Saturn in Pisces- the astrology of dancing the formless into form

Photo: Barbie Robinson

If you follow astrology, you may be aware that March is considered a seminal month of 2023 with many planetary movements that are supposed to affect us collectively and individually. One of these movements is that of the planet of limits and structures, Saturn, into Pisces which is the archetype of unstructured formlessness. I find this of particular interest in terms of traditions that move in the dark waters of consciousness, like the dance I offer.

For me astrology, like dance, is an archetypal intelligence. I notice how the dance I do aligns with the astrological movements even when I am not actively following astrological information.

For example, I do not plan my programs for a whole year at the beginning of each year. I allow myself to be guided into the themes of each course as they rise in my consciousness. I often find that the archetypes in the courses are aligned to the archetypes in the astrology of the time. I notice the same pattern in my individual programs as well where the course of each program will sometimes reflect the astrology of the person in the program (if they are inclined to astrology) or the astrology of the collective or both.

Traditional astrology as I have experienced it in India was about insights into the movement of consciousness rather than a predictive knowledge. Dance, as a Body-led inquiry, is also an invocation of the fullness of our consciousness as a reflection of the fullness of Reality. Many astrological archetypes come from the world of dance including the amazing Dancing Shiva archetype of the Orion constellation. 

Ceremonial dance is the expression of Body that is primordial. This Body is not the same as the biological experience of Body. Rather it is Body that holds the experience of Earth. In other words Body is Earth. This Body is called Kshetra in ancient Body-led philosophy. Kshetra means a field of manifestation. Thus, it is a site where expression in material form and as movement occurs.

When I teach my programs online, the space between me and the people I teach is Kshetra, a Body of manifestation. This Body is not an abstract or metaphorical proposal. I find that the Kshetra is an energised domain that holds both the material and the immaterial in equal measure and dissolves that duality as experiences of alchemy. For example, in my individual programs, I have often experienced physical symptoms of the same nature as the person in the Zoom session who may be in another country thousands of miles away. This included allergic reactions the other person was experiencing (I do not have any allergies I know of)! On another occasion I felt sick just before a session and it turned out that the woman I was meeting, who lived in another part of Australia, was also sick with the same symptoms. And my sickness passed no sooner than the class began.

The energised Kshetra is limitless and includes the cosmos as well. There is breathtaking wonder when the stars exist within Body. This dance invocation has transformed my experience of the night skies. I sense an intimacy with the skies when I gaze upon them at night, a sensation that is impossible to bring into words. There is infinite comfort in this communion when the distance of light years dissolves and the cosmic is rendered intimate as a material sensation in the Body and not as a thought or word.

The ancients mapped the heavens from the wisdom of Body and that is why the archetypes of astrology are aligned to Body, sensation, and to consciousness and its unfolding as Reality. Indeed, in Indian astrology there is the archetype of Kalapurusha (Cosmic body) where the constellations are mapped to the human Body—for example, Pisces (Meena in Indian astrology) is the constellation of the feet. In addition, each part of the Body is also assigned an archetypal planet as the Deity. So, Saturn is the Deity of the legs and the feet.

And thus, we come to the story of Saturn in Pisces. Saturn is the foundation, just like our legs and feet are the foundation of our Body on Earth. They ground us to Earth and help us walk step by step in our Earthly journey. They are the humble parts of the Body, often ignored or overlooked by us. Yet, they literally stand us upon Earth, like the pillars of a building that support it.

Saturn is the archetype of limits—the limits of our Body, time, energy, money, death. Saturn invites us to attend to how we use our limited resources. His purview is the everyday actions and tasks of our life, the ordinary and humble things that are the foundation of life. These are things we may ignore in our soaring ambitions. However they are also the dimensions of life that can bring us to our knees and turn our ambitions into dust.

Pisces is the dark waters of primordiality. It is the unformed and the formless dimensions of Reality and consciousness. Pisces is archetypal, of primordial imagination (not mind-led), dream, poetic expression, and primordial Body. As the feet in the Cosmic Body, Pisces suggests the our source is in the dark waters of primordiality. In Body-led dance inquiry, dance is initiated from the feet. This significantly transforms the experience of Body Consciousness. The symbol of Pisces is two fish which appear to be going in opposite directions but are united by a rope in the middle signifying the movement and flow beyond duality. Pisces is almost the opposite of Saturn. Yet they are both associated with some of the similar domains of Body.

Saturn in Indian astrology is the Deity Shani. Shani is also the patron Deity of dance and the arts. This is a dimension of Saturn that throws much light on the ancient position of the intelligence of dance and artistic expression. Dance is the material manifestation that expresses in the domain of Body, Earth, limits, and finitude. However, this expression emerges from the dark waters of primordiality. So, Saturn’s sojourn in Pisces is perfect from the point of view of these kinds of creative invocations.

I sense Saturn holds a special invitation for those of us inquiring into the dark waters of consciousness. He asks us to attend to bringing it into form and expression of Body, Earth and all the material dimensions of Reality. Otherwise primordiality remains an ideology, a narrative, or thoughts that have no material existence.

In the philosophical text Bhagavad Gita, the deity Krishna speaks of the importance of action and expression in the world. What He alludes to is the necessity of material and Bodily manifestation of our inquiry, purpose or quest in life. It is not enough to analyse, passively receive information, or contemplate. It must manifest in the world of Saturnian limits which is the essence of our embodied Reality. Krishna says that even He, a Deity, must abide by the same necessity of action so long as He is in embodied form.

We live in a world of talking heads, texts, words, and ideologies. So much of spirituality and philosophy is about speech, analysis, and debate. The poetic heart of consciousness and the wordless flow of Reality finds little or no manifestation amidst the clamour of words. It is a challenging world for dance that brings the wordless into poetic expression that has alchemical power of connecting and transforming our experience of Reality.

The radical intelligence of this dance, like the patron Deity Saturn, is humble and easily ignored in the chatter of mental brilliance. However, like Saturn, it is the expression of those dimensions of Reality that are the foundations of its nature and flow. For many of us these times we live in when we are cut off from the experience of change, multidimensionality and flow is experienced as disconnected and brutal. Our lower bodies, our legs and feet, are remarkable sites of drawing our attention to the humble yet foundational material aspects of Reality upon which we stand and move every day of our lives.

I am looking forward to Saturn’s dance with Pisces. I feel it reflects the ancient dances of the dark waters and Body. And I feel, despite the famed Saturnian grumpiness, that He may be quite happy to help the manifestation of the dance of this Body in the world of finitude. The infinity is within the finite—that is what I sense may be Saturn’s teaching for the next few months…