Wesak is coming. It is celebrated with the Taurus full moon. Because of two forms of astrology, tropical and sidereal, it will be held sacred twice: April 25 (tropical) and May 25 (sidereal).

Classically, Wesak celebrates the Buddha, his birth, enlightenment, and passing into paranirvana all said to happen on full moons of Taurus. Whether or not that is so historically, we are offered multiple turns of the spiral of expression of Taurus with this sacred day. As a result, Wesak is not specifically a Buddhist holy day. In fact, much of the information and modern meditative focus of Wesak comes from the writings of Alice Bailey in her work with the Master D.K. This post begins a series on Wesak from multiple angles, meditations, and understandings. We begin with the sign Taurus.

Taurus is a fixed earth sign. Taurus, ruled by Venus traditionally and exoterically, is a slow migration through have and have not, gratification and lack thereof, delicacies to delight the taste and voluptuousness to stimulate the touch. An earth sign, Taurus enhances our earthiness, our senses, and our sense of identity through that which is tactile. “I have therefore I am.”

This sensibility is what determines value, worth, talent, and use. Venus’ influence will not only create a relation between having and getting, keeping and not letting go but will also over lifetimes of influence refine what we value and why, what we cling to and what we are willing to reject. Repulse or rejection is the other side of Venus. She was the original Goldilock’s as is easy to read in her myth. This quality is one of discernment.

Taurus is a fixed sign. Its “mode” or “cross” is that of fixity: of anchoring, stabilizing, and immovability. Stability is necessary in life just as is fluidity or spontaneity. The fixed signs stabilize the quality of Being that they conduct. In Taurus desire is being conducted, and we are to understand the word in three ways: like an electrical current, like a person being ushered away in custody, and like a conductor directing an orchestra.

• The current of desire will conduct us through the full range of attraction, lust, love, lack, security fears, satiety and loss of that which satisfies. All the positive, beneficial, addictive, destructive, entrenched, and refining processes that desire can dish out, Taurus will take. And the truth is everyone is every sign. Clearly Taurus and the energy of desire has been conducting humanity for a long, long time.
• This is the second meaning of conducting. Desire has been ushering humanity along, as it has all the other kingdoms in Nature, for eons of time. Taurus/Venus/desire/relation/sensibility are heightened in each kingdom of Nature. Contemplate this thought – the insights will be powerful. Nature is earth and has obvious correspondence to the earth signs. Fixity is coming together and staying that way because of mutual benefit, hence stability, lack of change and security in that lack of change. When considering humanity, however, we have to include that we are the youngest kingdom on the planet (regardless of what timeline is considered). As such, humanity is still sorting out the basic levels of desire which is why we have the afflictions of greed, avarice, addiction, fear of loss, insecurity, and a sense of self identity based upon what is outer. Literally, desire conducts a human being from one desire to the next, even if that desire is a mental one or one engaged with awareness.
• The conductor of an orchestra appears to have an easy job: stand there, wave a baton, and look good while the musicians do all the work. Yet, appearances are almost always deceiving. The conductor is responsible for the overall artistry that a group of musicians and a piece of music is capable of. The analogy, then, is to an altruistic desire or set of desires that have little to do with oneself and are focused on the well-being of others. With this level of conduct we interact with others through a wider set of sensibilities and frames of reference. We also conduct all our parts (mind, emotions, desires, resources, and so forth) toward these more altruistic goals. This idea is found in all religious and spiritual traditions under names such as virtue, karma yoga, merit, metta, and mitakoye-oyasin (all my relations).

Taurus is ruled esoterically by Vulcan. Vulcan is the fashioner of form: beautiful and delicate or indestructible and purposeful. Vulcan (Hephestus) used hammer, forge, strength, and rhythm to bend any metal, smelt any ore, and design exactly what he saw in his mind that would suit the need. Thus Vulcan turns the spiral of Taurus energy. On this level of life’s learning having is not always so pleasant. We definitely cannot have all that we want, and our sense of desire seeks an unknown refined quality that materialism and that which money can buy will not satisfy. This turn of the spiral is The Path. Awareness is being forged through the ups and downs of life.

Vulcan rules again hierarchically. The hierarchical ruler of a sign signifies that in this relation both the planet and the sign can express their highest qualities and intentions. These qualities are rare, precious, and hard won no matter which planet or sign of the zodiac is the example. Through the processes of Vulcan the diamond-radiance and diamond-Being that is the highest nature of any being is brought forward. For a human being pressure, fire, immersion, and pressure again submit the sense of self to the forge of awakening. We are not our desires, nor our forms, nor our thoughts, nor this or that. What a human being is is for each person to discover as each precious quality of Being is realized and expressed. Ultimately, Vulcan’s hammer in Taurus cracks open the narcisstic egg of the self, and it is found empty.

The highest expression of Taurus is the understanding of desire as an energy, a drive, a purpose, a limitation, and a method of liberation. Taurus leads us through desire to consciousness to Awareness-Being to enlightenment. Taurus also holds the profound unutterable mystery of the creation of the forms used by human souls from time immemorial. We are not descended from apes and never have been. Vulcan is the fashioner of the perfected form and the perfecting of the form that human beingness would use and has in order to create a new kingdom on the planet. Taurus, Venus, Vulcan, and other planets and stars hold the mysteries of where those first souls came from. Their reason was one of altruism which is why we, who are they, end up cultivating the same.