Sat­urn in Pisces and a look at Ukraine and Rus­sia (Feb­ru­ary 26, 2023)

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

I thought it would be help­ful as we approach the entry of Sat­urn into Pisces, and as we have just observed on Feb­ru­ary 24^th the first year of the war of Rus­sia against Ukraine, that we should review the sig­nif­i­cance of Saturn’s pas­sage into Pisces and also con­sid­er the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions for what 2023 looks like for the Rus­sia-Ukraine War.

Sat­urn in Pisces

When I spoke about Sat­urn mov­ing into the sign of Pisces in my show in Decem­ber 2022, I sug­gest­ed that the pas­sage of Sat­urn through the signs of the Zodi­ac is one of the prin­ci­pal shapers of our expe­ri­ence of real­i­ty. Though I will always con­sid­er that the three out­er­most plan­ets have deep­er and longer-term indi­ca­tions for the qual­i­ty of the peri­od of human his­to­ry we are expe­ri­enc­ing, Sat­urn is impor­tant because it is the avatar or hold­er of the struc­tures of real­i­ty by which we ful­fill our needs, as we make and estab­lish the means to meet our needs and pre­serve our ways of living.

I will always main­tain that the plan­ets do not cause any­thing, that is they do not cre­ate the con­tent of what we are faced with and/or are about to encounter. Those facts and mat­ters of sub­stance are made by us, by our past actions as cre­ators of our present and our future real­i­ties. But the plan­ets can help us under­stand the mean­ings behind a peri­od, help us to under­stand what phase or stage of an expe­ri­ence we are going through indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly, and guide us as to how we might best face this moment in any cycle, and by this what we might be able to ful­fill of our spir­i­tu­al des­tiny, what we are meant to be, which is sim­ply to be and become bet­ter humans, to be ever-more con­scious cre­ators of our reality.

And the rea­son Saturn’s pas­sage through Pisces should be under­stood as sig­nif­i­cant sim­ply comes from the fact that in Pisces, (and this is true of whichev­er plan­et is mov­ing through Pisces), we will expe­ri­ence the con­se­quences or reap­ing of what we have sown dur­ing this last 29-year cycle of Sat­urn from Aries through Pisces. For our pur­pos­es, that would mean we are to expe­ri­ence a reap­ing in the realm of real­i­ty of Sat­urn from 1996 until now. (And of course, because the echoes of kar­ma are man­i­fold and deep, there will be many influ­ences that orig­i­nate in the pre­vi­ous cycles begun in 1967 and 1937 and even ear­li­er too).

When a plan­et enters the Sign of Pisces, it enters the Foun­tain-Source of Cre­ation, the seed and heart of all cre­ations, the source of our dreams and equal­ly the fruits of their man­i­fes­ta­tions. Pisces is the Dream, and here at the end of any cycle it is equal­ly the har­vest or fruit of that cycle of expe­ri­ence too. And know this, that what we har­vest is what will form the mate­r­i­al of what we will sow. But it is not a mere repeat or loop­ing of real­i­ty that we will cre­ate. Because what we actu­al­ly sow will be formed by the man­ner in which we receive and work with the fruits of our cre­ation, by how we har­vest those pri­or expe­ri­ences, by what under­stand­ing we can bring to bear upon our Kar­ma, and by this ever-expand­ing exer­cise of our Spir­i­tu­al nature we will form the Dhar­ma, the path, of mak­ing our way in the next cycle of becom­ing in the hous­es of the Holy Ones. It is by our cre­ativ­i­ty, through our imag­i­na­tion and the pow­er of Cre­ation, by our Spir­i­tu­al Will or Alche­my, it is by these spir­i­tu­al gifts that we can form our har­vest into the seeds of the next and hope­ful­ly bet­ter cycle of our lives.

If we face our har­vests with fear, then what we form now as our seeds, and what we will plant in 2026 and beyond, will lead to a more bit­ter­sweet fruit at the end of the upcom­ing cycle, which in our case will be in 2053. But if we can face the har­vest of our con­se­quences with love, humil­i­ty and grace, if we can under­stand why things turned out as they did, to see through to the truths that steered us to cre­ations that we did well and also show us how and why what was more poor­ly done, if we can under­stand what errors of com­mis­sion or omis­sion we need to amend, and if we choose to live by our faith and so act with courage to do and be bet­ter, then we will sow our seeds of a more mean­ing­ful and beau­ti­ful future for one and for all.

It begins with each of us, in our sacred cen­ter where we are held in the wis­dom, love and guid­ance of our high­er self. There is no judge­ment there, no reward or pun­ish­ment to be had. The true nature of the spir­it at the cen­ter of each one of us and of every­thing, is sim­ply pure divine love. It is through this Love and For­give­ness that we can turn our errors into bless­ings, change our doubts into wis­dom, and our fears into the liv­ing faith that we are the mak­ers of what we are and what we will be, because we real­ly do have a choice. We will make many more mis­takes, but we will learn to be bet­ter too.

Then we need in our most inti­mate rela­tion­ships with our loved ones and friends, and then with our fel­low­ships, com­mu­ni­ties and so on, we need to coop­er­a­tive­ly per­form these same re-exam­i­na­tions of the har­vests from our cre­at­ed shared spaces, of all our rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er. We only grow through our com­bi­na­tions with one anoth­er, and depend­ing upon how each of us has con­duct­ed our­selves with one anoth­er, these shared fruits will be sweet or bit­ter­sweet. But here too we must remem­ber that what holds us in our will­ing­ly and lov­ing­ly cre­at­ed unions with each oth­er is this essen­tial ener­gy-form that binds one and all, which is Divine Love. If we remem­ber to form and hold our­selves and our shared sacred spaces by this eter­nal truth, we will for­give one anoth­er our tres­pass­es, and so be able to cre­ate those bet­ter sacred spaces for a deep­er and more com­plete union with one another.

Sat­urn in Pisces brings the final test of Sat­urn, which is our “test of faith”. The ques­tion for us all is what is the source of your faith, what is the source of your hope for a bet­ter future? The Ancient Wis­dom holds that your faith is embed­ded in your true nature, that you are a spark of the Divine Light who is on a jour­ney of self-becom­ing with innu­mer­able fel­low mon­ads of the One, and that your true nature is formed by the light that shines in all the realms of Cre­ation, which is Divine Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

So, as Sat­urn enters Pisces here in March 2023, we must each indi­vid­u­al­ly, and in our com­mu­ni­ties, fel­low­ships, cul­tures, and nations too, we must all use this time of har­vest to con­sid­er what we have made and what we have learned since the present cycle of Sat­urn start­ed in 1996. But it is not only what we did or did not do in 1996, but in all the years that fol­lowed, in 1997 and 1998, in 2008 and 2016, and 2020, yes all of it was made by you and me, made for you and me, and now we have to accept the fruits of our dream­ing and doing. We have to face “the dweller on the thresh­old”, the shad­owed fears of yes­ter­days and yes­ter­years, and choose to turn towards the Light of Love in our hearts.

Just as Sat­urn start­ed a new cycle by mov­ing into Aries 27 years ago, I also would like to note that Putin’s rise to pow­er began in 1996 when he moved from St Peters­burg to Moscow to work with Yeltsin, and then suc­ceed him, first as Prime Min­is­ter in 1999 and then in 2000 as Pres­i­dent. This would mean that as Sat­urn goes through Pisces, that we are watch­ing the entire­ty of Putin’s his­to­ry in lead­ing Rus­sia, both for him and for oth­ers who rose to pow­er then, and that they are to be reap­ing all that they have done since 1996 until now. With that in mind, let us now con­sid­er what the Astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions are for Rus­sia and Ukraine in 2023.

Ukraine and Russia

With regards to the sig­nif­i­cance of the plan­e­tary ener­gies for 2023 that help under­stand the influ­ences and mean­ings for Vladimir Putin and Rus­sia, and Volodymyr Zelen­sky and Ukraine, we should review what was indi­cat­ed for 2022 and see what changes lie ahead for 2023.

Putin
For 2022, the “trig­ger­ing” plan­et for Putin’s inva­sion of Ukraine was the same “influ­encer” as his inva­sion and seizure of Crimea 8 years ear­li­er, which was Uranus oppo­site his Sun in 2014. For 2022, Uranus was oppo­site his Sun’s ruler, which is Venus. More­over, the “real­i­ty” plan­et of Sat­urn was squar­ing his Plu­to and oppo­site his Jupiter in 2014, and then in 2022 he had Sat­urn oppo­site his Plu­to and squar­ing his Jupiter, (and we should note that each of these align­ments would trig­ger or acti­vate his propen­si­ty, giv­en his Jupiter/Pluto natal square, to seek to impose or force one’s beliefs upon others).

In 2023, there are sev­er­al major tran­sits in Putin’s chart. Uranus will be on or con­junct his Jupiter while it is also squar­ing his Plu­to, which is the very natal aspect (his Jupiter/Pluto square) that Sat­urn acti­vat­ed last year. This time Putin will be sur­prised, if not expe­ri­ence shocks by this move over his Jupiter, and his emo­tion­al attach­ments will be severe­ly test­ed as Uranus goes over his Plu­to. More­over, Nep­tune will be squar­ing his Mars for the entire year, which will bring about con­fu­sion and mis­guid­ed actions, as well as bring an influ­ence that brings about a loss of ener­gy and vital­i­ty through­out the year. And final­ly, the plan­et of real­i­ty, Sat­urn, will square his Moon all year and as a result he will be emo­tion­al­ly iso­lat­ed and depressed. All in all, I do not think that Putin is going to have a good year at all.

Rus­sia
For 2022, I not­ed that the major influ­ences in Russia’s chart were sim­i­lar also to what hap­pened in 2014 and sim­i­lar to align­ments in Putin’s chart. In 2014 Rus­sia had Plu­to oppo­site Jupiter and Uranus squared Jupiter too, while Sat­urn was semi­square to Uranus. Just like in Putin’s chart, that com­bi­na­tion of Plu­to and Uranus to Jupiter indi­cat­ed the very strong pos­si­bil­i­ty of attempt­ing by the force of Will to impose one’s beliefs upon anoth­er. The Saturn/Uranus aspect added to the ten­sion between the estab­lished order and the desire for free­dom to do as one wish­es. For 2022, that same Saturn/Uranus aspect was back, this time as a wax­ing aspect, but this time it was with Uranus on Venus and Oppo­site Russia’s Plu­to, indi­cat­ing a more extreme exam­ple of the strug­gle between Free­dom, Will and Val­ue. Final­ly, the most elu­sive but most telling tran­sit was the square of Nep­tune to the Mid­heav­en and Nadir of Russia’s chart. I described it as some­thing like an exis­ten­tial cri­sis as with the house of roots and ori­gins, and the house of des­tiny being shaped influ­enced by Nep­tune, there was bound to be a great deal of con­fu­sion for Rus­sians as they ques­tioned the foun­da­tions for their nation, of where it is root­ed and where it finds its secu­ri­ty, and equal­ly on its pur­pose or des­tiny. Dis­il­lu­sion­ment and con­fu­sion would be the result.

In 2023, an even more pow­er­ful align­ment of Nep­tune is hap­pen­ing for Rus­sia, as it now enters the 7^th house, the house of rela­tion­ships. What this means is that the expe­ri­ence and nature of Russia’s rela­tion­ships with the rest of the world will become more con­fused, as they face dis­il­lu­sion­ment and/or decep­tion and self-decep­tion. Com­pound­ing this will be Sat­urn align­ing with Russia’s Mer­cury, so that the state or qual­i­ty of think­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion will become test­ed, shad­owed, and fear­ful, the state of mind in Rus­sia will be con­strained by doubts and fears.

Zelen­sky
For Zelen­sky in 2022, I not­ed that Uranus was oppo­site his own Uranus, which is one of the main indi­ca­tors for any­one of going through the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of the so-called mid-life cri­sis. It calls upon all of us at such a time, to choose to become a more tru­ly indi­vid­u­at­ed per­son, a more authen­tic ver­sion of one­self. And he also had Sat­urn oppo­site his Moon, which cre­ates a deep sad­ness and fear of being cut off from the sup­port one needs. In 2023, Zelen­sky has Nep­tune squar­ing his Jupiter, (actu­al­ly for 2023 and 2024), and this brings about a peri­od where one must ques­tion and reex­am­ine the truths that guide one’s life, whether those be cul­tur­al, sci­en­tif­ic, or spir­i­tu­al truths. It can bring about a cri­sis of faith but is real­ly an instru­ment to let go of old assump­tions and half-truths and make one’s way to a greater under­stand­ing. More­over, 2023 is the year in which Plu­to, the plan­et of the Will, is oppo­site to Zelensky’s Mars. This is also in effect for 2024, and it indi­cates that Zelen­sky is engaged in a great strug­gle for sur­vival, and he will have to draw upon his deter­mi­na­tion and per­son­al strength to face very great challenges.

Ukraine
Ukraine in 2022 had Uranus enter the 4^th house of Roots and Foun­da­tions, while it also opposed Ukraine’s Plu­to in the 10^th house of Des­tiny. This most cer­tain­ly indi­cat­ed a test of will and deter­mi­na­tion, and the expe­ri­ence of the vio­la­tion of one’s bound­aries or sacred space. And just like Zelen­sky, Ukraine had Sat­urn on its Moon, and the coun­try equal­ly expe­ri­enced a deep sad­ness and a feel­ing of being cut-off from sup­port. For 2023, Ukraine has Uranus squar­ing the Moon, which indi­cates a very unset­tled qual­i­ty for the peo­ple of Ukraine, a high­er degree of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty but equal­ly a time to break reac­tive behav­iors and so that one may be more inno­v­a­tive and sur­pris­ing in one’s respons­es. Also in 2023, Sat­urn is oppo­site the Sun in Ukraine’s chart, which means it is under­go­ing an endurance test, a crit­i­cal test of its char­ac­ter and for­ti­tude. The chal­lenge is to endure, but equal­ly to focus on respon­si­bil­i­ties let go of struc­tures or pat­terns which are not supportive.

The pic­ture for both Putin and Rus­sia, and Zelen­sky and Ukraine is most cer­tain­ly chal­leng­ing, and one would expect this to be the real­i­ty of a bru­tal war of aggres­sion. It is not sur­pris­ing after all, as there is almost no sce­nario where there is a win­ner and a los­er in any war, because the very great­est of spir­i­tu­al crimes is occur­ring on the largest scale imag­in­able, and there is so much pain and suf­fer­ing on both sides that the echoes of this fail­ure to love rather than hate will be with us for many years to come.

The most basic and hor­rif­ic of spir­i­tu­al crimes is the tres­pass­ing or inva­sion of the sacred space of any human. Spir­i­tu­al­ly this is the “first crime”, the ulti­mate sin of not expe­ri­enc­ing and treat­ing any “oth­er” who is before us as a spir­i­tu­al­ly divine pres­ence too. This is why the first “step” for any aggres­sor in a war is to dehu­man­ize, or demo­nize their oppo­nent, as Putin has done by labelling many of the peo­ple of Ukraine, and the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment as being Nazi’s. As always, the first casu­al­ty in any war is the truth.

But the Light of Truth is with­in every one of us, and “we have eyes that see, and ears that hear”, and we know who is stand­ing for love and who is con­sumed by hate. Our heart and thoughts are for all those who are fac­ing the fear­ful dark­ness of hate that has turned rel­a­tives and neigh­bors against one anoth­er, all because of the hatred and fear that has seized one man and some peo­ple who have cho­sen the dark­ness over the light.

May peace return to Ukraine and her peo­ple and may they and many oth­ers plant the seeds of a bet­ter world in the weeks, months, and years to come.