Saturn and Neptune in Pisces

Saturn and Neptune in Pisces 2023-2026
If you have Pisces factors in your birth chart (you may be a Pisces, or have a stellium in Pisces, or just a single planet in Pisces) then the double transit of Saturn and Neptune in that sign, from March 8^th 2023 until February 14^th 2026, is important.
The random, frequently chaotic, uncontained nature of your own inner life - since 2011 - is about to be structured. Your inner aquarium will have new walls. New rules. This may be cognitive therapy or church reform. It's an interior, invisible process.
Pisces rules your Twelfth House in astrology. You live here some, or most of the time, depending on how many factors you have in Pisces. Four, five, six or more horoscope factors in your Twelfth House is a stellium.
Open the door to the Twelfth House and we find your God, or your rejection of God. So, we might find a rosary or a Buddha figure. Books which are anti-religion. This is where we find Islam and Judaism, Pentecostalism, Mormons and the rest.


Christianity and Pisces
Christianity as a whole is Pisces-ruled. The twelve apostles were called 'the fishers of men.' Early Christians called themselves 'little fishes'. The miracle of the loaves and fishes is well known. Today, Christians have fish stickers on their car windows.
You may have the Sun in Pisces or more than that, but this sign is associated with a strong point of view on God. Einstein had one (he was a Sun Pisces). I remember interviewing Kurt Cobain for Select and wondering if astrology meant more to him than religion. Heart-Shaped Box opens with the line "She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak."
Astrology is a good example of a Twelfth House leaning. The Twelfth House is about dual realities. The two fish swim in opposite directions. There is the real world, and the alternative world of the zodiac. Parallel universes are another good example of the Twelfth House, as is quantum theory.
The Tarot, Hypnosis and Dreams
Pisces is the invisible, inner world experienced when alone with one's own soul, spirit or psyche. It is about the subconscious as well as the etheric body, aura and chakra system. It really depends on your point of view. In the 20^th century, the Twelfth House was associated with psychiatric wards and mental hospitals by some astrologers. If you leave the real world for an unreal world, to the point where you are committed to an institution, you may be having an extreme Twelfth House experience.
Carl Jung
More commonly, Pisces and the Twelfth House are about church, or the Tarot deck, or dreams. Hypnosis is a Pisces and Twelfth House experience. Therapy and counselling are ruled by the Twelfth House. So is psychiatry and psychology. We find the Pope here as much as we do Carl Jung or Sigmund Freud.
You have been living with Neptune in Pisces transiting your Twelfth House since April 5^th 2011. Neptune rules Pisces so he has been in his own sign for the last 12 years. When Saturn enters Pisces from March 8^th 2023 you will find boundaries, where there were no boundaries, before. Saturn is about ring-fenced situations. Neptune is about what is all over the place, everywhere, all the time - just like the ocean. The two astrology symbols could not be more different, so let's take a closer look.


Saturn in Astronomy
Saturn has broad, bright rings. There are seven rings and a couple of them are known as divisions. Saturn divides your world into 'me here' and 'them/that over there' and it is impossible to either gain access, or get out, when Saturn transits a sign. You are lumbered. If you look at your Saturn sign and house natally, you will see how one part of your life has been divided, since you were born.
This NASA photograph explains Saturn well. NASA is the go-to source for astrologers interested in astronomy, of course. "Vertical structures, among the tallest seen in Saturn's main rings, rise abruptly from the edge of Saturn's B ring," runs the description. This looks like the wall of a building.
Saturn is a highly structured piece of architecture in your life where it's impossible to escape and equally impossible to access. Who builds the structures? You do, or others do. Why? Defence or protection.
Saturn in Pisces
A very simple example is Saturn in Pisces itself. If you were born with Saturn in Pisces in the Twelfth House, you were lumbered with God. Christened, or not.
You could not get out of your earliest experience of religion, simply because your parents chose to assign Godparents and take you to the font - or make you part of another faith - or reject religion entirely. You may have gone to a Roman Catholic school, for example. They wanted God to protect you. Or, they may have refused to have you Christened. Protecting you from priests!
Saturn ring-fences situations. Pisces, as we've seen, rules Christianity. In this example, you were born with religion built in, because as a baby, your family had that intention for you. Later on, it may be one of the reasons you seek counselling. Again, that's Saturn in Pisces. There are many variations on this theme.
Saturn Returns
Saturn Returns occur when transiting Saturn makes a conjunction with natal Saturn, in the same zodiac sign and house, and at the same degree, you were born with. Minimising the stakes is sensible before Saturn returns. Lower the impact by pulling back on matters related to the house where Saturn will return.
So, for example, if you have your Saturn Return in Pisces in 2023-2026, you would choose another time to enrol in a degree in Religious Studies or certification as a hypnotist. The less important, and the 'less' in general, the better. You can't escape a Saturn Return. You have to live with barricades, barriers and obstacles when Saturn comes back - it's part of the deal. However, you can reduce the impact by reducing the space that the matters, governed by Saturn in your chart, take up.
Neptune in Astronomy
Neptune is a gas giant in astronomy. He also rules gas as an anaesthetic and was discovered in the same year that surgery under anaesthetic was performed publicly for the first time. As above, so below. It has cloud features. Again, Neptune in astrology rules clouds. The methane of Neptune makes it appear blue. In astrology, Neptune is linked to the Roman ruler of the blue oceans.
If you have ever gone swimming in an icy sea and gone numb, you have had a Neptune experience in astrology. Going under the waves is similar to going under gas, before a procedure. Inhaling clouds of gas can put you in an altered state. So can prolonged swimming or diving. The deep blue sea and your experience of it - numbed - is Neptunian.
Neptune in a sign, tells you where you don't feel a thing! If you have Neptune in Scorpio, the sign ruling banks, you may live on a credit card. You borrow and the bank lends. It is one way of being Comfortably Numb to bills.
A Familiar Cycle in Religion and Art
William Holman Hunt and The Shadow of Death (below) nicely shows what happens when Saturn and Neptune both transit Pisces, the sign ruling Christianity. What was never clearly defined, is made concrete. Hunt and his colleagues gave bible passages structure by creating quite filmic scenes on canvas. The realism of their work, made the unreal world of religion, real. Hunt took his faith very seriously. We would expect a revival of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 2023-2026.



Saturn and Neptune in Pisces - 1847, 1848, 1849
As above, the intensely religious paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood belong to this earlier transit of Pisces by Saturn and Neptune. So does the missionary David Livingstone in Africa.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, John Bird Sumner, leader of the Church of England, supported the Divorce Bill during the last important Saturn and Neptune co-transit in Pisces.
This period found many questioning God's will. And other peoples' God/Gods. It was a period of curiosity about the soul, or spirit. What happened when a surgeon made you unconscious on the operating table? Where had you gone?
You were not alive, but you were not dead, so where were you? And who were you? Chloroform made news in 1847 when Saturn and Neptune both occupied Pisces.
This idea of the unconscious, the subconscious and the essence of a person - the spirit - evolved with mediumship, too, in the same period. There was new physical proof that we could be in a mysterious altered state, neither conscious nor dead. This allows for the idea of the Holy Spirit, the spirit itself, resurrection and life after death. Neptune's discovery also chimed with this period.
Comfortably Numb and Chloroform
Sir James Young Simpson put his friends to sleep with chloroform for the first time, on the last Neptune and Saturn in Pisces cycle - and the future of childbirth looked Comfortably Numb.
He would go on to organise supplies for Florence Nightingale. The two most obvious ways Saturn and Neptune in Pisces reveal themselves are - religion and drugs.
The Church of England, Saturn and Neptune in Pisces
The Church of England has her Pluto Return in 2023-2026 at the same time that we see this religious crossroads. I have predicted elsewhere that Charles and Camilla will not take the throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will be at the heart of a constitutional crisis for the Anglican faith which began with Meghan Markle, as she was then.
Pfizer, Saturn and Neptune in Pisces
The big pharmaceutical company Pfizer was born with Saturn and Neptune in Pisces in 1849 when Charles Pfizer began the company with his cousin. Pfizer makes the drugs which treat depression, but also reduce the risk of hospitalisation from Covid, at time of writing, in January 2023. Pfizer has also produced Lyrica, associated with depression as a side-effect.
This is how you predict the future. Pfizer will have its dual Neptune and Saturn Return in Pisces in 2023-2026 and after a long period without any boundaries, will be restricted. Neptune has no known limits, like a shifting horizon over a blue sea. Saturn has multiple limits and through its rings, is associated with ring-fencing. Pfizer is due for this. We'd expect class action lawsuits, perhaps, or strong action from the W.H.O. or big governments. A Saturn-Neptune Return is historic and game-changing.


Roget's Thesaurus, Saturn and Neptune
The Twelfth House of your chart is ruled by Neptune and Pisces natally, and so associated with: Jesus Christ and your belief, or rejection of Christ. God, or Gods, plural and your faith or lack of faith. Miracles and angels, or your disbelief. Alternative realities, tied to your trust in Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Paganism and so on. Your inner space.
Neptune is associated with all that is deep, thanks to his rulership of the ocean. This suits the idea of deep-held beliefs or deep-set views. Onward Christian Soldiers is an example of it. Religious crusades, another. Roget's Thesaurus is a useful guide to Neptune. Baptism (as a baby or born-again adult) is Neptune.
So too is formlessness. The ocean has no form until you put it in a bucket or channel it into a tidal pool. Neptune is - a lack of definition. Chaos. Confusion. Muddle. Vagueness. Distortion. All that is hazy, fuzzy, blurred. Rather like opening your eyes under water in the sea.
If this is ringing bells, it is because you have been living with Neptune in Pisces in the Twelfth House since 2011, but now you are about to live with Saturn too.
Saturn is Structure
And so to the rings and divisions. Saturn is the planet with architecture. Circular walls. Roget's Thesaurus suggests: plan, constitution, building, establishment, superstructure, framework. Saturn looks like a planet which has hired an architect to defend it - nothing and nobody has access. If you are on the inside, you can't get out, either.
You can see why 2023-2026 will bring strict new rules for religious festivals and church gatherings, which are super-spreader events for Covid. We would also expect the Church of England to be confronted with its own rules, having been increasingly fluid since Neptune entered Pisces in 2011.
Saturn is Patience
Saturn is associated with patience and long stretches of time for a number of reasons. Firstly, Saturn replaced the Greek god Kronos/Chronos and so the idea of chronic situations and chronological order was born. Saturn is often shown with his famous scythe, once used to castrate Uranus, but over the centuries, linked to both Father Time and the Grim Reaper.
The Saturn Return, when Saturn returns to the same sign and degree he occupied at your birth, marks old age. Around 60 and around 90. The other obvious point about Saturn is that he turns retrograde. He moves forward, stands still, then goes back over old ground.
Just when we think we have seen the back of him, he comes back, and repeats his transit over a sign and degree. If you turn Saturn on his side in the usual NASA imagery he looks like a clock, waiting for hands and numbers. Saturday comes from Saturn's day. We wait, and wait for the end of the week.
Time will tell, with Saturn. Another symbol for Saturn is an egg in a nest. Birds build walls to protect their chick. It may work. It may not. Predators circle and wild winds shake the tree. Time will tell. Sue Tompkins associates Saturn with being under-defended or over-defended, which is astute. Examine your nest from March 2023.
Dual Symbolism
Astrology is poetry, as Geoffrey Cornelius and Maggie Hyde often remind us. It is personal to you. Taking the symbolism of Pisces, the Twelfth House, Neptune and Saturn, you can see what is possible, once you translate the imagery into meaningful ideas, relevant to your own life. I have had hundreds of readers present with Neptune in Pisces transits of their Twelfth House since 2011.
Confusion about the spirit world, the lower astral, the aura and chakras is common. So are confusing, muddled professional psychics. I guess this is likely on an astrology website, but there have been other common experiences too. Godparents who find their godchildren do not understand the role (and neither do their parents, who don't attend church). I've also had readers taking medication which produces Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar, itself an expression of Neptune and Saturn.
Defining the transit for yourself since 2011 should be pretty easy; after that, add Saturn. Destiny is negotiable, to coin a favourite phrase from The Company of Astrologers. That's the point of astrology. Know your transits and know what to do.
Main Image: Yomex Owo (Unsplash).