Just the Two of Us—Gemini New Moon—June 18th.
We learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because somebody has taken care of us. Our self-worth and self-esteem also develop because of other people―Stan Tatkin.
Things are not all they seem at Midsummer. An excess of light shimmers, bright and strange. We’re drunk with heat, dazed by the beauty of nature in full bloom. This month’s new moon in Mercurial Gemini hides behinds a girdle of sparkling stars. She makes a mystifying square to Neptune that may heighten our intuition and creativity, or blindside us with promises that swirl like swathes of mist that evaporates at sun rise. Neptune, god of the oceans, turns Retrograde on June 30th going direct on December 6th.
Saturn languishes in watery Pisces, then stations Retrograde the day before the new moon, going direct on November 4th.
Retrogrades bring gifts of hindsight, necessary delays that invite us to pause long enough to look around us, reflect and reassess. As both Neptune and Saturn travel Retrograde in Pisces over the coming months, we may have time to integrate the substantial or subtle changes that have washed over our lives since March when Saturn entered Pisces and Pluto dipped into Aquarius. Saturn represents those challenges, responsibilities, limitations, that bring wisdom and maturity. Neptune accompanies our soul’s longing, our fantasies, and yearning. A Neptune transit to our birth chart dissolves the boundaries of separation, and it is this motif of unity that shines so brightly in Gemini. Asteroid Juno accompanies this new moon, highlighting our human need for connection. Juno, signifying intimate partnership in dualistic Gemini, suggests that there may be a difficult choice to be made, and with Neptune’s influence, something must be sacrificed. Mercury, ruler of this lunation squares Saturn, adding gravitas, which will be felt by those with planets or angles in early degrees of Gemini, Virgo, and Pisces. Take a little time to breathe out before responding or reacting. Create space to rest this weekend. The Neptune overlay to this lunation brings drowsiness, spaciness, confusion, or delusion.
Beneath the popular astrological descriptions of breezy Gemini, the fun-loving and fickle eternal child, lies a story of loss and longing, a life-long search for someone from whom we feel separated and then joyfully reunited. Gemini tells a story of human bonds, siblings and twin souls.
Gemini’s two brightest stars are Castor and Pollux, twin brothers, twin souls. When his brother, Castor died in battle, a bereft Pollux implored Zeus to allow him to die also. Zeus agreed and now they are sibling stars, twin souls. In Gemini we encounter the Other that comes in the guise of the Twin Soul, the phosphorus twin flame who burns into our life like a shooting star. Twin souls rarely appear by choice. They appear in many guises. Often the timing is all wrong, circumstances impossible, yet there’s a recognition that pulls us together again across lifetimes. A divine Grace that directs us with absolute certainty towards a life we would never have imagined.
Stories of Soulmates are threaded with the pathos of loss and separation, woven with duality and ambiguity. 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 and murder, love 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.”
Working at it can be a Herculean labour that may erode our energy, gnaw at our resolution to untie the knots that keep us bound in conflict or rivalry. Siblings betray one another, they quarrel, they become estranged, and yet they love one another with a love that is different from the love we have for our parents. Brenna Yovanoff writes so poignantly, “I wanted to tell her that I loved her, and not in the complicated way I loved our parents, but in a simple way I never had to think about. I loved her like breathing.”
Yet, whether we’re twinned, a resourceful only child, a pioneering first born, 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. Author Brian Weiss offers this small crumb of comfort: “Sometimes, Soulmates may meet, stay together until a task or life lesson is completed, and then move on. This is not a tragedy, only a matter of learning.”
At this new moon time, may the motif of the Soulmate enrich our imagination this month. May the winged sandals of Mercury carry us towards those extra-ordinary encounters that bring everything into focus. May the mythic Twins preside over those soulful tugs that herald of radical change in the way we live and the way we love.
Get in touch for a private astrology consultation: ingrid@trueheartwork
A Celebration of Light: Join me and energetic healer Eileen Heneghan on Saturday June 24th at 2pm BST for a deeply nourishing afternoon of story, myth, and meditation this Midsummer Solstice, please book your place here: www.trueheartwork.com/workshops
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.
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.
For astrology consultations in 2022 please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible—Dalai Lama
The word kind has its roots in cynn, “family” and the Old English, “gecynd”, for nature and race, which imply belonging and community. The essence of Cancer is kindness and compassion, qualities that are inherent in human nature as endorsed by Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman in his hopeful book, Humankind.
It is likely that public health and a jittery economy reminiscent of early 2020 will resurface amidst confusion, deception, blind spots and more uncertainty as Neptune begins a Retrograde cycle (June 22nd.)
Eclipses act as tipping points between June 5th June 21st, and July 5th. 
As summer thrusts sunlight into the receptive hollows of the earth here in the north, and the benediction of winter silence presses into the cold soils of the south, the Sun moves into the sign of Cancer on June 21st and pauses at the threshold in the year. Margaret Atwood reminds us, “This is the Solstice, the still point of the Sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future. The place of caught breath.”
In contrast to the earthy Capricorn knot, all though this year a tidal surge of a very different kind of energy is swirling across the skies as Jupiter, that planet associated with big dreams, grandiosity and faith meets Neptune where we yearn to escape, be rescued from the burnt out ends of our human existence, where we long for romance, ecstatic spiritual experience; yet in real life we do the laundry, walk the dog and come home to relationships that, as John Welwood suggests in his book, 
Venus makes a T-square to the Jupiter/Neptune square June 23rd – 24th to offer us the gift of soul-union with a lover, artistic inspiration, the ability to be selfless, to see the beauty growing out of the cracks in the pavements, the black delta of mould in the subways. It also can signify the tsunami of grief and loss at the ending of a relationship or the realisation that we have been unrealistic or too naïve concerning our finances or what we hold dear to our heart.
Mercury turns Retrograde (4° Leo) on July 8th, stirring up the silt from the shadowy waters of the previous sign of Cancer. We may be prompted to be more introspective, to be mindful of just how we choose to wield our authority, how we bring forth our vision and creativity. As we stand at the Still-Point of the year, may our path be gentle. May we learn to pause and appreciate the simple pleasures, the exquisite beauty, the Love that is all around us.
As the sun bleaches the blue from southern skies and a chorus of cicadas celebrate midsummer, the old Sun sinks wearily onto the cold belly of the earth at the midwinter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. We’ve reached the still point of the year.
he Sun’s last three aspects before it changes sign at 22:22 GMT on Friday, December 21st, are a square to Chiron (28º Pisces) on December 19th and the seamless embrace of a trine to Uranus (29º Aries). A tense quincunx to the Nodes in the cardinal Cancer/Capricorn polarity offers the opportunity to initiate change, to make adjustments in those areas of our lives connected to our home, our sense of security, our belonging. Now we can release limiting beliefs and futile striving, to embrace those things that nourish and sustain. Chiron represents a sacred wound, a painful prompting that leads us to us to a place where we would rather not go. An emotional or physical wound that will never heal, but that we can only bear with compassion and with understanding. Be tender and kind as a sudden remembrance leans against the bruise in our heart, or that familiar ache draws us back into our body. Amidst the tinnitus of the festive season, we may recognise and embrace a wounding that has been festering for years. In the days before the Solstice, there’s an opportunity for repair, for reconciliation, for release and liberation, if we trust the instruction of our heart. John O’ Donohue writes, “this is the time to be slow, lie low to the wall until the bitter weather passes…”
The belly of the Moon swells this week.
Yet, this Full Moon illuminates an uncomfortable contradiction—amidst the excess and the exuberance of Christmas, there are millions of people who live their lives in the shadows of society. The old, the homeless, the working poor we summons from Uber and Deliveroo.
This is the Solstice, the still point of the Sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future. The place of caught breath—Margaret Atwood.
Frank Baum’s “There’s no place like home,” and the clichéd “Home Sweet Home,” reflect our heart’s longing for safety and belonging as we pause in the dreamy haze of mid-summer heat, or close the curtains against the raw chill of mid-winter. As Uranus moves through Taurus, one of the manifestations will be the issue of land and affordable housing—a place to call Home.
I post astrology updates regularly on Facebook, and offer private readings on Skype or in person, so do please connect with me, I’d love to hear from you—ingrid@trueheartwork.com
There’s a quickening amidst the hurdy-gurdy rub of holiday preparation, the hurried rush to cross the finishing line of this year gone by. There’s a bright promise of something new that shimmers in the light of the Full Gemini Moon on December 14th. The last of three Supermoons, she’s perigree, hugging close to the generous curve of the earth’s flank. A minuscule mote of light in the infinite darkness of the cosmos.
There’s a subtle theme change on December 19th. Mercury stations retrograde conjunct Pluto (Capricorn, 15 and 16 degrees respectively ) Mars moves into watery Pisces that same day introducing a subdued tone to the music of the spheres, a deeper, more introspective harmony, if you’re willing to listen. The Solstice on December 22nd heralds the Sun’s ingress into Capricorn marking mid-winter or mid-summer in the seasonal cycle. A pause. A gap. A hiatus that offers us time for spiritual renewal. The Solstice Libra Moon conjunct Jupiter opposing Uranus offers a liberating vision of exquisite beauty, inner peace and harmony if we are willing to look around us with new eyes and consider, as Judith Lasater suggests, that “we are being called into realization with great urgency and extraordinary beauty, and oftentimes not without difficulty.”
In a world currently experiencing a great cycle of break-down and transformation, we do have a choice. Amidst the hurdy-gurdy rub of hurried distraction, the completion of deadlines, the planning for the future, we have an opportunity to pause, breathe out. To choose to remain, even if only for the briefest moment, in that 
Author and teacher Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes: “the doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
Make America Great Again. It’s a call to action that offers the promise of something tangible amidst the vague rhetoric and mud-slinging in America’s House of Cards. Pluto has been opposing the Sun of the American chart all through 2014 and 2015. The Titan Nation is approaching the end of a cycle with its Pluto Return in 2023/2024 and all that is rotten, untenable for the evolution of America will be pruned over the coming years.
America’s back yard is a tangle of weeds. From the outside looking in, we can glimpse the wood, not the trees. Neptune and Saturn have been in square aspect since last November. These three squares symbolise what is going on collectively in a world where young men die as they dance and in Europe, refugees in threadbare clothing risk their lives in flimsy boats. The middle square occurred on June 18th when Saturn was at 12 degrees Sagittarius and Neptune at 12 degrees Pisces. Those of us with planets or angles at these degrees will be sensitised to the opposing energies of these two planets as we confront a choice between whether to be in Fear or to have Faith in a world that seems poised on the brink of madness.
Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
pull into something bigger than ourselves that envelops us into something that is beyond our individual understanding. The numinous quality of Neptune may draw us into situations where we lose our sense of clarity. We believe the promises of redemption offered by self-appointed Messiahs posing as politicians. And then perhaps these Messiahs themselves must be sacrificed, engulfed in Neptunian waters to atone, to redeem something deeply off-centre in a world where there is so much polarisation, so much disconnection from Manley’s “ the dearest freshness deep down things.”
Neptune is the silver screen, the make-believe world of film and television. Neptune may dissolve or distort our sense of reality or expose our sense of personal inadequacy which is Saturn.
