The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 353, titled:
Taurus in Astrology: Meaning and Traits
With Chris Brennan, and Mo and Pao of the Fixed Astrology Podcast
Episode originally released on May 19, 2022
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Mary Sharon
Transcription released May 24, 2022
Copyright © 2022 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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CHRIS BRENNAN: Hey, my name is Chris Brennan and you’re listening to The Astrology Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be doing a deep dive into the meaning and the traits and characteristics associated with the zodiac sign Taurus. Joining me today is Mo and Pao from the Fixed Astrology Podcast. Welcome. Thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Mo: Thanks for having us.
Pao: Thank you for having us.
CB: Yeah. I’m really happy and excited, I’ve wanted to have people on the podcast for a while now. You two have been doing your own podcast and you’ve been going decan by decan through the signs of the zodiac for over a year now, right?
Mo: Yes. We started with the Aquarius decan because you know, why does Aries always have to go first anyway, right? We started that in early 2021 and just recently wrapped it up. Now we’re on a series about the planetary joys, actually.
CB: Nice, I love it. So today, this is the second installment in my series where last year I did a whole series on the planets that started kind of randomly with an episode on the Moon that I wasn’t sure about doing, but it went so well that I decided to do that series. And now I’m going through each of the signs of the zodiac and just doing a full two-hour discussion where we go as deep into the meaning of each of the signs as possible. Part of my approach for doing that is to find astrologers that have that sign prominent in their chart in some way, and you to actually both have some Taurus placements are short, right?
Mo: Yeah, that’s right. What’s funny is that when we started our podcast, we were bonding over being fixed signs. So I guess this is a good segue into sharing our placements. I’m a Taurus Sun and South Node. Those of you who don’t know me, I go by @austral_taur on Twitter and everywhere. So you know, being a Taurus is a huge part of my branding as an astrologer, which is pretty funny.
CB: Nice. Do you mind if I show your chart?
Mo: Of course, go for it.
CB: All right, here it is. Pisces rising and the Sun in Taurus in the third whole sign house, and the Moon up in Sagittarius in the 10th whole sign house.
Mo: Yeah. A funny story is that I’m also a Taurus in sidereal so I consider myself very much a Taurus.
CB: Nice. There’s no questions.
Mo: No questions there. [laughs]
CB: So did Taurus always resonate with you? Like, even when you only knew Sun signs or… How was that for you?
Mo: I feel like I’ve always had a complicated relationship with being Taurus because a lot of the key words centre around being materialistic or gluttonous. And I’ve been someone who has had complicated relationships with money and material things, but also food. But I think that learning to become more embodied as a person has made me realize how important the archetype is to me as a person. So yeah, it’s something I’ve grown into for sure.
CB: That makes sense. All right. Well, I want to come back to that. And then Pao, do you mind if I share your chart?
Pao: No, not at all. Go for it.
CB: All right, here it is. You actually have Taurus rising and the Moon in Taurus and the night chart?
Pao: Yes, yes.
CB: Nice. Awesome. Go ahead.
Pao: Oh, I was just gonna say I didn’t learn that I was a Taurus Moon and rising until I was an adult. In terms of my brief background in astrology, I learned about astrology when I was a kid. My mom was always super into it. I’ve always known I was a Leo and as I got older I didn’t feel like I connected with Leo as much because I was such an introverted teenager. And then when I found out I was a Taurus Moon and rising, there were parts of it that just made more sense to me. But then there were also parts like Mo said where, you know, I’m not very materialistic, so I’m gluttonous. Well, maybe a little bit gluttonous. [laughs] Yeah.
CB: Yeah, one that brings up two really important points that I think we touched on very briefly in the last episode, which is just that it’s complicated because, you know, we are a combination of a bunch of different planets and different signs and different houses and different aspects in our birth charts that make up the totality of our personalities. So on one hand, it’s hard. And early in our studies in astrology, we kind of learned not to just try to boil everything down to one sign, that it’s more complicated than that. But then at the same time, sometimes when somebody has a huge predominance or specific predominance of a certain sign, that really does come out in some very striking ways in a person’s life.
Pao: Yeah, certainly. For me, I think some of the complication comes from the natural house associations, because I feel like there’s the strong association between Taurus and material and resources. And I think that to some extent while that’s true, I find that there’s a limitation of understanding the Taurean archetype that comes about when we approach astrology that way.
CB: Yeah, for sure. By just equating it with the second house and then taking all second house significations and applying it to Taurus when the Taurus archetype is a lot more dynamic and multivalent and nuanced than that. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, why don’t we start by showing– I have a little graphic that [Paula Bella Mini] made us that shows some of the basic qualities of Taurus. I should show also the- From our zodiac wheel poster, this is the signs of the zodiac. We already covered Aries which is the first sign that in the tropical zodiac follows after the spring equinox. Then we move into Taurus the second sign, which using some of the traditional associations is said to be either a feminine or a nocturnal sign. It’s a fixed sign in terms of Cardinal fixed mutable and modalities. And then it is an Earth sign in terms of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. And it’s ruled by the planet Venus. That’s all the basic stats. There’s also some other things in terms of it being the domicile or the sign ruled by Venus, it’s also the sign that is said to be the exultation of the Moon or the sign where the Moon is raised up and some sense. And then finally, it’s said to traditionally be the sign of the detriment of Mars because it’s opposite to one of Mars’s ruling signs, which is Scorpio. There’s the glyph at the very top, which is like a circle with two horns on top which kind of represents the bowl which is the animal symbol or totem for Taurus.
All right, where should we start in terms of the meaning of Taurus? One of the things that might be good that I often think about is the contrast where there’s almost like this corrective quality that happens when you move from one side of the zodiac in order to the next. You see a number of qualities that were in the previous sign get counterbalanced in some ways. And so the sign before this that we did was Aries and one of the things about Aries that we talked about a lot was just notions– because of its associations with Mars and fire and being a cardinal sign– of it being very quick and very fast and very speedy. And then with Taurus, we move into a fixed Earth sign ruled by Venus and things seemed like slowed down a little bit and start taking a much more deliberate quality that’s not as impulsive or not as impetuous as Aries.
Pao: Yeah, I think that’s a great place to start. I was just listening to the Aries episode with Rick Levine where you all we’re talking, you know, Aries is very much the early bird gets the worm whereas Taurus is a lot more cautious about that. I think it has a lot to do with being an Earth sign as well as a fixed sign. Even for me personally, I have both. I have Jupiter in Aries in the 12th house, but I also have this Moon in this rising sign in Taurus. And so I can very much be like… Like even in my present life right now, in the matter of six months I quit my job, started job hunting, found a new job and then moved to New York City from Hawaii. All in a really short timeframe. But now I could feel like my Taurus placements especially with this current eclipse right now just screaming at me to slow down and take a breath. There is definitely a cautiousness and I do think we could really break down even just looking at the fact that Taurus is an Earth sign, that it’s Venus-ruled and the Moon exalts there. That can really help us break down why is there such a slowness associated with Taurus.
Mo: Yeah, I really love that you said that. Ever since we did our decanic dive through the zodiac, I really think about the decanic journey through each sign. And I feel like if you think about the decades of Aries, it’s like the burning down and repopulating. And then Taurus and it’s decans are all about, “What do we do now that we’ve sort of established a new thing? We have to maintain it, we have to cultivate it.” And I feel like that element of cultivation is very huge. And you know, I’m someone who has Taurus placements but they’re answering to an Aries-Venus, so it’s just very much like opposite day. It’s like I have all these initiatory qualities but it’s always geared towards things that are going to be, I guess sort of established for the long term. And so I definitely feel that this eclipse cycle for me has just been about like, “Okay, I did all this initiating of establishing myself in terms of an online space and communicating with people and getting comfortable sharing what I know, but it’s just hard to get over the inertia. So compared to Aries, Taurus is very inert. And I feel like it’s nice to do a compare-contrast between the sign before, but also the sign after. So Taurus is that nice space where it’s like, “Okay, we started things and we have to maintain this now before we can think about other things when we finally move on to the narratives associated with Gemini.”
CB: Yeah, that’s really good point. Part of that is just situating it, especially in the tropical zodiac, where it falls in the season. And I should mention that because one of the highlights or one of the features of this series is that I’m trying to record each episode during the Sun season of each of the respective signs. So today, we’re recording this on Saturday, May 7th 2022. We started like, 13 minutes ago so probably 12:23 or so p.m here in Denver, Colorado. And the Sun is it 17 degrees of Taurus. And in the tropical zodiac, part of the notion of fixed signs and especially Taurus is that it falls right in the middle of the season. So there’s a sense of things being more stable or a sense of permanence. You know, to whatever extent there can be permanence of anything, we find it more in the fixed signs because they fall in that space in the seasons where things are not changing as much. So in the cardinal sign of Aries, for example, when the days start growing longer in the northern hemisphere and plants start growing and everything starts coming out again at the beginning of spring, things are still in a state of transition and changing and moving and initiating in some sense. But by the time we get to Taurus if you just look around, it’s like everything is out in full bloom. And we’re much more solidly in that one season of spring at this point in time in the year rather than still in some sort of transitional state where it’s either moving into spring and out of winter and there’s still a sort of crossover where sometimes it’s still snowing or being weird. Or towards the end of the season, once we get to Gemini season it’ll start transitioning into the summer and it’ll start getting really hot in the northern hemisphere, and it’s clear that you’re sort of moving away from spring even though you’re still at the tail end of it. But with Taurus, because it’s right in the middle, we have some of those keywords that have to do with solidness and permanence.
Pao: Yeah, I’m glad you said that. I do think that all of the fixed signs have some element of assessment in them and I’ve just really noticed that as we were doing that decan series. Every time we went into the decans of the fixed signs, there was just some element of looking back and looking at the present, and looking forward and just having to assess all of that in order to decide what your next steps are going to be. I thought another thing that stood out to me with your Aries episode is you all talked about the hero’s journey and really seeing that in Aries. I actually would argue that you could see that in all of the fire signs especially when you do look at the decan break down whereas with the Earth signs, I won’t say that each one of them has some level of contingency planning in it and it really is about first assessing how well resourced are you to even begin some kind of grand project. So yeah, I think very much you see that in Taurus when you look at all three decans, where the first one’s the lord of worry where you see, you know, in the Rider-Waite artwork, you see two people who are destitute outside of a church. And then the middle decan’s the lord of success. It’s someone who has resources who’s giving them over to people who aren’t as well resourced. And then the lord of failure because their failure’s just inevitable when you’re doing any kind of endeavour, but how do you learn from these things? How do you plan ahead so you don’t fail again?
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. I put out a poll like I did for the Aries episode where I just asked people on Twitter, “What keywords do you associate with the sign of Taurus?” And one of the big groups that’s kind of related to the subtopic that we’re talking about now where we get a lot of those keywords from that or clusters of keywords from that archetype is having to do with growth and the fixed and earthy qualities of that. So some of the keywords are things like slow growth, resistance sometimes to change, slow to let go, sometimes inflexible, endurance, sustainable, durable but also sometimes stagnant or digging one’s heels in, working on one’s own time, following through, inertia, slowness, enduringness, persistence, being sustained, strong, steadfast, relaxed, hearty, sometimes monotonous, sometimes lazy, but also plodding. So I feel like a whole bunch of whole cluster of those sort of standard Taurus keywords come from the notion of it being a fixed sign and an Earth sign that falls right in the middle of the season.
Pao: Yeah, absolutely. For anyone who’s ever tried to dig a hole, it sucks. Trying to move Earth is just very, very difficult. And so I’m not that at all surprised all those words are associated with Taurus’s fixed Earth sign.
Mo: Yeah. But if you take it back to the fact that the Moon exalts here– and it’s Venus’s preferred domicile for those who’ve forgotten. [laughs] Because I know there’s a tendency to associate Venusian qualities with Libra, just because of the connotations of beauty and relating to other people. But I think there’s a quality of the two arguably more consistently feminine planets having their dignity being expressed in the sign. So it’s something about the nurturing quality of Taurus. And you kind of need a consistent, dependable, supportive environment in order for whether it’s plants or people to flourish. I feel like that’s a quality of Taurus where some of those consistent, dependent metaphors do play very well.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point.
Pao: I had mentioned that we’re currently in a series about the planetary joy is our podcast, and we were actually referencing an article that you had written about the joys and where they could possibly come from. And it really stands out to me that according to the research you had done, the angular triad that’s associated with Earth triplicity is the houses that surround the fourth house. And so, you know, the Moon joy is in the third house and then Venus joy’s in the fifth house and these are the day and night triplicity rulers of Earth signs. But what I especially find fascinating is that Taurus, I believe, is the only sign where both the day and the night triplicity do really, really well. They’re domiciled and exalted respectively in Taurus.
CB: That’s a really good point. Let me find a diagram for my paper just to show people you’re talking about in the video version. So this is just the triplicity rulers and showing that they’re connected to the planetary joys. And the two planets that rule that Earth triplicity are primarily the Moon and Venus and they have their joys in the third and fifth house, which is down at the bottom part of the chart in the sequence of three signs associated with the fourth house which in ancient astrology was called under the Earth or the subterraneous place. That’s why we get Earth associations with those specific signs ruled by the Moon and Venus, which are Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn. One of the things we started to do in the last episode was sometimes it’s useful to contrast different signs with other signs that share similar qualities in order to get a sense of the different expressions or representations. So, Taurus is an Earth sign but also Virgo is an Earth sign and Capricorn is an Earth sign. So one of the questions is, what then sets Taurus apart? And part of it is that it’s a fixed sign so it’s the only fixed sign of the three Earth signs. So there’s a little bit of a sense of a greater quality of stability and fixity with Taurus that you don’t always get with the other Earth signs, even though they also have that tendency towards seeking a sort of stability and support and things of that nature.
Mo: Yeah, I love that we’re talking about what sets Taurus apart from the other two Earth signs, because I noticed that there’s often a conflation of fixity with Earth and I feel like those are two different things. Fixity has more to do with just wanting to maintain or create something enduring. It’s just like if you think about the modalities as kind of their own sort of angular triad, it’s just you have the cardinal doing the initiatory action, you have the fixed principal doing the maintaining, cultivating, maybe perfecting in a way. And then you have the mutable quality just deciding if you want to stay with the thing you’ve created or if you want to move into some initiatory action. There’s sort of a transition that’s implied with the mutability. And I feel like there are certain elements of Taurus and Capricorn that are quite similar because, you know, Capricorn has that Saturn rulership. And because of the slowness and consolidating nature of Saturn, there’s a lot of overlap with some of the Taurean significations, especially if people are thinking about it from the natural house sort of maybe somewhat capitalistic point of view that both are signs that are concerned with maintaining resources or having some kind of material achievement. But I think that there’s more of an initiatory quality to Capricorn where they’re looking to initiate or build the foundation for something that will be enduring, but there’s always that initiatory quality. Whereas Taurus is not necessarily interested in starting something new per se, but just enhancing what they have already.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really great point. So Capricorn is more almost ambitious, like ambition being what that Cardinal initiatory thing leads to; is like trying to climb a ladder and go up as high as possible whereas Taurus has a tendency more to want to maintain the status quo for the most part.
Mo: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense.
Mo: And then like with Virgo, because I feel like there’s a difficulty with understanding a Mercury-ruled sign, and a mutable sign as having Earthly qualities. I just think it’s the constant refinement of medium you’re working with. I feel like I see that with Virgo. And there is some of that with Taurus, like the interest in refinement, but I think the Venus rulership, it’s more about how that experience feels to you versus what could maximize whatever quality. Because I don’t think Taurus is necessarily looking for the maximum of something or interested in playing with different permutations of a situation, they just know what feels good or sensations or materials. Like, look good together, feel good together… I actually find with Taurus placement, it’s more about what’s comfortable or feels good to them rather than maybe this more idealised form of beauty. I’m thinking of Venus’s fall in Virgo, for example, just striving for this experience that might be hard to capture.
Pao: Yeah, I think that ties- It brings me back again to the fact that Venus is domiciled in Taurus and then the Moon is exalted there. When I think about just the Moon, yeah, it’s our emotions but it’s our bodies. It’s our physical bodies, and it’s what restores us and re-energises us. And I feel like there can be a lot of overlap between what the Moon likes and what Venus likes. So I think you’re absolutely right, I think there can be that focus with Taurus around what’s gonna feel good for me? What do I need to do so I could bring the most to the table? Right? I think the other thing, too, that distinguishes Taurus a bit from Capricorn and Virgo is because it’s a Venus-ruled sign, even though it’s an Earth sign and it’s doesn’t have those same social associations as Libra does, it’s still Venus. Venus is still about bringing people together, it’s still socialising, it’s still diplomacy. And so I’m not surprised when I see a lot of Taurus placements in folks who are community organisers, myself included.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. Going back to a lot of that contrast, and it seems like that’s coming up with a Virgo being a Mercury-ruled sign versus Taurus, is sometimes things like Mercury in Virgo in particular gets into the details and is focused on details and specifics, and also things like mathematics and whether things add up on paper in terms of the numbers and in terms of discrete mathematical qualities. Versus for Taurus ruled by Venus, it’s much more about things like aesthetics and the difference between if something is aesthetically pleasing or if something is supportive in terms of the senses. And the five senses seem to be super important to Taurus especially the senses of taste, touch, smell, even sight, and even hearing to some extent. And I think maybe that could be tied in with you bringing up the exaltation of the Moon having its exaltation in the sign of Taurus. And one of the primary fundamental significations of the moon in ancient astrology was the body. So the idea of Taurus being connected with the body and having this more sense-based component that has to do with the five senses that are all physical extensions of our body and is how we experience things in the world through the physical senses, I think that says a lot about a lot of the underlying meaning of Taurus and why that would be different from, let’s say, Mercury in Virgo which tends to be more mathematical or more abstract in a way that’s not quite focused on those sensations as much.
Mo: Yeah, that’s a very good point. Because that also makes me think about Capricorn and its relationship to the Moon, and how the Moon is in detriment or exile there. When I think of the axis that Capricorn and Cancer are on, it’s like two different ways of achieving comfort or security, and I feel like– how do I put this? It’s like Taurus has the right… It has that nice… It’s not so dry that it’s antithetical to what the Moon wants to accomplish, but Capricorn maybe has this dryness and this Saturnian focus of protecting against threats and putting yourself in challenging situations to achieve security that maybe seems not constructive to what the Moon would like to do in maybe Cancer or can do very well in Taurus.
CB: Yeah, that’s a really good point that in the original stoic qualities of the signs of the zodiac, that all of the Earth signs are dry and that’s opposite to all of the water signs, which are said to be wet. And so that’s part of the dynamic between Earth signs opposing water signs in the 12 signs the zodiac. But if you were to do a sort of ranking there in terms of which signs are, let’s say, the driest of the three Earth signs, I think maybe it would end up being something like Capricorn ruled by Saturn would be the driest, then Virgo, and then Taurus because Taurus being ruled by Venus and having the exaltation of the Moon has this softness to it that is not as harsh or not as extreme in terms of the Earth quality as those other two Earth signs get progressively.
All right. That’s bringing up a bunch of keywords. We’ve touched on one that just has to do with the speed of things and the slowness or fixed quality of Taurus. But other ones that we’ve started to get into have to do with the more material qualities of it. One of the ones that comes up that I always think is interesting is there seems to be a real natural component to Taurus. Of all of the signs, it’s one of the ones that seems to be most connected with nature and things like agriculture or plants or gardening, cultivating and different things like that. I want to say it’s not that there are other signs that are not like that, but with Taurus, that definitely seems to be a notable component, the sort of natural side of Taurus.
Pao: I think some of- Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Mo.
Mo: You go ahead.
Pao: I was just gonna say real quick. Some of that definitely comes from the season, right? Like Taurus’s association with spring and you know, the flowers are coming out. Actually right here right now in New York, it’s raining. And I know that coming out of this rain, it’s gonna be super, super green out.
CB: Right. Yeah, I was just walking around my neighbourhood and all of the tulips are just in full bloom right now right in the middle of spring. And yeah, it’s really beautiful. That’s a really great image in and of itself to think about Taurus as a Venus-ruled sign and Venus being the sign of beauty or the archetype of beauty in some sense. But seeing beauty in nature in particular, and the spring season is definitely in the middle of the spring season when some of that comes out the most just in terms of all the flowers being in full bloom.
Mo: Yeah. Another thing that at least I’ve noticed ever since moving up to Toronto, because I’m from Texas originally, you know it’s spring when the robins are out and you see their eggs and everything. I also just think of fecundity and the fact that it’s during this time that a lot of animals are either coming out of hibernation or they’re coming back from migrating and they’re coming to mate. And so I think that reproductive sense like the cycles-of-nature type thing, that’s something that I think about with Taurus as well.
CB: Yeah, and just being a sign in which for things to grow, that things are more able to grow and develop, and for new life to find a nurturing environment in which it could flourish.
Pao: Yeah. I also love the naturalistic significations because this is a nice contrast that Taurus has to Libra that I kind of mentioned earlier because they’re the two Venus-ruled signs. I’m just thinking about that contrast between maybe Earth and air. So air is more abstract and idealized, like, “These are the principles.” I can think of Aristotle’s perfect forms and stuff when I think of Libra and Venus.
CB: I was thinking of Libra as the person that would like to go to an art gallery, whereas Taurus would be the person that wants to go out and walk through a botanical garden and see the beauty of nature.
Pao: Exactly. That’s good. It’s like the sculptures versus the arboretum or the botanical garden. That’s a good way of thinking about it.
CB: Yeah. Let me see. So, other significations that were in this cluster of naturalistic ones; cultivating people with a green thumb, feelings of rootedness, flowers, nature-loving, agriculture, husbandry, soil, the notion of something being organic. Taurus seems like one of the most organic signs and that could be connected also with other concepts like the locally grown food or the farm to table movement of businesses or restaurants trying to source ingredients locally. And different qualities like that. There’s the notion of things being organic. I always think it’s funny how many people with super a lot of Taurus placements just enjoy gardening and enjoy being out in the soil and working with plants and helping to nurture or grow plants in some form or another.
Mo: Yeah. One thing that I think of, and I’m wondering if this is a consequence of Uranus’s movement through Taurus because I feel like it’s giving us like a seven-year crash course on what does it mean to revisit or rethink Taurean principles. And something that I’ve been thinking is how during parts of the pandemic people were rediscovering how to have more of that intimate relationship with the things that they’re consuming. So it’s like, “I want to plant the things that I need to make maybe my salad,” or learn the process of making bread, which was a fun thing that people were learning to do. And I feel having that relationship of maybe farm to table or garden to table is something that we are revisiting because we’re being forced to by some of the movement of Uranus through Taurus. So I definitely see that as a thing.
Pao: Oh my God, I’m thinking that every pandemic hobby that I could think of in my head, I feel like I could associate with Uranus and Taurus because yeah, people getting into plants and succulents and gardening. Even just walking outside and going on walks and enjoying parks, this was a big boom for local parks. I’d never had seen them so busy before until the pandemic.
CB: Yeah. Or like baking bread, or people were doing arts and crafts and stuff like that. Yeah, there was a tonne of stuff like that during the pandemic. And then one of the things we have also noticed is since its Uranus, there’s a lot of technology being brought to bear on the idea of food and the idea of technological advancements in pushing food and the consummation of food forward. And one of the major changes in revolutions that’s happening really rapidly over the past few years is different types of artificial meats coming onto the market and that being a new thing that really has the potential of changing a very major thing in terms of food worldwide. It’s just plant-based foods and things like that, or substitutions for meat. It’s been an interesting development lately.
Mo: Yeah. Another thing I’m thinking of is I’ve been seeing all these contractions on social media that allow people who live in apartments or in places that don’t get a lot of light to actually start growing their own food and things like that. These weird light sort of contraptions or these… I wish I had the Twitter link. I think I’d bookmarked it somewhere. But it was really interesting because as someone who recently relocated to an apartment where I no longer have a garden, I was just like, “Oh, I used to grow these herbs, like mint and catnip and all this other stuff. But now I can’t.” And I think having these new ways of potentially growing food even though like a lot of us don’t necessarily have access to a plot of land where we can do that has also been a thing on top of having these alternatives for meat.
CB: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Are there any chart examples that come to mind that you would either have written down that would be relevant here at this point? I’m trying to look through our list. There may not necessarily be, but I’m just trying to think of if there’s any that are relevant in terms of some of this.
Pao: In terms of gardening, I can’t think off the top of my head.
CB: Yeah, I don’t have a lot of famous gardeners on my list for some reason.
Pao: I don’t think I know any famous gardeners, period. [laughs] I don’t know that.
CB: All right, that’s okay. Let me go back to my keyword list for Taurus here and just pull up another group of keywords that I wanted to make sure that we focused on and mentioned. All right, here it is. We’ve talked about food, cooking chefs, aesthetics a little bit, art and beauty which we’ll come back to. Some of the other keywords that came in on Twitter were things like material, luscious, sumptuous, comfort-seeking, sometimes excess, lush, luxurious or luxuriating, soft, comfort, simple pleasures, pleasure-seeking. And actually, let’s stop right there because that actually reminds me. One of the qualities I sometimes notice with Taurus placements or that I associate it with is this underlying sense sometimes that once they’ve found something that they like or something that they really enjoy, they want to do that thing over and over again, and not necessarily venture outside of doing that because sometimes when you try something new, you might end up not liking it and then not having a bad time like, let’s say, food or something like that for example and trying something new. But if you hated it, then there’ll be thinking the entire time, like they could have instead had that one thing that they really like. And so sometimes that causes them to not venture outside of their own comfort zone because they just get so much pleasure in enjoying the things that are familiar to them and that are comfortable to them. That’s really where they thrive the most. That can be really a good thing just in terms of the manner of being, but then also sometimes some of the drawback can be just a reluctance sometimes to reach outside and to explore the unknown.
Pao: Yeah. I can definitely relate to that. I’ve lived here now in New York for a little less than two months and I’m in one of the world’s biggest cities, and I probably go to this– I could count on one hand the same restaurants in my neighborhood that I go into, and ordering the exact same thing. I tweeted about it saying like, “Oh my god, I think this pizzeria and this person who sells empanadas are just seeing me every day now.” [laughs] Yes, but I can definitely relate to that.
I think some of the luxuriousness and the materialism that gets associated- Again, it goes back to just like, okay, Venus is domiciled there and then the Moon is exalted there. And I do think that if the Moon is really about what’s going to restore us and rejuvenate our bodies, sometimes I think there’s so much of that so that’s just going to overlap. It’s some Venus thing. But I think with every Taurus placement, it’s going to be slightly different. Yeah, some of us will get rejuvenated by treat yourself days where we’re hanging out at the spa and getting our nails done. For other Taurus placements, some might be working out at the gym. Or other Taurus placements might be you know, making a spreadsheet. These are all real life examples for myself for things that really restore me. [laughs]
Mo: Yeah. Pao, it’s funny that when you were saying, “Yeah, I go to the same few restaurants and order the same thing,” I was like your fixed stellium is screaming at me. Because I don’t know, I feel like even though I do have an Aries-Venus ruling my Taurus, I do need variety. It’s like a weird cyclical thing. For example, I’m one of those people who once I find maybe five or six songs, I’ll just listen to those on repeat, because I don’t want to hear anything else. They just get me in the mood and they allow me to, I guess… Because I like listening to music when I work so it’s like these get me in a mood where I can work. And I just need to listen to these songs on this playlist on repeat until I get sick of it. I kind of have the same thing with food but it’s more like the way I’ll achieve the Venus and Aries variety is I want to have the same dish, just at a different restaurant. [laughs] That’s how I do it. That’s how I do it because it’s like, “Oh, I’ve never been to this restaurant before!” And even though all the stuff on the menu looks enticing, I already know what I like. I just want to see how you do it to see if I like it.
CB: I like that. It’s like that quality of that general idea of repeating the things that they like, and the likes being very well established and well defined. That can, like you were saying, it can be food, but it can also be music. It can show up in a number of different areas in a person’s life. My sister’s birthday was yesterday and she was a Taurus Sun in Mercury. And I just remember when we were growing up she had certain movies that she would just watch over and over again that were her favourite movies of like Disney movies like Little Mermaid or something like that just on repeat. And you would think that at a certain point you would just stop wanting to do the same thing over again, but no, there’s not necessarily a limit because that which has been established as something that you like or that’s enjoyable, being able to find contentment by sitting with that endlessly or on repeat, you know, there’s not necessarily an end to that enjoyment per se.
Mo: Yeah, I know. It’s funny because my sister is also a Taurus, but she’s like a first decan Taurus and she has a Taurus Mercury as well, but she has a Gemini-Venus. Ironically, I feel like it’s also because she’s a very Cardinal chart. Like, she has more of a need for variety than I do because I’m more of a mutable chart. But it’s interesting how still both of us have the same, I guess, hobbies on rotation that we both cycle back to. And it’s interesting watching how her as a first decan Taurus is versus me as a last decan Taurus is, you know? And I feel like for me, I’m a lot more– I don’t want to say conservative, but just because of the subtle Saturnian influence, there’s more of this need to indulge in the same things because I know that they will just never disappoint. Whereas for her, I feel like because there’s more of that Mercurial influence, there’s like, “But what if I like something else that’s just kind of working for her?”
CB: Yeah, because Mercury rules both two mutable signs, Gemini and Virgo, and it does have that quality almost like a bee or something of going around to many different things and finding enjoyment in variety to some extent. And that being a source of strength or drawing things by trying out new things. But yeah, Taurus is a little bit the opposite when it comes to that.
Pao: And you know, we’ve been comparing the difference between Taurus and Libra because of the cardinal and the air of Libra. A lot of my girlfriends are Libra placements, whether it’s Libra Suns or Libra risings, and it’s just funny to see how much they gravitate more toward variety in food, in fashion. Even when it comes to growing up, it’s my Libra friends who would have a crush on everyone. And it’s all different types of people. [laughs] Whereas me with these really strong Taurus placements are like, “No, I’m probably gonna end up liking the same person for the 10th plus year.” [laughs] It’s always gonna be the same type of person to you.
CB: Right, different variations of the same person?
Mo: Yeah, that’s something I’ve had to come to terms with recently because I’m like, “Yeah, my Aries-Venus likes variety. But nope, I have a type apparently. And I feel like, again, like growing up it’s just been like, “Wow, the fixity is so strong,” and I just didn’t realize it. [laughs] It’s just been staring me in the face.
CB: That’s interesting underlying concept then because we all know that idea of like having a type or when somebody has a very defined type like what they like in relationships, but that that could be applied to different categories in a person’s life. And it’s kind of like doing the same thing when it comes to other things of subjective appreciation of having a type and knowing what your type is. And there being a strength to that in some ways of knowing what you like and having that sort of predefined, that that can be a strength just as much as a limitation, let’s say.
Mo: Yeah. I guess I do want to contrast Taurus with Gemini a little bit because I remember having a reading with Amaya Rourke and it’s just stuck in my brain where she told me that having Taurus placements or going through the Taurus archetype is like establishing things. And then you can think of Gemini as like evolution. Because it’s like, “Okay, we have the thing already. What happens if you change this condition a bit, or change that condition a bit?” It’s almost like unfortunately, we have to go through selective pressure, and then it’s through Gemini that we have to get the, “Okay, it’s time to adapt. We can’t do the same thing.” Because as much as we would like the illusion of stability, and I think this is a lesson for all fixed signs, not just Taurus because a lot of these traits of Taurus that we’ve discussed definitely apply to fixed signs because I have so many fixed signs in my life. But I feel like it’s that Taurus Gemini transition where the need to adapt after doing the same thing for so long becomes more apparent.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. So the corrective quality of Gemini that follows after Taurus is just teaching you about variety sometimes being a good thing, or it’s okay not to go super in depth and stay with one thing. It’s okay to do– shallow is not the right word– but somewhat more shallow or whatever the other key word is for that, you know, take to social things or to trying new things or to learning new things or what have you. That you don’t have to stick with just one thing permanently for the entirety of your life.
Mo: Yeah.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Let me bring this back up because I don’t know if I got through all of the significations in that last cluster. Where did I stop? Somewhere around here; simple pleasures, pleasure-seeking. I’ve been getting reacquainted with that over the past several months and somebody with Taurus really reminded me of the simple pleasures of sensory things. And the appreciation for that that sometimes other signs lack I think is really important and it’s something that stands out about Taurus in the full embodiment and enjoyment of things that have to do with the senses and that being an important part of life sometimes. It’s one of the things I think Taurus does the best at maybe amongst many of the signs and really giving you an appreciation of.
Pao: Yeah. When I was looking at the notes and reading the keywords, I think somewhere else down that list someone wrote Basic, and you do see that a lot in memes about Taurus. [laughs] It’s that they’re very basic. And I think it does go back to the simple pleasures. Yeah, I do like basic things like wearing leggings and drinking pumpkin spice, lattes and stuff. But I think it does come back to, again, the association of Taurus really being embodied and really honing in on those five senses. And so, for me, my favorite way that I start every morning is by just sitting there for like five minutes in my chair and really just tuning in to like, what am I hearing right now? What am I feeling in my body? What am I hearing? And then just being able to hear the birds chirp, that’s the kind of stuff that you’ll never ever really notice once you really get your day started and you’re just so busy with everything else. Yeah, that’s very Taurean to me.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. Cuz one of the significations that somebody put on Twitter is they said, “Bougie,” and I wasn’t sure if that actually fit that’s why I wrote under that, “I tend to think of Taurus as more basic, actually, as a contrast.” But what is the definition of that? Can you define it for me what basic means? As a piece of like 2010s slang, I think it’s been used over the past 10 years.
Pao: Just like generic, it’s stuff that doesn’t make you stand out. It’s stuff that everybody does. The concept of basic is kind of funny to me just because… Sorry, there’s a lot to unpack because I’m also thinking about weird antiscia things, because Taurus is technically in antiscia with Leo. So the idea is that because they share the same amount of light compared to the solstice, they’re like each other and shadow a little bit. And it’s funny because I feel like some of the bougie pretentiousness is something that both Leo and Taurus share. But I think it’s more about having a personal standard or a personal quality that you know you like and you’re not going to compromise on that. But I feel like calling Taurus basic is kind of reflective, ironically, of the contra-antiscias. Like we’re each other in opposite in a weird way, between Aquarius and Taurus, which to me is like- You know, Aquarius doesn’t necessarily want to do the same things as other people. You know what I mean? Whereas Taurus, I don’t think Taurus cares if they’re doing the same things as other people or not. They don’t.
CB: Yeah, because other people like those things because it’s been established as that’s something that’s enjoyable or pleasurable and so of course, lots of people like it. And therefore, why not? Also like that thing I think is Taurus’s rationalization. I looked up Urban Dictionary just to get a definition just for scientific purposes here but it says, “Basic; only interested in things mainstream, popular, and trending. And as an example, it says, “Oh, my God. Bae is so basic. All she wants to do is drink pumpkin spice lattes and play Candy Crush.”
Mo: They’re enjoyable. Why get mad at people for liking things, you know?
CB: No. Over the past several months, I’ve gotten a better appreciation of that of like, the things that sometimes have a beauty and simplicity and an elegance and simplicity, that’s so actually important. And somebody might derive it as being not unique or not trendsetting or something like that enough, but learning to enjoy those things is actually really interesting in and of itself sort of unique thing that’s worth appreciating on many levels.
Pao: I’m so glad, Mo, that you mentioned the antiscia. Just for those who are listening who don’t know very much about antiscia or contra-antiscia– Well, one, you should go learn about it. But two, all of the fixed signs only have antiscia and contra-antiscia with each other. Which I think is very loud. But for me with my chart, it’s hard to unpack because I do have very strong Leo placements and I have strong very Taurus placements and so they’re antiscia to each other. But on the bougie signification, I do think it does have to do with some of that antiscia relationship. I get that projected on me a lot. Like, I posted a photo recently. I was wearing $15 pairs of jeans and a crop top that I got for free. And I got comments on it being like, “Oh my God, you look so fancy.” And I was like, “What?” [laughs] And I’ve been called bougie so many times like oh my god, I’m a regular thrift store shopper. I don’t associate myself as bougie at all.”
Mo: Yeah, the bougie thing is funny because I think we can dive into some chart examples that are contrary. But yeah, I know. It’s interesting because I live with a Scorpio stellium who’s always accusing me of being very materialistic and what have you. It’s just like, I like nice things! Sorry. [laughs]
CB: And I think what it is is that once it’s been established– because I was actually rewatching a little bit of my previous discussion where we did a condensed version of this on the signs of the zodiac in two episodes with Austin and Kelly years ago, Austin was trying to describe this and he was saying it’s just tied in with if Taurus– I think my interpretation is that Taurus can like something that’s very simple and basic if it happens to be one of those things that they really like. And it actually makes me think of like, have you guys ever seen those documentaries or those YouTube videos about people that will only eat one thing? There’s this one guy that will only eat potatoes covered in cheese and he’s been eating that for like 20 years and that’s his thing. It’s like that’s all he eats. Or people that have a thing like that, I think sometimes a Taurus placements that can be boiled down to something very simple as long as it’s what they like. It doesn’t necessarily have to be extravagant in and of itself, the core thing is just that that’s what they like and that’s what they find comfort and reassurance and nourishment in.
The point that Austin made was that once exposed to something that’s higher level, that can be tricky because then sometimes if Taurus latches on to that, they try some super expensive, nice food thing. And that becomes their new favorite thing that can be a problem, because then after that point it can be hard for them to then lower themselves back down to a more realistic level. But they can get more attached to doing only the more extravagant things if they establish that that’s the thing that they like the most.
Pao: Yeah. That’s also funny because the slang word bougie comes from the word bourgeois or bourgeoisie. I’m thinking of two people, so I think it’s a Karl Marx [laughs] if you want to share his chart. Oh, my God. Once I learned that Karl Marx was a Taurus, I think my whole perspective on the sign not necessarily changed, just because I was thinking about my own views about money and things as a teenager and how I feel like people don’t share resources enough, and maybe the governmental structures that be are too selfish. It’s funny because I remember being accused of being a little Marxist but now that I’ve seen his chart, it makes sense.
CB: Right, so I just pulled it up and he’s actually at solar eclipse in Taurus. So he has the North Node at a Taurus, the Moon at 11 Taurus, the Sun at 13 Taurus, and Venus at 27 Taurus in his birth chart.
Mo: Yeah. And I love that he’s a solar eclipse chart in that middle decan of Taurus, because it definitely captures his legacy being cemented as someone who effectively articulated the power struggle between people getting rightfully compensated for their labour. And I feel like that’s a huge internal struggle that a lot of Taureans have. It’s like, “Okay, how much am I getting for what I’m putting in?” And knowing what you’re worth almost is kind of- I don’t know about you, Pao, but this is something that I’ve noticed with other Taureans in my life, but it’s also some something that I’m constantly revisiting for myself.
Pao: Yeah, going back to Karl Marx’s chart and when you read the Communist manifesto, what it ultimately boils down to is he’s envisioning a world where there’s no capital anymore. Like there’s just going to be no more money. That’s really fascinating to think of, especially when you’re thinking about Taurus’s significations, and that’s why you can’t overly simplify it as, “Oh, Taurus, those are materialistic.” But there is something very much about the material with Taurus, that’s for sure. And you can just see it in all of Marx’s writing.
When you also look at Marx’s personal life, he struggled a lot financially because he really was trying to make a living as a philosopher, right? But his wife comes from a very old money noble German family and both her and her family are actually really quite supportive of Marx’s teachings and so yeah, he depended a lot on his wife and his wife’s family for that support.
CB: I remember hearing at one point that that solar eclipse that he was born under happened to pass over Russia or China or a greater part of Asia, which ended up being important or notable in terms of the influence of Marx’s philosophy on some of the countries that would later adopt communism, which is kind of a cool astrological trivia thing.
Mo: Wow, that’s impressive. The only person I think of is Che Guevara, who I think has the Sun, Venus, and Chiron in Taurus in the second house. I mean, it’s a berated time, but it’s the time… Do you have that or do you want me to give it to you?
CB: Yeah, that’s one of my core examples that I use for ruler of the Ascendant in the 12th I believe. So I’ve got his chart, and I think that time’s pretty good. So Aries rising and Sun and Venus in Taurus in the second. What about his biography does that make you think of?
Mo: Well, for one, he’s known for his role in the Cuban revolution and just other revolutions across Latin America to adopt more of these communist structures. There are obviously other things in his chart that speak to this but I think he’s another good example of a Taurus who didn’t necessarily embody those principles of, “Oh, I just want to have money and resources for myself.”
CB: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Other ones, to get into more of like an aesthetic one, we famously don’t have a birth time for him but somebody, Nick Dagan Best, was reminding me today that Kanye West has Venus and Taurus, to get back to some of the aesthetic stuff that comes along with Taurus, is that’s one of any criticisms that can be leveled against Kanye West. Like, the thing that everyone has to give him is just his appreciation for aesthetics both in terms of sound and just being able to identify sounds that are aesthetically pleasing, but then also bringing in artistic and visual components into his music despite all his antics. It’s because his attenuation to aesthetics is so good, that’s sort of why people have been able to overlook other things and just focus on… “But his music is so good,” basically is usually the response.
Mo: Yeah. Also, he has a really good eye. And I know a lot of people don’t like to admit it, but he has influenced a lot of people in high fashion, but also just like streetwear. Which is really interesting. I know right now what’s funny is that with some of these things moving through Taurus. I’ve been keeping up with Kanye and the Kardashian drama, which is really interesting, but I think right now he’s supposedly in Japan working on fashion-related things. So it’ll be really interesting to see what he does the rest of this eclipse cycle as the rest of his Taurus placements get hit.
Pao: I remember several years back. Yeah, I do think he’s known overall for high fashion but I do think it’s funny that one of his flubs in one of the shows that he got most criticism about was he came out with this whole new fashion line where everyone was just wearing beige. It was just different variations of beige, remember that one?
Mo: Okay, everybody clowned him. But guess what? Literally, the chokehold that neutrals and beigers have had on the fashion industry since the 2010s is insane. The designs look ridiculous but you have all these designers. Obviously he’s friends with the creative director of Balenciaga, he’s got his collaboration with Gap, but there are so many brands trying to copy the designs that he made that everybody clowned him for when they first came out. So it’s kind of weird.
CB: Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting that that’s almost become over the past decade more of his thing and his interest and his focus seems like it shifted more towards fashion and to art and things like that. And to a certain extent, almost the music is just his vehicle for getting to do some of those artistic projects that he wants to be able to do and wants to be recognized for and known for.
Mo: Yeah. And I love that if we think about some of the basic archetypes that we were thinking about for Taurus, and I would say that certain elements of his Mercury placement especially, just thinking about Austin describing that decan as a string of prayer beads or like just that connotation of prayer. I just think about some of his aesthetic as being either like someone who’s kind of an ascetic or someone who’s very minimalist or they’re like, “Okay, I’m literally dressing like I’m someone who’s going on this spiritual pilgrimage where I deprive myself of all the obvious significations of opulence.” That’s become a huge part of his aesthetic and I think that other people have tried emulating that through certain facets of their design, and it’s really interesting to think about that.
CB: Yeah. I think it has to do with how his Venus is configured in the chart. So here’s the chart. For the audio listeners, the placements that are relevant he has Mars at 1 Taurus and Venus at 2 Taurus and Mercury at 26 Taurus. He has a three-planet stellium. This is an untimed chart because his birth time is still unknown. There’s fake time circulating, but his actual time has never been confirmed at this point. But look at how Venus is configured. It has an opposition to Uranus at eight degrees of Scorpio, and that’s where you get some of the unconventional or the tendency towards avant-garde type stuff in some of his fashion. But then also with what you’re just talking about with some of the sparsity, the square with Saturn. So Venus is at 2 Taurus and it’s squaring Saturn at 12 degrees of Leo. So it’s got a sort of T square that it’s all involved there. And I think that’s where some of those qualities you were talking about… It wasn’t simplicity, but what was the term that you were using?
Mo: It was kind of ascetic, it’s got this asceticism vibe going on. It’s very minimal.
CB: For sure. So that’s interesting. There was a model, I believe, that one of you wanted to mention or use as a chart example, right?
Mo: Was it Naomi Campbell?
CB: Yeah.
Mo: Okay.
CB: Let me share chart. Here it is. So Naomi Campbell… Looks like the time is rounded, it’s 1:00 AM. I don’t know if that’s a verified birth time or not. But since the Ascendant is so late at 29 Capricorn, the Ascendant could change signs so just to be aware of in terms of the house placements. But she has Mercury conjunct Saturn at 13 and 14 degrees of Taurus. And Mercury is actually stationing direct, it looks like, on the day she was born.
Mo: Oh, wow. I mean, what’s interesting is that regardless of if she’s an Aquarius rising or a Capricorn rising, it’s Mercury conjoin what would be her chart ruler, which is kind of interesting to me. I also think about because I think there would also just be this association between Mercury and her Saturn and Taurus with the fifth house regardless, just because it’s either in the fifth house or the fifth house ruler’s there, and I just think of, I guess, her approach to being a model. And I know that like her, Tyra Banks has also been on various, I guess, shows or competitions where people are aspiring to be models and it’s almost her weird way of giving back. So that middle decan of Taurus does have connotations of giving back to people or supporting people, but she’s doing it by being very critical of their approach to modeling or their approach to presenting themselves. How do I put this? So people who have especially hard Mercury Saturn aspects, but probably more obvious with the conjunction, have this very precise, maybe clinical diagnostic approach. And I feel like that’s part of her coaching or mentoring approach for allowing these younger models to develop themselves into being, I guess, appropriate for the industry. So it very much shows with her approach to, I guess, giving back, I don’t know.
CB: Yeah. Mercury Saturn and hard aspects are very good at seeing the flaws in things. And usually people see that externally as like the person constantly negating or pointing out the flaws in other things, but what’s not usually visible is it’s also internalized as the person’s constantly seeing the flaws in their own things and it’s coming from that internal place as well, where they have a tendency to focus on the negatives, but sometimes that can be applied really constructively because once you’ve focused in and eliminated all the negative stuff, sometimes that allows you to truly excel in some area that you might not otherwise.
Pao: And I wonder, since Saturn is her Ascendant ruler, how much of that is also projected onto her? Because growing up I constantly felt like there was just so much negative press against Naomi Campbell, whereas Tyra was always kind of touted as more like that good girl archetype. And then the media and the tabloids constantly would pit them against each other.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good point. We actually do have a birth time for Tyra, although she doesn’t have any chart placement. So I’m going to stop us from going off on that direction because that would be a whole other episode. All right. So just looking through my list of other examples, but I’m not sure. Well, one actually that brings to mind one example that I have used in the past, which is George Lucas, who has Taurus rising and he has the Sun in Taurus and Venus in Taurus and Mercury in Taurus. And his Mercury is also like the previous example we were just looking at, which is that it’s just a day away from stationing direct. So that’s a Taurus stellium right in the first house. And he of course became a famous movie director and he created the Star Wars series, which just exploded when it first came out in 1977 and became wildly popular. And then later did Indiana Jones, which was another successful series. But one of the things with George Lucas as a director that he did really well that was only apparent if he had like a much broader history in film or overview in film is that he just saw a lot of components from earlier films and earlier series that he liked and then he kind of repackaged it into a new thing with Star Wars. And then everybody loved it, but not realizing that it wasn’t necessarily completely new or fresh per se, he was just taking some of the best bits from earlier things and then remixing it into something new that was like a super version of that. And that actually reminds me because Kanye actually does the same thing, and that’s what he became known for originally was like taking samples from earlier songs and then noticing and being able to see like the value that there was like something there, even in that little snippet of let’s say two or three seconds of music and then taking that and turning it into like an entire song or turning that into the background sort of beat or something in an entire song. So there might be a similar quality there where Taurus is able to identify things that are really good aesthetically and does a good job of repackaging them sometimes and remaking them into something new.
Pao: I think not just aesthetic too, because for me when I reflect on just some of the projects and the work I’m proudest of, it’s stuff that I didn’t think of from thin air, it’s something that I copied and adapted to fit the situation and the setting. For example, when I was still in Hawaii, one of the projects I worked on was launching citizenship workshops to help people apply for US citizenship, and it was something that really hadn’t been done before to a large scale in Hawaii. I got that all from different groups who were doing it in California and Las Vegas, it wasn’t something I completely made up. I’m not out here trying to reinvent the wheel, but I can figure out ways where it’s okay adapting it uniquely to Hawaii’s situation. But yeah, I totally feel that.
CB: I love that. So that’ll take us back to one of our previous points and maybe we found a new aspect of that, which is one of our key phrases then is that something doesn’t have to be new or unique in order for it to be valuable. And maybe that’s an underlying sentence that is core to the Taurus archetype.
Mo: Yeah, no. I love that you guys brought that up because I’m just thinking about how I feel my Taurus Sun manifests in my own chart. No, I’m just thinking because okay, so for context, I used to work in a lab that studies neurodegenerative disease. And I think what we would do is we would take the proteins that we think cause neurodegenerative disease and literally like inject… Part of the surgery I would have to do, this is bringing out in the Sun ruling the sixth house, ruling those animals, and also the surgery itself. We’d take that material from these old brains and we would inject it into the mouse brains, and we would have a sort of mini model of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or whatever, and so that’s an interesting manifestation. But also I feel like it’s reflective of kind of my life as a science person because that’s what I do in my day job or in my typical life. And so just thinking of the whole concept of what is research and science, but taking old ideas and just finding new ways to study them, and therefore I guess enhancing our understanding of how things work or why they work.
CB: Yeah, I like that. That’s a really good point.
Pao: Could I pull up a chart example or have you pull one up for me? I really want to talk about Imelda Marcos’s chart because she has a lot of strong Taurus placements and I’ve studied her biography quite a bit. And I believe she does have confirmed birth time on Astro-Databank. But she was a former first lady of the Philippines that still to this day has the world record for most number of shoes.
CB: That’s amazing. Is this correct? The chart?
Pao: Yeah, I believe so. I thought she might have been a Cancer rising.
CB: It’s possible, I just pulled this up from very old files from my friend Nick Dagan Best, but I haven’t checked. Let me check astro.com and see what the current is. But either way, she has the Moon in Taurus and the north node and Venus in Taurus, right?
Pao: Yes. So on the point we were just talking about about reinventing the wheel and just like not trying to create something new, that very, very much is her. As first lady of the Philippines, she really wanted to elevate the Philippines just like some of these other Asian countries that were starting to boom like Korea and Japan and Singapore. And so she really looked to a lot of those countries for inspiration for better or worse, I think. One of the other things she’s like really known for sadly is her and her husband had embezzled so much money from the government that still hasn’t been recovered to this day, which really drove the country and the vast majority of its citizens into dire poverty all while they were enriching themselves. That’s how she amassed this gigantic shoe collection. I think another really tragic thing that happened while she was first lady was one of the things she wanted to do was really erect great works of art, including buildings, especially when it was aligning with some kind of sporting event or some diplomat visiting. She really wanted to show like, “Oh, the Philippines is this up-and-coming country.” And sadly, because she would rush through these projects, construction workers were dying at really terrible rates while trying to build these beautiful works of art. And the other thing, she’s a former beauty queen, there’s just so much Taurus with her and the not-so pretty parts of Taurus as well.
CB: Yeah. So here’s the correct chart from Astro-Databank. So she has Taurus or she has Cancer rising and the Sun’s right on the Ascendant. So it’s probably switching over to a day chart at this point. And then so Cancer rising, the Ascendant is ruled by the Moon, which is at one degree of Taurus in the 11th whole sign house up there with the north node at 20 Taurus and Venus at 23 Taurus. So the ruler of her Ascendant is actually in Taurus, which is one of the sometimes things that can make a certain sign of the Zodiac more dominant or especially more dominant as a character trait, is either having that as your rising sign or having the ruler of the Ascendant placed in that sign. That’s a good example. Go ahead.
Pao: Oh no, I think I’m done with that. I’m curious. She’s still alive actually, and she really hasn’t… I mean, she has been charged with some things, but in terms of just whether she’s going to get jail time because of her age, I really don’t think there’s going to unfortunately be justice in this case, but I’m looking how that north node like, “Oh, I wonder how these eclipses are going to affect her.” And her grandson’s running for president right now actually.
Mo: Oh, that’s interesting.
Pao: Oh, shoot, yeah, the election’s coming up. It’s in a few days.
CB: Well, yeah, and we’ve got those eclipses going on in Taurus and Scorpio right now, so that’s pretty big. All right, I’m just looking through other chart examples, but I don’t have any that are jumping out that would be really good right now, or there’s any others that either of you wanted to mention?
Mo: I mean, I kind of want to talk about Bob Dylan’s chart a little bit. Because sometimes what shocked me about his chart when I first looked at it, because I just think, “Oh, Gemini Sun, Sag rising, but then I didn’t realize he had a giant Taurus still in in his sixth whole sign house.
CB: Here it is. So sag rising and then Saturn at 20, Moon at 21, Uranus at 26, and Jupiter at 29 Taurus.
Mo: Yeah. And seeing his chart ruler being at the end of Taurus and I just think of when I see that Taurus stellium, especially because it’s like a proper stellium in that last decan of Taurus, it’s like, “Okay, both your sect light and your chart ruler are here, so this is so important. And I think it’s interesting. One thing I’m not sure, how much of his discography of this is true, but I know that like other artists of his time, one thing he did was popularize, again, songs that were old already, so folk songs that were common. And I feel like a lot of his songs that are well known are actually those songs, at least the ones that still persist to this day, since there are lots of Gen Zers apparently who don’t know who Bob Dylan is now. And then another thing I think of is just because all of that is in the sixth house, how a lot of his songs, especially the ones that he’s more known for are like those that are tied to not necessarily labor movements, but just some kind of protesty, uprising kind of energy. It’s like I’m providing the soundtrack to people’s feelings about maybe the ways that they’ve been exploited by the powers that be or something like that. Because I know he had a lot of songs that he wrote maybe during Vietnam and all these other factors that were going on during like the countercultural movement of the time. So that’s something I think about with some of his Taurus placements.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good point. And that ruler of the Ascendant in Taurus is conjunct Uranus pretty closely there within three degrees, which adds some of that component. Yeah, I like that. I’ve seen some people with Sag rising and chart ruler in Taurus and doing work and wanting to work with the hands in some way either in an aesthetic sense or in a healing sense, which is where some of the sixth house stuff comes in or sometimes a crossover between both. But I noticed that part of the similarity or the crossover, the commonality, was just wanting to do something with the hands that was material and working with something or working with people, but in a very embodied way.
Mo: Yeah, definitely. I’m trying to think of other chart examples that kind of mirror that.
Pao: Sorry.
Mo: Oh, go ahead.
Pao: Can we take a quick break right now so I can use the bathroom?
CB: Yeah. Well, let’s just pause right now and we can edit it out later.
Pao: Thank you.
CB: Yeah. All right, so let’s resume from there. Let me go back to my keyword list just in order to make sure we’re not overlooking any major keywords that we wanted to make sure we included. So here we go. Cautious, slow to let go, receptive, inflexible, determined, practical, endurance, sustainable, durable, thick, solid, stagnant, works on their own time but also follows through and develops inertia, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, slowness, enduringness, persistence, sustained, strong, steadfast, relaxed, hearty, monotonous, lazy, plotting. I guess I read some of those, but just to reiterate some of them, because now I think we’re starting to get a better sense of where some of that comes from. And one of the things I hope people understand and see from doing these deep dives is how there’s like an umbrella concept, and then there can be both constructive and/or positive and negative manifestations from that overarching concept. That it doesn’t necessarily have to be positive or negative, it can sort of go either way. And sometimes different people can express different variations of constructive or destructive versions of the same significations in their own life at different points in their life or sometimes as we grow and develop, we grow into and develop different personality traits that are part of the same archetype at different times in our life, which is sort of an important thing to understand as well, that sometimes you’ll identify with some parts of a sign, let’s say, early in your life, but then later in your life, you might start to identify with other parts of that sign that maybe you didn’t identify with earlier on. Has that ever happened to either of you? Is there significations of Taurus that didn’t make any sense to you early on but then later on you’re kind of like, “Okay, yeah, that’s become a thing,” or there are ones that did early on, but then later in your life you sort of grew out of or moved away from.
Mo: For myself, I would say I feel like as I’ve gotten older, the way Taurus shows up in my life has become more apparent. For myself, especially a lot of the significations around needing comfort and trying to prioritize things that either sustain me or also just things that I like or things that are pleasurable, that’s something that I’ve had to grow into with time. And I feel like, so for me, I’m actually wrapping up my Taurus profection year, and so I’ve really gotten to get more in touch with that principal this year more so than other years, even though last time I had this, I was 14, I think, I don’t know, there’s something different that’s just starting to click this time around.
CB: Yeah. Well, I love that that was a third house profection year for you. You’ve been doing a podcast over the course of the past year and communicating and learning, I’m sure, things about communicating and then you’re kind of capping it off at the end of the year doing this episode with me.
Mo: I know. It was literally… I think when you asked us, there was just some weird stuff Venus was doing. And I was like, “This is great. We’re wrapping up my third house year doing this, this is awesome.” But I think that it’s also allowed me to just this and also thinking about how the pandemic has just kind of taken us offline and disconnected everybody from their communities and stuff. I feel like, especially towards the end of this year for me, well, this profection year for me, I feel like I’ve definitely come back into understanding that. I’m someone who’s very sociable, I need to be interacting with people. And I need more routines around sharing sensory experiences with the people around me. So I’ve been getting more involved in my neighborhood, I’ve been walking around more and just enjoying the general aesthetic of it. And that’s been really helpful.
CB: Yeah, I like that. So it’s another third house thing, your neighborhood, which always was an abstract signification for me whenever I see that you’re reading an ancient text and it’s saying all this important stuff of, “This is the house for career, this one indicates the person that you’ll marry, this one indicates your children, and then it’s like third house is your neighborhood.” And you’re just like, “What is that? Why is that important?” But sometimes when it’s activated and you have an important transit there or a profection, suddenly your neighborhood, your immediate environment or your neighbors, the people that you live next to, when that becomes more important, suddenly you realize what a major role that can play in your life, especially if it’s going to one extreme or another, where either things are going very well and it’s very supportive part of your life or the opposite, if something’s going wrong there and that’s a source of stress or difficulty for you, then that can really stand out as well.
Mo: Definitely. And I think for me, I guess also a lot of the people around me having a cultivation practice, so one thing my sibling does is that she will, I guess, try to grow avocado seeds, that was something that came up. But also just I’ve been appreciating the third house as like close friends. And one of my close friends also has started growing plants and just planting things, and I just know a lot of people planting things and they’re teaching me about like, “Oh, this is what I’m going through trying to get this thing to plant,” inside versus outside. So that’s been a funny side effect of this year which was pretty fun.
CB: Yeah, I like that. And that might be an underlying thing there of the Taurus part of our chart, where there’s things that need to be grown and cultivated and nurtured in some way. And that can be applied to many different parts of our life, even let’s say relationships are something where sometimes relationships are like a little garden that you have to water and you have to cultivate and grow. Because otherwise if you neglect it, the relationship can die. And maybe that’s an important and useful concept to think of as we’re going through Taurus season and thinking about the Taurus archetype, is just where we need to grow and cultivate things in our life and sort of tend to things.
Pao: Yeah. I like that. I think with having a Taurus in Moon in the first house, I’ve actually thought about how that connects with one of my other hobbies, which is powerlifting. I’ve been powerlifting for the past seven years and I think one of the thngs I’ve come to really appreciate with lifting is it really does come down to just showing up every other day or however many days you do it per week and just chopping wood and carrying water, and then you just got to keep doing it. It’s always about the consistency. On the flip side of that, it’s also well, if you need to take a week break or a two-week break because you have other things going on or you have a vacation or you just need a rest, it’s also just not going to kill your progress either. There’s some Taurean element to that that I like.
CB: Yeah, that seems really important, the importance of consistency and just showing up regularly and doing something on a regular schedule and then the inertia that builds up once you do that that can help to carry you through even the times when something might interrupt your consistency.
Mo: Yeah, no. It’s funny they brought up the lifting, because it just makes me think about the connotations that Taurus can be lazy, but then also how a lot of fighters like Muhammad Ali and, I can’t think of anybody right now, but he’s like the main one I think of, have that Mars in Taurus. And I think there’s this enduring quality that I feel is interesting because even though we think of, “Oh, Taurus is lazy and they just want to eat ice cream and lay on the couch,” all the fun memes we see on the internet these days, but I think what a lot of people don’t realize about the concept of inertia is that once you start, it’s kind of hard to stop. You just want to keep going at it and you want to keep going at it. And I feel like with Mars in Taurus, even though it’s Mars in it’s exile, I also think about triplicity, it’s like my favorite thing to talk about. Whenever I see planets that are fallen or in exile that do have triplicity, it’s almost like there’s a sympathy or that people understand that there’s a time and a place for what usually doesn’t feel like the most constructive thing to manifest. So whenever I see Mars in Taurus or Mars in Cancer, there’s almost this willingness to fight for what you feel like nurtures you or what sustains you or what is valuable to you, even if people don’t necessarily agree with the approach or the approach is not always the most appropriate. I think there’ll be enough people that are sympathetic or understanding of someone employing a Martian strategy like being very confrontational over their comforts or something like that. Because sometimes with Mars, I find that Mars when it’s not dignified tends to have the issue of perceiving threats where there are none, and I think that people might understand the defensiveness if that makes sense. Just because there’s that elemental or sect agreement.
CB: That makes sense. Your comment about endurance made me pull up Muhammad Ali’s chart who had Mars in Taurus and the Midheaven in Taurus and Saturn and Uranus in Taurus with Leo rising. And like you were saying, one of his things that he was famous for was just his endurance and being able to go a bunch of rounds and to outlast his opponent as part of his overall strategy.
Pao: Yeah, and this is a good contrast too. This came up in your episode with Rick about Aries, but I also believe that Austin mentioned it in the May forecast about fighters with strong Aries placements, if they get that knockout in that first couple of rounds, then they’re going to win, but if they don’t, they’re going to lose.
CB: Yeah, then they’re in trouble. And the difference, I think, Rick was contrasting Aries energy versus like Scorpio energy, and Aries being very cardinal and therefore great burst of energy out of the gate and really good sprinters, metaphorically sprinting and having that initial burst of energy. And if you’re going to win, winning right at the beginning and knocking out your opponent right at the start versus Scorpio energy being more fixed and their strategy being more long-term and outlasting their opponent or out strategizing them or something.
Mo: 100%. And I’m just thinking about the difference between Mars in Scorpio versus Mars in Taurus, because there is still that endurance or that… I would say it’s more persistence with Scorpio versus endurance because I feel like there’s an offensive upper hand advantage that maybe Scorpio Mars has because I know I can actually maybe put enough power into this approach that I want to take, whereas I feel like with Mars in Taurus, it’s more about how much can I withstand versus like how much can I actually do. And so I think that’s where the difference is. And Mars actually wants to be the doer and not the, I guess, object that just takes a bunch of hits. And so I think that’s where the struggle kind of is.
CB: Yeah, that makes sense. All right, let me go back to our keyword list. Are there any major keywords or things that we have not mentioned yet? I guess I should bring in, there was another poster. So listener of the podcast, Chloe, submitted the Aries sort of poster that she made, and she made another one for Taurus. Let me just show and share that really quickly, because that may have some significations we haven’t gotten to yet. So it says Taurus ruled by Venus, exalted Moon, fixed earth, bull, the neck. Oh yeah, we haven’t mentioned the body part yet that Taurus is associated with, the neck, in terms of the signs of the Zodiac. And the other keyword she gives she says I have slow down, take your time, methodical, measured, anti-change, stubborn, reliable, loyal, comfort, fecund, garden, grounded, slow and steady, staying power, endurance, plotting, plotting along, maintenance, consistent, pace, fix, fix the form, creating things, taste, works of art, snobbishness, quality, high standards, organic, tactile, support, sensory, sensory pleasures, smell the roses, bubble bath, naps and snacks, greedy, dependable, artistic, do not rush me! I like that. Do not rush me.
Pao: Oh my God, where to begin.
Mo: Taurus is basically you can’t rush art. And you know what, it’s true.
CB: Yeah. So it can be slow to sort of get going and definitely does not like to be rushed at all because it definitely does not function as well under those circumstances.
Pao: Yeah. I have a quick funny story of my last workplace, where a coworker came to me to vent about another coworker. She was venting about a coworker who’s a Taurus Sun and a Taurus Venus. They had to take a work trip together, and she was complaining that they were already so late to get to the gate, they were already calling their names at the gate. But the Taurus coworker was still standing in line for his Starbucks and would not budge. And then Taurus coworker the next day came to me to vent about that coworker saying, “She was rushing me the entire time. The gate was right next to the Starbucks. It wasn’t a big deal.”
Mo: I love it.
CB: Nice. Yeah. What other significations did that bring or did that sort of draw out for either of you that we haven’t mentioned so far?
Pao: Maybe we could talk about the signification or the association with the neck, because as you discussed in the Aries episode, Aries is associated with the head and we’re moving down the body, and so Taurus is associated with the neck. I’ve often heard that people who are good singers or good speakers even tend to have some pretty good Taurus placement. And one funny story recently, I was doing an event here, a Taurus-themed cabaret show here in New York with a couple of other astrologers, where there were four singers and we had to guess out of those four who was the Taurus Sun, a Taurus Moon, a Taurus rising and an imposter. And one of the other astrologers, Mack the Zodiac, she kept looking… There was one guy who had a turtleneck on, and she was like, “I feel like you must be the Taurus rising.” And she shouldn’t have second guessed herself because he did end up being the Taurus rising. She kept saying like, “You’re covering your neck, and I just feel like you’re probably a Taurus rising.” And she ended up changing her answer last minute. And we’ve been just sending each other memes ever since. You know how they always do those mood boards on Twitter where you can pick your Sun, Moon rising, the Taurus rising, it was a cat one. And the Taurus rising cat had this big, giant collar on.
Mo: Yeah, no, I love that. But here’s the thing, so as a Taurus Sun, I love turtlenecks. That’s like half my closet and I am not ashamed to admit that. Another thing is that, speaking to your point about Taurus placements and the throat, it’s interesting because even some of our examples like Kanye, Bob Dylan, I think… No, Adele has a Gemini Mercury I think. But there’s associations with Taurus Mercurys and singing or speech. And I think of a lot of people who are either good songwriters, good singers, good lyricists, people who have the ability to, I guess, make sounds that are pleasurable to people or just convey messages that are nice to people, I think that a lot have Taurus placements, especially if they have Taurus either occupying… So I’ve seen this both with myself, I’ve heard that I have a good podcasting voice, it’s funny because Taurus is my third. And then just other people who have the third house ruler or the second house ruler in Taurus usually have skills and especially if it relates to communicating or writing or something that involves combining sounds or words or something, I think that there’s definitely that sort of influence and it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of legendary songwriters or composers have Taurus placements. So that’s definitely a thing.
CB: I just pulled up Adele’s chart and it looks like she has a Sun and Jupiter conjunction in Taurus. That’s pretty cool. Let’s see other musicians that I had in my files that are Sun in Taurus and Mercury in Taurus actually. One of them is Trent Reznor who has Capricorn rising and Sun at 26 Taurus and Mercury at three degrees of Taurus. So the throat. And then the throat, obviously that can come up also sometimes like very literally in terms of Taurus placements indicating things around the throat, sometimes like adornment or liking to decorate or wear necklaces or things like that can be like a Taurus thing.
Pao: Oh, I like this one.
Mo: Oh, I just thought of another good Taurus example, Barbra Streisand. She’s got Sun conjunct Mercury at the beginning of Taurus and then she has Saturn conjunct Uranus at the end of Taurus. Yeah, she’s a good example.
CB: Trying to pull up her chart really quickly, here it is. So yeah, Sun-Mercury conjunction early Taurus, then Saturn and Uranus in late Taurus in the second house.
Pao: All ruled by that exalted Venus.
Mo: Yeah, I just beeped that.
CB: Yeah. All right. And then let’s see, going back to this, any other major things from Chloe’s poster that were like new things that stand out to us?
Pao: I think Taurus remembering that Taurus is signified by the bull is important. Because I think the bull just represents so much of what we had already discussed, even just some of the agricultural and cultivation significations. Bulls are used to plow the earth. And then the stubbornness and the slow movingness. But once it gets moving, it’s just going to keep going. I notice one of the other chart examples you have on this list is Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine, and one of their most famous songs is Bulls on Parade.
CB: That’s funny, and one of his most famous contributions to that song in terms like the baseline. Looks like I don’t have this chart calculated here, but yeah. So all right. So Taurus, coming back around, are there any other contrasts that we should make? I mean, other contrasts that we could make or we’ve done a little bit of is like Taurus versus Scorpio is the opposite sign. And the contrast between those Mars-ruled signs of like Aries being the one before or Scorpio being the one opposite, but also in terms of maybe just the fixed signs, something we started to contrast a little bit, the four fixed signs, Taurus is the first of them, the first of the fixed signs. And so in some ways it almost sets up the archetype or the pattern for all fixed signs and in some ways is almost like the most fixed of the four fixed signs because it’s a fixed earth sign and earth as an element also like holds its form compared to all of the other elements like fire, air, or water, which don’t hold their form necessarily as well, but they tend to just expand or continue expanding. So let’s contrast maybe Taurus with those other fixed signs such as the fixed fire sign Leo, the other fixed water sign Scorpio, or the fixed air sign Aquarius. Are there any major things that come to mind or rankings that we could do in terms of signs that are the most something or the least something in terms of that categorization?
Mo: Oh my God, no, we’re doing this. But you know what’s funny, I love my hot takes, and I always joke that I feel like Aquarius is actually the most fixed sign and not Taurus, just because it’s ruled by Saturn. And another thing that I think of is, if we think about the layers of divinity that’s pretty common in a lot of I guess Hellenistic sort of thought but also just related branches of thought, is that earth is the least divine because it’s the most changeable because we’re born, we grow, we die, things like that. But as you get closer to divinity, you get towards this more permanent and intangible source. So I think of it from that point of view. Earth or material is something you can manipulate. And I also think about one way we think of immortalizing people is through their ideas and what they think and what they believe. And I find that, at least this has been my experience of Aquarius, people that I’ve met, especially the Moons but also the Suns, it’s like once they’ve figured out what seems to be the underlying structure of how things appear to be working, or if more personally they find their moral code or what matters to them, they don’t stray from it and it’s just that and that’s final. And because you can argue to some extent what we remember about people is less what they look like, less what they owned, less what they had and more about what was kind of going on internally and their personal attributes, that’s why I like to poke fun and say Aquarius, in my opinion, is the most fixed sign, but I’m open to being wrong.
CB: No, I like that. That makes sense to me, because as an air sign and a sign ruled by Saturn especially, it’s probably the most ideologically fixed sign in terms of ideology probably out of the four the most. That makes a lot of sense to me, especially when framed in that way.
Pao: Yeah. I think it’s Sam Reynolds who had a thread not too long ago where he was arguing that Taurus is actually the most revolutionary of the signs and not Aquarius, and that some of these associations of Aquarius with being, humanitarian is one word that gets thrown around a lot or revolutionary is another one. I actually agreed with a lot of what he said and I don’t think it’s a surprise, even when we’re looking at this list of people with notable Taurus placements. You do see the ones we discussed already like Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Huey Newton’s on that list too, Martin Luther King Jr, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis I believe off the top of my head, I don’t remember.
Mo: I think she does have stuff in Aquarius though, I’m pretty sure she’s an Aquarius Sun. I think so if I remember correctly.
Pao: Yeah. So it’s not to say that… I mean, there’s probably Aquarius placements out there who do have that revolutionary bit as well, but I think we can’t sleep on the fact that there can also be conservatism attached to that as well. Just for some of that Saturn of just being like if that’s ideology you fix for yourself, then you’re just going to stick with that.
CB: Yeah, that’s a good point. And Aquarius sometimes in the traditional rulership with Saturn over Aquarius can sometimes be a fixation with the past or fixation with the precedent or the things that came before in there. And there’s a little bit of overlap with Taurus and the fixed sign stuff, but definitely one of the things that Saturn can sometimes do is a tendency to exalt older things over newer things which can then create its own dynamic.
Mo: Yeah, no, Chris. I love that you brought up the relationship to past things. And I think it’s interesting because I feel like one thing that I guess Aquarius and Taurus can have in common is by trying to maybe bring back certain things that have always been done or just trying to preserve things that have always been done. But I think that maybe Taurus doesn’t necessarily have the same ideological attachment to it, it’s more about like, “Ha, this has always kind of felt good,” whereas like this is always how things worked, this is how things should work, and that being like a key difference. And I think that there are different relationships to conformity that both signs have. So I think Taurus doesn’t mind conforming to the status quo, whereas I think with Aquarius, they want to replace whatever the current status quo is in favor of like a new status quo.
CB: Yeah. There’s a rejection of the existing status quo which is one of Aquarius’s tendencies to sort of reject things.
Pao: We’re starting to see that even with our pandemic time right now, where the pandemic started with Saturn in Capricorn, and now with Saturn in Aquarius, it’s been about… I think most people have accepted this point that we can’t go back to normal, whatever that means, that our world’s changed now.
CB: Yeah. Saturn in Aquarius has been kind of a ride. We only have a year left of Saturn in Aquarius before that’s over, and then Saturn moves into Pisces, which is kind of crazy to think.
Mo: I know. I’ve also been thinking a lot about the difference between Aquarius and Taurus. And I have this running joke that at least for 2021, it vibes a lot like the year 2000, because we had the opposite where Saturn was in Taurus and then Uranus was in Aquarius. I haven’t figured out how to unpack those thoughts yet, but I know that certain elements of the internet were becoming big, so people were using the internet a lot more. And it’s interesting how we’re revisiting that in a different way, less out of the purpose of innovation, which I definitely think Uranus does say things about, but it almost feels like it’s coming out of necessity, because we were in a pandemic. It’s like we have the technology, we may as well like start to adapt our social lives towards this. But it’s interesting seeing Saturn being at home and having this relationship with Uranus where instead of Uranus kind of having this favorable view of Saturn because it’s in Saturn’s home versus Uranus being in a position where it doesn’t have to answer to Saturn and it doesn’t care about whatever we feel like social interactions should be governed by or how they should be structured, it’s almost like Uranus is asking us to revisit our relationship to certain elements of our sensory lives and certain elements of the things that we value, maybe find comfort in and want to consolidate and experience more of and sustain in our lives versus these changes in structure that are being kind of forced on us. And I feel like there’s certain elements of that square that have just been really reaffirming like some of these differences between the two signs. I don’t know about you guys, but yeah.
CB: Yeah. That makes me think of just the difference of Aquarius maybe being more ideological or more idea-driven versus Taurus being more practical and saying like, “But how can that work in practice? Or how can that actually be implemented in practice in some tangible way?”
Pao: And I think what Mo has been saying quite a few times is there’s a lot of Taurus that’s about what’s going to make me feel good right now, whereas Aquarius often can really focus on the greater good which I think is reflective of the Sun being in detriment there. And yeah, just thinking about that Saturn in Aquarius right now having this overcoming square to Uranus in Taurus. I am thinking about where we are currently in the pandemic. We’ve been and still are continuing to deal with folks who haven’t been happy with the restrictions. And now we’re at a place here in the United States where the restrictions are pretty much almost all gone now.
Mo: Same here. Yeah, it’s interesting stuff.
CB: Yeah. So that brings up Leo actually which is important, and maybe we should contrast that next. How would you contrast Taurus as a fixed sign versus Leo as a fixed sign that’s ruled by the Sun? So there’s more of a focus on the ego or the I and some concept of I or ego I feel like with Leo that’s not as well defined in Taurus I feel like.
Mo: I’m going to let you start since you have…
CB: I mean, maybe that just has to do with the rulership of Venus, for example, and Venus being a little bit more relational and reaching outside of itself to see if another person is okay and that being a little bit more where the locus of attention is, is that it’s partially on itself and what feels good personally, but also if it’s possible also to take care of somebody else and make someone else feel good, then that’s also taken into account with Taurus. Whereas for Leo, the primary focus is a little bit more on the self to some extent due to the rulership of the Sun and the Sun just being the center of the solar system that all of the other planets sort of revolve around and the Sun just does its thing and other people in other planets just tend to gravitate towards it and then get sort of sucked into its orbit in some sense.
Pao: Yeah. I do definitely think that there is an element of authority that’s associated with Leo, that’s where you get all these significations about Leo wanting to be center stage or Leo being the leader. Whereas Taurus placement, I think generally will be okay being in the background. I think actually even a lot of the chart examples we have, I don’t know, I really see too many people who are big leaders at the forefront of a lot of what they do. So I think that’s one thing. But the other thing that really stands out to me with the difference between Leo and Taurus is the elemental difference, the difference between this fire and this earth, where Leo can be very much outward or extroverted, just another word that could be used with Leo, whereas Taurus as an earth sign is going to be much more introverted. And I do want to make the distinction too that often extroverted is someone who’s just very social and introverted is someone who’s shy. And yeah, there could be some elements of that, but I think the better definition of those two words is that people who are extroverted tend to gain more energy when they’re around people and surrounded by people, whereas introverts will get their energy drained when they are in these social settings. And so I think about that difference to the elemental difference with those two signs.
CB: Yeah. That’s a great point. So that they actually get recharged sometimes by private or by something more lowkey, something more internalized rather than something externalized from interaction with other people or what have you.
Pao: Right. And again, it goes back to Venus and the Moon doing very, very well in a sign like Taurus. And when I think about those two planets, I do think a lot. Of course, there’s some outward expressions of those, I also do think it always comes back to just re-centering and replenishing.
CB: Right.
Mo: Yeah, no. I like thinking about Venus’s rulership, because aside from the Moon when she’s full, the brightest thing in the night sky is Venus. And I feel like Taurus and Leo in different ways and I feel like it’s more subtle with Taurus, there’s the ability to capture people’s attention in some way. And I’m thinking about Venus’s rulership of the arts and things that are creative and appealing to people’s senses. I think that Taurus and Leo both are good at having a broader appeal to more people. Whereas I feel like for Leo, people are drawn to them because of their essence and people feel like they can benefit from proximity to someone who seems to be a source of energy, light, or you know, whatever those things translate to for the Leo in question. But I feel like with Taurus, there’s some maybe more subtle quality that people feel more comfortable gravitating towards. But I definitely agree with Pao in that there is this need to maybe honour more of those internal interests a little more, and recharging in that way. But I think another difference is that… I’m just trying to think. Oh, another thing I wanted to point out about Taurus is if you consider the Sun to be slightly malefic, which I do, just because it can maltreat planets with combustion. Taurus is the only fixed side where two arguably benefic planets do very well. So there’s this element of playing nice with other people. Whereas I feel like with Leo, again, there’s this issue of the Sun’s light only being beneficial unless you’re too close or there’s too much proximity. Because, you know, the Sun obscures things around it and when the Sun is too close to a planet, it kind of burns it up and swallows up its powers, you know what I mean? I think that there’s that kind of element there too that’s different.
Pao: That’s a really good point and it just makes me think again of the decans of Leo. That gives a sight as well, there’s definitely an element of self preservation with both sides. But with Leo in particular, it can come across when you look at those three decans. Like if you look at the Five of Wands and the Seven of Wands within the traditional Rider Waite artwork, you see fighting. And then even arguably, with the Six of Wands, it’s about, “Okay, you’ve made it to the top. You are now the ruler or the winner. But now you’ve got to defend your crown.” There can definitely be a lot of that with Leo.
CB: Yeah, and also just the notion that a planet when it gets too close to the Sun, it gets overshadowed. And Leo and the Sun can take up all the limelight in some ways, which is a little different, like Taurus doesn’t necessarily have that tendency as much. So that’s a good point about bringing up the primarily sort of benefic quality or the more purely benefic quality of Taurus as one of the only fixed signs ruled by a benefic planet. That might might actually bring us to our next sign or final one, which is Scorpio and just the contrast of Scorpio. Which is interesting because the water sign, it’s a fixed sign but it’s a fixed water sign and it’s ruled by Mars. And one of the things I think Taurus from a lot of the things we’re bringing up would probably struggle with the most is like the notion of impermanence that Taurus– a lot of the keywords we’re talking about, like the exact opposite keyword that would cover a lot of different things that we’re talking about would be the notion of impermanence and the notion that things don’t last, or that all things eventually fade away in some sense. And there’s something about that notion that Scorpio ends up either willingly or not willingly needing to sort of adapt itself and to understand on some intrinsic level and even dwell on is the notion of impermanence being a necessary and continue on regular a part of life.
Mo: Yeah. I love that you bring that up because I think of the fact that the Moon has fallen in Scorpio and Mars does really well in Scorpio. And then, you know, Venus isn’t as happy in Scorpio. But again, I come back to the triplicity piece because I feel like there’s something about having these really heavy experiences around being deprived of things you need, things that make you feel comfortable, things that make you feel good. Grappling with that is something that I guess different people in different parts of the human experience eventually come to accept, and I feel like that’s one way that the triplicity of those fallen and exile placements play out. But I do think that there’s the sense with Scorpio of realising that- I would argue that Scorpio and Capricorn both share this, that change is inevitable. But Capricorn’s more of the Cardinal version of that whereas Scorpio is the fixed version of that. And I find that Mars and water signs compared to Mars and fire signs which is more offensive, it’s more defensive. And I would say Scorpio is like, you know, your best offense is a good defense. And I find that Scorpio has this ability to I guess embrace discomfort or deprivation and use that to strengthen itself. Whereas I feel like Taurus in comparison can be a little complacent and get easily unmoored when things don’t go very well.
Pao: Yeah. One of the words that often gets associated with Scorpio is intensity. It comes up with various Scorpio placements, but I’ve especially noticed that when people are describing Venus and the Moon in Scorpio, which is when they’re in their detriment and fall respectively there. I think it does come from that impermanence, right? Perhaps it’s either because things aren’t going to last and so you really want to enjoy it and experience it to the fullest. Maybe it can also come from a stubbornness of refusing to, you know, believe in that and really want to try to just possessively hold on for as long as possible.
CB: Right. One of the things that makes me think of, and I think this might be connected to as part of the underlying archetype is what we’re seeing here is a contrast again in the seasons and especially in the northern hemisphere where the tropical zodiac originated and many of our meanings for the signs originated. But Taurus is the middle of the spring season and is ruled by Venus and it’s really celebrating the beauty of life of being in that new phase in the middle of spring just after all the plants or flowers have not just sprouted during Aries, but come into full bloom and are at the middle. And the sort of peak of their vibrancy and beauty by being at that sort of perfect middle stage of maturity when they’re at their most vibrant and beautiful verses Scorpio is the exact opposite end of the year. And so it’s right in the middle of the fall season and it’s instead celebrating the beauty of death in some sense when all of the leaves on the trees by the middle of the fall season are dying and starting to wilt. They’re still on the trees but they’re right in the middle of that process of the plants going through that natural process of letting go of and sort of releasing or dying in some sense in terms of that yearly cycle, but it’s still being during the autumn season, kind of beautiful. And all of the trees turning these different shades of like orange and red and everything else, and there being something still really beautiful about that.
Mo: Yeah, it’s really striking. What’s funny is that fall is one of my favorite seasons just because I love the contrast between all the different colors of the leaves on the trees. I feel like another– and for some reason, that triggered this thought in me in the relationship between Scorpio and Taurus in terms of conformity– I feel like Scorpio is not afraid to stick out a sore thumb and fight for its own self-interest. Whereas Taurus maybe doesn’t necessarily want to rock the boat a little more. I think they are differences in their approach to conflict that are very loud to me.
Pao: Yeah, I think you were describing earlier when we were talking about [unintelligile] right? Like the difference between a Mars and Taurus versus a Mars and Scorpio where that Scorpio is going to be… How did you describe it?
Mo: I think a little more sensitive.
Pao: Yeah.
Mo: It’s more persistent.
Pao: It’s persistence? Yeah. Okay. I think on the not wanting to rock the boat, I’m really hoping I get this chart correctly, but I believe Catherine the Great has Mars in Taurus, and she got power and became Empress of Russia because she led a coup against her husband who was the emperor. But she did it by over several years befriending all of the top generals of Russia, and then it ended up being a completely bloodless coup.
CB: Here it is. She had the Sun at 11 Taurus and Mars at seven degrees of Taurus. Nice. I like that. So she befriended the generals and then was able to take over through a bloodless coup, you said?
Pao: Yes.
CB: Nice. Yeah, maybe that’s quite a contrast then. It’s like Mars and Taurus and knowing how to win by being nice versus Scorpio or Mars and Scorpio being willing to go dark or being willing to play dirty and having an openness to the darker side of things, which is then sometimes on the other flip side of the coin, why venus in scorpio then gets the reputation that it does sometimes. Because I always think of Venus in Scorpio as the goth placement, which is like finding aesthetic appreciation and things that are dark or that most people would consider dark or morbid or something like that.
Pao: Yeah. And I will say, I think the thing that both of these signs share is a a willingness to be in the long haul, you know? Like whether it is going to be fighting or befriending generals, it’s like, “Oh, this is a long game.”
Mo: Yeah, Something I noticed that both Taurus and Scorpio have in common, like you were saying, it’s like the ride or die friend or this is my sworn enemy. I don’t really see this as much with Leo and Aquarius for some reason, but there’s something about the Taurus-Scorpio axis where it seems like the relationships that they form are very much like I’m in this for the long haul, but also the enemies that they formed, it’s like it’s gonna take a lot for me to change my opinion of you. It’s just very interesting. I don’t know.
CB: Yeah, so the commonality of just like sticking with it and unwillingness to… Yeah, lack of flexibleness or wanting to change necessarily once something is predefined as a like or as a dislike. I guess that’s something we haven’t focused on enough as much here because we’ve tended to focus more on Taurus’s acute sense of figuring out what it’s like and sticking with it. But part of that that we maybe haven’t focused on enough is that also includes, by necessity, sometimes having very clearly defined dislikes and things that it does not like doing. And that those are also just as fixed or they can be just as stubborn about those as the things that they like.
Pao: I think I’m more stubborn about those. Like, I will never ever give horror movies a chance again ever since. Enough was enough in high school days. I’m never gonna watch another one again.
Mo: I’m just thinking about a conversation I had with my sister yesterday about I think she told me to try peeling the chocolate off of Pocky sticks or something and just eating the bread. I just feel like it’s also her being Saturnian because she’s a very Saturnian person. And I was just like, “That’s blasphemy, I’m never doing that. What are you talking about?” No, that’s like a deal breaker. No.
CB: Yeah, I like that. And with the horror movies, that’s a really good example because that’s something with a Taurus-Scorpio contrast but focusing on dark things that maybe not everybody likes, versus maybe Taurus focusing on lighter things that are then almost by necessity, things that are more generally agreed upon. Which then brings us back around to that signification we were talking about earlier of the idea of something being basic. And maybe part of the reason is that it’s basic because it’s something that’s more safe and more widely viewed as commonly acceptable or commonly pleasing in some ways. And that’s why it gains that sort of reputation and as being something then the Taurus tends to gravitate towards.
Pao: Yeah, definitely. I refuse to watch horror movies but I will watch all of the dating reality TV shows. [laughs]
CB: Yeah. All right. Well, those are all really good contrasts. I don’t think there’s anything else. With Aries, that does bring up that Aries was much more sporty of a sign and sports or something that we really brought up as a very major Aries thing. I don’t know that that’s as much necessarily of a Taurus thing that I would immediately jump to associating with Taurus, that might be a contrast of that because Aries is more of the Mars-type using the body in order to have movement and force, and sometimes conflict or fighting but there being interesting or good things that can come out of tension or the release of tension. Whereas Taurus seems to be more about the things that can sometimes be done with the body or that has to do with the senses that are enjoyable without necessarily being things that are harsh or hard to do but instead, it’s the opposite of things that are easy to do or things that can be enjoyed in a more passive sense.
Pao: Yeah. I think one of maybe perhaps why you don’t really think about Taurus when it comes to sports is with the reality of the way our sports world is set up right now– and some of this is capitalism too for sure. Professional athletes aren’t professional athletes their whole lives for the most part. Depending on the sport, they could start as young as elementary school age and they’ve already peaked by 21. And I could see why someone with more Aries placements could do quite well with that whereas when I think about Taurus, again, I think about longevity. I think of Muhammad Ali as actually a really perfect example of that.
Mo: Yeah, I also think that contrasting with Aries and probably Scorpio as well, there’s less of this focus on power and it’s more about the aesthetic of your form. And I feel like certain types of athletic forms that emphasize form, for some reason I think of like being a ballerina or doing yoga or something. Because there’s something about being able to structure yourself in a form that’s somewhat aesthetically pleasing but it’s still challenging to do, but you have to constantly work at it to achieve that kind of perfect form. That stands out to me. So I think it would be stuff that’s not necessarily like about competition, but seeing to what extent you can push your body to. If that makes sense.
CB: I like that perfection of form as an underlying or overarching Taurus concept and the desire to achieve some sort of perfection of form. It kind of makes me think of how George Lucas always gets criticized for he keeps going back to the Star Wars movies and re-editing them and trying to improve them with things that he couldn’t do with special effects in the 70s and 80s. But he keeps going back and re-tinkering with them because he’s never happy that they’re perfect or fit his vision of the perfect form of those movies. Whereas everyone else is just like, “No, leave it alone. It was fine back then. Just let it go.”
Poa: Your mention of aesthetic form reminded me. Michelle Klein has some Taurus placements as well, the figure skater. For a professional athlete too, she had quite a long career. I think she did a number of different Olympics.
CB: Okay. Just trying to see if I have her in my database.
Mo: Yeah, I believe… If I recall, I think she has Moon in Taurus.
CB: Yeah, that looks correct from Astrodatabank. So, Virgo rising with Moon in Taurus in the ninth house.
Pao: Yeah. She competed professionally for over 10 years. That’s a pretty big deal as far as the Olympic form goes.
Mo. Oh, I thought of another figure skater, a really decorated Canadian skater. What’s her name? Tessa Virtue. She’s a Taurus Sun. She had a long figure skating career with her skiing partner Scott Moir. They skated for 22 years, it is crazy.
Pao: Wow.
Mo: Yeah.
CB: Wow. All right, are there any other major, major things that we didn’t mention or major keywords or topics for Taurus that we’re going to kick ourselves for not mentioning if we don’t at this point?
Mo: I think we’re good. I don’t know about you, Pao, but I think we hit everything.
Pao: I think so too. I can’t think of anything else.
CB: Did I read off of this paragraph? It was early on. And I know we’ve covered most of this but it’s like steady, sturdy, grounded, stable, contented, comfortable, creative, loyal, gentle, routine, patient, strong-willed, stubborn, practical, down to Earth, reliable, and dependable.
Mo: Yeah, I feel like we covered a lot of these. Yeah.
CB: Cool. I think we are in pretty good shape then. This is pretty good. We got to get some pretty deep stuff about Taurus and like the underlying meanings, as well as a lot of the individual significations and the way that that shows up. It’s always tricky because, you know, that’s the nature of an archetype. It’s like an archetype is this transcendent idea, this overarching umbrella concept that can’t be fully articulated. All you can do is articulate some of the many different manifestations of that that are individual things. But I think we did a pretty good job today of getting as high or as close to that archetype as we possibly could, and getting to some pretty deep points in that. So yeah, thank you both a lot for joining me and doing this with me today.
Pao: Thank you.
Mo: Thank you for having us.
CB: Yeah. So you too, you said you’re in the middle of doing a series right now on your podcast on the planetary joys?
Pao: Yes, we are actually. We’re supposed to film the Venus and joy in the fifth house tomorrow but because this came up, we’re gonna reschedule it. I don’t know if we could handle two podcasts.
Mo: Yeah. Also, my gut is that it’s probably going to be one of those things where Venus is like, “Release me when I’m in Taurus.” I have a strong feeling it’s going to be that.
Pao: Yeah, I think it works out. But yes, we’re in the middle of that. We started with Mercury in that series so we have an episode already out on Mercury and the Moon. We’ll do Venus next and then just continue in that order.
CB: Cool. And the URL for where you host your podcast is anchor.fm/fixedastropod, or people can just google Fixed Astrology Podcast and it’ll come up and you can listen on Spotify or any of the other major podcast platforms. You also have a Twitter page for where people can follow you and get news and updates, which is twitter.com/fixedastropod. Right?
Mo: Yeah, it’s just Twitter and… Oh, my God, I’m blanking. The previous site.
CB: Anchor FM.
Mo: Anchor FM. Okay. I keep thinking Last FM but like, “No, that’s music.” [laughs]
CB: Cool. Yeah. So people should check that out to get more and listen more to your podcast as you go through that as well as to listen to your back catalog. And then each of you has individual consulting websites and do consultations and other things in the field of astrology. Right?
Pao: Right. You could find me on Twitter and Instagram and my website. It’s all called paostrology.com. So that’s p a o s t r o l o g y.com. Paostrology. My readings have been closed since August of last year because I moved. I was in the middle of job hunting and I have been here in New York now for a little under two months so I’m still getting settled in. But definitely follow me on Twitter, go on my website. And I will have an email newsletter signup up very soon, probably by the release of this podcast episode where you could sign up to receive my emails. And if you sign up, you’ll be the first to find out if and when I reopened my readings.
CB: Cool. All right. And how about you, Mo?
Mo: I finally stopped procrastinating, and I used Venus’s parting gift in Pisces but also the eclipse to launch my website finally. So I am at austral-taur.com. So that’s a u s t r a l dash t a u r.com. And yeah, I just plan on plugging more of my serious astrology thoughts on the blog there. I am taking clients for consultation, but you know, get on my mailing list first because I’m still a grad student and I have other things to do. And then I’m also @austral_taur on Twitter as well. So, yeah.
CB: Cool. Awesome. Yeah. And I’ll put links to all of your websites down below in the description below this video on YouTube or on the podcast website so people can check that out there to check out your work. And yeah, you’ve been doing a great job with the podcast. I’m excited to see the rest of the series on the joys. And then where are you going to go after that? What’s your next step once you finish the joys? Do you think have you got any long-term plans?
Pao: We talked about the triplicities, right? Because I feel like yes, but then also because the way we’re doing the joys is like we’re killing the planet and the houses with two stones. It’s like we’re killing two birds with one stone. I know we did want to do the houses that don’t have planetary joys, but then yeah, I feel like right now we’re on a weird essential and accidental dignity kick for now. Yeah, I don’t know.
CB: Awesome. Then just like a blend of modern and traditional astrology is basically essentially both of your approaches?
Mo: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
CB: Cool. All right. Well, people should check that out. And I guess that’s it for this episode on Taurus. So thanks again both of you for joining me for this.
Pao: Thanks for having us.
CB: All right. Thanks, everyone for watching or listening to this episode of the Astrology Podcast. That’s it for this episode on Taurus and I will be back again next month for an episode eventually on Gemini as the next sign in the series. Thanks a lot for watching and we’ll see you again next time.
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