Taurus - the Tree

Beautiful Taurus takes its time: test the mood, the weather, your roots in the ground - is it safe to grow another inch or two? But the sap rises, the pace is forced by your natural growth process, and whatever is next inexorably unfolds.

You may like to imagine what kind of tree you would be, if you were a tree: not just the species, but also the age, and your place right now in the yearly process of leafing, flower, fruit and seed. To find where you are now on that timeline of unfolding, look at where you have just been, what was going on before you got where you are. And when you have a feel for that you will be able to see what part of the process is next, and live appropriately.

I feel myself as a fairly old tree, a bit gnarled and bent, but with new spring leaves coming and flower buds - quite appropriate for an aging Aries! The next bit for me would be allowing the flower buds to open, I guess, just being myself . . . How about you? Astrologically, of course, the progressed Moon shows where we are on the spiral of experience through life, like the time of year for a tree, but the other progressions show the deeper slower unfolding of our potential, like the growth of root and branch. The transiting positions of the planets describes the astrological weather from day to day, and we are all dealing with that all the time. The differences between people are, in the tree analogy what climate suits you most and how much protection from the weather you need - or, as a person, whether you came into this life with an umbrella or not!

Why do we do what we do?

Because growth is slow, many behaviours and expectations become so repetitive they sink into unconscious habit, and this month is a good time to check them out. Habits show up in repeated patterns of physical events and surroundings - if you keep unconsciously doing the same thing, you get the same results without seeing how it happens. And now is a time when the purpose of an activity comes under scrutiny (Sun/Moon opposite Saturn in Sagittarius) - what you do needs to be relevant to what you want and what is appropriate in present circumstances.

We are our own jailers

At this time and up till 11 June, the encouragement is to look inwards (Mercury retrograde in Gemini) and expand our usual take on things, trying to see our issues in a wider perspective (Mercury sextile Jupiter). That perspective includes our own individual self-image as greater and more shining than the image we habitually inhabit (Jupiter is in Leo, trine Uranus). We have constructed a set of restrictions for ourselves that keep us in a familiar shape, but they prevent us from fully accepting the development we make through the years. Living our up-to-date self within those old restrictions becomes frustrating, and the tendency is to blame our circumstances and immediate relationships for holding us back, imprisoning our spirits. But what is outside mirrors what is going on within, and this month we have a powerful opportunity to look within and see exactly what it is that we’ve been doing to ourselves.

Let ‘the angels’ guide your choices

Another factor present this month is the kindness that comes from realising that our predicament is part of the human condition (Venus in Cancer trine Neptune in Pisces). There is nothing wrong with us in discovering we limit ourselves - just realising how we are doing that gives us the opportunity to up-date the patterns we use. It could feel like stepping from one stone to another as we cross a river - we need to feel out the next stone ahead for its own brand of security, and push off carefully from the one we’ve been relying on up to now before the glue sets, as it were. We are not forced a particular way by anything other than our own soul growth - we can choose how we do this when we allow the spirit to inspire us.

Don’t just think about it - do it!

The Full Moon on 2 June shows a little more pressure to commit to the necessary updating process: whatever we’ve decided to change, whatever practical habit we are going to introduce to open up possibilities for more energy, time, loving relationships, we definitely need to get on with it (Venus trine Chiron, and then Saturn). And just because we can’t achieve the ideal we are aiming for, is no excuse for not starting along that road (Sun/Moon all square Neptune, but sextile and trine Jupiter). The point is that, by the Full Moon, we will know what is required of us (Mercury trines the North Node of the Moon) and the next job is to do it, for our own sake and the sake of those around us: when we allow ourselves to be the best we can, those around us are freed from our part in their life’s habit patterns, free to aim for their best also.

Create helpful habits NOW to ease the next three months

On 15 June, Saturn returns to Scorpio until 18 September, giving us one more time to look back into the emotional roots of our behaviour, allowing understanding to unhook us from self-destructive patterns. In a way, we have to re-live the past while remaining connected with the understanding that we have developed - and in this process there are often times when we forget the understanding, and seem to have regressed to an earlier character. So, for these three months, it will be very important to be kind to ourselves and others during these apparent relapses.

If you choose to make regular a helpful pattern of behaviour now, it may begin to become automatic by 15 June. With helpful new behaviour, you will be less likely to fall so deeply into the past over the Saturn-in-Scorpio three months. And perhaps the events of those three months will help us to inhabit a larger happier self-image, or even realise that the choice of having an earthly life of any kind does not in fact limit the beings that we truly are.