Astrology Alchemy Podcast

#333-"Learning to Leave Well Enough Alone"--Week of October 6, 2025

Sheila Belanger

This week brings powerful turning points. A fiery Full Moon in Aries spotlights the dance between self-assertion and partnership, while Mercury’s entry into Scorpio begins a season of deeper truth-telling that will echo into November’s retrograde. The Mercury–Pluto square midweek demands honest words that can catalyze transformation, and the Venus–Saturn opposition challenges us to bring discernment and commitment into love, money, and values. As we move through these passages, we prepare for next week’s potent shift—Pluto turning direct in Aquarius, reigniting collective transformation.

Monday, October 6 – Full Moon in Aries at 14°

The Instinctive Self (Moon) shines in fiery Aries, illuminating your desires for autonomy, vitality, and courage. Opposite the Relational Self (Sun) in Libra, this lunation calls you to balance self-assertion with partnership. What wants to be initiated? What needs to be released in your relationships or patterns of self-abandonment?

Reflection: Where do I need to step forward with courage without cutting myself off from connection?

Monday, October 6 – Mercury enters Scorpio

The Storyteller (Mercury) dives into the depths of Scorpio’s Realm of Transformation. Words, perceptions, and thoughts become sharper, more probing. This transit foreshadows Mercury’s retrograde in November when it returns here to excavate deeper truths. Be alert to whispers of what’s hidden beneath the surface—what you notice now will become important later.

Reflection: What hidden story or truth is beginning to stir in me that will require deeper excavation later this season?

Tuesday, October 7 – Mercury in Scorpio squares Pluto in Aquarius

The Storyteller (Mercury) in the realm of intensity locks horns with the Transformer (Pluto) in visionary Aquarius. Expect confrontations with uncomfortable truths, power dynamics in communication, or a need to name what’s been unspeakable. Transformation begins with words spoken honestly and directly.

Reflection: Where do I need to risk speaking truth to shift a stagnant or controlling pattern?

Saturday, October 11 – Venus in Virgo opposes Saturn in Pisces

The Relational One (Venus) in discerning Virgo stands across from the Responsible One (Saturn) in dreamy Pisces. This aspect challenges you to bring integrity and discernment into your relationships, finances, and creative projects. Saturn tests Venus—are you discerning or critical, committed or avoiding? The tension invites you to clarify what really matters.

Reflection: What relationship or value requires both discernment and commitment right now?

Looking Ahead to the Next Week

On Monday, October 13, the Transformer (Pluto) turns direct at 1° Aquarius after being retrograde since early May. This shift intensifies the collective push into Aquarian transformation: new systems, collective re-imaginings, and innovative structures are beginning to move forward. Expect themes of power and collective re-invention to reemerge.

Podcast Poem: Sunday Morning Ear

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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.

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. More resources are available at the website on the edges of change.com. Welcome to episode number 333 of the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. This is for the week of October 6th, 2025. I am your host and guide, Sheila Belanger. Here's a phrase from this week's podcast poem. Learning to Leave Well Enough alone this week brings powerful turning points. A fiery full moon in Aries spotlights the dance between self-assertion and partnership. While Mercury's entry into Scorpio begins a season of deeper truth telling. That will echo into November's retrograde of that planet. The Mercury, Pluto Square midweek demands, honest words that can catalyze transformation, and the upcoming Venus Saturn opposition challenges us to bring discernment and commitment into love, money, and values. As we move through this week's passages, we prepare for next week's potent shift of Pluto turning direct in Aquarius reigniting collective transformation on Monday, October 6th. The Full Moon is an Aries at 14 degrees of Aries. And by the way, if you don't understand degree measurement, please don't worry about it because I try to con convey to you the archetypal patterns. Many of my audience members are astrologers or astrology students, and you know where to look for 15 degrees of Aries, Libra, in your own chart and interpret how you might navigate these cycles, this cycle. So the instinctive self, the moon shines in fiery Aries. Illuminating your desires for autonomy, vitality, and courage. Opposite it, the relational self, the sun in Libra. This Lunation calls you to balance self-assertion with partnership. What wants to be initiated, what needs to be released in your relationships or patterns of self abandonment. Those are just general questions. Here's the reflection question for this cycle. Where do I need to step forward with courage without cutting myself off from connection? As a beautiful reflection with the full Moon? It's beautiful in the Northern Hemisphere, autumn, full Moon. Also, on the same day, Monday, October 6th, the planet Mercury enters Scorpio. The storyteller archetype. Mercury dives into the depths of Scorpio's realm of transformation. Words, perceptions, and thoughts become sharper. More probing. This transit foreshadows Mercury's retrograde cycle in November when it returns here to excavate deeper truths, be alert to whispers of what's hidden beneath the surface. What you notice now will become important later. Here's a reflection question. What hidden story or truth is beginning to stir in me that will require deeper excavation later this season on Tuesday, October 7th, mercury in Scorpio squares Pluto in Aquarius. All that means is from our perspective in the earth, mercury and Pluto are forming a 90 degree angle in the heavens, the storyteller. Mercury in the realm of intensity. Scorpio locks horns with the transformer archetype. Pluto in visionary Aquarius us expect confrontations with uncomfortable truths. Power dynamics in communication and a need to name what's been unspeakable. Transformation begins with words spoken honestly and directly. Now, I would imagine that some of my audience who are listening to this description of upcoming cycles who have connection or live in the United States of America can feel the collective quality of these mercury cycles. It's time to talk truth to power. And even though I encourage you to take these cycles in and really lean into your own inner work, the personal is the collective. The collective is the personal. Every time you have the courage to address and transmute a poisonous, unhealthy mindset, you are making a change in the collective. Don't underestimate how important those courageous acts are. So with this cycle of Mercury and Pluto, here's a reflection question for you. Where do I need to risk speaking truth to shift a stagnant or controlling pattern? On Saturday, October 11th, Venus in Virgo opposes Saturn in Pisces. The relational one archetype, Venus in discerning Virgo stands across the heavens from the responsible one. Saturn ind dreamy Pisces. This aspect challenges you to bring integrity and discernment into your relationships. Finances and creative projects, those are all Venus Territories. Saturn Test. Venus, are you discerning or critical committed or avoiding the tension invites you to clarify what really matters. Often when I have worked with my. Clients with their astrology cycles. I often will say a Saturn cycle is a reality check cycle. Saturn, the archetype, really wants us to have integrity, purposefulness, and a clarity about what's ours to do? What? What are we responsible for? And so Saturn cycles tend to be this kinda like, wait, wake up and smell the coffee. Pay attention to this. It's not working. And Saturn cycles, even though this is a short cycle this week, it's still key because it's with Venus, the relational one. It's about time to get really clear what's not sustainable in your relationships with your relationship to money or resources of any kind and your creativity. Here's a reflection for you with this cycle. What relationship or value requires both discernment and commitment right now? And then finally, I wanna look ahead to early next week. Because the cycle coming early next week is very strong, and I imagine my sensitive audience members are already gonna be feeling it on Monday, October 13th. That transformer archetype Pluto turns direct at one degrees of Aquarius after being retrograde since early May. Just a reminder, a retrograde cycle is just a way to describe our perception on the earth of the movement of the planets in the heavens. A planet never goes backwards in its orbit, but the way we cycle around the sun and the planet cycles around the sun, sometimes looking at that planet, we perceive it to be going backwards. What's important about that is the psychospiritual transformational opportunities, because a planet in retrograde motion is a planet saying stop and review. It's that cosmic timeout. And Pluto being the most outer planet at this point in our solar system. And yes, it's still a planet. Okay? It stays retrograde for five to six months. So we've been in this inward review since early May about issues around our themes around Pluto, power transformation, the basement work. I often call go down and do your basement work. What's underneath? What are those basement boxes? I haven't been looking at. Particularly Pluto just recently going into a new sign of Aquarius is saying, okay, you might be drawn to the values and the aspirations of Aquarius, which is about egal, egalitarianism and freedom for all, and liberation, and Pluto being an Aquarius at the very beginning of the sciences, not so fast. You need to set yourself free first, and you need to do the shadow work to say, where am I manipulating others? Possibly, where am I trying to control others? You may not be, but you might. And so this review period we've been in since early May with Pluto is now shifting and early next week, as Pluto goes forward, there's this opportunity to get clear, what have I been doing? Deep change around inside. About my need for change and freedom and alternative, radically new ways to be. It's begin to bring it forward. And whenever Pluto is either seeming to go backwards, turning retrograde, or seeming to go forward, turning direct, the archetype saturates the collective unconscious and the personal consciousness. So there's a greater energy around this needs to change. This is. Putrid. This is old stuff. This is Bateman stuff. We have to compost it. We have to deal with, we have to look at it. Stay tuned. We'll see how it plays out in the collective, but also do your work on a personal level. Okay. So the poem that is really beautiful for this week, I really love this poem and I wanna honor a dear friend and poet in Wouldbe Island, Judith Adams. I heard this poem read by her last week. It just opened my heart and I said, whoa. That's a poem for this this week with our Pluto Energy and our Mercury Energy and Scorpio poem is called Sunday Morning Early. By David Rom. Sunday morning Early, my daughter and I paddle identical red kayaks across the lake, pulling hard. We slip easily through the water far from either shore. It hits me that my daughter is a young woman, and suddenly everything is a metaphor. For how short a time we are granted on earth. The red boats on the blue black water, the rusted and gold of late summer sunburnt grasses, the empty blue sky. We stop and listen to the stillness. I say it's Sunday and here we are in the church of the out of doors. Then. I wish an, I wish I'd had the sense to stay quiet. That's the trick in life. Learning to leave well enough alone. Our boats drift north to where the cheering of grasshoppers reaches us from the rocky Hills. A clap of thunder beyond those hills. How well sound travels over water. I want to say just the right thing, something stronger and truer than a lame. I love you. I want my daughter to know that through her, I live a life that was closed to me before I paddle up beside her, lean out from the boat and touch her hand. I start to speak. Then stop Sunday morning early by David bin. For me, this poem is so hard opening and challenging because we all know the experience of speaking beyond when it was time to speak, not learning to leave well enough alone. And really the cycles of this week with Mercury in the depths of Scorpio's transformation, the FA Moon, illuminating our relationship with self and other, and the Mercury Pluto cycle really invites us to go deeper in our partnerships and our communication. What, if anything, needs to be said? And what if I sit quiet and recognize my relationships are changing me and they're helping me to recognize the old self that's dying or has died? I, so I invite you this week as you're traveling with all these powerful cycles of change, periodically pause and ask yourself. Right now, can I leave well enough alone? You may get the response. No, you have to say something, but you may also notice there's many ways to speak. It doesn't have to be with words. Thank you for your own journey of transformation. And the courage to be in the alchemy of your personal life changes amidst the profound, profound initiatory cauldron of change in the collective. Bless your journey. You have been listening to the Astrology Alchemy Podcast with your host, Sheila Lange. Resources are available at the website on the edges of change.com. Thank you for listening. Bless your alchemical journey to embrace the gold of your true nature.