Red Tent Round Up #6: May New Moon in Taurus
Wise Words from: Jenny Saville on Bare Art, Alice B Toklas on Cooking Climatically, Honoré de Balzac on Marriage, Huberman on Creativity, Tiffany Aliche & Mel Robbins on Finances
The concept of the Red Tent is a revived Native American tradition where the community held space for women during menstruation, honouring their physical embodiment of the natural cycles and heightened intuitive capacity at this time.
As many women menstruate with the New Moon, this monthly round-up of material, relevant to the astrology, is intended to be both comforting and thought-provoking for all those embracing the slow, dark depths of this transformational period (pun absolutely intended).
This Red Tent Round-Up will be published monthly, just before the New Moon, with the Sabian Symbol for the degree of the New Moon provided for reflection. The rest is my redistribution of words and works from the Wise Women (and Men!) I am fortunate to have happened upon. Le grá, in love.
Taurus has a pretty face
And likes her comfort best.
She’ll eat you out of house and home
Then take the longest rest.”
― Bernie Morris, Colleen Thatcher, Verse for Ages
This New Moon occurs at 18 degrees of Taurus, Wednesday (Mercury’s Day) 8th May 2024, 04:22 GMT (Dublin, Ireland).
Taurus Keywords: Abundance, Simplicity, Subtlety, Stubbornness, Conservation, Stability, Tenacity, Persistence, Patience

The Sabian Symbol (Dane Rudhyar & Elsie Wheeler) for 18 Taurus:
A WOMAN AIRING AN OLD BAG THROUGH THE OPEN WINDOW OF HER ROOM.
KEYNOTE: The cleansing of the ego-consciousness. … The traditional teachings concerning man’s nature are somehow reconciled with the youthful enthusiasm that sees in every problem of growth an issue between the “good” and the “bad.” The symbol suggests that the real enemy is within the mind; it is the ego and its attachment to possessions. The mind is shown in the likeness of a “bag,” now empty and needing to be aired in the sunlight. But the “window” must first be opened and the bag emptied. The phrase “cleansing the doors of perception” has become well known of late. But even more to be cleansed is the container of perceptual images — i.e. the ego mind.
The Keyword is PURIFICATION.
Oh Taurus, the sign of springtime fertility and abundance. The exaltation sign of the Moon; the love of mirth and merriment. The heady aromas of wine, the tart salivations in response to a strong cheese. The subtle sway in time with the background quartet. The simple pleasures in life.
We have a beautifully harmonious New Moon energy, given that ruler Venus is present to minister the marriage of the Sun and Moon this month.
A Venus-ruled earth sign, Taurus is concerned with beauty and quality, often with a practical or utilitarian value - clothing serves a function while making an artistic statement. A room requires furniture to function, but make the drapes match the doormat and you have a mood.
Taurean energy is simple only to the degree that any unnecessary trimmings or tidbits are cast away, allowing for the real substance of quality to be made manifest, for any given endeavour - be that a ballgown or a building project.
Quality means something very different to everyone, but we can all agree that there is a superiority and a sensuality that often accompanies something (or someone) of quality.
In a previous life, when I mucked out stables, I fondly recall a Taurean lady whose horse I tended to - it slipped in conversation that she was an accountant (Taureans do count their pennies) and she couldn’t bear the instant coffee in the stable kitchen. Neither could I - we both brought our own brews and we both preferred a French press's simple utility over a coffee machine's needless complexity.
Being Taurean, she went a few steps farther than I and ground her own beans, commenting on the earthy aroma.
A woman of quality, and a charming Taurean motif within the most pastoral of scenes.
Although Venus and Taurus energy can be quite materialistic, wishing for fine things for the sake of vanity, usually there is a sense that few items of quality and utility surpass a multitude of useless but gratifying objects.
Taurus energy grounds us into the everyday mundane, bringing an innocent sensuality to the simplest of pleasures, creating space for complex appreciation.
For me, Taurus energy purifies my senses, allowing me to slow down and take stock; calming my intellectualizing tendencies, emptying my mind like that dusty old bag, making space for the forage.
By “forage” I mean making room for the basics - in recent weeks I felt naturally inspired to: make granola by batch and by scratch, scout and switch to cheaper utility providers, stock list the pantry for the bulk-buy-packaging-free store, ground into a morning bodywork practice, have regular herbal sitz-baths (*postpartum hemorrhoids are still a thing*… yep, I’ve noticed a significant improvement though!), and declutter everything. Oh and I’m finally finishing my wood sculpture.
This is Taurus energy - creative, basic, beautiful, practical, sensual - but give a Taurus a complex problem to solve and they will stubbornly persist, do not be fooled.
So, with that said, this Taurus New Moon, I hope that you can find the space to cast away anything, physical or mental, that is no longer a source of stability for you but is now a hindrance, and I hope you find ways to meaningfully connects the senses to your everyday reality, nourishing your soul in the process.
This is a particularly potent New Moon for anyone with planets in fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius), even more so when on the angles (1st, 4th, 7th and 10th Houses).
THE ARTISTRY ALCOVE
The Bare Bodies of Jenny Saville
“I just automatically pull out forms. It’s an instinct I’ve got as part of my nature.”
Jenny Saville - Gagosian Winter 2020

Jenny Saville was born 7th May 1970, in Cambridge, UK. One of the highest selling female artists of all time, her work is a contemporary and confronting exploration of the human form.
Her pieces are often expansive works in oil upon towering canvasses. Rather than painting the idealised female form, Saville has carved a career out of presenting the female form exactly how it is - with all of its natural “imperfections”, but in striking, expressive colours, with a bareness so true to te distilled Taurean essence.
Saville’s Taurean stellium (Sun, Mercury and Saturn) speaks to her preoccupation with form - the Sun exemplifies the perfected portrait artistry, and Saturn ruling all of substance adds weight to the shapes so adeptly expressed through her Mercury. Saville’s Aquarian Moon approaches her Venus-Mars conjunction, giving an otherworldly, ethereal and electric quality to many of her works.




Saville’s work also exhibits a preoccupation with the changing of form - how a body can be transformed, sometimes through plastic surgery or tragic accidents.
The thing I find most fascinating is Saville’s expression of her Taurean Saturn - a natural antithesis to the loftier qualities of her Sun. Dealing in all things dark and macabre, Saturn gives shape to her more affronting inspirations - Saville was known to have graphic and disturbing imagery in her studio, and many of her paintings feature scenes of sexual explicitness, or what appear to be victims of violent abuse.
Exemplary of a striking Venus-Saturn motif, she considered herself “anti-beauty”, until she found the beauty within her own growing children:
“I think I’ve accepted that making things that are beautiful is interesting, whereas before I was not interested in beauty at all. I was anti-beauty, I would say. … I find watching [my children] so beautiful that I have accepted that sort of beauty into my life.””
Jenny Saville - Guardian Interview 2016
This detail of Saville’s life relates so whole-heartedly to our Sabian symbol, in that Saville’s perception of beauty and form is so far removed from the norm that it calls the viewer to “cleanse the doors of perception”, to consider our conditioned biases towards what beauty means, only for Saville to have her own rebellious attitude towards beauty challenged by the most quintessential form of beauty known to humanity, the purity of childhood.
The ego is continuously challenged, the bag emptied, to be filled again, until all is stripped away and nothing remains but the bare and unabashed consciousness of youth.
Taurus is heavy. Saville’s ability to add weight, a sense of solidness and density to her imagery, allows her work to transcend the confines of purely visual art - she brings her work into the corporeal, sensing, feeling realm.
I really adore the blunt and sort of brutal approach Saville has taken with her work - but I do love art that makes me uncomfortable, and ironically Taurus is usually a creature of comforts.
The ability of art to lift us up, out of our comfort zone, and dunk us down into the visceral experience of another, sometimes jarring, alternative reality is one of the more profound aspects of art, although not often wholly achieved - yet it’s safe to say that Saville masterfully achieves this and more.
RELISHING READS
Sense and Sensuality: The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book and The Physiology of Marriage by Honoré de Balzac
We often hear “Don’t mix business with pleasure”, but for the Taurean, business and pleasure are indistinguishable - whether it’s the satisfaction of impeccably balanced accounts or the almost-orgasmic sensation of soil between your toes (errr, cause Taurean farmers go barefoot, right?)
Taurus’ opposite sign, Scorpio, tends to get all the sexy sensuality scores while poor Taurus is incorrectly reduced to boring old sensible. Being no less beastly than the Scorpion, Taurus is no less concerned with all things sexy, although perhaps with less Martian chaotic urgency, and more Venusian deliberate finesse.
For the Taurean, pleasure extends far beyond the bedroom, although the distinction between kitchen and bedroom is a blurry one.
Alice Babette Toklas (April 30, 1877 - March 7, 1967) exemplified the tactful wit of pleasure, so characteristic in our Taurean literary figures (especially given her Venus Sun conjunction in Taurus), in her 1954 cookbook, unsuspectingly titled “The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book”.
“In the menu, there should be a climax and a culmination. Come to it gently. One will suffice.”
“If you want to be a good cook, you should go at it as a daily pleasure. You should never economize in the kitchen.”
― Alice B. Toklas
The cookbook was, in fact, a dedication to Toklas’ late lover and life partner, esteemed literary figure Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946). The pair enjoyed 39 years of a beautifully reciprocal relationship, where Toklas prepared, catalogued and critiqued her many gourmet dishes while Stein graciously accepted these appeals to her voracious appetite.

Widowed for 20 years, Toklas’ cookbook served several functions: financial security as widowed Toklas neared poverty, an autobiographical memoir of her lover Gertrude, and, lastly, each recipe a remembrance of some fascinating historical context.
For example, while delivering food and wood to Parisian hospitals during WW1 (in their Model T Ford named Auntie Pauline), the hot chocolate served to the injured soldiers remained immortal in Toklas’ memory:
Aunt Pauline had been militarised and so could be requisitioned for any use connected with the wounded. Gertrude Stein evacuated the wounded who came into [the luxury hotel] Nîmes on the ambulance trains. Material from our unit organised and supplied a small first-aid operating room. The Red Cross nuns in the best French manner served in large bowls to the wounded piping
HOT CHOCOLATE
3 ozs melted chocolate to 1 quart hot milk. Bring to a boil and simmer for ½ hour. Then beat for 5 minutes. The nuns made huge quantities in copper cauldrons, so that the whisk they used was huge and heavy. We all took turns beating.
And of course, it would be remiss of me to exclude Toklas’ “Haschich Fudge”, a recipe donated to her collection by artist Brion Gysin - you can read all about that here.
Bad Ass Bitches.
I would stop here, but I feel compelled to give an honourary mention to Honoré de Balzac’s The Physiology of Marriage.
Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 – August 18, 1850) was a prolific French writer, most notably attributed to be one of the founders of realism in European literature, due to his keen observations of the mundane details within society.
The Physiology of Marriage is Balzac’s best-known work, despite Balzac having never married at the time of writing, having known nothing but illicit affairs and scandals.
This did not deter our Venusian-ruled, endearingly stubborn Taurean. Balzac’s Venus-Mars conjunction in Cancer demanded an analysis of marriage, very likely inspired by the many “marriages of convenience” that were so characteristic of the times and offensive to Balzac’s romantic senses.

Although there are a few eyebrow-raising, lip-curling comments regarding women in the opening chapters of The Physiology of Marriage, overall his personal love affair with pleasure and evident attempts to ensure women receive it in equal measure won me over. Balzac really was just a hopeless romantic pup, it’s hard to be angry with that.
Balzac’s biography is the perfect example of when Taurean themes go wrong (love affairs, failed businesses, a life of debt, death by overindulgence) - but I will simply depart with a few witty little aphorisms from chapter MEDITATION V. OF THE PREDESTINED:
XXVII.
Marriage is a science.
XXVIII.
A man ought not to marry without having studied anatomy, and dissected at least one woman.
XXX.
A woman deprived of her free will can never have the credit of making a sacrifice.
XXXIII.
The interest of a husband as much as his honor forbids him to indulge a pleasure which he has not had the skill to make his wife desire.
XXXVII.
If there are differences between one moment of pleasure and another, a man can always be happy with the same woman.
XLVI.
Each night ought to have its menu.
XLVII.
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster which devours everything, that is, familiarity.
XLVIII.
If a man cannot distinguish the difference between the pleasures of two consecutive nights, he has married too early.
PODCAST PANORAMA
The Science of Creativity by Huberman Lab
Speaking of sex scandals… My favourite science podcaster, Andrew Huberman, was recently accused of dating multiple women - unbeknownst to each of them.
Huberman is not a Taurus (although I would put money on him being a Taurus Rising), but he is Venus’ other sign - Libra, so given the Venusian ladyship, I felt a podcast about creativity would be apt.
I’m also taking this opportunity to say that, although I don’t condone how Huberman has behaved towards his partners, I can’t abide by everyone online ditching his podcast, because his work is, in this case, very distinct from his pleasure - his scientific work is a brilliant resource.
However, bold Huberman, bold… *slaps his snoot* (note: in Ireland bold means naughty).
5 Rules of Money with Tiffany Aliche on The Mel Robbins Podcast
Mel Robbins is seriously accomplished - life coach, confidence expert, former lawyer, NY Times bestseller, successful self-published author, and yet, she is so wonderfully candid about how crap she is at managing money and the emotional drivers behind her spending.
If you think your finances are out of control, this will definitely bring some comfort…
Tiffany Aliche is a world-renowned financial coach and NY Times bestseller with her book Get Good With Money. She offers some great advice about how to get your kids involved with saving, and tells the tale of how she recovered from job loss and being financially scammed of thousands.
SOUNDSCAPES
Angel in the Snow by Elliott Smith (New Moon, 2007)
Elliott Smith, famous for having composed the Good Will Hunting (1997) soundtrack sensation Miss Misery, is my favourite Taurean musician - albeit a sad Moon and Saturn in Taurus, ruled by moody Venus in Cancer.
There is little joy to be found in Smith’s story, his tragic death or his captivatingly melancholy music. He will drag you down to the depths of despair and drug addiction. However, he was a classically trained junky - which made for some enchanting melodies and alluring lyrical inspiration.
Smith has a few genuinely sweet little gems though, revealing a tenderness in his hardened soul, and Angel in the Snow is one of them.
The album New Moon was posthumously released, so we will never really know if Smith would have released such a rough version of the song, but it’s a simple, sentimental and honest piece; bare and beautiful, reminding us that behind every tough Taurean exterior is a sensual softness.
I.C.Y.M.I
Here’s last month’s Red Tent for the New Moon Solar Eclipse in Aries…
I finally started my RedBubble shop called Lexophilia (still in its infancy!), where you can get a Selenophile notebook, or other surreal art prints, along with some other interesting words (and patterns coming soon!)
Retreat. Regenerate. Rebirth. Xx
Hello, Hello There!
I’m Sarah Griffin, this is Griff-in-Theory. Irish Vilomah, ex-pharmaceutical scientist, creative and inquisitive spirit, lover of both the macabre and the mystical. This is a space for pondering, so I would love to hear your ponderings in the comments.
Don’t know how I missed this but I did! Caught up now. Brilliantly enthralling as always