Grabbed Episode 9: Nothing Is As It Seems

Transcript:

Hey everyone this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology and today we are going to take a look at some of the stories that you guys have been sharing over the past couple of months in the comment section and through the use of the hashtag grabbed or emailing us grabbed at nightlight astrology calm. Remember the name of the planets in ancient astrology were gras has Indian astrologers call them grace, which means to grab or seize. There's a way in which the planets, if we're not learning to live with them more consciously and recognise them in the stories of our lives. They can kind of move us around like puppets on a string. I think it was Auden who said we are lived by powers that we pretend to understand. And you know, that's what's so beautiful about astrology is the ability that we have to reflect upon these archetypes and to look and understand their presence in our lives, to celebrate their presence, whether we're going through something that we're really excited about, or something that's more challenging. And this series is just a way of being able to share stories that come from the transits. By doing so we learn more about the planets and the transits. And we also get to reflect on living a life day to day participating with these beautiful divine energies. So today we are on that note, we are going to share a bunch of stories that have come in between, but going back at least a few weeks, we're going to start with this recent Full Moon in cancer, opposite Pluto, there's some really good stories in here. And then at the end, we'll offer a few reflections.

So the full moon in cancer, opposite of Pluto, let's start there. I'm just going to jump around a little bit as we go. But these are some great stories you guys sent in. If you ever want to send in a story, you can just use the hashtag grabbed and then put the name of the transit so full moon and cancer opposite Pluto or Sun conjunct Pluto or Mars square Neptune or whatever it is. And then a brief entry on what happened. Keep your chart language you know out of it, just the transit and what happened. And you'll see by these examples, the type that really worked for the series, they're generally a little bit shorter or they're more concise, or they're well told, and don't involve a lot of technical lingo. And they're very clear examples of the astrological energies. Anyway, here we go. So full moon and cancer opposite Pluto. My family home was burgled over the weekend, and the thieves took our safe which held all of my late mother's jewellery. Wow. That is I mean, first of all, that's absolutely terrible and scary. I'm really sorry to hear that. But also the symbolism right of mom's jewellery being stolen and taken by thieves with the full moon in cancer opposite Pluto. This robbery brought up memories of my mother's death, which I typically bury. But when I had my therapy session on Monday, which happened to fall on the full moon, I ended up having a cathartic emotional release for the first time in over a year by talking about my mother and remembering what had happened to her. Wow. So buried emotions, getting drugged up by mom's jewellery in a safe being stolen. I mean, that is just a profound story. Thank you for sharing that. And isn't it amazing that we have the planets to aid us in excavating events and memories and themes in our life?

Here's another one. I work at a university in a department that has been trying unsuccessfully to break off and become a separate school for the past 20 years. On the day of the full moon opposite Pluto. While Uranus is stationing direct my department chair sent out a 20 page manifesto his own declaration of independence stating that our department will indeed secede from the university take our revenue with us and become a new school. But Mercury is retrograde. So I expect he may have to redo his plan. Well, good luck. That does sound a little bit Mercury Retrograde square Uranus. But obviously coming through on the full moon, especially that feeling of like here's one little group that's a part of a larger group and we're going to break off almost like a little Civil War feeling around it. Like the Hatfields and McCoys you know, like forgetting the name, a blood battle or a family feud. At any rate, so good luck to you guys.

Lately, I've been considering moving back home with my parents for a while. There's been some uncertainty with my job and I don't know if I feel comfortable signing a new lease. But this is good story when discussing with my family. My dad went over some of the possible ground rules if I were to move in and explain to me how I will have to be extra careful in a lot of ways because he's dealing with a chronic illness. So I might have to move back home but if I do there's all these rules because I have a family member that's dealing with a chronic illness. That conversation happening around a full moon opposite Pluto feels very appropriate.

Here's one from Venus retrograde. For me this Venus retrograde has been laden with some of the most vicious stabs to my heart. And as Venus was stationing in December to turn retrograde, a window of time opened unexpectedly for me to meet my crush out at the bar where she performs. Even though earlier I told her I couldn't make it. checking to see if the stars were truly aligned for the surprise meeting, I noticed Venus is turning retrograde. On Christmas Eve day she made this declaration of the worldview of Facebook posts that appear at the top of my feed crushing the last traces of my holiday spirit, which was that she was in the arms of someone else and falling in love with someone else. Despite muting her today open Instagram and there at the top of my feed was a photo of her with her new lover saying was true love indeed. That is tough. Venus stationing turning retrograde in a moment of unrequited love. That's really hard. Get your hopes up. And then it turns out this person you really like is just totally interested in someone else. And then you've got to reshuffle the emotional deck so to speak so I can only imagine that must have been tough.

Here's one about Mars Neptune. Mars squaring Neptune recently from Sagittarius to Pisces. Today I got a notification that my credit card was being used fraudulently for multiple high dollar charges. I called in the representative I talked to said it started yesterday. Card cancelled, so very much not fun, right? And that's one of the things about Mars Neptune transits is that they can often involve deception and thievery and things like that one of Mars is traditional significations in certain contextts was thievery. Mercury turning retrograde I'm the project manager for a development team that lacks a team manager I often fulfil the duties of a team manager but toe this line gently due to it not truly lying within my job responsibilities. This lack of management is starting to reflect in performance morale across the team. I've initiated a discussion today one will that will involve expressing my critical opinions, thoughts and unique ideas to superiors to explore a solution Mercury square Uranus as it's turning retrograde, and I believe that it will take a few weeks to land on something that everyone feels happy moving forward with. Isn't that just exactly Mercury's almost hitting Saturn stopping squaring Uranus? Yeah, good luck with that. I hope that works out and way to take the initiative.

Mars Neptune - this one has to be my favourite. Before my mother started her first chemotherapy treatment, she was prescribed a steroid to help manage some of the after fffects. She was explaining to me how they really helped her and made her feel good and strong. She had finished the medication the day before her next appointment, which was yesterday, and we needed to make sure to ask the doctor to refill it to her. Come to find out when I spoke with the nurse and then the doctor. She was only supposed to be taking the steroid dose one day before and three days after treatment. So apparently my mom has unintentionally been dosing herself like Lance Armstrong getting ready for the Tour de France. I couldn't help it find humour and how she described feeling really strong to her doctor. We have to wean her off the steroid for now. Oh my god. I mean, I hope you're first of all, I hope your mother is okay with her chemo treatment. And second of all, if there's anything that could lighten it up, mom getting jacked steroids through the process is that at least can give you some laughs.

Mars Neptune on the night that Mars is perfecting its square to Neptune I had a dream which ended with me falling off a viaduct into water. Once I swam to shore I realised I was in the middle of an urban wasteland with trash and hypodermic needles everywhere. I knew I needed to cross it though to get to the main road but was hesitant because I'd lost my shoes and glasses in the fall and was worried about getting stuck by a needle. I made my way gingerly through choosing to crawl into the exposed roots of a dead tree real the trash and bones in the hopes of avoiding all the needles. I became stuck in a man came to help me but was in the throes of a binge and nothing he said made any sense. I finally decided to turn around and re enter the water paddling away on some buoyant refuse until finally arriving at a sandy beach.

I just want to say Isn't it amazing how Mars Neptune can show up in dreams? And you don't necessarily need to know what they mean. But just inviting the gods in And speaking to our fears and showing us certain landscapes of imagery that resonate with the archetypal fields in the sky, I just think that's amazing. Then I love that this person left no interpretation that's so hard to do to not say okay, well what did that mean? Because maybe it meant something maybe it means many things. Maybe it's an interesting space to keep open, psychically and see what more it yields just by allowing it to be there and staying curious.

Venus Pluto, this is Venus conjoining Pluto through the retrograde I feel embarrassed to even write this because I feel so stupid and so much shame but recently I got on a dating app after ending an 18 year long marriage in 2021. Venus retrograde conjunct Pluto literally the worst time to get on a dating app you think of course. And if I'm being honest, I got on the app because I was indulging a darker impulse. I was having some feelings about my ex husband having a new girlfriend. I never thought that dating apps are something I felt comfortable with but did it anyway long story short I fell for a romance scam and lost all the money I have the details of it still send me in a spiral. Oh my god first of all that is that is a that's a tough one to swallow. I mean that is really hard. So I hope that you're doing okay and that you were able to maybe I don't know I don't know if there was a you know credit cards or banks can protect from things like that. I don't know how that works but I hope you're able to recover and sorry that you got taken advantage of. It's just very Venus Pluto to go through something like this dark being taken advantage of very Venus Pluto.

Venus Pluto, this one a little. Potentially triggering involves pregnancy and abortion just a heads up in case you don't want to listen to it. Venus Pluto, I found out I was pregnant on December 14, accidents happen. However, my boyfriend and I agreed early on, we were not going to get pregnant as he already has children from a prior marriage. And at the time, I had no desire to keep the children. To keep the story short, he is simply not available to raise a child. I was faced with a very difficult decision I didn't want to make to become a mother or not. I spent the following three weeks going back and forth and weighing my options, wanting to experience motherhood but also knowing I would never have the total support a baby and I would need. So this person chose to abort the pregnancy. And then says the event has made me reconsider the opportunity of motherhood. Now I'm faced with the next difficult choice of ending my relationship to make myself available for someone that is willing and able to have a family with me. That is a really painful, tough crossroads to be at. And I can't pretend that I would know what I would do, the decision would not be easy. You know, and I'm sure most people listening could imagine how tough that would be. And also the way that it could also awaken you to what you do or don't want in a future relationship. That part doesn't strike me as necessarily easy either. So there's Venus Pluto also right the the deep, the powerful the purging the realisations that come to the surface, the topics of death and loss. That's a hard transit. So I hope that you're healing well your body is healing well that you have some support to help you just process the whole thing that decision that relationship everything.

Here's a Mars Neptune. This is also probably I'm leaving us on a high note. In a feverish love the way that this person wrote this, in a feverish haste to make a quick 50 bucks on Instacart I began barreling down my driveway in reverse. In my rear view mirror I saw that I was probably going to hit my garbage pails but foolishly decided it was wasn't worth adjusting my course to go around. Unfortunately, that was the wrong choice this time because they had become afixed and a hunk of snow turned into ice overnight. Instead of knocking them out of the way as usual, the pail the garbage pail ended up ripping off my passenger side mirror. All the electrical components are still functioning and it could have been much worse but boy oh boy did it snapped me. Reckless morning ambition. Oh my god that is so funny. I just in a few feverish haste to make a quick 50 bucks on Instacart that oh my god that got me laughing. Barreling down the driveway in reverse. You see your trash can and you think yeah, you know, I've knocked over a million times. I just love that you're that neighbour for someone. Look out the window and they go oh, there's Judy back piling into the trash again. Oh my God, then you knocked off your mirror because the trashcan was had turned into a block of ice. Let's bring the camera back. There we go. So, that is funnyiest story of the day. All right.

Well, what do we have to say today listening to these stories, I reflect and one thing is brought to my mind especially since a number of these were Neptune transits surprise Venus Pluto dynamics. The number one thing that I get from living a life with the planets, is to remember that not everything is as it seems. It's not to say that there's no such thing as truth or certainty. It's that the judging mind wants to look at a situation and immediately decide what it is. Alongside of whether it aids or thwarts our ambitions, or whether it frustrates or satisfies us on some level. We live a life with the planets and things happen, there's always an invitation to not rush to judgments or conclusions, things are not as they seem, there could be a reason or maybe multiple reasons why something is happening. This could be a god visiting me right now. And not just an event that I have to quickly judge is helpful or harmful thumbs up or thumbs down. Things are not as they're seen.

I have been lately indulging in the TV series Ted Lasso. And I have to say that it is just a heartwarming, really funny series. And my wife and I usually have a few things that we watch. Another great show we've been watching is called all creatures, great and small are All Creatures Great and Small. It's about a vet in the English countryside. As a side note, if you want something PBS, very friendly and gentle. But Ted last was a funny show. And in the show, Ted lasso is kind of an eternal optimist. But he's more than that. He's also he's very, he's really intelligent. And he has some really wise things that he says now and then in between the hilarious things that he says. And he's he plays a football or soccer coach who comes from America to coach a team in the UK. And he knows nothing about soccer. And it's kind of a lot of absurdity. There's one point in the series where he's playing a game of darts with a gentleman who's pretty rude and arrogant. And he thinks, Well, I've and he makes a bet with the guy that you'll never have to harass people on the team again, if he beat some darts. And the guy, you know, thinks he's beating him pretty handily. And then Ted at the his final, you know, throws of the darts, and he has a chance to beat him. And he says, guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why it used to really bother me. But then one day, I was driving my little boy to school, and I saw a quote by Walt Whitman, it was painted on the wall and it said, Be curious, not judgmental. I like that. Then he throws a triple 20. So I get back in my car, and I'm driving to work and all of a sudden hits me. All of them fell as they used to belittle me, not a single one of them was curious. You know, they thought they had everything figured out. So they judged everything. And they judged everyone. And I realised that they're under estimating me who I was, had nothing to do with it. Because if they were curious, they would have asked questions questions like, Have you played a lot of darts, Ted, throws another triple 22, which I would have answered, Yes, sir, every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 Until I was 16, when he passed away. And it's a really funny, sweet moment. Of course, he ends up beating him at darts. But what I loved about that so much is that there's no one, really, I don't mean just mean this as rah rah, there's no one that can beat us at the game of life. If we stay curious. We will underestimate ourselves and we will underestimate every situation we're in when we don't stay curious about it and rush to judgments or conclusions. Why not just this happened and it sucked. This happened and it sucked. And I'm curious, it can be both. We can have human emotions. We can have human responses, and we can stay curious knowing that God are in our presence. I don't think that there's anything a God probably appreciates more knowing that it's visiting your life with, you know, an ice cold trashcan that offs your mirror, or an unintended pregnancy, possible breakup. Or even the unintended use of steroids getting you jacked.

I don't think there's anything a God likes more than us being curious, saying, Here's my response to that. And also, that's interesting. I wonder why. I wonder where you come from, I wonder what messages you bring. If we ask questions of the planets, it means that we're asking questions of our experiences, in addition to having the experiences themselves and then listening for what speaks in return. This inherently means that we are cultivating relationships, cultivating relationships with our own minds with our own hearts with the spirit of our experiences. People in many parts of the world say that there is a genie that lives in the location of, you know, every place, a space of land, a temple, a home. Marie Kondo is making a lot of money right now, helping people talk to their items and figure out what a different room or space in the House wants, or how to thank items and then give them away. There's if there's a genie in every place, then there's also a genie and every experience. And it's like Ted lasso says, I saw a quote, by Walt Whitman, it was painted on the wall and it said, Be curious, not judgmental. You know, they thought they had everything figured out. So they judged everything. And they judged everyone and I realised that they're under estimating me who I was, had nothing to do with it. If they were curious, they would have asked questions questions like, Have you played a lot of darts, Ted.

So, you know, my message for today is simple. We all go through these incredible ups and downs, and we're inevitably going to have the most obvious reactions to them. But studying astrology is something we do it, we do it because we're doing ourselves the favour of staying curious. The staying curious means that you open up relationships to the spirits that live in every experience, just like there's a genie that lives in every house, and every piece of land, in every culture and people. Don't forget that there is a genie living in every experience too. And if you stay curious, you can develop a relationship and I don't think there is anything more enjoyable in life than curious people who stay in interesting relationships with their lives and with the things happening to them. So I hope that you are able to do that as we explore the transits throughout the year on this channel and thank you guys so much for sharing your stories anytime you want to share them again. Use the hashtag grabbed, grabbed by the planets, and then share the aspect combination and then a short story. You can also email anytime if you prefer to keep it off the comments section. You can email us grabbed at nightlight astrology .com, right that's what we've got for today. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.