Relationship

July 4, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Ride on

Ride On 1 Life’s challenges bring us second chances. An illness appears in the guise of an opportunity to heal a ruptured relationship or reconnect with a family member. The loss of a job may be the way through to a long-buried dream that opens into a new life direction. Life’s challenges may bring us another chance to turn towards Life and Love once more.

We’re living in “interesting times”. The world is in a constant process of change. And now we’re in the eye of the storm. Countries are disengaged. On the brink of divorce. Re-engagement will require courage and the resilience to bounce back, regroup in the face of personal disappointment, loss or betrayal.

For more astrology listen to this week’s New Moon podcast.

Ride On 2 “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen,” says Brené Brown, author of Daring Greatly. Showing up to be seen for many of us sounds a lot easier than it is. We’ve been wearing a mask for so long, it cleaves to our skin. We may lose face. Have to admit we were wrong. Say we’re sorry and make amends. Courage and resilience don’t come naturally for most of us as adults. Losing a home or a source of income, the dismemberment of divorce, are—for most of us—catastrophic events that split our psyches along old fault lines that formed when we were malleable and very young. Our scar tissue aches. Resilience, that brave act of rebounding, is made easier if we have emotional attunement with others, good enough mothering in early childhood, a sense of belonging to family, a community. The ability to turn in and towards instead of pulling back and turning away is something we must learn and practice daily.

Ride On 3 Dr John Gottman, scholar, researcher and author of The Science of Trust says that sliding door moments build trust. “Trust is built in very small moments, which I call “sliding door” moments, after the movie, Sliding Doors. In any interaction, there’s a possibility of connecting with your partner or turning away from your partner. Of all the terrible betrayals, there is a particular sort of betrayal that is more insidious and equally corrosive to trust. The betrayal of disengagement. Of not caring. Of letting the connection go. Of not being willing to devote time and effort to the relationship. The word, betrayal evokes experiences of cheating and lying, breaking a confidence, failing to defend us to someone else who’s gossiping about us, not choosing us over other people. But the most dangerous in terms of corroding the trust connection is disengagement. When the people we love or with whom we have deep connection, stop caring, stop paying attention, stop investing, and stop fighting for the relationship, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in. Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fear of being abandoned, unworthy and unloveable. What can make this covert betrayal so much more dangerous than something like a lie or an affair, is that we can’t point to the source of our pain—there’s no event, no obvious evidence of brokenness. It can feel crazy-making.”

Ride On 5 Astrologically, we’ve all been affected in some way by the energy of Mars Retrograde and Neptune square Saturn. Mars is gaining momentum now as he moves direct through the sign of Scorpio and the Saturn-Neptune square is still in force, symbolised by the waves of immigrants seeking refuge, the political Game of Thrones. The word change means to to make (something) other than what it was, to alter, to bend, crook, to become different. And to change we must take action (Mars) to bring our hopes, our ideals, our dreams ( Neptune ) into manifestation (Saturn). And in order to trust another we must trust ourselves to be fully present during life’s random encounters. Writes Brené Brown, “nothing has transformed my life more than realising that it’s a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction from the people in the stands.”

We have a choice in how we perceive the world around us. There is no final destination in our personal journey. There is no end to our Becoming. The passage of time sculpts and shapes our values, our preferences and our perception of the world around us. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you’re ever been. We can dare to pause, consider, differentiate from the hive mind. We can trust. And ride on. images

Christy Moore— Ride On

Sliding Doors, the 1998 romantic comedy, depicts those split-second choices that unfold like skeins of silk into futures not yet lived.

Oryx Photograph Jeanne Thompson

My upcoming workshops are in Dublin, 15 Oct, and Cape Town, 5 Nov.

To join, please email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

June 1, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

When You Believe

Forever is composed of Nows. Emily Dickinson’s Power of Now is a recurrent theme in metaphysical thought. Yet so often we torment ourselves with worries about things that may never happen. And even the Now we inhabit is made up of the drama of “the news” as desperate immigrants risk their lives in flimsy boats, and Europe braces for Brexit.

Our lives are nuanced with shadows, complicated with opinions that may be facile interpretations or moralistic judgments lacking deeper thought or imagination. As we weave threads of innocence and ignorance, hope and despair, our divided selves are mirrored this month by the polarity in the Heavens. In early June, our challenge may be to keep centred, to stay in the Now. The planets reflect polarising forces, the tension of opposites, in global events and in our personal lives.

people walking Jupiter, Neptune and Saturn with the Sun and Venus complete what is called a Grand Cross. This Grand Cross is in Mutable signs, so think fluid, think changeable, think the elements of fire, water, and air and what they would look like in nature if whipped up by a strong wind. With this kind of energy there’s a sense of spinning around, bouncing off walls of resistance and spinning around again as our thoughts, or the circumstances we perceive, hit an immovable obstacle – what Yeats describes in the chillingly prophetic poem, the Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…

On June 5^th Neptune and Saturn are both at 12 degrees of their respective signs – Pisces and Sagittarius. This is the second exact hit in the series of three with the third square coming in September – remember that squares hold tension and opportunities for change and growth. So take up the challenge when there are interlocking conflicts or a block that seems immovable or intractable – Jupiter is involved here and Venus too as they separate from the Grand Cross. Jupiter and Venus were known by the old astrologers as The Great Benefics. They bring blessings and good fortune. Allow your heart rather than your mind to guide you deeper in.

waves Neptune pauses in the sky on June 14^th. We say that Neptune stations. Stations tend to add emphasis to a theme, they highlight a particular planet. So Neptune will be more of a prominent theme for us personally and globally as we find hope in negativity, light in the darkest of days. This beautiful planet represents the ineffable, the numinous – it is other-worldly, not of this world. Neptune may bring a sense of giving up. That hopeless, helpless feeling when we must sacrifice something or surrender to a force that is bigger than us. Neptune is about loss and longing and a wave of energy that engulfs us like a tsunami. Neptune seeks redemption.

refugees

Saturn represents the opposite – Saturn is about boundaries, barriers, structures, defenses. Saturn could manifest as our personal resistance or psychological defenses but could also be about patience and perseverance. Saturn is the inner critic; the wall, the block. Neptune is boundless. Neptune is intangible, mystical, non-ordinary and seeps through the realm of the meta-physical. Those of you who subscribe to the marvelous literary offering Brain Pickings by Maria Popova may have read her recent post about the “Tussle with two polarizing forces ripping the psyche asunder by beckoning to it from opposite directions — critical thinking and hope. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté.” This describes the walls of Saturn as the waves of Neptunian idealism crash over the political stage and the old order crumbles to make way for the new. Neptune is the ocean that threatens to dissolve the status quo. Saturn represents fear and resistance, the voice of caution, the protectionist posturing that bulwarks us against the natural impulse of evolution as the political pendulum swings and the walls that were destroyed are built again.

Walls 1

We imagine our lives into existence and if we are mired in facts, rhetoric, slogans, judgement, tick boxes, we imprison ourselves in the walls of Saturn. Perhaps we must face not the polarity of right and wrong but the paradox of this life here on earth. When we take things too seriously, too literally, we label ourselves and others and miss experiencing the moment, feeling “real”, truly being in the Now. A Course in Miracles offers a choice: “The world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream.”

So, if we attune to the uni-verse, observe the symbolism of the Grand Cross, we can revive our imagination, restore and refresh our hearts and minds. When we believe that the world is full of miracles, we take responsibility for making up the dream. Then in this marvellous miraculous process of change and evolution, we can stay anchored in the Now and know that like the planets in the heavens, here on earth, things are in continual motion. In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

When You Believe – Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston

Photograph – Long Karoo Road by Jeanne Thompson

May 23, 2016 In Astrology, General, Relationship, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Lemonade

beyonce 8

“Are you cheating on me?”

Beyoncé throws open a door. A torrent of water gushes forth, the salty tears that wash the wound of Betrayal.

Beyoncé’s powerful new visual album Lemonade, depicts her profoundly painful experience of infidelity by husband, Jay-Z. And we watch as she rises, renewed and invigorated by the pain of loss and announces to the world, “If we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious!”

For more in-depth Astrology, tune in to my first Podcast here.

beyonce 6 Betrayal punctures our child-like illusions of Love, expels us from the fusion-state with the archetypal Parent, shatters the projections that cloud our vision of our partner. Infidelity pins our butterfly-winged innocence to a deep awareness of human limitation and our own un-lived psychic life. In the torrent of emotions swirls guilt, anger and despair. Betrayal leaves no room for titillation, morality or judgement. Betrayal is about passion, hot sex, erotic energy, life and death. Betrayal is about broken hearts.

We live in a culture that is sexually immature. There is a collective adolescent preoccupation with the tawdry tacky side of sex that diminishes and obscures its sacred power and sublime sensual beauty. We cloak our obsession with sex and obscure it’s deeper meaning. Saturn has been transiting over Jay-Z’s Sagittarius Sun since January 2016 and Mars moves over his Venus/Neptune conjunction in late Scorpio till early August. In the same time frame, Mars comes to Beyoncé’s Scorpio Moon/Uranus conjunction … “Grief sedated by orgasm, orgasm heightened by grief.” We can speculate that their healing is ongoing and powerfully revitalising for them both.

Lemonade 3-beyonce-jay-z-lemonade In the nuclear aftermath of an affair, therapists may guide couples through various stages of atonement, stripping the soul of sex of its nuances. As sex therapist, Esther Perel, points out, we speak of “victims and perpetrators; injured parties and infidels; confession, repentance and redemption…” Dr Shirley Glass, “Godmother of infidelity research”, writes in her book, NOT Just Friends, about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and yet it’s the Scorpionic essence of trauma, the powerful emotions of grief, jealousy, passion and erotic energy that must be acknowledged if we are to repair, heal and be glorious!

On May 24^th, Venus moves into the Twinned sign of Gemini where she hangs in all her magnificent sparkling splendour in the skies, opposing her lover, Mars in his return journey into the frozen reflective depths of Scorpio.

beyonce 3 In Venus’s inviting arms, Mars surrenders his brutish crudeness, puts aside his weapons of war to envelop her sensuality with a solid sense of power and strength. So think of Venus dressed in Gemini clothing – communicative perhaps, playfully flirtatious, curious in the face Mars’s attractive thrust of strength and the assertiveness he now displays in fiery Sagittarius… And yet he is moving away from his lover, moving backwards into an area of the zodiac, where we must all at some time or another confront issues of our deepest longings, our deepest repressions and frozen fears. In Scorpio we confront our shadow. With Mars in this area of the zodiac, we may feel brave enough to take action, to lean in, to draw our vitality from the deep well of sexual energy, bringing our creative offspring to life in the form of new ideas that come to the surface, new initiatives that are there but may not be quite ready to be birthed until Mars moves direct again on June 30th.

beyonce 11 Betrayal is the means through which our fantasies are punctured and recognised. Venus-Saturn and Venus-Chiron – and in Beyoncé’s birth chart a Venus-Pluto conjunction – do not cause a person to be drawn into triangles, but they describe a deep and innate awareness of human limitation. In childhood a distant or unavailable parent will then unconsciously be attributed to our own unloveability because a rival will take them away. And yet it is the depths of our pain that we discover hidden treasure in the dark silence of renewal. An affair becomes the crucible where we burn away stagnation and destroy our false selves. Our recovery and healing thrust us back into a more authentic life.

Sex gives colour and vitality to our lives.When we hide from it or displace our sexual energies in excessive work, unexamined beliefs or restraining morality, where does this powerful erotic energy flow? Writes Thomas Moore in his superb book, The Soul of Sex: many cultures perceive sex as a sacred cosmic force. Like all the elements in the soul, sex needs to be manifested or we suffer from the sudden return of the repressed – sex breaks through in negative and uncontrollable ways.

So take time this week to cherish your body, delight in your sexuality. Allow the life-giving energy of your passion to melt away irritation or victim-consciousness. Use the energy of Mars in Scorpio from May 28th for deep healing.

“if we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious.”

April 28, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Way Down We Go

Being Right is an ancient art form crafted on the bones of millions who have died in the savagery of war, cemented by the defeat of those who shrink silently from boardrooms and bedrooms. Being Right rarely lights the fire of passion, seldom nourishes the warm comfort of friendship. It creates schisms between parents and children. Being Right requires a large dollop of single-pointed focus to craft just the right words to make others around you utterly miserable. Being Right emits an odour that infuses our lives with a distinctive scent of buttoned up self-sufficiency and seamless perfection.

Convictions and ideals are the realm of Jupiter and they are what imprison us in the repetitive stories we tell ourselves about the world and about others.

Jupiter turned Retrograde on January 8^th and goes direct on May 9^th. Jupiter is associated with excess, expansion, positivity – the polar opposite to Saturn’s austere restriction, necessary boundaries and temporal structure and dour melancholy. Jupiter blesses and brings good fortune – and yet also magnifies and over-inflates anything lurking under the surface: our pride, our need to cling tenaciously to our stories about each other. The planet, Jupiter is an enormous gas giant. The symbolism here on earth is that our gaseous notions, our inflated beliefs have a shadowy side that is not obvious to us when we are so self-inflated with our own agrandissement that there is no room for anything new to take root.

Jupiter is also about ideology: those ideological beliefs that form the moat around the castle of our self-righteousness, defend us against thoughts or opinions that are different to our entrenched view of the world.

Ideology usually means a prescriptive doctrine that is not supported by rational argument. The noun has a resonance with a much older word, idolatry, and idolatry comes from the Greek, eidololatria : worship of idols. So our words, our beliefs, become the idols we worship in our need to be right, to win our arguments and have others agree with us. Ethics, morals and values are only versions of a truth. Where we invest ordinary objects or our ideas, our notions, our convictions, “the divine”.

The phrase “spiritual materialism” was coined by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in his book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. We cloak our ego with spirituality, our self-righteousness with free-floating, cosmic, transcendental phrases that suggest superiority or psychological wisdom. He urges groundedness and humility, the antidote for Jupiter’s puffed-up importance.

Our brains contain myriad estuaries. A complex system of neurological river ways that gouge Grand Canyons through our minds. Repetitive thoughts and beliefs take us down into whirlpools. We drown rather than cling to the life-raft of change. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson’s research indicates that the brain is like Velcro to negative experiences, but Teflon to positive ones! That means that our thoughts, beliefs and strategies have an increasingly negative direction! As we change the movies that flicker across the screens of our minds, re-tell our stories of the past, and stop scaring ourselves about the terrors of the future we begin to Become Joy and Laughter. Being Happy becomes more important than being Right.

So, we can use Jupiter to bring our awareness of positive experiences into our lives. Rich Hanson suggests we savour these for at least 30 seconds to allow more neurons to fire together and create a memory trace. That we bring that feeling into our bodies, breathe it in as we re-wire our brains. Gradually, our partners become interesting, sexy again. Mr Good Enough for Now becomes Mr Right Now and Forever. Our friendships become a source of safety and connection. Our work engages us.

So this month, let’s embrace the blessing and expansiveness of Jupiter. Let’s place our idolised points of view in the past so that we can make room for the differentness of others. Let’s be generous in our assumptions about others while staying in our integrity. Says story-teller and researcher, Brené Brown, “assume the best about people because the life you change is your own…

Jupiter presided over the skies and was also called Jove by the Romans. The word, jovial, good-humoured, merry, is attributed to Jupiter. It’s hard to be Right when you’re laughing. And when we’re light-hearted we can assume the very best of ourselves and of others. The spirit of Jupiter lies in this poem, author unknown:

If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can do all these things,
Then you are probably the family dog.

Kaleo Way Down We Go

For astrology workshops and personal consultations please email: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com to find out more.

April 24, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

The Words You Say

Patience, like Hope and Charity is wrapped in tissue paper, tucked away with moth balls, a quaint echo of days gone by when time seemed to move more slowly. So when Mercury moves slowly backwards in a Retrograde motion from April 28^th to May 23^rd in the sign of Taurus, we may feel the need to slow down, wait and reflect on how we choose to use our precious resources of time and energy.

There are four Mercury Retrograde cycles this year. Two in fixed signs and two in mutable signs, each one stitching a thread through the months of our lives. Mercury Retrograde has become synonymous with travel plans going awry, computer glitches, and mis-communication. How we miss each other.

Mercury Retrograde brings an opportunity to confront the ghosts of the past that shatter safety in our relationships. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a term coined by Dr. John Gottman and is relevant now as Mercury moves through the fixed sign of Taurus. The Four Horsemen appear wearing the armour of Criticism, Defensiveness, Contempt and Stonewalling, trampling trust, crushing the tender roots of love. While most of us lapse into unconscious ways of relating from time to time, healthy relationships are nourished by gentle words and sustained by praise and appreciation.

One way of using this Mercury Retrograde cycle constructively might be to re-frame a criticism so that it does not sound personal. So instead of saying, “you always burn the toast” we might say, “this toaster tends to burn the toast…” Consciously look for something positive and affirming to say that comes from our heart space.

When we launch a counter defense against a perceived attack or deftly side step owning our part in what went wrong, we get caught in the cross fire that escalates into what the Gottmans call an “unfortunate incident” – vitriolic argument where we throw out words wrapped in venom, in defence of “our truth” that poke at the hearts of the ones we love. As Mercury moves backwards in the sky, we’re prompted to go back, re-formulate the repetitive stories we tell ourselves about others, the negative audio loops that cycle maddeningly in our heads. Now is time to shift perceptions, process events and excavate buried memories. Good medicine for defensiveness is deep listening and attunement to our partner’s frustration and a courageous attempt to take some action to remedy the situation.

Of all the horsemen, contempt is the most lethal. Put-downs and derision flay the skin off trust. Contempt slithers alongside sarcasm and disdain, and coils around any words or behaviours that set us up as being superior in any way to others. So name calling, eye rolling, sneering in disgust will blight the brave bloom of trust and poison Love’s flower.

With Mercury Retrograde, be brave enough to look for things to appreciate and praise about yourself and others.

Stonewalling may come in the guise of tuning out, not caring, though mostly it’s a behaviour that happens when the listener is flooded or overwhelmed. Shutting down or actually leaving the room is the only means of escape from anxiety or pain.

Mercury is the mediator, the psychopomp. As the only god who was able to safely travel to the underworld and back again, bringing the nebulous, the subliminal, to our conscious mind, so he is present when we undergo in-depth therapy. Psychologists now acknowledge that all our brain holds memory and that we are not simply brains but have a limbic system too, and energy flows continually through our bodies…we have implicit and explicit memories and an immune system that responds to hate speak on social media and the Four Horsemen that wreck such destruction in our relationships. So over the next weeks, as Mercury remains, suspended but animated until this cycle reaches its close, we’ll be in a liminal space of awareness. Mercury in Taurus shows us where we are stuck and recalcitrant. Where we now need to gently examine our own thoughts and self-righteous beliefs, our desire to impose our world view on others.

Mercury in Taurus reminds us to restrain ourselves before we thrust the horns of our negativity into the heart of another. Patience, Hope and Charity are the emotional vitamins for healthy relationship. So let’s bring our minds to our hearts, allow a non-linear vision to softly emerge from the hidden folds of our psyche into the dazzling Light of Love.

Top photograph by Peter Turnly

Like the genes in our body the astrological signs are indicators of the direction in which we may choose to travel this life time. We are a microcosm of a magnificent universal macrocosm. Our horoscope shows the exact position of the sun at the time of our birth and points the way, much like a celestial GPS to find out more about your own birth chart to experience a workshop please contact me on : Ingrid@trueheartwork.com

April 14, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Vestiges and Claws

War-god Mars casts his scarlet, retrograde shadow over our lives from April 18 until June 29, igniting the warm embers of passion, engorging the hot thrust of lust, heating his sword in the fire of our anger, calling us to battle. As Mars slowly caresses the thigh of the heavens, he brings to our attention the call of our soul for more passion, more movement, more creative expression. He highlights our primitive responses to situations we perceive as fearful or life-threatening.

Mars slows from April 16 and will pause on April 18th at eight degrees Sagittarius. This retrograde cycle has the elemental qualities of fire and ice as Mars retreats into the frozen darkness of Scorpio, a sign that he rules. This could be an intense time for those of us who have planets in that segment of the zodiac (between 8 degrees Sagittarius and 23 degrees Scorpio) and will certainly be far more powerful than the previous retrograde cycle of March-May, 2014, when Mars moved through Libra. Mars in Scorpio has a different kind of feel. Here he dons the armour of an ancient Samurai warrior and moves through the zodiac with single-pointed focus and silent intent reminiscent of his last great journey from Sagittarius to Scorpio 79 years ago when the world was simmering toward the heat of war. This in turn was a cyclical repetition of a previous Sagittarius/Scorpio cycle of 1858.

There’s nothing nice about Mars in his primal form. Mars likes to pick a fight. When Mars is imprisoned or castrated he howls in impotent rage or breaks through the bars. Novelist, Margaret Atwood, born in 1939, wrote in Power Politics:
“you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye…”
words which describe the cruelty and possessiveness of a dysfunctional Mars.

Over these next few weeks, our perception of our basic human drives—anger, desire and sexuality—may shift quite imperceptibly or perhaps we may come to a realisation that our passions and desires are also our life force. Only we can change our patterns with more conscious awareness as Mars casts his redness over those areas in our lives where we perceive ourselves to be powerless or powerful, where we play victim or controller.

When the raw energy of Mars is dismissed or cruelly bridled, this energy erupts in the sharp edge of violence, sexual fetish or sadomasochism.

Hatred and aggression—and carnivorous sexual intent—aren’t our ‘dark’ side. Our dark side is the side that denies its own existence ~ David Schnarch

Violence comes from the Latin, vis which means “life force”, this thrust of life, this dangerous and violent birthing of something new and visible. Violence, that twists and turns around itself like a scorpion’s sting, perpetuates what Eckhart Tolle calls “the pain body” that foetid swamp, that no-man’s land where we linger in purgatory, sometimes for years—as we fling burning arrows at our partners or over the walls at our neighbours. Mars runs amok in countries where human hearts are ruptured by hate-speak or physical aggression. “Hatred and aggression—and carnivorous sexual intent—aren’t our ‘dark’ side. Our dark side is the side that denies its own existence,” writes David Schnarch, author of Intimacy and Desire.

Mars has two moons named Phobos (panic/fear) and Deimos (terror/dread). Fear seduces us into a frozen state of knee-jerk reactivity as it seeps its dank chill into our homes and our bones. Fear lodges in our brain synapses and replays its nightmarish refrain in the old stories we tell ourselves about our lives, our relationships, and the world.

Perhaps we might accept that the lens through which we see the world is predisposed to battle, that we thrive on the heat of combat. Perhaps accept that as we tear through the world, distracted, pushing, straining, that adrenal burnout could bring us to our knees. Or acknowledge that we thrive on the drama and the action that combat brings.

As this planet of war and carnal desire journeys above the trajectory of our lives and we co-resonate with the cosmos, we may need to slow down, calm down, acknowledge that the battle out there is actually the battle within: Our self-sabotage, the audio loops of our negative self-defeating thinking, the stories we have been telling ourselves for years about the world around us and those who staunch our ability to realise our core aliveness.

If we are not able to act out our desires, our aggressive Mars energy implodes into the dank darkness of what is labelled “depression”. Our instinctive forces are flayed by a frazzled sense of overwhelm. Our relationships lack passion and emotional closeness, our heroic valour seems diminished.

The Samurai knows that power is not always about taking action. He knows that we protect our soul power by protecting the soul power of other living things. Our strength lies in our vulnerability, in our willingness to dis-arm, remove our breast plate, to open our heart. Our power may arise from failure and loss. It may emerge from the white ashes of depression. If we embrace the grace of the red planet energy effectively during this retrograde period, we will allow ourselves the space for reflection and contemplation. We’ll renegotiate those parts of our lives that feel stagnant and lack lustre, and allow a new rush of life to energise and renew our work and relationships, and forge a renewed connection with our soul life.

For astrology consultations via Skype or in person please email Ingrid at: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Another insightful blog on Mars this month: Margarita Celeste

José González – Stories We Build, Stories We Tell

March 30, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Hard Time

We’re at the threshold of a new month which contains the seed of new possibility. The month of March is named after Mars, the god of war. And this month, conflict and strife continue to rasp and rattle across the globe.

Frustration festers beneath the scab of these acts of violence. Territory and wealth are clasped in the hands of only a very few on this planet.

Hoary old bastions of power and authority are in a process of rupture as they no longer serve our collective evolution. This has been mirrored by the Pluto-Uranus square which has been in orb since 2008 and is now separating. So much in our modern world has changed and yet so much remains just the same: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Despite the financial crash and property bubble burst, despite the bombs that are taped to the bodies of young men and women, there are still no new financial, political or social systems to replace those that have out served their evolutionary purpose. Ideology has become a smokescreen for a castrated Mars energy that seeks scapegoats – white, black, Christian or Moslem in simplistic, formulaic rhetoric – them and us. The much reviled Donald Trump serves as a mouth piece for the great sludge of humanity and dares to give voice to what so many only think about: our prejudices our greed. He speaks through the polarized prism. Them and us. In his crassness lies something that resonates with those who live their lives like worker bees, so lightly dispensed with when profits are down. Perhaps it will take a global catastrophe to irrevocably destroy old systems and structures. It will necessitate brave new choices to build a-new with original materials.

March has been a special month astrologically. Every six months we have a pair of special lunations that we call eclipses. Eclipses enclose certain themes at certain times. Some astrologers call eclipses ‘wild cards’. They tend to present quite uncompromisingly, situations that may present to us those yes or no kind of choices that challenge our glib promises, that compel us, like territorial animals, to move away from the familiar safety of basic ground.

There have been two eclipses this March. A new moon solar eclipse in Pisces and a full moon partial lunar eclipse in Libra. If any of these eclipses spotlighted the personal planets in your own birth chart (they would be at 18 degrees Pisces or 3 degrees Libra) you may have had to make some kind of choice to make some lasting changes in the way you perceive the world around you or examine how authentically you relate to those around you. The effect of the solar eclipse will last for six months, so as March folds into the arms of April give yourself permission to pause in the frenetic over-scheduled busyness of your life and gently observe your inner landscape and what you truly value so that you may be Graced with a new realisation.

Eclipses fly in pairs. The ones in March re-activated another pair of eclipses that occurred last September – a new Moon eclipse at 20 degrees Virgo and one at 4 degrees Aries ( the polarity to Libra ) So the planets that rule the signs of Virgo and Aries, Mercury and Mars symbolize our restless attention deficit minds and our primal urges. As we review the month of March, gently consider how did we evangelize, idolize or hold too tightly onto those convictions and thought loops that imprison us like convicts behind the bars of un-examined thinking or explosive impulse?

Hard times are a choice even if the only choice we have is a change in our perception of our circumstances or how we see what is unfolding globally. We can choose to attribute good or bad to every thought, every behaviour that pricks our skin or pierces our hearts. Everything is interconnected. “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe,” wrote environmental philosopher John Muir.

Spiritual teacher Neale Donald Walshe writes, “no one does anything they do not want to do,” says “You always have a reason, usually, a pretty good one, for doing what you are doing and choosing what you are choosing. Be careful not to convince yourself that you are doing something against your will…be honest with yourself as to why you are choosing to do a particular thing. Then, do it gladly, knowing that you are always getting to do what you want.

The statement “I have no choice” is a lie. You can choose.

So select the outcome that you most prefer. Isn’t that power?”

Seinabo Sey – Hard Time

For astrology consultations on Skype or in person and for more information about workshops please email me on ingrid@trueheartwork.com

March 3, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Fiery Heart, Fiery Mind

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Feeling good about ourselves despite our age, the girth of our waist, the wrinkles on our skin and owning the right to be joy-filled, whether we’re single or coupled, is something the self-help movement has focused upon for several decades now. But for most of us in work-addicted societies where our social interaction is through a screen and where we sit for eight or nine hours a day, play and pleasure are something we do by proxy. We fall into a trance of forgetfulness, our butterfly joy caught in the heavy net of seriousness and grown-up responsibility. In the busyness of living out the days and the months and the years we somehow become reactive rather than reflective to the myriad pleasures that life offers.

Play and pleasure trigger nitric oxide, a colourless gas that silently balances all our neurotransmitters and relaxes the blood vessels so that more life giving blood can flow through our bodies. The ageing Dr Christiane Northrup’s latest offering, despite its trite and erroneous title, Goddesses Never Age ( oh yes they do! ) is based partly on her own experience with milestone birthdays and her own experiences of ageism. She warns against pigeonholing ourselves and evaluating people on their chronological age. “There’s a vital life force within each one of us that is ageless. ”

Her new book borrows from the work of Dr Mario Martinez, author of The Mind Body Code who writes,“Getting older is inevitable, ageing is optional.We don’t have to die with oxygen cannulas stuck up our noses. We should all be aiming for a happy healthy death.”

Martinez studied 400 healthy centenarians and found that they usually died in one of three ways: falling off a horse, havin Den on bike g sex, or in their sleep. He discovered that healthy centenarians seem to like to live independently, indulge in many rituals of pleasure, they are future orientated and did not want to be around old people. In astrology, Saturn rules the bones and the skin and is associated with ageing. We Botox away the frowns and smiles that we’ve earned in living our life with all its light and shadows while saying glibly, without any deeper reflection, “age is just a number”. Our lives become reactive rather than reflective. So it comes as no surprise now that the Baby Boomers are fixated on healthy ageing and in a Puritan Western culture, learning how to give themselves permission to receive pleasure and to play.

In September last year, Saturn, Lord of Time, moved into the zone of the zodiac we call Sagittarius, a mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter (the sky god Zeus in the Greek pantheon) building thematically from the past when Saturn moved through Scorpio …. and anticipating the future when Saturn ingresses into Capricorn in December 2017. Author and astrologer, Melanie Reinhart suggests that this is a time personally and globally for us to unfreeze the fixed watery emotions (Saturn in Scorpio) and thaw our thoughts and feelings in the warm fire of Sagittarian prophecy.

Jupiter is the ruler of Sagittarius and is associated with expansion, largesse, optimism and joy. Jupiter bears the title of The Great Benefic. He bestows blessings, “luck” and abundance, if we stay within the bounds of earthly necessity and humility which is Saturn’s realm. Saturn is referred to as the Lord of Karma. So our challenge is now to move between the soulfulness of withdrawal or melancholy (Saturn in Scorpio) into the light of the Sagittarian vision and expansiveness yet still stay grounded and earthed. Our challenge is to stay connected to our own joy and appreciation of life. To embrace the shadows and clouds that obscure our joy. To honour the solemn soulful moods of darkness or sorrow amidst the superficiality and incessant clamour of a quick-fix “have a nice day” culture. Melancholia was once honoured and even cultivated; it was considered a quality of mind that was very powerful for deep and powerful thought. So Saturn in Sagittarius suggests that over the next two years we must learn to Be with all our feelings and experiences without trivialising, pathologising or medicating or discarding them in the basement of our psyche.

Saturn’s journey through this mutable fire sign is epitomised by the image of flame and heat. The feeling of being burnt out or burning or being branded by the labels that our culture pins to our beating hearts: Hollywood Icon, Titan, Superwoman, Shona Rhimes is a sitcom Creator responsible for some 70 hours of television per season. She’s a single mother of three and Work is what defines her. Shona’s best known for her progeny — Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. By her own admission, she loves to work. Or used to. Until she lost the Hum. In her brilliant TED talk, based on her memoir, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In The Sun and Be Your Own Person Shona describes the burning of those who fly too close to the Sun and are consumed like moths in the brilliance of the flame of their own relentlessly driven creative genius.

Saturn’s sojourn in Sagittarius reminds us that we are mortals who must replenish ourselves, like the other intelligent creatures that share this earth, with frequent delight and pleasure. “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair,” wrote Khalil Gibran.

Saturn is about boundaries. About Feeling the Fear and Doing it Anyway, as psychologist Susan Jeffers admonishes us to do. Saturn is the Guardian of the Threshold. We meet Saturn when we acknowledge our limitations. When we accept the necessity of ageing and death. In his poignant memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, 36 year old neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi traverses the road to death and describes the terrain. He writes, “The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present.”

Saturn in fire is not an intellectual type of energy. It is about passion, int camera uitive understanding. Saturn in Sagittarius may require us to dedicate ourselves to something private and personal and joy-filled, with single-pointed vision. Saturn is a celestial mirror to our high hopes, our expectations, our visions and our faith. Saturn’s symbolism requires that we take stock of our beliefs about the meaning of our life. That we pay attention to our sponsoring thoughts. That we make space to dedicate (Latin to consecrate or to make sacred, to proclaim, to set apart, ) time to our joy and delightful Blessing of our human capacity to play.

Alice Phoebe Lou – Fiery Heart, Fiery Mind

Like the genes in our body the astrological signs are indicators of the direction in which we may choose to travel this life time. We are a microcosm of a magnificent universal macrocosm. Our horoscope shows the exact position of the sun at the time of our birth and points the way, much like a celestial GPS to find out more about your own birth chart to experience my next workshop on April 2nd, please write to me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

February 15, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Into My Arms

Red roses, cuddly toys, red velvet boxes containing invitations to dark sweetness. We may shudder at the bright shiny commercialism that festoons holidays that mark the wheel of the year. Those cards festooned with red hearts may remind us of losses, painful rejections. Yet the sheer romance of it all may herald hope, sweep us off our feet of clay, give us wings to fly. February 14th, dedicated to a Christian martyr, marks a much older holy day in honour of Juno (Februata) faithful wife of the womanising Jupiter and the mother of Mars. To the Greeks she was known as Hera, and February 14th was celebrated in honour of commitment and enduring love.

In astrology we look to the cosmic dance of Venus and Mars as significators of love and war, connection and separation, leaning in or walking away from love and desire. As they orbit across the zodiac, they mark new beginnings and inevitable endings. The dance of Venus heralds pregnancy, marriage, and reflects societal change. We all have Venus in our birth charts and it’s only through our hearts that we can meet each other in all our complexity and in the soft tenderness of our human vulnerability. Jung said that Mars was knowing what you want and doing what you have to do to get it. Mars is owning our desires, taking action to be the change we want to see in our lives.

Mars is Venus and Mars were in conjunction in November 2015 and their dance assumes the tension of a square in March this year and an opposition early in June as they perform a stylised tango across the heavens. Venus and Mars symbolise love and desire in all their many guises.

Perhaps as Venus moves into the sign of Aquarius on February 17th we can remind ourselves that the Greeks and Romans had many names for Love. And that Love is a Many Splendour’d Thing. Mars is in the sign of Scorpio now so both the love planets will be in fixed signs as they move across the dome of the sky. Perhaps this could be a time to strenghten our resolve. Practice Being more and Doing less, so that new awareness, new behaviours can graft and begin to grow new green shoots. Venus was a voluptuous goddess of sensuality and fertility, remember. Mars, her lover, was honoured as a god of spring by the Romans.

Patience, like Walkmans and Kodak Cameras, has become obsolete in a culture where the promise of satisfaction is just a click away. We give up too easily. We have little tolerance for frustration, setbacks and delay. So often in love we must commit to staying the course even though the road is rocky and there is a flatness in the landscape of love. If we could dedicate each new dew-drop of a day to practicing acts of loving kindness, search for things that are right in our lives, feel the gratitude coursing through our hearts, allow ourselves to be brave enough to peep around the walls of old beliefs that keep us imprisoned in shackles of right and wrong, we might glimpse the golden orb of Venus just before the dawn.

Our relationships are spiritual pathways and our soul mates, our wound mates, teach us forgiveness, discernment and invite us to summon the courage to love more bravely again. Judith Blackstone, author of The Intimate Life, writes “Love is the response of our heart to the world around us. To love life, and in particular, to love other human beings, is one of the central ideals of every spiritual tradition. It is also one of life’s greatest challenges. It requires the ability for true contact. And contact requires us to be authentic and deeply in touch with ourselves.”

Neuropsychologist, Dr Mario Martinez, author of The Mind Body Code, suggests that relationships based on the concept of bio-cognition and self-esteem are related to our immune system and our immune system responds to our transcendental beliefs. “We come with one of three wounds into relationships – sometimes all three. These,” he writes, “are not victimhood wounds. These are soul contract challenges. Abandonment, shame, betrayal. We need a covenant of safely when we commit to become the guardian of each other’s hearts in a healthy relationship. Our soul mates are the guardians of the heart.”

Martinez says that he believes we challenge our partner to abandon us – unconsciously. “We ask our partner to do abandonment behaviour to prove to us that we are right. The healing of abandonment is commitment. So we ask, what can I do for you right now to give you my commitment… when you are ready, I am here to give you my commitment. The wound of shame requires honour. Betrayal requires loyalty,” says Martinez.

Says sex therapist, Esther Perel “ You may feel that unless your relationship is thriving and you are on cloud nine, you don’t deserve to partake in the celebration of love. As if those in crisis or state of struggle cannot acknowledge any positive feelings because it would feel fraudulent. In fact, when you’re in a rough place, this is exactly the time your relationship could use a good dose of TLC. Making time is a ritual, and rituals aren’t negotiated — they are performed.”

Into My Arms Nick Cave

April 2^nd 2016 Holding Aphrodite’s Mirror, Love, Lust, Loss and Longing

Join me for the second inspiring day at Ubuntu as we explore the powerful archetypes of Venus and Mars in how we love, how we desire in a digital age.

You’ll be working on your own horoscope so please have your data to hand when booking – your date, place and time of birth. Your own chart will be drawn up in advance. We will dedicate the day to a gentle connection to the sacred Feminine and the sacred Masculine.

Date: Saturday April 2nd 2016, 10am to 5pm

Where: Ubuntu Wellness Centre 99 Kloof St, Gardens, Cape Town.

Please email me: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com for more about this day dedicated to you.

January 20, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

How Long Will I Love You?

Today we casually or consciously un-couple. Today our friends have benefits and Tinder is our one-stop 24-7, pocket-sized convenience store for regret-free hook-ups with just one swipe. Ours is a Supernova Consumer Culture where our Perfectmatch.com relationships have short sell-by dates.

Over the past 60 years, nothing and everything has changed. We live in what Marshall McLuhan prophetically called “a global village”. Social and cultural forces have intruded into our intimate relationships. Antibiotics and contraception which have liberated sex from its reproductive function. Women have claimed hard won political power, kudos to the Womens’ Movement. The Gay Movement has made sexuality an issue of identity. Technology has changed the way we date and mate. Love takes on new meaning.

“If monogamy was one person for life, today monogamy is one person at a time,” says psychology’s Super Star, Baby Boomer Esther Perel. “We have left our villages. We have travelled to the cities. We are free, no longer bound by tribal strictures and rituals of continuity and belonging. Now we are more alone than ever. ”

Nothing is the way it used to be – or is it?

Clifford-and-Marjorie-Hartland

In the astrology, the long outer planet transits define generations and each generation leaves a legacy for the next one. Sociologists and demographers appear to differ on the actual dates but a broad brush stroke will give a general cultural theme, of course which applies to the self-absorbed, affluent West, not those living in the slums of Brazil or Nairobi. Pluto, like all the planets, is a celestial mirror to the interests obsessions, and legacy of each generation born then. Pluto takes between ten and twenty years to transit through each sign of the zodiac. Pluto was in Cancer from 1913 to 1938 and it was this generation that endured the Great Depression, futility of two World Wars, the Holocaust. This generation experienced displacement, destruction, starvation and death. They sought security, a place of belonging, they focused on home. They had white picket fences and somewhere over the rainbow they believed they could see the alluring glimmer of The American Dream.

Pluto’s transit through Leo between 1937-1958 produced the narcissistic “Me Generation” and as each new generation pushes against the ignorance and excesses of the previous one. The Divine Child ( or spoilt brat ) rebelled against his staid Cancerian Parents. This is the generation that has destroyed vast tracts of pristine forest and coastline to erect golf courses and holiday resorts or set off to “find themselves”. This is the generation of the hedonistic “Rock Star” and the individual who spends years lying on the therapist’s couch talking about his unhappy childhood. This is the generation obsessed with staying forever young. This is the generation that divorces because they deserve to be happy! Baby Boomer, and author of the bestselling, Something More, Sarah Ban Breathnach says it all: “Do I deserve to be happy? Damn right I do. Am I ever going to be unhappy again? Not if I can help it.”… now you can reshape , reclaim and recreate the world in our own image.”

Divorce is The Boomers’ legacy. And even in mid and late life this star-dust golden generation makes it up as they go along.

Teacher and author, Caroline Myss proposes that beneath this sense of entitlement to happiness, this naiveté coupled with the Boomer’s intense interest in all things “spiritual” is a child-like notion that being “conscious” or “spiritual” will bring an end to all things “bad”. And when things get bad we leave. American sociologist and sexologist and Boomer Pepper Schwartz writes that “Me Generation” Baby Boomers’ obsession with individual identity and creative self-expression makes us the most divorce-prone generation group.

For the ancient Greeks, happiness meant Virtue. For the Romans, it was Divine Favour. For the Christians it was the after-life.

couple

“It’s only within the past two hundred years that human beings have begun to think of happiness as not just an earthly possibility but also as an earthly entitlement, even an obligation, writes historian Darrin M. McMahon in Happiness: A History.

Esther Perel describes how over the years she has observed a progression of three types of marriages: the traditional marriage which is family-centric. The romantic marriage which is couple-centric. The millennial marriage which is child-centric and HIP – High Investment Parenting. And yet, definitions, like statistics are fuzzy around the edges. Globalisation makes it possible to have a traditional marriage in New York, a romantic marriage in Pakistan and a millennial marriage in South Africa.

As Boomers age, more than a third of Boomers (if you believe the stats) are single in the US. Many opt for a LAT arrangement – Living Alone Together – with partners they may despise at worse or tolerate at best.

And yet it’s generally known that “good relationships keep us happier and healthier.”

Psychiatrist Robert Waldinger has overseen a long term study on adult development and come up with the hardly startling discovery that high conflict relationships are bad for our health. “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships in their 50s were the healthiest in their 80s. Good relationships protect our bodies and our brains.” Despite our most strenuous efforts to soften the edges of ageing and prolong our lives, there’s only time for Love. In a letter to Clara Spaulding, 20 August 1886 Mark Twain (Pluto in Aries ) wrote “ There isn’t time — so brief is life — for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving — and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
Whether we’re Boomers or Gen X, Pluto in Virgo Group 1957-1972, Pluto in Libra 1971-1984, or Pluto in Scorpio 1983-1995, all our relationships, even those that involve brief genital stimulation, require us to grow from narcissistic children into adults. We choose to love. We choose to be happy. We choose to forgive. And if we are brave enough we un-couple with kindness and gratitude for all the milestones, all the tears and the laughter we shared together over the long years.

Holding Up Aphrodite’s Mirror. Join me at the Ubuntu centre in Cape Town South Africa on Saturday February 20^th to explore the archetypes of Venus and Mars and how we embody these as we Love and Desire. Email: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com to find out more.

Video: How long will I love you – Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney & Ben Coleman