The First Half of 2026: Stars, Wounds and the Search for Belonging

Transpersonal Integrative Therapist

An Astrological and Psychological Perspective

Guest Author: Özlem Lemi O’Hanrahan

Transpersonal Integrative Therapist

There is a moment,

perhaps you know it when you look up at the night sky and feel simultaneously impossibly small and strangely held.

Woven of Stars and Wounds

The Sky as Mirror

There is a moment , perhaps you know it, when you look up at the night sky and feel simultaneously impossibly small and strangely held. Not held by anything you can name, but by the simple fact of your existence within something larger than yourself.

Transpersonal psychology describes this as the recognition of a wider field of being, one in which the ego is not the center but a participant. This May, the sky itself seems to be asking us about that field.

Venus has entered Cancer, emphasizing nurturing, connection, and emotional security. Mars moves through Taurus, supporting steady effort and grounded action. Pluto, newly retrograde in Aquarius, turns our attention inward, while the Scorpio Full Moon has demanded emotional honesty and a willingness to engage with what lies beneath the surface.

It feels significant that a sky so rich with themes of attachment, belonging, security, and hidden wounds should find us living in a time when we are increasingly learning to speak openly about the earliest foundations of the self.

The First Relational Field

John Bowlby devoted much of his life to a simple but revolutionary idea: human beings are relational from the beginning.

We do not arrive as isolated individuals who later learn to connect. We begin in connection. The quality of our earliest relationships shapes the assumptions we carry about ourselves and others throughout life.

Bowlby called this an internal working model , an invisible framework through which we interpret love, trust, closeness, and safety. Questions such as Am I worthy of love? Can I rely on others? Is intimacy safe? are often formed long before language emerges.

Together with Mary Ainsworth, Bowlby identified four attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized. These are not fixed personality types but relational adaptations formed in response to early experience.

The securely attached child learns that connection can survive separation. The anxious child learns to monitor relationships for signs of loss. The avoidant child learns that dependence feels unsafe. The disorganized child faces the painful contradiction of finding both comfort and fear in the same relationship.

We did not choose these first relational environments. We entered them as we entered the world itself , already existing, already shaping us.

Pluto Retrograde and the Archaeology of the Wound

Pluto retrograde invites us to explore what has remained hidden.

Pluto governs what is buried, suppressed, or pushed beyond conscious awareness. In many ways, attachment wounds operate in exactly this manner. The child who learns that expressing needs leads to rejection does not consciously decide to suppress those needs. The adaptation occurs beneath awareness and becomes woven into the nervous system.

Years later, these patterns may appear as personality traits, preferences, or life choices. Yet Pluto asks us to look deeper.

A Pluto retrograde period encourages a kind of inner archaeology. Not excavation for the purpose of blame, but for understanding. It asks us to observe the structures beneath our behaviors and recognize how early experiences continue to shape present relationships.

Transpersonal psychology adds an important dimension here. Our wounds are not only sources of suffering; they may also point toward the growth being asked of us. Avoidance may call us toward vulnerability. Anxiety may invite self-trust. Disorganization may ask us to discover that intimacy and safety can coexist.

Pluto is not interested in quick solutions. Its work is slow, patient, and transformative.

Venus in Cancer: The Longing to Belong

Venus in Cancer draws attention to one of the oldest questions the human heart knows:

Do I belong?

Cancer symbolizes home, emotional security, and the original holding environment in which the self begins to emerge. With Venus moving through this sign, themes of attachment, care, and belonging become especially visible.

This longing is not merely psychological. It is deeply human.

The desire to be welcomed, known, and emotionally held is not a weakness or a symptom to overcome. It is part of our nature. We are creatures shaped through relationship.

When we long for closeness yet fear it at the same time, we may be witnessing both our personal attachment history and something larger: the tension between separateness and connection that accompanies human consciousness itself.

Jupiter in Cancer and the Expanding Heart

Jupiter expands whatever it touches, and in Cancer it amplifies emotional depth, care, and relational capacity.

There is a concept in Mahayana Buddhism called bodhicitta, often translated as the awakened heart. It begins with something surprisingly simple: learning to relate to oneself with kindness.

This mirrors what secure attachment often feels like internally, the capacity to become a reliable and compassionate presence for oneself.

From this foundation, care naturally extends outward. Healing is not achieved by denying pain or bypassing wounds. It develops through the courageous process of feeling what is true, grieving what has been lost, and gradually allowing the heart to remain open.

The North Node in Pisces

The North Node currently traveling through Pisces points toward compassion, permeability, and a deeper recognition of our interconnectedness.

Attachment theory teaches that we carry our relationships within us. The North Node in Pisces extends this understanding further, suggesting that we are shaped not only by personal relationships but also by ancestral patterns, collective narratives, and larger fields of meaning.

To recognize this interconnectedness is not to lose individuality. It is to discover that the self has always been part of something greater.

A Closing Reflection

Attachment theory reminds us that we were shaped by our earliest relationships and that those influences remain with us.

Transpersonal psychology reminds us of something equally important: we are not limited to those early shapes.

We are capable of awareness, growth, healing, and transformation.

The stars do not determine our lives. They offer a symbolic mirror through which we may ask deeper questions:

What are you being invited to feel?

What are you being asked to release?

And where, within all of your relational complexity, are you being called toward love?

The answers may not be found in the sky itself, but in the body, the breath, and the quality of attention we bring to ourselves and to one another.

References & Further Reading

• Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss: Volume I – Attachment. Basic Books.

• Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1978). Patterns of Attachment. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

• Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. Hogarth Press.

• Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. SUNY Press.

• Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a Psychology of Being. Van Nostrand.

• Wilber, K. (2000). Integral Psychology. Shambhala Publications.

• Siegel, D. J. (2012). The Developing Mind. Guilford Press.

This article reflects the author’s personal and professional perspective, integrating concepts from psychology, transpersonal studies, and astrology as tools for reflection and self-understanding.

About the Author

Özlem Lemi O’Hanrahan is a Transpersonal Integrative Therapist whose work focuses on self-awareness, emotional healing, attachment patterns, and personal transformation. She contributes to Heart of Astro as a guest author, exploring the intersection of psychology, consciousness, and astrology.