cholera Tag

February 19, 2020 In Astrology By Ingrid Hoffman

Stormy Weather—Sun in Pisces—February 19th—March 20th

Strong winds and lashing rains wake ancient rivers from their beds, drowning spring’s delicate cameo of white blossoms as they bravely emerge from winter’s lean pragmatism.

This week the Sun joins Neptune and Mercury Retrograde in the salty seas of Pisces. We dive full fathom five beneath the choppy waters of our lives.

Neptune was god of the ocean, and as our seas choke with plastics, storms sweep over the British Isles, washing away homes and businesses, submerging hopes and dreams in a sodden landscape.

Neptune turns a ghostly face to our human need to hold onto what we love. Boundaries dissolve, treasured possessions disappear. We learn that everything is transient. And when we hold on to too tightly, Virginia Woolf reminds us, “buildings fall; even the earth perishes. What was yesterday a cornfield is to-day a bungalow.”

As the Sun moves into Neptune-ruled Pisces this week, the future of Yosemite glittering Fire Fall is uncertain after drought, beetle infestation and wildfires. “Up until three years ago, it was fairly reliable that you’d have snow in February, spring conditions in June-July, and August would be dry,” says UK photographer, Paul Reiffer. “… the seasons have become “completely random” he says in a Guardian article.

Neptune is also associated with pandemics, plagues and contagion through dissolution of boundaries. As swarms of locusts blacken Kenyan skies, Mercury, the messenger, spreads the coronavirus “infodemic” as customers avoid Chinese shops and restaurants; Chinese children are taunted in schools and playgrounds.

Neptune was last in Pisces from 1848 through 1862. In 1854, Dr John Snow traced the cause of a cholera outbreak in London to a street pump in Soho, debunking the “fake news” that cholera was an airborne disease. Author, Karen Armstrong reminds us that the very Piscean quality of compassion is hardwired into our brains yet is constantly pushed back by our more primitive instincts for selfishness and survival. As the seasons transition, we may sense the discomfort of those confined to their homes as the coronavirus claims more lives and affects the supply chain from China to the West.

The Sun and the Moon consummate their union with the new Pisces Moon (4° Pisces) February 23^rd.

The Pisces/Neptune theme continues for the month of March as doctors and nurses on the front-lines face more challenges, more far-reaching economic effects. Mercury, (how we listen, how we communicate) turned Retrograde on February 16^th and will be immersed in the watery realm of Pisces until March 4^th, when he returns to the airy sign of Aquarius. Mercury moves direct again on March 10^th. Mercury Retrograde times are opportunities to pause, to go within, and to re-do or reverse an activity or a state of mind. We may see a shift in the progression of the coronavirus as Mercury changes direction and moves back into the element of air on March 10^th. There may be more tension and more cases of voluntary or enforced isolation as Mars moved into Capricorn on February 17^th and will conjoin Jupiter and Pluto from March 19^th.

Mercury, Neptune and the Moon will be in Pisces on March 22^nd, the day that Saturn dips into Aquarius, reflecting the swirling currents of change and uncertainty.

On March 9^th, a demure Virgo Moon (19° Virgo) casts a pale primrose trail over worldly events, reminding us to stay anchored amidst stormy weather; to seek comfort in our daily routines; to be discerning as fact and fiction become entangled amongst the slippery flotsam and jetsam that floats through cyberspace.

As Neptune trawls through Pisces, Lost Boys and Lost Girls skip the light fandango, turn cartwheels ‘cross a sea floor scattered with the bones of those who lingered and languished in the deeps.

Undines and mythical Mélusines lure us beneath the waves where we can escape from the harshness of our lives by binge-watching Netflix series as the storm clouds hang like bunches of black grapes overhead. Neptune was in Pisces during the Pre-Raphaelite movement and as images of sublime otherworldly beauty captivated the imagination of the elite, the squalor and stench of Les Misérables was portrayed by Victor Hugo.

Planets that wear iridescent Piscean clothing offer strange tinctures of genius and madness. In the watery-logged realm of this archetype is a marshy Never Never Land surrounded by an ocean of dreams.

Neptune’s spell draws us towards the sweetness of oblivion, the lure of addiction, the ultimate exit of suicide.

The corrosive effects of hate-speak and online trolling seep through the porous boundaries of social media while Neptune moves through amorphous Pisces. (2011-2025)

Television personality Caroline Flack took her own life on Saturday—Caroline’s words are diffused with Piscean compassion. “Be nice to people. You never know what’s going on. Ever.”

As Neptune expresses itself through the dreams and visions of the collective, fashion and movies reflect Neptunian themes, veganism and animal rights become part of an awakening awareness that has been stirring in the zeitgeist. As Neptune moves through Pisces genders have blurred, more men are using colour cosmetics and skin-care products, hair colours sparkle in shades of iridescent blue and silver-grey. Yet artifice comes at a price as the new TV series Beauty Laid Bare reveals.

Neptune is associated with glamour, with photography and the silver screen. With the seductive siren song of fame that casts its spell on hapless mortals, who become “stars” and shine their light brightly for a brief incandescent moment. In his impassioned acceptance speech at the Golden Globes Joachim Phoenix (Sun, Venus, Mars in Scorpio; Jupiter Retrograde in Pisces) conveyed Piscean altruism to the affluent and well-dressed audience, reminding us all that no one species has the right to dominate or control or use or exploit one another with impunity.

Astrology is a language of metaphor and symbolism that mirrors what emerges in the collective and in our personal lives. We are at a time of collective ending, already glimpsed in extreme weather, the miasma of political machinations, and the endings that precede new beginnings in our own lives. As we widen our circle of compassion, Plato reminds us “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”

Get in touch if you’d like to know more about your own birth chart: ingrid@trueheartwork.com

March 27, 2012 In Astrology, Relationship, Self Growth By Ingrid Hoffman

Both Sides Now

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…”

Novelist Charles Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities in 1859, during a time of huge social and political upheaval, violent revolution. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and in 1846, it was the best and worst of time for Neptune to be “discovered” simply because we were ready, collectively, to embrace the archetype, to make another evolutionary shift. It was a time for the Virgin Mary to make an appearance to two wide-eyed children in La Salette, France. It was a time of cholera in England, death by starvation in Ireland. It was time for the spiritualism movement to gain nebulous momentum. It was time for exploring the occult and psychic phenomena. It was time to use cocaine as a local anaesthetic, transporting patients into the sensation-less realm of Neptune.

Neptune is associated with sacrifice, victim consciousness, addiction, pain, renunciation, mass delusion, ambiguity, romance, spirituality, dreams … an ethereal longing to transcend this earthly realm. In Neptune’s sapphire waters, we swim towards “enlightenment” or wash up on the shore of our addictions. We embody our hopes and dreams or passively watch the desiccated flotsam and jetsam of beached yearnings bleach like brittle bones, unable to support the full-formed body of our creativity.

Celestial heralds of the best and worst of times, Neptune and Chiron, dipped into the mystical ouroboric waters of Pisces, in April 2011. Chiron was “discovered” only in 1977, although like Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers, it had been silently, invisibly there all the time. Chiron embraces the archetype of the “wounded healer” or Shaman, and with the advent of the New Age Movement, we were ready. Chiron compels each one of us to imbibe the sacred medicine of suffering as an initiation into our wisdom and conscious understanding, so that we can enter a new stage of our spiritual journey. This is what the Neptune/Chiron energy has brought to consciousness, making us aware that we are all in the same evolutionary spirit boat. As we individually breathe in the star dust that envelops us in a cloak of collective consciousness, perhaps it is not enough to be a mere custodian of spiritual books or to adopt the cosmology of the Native Americans, the Tibetans, or the Hindus. The flaccid underbelly of the “New Age” subculture will need vigorous toning for the Maharishi Effect to expand into a coherent template of love and unity in collective consciousness.

In our own lives, we now have the opportunity to embrace compassion and spiritual maturity in an intensely personal way. This may mean being more responsible and ethically conscious of the foods we buy, the clothes we wear, the choices we make when we opt to buy or not to buy bright shiny disposable technology (are you aware that that sexy little screen on your mobile phone requires a non-renewable rare earth metal, called indium, that may run out in the next ten years?) Is “virtual reality” perhaps a sham to escape the appalling loneliness of our disconnected lives? So many of us in the west live in the ivory towers of the intellect. A place where the ultimate goal is unattainable perfection through sheer will – of our bodies, our minds, our bank accounts, our relationships. We self-help, self-improve. Our realm is a place of great straining and striving to accomplish some goal in the future, all the while wearing insulated space suits that keep us separate, safe and small.

“I am a Rock,” sang Simon and Garfunkel… “I am shielded in my armour, Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.”

Neptune and Chiron will gradually dissolve all that we thought was of substance in our lives through the long Pisces transit (2018 for Chiron and 2026 for Neptune). Over these next decades, we may be required to examine the porous membrane of social networking sites. To be more discerning and honest about how we Eat, Pray and Love. To ponder why it is that we feel the need for the puritanical cleansing of our souls to make us “better” than we are right now. To question, with intelligence and humility, the illusion of what we “know” as “truth” about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our lovers, our friendships, our god, our footprint on this earth, be it “sustainable” or stiletto-heeled living. To examine our societal and cultural beliefs. To question our desire to belong to the tribes we form at the office, the gym, and our places of worship. To look, from both sides now, at our own narratives, the “rights” and the “wrongs” about this world we live in. To acknowledge that just because it “happens” it may not mean it is honourable, just or right.

Joni Mitchell knows the bows and flows so well:

“I’ve looked at life from both sides now,

From win and lose, and still somehow

It’s life’s illusions I recall.

I really don’t know life at all.”