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The social planet Saturn definitely leaves its home of Aquarius from March 08, 2023, around the full moon (which may therefore be more “energetic” to follow for that), to invest the sign of Pisces and remain there over about 3 years until February 2026.
There is obviously a very important symbolic confrontation that will take place between the Saturnian earth forces and the Neptunian water forces that rule this sign, two types of energies that are quite different in their prerogatives, but that will have to work together for a while…
Understanding the archetypes involved and resituating the present long-term cycles
In the spring of 2022, we were able to witness the important conjunction of Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces, which notably signed in mundane astrology the beginning of the war in Ukraine, as well as the explosion of the energy crisis and inflation…
I am talking about this conjunction again, because as far as astrological cycles are concerned, it really forms a very important “temporal marker”, not only in mundane astrology by the way, but also in personal astrology: what has been “awakened” there in your life, what could emerge, in terms of realization or even just “awareness” (maybe also an obstacle by the way), could be to be realized / concretized / materialized or sublimated, over the years to come, thanks to – or through – Saturn’s transit notably.
The next important astrological cycle marker in this context, will obviously be the conjunction of Saturn with Neptune, but this one will especially take place from June 2025, and on the beginning of Aries (in the Martian Fire therefore), which will be a global and generational cycle still particularly important! (beginning of a whole new cycle between Saturn and Neptune)
To understand this Saturnian transit by then, it is already very important to understand the intrinsic symbolism of these forces: Saturn has a very “drying” nature and it wants structuring, even if it means bringing constraints and limitations for that, what is most important for it is to materialize, to concretize, to face reality; whereas Neptune has emotional forces that are more simply receptive, and that are more ethereal, transpersonal and dissolving.
I refer you here to what I can say for example about the duality between “matter and spirit” or also to what I can say about the alchemical processes of Coagulatio and Solutio (these planets embody the famous Solve and Coagula of the alchemists), as these are elements that will necessarily be much more sensitized by this transit and this period, and that can take different forms, both in our lives, and in our societies (finish diluting points of the past and restructure new foundations).
This transit of Saturn will also accompany the end of the transit of Neptune in Pisces, which has been in the long term since April 2011, and where this planet has been strong in domicile, so this Neptunian transit will also have an important recapitulation charge on all of this until 2026 before passing definitively into Aries!
See then, if this Neptunian transit and this period of time, may have represented something important for you…
There are really all these connections to be understood in the period to come, because we are talking about rather long cycles, and we must necessarily resituate Saturn here in relation to these elements, the planet really comes to bring a closure, a rather dry turning (an end of long cycles), but where its social forces can also be rather “numb”, slowed down (we can imagine for example symbolically “matter which tries to move forward in the water”, but which finds itself slowed down, swallowed up, not at ease in what it wants to develop).
For information, the previous Saturn / Neptune conjunction took place from March 1989, in Capricorn, so this time it was the Saturnian energies that were in domicile, and this was the year in particular of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the events of Tian’anmen Square (I recall that in mundane astrology Neptune is linked to socialism and communism, so it is possible that countries that have these types of regimes in their history, are more impacted by these forces in transit).
The previous transit of Saturn in Pisces took place from the spring of 1993 to the spring of 1996, if that can give you any indication of what you personally experienced at that time as well.
This transit of Saturn from 2023 to 2026 fits well I think with the symbolism of “sobriety”, which is apparently quite fashionable politically as I write these lines (or the “end of abundance” as President Emmanuel Macron said, words that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago!).
And this could accompany very well at the world level a better awareness of the climatic problems (perhaps of the drought, which is also valued by the media at the moment), but also why not of the oil peak (the astrologer Hades attached the symbolism of Neptune to the oil, and some people also alert on that), or of the phenomenon of economic recession (need for example to reform the way of calculating the development of our societies, other than within a framework of “growth”, the year 1993 had already experienced a significant recession).
Saturn and Neptune have many and wide-ranging symbolisms and analogies, so in personal astrology, their interpretation will depend very much on how these forces are expressed in your birth chart, and how these transits fit into your chart.
This is the general outline of the archetypal energies and some possible mundane astrology interpretations, we will be able to better divide this Saturnian transit at the temporal level into 2 different waves…
March 2023, fundamental elemental changes
The month of March 2023 remains really strongly to watch, because it knows 2 fundamental elemental changes, which are Saturn passing in Pisces, and Pluto starting to shift in Aquarius!
We know that the “number 1 degrees” of the signs are always more particularly energetic, and that the passage of planets here is often the marker of a particular triggering factor, whether again in mundane astrology or in personal astrology (examples are numerous in this sense).
For example, these months could mark in 2023 the impulse of a particular realization that has the nature of a transforming crisis, with above all, the need to succeed in matching the reality (what we do), with what we idealize, or according to what we have been able to achieve even for several years (even 2011).
Saturn has a bit of a double role here, on the one hand the planet comes as a bit of a wet blanket to ask us “what have you built from your fundamental ideals? have you come closer to your vocation? (with a crisis perhaps on that); but on the other hand, it can force to realism and pragmatism, to face these parts inside us, and to teach us to be satisfied with “simpler things”, or to succeed in realizing in spite of everything what we want, but “with less”, perhaps less embellishments and fanfares, more in “expertise” than in communication…
It is no longer as with the Jovian forces, here there is no space for abstraction and expansion on Neptune, and dreams are in a way put to the test even if it means a “lesser realization” than originally imagined, the spring of 2023 may be more particularly demanding on this (on these reframings), and what will play out there may mark several more months.
In any case, it is better to set an attainable and coherent goal (even if it means lowering one’s basic expectations), than to chase chimeras…
Note that this Saturnian transit seems to concern mostly the Mutable signs at this time, and especially obviously the first decans, so Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius.
The good thing is that at this time, throughout 2023 and the first half of 2024, Saturn does not form a major tension with the rest of the background sky, so it seems that at the personal level the constraints and realism that this planet conveys at the evolutionary level will anyway be “integrated” rather passively if I may say so, and perhaps even positively used (or “turned around”) perhaps in terms of wisdom and introspection, of working on acceptance, of stepping back, even forgiveness…
August 2024 / June 2025 / February 2026: increasing square of Jupiter, conjunction Saturn / Neptune, passing in Aries
The next important step in the slow social cycles will be the increasing square of Jupiter from Gemini, especially from August 2024, which will mark several months!
It is a confrontation of the two social planets which could logically translate more tensions perhaps with the strict parts of Saturn (refusal / struggles), and which will concern especially this time the 2nd and 3rd decans of all the Mutable signs.
This quadrature will mark the sky in the background until the conjunction of Saturn to Neptune around June 2025, and it is a period that will form a sort of culmination of the medium-term social tensions, a test of concretization and externalization, with much less passivity and acceptance, and more need to “negotiate”, to discuss, to arrange the requested changes, to rebel…
In all this period, this Saturnian transit will be much less “passive and undergone”, and much more in a “struggle of emergence”!
The balance sheet and recapitulation load will clearly be maximized and accelerated, as this period may have a significant correlation to the events of spring 2022 as well as spring 2023 for that matter.
The June/July 2025 period confirms a really important electrical charge as the planet Uranus will also pass through Gemini in the mid-term, trine Pluto in Aquarius, and this is again an elemental change clearly not to be neglected, which adds to the “triggering factor” nature of this period (I’ll come back to this in the article on the important Pluto transit obviously).
But I will have the opportunity to return more precisely to the rapid influences that can pace and energize these cycles more finely, in my lunation articles, to be followed obviously.