What grows in the darkness?

Taurus Full Moon Deep Dive

The Taurus full moon and lunar eclipse arrives Tuesday, November 8th, bringing the supercharged energy of Taurus’ ruler: Venus. This is the cosmic crossroads of earth and beauty, of animal and vegetable, of touch and smell, and of the magical powers of certain fantastic fungi…that quite literally grow in the darkness.

For me, this Full Moon is all about embracing a more yin state of mind. What does that mean? Well, it means moving into a more receptive, fluid, restful, and inactive way of being in our minds and in the world. Yin is associated with darkness, water, and the feminine aspect of the cosmos. And November really is our first foray into the darker, colder, and quieter time of the year.

Personally, though I love and often miss downtime, I’m not very good at cultivating it. After a lifetime of needing to work to evade poverty, put myself through college, and survive in a corporate environment that celebrates workaholism, I get uneasy when I feel like I’m not getting stuff done.

Our society ingrains in us the belief that, when we rest, everything stops. Progress slips away. Ground is lost. Market share is taken. And we immediately slip behind. But one look under the ground in winter and we would see just false this construct is. So many things are always alive, thriving and unfurling in our direction, waiting for us to reach a state in which we can receive them. Which, of course, only comes when we create the space to receive: time, capacity, energy, interest, and awareness.

Nature sleeps for a season. Why don’t we? Why are we always trying to convince ourselves we are separate from the natural world, somehow exempt from the laws of nature that apply to everything else? And, in nature’s slumber, there’s actually crucial activity taking place. Why don’t we view our downtime this way, instead of as just a forced break in the action.