The Gospel of Neuroplasticity (part two)

New moon at 7° of Taurus

Our Taurus inspiration is self-taught Czech artist Anna Zemánková (1908-1986). When was 50 years old, one of her sons, a sculptor, found a suitcase of her old paintings in the basement, and encouraged her to take back up her creative work for the first time in decades. So early in the morning, before anyone else was awake in the house, she’d sketch with pastel and ink. Over the years, she created an incredible body of work, all botanical dreamscapes. She reported before her death that her inspiration came from a divine source: “I am growing flowers,” she said, “that are not grown anywhere else.”

Sunday, April 27th, at 12:31pm PT, the moon goes dark and renews herself at 7° of Taurus, the cosmic bull. Taurus is fixed earth, the earthiest earth. It’s an archetype of stability, fertility, and abundance in the material realm. It leads the second month in spring, where its job is to stabilize the new life and fresh regrowth that started in Aries. If Aries is the first chapter of the gospel of neuroplasticity, Taurus is the second. Aries says that death and disconnection are never the end of the story. Life finds a way. Neural networks rewire around injuries and generate new paths to get signals where they need to go. Ecosystems restore themselves, and so can we. We are changed of course; we might have our scars forever. But no matter what has happened, we can have a new experience now. We can change. We can begin again, and again. Taurus says yes to all of that, but adds that once we have received the miraculous gift of a new beginning, we have to take care of it. We have to tend to it. Not every beginning lasts. New life is vulnerable, it needs nourishing conditions and a lot of support to grow and survive. We have to slow down and tune in and sense what those needs are, and then get those needs met, regularly, for as long as it takes. We have to build solid, sturdy foundations, and be solid, sturdy foundations.

Wherever Taurus leads for you, that’s where you might have a gift for all this earthy sturdiness, where you can most easily serve as a stabilizing force. Taurus is most often described as stubborn, in popular astrology, for the way it stands its ground and resists fast changes—but that doesn’t really do justice to Taurus and the way it performs its generative magic. Change and growth absolutely happen here, they just happen slowly, gently, incrementally, over long stretches of time; whatever Taurus creates and builds, it builds to last. And while all the earth signs teach us about manifestation and the practical work of creation—it’s just work making things real here on the material plane—Taurus is the earth sign that’s most tuned into pleasure. Taurus is ruled by Venus, goddess of love and relationship and beauty and sensuality. So while there is an emphasis here on steadily working and creating, Taurus wants us to actually enjoy ourselves in the process. It wants us to go at our own pace, take snack breaks and chill breaks, take naps. It wants us to approach our work playfully, even hedonistically. Creating something solid and real is such a long game, we have to sustain our efforts over so much time, and Taurus knows one of the secrets to success is finding ways to create and effort that actually feel good, so we will be intrinsically motivated to keep going.

So a new moon in Taurus is one of the sweetest, most regenerative moons. The moon really loves being here. Taurus is the sign of her exaltation. She just feels really taken care of here, like she can be as needy and sensitive as she needs to be and there’s the soft, sturdy, pleasure-and-care-attuned earth to hold her. The Taurus new moon vibes can get very heavenly, very luxurious if we let them. Having said that! This new moon arrives after a week of repeat activations of Saturn in Pisces—a Saturn conjunction with the north lunar node and then a Saturn conjunction with Taurus’ ruler Venus. You may have noticed a strong emphasis on hard realities and real limits. There may have been some unsubtle invitations to grow up, and get serious about what it will take to move beyond the fantasy of making something and actually committing to making it for real. Maybe manifesting our visions and hopes for what we want to heal or create is going to take a more mature approach. We might have to start saying no to a lot of things, to concentrate our time and energy in new ways. Or we might need different supports or containers or resources than we’ve been trying to make do with. If you have been receiving tough love in some way, that kind of stern parental love from the universe, or someone embodying that energy, you can trust it and its advice. Forgive yourself, love yourself, be so understanding and compassionate, and, take notes.

Meanwhile, as Mars has progressed through the first degrees of Leo, it has been getting closer to an exact opposition with Pluto in Aquarius, perfecting today, on Saturday, April 26th. That would be dramatic enough on its own, these two intense and powerful planets in opposition, in fixed signs. But they are also making a close square to the new moon, setting up a fixed sign T-square of tension and activation. This feels like a perfect reflection of reality to me. We’ve been through a kind of brutal winter healing vortex. There finally some more agency coming online, some real personal creative power mobilizing. We’ve got our feet on the ground, at least more on the ground than has been possible since the fall. And we are now at this moment—the first real new moon of the spring, since the Aries new moon was an eclipse—when we can use our own free will to collaborate more forcefully with this big, beautiful current of manifestation that’s kicking off, and can lead us to some sustainable creative action for the next six months. And, whatever our personal creative mission is, it’s happening in the context of a collective death spiral, a collective collapse. Pluto in Aquarius versus Mars in Leo, is like a war between democracy and monarchy; between what benefits the whole and what benefits a few individuals. It might feel like your own personal creative dreams and desires and your instincts to fight for them (Mars in Leo) are being pitted against the much more powerful force of a collective reckoning and healing, here to check and rein in humanity itself, which has grown terrifyingly out of balance, whose excesses are threatening the rest of life on this planet (Pluto in Aquarius). In a fight between Pluto and Mars, I would not put my money on Mars. It’s a powerful warning—if what you are trying to create doesn’t integrate well with the Aquarian transformation project and its emphasis on collectivity and imagination, it will meet some serious opposition. Reconsider where you are putting your life force.

Here’s what I’m saying to myself right now, and everyone I talk to—all of this difficult is very real, and, help is on the way. We are out of the worst of the astrology for the first half of this year, and come June 10th, Jupiter will have finally left the sign of its exile (Gemini) and entered Cancer, sign of its exaltation. Venus will finally be in Taurus, the sign of its exaltation. And Saturn and Neptune will be together in the first degrees of Aries, giving us the first real taste of what that will feel like, moving out of the dream of the new beginning and into the new beginning. This has been such a trying year. Faith and optimism have not been available; if we’ve had any, we’ve made them the hard way. We’ve been watching agents of greed and chaos take a wrecking ball to so much of our stabilizing social and economic structures, at a speed and breadth that’s been hard to believe. We’ve been trying to mount a defensive response while not losing sight of the fact that these structures were corrupted from the beginning; they were not built to protect everyone equally. We’ve been trying to figure out how to meet the unique opportunity now at hand—the opportunity for old systems to die, and for new and better ways to be born in their wake. That’s what the oligarchs want, too, of course—to change the systems radically. So we are tuning in to how to fight to root them out, so we can instead plant the seeds of enlightened revolution devoted to the liberation of all beings. It’s big. And we’ve been doing it without one of our benefics—Jupiter—in a good position to help, and then with our other benefic Venus being sent on a harrowing underworld journey. So dig deep. Six more weeks.

Let’s use this new moon in Taurus to slow down and digest. Let’s make time to get into a state of pleasurable rest and receptivity. Step back and recover for a bit if we need to. This last week of astrology has been helping us get clearer on what we want to create for ourselves and those we love, and what new conditions and resources and tending practices are needed to do that. Ground and settle your nervous system, so that that clarity can sink in a bit. What if in six weeks, the energy really shifts, and a lot of spiritual and emotional and physical help arrives? What will we want to have planted in the soil of our loving attention? What will we be telling the universe about what matters most to us? What project or being or prayer or new world will we already be demonstrating our commitment to, by tending to it daily? What efforts do we want to get blessed and amplified? The Taurus new moon wants you to think long term, to think big. It wants you to start over, to start small, and not underestimate the power of small acts, done steadily. It wants you to delight in your sensitivity and neediness, and the sensitivity and neediness of others. It wants you to celebrate the endless resourcefulness of life. The Sabian symbol for 7° of Taurus is “a sleigh without snow,” it evokes making something out of nothing with only our imagination and creative optimism. In the coming days, you will have the greenest of thumbs. You will have the power to make something out of nothing just by dreaming it, wanting it, making it, and loving it. What will your love be the soil for this year?

Ritual & Writing Prompts

And now for paid subscribers, some shortcut links to the archive of writings on Taurus in In the River of What’s Happening Now, some specific suggestions and inspiration for ritually working with this exquisite new moon, and some creative prompts brought to you by Taurus and the springtime.

(Disclaimer: Prompts are suggestions, not instructions! Play with what inspires you, ignore what’s doesn’t, relate with it and adapt it in any way you see fit.)

The Taurus archive

Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring - full moon at 24° of Taurus (fall 2024)

The Myth of Scarcity & the Myth of Enoughness - on an astrology of individuation as taught by all the earth signs, but mostly Taurus

Ooh, Heaven is a Place on Earth - new moon at 18° of Taurus (spring 2024)

The Hidden Wholeness in All Things - full moon lunar eclipse at 5° of Taurus (fall 2023)

Vision of the Machinery of the Universe - new moon at 28° of Taurus (spring 2023)

Fall Back In Love With the World - total lunar eclipse at 16° Taurus (fall 2022)