Saturn In Pisces: The Lighthouse And The Labyrinth
Sensing the hidden rules
As the rib cage protects the heart and lungs, as the solid material of the body serves as container of the liquids that nourish it, the archetype of Saturn has its jurisdiction in the minute confines of material reality. Saturn's gift, or curse, is in offering us an integral linear or comprehensive structural understanding of the physical plane that we occupy. For the last 5 years, Saturn's transit through his home territories of both Capricorn and Aquarius have offered us increased structural awareness both natally and collectively: in Capricorn, Saturn reveals the blueprint of the structures and confines of our current model of reality, and in Aquarius, Saturn reveals that perhaps that very same blueprint was actually an escape map, urging us to take on the ever daunting and ever necessary labor of examining the negative space outside of a structural outline.
The mechanism of Saturn's functions in the signs of his domicile do not feel dissimilar to an optical illusion where one image is immediately apparent, but upon closer inspection, another image makes itself clear- this secondary image is often the one that we cannot unsee. If Saturn in Capricorn is the original image and Saturn in Aquarius is the illusory image that appears upon closer inspection, Saturn in Pisces is the moment that directly follows: the little internal gasp when one realizes that one's own automatic visual processing capacities are neurologically encoded to make sense of information in specific ways. It is in this mildly alarming second that we become aware of our brain's capacity for subconscious processing that transcends the lowly analytical reasoning over which our conscious, thinking minds exert control. Part of what's so thrilling about optical illusions like the popular one below is this very same eery moment recognition of the hidden rules of the brain, realizing that we are not as in control of our cognitions as we may want to think. In his book on the significations of the astrological decans, 36 Faces, astrologer Austin Coppock names the first ten degrees of Pisces "The Labyrinth." Coppock interprets this decan as the decan of "discovering the hidden rules," likening solar natives of this decan to characters in science fiction media whose task is to traverse a world that seems one way on the surface, but is really fueled by a layered, winding set of rules so incomprehensible that one has to suspend both disbelief and linear analytical reasoning to realize them.
Long before Neptune was even discovered as a part of the solar system let alone used as a planet in astrological delineation, the ocean was Saturn's territory. Second century astrologer Vettius Valens (never one for sugarcoating) claimed those born under Saturn's influence were "miserable, with a nautical bent, plying waterside trades." (Valens Anthologies, Book 1, pp. 2, translated by Mark T. Riley) I personally adore this attribution for many reasons: the ocean is earth's oldest biosphere (Saturn ruling ancient things), one that is deadly to/obviously uninhabitable for human beings (Saturn ruling death/time's boundaries), and one where the sun literally doesn't shine (though it is the daytime malefic, Saturn rules darkness, and by the scheme of essential dignity either leadenly usurps the sun's light or is uncomfortable when situated in the realm of the sun's rays). As far as tying in Saturn's more nautical leanings with the themes of the first decan of Pisces, aside from the stereotypically aquatic significations of Pisces, the ocean is a biosphere operating on a hidden set of rules all its own, most of which we humans may never fully comprehend or even discover.
Anyone who knows me well knows I would never pass up the chance to mention Robert Eggers's dread inducing 2019 film The Lighthouse, images of which have been ceaselessly jumping to mind since Saturn geared up for his ingress into oceanic, Jupiter-ruled Pisces. In The Lighthouse, a seasoned lighthouse keeper (Willem Dafoe) and his young, green, and unabiding new assistant (Robert Pattinson) find themselves stranded together on an island in the middle of the unforgiving oceanic abyss, the sole inhabitants of a tiny lighthouse cottage sent to tend the light during storm season. (Spoilers ahead, but the movie is worth watching regardless!) Together they experience an incredible, terrifying, and undeniably homoerotic mutual descent into madness as Winslow (Pattinson) lusts wildly after the enchantment that Wake (Dafoe) warns him is in the light. The older and wiser Wake hints at knowledge of ancient legends and nautical curses at which the naive Winslow scoffs, refusing to take heed of a handful of cryptic omens. The two lose all track of time, consuming all of their alcohol and resorting to drinking straight up turpentine, and after burying his crotchety old boss alive, Winslow's only goal is to look directly into the fire that keeps the lighthouse aglow. After beholding the light's shining glory, Winslow's naked body ends up strewn across the rocks that line the shore, eyes pecked out, still barely alive and being actively devoured by seagulls. In this stomach-turning final frame, the viewer is all but hammered over the head by the not-so-subtle parallels between the young and hungry Winslow and Prometheus of Greek myth, who stole the fire of the gods and, as punishment from Zeus, was chained to rocks while birds ate his liver for all of eternity. (Although the tale of Prometheus is one of my favorite stories and a player at the center of a rich labyrinthine map of many key Greek mythological figures, I'm going to spare the cherished reader from that spiral today, and hopefully save my affinities for another time.)
Centuries of legend posit the sea as a mysterious, wise, terrifying, death-bringing entity, holding secrets unimaginable to the rational human mind- another thousand stories tell of sailors who have gone mad in the sea's grips, lost in isolation, another favorite signification of Saturn (notably most at home in the 12th house of enmity and exile). More staunchly mythological parallels aside, The Lighthouse is the latest popular installment in this lineage of stories of people who have gone absolutely mad at sea. This is a story of what happens when we cling to our hubris while simultaneously losing all sense of allegiance to time and other familiar structures of reality- at one point, in the throes of chaos, the wisened keeper Wake (our stern and bearded Saturn surrogate) turns to Winslow and asks in a panic, "How long have we been on this rock?" The Lighthouse, at its climax, sees its protagonists in a frenzied state of pretend play, engaged in a power struggle between the parentified, order-driven Wake and the unwound Winslow: Winslow puts his boss on a leash and walks him like a dog to a pre-dug grave. We, like the two characters, lose all linear sense as we see the young character driven to a point of madness (and ultimately death), attempting to triumph over his elder who is, by all accounts, no fun at all, but knows the secret rules of this game he himself has been playing for upwards of four decades. Prometheus's stand-in loses the game the second he attempts to triumph with logic, playing by the rules of physical reality, assuming that he can win with brute force. Wake, our Saturnian, knows better: though his methods are strict, he knows that if you want to survive stormy seas, you'll have to sail with the wind and coast on finely tuned instinct.
A subset of fans of The Lighthouse have a working theory that the young apprentice Winslow was on the island alone- that Wake was only a vivid archetypal figment of the imagination which Winslow dominates via repression (we could just as easily see things the opposite way; Winslow being a repressed archetype of virility that surfaces in Wake, burying him alive and running roughshod, an illustration of what happens when we too rigidly police our own desires). In this possible read, I'm reminded of Jung's technique of active imagination, and similarly psychotherapist Roberto Assagioli’s psychosynthesis technique of bringing forth sub-personalities: in each technique, the individual is invited to engage with either a dream figure or a personified aspect of the personality in a safe imaginative container, sitting with the image in a receptive manner, allowing it to speak for itself and lead the consciousness in the direction of its choosing instead of trying to triumph over it with the brute force of analysis. Instead of being afraid of what a frightening figure in a dream might represent-stuffing it into the iron cage of logical censure enforced by the conscious mind- if one allows dissolution into the sea of the subconscious, moved by the subtler tide working beneath the surface, a new formerly invisible layer of a stratified structure may emerge and allow for illumination. (For more reading on these concepts, I recommend Jung’s “Memories, Dreams, Reflections,” and Piero Ferrucci’s “What We May Be”)
Of course, to an important extent, responsibly delving into this highly compartmentalized layer must coincide with the practical superimposition of the discerning conscious mind- when traversing the aquatic labyrinth of the abyssal levels of our psyche, we cannot embark on our journey without the trusty thread that connects us back to the dry land of reason. Perhaps Saturn can be that thread, that architect who structures the imagination, that sleeping knowing that reveals the seemingly nonsensical rules of the dream, that hardened but wise old lighthouse keeper who is no stranger to the blackest sea at night and the unspoken laws of its spells.
*Highly recommended video epilogue: watch Dafoe’s famous and deeply Saturnian soliloquy from The Lighthouse here*