Author: Ingrid Hoffman

May 18, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

A New Me —Saturn in Aries —25 th May 2025—April 2028.

She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess―Helen Oyeyemi.

“Be yourself” we’re told as we muster our confidence and bravely step out of the shadows. Yet as e.e. cummings once said, “the hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be someone else.” In these uneasy times of uncompromising nationalism, polarised ideologies, changing boundaries, displacement, gender rulings, increasingly we may ask—who are we, how independent is our will?

Novelist Virginia Woolf believed that there are a great variety of selves to call upon… “far more than we have been able to find room for, since a biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may have many thousand…and these selves of which we are built up, one on top of the other, as plates are piled on a waiter’s hand…”

On May 24^th, just before a buoyant new moon in Gemini (May 27^th), Saturn moves into the sign of Aries, marking the beginning of a three-year journey that will touch all our lives in some way. Autonomy and identity will be the nucleus of Saturn’s transit through Aries. For some of us, this may be the exhilarating fresh start of everything we have been waiting for. We may finally have the courage to stop tip-toeing around people or situations that keep us small, to emerge unapologetically, as a new me.

Aries is the hero/warrior archetype, and its shadow, the destroyer. In myth and in fairy tale, the hero/warrior archetype is typically masculine. As the bedrock of our civilization shifts and cracks, revealing a new landscape, we imagine new myths, seek out new heroines who collaborate, relate and share. For most of us, our hero’s or heroine’s quest is not muscular but a courageous response to the challenges of life. As Saturn travels with Neptune in Aries our perspective may shift. During the next three years, as unseen forces move through the Collective, our attention will be drawn to the complex notion of identity and belonging, freedom and self-expression. This is the impetus of the risk-taking trailblazer. This is when we feel the fear and do it anyway. As Saturn moves through Aries, we claim our own authority, clarify our goals, grow in maturity and self-acceptance. For those of us with planets or angles in Aries, this three-year-Camino may compel us to unapologetically reveal a brighter, braver version of ourselves as we claim our own authority, grow in maturity, soften in self-acceptance.

Saturn stations Retrograde from July 12^th to November 27^th, 2025, and moves back to the final degrees of Pisces on September 1^st and then enters Aries on the day before Valentine’s Day 2026, to journey through Aries until April 12^th, 2028. Saturn transits compel us to conserve our energy and reserves to focus on those things that we may now find meaningful, that serve us in some practical way.

These next few months deliver a preview of the substance of Saturn’s three-year journey through Aries. Saturn moves back into Pisces briefly from September 1^st; until on February 13^th, it moves decisively through Aries until April 2028.

Saturn represents the principle of structure and form, restraint and responsibility. Aries is the impulse that prompts us to take a risk, to venture into the unknown. Saturn’s presence will cool and temper the rashness of Aries and activate the Aries section of your birth chart, already primed by the long Venus transit and her Retrograde cycle, as well as Chiron’s journey through Aries (2018-2026). In myth, Saturn is depicted carrying a scythe so there is an emphasis on cutting, severing and when Saturn is in Aries, patience will be needed before we cleave something apart too hastily or commit to something prematurely. On the day of Saturn’s ingress into Aries, Mercury conjoins Uranus in Taurus for the last time (May 24^th) so pay attention to new stories, developments in world events that foreshadow events that will unfold over the next three years. Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale spoke out at the British Book Awards: “Words are our earliest human technology, like water they appear insubstantial, but like water they can generate tremendous power… Political and religious polarisation, which appeared to be on the wane for parts of the 20^th century, has increased alarmingly in the past decade. The world feels to me more like the 1930s and 40s at present than it has in the intervening 80 years.”

Yet the world is a different place now. Humankind has evolved, access to information and misinformation is more widespread. Pluto is moving through Aquarius. Uranus enters Gemini on July 7^th; Neptune has moved into Aries. These outer planets reflect the profound changes in the collective consciousness.

As the days of May pass by, the first delicate blush of spring assumes a new confidence. White and mauve wisteria, blowsy magnolias, the last of the bluebells sheltering beneath a canopy of green. Nature reminds us of the transience of life.

As Saturn enters Aries, we reimagine our identity. We may meet ourselves, or a new version of ourselves at the starting line. We break new ground. We find the strength to let something, or someone go, to venture forth, to meet ourselves a-new, to feel the fear and dare greatly.

Bronnie Ware worked in palliative care for many years. In her memoir, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying; A life transformed by the Dearly Departing, Bronnie writes that is not money or status, but “the regret of not having lived a life true to themselves was the most common of all.”

Here are the five most common regrets:

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.

On June 16^th, Jupiter and Saturn make their third square, in new signs, Saturn working hard, pared down to bare essentials in Aries, the sign of its fall, Jupiter in its exaltation, in Cancer, calling us back from the busyness of life to those things that provide shelter from the world.

Once we acknowledge that limited time is remaining, although we don’t know if that is years, weeks or hours, we are less driven by ego or by what other people think. Instead, we are more driven by what our hearts truly want. Acknowledging our inevitable, approaching death offers us the opportunity to find greater purpose and satisfaction in the time we have remaining.”
― Bronnie Ware.

Please get in touch if you would like a private astrology consultation: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

April 11, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Change of Heart—Full Moon in Libra—April 13th.

It isn’t too late. Time is not running out. Your life is here and now. And the moment has arrived at which you are finally ready to change―Cheryl Strayed.

Most of us can recall those pivotal moments when our lives were shaped by intuitive choices that catapulted us into a different direction. We may have moved continents, left a lover―or chosen to stay, walked away from a highly paid corporate career to create art. This weekend as we reflect on the turbulence of the eclipse season, amplified by the Mercury and Venus Retrograde cycles, we may realise how much our priorities have changed, how we have healed, how much we have grown.

Venus revisits the same area of the zodiac every eight years. Venus last moved through the Pisces/Aries houses in our birth chart in March-April 2017. Retrograde times deliver gifts of hindsight, or personal descents into hell that up-end our lives. This Retrograde cycle may have carried similar themes―a shift in values and priorities, perhaps sudden realisation that our butterfly-effect choices, even the seemingly small ones, have brought us to where we are tonight.

Venus is exalted in Pisces, the sign of the tethered Fish. As Venus moves direct once more through opaque, Piscean waters, we may feel connected to a deep force of compassion, a swelling of creativity, and―as a flurry of pale pink spring blossom shimmers in the bluest of blue skies―the sweet blessing of heartfelt gratitude. This Venus station might accompany a change of heart, a new realisation that the moment has arrived, deepened by time, to release the past and finally move on.

The pulse of spring quickens. The hedgerows blaze with white blossom. After a fractious eclipse season amplified by the Mercury (March 14^th-April 7^th at 26º Pisces) and Venus Retrograde cycles (March 2^nd-April 13^th at 24º Pisces), Venus glistens like a diamond on dawn’s softly curved breast as the full moon in the Venus-ruled sign of Libra turns her face to the sun this weekend.

Full moons symbolise completion. They are harbingers of light as we see more clearly, finish now what must be finished. As this full moon moves through the Libran part of our own birth chart, we are called to practice the challenging art of balance, compromise, choice and fairness in a world that so often seems unjust and out of kilter.

Aries is the beginning, Pisces the end. Libra is midway, a crossroads where the old converges with the new, where the winds of change blow across our lives, exposing the roots, bringing us closer to ourselves, and to others in safe relationships where oxytocin and vasopressin activate parts of the brain associated with calm.

The moon and Venus, two quintessential symbols of femininity, infuse the heavens with peace and harmony tonight as we honour those relationships that have sustained us through our darkest hours and allow love to flow freely towards those who mirror those aspects of ourselves that we disown.

Within every human heart is a longing to be cherished and to be seen. Psychologist Sue Johnson writes, “this drive to emotionally attach—to find someone to whom we can turn and say ‘Hold me tight’—is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy—to survive.”

Author Gerald Jampolsky writes that love is letting go of fear, and that we choose either fear or love. The essence of Libra brings harmony to polarities, offers a possibility to let go of the melodrama, to transcend the personal, and touch the heart of another with hope. At this full moon, we offer the warmth and containment of a blessing to the world and those around us. As we bow our heads to our hearts, may we feel lighter, may we notice the grace and beauty in ordinary things. For those who will be celebrating Pesach, Easter or Ēostre, this from poet and mystic, John O’Donohue: May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

Please get in touch with me to book a personal astrology reading: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

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March 31, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Sweet Dreams—Neptune enters Aries—March 30th 2025—March 23rd 2039.

There is no sense talking about “being true to yourself” until you are sure what voice you are being true to—Marion Woodman.

Neptune enters Aries at the end of March, marking a collective sea-change that will wash over us for the next 14 years.

Neptune’s graceful arc around the sun takes 165 Earth years, spending about 14 years in each sign of the zodiac, so Neptune in Aries (2025-2039) will be reflected in cultural, political and societal changes that trickle into fashion, music, art, literature and film. For those of us who lived through the conspicuous consumerism and hedonism of the 80s, Neptune in Aries transmits a fin de siècle ennui as the world around us dies and Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda keeps the world dependant on oil and gas, both symbolised by Neptune.

The tide is turning. Woke is out, shoulder pads are back. When Neptune enters Aries, wealth, glamour and “aspirational” luxury revivalism seep through the collective. Rolex and caviar, silk shirts and golden tans. Neptune is all glamour and sparkle. The Dutchess of Sussex in her cream jeans with expensive sweater hung nonchalently over her shoulders whips up creamy cocktails. Tone deaf Kim Kardashian poses seductively on the back of a Tesla Cybertruck. Melania Trump, wearing high-heeled power boots signs a $40m Amazon deal.

As Neptune moves through the signs of the zodiac, we search for redemption, boundaries dissolve, we dream the impossible dream. When Neptune moved through Pisces from 2011-2026, our personal property moved to the Cloud where everything is available and accessible. Fact and fiction, propaganda and deep fake proliferated. The uncontrolled social media experiment replaced tangible human connection. Algorithms dictated our likes and dislikes. AI bottom-traweled the internet, polluting the well of human creativity and passion, spewing out mechanical repetition at best, a politically engineered, deliberate tainting of truth at worst.

Neptune in Aries cycles so often accompany times of disillusion and discontent, as well as periods of innovation and creativity. Change and progress become the new Redeemer. Expansion (usually territorial) and a hero (usually self-proclaimed) captures the collective imagination.

Aries is ruled by Mars, god of war. Historically, as Neptune travelled through the sign of Aries, heroes fought and died. There were civil wars, rebellions and futile crusades.
Neptune was in Aries in 1861—1874 along with Uranus in Gemini, when the US Civil War fortified divisions between north and south. The abolition of slavery was one of the contested issues, underpinned by ideology and the human want for more territory. As Neptune mirrored discontent, bold view visions and an unquenchable thirst for change, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address on November 19th, 1863, proclaimed that all men are created equal. In 1862, the Homestead Act invited white settlers to go west, settle and exploit the prairies, expelling first nations people from their ancestral homelands.

As we enter this new era, Neptune’s idealistic energy will permeate all our lives. There will brash, bold shifts in political power. The cult of the individual, the idealisation of the hero infuse the zeitgeist. Depending on our own birth chart, we may already sense an ebbing of the tide as a new identity is reimaged. Our quest for independence, self-knowlege, innovation and expansion, real or deluded, will become our next crusade. Wearable tech and generative AI already promise salvation. Neptune in Aries will amplify the human hunger for innovation. Space exploration, yet another self-absorbed bid for survival. Under Neptune’s spell we will venture further and further in the restless pursuit of our dreams. As Neptune moves through early degrees of action-orientated Aries this year and next, those with planets and angles in early degrees Aries, Libra, Capricorn and Cancer/late degrees Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius, may be inspired to return to the canvas or keyboard, to devote more time to spiritual practice, to explore those sweet dreams, discover what being true to yourself really means. As Neptune sensitises your birth chart over the coming months and years this transit could accompany a profound personal initiation, the warm bloom of day-break after a time of struggle.

Author Samatha Harvey writes so beautifully in Orbital: “A human being was not made to stand still. Maybe we’re the new dinosaurs and need to watch out… but maybe against all odds we’ll migrate to Mars…and we’ll look back at the faint dot of blue that is our old convalescing earth, and we’ll say, Do you remember? Have you heard the tales? Maybe there’s another parent-planet earth was our mother and Mars or somewhere, will be our father. We are not such orphans-in-waiting after all.”

These posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology. If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com

March 19, 2025 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Light the Light—Aries New Moon Solar Eclipse—March 29th.

You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both—Brené Brown.

When we take our first tentative steps back into life after the long winter of a debilitating illness, it’s courage, not comfort that makes us well again. When our income withers; our life’s work is no longer deemed valuable, courage is that act of will that gets us out of bed when all the colour has faded out of the world we once knew.

The sun enters Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, on March 20th, marking the spring Equinox. Aries marks a point of Beginning, which for most of us may be a lonely, often scary, journey into the unknown.

In Aries we experience the mythic motif of conquest, which implies an act of courage and daring. Aries encapsulates the heroine, the mythic warrior. Aries is where we dare bravely, find our own agency, return to life, will ourselves to begin again. To choose courage, not comfort.

Mars, ruler of Aries, is still moving slowly forward after stationing direct on February 24th in emotional Cancer. We may feel exhausted, battle-weary, as we traverse the smouldering ashes of a situation that still does not feel fully resolved.

If you have been feeling stuck in an impasse, things may begin to move quickly from March 22nd as a turning point is reached when Venus Retrograde slips into the heart of the sun in Pisces (a union called a cazimi.) For a brief moment, we may see a way through a dilemma, sense a turning point, feel a surge of courage that emboldens us to take action even though we can’t see a way through quite yet. If we have been grappling with a relationship dilemma, this potent cazimi could bring clarity about a relationship, a passionate renewal of commitment, or it may coincide with a wrenching apart, an ending of that relationship, as Venus separates from the firey embrace of the sun.

Venus stationed Retrograde on March 1st in the sign of Aries. For forty days and forty nights, she journeys through the underworld, her brilliant beauty now gone from the heavens. Just before the solar eclipse,Venus backtracks into Pisces(March 27th.) Her Retrograde cycle ends on April 12th as we reassess what it is we truly need and what we truly value in life.

As Venus vanishes from the heavens, hiding her glittering brightness from the world, we might be questioning our assumptions about who or what truly brings us joy and pleasure. On a literal level, if Venus Rx moves through our 4th house, we may feel the urge to de-clutter, to redecorate, beautify our home, as our tastes have changed. If Venus Rx moves through our 11th house, we might end a one-sided friendship, widen our social circle, seek connections that feel more equitable.

Venus is now gliding through Pisces, drifting close to Neptune and Saturn in her Retrograde cycle. The romantic dream, the seductive vision, may need some practical readjustment, some anchoring in what is realistic and possible.

As Venus travels Retrograde in Pisces, we may be blind-sided into squandering our rescources—money, time, affection—in misguided attempts to be compassionate or charitable.

Mercury moved Retrograde in Aries on March 14th, the day after the lunar eclipse, amplifying the Venus Retrograde energy and boosting the chaotic energy of the two eclipses that bookend the month of March. Mercury brings some logic to Venusian matters and we may be prompted to end a one-sided romance, to attend more diligently to our finances, to set boundaries so we don’t feel used or victimised.

When Mercury moves Retrograde through the element of fire, it is vital to seek passion and meaning in our lives. Psychosomatic illnesses or a creative “block” may be the symptom that indicates the need for deeper change in our life, or a radical new perspective on the story we tell ourselves about a person or a situation that depletes our energy.

Fire symbolism carries the momentum for creative re-imagining, for aligning ourselves with all possibilities and probabilities, focusing on the higher ground, and using the force of our will to get there. As Mercury moves Retrograde we may be forced to slow down, check the facts, question assumptions, re-view and re-do, exercise courage and patience.

On March 29th, the first new moon solar eclipse of the spring drops a blade of blackness over our earth at the end of a tumultuous month that for so many of us has accompanied endings and important new beginnings.

A partial solar eclipse ignites 9° Aries in our own birth charts and in the charts of nations. This eclipses, (Saros Series 9 New North) is described by astrologer Bernadette Brady as “physically expressive, so requires effort and may accompany accidents or violent events.”

The Aries new moon semi-squares wired, wakeful Uranus, a planet that accompanies haphazard, unsettling events that shake us from our steady routines and conjoins both Mercury and Venus. Like all solar eclipses, this eclipse nudges close to the north node. The lunar nodes are delicate astronomical points that mark where the moon’s passage around the belly of the earth intersects with the earth’s seamless reel around the sun. The north node is more imaginatively called the dragon’s head, where we hungrily draw in new energy, nourishment, life force. The south node is the dragon’s tail where we release, eliminate all that has been digested. Because this eclipse falls in Aries, the first sign of the zodiac signifying new beginnings and fresh starts, this could be an extremely potent time to initiate something new. This will also be the last eclipse in the Aries (self) Libra (other) cycle until the next eclipses in the Aries/Libra cycle will be in 2032/2033/2034.

Significantly, Neptune moves into Aries on March 20th, charging the collective energy with ambiguity, amplifying the shadowy darkness of this solar eclipse. Neptune dips in and out of Aries all through this year and a new era begins as Neptune finally enter Aries from January 2026-March 2039, carrying our collective hopes and dreams, our fanciful yearnings, our wild imaginings. Neptune’s entry into Aries is one of the most important astrological signatures of this year. This transit may inspire the momentum for creativity, a renewed focus on spirituality, but may also accompany sorrow and sacrifice, delusion and a world-weariness that saps our strength. Neptune’s passage through Aries stirs idealism, fires the imagination, but can also be delusional and self-indulgent as we try to grasp onto what is real and what is illusory.

If we imagine the moon’s pale body briefly obscuring the light of the sun on March 29th, we may sense, in the darkness, the soft presence of a deeper knowing, the urgent thrust of life force that compels us to move beyond our fear. Harriet Lerner writes, “It’s not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”

This new Moon invites us to stand expectantly at the edge of something new. To muster the courage to move from our place of comfort. Author Anne Lamott who was born under the sign of the Aries Ram asks “how do you begin? The answer is simple. You decide to.”

The creative content of these posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology. If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com

March 8, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse—March 14th.

Life turns on little things. The momentous events in history can leave us untouched, while small events may shape our destinies―Jennifer Worth.

On the night of March 13^th or 14^th, depending on where you live, all the world’s sunrises and sunsets will be painted onto the soft curve of the moon as she sails through the atmosphere of the earth. A pair of eclipses bookmark the month of March: a full moon “blood” eclipse, (moon at 23° Virgo) followed by a partial solar eclipse on March 29^th (sun at 9° Aries.)

During a lunar eclipse, the sun, moon and earth make a perfect alignment as the moon passes through the darkest part of the earth’s shadow and we collectively enter, for just a moment, the womb of darkness. We may feel quite literally in the dark about a situation that has been building. For many of us, it will be the little things, the small events, that shape our destinies. Yet, if one of these eclipses aligns with one of our personal or progressed planets (in the mutable signs of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius) we will be touched by some kind of crisis or an abrupt awakening that marks an important turning point in our lives.

Blood is associated with the war and death in our culture, yet this full moon reminds us that blood is a female symbol of fertility and of new life. At this time of dimming light when we face the necessity of endings collectively and personally, this full Moon lunar eclipse may herald a return to clarity about what has been eclipsed in our lives, and may offer a glimpse of what can be birthed a-new.

This full moon presides over the quiet rhythms and routines that root us in seemingly ordinary tasks as she moves through the modest sign of Virgo. Virgo reminds us to tend to the little things that matter—bonds of love and friendship, our connection to the natural world, those things we hold dear that bring us comfort and joy amidst shifting circumstance. Earth is Virgo’s element, and Virgoan qualities are so often depicted in fairy tale as the heroine performs tasks with humility and attention to detail. Humility derives from the Latin, humilis—down low, on the ground or of the earth. Executive coach, Vanessa Loder speaks about “following our energetic breadcrumbs,” a daily choice, a tiny moment, that we can all feel into when we begin to focus our attention to those seemingly ordinary encounters, when we notice the signs, pay attention to the prompts.

The Sun moved into watery Pisces on February 18^th (Pisces corresponds to our lymphatic system, our feet and toes, while Virgo’s domain is our digestive organs) so this full Moon brings our focus on the quality and origin of the foods we assimilate, the health of our colon, our immune system and the comfort of our feet.

Saturn in nebulous Pisces opposes this month’s Virgo moon, creating a force field of vulnerability and heightened emotion. Saturn aspects accompany frustration, obstacles often associated with laws, responsibilities, duty and demands. The sun in Pisces sextiles disruptive Uranusm so plans could quickly unravel, what seemed so straightforward, now might be complicated.

As our lives turn on those little things that shape our destinies, the shadows of both the lunar and solar eclipses this month, suggest that things will not be smooth in world politics. Venus, symbol of what we hold dear to our hearts, is moving Retrograde in Aries. Aries is a hot-headed, martial sign and Aries is where Venus is in her “detriment”. Venus in Aries wears warpaint and battle gear. Venus stationed Retrograde on March 2nd and will turn direct at 24° Pisces on April 13th. Tempers flared and diplomacy dissolved in the Oval Office under the glare of the media on Friday February 28th in an undignified display of what psychologist Dr. Dan Siegel describes as “flipping your lid”―when the the amygdala, the emotional brain, hijacks the frontal cortex, the thinking brain. Mars (ruler of Aries) is moving direct now in Cancer, an emotional placement, that feels offended and can explode into immature temper tantrums.

The astrological weather for March and April will be unsettled as Mercury turns Retrograde (9° Aries) on March 15^th.

Both Venus and Mercury sensitise the 9/10 degree points in our birth charts then move over the 24/26 Pisces degree points, the same degree point as the full moon total eclipse. Be prepared to be flexible and open to new moves. Expect the usual Trickster/Mercurial technical, transport, communication glitches that compel us to pause, re-think, re-work, re-do, and be mindful that Mercury in Aries can be brash, impulsive and reactionary. Pause, breath out slowly before responding. Engage the frontal cortex.

Midwife and nurse, Jennifer Worth who knew so intimately the power of female blood, the dark and the light of human nature, worked amongt the very poor in South East London in the 1950s. She writes so poignantly, “we do not get what we expect. We stumble on cracks, are faced with imperfection, bonds tested and tightened. And our landscapes shift in sunshine and in shade. It was light where you went once. It was light where you are now. It will be light where you will go again.”

For every one of us, this eclipse season marks a space between darkness and light, the bloodlust of war, or the blood that accompanies a new cycle of fertility, the miracle of birth. May we soften those places in ourselves that have become calloused and hard. May we cleanse our thoughts and open our hearts as events, big and small, shape our destiny. Peace and contentment to all who have entered a time of quiet reflection during Ramadan and Passover.

For personal astrology readings please contact me on ingrid@trueheartwork.com

February 25, 2025 In Astrology, General By Ingrid Hoffman

The Loveliness of Things—Venus Retrograde—March 1st to April 12th

[With apologies for the late arrival by email due to technical issues.]

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time—Maya Angelou.

In these first hope-filled days of spring, a benevolent sun settles over city parks and woodlands. And for a brief moment, people look up from their screens and smile at the loveliness of things.

February is a month dedicated to Love. As cloyingly sentimental or overtly commercial as this celebration may seem, Valentine’s Day has survived world wars and financial crashes. On February 14^th in most places on this earth, millions of people demonstrated through chocolates and cards, music and flowers, their longing to love and be loved. “Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved”, writes author Alain de Botton.

At sunset this month, Venus, goddess of beauty and love, shimmers in a sky striated with peach and gold. On Valentine’s Day Venus was luminous, reaching her greatest brilliancy as if declaring Love’s power to overcome all human sorrow. She lingers languidly in the evening skies and dazzles us with her beauty till mid-March, then she vanishes beneath the horizon, triumphantly reappearing as morning star in the last days of April.

The ancients tracked the passage of Venus in a perfect pentagram across the skies, ascribing her disappearance from sight to her descent into the Underworld. This descent into the darkness was a dangerous time for humanity. When Venus vanished from the skies, the pre-Colombian Mayans believed, kingdoms became unstable, regimes toppled, and an ancient bloodlust stirred in the heart of warriors.

In myth, Innana (Venus) is stripped of all her valued regalia and exquisite clothing. She enters the Underworld vulnerable and exposed for 40 days and 40 nights. In modern times, the Underworld is a symbol of our own unconscious where we may encounter a truth that reverberates viscerally. The trial of these times are a cosmic reminder for us to dissolve, discard out-worn values and beliefs. In astrological language, Venus describes our self-worth and self-esteem, as well as the people or things we cherish and admire. Venus describes our loveability, how we give and how we receive love. We may be prompted to reconnect with our heart’s longing as we reevaluate our intimate and business partnerships, our friendships, our finances, our creative expression, and importantly, what value we place upon ourselves.

Between late January and mid-May this year, Venus becomes a maverick, expressing her qualities in unusual and unexpected ways as she moves over the Aries/Pisces area of our birth charts as well as the birth charts of our fallible leaders, and of nations.

Venus entered her shadow period on January 28^th at 24° Pisces. On March 2^nd, she stations Retrograde at 10° Aries and stations direct at 24° Pisces on April 13^th. She will leave her Retrograde shadow on May 16^th at 10° Aries.

The last time Venus moved Retrograde through Pisces and Aries was eight years ago, so as we reflect back to the themes or our responses to events in 2017, we might get a sense of where we might need to focus our attention over the coming months. Venus and Mercury meet in Aries on March 12^th then Mercury stations Retrograde on March 14^thas we pause before making decisions and pay careful attention before signing any important documents. The few days before and after Retrograde and direct stations are risky times to enter into negociations or make long term decisions.

As Venus moves apparently backwards through the heavens, she will accent the building energy of the important Neptune/Saturn conjunction at that first initiatory degree of Aries, mirroring trigger points politically and economically, as well as important events and choices in our own lives as we grapple with what is “real” or illusionary.

As Venus begins to gather speed, moving direct, she passes over the important Aries point on May 1^st, she will also energise this jetstream of powerful political and cultural currents that will sweep away what has been built, and will ebb and flow, long after we are gone. As civil rights activist and writer, James Baldwin once said: “No time can be easy if one is living through it.”

As we move through the turbulent maelstrom of this moment in human history, with its darkness and its light, we might remember that there are cycles within cycles. As author John Steinbeck wrote during the darkest days of the second world war, “all the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up… it isn’t that the evil thing wins—it never will—but that it doesn’t die.”

In our own private lives, Venus accents the impulsive, assertive, risk-taking Aries energy in our birth chart, as well as the caring, compassionate, intuitive part of ourselves as she moves through Pisces between now and early June.

Venus’s Retrograde passage may expose our vulnerabilities, our blind spots, and our lack of self-compassion.

Most of us are unskilled at self-love. It is often easier to look for what is wrong in our relationships or in the world around us, than to place our attention on what brings joy to our hearts. As we take time to hear our inner pulse beat, may we honour the stability of our own substance, resist the meaningless quantification of likes and retweets, and protect our tender hearts and minds from corrosive comparisons.

As our earth strains beneath the weight of our appetites and numbers—and so many of us sense the ultimate ending—Jonathan Franzen writes in his book, The End of the End of the Earth “even in a world of dying, new loves continue to be born… this is now the time to give yourself over to what you love, perhaps in new and deeper ways. Your family and friends, your animal friends, the plants around you, even if that means just the little sprouts that push their way through the sidewalk in your city, the feeling of a breeze on your skin, the taste of food, the refreshment of water, or the thousands of little things that make up your world and which are your own unique treasures and pleasures.

Make your moments sparkle within the experience of your own senses and direct your attention to anything that gladdens your heart.”

These posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology. If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com

January 1, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Astrological Weather for 2025.

Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes and denies us the present by promising the future. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately. Lucius Annaeus Seneca 4Bc to 65 AD.

On January 1^st, we cross over the burning ground where our intentions, our resolutions are ignited. As we stand on the cusp of this new year, January’s promissory note offers a chance to do things differently, to dare to change our minds and our hearts. To move from what we have outgrown. To begin again.

This new year is shaped by some major astrological markers that will infuse the collective energy and impact on our own lives as familiar things fall away and we learn to adapt to all that is new.

On January 11^th, the North and South Nodes change signs, moving into the Pisces/Virgo lunar axis, defining the zeitgeist for the next 18 months, as we keep the faith while attending to those ordinary things that knit the days of our lives together.

The lunar standstill that has been building month by month since 2020 reaches its peak in March 2025. A lunar standstill or lunistice is similar to a solstice when the sun seems to stand still for a few days around mid-winter or mid-summer, but a lunistice lingers for a period of two years as the moon rises and sets in more extreme positions, reaching high in the sky in the summer, and low in the winter here in the north, affecting our emotions, the liquid in our bodies, the tides.

There are four eclipses in 2025: A total lunar eclipse in Virgo on March 13/14^th depending on where you live. A partial solar Eclipse in Aries on March 29^th. A total lunar eclipse in Pisces on 7/8^th September. And a partial solar eclipse in Virgo on September 21^st, each eclipse imbued with its own meaning and significance as it drops into your own birth chart, perhaps energising a passion that lies dormant, offering a prompt to discover a purpose within.

The volatile Mars/Pluto opposition peaks on January 3^rd as unresolved anger and trauma resurface perhaps in our own lives if this aspect ignites an angle or planet in your own birth chart. This is the intractable energy that accompanies power struggles, stand-offs and ruthlessness. Mars remains opposite Pluto until February 22^nd as we tame our inner beasts and appreciate what is beautiful and graceful in our lives. Mars stations direct on February 24^th at 17° Cancer, accompanying abrupt reversals, maybe a loss of interest in a goal, and awareness of a turning point that exposes a lingering problem and a choice to be made as Mars brashly unsheathes his sword and we are compelled to change course.

If you are poised to travel or make a commitment that concerns a relationship or money, there may be delays or setbacks as Venus and Mercury go retrograde in Aries back into Pisces in March. March 14^th to April 7^th for Mercury. March 1^st to April 12^th for Venus.

This year will have a different tone as Jupiter slips into Cancer, a sign of its exultation, a feminine counterbalance to brute force and assertive action. This transit might direct our energy and rescources to our sense of safety and belonging as we focus on home, family and community. Jupiter enters Cancer on June 9^th and will remain there until June 2026, as we nurture ourselves, and perhaps as we look deeper, find depth and meaning in the word, “mother”…

Pluto entered Aquarius on November 19^th, 2024, and will re-shape our experience of being an individual in a world where science and technology will utterly transform societies and nations for the next twenty years.

Neptune enters Aries on 30^th March 2025 and stays until 22^nd October before returning to Aries from 26^th January 2026 until 2039. This transit will inspire many new beginnings in spirituality, creativity, art and politics that may be idealistic and imaginative, or delusional and self indulgent. Uranus enters Gemini on 7^th July 2025 and stays until 8^th November before returning to Gemini from 26^th April 2026 until 2033. This transit will revolutionise, possibly disrupt how we think, communicate, and share information, and impact on our use or mis-use of media, as well as ways we educate and transport ourselves.

Saturn takes charge as he enters Aries on 25^th May 2025 and stays until 1^st September before returning to Aries on 14^th February 2026 until 2028. This transit is about taking a realistic approach to defining our identity, our integrity and reliability. Saturn represents our rule-book for life, and describes important developmental processes that garner more meaning as we mature and age.

In March, a conjunction of Saturn and Neptune nudges close to the North Node in the very last decan of Pisces, moving within half a degree orb at 0° Aries in July. As Saturn and Neptune dance together all through 2025 what we knew to be safe and sure may become untethered. Neptune breaches, erodes and undermines the steadfast structure of Saturn, which release a tsunami of disillusionment and disorientation. We may be called to make sacrifices for the greater good. We may discover qualities of resilience, steadfastness and courage as we draw from our inner reserves of strength and passion.

On February 20^th, 2026, these two celestial dancers will meet at 0° Aries point (the first degree of the zodiac, signifying endings and new beginnings), setting in motion precipitous deconstruction of what seemed indestructible. Saturn and Neptune contacts in Capricorn coincided with the gradual dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, the end of the Cold War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nothing stays the same. Not here on earth, nor in the heavens. The sands of time rush ever more swiftly through the hourglass of our life. Today, we take a leap of faith and bravely cast our hopes and wishes towards the ever-shifting horizon of the possible. Nothing is certain. All is flux and change. This new year can be shaped by what we have lost or what we yearn for. It can be remembered by how well we have loved.

In loving memory of Mary Whelan, July 11^th 1961 – 29^th December 2024. Thank you for shining your light so brightly into this world.

For personal astrology readings in March, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

December 7, 2024 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Come Together—Gemini Full Moon—December 15th.

Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again. George Eliot.

The days before the shortest day of the year are shaped by the honest starkness of winter. Bare branches etched against grey skies. A russet flash of a fox daintily picking her way across a glistening frosty field. Silent starry nights. Gardens barren and bare. And yet, in the darkness of winter, new life is growing underground.

The astrological sky story speaks of endings and new beginnings after two years of transition as Pluto traversed between the very different signs of Capricorn and Aquarius. On November 19^th, Pluto entered Aquarius, heralding a new age for humankind―an app-driven Age of Artificial Intimacy, an Age of Authoritarianism, an Age of Reimagining what it means to be human. Now we stand collectively at the threshold of a new era as we try to imagine the unimaginable—what the world will be like in twenty years time.

As our nervous systems adjust and attune to what is emerging, we may sense a shifting in our priorities as we come to some kind of ending in our own lives.

December’s full moon invokes the mercurial essence of Gemini as we approach the Solstice on December 21^st. In the Greco/Roman world, Mercury/Hermes presided over thresholds, crossroads, and boundaries. Air is Gemini’s element. This is the energy of the wind that blows through the branches, shaking off that last golden autumn leaf. The Trickster is an archeype that versatile Gemini epitomises —this energy can be elusive, clever, playful, and infuriatingly inconsistent. This full moon may illuminate those tricky either-or-choices we must make as we stand at those crossroad moments in our lives. Spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss reminds us, “the challenge is for us to decide whether to make choices that enhance our spirit or drain our power.”

Neptune steers direct on December 7^th, followed by Mercury direct on December 15^th, signifying turning points, new perspectives, choices made, decisions resolved. Now, a coming back to a state of faith and peace as we allow our nervous systems to recalibrate and resettle.

Mars stations Retrograde on December 6^th (6° Leo) and will station direct on February 24^th (17° Cancer.) A slow-burning Mars Retrograde exacerbates residual frustration as our will may be thwarted by those things we simply cannot control. The intense energy of the Mars opposition to Pluto that has been building since mid-October will stretch across the heavens until January 3^rd, sparkling the flames of love and war, igniting volatility as unseen, primal forces are unleashed. If this opposition plays out across your own birth chart over the coming weeks, this potent energy will provide the adrenaline rush, and hopefully a cathartic resolution to a situation that has been simmering for some time. As the sun moves through Sagittarius now, Jupiter is travelling Retrograde through Gemini (October 9^th-February 4^th.) Jupiter and the sun oppose one another on December 7^th, as we review the year gone past, plan for the future, dare to trust and to hope.

Now as we tend to the cherished customs and savour the familiar rituals of this holiday season, may we glance back over the months of this year almost gone and allow those moments of pleasure to glitter across our memory—our daily walk with the dog, a swim in the ocean, a birthday meal shared with a dear friend—or the Big, heart-blossoming, life-changing arrival of a precious grandchild.

“Locking pleasure into our memories through savouring is a skill worth learning, not least because we make our decisions today not so much based on rational pros and cons of a given choice but based on our memories of the past,” suggests researcher and sex educator, Dr Emily Nagoski.

Anchored to the restless tail wind of a year that has seen millions of voters going to the polls, inhuman immigration and asylum policies, and the grim toll of vicious combat in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the ratcheting climate crisis, the last new moon of 2024 falls in the stoic sign of Capricorn on December 30^th.This final New Moon of 2024 is a Saturn-ruled lunation. Saturn reminds us that time is is transient: once it’s gone, it’s gone. Emily Nagoski writes, “our body’s energy can be renewed, money comes and goes, but time is limited and fleeting… so I choose to do this with my time.”

Rilke spoke of the winter months as the season for tending to the inner garden of the soul. Now as the sun lies low on the horizon, may we find the courage to gently gather the worst and the best of this year and commit to healing them as best we can. May we generously accept our sadness, acknowledge the brevity of our fragile human lives, feel the fertile substance of our wanting. As we come together this festive season, may we celebrate the dark and the light of this year gone by, and be grateful for those precious times of connection. And in those silent moments, beneath the glittering stars, may we breathe out a prayer of gratitude as we prepare to blossom once more in the spring.

I am gestating a new beginning of my own as I take time to be curious about Pluto’s passage through Aquarius and what this means for humanity. I will be wintering quietly and listening deeply. Thank you all for all your love and support during this year now almost gone. Wishing you a restorative and hope-filled Solstice.

Please get in touch if you would like to book an appointment for an astrology session for March 2024. ingrid@trueheartwork.com

November 10, 2024 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

The Mirror and the Dark—Pluto enters Aquarius—November 19th.

It was not by a serpent, but by paper and ink that evil came into the world.
Hilary Mantel.

November is the season of falling leaves. Here in the north, a dying sun lies lethargically on the horizon. Trump’s in charge now, a landslide win has loosened a dark sludge of discontent that has been bubbling since Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008 and financial markets tumbled and fell. As historian Heather Cox Richardson writes, “democracies die more often through the ballot box than at gunpoint.”

At this inflection point in our human story, for so many, this new era stirs up an ancient fear that flexes like the slim tail of a serpent as it slithers across centuries of patriarchy, torture and burnings, women’s bodies owned, defiled, bartered, and sold.

Sales of dystopian books have soared, while leaders hurry to pay homage to the man who is a mouthpiece for the collective. In response to the misogyny that ripples through society, the 4B movement goes viral. Young women refuse to marry, engage in sex or bear children, until they have their rights back. Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid’s Tale, posts on the Musk-owned X, “despair is not an option. It helps no one.”

The astrology mirrors the light and the darkness as we enter this crucible of change.

On November 19^th, Pluto returns to 0° Aquarius. There will be no sudden shift into the golden “Age of Aquarius”. It’s unlikely that “peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars.” Pluto’s potent energy infuses our lives over the next two decades, society as we know it is destroyed and reshaped. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is “Building structures for the survival of the group”. These new structures will only emerge slowly, as Pluto represents an invisible, unfathomable level of life. Pluto in the fixed, rational, air sign of Aquarius acts like a poultice for the trauma and heartbreak in the collective consciousness. The shadowy qualities of Aquarius are rationalisation, icy detachment, immoveable ideologies, totalitarianism, group think collated and controlled by algorithms, seduced by AI and science.

Societal reform, often accompanied by bloody revolution and fanaticism shattered societies during Pluto’s passage through Aquarius in the 1700s long before we had “discovered” Pluto in the darkness of our solar system.

Pluto the invisible planet was orbiting silently in space when Herschel “discovered” Uranus in 1781, that planet associated with breakthroughs and revolution. This was a time of upheaval and revolt in France, America and Haiti. The first Industrial Revolution was under way. Captain Cook and William Bligh searched for new consumables in southern lands. Pluto’s last passage through Aquarius (1778-1798) marked the beginning of the climate crisis and a soulless sense of alienation and loneliness that now threatens our survival as a species.

We speak glibly of “patriarchy”, yet as Pluto gouges out embedded beliefs and offers a different way to live, how many of us will be willing to relinquish our “comfortable” way of life? How many of us will be willing to question and think deeply about personal and collective issues. How many of us will really be willing to share our resources and live equally?

Writes Angela Saini in The Patriarchs, How Men Came to Rule, “patriarchy “is not ‘they’; it’s all of us”. And changing it would mean losing many of the things many people cherish…to really radically create a completely equal society would mean rethinking everything fundamentally. Marriage, childcare, how we structure societies … work, pay, everything. It would mean challenging class, capitalism … monarchies … We’re not just creatures who want to live equally. We’re also creatures who care about the cultures that we’re in. And challenging culture is really hard.”

The full moon in Taurus on November 15^th carries the uncomfortable, erratic signature of Uranus, co-ruler of Aquarius. Uranus stirs up the grounded nature of this Taurus moon by tight conjunction, reminding us that nothing is certain, nothing is permanent, that we must redirect ourselves now and rebuild in new, unexpected ways. Uranus transits often accompany a sense of alienation from bedrock aspects of life and thrust us into the uncharted terrain of choice and crisis that we’ve been doggedly resisting. As we choose courage over fear, Saturn turns direct, also on November 15^th, as the log-jam of obstacles that have been blocking our progress since June, at last begins to move and we find a way through.

The archetype of Saturn carries ponderous associations with fate and consequence as the western civilization turns to rubble, and unfettered growth and expansion are bounded by the inconvenient truth of climate crisis and mass migration. “Everything you love, you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form,” writes Susan Cain in her new book, Bittersweet: how longing and sorrow make us whole. In a world where enforced smiles and white-knuckled positivity clench against the wild winds of adversity, she reminds us that “light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired.”

These next weeks and months will require determination and effort, as Mars and Pluto stay within orb of their opposition until mid-January and Mercury turns Retrograde on November 25^th-December 16^th so take time to rest and restore amidst the busyness of work deadlines and social commitments.

As we stand collectively and personally at the threshold of this new era, may be hold our dear ones close. Pluto’s long slow passage through Aquarius will demand of us all that we continue to engage our imaginations, trust our intuition, bow our rational minds to the ancient wisdom our hearts.

I am fully booked ’till mid-February 2025. To make your booking for an astrology reading in the new year, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

October 15, 2024 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Thin Places—Full Moon in Aries—October 17th.

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby—awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess. Lemony Snicket.

This is the month when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, a time when our soul seeks the deep, dark root of rest and reflection, even as the world calls for lights and action.

In October, nature gathers her beauty in one last incendiary bolt of colour. Trees wear crowns of copper and carmine. Hawthorns and rowans bear clusters of bright berries. In the shadowed hollows, lacy spider webs spangled with silver dew drops stretch over fronds of burnished bracken. Here in the north, soft mists ready us for the darkness that accompanies winter.

In those tender, thin places where we feel exposed to the world’s hard edges, October’s Aries full moon illuminates the pain and suffering in the world. Aries is an action-oriented sign, ruled by the planet Mars. So, as we tune into the energy of this lunation tonight, we acknowledge those moments when we pushed past our soft place of comfort, and dared to be brave enough to receive what we longed for and feared to ask for. When we trembled yet said, I love you.

It takes courage to love bravely in a divisive, disconnected world, where toxic individualism has wreaked havoc on our relationships. In a world where we have thousands of “friends” and no one to hold us tight when our heart is breaking. Where “artificial intimacy” leaves us more alone than ever. As this moon cycle ripens in union with Chiron in Aries, we honour those few precious true hearts who have journeyed with us over the past six months. The total solar eclipse of April 8^th, also aligned with Chiron, a thin place in everyone’s birth chart that holds our scar tissue.

This lunation ramps up the most significant astrological event of late 2024 and early 2025: a tense, confrontational engagement of Mars opposite Pluto which builds in intensity from October 14^th and will remain in orb until January 22^nd. This strained opposition will colour our own lives and be mirrored in world events as destiny delivers what it delivers. Mars in Cancer entered his shadow on October 5^th and will station Retrograde in Leo on December 6^th opposite Pluto.

Mars Retrograde cycles often coincide with low energy levels, as Mars, the war god, retreats from battle. We may need to reassess our goals, or even postpone things till the battle-weary Mars stations direct on February 24^th at 17° Cancer.

Mars carries the warrior/hero/heroine archetype, and in a world that is predisposed to battle, our conflict might be within or projected outwards onto those we love.

Pluto now moves through the final anaretic degree of Capricorn, exposing the shadowy dimensions of Capricorn’s ruthless obsession with ensuring survival at any cost as tyrannical father-figures take their last stand. Capricorn carries the mantle of authority and responsibility traditionally held by the head of the family.

As Pluto trawls across this final degree of Capricorn, another sexual predator, former owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, is exposed, revealing enablers who averted their gaze. The fine-spun, golden cocoon of privilege and powerful connections continues to insulate those who feel entitled to take what they want when they want it.

Pluto has been moving through Capricorn since 2008, exposing the putrid rot of toxic masculinity and patriarchal lust for power-over others. Pluto represents a primal urge to survive, which often becomes distorted as the dark power-over dynamics in our relationships, as strongmen (and women) crush dissent, and salesmen in the guise of politicians tap into the throbbing vein of discontent and vulnerability that pulsates through the masses. As we question the collective beliefs that thread through his-story, authoritarian Tyrant Fathers continue to peddle an age-old lie: some people are better than others. To the hollowed out middle classes, the promise of going back to a rose-tinted way we were is seductive. Blaming the woes of society on those they perceive as being beneath them provides a conduit for feelings of impotence and rage.

In how many ways have our lives been affected, our thin places pierced and scarred by those all-powerful Tyrant Fathers and Mothers? How have we been seduced by the glitter of wealth or power, fallen asleep as they have stolen our self-worth with impunity, undermined our talents, trampled our hopes and dreams? Pluto enters Aquarius on November 19^th and will not return to Capricorn for another 232 years, so these next weeks mark a culmination of this Pluto cycle.

There are three exact alignments of Mars and Pluto: 3^rd November 2024 (voting day in the US is two days later), 3^rd January, and 27^th April.

For those who are the mouthpieces for the collective, the gods seem to be smiling on Donald Trump. The day before voting, expansive and opportunistic Jupiter in Gemini conjoins Donald Trump’s North Node of fate and his Gemini Sun (identity, core aliveness) while benefic Venus and the Moon (the public) in optimistic Sagittarius brush over his South Node (challenges and gifts from the past) and natal Moon (emotions, instincts.) Unpredicible Uranus (excitement, freedom), in the most public place in his birth chart, delivers a radical and erratic bolt from the blue which, in the past, has worked in his favour. Traditionally these transits are tipped to fascilitate prosperity, abundance, and good fortune. Transiting Saturn (duty, responsibility, limitations, delay, boundaries) in Retrograde in Pisces moves over Chiron (wounding and healing) in Kamala Harris’ birth chart on November 5^th. A nebulous Neptune Retrograde makes an insecure quincunx to her Libra Sun/Mercury, as Pluto makes a challenging square, suggesting that the rigours of this battle may have had a detrimental effect on her health. Mercury enters Sagittarius on November 3^rd, and Sagittarius carries the archers far-sighted vision, a propensity for truth telling, or shooting from the hip.The months ahead will be telling, as we ask ourselves what aspects of own shadowy selves do our strongmen leaders, our false gurus, and our brittle shining celebrities mirror.

It takes courage to love bravely in a divisive, disconnected world. It takes courage to allow love to permeate our thin places when we can no longer trust what we see with our eyes. Yet now the time has come to take a stand. “Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all,” writes Toni Morrison in Beloved.

To book an astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com