Venus-Neptune Aspects:
Dreams, Nightmares, and Visions of Love

by Donna Cunningham, MSW <moonmaven@integrityonline.com>

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Donna Cunningham shows us how to do serious (and fun) research without statistics. She has systematically gone through the AstroDatabank and pulled out all the public figures with Venus-Neptune contacts to look for themes. What I like about this research is that it is thorough and not just reaching into the bag to pull out some charts that are stunning examples of a theory one already had before looking at the data. This is knowledge that comes from a confrontation with the facts, not from a rearrangement of textbook descriptions.  – Mark McDonough

Continuing this series on outer planet aspects to Venus, we don rose colored glasses and peer nearsightedly at Venus-Neptune aspects. Through the hazy camera lens, prancing slow motion through a field of flowers, emerges a glamorous but often flawed collation of notables. To identify those with this aspect, we again rely on the 20,000-strong collection of charts in AstroDatabank, Lois Rodden's fascinating new research tool.

A Venus-Neptune Vision of Love

Venus-Neptune folks have considerable charm, but it's different from the glitter and pizzazz of Venus-Uranus or the steam heat of Venus-Pluto. It's an endearing, poetic, Irish brogue charm. It's a wistful, woeful, wounded charm. It's a buy me another drink and I'll sing you another sad love song charm. It's a you're the only one who understands how I've suffered and makes me feel better charm. It's a you're the most wonderful, gorgeous, perfect person that ever walked this earth charm. It's an I can't believe someone like you wants a loser like me charm. It's a when my record goes platinum, I'll buy you the Moon charm. It's a we're soul mates, and we'll be together forever as soon as I straighten this out charm. It's a you know I never mean to hurt you, I just can't help myself charm. It's a forgive me this time and I'll never do it again charm. They're appealing, all right, and we can get hooked on the pain of loving them in return for the rare, evanescent moments when they are truly there. (If you have a Venus-Neptune aspect, perhaps this doesn't describe you, just the characters you tangle with repeatedly, romantically and otherwise.)

Addicted to Love – And Other Mood Changers

In the December/January issue of TMA, Venus/Uranus aspects dazzled us with a host of glitterati that read like the guest list for the Academy Awards. The list for Venus-Neptune aspects reads more like a Who's Who of Betty Ford Clinic alumni. Betty herself is a sterling Venus-Neptune type. She has Venus exalted in Pisces in the sixth – in a Gauquelin sector, making it even stronger. It disposes of Venus in Leo in the eleventh, forming a quincunx. Though we haven't space for the quincunx, she expresses hers well. Combining key words for these placements, she gives loving, devoted service to glamorous, alcoholic friends.

An extremely useful feature of AstroDatabank is that a click of the mouse calls up a brief biography for each listing. These biographies show that the Venus-Neptune list includes many with drug and alcohol histories, like Joan Kennedy, Burt Reynolds, Brett Butler, Nicolas Cage, and David Crosby (of Crosby, Stills, and Nash). In Leaving Las Vegas, Cage's alcoholic bent on drinking himself to death but rescued by love was a quintessential Venus/Neptune fantasy. Not so fortune were John Belushi, Sonny Bono, Althea Flynt, and Andy Gibb, whose deaths were connected with their addictions.

This is a skewed list, in that more celebrities seem to need detox than an average group – or maybe their descent into addiction is just better publicized. Ordinary folks with this aspect may be less prone to the patterns we will discuss – living with fame and glamour creates pressures of its own. The remainder of the chart – especially the condition of addiction-prone Neptune – must be taken into account. Still, this trend is noticeable and not unexpected.

What motivates Venus-Neptune people's addictions that differs from the motivation of Mars-Neptune, Moon-Neptune, or Neptune-Ascendant addicts? The answer is the heart. These may originally be love-addicts who drink or drug to deaden the pain such dysfunctional relationship strategies create. Venus-Neptune aspects are also common among those who need Alanon or ACOA, appearing in charts of lovers and families of alcoholics and addicts.

My studies have shown that alcohol and sugar strongly affect the heart chakra – the auric center which regulates loving connections. Initially, these substances fill a void there, but addiction ultimately damages and shuts down this vital link to giving and receiving love. Likewise, living with an alcoholic stresses the heart chakra. It forces the children's heart chakras open prematurely, at a time when the focus should be on solar plexus development (self-esteem). Thus, adult children of alcoholics are especially prone to alcohol and sugar dependency and codependent relationships with addicted people. (For fuller exploration of these ideas, read Spiritual Dimensions of Healing Addictions and Further Dimensions of Healing Addictions, which I co-wrote with Andrew Ramer, published by Cassandra Press.)

"You've Gotta Kiss a Lot of Frogs"

"In order to find a prince, you've got to kiss a lot of frogs." This may be a mantra for Venus-Neptune aspects, since finding a dream man or woman to merge with is their compelling quest. Unlike Venus-Pluto or Venus-Saturn types who can turn their back on love after being badly burned , Venus-Neptune folks commit time and time again. Finding the perfect love is both their dream and their delusion. Becoming disillusioned with someone they never let themselves see clearly in the first place, they move on to another who triggers their fantasy of the ideal mate – and another and another.

Frog-kissing can become a habit for them. Many are drawn to people who are wounded or flawed in some tragic way, believing that they can rescue them with their love. They may fall for troubled souls or even for rogues with a heart of gold, sensing their potential. This is in part a less than judicious use of Neptune's compassion, a gift for perceiving the unsullied soul that underlies even the most the troubled or destructive personality. The gift is put to better use in the service professions or in volunteer work, like being a mentor to a troubled teen. Even in the service fields, however, folks with these aspects must take care, lest some murky boundary violations occur. Respect for boundaries, in general, is not the forte of this aspect.

As a result of poor choices, AstroDatabank's biographies show that notables with this aspect are a much-wed crew, with four marriages not uncommon. Director Roger Vadim married five times, including such glamorous movie stars as Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. Model Cheryl Tiegs married four times before settling down with a yoga teacher. Any list of the famous and infamous is skewed by the pressures – and privileges – of that life style. While the divorce rate is now 50% in many parts of the country, it must be 80% in Hollywood. The marital histories of ordinary people with difficult Venus-Neptune aspects aren't so extreme. Many of them, in fact, don't leave mates they ought to, because they follow the counsel of country singer, the late Tammy Wynette.

"Stand by Your Man"

Wynette's song, "Stand by Your Man," brought her fame. It won't surprise you to find out she had a close Venus-Neptune opposition, with Venus in Pisces. Married five times, she obviously didn't follow her own advice, but her song triggered a chord in Neptunian women everywhere who equated love with suffering.

Wealth, fame, and looks are no guarantee of a great love life – witness Venus-Neptune couples locked into abusive relationships. Tina Turner, who has the square, endured seventeen years of abuse from Ike before getting out. Pamela Anderson, who also has the square, more quickly got out of an abusive relationship with Tommy Lee. Loni Anderson, with a square between Venus in Cancer and Neptune in Libra, had a painful marriage and difficult divorce with Burt Reynolds, who has a trine between Venus in Capricorn and Neptune in Virgo. In the last of this series, (TMA February/March), we noted the strong tendency of people with similar Venus aspects to seek one another out.

Even the trine doesn't always bring out the best in this aspect – Nicole Brown Simpson had a trine from Venus in Cancer to Neptune in Scorpio. Though O.J.'s Venus was eight degrees from a square to his Neptune in Libra, it was conjunct Nicole's Venus, which tightly squared his Neptune. Bobby Brown has Venus trine Neptune, while Whitney Houston has the square, and this couple's stormy, reputedly violent relationship repeatedly makes the tabloids.

The Guru with a Zipper Problem

Spiritual pursuits being one of Neptune's higher sides, the charts of gurus and spiritual leaders should have a strong Neptune, and on the whole they do. The list for Venus-Neptune aspects, however, contains a number who were not celibate teachers and preachers. On the contrary, they tended to confuse mundane and spiritual love in ways that verged on the scandalous. This, again, has much to do with Neptune's blurring of boundaries – a strength when it helps us become one with all of humanity; a weakness when it involves violating the intactness of another being.

Bhagwan Rajneesh, who had the trine, was an advocate – and reputedly an enthusiastic practitioner – of free love among his disciples. The channel for Ramtha, J. Z. Knight, has the opposition, and has been married five times. Her most recent husband was a gay follower with AIDS. She apparently urged him to give up medical treatment, and the resulting divorce and financial settlement had the tabloids humming. Another with the opposition, Ram Dass, began as an advocate for LSD and an unabashed bisexual, but has grown into an important spiritual teacher. Rumors abounded about est's Werner Erhard, a slightly more secular guru with the conjunction.

Even in less heady environments, like meditation groups, local churches, or temples, too many leaders have often been known to engage in questionable relationships with members. This unethical practice, even when seemingly mutual, generally leaves disillusionment and spiritual blockages in its wake. It is hard for a disciple or parishioner to make a truly free choice, because unconscious equation of the spiritual leader's authority with the Divine Parent leaves an incestuous after-taste.

Why the confusion about love, sex, and spirituality? Neptune is tricky. What may start out as the highest and holiest of motives easily deteriorates into self-deception. Thus teachers' or preachers' initial compassion and the desire to save or uplift a pupil or parishioner can easily slide into exploitation. Those with Venus-Neptune aspects are blessed with compassion and the ability to see the highest in the other. At the same time, that wounded and fairly compulsive Venus, arising out of heart chakra difficulties like we discussed earlier, may have a hunger for love that is not readily fulfilled in a less destructive way. An unbalanced Venus/Neptune can also have a sacred/profane conflict that lures them into temptation.

The Highs and Lows of Venus and Neptune

Gifted folks with Venus/Neptune aspects use the arts to uplift us. Through music, visual, or verbal arts, they raise our vibrational levels to take us beyond our small, human selves and our daily cares. Magic and make-believe, the realm of the Neptunian world of film, also give us a blessed respite from the hard work of being human. Most of us are neither saints nor sinners, but something in between, and the same can be said of the stars and notables in the lists which follow. Neptune needs to be strong in an artist to make possible the highest expression of art and creativity, so perhaps that same strong Neptune, nearly inevitably, carries the danger of the less evolved expressions at the same time.

Then there are those, both notable and unknown, who have struggled mightily with the patterns we are discussing and have come to a place of discernment in giving their hearts to others. Perhaps they have worked with materials on codependency, gone to therapy, done some work on their chakras, or simply crashed and burned so many times that they finally learn to distinguish between love and pain. Perhaps they don't have to go to those extremes – they are simply wiser or faster to learn, so they don't confuse passion with compassion. Those wise individuals have much to teach us all.

Though no strongly Neptunian person can be seen as ordinary, many of the people we meet face to face with Venus Neptune aspects manage to avoid the pitfalls we have been discussing. They manage to be exceptionally loving and compassionate individuals who see the higher potential in all they touch. Many of us were fortunate to have parents, grandparents, educators, or spiritual leaders in our lives who loved us, warts and all, and who inspired and uplifted us to bring out our best. They forgave our rough edges and nurtured our creative, our soul-seeking, and our giving sides. Those inspiring figures, often as not, had Venus/Neptune aspects or the related position of Venus in Pisces.

TABLE 1. VENUS-NEPTUNE CONJUNCTIONS

THE CONJUNCTION: "A Dream is A Wish Your Heart Makes." The conjunctions often have an extraordinary and luminescent allure, the likes of Robert Redford, Christopher Reeve, and Matt Damon, among the men, and Gina Lollobrigidia, Sophia Loren, Cheryl Tiegs, and Diahann Carroll, among the women.

Bill Clinton, with his Venus/Neptune conjunction in Libra in the first, typifies both the great heights and the shadow side of this aspect. On the one hand, his compassion is part of what made the public love him. He championed women and minorities by giving them a solid rather than a token place in his administration. At the same time, his boundary problems and irresistible addiction to illicit trysts caused immeasurable damage to his own career and to those who believed in him. Like many charmers with this aspect, however, he is able to persuade people to forgive him.

TABLE 2. VENUS-NEPTUNE SQUARES

VENUS-NEPTUNE SQUARES: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!" We have noted elsewhere in this series that the squares tend to overdo things, in somewhat of a hard-edged way. You may think that Neptune has no hard edges, but it comes close in Venus/Neptune stars like Nicolas Cage, John Belushi, Faye Dunaway, and Brett Butler. The life style can be quite hedonistic, with the love of pleasure and luxury becoming an addictive pursuit. The glamour girls push the windows of taste – too much silicone in the implants, too much collagen in the lips. Here, too, we see a stronger propensity toward addiction (Cage, Belushi, Butler, Andy Gibb) and involvement in abusive or destructive relationships (Butler, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Loni Anderson). If you have this aspect, learning to avoid excesses and to relate in healthy ways has probably been a life-long curriculum, but it can be done.

TABLE 3: VENUS-NEPTUNE OPPOSITIONS

THE OPPOSITIONS: "What would they do without me?" Oppositions often project their unwanted qualities onto others, then attempt to reform them. Those with oppositions to Neptune often find partners – or followers – who are acting out the most difficult facets of Neptune, then try to rescue, save, or fix them. Not surprisingly, among the Venus/Neptune aspects, we find gurus like Ram Dass and J.Z. Knight.

TABLE 4: VENUS-NEPTUNE TRINES

THE TRINES: "Ya gotta love 'em!" The softer side of Venus/Neptune is seen in the wistful charm of a Carol Burnett, skater Dorothy Hamill, or puppeteer Shari Lewis. There are the wounded rogues who charm us too, like James Dean, Burt Reynolds, or Dennis Hopper. The artistry is strong but smooth, like the musicality of Bobby Darin, Herb Alpert, or Miles Davis, or Eartha Kitt. Opera singer, Placido Domingo has a grand trine of Venus in Capricorn, Neptune in Virgo, and Uranus in Taurus.

A Venus-Neptune Poster Couple: Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles

As usual, I've run out of space before running out of things to say, so we can't do these charts in the detail they deserve. Charles and Camilla both have Venus-Neptune aspects – his is conjunct in Libra in the fourth, and her Venus in Cancer in the twelfth squares her Neptune in the fourth. Furthermore, their natal planets interlock tightly – Charles' Venus-Neptune conjunction is conjunct Camilla's Neptune and square her Moon and Venus. Their Leo Ascendants are but a degree apart – a strong but rarely mentioned indication of comfortable, enduring compatibility.

These two have run the gamut of Venus-Neptune expressions, from love sacrificed for some ideal to clandestine affair to scandal and public ridicule. (Interestingly, the Duchess of Windsor, heroine of another star-crossed royal love story, also had Venus conjunct Neptune in the fourth.) Because of the world's adoration of Diana, few recognize Charles and Camilla as a great love story, but twenty years hence it will make a wonderful, two-hankie movie. Perhaps with Uranus about to trine Charles' Neptune and Venus, public and royal acceptance will finally be granted for this long-denied love of his life. However, transiting Neptune's passage over the Descendants of Charles, Camilla, and the composite may also signify some renunciation – whether of Charles' throne or of the hope of marriage will be apparent soon enough. And, once they finally have attained their long-elusive union, will they want it?

This article originally appeared in
The Mountain Astrologer, April-May, 1999
Used with permission

Donna Cunningham
is author of:

How to Read Your Astrological Chart: Aspects of the Cosmic Puzzle

The Moon in Your Life: Being a Lunar Type in a Solar World

Moon Signs: the Key to Your Inner Life

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