Astrology Alchemy Podcast

Freya's Day and the Return
Inanna has risen. After weeks in the underworld, Venus has been back in the pre-dawn sky, and this week she turns toward the light for real. Many of us in the United States are also still carrying an election in our bodies and hearts. Naming the outcomes are less important that what you feel, and trusting that. What I can offer is the long view, and a reminder that you do not have to metabolize all of the changes in a single week.
Key Cycles This Week:
Monday, November 9: Venus retrograde in Libra sextiles Mars in Leo.
Desire and action find each other. What you came to value in the descent meets the courage to move on it. Venus is still in review, so think small and true: one honest conversation, one boundary kept, one thing you finally say yes to.
Friday, November 13: Freya's Day. Mercury turns direct at 5 degrees of Scorpio. Venus turns direct at 23 degrees of Libra.
The cycles at the heart of the week. Friday the 13th belongs to Freya, goddess of love and wisdom. On her day the Relational Alchemist and Mercury as the Truth-Teller begin moving forward again. Inanna returns changed, carrying knowledge of her dark sister, and Mercury walks beside her as Hermes, conductor of souls and god of the crossroads. You may feel a loosening, a sentence that finally has words. Don't rush to act on all of it. Let what you learned come up into daylight slowly.
Sunday, November 15: Mars in Leo conjunct Jupiter in Leo.
The biggest fire of the month. Courage and conviction in warm, generous Leo can lift us into inspired action, or puff us up into righteousness. Leo is also where the South Node sits, an invitation to lead without needing the spotlight. Ask gently: is this in service of something, or in service of being seen? The world needs your fire grounded.
The Bigger Field
This week sits inside the year's astrological backbone. In February, Saturn met Neptune at the first degree of Aries, the starting point of the zodiac, and many of us felt we were beginning again. Neptune now moves through Aries for fourteen years, asking us to track a calling from a spell. In July, Uranus trined Pluto for the first time, when the mood of metamorphosis and unrest became hard to miss. The next exact meeting is November 29, one of five reaching into Spring of 2028.
Within it, the United States is completing its Pluto return, the once-in-248-years return of Pluto to its founding position (the effects are felt several years before and after the exact return). A return is a descent, and what was built on the foundation rises for review. Pluto brings what is hidden into view so it can be faced. In my 2026 forecast, I invited these practices for the year: courage without certainty, responsibility over righteousness, adaptability without collapse, participation over paralysis. The question is not what we fight for, it is how we act when called.
Reflection Questions
What did your own descent teach you that you are only now able to say out loud?
Where do you feel the pull toward righteousness this week, and what might responsibility look like in your body, not just your head?
Imagining yourself as an ancestor looking back, what small act of participation today would you want to have made?
Podcast poem: What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte
If this podcast has helped you see the shape of the year you have been living, my 2026 astrology forecast recording is available for free. It maps the backbone cycles we have walked all year and may land differently now that you have lived through them. Find it at ontheedgesofchange.com/astrology.
I will also offer a free astrology forecast webinar for 2027 on Saturday, January 2nd. To stay informed about the webinar details, join my email list through the button on my homepage of website.
Support the show
Go to Sheila's website for information for transformational resources: 
https://www.ontheedgesofchange.com

This episode was co-created with generative AI, engaged as a soul-aligned ally in service of transformation. At the edge where technology meets myth, I choose insight over noise, and alchemy over automation. Thank you for dreaming the future with me.

Steady Ground, Honest Seeds
Venus has returned from the underworld and is visible again in the pre-dawn sky, though she is still retrograde and still integrating what she met there. Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio, turning everything inward. And this week, those of us in the United States are living through a midterm election.
I will not tell you who or what to choose. I will offer an invitation as an elder: please vote. It is one of the few moments when we each act on behalf of a future larger than our own lifetime, for the children here now, the ones not yet born, and the water, soil, and web of life that holds us all. Make a plan today. If you are voting in-person on November 3, check your state's official election site for your polling place and hours.
Key Cycles This Week:
Tuesday, November 3: Election Day in the United States.
No transit here, only a quiet note. With Mercury retrograde, i fyou are voting in-person, double-check your polling place and give yourself extra time. Then tend your nervous system. Eat something. Step outside. Call someone you love.
Wednesday, November 4: Sun conjunct Mercury retrograde in Scorpio. Venus retrograde in Libra sextiles Jupiter in Leo.
The Sun meets Mercury in the depths, seeding a new four-month Mercury cycle. This first phase is about observing and insight, less analysis than a quiet flash of knowing. You may notice something land today. Write it down. It is the first seed of what this cycle wants to grow.
Venus, still retrograde, finds easy warmth with Jupiter. After the stripping and the descent, a softening. What she carried back is worth offering. Let a moment of tenderness in.
Sunday, November 8: New Moon at 17 degrees of Scorpio, squaring Mars and Jupiter in Leo.
A New Moon in Scorpio asks for honest seeds planted quietly. What has the descent taught you about love, worth, and what you will no longer abandon in yourself? The squares to Mars and Jupiter create a pull between keeping the seed private and making something big of it right now. A seed pulled up too early to be admired does not grow. Plant it first, and let the fire come when it has roots.
Larger Frame
We are near the end of the underworld journey. Inanna has risen but has not yet fully returned. Be steady in a loud week. Notice the quiet knowing. Plant one honest seed, and let it root before you rush to show it.
Reflection Questions
This week, what helps you stay grounded and kind to yourself while so much is loud around you?
At the Sun and Mercury meeting, what quiet knowing arrived that you want to keep?
At the New Moon, what has the underworld taught you that you want to carry forward as a promise?
Podcast poem: A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford
If you are new to this work, or curious what it feels like to be in a room of kindred people, join me for Gather at the Edge, my free monthly group coaching gathering. This month it falls on Friday, November 13, from noon to 1:30 pm Pacific, the same day Venus and Mercury turn direct. It is a gentle doorway with nothing to prepare. Find details and register at ontheedgesofchange.com under "Ways to Begin."
Support the show
Go to Sheila's website for information for transformational resources: 
https://www.ontheedgesofchange.com

This episode was co-created with generative AI, engaged as a soul-aligned ally in service of transformation. At the edge where technology meets myth, I choose insight over noise, and alchemy over automation. Thank you for dreaming the future with me.

The Morning Star Rises into Samhain
We are in the deep of it now.
Venus is still moving through the underworld. Mercury is retrograde in Scorpio. And this week the wheel of the year turns to Samhain, the feast of the dead, the thinning veil, the moment when the ancestors draw close. This is not a week for rushing. It is a week for slowing down enough to let what is present be genuinely present.
Key Cycles This Week:
Monday, October 26: Sun in Scorpio squares Pluto in Aquarius.
The Conscious Self in the sign of depth meets the Transformer in direct tension. Where is power being used in ways not genuinely in service of life? Where is control masquerading as care? Sun square Pluto insists that what is true beneath the surface be named, even when naming it is uncomfortable. See clearly. Stay grounded. Do not look away.
Wednesday, October 28: Venus retrograde in Libra opposes Chiron in Aries. Second opposition.
The first opposition on September 10th named the wound, the body and self that has never quite believed it deserves genuine belonging. This second opposition is met by someone who has genuinely descended. Who has been stripped. Who has been to the bottom. What does the wound look like from inside the descent? Sometimes it becomes more specific, more honest, less the general story of unworthiness and more the precise places where genuine care was genuinely absent. What has the underworld clarified about this wound that the upper world could not?
Thursday, October 29: Venus rises as the Morning Star at 27 degrees of Libra.
She is back. Not fully, the retrograde continues through November 13th and the integration of what the underworld produced is still in process. But she is visible again, rising before the sun in the pre-dawn sky after ten days of darkness. She rises in Libra, in her home sign, carrying the grace of genuine right relation, now tempered by everything Scorpio's underworld asked of her. Go outside before dawn if you can. Look east. She is there.
Friday, October 30: Mercury retrograde in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo.
Mercury as the truth-teller moving backward through the depths meets the creative fire in direct tension, the same square that appeared at the beginning of October, now revisited from deeper inside the interior journey. What did not get fully said the first time? What truth around genuine visibility and creative expression is asking for one more honest encounter? Mercury retrograde squares rarely bring new information. They bring the same essential question back with less room to avoid what was not yet fully faced.
Samhain — Saturday October 31 and Sunday November 1:
No astrological transit needed here. The wheel turns to the feast of the dead. The veil between the living and the ancestors is at its thinnest. And this year Samhain arrives in the same week as Venus's return from the underworld, the mythic field in deep coherence. What Inanna brought back from the Great Below was not only her own transformation. She brought back knowledge of her dark sister, the grief and abandoned feminine that had been locked away.
At Samhain the ancestors who made their own descents are present. The ones who grieved and loved and were excluded and endured, they are at the table. And Venus, newly risen, carrying what the underworld taught her, she is at the table too.
Light a candle. Set a place. Let what has been invisible be present.
Reflection Questions
At this second Venus-Chiron opposition, what do you know about your relational wound now, from inside the descent, that you did not know before?
At Samhain, whose absence do you feel most keenly — in your personal lineage, in your community, in the collective field — and what would it mean to genuinely honor that absence rather than move past it?
As Venus rises as the Morning Star, what are you carrying back from your own inner descent that you want to bring consciously into the light, even before you fully understand what it is?
Podcast poem: a part of Mother Wisdom Speaks by Christine Lore Webber
Support the show
Go to Sheila's website for information for transformational resources: 
https://www.ontheedgesofchange.com

This episode was co-created with generative AI, engaged as a soul-aligned ally in service of transformation. At the edge where technology meets myth, I choose insight over noise, and alchemy over automation. Thank you for dreaming the future with me.

On the Hook in the Underworld
She is gone.
Venus has descended into the sun's glare and disappeared from the evening sky. For ten days the Relational Alchemist is in the underworld, invisible. If you have been feeling something stripped or raw or suspended between who you were and who you are not yet, that is not a personal failing. That is the myth you are aligned with living inside. That is the season doing its exact and necessary work.
The Week as Mythic Journey:
Monday, October 19: Venus squares Pluto and descends into the underworld.
One final confrontation with the Transformer before she becomes invisible,  everything the retrograde has been working concentrated into a single threshold crossing. Monday night she disappears. The sky is different. The relational field is different. The Relational Alchemist is below.
Wednesday, October 21: Sun in Libra opposes Chiron in Aries.
Midway through the descent, an honest illumination. What has been excluded from genuine belonging? What has the relational self been carrying in silence? Sun opposite Chiron does not resolve the wound. But it shows it clearly. Let yourself see what is being shown. This is one of the gates of the underworld process.
Friday, October 23: Sun enters Scorpio and conjuncts Venus retrograde (the inferior conjunction). The new Venus cycle begins.
This is the sacred center of the week. Venus between Earth and Sun, invisible in the solar fire, held in the heart of the light. In the Inanna myth this is the moment she hangs on the hook, neither alive nor dead, neither the old self nor the new. The death and the birth in the same breath, where Sun and Venus conjoin at 0 degrees of Scorpio, the precise threshold where endings and beginnings meet.
If you have been doing genuine interior work this retrograde season, today you are at the seed point. Something is dying that needed to die. Something is being seeded that you cannot yet see. Trust what is being planted in the dark, even when you cannot feel it yet.
Saturday, October 24: Mercury turns retrograde at 21 degrees of Scorpio, remaining retrograde until November 13.
The Truth-teller follows the Relational Alchemist into the underworld. With both Venus and Mercury retrograde in Scorpio simultaneously, the field is asking unambiguously for interior focus. Slow the decisions. Let the charged communications breathe. What has the mind been moving around rather than through?
Here is something worth holding that is coming. On November 13, Friday the 13th, both Venus and Mercury turn direct on the same day. The Relational Alchemist emerging from the underworld, alongside Mercury carrying his ancient face as Hermes, conductor of souls, god of the crossroads, the one who guides what has been in the depths back into the light. Both turning direct on a day dominator culture has long projected darkness onto. Friday the 13th carries the ancient fingerprints of the feminine, named for Freya, goddess of love and wisdom, the number thirteen belonging to the lunar calendar and the cycles of the feminine body. That Venus rises and Hermes guides her home on that day feels less like coincidence and more like the myth completing itself with intention.
Sunday, October 25: Venus retrograde re-enters Libra. Full Moon at 3 degrees of Taurus squaring Pluto and opposing Venus retrograde.
Venus is still invisible, still in the underworld, but she has crossed back into her home sign and is beginning the long movement toward her eventual rising.
The Full Moon in Taurus (the earth, the body, embodied worthiness ) illuminates all of it. Squaring Pluto, opposing Venus retrograde, the body receiving what the underworld has been working. Feel it in the belly, the chest, the weight of the jaw. What has loosened? What is the body carrying differently than a month ago? You do not need to understand it. Let the body feel it.
Reflection Questions
At the inferior conjunction (the seed point of the new Venus cycle)  what in your relational life has genuinely completed, even if you did not choose it?
The Full Moon in Taurus asks your body to receive what the underworld has been working. What does your body know about what has shifted in you during this descent?
In the suspension between Venus as Evening Star and Morning Star, what are you being asked to trust in the dark, before the rising, before you can see what the new cycle is carrying?
Podcast poem: In Impossible Darkness by Kim Rosen
Support the show
Go to Sheila's website for information for transformational resources: 
https://www.ontheedgesofchange.com

This episode was co-created with generative AI, engaged as a soul-aligned ally in service of transformation. At the edge where technology meets myth, I choose insight over noise, and alchemy over automation. Thank you for dreaming the future with me.

Inanna at the Gate
There is an ancient story that belongs to this week.
Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, descends into the underworld voluntarily. She dresses in her full regalia, everything that marks her power and identity, and descends through seven gates. At each gate she is asked to surrender something. She arrives at the bottom naked and bowed low before Ereshkigal, her dark sister, the Queen of the Great Below. The one who was sent underground so Inanna could reign above.
Ereshkigal is not evil. She is the grief that was never held. The rage that was never witnessed. The abandoned feminine who became the underworld because the upper world could not contain her.
Inanna descends not to conquer her dark sister. She descends to face her. To complete something in herself that cannot be completed in the light.
This is the myth of this week. And of the weeks immediately ahead. Because on October 19, Venus will literally disappear from the sky, descending into the sun's glare, invisible for ten days. The Relational Alchemist entering the underworld in the literal heavens above us.
This week we stand at the upper gates. We can feel the descent approaching.
A Note — Indigenous Peoples Day, Monday October 12:
A "national holiday" that was changed from celebrating Columbus, a colonial extractor. The original peoples of this land have been the Ereshkigal of this continent's dominant narrative, invisibilized, excluded, locked in the underworld of collective acknowledgment so the colonizer story could reign above. Indigenous Peoples Day is a small but genuine movement at the gate. A turning toward what has been sent below. The mythic field making itself visible through the calendar.
Key Cycles This Week:
Thursday, October 15: Sun in Libra sextiles Jupiter in Leo. Pluto turns direct at 3 degrees of Aquarius.
The Sun-Jupiter sextile is a genuine gift, warmth, beauty, generous connection before the descent deepens. Let it land. Let yourself be in genuine contact with others today.
Pluto turns direct after being retrograde since early May. The entire extraordinary summer happened with Pluto moving inward. Now the Transformer begins moving forward again — what has been composted in the collective depths through these months begins finding outward expression. As Venus approaches the underworld gate, Pluto begins its outward movement. The inner descent and the outer restructuring are two movements of the same alchemical process.
Friday, October 16: Mars in Leo trines Saturn in Aries.
The creative fire finds easy alignment with the Structurer. Grounded commitment. The structural holding that makes genuine descent possible without becoming dissolution. Inanna's story would not end in emergence if there were not those in the upper world who held the thread and ground. This trine is that thread.
What Is Approaching — The Gate:
On October 19, Venus disappears into the sun's glare. For ten days the Relational Alchemist is in the underworld, literally unseeable. She will conjunct the Sun at 0 degrees of Scorpio, the formal threshold between Evening Star and Morning Star, but will not be seen in that crossing. She emerges October 29 at her Heliacal rising, visible once more as a Morning Star. Bright. Transformed.
These ten days ask something specific. Attend to what has been excluded. What relational truth has been locked away? What self-worth pattern has been operating beneath the surface? What unfinished business around love, genuine belonging, or what has been sent below is asking for honest attention?
This week is the preparation. What are you bringing with you into the underworld?
Reflection Questions
As you stand at the upper gates of Inanna's descent, what are you still carrying that may need to be surrendered before you reach the bottom?
As Pluto turns direct, what has genuinely shifted in you through these extraordinary months that is ready to find more outward expression?
As Venus approaches her literal underworld descent on October 19, what unfinished relational business is asking for your honest attention in the ten days ahead?
Podcast poem: Tilicho Lake by David Whyte
Support the show
Go to Sheila's website for information for transformational resources: 
https://www.ontheedgesofchange.com

This episode was co-created with generative AI, engaged as a soul-aligned ally in service of transformation. At the edge where technology meets myth, I choose insight over noise, and alchemy over automation. Thank you for dreaming the future with me.