The Mouth and the Throat
The parts of the body which correspond to Taurus are the mouth and the throat, representing the sense of taste and absorption of nourishment. The Taurus' ideals are focused upon possession; he is governed by property. Historically, material possessions have been associated with the Bull symbol: the cult of the Golden Calf, or the Biblical episode of the seven fat cows and the seven lean cows.
From these sources, we obtain the zodiacal formula for Taurus: a vigorous, stable, earthy, and Venusian personality, symbolized by the mouth and the throat. This formula can also be defined in terms of:
A Forceful and Productive Temperament Instinctive, stable, and slow-moving - that is how treatises on zodiacal physiognomy portray this temperament, which has been observed in Catherine de Medicis, Ella Fitz-gerald, and Jean Gabin (who even acted in a film called Under the Sign of Taurus).
Concrete Thought With his feet on the ground, a Taurus has a practical and realistic outlook: he is interested in concreteness, usefulness, and practical qualities. As a creature of instinct, he forms his beliefs through his senses, in contact with reality: he thinks with his hands. Thus, John Stuart Mill, who was a Taurus, formulated the ethics of "utilitarianism," while Karl Marx introduced historical materialism by defining the economic infrastructure as the root of social relations. Freud, who developed psychoanalysis by defining the libido as the source of human personality, was also a Taurus, as was Kant, the founder of "pure reason." A Taurus' mode of thought could be symbolically compared to a plumb line.
Possessive Love Sensual and down-to-earth, a Taurus is also tender and pleasure-loving: love and desire intermingle as a single emotion. A Taurus falls in love slowly, but becomes loyal and possessive; for example, there is the ardor of Balzac for Mme. Hanska, whom he mar-ried after having corresponded with her for eighteen years.
The Taurus ideogram could represent the actual head of a bull, a powerful and stub-born creature, or it could represent a vase adorned with a bull's horns. The vase bestows receptive and productive attributes, while the horns provide combative vigor.