Neptune Stations - just Trust!

Neptune is standing still at the moment, and will be for some weeks, so his influence is stronger than usual. It is a time to trust in your intuition, trust in the unfolding of events in your life. Neptune is currently conjunct the North Node, so if you do trust, you may also meet people who will help you on your way.

Here is an autobiographical story by Philip Levine, based on the theme of finding the solitary orphan who, according to Jung, is 'hidden in the innermost soul of man.' It turns out, coincidentally, that Neptune was also stationing the day of this event in 1989.

[The pictures were added by me!]
"There have been times when I have felt that alone, wondering how I would survive in this universe, feeling a solitary place deep inside, unknown and unrecognized by those around me, and probably unwelcome.

I remember one such time, on a strange journey to Maui in 1989. My life was in chaos, my marriage of 17 years was ending, and one day I suddenly felt I was being urged to go to Maui, a place I’d never been or really even thought about. This meant a trip of 6000 miles at a time when I could not afford it. Why?

No matter how much I reasoned, the urge was insistent. Just go. So I made the trip, and on my first night on the Hawaiian island, as I was setting up my tent at dusk in a remote area, I spotted a dark young man watching me from behind a tree. He was the only other person there. He finally walked toward me, and when I said hello as he approached, he ignored me and walked right past, into the woods.

Initially I had felt scared being in a strange and alien environment with no plan or purpose. A traumatic childhood camping experience made camping feel very unsafe. But now I faced an apparent new threat. Who was this young man, and why was he acting so strangely, and worse…what did he want with me? I wondered where he had gone, and then I noticed him watching me from behind another tree.

I panicked, and once my tent was set up, I raced back to my car and drove off leaving him and the tent. The feeling was one of overwhelming aloneness, with nowhere to turn and no one to help me.

I felt like an orphan.

I sat on a cliff overlooking the sun going down. I had never been anywhere like this, and I’m sure there were many romantic couples enjoying the sunset on Maui that night. But I was so scared and alone. Where could I go? What could I do? I could feel that young man waiting back by my tent in the darkness. I was prepared to spend my ten days on Maui inside that car. I had not felt such fear since I was a child. I cried and pleaded, "Why am I here? I don’t even know why I’ve come here, and what am I going to do?"

But there was an answer, perhaps from the same inner place that first led me to un-dertake such a puzzling journey, and I unexpectedly found myself saying "I don’t know why I’ve come 6000 miles to be here all alone, and this man may be waiting at my camp-site to murder me. If I have come this far without even knowing why, in order to be killed, then let me do it well."

I felt a powerful calmness inside me, replacing the panic, and I drove back to the darkened empty parking lot. As I hiked to my tent, I thought I would probably not sleep that night, but in fact I went right to sleep and did not wake till morning.

It is in hanging out in such empty and rocky places of the soul that the orphan can be found. Sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one, faced with the inevitability of their leaving and all the jumbled feelings of fear, anger, grief, sadness and confusion, if we pause and listen, accepting what is, we may be surprised to find ourselves in a deeper place within. Perhaps this is the mythical and spiritual underworld.

Quiet, solitary, and fragile, the voice of the orphan soul within each of us can be heard. Sometimes it sounds like silence. Something had responded to my plea, calmed my panic, and filled me with the willingness to accept my fate. Was that me or someone else in me?"

Copyright Philip Levine 2006