#384-"Then Time Again Will Bring Us to Another Place"-Week of September 28, 2026

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

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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

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 384 of the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. This is for the week of September 28th, 2026. I'm your host and guide, Shelagh Belanger. Just a reminder that this particular episode is pre-recorded at a time when I'm on a road trip and a wilderness retreat and with family. So I'm not tracking current events in real time. However, what I'm offering to you is really the archetypal essence of what's going on, and you can track what's actually happening for you We move into the week A phrase from this week's poem. Then time alone will bring us to another place This week, the relational alchemist Venus enters the underworld. Venus turns retrograde at eight degrees of Scorpio. This is not a gentle week, and it's not meant to be The intensity building through these days is appropriate to what is being crossed. Genuine initiation rarely arrives gently. It arrives with exactly the pressure required to move what cannot be moved by comfort alone Try to stay with all this. We're walking it together Here are the key cycles On Monday, September 28th, the sun in Libra trines Uranus in Gemini The week opens with the air element, the conscious self in Libra's relational intelligence, finding easy flow with the awakener in the quickened mental field of Gemini This is a genuine breath before the descent. A moment of clarity and unexpected connection The relational mind finding a new angle on something that has felt fixed or stuck Perhaps an insight arriving sideways through conversation, through a shift in perspective, through what the quickened mental field of Uranus in Gemini makes suddenly visible. Remember, Uranus has a quality of a lightning bolt. Suddenly, illumination. Let this opening contact do its work. The air element is generous with us today. Let it carry you into the week with as much clarity and relational openness as possible, because what follows will ask for both Tuesday, September 29th. Mercury in Libra opposes Chiron in Aries. The communicator in Libra meets the shamanic one across the Libra-Aries axis Mercury in Libra seeks the right words for genuine relational encounter. The honest communication that honors both parties, that finds the balance point between what is true and what is kind, between what needs to be said and what the relationship can actually hold Chiron in Aries holds the wound of identity and the right to speak from genuine conviction. The wound of your voice that has been shaped by survival rather than authentic expression, that has learned to be smaller or more careful than what is actually true Their opposition asks, where has the search for relational harmony and communication been coming at the cost of what is genuinely true? Where has the desire to find the right words for the other's comfort been suppressing what yourself actually needs to say? This is a kind of preparatory contact. Mercury is just about to cross into Scorpio, about to become the truth teller rather than the diplomat. This opposition to Chiron is the last moment of Libra's relational balancing before Mercury moves into territory where the truth matters more than the balance Notice what you're not saying yet. It may be asking for its moment before the week is done Wednesday, September 30th, Mercury enters Scorpio, and now the diplomat becomes the truth-teller. Mercury's move from Libra's careful relational balancing act into Scorpio's probing depth is always a significant shift in the communicative field. But this cycle carries unusual weight because due to its upcoming retrograde cycle, Mercury will remain in Scorpio through December 6th. Nearly 10 weeks of the communicator in the sign of hidden truth, shadow, transformation, and what lives beneath the surface of what is spoken This is a long time for Mercury to be in any sign And it signals that the truth-telling and depth-finding work of Scorpio is not a passing phase, but a sustained season of inquiry. What cannot be said on the surface will be sought in the depths. What has been managed around will be probed. What has been hidden in the relational and collective field will be named. Not all at once, but persistently across the weeks and the months ahead. And most of you living in the United States are noticing this 10-week period includes the time in November of the midterm elections. Just saying. Friday, October 2nd, Mercury in Scorpio squares Mars in Leo and squares Pluto in Aquarius. Also, Mars in Leo trines Neptune in Aries. Mercury has crossed into Scorpio The diplomat has become the truth teller, and its first significant contacts are confrontational, squaring both Mars and Pluto on the same day All at two to three degrees of fixed signs Fixed signs hold. They concentrate. They do not release easily. And when multiple planets are in challenging aspect across the fixed cross, Scorpio's depth, Leo's fire, Aquarius collective restructuring, the pressure builds to a point where what has been contained can no longer be contained Mercury in Scorpio squaring Mars in Leo brings the truth-telling impulse into direct tension with the instinctual creative fire of Leo Mars governs anger, assertion, the will to act. In Leo, that force carries the particular quality of the heart's passionate conviction. Mercury square Mars can bring sharp words, communication that cuts, the frustration of what has been unsaid finally finding its voice, not always with the precision or timing that would serve it best. And then Mercury in Scorpio squaring Pluto in Aquarius brings the truth-teller into direct confrontation with the transformer at the collective level Here, the deeper layer of this square cycle deserves honest naming Astrologers see Mars as what's called the lower octave of Pluto. Mars is about personal will, instinctive force, the drive to act and assert in the immediate field Pluto is the transpersonal dimension of that same force. The power that operates beneath and beyond the personal, that transforms at the root rather than the surface, that destroys what is genuinely finished so that what is new can emerge When Mercury in Scorpio squares both simultaneously, Mars and Pluto, the personal will and the transpersonal transformative power, the communicator is being asked to find language for what lives at both levels simultaneously And what lives at both levels this week is shadow The profound shadow of dominator culture, the rage, the violence The aggression, the cruelty, the will to dominate and control that has been normalized, weaponized, and transmitted across generations is very present in this fixed sign configuration And the personal anger that has accumulated from living within systems that diminish and harm. The collective rage at what has been done and continues to be done in the service of power organized around domination rather than life Mercury in Scorpio does not flinch from that territory. It goes there deliberately. It names what others prefer to leave unnamed But here's where your own elder's discernment matters enormously, no matter your age There's a difference, a crucial difference between the destructive expression of the shadow and the genuine alchemical transmutation that Pluto carries Rage vented without awareness becomes the very thing it opposes. Another expression of the dominator dynamic, another cycle of harm Rage metabolized through genuine Plutonian transformation becomes the fuel for something that actually changes what needs to change Mercury in Scorpio squaring both Mars and Pluto is asking for that discernment For the truth-telling that names the shadow without becoming it For the communication that serves genuine transformation rather than the mere release of what has been compressed And on the same day, Mars in Leo trines Neptune in Aries. Here is a counterpart, a counterpoint that is not to be missed Even within the intensity of these squares, the instinctual creative fire of Mars and Leo finds easy flow with the imaginal field of Neptune in Aries. Creative vision, inspired action, the possibility that what is being confronted in the shadow squares can be met not only with the force of exposure, but with the genuine creative and visionary capacity that Leo and Neptune together carry This is not a bypass. Consider it a fuller picture The shadow and the vision present simultaneously. The truth teller and the visionary in the same field on the same day Both are available. Which one you feed matters Saturday, October 3rd, Venus turns retrograde at eight degrees of Scorpio, and Mars in Leo opposes Pluto in Aquarius. This is a potent threshold day. Two major movements, one deeply personal and relational, the other concentrated with the collective shadow of power and transformation on the same day Mars and Leo opposing Pluto in Aquarius. The personal will and creative fire of Mars and Leo meets the transpersonal restructuring of Pluto in Aquarius across the full polarity of the fixed axis. This opposition concentrate- concentrates what the squares of Friday were building toward. The instinctual creative force, the heart's conviction, the desire to express and be seen in direct confrontation with the tr- transformer at the collective level Power dynamics. The places where genuine creative expression and genuine collective power meet intention. Where the individual fire meets the collective restructuring and must decide whether it serves the old dominator dynamic or the genuinely new In the collective field, this opposition of Mars and Pluto lands in a moment when the shadow of power organized around domination is unusually visible and profoundly toxic Leo's fire can illuminate the shadow, or it can feed it Mars opposite Pluto asks for the discernment of which is which, and the genuine courage, Leo's particular gift, to choose differently than the dominator pattern would have us choose And then on this day, Venus turns retrograde The Relational Alchemist pauses at eight degrees of Scorpio and turns inward She has been building towards this moment since what's called the shadow phase of her retrograde cycle began on September 1st. That just means by September 1st, we were already sensing the key themes of this whole Venus retrograde cycle Since early September, Venus was opposite Ch- Chiron that helped name the wound. Venus had its first square to Pluto that surfaced the hidden power dynamic, and then the concentration of the fixed sign pressure throughout this week, all of it building towards this station point, this moment when Venus fully commits to the interior journey When a planet turns retrograde, everything it governs intensifies at that moment For Venus, it's relationships, values Discerning where to spend your life energy. 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 Venus stationing in Scorpio intensifies all of that to its maximum pressure point For some of you, you might feel this as an unusual heaviness or depth in the relational field today A sense that something is being asked of you that you cannot defer any longer. A feeling at the threshold of something, not yet clear what it is, but undeniable in its presence This is the Relational Alchemist as the, at the gate of the underworld She does not descend because it's comfortable. She descends because genuine sovereignty, genuine relational wholeness requires facing what lives in the depths, what has been hidden What has been unacknowledged? What the surface management of relationship has been protecting us from knowing about ourselves Venus's retrograde journey through Scorpio and then back into Libra from October 3rd until November 14th is that descent. Each contact Venus makes in retrograde will bring a different facet of this territory into view addressing the wound of worthiness and the hidden power dynamics Exploring the distorted relationship between love and control. We're all at the beginning of that journey today What Venus will find in the depths and what she will bring back when she rises is the work of the weeks ahead For now, I invite you to honor this threshold. Feel the weight of what is being crossed, and trust that the descent, however uncomfortable, is in service of something genuinely more alive than what the surface has been holding Sunday, October 4th, Sun in Libra opposes Saturn in Aries. The day after the Venus threshold, the reality principle arrives. Sun in Libra opposing Saturn in Aries brings the conscious self into direct encounter with what is actually real and what is actually required. After the intensity of Friday and Saturday's cycle- Sunday offers something that is not comfortable but is genuinely useful. Clarity about what is actually here. Saturn in Aries is direct and unsentimental. It does not dramatize. It does not bypass. It simply names what is real, what is required, and what the situation actually demands Sun opposing Saturn can feel heavy after an already very heavy week. A sense of limitation or constraint arriving just when the Venus threshold has been crossed and the interior journey has begun But Saturn's gift, particularly now at the opening of the Venus retrograde season, is the honest assessment that the interior journey requires genuine ground. Not performance of depth, not the spiritual bypass of imagining oneself already transformed But the honest, grounded, reality-tested acknowledgement of where you actually are and what the journey ahead genuinely asks That honesty is not a burden. It is the foundation that makes genuine transformation possible rather than merely imagined. Let Sunday be that honest assessment for you. Without drama, without collapse, with the steady, grounded clarity that Saturn at its best always offers So just lensing back a bit Venus has entered the underworld And this week that led to this point of turning carried the fixed sign pressure, confrontation with shadow. It's all appropriate preparation. Genuine initiation does not arrive gently. It arrives with exactly the pressure required to make the crossing real Venus' retrograde arc runs through November 14th In that timing, Venus will square Pluto two more times and oppose Chiron two more times And Mercury will join her in retrograde in Scorpio later this month A companion that will bring the communicative and mental field into the same interior territory This is a sustained season of relational alchemy. Not a single intense week, but a two-month arc of descent, reckoning, and eventual return In the collective field, Venus' retrograde in Scorpio is asking the same questions of the cultural and political field that it is asking of the personal What has been the true cost of how love, value, and resources have been organized in the dominator culture? What hidden power dynamics in collective systems are so ready to be revealed and transformed? And what genuinely needs to die in how the collective relates to itself, to the feminine, to the earth, to what is genuinely worthy of care so that something more alive can emerge? These are not small questions. They are the questions of a genuine civilizational threshold And they are being asked in the same six-year window of the Neptune-Pluto sextile that I spoke about last week. That elemental grammar of fire and air carrying the civilizational imagination towards something genuinely new The descent serves the emergence. I invite you to trust that Here are three reflection questions to support you this week. First, as Mercury and Scorpio squares both Mars and Pluto, where is the truth-teller in you being asked to name that which has been unsaid? And what is the difference between the shadow's destructive expression and its genuine alchemical transmutation? Second, at Venus's retrograde station, what is present for you at the threshold of the underworld that you have been deferring acknowledging in your relational life, in what you value, in what you are willing to claim as genuinely worthy of care? And thirdly, as Sunday's Sun-Saturn opposition offers its honest assessment, what is the genuine ground, not the performed version, from which you are entering this retrograde season? May those reflection questions support you to integrate more deeply the profound alchemical energies of these times And the podcast poem for this week is here to support us all to carry perspective in these big cycles, the ebb and flow, and to trust the larger way that life moves through us. It's called Trough by Judy Sorem Brown There is a trough in waves, a low spot where horizon disappears and only sky and water are our company. And there we lose our way unless we rest, knowing the wave will bring us to its crest again There we may drown if we let fear hold us within its grip and shake us side to side and leave us flailing, torn, disoriented But if we rest there in the trough, are silent, being with the low part of the wave, keeping our energy and noticing the shape of things, the flow Then time alone will bring us to another place where we can see horizon, see the land again, regain our sense of where we are and where we need to swim May you rest in the trough In the silence, and we find a way to trust that the wave will bring us all again to the crest So that we can regain our sense of where we need to swim Thank you So here's my ending offer for you. The Relational Alchemist has entered the underworld, and the water spiral, the elemental pathway of genuine emotional sovereignty, of reclaiming what has been submerged, of the depth work that transforms rather than manages, is the natural companion for this season. So I give you two water spiral invitations. One is the Reclaim Inner Sovereignty Taster Workshop replay. It's an experiential introduction to the depth work of the water spiral, and you can watch the replay in your own pacing and time. However, if you'd like to join me at a live Reclaim Inner Sovereignty Taster Workshop, that happens on October 10th as an online community gathering. I offer it at this threshold moment to step into the water spiral in community and in real time to support one another with deep changes You can find both options Where to watch the replay of the taster workshop and where to sign up to join me for free at the live workshop on October 10th, both at my homepage on theedgesofchange.com. Look under the sections called Ways to Begin and What's Coming in the Autumn Season. Bless you You have been listening to the Astrology Alchemy podcast with your host, Sheila 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.