Come Together—Gemini Full Moon—December 15th.

Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again. George Eliot.

The days before the shortest day of the year are shaped by the honest starkness of winter. Bare branches etched against grey skies. A russet flash of a fox daintily picking her way across a glistening frosty field. Silent starry nights. Gardens barren and bare. And yet, in the darkness of winter, new life is growing underground.

The astrological sky story speaks of endings and new beginnings after two years of transition as Pluto traversed between the very different signs of Capricorn and Aquarius. On November 19^th, Pluto entered Aquarius, heralding a new age for humankind―an app-driven Age of Artificial Intimacy, an Age of Authoritarianism, an Age of Reimagining what it means to be human. Now we stand collectively at the threshold of a new era as we try to imagine the unimaginable—what the world will be like in twenty years time.

As our nervous systems adjust and attune to what is emerging, we may sense a shifting in our priorities as we come to some kind of ending in our own lives.

December’s full moon invokes the mercurial essence of Gemini as we approach the Solstice on December 21^st. In the Greco/Roman world, Mercury/Hermes presided over thresholds, crossroads, and boundaries. Air is Gemini’s element. This is the energy of the wind that blows through the branches, shaking off that last golden autumn leaf. The Trickster is an archeype that versatile Gemini epitomises —this energy can be  elusive, clever, playful, and infuriatingly inconsistent. This full moon may illuminate those tricky either-or-choices we must make as we stand at those crossroad moments in our lives. Spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss reminds us, “the challenge is for us to decide whether to make choices that enhance our spirit or drain our power.”

Neptune steers direct on December 7^th, followed by Mercury direct on December 15^th, signifying turning points, new perspectives, choices made, decisions resolved. Now, a coming back to a state of faith and peace as we allow our nervous systems to recalibrate and resettle.

Mars stations Retrograde on December 6^th (6° Leo) and will station direct on February 24^th (17° Cancer.) A slow-burning Mars Retrograde exacerbates residual frustration as our will may be thwarted by those things we simply cannot control. The intense energy of the Mars opposition to Pluto that has been building since mid-October will stretch across the heavens until January 3^rd, sparkling the flames of love and war, igniting volatility as unseen, primal forces are unleashed. If this opposition plays out across your own birth chart over the coming weeks, this potent energy will provide the adrenaline rush, and hopefully a cathartic resolution to a situation that has been simmering for some time. As the sun moves through Sagittarius now, Jupiter is travelling Retrograde through Gemini (October 9^th-February 4^th.) Jupiter and the sun oppose one another on December 7^th, as we review the year gone past, plan for the future, dare to trust and to hope.

Now as we tend to the cherished customs and savour the familiar rituals of this holiday season, may we glance back over the months of this year almost gone and allow those moments of pleasure to glitter across our memory—our daily walk with the dog, a swim in the ocean, a birthday meal shared with a dear friend—or the Big, heart-blossoming, life-changing arrival of a precious grandchild.

“Locking pleasure into our memories through savouring is a skill worth learning, not least because we make our decisions today not so much based on rational pros and cons of a given choice but based on our memories of the past,” suggests researcher and sex educator, Dr Emily Nagoski.

Anchored to the restless tail wind of a year that has seen millions of voters going to the polls, inhuman immigration and asylum policies, and the grim toll of vicious combat in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the ratcheting climate crisis, the last new moon of 2024 falls in the stoic sign of Capricorn on December 30^th. This final New Moon of 2024 is a Saturn-ruled lunation. Saturn reminds us that time is is transient: once it’s gone, it’s gone. Emily Nagoski writes, “our body’s energy can be renewed, money comes and goes, but time is limited and fleeting… so I choose to do this with my time.”

Rilke spoke of the winter months as the season for tending to the inner garden of the soul. Now as the sun lies low on the horizon, may we find the courage to gently gather the worst and the best of this year and commit to healing them as best we can. May we generously accept our sadness, acknowledge the brevity of our fragile human lives, feel the fertile substance of our wanting. As we come together this festive season, may we celebrate the dark and the light of this year gone by, and be grateful for those precious times of connection. And in those silent moments, beneath the glittering stars, may we breathe out a prayer of gratitude as we prepare to blossom once more in the spring.

I am gestating a new beginning of my own as I take time to be curious about Pluto’s passage through Aquarius and what this means for humanity. I will  be wintering quietly and listening deeply. Thank you all for all your love and support during this year now almost gone. Wishing you a restorative and hope-filled Solstice.

Please get in touch if you would like to book an appointment for an astrology session for March 2024.   ingrid@trueheartwork.com

The Mirror and the Dark—Pluto enters Aquarius—November 19th.

It was not by a serpent, but by paper and ink that evil came into the world.
Hilary Mantel.

November is the season of falling leaves. Here in the north, a dying sun lies lethargically on the horizon. Trump’s in charge now, a landslide win has loosened a dark sludge of discontent that has been bubbling since Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008 and financial markets tumbled and fell. As historian Heather Cox Richardson writes, “democracies die more often through the ballot box than at gunpoint.”

At this inflection point in our human story, for so many, this new era stirs up an ancient fear that flexes like the slim tail of a serpent as it slithers across centuries of patriarchy, torture and burnings, women’s bodies owned, defiled, bartered, and sold.

Sales of dystopian books have soared, while leaders hurry to pay homage to the man who is a mouthpiece for the collective. In response to the misogyny that ripples through society, the 4B movement goes viral. Young women refuse to marry, engage in sex or bear children, until they have their rights back. Margaret Atwood, author of the Handmaid’s Tale, posts on the Musk-owned X, “despair is not an option. It helps no one.”

The astrology mirrors the light and the darkness as we enter this crucible of change.

On November 19^th, Pluto returns to 0° Aquarius. There will be no sudden shift into the golden “Age of Aquarius”. It’s unlikely that “peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars.” Pluto’s potent energy infuses our lives over the next two decades, society as we know it is destroyed and reshaped. The Sabian Symbol for this degree is “Building structures for the survival of the group”. These new structures will only emerge slowly, as Pluto represents an invisible, unfathomable level of life. Pluto in the fixed, rational, air sign of Aquarius acts like a poultice for the trauma and heartbreak in the collective consciousness. The shadowy qualities of Aquarius are rationalisation, icy detachment, immoveable ideologies, totalitarianism, group think collated and controlled by algorithms, seduced by AI and science.

Societal reform, often accompanied by bloody revolution and fanaticism shattered societies during Pluto’s passage through Aquarius in the 1700s long before we had “discovered” Pluto in the darkness of our solar system.

Pluto the invisible planet was orbiting silently in space when Herschel “discovered” Uranus in 1781, that planet associated with breakthroughs and revolution. This was a time of upheaval and revolt in France, America and Haiti. The first Industrial Revolution was under way. Captain Cook and William Bligh searched for new consumables in southern lands. Pluto’s last passage through Aquarius (1778-1798) marked the beginning of the climate crisis and a soulless sense of alienation and loneliness that now threatens our survival as a species.

We speak glibly of “patriarchy”, yet as Pluto gouges out embedded beliefs and offers a different way to live, how many of us will be willing to relinquish our “comfortable” way of life? How many of us will be willing to question and think deeply about personal and collective issues. How many of us will really be willing to share our resources and live equally?

Writes Angela Saini in The Patriarchs, How Men Came to Rule, “patriarchy “is not ‘they’; it’s all of us”. And changing it would mean losing many of the things many people cherish…to really radically create a completely equal society would mean rethinking everything fundamentally. Marriage, childcare, how we structure societies … work, pay, everything. It would mean challenging class, capitalism … monarchies … We’re not just creatures who want to live equally. We’re also creatures who care about the cultures that we’re in. And challenging culture is really hard.”

The full moon in Taurus on November 15^th carries the uncomfortable, erratic signature of Uranus, co-ruler of Aquarius. Uranus stirs up the grounded nature of this Taurus moon by tight conjunction, reminding us that nothing is certain, nothing is permanent, that we must redirect ourselves now and rebuild in new, unexpected ways. Uranus transits often accompany a sense of alienation from bedrock aspects of life and thrust us into the uncharted terrain of choice and crisis that we’ve been doggedly resisting.  As we choose courage over fear, Saturn turns direct, also on November 15^th, as the log-jam of obstacles that have been blocking our progress since June, at last begins to move and we find a way through.

The archetype of Saturn carries ponderous associations with fate and consequence as the western civilization turns to rubble, and unfettered growth and expansion are bounded by the inconvenient truth of climate crisis and mass migration. “Everything you love, you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form,” writes Susan Cain in her new book, Bittersweet: how longing and sorrow make us whole. In a world where enforced smiles and white-knuckled positivity clench against the wild winds of adversity, she reminds us that “light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired.” 

These next weeks and months will require determination and effort, as Mars and Pluto stay within orb of their opposition until mid-January and Mercury turns Retrograde on November 25^th-December 16^th so take time to rest and restore amidst the busyness of work deadlines and social commitments.

As we stand collectively and personally at the threshold of this new era, may be hold our dear ones close. Pluto’s long slow passage through Aquarius will demand of us all that we continue to engage our imaginations, trust our intuition, bow our rational minds to the ancient wisdom our hearts.

I am fully booked ’till mid-February 2025. To make your booking for an astrology reading in the new year, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Thin Places—Full Moon in Aries—October 17th.

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby—awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess. Lemony Snicket.

This is the month when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, a time when our soul seeks the deep, dark root of rest and reflection, even as the world calls for lights and action.

In October, nature gathers her beauty in one last incendiary bolt of colour. Trees wear crowns of copper and carmine. Hawthorns and rowans bear clusters of bright berries. In the shadowed hollows, lacy spider webs spangled with silver dew drops stretch over fronds of burnished bracken. Here in the north, soft mists ready us for the darkness that accompanies winter.

In those tender, thin places where we feel exposed to the world’s hard edges, October’s Aries full moon illuminates the pain and suffering in the world. Aries is an action-oriented sign, ruled by the planet Mars. So, as we tune into the energy of this lunation tonight, we acknowledge those moments when we pushed past our soft place of comfort, and dared to be brave enough to receive what we longed for and feared to ask for.  When we trembled yet said, I love you.

It takes courage to love bravely in a divisive, disconnected world, where toxic individualism has wreaked havoc on our relationships. In a world where we have thousands of “friends” and no one to hold us tight when our heart is breaking. Where “artificial intimacy” leaves us more alone than ever. As this moon cycle ripens in union with Chiron in Aries,  we honour those few precious true hearts who have journeyed with us over the past six months. The total solar eclipse of April 8^th, also aligned with Chiron, a thin place in everyone’s birth chart that holds our scar tissue.

This lunation ramps up the most significant astrological event of late 2024 and early 2025: a tense, confrontational engagement of Mars opposite Pluto which builds in intensity from October 14^th and will remain in orb until January 22^nd. This strained opposition will colour our own lives and be mirrored in world events as destiny delivers what it delivers. Mars in Cancer entered his shadow on October 5^th and will station Retrograde in Leo on December 6^th opposite Pluto.

Mars Retrograde cycles often coincide with low energy levels, as Mars, the war god, retreats from battle. We may need to reassess our goals, or even postpone things till the battle-weary Mars stations direct on February 24^th at 17° Cancer.

Mars carries the warrior/hero/heroine archetype, and in a world that is predisposed to battle, our conflict might be within or projected outwards onto those we love.

Pluto now moves through the final anaretic degree of Capricorn, exposing the shadowy dimensions of Capricorn’s ruthless obsession with ensuring survival at any cost as tyrannical father-figures take their last stand. Capricorn carries the mantle of authority and responsibility traditionally held by the head of the family.

As Pluto trawls across this final degree of Capricorn, another sexual predator, former owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, is exposed, revealing enablers who averted their gaze. The fine-spun, golden cocoon of privilege and powerful connections continues to insulate those who feel entitled to take what they want when they want it.

Pluto has been moving through Capricorn since 2008, exposing the putrid rot of toxic masculinity and patriarchal lust for power-over others. Pluto represents a primal urge to survive, which often becomes distorted as the dark power-over dynamics in our relationships, as strongmen (and women) crush dissent, and salesmen in the guise of politicians tap into the throbbing vein of discontent and vulnerability that pulsates through the masses. As we question the collective beliefs that thread through his-story, authoritarian Tyrant Fathers continue to peddle an age-old lie: some people are better than others. To the hollowed out middle classes, the promise of going back to a rose-tinted way we were is seductive. Blaming the woes of society on those they perceive as being beneath them provides a conduit for feelings of impotence and rage.

In how many ways have our lives been affected, our thin places pierced and scarred by those all-powerful Tyrant Fathers and Mothers? How have we been seduced by the glitter of wealth or power, fallen asleep as they have stolen our self-worth with impunity, undermined our talents, trampled our hopes and dreams? Pluto enters Aquarius on November 19^th and will not return to Capricorn for another 232 years, so these next weeks mark a culmination of this Pluto cycle.

There are three exact alignments of Mars and Pluto: 3^rd November 2024 (voting day in the US is two days later), 3^rd January, and 27^th April.

For those who are the mouthpieces for the collective, the gods seem to be smiling on Donald Trump. The day before voting, expansive and opportunistic Jupiter in Gemini conjoins Donald Trump’s North Node of fate and his Gemini Sun (identity, core aliveness) while benefic Venus and the Moon (the public) in optimistic Sagittarius brush over his South Node (challenges and gifts from the past) and natal Moon (emotions, instincts.) Unpredicible Uranus (excitement, freedom), in the most public place in his birth chart, delivers a radical and erratic bolt from the blue which, in the past, has worked in his favour. Traditionally these transits are tipped to fascilitate prosperity, abundance, and good fortune. Transiting Saturn (duty, responsibility, limitations, delay, boundaries) in Retrograde in Pisces moves over Chiron (wounding and healing) in Kamala Harris’ birth chart on November 5^th. A nebulous Neptune Retrograde makes an insecure quincunx to her Libra Sun/Mercury, as Pluto makes a challenging square, suggesting that the rigours of this battle may have had a detrimental effect on her health. Mercury enters Sagittarius on November 3^rd, and Sagittarius carries the archers far-sighted vision, a propensity for truth telling, or shooting from the hip.The months ahead will be telling, as we ask ourselves what aspects of own shadowy selves do our strongmen leaders, our false gurus, and our brittle shining celebrities mirror.

It takes courage to love bravely in a divisive, disconnected world. It takes courage to allow love to permeate our thin places when we can no longer trust what we see with our eyes. Yet now the time has come to take a stand.  “Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all,” writes Toni Morrison in Beloved.

To book an astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Seasons of the Heart—Lunar Eclipse Pisces Full Moon—September 18th.

A slow soft light settles over the meadows. Leaves flutter,  bronze and golden butterflies in the cooling air and choirs of migrant birds begin their long pilgrimage south.

“To everything there is a season,” yet change, like all initiations, rearranges our feelings, evokes dread or the salve of denial. As each bright leaf falls, we may be moving through our own season of fall. We may be weary, emotionally raw, finally able to disconnect from a difficult situation. Finally ready to admit that all the love and time and energy we have invested in a person, or a place, or a career will never bring us what we long for.

It’s eclipse season. A season of dimming light when our instincts are whetted by the necessity of endings. Some people may feel the energy of the eclipse a month before the first pair of eclipses. They experience a strange sense of hightened awareness that lingers for a month or more after the second eclipse.

Nebulous Neptune conjoins the moon in Pisces on this lunar eclipse, creating a force field of vulnerability and heightened emotion. This Neptune/Moon conjunction is infused with a sense of nostalgia, but can also quite literally present as extreme wet weather, high seas, and storms. Neptune is also associated with delusion and illusion—castles in the air, flights of fantasy—so, pause for a few days before committing to a decision that may be flawed. Dedicate time for self-care. Consciously disconnect from what agitates and disturbs the nervous system.  Mercury in discerning Virgo will oppose Saturn this weekm supporting considered thought processes and deep listening, yet also exposing a tender place of vulnerability. Be mindful of how the words will land before you send them out into the world.

Mercury joined the sun in Virgo on Monday 9^th September, and on Wednesday 11^th, it returned to the degree at which it turned Retrograde (August 4^th). In astrological jargon, it is moving out of shadow, which means returning to speed and strength. Now is the time to be receptive to new perspectives but fact-check before assimilating information as a “truth”. Mercury enters the shadow again on November 7^th as votes are counted in America and the Mercury Retrograde cycle begins again on November 25^th.

Saturn is still moving very slowly, in Retrograde, through Pisces, clearing the way for new beginnings as activities and projects come to completion. What has outlived its purpose dies and decays. We learn our own limitations, confront own fear and sense of inadequacy. Saturn also presents as responsibility and accountablity.  As I write this post Apple loses an EU court battle and must pay a tax bill of over €3 billion to Ireland. Google loses a court appeal and must pay a fine of over £2 billion.

Just before the new Virgo Moon on September 2^nd, Pluto made its final significant retrograde back into Capricorn and will turn direct on October 12^th.

Pluto will spend only two months in Capricorn before returning to Aquarius again on November 19^th. It will remain there until 2055. These next two months will be especially impactful for those who have personal planets in the last degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn, and early degrees of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. This marks the end of an intense evolutionary process, a finishing up phase, that will leave a lasting imprint on our lives.

Pluto has been moving through the sign of Capricorn since the global financial crash of 2008. Over these past 16 turbulent years, we have entered a world where nothing is as it seems. Deep fake, deep state, made-for-media politics, and a babble of voices competing on social media, which serves as an accelerant to hate speak, and them-and-us mistrust.

The true meaning of democracy might have to be re-examined as Pluto moves through Aquarius over the next two decades.

Pluto has circled slowly through the darkness of outer space to the to the place it stood on July 4^th, 1776, when the nation of America was born. Over these past 16 years, America has experienced the long slow process of  its first Pluto Return. As reminders of the painful legacy of dispossession, enslavement, ecocide, and genocide seep through a nation experiencing so much polarisation and collective angst, America is also experiencing a Chiron Return. America’s origins must be either confronted or repeated.

Transiting Mars opposes Pluto on the day of the US election, signifying a ruthless and merciless power struggle, the potential for violence, the possiblity of a contested election.

Unpredictable and erratic Uranus is still conjunct the fixed star of Algol, making a conjunction with Kamala’s Jupiter on election day and also back on Trump’s midheaven, aspects that will be positive in different ways for both candidates. The Moon moves into conservative Capricorn on that day, and Saturn Retrograde trines a Scorpio Sun signifying a stable, conservative tone which may favour either candidate, depending on your political prism. With Uranus activating the birth charts of both candidates, this election will deliver drama, uncomfortable reckonings. And Pluto will still be in Capricorn, a sign ruled by Saturn (responsibility, hard lessons learnt with humility, reality and the potential for enlightened leadership). Already we are witnessing the conflict between the energies of Neptune (suffering and sacrifice, compassion and confusion) and Saturn (responsibility, self-sufficiency, defensiveness and mistrust). Whoever “wins,” they will have to deal with the divisive effect of the coming Neptune/Saturn conjunction in Aries nearly exact in July next year and perfect at 0º Aries on 20^th February 2026, as our own inner conflicts and projections shape our reality.

At this turning point in the year, the equinox on September 22^nd readies us for wintering. “Autumn poses the question we all must live with—how to hold onto the things we love, even though we know that we and they are dying. How to see the world as it is, yet find light within that truth,” writes Pico Iyer in his exquisite book, Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells.

As we tend to the grief that accompanies endings, may we pause awhile, make space to feel the emptiness, then prepare to turn our attention inwards as the nights draw in.

To book an astrology consultation, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com