Astrology

May 29, 2022 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Double-Edged Swords—New Gemini Moon—May 30th

Buddhist monk, Haemin Sunim once asked, “When everything around me is moving so fast, I stop and ask, is it the world that’s busy, or is it my mind?”

The Sun and the Moon in changeable Gemini join in the skies tonight. New Moons are dark times and Gemini signifies both radiant light and unfathomable darkness. In a world that certainly does seem to be moving so fast, we may need to pause today to try to take it all in.

Mercurial Gemini is as changeable as the wind, as restless as our minds that dart and dance; as active as our imagination. Imagination is what we may need now in the darkness of this New Moon, as capricious Gemini escorts us into the month of June and Putin’s imperial aspirations reset the world order.

The double-edged sword suit in the Tarot signifies the logos of the intellect represented by the air signs. Gemini is the great communicator, and Mercury-ruled Gemini communicates with words that wound through arrogance or ignorance, or words that heal and unite. At this New Moon we become aware of the power of our words, the consequences of our choices.

Mercury has been moving Retrograde since May 11^th and turns direct on June 3^rd. The two weeks before, and after, retrograde happens is considered the shadow period when Mercury is still reflective, urging us to slow down, reconsider, shift perception, try another way through. Astrology is not reductive, yet sometime the symbolism can be interpreted quite literally. Mercury encompasses trade and transport, quite literally, airlines cancelled flights at short notice during this Retrograde cycle. Mercury Retrograde times are not ideal for political elections, yet Labour Anthony Albanese’s (Pisces Sun and possible Moon in Gemini depending on his birth time) retrograde influenced, drawn out victory may signify Australia (the world’s third biggest exporter of fossil fuels) acting on renewable energy. 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. “Words are like cloths, with which one dresses the world,” writes James Krüss. In these Mercury Retrograde cycles, our perceptions may shift, igniting the creative process, birthing brilliant ideas. 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, which in modern times can be interpreted as the unconscious.

Retrograde Mercury squares Saturn as May hurries to an end. 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 feel a sense of moving through treacle, sucked down by obstacles when everything around us is moving so fast as Saturn and Mercury meet in molten evening skies. Yet, there’s a deeper message contained here, said so simply by the poet, Julia de Burgos. “Don’t let the hand you hold hold you down.” 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.

The heat is on as Mars (blood lust, war) and Jupiter (inflation, grandiosity) travel in tandem through the skies. Grandiose Jupiter moved into Aries with a heated rush on May 11^th, followed by a combustible Moon/Mars conjunction in Aries on May 25^th as a gunman released his rage and impotence on 19 school children and two teachers at Robb Elementary school in Texas. This volatile combination of planets symbolises an escalation of conflict in Ukraine, as energy builds for more violent attacks, torture, and kidnapping, as well as the courage and indominable will to survive. Nataliya Gumenyuk, writing in the Guardian, describes how people are placing bouquets of lilac and bunches of daffodils next to every mattress of those who have been sleeping in the Heroiv Pratsi metro station in Kharkiv, for three months.

The ongoing horror of the war in Ukraine now means that grains and oil seeds are scarce; prices are rising, making food rationing in the wealthy west a possibility and famine and mass migration in those countries where people are already living in desperate poverty, a certainty. Ceres, ancient goddess of grain and harvest, is moving through the sign of Cancer (nourishment, safety, comfort, home), reflecting what Gemini poet Federico García Lorca, names as the canto hondo, the deep song of the world. 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.

Here, in the north, the earth turns her face to the light. Newly shorn fields shimmer in the sunlight like the glossy coat of a palomino, and the hedgerows are now flushed with fuchsia foxgloves. 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.

This New Moon may accompany an ending that enfolds an unborn beginning. We may be facing a difficult choice that skewers us in indecision, or a sudden realisation that brings clarity as we shrug off those conditioned beliefs that have threaded through our lives for far too long. Patience and commitment are carelessly tossed aside in the distractions of the times we live in. Yet, spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle says simply, “if you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.”

Please get in touch with me if you would like a private astrology reading; ingrid@trueheartwork.com

May 11, 2022 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Crimson Moon—Lunar Eclipse—May 16th.

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bed was more painful than the risk it took to blossom—Anaïs Nin.

In the north, an artist’s palette of green thrusts skywards, a glorious celebration of summer’s full flowering extravagance. As the slow circles of nature accustom us to the changing seasons, the sky is changing too.

On May 15-16^th, depending on where you live, a crimson Full Moon Lunar Eclipse moves silently through the shadow of our Earth. This Lunar Eclipse (Scorpio 25°) has been titled Blood Moon, as dust particles from the Earth spill scarlet pigment over the face of the moon. The Earth’s shadow darkens the Moon two or four times each year during the Eclipse season. As the Moon drifts away from the Earth (about 4 centimetres every year) lunar eclipses will be become rarer, and if humanity survives global warming and climate change, these spectacular moments will be relegated to our collective memory. Eclipses may accompany those fork in the road choices when there’s no turning back to the way we were. We might be sitting in the symbolic darkness of a difficult choice, patiently waiting for news after a job interview that will change the tragectory of our life, or poised to leave a relationship that has become pot-bound, the roots entangled in a painful knot, our armoured hearts showing no mercy.

May’s Scorpio Moon embodies a fated quality as she aligns with Saturn (fate, accountability, responsibility, authority) by square, a reminder that change, becoming conscious, requires stamina and commitment. The effects are felt most strongly on the day if an eclipse drops into your birth chart, or the chart of a nation, sensitising a planet, and very often Eclipse symbolism may be strongly felt within two weeks on either side of the eclipse.This Lunar Eclipse conjoins Saturn and the Midheaven and squares Mars/Jupiter in Queen Elizabeth’s Saturn-ruled birth chart suggesting the mobility issues and an end to her long reign as Monarch. It may be helpful to notice what unfolds in our own lives and in worldly events between now and the New Moon on May 30^th (9° Gemini.)

In ancient astrology, Scorpio was The Serpent that shed its skin, renewed itself. The Serpent was the symbol of healing, associated with ancient snake goddesses and oracles who possessed the gift of prophetic sight. In modern times, the archetype of Scorpio carries with it a primal energy that carries the force of trans-formation as we let go of those things that no longer serve us, amputate those parts of our lives that are beginning to rot.

Recreating a new life from the ashes of the old one is a soul craft that requires patience, skill, and compassion. This may mean searching for the roots of the lotus flower in the dross of circumstance. Jungian analyst, Jean Shinoda Bolen (who has a Scorpio Moon natally) draws us into Scorpio’s terrain when she declares, “nobody gets through life without a degree of suffering or betrayal or illness or loss. The question is, every time that dark quality comes into our lives, what do we do? How do we respond?… What have we learned? How can we grow through this…”

This Scorpio Full Moon Eclipse may deliver concentrated wisdom in that comes concealed in the bruised bewilderment of a relationship ending, a careless action that has caused us great pain. It might be helpful to remember the Zeigarnik effect – which postulates that the human brain remembers those things that are interrupted or incomplete more easily. Those “open tabs” that draw us back again and again to an encounter an event in the past. Our brain, our heart, our soul, our body quite literally ache when things are left incomplete, unbound by the balm of ritual, still-born, buried alive. Technology focuses energy on ourselves. As we engage with our devices, less facial gaze dulls our empathy, our ability to read social cues. In the West, studies show there has been a precipitous decrease in empathy levels in young adults. Modern dating is consumerism, with apps that offer myriad possibilities for tenuous connections that so often lack boundaries, deep respect, or good manners as there is always someone better, more attractive, just one swipe away.

On May 10^th, Mercury, moving through loquacious Gemini, begins his backward dance, moving Retrograde and dipping briefly into Taurus on May 23^rd, returning to Gemini again on June 3^rd. The archetype of The Twins accompanies choice and duality. “Every action and every word carries a consequence, writes intuitive healer,” Caroline Myss. Mercury Retrograde in communicative Gemini presents an opportunity to do some inner house cleaning, evaluate our beliefs, our choices, our boundaries and consider how our words and actions may land in the heart of another.

This Retrograde cycle occurs in the middle of the unpredictable trajectory of the Eclipse season and coincides with Jupiter’s entry into Aries on May 11^th as pandemic protocols and prohibitions ease, sandy beaches and margaritas entice holiday makers away from routine and responsibilities. Jupiter inflates, expands, and amplifies and in Aries this could mean that our challenge may be committing to something, seeing it through.

In the Spring of 2021, The New York Times coined the term, the You Only Live Once Economy, the YOLO Economy, which describes Jupiter’s exuberant race through Aries this year and next. Sex Therapist Esther Perel reminds us, “historically we have asked the question am I happy here? Today we ask the question, could I be happier somewhere else?” We may naively equate Jupiter with “luck” and “good fortune”, forgetting that grandiose Jupiter is fickle and self-serving. As we emerge from more than two years of social atrophy, the sheer volume of opportunities to enjoy ourselves is tantalising. Our appetite for pleasure heightened by a release (in some countries) from the collective fear and powerlessness within the tribal mind, which activated that primitive part of our brain wired for survival, shifting energy from the prefrontal cortex, that part of the brain that registers compassion and empathy. Jupiter in Aries could symbolise a heated rush of self-focus, grandiosity; or courageous, self-willed efforts to seize the day and reinvent our lives.

Please get in touch if you would like a personal astrology consultation or to find out more about forthcoming webinars: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

April 29, 2022 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Under a Violet Moon—Solar Eclipse, Taurus New Moon—April 30th

There is no place so awake and alive as the edge of becoming—Sue Monk Kidd.

There are times when we need to return to the Earth, to the steady presence of trees, the song of a river’s flow, where we can return once more to a place of beginning. This weekend, the Moon withdraws into the darkness, slipping between the familiar body of the Earth and the fierce light of the Sun, inviting us to silence the mind, resonate to the heartbeat of the earth’s awakening.

The union of the Sun and the Moon symbolise the sacred embrace of the archetypal masculine and feminine, and this New Moon coincides with the ancient festival of Beltane, halfway between the spring equinox and the mid-summer solstice. Now the world bursts into bloom.

This is the time when the Queen of the May arrives in a cloud of floral fragrance. Bluebells, cobalt carpets unfurl across the woodlands. Ribbons of whitethorn thread emerald meadows into a velvety patchwork. Bonfires blaze from the hilltops sprinkled with golden buttercups. Bright ribbons and frayed clooties hang from the trees at holy wells.

Out of the belly of the earth, a surge of life emerges. And above, this New Moon in Taurus invites us to draw down, to focus on our senses, to dig our hands into the earth, plant seeds that will grow.

New Moons speak of fertile new beginnings, they signify those edges of becoming that make us feel young, alive again. Author Anne Lamott adds, “how do you begin? The answer is simple. You decide to.”

Our ancestors knew of the power of these natural rhythms that circled back to the same moment, reigniting the same intention, drawing from the grooves of ancient rituals worn deep by repetition. Just like the cycles of the Moon, the four cross quarter festivals weave past and future with a charge that holds us steady, binds us to those things that matter.

Like all astrological archetypes, Taurus is layered with older associations that draw us across the story lines of the ages, to the moist fertile flood plains of ancient rivers that spilled their life-giving waters and watered the origins of humankind.

For centuries, sacred cows with iconic, crescent-shaped horns have been bound to the symbolism of the Moon. An astrological cliché associates Taurus with money, and it is on this energetic terrain that we so often feel empowered/disempowered, lacking, or abundant.

Where Taurus is in our birth chart is where we must work the ground, plant the seeds of our gifts and talents, learn how to manage our resources of kindness, bravery, presence. Yet the skies are dark at New Moon times, a celestial reminder that we must learn to see in the blackness, wait patiently until the slim crescent appears.

This is a special New Moon as it accompanies a partial solar eclipse and heralds the start of an eclipse season that will sprinkle the weeks and months till October 25^th. In our brightly lit world, eclipses no longer deliver the visceral jolt they did in times when the world became dark, and the life-giving Sun vanished. In ancient times, eclipses foretold of the deaths of Kings, winters of discontent; they accompanied war, famine, disease, and floods. The root word is the Greek “ekleipsis” which can be translated as a failure to appear, an abandonment, or a leaving of an accustomed place.

This partial solar eclipse belongs to a family of eclipses that pertain to our own authority and authority figures. During this eclipse (a week before and after) we may be compelled to yet again to confront those sacred cows that perpetuate dissonant cultural myths that arose out of ignorance and denial. We can refuse to participate in the toxic negativity that pervades social media. We can look at ways we abandon ourselves when we allow others to overstep our boundaries, challenge our authority. Eclipses act like wild cards as they drop into our birth charts or into the charts of nations, catapulting us from our place of comfort, taking us to the edge. Eclipses that conjoin planets set new directions in our lives, suddenly change our perspective, confront us with choices that invite us to be more attentive to our soul. This eclipse will activate our Taurus house and any planet at 10° Taurus.

The Taurus Sun and Moon also connect iconoclastic Uranus, planet associated with Prometheus the trickster Titan who stole fire from the gods in myth. Uranus shatters the status quo, reveals gaping fissures in those things we believed to be safe and sure.

As Uranus moves through Taurus (2018-2026) we have been jolted by circumstances that have altered our course, we have crypto currencies that gobble fossil fuels as we reach the end of the fossil fuel era, financial crises that have altered our course. Uranus, like the Tower card in the Tarot, represents a toppling of a structure, a breakdown, a breakthrough, that shatters and shocks us into a new realisation, releasing a renewing surge of energy from the heavens.

At this time of emergence, we may not feel quite ready to emerge, to bravely step onto new ground, yet this New Moon is charged with the grace of new beginnings. So go back to the garden and feel the warm pulse of the earth this weekend. Unplug from the peremptory dictates of technology and go within.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you—Anne Lamott.

For private astrology session or to find out more about workshops and webinars, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

April 12, 2022 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Fierce Grace—Full Libra Moon—April 16th.

In quietness are all things answered—A Course in Miracles.

As the pulse of spring quickens and the hedgerows blaze with white blossom, a soft circle Full Moon spills a blessing on the Earth this holy week. This is the season of emergence. Bluebells, wild garlic, primroses and slender stalked daffodils raise their faces to the light as nesting birds sing the sacred rituals of Pesach and Easter into being. We may feel porous, thin-skinned, as an invisible virus continues to circulate, while cities are reduced to ashes, lives broken. And we watch.

The tide is high this week, as expansive Jupiter and ethereal Neptune unite in Pisces sweeping through the Collective, breaching borders, bathing our dream time with images of refugees. Other-worldly Neptune is associated with illusive intangible abstractions like grace and faith. Yet we can be blind-sided by seductive Neptune’s promise of redemption, naively lured into believing what we want to believe as we swim through the muddy waters of media where the refrain of misinformation and propaganda merge as this chilling quote often attributed to Joseph Goebbles reminds us: “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”. Saturn’s ingress into Pisces in 2023 may bring a sobering glimpse of the extent of our magical thinking, the real price of our illusions.

The luminous alignment of Jupiter/ Neptune infuses the Collective all through 2022, and the once-in-a-lifetime confluence when both planets meet at 24 ° Pisces is on April 12^th, embracing the whole Zodiac for a brief moment in time.

Seductive Neptune stirs our emotions, sprinkles our imagination with star dust. Neptune blindsides us with glamour and magic, tantalises us with Utopian dreams. Jupiter, the astrological ruler of profligate Sagittarius and diffuse Pisces, is an archetype so often imbued with a tincture of loss and longing. Despite our prayers, despite our positive affirmations, the veils of illusion are washed away in unspeakable grief, we’re sucked into the belly of the whale.

Jupiter is the roll of the fickle dice, the ever-spinning Wheel of Fortune. In myth, Jupiter didn’t stay around long, he was always off, chasing the next conquest, taking what he wanted, when he wanted to, just because he could. The shadow that stretches behind Jupiter’s cheery positivity is self-absorbed grandiosity, a cavalier entitlement, which may be highlighted this year as themes of Dionysian excess, sacrifice and suffering play out on the world stage and perhaps in the events of our own lives.

Watery Neptune, god of the oceans riding in tandem with fickle Jupiter in shape-shifting Pisces may bring more hysteria, illusion, delusion, or an outpouring of compassion in the wake of another extreme weather event, or re-emergence of contagion that washes away our hubris. What is being asked of us now as individuals may seem shrouded in events and circumstances we can’t comprehend as we journey across a foggy sea to a destination we can’t yet see. As Neptune swims with Jupiter this year, we can drown, or we can surrender and float on the currents of this collective sea-change.

Themes of power-over, powerlessness, secrecy, and control, will surface as Pluto begins its five-month Retrograde cycle on April 29^th . The tide turns in economies as cunning Plutocrats scramble for higher ground and our personal and Collective Shadow stretches across stormy seas.

This month’s Libran Full Moon reflects the fierce light of an Aries Sun, forming an uncompromising and challenging square to Pluto (intense confrontations, destructive behaviours, toxic relating) symbolising the intensity of our times, the torture, rape and mass murder in Ukraine. On a personal level, this Full Moon may expose our deeply buried feelings, or shadowy behaviour like domestic violence, othering, jealousy, toxic power struggles in our relationships. The trine to Mars and Saturn offers opportunities for accountability, radical self-love, and a deep healing of our internal reality. As we hold the tension of opposites with Aries (self) and Libra (other) this Full Moon will reflect the state of our relationships, the bonds of love and loyalty that hold us tight, or the untethered ambiguity of those casual encounters that so easily tilt and topple. Full Moons are faithful companions in the circle of the month, harbingers of light as we return more fully to what really matters―the beauty in the ordinary things, Grace that glimmers through the darkness as we breathe out and let it be.

In the metaphorical language of astrology, the Libran part of our own birth chart will be illuminated at this Full Moon time as we practice the challenging art of relating to others in an uncertain world. Aries is the beginning, Pisces the end. Libra is midway, a crossroads where the old converges with the new, where the winds of change blow across our lives, exposing the roots, bringing us closer to ourselves, and to others in safe relationships where oxytocin and vasopressin activate parts of the brain associated with calm.

“I know that hope is the hardest love to carry,” writes Jane Hirshfield in her exquisite poem, Hope and Love. The essence of Libra brings harmony to polarities, offers a possibility to let go of the melodrama, to transcend the personal, and touch the heart of another with hope.

At this Full Moon, we offer the warmth and containment of a blessing to the world and those around us. As we bow our heads to our hearts, may we feel lighter, may we notice the grace and beauty in ordinary things. For those who will be celebrating Pesach, Easter or Ēostre, this from poet and mystic, John O’ Donohue: May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

For private astrology sessions or to find out more about forthcoming webinars, please connect by email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

March 31, 2022 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Still I Rise—New Moon in Aries—April 1st.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise—Maya Angelou.

There are many ways to be brave in this world, to rise again with hopes springing high. As we wear our bravest smile and take the hand of a loved one whose light is dimming, courage is concealed in those seemingly inconsequential choices that flutter like monarch butterflies into a world where nothing is certain.

As most of the world now waits for a glimmer of hope in Ukraine, the New Moon in Aries invites us to begin again, to take that leap forward, to find ourselves anew. Aries marks a point of Beginning, which may be a lonely journey into the unknown. In Aries we encounter the mythic motif of conquest, which always implies an act of bravery and daring. Here we meet the mythic “Warrior” who sets off on a quest, the “Hero” who personifies courage and assertiveness. The leader who makes tough choices. Aries is where we encounter our own autonomy, our ability to return to life.

We may encounter many opportunities to be courageous this new astrological month. Petty tyrants may mirror our own discomfort about taking a stand while dangerous rhetoric morphs into bullets and the dark tide of anger rises, setting fire to old grudges and unexamined narratives.

Aries is a Mars-ruled sign. The dark face of the Ram is testosterone-fuelled anger, self-absorption, competitiveness, and conflict.

The raw energy of Mars is ignited by a goal; something to conquer or defend—the Romans pragmatically dedicated the month of March to the war-god as they set off on their campaigns, certain of fresh supplies. We may notice Mars energy all around us this month. Survival and procreation are embodied in the natural world as the urgent thrust of spring spills over the land in a cascade of colour and the sweetest song.

Writes Lissa Rankin in her book, The Fear Cure, “courage is not about being fearless; it’s about letting fear transform you, so you come into right relationship with uncertainty, make peace with impermanence, and wake up to who you really are.”

A New Moon at 11° Aries initiates a fiery blast of energy carried by the winged messenger, Mercury (travel, trade, deal making and the tricky art of communication) who has slipped into hot-headed Aries. Aries is our self-directed quest for individuation, yet the trite injunction to “find our voice” may deafen the voices of others; our need to be “me” may mean breaking the heart of someone who loves us. The Sun and Moon join Chiron, the archetype of the wounded healer, as we learn, in the words of Ram Dass that “suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.”

As Neptune and Jupiter edge ever closer to their 13-year rendezvous on April 12^th, the collective is infused with idealism, compassion and a sense of unity that undulates through (some) nations as over 4 million refugees flee from the unspeakable horror of a war that will reshape all our lives.

Every 13 years, expansive Jupiter meets ambiguous Neptune and collectively, we arrive at a moment that may inspire our faith, our creative imagination, or inflate delusion, propaganda, extend suffering, swell our emotions. Although Neptune and Jupiter meet every 13 years in successive signs in the zodiac, this cycle is a once-in-a-lifetime moment because the last time they merged in Pisces was in 1856, which was 166 years ago when the Treaty of Paris deprived Russia of access to the river Danube, humiliating and stripping Russia of power at the end of the brutal Crimean War. These planetary archetypes manifest in manifold ways. When they united in the sign of Virgo in September 1932 millions starved to death under forced collectivization in Russia, Hitler gained power, and dust storms swirled over Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico.

The promises of peace seeded in this New Moon energy may dissipate in all too familiar falsehoods and a shared commitment to outrageous lies as Neptune and Jupiter will amplify Piscean associations with suffering and martyrdom. Nested like an assemblage of Russian dolls, flawed political decisions have resulted in our dependence on gas and oil (Neptune) which, along with the banks that finance them, are the most important source of Russia’s foreign income. As (some countries) decry the war in Ukraine, governments fund the war in payment for Russia’s fossil fuels. George Monbiot writes, “we have a truth crisis… it is much deeper and wider than we care to admit… it is systemic and universal.”

The celestial aqua-ballet dance of Jupiter and Neptune will infuse the collective throughout 2022. These amorphous planets linger within 6º of one another from the end of October to December 20^th when Jupiter enters Aries, the day before the Solstice. This leitmotif will wash over us all in waves all through this year, bringing back to shore what we are feeling and experiencing now. In the final weeks of November Jupiter hangs like a tear drop in the skies, at the culminating 29º point of resolution.

As Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron united in the humanitarian sign of Aquarius in 2009, James Cameron’s Avatar mirrored the zeitgeist of the time. Our personal and collective experience may be very different as Avatar 2 is released. Jupiter and Neptune in Pisces mirror a world-weariness, a collective post-pandemic grief that has been by-passed by governments eager for progress and profit. For those who have lost loved ones, for those whose lives have been dragged down into the undertow by loss of work or direction, everything may seem blurred, life’s pulse beat feeble. Yet in our grief may make fluid our rigid routines, dissolve our hardened habits, cleanse the debris of emotional blockages, we draw moisture into our parched lives. At this New Moon time of fresh starts and hopeful new beginnings, this beautiful quote from the first Avatar movie reminds us, “you are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been. And now you have come to the crossroads of destiny. It’s time for you to choose.”

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

March 17, 2022 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

I Carry Your Heart—Virgo Full Moon—March 18th.

Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried―Megan Devine

As the year begins to tip and turn and balance briefly between light and shadow, V-shaped flocks of migrating birds follow ancient pathways in the skies, sweeping over holes torn in the earth and shards of cities split open. A Virgo Full Moon reflects the sunlight on March 18^thpulling at the tides, tugging at our hearts as throngs of traumatised people cross borders into the unknown, and millions of compassionate hearts carry them into their new lives.

The symbolism of the Virgo archetype is strong medicine if we align ourselves with what must be healed within ourselves so that we can assimilate and digest the ultrafast events that pulse across our newsfeeds and penetrate our psyches. Virgo moves us to engage in practical ways with the world around us, to be present and willing to do what we must to serve others as the collective consciousness pulsates with profound sadness. Yet for those of us who have carry the salty pearl of sorrow in our heart, we may feel alienated in a world that wants us to “move on” after devastating loss.

Psychologist Megan Devine speaks to our culture of pervasive positivity, the fast-food platitudes we use to by-pass unresolved wounds, divert painful feelings into “spiritually enlightened” activity. “There is a pain in this world that you can’t be cheered out of. You don’t need solutions. You don’t need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowlege it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life.”

This Virgo Full Moon opposes a gauzy Sun/Neptune conjunction in nebulous Pisces, heightening our sensitivity, dissolving facts, blurring fiction, fusing by trine with Pluto, that planetary archetype that strips us of our innocence, drags us into the underworld and strips us of all that we hold most dear. As she spills her silvery light over a troubled world, she follows the annual Sun/Neptune union (13^th March at 23° Pisces) and heralds the meeting of the once-in-every-thirteen-years Neptune and Jupiter conjunction in Pisces (exact on April 12^th.) This is the last lunation before the Equinox on March 20^th. Astrologer Dane Rudhyar’s Sabian Symbol for this Moon is “A bald headed man who has seized power.”

Some things just can’t be fixed. Yet Virgo is a mutable, transitional sign, bringing our attention to what is growing underground in the spring and what falls to the earth in the autumn. At this time of the equinox (March 20^th) light and shadow are as binary as the choices we make when we can’t or won’t see the spaces in-between, when we allow ourselves to stay distracted, to look for rainbows before we have fully felt the sting of the rain. As the seasons change, we may sense a new momentum, a desire to springclean, rearrange, prioritise, prepare for a new rhythm in our inner lives. Mercury-ruled Virgo is also the alchemist and the magician who uses ingenuity and clear vision to guide us across the threshold of change as we stay present to our own grief, or acknowlege the grief of another.

Joseph Campbell called the Magician archetype “the mentor with supernatural aid” and as Mercury moves through Pisces, we may be re-imagining our lives, prioritising self-care and spiritual practice as the spoils of war impinge on the poorest in society; rising fuel and food prices prompt politicians to make pacts with new tyrants. Neptune (oil and gas) and Jupiter (high hopes) infuse the zeitgeist with compassion and altruism; amplify grief and loss; trail clouds of hype, euphoria, and befuddled delusion. Life assumes a trance-like quality as we sip a latte and imagine what it must be like to be sheltering in a damp basement as missiles rain from the skies.

Yesterday, as the Moon entered Virgo, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release from imprisonment plunges her into the light, out of the shadow. In 2016, Nazanin became a pawn in a political power struggle after visiting Iran for three days to stay with her parents. In the symbolic language of astrology, her transits speak of redemption (transiting Neptune and Sun opposing her natal Sun/North Node in Virgo, transiting Mars/Venus in Aquarius square her Scorpio Venus/Uranus and transiting Uranus opposing her Venus/Uranus—quite literally, freedom!)

This month, the primordial gods of Love and War, Venus and Mars, are sailing in tandem across the heavens in the humanitarian sign of Aquarius, activating the degree point of the Saturn/Jupiter Conjunction of December 21^st, 2020, that initiated a new era for humankind. The Venus/Mars combination that lasts until April is a potent union. In myth, Aphrodite (Venus) and Ares (Mars) have many children: Phobos (fright and panic) Deimos (terror), as well as Eros and Harmonia. In Roman times, altars to Mars were placed outside city gates. As we sip our herbal tea, we can project our own aggression outwards, wage war internally as neurosis, or carry these opposing forces in our hearts, invite them inside our own psychic city gates.

When the Full Moon awakens our Virgo planets or illuminates that part of our birth chart that is Virgo, shadowy traits emerge as we stumble into the seductive archetype of “The Harlot/Prostitute.” We sell ourselves short, fail honour the commitments we make to ourselves, collapse into the fear of survival and clutch onto security at any cost. In our service to others, like the foolish Virgin, we neglect to fill the oil or trim the wick of our own lantern.

At this time of transition, we humbly begin again, staying present with our grief, rooted and connected to our deepest source.

“Where do we begin? Begin with the heart,” wrote anchoress Julian of Norwich who was walled up in a small cell built onto the church for most of her life. In so many ways, this woman who took on the name of the church she was quite literally attached to, epitomises the humility and reclusiveness of the Virgo archetype and activates the Magician, the Earth Goddess, the Warrior in us all.

Let’s begin with the heart.

“here is the deepest secret nobody knows

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings.

For astrology consultations, please get in touch: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com

February 26, 2022 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Tears of the World—New Moon in Pisces—March 2nd.

As the barest inkling of renewed life begins to emerge for humankind after months of prolonged uncertainty and life-shaping sequestration, a deadly percussion of explosions rocks Ukraine, ricochets across the world.

We’re still becoming acquainted with the rites of grief. And now an uninvited shadow of war casts its darkness over us all. Images of tanks and shattered buildings, wide-eyed children, and desperate mothers maroon us in the suffering and the numbing horror of state-sanctioned death and destruction.

The astrology of the moment reflects the temporal turmoil of this time. Millions of lives, human and animal, will be scattered across the wastelands of war as the tethered fish of Pisces draw us into the territory of grief, opening our hearts to a far deeper cry than our own. Planets that wear iridescent Piscean clothing offer strange tinctures of genius and madness.

Pisces is the last sign of the zodiac and there’s a world-weariness as we collectively empty out, let go, at the portal of a new era.

This month a porous Pisces Sun joins Jupiter and Neptune in the water-logged realm of the Tethered Fish. This archetype is a marshy boundaryless space where a miasma of uncertainty leaches moisture from our imagination. We may feel suspended in a sea of hype or unspeakable horror. Netflix’s Inventing Anna, Tinder Swindler and Fyre, depict Pisces propensity for glitz and glamour, charisma, and deceit. Neptune-ruled Pisces swirls in fantasy, drowns in deception. Film, oil, gas, and deadly viruses also fall under Neptune’s briny deeps. So do charismatic leaders and self-appointed messiahs.

On March 2^nd the luminaries meet in the darkness, a monthly tryst that carries a deeper significance as grandiose gas giant, Jupiter joins this lunation. This alignment may amplify Jupiter’s excess, immorality, and a potentially dark and destructive influence comes from the alignment of Mars and Venus with Pluto. Venus (diplomacy) and Mars (war) are still paired as they move through the skies. Mars and Venus edge closer to Pluto, god of ruthless destruction, and meet on this New Moon, as Jupiter and Neptune move to a tight conjunction on April 12^th (greater demand for oil and gas, propaganda, financial bubbles). Jupiter then moves into hot-headed Aries from May 10^th, amplifying blood-thirst and a demand for weapons of war.

Planets, like history, move in circles and cycles. The last time Neptune and Jupiter met in Pisces was on March 17^th 1856 (18° Pisces) when the Treaty of Paris deprived Russia of access to the River Danube, humiliating and stripping Russia of power at the end of the barbarous Crimean War.

Michel Eltchaninoff, editor-in-chief of Philosophie magazine and a specialist in the history of Russian thought, writes, “the Russian president’s dangerous sense of victimhood draws on 20^th-century ideas of his country’s frustrated potential. It is necessary, then, to understand that what is actually happening in Ukraine is the result of a vision of Russia that is deeply embedded in the mind of Putin.”

Neptune/Jupiter conjunctions accompany hype, great expectations, territorial expansion, and the kind of faith and hope that carries us through struggle. In a hopeful piece, historian and philosopher, Yuval Noah Harari writes, “at the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? Can humans change the way they behave, or does history repeat itself endlessly, with humans forever condemned to re-enact past tragedies without changing anything except the décor?”

The suffering in Ukraine affects us all. Lynne McTaggart proposes, “if a quantum field holds us all together in its invisible web, we will have to rethink our definitions of ourselves and what exactly it is to be human…if we’re not separate, we can no longer think in terms of “winning” and “losing.” We need to redefine what we designate as “me” and “not-me,” and reform the way that we interact with other human beings, practice business, and view time and space. We have to reconsider how we choose and carry out our work, structure our communities, and bring up our children. We have to imagine another way to live.”

George Monbiot points out in his book, Out of the Wreckage, that humans are unique, spectacularly unusual, when it comes our sensitivity to the needs of others. We have an innate altruism, an inborn sense of community. Neuroscience, evolutionary biology and psychology all conclude that we have evolved to care, to cooperate with one another. “By the age of fourteen months, children begin to help each other, attempting to hand over objects another child cannot reach. By the time they are two, they start sharing some of the things they value. By the age of three, they start to protest against other people’s violation of moral norms—we are also, among mammals, with the possible exception of the naked mole rat, the supreme co-operators,” Monbiot writes.

We may feel bone weary after months of adrenaline-charged coping, of being our best and bravest, kindest selves, yet the sky-story this month depicts a sequence of events that will marshal our good manners, our co-operation, our wisdom and our compassion.

“I am marooned on a crag of superiority in an ocean of soldiers,” wrote Wilfred Owen, (Sun and Venus in Pisces) who was killed in the mud and blood of World War I, one week before armistice was declared.

We are collectively moving through a time of initiation that may transform us at our core or maroon us on a crag of authoritarianism.

What will we choose?

For astrology consultations or more information about webinars, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

February 13, 2022 In Astrology, General By Ingrid Hoffman

Red White and Blue—Reimagining America —As Pluto Returns.

And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us—Pablo Neruda.

Few of us go willingly into the kind of initiation that accompanies a Pluto transit. When Pluto stirs up all that has fermented, all that has been banished in the dark basement of our psyches, we emerge irrevocably changed.

When Pluto slowly moves across the horoscopes of nations, what has been collectively repressed, conveniently ignored, rises to the surface.

Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008 as the fissures in financial systems widened and the blight in governments exposed disturbing division and misuse of power. As Pluto razes down façades with relentless ruthlessness, it also regenerates, and in Capricorn this means governments, police, corporations, infrastructures.

As Leonard Cohen released his prophetic single, You Want It Darker in the September of 2016, Pluto and Jupiter were forming a square that intensified in January 2020 by conjunction. Neptune, purveyor of contagion, illusion, deception, and deceit, slipped in behind the green curtain, a making a slippery trine to Mercury in the US birth chart. The star-spangled banner fluttered in the winds of change.

Pluto’s opposition to Mercury in America’s birth chart (2017-24) reminds us that the foundations of The Land of the Free are dug deep into the black earth of genocide, slavery, and appalling exploitation of the natural world. Mercury presides over communication, intelligence, propaganda, paranoia, media, and travel. Old certainties are unmoored.

This month, America experiences its first Pluto Return (February 22^nd) as Pluto circles back to 27° Capricorn, returning to the place it started from on July 4^th, 1776 when the nation of America was born. Pluto moves slowly through the darkness of outer space, so we’re collectively steeped in Pluto’s darkness which permeates American culture well into the 2040s.

A Collective meeting with Fate.

Mercury, Venus, and Mars escort Pluto this month, accentuating the caution, contraction and discipline that has been attributed to the archetype of Capricorn, a sign ruled by frugal Saturn.

Banners of “freedom” flutter alongside boarded-up shops that offer cold comfort to the homeless as howling ghosts of debt haunt governments and the millions who have lost jobs and homes during the pandemic. As the rich continue to shore up colossal gains and coal factories continue to feed the illusionary bitcoin industry, grandiose Jupiter sails nonchalantly through the heavens, trailing promises of salvation.

Jupiter meets nebulous Neptune in early April, an obtuse union that inflates blind faith and optimism, engorges debt balloons that will explode as Jupiter moves into heated Aries in early May.

The triple conjunction of Venus, Mars and Pluto herald a sobering warning, perhaps a small crack in our collective denial, as Pluto returns to 27° Capricorn three times this year, (July and December.) This is a year that many believe is a make-or-painful-break year for Joe Biden as Pluto opposes his 8^th house Jupiter. Pluto also is in a tense T-square to Vice-President Kamala Harris’ Libra Sun/Aries Moon opposition.

As an impending catastrophe in Ukraine dominates mainstream media, the Moon makes her monthly round, ripening to fullness on February 16th in the sign of Leo.

Weeks of negotiation show no signs of progress and now as embassies hasten to withdraw their staff, and nations urge citizens to leave as Venus (diplomacy) and Mars (war) descend into Pluto’s blackness. Psychologist, Terry Real reminds us, “under patriarchy, you can be connected, or you can be powerful, but you can’t be both at the same time because power is power over, not power with, it is dominance. So, if you move into power, you lose connection.”

On March 6^th Venus and Mars move into Aquarius, activating the degree of the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction of December 21^st 2020, a union that symbolised the dawning of a new era.
Venus and Mars make a tense square to President Putin’s Venus in Scorpio from March 17th-23rd, energising his four Libran planets.

In our highly individuated narcissistic culture, we may ask what values are being unearthed… equality, liberty, diversity, or McCarthyism, Jim Crow, an idealised Camelot? As Pluto’s gravitational force dredges up the grisly truths that lie buried under streets and skyscrapers, America journeys down into the Underworld to be scooped out, humbled, reimagined and reborn. What do the colours of the American flag symbolise now as the earth shudders beneath our feet?

Pluto will be in Aquarius from 2024 to 2044 as we begin to make reparations for historic injustices and re-image a world where exploitation of people, animals and nature will be relegated to his-story and we (hopefully) begin to address the collective grief and trauma that defines the experience of so many people whose lives are still curtailed by inequality and blatant injustice.

The first Industrial Revolution was under way as Pluto moved through Aquarius. Herschel “discovered” Uranus, that planet associated with breakthroughs and revolution as Pluto moved through Aquarius. Captain Cook and William Bligh searched for new consumables in southern lands as Pluto’s passage through Aquarius marked the beginning of the climate crisis and a soulless sense of alienation and loneliness that now threatens our survival as a species.

Carl Jung used the word, Shadow to describe the repressed, denied aspects of our lives, and that the Shadow doesn’t lie languidly, waiting to be redeemed, it regresses, becomes scaled, archaic, clawed. It rattles through our homes, our streets and our nations. It emerges as school shootings, rape, gang violence, and suicide filmed on social media platforms. It screeches as mountains are gouged out for metals and coal, as oceans are scraped empty of fish, and underground creatures are bulldozed to make way for yet another mall or motel. It emerges in the sanctioned bloodletting of war, the slaughter of nameless innocents.

As we all experience the potent alchemy that strips us of our excess as we travel the via negativa, the road through the depths that leads us to what mythologist Michael Meade calls dark wisdom, may we trust Pluto’s power to pull from our souls what is most authentic and loving. May we transform our suffering into wisdom and compassion. May the monuments that we erect to our power and importance, topple.

Rilke speaks to the soul muscle and faith we all need in our grief-phobic, death-denying culture.

“…but the darkness pulls in everything: shapes and fires, animals and myself, how easily it gathers them—powers and people. And it is possible a great energy is moving near me. I have faith in nights.”

Please get in touch if you would like to book an astrology consultation or to find out more about webinars in 2022: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

February 1, 2022 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Kiss from a Rose—Venus Emerging

Love is fearlessness in the midst of the sea of fear— Rumi

The first flurry of delicate blossom ushers spring’s joyful arrival as the Sun and Moon meet in the sign of Aquarius today.

New Moons denote entry points, like doors ajar that invite us to garner new experiences, to cross back and forth between the past and the future, to experience the joy of new beginnings and the ache of final endings.

This month begins on a New Moon in Aquarius, a sign that encompasses our participatory belonging to humankind. Aquarius’s wavy glyph suggests those powerful currents of energy that flow through the deepest stratum of our relationships with friends, family, and those intimate soul filled engagements.

The ancient cross-quarter festival of Imbolc on February 1^st and 2^ndis the first midpoint in the cycle of the year, welcoming the first tentative stirrings of spring, a guiding metaphor of new beginnings.

Saturn joins the new Moon today, and unites with the Sun at the week’s end, as Mercury turns direct on February 4^th, an invitation to attend to our responsibilities with patience, to seek fresh perspective as familiar themes circle and cycle in our own lives and in the world around us.

There’s a solemnity in the sky script as seven Saturn-ruled planets speak to the challenges of the literal events that absorb our attention, and those things that matter. As some governments try to find a way to move through the pandemic by removing mandates, tens of thousand tonnes of Covid waste spill from landfills, contaminate the air, and clog rivers and oceans, a dark counterpoint to our collective longing for play and pleasure.

Cautious Saturn stands sentinel at the threshold of this month dedicated to Lovers as commerce pays homage to the brutally murdered martyr and unlikely lover, Valentinus with symbols of sensuality—red roses, dark chocolates wrapped in cerise or shiny scarlet foil, pretty cards that offer love’s promise. For those who may be grieving the loss of a loved one; for those who have been shamed and shunned, harmfully shocked, ignored or brutally intruded upon, the scar tissue that wraps around the heart may ache as lovers walk arm in arm in the soft light of spring.

For thousands of years, the spectacular cycles of Venus have been tracked and observed by our prehistoric ancestors. The Mayan and Mesoamericans timed wars when Venus emerged as the Wasp Star from the darkness of her 40 days and 40 nights sojourn in the underworld—renewed, resolute, resplendent in her fierce beauty.

On January 15^th Venus appeared, strengthened, transfigured, glistening like a diamond on dawn’s softly curved breast after her 40 days and 40 nights descent into the Underworld. Venus stationed direct on January 29^th and will linger in her post-retrograde shadow until March 1^st while Venus and Mars unite in the sign of the Mountain Goat on February 14^th—a tender embrace that signifies a new tempo in a soulful life.

All planetary archetypes portray our human experience of relationship—attachment, separation, autonomy, and dependence. Jungian analyst Ann Bedford Ulanov suggests that “as the instincts are to the body, so the archetypes are to the psyche.”

Our entire birth chart, and more specifically, the archetypes of Venus and Mars, describe our innate responses to our environment; the myriad ways we love or defend ourselves from the soul mate we long for. Mars is the warrior god. In so many cultures, he has been associated with the masculine principle, with fierce gods of war. To the Greeks he was Ares, his name emerging from the root, “to destroy” or to be “carried away” which is so often experienced in the ecstasy of falling into love when we are carried by our desire, within reach of our holy longing.

We may experience Mars energy vicariously through movies or sport; or in the narcissism of our times, embody Mars in impassioned exchanges on social media or through the windscreen of our vehicle when we’re stuck in traffic. In our culture of haste, as we lean in, stretch forward to the next bigger, better thing, it might now be helpful reflect on the rich symbolism of the current Venus Retrograde as she has revealed those things that pained us—the jagged schisms in our relationships, our concerns about money, our creative or sexual anorexia, our relationship with beauty and art, or angst about ageing. In myth, Venus was not faithful. She delighted in variety, she evoked jealousy. She defied the patriarchal Greek and Roman morality. In our birth chart, she leads us down to the Underworld to experience colourful explosion of passion, loss, and longing, to emerge once more bearing the marks of our initiation, willing to be utterly loved, shored up, supported as we offer our creative gifts to the world.

Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gasset wrote that “no land in human topography is less explored than love.” It is the exploration of love’s landscape that is essential to the soul’s holy longing, and we must be brave wayfarers. The Venusian art of relating and healing the heart’s contraction has evolved from Agony Aunt columns and our urge to pathologize, improve or fix, into the collective experience of relationship therapy. The “telly-therapy” of Esther Perel and Orna Guralnik offers voyeuristic participation in couples therapy, revealing the archetype of Venus in all her guises, and inviting personal identification with couples who are living in the trauma world of fear, disconnection, and shame.

We expect so much from our partners, in love, and as we continue to live with the existential anxiety of the climate crisis, those relationships that have sustained us—friendships old and new, the intricacies and vagaries of family relationships, the encounters with our virtual tribe or colleagues at the office—we absorb and embody experiences that take us down the twists and turns, repeats and spirals, back to ancient themes.

We might pause in our focused busyness today on this New Aquarian Moon and follow a thread of memory back to the Venus Retrograde in the air-sign of Gemini that began on May 13^th-June 25^th, 2020—a cycle that was defined by the pandemic, worldwide lockdowns, economic recession, as well as major bushfires in Australia and the Western United States. We may pause to remember the brutal killing of George Floyd that unleashed the Black Lives Matter protest cry that bloomed and flowered all too briefly. We may ask ourselves what we have done to be kinder, more conscious, more tender. Now, as Venus emerges in the sign of Capricorn as a Morning Star may we replenish our faith in the unseen, may we trust that our gifts will be welcomed in love and appreciation, may we feel a sense of purpose and value in our community. May we cherish each other and find shelter in Love today.

For astrology consultations or more information about webinars, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

January 12, 2022 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Watercourse—Full Moon in Cancer—January 17th

Now let us welcome the New Year, full of things that have never been—Rainer Maria Rilke.

January, named in honour of Janus the two-headed god of thresholds arrived without the usual swaggering bravado, or wishful “this year will be better”. An unpretentious New Moon in Saturn-ruled Capricorn welcomed in this first month of the calendar year, her silvery light swathed in darkness.

On January 17^th the Full Moon in Cancer gifts us with a luminous reminder of the opposing energies of Capricorn and Cancer—structures and boundaries, anchoring and love; or the shadowy qualities of muscular authoritarianism and alienation.

Already the days are growing longer and the primroses on the riverbanks turn their delicate yellow faces to the sun as we begin to resume the routines and rituals that ground us in our ordinary lives.

For forty days and forty nights of “quarantine”, Venus has been in the underworld, inviting us to turn within, to gather clarity, strength and commitment. She has been moving Retrograde since December 19^th when she united with Pluto at 26° Capricorn for the first of three intense encounters (December 19^th, December 25^th, and March 3^rd). We all have Venus in our birth chart, an archetype that reflects our heart’s initiations, our deep soulful attachments, our satiated fullness, and our tortured emptiness.

Venus has been moving through Capricorn for four months (she enters Aquarius on March 6^th) and during her time in the darkness, we may have been confronted with love’s shadows—loss of trust or hope in a relationship, changes in friendships that reflect our changing values and personal aspirations; separations and betrayals that ultimately lead us to a fuller experience of self-acceptance and a deeper understanding of what our soul yearns for. At the time of the New Moon, Venus disappeared as an Evening star and if you’re up early on January 15^th, Venus will rise resplendent, a bright star in the East, a vision of beauty and fertility and power; a moment that was welcomed by our ancestors.

Elusive Mercury switches direction and begins to apparently move in reverse across the skies in Retrograde (10° Aquarius) on January 14^th-February 3^rd, inviting us to listen more attentively, to reconnect with the archetypal realm of our imagination, the subtle prompts of our intuition, to acknowledge the power of our intention and the psychic energy we bring to our encounters with others. As winter’s frosty grip softens, our earth-born bodies respond to the light, new dreams seed themselves in our imagination as Jupiter floats through Pisces, a luminous star of Hope that shimmers in the west after sunset, with Saturn still close by.

Saturn accompanies rules and authorities; sober realisations that things may not turn out as we want them to. Saturn in modern times is associated with fate or destiny, with necessity and restraint, those things we have cast out in our mechanistic material culture where we, in our hubris and our self-inflation, believe that we are all powerful—we can fix, manifest, cut away, or buy our way out of any mess we make. This New Year, Saturn may lay his hand on a defining moment in your life. There may be no escape, except a shift in perception as we pare down our doomed to fail resolutions, hold ourselves tenderly as we work with what is, rather than what we wish it could be.

In the ever-changing sky, Saturn and Uranus are still in a discordant square all through 2022 and 2023, a celestial symbol of clashing points of view, polarities, and divisions, as these ancient mythic enemies confront each other in the heavens and an old order collides with the new. Saturn transits arrive as the henchmen of stasis that often thwart our efforts to move forward, yet they present as circumstances that grow us up, if we’re willing to learn. When these two archetypes face off in the heavens, they reflect tension, upheaval, limitations of freedom, resistance, and rebellion. In our own birth charts, transits of Uranus break us open, shatter and destabilise those things that are too tightly defended or have outlived their purpose.

Mars, the warrior god, joins forces with unpredictable Uranus in August and Pluto makes an opposition to Venus around then. So, although many of us are longing for some hope that the pandemic will end soon, Creation stories always tell of darkness and chaos that come before creation. The Pluto/Saturn conjunction of January 2020 has fermented all that is rotten in our world. The dross has risen to the surface and each one of us now faces the consequences of those things we have repressed or simply ignored. In the tumultuous confusion, perhaps something greater ushers humanity towards what is yet to be.

The discordant Saturn/Uranus energy is reflected in the cacophonous deluge of sentiment and divisive hate-speak that has reached its nadir as tennis star Novac Djokovic’s fate is now determined by Australia’s health minister. The agitation in Australia reflects our collective psychosis after almost two years of uncertainty, on/off lockdowns, and exposes the shadowy underbelly of an Establishment that continue to ignore the plight of incarcerated asylum seekers, and those who live on the edges of society, without the fame or financial resources to employ legal aid or seek release from their circumstances.

As tensions mount, scapegoats will be driven out, minorities become criminals. A Saturnian policing bill now targets Roma, Gypsy and Travellers in the UK if they “trespass” in places that have not been designated for them. In 1930 Saturn and Uranus were in Square and between 1933-1939, the Roma and Sinti were interned and murdered by the Nazi Regime.

As impetuous Mars and the North Node in Taurus aligns with Uranus (April, May, October and November) frustrations may intensify and spill over nebulous and overvalued cryptocurrency as governments (symbolised by Saturn) attempt to regulate this environmentally devastating disruptor to established banking systems.

A subtle backdrop this year is the idealistic union of Jupiter and Neptune (April 12^th), a rare meeting in Pisces and one that amplifies Piscean qualities of compassion, creativity, but also a celestial blind spot, something hidden in the collective midstream that may seduce or anesthetise, conceal a truth or weave a web of lies. Jupiter and Neptune co-rule Pisces. The fish are ephemeral, lacking in substance, intoxicating, seductive and illusionary, and perhaps swimming is futile. All we can do is to relax and float until we are sure that what we have seen is not a mirage.

Jupiter and Neptune were last united in Pisces in March 1856 as Wagner completed Die Walküre and Sigmund Freud was born. 1856 was a year of senseless warfare and sacrifice, ships were lost at sea, native communities were exterminated, and the barbarous Crimean war ended.

Piscean symbolism includes oceans, but also extremist ideologies that offer the promise of redemption from suffering. This combination of celestial energies may unleash a tsunami of pent-up grief and suffering; it may surge through cryptocurrencies, drown the hype, dissolve castles in the air, suffocate seabirds in sticky black oil as giant oil tankers run aground. This is the seductive energy of the speculator, a glimpse of hope that may be unfounded, perhaps, the realisation that as we drop the salvational fantasy we are freed up to sweetness of simple pleasures, self-acceptance, and a deeper appreciation of the poetics of life.

We may feel pulled apart by a longing to escape from it all as this expansive, boundaryless Jupiter-Neptune conjunction forms while the next constrictive and frustrating Mars/Saturn conjunction emerges; an echo of the Mars/Saturn conjunction of late March early April 2020 as the magnitude of the pandemic permeated through the collective and nations locked down.

The conjunction of Mars and Saturn of late March and early April 2022 signifies an ending of a cycle, and the start of a new one that occurred during the early outbreak of the pandemic and the early phases of the lockdown, and continued as Mars moved through Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio in 2021 and new COVID variants emerged accompanied by mandates and restrictions. The North Node entered Taurus on December 23^rd 2021, and will move through Taurus till July 12^th 2023, meeting Uranus this July. There’ll be a sprinkling of eclipses in Taurus on April 30^th, and November 8^th and in Scorpio on May 16^th and October 25^th, as Pluto returns to the place of its inception in the American birth chart this year. 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.

As the archetypal energies of Taurus and Scorpio are energised in the coming months, in our own birth charts and in the birth charts of nations, we may be reminded of the bull-headed, flesh-eating half-man who lived in the centre of the labyrinth. This hideous monster, the Minotaur, was also called by another name. Asterion. Star.

As we welcome this brave new year and sit with the paradox of those things that stir our anger and release our tears, let’s pause for a while in the quiet shade of the unknown before we enter the fray.

This is the year of living bravely, soulfully, imaginatively, abandoning those things that are irretrievably broken and reimagining our place in the world, rooting back into the earth.

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.”

For astrology consultations, please get in touch with me, I would love to hear from you: ingrid@trueheartwork.com