“Take the dough and hit the road.” —U.G. Krishnamurti
OF ALL THE ZODIACAL SIGNS, Taurus is saddled with the most hackneyed keywords. But these cliches protect the Tauri's esoteric nature, the sign’s direct link to primordial power.
When you evoke the fixed signs you call down tantric forces. The four fixed signs stabilize the world as it turns (cardinal signs) and morphs (mutable signs) right before our eyes. Of the four fixed signs, Taurus is the most mysterious with its uncanny ability to secularize the spiritual into the wonder of money.
Taurus astrologer Jessica Murray notes* that “The reason Taurus is said to govern money, precious metals, and other resources is because they concentrate the value of the physical world.” You could also stretch this idea out and define the concentrated value of the physical world as power. And we’re back to the managerial magic of the fixed signs.
*Subscription required and it’s totally worth it.
Spiritual outlaw U.G. Krishnamurti once noted, totally free of irony that, “Not God but money is the one that mightily and sweetly ordereth all things.” He also said that “Money is the only thing that will not make life a puzzle.” As a triple Cancer, a sign attuned to the world of finance like a Geiger counter, he ought to have known—and did.
Neo-Jungian James Hillman, always one to burn specificity into your brain, turned his point into a liturgical chant in his book Kinds of Power:
“Economics is our contemporary theology, regardless of how we spend Sunday. Economics is the only effective syncretistic* cult remaining in the world today, our world’s only ecumenical faith. It provides the daily ritual, uniting Christian, Hindu, Mormon, atheist, Buddhist, Sikh, Adventist, animist, evangelist, Muslim, Jew, fundamentalist and New Ager in the common temple, admitting all alike, [and] from which the money changers have not been thrown out.”
*Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs.
Ancient Judeo-Christian hypocrites have brainwashed us into considering money a necessity that we should be embarrassed to celebrate openly. It’s ‘love of’ to be condemned. And yet all roads lead to Rome. Bill Clinton: “Follow the money, stupid.” Better to consider the ardor of money evil than ask pointed questions about off-shore bank accounts or why Catholic priests were never allowed to marry.
Money and power. Power and money. The Taurus gifts that swirl the world on its axis.
Power Doctrines
Power is one of the least understood conditions in human nature. Like money, we need it and want it because it champions freedom. But also tyranny. Look at nature’s unfettered freedom. The power of nature is also tyrannical. A monsoon moves through India and kills thousands of souls in the flick of a wrist.
Humankind is constantly attempting to dominate nature. And forever loses. Have you ever watched a tornado filmed by a drone? Have you ever tried to change a Tauri’s mind?
Taurus marries virility to steadfastness and one-pointed aims. Imagine loamy soil, stock-still and brown-black, allocated unequivocally for fecundity—that’s Taurus. An incubator/liberator of seeds, the sort of aftereffect that makes birds go wild with song and weeds appear en masse overnight. Its power is as dark as Scorpio’s but doesn’t require the social instincts of that watery (relating-oriented) fixed sign (compelled) to achieve its aims. Taurus will go it alone, please step aside.
Conversely, this force needs a plow and driver to harness. Disengaged, Taurus involutes. Lethargy and indulgence attempt to stop the movement of time. It’s a slippery slope with Taurus because, again, people do not have an informed relationship with power—much can go awry and be wasted.
This is why truth and beauty are often conflated. Veracity keeps the bull aligned with his key mission—teasing out a personal expression of beauty from the Earth’s inchoate and impersonal nature. And finding ways to manage and monetize the whole production.
Enlightened Earth
The earth signs are the most spiritualized points within the Zodiac. Consider Buddha, a Taurus. And the Virgin Mary a Virgo. And according to Kris Kristopherson, Jesus was a Capricorn.
All of the earth signs, Taurus especially, are at home in their body. When asked, “What are you?” other signs might philosophize various concepts or spiritual intangibles, but a Taurus will tell you they are first and foremost their body. As an expression of essence, Taurus is the somatic certainty that closes down Western culture’s crazy division between matter and spirit.
My shrink always finds a way in our sessions to recall the celebrated Ox-Herding Pictures from Zen Buddhism. The one where the shepherd and ox are shown in various stages of their relationship. A circular pilgrimage where, towards the end, both entities vanish; the passions and unmanageable nature of the ox (bull) have merged with the rational and orderly self into a divine unity. They no longer oppose one another.
Consider all of the speculations about afterlives, reincarnation, the soul’s endless journey, or whatnot. In the end, after your death, it’s your physical body that transforms into a new form that ‘lives on’ forever.
And that’s no bull.
Love,
Try This at Home
What cusp does Taurus occupy in your chart? And how is that house’s expression colored by Tauri values? Note: Venus’ placement will also indicate ways the concerns of that Tauri house can be monetized. For instance, I have Taurus on the midheaven with a Gemini Venus in the 11th. All of my career (midheaven) objectives have been ‘fed’ by my charismatic (Venus) efforts as a writer (Gemini) on the Internet (11th house.)
good work here, cool;
I love and appreciate what you said about the oxherding pictures. I've Taurean Venus and Merc in the 12th.