Pride and Prejudice

Taurus New Moon & Stubborn Fixed Sign Showdowns

Love is a mirror into yourself.

And you cannot stop it from happening but you may try. You may think you’re destined for this perfect list of a person who will complete you but in reality the greatest loves have twists and turns that maneuver non-linear in tones vexed, perplexed but undoubtedly enlivening us, body and soul. Yes, quiet comfortable quaint companionship CAN exist in deep-hearted connects. And that’s often the goal: a partner is a enough of a combination of our own “list” of wants and if it works well-enough, we pursue the autopilot of comfort and safety. Important and vital relationship cultivation surely yet still, the most revolutionary romances include discomfort and uncertainty in its journey. The easiest fit is often not the one that will peel back the layers and want to really see and know us because face it: that “list” is also a romantic objectification, a social standardized test, and you were also banking on what was easiest, too. We are not here to serve each other dutifully and people-pleasingly fit ourselves into some box of standards.

I wonder how often we talk ourselves out of what could be the sweetest, deepest, truest love just because we want the easy path.

How often we get scared and run when it becomes bewildering, when the intensity of interactions take us too far from base, that we feel unsteady or irate or even euphoric in the presence of a certain person and we don’t know how to handle these FEELINGS. How often we stop ourselves short from even scratching the surface if we stumble upon even 1/10th of those feelings. How often our own arsenal of ideas work against the curiosity that could lead us to possibility. And where love works brightest with a foundation of shared values (though you have to be a person who actually knows what yours are), we look too much to “types”, labeling anything that is not a carbon-copy of how we like others to do things as being incompatible. How easy to genuinely feel you know what you want when you are relying on a connection to cover-up your own insecurity, loneliness, reliability or whatever smorgasbord of stuck but accustomed situations make you feel secured but never having to grow beyond alongside another person who is also doing the same.

Why bother go into the dark woods when the manicured garden is just fine?

You know what to expect and you have what works for you right in your backyard. You’re kept, contained, in a plot of pruned and groomed identities that fit you nicely. No need to travel, no need to wander too far. You know you’ll never have to wait to be tended to; the arrangement is effortlessly secured. Easy breezy beautifully packaged in what we believe will be in place forever until the comfort becomes complacency and the balance bleeds into begrudging boredom. To re-phrase for the Libra Pink Moon, time, energy, effort and mere presence is currency. Investing in lukewarm “love” works at first; investment with people who have a glossy perspective of us (and vice versa) will eventually reveal itself the nitty gritty and suddenly our view is not so pretty. Do you still love them when they are not able to follow thru? Do you think you can carry on at surface level for a long time?

Effortless, neat romance in my opinion will never produce real roots; they are just blossoms for the moment that don’t really see our souls or truly speak to our hearts. In reality, most of us really want to be loved, thorns and all. What happens when the mask comes off? When we fall into the mud of our own inner muck, the sticky and sometimes sickly parts where we tend to build a moat around us like a cursed castle? We are conditioned to see compatibility as a lack of conflict when it is anything but. Care must be there, fondness, too, but what about the fervent fire that can actually burn away the pretensions and reveal the significant soul beneath? Imagine spending your whole life looking for someone who is a carbon copy of everything you think you need only to be bored as fuck and never learning to grow.

And how often do we use incompatibility as an excuse because we don’t want to face our own shit?

One of my “guilty” pleasures are light love stories, classic period pieces no exception. As one of the first rom-com writers focusing on women as main characters, Jane Austen was a great deal more subject-expansive than mere merry marriage tales with a side dish of feminine wit and social quips; every book spoke of class and gender issues. Her most recognized novel Pride and Prejudice starts as a meddling mother’s design to marry off her daughters to eligible bachelors. Through the protagonist, the solid and snarky but warm and welcoming Elizabeth Bennet, we come to love this whole-heartedly independent fictional fem who has made a home in herself, devoted to genuine choices rather than forced expectations. Lizzy’s a bit of a realist but has a lust for life, easy to see why audiences have adored this fun-loving proto-feminist character for two centuries.

Lizzy’s intuition is thrown for a loop when faced with manipulative gossip against bad first impressions that only confirm suspicions. Philosophically, Pride and Prejudice speaks loudly about what we think we understand, what we discover about ourselves when learn we’re wrong and the surprises behind our speculations about others. One of the most famous examples of the enemies-to-lovers trope, the cliff notes version basically can be boiled down to the adage: “when you assume, you make an ASS of U and ME”. Throw in some sisterly affection, parental bickering and the insanity of the marriage market in Regency era England and it’s a playground for dramarama. Both the beloved Bridget Jone’s Diary and the gay saga of Fire Island are modern adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. Preconceptions about potential partners, friends, whatever is a universal wild-card that can pop up out of nowhere and shake our belief systems to bits.

*SIGH* the way assumptions hinder us from so much… including falling in love!

Why can’t 2 people just simply let themselves be in love and instead have to be scoured through the standards of what resources they can provide to each other? In essence, much of the book deals with the ways people talk themselves or let others talk them out of love… love that comes naturally and sweetly only to be ruined by a bullshit list of what we’re supposed to want, who we’re supposed to match with, according to some stereotype. There is something to be said about the kind of people who are afraid of being in love when it’s right in front of their face, perhaps fearful of the proximity to their own feelings and I’ve seen such denial even within relationships where one party is withheld. (I have unfortunately been that person myself, walls around me.) The fierce protection of others getting hurt from such withholding is part of why we love Elizabeth Bennet so much: her defense of her closest sister, especially in seeing the negative influence of Mr. Bingley’s surrounding company, is exemplary of her of care for others and disdain for snobbery.

Lizzy’s devotion to her loved ones regardless of her independence, her never shying away from hearty laughter, her wit and intellect as companions, is balanced by her curiosity to read the room and take the temperature of others operate. She loves to know how other people work and she has no issue calling out the disingenuous. Austen’s main maiden holds a rich inner life suddenly challenged by the mixed signals of someone she primarily blames for her sibling’s heartache, Mr. Darcy. On the surface he is everything she can’t stand about wealth and she is rightfully livid by the standards in which her family is judged (even though she’s at times judging them, too). Mr. Darcy isn’t just a nuisance; he is a catalyst of revelations and she to him. The complexity of Darcy’s mysterious intentions in social presentation, seemingly rude but actually revealed to be quite shy, challenges her own decidedly “accurate” assessment of him in their beginning interactions.

We only really get to know someone when we can see more of their sides, “good” and “bad”. And peeling back of layers takes patience and a willingness to not be so stubborn in our own preconceived perceptions.

How the gradual meet after meet begins to thaw into warmth, how the closed-off and guarded is recognized in oneself as it is analyzed in another (who just has an entirely different way of expressing it)… Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are so different and yet so much the same in their integrity. The enemies-to-lovers trope isn’t popular because it places love in the confusing realm of drama and struggle, though there are toxic tomes to this narrative very often. Wrapping the value is in the self-reflection that romantic conflict spurs in oneself, the ability to truly learn to understand and appreciate another regardless of one’s differences, the ways in which the slow burn can be not only sexy but eventually foster a fertile ground for vulnerability and mentally stimulating sensuality between two people, is the difficulty this Taurus New Moon might be bringing to some of us.

Shared values are important but there are times that we can’t see that we do share them with others because we’re too focused on the ways in which their own anxieties have made them weary and scared or fools rushing in. Lizzy’s ability to speak with dignity and stand her ground has her universally recognized as a Taurus and it’s easy to see why. Darcy is noted to be a Scorpio, somewhat shrewd and keeping his cards close, but harboring a great well of connection that he also had to slowly blossom thru in order for the 2 adversaries to eventually find they had so much in common, eventually coming to listen openly, to respect each other. And through Darcy’s reveal of himself and eventually Lizzy’s ability to also open in her eyes in a new alarming way, a deeper love comes between this lover Axis in bloom. To note some internet commentary on why this novel sticks is the accountability we learn when we let ourselves open up in matters of the heart:

Pride and Prejudice isn't "I changed myself for you so you would love me back." It's "your blatant rejection and disdain for me made me realize things about myself no one had ever been bold enough to tell me so I sat down and evaluated all my behavior patterns and why they came about and came to the realization myself that I had to work on myself. Also I don't expect you to love me now that I'm a work in progress, so I'm just going to do nice things for you because I don't like seeing you hurt." No wonder P&P fans refuse to settle.

WHAT: New Super Moon in Taurus

WHEN: Sunday April 27th, 2025 3:30 PM EST

THEME: Falling in Love with the Process

Spring is a Season for Love, the kind that starts with us and the kind that exists between each other. Spring’s Eclipse Season, Venus Retrograde and Mercury Retrograde may have wrapped up but upheaval remains. And as these cosmic meddles may have high-lit rather lengthy wounds in our lore, they are now in their shadow. Our inner growth throughout April may feel tender towards the end of April especially around this Super Moon. If only we can spare a little land, willing to get our hands dirty and transfer these persnickety plants of past turmoil and trajectories, knowing we must transform and take root even if we talk ourselves out of being “ready”, we will be all the better for it. Now is not the time to hold yourself back from joy. The world needs your joy, and that of others, more now than ever.

All of us have the capacity to become beacons of Love but have a lean to deal with it differently, even in the cliches of Astrology. Some of us have trouble turning away company or need (looking at Libra, Virgo, Cancer, Aries) while others can cut off manipulation quick (Leo, Aquarius, Capricorn, Scorpio) and some float in indecision or uncertainty (Gemini, Sagittarius, Pisces and Taurus). This New Moon hinges on different arenas for each Sign as I’ll break down later in this post. While there is a lot of tension around this Taurus New Moon due to aspects that create stubbornness and a high possibility of annoyance from others ~and even from ourselves! let’s be real~ this Moon wants us to grab the torch and go into the dark cave of our Heart’s honesty, shining the glow onto the words written on the wall about the real need that lies underneath the seemingly pressing one.

The “blanket” needs that persist can come from a base place whether they be social construct, influenced by external ideas or a mask we wear to the roles we’ve taken on, or even judgment we’ve maintained as a rule thanks to past experiences that were poor in resolve or icky in treatment. This New Moon may propose falling back on caving into over-explanation or clap-backs when people are committed to misunderstanding us or due to their own lack of inner work. One thing Taurus does not love is being pushed to respond too quickly and they will not be polite if the situation at hand is a waste of time. Still, it is difficult to be kind to ourselves and others in this shaky society that keeps upholding so much uncertainty in our lives when we are so dysregulated and pushed and pulled in so many directions.

Depth will always be preferred over surface level bullshit for the Bull.