Crashing Up Against Reality: Saturn in Pisces 2023

The last time Saturn entered Pisces was in the mid-1990s. Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by rival Tonya Harding's henchman. Bill Clinton was two years into a presidency that would be rocked by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Whitney Houston reached the height of her musical power, winning seven American Music Awards and four Grammys for "I Will Always Love You."

Every 30 years, Saturn returns to the same place in the zodiac. When he does, he brings a renewal of the themes seen during his previous transit of the sign. The cultural revolution of the 1960s — in all its sexual, musical and anti-war glory — was renewed in the 1990s when many of the free-love children of that generation were faced with Saturn's cold, hard reality.

Take, for instance, anti-Vietnam War, draft-dodging Clinton. In June 1993, just as Saturn entered Pisces for the first time during this period, Clinton ordered attacks on Iraq meant to retaliate for an Iraqi plot to assassinate George H.W. Bush. This was 30 years since Saturn transited Pisces during the Vietnam War, which Clinton opposed as a young adult. Military aggression throughout this period is now largely seen as the backdrop for the eventual attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. But Clinton's shift is not unique. This type of ideological turnaround is typical for a Saturn in Pisces return.

Saturn Return in Pisces: Idealism vs. Reality

When the planet Saturn enters Pisces again in 2023 and remains there through 2026, he'll add a new 30-year chapter to the ongoing saga of idealism confronted by reality.

In the 1960s, as Saturn transited Pisces, researchers at MIT dreamed of global interconnectedness through computing devices. Dreams, visions, and imagination are all Pisces keywords. They dreamt of a world without boundaries, also a Piscean vision. By the 1990s, during another Pisces Saturn, personal computers had become a reality. Not only that, in 1996, just as Saturn prepared to leave the sign, some 45 million people across the globe were using a little thing called the Internet.

As Saturn prepares to once again make a Piscean journey, we can't imagine what the world was like without constant connection to one another through our devices. Our interpersonal connection, for good or ill, rarely occurs now without a screen as an intermediary. Whole personas are now based in the digital realm. 

Take, for instance, the tragic story of Nicholas Perry, aka Nikocado Avocado. He began YouTube as a vegan violinist, making occasional videos playing classical music and eating vegan recipes, all while a parkette remained perched on his shoulder. But his videos never took off. There just wasn't an audience for it. So he changed his persona. He began binge eating entire fast food menus in one sitting. The viewers came by the millions and they wanted more. Eventually, over a four-year period, Nikocado went from being a skinny 150-pound violinist to a 400-pound mukbanger.

What does any of this have to do with Saturn's entrance into Pisces? Everything. Over the past 30 years, digital natives have created whole personas based entirely on what gets them clicks, likes, and follows. Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and OnlyFans offer everyone a platform to mold themselves into their audience's desires and imaginations. All you need is increasingly outlandish behavior and a myriad of filters to alter your real appearance, and you too can be a star. 

But no action is without consequence. Thirty years of building false personas online has to crash up against reality eventually. As Saturn enters Pisces next year, the way we think about our relationship with social platforms may begin to shift. Like Clinton's ideological turnaround, today's digital natives may decide they've had enough of illusion, inauthenticity, and deception.

Already we're seeing the opening salvo of this. In recent polling, some 35% of Gen Z say they have permanently quit social media altogether, while 64% say they occasionally take breaks from it. A plethora of dead accounts riddles Twitter following the tumultuous takeover by Elon Musk. Facebook, now Meta, just laid off 11,000 staff members as that platform struggles to stay relevant among increasingly younger users.

Saturn in Pisces: From the Collective to the Individual

The deeply personal vision of Saturn in Pisces will mark a tonal shift from the current Saturn in Aquarius collective vision. The mid-1990s were defined by a certain individualistic perception that manifested in such events as figure skater Tonya Harding's attempt to scuttle the chances of her top competitor Nancy Kerrigan. 

An entirely different manifestation of this individualistic mindset unfolded with Whitey Houston. Following Houston's death, Darlene Love, her godmother, reflected, “She did not want to be a big star and I used to tease her and tell her God did not give her this gift to keep to yourself." In the 1980s, Houston focused her energy on modeling. But with the insistence and persistence of those around her, she forged ahead on what would become an unprecedented musical career, reaching the height of her fame and powers in the 1990s.

A return of individualism is already afoot. Throughout the Saturn in Aquarius period, a certain collective mindset ruled supreme with cancel culture punishing and silencing voices that expressed offensive opinions or ideas heterodox to the current zeitgeist. A subtle shift has begun, with many public figures calling for more nuanced debates. How will cancel culture end? In a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion piece, Jennifer Stefano, executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation, offered her solution. "Start by engaging in the democratic process by first defending people’s right to be awful," she wrote. "Then use that right to point out just how awful someone’s words or deeds are. ... When we trade debate for the dehumanizing act of cancellation, we head down a dangerous path — even if the person who would be canceled has behaved in a dehumanizing way toward others."

Whether you agree or disagree with Stefano's proposed approach, Saturn in Pisces will require all of us to confront the boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable. More to the point, the self-focused and sentimental Piscean vision may give way to more plasticity around individual expression. As Saturn makes his transition, watch for a shift from the collective to the personal.

"How does it feel to be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?" sang Bob Dylan during Saturn's 1965 Piscean transit. This sentiment echoed forward when Whitney Houston sang, "I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow." Keep listening for the defining lyrics of Saturn in Pisces 2023.

If you’re interested in exploring your own birth chart deeper to see what Saturn in Pisces has in store for you, why not pop over to my Book a Consultation page and schedule a time with me? Together we can see how the Saturn-Piscean vision will affect your life and help you time your decisions with astrology.