Indulge yourself - eat chocolate and count your bank notes

The Moon will be new in London on May 4that 11.45 p.m. in the sign of Taurus.

Taurus is a Fixed Earth sign, the second sign of the zodiac and symbolised by the bull.   Taurus represents the material world and, after Aries has blazed his trail, it is the job of Taurus to take stock and to actually create something that works from Aries’ ideas.  So, Taurus represents solidity, perseverance and patience.  Taurus will stick with his creation through thick and thin – he is Fixed in his nature and will be hard to change direction.  Taureans also love a bit of luxury – something they can feel and touch such as that thick pile carpet, smooth velvety cloth, rich creamy cake, fine wine, rich chocolate or crispy new bank notes.

Taurus seeks safety and security, particularly in terms of material possessions, such as owning their own house and having money in the bank.  So, in this respect, Taurus also reflects the economy and banking systems.

The degree of this New Moon has a Virgo flavour to it – discrimination, the body, health and a desire to fix what is seen to be imperfect and not working properly.

Taurus currently is having to deal with change as Uranus has entered the bull’s sign for the next seven years.   This makes this sign particularly uncomfortable – dealing with change will make most Taureans dig their stubborn heels in.   During these coming years we can expect to see changes in how the world works as well as with our Earth.   This may be felt in terms of our value systems – money, banking, how we actually pay for goods and in terms of our social and personal values.   Uranus represents innovation and technology so new technologies may change our lives for ever – think Artificial Intelligence here. It is highly likely we may see extremes in our weather and climate and we will need to take on board that our Earth and our Universe are both living, conscious and interconnected miracles of design; perhaps we will see just how badly we have treated our Mother Earth.

This New Moon falls just three days after the spring festival of Beltane, which was a major celebration of the earth, vegetation, new life and fertility. Back in the day, Londoners would spend the morning in the ‘sweet meadows and green woods’ collecting flowers and greenery to decorate their homes.[1]   Girls and women would wash their faces in the morning dew and May Queens were crowned and garlanded during the festivities.   The eve of May day in some Germanic countries was a time to dance and light fires to ward off witches.

In the chart for this New Moon we see Venus, the Lady and ruler of Taurus, sitting with Mercury, planet of the mind and communication, and Eris, Goddess of strife and discord – all in Aries – in a conflict aspect with the nodal axis and with Saturn and Pluto, who are currently book ending the South Node.  Apo;logies to the non astrologers for the jargon, but this is a pretty powerful aspect and we are all perhaps feeling the paranoia and fear of the change that is about to happen, but we don’t want to accept it or even face it.

The New Moon sits with the fixed star Menkar – the mouth of the whale, open to the collective unconscious.   This New Moon has the potential to either achieve something good on behalf of the collective or, otherwise, to become a victim of it.  Which way will it go?  According to Bernadette Brady the whale represents the human collective unconscious; the unconscious represents the archetypal forces which in human history force an evolution of behaviour and of advancements.  Consider for instance that once there had never been a lightbulb and then two people came along at the same time and invented one – that’s how planetary cycles influence human behaviour!  The cycles of the slower moving outer planets represent the evolutionary cycles – somewhere deep within us we as humans respond to the meaning of these cycles.  The energy is unseen and hidden but, nevertheless, we as humans recognise their archetypal meaning and we respond with our actions and our thoughts.

The energy of this New Moon suggests that we need to look to where things are stuck, where we don’t want to make changes and what we don’t want to acknowledge in order that we can deal with and effect changes within our lives. This New Moon wants to hold on stubbornly, to not change and to keep things as they are, but, with Venus/Eris/Mercury in Aries in this conflict aspect with the nodes, Saturn and Pluto, this is just not possible.

In recent lunar articles I have touched on the energy centres or chakras, particularly in terms of the sixth and seventh chakras – the third eye and the crown – and their links with the brain, the pineal gland, the pituitary gland and the pre-frontal cortex.  In this article I want to look at the heart centre – the intersection, and the mid-point, of the seven energy centre/chakras.  If our hearts are open then our brains will send out positive chemical messengers to the organs of our body stimulating positive energy, creativity and intuition.  Dr. Joe Dispenza, in his book Becoming Supernatural, says that this positive energy ‘allows the magic to happen’ so that we don’t feel a sense of internal lack or need for outside stimulants to compensate for what we feel we lack within ourselves.  If our heart centres are activated with positive energy, then we are able to create new experiences and new situations from within ourselves.  This heart centre, he states, represents the bridge between our ‘animal’ natures and our divine nature, and heart centred emotions open the door to our subconscious minds.[2]

If we are in a state of constant stress our heart centre and our ability to create are inhibited.  Psychological stress is the strongest predictor of heart disease and cardiac arrest.  The ancient Egyptians regarded the heart rather than the brain as the source of wisdom.  The Mesopotamians and the Greeks saw the heart as the centre of the soul. The heart is not just a mechanical pump – it is a sensory organ and, according to Dispenza, it is intelligent.[3]  The heartbeat comes from the heart itself and not from the brain induced nervous system. The heart has its own parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system; every emotion affects our heartbeat.  A baby’s heart begins beating before the brain is even formed.  Our feelings and emotions unlock the intelligence of our hearts.

Dispenza asserts that the long-term effects of ‘unresolved survival emotions’ leave the body vulnerable to health issues.[4]  When the heart centre is activated through stress, so too is the thymus gland situated just behind the breastbone.  The thymus’ role is the promotion of the T cells of our immune system.  So, stress has a negative effect on our immune system too.

The heart has a nervous system that functions independently of the brain. They are connected by pathways moving from heart to brain within the vagus nerve.[5]  Dispenza likens the heart centre to an amplifier which jump starts the brain with the potential to bring balance and order throughout the body.  His studies have shown that meditations incorporating gratitude, joy and love shift the paradigm of thoughts and feelings in such a way that the positive effects ripple out to positively affect families and communities.[6]

Thoughts drive feelings and feelings drive thoughts, until there is a hardwired loop coursing through the body.  Thoughts condition the body to stay in the past as they reinforce the feelings and keep individuals anchored in the same state, living in the same past experiences.  Once you are locked in the loop your body believes it is actually living in the experience that first triggered this hardwired loop.  Angry thoughts and feelings tend to get stuck in the three lower energy centres of the body.  And this stored energy produces unhealthy effects on the body such as adrenal fatigue, digestive problems and more.

How do we make the New Moon work for us?

Breathing out the trapped energy:

The cerebrospinal fluid in the spine connects brain and sacrum. Consider each of the seven energy centres in a breathing session before the meditation.  Tighten each of the three lower chakras/energy centres – base, digestive/reproductive and navel.  As you exhale consider that you are squeezing out and pushing up the energy trapped in these bottom three centres up through the cerebrospinal fluid and then releasing through the crown.  Think of the spinal column as a ‘prana tube’ or life force tube.  The powerful breath engaged by actively moving stored energy from the three lower centres pushes these stored emotions out and allows the life force to flow through the prana tube and become strong.   Follow this with a heart centred meditation.

Heart centred meditation:

During meditation bring the attention to the heart centre, the chest and the breath.  Allow elevated heartfelt emotions to course through the body with the breath and feel the intention of joy and love and gratitude and send this outside the body with the breath.  The repetition of this process on a daily basis allows feelings of fear, lack of worth and insecurity to consciously be replaced by love and gratitude.   It also allows the brain to rewire and the body to reconfigure.  At first, yes this is a conscious act but it is possible to produce tangible effects by shifting the paradigm of thoughts and feelings.

What in your life do you absolutely know needs to change but you’d rather ignore?

Change doesn’t come overnight or without effort.  Firstly consider beliefs.  Beliefs influence thoughts and thoughts influence the emotions, the unconscious and the body.  Emotional stress can weirdly also be addictive. So, whilst your diet may be good and you aren’t on alcohol or drugs, consider this one.   You might think – how could I become emotionally addicted to something I hate?  Apparently, it has to do with the rush of adrenaline and the other stress hormones giving a ‘rush’ to the body that we want to keep on encountering.

In this respect conscious understanding of how the thinking/feeling loop reinforces unconscious habits and behaviours is the first step.

Secondly, consider the language of your thoughts.  Consider the metaphors you use.  If your thoughts are angry then your body will also be angry.  If you always think you are worthless then this will also be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And, if the body is in survival mode, the energy does not flow through the prana tube easily.  It gets stuck and is blocked by self-limiting thoughts.

Conscious thoughts must free this blocked energy and the subsequent life limiting effects on the body.  This has to be conscious re-conditioning – conscious thought given to the language you use.   If you keep thinking the same thoughts and never question the beliefs that produce these thoughts then you will keep having exactly the same experiences and the same results.  As Dispenza says – if you do nothing, you get nothing.[7]    Yes, it’s effort but whilst Taurus energy is in charge we can at least produce sustained, persevering effort – that’s what Taurus is good at, even if change is not his forte.

And with Uranus in Taurus it’s necessary to try and think outside the box.  See if you can use your resources in a much more innovate way – don’t do the same as you always have done as it will only produce the same result as before.

Finally, take time to indulge and enjoy what Taurus loves – chill the wine, eat the chocolate and, if you have any, count your bank notes.

www.joycelambertastrology.com

[1]Rupert Sheldrake, Ways to Go Beyond and why they work, Hodder & Stoughton, 2019, p.193

[2]Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Hay House, 2017, p.171

[3]Do. P.161

[4]Do. P.165

[5]Do p.170

[6]Do.172

[7]Do. P.142