Author: Ingrid Hoffman

March 3, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Fiery Heart, Fiery Mind

“All grown-ups were once children… but only few of them remember it,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Feeling good about ourselves despite our age, the girth of our waist, the wrinkles on our skin and owning the right to be joy-filled, whether we’re single or coupled, is something the self-help movement has focused upon for several decades now. But for most of us in work-addicted societies where our social interaction is through a screen and where we sit for eight or nine hours a day, play and pleasure are something we do by proxy. We fall into a trance of forgetfulness, our butterfly joy caught in the heavy net of seriousness and grown-up responsibility. In the busyness of living out the days and the months and the years we somehow become reactive rather than reflective to the myriad pleasures that life offers.

Play and pleasure trigger nitric oxide, a colourless gas that silently balances all our neurotransmitters and relaxes the blood vessels so that more life giving blood can flow through our bodies. The ageing Dr Christiane Northrup’s latest offering, despite its trite and erroneous title, Goddesses Never Age ( oh yes they do! ) is based partly on her own experience with milestone birthdays and her own experiences of ageism. She warns against pigeonholing ourselves and evaluating people on their chronological age. “There’s a vital life force within each one of us that is ageless. ”

Her new book borrows from the work of Dr Mario Martinez, author of The Mind Body Code who writes,“Getting older is inevitable, ageing is optional.We don’t have to die with oxygen cannulas stuck up our noses. We should all be aiming for a happy healthy death.”

Martinez studied 400 healthy centenarians and found that they usually died in one of three ways: falling off a horse, havin Den on bike g sex, or in their sleep. He discovered that healthy centenarians seem to like to live independently, indulge in many rituals of pleasure, they are future orientated and did not want to be around old people. In astrology, Saturn rules the bones and the skin and is associated with ageing. We Botox away the frowns and smiles that we’ve earned in living our life with all its light and shadows while saying glibly, without any deeper reflection, “age is just a number”. Our lives become reactive rather than reflective. So it comes as no surprise now that the Baby Boomers are fixated on healthy ageing and in a Puritan Western culture, learning how to give themselves permission to receive pleasure and to play.

In September last year, Saturn, Lord of Time, moved into the zone of the zodiac we call Sagittarius, a mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter (the sky god Zeus in the Greek pantheon) building thematically from the past when Saturn moved through Scorpio …. and anticipating the future when Saturn ingresses into Capricorn in December 2017. Author and astrologer, Melanie Reinhart suggests that this is a time personally and globally for us to unfreeze the fixed watery emotions (Saturn in Scorpio) and thaw our thoughts and feelings in the warm fire of Sagittarian prophecy.

Jupiter is the ruler of Sagittarius and is associated with expansion, largesse, optimism and joy. Jupiter bears the title of The Great Benefic. He bestows blessings, “luck” and abundance, if we stay within the bounds of earthly necessity and humility which is Saturn’s realm. Saturn is referred to as the Lord of Karma. So our challenge is now to move between the soulfulness of withdrawal or melancholy (Saturn in Scorpio) into the light of the Sagittarian vision and expansiveness yet still stay grounded and earthed. Our challenge is to stay connected to our own joy and appreciation of life. To embrace the shadows and clouds that obscure our joy. To honour the solemn soulful moods of darkness or sorrow amidst the superficiality and incessant clamour of a quick-fix “have a nice day” culture. Melancholia was once honoured and even cultivated; it was considered a quality of mind that was very powerful for deep and powerful thought. So Saturn in Sagittarius suggests that over the next two years we must learn to Be with all our feelings and experiences without trivialising, pathologising or medicating or discarding them in the basement of our psyche.

Saturn’s journey through this mutable fire sign is epitomised by the image of flame and heat. The feeling of being burnt out or burning or being branded by the labels that our culture pins to our beating hearts: Hollywood Icon, Titan, Superwoman, Shona Rhimes is a sitcom Creator responsible for some 70 hours of television per season. She’s a single mother of three and Work is what defines her. Shona’s best known for her progeny — Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder. By her own admission, she loves to work. Or used to. Until she lost the Hum. In her brilliant TED talk, based on her memoir, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In The Sun and Be Your Own Person Shona describes the burning of those who fly too close to the Sun and are consumed like moths in the brilliance of the flame of their own relentlessly driven creative genius.

Saturn’s sojourn in Sagittarius reminds us that we are mortals who must replenish ourselves, like the other intelligent creatures that share this earth, with frequent delight and pleasure. “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair,” wrote Khalil Gibran.

Saturn is about boundaries. About Feeling the Fear and Doing it Anyway, as psychologist Susan Jeffers admonishes us to do. Saturn is the Guardian of the Threshold. We meet Saturn when we acknowledge our limitations. When we accept the necessity of ageing and death. In his poignant memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, 36 year old neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi traverses the road to death and describes the terrain. He writes, “The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present.”

Saturn in fire is not an intellectual type of energy. It is about passion, int camera uitive understanding. Saturn in Sagittarius may require us to dedicate ourselves to something private and personal and joy-filled, with single-pointed vision. Saturn is a celestial mirror to our high hopes, our expectations, our visions and our faith. Saturn’s symbolism requires that we take stock of our beliefs about the meaning of our life. That we pay attention to our sponsoring thoughts. That we make space to dedicate (Latin to consecrate or to make sacred, to proclaim, to set apart, ) time to our joy and delightful Blessing of our human capacity to play.

Alice Phoebe Lou – Fiery Heart, Fiery Mind

Like the genes in our body the astrological signs are indicators of the direction in which we may choose to travel this life time. We are a microcosm of a magnificent universal macrocosm. Our horoscope shows the exact position of the sun at the time of our birth and points the way, much like a celestial GPS to find out more about your own birth chart to experience my next workshop on April 2nd, please write to me: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

February 15, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Into My Arms

Red roses, cuddly toys, red velvet boxes containing invitations to dark sweetness. We may shudder at the bright shiny commercialism that festoons holidays that mark the wheel of the year. Those cards festooned with red hearts may remind us of losses, painful rejections. Yet the sheer romance of it all may herald hope, sweep us off our feet of clay, give us wings to fly. February 14th, dedicated to a Christian martyr, marks a much older holy day in honour of Juno (Februata) faithful wife of the womanising Jupiter and the mother of Mars. To the Greeks she was known as Hera, and February 14th was celebrated in honour of commitment and enduring love.

In astrology we look to the cosmic dance of Venus and Mars as significators of love and war, connection and separation, leaning in or walking away from love and desire. As they orbit across the zodiac, they mark new beginnings and inevitable endings. The dance of Venus heralds pregnancy, marriage, and reflects societal change. We all have Venus in our birth charts and it’s only through our hearts that we can meet each other in all our complexity and in the soft tenderness of our human vulnerability. Jung said that Mars was knowing what you want and doing what you have to do to get it. Mars is owning our desires, taking action to be the change we want to see in our lives.

Mars is Venus and Mars were in conjunction in November 2015 and their dance assumes the tension of a square in March this year and an opposition early in June as they perform a stylised tango across the heavens. Venus and Mars symbolise love and desire in all their many guises.

Perhaps as Venus moves into the sign of Aquarius on February 17th we can remind ourselves that the Greeks and Romans had many names for Love. And that Love is a Many Splendour’d Thing. Mars is in the sign of Scorpio now so both the love planets will be in fixed signs as they move across the dome of the sky. Perhaps this could be a time to strenghten our resolve. Practice Being more and Doing less, so that new awareness, new behaviours can graft and begin to grow new green shoots. Venus was a voluptuous goddess of sensuality and fertility, remember. Mars, her lover, was honoured as a god of spring by the Romans.

Patience, like Walkmans and Kodak Cameras, has become obsolete in a culture where the promise of satisfaction is just a click away. We give up too easily. We have little tolerance for frustration, setbacks and delay. So often in love we must commit to staying the course even though the road is rocky and there is a flatness in the landscape of love. If we could dedicate each new dew-drop of a day to practicing acts of loving kindness, search for things that are right in our lives, feel the gratitude coursing through our hearts, allow ourselves to be brave enough to peep around the walls of old beliefs that keep us imprisoned in shackles of right and wrong, we might glimpse the golden orb of Venus just before the dawn.

Our relationships are spiritual pathways and our soul mates, our wound mates, teach us forgiveness, discernment and invite us to summon the courage to love more bravely again. Judith Blackstone, author of The Intimate Life, writes “Love is the response of our heart to the world around us. To love life, and in particular, to love other human beings, is one of the central ideals of every spiritual tradition. It is also one of life’s greatest challenges. It requires the ability for true contact. And contact requires us to be authentic and deeply in touch with ourselves.”

Neuropsychologist, Dr Mario Martinez, author of The Mind Body Code, suggests that relationships based on the concept of bio-cognition and self-esteem are related to our immune system and our immune system responds to our transcendental beliefs. “We come with one of three wounds into relationships – sometimes all three. These,” he writes, “are not victimhood wounds. These are soul contract challenges. Abandonment, shame, betrayal. We need a covenant of safely when we commit to become the guardian of each other’s hearts in a healthy relationship. Our soul mates are the guardians of the heart.”

Martinez says that he believes we challenge our partner to abandon us – unconsciously. “We ask our partner to do abandonment behaviour to prove to us that we are right. The healing of abandonment is commitment. So we ask, what can I do for you right now to give you my commitment… when you are ready, I am here to give you my commitment. The wound of shame requires honour. Betrayal requires loyalty,” says Martinez.

Says sex therapist, Esther Perel “ You may feel that unless your relationship is thriving and you are on cloud nine, you don’t deserve to partake in the celebration of love. As if those in crisis or state of struggle cannot acknowledge any positive feelings because it would feel fraudulent. In fact, when you’re in a rough place, this is exactly the time your relationship could use a good dose of TLC. Making time is a ritual, and rituals aren’t negotiated — they are performed.”

Into My Arms Nick Cave

April 2^nd 2016 Holding Aphrodite’s Mirror, Love, Lust, Loss and Longing

Join me for the second inspiring day at Ubuntu as we explore the powerful archetypes of Venus and Mars in how we love, how we desire in a digital age.

You’ll be working on your own horoscope so please have your data to hand when booking – your date, place and time of birth. Your own chart will be drawn up in advance. We will dedicate the day to a gentle connection to the sacred Feminine and the sacred Masculine.

Date: Saturday April 2nd 2016, 10am to 5pm

Where: Ubuntu Wellness Centre 99 Kloof St, Gardens, Cape Town.

Please email me: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com for more about this day dedicated to you.

January 20, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

How Long Will I Love You?

Today we casually or consciously un-couple. Today our friends have benefits and Tinder is our one-stop 24-7, pocket-sized convenience store for regret-free hook-ups with just one swipe. Ours is a Supernova Consumer Culture where our Perfectmatch.com relationships have short sell-by dates.

Over the past 60 years, nothing and everything has changed. We live in what Marshall McLuhan prophetically called “a global village”. Social and cultural forces have intruded into our intimate relationships. Antibiotics and contraception which have liberated sex from its reproductive function. Women have claimed hard won political power, kudos to the Womens’ Movement. The Gay Movement has made sexuality an issue of identity. Technology has changed the way we date and mate. Love takes on new meaning.

“If monogamy was one person for life, today monogamy is one person at a time,” says psychology’s Super Star, Baby Boomer Esther Perel. “We have left our villages. We have travelled to the cities. We are free, no longer bound by tribal strictures and rituals of continuity and belonging. Now we are more alone than ever. ”

Nothing is the way it used to be – or is it?

Clifford-and-Marjorie-Hartland

In the astrology, the long outer planet transits define generations and each generation leaves a legacy for the next one. Sociologists and demographers appear to differ on the actual dates but a broad brush stroke will give a general cultural theme, of course which applies to the self-absorbed, affluent West, not those living in the slums of Brazil or Nairobi. Pluto, like all the planets, is a celestial mirror to the interests obsessions, and legacy of each generation born then. Pluto takes between ten and twenty years to transit through each sign of the zodiac. Pluto was in Cancer from 1913 to 1938 and it was this generation that endured the Great Depression, futility of two World Wars, the Holocaust. This generation experienced displacement, destruction, starvation and death. They sought security, a place of belonging, they focused on home. They had white picket fences and somewhere over the rainbow they believed they could see the alluring glimmer of The American Dream.

Pluto’s transit through Leo between 1937-1958 produced the narcissistic “Me Generation” and as each new generation pushes against the ignorance and excesses of the previous one. The Divine Child ( or spoilt brat ) rebelled against his staid Cancerian Parents. This is the generation that has destroyed vast tracts of pristine forest and coastline to erect golf courses and holiday resorts or set off to “find themselves”. This is the generation of the hedonistic “Rock Star” and the individual who spends years lying on the therapist’s couch talking about his unhappy childhood. This is the generation obsessed with staying forever young. This is the generation that divorces because they deserve to be happy! Baby Boomer, and author of the bestselling, Something More, Sarah Ban Breathnach says it all: “Do I deserve to be happy? Damn right I do. Am I ever going to be unhappy again? Not if I can help it.”… now you can reshape , reclaim and recreate the world in our own image.”

Divorce is The Boomers’ legacy. And even in mid and late life this star-dust golden generation makes it up as they go along.

Teacher and author, Caroline Myss proposes that beneath this sense of entitlement to happiness, this naiveté coupled with the Boomer’s intense interest in all things “spiritual” is a child-like notion that being “conscious” or “spiritual” will bring an end to all things “bad”. And when things get bad we leave. American sociologist and sexologist and Boomer Pepper Schwartz writes that “Me Generation” Baby Boomers’ obsession with individual identity and creative self-expression makes us the most divorce-prone generation group.

For the ancient Greeks, happiness meant Virtue. For the Romans, it was Divine Favour. For the Christians it was the after-life.

couple

“It’s only within the past two hundred years that human beings have begun to think of happiness as not just an earthly possibility but also as an earthly entitlement, even an obligation, writes historian Darrin M. McMahon in Happiness: A History.

Esther Perel describes how over the years she has observed a progression of three types of marriages: the traditional marriage which is family-centric. The romantic marriage which is couple-centric. The millennial marriage which is child-centric and HIP – High Investment Parenting. And yet, definitions, like statistics are fuzzy around the edges. Globalisation makes it possible to have a traditional marriage in New York, a romantic marriage in Pakistan and a millennial marriage in South Africa.

As Boomers age, more than a third of Boomers (if you believe the stats) are single in the US. Many opt for a LAT arrangement – Living Alone Together – with partners they may despise at worse or tolerate at best.

And yet it’s generally known that “good relationships keep us happier and healthier.”

Psychiatrist Robert Waldinger has overseen a long term study on adult development and come up with the hardly startling discovery that high conflict relationships are bad for our health. “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships in their 50s were the healthiest in their 80s. Good relationships protect our bodies and our brains.” Despite our most strenuous efforts to soften the edges of ageing and prolong our lives, there’s only time for Love. In a letter to Clara Spaulding, 20 August 1886 Mark Twain (Pluto in Aries ) wrote “ There isn’t time — so brief is life — for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving — and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”
Whether we’re Boomers or Gen X, Pluto in Virgo Group 1957-1972, Pluto in Libra 1971-1984, or Pluto in Scorpio 1983-1995, all our relationships, even those that involve brief genital stimulation, require us to grow from narcissistic children into adults. We choose to love. We choose to be happy. We choose to forgive. And if we are brave enough we un-couple with kindness and gratitude for all the milestones, all the tears and the laughter we shared together over the long years.

Holding Up Aphrodite’s Mirror. Join me at the Ubuntu centre in Cape Town South Africa on Saturday February 20^th to explore the archetypes of Venus and Mars and how we embody these as we Love and Desire. Email: Ingrid@trueheartwork.com to find out more.

Video: How long will I love you – Jon Boden, Sam Sweeney & Ben Coleman

January 7, 2016 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

The bucket list – Say what you need to say my dear

So as this New Year rushes into existence, carrying with it a flutter of new intentions, a new impetus to make this year a “better year”, the Old Year lingers like an out-breath, for the briefest of moments and is gone.

2015 for so many was blighted with division and Otherness in our homes, in our families, in our communities, in our nations. The ghost of Christmas Past is the repository of memories that haunt family gatherings and stains corridors of government with dusty rhetoric that spills fresh blood. There is a vast trove of psychological literature on the diverse ways people are held back by the hidden capsules of memory. Current thinking is that childhood fears and adult traumas are stored differently in the brain than happy memories. We carefully tend to the wounds of betrayal: those words or behaviours that landed in our hearts and cruelly hooked our innocence, tore at our trust. We tend to remember the trauma. Families and nations have unhealed memories too and our challenge both personally and globally is how to empathise with one another even though we may not agree with, or condone their words or actions. In an article entitled, The Year of Unearthed Memories, columnist for The New York Times David Brooks writes, “Even after a tough year, we are born into a story that has a happy ending. Wrongs can be recognized, memories unearthed, old hurts recognized and put into context. What’s the point of doing this unless you’re fueled by hope and comforted by grace?”

In her book, Secrets of Your Cells: Discovering Your Body Inner Intelligence, Dr. Sondra Barrett describes that the intelligent cells in our wise bodies need a certain amount of attachment, and Tensegrity, a stable structure, in order to thrive. But they also need to let go of the attachment. “When our cells let go of their attachments they can become mature, much in the same way as in the Buddhist tradition when we let go of our attachments we can move towards the Light.”

We live in “Interesting Times.” The energy of the Collective symbolised by the Pluto-Uranus square has cast a long dark shadow over our blue planet heralding the dawn of a new paradigm shift for us personally and globally as we move through a process of irrevocable break down of untenable structures. This waxing square is in orb as we enter this new calendar year. We will probably only recognise it’s implication if we could time travel to the future. The next waning square of 2073 – 2074 (Pluto in Aries and Uranus in Capricorn) will reflect perhaps a new Heaven and a new Earth.

This series of Pluto-Uranus squares began in 2012. The sky did not fall down and those who foretold of the End-Times discretely disappeared into the brilliant light of the solstice.

In ancient Rome, Janus, the two-headed god, presided over transitions and new beginnings.

Astrologer and brilliant blogger Joanna Watters quotes Albert Einstein who famously is thought to have said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Joanna’s beautifully crafted New Year post underscores the need for a new awareness. Letting go of our attachments to our old stories and Victim consciousness. Perhaps a child-like sense of wonderment and curiosity. Most certainly a parent’s sense of pragmatism and realism as we choose again and again to live our lives differently this year. Inevitable change and impermanence mark the progression of time. The only firm foothold we have is standing firmly in the Now and trusting that no matter what circumstances swirl or ebb and flow around us, we are in exactly the right place and in the right time.

As we savour the last days of the Yuletide holiday or settle back into the familiar routine of our working week, let’s take a moment to allow some of the commercial Christmas sparkle to guild our memories of what was good about this year gone by. Let’s shine the light on those moments when we brought our Best Selves to our relationships. When we felt good about ourselves. When we made the world a better place by a random act of kindness or heartfelt compassion. Let’s pick through the discarded wrapping of this Old Year and marvel at the Present of being alive. Let us say what we need to say and may our words be loving and gentle. Our Bucket List may contain brave adventures that take us out of the soft comfort of our lives. May it also contain heartfelt love and kindness for all things great and small.

John Mayer – The bucket list – Say what you need to say my dear

December 2, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

My Silver Lining

We’re living in a world where chunks of polar ice fall into the sea. Where forests burn and bomber planes fall from the sky. We’re living in a world where the admonishment is to “consume” and destroy and Big Brother watches every move that we make. We’re living in a world where leaders choose to ignore the wisdom of the yogis, the shamans, the spiritual teachers: All of Life is interconnected. When we burn down the rain forests in the Amazon and Indonesia, when we kill the last rhino and the last whale, we violate our own souls. The acts of insanity in our cities and in the Middle East, affect us all. We are experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul. Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism comments grimly, “the world we are creating is an ADD-ridden flat land.”

John O’Donohue’s poetics resonate as the December 22^nd solstice marks another round in the wheel of the year: “we have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.” For those of us who long to retreat from the annual surfeit of spending and gathering of “stuff” we don’t want or really need, we may deeply feel we have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature. The relentless cheer of Christmas lights, the repetitive loop of carols highlight the bleak grey landscape of loneliness or lack. The excess and the merry making may be excruciating for those who are estranged from their families, unemployed, or enduring the silent suffering of terminal illness. As the world turns to face into another year and dark clouds cover the sun, we search for redemption. We want a silver lining.

For all of us on this beautiful blue planet, the year 2015 was dominated by Saturn and Neptune reflecting above what is down below in a tense 90 degree square aspect. This square is a cosmic dance between these very different archetypal energies and will affect us personally (if you have a mutable planet in your birth chart between 5-12 degrees ) as well as collectively. Saturn is now in fiery Sagittarius until 2018 and will offer challenges as well as growth gifts if we are willing to take the road less traveled. Saturn encounters elusive Neptune between November 2015 and September 2016 as she shape-shifts through watery Pisces (till 2026). Neptune squaring Saturn is a tension of opposites that descends like a fine mist. It’s subtle. The effect of this transit may not be evident for some months after the final mutable square.

This may herald a time of personal awakening, a deepening of faith, a new focus and direction. It may also herald a time of disillusion, deception, addiction, great suffering and disappointment as everything we believed to be solid in our lives seems to dissolve, nothing seems clear or sure. Saturn’s realm is structure, worldly progress and material things. Neptune’s realm is murky, intangible, corrosive and often collides with human values. As Neptune washes over Saturn’s boundary walls, firm foundations crumble and dissolve and we may be washed away in a tsunami of confusion. Money, health, relationships are frustratingly illusive. Our goals, our plans, our positive affirmations, all shape shift into a shimmering mirage in the dim distance.

Saturn in Sagittarius requires the truth. This is a time of inner re-calibration. Of vigorous self examination and honesty. A time of intelligent consideration of what is disseminated as news in the media. A time of trusting that despite acts of terrorism, political and corporate greed, and the pessimistic outlook for global warming after the COP21 in Paris this year, we can individually make a difference.

Faith is a word we don’t often use in a bright solar world where we’re shining like the sun, always having fun, where every day is a “nice day.”

Barbara Brown Taylor author of Learning to Walk in the Dark and Leaving Church writes, “faith is a huge naïve trust in those things we cannot control, we cannot see.”

Faith, for some, is an irrational knowing that there will be enough money to pay the bills, that the apparently incurable dis-ease is merely a symptom of the soul’s malaise and can be cared for tenderly. Faith resides in the heart. It is the handmaiden of the soul. Faith is our silver lining.

We may have to vigorously tame our thoughts, make a commitment to ourselves to release hoary old habits and rusty old grudges that keep us trapped like the Tin Man in armour that crushes our hearts. We may need to examine our lives scrupulously and ask if we are adding more aggression and self-centredness into the world. We may pray for the courage to put our soul in charge of our life. “We may not be comfortable but we will be awake and aware and fully alive,” says Prema Chodron, author of Taking the Leap and When Things Fall Apart.

Faith is not taking the easy road or staying safe. Faith is choosing again and again to trust that the world is a safe place, that Life is for me. “Trusting that whatever happens will teach me something. That most people do not mean me harm. That I can make a difference in a few peoples’ lives by being present, by listening. That I can do some good both in community and on my own. That seems enough to live on for now,” Barbara Brown Taylor suggests.

“And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future,” said activist Howard Zinn. “The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.”

Perhaps, it is in silence, in the dark of the moon that we can be fully awake and in tune with the inter-connectedness of all living things. In the pause, in the gap, in the space between the ceaseless chatter, we can be open and touch the energy of the moment. Perhaps it is through the dark clouds that we can glimpse the silver lining.

First Aid Kit – My Silver Lining

Ingrid Hoffman offers astrology consultations on Skype and in person please contact me at: info@trueheartwork.com

October 9, 2015 In Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Another Love

Anyone who has ever loved will know that there is nothing linear or certain about Love. Love can’t be contained or explained. Love has its own circadian rhythm: a sweet scented breeze that shape shifts like clouds on a warm summer’s day then fades like a rainbow. It waxes and wanes like the Moon. Love can erupt as a formidable Force rupturing the structures of our lives, rendering them irrevocably changed. Love burns us in the fire, renders us shining, resplendent and forged a-new. Love is a Many Splendoured Thing.

We can’t measure Love the way we measure ourselves: our attractiveness, our worthiness, our “success”. Love lies in the soft folds of the skin that shelter our elbows. Love lies in the lattice of maturity on our faces. It cannot be smoothed away in the way we smooth lines of anger or worry or happiness with sharp little pricks of Botox. It cannot be cut off or pulled tight in mask-like caricatures of a youth long gone. Love nestles in the warm chambers of our hearts. Love, like Faith and Trust is a Force as indefinable and immeasurable as the Intelligence that throbs and shimmers through the uni-verse.

Popular books with titles like “Getting the Love You Want”, or “Mastery of Love,” mirror a fast-food culture where Love is a commodity that can be ordered, gotten, or kept. Gary Chapman’s The Five Languages of Love hints at the paucity of language to describe this thing called Love.

In all the Western languages, English may be the most lacking when it comes to descriptive feeling words. Sanskrit has 96 words for Love, there were 30 in ancient Greece and 80 in ancient Persia.

We use the word, Love, to describe a host of experiences that delight, enthrall, satiate, soothe and stimulate our senses. “Our superior function has given us science and the highest standard of living the world has ever known … but at the cost of impoverishing the feeling function,” writes Robert A. Johnson in The Fisher King & The Handless Maiden.

But does Love feel the same for us all whether we live in London, in Papua New Guinea, on the frozen arctic plains? Kristen Lindquist at the University of North Carolina and her colleagues have discovered that our ability to understand the meaning of words has a measurable effect on whether we can recognise those emotions in others. The way we speak about feelings might influence how we feel them. Researcher, Tiffany Watt Smith writes in The Book of Human Emotions , “most of us have on some occasion felt the urge to crumple into the arms of a loved one to be coddled and comforted. It’s important and reviving, this sensation of temporary surrender in perfect safety. The concept is not easily captured in English, but Japanese people know it as amae, the feeling of being able to depend on another’s love and help with no obligation to be grateful in return. It helps relationships to flourish and is an emblem of the deepest trust. In the 1970s, Western anthropologists became very excited about amae, claiming that it was evidence that even our most intimate emotions are shaped by the societies in which we live. They argued that Japan’s traditional collectivist culture had allowed amae to flourish.

So one wonders why those of us who grew up speaking English often fumble when trying to articulate a similar experience. Perhaps this lacuna in English speaks volumes about how hard it can be to accept other people’s support.”

Even though we can’t find the right words to describe what we feel, this thing called Love is what opens our hearts and connects us to our own Divinity. We are changed when we allow ourselves to love deeply and to be loved in return.

To love means risking loss or rejection. To love with our whole heart is to know the hollow emptiness of the ending. Love is not a victory march. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah… When Love changes form, we may dare to love again, but it will be another kind of love… “She had … an affair that struck deeply; I believe she loved totally and was loved totally. I know about it, and I am glad… This love, and the ensuing emptiness of its ending, changed her. Of such events we are always changed — not necessarily badly, but changed. Who doesn’t know this doesn’t know much” wrote Mary Oliver about Molly Malone Cook her inseparable partner for more than four decades.

It takes enormous courage to Love. To fold yourself into the different rhythm of The Other, day after day. To sleep night after night tangled in one another’s dreams. It takes courage to forgive the transgressions, the betrayals, the words that tumble thoughtlessly and pierce straight through our hearts. It takes tenacity to move like patient oxen yoked together, through fields of sorrow and fields of joy.

Anyone who has ever loved will know that Romantic Love, falling in-to love, is not the same thing as staying in love. Writer Mandy Len Catron knew Love after asking 36 questions.

“Love didn’t happen to us. We are in love because we each made the choice and chose again and again… and I continue to make that choice without knowing whether my partner will continue to choose me…we want the happy ending… we want someone to love us back. It is terrifying but that’s the deal with love.”

Anyone who has ever loved will know that Love is the most profound mystery of our human experience. We choose to Love, again and again and again, even though we have no certainty. We hope for, but know deep down inside there may not be a happy ending. And yet the warmth, the glory of Love fills us like radiant sunlight. And again and again we turn our innocent faces towards the life-giving warmth that ennobles our humanness.

Relationship Astrology workshops London

Lust, Love, Loss and Longing

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November
The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA
10am-5pm

£85.00 per day, or £150.00 for both

Join us for an exciting weekend of relationship astrology in London, designed to be suitable for all. Join us for an exciting weekend of relationship astrology in London, designed to be suitable for all levels. The two days are completely different but are designed to complement one another, so you can choose to do either day, or both. Bookings – ingrid@trueheartwork.com or email joannaw@otenet.gr

September 17, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Sirens

We’re a species of data gatherers. We sift and sort. Categorise and label: Them and Us.

The Otherness of our human condition is spotlighted now as millions of displaced people, like great herds of migrating wildebeest, flee from the blood-lust that has annihilated their homes and villages. How will this surge of humanity be integrated into the hoary structures of Old Europe? What will their future hold?

Them and Us patterns life on this planet. We divide and sort ourselves into neat piles like poppy seeds and grains of wheat. We label these with race, wealth, class, gender, nationality, intelligence, intuition, religion and age. We pin our fluttering multi-coloured iridescent contradictions to the board of static stereotype. We confine our mellifluousness and our Mystery as intellect and spirit displaces soul.

In Greek myth, Procrustes owned a bed that he claimed would fit anyone – no matter how tall or short you were. If you were too tall, your feet would simply be hacked off. If you were too short, your limbs would be stretched to the right length. The ancient Greek equivalent of “one size fits all” still applies today as we lop off or stretch those parts of ourselves to fit into our relationships and communities.

Best-selling (of course!) Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (with Nell Scovell ) mixes and stirs the sticky stereotype – them and us. A dollop of gender, education and tribal affiliation, heavily seasoned with important who’s who in the zoo names and pedigrees, the book is peppered with freshly ground data, liberally sprinkled with paragraphs that fit so perfectly the mythic American Hero, who despite all odds cuts a trail through rugged terrain. Lean In reinforces the belief that “everything is possible.” It’s the American one-size-fits-all.

A woman called Marissa Mayer, mother of a toddler has decided to take 14 days maternity leave after the birth of her identical twin daughters. If Marissa was a single mom working in Wallmart or in a factory in China, who would give a damn? That Marissa is CEO of Yahoo! and one who aspires to learn the technique of jungle gym climbing to survey the rest of the playground, this news has caused a stir. Can you believe the example she is setting? …What woman would ever work at Yahoo! after this? … Is Marissa even human?

Caught in the belly of the insatiable anaconda we strive to “Lean In” and “Do It All” in the rule-determined chess game of Life. We call ourselves the human race as we compete and compare and hurry towards the finishing line. We fill ourselves with striving and doing and our Solar Light burns so brightly that like Icarus we fly to the Sun on melting wings. It’s when we become aware of the barriers between us, when we take note of the differences between male and female, refugees and home owners, intuitives and scientists, young and old, Christian and Moslem, CEOs and stay-at-home moms, that we lose our way in the labyrinth of the soulless ghetto of Otherness.

Those who choose to pick up the Sword and slay the nine-headed Hydra are enacting perhaps unwittingly the initiatory Journey of the Hero, a figure who is lauded in many cultures and most especially in the West. We strive. We compete. We notice our differences even as we celebrate them. When the siren call of success and fame and fortune calls do we answer? Do we lie down on Procrustes’s bed to be fitted to size? For eons our addiction to Perfection, to norms and expectations has been marinading in a Christian-Judaic stew. Our unworthiness has been branded into our skins, seared into our flesh and we’ve remained small and safe yet barely alive through witch-hunts, slavery, apartheid and patriarchal religion.“You can’t do it all. No one can have two full-time jobs, have perfect children and cook three meals and be multi-orgasmic till dawn. Superwoman is the adversary of the women’s movement,” said Gloria Steinem.

Writes Susan Sontag, “if a young person — man or woman — in his or her twenties would sit down with a bunch of people in their sixties or seventies, one of those persons might have said, What a pity you have to sit here with five old people, that must be boring for you!”

We diminish and apologise for ourselves. We’re too fat, too ugly, too black, too old, too Sudanese, too woman; and so we take years to fully perceive our own multifaceted beauty, and make the internal shift that says, I am Enough.

Oscar Wilde lived a life that was filled to the brim with un apologetic panache and a-flutter with flamboyance. He, like so many who fly high and wear the laurel wreath of Victory, lived fully and expansively. Yet the time came for him to empty out. To surrender to the Mystery that is our uniqueness in the inter-connectedness of all things. From his austere prison cell where he was incarcerated for loving another man, he wrote, “The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?”

The orbit of our soul is reflected back to us in our birth chart. We are all unique and all have a unique destiny to experience this life time.

Some of us may aspire to become army generals or astronauts. Some of us may want to watch our children play while we plant dahlias or grow cabbages in our gardens for no other reason than we like them. Some of us may know that one size does not fit all and that we find our Belonging as we breathe out, lean back and empty.

Tom Odell Sirens

Relationship Astrology workshops London

Lust, Love, Loss and Longing

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November
The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA
10am-5pm

£85.00 per day, or £150.00 for both

Join us for an exciting weekend of relationship astrology in London, designed to be suitable for all levels. The two days are completely different but are designed to complement one another, so you can choose to do either day, or both. Bookings – ingrid@trueheartwork.com or email joannaw@otenet.gr

August 25, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

I’ll Be Good

We’ve coveted our neighbour’s wife for eons. Like moths to the flame we slip into stolen moments, discover in the fire of a clandestine tryst the erotic élan of novelty.

Secrecy, danger, novelty and forbidden fruit make our hearts race and flood our brains and bodies with an intoxicating cocktail of sweetest taboo. Greek myths are steamy stories of infidelity, trickery and connivance. Handsome youths seduced, innocent maidens abducted. The kind of sex that makes Fifty Shades seem more like Enid Blyton’s Playful Pets.

Lipstick on the collar has now gone digital. Where once we secreted our love letters in padlocked boxes, we now have passwords and browsing histories to delete. Some of the fallout from the Ashley Madison “affair” is a mushroom shaped cloud of moralistic condemnation sprinkled with a dusting of judgement which says more about the judge than those being judged. As Hackers, presumably with their own agendas, smoke out the “sinners”, there’s a lot of talk about affairs and the destruction of so-called family life but not much intelligent inquiry as to the Why we want what we can’t have and do what we do to get it. And yet, in this age of instant gratification and increasingly sophisticated digital technology driven by a porn industry that caters for all preferences, Why not? What we once termed aberrations and perversions, thankfully have now become “normalised” though there’s is still an odorous smell to the word adultery. And in some places in the world sex outside marriage is punishable by death.

Love and Desire are two completely different things. So says sex therapist and author of Mating in Captivity Esther Perel. Astrologers agree. Mars and Venus in their healthy expression move us to want, to take and to own. Author Thomas Moore writes, “Mars when he is honoured, gives a deep red hue to everything we do, quickening our lives with intensity passion forcefulness and courage… It is important then to revere the Martian spirit and to let the soul burst into life in creativity individuality iconoclasm and imagination.”

Eros is not the chubby diaper-wearing infant we see on Valentine’s cards. He takes us to the beating heart of our own “red light district”, he brings us back to life. He’s an antidote to the terror of ageing, the annihilation of death.

Eros and Thanatos are the provocative invitation on the now infamous Ashley Madison website: Life is Short – Have an Affair!

As author and teacher, Joanna Watters writes The Astrology Blog this week, “The most obvious retrograde Venus story in the news at the moment is the hacking of website Ashley Madison. This company has built up a membership of a staggering 37 million people around the world, and continues to sign up new members at the rate of 35,000 a day. Noel Biderman, the CEO of the company, is born 1 January 1971. Unfortunately there is no other birth data but you don’t really need to look any further than the date as he’s born on a triple conjunction of Venus and Mars (the love and sex planets) and Jupiter (expansion) all in Scorpio (the sign of sex, secrecy and all that is taboo)”

Our comfort-seeking astrological Moon craves security and safety and dependability and permanence. Paradoxically, good connection, good intimacy does not guarantee good sex. Routine, predictability, too much closeness and familiarity are a cold shower to an erotic charge. Spontaneity in long term relationships is a myth. “There is no neediness or caretaking in desire,” says Esther Perel.

“Sex is a place we go to,” says Perel. “A space we enter inside ourselves with another or others”. For some it may be a place for aggression or playfulness, for others it is a place of surrender and relinquishing control, for others it is a templum for transcendence and dissolution, poetically described by the planets and their aspects in astrology. Eros resides in the imaginal realm. And says Perel, “the erotic mind is not politically correct.”

She adds also that few of us know how to bring our self-hood to our partner. Or how to stay connected to ourselves in the presence of the Other. Few of us know the landscape of our bodies in relationship with the Other. Committed sex is premeditated sex. It is willful, focused, and present. And foreplay starts at the end of the previous orgasm.

The poetics of our erotic life transforms sexuality by our own imagination. But what when fur-lined cuffs, leather whips, slivers of silky underwear, or a romantic getaway without the kids fails to alleviate the tedium of sex gone stale? The answer lies within when we ask ourselves is – “I shut down my desire for my partner when…”

Our responses will be as unique as our birth charts. For some, the answer may be, “I shut down my desire when I work late at night, for others when I am overweight and feel unattractive, for others still, when we fight over the in-laws or the kids … and for some, I shut down my desire when I feel responsible, when I don’t feel I have a right to want, when I don’t feel I have the right to receive, or to take, sensual pleasure…”

For most of us, growing up, reclaiming Eros, is hard to do. And in our adolescent culture where we objectify each other and Mother Earth, where phallus-shaped guns are given to young children and wars and violence continue to continue, until we are Collectively ready to Imagine another way of being in relationship to one another there will be affairs and heartbreak. And also the opportunity to re-pair and heal and rebuild our ravaged relationships and invite Eros and Aphrodite back into our bodies and our lives.

Astrology workshops London

Lust, Love, Loss and Longing

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November
10am-5pm
£85.00 per day, or £150.00 for both
Venue – The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA

Suitable for all levels.

The two days are completely different but are designed to complement one another. So you can choose to do either day, or both. Venus and Mars in your birth chart with Ingrid Hoffman – astrologer and Imago Practitioner, founder of Trueheartwork, and a magical day of traditional horoscopy and synastry between two individuals with author and astrologer Joanna Watters.
Please contact Joanna directly and come and join us in London.

joannaw@otenet.gr

Jaymes Young – I’ll Be Good

August 6, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Bette Davis Eyes

She desires you. She’s always willing; she’s always here, just for you.

“Hello, my name is Denise… I look forward to getting to know you…” she says invitingly. Admittedly her voice is not quite the melted mocha modulation of Scarlett Johansson. Denise is a neophyte. But she’ll never betray you or break your heart.

She is one of Matt McMullen’s future RealDolls. Life-size luscious latex sex robots that may eventually create the illusion of sentience. You can already choose what body type, skin, hair and eye colour you want and even have her toes custom-made. Matt’s RealDolls will integrate a mobile app that is a virtual assistant and companion. They’ll arrive with virtual reality headsets to enhance your experience so that it becomes immersive and sensory. So are Matt’s RealDolls toys for grown-ups? Just like little children play with their toys and immerse themselves in fantasy are these life-size dolls a grown-up substitute for play and imagination, for sensual pleasure and eroticism? Or are they a prettier version of Frankenstein’s Monster where we lose our separateness, our individual boundaries, our humanness, in fusion with fantasy?

Film and literature reflect the zeitgeist. Spike Jonze’s sensitive portrayal of a love that unfolds through the romantic phase into the power struggle in Her and Humans, the science fiction TV series that débuted in June 2015. The porn industry will no doubt drive technology but already “Amy Ingram” is being primed as the perfect personal assistant, seamlessly scheduling meetings politely and unobtrusively. She won’t need sick leave or maternity leave and she won’t need time off to attend weddings or funerals.

Her hair is Harlow gold. Her lips sweet surprise. Her hands are never cold.

The digital revolution is underway, and it’s all about you – or is it? Uranus will be moving through Aries, the first sign of the zodiac until May 2018 and like Icarus we’re flying high on the fire of innovation. We’re talking about change.

Uranus last traveled through Aries in 1927-1935 where individual values were annihilated in the destructive polemics of an ideology. Change, innovation, much like revolutions tend to be messy and often spiral like hurricanes across the lives of ordinary people.

Is change always ‘‘for the good”? Is “progress” always in the best interest of the other animals that live on this earth? Are abstract ideals and revelations always in the best interests of the individual?

In astrological symbolism Uranus is called an outer planet. It orbits silently through space about 2.6 billion to 3.2 billion km from our earth. Uranus is associated with anarchy, social upheaval, as well as technology and ecology. Uranus was first “discovered” in 1781 at a time of upheaval in America and France and an industrial revolution that changed social structure in Britain irrevocably. The ‘‘discovery” of outer planets mirrors the spirit of the time here on earth.

Uranus is often associated with rebellion and individuality – but it is not associated with individual development and emotional or spiritual needs. It is about the individual being caught up in the group, The Collective. Often we are fighting against the very thing that binds us. Of course the more determined we are to stand only in the light, the longer and more odorous our shadow will be – or the Shadow “out there”. The Lion Killer who killed Cecil the lion mirrors our collective or personal disconnect from Nature and all living things. Politicians bloated on power and greed reflect our own appetites and avariciousness.

Perhaps robotics will satiate our craving for fantasy. Perhaps they will bring order and perfection to our mixed-up muddled-up lives. Perhaps they will be an outlet for even for more violence and cruelty. They are Uranian in that they offer a perfect solution to human imperfection.

Everything is interconnected. There is no light without darkness. No lotus without mud. The gaming industry meets virtual reality porn – how far will we go? And will we lose our connection with what nourishes us at the deepest level? Will our authentic Self be dominated by the collective push towards technology as a replacement for real human relationships in all their messiness and unpredictability?

Writes Jungian astrologer, Liz Greene in her superb book, The Art of Stealing Fire, “Uranus can only exercise his creative power from an invisible place, from the depths of the collective unconscious. This is a place we don’t have access to, unless we are shocked into awareness by inspirations which erupt as though out of nowhere, and remind us that once upon a time the whole of the universe was conceived as a single perfect design. And when that happens we might not always be able to handle it very well.”

Today we’re possibly the most connected we’ve ever been. We compulsively share and receive. And yet in the sea of faces and in the eyes that don’t meet ours in our morning commute to work we wrap ourselves up tightly in the neurosis of technology the habit of distraction. Yet it’s unlikely we’ll call upon our legions of Facebook friends or Twitter followers in our darkest hour. In the ceaseless stream of conversation the lonely ones are washed onto the jagged rocks of isolation. Says Thay Thích Nhat Hanh “we are one of the loneliness societies – we need to talk about social recovery… something has gone wrong with us not only as individuals and as a group.”

Most of us do know we live in an illusion of separateness and yet so often we are dazzled by the brightness, the glitter of our world. We make connections and yet remain disconnected.

Can we be individuals in this web of technological connectivity? This is where we may have to make a choice. There are Off buttons on our Smartphones. We can unplug our earphones. We can refuse to use Facebook or WhatsApp. But do we dare?

We’re all individuals, aren’t we?

Betty Davis Eyes Kim Carnes and Betty Davis. Originals.

Like the genes in our body the astrological signs are indicators of the direction in which we may choose to travel this life time. We are a microcosm of a magnificent universal macrocosm. Our horoscope shows the exact position of the sun at the time of our birth and points the way, much like a celestial GPS, illuminating our inner landscape. To find out more about your own birth chart, or to experience a workshop please contact me on info@trueheartwork.com

July 26, 2015 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

One Day I’ll Fly Away

“Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”

True Originals are rare. Original thought and pioneering acts of great daring are attempted by only a few brave souls on this earth. The courage to be different requires a stalwart steadiness that few of us possess.

Pioneering computer scientist and mathematician, Alan Turning’s seminal work shorted the war against the Nazis, saving countless lives. He was prosecuted for homosexual acts in 1952 and chose chemical castration as an alternative to prison. Sixteen days before his 42^nd birthday he died of cyanide poisoning and was posthumously “pardoned” by Queen Elizabeth 11 in 2013.

As a young prodigy at boarding school, Alan was savagely bullied and tormented for his differentness. His rescuer is an older boy, Christopher Morcom, who says these words which carry him through the rest of his short life: “Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”

Later in life, Alan Turning says, “Do you know why people like violence? It is because it feels good. Humans find violence deeply satisfying. But remove the satisfaction, and the act becomes… hollow.” His differentness and courage is compellingly portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2014 movie, The Imitation Game.

The courage to be different is risky. Like shooting stars, burgeoning lives are extinguished as they soar too high to be seen or fully understood. Joan of Arc was nineteen years old when she was burnt alive. Vincent van Gogh was 37. Steve Biko was 30. They dared to be different.

For some Ugly Ducklings, for some Mistaken Zygotes, the courage to be different requires leaving the known and taking the risky and often life-threatening journey to find our swans. We are Outsiders. Sometimes persecuted, scapegoated for our differentness. Sometimes we are lucky enough to find a swan who loves us because we are different.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes, “from the time they are babies they are taken captive, domesticated, told that they’re not right, they’re wrong headed and improper.

They were trained to remain contained. To never really spread their wings, and especially never to find those who are like themselves. That was considered very, very dangerous.”

Bravery is weighted with risk. We may jettison our most cherished relationships, our livelihood or our lives along the way. Despite the anachronisms and soap suds, the TV series Masters of Sex depicts the pioneering research by William Masters and Virginia Johnson into human sexual response and sexual dysfunction in a time of hypocrisy and bigotry. They dared to explore taboos and expose fear and ignorance during the counter revolution of the 1960s. They were the lucky ones. They risked and succeeded with a roll of the dice in times when it was dangerous to be different.

“We talk about being emotionally healthy and often overlook the spiritual emotions.” In Thomas Moore’s latest book, A Religion of One’s Own, he suggests A courageous approach to caring for the soul when most psychologists label a cry from the soul as ADD and silence the exquisite poetry of symptoms with drugs.

“Many people begin a spiritual project – meditation, yoga, a new religion – while they have complicated emotional problems entangled in their spiritual longings… I recommend self-therapy, exploring your fear, desire, sexuality, anger, personal past and relationships. I don’t see therapy as fixing what is broken but rather as tending to you whole psyche.”

Mark Haddon explores mystery and exquisite beauty of differentness in his profoundly moving book, now also an award-winning London play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night Time. Soul lies entwined in the entangled threads of human relationships and most certainly in the supreme sensitivity of the young narrator, Christopher John Francis Boone, who describes himself as “a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties.”

We’re probing the mysterious frozen mountains of Pluto and her five shadowy moons. Perhaps this is a metaphor for a Collective transformation. A brave exploration of calcified structures, fundamentalist rigidity, faded injunctions in dusty tomes that no longer serve humanity and all the other sentient beings that share our blue planet. On a personal level, this could signify a time to bravely venture into the chlothic underworld of our own psyche and meet the Minotaur at the centre of the Labyrinth.

Christopher says, “And when the universe has finished exploding all the stars will slow down, like a ball that has been thrown into the air, and they will come to a halt and they will all begin to fall towards the centre of the universe again. And then there will be nothing to stop us seeing all the stars in the world because they will all be moving towards us, gradually faster and faster, and we will know that the world is going to end soon because when we look up into the sky at night there will be no darkness, just the blazing light of billions and billions of stars, all falling.”

Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine.

Randy Crawford – One Day I’ll Fly Away

Author: Ingrid Hoffman

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA 10am-5pm

£85.00 per day, or £150.00 for both

Relationship Astrology workshops London

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA 10am-5pm

£85.00 per day, or £150.00 for both

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November
The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA
10am-5pm

Saturday 31 October & Sunday 1 November
The Astrological Lodge of London, 50 Gloucester Place W1U 8EA
10am-5pm