Tests of Faith: Saturn enters Pisces
Waking at dawn i move from one world to another and as I do so, the clarity of thought takes me to my computer to write.
Symbols give us meaning as we move through time and our lives in that time. They allow us to transmute between past and present, to see ourselves in context and it is this which can bring meaning. It is in the meaning of experience that the astrologer holds sway, translating for their client in the temporary stillness of the reading space.
"He came down from heaven and was made man."
The bible, full of parables, speaks of course to Pisceans, perhaps most of all. Concerned as we are with the whole, with man's suffering, his salvation and with the potential for rise. The nature of cycles is of course rise and fall. Perhaps you feel I am rambling but in that rambling, much is revealed, more than in constructed pieces often. It is so in dreams. The incarnation of God's spirit in man is perhaps to be regarded as we astrologers see Saturn approach Pisces and attempt to judge the impact of its imminent entry. It coincides closely with my Ascendant at 7 Pisces but is currently in my 12th, just past its return as i approach 60. So, at the moment it is replete with meaning for me and my experience. So indulge me as i step away from mundane on this occasion, to pause, as I serve notice in another hospital job and prepare to be a full time astrologer.
Yesterday i drove over foggy hills to work (Neptune-Saturn, and Mars in Gemini in my 3rd.) The day before I heard "Kashmir" on the radio, by Led Zeppelin, from 50 years ago. So the next morning i had Led Zeppelin 2 on in the car and this led me to look at the lead singer's chart, of Robert Plant.
He has Sagittarius rising and Jupiter in that sign in the first, Moon in Pisces, Venus in Cancer. Sun-Saturn conjunct in Leo on Regulus, indeed King of the Heavens. And it's in the 9th. 'Stairway to heaven' their signature tune. Look at all that religious imagery. While we are at it, Saturn in the tradition rules the 8th and 1st - where we leave and enter our incarnation. The 8th of death leads to the 9th of journey upwards, to our destination with God. Going home, our return, as Liz Greene has it. Hence the peak of the chart, the mountains, aspiration. My MC is Sagittarius. Plant has Sun-Saturn at 27 Leo. Transitting Saturn is currently (4.2.23) at 26 Aquarius. The dweller on the threshold, the God of time, of limits, of pain but also understanding. I myself have Venus (music) in the 12th conjunct Saturn, square Neptune and this piece came from that spring, the lyre leading me into the depths to find my way once again.
My Mother had Saturn in 3rd in Aquarius and had notes on everything. One on her fridge said "Put your hand into the hand of God and step into the darkness" (good Scorpio sentiment.) This faith I feel now, as Saturn moves for me into the first and for the world into Pisces. Moving from its familiar territory to that of faith and yet uncertainty, the murkiness of Piscean, cadent uncertainty. Cadent might be weak but weakness also is flux and flexibility and that leads to change and all cycles are about that fundamental. Flux is life. Jesus came to us (we have stipulated) at Xmas, in the dark of the year. He left us and rose again, in the Spring. You can read your own symbolism. The darkest hour is before dawn; the Sun always rises, just on a different landscape. Movement is life. Stasis is death. Very Saturn. We can all Google Zelensky and Ukraine chart to see where they stand right now. It's where they have stood before. It is the Saturn return of Ukraine independence from USSR in 1991; it is second Saturn return since Stalin starved them in the early 30s. For me it is 30 years since I came up North in Uk to work in hospitals, again symbolic of Saturn in 12th. It is 90 years since my Mother was born, the year Hitler took power.
As a Mercury rising person, i feel privileged to hold Cadaceus in my hand and mouth when i speak with clients. I no longer think and deal in material facts and events but try to bring a chart's indicators of a person's life, to life and meaning, for them, in their cycles of development. To reach the other side of meanings, we need symbols to bridge that gap. Natally i have Saturn 22.5 degrees behind my Saturn, crossing in that aspect, from the 12th to the 1st House. It was in sleep that the source of this piece came to me and it is still dark and quiet as i write this. It is not in forecasting attempts that astrology has its strength but in our religious experience of being between heaven and earth, as above, so below. We approach a full moon on Saturn, square Uranus. Emotional, conflictual images, primal and maternal, paternal and destructive. But moving in time, creative and eternal.on a moving sea, we need meaning and this I find in the symbols Jung so emphasised.
So, within all the messages above, my message to fellow translators is my view of astrology. A language of symbols, to be read to give meaning to clients' experience where they have been and where they stand now in their life. Not a fated list of what is coming for them but a script of their involvement, their place in the world, the cycle of their being and of all our beings as we transit this life. As Saturn moves towards Neptune conjunction in a few years, we are completing a synodic cycle, a long one. The grand masters of different worlds approach each other to meet in Aries, Saturn's least comfortable spot and maybe Neptune's most inspirational? The material and transcendant have to meld and compromise. The conjunction comes at early Aries, on the 1760 (or thereabouts) conjunction of Saturn with Uranus. A Pluto full cycle has passed and the world knows what it has done and where it stands. The stakes, as always, are high. Perhaps Pisceans all have a poetic streak after all, which I have always questioned.
So, as Saturn approaches Neptune's realm, indulge me with a last religious reference, as those two planetary Gods close on each other in Aries, the sign of courage, man's most essential quality for survival:
"be strong and of good courage. Be thou not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest"
(Bunyan.)
