Becoming a Professional Astrologer with Alex Amorosi

Transcript:

Hey everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology. And today I'm going to be visiting with one of my friends and colleagues, a former student in one of my programs, Alex Amorosi, who's also a yogi; really like Alex a lot. He's gonna be talking to us about the path of professional astrology today, giving some tips sharing his story. You guys know I like to bring people on to do that once in a while. So that's our agenda for today.

All right. Well, Alex, I'm super excited to have you here today. Welcome. Thanks for being here.

Alex Amorosi 0:50
Thanks for having me, man. This is a joy. Thank you so much.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 0:53
Yeah, I mean, What year did you come through the program?

Alex Amorosi 0:58
Oh, 2019 into 2020?

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 1:01
Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, I think I think I remember spending a little bit of the pandemic era with you. I feel like in the outset. Yeah.

Alex Amorosi 1:09
I remember us all kind of huddled around the screen.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 1:14
It's only Oh, my gosh, well, yeah, I wanted to have you on because I think you what you're doing. You know, with astrology, you've been a healing practitioner, a yoga teacher, and other modalities for a long time. And we definitely share the path of yoga in common. You've added astrological consulting and counseling to your repertoire. You've been a student of astrology for a while you came through my program, and it was really great to have you there. Because, you know, whenever fellow yoga teachers are coming through, it's just it's nice to be able to help a fellow yogi, like, continue cultivating their astrology skills. So yeah, but for all those reasons, I wanted to have you come in and talk a little bit about your journey with astrology, I usually start by asking people like, How did all this happen for you? When did you first get into astrology? In your case, maybe tell us a little bit about all the things that you do and how all of it started. Because there's, there's there's a bunch in your toolkit.

Alex Amorosi 2:11
Yeah, I started actually studying; Oh my god, I'm rewinding farther and farther in my life, now to get back to that. So I probably started; I started studying Buddhism, Zen Buddhism when I was about 20. And I was a classical musician. And that's a pretty high-strung career path. When you're going into it, there's a lot of stress and a lot of hours in it. And Zen was the first time where I had a sort of formal teacher spiritually, even though I didn't have a sort of spiritual background to my life. And then I got into yoga; when I was about 24, I had hurt my knee, and one of those sort of undiagnosable there's just pain in my knee type of thing. No one could kind of figure out what was going on. So I started doing yoga, and the pain went away in about six months, and my back started feeling better. And I was in one of those places in my life where I had lost direction. And I was too young to really put that into words at that point in my life, but I just knew I needed something that would not only be physically good for me but something that I could keep enhancing and working with the spiritual practices, which was odd for me because I didn't have a very, I didn't have any spiritual background growing up.

Really, and it was something that just kept coming to me, it's something I need to do, you know, like one of those things that kind of just keep sticking in your brain like you should do this more. And I loved yoga so much; I did a teacher training program the year after that was 2004. And I started teaching in 2005 and then started teaching full-time in 2006. And I loved it; it was not, you know, looking back, it was one of those things where I was just like I'll just jump in and teach yoga full time, and I didn't realize like that that that takes some hustle wasn't quite used to those like oh wow, I'm gonna teach a lot of classes to make this work. But then I started training teachers in 2007, And you know, kind of in modules and teacher training and then started doing more teacher training as I got into 2011 2012, Actually no earlier than that; it's hard to even go back and think about it but um, I hit done like spirituality I think in a way that I don't know if you found this too, but like I think when I was first starting out with yoga and spirituality, it was very externally focused and I was looking for something that would kind of help me escape from in here rather than go deeper in here even though I said I was doing the opposite. So then I hit my Saturn Return, and everything; Is a hefty Saturn Return too. I have my Saturn at the tail end of Virgo. So And my moons at the beginning of Libra. So I got a Saturn Return, and then Saturn conjunct my moon. Plus, I had Uranus opposing my moon and Pluto squaring them.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 5:09
Oh my god.

Alex Amorosi 5:10
Yeah, it was a dynamic time in my life. And I remember I went to an astrologer actually up here in Massachusetts, and she looks back at that time with me. She looked at the chart, and you know how when you see transits in a chart, and you go, Oh,

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 5:27
Yeah, exactly.

Alex Amorosi 5:30
Well, this is that was certainly a powerful time for you. Yeah. So but that was actually where I'm so many a confluence of so many things kind of blew apart in my life, that it started to show me where I was deceiving myself in my own spiritual practice, where I was lying to myself where I was treating myself still with disrespect, but saying I wasn't using sort of spiritual language. Oh, yeah. And I had like two relationships blow apart within the course of a year and really kind of dramatically so. And so how like, this led me to astrology, as I was lying on the beach, it's Horseneck Beach on the south coast here in Massachusetts. And I was just lost. It was the first time I could actually like, say, I don't know what to do. I have no no tools in my toolbox to know what to do here other than to say, I don't know what to do. And I looked up at the sky, and I still at that point, didn't really have a really theistic understanding of my spirituality. But I just said spontaneously, God, I see what I'm doing. And I don't know how to stop. Please send me whatever I need to help stop causing myself and other people so much suffering.

And I didn't really didn't know how to stop I could see it all happening. But it was like compulsive, I knew I was going to continue in these patterns unless I got something to intervene with it. And I didn't realize when you make a prayer like that, the universe takes you at your word. got thrown in the deep end of my shadow for a while I had a lot of Pluto going on for a long time. So I was in the underworld for a long time. And astrology came about sort of at the tail end of that experience. I had gone through all sorts of shamanic and energy work practices that were really helpful. I found a great spiritually-based therapist who was super helpful, and a great teacher of mine. But astrology was kind of like my last holdout, or I was like that can't really, no, you know, I have a lot of Virgo in my chart. I have a very, very strong mercury in my chart, like no, that no, no. Doesn't work now. But um, I began to realize as I stopped putting down my dismissiveness, you know, and I, I tried to be open, you know, Sagittarius tried to be very curious and open. Um, I want to learn about everything in the world. It was astrology was describing something I had seen my entire and felt my entire life. It was a language were like, it was almost like, like a veil had been removed from my eyes. And I'm like, Oh, I've seen this my entire life. This language of astrology is describing the interactions of energy that I had been aware of forever. And it was just this beautiful formal language. And then I think I may have said this to you in a reading I had with you I just like it just took me over. It felt like it really just came in and was like, now you're obsessed with astrology? That is what happens out there. Yeah.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 8:36
Yeah. I mean, it's funny, because I feel I sometimes, you know, I think I heard someone else say this originally, but it's like you're getting bit by the bug, the astrology bug. Yeah. And it goes viral in your circuitry somehow, and you start seeing the world through the archetypes, and the language and the transits. And you get really obsessed with your birth chart for a while that, you know, for most people, like the more you start getting into astrology as a student, eventually, you know, your obsession with your own birth chart sort of chills out a little bit. It's always still useful and helpful, but it like sorts calm down, and then seems like at some point, you start realizing like, I know way more about this than most people and I might actually be able to read people's charts. So then, I guess you do. Was there a moment for you where you started realizing I mean, you were still teaching yoga when I met you. Are you still?

Alex Amorosi 9:35
Yeah, I still teach a couple of public classes. I was teaching a lot more when I was when we first met.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 9:42
Yeah. You're offering readings now. Right?

Alex Amorosi 9:45
Yeah, I'm offering readings, and as part of the sort of spiritually-based coaching and energetic energetically based coaching that I do, the charts are an invaluable tool to doing that work. And it's just you know, and my clients really enjoy it because There's something concrete about the chart, you can actually show something rather than, you know, when you're doing a lot of energetic work. You're, you're describing something that's very intangible. And so yeah, I started doing readings. I think not long after I came out of your class, not long after that. And that was interesting, too, because I'm always so impressed with like, when I listen to like, you give a talk, or like, you know, Nadia Shaw, or Rick Levine, these really amazing astrologers. Because when I first started, I was like, I couldn't get any words out around like, Saturn makes things small. And Jupiter makes them big. And you know, it's Venus is love and mercury..... It was just like, but it was very much like when I talked to you know, I'm training yoga teachers, I always tell them, like, just keep speaking it, you have to, like, get the language out. And then I began to realize I'm like, Oh, the more I practice this, the more I'm beginning to figure out my own way of articulating that. And it just started to get easier. The more readings I did, it just took practice.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 11:09
Yeah, I mean, it's funny that we don't talk about this that over astrologers don't talk about this that often. But when you say I'm reading charts for people, you might, you might as well at least in the beginning, for a good while, you might as well say I'm learning to read charts for people, because you don't develop as a reader. Unless you I mean, it's like reading books when you're like my daughter's, you know, going into first grade, and she's practicing reading her books every night. And I've watched her not know the word they. And now she does. And now every time she sees it, she recognizes it. And she, she understands the y at the end. And so I feel like it's very similar with astrology. And like you said, with yoga teacher trainings, which my wife was much more the leader of in our studio for awhile, but it's the same thing. It's like, you don't, you can't think to yourself, I won't be an astrologer, or I won't be an astrologer, or a yoga teacher until I know how to perfectly talk astrology or yoga. It's actually that you learn to read by reading, you learn to teach by teaching. And so you have to, you have to just be confident in knowing that if you just keep talking astrology and talking charts, the language comes in time. And that's really just such a great point you made.

Alex Amorosi 12:32
Yeah, yeah. And I think something I learned from your class too, which I really appreciated, was the live readings that you do. And to see that I'm, what I took from that. One thing was when watching you do that was by doing so many readings over so many years; you would also develop your own lexicon of how to speak about Venus in the ninth house or Saturn square the sun or something like that, where it came from the experience of seeing people in practice and seeing how it was manifesting in their life. And then you start to put it together. Like one of my Reiki teachers, a good friend of mine up here, she, um, she calls it your healing glossary when you're doing energy work, you just get a sensation, that means this or something that means this and that just takes experience of putting that together.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 13:19
Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point. And that just that language acquisition can be so overwhelming for people and even in the classes when you're getting, you're hitting and hit by so much theory. And I'm thinking now about, you know, the way in which I studied as well. And it's that it's that process of just falling into the deep end. And figuring out that if you just stay there long enough, you don't drown, you actually learn to swim. And it's an incredible thing about, you know, immersion in any kind of language. I mean, I remember being in Peru for a good long while, and I knew no Spanish, and suddenly, I had like a little bit of working Spanish just by being there and living there for like a month or whatever. So I think that's just kind of something about language itself. But the thing is, what's really amazing about astrology is that the language is also divinity. So there's this weird way in which the language actually happens in reading charts and studying books and so forth. But it's also just like, oh, Mars is square Pluto, my daughter after her sparkler, on Fourth of July, we just gave them some sparklers and stuff. Her sparkler ran out. And she thought it was done. So she grabbed it, and it's still hot, right? She burned her finger. And I immediately thought, oh, Mars is square to Pluto, there she burned, she burned something that was like a firework. And it's like suddenly the language acquisition process is just seeping through your experiences to which is you know, and then it works with whatever modality you have like energy healing or yoga or whatever else.

Alex Amorosi 14:51
Right, exactly. And I found it's so helpful to when you can just make that connection, right where you can just say like, oh, Saturn is squaring the sun or Venus, it also helps you, um it depersonalizes it a little bit, it makes it like it. This is something that's just happening in the ether right now. And like you said, it's almost like the archetype starts to speak to you; it starts to come into your psyche and gives you through your own nervous system and your own life experiences the way to see it and describe it.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 15:27
Yeah. And you and the way that you're, if I understand correctly, what you're saying is that what are often very intangible energetic levels of experience within the energy healing paradigm that you work in become a little bit easier to understand because you can also look to the chart to understand what someone or where or how someone might be experiencing something.

Alex Amorosi 15:50
Yeah, that's exactly it. Exactly. And it helps them to, you know, I actually thought, because I brought my own biases from my own sort of, like, rational Virgo stellium, you know, of like, well, people don't want to see their astrology chart, everybody wants to see their astrology. Yeah. And clients really like to see it because, you know, I can give them a little bit of sense of timing, I can show here's Mars, here's Venus, here's here are tangible things and their relationship to each other. That you're exactly that it takes that intangible level of, you know, that look of space where it's a little bit more abstract and makes it feel a little bit more real. And I've actually found really comforting for people. Even when it's a tough transit, there's something comforting about seeing, Oh, here's how this is playing out. These are the interactions of the archetypes that lasts about this long. That's sort of an idea.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 16:48
Yeah, yeah, that's a good way of putting it; it is comforting. It's oddly comforting in when things are heavy, like, my daughter is not at the age where she can appreciate, you know, Mars square Pluto and her fingers burning, right? And like, you know, there are lots of examples like that, where we may not be able to appreciate in the moment, because it's so intense. But as the healing or reflecting upon experience takes place, and we are able to make meaning out of something that's often when it comes in as well. If not, sometimes actually in the moment too, which can be pretty amazing. Yeah, it's like, what's that, you know, that meme where it shows the person with like, all the numbers in the air crunching, calculating, and, you know, to a certain extent, it's like, astrologers are walking around the world having experiences, while also sort of doing that at times, but yeah, yeah, well,

Okay, so I want to go back in time a little bit, and you went from like, Okay, I've got an injury, or I'm getting into, by the way, I feel like Zen is really like, such an interest. And like, to me, it makes total sense that Zen would be paired with classical music, I feel like of the there to me, they're all sort of, you know, I'm a sort of perennial list. So I look at, like, the similarities between all these different traditions, and I'm sort of like, a, they all are sort of taking us in the same direction. Zen Buddhism, though, if I had to describe it aesthetically, would to me be a little bit like, you know, the classical music of your meditative options. So, and then maybe that's not right, because someone else might experience jazz, I don't know. But anyway, I think that's really appropriate. But the question that I had was like, how did you how did energy healing come up from like, Zen and classical music to energy healing seems like a real shift to me. Like you mentioned, a couple of relationships that were like, bonkers or whatever. But like, how did that shift take place?

Alex Amorosi 18:39
Oh, my God. Um, yeah, I mean, just try to connect the dots back in my own mind. Zen was the simplicity of Zen was really helpful for me. As someone who can get really lost in the weeds of Saturn in Virgo, right, you know, everything has to be analyzed to the nth degree. And Zen is very much about like, No, you just kind of sit with your experience. You just experienced the world as it is. But I think the most powerful thing about that experience that led me towards energy healing was, and it didn't realize that at the time, my teacher, who I can't even remember his last name, his first name was Mark, one of those, I don't know if you've had these types of teachers in your experience where they are so attentive, it's like they can look right through you. And I remember, I'll never forget when he first looked at me; it felt like I had to, like cover-up. He was like; he was looking and seeing all of my shit, right? Everything that I didn't want anybody to see. He was somehow seeing and compassionate, just paying attention to me. And I think if I look back, that was the moment where that level of attention that level of paying attention started to break open something within me that took many, many years to come to fruition. And so I am I realized at that moment, somehow that stuff was being released. And that difficult dark shadow stuff, but I didn't have the capacity to hold it. So when I got to 2012, that summer of 2012. And that's when I really, you know, I was going through the thick of those difficult transits. Looking back, I had avoided that stuff by being in a relationship and making it all about that other person. I will be the best Saturn and Virgo boyfriend you have ever had; I will be. But that way, I don't have to see any of this. And when I was on the beach that summer, and I had that experience, probably my first sort of transcendental experience where it really was like, broken open out of nowhere. You know, Saturn kind of puts you in that box where you have no choice. Somehow the combination of that experience with Mark when I was taking his class, going through to that part of that beach that summer, which was about ten years later, began to open me to a subtler realm that I always had kind of been aware of, but now had become really started to notice like, there's something else that's there that's guiding me, there's something else that's present. And I want to know what that is; I got super curious about it. And that's when I did Reiki, and I did some shamanic energy work. And I did that in addition to doing therapy, which I found the two of them really helpful because I needed that rational understanding from a therapist. And I also needed, like, the understanding of what I had been perceiving; I had, in my whole life, been very aware of people on an empathic level somewhat in I don't like the word psychic because I think so much comes along with that, but like, aware of the subtler realms, but I didn't have language for it. And somehow, those two experiences ten years apart begin to break me open to realize what I call the subtle universe, that there's a level of understanding; I don't know if it was something similar with you with Ayahuasca in a different way or something. Yeah. But um, I began to realize that when people work, when I worked with the energetic realm of my own being, it was helping me to heal things I thought had already been intractable because it was good to get to the root of what was there. But it also helped me realize how much we're picking up from the field around us all the time. And how much information I have been aware of in my chart, you know, in astrology is because sun and Neptune conjunction in my chart, so I'm very kind of porous to all of this information. And when I figured out how to work with that and how to integrate it, it was the most life-changing experience I've ever had. It took me from feeling super neurotic all the time to this sense of feeling really, really grounded and stable within myself for the first time. You know, it took me 35 years to get there. I was about 35. And I wanted to help other people do that. I don't know if that makes sense.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 23:10
Yeah, it does. It's interesting. It's a I think, you know, one of the things that I was thinking about as you were sharing your stories, how, how many times we try because people have not been really present for us, often starting with our parents, I think that's a big thing. As a parent myself, I realized that it's not the big F ups. It's really not because humans make mistakes. If I had to say anything, that is the biggest challenge of parenting, and like the worst thing I could do to my kids, it would be to not like, it's not just listening, it's attentiveness. It's like being present with them. So that all of whatever, you know, whatever time I have with them, because it's not all, you know, they have their own space too. But when I'm there with them, and I just simply bear witness to who they are, and all of their experiences, and they see me bearing witness, like present and compassionate and loving, but just attentive. That's probably the number one gift I could give my kids. Exactly. And I look at my life and I look at you know, I think my I think I was very blessed that I think I had some quality attention from my parents. And I think, you know, hopefully, a lot of people listening have at least some you know, but if you and I think here's one of the things that I think results, and I see this in myself and clients, you know, even in my kids is that when you don't feel like people are really paying attention to you. I think there's a way in which you start trying to create a personality or different categories or costumes of personality that will draw people's attention. Exactly. And they don't have to be exotic like maybe they are maybe you, you know, maybe you go remember my kids in my, in my high school like going Gothic, you know, like dark paint or mascara or whatever. And I've no judgments toward that whatsoever. But my point is that I look at my life and all the different times in which I tried to, like, let me be something to get some kind of attention, and how much that goes back to probably places in my life or areas where there wasn't there weren't a lot of teachers or people who just really were present for me not to again, not to get into like blaming my parents, or I really feel like I've, I'm in a pretty good space with all that now; and then, you know, you think about so much of what yoga is.

And by extension, what astrology is, when we're looking at our charts, and so on and so forth, is we're trying to celebrate and discover all that we really are, and being present all the different facets of who we are. And the fact is that the chart is like, I mean, a parent isn't right, that quite the right word, but it's a witness, the sky somehow witnesses us and is like, Hey, I see all of these things. And I think that's what people are like, when you said earlier that people are like everyone wants to see their chart. I think it comes from that, you know, and I think you know, there's you go to a yoga studio, and just as someone who has been in that world, you have to, you'll hear yoga teachers saying you're not your body or your emotions, or you're not your thoughts or your like, let them flow through you be present, witness them, etc. But that's only really one part of the story, isn't it because as an energy work, or I think in shamanic work or and astrological chart reading, it's not about trying to say, oh, you know, like dissociate from any categories of identity, as much as it is to create a space within which you can relate to, and develop intimacy with the different parts of yourself, it's hard if you're always trying to be so intensely identified with different categories of personality, that there's no space in between you and those categories to relate with. And what I was struck by when you were describing the energy healing in the birth chart is like, plus yoga is that's sort of what you're able to do, you're able to say, here's, let's get some space, so you can see, but also celebrate and be witness to who you are.

Alex Amorosi 27:31
I've so many thoughts. That's so beautiful. And I think so true. And I think in 2012, the great blessing of a Pluto transit is it gets you to start to integrate your shadow. And it gets in to see the shadow and to witness the shadow, which really wants to be seen, which really wants to have witness born. So I always think of you know, I've heard Oprah say over and over again how anybody who ever sat on a stage only ever wanted to be seen, they only ever wanted to be noticed. And I think that the chart does that I think that an energetic understanding of yourself does because it takes you back to a more abstract level where you can look in on what's going on and you don't become like for me. I have so much Virgo in my chart I was so obsessed with being good and pure and right in doing things right that I had no room for the spontaneity and the power in some that comes from different other aspects of my chart and my understanding of myself and one of the things that were coming to me to is you know, in terms of being a gay man and working with other gay men and other queer clients, I have seen nothing more healing than to show them their chart because you grew up when you're LGBTQ; when you're a queer person you grow up feeling in this culture, you're the wrong one. You're the bad one you're the outside of the normal and you're the the Aquarius Saturn sort of you know, you're sitting on the outside sort of thing. And I always tell them like this, this is the witness of your perfection right here in this lifetime. This is looking thing there is nothing wrong with you. This is how this this chart is expressing within your unique life. And you know even like when you when you go outside at night, you know I was thinking about last winter when Venus was setting up for a retrograde and right outside of my house there was Venus and Saturn and Jupiter sitting like up in a line for like a month above my house. And I thought this is so perfect and beautiful. And I would never go outside and be like, hey Saturn move over to the left a little bit or hey Jupiter, you know drop over to the right a little bit because like you're a little like you would never do just go and say this is perfect and I'm like we're a part of that this or that showing us that we are all a part of that and whatever it is whether you know for me it happens to be with a lot of queer clients but I think all of us in some way. Want to remember or have that deep know I mean, within us that we're a part of this system. Yeah. And we live.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 30:05
Yeah. I love that. I mean, I feel like when you were talking about how, at first, the spirituality that you were embracing was kind of opposite everything you were saying or thinking that it was. And it just goes back to the same idea, which is that, you know, we just, we want to be seen and loved so deeply. And I think it's the same thing, like I, I reflect, you know, I reflect often on, on this through the different, you know, like, my, like, club ayahuasca for ten years, you know, it was like, got the tattoo right on my wrist, like, I'm an ayahuasca guy, you know, and, and I look back at this as the tattoo is, like, you know, fading in, you know, it's, the further I get from it, the more I realized, like, in an experience that made me feel really seen and really understood by some presence, some plant intelligence, you know, something bigger than myself, that my first inclination was still sort of a trauma response of let me tattoo this now on me and be like, that's who I am, this is what I am, now see me and, and it feels like the journey of spirituality with astrology. And the thing that the reason I say that we obsess over our charts, and then we let go of it. And so, in some ways is the same. It's like, here's the tattoo of who you are. And then as you get to know your chart, over time, it's like the tattoo fades in, it becomes this really remarkable part of you, and it's still there, like, the birth chart is always this really beautiful piece of who you are, but your relationship, you know, you're not like getting the, you know, like the Virgo tattoo, or whatever it is, you know, you're like, letting it relax a little bit. And it's that relaxation of all of these categories of identity that allows us to actually, like, inhabit them. It's like, you know what I mean, and I just feel like that, that gift that you were talking about with, you know, working, let's say you're working with a young gay man, who maybe is on the brink of coming out or something, and it's like astrology is at least, you know, maybe in the moment, but in five or ten years down the road, if the person keeps astrology in their lives, it allows them to inhabit exactly who they are. And also, I think more than just being validated allows you to feel comfortable in who you are over time.

Alex Amorosi 32:36
That's exactly it. And that, at least, that's how I've experienced it. And I've seen that with some clients is, you really begin to realize, you know, it's I think we often think that the universe is out there, you know, there's the universe, and you look at it through the Hubble, right? And that's how we know there's a universe; we don't realize, like, it's everywhere. We're here right now. It's, it's, and that, you know, as you say, so beautifully all the time, you know, the planets are bearing witness to you, they are seeing you, and there is nothing wrong with any of the identities. In fact, what I found was that the identity starts to go haywire or cause challenges when they're not witnessed. Yeah, yeah, that's when they're not allowed to express in some way. But that was definitely true with the, you know, the Saturn Pluto ish darker elements in my chart. For me, that's what I really began to explore in 2012.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 33:39
That's, it reminds me of a story; I'll tell the story because I think you'll find this interesting. So I'm going through Saturn in Aquarius opposing my ascendant ruler, Venus, and Leo. And I had this, first of all, I with the gas prices and everything I thought I like to I want to make a switch over to something more environmentally friendly. And like I started looking at hybrids or electric vehicles and stuff like that. And I found out my I had been last time that we got cars and stuff like that we did the car shopping, I did, I got like a family responsible vehicle, and I really had wanted a Jeep Wrangler, because I had a Jeep Wrangler when I was younger, and it's like, you know, it feeds into my whole ego or whatever. So I'm like, All right, like, I can't get a Wrangler. It's not responsible. It's terrible. You know, mileage and eco not eco friendly or whatever. Well, they made a hybrid, right? And it actually has enough, you know, it gets enough miles on the charge where I'll probably fill it like a couple of times a year at most like so. Because I don't because I work from home, I don't travel much. So I'm like, oh my god, I'm actually I can I could get a wrangler again, wow, that would be really incredible. Passed by the wife. She was like, okay, so I was like, wow, this is gonna happen. Well, my dad growing up, had a Wrangler. And he had a white Wrangler. It was a white Jeep Wrangler. And he got it right around 40. Right, which is where I am right now. And it's sort of in my memory marked the beginning of like a pretty intense downward spiral and like a midlife crisis that he had. So I had a lot of trepidation around doing this around 40. And I was like, oh, like, I don't know, I don't want to repeat some pattern or and I don't want to be like an indulgent because it felt kind of like an indulgent thing. And I was really tripped out about it. And I was talking to my Jungian therapist, like, you know, some somewhat regularly about this, which just sounds so stupid when I say it out loud. But so anyway, I decided to get a black one. And I got it. And I was, you know, I was, you know, elated. I was honestly really happy to be in so like, this is my old car, like, this is the only car I've ever really loved in my life. And I feel like I have a Wrangler. Again, it makes me really happy. So I was being geeky about it. And I, I went in my wife jokingly, before we were going to bed said, you know, you got to give it a name. And I was like, No, I don't do that. Because that's, that's weird. And I've always just felt like that was really corny when people name their vehicles. And I'm just not the type. If I had a boat, I know you're supposed to do it with like a boat, but I'll never have a boat. So okay, like, maybe I'll have like a kayak or a canoe or something. But so I'm like, Okay, well, I go, maybe something will come up in a dream, and it'll give me a name. So I ended up having this dream. And in the dream, I was in The Empire Strikes Back. And I'm in the scene where Luke Skywalker is realizing that his father is Darth Vader. So, yeah, so and but in this, I'm realizing not that my father is Darth Vader, but that I'm Darth Vader. Because I got a black jeep, and not a white jeep. My dad had had the white, you know, is this really? And when I realized that just like in the movie, you know, it looks No, like, it's just like, and I actually woke up from like, I actually woke up laughing because it was so absurd, and like, funny or whatever. But then I started thinking about it and was like, why am I having such an intensely hard time? Like, I'm not someone who, you know, makes splashy purchases of things that I selfishly want, I don't, I'm not. And you know, everything about yoga is really not about materialism. And you know, so I felt I actually was really, really struggling with this more, I mean, more so than I'm even describing right now. And then, you know, so at any rate, what I thought was really fascinating was after this dream, I popped onto Instagram, and I said to everyone, you know, what would if you were an astrologer, what would you name your black jeep wrangler, and I was just a joke, and I put a picture of it up and whatever. And I kid, you know, people who they couldn't see each other responding until I reposted what they responded, and I got probably 40 or 50 responses, and like, 10 of them were Darth Vader. Like, I was like, wow, that's, that's crazy. Or daddy Vader, that was a pretty funny one.

So, so sorry, the story is almost over. So, um, so anyway, what I thought was really interesting. I was telling, again, talking to my youngian therapist about all of this, and I love unpacking dreams with him. And I told him about all this. And so you know, what's really interesting is, you know, this is a part of you, the Wrangler part of you, the person who likes to drive a Wrangler, and the part of you that is worried about becoming like your father, who was a Methodist minister who sort of fell down, lost his faith for a time, etc. And you're worried about this being this like materialistic shadow that's going to come up and like take over; it's all very much like the connection between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and this is whatever, but you know, what's really interesting is, like, what happens to Luke throughout the story? He starts off in the first in Star Wars and white, right? Empire Strikes Back; he's in gray. And by Return of the Jedi, he's in black. And, and he's got the black robe on, right? Yeah. Ever thought of this? Yeah. And along the way, when he realizes that his father is Darth Vader, he's just gotten his hand chopped off, and like his father, he starts to have a part machine on his body. And he just, you know, was saying like, there's something about incorporating all parts of ourselves, the dark, the shadow, everything that's, you know, it's even a part of his story in Star Wars. And it was the simplest explanation to me ever that it made so helped me make so much sense of Saturn currently opposing Venus getting this black perhaps materialistic thing and but it's the shadow that needs to be incorporated. Obviously, we can go to extremes, we can get destructive, and we can fall into the illusion of materialism. And I think we have to be vigilant about that. But what I hear you saying In the long story, there's a long-winded way of saying that, isn't that exactly what astrology is helping us to ultimately with all of these different parts of ourselves is like, actually, the cosmos is this perfectly arranged collection of things and astrology is somehow just helping us bring that picture back into our understanding of ourselves.

Alex Amorosi 40:21
1000%. You know, it's what comes up for me to in that I'd never thought of that white, gray, black? That? No, I'll never unsee that. That's amazing.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 40:32
I know, right? I hadn't thought of it either. He totally blew my mind with that.

Alex Amorosi 40:36
I mean, I'm a serious Star Wars geek. Like, I like that whole thing. But I also was thinking too, about how you know, I've taught from this before, and I've done talks is, you know, at the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke draws on his anger, he draws on his shadow side to defeat or bring down Darth Vader, but he makes he has it under control, he's able to see it, witness it, he sees the hand, and then throws the lightsaber, you know, you'll never make me a Sith or what you know, I'm always I'm a Jedi or something like that. But I always think that that's interesting, because we work so hard, you know, in from this story that I hear from you, and maybe in a different way, my experience in 2012, and I'm still working with us, and a lot of ways is this. We work so hard at saying My shadow is bad, my darkness is bad. Well, when I will go outside at night and see Saturn and Jupiter in the sky. I don't look up at Saturn and say Saturn is bad. And Jupiter is good. I'm like; they're both beautiful. They're both beautiful. And they're both necessary, you know, to it's the sense of being able to step back. And as I would see it at the end of Return of the Jedi. That's what Luke's able to do. He's able to have a positive reflection of mindfulness moment almost of saying like, Oh, if I keep going, then I do become this. But I'm actually; he incorporates it, and then he can throw it away and say, I can draw on this. I'm aware of it. It's integrated with me, but I don't have to let it run me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think that that's what was happening for me. In my experience, and I'm still working with this a lot of ways is, when you realize exactly what you said, it's all a part of us; the cosmos is representing a whole. And all of it can be witnessed and seen, and all of it has its place. You know, Mars has its place, Pluto has its place; the planets we call them malefic, or you know, can be difficult, but they have their place. I'm grateful eternally for my moon getting blown apart by Uranus and Pluto over a court hears. I mean, it was tough. It was really tough. But it worked my ass up. It made me, you know, Saturn in there limits to it boxed me in and so that I had to ask for help. And I had to look at what I had been trying to avoid for so long.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 43:04
Yeah, yeah. It's funny. I forgot to mention this part of the story. It fits in perfectly with what you were saying. So I, I, through all of this. I kept thinking, you know, I was reflecting a lot on my birth chart in the Saturn Venus transit. And so the name that came to me, I don't know if I'll ever be able to actually refer to my jeep with a name. But if it had a name, it would be DarkStar. Yeah, just perfectly. Like I think about you know like I was born in a nighttime chart. Chart. Sec flight is the Moon in Capricorn; a Saturn ruled sign full, full moon, you know, so I was I'm a child of a dark star and a child to Saturn in a way, you gotta find room for that you got to exactly you said you got to go outside and be able to be like, that's beautiful, too. That's one of the reasons I was so drawn to bhakti yoga, in particular, is that as the yoga, really the emotional yoga, it's about recognizing the divinity in all states of feeling like all moods, all atmospheres, all states of feeling as expressions of something divined and I've always so for me, that was like, always been super attracted to that as a very moody Capricorn, Moon, you know, have to find room for those things. Otherwise, you end up feeling like a bad person, or you try to hide parts of yourself, and you know, what's not at the end of the day, there's just there's nothing like feeling like there's a place on your shelf for all of you, you know.

Alex Amorosi 44:36
all of you in your chart says that, you know, it's funny as you say that too because my favorite chapter in the Gita is the cosmic vision, you know, Arjuna, please show me the true form and the language of the description. It's like yes, there are beautiful scenes, but there are terrifying scenes, and there are, you know, there's so many um, There's a totality in that vision. Really, really amazing.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 45:04
See? I don't know if I can angle this over there. Can you see that right there? Kinda? It's a little blurry. There it is. There's the universal vision right there, man. Yes. So there's you can't really see it, but there's like fire. There are like mouths, like eating people and stuff.

Alex Amorosi 45:24
There's something that's beautiful. I'm like, I gotta go out and get that, right. There's a there are the 1000 eyes, with the 1000s stomachs and like the whole, like these really incredibly destructive images and creative images. And I've I never really realized years ago why he was drawn to that, but it's exactly this, right? That God, the great mind or the luminous mind, you might say, in the traditions I study. There's a totality. It's all present. It's all part of it.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 45:59
How could hallelujah mean? Anything but that, you know, like, I've always thought I've always felt that way. I'm like, What are we going to hallelujah, this but not that. I mean, hallelujah seems to bring it all in, you know, so.

Alex Amorosi 46:11
Exactly. And it's true. It's so true. And, you know, even you know, even Luke still hanging on there, you know, with his one hand, you know, like

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 46:30
Oh, my God, dude, we have gone from Star Wars to all-devouring universal minds. Like this is the this has been the best.

Alex Amorosi 46:39
This has really been fun. But, uh, thank you for. Yeah, thank you for sharing that story. It's, that's, uh, I don't know, I get that on a deep level that from my own life.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 46:49
Well, you inspired me to share that story. Because it's just as you were talking, I was like, you've got to hear the story. But I want before we go, we've been going back and forth about a lot of interesting things. Hopefully, people have found this conversation stimulating. Give us; I don't know, a couple of rapid-fire, luminous pearls of wisdom for people who are studying astrology or thinking of getting more serious about it thinking of starting a practice. Give us a few gems that we can leave with.

Alex Amorosi 47:18
The first thing I would say is definitely taking a class. You have it; you really need the feedback and take one with Nightlight Astrology, but seriously. One of the things I really appreciate. And this is; it is true. We put together a real curriculum of a class, and you really, I think you need a teacher to reflect things off of to ask questions to get some solid. It's like music. You need to learn how to play your scales and your arpeggios before you can learn how to play concertos and symphonies. You just have to learn how to do so, take a class. The other thing I would say is to get really precise with the moon cycle. That has helped me immensely; if you really want to start getting like sort of nitty-gritty with astrology, track the moon for two or three months as it goes through the signs and watch where every other planet is and the dignity of that planet. And on a felt level, that has helped me more than anything to get a sense of like, what are the interactions of these energies, because the moon reflecting that down, for me has been immensely helpful, just like two or three months are just really tracking where the moon is and where all the other planets are. The other thing I would say it's just do it. Start reading for friends. That's what I did. And it actually helps, I think, to start reading for people who you know, a little bit because you can, you can actually start to see archetypes a little bit easier in that way. And don't be afraid to sort of stumble over yourself as you begin because it actually does loosen up faster than you think.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 49:04
Yeah, yeah. The stumbling is the loosening, right?

Alex Amorosi 49:08
Yeah, for sure. You know, it's, I've seen now many, many years of teaching yoga teachers, people who have studied or practiced yoga for a long time. And you know, we get into the first weekend of teacher training. I'm like, come on up and teach two sun salutations, which is a fairly repetitive process that happens in many flow yoga classes. And they've done those for years. But all of a sudden, they're frozen in the language of bringing it out into expressing it to others. And that's what I always say to them. Like you're trying to express what you've always felt, but you're now trying to marry the words to that, and you just have to do that. You have to repeat it often in order for it to manifest a little bit easier.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 49:54
Yeah, that's such solid advice. You give readings. I think one of the pieces of advice that I would add is to get readings from people and get some different eyes on your chart rather than your own. When you're studying, it really helps. It helps to see how people read. It helps to learn something new about your chart. On that note, I will return Alex's favor of recommending my class by recommending that you check out his website Alex Amorosi yoga.com. People can book readings there, and they just get in touch with you to book a reading.

Alex Amorosi 50:25
I'm; actually, I should have a new website live in the next couple of months where you'll be able to book but for now, just contact me from there on the email.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 50:33
And then, Instagram is at Alex Amorosi healing, and you can follow Alex posting videos. You do live streams occasionally. And yeah, and there's lots of good content there for people to follow up with.

Alex Amorosi 50:47
Yeah, thank you very much, Acyuta. This has been this has been awesome. Yeah.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 50:53
Really fun. I feel like we ranged across the universe and found that it was also right here.

Alex Amorosi 51:00
Yeah, we also got to a galaxy far, far away.

Acyuta-bhava Dasa 51:03
That's true. Awesome. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. I hope you guys enjoyed this. If you want to, you can go back to the archives and check out other episodes of this series, Becoming a Professional Astrologer. There are lots of good conversations in there with lots of other really unique, amazing people, so be sure to check those out.
All right. Well, that is it for today. Thanks, everyone, for listening. And thanks, Alex, for being here. Thanks so much.