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Welcome to the Astrology Alchemy podcast.
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I'm Sheila Belanger, archetypal astrologer, transformation coach, and your guide for this podcast.
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If you're someone who feels the shifts in the larger field before you can name them, who senses that personal change and collective change are not separate, you have found your people.
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This podcast offers weekly grounded orientation from current astrological cycles, a living mirror for sensitive edge walkers and change makers ready to work consciously with the archetypal currents shaping our world.
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This is the alchemy, turning the lead of confusion and threshold into the gold of genuine wisdom and purposeful action.
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Welcome, let's dive in.
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Hello, welcome to episode number 385 of the Astrology Alchemy podcast.
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This is for the week of October 5th, 2026, and I'm your host and guide, Sheila Belanger.
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A phrase from this week's podcast,"Rather abide at the center of your being." So now we're inside the Venus retrograde season.
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What I call in this retrograde cycle of Venus, the relational alchemist, has crossed the threshold, and this week our interior work begins in earnest, not as concept, but as lived experience Our week opens with the truth teller Mercury joining the el- relational alchemist Venus in the depths, creating a rare moment of conscious communion between thought and feeling, between what is known and what has been hidden.
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By Saturday, that interior work is tested.
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Our creative fire meets the relational depth in direct tension, and a new moon in Libra plants seeds of genuine balance in the middle of it all This is a week for staying close to what is genuinely true in your relational field.
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For letting what has been submerged begin to surface.
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For planting the intention of right relation, even with the complexity of what the relational alchemist is asking us to see So here are the key cycles for this week.
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On Monday, October 5th, Mercury conjuncts Venus retrograde in Scorpio.
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Mercury, the truth-teller here, meets the relational alchemist in the depths.
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When Mercury meets Venus in ordinary direct motion, the contact often has a quality of easy relational communication, thought and feeling finding each other with natural grace.
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But this conjunction is different because Venus is retrograde.
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She's moving inward into the underworld of what has been unacknowledged in our relational fields and with our values And Mercury when it's in Scorpio is a truth teller, the one who probes beneath the surface, who will not be satisfied with the managed version of what is actually happening Consider that their conjunction in Scorpio is a meeting of minds and hearts in the depths.
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The possibility of a rare and genuine inner communion between what you know and what you feel, between what has been thought but not spoken, and what has been felt but not named And in our outer worlds, whether it's personal circle of connection with family and friends and community or the larger collective, this conjunction can bring conversations of unusual depth and honesty, the kind that surface what has been quietly present in the relational field, not always comfortably, but with a particular precision that Scorpio, the sign, and Mercury, the archetype, can carry together.
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it can bring in our inner world a moment of startling clarity.
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Perhaps a recognition of what the relational field and our values have actually been carrying beneath the surface of how things have appeared you might pay attention to what surfaces today in conversation, in dream, in synchronies, in the quiet moments when the deeper knowing rises without being summoned.
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The truth-teller and the relational alchemist are in rare communion.
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What they find together in the depths is worth noting On Tuesday, October 6th, Mars in Leo sextiles Uranus in Gemini.
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Here's a breath of creative fire and mental liberation in a week of considerable interior depth Mars in Leo's instinctual creative force finds easy flow with Uranus in Gemini's awakening and quickening.
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The action taker and the disruptor in harmonious conversation.
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Sudden creative impulse, unexpected breakthrough, the quickened mind finding its expression in genuine action This sextile carries the fire-air elemental grammar that we've been tracking all season.
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And in the context of the Venus retrograde interior work, it really offers something important.
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The reminder that depth does not require the suspension of aliveness, that the descent into what is genuine in the relational field and with your values does not extinguish the creative fire, that these all can be present simultaneously Perhaps you might notice this as a day of genuine creative energy alongside the interior depth the week is carrying.
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Maybe an idea that arrives with unusual clarity, an impulse toward expression or action that feels both free and purposeful.
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Let your creative fire move.
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It is not in opposition to the alchemical work.
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It is part of what your relational alchemist is protecting and restoring And then
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Saturday, October 10th, Venus retrograde in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo, and we have a new moon at 17 degrees of Libra Here are two significant movements on the same day.
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One testing your interior work, one planting seeds for what genuine balance can become Let's look at Venus retrograde in Scorpio squaring Mars in Leo first.
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The relational alchemist in her most probing and truth-seeking mode meets the instinctive crate of fire in direct tension This square asks a specific and uncomfortable question.
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Where has your desire to be genuinely seen, Mars in Leo's deepest need, been in conflict with what your relational field actually requires when the truth is fully known?
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Venus in Scorpio is moving through what has been hidden in relationships and your values.
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Mars in Leo is moving through what the heart most wants to express and offer.
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Their square brings these two into friction.
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The depth and the fire, the hidden truth, and the desire for genuine visibility, the relational reckoning and the creative offering Perhaps you might notice this as a day of tension between what feels true in your relational field and what your creative self most wants to express or receive.
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Between the depth of what Venus is helping to uncover and the heat of what Mars most desires Consider this tension is not a problem to be resolved It is the alchemical friction that genuine transformation requires.
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This square is doing its work, pressing on what has been an unexamined tension so that it can be seen and eventually metabolized.
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And in our larger collective field, this square carries the same essential tension between the hidden relational and value truths of systems built on domination and the genuine creative fire that wants to express something different, between what the collective relational field has actually been carrying and what the heart of genuine culture most wants to offer I invite you to stay with this friction It's working something very real And then on the same day, the new moon is in Libra.
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Within the same day as Venus square Mars, a lunar seeding in the sign of balance, beauty, and right relation.
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Here is a significant placement.
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The zodiac sign of Libra is considered Venus' home sign.
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And with Venus currently retrograde in Scorpio, this new moon, this new beginning in Libra is being held by the relational alchemist from her depths It's as if Venus is planting seeds in her own domain while she's away on her interior journey What might that mean?
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Perhaps that even within the intensity of the retrograde journey, the
hidden truths that are surfacing, the relational and value reckonings, the alchemical friction The possibility of genuine balance and right relation is being seeded.
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It's not achieved, not yet, but genuinely planted You might be with this invitation.
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What is your vision of right relation that you want to seed at this new moon?
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Not what the retrograde has broken down or revealed as insufficient, but what genuinely balanced, genuinely beautiful, genuinely reciprocal relationship with another person, with your own relational life, with the collective field.
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What do you wanna plant as the intention that will develop through the coming weeks?
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Remember that Venus is also about our values and what we spend our life energy on.
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So one of the great gifts of this Venus retrograde cycle in Scorpio is truth-telling around what do I really care about?
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What is worth spending my precious life energy on?
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Am I living the life that my soul really wants me to be living?
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Libra's new moon in the middle of Venus retrograde is the relational alchemist's own reminder that the descent serves a genuine vision of beauty.
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That what is being composted in the relational field is making ground for something genuinely more alive.
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In your own way, plant that vision today, even within the friction, especially within the friction.
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So a simple little recap for this week.
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A reminder, we are one week into the Venus retrograde season The Mercury-Venus conjunction on Monday this week brings the truth-teller into communion with the relational alchemist.
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Tuesday's Mars-Uranus sextile offers you the creative fire and its moment of genuine aliveness within the interior depth.
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And Saturday will bring both the friction of genuine alchemical tension and the seeding of a vision that the friction is ultimately serving This is how retrograde cycles work.
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It's not sustained darkness or sustained difficulty, but spiraling movement between depth and surface, between what is being composted and what is being seeded, between the hidden truth and the genuine vision of what becomes possible when that truth is fully known And the new moon at the end of this week in Libra is at the center of Venus retrograde's first full week.
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It's a kind of promise from the relational alchemist.
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The descent is in service to beauty and justice.
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The composting is in service of genuine right relation What is being asked to die in how we love and value is making room for something that is genuinely more alive I invite you to stay with that work and trust this arc Here are some reflection questions to support you this week With Monday's Mercury-Venus conjunction, notice what's surfacing from the depths in conversation, in dream, in quiet knowing.
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What is worth carrying forward from that union?
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A second question.
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The end of the week, the Venus-Mars square can bring friction between the hidden relational truth and your heart's desire to be genuinely seen and expressed.
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Where in your own life is that friction most alive?
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And what is it pressing on that needs to be seen rather than resolved?
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And then finally, at Saturday's new moon in Libra, what vision of genuine balance and right relation do you want to plant as a seed that will develop through this retrograde season?
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especially within around the complexity of what is being composted The poem I wanna offer you for this week is from an ancient elder, Lao Tzu.
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It's called Always We Hope Always we hope someone else has the answer, some other place will be better, some other time it will all turn out This is it.
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No one else has the answer.
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No other place will be better, and it has already turned out At the center of your being, you have the answer.
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You know who you are and you know what you want There is no need to run outside for better seeing nor to peer from a window.
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Rather, abide at the center of your being, for the more you leave it, the less you learn Search your heart and see.
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The way to do is to be powers, we hope by Lao Tzu Thank you as always for your ongoing and incredible support.
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I appreciate the emails.
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I appreciate you referring friends and connections to this podcast, donations if you care to make it.
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Mostly, I appreciate that my offering can support you to stay grounded and truer to yourself in these extraordinary tumultuous times of initiation And I want to remind you that I have this free taster workshop coming up Saturday, October 10th, honoring the water element Venus has just stationed retrograde in Scorpio, and the Relational Alchemist is in her depths.
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The water spiral in my offerings, the elemental pathway of genuine emotional sovereignty, and the depth work that transforms rather than manages is the natural companion for this season.
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Consider joining me in my Reclaim Inner Sovereignty taster workshop.
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It's totally free.
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If you can't join live, anyone who registers get a- gets access to the workshop replay.
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Saturday, October 10th from 9:00 to 11:00 AM Pacific.
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More information and the link to register is on my homepage of my website, ontheedgesofchange.com.
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Look for the section What's Coming in the Autumn Season.
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Join us if you can.
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You have been listening to the Astrology Alchemy podcast with your host, Shelia Belanger.
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If you'd like to go deeper, visit my website, ontheedgesofchange.com, for many resources for your transformation journey.
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A great place to begin is my free Elemental Spiral Quiz, a short reflective tool that helps you discover which elemental pathway is most alive in your current season of change.
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The link to the quiz is on the homepage.
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Thank you for listening, and thank you for being someone who shows up consciously at the edges of change.
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Bless your alchemical journey.