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Slower, Deeper - Taurus
In Celtic wisdom the sacred is as present on earth as it is in heaven, as immanent as it is transcendent, as human as it is divine, as physical as it is spiritual. The sacred can be breathed in, tasted, touched, heard, and seen as much in the body of the earth and the body of another living being as in the body of religion. It is the true essence of all life.
~ John Philip Newell, from Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul
I am initiating this month’s blog on May Day, a celebratory moment of Taurus season, and of the colorful unfolding of spring’s majesty. In the Celtic calendar, this day marks the cross-quarter of Beltane, midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice, honoring the fertility of the land and planting and celebrated with bonfires, Maypoles, and dancing. It is also a time when the powers of masculine and feminine are in balance, with the May Queen and the mythical Green Man both welcomed. Garden magic is afoot, as evidenced by an array of ‘pairings’ that my flower friends have been arranging!
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After a thankfully wet winter and early spring here in Sonoma County, recent warm and sunny weeks have offered a particularly delicious time for dwelling in the garden of nature. As I’ve mentioned in prior blogs, I’ve been continuing to feel the ‘dissolving’ effect of the Saturn in Pisces energy, with Saturn having been traversing this yin water sign since last year—and remaining for another year—calling us to be present with this end-of-cycle Pisces archetype in the area of our charts where Pisces falls. For me that happens to be the 4th house at the root of the chart, naturally ruled by Cancer. The fourth house is our home, our foundation, that which holds and nourishes us. Our rootedness. So in the vein of continuing to achieve mastery (Saturn’s aim) at deepening in my foundation, with the strong ‘letting go’ impulse that Pisces brings, this Taurus season I’ve been immersing myself – body, mind, soul – in the body of the earth: her sounds, smells, and signs; her elements, her colors, her stories. My garden has been my ‘holding ground.’ I’ve had some setbacks with a chronic knee issue that has kept my movements more limited these days and weeks, with healing a big focus (another Pisces theme). With Pisces’ ruler Neptune now at the 29th degree of Pisces, the potential for healing, and as well the call to deepen our faith, is more potent. The last degree of any sign is considered the ‘anoretic’ degree, indicating a time of completion and mastery. So in the area of our chart where Pisces falls, we might ask, where and how are we called to practice healing, and keep faith? The opportunity is there for us to align with it with our intentions, given that Pisces/Neptune energy opens us to the power of the creative imagination. |
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Healing and resilience
For myself, while I am accommodating to and accepting my knee condition, I am holding faith that some day, be it through natural healing or Western intervention, I will no longer be thus limited. (Wouldn’t you know, Saturn rules the knees, and as the alchemist, operates through limitation!) So it is perhaps no accident that I’ve had two winged garden visitors of late who themselves have been disabled, and who have served as teachers of healing and resilience.
The first was a small, striped sparrow, who appeared one morning trembling under my terrace table during one of our final rains. As I bent down to her level to connect, she managed to slowly hobble off to a corner of the small terrace, where she was partially hidden behind some rocks, but now exposed to the rain. Clearly something was amiss, or she wouldn’t be hobbling, but she was not welcoming my assist. Rather than contact a bird rescue center, I decided to give space for her own healing powers. I opened a small umbrella and placed it such that she was no longer getting rained on, and decided to give her an hour. While I did check sooner than that, after 20 minutes, and found her still huddling there, I kept to my resolve to wait an hour, and lo and behold, when I returned again, she was gone. Healing mission accomplished! Patience, a Taurean balm, was certainly part of the medicine.
The next guest—or I should say, occupant— whose wings were failing was a small bee, whom I found the other day almost motionless in the soil of a potted plant outside my kitchen door. I was saddened at the sight, as this was the third downed and struggling bee I’ve seen in recent months (the prior two were last fall, one was already dead). Clearly the influences of pesticides and climate change have finally found their way to my garden, even if I myself only apply organic products to the soil.
The little bee was barely moving, but alive, so I decided to transport her using a spoon to another pot in the sun, with a bright red blossom for her to rest in. I then pulled up a stool, and sat to watch her. At first, there was still no movement. I was discouraged. I waited a minute or two, and then finally decided to risk interacting with her directly, with my finger. She probably didn’t have the energy to sting me, and if she did, so bee it!
Holding the intention to offer her my love, I started by putting my finger just beside her head, at which she responded by waving one of her two, until-then dormant, antennae at the finger and then resting it on my nail. Then she rallied the other antenna, and while waving it too, pulled herself closer so that the other antenna could also rest on my nail. I watched, breath taken, as she then proceeded to move her entire body up onto my finger. As she did, I imagined that the electromagnetic energy in my body (perhaps the same as love) could stimulate a healing response in her. She rested all of herself there on my finger for no more than a few seconds, and then suddenly lifted off and buzzed away into the blue.
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We are related
I’m still moved, writing about this special moment of reciprocal exchange between the bee and me. This is what’s available to all of us, more and more now, I feel, as we have the potential to raise our energetic frequency and connect with Life relationally. We really are kin with all life. Fittingly, the celestial infusion of fixed earth Taurus energy we are exposed to these days invites harmony into matter and its structures, earthing the electrical current of higher inspiration from spirit. The combination of the ‘earth sky magic’ available, with the creative Pisces potential can be rich, if we open ourselves to it with intention.
Another way to look at this magical moment I had is to consider the powerful Jupiter-Uranus conjunction, which I wrote about extensively in my last blog. This conjunction, still technically in orb until mid-May, but as well initiating a new cycle that it seeds and will echo through for the next 14 years of its cycle, opens us to broadened horizons, new perspectives on life, and sudden leaps in consciousness. It happens to fall in my 7th house of relationship (Libra energy), and so I could interpret this amazing bee event as one in which a land-mate, whom I welcomed whole-heartedly, received my relational offering, and was ‘up-leveled’, literally! For my part, I felt the miracle of interconnectedness through love, and an expanded vision of what is possible, which definitely describes Jupiter Uranus medicine.
As things happen, shortly after this encounter I found in my Inbox two wonderful pieces about bees, one an Emergence Magazine interactive feature on The Pollinators of Slovenia, with some amazing images, and the other, a highly informative article, Wake Up and Save the Flowers! on supporting wild bees from our local Pepperwood Institute. The latter piece links to a helpful UC Berkeley website that provides a list of bee-friendly plants. There I learned that applying mulch is a no-no where bees are concerned, as many bees need a large amount of uncovered soil through which to burrow down to nest.
The intimate connection that we humans share with all life brings with it the responsibility to do our part to tend to the ecosystem webs around us. The article stresses the vital importance of considering and caring for the bees, both for the health of our ecosystems that depend on them, and for our own food supply. Without bees, we would lose not just our flowers, and many of our birds, but 1/3 of our food source.
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Examining Filters, Welcoming Change
Woodland Sage, a bee favorite!
Time for incubating
The bees article also mentions that bees spend the vast majority of their lives nesting. “One could hypothesize that the reason bees are so ‘busy’ is because their lives are rather fleeting. For most, it’s about one year. They spend three to six weeks of their lifetime as the mature flying insect we’re used to seeing, and the rest in a nest cell made for them by their mother or sisters. In the cell, they go through several developmental changes: egg, larva, pupa, and then finally winged adult.”
This is quite remarkable – that bees spend about 90% of their precious lives developing and preparing for their “life’s work.” This makes me stop and think about the incubating phase that the astrological changes afoot are heralding. The gestational Pisces energy, combined with the awakening energy of both the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction and Pluto in Aquarius (where it will stay for the next 40 years), along with other changes coming down the pike this year and next, indicate a phase of trans-formation on many levels, which indeed does ask for a prolonged phase of chrysalis-dwelling. This is not always easy – Taurus energy innately resists change, but the task is to nevertheless allow the creative inner wandering and freedom that the Uranian impulse of making ‘leaps and bounds’ requires. Breakdowns can become breakthroughs.
In order to make ourselves receptive to the call of these times, we are asked to in some ways unmake and unravel ourselves and our minds, as we prepare to recalibrate, reconfigure, and create new ways of relating to ourselves, our perceptions, and the stories we tell ourselves about how things ‘should be’—how we should be, and how others should be! The world as we know it is in flux, and we are being invited to this phase of metamorphosis, not unlike that of the caterpillar to the butterfly. Will we ‘fly’ within our lifetimes? One can’t know. But the call to re-form is there, and it starts with turning inwards, to focus on inner change, the vital precursor to the necessary outer changes of life’s larger sustaining systems, whether ecological, political, social, conceptual, or more. From micro to macro, it’s all one interconnected field.
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Embracing the shadow
In a blog post about on the Piscean Age that has preceded the Aquarian Age (which we have at least a few toes in at this point, if not a whole foot), UK-based astrologer Jessica Davidson offers some powerful insights about Pisces and its work with healing, karma, and the shadow. Pisces, its ruler Neptune, and the 12th house ruled by this energy all preside over the phenomena of dissolution and loss, in the natural process of disintegration and return to origins. At its best, we ourselves participate in this process consciously. She writes,
As the Age of Pisces unravels we’re being challenged to actually embody the meaning of the age. That is, to embrace compassion rather than division. We must accept all parts of ourselves – including the parts we don’t like – and become whole. That means resolving the split in our minds through a confrontation with the shadow – all the darkness (and light) that we’ve denied – to balance the opposites.
Those opposites are now becoming more polarised as the shadow erupts from the depths, forcing us to deal with it. The polarisation makes the opposites more visible and obvious, and undeniable. But it also reinforces our tendency to project what we’ve disowned onto others. That’s what has to end.
Taurus New Moon
Prime mover in shadow/healing work, the asteroid Chiron, known colloquially as the wounded healer, has been figuring prominently in the skies in recent months, having been conjunct the Moon’s North Node in Aries, thereby urging us to orient ourselves (the ‘ask’ of the North Node) towards healing work around our core or sacred wound, which in essence boils down to a wound of separation.
As Adam Gainsburg elucidates in his informative book, Chiron: The Wisdom of a Deeply Open Heart, it’s the nature of incarnation to be ‘separated’ from oneness into an ego structure, through which we navigate early traumas, and then soldier on through life. Later healing work, should we embark on it, involves dismantling this ego structure, which formed around our wound, to free up and open our hearts (often through the difficult work of having them broken open) and live more authentically. With the upcoming New Moon at 18° Taurus (on May 7, 8:23am), Chiron is technically past conjuncting the N. Node, but will be conjunct Mercury in Aries, and on May 27, conjunct Mars there.
So in this respect, for this next lunar cycle we are still propelled towards learning and communicating (Mercury) about our shadow issues, our places of wounding. This is vital work, as our individual efforts contribute to the healing of the whole. The further we travel into knowing and releasing our shadow patterns, the more our energy, and courage, are freed up to be in service to life, as a joyful offering our gifts and skills.
Technically at the New Moon we’ve moved more fully into the Taurus energy, with Venus, Jupiter and Uranus there along with the Sun and Moon. Venus rules Taurus, so in her own sign, we are inspired to seek out and savor beauty in many forms: art and music (music being signified by Taurus, particularly the voice, as Taurus rules the throat), any form of creativity, and being with the nature and the land, which is now oozing grace and magic out of its many pores!
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I’ve found myself attending three gorgeous concerts, and singing myself at two other events, all within a short space recently, a testament to this Taurus call to music. Here’s a clip from a lovely song performed at one of these concerts, by a capella trio Copper Wimmin, called Heart of Flowers, with sentiments, visuals, and melodies partaking of pure Taurus!
Lest we get too lulled into receptive Taurean bliss, however, there is still a strong Aries note in the air, given the Chiron-Mercury conjunction there, and as well, Mars in Aries, the sign it naturally rules, along with the North Node. So we are tasked with balancing the contrasting energies of ‘take action’ Mars & co. in Aries and ‘stop and smell the roses’ Venus & co. in Taurus!
Regardless of our unique way of twining these impulses, it’s good to keep in mind that the Aries North Node continues to beckon us towards developing independent action and self-assertion, particularly in the house ruled by Aries in our chart. And as said, this will want to be coupled with an examination of the wounding of our Aries principle, with Chiron positioned there. We might ask, in what way do we allow ourselves to fall back on codependency as a form of navigation (the South Node Libra energy we are trying to move off of)? In what ways do we care too much about others’ opinions, or derive our sense of worth and value (Libra/Venus issues) from their approval? What will it take to learn to act from our own native impulses, without minding what others think or say – or don’t say?
Whatever this may be, gaining comfort with this Aries archetype will help us to align with the Uranus/Aquarius impulses of these changing times, giving us the pluck to offer our creative sparks to life. We are not meant to only dwell within, but to do so in order to connect with our unique genius, whatever our particular note may be—whatever the nature of our light—and to then dare to offer it to Life, in ways most natural to us.
Those interested in diving deeper into the individual archetypes and mythologies of Aries, Taurus, or Pisces (or any other signs) can purchase recordings and extensive notes of my past classes here.
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Slow down Taurus
With the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction— the herald of the new in methodical, taking-its-time, Taurus, messages are appearing everywhere about both the need, and the desire to slow down our pace in life. As our Indigenous teachers have always known. As I’d quoted in a Taurus blog last year, thought leader Bayo Akomolafe states, “The times are urgent, we must slow down.” The frenetic pace of doing, achieving, and acquiring that drives our capitalist system has created unsustainable levels of tension, stress, and anxiety, particularly among young people, but all across the board.
I myself have been blessed with the opportunity to slow down quite dramatically in recent months, affording me the time to put more attention on the simple, yet essential things like tending my garden, my body, my cooking (food another great Taurus preoccupation!), and my relationships. And nourishing myself with the activities I love (many of which are listed above!). With this has come a deeper type of relaxing and letting go, into the breath and the body, and below the mind. The realm of Taurus.
Slowing down and reacquainting ourselves with Being is a medicine we all need at this time. And with the Sun in Taurus, the sign par excellence of taking it slow, drinking in the nectar of the realm of the body, the senses, and the Earth—connecting with her animal, mineral, and vegetable inhabitants—Taurus season is a time to take a dive deep into the magic of materiality, which is intimately connected with the magic of the stars, of whose ‘stuff’ we are all made.
And by materiality I mean the kind that is freely given–such as watching and listening to the birds, the night chorus of cicadas, the hum of the bees; spending time with the stars in the night sky; being near or in water; laying on the earth while drinking in the sun; enjoying the communicative shimmer of tree leaves in the wind; being amidst and stewarding our plants and trees; and taking good care of our bodies through touch, nourishing foods and natural medicines, along with regular movement that sustains and connects us to our core, the earth, and our senses—such as Pilates and Qi Gong.
Altruistic fungi
Like the bees, another amazing sustainer of the microbiome that we have long taken for granted is the underground mycorrhyzal fungi. Fungi is a vast community of life whose complex systems operate for the most part outside of our awareness. Like bees, the fungi are a network of interconnectedness, in this case, an underground one, which transfers and sends nutrients and signals to the vast, rooted and bacterial realms beneath the earth’s surface. Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our World, was a recent presenter at the Bioneers Conference in Berkeley, CA, where he showed a stunning video revealing the astonishing movements that mark the nature of these organisms’ activities as they responsively feed and nourish life underground.
Son of British author and biologist Rupert Sheldrake, Merlin takes his father’s work, which cites telepathic-type connections between organisms due to what he calls “morphic resonance,” literally down to earth, by focusing on this realm of below-ground mycelial interconnectedness that can be studied using data collection models and robotics.
There is great relevance here to the Jupiter-Uranus in Taurus theme, as well as Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius, with the Uranus/Aquarius archetype presiding over the expansion of ways of knowing, of the intermingling of ‘group mind’, and of technology. The communities of bees and fungi, both of which altruistically serve the larger systems of Earth, use technologies that are naturally inherent to Life, not ‘invented’ by the human brain. They reveal the (Uranian) genius of nature (Taurus) in creating sustainable systems of life that is literally mind-blowing.
As Merlin shares: “…a very helpful way to think about these entanglements, [is as] a co-creative, relational space where all the partners involved are helping to build the other. And that changes the way that [we] understand relationship and entanglement, because it becomes less about a series of dotted lines between individual entities; it becomes a kind of seething relational space, like a fabric that’s living and growing.”
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Living and growing fabric
This new version of ‘relational space, ’ likened to a living fabric, is not unlike the morphing of social spaces that we are now seeing, and likely to see more of in coming years—some of course mediated by the internet (we don’t throw out the gifts of tech with the bathwater!). New possibilities for global communities gathered around shared and respected themes, designed to serve the planet during these crucial transitional years, are arising.
One of these that I’ve been greatly enjoying exploring is The Gene Keys, which is a system of inner exploration that incorporates astrology with the I Ching, and fosters an international community, or ‘fabric’ (!) of growth-promoting exchange. It is a tool, like astrology, for healing and calling forth our gifts in service to life. A recent talk from British Gene Keys founder, Richard Rudd, sounds like an invitation into the higher vibration of Taurus energy, so I offer it here:
As we soften, we experience life through the all-seeing eye, that exists in gaps and pauses, that sees life without thought. Our inner eye opens as our contemplation moves from mental to emotional to physical, which comes about as we sink into the depths of our life, and thereby discover a magical sense of spaciousness.
Conservation soapbox
The centered Taurean invitation, and the deep need at this end of an era of greed and over-consumption, and over-activity in general, is to move away from the shadow Taurean compulsion to acquire pleasure and security from activities that use up Earth’s precious resources. Especially in America, we have been conditioned to seek fulfillment through expensive experiences and possessions, often involving fossil fuel-dependent travel, but in this time of ingress to the ‘wake up’ Aquarian Age, we need to dismantle those instructions, and learn to find security and fulfillment in simpler, deeper ways and rhythms, within ourselves, and within our relationships with the vast community of Life.
This is a big shift, and will take time. But if more people could move the locus of attention from working more than is needed to afford a lifestyle of spending and consuming more than is needed, and instead develop simpler, cheaper avenues of pleasure that don’t deplete resources, the pace and extent of the inexorable machine of greed and abuse of the Earth could slow down. Dropping into the rhythm of a slower pace afforded by less time spent getting and spending, through which to deeply savor life, is the call of a mature Taurus. It is enhanced by the paradigm shift that Uranus in Taurus, and Pluto in Aquarius offers.
I was gifted to have been raised by conservation-mind parents, whose primary contribution to life was in land and natural resources protection and conservation, and whose primary hobby/pastime, outside of civic work, was gardening and tending plants. Fittingly, natally I have Saturn in its own sign of Capricorn, which indicates a strong emphasis on taking responsibility for, and applying discipline to the realm it presides over, which for me is the 2nd House, naturally ruled by Taurus. One manifestation of wanting to ground (which Saturn asks us to do) my connection to the earth and to the valuing of her resources has been to focus on living a ‘resource-lite’ life, limiting as best I can my use of car travel, water, electricity, and natural gas, as it helps both the Earth, and my pocketbook. I feel when I do this that I am living into the future where it will be required, not just optional.
I have a niece, Sydney Badger, who is in the sustainable fashion industry, where there is growing effort to pull back from buying ‘throwaway’ clothes, which are cheap in cost, cheap in fabrication, resource-intensive, and short-lived. In her Substack blog, she encourages an awareness of the need to move off of such “fast fashion”, to shift off the ethic of indiscriminate buying to that of acquiring just a few new, high quality, long-lasting items per year, and the rest, used. As it happens, Sydney is a Taurus Sun sign. J
If you have an appetite to learn more about the depth and magic of Taurus (beneficial particularly if you have Sun, Moon, or Ascendant there, but really good medicine for all), I encourage you to check out my prior musings, Song of Taurus. The more we learn about the zodiacal archetypes, the more they enhance our lenses of perception.
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Astrological wrap-up
This month I’ve mostly woven in the bass note themes of the slower-moving transits, as that’s what I tend to focus on – not so much the changes of the fast moving inner planets (Mars, Venus, and Mercury), as they are more fleeting. And I’ve already dished up a lot! But I will mention before closing a few upcoming ‘events’ for later this month.
Pluto at 2° Aquarius has just turned retrograde, where it will stay until October 11. On September 1 it will go back into Capricorn one final time. When a planet goes retrograde, it makes its energy more inwardly focused, and deepened. So these months will be a time for us to contemplate the detached Aquarian air sign theme of change that is upon us, and that will be a continued focus for decades. As well, for the final Pluto’s final few months in Capricorn, there will be the opportunity to reflect on and let go of any Capricornian conventions and structures we may still be habitually governed by that no longer serve.
Then we have both Venus and Jupiter heading into air sign Gemini on May 23 and 25 respectively. Venus moves more quickly, but Jupiter will stay here for a year. It will be trining Pluto on June 2, marking the beginning of a heightened shift into Air sign focus, with Pluto also in air sign Aquarius. I will have more to say about this, and the winged beings of the Air, next month, when the Sun will be in Gemini as well!
In the meantime, I wish you a fulfilling immersion in the Taurus call to slow and deepen into the beauty and magic of Earth’s beauty and wisdom!
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Further Meanderings
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All photos copyright Diana Badger 2024 (unless otherwise indicated)