Solstice December 21st—Capricorn New Moon December 23rd.
This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath―Margaret Atwood.
The days before the shortest day of the year are shaped by the honest starkness of winter. Colours seem brighter, a flurry of buttery-yellow gorse, a russet flash of a fox daintily picking her way across a glistening frosty field, a tangle of burnished bracken, the glossy green boughs of holly, the silouette of a red deer―all reminders that in the darkness of winter, life begins anew.
On December 21st, a new Sun is conceived in the dark womb of the heavens. It quickens and stirs at Imbolc (Candlemas), to be resurrected in the urgent thrust of Aries accompanied by a melody of green shoots and delicate blossoms at the Vernal Equinox.
Anchored to the restless tail wind of strikes and industrial action sweeping across the UK, the Sun and Moon meet in stoic Capricorn on December 23rd. This final New Moon of 2022 makes a determined square to Jupiter in energetic Aries, as we steady ourselves, prepare for change. This Saturn-ruled lunation reminds us that like the animals who survive in what is left of their natural habitat, in the dark of the year, we must gather our resources, prepare for lean times, adapt, to grow in ways we never dreamed were possible. New Moons are times of conception, transitional moments, times when the heartbeat of heaven resounds through the blackness of the night skies. New Moons signify endings and brave new beginnings, that may be overlooked in our brightly lit, forward-thrusting lives.
Capricorn is an earth sign, a sign that is associated with the quiet alchemy of winter, with lean times and stoic determination. The essence of Capricorn is structure, so amidst our midwinter rituals, this is a perfect time for putting things in order, preparing for a spiritual or physical metamorphosis.
For some this may be a lonely wintering. A period of poignant, painful anniversaries of the heart. A fallow time of scant resources. For some, the protracted dying of a relationship may rachet up the strength to shrug off a life that now feels too small, too tight. For others, this festive season may be a time of joyful celebration, as we welcome a new baby into the family, or reunite with a much-loved friend.
Mercury swings into reverse on December 29th (24° Capricorn) a Retrograde cycle that lasts till January 18th 2023. This is a reminder, as we re-imagine our future lives to focus on what we can “realistically” manage.
A slow-burning Gemini Mars Rx (retrograde) exacerbates residual frustration as our will may be thwarted by those things we simply cannot control. Mars Rx often signifies an internal war. Those unsettling “climates of feeling” that author Anne Morrow Lindbergh describes so beautifully. Amidst the last minute shopping, the wrapping of gifts, take time to rest, hone a sense of humour, be kind. Mars in Gemini has been in a murky square with Neptune in Pisces since October, and will make a final square in March, though Mars moves direct (8° Gemini) on January 12th, reigniting embers of hope, a latent passion, clarity, as we rise above the mists of confusion. 
With both Mercury and Mars moving Retrograde, we may feel burnt-out, fractious, an illness may confine us to bed, redressing an imbalance of energy, depending on what area of our birth chart they are now traversing back and forth.
There’s a deeper message contained here, said so simply by the Buddhist monk, Haemin Sunim: When everything around me is moving so fast, I stop and ask, “is it the world that’s busy, or is it my mind?”
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 2023. ingrid@trueheartwork.com
Welcome in the new calendar year with a deeply nourishing exploration of the astrological weather forecast for 2023, combined with inner reflection, poetry, music and art.
Stories Written in the Stars Friday January 6th, 2023, 10.30 AM PST and 6.30 pm GMT.
Join me, and mythologist Dr Kayleen Asbo, poet Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, and artist Johanna Baruch, for an epiphany of comfort and joy, an exploration of the sky story for 2023, and a celebration of the gifts we each bring to at the turning of the year.
To register, here is the link:
Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. 
Sibling stories underline Rome’s foundation myth and draw us into the story arcs of fiction and movies like Shakespeare’s Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, SK Tremayne’s chilling story about the death of a twin, The Ice Twins, and the marvellous Harry Potter books. Gemini is also the sibling we love or loathe, the bonds of blood that bind or divide. The Swimmers (Netflix 2022) is a Gemini story that marries the light and the darkness of two young sisters, Sara and Yusra, who escape the trauma of the war in Syria in a leaking boat, hoping to be reunited with their family. Theirs is a story of sexual assault by a trafficker, soulless immigration queues, barren refugee detention centres, and the triumph of being selected to compete in the Rio Olympics of 2016.
This month, Mercury-ruled Gemini appears as the winged messenger, delivering choices which are seldom packaged in black and white, choices that arrive on the restless wind and arc through the air like the ideas that tumble through our minds. It is in the light and the dark of our relationships that we encounter our human complexity and discover the light and the dark within us.
“We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again—Katherine May.
The luminous lives of public figures portray the astrology of the moment. Prince Charles became Charles III during this eclipse season, and he will be crowned on May 6th during a Mercury Retrograde cycle and the day after a lunar eclipse—two celestial significators that suggest he will not settle comfortably on the throne. Charles was born on an eclipse, and will be familiar with this energy, so it’s unlikely that he will be beheaded like his predecessor, or banished to Europe. His Solar Return in 2023 (Sun/Mars conjunction in the 3rd house and Neptune on the Descendant) also suggests that his reign will not be an easy one as ghosts from the past return. Already truths blend with fantasy as the acerbic effect of the Mars/Neptune square can be seen in the “dangerous lies” peddled by the media, portrayed in season Five of The Crown.
To be rooted is not the same thing at all as being tied down. To be rooted is to say, here I am nourished and here will I grow, for I have found a place where every sunrise shows me how to be more than what I was yesterday, and I need not wander to feel the wonder of my blessing—Kevin Hearne.
“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 clenches against the wild winds of adversity, she reminds us that “light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired.” At this in-between time of transition we may feel suspended between life’s crevices and cracks as Jupiter’s lingering longing expands the bitter and the sweet. And as Naomi Shihab Nye reminds us, “before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.”
On the eve of a new Scorpio Moon on October 25th, Sun and Moon hold a séance with Venus in regenerative Scorpio, accenting the cartography of our heart. This eclipse amplifies the finality of endings; fertilises a new cycle of growth with the dust of demolition. Tonight, we come back to what we deeply value. And what we must discard or choose to keep. A solar eclipse is a high-voltage new moon, and a new moon encapsulates the seed of a new beginning, a new shaping of our expectations, though we may not be able to see just what they are until the Moon is ripe and full. And as this new moon travels between the Earth and the Sun, darkening the Sun’s brilliance, something, someone may be eclipsed. This symbolism is made all the more poignant in a culture where the brilliance of externalised power and earthly matters command the spotlight in 24-hour news loops and on social media. The essence of eclipses lingers like an expensive perfume, for two weeks before and after the eclipse. They act as celestial highlighters, amplifying, intensifying energy and they can be game changers.
We may remember that for the ancient Greeks, Fate came in the form of three Moirai, those three sisters who determined the Fate of every living creature. It was Atropos who cut the thin thread of life. We meet Fate when the Nodes of the Moon transit the planets or angles of our birth chart. The South Node draws us back, into the undertow of the past; we hesitate at the threshold, we circle endlessly in our place of discomfort. The North Node is where we see the diamond of our destiny, although the threshold crossing is never easy. Something is calling us to our purpose, our ability as a race to love and heal and to nurture one another and all creatures great and small.
As Nature contracts, exposing an uncompromising knot-work of bare branches and stubble fields; 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. This lunation carries the seed for repair, for release and renewal, if we trust the instruction of our hearts and know that death, like birth, is both an ending and a beginning. As we pause awhile, in this world of dying things, may those dead places in ourselves open to Love in new and deeper ways.