Author: Ingrid Hoffman

October 5, 2025 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Together—Libra Season—September 22-October 23rd.

We say, a person is a person through other persons. I need you in order to be me and you need me in order to be you―Archbishop Tutu.

Autumn flames out in October in bolts of gold and copper. This is the month that the astrological sun sweeps through the sign of Libra, highlighting our relationships. Libra is a sign of paradoxes. A sign depicted by a set of scales.

The Sumerians called the constellation of Libra Zib-ba An-na, “the balance of heaven.”

The Egyptians weighed the souls of the dead against the Feather of Truth in golden scales of balance.

The Sun, the symbol of our creative self-expression, is said to be in its fall in Libra implying that a perpetual state of balance is impossible to achieve in the messy complexity of life.

“Paradoxically, it’s in our most enduring and important relationships that we’re least likely to be our most mature and thoughtful selves,” observes psychologist Harriet Lerner.

Yet this month, a super full moon in the assertive sign of Aries on October 7^th and a new moon in Libra on October 21^st serve as cosmic reminders to hone our relational skills.

It’s an act of courage to reach out to a friend or family member after years of silence, yet unconscious anxiety and pain tends to surface as anger or stay submerged as depression. “Keep in mind that people, like other growing things, do not hold up well in the long run when severed from their roots,” Harriet Lerner reminds us.

This month’s full moon in Aries (courage, self-assertiveness) opposes the Libran sun (diplomacy, relatedness, fairness and balance) illuminate situations where we might need to temper our need to be right or to “win”. Finding our “authentic voice,” telling it like it is, might require some careful editing. Raw, unbridled Mercury in the early degrees of emotional Scorpio now squares Pluto and forms a Yod with Uranus and Neptune, adding tension, the potential for ruthless truth-telling. Yet, the sextile between Uranus and Neptune offers new insight, a chance to act with courage, integrity and compassion as we end an impasse or repair a misunderstanding.

Mars is in Scorpio presides over this Aries moon, amplifying the potential for conflict as we march into battle with a colleague or a loved one. We may have reached a crisis point, we may choose now to give up, to save ourselves, speak our truth, even if this means losing a relationship. Mercury is now sweeping through uncompromising Scorpio, adding impetus to reflexive anger, our need to defend our point of view.

Venus, Libra’s ruling planet, is now a morning star. She shimmers in the modest, temperate sign of Virgo at dawn, a reminder to take care of the ordinary things, practice common sense, take one small step at a time, patiently repair those bonds of connection that have been ruptured through fear of being hurt, or through misunderstanding. Venus makes an opposition to Saturn in Pisces from October 11^th bringing opportunity for a practical reality check as we re-evaluate our part in our relationship dance. Venus enters its home sign of Libra on October 13^th as we practice the art of relating to others in this uncertain world. This change of sign may bring us to a crossroads in a situation that requires sound judgment and careful consideration.

This first lunation of the month follows the Autumn Equinox here in the north (September 22^nd) when the sun entered the cardinal sign of Libra and the unsettling winds of change whisked across carpets of fallen leaves. Aries and Libra are both cardinal signs. They carry an urgent momentum through the cosmic air: energy for movement, change, getting things in the right order before we come to this year’s end.

Pluto stations direct on October 14^th, dredging deep into collective unconscious, bringing up those essential truths, life or death issues we would rather not face. Uranus, Neptune, Saturn, Eris, and Chiron are all still moving Retrograde, signifying a silent, unseen energy of evolution that is shaping our collective and personal destiny. It is unlikely that there will be compromise and peace in Gaza in this “me and you” cosmic weather. Donald Trump, in a Truth Social post threatens belligerently, “if this last chance agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas…”

With both Mars and Mercury moving through the fixed sign of the Scorpion, battle lines are drawn. Threats add fuel to the fire. Compromise and lasting peace are unlikely in the near future and the tragic loss of human and animal life will continue.

A Libran new moon on September 21^st arrives with charm and grace at this time of changing seasons. New moons signify new beginnings, fresh starts. As we practice a light touch in our conversations, generous gestures of love and kindness, and the careful editing of our untamed words, psychologist and author, Harriet Lerner reminds us, “it’s an act of maturity to not take things personally and to understand that the other person’s response may have more to do with them than with us.”

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

August 29, 2025 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Season of Eclipses—September 2025.

Hope has holes in its pockets. It leaves little crumb trails so that we, when anxious, can follow it. Hope’s secret: it doesn’t know the destination–it knows only that all roads begin with one foot in front of the other—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

All too soon, leaves of crimson and gold flutter and fall.

As the seasons turn, September arrives accompanied by two eclipses that rhyme with the changes in our lives. We may be moving through our own season of metamorphosis as summer ends. Change, even change that is longed for, unstitches us from all we know, unravels those things that offer familiar comfort. A beloved child leaves home, a relationship strips us of our innocence, a retrenchment escorts us to a crossroads of choice.

On September 7^th, a super-charged full moon daubs her silver light across our earth. As the moon slips between the earth and the sun, she blocks the sun’s light and energy, a temporary power outage, a cosmic punctuation point that marks an ending and an in-between space for a new beginning. Full moon eclipses catapult us from those soft places of comfort. Like an escape room experience, we must find our way in the darkness for a while, and then quite suddenly, something is revealed.

Eclipses often accompany resolute shifts in consciousness, changes of heart. Relationships are illuminated at full moon times and more intensely at full moon eclipses. We may realise our own role in a power struggle or misunderstanding. Quite suddenly, the grace of a gentle compassion settles. We forgive ourselves and the one who has bruised our heart.

During these next few days as the eclipse energy builds, and we attune to this powerful cosmic energy, we may find ourselves assimilating what we have taken in during the hopeful days of spring, and the sun-saturated days of summer. This lunation gifts us with a serving of practical Virgoan self sufficiency as we realise we are much stronger than we think.

This eclipse carries the poignancy of endings, the hopeful promise of fresh starts. As life coach, Martha Beck, writes so beautifully in her book, Steering by Starlight, “no matter how many years have been stolen from you by your own ignorance, by cruel fate, or by the acts of others, you have a clean, broad slate before you. In this instant—this one now—you can begin steering by starlight, and if you do, the rest of creation will conspire to guide, teach, and help you.”

If this eclipse sensitises your natal moon, a house move, a birth in the family, or a situation pertaining to a woman will be emphasised. The moon in our birth chart is delegated to our most intimate, private life, our security, as well as our popular appeal if we are a public figure. Eclipses begin a cosmic process that take time to ripen. Some astrologers suggest that the effect of an eclipse to a personal planet may linger for up to three and a half years. In 2001, before the insider trading scandal broke in 2003, an eclipse fell on the moon of the ultimate Homemaker, Martha Stewart. Her public popularity was about to be eclipsed.

Another note to the cosmic symphony in this season of change is Saturn’s Retrograde into Pisces on September 1^st. One final pass, one last opportunity to lay to rest what we experienced between March 2023 and May 2025 when Saturn moved through this soulful sign.

On September 6^th, Uranus makes its first station in Gemini, a precursor to what will unfold for the world and for us personally, until 2033.

Birth charts with placements in early degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, or Sagittarius will encounter this unpredictable Uranian energy that accompanies change, sudden awakenings, shocking revelations. There will be opportunities to open our hearts wider. Take those small resolute steps into unchartered territory.

Just days before the autumn Equinox on September 21^st, a Partial Solar Eclipse at the final degree of Virgo offers a powerful opportunity for inner house keeping. Now is the time for clearing, healing and repair. This new moon eclipse opposes cautious Saturn, now backtracking through Pisces for one last time: a cosmic intruction to clear the decks, prepare for change, to begin anew. Even as the sly rogue thought lands with a reproachful “what’s the point?” Virgo energy supports us as we clear our thoughts, declutter our homes, tidy our desks. In this clear bright space, something new is possible. All roads begin with putting one foot in front of another.

And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. Meister Eckhart.

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

August 14, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Bittersweet—Saturn Neptune Conjunction—August 2025.

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea—Karen Blixen.

Blackberries glisten in the hedgerows, black and juicy. Wave upon wave of sun-bleached grasses ripple across the meadows, branches sag under the weight of blushing fruit. This is a time of harvest here in the north, and for some, as the sweetness of summer begins to fade, a bittersweet sadness settles, a listlessness lingers.

Celestial Titans, Neptune and Saturn whirl closely through the heavens, just zodiacal minutes apart. Saturn and Neptune, are an ambivalent pair, reflecting fundamental human conflicts that accompany “Days of honey, days of onion,” as an Arabic proverb describes this bittersweet experience of life. They’re moving through the sign of Aries, not the most collaborative of zodiac signs. These two archetypal forces collide on February 20^th 2026 at 0° Aries, closing an astrological cycle that began in 1989. Saturn dips back into world-weary Pisces from September 1^st to February 13^th.and then both planets journey uncomfortably together in Aries until the spring of 2028.

August gives us a preview of what this cosmic reshaping of the coming times might look like. Already the stage is set the lights are raised as petty dictators dismember democracy and the ultra-rich control every aspect of government and society.

Astrologer, Richard Tarnas describes a sense of depletion and ennui which so many of us are feeling now as we witness the ravaged landscapes of Gaza and Ukraine. “In wartime, Saturn/Neptune alignments often coincide with the later stages of a war when a collective sense of physical and spiritual exhaustion, disillusionment, and low morale—often on both sides—is dominant.”

When the contradictory forces of Saturn and Neptune converge, the boundary between what is known and unknown becomes blurry. What is solid and certain, fantasy, or fiction becomes difficult to see clearly. Collectively and personally (as these planets move across your own birth chart) we may be drawn into an undertow of diffuse energy. Things fall apart. People betray and dissapoint us. What we believed was solid and real is washed away.

Saturn signifies boundaries and structure, realism and practicalities. Neptune, named by the Romans after an ancient sea-diety, carries the salt of our tears as it reflects a facet of the collective consciousness that calls for some kind of sacrifice accompanied by boundless compassion.

These times can be the best or the worst of times. We can harness the power of our imagination to dream something into being— or finally accept that what we believed in, what we worked so hard to build, is simply a sandcastle, swept away by the turning of the tide.

When Saturn/Neptune met in 1989 as students poured onto Tiananmen Square. Their cries for freedom (idealistic Neptune) silenced by guns and tanks (Saturn).

In South Africa, after years of resistance and unrest as well as international sanctions, the cracks of institutionalised racial segregation widened. Prime Minister, PW Botha resigned, and FW de Klerk became State President. Fast forward to 2025. Millions now live in the sprawling shanty towns that ring the fortressed communities of the rich. Their cries for equality and freedom subsumed by a relentless struggle for survival.

In 1989, the year of the last exact Saturn/Neptune conjunction, the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A closing square took place during 2015-16, which saw Obama bringing the US into the Paris Climate Agreement and Trump withdrawing from it a year later. As Neptune (signifier of oceans) meets Saturn (laws, sobering re-structuring) will we treat our waterways and oceans with care, or will water-wars define this next Saturn/Neptune conjunction?

These are times of fear and uncertainty. We may feel overwhelmed, powerless, hopeless. Our innate negative bias overwhelms our ability to see any hope for our children during these turbulent times. Yet, the astrology points to a potent possibility.

As Saturn and Neptune glide through the skies, Saturn also sextiles Uranus this month, a portal of opportunity and the second of a sequence of three aspects, with the final one on January 20^th. August’s new moon in Virgo on August 23^rd is an opportune day to begin to harvest those thoughts that nourish and strengthen our resilience. Start small by committing to a daily practice of prayer, mindfulness, or simply weeding out fear-based doubts and self-limited beliefs. As Anne of Green Gables said brightly, “because when you are imagining, you might as well imagine something worth while.” In the bittersweetness of this moment in our human story, the courage to imagine something worthwhie is our greatest rescource.

Please get in touch if you would like to know more about what this luminous astrological invitation means for you. To book a session, pop me an email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

July 24, 2025 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Rewind—Mercury Retrograde—July 18th-August 11th.

There is always a risk in increasing your awareness. You risk seeing things you might rather not notice. You risk feelings you might rather avoid. You risk having to change what you think and worse—having to change what you do. Betty Martin.

July’s green days stretch drowsily into the endless arc of a china-blue sky. School’s out here in the North. Families flock to golden beaches, children make hearts and angels in the sand. Stunned by the glut of sunlight, hordes of visitors amble slowly along promenades, slump in deck chairs, grateful for any distraction from the ache of the world.

A brave new moon in Leo on July 24^th accompanies Mercury Retrograde passage in Leo. This lunation accents the powerful emotions we cradle in our hearts; what we love, and the anticipatory clench of what we fear. Leo rules the heart in medical astrology, so clasped within the darkness of this new moon lie heart-directed choices, opportunities to begin again. Pluto (irrevocable endings), opposes this lunation, adding a charge of potency to what we initiate this week as every bright promise of a beginning requires a little death.

Pluto demands honest soul searching. If you have planets or angles in early degrees Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius, you will be unable to avoid having to change course, you will be compelled to increase your awareness. Change will be an evolutionary imperative. And for us all, this is a year of life-changing ingresses―Pluto in Aquarius, Jupiter in Cancer, Neptune and Saturn now moving in tandem through Aries―an uncomfortable medley of distinctly different energies swirling through the collective and impacting on our own lives in some way.

Disruptive, inventive Uranus entered changeable Gemini on July 7^th agitating the frequency around us all, ushering sudden change and chaos to societies, as borders and boundaries are shattered. As our children play in the sunshine, our thoughts may turn to the children who endure the unspeakable terror of war.

Uranus is associated with innovation, civil unrest, revolution, and those shocking “wake up calls” that jolt us from our complacency. Uranus will hurtle through the sign of Gemini over the next eight years, accompanied by an unprecedented acceleration of technical momentum as AI appropriates our autonomy, requisitions our work, presses—unbidden—into our awareness.

This week, as Mercury (intellect, nervous system, transport, and communication) backtracks through Leo, the Trump administration signs executive orders to take the guard rails off AI, dismantling safeguards and standards that will protect us from hate speak and othering. The “Build Baby Build” also plan dismantles environmental and land use regulations to bolster the vast AI infrastructure, and the energy needed to power it.

Dharna Noor sounds the alarm in an article in The Guardian, “the AI sector is already depleting land and water rescources and taking a massive toll on climate, with AI-powered large language models such as ChatGPT taking up to 10 times more energy than a regular Google search, according to an estimate by the Electric Power Research Institute.” Good news for the Billionaire Tech Bros. An accelerant for global warming.

We know that when fear curls tightly in our nervous system it hooks us in anticipation of what lies ahead. When we feel the awful squeeze of fear, we become self-centred, we lose our capacity for caring and empathy. We are locked in developmental arrest.

They’re calling it the age of anxiety, says Kristen Lee, author of Worth the Risk: how to micro-dose bravery and grow resilience. Yet, amidst the overwhelming pain and chaos of it all, we may be moved to do something noble, gracious, kind today.

As the sun shines brightly and our children make sand angels on the beach, we may be reminded of what Mark Twain famously said: The worse things in my life never actually happened.

Mercury Rx periods so often bring to our awareness those thoughts that are entryways into a state of fear. We may linger in the past, fret about the future.

Spiritual teachers ask that we bring our fear to our awareness and tend to it like a timid wild creature. The shamans say that when we name a fear, it loses its power over us. Science corroborates this. We activate the pre-frontal cortex, calm the limbic system, when we can gently name and turn towards our fear.

The vibratory signature of this regenerative New Moon may light the way, even if dimly at first, to a flowering of purpose, a deeper way of listening, a different way of seeing, an outward rush of a life force that floods through us even in the darkness. “Despair is our chance to wrestle with fire and come through,” writes Christina Baldwin.

Today, let’s risk seeing things we might rather not notice. Bring to our awareness those feelings we would much rather avoid. Practice wishful thinking.

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

July 2, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Sign of the Times—Uranus enters Gemini—2025-2033.

To survive, to avert what we have termed future shock, the individual must become infinitely more adaptable and capable than ever before.

We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots—religion, nation, community, family, or profession—are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust—Alvin Toffler, Future Shock.

The month of July marks a change in tempo. In indigo skies pricked with stars, Uranus explodes into the mutable air sign of Gemini, an accelerant for change in this living, dying world. On July 7th, for the first time in 84 years, Uranus leaves the solid ground of Taurus, to whirl through the unstable element of air.

Uranus briefly returns to Taurus on November 8^th, then returns to Gemini on April 26th, 2026 where it will rush through the zeitgeist till 2033.

Uranus accompanies innovation, disruption, anarchy, and rebellion. When Uranus moves through restless Gemini (information, communication, transportation) anything that is too fixed, too crystallised or rooted or limited, will be torn apart, as Uranus offers the promise of something better, more perfect.

Gemini is a mutable air sign. As the winds of change wrap around the globe, we might think back to the events that unfolded in our world when Saturn and Jupiter aligned in Aquarius, on the solstice of 2020. It was then that we collectively entered the astrological age of air, an element associated with ideas, information—and mis-information. Pluto entered the air sign of Aquarius (March 2023) and now, Uranus the archetypal creator-sky-god, enters Gemini, a hurricane force that will intrude on all of our lives in some way over the next eight years.

Futurist Alvin Toffler coined the term “future shock” and “information overload” to describe what happens to a society when change escalates beyond the human scale. We have lost our bearings in the swirl of social media, wearable tech, disembodied AI, algorithms and “influencers” that draw from our most tender places for commercial gain. The tempo of technological and social change coupled with climate chaos has shattered our illusions of autonomy and control. We are brittle, anxious, reactive, addicted to those very distractions that leave us feeling empty and alone. In 2023, at least 24 million Americans took drugs like Xanax, known as benzodiazepines, according to the Wall Street Journal. We are Generation Xanax.

Author and spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss observes, “we’re living at an unprecedented time of change in the world… the ingredients that are creating this chaotic rupture have never come together before, ever…now we begin to consider the unimaginable. That maybe life’s not casual. That a human life is a sacred assignment and that the purpose of life is not to accumulate stuff with a great big, huge shopping cart, but rather it is to experience how powerful every one of us is. And to decide, that every choice I make is an act of creation.”

Transits of Uranus to our own birth charts are often accompanied by sudden events that shake us awake, bring into sharp focus something, some hidden spark of light within us, that has been there all along. When Uranus transits jolt our birth chart, they take us by surprise; awaken us from the trance that anesthetises, offers a promise of something new, better, brighter.

Uranus transits come with a velocity that requires a whole new set of skills, that demands an honest soul-searching enquiry, a stepping back from the old coping strategies. Endurance and resilience alone won’t be enough.

This month, the sky-story invites us to take a sacred pause before tumbling into the future as Uranus draws us into the currents that swirl through the collective :

Neptune stations Rx on July 4th, Saturn turns Retrograde on July 12th. On July 18th Mercury turns Rx (15° Leo), turning direct on August 11th (4° Leo) and will move out of shadow on August 25th to enter detail-orientated Virgo on September 2nd. Pluto has been Retrograde since May 4th.

Venus enters Gemini on July 5th, a grace-note that may signal sudden reversals or unexpected surges in the financial markets, or the opportunity to revise our “wants” or “needs” as we revise our monthly budget, make new choices around what we truly value.

Venus aligns with Uranus between July 2nd and July 7th, highlighting this cosmic turning point and perhaps bringing to our attention those places where we feel bruised and vulnerable, which are so often triggered by those we are closest to.

Tara Brach talks of the trance of fear that keeps us imprisoned in a primitive survival mode. As Uranus moves through Gemini, we might notice the cycles of reactivity that play out in our own relationships—shaming, blaming, control, judgement and revenge—the need to break free, to be independent—and how these primitive survival mechanisms play out when nations go to war. Gemini is assocaited with the arms, hands, lungs and nervous system, our coordination and fine motor skills. When we soften our fingers and hands, we send a message to our nervous system to relax. When we hold our loved one close in tender embrace, we fortify our capacity to be with whatever is so scary.

Hindsight is often associated with Uranus, the kind of rear-view mirror gazing that only comes after some great force moves through the collective and impinges upon our own lives. Uranus in Gemini accompanies innovation birthed from chaos.

“Before the earth and the sea, and the all-encompassing heaven came into being, the whole of nature displayed but a single face, which men have called Chaos.” wrote Ovid in his poem, Metamorphoses around 8CE.

Uranus moved through Gemini in the 1940s (1942-49) as we emerged from the trauma and chaos of World War 11 into a period of geopolitical muscle flexing, we call the Cold War. Uranus in Gemini was expressed by espionage, propaganda, and the rapid development of science and technology, intercontinental ballistic missiles, jet aircraft, the space race, and the lingering threat of the annihilation of all life on earth as nuclear weapons proliferated. Portable television replaced the fireplace, as the focal point in the living room. America went to war when Uranus moved through Gemini during the 1860s. And once again, it was conflict and chaos that birthed innovation and technical advances.

Expect the unimaginable as Uranus moves through the unstable element of air. Stay anchored in Love. Mindful of the false stories we tell ourselves that shock our nervous system, scare us into feeling lost and alone.

At this time of transition, we may be seduced by the security of the old ways. We may try to continue as we did before. Yet there is another way. “Where do we begin? Begin with the heart,” wrote anchoress Julian of Norwich who was walled up in a small cell built onto the church for most of her life. “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well,” Julian of Norwich is quoted as saying.

Even as we feel the slow suck of apathy, a sense of numbness or hopelessness, the sharp stab of fear… All shall be well.

So, let’s rest awhile, then begin again, with tender, open hearts. All manner of things shall be well.

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

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

Home Comforts—Jupiter enters Cancer—June 9th-June 30th 2026.

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned—Maya Angelou.

Here in the north, the shimmer of summer sparkles across newly mown meadows of powered gold. We’re drunk with light, overwhelmed with a surfeit of beauty. Now the sun pauses at the zenith of the year and ancient Sarsen stones drink in the heat of the midsummer sun.

The sun dips into the cool waters of Cancer on June 21st marking the midsummer solstice, a turning point in the solar/lunar cycle. As the days of June shimmer in shades of green and the scent of dog rose wafts on a hot honeyed breeze, we have come full circle.

Within the constellation of Cancer is a delicate brush stroke of stars in the sky called Praesepe, the Latin word for “manger”. Cancer is associated with wombs, and cradles, with nourishment and containment, with our ancient human longing to belong, to seek shelter and comfort in a place we can call home. The word “home” dates to the Old English, “ham” or “hamum”, and many settlements included the word, “ham” as they were dwelling places, places of belonging to clans. Cities like Nottingham and Birmingham are reminders of the importance of the places we come from, the bonds that are forged in our families and communities.

“I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe,” writes the inimitable Maya Angelou in her superbly written letter to her daughter.

Home, belonging, safe places, will all be highlighted over the coming months:

Mercury moved into Cancer on June 8th, followed by Jupiter on June 9 th. Jupiter finds ease, joy and abundance in Cancer, traditionally, the sign of Jupiter’s exaltation. It is in the tender embrace of Cancer that Jupiter expands our innate human abilities to nurture, create, belong, to feel “at home” in a place, community, or country.

Jupiter travelled through Cancer from June 2013—July 2014 and will be moving through Cancer from June 9^th June 30^th, 2026.

Jupiter’s 12- month journey through Cancer will influence all our lives in some way if we tune into Jupiter’s benevolent wavelength and focus on positivity, abundance and success. Cancer is the Moon’s sign, and Jupiter expands the qualities of Cancer, heightening our sensitivity and empathy, our innate ability to nurture, to form deeper, heartfelt connections that add meaning and texture to our own lives. There may be new arrivals in our family—babies born, the joy of an engagement or a wedding, opportunities to reconnect with a family member, to excavate an important event from the past, to heal and repair.

As Jupiter enters Cancer it squares Saturn and Neptune in Aries, demanding discipline and imagination as we overcome challenges, make sacrifices in pursuit of our dreams. This final square between Jupiter and Saturn (it has been in play since last August) suggests closure, a final restructuring, opportunities to in pursuit of a dream.

Venus is moving through Taurus, the sign of her domicile (June 5th-July 4th) as we celebrate the sweet-scented days of midsummer with sensual indulgences and root ourselves in what we truly value. We may need to focus on money matters this month and this will be an auspicious time to invest in a property, or list our home, or spend our money on something or someone we value.

A luminous full moon in Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius on June 11th (20 ° Sagittarius opposite the Sun at 20 ° Gemini) squares the fated lunar nodes, nudging us towards brave life decisions, journeys to be taken. Jupiter rules this full moon, bringing blessings and abundance if we are open to them, yet this lunation is quickly followed by a volatile, unsettling square between Mars in Leo and unpredictable Uranus on June 15th, one day after of Donald Trump’s 79th Birthday.

On July 4^th, 1776 when the new nation of America was born, the Sun was moving through the sign of Cancer, Venus and Jupiter were conjunct in Cancer, and Mercury was Retrograde in Cancer. Home, family, belonging, and safety are enduring qualities in this country of settlers and immigrants, qualities that are deeply rooted in the American psyche. This week, active-duty marines and members of the national guard were mobilised against Americans who have protested over travel bans, rushed deportations without due process, and mass detentions, all targeting immigrants and their families.

Now as the Sun dips into the cool waters of Cancer, a sign that clasps us to the familiar breast of comfort and security, may our hearts my open to the plight of immigrants, to families torn apart by conflict or political ideology.

At this sacred time of pause, of empty space, may we send prayers for the displaced and the homeless out into the darkness. May our prayers blaze with light, find safety and shelter in Love.

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

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