Episode #325-"Will You Stand in the Center of the Fire?"--Week of August 11, 2025

This week offers an archetypal time of release, renewal, and bold expression. Multiple alignments offer breakthroughs in thinking, love, structure, and soul purpose.

August 11: 💥 Mercury (Storyteller) Direct at 4° Leo:
Your mental focus, communication, and inner narrative begin to move forward—but not in the same way as before. This station direct reactivates Mercury’s recent contacts with:

• Uranus (Maverick) in Gemini – new thought frequencies, unexpected downloads
• Saturn (Responsible One) retrograde in Aries – the confrontation with inner and outer authority
• Neptune (Dreamer) retrograde in Aries – releasing illusion, inviting intuitive knowing
• Pluto (Transformer) in Aquarius – shedding outdated mental control, opening to soul-truths

This rare confluence offers you a multi-dimensional opportunity to recalibrate how you think, speak, and share your vision. It's a green light—but one that asks you to lead from the heart of your truth, not the mask of performance.

Reflection: What inner clarity are you now ready to voice with courage and creativity?

⚡ August 11: Saturn in Aries trine Uranus in Gemini
This rare harmonious aspect between the planet of discipline and the planet of liberation offers a bridge between old structures and new possibilities. It’s an invitation to evolve tradition, not just reject it. This is a moment to build innovative systems that support true freedom.

Reflection: How can you become a mature steward of the changes your soul is ready to live?

💗 August 11: Venus conjunct Jupiter in Cancer
A lush and expansive moment in the heart realms. Venus and Jupiter—planets of love and abundance—unite in the deeply feeling sign of Cancer. This opens a portal of nourishment, emotional generosity, and sacred connection. A beautiful time to restore your sense of belonging.

Reflection: Where can you say yes to love that nourishes your body, heart, and roots?

🔥 August 14 & August 17: Mercury in Leo sextile Mars in Libra (twice)
Mercury, now moving direct, forms a double sextile to Mars—first as it begins to move, and again once it picks up speed. This gives you momentum to take aligned action on what you’ve been reflecting on during the retrograde. Mercury in Leo gives voice to your creativity; Mars in Libra empowers you to act with grace and strategy.

Reflection: What message or idea are you ready to activate—with both heart and harmony?

Podcast poem: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Transcript

0:49

Hello, and welcome to episode number 325, the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. This is for the week of August 11th, 2025, and I'm your host and guide, Sheila Lange. We have some dynamite cycles kicking off the beginning of this week, and overall the whole week gives support for a time of release, renewal, and bold expression. Multiple planetary alignments offer breakthroughs in thinking, love, structure, and soul purpose. First one we wanna honor is one that most people celebrate, which is the planet Mercury turning forward in Leo on August 11th, mercury, the storyteller communicator, bridge maker archetype has been seemingly retrograde seeming to move backwards in its orbit for the past three weeks. And retrograde cycles always invite slowing down, timeout. Reconsider things, review things, and this is. A bit gnarly for most of us because Mercury is the fastest moving planet other than the moon in our solar system. And it's very quick in terms of let's do this, let's do this. What about this? And so when we slow it down, it kind of like a is a log jam and Mercury, because it's about communication has, when it's retrograde, there's a review of all kinds of communication. Interpersonal communication, talking to yourself, texting, emailing, the usual scheduling, and it just means slow down, slow the roll. It's hard for all of us to do that, but here we go. Celebrate Mercury goes forward on August 11th, and it isn't just the end of a retrograde cycle. It's really a kind of cosmic pivot point for your mind, voice, and clarity of purpose. Mercury now begins a new phase of forward momentum, but with a twist. It re-triggers all the connections it made to the outer planets during the past New Moon in Leah, which is a couple weeks ago. So we get a chance to act on what's been revealed, what have we discovered in this past three weeks as we've been recognizing our old narratives or old ways of telling stories and communication needs some upgrading. Now, you may find as Mercury goes forward that your mental focus. Communication and inner narrative begins to move forward also, but not in the same way as before. This station direct, that's what it calls when it looks like the planet stops and then goes forward. This station directive, mercury reactivates, its recent contacts with four important outer planets. Uranus in Gemini, Uranus is the Maverick Awakener, so it brings this new thought frequencies, unexpected downloads. Be open and pay attention. Mercury also connects to Saturn, retrograde, Aries, and Saturn is the structure maker, the one that holds the ground, the responsible one. It all often represents authority. So this Mercury Saturn connection lets you have a confrontation with inner and outer authority as needed. That's a very big gift for all of us in the, in the United States right now. The third planet Mercury has a connection with, as it goes direct is Neptune, which is retrograde areas also, and it is the planet archetype of the dreamer, the mystic, the visionary, the altered state one. So this one, mercury, the nep, mercury, and Neptune together. Help you to release illusion and invite deeper, intuitive knowing. And then the fourth planet that Mercury is connected with as it goes forward is Pluto, which is retrograde and Aquarius. Now Pluto is the great Transformer, the one that says, go do your basement work. I talk about that. Dig out the old files, the old stories, clean them up, transform them, let them go, let them die. So Mercury, Pluto is a very powerful dynamic'cause it's, it can be a laser mind and letting, helping you to shred old, outdated mental control patterns. And open to deeper soul truths. Now, this rare confluence of five planets, as Mercury goes forward this week, offers you a multidimensional opportunity to recalibrate how you think, speak and share your vision. It's a green light, but one that asks you to lead from the heart of your truth, not the mask of performance. What that comes from is Mercury is in the sign of Leo in its healthy expression. Leos about our creativity and our sovereignty and our ability to be visible in its wounded side. It's where we get caught in narcissistic patterns or we perform for others'cause we wanna get outer validation rather than inner validation. So this Mercury going forward says. You know, lead from the heart of your truth, not the mask of performance. And here's a reflection question for Mercury going forward. What inner clarity are you now ready to voice with courage and creativity? Keep in mind, you can check out the show notes for all of these reflection questions if you wanna journal or have more time with them. Now Monday, August 11th has two more big cycles happening. So this week just starts out juicy and alive and full. Second cycle on that day is a very rare cycle between Saturn and Aries, which trines, Uranus and Gemini. Remember, Saturn is the responsible one, the structured one. Uranus is the maverick. The Destructuring one, this rare, harmonious aspect, they're 120 degrees away from each other. Between the planet of discipline and the planet of liberation Offers a bridge between old structures and new possibilities. It's an invitation to evolve tradition, not just reject it. This is a moment to build innovative systems that support true freedom. And I wanna say, especially, even though they're exactly trining the two planets on August 11th, the energy of this connection is more, much more than one day. As Saturn has gone into Aries new sign, Uranus has just recently gone into Gemini new sign, this is a very potent, archetypal opportunity to bring both structure and radical change together in a good way personally and collect. Send prayers for our collective that we can ride the energy of this archetypal cycle to find radical new ways for structure that serves all. Here's a reflection question for the Saturn trying Uranus cycle for you. How can you become a mature steward of the changes your soul is ready to live? And then finally, also on August 11th, Venus is conjunct Jupiter in cancer. Venus, the relational archetype, the lover, the magnetic one, the one connected to values and desire and beauty and connection. Jupiter. The teacher guide wise, one, expanding us, expanding our awareness, sharing our wisdom, conjunct. They're together in the heavens, in the sign of cancer. A lush, an expansive moment in the heart realms. Venus and Jupiter. Planets of love and abundance unite in the deeply feeling sign of cancer. This opens a portal of nourishment, emotional generosity, and sacred connection. A beautiful time to restore your sense of belonging. And remember, Venus about relationships is not just with external relationships, external people. It's with yourself and all your inner figures. Can you nourish them? Can you be generous emotionally with yourself? It's also about relationship with the more than human, our precious world under so much stress and pain right now, ecologically with climate crisis. Can you open your heart and your emotional generosity to the plants and the animals and the elements in the weather in all beings? Here's a reflection question for Venus Conjunct Jupiter this week. Where can you say yes to love that nourishes your body, heart, and roots? And then finally, one more present from the universe from the archetypes. A really unusual one on both August 14th and August 17th. Mercury in Leo is what's called Sextile Mars in Libra. Remember, mercury is the communicator, storyteller, and Mars is that action taker, that sacred yang go after what I want. Stand up for it advocate. It also can be in its unhealthy expression, aggression and violence. However, it's in the sign of Libra now, which asks for harmony and fairness. So Mercury now moving direct forms, a double sex style to Mars. F Sextile means they're 60 degrees away from each other in the heavens. First, as it mo begins to move. And again, once it picks up speed, this gives you momentum to take aligned action on what you've been reflecting on during the retrograde period of Mercury The last three weeks, mercury in Leo gives voice to your creativity. Mars in Libra empowers you to act with grace and strategy. That has especially sent that prayer out to all beings, and particularly in, uh, countries where there's struggle with authoritarianism and impulses to keep the freedom away from the people, let's find a way to act with grace and strategy and to give our voice forward. Here's a reflection for you. With Mercury Sextiling Mars, what message or idea are you ready to activate? With both heart and harmony. So there are some very potent cycles This week I invite you to really be with him in a way that is most congruent for you and to all my audience. You listen to this podcast'cause you're deeply sensitive to the archetypal currents. So I want to empower you to lean in and surf those waves in a good way. The podcast poem is actually a prose poem that just jumped out to say, you must speak me with these cycles. Very much so, and it's one that many people find beloved. And if you've not heard it before, you are here for a very big blessing. And if you know this one, enjoy it once more. It's called The Invitation by Uriah Mountain Dreamer. It doesn't interesting. It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I wanna know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me. What planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow. If you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain, I wanna know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it. Or fade it or fix it. I wanna know if you can be with Joy Mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes with without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I wanna know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul, if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence. I wanna know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon. Yes. It doesn't interest me to know where you live or much money you have. I wanna know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruise to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I wanna know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what with whom you have studied. I wanna know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I wanna know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments, the invitation. From Mariah Mountain Dreamer, so dear ones, may your week truly be a blessed one despite all that is going on. Remember that the power of your heart and the beauty of your voice makes a difference. And thank you for all the support you continually give me. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the donations. Thank you for telling others about the podcast. I love giving this gift to my people. Thank you for receiving it. I wanna remind you one more gift. I have a special free two hour workshop on Saturday, August 6th from nine to 11 Pacific. And it's a taster of my transformation journey roadmap, my signature course that is designed to help you liberate from toxic smallness and activate the power of your visionary nature. You're welcome to come just to taste it. No pressure to sell. I'll let you know about the course, but the main thing is it's a offering to you, my people. And you can sign up and join us live on August 16th, or you can just sign up and get the replay. To get information and register, go to my website on the edges of change.com/homepage and go the homepage. You'll see it right there midway down. It's about transforming toxic smallness and liberating into your visionary nature. Again, the website on the edges of change.com/homepage. Thank you.