#222-“Your First Duty-Seeking Out Beauty in the World”—Week of Aug 21, 2023

A strong week for reviewing how and where you use your life energy. Venus (Relational One) retrograde in Leo squares Jupiter (Wise One) in Taurus challenging you to question some outworn paradigms about "holding on" to stay secure in relationships. Mars (Advocate ) in Virgo opposes Neptune (Dreamer) in Pisces catalyzing you to tune into where you are doing too much and need to activate more of your “being-ness.” Mercury (Messenger) turns retrograde in Virgo for a three-week journey in unexpected changes with communication, schedules and your certainty about how things should go. Time to release mental patterns of trying to fix, rescue or order your Universe to be a certain way. Instead, develop your capacity to flow with change in healthy ways. At the end of the week, Mars enters Libra offering you a 6-week opportunity to stand up for more balance, respect and reciprocity in all your relationships (inside and out). 

Podcast poem: “Instructions to the Worker Bee” by Lucy Adkins

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello, welcome to Astrology Alchemy. I'm Sheila Belanger, your host for this podcast. Alchemy is defined as a seemingly magical process of transformation. Spiritual alchemy is the process of pursuing the gold of your true nature by transmuting the unrefined, limiting parts of yourself. In this podcast, I'll offer you inspiring insights from current astrology cycles that support your path of turning your personal lead into gold.

Speaker 2: 0:37

More resources are available at the website on theedgesofchangecom. Hello and welcome to the podcast for the week of August 21st. I'm your host and guide, sheila Belanger. We have some incredible energy supporting earth awareness and deep changes this week and continued work with Venus retrograde. So here's a sentence from this week's poem your first duty seeking out beauty in the world. That sentence is a great segue to the first astrology cycle this week I would like you to be aware of, on Tuesday, august 22. Venus in Leo retrograde squares Jupiter at 15 degrees of Leo and Taurus. Now Venus, remember, is the lover, relational one, and currently in a deep retrograde phase of inviting us to re-evaluate so many things around relationships, resource management and values. Now Venus has risen as a morning star just a few days ago. So there is this turning of the cycle as a new energy and I hope some of you have felt an inner sovereignty or, if not that, a crankiness with the old inner and outer restrictions that happen for you and a capacity to say wait, I've got to change this. And this is what this Venus Square Jupiter helps you with. Jupiter is the wise one, the mentor, the teacher, expanded one as an archetype. It has everything to do with our belief systems and our paradigms and how we grow ourselves. Jupiter is in Taurus and has recently come into Taurus. Taurus is an earth sign that has us look at our sensuality, our resources, our security, our safety. One of the greatest gifts of the year-long journey of Jupiter and Taurus is challenging us to question our paradigms about security and safety and resources. Now the great earth mother is showing us so deeply, with climate chaos and the horrendous suffering with wildfires and floods and heat, that we are no longer safe carrying the paradigms, the colonial, dominator mindset paradigms, the usury of I'm just going to take and not pay attention to how it impacts the earth and everyone else. So that is just totally up Now. Venus Square. Jupiter says there's tension between these archetypes in you and in the world. I want to be in my sovereignty, leo. I want to shine my gifts, I want to be visible. But the tension with Jupiter says and what are the paradigms you're carrying about how you work with resources and security? It's over the paradigm of me first, and it's time to grow more powerfully into the we, into the collective awareness of we must steward based on what's right for everybody, still honoring ourselves, still having sovereignty, and yet we have to grow into leaders and sovereigns who say what's best for all the people and the animals and the ecosystem, etc. So it's very strong energy and this Venus Square Jupiter that happens this week. This is the second time in its cycle, its recent cycle. The first time Venus was square Jupiter was on June 12th of this year and the third and last time for the current cycle will be September 17th. So we're in a three month journey with Jupiter and Venus. That is really asking us to look at our paradigms in relationships and how do we spend our life energy. You know a couple of questions that I've given my students in my private course on Venus retrograde is. Here's three for you to consider with relationships, inner and outer. What beliefs and paradigms about relationships need to change by this time in the Venus retrograde cycle? If you have any sensitivity to it, you know what they are. The second point about resource stewardship what supports you to release survival fear that wastes your life energy? This comes from the wounded side of tourists and the scarcity and the holding on and the clinging oh, if I don't have mine, I'm not going to be okay and that survival strategy of clinging and hoarding and holding on and locking yourself down doesn't work. So, looking at that, whether it's money, it's time, it's energy. One young woman I recently spoke with her perception she's holding on to an old relationship she's outgrown because she doesn't know if she'll have another one in the future. It's a great example. And being able to gently and compassionately and courageously say wait, what if I let go of this and trust somehow that my life will be better, it has that quality. And then the third question with the Jupiter Venus cycle is what is needing to change so that you can reclaim your courageous self-expression, that you can honor your self-worth and your essential needs in a sacred way that again isn't from a wounded, narcissistic place, but from a like I will take a stand for myself. So lots of paradigm shifting here, with Jupiter and Venus squaring each other. Just notice. Notice how you might be attuning with this and notice that the cycle still goes until mid-September. So you're a work in progress, like all of us are. Now. The other thing that happens on Tuesday, august 22nd is Mars is opposite Neptune at 27 degrees of Virgo Pisces. A reminder to my audience if you don't understand the degree measurement, you don't worry about it. Many of my people are astrologers or they understand that. They'll take that degree measurement, put it in their chart and get even more understanding of how this cycle is showing up for them. But the generic energy that still helps you archetypally is Mars is the warrior warrior as advocate, taking a stand, going after what you want. Neptune is the dream or visionary, soft, kind of fluid, shape-shifting one. They're very different archetypes and when planets are opposite each other those archetypes are in a conversation of balance. Now Mars is in Virgo, a very grounded earth sign that wants to heal, that wants to fix what's broken, that wants to serve, that wants to make things right. Neptune is in Pisces, the opposite sign, and that is a fluid, watery, changing, compassionate, very, very yin energy. So what we have with Mars opposite Neptune is the essential life journey of balancing doing Virgo, mars and Virgo and being Neptune and Pisces. This is a very powerful invitation for you to look at your worker-be self and your constant do-do-do and serve-serve-serve and trying to fix everything and recognize whoa, whoa, whoa. How about I let go of that a bit and get more into the dream underneath, more into how could I be doing through being? It can be things like gently just witnessing the world, you know a squirrel in your garden, a magnificent sunset, the laughter of your grandchild erupting out, right, it doesn't have to always be a physical doing, which is one of the challenges of the Earth science, and so notice how this might be stirring for you. And then, on Wednesday, august 23rd, mercury goes retrograde at 21 degrees of Virgo and will be retrograde until September 15th when it goes forward at 8 degrees of Virgo. Again, don't worry about the degree measurements if that's not resonant for you. The main takeaway is Mercury retrograde. Retrograde means from our perspective on the Earth, the planet looks like it's going backwards in its orbit. It never does physically, but energetically, archetypally, it does. It's inviting a review of that particular archetype in our lives, personally and collectively. Mercury is the communicator, the messenger, and there are so many stories about, ah, the dread of Mercury retrograde. Okay, and I so. And it's in an Earth sign, virgo, but it likes being in Virgo, so that helps a lot. So I want to read to you something from Chani and what she says about this current Mercury retrograde. Yes, mercury is about to station retrograde. Whatever the, whenever the messenger spins backward, it triggers a predictable flurry of text, snafus, misunderstood text and minor travel mayhem, if you feel like this transit is always happening or at least constantly being posted about. You're not entirely wrong. Mercury is retrograde three to four times a year and even though it's not the rarest occurrence, it still makes waves in the zygast, as its inconveniences are hard to miss. She goes on to say while this transit is notorious for messing with our communications, flight times and electronics, it teaches us important lessons too. When your emails go to the wrong person or you miss your train, you have two options One, get frustrated, or two, let it go and laugh off what you can't control. Though it isn't always easy to find the humor and the mishaps, these glitches help us keep perspective on what ultimately is and isn't up to us. Mercury retrogrades deliver their wily medicine via small amounts of humility. And again, that's from Chani C-H-A-N-I Highly recommend you go get on her blog list. She's a brilliant astrologer and very funny. So here comes Mercury retrograde in Virgo, an earth sign of doing, of fixing, of serving, of making things whole Retrograde. We gotta review this. It goes right into the Mars opposite Neptune cycle I just talked about and really invites us to say what is true service, as I think about how I wanna express the form of it and as I get caught in wounded Virgo, which is the inner critic, the perfectionist, it's my job to do the rescue operations. This is an amazing three weeks to say, wait a minute, wait a minute, watch my inner thoughts. Is it really my job to do? Am I pushing myself too hard? Am I trying to fix something that doesn't want to be fixed? Am I trying to help someone that's not really helpful? What about turning that energy towards inner alignment? Because Virgo has a lot to do with health. And so Mercury retrograde in Virgo, what's the health of your mind, you know, are there some old toxic self talk patterns that you want to have some compassion for? And shift. Mercury, as it turns retrograde in Virgo, has amazing, harmonious connection to Mars. This warrior warrior is advocate that can take a stand for healing and wholeness. It has an alignment with Jupiter and Taurus. So this wise one of us what's a really good, wise use of my life energy? Great thing to be looking at in the next three weeks. And it has an amazing alignment with Pluto in Capricorn, the third Earth sign. Pluto is the great transformer that asks us to make systemic, powerful changes to detox from the woundedness of, say, capricorn, which is fear-based control. So really, let yourself have these three weeks for a time out. Don't pack so much in your schedule. Give yourself extra time and when the snafus happen, because they're there to help you, go. Ok, let go of control. All right, how can I learn for this? Be gentle with yourself and caring. And it's particularly powerful because the same day, wednesday, august 23, the sun enters Virgo, for it's about a month-long journey in that sign. And at that point, for that day, six out of the 10 major planets that we work with in astrology as archetypal beings will be in Earth signs. And the Earth signs are all about, like it sounds, being grounded, being sensual, working with resources, getting things in alignment. And so we're in this really kind of earthy rrrrr. And yet we have Mercury retrograde for three weeks, so saying how you think about and what you communicate with regard to your earthiness and your job and your tasks. That needs to be released in some way, because we also have, at the same time, venus finishing her retrograde journey in Leo, which is saying hang on, hang on, let's review. How are you reclaiming your beauty, your sovereignty, your joy, your relational magnetism, your juiciness? It's like it all ain't, it's not all work and no play, and play not in a superficial way but in a just like. It's about life and living life. So it's there, so watch how that's showing up this week. And then finally, on Sunday, august 27th, mars enters Libra. It will be there for six weeks. Mars usually stays in one sign for six weeks unless it's retrograde. Now Libra's a very different energy than Virgo. So really the last six weeks with Mars and Virgo some of us have felt that energy of getting shit done, like Mars and Virgo. Let's get this figured out. But we also might have burdened ourselves and exhausted ourselves with some of the wounded side of Virgo than I mentioned. So now we get this change where Mars goes into Libra and Libra is called an air sign. It's about balancing. It's a sign of balance and reciprocity. It's definitely connected to relationships and wanting to have more harmony in life. So part of what you might sense with Mars going into Libra is the courage, mars, to take action on rebalancing your life, whether that's an inner balance or something in your external relationships, or hopefully it is something collectively that we all can lean into to somehow feed more balance in our relationships. There's so much place of toxic relationships, of dominator culture, of not being generous and reciprocal to one another in these deeply wounded, fear-based, polarized times. Now, I'm not suggesting that we all take action in a superficial Libra way, which is the make nice people, please don't rock the boat. That's its own journey of Libra, but it doesn't have the potency of really standing up Mars advocating Mars for true reciprocity, for fairness, for respect, respect for self, respect for other humans, respect for the Earth All of that's there. So there is the journey for this week and, as always, dear ones, my astrologically sensitive people remember the tagline you're not crazy, you're astrologically sensitive. If any of this serves, you, take it, and if it doesn't, ignore it. So here's a special poem that came to me to honor this really strong Earth week. But also Mercury turning retrograde in Virgo, saying wait a minute, are you working too hard? And Venus, still there, saying don't forget about the beauty. Okay, so the poem is called Instructions to the Worker. Be by Lucy Atkins. Remember your first duty seeking out beauty in the world and going within. There is rapture in a field of clover, purple and blue petals, throat of honey-suckle achingly open, and you must be drunk with love for Selvia, monarda, marvel of Peru, all the glories of this world. It's not just about pollen or nectar, the honey that eventually comes, but the tingle of leg hair against petal, against pistol and stamen, the vault of each flower opening. Learn dandelion, learn Latina, red-lipped, a still bee, each with its own deliciousness. Take what you need and remember where it is in the field. Then go back and go back and go back again. So, dear ones for the worker being you, remember your first duty is to seek out beauty in the world and to go within, aligned with Mercury retrograde, and remember where that honey is, where that nectar is, and go back and go back and go back. Feel yourself with what has beauty and love for you, that you might be that kind of presence in the world so deeply needing beauty and love in a significant and potent, transformational way. Thanks, as always, for listening to the podcast. I invite you to tell your friends, give me a rating if you're willing, pass the word, donate to support the podcast any way that feels congruent for you. And also, don't forget my website on theedgesofchangecom has plenty of resources for you, including if you go to the astrology page, you'll find out about the recent Uranus Life Cycles workshop I did. It's available as a short mini-course workshop and you can go check it out and get it. Take good care.

Speaker 1: 19:15

You have been listening to the astrology alchemy podcast with your host, sheila Belanger. More research on theedgesofchangecom. Thank you for listening. Bless your alchemical journey to embrace the gold of your true nature.