Time Is A Longing Mystic: 8 of Cups - Saturn in Pisces (Face I - Saturn)
abandoning the haven, for something more heavenly
Hello Lovers,
Saturn, the greater malefic, has entered the trance realm of Pisces, the nocturnal abode of Jupiter, and the crown of Venus. As a mutable astrologer who loves being anchored in the present, while continuously flowing in between the reflective and the predictive Time-lines. For me, Saturn in Pisces has more to do with the flexibility of Saturn being in flux and in between the place of its preferred domicile (Aquarius) and its eventual fall (Aries). Saturn in Pisces generations are the ones bridging the mental-role-modeling of fixed Aquarius and the spirit-restlessness of cardinal Aries - we are on a voyage from a higher dignity Saturn towards a lower dignity Saturn. A quest for spiritual existence in the oceanic space and expanding time of mutable water, where certain things dissolve into air bubbles or solutions, yet simultaneously certain things bind together creating sediments.
In ancient Greek, there were two frameworks of Time: (1) Chronos, the sequential, chronological, and determinate time boundaries, like the clocks and calendars we use daily, and (2) Kairos, the mythical, non-linear, and qualitative assessment of time - representing the “right” or “opportune” moment. Kairos has a word-origin association with the practice of archery [hello Jupiter!] and weaving [hello Venus?].
There is something jovian + venusian and magical with the framing of Kairos-Time within Chronos-Time: like when we go out with our beloved friends and laughed so much that we don’t realize how much time has passed since, or when we have a strangely sexy and deeply sensual encounter with someone who has a pair of seashell tattoos - yet somehow the 40+ minutes of Kali Uchis’ Red Moon In Venus album playing in the background felt like 2 hours of Time-ecstasy. Oh… the bliss.
With Saturn in Pisces, our Chronos-Time is made more malleable with Kairos-Time, more intimate, yet more elusive - harder to grasp, yet felt deep in our bones.
To honor the signature flow of a mutable water sign, a synthesis of Father Time should be less fixed and more synthetic. When a planet leaves its dearly domiciled placement, its [essential] dignity falls significantly (see below). Thus, I have been thinking about the idea that Saturn losing dignity as something more of a “participation of cosmic law” rather than an “imposition of a cosmic law” - meaning, the sacred act of a powerful Saturn knowing it’s his natural time to dethrone from their seat of power and allow themselves to be held in the mystical love of Jupiter [and Venus] via Pisces. Interestingly, the 8 of Cups imagination represents this immediate process, of Saturn de-throning from her place of power in Aquarius, towards a lesser decan dignity in Pisces.
Perhaps, through the wisdom of 8 of Cups, we allow our greatest-most-enduring hardships (Saturn) to be held by something or someone or some-force greater than ourselves ~ and it requires unconditional trust in the darkest part of the universe to do so [the royal fixed star Fomalhaut is called the Loneliest Star here in this decan]. This is partly why I believe Saturn in Pisces has decan dignity in the first face (0 through almost 10 degrees). Because Shani, the disciplined one, is entering the liminal space of not having enough “power” compared to the 5+ years before this [Capricorn & Aquarius]. Yet, Shani has mastered the lessons in her own domicile, and moves conscientiously into Pisces with the accumulated wisdom and deep awareness of their reality and roles in the larger cosmology of divine time.
In the holy book 36 Faces, astrologer Austin Coppock coined the first decan as The Labyrinth. Coppock elaborated, “here figures stumble in darkness, their fingers tracing walls they cannot see. We come to recognize our imprisonment in our own reality construct here, a labyrinth we ever wander. Yet the discovery of its walls portends its destruction, and the possibility of liberation. Outside its subtle enclosure waits a world as yet uncorrupted by our assumptions.”
The theme of darkness is inherent in this decan - and the question of whether the darkness of the maze is because of our own (un)doing is implied, yet also questionable. From my tarot experience, when clients receive the 8 of Cups, they are being asked to walk away from an old story, the old way of being and of doing. Old stories are heavily associated with our constructed “labyrinth,” and escaping old stories and patterns are non-linear work. The image above of 8 of Cups in the Smith-Rider-Waite tarot is a person-in-red moving towards the unknown-upward terrain, leaving the stability of 8 cups behind them because we are no longer nourished from those libations. Cups are representations of inner-emotional-fulfillment or rather spiritual fulfillment in Pisces, and to abandon things that have made us joyful require so much inner strength and wisdom. In the major arcana, Saturn is The World and Pisces is The Moon, I happen to write a poem regarding those two cards together recently:
Abandonment is a theme that Saturn / Shani / Zuhal is familiar with as the furthermost visible planet in the traditional system, the humble guardian of boundaries between the seen and the unseen cosmos, the higher spheres of divinity. Perhaps, Saturn, the ascetic, has realized that certain forms of denials are no longer nourishing to their soul-desires, or perhaps they have reaped the rewards of abstinence and concentration, be it material, reputational, or spiritual. For some of us, in the past few years of domiciled Saturn, we have created a radically different world for ourselves - we have made “mature” choices that felt in alignment with our spiritual longing and reality discernment. Yet the gift and the curse of a living mystic are always the growth-state of longing and yearning for something more for our evolution as an ensouled and embodied being. Sometimes, when we have achieved something permanent, we are being asked to let it go, to let it flow… and there is so much grief associated with leaving behind an attainment we once held near and dear to us. Yet, the first 12 degrees of Pisces are in the bounds of Venus - the most desirous. Through Venusian desires, Saturn in Pisces is about “abandoning success” for something more ecstatic than what is, and to reach for the ecstatic is to reach the unknown, to reach for the ecstatic is to relinquish the known.
In certain Sufi teachings, a scholarship I associate my spirituality with, there is a concept of “Unveiling” (Kashf) - which is related to the deep desire and radical longing to interface with Allah directly: to witness the Face of God (Wajh Allah). The idea might seem wild for some Muslims, and even blasphemous [allegedly]. Based on certain stories, some mystics would abandon the holy offering of entering the promised heaven - for the sake and for the love of spiritual intimacy with Divine. In certain ways, Saturn in Pisces demands this level of the devotional process from us… to relinquish our self-imposition of old paradigms of success we have built for [and from] our past longings, and to follow the siren call of our fresh and deep-sea desires.
[Saturn in Pisces, Face I of Saturn, March 8 2023 - March 1 2024]
If you haven’t been longing much lately, perhaps you are being asked to make time for these longings to happen. If you have been longing too much lately, perhaps you are being asked to practice patience in the darkness and confusion of waiting. If you have been feeling at peace and fulfilled recently, know that the ripest fruit eventually falls, knowing their natural time. With Saturn in Pisces, I wish us all safety in our spiritual-magical quest of abandoning the haven, for something more heavenly. If Saturn in Aquarius has shown us how Time is sacred, both Chronos-Time and Kairos-Time are sacred, Saturn in Pisces wants us to treat both of them as One entity ~ a Chronos-Kairos-Time intimacy. LOVE
Your Love Devotee,
Shahir
This is so comprehensive and good :')