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July 21, 2020 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Steady Gaze—Sun in Leo—July 23rd—August 22nd

What this pandemic has taught me is to free myself from things. It has never been so clear to me that I need very little to live. I don’t need to buy, I don’t need more clothes, I don’t need to go anywhere, or travel, now I see I have too much. I don’t need more than two dishes!

Then I started to realize who the true friends are and the people I want to be with—Isabel Allende

As we begin our apprenticeship into this new way of living, sort out our priorities, obediently don our masks, dutifully comply with rules and restrictions that we hope will not rob us of our freedom and our human rights in the years yet to come, the taskmasters of the heavens—Pluto/Jupiter and Saturn—close ranks. Saturn is so often accompanied by setbacks that generate anxiety, pessimism and bolstered defenses. Pluto represents painful, drawn out, but irrevocable endings. Jupiter amplifies both.

This weighty alliance is the signature of a resurgence of restrictions fortified by fines. Non-touch technology, demarcated space, and physical distance become habitual. As seismic shifts in the systems of power crack open nations and reckless leaders scramble to reassemble the vestiges of normality, we may feel as though we are in the belly of the whale. The sky story of 2020 has a ponderous tone as the past and the future excoriate the foundations of nations, leaving so many of us homeless, jobless, grieving; orphaned by the intervening clamour of forces beyond our control.

“Destiny is a mysterious thing”, wrote novelist, Francisco Goldman. “Sometimes enfolding a miracle in a leaky basket of catastrophe.”

Jupiter in Retrograde (May 14^th – September 13^th) tempers our enthusiasm, tests our patience, as we navigate the troughs, prepare for second waves, look for a miracle concealed in this leaky basket of catastrophe. Jupiter sextile Neptune (27^th July and 12^th October) offers an opportunity for compassion and empathy for the suffering of so many. A reminder to keep the faith. Yet, we may not be able to avert our eyes as we pass people huddled in doorways or jettison the unappeasable sorrow that washes over our hearts while the myth of progress destroys our Earth home. We may not be able to block our ears to the harsh rebuke of the father/politicians who cannot see how dark our world has become.

Pluto, (April 25^th – October 4^th) and Saturn (May 11^th – September 29^th) continue to switch-back in Retrograde through austere Capricorn as the death rattle of an unforgiving old order reverberates across the world.

Pluto and Saturn are conveyors of reality checks, of historic trans-formation. They were in conjunction in 1914 as innocence was lost, and scarlet poppies grew on ravaged fields.

“A terrible beauty is born”, wrote William Butler Yeats in 1916 as Pluto and Saturn moved through the sign of Cancer. An estimated 50 to 100 million people died in the 1918-1920 flu epidemic, and the subsequent famines and flu pandemics long forgotten by indifferent governments or those lives are cocooned by high walls and ethical amnesia.

Pluto and Saturn formed an alliance as WWII ended and NATO was birthed amidst the ruins of war and collapse in world trade. In 1982 a global recession heralded Thatcher and Reagan’s “special relationship” and the birth of neoliberalism.

August to December will be volatile months. Mars’s overheated Retrograde in Aries (9^th September – 13^th November) coincides with the final sprint for the claimant to the title of President in America. Mars conjoined Pluto on March 23^rd and will form an aggressive do-or-die square to Pluto on August 12–13^th, October 7–9^th and December 20^th. Mars sextiles Saturn (June 27^th) to add opportunity to the overblown square to Jupiter between August 4–5^th, October 16^th, and December 12^th—a potent cocktail of frustration, fanaticism and potential for violence as we stand at the end of an era. Mercury goes Retrograde between October 13^th and November 3^rd and challenging oppositions to the current President’s Saturn/Venus suggest that the battle for leadership will be bloody. There will be no white flag of surrender.

Venus, haloed with stars, glitters on the silken swathe of apricot sunrise, her breath-taking beauty a reminder of those things we cherish, the people that matter. She stationed direct on June 24^th, emerging from the darkness of the Underworld, and glides, gathering strength, in her post-Retrograde phase until July 24^th. Venus has had many incarnations. As Innana, Ishtar, she was the revered Sumerian goddess of beauty, sexuality, prostitution—and war. In modern astrology, Venus presides over matters of the heart. She’s the money that makes the world go round. As new realities begin to develop, in the love we can’t buy and the money we wish we had more of, Venus in Gemini makes a final applying square to nebulous Neptune in Pisces on July 27^th. Venus/Neptune combinations are notorious for distorting facts and twisting truths. They accompany grand romantic gestures, plumes of creativity, financial loss, duplicity, susceptibility to poisoning, intoxication and infection.

The Sun in Leo carries the standard for strength and wholehearted courage. Leo rules the heart. Gratitude and joy are homeopathy for the heart. The poet, Ted Hughes (Sun in Leo) writes, “the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”

Author Isabel Allende (Sun, Mercury, and Chiron in Leo) reminds us that Leo celebrates confidence, pride, generosity and enthusiasm. “We can’t live in fear. Fear stimulates a future that makes living in the present a dark experience. We need to relax and appreciate what we have and live in the present.”

As the Sun enters Leo today, may our qualities of strength and courage ripen. May we let fear and worry slip away as we celebrate those people and circumstances that support us. May we look to the future with brave hearts and a gaze that is steady.

Please get in touch if you would like a personal astrology reading: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com

June 18, 2020 In Astrology, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Be Kind—Sun in Cancer—June 20th—July 22nd

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible—Dalai Lama

Within the constellation of Cancer is a delicate brush stroke of stars in the sky called Praesepe, the Latin word for “manger”. Cancer is associated with wombs, and cradles, with nourishment and containment. And during these long months of confinement, with the importance of home.

Qualities like vulnerability, creativity, sensitivity, and nurturing relate to Moon-ruled Cancer. As we enter a world demarcated by Perspex, muted by face coverings, we may feel tender, sensitive to noise, wary of crowds. We may be struggling with “comparative suffering”, as our longing to hug someone we love is diminished by the collective suffering of millions who face unemployment. By the pain of so many who grieve.

Lock down has been an alchemical process of confinement, symbolised by Saturn. As our lives have become more curtailed, our movements more constricted; as our personal choices and freedoms compressed, we experience the best and the worst of our humanness.

Yet, stories of kindness and compassion have emerged from the pandemic as we have stepped over our shyness, our indifference—as our hearts have opened wider than we ever thought was possible.

The word kind has its roots in cynn, “family” and the Old English, “gecynd”, for nature and race, which imply belonging and community. The essence of Cancer is kindness and compassion, qualities that are inherent in human nature as endorsed by Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman in his hopeful book, Humankind.

In an article in The Correspondent, he writes, “If there was one dogma that defined neoliberalism, it’s that most people are selfish. And it’s from that cynical view of human nature that all the rest followed—the privatisation, the growing inequality, and the erosion of the public sphere.

Now a space has opened for a different, more realistic view of human nature: that humankind has evolved to cooperate. It’s from that conviction that all the rest can follow—a government based on trust, a tax system rooted in solidarity, and the sustainable investments needed to secure our future. This pandemic could send us down a path of new values.

And all this just in time to be prepared for the biggest test of this century, our pandemic in slow motion—climate change.”

George Monbiot points out in his book, Out of the Wreckage, that humans are unique, spectacularly unusual, when it comes our sensitivity to the needs of others. We have an innate altruism, an inborn sense of community. Neuroscience, evolutionary biology and psychology all conclude that we have evolved to care, to cooperate with one another. “By the age of fourteen months, children begin to help each other, attempting to hand over objects another child cannot reach. By the time they are two, they start sharing some of the things they value. By the age of three, they start to protest against other people’s violation of moral norms—we are also, among mammals, with the possible exception of the naked mole rat, the supreme co-operators,” Monbiot writes.

We may feel bone weary after months of adrenaline-charged coping, of being our best and bravest, kindest selves, yet the sky-story this month depicts a sequence of events that will marshal kindness and co-operation as our plans are eclipsed, our options disappear.

Mercury goes Retrograde in Cancer from June 18^th to July 12^th. Mercury in sensitive Cancer collides with what is harsh or resistant and symbolises an uneasiness in an unsteady, confusing world.

Jupiter and Pluto make a second cathartic conjunction (June 22^nd – June 30^th) reminiscent of that fated conjunction on April 4^th when flights were grounded, and city streets fell silent. This could mark a resurgence of the contagion as many countries open non-essential shops and restaurants, as borders cautiously reopen. New developments will emerge around the pandemic that has brought our lives to a standstill. As air travel resumes, the astrology suggests we may be flying too high, too soon.

It is likely that public health and a jittery economy reminiscent of early 2020 will resurface amidst confusion, deception, blind spots and more uncertainty as Neptune begins a Retrograde cycle (June 22^nd.)

Venus moves direct on June 25^th, and a frisson of tension will course through financial markets as the grim reality of unemployment and economic depression frustrate any hope of a quick recovery.
Mars, god of war, moves into hot-headed Aries (June 28^th —January 7^th 2021) making a volatile, perhaps violent, square to Pluto (irrevocable endings, power, enormous wealth, plutocracy,) and Saturn (confinement, restrictions, borders and barriers.)

Eclipses act as tipping points between June 5^th June 21st, and July 5^th.

They signify relationship triangles that are eclipsed by circumstance or choice, second chances and fated encounters. This eclipse lands on the power point of 0 degrees Cancer, and although the effects of an eclipse may be felt most powerfully on the day, events may unfold over two weeks, so static situations or relationship dynamics may unlock quite suddenly between now and the Full Moon Eclipse on July 5^th.

I wrote in early January 2018, “the astrology of these next five years (as Saturn moves through Capricorn and then through Aquarius) eloquently portrays the flavour of fin de siècle: a closing of an era exemplified by the events of the 1980s. Saturn’s co-presence with Pluto in the sign of Capricorn—December 20^th 2017—December 2020—mines Collective and personal trauma that may offer, for some of us, a creative impetus to work through noxious legacies, to stoically endure a world that is falling apart as we love with all our hearts. As we live our lives kindly.”

This Solstice, as the Sun stands still, we arrive at a place of re-entering, a pause before we re-enter a changed world. The tide is turning. May we be brave enough to fully extend ourselves. May we be kind and generous even when it’s burdensome and painful. May we deepen our connection with all living things. May we find our place of calm.

For regular astrological updates, or more information about your own birth chart, please visit my Facebook page, or email me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

June 11, 2020 In Astrology By Ingrid Hoffman

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 4^th, 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.

May 19, 2020 In Astrology, General By Ingrid Hoffman

New World in the Morning—Sun in Gemini May 20th—June 21st

An agitation of conflicting communication about COVID-19 eddies and twirls across our screens. “There shall in that time be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are,” says the Boring Prophet in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

We become deafened to our own thoughts amidst the torrent of talk. Vacillating opinions deplete our analytic stamina.

The Sun moves into Gemini this week. The Gemini archetype lives within us all in our restless minds. Venus is Retrograde and conjoins the Gemini Sun (opposing Sagittarius Moon and South Node) of America’s maverick President. Venus will conjoin Boris Johnson’s Gemini Sun/Venus on August 5^th. As governments and epidemiologists grapple with too many variables, the immune response to COVID-19 is still not fully understood, and there is still no definitive data on post-infection immunity. Gemini rules the nervous system and the lungs.

Robert Skidelsky, in an article entitled the Unspoken Reason for Lockdowns writes, “What “flattening the curve” really means is spacing out the number of expected deaths over a period long enough for medical facilities to cope and a vaccine to kick in.”

As we venture into this liminal space, the road maps offered by our leaders are ambiguous. The familiar landmarks have gone. We’re speculating about fragmenting globalisation. Supply chains are sagging. Prices are higher. Cities are empty. Our ancient human instinct to gather, to touch, to hold and to kiss has lost its innocence. We’re hunkering down. We’re distancing. We’re separating.

The story of Gemini’s mythic twins is a story of loss and longing. Of trickery and lies. This is a story of two handsome twin brothers separated by death.

In alchemy, the process of separation isolates and defines. As we try to separate apparent truth from fiction, as we try to define our post-COVID-19 roles as colleagues, parents and partners, we may look back at what has grown from these slow days of waiting. As we knitted and baked, as we cleaned, and home-schooled our children, as we spent hours connecting on social media, as we danced around the sofa, as we anxiously watched our income dwindle, as we strained to support those we love from a distance, some of us flourished as we strengthened our bonds with those people who matter in our lives, contained in a circle of belonging. Yet for many, this has been a time to rely on the kindness of those strangers who brought food and essentials, who offered the comfort of connection during the long lonely days.

COVID-19 has brought seismic change and lingering disruption and uncertainty to our lives. For those who have not sheltered in the safety of secure and loving relationships, those who have endured the trauma of watching a loved one die, those who will not be able to pay their mortgage, or endured domestic violence, the three Ds—Divorce, Death and Destitution—are the only certainties.

Under a cloud of obfuscation, a sequence of planets—Jupiter, Pluto, and Saturn—move Retrograde, reflective perhaps of a shift in our collective perspective. The planets mirror the grim modus operandi of change and shrinking economies as they regress through the heavens.

Venus (those things and people we cherish and value) is the puella in Gemini. She has vanished from the sky, her carefree spirit subdued as she moves through the dark, in Retrograde from May 13^th to June 25^th (Retrograde at 22° Gemini and direct at 5° degrees of Gemini.) During a Venus Retrograde cycle we may revisit those things we valued and lost, seek out second chances, repair and heal those relationships that have become entangled in assumptions or frozen silences. Venus Retrograde periods are cosmic magnifying glasses, amplifying our inherent values and intimate desires.

Venus squares dreamy Neptune, raising our hopes high in love but also in escapism, delusion, illusion, and fantasy. She may be the victim, the rescuer. The glimmering Venus/Neptune square (May 3^rd, May 20^th, July 27^th, and December 30^th) adds a tincture of loss and longing, a heady cocktail of truth and lies, or a restless yearning for something or someone who is unattainable.

Intoxicating Neptune is notorious for delusion and disappointment. As the music dies and the fairy dust dissolves, we fall out of love with our soul mate, or realise that our dreams have been blown off course. This will be the initiation of devastating disappointment, the searing pain of grief and unspeakable loss, or the peak experience of shedding our illusion, adjusting our vision, seeing through the mirage.

Venus Retrograde may amplify the sense of awakening from our cruise on autopilot, as we exhume our buried desires and atrophied longings and embrace each moment with renewed intensity. As we prepare to emerge into this new world, there’s no going back. The way is forward. Something greater than us is governing our lives and we must walk in this direction.

Chogyam Trungpa taught the practice of the awakened heart—“the genuine heart of sadness”, which he said was natural to us all when we allow ourselves to receive the full experience of life with open hearts. It is in this “genuine heart of sadness” that we discover our repressed grief, our forgotten anger, our thin shard of shame, our intoxicating joy and our boundless capacity to Love.

On June 3^rd, Venus aligns with the Sun, a mythic mating, a Venus “new moon”, a union that is an alembic for our inner values. This Venus Retrograde transit may expose our deeply buried desires, our failure to ask for what we need. Venus Retrograde may dredge up discord that signals just how far we have drifted off course from what we value. Upheavals in our relationships may intensify as lock-down thaws. Mars moved into Pisces (May 13^th) as Venus changed direction. Mars will conjoin with Neptune on June 12^th adding to our discontent, or augmenting our compassion and ability to forgive.

Mercury is moving through Gemini, and will unite with Venus on Friday, May 22^nd (square Neptune), an invitation to be discerning about the information we ingest or pass along with an unthinking swipe. This is a time of flux, an invitation to grieve what is lost, to bring Neptunian qualities of compassion, communion, and imagination into the world we are returning to. Systemic family therapist Richard Schwartz writes, “it’s possible that this massive shock to our planetary and national systems will wake up enough leaders that we can get off the suicide train we’ve been on and create a slower, fairer, greener one for ourselves. I believe a lot of that depends on how each of us responds to this crisis.”

The New Gemini Moon on May 23^rd may draw us back to our natural rhythm. To the moment of now. Jeff Foster, author of Falling in Love with Where you Are distils the essence of this month’s lunation: “This moment is not life waiting to happen, goals waiting to be achieved, words waiting to be spoken, connections waiting to be made, regrets waiting to evaporate, aliveness waiting to be felt, enlightenment waiting to be gained. No. Nothing is waiting. This is it. This moment is life.”

As we reflect on the sacrifices we have made and the enormous challenges we now face, poet Rainer Maria Rilke reminds us, “let me not squander the hour of my pain.”

Please get in touch if you would like a private astrology reading: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

New World in the Morning. Songwriter: Roger Whittaker.

May 1, 2020 In Astrology, Relationship, Relationships, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

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 25^th 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 11^th, 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 4^th, June 30^th and November 12^th) 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 14^th and June 25^th, at least until the final Pluto/Jupiter conjunction perfects on November 12^th. A volatile self-centred Mars will be in combustible Aries from June 27^th to January 6^th, 2021. Mars will be Retrograde from September 10^th to November 13^th, 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 destruction—the 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 4^th, 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 Earring—Banksy.