What Saturn In Pisces Means For 2023-2026
Saturn Is Making a Major Move For the First Time Since COVID
In astrology, the luminaries and planets oversee various aspects of our everyday lives. Mercury rules communication, transportation, and technology while Venus is the planet of relationships, beauty, and values. And as they move at varying paces, we'll see the areas of life they rule through the lens of the sign they're moving through. For instance, while Mercury is in cardinal earth sign Capricorn, the way we interact, think, travel, and use technology is more goal-oriented, initiative-taking, and pragmatic. While Venus is in fixed air sign Aquarius, we're drawn to bolstering our platonic relationships and rebelling against conventional beauty. But while some planets generally zip from sign to sign every couple of weeks (like Mercury) or months (like Mars), others hole up in a sign for years, teaching ongoing, big-picture lessons and setting a particular tone for society. And Saturn is one such planet.
Nicknamed the "taskmaster planet," Saturn oversees commitment, boundaries, limitations, rules, regulations, and hard work. Like a stern parent or strict professor, Saturn helps you do the work that will ultimately translate to foundations in your life. It'll throw obstacles in your path, often requiring you to set or follow rules, commit, and grow up.
And since December 17, 2020, Saturn has been moving through Aquarius, the eleventh sign of the zodiac best known for its progressive, rebellious, eccentric, humanitarian, and occasionally contrarian perspective. In turn, our collective approach to rules, regulations, boundaries, and commitments has become more informed by the Water Bearer's point of view. Aquarius asks us to consider what's best for the greater good versus self (hi, COVID) while overhauling and striking out against what's no longer serving us. In turn, this transit has seen us confront outdated ideas about gender, equality, and identity. Aquarius questions everything, especially the parts of life that we tend to just blindly accept and go through the motions with, so it's no wonder that discontent about capitalism and other societal foundations has grown.
On a more personal level, if you were born when Saturn was last moving through Aquarius — which was from February 6, 1991 to May 21, 1993 and June 30, 1993 to January 28, 1994 — you recently went through your first Saturn return, which welcomes you to adulthood, requiring you to take stock of how far you've come over the last 29-ish years and where you want to go over the course of the next three decades.
But after more than two years in Aquarius, Saturn is moving on and into a new sign, bringing its serious lesson plans to a whole new realm of life. Here's what you need to know about Saturn in Pisces from 2023 to 2026.
When Is Saturn in Pisces?
From March 7, 2023 to May 24th, 2025, and then again — thanks to a retrograde — from August 31, 2025, to February 13, 2026, Saturn will move through Pisces, the mutable water sign symbolized by the Fish.
What Does Saturn in Pisces Mean For Us?
To understand what Saturn's trip through Pisces will mean, it's important to first understand what Pisces is like as a sign. As the final sign of the zodiac and a flexible but often indecisive water sign, Pisces is deeply emotional, empathic, and escapist. Ruled by Neptune, the planet of illusion, the Fish prefers to wear rose-coloured glasses. But Neptune's also the planet of spirituality, so there's potentially no sign more comfortable with mysticism and all things ethereal and intangible than Pisces.
As Saturn moves through Pisces, we'll be more discerning about who we rely on for information about the metaphysical aspects of life. Saturn is the planet of authority, and from armchair astrologers of Instagram to all the voices of WitchTok, the people who will stay in the spirituality spotlight will be those who are doing their homework versus those who are attempting to capitalize on growing trends.
Being such an escapist, flower child Pisces is also associated with drug culture, so Saturn's time in the sign may lead to more rules and regulations around cannabis. It could also lead to advancements using psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and ketamine for depression.
Speaking of depression, Pisces is often at risk of suffering from mental health challenges as a result of being so deeply sensitive and such an empath. With hope, Saturn's transit of the heartfelt, compassionate sign will bolster existing conversations around prioritising mental health care, psychology, therapy, and self-care.
And given Pisces' Neptunian connection to illusion, delusion, and fantasy, Saturn's time in the sign could fuel more limitations, boundaries, rules, and regulations around unrealistic elements of social media, like filters and deep fakes.
If you happened to be born between May 21, 1993, and June 30, 1993, or January 28, 1994, to April 7, 1996, you'll experience your first Saturn return, setting up foundations that will serve you over the course of the next 30 years.
How to Best Use Saturn in Pisces to Your Advantage
Because Saturn's trip through any sign is a marathon versus a sprint, its lessons might be tough to fully absorb while you're actually in them. Still, to make the most of this transit, consider the following rules of the road while the taskmaster planet moves through the sign of the Fish:
Consider the area of your chart Pisces rules.
Even if none of your "big three" or six personal placements fall in Pisces, one of the houses of your natal birth chart is ruled by the sign. (If you don't have one handy, you can run it on my website.) Look to the house that Pisces rules for insight into the area of life in which you'll be able to work harder, get more organised and structured, and learn valuable lessons that will bolster personal growth and maturity. For instance, if Saturn is moving through your seventh house of partnership, you could be getting serious with someone special — maybe even married. If it's in your tenth house of career, you could be vying for more responsibility, a promotion, or maybe even starting your own business to make your mark in your industry.
Question what's real and what's not.
Pisces is all about blurring rational thought and often leans into emotions at the expense of facts, but Saturn encourages reality checks. So when dealing with Piscean aspects of life — whether that's a dreamy new match you've just started dating, meditating at a new wellness collective, or taking a new form of CBD to sleep better — make sure you do your due diligence.
Strive to make your dreams more concrete.
Saturn may be a tough teacher, but it can fuel your ability to put your nose to the grindstone and actually accomplish something you never thought you could do. Pisces is most comfortable swimming in the deep end of feelings and fantasies, and it's also the sign associated with the twelfth house of the unconscious. So during this transit, paying more attention to the subtext of conversations, your intuition, and your actual dreams — waking or sleeping — could inspire pragmatic game plans that support your big-picture goals.
