View
Chart of Anais Nin
Anais Nin; February 21, 1903; 8:25 p.m.; Neuilly-sur-Seine,
France (1)
Sun at 1 Pisces trine Neptune at 1 Cancer
The
Sun represents the individual in the most basic sense:
the “person”, the “ego”,
etc.
Neptune
represents, among other things, the human collective,
the “masses” in a global
sense. It is also associated with imagery, fantasy, and
even deception or trickery.
The “trine” is the astrological term for a connection
(called an “aspect”) between two or more planets
or points by a 120-degree angle in a horoscope. In a more
general sense, the term is also used for two or more planets
or points that are in two different signs of the same element
(fire, water, earth or air).
Sun-Neptune trines in personal horoscopes describe lives
that have storybook qualities. People with natal Sun-Neptune
trines build interesting worlds around them, transforming
the ordinary into the extraordinary. They have the power
to transform others, erecting new personas for them so well
constructed and convincing, they are near impossible to see
through.
While people with this aspect in their charts are often
sought after and admired by many, they also tend to be the
subject of envy and intrigue. Even at their most tragic,
there is always some compelling element about these people
that others want to possess.
Though this general interpretation of a Sun-Neptune trine
can be applied to just about anyone with the aspect in their
natal chart, the manner in which it is expressed by a given
individual is mitigated by other factors in the chart, such
as sign placement, angularity (one or both planets in aspect
to the Ascendant or Midheaven) and other planetary configurations
tied in to the trine.
Recurrence Transits
The three stories included in this article involve events
in the lives of people who have the natal Sun-Neptune trine
in their birth charts, though in each case there is a third
planet configured to the trine that demonstrates qualities
unique to each of them.
These events happened on days when the Sun
and Neptune were also trine by transit. Transiting aspects
that mirror natal
aspects in a given personal horoscope are called “recurrence
transits”.
Unlike the conventional notion of transits
in astrology (i.e. a transiting planet meets a point in
the zodiac that
makes an aspect to a person’s natal planet), recurrence
transits refer to times when a planetary aspect found in
a given birth chart recurs in the sky on a given day.
Periods when a person’s Sun-Neptune trine is triggered
by a recurrence transit (there are two a year) tend to reflect
ways in which the aspect functions in that person’s
chart, usually in the form of events in his or her life.
Since they occur with such frequency, the
transits often operate on a very subtle level. However,
as Sun-Neptune trine
natives assume such romanticized roles in the world, once
in a while recurrence transit periods coincide with major
events in these people’s lives that appear to “define” them
in some way.
Anais
Nin’s “Henry and June”
In late 1931, writer and diarist Anais Nin met the struggling
American writer Henry Miller through a mutual friend in Paris.
The two developing authors immediately became close confidants.
Miller complained to Nin about the mysterious nature of
his wife, June Mansfield Miller, who was living in New York
at the time, but due to visit him soon. She had sent him
off to Paris, paying his way, with the pretence of supporting
him as a writer, though he sensed that she was really doing
it to get him out of her way for other reasons.
He revealed more to Nin about his feelings
for Mansfield in the chapters he showed her of his novel
in progress, Tropic
of Cancer, which included a character named Mona – the
aloof wife of Miller’s narrator, whose deceit sparks
the anger in his coarse, misogynistic tone.
Nin found interest in Miller’s obsession for June’s
secrets, but unlike him was more intrigued by Mansfield’s
possible deeper motives than by the probable mundane truths
behind her mystery.
Anais Meets June
When
Nin finally met Mansfield on or around December 30, 1931(2),
she met a very different woman than the one Miller had
described.
View
Chart of Anais & June's Meeting
Anais Nin meets June Mansfield Miller; December 30, 1931;
time unknown, 6:00 p.m. used; Paris, France
Sun at 8 Capricorn trine Neptune at 7 Virgo
Nin,
who had been happily married for nine years at this point,
felt intensely drawn to June, as she
wrote in her
diary, “I saw for the first time the most beautiful
woman on earth”.(3)
However,
she also found Mansfield mysterious, claiming, “By
the end of the evening I felt as Henry did, fascinated with
her face and body which promises so much, but hating her
invented self which hides the true one”.(4)
The
two women had an instant attraction and became lovers over
the next few weeks, until Mansfield
left Paris to return
to New York. During that time, Nin’s fascination with
her increased, their intimacy made her feel bonded to the
real woman Miller could not see.
In
describing the bond, she wrote, “what a secret
language we talk. Undertones, overtones, nuances, abstractions,
symbols.”(5) In this erotic awakening, she felt the
closeness of a sister.
A Mutual Muse
Once Mansfield was gone, Nin and Miller continued to discuss
her intensely, both in letters and conversation. They soon
became lovers, two companions joined in fascination for the
same person.
More importantly, in her absence Mansfield
served as a muse to both writers: she inspired Nin’s
work of prose, House of Incest, and Miller completed the
June-inspired Tropic
of Cancer.
Nin,
though supportive of Miller’s work, noted the
contrast in their views of her: “Each time Henry describes
June in his language, he fails to make her portrait. Elusive,
voluptuous, mysterious June. Sometimes while reading his
manuscript, I feel there is too much naturalism. It obscures
moods, feelings, psychic states.”(6)
When,
during her first visit, Mansfield read Miller’s
manuscript of Tropic of Cancer, she complained bitterly
to Nin that he had misrepresented her, that it was he, not
she,
who was delusional.(7)
However, when Mansfield returned to Paris
in the autumn of 1932, she rejected both authors’ visions
of her. Feeling betrayed and misunderstood, Mansfield soon
left both
Miller and Nin for good, though she continued to be a subject
of interest for both writers for years to come.
“…thrown
back into visions, dreams”
On
the evening Nin first met Mansfield, she was having a Sun-Neptune
trine recurrence transit. In her
case, as her
natal Sun is conjunct Jupiter in Pisces, the experience of
this transit was to plunge headfirst into romanticism. As
she told Mansfield soon after they met, “you’re
the only woman who ever answered the fantasies I had about
what a woman should be.”(8)
She
wrote during the time of Mansfield’s first visit
that she “came to me when I was hungry for reality.
I wanted real experiences, which would free me of my fantasies,
my daydreaming. She turned me away from Henry, who ruled
that world of earthy, lusty harsh facts. She has thrown me
back into visions, dreams.”(9)
This passage encapsulates the struggle a
person with the Sun-Neptune trine in their natal horoscope
has with regard
to the everyday world: resisting, or at least managing, the
lure of one’s “visions, dreams”, maintaining
one’s attention to the everyday world.
Nin’s introduction to Mansfield, at the time of her
Sun-Neptune trine recurrence transit, locked her, for better
and worse, into a new cycle of fantasy; one that was dominated
by a “mysterious” woman, whom she would continue
to idealize for the rest of her life.
Nin, as a diarist, embodied the Sun-Neptune trine in her
natal chart, using it to reflect herself and the world around
her through the magical lens of her imagination. As an author
in search of living characters, she could feel automatic
intimacy with anyone who had a special passion for life.
Miller’s
Neptune
Nin and Miller remained lifelong friends and mutual supporters.
Ironically, the fact that they came to share Mansfield as
a muse, long after she vanished from their lives, seemed
to serve their friendship in the end.
Curiously, in the time leading up to his meeting Nin, Miller
had been having a Neptune trine transit to his natal Sun.
View
Chart of Henry Miller
Henry Miller; December 26, 1891; 12:30 p.m.;
Manhattan NY (10)
Sun at 4 Capricorn; transiting Neptune at 4 Virgo between
September 1930-September 1931.
This interesting phenomenon is known to happen
with regard to major transits: that at the time of a given
planetary
transit to a natal planet in a person’s horoscope,
that person is likely to meet or interact heavily with someone
who already has that same aspect in their natal chart.
Nin’s recurrence transit of her Sun-Neptune trine,
on the day she met Mansfield, tuned her in to Miller’s
own experience of Neptune’s transit, compelling her
to find her own answers to the mystery behind June Mansfield.
Bibliography
The Journals of Anais Nin, Volume One (Anais Nin, Quartet
1973)
Henry Miller, Letters to Anais Nin (Henry Miller, Capricorn
1976)
Tropic of Cancer (Henry Miller, John Calder 1973)
Notes
(1) Anais Nin’s birth data, rated
AA; source: B.C. in hand, Jany Bessiere 12/91. (8:25 PM
Paris time) (Nancy
Weart
sent three pages from Henry Miller's 'Red Notebook' 9/1991
that gave Nin's data handwritten in the book, for 8:30 PM.)
(2) Diary entry, p. 26, gives this date, though the meeting
might have happened within a few days before it. The Sun
was approaching its trine to Neptune over the course of this
week, so the recurrence transit was in effect all along,
though it culminated on this date. One way or another, Nin
certainly first wrote about meeting Mansfield on this date,
which, in some context, is of equal significance to the meeting
itself.
(3) Diary entry, p. 26
(4) Diary entry, p. 26
(5) Diary entry, p. 41
(6) Diary entry, p. 62
(7) Diary entry, p. 41
(8) Diary entry, p. 30
(9) Diary entry, p. 39
(10) Henry Miller’s data, rated A; source: B.C. in
hand with no time, Felipe Ferreira, 8/1995. The time of "midi-30" is
given by him in 'My Friend Henry Miller.' The biography,
'Always Merry and Bright,' gives 12:17 PM. In a letter to
Nin dated October 1932, Miller states he was born between
12:30 and 12:45 on December 26, 1891 on East 85th Street
in New York City (Miller, p. 70).
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