Today I’m researching the Taurus annual edition for 2010. As part of this I’m reading my Taurus materials going back a couple of years, though your input would be helpful. If you’re a Taurus or Taurus rising, would you please add a comment after this post, with some thoughts about your career/professional life (where you’ve been going the past year, and what you’re anticipating); your relationships, including how you experienced the Venus retrograde in Aries earlier this year; and how you’ve responded to Pluto in Capricorn. Thank you kindly. If you don’t recognize these transits, it’s fine to speak off the cuff about how your life has been developing.
cosmicsigns
Hi Eric,
You’ve already had a lot of responses on this topic, but I love & appreciate your work and was glad to hear the call, so here’s my Taurean two cents. I spent the first six weeks of 2009 in deep seclusion, no internet or phone contact, in order to finish a writing project that was becoming an albatross and ruining my financial life! The crossroads of creativity and livelihood is a big (Saturn in Leo?) lesson for me…still working on that one. I got a draft of the project done but I’m still dragging it behind me (or perhaps running to meet it) first to Upstate New York over the summer and now to Europe. But going to that uncharted territory with my creative life was transformational…even if the final push is still ahead of me.
Venus in retrograde brought a big delusional romance with someone who had been a platonic friend and secretly crushing on me. We had a lovely time, but by the time the retrograde was done the drug-like effect had worn off, and I had to face internally and then force myself to articulate some serious reservations about the relationship. I was back to this overpowering feeling of being about to meet my destiny alone (for now) through my creative life. (My Sun, Venus and Chiron are all in Taurus)
By the Mars-Venus conjunction at Solstice I was living in the country, where I wanted to be. I let myself be pretty unscheduled and unambitious — still recovering from the descent of winter. I also met a really amazing man..(a Scorpio!) with whom I am still involved in an explorational, non-monogamous way. (Your writing on “monogamy reform” has been a help!) I’ve spent my adulthood (now in early thirties) trying to force relationships into molds they didn’t fit. It feels like a big relief, and completely out of character, to sit back and let this take its own path.
Creatively (and thus financially) I’m still wrestling with inner demons. I was intrigued by your recent writing on the asteroid Achilles and the issue of female lack of confidence. I cast my chart for Achilles and, voila, there it was sitting in what I’d previously thought was my mysteriously empty 1st house. I couldn’t find a lot of information on Achilles in the sense you started to explore, so if you ever have the inclination to go deeper on the topic of women and Achilles here is one reader who would truly appreciate it. How to work on / counteract that energy?
Not sure about Pluto in Capricorn. But Pluto opposes my Moon and my relationship with my mom has been…ummm…difficult lately.
Je vous remercie.
I love looking back in my journal and seeing what I had to say about certain periods of time….The Venus Retrograde was one of the highlights of the past few years and I even titled one entry in mid-April “Into the Mystic” (after one of my favorite Van Morrison songs)…here is one passage that pretty much says it all:
“I can’t believe how much things have shifted in the past 2-3 weeks…Something feels like it’s just starting that’s gonna blow the roof off of my life. I’ve not felt this creative and stimulated and wanting to branch out like this is a long time. I feel MOST importantly (in this Venus Retrograde) that I’ve finally let go of some SERIOUS heart (symbol) baggage.”
Since that period of time, I just don’t have that heavy heart feeling anymore about past relationships, I have left my long-term stifling, survival-mode job, and my art has been flourishing. I am coasting financially and things are growing day by day…..I absolutely had some family/friend relationship drama during the eclipses, but these really symbolized close people in my life having a problem with me flying out of the nest and taking off….difference since April/May is that my desire to FLY is greater than letting anything hold me back. Note: they’ve subsequently gotten over it and suddenly these partially debilitating relationships are supporting me and my expansion. So, maybe it was me after all…and I just had to cut the ties to past before I could see that. Or maybe when I shifted, they shifted too.
Regardless, the only word that keeps coming up in reflecting on this is LIBERATION. It has absolutely been a wonderfully exciting time to live through and I’m more optimistic and have more faith in myself and the planet than I have in many, many, years. I trust that I am speeding up in the my own process I am magnetizing LOVE towards me every day in new ways. I have faith that I will Manifest the partner I have dreamt of and can feel his energy already. In the meantime, I have a lot of work and Art to create and that is a great feeling.
Hi Eric,
As far as the career thing goes, I have experienced a great deal of upheaval. I realize now that I rushed headlong into a career (in education) without really thinking about where I was going. I have had a plan in my head for about ten years and I accomplished everything that I planned to do to obtain a particular position, but now I am not so sure it was the right thing to do. Imagine getting a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in a field that give you dread just thinking about (sometimes). At some point I hated what I was doing so much that I had to leave the country (twice). Well, I’m no longer in that position. I said to myself that I was going to enjoy my life and do something that fed my soul. So, in 2008 I became an Aromatherapist.
I have begun taking steps to start my own business, but sometimes I fall back into the ease and responsibility associated with the previous path I was taking. I suspect it is because of financial obligation and not wanting to abandon something I worked so hard to achieve. Now, the economy is so bad I think about security. Sometimes my Taurean nature can’t help itself…
Re: Pluto in Capricorn: I have been very excited about the revolution that is supposed to occur in my ninth house. I hope to really expand my horizons and learn a new way of thinking.
Re Venus Retrograde: I did not really experience much there, though I was on the look out. I remember the Venus Retrograde of 2001. Wow, was that not fun. So, I tried to be very careful about what I got myself into. An ex-love got back in touch in a serious way, though he’s married. I made sure that I didn’t lose my mind…
I wish I had kept a journal as you suggested. I might have had more to say…
Hello eric-
I’m a taurus sun in tenth house conj. venus. though its not all roses at the top of my chart … chiron, eris and mercury in aries loosely conj. MC as well!
My career focused energies arrive often chaoticly from above but with intentions of making the space we inhabit more beautiful and better functioning. Of course there is a longer story here, but the piece i seem to want to share has to do with my old habit of self-sabatoge, ie. trying hard at times not to stand out or make another uncomfortable by using my skills and honed senses. Often finding myself working hard to keep the ‘playing field even” at cost to myself and as i am learning the whole too. This has translated into my self designed career as and artist / woodworker not gaining the momentum it could’ve to date. Over the last four years i have been working as a cabinetmaker and finish carpenter for a few different employers. the last two ended in layoff as company work load dropped with the economy. Since the last lay off in jan. 09 i have been refocusing my intentions around my own business. I have set up in a shared wood shop space and also have room to do my painting. I am now making steps to get beyond my imposed limits. I am finding it a very physical, body aching process as new possibilities unfurl.
Hi Eric,
Oh boy, this year!
At the moment I am heading your way on the “Cross Country Random Acts of Flowers”.. I get to Brooklyn tomorrow.
This has been the most full year of everything, from every side of the spectrum and more. It’s simply to much to write down, but the first person on the blog seems to have hit most of it on the head!
Most of all, I have learned that I know what is best for me and I don’t have any time to waste.
Empowered, transformed, introspective, healed, loved.
I have become more empowered in my career this past year and that has allowed me to transform into a more confident person. Venus retro made me very introspective. It was very painful and I spent most of that time in utter confusion. However, when I came out of it I reconnected with an old friend, a fellow Taurus, and we are now in a loving, trusting, expansive relationship. It has taken me by surprise and I feel as if I have been lifted out of a great fog. It seems as if we are finally able to heal our pains of the past and create a better relationship than either of us has ever experienced.
I feel as if I am still in a state of transformation but it is no longer frightening. I have become more comfortable with the state of instability. I have almost become wary of things that appear to be “stable” in my old definition of the word. If it is not growing or expanding then something seems very wrong.
*Taurus Sun* All I can say is OMG! I almost gave up a 24 year practice in the healing arts. (applied at college to pursue another career, filled out FAFSA form, requested transcripts, campus tour, nearly re-financed my mortgage….. in other words almost completely reconstructed my life to return to college) UNTIL—– someone happened to appear in my life 2 days ago (Oct 19th at 3:00 p.m.). She was someone *in the know* in the new career I was heading towards in the fast lane. She gave me a perspective and information i couldn’t have known otherwise. Brakes have screeched…. now I’m reconstructing my healing arts practice to support me! I nearly blew it. I plan on taking a few weeks off during the holidays now…. Why not? WTF… I nearly re-mortgaged my whole life, so what’s a few weeks to regroup with myself, my family and friends. I have alot to shake off from this ride.
Relationship wise: I feel like there isn’t a soul out there. (sorry,that’s the truth)
I am a Taurus Sun, Taurus Rising, Capricorn Moon.
Funny you should ask about career first – this has been my major focus for the whole year. By nature I need to see the next step before I take it (a little Earth in my chart maybe?), but I am having a hard time finding a good step to take. I anticipate continuing to seek and I shall find.
One piece of last year’s forecast that sticks out in relation to career: “One clue why it takes you so long to do things is because you don’t do them, you become them, and that is not easy.” I don’t know how it is for anyone else, but my sense of self is tied up in what I do for work. Changing work is changing my sense of self. I am able to flex a lot of my way of being to fit into my environment, but this is hard work and not something you want to once a month.
Relationships have been about figuring out where I stand, and adjusting with those around me accordingly. Last year’s yearly forecast from Eric summed it up beautifully – it’s been about my relationship with myself more than anyone else. Even though I am married and that relationship is doing very well my focus has been very inward.
Venus retrograde was a very intense time for me – the 12 days in the middle particularly. I found memories popping up for no reason that carried intense feelings. One in particular involved the first time in my life I consciously hid my skills to avoid the feeling that I was in competition with others. THis was the first time of many that I have done that, but it was interesting to me that the first time bubbled up on it’s own during Venus Retrograde.
Pluto in Capricorn hasn’t really hit me hard one way or the other. Perhaps it feels like home for me with my moon there or perhaps there’s more coming for me.
It’s been a very intense year that was very inwardly focused on self and sense of self. That’s been frustrating because I am dying to make outward changes, but I seem to be held in check there while I am forced to focus on what’s going on inside.
Sorry to disrupt, or modify the Taurus experience but, are there any Libra Rising Tauruses out there? I’d like too know how too react too this gal, I’m stumped. She’s hella hippy vibe, but her actions speak of rebellion. She’s dominating from a personal being, yet she looks for folk too compliment her “waiting” personality. And those folks who resume, get a piece, but never the whole personality.. It bugs the fuck out of me, I dig this bitch(read, cool gal), But, I’m a gonner on lost causes.. Tell me about Taurus, if you would.. and Libra would be cool too. Rising, great!
Love the twisted shit in this realm…
Jere
Hi again,
Venus Retrograde? That’s what hit me? I had to go back to my journal, too, to remember that time. Which is ridiculous considering how big and bad it was for a while. I guess it just seems much farther away now than it actual is.
I got hit hard beginning of Mardch and crashed emotionally and physically. Lots of old stuff, I hope, taking a final hit, being done with that energy for good.
It was healing, in hindsight, insightful, good lessons learned, but it was ugly. I hope I never feel that lousy again.
1/2 wit, what’s the book, your writing is fascinating, I dig the tutelage. You’ve studied your shit, and props are due. Let us bake on the shit. If you don’t mind.
I’ll eventually get beyond 4 bucks an hour,.. this is fun shit, in the grand scheme. Folks have no idea how they make this happen, me included! It’s just that we have a purpose too fulfill, something beyond the intake of funds, a focus, something that feels better when you’re going through it, than it does when you think about it.. (Purpose of Love can starve the belly, The healthier we are, the better everyone else!)
Good luck on the book, I’m glad your head-toasting shit finally threw itself into binding!
Take care,
Jere
I tend to see this recent stretch of time as bringing a bunch of issues into a new stage of development – some in rather dramatic and unmistakable ways. It’s been a big sweep into a new way of life. On the work/creative aspects, a good deal of my time and energy has been shifting over from the day job to working more consistently in the music world (lots of teaching but that’s cool). Money flows just fine, though there are some loose ends that need tying up.
After many years as a “seeker”, I feel I’ve finally found a spiritual path that will take me as far as I can go this lifetime. Its appearance (in late September) and my response to it seem so natural and perfectly timed. Manifestation of thoughts seems to be coming more quickly – I often remember the warning “be careful what you wish for”. (p.s. I’m no fan of The Secret and the like, it’s just the nature of reality).
Your yearly horoscopes of the last few years talked about the difficult transits, for Taurus, of the mid-to-late ’90’s through 2005, and this corresponded exactly with a very difficult time in my life. Very difficult. Things changed overnight in the spring of that year, and have presented, for me, a wide open arena to explore and embrace life. Fear and control continue to be big issues, but I do believe I have the ability to deal with them. Also laziness stemming from maybe fear, but also the famous Taurean love of comfort.
Sex and relationship have also been more positive and healthy since the changes in ’05. I’m not looking to make any major changes there at the moment. The house needs some work, though. Health has been good, and I’ve been getting more exercise than I have in years.
Hope that helps.
i’d have to check my morning pages & evening journalling for a really clear read on the venus RX period. but i remember feeling like it wasn’t the dire struggle another astrologer friend of mine was predicting. in fact, i think i found it rather exciting, even in its introspection. i was involved in an intense and unusual little play about the breakdown of a relationship. and as that closed, my castmate and i began a torrid email and phone affair coinciding with another long-distance email/phone flirtation. it all felt very hot and daring and atypical for me; i found myself ready to take sexual action in a way i never have been before, even though i found myself thwarted in the execution. lots of creative & sexual energy. it’s also around the time that my dad started chemo. and in those last few days of venus rx in pisces, i had a very uncanny evening at salsa night. it involved some VERY distinct echoes of an interaction with a guy i’d had the hots for the previous year (repeated situations & phrases, all in one night) culminating in a bathroom-stall show & tell. we can chat later if you want more detail.
over all, the phrase from last year’s annual that has haunted me the whole year: “do not take the gifts of jupiter — or whoever he represents — for granted.”
i feel a bit like i’ve been on the verge of doing so all year, in terms of creative/career deveopment.
Finding ‘self in the house of selfless’ has definitely been a theme of the retrograde in Aries. It was within the timescales too and I experienced a complete break for two weeks from the 10th April to the 24th (my birthday) with my (Scorpio) love interest. Earlier in the retrograde I gravitated toward mirror work on myself, where I did some deep self-affirmation, relating.
I got unblocked from my creative impasse in January/February and had some of the most amazing experiences of self of my 41 year existence in mid-March – awesome.
The January Planet Waves spoke of your wiki research on successful authors and transits and a doing-ness/being-ness type distinction in relation to creative endeavours and success.
I finished my book in July but had sent sample chapters to a publisher at the exact date of the triple conjunction in May. They requested the whole work and I am now at the final hurdle, in terms of a decision being made at the Publishing Board meeting this month – I will know soon. It is possibly the ‘original contribution’ you emphasised in all caps, the only all caps if I remember correctly, in 40,000 words of writing (2007 Annual)! This book is filling me with anticipation. I am excited about the long overdue conversation it may well spark, on a significant scale.
Professionally, in other respects, I am increasingly pushing the margins in working with creativity with my clients on mental health recovery programmes. As well as this, I bit the bullet in responding to the open blog offer to do some freelance, brief-driven writing, for the Planet Waves Annual 2010. This was in order to practice a differing writing style, in this instance, an experiential more than strictly analytical style I might normally employ to articulate knowledge.
I’ve also been working simultaneously on researching a new mythological work and writing a ghost story (straight into the computer – I normally write and re-draft on paper). I’ve been stretching myself and have been multi-tasking more efficiently than ever I can remember. While I have lost a little bit of sight of some of the benefits of the retrograde lessons and have endured some ‘adrenal burnout’ from the mad intensity since late April until now (having felt particularly physically grim for 5 months), I do feel my relationship to myself is being consolidated and strengthened.
I see myself as a writer now; no small shift!! The challenge henceforth seems to be to streamline my life and re-jig it so that I improve my balance. The biggest thing I’m getting in touch with is my bodily existence and my life-force energy generally. My intellect seems to be aching to take a back seat for an appreciable while.
One thing that will help, I have noted already, is my getting increasingly aligned with my creative process, my passion and my faith that I have a contribution to make. I can at last envisage a role that isn’t always defined as a backs-to-the-wall operation wrestling with, and drained by, infantile bureaucratic constraints.
I’m feeling more ready and better equipped to forge my own path. I clearly will need like minded peers to pool with and this will be a significant future step – identifying and actioning such connections and possibilities.
Hope this helps, Eric.
As far as professional/career aspirations, it feels as though things are slowly falling into place in their own fashion and time. I feels as though the past few years gave me small glimpses or snippets of what i could achieve in my career and how i could find a way to contribute to my profession in my own unique way. In the past, I would become frustrated as I would feel as though I wanted to do things exclusively one way and would feel as though I was being blocked from doing the energy work and holistic healing which i have longed to do. It now feels though that i can see the path ahead and every day i am now just allowing things to fall into place and trusting that in the next two years, I will be in a position to truly forge ahead to combine the various skills and experiences i have had as a clinician. Opportunities are presenting themselves now which i had envisioned years ago but were not ready for at that time.
As far as relationships, Venus retrograde was interesting as I felt during that retrograde that I did not want to conform to the mold of relationships that we grow believing we will want. I was feeling that i wanted to be free to explore my own version of relationships without labels or judgement from others or even myself. I moved out of my boyfriend’s apartment recently and we decided to have a more open relationship. The interesting part however is that we feel more connected sexually and emotionally this way by removing the stigma and pressure of committing to each other. I don’t know where we are heading but for now, I am fulfilled sexually and for some strange reason, this feels more important to me than having the label of “my husband” or my boyfriend. I finally just released (and continue to remind myself of the need to release) expectations for relationships and am concentrating on what is making me feel good in this moment and trying to stay honest with myself about that
The song “horse with no name” by America sums up the past year for me, if that’s any help at all. 🙂
I was in the scuffles of looking for an apartment with no hope in sight in a foreign country at the venus retrogade in aries moment. and then somewhat promptly i found a place with roommates who promise to be life-long friends. i was “working” like crazy, in terms of exertion, and ending up doing exactly what i wanted to do. with no security or status involved whatsoever. ( struggling jazz musician)
I am currently hesitating between returning to a seven-year long often stressful relationship that had been on hiatus, and being “serious,” or to returning to where i lived this year, and continuing in the same mode of living in the moment for as long as proves possible, and following a person i think of often.
Hi Eric,
My work like is zooming along. I’ve gotten an incredible amount done this year. I’m making money easily. The work process is a little unsettling and has changed, but as far as getting things done, I’m great.
Feel big change is coming, as I look at Pluto approaching my ascendant (5:52 Capricorn) and I don’t know what those changes will be like and… well, I’m not uneasy, just curious and puzzled.
Relationships… sending my youngest off to college next fall. I’m sure that will be really different. Looking at my husband and tinking… just the two of us? Really? What will that be like? Some frustrations, I’m sure, some loneliness, as the kids and their friends often fill up the house, but hopefully some good things will come into my life to fill the void.
Hope that helps.
Venus was retrograde in Aries, which touched the last degree of Pisces.
http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/2009/02/02/mercury-direct-warmup-to-venus-retrograde/
Hi Eric,
I am curious to learn what relevence you think Moon-in-Taurus might have to this discussion, if any. It seems that different cultures (and different cultures at different time) focus on different planets as having more or less importance, eg., Vedic astrology’s focus on the Moon sign, or European/North American culture’s the shift from a focus on the Rising sign to a focus on the Sun sign. It seems to be indicative of differing cultural values and/or shifting cultural values with regard to what are the most important parts of our being… what think ye? And, is Moon-in-Taurus relevant/helpful to your research in this case, or not?
Thanks for all your interesting work!