Taurus season is upon us once again, bringing with it the energy of desire as it works through form.

After the initial pulse of life in Aries, desire in Taurus becomes the driving force in shaping what form life will take. Will we forge ahead driven by our egoic desires and wishes? Or will we align with divine will and shape our primordial life-force energy into spiritual path and purpose?

Taurus, the sign of the bull, is associated with steadfastness, material possessions, beauty (especially in physical forms), art, stubbornness, security and even enlightenment. It is said that the Buddha himself had six planets and Chiron in Taurus and that the Buddha was born, passed and entered parinirvana all during the time of this auspicious sign.¹ Esoterically, Taurus is associated with illumination and the opening of the third eye.

It is under the sign of Taurus that humanity is learning the deeper spiritual lessons of desire and the transformation of the energy of desire. It is through desire that we take a physical incarnation, and it is desire that also keeps us trapped in Samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth. Taurus teaches us about the nature of desire and what needs to happen so we can release our personal attachments and transform the energy of desire into spiritual realizations.

Humanity … is beginning to come under the influence of Taurus.
The great question is – Will this influence … produce the floodlight of illumination of which Taurus is the custodian, or will it simply foment desire, increase selfishness and bring humanity to the ‘fiery heights of self-interest’ instead of to the mountain of vision and initiation? ~ The Tibetan²

Taurus has two planetary rulers: Venus and Vulcan.³ Venus is the personality ruler, and Vulcan is both the soul ruler and the hierarchical ruler. According to Esoteric Astrology, both Venus and Vulcan are sacred planets, while Vulcan is a “hidden” planet. ⁴ Esoteric Astrology tells us that there are hidden planets that we are unaware of because we do not yet have the consciousness to perceive them or to be receptive to their energy. Once we have expanded our consciousness to the degree that we are more receptive and aware of these subtler energies, we will become aware of these planets. The fact that both ruling planets are sacred (and one is hidden) hints that the inner journey of Taurus is deeply hidden, mysterious, highly significant, and sacred.

The Soul is our individual link to the essential substance of the Creative Source … Astrology is a system that seeks to interpret the nature of the Universal Life Force as It moves, shapes, and creates human life and all events. The planets, signs, and houses, are not the causal elements of manifestation. They are, rather, the reflections of a transcendental synchronicity manifesting through the rhythms and timing of a cosmic clock. ~ Alan Oken⁵

When considering planetary influences from a Soul Astrology perspective, it is more appropriate to think of the planets as lenses or focalizers of divine energy rather than as causative agents. In Esoteric Astrology, the basic energies of creation are referred to in terms of Seven Rays. I will say more about these in future articles, but for our purposes here it is enough to know that there are Seven Great Rays, within which our universe aligns with just one, and then within our universe, there are seven sub-rays. Just as the sunlight contributes to the optimum conditions for life on earth to thrive, so divine energy, in the form of these Seven Rays working through planetary lenses, is contributing to the optimum conditions for the flowering of human consciousness.

Venus is the goddess of love, the powerful energy of desire, which translates as romantic love, when filtered through a human mind! She rules both Libra and Taurus. In Libra, she endows her subjects with a harmonizing aspect that manifests through the mind, in terms of conceptualizing or idealizing ideas of ethics, beauty, attractiveness and justice. Her work in Libra is more closely linked to harmony in the mental body.⁶ In Taurus the loving energy of Venus has a more sensuous, earthy, influence. She works initially through the physical senses to eventually bring awareness of the bliss body.⁷

As Venus works through desire in Taurus, she seeks to awaken the senses. She awakens our sense perception through the physical senses of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. This has the potential to open us to an experience of bliss and awareness of the bliss body.⁸ Herein lies the danger of the Taurean path. If the individual is still centered in the ego-personality, the tendency can be towards grasping at more external objects to feed the bliss experience: clinging to possessions of beauty, beautiful people, music, a beautiful body, and losing sight of the spiritual journey. This is a symptom of the lower mind externalizing the bliss experience and projecting it onto outer worldly objects.

The ego-mind uses logic in the extreme. If one chocolate made me feel good, then ten chocolates will make me feel ten times as good, right? Yet we all know this is not so. Too much of a good thing leads to lethargy, dullness, weight gain and that uncomfortable (even painful) feeling of being over-full. Then we have the addiction effect; we begin to believe we need something outside of ourselves – the chocolate, new shoes or whatever our craved substance, possession, or person may be – to feel good. We begin clamouring for more of the object that we believe will lead to more pleasure (bliss). This leads us to pursue “worldly concerns” (objects outside of ourselves), and the sad part is that while doing so we are neglecting our inner spiritual path, which is the true path to inner peace, bliss, and beyond.

Next: How Vulcan takes over from Venus in guiding Taurus along the true path.

Ruth

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Footnotes:

1. Buddhist Astrology, by Jhampa Shaneman.
2. Esoteric Astrology, the wisdom of The Tibetan (Master DK) as channelled by Alice Bailey.
3. The term “rulership” is not intended in the commonly held sense of exerting force or power over another. In this context, the meaning is closer to nurturing-custodianship, in the sense of providing those conditioning factors necessary for divine seeds to ripen, grow and flourish.
4. See Footnote 2.
5. Soul Centered Astrology: A Key To Your Expanding Self, by Alan Oken.
6. Ibid.
7. See the bliss body and Patanjali’s “five bodies” in my previous article, “Mars, Mercury and the Inner Journey of Aries.”
 8. Ibid.

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Ruth Hadikin – Soul Astrologer

To get your personal Soul Sign/Life Purpose Report (FREE with a consultation), contact Ruth via her website. You can also request a FREE mp3 download, “The Energetics of Soul Astrology.”