Despite what seemed an interminable winter, my lilac bush is blooming, and buds form on my roses. There is within and outside us an invincible spring. ¹

The sun entered Taurus on April 20, and the super moon is new at 3:00 pm ET on May 11, 2021.

After Aires’ fiery I Am, the second house grounds us in I Have. Possessions, money, resources, and values. Taurus is an earth sign. Its symbol is the bull – an unhurried, steadfast creature whose primary motivation is serenity. Bulls are slow to anger but fierce when spurred. They’re also stubborn.

The bull and Taurus invite us to seek security and stability, to plant seeds both literally and symbolically. While this sign asks us to measure material things, its highest form is an elixir. Taurus is ruled by Venus, the Goddess of love and beauty. Here she is the Holy Hedonist for “all acts of love and pleasure are her rituals.” ²

When we celebrate her, she fills us, and we, like bees and hummingbirds, share the nectar.

We know by now that what we contribute to the collective matters. Our thoughts influence the whole, as do our words and deeds and, even more compelling, our worship. This moon beckons us to rejoice in what nourishes and delights us. Simple pleasure is sacred offering. We become the good we give.

The Sabian symbol for the degree of this moon is a white dove flying above troubled waters. ³ Fitting as we begin the annual summer eclipse season with this lunation while expansive Jupiter, mystical Neptune, and transformative Pluto are center-stage too. Let go, rise above, and do what feels good. Go mystical, go big, or go home.

Astrologer Pam Younghans writes:

“Our New Moon this week marks the start of a lunar cycle that reaches its climax in two weeks with a powerful Total Lunar Eclipse. This means that we enter ‘eclipse season’ this week, a time when life can be especially eventful. We are, in a sense, opening a magical box that contains great treasures. While we may not fully understand the value of all that the box contains, we can be assured that the gifts of eclipse season will be instrumental in moving us forward on our evolutionary journey.”

Speaking of opening magical boxes with great treasures, this is my 15th anniversary celebrating the New Moon. I attended my first New Moon Circle on Long Island’s North Fork in 2006. It was the Taurus New Moon, and I was invited by a friend I met in Colorado who moved back to Long Island shortly before I did. We were instructed to dress for “the lusty month of May” and bring flowers from our gardens, with greens and stems and blooms combined. When I walked into the beautiful spirit room, the scent of lilac and sage filled me with memory and longing. Like the Welsh word Hiraeth, homesickness for somewhere I’d both lost yet never been.

We turned our flowers into crowns and danced, singing the iconic invocation:

“I am the Goddess. I am the Mother. All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.”

I did not know that this would become the cornerstone of my spiritual life and the most enduring friendships I would ever make.

We met monthly, danced in the grass, on the beach, and in the water. In the winter, we sat before the fire, honoring the dark months and making a vow for a year and a day each Candlemas. We set intentions and raised cones of power, sending our love to the cosmos. We blessed each other with oil and made hobby horses out of our brooms (yes we had brooms), galloping around on them in a hysterical circle. We left, came back, and had babies. We lost marriages, parents, friends, and a husband.

I moved from Long Island to Pennsylvania seven years ago. I still miss it and always will. But I go back whenever I can. This week, I am going to celebrate our beloved Susanmerrie Wild Elder’s birthday. She is our High Priestess, the planner of the lusty month dress, of flower crowns and hobby horses. For decades, she has held us all as we’ve held each other. Of course, she is a Taurus, and it is to her and all my circle sisters that I dedicate this.

While our sister moon is new this week, Venus is in the news too. A radio transiting the planet has picked up a sound, something that’s never been detected before. The planet of love and beauty is singing.

“Offer only lovely things on my altars—the bread of life, and jewels, and feathers, and flowers. Let the streams of life flow in peace. Turn from violence. Learn to think for a long time how to change this world, how to make it better to live in.All the people in the world ought to talk about it and speak well of it always. Then it will last forever, and the flowers will bloom forever, and I will come to you again.”

Quetzalcoatl

“I put on my favorite jacket for Jamboozie
I painted up my eyes and wore my beads
There was a band playing “To God Be the Glory
There were people dancing all around the street.”

Wheels of Laredo
The Highwomen

References
1. ” In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
2. The Charge of the Goddess: https://www.doreenvaliente.com/doreen-valiente-Doreen_Valiente_Poetry-11.php
3. Sabian Symbols are 360 phrases that correspond with each of the 360 degrees of the zodiac wheel. They were clairvoyantly derived by Elsie Wheeler in 1925.