Lunar News: New Moon in Taurus
A sleigh without snow
New Moon at 7° Taurus at 1:30 PM MDT on April 27th
Sabian Symbol: A sleigh without snow
Did you know… every song in the Lunar News playlist is a horoscope for each sign for this lunar cycle
The only way to win a power struggle is to tap out.
The Sun and Moon together in syzygy (in Taurus) will be within 3° of a square to both Mars (in Leo) and Pluto (in Aquarius), which is an aspect called a T-square. Out of the tension created by the opposing forces of two formidable planets, the new Moon acts as a tough-love mediating force that can assist in reconciling the polarity.
Mars is acting out of stubbornness and pride attempting to individuate by making self-centered demands. Pluto is a destructive force that is actively trying to dismantle the latticed ego, grinding it down in order to test Mars’ motivations and find the true desires underlying his actions. This opposition manifests for us Earthside as a power struggle between our own individual wants and needs within the context of the wants and needs of whatever community or collective we belong to. Everyone wants to belong, fit in, or feel included in the social groups they are a part of, but maintaining a flow state between everyone to keep everyone happy is a difficult task and it takes everyone’s efforts. When one person is upset the dynamic is thrown off; depending on how well the person communicates their bother and how receptive the others are to the complaint, resolving the issue can be inconvenient and uncomfortable at best, irrevocably damaging at worst. All too often these sorts of conflicts can turn into a fight for dominance because maybe one person has put their needs aside for too long and so any request for accommodation feels like an outrageous demand. Maybe another person is completely unaware of the burden they’ve been putting on everyone else from constantly needing reassurance and attention. With Mars in Leo there are heightened expectations around the authority of subjective “lived experiences.” When it comes to group dynamics, however, what are we to do with the several different subjective “lived experiences” that are each distinct in their own right? Pluto’s role in all this is to examine these ruptures to understand our own weaknesses and reveal the weaknesses of the collective. We are only ever as strong as the weakest among us, after all. This is the Mars-Pluto opposition in a nutshell and it’s a transit that has been dramatically fucking everything up since November 2024. Over this past week we went through the final iteration of this transit and the grand finale to it all is the new Moon T-Square coming from Taurus.
The Sun and Moon arrive in Taurus to tell us that compromise is not always possible and sometimes giving up is the answer. Too much stubborn Martian action going nowhere will exhaust us and Pluto does better work amidst the rubble of what has been razed to the ground. This is also a new Moon—a lunar phase designed to empty us out and make it all go to zero in order to pave a clear path ahead of us to move forward without baggage. The message is to drop your arms—without calling a truce—and walk away. Have faith that something will rise from the ashes and projects and relationships have a better chance at starting over after everything’s been cleared away.
This is a great start to Taurus season. Taurus doesn’t get too much attention in popular astrology, either negative or positive, and this is because it’s not a chaotic, or over the top sign. The Taurean vibe is constant, patient, enduring, creative, sensual, and strong. The bull cults of antiquity worshipped the slow-going process of agrarian life, from plowing the fields, fertilizing the soil, planting seeds, and awaiting the first signs of life as the crops began to appear out of the ground. Taurus makes a pleasure out of patience and understands that time is the secret ingredient to everything. After such an explosive late Winter and early Spring, we get a brief reprieve with the Sun transiting such a soft and slow part of the Wheel. The next couple of weeks are a great time to do what you can to silence the noise of the external world and nurture the creative spark within.
Lunar Cycle Transits
April 30: Venus ingress into Aries
Once more, with feeling…
Venus comes back into Aries after her dark night of the soul retrograde journey back into the Piscean underworld. This ingress feels a little bit like a rebirth, and is maybe even more relieving than what the Venus direct station felt like a few weeks ago. Even though Venus struggles in the sign of Aries, this ingress symbolizes a powerful renewal as she crosses the threshold between the darkness of the subconscious and the light of clarity.
Over the next two weeks Venus will be finishing up her “retroshade” meaning she’ll be transiting the degrees of Aries she traveled through before and during her retrograde. The story of this year’s Venus Rx will be reaching its final conclusions at this time. We can make the most of these two weeks by reflecting on the events of our lives that unfolded from January 27th until now. Were your relationships upended at this time? Did you break yourself away from any harmful dynamics with other people? What kind of clarity or breakthroughs came to you about your relationships over these last 3 and a half months?
Ideally, the first decan of Aries revisited by Venus will have revealed to us an inner spark of assertiveness and agency. To achieve this agency, though, we’ll have to approach our relationships with radical honesty. For some, that means fortifying our relationships by letting down our guard and allowing vulnerability to guide us and our beloveds toward a more authentic union. For others, that means accepting reality for what it is and walking away from any dysfunctional relationship to maintain (or regain) your self-respect. Venus transiting Aries teaches us that in relationships, we still must take responsibility for ourselves first and foremost, before ever trying to make any kind of companionship worthwhile.
May 2: Venus conjunct Neptune
This is a key aspect for Venus, especially as the conclusion to her retrograde story takes shape. It is the third and final conjunction to Neptune she’ll make this year and since it happened before, during, and after her retrograde, it is one of the central plots to that story.
In general, when aspects like this occur as a triumvirate during a retrograde transit, it is an opportunity to observe, recognize, and assimilate the lesson of the transit. The first time the aspect happens we are experiencing its effects for the first time—we don’t get to explore the transit deeply, just observe it. The second time it happens, when one of the aspecting planets is retrograde, we recognize the transit’s effects and begin to accept them as playing a part in our lives. By the third occurrence, both planets (usually) are prograde and we have observed and learned the transit’s effects enough to be able to integrate them into a lesson we can apply to our lives.
February 1st and March 28th were the first two times Venus made a conjunction to Neptune, and today the story wraps up for good. This conjunction brings disappointment in love. Straight from the words of Robert Hand on Venus conjunct Neptune, he says, “At its worst, you might be disappointed in a loved one who did not live up to your expectations, which were probably unrealistic in the first place.” Part of the reason this spring’s Venus Rx was so heart wrenching is because of the role Neptune played in all of it. Delusions in love were in excess this season and our task now is to overcome them with tender and loving honesty. On February 1st we had our first dose of this medicine—we were seeing the world through rose-colored glasses, which had us ignoring red flags popping up everywhere. By March 28th we were beginning to see the gulf between our expectations and reality. Today, there is no question as to what is real and what is fantasy. If you choose to ignore reality for the sake of propping up a fantasy, so be it, but you will have no one but yourself to blame for the heartache this might cause.
The interesting difference with this final conjunction in the trilogy of them is it’s taking place at 1° Aries (the other two were at 27° and 29° Pisces). This is going to pack an extra punch to the effects of the aspect and the reality check could be more in your face and challenging to deal with. On the other hand, this fiery energy added to the conjunction could add a spark if inspiration to how we carry on after accepting things for what they really are.
May 4: Pluto stations retrograde
This is not so much of a big deal for us personally, except for those of us with inner planets or significant placements in the early degrees of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. If that’s you, then buckle up for a powerful six months ahead.
Collectively, there will be more political unrest stirred and possibly bizarre technological glitches unfolding from now until October.
May 10: Mercury ingress into Taurus
Mercury is gaining speed as he makes his way into Taurus. This ingress might feel like a relief after Mercury’s strange dance in and out of Aries for the last several weeks. Markets could be volatile at this time and we could even expect some breaking news to come out of the financial institutions prominent on the global stage. I expect turning points or trade war developments with a strong edge to come about in the surrounding days of this ingress.
Our styles of communication will be headstrong and stubborn, but Mercury in Taurus also brings a bright creative spark to our messaging styles, too. Information flow will be slow and this could actually be a nice relief from the chaos of early spring.