viewed here and here. Additionally the storylines of his productions such as Devdas and Heeramundi involve themes of longing for the ideal (Neptune) love (Venus).

  • The Venus-Neptune combination is often associated with a love (Venus) for the divine (Neptune) that is experienced as a longing to unite with the divine. The Venus-Neptune combination in the natal chart of musician George Harrison can be seen in his song of “My Sweet Lord.” Even the title suggests the sweetness of Venus combined with the divinity of Neptune. The song contains heartfelt (Venus) devotional (Neptune) refrains of “Hallelujah,” “Hare Krishna,” and “Hare Rama.” An excerpt of the lyrics include:

Now, I really want to see you (Hare Rama)

Really want to be with you (Hare Rama)

Really want to see you, Lord (Ah, ah)

But it takes so long, my Lord (Ah, ah, hallelujah)

Mm, my Lord (Hallelujah)

My, my, my Lord (Hare Krishna)

My sweet Lord (Hare Krishna)

My sweet Lord (Krishna Krishna)

My lord (Hare Hare)