Triple Taurus: Liberation into Body

The build-up to the Mars-Uranus-North Node conjunction in Taurus (from here on to be known as Trip-Tau, possibly with an !) was in my veins. It has been a spell since I’ve felt an astro alignment so palpably alive within me.

It’s not that I’ve seen it at play in my life so much as I’ve felt it in my body. Lightening, electricity. Golden threads of ecstasy and bliss rippling through and out of me. Wonderment at being alive.

Creativity. So much of it in so many different ways.

Collage by Amanda

Images meant for meditation/prayer/visualization.

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A heat dome of some kind in the pacific northwest. Liberation into summer as much as liberation into body. And y’all, I needed that blast of summery glory like whoa. I have never been one to complain about Seattle winters, but this one was nine months of darker and wetter than average brutal, and I was IMPACTED.

Today, August 2nd, the air has cooled. The skies are grey. The earth feels quiet, even as I hear sirens in the distance. My washing machine making a hum I should probably have checked out. Wind rustling in trees.

My system feels quieter, too.

I started seeing someone new back in February. Well, we’d had a stint many years back. But he re-emerged during Venus Retrograde, and I remember talking to my therapist about how he represented so many parts of me I’d lost during my plunge into chronic illness (otherwise known as my Pluto square and accompanying transits). My Pisces heart parts had become intermittent. But he had those parts out there waving in the wind, shining in full display.

I so wanted to reclaim those parts of me, but had been holding space for a deep, quiet depression instead. Sometimes, when I go through extended, textured and turbulent change, the integration period can feel so flat in contrast. Depression as Saturnian function that allows for restructuring.

I have a lot of respect for Saturnian processes, and tend to see the depression that results as a necessary fallow period of conserving life force and/or just being generally detached from feelings of purpose and meaning -- although it should be noted that this depression merged into capital D Depression territory a bit longer than I’d wanted. I was swimming around with some existential despair a la my ongoing Neptune square.

In any case!

Flash forward to this past month. Summer [mother fucking finally] erupted into the Pacific Northwest, and my life and heart and soul have been awash in golden light. But more specifically: camping! and so much swimming! working outdoors! spontaneous trips to the ocean! making art! chaos all over my home as I come and go, reveling in being untethered to place and yet totally centered in my heart.

Ah! Centered in my HEART! Reconnecting with music and dance and lust and love. Feeling more myself -- at least for any extended period of time -- than I have in about five years. FIVE years!

And there it was: February sweetie, still present, mentioned that it is rare that he meets people who get up to more delights than him, but... I just might be giving him a run for his money. That’s a paraphrase.

Oh, how special it feels to see something I love in a person and then (re)locate it within myself rather than trying to grasp onto them as an external replacement.

This past weekend, I was sitting in a creek (which, by my Arizona standards, was actually a very massive raging river), letting its iciness balance out the heat of the day. The water was so cold that it was painful to keep my hands submerged, but otherwise perfect. And I kept thinking a lot about one of the tag lines I’ve been using for Trip-Tau time.

Liberation into Body.

What a loaded statement! At the surface, what I mean is that the energy of the Now, when worked with consciously, is powerfully connected to the notion that revolution happens through the body. Through reclaiming the wisdom each of us contains within us not only at the cellular level in terms of ways Body communicates to us, but in terms of the vast number of ways intuition, instinct and impulse live within us as well.

The ways re-attuning to those functions helps us claim internal power, sovereignty and coherence. The ways internal power and sovereignty are an antidote to millennia of casting our power out -- and having it violently stripped away.

And the ways that I truly believe that healing our relationship with our bodies is key to healing our relationship with the earth.

Sounds lovely and empowering, no?

But also... oofda.

As someone who deals with multiple chronic illnesses, I recognize how hard it can be to deal with Body... and how loaded the relationship can be... and how often Body demands center stage. It can be such a clusterfuck to surrender to the realities of Body while not letting chronic illness consume identity.

This last weekend, camping in 95 degree heat, my body was having issues. Just from the heat? Residual effects of the very mild bout with probable-Covid I’d just emerged from? The effects of a little whoopsie I had with Foxglove? One of my many post-viral syndromes speaking up? The aftermath of a slew of mosquito bites? Chronic Lyme making a statement? Maybe I ate something with soy? or corn? ALL OF THESE THINGS?!

Do I EVER know what is The Cause of the symptoms I’m experiencing? Fuck no I don’t! It has been so hard to come to terms with the fact that I just can’t know.

But the remedy is always the same. Water. Slowness. Listening to what Body wants, which is often fruits, veggies, rest and sleep. And probably narrating everything that’s happening inside of me to people outside of me because... I don’t know... it’s interesting? It is what is up for me and what else would I talk about? It’s on my mind and I’m an out loud processor?

In any case -- I wasn’t able to participate in some of the normal camping behaviors. Had to put even more than expected extra emphasis on hydration. No alcohol. No pushing through or ignoring. Early to bed, late to rise.

My years with chronic illness have given me a core Taurean gift: the gift of letting myself just be. As I am. Without fighting against it. Taurus is mindfulness in terms of returning to the senses and being present through sensory awareness.

How much energy do we spend resisting, covering up and ignoring what our bodies need? How much energy do we funnel into narratives, procedures, treatments, diets, etc. to try to fix a ‘problem’ with our bods rather than just listening to it?

Ha! “just.” As if it were easy. As if any of this was straightforward. I mean, it can be. But so much of our lives are spent avoiding the realities of our bodies. Listening can be a difficult skill to master.

And, like... Taurean processes with body get mapped into Capricornian social constructs and contracts. Which can go terrifically awry. Thanks but no thanks “body is inherently sinful... so let’s set up systems of punishment.”

I was listening to Ari Felix’s podcast recently, and a conversation between Ari and a friend about money and body and all things Taurus just hit the spot so good. Such good heart and brain food - and such good inspiration for this ramblebabble session I’m engaging with now.

A core question arose from that listen:

What is the most loving thing I can do for my body?

I think of this not just in the context of chronic illness, but... in the ways we see so many folks leaving jobs that are, to put it mildly, decreasing quality of life. I know so many people who have gotten used to working from home, and with that, being able to move their bodies more or as they need to. People who have been able to be outside more, with family and friends more. And who have recognized that they value that freedom and that it improves their quality of life.

Ah, Trip-Tau. What do we value and how to we break free into systems that support those values?

How do we honor life and beauty and love? Not as some frivolous, escapist and avoidant pursuit, but as acts of radical revolution? With the reminder that we do still live in a system where folks require money to live, and that folks doing all kinds of work outside of typical Monday-Friday office jobs also deserve adequate compensation.

Trip-Tau can give us the breakthroughs needed to heal relationship with value, body, money and resources -- and to innovate new systems that are blessings to body rather than drainers of it. You know?

I look around and recognize that folks like myself have been doing the liberator work of figuring out how to break free from systems that have harmed us, listening to what our bodies are saying, and I get goosebumps. It is happening. I can’t know if it is fast enough, but...

Hm. I’m here for it.

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