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 20th 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 7th-8th) 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one of many outages that have occurred over the years that have highlighted our collective reliance on a complex and outdated web that some joke is “older than the Spice Girls; designed on the back of a napkin.”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 18th, 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 22nd and 23rd 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
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.
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 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.
On September 6th, 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.
Love Apples—Celebrating the Sacred Feminine in Astrology and in Fairy Tale—Saturday 25th September 2021—14.30 BST.
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.
In Kabul, fear and grief hang heavy over the city as lives are obliterated, 
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.
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.”
Love Apples—Celebrating the Sacred Feminine in Astrology and in Fairy Tale—Saturday 25th September 2021—14.30 BST.
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!”
Love Apples—Fairy Tales and Sky Stories…
Somethings can only be seen in the shadows—Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
makes us aware of the shadow.”
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.
Love Apples—Fairy Tales and Sky Stories…
Here in the north, the shimmer of summer sparkles across newly mown meadows of powered gold. We’re drunk with light, overwhelmed with a surfeit of beauty. Now the sun pauses at the zenith of the year. Something extra-ordinary is happening; we feel it viscerally. Old traditions return, threads of comfort as the earth’s axis shifts and the scent of dog rose wafts on a hot honeyed breeze. Perhaps in our own lives, there is a sense of returning to a familiar place as we come full circle in the wheel of the year.
Astrology doesn’t cause events but offers us a container for understanding them. As ancient Sarsen stones drink the heat of the Midsummer sunrise we may not go back as our ancestors did at Stonehenge, Maeshowe, or Newgrange, to wait for the death and rebirth of the sun. We can still draw from the eternal circle of knowing that describes the mythic journey of the hero/heroine and fall into a new more revitalised rhythm in our own lives. After the enthusiastic departure, the blistering fire of initiation, we may still feel raw, burnt and bleeding, yet we may sense the worst is over. Now comes the Return as our feet learn to support us again, as our hearts open once more to a love we can trust. The world is so different to the world we have left. There may still be tears to shed, a deep throb of pain yet to be tended to. We may still brace ourselves against the confinement of those tight corners we have grown used to. Now as the Sun dips into the cool waters of Cancer, a sign that clasps us to the familiar breast of comfort and security, our hearts open like peonies. We dare to begin again.
Mercury emerges from the shadows of this Retrograde period on July 7th and makes an ambiguous square with shape-shifting Neptune (July 6-7th) while corpulent Jupiter in Pisces (faith, long journeys, excess) switches backwards from June 20th-September 14th) and joins Neptune Retrograde in Pisces. It also can signify the tsunami of grief and loss at the ending of a relationship or the realisation that we have been unrealistic or too naïve concerning our finances or what we hold dear to our heart. We may sense something ancient and primal stirring within us as something comes to a natural end, as we begin to emerge from pain into pleasure, an expanded sense of our next self. This is our invitation to take off those rose-coloured glasses as we move fluidly through this time of stops and starts when nothing is clear or certain. Byron Katie, who has Jupiter Retrograde in Cancer, suggests pragmatically, “When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.”
Now at this time of pause, of empty space, may we allow peace and contentment to enter in as the sun sinks molten into the sea spilling a phosphorescent flash of chartreuse followed by a tiny dot of honey to mark the day’s end. As the earth’s axis shifts, we’re dazed and dazzled with by the beauty of the flowers that tumble over walls and spill over meadows.
Sagittarius is the nomad, the pilgrim, the outlander, the foreigner. Those who are introverted by nature may feel like a foreigner or outsider amidst the noise and the laughter of a social gathering. Those of us who are in a place of transition, may feel like outsiders in our families or communities.
The troublesome Saturn (rules, restrictions, delays) /Uranus (electric, iconoclastic) square infuses 2021 with drama, violence, plans upended, sudden shocks and serendipities. The waning square is in effect throughout 2021, with the final square on December 24th. It came up close on February 17th, and again delivers a concentrated clout on June 14th shaken, not stirred, by the Solar Annular Eclipse on June 10th as police prepare for mass protests in the UK. Priti Patel’s “digitise the border” project alters the UK’s asylum and immigration system that separates human beings into “them and us”—cast adrift, shut out. Strangers in a foreign land. This is the motif of Sagittarius as the wanderer, walled and shut out by Saturn’s bureaucratic boundaries and the unpredictable omnipotence of Uranus.
“To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim,” poet Mark Nepo writes.
I had embraced you… long before I hugged you—Sanober Khan.
Twins in myth and fairy tale, are similar at first glance, then reveal themselves to be fundamentally different. The story of Castor and Pollux, and their beautiful twin sisters, Helen and Clytemnestra is a brutal story of theft and revenge, kidnapping, murder, and loss. Maya Angelou once said, “I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”
Yet, whether we’re twinned, a resourceful only child, a pioneering first born, a cossetted baby, or the lost child in a family too big or too poor to give nurture, we’re engaged with the mythic story of the Twins in our everyday human encounters with friends and colleagues, lovers and husbands. Those sympathetic similarities that draw us in; those polarised differences that repel. As the Sun moves through Gemini expect these themes to be highlighted as our Gemini planets are nudged to think a little differently about finding a twin flame or a Soulmate. The well-worn sweaty T-shirt study by Claus Wedekind showed that the pheromones that attract us most are from people who are genetically very different from us. As the magic sparkles begin to flutter and the golden glow fades, we may find that our Soulmate is both our Jekyll and our Hyde.
As many countries ease restrictions, Mercury and Venus move through sociable Gemini this month as we make space for new relationships, new family configurations; as we move through our grief after months spent shepherding someone through illness, after the loneliness of confinement. We’re reminded that Gemini rules the lungs and the hands as we breathe new energy into those parts of our lives that may still feel cling-wrapped in fear and we re-connect with those vital, resilient parts of ourselves that press up against the warm urgency of longing to touch again. When our world has become precarious, when our natural impulses coil tightly inside us, it may be hard to feel connected to each other as we did before. The old ways of living on this earth have become harder to justify as the long shadow of the pandemic stretches across shrinking glaciers and warming skies.
Mercury backtracks at the end of this month, (May 29 – June 22) symbolising a turning point and a time when a protective chrysalis is shaped around an area of our psyche, depending on where these planets are moving through our birth chart. Pluto moves Retrograde (April 27 – October 6) stirring toxicity in our relationships, dredging secrets, exposing misuse of power, drawing our attention to those anemic areas of our lives that need a transfusion. Jupiter dips into familiar Piscean waters on May 14th amplifying our longing to escape into fantasy or denial, perhaps inflating empathy fatigue, addictive behaviour, or pain. Saturn and Uranus are still in square, a sky story that speaks of liberties curtailed as the old ways of living on this earth become harder to justify, and as the long shadow of the global pandemic stretches across shrinking glaciers and warming skies.
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No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions, he had money as well—Margaret Thatcher.
Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a silver sixpence in her shoe… money makes the world go around and silver sixpences have morphed into cryptocurrency, symbolised by the seven-year transit of Uranus through Taurus, (2018-2026.) Uranus in Taurus has highlighted the climate crisis and accelerated the power-hungry cryptocurrency bull run which leaves such a heavy carbon footprint. China is now minting its own digital cash, “in a re-imagination of money that could shake a pillar of American power,” writes James T. Areddy in the Wall Street Journal. As Uranus shakes and shatters Taurean ground, this archetypal force of chaos and disruption reminds us that we are standing on the rim of the widening gyre between rich and poor. That even wealthy Samaritans with the best intentions can lose it all in what Joan Didion calls this “ordinary instant”. That for most of us there is no settling feeling of security when work is patchy; that money and a gig economy are incompatible bedfellows.
The Age of Taurus (4,000-2,000 BCE) coincided with the prosperous river civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia; and for eons, the Bull and the Cow have been associated with wealth, with the flooding of the great rivers, the rich black sediments of the earth. Taurus, despite its association with the muscular bull, is associated with “the feminine”, which has been denigrated, distorted, disowned for thousands of years. Yet she is still there in the sharp green scent of green growing things, in the soft contours of the land, the artists brush that sweeps turquoise and violet across the tangerine skies at sunset. We know her indomitable presence that emerges in the daisies that turn their faces to the sun from cracks in the pavements, in sluggish city rivers filled with plastic, in filthy alleyways strewn with syringes and layered with human detritus where bright yellow dandelions grow.
So, this is how you swim inward. So, this is how you flow outwards. So, this is how you pray―Mary Oliver. 
