Cosmic Taskmaster Saturn transits Pisces from March 2023 to February 2026. This indicates a three-year period when successfully learning and applying our "Pisces lessons" is very important. Saturn turned retrograde at 7 degrees Pisces on June 17, 2023. It will retrograde to the zero degree of Pisces, turning direct there on November 4. At the same time, transiting Neptune is slowing to station retrograde at 27 degrees Pisces on June 30. It will station direct at 24 degrees Pisces on December 6. Working through the damaging effects of illusion in these "cult of image" and social media-dominated times is a key theme now and over the next three years.
Pisces is a sign that indicates a bit of the otherworldly - strong spiritual, psychic, or etheric elements working away behind the scenes.
The sign of Pisces involves a web of ethereal connections that transcends time, space, and location. When the threads of the web are plucked, we start to see and sense connections to other people, times, locations, and eras that may have been invisible previously.
Part of the beauty of the human condition is that we're connected at the heart, soul, and spirit to those who experienced similar things as we have during their time on the planet. In this way, we're never truly alone. These shared experiences create a psychic imprint that is accessible and relatable no matter what era we're living in, and it's perhaps the more painful and isolating experiences that create the deepest and most long-lived bonds, the strongest psychic connections that endure through time and space.
Pisces connects us at our most vulnerable places, in the most poetically painful or bittersweet of human experiences.
Pisces also relates to illusion, and in these social media and "cult of image"-driven times, illusion is very prevalent and can also be very painful.
As we move further into the astrological Aquarian era, it's beneficial to see through the element of illusion, to learn its tricks and to pop the Neptunian bubbles before they take us too far out of reality.
When Pisces, Neptune, or the 12th house are strong in the natal chart, Secondary Progressed chart, or transits, the rose-coloured glasses can be very thick, providing a skewed - and even potentially dangerous - view of life.
When these energies are strong, people may be bothered more than usual by those trying to portray "the perfect life" or "the perfect relationship" or "the perfect physical looks" through media or social media.
Narcissistic tendencies are another Piscean/Neptunian theme, and we certainly have more than enough of those going around these days. Being drawn into those dynamics without our knowledge can be very disheartening, draining, and again, even dangerous.
In these highly illusory times, we're looking to develop the skills to see through the carefully-curated lifestyles and immaculately-filtered images. Once we pop the illusion, once we disrupt the glossy surface sheen and see that there is no such thing as "the perfect life" or "the perfect relationship" or "the perfect looks" or "the perfect Instagram filter," there's really no going back. There's no going back to a time when we were fooled by those things.
And at that point, we really have to ask: why are so many people putting so much time, effort, and money into portraying this false image of lifestyle perfection? Why are people creating lifestyle illusions designed only to make other people covet their lives and what they have? Why are people creating illusory images of themselves and their lives that make other people feel less than?
It's a little pathological, really, isn't it?
We're now officially in the astrological Age of Aquarius, but there are still plenty of old Piscean-era ghosts traipsing around and Piscean-era illusions left to dissipate.
The high romanticism of the standard Neptunian love story is another illusory element that needs to be put in tighter check.
Within the pages of a classic English novel, Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester find blissful union - at last, long last - as two halves of the same soul meet in holy matrimony. A fictional love to make your heart ache, feverish that you might never find its equivalent. And in real life, its author Charlotte Bronte marries a clergyman she is merely fond of - no great, melting love of her life - after watching her entire family perish, one-by-one, only to die herself while pregnant soon after being wed.
How's that for a sobering reality check?
How many of the great historical love stories, so implanted in the collective psyche and so sought after, have been myth, illusion, just a good story?
And how many of the great Facebook or Instagram love stories are cut from that same cloth?
We have now planted our flags on the Aquarian-era side of things and are looking to create a more rational and realistic version of romance and of life, in general. Even if we aren't looking to do that, this is the path to greater success, veering away from the highly-idealized and soft-lit versions of love, romance, beauty, and "lifestyle" that generally end in disappointment and bad feelings.
We're looking to maintain the beautiful Piscean love and connection, but we're doing it with our feet on the ground, with a keen eye toward egalitarian love, rather than a love that places anyone or anything on a pedestal.
We're making the distinction between real Piscean love, spirituality, understanding, and communion and the highly-illusory, highly glossed-up, cardboard cutout versions we see portrayed so often through media and social media.
If we're not able to make the distinctions between what's real and what's illusory, some big karmic wallops are possible.
As we move more fully into the Aquarian Era, we can move further out of reach of illusion and all that goes along with it. With diligence, we can be released from old psychic or etheric webs that have bound us. The lightning bolt strikes of Uranian insight (Aquarius' planetary ruler) are lighting the way into new territory and fresher dynamics. They're showing us the route out of "Image Factory Hell" once and for all...
Let's go, shall we?
Saturn in Pisces (2023 - 2026) and Deconstructing New Age as a Pseudo-Spiritual Pyramid Scheme
