Earth Day - Embodied Astrology for the Taurus New Moon - April 22, 2020
Hello on this new moon day. Happy Earth Day.
On this day and all days, may we remember our bodies as Earth and may we treat the earth with reverence and adoration.
There have been some excellent descriptions of the Taurus New Moon already written that describe its energetic symbolism through the language of Western Astrology, especially as applied to a larger societal context and the needs of the current moment. I really appreciate the way Chani Nicholas articulated the new moon’s potential in her recent article. I agree with everything she said and it feels redundant to rewrite any of it, so please read that here. This new moon is also a “seed symbol” in the astrological cycle of Taurus Season which I explore in the most recent EA podcast and audio horoscopes in relation to politics, person, body, choices etc. Listen to that here.
From the perspective of Embodied Astrology, which is a more open-ended, creative cousin of Medical Astrology, I’d like to add some musings on what this new moon is inspiring for me.
In Medical Astrology, Taurus rules the neck, ears, palate, larynx, tonsils, thyroid gland, lower jaw, occipital region, cerebellum, atlas, cervical vertebrae, vocal chords, carotid arteries, jugular vein, and the pharynx. These locations in the body serve a myriad of functions including: listening, balancing, swallowing, speaking/sounding, chewing, attaching the head to the spine, fine motor functions of the hands and body, hand/eye coordination, vision and focus, bodily coordination, muscle control, the ability to rotate the head, getting blood in and out of the brain, regulating the body's metabolic rate, heart and digestive function, and mood and bone maintenance.
In essence, the spaces where Taurus is said to rule and reside have everything to do with the simplest, most basic functions of being in a body. This is where we nourish ourselves and build the mass of the body (without which we starve and/or can’t regulate our bodily growth). This is the place where our heads and bodies come together and where the brain’s communications to the body travel through. This is where we receive visual and aural information and how we are able to turn our attention towards the information we perceive. This is where we articulate ourselves through gestures, facial expressions and voice.
Camille Tocchetto photographed by Gabz Tosi for the EAbodies Project
Along with these embodied correspondences, in the mundane world Taurus is said to rule the fertile nature of Earth, all foods and the materiality of all objects. Basically, Earth as a habitable space, everything we can eat (plants and animals included) and anything we can own… Just consider this as a feeling tone for a moment. Imagine your physical body in relation to life energy itself, to food and objects… The feelings of expectation, need, desire and reliance in those relationships.
At any new moon we are presented with a symbolic beginning point. The Sun and Moon align from our earthly perspective. No solar light illuminates the lunar surface. This is the moment of emptiness in contrast to a moment of fullness. Our bodies (highly attuned tuning instruments that they are) are designed to register light not only through our eyes, but also through our skin and glandular system. When there is less light, we become more sensitive. By necessity, we tune in more deeply to our listening and sensing functions. This attunement is a creative, intuitive space where our imaginations open up to fill in what our eyes can’t see. What we invite into this subjective, internal time will take root in our unconscious. At a new moon we can choose to attend to what we want to plant, invite, seed in this darker more sensitive space. Over the course of the next 14 days as the lunar light grows and we move into the solar/lunar opposition of the full moon, we might say that our vision grows as well, and whatever it is that we plant within our depths will manifest in more obvious, conscious ways.
Today’s new moon is conjunct (together) with Uranus. Uranus (Ouranos) is the story of the sky-god. The one who conceives of brilliant ideas and possibilities and plants them as seeds in the body of Gaia (Earth) to be born into material existence. In Medical astrology, Uranus is associated with the nervous system. Specifically with the synapse – the electric conductivity of impulses between neurons. This conductivity is the way that information travels through the body as a whole and is delivered between the body and brain. Astrologically, the function of Uranus is to awaken insight within individuals as well as collective awareness. We can track its cycles in correspondence with important inventions and innovations, as well periods of chaos and upheaval that often precipitate and follow their development.
The Sun, Moon and Uranus are all square (90º) to Saturn in Aquarius. A square is a dynamic, bracing, forceful aspect. It challenges, resists and builds strength. It can block energy but can also produce creative workarounds and skilfull expressions. Saturn (Cronus) is the story of one of Ouranos and Gaia’s children. Gaia was tired of being impregnated and forced to birth all of Ouranos’ inventions. She asked Cronus to block his father, which he did by castrating him. Cronus then became King. It was prophesied that he would be overthrown as he overthrew his father, so he ate his children in fear. His wife hid one of his sons, Zeus, in a cave and one day Zeus did overthrow his father. Rather than killing him, Zeus exiled Cronus to the same cave, where Cronus waited and watched and became wise in his judgment.
In Medical Astrology, Saturn rules the bones and skin. Astrologically, its function is to provide limits, containment, challenge, pressure, fear, restriction and obstacle. We can track its cycles in correspondence with maturation and the development of reason and judgement, as well as the formation and implementation of rules, laws and authorities.
Through the creative, somatic, associative pathways that astrology opens and works through for me, my sense of the new moon is this…
Our bodies are nature. Like the earth, we are fertile beings, capable of birthing and growing life and form. We manifest through the materiality and labor of our bodies from the materiality and labor of nature. Our ideas and inventions begin as longings, desire, impulses, hungers. When they travel into the brain they are formed as concepts. These concepts are then voiced, articulated, molded, crafted into being.
What humans have formed and created has become tiresome for the earth. As her resources are drained and exploited, so too are our bodies. Our species faces a challenge of survival now. We have built and become more than we can sustain if we continue with the same methods of building and becoming, or with the same desires, hungers and longings. We now are being presented with a period of restriction, obstruction, pressure and fear. There is a crisis that can’t be ignored. We can’t continue in the same ways. We will either become wise and awaken to a greater intelligence or we will be “overthrown” by nature’s forces… which is to say, her immune system.
This new moon offers an invitation to pause and turn attention to the most basic and primary elements of beingness. It asks us to sense the nature of hunger and investigate the deepest reactions and strategies that arise in response to the need for basic sustenance. We are being told to pay attention to what we’re “chewing on,” and to bring cognisance to the ways our chewing patterns pull the head in or out of alignment with the body. We are being told to pay attention to what we’re “swallowing” and how we embody perceptions of need and value. We are being shown that we can pivot, turn attention and re-orient. We are being asked to recalibrate our metabolism in order to ensure that energy is available to the whole system, which is of course, necessary for not only survival, but for happiness.
I’ll be working with these themes in tonight’s new moon ritual. As a somatic educator and embodiment enthusiast, I work my magic through movement, breathing and the felt sense. We’ll explore the new moon chart and its correspondences and get grounded in our relationship to Earth, then I’ll demonstrate/facilitate a powerful practice for working with and reworking tension patterns in the face, jaw, tongue, throat and neck. My experience with this practice is that it is incredibly effective in relieving jaw tension and TMD, but on a more subtle level, that it helps me attune with and realign some incredibly deep patterns relating with security and self-esteem issues. As my awareness has grown through this practice, I’ve been able to start re-patterning some of my immediate reactivity to fear, scarcity, self-hatred and perceptions of deficiency.
In relation to tonight’s new moon and its various interpretations, working with these embodied patterns is a powerful invocation. As I said in this month’s podcast, embodiment is political. No matter how many ideas we may have about changes that need to be made, if we don’t work on the level of tissues and cellular consciousness, our bodies will still calibrate with the oppressive frameworks of our societal foundations. To re-pattern our society, we need to start at the most immediate and personal layers.
If you can’t attend tonight's live online event, the recording will be available for the next two weeks. 100% of the proceeds for this event and the recording will be donated to Seeding Sovereignty’s Indigenous Impact Rapid Relief Initiative.
Much love and new moon blessings to you and yours,
R
