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Uranus Tag

Born in the USA—America’s Pluto Return—2008—2024

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between—Oscar Wilde

The sound of falling statues reverberates through the bones of slaves from Africa buried in mass graves. Bronze tyrants tumble from their pedestals, and the dolorous ghosts of millions of native Americans, great herds of buffalo and forests of giant Redwoods emerge into the waning light of this epoch.

As Pluto’s gravitational force dredges up the grisly truths that lie buried under streets and skyscrapers, America journeys down into the Underworld to be scooped out, humbled, and reborn. Pluto’s transits in our own birth charts, and in the charts of nations, are never tepid or benign. They are always slow, relentless, and transformative.

When Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008, the fissures in financial systems widened and the blight in governments exposed disturbing division and misuse of power. As Leonard Cohen released his prophetic single, You Want It Darker in the September of 2016, Pluto and Jupiter were forming a square that intensified in January 2020 by conjunction. Neptune, purveyor of contagion, illusion, deception, and deceit, slipped in behind the green curtain, a making a slippery trine to Mercury in the US birth chart. The star-spangled banner fluttered in the winds of change.

Pluto’s opposition to Mercury in America’s birth chart (2017-24) reminds us that the foundations of The Land of the Free are dug deep into the black earth of genocide, slavery, and appalling exploitation of the nature. Mercury presides over communication, intelligence, propaganda, paranoia, media, and travel. The old certainties have become unmoored.

America is not the only modern nation to rise from a brutal past, but as people march through the streets, emboldened by anger and grief, Pluto irradiates Mercury in self-protective, emotive Cancer in the American birth chart of July 4th, 1776.

Pluto’s imminent Return in the American birth chart has cast a long shadow over events in America since 2017. Pluto edges ever closer to an exact opposition (until 2022) to President Trump’s Achilles heel—an excruciatingly painful Venus/Saturn conjunction, a well-defended place of personal vulnerability. It is unlikely that Trump will be re-elected, unless to bring the United States of America to its knees at Pluto’s behest. Neptune squares the President’s Gemini Sun and Sagittarius Moon till 2022; not a comfortable transit unless we surrender, accept, and bow our head to our compassionate heart.

As Pluto stirs up all that is putrefying in the basements of government and financial institutions, the scent of anarchy pervades the old order and a frisson of terror reverberates through the thick-piled carpets of the establishment. America declared its independence from Britain in 1776 when Pluto was moving through Capricorn and Mozart was composing music that roused passion and pain.

Pluto will be in Aquarius from 2024 to 2044 as we begin to make reparations for historic injustices and re-image a world where exploitation of people, animals and nature will be relegated to his-story. Jupiter and Saturn enter Aquarius as 2020 comes to an end and we (hopefully) begin to address the collective trauma that defines the experience of so many people whose lives are still curtailed by inequality and blatant injustice.

Herschel “discovered” Uranus, that planet associated with breakthroughs and revolution as Pluto moved through Aquarius. Both France and America come full circle. Back to a time of upheaval, revolution and epochal events that marked the late 1700s. France will have a Pluto Return when Pluto moves into Aquarius, a reminder of the 10 blood-stained years of terror that uprooted ancient institutions and shaped a new nation by the collective will of the people.

The first Industrial Revolution was under way as Pluto moved through Aquarius. Captain Cook and William Bligh searched for new consumables in southern lands as Pluto’s passage through Aquarius marked the beginning of the climate crisis that now threatens our survival as a species.

We face into the collective uncertainty of a second wave of COVID-19 in some countries, and a global economic depression, as the  Pluto/Saturn/Jupiter conjunction square Eris of 2020 casts a long shadow over our lives.

In America, the intensity of the aftershock will reverberate for years to come as Saturn transits the American South Node (karma) awakening the ghosts from the past. Jupiter magnifies the need for social reform as it conjoins the Moon (the people) in the American birth chart, followed by a solidifying transit of Saturn in 2022 and a Chiron Return in 2025 which may bring a deep healing, a new sense of belonging and rooting in this Land of the Brave.

The coming years will reveal inconvenient truths and painful consequences for past actions.

Pluto’s Return in the birth chart of America symbolises the end of a status quo that has excluded so many for so long. Thomas Jefferson, who owned more than six hundred slaves wrote, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”

The death rattle of the old order is amplified by political rhetoric and resistance to change …. law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual, wrote Thomas Jefferson with supreme irony.

America’s Pluto Return heralds a new epoch, a new dream. For America. For us all.

For more information about Pluto’s transit through your own birth chart, please email: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com for a personal consultation.

 

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Shadowlands—Pluto Retrograde—April 25th—October 4th

For those who are just beginning to emerge from a surreal dreamscape after months of confinement, the world may seem freshly washed, the air intoxicatingly sweet. For those who are still marooned on uncertain ground, far from home, devoid of landmarks, suspended in a state of waiting, the long days melt into weeks. Time stretches like spun sugar.

It’s been almost a week now since Pluto, dark god of the Underworld stationed Retrograde (April 25th 24° Capricorn.) Pluto abducts us and takes us into the Shadowlands of our psyche, and draws up all that is foetid, rotten, in the world. As Pluto moved Retrograde, the tense square to Eris (Goddess of Discord) and Mercury (God of communication and increasingly our mental health), has once again highlighted the restrictions for the good of all (Saturn in Aquarius) that grip us tightly, shut us away from the hunger of the homeless.

Today is Beltane, May Day, a spring festival that has been celebrated with singing and dancing and feasting for centuries to celebrate nature’s greening as icing sugar white blossoms that flutter like confetti from the trees. Today, in some countries, naked emperors wrap our lives in rules and restrictions that sit uncomfortably for those of us who know the story of the Hand Maid’s Tale.

Mercury conjoins Uranus (7° Taurus) on May Day, reflecting perhaps stirrings of rebellion as our personal freedoms are curtailed, perhaps for some, a sense of liberation as we appreciate the small miracles that sparkle in the spaces of the day. This too shall pass. Yet, it doesn’t take a crystal ball or the metaphor of astrology to know that this is the end of a way of life for all of us, except the Plutocrats. Air travel, shopping, cruise ships and holidays will never be the same again. There will be many more widows who cook stones for their hungry children.

From May 11th, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn prepare to loop backwards in Retrograde through the heavens. Expect reversals, lockdowns, slow starts. And if our leaders fail to learn from his-story, civil unrest.

As Pluto and Jupiter in Capricorn move in tandem through the heavens, (April 4th, June 30th and November 12th) we may see a resurgence of COVID-19, and certainly a second wave on the pandemic in some countries.

Pluto Retrograde cycles may drag us down, compel us to enter those forsaken places, where, as Dylan Thomas wrote, we “hold a beast, an angel, and a madman…”

In myth, Pluto demands surrender, the letting go of a way of life that now may feel like an uncomfortable fit as we inhabit the twilight of these in-between months. As we sit and wait.

In myth, Pluto’s realm was Hades, the place of death and darkness. Jupiter was a sky god; his realm limitless. Optimistic Jupiter lifts, expands, amplifies, and spreads. He may inflate our confidence and our hubris as Pluto draws out all that is hidden in the shadows and exposes all that is rotten in our communities and self-serving plutocracies.

These planets will both be in Retrograde as Venus emerges from her Retrograde period in Gemini, a sign that is associated with our lungs, with our well-washed hands. As this pandemic peaks or recedes in some countries, there may be a sense of breathing out, easing up, a gradual emerging into the world once more between May 14th and June 25th, at least until the final Pluto/Jupiter conjunction perfects on November 12th.  A volatile self-centred Mars will be in combustible Aries from June 27th to January 6th, 2021. Mars will be Retrograde from September 10th to November 13th, moving direct 10 days after the big reveal of the US elections.

Pluto transits are slow and often painful if our hearts are impatient, if our hands “grab”, and our eyes are too dim to see the hidden treasure concealed in things. Some nations are experiencing Pluto’s power of break-down and destructionthe UK since 2013 when Pluto began to conjoin the UK Sun and oppose the UK Moon. In America, the land of the free, Pluto opposes the US Mercury (communication, paranoia, truth and trust) from 2017 to 2024.

The American nation dances with the Fates as the nation’s Pluto Return (2022-23) marks the culmination of a cycle that began on July 4th, 1776 when America declared independence from Britain and pledged to uphold democracy and freedom.

Psychiatrist Dr Lise Van Susteren co-author of the book, Emotional Inflammation, describes the anticipatory anxiety and pre-traumatic stress that has emerged in this uncertain time, as emotional inflammation.

She reminds us that the parietal lobe of our brain lights up when we work collaboratively, when feel compassion, when we transcend our own feelings and reach out with generosity; when we become what she calls an “upstander” instead of a “bystander.”

Gandhi once said that when the people lead, the leaders will follow. Mohandas Gandhi was born under a Pluto/Jupiter conjunction in earthy Taurus, and in 1931 when Pluto and Jupiter met once more in Cancer, he defied the British ban against Indians collecting salt from the ocean and selling it, leading one of the world’s most powerful non-violent campaigns. Author Lynne Mc Taggart writes, “a single collective directed thought is all it takes to change the world.”

As we sit and wait, may we flex our courage, direct our thoughts. May we turn back towards the breathing earth, our Home.

Light breaks where no sun shines. Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart push their tides—Dylan Thomas

Please look out for my more regular Facebook posts or connect with me in person: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com

The Girl with the Pearl EarringBanksy.

 

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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 19th, 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 12th 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 16th, 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 24th (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 9th  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 26th and 28th, 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

 

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Lost and Found—Sun in Taurus—April 21st

3f6ad8bb0eb4a7dd103bbe33c468f1ecThere’s that defining moment. That softening in the belly. That strong, sure surge of love that expands our heart. That knowing, that welcomes us home to our natural rhythm, to where we belong. As the pulse-beat of nature’s rhythm of the seasons alters, and the Sun moves from the urgency of Aries into the slower, more deliberate cadence of Taurus, we may feel a renewed sense of Being as we join the circle of community at places of worship, as we visit friends and family and nourish ourselves with the sweet comfort of heartfelt connection.

Then there’s the dawning recognition that it’s our fear of loneliness or privation that keeps us in a root-bound relationship. That we’ve bound ourselves to a group or its leader who demands unquestioning allegiance. That we’ve amputated our Being, buried our creativity, pruned our intelligence, denigrated our sexuality. There’s the deep grief of losing something precious, something we thought we had found, but that got lost along the way.

Sharon Blackie writes of this sense of alienation that so often seeps into our life quite gradually when we lose our belonging, when we fall out of our natural rhythm. “I felt no love for this world, no sense of belonging. I felt separate from it, closed in, claustrophobic. Some days, walking through identical grey suburban streets to school, I felt as if I were being buried alive.” 1e5ab0ada433d9e43612a48815ca7cd3

The disillusionment and disorientation as we uncouple, or bravely break away from a group or a community can be a devastating dark night of the soul, as Andrew Harvey describes his break from his guru in The Sun at Midnight. 

Taurus, despite its association with the muscular bull, is associated with what the Jungians call “the feminine” that which we denigrate and plunder in our insatiable desire for more wealth, more success, more oil, more mono-culture. We may feel constricted, tamed by our way of being in the world, buried alive. As Uranus moves through Taurus (2018—2026) we may be jolted by circumstances that startle us enough to alter our course. Uranus, like the Tower card in the Tarot, represents a toppling of a structure, a breakdown, a breakthrough, that shatters and shocks us into a new realisation, that releases a renewing surge of energy that surges down from the heavens, through our crown chakra.

58e3a4b6369c9faccf6acb7d5d409372On April 19th, a  “blue moon” at the power-infused 29° point, illuminates those threads that still lie in disarray, those unresolved power struggles, those uncomfortable relationships we  may have wrestled with at the Equinox on March 21st when the Full Moon was at 0° of Libra. This graceful Libran Moon may shine her light on a false belonging, a sterile psychic landscape, devoid of beauty and harmony, a place we have been lingering for far too long.

Libra’s realm is relationship, fairness and equality. This Full Moon squares Pluto, demanding the truth, a more authentic way of relating, a more vulnerable, honest, way of repairing. The Moon sextiles Jupiter, reminding us of what we truly long for, where we’ve stayed small, lost the comfort of true belonging.

Mercury hurried into impetuous Aries on April 17th, to meet Chiron, the archetype of the wounded healer.  Venus joins the fire dance as she steps into Aries on April 21st, so we may sense an urgency, a decisiveness, a passion to reconnect perhaps with something we have lost, something we must find again.bfa75d2f6f24183a70b3061a22601d40

This month, Pluto, the god of the Underworld, turns Retrograde on April 24th, just a few days after the Sun’s entry into Taurus. Pluto is moving through Capricorn along with the South Node and Saturn intensifying and complicating matters of the physical world, highlighting the “masculine” qualities that we glorify in our culture. Pluto has been moving through Capricorn since 2008 and will remain in Capricorn until 2023. Beneath the dark underbelly of the mountain goat we find the Tyrant, the Dictator and the Scapegoat. Here we can lose ourselves in fear of change, fear of diversity, fear that’s real or fear that’s imagined. The South Node of the Moon stirs up the past, brings detritus to the surface. The Saturn/Pluto archetype reflects a global rite of passage that will test our integrity and our resilience. For those in authority, for those who manage power, this cycle will test capability and morality as fundamental changes in the systems of government and business, the management of our earth’s resources, will reach a crisis point, the tipping point from which there is no return.  2020 US Presidential hopefu7fb9e92409a53bb9ebe685a63d031e87l, Marianne Williamson writes, “Our problem is not that we don’t have power, so much as that we tend not to use the power we have.”

So what is this thing we call “power”?  How  do we become empowered, how do we know if we truly belong? If we have planets or angles between 20° and 25° of Capricorn, Aries, Cancer or Libra, 2019 and 2020 herald opportunities re-unite with the lost parts of ourselves, tenderly nourish, nurture our “feminine” essence into manifestation, as the North Node is in Cancer, the Magna Mater. Here we must journey to find our place of true Belonging. That soft breast of nourishment, tenderness, community, creativity and collaboration, where gender, race and sexual preference are gathered with acceptance and embraced with Love. Where we share generously without fear of lack or competition. Where we deeply love our wrinkles, the soft curves or floppy parts of our bodies. Where men and women can cease striving for bigger and for more.

The “feminine” that has been denigrated, distorted, disowned for thousands of years is still there. We see her in the soft contours of the land, the urgent thrusting of lime-green leaves, the artists brush that sweeps turquoise and violet across the tangerine skies at sunset. We know her indomitable presence in the strong walls, the deep foundations of Notre Dame that rises from ancient pagan foundations, a visible  reminder that we are never lost. That there is a natural rhythm, a steady pulse beat, an all-loving heart that calls us home to that place of our true Belonging.9d1fc5c2e5cb4b41c8886304aab4efcd

For personal astrology readings on Skype or Whatsapp please connect with me on ingrid@trueheartwork.com or through my regular astrology posts https://www.facebook.com/ingrid.hoffman.75

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Dance me to the end of Love—The Tango of Venus and Mars

Every true lover knows that the moment of greatest satisfaction comes when ecstasy is long over.  And he beholds before him the flower which has blossomed beneath his touch―Don Juan DeMarco

Valentines day 6Love is an act of the imagination. We daub our lover with our oldest longing. We paint his lips with our most noble and generous magnificence. Love photo-shops her imperfections. Love ennobles his good qualities, assigns them with mythical powers. In our love’s vow we talk, we touch, we seal our dreams with a kiss. We know that we are beautiful. We feel young again. Alive, in a way that we haven’t felt in years.

In the warm nascence of Love, we touch our holy longing. In the Mystery of barely knowing him we travel the world, design our new home, merge in our anticipation of something new, something more. As the sun rises on new beginnings, we bask in possibility. Yet according to research on neurobiology, the potent alchemy of attraction is spiked with dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Our intense emotional and physical fusion is only possible with someone we do not yet really know.

We are as changeable as chameleons, as contrary as Mary. In order to feel fully alive, we need a sprinkling of mystery. We require a dash of novelty. We need a splash of change, blended with just enough safety and continuity to ground us. Risk and Fear. Safety and Adventure. We fluctuate like clouds that shape shift across a summer sky.

When we commit to each other, marry, or cohabit, our brains produce the bonding chemicals, oxytocin and vasopressin. We want togetherness—and difference to keep things interesting. Yet in the otherness of our partner we so often respond with judgement. Or we set the bar high for an athletic leap of great expectations which breaks the legs of spiritual growth and sprains our soul’s warm desire.

Our heightened dependence on just one person makes us vulnerable. So, we stack up the sandbags against the rising waters of uncertainty. We construct a prison of predictability in our relationships and choose to stay behind narrow bars of bland neutrality. Our script of staid of assumptions goes something like this: “I always know what you’re thinking” or “he doesn’t talk about emotions,” or the stolidly dependable “she always takes care of all our finances.”

37a9c247dec1879d5415b8a5d76d3d11We dis-own our passion and vitality, clutch at things we feel we can control. We blinker our eyes and stop being curious. Our entire birth chart, and more specifically, the archetypes of Venus and Mars, describe the myriad ways we love embrace, or avoid, Love and Erotic Desire. 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 orgies of love and humiliating loss, then urges us to emerge again, re-newed, stronger, wiser, eyes wide open.

Mars is the warrior god. And for those of us who sit behind computer screens all day, or push the vacuum cleaner across the floor, we may experience our lust for sex and violence vicariously through movies or sport, or we may morph into a Berserker when we’re stuck in traffic, sniping at our partner for leaving a wet towel on the floor when we arrive home.

Venus is in Capricorn this Valentine’s Day. Venus interpretations so often become stereotypes that don’t embrace the myriad variables of the birth chart. Some astrologers would describe a Capricorn Venus as cool and calculating, earthy and responsible. This week, Venus slips off Capricorn’s crisp classic clothing in celebration of Love. Mars  is in conjunction with Uranus—February 13 and 14th— in the final degrees of Aries, an edgy, erotic combination, associated with lightening bolts and the heated rush of Desire. Within Love’s new beginnings are also endings, as desire and excitement fade into committed Love that lasts until the music dies.Valentines day 14

Venus then conjoins both Saturn and Pluto between February 18-22 th—prompting a new direction in the dance of Love. Mars/Uranus aspects are those lightening bolts that jolt, shake, electrify us, with a love that burns.
Venus in steady Capricorn meets both Saturn and Pluto, describing the serious power struggles that inevitably ensue after the youthful romantic stage of Romeo and Juliet Love dies the scripted, inevitable death.

Risk and Fear are the Guardians at the gate of Love. We cannot be truly intimate or sexually playful when we are vigilant, guarded, or fearful. We cannot be truly intimate or sexually adventurous when we do not take a risk.

Our relationships work, for a while, within a bounded space, enclosed by children and pets, in-laws, work, social responsibility. Until they don’t. Until something happens to shatter the thin veneer of compromise.Until a raging torrent rushes through the aridity of our life. Until the brittle sacrifices implode in a shower of dust. It may be a death, a health-scare, an affair, the loss of a business, our child leaving home. The comfort of fireside companionship, the tangible solidity of the things we own, and the cadence of routine now does not feed our hunger. We go online and gorge, like starving anorexics feasting on chocolate sundae. Or in the seductive gaze of our work colleague or the children’s music teacher, we delight in the sweetness we have denied ourselves for decades. We become alive again.

Val 2Love is a creative act of the Imagination. Its realm is rarefied, intangible, briefly captured like an exquisite butterfly where it flutters to the sound of music, poetry, the wind whispering through the trees.

Intimacy waits patiently for Love’s transient rapture to disperse. Intimacy requires time, repetition and the ability to choose each other, again and again. Intimacy is a practiced dance where two dancers move across the floor, present and focused, moving as one, yet firm in our own foot work. The dance of Intimacy requires tenderness and some acceptance. It requires routine and a sense of safety. It requires trust and an ability to create an emotional connection.

Yet so often as we spin our soft cocoon of companionable safety, Eros feels swaddled. He becomes a pudgy Cupid, not a virile Lover.

Sex therapist David Schnarch writes, “We’ve reduced adults to infants and infants to a frail ghost of their resilience, reduced marriage to providing safety, security, and compensation for childhood disappointments. We remove our essential drives for autonomy and freedom.”

Psychologist Esther Perel suggests that too much closeness restricts the sense of freedom and autonomy we need for sexual pleasure. “When intimacy collapses into fusion it is not lack of closeness but too much closeness that impedes desire.” She maintains that intimacy only sometimes begets sexuality and that our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. With too much distance there can be no connection and with too much fusion (the soul mate theory) there is no one to connect with. “Increased emotional stability ironically what makes for good intimacy, does not make for good sex.”

Valentines day 9Anais Nin wrote so poignantly, “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we do not know how to replenish its source.” So how do we replenish Love’s source? David Schnarch writes, love and desire are “not a matter of peeling away the layers but of developing them—growing ourselves up to be mature and resourceful adults who can solve our current problems.”

Love requires an artist’s eye, a poet’s sensibility, a gourmet’s palate. The willingness to be curious, to engage in the mystery, to re-ignite the flame of Eros with the spark of our human imagination. Perhaps in the break-down of all we know is safe and sure, we discover that it is our partner who has been taking care of our marriage after all. In stretching out of our familiar roles, seeing each other with new eyes, we rebuild a relationship that has collapsed under the heavy weight of our control. We allow Love to awaken in our life. And we begin to dance again.

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New Morning—Capricorn Solstice

Solstice 765 2018As 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.

Nature contracts, exposing an uncompromising knot-work of bare branches and stubble fields, and as the primordial pulse of the year stirs deep in our blood and bones, we might sense a slow, steady certainty moving through our body. The Solstice is the promise of life-giving light and rebirth. On Friday, December 21st at 22:22 GMT, we have the opportunity to pause, to realign, to plant new intentions that will ripen at the next Solstice on June 21st, 2019.

As the old year dies and the light of the sun rises again at dawn, if we look to the East, we may see Jupiter in Sagittarius, in conjunction with Mercury. Venus in Scorpio shimmers in a sweep of tangerine early morning sky as she makes a graceful trine to Neptune. Together these celestial messengers bring gifts of a new perspective, empathic and compassionate relating, and an appreciation for beauty, if we look beneath the ordinary, search for a chink of light.

TSolstice 81 2018he 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…”

Solstice 12 2018The belly of the Moon swells this week.

On Saturday the Moon (1º Cancer) opposes the Sun and sextiles Uranus. The Moon is in her own sign. With Cancer associated with the element of water, this lunation may heighten our instinctual response, amplify our emotion, sensitise our attunement to the unseen realms. Cancer is the Magna Mater, the Great Mother. The symbolism embraces all that brings us nourishment, comfort and safety. There’s a sepia-coloured nostalgia that infuses this lunation.  A longing for a childhood that perhaps never existed. For delicious home cooked food and indolent afternoons stretched out on the sofa in front of the fire. For families gathered around a festive table. It’s a longing exploited by advertisers, and that compels us to buy those things that we want but don’t need. This lunation is a precursor of the eclipse season which begins on January 6th with a solar eclipse at 15º Capricorn. Full Moons bring culmination. They illuminate aspects of our lives and depending on where this Full Moon falls in your own birth chart, you may be instinctively led to those things that bring comfort and joy, nurture and safety.

Solstice 3 2018Yet, 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.

Capricorn is associated with the Father Archetype, with patriarchy and with the hard work of getting down to business. As Britain struggles to Keep Calm and Carry On in the face of an existential crisis, as walls rise around nations, and divisive thinking segregates, this lunation is a reminder of Cancer’s affinity with nurture and tenderness.  This is an energising marriage that could be a cameo of things yet to come, as the heavenly bride and groom cross the threshold into the new year. Cancer is all heart and with the Moon at home, there’s a need to shut out the world, cocoon in soulful, familiar surroundings. Cancer is about family, simple pleasures. The focus is Home and Family, and the mood is tender and vulnerable. Capricorn brings a moral awakening toughened with pragmatism. An injunction that that every thought, every action, has consequences. A reminder that even in our light-filled lives, there is an inevitability some call Fate, others call death.
As ageing populations face the inevitability of death, the conundrum of euthanasia and the human right to die with dignity must be addressed.  As the ghost of Jacob Marley brings us glimpses of Christmases past and present, and still yet to come, we may awaken this Solstice with more awareness and  more integrity, sobered by the spectre of climate change, animal abuse, unemployment and homelessness.

May we cross the threshold into this new year with light footprints and generous loving hearts. Blessings and Love this Solstice!

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Lionheart—Sun in Leo 22nd July—23rd August

Sun in Leo 5

It’s a funny thing about life.

If you refuse to settle for anything less than the best, that’s what it will give you—W. Somerset Maugham.

Passion lifts us on the thermal of those before-and-after choices that change the trajectory of our lives. When passion enters, pressing itself, hot and urgent against those places we haven’t touched in years, we remember our wings, and we soar.

As leaders of nations distract us with  displays of crass grandiosity, as economies and social structures are dismembered, we journey around the archetypal wheel of the zodiac to encounter what has  churned, sea-smoothed and sculptured, beneath the reflective waters of Cancer.

Amidst  ideological rhetoric and comatose decision-making, the transits of the outer planets draw out the sepsis from society. The archetypes of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn continue to draw up all that is rotten to the surface of patriarchy. Our role models and leaders reflect our own greed, arrogance and bigotry. The dispassionate sky-god Uranus, promises the “perfect society”, and things fall apart.

The Sun moves into Leo on Sunday, offering the gift of optimism and vitality. Leo encapsulates passion, creativity, and spontaneity. Leo’s quest is courage.

Leo is associated with the heart—le coeur. That sacred repository of joy that contains the delicious delight, the audacious longing that emboldens us to rise up strong. Old astrologers link Leo royalty. With Sun kings, with leaders of nations and performers—Leo is the rock star of the zodiac—egoistic, charismatic, and commanding. I would associate Leo with the Divine Child, spontaneous, engaged in pleasure and play, fully alive. When the Sun is in Leo, our Camino is the way of  wholehearted self-expression and joy.

Leo 3

The archetype of Leo reminds us that every experience has the potential to rouse us to passion and purpose, that it’s laughter and creativity that sweeten the heroine’s journey. That lions spend most of their time sleeping, and a good night’s sleep will do much to  ease our stretched-out-frazzled nerves. That laughter and play thaw the frozen terror and passion  immolates the sinuous coil of fear in our belly.

This month is flanked by two eclipses—the Cancer New Moon Partial Solar Eclipse on July 13th brushed the Sun, with a top note of intensity that may be illuminated by the Total Lunar Eclipse and  Aquarius Full Moon Solar Eclipse,  on July 27th.

Lunar Eclipses draw us into the instinctual realm of “gut feel”. They stir primordial energy. Solar Eclipses feel external, they cast a spotlight on global events and personal issues. We may experience hardship and enormous tension— or  the release of suppressed energy in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption in our lives.

Leo Cara_Delevigne-1

Eclipses have importance in terms of world events. The partial solar eclipse was a preview to what will unfold from January 6th 2019—a cluster of eclipses in the Capricorn/Cancer polarity. July’s Partial Solar Eclipse fell on the moon of the UK chart, emphasising survival and safety. It coincided with Donald Trump’s visit to the UK.

Bernadette Brady writes of the July 13th eclipse (Saros Series 2 North) “if this family of eclipses affects a chart, the person will experience the sudden collapse of plans or life-styles… after the dust has settled, the rebuilding starts, and the consequences of this reshaping will have far-reaching effects. This eclipse family changes a person’s direction through the sudden collapse of an existing structure.”

Eclipses, even if they don’t spotlight any personal planets in our birth charts or in the charts of our relationships, highlight motifs, offer opportunities for re-calibration. They’re guide posts. Points of reference. cat leo sun

Reflect back to the much-heralded solar eclipse on August 21st, 2017 at 28 degrees Leo. Again the Leo/Aquarius axis was accented as the players on the political stage  performed their macabre roles like players in an Elizabethan Revenge Drama. There’s another eclipse on the Aquarius/Leo axis on August 11th at 18 degrees Leo and the final eclipse in this Leo/Aquarius family on January 21st, 2019 at 00 degrees Leouncompromising grandiosity, puffed up pride and arrogance, drama, hot-headed ideology, as naked Emperors strutand the counterpointcourage, spontaneity, and ability to be Present.

Mercury goes Retrograde on July 26th, at 23 degrees Leo, a harbinger of the full moon lunar eclipse on 27 July 2018 which falls at 4 degrees Aquarius,  making a striking T-square with Mars square Uranus. She nestles between Mars Retrograde and the South Node in Aquarius, like a poultice on a wound, bringing things to the surface, marking a completion, illuminating personal and world events in a dramatic and disruptive manner. Both Mars and the South Node bring a sense of severance, purifying, separating, purging. Mars is the surgeon’s knife that cuts, accelerating new growth and healing. Mars is also the war-lord’s sword that maims and destroys.

Sun in Leo 2In the cutting loose, the withdrawal from the brouhaha of the dramatics of politics, we’re invited to take centre stage in our own lives. To be loyal and steadfast to our own performance and to  abandon ourselves to our own unique passion that transcends the petty actions of the bit players who enter and leave through the sliding doors of political office. To adorn our heart’s desire with the deep, enduring energy that infuses all life.

I offer astrology readings and workshops for women, and post regular updates on Facebook. Please contact me ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists. It is real. It is possible. It is yours—Ayn Rand.

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White on White—Mercury the Magician

White on white 22Marriage is not a ritual or an end.

It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partnerAmy Bloom.

Fairy Tale Weddings are compelling in their sentimental perfection. The flowers, cake, months of meticulous preparation. The dress, tiara, spray-on tan, flowers in the button holes.

In our desire for the perfect wedding we so often find the golden apple of Discord. The Trickster appears to knock the bouquet off the altar of tradition. The fainting bride, the glitch in the sound system, little page boy who squeals just as the vows are pronounced. A flaw in the perfection of the meticulously planned occasion that brings laughter, and that may be the prelude of a profound agitation of two entwined souls. Like actors on a stage, bride and groom, play out the old scripts of the marriages before them. In their own lives, or in the matrix of their family history.

The compelling mystery of Marriage is that it can flay and brand, or softly kiss our soul. It is through our sentimentality, our innocence, our insistence in the “happily ever after” and the romantic dream of the marriage made in heaven, that we meet the dark challenges that a soul-ful union.  It’s through the difficulties, often the sojourns in hell, that we refine the prima materia, the raw stuff of life, and experience the phases of Love in all their complexity.

As the days of May unfurl like bright-coloured scarves tossed by the wind, Mercury guides us across the threshold of change and the ritual of Marriage. Mercury is associated with the Trickster and the Magician archetype, and is the patron of youth, of new possibilities, new perceptions, offering us the gift of ingenuity and intellect.ae6b30abe4584b2f97890bbee2582c6a

Mercury has been riding tandem with Uranus for the past few days, a high-voltage energy, so perfectly typified by the spectacle of this year’s Eurovision song contest, and the win by Israel’s Netta Barzilai who celebrated diversity in her confident delivery. Mercury changes sign this week, slipping into Taurus on May 14th.  Taurus embodies an earthly, sensual, resourceful energy, and as Mercury changes into the richly sensual clothing of Venus-ruled Taurus, this ingress signifies a phase of cerebral creativity for us all on some level.

The Taurus New Moon on May 15th heralds a threshold crossing, corresponding with Uranus’ ingress, the start of a new seven-year cycle, as Uranus penetrates the calm solidity of Taurus. Uranus, associated with upheaval, with sudden change that uproots the past, shatters the status quo. This marks an unfolding journey for us personally, and collectively, that will initiate us into unexpected change, fresh starts, and new challenges, just as the ritual of marriage marks a turning point in our lives, an initiation into an ancient covenant.

Uranus in Taurus featured pixAmidst the blush of cherry blossom and the pristine purity of white-thorn, tradition and ceremony, street parties; amidst the flags strung against blue skies in celebration of the Royal Wedding, 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.

Mars, the planet associated with action, with severance, moves into Aquarius, squaring Uranus, on May 16th creating the potential for a destabilising energy that urges us to break apart, to separate from something that may have grown too stuck, too staid, too stultifying. Mercury squares the Nodal axis, symbolising a “fatedness” a sense of “destiny” that’s embedded in the ceremony and tradition that will be enacted on May 19th.

Uranus was last in the sign of Taurus between 1934 and 1941, and these next seven years will have implications for those of us with planets or angles in the late degrees of Cardinal signs and the early degrees of fixed signs. Meghan Markle (North Node, Mercury and Sun in early degrees Leo) and her popular Prince (Pluto at 00 degrees Scorpio and Moon in Taurus) will not be exempt.  Uranus energy feels like an electric current that sizzles uncomfortably and the more we resist the more we may feel we are being electrocuted. As new revelations compel us to marry the polarities in our lives, or cast away the old, and bravely say, “I do”, the symbolism of the Royal Wedding on May 19th invites us all to look beneath the spectacle, to notice the signs and the symbols, to be curious about the road ahead.df12ebdbd4816f8a81b0dd3618f92b9e

For some, there’s something reassuring about ceremony, securely tied like bright bunting, to poles of upright tradition. For a few hours of revelry and wonder, the strains of struggle and uncertainty will be soothed by splendour and spectacle. Even though our lives may continue to continue, we may feel a little differently, a little changed, perhaps, more open, more perceptive and curious about the world we see. On a metaphysical level, the ritual of Marriage is sacred. It’s a rite of passage, through which we metamorphose into a deeper, more soulful self.  It’s an alchemical process though which we have the opportunity to integrate the masculine and the feminine within. Soon, we may  discover that he or she is not the god/goddess we believed they were. Soon we may discover we cannot depend on our partner to make us whole, to love us forever and ever. Author Mignon McLaughlin observes, “a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”

In the unfolding of our love, we may discover that marriage is a threshold into a mansion of self-discovery. A home-renovation project that takes us to the foundations of our  past. And as we witness this Royal Wedding, something ancient within us all will unfurl like bright bunting, as we raise our glasses to Hope.

white on white 8For astrology readings on Skype or in person, and for information on womens’ workshops, please contact meingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

 

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You Want It Darker

darker-1The New Year stretches and yawns from the crumpled wrappings of the festive season. The old is not yet old enough to be forgotten. The new is not yet quite born. There’s a certain quality about this threshold time, coloured by our hopes and dreams; our resolutions to emerge into life in a new way.

There’s an edginess in the zeitgeist now. The sound of thunder as dark clouds gather across nations at this time of jagged transition. The old ways have led us to the gaping maw of the destruction of habitats and species that is now probably irreversible.  Our appointed leaders seem incapable of  making the changes to policies despite petitions, pleas and protests. Civil disobedience seems the only option. Spiritual teacher, Andrew Harvey writes,“ the future of the world depends on the full restoration of the Sacred Feminine in all its tenderness, passion, divine ferocity, and surrendered persistence.” But what does that really mean to the billions of people who live their lives in sound bites, plugged in, plugged out?

standing-rockIn a superbly written post, Vera de Chalambert writes “As the spirit of the Dark Mother hovers upon the collective waters, she has much to teach us. Kali is the great protectress and ultimate sacred activist. She is standing at Standing Rock, roaring against the black snake and the abuses of corporate capitalism. She is marching in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

She is here mourning the dying out of species and showing her terrible tongue at the shocking xenophobic, nationalist regressionism swallowing the planet. She is the changing of the tides, and she meaphotograph-by-brent-stirton-national-geographicns business. She has come to burn up the old paradigm of separation and transfigure the collective heart.

Scientists tell us we live amidst the 6th extinction. Every 20 minutes, another species disappears from our planet. Our oceans are dying, our rivers are burning. Kali beckons us to embrace our sacred fury and let our heart roar for all living beings. Like her, we must rise as protectors, else perish as fools. She knows that we belong to each other and share one fate.”

Kali, the Dark Goddess is the giver and taker of Life. Hekate, the Dark Goddess, who stands at the crossroads. Hel, Ereshkigal, the Black Madonna, Sara-la-Kali, the Morrigan, the Badb, the Cailleach Bheur, Sheela na Gig, Divine Rotting Hags. Dark Goddess all.8b41931fd79ddf7540a720e1db1c247d

I associate Pluto with the Dark Goddess – a female deity of the Underworld; I do see this as a Dark Time, part of a cycle that will be unsettling, disruptive and as necessary and as inevitable as the winter that comes before the spring.  Jupiter opposes Uranus—December 2016, March 2017 and September 2017— a wake-up call, shaking things up, bringing unexpected shocks, sudden change for us collectively as well as personally. Mercury turned Retrograde on December 19th when the US electoral college certified Donald Trump as the 45th president, a regressive turn of events? An opportunity to look within at our own prejudices, our own wasteful consumerism and exploitation?

We all collectively influence the uni-verse at a very deep level. The energy of the planets is never external. They are celestial mirrors. Our politicians are simply playing their part, speeding things along. On January 20th, Trump is sworn in as President when Saturn squares Mars (traditionally associated with strife and conflict, accidents and injury) and the expansive Jupiter/Uranus opposition is still in force, so the pace quickens, tension rises, a clarion call. This aspect suggests a theme of polarisation, the die is cast—losses and gains.

darker-8 Back in the 1930s, a Pluto/Uranus square brought social and economic crisis and the world went to war. The Pluto/Uranus conjunction of the 1960s brought the innocent idealism and light of the Counter Culture Movement, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the deadly herbicide agent Orange in Vietnam, the system of apartheid in South Africa. As Pluto and Uranus joined forces in a conjunction during that decade, Marshall McLuhan coined the term, “the global village”, The feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s broke down barriers, and the Black Panthers raised their fists for civil rights. Hair became the symbol of freedom and power. From 2007 to 2015, Pluto has been in a tense square aspect to Uranus, a theme that overshadowed global events and will continue to do so over the coming years. If we track the planetary cycles back through his-story, there have been no quick fixes.

We want it darker.

Leonard Cohen, in his final and prophetic album, writes chillingly:

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came… we want it darker.

ff0be5bf172d37e026b0ad0741d06914The issues that were not fully addressed during the 1960s now require our most urgent attention: the age-old issue of war as the only solution to boost capitalism, establish power bases, dominate and subjugate will raise its gory head. Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn suggest that these issues will become increasingly explosive as Pluto squares Jupiter, three times between November 2016 and August 2017.darker-2

 

What the world needs now is a grass-roots movement that is willing to serve in practical ways. The movement seeded in the 1960s by Birkenstock-wearing flower children must now be imbued with the energy of the Dark Goddess with her angry eyes and breasts with nipples of claws. But the old injunction, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth will leave us blinded, toothless. His-story has left a grim and gristly record of the bones of the intelligentsia, writers, artists, and those who dare to speak up against oppression. And yet, as Martin Luther King declared, “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”

We are not defined by external forces. We are not trapped in our his-story, the purgatory of our tribal mind. We can make new choices, as we we cross this threshold into this new year. Leonard Cohen said, “ To offer oneself at the critical moment when the emergency becomes articulate. Its only when the emergency becomes articulate can we create the willingness to serve.”

amma

On January 1st, the Sun will rise again. The moon will cast her silvery light across the contours of our Mother Earth. “The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere, the dew is never all dried at once, a shower is forever falling, vapour ever rising…” wrote the man who inspired a nation and a president to set aside land for the magnificent American national parks, John Muir.

Things may not be solved. But we can offer ourselves. We can serve with strong hearts.

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Hard Time

0311-scottish-highlands-snowstorm-714We’re at the threshold of a new month which contains the seed of new possibility. The month of March is named after Mars, the god of war. And this month, conflict and strife continue to rasp and rattle across the globe.

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

 

hard time 1

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

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

 

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

birds flying

Eclipses fly in pairs. The ones in March  re-activated another pair of eclipses that occurred last September – a  new Moon eclipse at 20 degrees Virgo and one at 4 degrees Aries ( the polarity to Libra ) So the planets that rule the signs of Virgo and Aries, Mercury and Mars symbolize our restless attention deficit minds and our primal urges. As we review the month of March, gently consider how did we evangelize, idolize or hold too tightly onto those convictions and thought loops that imprison us like convicts behind the bars of un-examined thinking or explosive impulse?   Hard time 2

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

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

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

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

Seinabo SeyHard Time

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

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