Astrology Alchemy Podcast

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.

The Relational Alchemist and the Truth-Teller
We are inside the Venus retrograde season now. The Relational Alchemist has crossed the threshold. This week the interior work begins in earnest, the Truth-teller joining the Relational Alchemist in the depths, the creative fire meeting the relational depth in direct tension, and a New Moon in Libra planting seeds of genuine balance in the middle of it all.
Key Cycles This Week:
Monday, October 5: Mercury conjuncts Venus retrograde in Scorpio.
The Truth-teller meets the Relational Alchemist in the depths. A rare inner communion between what has been thought but not spoken and what has been felt but not named. In conversation this conjunction can surface what has been quietly present in the relational field with unusual honesty and precision. In the inner world it can bring startling clarity about what the relational field has actually been carrying beneath the surface. Pay attention to what surfaces today — in conversation, in dream, in quiet knowing. The Truth-teller and the Relational Alchemist are in rare communion.
Tuesday, October 6: Mars in Leo sextiles Uranus in Gemini.
A breath of creative fire and mental liberation in a week of considerable interior depth. The instinctual creative force in easy flow with the Awakener — sudden creative impulse, unexpected breakthrough, the quickened mind finding expression in genuine action. A reminder that depth does not require the suspension of aliveness. The descent into what is genuine does not extinguish the creative fire. Let it move today.
Saturday, October 10: Venus retrograde in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo. New Moon at 17 degrees of Libra.
Two significant movements on the same day, one testing the interior work, one planting seeds for what genuine balance can become.
Venus square Mars brings the Relational Alchemist's probing depth into direct tension with the heart's desire to be genuinely seen and expressed. Where has the desire for genuine visibility been in conflict with what the relational field actually requires when the truth is fully known? This tension is not a problem to be resolved. It is the alchemical friction that genuine transformation requires.
The New Moon in Libra, Venus's home zodiac sign, arrives on the same day. With Venus retrograde in Scorpio, this lunation is being held by the Relational Alchemist from the depths. Even within the intensity of the retrograde work, the possibility of genuine balance and right relation is being seeded. What vision of genuinely reciprocal relationship do you want to plant today? Not what the retrograde has broken down, but what you want to grow in its place. Plant that vision. Even within the friction. Especially within the friction.
Larger Frame
This is how the retrograde works. Not as sustained darkness but as a spiraling movement between depth and surface, between what is being composted and what is being seeded. The New Moon in Libra at the center of this first full retrograde week is the Relational Alchemist's own promise, the descent is in service of beauty, the composting in service of genuine right relation.
Stay with the work. Trust the arc.
Reflection Questions
At Monday's Mercury-Venus conjunction, what has surfaced in the depths that the Truth-teller and the Relational Alchemist found together? What is worth carrying forward?
Where is the Venus-Mars friction most alive in your own relational field, and what is it pressing on that needs to be seen rather than resolved?
At the New Moon in Libra, what vision of genuine balance and right relation do you want to plant as the seed that will develop through this retrograde season?
Podcast poem: Always We Hope by Lao Tzu
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 Relational Alchemist Enters the Underworld
A brief note. These episodes are prerecorded during tiem away. I am not tracking current events in real time. Hold what I offer here alongside what you are actually living.
This week the Relational Alchemist enters the underworld. Venus stations retrograde at 8 degrees of Scorpio. 
This is not a gentle week. It is not meant to be. Genuine initiation rarely arrives gently.
Key Cycles This Week:
Monday, September 28: Sun in Libra trines Uranus in Gemini. 
A genuine breath before the descent. Clarity and unexpected connection. The relational mind finding a new angle on something that has felt fixed. Let the air element be generous today, carry as much clarity and openness as possible into what follows.
Tuesday, September 29: Mercury in Libra opposes Chiron in Aries. 
The Communicator in Libra seeks the right words for genuine relational encounter. Chiron in Aries holds the wound of the voice that has learned to be smaller than what is actually true. Their opposition asks: where has the search for relational harmony been suppressing what the self actually needs to say? Notice what you are not yet saying. It may be asking for its moment before the week is done.
Wednesday, September 30: Mercury enters Scorpio (remaining through December 6 due to retrograde motion). 
The diplomat becomes the truth-teller. Nearly ten weeks of the Communicator in the sign of hidden truth and what lives beneath the surface of what is spoken. Mercury entering Scorpio two days before Venus stations retrograde is the Communicator taking its place beside the Relational Alchemist at the gate of the underworld. They will descend together.
Friday, October 2: Mercury in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo and Pluto in Aquarius. Mars in Leo trines Neptune in Aries. 
All at 2 to 3 degrees of fixed signs, the pressure building to its concentration point. Mercury squaring both Mars and Pluto asks the truth-teller to find language for what lives at both the personal and collective level simultaneously.
Mars is the lower octave of Pluto, personal will and instinctual force at the immediate level, Pluto the transpersonal transformative power beneath it. When Mercury squares both, the shadow of dominator culture is concentrated in the fixed field — the rage, the violence, the aggression normalized across generations. Mercury in Scorpio names what others prefer to leave unnamed.
The elder's discernment matters here. There is a crucial difference between the destructive expression of shadow and its genuine alchemical transmutation. Rage metabolized through Plutonian awareness becomes fuel for genuine change. Rage vented without that awareness perpetuates the cycle it opposes.
Mars trine Neptune is the necessary counterpoint, creative fire finding easy flow with the imaginal field. Vision and genuine inspiration available alongside the shadow confrontation. Both are present today. Which one you feed matters.
Saturday, October 3: Venus stations retrograde at 8 degrees of Scorpio. Mars in Leo opposes Pluto in Aquarius.
The threshold day.
Mars opposing Pluto concentrates what Friday was building toward, the instinctual creative fire in direct confrontation with the Transformer at the collective level. Where genuine creative expression meets collective restructuring and must decide whether it serves the old dominator dynamic or the genuinely new.
And then Venus stations retrograde.
The Relational Alchemist pauses and turns inward. Everything Venus governs intensifies at the moment of the station — relationships, values, what we deem worthy of genuine care, what we are willing to acknowledge as the true cost of how we have been living and loving.
She does not descend because it is comfortable. She descends because genuine sovereignty requires facing what lives in the depths. What has been hidden. What the surface management of relationship has been protecting us from knowing about ourselves.
You might feel this as unusual heaviness or depth in the relational field. A sense that something is being asked that cannot be deferred any longer. Honor the threshold. Feel the weight of what is being crossed.
Sunday, October 4: Sun in Libra opposes Saturn in Aries. 
The day after the threshold, the reality principle arrives. Direct, unsentimental, honest about what is actually here. Saturn's gift at the opening of the Venus retrograde season is the honest assessment the interior journey requires, not the performed version of depth but the genuine ground from which real transformation becomes possible.
Larger Frame
The retrograde arc runs through November 14. Two more Venus-Pluto squares. Two more Venus-Chiron oppositions. Mercury joining the retrograde field October 24 through November 12. A sustained two-month season of relational alchemy, each contact bringing a different facet of what the Relational Alchemist is asking to be seen and transformed.
In the collective field, Venus retrograde in Scorpio asks what has been the true cost of how love, value, and resource have been organized under dominator culture. What genuinely needs to die in how the collective relates to the feminine, to the earth, to what is worthy of genuine care?
The descent serves the emergence. Trust that.
Reflection Questions
As Mercury in Scorpio squares Mars and Pluto, where is the truth-teller in you being asked to name what has been unsaid — and what is the difference between shadow's destructive expression and its genuine alchemical transmutation?
At Venus's retrograde station, what is present at the threshold that you have been deferring acknowledgment of — in your relational life, in what you value, in what you claim as worthy of genuine care?
As Sunday's Sun-Saturn opposition offers its honest assessment, what is the genuine ground from which you are entering this retrograde season?
Podcast poem: Trough by Judy Sorum Brown
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.