Uranus is the planet that rules diversity, ie "differences". All of those qualities and ways of being that make us feel unique and unusual. Diversity is a necessary part of life, without it the world would be a more drab, boring and barren place. But the actual reality of being different and living differently from the dominant paradigm can be painful and isolating, particularly in a culture that values homogeneity and uniformity.

Pisces season brings a chance to retreat and drift in a meditative way before Aries comes along in late March and picks up the speed. During this Pisces time we can commune with the new life springing forth all around us, and gently notice how all things are connected. This season offers us a chance to allow ourselves time to just be, without the need to make anything happen.

Virgo grounds us in the real world, helping us navigate the details of daily life. The Virgo goddess Astraea was the last immortal in the Greek pantheon to leave the earth and abandon humans after Pandora opened her box and unleashed chaos into the world. Astraea stayed behind after all the other gods had left for the heavens, helping mortals adjust to life on earth. Astraea’s name also means “Star Maiden” and so she is said to bring renewal, balance and inspiration.

Uranus is the kundalini electric, lightning bolt of connection to the divine that wakes us up, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and sometimes even physically. Smell the smoke as lightning sizzles and hits the ground, setting fire to the old and done. There’s an electric buzz as the air vibrates, alive with the shockwaves of getting "woke". Uranus in Taurus directs us towards a kind of potential future that exists only in the present moment.

Imagine Venus. Picture her as goddess, archetype, planet, or myth. See her peach gold hue, her rose kissed glow. Venus is sweet dusk haze, and pure morning light. Her voice speaks grace, and her words breath charm. Beauty, both inner and outer is her realm, and her magic: pure honey dust, sprinkled freely on lovers, artists and peacemakers alike. She dispenses her precarious sparkle of romance and pleasure with loving care and exquisite danger, uncaring of consequences, and blind to remorse. Yet Venus also thrives around peace and harmony, revels in the hush of the sated senses, and awakens wherever creativity lives.

It was literally a day or so after this session that I was walking up the path to our home and noticed an enormous rose bush, really a tree, that had seemingly bloomed overnight. I’d never noticed it before, before blooming it had just looked like a green hedge of some kind. But in the night it had bloomed, with the most exquisite pink, sweet smelling wild roses. It felt like one of the best gifts I’d ever received, a direct message of love from my mother’s line.

The natural world is overflowing with an abundant beauty and grace, a raw power and intelligence that is alive and unmistakable. When we gaze at the far white fire of the stars, muse upon the deep waters of the ocean, or breathe in the pure scent of rain and moss, we are engaging in more than just a moment of grace, we are connecting with the vast intelligence of nature, the “force that through the green fuse drives the flower”, as Dylan Thomas wrote. This intelligent force of life manifests itself in numerous forms, permeating, shapeshifting and defying ultimate definition. We call this intelligence by any number of names: goddess, god, spirit, divinity. But we cannot deny its existence, or more importantly, our reliance and interdependent relationship with its ongoing flow.

Dirt loving, flower sniffing, rolling in the mud, licking off the mango juice, savoring the red wine/dark chocolate/truffle/umami flavor...A Taurus revelry commences tomorrow with the Taurus New Moon on April 30 th, welcoming in the springtime with full earthy pleasure power. You might want to kneel and kiss the ground to welcome in the time of flowers blooming and bees buzzing, or maybe you’ll want to do your own kind of earth dance, calling up the fire in the earth and letting the star fire showers fall gently down under a night sky.