by Matt Savinar

(Image: Film Boyz-N-the-Hood, available for purchase via Amazon)

Taurus is the sign of resource accumulation. It’s symbolized by the bovine, a symbol of wealth dating back tens of thousands of years. In the old days Taureans were often found in hands-on professions that made use of the Earth itself. The “baker, the butcher, and the candlestick maker” were likely all Taureans. In the modern day, Taurus is the sign of the asset appraiser, the real estate tycoon, the luxury car dealer, the investment broker, the mutual fund administrator, the wine collector, and the cigar aficionado. To illustrate: rapper Busta’ Rhymes is a Taurus who famously penned “Pass the Courvoisier”, an impassioned ode to the top shelf cognac that is this sign’s drink of choice according to Rob Marriott and Sonya Magett. (Source)

Not all Taureans are necessarily wealthy like Mr. Rhymes but most will have a tangible appreciation for the finer things in life. Even “baller on a budget” Taureans are likely to experience dinner at the Four Seasons or a trip to the Bentley dealership as something akin to a religious pilgrimage.

Taureans of the vegan or yogini persuasions may eschew overtly opulent creature comforts for ones that are sustainably correct but still quite luxurious. The more bohemian versions of this sign will pass on the Courvoisier in favor of designer Kombucha while trading in reservations at the Four Seasons for organic meals from the Whole Foods corporation. Actress turned New Age icon Shirley Maclaine is a good example of this type of Taurus. I don’t know if she owns any luxury cars but she does claim to have encountered UFOs–high end, intergalatic forms of transport that are to the Age of Aquarius what Bentley Continentals are to the age of the automobile.

When a person, organization, or agency has both their Sun (conscious identity) and Moon (emotional needs) in this sign they will be doubly oriented to all things Taurus: high priced art and high end clothing, fine wine and gourmet food, luxury cars and lavish jewelry, bank vaults and gold bullion, dead presidents and dolla’ dolla’ bills. Astrologer Jefferson Anderson says this pairing “has an instinctive feel for money and management and does well in business, banking, and economics”. (Source) According to astrologer Jason Fleming’s article “Zodiac Mixtapes”, theme songs for this pairing include “Drop a Gem on Them” by Mobb Deep and “Paid in Full” by Eric B and Rakim. (Source) Singer Kelly Clarkson is a Taurus/Taurus whose dropped so many musical gems that she is now one of the most fully paid entertainers of her generation.

However, should this pairing turn to its dark side it goes from being good with money and a natural at management to being possessed by greed and obsessed with gettin’ paid. The rap song “Bitch Betta’ Have My Money” by rapper AMG offers a good approximation of what happens when the Taurean orientation to resource management goes from noble to nefarious. According to astrologer Austin Coppock, the plot of the film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo Dicaprio is another example of what happens when the Bull’s fear of poverty metastasizes into pursuit of a “Cursed Coin”. (Source) Michael Douglas’s “Greed is Good” speech delivered in the film Wall Street stands out as yet another example.

In addition to being oriented to resource accumulation, the Taurus/Taurus pairing will often find his or her way into covert operations and clandestine arrangements, which are generally considered the domain of Scorpio — the sign opposite to Taurus. This is because, according to Berkeley based astrologer Linda Rose, when a chart has both the Sun and Moon in the same sign the entity will often express as the opposite sign. I suspect this “kick-over” phenomenon observed by Ms. Rose is some type of psychological compensation mechanism similar to what happens in traditional Chinese medicine when one meridian is so overloaded with energy that the person hyper-expresses the characteristics of the opposite meridian. Regardless of the exact mechanism behind the phenomenon it does seem to track reality with a high degree of consistency. To illustrate: Wall Street financier Bernie Madoff is a Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon whose obsession with money (Taurus) led him deep into a series of shadowy underworlds (Scorpio). (Chart)

Just how shadowy (Scorpionic) were the circles Madoff was running in? According to investigative reporter Wayne Madsen, Madoff’s operation may have had some type of link to the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the most Scorpionic (secretive) outfits on the planet. (Source) A number of informed commentators in the business world have suspected Madoff was investing cash (Taurus) money (Taurus) on behalf of drug cartels — organizations which traffic in the Scorpionic trades of addictions and assassinations. (Source) Madoff wasn’t “the baker, the butcher, or the candlestick maker” but he was a banker, a broker, and may have been laundering money for international cocaine makers.

Obviously not all double Taureans will express their capacity for deep cover operations (Scorpio) in such a predatorial fashion. For instance, using its premier date at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival as its date of birth, the movie Boyz N the Hood is also a Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon albeit one whose central character is to Bernie Madoff what Hans Solo was to Darth Vader. (Chart) It’s one of the few films that hints at a connection between finance (Taurus) and covert operations (Scorpio), which it does when Laurence Fishburne’s character Furious Styles (a financial broker) explains who is and is not involved in the high level bankrolling of the cocaine trade:

Astrologers Suzi and Charles Harvey say this pairing excels at offering “straight from the shoulder” observations and “calling a spade a spade”. (Source) This is exactly what Fishburne’s character does in the above scene when he observes of the crack epidemic, “How you think the crack rock gets into the country? We don’t own any planes. We don’t own no ships. We are not the people who are flying and floating that shit in here . . .” Bernie Madoff was a Wall Street financial adviser (Taurus) likely in league with the drug cartels and/or intelligence agencies (Scorpio). The Furious Styles character was a financial adviser who understood the drug cartels were making money for Wall Street banks (Taurus) and/or intelligence agencies (Scorpio). They’re both double Taureans expressing as Scorpios although obviously only one of them would you want moving into your neighborhood.

Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon: “Better have my suspicious activity reports”

Bernie Madoff and the Furious Styles character portrayed by Fishburne in Boyz are far from the only double Taureans whose lives have occupied the nexus between cash-money (Taurus) and careers in which suspicion (Scorpio) is the currency of the realm. To illustrate: using its establishment date as its date of birth, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is a Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon. (Chart) If you haven’t heard of FinCEN before, it’s a bureau inside the United States Department of the Treasury that “collects and analyzes information about financial transactions in order to combat money laundering, terrorist financiers, and other financial crimes” according to Wikipedia. Much of what FinCEN does revolves around the collection and analysis of “suspicious activity reports”, which banks are required to file anytime a customer makes a financial (Taurus) transaction that appears suspicious (Scorpio). According to a paranoia (Scorpio) inducing 1993 Wired Magazine article entitled “Big Brother Wants to Look at Your Bank Account”, FinCEN’s capacity to track the flow of money (Taurus) is of tremendous interest to spy agencies like the CIA (Scorpio):

“The risk of the CIA getting its hands on this is serious – we know the kind of unscrupulous people who populate the spook world,” said a Washington-area private investigator who conducts many legitimate financial investigations for a CIA-linked firm. “This kind of financial data, when coupled with other information like a person’s credit history, could be used for blackmail, bribery, and extortion,” said the investigator, who has a military intelligence background.

DTS could present an inviting mechanism for quieting unwanted dissent or for defanging an unruly congressional leader bent on exposing some questionable CIA operation. Although still in its embryonic stage and in spite of the looming privacy obstacle it will inevitably confront, FinCEN is seen by many in the government as the catalyst for a powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, global, financial-tracking organization. (Source)

Speaking of “quieting unwanted dissent” and “defanging unruly political leaders”, it was transactions recorded by FinCEN were what revealed New York State governor Elliot Spitzer had been availing himself to the services of the $4,000/night “Emperor’s Club” VIP call-girl operation. (Source) It’s probably just a coincidence that shortly before Spitzer’s call-girl payments were made public he had announced plans to go on the warpath against Wall Street’s biggest banks and their partners in crime inside the Bush administration. (Source)

Unfortunately, outside of Wired’s 1993 article, there’s been very little written about FinCEN since it was established over twenty years ago. The agency does, however, get a brief mention in the 1998 spy (Scorpio) film Enemy of the State where a federal agent orders a “FinCEN workup” on the Will Smith character:

Taurus is great at keeping things short and simple so here’s a short if over-simplified way to understand FinCEN: it is to your bank accounts and business filings what the National Security Agency is to your email accounts and telephone calls.

Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon: “The Original Girl Detective”

Update 3/23/17:Using the character’s debut date as her date of birth, Nancy Drew of the famous mystery novels is also a double Taurus. (Chart) The Nancy Drew character was entirely fictional while the Furious Styles character may as well have been 100% real given the events depicted in the film. Yet as double Taureans expressing as Scorpios the two characters do have something in common: both are naturals at getting to the bottom of who or what is bankrolling (Taurus) the criminal conspiracies (Scorpio) being carried out in their local neighborhoods.

Taurus/Taurus people generally do well financially and both the Boyz N the Hood film and the Nancy Drew series have been enormously successful at the box office and bookstores respectively. Like FINCEN, Drew’s worth a lot of money (Taurus) but has made her stock-in-trade the compilation of “suspicious activity reports” (Scorpio).

About the Author: Matt Savinar is a California licensed attorney (State Bar #228957), voluntarily inactive as of June 2013. He can be reached for questions, comments, or consults at his contact page.

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