New Moon in Taurus Apr 22, 2020

Moon enters Taurus 2:36 pm CDT
April 22—New Moon: Seeding

Earth Day-seeding

“And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.” Wendell Berry in The Peace of Wild Things

At this potent moment of new Moon in Taurus, these questions come forward: What is the Earth showing me? How do I show up with the Earth in a way that honors this connection? And for those of us swimming in a culture of disconnection, what encourages reconnection?

I often start my spells of magic with questions. For me, a magical spell is an inquiry. A lunar cycle is a spell that offers a new lens, a chance to plant a seed that may yield deeper roots, or bolder emergence, or revelatory illumination, or a shift in understanding. For my lunar magic, I often need to start with relevant questions. That is what my decades of astrological study has given me, an inroad into the relevant questions. The questions, now, center on earth since Taurus is the fixed earth sign.

Relationship is key to living into the answers. My ego, my will, is not enough to fertilize this potent moment with the magic we/I need. The planet of relationship, Venus, rules two signs: Libra, a sign we automatically associate with relationship, but also Taurus, a sign we may forget is about relationship, too. Taurus invites connections that sustain. Through Taurus, we become aware of interdependency in that earth-way of knowing, which tells us that nothing thrives on its own. Everything is contained within relationship—the exchange that feeds and allows life to thrive.

There are so many possible dead ends when we take thriving as our primary motivation. Colonization is one of them. In this time of pandemic, I am experiencing ancestral memories of extreme fear leading to extreme acts of violence against others—other humans and the othering of Earth. Fear is the contraction that Taurus senses in moments of scarcity. We can literally wall ourselves in with this fear. This oppressive response that lies in Taurus shadow, can be healed through Taurean delights—in the body, in the senses, in the way we need the wild world to bring us back to ourselves. The experience of contraction and expansion is a Taurus experience of the body moving through fear and opening to love. Earth also expands and contracts, though it isn’t about fear. Maybe it is also a sign of living.

The Earth breathes, as do we. Breath is a sign of life. The lungs function to bring us in exchange with air, with all beings that breathe. And they are more than animal, and even more than plant. If the Earth breathes, doesn’t everything breathe? Breath is a point of reflection during this lunar cycle where we are experiencing a breakdown in lung function. I so wish this was not the metaphor we were experiencing at this moment. And it bears looking at. What are the lungs showing us?

I’ve read that the lungs are connected to grief. Have you experienced a holding back from grief that feels like a holding of breath? Have you been afraid to let that holding go? I have. What happens when grief is allowed to move through us? I am afraid because that ocean feels too large. Taurus is the strong one in the zodiac. Taurus has wonderful muscles. Muscles that can hold back and muscles that withhold. What is the deeper source of strength that helps us withhold the grief that comes with awareness of interdependency? Interdependency sometimes feels like strength, but it also can feels like terror, when I realize that I am intimately connected to everyone else’s choices and resources. I want to wipe the slate of interdependency clean and start over with the choices that feel good to me. And it doesn’t work like that. So, the lungs are teaching me about grief, exchange, and choices.

During this lunar cycle, Venus stations retrograde on May 13 in Gemini (the sign connected to the lungs and to choices). Venus retrograde periods are not usually a huge influence on the day-to-day of our lives, but this one feels momentous. This planetary godd is taking a journey through the underworld (that is when Venus disappears into the rays of the Sun occurring around May 26, to reemerge as the Morning Star around June 14.) Venus will station direct on June 25, remaining in Gemini until August 8. Venus in Gemini is usually very social, yet we are in a time when social connection is changing profoundly. Has to change profoundly. We can feel grief over how our social connections have changed, and we can seize the opportunity of Venus in Gemini to craft new ways to connect. Retrogrades are a time to bring our experiences through a deeper initiation. We are being initiated into new behaviors but this goes much deeper than a new normal. Gemini, mutable air, harnesses speed to learn and adapt quickly. Learning is evolving. We are evolving quickly right now. This is a good reason to breathe, isn’t it? Gemini also governs choice. The glyph for the sign of the Twins shows the way we try to fit our choices into a binary—right/wrong, good/bad, successful/unsuccessful. The reason that Gemini points us outside the binary is the very fertile curiosity that fuels this sign. Gemini is the pollinator looking for the genetic material that will help us respond to the current crisis. While Venus is here, we unravel and retwine the ways we meet our choices.

This lunation grabs the energy of Uranus in Taurus and reasserts this paradigm-changing influence. Uranus entered Taurus on 2018 (left for a few months and then came back in 2019 until 2025). Uranus is the great questioner. Why are we doing things this way? Why can’t we change it? What is the path to liberation? Through the lens of Taurus, Uranus asks us to investigate our relationship to Earth. This is money, this is body, this is resource, this is beauty. Uranus is an urgent energy inhabiting a sign known for being steady and slow. We get to investigate urgency too.

Urgent responses need to slow down in this lunation. That could be incredibly uncomfortable, yet it may be impossible to do anything else. Four planets are stationing retrograde during this lunation:

Pluto in Capricorn on April 25

Saturn in Aquarius on May 10

Venus in Gemini on May 13

Jupiter in Capricorn on May 14

This retrograde/reflecting/reconsidering influence essentially lasts through the summer into the fall. This is the long haul. Taurus offers assistance in learning how to take our time while holding the Uranian vision that change is happening. And needs to happen. And needs to happen in a different way.

This different way leads me back to relationship with Earth. Humans cause harm when any of us forget we are essentially interdependent with all life, all beings. The wild was created by cultures pushing away relationship with Earth. Colonization created the wild—a place to take from and a place to fear. The wild is a creation of separation. The wild is waiting for reunion. We need the wild. Humans need to leave comfort behind to enter the world we didn’t create, to breath out the containment of fear, to breath in the knowing that we are held, always held by the Earth.

What we forget is still there, just like the day-blind stars.