Tom JacobsThe three-plus weeks of this installment of re-think, re-view, and re-everything in the sign of Taurus is about motivation, intention, and how we apply what we can do to meet our basic needs in order to ensure survival.
Everything in life that has to do with our skills and values systems does not have literally to do with our survival. Taurus however wants to make it so. This sign of the zodiac is motivated by slowing things down. When we Taurus we slow down in order to make sure that we are ensuring our own survival.
Taurus often looks like it is about money but money is simply a reflection of our self-worth and how we have gone about applying our skills in concrete ways. To get money you have to have skills and resources. To have skills and resources you have to pick a direction in which to put your energy. The direction has everything to do with your value system, what you find important.
Taurus therefore all comes down to our values and how we feel about ourselves. We develop self-confidence through this sign. We do this by proving ourselves to ourselves.
Mercury’s retro in this sign is for re-thinking what motivates you and how you turn your value systems and self-esteem into concrete results in day-to-day life. It might come out the sources of your money or what you do with it – where it goes and why.
Money is just one resource among many. Your time and energy are other resources, as are your contacts and how you use them. In Taurus everything has a use. Practicality is paramount here. Where is your time going? How are you using your time and your other resources to support your survival?
While you ask that of yourself, know that lifestyles and ways of being also need to be fed in order to survive. Wherever you feel a style of life is threatened by material circumstances or changes in your life know that it is time to understand deeply what you think you get from that style of life. With this retro for a few weeks in Taurus we are all invited to understand the motivations behind what we are doing. Is where our time and money and other resources going really supportive of what is most important to us? For those of you who have heard or suspect that material resources taint spiritual progress and growth, leave that behind. Money and things simply reflect energy.
If during this retrograde you begin to have doubts about where your resources are going, let that doubt inspire you to take a few minutes or weeks to learn more about what you are up to and why. It might be time to trim some expenditures or draw back in your energy and time so that when you feel clearer and more focused you are better able to allocate them in ways that support your overall mission.
I’ll give you an example from my own life. I’m preparing to travel to teach and promote my two new books (links below) next week – LA and Portland, OR (check my site’s calendar for a list of events). Setting up a two-city trip is not that difficult or time-consuming, but marketing my books, natal reports, and other work is becoming a drain on top of it. Also, frequent web updates seem to be robbing me of the will to…the will to do frequent web updates (let’s not be overly dramatic). Consequently I’m beginning to reach out to people who do these things well. It will save me more time than I can now imagine, but I do know that I will no longer feel the drain of doing every little task in my professional life on my own.
Where my time and energy are going is the issue. The part of me accustomed to doing everything myself might not want to pay someone to run around Tucson to post fliers for me. But I’m clear that it feels like too much for me to do with everything else. In the end, paying someone to do it helps me out and will make a big difference in where my energy is going – working on books and teaching are my priorities now.
This has been brewing for a while but It wasn’t until a few days ago that I was able to understand the value in reaching out and hiring others.
That’s just one example that fits the theme of this retrograde. Because Mercury is now retrograde, I will probably need to re-think what I’m thinking of hiring others to do. Flier placement I’m confident is a must, for example, but maybe in a week or so having that task off my plate might free something up and I may change my mind about the website updates. The point being that I’m open to rethinking details and my intentions along the way. I don’t know how it will turn out, and as I write this I see I’m interested to watch how this retro will help me see into how I value and allocate my time and energy.
The house of your retro matters – which arena of life are you being asked to revisit re values and resources? This retro begins in my 8th and then heads back to my 7th, which fits with hiring others and working out what’s fair and harmonious.
Look at what you think money means. And your time. And your energy. Let this retro provide you a view from the inside out on that corner of your psychic landscape. Be open to changing what might not turn out to work and you will see some interesting things over the next three plus weeks.
Tom Jacobs is an astrologer, medium, and channel in Tucson, AZ. He is the author of Living Myth: Exploring Archetypal Journeys and Seeing Through Spiritual Eyes: A Memoir of Intuitive Awakening. See his site for more information on his work and to book a session, www.tdjacobs.com.