Algol, Ceres, & the Devouring Mother: Taurus New Moon

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]We can say, "Devouring mother, eat this part of me. Take it away. I can't use it anymore. It's not going to serve me."

[00:00:07]>> [music] >> So, what's up, guys? What's going on? A major new moon in Taurus. This is not any new moon. Sometimes there's a new or full moon that has a special characteristic or a special quality, and this definitely qualifies because this new moon, it is right with these two very potent symbols.

[00:00:25]One is the fixed star Algol, and one is the dwarf planet Ceres. And so, they're right within a degree on either side of this new moon in Taurus. So, we're going to talk about that in this video. We're going to break down some of this symbolism about what we might call the, you know, divine feminine archetype, most broadly, and some of the nuances or layers of that, how that might fit in here to 2026's unfoldment and advancement. So, stay with me. I'm astrologer S.J. Anderson. Thanks for being here on the channel where we talk about astrology. We break down the transiting astrology with the intent to benefit, you know, benefit us as we work with our lives as the lives move forward into the future. So, okay, this is a new moon, 25° 57 degree minutes Taurus. And Ceres during this new moon will be at 25° exactly. So, within that 1° orb that astrologers love to use. I use it a lot.

[00:01:15]If it's within 1° or in the same degree as Ceres is in this moon, you know you have a a conjunction that's worth considering. I mean, they're literally sharing the room or the subroom of the zodiac sign. So, zodiac signs are made of 30°, and when you share the exact degree, there's all kinds of degree symbol astrology that can be applied to both Ceres and the new moon, that is the sun and the moon in this chart and in this moment. It would be Taurus 26 or 25° Taurus. I don't have the Sabian symbols up right now, and that's not part of this video, but that would be another way in here. And then you have Algol, the fixed star. Of course, fixed stars, because of precession, move a degree once every 72 years. And so currently Algol is 26° 31° minutes of Taurus roughly. This new moon is 34° minutes from Algol. So you have 57° minutes on one side for Ceres, 37° minutes on the other side for Algol. You know, these two points go into this blend of the delineation of what this moment is and can be.

[00:02:18]And that's what we'll do here. Hey guys, if you haven't subscribed, consider it.

[00:02:22]Just check here, maybe you've been unsubscribed. I don't know the games of these platforms, but just check and subscribe if you're so inclined. I appreciate your support here. The videos are free, but you know, subscribers are how all of this keeps going and allows me to continue making the content here. So thanks for considering that and doing that. And now back to the video. The way I'm thinking about this is that, you know, the feminine energy, feminine archetype, feminine energy is vast, it's wide, it's not just one thing. There's all kinds of sides of the diamond, you might say, of what it means to be so-called feminine or woman or women. That's the cool thing about this moment is that you get multiple sides of that active here, many different versions of it are present. In the classical system, it's the moon and Venus are the primary planets of women.

[00:03:08]Moon is maybe thought to be more mother, Venus is more youthful. What signs do those planets rule? Well, Taurus is exclusively moon Venus, both by triplicity and exaltation. The moon, domicile Venus, so it's a purely feminine energy, Taurus, and that is where the new moon is. So you're getting access to that through the fact that it's in Taurus, this new moon. But then of course we also have Jupiter right here in a somewhat close sextile during this moon, making the supportive sextile. Jupiter being in Cancer, the sign the moon rules by domicile. So you can see how the Taurus-Cancer themes are very prominent here and they will remain prominent, guys. This is another theme of this video is that when you have Venus entering Cancer, when you have the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer, you see we're back to the same notion of the lunar energy. Venus enters Cancer on the 19th of May, so somewhat soon here, and then it will be co-present or blending with Jupiter for a whole 3-week period.

[00:04:04]The specific conjunction of Venus and Jupiter is in early June sometime. I'll put the exact date up here. But, you see how this year of 2026, and this is a key point, we have the very masculine breakthrough energy of Saturn entering Aries, Neptune entering Aries, and then a eclipse, a solar eclipse in Aquarius, the first in the new cycle. So, there was a lot of brand new assertion of not having the time or energy to focus on these lunar or feminine themes. And then in 2026, in July, we come back to that. We'll have a solar eclipse in Leo. Jupiter will enter Leo in June. We have the basket formation where all of the outer planets are in the masculine signs making exact aspects. And so, it returns to activate the masculine in July, August. And that's why this pocket here of the new moon in May in Taurus on the 16th of May is a special pocket. And then the May-June co-presence of Venus and Jupiter, and then their conjunction in Cancer is a special pocket because it allows us to deploy our feminine powers.

[00:05:05]And I'm going to get to all that, I promise, but layering in how this flows and functions in terms of the timing of the ephemeris is one of the main or biggest reasons why it's so important to be thinking about and why it's so interesting. Just coming back here, what is Algol? Well, they say it's the most feared fixed star. It definitely is the most feared fixed star when you pick up an ancient text. Everybody says, "Oh, Algol." They freak out about it. I can assure you, it's not something to freak out about. I've had many clients with Algol placements getting triggered in transit by intense triggers, and there is no fear event or event that is catastrophic or anything like that. I think we can operate with Algol at this other plane of symbolism or this higher octave, you might say, of yeah, what is this side of the feminine archetype or the this side of femininity or womanhood That is what has been called the devouring mother. And I wanted to read from my book here, the Book of Symbols, another Taschen book. This publisher is just so great in terms of esoteric books, and they really do give us art and history and art history. Whoever's working at this publisher, congrats, cuz you know, astrologers like me or other esoteric practitioners have really benefited, I think, from your work. But let me get I'm going to come here. They have a section on the human body, tongue is where this comes in.

[00:06:18]And then there's the picture of the Gorgon Medusa. You can see that with the tongue out. But when you read the caption, it says, "As the Gorgon Medusa fixed her eyes upon her terrified victim, her scarlet tongue spilled out between her fangs, revealing her as a devouring mother, and unexpectedly making the passage between life and death intimately moist." And this image is from 490 BCE in Italy. So, that's how far back this goes, even predating the astrology books that we have in translation, the oldest ones that we often use by like 500 years. This predates that, this image. But you see here, there's something about the Algol energy when you refer to it as a mother.

[00:07:01]That means that there's a nurturance.

[00:07:02]This devouring mother, you know, my sense with how the Algol nature of this moment can be used is that we've probably had to let go of parts of ourselves in 2026, a lot of us. Saturn in Aries, not easy. New foundations that require new tools that we haven't really used before. So, it's like, what the hell do you do? This is a very much a Saturn in Aries delineation. You know, having Jupiter in the cardinal sign Cancer trying to do new things so we can be most nurturing and healing for ourselves. At the same time, we're losing grip in the sense of the foundations that have been brought into this moment. So, it's quite destabilizing, I think, at one level, symbolically, here in 2026. And my sense with Saturn in Aries as well, Aries being a sign of identity, is that we have to let parts of ourselves go. You have to let the old self fall away. And what better thing here than to have these Taurus and Cancer activations right in this middle trough of the 2026 mean a masculine activation to help us devour these older parts of ourselves, the parts that maybe we're struggling to let go of. We can use Algol in this way. We can say, "Devouring mother, eat this part of me, take it away. I can't use it anymore.

[00:08:11]It's not going to serve me." And I love this idea of moistness in that reading because that, you know, you put water and you blend water, it helps everything go down when you can effectively lubricate it. Engines need lubrication, a lot of things do to function as best as they're able to. So, I think there can be a kind of tough love here. And you know, mothers, that's some of the job. That's why Mars rules Cancer by triplicity is that you've got to get tough. You've got to sometimes cut away when you're deploying your feminine or nurturance. It's not just a happy-go-lucky job. Often, it requires this idea of fierce protection and even sometimes very harsh realities that are included in how we can love and nurture best. You know, this is like Algol carrying us in here in 2026 through the new cycle and letting we can kind of submit ourselves to a kind of destruction of parts of us that aren't going to serve us anymore as we're growing here into this year. And then Ceres, I think to have Ceres added to it is really where you want to delineate this Algol moment maybe more positively.

[00:09:14]And of course, Ceres is also a mother, Demeter, the grain goddess, the grieving mother. And I'm not too deep into this mythology, but I was reading about it.

[00:09:23]The Persephone taken to the underworld, the harvest stops, but the grain returned. And that might be some of what we're doing here, grieving the old world, grieving the old forms. And I don't mean this even in a mundane astrological sense. I mean this in just the notion of time and reality. That's what time is. We change, we grow in life. That's why pre-Saturn return, we have an understanding of our charts.

[00:09:42]Saturn return, we get a new way to see our chart and be with the symbols of our chart, but that never ends. There's always the next threshold. There's the nodal return in the mid-to-late 30s.

[00:09:52]There's the all kinds of stuff happening. There's the second Saturn return, etc. So, we're always having to die to be reborn, become ourselves through surrendering to the decay of failed versions of ourselves or failed ways we want to frame ourselves.

[00:10:07]And we have to let it go to meet the realness, the vibrant realness of reality. I want to say this here cuz I just was walking around before I recorded this. I left my phone here. I do that sometimes. I'm a little bit absent-minded. And it's raining here and I was just like, you know what? I'm so happy I left my phone. I love doing it.

[00:10:22]I was walking around in my senses. This is Taurus, the senses. It's the body moon and then the senses Venus. As they combine in Taurus, I was like, gosh, it's so amazing. It's a trip to not have a phone and to walk around and just sense, be sensate with the vastness of the world and the reality in the material world. I mean, I'm looking at a tree right here with the rain on it, the glistening rain. That's just like as surreal as I've ever seen. I mean, just to pay attention to the natural world and its variance. That undersells it.

[00:10:53]It's like total uniqueness moment to moment. So, I think that could be some of what we can get into here is getting into sensing our physicality, creating space. And this is where you might think of the feminine as passive, so-called, or as receptive, I think is the term that is more often used for it. This is a very enlivening thing to be receptive.

[00:11:13]And I was saying earlier, to be sensate, to just pause and feel what's there, what's happening. And this is, of course, Vipassanā Buddhist spiritual practice. At its heart, you stop and you pay attention. You let what emerges and arrives be there.

[00:11:29]And the idea is you just bring the attention to just note it and pay attention, but maybe not be attached to it. I don't even mean it in terms of that pure spiritual sense. I mean it just in more of a nurturing and a functional sense. I was thinking walking around out here is like, I want to go on a road trip, no phone, no internet, no computer. Just go for a few days, no plan, just, you know, ride a bus, go to a new city. This is the old way. This is how it used to be when I was growing up.

[00:11:52]It was so amazing to be able to Let me say it another way. The skills of survival and of being are very much Taurus or Cancerian skills, where you have to be paying attention and sensing the reality that's emergent in your field moment to moment, the material objects, etc., to survive and function.

[00:12:11]I was just thinking my plan, you know, you get to new city, you go to a coffee shop. Hey, how are you doing? So, this is maybe the relational side of Taurus and Venus. Looking for a hostel, where can I stay? You know, you have to engage people, you have to make relationship to survive and function, and it becomes a quite urgent thing, you know, and this is might be some of the urgency of like cancer the Mars and Cancer energy that you have Mars ruling Cancer, where you're like, okay, we've got to like get active to sort of protect and nourish and nurture, but it's very much something where you don't have this instantaneous digital grid that can often disembody or remove us from the physicality. So, I think that is some of how I'm going to be going into this new moon and this really this May-June pocket with the Cancer uh peak of Jupiter and Cancer, Venus and Cancer is just like, hey, feeling, letting things be. And I think this is the other side of it, where we can We are going to use this to love and nurture people in our world, rather than just some kind of relationship with ourselves.

[00:13:04]Pay attention to the people. Just pay attention. Ask them, "What are you going through? What are you feeling?" And just listen. This is this receptivity, this great feminine receptivity that is part of the polarity in the zodiac, where you have the masculine positive, the feminine so-called negative.

[00:13:19]This is how you can deploy these strategies in relationship. I mean, the best way to be a partner in a relationship is say, "Okay, let me be curious and interested in what is arising for you and bring my attention into your space and then receive that so that I can best help this person or this partner or these people meet their needs. It's the listening and the being present with what's arising in another as a way to nurture them. And I think that's something I would definitely consider here. This is very much a Ceres thing. The attention is a currency and to place your attention on another with the sole interest to receive what's emerging for them and to basically hold space for them. Very much an abundant method here for being in this moment in time. Okay, what is the new moon in Taurus and the Leda up? It says withdraw to plant seeds in silence. They'll sprout when the noise returns. I loved that in the context of what I had just said. There may be a very noisy July and August. All masculine energy eclipses in Leo. be like on fire and just fast moving again. Let's pause here and go into this dark moon internalized moment of receiving what is so that we can be ready when things get active. And it's the beauty of the polarity in astrology.

[00:14:30]There's a season for action. There's a season for pause. I was thinking here too about Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I don't know if you guys remember that movie. I saw it in the theater as a kid.

[00:14:38]It was a huge film and really exciting movie. But when you hear James Cameron talk about the screenwriting that went into that, the idea is that you have a big action sequence and then you have to alternate with these sequences where there there's preparation scenes and a lot of the plot happens. But there's a famous sequence in that where they are I think in Mexico in like a house or a safe house and it's really slow and they're just kind of relating to each other and preparing. And I think that's how I would see May and June this year is that it's more of this kind of safe house preparation time for what may be more wild and explosive as we get into July and August. I just to note here, this is the 5-day shift in May that this new moon is a part of. You have the new moon on the 16th, but then you have Mars entering Taurus. So, everything I've just been saying about this action for protection and action to receive, Mars evokes that uh here in Taurus, and there's some nuances there I'm not going to get into in this video. You have on the 19th of May Venus entering Cancer.

[00:15:35]That's 3 days after this new moon. So, Mars leaves Aries, goes to Taurus. Venus leaves Gemini, goes to Cancer. You see how even with the Mars-Venus transits we're into this lunar season of let's pay attention to our home nurturance and our body and the truth of that and the abundance of that as a strategy here to maneuver in 2026. And of course, you have houses in your chart, Taurus and Cancer. Go there.

[00:15:57]What houses are those for you? What are the narratives emergent in those houses?

[00:16:00]That's your big theme here May and June.

[00:16:02]Just note some of the dates here. I didn't get this earlier, but Venus conjuncts Jupiter 25° 46° minutes of Cancer on the 9th of June. I'm going to do a whole video about that. I want to go into way deeper layers of the Cancer archetype, and I'm going to do the best I can to bring out new information around that or just really explore that deeply in ways that maybe I haven't done yet here cuz it's such a big theme for June. Let's go deep. Let's try to get work with it and prepare for it and analyze it and all of that. But that's not this video. I just wanted to give you the date here. But that conjunction, by the way, is same degree, 25°. So, it's an exact sextile to the degree of this new moon. And that might be telling us how important this new moon is as a preparation for the Venus-Jupiter conjunction in June on the 9th. What are some notes here? Home cooked meal, the gathering, the celebration, love, abundance, nourishment. These are all themes of Taurus and Cancer. The nurturance, the nourishment that can be evoked. And you see how it's a continuation. This new moon is about a pocket of time where these themes are greatly enhanced, and it's not every year you have a new moon in Taurus, and then within a month you have a Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Cancer. Right? So, it's unique here to the display of this ephemeris, this version of reality that we're in. And of course, Jupiter enters Leo on the 30th of June. So, there you go guys, a little bit of preparation new moon in Taurus.

[00:17:19]Enjoy this one. Enjoy the various aspects of how we can be and nourish and nurture those in our world. And love the women in your life, all right? I'm going to call my aunt. I love my aunt, the only mother figure I have left. I try to definitely get in touch with her during this new moon moment just to see how she's doing. Hey, tell me about your life, you know? So if you got women in your world, if you got daughters or nieces or nephews or sisters or aunts or mothers, all of that, I do think this is a special time to center them. Now Mother's Day's probably in this pocket.

[00:17:47]I don't have that memorized. But center the women in your life, okay? That would be another great way to play into this and hear their sufferings and pains and hear everything, their joys and just hold space for them, okay? So all right, take care everybody. I got astrology readings. You can schedule those. Slots for this summer are available. So check that out. Thank you for the subscription and the support here and I will speak with you very, very soon. More videos soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

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