Poseidon (Neptune)
Poseidon was lord of the ocean, and was god of earthquakes and tsunamis. He was a powerful alpha male like Zeus, but his oceanic realm gave him a deeper point of view. Poseidon did not surround himself with acolytes the way Zeus did - he was not running an underwater government. It was simply him, as a force of nature. His power could be quite dramatic, sinking ships and inundating coastal communities, and sailors prayed to him for safe journeys. He expressed his emotions in the ocean currents, in the turbulence of the waves, in whirlpools and tidal waves and also in rippling of the land in earthquakes. The ocean is angry, sailors would say. Or, the ocean is calm today. Or the earth is angry. In his personal life, Poseidon tended to overwhelm women (like a tidal wave) rather than strategically seduce them like Zeus did, and many of his children were monsters (at least to unsophisticated primitive peoples - to us they might look like misunderstood artists) rather than heroes like Zeus's children were.
Poseidon's watery domain symbolizes emotion and instinct. Modern Poseidons tap into this domain easily. They feel things very strongly, sometimes so strongly that it becomes an effort to put their experiences into words. Their intense instinctive energy may be expressed on the physical plane (e.g. sex, food, drama or dance) or through intense intellectual activity or idealism. They are more emotional than practical, but emotion has its own logic. Poseidons can be individualistic, stormy, dramatic and dominating, but they can also be deep, sensitive, nervous and vulnerable. They may become either ascetics or anarchists, and sometimes both together. Poseidons like to move people, to shake them up, to make them think or feel something they haven't experienced before. Poseidons are emotional, not empaths - it's their own truths they are trying to express, or universal truths, rather than the personal truths of others not like them. Just putting their own truths into words is a full-time job.
Themes
the Artist; the anarchist; the prophet; Svengali; the puritan; the ascetic; the drama king; the revolutionary
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Symbols
the bull
the horse
the trident
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