#383-"Welcome Your Spirit Back from its Wandering"-- the Week of September 21, 2026

The Balance Point Before the Ignition

A brief note. These episodes are prerecorded during a wilderness retreat. I am not tracking current events in real time. Hold what I offer here alongside what you are actually living.

We are at the balance point. The autumn equinox arrives Tuesday, Mabon in the Celtic tradition, the second harvest, the moment of equal light and dark before the turning toward the inward season. And yet this week ignites.

By Sunday the planetary lineup in fire and air is complete. Sun and Mercury in Libra. Jupiter and Mars in Leo. Uranus in Gemini. Saturn, Chiron and Neptune in Aries. Pluto in Aquarius. Every planet and heavenly body except Venus in Scorpio (and the Moon in her changeable flow)  in fire or air simultaneously. The elemental grammar of the current civilizational moment fully expressed through the planetary field.

Key Cycles This Week:

Monday, September 21: Mercury in Libra sextiles Jupiter in Leo. 

A warm generous opening. Relational intelligence and creative meaning-making in easy flow. Conversations that open rather than close. A fitting note before the equinox threshold arrives.

Tuesday, September 22: Sun enters Libra. Autumn Equinox. Mabon. 

The second harvest. What has genuinely ripened through this extraordinary summer that is ready to be gathered and held with gratitude? Not the surface understanding but the deeper fruit, the shift in how you see yourself, your place in the larger web, what you are willing to claim as genuinely yours.

The equinox this year asks what genuine balance means in a time of civilizational imbalance. Not false equivalence. Not performed equanimity. The elder's balance — holding the full weight of what is difficult and what is beautiful simultaneously without collapsing into either. That is Libra's deepest gift for the coming month.

The Fire-Air Ignition — Chiron as the Shamanic One: 

Chiron in Aries completes this week's elemental ignition with a dimension the other planets cannot reach. Chiron is not only the Wounded Healer. Chiron is the Shamanic One — the one who has learned to move between worlds, between the visible and the invisible, between the human and the ancestral field. The shaman does not heal by fixing. They heal by shapeshifting, entering the invisible dimensions of what is wounded, metabolizing in the spirit dimensions what cannot be metabolized in the ordinary world alone. The wound was the initiation into the capacity to move between worlds.

Chiron in Aries freshly returned to complete its work carries that full shamanic dimension into the fire field. The broken places in the self being visited by the one who knows how to bring back what was lost. In a field blazing with fire and air, Chiron in Aries is the shamanic anchor, the reminder that genuine transformation is a crossing between worlds, not only a psychological process.

Saturday, September 26: Full Moon at 3 degrees of Aries conjunct Neptune, sextile Pluto, trine Uranus. 

The second time this summer a luminary has activated all three great transpersonal cycles simultaneously. This time at a culmination point in Aries conjunct Neptune, the initiatory impulse and the imaginal dissolution both illuminated at once. The new identity emerging and the old identity dissolving, both visible in the full light of the Moon.

The sextile to Pluto and trine to Uranus bring the full three-transpersonal cycle field into this illumination. The civilizational imagination being lit up at the most personal level available. Pay careful attention to what you see at this Full Moon around identity and vision, what is genuinely becoming as distinct from what has been performed or survived into existence.

Sunday, September 27: Mars in Cancer squares Chiron in Aries. Mars enters Leo. 

A farewell and an ignition on the same day. Mars in Cancer's final significant contact, a reckoning between what it has been carrying through the ancestral and protective field and the wound of identity Chiron in Aries is completing. A naming of what has been carried before the fire of Leo ignites.

Then Mars enters Leo, joining Jupiter. The Action-Taker and the Expander in the sign of the heart. The instinctual body crossing from tending what is vulnerable to expressing what is genuinely alive. With the North Node in Aquarius, Mars in Leo asks: what are you offering, and whom does it genuinely serve? Not the creative fire that burns for its own recognition but the fire that warms others and illuminates what needs to be seen.

Larger Frame

We cross the equinox balance point with fire in hand. The interior alchemy of autumn, Venus retrograde deepening and Mercury retrograde coming, will be navigated with a fully ignited fire-air field, a shamanic anchor in Chiron in Aries, and a Full Moon illuminating all three great cycles in the territory of new identity and new vision.

What are you carrying into the descent? 

What has been harvested that belongs to the journey ahead?

Reflection Questions

1. At the equinox, Mabon's second harvest, what has genuinely ripened in you through this extraordinary summer that is ready to be gathered with gratitude?
2. The Full Moon in Aries conjunct Neptune illuminates both the new identity emerging and the old dissolving simultaneously. What do you see in that double illumination?
3. As Mars crosses from Cancer's protective waters into Leo's creative fire, what has the instinctual body been tending that is now ready to be expressed in genuine service?

Podcast poem: For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in its Human Feet by Joy Harjo 

I'm offering you my do-it-yourself course Chiron: the Wisdom in the Wound. as a gift to you at no charge. You can explore the Chiron course on the Astrology page of my website: ontheedgesofchange.com/astrology. When you go to purchase the Chiron course, to get the course at no charge, use this coupon at checkout: CHIRON

Transcript

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Welcome to the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. I'm Sheila Belanger, archetypal astrologer, transformation coach, and your guide for this podcast. If you're someone who feels the shifts in the larger field before you can name them, who senses that personal change and collective change are not separate, you have found your people. This podcast offers weekly grounded orientation from current astrological cycles, a living mirror for sensitive edge walkers and change-makers ready to work consciously with the archetypal currents shaping our world. This is the alchemy, turning the lead of confusion and threshold into the gold of genuine wisdom and purposeful action. Welcome, let's dive in. Hello, welcome to episode number 383 of the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. This is for the week of September 21st, 2026. I'm your host and guide, Shelia Boulanger. I want to remind you that for the next couple of episodes, they're prerecorded during a time when I'm away in the wilderness and with family. So I'm not tracking current events in real time. I trust the archetypal truth of what the cycles are up to. But do hold what I offer here alongside what you are actually living through. All right, let's get into this week. Here's our phrase from this week's poem. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering I wanna acknowledge these past few podcasts are longer than usual, and thank you for your patience and your heartful ears. There's such deep alchemical transformation happening as we move into autumn. I have a lot of words for it. Please just listen to what serves and leave the rest. Thank you So we're at a balance point. The autumn equinox arrives Tuesday for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. Mabon in the Celtic tradition of the turning wheel. Here's the moment when light and dark stand in equal measure before the long turning toward the inward season begins. In earth-based traditions, this is the second harvest, the time to gather what has ripened, to acknowledge what the growing season has produced, and to begin the conscious preparation for the descent. This particular autumn equinox carries particular weight. We are crossing from a very outwardly activated summer with three great cycles illuminated, two eclipses, the nodes shifting, Jupiter weaving through the full transpersonal field. Wow. Into the interior alchemy of autumn. Venus in her retrograde shadow phase deepening toward her October station retrograde Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto all retrograde. The outer field turning inward And yet, paradoxically, this week ignites. By Sunday, the end of the week, the planetary lineup in fire and air is complete. Nine out of 11 of the key planetary archetypes are in these two young elements. Pause The elemental grammar of the current civilizational moment, fire and air, vision and mind, the imaginal and the collective intelligence is now expressed through personal, social, and transpersonal planets, plus Chiron belonging to its own class of solar system bodies called centaurs. More on that later These nine characters are all simultaneously in either a fire or air sign The exception is Venus in Scorpio and the Moon who changes signs every two and a half days. Two key feminine archetypes who are holding in counterpoint both the deep emotional depths of the water and the emotional capacity to wax and wane in changing processes This balance point of the equinox is very brief. What follows after is a fully ignited field Here are the key cycles for this week. Monday, September twenty-first, Mercury in Libra sextiles Jupiter in Leo. The week opens with warmth and genuine creative connection. The communicator in Libra's relational intelligence finds easy flow with the expander in Leo's generous creative field. Thought and communication that inspires. The capacity to find the right words for what the heart genuinely knows. Conversations that open rather than close This is a fitting opening note before the equinox threshold. A moment of genuine relational ease and creative meaning-making before the larger turning arrives Let this cycle do its simple, generous work. Not every transit needs to be held with gravity. Some are simply invitations to connect well and speak from the heart And then on Tuesday, September 22nd, the sun enters Libra. Autumn equinox, Mabon. The conscious self crosses into the sign of balance, beauty, right relation, and the art of genuine encounter. And the wheel turns In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the moment when the days begin to shorten in earnest, when the Earth herself begins her turn towards the dark. In the Celtic tradition, Mabon is the second harvest. The first harvest at Lammas in early August gathered the initial fruits of the growing season. Mabon gathers the deeper harvest, the grain, the root vegetables, the fruits that have been ripening through the long summer heat What is the deeper harvest of this extraordinary summer? not the surface understanding, the interesting astrological concepts, the intellectual framework of the three great transpersonal cycles Those are interesting, yes. But what has genuinely ripened in you through this threshold time? What understanding, what release, what shift in how you see yourself in the world and your place within it What has come to full fruit that is now ready to be gathered and held with genuine gratitude? The equinox asks that question before the descent begins In a year when the balance point of Mabon falls with the sun entering Libra, as it always does, the sign of balance itself, there is something worth sitting with about what genuine balance means in a time of civilizational imbalance Not the false balance of false equivalence. Not the performance of equanimity in the face of genuine harm and destruction But perhaps the elders balance the capacity to hold the full weight of what is difficult And horrifying. And what is beautiful simultaneously without collapsing into either. That is Libra's deepest gift, and the sun will be in this sign illuminating this journey for the coming month The fire air ignition. Before I talk about Saturday's full moon, the big elemental story of this week deserves its own naming By the end of the week on Sunday when Mars enters Leo, here's the planetary lineup. Sun and Mercury in Libra, air. Jupiter and Mars in Leo, fire. Saturn, Chiron, and Neptune in Aries, fire. Uranus in Gemini, Pluto in Aquarius, air. Every planet or solar system body, Chiron, with the exception of Venus in Scorpio and the Moon in here waving- waning and waxing with the zodiac signs, is in a fire or air sign And Chiron recently back in Aries completes that ignition with a dimension that goes deeper than the other planets can reach Chiron belongs to what's called the centaur class, solar system bodies that exhibit the characteristics of both asteroids and comets. They are named after the mythological centaurs that were a mixture of horse and human. They are shape-shifters with unstable orbits around the sun When they are farther away from the sun, they act like asteroids. When closer in, they seem to grow a tail and act like comets Charon is named the wounded healer, and that is true very much with this archetype. But Charon is also the shamanic one, and that dimension of the archetype matters enormously in this context of the week The shaman in ancient traditions is not simply the one who has been wounded and survived. The shaman is the one who has traveled between the worlds, who has learned to move between the visible and the invisible, between the human and the more than human, between the living and the ancestral field, and who carries that multi-world fluency as the very source of their healing capacity The shaman does not heal by fixing They heal by shapeshifting By entering the invisible dimension of what is wounded, by calling back what has been lost or stolen By metabolizing in the spirit dimensions what cannot be metabolized in the ordinary world alone. The medicine comes precisely because the shaman has been broken open to those other dimensions. Their wound was the initiation into the capacity to move between worlds Chiron in Aries, freshly returning to complete its work in this sign, is carrying that full shamanic dimension into the fire field of this week. The wound of identity, agency, and the right to take up space being metabolized not only psychologically, but at the ancestral and spirit level. The broken places in the self being visited by the one who knows how to move between worlds and bring back what was lost In a planetary field blazing with fire and air, with Leo's creative courage, Libra's relational intelligence, Gemini's quickened mind, Aries' initiatory force, and Aquarius' collective revolutions, Chiron in Aries is the shamanic anchor, the reminder that genuine transformation is not only cognitive or even emotional. It is crossing between worlds A healing that happens at dimensions the ordinary mind cannot access alone. This is the fire-air ignition of this week. Not only bright and activated, but shamanic at its roots And then on Saturday, September 26th, the full moon is at three degrees of Aries conjunct Neptune. The full moon also sextiles Pluto in Aquarius and trines Uranus in Gemini. This is the second time this summer that a luminary has activated all three great transpersonal cycles simultaneously. The personal and the collective in good, deep relationship with each other. The first one was the full moon in Aquarius conjunct Pluto in late July, the culmination of the two-week arc that activated all three transpersonal cycles through Jupiter's weaving. Now we have a full moon in Aries conjunct Neptune, sextiling Pluto, and trining Uranus. The three transpersonal cycles illuminated again at a culmination point, this time in the territory of new identity and new vision The full moon in Aries is always a culmination of the initiatory impulse. What has been seeded in the self, what is being asserted and claimed, what the I am of genuine identity is becoming And in conjunction with Neptune, that culmination is simultaneously a dissolution. The new identity and the dissolving of the old identity, both present at once, both illuminated by the full light of the moon. Can you see this both in yourself and our collective journey? The new identity and the dissolving of the old identity together This is not disorienting in a negative sense. It is the particular quality of genuine initiatory threshold, where what you are becoming is not yet fully formed, and what you have been is no longer entirely true. The ancients called this the betwixt and between place, and the full moon illuminates both simultaneously And the full moon sextile to Pluto and trine to Uranus brings the full three-cycle field into this illumination. The revolution in mind and communication, the unfinished work of power and identity, the dissolution of old collective structures of meaning, all these big transpersonal cycles we've been exploring, all present at this full moon, all being illuminated at the same time as the personal initiatory field of Aries and the imaginal dissolution of Neptune occurs. Whoa. Take a breath This full moon is also a direct activation of the Neptune-Pluto sextile cycle I named last week The moon and sun in opposition of each other, lighting up Neptune in Aries exactly as Neptune is in its generational six-year conversation with Pluto in Aquarius. The civilizational imagination being illuminated at the most personal level available by the luminary sun and moon, the most intimate of celestial bodies. You might want to pay careful attention this week to what you see at this full moon. What is being illuminated in you around identity, vision, and the self that is genuinely emerging as distinct from the self that has been performed or survived into existence may carry genuine significance for you in the months ahead And then on Sunday, September 27th, Mars in Cancer squares Chiron in Aries, and Mars enters Leo. Two movements on the same day, a farewell and an ignition Mars has been moving through the ancestral and protective field of Cancer since August 11th. There it has been asking persistently, instinctually from the gut, what needs protecting? What does community genuinely need? What your feeling body knows to be under threat in this threshold time It has activated both Saturn and Neptune in Aries. It has moved through the eclipse portal. It has been the instinctual protective intelligence of the collective body through one of the most activated astrological seasons in recent memory. And before it leaves, Mars squares Chiron in Aries. The instinctive protective force of Cancer meeting the shamanic one in direct tension. A kind of final reckoning between what Mars and Cancer has been carrying, the ancestral wound, the collective grief and rage, the fierce protective impulse for what is genuinely at stake, and what Chiron recently in Aries is completing. The wound of identity, the right to act, the severed connection to genuine agency that dominator culture has installed in so many of our psyches and in the trauma field of our ancestors Consider this square to be a farewell passage, a naming of what has been carried, an acknowledgement of the wound before the fire of Leo ignites And then Mars enters Leo. The instinctive body crosses from Cancer's protective waters into Leo's creative fire. From tending what is vulnerable to expressing what is genuinely alive. From the ancestral field to the creative field. From protection to courageous offering. With Jupity- Jupiter already in Leo, Mars' arrival completes the fire ignition. The action taker and the expander in the sign of the heart, the creative impulse and the generative force of meaning-making moving together. And in the context of recent nodal axis change, North Node in Aquarius and South Node in Leo, Mars entering Leo asks a specific question of your instincto body Not just what do you want to express and create, but what are you offering, and whom does it genuinely serve? The shadow of the Leo energy is a creative fire that burns for its own recognition. The gift of Leo, the gift of the South Node right now, is asking to be integrated and offered rather than grasp. It's the creative fire that burns in genuine service to others, warming others, illuminating what needs to be seen, offering what is alive and vital in the self as a genuine contribution to the collective field. Mars in Leo will be there through November twenty-fifth, and will be asking your instinctual body to live that distinction, not once in a moment insight, but as a daily practice of genuine creative offering Taking a breath. I always like to give you a sort of recap, bigger frame at the end of the week Remember that the equinox balance point is very brief. Exact moment when light and dark are in equal balance, and then it changes. And we cross it this week from the extraordinary outward activation of summer into the interior alchemy of autumn with a fully ignited fire-air field, a shamanic anchor in Chiron and Aries, and a full moon that illuminates all three great transpersonal cycles simultaneously within the territory of new identity and new vision This is not a gentle crossing into autumn. It is a crossing with fire in the hand, and fire in the heart, and fire in the belly The descent that the darker months invite, the turning inward, the Venus retrograde alchemy, the companion Mercury retrograde in Scorpio coming in late October, will be navigated not in the dark alone, but with the creative fire of Mars and Jupiter in Leo, the relational intelligence of Sun and Mercury in Libra, the revolutionary quickening of Uranus in Gemini and Pluto in Aquarius, and the shamanic metabolizing of Chiron in Aries The interior alchemy of autumn has a full elemental field to work with. Remember that blessing curse, may you live in interesting times You might explore what are you carrying into the descent? What has been harvested from this extraordinary summer that belongs to the journey ahead? These are equinox questions. They're worth sitting with this week before the wheel turns further And here are three specific reflection questions to support you attuning to this week's cycles. First, at the autumn equinox, Mabon the second harvest, what has genuinely ripened in you through this extraordinary summer that is ready to be gathered and held with gratitude? Second, the full moon in Aries conjunct Neptune illuminates both the new identity emerging and the old identity dissolving simultaneously. What do you notice in that double illumination? What are you noticing that is genuinely becoming, and what is no longer entirely true? And thirdly, as Mars crosses from Cancer's protective waters into Leo's creative fire, what has your instinctual body been protecting and tending that is now ready to be expressed and offered? Again, not for recognition yourself, but in genuine service The poem that comes for this week's cycles is a long one, like your podcast host having long words and long things to say, but it's profound. It's by an incredible, talented Indigenous elder, Joy Harjo. And to me, it really is a shamanic poem. Listening to it, let its medicine work on you, helping you to come home to who you really are. It's called For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that bottle of pop. Turn off that cell phone, computer, and remote control. Open the door, then close it behind you Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth gathering essences of plants to clean. Give it back with gratitude. If you sing, it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars' ears and back Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were a dream planting itself precisely within your parents' desire Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the guardians who have known you before time, who will be there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there without time Let the earth stabilize your post-colonial insecure jitters Be respectful of the small insects, birds, and animal people who accompany you. Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought down upon them And don't worry. The heart knows the way, though there may be high-rises, interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and those who will despise you because they despise themselves The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few years, a hundred, a thousand, or even more. Watch your mind. Without training, it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time Do not hold regrets When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, and other healing plant. Cut the ties you have to failure and shame Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders, your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of your ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our direction. Ask for forgiveness Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take many forms. Animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or ancestor. Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be happy to be found after being lost for so long Your spirit will need to sleep a while after it is bathed and given clean clothes Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no place else to go. Make a giveaway and remember, keep the speeches short. Then you must do this. Help the next person find their way through the dark. For calling the spirit back, Joy Harjo We're all perhaps trying to help the next person or animal or ancestor find their way through the dark. Thank you As always, I like to give you some kind of resource from all the ones I carry to offer to my people, and I have a special one that I'd like you to know about I have a do-it-yourself course on Chiron, Chiron: The Wisdom of the Wound. It's a short, several module class, and as a special gift to you this month, I'm offering it to you for free. You can find a listing for the Chiron course at my website, ontheedgesofchange.com\astrology, or go to the astrology page. And when you see the Chiron button, click on and go to purchase. Use this coupon, CHIRON, in capital letters, C-H-I-R-O-N. That coupon's good for the whole month of September. You're welcome to go and get that Chiron course. It has some astrological information, but you do not need to know astrology it, to, for it to serve you well. So it's my gift to you in honor of this powerful time of shape-shifting and change. Thank you. You have been listening to the Astrology Alchemy podcast with your host, Shelia Belanger. If you'd like to go deeper, visit my website, ontheedgesofchange.com, for many resources for your transformation journey. A great place to begin is my free Elemental Spiral Quiz, a short reflective tool that helps you discover which elemental pathway is most alive in your current season of change. The link to the quiz is on the homepage. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being someone who shows up consciously at the edges of change. Bless your alchemical journey.