Embrace Your Longing

Attraction to unavailable people is all too common, whether they are married, far away, too busy or just emotionally closed down. Although there is a time to focus on the “why” of your yearning for what is out of reach, you can also explore the spiritual quality of your desire.

I don’t mean to elevate obsession to a sanctified state of being. All too often, it removes us from our centers. However, your longing is far from mundane.

Venus and Neptune concern our desire to connect. Whereas Venus wants to love another person, Neptune wants to transcend the “self” to love everything. Venus rules attraction, but Neptune is beyond ordinary desire. Neptune wants us to dissolve our egos to blend with that which is outside of us. It does not matter if you’re drawn to a tree, a person, an image of God or Goddess. If you see it as separate, Neptune wants you to realize that there is no wall between you, except for the one that you have created in your mind.

When you feel pain that you cannot be with the object of your desire, this feeling derives from your experience of being isolated. You believe that another person will “complete” you, or fill up the hole of emptiness you feel in your soul. It is possible that intimacy with this person will bring a near-sense of wholeness, but all too often the fantasy bears little resemblance to reality. Your latest obsession turns out to be a human being, with flaws and all — but one who may be totally inappropriate relationship material.

Neptune is god of the seas, and as such, water metaphors help to explain his effect on us: a cloud of delusion, feeling like one is in a fog. You can rarely see clearly when Neptune is involved. Your fantasies and dreams get in the way of reality. Disappointment and disillusionment are frequent after-effects of Neptune, for when the fog clears, the real person emerges, and they aren’t “all that.”

You can use this disparity between fantasy and reality to learn about yourself. Consult a “wise one” (astrologer, psychotherapist, psychic, guru, …) to help you, or do it yourself through journalling.

However, don’t stop at understanding why you’re attracted to the “unattainable.” The Sufi poet Rumi wrote that the heartache associated with yearning for Divine connection is the connection itself. It is in your longing that you are acknowledging your need to move beyond your own “small self.”

It has been written before that you cannot be in a healthy relationship if you are not first comfortable with being alone. This may or may not be true. More relevant to this discussion is that the desire itself for a relationship can both bring the pain of your loneliness to the forefront of your consciousness, and obliterate your identification as an individual, thus dissolving the ache — for momentarily, you are One with another. Even if it is just a fantasy, the experience of imagining your total connection with another person (or God/Goddess) overshadows your usual sense of isolation.

Living within the Neptunian realm at the expense of the Saturnian (reality) is not the answer. Even Zen monks chop wood and carry water. But embrace your longing, for when you don’t forget your “self,” your longing shines a mirror back at you, illuminating the divine aspect of yourself that knows you are not really alone.