Neptune in retrograde will rip off your rose-colored glasses — and deliver a reality check

Neptune, planet of dreams, drugs, vision, and oblivion, is going retrograde this summer.

The mystical planet will slow its roll from July 2 until December 7.

Neptune is the planet of fantasy and avoidance, and when it goes retrograde, we’re given a cold, hard wake-up call. The rose-colored glasses are crushed, the feather pillow is unceremoniously ripped out from beneath our slumbering skulls, and the bed is set on fire.

But it ain’t all bad, I promise.

What happens when Neptune is retrograde?

Retrograde is a bit of a misnomer, as a planet never moves backward in the sky — it only appears to do so from our vantage here on Earth. In this way, a retrograde is made to challenge our perceptions; and in the case of Neptune, upend our illusions.

In the whimsical sign of Pisces, Neptune retrograde wakes us up to what we have been trying to ignore and the harmful programming we have come to accept. Lifting the proverbial veil to show us that an ugly truth bests a beautiful lie. What sweet but delulu script have you been writing about a relationship, job, pattern, partner, or situation? What traditions and ideals are you upholding that ultimately hold you back?

Reality bites, my babies, but looking that sucker dead in the jaded eye reminds us what we’re made of and for.

To return to the metaphor of rose-colored glasses, when we only allow ourselves to see the good, the show side, and the easy way out, squinting or sweeping over the shadows, we delude ourselves into believing half is better than whole, a division that sells us all short.

Blessedly, albeit painfully, Saturn is also going retrograde in the sign of Pisces this summer, meaning we may at long last see the weighty work that needs to be done and be able to organize ourselves around it.

When was the last Neptune retrograde?

The last time dream-daddy Neptune went for a bracing backstroke was last year, from June 30 to December 6, 2023. Neptune spends roughly 14 years in each sign, and it takes him about 160 years to swim through each zodiac archetype.

Neptune moved into the murky, piss, and champagne bathtub of Pisces in 2012, where it shall remain until 2026.

What does Neptune retrograde mean?

The prefix re means “back” or “again.” Retrograde periods, in kind, herald a time to reflect, review, revisit, regenerate, reimagine, revise, and realign all actions that cast us back so that we might move forward. If you allow this word geek her way, “again” comes from the Old English ongean, meaning opposite.

In this sense, retrogrades are a second chance to set it straight, and see it through, ensuring our path is informed by the past and a radical departure from it.

As a whole, we tend to feel faster-moving transits — i.e., Mercury — to a higher and more immediate degree than Neptune. Neptune is a slow mover, and this retrograde is an annual, long-haul transit that builds slowly and purposefully; think of a gradual disclosure rather than a lightning bolt revelation.

Talk Neptune to me

When Neptune is direct, particularly in its home waters of Pisces, it enhances our imagination, encourages flights of fancy, ecstatic dancing, blindfolded pottery, and ramps up the whimsical f–kery. It makes us creative and apt to dream the dream without thought for the fall out.

When direct, Neptune clouds our judgment and hinders our instincts; it suspends reality so that we might imagine the impossible. In short, Neptune in Pisces at full speed is a hell of a drug and an appealing Instagram filter.

Yet, when the planet slows down, it invites us to tune in to how our trap doors, escape hatches, side steps, and wild schemes keep us from the hard work of healing and expanding. Because Neptune is the planet of spirituality and self-sabotage, this backspin asks us to consider how we connect to or disconnect from our true purpose and the coyote call of the soul.

Neptune is named for the Roman god of the sea and of freshwater, in terms of metaphor and slow down, you can’t see clearly through turbulent water, lucidity requires stillness.

As this retrograde transpires in a mutable sign, the mutable signs Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces will feel its effects most acutely. To determine how this transit will affect you and what blissful bandaid it aims to rip off, look to the house in your birth chart ruled by Pisces.

Astrologer Reda Wigle researches and irreverently reports back on planetary configurations and their effect on each zodiac sign. Her horoscopes integrate history, poetry, pop culture and personal experience.