Saturn in Pisces is a planetary transit that impacts all of us for about 3 years – from March 7th, 2023, to May 25th, 2025, and then from September 1st, 2025 till February 14th, 2026. From then on, Saturn’s not going to be in Pisces again until the year 2052. (In the meantime, May-September 2025, Saturn will be dipping into Aries.)
What does it mean when a giant like Saturn switches signs? In a nutshell, it means that societies at large restructure (Saturn) the way they handle Piscean themes like kindness, spirituality, empathy, altruism, addiction, escapism, fantasy, hopes, dreams, mysticism, religion, consciousness, and any part of life that’s dealing with a lack of boundaries.
Ways this can look like are: recognizing the power of compassion on a societal level and making space for it. Learning mature empathy. Developing boundaries with kindness – but also boundaries for being kind. Supporting structures for victims while bringing appropriate consequences to people enamored with victimhood. Building structures of healing and spiritual containers. Working with the necessity of spirituality while recognizing the necessary practical aspects of life and bringing them into spirituality. Realizing the responsibility of pain. The price of intuition – and the price of ignoring intuition. Learning where we must let go of walls between ourselves and others, and where those walls are necessary for survival. Saturn in Pisces has many facets, and we’ll talk about a lot of them – even more than in this little tidbit.
But before we get in here, I’d like to give a bit of a warning: Saturn is a wonderful planet that brings many positive things to people’s lives. As a matter of fact, it’s one of my favorite planets to boot as it rewards effort, integrity, and character growth. But, in order to do this planet justice, we’ll first have to talk about some negative side-effects and negative potentiality of this planet.
Essentially, every single planet, sign, house, and aspect has positive and negative qualities and Saturn is no exception. However, the beauty of astrology is that we can learn to deal with the negative and transform it into something positive. We have autonomy, we have choices, we have options. Astrology shows us how to capitalize on that without leaving out the honest realities of life.
So, let’s start with the negative stuff and then work our way into the positive potential.
The Shadow of Pisces
Pisces is the sign most concerned with giving up our sense of identity in order to fully merge with something bigger than ourselves.
Wait, what?, you may ask – and that question is highly relevant. To give you a quick introduction to astrological signs, everybody has every sign somewhere in their natal chart, a.k.a. their astrological blueprint. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Pisces Rising or not, what your Sun sign/star sign is – it doesn’t matter whether your Sun’s in Leo or Scorpio or Gemini, or whether you have any planet in Pisces: the energy of Pisces exists somewhere within you because it’s somewhere in your chart. The planetary placements just show how important Pisces is for you. (And if you don’t have much in Pisces, you’re still going to have Neptune somewhere in your chart who carries similar themes – but more on that later.)
All zodiac signs (that are all present for everyone, just in different ways) speak to different functions of your psyche. Aries is the function of clear identity and the drive towards self-actualization. It’s also the function of fighting for your rights and for your desires, as well as the part of you capable of taking risks. Another sign, Aquarius, is the function of recognizing where you’re different from others while also giving you the vision and drive to use that difference to change the world. Aquarius allows you to be in a group and involved in changing a group without losing who you are, or what makes you unique. A.k.a., Aquarius is the part where we’re not influenced by Group Think or peer pressure, though we still are in relationship with others.
With only those two functions in your chart… human relatedness would be pretty difficult. Because how could you relate with others if all that you see is how different you are from them (Aquarius) and that you need to fight for your wants, needs, and identity (Aries)? That’s why Pisces exists: Pisces gives the necessary medicine of realizing that you and I are not all that different, after all.
Pisces is the part of us where we can give up our sense of self so completely that we can lose ourselves in other people (or a higher ideal). The good news of this is that this balances out Aries’s “I am myself! And I shall fight for this!” as well as Aquarius’s “I am so different from you.” It allows you to be aware of your own differences and your identity, wants, and needs, without losing sight of the fact that someone different than you isn’t necessarily your enemy. Pisces is compassion and the part of you capable of walking in someone else’s shoes for a while. It’s meeting a person from a different culture, who speaks a different language, and has different beliefs – and seeing something in them that you deeply, completely resonate with. It dissolves differences enough that similarities can matter. And it allows you to realize that you ain’t the Main Character of the universe and that other people matter, too.
The shadow of this comes when that function runs amok with you… and you completely lose yourself, you think that you’re worth less than everyone else, that it’s your job to sacrifice yourself for other people continuously. When you can’t differentiate between what somebody else wants, and what you want. When what you want doesn’t even matter because what matters is someone else’s happiness.
The next shadow is also that the need of Pisces to step out of your own shoes into someone else’s can get you in trouble. People with an unhealthy response to Pisces or Neptune tend to pick the most damaged, dangerous, and broken people in the vicinity and try to merge their identity with them to shower them with unconditional love and acceptance, in the hopes that this fixes who they are. It’s like the logic says: “You don’t have enough love in your life because you’re such an a**hole that people don’t like you (for good reason). Also, you’re probably only this broken because you didn’t get hugged enough? I’m sure you’re actually good at your core, so I shall love you, all of you, till you’re whole and nice again. I shall save you from your own darkness!” That’s sweet in theory, but it’s also the quickest way to get into seriously damaging and dangerous situations. There are lines… and we can’t save people who don’t want to save themselves.
Another potential where this can go wrong comes through overmuch sensitivity to other people’s emotions. This is something that Pisces brings… but in its worst shadow, it can lead to a) an individual who can’t for the life of them say No to others or stand their ground, or b) an individual that tries to escape the noise by various, sometimes extremist paths. This is why Pisces is associated with drugs, addictions, and trying to flee from the world. You feel so much where Pisces lies that you need a break every once in a while… and if you only flee, but never stand your ground, that can be damaging.
The last negative potential of Pisces that we’ll talk about is perpetual victimhood. First, being victimized is a thing and it’s not anyone’s character flaw. Bad things happen to good people. Pisces is the zodiac sign that signifies that sort of pain, as Pisces also rules suffering in general (and miracles – let’s not forget that there’s a good side too, we’ll just come to it later in the article). So, becoming a victim or being very vulnerable is not what I mean here, though it’s undoubtedly not a fun side of Pisces. But there are people who cling to their pain and use it to blackmail others into “saving them,” “feeling sorry for them,” or “working to make their lives better.” And that’s the true negative side of Pisces.
This is where Saturn comes in.
Saturn and Pisces.
Saturn is a planet that always shows us the consequences of all positive and all negative behaviors we’re engaged in. If we live a life of integrity with a healthy but efficient work ethic, a realistic outlook on life, and a sane but appropriate amount of effort, Saturn makes our lives really great. It may strengthen the foundation of your life or bring you positive reinforcement in terms of allowing you to “level up,” to reach a new level of maturity or even status in your community, work environment, or other areas of life (depending on the house of transit). For instance, many people with Saturn transiting (a.k.a.: going through) their 7th house of marriage and long-term relationships actually meet their (next) lifelong partner or get married to their partner under this transit.
However, if you cut corners, fly by the seat of your pants, do things half-assed, or don’t act in integrity and just try to “course through life regardless,” then Saturn will give you the consequences of that, too. Essentially, the “doing things halfway and hoping it works” will likely not work as well as Saturn shows you where you’re lacking. Saturn is the part of your chart that likes to do things the right way, not the wrong way. However, the right way also includes a way that’s sustainable, allows you to keep up your health, and that’s appropriate for your skillset in the area of life Saturn sits natally/is transiting right now: a.k.a., a response for Saturn in the 6th house of work isn’t necessary to do more, it’s to learn to schedule work efficiently and realistically – and that may lead to someone doing less in a Saturn in the 6th house transit, depending on their chart and life).
If you completely butcher things and build your life on lies, refuse to take self-responsibility, or live a life that’s out of integrity, then Saturn is going to give you the bill, too. Saturn in the 7th house may mean divorce. Saturn in the 8th house loss of an inheritance you’ve expected to get. Saturn in the 10th house of career, you may get fired – Saturn in the 4th, your kids stop speaking to you. These are all examples, not iron-clad rules, but I hope this explains Saturn’s inner mechanisms.
Saturn gives results – but it also shows you how to be better.
When Saturn, therefore, comes into Pisces, the negative potential we’ve already talked about is going to become extremely important. If you sacrifice yourself for someone else, you’ll get the bill for this. (Namely, a lot of pain and the awareness that your sacrifice likely did little compared to the price you paid). If you are enamored with your own past pain and with “how much of a victim you are,” then Saturn is giving you a slap on the head for that and putting you through the wringer until you grow up and deal. Similarly, if you try to escape your own sensitivity, Saturn shows you exactly where the method of choice is going to get you (if it’s a good one, far, if it’s drugs and alcohol – probably not far at all).
However, if you ignore your inner Pisces and suppress your sensitivity, capacity for compassion, spiritual needs, and empathy, then Saturn is giving you the bill for that, too: this transit isn’t about people becoming emotionless robots, it’s about people becoming healthy in their sensitivity.
And that means first and foremost, boundaries and a healthy tough skin. Then, within that tough skin and those healthy boundaries, deep compassion, altruism, helpful wisdom, and disciplined, mature action to better the life of another. Feeling without losing yourself but feeling regardless. Recognizing the similarities between you and them, while being wise enough to know that there are differences. Building structures for you to recharge while helping, building structures that are focused on helping the person that’s in pain. Part of this is also the realization that you are not someone else and therefore, the things that may work for another person may not work for you.
Saturn in Pisces also talks about some of the worst forms of compassion: tough love. Sometimes, the nicest thing you can do to someone is to tell them “No.” Sometimes, the thing that saves someone is to hit rock bottom and to hit it hard. Sometimes, the only way that you yourself change is through seeing your own reflection and realizing how nasty it looks right now. Saturn in Pisces deals with that kind of compassion that’s hard to give and hard to receive, but that’s deeply necessary anyways. Sometimes, in order to save one person, you have to choose to not save, or even punish someone else. That’s also the wisdom of Saturn in Pisces.
It’s also the wisdom that in order to help someone, you need to be mindful with your resources. You can’t just overextend yourself all the time and expect to remain functioning for someone else, you have to take care of yourself enough to keep going.
Saturn in Pisces also deals with the hard realization that sometimes, you need to cut your losses and give up trying to save someone. Even if that person self-destructs. There are times when you can’t help anymore, and you have to give up. While that’s hard to hear, it’s also an unavoidable facet of reality. Not everyone can be saved. Part of the reason is that attempting to save someone else can be really dangerous: that’s why people without special lifeguard training are prohibited from jumping into water to save a drowning person. Saturn in Pisces is the wisdom that shows us how saving a drowning person when you can’t swim well enough for it leads to two dead people, rather than one getting a badge of honor for being a hero. Sometimes, you can’t win: dealing with that is the shadow of Saturn in Pisces.
Next up comes a theme that’s really important for the highly sensitive, highly empathic, deeply loving, and soft-hearted people who read this article. It’s no news that feeling can be debilitating, especially if you feel someone else’s pain (but even your own emotions can be enough to make you freeze up). This can get to the point of paralysis or even breaking apart at the seams. This transit is going to bring you skills to learn how to navigate those situations without losing yourself. Depending on where you’re at on the journey so far, this will be easier or more of a growth curve, but you’ll likely learn a lot over the next three years regardless. That being said, feelings are necessary – especially the uncomfortable feelings we’d like to suppress. Opening the floodgates (literally at the end of the three years) and feeling stuck up emotions is one of the major, worldwide themes of this transit that basically everyone has to get through. But the magic happens when you feel without allowing yourself to be completely swallowed up by this.
The magic of Saturn in Pisces comes when you recognize that there are practical things you can do to help yourself when you feel sad or feel so paralyzed that you can’t act. The magic also comes when you learn tools of prevention and learn to build structures in your life that support you when you’re helpless. Build them, and you’ll be fine.
World Themes
While Saturn travels through Pisces, we’ll encounter situations like that on a societal and private level (the latter dependent on your Rising sign). That’s how transits work. Let’s talk a little bit more about the societal level.
First of all, we’ll have opportunities as a society to see places of humanitarian action or spiritual foundations realistically. How many charities do things with our money that they shouldn’t do? Saturn in Pisces will show. How many spiritual circles are a) highly out of touch with reality, b) extremely biased to just one facet of reality, or c) downright abusive and dangerous? Saturn in Pisces will bring that up to the surface. How many corporate businesses only work because they take advantage of people’s kindness, goodwill, and personal sacrifice? Saturn in Pisces will also bring the bill for that, and it’s also going to lead to some boundaries being said to protect people here.
Meanwhile, there’s an increase in the necessity of humanitarian spaces and of structures (no matter which structures we’re speaking of) that are built with compassion, kindness, and altruism… or just more awareness of the necessity, which then leads to practical changes being made and new structures being built.
Another topic that’ll be massively highlighted, especially between 2025 and 2026 (but also before that), is consciousness, escapism, addiction… and drugs. Structures to prevent, treat, and clean up after drug abuse or other unhealthy escapist/addictive behaviors are likely going to gain significance and prevalence in society. There will beyond a doubt be changes in how we view drugs as a society, which ones will be legalized, and where the fight against drugs will pick up importance. Things like vaping, marijuana, and ayahuasca, which are either addictive or consciousness-altering substances that are also controversial/semi-accepted recreational drugs, will be decided upon on a societal level as more research will come up that shows a more clear picture of long-term consequences and side effects – be they positive or negative. (Please note: I am not sharing my own opinion on those substances in order to preserve as much objectivity in those predictions as possible. (Personally, I’m anti-vaping and not knowledgeable enough about the chemistry and effects of the other two substances to have an informed opinion worth sharing.))
Medically, we’ll see much more consequences from the use and abuse of “harmless” as well as dangerous substances and see the long-term consequences of vaccines and other medical treatments that may not have been researched enough (regardless of whether those consequences were positive or negative or when those vaccines/treatments took place). (Personally, I am pro-vaccines if they are researched enough and make sense, but there have been past situations where a hyped-up vaccine ended up killing people or causing major health issues.)
Water and the Oceans. It’s no news that we didn’t exactly treat the Oceans of the world kindly. The odds of us noticing more and more of the consequences of that as humanity at large are pretty high. Similarly, this is not a great time to invest in buildings in floodable areas that aren’t flood or tsunami-proof. Checking for physical leakages when it comes to water could also be pretty smart. Lastly, mold, allergies, and fungi could become a theme for people whose natal charts are hit in specific personal points here regarding health, body, and home.
Another societal theme is quantum physics and changes in sciences. Now, just a quick note here: part of why I’m saying that is that Pluto switches to Aquarius pretty much at the same time Saturn goes into Pisces, but Saturn in Pisces is also the combination that talks about quantum physics, the physics, and rules of energy, the science behind a lot of concepts spirituality already knows exists (soul, energy bodies, chakras… you name it), and things that seem so magical as to be impossible, but that are scientifically doable. Essentially, I foresee some interesting changes and breakthroughs in science for the next 3 years as a microcosm and the next 20 years (duration of Pluto in Aquarius) as a broader sphere of influence. It’s also highly likely that some of the knowledge that already does exist about the physics of spirituality and energetics hitting mass media and mass awareness.
On the topic of mass media: Pisces and Saturn in Pisces are probably going to fact-check some illusions people have both in terms of proving false conspiracy theories, and in terms of bringing regulations around media and social media. Social media is going to be a really interesting place over the next three years as the need for maturity in the realm of social media is going to be highlighted while practical changes will likely be implemented. What changes will those be? That’s a great question that’ll likely only become fully evident when Neptune switches to Aries in 2026-2028.
Other Piscean themes on a worldwide stage are mysticism, magic, illusions, and merging. From a business point of view, there may be a theme for the next 3 years of a) merging companies, b) highly specified businesses expanding in ways that merge/encompass more themes (which is also a part of merging), and c) the necessity of responsible, strategic, and well-thought through merges. A.k.a., where are you giving up more through merging or sharing your stuff with someone else than you agreed to? Where did you agree to hidden stipulations that aren’t great for you? Similarly, the necessity for some behind-the-scenes, illusionist work in business will be highlighted while the dangers of this also come to light. Expect things under Saturn in Pisces to come to light eventually, no matter how well you bury them. From a non-business view, the same principles still apply. If you merge with someone (financially, etc.) you may want to do lots of research before and be really sure, etc.
Lastly, let’s talk about something really important. In a divisive world like ours, it’s important to focus on what makes us the same as other people. Right now, social justice often looks like segregating people into groups. Something that I actually ran into in my university was literally the words: “cis-heterosexual people are so other from queer people that cis-hets shouldn’t even attempt to help or talk to queer people, it’s just insulting.” The fact that this creates hate and division rather than making the lives of formerly/currently oppressed groups better seems to be forgotten. (Again, just talking about one isolated community with that extremist example, not the world at large). Under Saturn in Pisces, there’s a necessity to focus on how groups on the extreme ends of the spectrum, groups that are forcibly segregated, are the same deep down. There are differences – and that degree of separation is important to note and work with – but there are still grounds that allow for people to get along, relate, etc.
You don’t have to get where someone else came from or what hurt them – not if you know what it’s like to hurt yourself. Suffering is universal, and regardless of whether you were ever bullied or not, or hurt because of your skin color or not, or discriminated against because of whom you love or not… if you know hurt, if you’re mature enough to want to listen and learn about someone else’s perspective and backstory, then you have enough to relate to them regardless. This transit is about to bring that to light and show the structural errors that divide people rather than unite them.
Also, if you have beliefs (Pisces) that you live with great integrity (Saturn), that you live maturely (also Saturn), and that you apply with flexibility and acceptance for the humanity of all involved (Pisces), then this is a wonderful transit for you as those things will be rewarded. Hypocrisy and points where you may need to get a bit better at living healthily into your belief systems are going to become evident over the next three years, so it’s also easy to course-correct should you split up.
Spiritual and/or religious beliefs are deeply necessary for humans and societies – they bring people hope, they up people’s resiliency, and they allow people to go on even in the hardest instances of their lives. While there are a few people who seem not to need them, most people have spiritual concepts and core beliefs in their heads: this transit will show us, as a society, just how important those beliefs are. How important hope is in building things.
But hope and beliefs aren’t all here: there’s also intuition. There’s a price for listening to your intuition, mainly that people think you’re nuts and a half. But what people also don’t realize is that there’s a price for not listening to your intuition. Saturn shows both under this transit. It’s up to you to decide which is more debilitating or which is worth paying. Similarly, people may grow into their intuition under this transit and people may grow out of giving their agency and power away to illusions.
This leads me to one of the most beautiful dimensions of Saturn in Pisces: building dreams. Under Saturn in Pisces, dreams are being updated with realism (which may be a bit painful at first), but it also leads to dreams becoming realistically achievable. Essentially, the highest road of Saturn in Pisces is to take the dreams you have for yourself and humanity and work on making them real. This is the transit to work on the foundation of a dream that’s extremely hard to achieve, and extremely important to your soul. This is also the time to fact-check and update the dreams you’ve invested in so far – and to pat yourself on the back for the things you already achieved.
So, that’s a very quick and dirty summary of what we can expect from Saturn in Pisces, but here’s one more thing I really need to cover to do this justice.
Saturn conjunct Neptune.
Over the duration of Saturn in Pisces, Saturn is going to start forming a conjunction, a.k.a. a merging aspect, with one of Pisces’s rulers, Neptune. The conjunction is going to be exact on February 20th, 2026, when both planets are at 0° Aries, but they’ll be in an orb for a conjunction for the majority of 2025, in both Pisces and Aries. Not just that, but the North Node plays the bridge between the planets for a good chunk of 2025, amplifying the energies further. What this means is that we get the themes of Saturn in Pisces amplified by 100. Take all the themes of this article (and a couple more we won’t be going into quite yet) and dial up the intensity: that’s the transit.
This also means that the beginning of Saturn in Pisces isn’t, as usual, the most intense time, the ending will be the make-it-or-break-it. This leads to one key piece of advice: regardless of whether you have personal placements in Pisces, pay attention to the energies of this transit and work with them. That’s the easiest way to have a relatively good time cruising through any Saturn transit, but this one in particular: if you work with what comes up and make the changes you need to make to soar, you’ll have a good time, even at the end.
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If you'd like to check out how Saturn in Pisces impacts your sign, check out this article. If you'd like a more in-depth analysis for your personal life, I recommend booking a session with me.
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Pluto in Aquarius: History Meets the Future. Analyzing the Past 1,000 Years to See What's to Come There are also separate articles for Pluto in the signs linked in the other articles.
See you there.
So much love,
Alexandra