“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 may turn their back on love after being badly burned, Venus-Neptune folks get involved 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 Soul Mate fantasy-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 murky boundary violations occur. Clear boundaries, in general, are not the forte of this aspect.
AstroDatabase’s biographies show that, as a result of poor choices, 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. Supermodel Cheryl Tiegs married four times before settling down with a yoga teacher. Spiritual teacher, J.Z. Knight, the channel for Ramtha, was married five times at last count. Larry King is still getting married with great regularity past 70.
Any list of the famous and infamous, of course, 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 always so extreme. Many of them, in fact, don’t leave mates they ought to, following the counsel of country singer, the late Tammy Wynette. 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. In the psyches of Venus-Neptune individuals, love and pain are sometimes merged, and there is the romantic notion that the more it hurts, the more surely it must be a great love affair.
Love and Abuse
Wealth, fame, and looks are no guarantee of a great love life-witness the famous Venus-Neptune women 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 himself has a trine between Venus in Capricorn and Neptune in Virgo.
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 8° from a square to his Neptune in Libra, it was conjunct Nicole’s Venus, which tightly squared his Neptune. (Justin Simpson, the son of O.J. and Nicole, has an opposition between Venus and Chiron in Cancer and Neptune in Capricorn.)
With celebrity examples, domestic violence would appear more common with the square than other aspects, but it should be stressed that no single chart aspect can be considered the signature of such a complex pattern. The complete chart, plus the chart of the partner and how the two charts interlock would need to be analyzed. As an example, look at the charts of singers Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston, shown on the next page. They had a stormy, reputedly violent relationship, and their domestic incidents-and the upheavals related to drug abuse-repeatedly made the news. Whitney has Venus and the Sun conjunct in Leo square Neptune in Scorpio in the 8th, while Bobby has Venus and Chiron conjunct in Aries in an out-of-sign trine to Neptune in late Scorpio. In the fall of 2006, Whitney filed for divorce and went to rehab, hopefully to end her addictions this time.
Again, other chart features play into the pattern. Bobby also has Mars in Scorpio conjunct Neptune on one side and his Scorpio Midheaven on the other, with Mars square his 1st house Aquarius Sun. His strong Mars indicates a volatile temper, especially given several planets in Aries, including a tight quincunx between Mars and Saturn. In Whitney’s chart, another indicator of a volatile marriage is the Pluto-Uranus conjunction on her Descendant, opposed by Chiron in Pisces on the Ascendant. Their stormy relationship and its steamy chemistry was cemented by the synastry, most especially the many connections between the planets each has in fixed signs. Her Leo Sun and Venus oppose his Aquarius Sun. Her Sun squares his Scorpio Mars. Saturn in Aquarius conjuncts his Sun and squares his Mars. She has a close Venus-Neptune square, with her Neptune exactly on his Midheaven and her Venus square it. The Saturn aspects between them-her Saturn on his Sun and his Saturn on her Moon and Jupiter-add further durability and suggest that, in some unfathomable way, they did give each other a sense of security and stability.
©2006 by Donna Cunningham, MSW
