Astrology

May 21, 2018 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

The Lovers—Sun in Gemini—May 21st.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death. Passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire. A raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it out—Song of Solomon.

The break in protocol and formality, and the sermon that blazed its way across eons of formality and protocol on Saturday, was depicted in the astrological portrait—Venus in the very last degree of Gemini, the Moon in Cancer and Sun in Taurus. Uranus, that planet associated with Prometheus, the Greek Titan who stole fire from the gods, conjunct the Sun of Queen Elizabeth 11. In the unifying symbolism of this wedding, in the impassioned sermon by Bishop Michael Curry, and the transcendent words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the Power of Love reverberated through the walls of the 14^th Century chapel: “We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love, and when we do that, we will make of this old world a new world. For love is the only way…. There’s power in love.”

The Sun enters the sign of Gemini today, May 21^st. In the round of the zodiac, we encounter the archetype of The Twins.

In Gemini we encounter duality and division. The Light and the Dark Twin. Gemini encapsulates the essence of The Lovers, the sixth card in Tarot. A mythical depiction of our human need to bond, to relate, and in so doing, to experience Love’s Illusions, Love’s Triumphs, and Love’s Redemption. Mercury, the Trickster, Prince of Thieves, the Liar and the wily Psychopomp, is the planetary spirit who guides the Lovers into the possibilities of choice encountered on the labyrinthine path of life. We may discover, within us, the shadowy twin, who arrives like an uninvited, and unexpected guest at the table. Mythic twins betray one another, the lie and they steal, they murder. “Some things, however, are true, no matter how hard you might try to block them out. And a lie is always a lie, no matter how prettily told. Some doors, once they’re opened, can never be closed again, just as some trust, once it’s been lost, can never be won back,” writes Alice Hoffman.

296a629e7567af86cdf81e1a104a9796 In Gemini we meet the complexities of relating with another who may disappoint us, who may leave us, who may break our trust.

The image of twinship is portrayed in mythic stories throughout the ages. Astrologically, the Gemini theme is threaded through the birth charts of family members. Literal or physic twinship brings exits through separation—school, college, marriage, estrangement, and death. In our sibling stories we write a narrative of bitter rivalry, and deep enduring love.

The desire to stay bonded in our adult relationships, and the need to separate and individuate, even the ability to leave unhealthy relationships may be anchored in our very first experience of separation with our siblings.

The Romans called the Twins Castor and Pollux and to the Greeks, they were “The Dioscuri”, the sons of the sky-god Zeus. The masculine bias in our culture ignores the other set of twins born out of Zeus’s rape of Leda. The twin daughters, Helen and Clytemnestra. The story of these twins is threaded with duplicity. Helen and Pollux were the progeny of the god Zeus, while Castor and Clytemnestra were the son and daughter of Leda’s husband Tyndareus. Diversity, difference, and the ultimate loss of connection underscores the Gemini motif and is powerfully depicted in myth. Castor and Pollux achieved fame and recognition in the skies. Helen and her sister, Clytemnestra did not fare so well. Bronze age misogyny is still lodged deeply in the marrow of our culture. But an increasing awareness of racial and sexual diversity, the # Me Too Campaign, and the Irish Referendum on Abortion, bring recognition to the disowned parts of ourselves, to re-claim the lost sisters, to redress past wrongs.

Gemini is a metaphor for separation, duality, opposition. The life long search for something from which we feel separated. Our disowned self, a sibling who might have died or been aborted, a sibling from whom we are disconnected. Gemini is a symbolic representation for the pathos of profound loss, a sense of something that’s “missing” that’s so often projected outwards. So often awoken in our intimate relationships, our close friendships. Gemini is the metaphor for The Soul Mate. The search for The Soul Mate is cling-wrapped around our modern concept of “romance”, yet as Elizabeth Gilbert reveals, our Soul Mates can be our Wound Mates, those people who break us open, who speed our evolution and maturity. “A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave…”

In the mythic story of Gemini we may we encounter, personally and collectively, the search for the Twin Soul who will mirror our shadowy doppelganger, bring to our attention those parts of ourselves that we have disowned and discarded. This month, personally, or collectively, we have the opportunity to encounter the paradox of choice, the pathos of separation, the indecision of opposition and the mythic story of The Twins, and the Power of Love.

This is the sacred dance of yin and yang, masculine and feminine energy, that is the lustrous pearl at the heart of a Spiritual Partnership, the paradox, the pathos, of Gemini.

I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both—Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

For astrology readings on Skype or in person, and for more information about workshops for women, please get in touch—ingrid@trueheartwork.com Gemini 22 Casablanca

May 13, 2018 In Astrology By Ingrid Hoffman

White on White—Mercury the Magician

White on white 22 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—Amy Bloom.

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. The Trickster appears to knock the bouquet off the altar of tradition. The fainting bride, the glitch in the sound system, little page boy who squeals just as the vows are pronounced. A flaw in the perfection of the meticulously planned occasion that brings laughter, and that may be the prelude of a profound agitation of two entwined souls. 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.

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. It’s through the difficulties, often the sojourns in hell, that we refine the prima materia, the raw stuff of life, and experience the phases of Love in all their complexity.

As the days of May unfurl like bright-coloured scarves tossed by the wind, Mercury guides us across the threshold of change and the ritual of Marriage. Mercury is associated with the Trickster and the Magician archetype, and is the patron of youth, of new possibilities, new perceptions, offering us the gift of ingenuity and intellect. ae6b30abe4584b2f97890bbee2582c6a

Mercury has been riding tandem with Uranus for the past few days, a high-voltage energy, so perfectly typified by the spectacle of this year’s Eurovision song contest, and the win by Israel’s Netta Barzilai who celebrated diversity in her confident delivery. Mercury changes sign this week, slipping into Taurus on May 14^th. Taurus embodies an earthly, sensual, resourceful energy, and as Mercury changes into the richly sensual clothing of Venus-ruled Taurus, this ingress signifies a phase of cerebral creativity for us all on some level.

The Taurus New Moon on May 15^th heralds a threshold crossing, corresponding with Uranus’ ingress, the start of a new seven-year cycle, as Uranus penetrates the calm solidity of Taurus. Uranus, associated with upheaval, with sudden change that uproots the past, shatters the status quo. This marks an unfolding journey for us personally, and collectively, that will initiate us into unexpected change, fresh starts, and new challenges, just as the ritual of marriage marks a turning point in our lives, an initiation into an ancient covenant.

Uranus in Taurus featured pix Amidst the blush of cherry blossom and the pristine purity of white-thorn, tradition and ceremony, street parties; amidst the flags strung against blue skies in celebration of the Royal Wedding, the stage is set for a sequence of astrological aspects that herald unexpected events and an opportunity to stretch and bend with changing circumstances in our lives.

Mars, the planet associated with action, with severance, moves into Aquarius, squaring Uranus, on May 16^th creating the potential for a destabilising energy that urges us to break apart, to separate from something that may have grown too stuck, too staid, too stultifying. Mercury squares the Nodal axis, symbolising a “fatedness” a sense of “destiny” that’s embedded in the ceremony and tradition that will be enacted on May 19^th.

Uranus was last in the sign of Taurus between 1934 and 1941, and these next seven years will have implications for those of us with planets or angles in the late degrees of Cardinal signs and the early degrees of fixed signs. Meghan Markle (North Node, Mercury and Sun in early degrees Leo) and her popular Prince (Pluto at 00 degrees Scorpio and Moon in Taurus) will not be exempt. Uranus energy feels like an electric current that sizzles uncomfortably and the more we resist the more we may feel we are being electrocuted. As new revelations compel us to marry the polarities in our lives, or cast away the old, and bravely say, “I do”, the symbolism of the Royal Wedding on May 19^th invites us all to look beneath the spectacle, to notice the signs and the symbols, to be curious about the road ahead. df12ebdbd4816f8a81b0dd3618f92b9e

For some, there’s something reassuring about ceremony, securely tied like bright bunting, to poles of upright tradition. For a few hours of revelry and wonder, the strains of struggle and uncertainty will be soothed by splendour and spectacle. Even though our lives may continue to continue, we may feel a little differently, a little changed, perhaps, more open, more perceptive and curious about the world we see. On a metaphysical level, the ritual of Marriage is sacred. It’s a rite of passage, through which we metamorphose into a deeper, more soulful self. It’s an alchemical process though which we have the opportunity to integrate the masculine and the feminine within. Soon, we may discover that he or she is not the god/goddess we believed they were. Soon we may discover we cannot depend on our partner to make us whole, to love us forever and ever. Author Mignon McLaughlin observes, “a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

In the unfolding of our love, we may discover that marriage is a threshold into a mansion of self-discovery. A home-renovation project that takes us to the foundations of our past. And as we witness this Royal Wedding, something ancient within us all will unfurl like bright bunting, as we raise our glasses to Hope.

white on white 8 For astrology readings on Skype or in person, and for information on womens’ workshops, please contact me—ingrid@trueheartwork.com

April 16, 2018 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Close for Comfort—Uranus in Taurus—May 16th 2018—April 26th 2026

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe…

As May’s darling buds loosen and shake from the embrace of greening branches, and burnished bronzes blaze in rows across southern vineyards, we may sense a quiver, a tremor stirring the sameness of our daily lives. We may feel a force gathering momentum that lifts the veil of familiarity as the seasons change. Yet, unlike our ancestors who used rhymes and talismans to ward off evil, to grant fertility and prosperity, we may linger in the reassuring comfort of the old well-trodden roads, unsure of what form this newness might take.

On April 20^th the Sun ingresses into Taurus. Passing from Aries and the heated rush of Fire, we sink into substance, the loam, the ancient clay of Earth. The Age of Taurus (4,000-2,000 BCE) coincided with the river civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and for eons, the Bull and the Cow have been associated with the fecundity, with currency. Material possessions, land, and shiny silver sixpences, are yoked and bound to neck of The Bull and amidst the roar of the economic machine, we buy and sell “stocks”, and bullion; markets are temperamentally “bullish”.
Uranus in Taurus 111

Woody Allen once quipped, “money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. This thing we call “money”, this stream of electrons, is our irrefutable medium of exchange and over the next several years, our relationship with money—and the disparity of wealth on our planet, is about to be shaken. Not stirred. If you’ve just bought into the cryptocurrency hype. If you’ve always believed that you should save for a rainy day. If you find it easier to talk about your sex life than what you earn, the transit of Uranus through the sign of Taurus over these next seven years will slay the Minotaur of covetous complacency and avarice. As the accumulation of wealth by the rich continues to continue; as swathes of homeless continue to forage on scraps and shelter beneath flimsy roofs of plastic, the top one percent who have the Midas Touch, will have clasped sixty-four percent of the world’s wealth by 2023.

On May 16^th, Uranus crosses the border into the sign of The Bull. The passage of Uranus through Taurus will bring sudden shocks and surprises that break open hermetically-sealed structures, catapult us into new terrain. There may be losses and gains that compel us to be resourceful, more flexible, humbler, more grateful for the sixpence in our shoe. This ancient archetypal force may remind us of our clay feet as we stand on the rim of the Widening Gyre between rich and poor. Affordable housing, land distribution, and sustainable food production, will certainly encircle our lives, shattering our identification with existing form and attitude. Uranus brings the gift of fire which was stolen from the gods. New, unknown, it transforms our perspective, alters our reality—breaks through that are too rigid, too fixed, too chrystalised, in their form. Over the next several years, all those things we think we truly cherish and value; that something old, that something borrowed; might seem faded and frayed, as we reach for new possibilities, new potentials.

Robot and human hands almost touching - 3D render. A modern take on the famous Michelangelo painting in the Sistine Chapel; titled, "The Creation of Adam".

Uranus, has been moving through Aries, since March 2011, reflected by technological innovation, accelerated surveillance and social manipulation through Facebook, Google, YouTube. Uranus’s gift of fire in the sign of Aries delivered Artificial Intelligence, the rise of the robots, the internet of things, the rise of right-wing political parties.

Uranus is an archetype associated with the rallying cry of rebellion and disruption, with the shocking collapse of social order. Uranus is an archetypal force associated with the Collective, rather than the personal, individual will. This planet is associated with reason, with ultimate perfection, with sudden dispassionate dissociation. With the hive mind that swarms in unison. Monty Python’s Life of Brian describes this kind of Uranian murmuration: You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for your selves! You’re ALL individuals! The Crowd: Yes! We’re all individuals! Brian: You‘re all different! The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different!

These next several years will bring something new, something unexpected, to our lives, depending on what area of your birth chart, and what planets are awakened by a Uranus transit. We may feel like outsiders in a world gone utterly mad. We may be drawn to those religious traditions that propose non-attachment. We may anaesthetise ourselves with regular fixes of (Uranian-ruled) technology.

1ac16e4abe0d0efb860214925ee820a5

Uranus was last in the sign of Taurus between 1935 and 1941, when the delicate ecosystem of the great plains of America turned to dust. Spring has grown increasingly Silent since Rachel Carson documented the destructive use of pesticides in 1962. Uranus brings us the gift of fire. At a price. Starhawk writes, “the brush that is tinder dry from decades of drought, the warming of the earth’s climate that sends the storms away north, the hole in the ozone layer. Not punishment, not even justice, but consequence.”

In May, it will be 50 years since biologist Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb when the world’s population was less than 2 billion – 5.6 billion fewer people than today. Ehrlich reminds us, “perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell… but the longer humanity pursues business as usual, the smaller the sustainable society is likely to prove to be.”

In the 1950s we began engineering polymers. Now microfibres leaking formaldehyde, invade our bedrooms, our cars, our offices, our oceans. Uranian inventions have become the monstrous Frankenstein who ultimately destroys his creator.

The energies of the outer planets are felt long before an ingress. Positive news for our environment is that Japanese scientists have discovered some bacteria that use plastic as a food source.

09-standing-rock-larsen.adapt.676.1

On Sunday, May 14^th, Mercury enters Taurus. Mercury is associated with contracts, negotiation, deal-making, communication—and mis-communication for those stalking the stock markets.

On May 15^th, the New Moon in Taurus emphasises the motif of the Bull, (not sweet Ferdinand, the Raging one.) This lunation trines the Mars/Pluto conjunction which squares Uranus at the power degree of 29 Aries. Chiron, associated with the archetype of the “Wounded Healer” moves into Aries on April 17^th and we are asked to cultivate a new relationship with Promethean Fire. Survivalist self- sufficiency and self-assertion may mask fear and uncertainty. Our personal sense of powerlessness become more apparent amidst political and social change as we encounter these potent archetypal energies. fba48bee60e4e9041bc1096b13b83f47

We may consider just how much power we give to “the monetary system”. How we trade our integrity when we buy the things we do. What price we pay for safety and security.

Our inner values of honesty and integrity, our code of personal honour, our Taurean sensuality, our sexuality, will be upturned so that we shake loose the old beliefs that wrap around our lives like blue garters. Uranus is not about personal freedom or individuality. But as Lynne Mc Taggart says, “the power of mass intention may ultimately be the force that shifts the tide toward repair and renewal of the planet.”

As we are propelled from the comfort of the old, we may need to borrow the wisdom of the sages—only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

For more information about forthcoming workshops and private readings in Dublin please email ingrid@trueheartwork.com Uranus in Taurus 11

April 3, 2018 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Burning Ambition—Mars and Saturn in Capricorn—Simply Dig!

There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this―Terry Pratchett

As the rhythm of our lives moves to the shape of this new month, each new day may present new possibilities to engage more deeply, more consciously, even amidst the repetition and predictability of our daily lives. Mars takes the lead this month, demanding an output of focus and energy which is book-ended by a close conjunction to Saturn that separates gradually over the next few days―March 29^th to April 9^th―and Mars conjunct Pluto at month’s end. A clarion call to show up, get to work with urgency and self-discipline.

In Tarot the Three of Pentacles symbolises this focused effort which brings recognition and rewards for hard work, for not letting go of the balloon. In astrology, Mars/Saturn contacts encapsulate the Puritan work ethic: self-denial, hard slog that manifests something of value and worth. Cheryl Strayed wraps this planetary aspect up in her own inimitable way― “writing is hard….Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.” Modern culture venerates efficiency and busyness. In the bland drudgery of the workplace we may feel we are “hitting our heads against a brick wall”, “fighting against the odds”, as Mars/Saturn contacts may manifest as exhaustion, low libido, feelings of frustration, being motivated by fear or duty. There are bills to pay, encumbrances and obligations that bind us to roles, titles, and positions that harness our identities, that chafe against the pull of our souls. Mystic and poet, John O’Donohue, writes about an epitaph on a gravestone somewhere in London―“Here lies Jeremy Brown born a man and died a grocer.” Mars/Saturn can consume our identity. Self-abstinence can shrink our lives, imprison us in our titles, starve us of our joy.

The sky-script this month reflects the age-old issue of power. We may work in an office where our dignity is compromised, we may be in an environment where we don’t feel welcome, where power is misused, where we are merely treated like functionaries, our life force claimed and used, our souls never engaged. We are reminded that no system or corporation can exile us from our imagination, from the possibility of renewal that coheres to fresh possibilities for creativity in the work we do, or the passions that feed us after hours.

Leonard Cohen approached his creative work with doggedness and determination. He drew nourishment and meaning from hard work. “I think unemployment is the great affliction of man. Even people with jobs are unemployed. In fact, most people with jobs are unemployed. I can say, happily and gratefully, that I am fully employed. Maybe all hard work means is fully employed.” The combination of Mars/Saturn demands true grit, single-pointed focus, and the courage to lean into our lives when there are things that must be done, to tackle those things we fear the most, and also to stand on the edge of the rut, to turn towards those things that moisten, that nourish our soul. To say, happily and gratefully, that we are fully employed with those things that bring vitality and passion to our lives.
bf92867ae953d76a69f21f3ac35fec64

Mercury is in Retrograde ’til April 15^th—a cosmic instruction to pause, step back from the busyness, disengage, focus inwards before making any decisions, carefully read the small print before signing any documents. Most astrologers would agree that these three-week Mercury retrograde phases are wonderful times to revalue, revise, repair, relocate, remember, regress, reunite, re-create, re-arrange and re-do on the purely physical mechanical level.

Mercury is in the element of fire, in the sign of Aries. Fire symbolism is associated with creativity, the Jungian intuitive function, the way we create our future. Mercury Retrograde in the element of fire signals a break in old patterns, a transition in our creative focus. We may attempt to “start something” without true inspiration and verve, or reach a very stuck place where eventually events, or emotions erupt, bringing destruction of the old. Yet in the rubble are new green shoots, new possibilities to grow, the much longed for changed we dreaded, yet unconsciously manifested.

b78166531030d114975548f27a768630 We may have to find the courage to respond to the challenges in our lives with increased awareness, with more resilience. This is a time to shift focus, to perceive our lives with new vision. This is a time to adapt to change more creatively.

Physical illnesses that emerge during this time may nudge us back to those parts of our psyche that we have neglected or overused. The writer’s “block”, the flatness that we feel, might be a signal to change our daily routine, our technique. To try on something new, to experiment.

Depending on where Mercury is natally and in transit in your own birth chart, these next three weeks until Mercury goes direct again on April 15th may be a richly creative time. A time to seek your own inner wisdom, reclaim your own inner voice.

Saturn moves Retrograde at 9 degrees Capricorn on April 18^th and will station direct on September 7^th urging us to be resourceful, realistic, and pragmatic, as we take stock of those things that frustrate us, confront those fears that thread through our neural pathways, ambushing our peace from the shadows.

This month’s New Moon carries the standard of rejuvenation, represented by the lightning bolt conjunction with Uranus, the planet associated with the destruction of complacency and rigidity. This lunation heralds destruction and renewal. The Moon waxes Full on April 30^th at 9 degrees Scorpio. Both lunations this month are ruled by Mars, the ancient god of war who awakens Eros, heats our blood, spurs our will.

The month ends as Mars confronts Pluto―April 24^th to April 30^th ― in a separating conjunction that may bring an honest acceptance of our own part in the soap opera of our relationships, our addiction to busyness, perhaps an awareness of the drives and compulsions that lie buried in our brain’s amygdala. This energy may be described as drawing a line, setting a boundary, and knowing what it is that we want, then going out to get it.

Mars and Saturn 89

Mars and Saturn in Capricorn awaken our will to give space to the spontaneity of our feral souls, to shake off the chains that bind us to prescribed roles or identities which shrink us and dull our lives with repetitive, mechanical habit. We are reminded that we do not have to sell our souls to the seductive undertow of security. We do not have to stay trapped in the coal mine amidst dark seams of similarity. The turbulence of our soul’s yearning will guide us to leave the to-do lists aside as we step outside of our over-scheduled lives to engage deeply with ourselves. To be happily and gratefully, fully employed.

For private readings and more information about forthcoming workshops, please connect with me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

March 13, 2018 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Cry Heart, but never Break—Sun in Aries

We are the only creatures who are in-between. We’re of the earth, but don’t belong to it, because we strain after the heavens; and yet the heavens aren’t full in us. So, this wonderful, restless, eternal longing in us has us always on a quest—John O’Donohue.

Wearing thin leather shoes with heavy metal spikes, Roger Bannister, the gentleman athlete, did the impossible—he sprinted across the finishing tape, covering one mile in under four minutes. Of his world-breaking athletic record, he said it was simply, “good luck”.

With a fiery Aries Sun conjunct barrier-breaking Uranus in tight square to disciplined and self-effacing Saturn, Roger Bannister was an unassuming Hero who gave up competitive running to pursue a successful career as a neurologist.

Yet, his heroic feat of courage and determination, describes our eternal longing, our Hero’s Quest: “Those last few seconds seemed never-ending … the faint line of the finishing tape stood ahead as a haven of peace, after the struggle. The arms of the world were waiting to receive me if only I reached the tape without slackening my speed. If I faltered, there would be no arms to hold me and the world would be a cold, forbidding place, because I had been so close. I leapt at the tape like a man taking his last spring to save himself from the chasm that threatens to engulf him.”

In our patriarchal culture, the hero myth is associated with the existential courage and the white-knuckled will power that overcomes seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Modern heroes are “sporting greats”, intrepid adventurers, astronauts and soldiers. And as the Great Wheel of the Year turns, and the Sun enters Aries on March 21st, a light shines through an aperture—igniting the hero/warrior archetype, and its shadow: the destroyer. In myth and in fairy tale, the hero/warrior archetype is typically masculine. Heroes slay nine-headed dragons, rescue hapless damsels, defeat degenerate villains. Yet the destroyer lives amongst us, tattooed in pain and anger on the skin of the wounded Fisher King.

Starhawk describes the distortion of the Hero/Warrior archetype still so prevalent in our culture today. “The soldiers in Vietnam patted first their machine guns, then their groins: this is my rifle/this is my gun/ one is for fighting/one is for fun.”

Hero 6

For most of us, our heroes’, or heroine’s quest is a response to the challenges of life that is not muscular or spectacularly heroic. So often, it’s the austere grip of Necessity that wrenches us out of our ordinary lives and catapults us on the Hero’s quest. Financial ruin, illness, the noxious fallout from a ruined relationship, may ignite within our hearts, the courage we never knew we had. The Dark Knight of Desperation may spur our leap of faith. Compassion may break open our heart to moisten the lips of a dying parent after years of painful estrangement. The dragons we slay might be the fears that terrorise us in the darkest hours just before the first bird sings. The hapless damsel might be our own deeply wounded Feminine nature. The degenerate villain may be the impotent Masculine, who hides his wounded vulnerability beneath the rusty armour of bravado and grandiosity.

2f833467904ab5acc6361e2923ce0281

The sky-story for the second half of March has a very different feel to the first half of this month. The phallic thrust that propels us through these last weeks is charged with daring, action and adventure. Mercury, Venus, Uranus, and the Sun are all in the Mars-ruled sign of the Ram and it is in Aries that we must dare to find the deeper meaning of courage, the true hero’s quest.

On March 21^st, the Sun’s chariot of fire races through the gate of the Equinox into the sign of Aries. We cross the threshold into Spring or Autumn. We emerge from the reflective soulful region of the human psyche, depicted by the Sun’s journey through the sign of Pisces, into the forge of fire, depicted by the archetype of Aries.

Mars, pumped with testosterone from his journey through fiery Sagittarius, rides into battle on March 18^th, crossing into new terrain as he joins Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn, the Mer-Goat. Mercury turns Retrograde on March 23^rd at 16 degrees Aries, urging us to retrace, recover, revisit old ground. Jupiter in the Mars-ruled sign of Scorpio, turned Retrograde on March 9^th at 23 degrees Scorpio, reminding us of that eternal longing, calling us back to our soul’s quest, depicted in our own birth chart.

Hero 2 Some of us may realise that the harshness and discord in the world reflects our own internal state. That the rocks and thorns are on the pathways of our internal landscape. Some of us may know that there are no heroes who can save us from ourselves. That our quest as women, is not to attempt a hero’s journey, to try to be pseudo-men. That modern heroines require a skill set that pays the mortgage and the school fees.

“You can’t do it all. No one can have two full-time jobs, have perfect children and cook three meals and be multi-orgasmic till dawn. Superwoman is the adversary of the women’s movement,” says Gloria Steinem.

In the words of poet Mark Nepo, “our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world, but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet, and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable.”

Leia, Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley are heroines with their own very distinctive quest: to define and validate feminine values in the urn, the alembic, that contains intuition and empathy; courage and intellect. Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, and Roger Bannister, present a more nuanced manifestation of the Hero.

Says author and teacher, Gary Zukov , “The Old Male is limited to the perceptions of the five senses, evolves by surviving, and survives by pursuing external power… the New Male re-defines masculinity. He feels his emotions, consults intuition, laughs, cries, and shares himself easily, and looks for partner to grow with, spiritually.”

Some of us may aspire to become army generals or astronauts. Some of us may aspire to scale the Seven Summits.

Some of us aspire to watch our grandchildren play in safety, in the sunshine.

Cheryl Strayed writes, “you go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. You go on by being true. You go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on. You go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and by allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage”.

For some of us, an ordinary life lived with as much consciousness and courage we can muster, is heroic. Our quest is cyclical, not linear. And even though there are times when it takes every last spark of courage to unearth something positive, anything hopeful, to hold onto, we go on. And we do the best we can.

For private consultations or for more information about new workshops, please email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

For more regular updates on current astrological cycles, I post regularly on Facebook.

February 20, 2018 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Sun in Pisces—Rolling in the Deep—Mystic, Mélusine, Misfit

The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it—J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

Bruised clouds hang in bunches over the parched land, delivering thunder and lightning and a meagre measure of rain. Yet as river beds turn to dust in the wind, jasmine bursts, a froth of fragrant creamy white, from tight-coiled cerise buds. Eight months before spring.

Faith and Hope hold us airborne. There’s a life-force that spirals from struggle. Writer and civil rights activist, James Bladwin, says of Shakespeare’s life in Elizabethan England, “It is said that his time was easier than ours, but I doubt it—no time can be easy if one is living through it.”

Throughout human history, times of drought, plague, famine, flood, and myriad human atrocities have crushed civilizations. Yet from the shards of broken lives rise mystical visions and Marian apparitions. New perceptions perfume the air. From the confines of her monastery in the politically hazardous 11^th Century, Christian Mystic, Hildegard of Bingen wrote, “I am the fiery life of the essence of God; I am the flame above the beauty in the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. ” And as the Black Death scythed 50 million souls or more, in the 14th century, came this reassurance from Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” As we spiral through our ordinary life’s seasons amidst a maelstrom of political and climate change, magical thinking, practiced by shamans and visionaries for centuries, offers sustenance in our own difficult times.

There’s a sublime sensitivity, an innocent faith in the celestial sky-story this month. The Sun moved into the sign of Pisces on February 19^th, joining Mercury, Venus, Neptune, and Chiron in the unbounded depths of the sky. The Sun and the Moon consummate their union with the new Pisces Moon on March 17^th. 23494e332063871e31b4fcc990a16b4f

The Sun’s passage through Pisces awakens our yearnings, diffuses our dreams with dappled remembrances. It stirs our faith in the ineffable, the non-ordinary realms, bringing magic and wonderment to lives so often infused with a tincture of loss and longing. Pisces is associated with The Hanged Man in the Tarot, directing us as initiates to suspend our worldly concerns to turn our gaze inwards, shifting our perspective.

Planets that wear iridescent Piscean clothing offer strange tinctures of genius and madness. In the watery-logged realm of this archetype is a marshy Never Never Land surrounded by an ocean of dreams. Here Lost Boys and Lost Girls skip the light fandango, turn cartwheels ‘cross a sea floor scattered with the bones of those who lingered and languished in the deeps.

Faith and Belief are strung like precious pieces of coral around the Fishes’ tails. Jupiter, the traditional ruler of Pisces, is associated with “luck”. The kind of abundance we evoke by using affirmations as talismans to ward off the spectres of lack and loneliness that haunt us. “Buildings fall; even the earth perishes. What was yesterday a cornfield is to-day a bungalow,” wrote Virginia Woolf. Jupiter’s Wheel of Fortune spins for each one of us, oblivious to status and wealth, to prayers and affirmations or the amount of exercise we do.

Jupiter crossed the border into Scorpio in October 2017 and will turn retrograde on March 9^th at 23 degrees Scorpio. Jupiter in the sign of Scorpio stirs up dark sediment: the outing of sexual predators, the massacre of seventeen students on Valentine’s Day. Mars, the planet of war, and Jupiter, the planet of excess and amplification, are now in mutual reception before Mars changes sign on March 17^th. With Jupiter, be careful what we wish for.

43ff4608b3d5a7ce2c4ff73558b1e8c9 Neptune is the more elusive modern ruler of this amorphous sign. Neptune’s associations are born of the sea, carried in the deep roll of the waves by the Muse that inspires music and art, ecstatic intoxication, and slow wasting diseases that are impossible to define or to cure. Lodged in this archetype is our debt to eons of human history. A soulful yearning for redemption and transcendence. With Neptune comes necessary sacrifice, carried for us all by the gory image of a crucified Christ and a dismembered Dionysus.

Neptune, turns a ghostly face to our human need to hold onto those things we love, to keep things just as they are. We learn that everything is transient. That what we hold on to too tightly, fades into nothingness. Writes mystic and poet, John O’ Donohue, “transience makes a ghost out of each experience. There was never a dawn that did not drop down into noon, never a noon which did not fade into evening, and never an evening that did not get buried in the graveyard of the night…” Still we search, like children on a pebbled beach, for miracles and wonder. We discover “synchronicities” that shape our sense of reality. We hold the flame of faith that things will be better as we welcome new presidents, new Father-Redeemers to lead us to the Promised Land.

So, come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!―J.M Barrie

For workshops and private consultations, please email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

January 23, 2018 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Saturn—Pluto Co-presence—An Ode to Love

lovers 32 This Valentine’s Day, millions of people will demonstrate through chocolates, music and flowers, their longing to love and be loved. “Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved”, writes author Alain de Botton.

To be seen, fully seen by our lover emboldens and ennobles us. The power of love plucks us out of our literal life into the full-throated drama of our fantasy, flings off our inhibitions, invites us to create a-new. Yet, the course of love in the digital age is perilous: we’re ghosted, benched, and bread-crumbed. We’re executed with one lethal swipe. There’s absolutely nothing we can do or say to make someone love us―to treat us with kindness―to engage. Concealed within the seductive scent of a scarlet rose, the soft sentiment of Teddy Bear, love coils and cools, neglected and betrayed. Kristen Roupenian’s highly acclaimed short story, Cat Person, is chilling rendition of the arc of relating in our adolescent culture. With the callous flick of a finger, a tender human heart crushed, a connection cruelly cauterised. The technological revolution has got everyone talking, yet so few of us have the courtesy to listen, the skill to empathise. Love amputated by ridicule and disdain aches like a phantom limb years after the bond has been irrevocably severed. wings 6

The astrology of these next five years (as Saturn moves through Capricorn and then through Aquarius) eloquently portrays the flavour of fin de siècle: a closing of an era exemplified by the events of the 1980s. Saturn’s co-presence with Pluto in the sign of Capricorn—December 20^th 2017—December 2020—mines Collective and personal trauma that may offer, for some of us, a creative impetus to work through noxious legacies, to stoically endure a world that is falling apart as we learn to love with all our hearts.

passageway The archetype of Saturn is redolent of prisons. Pluto is accompanied by a primal, shadowy fear that’s hard-wired in every living creature. Pluto is life and death. Pluto is survival. Tapping into the core scene of the Saturn/Pluto energy of this time, Hard Sun, the pre-apocalyptic BBC drama, depicts a world that faces certain destruction in five years. It’s a prophetic vision of love and survival that resonates with the zeitgeist of Pluto in Saturn’s sign.

The eclipses that fall like hailstones on January 31^st, February 15^th, July 13^th and 27^th and August 11^th, puncture our birth chart, stir fresh opportunities to re-calibrate, to flush out contaminated old stories. Pluto irradiates Saturn: Traumas of the past are made manifest. Now we must plumb a toxic legacy more consciously. Now we must question those predigested ideas, examine formulaic rules that have no place in a spiritual partnership or a new world order.

Mars changes sign on January 26^th, and as he moves from Scorpio into Sagittarius, from water into fire, we may feel an infusion of vivifying red, a new impetus to love bravely and honestly that releases us from the prison of fear and conditioning. Mars will be travelling through Sagittarius until March 17^th. This Jupiter-ruled sign is associated with faith and optimism. Love lives in the imaginal realm of our soul, and like Santa and the Easter Bunny, authentic love comes to only those who truly believe.

On February 11^th, Venus moves from Aquarius to Pisces. She joins Neptune on February 22^nd, amplifying the Piscean flavour of the intoxicating sweetness of that first kiss embossed on a silver cord of memory that reverberates across the bars of a song. Neptune is associated with illusion and delusion, with the pain of longing, the exquisite eroticism of an idealised love enshrined in the sugary commercialism of Valentine’s Day. Romantic love is a multi-million-dollar Bolly-Hollywood illusion that mirrors our collective longing back to us from the silver screen. The glittering grandeur of star-spangled romance leaves us breathless, aching for more.

“Illusion” is derived from the Latin, “in ludere,” which is translated as “in play.” And when our world-weary souls expand in joyful play, our lives are graced with “illusions” that may enfold us and protect us from “reality” which may be a mere stand-in for an authentic life.
By your Side 100

Our challenge, as we navigate this end time, is to balance caution and mature wisdom with compassion. To cherish the precious fire-fly of Romantic love. To remember that when we ghost, freeze or bench someone, we wound a tender human heart.

A love that lasts requires a Saturnian back bone: the resilience to stay the course as passion wanes, flickers, and re-ignites. Love in the time of Saturn demands maturity and wisdom, and the courage to expand our hearts and clear our heads of the clutter that belongs to someone else.

Expect to be moonstruck by the image of beauty in the one you Love. And in the quiet darkness of the new Aquarian Moon on February 15^th let Love press itself deeply into your heart.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty—Leonard Cohen.

Join me in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, Saturday, April 28th, 2018 for a day devoted to the sibling constellation in our birth chart: Bonded By Blood. Email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

loving couple

January 8, 2018 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Miracles and Wonder—Light and the Dark of the Moon January 2018

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down—Toni Morrison

The first month of the calendar year, is named in honour of Janus, two-headed god of thresholds.

“This year will be better…” we say hopefully, perhaps as a talisman to ward off the aftertaste of the year gone by. As the effervescent bubbles of New Year’s Eve flatten into the sober days of January and we minister to the minutiae of our daily lives Fate may enter softly through the open door, catching us unprepared. She brings news that that skids and spins us off the smooth tarmac of your carefully scheduled New Year planner. 6b6a23914dceb57b5308f1808a99e48b
“God never gives us more than we can handle”, is the trite knee-jerk response to desperate calamities and unspeakable suffering that so many endure. A visit to a psychiatric hospital, a war zone, the trauma unit in your local hospital, witnessing an execution on You Tube, makes me question what kind of god who would gift us with this kind of suffering.

The uncomprehending stare of a young mother’s eyes when she is told her child has died, a young man paralysed from the waist after diving into an azure pool one hot summer’s day, the black dog of depression that gnaws at so many, trapped in a snare of excruciating loneliness and loss.

63bb2d49cd6977e9cd095104c19e7230 For many of us this year, we will have to bow our heads to the necessity of getting out of bed each day and finding something to be truly grateful for. We will yoke ourselves to the inevitability of change: children who leave home, a lover who no longer loves us, a dear friend who moves far away, a beloved parent who now needs the same vigilant caring as a toddler. As we eat of the bitter herb, may we know that there is milk and honey also, in the acceptance of things as they are.

Our ancestors lived close to the cycles of the seasons, the rhythm of Life. During the unrelenting grip of famine or displacement by war, flood or fire, they walked with the primordial goddess of Necessity. She was Ananke, also called Force or Constraint, she was mother to three daughters, the Moirai, the Fates. As omniscient goddess of all circumstance, greatly respected by mortals and gods, it was she who ruled the pattern of the life line of threads of inevitable, irrational, fated events in our lives. Ananke determined what each soul had chosen for its lot to be necessary—not as an accident, not as something good or bad, but as something necessary to be lived, endured, experienced. Necessity has been outcast in our mechanistic material culture where we, in our hubris and our self-inflation, actually believe that are all powerful—we can fix, manifest, cut away, or buy our way out of any mess we make.
1e64214c60f641fd56a4da1dd54af859 Ananke is an ancient goddess, and the resonance of her name has its tap root in the ancient tongues of the Chaldean, Egyptian, the Hebrew, for “narrow,” “throat”, “strangle” and the cruel yokes that were fastened around the necks of captives. Ananke always takes us by the throat, imprisons, enslaves, and stops us in our tracks, for a while. There is no escape. She is unyielding, and it is we who must excavate from the depths of our being, our courage, tenacity, and acceptance of what is.

This New Year, Necessity may lay her hand on a defining moment in your life. The ending of a love affair, the barren womb, the not-so-exciting job that pays the bills. She may still the tug-o’-war of the heart’s calling, block the mind’s plan, and fasten the collar around our neck. There may be no escape, except a shift in perception, and the courage to accept that which cannot be otherwise and a resilience to stay the course and just do it. Author, Doris Lessing once said, “whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”

The astrological signature this month accentuates persistence, discipline, and realism. The quiet dignity of commitment. The promises we keep. The words we honour. Mercury changes sign on January 11th, joining the Sun, Saturn, Venus and Pluto in Capricorn. And the month of January is bound by a pair of full-bellied Moons that hang melon-ripe, luscious in the night sky. They nudge so close to our earth that they appear larger, brighter than usual. American astrologer, Richard Nolle, coined the term Supermoon, in 1979, and symbolically these Moons amplify and illuminate those areas in our lives, casting their silvery luminescence on what might have been obscured or denied. On January 2nd, at the threshold of this new year, the Cancer Moon nestled protectively close to her sister Earth as we shrugged off the old year to gaze with hopeful eyes upon the pristine newness of the year ahead. This Moon was a harbinger of the total lunar eclipse on January 31st, at 12 degrees Leo. Observe the interplay of the elements—fire and water, yin and yang. The contrast in the terrain of the landscape this month might be a template for the choices we must make to fly as we let go those things that weigh us down, or stoically accept that things are as they are for now. Leo is associated with spontaneity, with self-expression and with courage.
This lunar eclipse is the first of the eclipse season this year, the next lunar eclipse occurs on 27th/28th July five degrees Aquarius.

As the shadow of our Earth sweeps across the face of the Moon she grows darker. Imagine how our ancestors would have observed the goddess growing darker, redder, or paling into blue, depending on the amount of dust in our atmosphere—a sign, an omen.

Modern astrologers tend to agree that eclipses are wild cards, and the effects are unpredictable, though solar eclipses tend to be externalised and lunar eclipses are subtler, more internal, often related to the past, to our emotions and perceptions.

Poet and novelist, Ben Okri writes, “bad things will happen, and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So, taste your grief to the fullest. Don’t try and press it down. Don’t hide from it. Don’t escape. It is Life too. It is truth. But it will pass, and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That’s the way life goes.”

As we honour Necessity, we can choose which threads and which colours we wish to weave into the cloth of our lives. We can discover the Miracle in the suffering, we can taste the strange honey in the bitterness of our grief as we feel what needs to be felt—in the light and in the dark of the Moon. 0000e417_medium

December 18, 2017 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Hard Facts―Saturn in Capricorn December 20th 2017―22nd March, 2020.

“One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “ Another Christmas has come and gone, and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books” ―J. K Rowling.

Another Christmas has come, packaged with nostalgia, wrapped in the comfort of custom, tied up with tradition. Paper hats and crackers, fir trees and festive extravagances, redolent with the smell of our grandmother’s brandy-soaked pudding.

Without a backward glance, Saturn moves into its own sign of Capricorn on December 20^th, and will remain in Capricorn until March 21—22^nd 2020. There’s something about this ingress that feels sure-footed and determined to get ahead with the task at hand as Saturn moves resolutely to unite with the Sun on the solstice on December 21st. Venus joins the Capricorn line- up on December 25th in a statement of celestial artistry redolent of boardrooms and cigars, power dressing, getting down to business.

There’s a serious overlay to our earthly festivities this December as we face into the practicalities of facing into a period of increasing austerity and hard facts. secrets 2

We’re living in a time where chunks of polar ice fall into the sea, Californian homes and forests burn, deadly drones dive from dark skies and Big Brother is watches every move we make. Collectively, personally, the very bed rock of our existence is being cracked open by greed and the admonishment to “consume” without any notion that all of Life is interconnected. “We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature,” wrote poet John O’Donohue.

Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism comments grimly, “the world we are creating is an ADD-ridden flat land.” And Chamath Palihapitiya, former vice-president for user growth at Facebook, writes “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.”

Traditional astrologers associate the archetype of Saturn with limitation, adversity, restriction. Saturn is the celestial accountant who asks us to take stock of our lives, and who brings a timely reality check. Perhaps, for some of us, a stoic acceptance of those things we simply cannot change.

Saturn was in Capricorn during the Great Depression of the late 20s and early 30s, again as Fidel Castro marched to power in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and once again as the intractable Iron Curtain shattered in 1988.

Saturn is associated with law and order, and over the coming months we may see defenses mobilised, stronger bulwarks against anarchy and chaos. The draw bridge goes up to protect a new order. In myth, Saturn, Chronos, devoured his offspring. The symbolism is chilling. Alice Walker writes, “the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Through our own rigidity, resistance, through fear and defensiveness, we may devour and disown our power and creative potential to birth something new. castle 1

The United Kingdom’s 1801 chart has the Sun in the sign of Capricorn, and as society there has become increasingly fragmented, the anxiety unleashed has manifested as the blight that is Brexit as the super-rich become the new kings and queens sealed from the common people in glittering Shards, riding the waves in enormous yachts.

Saturnian control, restraint, self-possession, and persistence, are boring and unwelcome guests in solar world where we’re shining like the sun, always having fun, where every day is a “nice day.” Daphne Rose Kingma writes, “The power of persistence is required especially when we’re dealing with intense, emotionally devastating circumstances or bunches of hugely difficult things that have stacked up all at once. When you’re facing a diagnosis of Graves’ disease, a taxi accident, and the imminent death of your sister, and your boyfriend has just moved to Japan, you will definitely need to call on persistence.”

Saturn has an affinity with the archetype of Capricorn, and if we choose, we can use this energy wisely to manifest goals, to firm up commitments.

We may have to vigorously tame our thoughts, release hoary old habits, rusty old grudges that keep us trapped like the Tin Man in armour that crushes our hearts. We may need to examine our lives scrupulously and ask if we are adding more aggression and self-centredness into the Field, and take ownership of our sloppy behaviour. We may need to pray for the courage to put our soul in charge of our life.

“We may not be comfortable, but we will be awake and aware and fully alive,” says Prema Chodron, author of Taking the Leap and When Things Fall Apart.

Perhaps, it’s in silence of this holy night, as we unwrap yet another practical pair of socks in the presence of our loved ones, that we can be open to embrace the energy of this sacred moment as our Sun stands still.

“And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory,” activist Howard Zinn declares.

As we seriously commit to making our world a better place, the wise words of Carl Sagan envelop the zeitgeist of Saturn in Capricorn these next years, “better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”

Perhaps, it’s in silence, in the dark of the moon this solstice that we can be fully awake and in tune with the interconnectedness of all living things. In the pause, in the gap, in the space between the ceaseless chatter that we can be open and touch the energy of the moment.

Through the dark clouds that gather, we can glimpse the silver lining.

11455280c38918223dd3d4e33b357f01

December 5, 2017 In Astrology, Relationship, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Thinking makes it so―Mercury Retrograde―December 3rd to December 24th

4ea64aed0f9de5ea2594e99b4f4e0b66

“What time has ever been a simple time for those who are living it?” asks author Elizabeth Gilbert in her novel, Committed. And yet, as news rushes through the tendrils of technology, flooding our nervous systems, squatting for days and weeks in our divided minds, this time, for most of us living in it, is knotted with perplexing complexity and information overload. The old ways are not working any longer yet for so many of us, nothing seems clear or certain in a world where plastic grows like a cancer in our oceans and human populations bloom like algae. Where what seemed sure and certain empties into the unknown.

On December 3rd, Mercury began its last Retrograde cycle for this year (December 3rd-24th.)

In the nuanced language of astrology, the planets describe the quality of experience we assimilate and express. A Retrograde Mercury asks us to be patient and tenacious in the face of delays or obstacles, and amidst the ceaseless clamorous chatter, to “remember what peace there may be in silence.”

Patience and the commitment are carelessly tossed aside in the distractions of the times we live in. Yet in the North, Nature withdraws, retires inwards and waits patiently for spring’s Resurrection. Colours empty into shades of grey and stark skeletal branches pierce through the low lidded sky. In the South, shards of sunlight shatter the blue-sky dome with a radiance that saturates the secret life of rocks and trees. Shimmering light sweeps across the ocean sprinkling daubs of dancing silver over the crests of the waves, rendering us drunk with light, satiated with heat, immobilised, enervated. Time quivers and expands. 2370c600ab2525602f92996176404e54

This time of the year may bring endings, the potential of new beginnings. It may bring the polarity of choice that skewers us in indecision.

Between the retraction of Winter or the swelter of Summer, the way forward may not yet be clear. We may have to be still. We may have to wait.

Astrological Mercury embodies eons of symbolism that can be traced to the Babylonian, Chaldean, Egyptian mythology and religious systems. A strongly placed Mercury in your birth chart enhances your ability to be humorous and charming. Mercury is the teacher, the comedian, the net worker, the communicator, the trickster who brings lightness and laughter and a new perspective to our world. Mercury is also associated with Thoth, the Egyptian god of healing and fertility and it is with our words that we can heal, with our words that we can birth new possibilities.

The Retrograde cycle of Mercury occurs three times every year and moves through the elements of fire, air, earth and water, in a procession across the zodiac, alerting us the rhythm of inner reflection that is needed for a more conscious experience of living. Mercury’s realm is magical trans-formation. He was the god of cross-roads and times of transition. Mercury was the only god who travelled back and forth from the Underworld.

Mercury is an important planet in our birth chart, signifying how we access information from the unconscious as we silence the chatter of our mind. In these Mercury Retrograde cycles, our perceptions may shift, igniting the creative process, birthing brilliant ideas.

Right now, we are all, on some level, experiencing a Mercury Retrograde cycle in the fiery sign of Sagittarius, which is a sign associated with our beliefs about the world. Sagittarius is about expanding our awareness, learning something new, perceiving with new eyes.

fire-2837843_960_720 Mercury harmonises its energy with Saturn (November 28^th December 9^th and again from January 11th 15^th) and as this calendar year hurries to an end, we may feel a sense of moving through treacle, sucked down by obstacles when everything around us is moving so fast. As Saturn and Mercury, hang low in the molten evening skies, there’s a deeper message contained here, said so simply by the Buddhist monk, Haemin Sunim: When everything around me is moving so fast, I stop and ask, “is it the world that’s busy, or is it my mind?”

Saturn is often connected with the law of karma and Mercury is about our perception. When these two energies combine in the heavens we return to the inner sanctum of our thoughts, that very private, personal space where linear time dissolves. We may choose to revisit the past, to follow the sweet scent of nostalgia to rest in unchangeable memories of someone we loved with all our heart. We may decide to clear away a tenacious thought that clings like a burr, repelling our peace in the still dark hours just before the dawn.

“Don’t let the hand you hold hold you down,” wrote the poet, Julia de Burgos. The simplicity of this statement may have a resonance for those of us who still hold the hand of an old hurt, a fearful thought, a limiting core belief.

“Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” said the Bard. Nothing exists until we become aware of it. It’s the awareness of our minds that births the world we see into being. It’s our perception that makes the time we live in simple, or painfully fraught. All it takes is a conscious shift in perception to see a new world, a promised land, a world where we can anchor in Faith, trust in the process of Life itself. “Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature”, says Thich Nhat Hanh.

3ff8b87dfdae59ca145c6e7a23d5fc0b Today, let’s bring new vision, self-reflection, and healing to our thoughts and to the words we speak. Today, let’s be mindful that we do have a choice to re-write our signature, clearly and simply.