Author: Ingrid Hoffman

October 20, 2011 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

White on White

Fairy Tale Weddings are compelling in their sentimental perfection. The flowers, cake, months of meticulous preparation. The dress, tiara, spray-on tan, flowers in the button holes.

In our desire for the perfect wedding we so often find the golden apple of Discord. TheTrickster appears to knock the bouquet off the altar of tradition. The fainting bride, the lecherous uncle, the little page boy who squeals just as the vows are pronounced. A flaw in the perfection of the meticulously planned occasion that brings laughter, the prelude of a profound agitation of two entwined souls. Think back to your own wedding day. Was theTrickster at play? I was a guest at a beautiful wedding ceremony recently where there was a glitch in the sound system. No music at the wedding, and a brief, tumultous marriage, with no music to bring joy and levity into their troubled relational space.

“Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner,” says Amy Bloom. There is a celestial line-up in relationship orientated Libra right now. The Sun and Saturn, spotlighting the importance of mature and committed relationships. Inviting us to clarify, define, strengthen our identity by confronting us with limitations. Challenging us to grow up, make our dreams real. Commit to honest self-appraisal, compromise, acceptance of reality.

For me, the compelling mystery of Marriage is that it can flay and brand, or softly kiss our soul. It is through our sentimentality, our innocence, our insistence in the “happily ever after” and the romantic dream of the marriage made in heaven, that we meet the dark challenges that a soul-ful union will always toss, like a gauntlet, before us. It is through the difficulties, often the sojourns in hell, that we refine the prima materia, the raw stuff of life, and learn the phases of Love in all their complexity. Like actors on a stage, bride and groom, play out the old scripts of the marriages before them. In their own lives, or in the matrix of their family history. Their unconscious roles as little children, keeping warring parents apart, holding psychic secrets, plugging the grief that spills under doors and carpets, the dissappointments, the frustrations, the bitterness. We hold this energy in the etheric, in our limbic and nervous systems, in the fascia of our bodies, and play it out with the men and women we marry. Our mother who married “to get out of the home,” our grandmother forced into wedlock before her belly ripened, our father who married “beneath him.”

Today, we think we have free choice in the men and women we wed. We believe we marry out of our own free will. In the West, we have inherited an ancient world view based on a biblical view that marriage is sacrosanct, in juxtaposition to the view of the ancient Greek philosophers and French rationalists, where the right of the individual to happiness is enshrined. So we have the challenge of delineating our personal identity within the structure and boundary of marriage – a tangled web of roots that dig deep into our personal and collective history!

Marriages based on love are as fragile and fickle as the gossamer thread of love itself. Few of us thoroughly modern women need a partner to protect us physically, to provide for us financially, or to give us the social status of “married woman”. Many of us do not choose marriage to sanction the birthing of our babies, or to provide us with clan. We marry for love. Yet the cost of failed love can cleave hearts and families. Divorce is an emotional and economic apocalypse. No one walks away unscathed. There is always a great gaping hole and scar tissue in your heart, no matter how much you loathed the bastard. The dismemberment of divorce ranks next to the death of your spouse, as the most stressful event you will ever endure.

So if we marry for love, we gamble with the fragility of our hearts. As Mignon McLaughlin says, “a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” On a metaphysical level, the ritual of Marriage is sacred. It is a rite of passage, through which we metamorphose into a deeper, more soulful self. We integrate the masculine and the feminine within; we discover that he or she is not the god/goddess we thought they were. We discover we cannot depend on our partner to make us whole, to love us forever and ever. Perhaps we could see marriage as a threshold into a mansion of self discovery. An archaeological dig into the layers of our ancestral past. A calabash that holds the milk of compassion and forgiveness for ourselves and for each other when we make mistakes, behave appallingly. Perhaps we ought not give up too soon, stand on our soap boxes pontificating about the flaws and weaknesses of the other. Perhaps we will learn to truly love one another and not make a bond of marriage, but a circle of love that protects those who dwell within. “You were born together, and together you shall be forever more. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.

Remember Danny Williams from Port Elizabeth? Today he sings for us White on White

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edmej2DOiLM&feature=related

October 13, 2011 In Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

And I love her

After spending three weeks in Mountjoy women’s prison Teresa Treacy, of Clonmore, is home. Her crime, her refusal to comply with High Court orders to allow power lines on her property which would, and did, ruin the beauty of the landscape, destroying tall trees. This act of courage and defiance has made this 65 year old woman a cause celebre in Ireland.

For me, Teresa symbolises the uncompromising Crone energy we must draw from our bellies if we are to live authentic lives in challenging times. I believe that in order to cross the threshold into the realm of the Crone, we as women, (and those men who have integrated the Feminine energy,) must experience a rite of passage, so that we may enter the sacred centre of the web of our lives, to learn what real Love is. Illness, divorce, death of a child or a partner, retrenchment, prison – tsunami times of intense physical or emotional suffering when the loss of our old identity becomes a psychic death. Times when we feel like utterly alone, floating in a fathomless ocean… no direction home.

How does it feel ?
Aw, how does it feel ?
To be on your own ?
With no direction home ?
Like a complete unknown ?
Like a rolling stone ? sang Dylan.

I saw an interview with 74 year old activist and feminist Jane Fonda. Breasts like Barbie’s, face taut, impossibly white, perfect teeth. She seemed brittle, very fragile, unmothered. Still hungry, unable to embrace the energy and quiet assurance of the mature feminine or the fierce wisdom of The Crone. The initiation into the wise woman archetype or Crone (which means “corona” meaning “crown”,) lacks ritual and celebration in a world where we worship at the altar of youth. Change is never easy. Most of us lack the support of community, or the mentorship of mature women to guide us over the crossroads through the dark forests and dangerous pathways. Mature Women to shake us firmly from our torpor, when we prick our fingers on the spindles and fall “asleep”. Our conversations are a timorous lament of our loss of youth. We sprinkle conversations with self-depreciating remarks – saggy breasts, stretch marks, flabby arms. We self-harm in our desperate attempts to stay sweet sixteen foolishly falling for the folly of Botox, HRT, face lifts.

Hollow-eyed beggars, starving for the crumbs of love. We’ve been fighting our bodies all our lives. Marion Woodman describes the Crone cycle as a time of Crossroad, where we come eventually, to a place of deep surrender. “After a lifetime of trying to improve herself in order to become a “perfect” daughter, wife and mother, a woman’s “surrender” to herself just as she is, becomes like bathing in the refreshing water in the pool of her soul. Grounded in her connection with her inner wisdom, she now lives from her own authority.”

And so, through illness, loss, the inevitability of our own death, we stumble or are pulled with ferocity into the liminal landscape of the Crone. She is uncompromising. The giver and taker of life. She demands as payment for crossing the threshold, precious gifts hidden in the challenges that crucify. These are times when we may also glimpse the white butterfly of new possibility. As we integrate our aloneness and despair into new learning, we plant it back into a world that looks the same outwardly, though we have changed irrevocably. Says Marion Woodman, “periods of renunciation are the initiations in life when we realise God is not running a day care centre.”

Goddess is a word that has lost its currency. This powerful archetype has been prostituted to sell perfume, bath oil, and deodorant. It’s bandied about as a term of endearment. Goddess, like Woman, has been made infantile, pretty-in-pink, static, always smiling, naively youthful. But, there is not only one goddess. She has, for eons, appeared in three: Maiden, Mother, and Crone; and she takes many forms. In a civilization as flatlined as ours, she lives still as the Fairy Godmother, the Woman of the Mist, Baba Yaga, the Cailleach. She is the dark moon, the cruel winter, the fierce, wise Mother of All. The Crone courageously embraces her values, her truth, and her beauty. She caresses the silver riverbeds that lattice her belly and her thighs, sees the eyes that stare back at her in the mirror, and says, yes! She works through those who have not pricked their fingers on the spindle and fallen asleep.

There is an old story, told by Lame Deer, a Lakota Elder. It speaks of the importance of injury. When we die, we meet an old hag in the Underworld. She will eat our scars, and then allow us to continue on our journey. If you have none, she will eat your eyes instead. This suggests to me, the value of inner sight, as we die in various ways on our journeys. It is in our scars, the fractures in our hearts, our wrinkles, our stretch marks, as Leonard Cohen says, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

So there will come a time when we must stand in the fire, like Teresa Treacy of Clonmore. We must speak our truth quietly, with assurance. We must persistently mine the metaphors in our lives. Dig deep, chew the cud of our dreams and savour the delicious sweetness. Stir the cauldron of our darkest emotions. And when we have prepared, and are ready, the Crone will appear. She will take our hand, and lead us back to the Garden.

Well, then can I roam beside you? I have come to lose the smog.
And I feel myself a cog in something turning.
And maybe it’s the time of year, yes, said maybe it’s the time of man.
And I don’t know who I am but life is for learning.
We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden. Joni Mitchell, Woodstock.

Love the Crone, and listen to the original sounds of the Beatles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaJIQmIei14 And I love her, the Beatles http://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/local/teresa_treacy_to_meet_with_esb_1_3143058

October 10, 2011 In Astrology By Ingrid Hoffman

Astrology 101, Part 5: The Last Six Signs of the Zodiac

In this post, we continue with the symbolism of the signs of the Zodiac. The signs can be considered as energy filters that colour the action of every planet in the chart. In that sense, we look at them not only in terms of identity (the Sun sign), but also for emotional reactions (Moon sign), communication approach (Mercury sign) and so on.

So, let’s take a look at thumbnail sketches of the last six signs of the Zodiac. What images do they conjure up for us? What are their archetypal identities? What growthful journeys do they suggest we need to take as we mature in life?

Libra, 7^th sign of the Zodiac

The Scales, impersonal and inanimate, strive for balance and harmony. They weigh the opposing options, evaluate relationships, measure aesthetics. Its identity is partnership; the journey is to reach equilibrium.

Scorpio, 8^th sign of the Zodiac

The Scorpion, but also the ancient Eagle, is the intense, emotional power of life and death. Its feelings so sharp, so deep, it fears to expose them. The Scorpion’s identity is power and privacy; the journey to live every moment as if it were the last.

Sagittarius, 9^th sign of the Zodiac

The Archer’s sights are set in the distance, wherever his arrow may fall. He is the gypsy, the student, the philosopher. The Sagittarius identity is faith and journeying; his journey is unceasing quest.

Capricorn, 10^th sign of the Zodiac

The Sea-Goat, an impossible combination in reality, is the symbol of ultimate, absolute power. Ambitious, mountain-climbing, the Sea-Goat seeks worldly status. But its identity lies in its inner integrity; its journey solitude and personal honour.

Aquarius, 11^th sign of the Zodiac

The Water Bearer, despite its name, is an Air sign and a seeker of knowledge. He seeks perfect solutions, utopias, ultimate truth. His identity is intellectual freedom; his journey individuality perfected in the collective.

Pisces, 12^th sign of the Zodiac

The Fishes swim in the vast ocean of all human emotion, the collective connection to Spirit. They feel for everything and everyone, to the point where escape for the world seems the only option. Their identity is compassion; their journey the return to Source.

The signs are grouped together in a number of different ways—yin/yang, element and mode—that help us further understand their characteristics.

Next up: Categories of Signs of the Zodiac

October 7, 2011 In Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

I’ll have what she’s having

Faking it. We all do it. The casual, “let’s have lunch sometime,” we toss out during a chance meeting with an acquaintance in the supermarket, knowing full well that we have no such intention or desire. The “I’m doing so well,” when our heart is heavy, and we are overwhelmed with worry.

The little white lies we tell others – and ourselves – as we create a busy collage of perfect images that mask our Authentic Selves. “Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in jar by the door. Who is it for?” sang John and Paul in Eleanor Rigby. We feel the heaviness of the suffocating masks we wear, and still we protect, preserve, settle for, ideas – and relationships, that keep us feeling like frauds. Eventually, we come to believe that we are what we do, or what we own. We rationalise, quantify, articulate, until all we are is a pastiche of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Remember the scene in When Harry met Sally? They’re in the diner. Sally wants to prove to Harry that women can – and do – fake orgasm. She puts on a very vocal performance of ecstatic pleasure. The woman customer in the booth nearby says, “I’ll have what she’s having!” It gets the laugh, makes a point. We fake orgasms, tans, happiness, success, and youth. As little children we may be told to dry those tears and put on a happy face, and as little children in grown up bodies, we may continue to be “the good girl” and fake it to win approval, or avoid saying what we really think and feel. The little lies we tell that erode our authentic Self, and split our energy. We wear our tragedy mask when we lament, “why is this happening to me?” when the question that always empowers is, “What do I want to make of this situation?”

The Zen Koan asks, “What was your original face before you were born?” It asks that we discard the masks we wear to conceal our vulnerabilities and hide our fear. It invites us to go deeper, further, to excavate our origins, the meaning in our lives, and the source of our true selves before the story of our lives. To reveal our original face in everything we do. We have all lived many lives, whether we realise it or not. Childhood, adolescence, our student years, first jobs, unrequited loves, marriages, motherhood, divorce, illness, or death – each experience has left a deposit of sediment, like a sandstone cliff. It will require some painstaking digging to unearth the sacred site of our True Self. If you have a photograph of yourself as a little child, take some time today to study that snapshot and look deeply and lovingly into her eyes. Examine her little face. Notice the jaw, the eyebrows, the mouth; get a sense of that little child, and of who you were before the layers of assumptions and expectations, covered her essence. Brush off the clinging soil that hides the truths, exhume the promises and the pain that have entombed your True Self, and gently, very gently, allow your Original Face to smile back at you this new day.

“We view ourselves as works of art. Somewhere in us there is a perfect image, a perfect work, a well-wrought mask that cuts us off from flesh and blood. Our real terror is that the work, being precious, may, in an instant, be destroyed. Medusa wants everything permanent, perfect, engraved in stone.” Marion Woodman

September 30, 2011 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

This is a Man’s World

Look around you at the boys pretending to be men: the conniving political leader, the indifferent school teacher, the pedantic priest, the sadistic gang leader, the vanishing father who leaves his wife and children destitute, the bully boss who ridicules his junior executive.

The world is teaming with boy-men. We extol the boyish behaviour of celebrities; we mistake threatening, controlling, hostile behaviour for strength, when the Tyrant is really the Emperor wearing no clothes – an angry, lost little boy. We have reached a tipping point, a collective crisis in mature masculinity.

Pluto in sombre Capricorn, sign of the archetypal Father, now heralds a new world order: a relentless breakdown of structures that no longer serve their purpose. Quantum physics sanctions what mystics and shamans have known for eons: we are all One and we live in an interconnected Uni (one) verse (song.) So what is necessary now, in this new age where sacred rituals have lost their potency, where rites of passage are medicated away, numbed down by distractions and addictions, is for us all to embrace our Masculine energy, and be hu-man. The word, man, means “human being, person.” And as Pluto, like a miniscule drop of purging homeopathic remedy, pervades the waters of the Collective Consciousness, we confront these ancient blueprints. Archetypes of Masculine and Feminine which are out of balance as we cross the threshold of a new awareness as foretold by the oracles of old.

Now is time for critical self-appraisal. If our governments and world leaders reflect the microcosm of our own lives, where are we out of integrity, acting as bullies, withholding or abusing power over the earth, or each other in our homes and communities? Says Neale Donald Walsch, “Stop looking all over the place for “the answers” – whatever they are – and start looking for the questions – the inquiries which are most important in your life, and give them answers. You do not live each day to discover what it holds for you, but to create it.”

This is the challenge we face today, in a world devoid of True Heroes, Wise Statemen, and Gentle Men.

We must collectively take responsibity for holding the Father Archetype and bringing Masculine energy into balance with the Feminine.

Now, more than ever in our human journey, we need mature masculine energy, as our civilization nears its great initiation into a Whole, more Uni-versal way of being. We’re being forced into the responsibility of making wise decisions— setting new goals, or we’re not going to survive as a species. As a culture of fatherless boys and girls, we must now access the Positive Father within to embrace the Postive Mother.

Patriarchy is not masculinity. Patriarchy is about Power, and patriarchy drains the life blood from the Masculine, and throttles the Feminine. So patriarchy will amplify the either/or. Patriarchy separates, divides, it amps up the dualty of black and white, right and wrong. It is always self-serving – like the Imposter King or Queen, it usurps power and tramples over dead bodies to get to the throne. Matriarchy can be just as vicious as patriarchy, as anyone who has worked under the an archetypal ward Matron or Mother Superior might have experienced. When we identify ourselves with power in any form – power over other people, power over nature, even power over our own bodies, denying the inevitablity of ageing with the insane quest for eternal youth, we are in the Venus Fly Trap of distorted patriarchy.

Goal setting is a positive masculine attribute, cutting away with the Sword of Truth things that are non-essential. So is taking action, being discerning, discriminating. These masculine attributes are positive when they are in relationship to the feminine. The masculine protects and honours the feminine, champions and celebrates the attributes and the values of the feminine, and these two energies are active in mature men and women. The feminine is chaotic, creative, and is the “being” energy of our humanness, while the masculine is the dynamic, the goal orientated, “doing” energy we must send out into the world to bring forth the fruit of our creation. We need a balance of both energies to be in balance in our lives. Says Marion Woodman, “there’s a divine marriage going on between the feminine and the masculine in every creative process. The more a woman develops her masculinity the more feminine she becomes, and the more a man develops his femininity the more masculine he becomes.”

We, as Women, need to be in our Mature Feminine to hold our men in their Mature Masculine. Pluto’s long passage through Capricorn these next sixteen years, will make us so.

“This is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fd8_gojNXc James Brown at his soulful best! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh2Yxp6q2h0&feature=related Christina the Diva

September 28, 2011 In Astrology By Ingrid Hoffman

Astrology 101, Part 4: The First Six Signs of the Zodiac

Let’s reacquaint ourselves with the symbolism of the signs of the Zodiac. I say “reacquaint” because most people know of the signs in the context of their Sun sign (or star sign of the newspaper horoscopes). In this context, the person’s identity (Sun) is described by the characteristics of the sign in which it stood at birth. However, the signs’ unique meanings are also applicable to every planet in the chart, as we saw in Part 1 for Marilyn Monroe’s chart. The signs can be considered as energy filters that colour the action of every planet in the chart. In that sense, we look at them not only in terms of identity (the Sun sign), but also for emotional reactions (Moon sign), communication approach (Mercury sign) and so on.

So, let’s take a look at thumbnail sketches of the first six signs of the Zodiac. What images do they conjure up for us? What are their archetypal identities? What growthful journeys do they suggest we need to take as we mature in life?

Aries, 1^st sign of the Zodiac

The Ram is forthright and forceful. It’s the pioneering spirit, the pure energy of action for its own sake. The identity of Aries is the warrior; its journey is existential courage.

Taurus, 2^nd sign of the Zodiac

The Bull stands calm and serene in the meadow. It is connected to earth, its own strength, the music of the universe. Its identity is the builder, constructer of security; the Bull’s journey is simply to be.

Gemini, 3^rd sign of the Zodiac

The Twins’ duality is communicative, gathering data, seeking the lost other. Gemini gathers the puzzle pieces of the world to try to make sense of them. The Twins’ identity is endless curiosity; their journey to see everything.

Cancer, 4^th sign of the Zodiac

The Crab is vulnerable, caring, loving. Safe in its shell, it is creative, but only when it risks leaving its shell can it grow. The Crab’s identity is mother, minder, nurturer; its journey is to love, trust and accept life.

Leo, 5^th sign of the Zodiac

The Lion is the king or queen. The sign expresses the strong and sure sense of self expression, heart, pride and creative energy. Its identity is dignity and power; the lion’s journey is personal identity.

Virgo, 6^th sign of the Zodiac

The Virgin is purity, attached to nothing, owned by no man. She’s a seeker of perfection on earth, personal growth and bodily care. Her identity is the servant and the goddess; her journey is humility.

Next up: The Last 6 Signs of the Zodiac

September 26, 2011 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Money Money Money

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons,” quips Woody Allen. “For I don’t care too much for money, for money can’t buy me love,” sang The Beatles. Our relationship with money is steeped in contradiction, confusion and myth. We were told, it does not grow on trees, or that we should save for a rainy day. Most people find it easier to talk about sex than money.

So what is this thing we call “money”? Like slippery bodily fluids, money is a stream of electrons, a medium of exchange. Even Wikipedia is somewhat woolly about the origins of the word. As in myths, fairy tales, archaic beliefs, “money” is swathed in the mists of time. It is said to originate from the temple of the goddess, Hera. It’s associated with the goddess Juno. With the Etruscan goddess, Uni. Some sources claim the word “money” is believed to originate from a temple of “Moneta”. The Latin word for money is “monere” (remind, warn, or instruct) and the Greeks used “moneres” (alone, unique). Sound fuzzy enough for you?

“Everyone’s consciousness draws from the same underlying reality,” says Deepak Chopra. Over these next 14 years in our human story, we are moving through a new domain of consciousness. Neptune moves into its home sign of illusive Pisces this year, calling us Home to Spirit, to float in a sea of interconnectedness. Neptune is a transpersonal planet, and that means it its energy operates in the Collective consciousness, as it swirls silently in darkness, within the outer reaches of our solar system.

In its highest vibration, Neptune draws us to a direct experience of the Divine, and conventional religious theology will not satisfy our yearning. Neptune calls us back into Dream Time. Boundaries become permeable, spirituality, medium ship and psychic activity may become more acceptably mainstream.Yet, the light is dim in the murky oceanic realm of Neptune (Roman god of water and sea,) and moray eels lurk in hidden crevices. Neptune can also manifest as charlatans who deceive, gurus who are not all they seem, mass hysteria, illusion, disillusion, addiction, victimhood, and sacrifice. Watch the movies. Note the newest fashion trends, these are harbringers of this new consciousness. With Neptune’s influence over porous boundaries in terms of personal privacy and safety, I’m guessing there will be changes in the way we use social media. There will be far-reaching changes in the power base in world government, in banking systems, financial institutions, and the value we place on this thing we call “money”. Those people on the first wave of change are now offering skills exchange, or payment for what they believe a service is worth. Already, they are re-imaging their relationship and beliefs about money as a form of energy, nothing more. So we come to the inevitable question: How do I follow my bliss, do what I really want in my life, and have the money I need to live in this material world? Our fear of money has spawned a surfeit of books, Cds, self-help gurus who preach abundance, prosperity, The Law of Attraction… and yet there are still barnacled beliefs, old myths that keep us chained to poverty consciousness and lack, no matter how many pairs of shoes we have, or how much food is in the refrigerator. Neptune entreats us to dream differently. To use right brain intuition that defies logic and the rational mind.

Neptune’s realm is our dream time, our spiritual exxperience, our creative imagination, our yearning to transcend the hardships and rigours of this earth plane. Neptune is John Lennon calling us all to Imagine. And by 2025 when Neptune enters the fire sign of Aries, we will have the challenge of putting our imaginings, our dreams, our new world view into action.

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one. John Lennon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkOmcIl79s

Abba’s Money, Money, Money

September 19, 2011 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Love Is All Around

Nothing much has changed when it comes to the map of the human heart. Two dressed-for-success business women are engaged in serious conversation between nibbles of a warm mushroom and ricotta cheese salad. They lean towards each other over the restaurant table, talking not about the crisis over the euro, or the latest merger. They are talking about Love.

Much in the same way, I imagine, our ancestors sat around fires, in mossy caves, talking to each other about their children, their men. Much in the way women of the land laugh from the depths of their bellies, as they pick tea, hoe the red earth, peel the leaves off maize, talking about the people they hold close to their hearts.

Just like the stars that shine even when we can’t see them, Love is all around. It’s the Field, the Matrix. And when you connect to Love, miracles happen.

Love is all around at airport arrivals, in the cancer ward. Love is in the eyes of our lover, as we lie, limbs entwined. Love is all around when the parent we have been at war with for years, now lies, just like a little boy, breath rattling in his sunken chest. Love is the flowering of our heart when we hold our first grandchild. Love is the aged family dog, now deaf, almost blind, tail still wagging, warmly welcoming us home. Love comes softly sometimes. And there are times when Love strips us naked, flays us bare to the bone. Love is boundless, arching over barriers that divide race, gender, age, or social status. We fall in love with the married man, the gardener, boss. We find the love we have been searching for all our lives in the soft arms of another woman.

Aphrodite, or Venus, as the Romans named her, is goddess of love, beauty, and lust. She was once a creator-earth goddess, and like other feminine deities she delighted in lusty pleasures, found her Joy in the embrace of handsome young men. She is Woman, relishing the curves and fullness of her body, finding beauty and pleasure in all things sensuous and playful. Her gutsy call to pleasure and beauty is enticing, and her siren call draws us, to the vortex of our desire. Love brings lasting happiness and soulful partnerships. Love also detonates marriages, divides families, destroys kingdoms, ravages our bodies with venereal (Venus) disease. Our quest for youth and sexual allure disfigures our faces and bodies, depletes our bank balances. “The course of true love never did run smooth,” Lysander laments in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ask anyone who has tried to navigate the stormy seas of long distance relationship, or who has loved someone who has committed to be with another. Yet if we honour her respectfully, and connect with the Aphrodite essence within, she always brings us just what we need at just the right time for our soul’s sorrow or joy.

Each one of us has a Venus in our birth chart. Unique by her position in sign, element, and aspect. Our Venus longs for her own distinctly unique expression. Some of us deny our Aphrodite energy. Or allow our partners to carry it for us. We cage our primal sexuality, wage war against our bodies; bridle our lusts, disconnect from what makes us feel sensual, feminine, and alive. Aphrodite’s essence has become split in our Judaic-Christian world view, where femininity, sexuality, our bodies, have been smeared with morality and judgement. Yet, centuries on, Aphrodite lives in art, in advertising, literature, and in the characters of soap operas. Modern Aphrodite’s appear in movies, on the pages of fashion magazines. She is the diva of song. As distant as the Evening Star, she is the wet and wild porn star – Aprhodite the insatiable Harlot. As the chorus in Euripides’ play, Hippolytus sing, “neither fire nor stars have stronger bolts than those of Aphrodite.” When we are struck by Aphrodite’s bolt of Love, we experience a profound stirring of the loins and the soul. Aphrodite initiates by piercing the armour of our defences, dishevelling our lives. Challenging us to go within and connect with what we value, what feels lovely, delicious, what brings us pleasure. Love is all around, so dance today with Aphrodite! Allow her to caress you, and delight you with her charms. Love and honour your body today. Tune in. Listen to what it says to you, so you can listen to the call of your soul. Love yourself, then be truly willing to receive Love – it is all around.

Carrie: Have you?

Mr. Big: Have I what?

Carrie: Ever been in love.

Mr Big: Absofuckinglutely.

Sex and the City

The Troggs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5uC91FcbI

September 12, 2011 In Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

The Kindness of Strangers

In folk lore and fairy tales little children are always told not to talk to strangers. Strangers denote danger, some form of awakening from the slumber of innocence. They can be angels in the guise of ugly old crones. They can be wolves in sheep’s clothing.

So often, these serendipitous encounters with perfect strangers can open our hearts to the generosity of soul-directed experiences that defy logic. Says Clarisssa Pinkola Estes, “In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.”

If we trust our intuition, our wise animal-instinctual skills for survival, we will sniff out the predators, and open ourselves to encounters with strangers who midwife us through time of painful and lonely transitions, soothing with a smile or a single act of generosity. We will recognise those strangers who can awaken us to a new life direction. Those who bring a sense of texture and the comforting sense of continuity in our daily lives. Many people say that real friendships are not easy to forge in termite mound apartment blocks, lego land housing estates. We may ask, are these my friends or merely acquaintances? Does it really matter?

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” drawls Blanche du Bois in Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar named Desire. The Latin word for Kindness is Humanitas. Stranger is Hospes, also meaning, guest or host. How deeply significant are these more authentic meanings if we savour them and allow the essence of the words to infuse our psyche. So often it is a stranger who performs heroic acts of love and daring – answering a telephone call that saves a life, swimming out to sea to save a drowning child.

Ian offers his time in the service of the dying, sitting at their bedsides to write down the stories of their lives. Jessie visits Alzheimer’s patients who sit and stare. She gently holds their hands, combs their hair, and sings the old songs they may or may not recall through the gossamer veils and whispers of their memory.

We use the word “friend” loosely these days. We are “friends” with strangers we connect with on face book, those we meet at the yoga studio, or at a weekend workshop. A neighbour becomes a friend. There is a soulful kinship with the elderly lady wearing the red scarf, who walks in the park with her rotund dachshund. We smile and exchange pleasantries with the man in the video store. For me, these low intensity friends are like luminous pearls in the necklace of my life. Like angels, they enfold me in their wings in times of joy and times of sorrow. They bestow nods of encouragement when I feel the bruise of living. They reach out with silent “likes” and comments of acknowledgement on Facebook. In this circle of kinsmen and women, we all belong to an interconnected universe.

These are the friends that offer us the out breath in the sturm und drang of living with lovers, the soap operas in our families. These are the friends who dapple the shadows of our lives with small acts of kindness, honest caring, and gentle humour. It is the kindness of these strangers who offer us sanctuary amidst the tumultuous storms, the dry deserts, of our lives. So, each day, let us be in gratitude for the kindness of strangers who encircle us when storms rage through all that is safe and familiar.

“Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other – it doesn’t matter who it is – and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.” Mother Teresa

September 10, 2011 In Astrology By Ingrid Hoffman

Astrology 101, Part 3: Two more Angles

In Part 2 of the Astrology Primer, we introduced the horizon and its end-points in the horoscope – the ascendant and descendant. This time we meet the other two angles and the houses, again using Marilyn Monroe’s chart to illustrate. As mentioned previously, the angles are the four “cardinal” points of the horoscope, the celestial North, South, East and West. We’ve met East and West already, let’s look North and South.

The Meridian Line: dividing East from West

The second major axis in the chart is the red line running from top to bottom. At the top of the chart is the Midheaven, sometimes called the MC (from the Latin for Midheaven, Medium Coeli). The other end of the line is called the IC (Imum Coeli, Bottom of the Sky) or sometimes the Nadir. This is the Meridian line, connecting the points directly overhead and directly beneath us. At midday, the Sun crosses the MC; at midnight, the Sun is on the IC.

The Midheaven is where we want to shine out to the world, representing our vocation in the broadest sense of the word, be it our job, our marriage or our visible status or role in life. While traditionally though of as indicating a goal in terms of career or working life, the meaning of the MC is not confined to this type of goal, and can indicate very personal or spiritual goals as well. In Marilyn’s chart, we see Taurus on the Midheaven, emphasising material things and security as a key to her vocation. It is likely that Marilyn identified with and aspired to the Taurean qualities of stability, calm and peace, however difficult it may have been for her to achieve them.

As the lowest point in the chart, the IC, represents our roots, where we come from, our home. This is the most hidden part of self, the part of the psyche seen by very few. For Marilyn, Scorpio sits on the IC, suggesting that she tended to keep her deepest passions and emotions even more well protected and hidden than most. Even her biographers would have struggled to access and understand this aspect of her personality.

Before closing this post, let’s take a quick look at the other divisions in the inner circle. These show the houses, numbered 1 to 12. Like the signs of the Zodiac, the houses are a way of dividing the sky up into twelve parts. Where the Zodiac divides the sky based on the yearly cycle of the Sun, starting at the spring equinox, the houses divide the sky based on the daily cycle, with the starting point defined as the ascendant and the houses numbered from 1 to 12 anticlockwise around the chart. Over the history of astrology, many methods of division have been devised, but in this series, we use the system known as Placidus, which is widely favoured by astrologers. The houses are another key tool in astrology, but that’s a topic for another day!

Next up: The First 6 Signs of the Zodiac