Every week since I’ve been in Stockholm, I’ve visited a European bathhouse. In the midst of a bustling city street, an old-timey sign appears advertising that you can “restore and relax like it’s 1904”. The facilities are modern enough -several warm pools, heated swimming pool, steam and dry saunas, all situated below ground and in this warm cavern you can’t help but slowly unwind. Afterwards, too rubbery legged and relaxed to begin my journey home, I take tea in the crisply bright artificial sunlight. The funny thing is, every time I go, I think maybe I can skip today… but when I arrive, my aching body sighs and I think: oh how I’ve needed this.  The pleasure of finding deep relaxation, the calm and peace so deeply helpful and restorative to both body and psyche, battered by living with chronic pain. 

As Sun in Scorpio season has surfaced, so has our ancient pains and our psychological edges. We may think we need to get to the bottom of our issues once and for all. While honestly confronting one’s demons and emotionally purging can be cathartic and healing, it can also make for an anxiety producing, edgy, and deeply uncomfortable existence to which Taurus, the polar opposite of Scorpio, replies: “Calm the f* down.” (usually pleasant, the curse word is merely to grab Scorpio’s attention) Instead of stressing, make a pot of soup. Ask for a hug, water the plants, take a walk, get a massage, return to your senses suggests Taurus — ideas radically boring to Scorpio, the sign who needs a level of life or death complexity to feel alive. But not Taurus. For Taurus, aliveness is measured in moments of natural simplicity, sensual satisfaction, relaxing stillness. Pleasure is found in the babbling of a mountain brook, the coos and sighs of a well-satisfied lover, chocolate melting on your tongue. Pleasure is individual to each of us, but we know when we’ve found it. This cacophony of comforts, this symphony of senses creates a pleasurable humming sensation in the body, not unlike a happily spinning second chakra and exactly the way we’d expect to feel on planet Venus herself.

In our relationship’s composite chart our Moon sign is Taurus. This is a true blessing and counterbalance to the passion and intensity of our Scorpio Rising. A sweet treat, good food and cuddling go a long way toward conflict prevention in my marriage. We exchange more intimate information through cuddling than I’d ever thought possible, and when things get heated it’s the easy, plodding and simple activities of Taurus that restore simple sanity to crisis-oriented Scorpio. When things get really heated for us, in my experience one of the most nurturing/difficult relationship saving techniques one can do is remember that a) you have a body, and you’re in it b) the plants need watering and c) it’s almost dinner time. Anyone hungry?

Scorpio and Taurus are fixed signs, and fixed signs are stubborn in their habits and attachments, but we can unwind and unlock difficult emotional habits through pleasure at this full moon.  Living on this Earth, being in relationship with others, in this cumbersome body, isn’t necessarily a picnic. Taurus delights in pleasing the senses –asking, what’s the point of life on Earth if you don’t relax and enjoy it? So: what does your Garden of Eden look like? Where does Taurus fall in your birth chart (link to basic house-sign interpretation)? This is where at this Taurus Full Moon you can open up to receive earthly delights. Money and all it can buy increases our creature pleasures (though not necessarily our happiness) and our sense of security, but feelings of security and pleasure arise from attending to the body’s hungers, wants and desires. Right now, reach for those creature comforts. Listen to your body. Hug a friend. To feel abundantly blessed, spend a little money on a treat that will elevate your quality of life. Come down to Earth at this Full Moon.

image source: Pino