Taurus rising

Nobody has ever hurried you into a decision and been glad of it afterwards. You smile, you agree to think about it, and then you think about it, for exactly as long as it takes.

Taurus was rising in the east when you were born, and the sign on the horizon at that minute is how strangers read you. Taurus is earth warmed by spring, fields after the last frost of the northern year, and it gives you a steadiness people feel from across a busy street.

The pace you keep

You notice textures before opinions: the weight of a key, the fabric of a sleeve, how a voice sounds when it is tired. You dress for comfort and still look put together, which irritates friends who try twice as hard. People relax around you without knowing why, slow their talking to match yours, and tell you more than they meant to.

Your stubbornness is famous among the people closest to you. Once you have taken a position you can hold it for years, cheerfully, while the argument wears itself out around you.

Venus in charge

With Taurus rising, Venus rules your chart: the planet of pleasure and of what things are worth. You know what you like the moment you see it, a colour, a voice, the right chair in a shop full of wrong ones, and the part of life Venus holds in your chart is where you refuse second best. Good things are how you stay yourself.

The intensity you choose

Scorpio, the sign that was setting as Taurus rose, opens your seventh house: love, marriage and the people you bind yourself to. The people who hold you are private, intense and hard to read, everything your easy manner is not. You give them steadiness. They give you depth, and a few sleepless nights you would not trade.

Say yes, now and then, to a plan you did not make, before you have had a week to consider it.

Staying power

The friends you have kept have known you a long time, and the first thing they say about you is that you have not really changed. They mean it as the highest praise they know.