🎭 Riding the Flame: When the Soul Speaks Before the Stars Do

🎧 Listen to “I Took Off the Mask.” A song born from the quiet unraveling of identity, and the healing that comes when we stop performing and finally speak from truth.

A few days ago, I came across an astrologer’s post about the upcoming Mercury Retrograde in Leo, a soul reckoning, they called it.

“Mercury Retrograde in Leo is your invitation to rewrite your story , not to be seen, but to be known.”

And something in me paused.

Not because it was new. But because it wasn’t.

In that moment, I realized, I’ve already been living the very process, this retrograde is about to ignite. Over the last year and a half, I’ve walked into the fire of my own transformation, stripped bare by truth, humbled by silence, and softened by a grief I hadn’t known was still living in my bones. I’ve unlearned the polished self I used to present, the smile that said, I’m fine, the positivity that covered the ache, the strength I thought I had to wear like armor to be worthy.

This past couple of weeks while in the hospital, I wrote a blog called "The Ache Beneath the Smile: My Journey Beyond Toxic Positivity” I wrote a song called “I Took Off the Mask.” And now, the cosmos is echoing back to me the very essence of what I’ve been living:

This is the season of the unmasking.

As I understand it, Mercury in Leo brings light to the stories we tell about who we are, the stories we inherited, performed, polished, or clung to for approval. But when Mercury begins to move backward, it asks something deeper: Are those stories still true? Are they even yours?

Leo, ruled by the Sun, governs the heart, the identity, and the ego’s shine. It wants to be seen, but this retrograde doesn’t care about surface-level visibility. It wants you to be known. And that’s a much braver thing.

☿ Pluto Meets Mercury: A Confrontation with Control

This retrograde begins in tension with Pluto, planet of shadow, control, manipulation, and buried truth. That first hit often arrives like a sting: someone questions your intentions, a truth you’ve hidden slips out, or your voice catches in your throat because it’s still tethered to an old version of you that was punished for speaking.

For me, this happened not in a single moment, but through a thousand subtle ones.

The well-intentioned dismissal of my vulnerability has shown up more times than I can count. Moments where someone else’s fear was met with warmth, while mine was met with silence or subtle shifts in tone that said more than words ever could. I learned early on to internalize the message: be magnetic, not messy. And just yesterday, it happened again. I shared something tender with a loved one, not dramatic, just real and instead of connection, I was met with withdrawal. The other person retreated behind the familiar walls of self-protection, and I was left with the ache of the unspoken. But this time, I responded differently. I didn’t beg to be understood. I didn’t shrink or smooth it over. I stayed with my truth, softly, calmly and let the silence speak for itself. That, too, is healing: to no longer abandon myself just because someone else can’t meet me there.

That is my Pluto, showing me where I had given others power over my emotional expression, where I was still performing worthiness instead of living it. But Pluto also brings power. The kind you reclaim when you stop asking others for permission to be whole.

🕯 Overachiever… or Oracle?

I’ve asked myself lately: Am I simply an overachiever of healing? Always doing the work before it’s required? Or is it something else? Am I just deeply tuned in, sensing the energetic tides before they break on the shore of collective consciousness?

It’s probably both. But here’s what I know:

Some of us are wired to walk a few steps ahead. Not for recognition, but for resonance. To whisper back to those behind us: The path is hard, but it’s real. Keep going.

That’s not ego. That’s sacred timing.

So yes, I wrote the song before this retrograde. I stripped away the mask before the sky told me to. I started telling the truth before I had the words to explain why.

Because our souls don’t wait for planetary permission. It just knows.

🌕 Living the Astrology Before It Lands

If you’re just now feeling the pull to reexamine your voice, your story, or the roles you’ve performed for love, success, or safety, you’re not late. You’re not behind. You’re right on time.

But if, like me, you’ve been in this reckoning for months, if you’ve already taken off the mask and are now blinking in the strange light of your own raw honesty, then this retrograde may not be a beginning for you. It might be a reflection. A mirror. A confirmation that the path you’ve been walking was not just personal, it was cosmic.

You were never lost. You were just early.

✨ The Invitation

This Mercury Retrograde is not asking us to retreat. It’s asking us to reclaim.

→ Reclaim the voice that was shaped by survival.→ Reclaim the truth that got filtered to be palatable.→ Reclaim the self that existed before you learned to perform.

So let the rewrites begin. Not because we want to be seen. But because we’re ready to be known.

And maybe, just maybe…We’re ready to know ourselves too.

Footnote:

This post was published at 3:18 PM, just moments after Mercury entered Leo at 3:09 PM

Both times reduce to the number 9 in numerology: the number of soul wisdom, completion, and divine timing. I am a life path number 9 too.

I didn’t plan it that way… but perhaps my soul did. ✨

☿