#345-“May We Open to the Blessed Light That Comes”--Week of December 29, 2025

This final week of the year carries a sober, luminous tone. Mind, faith, and healing are tested against reality, mystery, and emotional truth. What remains after illusion falls away is not certainty—but something more trustworthy.

Mon, Dec 29 — Mercury in Sagittarius square Saturn in Pisces

Beliefs meet consequence. Words meet responsibility. This is a moment to discern which truths can be lived—and which were aspirational but ungrounded. Sobriety sharpens wisdom.

Reflection Question:
Which beliefs am I being asked to mature, simplify, or release as this year closes?

Thur, Jan 1 — Mercury in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces

Vision blurs, certainty dissolves. This is not confusion for its own sake, but an invitation to loosen the grip on meaning-making and listen for subtler guidance. Not all truth arrives in words.

Reflection Question:
Where can I loosen my grip on meaning and allow deeper truth to emerge without forcing clarity?

Fri, Jan 2 — Chiron turns direct in Aries

After months of inner review, the work of healing identity turns outward again. This marks the final full retrograde chapter of Chiron in Aries—an initiation nearly complete.

Reflection Question:
What kind of courage now feels rooted rather than reactive?

Sat, Jan 3 — Full Moon at 13° Cancer (Sun conjunct Venus & Mars in Capricorn | Moon conjunct Jupiter in Cancer)

Emotional truth swells against structures of duty and ambition. What nourishes you seeks recognition—not as indulgence, but as essential fuel for the road ahead.

Reflection Question:
What does emotional nourishment ask me to protect and prioritize as I step into the year ahead?

Podcast Poem: How the Light Comes by Jan Richardson

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 345 of the Astrology Alchemy Podcast. This is for the week of December 29th, 2025, and I'm your host and guide, Sheila Baer. Here's the phrase from this week's podcast poem. May we open to the blessed light that comes. This in the last week. This week that straddles the end of the calendar year and the beginning of the next one. It's not allowed ending to this year. It's a discerning one. The mind is being tested. Illusions are thinning and deeper truths are asking to be lived rather than explained. What we carry forward into the new year deeply matters. On Monday, December 29th, mercury in Sagittarius squares, Saturn in Pisces. It's like the storyteller meets the elder of limits. As the year closes, mercury forms the first of two exact squares, 90 degree measures between two planets, pressing beliefs, narratives, and convictions up against lived reality. This is a reckoning with inherited rules, internalized shoulds, and structures of authority we may have taken on without question. Keep in mind this is both on a personal and collective level. What makes this moment especially potent is that Mercury is activating Saturn on its way towards Saturn's historic conjunction with Neptune at. Zero degrees of Aries in late February. A rare cycle marking a 35 year cultural reset. Old scaffolding is already creaking. Here's a reflection question for this cycle. Which beliefs am I being asked to mature, simplify, or release before I carry them into the next year? And then on Thursday, January 1st, mercury and Sagittarius now squares Neptune in Pisces. So the storyteller is now meeting the mystic. So just late days later, after its connection with Saturn, the elder Mercury completes the picture by squaring Neptune dissolving certainty, blurring narratives. And breaking foggy spells of projected authority. What once sounded convincing may now feel hollow or unreal. Together these two mercury squares form a rare end of the year corridor first confronting rigid structures than dissolving illusions altogether. This is part of the longer dismantling underway. As Saturn and Neptune move towards their conjunction, an unraveling of false certainty, so something more honest can be born. A reflection question for this cycle, where can I loosen my grip on meaning and allow deeper truth to emerge without forcing clarity? On Friday, January 2nd, Chiron the Shapeshifter archetype, wounded Healer Archetype. The asteroid comment goes forward in Aries after months of retrograde flexion. Kyron appears to move forward again in Aries signaling a shift from internal healing work. To lived courage. This is the final full retrograde chapter of Chiron and Aries marking a long initiation awards around identity agency and self-trust nearing completion. Chiron entered Aries in spring of 2018, so we've had almost an eight year period of working with Chiron and Aries and this steep healing journey a working with transmuting the trauma and the pain of anger, exhaustion, fighting battles. Not believing in ourselves, and as we complete Chiron in Aries the beginning of this year, just notice what kind of healing processes might be completing themselves now, or perhaps something really significant started for you in early 2018, and you can feel the arc of that transformation coming to some kind of completion. The main thing is when a planet. Or an asteroid goes forward after being retrograde. Its energy says, all right, let's go. Let's move forward. So notice here's a reflection question for current. Going direct. What kind of courage now feels rooted rather than reactive? And on Saturday, January 3rd, we have a full moon at 13 degrees of cancer. This Full Moon is exact at 2:03 AM Pacific Standard Time, and it's quite a community. Full Moon, five planets. Out of the 10 main ones we work with, astrologically are involved in this full moon. The first full moon of the new calendar year, the sun is conjunct Venus and Mars in Capricorn, and across the way the moon is conjunct Jupiter in cancer. Now the sun is the archetype of the hero, heroine conscious one on the journey. Venus, the lover, relational one, Mars, the action taker, defender advocate, all those together in the grounded earth sign of Capricorn. What's our purpose? What's our mission? Let's go forward. Opposite, balanced by the moon, the great nurturer, and Jupiter, the teacher guide, expanded one in the deep nurturing water sign of cancer. So it's kind of like this building activating manifestation energy, meeting this great mother and balancing with them. This Full Moon amplifies emotional truth and the need for nourishment, especially where duty, ambition, or endurance have overshadowed care growth now depends on not doing more, but on honoring what sustains you as the new year begins. This Lu Nation asks for allegiance to what truly feeds your life force. Not as comfort, but as wisdom. Here's a reflection question for you. This cycle, what does emotional nourishment ask me to protect and prioritize as I step into the year ahead? So there, dear ones, as we cross into this calendar year, just days past winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere and just the very beginning. Of the light returning. The poem I wanna offer you at the first of the new year is how the light comes by. Jan Richardson and I chose it because it feels the full moonlight and the light just beginning to return. Also, what do we wanna carry forward into the new year? And I love this poem for the invocation of the light in the many ways, the many, many ways it manifests, how the light comes. I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining that it travels across an astonishing expanse to reach us. That it loves searching out what is hidden, what is lost, what is forgotten or in peril or in pain, that it has a fondness for the body for finding its way towards flesh, for tracing the edges of form, for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart. I cannot tell you how the light comes, but that it does, that it will, that it works its way into the deepest dark that enfolds you that may seem long ages in coming or arrive in a shape you did not foresee. And so may we this day, turn ourselves toward it. May we lift our faces to let it find us. May we bend our bodies to follow the arc it makes. May we open and open more and open still to the blessed light that comes, and it's not just us as individuals. But that the light is working its way into the deepest stark that unfolds all of us right now. And it does seem that it's long ages and coming. Perhaps it will arrive in a shape we do not foresee. And may we all turn ourselves towards it, the blessed light that comes. May you cross the threshold of the calendar year. With the blessed light in your heart and with your loved ones. Thank you. I wanna remind you that at the beginning of the year, I'm offering a free webinar, sky Wisdom 2026, where we'll take a look at the key important astrological cycles of 2026 for their alchemical. Spark and how they might support us personally and collectively to make deep changes, how to attune with them in a grounded and supportive way. If you're interested, go to my website on the edges of change.com. My homepage has a listing, sky Wisdom 2026. It's on Saturday, January 3rd, 9:00 AM Pacific. Go ahead and sign up. Even if you can't join me live. You'll get a recording and replay of the webinar. Bless your journey.