Neptune in Houses

Neptune in the Water Houses: 4th, 8th and 12th

By astrologyplace May 21, 2015

Neptune in the water domains (4th, 8th, and 12th), well, their interpretations are the most spooky, ghostly, and unearthly. In most cases, it would seem that something on the emotional level is haunting the individual with such a placement, and it is often in need of some attention. Neptune in astrology is related to “Paradise Lost” while real life is full of conflicts, hardships, and predicaments. The water houses are symbolic of collective longings and the personal unconscious. The watery areas of the chart, represent our deepest feelings, so planets placed in these realms show family dynamics, intimate partners, and our ancestry. If we can successfully navigate these houses, it often symbolizes the fulfillment of all emotional desires.

Neptune represents a universal nostalgia and also feelings of personal guilt believing one has caused this great loss. Neptune embodies the Paradise on Earth which is difficult to find. Many of us will attempt to reach an enlightened state, or alternate reality, expanding consciousness to reach a spiritual condition. Many people feel that childhood itself is a Paradise lost forever, and the feeling of being plunged into earthly torment. Neptune can embody suffering and hopeless struggling and it can also be beautiful and mysterious. It is linked to the ideally blissful utero experience while birth itself creates separation and anxiety. We are always in search of the primal heaven of the soul, we are on an endless quest for a lost paradise and, through its absence, search for substitutes. Our deepest desires for belongingness, living in an eternity, and the fulfillment of humanity’s cherished, most ancient dreams, belong here. Neptune also rules the use of drugs and other addictions and this is an effective way to evade life tasks, and also a tragic waste of human potential.

Neptune in the 4th house

With Neptune in the 4th house, the great universal planet sits at the inner-most part of the personality, and all glamorous ideals and imaginative fantasies are close to home. Often there is a yearning for some kind of dream, concerning matters of location, dwelling, and homeland. The fourth house is hidden, below the horizon, and if personal planets aspect Neptune, the personal residence can be a projection of the individual’s inner emotional state. Many astrologers link this position to strange occurrences happening within the abode, or involving flooding in some way. If it is a particularly strong aspect, then this is a reflection of the overwhelming feelings on the inside, manifesting in physical form. The significance of this will often mean emotional concerns need ‘mopping up’ and attended to. Also, there might be gas leaks, toxic substances escaping, and so forth. At its most extreme, Neptune in this position can be interpreted as a haunting in the home or mysterious spiritual energy. In some way, it reflects some disturbance within the individual or a family member. Some natives can feel a psychic connection to the family, and pick up everything.

For an individual (especially with the hard aspects to Neptune – conjunction, square, and opposition), the home needs to be energetically cleaned from time to time. This means keeping it free from negative people, the kind who step over boundaries and invade the individual’s home. The personal space of Neptune in the 4th house is a reflection of their Neptunian longings, aspirations, and hopes, but there can be deep confusion, chaos, and misty feelings. This placement is said to indicate a “skeleton in the closet” and, in some cases, it can refer nebulous parents with various emotional problems – illness, alcoholism, or drug taking. It could signify an absent mother or father, perhaps even uncertainty regarding their true roots and a feeling that the entire childhood was unstable, with poor foundations. Alternatively, some individuals seem to remember the past as being completely idyllic, recalling elysian fields. Neptune in the 4th house can gloss over certain issues, and more realism is needed. Such people are continually wishing for the perfect home, feeling like it is only a mirage. Neptune in this house could relate to a general foggy feeling or a childhood full of mysteries, and it may also reveal someone who often feels the need to withdraw into their home.

Neptune in the 8th House

Neptune is often thought to be more dangerous when placed in the 8th house, mainly because this combination is prone to being highly toxic. All the water houses are known as the occult spheres, and where the ghosts of the past like to hang around. Usually, spiritual illusions, fogginess, and confusion find its way into the individual’s intimate relationships, joint resources, leading to disappointing losses in business fields, treachery or misunderstandings regarding inheritance, for this house concerns the emotional, and financial. The hidden side or the other-world comes calling, there are virtually no boundaries , so the person can easily fall into mystical states. Indeed, the glimmering waters of death, intimacy, and sexuality take Neptune in the 8th house from the highest to the lowest exotic states of feeling. The sexual life may take a spiritual route, with deep fantasizing. Strong sexual fantasies, take the individual to the ecstatic state, making it addictive – with lovers putting them into a sexual trance or it can be the other way around. This placement can lead to intense feelings of deja vu, supernatural, and magical experiences, with potent occurrences, and mysterious feelings.

As the 8th house rules tragic circumstances, this placement has been linked with drug overdoses, suicides, drownings, perhaps something sad, fatal, or unfortunate linked with the family. Liz Greene states, “when Neptune is placed in the 8th house the redeemer may appear as death itself.” Disturbing dreams of death and loss could occur, and the individual may feel inexplicably drawn to anything to do with the end of life. In dream-work, it supposed that when we are near death we have some grand dream of a great journey and these are powerful revelations in which the dying person begins the transition from this mortal life to whatever state of existence beyond. Death dreams are frequently portrayed as a sea crossing, sometimes meeting a guide, sometimes a spiritual religious figure, and sometimes a trusted person.

Neptune in the 12th House

An individual with Neptune in the 12th house has an oversensitive nature, and it can point to issues that are hard to pin down. Transcendent occurrences, recognizing the ultimate connection of everything, experiencing a collapse of reality, these are all other possible interpretations. The need to return to Paradise is felt strong, and there is a powerful yearning for art, music, and all artistic forms. Being that this is both an evasive planet and house, spiritually there can be great understanding or deep confusion. The symbolic life is exceptionally rich, with a profound longing for some dream. Neptune in this position of the horoscope is believed to bring on some troubling psychological states. The twelfth house has been called the “garbage dump” of the zodiac, it is the last sphere of experience on the horoscope wheel, and things begin to disintegrate in order to make way for something new to be born. According to Dane Rudyhar:

“The twelfth house closes the cycle of human experience. It is the last stage in a process which may be repeated during the lifetime of an individual, or terminated by what we call death. In the twelfth house, the individual either consolidates his successes into the seed of a new cycle or growth, or he meets the accumulated results of his failures. Indeed, there is practically no man who has not achieved some kind of success and experienced personal or social defeats. In the last house of the cycle, man is unavoidably confronted by his successes and failures. His memories of the past, conscious or unconscious, crowd over the threshold in front of the new cycle. They are Angels of Light beckoning to the beyond, or they are dark Guardians of the Threshold, whose features are shaped by his frustrations, his denials of life, his fears, his sins of omission as well as commission. The individual must face this compound entity which he himself has created. He must go through it, whatever the cost—if there is to be for him a new cycle.”

The twelfth house rules everything behind the scenes: prisons, hospitals, and spiritual sanctuaries. The victim/martyr and savior state are extremely strong within the character, the individual longs for the world to heal. Moreover, there may be a tendency to withdraw from social life, and they must weed out all illusions. For those with psychic gifts, it can bring them in touch with more subtle realms of reality, and bring true enlightenment; true mystic experiences are possible.