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April 11, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Change of Heart—Full Moon in Libra—April 13th.

It isn’t too late. Time is not running out. Your life is here and now. And the moment has arrived at which you are finally ready to change―Cheryl Strayed.

 

Most of us can recall those pivotal moments when our lives were shaped by intuitive choices that catapulted us into a different direction. We may have moved continents, left a lover―or chosen to stay, walked away from a highly paid corporate career to create art. This weekend as we reflect on the turbulence of the eclipse season, amplified by the Mercury and Venus Retrograde cycles, we may realise how much our priorities have changed, how we have healed, how much we have grown.

Venus revisits the same area of the zodiac every eight years. Venus last moved through the Pisces/Aries houses in our birth chart in March-April 2017. Retrograde times deliver gifts of hindsight, or personal descents into hell that up-end our lives. This Retrograde cycle may have carried similar themes―a shift in values and priorities, perhaps sudden realisation that our butterfly-effect choices, even the seemingly small ones, have brought us to where we are tonight.

Venus is exalted in Pisces, the sign of the tethered Fish. As Venus moves direct once more through opaque, Piscean waters, we may feel connected to a deep force of compassion, a swelling of creativity, and―as a flurry of pale pink spring blossom shimmers in the bluest of blue skies―the sweet blessing of heartfelt gratitude. This Venus station might accompany a change of heart, a new realisation that the moment has arrived, deepened by time, to release the past and finally move on.

The pulse of spring quickens. The hedgerows blaze with white blossom. After a fractious eclipse season amplified by the Mercury (March 14th-April 7th at 26º Pisces) and Venus Retrograde cycles (March 2nd-April 13th at 24º Pisces), Venus glistens like a diamond on dawn’s softly curved breast as the full moon in the Venus-ruled sign of Libra turns her face to the sun this weekend.

Full moons symbolise completion. They are harbingers of light as we  see more clearly, finish now what must be finished. As this full moon moves through the Libran part of our own birth chart, we are called to practice the challenging art of balance, compromise, choice and fairness in a world that so often seems unjust and out of kilter.

Aries is the beginning, Pisces the end. Libra is midway, a crossroads where the old converges with the new, where the winds of change blow across our lives, exposing the roots, bringing us closer to ourselves, and to others in safe relationships where oxytocin and vasopressin activate parts of the brain associated with calm.

The moon and Venus, two quintessential symbols of femininity, infuse the heavens with peace and harmony tonight as we honour those relationships that have sustained us through our darkest hours and allow love to flow freely towards those who mirror those aspects of ourselves that we disown.

Within every human heart is a longing to be cherished and to be seen. Psychologist Sue Johnson writes, “this drive to emotionally attach—to find someone to whom we can turn and say ‘Hold me tight’—is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy—to survive.”

Author Gerald Jampolsky writes that love is letting go of fear, and that we choose either fear or love. The essence of Libra brings harmony to polarities, offers a possibility to let go of the melodrama, to transcend the personal, and touch the heart of another with hope. At this full moon, we offer the warmth and containment of a blessing to the world and those around us. As we bow our heads to our hearts, may we feel lighter, may we notice the grace and beauty in ordinary things. For those who will be celebrating Pesach, Easter or Ēostre, this from poet and mystic, John O’Donohue: May all that is unforgiven in you be released. May your fears yield their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.

 Please get in touch with me to book a personal astrology reading: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

Prices go up from May 1st 2025.

 

 

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March 31, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships By Ingrid Hoffman

Sweet Dreams—Neptune enters Aries—March 30th 2025—March 23rd 2039.

There is no sense talking about “being true to yourself” until you are sure what voice you are being true to—Marion Woodman.

Neptune enters Aries at the end of March, marking a collective sea-change that will wash over us for the next 14 years.

Neptune’s graceful arc around the sun takes 165 Earth years, spending about 14 years in each sign of the zodiac, so Neptune in Aries (2025-2039) will be reflected in cultural, political and societal changes that trickle into fashion, music, art, literature and film. For those of us who lived through the conspicuous consumerism and hedonism of the 80s, Neptune in Aries transmits a fin de siècle ennui as the world around us dies and Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda keeps the world dependant on oil and gas, both symbolised by Neptune.

The tide is turning. Woke is out, shoulder pads are back.  When Neptune enters Aries, wealth, glamour and “aspirational” luxury revivalism seep through the collective. Rolex and caviar, silk shirts and golden tans. Neptune is all glamour and sparkle. The Dutchess of Sussex in her cream jeans with expensive sweater hung nonchalently over her shoulders whips up creamy cocktails. Tone deaf Kim Kardashian poses seductively on the back of a Tesla Cybertruck. Melania Trump, wearing high-heeled power boots signs a $40m Amazon deal.

As Neptune moves through the signs of the zodiac, we search for redemption,  boundaries dissolve, we dream the impossible dream. When Neptune moved through Pisces from 2011-2026, our personal property moved to the Cloud where everything is available and accessible. Fact and fiction, propaganda and deep fake proliferated. The uncontrolled social media experiment replaced tangible human connection. Algorithms dictated our likes and dislikes. AI bottom-traweled the internet, polluting the well of human creativity and passion, spewing out mechanical repetition at best, a politically engineered, deliberate tainting of truth at worst.

Neptune in Aries cycles so often accompany times of disillusion and discontent, as well as periods of innovation and creativity. Change and progress become the new Redeemer. Expansion (usually territorial) and a hero (usually self-proclaimed) captures the collective imagination.

Aries is ruled by Mars, god of war. Historically, as Neptune travelled through the sign of Aries, heroes fought and died. There were civil wars, rebellions and futile crusades.
Neptune was in Aries in 1861—1874 along with Uranus in Gemini, when the US Civil War fortified divisions between north and south. The abolition of slavery was one of the contested issues, underpinned by ideology and the human want for more territory. As Neptune mirrored discontent, bold view visions and an unquenchable thirst for change, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address on November 19th, 1863, proclaimed that all men are created equal. In 1862, the Homestead Act invited white settlers to go west, settle and exploit the prairies, expelling first nations people from their ancestral homelands.

As we enter this new era, Neptune’s idealistic energy will permeate all our lives. There will brash, bold shifts in political power. The cult of the individual, the idealisation of the hero infuse the zeitgeist. Depending on our own birth chart, we may already sense an ebbing of the tide as a new identity is reimaged. Our quest for independence, self-knowlege, innovation and expansion, real or deluded, will become our next crusade. Wearable tech and generative AI already promise salvation. Neptune in Aries will amplify the human hunger for innovation. Space exploration, yet another self-absorbed bid for survival. Under Neptune’s spell we will venture further and further in the restless pursuit of our dreams. As Neptune moves through early degrees of action-orientated Aries this year and next, those with planets and angles in early degrees Aries, Libra, Capricorn and Cancer/late degrees Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius, may be inspired to return to the canvas or keyboard, to devote more time to spiritual practice, to explore those sweet dreams, discover what being true to yourself really means. As Neptune sensitises your birth chart over the coming months and years this transit could accompany a profound personal initiation, the warm bloom of day-break after a time of struggle.

Author Samatha Harvey writes so beautifully in Orbital: “A human being was not made to stand still. Maybe we’re the new dinosaurs and need to watch out… but maybe against all odds we’ll migrate to Mars…and we’ll look back at the faint dot of blue that is our old convalescing earth, and we’ll say, Do you remember? Have you heard the tales? Maybe there’s another parent-planet earth was our mother and Mars or somewhere, will be our father. We are not such orphans-in-waiting after all.”

 

 

These posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology.  If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com

 

 

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March 19, 2025 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Light the Light—Aries New Moon Solar Eclipse—March 29th.

You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both—Brené Brown.

When we take our first tentative steps back into life after the long winter of a debilitating illness, it’s courage, not comfort that makes us well again. When our income withers; our life’s work is no longer deemed valuable, courage is that act of will that gets us out of bed when all the colour has faded out of the world we once knew.

The sun enters Aries, the first sign of the zodiac, on March 20th, marking the spring Equinox. Aries marks a point of Beginning, which for most of us may be a lonely, often scary, journey into the unknown.

In Aries we experience the mythic motif of conquest, which implies an act of courage and daring. Aries encapsulates the heroine, the mythic warrior. Aries is where we dare bravely, find our own agency, return to life, will ourselves to begin again. To choose courage, not comfort.

Mars, ruler of Aries, is still moving slowly forward after stationing direct on February 24th in emotional Cancer. We may feel exhausted, battle-weary, as we traverse the smouldering ashes of a situation that still does not feel fully resolved.

If you have been feeling stuck in an impasse, things may begin to move quickly from March 22nd as a turning point is reached when Venus Retrograde slips into the heart of the sun in Pisces (a union called a cazimi.) For a brief moment, we may see a way through a dilemma, sense a turning point, feel a surge of courage that emboldens us to take action even though we can’t see a way through quite yet. If we have been grappling with a relationship dilemma, this potent cazimi could bring clarity about a relationship, a passionate renewal of commitment, or it may coincide with a wrenching apart, an ending of that relationship, as Venus separates from the firey embrace of the sun.

Venus stationed Retrograde on March 1st in the sign of Aries. For forty days and forty nights, she journeys through the underworld, her brilliant beauty now gone from the heavens. Just before the solar eclipse,Venus backtracks into Pisces(March 27th.) Her Retrograde cycle ends on April 12th as we reassess what it is we truly need and what we truly value in life.

As Venus vanishes from the heavens, hiding her glittering brightness from the world, we might be questioning our assumptions about who or what truly brings us joy and pleasure. On a literal level, if Venus Rx moves through our 4th house, we may feel the urge to de-clutter, to redecorate, beautify our home, as our tastes have changed. If Venus Rx moves through our 11th house, we might end a one-sided friendship, widen our social circle, seek connections that feel more equitable.

Venus is now gliding through Pisces, drifting close to Neptune and Saturn in her Retrograde cycle. The romantic dream, the seductive vision, may need some practical readjustment, some anchoring in what is realistic and possible.

As Venus travels Retrograde in Pisces, we may be blind-sided into squandering our rescources—money, time, affection—in misguided attempts to be compassionate or charitable.

Mercury moved Retrograde in Aries on March 14th, the day after the lunar eclipse, amplifying the Venus Retrograde energy and boosting the chaotic energy of the two eclipses that bookend the month of March. Mercury brings some logic to Venusian matters and we may be prompted to end a one-sided romance, to attend more diligently to our finances, to set boundaries so we don’t feel used or victimised.

When Mercury moves Retrograde through the element of fire, it is vital to seek passion and meaning in our lives. Psychosomatic illnesses or a creative “block” may be the symptom that indicates the need for deeper change in our life, or a radical new perspective on the story we tell ourselves about a person or a situation that depletes our energy.

Fire symbolism carries the momentum for creative re-imagining, for aligning ourselves with all possibilities and probabilities, focusing on the higher ground, and using the force of our will to get there. As Mercury moves Retrograde we may be forced to slow down, check the facts, question assumptions, re-view and re-do, exercise courage and patience.

On March 29th, the first new moon solar eclipse of the spring drops a blade of blackness over our earth at the end of a tumultuous month that for so many of us has accompanied endings and important new beginnings.

A partial solar eclipse ignites 9° Aries in our own  birth charts and in the charts of nations. This eclipses, (Saros Series 9 New North)  is described by astrologer Bernadette Brady as “physically expressive, so requires effort and may accompany accidents or violent events.”

The Aries new moon semi-squares wired, wakeful Uranus, a planet that accompanies haphazard, unsettling events that shake us from our steady routines and conjoins both Mercury and Venus. Like all solar eclipses, this eclipse nudges close to the north node. The lunar nodes are delicate astronomical points that mark where the moon’s passage around the belly of the earth intersects with the earth’s seamless reel around the sun. The north node is more imaginatively called the dragon’s head, where we hungrily draw in new energy, nourishment, life force. The south node is the dragon’s tail where we release, eliminate all that has been digested. Because this eclipse falls in Aries, the first sign of the zodiac signifying new beginnings and fresh starts, this could be an extremely potent time to initiate something new. This will also be the last eclipse in the Aries (self) Libra (other) cycle until the next eclipses in the Aries/Libra cycle will be in 2032/2033/2034.

Significantly, Neptune moves into Aries on March 20th, charging the collective energy with ambiguity, amplifying the shadowy darkness of this solar eclipse. Neptune dips in and out of Aries all through this year and a new era begins as Neptune finally enter Aries from January 2026-March 2039, carrying our collective hopes and dreams, our fanciful yearnings, our wild imaginings. Neptune’s entry into Aries is one of the most important astrological signatures of this year. This transit may inspire the momentum for creativity, a renewed focus on spirituality, but may also accompany sorrow and sacrifice, delusion and a world-weariness that saps our strength. Neptune’s passage through Aries stirs idealism, fires the imagination, but can also be delusional and self-indulgent as we try to grasp onto what is real and what is illusory.

If we imagine the moon’s pale body briefly obscuring the light of the sun on March 29th, we may sense, in the darkness, the soft presence of a deeper knowing, the urgent thrust of life force that compels us to move beyond our fear. Harriet Lerner writes, “It’s not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.”

This new Moon invites us to stand expectantly at the edge of something new. To muster the courage to move from our place of comfort. Author Anne Lamott who was born under the sign of the Aries Ram asks “how do you begin? The answer is simple. You decide to.”

The creative content of these posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology.  If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com

 

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March 8, 2025 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse—March 14th.

Life turns on little things. The momentous events in history can leave us untouched, while small events may shape our destinies―Jennifer Worth.

On the night of March 13th or 14th, depending on where you live, all the world’s sunrises and sunsets will be painted onto the soft curve of the moon as she sails through the atmosphere of the earth. A pair of eclipses bookmark the month of March: a full moon “blood” eclipse, (moon at 23° Virgo) followed by a partial solar eclipse on March 29th  (sun at 9° Aries.)

During a lunar eclipse, the sun, moon and earth make a perfect alignment as the moon passes through the darkest part of the earth’s shadow and we collectively enter, for just a moment, the womb of darkness. We may feel quite literally in the dark about a situation that has been building. For many of us, it will be the little things, the small events, that shape our destinies. Yet, if one of these eclipses aligns with one of our personal or progressed planets (in the mutable signs of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius) we will be touched by some kind of crisis or an abrupt awakening that marks an important turning point in our lives.

Blood is associated with the war and death in our culture, yet this full moon reminds us that blood is a female symbol of fertility and of new life. At this time of dimming light when we face the necessity of endings collectively and personally, this full Moon lunar eclipse may herald a return to clarity about what has been eclipsed in our lives, and may offer a glimpse of what can be birthed a-new.

This full moon presides over the quiet rhythms and routines that root us in seemingly ordinary tasks as she moves through the modest sign of Virgo. Virgo reminds us to tend to the little things that matter—bonds of love and friendship, our connection to the natural world, those things we hold dear that bring us comfort and joy amidst shifting circumstance. Earth is Virgo’s element, and Virgoan qualities are so often depicted in fairy tale as the heroine performs tasks with humility and attention to detail. Humility derives from the Latin, humilis—down low, on the ground or of the earth. Executive coach, Vanessa Loder speaks about “following our energetic breadcrumbs,” a daily choice, a tiny moment, that we can all feel into when we begin to focus our attention to those seemingly ordinary encounters, when we notice the signs, pay attention to the prompts.

The Sun moved into watery Pisces on February 18th (Pisces corresponds to our lymphatic system, our feet and toes, while Virgo’s domain is our digestive organs) so this full Moon brings our focus on the quality and origin of the foods we assimilate, the health of our colon, our immune system and the comfort of our feet.

Saturn in nebulous Pisces opposes this month’s Virgo moon, creating a force field of vulnerability and heightened emotion. Saturn aspects accompany frustration, obstacles often associated with laws, responsibilities, duty and demands. The sun in Pisces sextiles disruptive Uranusm so plans could quickly unravel, what seemed so straightforward, now might be complicated.

As our lives turn on those little things that shape our destinies, the shadows of both the lunar and solar eclipses this month, suggest that things will not be smooth in world politics. Venus, symbol of what we hold dear to our hearts, is moving Retrograde in Aries. Aries is a hot-headed, martial sign and Aries is where Venus is in her “detriment”.  Venus in Aries wears warpaint and battle gear. Venus stationed Retrograde on March 2nd and will turn direct at 24° Pisces on April 13th. Tempers flared and diplomacy dissolved in the Oval Office under the glare of the media on Friday February 28th in an undignified display of what psychologist Dr. Dan Siegel describes as “flipping your lid”―when the the amygdala, the emotional brain, hijacks the frontal cortex, the thinking brain. Mars (ruler of Aries) is moving direct now in Cancer, an emotional placement, that feels offended and can explode into immature temper tantrums.

The astrological weather for March and April will be unsettled as Mercury turns Retrograde (9° Aries) on March 15th.  

Both Venus and Mercury sensitise the 9/10 degree points in our birth charts then move over the 24/26 Pisces degree points, the same degree point as the full moon total eclipse. Be prepared to be flexible and open to new moves. Expect the usual Trickster/Mercurial technical, transport, communication glitches that compel us to pause, re-think, re-work, re-do, and be mindful that Mercury in Aries can be brash, impulsive and reactionary. Pause, breath out slowly before responding. Engage the frontal cortex.

Midwife and nurse, Jennifer Worth who knew so intimately the power of female blood, the dark and the light of human nature, worked amongt the very poor in South East London in the 1950s. She writes so poignantly, “we do not get what we expect. We stumble on cracks, are faced with imperfection, bonds tested and tightened. And our landscapes shift in sunshine and in shade. It was light where you went once. It was light where you are now. It will be light where you will go again.”

For every one of us, this eclipse season marks a space between darkness and light, the bloodlust of war, or the blood that accompanies a new cycle of fertility, the miracle of birth. May we soften those places in ourselves that have become calloused and hard. May we cleanse our thoughts and open our hearts as events, big and small, shape our destiny. Peace and contentment to all who have entered a time of quiet reflection during Ramadan and Passover.

 

For personal astrology readings please contact me on ingrid@trueheartwork.com

 

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February 25, 2025 In Astrology, General By Ingrid Hoffman

The Loveliness of Things—Venus Retrograde—March 1st to April 12th

[With apologies for the late arrival by email due to technical issues.]

Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time—Maya Angelou.

In these first hope-filled days of spring, a benevolent sun settles over city parks and woodlands. And for a brief moment, people look up from their screens and smile at the loveliness of things.

February is a month dedicated to Love. As cloyingly sentimental or overtly commercial as this celebration may seem, Valentine’s Day has survived world wars and financial crashes. On February 14th in most places on this earth, millions of people demonstrated through chocolates and cards, music and flowers, their longing to love and be loved. “Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved”, writes author Alain de Botton.

At sunset this month, Venus, goddess of beauty and love, shimmers in a sky striated with peach and gold. On Valentine’s Day Venus was luminous, reaching her greatest brilliancy as if declaring Love’s power to overcome all human sorrow. She lingers  languidly in the evening skies and dazzles us with her beauty till mid-March, then she vanishes beneath the horizon, triumphantly reappearing  as morning star in the last days of April.

The ancients tracked the passage of Venus in a perfect pentagram across the skies, ascribing her disappearance from sight to her descent into the Underworld. This descent into the darkness was a dangerous time for humanity. When Venus vanished from the skies, the pre-Colombian Mayans believed, kingdoms became unstable, regimes toppled, and an ancient bloodlust stirred in the  heart of warriors.

In myth, Innana (Venus) is stripped of all her valued regalia and exquisite clothing. She enters the Underworld vulnerable and exposed for 40 days and 40 nights. In modern times, the Underworld is a symbol of our own unconscious where we may encounter a truth that reverberates viscerally. The trial of these times are a cosmic reminder for us to dissolve, discard out-worn values and beliefs. In astrological language, Venus describes our self-worth and self-esteem, as well as the people or things we cherish and admire. Venus describes our loveability, how we give and how we receive love. We may be prompted to reconnect with our heart’s longing as we reevaluate our intimate and business partnerships, our friendships, our finances, our creative expression, and importantly, what value we place upon ourselves.

Between late January and mid-May this year, Venus becomes a maverick, expressing her qualities in unusual and unexpected ways as she moves over the Aries/Pisces area of our birth charts as well as the birth charts of our fallible leaders, and of nations.

Venus entered her shadow period on January 28th at 24° Pisces. On March 2nd, she stations Retrograde at 10° Aries and stations direct at 24° Pisces on April 13th. She will leave her Retrograde shadow on May 16th at 10° Aries.

The last time Venus moved Retrograde through Pisces and Aries was eight years ago, so as we reflect back to the themes or our responses to events in 2017, we might get a sense of where we might need to focus our attention over the coming months.  Venus and Mercury meet in Aries on March 12th then Mercury stations Retrograde on March 14th  as we pause before making decisions and pay careful attention before signing any important documents. The few days before and after Retrograde and direct stations are risky times to enter into negociations or make long term decisions.

As Venus moves apparently backwards through the heavens, she will accent the building energy of the important Neptune/Saturn conjunction at that first initiatory degree of Aries, mirroring trigger points politically and economically, as well as important events and choices in our own lives as we grapple with what is “real” or illusionary.

As Venus begins to gather speed, moving direct, she passes over the important Aries point on May 1st, she will also energise this jetstream of powerful political and cultural currents that will sweep away what has been built, and will ebb and flow, long after we are gone. As civil rights activist and writer, James Baldwin once said: “No time can be easy if one is living through it.”

As we move through the turbulent maelstrom of this moment in human history, with its darkness and its light, we might remember that there are cycles within cycles. As author John Steinbeck wrote during the darkest days of the second world war, “all the goodness and the heroisms will rise up again, then be cut down again and rise up… it isn’t that the evil thing wins—it never will—but that it doesn’t die.”

In our own private lives, Venus accents the impulsive, assertive, risk-taking Aries energy in our birth chart, as well as the caring, compassionate, intuitive part of ourselves as she moves through Pisces between now and early June.

Venus’s Retrograde passage may expose our vulnerabilities, our blind spots, and our lack of self-compassion.

Most of us are unskilled at self-love. It is often easier to look for what is wrong in our relationships or in the world around us, than to place our attention on what brings joy to our hearts. As we take time to hear our inner pulse beat, may we honour the stability of our own substance, resist the meaningless quantification of likes and retweets, and protect our tender hearts and minds from corrosive comparisons.

As our earth strains beneath the weight of our appetites and numbers—and so many of us sense the ultimate ending—Jonathan Franzen writes in his book, The End of the End of the Earth “even in a world of dying, new loves continue to be born… this is now the time to give yourself over to what you love, perhaps in new and deeper ways. Your family and friends, your animal friends, the plants around you, even if that means just the little sprouts that push their way through the sidewalk in your city, the feeling of a breeze on your skin, the taste of food, the refreshment of water, or the thousands of little things that make up your world and which are your own unique treasures and pleasures.

Make your moments sparkle within the experience of your own senses and direct your attention to anything that gladdens your heart.”

These posts continue to remain AI free and free of charge to all lovers of astrology.  If you’d like a private astrology reading, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com or visit the consultations page of my website: www.trueheartwork.com

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