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gross, blind fanaticism - a very unpragmatic quality. He usually doesn't recognize it. In his own eyes, no one is more realistic. But the bull can be so one-pointed that it can only see red.
Intolerance has a close relationship with prejudice. And prejudice is one of Taurus' chief difficulties on the shadow side. Once he makes up his mind that a particular ideology, religion, race, or type of person is a loss, there his mind stays. There's no moving it, no budging it. And he can be incredibly offensive in his criticism of others' values. For Taurus, his values are the only values. He's not averse to being either rude or insulting if you contradict them.
There are other facets to the Taurus shadow, connected with those just mentioned. One of them is Taurus' tendency to use people. It ties up with his longing to find meaning, his search for the glamorous, the mystical, the dramatic. Sometimes, failing to find these qualities in his own life, he becomes a kind of spiritual groupie. Or a real groupie. You'll find a lot of Taurus women riding arm in arm with famous pop stars, film actors, peerage. Taurus is sometimes capable of selling himself for a piece of somebody else's action. It's a fair exchange for him, barter of his own value for something he values more. There is a side to Taurus, both male and female, that likes to be kept by somebody else, bought by somebody else, because it states a price, a value. The higher the price, the greater the value.
Fanaticism and opportunism: two distorted faces of the repressed fire in Taurus. The fire signs themselves have both but in a different way, diluted and more honest. With Taurus, these are shadowy qualities, and he is usually unaware that he is displaying them. How to deal with them? Well, like all shadowy qualities, it helps to know about them. In the case of the fanaticism, the religious fervours, it helps if Taurus is willing to recognize that life is full of things which are not recognizable through the five senses alone. There are mysteries and layers of meaning to life which elude the pragmatic, statistical approach. This means not trampling, bull-like, over others' values, and it also means not stealing others' values, as in the case of the opportunism of the Taurean shadow. It involves building one's own flexibility and tolerance. Then, like Theseus, the Taurean can deal with his own Minotaur effectively and become what he is truly suited to be: the preserver, the sustainer, the builder, the artist, the giver of gifts. Taurus is not a lukewarm, milksop sign. You'd expect him to pack a pretty powerful wallop on the shadow side. Likewise, you'd expect him to have enormous strength and endurance, patience and courage, on the positive side. Never mind those mild, pretty descriptions of Ferdinand among the flowers. Remember that he's a bull. The power of the earth itself flows through him.
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