#360-"If We Will Have the Wisdom to Survive"-Week of April 13, 2026

From Dissolution into Action: The Fire Begins to Move

This week brings several supportive sextiles between personal planets and larger transformational forces, creating a sense of constructive momentum after months of emotional and psychic saturation.

But this movement unfolds within a volatile collective field.

As old paradigms destabilize, we continue to witness the dangerous distortions of wounded leadership, unchecked power, and fear-based systems grasping for control in the death throes of dominator culture. Astrology does not ask us to bypass that reality. It asks us to orient within it.

The deeper story of this week is that both Mercury and Mars have completed unusually long journeys through Pisces due to retrograde motion and slower movement (since February).

That is a long time for the mind and will to move through the waters of grief, intuition, uncertainty, dissolution, and unconscious material.

Now both planets have entered, or will enter, Aries.

This week invites clarified courage, disciplined action, and the maturation of leadership.

Key Astrology Cycles This Week

Monday, April 13 – Venus in Taurus sextile Jupiter in Cancer
Grounding, nourishment, relational warmth, and emotional support. Growth may come through receiving rather than striving.

Tuesday, April 14 – Mercury in Pisces sextile Uranus in Taurus
Final intuitive breakthrough before Mercury leaves Pisces.

Tuesday, April 14 – Mercury enters Aries
After 10 weeks in Pisces, the mind sharpens. Clarity emerges. Communication becomes more direct.

Thursday, April 16 – Mars in Aries sextile Pluto in Aquarius
Focused power, disciplined force, transformational action. A reminder that power itself is not the problem, unconscious power is.

Friday, April 17 – New Moon at 28° Aries conjunct Chiron in Aries
A potent new cycle of healing around identity, courage, agency, and authentic selfhood. This New Moon invites healing through embodied action, not perfection, and may illuminate emerging new forms of conscious leadership.

Thursday, April 16 – Mercury conjunct Neptune in Aries
The new vision is emerging but not yet fully clear. Act on what is clear enough without demanding certainty.

Sunday, April 19 – Mars conjunct Saturn in Aries
A major maturation point. Courage meets discipline. Desire meets responsibility. A call toward grounded, conscious leadership.

Sunday, April 19 – Sun enters Taurus
After the fire, Taurus asks us to root, stabilize, and build what is emerging.

Reflection Questions

1. What has the long dissolution of the past months been clarifying within me, even if I could not yet name it?
2. Where is new fire asking for action, not reactivity, but clear embodied movement?
3. How am I being asked to cultivate more mature leadership in the ways I meet this moment?
4. Where am I being invited to stop waiting until I feel fully healed or fully certain before inhabiting my authentic self more fully?

Podcast Poem: Work Song, Part 2: A Vision by Wendell Berry

Transcript

0:07

Hello, welcome to Astrology Alchemy. I'm Sheila Bellagio, 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. Hello and welcome to episode number 360 of the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. I'm your host and guide, Sheila Bella, and this is for the week of April 13th, 2026. Here's a tagline for this week's astrological cycles from dissolution into action. The fire begins to move. And also, here's a phrase from this week's podcast poem, if we will have the wisdom to survive, we are moving through a significant threshold. You do not need astrology to you that, but the astrological cycles can support you to make your own empowered meaning about these times, both personally and collectively. This week carried several supportive sex tiles between personal planets and larger transformational forces. The overall tone is not one of ease exactly, but of constructive momentum. There is movement available now. Pathways opening. Perhaps You already perceive them. They're courting you. Support for integration and forward motion, and yet this movement unfolds within a collective field that remains deeply volatile. We continue to witness what happens when wounded leadership, unchecked power and fear-based systems grasp for control in the death throws of old paradigms. We are living through an era in which the distortions of dominator and colonial consciousness are not quietly fading. They are escalating, exposing themselves, and at times threatening, devastating consequences for the human family. Archetypal, astrology wisdom does not ask us to bypass that reality. Nor to collapse into despair. Within it, it asks us to orient to recognize that periods of profound restructuring often reveal the most dangerous expressions of systems and identities that know somewhere beneath consciousness that their time is ending. So this week's supportive aspects are not merely personal. They speak to the possibility of grounded, courageous, and disciplined response within unstable times. Because the deeper story of this week is not simply the individual astrological transits or cycle. Consider this Mercury, the communicator, archetype, and Mars. The action taker have both now completely completed. Unusually long journeys through Pisces, both personal planets spent extended time in the final sign of the Zodiac. One because of Mercury's retrograde motion recently. And two, because Mars has a slower cyclic movement of all the personal planets. Mercury has been in Pisces since early February. Just about to enter Aries Mar Mars moved through Pisces from mid-February to mid-April. That is a long time for the mind. Mercury and the will Mars to be steeped in Pisces. A long time in the waters of ambiguity. A long time in the realm of feeling intuition, grief, dreams, dissolving identities, and potent unconscious material rising. For many people the past two months may have felt like living in a fog, a deep emotional process or an inner composting. Things may have been ending internally before they were ready to begin externally. And now both of these personal planets. Have either crossed into or a or about to cross into Aries, the fire is beginning to rise, but importantly, this is not impulsive fire. This is fire emerging after immersion. This is action informed by what has been dissolved speech. Informed by what has been felt will informed by what has been surrendered that matters because Aries Fire, without Pisces emotional depth can become activity. But Aries fire after Pisces can become clarified. Courage. So here are the key cycles. This week on Monday, April 13th, Venus and Taurus Sextiles Jupiter in Cancer. This is a supportive, nourishing current Venus and Jupiter in Earth and water remind us that growth does not only come through pressure. Sometimes it comes through allowing ourselves to receive support. There is an opening here for pleasure, grounding, emotional nourishment, relational warmth. Feel the gift in the northern hemisphere of spring and life returning. Pay attention to what helps your nervous system. Remember safety. On Tuesday, April 14th, mercury in Pisces, sex tiles, Uranus in Taurus, and then Mercury enters Aries Mercury's final Pisces sex tile to Uranus may bring you sudden insight, intuitive knowing or unexpected clarity before it leaves the waters. And then Mercury enters Aries. After 10 weeks in Pisces, the mind shifts thought becomes faster, speech becomes more direct. Clarity begins to emerge from the fog. Many may feel a sudden desire to name what has been gestating internally for months to say the thing. To decide the thing to begin on Thursday, April 16th, Mars in Aries sex tiles Pluto in Aquarius, the same day Mercury is conjunct Neptune in Aries Mars. Sextile Pluto, the transformer offers potent empowerment. This is about disciplined, focused force, the capacity to act with depth, precision, and transformational intent. And in a collective movement where misuse of force and immature leadership remain painfully visible. This transit reminds us. Power itself is not the problem. Unconscious power is. The work of this era we're in is not to reject power, but to mature in our relationship to it. Meanwhile, mercury conjunct Neptune, the visionary dreamer, reminds us that even as the fire rises, the new story is still forming. We are not fully clear yet. Something is emerging but not complete. Act on what is clear enough. Do not demand total certainty before movement. And on Sunday, April 19th, Mars is conjunct, Saturn and Aries, and the sun enters Tous. This is the anchor point of the week. Mars, the action taker meets Saturn, the responsible one. In Aries Fire meets discipline, will meets reality. Desire meets responsibility at its highest expression. This is the forging of mature leadership. Not domination, not impulsive force, not wounded assertion masquerading as strength, but discipline, courage in service of what matters. In these times when immature and fear driven leadership can endanger entire nations, this transit reminds us how urgently the world needs adults in the room. Externally, yes, but also within each of us because collective transformation is not only about what leaders out there do. It is also about the maturity each of us cultivates in how we meet. This moment, this transit asks, what action are you willing to commit to? Not just feel inspired by not just think about commit to Saturn in Aries is teaching that authentic selfhood requires structure. Courage requires discipline. New identity requires embodiment. And then that day the sun enters Taurus grounding us back into Earth. After so much fire activation, the sun and Taurus illuminates and reminds us, build slowly root what is emerging. Let change become tangible. Here are some supportive reflection questions for you this week. What has the long dissolution of the past few months been clarifying within me, even if I could not yet name it. Where is new fire asking for action, not reactivity, but clear embodied movement, and how am I being asked to cultivate more mature leadership? In the ways I meet this movement, this moment. So the podcast poem that wanted to come as companion for this week is really about the long view and are we willing to step up in our maturity, our care, our inner and outer leadership to support. The next generations, the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, not just of human family, but of the more than human family, the earth herself. The poem is called Work Song part two, A Vision by Wendell Berry, if we will have the wisdom to survive. To stand like slow growing trees in a ruined place, renewing, enriching it. Then a long time after we are dead. The lives, our lives prepare, we'll live here. Their house is strongly placed upon the valley sides. The river will run clear. As we will never know it on the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest, an old forest will stand. Its rich leaf fall drifting on its roots. The veins of forgotten springs will have opened. Families will be singing in the fields memory. Native to this valley will spread over it like a grove and memory will grow into legend. Legend into song, song into sacrament. The the abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its bird birds, will be health and wisdom and indwelling light. This is no paradise of dream, its hardship is its reality. We're being called to lean in, step up in a way of wholeness and self congruity. To feed the inner leader so that the outer leaders become different expressions for the human family. This is a threshold week. The waters have done their work. Not completely, perhaps, but enough that movement can begin. The question now is not merely what you understand it is how will you embody mature, grounded action in a world desperate for conscious leadership? Thank you for your unique presence on this precious planet right now. May you be supported in all ways to bring your own special presence to the world right now. Thank you. 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.