Time to slow down enough to really let life in at the Taurus Cross-Quarter
Dear Reader,
I’m writing to you on a glorious day full of warm sunshine and blue sky. Everything is lush and green and coming into bloom. The air is heavy with the sweetness of lilac. Blue tits are feeding their young. And swifts are beginning to return and fill the sky with their unmistakable shree-shree calls, which make my heart sing.
What are you noticing in your surroundings?
How are you experiencing this time of year?
Replenishing in the heart of spring
The beginning of May features a seasonal crossroads in the yearly cycle of the Sun. At the Taurus Cross-Quarter, the Sun reaches the middle degree of Taurus in the tropical zodiac. It marks the exact midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice and the height of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
This year, the Spring Cross-Quarter falls on May 5th at 7:58 am Central European Time, which you can convert to your local time here if you want to mark the precise moment.
The Taurus Cross-Quarter is the “Waxing Gibbous Moon” and “late morning” of the year, when light is swelling and growing towards fullness. We’re entering the brightest quarter of the year, which will peak at June’s Summer Solstice and draw to a close at August’s Summer Cross-Quarter. Now is the time when we’re filling up with life force to sustain us through the rest of the year.
Guided by the Sun in Taurus
The peak of spring coincides with the middle of Taurus season (April 19th – May 20th), when the Sun is moving through the sign of the Bull. Taurus is a fixed earth sign, temple of Venus and exaltation of the Moon. It signifies a season of settling into presence, getting into our bodies, awakening our senses, and rejoicing in the nourishing beauty of our world.
Known as the festival of flowers, the Taurus Cross-Quarter is a time of joyful celebration, earth-honoring rituals, and delighting in the simple pleasures of life: feeling the warm sun on our skin, sinking our feet into the earth, drinking in the sweet scent of blooming flowers.
Taurus is the gardener of the zodiac, who knows how to nurture growth in slow, enjoyable steps and inspires us to savor what we love and what makes life worth living. It reminds us that “[we] have no time to rush” and helps us to remember that “when [we] move half as fast, [we] notice twice as much” (Tara Brach, born with Sun and Mercury in Taurus).
Are you a child of Taurus season, having been born during this time of year? Or do you have placements in Taurus other than the Sun?
If so, how does it inform your way of being in the world?
What makes this Taurus Cross-Quarter special
This year’s Spring Cross-Quarter is the last one where Uranus, the great awakener, is copresent with the Sun in Taurus. This makes it a good time to explore what has been awakened in our lives since May 2018. How has your relationship with your body, creativity, or earthly wisdom changed in the last seven years? And what may still want to break through in these areas before Uranus moves on to Gemini at the beginning of July? There will be one more dip of Uranus into Taurus between November and April 2026, but that’s it until 2102.
The presiding deity of the Taurus Cross-Quarter, Venus, planet of love and beauty, has just re-entered the passionate sign of Aries on April 30th and is wrapping up her retrograde. Whatever we’ve been reviewing when it comes to our connections, values, and creative pursuits since the beginning of March, is now starting to move forward again.
Venus is still conjoined with Neptune, the great dissolver, who moved into Aries — for the first time since 1875 — at the end of March. Venus-Neptune is a mystical, romantic combination, which is stirring up our ideals of love and our creative imagination. This being the first time that Venus is conjoining Neptune in Aries, we might also get a taste of what Neptune in Aries (2025–2039) will be dreaming up in and through us.
While the Cross-Quarter Sun is moving out of a dynamic square aspect with Mars in Leo (the Sun’s home sign), Venus (who is in Mars’ sign) is moving into a flowing trine aspect with Mars, who has just completed its third and final opposition with Pluto in Aquarius. I’m liking this as it feels like whatever has been erupting with Mars-Pluto since November 2024, we might now be finding creative ways to engage with that, boldly and courageously.
Chart for the Taurus Cross-Quarter on May 5th, 2025 at 7:58 am CET
Are you ready to deepen into spring?
What is feeling good in your body?
What is delighting your senses?
What are you finding beautiful?
When are you feeling abundant?
What is growing in your garden of life?
What is blossoming within you?
You can take the questions in this newsletter on your walk or into your journal, your dreamtime, or any other kind of creative or contemplative practice, either solo or with others. I hope they tickle you and help you weave yourself into the heart of spring.
Until next time...
I look much forward to writing to you again during Gemini season, which sees the transition from spring to summer in the Northern Hemisphere and heralds a time of movement and changeability. The Sun will enter Gemini on May 20th at 8:55 pm CET, which you can convert to your local time here.
In the meantime, I’m wishing you a beautiful middle of spring wherever you are!