Vision of the Machinery of the Universe

New moon at 28° of Taurus

A dandelion up close, looking like a neural network or a gathering of stars

Quick personal note before we get into it — this new moon is a special new moon for me, a rite of passage really, as it’s happening on my 44th birthday. It may not be a big birthday for everyone, but the moon is renewing herself at the position of my natal sun, which rests in Taurus in my 4th house of family, home, ancestors, and root systems, where I also have a stellium leading up to the sun, my natal Venus, Mars, Juno, Chiron, and Mercury—so it’s big for me. I want to take a moment and thank you sincerely for following me here on Substack and honoring the moon cycles with me. It’s a big gift to me. Talking about the moon just brings me joy. The moon has been one of my greatest teachers, and writing on new and full moons is an act of devotion and service I’ve been committed to since the apocalypse of fall 2016. It’s a way of giving thanks to the moon, continuing to heal from religious trauma, and maybe also enacting a living amends for all the patriarchal fundamentalists in my lineage. And it requires me to regularly get over myself, which is such powerful, necessary medicine.

I’ve been dreaming all spring about how I want to evolve this channel, what new additional offering to introduce next, and I’ve arrived at some really sweet ideas. But it’s also my re-birthday, and I’m about to go into a full Taurus swoon for a few days, like deep earth-goddess being fed grapes and honey mode. So I’m going to wait until next week to announce the coming offerings along with some giveaways, which will include some free subscriptions and a personal chart reading. Stay tuned! It will go out whenever I’m sufficiently out of my birthday trance! Final thing, all paid subscribers are allowed to comment on posts, and if you feel moved and have a moment to send me a sweet note in the comments, just know I would love love that. And, now, on to the moon song…

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Friday, May 19th at 8:53am PST, the moon goes dark and renews herself at 28° of Taurus. We haven’t had a new moon in Taurus in two years, as the lunar nodes have been turning all the Taurus and Scorpion moons into eclipses. While the south node in Scorpio has been invoking intense purging kinds of healing, surfacing and clearing out old stories and toxins, the north node in Taurus been drawing a lot of new energy in, increasing our hunger for revolution in relationship to our resources and evolving our desires in the part of our charts ruled by the holy bull. Now we are being offered a chance to rest, recalibrate, and start over by seeding some new intentions.

All of the earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) encode secrets to manifestation—to creating concrete things in the world of form. They teach us about the machinery of the universe, how to experience our free will and trust an impulse (fire), contain it and love it (water), let it crystallize properly into an idea and communicate that idea (air), and then create the conditions by which it can become a real, solid thing in the world (earth). Taurus is fixed earth, and it guides the second month of spring for those of us in the northern hemisphere. While Aries is responsible for the initiation of rebirth, nothing can get far without Taurus stabilizing and resourcing that beginning.

Taurus is represented by the bull, an ancient consort of the great earth mother. Its business is the ground, the foundation, nourishment and resources, fertile soil, hardy root systems. Whatever we want to grow in the garden of our life, it needs specific and nourishing conditions to come into being and inhabit the fullness of its possibilities. We can’t force anything to happen, and trying to do so often has the opposite effect. But we can create a perfect container and excellent conditions and then invite it warmly and gently to happen, if it would like to. We can offer it our attention and gratitude and support. We can offer it some low-pressure permission. And then we can relax and allow, trusting the process to unfold at its own intelligent pace.

Taurus is ruled by Venus, and this new moon is happening on Venus’ day, so there’s another secret to absorb there, about how allowing yourself to enjoy beauty and pleasure actually draws in resources. The more you relish a moment, the more you revel in the sensual delight of being alive and present to the bounty already here, like, the more you really just can’t believe your luck as your eating that orange, the more you start to get it: you enter the orange portal fully and you return satisfied and nourished and kinder and more appreciative and attractive to further blessings. Pendulating in and out of this kind of mundane ecstatic state is one of the ways currents of manifestation thrive, as is disciplined, daily care. Taurus and Venus are trying to teach us The Beauty Way, and how to be the steady, loving, living cause of what we wish to create in the world.

Jupiter has also just entered Taurus, joining Mercury, Uranus, the sun, and now the moon. Jupiter hasn’t been here since June 2011 - June 2012. If you reflect on what was going on for you 11 or 12 years ago, you might get a sense of themes that are surging back to life now. Jupiter being on the scene is adding some very expansive, very indulgent, sky daddy raining down the resources vibes. We might take a gentle warning that Jupiter has a tendency to go way too far, so showing a little restraint might not be crazy. But also this has been such a tough Taurus season until now, after an insane cycle of healing and growth, and don’t we deserve to splurge on both physical and spiritual delights? Honestly. The answer is yes, yes we deserve rest. Yes we deserve to celebrate and enjoy ourselves. Yes we deserve to experience our most generous, most romantic, most expanded selves. Yes we deserve to direct our attention towards what we find delicious, what we want to attract and create next.

Astrologically this is one of spring’s energetic peaks, which makes it a peak in the whole year. The Sabian symbol for this moon is “a woman pursued by mature romance,” so this has something to do with falling back in love with life from a wiser, more evolved place. We can use this new moon, this whole weekend, to rise into and inhabit a state of great accomplishment and grace. We may not even feel called to do manifestation magic in this state. But if you do want to work with this new moon actively, consider imagining that everything you’ve ever been through is actually the perfect resume, the perfect foundation for what’s to come. Consider your life as a fractal. Give thanks first for all you already are and all you already have, for what got you here to this place where you have some appreciation of your nature, some power over how you choose to frame your experiences, and some sense of what future you would like to cocreate. Then really consider that - what seeds of your own becoming and our collective future are calling to you? Sometime on the day of the new moon or in the days that follow, do a little ritual of loving invitation to that future. Make one small step toward creating the conditions for it to come into being.

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Ritual & Writing Prompts

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