Cosmic Taskmaster Saturn transits Pisces from March 2023 to February 2026. This indicates a three-year period in which learning and successfully applying our “Pisces lessons” is very important. Saturn turned retrograde at 7 degrees Pisces on June 17, 2023. It will retrograde to zero degree Pisces, turning direct there on November 4. At the same time, transiting Neptune is slowing down to retrograde at 27 degrees Pisces on June 30. It will park directly at 24 degrees Pisces on December 6th. Working through the damaging effects of illusion in these “image cult” 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 otherworldliness: strong spiritual, psychic or etheric elements at work behind the scenes.
The sign of Pisces implies a network of ethereal connections that transcends time, space and location. When the threads of the web are pulled, we begin to see and feel connections to other people, times, places, and eras that may have been invisible before.
Part of the beauty of the human condition is that we are connected in heart, soul, and spirit to those who experienced similar things to us during their time on the planet. This way, we are never truly alone. These shared experiences create a psychic imprint that is accessible and relatable no matter what era we live in, and perhaps it is the most painful and isolating experiences that create the deepest and most lasting bonds, the strongest psychic connections that endure across time and space.
Pisces connects us in our most vulnerable places, in the most poetically painful or bittersweet human experiences.
Pisces is also associated with illusion, and in these times driven by social media and the “cult of image”, illusion is very common and can also be very painful.
As we enter the astrological age of Aquarius, it is beneficial to see through the element of illusion, learn its tricks, and burst the Neptunian bubbles before they take us too far from reality.
When Pisces, Neptune or the 12th house are strong in the natal chart, Secondary Progressed chart or transits, rose colored crystals can be very thick, providing a skewed (and even potentially dangerous) view of life.
When these energies are strong, people may feel more bothered than usual by those who try to portray “the perfect life,” “the perfect relationship,” or “the perfect physical appearance” through the media or social networks.
Narcissistic tendencies are another Piscean/Neptunian theme, and we certainly have more than enough of them these days. Being pulled into those dynamics without our knowledge can be very discouraging, exhausting, and again, even dangerous.
In these illusory times, we seek to develop the skills to see through carefully curated lifestyles and impeccably filtered images. Once we blow up the illusion, once we alter the brightness of the shiny surface and see that there is no such thing as “the perfect life,” “the perfect relationship,” “the perfect look,” or “the perfect Instagram filter,” there really is no turning back. There is no going back to a time when those things deceived us.
And at that point, we really have to ask ourselves: why do so many people spend so much time, effort, and money portraying this false image of lifestyle perfection? Why do people create lifestyle illusions designed only to make other people covet their lives and what they have? Why do people create illusory images of themselves and their lives that make other people feel inferior?
It’s a bit pathological, isn’t it?
We are now officially in the astrological Age of Aquarius, but there are still many old Pisces age ghosts wandering around and Pisces age illusions that have yet to dissipate.
The high romanticism of the typical Neptunian love story is another illusory element that must be more strictly controlled.
In the pages of a classic English novel, Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester find a happy union (finally, finally) when two halves of the same soul meet in holy matrimony. A fictitious love that will make your heart ache, feverish and that you may never find its equivalent. And in real life, its author Charlotte Brontë marries a clergyman she simply feels affection for (he is not the great love of her life) after watching her entire family die, one by one, only to die herself while pregnant shortly after marrying.
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, simply a good story?
And how many of the great love stories on Facebook or Instagram are cut in the same way?
We have now planted our flags on the Age of Aquarius side and are looking to create a more rational and realistic version of romance and life in general. Even if we they are not If we seek to do so, this is the path to greater success, moving away from the highly idealized and tenuous versions of love, romance, beauty and “lifestyle” that usually end in disappointment and bad feelings.
We seek to maintain the beautiful love and connection of Pisces, but we do so with our feet on the ground, with an eye toward equal love, rather than a love that places anyone or anything on a pedestal.
We are making the distinction between real Pisces love, spirituality, understanding and communion and the highly illusory and highly glossed cardboard cut-out versions we see so often portrayed through the media and social media.
If we are unable to make distinctions between what is real and what is illusory, great karmic blows are possible.
As we move more fully into the Age of Aquarius, we can move further away from the reach of illusion and all that accompanies it. With diligence we can free ourselves from old psychic or etheric networks that have bound us. The lightning bolts of Uranian intuition (the planetary ruler of Aquarius) are lighting the way to new territories and fresher dynamics. They are showing us the route out of “Image Factory Hell” once and for all…
Come on, okay?
Saturn in Pisces (2023 – 2026) and the deconstruction of the New Age as a pseudo-spiritual pyramid scheme
