Neptune retrograde 2024 begins on July 2 at 29° Pisces and ends on December 7 at 27° Pisces.

Generally, Neptune retrograde is associated with stripping away the illusions, dreams, and false realities that have clouded your vision.

Neptune retrograde 2024 is trine Mercury to help visualize the subtle, intangible, obscure and invisible. Your thinking should become more compassionate, spiritual, idealistic, sensual, and romantic.

More details about Neptune retrograde 2024 follow some general meanings of Neptune retrograde in transit. Information about Neptune retrograde in the natal chart can be found at the end of this article.

Neptune Retrograde Meaning

Neptune retrograde in transit is a regular cycle lasting 160 days yearly during opposition to the Sun. As with all outer planets, it causes less concern than the rarer inner planet retrogrades. Neptune retrogrades 40% of the time compared to Mars at 9% and Venus at only 7% of the time.

Transiting Neptune retrograde can internalize your fears and anxieties by stripping away the illusions, dreams, and false realities that have clouded your vision. The destruction of your fantasy world will show those harsh realities you previously sought to avoid. Maybe you have kidded yourself about true love, financial situation, or career prospects.

The further from the truth you have traveled, or the more extreme your methods of escape, the bigger the shock. The fact of your reality is often quite painful, as is often the case when addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or porn has been your escape. It does not require intervention or withdrawal to recognize your self-deception either. This realization has always existed in your higher self, or pineal gland, as Neptune represents.

A new relationship or a critical event can trigger an old or past life memory of pain. Neptune rules self-sacrifice, victimization, false accusation, scandal, and slander. Neptune retrograde can show the source of the pain you sought to escape. You may feel humiliated, betrayed, scared, anxious, or guilty.

The internalizing influence of retrograde motion means you may spend more time worrying about yourself and your problems. Self-pity, social anxiety, or depression could lead to withdrawal and loneliness. Neptune retrograde is the ideal time for spiritual self-development. Self-help books or counseling may help, but other tools include meditation, Yoga, Tarot, astrology, swimming, and a healthy, toxin-free diet.

Phobias, hypochondria, and paranoia may become more noticeable during Neptune retrograde but also easier to discuss. The world may seem boring when conspiracy theories are debunked or Armageddon is postponed indefinitely. Sometimes, however, your suspicions may be based on realistic psychic impressions. In the case of health matters, it is especially worth seeking a second opinion in case of misdiagnosis or misinterpretation of results.

Neptune Retrograde 2024

Neptune stations retrograde on Tuesday, July 2, 2024, at 29°55′ Pisces. The main planetary aspect to Neptune is the trine to Mercury. Another significant influence comes from fixed star Scheat at 29°42′ Pisces. Neptune stations direct on December 7, 2024 at 27°07′ Pisces [see chart].

Mercury trine Neptune is perfect for understanding the effects of Neptune retrograde 2024 on your mind. It enhances your senses to help visualize the subtle, intangible, obscure and invisible. This lets you see the bigger picture without being distracted by minor or technical details. Your thinking should become more compassionate, spiritual, idealistic, sensual, and romantic.

Increased sensitivity and receptivity heighten your intuition and allow you to develop your psychic potential. You can communicate more effectively at the nonverbal level through gestures, your eyes, and telepathically.

Creativity, imagination and dreaming are also stimulated. So Neptune retrograde 2024 is ideal for daydreaming, praying, storytelling and reading or writing romance, fantasy, science fiction, and mysteries. Increased sensitivity to vibrational energy is perfect for working on anything involving harmonies, like poetry, music, and dance.

Neptune Conjunct Fixed Star Scheat

Neptune stations retrograde at 29°55′ Pisces just past fixed star Scheat at 29°42′ Pisces. With only a few month’s exception, Neptune is within the orb of Scheat from March 2024 to March 2026. There are five conjunctions:

• June 2, 2024
• August 1, 2024
• March 22, 2025
• November 5, 2025
• January 13, 2026

Scheat causes extreme misfortune, murder, suicide, and drowning. ^[1]

Scheat imparts an enterprising, stubborn, headstrong, combative, unfortunate, changeable, controversial and almost unpredictable nature. It brings the gain and loss of friends and acquaintances, fantasies and possibly violence. ^[2]

Scheat is an especially unfortunate star regarding the sea. It indicated danger from that element in the form of tidal waves or violent storms. ^[3]

Scheat is a fixed star of accentuated Saturnian character. Tied up with a malefic, this could lead the native to lose his life in catastrophes such as floods, shipwrecks, mining accidents, airplane accidents or maybe by suicide. On the other hand, it is possible for a positive influence to emanate from Scheat, but only for some people and affect their mental creativity if they are ready to receive such inflow. Scheat has a bad effect only if tied up with malefics. ^[4]

With Neptune: Prominent in inventive, occult or psychic matters, persecuted, peculiar domestic conditions, many accidents, danger of drowning. ^[1]

Mercury trine Neptune will allow spiritual thinking to bring out the positive side of Scheat.

The Flying Horse

Constellation Pegasus the Flying Horse gives ambition, vanity, intuition, enthusiasm, caprice, and bad judgment. It prevails against the diseases of horses and preserves horsemen in battle. ^[1]

The constellation portends events concerning ships and the ocean and also changes in the weather. ^[3]

Pegasus, like birds, angels, and most celestial winged creatures, is an allegory for the superior spiritual power that the hero first sought out to aid him in his task, and the Owl represents the wisdom side of that same power. ^[5]

Neptune Retrograde Dates

• 2023, June 30 to December 6, 27°41′ to 24°53′ Pisces.
• 2024, July 2 to December 7, 29°55′ to 27°07′ Pisces.
• 2025, July 4 to December 10, 02°10′ Aries to 29°22′ Pisces.

Natal Neptune Retrograde

Neptune retrograde in the natal chart is more common than inner planet retrogrades such as Mercury and Venus. About 40% of people have natal Neptune retrograde, so it is less feared and less harmful than having a retrograde inner planet. That being said, Neptune retrograde natal still has karmic repercussions and a definite influence on soul growth due to the spiritual nature of the earth.

Natal Neptune retrograde suggests that some areas of life are so painful that you prefer to escape this reality through your imaginary dream world. Likely, this tendency to avoid pain through illusion is firmly rooted in tragic past life experiences such as torture, where your only option to escape physical pain was to transcend from a physical to a more spiritual plane of existence.

This earlier experience of spiritual pain relief was probably so intense and overwhelming that it became imprinted in your soul memory, in the DNA of every cell in your body. Past life crises like illness, false accusation, and victimization will often be repeated to a lesser extent early in your life. You may notice you are subject to gossip, scandal, or slander.

I associate religious persecution with natal Neptune retrograde. Throughout history, the Roman Catholic Church alone has accused, tortured, burned, drowned, and massacred countless millions of pagans, Protestants, Muslims, and many other innocents.

No matter the reasons, you come into this life with some justified fears and anxieties. Although not as natural or extreme now, specific experiences will trigger those more painful memories. Your natural reaction is to eliminate the pain by accessing that higher spiritual dimension. The quicker, the better, and you probably don’t care whether it is through meditation, prayer, imagination, or drugs.

The release of pain-relieving hormones in your brain is addictive, so you could quickly resort to escapism more often and for less critical reasons over time. You may use illness to gain sympathy or avoid life’s harsh realities. Perhaps you are more subject to confusion and deception than most or tend to become involved in intrigues and scandals.

False accusations and victimization will exacerbate your fears and anxieties around groups of people or specific people. Other karmic issues associated with Neptune retrograde in your chart could include misdiagnosed or mystery illnesses with the associated blame or guilt or institutionalization for crime, mental illness, or religious mania. Feeling isolated from society is common for many reasons.

Natal Neptune retrograde is likely to play some role in the case of the accuser, inquisitor, or torturer. However, I expect that Saturn retrograde guilt and Pluto retrograde misuse of power would play more prominent roles in these stories.

References

1. Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology, Vivian E. Robson, 1923, p.99, 206, 231.
2. The Power of the Fixed Stars, Joseph E. Rigor, 1979, p.218-220.
3. Fixed Stars and Judicial Astrology, George Noonan, 1990, p.29-30.
4. Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation, Elsbeth Ebertin, 1928, p.80.
5. The Living Stars, Dr. Eric Morse, 1988, p.127-128.