When we visited a Taurus-rising friend in her Bay Area home, she treated us to a tour of her thriving garden. My husband and his Taurus Moon were particularly taken with her “tater totes”—recycled tote bags, perfect for growing potatoes. But nothing impressed him more than her elaborate, three-section composting bin. While the two discussed, at length, its design, construction, and functionality, I (no planets in Taurus) wandered off to find the cat.
Plant some Taurus in a birth chart, and it will generally grow into a green thumb. My husband has stationed a cookie-jar sized container next to our kitchen sink to collect scraps for his own, cherished compost heap. And just this morning, my Sun in Taurus neighbor cheerfully described what a good time she’d had yesterday, working in her garden. She’d started out a little bit sad and out of sorts, she said, but a day of puttering around in the dirt had set her right.
Taurus has an instinct for cultivation. Its opposite sign, Scorpio, symbolizes the process of death and decay, the spent organic matter that’s thrown on the compost heap and the busy, helpful insects that break it down. The result, to most of us, looks like plain old dirt. But from across the horoscopic wheel, Taurus recognizes the resulting loam as beautiful, nourishing, and helpful, and knows just how to use it to encourage things to grow.
It’s not only gardening that engages Taurus’ talent for growing things. Some with this sign strong in their charts kill their house plants with alacrity but are brilliant at cultivating a thriving business, a stable organization, or a devoted cadre of friends. They’re geniuses at taking over a situation that has collapsed through mismanagement, malfeasance, or pure exhaustion, and restoring it to strength and health.
Taurus has a gift for nurturing, but it’s not the tender, sympathetic nurturing of, say, Cancer. Rather, Taurus’ style is a blend of hands-on labor and benign neglect. Plants, people, and organizations thrive under Taurus’ care because they receive the right amount of support, sustenance, and stability, without getting smothered.
From the time we could walk, my Sun in Taurus mom taught us manners and supervised our chores, but gave us a pretty long leash when it came to playing in the mud and falling on our butts. She used to joke, “If my kids haven’t eaten a pound of dirt by the time they’re walking, I haven’t done my job!” We got into all sorts of scrapes, but after a quick inspection for real damage, she calmly dusted us off, slapped bandages on us, and distracted us from dramatic tears and temper tantrums with a brisk joke and a cookie.
There’s something reassuring about Taurus’ cheerful confidence and utter lack of drama. As kids, we’re haunted by nameless fears—of the dark, of losing our parents, of being bullied at school. We see creatures in the shadows and are terrified by vivid, scary dreams. We’re attuned to the invisible, magical world of Scorpio, drawn to horrific fairy tales that help us understand what we find there. As we grow into adults, we don’t need nightmares or the Brothers Grimm to scare us; life itself gives us plenty to worry about.
Through it all – and even now, with unpredictable Uranus moving through the sign and in a conjunction with this week’s New Moon (May 7, 2024, 8:22 pm PDT) -Taurus is the sensible, grounded voice that reassures us that everything will work out, that makes us feel better about things by refusing to make a big deal about them. The week’s only other major aspect, the Sun in Taurus’ sextile aspect to Saturn in Pisces (May 6, 2024, 10:42 pm PDT), emphasizes the practical support that Taurus offers when we begin to feel emotionally weighed down or overwhelmed.
Each of us, in our Taurus planets or house (don’t know how to find it? this post should help), possesses the sorcery of benign neglect. In some part of your life, you know how to make things grow, how to support life without smothering it, and to comfort those who are fearful or overwhelmed. So at the Taurus New Moon, gather up the compost of fears, failed dreams, and insecurities, perhaps left over from last month’s Scorpio Full Moon (April 23). Till it into the garden; then cover it up and let it rest. Before you know it, the soil will be strong and refreshed, and ready to nurture fresh, new, and abundant life.
Writing and images © 2015-24 by April Elliott Kent
For more on this week’s planetary news, listen to my podcast!
