Grand Rising: Mercury Retrograde Wisdom, Shetland Ponies, and Authentic Magnetism

There's something unmistakably alive about Grand Rising with Ryan Stober & Sheela Rahman. Equal parts cosmic guidance and delightful chaos, the show opens not with polished pronouncements but with a breathing exercise that Ryan can't quite nail. "I exhaled too soon, guys," he laughs. "Can we start over?" It's this unscripted warmth—this refusal to perform perfection—that makes the Friday morning transmission feel less like a broadcast and more like dropping into a conversation already in progress among friends.

What Makes Five Planets in Retrograde a Rare Opportunity?

Sheela Rahman doesn't waste time getting to the cosmic headline: five planets are simultaneously in retrograde, with Mercury joining the party. "It means a time for reevaluation on every level of reality," she explains, her voice steady with the authority of someone who's done this work herself. Venus asks what you truly value in relationships. Saturn demands you face unfinished business and long-term commitments. Uranus questions what freedom actually means to you. Neptune confronts your illusions and unrealistic expectations. And Mercury, arriving last, reminds everyone to slow down, check twice, and be mindful before sending.

Ryan, characteristically grounded in the practical, wants to understand why now. "So it's like taking advantage of this time. It's a time of transition," he works through aloud. Sheela confirms: "The field is a little bit more in flux right now. So once you start to get your values onto paper... write it down. Just get it on a piece of paper. That's step one. And then once the energy's stabilized and everything goes back into its natural order, that's when everything is going to start playing out."

The guidance is clear, accessible, devoid of spiritual bypassing. This is intentional work during a cosmic window. "Now's the time for reevaluation, letting go of things that no longer serve you," Sheela says. Ryan's response? "If you don't know what to do, just go have a couple drinks, it'll come to you." The room—and presumably everyone watching—laughs. This is how they hold space: seriously playful, grounded in wisdom but never precious about it.

How Do Shetland Ponies and Livestream Cameras Fit Into Spiritual Programming?

Midway through astrological wisdom, the show pivots to... Shetland ponies. Not metaphorical ones. Actual ponies, livestreamed from somewhere on Earth, jumping obstacles with what Ryan describes as complete obliviousness to their own size. "The thing about the Shetlands that's so inspiring is that they don't know that they're tiny horses," Ryan muses. "So in their minds, they're just like God's gift to the horse world."

It's absurd. It's delightful. And it's somehow exactly the tonal shift needed before diving into humankind.center event updates—Jerome Martin's Light Body Reboot workshop, the Beyond the Veil ecstatic dance ceremony, Circo Bizzarro's Halloween circus experience complete with NFT ticketing. The hosts then tour livestream cameras from Italy, Zanzibar, Albania, Spain, and Greece, noting the curious absence of humans. "This is kind of like 'Vanilla Sky' when Tom Cruise ran through Times Square and nobody was there," Ryan observes. Sheela counters: "It's like a reality overlaid on top of the reality that nobody's occupying."

What could feel like filler instead becomes a meditation on presence, emptiness, the surreal nature of digital connection. These tangents aren't bugs in the Grand Rising format—they're features. Watch the full episode to experience how seamlessly spiritual teaching weaves with spontaneous wonder.

What Ancient Wisdom Lives in Lodestone Crystals?

The Crystal of the Week segment reveals Sheela's deeper expertise. She introduces lodestone—magnetite—as "the only crystal where you're going to tap into an authentic Earth magnet." Unlike hematite or neodymium, which are artificially magnetized, lodestone carries an organic magnetic field. "It feels a little bit different, a little bit more off the rails, a little bit more weird than a normal magnet," she explains.

The guidance goes beyond metaphysical generalities. "Doing meditations with these two and then tapping into what an organic magnetic field looks like, there's a little bit more swirls going in different directions. So just in training your field with authentic magnetism, we'll create a blueprint that radiates into every aspect of your auric field, biofield, and then down into your cells." Ryan, newly educated on natural versus artificial magnetism, is genuinely intrigued. "I didn't realize that there was sort of a natural magnetism versus an artificial magnetism in the way that you described."

The show also features Gisele's book recommendation via phone: Initiation by Elizabeth Haich, a 1953 spiritual classic about a woman's past-life memories as an Egyptian priestess. Though Gisele read it three decades ago and can't recall specific details, the fact that it remains in her library speaks volumes. When Sheela presses for information about the initiation process itself, Gisele laughs: "I read it so long ago, Sheila... I don't remember the details." The exchange is honest, human, and somehow makes the book recommendation more compelling, not less.

Ryan's parting instruction captures the Grand Rising ethos perfectly: "Go and get yourself some lodestones, okay? Go on to Etsy. And the authentic aspect, that's why I brought it up, because don't get none of that fake stuff. We don't want fake magnets, guys." It's practical mysticism—cosmic downloads delivered with the same energy as telling a friend where to find good coffee.

Experience the full transmission—the astrology, the ponies, the lodestones, and the particular alchemy that happens when Ryan Stober and Sheela Rahman hold space together. As they sign off with "We dare you to join us," it feels less like a challenge and more like an invitation to a Friday morning ritual that somehow makes the cosmic personal and the personal cosmic.

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