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Relationship

Transitions—Full Aries Moon — September 29th.

We can’t make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern. Harriet Lerner.

This is the month of changing seasons.

Bracken, the colour of butterscotch, swathes the hillsides. Diaphanous sea mists settle softly over lilac heather. As our wise bodies respond to the waning light, we may feel the need for more rest, more time alone, a yearning to revisit what has lain neglected in the extroverted brightness of summer. Change, like all initiations rearranges our feelings, evokes a profound stirring of the soul. Psychologist Harriet Lerner writes, “all of us have deeply ambivalent feelings about change. The will to change and the desire to maintain sameness coexist for good reason. Both are essential to our emotional well-being and equally deserve our attention and respect.”

At this turning point in the year, we might find value in turning over the material of our lives as we approach the autumn Equinox, remembering the way we were at the spring Equinox when the round of the year began a-new and the Sun moved into Aries.

Mercury turned direct just after the new moon in Virgo on September 14th and now we navigate the territory of transition. Virgo is a mutable sign, symbolised by the wheat-bearing Virgin. As we reflect on what we have harvested this year, what we would like to keep and what we need to discard.

The Sun enters Libra on September 23rd. As it moves over the equator, day and night are equal. This is the midpoint of the zodiacal round, representing the seasonal shift that accompanies endings, and beginnings. In the metaphorical language of astrology, the Libran part of our own birth chart will be illuminated for the next month as we practice and perfect the art of relating to others in an uncertain world, practicing new dance steps, small, manageable moves.

The souls of the dead were weighed against the Feather of Truth by the ancient Egyptians, and this month, for many of us, there will be a sense of arriving at a crossroads of a situation that requires sound judgement and careful consideration. For so many of us, balance is something we may wistfully talk about when the rhythm of our days begins to gyrate, scattering the weight of worry like a mantle over our minds. Libra is symbolised by a pair of balancing scales. Libra is an air sign, and the element of air may make us feel unsettled, unsheltered, and ungrounded. At this time of the Equinox, as the seasons shift, we may feel we need more rest, foods that support our digestion. In Ayurveda, autumn is the vata season, a time to enjoy grounding, warming soups or hearty casseroles.

As a slow soft light settles over the meadows, the moon is ripening as she circles the heavens. The full moon this month (6° Aries on September 29th) sweeps across the birth charts of those of us with personal planets and points between 2-10° Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, symbolically illuminating what is ripe and ready to be gathered into our consciousness; how we seek closeness or distance in the intricate dance of relationship, knowing who we can count on when the going gets tough. This full moon speaks to what author and psychologist, Harriet Lerner describes so succinctly as “that delicate balance between separateness and connectedness…as we confront the challenge of sustaining both without losing either.”

One day after the full moon, Mercury moves out of shadow and will cross the threshold into Libra on October 5th.

Mars has been in opposition to Chiron since mid-September and this painful energy will become more intense around the equinox, (September 23rd – 24th) so this lunation may offer an opportunity to heal and repair a rift, rebalance a relationship that has become lopsided in terms of power and mutual respect.

The Venus Retrograde cycle which began on July 23rd at 28° Leo echoes an earlier station-retrograde cycle 8 years ago when Venus transited this sector of the horoscope. Venus retrograde cycles are important, as they don’t happen frequently. These symbolic forty days and forty nights are times for quiet introspection, honest and serious appraisal of who and what we value, what feels authentic and real right now.

Now, as Venus accelerates through Leo, she reveals what was stirred up in June as she squared Jupiter for the first time (June 11th) and then Uranus (July 2nd) with three more squares culminating with the final Venus/Uranus square on September 29th, that may reveal the gap between our inner values and what the tribal mind deems as respectful and relational.

If you have personal planets or Angles between 10° and 25° Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius, this Venus/Uranus/Jupiter sequence of squares carries a super-charged energy around those things you value: literally money or possessions, property, as well as those you hold dear to your heart.

Venus is now accelerating direct in Leo and she makes a final volatile square to unpredictable Uranus on September 29th, which might add sizzle and excitement, but may also bring a sudden realisation that more spaciousness, more independence, more fun is needed in a relationship.

This week’s Russell Brand exposé  reveals a culture still marinating in toxic masculinity as feminine Venus blazes through Leo, shining her numinous radiance on the dark underbelly of exploitation and misogyny. Carl Jung is often quoted as saying, “until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.The Nodes of Fate and Pluto have been respectively square and opposing the Venus/Saturn square Chiron in the birth chart of Russell Brand, who has been accused of rape, sexual predation, and emotional abuse. Astrologer Liz Greene describes contacts between Venus and Saturn as “one of the most painful contacts to deal with… more than any other aspect, Venus-Saturn appears to strike at a person’s happiness…a nagging discontent and the feeling that one will never be able to be happy or take pleasure in life.” As Youtube suspends Russell Brand’s revenues, promoters pull his appearances and his publisher pauses all future book projects, the second of three Pluto oppositions to Brand’s Venus/Saturn/Chiron closes in on the full moon, and the noxious fall-out will linger all through next year and the next. 

“It is the area of relationships that human beings are the most vulnerable, and consequently it is here they can make the greatest steps in growth and self-understanding,” writes Liz Greene. This is the month of changing seasons, of incremental or more noticable changes in our own lives.

We hold the tension of opposites with Aries (self) and Libra (other) in all our relationships. In those precious bonds of love and loyalty that bind. In those untethered casual encounters that so easily tilt and topple. 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.

“The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don’t want to.”  Harriet Lerner.

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

 

 

 

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Once in a Blue Moon—Supermoon in Pisces— August 31st.

Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter. They are places that make us feel something larger than ourselves, as though we are held in a place between worlds, beyond experience―Kerri ní Dochartaigh.

Two full moons sit uncomfortably side by side, unnaturally confined in the man-drawn calendar month of August. This Pisces “supermoon” is the second “supermoon” in August, and in contrast to the previous big bold fiery supermoon in Leo, tonight’s moist full moon in Pisces skims across the heavens, silvering the earth’s thin places with her otherworldly light.

This anomalous 13th moon is peculiar in her not-blueness. She travels through the last world-weary sign of the zodiac, signifying completion, release. This is a dreamy moon, a moon that may arouse our intuition, or remind us that, in the words of John O’Donohue, “we have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.” The moon moves from a conjunction with authorative Saturn (tradition, rules, boundaries, limitations) as we reflect on the month now almost gone, the choices we’ve made, the decisions taken, the twists of fate that have brought us to this precious moment of now.

Four planets are in transition, changing direction between August 23rd and September 4th accompanying anticipated endings, threshold crossings and opportunities to choose again. What now needs to be lovingly repaired in our relationships, our communities, painfully polarised because we simply don’t and won’t pause long enough to listen and hear one another?

Pisces contains the symbolism of purifying, cleansing water, and Jupiter, the moon’s dispositor is one of the few planets that is still moving direct, prompting deep healing if we are willing to carefully examine our own biases and entrenched narratives.

Writes Kerri ní Dochartaigh “We have lost, broken, murdered, burned, stolen, hidden and undone—all in the false name of tradition. Lives, places, and stories have been ripped out by their roots because ‘that’s how it has always been’. I wonder, I wonder so very much these days, what wealth of imagery and meaning was lost when we became so focused on our differences here, that we buried the things that had once tied us together, the things that might still know a way through, for us all”.

Venus (those things and people we cherish and value) has been moving Retrograde in Leo since July 23rd, drawing old lovers, friends not forgotten but perhaps neglected, from past to present.

During a Venus Retrograde cycle, we may revisit those things we valued and lost, seek out second chances, repair and heal those relationships that have become entangled in assumptions or frozen silences. Venus Retrograde periods are cosmic magnifying glasses, amplifying our inherent values.

Venus and Uranus turn in the night skies as one month ends and another begins. These celestial events carry a charge of energy. They are heavenly pivot points that are worth noticing as they brush across angles or planets in our own birth charts.

Uranus turned Retrograde on August 29th (23° Taurus) and Venus moves direct on September 4th (12° Leo) which will bring deeper insight, additional focus to Venusian themes if you have planets between 12-28 Leo, or 19-23 Taurus as capricious Uranus brings unforeseen opportunities to find a way through an impasse, break through a stalemate.

Now as Venus prepares to turn direct, it might be helpful to look back to July 23rd when she moved Retrograde and reflect on the light of our own nature as circumstances and encounters have challenged and grown us.

The Sun entered Virgo on August 23rd and made an opposition to Saturn as Spain’s football federation chief Luis Rubiables planted an unwanted kiss on the mouth of Jenni Hermoso during the World Cup Ceremony, igniting a conflagration of condemnation by politicians, and defiance from those who choose to ignore the toxic masculinity that pervades our culture.

Venus pivots, making her final square to disruptor Uranus on August 29th, then the last square to Jupiter on September 17th as gender issues challenge our default gaze; as our often messy, imperfect relationships offer opportunites to heal and to forgive.

Chogyam Trungpa teaches the practice of the awakened heart, “the genuine heart of sadness”, which he said is natural to us all when we allow ourselves to receive the full experience of life with open hearts. It is in this “genuine heart of sadness” that we discover our repressed grief, our forgotten anger, our thin shard of shame, our boundless capacity to Love.

Elusive Mercury switched direction on August 23rd, turning Retrograde at 22° Virgo; direct once more on September 15th (8° Virgo) out of shadow (the degree at which Mercury originally turned Retrograde) on September 30th. A Retrograde Mercury asks us to be patient and tenacious in the face of delays or obstacles, amidst the ceaseless, clamorous chatter or the polarity of choice that skewers us in indecision.

We are collectively in the alchemical stage of solution. Jung describes this process as “the selfish hardness of the heart is dissolved: the heart turns to water. The ascent to the higher stages can then begin.”

As we make fluid our rigid routines, dissolve our hardened habits, cleanse the debris of emotional blockages, we draw moisture into our parched lives, may we flow outwards again. May we make our world beautiful.

To book a personal astrology session, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

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In Each Other’s Care—Cancer New Moon—July 17th.

Emotional dependency is not immature or pathological. It’s our greatest strength—Sue Johnson.

After the hottest June on record, July’s green days stretch languidly towards the blue dome of the horizon.

We’re now past the midsummer solstice, the turning point in the solar/lunar cycle. Now the Sun moves through Cancer and the days grow shorter as we circle back into the dark.

A powerful lineage of moon-goddesses encircles Cancer. Cancer is bound to the archetype of the feminine, the creatrix mother, who cradles us in protective arms. Cancer is associated with the element of life-giving water, with feelings that ebb and flow like the tides. Wombs, cradles, caves, cellars, hotels, and homes are all Cancer-ruled. Cancer encompasses the comfort of kinship, the safety of belonging.

As the Sun and Moon meet in Cancer, we attune to the cry of something needing our fierce protection, perhaps without holding on too tightly to the outcome. This might be a physical property or an energetic boundary, a now-adult child, soon to leave home, or the grief we feel as a relationship fractures and we must let go.

This New Moon opposes uncompromising Pluto, a regenerative energy, charged with both destruction and rebirth. Pluto/Moon transits are fleeting, yet this could be an opportunity to resolve a destructive power struggle in a relationship or change a thought or a behaviour that keeps on producing the same result. Einstein is often quoted as saying, “no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”. And in the superb symbolism of astrological language, this new moon also squares Chiron, offering a way to shelter in each other as we repair and re-connect deeply once more.

For millennia, indigenous wisdom has described a vital energy force, a biofield  that permeates our energy system. If we are bathed in anger, chronic anxiety, or despair in our homes or offices, these disturbances to our energy systems will colour our interactions with others and the world we see around us. They will eventually manifest physically. Writes Stan Tatkin, author of the new book, In Each Other’s Care, “your personal growth depends on your relationship remaining safe and secure at all times, because if either of you feel the least bit unsafe, untrusting, or insecure, you won’t have the internal resources for personal growth. Instead, your mind and body will be preoccupied by doubt and threat.”

The highs and lows of our cherished relationships intensified this month.

Mars moved into detail-orientated Virgo on July 10th making an exact opposition to Saturn on July 20th-21st, as we re-set our intention to connect to our hearts, and manage the tendency to return to default settings of anger, anxiety, or negativity.

On July 12th, the Moon’s North Node slipped back from Venus-ruled Taurus into Mars-ruled Aries. The South Node is now in Libra, a powerful cosmic push to cleanse and release old ways of relating and stretch beyond our cultural conditioning, our calcified roles as we bring our heartfelt intention to relating more generously to those around us.

The Moon’s Nodes aren’t planets, they are sensitive points that mark the moon’s path around her sister Earth as she crosses the ecliptic, and they move backwards through the signs of Aries and Libra till January 2025. In Western astrology, the North Node is what the heart longs for, a celestial arrow pointing at our evoltionary path towards our becoming and engaging with more sensitivity and conscious awareness with the web of connection that unites all living things. Yet, going towards what we yearn for so often feels uncomfortable and alien. The South Node pulls us back to familiar places of ease or discomfort. We may attempt to follow our North Node pathway towards growth and fulfillment of our birth right, our destiny; yet we may hestitate, turn back at an important threshold crossing as we succumb to fear of failure or rejection.

South Node behaviours are usually most apparent when we are children. They are easy to express because they are often safe and familiar. As the South Node moves through Libra, the shadowy aspects of that sign will be evident in our relationships and of course played out in world events.

Libra is a cool aesthetic air sign, frustratingly prone to procrastination, compromise, or injustice that festers in a relationship built on flimsy scaffolding. The North Node in Aries is bolstered by assertive Mars the war-god. This is where we collectively and personally will need to find the courage to defend someone or something we care for.  If we’re coupled, it’s unlikely that our relationship dance has always been in sync, without strife. As the world becomes increasingly complex, more preoccupied with virtual realities, we might notice how we distance and avoid being in this reality, how we take each other for granted, ignore our partner’s needs and longings. This nodal shift asks us to take care of unfinished business, focus on what is right in the relationship, reassess what is not working, and be kind and respectful to each other.

As the Nodes move across our own birth chart, we will need to rouse our inner war goddess, and act with focus and determination when boundaries are crossed, implementing grand, generous gestures to repair, amend, make things right.

Acts of kindness, sincere words of appreciation and gratitude calm the amygdala which continuously scans the environment for threat. Touch and eye contact decrease depression, boost oxytocin levels, and strengthen the immune system.

“Unconditional love is reserved for children and pets,” writes psychologist Stan Tatkin. “Your lives as well as your happiness depend on each other as competent caregivers. Your abilities to be better people, creative, successful, good parents, good friends, good employers, hinge on you being good at each other.”

As the Nodes travel through Aries and Libra, may we devote our energies to fostering nourishing and tender connections, to attuning to  the needs and longings of those we love.

“Something amazing happens when we surrender and just love. We melt into another world, a realm of power already within us. The world changes when we change. The world softens when we soften. The world loves us when we choose to love the world.”
Marianne Williamson.

To book an astrology appointment, please get in touch, I would love to hear from you: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

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Committed—Supermoon in Capricorn—July 3rd.

We don’t reach the mountaintop from the mountaintop. We start at the bottom and climb up. Blood is involved—Cheryl Strayed.

A Supermoon rests her bright face close to the heart of the earth tonight. A strange pearly light illuminates the water line of a new awareness.

Thirteen days have passed since the midsummer solstice when the Sun moved into the waters of Cancer. Cancer draws us back to what nurtures and nourishes us deeply, to the soft comfort of home, intensifying our memories, colourwashing the past with a tincture of nostalgia. The moon in earthy Capricorn reminds us of necessary boundaries and the need to take practical action in family situations and in our business affairs. Capricorn (authority, institutions, Wise Elder, Father archetype) anchors us in earthy traditions, evokes patience, commitment and responsibility. Toni Morrison offers this reminder to use our authority wisely. She writes, “as you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”

Here in the north, July blazes brightly. The light lingers till 11pm,  dazzling us with a surfeit of sweet-scented flowers, a profusion of green. Families descend onto blond beaches, beautiful youths congregate at music festivals and dance till dawn, lovers embody Love.Tuesday brings a surfeit of apple pie and stars and stripes as millions celebrate their own version of Independence Day in America.

In the silence of space, the planets reflect another facet of our human story. Upheavals yet to come, transformations yet to be fully understood. Pluto, dark god of the underworld circles Retrograde through the final degrees of Capricorn, squaring the Nodes of Destiny till September. Pluto draws out all that is hidden in the shadows, exposing all that is rotten in our communities and self-serving plutocracies. Pluto carries the secret of life, death and rebirth; the primordial forces of nature, the power struggles played out on the world stage, and in our own relationships.

In his new book, titled In Each Other’s Care, Stan Tatkin, provides a mountaineer’s guide to relating to each other in ways that break each other’s fall down a slope of misunderstanding. He describes how to work together and share power in what he calls a “two-person psychological unit.”

“People do a lot of bad things in the name of love…how do we work together as two separate people, two different brains and nervous systems, two different histories, two different moods at different times? Much of the time, we think we’re conscious. We think we’re making decisions. I can prove along with other scientists that most of what we’re doing every day is automated by memory. We’re not thinking. We’re operating through a primitive system of pattern recognition, which makes our life easier, but also causes us to go to war.”

Themes of love and war are enacted in the sky story now as Venus and Mars move through the firey sign of Leo. Fire symbolism is associated with the Jungian intuitive function, the way we create our future, how we see above and beyond the chaos, how we consecrate our bonds of attachment.

Venus the love goddess, glitters at sunset, shimmering at her brightest around July 7th. The Sumerians believed that the beautiful Innanna (re-named by the Romans as Venus)  learnt the art of lovemaking during her time in the shadows of the underworld. Venus vanishes from the night skies as she descends below the horizon in her Retrograde cycle, re-appearing as a spectacular morning star in September. Venus Retrograde times deliver gifts of hindsight, or personal descents into hell that up-end our lives. For forty days and forty nights, opportunities will alight that invite us to repair and rebuild a relationship, or see with new eyes those things we hold dear to our heart.

Venus escorts life’s pleasures and joys. Mars, war-god, activist, and two-year-old tantrum thrower, dances in the flames of proud Leo, indicating the potential for high drama as both planets form a square to volatile Uranus. This could catapult us into making a rash financial decision or bravely claim our heart’s desire.

Mercury fire-walks through Leo (July 11th-29th) signifying a new impetus in our creative focus, bringing a surfeit of news and information, before slowing right down, and turning Retrograde on August 23rd ahead of Uranus Retrograde on August 29th.

As we prepare to descend into the valleys and climb the mountains that are always ahead, this full moon in the sign of the Mer-Goat reminds us to be sure-footed and patient, to prepare well. This moon signifies a culmination of a cycle, a coming to light of something that might not have been clear. As we start at the bottom and begin our climb, “may there be kindess in your gaze when you look within.” John O’Donohue.

 

I have been writing this blog for 12 years now. Thank you all for all your love and support which has made the mountains ahead seem less daunting. A ChatBot could write far more quickly than I do, yet I commit to sharing with you all this human-created piece of astrological weather forecasting aligned with the lunar cycles at no charge. If you would like to get in touch for a personal astrology reading, I’d love to hear from you. Please pop me an email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

I send this to you all with Love.

Ingrid.

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The Way of Beauty—Taurus New Moon—May 19th.

Nature is not a place to visit, it is home―Gary Snyder.

 

The sun-dappled days of May unfurl in a rapture of colour. Whether we live in cities made bearable by parks and public gardens, or whether we have our own small patch of earth to tend, nature calls us back home.

The constellation of Taurus rose at the vernal equinox, accompanying nature’s re-birth around 4,000 BCE-1,700 BCE. Over thousands of years, the earth has wobbled, and the Sun has shifted in what is called precession of the equinoxes. Now, as the Sun moves through Taurus, spring swoons to the warm exuberance of summer and Taurus season is festooned with flowers, daubed in many shades of green. Bluebells and buttercups, flutter of delicate pink apple blossom. A showy froth of cowslip and white daisies dance across the meadows. Trees flame out, emerald, lime green.

Encrypted in the sliver fire of the starry skies this month, are three important sky-stories:

  • Mercury stations direct
  • Jupiter enters Taurus and T-squares Pluto and Mars
  • New Moon in Taurus

Mercury enters the morning sky and stations direct (at 5° Taurus) on May 15th and by May 29th will be at its greatest distance from the Sun. Mercury leaves the ambiguous Retrograde shadow on May 31st.

Mercury in the sensual clothing of Venus-ruled Taurus guides us across the threshold of change as one lavish British spectacle merges with the most-watched spectacle on earth. The Eurovision Song Contest staged in Liverpool, with an estimated audience of 180 million people culminates with the finals on May 13th, as a Taurus Sun makes an electrifying conjunction with unpredictable Uranus. This signifies a high-voltage energy, tempered by a tender Pisces Moon conjunction with serious Saturn trine Venus in Cancer.

Just before sunrise, Jupiter emerges from behind the moon, shining like a yellow citrine in the apricot light of dawn. Jupiter enters Taurus on May 16th and will square both machismo Mars in the royal sign of Leo and Pluto in Aquarius on May 21st. This is potentially a cathartic T-square which may explode in the wastelands of war in Ukraine and Syria and could spark panic on the financial markets. The Pluto/Jupiter square at 0° Taurus/ Aquarius is a waxing square in a cycle that began with the Pluto/Jupiter conjunction at the beginning of 2020.

Jupiter and Pluto connect in a combustable square in May, April and June and move close once more from early December 2023 to February next year.

On May 19th, the Sun and Moon caress the cool, soft flanks of Taurus. Her fleeting embrace with the sun is a heartbeat that pulses through our bodies, a monthly reminder that we are stardust, sea-borne, rooted in our animal bodies. New moons are celestial pause points. Tender moments when we can begin again, this time more gently, more slowly, more tenderly. To focus on one thing at a time. This is our prompt to breathe in beauty and cherish our belonging in the delicate web of life. Virginia Woolf remembers a moment of grace in a garden in St Ives, “It seemed suddenly plain that the flower itself was a part of the earth, that a ring enclosed what was the flower, and that was the real flower, part earth, part flower.”

This lunation in a fixed earth sign represents those things we value and desire. For some this may be a simpler life, a strong urge to pare down, to soften inside as we love and nurture ourselves.  Author Anne Lamott suggests that that we start taking action, even if we don’t really have a conviction that it will ever help and change… “Little by little, I think the message becomes that we’re worthy of that and we’re deserving of that. We start to notice the softening inside of us, of being loved and nurtured by our own selves. Then buckle up because it is going to change every single thing about the world.”

Taurus which is not simply a personality trait or a list of keywords.Taurus is a metaphor for beauty, sensuality, and indulgence. Taurus invites us to attune to the slow circles of nature, to be receptive to those things that bring us pleasure and delight.

The new Moon in Taurus invites us to draw down, to focus on our senses, to dig our hands into the earth, to plant seeds that will grow. Where Taurus is in our birth chart is where we must work the ground, nurture our gifts and talents, attentively manage our resources, cherish those people and things we value.

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace,” writes May Sarton.

The moon is exulted in moist, fertile Taurus. If you have a herb or vegetable garden, now is the best time to plant root vegtables and salad greens and ease back on the weeding.

The Chelsea Flower show is now re-branding “weeds” as “hero plants” and Alys Fowler suggests “rather than going to work in our gardens, we could all relax a little, spend more time looking and listening, waiting rather than reacting, being in the garden as much as actively gardening.”

Neurologist, Oliver Sacks once said, “in forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases―music and gardens.”

There are many ways to remember our connection with the natural world and cherish the beauty that is all around us. We might take ourselves on an “artist’s date”, allow ourselves to be seduced by beauty when we visit a gallery. We might let music fill our senses. Wrap our arms around a tree. We might start this new day with a cup of tea or coffee in a beautiful mug, a fresh flower picked from the garden in a vase on our breakfast table.

Cheryl Strayed writes, “there’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it… put yourself in the way of beauty.”

To book an astrology consultation, or to join me and spiritual guide, Eileen Heneghan on June 24th as we celebrate the Summer Solstice please email me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

 

 

Midsummer Celebration of Light—June 24th   

 

Breathe in the Light, the sweet scent of flowers. Today we celebrate this ancient feast of fire, the pairing of the Sun and the Moon, the strength and vitality of  Midsummer. 

Join archetypal astrologer Ingrid Hoffman and energetic healer and teacher, Eileen Heneghan for an inspiring afternoon of story, myth, folklore, and meditation at this still point of the year.

Our Wise Woman gathering will be on Zoom with plenty of time to reflect and to share, to deepen our connection with others, to explore new ways of finding ourselves a-new.

 

Together we will allow ourselves to be transported to the lush green hills of County Kerry, as we immerse ourselves in a powerful old Irish story of love and triumph. There will be plenty of time to reflect on what it teaches us about how we might live more authentically, how we might forge our souls, in challenging circumstances; how to make sense of a world that is changing so fast.

Join us on Saturday, June 24th, 14.00-15.30.

Payment in advance: £20 via Paypal or €23.

Zoom link will be sent to you via email.

Contact Ingrid Hoffman: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

 

 

 

 

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Becoming Human—Pluto in Aquarius—2023—2044.

No one is coming to save us. But everyone is coming to save everyone—Sophie Strand.

Pluto’s entry into the humanitarian sign of Aquarius is no abstract event in the age of the Anthropocene.

Pluto returns to Aquarius after 245 years of colonisation, genocide and ecocide, a mere blip in the spiral of human his-story. Pluto’s potent energy will infuse all our lives over the next two decades as societies are destroyed and reshaped. Today, we begin a slow shedding of old skins.

This is a call to create a new relationship with nature, and with each small act, to tend to each other, to allow the ragged scars of patriarchy slowly heal from the bottom up. This is a call to reach out to a friend who is shrouded in the darkness of depression. This is a call to sprinkle wild meadow seeds on the barren edges of what was once a fertile marsh land, now a concrete parking lot. This is a call to remind ourselves, in the words of Paula Gunn Allen, that “snowflakes, leaves, humans, plants, raindrops, stars, molecules, microscopic entities, all come in communities. The singular cannot in reality exist.”

This is a call to become human.

Today, there will be no sudden shift into the golden “Age of Aquarius”. It’s unlikely that “peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars.”

Societal reform, often accompanied by bloody revolution and fanaticism shattered societies during Pluto’s passage through Aquarius in the 1700s long before we had “discovered” Pluto in the darkness of our solar system. Pluto the invisible planet was orbiting silently in space when Herschel “discovered” Uranus, that planet associated with break-throughs and revolution. This was a time of upheaval and revolt in France, America and Haiti. The first Industrial Revolution was under way. Captain Cook and William Bligh searched for new consumables in southern lands. Pluto’s last passage through Aquarius (1778-1798) marked the beginning of the climate crisis and a soulless sense of alienation and loneliness that now threatens our survival as a species.

Pluto tends to dredge up all that lies rotting beneath the surface, so we can expect the shadowy aspects of Aquarius to rise up like bloated corpses from the fabled water of this paradoxically named fixed air sign. Pluto’s purging and purifying presence destroys all that no longer serves us. We die so that we can be reborn.

Aquarius, like all astrological archetypes is complex and nuanced. To add to the complexity of this problematic sign, Aquarius has two rulersvisionary Uranus which carries a Promethean vision of infinite possiblity for the future, a Utopian dream of a perfect society; and authoritarian Saturn that accompanies limits and boundaries, accountability, and responsibility. Today, Pluto rests at 0° Aquarius, and the Sabian Symbol for this degree is “Building structures for the survival of the group”. These new structures will only emerge slowly, as Pluto represents an invisible, unfathomable level of life. If you have planets or angles at 0° Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, or Scorpio, these next two years are especially significant for you personally.

Pluto’s long journey through Aquarius will radically trans-form our relationship with technology. AI trawls the internet, dredging up the dross we have dumped there since the 90s and spewing it back at us again in the form of misinformation. Its difficult to distinguish posts by real humans from “fake”; AI art from someone’s soulful self-expression. How effective social media regulations will be amidst the flotsam and jetsam of AI generated content will be a Pluto in Aquarius concern that will affect us all.

When Pluto enters the sign of the Water Bearer, it crosses the same 0° point as the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius on December 21st 2020. Trump’s bizarre presidency neared it’s final episode and Boris Johnson partied while the nation was in lockdown. This week, both Plutocrats are back in the news. The Trump show goes on with the former president appearing in court for his part in the payment of hush money to Stormy Daniels. Mars moves into Cancer on March 25th after a long journey through Gemini supersizing Trump’s vociferous Mercury on April 10th.  The Trump show is not over yet.

In London, Boris argues for his political career at a “Partygate” hearing. Transiting Uranus moves over his Ascendant and Mars in Gemini conjoins his Sun/Venus. Boris is also experiencing a second Saturn Return while Pluto casts a long shadow over that portion of his birth chart associated with his public life and life direction. Time to return to making millions as a writer and a guest speaker perhaps?

We speak glibly of “patriarchy”, yet as Pluto gouges out embedded beliefs and offers a different way to live, how many of us will be willing to relinquish our “comfortable” way of life? How many of us will be willing to live equally?

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

Carl Jung used the word, Shadow to describe the repressed, denied aspects of our lives, but 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.  We will all, consciously or unconsciously experience Pluto’s potent alchemy these next two decades. Circumstances that will strip us of our excess and draw from our hearts what is most authentic and loving, at best. What is self-serving and cruel at worst. Angela Saini offers this: “some will claim that oppression is permanently woven into who we are. They will say that humans are inherently selfish and violent, that entire categories of people are naturally dominant or subordinate. I have to ask: would we still manage to care about each other so much if that were true?”

This is our call to care. This is our call to rescue each other. This is our call to become human.

 

 

 

Please get in touch to book a private astrology session: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

 

 

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Guardian Angel—Saturn in Pisces—Virgo Full Moon—March 7th.

We would like otherworldly visitations to come as distinct voices with clear instructions, but they may only give small signs in dreams or as sudden hunches, insights that cannot be denied. They feel more as if they emerge from inside and steer you from within like an inner guardian angel. And most amazing, it has never forgotten you, althrough you may have spent most of your life ignoring it —James Hillman.

Two planets change sign this month, signifying a new design in our collective and personal story line. Pluto enters Aquarius on March 23rd, and today, we enter a liminal space of Saturn/Neptune energy that lasts till 2028. Saturn’s co-presence with Neptune (2023–26) is a significant celestial event that will shape our lives over the next few years with an astrological reset in March 2026 as these two planets meet in Aries and will journey together until the spring of 2028.

For the first time in 30 years, Saturn plunges into the transcendent waters of Pisces, and tonight, an ethereal full moon in Virgo pulls at the tides, an augury for the deepening and development of our inner life.

Pisces is the last world-weary sign of the zodiac, and Saturn represents boundaries, structure, endings of those things no longer needed. This is a once in a 30 year invitation to dive deep, retrieve pearls of sorrow, rusted remnants of guilt, sharp shards of anger that have lain too long in the depths of our psyche.

Old structures will collapse like sandcastles washed away by the tide as Saturn moves through Neptune’s sign. We may discover our muse, our daimon, the duende that prompts a new iteration of creativity, we may sense a prompt from our guardian angel that elucidates our faith.

As Saturn moves through Pisces, ego-boundaries, rugged individuality, even our sense of identity may be infused by a force beneath awareness as we soften our defensiveness, as we remedy the dull ache of estrangement from our heart.

Pisces is boundaryless, and already there are hints in fashion, art and literature that presage Saturn’s sea odyssey, as dividing lines blur in the sea-mists.  In his new book, IntraConnected, Dan Siegel speaks to what indigenous people and contemplative teachings have taught about the oneness of things, to a “deep honouring and respect for what makes us different while at the same time, we’re connecting to what is our intraconnected shared fabric.”

As refugees in threadbare clothing risk their lives in flimsy boats, and millions of homeless people seek rough shelter in the aftermath of floods or earthquakes, Neptune reflects a facet of the collective consciousness that calls for some kind of sacrifice accompanied by boundless compassion. Saturn calls for realism and practicalities.

War-god Mars confronts the full moon in a square tonight; an aspect that is often associated with irritability, even anger, as tensions surface in our relationships. The sharp sword of Mars slices and wounds, often quite literally, with cuts and accidents, and in Mercury-ruled Gemini, with words that land painfully. Lunar symbolism encompasses women’s issues, and this lunation mirrors rampant misogyny, violence and cruelty that is directed against women, and on a more subtle level, the violence we inflict upon ourselves, our bodies. If we choose to embrace the symbolism of this full moon, we could use the heated energy of Mars like a poultice, to draw deeply on our courage as we reach out and repair a rupture in a relationship, sending life-affirming Love energy to all living things. The square also carries the ambiguous energy of the Mars/Neptune square which has been active since October. This is the third and final square which has a slippery, scattered quality, that chaperones Saturn’s entry into Neptune’s sign.

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, amplified as melancholic Saturn swims through watery Pisces.

Tonight, the symbolism of the Virgo archetype is strong medicine if we align ourselves with what must be healed within ourselves. The Sabian symbol for this full moon is a volcano in eruption: catharsis. Release of emotional blocks. As we reconnect with the essential life force within us, as we tend to our own vulnerable places, we may be able to soften our eyes, attune to the invisible as we move between the sacred and the mundane. As James Hillman once said, “to see the angel in the malady requires an eye for the invisible, a certain blinding of one eye and an opening of the other to elsewhere.”

May we feel the presence of the guardian angel who has never forgotten us. And prepare to swim.

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

 

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Flow—New Moon in Pisces—February 20th.

So, this is how you swim inward. So, this is how you flow outwards. So, this is how you pray―Mary Oliver.

The new Moon in Pisces foreshadows Saturn’s long-distance swim through Pisces which begins on March 7th.

Pisces is the last, world-weary sign of the zodiac. This new Moon alludes to poignant endings and tentative new beginnings as we acknowledge our longing for something deeper, as we begin to weave new dreams, as we begin to tend to those places in our heart that know only Love.

Pisces is not an easy constellation to see with the naked eye. And in our birth chart, Pisces planets or the house with Pisces on the cusp, may be concealed by louder or more overtly visible planetary archetypes. A rumbustious Aries Sun or dutiful Capricorn Moon may be more comfortable in a world where we compare, compete, and have a “nice day”. Julia Cameron, writes, “The voice of our original self is often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people’s expectations.”  We may hesitate at the water’s edge, admiring other people’s creativity, their altruism, their faith. We may disown our Pisces planets as the outer world presses its concerns into the sanctum of our intuition. We may not notice the signs and the symbols and pack away our childish magical thinking and innocent imaginings.

Pisces is where we journey to those soulful regions of our psyche, those places where we encounter mysterious daimons, and where powerful currents of emotion surge like a riptide, shattering our peace, bringing us to our knees. In this underwater realm, we hear the songs of whales, the whisper of sea grasses, the prayers of ancestors who lie full fathom five.

For those of us who like our lives anchored by certainty, the world may seem a precarious place right now. The Full Moon T-square Uranus on February 5th symbolised the devastating earthquake that ripped across Turkey and Syria the next day, leaving thousands still missing and the dead entombed by the rubble of defective housing. In New Zealand, people are just beginning to assess the damage of Cyclone Gabrielle as they wade through what remains of sodden homes and businesses. Still the ache of the war in Ukraine reverberates across the body of the earth and threads through our nervous systems.

As Saturn swims through the porous waters of Pisces (March 2023-February 2026) we may feel as if we are swimming through opaque waters, a psychic fog where we’ve lost our way. Things disintegrate, boundaries blur in the primal waters of Pisces. We may sacrifice something, release a tsunami of grief that may be collective, archetypal, rather than personal.  This may be the time to let go. A person, a job, a way of being in the world as we feel the ache of a difficult choice, open our heart fully. This may be the time to become a creator instead of an algorithm-led consumer. By letting go, loosening our grip on self-growth, and anxious self-improvement, we may float awhile in unfamiliar territory as we absorb by osmosis, a looser life, a life less determined by “influencers” but rather by our own deep force of vitality. As the darkest shadows of human nature emerge in fundamentalism and bigotry, the swell of watery Pisces energy has a slower rhythm that meanders, pervades our dream time, flows into our creative life, cleanses, and revitalises faith, restores hope. Saturn was last in Pisces in the 1990s as AIDs ravaged the lives of millions. The Soviet Union toppled, and the Internet transformed the way we think and talk.

Now as Saturn returns to Pisces, José Ortega y Gasset’s celebrated quote, “tell me what you pay attention to, and I will tell you who you are,” may prompt us to notice where the gaze of our attention lands.

Those who experience their Saturn Returns in Pisces over the next three years, and those of us who have planets in the mutable signs of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius may be prompted to create art, music, poetry; discover a gift for needlework or photography, or focus on maturing a spiritual practice. Saturn in Pisces will transfigure the ordinary, arrive in a turn of events that strike us like an annunciation, as we choose to see differently, consciously do differently. In Pisces, we dive deep into opaque waters where music and poetry melt walls that divide. We may experience, in the words of Eckhardt Tolle, “all things that truly matter―beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace―arise from beyond the mind.”

Venus moves into Mars-ruled Aries on the new Moon, signifying a shift in tenor in our daily interactions with others, an opportunity to revaluate how we can live in this world more soulfully. Expansive Jupiter meets Chiron (in orb from February 28th- exact from March 10th-March 13th) joined by Venus in Aries (March 2nd-4th). Chiron is associated with the evocative image of The Wounded Healer who takes away our suffering, and in our horoscope, also one who wounds. Chiron/Jupiter contacts often accompany grandiose aspirations that may inflate/deflate as we pursue “enlightenment” or constantly feel the need to speak “our truth” or follow “our bliss.”

This conjunction activates the Aries part of our horoscope (self-expression, will, courage, action) offering inspiration and motivation to re-connect with a deep force of vital energy, to feel a stirring of passion and creativity, and to know ourselves more intimately. Mercury joins Chiron and Jupiter in Aries on March 25th as perceptions shift, new insights may wash to the shore of our consciousness.

A faerie-circle of golden spring crocuses waiting expectantly for the bees may remind us that everything is interconnected.  A homeless woman, hollow-eyed, thinner than her beloved dog, may stir our compassion. The mute suffering of factory-farmed animals may compel us to be more discerning about the food we choose to buy. Searing temperatures, drought, and fire, may prompt community spirit. Our challenge will be to remain alert to the moray eels, the sharp shards of shell concealed beneath the opaque waters of Pisces.

“Certain things grow in darkness. Babies, dreams, roots…” wrote psychologist Jill Mellick.

As the tethered fish of Pisces draw us deeper, may they guide our prayers and direct our faith, so that we can hold on tight to the dreams that grow in the darkness.

 

For private astrology consultation, please email me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

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A thousand veils—the Dance of Venus and Neptune.

The soul is covered by a thousand veils—Hazrat Inayat Khan

On February 14th in many places on this earth, we’ll demonstrate through chocolates, music and flowers, our longing to love and be loved. As cloyingly sentimental or overtly commercial as this celebration may seem, Valentine’s Day has survived world wars and financial crashes. It has evolved from rumbustious fertility ritual origins enacted by the Romans. On February 14th, we celebrate Love that breaks us open, initiates us into the mystery of the human heart, lifts another veil from our soul.

On Valentine’s Day, the moon slips into her third-quarter phase as she glides through the fire sign of Sagittarius, carrying our vision for new beginnings, second chances, repair and healing, while the Sun in Aquarius moves towards a serious and conjunction with Saturn on February 16th, tethering our longings and imaginings to what is practical and possible.

Venus shimmers in the night sky as she moves through Pisces, sign of her exultation. On this day dedicated to Love and Lovers, she nestles closer to Neptune, an incandescent and brief union (in orb from February 11th-17th) that summons seduction and timeless pleasure as we gaze deeply into each other’s eyes, allows our hearts to lead us to our love’s longing. This evocative conjunction perfects on February 15th, drawing us into beauty, heightening our compassion.

When Venus meets Neptune in Pisces we may be lured by the promise of romance, ecstatic spiritual experience, or opulence. Venus/Neptune contacts offer us the gift of soul-union with a lover, artistic inspiration, the ability to be selfless, to see the beauty growing out of the cracks in the pavements, or the black delta of mould in the subways. It also can signify the tsunami of grief and loss at the ending of a relationship or the realisation that we have been unrealistic or too naïve concerning our finances or what we hold dear to our heart. When Venus makes contact with any of the outer planets, ancient gods stretch and yawn. We enter the archetypal realm and we are asked to lift one more veil that, as John Welwood suggests in his book, Journey of the Heart, “will inevitably penetrate our usual shield of defences, exposing our most tender and sensitive spots, and leaving us feeling vulnerable—literally, able to be wounded.”

Venus/Neptune chaperones blind spots, often accompanies delusion and disappointment, unmasks the power of the saboteur/victim within all of us. Yet, this aspect contains the power to liberate us from lack and scarcity, from our belief that we are not enough, and invites us to reimage a different use of our personal power, an opportunity to step back and read a situation symbolically.

On Valentine’s Day we engage with the Lover Archetype, and as we allow this energy to fill our senses, we may sense a stirring of something beyond reason, a feeling of interbeing, a term created by Thich Nhat Hanh.

In myth, Venus was not faithful. She delighted in variety, she evoked jealousy. She defied the patriarchal Greek and Roman morality. This multifaceted face of the Feminine embodies different qualities as she moves through Pisces, slips on her mermaid tail, adorns her hair with seashells. In Pisces, she dives deep into opaque waters where music and poetry melt walls that divide.

Each archetype of the zodiac manifests within us differently, but all have the potential to awaken our divine potential, cast light on those shadowy corners in our psyches. As Venus swims through the shimmering waters of this dualistic sign, perceptions may shift, new insights may wash to the shore of our consciousness, or ambiguity, uncertainty and confusion may swirl around us as we swim in uncharted waters. Yet, wrapped in the sweetness of Love’s beginning is also the sorrow of its ending.  Anais Nin wrote so poignantly, “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we do not know how to replenish its source.”

So how do we replenish Love’s source? Love requires an artist’s eye, a poet’s sensibility, a gourmet’s palate. The willingness to be curious, to engage in the mystery, to re-ignite the flame of Eros with the spark of our human imagination. “Love is fearlessness in the midst of a sea of fear,” Rumi reminds us.

Mars symbolises the Warrior/Amazon archetype which has many guises, but carries a charge of heroism, stoicism, loyalty, and self-sacrifice as we defend and protect the people and those things we love and value.

Mars in Gemini is picking up speed again after moving direct on January 12th, charging through that portion of the zodiac associated with the power of thought and communication. Gemini and the numinous image of the Twins are powerful motifs on this day offered to Love.

In Tarot, The Lovers card accompanies that sense of separateness, individuality, and awakens our very human yearning to relate and bond. The shadow that emerges can be the Don Juan/Femme Fatale who uses sexual power to pursue and control until a tremulous vulnerability is exposed, breaking open a heart longing for deep love.

So this Valentine’s Day, dare to pause a while amongst the heart-shaped second chances to speak our truth. Buy those red roses. Say I love you. Celebrate the confounding mystery and magnificence of the human heart.

Please get in touch if you would like to book an astrology consultation: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

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Lions on the Loose—Full Moon in Leo— February 5th.

Nature stirs here in the north. The days begin to stretch into  greening hillsides smudged with impressions of lilac and fuchsia as heather blooms amidst a stippling of wildflowers.

This week, the feast of Imbolc and the celebration of Brighid accompany the first snowdrops and crocuses, the daffodils that spill sunshine all along bridlepaths and woodland tracks.

The lengthening days remind us that our lives move in cycles that reflect our soul’s circumambulations and regressions.

As winter wanes, our creative spark may have dimmed, we may feel lost in a bleak and shadowed wasteland. Sometimes it’s a slight tremor that cleaves a reservoir of ancient sorrow. News that careens through the efficient, logical pace of our life; hidden things, suddenly seen that snag our gaze. Lions on the loose that hunt us in our dark-night dreaming, or an initiation into loss that dismembers who we thought we were. In our reverence for straight lines and upward arcs of evolution we have forgotten the soft curve of the circle that cradles us through times of darkness and a tentative re-emergence. Thomas Moore offers this: “when we’re shocked into awareness by a tragedy or a failure, this is the time not simply to make resolutions for the future, but to choose to live an awakened life.”

In homes where the old Celtic rituals are still practiced, Imbolc is a festival of inspiration as the first delicate, hardy snow drops break through the cold earth. As nature quickens with the seeds of new life, there will be many who will honour the ancient Celtic goddess Brighid who symbolises the liberation of the land from winter’s icy grip, and the animation of passion and vitality as we reimagine and create our world once more. Brighid’s lunar fire festival of Imbolc coincides with the Sun’s passage through Aquarius, one of the four fixed signs in the zodiac. The solar and lunar symbolism is apparent here in the north, as the earth begins to warm.

On Sunday, February 5th a numinous Leo moon brandishes her glittering mane across the heavens, a grand finale in the lunar cycle that may accompany a recognition of a heart-longing worthy of tender care. Leo, like the lion, symbolises strength and courage. Leo is associated with the heart—le coeur. That sacred repository of joy that contains the delicious delight, the audacious longing that emboldens us to rise up strong.

This lunation falls at 17° Leo and makes a departing square to Uranus, that may accompany a sudden epiphany that announces the presence of something that ignites our passion, emboldens our heart.

In her resplendent memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou writes: “I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We are born to this moment for the purpose of realizing our inherent strengths and striving to become all that we are capable of being. But we are not capable of being our best unless we have the courage to face who we are and to live out our full potential.

Venus, the planet that signifies our values and relationships, is moving through compassionate Pisces now, and she squares Mars in Gemini as the moon comes full circle. The ancients spoke of the scintilla, the vital spark, that vivifies and brings joy to those timeless moments of creativity in the studio, the kitchen, or the garden, or when our hearts are moved by beauty, inspired and replete. Venus and Mars call forth our desiresgreat and small. A longing for chocolate may nestle in a soul-longing for more joy, more sweetness in our lives. The intimacy of sex may be a place where divinity dwells, a holy place of pleasure. As the moon in Leo receives the light of the sun in Aquarius, (a sign with two dissimilar rulers, Saturn and Uranus) we evoke the limitations and boundaries of Saturn and the unexpected discharge of Uranian energy, as we find the courage to welcome the joy and the sorrow of our desire in the knowledge that our soul-hunger may be a longing for spiritual, not earthly, nourishment. May we emerge from stagnation or fear with brave hearts and feel the quickening.

Imbolc Blessings.

Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about forthcoming webinar events, or to book a private astrology reading: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all

Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don’t frighten me at all.

Maya Angelou.

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