Insights for Taurus

As the world Turns

It’s a Mercury retrograde month. For deeper insight you can see below or read here. You can also join the online alignment with Carolyn Winter and me for a unique way to grapple with the Trickster as they dance backwards!

These insights, are meant as contemplations of a sort: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology can be thought of as a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

 April 19
Sun enters Taurus: 10:24 PM EDT
Maybe reality is debatable: the nature of it, the meaning and whether pigs have wings. Debatable or not we have been blessed with our senses; the doors of perception. And despite the pull of the Metaverse it is painfully obvious that thoughts are nowhere near as real as, let’s say, our sense of smell or the sounds we hear. Sirens jar us, bird song cheers us, we turn up our noses at the smell of garbage but we love the scent of bread baking. Maybe we have only five senses, most likely we have many more. The denial or neglect of this possibility means that many people don’t believe in our ‘extra-sensory’ abilities. If you’re reading this you are probably the kind of person that is open to the idea that we have more than five senses with which to experience the world. This month is an especially good time to use those “extra” senses and open to a wider reality than the obvious. As Uranus has moved through Taurus it has crashed into our realities revealing the cracks, the weak points, the glaring gaps which require change. The world we thought we were familiar with is changing rapidly, not necessarily for the better. Some days change seems too ragged, jagged. Use your senses to navigate. They will show you the moment in stark reality and help ground you. If this seems confusing start with noticing the fire, earth, air and water and how everything is made of these primary elements.
As the Sun journeys here it will conjunct Uranus, sextile Mars, square Saturn, sextile Neptune trine Pluto and participate in a solar and lunar eclipse, (see below for specifics) reminding us that all systems change. Things die and other things get born. Opportunities are all around us and we must do the work even if we haven’t a clue where it will take us.   

April 22
Earth Day

Earth day, birth day.
Love your Mother, there is no other (planet).
Praise and respect her too.
She gives us everything, this All Mother.
The sky is nothing without Her.

April 24
Mercury square Saturn
Mercury sextile Neptune
Don’t just kick the can out of the way. Pick it up. At least recycle it if you can’t reuse it.
The same applies to all obstacles. If you meet them on the road, deal with them; for love and in service to life, yours, mine, theirs. Life: The Precious Gift.  

April 27
Mercury sextile Jupiter
Venus conjunct Neptune
It seems there is no end to suffering but there is also the rising sun, the new day, the gathering light, the promise of a rainbow, a flower opening, somewhere. The mere possibility of grace is a kind of blessing.

April 28
Mercury trine Pluto
Mercury has been busy this week. Reminding us to think globally and act locally, to be practical in dealing with our immediate surroundings, to wash windows for love, to appreciate flowers because the soul is real and needs beauty the way the body needs food. The smallest inclination in these directions helps transform reality and creates a more beautiful world.

April 29
Pluto stationery retrograde
Everything astrological is from the perspective of humans (those who can look up and see the heavenly clock turning). How then to make sense of the first planet to be retrograde since Mercury went direct in early February and all hell broke loose? Pluto is the keeper of the underbelly, things which are despised and denied. It’s amazing really that things about which we say, ‘never again’ have a way of popping up when Pluto is in town. Clearly Pluto has been hard at work. We could say since 2008 when it first entered Capricorn, picking up a real head of steam in 2020 when it met up with Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, and now on its own as it readies to complete its journey through Capricorn. As it changes direction we could take it as a reminder to be honest about our feelings, if only to ourselves. The power of bearing witness to truth, however harsh, is transformative. This is true collectively as well as personally, albeit more difficult to manage. If enough strong individuals do this in their own lives it ripples out into the world and turns what seems like chaos toward transformative change. It may take until later in July when the Sun opposes Pluto to actually have a sense of where this process is taking us. Next month Mercury will go retrograde. And then then Saturn and Neptune the month after, Jupiter in July, Uranus in August. Even Mars will join the retrograde dance at the end of October. Each of these turnings at a time of such Great Turning are invitations to reflect for weeks and months at a time, when you remember. There are no good old days to return to but there is a mountain of unfinished business.
Today is also the last day of a waning Moon: A time to notice the vast spacious realm within. We feel this more easly in nature, perhaps because we are part of the natural world. Think of it as an invitation to a beginningless, endless place of constant change. The dance in utter stillness. And then there is this other realm, the one of circumstance, the one we constantly attempt to manage. The one that in fact is so much less real yet pulls us time after time day in and day out away from the spaciousness of a greater reality.
Today is the last day of the Moon’s month and a waning energy permeates the world, asking nothing of us. Nothing at all. It’s the moment when the wave pulls back into the sea and before it breaks toward the shore. Tomorrow is a New Moon. A breaking wave.  

April 30
Venus conjunct Jupiter
New Moon: 10 degrees Taurus: 04:28 PM EDT Eclipse
The prevailing culture of the 20th century was a sort of mission to ‘live for today’. Here in the 21st century we are coming to understand (along with those who never forgot) the necessity of considering the inheritors of the earth, the children of our children’s children. New Moons are always about intention. Eclipses intensify the energies. They seem to open portals which invite more than we know to join in. New Moons call us to plant seeds for the future but of course we are here, stuck in the present, painfully aware that we create the future with every action, every intention. Even if it feels chaotic here, in the ‘now’, our choices will create The Change and carry seeds for future generations. It’s a time machine.
There is a simple, accessible, profound truth in our ability to bear witness, not only to pain and sorrow but also to beauty, to allow our soul to be stirred. Venus has been reminding us of this since the conjunction with Neptune on the 27th.
Given that Venus and Jupiter are in the later degrees of Pisces we might consider these words from Martin Shaw in his book, Courting the Wild Twin: “Beauty is created not just by desire but by diligence. By circling again and again like a hawk round the well to what truly sends you both dizzy with admiration but also utterly focused in service.”

May 1
Venus sextile Pluto  
We are overwhelmed yet awed by life if we allow ourselves to even try to fully absorb the events of the day. It’s inconvenient and messy. Even so, now would be a good time to remove ourselves from all the mind noise: the desperate distractions of clicking, liking and commenting and to let it be or maybe to let it bleed. Who is to say?

May 2
Venus enters Aries 
Possibly only an ‘uppity woman’ can appreciate such a quality in someone else. Venus in Aries doesn’t want us to be comfortable with the way things are. It’s a symbol of pushing limits, breaking through assumptions and questioning the status quo. Jupiter goes into Aries on the 10th and Mars on the 24th, all fingers pointing to the Moon you might say of doing something new even against the odds.

May 3
Jupiter sextile Pluto
Wisdom can come from above and below. It can lift us up or remind us that, after all we are not more or less than one amongst all living beings. No matter what well you draw your wisdom from at the moment it offers deep teachings regarding personal conditions for transformation, which is to say, change; as it applies to you specifically. Guaranteed these are not the conditions you imagined. Sit by the well of wisdom, fill your cup and drink. Even the smallest sip could change you forever.  

May 4
Mars sextile Uranus 
Sometimes when you least expect it an opportunity comes knocking. If you open the door you will find that the gift of the moment requires change and there is no telling where it’s taking you. The river knows where it’s going. It always finds its way.

May 5
Sun conjunct Uranus
Radical shift continues. Our species is inherently opportunistic. We love to turn a profit from any and all circumstances. Truly this has created some evil conditions on our planet. Denise Levertov said, “Man’s capacity for evil, then, is less a positive capacity, for all its horrendous activity, than a failure to develop man’s most human function, the imagination, to its fullness, and consequently a failure to develop compassion.”
No one controls the movements of the planets. They are like a Great Mirror, simply and profoundly reflecting what is happening down below. What do you imagine change will bring?

May 6
Venus sextile Mercury
We make priorities based on what we decide matters most. Every choice is an opportunity. When you open the front door today breathe in the world and choose nothing (for a change). Better to notice the squirrels, the birds going about their very important business, the clouds rolling by and even the breezes and the bugs. The world is happening, not just in your head but every possible ‘where’ there is. The joy as the saying goes, is in the ride.

May 07
Sun sextile Mars
Freedom means so many different things to so many people. For some it’s permission to do what I want (come what may). Others find freedom in restraint from harmful impulses (such as eating animals or using fossil fuels). There is freedom to protest and demand rights and freedoms on behalf of others. there is freedom to breathe, to drink, to touch the earth. There are people fighting for their right to live in a free world. Those who are choosing to ‘live free or die’. We measure freedom against conditions. This is the challenge, the call.  

May 10
Mercury stationery retrograde
Jupiter enters Aries
Actions speak louder than words. (Even little ones.) The world witnessed this as we heard words of non-aggression just before the bombs fell. Even so, words matter. Mercury reminds us to pause, to listen to the world with our senses not just the thoughts inside our heads. If we are fortunate to be in pleasant surroundings that is easy enough, but the suggestion is there for all as Mercury appears to move from Gemini back to Taurus. Here is an invitation to unplug where possible, to think with more than your mind. Leave the pundits and the know-it-alls to their own devices. They haven’t a clue about the immediacy of your particular life; the ache in your joints or the pleasure of a juicy fruit.
Of course, Jupiter could care less about such things! It wants action. Just do it! In Aires there is the possibility of recklessness based on arrogance. Seize the day or bust.
It’s a push-me-pull you kind of moment, On one hand the inclination from Mercury to pause and consider, on the other, from Jupiter, to energetically follow the impulse.
Jupiter will be in Aries till the end of October. Mercury will be retrograde until June 3rd. To be alive is to sail the seas of paradox, to hold impossible contradictions in one hand even as we release the birds of hope and possibility from the other. An excellent time to memorize this poem from Auguries of Innocence, in all or part:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour 

Or this part:

A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent 
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe 
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go 
Joy & Woe are woven fine 
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine 

May 15
Venus conjunct Chiron
Sun square Saturn
Sun sextile Neptune
To be alive is to be subject to all manner of suffering and joy. This is true for all living things. Venus reminds us to bless this notion. The Sun, like a determined juggler, calls us to the task of participating in life’s fullness: To work hard and deal with circumstance even as we remember “the still point of the turning world” that was so important at the New Moon two weeks ago. 

May 16
Full Moon: Eclipse, 25 degrees Scorpio 00:13 AM EDT  
As the Moon in its fullness carries the theme of participation in two worlds at once – the inner spacious one as well as the demanding circumstantial outer one - it might be useful to consider how things felt and what you thought you wanted back at the New Moon on April 30th. Perhaps you planted a seed in this unstable world. As you survey your life at this moment consider how accessing both worlds, inner and outer, shapes your particular dance. Live between the worlds, no escaping in either direction. Be witness to change, to the cycles of destruction and creation. Then do what you must because while you’re here on Planet Earth, you can.

May 18
Mars conjunct Neptune
Which opportunities that called to you on or around May 7th are ready to expand and grow. How do your dreams match up with your abilities? Here is a good time to remember you are only human and to fulfill that gift you cannot be too pure or perfect. Our best is always good enough.

May 19
Sun trine Pluto
Mercury (still rx) sextile Jupiter
The power to transform, to change, to become someone we didn’t think we could be, lives inside each one of us. Be literal about this. Seeds that turn into green shoots are nothing short of a miracle of transformation.
Today there is a whisper on the wind, a message waiting to be heard. There are things we can do, ways we can align with and move into change. It’s a process. It takes time.