What an aspect is in the birth chart
An aspect is the distance between two pieces of the chart, measured in degrees — and that is what says whether they work together, ignore each other or fight. The previous series describe each piece on its own: the planet in the sign, the planet in the house. This one describes what happens between two of them.
There are five distances that tradition calls the major aspects: the conjunction (0°), the sextile (60°), the square (90°), the trine (120°) and the opposition (180°). Each has its own way of putting two pieces in contact, and none of them is good or bad — what exists is what each one charges and what each one delivers.
And there is the number almost no text gives: the orb. Two pieces at exactly 90° form a square; at 97°, they form nothing. This blog uses 6 degrees for the major aspects, and outside that they are two pieces in the same chart, which is another thing. That is why an aspect is not found out from the date: it needs the calculated chart.
And there is a reading order that changes everything, and that almost no site respects: the aspect comes last. It describes the relationship between two pieces, and there is no reading the relationship without knowing both. Whoever arrives here without having read each piece in the sign and in the house is reading the conversation without knowing who is speaking.
What Neptune and Pluto mean together
The aspect between Neptune and Pluto is the slowest of them all, and the least personal there is. Neptune is what dissolves outline. Pluto is what takes apart and rebuilds. In contact, they are the backdrop of the backdrop: the cycle between the two lasts about 492 years, and the most recent conjunction happened around 1892.
It is the pair that says least about a person and most about an era. Everybody alive today was born in the same broad phase of it, and that is why it almost never turns up in an individual reading.
And here is what hardly any text writes down: an aspect is a RELATIONSHIP, and not one more piece. It does not add a trait to your chart — it says how two traits already there get along with each other. And there is an astronomical fact here worth the whole page: the two are in a 3:2 resonance, which keeps the distance between them in a regular dance — and it is that dance that explains why certain aspects between them do not happen in anybody's lifetime.
It is worth giving the number before any reading, because without it there is no aspect: this blog uses a 6-degree orb for the major aspects. Outside that they are two pieces in the same chart, which is another thing. And the orb requires the calculated chart — and here the calculated chart decides almost nothing about the aspect: it decides the house, which is the only thing about this pair that is yours.
The conjunction of Neptune and Pluto
The conjunction is the start of an era, and the last one was around 1892. Nobody alive today was born under a conjunction of Neptune and Pluto, and the next one only happens centuries from now. What exists is the prolonged effect of the last one, which marked the whole twentieth century.
It is the only pair in the series where an honest reading starts by saying there is nothing to read in a person's chart — and that honesty is the reason this page exists.
The easy aspects: sextile and trine of Neptune and Pluto
The sextile between the two is the phase practically everybody alive was born in. It accompanies the twentieth century and much of the twenty-first. Since it is shared by nearly everybody, it does not distinguish one person from another — which does not make it irrelevant, but invisible.
The trine asks for 120 degrees, and it does happen: it is rare within one lifetime, but the orbit allows it. The arithmetic is long, and what changes from person to person is still the house.
The tense aspects: square and opposition of Neptune and Pluto
The square and the opposition exist in the arithmetic and in nobody's life who is alive. This is the only pair in the series where an aspect is possible by orbit and absent in practice: measured from 1900 to 2100, Neptune and Pluto never exceed 134.9 degrees of separation — and for that reason the opposition does not appear in the chart of anybody alive.
Redone from 1600 to 2600, the arithmetic reaches 180 degrees in 2138. That is: the opposition is possible, and nobody alive today has it. The right sentence is not “it does not exist”, it is “it does not exist in anybody who is here” — and the difference between the two is what separates measuring from guessing.
How the aspect between Neptune and Pluto shows up day to day
It shows up in the backdrop common to all living generations, and not in anybody's day to day. They are concrete signs, the kind one recognizes in one's own week — and they hold for any of this pair's aspects, because the subject is the same and what changes is the friction:
- the cycle lasts about 492 years
- the most recent conjunction was around 1892
- everybody alive today was born in the same phase
- the opposition is possible by orbit and exists in nobody alive
- the two are in a 3:2 resonance
- only becomes biography through the house it falls in
Notice what this list does not say. It does not say the person belongs to a decadent era or to an enlightened one — two labels this pair carries that describe the extreme, not the aspect. It says this pair is the backdrop of a whole era, and what is yours is only the house it fell in.
This does not show up the same way in two people with the same aspect. What changes is which signs and which houses the two pieces fell in, and how they get along with the rest of the chart.
See this in my chart, freeThe easy aspect has a cost, and the tense one has a gift
This is the inversion most texts do not make, and it holds for every pair: what runs with no friction was never tested, and what bothers is what produces. The trine between Neptune and Pluto delivers the result with no effort — and for that reason the person usually does not build the muscle, and finds that out on the day the ease is not enough. Here the editorial inversion holds in another way: there is no easy generation and hard one to compare, because only one phase is alive. What is left is the examination, and not the reading.
It is the pair where this series' ruler works hardest and delivers least — and that is information too, because it says where astrology should keep quiet instead of inventing. The Shelly Method reads every archetype through four faces — the light, the shadow, the excess and the deficiency —, and in an aspect they get distributed between the two pieces: almost always one of them is in excess and the other in deficiency, and the fix goes through the weak side.
How Neptune and Pluto evolve over time
It does not mature within one lifetime: the cycle is longer than any biography. What changes within one life is the relationship between that backdrop and the personal pieces of the chart — and it is the only thing about this pair worth reading in a consultation.
Maturity here does not belong to the person, but to whoever is reading: it is knowing when to stop attributing to a chart what belongs to an era.
No honest text gives an exact age for this: the arc depends on the whole chart.
This is an aspect of a GENERATION, and not yours
Neptune and Pluto are the two slow bodies of this pair, and neither of them is personal. Neptune spends fourteen years in each sign and Pluto eleven to thirty-one, and the cycle between the two lasts about 492 years — the longest in the solar system between bodies astrology reads.
Said plainly: this aspect describes neither you nor your generation. It describes the era. Everybody alive today was born in the same broad phase of it, and that is why it almost never enters an individual reading.
What is yours, and only yours, is where that falls in your chart: which houses the two are in, and what aspects they make with your Sun, your Moon, your Mercury, your Venus and your Mars. That is how an aspect of a generation becomes biography — and it is the only part of this page that depends on your birth time and your city.
What the aspect between Neptune and Pluto does not say about you
It says how those two pieces get along, and not who you are. Both bodies are the slowest astrology reads, and the aspect belongs to an era. The house it falls in is what depends on your birth time and your city.
Which signs and which houses the two fell in changes everything: a sextile of Neptune and Pluto in the twelfth house is a backdrop the person barely notices; the same sextile in the fifth touches creativity and becomes a little more visible. See Neptune in the 12 signs and Pluto in the 12 signs, which describe each piece on its own — and that is the reading that comes before this one.
A limit said out loud, because it is part of reading seriously: none of this is prediction. Astrology describes a tendency and gives vocabulary for what the person already lives — it does not replace your work or your decisions.
Frequently asked questions about Neptune and Pluto in the chart
How do I find out whether I have this aspect in my chart?
Only with the calculated chart. An aspect is a distance in degrees, and a degree cannot be estimated from the date: the two pieces have to be within 6 degrees of the exact distance for the aspect to exist. It is different from the sign, which the date gives — and it is why this series asks for the chart before any reading.
Is a tense aspect bad and an easy aspect good?
No, and that is the reading this blog refuses on every page. The easy aspect runs with no friction and for that reason was never tested — the person usually does not build the muscle, and finds that out on the day the ease is not enough. The tense one bothers, and it is the bother that produces. The biographies worth reading tend to be full of squares.
Why does nobody have Neptune opposite Pluto?
Because measured from 1900 to 2100 the two never exceed 134.9 degrees of separation. But the arithmetic redone from 1600 to 2600 shows it reaches 180 degrees in 2138: the opposition is possible, and nobody alive today has it. A window is not physics.
Is it worth looking at this pair in my chart?
It is worth it for one thing only: the house the two fell in and the contacts they make with what is personal in your chart. The aspect between them is the same for everybody alive, and an honest reading says that before anything else.
What comes first: the aspect or the planet in the sign?
The planet, always. An aspect describes the RELATIONSHIP between two pieces, and there is no reading a relationship without knowing both. Whoever arrived here straight away should go back to the series on each piece in the sign and in the house, and only then read this one — the reading becomes another thing.
Does an aspect that is not exact still count?
It counts, and more weakly the further it is from the exact degree. An aspect 1 degree off is a central piece of the chart; at 5 and a half degrees, it is one more trait. And that is why the difference between a calculated chart and an estimated one shows up here before it shows up anywhere else.
Neptune and Pluto in short
Keywords generation, long cycle, resonance, orbit
This one cannot be found from the date or from the sign: the twelve houses are counted from the Ascendant, and the Ascendant changes roughly every two hours and depends on the CITY where you were born. With no time and no place there is no house at all — not even an approximate one. You can calculate it for free here.
See your whole chart, for free
Sun, Moon, Ascendant, the planets, the houses and the aspects calculated from your date, time and city of birth. It takes less than a minute.
Generate my birth chart for free Want the written reading of the whole? Personality and essence crosses Sun, Moon and Ascendant instead of describing each one separately.