2012 Taurus New Moon

By Kathy Biehl
April 21, 2012
12:20 AM PDT / 3:20 AM EDT / 7:20 AM GMT
1 Taurus 35

Spring has well and truly taken hold, and the Taurus New Moon invites us to go outdoors and enjoy it. Take your shoes off and walk in the grass, even. We live in physical bodies on a beautiful, bountiful planet. Contact with the earth and simple pleasures are called for now, to ground us and feed both body and spirit.

Appropriately, this year the Taurus New Moon falls on the eve of Earth Day, an ecological awareness celebration-cum-movement that started in 1970. The back-to-back events parallel the back-to-basics impetus in the sky.

We are personally assimilating and experiencing the fertile potential of the grand trine in earth (I just typed ground trine again!) that locked into place mid-March. That line-up (Jupiter and Venus in Taurus, Mars in Virgo and Pluto in Capricorn) solidified a small but stable patch of turf in each of our lives. Growth has been slowly but noticeably flourishing on that patch, which will serve as a personal point of stability as challenging aspects ramp up this summer.

The Sun and the Moon are now moving toward the position that Jupiter occupied during that trine. The rational/willful and nonrational parts of our being are taking in and making concrete the stabilizing, grounding and, above all, tangible gifts of that manifesting energy.

At the moment of the New Moon, the two luminaries are in an easy flow with Mars in Virgo, a helpful contact that encourages taking care of your physical body as well as your environment. (Who else has been altering his or her diet? Or noticed the epidemic of interest in vegan or plant-heavy eating lately?) This flow can help you lock in attentiveness to physical needs, whether that translates into exercising or shifting your diet or dropping a habit with physical consequences or keeping a more regular, efficient schedule.

Ease in shifting, dropping and changing will continue after the New Moon, as the Sun and the Moon each move into an exact trine with Pluto and his regenerating powers. That link will build with the Moon phase and draw attention more and more to simplicity, to basics, to the unadorned and natural. (Now would be an optimal time to start paying attention to where your food comes from, if you haven’t been.)

Simplicity does not mean lack; in fact, it can open the door to an all-encompassing, all-pervasive grace, even ecstasy. Ever eaten a strawberry fresh off the plant? Or a fish that has just been caught? Unadulterated flavors pack an intensity that packaged foods (much less laboratory flavorings) can’t replicate. So does a spectacular sunset, a spring day with a clear and perfect sky, or the twinkling canopy of a night sky free from light pollution.

Simple transcendence — not merely awareness of, but also awe at the presence of a realm outside the physical — is available to you. The New Moon is making a cooperative link to Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. Spirit is not relegated to churches and temples. The spiritual is part of the continuum of existence. These days, we’re living with our heads in the clouds (some days more than others!) and feet on the ground. The spiritual and the earthly work in tandem, spirit adding grace and transcendence to physicality and physicality providing a vessel for the expression of the spiritual. In effect, Neptune and Chiron are watering the garden where the New Moon is hanging out.

One more note about earthly pleasures: Impulses will run high to share them. The New Moon is ruled by Venus, who is on her own in affable, talkative Gemini, in the shadow of the retrograde she will enter in May. (We’ll revisit some current relationship and money themes, issues and individuals as she moseys back across this area in June.) She’s caught up in the mutual reception going on between Mercury (mental processes, communication and travel) and Mars (our drive and ambition, plus the masculine in general). Because she is in Gemini, Venus answers to Mercury in Aries, who answers to Mars in Virgo, who answers to Mercury…and back again.

All of which means you aren’t likely to lounge in the grass by yourself. The inclination is rampant to reach out and connect — in packs, at parties, on a date with one person and then on a date with someone completely different. This is footloose, no-strings territory; think “carpe diem” with a scout’s sensibilities. Don’t hold back in asking for what you in the moment…and then move on to the next moment’s delight.

© Kathy Biehl 2012. All Rights Reserved. You may forward this article as long as the copyright notice is intact. No part may be used or reprinted without my prior written permission. Karma, ya know.
Astro-Insight