Relating to Taurus

Killiney Hill, Ireland

For many years, while visiting our daughter and her family in Ireland, I would take a daily walk on Killiney Hill in what some call the equivalent of the Riviera.

My walk would often wind past a fairy tale castle high on the cliffs over-looking the sea, surrounded by a great stone wall.  This was Enya’s home; that famous Irish Taurus singer.

  Sometimes I would continue my stroll down past a large estate barricaded from prying eyes with a solid piece of wood behind an iron wrought gate that belongs to another famous Irish Taurus musician, Bono.  How appropriate!  Two famous Taurus musicians living the good life in one of the most beautiful and bucolic parts of Ireland; yet one has never married nor had children, while the other has been solidly married a very long time with a number of children.

Taurus, like every other sign, embodies different styles and qualities of relating.  There is no ‘one size fits all’ with this sign either, though it is often described in highly stereotyped ways as being solid, earthy, sensual, practical, stubborn, and bull-headed.  Well, yes, many characteristics of the element Earth are strongly formed in this first of the three Earth signs, Taurus.  There are nuances, however, to every individual Taurus and it’s best to factor in those qualities when looking to relate to anyone of Sun, Moon, Ascendant, and/or personal planets in this sign.

Think about the Taurus people you know.  What is your relationship with them like?  Do you feel safe with them?  Can you rely on them?  Do they feel grounded to you?  How do you handle their anger when it does show up?  Can you see any of the qualities of the ancient symbolism of this sign in them:  the bull or the cow?  Most of us have heard that delightful story of Ferdinand the Bull relaxing in his field of flowers, super contended and happy until along comes that dammed bee!  Do you ever play the ‘bee’ in the life of the Taurus you are in relationship with?  I’m asking because someone or something always does!  Best to know which part you play in this archetypal theme.  It seems Taurus people actually need that bee once in a while to prevent them from becoming inert.  How does Taurus get motivated in life?

I was reading a bit about Enya who prefers the sanctuary of her castle to socializing.  Her motivation is always the music.  She’ll move on out there for that.  And many Taurus people are highly creative in the arts.  They love beauty, music, and all the experiences of the senses which make life pleasurable.  The sweet sting of desire will motivate them to participate in life with others or help them to excel in a craft or skill.  Looking at some of the real people that I actually know who are sun sign Taurus I see several singers and musicians, an interior designer, a creator of high-end skin care products, a creator of high-end home accents like candles and aromatics, a photographer, a glass blower, a sculptor, and an art dealer.  I know Taurus people who are truly either ‘Lord of the Manor’ types or ‘Lady of the Manor’ types.  They create an oasis, the Garden of Eden right where they live.

These are often beautiful people.  Look at the roster of famous entertainers who fit that bill:  Audrey Hepburn, Kathryn Hepburn, David Beckman, George Clooney, Jessica Alba, Pierce Brosnan, Penelope Cruz, Kirsten Dunst, Linda Evangelista, Cher, Gary Cooper, Bianca Jagger, Al Pacino, Eva Peron, and on and on.  The Taurus type does appreciate the body and being in it, so let’s say they ‘celebrate the body’ and how it looks and what it can do.

Remember, this is a Venus ruled sign.  Venus represents love and beauty, but she also represents serenity combined with pleasure.  I loved that scene in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen where he encounters Venus, played by that Taurus beauty, Uma Thurman.  She rises effortlessly above her husband, Vulcan, sweating in his fiery forge and floats about with sweet indolence.  The sensate type is usually attracted to Fire.  Fire, like the bee sting, creates drama and spontaneity for Taurus and Fire provides much needed inspiration as well.  It can be an uneasy alliance for Fire types may feel suffocated by the literal realism of Taurus just as Taurus may find their fiery partners too impractical and unstable.  This fusion of Earth and Fire, however, is an alchemical mix which can produce enormous creative power.  As Liz Greene says in her book on relating, “Every deity owes Vulcan something for he forges from the Earth the attributes of power.”

What are some of the other attributes that Taurus will bring to the dance of relationship? Rather than just enumerate these I’ll try to illustrate from my own life.  If we were all sitting in a circle discussing this, it would be so interesting to hear your own stories of ‘life with a Taurus’.

I lived with a Taurus room-mate for a couple of years.  We were both in our early 20s needing to bunch up to survive the high rents in a large city.  She was a beautiful and sexy flight attendant who traveled a great deal.  I was a struggling single Mom with two small children to take care of.  She did have affection for them but also tolerated them amazingly well in spite of the fact that she would come in after a long flight dead tired.  On the other hand, she didn’t put up with a lot of nonsense either.  She would say what she wanted to without fanfare; not exactly like a Sagittarian, but very matter-of-factly.  I saw her as extremely grounded and reliable.  My first room-mate had been a Gemini and she was good socially with the children but definitely not reliable in terms of all the nefarious characters she brought into our apartment.  My Taurus roommate kept her private life just that—-separate.  She had a wild side just as I did—-we were young adults in the big city —-but that never interfered with her work.  Never.

She also knew how to deal with the real world.  Such a great quality to have!  She studied the laws and knew her rights, and she fought hard for them.  I was always in admiration of this quality in her.  She stood up to the corporate world many times and always won.  Later we moved to a large home in Marin where the good life beckoned.  Before moving out we had an altercation with our landlady who was basically trying to get out of paying us back our deposit.  What did my Taurus roommate do but say, “Let’s take her to small claims court.”  We did, and we won!  Do you see what I’m getting at here?  This young woman had determination combined with her savvy understanding of how the world works to get what she needed from it.  It was a quality that I wasn’t that good at, being a Pisces.  I learned a lot from her.  She went on to buy her own home and has been there ever since where she surrounds herself with beauty and art, of course.  That doesn’t mean that she hasn’t had her adventures.  She’s not what you would call simple.  I really want to make this point clear.  Taurus people are not necessarily boring and pedestrian.  She would go to places like Katmandu and got her nose pierced long before anyone else had heard of such things.  She’d travel to Guatemala and come back in braids laced with ribbons dressed in a weipiel.  Of course I’m talking about someone with Taurus Sun in the 9th house!  So you have to factor in a lot of variables.  There are certain archetypal themes, but endless variations on those themes for each sign.

We have a daughter and granddaughter who are born under this sign.  Our daughter was such a happy child of the natural world.  I remember the first time I took her into the ocean and a wave suddenly swept over both of us as I held her tight.  She emerged laughing like a little Aphrodite.  Another memory is when my present husband and I were courting and she caught us making love one afternoon. Keep in mind she was only about five years old at that time. She later called it ‘wiggling’ and a bit later after that said, “Everybody does it, don’t they?  It’s natural.”  The body was always her source of energy, sustenance, and delight.  No wonder she’s so gifted today teaching Synergy Dance.  She loves to celebrate the temple we all live in, our bodies.

Another thing I’d like to say about having her as a Taurus daughter is that she was easy.  She required virtually no discipline and she was truly the reliable big sister to her young siblings whom she became chief babysitter for when I needed her.  She made mothering virtually care free for me!

Our granddaughter was named Persephone; that is, the Goddess of Spring Persephone.  Of course the other end of the spectrum is Scorpio, and Persephone in the myth also became Queen of the Underworld.   As an adult I’m sure Persephone will have that depth of understanding that allows for the full spectrum of life.  As a child she’s been remarkably like Shirley Temple, another Taurus with a lot of Gemini.  She loves to dance, sing, and play the piano, the guitar, and even act.  The arts are all her playing field.  She has great artistic flair and it gives endless delight to watch her move so effortlessly from one skill to another.  This little Taurus was hard to catch to feed her (all that Gemini), but now that she’s older she relishes really fine cuisine, especially sushi!  Food is not a problem with her when traveling.  She likes to try the foods of the world; a true Taurus epicurean already.

I know I’m describing many of the fine qualities that have endeared Taurus people to me, but what about that ‘shadow side’?  Every sign has it.   One member of our extended family has stubbornly refused to communicate for years.  This person simply stopped abruptly all contact and won’t discuss it nor respond to all the overtures and even pleas towards resolving the long hiatus.  This means there is no possibility for closure.  This type of stonewalling to the death is what creates huge long-term rifts in families, and is terribly damaging for generations to come.  You can see this on a more collective scale in countries as well.  Israel’s Taurus government would be a good example of such locked in qualities of no compromise; fixed, stubborn, and bull-headed.  Shadow stuff indeed. (There’s a good article in THE MOUNTAIN ASTROLOGER, Dec/Jan 2006/2007 issue entitled Under Dark Stars, The War Between Israel and Hezbollah by Bernhard Bergbauer).  I don’t have time in an article of this nature to look at the wider collective issues that embroil an entire nation in conflicts, but it is worth noting that astrology can lend much light on the nature of these just by studying the inception charts of nations.

What is it about a sign that can be so tender, gentle, and affectionate becoming stone cold and seemingly heartless?  Remember, Taurus is fixed earth.  This is a power sign.  Earth without fire is cold.  It might be better to see the bull of rage, because that will at least release the fire and perhaps shift the stone-walling.  A healthy release of anger can be beneficial rather than staying locked into age-long feuds where no one wins.  This black and white quality of the sign keeps them forever right in their fixity while projecting onto the other all the wrongs.  Our human population is now full of this type of dogmatic narrow-mindedness and over possessiveness regarding ‘this is mine and I’m going to make sure you don’t get it’ stance whether between individuals or nations.  In the Jungian perspective the inferior function of fire within earthy Taurus is stunted intuition which leads to irrational fears and vague paranoia negatively charged and projected onto ‘the other’.

So Taurus needs more vision.  Taurus people need to realize that there are subtleties and undercurrents not necessarily visible that create the complexities of life.  They need to reach across the great divide and embrace their opposite, Scorpio, to realize that life can not be reduced to black and white themes, or simply the facts that are experienced only with the senses.  Scorpio leads into the underworld of feelings that must be experienced.  Feelings can not be described through rationality.  True vision comes from sensing intuitively all the strands of any given situation that extend through time and space in invisible pathways that can be murky and chaotic as well as clear, bright, and light.

Going back to the Taurus member of our family who refuses to connect at all; this keeps a chasm of feelings, like a river gorge running deep and turbulent, forever inaccessible within our family that can never be bridged and will, sadly, continue through his children and their children, as it already has, as quite the opposite of what Taurus revels in, the garden of Eden of contentment. This is the power of a Taurus.  This power can be wielded for good or ill.  It truly is a lasting, fixed power, and thus a grave responsibility once Taurus becomes conscious. (But I have good news!  Just today a slight bridge was made by making another attempt to connect from this side.  There’s still hope for healing.  Remember, you can coax.  The more you push, the greater the resistance.)

The question remains, does Taurus hold steadfast in relationships out of habit and inertia or loyalty?  They will hang in there through thick and thin when their less stable kin would simply move on either from frustration or boredom. They are often the rock that others cling to for their strength and proclivity to endure.  I feel some certainly remain absolutely loyal and trustworthy while others may just be creatures of habit.  The key, as with anything else, is consciousness.

The highest ideal of Taurus is  Buddha-consciousness.  The Taurus born Buddha exemplified the principle of non-attachment and peace knowing that this is a world where suffering exists.  Maintaining mindfulness and peacefulness in spite of all suffering is a worthy goal for all of us wherever Taurus is in our birth maps.  Such power exists in this sign to change the world to a peaceful garden of delights once again!

Let’s now look at Taurus in relationship to the other elements and signs:

Taurus with Earth:  When studying Medical Astrology with Dr. Ingrid Naiman years ago I learned that the element of Earth is dry, heavy, and cold.  It’s true that two earth signs would probably create a great deal of stability and financial security with each other, but after awhile if neither had much fire or water, or air things would drop down into potential lethargy and become ‘dry, heavy, and cold’.  Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?

Taurus with Taurus:  I honestly could not find any examples either from famous charts or from my own personal files on this combination.  Help me out readers!  It does feel that two ‘bulls’ might lock horns eventually.  Two ‘cows’?  Oh dear, I’m not going in a very good direction with this analogy!  Perhaps if one Taurus had a good deal of Aries and the other a good deal of Gemini it might just work.  They would certainly need something to enliven their relationship.

Taurus with Virgo:  This is an easy Earth trine relationship leaning towards material improvement obviously.  What a great combination to accomplish work together either as craftspeople or scholars, or even farming.  This is a very solid and industrious combination; not so much for leadership as for great financial acumen. Virgo could certainly take the solid values of Taurus to a level of masterful skill.  They could have a natural and wholesome life together, these two.  The only famous couple I could come up with was Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrar.  They were both actors, so the craftsmanship theme was applicable.  However, their marriage didn’t last.

Taurus with Capricorn:  Another easy Earth trine combination where organized accomplishment together is a great possibility.  Since Capricorn likes to have a plan and Taurus may willingly work towards that plan they might have a lot to show for themselves if they stay together.  Certainly stability is a strong suit.  This is actually a powerful sexual combination, a good example being William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, the actress Marian Davies.  He was the Taurus, she the Capricorn.  She actually had to give up her ambitions to maintain this relationship however; something a modern woman might not be willing to do now.

The on-screen charisma of Capricorn Cary Grant with both Taurus leading ladies shows how compelling this combination can be, even if only professionally.  This could be a great combination for working together in the fields of architecture, building, landscaping, and even the arts where wood, stone, and clay are employed.  These two can create beauty that lasts! Even in businesses which produce cosmetics, clothing, and luxury items this is a great combo.  Well, Marion certainly must have enjoyed San Simeon’s luxurious digs!

Taurus with Air:  Air is light, dry, and cold.  If earth is heavy, dry, and cold, the only differential here is heavy versus light.  Dryness is a problem!  Yet in couples, this combination actually works quite well as a rule.  Air type people often need someone more pragmatic to ground their flights into either mental activity or fantasy (if they have water combined), while Air people bring to Taurus the lightness and even brightness that they need to uplift their spirits.

Taurus with Gemini:  These two are side-by-side with Taurus naturally evolving towards Gemini.  Probably Taurus has personal planets in Gemini, just as Gemini has something in Taurus, so there’s an over-lap of energies going on.  This is a good combination also for building together either through business, commerce, or intellectual pursuits.  The mercurial mind of Gemini creates the modifications that Taurus’ sensibility towards security impels.  Since Taurus as a power sign is good with money, Gemini brings multiple ideas to the table to enliven all the possibilities for enriching their lives together.  I certainly know several couples with this combination who have stood the test of time.   One famous power couple is Queen Elizabeth (the Taurus) with her Prince Phillip (the Gemini).  She would need an adaptable partner willing to allow her to be the ‘fixed royal Queen.’

Taurus with Libra:  While these two must adjust to the different qualities in each for Taurus is fixed earth, while Libra is cardinal air, they both are ruled by Venus and thus I’ve seen couples with this combination who have endured even though ‘adjustments’ were necessary.  One lovely couple that I know is working collaboratively together on a book which the Libran has written based on his expertise in his field, and the solid Taurus wife is editing to perfection.  Eva Peron, the Taurus, married Juan Peron, the politician.  He must have appreciated her beauty and grace, and she made good use of his great wealth to help people that she understood and valued having struggled herself to survive the great levels of poverty that existed in Argentina during that time.  The recent film The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep portrayed the relationship between the most active and politically ambitious, Margaret Thatcher (Libran), and her much grounded businessman husband, Denis Thatcher (Taurus).  He was a reliable presence in her life until his death, and the movie gave a poignant view of her later yearning for his presence as she declined into dementia.

Taurus with Aquarius:  This is a challenging combination since both are fixed and of different elements.  Taurus would prefer the slower evolutionary route, while Aquarius seeks the more revolutionary.  Taurus is basically realistic and conservative while Aquarius is iconoclastic and has broad humanitarian ideals to feed.  However, if they succeed together Taurus can perhaps fund the progressive projects that Aquarius wishes to engage in, but only if Taurus deems them realistic! The other issue is how energy gets exchanged and Aquarius may distant itself from the earthy vibe of Taurus. One famous couple with this combination was Cher and Sonny Bono.  While their public image was highly successful and they did collaborate musically in a powerful and highly profitable way, we know their private life was definitely not made in heaven.  Still, this is a good example of how love can supersede the challenges of energy differences, at least for awhile.

Taurus with Water:  The watery realm will find in Taurus a haven, a strong rock-like container, while water signs will soothe and smooth Taurus.   It’s the wetness of water that so compliments the dryness of earth.  They are both Yin which means they are receptive by nature and both want to preserve and conserve.

Taurus with Cancer:  These two are definitely drawn to each other and can be incredibly compatible.  Archetypally this is the quintessential ‘establishment of the home’ combo.  Taurus being so solidly grounded in biological instincts works well with Cancer’s need to nest and get homey.  Taurus can take in stride the ups and downs of Cancer’s moods while Cancer nurtures Taurus’ need for lots of affection.  If this is a married couple they have the capacity to work patiently towards securing their assets for home, family, and property.  This is another excellent business combination and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers certainly proved that through their amazing dance partnership.  Fred was the Taurus in the duo. Ginger, actually was married five times!!  She was steadier with her show business partner it seems.  Three other famous couples are worth mentioning in this combo:  William Randolph Hearst and his wife, Millicent.  She was the Cancer and wouldn’t give him a divorce.  She greatly benefited as the wife on so many levels, but especially in maintaining her role as a socialite which she couldn’t have done without his money and status.  He, being the Taurus, didn’t rock the boat and had his Capricorn mistress who actually ended up supporting him in his old age!  Jack Nicholson (the Taurus) and Angelica Huston (the Cancer) were together a very long time considering Jack’s lusty appetite.  She must have satisfied him as long as anyone could.  Finally, Barbra Streisand, another Taurus with the voice like honey, and her present husband, James Brolin (the Cancer) are a cozy pair who have hunkered down domestically in a very compatible way.

Taurus with Scorpio:  Opposites but complementary?  Not too many famous couples to validate this.  I do know one couple personally who have weathered the ups and downs of any long marriage together beautifully.  They share now artistic values and pursuits though both chose separate paths of professional life.  We have two power signs here at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Keep in mind that Taurus would act as the container for Scorpio—earth contains water.  Scorpio likes to go deep and Scorpio is one of the more complex signs.  Let’s think of this combination in nature; a deep lake perhaps?  Or a deep river?  Taurus eventually does learn all the subtleties and the process will deepen them.  Scorpio gets the benefit of someone who by nature will be calm and unruffled when Scorpio goes through intense periods of transformation.  It certainly can work!  Some call this the ‘generation vs. regeneration’ combination.  Both are sexual signs, and both are money signs.  The very nature of desire will be a theme in this union, and the higher the consciousness of both, the more powerful the transformation for both.  I would say that this combination affords great soul growth if the two are willing to go the lengths and depths that it requires.  Again, no famous couples were discovered.  Perhaps you, the reader, may know of one.

Taurus with Pisces:  These two are compatible especially when it comes to love of beauty.  Venus is exalted in Pisces where material values transcend into spiritual ones.  This combination is the stuff dreams are made of due to the romantic possibilities, and the poetic, as well as a potentially profound appreciation for nature.  Taurus, again, is the container for Pisces.  This potential was there when Audrey Hepburn married Dr. Andrea Dotti, the Italian psychiatrist.  What happened?  His libidinous desire for younger women ruined a good thing probably.  Beautiful Audrey never married after trying a Virgo (Mel) and the opposite sign, Pisces (Andrea).  She, like Enya, remained single and in her later years put all her Taurus values into charitable work with African children and also starred in the wonderful documentary The Gardens of the World.  Who could have done it better than a beautiful Taurus with Moon in Pisces?

Taurus with Fire:  Taurus, as mentioned above, is drawn to Fire signs for their abundant energy and verve.  The pulse of excitement is a stimulus for Taurus and truly provides the ‘sweet sting’ they need, or the ‘sting which provokes them to becoming the raging bull’.  Taurus may feel used at times by fire due to their need to keep things on an even keel financially and practically.  They may feel that they are the givers while Fire takes due to its self-centeredness.  Fire, however, brings the warmth and lightness that Taurus needs for inspiration and drama.

Taurus with Aries:  This is actually a winning combination full of ‘Power couples’.  Aries is side-by-side with Taurus and in this case, Taurus leads Aries on towards manifestation of ideals and inspirations.  Taurus consolidates the activity of Aries.

Let’s look at the roster of couples I found with this combo:  David (Taurus) and Victoria (Aries) Beckham are now world famous for their beauty as a couple and even style.  She’s become quite enterprising with her fashion businesses and his charisma as a major athlete makes her the envy of probably millions of women.  They have lots of children together and seem totally bonded, at least publicly.

Bono (Taurus) and his wife, Alison Hewson (Aries) also have a lively, long-lived union with lots of children.  It’s been reported that he’s difficult at times with his intense Full Moon in Scorpio polarity.  Alison’s lighter Moon in Gemini probably navigates nimbly through and around him.  Her Sun in Aries is actually conjoining his Mars in Pisces.  It’s complicated I’m sure, but they have managed to stay bonded and in love all these years. He’s Yin and she’s Yang.

The classic and scandalous Kathryn Hepburn (Taurus)/Spencer Tracy (Aries) union is still a topic of endless fascination.  Interesting that he wouldn’t divorce his wife because of his religious beliefs (a lot of Sagittarian in his chart) and she stayed faithful and was the one at his side when he died.  She had a lot of earth staying power with both Sun & Moon in Taurus.

The final couple in this winning combination is George Lucas (Taurus) and his partner, Mellody Hobson (Aries).  She’s a modern-day high powered business woman and definitely not looking for a sugar daddy.  More power to them both!

Taurus with Leo:  Again we have two fixed power signs with the potential to make big sparks or blow each other up.  The sexual draw would be enormous here though issues of ownership and loyalty could destroy the union.  It’s a challenging combination for sure since Taurus wants to settle in comfortably and Leo wants to call his soul his own.  Stubbornness versus pride could bring things to an end if neither is willing to yield when conflicts arise.  Bowing to each other in respect is the solution and one couple I know have simply become ‘friends’.  That alliance has stood the test of time and thus Aquarius/Air became the right alchemical ingredient to resolve past wounds.  I have found one famous couple with this combination, and they did not last:  Bianca (Taurus) and Mick (Leo) Jagger.  They must have had passion to spare in their early days, but something did blow them apart.  Jagger will always be king.  Bianca has gone on to another productive and even wise woman, like Audrey.

Taurus with Sagittarius:   This is another combination which requires a great deal of adjusting to each other since fiery Sagittarius is mutable and hard to corral.  Such a combination in business could be excellent because Sagittarius likes the goal and planning ahead, while Taurus provides the common sense to keep building the assets.  As a romantic pair the only couple I have found thus far is Cher (Taurus) with Greg Allman (Sagittarius), and that union was probably volatile and ultimately failed.  Come to think of it, Cher, like Enya and Audrey, and even Kathryn Hepburn is choosing to be with herself primarily.  Taurus can be self-reliant like Virgo in this sense.  The growth towards self-esteem that goes with Taurus can turn into self-sufficiency.

This concludes my sign-to-sign comparisons for Taurus.  I’m certainly grateful for these people who help many of the rest of us to enjoy being in our bodies and all the sensual pleasures of life, but also create a grounded presence in our lives that sustains us, for Taurus, like the earth itself, endures through thick and thin.