Taurus
written by Peter Joy
(co-facilitator of our Full Moon Meditations)
As an earth sign, Taurus has much to teach us about our relationship to the physical world. This includes how we engage with money, build wealth and acquire possessions, as well as the role material goods play in helping us to build the identities we project into the social world. At a deeper, more esoteric level however, Taurus asks us to consider what are the values and principles underlying the material objects in our lives. It is these values and principles which are more closely aligned to our soul purpose and in the long term have a greater durability than the material goods we so often become attached too.
In the Northern hemisphere, the Sun passes through Taurus during spring. It is not surprising then that the sign has long been associated with fertility and growth. The Taurean energy is seen as being closely aligned to the cycles of the seasons and having an innate understanding of the tasks required in each season which lead to the yielding of the harvest. The farmer or gardener at work nurturing this process is a good archetype of the Taurean energy.
When looking at a birth chart the astrologer will look at where Taurus and its ruling planet Venus are placed in the horoscope to understand how an individual manifests abundance, or what we would refer to esoterically as form. The word ‘form’ reminds us that we do not manifest just at the physical level but also at the emotional and mental levels too. We create emotional energy fields around life experiences that can stay with us for a very long time and often they don’t serve us very well. At the mental level we can create ideas about our identities and roles which likewise can be very long-lasting.
This durability of the created form touches on the qualitative aspect of the zodiacal energies. In astrology, all the signs can be grouped into one of 3 groups according to the quality of energy they embody. These groups are known as the quadruplicities because there are 4 signs in each of the three groups. (4 signs x 3 groups = 12 zodiac signs). The three groupings are known as; cardinal, fixed and mutable. Cardinal is a very rapid, focussed energy which works to bring the creative impulse into manifestation. The fixed energy is a steady, sustaining energy which works to hold the newly created form in place and nurture it through growth. The mutable energy is a more adaptable energy which contributes to the breakdown of the original form once it has outlived its use so that something new may be created in its place. Taurus of course fits into the Fixed category along with Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. They are all slower energies that sustain.
The positive side of the fixed energy is that it is very good at holding something in place once it has been created. You may have witnessed the importance of this in the workplace. The people who resonate strongly to the cardinal energies will be very good at developing the ideas and inspirations behind a project but they may not necessarily be very good at working out the practical measures to the see the project through. The individuals with more fixed sign energy in their charts will have the qualities needed to do this: patience, focus and an ability to sustain energy over time.
Where the fixed energy can work to the detriment of the individual is when it becomes stuck and doesn’t recognise that what has been created no longer serves the need for which it was created and that it is time to let go and move on. (The signs with the mutable energies can aid in this letting go process – Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces). Examples of this might include: persisting with an outmoded software program which is no longer suitable and slows down work processes (physical fixity); remaining in a personal relationship which no longer serves the growth of either person (emotional fixity); or being dogmatic about an idea which has outlived its time (mental fixity).
Another way of describing this problem is to say that we can become ‘attached’ to the form rather than the essence embodied in the form. That essence is spiritual in nature; qualities such as love and wisdom.
It is interesting to consider the myth of King Midas in this light. King Midas of course, wished for and was granted by the gods the ability to turn everything he touched to gold. While at first this gift was very appealing, it quickly turned sour when Midas found that he could no longer eat or drink as both food and water turned immediately to gold as soon as he touched them. Likewise, when Midas touched his daughter she turned to gold. Through his attachment to the forms of wealth, Midas found that his life became quite restricted. The pleasures of food and the tenderness of human interaction became unavailable to him. If the curse hadn’t been removed, his life would have ended through death by starvation.
The sign opposite to Taurus is Scorpio which itself is associated with death. It provides further insight to this problem of becoming too attached to something which may initially serve us well but eventually has a detrimental impact upon our lives. In medical astrology Scorpio rules the eliminative processes in the body. It therefore has to do with the process by which the waste products from the food which has provided nutrition is extracted from the body. Scorpionic energies recognise when that which no longer serves us must be eliminated. Not just at the physical level, this can also include emotions and ideas which no longer serve our growth and well-being (although in some cases they may have done so in the past). Naturally this can be quite a painful process as we will often resist the letting go or destruction of the form we have become attached to. Remember, that like Taurus, Scorpio is a fixed sign, so the urge to hold on and sustain past emotional patterns and ideas can be strong.
The Taurus-Scorpio polarity reminds us that we exist in a continual cycle of creating forms which serve as an expression for our soul qualities. As soul growth occurs, those forms must inevitably be broken down and new ones created in their place which better serve the expression of our evolving consciousness. The problem is that we often become attached to the physical forms rather than aligning ourselves to the spiritual essence within the form. The late astrologer Alan Oken put it thus: “The work to free ourselves from possessiveness and materiality so that through these lessons true Wisdom may emerge is very definitely at the centre of the Taurean phase of the turning of the wheel”.