Saturn entered the sign of Pisces on March 7, 2023.
Any time a planet moves into a new sign, there is a shift in energy that can be felt on a collective level. We can gain understanding of how this collective shift will impact us personally by looking at what house that planet will be transiting on our natal chart. Each of the 12 houses represents an aspect of life, such as our identity, money and personal resources, communication, home and family life, etc.
Saturn transits are an opportunity to step into another level of maturation in the area of our life that it is moving through. We may feel an increased pressure to be responsible for who we are and how we show up in our lives. Responsibility means the ability to respond. In order to respond in ways that will help us grow, we need to be willing to receive objective feedback about the current state of our reality. Saturn shows us, in tangible form, the consequences of our past choices and gives us a chance to make adjustments if we are living in ways that are not in alignment with what we wish to experience in the future. This reality check can feel intense and sometimes crushing (especially if we’ve been in denial) but Saturn helps us build inner strength, resilience, and self-discipline like nothing else. It teaches us patience, right timing, endurance, and how to persevere through obstacles by applying consistent effort over time, turning each small step into giant leaps forward by the end of the transit.
Saturn is known as Father Time* and its transit through the signs can be likened to turning the hands on a clock. It takes Saturn about 30 years to make an entire circuit through all 12 signs of the Zodiac. It makes a quarter turn around the wheel approximately every 7 years and the stages of development (in regards to any person, process, project, institution, etc) can be tracked through time by reviewing what was happening at previous points in its cycle.
*Saturn has resonance with the sign of Capricorn, which is a feminine earth sign. The view of Saturn as a father figure is a creation of the patriarchy and is not in alignment with its historical expression as the elder grandmother who holds the knowledge of history and uses that wisdom to plant seeds for the future.
In this post, I will be sharing my personal experience with Saturn in Pisces. I will review past transits to identify themes that may give insight into what might unfold for me in these next 2+ years. I will briefly reflect on recent Saturn transits through Capricorn and Aquarius that will offer some important context for the rest of this story. This is a short summary of events that I will expand on further in later blog posts.
Saturn in Capricorn & Aquarius
Although modern astrologers associate Aquarius with the planet Uranus (which was discovered in 1781 thanks to the invention of the telescope), Saturn is the traditional ruler of both Capricorn and Aquarius. According to traditional astrology, any time Saturn is in one of its own signs, it is able to flex its power without interference, and all the Saturnian traits are in full force. That means an increase in restrictions, limits, boundaries, rules, hard work, and personal responsibility.
Saturn entered Capricorn (and my 2nd house of money and personal resources) at the end of 2017, just as I was leaving my steady job to start my own business. The next 2.5 years were a crash course in restructuring how I manage my money, which included paying off debt, seeking advice from a financial advisor and setting up new systems to help me follow a realistic budget, build an emergency fund and plan for my future. In that first year of self-employment, I was consumed with work, trying to get my business off the ground. This had a detrimental effect on my social life as my schedule was too full to make room for visits with friends and family.
Between March and July 2020, when Saturn briefly moved into Aquarius, I felt a temporary reprieve from the pressures of work as the entire world went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Obviously, that didn’t do my social life any favors. The isolation from family and friends that resulted from my choice to prioritize work was now replaced by an even more strict isolation due to circumstances beyond my control.
By the end of 2020, Saturn resumed its transit through my 3rd house of communication, local travel, and daily routines. Even though the pandemic continued to put restrictions on travel, I experienced an increasing pressure to structure my daily schedule and create a system that would help me get back to pre-pandemic productivity. This was difficult because suddenly every task seemed to take 3 times longer than I expected it to. Gone were the days when I could make a list and power through. It felt like my brain was on strike. I was easily distracted and couldn’t get my mind to follow a straight line. I was swimming in ideas but was incapable of organizing them in way that would allow me to access or utilize them. I started to feel a sense of hopelessness that I would ever be able to get “back on track.”
I now know that these worsening symptoms were due to being an undiagnosed neurodivergent person experiencing burnout. (Read more about that in my other blog post, Hey, it's me, AuDHD.) I’d been successfully masking these traits until the stress exceeded my ability to cope. I’ve read that it takes on average 3-5 years to recover from burnout. It was no surprise to discover that this span of time perfectly coincided with Saturn transiting Capricorn and Aquarius, putting me (and all of us!) in a massive pressure cooker. My recovery has been slow, but steady. I’ve had a huge reality check about the limits of my energy and the self-discipline it takes to say no to overextending myself. I have gained a greater respect for my neurodivergent brain. I am celebrating it for the unique gifts it offers, rather than shaming it for not meeting impossible (to me) standards.
And this sets the stage for the softening that comes next.
Saturn in Pisces
March 7, 2023 – May 24, 2025 September 1, 2025 – February 12, 2026
Pisces is my 4th house of home and roots. The 4th house represents our home (both the physical structure and the feeling sense of what home is), our family (which includes family of origin and the people we live with and/or consider family later in life), and our roots (biological, ancestral, and possibly spiritual lineage.) It also represents our private life and our foundation, the conditions that support and hold us so that are able to fulfill our life intent out in the world.
The last time Saturn was in Pisces was 1993-1996. I was 15-18 years old. During this transit, I became a mother at the age of 17, planting the seeds for a new branch of my family. (Yes, this means that my eldest child is approaching his 1st Saturn Return.)
Now Saturn is in a sign that is traditionally ruled by Jupiter. Instead of restriction, contraction, limits and boundaries, Jupiter encourages us to expand beyond our borders and receive grand new visions. The modern ruler of Pisces is Neptune, the planet of the Universal Heart, the sense of Divine Oneness that connects all life.
As Saturn in Pisces transits my 4th house of home and roots, it calls for a gentle softening of long-held patterns and rigid structures, specifically related to my family of origin, lineage, and my home environment. It shows me that “home” is not bound to a single structure. As this transit progresses, I see myself settling into a profound feeling of being at home with myself, wherever I am. Home is an inner sanctum that is always supporting me and never erodes.
I am learning to hear the calls from home, beckoning me to return to my source to replenish myself. To rehydrate my thirsty body, to bust through the dams that have stagnated my creative flow. To soften the restrictions in my body, mind, and psyche to allow Spirit to pour itself into me, like crystal clear water into a glass of mud. Let the pain that has been frozen in time start to thaw and flow. Feel my feelings rise to the surface and spill out until I am clean of the residue of past trauma.
Collage for Saturn in Pisces - 4th house/IC
I am practicing how to keep myself safe from toxic patterns embedded in my lineage and navigate family dynamics in a way that is healthy for me. I am prioritizing my healing so I can be a healing presence in my family, and beyond. Knowing what I can give without depleting myself and expressing these boundaries with kind assertiveness. Only saying yes when I want to say yes keeps me from repeating patterns of resentment and makes me more available for genuine heart connections.
Through intuitive art, I am giving form to the visionary language of my dreams and inner landscape. This non-verbal therapy practice is re-connecting me to the flow of my voice. Saturn is helping me establish appropriate containers to pour my mystic’s voice into. The main one being my Buy Me a Coffee page. This is where I will be sharing most of my content, including audio recordings of my inner journeys, in two series titled "Mad Sage Speaks" and "Field Notes from the Wild Within."
The first audio recording is available to the public. It is about the tension in my body being what holds me together and my thoughts on what would happen if I begin to release that tension. It is called, "Dissolve."
The latest post in my mystic poetry series, The Mad Sage Speaks, is also Saturn in Pisces themed. It is titled, "The River."
This Saturn in Pisces transit feels like a journey back to the source of my magic. I am experiencing what it feels like to be fully awake with spirit embodied as I move slowly and consciously through my life at the pace of presence.