How to Avoid Astrological Burnout: Don’t Be Afraid of Uranus

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we are going to continue our series on how to avoid astrological burnout by talking about the planet Uranus and why you should not be afraid of it. We have already looked at Pluto and Neptune in this series.

In the very first part of the series, which I think I started in June of 2023, we just talked in general about astrological anxiety and burnout, why people get it, the most common reasons, and sort of general advice.

I decided to keep going with this series because I realized that it could be useful to help people address some of the particulars that tend to cause anxiety over and over and over again, at least in my own life and the lives of my students, clients and all of you out there who share your thoughts and feelings regularly.

I realized that one of the things we can do is we can talk about why people get scared of Pluto, why people get scared of Neptune, and why people get scared of Uranus. The outer planets, in particular, carry a lot of weight, the very powerful transits are slow-moving, and they often bring a lot of transformation and a lot of very good things. But it's also very easy to be like, oh, there's a Uranus transit. Great, I'm screwed. You know, I think we have a very sarcastic, fun sense of humor in astrology that keeps us going. So don't want to take away that.

This series is dedicated to looking at why certain things really freak us out and just what to say and think and remember to ourselves about those planets or houses; we're going to look at a lot of different things in this series, and hopefully, that can be this can be something that centers us and keeps us in a space of our sacred relationship to astrology, where it plays that role of being a meaningful friend and guide a companion for life not a source of anxiety. So anyway, that's the purpose of the series, and that's what we're gonna look at today the planet Uranus.

Before we get into it, as always, I always appreciate when you like and subscribe; it really helps the channel to grow, and more importantly than that, when you share your own reflections and experience your own insights and wisdom, or even just a hello in the comment section. It helps the channel to grow, and it also creates community. Your stories, if you ever have one you want to share, can be sent to us through the email address grabbed@nightlightastrology.com

Or you can use the hashtag #grabbed to tell us the transit and tell us your story. We aggregate those and occasionally do storytelling episodes where we just feature what you guys are experiencing with the transits, which I love to do. So you know, be sure to do that if you've got something to share around Uranus today. It'd be really cool to hear from you guys.

In the meantime, a few things to promote today. One is the upcoming class Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic, it begins on November 18. Check it out at nightlightastrology.com. Go to the Courses page and click on the first-year course. You can learn more about the program and what it includes. It is 30 courses on the year. They're all recorded. You can attend the live webinars, or you can follow along with the recordings afterward.

We have a staff of tutors that are there so that it's not just lectures. At the end of every class, we have interactive Q&A, and then in between major units of study. We have dedicated afternoons where our tutors show up and lead you through a review of what we've gone through and allow for open questions and discussion.

We also have a forum discussion outside of class; we have 12 guest lectures that come in. So there are 42 total classes on the year. It is an amazingly rich and well thought out program that we have refined year after year after year, with a ton of bonus material, you know, optional homework and videos and all sorts of stuff that you can watch as much or as little as you want.

It's really a program that's there for people who are just I love astrology; I want to learn more about it because it's my hobby or people who want to become professionals. There is an optional certification exam at the end. At the bottom, you'll find different payment options and registration choices. I want to direct you to there's an early bird payment. There's a tuition plan for those who need some help, I want to make sure that you know that we offer need-based tuition for people who are working within a really tight budget and the normal tuition is outside of your range, and you're bummed because you want to take the class, you're really excited about astrology, but you need a little help to make it happen.

Please use the tuition assistance; we have a limited number of those available. So, we ask that you apply early to make sure you get one. Please take advantage of that. Something like 50 to 60% of our students over the course of 13 years have used some form of tuition assistance. I mean, frankly, I'm just really proud that our program is a space where people feel like, you know, they can study astrology, and they're not priced out because of what they earn or don't earn.

I think that's really important for something as sacred as astrology that you feel like if I really want to learn, I should be able to give what I have in my means and study, so though, that's important to me.

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All right. Well, today, as a way of talking about astrological anxiety and burnout, we're going to talk in particular about planet Uranus, why people tend to get afraid of the planet, and why you don't need to be afraid and actually surprise, I decided to invite Ashley on the show today because Ashley recently went through Uranus in conjunction with her Sun and moon and has some really good things to say.

She's going to share a little bit about some of the Uranus transits. She's experienced as we tried to clarify what Uranus actually does, as opposed to what people are afraid that Uranus does. So, Ashley, welcome to the show again.

Ashley
Hi. Good to be back.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, I'm so happy to have you here, and I feel like, you know, I've had some powerful Uranus transits. I'm a Taurus rising, so it's entered my first house, and I've had some big ones, and I'll certainly speak to those too, but you know, Uranus over your a new moon double Taurus, Sun, and Moon and you got the conjunction from Uranus, and I feel like it's been one of the bigger experiences probably of your life so far.

I think you're gonna have, I just know, in the way that you've talked about those experiences between the two of us, that you would be someone that people would find, I think, really uplifting to hear from and maybe helping people sort of ease some of their anxiety about the planet.

Ashley
Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I definitely think, you know, that it's been nice to have been married to an astrologer because as things were unraveling and falling apart and being rebuilt, you'd be like, well, you know, your Uranus is going over your Sun and moon. So, it's nice to have kind of a cheerleader there through it to help you kind of understand what's happening. So I'm happy to be here and share my experience, and hopefully, it will be a support to others who might be about to experience who have gone through something similar.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, yeah, totally. I would also like to mention that it is in the midst of a Venus square to Uranus. That rescue dog that we took home recently was a very unexpected VenusUranus dynamic that was in the sky. So I thought that was funny. Is the Venus retrograde in my fourth house brought a massive lion dog.

So anyway, well, let's start by talking about what people fear that Uranus will do and the like, and I want to qualify this, most people who take in astrology content aren't walking around being like, you know, in fear all the time. But I will tell you that as an astrologer who has been doing this for 13 years, when Uranus transits come around, I, myself, will fall into these still after 13 years. So I can't just assume that everyone out there is, you know, like, we all probably have the same traps that we fall into, you get to know the planet.

You have a few difficult experiences, and all of a sudden, anytime that planet comes up in transit, you just start going, you start getting, you know, baring your teeth, and you get white-knuckled, and you're like, oh, shit, you know and so I think we all do this, I think it's very human, and I think that if we don't know how to recognize when we're doing it, or that we're doing it and counter it with a constructive narrative that we will get burnt out and astrology can actually be a source of like underlying stress.

There's a big difference between watching the news to be informed about what's happening in the world, for example, and keeping up with the headlines just to kind of know what's happening because you're a concerned citizen, you know, you're a political animal.

But there's another way in which you can get stuck on the news cycle, and dread and like addicted and like the fear response is actually a big part of how things are sold to us nowadays, and the same is true for astrology content, I'm not going to semi look at, you know, some of the titles that I find myself using at times to try to welcome new people in will be taken from what I see working.

For example, this month, we've got a big new moon or something, and, you know, it's like you're trying to grab people's excitement in the way you title a talk. But you're also aware of the fact that if you do that too often, and you know, with any kind of anxiety-provoking language, you're really contributing as astrologers we're contributing to a culture of burnout and fatigue eventually,

Ashley
Totally, because then we're always on our toes. Like, what's the next big thing that's gonna screw up my life? You know, and that's, that's no way to live.

Adam Elenbaas
I think that these are the things that we fear that Uranus will do. Number one, it will tower card our asses. So people associate Uranus very frequently with the tower card in Tarot, and again, I've said this in every part of the series so far, these associations are there for a reason. They're not just totally fictitious. They're not just being made up by, you know, ignorant people who have no idea what they're talking about, just living in fear. No, because Uranus sometimes shows up and feels like the tower card and tarot looks, and we start making that association over and over again.

But the point I've made at every point in this series has been that we have to wrestle with, like I told in the last episode on Neptune, the story of Jacob, Jacob met a stranger on the road at night. This is an Old Testament story from the Bible. He met a stranger on the road at night that he started wrestling with, and I imagine them doing jujitsu all night, you know, like rolling around trying to pin the other one down, and he wanted to know who this mysterious figure the shadowy figure in the dark was, right?

There's this poem that was written called Wrestling Jacob, and he says, I won't let you go and tell you tell me your name. That's part of the story in the Bible. Well, the morning comes, and he finally, although the angel breaks his hip, he realizes that it's an angel, that you've been wrestling with an angel, and my what I'm trying to say in this series is not that the things that we're afraid of aren't part of our experience any more than Jacob didn't have to wrestle with a dark figure on the road that he didn't know he didn't know the nature of.

But an astrological lifestyle and astrology as a spiritual practice over time means that we wrestle and engage with questions. We wrestle and engage with difficult experiences and patterns, and we call them through astrology; we call them archetypes, or planets, or gods. But then, if you keep going, what I've noticed is that my elders and astrology and even myself, after years, I very rarely described Uranus anymore in terms of the scariest, the most provocative, shocking, like adjectives, because over time, you've seen glimpses of the angel you're wrestling with.

That's really what happens if we stick with it and we seek understanding, and we seek to grow and learn, then suddenly we realize that the most difficult ways that we have of describing the transits were really the ways that we had of describing them prior to our understanding emerging, and that's a totally normal process that everyone has to go through, and I will say that, and I'm sure Ashley would say the same thing.

A Uranus transit could come tomorrow that could knock me back into a space where I couldn't see what was going on, and I was bewildered and overwhelmed and frustrated and in the same space of fear and reactivity. I'm not at all saying that I've reached a place where the planets or experience itself couldn't do that to me, you know. But we seek this understanding.

Ashley
Yeah, and I think too, it's like, an almost I feel like in this lifestyle, I like that way of phrasing it is that you kind of look forward to it. There's almost like you anticipate because you've seen what they've done before, and you're like, you know, like, I know this, this shot is going to be good for me. Right, but it doesn't feel like it in the moment, or it might not, you know, start off that way. But eventually, the toppling of the tower means that I get to rebuild it.

Adam Elenbaas
Well, let's use the medicinal; you're an herbalist. So, let's use another image, right? Because a lot of people probably get scared of shots. They'll let's say, you know, some medicines that are really good for you tastes pretty bitter. Yeah.

Ashley
Yeah. That's so true. Yeah, and so you might you might be looking at, and I guess even another metaphor that might even be better is the illness itself. It's like, How many times have you been ready for some event or party or something, and then you get sick, and you can't go?

You're like, Oh, this is the worst thing. I can't go to this thing I really wanted. But then the illness becomes the teacher because as you're resting like you get all these downloads, you start making deep changes. You start recalculating your trajectory, and all of a sudden, you're like, I'm glad I didn't go to that party. I'm glad that I got to stay home and, like, kind of reorient myself and kind of what they do for us.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, I mean, just the general thing to say is that, does it feel like the tower card? Sometimes? Yes. But that's not the way that I think about Uranus now, after so many experiences after hearing so many stories, and I resist, or I'm very careful not to think about Uranus that way, because it's sort of like, I can't describe the angel anymore in terms of a dark, ominous stranger I'm wrestling with.

That doesn't mean that angel couldn't knock my ass over, you know, because it's, it's a divine energy, and I'm small, I'm just a little dude, but you get the point. It'll tear your life apart; it'll knock everything down because it's just here to destroy things.

Number two is that Uranus transits will come along and shock and traumatize you with unexpected difficulties. Now, people may not say If someone were like, tell me about Uranus, all of the enlightened bodhisattvas watching this channel right now would be like, well, let me say that Uranus brings the unexpected, and it can be very challenging, but it's really good for you, it helps you break through. Yeah, right. We will all say that fits in your head.

When you think of Uranus transit, there are moments where you're like, shit, this thing's gonna knock me on my ass, and it's gonna come from left field, like a sucker punch from a moose dog jumping up on me unexpectedly, which has been happening to me lately. So, you know, that is what we sometimes suddenly that's the anxiety that creeps in is that we, we can have the script running about, well, this is the positive version of Uranus, but you still think to yourself Uranus is like a 98 mile an hour fastball that's going to clock me on the hip, you know, and, and not for any reason other than it just likes to be very shocking.

Number three is that somehow, some way, it will just destabilize me mentally, emotionally, or physically. This planet will come along, and it will just, it just threatened stability, and so when you how is that something to be excited about? Do you know what I mean? That's anxiety-provoking right away.

Ashley
Especially if you've had mental health issues or challenges, like if you've really worked hard on trying to, like, stabilize yourself, I know for me, like, definitely, when you're honest, has come around. I'm like, I've been working so hard on my stuff, you know, and I feel like I finally got it put together in a way that I can manage, and you know, yeah, and then the biggest fear, though, is that all of that work I've done is going to be taken away and I'm going to be off to the loony bin. Yeah.

Adam Elenbaas
I remember, like your Uranus transit, we're gonna mention a little in a little bit here, happened right around the time of the birth of our second daughter summer, and I mean, there were a few days during the midst of that Uranus transit where a lot of things were happening, and I remember you would be like you'd like not that I'm actually going to do this. But right now, I feel like I could just, like, run deep into the woods and never come back, or you'd be like, I just need to drive really fast and like scream out my window. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley
You've reached that, you know, you find those edges. I think what when you're when you're in the midst of it. You know, yeah, you're the fantasy; the shocking fantasies can kind of go a little bit wild.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, here's what I think Uranus actually does. Now, this is, again, we're not really saying that any of these descriptions are off; we're only saying that it's sort of like we tend to describe these things insofar as we're projecting our own unconscious material onto Uranus, the more you experience Uranus, although you might get a chuckle out of these descriptions, the more that it feels almost like you're you might be offending a friend, whose name you now know. Because you wrestled with a divine force in your own soul and your own unconscious, and it's, it's become a treasure.

That's what we're going for; it's not fluff. You know, it's, it's really not because you got to live through sometimes, these difficult ways of seeing an archetype before, you can appreciate it in a sort of robust way. But what Uranus actually does, now I'm going to ask Ashley to talk about, she had two different Uranus transits.

I'm gonna ask her to talk about them in relation to these themes. So, I'll mention the theme, and then we'll have Ashley fill in the blanks. The first one is what Uranus actually does, and again, consistently, students, clients, myself, my friends, and colleagues; this is how we describe Uranus when we start to see what it's doing for the soul.

The first thing is that Uranus illuminates things that we have not been able to see, and it illuminates them with such dazzling brilliance that, you can't help but most of the time, people can't help but take a pretty big step forward in their individual growth, you might broadly call that individuation I am becoming more of what I am because I can see more clearly more of the truth of who I am or what I've been or what is going on.

But rather than thinking of it like a tower card blasting a structure, I like to think about it like a lightning bolt that has sudden illuminating power, and there is a suddenness to the way in which that illumination can happen through events and circumstances. But in hindsight, you'll almost always describe a Uranus transit as having greatly illuminated some dimension of your life that was relatively unconscious.

Sometimes, the striking sudden brilliance, but then connected closely to it, is the feeling that I then took a big step forward. Now, that step forward is relative. I'm not saying there's some kind of ladder that you're trying to get to level 10 on. It's just a way that we have of describing it. I took a step forward as a person; I grew; I had to make tough choices. But I feel like, you know, I had to I had to become something different or something new in the way that things were suddenly illuminated.

So, on that note, you had Uranus on your Sun and moon between 2018 and 2020. You also had it when we first met and opened Skyhouse together. Maybe you could reflect on what those experiences were like for you and how you looked at them then while you were in them, you know, versus now?

Ashley
So, the first one was in 2010 through 2012. When you and I got together, we opened up our yoga studio, an astrology herb mecca. It's a little melting pot. I remember I had been working at another yoga studio, and I was the director and the manager of their yoga studio, but I was getting a little bit disgruntled because I wanted to talk about spirituality and I wanted to teach classes that were more infused with spiritual language and the studio owner was really more like, well, this is a little bit more wellness, fitness, you know, catering to that sort of audience and so there was like growing unease inside of me.

So when Adam and I met And, you know, we had this idea, and we opened up our studio. The thing was, is that I was afraid of, like, if I completely left the other, like it was like financial too, because I was making, you know, they were, I had a paycheck, right and so when Adam and I opened it, I still was working there while I was trying to open and run my own studio and it got to this point where I kept getting sick. Like, that was one thing.

If you remember that, like, you were like, you're getting sick all the time, because I was number one, just running myself ragged trying to do two things, and I was afraid of letting go of my job at the old studio so that I could fully step into my work in the new studio and I ended up having, you know, the owner ended up sitting me down for a conversation saying, I think it's time for you to go.

It was heartbreaking because I had helped her open up the studio, I had worked there for five years, I had grown all their programs, and I was like I was attached to it, and I was also afraid. So it was like a forced moment where, you know, I was told it was like I was told to leave. It was like, I was not expecting that.

I thought I could manage this unmanageable thing, and I didn't know how I was gonna get out of that pickle. I just knew I couldn't; I just knew I was stuck, and so that was a pivotal moment, and once I was let go of the old studio, and I was forced, like, yeah, me, I had to take that step and be like, Okay, well, this is all I've got now and I have to be fully committed and now I've got all my resources like my inner resources to really make it happen and then it started really building, it was like after that chapter was closed and taken away. Then the revenue, then everything started kind of flowing and building in the new space.

Adam Elenbaas
That was Uranus, in Aries, moving into your 10th house and conjoining your natal Venus during that period, and there was, yeah, this whole thing about the fear of moving out on your own and then this sudden development where we met and launched the studio, you had to leave the other place.

I remember you at times, the way you would describe it would be like, it feels like everything is falling apart, and you kept getting sick, too, but then my memory, at least, is when you started owning it and being like, Okay, wow, this is all happening in a sense to clarify and show me things that I need to see, and then there's this choice, I need to like a risk, I need to step out and take in response to what's happening and once you hit that part, you know, then it's I don't think since then you would have described that any longer as like it was, you were just getting your ass tower carded.

Ashley
Exactly, I mean, in the moment, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. But looking back on it. I'm like, that was a cosmic gift. You know, like getting that little swat in the butt like, nope, out the door gives you can go on and do what you're here to do.

Yeah, and also, though, I did have to take a hard look, though at, you know, my own selfishness too, like, my selfishness kept me from not being 100% honest with a woman that I was working with.

Adam Elenbaas
Doing something of your own, and you weren't quite telling her that?

Ashley
Yeah, didn't tell exactly what I was doing, there was a little, you know, like, I just because I was afraid, and so I was just trying to, like, keep my cards hidden, and after that happened, I was like, You know what, like, that's not who I am. This is also happening because I need to be more honest.

Adam Elenbaas
Yeah. Yeah, that was a really profound moment. I think that if I look at it, for example, and the illumination slash individuation for me, Uranus was trining my Moon in Capricorn in the ninth house from my first house when I started realizing that I started having this recognition that I was not the religious tradition that I was a part of was no longer a good fit.

Same thing, it felt like, you know, there's a part of it, although I had had other Uranus transits. So by this time, I kind of knew, Okay, this is familiar, this process is familiar. But it was illuminating, and it was hard to look at. The way that it was happening was pretty rapid and like, who you know, like, Oh, this is hard, and taking that big step of leaving, and retaining my own name is very first house, you know, that was hard, man. That was really tough.

But I mean, I look at it in hindsight as I have other Uranus transits, and I go, that was like a big spotlight going up and being like, look at this and, and then go in that direction. You know, I can't describe that any longer, and I don't feel like Uranus is now my friend. It's a powerful friend. I'm not saying that, like, I'm on the level with Uranus, like, I'm not that powerful. You know what I mean? Like, it's an archetype, but I can't think of it now as a destroyer of structures just for the hell of it. You know what I mean?

Well, the second thing that Uranus does is awakenings. So where there has been, let's call it, boredom, or where there's been monotony, or where we've gotten stuck in a pattern or a rut, or where there's been unconscious material that has stagnated. Uranus will come along and deliver again, often kind of sudden and unexpected and often very interesting and kind of bizarre and exciting things that will serve to awaken.

Now, on the outset of that, you could describe it as shocking, you know, sudden difficulties like like that. But I would say that similarly, when there's something that's awakening us and drawing our attention to things that we've been stuck in, or that haven't been working, or whatever, the experience is one of feeling like you're coming to life again.

Although initially the things that deliver the message that hey, you're asleep, or you're stuck, can be they can we might describe them as shocking, or, you know, like, difficult in unexpected or something like that. Well, maybe you could reflect on this one for us.

Ashley
Yeah, I can jump to my 2018 to 20 experiences.

Adam Elenbaas
You are free as Uranus to do whatever you want.

Ashley
I can move about the cabin. Alright. So I mean when, when I think about awakening, and kind of having like that flash of insight and not being able to be the person you were, I think about some of the family karma that was really illuminated when Uranus transited, my Sun and moon.

So one of the incidents that happened was that my father had a really bad fall, and, you know, this is not, you know, this is something that I've shared publicly on my own channel. But, you know, my, I grew up in a family where there was alcoholism and so, you know, but we never talked about it.

It was like this dirty secret. Nobody talked about it; we kind of kept quiet. We pretended like everything was normal, and we were like, the ideal suburban family, and so I kind of thought we were okay, like, I thought my family was normal, and she kind of thought we were like, even better than normal.

Then, my dad blacked out one night, fell down the stairs, and was rushed to shock trauma, where he had to stay for almost three weeks with a traumatic brain injury. It all started kind of crashing and falling apart.

I mean, number one, I thought he was going to die. He had bleeding all over his brain. You know, we didn't know if he was going to walk again. You know, it was really scary and, you know, after that, as he started going through rehabilitation, he had to learn how to walk again and do all, you know, dress himself. You know, at the end of that, you know, I thought, you know, because it's like, I feel like with Uranus, transits you're like, Okay, this was shocking, but this is the breakthrough we need for this outcome that I have in my head. You know, you would think this is rock bottom, right? Like, he's gonna wake up, he's gonna be like, I need help. I need to change.

I'm sorry, but that's not what happened. What ended up happening was he woke up and said, oops, I fell, but everything's fine. It was just a little mistake of drinking that much, like drinking that much where his blood alcohol was so far over the limit, the doctors were surprised he was even able to be walking, you know?

So, basically, when I gave an ultimatum, I would never have thought he would have said, well, that's your choice. You know, I hope you have a good life, and at that moment, it was like my world shattered, and I was like, Who is this man? Who is this? What is this family? How has this disease gone so far?

I didn't even realize, but the denial was so deep and that, yeah, that and then after that my parents got divorced, which I didn't see coming, I didn't think that was going to happen either, and, you know, now my dad and I are estranged, I can't have a relationship with him and, you know, well, that was I mean, excruciatingly painful, and very, very hard all of that. It was also awakening and illuminated like, for me, the reality of something that I had been denying for so long, and I know for you, babe, like, you know, you, you are as an outsider, you are like, oh, there's something going on here, and I was like, no, we're fine.

Adam Elenbaas
I mean, it, I think it's easier when you're objective and outside, and I definitely didn't stand in judgment of anyone, but it was like, yeah, it was, you know, it's like you can, you know, it was like, really kind of, in a way, it was like my first experience of seeing the disease of alcoholism at work in a really vivid way, and actually helped me understand some of what I experienced with my own father, who grew up as basically like, what did the adult child of an alcoholic because his father was a really nasty mean, drunkard for a long time in his life. So drunk isn't a nice thing. I don't think it's the correct word anymore. Sorry, it's alcoholic. So anyway, that used to be the old way of that, my dad would put it, so that's just in my head.

At any rate, it sudden, I mean, the sudden, shocking nature was there, right? But in hindsight, the way that you've described it in your YouTube channel, when you talk about Al-Anon, or when you talk about 12 Step programs and rehabilitation, and you know, the choices that you've had to make, and you've helped a lot of people who have really appreciated hearing from you, and, you know, in your own sort of recovery from the disease of alcoholism.

The thing that's interesting is that, although we would describe certain elements of that as shocking, traumatic, sudden, unexpected, and certainly difficult, one of the things that they did was, I mean, you're not to say whatever people do is their own business. But it certainly seems to awaken something between your mom and dad, and it seems to be that your mom feels that she's in a healthier place now, and I mean, my parents went through a divorce as well, and, you know, I feel like, you know, sometimes there are certain things that happen that awaken and then get you out of a rut. That's the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to condemn anyone or judge anyone. But that's the point.

The other thing is, you know, you started attending a 12-step program, and although I always experienced you as, like, you know, spiritually on your shit, like, you're all you've always cared about, becoming a better person, learning from your experiences being reflective, you know, you've always been a humble kind, soul and compassion and so forth. But this was like, another level of this was the biggest leap I had seen, you take in terms of suddenly, like, the lights are on, and I'm awake, and I can't unsee things, and now I need to deal with certain things that have been stuck, and Uranus is so great at getting things unstuck and through this kind of, like awakening and illuminating.

Ashley
Yeah, absolutely, and I feel like yeah, like, suddenly, it was like, all of the patterns and these coping mechanisms that had served me for a long time, like being very controlling, being controlled, holding it together, you know, you know, really trying to achieve and be a perfectionist, and please people and all of these things that I thought were me.

I ended up starting to realize, oh, no, these were coping strategies for living in a very, you know, disordered family, and these were ways that I tried to make sense of what was going on and trying to control, and that's something that I think a lot of that happens in a lot of families where there's addiction is that the children can you know, one of them usually, the oldest often will just become like a hyper controlling type to try to keep things organized.

As soon as I started, as soon as that started unraveling, gosh, I started having fun. I was like, I was like, it doesn't have to be so serious. You know, when I was like, you know that I just started making different choices because I started realizing that the worlds the weight of the world didn't have to be mine to carry anymore and that I was also, you know, like, I could have fun and be free and enjoy things in a way that I have never given myself permission to because I was scared if I did, that everything around me would fall apart.

So, you know, as I started kind of placing my trust in a higher power, like, for reals, not just like the yoga-like trust in a higher power, but like actually letting things like like unburdening and saying here, God, please take this, you know, and living in that way. Suddenly, it was, it was, yeah, it was like, suddenly, I could see more of who I actually was underneath all of those things I carried.

Adam Elenbaas
So, in other words, you wouldn't describe the encounter with Uranus as tower carding your ass and shocking and traumatizing you with unexpected difficulties just to fuck around with you.

Ashley
I mean, at the moment, it's like, you know, you feel like you're beneath crumbled mortar, you know, you're surrounded by it. But then once you stand up, and you're like, thanks, dude, like, you just cleared a wall out that was really helpful.

Adam Elenbaas
I want to make it clear that I don't think the planets I said this earlier, too; I don't think the planets are like an old man with a belt being like, this is good for you. I hate having to do this. That's not what's happening.

The planets literally respect the choices we've made, the things that we've built with our free, and they are moving the story along according to the logic and psychic intricacies of our own choices and our own lives, and I think that they deeply respect what we've built and they don't condemn it or judge it, but they keep us growing and moving and deepening.

I think the one thing the planets do is they say, there's more, there's more love, there's more life, there's more soul, there's more heart, trust me, and we'll just let's keep going, and in that way, I feel like it's not about them trying to make us get something right.

They're not doing this to be punitive, and like, you know, adjust us into the appropriate posture or something; what they're really, in my experience anyways, that what they're doing is they are continuing to guide us, deepen us, make us wiser and more illumined.

I know that this is probably gonna sound really far out, right? But I remember an ayahuasca ceremony, is one of the things that I really perceived was that there are beings around us, plants in particular, and I know you'll resonate with this, that are so wise, and that wisdom, I believe, comes through just souls continuing to experience and grow and learn.

Not in a get something right kind of way, but just in this is what life is, and the more you keep going, you know, the more that who you are becomes medicinal and healing and illuminating for others as well.

I really do believe that when the Taoist is talking about a light body, that's a real thing, that when we think about how to do when I see these spirits of plants and ayahuasca ceremonies that are literally talking to me, and they're so wise and compassionate and healing. They're also like plucking thorns out of me that hurt. That kind of wisdom comes through these kinds of experiences over time.

They develop within us some sensitivities and some ways of seeing and experiencing things that we can't grow without. But I just want to make sure that people don't hear a saying that like this is good for you bend over and take it, you know, on, but I'm gonna give you a whipping or something like, that's not what's going on here, you know.

Anyway, the final thing that I think Uranus does, which we've been alluding to all along, is it liberates. It's very similar to awakening, slightly different in that it creates space where there was constriction. So when Ashley was talking about control, I was thinking, Well, that leads into point number three really nicely because where there is control, often there's not an allowance of like a flow creatively, and where there's flow creatively, the soul gets happy.

You know, I was just thinking about I'm not the world's biggest dog person. I actually mentioned not long before we got Hilda that I never really had a heart companion of an animal. I've had animals a whole life, but never really one that felt like a heart companion. She feels like that for me. One of the things that I've noticed and animal owners are going to be like, this is so basic, but for me, it's really profound, which is that if I don't try to control her too much, which I, you know, like, I wanted to learn the rules of the house and everything but it's if I just talk to her, right if I just actually if I just kind of I show affection, a lot of positivity and warmth and if I actually communicate with her, that all of a sudden, she and I have a bond or it's like, I can trust her, I don't need to control her because I can just trust her.

So much of what Uranus does is it just opens up space in our life, and it says you don't have to control everything, and you can just trust that this openness will have everything fall into place, everything will get done, there's time enough for everything, there's space enough for everything, and you don't have to figure out how it will get done. It just will.

It's just to me that the equivalent insight that I've been having right now has been with this moose puppy, where it's like, you know, just create space, and intimacy and love, and that kind of creative connection with this living being and all of a sudden, everything just takes care of itself. You know, and I think that that's something that is true for all of us. , that's what Uranus transit brings somehow; it's just spaciousness and almost like a creative trust.

Ashley
Yeah, and I feel like it's really closely connected to what we fear. You know, I think, in a lot of ways, what Uranus can do is it can, like, really show us what we're afraid of, like, oh, you're afraid of, of, you know, losing your family? Well, you know, let's look at that, or you're really afraid, like we had, you know, we decided to close our yoga studio in 2019, during the Uranus conjunction with my Sun and moon, and I was afraid, and you know, what, who am I? What am I going to do if I don't have a yoga studio herb school? What ended up happening through facing all of those fears was liberation.

There's so much more than those things, and when you when those things are taken away, you realize that you actually have a lot more resources than you realize because now we've taken, you know, there's been something taken off your plate, and that can be psychically or it can be actually physically and, you know, I think there's just something really refreshing, when you come through it, you know, like when you come through that experience, and suddenly you're like, there's so much more I love the word spaciousness that you used because you're free. You know, you're not the fears that you had; you're no longer tethered to.

Adam Elenbaas
I remember the experience for me most recently with Uranus squaring my natal Venus in Leo, which is my ascendant ruler, and one of the things that had happened was, you know, our bedtime routines with the kids, over time, had sort of cut into the space that Ashley and I were used to.

I've told you guys the story a few times on my channel, but basically, as Uranus was hitting my Venus, I realized that there had been, like, certain underlying fears and resentments around; I think a lot of men deal with this, where it's like, oh, my wife is more connected to the kids than we used to be connected to each other.

You can start to feel threatened by that, and it can create all sorts of, like, subtle ways in which you start to distance yourself from someone, and I don't like actually, I didn't feel distant like I didn't feel distant from you. But then this transit came, and suddenly, I started realizing some exactly some of these distancing things subtle, and little resentments and stuff, and all of a sudden, it was like, Uranus was just like, take a take two big steps forward toward your wife.

All of a sudden, I realized, suddenly, I was like, well, there's no reason we can't get back to the patterns that we had before the kids were born because everything the space allows for it now. But the reason I'm not doing it is because I developed some ways of protecting myself from the kids having a lot more of our time and energy, and that it hurt, and I was, you know what I mean? So then, it was like, I took these big steps forward towards you. Let's do our routines together.

Ashley
Yeah, it was a really cool kind of like fireworks, I think moment where I think both of us had developed, and it's like coping mechanisms. It's like, okay, there were stresses, and so we found ways to manage them that were very controlled, and they became habits, and then all of a sudden, it was like, oh, wait a second, there's actually another path. Yeah, and that looks like way more fun. That looks actually like a way better option. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hard. It wasn't hard to make those changes once you could see what the old ones were actually doing.

Adam Elenbaas
That's exactly right, and there's this weird way in which suddenly the spaciousness appears, and I was like I'm living with a constricted mode; I would call it pretty subtle, like, I don't feel like we were super far apart or anything. But there were these kinds of subtle patterns of not being as close that had snuck in as ways of dealing with the pressure of kids, and all of a sudden, it was just crystal clear illumination.

You actually know that the kids are a little bit older, and you have time and space to do these things that you used to do; why aren't you doing them? And I was like, Oh, yeah, and so all of a sudden, all this space got created for creative flow in our relationship, again, for the first time in some years since our second daughter was born.

So it was like, that process of the initial stage of looking at that, for me, it was really hard because I had to get really real about my own fears and stuck stuff, and you could describe that, and the sudden way in which I became aware of those things as difficult. But in hindsight, where I am now, where we are now, I'm like, wow, there's so much more space.

So one of the things that I think you'll if you stick with Uranus over the years, you come to trust where you'll end up with the planet, as opposed to maybe some of the process that can be more challenging.

Ashley
Yeah, yeah, I agree. There's something when you've been through it a few times, where you start to you start to see that there's like, there's a method to the madness. We're going somewhere, and I think that's, you know, we've talked about spiritual bypassing, and I feel like one of the great gifts when you're wrestling Uranus is that you can't bypass. I mean, you might try, but I think he's a stronger angel. You know, in some ways, the harder you battle it, the more the less fun it can be. Right?

Adam Elenbaas
Well, on that note, It is date night for us, and I don't want to bypass it. Yeah, so shall we wrap it up? So I want to point you guys to Ashley's work; you can find her on YouTube at @skyhouseherbs, where Ashley makes weekly videos and regular content on herbal medicine, healing and recovering from trauma, and all sorts of really good work that she's done talking about addiction and recovery, and especially plant spirit medicine.

So please check her out. She is the illumination that lives in my heart. So I know that you guys will also really enjoy her and her work. Instagram is @skyhouseherbs, and you can also find her at Skyhouseherbs.com. Is there anything that you want to promote or say anything about?

Ashley
The Roots and Spheres course, if folks don't know about it, I'm sure you talk about it a lot. We co-teach and follow the transits through the lunar calendar and through each lunar cycle, and then we partner a plant with that cycle, and then as a community, we all get together and talk about what our experience with that plant and all of the themes of those lunar transits. So that's been really fun, and then you're teaching in Toronto. Is that a public thing?

Adam Elenbaas
That's not until May is public, but only for people, I guess, who are a part of the local astrology group in Toronto; they might be able to buy admission to it online. But we are co-teaching at that event as well, where we'll be looking at the 12 houses and also at that plant allies that can help remediate challenging planetary placements in each of the 12 houses. So that should be pretty cool.

Ashley
Yeah, Okay, cool. Well, date night,

Adam Elenbaas
I know it's date night. On that note, I hope that you guys really have been enjoying this series and that, going through these talks, even if you already know it, you know, you've probably heard enough astrology to hear the more positive, uplifting takes on the planets.

But it's easy to let underlying anxiety if you're if you consume astrological content, it's likely that at least now and then you're going to hit some anxiety, and so I hope that this series, you know, it sticks in your brain so you can hear the jokes and the stories and the ways that we have of reframing the planet so that you too can be wrestling with these angels and discovering their names so we hope that for you we wish that for you and we thank you so much for watching and we will see you again next time bye everyone bye.