THE WELL THE TAURUS FULL MOON

Monday, October 29, 2012 at 12:49 pm PDT The Moon and Sun Opposed at 6.48 degrees Taurus/Scorpio Posted Monday, October 29, 2012 At every Full Moon, the Sun and Moon gaze at each other from opposite seats on the zodiac wheel. Marking the culmination point of the 29-day lunar cycle, each Full Moon highlights a different pair of polar opposites, and this month's perfect circle of light shines through the archetypal lenses of Taurus and Scorpio. Taurus's main purpose is to help us stabilize and simplify, for this practical, Venusruled earth sign is primarily concerned with protecting resources, including the most precious ones of all: our time and energy. Well known for being rather stubborn and inflexible, Taurean higher purpose is not to irritate, but to consolidate to identify the nonessentials and start snipping away. There are two things the Bull HATES the most, and they are: complications and being rushed. Taurus will immediately dig in his heels if anyone, however charming, tries to suggest any course of action he hasn't already thought through completely and deemed worthy. So when the Full Moon shines its silver light through this careful sign, we are prompted to take a good hard look at how we are spending our lives. What are the truly valuable pursuits versus merely time-and-resource wasting busyness? Where are we spending precious resources without gaining sufficient dividends in return? Taurus and its opposite sign Scorpio require reciprocity, and neither sign is afraid to cut out the dead growth AND the parasitic vines that can choke the living daylights out of us. But Taurus is also a master at ENJOYING physical, sensual pleasures, and so there's no better time than the Taurus Moon for focusing on the simple pleasure of being in a physical body on this lovely planet of ours. Taurus aesthetic experiences engage body and soul: hiking in the woods, jogging barefoot on the beach, scheduling a massage, planning a cozy meal with someone you love, taking a long relaxing soak in a hot tub, or basking in the sun. The Taurus Full Moon is the perfect time to indulge ourselves a little, even with frugal Saturn holding court (conjoining the Scorpio Sun) at this Full Moon. "Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place." Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (Rumi) "The Empress" of the Tarot deck corresponds to the Taurus archetype in its association with Venus and the earth element. The Empress is Mother Earth,

representing the rich bounty of nature, and the organic rhythm of life that women embody. On the card shown here, from the Rider-Waite deck, The Empress sits on a comfortable, cushioned chair in a fertile field of ripening corn, evoking Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest. A flowing stream ends in a waterfall that supplies her fields with this life-giving element. On her shield is the glyph for Venus and she holds a sceptre topped with the globe of earthly power. She wears a crown of 12 stars, yet she is not the Queen of Heaven, but Goddess of the Here-and-Now, the Empress of earthly Eden. The Sabian symbol* for the degree of the Taurus Full Moon underscores this importance this sign places on the simple fundamentals of life, but it is also a vivid reminder of our current struggle as humans to rise above religious, ethnic, and tribal separations and begin to see all beings as brothers and sisters: THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA AT THE ANCESTRAL WELL. Dane Rudhyar, in his book on the Sabian symbols, noted that this symbol refers to a significant, yet often narrowly interpreted passage in the life of Christ. Early in his ministry, Jesus was said to have met a Samaritan woman at an ancestral well. The woman is unmarried and belongs to a tribe despised by the Jews; yet it is to this outcast, Jesus revealed that he was the Messiah. Rudhyar felt that the symbol's underlying message is that: "Jesus, as Avatar incorporating the Christ-Impulse, came to replace the old tribal order with a new order based on Universal Love." Samaria was the mountainous, central region of ancient Palestine. It is roughly, the northern part of what is now the West Bank, which was captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War which was fought between June 5 and 10, 1967, by Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt (known at the time as the United Arab Republic), Jordan, and Syria. This 1967 War was fought during the time of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo, and it is interesting to note the both Uranus and Pluto are aspecting this same Full Moon degree right now. Chiron (wounds and healing capacity) in Pisces (a water sign associated with religion, Christianity in particular) also aspects this Full Moon, as well as Venus, who just entered Libra, the sign associated with social justice. An outing I took yesterday was remarkably relative to this symbol, which I realized this morning when I looked it up. My daughter is studying Islam, part of the 7th grade Social Studies curriculum here in California, and so we made the 6-hour round trip to attend an Arabic concert at the Islamic Cultural Center in Oakland. A performance by ASWAT, a multi-ethnic music ensemble that performs folkloric, classical, and contemporary Arab music, the concert was a benefit for the Middle

East Children's Alliance Maia Project to bring clean water to the children of Palestine. There is a growing water crisis in Palestine that affects agriculture, industry, and the health of virtually every adult and child. In the Gaza Strip, poor sanitation and over-extraction have polluted the limited water supply. In September 2009, the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) launched the Maia Project (Arabic for "water") to provide Palestinian children with clean, safe drinking water. This project began when the Student Parliament at the UN Boys' School in Bureij Refugee Camp, Gaza were given the opportunity to choose one thing they most wanted for their school: They chose to have clean drinking water. MECA's partner in Gaza heard about this vote and, after meeting with representatives from the school and the Student Parliament, came to MECA to see if we could respond to the children's request for drinking water. MECA provided the funds to build a water purification and desalination unit for the school in 2007. MECA for Peace Maia Project "Some nights stay up 'til dawn as the moon sometimes does for the sun. Be a full bucket, pulled up the dark way of a well then lifted out into light. Something opens our wings, something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us, we taste only sacredness." Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (Rumi) Related Essays The Tao of Taurus The Taurus New Moon (2011) Notes *Sabian Symbols are brief evocative descriptions developed for each degree of the Zodiac. Sometimes cryptic, the symbols are little meditations that can, upon contemplation, sometimes open up new insights. It is fun and often illuminating in a "right-brain" kind of way to look up the symbols for current transits and for the planetary positions and chart angles of your birth chart. Created in 1925 by astrologer Marc Edmund Jones in collaboration with the psychic Elsie Wheeler, they are used as a kind of astrological I-Ching. The citation above is from Dane Rudhyar's book on the Sabian symbols, An Astrological Mandala. New York: Vintage, 1973. For more information on the Middle East Children's Alliance and their Maia project, here's the link to their website.

The Empress Tarot card, shown above, is from the Rider-Waite deck. Authored by A. E. Waite and illustrated by Pamela Coleman, it was originally published in 1909 in England by Rider and Company. The image of the constellation of Taurus at the beginning of this article, is from: A Familiar Treatise on Astronomy by Jehoshaphat Aspin (nom de plume) published in 1825. Digital scan of this image was obtained from the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Washington, DC. There are no known restrictions on publication. The photo of the Full Moon in the branches of the tree was taken by me. The photo of the ASWAT ensemble is from their website. The information about Samaria is from the Encyclopedia Brittannica and Wikipedia.