Grabbed Episode 13: Eveningwear and Kicks to the Face

Transcript:

Hey everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology, and today, we are going to be sharing some of the stories that you guys have been sending in both through the comments section and by email over the last couple of months in order to get a better understanding of some of the planetary transits. Those of you guys who have watched my channel for a while you know that, at the end of episodes, I will often say if you have a story to share about one of these transits that we're talking about, tell us about it, use the hashtag grabbed.

One of the names for the planets in ancient astrology in Indian astrology was Graha, which, among other things, means to grab or to grasp. There is a way in which ancient astrologers believe that if you don't live a reflective life, if you don't live an examined life, there's a way in which the forces of nature, the unfolding interactions of these archetypal fields and gods which we reflect upon in astrology through the planets will just take over, and they grab you, they move you around, like puppets on a string. Part of the reason we do astrology, the main reason that we do astrology is so that our souls are actually utilizing their free will, participating more consciously, within and through these archetypal fields, because if we don't, then we tend to be grabbed by them. So, however, at the same time, getting grabbed by the planets is part of how we learn; they aren't here to just hurt us; they aren't evil or bad. They are instruments of education, or like cosmic sensitivity training. So we also celebrate the times at which we find ourselves seized by these planetary combinations in the sky, by sharing the stories by learning from them by reflecting upon them, you can learn more about astrology by doing this, and you can learn more about life.

And also, I think there's something really refreshing if you're taking in astrological content regularly about listening to stories of what other people are experiencing from all of these transits that you're tuning into day after day, week after week, year-round. So I love this series because I love stories. My background is in memoir writing. So I love hearing people's stories, personal stories, I like sharing mine occasionally in order to make, you know, some kind of point on, you know, transit of the week or whatever. So that's what we're going to do today. I've got a bunch of really good stories from the past couple of months, a couple of key transits we're going to look at, and some different stories. A lot of them are very poignant and heartbreaking. Some of them are really funny and quirky, and weird. So let's get into it.

Okay, so these transits we're going to look at today. First of all, thank you, hundreds of people wrote in through comments and emails, so I can never include all of them; all of them are completely worthy of being shared. So deep thanks to everybody for contributing. And please keep contributing as we go along month by month. It's really, for me, it's very edifying to hear what you guys have to say. And it really helps me grow as an astrologer. And I hope it does for you guys, too.

So I have a whole list. And we're going to start this week; holy cow, I think we've got the biggest load of stories that were shared this week, this very week, as the Sun and Mercury in late cancer were opposing Pluto in late Capricorn, a ton of stories. I tried to kind of start there because it's very recent. But we're going to go through some of these, and we're going to move backward in time and go through some of the other transits that, you know, I was covering in the past weeks or months and some really good stories from those periods as well.

Alright, so let's start with the Sun Pluto, Mercury Pluto opposition. Here are some of the stories that you guys had to share. To make a story short, this person says; So this person is talking about the fact that their father has had some very difficult health complications, sorry. So just to make a story short, he ended in hospital in June when I first went to see him then he was diagnosed when he entered the hospital. In June, when I first went to see him, he was diagnosed with kidney carcinoma, and last week, he had scans to see if it's extended. We are waiting for the results, which might be ready this week. He is in the belief that the doctors are wrong and all the problem is coming from his knee. I have the bad feeling that even if the cancer is not extended around his body, it is not good news because they will have to remove his kidney. He's 82 with all kinds of problems. It really would scare me to see him lose a kidney at the same time. He has also been displaying very difficult behavior, he doesn't have a driving license but is trying to drive, and she goes through some other things. He's very difficult, and they're expecting news on his diagnosis with this cancer to see if it spread or not this week, and that was the gist of it, right in line with a lot of stories that people had to share about fathers or grandfather's passing.

This one was Mercury in Cancer opposite Pluto and cancer over this last weekend on a partner of a year and a half plus four years when we were teenagers experienced the panic attack of such intensity that he put me in danger, physical harm. So this person had a really long story to share about it. I'm just kind of summarizing it for the sake of time by saying this person had you know you're in a relationship with someone they had a panic attack or they have a hole in the panic attack from what she described comes from a whole family history. That was like a lot of family karma involved in this person's panic attack. And but despite that, this woman was put in danger by her partner because of a really tremendously heavy panic attack. That is very Mercury opposite Pluto, and I hope you're doing okay hope your partner is okay as well.

So this one is Sun and Mercury opposite Pluto. The first knock at the door came when I kneeled down to pick up my laundry and hit my forehead on a shelf just above the basket. A few tears started to swell up, but I pushed them down and kept going. I live in a garage apartment and have to go to the main house to do my laundry. After picking up my last load, I was walking off the main house with a basket of clean clothes on my hip when all of a sudden, a massive Wasp started right from my face and stung me just below my eyeball. It got stuck around my eye socket, and it felt like it was hammering a nail into my eye. It was so painful that I just lost my composure. There was no pushing it down. Everything I had been suppressing from a recent breakup boiled up to the surface; I dropped the basket of clean laundry all over the ground and just let it rip. I screamed as loud as I could and then burst into tears. All of the emotion I hadn't allowed myself to really feel from the breakup came pouring out of me for the rest of the day. I laid on the couch with an ice pack on my face, and I ate an ice cream pop and sobbed like a little child. The emotional catharsis kept coming in waves until I cried so much that I finally felt a release just before bedtime. As I write this, I can still feel the bruise on my forehead and the swelling under my eye; it was so painful but necessary. Intellectually I know why the relationship ended, but apparently, I still hadn't let go of the emotional disappointment. Thank you, little wasp. So Mercury Pluto again like and but Sun and Mercury Pluto, but especially Mercury, Pluto or something happens, and it just releases this, you know, almost like a wellspring of, you know, emotional trauma that's just been stuck there, by the way; congratulations. Sorry about your eye. I love the way you describe yourself on the couch too.

Another person says I've been in therapy for about six months working on childhood trauma. A few weeks ago, my therapist suggested that we do some exposure therapy. And I write a letter to my father who I have not been in contact with for ten years, that I will share with her, and we will process it together. Other things came up in the session that needed immediate attention. This morning as I was getting ready for the day, I was thinking, I'm not sure what we'll talk about in therapy today. I don't have any pressing issues I need help with. And then I remembered the letter to my father and decided I was ready to dive into that. I had my therapy session this morning, and at a huge release of unresolved trauma surrounding my father and my upbringing. It was very painful but also cathartic. It will obviously be an ongoing process. But it was pretty wild that we started it today, as Mercury opposes Pluto and the Sun opposes Pluto. Wow. Well, congratulations. I can only imagine how tough it must have been to both to process everything but also to just sit down and write a letter like that.

So yeah, it's just so I'm so amazed hearing these stories. You know, this is why I do astrology because I just never get tired of hearing stories like this. I find it so magical and so fascinating and beautiful even through stories like this. Whether it's a wasp biting your eyeball, you know, or stinging your eyeball or, you know, the traumatic letter you have to write to your father.

I'm physically weakened from long COVID and feeling somewhat helpless in helping other family members who need more than I am physically able to do. We're all dealing with intense emotional family issues. Tomorrow marks 12 years since I lost my son to suicide. This year seems harder than ever to release the many unanswered questions as I contemplate our chaotic family dynamics in history. Thank you for all you share. Well, thank you. And I hope that you're able to do some processing. I can't even imagine as a parent; I can't fathom that. I just don't have the capacity to imagine what that would be like. And I guess my prayer for you is that under this transit, these transits this week that you're able to, to maybe not find answers but find comfort. What you know, to me, comfort sometimes comes in answers, maybe one or several answers. But comfort seems to transcend answers sometimes. So I hope you're able to find that at least. And thank you for sharing with us.

Mercury in the Sun opposite Pluto and Cancer. I was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. Since I've had slow success with alternative treatments, the slowness is wearing on me mentally; the way to speed things up in a way to be cancer free is a double mastectomy. Because of my professional dance career, it made sense to also do reconstruction. I've avoided this aspect for years because, as a dancer in Los Angeles, many of my friends have cosmetic implants, and I do judge them. To me, they look like a sign held up that says I am insecure and vain. And here I am in a position where I can either go flat after mastectomy and change careers or wear my vanity and my own insecurity literally on my chest. The death of an ideal, you said; I've now had surgery just this weekend and recovering from cancer removal as well as implant addition. I've had to look at my judgments in the eye and become what I once judged. I'm humbled. Wow, that is beautiful. I read that and almost cried when I first read it because I just, that's beautiful. I mean, it's obviously full of trauma and difficulty with your body and with your health. But that realization is priceless. You can't; there's nothing you could possibly pay for that kind of realization. You know, it only comes through something like that. And it makes us better people.

Fundamentally, one of my spiritual teachers sometimes says, I live to be corrected. And what he means by that is not like, oh, I'm always wrong about something, or I have to be right about something. It's just if there is somehow a way in which feedback comes to me, and it makes me aware of something that was a blind spot. What is life for, if not that? Because actually, that's the most relieving beautiful, joyful thing because we're enlightened when that happens. It's enlightening. It lightens the load; it gives us joy, and it gives us empathy. It gives us compassion, and more patience and humility, which are conducive to happiness. So I'm happy for you that you had that realization, even though I also hope that you're healing well.

Sun Mercury opposite Pluto, I discovered that a neighbor has just been arrested for having reoccurring sexual encounters with a child about eight years ago. This was a complete shock to me and our small community as well. She went on, but for the sake of, you know, sort of privacy, the length, I trimmed it down, but that's heavy. You know, that's really heavy. And it's very Cancerian to something happening in the home in the neighborhood. Something like that, something right around the corner. That said, the darkness that's revealed but very Pluto Sun illuminating something that's been dark.

I've been dating a married man since a year, and it has been good for a while now. I've been ebbing and flowing with the wish of deepening our relationship. Sharing a life together openly without secrecy these last few days, I have this overwhelming desire to open up to him about my wish and worry. This may be the beginning of the end that would change our fluffy dynamic either way. I feel I have no choice but, to be honest, and share. So that's a real Mercury Pluto moment. Let me just tell you; I have to be honest about something. I have to come clean. I've got to tell the truth. Mercury Pluto is just out with it. So you know, I hope that for everyone involved that there is honesty. Yeah.

Mars and Taurus. This is from back a little ways ago now but when Mars engrossed into Taurus had a good wave of stories that came through, I there was this one in particular that really stood out to me. Now, this is Mars and Taurus moving into somebody's sixth house, the place in ancient astrology that was associated with anything from frustration to hard work to sickness and accidents. Last Sunday, my husband and child tested positive for COVID the very day Mars ingressed into my sixth house. I also tested positive on top of that; my adventurous three-year-old fractured his wrist; good times. So there you have, you know, a pretty, pretty literal manifestation with an accident and with sick, you know, sickness and COVID sort of all constantly eating at once as Mars enters the sixth house, which was called the House of Mars is that was called The Joy of Mars, the sixth house.

Now we're going back to Mars, and it's square to Pluto. You may remember Mars in Aries, squaring Pluto in Capricorn. This one I thought was funny, although I'm sure it wasn't, for sure it wasn't funny as you were going through it. But Mars Pluto, I work at a university. On July 1, During Mars square to Pluto, they sent out letters announcing our new salaries for the fiscal year of 2023. Unfortunately, many of the letters were incorrect. For example, mine said I was getting a $3,000 pay cut instead of a raise after a really good annual review. Hundreds of angry people emailed and called to complain to the plutocrats at the top. Finally, at the end of the day, they sent out an email acknowledging that there were numerous errors in the salary letters and they would be straightening it out next week. Instead of getting work done, my colleagues and I spent the whole day on a group chat cursing out the plutocrats in the Dean's office. That's so funny. Well, at least it was just a mistake. But God, if you can just imagine the hornet's nest of pissed-off people. Mars Pluto, man, that is, that's perfect. I mean, that's just perfect.

Okay, this one to me. Again, funny. Probably not funny at the moment. Oh, my goodness, I have definitely been touched by this transit. This is Mars square Pluto. Yesterday, my sister-in-law was in excruciating pain due to nerve issue issues. But the issue came when it was time to take her to the emergency room. You see, I don't have my license. And I get really bad anxiety when it comes to being behind the wheel. She was literally in so much pain. And I just said forget it. It's only nine minutes away. Let's go. The whole time, She's crying out in pain and trying to teach me how to drive the car, which is incredible. Meanwhile, I'm trying to remain calm and not throw up. Definitely a traumatic experience for both of us. I wouldn't recommend it. But honestly, if I didn't have that fire under my butt to help her, it wouldn't have gone, it wouldn't have gotten done. Now, will I be getting back behind the wheel anytime soon? Absolutely not. But wow, it was like, we must survive. We must get to the emergency room. We must go. I don't have. I don't know how to drive. I'll do it anyway. It's very heroic. It's very thrilling. It's like I'm gonna barf. But I have to do this intense, thrilling thing. My sister is in acute pain. She's trying to teach me how to drive while in acute pain, and I'm in acute fear of the whole thing. Very Mars Pluto you know, could you ever? This is why people are like, is astrology predictive? And I'm like, yeah, yes. You know, because, of course, there are very specific predictive forms of astrology. But generally speaking, we're talking about archetypes. So you're going to have a Mars and Pluto-like experience.

For example, if you have Mars Pluto transit, your birth chart or Pluto transit, natal Mars, or something, you will have experiences maybe like that one, but who's going to predict that exact experience? So most of the time, when you're learning about transits, This is why it's such a good idea to listen to other people's stories. I mean, if you asked me, my students always asked me like, well, you know, what's the best way to get better at reading charts, and I'm like, just read charts because you'll hear story after story after story of the transits of the combinations of planets in the birth chart and you will start developing a little diviners almanac in your head. And this is good; it's good to listen to stories all the time. I can't help but find the absurdity and all of this stuff too. You know, it's like we're all just walking Mad magazines.

All right, I will try to get my first black belt in Aikido during the square, so there's someone going through their black belt under a Mars Pluto square hope you get it or hope you got it. I guess at this point. Venus in Gemini, remember when Venus ingressed into Gemini a while back? It's in cancer now, but this morning Venus in Gemini on this day ingresses into this woman's eighth house, okay, and on that day, I got an unexpected $200 rebate from the gas company or might have been 200 quid or pound or something like that from the gas company. That's nice, a debt being paid back that's a very eighth house kind of topic and perfect for Venus good fortune entering the eighth house of debts and obligations both that you have to others that they have to you. Yeah, that's amazing.

Venus square Saturn, we're going to be kind of wrapping it up with these Venus square Saturn stories. Okay, again, funny, not funny. To make ends meet, I started working as a cam girl on an adult website. I loathe it, but it allows for a flexible schedule and time to be at home with my geriatric and demanding cat. This is Venus square to Saturn. Hours before the Venus square Saturn, a man on the site wanted to pay hundreds of dollars to chat with me clothed. He was adamant about there being no nudity whatsoever and even asked me to change off-screen into fancy evening wear and heels as if I were a top nightclub as if I were at a top nightclub, adding that my regular cam girl outfit was too basic and revealing. He said he wanted to worship me and for me to look down upon him as subservient, calm, and in his words, to treat him as my personal bitch boy. He also demanded to buy me expensive designer shoes even though I told him I don't care about things like that. The entire exchange was a bit uncomfortable because I'm not someone who easily bosses people around or can even pretend to be better than someone else. But I definitely needed the money, so I awkwardly went along with it for about two hours. Meanwhile, he was doing cocaine and telling me it was terrible. He was telling me to write out a wish list for him to fulfill as he sent me a photo of him groveling on the floor air licking an invisible Jimmy Choo stiletto; he is from a country and culture which I think might be very reserved. And it seemed like he just wanted to lose his inhibitions and release the control that he usually has over his daily life and in business. Wow, you can't make that up. I mean, that is so Venus Saturn, like the whole thing. The whole thing about the control and wanting to be like, I want to have a Venus Saturn experience where Venus the goddess or perhaps a woman in this case, or an object of sexual desire, whoever they may be, is treating me like I'm they're in control. Like they're, they're the dominant, and I'm the submissive, and I want that experience. And then this is, but it's a very elaborate Saturn Venus type of fantasy.

You know, I found that amazing. Plus, what I found amazing was the background of why she's doing it and her struggle with doing it. And the good obviously she has, and this person in the way that they wrote does that include absolutely everything they said a very good sense of humor as well about the whole thing which I mean, to me, it's like you don't laugh at things because you think little of them, you laugh at things because they're absurd. It's like life; it's so many things in life; everyday life is just absurd. And I think maybe you know, maybe it's my Capricorn moon, but I just find such delight in these absurdities like that is crazy. That is nuts that in you would have it that's an experience you can have it there's nothing good or bad about it necessarily. It's just that's an experience that's out there. And apparently, Venus square Saturn decided to screw that one up, so I do like that, you know, you got to wear fancy evening wear. I mean, that sounds like it might have been fun.

All right, so let's see here. My partner lives abroad now; this one is Venus, Uranus Venus conjoined Uranus in Taurus. So we're going back away, and this landed in this person's seventh house of marriage and relationships. My partner lives abroad, and I suddenly decided to surprise him with a visit. While I was there, a festival was held at this beautiful place in the Norwegian woods. We participated in the wonderful but unusual practice of Beer Yoga. While he was going into a headstand, he accidentally kicked me in my face. I had to go and lie down for a couple of that is so ridiculous, first of all. While he was going into a headstand, he accidentally kicked me in my face. I had to go and lie down for a couple of hours, both due to the pain and the shock that hit me out of the blue and this otherwise delightful setting. Despite the frozen bananas that were pressed against my face, my eye got all swollen and was decorated with all the colors of the rainbow during the following days. Expect the unexpected seventh house transit for sure. Wow. I mean to me that that's it's like steals the show. Oh, my God. Well, first of all, I think that's what you get for doing Beer Yoga in Norwegian woods; you should know better. Oh, I'm just playing. Wow. Unbelievable. That it's so Venus Uranus like we're doing this kind of eccentric activity, and I get kicked in the face, and then I have a rainbow-colored bruise. Wow.

All right. I'll end with this one which I thought was absurd and funny, but I would have really pissed me off if it had happened to me. The soil I had trucked to Saturn and Venus again. The soil I had trucked in from my garden basically turned to concrete due to a lot of clay in the soil, which the garden center mixed with sand; I was in such a hurry to get the garden in that I didn't bother to check it out or test its consistency. All of my plants died since their roots were compacted and restricted from this concrete clay sand mix. It became clear where things were headed just as Venus was coming into its square with Saturn; I'm now hard at work amending the soil and having to completely start over literally from the ground up. Because your flower garden got filled with some kind of concrete hardness and killed the beauty, the Venusian beauty isn't that like, you just I mean, I don't know if for me the more as year after year goes by. And it's like, well, you know, yes, that's very Venus Saturn, it fits the bill perfectly.

But when I hear it from a person, and I imagine them literally going through that and knowing astrology, you know, and seeing it all happening and being like, holy shit, they're like, there's Venus and Saturn, right there.

So, those are our stories for today. Thank you all for sharing them. There are a few things that I want to say to round it up. Why do we do astrology? I love hearing these stories because they remind me of what astrology's role in my life is, spiritually what purpose it serves. The stars lift us out of the concrete literalism of this world. Even when concrete or killing flowers, it is not really concrete is the stuff of stars. It is the stuff of gods in imagination. It is the stuff of transcendental beauty. And that can be present even when this crazy mixture grabs your flowers. Yoga means union, the yoking of our souls to experience in divine ecstasy; this is divine. And this is divine. And this and this too. Yes. Even when that union shows up as a foot year face and a bit of Beer Yoga tent in the Norwegian woods. People are pent up, people are pent up, and they need fantasy. Thank God we have astrology. Thank God, the woman that was the cam girl woman that shared her story, thank God she has astrology. Because we can understand that life is it's like a play with all of these literary forms that are just rolling out before us. People are pent up, we need fantasy in our lives, or we will be choked out like a flower dying. That's the real concrete, is not living a life with Gods, with dreams, with archetypes. The ability to see these, this beautiful substructure of reality that so many people don't see, what a blessing it is that we have this. Astrology is our evening wear, do you know what I mean? We need some evening wear in our lives our evening wear is the stars. Astrology is the pain required and learning how to drive a vehicle, the vehicle of our soul in a body in the world in nature. How do you drive this thing? How do you? It's a cosmic GPS. And it hurts to learn how to drive it. But you have to; it's necessary. It's dharma. It's fate. It's destiny. You have to do it. It's the sickness with exquisite timing so that there's love in the sickness that we're lovesick when we have astrology in our lives.

It's when fake things become real. And things that we thought of as real become fake, even our own attitudes toward ourselves or other people or our bodies. It is our story family gathering here and listening to stories. People have done this for 1000s of years all over the planet in all cultures and all traditions. People have sat next to fires. They have looked up at the stars. They have told jokes, they have danced, they have sung songs, and they have shared stories. And that's what we're doing. That's why we do this because we need a family that's bigger than the inevitable dramas that will surround us, whether it's from a neighbor, from a father, or from trauma that's three generations old. We need some place for those stories and those pains to belong, and they belong in the realm of the human imagination; the human spirit they belong in a cosmos that is well organized and beautiful and intelligent. Even when there's a family drama when we have astrology in our lives, we have a starry family; we have a sense of ancestry that reaches into the heavens. And for me, there's nothing better than that. So I'm very glad to share all of your stories. I love your stories. Don't ever stop sharing them. We'll keep going; we'll tell more stories. That is what I've got for today. Thank you all for your stories, everyone that mailed them in, and I look forward to next time. Bye