Relationship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s begin with the heart.

“here is the deepest secret nobody knows

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

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

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide

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

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

e.e. cummings.

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

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

Kiss from a Rose—Venus Emerging

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December 17, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

For All We Know—Full Moon in Gemini Moon—December 19th.

December, the diamond-frosted clasp linking twelve jewelled months to yet another year—Phyllis Nicholson.

This is the month when the Light returns on the longest, darkest day of the year.

In the black heart of winter, we may be standing at some new threshold, daring to cross a new frontier that will bring a different rhythm to a new stage of life.

December’s Full Moon invokes Gemini’s mercurial magic as we approach the Solstice on December 21^st. Now as we tend to the cherished customs and familiar rituals of this holy season, it may be easy to be distracted by busyness, overwhelmed with fatigue, whiplashed by unexpected events that leave us disorientated, discombobulated, emotionally drained, yearning for soul shelter amongst those simple things that bring us comfort and joy.

This Full Moon is Mercury-ruled. And in the Greco/Roman world, Mercury/Hermes presided over thresholds, crossroads, and boundaries. As we prepare ourselves for the challenge of crossing a new threshold, we may meet the spirit of Gemini in the wind that rustles the branches of the tree outside our window, a reminder that nothing is constant. Air is Gemini’s element, and Gemini moves through its two personas, appearing in those either-or choices we feel compelled to make, sometimes showing up at crossroad moments in our lives, when we stand poised to make a life-changing decision. This is the energy of the trickster—versatile, elusive, clever, playful, and infuriatingly inconsistent.

The cherished rituals of this season of comfort and joy assume a different cadence amidst new restrictions and mandates. This contradictory Gemini Full Moon casts her moonbeams between an ungainly quincunx to Venus and Pluto, which make the second of three conjunctions on Christmas Day, followed by the final one in early March 2022. For all we know, our plans to gather with friends and family this festive season may be suspended. What we had hoped for may not be possible this Christmas.

In myth, Venus is well practiced in dealing with Pluto’s dark, brooding presence, and their passionate union exposes any superficiality, stirs strong emotions, demands resilience and maturity. Venus is resplendent, glittering in her full regalia on the western horizon now. As you marvel at her radiance, set an intention for what you wish to manifest in your life. On the same day as this Full Moon, Venus turns Retrograde at 26° Capricorn and moves into the shadows (December 19^th-January 29^th).

The ancients tracked the passage of Venus in a perfect pentagram across the skies, ascribing her disappearance in the skies to her descent into the Underworld. For the ancient Sumerians, the Retrograde period of Venus was a powerful symbol of rebirth and transformation. The pre-Colombian Mayans believed that kingdoms were unstable, regimes might topple, and so her emergence signified an auspicious time to begin a war. In myth, Innana (Venus) is deprived of all her valued regalia and exquisite clothing. She enters the Underworld vulnerable and exposed, stripped bare of beauty as she surrenders to the darkness of the night.

For so many, this has been a difficult year. A year that has tested our patience, our integrity, our ability to temper our desires. We may have found ourselves in a strange landscape—a world that has changed. Friendships may have altered, truths may have shapeshifted, divisions deepened. Free floating anxiety clouds political agendas and a stealthy manoeuvring for power continues as Pluto moves through Capricorn and Saturn presses his boot heel on pleasure and possibility. Yet, for all we know, beneath the surface of our lives something is emerging, inching its way forward, as we transition into a new way of being.

As we adapt and improvise, Saturn and Uranus are still in a uneasy waning square and will meet again on December 24^th (11° Aquarius) brushing the birth charts of nations and individuals in various degrees of potency all through 2022. The North Node enters Taurus on December 23^rd, will form a square to Saturn on April 16^th, and unite with Uranus in Taurus on July 23^rd. The Solar Eclipse of April 30^th squares Saturn, as does the Lunar Eclipse of November 8th, 2022.

Saturn/Uranus aspects accompany jarring change and disruption, civil unrest, radicalisation, gains or losses of freedom and human rights. In recent his-story, this cycle began in 1988, then reached a square in 1999, and opposition between 2008-2011 with the next cycle beginning in 2032. In fact, the waning Saturn-Uranus square is still with us and is the defining cosmic influence throughout the entire year ahead.

There is a quality of the absolute that lingers and settles over us that is reminiscent of the 80s. Yet this phase is different. The weight of climate emergency presses our lives.
Extreme weather sucks us into the undertow, upending what we believed was safe and sure. Increasingly autocratic right-wing governments claim the liberties we took for granted before the intense Saturn/Pluto alignment of 2020, which amplified our personal and collective shadow and unconscious complexes as we responded to the pandemic.

As the days reverse their darkness, December 21^st marks the Solstice. A pale primrose Sun joins Mercury, Pluto, and Venus in cautious Capricorn, and we take refuge in those things that bring us comfort and joy. Jupiter arrives with a soft touch to the hard edges of life as he slides back into watery Pisces (December 28^th-May 10^th 2022) blessing us all with compassion and the profound serenity that accompanies surrender to the power of Now.

As we gaze up at the voluptuous Moon tonight whisper a prayer, send a blessing, gave thanks for the gifts and the challenges that this year has brought. We may have been forced to simplify and streamline our lives, uproot from desolate workplaces, or the cataclysmic disorder of a relationship. We are standing at a new threshold, so take a moment of quiet amidst the noise of commercial Christmas and let’s find peace in our hearts, miracles in the darkness, and an epiphany of gratitude as we send our blessings and our prayers out into the world these holy days.

My heartfelt thanks to you all for all your love and support this year.

Solstice Blessings and Much Much Love.

Ingrid.

If you would like to find out more about booking an astrology consultation for 2022 or about my forthcoming webinar events, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

November 25, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Burning Moon—New Moon in Sagittarius—December 4th

Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way―Celeste Ng. Little Fires Everywhere.

A fiery Sagittarius Moon blocks out the sunlight today. For a few brief moments, her dazzling dark shadow breaks over the soft curve of the earth. The natural order upturns, the Sun swaddled in darkness.

The Moon cradles our deepest desires, our cherished memories, the somatic imprint of our past; while the Sun represents our vitality, our outward thrust into a world that is now in a process of tumultuous change.

Eclipses unwrap what is concealed in the shadow. For so many, this year has been a year of living on the edge of something new.

This Solar Eclipse in the element of fire may be the spark that sets fire to a desiccated relationship and thaws a frozen silence, it may be the impetus to loosen the bonds that bind us to a job that leaches our joy. When the light of the Sun is obscured by the body of the Moon, our emotions may be heightened, a truth slaps us in the face.

This is the last eclipse of 2021 and it drops into in a mutable fire sign. For those with personal planets in Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces between 12-13° degrees, this sign eclipse may incinerate old habits, unexamined biases, burn away veils of illusion, singe untenable situations or scorch everything to the ground so that something new can root and grow.

As we look back over a year hallmarked by an uncompromising Saturn/Uranus square that expanded surveillance, entrenched mandates, constructed godheads of science and technology, deepened divisions and ignited civil unrest, we may feel flatlined, weary, vaguely uneasy as to what the next twelve months will bring. A new series of eclipses in the intractable Taurus/Scorpio polarity, will provoke the epic clash between Saturn and Uranus, the old and the new, and elucidate conflict and tension throughout 2022, but most particularly in the eclipse season―April-November 2022. In May 2022 (Nodes square Saturn) through to July/August/September/October/November 2022 when Uranus will conjoin the South Node in Taurus, and we will collectively and personally need to confront our fire-breathing dragons.

April is also the month of the heralded 13-year Neptune/Jupiter union, which some astrologers predict will bring light and love and sweet salvation to humankind; a better, brighter future in a Metaverse of virtual reality and Zuckerberg’s chilling vision of a digital future that will cling-wrap us to our screens. I would suggest that another upsurge in contagion and illness, and that watery Neptune, god of the oceans riding in tandem with fickle Jupiter in shape-shifting Pisces may bring more hysteria, illusion, delusion, or an outpouring of compassion in the wake of another extreme weather event that washes away our hubris.

Jupiter, the astrological ruler of Sagittarius and Pisces, is an archetype so often imbued with a tincture of loss and longing. Despite our prayers, despite our positive affirmations, the veils of illusion go up in flames, our lives are scorched to the ground.

On November 22^nd, the Sun in profligate Sagittarius rose from Scorpio’s generative mud and took flight. In Sagittarius we soar above the triviality of daily routine. We become explorers, adventurers, pilgrims, seeking signs, finding meaning. We challenge our bodies and our minds as we reach for the stars, dream the impossible dream, lifted and struck by the faith that it will all work out in the end. Sagittarius is ruled by portly Jupiter, who so often evokes the kind of laughter that brings tears to our eyes and softens the hard edges of the world. We invoke the buoyancy and resilience of Jupiter when we keep the faith, when we look up, when we notice the silver lining in the dark clouds of circumstance.

Excess and extravagance accompany the Sun’s flaming chariot through the heavens this month as we give thanks to the gods of commerce on Cyber Monday and Black Friday, although the storm clouds gather over contracting economies, broken supply chains, joblessness, and rising costs.

Jupiter is the roll of the fickle dice, the ever-spinning Wheel of Fortune, the jovial Father Christmas who delivers a casserole dish when we wanted perfume. In myth, Jupiter didn’t stay around long, he was always off, chasing the next conquest, taking what he wanted, when he wanted to, just because he could. The shadow that stretches behind Jupiter’s cheery positivity is self-absorbed grandiosity, a cavalier entitlement, which may be highlighted this month as Mercury moves into Sagittarius on November 25^th and the divisions that have widened during the Saturn/Uranus square this year become exacerbated by the square of Mercury to Neptune on the New Moon Solar Eclipse. Our version of the truth may not be true for somebody else. Our entitled quest for autonomy may be deeply embedded in the tribal mind. Writes Marion Woodman, “there’s is no sense talking about ‘being true to yourself’ until you are sure what voice you are being true to. It takes hard work to differentiate the voices of the unconscious.”

So, let’s go gently, with as much awareness and presence as we can muster as the weeks gather momentum for the crescendo of the solstice on December 21^st. Amidst the Christmas carols that loop repetitively from sound systems in shopping malls and supermarkets, let’s draw warmth from the symbolism of this fiery New Moon and savour small miracles concealed in the darkness. Anna Quindlen reminds us that “life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live.”

For astrology consultations in 2022 please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

October 29, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Incantation—New Moon in Scorpio—November 4th.

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves. We must die to one life before we can enter another—Anatole France.

Leaves of copper and gold blanket the black earth, and kelp-scented sea mists bejewel the fragile webs of spiders at this time when the veil between the worlds shimmers, gossamer thin.

This is a liminal time, halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. A time when we may notice an unsettling shift in the seasons. A time when melancholy wraps itself around the wan light of the dying year and ghoulish costumes create a safe diversion from our squeamishness about death. This is the month when the dead come calling—Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. Hallowe’en, loud and gaudy, prickling with single-use plastic, once Allhallowtide, a time in the liturgical year that was dedicated to the departed. Soft-bred pumpkins grimace with menacing faces; bonfires consume summer’s fruitfulness, light-hearted tricks and sugary treats sweeten the older tradition of guising (disguising ourselves from sinister wandering spirits) while ruby-red toffee apples symbolise the potent symbol of the pentagram that lives in secret within every store-bought apple; incantations against the supernatural, rituals for protection against the descent into the dark of the year.

The truth is that the triple faced Cailleach drapes herself in her misty mantle at Samhain. She emerges from rocks of ancient granite and the smooth folds of glistening basalt to run her fingernails across the iron-grey belly of the sky, scraping loose bitter weather. Samhain is the Celtic celebration of summer’s end. A time when the Aos sí emerge from grassy fairy forts to traverse the “thin veil” into the world of humans. At Samhain, we seek to honour the dead who have walked before us. We engage in communal warding off those things that remind us of the fragility of life, the proximity of death.

For those of us who have witnessed the dying process of a cherished pet or a loved one, for those of us who have pared down to the bone after the dismemberment of a divorce, or the devastation of illness that has altered our lives forever know the pain of those irrevocable endings, those radical severances that bring us to our knees, rip off our layers of protection, leave us naked and defenseless. As we stand at the edge of winter, perhaps there is a deep sadness that still lies wetly over our hearts, a remnant of eternal timelines interlaced with others who have lived before us.

For so many of us it is the dying of the earth as we know it that haunts our dreams, intrudes on our walk through the woodlands or on the beach where the corpses of tiny turtles blacken in the sun. As we keep company with the collective grief, we may be brought to tears by an act of kindness, a soft word of sympathy from a stranger—reminders that people are kind, caring. That we are not alone in our sadness. As the invisible threat of the pandemic, the existential crisis of climate crisis continues to strain our limbic system, tire our brains, keep us on high alert, psychologist Emma Kavanagh writes, “this phase we are in now, where everyone feels kind of on the edge, but no one can really articulate why—is what happens when you survive a disaster. When you live through what we have lived through, the net result means being broken by tiny catastrophes.”

As Nature withdraws, the fading Sun slips into the shade of Scorpio and couples in darkness with the Moon on November 4^th, sombre Saturn squares the luminaries, a melancholic reminder of all that has been lost since those first reports of a strange new pathogen emerged from Wuhan. Minimalism, restraint, austerity, checks and balances, will be imperative as hollow men gather in Glasgow to talk, yet again, about the climate crisis. Missing in action will be collaboration and altruism, the solvents that ensure the survival of our species.

It was sixty years ago that Rachel Carson, ill with cancer and in great pain, wrote Silent Spring, a book that was denounced and vilified by the major chemical companies. She said then, “I think we’re challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves”.

Re-reading her words, now, two full Saturn cycles later, as we continue to beat nature into submission like little dictators, it is hard to imagine that we will have the maturity to change our behaviours; to comprehend that we are only a small thread in the web of life.

Yet, innovative, radical Uranus makes an opposition to this New Moon and Venus moves into serious Capricorn as Mercury enters Scorpio on November 6^th, adding a colourwash of practicality and depth to our human interactions this month.

Pluto and Mars are invoked when we talk about the Scorpion. Mars moves fearlessly into the blackness of Scorpio on October 30^th followed by fleet-footed Mercury, and though we talk glibly of transformation, Pluto, still moving through Capricorn and square to Eris, coils around that over-used cliché. When we enter the realm of Scorpio, the mystery of life and death are at work. Snakes shed their skins and feathered phoenixes emerge from scorching flames in a world that is no longer pristine and pure, but is still breathtakingly beautiful even as microplastics and chemicals seep through the earth’s capillaries, and the wild flowers and butterflies we knew when we were young have gone.

Scorpio, in its true essence, asks us to dive deep into waters diffuse and dark; to dredge up what lies beneath: a collective fear that concretises into protocols and incantations that we hope will keep us safe; a collective scarcity that clutches and clings; the fragile vulnerability of the top predator with imposter syndrome who has forgotten the interconnection and interdependence of all living things.

Writes Rachel Carson, “the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

As the light slips softly off the hillsides, we stand now in the potent darkness of this New Moon. New Moons are generative times. Seeding moments when we plant wishes in the darkness and wait patiently, expectantly, for them to grow. Rachel Carson invites us to consider this: “one way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”

For astrology readings and more information about forthcoming virtual workshops please email me directly: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

October 19, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Born this Way—Full Moon in Aries—October 20th.

“Being different, it’s easy. But to be unique, it’s a complicated thing.”
― Lady Gaga

The last Full Moon of October burns brightly in the sign of The Ram. Aries is where we encounter our own autonomy, our sense of Self in a world where being different has a price and uniqueness is rare.

In Aries we encounter the mythic motif of conquest, which always implies an act of bravery, daring and autonomy. The leader who makes split-second choices in situations that could tip either way… the employee who dares to speak out, the parent who takes a stand against bullying, the friend who leans closer when others turn away.

For most of us, the battle for autonomy is enacted in those held-breath moments of choice, our fingers poised to respond to words that invade the temenos of our minds―other people’s opinions that school our eyes, ignite archaic reactions, fuel fears and insecurities that thread through our nervous systems.

We may discover that autonomy is concealed in the small choices we make each new day and that the hardest battle is with our self as e.e cummings, Sun in Libra and Aries Moon wrote, “To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”

As the Full Moon on October 20^th ignites Aries in our birth charts, we may dare to re-imagine ourselves and those who hold different opinions in a new light. In a world that may feel split and polarised, where being congruent, uniquely ourselves, the daily battle is seldom tidy or neat as our dopamine levels are stroked by algorithms. “In ancient times, having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore,” writes historian Yuval Noah Harari.

As Mercury approached the midpoint of this three-week Retrograde cycle (October 7^th-8^th) a “configuration error” silenced Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for almost six hours. This was one of many outages that have occurred over the years that have highlighted our collective reliance on a complex and outdated web that some joke is “older than the Spice Girls; designed on the back of a napkin.”

Perhaps a more important symbol of Mercury Retrograde in Libra is that former Facebook data scientist, Frances Haugen, has dared to speak out and say what most of us know: that the loudest voices re-route their rage and their pernicious pain through the lightning rods of social media.

Her indictment of the careless theft of time, self-esteem and profitable personal data by the big tech companies is one of many little fires that will inevitably become a conflagration as Pluto moves through Aquarius (March 2023-January 2044) fanning profound social and technological metamorphosis as we journey through the age of the Anthropocene.

Pluto was also moving through Aquarius when the wealth of Europe and America was accumulated on the bodies of African slaves, and the Conquistadors plundered the riches of South America. It’s looking likely that bots will be the new slaves; our personal data the new gold; and that malware and cyber warfare will topple our digital infrastructure in seconds.

On October 18^th, both Mercury and Jupiter reversed their Retrograde motions as we circumambulate the curves and the rough ridges of life, as we sense the emergence of something new. Opportunistic Jupiter moves direct at 22° Aquarius, accompanied by Mercury at 10° Libra invoking a new impetus to bring more of our matchless and truthful selves to our relationships, and to be curious and welcoming to those who dare to be vulnerably unique.

As the ardent Aries Moon blazes across the skies, spreading her light, she may spark glistening embers of passion, setting a-blaze all that is caged and conformist. This Full Moon is a symbolic challenge to seize new opportunities; dare to break out of the tired old roles that keep us cornered in our relationships.

This Full Moon activates Eris and the square to Pluto, an aspect which has been in effect all through 2020. Eris stirs up latent competition and jarring discord. And when she makes a catalytic square to Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, all that is repugnant and buried emerges from the darkness of the collective mire. The cosmic masculine, the Sun and Mars, confront the fierce feminine. This Moon symbolises the courage of Queen Boudica, who dared to challenge the might of Rome, yet Boudica was flogged. Her beautiful daughters, raped. In the end, she took poison, rather than become enslaved. It may be worth remembering that the glyph for Aries is the Ram. And Rams are sacrificial animals, their holy golden fleeces, held aloft by conquering heroes. The Moon’s sextile to Jupiter may stoke volatility as hot-headed Mars makes a confrontational square to Pluto on October 22^nd and 23^rd arousing ruthlessness or violence, so it may be wise to temper rugged individualism with empathy and compassion.

The swallows have flown south. Crows, strung like necklaces of obsidian, perch darkly on the wires in the lessening light. The beauty of summer feeds the flames of bonfires that attend summer’s end. May we bask in the generative heat of fire as we fortify our willpower, strengthen our resolve, dare to be nobody but ourselves as we strive to make a difference in the world today.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it…brave enough to be it―Amanda Gorman.

Please drop me a private email if you would like to find out more about the whys and the hows in your own life and in the world, from an astrological perspective. I offer sessions via Skype or Zoom.
ingrid@trueheartwork.com

September 9, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Ring of Love—Crescent Moon—September 11th

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater—Haldir.

A shimmering crescent of silver light holds the mystery of promise contained in the fertile darkness of the Crescent Moon tonight. She opposes unpredictable Uranus as she moves through the sign of the Scorpion, a sign that attends the great mysteries in life, death, rebirth, and the shape-shifting shadows that we turn from when we gaze only at the light.

The Moon is in her waxing Crescent phase now. She gathers the psychic energy we sent out into the world at the New Moon on September 7th.

It’s been twenty years since we watched in stunned disbelief, the dark smoke rising from those flaming Twin Towers. The Moon was moving through Gemini at the time of the first attack. She was in her sharply angular Third Quarter phase, signifying strong beliefs, inflexibility, and a likelihood of putting those beliefs into action.

As we reflect on this calamitous event that stripped us of our innocence, we may remember that there were 21 years between the “war to end all wars”, and insanity of mass violence that began on September 1^st, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. It was in the reeking mud and terror of the trenches at the Battle of the Somme, that J.R.R Tolkien succumbed to trench fever and was shipped back to England. Only a few of his comrades-in-arms survived the carnage.

In a letter to his son, Christopher, he reminisced, “in those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage.”

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on a waxing Pisces Crescent Moon. He began writing The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings after the insanity of the first World War. The Lord of the Rings was first published in 1954, as Saturn and Uranus were separating from their square (1952/53) inciting crisis, uncertainty, civil unrest, and repressive authoritarian reprisals.

As news of an invisible air-borne virus emerged from China, our collective “Shires” clouded over. Fear drove us into shadowy places. And the Ring of Power pressed its weight into our daily lives.

The fall-out from 2020 is still in the air as swirling sea mists chaperon the changing seasons, soaking russet leaves and weighting spider webs with glimmering orbs of dew. As we learn to adapt to life in changing times, new warnings of waning immunity, emerging strains, more waves and mutations, accompany this recent crisis in our human his-story. All through 2021 Uranus and Saturn are in conflict. This waning square is in effect all year, symbolising eruptions of repressive crackdowns (Saturn) and uprisings (Uranus.) The Great Depression and the rise of Hitler were also in the shadow of a Saturn and Uranus waning square (1930-32), and then, like now, a long and arduous journey lay ahead. The chaotic nature of this Saturn/Uranus cycle presents us with polarities, extremism, instability, and new choices.

As we grieve, as we remember those who died, those whose lives were irrevocably changed, on 9/11 Aragorn reminds us, “this day does not belong to one man but to all. Let us together rebuild this world that we may share in the days of peace.” The slender Crescent Moon of September 11th, 2021, offers us the opportunity to love, to rebuild this world. To share in the days of peace.

As we honour the rings that encircle our human story, the Moon arrives, ripely round, full-bellied, on September 21st. This is the last Full Moon before the Equinox on September 23rd. This Full Moon falls in the final degrees of nebulous Pisces, an archetype associated mystics and dreamers, artists and blank-eyed addicts who cannot bear the jagged edges of this world. Pisces is where we retreat from the shrillness of life, where we withdraw to weave our dreams. Pisces is where we dissolve into love and faith and Oneness with all living things. As this Pisces Moon floats through the skies, we may be drawn to our soul place, through a dream, a feeling, the waft of a scent that transports us to a place where “oft hope is born when all is forlorn,” as Legolas reminds us.

Our human struggle between the ring-of-love and the ring-of-power is poignantly portrayed in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, which took twenty years to complete. It’s a story of misuse of power and the utter destruction of the universe, yet from this catastrophe there is some hope of understanding and the possibility of redemption and a revisioning of a world where the ring-of-power is replaced by a ring-of-love. The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is a stark reminder to us all of the ring-of-power that we may consciously or unconsciously re-enact in our encounters with others.

Writes Linda Schierse Leonard in her book, On the Way to the Wedding, “only in the ring of power do we ask another to give up his or her centre or give it up ourselves, and this usually happens out of our fears and desires, our dependency, projections and power needs.”

On September 6^th, Mercury entered its pre-Retrograde shadow period, in readiness for this last Retrograde cycle of 2021. Mercury will be moving Retrograde in Libra (September 27-October 17th) as we choose to wear rings-of-love or the rings-of-power in our soul encounters.

As the seasons turn, and the cycles of nature begin a-new, may we embrace life’s energy in the rapture of spring’s blossoms and in the ruby and gold ripened leaves that flutter to the ground as summer’s extravagant beauty dies.

As we honour this 20th anniversary of 9/11 and ready ourselves for the decent into the darkness of winter, may we return again in the spring, more open, more generous, more loving. May we vow to encircle our earth and all living things with a golden Ring of Love.

May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out—Galadriel.

Love Apples—Celebrating the Sacred Feminine in Astrology and in Fairy Tale—Saturday 25th September 2021—14.30 BST.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again—C.S. Lewis.

Fairy Tales were fireside stories told by women to women. These were stories of envy and revenge. These were stories of love and enormous courage. As we move through the painful birth pangs of this new era, fairy tales and the metaphor of astrology offer guidance and hope at a time when rewilding the psyche is so urgent.

Join me at this time of changing seasons and personal harvest. We’ll meet Snow White and learn more about the regenerative power of matriarchal goddesses, Venus and Eris in our own birth charts.

Set aside 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon for a virtual treat. Nothing to do. Just curl up on the sofa and gather together with other wise and wonderful women. We’ll begin at 14.30 BST and the date to diarise is September 25th. There will be rich and nourishing sharing and lively discussion afterwards if you wish to stay on longer.

If you aren’t able to join us on the day, I’ll send you a recording.

Cost is £40. I will send a PayPal request which converts to local currency, or banking details if you prefer. Please pop me an email: ingrid@trueheartwork.com to book your place on the day.

In Love,

Ingrid.

August 18, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Bolt from the Blue—Full Moon in Aquarius—August 22nd

We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world—Gabor Maté.

Dew-spangled spiderwebs glisten from the hedgerows. The rosehips and blackberries have ripened, and burnished bracken flecked with shocks of gold covers the hillsides. As the Sun melts across the dome of the horizon, Jupiter, a dazzling bright star, and a primrose yellow Saturn, accompany the graceful presence of a pregnant Moon.

This August Full Moon in the humanitarian sign of Aquarius falls at the powerful 29^th degree, which carries a charge of energy and seems to define the intensity and changeability of our feelings and circumstances. Aquarius like all astrological signs, draws deeply from the minds that created the world millennia ago.

For thousands of years, The Water Bearer has been identified with the invigorating waters that bring renewal and hope from Heaven. Now the waters have become airwaves and modern minds have assigned two rulers to Aquarius: Saturn, the autocratic authority figure, and Uranus, a planet that could have been more aptly named as Prometheus, the Trickster Titan who dared to steal fire from the gods—and paid the price.

This lunation is charged with the unexpected as she gathers in Jupiter’s overblown, expansive energy. Jupiter in Aquarius is moving Retrograde (between June 20^th and October 17^th) amplifying the shadowy side of Aquarius—misuse of science and technology, fanaticism; the callous crushing of individual freedom and human rights under the boot heel of ideology or in the “interests of public safety”. This Full Moon symbolises our collective trauma, our private heart ache; the loss of autonomy as the impending heat death of our earth home overshadows humanity.

In Kabul, fear and grief hang heavy over the city as lives are obliterated, women raped and beaten into silent submission.

We are still in the eye of the storm, a dark night of the soul as Pluto moves through Capricorn and the dark stain of hardline patriarchal power continues to infuse our lives. Pluto, god of the Underworld who abducted and raped Persephone in Greek myth, squares Eris, chthonic Goddess who holds the stories of countless women silenced and forgotten. The so-called witches and whores. The unacknowledged healers and midwives. Those who made bold bids for freedom and justice. Those who paid the price with their lives.

As the wheel of his-story turns, the disorientating Uranus/Saturn square may be making its presence felt in discord in those personal relationships that ache to stretch and grow beyond the silences and painful stasis. The energy of this capricious square has unsettled financial markets, destabilised economic structures, jarred us from a sense of complacency as the climate crisis blazes into our awareness with increasing urgency.

Uranus arrives like a bolt from the blue, shattering our innocent illusions, upturning those structures that are ripe for change. Saturn at best brings stability and structure, and at worst contracts, concretises, mires us in fear.

Richard Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche, writes, “Our time is pervaded by a great paradox. On the one hand, we see signs of an unprecedented level of engaged global awareness, moral sensitivity to the human and non-human community, psychological self-awareness, and spiritually informed philosophical pluralism. On the other hand, we confront the most critical, and in some respects catastrophic, state of the Earth in human history. Both these conditions have emerged directly from the modern age, whose light and shadow consequences now affect every part of the planet.”

Uranus begins to switch back and will move Retrograde on August 20^th (14° Taurus) and will move direct on January 18^th 2022 at 10° of the same sign as we respond to the external events in our lives. Mercury, god of communication, and Mars, god of war, make a harmonious trine to this unpredictable planet, offering at best new possibilities, new information, and the impetus to take the initiative. If used unconsciously, carelessly, this energy takes on a speedy trajectory prompting reactivity, sudden decisions, painful words that twist in mid-air and harpoon our hearts.

Mercury meets Mars again on October 9^th in Libra and November 10^th in Scorpio. The current meeting is in the discerning sign of Virgo, which can have a waspish quality if not moderated by compassionate listening and some thought about how our words will land. “I always say that if people’s physical appearance matched their emotional age, human behaviour would be a lot easier to understand,” writes Gabor Maté.

Virgo also presides over our health—what we ingest into our bodies and our minds. As we remain rooted in the essentials of what matters, may we be rooted, in “the life of significant soil” as T.S Eliot reminds us in Four Quartets.

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

This Full Moon will reflect the state of our relationships. The bonds of love and loyalty that nourish us. The untethered ambiguity of those casual encounters that so easily tilt and topple. Tsoknyi Rinpoche writes so beautifully, “Every time you connect, a little bit more clarity stays around the love, a little bit more space opens up around it. Your mind becomes clearer. You experience expanded possibilities.”

We can discover the Miracle in the suffering, we can taste the strange honey in the bitterness of our grief as we feel what needs to be felt—in the light and the beauty of this Full Moon.

Love Apples—Celebrating the Sacred Feminine in Astrology and in Fairy Tale—Saturday 25^th September 2021—14.30 BST.

Feast of Fairy Tale and Sky Stories—Take 90 minutes just for you.

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning”―Gloria Steinem.

This is a time of seasonal change and perhaps a time of profound change or challenge in our own lives. As Hope unfurls her bright wings to settle upon new green shoots in the south, or a shimmering spiral of golden leaves here in the North, let’s get together to discover the practical wisdom of fairy tales, and the ancient messages encoded in the language of astrology.

Together let’s dream, imagine, plan―as we encounter feisty heroines, narcissistic stepmothers, poisoned red apples, and apples of pure gold.

Together we can celebrate the sisterhood of kindness and radical strength of empathy as we meet at this time of trial or celebration in our own personal journey.

Payment is £40 via PayPal. Discounts are available, if your income has been affected by the pandemic so do please get in touch. Everyone is very welcome. I will send you payment details if you e-mail me at ingrid@trueheartwork.com to book your place on the day. If you can’t join us, I’ll send you a recording to savour later.

With Love,

Ingrid.

July 23, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Star Light—Full Moon in Aquarius—July 24th.

Arise today through the strength of heaven.

Light of sun, radiance of moon, splendour of fire, speed of lightning, swiftness of wind, depth of sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock.

Translation by Kuno Meyer.

Sun-bleached fields are harvested and the sweet scent of jasmine pervades the air. The Full Moon floats like a ripe apricot as a celestial drama unfolds.

Tonight’s Full Moon heralds the turning of the tide as it accompanies the sparkling blue star, Sirius, “the BIG Dog Star”, Alpha Canis Majoris, growing brighter and brighter in the early morning skies from August 11th. In Western cultures, Canis Major is Orion the Hunter’s faithful dog, and in Norse mythology, it was the dog of Sigurd. The name Sirius means searing, glowing or scorching.

In ancient Egypt, the Heliacal rising of Sirius was a significant moment that marked the New Year and the life-generating flooding of the Nile, which was said to the caused by the tears of the goddess Isis as she grieved her beloved husband Osiris. Tonight’s Full Moon may offer a new vision of hope, a sense of relief after a time of travail. The Star Card in the Tarot represents Aquarius the water bearer, offering renewal, inspiration, and spiritual guidance after a time of turmoil and sadness.

Like all astrological archetypes, Aquarius is nuanced and complex. The Water Bearer is paradoxically an air sign, representing humanity. Aquarius carries the impetus for innovative ideas that may seem way ahead of their time. Aquarius is about the human tribe. Tonight we might reflect on the vital nourishment offered by friendship and the precious bonds of belonging that sustain us during difficult times. We may sense something stirring in our soul, a sensitivity to the fault lines of division that thread across the collective, a deep knowing that for as long as this world has existed, we have been inexorably moving to this moment in time.

This could also be our time to question our beliefs about the world, our assumptions based on how other people look or behave. “When explorers began traveling across oceans and undertaking bold expeditions in previously unknown territory, an entirely new kind of encounter emerged. Cortés and Montezuma wanted to have a conversation, even though they knew nothing about the other,” writes Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Talking to Strangers: What we should know about the people we don’t know. “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them” wrote Aldous Huxley in a Brave New World.

As our thoughts and preferences are nudged along by Google and Instagram, spiritual teacher Eckhardt Tolle reminds us of the ancient schisms that make it so easy for us to de-humanise one another. “Sometimes the “fault” that you perceive in another isn’t even there. It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At other times, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it. And what you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself.”

This Full Aquarius Moon carries the power and wonderment of Miranda’s exclamation in The Tempest: “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t!”

As we encounter our fellow human travellers―the eccentrics, the rebels, the innovators, and the Holy Fools, may we shake off the shackles of our conditioning. May our vision for a brave new world flutter with the hopes and dreams of all humankind. May we draw hope, renewal and spiritual guidance tonight as we gaze at the Full Moon. And as Sirius sparkles in the morning sky tomorrow as she has done for millennia, may we be reminded that we are all connected to each other and to the stars.

Love Apples—Fairy Tales and Sky Stories…
A virtual banquet…

Saturday, September 25th. 14.30 BST.

As the metamorphic colours of Autumn accompany the seasonal shift of the Equinox, we arrive at another threshold crossing in the heroine’s journey. The wheel of the zodiac turns to Venus-ruled Libra on September 23rd and Libra is the quintessential sign of marriage and partnership.

Swiss author and storyteller, Andrea Hofman and Ingrid Hoffman, a psychology-orientated astrologer based in Cornwall, explore the sumptuous symbolism of the Apple through fairy tale and astrology.

Join us for an afternoon of juicy love lore as we meet ailing princesses and the red-lipped Snow White. We’ll discover more about Eris and the forgotten feminine, and marvel at the real beauty of the Golden Apple as the seasons change.

Our feast begins at 14.30 BST on Saturday, September 25^th and of course if you can’t be with us on the day, we’ll send you a 90 minute recording. Cost is £40 via PayPal.

To find out more, please email me:
ingrid@trueheartwork.com

July 7, 2021 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Moon Shadow—New Moon in Cancer—July 10th.

Somethings can only be seen in the shadows—Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

As the light-infused days of July stretch languidly towards the blue dome of the horizon, edges seem sharper, shadows bleached. We’re three weeks past the Solstice. As the Sun moves through Cancer the days here in the north are already growing imperceptibly shorter. This is a turning point in the solar/lunar cycle. We’ve entered the dark.

Cancer is a receptive water sign and where Cancer is in our birth chart we seek solace from life’s hard edges, we feel in our heart and body the searing heat of the wild fire and the wild winds that buffet the islands of the Caribbean. We are aware of our tender exposed places as nature signals her distress. Solastalgia, a word coined by Glenn Albrecht, carries a plaintive sigh of melancholy as we witness habitat corruption and feel the pain of loss.

The Sun serves the Moon when it moves through Cancer, heightening our intuition as we read the energy of emotions, sense what is there, hidden in the shadows.

Author and story-teller, Andrea Hoffman writes, “on a psychological level, the annual solar-lunar cycle makes us aware of the shadow.”

In the Grimm’s Fairy Tale, Little Brother and Little Sister, the disowned “evil step-mother’s” sticky residue coats the Midsummer wedding celebration with an ominous residue:

The king lifted the beautiful girl onto his horse and took her to his castle, where their wedding was held with great splendor. She was now the queen, and they lived happily together for a long time. The deer was cared for and cherished and ran about in the castle garden.

Andrea reminds us, “the brother is still a deer. The spell has been cast and is still at work here. In fairy tales and in life, we must look for clues, read between the lines, sharpen our peripheral vision in order to sense our personal and collective shadow.”

Mercury the celestial messenger is now in plain sight. Mercury slipped from the shadows on Wednesday, July 7^th, and is now moving direct (since June 22^nd). Yet the day after the New Moon, Mercury sinks into the soft comfort of Cancer, aiding tender conversations, gentle dialogue with our inner evil stepmother. New Moons carry the impetus for fresh starts, and Cancer’s domain is home and family. This New Moon opposes uncompromising Pluto, which signifies a wiping of the slate clean and beginning a-new, perhaps with realism and resilience as Venus opposes Saturn this week (July 7^th) and then makes an uncomfortable square to Uranus which may bring a seismic shift to a relationship impasse, or bring us to the kind of breakthrough that John Welwood describes in his book, Journey of the Heart, that 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.”

Cancer embodies the primal force of the Magna Mater, the Great Mother who at a whim, turns her head and exposes her dark face and eyes of burning coals. She is the One who gives and takes life in casual and constant cycles of destruction and rebirth. She is the wicked witch, the evil stepmother, the mother-devourer demonised by patriarchal religion, yet who initiates those who are willing to pay attention and walk carefully among the shadows. Cancer is a Cardinal sign that requires us to act, perhaps to protect any violation of our boundaries. Yet, as author Marion Woodman says, “there is no sense in talking about ‘being true to yourself’ until you are sure what voice you are being true to. It takes hard work to differentiate the voice of the unconscious”. Cancer is a water sign; its energy is fluid and receptive. Yet we may feel petrified, immobilised by the sharp scrape of the world. Like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, we may have fallen asleep, cradled by the curse of the Dark Mother, drowsy with inertia. This is the spell of enchantment that traps us in a tangle of false beliefs. This is the long dark shadow that seeps from our unconscious and scatters clues of white breadcrumbs in our dreams as we follow the path that leads to something new. This New Moon, speak softly to the Dark Mother who feeds us poison apples. Pay attention to those judgements and beliefs that knock loudly at the door of our integrity.

All through this year, Saturn (the old order, rules and regulations) squares Uranus (idealism, freedom, revolution) and a tidal surge of a very different kind swirls across the skies as Jupiter, that planet associated with big dreams, grandiose visions and faith, encounters the ineffable Neptune in Pisces. Neptune spins backwards from June 25^th-December 1^st and Jupiter stalls our sense of expansion and growth from June 20^th-October 18^th amplifying perhaps the deep bruise of loss, a sinkhole of disappointment, or the dissolution of a high-flying dream. Both planets are moving Retrograde, drawing us into the undertow of delusion or ecstasy as we long to escape, to travel, to “get back to normal” while a virus shape-shifts and perplexed politicians throw the dice. Neptune and Jupiter will connect with other planets as they move in Retrograde through Pisces, offering us clues that emerge in plain sight now that Mercury has emerged from the shadow.

At the Sun’s zenith, may we remember that the light has already begun to wane and winter is coming. In the darkness of this New Moon, may we be prompted to look more closely, listen more carefully and trust that we can see in the dark.

For a personal astrology reading or for more information about the next webinar, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Love Apples—Fairy Tales and Sky Stories…
A virtual banquet.

Saturday, September 25^th, 14.30 BST.

As the metamorphic colours of Autumn accompany the seasonal shift of the Equinox, we arrive at another threshold crossing in the heroine’s journey.

Join Swiss author and storyteller, Andrea Hofman and Ingrid Hoffman, a psychology-orientated astrologer based in Cornwall, as we explore the sumptuous symbolism of the Apple through fairy tale and astrology.

The wheel of the zodiac turns to Venus-ruled Libra on September 23rd. Libra is the quintessential sign of marriage and partnership.

Our feast begins at 14.30 BST on Saturday, September 25^th and, of course, if you can’t be with us on the day, we’ll send you a 90 minute recording. Cost is £40 via PayPal. Pop me an email to book your place on the day: ingrid@trueheartwork.com