Always coming Home
The Taurus New Moon
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” Rainer Maria Rilke
There is a story - that I’m sure you’ve heard - of a traveller in Ireland asking directions from a local, who replies
“Ah well now, I wouldn’t be starting from here….”
Once, while travelling with my parents years ago, we got lost in Waterford. I can’t recall where we were going, or how we had got lost, but when I asked the way the kindly man replied with that very phrase. I’ll admit to needing to stifle a bit of a giggle at the time.
He did, to clarify the situation to me, point along the road and ask:
“you see that junction up ahead?”
I nodded in agreement as I could indeed see the very junction he was referring to. “Well, you need to start from there.” He continued with very precise instructions, using local pubs and churches as the reference points, none of which, of course, we knew.
The point I’m making here is that we are all on a journey, and one that we may have clear signposts to follow, or we may be stumbling along with a vague map in our heads - or we may, these days, be using certain map apps on our mobile phones to guide us. Which they do very accurately. Yet, somehow, we are left feeling disconnected from our surroundings, as if we haven’t quite aligned our consciousness with the changing outside world as we study the ever changing map in front of us, but missing out on being physically ‘in’ the territory. Sometimes we may even need directions to find our way home, both physically and/or metaphorically.
Now is a time to find that way home, to our roots, to where we feel fully at one with ourselves, with nature, and with the living cosmos, of which we are but a tiny part.
Of course, the huge intertwined cycles of astrological reckonings still turn, grinding and spiralling through space, time and the living cosmos - some so slowly as to be utterly imperceptible to one lifetime; while others rush by so fast most of us take not a breath of conscience thought as the opportunity presented whistles past.
Two examples: think of the triple cycles of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto as they interplay, forming oppositions, squares and conjunctions, trines and sextile - not to mention all those squirky ones like the quincunx and the rather gorgeous quintile. These are the patterns of ages. Then we could go deeper, into the precession of the equinoxes as our planet wobbles through space; and then there’s the swirling of galaxies. We are talking here of hundreds, thousands of years. Perhaps even tens of thousands of years. And throughout all of that time humanity has watched and studies the stars; created stories, myths and star-lore from watching the swirling heavens above us. Mind boggling.
Or we could look at the details - as we are now with this New Moon. We could look at the cycles of the Moon over each cycle of 28 or so days. And then go deeper into the shifting of the Moon through each sign over those 28 days. And deeper still into the shifting of the Moon through its daily shift through the 28 Arabic Mansions - or the Vedic Nakshastras.
Why talk about all these cycles? It’s because astrology is complex, and as a good astrologer friend of mine says, everything in the sky - everything! - is important. Mind blown again.
I think my earlier words in this article are a bit of the energy I’m feeling from Venus in Gemini activating my own natal Venus in Gemini. And Venus rules Taurus, where the New Moon will take place on the 16th May at 9 in the evening here in the UK, 25TAU57.
So why all this talk of finding direction and coming home? Well, for a brief - too brief maybe - time I think this is an astrological moment where there’s a sense of calm, and rootedness, and of feeling the call to find a safe haven, a place of safety where we can some time and simply *feel* who we really are, feel where we’ve come from, and feel where we are going.
Those big cycles are still turning, like geological ages of tectonic plates quietly shifting - and then suddenly exploding, like earthquakes that shake us to the foundations of our broken - or at least breaking - civilisation. Pluto, as part of these huge cycles, is now retrograde, looking backwards with his annual invitation to stop a while and look at all we deny about ourselves and society. Lurking from the shadows under a gaslit streetlight - like Harry Lime in The Third Man - Pluto is asking us to revisit what still remains hidden, what is still in the underworld that needs - must - come into the light. In other words, don’t fall for the bullshit; don’t fall for the snake oil pedlars of lies, of hate, hopelessness and division.
And the ‘magic triangle’ - two sextile and a trine - between Uranus in Gemini, Neptune in Aries, and Pluto in Aquarius - slips in and out of our consciousness as it moves towards the moment it perfects in July 2026 - bringing who knows what in its wake. We still have agency, we still have choice, though the fate written in the stars tells us we have to make choices consciously or become the victims of those who believe they hold ultimate power. If we fail now we become slaves to that power. We can choose to do nothing, to close our eyes, close our minds and tell ourselves there’s nothing to be done. That the world is broken and we can’t fix it. That road leads to a dystopian future I don’t want to think about. We are being asked, with these huge shifts, to step up. To do something - and many will.
But it’s the ‘small stuff’ we need to pay attention to at this New Moon. Mercury is in close attendance to the New Moon, and so hidden from our eyes, while Venus twinkles brightly in the western sky at sunset, with bright benefic Jupiter in Cancer following her beneath the visible western horizon around midnight. We may find blessings in this New Moon. Blessings of hope, stillness, beauty, ideas; of simply ‘being’.
This, then, is a strong and positive New Moon chart:
Mars is in rulership,
Mercury and Venus are in mutual reception (though in Hellenic astrology they can’t ‘see’ each other, which weakens that mutual reception as they are working to their own individual agendas),
The Moon is in exaltation and triplicity,
Mars is in rulership,
Jupiter is in exaltation,
And both Mars and Jupiter are in mutual reception by triplicity
I find it interesting that we have eight planets (if we include Ceres and Chiron - and we absolutely should) in the last decan of their respective signs right now: Jupiter in Cancer; Venus in Gemini; Sun, Moon, Mercury and Ceres in Taurus; Mars and Chiron in Aries. These all form a pattern of ‘interlocking’ sextiles, and potential positive opportunities if we grasp them.
If we think tarot for a moment, we can associate the planetary positions as:
Jupiter in Cancer - 4 of Cups
Venus in Gemini - 10 of Swords
Sun, Moon, Mercury, Ceres in Taurus - 7 of Pentacles
Mars and Chiron in Aries - 4 of Wands
The story those cards could tell is something like this:
We stand at the edge of an old garden - for a long time; waiting for the garden to speak. We have been offered much, perhaps more than we realise, but some part of our heart has been tired. Not ungrateful, not closed exactly, just inward. A little rain-soaked. A little lost in the ache of what did not arrive in the shape we hoped for.
Yet we know that blessings may come through feeling, through softening the shell. Through letting ourselves be nourished, not only by grand miracles, but by ordinary kindness, memory, family, food, shelter, touch, the small cup of tea placed in our hands at the right moment.
This is a sacred pause. A moment of emotional digestion. The soul saying, before I receive more, let me understand what I already carry.
A wind sweeps through the garden. Bright-eyed and quick-tongued, like a bundle of old letters pierced through with pins; words that once wounded, stories that became too sharp. The conversations that ended badly, or never happened at all. The thoughts that circled and circled until they became ravens in the mind.
Then, listening more carefully, we realise that this moment is not the end. It is the end of just one particular narrative. It is the dawn after mental exhaustion. Instead it is moment of healing, and the beginning of love - through language, choice, curiosity, and the courage to tell a different story. In that moment we realise we no longer have to keep lying beneath old sentences. We can stand up. We can remove the blades one by one and say, this thought is not my fate; this ending is not my whole life; this pain is not the final author of me. Change the words, and the spell begins to change.
We finally recognise this is our home. Rooted deep in the soil, the mud. And the blood of lineage. We tend the land. We wait. We choose what needs to be planted. We ask - what is truly worth continued devotion? This part of our story is slow, but it is not stagnant. The garden is growing beneath the surface. We cannot rush the rose, the apple, the root, the body, the healing, the art, the money, the love, or the becoming.
This is a return to embodiment. This is when we ask the questions: what do I need, not in theory, but in my bones?
Our mind became practical and patient, our questions deeply maternal: what am I feeding, and what is feeding me?
Even where things feel unfinished, something has been ripening. We may be asked to prune, refine, recommit, or redirect, but this isn’t failure. This is the sacred moment when the wise gardener looks at the land and knows which plants need more light, which need staking, which need harvesting, and which must be lovingly cleared to make room.
Finally, at last we can speak openly and honestly of wounds. We can speak of wounds around courage, identity, assertion, anger, independence, and the right to take up space. There may have been old pain around beginning again, around being seen in one’s raw aliveness, around saying, I am here, I want this, I choose this, I claim this. Now we must claim it as a celebration, no matter how difficult that may feel. Healing can only take place through the courage of doing and being. The only way out, is through.
This is the threshold garlanded with flowers. It is the hearth relit. It is the moment after struggle when we realise we are allowed to build a place of joy. It is time to act, to reveal that the wound of selfhood can become a doorway into deeper confidence. Here is where we finally recognise that healing does not only happen through grief. Sometimes it happens through dancing. Sometimes we mend by returning to life. By gathering with others. By blessing the threshold. By honouring how far we have come. By creating a home, a ritual, a project, a relationship, or a version of ourselves that says: I survived the old story, and now I am allowed to celebrate the new one.
So the whole story becomes something like this:
A heart that has been tired is learning to receive again.
A mind that has been pierced by old words is learning to speak differently.
A body and life that have been patiently tended are beginning to show signs of growth.
A wounded fire is becoming a sacred hearth.
It is a reading of renewal, and it says: pause, but do not close. Release the old stories, and do not mistake exhaustion for destiny. Keep tending what is real. Let the body guide you back to what is fertile. And when the first signs of joy return - however small, however shy - do not dismiss them.
Put flowers on the gate. The garden is not dead. It has been waiting for you to come home.
Make the most of it by beginning something real, something creative, something that reflects your roots and who you are, who you want to be. Use it to express your soul purpose. Who knows, you may even make some money out of it if that’s your thing.
We haven’t had many moments like this recently. Spend time out in nature, take time to meditate and reflect, and enjoy the moment!
I can’t finish this post without saying a few words about the death of Gordon White. I suspect many of my subscribers will never have heard of Gordon White but his passing is a massive loss to the magically inclined. And I confess I cried when heard the news of his passing into spirit.
A quote from this article gives the smallest glimpse of who he was and how we can build on his legacy:
“We keep Gordon’s story by doing the work.
By testing. Reading. Failing better. Making offerings. Learning history. Building shrines. Growing food. Talking to the dead. Watching the skies.
We keep his story by becoming harder to enchant by tyrants.”
You can read the full article at https://substack.com/@alkistis/note/c-258477802?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1kk35b
With infinite love and blessings,
Christine x
“In the end we are nothing more than Love and stardust”
‘A little rain-soaked. A little lost in the ache of what did not arrive in the shape we hoped for.’
Some of this writing is truly beautiful.💫🪷