Ambrosia Meadow: Venus & Moon in Taurus

ambrosia: the elixir of life, the nectar of the gods, the immortal infinite provisions

meadow: open fields, green pastures, soft grasslands (bathed in moonlight, naturally)

A Brief on Venus

Abu Ma’shar says of Venus’ nature:

“amiability towards friends, and admiration and elation, also pride and boasting, a love of singing and amusement and laughing, ornamentation and joy and happiness, dancing and playing the pipes, singing and plucking the strings of the lute.”

Vettius Valens says of Venus:

“Venus is desire and love. It indicates the mother and nurture. It makes priesthoods, school superintendencies, high offices with the right to wear a gold ring or crown, cheerfulness, friendship, companionship, the acquisition of property, the purchase or ornaments, agreements on favorable terms, marriages, pure trades, fine voices, a taste for music, sweet singing, beauty, painting, mixing of colors both in embroidery, dyeing, and unguent making.”

Ambrosia Meadow Core Values

This collection marks my first working being shared with the world.

With this launch planned to happen during a Venus profection year, how could it have been anyone other than our laughter-loving Queen?

A vital part of my shop’s ethos is offering something edible in each collection, an intention that aligns harmoniously with a Venus in Taurus debut considering Venusian delights of indulgent food and drink peak in her earthy domicile.

Picatrix says of Taurus: “Among the locations, it governs all populated lands, gardens, and plowed areas.” And this collection is named in honor of the god’s garden.

Venus in Taurus taps into our senses in the most literal meaning. How does your food look before you eat it? They say “you eat with your eyes first,” meaning one sense signals another. How does the ocean smell when you listen to it? Memories can be brought back to the surface when various senses are triggered. How do all of the senses combine to inform how you move through space? Sensory experiences make up so much of our body’s inherent wisdom, yet we often don’t think about them.

One such question related to those above is: how do letters taste? This passage from The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster reflects that.

The story follows a child named Milo who goes on a journey through a tollbooth that transports him to a magical land, split between Dictionopolis (a land of letters) and Digitopolis (a land of numbers). This specific passage of Milo figuring out the market place in Dictionopolis stuck with me while creating Ambrosia Meadow.

“Milo nibbled carefully at the letter and discovered that it was quite sweet and delicious — just the way you’d expect an A to taste.

“I knew you’d like it,” laughed the letter man, popping two G’s and an R into his mouth and letting the juice drip down his chin. “A’s are one of our most popular letters. All of them aren’t that good,” he confided in a low voice. “Take the Z, for instance — very dry and sawdusty. And the X? Why, it tastes like a trunkful of stale air. That’s why people hardly ever use them. But most of the others are quite tasty. Try some more.”

He gave Milo an I, which was icy and refreshing, and Tock a crisp, crunchy C.”

The concept of “eating with our eyes first” takes new meaning in this passage. Each letter has a specific taste, reflecting how that letter sounds and feels and tastes as you eat and breathe and speak it. Where does this take you? What did you smell when you learned how to ride a bike? What did you hear when you saw your first double rainbow?

How does the world taste when you experience it fully, when you hold it within your hands, when you allow ourself to deeply inhale it?

Being fully aware of existing inside your body is exhilarating, enlivening, cell-tingling. You take up space inside your skin suit from the head to the toes.

This can be described as “dropping in.” It’s a rhythm that is known once you feel it. It’s a rhythm that you can’t be taught because it’s yours.

The draft of this article has been bullet points and half phrases (literally since this operation in June) trying to express and explain something that feels so difficult to put into words because it is inherently nocturnal.

The Moon and Venus, Mother and Queen, the Shadow Maidens, the Goddesses of Night.

The body’s rhythm can be forced through a dictionary time and time again, and yes this absolutely does help when trying to translate the feeling to someone who has never approached the language, but thinking about it will never be the same as feeling it.

The night does not exist in the same sphere as the day.

The damnedest thing about that rhythm is that is has to be sustained. You don’t get to tap in then clock out. It won’t hit the same… and the benefits won’t last.

The real gain from continually sinking into the full body experience arrives when days grow softer, sweeter, more gentle.

And this is definitely where the Venusian pleasures begin to take hold, as softness goes with sweetness which has a natural pathway that leads to sexiness.

Venus in Ambrosia Meadow is in Taurus II, a decan of the Moon, where a hearty amount of procreative and reproductive elements live. This decan looks at what is required for growth to continue. A repetitive rhythm of between the soil and the Sun is required for crops to be fertilized, just as a continually stoked passion is needed for relationships to survive a lifetime.

Picatrix says: “The second face of Taurus ascends a man looking like a camel, with hooves in place of his fingers like cattle. He himself is wholly covered with a torn linen cloth. He wishes to work the earth, sow, and craft. This is the face of nobility, political power, and rewarding the people.”

To work the earth, to sow, to craft! All actions that contribute to a gain which will not be immediate and will take time to achieve and must be given consistent attention!

Austin Coppock describes Taurus II in 36 Faces: “The fecund but unquickened earth, the alchemical salt, is visited by the bright and active beams of the Sun, the sulphur. Their union is a conception repeated yearly. Yet the matter is not brought to fruition solely by means of a single conjunction, no matter how vigorous. Once planted, the matter must be attended to carefully and consistently. Once cannot decide to water a plant when one chooses, nor can one make up for neglect by a double application of effort the next day. Consistency and dedication must join fecundity and passion to complete the picture this face provides”

Consistency and dedication! And maybe this is where you’re rolling your eyes thinking “oh this sounds like work” to which I say, let’s remember that orgasms don’t just happen on their own and fall firmly under the fun category! Fertilization does not happen without work!

There is a resilience found here as plants will do the work on their own. They already convert sunlight into energy to fuel their growth, but they become fuller and lusher with tender loving care.

It’s a truly magical experience to care for a plant and to reap the rewards, from the flowers that delight your table to the herbs and vegetables that nourish your body.

The point is to tend to your body the way you would tend to the most rare and delicate flower and the way you would care for the most cherished lover.

And since we are embodying the Venusian, naturally this is influencing not only your relationship with our own body but also with the bodies of others… because your optimal growing conditions are impacted by what and who you are planted amongst.

How are your relationships being sustained? Do they need more sunshine? Is their soil drowning?

And while they are resilient, plants can be finicky! Growing up in southern Indiana meant being around a fair share of crops growing (and maybe partying in corn fields), and I loved keeping track of which fields had which crops and when they were empty over the years.

Land requires rest to turn the soil and ensure the nutrients haven’t been depleted. Along with the right amount of sunshine, not too much rain but definitely not too little, hopefully no major floods that throw variables in, etc… Layers of care are needed for successful growth.

I couldn’t write the first article of my first launch for a benefic without including poetry about love…

Pablo Neruda’s work was an integral part of Floating Fountain (shout out to all of his Cancer placements!), but the opening stanza of One Hundred Love Sonnets: XII was one of the first poems I read of his and one of the reasons his writing captured my heart so swiftly.

“Full woman, carnal apple, hot moon, thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light, what obscure clarity opens between your columns? What ancient night does man touch with his senses?”

From the connection between the senses and unlocking the “ancient night” to the HOT MOON.

This is part of the poem for Taurus II from A Wheel of Small Gods, with all poetry by Brian Wilkins. I particularly love this poem because it flips the traditional imagery and gender roles. Here, you see a woman who has constructed her perfect man, her “Adam.” She has done the work!

“In moonlight, in a clock of apple blossoms,

of red clay she made her Adam,

her first, her only.

Petals stuck to his curling beard.

…

In moonlight, with her hands, she made him,

with her spit and breath, with laughter and sweat along his shoulders.”

Both of these yummy delicious poems mention apples, a very Venusian fruit that stories use to signify temptation — we all know that Eve ate the apple, shared it with Adam, and it got stuck in his throat (Adam’s apple). Apple powder is one of the main ingredients in the Sensual Stimulant Powder, and there were seven apples offered to Venus during this operation. One person used that then had a sync of finding out them and their lover both shared the same variety of apple as their favorite.

Of course Venus deserves a variety of fruits & sweets offered, along with multiple colors of pink roses. Both of these elements had so many syncs, many of which almost started feeling a little too literal, even for Venus. I went to multiple events shortly after with huge spreads of fruit, and I started seeing wild roses in places I hadn’t previously. My local kombucha brewery had their seasonal flavor Blush on tap (which was quite a treat to break my fast after the operation with), and the flavor is of course rose petals.

The white cookies are wedding cookies, which Venus required to be included because of their historical use at weddings and because of their excess powdered sugar which ties in the Sensual Stimulant Powder. This was a very dusty operation!

The altar took an entirely circular shape on a large fleece blanket that is double layered (with purple on the bottom, shout out to the Jupiterian support) made with my hands over a decade ago. It was the meadow floor to hold this growth. Very intimate, very nocturnal, very fitting.

Ambrosia Meadow is for soul-sweetening and grounding into your rhythm. The rhythm in your body’s natural senses, the rhythm amongst the land, the rhythm of the bed rocking…

The vibe is very sensual — not in the overplayed and overhyped manner that the word “sensuality” can be easily thrown around more and more. Sensual in the literal sense awakening way.

Which yes, can be veryyyy sexy too!

“Oh, how lucky I am to be a human with senses who gets to experience the world through my individual body’s lens.”

This collection is for slooooowing down, something that has been extremely loud as I’ve been writing this article. My Mercury and Mars are in Taurus, and working with this collection has made me savor the process of slowing down. Since Taurus is my 6th, I often joke that my two dogs are my Mercury and my Mars, and of course those two wiggle worms have been major reasons that this article has taken so long to complete.

I sit down to write, I get a few minutes in, and one of them comes up to me barking and whining to play. And while this is normal for dogs, it’s important to note that both of my dogs are senior. They love to luxuriate in the sunshine and snuggle into a warm blanket, and they usually come bothering to remind me to take a break every couple hours. Yes they still love to play, but it’s not the same level of rambunctiousness that it used to be.

Until this operation… and now their youthfulness and silliness has been rejuvenated more than it has been in years.

People who have worked with this collection have reported both feeling in tune with their body’s movements more than ever before along with feeling very decadent, magnetic, and filled with sexual energy.

There have been many very literal relationship syncs, beginning with me working an event and reading for a couple on the night of this working. Folks have shared stories of major relationship milestones being discussed, achieved, assessed. For full transparency, there have been a couple reports of people using this collection and encountering relationship hurdles to address — always related to longevity. These conversations have focused on what is actually sustainable and how to keep the good going, reflecting the long process of growth.

This collection focuses on the long-lasting, the constant, the consistent. If anything is not sustainable, then this will bring that forward. We cannot rush growth; we cannot force progress — but we can certainly make the process smoother, easier, and more enjoyable!

Election Details

Venus is in domicile and ruling the Moon in the 1st, who finds their exaltation in Taurus. The target planet is placed in the 1st during their planetary hour, moving direct, in their preferred sect, and ruling their exalted sect light. The Moon had just completed a sextile to Jupiter in Cancer and was now applying to conjoin Venus in Taurus, a very cute benefic enclosure. However, this aspect would not complete until almost a day’s motion, approximately 21 hours later.

One could spend a not insignificant amount of time here discussing void of course Moons and degrees of aspects. To avoid this becoming an at length opinion on technique, simply put: it’s still a benefic enclosure with the Moon sweetly sandwiched between Jupiter and Venus. The time it takes the Moon to move between Jupiter and Venus highlights the amount of patience required for proper growth and very aptly suits this collection.

Uranus is also in the 1st for this operation and under the Venusian influence, and the operation stopped once the Ascendant degree reached 3º orb of Uranus.

Mars is at 2º Virgo, meaning the Moon applied by sextile to them right before the sextile to Jupiter. It’s worth noting that when the Moon did later perfect their conjunction with Venus, Mars still had not passed Jupiter — meaning the benefic enclosure remained steady and was not interrupted. Saturn is in early Aries, out of sight from Venus and the Moon and tucked away in the 12th. The Jupiter(and Sun)-Saturn square was closely activated during this time, but this is mitigated by the overwhelmingly positive factors.

This election is highlighting all the Venusian values that can be found in her earthy domicile and is free from all major afflictions.

To end, a few sweet syncs…

As you’ve already seen from the photos, I used many of my lettuce and leafy green bowls for this working. Lettuce is Lunar, and the leaves reflect the leaves in the altar blanket used to create the Meadow!

Was thinking about Ambrosia Meadow and saw this plant beauty…

The fruit and veggie nails I had done for a dance teacher convention, and one of the comments I was given by fellow teachers was how deeply in my body they could tell I was when dancing and moving…

A delicious (vegan!) chocolate and fruity dessert that was on the weekly specials menu at a restaurant I went to after applying Ambrosia Meadow…

The wall of my Venus altar with body casts done by an artist friend — who has the Sun in Taurus and who was the first person locally to order from this collection!