This New Moon in Taurus gives us all a fresh opportunity to renew our joy in our bodies, our senses, Great Nature, and the potentials for personal pleasure that come to us through this embodied life.
May 8 '05 Newmoon:
Today's New Moon is in the sign of Taurus, giving us all a chance to check into the ground upon which we stand. This sign's earthy fixity creates a comfortable point of stability for our bodies to ground themselves in, welcoming the incarnating soul with all of the delights of the senses. Taurus teaches how to use one's animal body as one's "power spot", providing the more subtle energy-bodies a common vehicle from which to work. Without words, without stint, Taurus demonstrates the abundance of Nature through every possible avenue and form. Safety, security, and joy in the little things are all benefits that Taurus imparts for those who can relax and create a positive relationship with matter.
We are gratefully enjoying the middle of the Spring during the sign of Taurus, and this time the Newmoon is falling quite near the center of the sign itself. That's enough to make me want to mention that "centering" means more than just observing a mathematical midpoint or pulling consciousness away from the outer world for a minute. It also means balancing oneself within the eye of one's own cyclone, aligning one's reality with what the ancient Greek philosophers called the "thin spindle of necessity". Everybody has goals, wishes, priorities and desires, but what I'm referring to here is the non-optional central core of That Which Is Real, standing unchanged within the haze of projections and preferences we are all constantly juggling in our imaginations. Taurus rewards those who remain true to the knowledge that some things, forces, patterns, and situations are more true to the Real than others.
A New Moon creates the chance for the two sides of the brain, or the conscious and unconscious minds, or the male and female sides of the self, to take refuge in each other and complete themselves in their seeming opposite. Therefore, the base premise of every New Moon is the union of opposites and the regeneration of wholeness and unity. Psychologically this translates into a sense of self-completeness, fullness-from-within, and sufficiency in the sign and house being tenanted. The Taurus aesthetic focuses on simple pleasures, the quiet joy of peace and tranquility, and pleasure found in repetition of cherished routines. Hence this New Moon gives us the chance to rediscover the tiny but profound nuances that rescue our lives from chaos and overstimulation in this scattered modern world of ours. It may be a well-made cup of tea, just the right color cloth across the back of your sofa, or the sweet sound of a loved-one's voice... In each case, well-being flows from the personal pleasure gained in the fulfillment of one's own treasured experiences. This is the knowledge granted from the Taurean sensibilities -- what specifically pleases me, right here, right now.
Another planet that appears with the Sun/Moon is Venus, which is particularly resonant with Taurus through being its ruler. This makes an even stronger emphasis on the Earth signs, especially because Venus is making a rough trine with my local ascendant at the moment of New Moon (...in Seattle, that is). These symbols share an emphasis on discovering one's criteria for "worth", refining our ideas of what is worth spending time on, spending money on, spending life-force on in this life. Earth planets and signs make it clear that time is even more precious than money. Repetition creates matter and form over time, so as a group these indicators emphasize that we should be planning and budgeting our daily tastes and habits with our personal and collective long-term vision in mind.
Mercury's position in Aries, right next to the North Node, also emphasizes self-awareness. This Node is traditionally considered to mark the spot in which the soul most easily learns new information and skills, so this conjunction can only increase Mercury's love of learning, (in this case learning about the Self in both private and collective ways). Mercury has long been seen as a translator between cultures, languages, and currencies, which in the psychological sense may help body and mind, dreamtime and reasoning come into closer communication. This would be a great time to go looking for the missing links at the back of your mind that will help you decode the coincidences, synchronicities and "divine accidents" that are shaping your destiny right now. It's also a time to review the beliefs and expectations that have guided your choices up to the present, in case you can restate or clarify unspoken attitudes that secretly work against your dearest goals and dreams. Mercury can help us realize that any information that we have ever learned can be deconstructed and reconstructed at will, according to which beliefs will serve us better at the stage we currently are facing. This is not about moral relativism, but instead is about constructing more accurate descriptions of our own reality, such that we can narrow the distance between our fantasies and our direct experience. Let this Mercury in Aries update your image of yourself, and you might feel quite liberated, empowered, and encouraged to reach beyond your previous limitations and "seize the day".
You will not be able to get away with self-delusion at this time, however. With Saturn making a square with that Mercury from the sign of Cancer, no "new improved description of myself" will be able to hold emotional water unless it fits authentically with the core emotions that govern your innate feeling-states. In other words, you can only build up and improve upon qualities that are intrinsically your own -- you cannot graft entirely new and unrelated qualities upon yourself merely by wishing it so. Saturn will insist that you realistically factor in your traditional weak spots, such as your tendencies for misunderstanding and/or mistrust of other people's motives, or situations wherein you fail to take responsibility for the consequences of your unconscionsness or selfish impulses. Challenge yourself to extend the Mercurial reframing process to even those of your qualities that you have previously felt bad about. Remember that even "the stone that the builders refused can become the head cornerstone" (in the language of ancient Masonry). A quality or characteristic once labeled unfortunate might be able to reveal its value and even genius, once you have stripped away the accumulated negative projections and seen it in its natural aspect and context. It is far preferable to recognize the untapped value being cast away with the dross, than to try to pretend that the dross is itself golden!
There may be chances to rearrange your self-image in such a way that you hide uncomfortable information about yourself in your blind spot (Neptune in Aquarius stressing the Saturn with an occult aspect), but do everything you can to short-circuit that kind of avoidance so you can tell yourself your truth in clean and non-self-sparing terms. This will help you counteract any tendency to inflate your own importance over that of other people, and will help you be more fair in your expectations when you encounter people who seem very different than yourself (meaning, nearly everybody). I see this Saturn/Mercury/Neptune figure as an invitation to increase your tolerance of the "other" to the exact degree that you want others to increase their tolerance of you. In this kind of intention we can witness the seeds of global peace being sown in the heart of every soul mature enough to respond to the wisdom of inclusive diversity.
The Mars/Uranus conjunction in early Pisces seems to be a contradiction in terms, since Mars and Uranus are both fiery, electrical, and explosive, but find themselves doused in misty, vague, spacey and diffuse mutable water. One way to read this would be to imagine that both Mars and Uranus are dissolving and spreading their volatile qualities through this specially-impregnated "water of the psyche", lending energy and arousal to an element more known for it's flowing, dreamlike and muted nature. At the Pisces time of year, the fruits of the old cycle are literally dissolving on the field and forest floor, getting ready to nourish the upcoming growth promised by the incipient spring. Just so, the willful ambition of Mars and the lightning-bolt awakening power of Uranus are infused into the dreamscape of the personal psyche, becoming part of every thought and feeling that comes to consciousness. Together Mars and Uranus have the potential to charge the entire psyche with the energy for a radical realignment of goals and desires. There's little way to predict the outcome of this alchemical process, but it's still fairly obvious that things will never be quite the same again after this irradiation of the "ground of consciousness" with the catalytic by-products of this volatile conjunction.
In any case, you must remember not to blame this process of change upon others, or make believe that it is "because of him/her" that you find yourself the possessor of these new impulses, insights, and inspirations. To do so would be to disown the obvious creativity and inventiveness that is pouring forth from your own unique responses to life right now, and you don't want to do that! Plus, you don't want to put yourself into the self-defeating position of rebelling against your own newest and freshest ideas, just because you don't recognize them as your own yet! Being true to yourself means no longer insisting that you should conform to a pre-determined mold, just because it seems to make bystanders more comfortable, or because you are afraid to be seen diverting from your previous pose. Remember, one important keyword for Uranus is "genius" (though it's often paired with "chaos"), and an equally key concept for Mars is Divine Will At Work within the individual. Grant yourself the right to be self-determined and constantly in flux, and then this new blast of inner stimulation and catalytic action will begin to feel more normal, natural, and right for you at this time.
The Planet Jupiter, still transiting Libra at this point, is adding a note of counterpoint to the chart by throwing an exact inconjunct to Uranus right now. This is a 150-degree aspect that stands between the trine and the opposition, meaning it splits the difference between compatibility and high contrast. At the Jupiter end of the inconjunct, the sign of LIbra is social and outgoing, with great team-building skills and optimism about what "we" can do together. Jupiter in LIbra will be found lobbying for "go along to get along" methods, looking for points of agreement to build relationships on, and shunning the shock of facing every soul's quotient of existential loneliness (inherited automatically when we are each "banished" into our separate bodies and genders at birth). At the other end of the inconjunct is the Uranus, dissolving into Pisces with Mars at his side. This set of symbols argues to be "let out" in no uncertain terms -- out of all bindings, forms, identifications, and constraints, set free to assemble the Self in new combinations according to new priorities. There is very little bandwidth for nostalgia or clinging to the past here, nor is there much interest in being a people-pleaser on any level.
What are these two doing in such an aspect together (one might be moved to ask)? Here's a clue to the inconjunct experience -- one is challenged to simultaneously entertain mutually exclusive realities, without canceling out either side or making one set of considerations subordinate to the other. This kind of aspect represents the act of consciously stretching one's awareness till it is expansive enough to embrace utterly incompatible world views without crashing the system entirely. In this case, the tension is stretched between the Self's inalienable need to mutate freely when the moment's need calls that forth, and society's desire to bribe the individual into collective and social activities through reward systems that increase one's obligation to the tribe. Each of us is faced with this kind of paradox every day, and what kind of compromises one makes on the horns of this dilemma will determine our psychological and bio-psychic experience of the coming month. Either we will make more choices that free us up from collective expectations so we can be true to the unique changes going on within the private psyche, or we will instead determine that our growthful and creative energies are best spent in the context of the group endeavor. This month will not allow us the luxury of just coasting along without examining the issues involved and taking some kind of stance, somewhere on the continuum. There is no way to avoid the stress of encompassing a both/and approach to the issue, and no matter where you choose to stand relative to the two extremes, there will continue to be forces from either end of the spectrum that refuse to quit trying to pull you closer to their side. Only a continuous act of self-will can harness both sides of the question to serve the middle, and you will have to define that "middle" again for yourself every day. I hope you'll emphasize the maxim "to thine own self be true", but even if you can't quite find a way to wriggle out of all your habitual familial, social, and collective responsibilities, you can at least give yourself the assurance that you chose this path consciously, in full awareness of the issues, and picked it willingly among the other options you also considered. There's a certain serenity to be had just from knowing that...
Last but certainly not least, is the Pluto is Saggitarius, which (like Jupiter right now) is moving in the retrograde mode. Retrogradation (backwards apparent motion) is actually an optical illusion, caused by the fact that the planet in question is temporarily on the other side of the Sun from the Earth, which means that the light emanating from it is "bent" around the huge gravity-field of the Sun before it reaches us. This "bent light" signals a different kind of information into our consciousness, and I interpret that difference as demanding some reconsideration of ground that was just recently covered. Once the backwards motion begins, the contested ground will then be crossed again two more times -- first while heading backwards, then moving forward again very quickly as the planet pulls away from the affected area of the sky. The entire time of the retrograde, between starting the backward motion and until the final catching-up to the degree where the process first started, one is being asked to look again over this seemingly-familiar ground, look for what one has missed, for the hidden clue that needs to be found. A retrograde period, which can last for months in the case of the slower outer planets, enforces a policy of careful re-examination of even the smallest details, searching for the tiny anomaly or out-of-place assumption that might undermine all your efforts and make the labors of the affected planet moot.
Above you saw me encouraging people to reconsider just how much lifeforce energy they are willing to spend into the social and interactive part of their lives (Jupiter retrograde in Libra). With Pluto retrograde in Saggitarius, I'm suggesting that each of us reconsider our ambitions and expectations for "conquering the world" in whatever manner we like to fantasize that we could or should. Pluto, whose style and motto is "Mutate or Die", is quite pointedly demanding that we quickly become realistic about how much stress and self-exertion we can realistically endure in pursuit of ANY goal, public or private. Saggitarius wants nothing more than to propel itself into the future as fast as humanly possible, since it's theory is that whatever is coming is going to be better that what has already happened. Unfortunately, Pluto is not going along with that plan right now, and so it is incumbent upon us all to reign in our "wild horses" and bank our fires for awhile, conserving energy and resetting our expectations to a more sustainable level. There is no use in getting ahead of ourselves. We will be of no use to our goals if we burn ourselves out in the process of achieving them. Plus, it can be just as disastrous to arrive early to our destiny as it is to arrive late! So Pluto is currently encouraging us to "make haste slowly" and allow plenty of time for the interior work needed to bring us into best alignment with unfolding events. There is an issue of "ripeness" that has to be included in all of our calculations, and when we can get more in synch with that principle, we can continue to make appropriate forward progress without having to fight the flow to do it.
If there is an overriding theme this month, it is to try to do all your activities "naturally", and shun artificiality in all the forms it presents itself to you. This principle holds whether one is working in the intimate arena of the personal sensorium and psyche, in the interpersonal zone of one-to-one or small-group relationships, or even in the larger collective organisms of workplace, region, or society as a whole. It is invariably best to follow the strategies that Great Nature is playing out all around you in the landscape and environment that you live in. Try to seek out the less-glamourous but more-sustainable path, so that as repetition sets in and time compounds your efforts, you will be building towards an outcome that you and others can live with for the long haul. Question your reflexes and your "givens" regularly, in case you might begin to see through the pre-programmed responses that stifle your individuality and tamp you down into the mass mold. Remember that there are lots of ways to get your tasks done, and the more you will allow yourself to trust the carrying-power of Great Nature, the better you will get at no longer wasting vital forces on projects that will "do themselves" if you just refrain from interfering with them. Realize that you are in the grips of forces that are bigger than you by multiple orders of magnitude, so the safest path is to blend into the overall growth-trend that is showing itself, and refrain from drawing extra attention to yourself, since it might cause you to be interfered with in turn.
I hope this helps you get oriented for the coming month, and may all of us find our ecological niche and happily tuck in there so we can get strong and deeply-rooted for the incoming future.
Blessings!
Christine
USE THE TAROT ARKLETTER TO ATTUNE WITH THE NEW MOON
Our publication date and time corresponds to the New Moon each month.
This month the Moon is conjunction the Sun at 17+ of Taurus.
As an astrologer-symbolist, I habitually tie my activities to the cycle of the Moon. If you would like, you can use the Tarot ArkLetters to help you track the moon's phase:
Current Phase of Moon: New and waxing, in Taurus May 8th, early morning (USA
times)
2nd Quarter, in Leo, the wee hours of May 16th, Monday
Full, in Gemini/Saggitarius, May 23 early to mid-afternoon. At this point the Moon begins to wane
4th Quarter, in Pisces, May 30th early to mid-morning
Newmoon, in Gemini, June 6th, early to mid-afternoon
Christine Payne-Towler
Research: Esoteric Tarot, Literature and Practice;
Bishop, Gnostic Church of St. Mary Magdalene
Founder: Tarot University;
Author: The Underground Stream;
The Tarot ArkLetters are a publication of Christine Payne-Towler,
founder of Tarot University Online. Christine offers classes, readings,
and private sessions. E-mail her for readings: [email protected]
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