Preface: Before I go on to revel in the palace of the body, know that I include the mind. As far as I’m concerned the mind exists in the body. Living this concept is a constant practice. We’ve all had a lot of conditioning to regard the two as separate, contentious entities. I think the mind is the part of the body that connects it to the abstract idea of time, providing context and narrative. They’re always connected for better or worse.
The body. The meat. The corpo (body) REAL. The matter. In the earthy world of Taurus, only matter matters. The fire signs can keep their inspirations, water their emotions, and air their ideas. The world of Taurus springs from the soil. It’s WILD-life, not the brainchild of city planners and scientists. Taurus is the all natural, all sensing skin we live in. It’s the material…in every sense of the word. We can touch material. It’s 3D, and therefore real. Taurus likes “real” because it likes security—to feel solid ground with its body, luxuriate in the bounty of nature. Simple, right? How do we fuck this up so badly?
The body works best when it’s prioritized. We get into trouble when the body becomes a slave to our ideas about how we think it should be. The mind manufactures a million stories, the body only one: I survive. There is no one way the body should move, look, feel, perform, and it really has no meaning and yet it IS you. It’s how you’re recognized and how you recognize everything in your world. It’s your signifier and interface. You can do your best to outsmart it, hack it, whip it into shape, or beat it into submission, but the body will always get its way in the end. Like the bull, Taurus’ symbol, complicate and fuss with this sweet, simple animal at your peril.
Your body will always tell you how to survive, heal, protect, and nourish yourself. Touch is nervous system nourishment. Movement is tissue nourishment. Rest, food, and water nourish all of our combustive/electro-chemical systems.
A body's purpose is not to be trained, decorated, manicured, "fit," "well," disciplined, in service of the will, sacrificed for spirit, or strengthened to bolster a fragile ego. Your body is not an excuse, therefore it should not be loathed. It is not what's keeping you from love, happiness, or transcendence (btw all that magical stuff happens when we are most IN our natural bodies and closest to the earth). Most of all the body was not meant to be abandoned (Taurus stays put). And, we leave ourselves all the time; whenever we indulge in the numbing extremes of physical pleasures and pain, give our agency to others, and thoughtlessly follow rules we had no hand in creating. It happens every time we turn a coach, teacher, doctor, lover, advertisement, or guru into any kind of authority, and value their interpretation of our bodies over our own. We leave ourselves whenever we chase fairy tale carrots dangled in front of our big brains that promise greatness if we adhere to a system, alter our chemistry, or feel *this* feeling, but not *that* feeling. We’re wired to feel ALL the feelings. It’s how we know what to feed ourselves. A lot of us use chemicals and teachers to help us do this. No harm in that, though intent plays a huge role in how that works for you. If we’re working with a guide or a drug in an effort to inquire about ourselves, and further inhabit our bodies, that’s very different than using those aides to give us quick answers or take us away from ourselves.
So much has been designed to dismantle our connection to our body, feel shitty about ourselves, then try to sell us back our confidence, vitality, and sexuality. You can’t buy what’s already yours. We are able to outsource everything our body was meant to do...is hungry to do. Instead of using our bodies to navigate wilderness, we follow maps of routes that have been paved in cities designed for convenience and efficiency. Instead of physical play, lovemaking, and close combat, we go to gyms, watch porn, use weapons and snipe at each other on Twitter. When we don’t fight, play, and love each other with our bodies we stop recognizing ourselves, and ourselves in others. Then we feel separate. Taurus doesn't do separate, it’s ruled by Venus, the planet that joins.
This new moon is asking you to experience and demonstrate loyalty to your natural self. We do not need to master the body, undo all the “damage,” or fix what’s broken. We’re not broken. Worst-case scenario, we’ve unknowingly made some connections that aren’t working in our best interest. Big deal. Connect it differently. When we can feel our bodies, we can truly feel at home…wherever we happen to be. When we have access to our bodies, we don’t need access to the Internet (as much).
When we talk about the body and Taurus, we talk also about mother earth, Gaia. Like the body, when we mine it for resources and artificially amp up its productivity...we fuck it up. Body/Earth gets sick. Body/Earth is not a machine designed for maximum efficiency. It’s wild, intelligent, responsive, process. Your body doesn’t need to look a certain way, and neither does a tomato (have you seen heirloom tomatoes). The best we can do for all WILD-life is get out of its way, and feed it what it wants.
We will need the security of being connected to our safe stable Body/Earth these next two weeks. We have some radical, unpredictable energy zinging around. Some of it looks quite edgy. But, nasty or nice, there are some surprises in the works as retro Mercury gets right up in there with the Uranus/Eris conjunction in Aries. This is a firework-curveball. It’s blindsiding news, and that thing that came from outta nowhere…again, for better or worse. Invest in what you can touch during this phase. It will keep you sane.
New Moon Meditations/Questions:
For the next 2 weeks can you use your mind to serve and listen to your body more? Allow your body to be the boss of you.
Can you distinguish body needs from ego needs?
Do you feed your body based on what your senses tell you they want, or do you make decisions about what to do with your body, based on external goals or to fix psychological states?
Do you do things with your physical body that you'd rather not do to be polite, impressive, or to shut out feeling?
Do you only share caring touch with your romantic partner(s)? Do you forget to touch yourself?
Do you over fortify your bank account or body out of fear of scarcity? Do you under nourish body/bank account (guilt for abundance)?
Is the food you’re eating real food? Are you eating plants that have not been fucked with?
Do you have a stash of money saved up that makes you feel secure? Taurus loves a good cushion.
Do you have at least one space you can visit in your home or office that feels like a sanctuary?
Do you have routine (mindless) stories about your body? Are they even true? Are they as real as the skin you’re in?
READING LIST. SO GOOD. Further meditations on the bod.
https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/natalie-diaz-on-the-physicality-of-writing/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/12/neoliberalism-creating-loneliness-wrenching-society-apart
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/06/20/the-body-keeps-the-score-van-der-kolk/
https://aeon.co/essays/it-takes-neuroscience-and-poetry-to-map-the-tributaries-of-touch
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