Eckhart Tolle Tag

June 2, 2023 In Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Fortune’s Moon—Full Moon in Sagittarius—June 4th.

’’Break the tyranny of your ordinary awareness. The rest will begin to unfold itself—Cynthia Bourgeault.

A full moon bastes the earth with liquid buttery light tonight, seeping moon magic into the pores of our skin, penetrating deeper than words as we stand in her beauty. As the stars flicker and fade into moonbeams, some say that an energetic portal opens and that what has been concealed in the spaces and cracks of our lives suddenly becomes quite clear. This full moon, in the expansive sign of Sagittarius, points at possibilities. Reminds us of what neuroscience now validates: what we practice consistently—qualities like honesty, generosity and gratitude, or those skills that we tend to and nurture—become embedded in our spiritual muscle. What we practice, we become.

This confident lunation trines energetic Mars in Leo and Chiron in Aries, a hyperbole of powerful energy that may compel us to take that first brave step towards our heart’s desire. The moon also squares Saturn which may represent a set-back or emotional state that demanded our attention around May 27^th and 28^th when the Sun made a fleeting square to Saturn. Sagittarius is ruled by jovial Jupiter, hedonistic, entitled King of the gods in Roman mythology. In the language of astrology, Jupiter is often simplistically described as bringing “good luck.” Yet “good luck” is as ephemeral as happiness, as fleeting as our attention. We invoke the buoyancy and resilience of Jupiter when we keep the faith, when we dare ourselves to hold the white feather of hope long enough to notice the silver lining in the dark clouds of circumstance.

Venus joins Mars in Leo on June 6^th, energising the square between Jupiter/Pluto and the Nodes of Destiny, which was activated by the entry of Mars into Leo on May 21^st. Pluto squares the Nodes from June-September, tasking us to break the tyranny of our ordinary awareness. Venus opposes Pluto till mid-June, and Venus/Pluto aspects so often accompany what spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle calls the pain-body. He explains: “the pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness… if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again.” As Venus and Mars move in tandem through the fiery sign of Leo, we may see an enactment of the Venus/Pluto tension in the public lives of celebrities and politicians, and in explosive acts of war in our own relationship dramas if we deny the pain that lives within.

Venus enters her Retrograde Shadow on June 19^th and will descend into darkness for 40 days and 40 nights from July 23^rd (28° Leo) to September 5^th, finally leaving the shadowy Retrograde landscape on October 7^th. This Venus Retrograde ingress has a disruptive energy as Venus will consort with unpredictable Uranus on July 1^st, a call to be creative, resourceful and wise. Venus Retrograde periods invite us to reflect upon who and what we hold dear to our hearts. Venus presides over love and beauty, aesthetics and quite literally, money and social events. Many astrologers suggest it might be wise to postpone a marriage or commit to any important financial venture, invasive “cosmetic” procedures, home renovation.

Ancient sky watchers plotted the tight inward loops of Venus’s eight-year Retrograde cycle that form a perfect pentagram or five-petalled rose in the night skies. In 2015 (July-Sept), Venus moved Retrograde in Leo and it may be helpful to reflect on events and themes in our lives eight years ago as we prepare for this next Retrograde cycle. Retrograde periods lead us back over well-worn paths, quite literally as we circle back once more to deal with the residue of something that still lingers. Retrograde periods invite reflection. Out of the blue, a circumstance or a reunion with someone we once knew, and what was left undone can now be healed or resolved as with the wisdom gained from experience.

This Venus Retrograde cycle will activate Ukraine’s birth chart as well as the birth chart of Volodymyr Zelenskyy (who has Mars at 0° Leo, possibly a Leo Moon, and Saturn at 28° Leo). This could be a critical pivot point in the gruesome course of the war.

Pluto’s 15-year passage through Capricorn is not yet over. Pluto, planet of death, decay, and rebirth, slides back beneath Capricorn’s dark underbelly again, stirring up unconscious material which may feel ominous, even fearful. Pluto returns to Capricorn on June 11^th, and will continue to stir up toxic sediment that has not yet been purged collectively. Pluto transits unleash primal forces that may coalesce as irrational obsessions, trauma, power plays, and ruthlessness. We will continue to witness the exploitation of the powerless, the hypocrisy of those who hold power as old structures decompose.

Pluto enters Aquarius in November 2024 and will stay there until 2044 as we collectively and personally experience what it is to be human and begin to deal with the Frankenstein’s Monster of AI.

The opposition of the sun and the moon tonight is a reminder that what we relegate to the dark side of the moon will emerge in our experiences and circumstances—the peace loving yoga teacher who meets a confrontational student, the idealistic social worker who encounters hatred and bigotry.

This full moon reflects the light of a mercurial and ambiguous Gemini sun. We may be challenged to acknowlege another point of view as we practice (again) patience and kindness. We may choose gratitude and hope even when we don’t feel grateful or hopeful. In this light-infused moment may we notice the silver lining in the dark clouds of circumstance. Mary Oliver asks: “Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look up into that blue space? Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions”.

Get in touch for a personal astrology consultation by email please: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Midsummer Celebration of Light June 24^th at 2pm BST.

July 27, 2022 In Astrology, Relationship By Ingrid Hoffman

Striking Fire—New Leo Moon—July 28th

Tonight, in a secret corner of the sky, a New Leo Moon hides her flaming face. It’s been a cruel hot summer.

In the ever-changing sky, Saturn and Uranus remain in a discordant square all through 2022 and 2023, a celestial symbol of turbulent times, bitter division, as these ancient mythic enemies confront each other in the heavens and an old order collides with the new. Saturn transits arrive as the henchmen of stasis that often thwart our efforts to move forward, yet they present as circumstances that grow us up, if we’re willing to learn. Transits of Uranus break us open, shatter and destabilise those things that are too tightly defended or have outlived their purpose. When these two archetypes face off in the heavens, they reflect tension, upheaval, limitations of freedom, resistance, and rebellion. Creation stories always tell of darkness and chaos that come before creation. The Pluto/Saturn conjunction of January 2020 has fermented all that is rotten in our world. The dross has risen to the surface and each one of us now faces the consequences of those things we have repressed or simply ignored. In the tumultuous confusion, perhaps something greater ushers humanity towards what is yet to be.

There are few who can stare at the pain of the world without blinking. We all long for some light, vacuous distraction from the reality of raging wildfires that consume forsaken landscapes, the tumult of politics, and the vagaries of the obscenely rich.

Global debt has ignited fear and scarcity and sparked an inferno of unrest that has been simmering for decades―first Sri Lanka, with other poorer countries to follow. Here in the UK, politicians bicker while railway strikes disrupt the lives of millions; in the US the far right are gaining ground, while millions get their news from Chinese-owned TikTok.

Hot summer streets and the pavements are burning… It’s a cruel cruel summer, sang Bananarama.

And now as the carefree weeks of summer holidays are seared and sealed seamlessly by the sun, nowhere is this more apparent than on talcum beaches, where sea spray infuses the pervasive smell of sun block and the scent of sea grass. Stunned by the glut of sunlight, hordes of visitors amble slowly along promenades or slump in deck chairs, drowsy participants in these halcyon holidays, this all too brief escape from reality, from society in decay.“Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” T.S Eliot once wrote.

Jupiter/Zeus, the celestial father-archetype, also associated with excess and grandiosity, turns Retrograde in over-heated Aries today (till November 23^rd) highlighting moral and cloistered religious codes that are deeply entrenched in our culture. This will test our own values and choices, our moral angst in the months to come. In the nuanced language of astrology, Jupiter will amplify the aggression and haste of Aries. And when planets go Retrograde, the celestial instruction is to slow right down and then look within.

Those startling synchronicities, those things that “happen” outside ourselves, so often mirror what is moving through the collective or in our own lives. Mars, the war-god, rams into an intractable Saturn on August 7^th, which can bring enormous frustration and a sense of being thwarted as Saturn accompanies rules and authorities, sober realisations that things may not work out as we had hoped. Writer Cheryl Strayed wraps this planetary aspect up in her own inimitable way― “writing is hard…. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.” When Mars meets Saturn, we may feel as though we are “hitting our heads against a brick wall”, “fighting against the odds”, and these contacts often manifest as exhaustion, low libido, feelings of frustration, being motivated by fear or duty unless we simply dig. We may attempt to “start something” without true inspiration and verve, or reach a very stuck place where, eventually, events or emotions erupt, bringing destruction of the old. Yet amongst the little fires or the flames of the inferno, new possibilities will grow, the much longed for changes we dreaded, yet unconsciously manifested.

The sky story speaks of simmering tension that will ripple and churn with increasing intensity as Uranus in Taurus unites with the North Node on July 31^st and Mars makes trouble by joining the fray on August 1^st, sparking tinder dry disputes and the madness of war. As we yearn for the stability and calm of Taurus, the undertow of the Scorpio South Node may suck us back into conflict and what Eckhart Tolle calls “the pain body.”

Mercury in Leo enters the conversation this New Moon making a frustrating square to a twitchy Mars in Taurus / Uranus / North Node―a meeting that is often associated with a heated rush of energy that may accompany rash behaviour, sudden upsets, accidents. “Wake up calls” that jar and jolt us from our complacency. The Sabian symbol for the Uranus / North Node alliance that sweeps through the heavens until February 2023 is “a new continent rising out of the ocean.” This union encapsulates enormous potential, yet like Prometheus, the god who stole fire to gift to humans, there is a price to pay in defying the gods and daring to seek “new worlds” instead of tending to this one.

They’re calling it “the age of anxiety, says Kristen Lee, author of Worth the Risk: how to micro-dose bravery and grow resilience. Yet amidst the overwhelming pain and chaos of it all we may be moved to do something noble, gracious, kind.

“Despair is our chance to wrestle with fire and come through,” writes Christina Baldwin. The vibratory signature of this regenerative New Moon may light the way, even if dimly at first, to a flowering of purpose, a deeper way of listening, a different way of seeing, an outward rush of a life force that floods through us even in the darkness. Trust. Don’t let go.

There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this―Terry Pratchett

Please get in touch if you would like to know more about forthcoming webinars, or to book an astrology consultation: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

May 29, 2022 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

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

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

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

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

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

Mercury has been moving Retrograde since May 11^th and turns direct on June 3^rd. The two weeks before, and after, retrograde happens is considered the shadow period when Mercury is still reflective, urging us to slow down, reconsider, shift perception, try another way through. Astrology is not reductive, yet sometime the symbolism can be interpreted quite literally. Mercury encompasses trade and transport, quite literally, airlines cancelled flights at short notice during this Retrograde cycle. Mercury Retrograde times are not ideal for political elections, yet Labour Anthony Albanese’s (Pisces Sun and possible Moon in Gemini depending on his birth time) retrograde influenced, drawn out victory may signify Australia (the world’s third biggest exporter of fossil fuels) acting on renewable energy. The Retrograde cycle of Mercury occurs three times every year and moves through the elements of fire, air, earth and water, in a procession across the zodiac, alerting us the rhythm of inner reflection that is needed for a more conscious experience of living. “Words are like cloths, with which one dresses the world,” writes James Krüss. In these Mercury Retrograde cycles, our perceptions may shift, igniting the creative process, birthing brilliant ideas. Mercury’s realm is magical trans-formation. He was the god of cross-roads and times of transition. Mercury was the only god who travelled back and forth from the Underworld, which in modern times can be interpreted as the unconscious.

Retrograde Mercury squares Saturn as May hurries to an end. Saturn is often connected with the law of karma and Mercury is about our perception. When these two energies combine in the heavens we return to the inner sanctum of our thoughts, that very private, personal space where linear time dissolves. We may feel a sense of moving through treacle, sucked down by obstacles when everything around us is moving so fast as Saturn and Mercury meet in molten evening skies. Yet, there’s a deeper message contained here, said so simply by the poet, Julia de Burgos. “Don’t let the hand you hold hold you down.” The simplicity of this statement may have a resonance for those of us who still hold the hand of an old hurt, a fearful thought, a limiting core belief.

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

The ongoing horror of the war in Ukraine now means that grains and oil seeds are scarce; prices are rising, making food rationing in the wealthy west a possibility and famine and mass migration in those countries where people are already living in desperate poverty, a certainty. Ceres, ancient goddess of grain and harvest, is moving through the sign of Cancer (nourishment, safety, comfort, home), reflecting what Gemini poet Federico García Lorca, names as the canto hondo, the deep song of the world. The stage is set for a sequence of astrological aspects that herald unexpected events and an opportunity to stretch and bend with changing circumstances in our lives.

Here, in the north, the earth turns her face to the light. Newly shorn fields shimmer in the sunlight like the glossy coat of a palomino, and the hedgerows are now flushed with fuchsia foxgloves. Between the retraction of Winter or the swelter of Summer, the way forward may not yet be clear. We may have to be still. We may have to wait.

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

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

January 20, 2020 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Brave New World Sun in Aquarius—January 20th —February 18th

The psychedelic rainbows and purple haze have all gone up in smoke. The fabled Age of Aquarius with its promise of peace and understanding has withered now, like the flowers we wore in our hair.

Yet today’s bright Aquarian Sun offers another perspective, a new vision, perhaps a glimpse of Hope that is the last to fly from Pandora’s Box of worldly woes.

This month we may meet people and circumstances that challenge our conditioning, that stir in us a vision for a better world. We may see our uniqueness or longing to belong reflected in electric blue hair, piercings and tattoos that make a statement of personal self-expression in a world where conformity and tribal affiliations are difficult to avoid.

This is 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.

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. “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.”

Aquarius is associated with the welfare of humanity, with altruism, with disruptive ideas and ideals that may be way ahead of their time. If the zodiac ended with Capricorn, there would be duty and status, but no progress or innovation. Our high Aquarian hopes and brilliant insights may collide with the harsh reality of Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto and the South Node currently in dutiful Capricorn. Yet as Eckhart Tolle reminds us all, “life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”

The energy of the Aquarian archetype escorts anomaly into our carefully constructed lives. Aquarius has two rulers—traditional, law-abiding Saturn, and Uranus the iconoclast, the rebel, the innovator and the revolutionary. As we near the end of the horoscope this month, we may feel the undertow of pain and suffering that pulsates through the collective. We may sense the inconvenient truths of the narratives we absorb into our blood and bones. We may see the beauty, the nobility in our humanness, we may feel a stirring of something extraordinary, something dawning that is greater than we can possibly imagine.

In myth, Prometheus’s altruistic impulse to steal fire from the gods, to see the potential for genius and innovation in the human race, is one of the important themes for those who are born this month. Zeus was enraged by Prometheus’s audacity. He was pinioned to a rock and each day an eagle came to gorge on his liver. It restored and regrew again each night so Prometheus endured the same excruciating agony again and again until the hero Hercules that set him free from his torment. The theft of fire comes with a price to pay for those who incur the wrath of the gods, who dare to upend the natural order, or bring an idea, a vision, that is too far ahead of its time.

Like fire, which is volatile and unpredictable, we are facing into an uncertain future as our home planet faces certain destruction by our hubris and our lack of foresight.

Uranus escorts the kind of change that uproots the past, scatters the status quo like dust in the wind. On Harry and Meghan’s wedding day, May 19^th, 2018, Uranus was conjunct the Queen’s Sun at 0° Taurus. As the young couple free themselves from “The Firm” and embark on their “progressive new role” they will set a precedent for the future. And pay the price.

This month may be part of an unfolding journey for us personally and collectively. We may feel out of sync with the status quo as we dream of an incipient future as the days grow lighter in the North and sun-baked leaves begin to fall in the South.

The first aspect the Sun makes is a square to Uranus, an energy that so often catches us off-guard, scatters our plans, brings us closer to the deep “I” that is our consciousness, devoid of ego.

The single conjunction of Saturn and Pluto on January 12^th will have an orb of influence of two years, magnifying collective debt and accountability; bringing to the surface the dark matter of power that is used for self-gain. As Mars enters earth-bound Capricorn on February 16^th, we may find that our dedication to our beliefs is shaken, our collective human foibles that may seem more extreme.

The visionary new Aquarian Moon on Friday, January 24^th (4° Aquarius) makes a resilient square to Uranus, emphasising this impetus to seek higher ground, to set aside our ego and serve our community, or a cause that resonates with our desire to leave the world a better place. The Full Leo Moon (20° Leo quincunx Pluto) on February 9^th 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!”

Between January 26^th and 28^th, Venus and Neptune conjoin in Pisces, and make a seductive square to Mars in Sagittarius. We may become swept away by the sweet surrender to something that feels otherworldly, spiritual or intoxicatingly romantic. We may be buoyed by an illusion, carried away by a will ‘o the wisp dream. Or we may choose to use this energy creatively to birth something magical that will transcend the smooth round of routine that flat-lines our joy and bleaches the colour from our days.

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.

For astrology consultations, please connect in person: 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

July 25, 2012 In Astrology, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Dante’s Prayer

Some experiences create a gentle ripple that gently rocks the smooth surface of our lives. Others strike and devastate, leaving us standing in the charred devastation of a world now precarious, darkly uncertain. What is now contained, tagged and labelled as “The Denver Shooting” to describe the unspeakable tragedy that exploded into our consciousness last week, was depicted in the sky script at a time when the Dark Knight, Pluto, in T- square with Uranus and Mars – power, unpredictable, explosive rage, harm to the public, depicted by the Moon trine Uranus, quincunx Chiron, sextile Mars, in the fourth house, the house of endings. *

When I heard the news, I was pinioned to the cliff face of shock and then engulfed by a wave of sorrow – sorrow for those lives touched by the actions of a young man still in the tender budding of his adult life. Sorrow for James Holmes, blinded by the madness of his own rage, his own suffering, his own inexorable compulsion to do what he believed he had to do. What a soul contract. The astrological picture of the event has a sense of fatedness. And in its wake, I have sensed an uneasiness, a sense of collective memory that has been nudged again to remember all the unspeakable acts of horror and violence human beings have perpetrated against each other, animals, and our earth home for centuries. From its dark lair, anxiety yawns and stretches ominously, breathing its fetid breath onto the lives of so many who hold their breath and bow their heads and hurry about their day. Pain lies in stagnant pools that ripple when we receive news that shocks and terrifies, pulling us into the undertow of what spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle has called “the pain body.” And as we resist what is, the slippery stresses of our lives gain momentum, and slither into debilitating anxiety, pessimism, or crippling depression. They become embodied in physical symptoms, as we block the energy flow that may be our ally. We lose our way, and like Dante, find ourselves in exile, utterly alone in the dark woods, where we must face our demons, wandering, wondering, when will this ever end?

The ego sups on man’s madness – and we step towards our predetermined Fate blindfolded – unless we begin to glimpse new possibilities, imagine our way through the dust that obscures, begin to use language that strives to mirror our thoughts. Our soul contract for this lifetime is not a grid of frozen inevitability if we trust our own energy, use our instinct, and evoke our faith to lead us out of the cul-de-sac of fear. I do believe there is a fate that has already been apportioned to us. It is depicted in our birth charts. Yet, when the life of someone we love has been stubbed out, in a cinema, on a motorway, in their own home or office, no spiritual platitudes or intellectual ramblings will remedy our pain – until we are ready to heal the thought that has created the pain. Until we can find meaning in our suffering.

The movie adaptation of the 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is a modern allegory that deals with the nigredo, the blackness, of grief and loss after the bombings of the Twin Towers. The hero is a nine-year-old boy, Oskar Schell, who tries to make meaning out of the death of his beloved father, whom he believes was one of the many souls who jumped from that towering inferno on that fateful day in September.

In alchemy, Nigredo means putrefaction, decomposition. In astrology, the transit of Pluto can become the pestle and mortar where we are pulverised, where we lie dismembered, in our congealed blood, and where we must piece ourselves together, bone by bone. In fairy tales, the hero encounters characters in the form of old hags, wolves, giants, or dwarves that test and challenge him, but also reward his perseverance and humility with magical assistance. In this deeply moving story, Oskar meets men and women who guide him on his path through the darkness of despair, bringing new insight, and acceptance of that which is incomprehensible, and perhaps always will be. His quest ends with acceptance and a clearing in the darkness of the forest: “So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!”

So in the aftermath of the dark night in Denver, and the collective shock and sorrow; in the murky mists of our personal tragedies, all we can do is to minister to the minutiae of our daily lives, all we can hope to do is to accept the inexplicable, and live in “the now”. All we can do is believe that things are unfolding, exactly as they should, entwining fate, encoded in our DNA, in our birth charts, where there is “a perfect plan” with the choices we make in each moment. All we can do it to trust that there is a mysterious force that will guide us through the dark woods, if we pay attention to the symbols, the metaphors, and look beyond the mechanical Newtonian view of the universe… trust that we are in the perfect time, the perfect place for our soul’s contract. Our soul knows when it is done – our relationships, our work, and when our time has come to leave our body. And then, our clay feet will grow wings to fly above our limited human awareness, as our flawed human hearts stay open to love.

* Paul Saunders gives an intelligent astrological update on the aftermath of the dark night in Denver:

Loreena McKennitt

“When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone

I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars…”