The 16th of May, just after nine in the evening here in London, brings a new moon at almost twenty-six degrees of Taurus. Late-degree. Super new moon. The ground at its most fertile.
But we don’t get to plant in fairyland.
The same night this moon is being planted, Mars is sitting at twenty-eight Aries, exactly conjunct Chiron. To the minute. Same degree. Same point in the sky. And this is Mars’s last act in Aries before it steps into Taurus on the 18th.
So we have a Taurus new moon. And we have a clearing. At the same time.
Taurus is the body. Taurus is what your hands can hold, what’s actually on the table, what counts when the spreadsheet has nothing to do with it. A new moon in Taurus is always an invitation to plant something real, something the body recognises, something that belongs in the actual world rather than in the airy space where intentions sometimes live.
This one is more than usually fertile. The moon is at the very late degrees of the sign, near the Pleiades, near the fixed star Algol. And it is a super new moon, with the moon at perigee a day later. The ground beneath this lunation is loose, deep, ready.
Think about what Mars has been doing for the past few weeks. Pushing. Pushing against an old wound, the same one most of you have known your whole life. That feeling of I shouldn’t have to fight this hard, or why does it keep being me. The familiar groove that pulls you back to the same fight, the same exhaustion, the same loop.
This new moon is sitting right beside that exact moment. The moment Mars finally turns and looks at the wound, and lets it go. Mars-Chiron is to the minute, the same degree, before Mars walks out of Aries entirely on the 18th and into Taurus, into the body, into the slower territory where the work actually gets done.
This is what makes this moon different from any new moon I’ve watched go past in a long time. You’re not just planting an intention into Taurus soil. You’re planting it on top of a clearing.
Two days after you set your intention, Mars walks into Taurus. Walks into work, money, what’s actually on the table, what your hands can hold.
So whatever you plant at this new moon doesn’t stay an idea. It gets a body. It gets muscle. The energy that has been spent in Aries on the inner fight gets redirected into the outer build. The thing you wrote down on the 16th becomes something Mars is now actively pushing through Taurus on your behalf.
This is why specificity matters more than usual at this moon. A vague intention drifts. A specific intention gets carried.
Mercury is sitting just under three degrees away from the new moon, applying. Close enough that the lunation carries the messenger’s voice with it. The practical effect is simple. Write the intention down. Speak it out loud. Words have unusual weight here. Something you write at this moon will keep speaking to you for months.
Mercury is also approaching a conjunction with Uranus, two and a half degrees applying. Insights arrive at strange angles around this moon. If a thought lands that doesn’t quite fit how you’ve been thinking, write it down anyway. It probably belongs to the new ground, not the old.
Taurus corresponds to The Hierophant in the tarot. The card of tradition, of lineage, of the slow building of something that lasts because it was built on what came before rather than against it. The Hierophant is what makes Taurus’s intention-setting feel like a vow rather than a wish. It is a structure under the seed, not just the seed.
If you want a card to sit beside whatever you write at this moon, sit with The Hierophant. Ask what you are committing to. Ask what kind of practice would let it root.
Tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever you sit with this. Write one specific thing you want to bring into your body, your home, your life by the next full moon.
Not vague. Not be happier. Specific. I want X by Y.
Then let Mars carry it on the 18th.
If you want to lay out a spread, there’s a free new moon spread on this site. If you want to ask the cards directly, there’s free tarot too. And astromara is live now, proper astrology, run on the same accurate ephemeris the professionals use, none of the made-up stuff. If you haven’t got your free natal chart yet, go and get it. Knowing where your own planets sit makes a moon like this hit very differently.
This moon is the middle of three. May 2026 is unusually busy. The Scorpio full moon on the 1st cleared a lot of ground. This Taurus new moon plants the seed in that cleared ground. And on the 31st a second full moon arrives, the rare Sagittarius Blue Moon, which is when the first review of what you planted on the 16th will surface. Three lunations in one calendar month.
I will see you under the next full moon. Until then, plant something real.
For the full New Moon in Taurus guide, the video, the share buttons and the moon-by-email signup, see the New Moon in Taurus landing page. And if you want a real conversation about what to plant under this moon, a live psychic reading with one of our readers will help you name it specifically.
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