Yes, I am a Taurus woman…

I was born May 13 which makes me a Taurean, belonging to the second of the 12 signs of the zodiac. 2021 sees me celebrating my 49th trip around the sun. You would think that I would be wiser for it so, would it surprise you to learn that it has been only over the last couple of years that I have truly grown in wisdom and moved this Taurus Bull onto greener pastures? It certainly took me by surprise and not because it was unexpected, but because it was anticipated and happened in unexpected ways.

Taureans celebrate their birthdays between April 20 and May 20 and are represented by the Bull constellation. Based on the relationship between this constellation and the sun, moon, and planets, I was born with a set of personality traits unique to Taureans. According to these traits, I am stubborn and persistent, reliable and hardworking, dependable and steady, loyal and laidback, and sensuous and grounded. I do not like drama, lying, and cheating and when actions and words do not match.

Becoming a Bull

I knew nothing of the zodiac and subsequent personality traits in my childhood, although the night sky and all those celestial bodies fascinated me. I loved wishing upon stars… going way back to 1979 when Kermit the Frog from the Muppets sang it in Rainbow Connection. This permitted me to dream big and see life through the simplicity of imagination rather than as others tried to shape it to be. As a prepubescent Bull my stubbornness was nurtured by a pure sense of self– “I can do what he did” … “I’m smart like her too”.

This changed in the 1980s when, as a teenager, my interest in horoscopes developed and my worldview expanded. Stubbornness nourished persistence as I had to prove so many people wrong in their apparent judgements of me as a young girl growing up in a small Australian country town. On reflection, this new awareness disorientated my childhood inner knowingness as motives to explore my world and find a place to be me, became influenced by an external compass… the horoscopes.

I began to believe that many of the thoughts and behaviours I had were traits common to all Taureans and this became my justification as to who I was becoming. “I’m a Taurus… that’s why I’m stubborn… I will not give up… even when I procrastinate… that’s part of being a Taurus too… I love food… I hate exercising… I am a Taurus… yep I overthink… but I analyse situations… I pull them apart… I will get to the bottom of things… I know your intention… because I am a Taurus… oh that is so pretty… that feels so good… yum… I take my time… but I will get there in the end… after all, I am a Taurus”.

When I first thought about who I was as a teenage Bull, I wondered if I was who I had been because I was characteristically a Taurus. Or, if I had unconsciously performed the Taurean qualities I read about in magazines because that was who I thought I had to be. I have since decided that it was a little bit of both – my innately Taurean quality of loyalty embraced an unshakable devotion to the sign I was born under including all the qualities it embodied.

Grounded in goals

Further to the relationship between the Bull constellation and the sun, moon, and planets, Taurus is a fixed earth sign. This means the way I move through life apparently shapes the world around me with a fixed energy that is as strong, stable, and enduring as the ground beneath me. Again, on reflection, I saw evidence from the 1990s through to the early-2010s, of me digging my heels in and working to build something that would last. During this time, I became a parent, then a single parent, then a single working mum and student, and then a social worker after completing a bachelor’s degree. So those instinctive Taurean traits of hard work, perseverance, determination and yes, even the apparently unhelpful stubbornness, facilitated the completion of goals aimed at building a strong and stable life for my children and myself.

Put out to green pastures

In 2017 this sense of safety and stability came crumbling down when my family lost 2 matriarchs; stars that shone so bright that communities of people also felt our losses. I turned 45 that year and the horoscopes were nothing more than daily readings in newspapers. But something happened to this Bull who did not like the unpredictability of change. The ground beneath me had moved and a new search for meaning was revisited.

In September 2017 I went on a 3500-kilometre road trip with my daughter from Cairns to Brisbane and back again, overnighting at different places with some unplanned stopovers. These stops were not the challenging pauses you would think they would be, but were embraced and liberating for this exploring Bull, becoming a solid and safe platform for me to then discover my world and find a place to be me. I left my job for another in March 2018 and joined an online dating platform 3 months later. This was after almost 19 years of not being in a relationship as yes, I was stubbornly committed to my career and raising my children in the way I thought I needed too.

Then almost 2.5 years ago I met a Taurean man and my gaze returned to the stars. It was as though he protectively watched as I took a trip around the planets and expanded my intellect and mind with Mercury, learnt to love and dance with Venus, found my passion and fight with Mars, experienced growth and abundance with Jupiter, returned to structure and discipline with Saturn, indulged in rebellion and eccentricities with Uranus, dared to dream and imagine with Neptune, and transformed and evolved with Pluto. I had come full circle to see the grass had always been greener wherever I stood, simply because my Taurean man was as patient, stubborn and persistent in showing me the extraordinary in the ordinary, as I was in my search for it.

Today I smile when I hear or read the horoscopes for Taurus. I neither accept predictions as the profound gospel I once did during my teenage years nor, attribute Taurean qualities to the success I experienced especially in my 30s. But I do identify with the personality traits of Taurus and see them as gifts rather than as a right to, or an excuse for, certain behaviours and outcomes. Over the last 2.5 years I have been tapping into these gifts to take time and explore the world as it shifts and moves around me. This journey is navigated again with a compass, but the compass is neither external horoscopes nor expectations of others. Rather, I am facing challenges with the original compass of my childhood inner knowingness not only re-tuned to a different frequency and re-aligned for new connections, but also predictably re-focused with that strong and yet stubborn Taurean energy.

After all, it is in this energy that I have found my place to be.