Thinking Outside a Broken Box

Uranus enters Taurus on 6^th March 2019 (UT). The planet of radical disruption, unpredictable events and liberating discontinuity in the zodiac sign known for its stubborn resistance to change promises to keep us all on our toes! Since May 2010 when Uranus first entered Aries, there’s been a certain amount of leeway available for the more impulsive among us. Aries is fast to act, quick to change, always ready to begin something new: if the first attempt didn’t work out let’s try this, then that. It doesn’t hang around for the long haul, trying to force blood from a stone. And it doesn’t hold our mistakes against us! Taurus, on the other hand, is intransigent, eager to stick on the same path no matter what. Uranus here is just as radical and disruptive as ever, but the consequences of impetuous decisions and ill-considered plans may stick around a whole lot longer.

While Uranus is in Taurus we must face both our resistance to change and the impact of reckless decisions made to side-step a difficult present. As such, Uranus’s journey through Taurus will teach us much about timing, discernment, patience and courage. It can help us address those intransigent things we never thought we’d change in a million years. But it will cut us loose from attachments (including treasured ones) too, if they help numb us to the evolutionary impulse of these troubled and transformational times. If we choose to stick with the familiar beyond its use-by date, life could get tricky for a while! Uranus wants us free – always – and favours the sudden wake-up call of swift and sometimes brutal change to make it so. If we resist this inexorable tide we cause ourselves more suffering. To the extent that we can have faith, let go and let those same tides wash us ashore on new terrain, we can awaken to – and even appreciate – the intrinsic wisdom at the heart of all life’s shocks and surprises.

In May 2018 I commented that Uranus’s journey through Taurus will signify ‘a period during which Mother Earth will push back like never before. We simply cannot afford to take her or her bounty for granted a moment longer. Every mouthful of food, each sip of water, every lungful of air is a blessing to be thankful for. By honouring an enduring commitment to caring for Our Mother and all her children of every form we dismantle, piece by piece, the patriarchal mind-set that equates aggression and domination with power, and love, compassion and generosity with weakness. The inevitable outcome of which has been the positioning of this planet as a resource to be exploited at every turn.’ Since then the North Node has entered the protective and maternal sign of Cancer), further emphasising the importance of perceiving all life as one in the deepest and most heartfelt way. With Uranus’s final arrival into Taurus where it now remains for seven years, the consequences of the choices we make in our relationship to mother nature and the material world will come ever thicker and faster.

But at a time when messages of doom and despair are rife, this is not one of them! Uranus can be our saviour, our liberator from past mistakes. It awakens a more radical knowing enabling us to recalibrate the future and create a sustainable world to replace a dysfunctional one. Taurus is the first earth sign in the zodiac. Here the initial creative spark penetrates matter and manifests its fruits on the material plane. In essence Taurus is us – you and me – as physical expressions of the divine spark which first exploded into life billions of years ago. As such, Uranus in Taurus will teach us just how radically we can transform who we are and what we do when we have a mind to.

The lessons of Taurus – how to create security and stability, how to meet physical needs and create lasting structures that enable growth and development – have been the core challenges of humanity for millennia. At times we’ve learnt those lessons better than others! The rise and fall of civilisations throughout human history attest to the many efforts to defy the forces of change that keep our ever-expanding universe in motion. People come and go as do ideas, communities, lifestyles, priorities, war, peace, religions and political movements. Nothing remains forever and in its deepest wisdom Taurus knows this, honouring the passage of time and change whilst nurturing those things which sustain us through unavoidable turmoil.

At a fear-based level Taurus fights change, resisting its unstoppable march and hunkering down to assert its right to stick with the familiar however damaging it may prove to be. Uranus’s journey through Taurus will brook no such resistance and those who tense up in the face of the new will be challenged to deeply let go and let god – whatever that means to them. And of course, at one level or other that’s all of us! Few live free of any fear, and we may be painfully aware that unassailable forces can overtake and rearrange a life in the blink of an eye. But Uranus demands our trust that upcoming changes will liberate in the long run, even if they seem only to threaten the security we’ve worked so hard to establish.

Uranus in Taurus doesn’t just think outside the box, it smashes it to smithereens from the inside knowing it’s already beyond repair. It reminds us we are responsible for our life in its entirety, hard though this is to swallow. It challenges dualistic notions of external causes creating internal strife, reminding us that we are so much greater than we believe ourselves to be; so powerful we can transmute anything – every thought, emotion and experience – when we commit deeply to the rigorous path of awakening. That said, we must find our own truth now, not cling to the truths of others around which folk gather for comfort and identity. We must forge our own path no matter how far it takes us from those with whom we’ve previously aligned.

This Uranus promises to destroy even the most stubborn attachments if they prevent us from embracing the truth of who we are. As such the next seven years will provide a precious and, at times, breathtaking opportunity to reimagine our future, seeding it in the present with renewed commitment to radically changing our priorities as necessary. Nothing’s off the table now: anything is possible. Anything. So be mindful of what you create and use Uranus as your guide into a fresh, new world.

In his book ‘The Black Butterfly: An Invitation to Radical Aliveness’, Richard Moss states that‘The very forces that crush people can become profound radiance in an individual who no longer is resisting or attempting to modify life’. This teaching is central to our experience of Uranus in Taurus, whose energy may well manifest as apparently destructive forces which, when embraced, provide unlimited energy for the living of a radically reshaped life. Certainly this Uranus will at times express itself in difficult to handle ways, both individually and globally. Disruption of food chains and supplies may occur; our bovine sisters and brothers may resist their on-going exploitation, manifesting conditions that prevent or significantly interrupt its continuation; financial systems and institutions will struggle, as will crypto-currencies lauded as the new way to do business. Business itself will be forced by environmental, economic and other global factors to reshape its appearance, recalibrate its activity and reflect evermore deeply on its local and global impact. We don’t need an astrologer to tell us all this, right? Just look around and you can see it for yourself. But rest assured, whatever the economic forecast, the political climate, the widely held view, Uranus in Taurus will surprise us with exactly how things play out, where weak links occur and who comes out on top, only to be knocked off their perch once more for the whole cycle of rapid change to begin again. But perhaps most importantly of all, it will also surprise us with the solutions that arise and the potential of humankind of do what must be done to create a new world from the ashes of the old.

So where do we find stability and safety in times such as these? Preferably within, in the peace of a knowing heart, the insight of a sharp mind that refuses to swallow the received wisdom of the day, even that which comes from a more ‘enlightened’ source. As Uranus enters Taurus it aspects Mercury retrograde in the final degree of Pisces and Chiron in the first degree of Aries. A new moon conjunct Neptune in Pisces follows a few hours later. Here we see the demise of ‘received spiritual truths’ and the rectification that comes from reclaiming our own innate wisdom. It is time to trust our own deeper knowing, not look to others to tell us what to do or how our particular brand of awakening should look. If you turn to the planets for wisdom as I do, remember always: they are inside you, not external forces imposing their own particular obstacle or blessing. Every transit, moon cycle and eclipse is an external reflection of the forces of change and growth within each and every one of us. And don’t believe a word any astrologer says if it doesn’t resonate with your deepest and wisest self. Run everything you encounter through an open heart and a discerning mind – the best teachers of all.

And finally, a few questions worth contemplating as Uranus enters Taurus:

What triggers your impulsive side? How do you differentiate impulsive reactivity from the motivation born of authentic alignment with life’s creative flow?

What behaviours do you repeatedly indulge regardless of how poorly they’ve served you before?! What keeps you stuck in these old habits that die hard? Are you ready now to let them go once and for all?

How can you best support yourself and others through times of sudden and disruptive change?

How do you preserve what matters most and allow the rest to fall away when it must? How do you know what matters most in the first place?!

Does outer change always require an inner shift and vice versa?

How strongly are you identified with the material realm and what do you do when it falls away?

Are you seeking Truth with a capital ‘T’ or only the ‘truths’ that suit your personal agenda?  

Are you prepared to make the sacrifices that Truth may demand? If not, what happens when you have to make them anyway?!

Uranus in Taurus….it’s going to be interesting, that’s for sure! No one will come out the other end untouched by its unassailable power to effect fundamental change at a personal and global level. The role we play in that change – through our words, thoughts and actions – is, as ever, up to us.

May we all choose well.

Sarah Varcas