Moon Shadow—New Moon in Cancer—July 10th.
Somethings can only be seen in the shadows—Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
As the light-infused days of July stretch languidly towards the blue dome of the horizon, edges seem sharper, shadows bleached. We’re three weeks past the Solstice. As the Sun moves through Cancer the days here in the north are already growing imperceptibly shorter. This is a turning point in the solar/lunar cycle. We’ve entered the dark.
Cancer is a receptive water sign and where Cancer is in our birth chart we seek solace from life’s hard edges, we feel in our heart and body the searing heat of the wild fire and the wild winds that buffet the islands of the Caribbean. We are aware of our tender exposed places as nature signals her distress. Solastalgia, a word coined by Glenn Albrecht, carries a plaintive sigh of melancholy as we witness habitat corruption and feel the pain of loss.
The Sun serves the Moon when it moves through Cancer, heightening our intuition as we read the energy of emotions, sense what is there, hidden in the shadows.
Author and story-teller, Andrea Hoffman writes, “on a psychological level, the annual solar-lunar cycle
makes us aware of the shadow.”
In the Grimm’s Fairy Tale, Little Brother and Little Sister, the disowned “evil step-mother’s” sticky residue coats the Midsummer wedding celebration with an ominous residue:
The king lifted the beautiful girl onto his horse and took her to his castle, where their wedding was held with great splendor. She was now the queen, and they lived happily together for a long time. The deer was cared for and cherished and ran about in the castle garden.
Andrea reminds us, “the brother is still a deer. The spell has been cast and is still at work here. In fairy tales and in life, we must look for clues, read between the lines, sharpen our peripheral vision in order to sense our personal and collective shadow.”
Mercury the celestial messenger is now in plain sight. Mercury slipped from the shadows on Wednesday, July 7th, and is now moving direct (since June 22nd). Yet the day after the New Moon, Mercury sinks into the soft comfort of Cancer, aiding tender conversations, gentle dialogue with our inner evil stepmother. New Moons carry the impetus for fresh starts, and Cancer’s domain is home and family. This New Moon opposes uncompromising Pluto, which signifies a wiping of the slate clean and beginning a-new, perhaps with realism and resilience as Venus opposes Saturn this week (July 7th) and then makes an uncomfortable square to Uranus which may bring a seismic shift to a relationship impasse, or bring us to the kind of breakthrough that John Welwood describes in his book, Journey of the Heart, that will “inevitably penetrate our usual shield of defences, exposing our most tender and sensitive spots, and leaving us feeling vulnerable—literally, able to be wounded.”
Cancer embodies the primal force of the Magna Mater, the Great Mother who at a whim, turns her head and exposes her dark face and eyes of burning coals. She is the One who gives and takes life in casual and constant cycles of destruction and rebirth. She is the wicked witch, the evil stepmother, the mother-devourer demonised by patriarchal religion, yet who initiates those who are willing to pay attention and walk carefully among the shadows. Cancer is a Cardinal sign that requires us to act, perhaps to protect any violation of our boundaries. Yet, as author Marion Woodman says, “there is no sense in talking about ‘being true to yourself’ until you are sure what voice you are being true to. It takes hard work to differentiate the voice of the unconscious”. Cancer is a water sign; its energy is fluid and receptive. Yet we may feel petrified, immobilised by the sharp scrape of the world. Like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, we may have fallen asleep, cradled by the curse of the Dark Mother, drowsy with inertia. This is the spell of enchantment that traps us in a tangle of false beliefs. This is the long dark shadow that seeps from our unconscious and scatters clues of white breadcrumbs in our dreams as we follow the path that leads to something new. This New Moon, speak softly to the Dark Mother who feeds us poison apples. Pay attention to those judgements and beliefs that knock loudly at the door of our integrity.
All through this year, Saturn (the old order, rules and regulations) squares Uranus (idealism, freedom, revolution) and a tidal surge of a very different kind swirls across the skies as Jupiter, that planet associated with big dreams, grandiose visions and faith, encounters the ineffable Neptune in Pisces. Neptune spins backwards from June 25th-December 1st and Jupiter stalls our sense of expansion and growth from June 20th-October 18th amplifying perhaps the deep bruise of loss, a sinkhole of disappointment, or the dissolution of a high-flying dream. Both planets are moving Retrograde, drawing us into the undertow of delusion or ecstasy as we long to escape, to travel, to “get back to normal” while a virus shape-shifts and perplexed politicians throw the dice. Neptune and Jupiter will connect with other planets as they move in Retrograde through Pisces, offering us clues that emerge in plain sight now that Mercury has emerged from the shadow.
At the Sun’s zenith, may we remember that the light has already begun to wane and winter is coming. In the darkness of this New Moon, may we be prompted to look more closely, listen more carefully and trust that we can see in the dark.
For a personal astrology reading or for more information about the next webinar, please get in touch: ingrid@trueheartwork.com
Love Apples—Fairy Tales and Sky Stories…
A virtual banquet.
Saturday, September 25th, 14.30 BST.
As the metamorphic colours of Autumn accompany the seasonal shift of the Equinox, we arrive at another threshold crossing in the heroine’s journey.
Join Swiss author and storyteller, Andrea Hofman and Ingrid Hoffman, a psychology-orientated astrologer based in Cornwall, as we explore the sumptuous symbolism of the Apple through fairy tale and astrology.
The wheel of the zodiac turns to Venus-ruled Libra on September 23rd. Libra is the quintessential sign of marriage and partnership.
Join us for an afternoon of juicy love lore as we meet ailing princesses and the red-lipped Snow White. We’ll discover more about Eris and the forgotten feminine, and marvel at the real beauty of the Golden Apple as the seasons change.
Our feast begins at 14.30 BST on Saturday, September 25th and, of course, if you can’t be with us on the day, we’ll send you a 90 minute recording. Cost is £40 via PayPal. Pop me an email to book your place on the day: ingrid@trueheartwork.com
Here in the north, the shimmer of summer sparkles across newly mown meadows of powered gold. We’re drunk with light, overwhelmed with a surfeit of beauty. Now the sun pauses at the zenith of the year. Something extra-ordinary is happening; we feel it viscerally. Old traditions return, threads of comfort as the earth’s axis shifts and the scent of dog rose wafts on a hot honeyed breeze. Perhaps in our own lives, there is a sense of returning to a familiar place as we come full circle in the wheel of the year.
Astrology doesn’t cause events but offers us a container for understanding them. As ancient Sarsen stones drink the heat of the Midsummer sunrise we may not go back as our ancestors did at Stonehenge, Maeshowe, or Newgrange, to wait for the death and rebirth of the sun. We can still draw from the eternal circle of knowing that describes the mythic journey of the hero/heroine and fall into a new more revitalised rhythm in our own lives. After the enthusiastic departure, the blistering fire of initiation, we may still feel raw, burnt and bleeding, yet we may sense the worst is over. Now comes the Return as our feet learn to support us again, as our hearts open once more to a love we can trust. The world is so different to the world we have left. There may still be tears to shed, a deep throb of pain yet to be tended to. We may still brace ourselves against the confinement of those tight corners we have grown used to. Now as the Sun dips into the cool waters of Cancer, a sign that clasps us to the familiar breast of comfort and security, our hearts open like peonies. We dare to begin again.
Mercury emerges from the shadows of this Retrograde period on July 7th and makes an ambiguous square with shape-shifting Neptune (July 6-7th) while corpulent Jupiter in Pisces (faith, long journeys, excess) switches backwards from June 20th-September 14th) and joins Neptune Retrograde in Pisces. It also can signify the tsunami of grief and loss at the ending of a relationship or the realisation that we have been unrealistic or too naïve concerning our finances or what we hold dear to our heart. We may sense something ancient and primal stirring within us as something comes to a natural end, as we begin to emerge from pain into pleasure, an expanded sense of our next self. This is our invitation to take off those rose-coloured glasses as we move fluidly through this time of stops and starts when nothing is clear or certain. Byron Katie, who has Jupiter Retrograde in Cancer, suggests pragmatically, “When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.”
Now at this time of pause, of empty space, may we allow peace and contentment to enter in as the sun sinks molten into the sea spilling a phosphorescent flash of chartreuse followed by a tiny dot of honey to mark the day’s end. As the earth’s axis shifts, we’re dazed and dazzled with by the beauty of the flowers that tumble over walls and spill over meadows.
Sagittarius is the nomad, the pilgrim, the outlander, the foreigner. Those who are introverted by nature may feel like a foreigner or outsider amidst the noise and the laughter of a social gathering. Those of us who are in a place of transition, may feel like outsiders in our families or communities.
The troublesome Saturn (rules, restrictions, delays) /Uranus (electric, iconoclastic) square infuses 2021 with drama, violence, plans upended, sudden shocks and serendipities. The waning square is in effect throughout 2021, with the final square on December 24th. It came up close on February 17th, and again delivers a concentrated clout on June 14th shaken, not stirred, by the Solar Annular Eclipse on June 10th as police prepare for mass protests in the UK. Priti Patel’s “digitise the border” project alters the UK’s asylum and immigration system that separates human beings into “them and us”—cast adrift, shut out. Strangers in a foreign land. This is the motif of Sagittarius as the wanderer, walled and shut out by Saturn’s bureaucratic boundaries and the unpredictable omnipotence of Uranus.
“To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim,” poet Mark Nepo writes.
I had embraced you… long before I hugged you—Sanober Khan.
Twins in myth and fairy tale, are similar at first glance, then reveal themselves to be fundamentally different. The story of Castor and Pollux, and their beautiful twin sisters, Helen and Clytemnestra is a brutal story of theft and revenge, kidnapping, murder, and loss. Maya Angelou once said, “I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.”
Yet, whether we’re twinned, a resourceful only child, a pioneering first born, a cossetted baby, or the lost child in a family too big or too poor to give nurture, we’re engaged with the mythic story of the Twins in our everyday human encounters with friends and colleagues, lovers and husbands. Those sympathetic similarities that draw us in; those polarised differences that repel. As the Sun moves through Gemini expect these themes to be highlighted as our Gemini planets are nudged to think a little differently about finding a twin flame or a Soulmate. The well-worn sweaty T-shirt study by Claus Wedekind showed that the pheromones that attract us most are from people who are genetically very different from us. As the magic sparkles begin to flutter and the golden glow fades, we may find that our Soulmate is both our Jekyll and our Hyde.
As many countries ease restrictions, Mercury and Venus move through sociable Gemini this month as we make space for new relationships, new family configurations; as we move through our grief after months spent shepherding someone through illness, after the loneliness of confinement. We’re reminded that Gemini rules the lungs and the hands as we breathe new energy into those parts of our lives that may still feel cling-wrapped in fear and we re-connect with those vital, resilient parts of ourselves that press up against the warm urgency of longing to touch again. When our world has become precarious, when our natural impulses coil tightly inside us, it may be hard to feel connected to each other as we did before. The old ways of living on this earth have become harder to justify as the long shadow of the pandemic stretches across shrinking glaciers and warming skies.
Mercury backtracks at the end of this month, (May 29 – June 22) symbolising a turning point and a time when a protective chrysalis is shaped around an area of our psyche, depending on where these planets are moving through our birth chart. Pluto moves Retrograde (April 27 – October 6) stirring toxicity in our relationships, dredging secrets, exposing misuse of power, drawing our attention to those anemic areas of our lives that need a transfusion. Jupiter dips into familiar Piscean waters on May 14th amplifying our longing to escape into fantasy or denial, perhaps inflating empathy fatigue, addictive behaviour, or pain. Saturn and Uranus are still in square, a sky story that speaks of liberties curtailed as the old ways of living on this earth become harder to justify, and as the long shadow of the global pandemic stretches across shrinking glaciers and warming skies.
Please get in touch if you would like a private astrology consultation: 
If your nerve deny you, go above your nerve—Emily Dickinson.
As Venus (relationships, what we hold dear to our hearts) moves into Aries on March 21st and makes her annual appointment with the Sun (March 24th), the words of author Isabel Allende may resonate as we burn for something new “we don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward…” Venus and the Sun conjoin Chiron on March 28–30th—an indication that for most of us, the road ahead may not be easy.
The motif of the Saturn/Uranus square—a cycle that began in 1988 with a Saturn/Uranus conjunction in Capricorn—infuses our lives with defining moments as regulations tighten, people push back. This year, three waning squares define the zeitgeist of disruption—the first was February 17th, June 14th is the second. In tandem and working in the darkness, the ominous Pluto/Eris square dredges up all that is putrid in our societies, as we wade through what Eckhardt Tolle calls “the pain body.”
As new lockdown measures are imposed in many countries, Mercury muscled into Aries on April 4th. Frustration simmers. The passage of Venus (April 23rd) sensitises the destabilising Saturn/Uranus square, followed by the Sun (April 30th-May 4th) and Mars adds fuel to the flames this year and next. (July/November 2021; March/April/July/ 2022.)
The birds they sang
The torrent of Tweets has stopped. In the silent space between chaos and something new, there is the descent into the unknown. Joe Biden has answered the call. He has worked and waited and prepared for this day’s dawning. He gazes out at a map of shifting possibilities. If he is to succeed, it will be as a Shaman, a Wounded Healer, not a problem-solving politician. January 20th is the first anniversary of the first case of Covid in America. As the death toll rises, it may soon surpass the 405,000 Americans who died in the chaos of WW II.
Mercury turns Retrograde on January 30th (square Joe Biden’s Scorpio Sun). There is so much to be healed and repaired. The slow retrieval of what has been lost or captive will be painful. As Pluto opposes the US Mercury from 2017–2024 there will be walls to dismantle, bridges to build, digital communications to reform, and Silicon Valley Titans to tame.
This is the month of Thanksgiving. For counting our blessings. For celebrating just how brave and how resilient we have been this year, for grieving all those who have suffered, all those who have died in this difficult year.
Venus opposes Uranus (November 27-28th) amputating flimsy connections and light-weight encounters. Our our ability to be innovative or counter-intuitive with our finances will be accented, especially if we have planets or sensitive degrees between 7-8° Aquarius, Taurus or Scorpio. In early December, Venus square Neptune may gorge hedonistically on sweet dreams and empty promises. She may languish in the half-light of fantasy or linger too long beneath the glittering lights of the casino. This is the classic bankruptcy signature, so be wary of the siren call to buy more of what you want but don’t really need or can afford. This month Saturn, Pluto and Jupiter are still moving through Capricorn, reminders of financial austerity, new laws and restrictions imposed by those in authority.
As the weeks gather momentum for crescendo of the solstice on December 22nd and the much- heralded Saturn/Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius, let’s linger in the warmth of Sagittarius’s fire. As we reflect on 2020, may we allow grace and gratitude to wash over us as we savour all we have learnt; how much we have changed on this Journey. Poet Mark Nepo writes, “to journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journeying is to be a pilgrim.” May this pilgrimage lead us all towards a place of healing and Love.
America is not nearly done. We’re only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows what colour we will be? It is all something that, may our descendants—if they survive that long—will see—Alice Walker.
The birth charts of nations are conceived in acts of supremacy. Dominion over the Earth and over indigenous peoples. We are still enacting our origin stories, tales of heroism, individualism, and supremacy. “Once metabolised, the old stories are hard to shake from the mind of an individual or the hierarchy of a family or the guiding principles of a country,” writes Elizabeth Lesser, author of 
“It takes a strong back and a soft front to face the world,” writes Roshi Joan Halifax. We will need courage and compassion, and firm boundaries as this year draws to a close and we face into another year of restrictions and economic uncertainty.
A Retrograde Mars turns white-hot energy inwards. Mars is our inner toddler that acts out when thwarted. We may sense rising levels of frustration, a need to push back at what is wrong in our lives, in our societies. The dark face of Mars is the radicalised berserker who unleashes fear and carnage, stokes up trouble on digital platforms. And as we scroll down our screens, skim through the news, Google snippets of “information”, we may inadvertently enter the fray of battle.
“Every decision you make—every decision—is not a decision about what to do. It’s a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do,” writes Neale Donald Walsch.
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! 
August to December will be volatile months. Mars’s overheated Retrograde in Aries (9th September – 13th November) coincides with the final sprint for the claimant to the title of President in America. Mars conjoined Pluto on March 23rd and will form an aggressive do-or-die square to Pluto on August 12–13th, October 7–9th and December 20th. Mars sextiles Saturn (June 27th) to add opportunity to the overblown square to Jupiter between August 4–5th, October 16th, and December 12th—a potent cocktail of frustration, fanaticism and potential for violence as we stand at the end of an era. Mercury goes Retrograde between October 13th and November 3rd 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.
