The Taurus new moon in begins a lunar cycle informed by earthy, erotic, enlivening energy. Spring is at its peak, carrying our bodies toward Summer, calling our physicality into connection with other bodies, and reminding our body of its interconnectedness with the greater body of which we are all a part.
The presence of pleasure is palpable in the archetype of Taurus. And this season is an expression of this core power of life itself. Life comes from rapture. Life seeks fulfillment. And life on the planet right now is busy with pollination and mating. Except for us humans. While all of nature is humming with beauty and booty, humans are busy with war.
When we turn our eyes and noses toward flowers, relief comes rushing in. Momentarily. The nervous system takes refuge in the scent of a rose. It doesn’t mean your heart is not still broken by the children in Gaza, and by the hostages, and by the fear of hate spreading around you. But beauty enters our nostrils and fills our lungs with a life affirming reminder that grief isn’t separate from grace.
And we are not separate from one another. One big body breathing together. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Did you feel that? Again. Inhale… slowly… a bit deeper. Pause… hold it… one more moment. And exhale… real slow… all the way out. Are you with me?
In a world that’s broken, in a society so flawed, in a reality we sometimes see so differently from one another, can we reorient ourselves and replenish our broken heart with a good conversation; one that leaves room for respectful disagreements? In a culture that keeps turning us one against the other, and forcing us into our tribe, and pulls on the strings that undo the fabric of our connection, who do we want to become? On a personal level, and on a collective one too.
This lunar cycle will spend half of its time in the sign of Gemini, which is an archetype of imagination, inspiration, and intelligence. We begin here, with the goddess of love, sipping on the sweetness of nectar, but a part of the hive. The point is not only to drink the nectar, the point is to come together and make honey. And we continue to unfold with an archetype that is known as the power of communication.
Honey isn’t only made by agreeing on everything. Honey isn’t only put together from the same flowers in the same field. Honey is inspired by cross pollination, by conversations that challenge us, and therefore enrich us, by interactions with bees that buzz in ways we don’t really understand. Honey is made by team effort, by a collective. Honey is made by saying your piece, or if you were a bee, by throwing up the nectar you’ve collected and partially digested. And by listening, and allowing your partially digested nectar to commingle with the partially digested nectar of another bee.
Taurus can get really stubborn. The power of this archetype flourishes in its virility, fertility, and joyful nature. And it’s a bull. So this could sometimes show up in us as stuckness in our views, and our inability to hear anything else other than our own voice, or the voices of those we agree with.
Interestingly, the bull and the bee have a deep relationship in ancient cultures, such as the Minoan one, where the celebration of life’s ecstatic power, and the continuum of death and rebirth was made sacred by the sacrifice of a bull, who was believed to then be reborn as a hive of bees. And this is also one of the birth places, one of the birth stories of the Greek god of wine and the vine, Dionysus.
I’m not gonna get too deep into Dionysus right now, but I will mention, because I think it’s an important reminder, that he is a trans god, a femme but a man, a cross between plants and places, an intersection of animals and substances, a shape shifting reality with a multitude of origins. (If you want more on this topic, there’s a phenomenal piece about it in Sophie Strand’s book; The Flowering Wand.)
And so Dionysus, a super Springish character reminds us of the intersectionality of existence.
Life is full of contradictions, compliments, and complexities. Within the intricate relationship between one culture and another, one piece of history and another, one side of the story that holds truth, and the historical fact that negates it that is also true, we find ourselves.
Grieving.
Spring is not a season of grief. But our interconnectedness reminds us that in the Southern Hemisphere Fall is guiding bodies toward winter, and death dances seductively, turning what was fertile into a fertilizer for the next cycle.
And so we breathe with our grief and our pleasure, our eros and our anguish. And we breathe with the longing for more laughter. We breathe with each other instead of against one another. We breathe in this broken world. And we make room for each other. Our pollen crosses the field and mixes with another flower. Our nectar commingles with that of another bee. We breathe.
And a new lunar cycle begins. And we breathe.
If you want to breathe together, the Beltane Somatic Ceremony is still available, and it’s a great space to contemplate, to make room to understand ourselves and one another, and to create a sacred space for the season’s unfolding – within and around us – through stories, symbols, and ritual practices that bring the mythopoetic magic of the season into your body, into your life, and into your relationship with the world.
I highly recommend listening to this podcast – a brilliant conversation about empathy and compassion and grief and learning how to hold different views.
Have a gorgeous new moon. And give the earth some love.
XOXO
Hagar