April's 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse (Pt. 1: The Map and Basics)

 Eclipse map for the 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse of April 29, 2014
(generated by Solar Fire software/v.8 - recolored for posting purposes)

Above is the solar eclipse map for the April 2014 solar eclipse at 8 Taurus. It's a particularly interesting map as this eclipse path at its western (longitudinal) end stripes through western Russia, with the east end (marking the end of the eclipse path) being off the coast of New Guinea, effectively embracing some of our world's most heartfelt points of human contention...which is to say our contention with being human...in current play.

But it's not just what's going on there - which is to say, not just about what 'those' people are doing or experiencing. The astrological solar eclipse isn't just about what we do or don't do this month or even this year.

It's about everything which could be going on in each one of us which could cause us to do or not do things...which cause us to react to things as we do.

As solar eclipses rolls through we all witness things going on and feel things in our core and - in astrological terms - we react to what we feel in terms of where the eclipse is located not in some other chart, but in ours. In an ever-shifting pattern eclipses range from top to bottom in and around our world, giving us metaphysical images which are as much about where we will 'draw' from in reflecting on our own lives as anything else.

And yes - sometimes each one of us ends up on stage.

When that is for you would be read from your individual chart (alas, some things cannot be done through a blog...) but there are some general effects, the most important of which is that eclipses effects start several months prior to any given solar eclipse (of which we get at least two a year here on Earth).

And after the eclipse, effects evolve over a period of around three years.

Lore also says eclipses are seldom 'about' what they appear to be in the moment whether events are painful or delightful or anything else - they are about what this moment will cause/force/inspire us to fall back on because whatever that thing is, it's harder to do (or be) than what we have 'settled' for in the moment.

(For the record, I totally agree here. I also think this concept is exactly what makes solar eclipse periods so hard to deal with. We always think it's about something which is so very much not the eventual revelation.)

Apparently life as life applies to Earth doesn't like to settle when it comes to human beings...a concept which suggests that as a race we're precious. (Or rather precious, which is how we act from time to time, yes.)

The length of time it takes for any of us to move out of, or let go of whatever notion we have come into this time thinking (or clinging to) varies. However there is one more universal, that being the idea that about 6-8 months prior to the end of eclipse effects (which would be around the end of 2016/beginning of 2017) something which could not have happened...or mattered...will appear.

And that means that while this April 2014 eclipse certainly has its own essence, things which happen now may also have to do with the "twist" which develops as part of a different eclipse - that of November 2011 with the Sun and Moon at 2 Sagittarius. So...particularly if something started (or you initiated some major change) during late 2011, take a look at your chart to see if you have any planet, dwarf planet, node or axis point positioned between...

- 27 Scorpio and 7 Sagittarius (the conjunction)
- 27 Taurus and 7 Gemini (the opposition)
- 27 Aquarius and 7 Pisces (the departing square)
- 27 Leo and 7 Virgo (the approaching square)

If you do, its particularly apt to feel an emotional 'cross current' in your life at this time. Whatever happens now is being brought out by evolving (or new) circumstances, yes. But either on its own or when combined with whatever is discovered by pausing to understand what in you is causing turmoil...some part of that is likely to become part of your motivation to go on from here with more finely honed aims and priorities. 

Whether or not the 2011 eclipse was focal, today's positives and negatives pertain first and most of all to questions of personal growth - which makes perfect sense when we consider the whole of life's process. If, as entities in this world and of this life we won't 'do' or change or let go, life tends to come at us from other angles before moving on. Maybe we'll change, maybe we'll resist again and again.

When that happens life moves on, finding a more receptive funnel for its energetics. Life provides undifferentiated energy to which we apply the conscious sensibility we exist as in, and as an entity of this world.

Our choices...good or bad, productive or destructive are what they are just as there is no good or bad in the eclipse process except at our most human and mortal level.

You know, when eclipses time the end of things we love and cherish.

Sometimes it's just time. We have to let go.

That's just the way life is.

Whether any eclipse factor (solar or lunar) takes the form of a person, event, idea, situation or anything else is unique to each one of us.

And we can count on a good deal of it flowing at some level for this moment from the realms pictured above in the map, manifesting in person thusly simply because energy flows through and is human life, history and planetary as well as universal existence.
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Mercury in Aries

Guatemala's Volcan Fuego fuming between eruptions

(photo credit Luisfi, November 2009)

As Mercury enters Aries at 3:36 p.m. (UT/+0 time) on April 7th, whether we notice it at the time or later life’s ambient light seems to intensify. Gone (at least for a while) is that universal if slightly removed-into-feeling-mode which typifies Mercury in Pisces.

And in its place we get a crisper, more clarified mindset.

Mind you…not one of us is likely to think we’ve been the least bit ‘fuzzed’ in our thinking until we get there.

But apparently yes…we have – not that such things don’t have purpose. Mercury in Pisces represents a time when through feeling, sensing, coming to understand some ‘universal chord’ which is or has been struck (even which needs to be struck), we connect with the idea of not what it means to be human…but what it feels like.

That feeling human…feeling our humanness…connecting with the experience of being mortal…all that now gives was to a more ‘first person’ orientation which may have us working from what we’ve learned so very lately.

Then again, we may simply lay that aside for a while.

Is that wrong? Probably not. There is no right or wrong in such a mental or operational (Mercury) choice, only why you make the choice you make.

And that is about Mercury in Aries, a transit which now stretches ahead, covering the next two weeks or so…leading into the end-of-the-month Taurus solar eclipse. Such an association does place emphasis on what we think and how we go about ‘thinking about what we think’ (or why we’re thinking that way) simply because of the eclipse and Taurus’ natural orientation towards security, self worth, the desire for respect (most of all self-respect, but most of us tend to take what we can get!).

But the avenue is still Mercury in Aries – a ‘style’ template for personal mindset, if you will. Aries is a sign all about the Self, which puts our awareness of that Self at center stage. The positive is the Aries drive for realization of potential and the famous Aries strength of attention, focus and directed action.

With that of course, goes the equally famous Aries potential (and tendency) for ego. From braggadocio to tyrannical attitudes, dictates and demands, all the Aries negatives display the same quality as it’s positives: a focus on self.

What differs is whether anyone else is remotely involved. In positive mode, Aries contributes without needing more than a simple word of thanks.  In negative mode, Aries takes or thinks first and last about self, never feeling truly fulfilled.

So as for the dates here…Mercury enters Aries on April 7th and remains in Aries through April 23rd, when it moves on into Taurus (days ahead of the solar eclipse on April 29th). During this time we’re likely to hear at least some tooting of horns and witness how the cause/effect and positive/negative of assertion…even aggression really functions.

Another interesting quality of Mercury in Aries: its tendency to make things seem ‘sharper’ than before – and maybe even ‘sharper’ than they are. Things may well seem ‘amplified,’ but is that because the ‘volume’ on life is being “turned up”…or is it just that we’re listening?

Or even hearing what was said which we were too distracted (by something else, even our own thoughts or feelings) to really focus on decisively?

 Mercury's ingress of Aries (glyph chart)

(Aries Wheel - location not specific)

 Mercury's ingress of Aries (text chart)

(Aries Wheel - location not specific)

Perfectly capable of (and yes, willing to) carry the day through a forceful ‘cutting through’ of whatever (or whoever) stands in our way, the strength of Mercury in Aries is in its own nature – its strength. Functioning through the medium of mentality, we now sort through decisions (and what it takes to make/unmake one). And in doing that, we well may discover something about what we’re doing – or about how to do it more effectively.

We may even be feeling ‘reborn.’ Aries being the first sign of the zodiac we are given an indication of beginnings…including all the enthusiasm and zeal, all the freshness and all the inexperience, naïveté and working out of kinks. Aries native blatancy, its tendency to be to-the-point and somewhat indelicate, the lack of compassion which reflects determination – it all has its place and all has its limits.

Even its detriments.

Now we get to see and think through which is which. And let’s remember, we’re doing this as all our values and our notion of whether others value us is being temporarily exposed to our inner crucible. The value we have in life and to others in this world our evaluation of who they are and what our relationship his about (including how we feel about it)…all that is being gently but inexorably turned inside-out.

8 Taurus – the degree of the solar eclipse – speaks of ‘cyclic renewal,’ which in your life could mean any of a million things. You may be ‘renewing’ something which is ongoing. Or something…some idea…something which you have thought (or stood for) may now be ending.

Once it ends, as with the phoenix something else may (yes) rise from the ashes. But right now we don’t know how that will work and we can’t know what the final ‘outcome’ will be.

That’s the solar eclipse – in which process Mercury in Aries marks the time where we get to think through what we know, what is ours to choose…and what we don’t have any choice about.

And what that means – to us as people (the generic) and to us as an individual.

And why it means that.

Mercury in Aries marks a time when we're aware of those limitations. We don't however, necessarily like them.

By definition, because Aries and Taurus are side by side, this combination defines something of a quandary.

We all have one…at least one. And that’s what’s important to us. With the ongoing retrograde of Mars in Libra we’re feeling less ‘attached’ or ‘enmeshed’ with others than usual which makes it easy (easier) to prioritize our own thoughts.

But things are about to shift. By the time Mercury enters Aries, Mars will have retrograded down through the degrees of Libra’s most worldly/externalized third decanate (degrees 20 through 29) and back into Libra’s second (degrees 10 through 19) decan. Any second decan is where the sign expresses itself most ‘emotionally’ – which in the case of this airy ‘ideas on how we relate to each other’ sign we call Libra would seem to indicate opinions.

A diagram of Mars' 2013-2014 transit of Libra

Maybe even some opinionated fervency – an outpouring of (retrograde Mars in Libra) ideas on what relating means. Or what does and doesn’t work for us about someone else.

Or what we think ourselves capable of.

Even what we think ourselves guilty of.

Mercury in Aries represents the sharpening of our critical faculties and the critiques which prompt us to ‘stay sharp’ and remain aware – most of all of our (Aries) Self.  Where we are not critical judges of our own inner nature the natural opposition presented by Mercury and Mars retrograde will promote disagreements and can even spark outright hostility. There is a natural defensiveness about this combination which is not about ‘the other guy’ but more about our instinctive understanding of vulnerability.

Under any circumstance Aries is all about vulnerability because it’s about warrior – whether we’re defending against aggression or embodying it. The intense sort of commitment which is so Mercury in Aries is all about the mental (Mercury) struggle to be ourselves, making whatever confronts us now some sort of trigger or challenge to our inner abilities.

So we take it in. We decide. And then we fight.

And yet…given the incoming eclipse, who or what are we fighting, and what are we for or against?

Moreover, why is that so important?
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Manhunting: Boston's 19 Year-Old Bombing Suspect

Runners completing the Boston Marathon in 2010

(photo credit: Daskos99, August 2010)

As I got up this morning and heard that the second suspected Boston Marathon bomber is 19 years old, I started thinking…what do we know just from that?

The first thing which jumped to mind is that 19 years is the Metonic cycle – the eclipse cycle. Of course we don’t know if this individual was born in the first or second half of the year (nor am I going to bore us all with reciting the technicalities of eclipses before-or-after the date of our birth) but the there were two solar eclipses in 1994. One was at 19 Taurus and the other was at 10 Scorpio. Either way you’re talking about a person born with emotionality on the prime (or primal) list of items which by nature or nurture are indicated as ‘trigger points.’

That Pluto was in Scorpio at the time combines with the eclipse data to tell us that this is a person striving for a sense of personal viability. Whatever sign Pluto is in, we tend to focus on that in needing to learn lessons about the ‘balance’ Pluto’s reputation for “obsession” points to our needing to learn. Scorpio, being one of the three ‘interactive’ signs (Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius) marks everybody born between 1972 and 2008 as needing to learn how to balance some level of Plutonic obsessions on what ‘they’ do or what ‘they’ have, or how ‘they’ do it, or who ‘they’ are (or any other ‘they’ qualifier) with the basics of Aries, Taurus and Gemini, the solidity and awareness of existing (Aries), the ability to wrestle with your own self-worth and satisfaction quotients (or lack thereof) which is so very Taurean and the ability to think things through the choose and build your own future (Gemini).

(Just to note here…those born in 1972 and 2008 aren’t automatically included here, since Pluto was moving back and forth while changing signs during those years. But a large number of people will, yes, be included.)

Nineteen years old is also just past the point where the Nodes (north and south) return to their point of natal origin. (The nodal cycle is 18.6 years in length.) Since the Nodes refer to our relationship to our world and the world’s relationship with us, prior to the first nodal return it’s natural for society to consider us ‘not yet ready’ for full-fledged “adult relationships” …which conversely, lends a bit of a jackrabbit quality to being nineteen. In astrological terms, it’s like we have this ‘new-found’ power to feel ourselves being in relationship with others and our world.’

Not all of us weather that period exquisitely, as we are seeing today.

Nineteen also precedes the first Chiron square (which happens around age 20-21), a point when many if not most of us get to facing our Self at some level, realizing we need to ‘get to work being us,’ if you will. Before we get that far, that self-reflective gear hasn’t kicked in – which can make for a lot of painful choices and bad behavior, no question.

Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts

(photo credit: chensiyuan, 2009)

If this suspect is 19 today, that means he was probably born with Saturn in early Pisces. As of April 1, 1994 Saturn was at 7 Pisces and by the end of December it was back at 7 Pisces (which is all about Saturn’s retrograde cycle). During that year Saturn did get as far as 12 Pisces, which would put it in the realm of being currently conjuncted by Chiron. At the other end of the scale (at 7 or so Pisces) Saturn would be coming under transiting Neptune’s dissolving, confounding and disillusionment effects.

And speaking of Neptune, the early 1990s was also a time when Uranus and Neptune were traveling through the 3rd and most ‘worldly/interative’ realm of Capricorn, the sign of things we do in the public realm and personal structures. We can expect some really great things out of some people born during this time, but with the net energy of this combination being ‘change’ the question is how do you go about it?

Obviously in this case, not well. Once we get this young man’s birth data (if we ever get it), it will be educational at least to see why the Uranian ‘explosive’ quality became his personal outlet.

Looking at the ephemeris for that year, that Jupiter was in Scorpio also seems important. Not only will that tend to ‘embed’ and ‘expand’ on Pluto’s presence in Scorpio but it poses a question as to whether this person’s Pisces Saturn is in aspect to his natal Jupiter Scorpio. The reason to wonder about that is because Jupiter/Saturn connections in any chart are notoriously societal and structural. We see it in the charts of those who found corporations and head organizations, we see it in people who really aim at society and things societal. Obviously most of the time that’s about getting the great job and ‘being somebody’ during your lifetime.

But not always.

There is, of course, some chance that this person was born in the first few months of 1995. If so, his Pluto would be in Sagittarius – and conjunct Jupiter in Sagittarius. That would change the landscape of this discussion, moving us from the emotional realm of Scorpio into the Plutonic realm of how things should work which directs us back to a need for thinking things through and being willing to harness your own mind.

Which, considering how bombs are made, could be true.

If this is a person with Pluto in Sagittarius, then the conversation will – or should – move back towards mental health, which seems to be an underlying conversation in the United States (and maybe the world) right now.

Which means it needs to be discussed.

Either way – with Pluto in Scorpio or Pluto in Sagittarius, Ixion is going to be conjunct Pluto. And that adds to the challenge to not see things as being about what you want (or the way you want to see them) until you learn a seriously hard lesson.

link to - Ixion: Our Conflict of Self

Also in that ‘either way’ bucket is the fact that Neptune and Uranus is in a transiting opposition to Castor and Pollux, underscoring the need to think things through and to recognize the realities of life and life’s realities.

Plutino Huya and dwarf planet Haumea were transiting early Libra during this time, adding a challenge to ‘not kid ourselves’ about who others were. Or how they are going to react to what you do and who you are in their world.

Obviously millions of people were born during this time. The vast majority of them will go on to live completely non-offending lives.

But to have been born then…and to be 19 now does lend a certain aura of challenge, especially once you take life experiences into account. As I sit typing, the news people are talking about whether this young man (or his now dead suspected partner-in-crime) probably didn’t get exposed to nation-of-origin violence as a child. Their interviews with uncles hint at fatalistic, violence-ridden pasts.

This isn’t always the full tale. Or the outcome. But the more that psychologists (and astrologers) look at families, the more it seems that the deficits or difficulties of the parents are willed at least to the children, and that when it comes to arriving in America from a war torn country anywhere, or the effects of war on any country even once the sounds of guns and bombs fades into blissful silence...it may take not one but two full generations - even more - for the shattering effects of violence to merely begin to wear away.

Which is sobering in the extreme.

************ UPDATE *************

Within an hour of this post hitting the internet, I got a note from Charles (which you will find in the comments section below), who gave us an FBI-supplied birth date for the suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is still being hunted. Data on his older brother - who was shot by police overnight - is not yet available.

First of all, thanks, Charles.

Secondly...with a July 22, 1993 birth date now in hand, we know that Dzhokhar's Pluto is at 22 Scorpio, indeed conjunct Ixion (at 25 Scorpio) with Pluto being opposed by the incoming eclipse.

We don't yet have a place of birth for this chart, but setting it in Kyrgyzstan (for the sake of time zones) gives us a 29 'critical degree' Cancer Sun, which would certainly have been set off by Sun/Mars hitting the square at 29 Aries.

Interestingly, this young man's Jupiter is at 8 Libra, a degree which is almost unique in the zodiac for having earned a specific name ("the widow's degree") which amounts to a process of 'learning through loss.' 

link to post - To the Degree: 8 Libra 

Demonstrating amply how it's always best not to jump at conclusions, suspect Dzhokhar has a late Aquarian Saturn (28 Aquarius) not Saturn in PIsces. This 28 Aquarian Saturn is thus in a stressful inconjunct with this young man's Sun which, at the very least we would guess has something to do with his feeling of 'fitting in' and feeling like he had 'a place' in the world (or society) he is living in.

The Neptune/Uranus conjunction alluded to earlier is exact on this birth date. And in looking up the degree of this conjunction (19 Capricorn) one of the references uses these phrases: 'an explosive element' and 'taking a solid stand' which ring chillingly with recent events. That the term 'stoicism' is also used would also seem to ask that we consider those comments made about how long it takes for the legacy of violence and war to be worn through in any group of human beings. in listening to the interviews given by the uncles, at least one of them seemed entirely factual, saying something very close to 'it's over - they'll kill him' with the kind of attitude you'd expect from one who has learned to be resigned.

In opposition to Uranus and Neptune are Mercury at 18 Cancer. As always, any connection between Mercury and Neptune is always ripe to become 'the lie' we are told, this opposition may be the lie which is believed, which we think the world is, which we respond to, or which we tell. That this Mercury is in conjunction with fixed star Castor (one of the Gemini twins) lends a very mortal sort of purely impassioned thought which is part of the challenge of Gemini.

Sadly, the father (who is being interviewed) is saying this bombing was not done by his sons. It's so understandable. And suspects are not yet convicted, so... if this is America, all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

At the same time, we have in the past couple of years seen a series of parents unable to accept the need to do something about the needs of adult children in mental trouble. One famous case where the parents did step in is Britney Spears - which many will say is about the money involved. But who really cares, so long as people's problems get sorted out so that they don't harm themselves, other people or our ability to have faith in our society or life itself.

It's a delicate balance...having enough love to weather your children's foibles while having enough perspective to be able to understand when they're running amuck. I know this sounds terrible, but when the conversation gets to this point I always think about a series of interviews done with Jeffrey Dahmer's father, who understood what his son had done and yet loved him still.

People don't have to be perfect for us to love them. But loving them may - at times - require that we step in and do the difficult thing, and not leave that up to society after harm is finally done.

For now, I must run. But more on this later, to be sure.     .
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Sun in Taurus: Life, Reflected Inward

As an extension of the idea of Taurus as the sign of satisfaction with the self

are all those things which we consider 'satisfying' and comfortable or comforting

in life, such as these handwoven, natural dye Thai silks for sale in Ban Tha

Sawang (Surin Province, Thailand). Taurus problems generally arise from

substituting the 'thing' for the satisfaction, or thinking that 'things' or money

or 'looking right' can fill or fulfill our need for the sort of personal satisfaction

which comes from fulfilling your potential and doing that which you know is

right (for you) as opposed to simply making others happy.

(photo credit: JJ Harrison, December 2012)

Taurus is the second sign of the zodiac. And as such, there’s only one sign which precedes it: Aries – the sign of Self and awareness that we exist.

If you look at a horoscope wheel, the order of the signs is one through twelve. And that 12th sign, like that 12th house, is always the ‘shadow’ which we just may be afraid of.

Or maybe we’re afraid of being afraid of it.

What is it? What could go wrong?

If there is a position in the horoscope which embodies the fear we have of things which go ‘bump’ in the night, that the 12th harmonic – which is to say, the 12th ‘sign position’ to wherever you’re starting from.

 
Which with Taurus is Aries. So when you’re sitting in the Aries seat, Taurus is the 2nd harmonic: it’s all about what we can make of ourselves, and what we have to build with. Talents, resources are half of it, and the self worth and internal security is the other part – the part which allows us to harness that first half.

But when you ‘sit’ in the Taurus seat? Then all the ‘am I going to fail?’ and ‘what if they don’t like me?’ or even ‘what if war breaks out?’ or ‘what if the banks fail?’ or ‘what if I become homeless?’ or ‘what if there’s a hurricane?’…all the thousands and forty nine (yes, I counted) things which we might dream could go wrong become Aries in the 12th house position. All the fears we might dream up of failure or humiliation or whatever…that’s where they go bump in what great poets have referred to as the night of our soul.

All this is important because as the Sun moves into Taurus – which it is going to do as of 10:04 in the evening of April 19th (UT/+0 time) – the Sun’s entrance into the sign of the impending solar eclipse brings all those issues which are going to be challenged by the eclipse into the metaphysical sunlight...our conscious awareness.

Sunlight streams down onto a hot spring at Leirhnjukur, Iceland

(photo credit: Andreas Tille, July 1996)

So where ordinarily with Sun in Taurus we might be talking about utilizing our time, our personal resources (be they time, love, talent, money – whatever) to help others and thus earn that satisfaction which breeds security, here we’re talking about a period of time which is more likely to be about tests of security - and yes, as we've seen through acts of violence, threats to commit acts of war and the mailing of literally poisonous letters in the mail, that security can be physical.

But on a more global level, especially once the Sun is in Taurus, the issues are going to be more about 'worth' - most specifically, self worth.

I know…you’re just jazzed. (NOT!!!) But as I've been discussing with a friend on Facebook (through the astroPPM page) what we've seen for the past week-to-ten days has been all about Aries energetics: who we are and trying to prove our 'existence' to others and ourselves. The aim has been to be and to be noticed and to feel valid in going (Aries=assertive aims) in the directions we're aimed at.

North Korea's leader made his threats as the Sun was passing through Aries emotional second decanate, where the stakes are emotional and thus the idea of threatening what you might do is apt. Everything about that time called our attention to life on a more or less survivalistic level.

Then, as the Sun moved into Aries' third and most public and worldly level, the actions became public. You've often heard me say that third decanate degrees (degrees between 20 and 29 of any sign) are where we let go and where the world then reacts to us, at which point we have to deal with those reactions.

If you think of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, they embody this very kind of concept. Localizing this just to the bomber(s), they obviously went through planning and putting things together - after which came the moment of 'putting it out there' and having the world react. That's the Sun moving through the third decan of Aries. My friend on Facebook quoted her nephew in noting how many, many acts of violence and terror have taken place during this last segment of Aries. And I agree: astrologically, such acts are very third-decan of Aries.

But beneath or beyond that is the greater metaphysical concept which will 'evolve' as the Sun moves into Taurus. With a solar eclipse in Taurus this year, events in the eight weeks prior to that eclipse would be all about calling our attention to however issues of security and satisfaction with our lives are playing out in those lives.

And just maybe how we need to make changes. Maybe it's to security measures we take, yes. But maybe it's to what we prioritize in life. Or maybe it's to how we see other people, some of whom end up doing us wrong when they think we've done them wrong.    

This is not about blame. And not to put too fine a point on this, with Venus already in Taurus we want what we like. We want to do well. We want to be well. We want to be well thought of.

But all that is now scrambled into a time where other people telling us we’re fine won’t feel fine if we’re not feeling fine with ourselves and with the world we live in. All the placation in the world isn’t going to satisfy us if we aren’t satisfied with ourselves. Or if we can't step outside because we're so scared of a world we've walled out that we've reduced ourselves to living in some sort of walled encampments.

Freedom - astrologically - is Aquarian, a sign is just as famous for rules as it is for anarchy. We win in this world only when the world wins, giving us that wonderful space in which to live. Universal is not 'me and mine,' it's 'all of us and everyone.'

Taurus tests our ability to understand what 'everyone' means and how to grow through that understanding. We don't have to love everyone to be a universalist. We only need to understand that others have the right to be different, so long as nobody's hurting anybody else.

And no, that doesn't mean hurting your feelings because someone doesn't agree with you! Sometimes that's the very simplest issue, and the very thing which starts a war. The greatest lesson we achieve when it comes to differing opinions or different cultures or different life styles or whatever is not why others do or think as they do, and not what or how they do it.

It is the growth we experience through learning to allow others to be not like us...and being okay with that.

Maybe even loving someone in spite of that.

Or loving them because they are so very different. 

But let’s be real here: we’re talking about a Taurus solar eclipse, which is not life's gentlest upheaval. Plus (spoiler alert!) maybe you don’t realize it, but Mars is going to be joining this Taurus on the day after the Sun moves into Taurus.

Which means that as the Sun is about to enter Taurus and moving through the most 'critical' (intense) degrees of Aries, Mars is also at the most critical point in the Aries process.

And Mars rules Aries, which makes this either an assertive dynamic (perhaps to the point of complete narcissistic disregard of others) or a time when all we can think of is how 'separate' we are from life.

Which is part of the most celestial point here. Whatever life has to do to get us to understand that we don't have to just 'go along to get along' and that we are individuals gifted with a life which gives us the opportunity to do things in this world...that's what life is going to do.

Yet at the same time, we also have to be realistic. And when it comes to Mars in Taurus, Mars in Taurus is not focused on the self and actions that self can take, Mars in Taurus is focused on what we want.

And that what we 'want' all depends on what we think we don't have. Or how much we believe in our capacity to get where we want to go, despite whatever we're up against in this very moment. You may simply want “out of here.” You might want a job. Or you might want to not need to do whatever you're doing.

The object, the goal, the aim is Mars in Aries. But what lies under that...the wanting and whatever sense of satisfaction or insecurity or craving or lack of self regard we have about ourselves will determine how we will deal with this time. The Sun in Taurus, even without Mars (and Venus) in Taurus gets us to thinking about how we feel about who we are on the inside. How comfortable we are with that person we feel ourselves being when we lay down at night and close our eyes.

Most of the time this relating-to-our-state-of-self is quasi-automatic. But with a Solar Eclipse coming up, the Sun's moving into Taurus represents life 'lighting up' all those little cracks and crevices in our opinions of our Self and our lives. 

The solar eclipse being slated to happen during the Sun’s passage through Taurus tells us that these next few weeks are going to be intense. Maybe even contentious. This solar month is going to pose challenges, propositions, questions and revelations. Some of the foundations we have built certain assumptions, presumptions or suppositions on are going to shift. Some may even melt away - sometimes rather magically, but other times through wholesale pressure like that exerted inside a crucible.

Yes, for some life itself is going to be a pressure cooker. In the world of metaphysics, the idea that such an object would become an object of harm isn't chance: its emblematic.

So as the pressure ratchets up, then we get to see how ‘solid’ our personal operating systems really are. Do we know how to vent, or do we just explode? Do we use our energy and personal energetics for constructive or destructive means?

As a sign of security and not just all which we do to become secure but all those

basic things which allow us to pursue personal security, Taurus is also the sign

of food, restaurants, cooking and the food chain in general - which leads us to

this rather fun photo of a Barcelona fruit market.

(photo credit: Ajrin, October 2008)

It is often said ‘life isn’t what happens, it’s how you respond to what happens.’ That’s very metaphysical. Fate is what happens…how we respond, even when we do nothing, is the choice of free will.

And how we deal with that choice, be it in real time or in our head or heart or soul…those reactions, those responses voice our Taurean nature. What do I value? What am I willing to stand on as a person and use to build my life and enhance and grow the world I live in so that my life (and that of those I love) is enriched?

Given that Saturn is retrograde in Scorpio during this year’s Taurus transit of the Sun, our challenges are huge. But so too are the possibilities for gain, for growth, for learning better how to live in this world.

Or maybe how to make a better world in which to live. But there will be disappointments and challenges. We can expect a little confusion or inspiration as the Sun's radiance connects to Neptune energetics on April 23-24 (depending on your time zone). For some this will raise questions or confusion, for others this will be an inspiring or even a relaxing time.

The last days of April - April 27th through to May 1st - are will bring confrontations, most of all to our realities (or something we thought was 'this' when it's really 'that') and sense of having things "all planned out." Though issues may well be raised by others, they are not the core issue - our reactions to them, and maybe how we have been regarding them are.

Accept the reality and cope with it. You may not like the 'feet of clay' feeling encountered now, but deal with it anyway. Expressing your disappointment is fine provided you understand that you may be projecting unrealistic expectations which are yours on someone else who will then know that you're prone to constructs in your head which aren't the real thing.

For most of us, this is just a sandpaper sort of moment which in evoking the changes of values and valuations associated with the incoming solar eclipse are offending us mostly because we have to change.

Do we HAVE to?

Well, no. If you don't care about keeping in step with life, reality and the world, no. Just remember - you're living in and with it!      

And yes, things are changing. With Pluto transiting Capricorn we know things structural are changing. Taurus is an earth sign, and earth signs pertain to realities and ‘things tangible.’ So we know that the structures and the ‘rules’ of life are changing. And yes, we can kick and scream all we want, but the world is not going back to ‘the old way.’

Things are simply changing. We're due to get a few more 'notes' on the subject (bring your #2 pencils, everyone!) as the Sun connects to Jupiter on the 7th and 8th of May - again, depending on the time zone you live in. This is something of the 'bookend' aspect to issues raised at the end of April: "x" may not work, and "y" is going to take a WHOLE lot of effort to put into place.

Again, the question becomes about quality: do we just want to ignore things and have them work? Sure. But will they? Probably not! So in 'fixing' whatever is amiss in life, are we going to go for a quick-fix temporary patch, or are we going to dig out all the old rotten methodologies and upgrade our life to something new and quality and stable?

I'm beginning to feel like an HGTV show here...

(Show Host): '....You know, when we started this life remodeling project we had no idea you had all these time-damaged support beams. They all need replacing - do you have the psychological budget to cover these additional costs?' 

Whatever sign the Sun is in, it’s always making some sort of aspect to every planet, and during the Sun’s passage through Taurus we are in a moment of earth-to-earth sign trine. This does not (contrary to pop astrology PR) mean everything is ‘easy.’ Trines merely mean “ongoing energy” which can just as easily be an ongoing epidemic as ongoing sunshine and roses. The ‘pop astrology’ reference is to the energy…the energy of the trine is ‘easy’ in the sense that it simply flows and flows and flows.

But is that good? Ongoing good is good. But ongoing bad is bad, right?

In the end, the lesson here – however it manifests in your life – carries with it one reminder: though we may miss something which fails or ends or vanishes now, all things happen for a reason.

Unbeknownst to us,
 the universe is unfolding as it should. 

'Airglow': Earth's city lights plus atmospheric incadescence as

photographed from the Space Shuttle

(photo credit: NASA)

No, we don’t always like the reasons, but sometimes that’s just the point. Humans do not learn through complacency. We learn through striving. The terrible loss often teaches us to make more of what we have and who we are than any amount of comfortable status quo.

Do we like the status quo? Of course.

But life isn’t about what we like. We are born into this world to be part of something far greater than ourselves. And that sometimes takes blasting us out of our comfort zones.

Life isn’t mean. Life is just life. Our mistake is that thinking life is personally sentient rather than inevitably responsive.

Cause, effect. What we put out comes back to us.

So when we put less out, we get less back. And conversely, when we put a lot out, we get a lot back. What we get back depends on the quality of what we put out, and (this is an often missing Taurus part) whether what we put out is appropriate considering who we actually are.

Taurus tolerates no fakes. Taurus demands ‘the genuine article’ – starting with our Self.
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