I’m not going to lie, I’ve been looking forward to tomorrow’s solar eclipse in Taurus for a long time. Maybe it’s the optimist in me, or the nostalgia demon in me, or the punk-of-center chaos initiator in me, but I’m feeling hopeful about the tectonic shifts she’s bringing to the potluck. At this point, things have been difficult for a long time. Many of us are holding out for a miracle to set us back on course. Let this eclipse be a disruptive return to the pleasure principle; a chance to remember that joy is a form of currency, that connection is nourishment, that love is the best motivator, and that satisfaction is about more than building good habits or completing grueling work.
What we need is allowed to be simple.
The solar eclipse goes exact at 10º Taurus, tomorrow (4/30) at 4:28 pm EDT. This eclipse falls on the North Node, where we reach toward infinity and where nothing is ever enough. What we’re emulating though is the grounded, nourishing, Venusian ways of the fixed Earth sign. We’re obsessed with lying in this verdant field forever.
In the Northern Hemisphere at least, barren winter has become a distant memory. The grass is vibrant green, trees are dripping with buoyant pink flowers, and rain feels like a lush, fertile necessity rather than a day-ruining obstacle. We’ve arrived at Beltane—one of the four Celtic agricultural festivals and pagan cross-quarter holidays. At this time of year, the ancient Celts would bring their cows out to pasture to celebrate the arrival of pastoral summer. Beltane rituals, many involving symbolic fire circles, were performed to keep the cattle, their dairy products, and of course the people of the land safe. This time of year is Taurus season at its most unadulterated. There’s no striving or releasing. We’re simply existing.
But still, this is not a normal Taurus season. The path to satisfying our hunger is very complex. To experience a solar eclipse in Taurus is to experience an extremely literal disturbance in Taurean ideas of currency, food systems and the earth itself. Thunder storms—phenomena once meant only for deep summer—roll in days after the frost has cleared. The sun and the moon will be conjoined Uranus for this eclipse, making the situation even more volatile. Uranus (as brilliantly described by Richard Tarnas) can be compared to fire-starter Prometheus. To live a Promethean life is to know that change requires risk, that dipping our clay figures into fire could burn them but it will more likely give them life.
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