Saturn sets up boundaries.

In Pisces… Could there be boundaries made of water?

I see a castle of old, with a princess locked up in the highest tower, walls, and a moat around them. A prince is fishing whilst his faithful horse is taking swimming lessons.

I see an ocean, and people in love, or believing they are, living on two separate continents. They are having a virtual relationship on the internet but they are just dreamers.

I imagine a mysterious place, the Island of Avalon. It’s magically protected. If you’re not invited, you simply won’t find the way. Lost in the mist you’ll end up back to square one, in Glastonbury.

If Avalon serves as a metaphor for the sacred place of vulnerability within, Saturn in Pisces protects it with smokescreens, illusions, camouflage. If you’re a wallflower, you know how to make yourself invisible.

If you’re wandering in the wilderness, hungry and trying to catch fish in a river (how often did you experience this?) you know how slippery fish are. You also know that water deflects light. The fish is not where it seems to be. The Piscean theme of escapism suits Saturn, concerned with protection.

Interpreting astrological symbols is exciting and confusing. I’ve started following the thread: Saturn is boundaries, could there be boundaries made of water? However there is no precise grammar with symbols. I could have wondered: What happens when boundaries are confronted with water?

Here comes the idea of a porous membrane. There is a boundary, which plays its role whilst remaining open to exchanges with the environment. Fluids pass through. This can be a very healthy expression, if the environment itself is healthy.

Another image is a crumbling wall. There was a boundary, but when the weather is wet and mutable, forms dissolve. Saturn in Pisces may mean weak boundaries.

This leads us back to the strategy of using water as a boundary, to compensate for the lack of firm structure. Escape rather than fight, or even better, don’t be there at all! Castaneda once asked Don Juan if his magic could protect him against a man waiting for him with a gun. “If a man was waiting for me with a gun” answered the sorcerer “I wouldn’t go”.

As I said, there is no grammar with symbols. Saturn in Water can be incredibly strong like a crab’s hard shell, or an oyster’s; it can be a dam, the banks of a river or a canal; it can be waterproof.

We can’t avoid speaking of a spectrum. With a crumbling wall, Water wins, Saturn disintegrates. With a porous membrane there is a balance. With a waterproof material, Saturn wins and contains.

Saturn in Pisces can be a bottle, a jar, a barrel, and when this translates into psychic stuff, we talk about containing our emotions, or of bottled-up feelings (Stuck energies that need healing to be able to flow again)

How can we know what interpretations will be relevant to a particular chart? The more we follow the threads the more Saturn in Pisces may mean one thing and its exact opposite, or a middle term, or even something else!

The negative interpretations, like weak boundaries when we would need strong ones, are more likely when the placement is afflicting/afflicted.

Some interpretations will also make more sense than others in the context of the houses involved, of the planets connected with it through aspects and so on.

If we are reading a chart to understand a person, we have to accept that we won’t get anything more precise than what human beings can be. We are complex. The same individual can manifest various and contradictory expressions of the same placement, according to time and circumstances.

I started this post associating Saturn with boundaries, which is a relevant interpretation, but not the only one.

In the world of Pisces sensitivity, Saturn can be spiritual discipline: yoga, meditation, prayer… or the psychological healing work, possibly involving seeking professional help or even becoming a professional helper, or the hard work of the artist.

Saturn wants “things” to become structured and concrete, in the Air and on Earth.

In the Air, Saturn is a great intellectual planet, it is in domicile in Aquarius.

If you approach astrology with a strong Saturn for instance, you won’t be put off by words like: celestial sphere, prime vertical, meridian, ecliptic and so on. You’ll be able to hold clear mental structures in your mind.

As with boundaries, mental structures in Piscean waters may manifest on a spectrum, from their complete dissolution ( - Shall I cut the pizza into four or eight parts? - Four, I am not too hungry) to relevant expressions to the context of mutable waters.

Mathematics, for instance, when not a confusing labyrinth apparently designed to make students feel stupid, can be a springboard to glimpses into infinity.

Only trying to imagine a line that is so thin that it has no thickness at all, but extends towards infinity in both directions can be a mystical experience.

It confronts us with the limitation of our mind, and presents us with the challenge of an intuitive, transcendental jump.

This is my idea of sacred geometry.

Saturn in Pisces then may mean the mind, standing on scaffoldings of its own making, contemplating the paradoxes on the edge of reality.

As ruler of Capricorn, let’s come back down to earth, Saturn wants “things” to be, not only intellectually coherent and logical, but also downright concrete. Saturn is in Pisces, asking: What makes it difficult to make your dreams come true?

An answer is contained in the question. Dreams are dreams. They can be the obstacle. Do you want to fly like a bird? You may find happiness hang-gliding. Do you want to fly without using a man made device, with your own wings? Astral journeying may satisfy you, but is it within your reach?

You would like to have many friends and live together on a farm, be a solitary hermit living in the mountains, whilst being the next Steve Job? Good luck! Have you made your bed?

On the other hand of the spectrum (yes I like bad puns), a friend with Saturn in Pisces on the MC told me she wants to climb the mountain of her dreams; knowing her, I have no doubt that she will do what it takes to make some of them come true, as she has already done.

Saturn in Pisces can provide inspiration and perspiration.

On this watery note, the topic is infinite but today, my words end here. Thank you for your attention.

Jean-Marc

I am an astrologer, a storyteller, a writer, and the homepage is here