Healing Our Sensual Relationship With The Earth Part Two, Or Uranus Transit Through Taurus

Healing Our Sensual Relationship With The Earth Part Two Or Uranus’s Transit Through Taurus

Envision a tree, maybe your favorite kind of tree, or a tree you grew up with on your property, or a plant you grew in the window sill of your kitchen. I look over at my cactus that I have potted in my home. I keep them in my bedroom, for it is a sacred and protected room,  I feed them love through my communication and tending.

 As we evolve, plants have evolved with us. Most may not really conceive that plants were here on this Earth before any other living beings. Fungi have been existing on this planet estimated at 1300 million years and plants have been estimated at 700 million years.  The relationship we have with fungi, plants, trees, etc is the most sacred unification of inter-dependence that our planet has ever witnessed. This is were co-operation was invented. When you go back and imagine your relationship with nature where do you start? Usually as a child. Well maybe not, but thats where mine started, and I remember as clear as day scenes where I played under a family of pine and spoke to them secrets I would never tell an adult. I knew that they cared for me and were absolutely listening to me. Fast forward many years and I found myself implanted in Oregon. Those were some of my most cherished, inspired, cultivated, moments spending time with Nature. I can recall countless moments reflecting on how safe, secure, and shielded, I felt from the outside world sitting in the fern laden forests. The Japanese have done studies on the human nervous systems reaction to what is called “Forest Bathing”, that we are repeatedly soothed by Nature. 

I have my own Animistic theories about the energy exchange between plants and humans that parallel with our ancestors and their ritualistic gratitude for all that is offered to us from the Earth. Our greatest Medicine is the Earth, and all that she provides for us. This is medicine that can be swallowed, as well as taken through all the other senses of our body in a combination that equals “Totality”. I use that word, for every aspect of our relationship with Nature is complete, whole, or holy. 

“For every human illness, somewhere in the world there exists a plant which is the cure. I believe there is a healing potential locked inside plants which is integral with their evolution, just as it is part of human evolution to learn to tap this wonderful gift of Nature”

                                                                                                                            Rudolf Steiner

This relationship of healing between humans and Nature is the direct cord of healing ourselves, for there is no separation between this world and our existence. Just as the umbilical cord to the fetus is the life sustaining connection to the Mother, our cord to the Earth is through our connection to the plants. 

As Uranus’s Transit through Taurus, we will experience a renewed interdependence through our physical relationship to our material reality and one of these connections is through the ancient act of agriculture. The act of harnessing the power of soil and creating a particular space for creation to take place through seeding the rich soil, is the same as two humans interaction of intimacy.  The womb of a woman is the womb of the Earth, and the planted seed is the impregnation through sperm. This is why sexuality and agriculture are an archetypal personification through the sign of Taurus.  

This leads me to the topic of Biodynamic farming, permaculture, forest farming, and agroforestry. I just want to touch lightly on each topic.

Biodynamic Farming, Forest farming, and Agroforestry through the Lens of Taurus as language with the Earth

“What is necessary to keep providing good care to Nature has completely fallen into ignorance during the materialism era.”

                                     Rudolf Steiner

In November of 1924 Rudolf Steiner gave lectures in Europe on what he called “The Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture”, these lectures focused on the resurgence of natural farming or what we would call now organic farming, hence original agriculture. 

After the introduction of pesticides into farming world wide, many farmers were concerned about the future health of soil and our food in Europe. Biodynamic farming was a technique of composting, alternating locations of crops while replenishing the soil with fermented herbs, minerals and animal bones while following a cosmic calendar. In 1928 the Demeter certification was enacted,  this certification requires biodiversity and ecosystem preservation through the act of biodynamic agriculture. These standards were created by Franz Dreidax due to Steiner’s passing in 1925. As of 2016 biodynamic techniques were used in 60 countries on 398,022 acres of agriculture. 

Since Rudolf Steiner’s death in 1925, our environmental concerns have only magnified. Our relationship with the soil, its profound activity of life has diminished drastically all over the world. Companies like Monsanto have undeniably affected the health of our soil. Why do I focus on the word soil? Because, the bacterial life of the soil is obviously the missing key to the health of the plant. Just as the microflora of our gut is an ever growing topic of the health of the entire human body, this starts in the soil. The absorption of nutrients from the soil to the plant is based off the micro-biome of the soil. As the Earth is the womb to nature, so is the gut to the body. This is another direct relationship cultivated by inter-dependence between humans and Nature. These are the symbiotic life forms of the unseeing eye that create an irreplaceable environment that travels from Nature, directly to our bodies like a chemical language of love once we have ingested the plant. As an Animist, I feel that, the micro-flora communicate a language of health in their actions and we as humans exchange this conversation through our consciousness and the reciprocation of how we treat the Earth. As the quality of life is depleted in our soil the line of communication is broken, from soil, to plant, to human. Since this line of communication has been blocked, it seems to me if we ask our ancestors how to communicate with our Mother Earth, they can help us to listen to her life force and find ways to establish our bond again through the micro-flora of soil.

Astrologically, Taurus is the senses, and we communicate information through these senses with spirit, ancestors, and Nature. With Uranus representing the individual stream of remembering our soul, each of us can reach out to spirit to create our direct line to our Mother Earth. If we rebuild the microflora of the soil we may enable a reconnection of chemical communication in our bodies with Nature. Fermentation, mycelium, and composting, can bring life back to the soil. 

Uranus in Taurus is about feeling our relationship to the Earth, rebuilding the intimacy our ancestors once shared with HER, and that could be represented through the act of our own home gardens, planting in pots in the home, and purchasing land with the intention to mend it. 

Our ancient ancestors knew how to have a considerate relationship with the Earth, and one technique we named in modern terms is Forest farming.

Human ingenuity is one part observation to Nature’s natural process, in my opinion. Biomimicry,  would be an example of humans utilizing Mother Nature’s healing structures. Forest farming is an ancient land managing system that combines trees with crops or even live stock for symbiotic health and protection for the plants, trees, and animals involved. This technique is also used for maintenance of soil erosion. Forest Farming uses the existing trees and plants crops appropriate to exist in the levels of light and shade offered by the trees. Basically, we are mimicking the structure and foundation of forests and planting gardens or crops that can thrive due to inter-dependence. 

Agroforestry, is the use of specific trees and plants placed intentionally together for interdependence to provide greater yield and sustainable practices for the soil while creating healthy consumerism for the local community. This also was the foundation for terracing the land and bringing water to the crops through furos or canals. This agricultural technique has also been used for ages in the Americas, and all over the world.  The Pre-Colombian natives that created the mounds, named Cahokia believed to be inhabited in 600 CE created terraces for farming and used agroforestry techniques in the Philippines by the Hanunoo people, in South America  such as Santarem, Brazil, the Hohokam of Phoenix, Arizona, the Yoruba people of Nigeria planted yams, pumpkins, and beans  all grown together under the cover of scattered trees. 

After reading a wonderfull article on www.worldagroforestry.org titled “Why Gender Matters In Agroforestry”, I wanted to bring to attention the feminine aspect of Taurus in Uranus as a transit of balancing out the sensual relationship within each individual male or female to Nature. 

The first line in the preview article to many other related articles about gender issues in agroforestry said; “…in Africa male motivation to incorporate trees on the farm is largely conditioned by financial factors, whereas females are concerned with soil conservation and household food consumption.”  There are many diverse aspects to the way male and female relations can co-operate to bring about greater change in world attempts of reforestation and sustainable ways of producing and maintaining indigenous species of crops for profit. For more  education on gender considerations and study and its impact on agroforestry across the world amongst different cultures look up www.worldagroforestry.org/gender .

I hope that through this inner dialogue with the feminine and male aspects of our psyche we can sense our relationship to Nature better and find a more balanced approach to productivity and profit through harvesting the great bounty of our most beautiful home, Earth. I also hope that we can approach these wholistic concepts through different senses. What I propose is feeling our way to knew ideas, using our intuition in creating change. Touch, smell, and taste, to open a respectful relationship and dialogue with Nature. 

Tlaltecuhtli, Aztec Goddess Of The Earth

Over the last year I have dug deep into the Meso-American mythology, I want to just close this article with one of my favorite Earth Goddesses, Tlaltecuhtli. I feel that she is deeply misunderstood due to the influence of the Spaniards interpretation of the culture, the people, and their spirits beliefs. There are many stories of Tlaltecuhtli but the energy I want to focus on is her sacrifice. Not her supposedly asking for the blood of humans to suffice her bitterness and rage but of her sacrifice to become the Earth. Tlaltecuhtli, was split in half by Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. one piece of her body became the Earth, the  mountains, and rivers, her hair the trees and flowers, and her eyes the the caves and wells. The other piece of her became the vault of the sky which the Sun and stars were not placed in yet. Quatzelcoatl and Tezcatlipoca gave humans Tlaltecuhtli as their sustenance so that they might live. This is not an uncommon story in other cultures all around the world, but this is fortification that the Earth sacrifices for us, she breathes life through her caves and mountains creating the atmosphere where moisture can multiply take form in clouds and pass water and microscopic seeds to flow over the soil to create opportunity for all life to thrive. I may romanticize these cultures relationship with the Earth but it gives me hope and sparks my creativity to find ways to invoke change. Change that will bring inter-dependence and co-operation with humans and mend our relationship with the Earth.