Taurus zodiac sign: dates, traits and the steady, sensual bull

Is Taurus an earth sign?

It is. Taurus is the first of the three earth signs, followed by Virgo and Capricorn. Earth in astrology is the element of the body, the senses, money, land and everything that can be held. Taurus is earth in its fixed form, which means it does not start the season or change it, it keeps it going. Picture late spring in a field: the planting is done and now things simply grow, steadily, without hurry.

That is the Taurus pace. People with this sign often describe needing time to decide, and then not budging once they have. Friends call it stubborn. Taurus calls it knowing what it wants.

Taurus dates, and what a cusp birthday means

The Sun moves through Taurus from roughly April 20 to May 20. Birthdays on April 19 or 20 sit near the Aries border, and May 20 or 21 near Gemini. If you are on one of those days, the year and time of birth decide your sign, and a birth chart will settle it in seconds.

Taurus traits and personality

Ask a room of astrologers to describe Taurus and you will hear the same words again and again: reliable, calm, earthy, affectionate, stubborn, possessive. Behind them is one idea. Taurus wants security, and it creates it through routine, loyalty and good things that last.

The Venus rulership softens what could be a purely practical sign. Venus is the planet of beauty, pleasure and value, and Taurus gets the earthy side of her: good food, soft fabrics, music, gardens, a beautiful object worth saving for. Many people with Taurus prominent in their chart have strong taste and a real talent for making a space comfortable.

• ✦At its best: dependable, generous with time and care, calm in a crisis, patient with people and projects.
• ✦Under stress: digs in, resists any change on principle, comforts itself with spending or food, holds grudges quietly.
• ✦What helps: change introduced slowly with a clear reason, physical comfort, and people who keep their word.

The Taurus symbol: the bull in myth and sky

The Taurus glyph, ♉, is a circle topped by a crescent, a bull's head with horns. The constellation Taurus is one of the oldest recognized; Mesopotamian texts call it the Bull of Heaven, the creature the goddess Ishtar sends against Gilgamesh. It contains two famous star clusters, the Pleiades and the Hyades, and the bright red star Aldebaran marks the bull's eye.

In Greek myth, Zeus took the form of a white bull to win the princess Europa, carrying her across the sea to Crete. The bull is gentle, beautiful and immovable all at once, which is a fair summary of the sign.

How Taurus loves

In relationships Taurus is slow to start and very hard to shake. They want to know you are real before they open up, and they show love in physical, practical ways: cooking for you, a hand on your back, remembering how you take your coffee. Grand speeches matter less than turning up on time for years.

The challenge is possessiveness and resistance to change. A Taurus partner may prefer a familiar unhappy routine to an uncertain fresh start. Partners who give them steadiness and space to adjust usually find the loyalty worth it.

What decides whether it lasts is rarely the sign. Look at whether the other person's Venus and Moon also value routine, comfort and keeping their word. Tradition pairs Taurus with the other earth signs and with water, which waters what Taurus plants, and Scorpio sits opposite and brings the strongest pull.

Taurus at work and with money

Taurus is the sign most associated with money and possessions in astrology, and many with strong Taurus placements are careful savers who like to see things grow. Careers that reward patience and craft suit them: finance and banking, real estate, architecture, food and hospitality, gardening, design, music and anything where quality takes time. They are steady colleagues and fair managers who dislike chaos and last minute changes.

The professional risk is staying too long in a safe job. A useful question for any Taurus considering a change is whether they are staying because it is right or only because it is familiar.

The three Taurus decans

Astrologers divide every sign into three decans of ten degrees each, roughly the first, middle and last ten days of the Sun's stay. The idea reached astrology from Egyptian star lists, and each decan is given a sub-ruler in the Chaldean order of the planets. For Taurus the order runs Mercury, Moon, Saturn.

Tradition reads the decan as a flavor added to the sign, not a different sign.

• ✦First decan, Mercury: Taurus with a talkative, practical streak, quick with a plan and a price.
• ✦Second decan, Moon: the softest and most sensory Taurus, attached to home, food and familiar people.
• ✦Third decan, Saturn: the most disciplined and serious, a builder who saves and keeps the books.

Taurus as a friend and in the family

Taurus friendships last decades. The bull is slow to let people in and almost impossible to lose once it has: it remembers your birthday, keeps your secrets and turns up with food when you are ill. Its idea of a perfect evening with friends is long, unhurried and involves a very good meal. It is not the friend for a last minute plan.

At home Taurus wants comfort and continuity. As a child it likes routines and favorite things; as a parent it gives children a steady, warm, well fed home. Family friction usually comes from change: a move, a new partner, a broken tradition. Taurus needs time and a clear reason before it can accept any of them.

Taurus best and worst matches

By the free compatibility test, Taurus scores highest with Virgo and Capricorn, the other earth signs, and next with Cancer and Pisces, the water signs that soften its ground. The pairings it scores lowest are the squares and quincunxes, where restless or impulsive signs meet a bull that will not be hurried.

Taurus rising and Taurus moon

Taurus rising, the bull on the eastern horizon at birth, gives a calm, steady, unhurried first impression and makes Venus the ruler of the chart. People often read a Taurus ascendant as reassuring before they have heard it speak.

A Taurus moon is the Moon in its exaltation, the sign where tradition says it is happiest. Feelings are steady, sensual and loyal, comfort comes through food, touch and routine, and change takes a long time to feel safe.

Taurus season dates by year: when does the Sun enter Taurus?

Taurus begins when the Sun reaches 30 degrees of ecliptic longitude, a moment that slides by about six hours a year until a leap day pulls it back. Taurus season 2027 starts on April 20 at 07:20 UTC, and Taurus season 2028 starts on April 19 at 13:00 UTC.

From 1970 to 2035 the Sun entered Taurus as early as April 19 at 12:20 UTC (2032) and as late as April 20 at 18:00 UTC (1971). By date, that is April 20 in 42 of the 66 years and April 19 in the other 24. Times are UTC and good to within 15 minutes, so a birth within a quarter hour of the listed time needs a full birth chart. Before 1987 US daylight saving began in late April, so in most of those years an April 19 or 20 ingress fell on standard time, with Eastern 5 hours behind UTC and Pacific 8. In 1974 and 1975, and from 1987 on, daylight saving had already started, which makes it 4 and 7.

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