Integrating Taurus Consciousness
For anyone curious about how to weave this energy into our everyday
One of the reasons I love astrology so much is that the minute you think you understand a theme, an energy or an aspect of yourself, it extends, deepens and expands. For those who work with these archetypes through their days and weeks, it’s an amazing tool to guide us onto the next step of showing up more or differently in our day.
If you aren’t an astrology person, the movement and connections may still apply, although you may use a different tool or understanding of it.
We previously looked at aspects of ourselves analogous with Hercules and the many-headed Hydra (Oct 2022 Solar Eclipse Story-Medicine). This may explain our relationship with our emotional depths, what lives there and how we may get overwhelmed and distracted, until we deal with the root of the problem.
The other side of this, illuminated by the coming Lunar Eclipse in Taurus (around November 8th 2022) is shows us what we have. That is what this piece focuses on.
One of the best descriptions I’ve heard of Taurus energy is that of a garden or orchard. Work and effort in this energy is very different than in Scorpio-themed times. In Taurus, the requirement is nurturing, pacing activities cyclically, moving in the material/ physical world, actually doing rather than thinking about doing things.
In its lower consciousness, this energy may manifest as stubbornness, inability or slowness in moving or making changes, blaming others and not seeing our place and our actions in relationship to what occurs in our life.
So to me, the garden or orchard is an amazing analogy.
Growth, success, effort, sustainability, incoming wealth and work are very different when you see it in the larger picture of creating and maintaining a healthy garden.
Some plants may require lots of light and little water, while others require the opposite. Seeds and young sprouts require added layers of protection against pests and critters; but in a full grown plant that same protection would hinder growth.
One way, one habit, one process does not apply to all things. Taurus consciousness calls us to all things in their time and their place.
Intuition is Earthly, seasonal and flows with different rhythms than our thoughts.
There’s also a relinquishing of control, because life in garden grows at garden’s pace, not ours.
The focus here on what is, rather what what we do not have or what would be better.
This presence-medicine is one each and everyone of us could use in our lives. And we are gifted a large scoop of it during this coming Lunar Eclipse (the one on November 8th 2022).
Taurus energy is an Earth sign and is un-interested in what we think and in what could be. Consciousness here responds to what is present and now, discerning between what is life-giving and what is life-hindering in the moment.
Since it a lunary eclipse, the Taurus energy comes from the unconscious represented by the Moon, as the Sun itself is in Scorpio. This means a lot of indirect things coming to us in ways we may least expect.
Values and Priorities
What do you value in your work, your relationships and your life?
Maybe you value love and peace, which is lovely. Maybe you value money and status, which has practicality to it. Maybe you value the opinions of others.
One of the many question of this lunar Taurus energy is this:
Do you actually come from a place that honours your values?
Do you learn and evolve from them, or do you have the same value system you did 2 decades ago because someone told you to?
Do you value others over yourself because it’s how you feel included and safe?
How is it working for you when you ignore physical, emotional and mental limits and push yourself into ill-health, stress and harm?
Are you actions and your life aligned with your values today?
Taurus brings up a lot of questions around our sense of accomplishment, success, income and values. It asks us how much of it is based on lack, poverty, fear, betrays and how much is based on trust, confidence, reliance and love.
Every time we allow things, people, places, situations, promises and commitments that do not serve us, and actually take away from our love, energy, freedom and flow, we give our power away. This is because, consciously or unconsciously we prioritize everything except ourselves. And because that sucks, we either polarize to a personality of martyrdom or angry rebellion.
This doesn’t mean, free-range to bail on family or be irresponsible with what needs doing. Rather, it is a conversation with Self on our values and what parts of our life need our attention and tending to. Knowing that when we thrive, so do others around us. This is something we have to learn as many of us are not taught this in schools or in social interactions, so it is a practice and a discipline.
A garden, an orchard, a forest blooms and indeed each of our families/communities grows in strength and courage; the health of each individual matters because there is a complex connective layer of mutually beneficial interdependence and collaboration.
If you zap and kill all the bees that fly into your garden for example, you will seriously hinder blossoms and healthy plant growth year after year. Eventually either non-blossoming invasive species or the land will get weaker and patchier.
As we pause to reflect on what is important to us, we may be surprised by the trust and creativity that builds from this place. Options that work for us and work for others show up synchronistically! Since we have had a conversation and some space within ourselves, we can have a more easeful and patient conversation with the people involved with our plans and find mutually creative and beneficial options. If not, then more truths are revealed, either way, it’s a win-win for loving consciousness.
This isn’t about wishing things were different. It is more about seeing what is, knowing our values, being flexible and reprioritizing and making choices from that place. Past problems and future worries and anxieties prevent trust and creativity.
Power Play
One of things I love about the Scorpio-Taurus dance is how it challenges notions of compromise so commonplace in our personal relationships. This is that often unconscious unquestioned belief that for me to thrive, you have to suffer or sacrifice, or the other way around. This was my unconscious belief for years and I never realized that it is what I brought in almost all of my relationships, almost expecting compromise and being angry before any meeting or conversation even happened.
We have all been in these relationships - in family, in partnerships, in the workplace, even with friends.
We got used to this because a lot of us watched our parents and elders do it in order to ‘keep the peace’.
This isn’t wrong essentially, but to do so all the time and expect it of all others leads to a lot of suffering in relationships. It leads to unhealthy power dynamics within ourselves and it is absolutely reflected in our relationships.
The anxiety-evoking truth is most of us make choices in response to what we are lacking, what we desire, what we think we do (or do not deserve), what other people have and what we dream about (which is often what we lack in the first place). A lot of this lies in the unconscious and we are unaware how much we actually show up in relationships from this place.
In the present moment, our now-realty may seem painful, disappointing, entrenched in commitments that we don’t want, or ideas we think we should pursue.
The truth we all know but like to argue with is that any change is only possible in the now moment, since we cannot yet change our past or future.
A lot of power dynamics take place in our minds and psyches. So the Earth element of Taurus invites us into the material, the physical, the here and now, one step at a time.
It’s like a conversation we may have with our mothers.
We haven’t called her yet, but we imagine how she may react to the things we will tell her (she doesn’t react well in our imaginings); then we get defensive or angry and accuse her of being judgemental and not understanding us. We reinforce to her in our imagined conversation that she has never supported us.
This entirely imagined scenario we believe to be inevitable, after all, it has happened millions of times before, right?
This is where power dynamics get so entrenched that we not only kill any chance of our own self-growth, we also imprison the other person in a glass case. We imagine the worst, so that when it happens we are not surprised and more important not hurt again.
There is no one way or one solution out of these situations and it isn’t linear.
What is available to us this season is asking ourselves what do we value:
Do we value being correct and not getting hurt over evolving ourselves and deciding to do some inner work ? Allocating time and committing ourselves to practicing understanding, healing and coming perhaps to a place of mutual forgiveness?
Do we trust that if we change some part of the equation, i.e. ourselves, the outcome of the relationship may also change, perhaps for the better?
Are we so inflamed in our victimhood that we can only blame and that we allocate responsibility everywhere else but here, forgetting that we are our own sovereign garden?
What are we doing in our day and life to tend and nurture ourselves? Are we authentically that that in our world? Is it just talk of love, wealth and respect or are we actually living it to the best of our ability?
These are deeply layered and nuanced questions, and the answers will be different year after year, season after season, and that is a sign of health and growth and vibrance of the Body, Mind, Soul and Spirit.
In cosmic consciousness, Taurus energy teaches us that everything we have is inside us, waiting to be realized and brought forth into consciousness. We are the solution to every problem we create, we only have to rise to it.
We rise to the solution by seeing what is here, what is really truly present for us and taking action steps, one at a time.
As the seasons pass, the wholeness of us bears fruit, in the time of the soil and we become self-sustaining with the blossoms and harvest of our work, realizing that we were always in overflow.
We tend to our inner gardens and orchards, not from selfishness or a desire to cut away from others (unless they are hella toxic), and we start to experience new possibilities in love, relationships, wealth, health and in our very Being.