“], “filter”: { “nextExceptions”: “img, blockquote, div”, “nextContainsExceptions”: “img, blockquote, a.btn, a.o-button”} }”>
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
>”,”name”:”in-content-cta”,”type”:”link”}}”>Download the app.
The study of the stars and our connection to them dates back thousands of years. Whether found within philosophy, mysticism, science, indigenous cultures, religion, or earlier civilizations, the idea that we are one with nature has been part of our understanding of what it means to be human for as long as we know. Ancient cultures understood that as we observe nature, we observe ourselves.
This week in the cosmos, Mercury retrograde comes to an end, bringing ease and clarity. As Mercury moves direct in Taurus, a new Moon and Jupiter in that same earth sign also herald blessings. This week acts as an opening, an opportunity, an initiation of new beginnings, and a welcoming into a different chapter.
Mercury Direct in Taurus
Mercury began its retrograde in Taurus on April 21 and will station direct on May 15. Throughout this retrograde, there has been an invitation to explore our relationship with slow and steady, our values, our sense of security, and our self-worth. It has been a time of reflection, realignment, reconsidering, and recommitting. It has been a sacred pause that allows for the integration of our journey so far.
Retrogrades invite greater insights, perspectives, and self-awareness. They welcome wisdom and deeper self-knowing. They do this so that when we begin to move forward, we can do so with greater clarity, intention, and purpose.
As Mercury stations direct in Taurus, allow your perspectives to update. What did this sacred pause reveal to you? What entered your awareness? What did you find yourself questioning or revisiting?
As Mercury moves forward, we experience forward momentum within ourselves as well. This is our invitation to take physical action on all that we have been reconsidering in our thoughts.
Jupiter Enters Taurus
For the first time in 12 years, Jupiter will enter Taurus on May 16, initiating a new one-year chapter in our lives.
There is a flow that Jupiter brings, as if a downstream river is leisurely floating us into bliss and abundance while supporting us with wisdom and generosity each moment of the way. When we say yes to the invitations of this planet, doors open, ease unfolds, and our dreams are realized.
Taurus is a fixed earth sign. It is grounding and stabilizing, concerned with the natural and material world and moving at a pace that is patient, persistent, and steady. Taurus is here to create long-lasting beauty and fall in love with the entire journey surrounding that creation.
Jupiter has spent the last 12 months in Aries, where we were invited to plant new ideas, take bold steps, and initiate action. As it shifts into Taurus, where it will remain until May 2024, the focus shifts from planting ideas to nurturing them. What do your dreams need in order to flourish? What environment needs to be cultivated for sustained blossoming?
As Jupiter moves from Aries into Taurus, the pace slows down and becomes more sustainable. Over the last 12 months, we were gifted with the sparks of Aries’ passion to initiate ideas that were on our hearts. Now, we are invited to make them real. While Aries exists in potential and ideas, Taurus grounds and physicalizes. When Jupiter is in Taurus, we are gifted with commitment and persistence. What do you choose to pour this energy into? What is ready to become real?
As we dance with Taurus, we also enter the realm of finances, skills, and value. This is a beautiful time to be present with your current state of and relationship to your finances and your long-term goals. If there is a skill, career, training, or qualification that has been calling your name, stepping into that during this year-long transit is like stepping into and floating with the current of that downstream river.
New Moon in Taurus
Eclipse season during April and May was filled with transformation, release, and change. By our first post-eclipse season lunation, we will have stepped into new lands. The new Moon on May 19 is a coming together of planets, energies, and invitations in support of exploring and cultivating the land upon which we have arrived.
As the Moon begins her new cycle in the grounded sign of Taurus, we are invited into new beginnings, clarity, stability, slow and committed movement, and the consistent building of our desires. As an earth sign, Taurus is rooted in our tangible reality. It wants to feel, see, touch, smell, and hear your desires. It wants to be present in the lived experience of your imagination, purpose, ideas, and dreams.
This new Moon is an open door to you experiencing your life on purpose.
Mars Enters Leo
A day after the new Moon on May 20, Mars will shift into Leo, where it will remain until July 10.
Mars is our warrior planet. It represents our passion and drive, motivation, and strength. It is the fire that propels us forward in the direction that is calling our name, urging us to move towards our goals, take steps, and make the changes that we know are for us.
Leo is a creative, courageous, enthusiastic, and expressive sign. It is royal, proud, determined, and loyal. Also a fire sign, it moves and creates with passion, placing its entire heart into each endeavor taken. Like all planets, Mars’ fire is expressed with ease and support in some zodiac signs, and more difficulty in others. When it is in Leo, there is compatibility, synergy, excitement, and a mutually supportive relationship. Both Mars and Leo are here to express and create, leap into pursuits, and confidently follow dreams.
While Mars is in Leo for the next seven weeks, we are invited to take initiative, to pour our heart, energy, time and passion into whatever calls us forward, and to be bold in our expression, creativity, pleasure, and lives.
Your Invitation
This week opens doors. It welcomes you into new territory. It invites the change, transformation, realignment, and review that has been taking place in recent weeks and months to become grounded beneath you and anchor into your reality. There is an element of support in the cosmos, filled with whispers of encouragement, guidance, growth, and enthusiasm.
As Mercury stations direct, Jupiter enters Taurus, and the new Moon meets you, there is the invitation to reach into clarity, clarity, consistency, and stability around who you are, what you value, and what you desire to build in your life—and to begin living from this clarity.
And as Mars enters Leo, you are gifted with an influx of excitement, drive, and overflowing passion to wholeheartedly leap into whatever pursuit calls your name. May this week fill you with purpose, remind you of your worth, welcome you as you step more into yourself, and invite new beginnings.
Learn more about the influence of astrology in your life, including astrological events, the Moon cycles, your Sun and Moon and rising signs, how journaling can help you connect with the current influences, and more with Jordane Maree at Girl and her Moon.
About Our Contributor
Jordane Maree is the founder of Girl and Her Moon, a platform and community exploring Soul through the lens of astrology, tarot, and energy healing. She is a writer, intuitive astrologer, energy and soul guide, and host of Girl and Her Moon, The Podcast. She is inspired, every single day, to be the mirror for you to see all that you truly are, you in all your infinite abilities, in total expansion, in infinite opportunity and love.
