Grabbed Episode 20: Cosmic Golf Balls and Aunt Dorothy’s Blanket

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today, we're going to hear your stories. These are stories that have been submitted over the past couple of months, especially a good selection from eclipse season recently, and we're going to take time to hear what you guys have been going through and what kinds of experiences and stories you have to share, as the transits of the past couple of months have come through.

If you are new to this series, we started, I don't know, maybe a year ago at this point or more, maybe even two years ago, and what I did was I realized that one of my favorite ways of learning astrology over the years, I mean, a way that I get to learn astrology every day that a lot of people don't, is through reading charts and hearing people's stories and also in classroom hearing people's stories in the comment section, hearing people's stories.

When you're a student of astrology, and you hear a story that is the expression of a transit, you learn something that cannot be learned in textbooks, and it can't be learned on YouTube channels, or even people like myself are hopefully explaining things and themes nicely. Just in the same way that when you live a transit, there's no replacement for getting to know the planetary archetypes and living through a planetary experience.

So one of the purposes of this grabbed series is to help people learn astrology by seeing real-life enactments, you know, real-life examples of the astrology. The second purpose of this is to help us develop and cultivate empathy, compassion, and concern as an astrological community for each other.

It's easy for astrology to exist in our heads as this select weird little cosmic gossip column language that we're thinking about and maybe even getting anxious about; it becomes a lot easier for astrology to become a meaningful part of our spiritual lives when we hear the stories of other people and when we remember that there aren't any transits right now that are ever, you know, just happening in some vacuum. The transits are alive in and through us; the soul is the mediating ground for the gods; the gods seek to live their own lives through us, just as we seek to understand and reflect upon our own nature through them.

So there's this beautiful, reciprocal relationship that's happening between the archetypes of the gods and our souls, and the series is also meant to just remind us of that; I think that's a really valuable thing, and this is why I love storytelling as a mode for learning astrology almost more than I like textbooks.

This is also why, for example, my new book that's coming out, which you'll be able to pick up as a reward through the Kickstarter later this month, is a book that's trying to get at what divination is, what the divinatory experience of life is, like, through storytelling. So, if you like this series, I think you'll also like my book, which is coming out soon.

That is our goal for today; we're going to tell your stories and reflect on them and reflect on some of the transits that as you've been experiencing; before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe, share your comments and reflections and add stories if you've got them. If you ever want to add a story to this series, you can use the hashtag grabbed we use that hashtag because one of the names for the planets for Grahas has Indian astrology, which means grabber, but it can also mean to grasp or understand, and so the planets show up, and they often grab us through the unconscious, they just show up, and we go whoa, whoa.

But then, if we're living reflectively in relation with the planets, we come to grasp what they're teaching us, or we come to grasp something of a higher intelligence, and so we use the hashtag #grabbed when you have a story in the comment section that is reflective of any of the transits. Use that hashtag in the comment section, or if you prefer to, keep it even more anonymous. You can email your story to us at grabbed@nightlightastrology.com is the email address.

You can always find a transcript of any of my daily talks on the website nightlightastrology.com. And if you are someone who loves astrology so much that you would like to study it and maybe even practice it, take it to the next level. Go to the Nightlight Astrology website and click on the first-year course. You'll see that our new class, Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic, a one-year class in ancient Hellenistic astrology, begins on November 18.

Thirty classes on the year they are all webinars you can attend live or participate remotely at your own pace with the recordings; all class content is on no class website that can be downloaded, or you can listen through the website. There are breakout study sessions led by our tutoring staff; we have a forum discussion where you can ask questions, and our tutoring staff is there to answer. You can email me throughout the year; there are tons of additional support lectures. Bonus material, optional reading, quizzes, a workbook, and optional certification at the end for people who are taking it a little bit more seriously. The early bird payment saves you $500.

There's a payment plan that you can spread out over a year. Then there's need-based tuition; if you are someone who needs a little help to make the course possible for whatever reason, we make this available for people so that you're not priced out. So, if you need a little help, it is okay. Tell us your situation, and we'd be glad to work with you. So that's it for promotion, and now we're going to get into our stories for the day.

Now, these come mostly from eclipses, a few other transits I threw in, but I really wanted to focus on eclipses because those have been the major events of the autumn season, and so, you know, to me, these are really poignant stories that sometimes they're heartbreaking. A lot of times, they represent the challenging things that people are going through; some are pretty humorous. I try to kind of mix things up a little bit and then offer some reflection for us at the end. So here we go.

This is someone who had the lunar eclipse fall in their third house of siblings. Yesterday, I found out that my brother and his wife are getting a divorce due to severe marital issues, to say the least. They've been married for about five years. They have two girls, a three-year-old and a four-month-old. It is a very complicated and heartbreaking situation. But a divorce may actually be the most positive solution. All these events happened around the lunar eclipse in Taurus, which fell in my third house. It's a place of siblings. That is really hard. So you know, blessings to your brother and his wife and in their situation.

This one comes from someone who had the Libra solar eclipse in their eighth house. Just a couple of days after the eclipse, I had to put my dog Rico down. I had him since he was three months old. He was 11, he tore an ACL, and his quality of life was really bad, even on several different pain meds.

I found your podcast just by searching via Spotify. I've been listening ever since. Thank you for your wisdom, guidance, and healing through such a sad time in my life. This eclipse has reminded me how the universe chooses to work, and there's nothing we can really do to stop it. But it also brings us gifts to help us through the tough times. Nightlight Astrology has been one for him. He says I'm a letter carrier mailman for the US Postal Service; when you see a letter carrier, male or female, please remember how you've blessed my life. I look forward to listening to your podcast while I deliver the mail.

Well, thank you, thank you for listening, and we're really sorry to hear about your dog, and you know that sounds like an eclipse in the eighth house. Sometimes eclipses in the eighth will bring, you know, the releasing of people or pets through their passage. That had to have been really hard, especially if you've had him since he was just a little pup.

Here's someone who shares that kind of funny story. I started dating someone back in January of this year. We had a falling out at the end of March, a few days before his birthday. I blocked him. At the start of Venus retrograde, he came back around, and we rekindled our relationship; he must have unblocked him. We've had some big ups and downs for sure, and Friday night before the eclipse, he took me out to a really nice restaurant. Friday the 13th Go figure and bought me flowers. We had a serious talk, and the next day, he finally made it official. It was late evening after the eclipse. Starting a relationship on the same day of an eclipse? Tragic? Are we doomed? We'll see, but I have high hopes. Well, an eclipse in one of the Sun in the sign of Venus after a Venus retrograde brought someone out of your life and then back in is very interesting, to say the least and astrology works. So we'll find out.

I love this one. This one made me laugh. My five-year-old daughter is a Taurus Sun Cancer Moon cancer ascendant that places Libra in her fourth house of home and family. I don't often feel that I see astrological events playing out in my kids, especially at that young age. But on Friday night and Saturday night. This is the Libra eclipse in her fourth house of home and family. A five-year-old daughter seemed to have this unexplainable urge to get involved in cleaning our kitchen. She does have household chores she's responsible for, but she is not unfamiliar with doing things like wiping down counters and tables, folding and putting away laundry, sweeping and tidying up. Wow, I needed to up my game.

The kitchen, however, has always been my domain, and I don't often ask or allow the kids to take care of anything. Friday, she decided she needed to wash the dishes. I allowed it and thought this was a great opportunity to learn that skill. She did a great job, was very detailed, and completed the task.

Then, Saturday night, she again decided she needed to wash the dishes, which then turned into disinfecting and wiping the counters, cabinets, cabinet handles, and appliances, and even moving furniture around to sweep and mop the floors in the kitchen. It was late at night, and at this point, although I allowed them to stay up late on the weekend. I knew it had been a long day, and she'd be soon melting down. I tried to convince her to finish her job tomorrow, but it was like an itch she needed to scratch. She wouldn't have it.

In the end, my kitchen was shining; she was finally satisfied with their work and had a restful night of sleep. The urge to thoroughly clean the kitchen has not returned since, but thank you, solar eclipse and Libra. I love that she became a cleanliness perfectionist. It's very, very Libran in the fourth house of home and family.

It's interesting because that a little event, who knows what it could represent as an interesting turning point in her psychic development. It may seem very small to us as adults, but those events and paying attention to them. I think that it's really cool that you did that. You'll never know what may be prompted what kind of archetypes are really making themselves Slyke known in her psyche right now. It's really cool.

So, I wanted to share a personal grab story about the Eclipse in Libra, which happened in my 10th house. I'm a painter and a singer, talented, maybe yes, but not very successful financially, which, of course, is often the story for artists. I've been an entrepreneur together with my husband for a long time, and I used to teach art to kids in the evenings. But I quit the job four years ago; I got tired for many reasons and wanted to pursue my own art.

Nevertheless, my professional history has been somewhat indefinite, and I haven't accumulated almost anything for retirement pension for my future old days. This has been a source of anxiety for me. My husband, who I financially depend on, has encouraged me to pursue my art in the past. He also encouraged me to stay at home when our daughter was little during our over 20 years together. I've often talked to him about my worries about my future retirement days. It's a sore point for me to not be able to support myself, and sometimes I feel like I have to constantly prove myself to the world that I have a right to exist as an artist.

During these four years, it looked for a while that things were working out. I got noticed as a painter, sold quite a lot, and made an album of my own music. Lately, there's just no money. Nothing sells people really like my art and social media. But I can't buy cat food with thumbs and hearts, not to mention painter canvases, a big slap on the face.

A big slap on the face was that a couple of weeks ago, my husband said to me the problem is that you're not accumulating any pension. He said this to me after worrying about it to him during the years he's encouraged me to stay at home and not to worry. He says this to me now, when I'm 52. We had a very big argument, and our 18-year-old daughter got involved, and everything was very chaotic and hurtful. Afterward, we talked it over and made a truce, but it's not something I can wipe out of my mind. I do love my family.

Then, on the day of the eclipse, this is a Libra eclipse in our 10th house, I found myself filing an application for unemployment benefits. The truth is that art is what I am, and it's what I'm most talented in. I'd like to continue painting. I love to go deeper and find new ways to express my art. But in reality, I'm caught in the need to try to please the audience, and sell whatever I sell brings only pennies to the table. Yesterday, I was in an art exhibition opening of a friend, and I found myself feeling envious of the courage and depth she'd been able to bring forth.

Envy is not a bad feeling, though; at its best, it inspires us. But here I am, a 52-year-old woman, not knowing what I'm going to be when I grow up worried about my future. I guess I could do something else for a while, but I'm scared as hell and insecure. I don't feel energized and enthusiastic about anything else than art and music. The anxiety has been enormous during the nights when every hardship seems to get bigger and darker.

So she goes on a little bit, but that's the essence of someone struggling with eclipses in their career house, Libran career house as an artist, and my thoughts go out to you because I don't personally, as someone who went through an MFA program, and, you know, I realized very quickly like there was really not a world in which I was going to be able to succeed as a writer, not a creative writer.

Astrology opened up for me as my second choice, not my first choice was to be a writer, you know, that's what I loved and, and I had this kind of, you know, defiant, like desire to go to do an MFA in art school and everyone said, Well, you're not going to make any money and, and it was, I think it's one of the greatest, you know, sort of tragedies that we don't value our artists, or our teachers and many other professions that are undervalued and not always paid in accord with how much heart and soul and talent and ability goes into what they do. So I just, I feel you it's not a world that has a great love or support of some of the things that matter the most.

Anyway, I've been very fortunate to be able to do something that I like that scratches an artistic itch at times; you know, creating content can be like that, and my heart just breaks for people who have the same talents and abilities creatively that you know, are not supported by a world that you know, is not always appreciative of such things.

Another artist with the solar eclipse in the 10th house every year for the past few years, I enter one screenwriting contest. One, I think, would be a legitimate one out of a bunch of rackets. This year, I entered again with a completely fresh take on a favorite surrealist satire idea of mine. When I was out in LA in 2020 and met with a literary manager, she told me Once you learn proper story structure, you'll be truly unstoppable.

Is that Hollywood talk? Maybe I choose to take constructive criticism anyway, absolutely. Especially since I thought I already knew proper story structure. It wasn't until summer 22 That got me enrolled in a wonderful screenwriting course she goes on and says how much better she got. She submitted this again in 2023 and paid extra for some feedback that was glowing. She discovered that she didn't get in last August and brushed it aside and just kept going, never a second thought.

But then, on the eve of the eclipse, she got an email announcing the top 10 finalists, and it just said in all caps and BRO, When I tell you, I lost my shit, torrents of soul psychosis over and over, wave after wave. I laughed about it a few days later because it was so serious for me at the time. I angry cried for about 45 minutes, and I got back over myself and went back to work and worked the rest of the day on a different script, and I guess life is back to normal, except I'm feeling more motivated.

Again, it's like I feel you, you know, when you get there, it can be that way for people who have a 10th house eclipses have really, you know, especially south node pentose eclipses where something isn't working, and you need to change, right, a different story or, you know, change trajectory somehow. But those eclipses in the 10th house, you know, can often be about the disappointments that were enduring around our professional work, which, of course, you pour your soul into. It can be maddening when you just aren't getting the results that you're hoping for.

I talk to people every day who are, you know, I deal with hard stuff in their careers, and I think the hardest part is trying to sitting there trying to figure out what am I doing wrong. You know, people do that a lot, and I wish I could tell everyone that most of the time, I don't think you're doing anything wrong, you know, just keep doing your thing, keep, keep trying, keep loving what you love. It's just not easy being an artist. So I just I, and there were other stories just like this. I had a lot of 10th House Libra and Eclipse stories that were about challenges around artistic work or visions or not feeling validated creatively.

Anyway, this person is writing from Germany. I'd like to share an eclipse story. The first thing I noticed when I initially looked at this eclipse was the degree that happened right on their natal Pluto opposing Venus in Aries. So they have a Pluto-Venus opposition in their chart, and this eclipse landed right on Pluto and Libra, opposing Venus in Aries.

For the first time ever, I filed a complaint for sexual harassment with a campervan rental company in regard to the inappropriate behavior by one of their male sales managers toward me. For the past couple of months, I've been looking to buy a camper van as I love to travel. Owning a van has been a dream of mine for a long time.

So I got in contact with a camper van rental company that regularly sells off their two to three-year-old vans; one of their sales managers has been in contact with to discuss vans and options and had been making inappropriate remarks innuendos offers for a while, which I had mostly brushed off or ignored until yesterday when he crossed the line. Thankfully, only in writing via WhatsApp.

While filing the complaint, I felt calm, and I realized I wasn't doing this to get back at him or to cut a deal for a van. But as a woman, I simply had had enough. It's not the first time this has happened to me.

Good for you for, for starters, good for you. I really remember I'm thinking back to the fixed star of Spica and that idea of justice somehow playing out, and yeah, that must have felt it must have felt incredible to just stand up for yourself and be like, You know what, this isn't cool. It might be a, you know, might be someone I'm talking to trying to get a camper, and you could easily just try to brush it off or push past it. But instead, you were like, Nope, I'm gonna stand up for myself.

In doing that, I have noticed in the lives of my clients who have had such moments that it's often the first in a series of events that is about a deeper level of empowerment that might be entering your life that could do other things in addition to you know, defending yourself in a situation where it's called for. So let's hope that this is an even deeper opening on some level, but if it isn't good for you anyway.

Today, this is someone with the solar eclipse in Libra, in their 11th house of friends and colleagues. I received an email that Michael, a colleague and leader on my team, had succumbed to cancer. She was diagnosed with just six weeks ago. She was in her early 50s. She says Trudy, you will be missed beyond measure. I can only imagine that quick of a diagnosis and that quickly someone passing away; that's really, really tough. Especially, you know, if it's a colleague you really had a connection even if it's not someone you had a connection with, it just it's shocking to have someone that you work with that closely. Past that quickly, and that suddenly.

This one comes when Venus in Virgo was opposing Saturn in Pisces. The night before, Venus opposed Saturn. I watched the movie more about an elderly couple in their last years of life and wept like a little girl. The next day. I received a gift from my great aunt, whom I had not heard from in years. She gifted me a beautiful blanket. She crocheted for me along with a note that said this was to be a wedding gift for me, but seeing as I'm not married yet, she wanted to give it to me anyway.

I'm only 34, Aunt Dorothy I found it to be very Venus Saturn and quite comical. Come on, come on, Aunt Dorothy. Thanks for the gift, but like, you know, hold it for a little bit. Give me a little time here. You're You're an old maid. I just give you this. Oh god, that's funny.

Another Venus-Saturn story. My stepdad and his daughter have been estranged for about five years now. I speak to my stepsister. Randomly, she reached out to inquire about the names my kids call her Dad and my mom. I assumed it was a gift idea. But since she lives on the other side of the country, she doesn't know that her Dad and my mom's relationship is currently ending badly. That happened, she mentioned, while Venus was retrograde this summer.

Finally, I responded to her, and she broke down crying. She's 28 and pregnant with twins. She's his only daughter and the only child remaining in that family, the only blood lineage she wants so badly to tell her father the amazing news that could potentially bring them back together. But her Dad will not allow us to pass on his new number and refuses to hear about her. It's heartbreaking for them, but also for my sister, mom, and I, who loved her so dearly and would be the only positive experienced female support in her life. Yeah. That heartbreaking feeling of the, you know, the young, the young woman who is, you know, feeling alienated from a family member.

It's like a love that's being said no to it's very Saturnian. No, I won't love, I won't connect, I won't heal, and the wisdom of the women who are there to maybe surround her in light of the fact that you know her own father won't try to make amends. Of course, who might have a judgment on the situation, but I hope that you guys are able to really surround her with lots of love.

This is a solar eclipse and Libra in the 11th house. I recently started working in huge teams of people doing manual labor for the music industry, construction, building, heavy lifting, and stuff like that. I meet a lot of touring crews and the venues we work in our massive stadiums and arenas. Seems perfectly symbolized by the Libran 11th house eclipse that just took place. I love that. It's just, it's just perfect. You're a roadie for the gods.

This was pretty crazy. I was walking on; this is Mars square Pluto. So remember when Mars was in late Libra, squaring Pluto and Capricorn. I was walking on the edge of a park in my neighborhood, which is a historic golf course, the city's only public golf course known for its affordability and open access. I've lived in the neighborhood for four years of several run-ins with golfers yelling at me to get off the green while walking through the park.

At first, I was oblivious to the reality that golf balls can do serious damage. But over the years, I clued in, and now I stick to the walking path, which I assumed would be safe and out of harm's way. Well, yesterday, as Mars was squaring Pluto, I was struck by a golf ball on my hairline above my left eye, bloodstream down my face over my left eye as I clued into what had happened. I'm 35 weeks pregnant, so my first thought was is my baby okay, and then I quickly went into a rage.

I screamed and shouted obscenities as I saw two men approach me. I let them have it with extensive verbal abuse for a few minutes. They were very apologetic, and a concerned stranger passing by called 9-11, the medic on the line, and told me to find a dry cloth to help stop the bleeding.

The golfer who hit me gave me a crisp white handkerchief, which I applied to the wound, and it quickly became drenched in blood. Eventually, I apologized for all the profanity the golfers and I exchanged contact information, and my husband picked me up in our car to take me to the hospital.

At the hospital, I received two stitches and a CT scan, which thankfully came back normal. The baby is fine, too. The CT scan technician jokes that I look like a revolutionary war hero with my head bandage in my dress drenched in blood. Oh my god, maybe a past life, you never know.

Oh my god. Wow, that is quite a story. That's such a Mars-Pluto story too. I love that you initially verbally assaulted them after they hit their golf ball into your head. But then you all sort of made peace, and there was like a white handkerchief covered in blood and a revolutionary war outfit. It's very interesting. I wonder, historically, one of the things my weird brain thinks about is how I wonder if anything actually happened and in a war on that land at some point. Who knows? I mean, yeah, it's just like you can't make this stuff up, Mars-Pluto; it's so random how some of it happens to your like Mars-Pluto, I'll probably get in a fight with my spouse, or we'll have a big disagreement about something No, you'll get hit by a golf ball, you know?

Okay, so this person has had the eclipse very close to they're in Libra very close to their ascendant, and Pluto is transiting their IC at the same time. Remember that Eclipse in Libra was starting to engage with Pluto, who is at the IC. I've been going through a very difficult divorce after 20 years of marriage and business partnership; I had to let go of what I thought would be a lifelong foundation based on shared values and goals of financial security as well as my personal identity as a wife and business partner.

This is on the eclipse; I took a long walk on the beach and through my wedding ring into the ocean. I felt good; it felt liberating. I've lost so much. But I knew a new chapter was waiting for me. It was time.

I'll leave it there. How do we know that the gods are real and that they're a part of our lives? Astrology is a language that affirms and confirms this every day to us, whether we think about the gods as archetypal fields or if we think of them as actual beings or both.

We know that they're real because when you live a life of astrological reflection, when you cast your ring back into the ocean, you know that you're releasing something that's much deeper than just a marriage or just a ring, and you know that you're releasing that ring to the gods as much as you are releasing a person.

You know, when you get hit in the head by a golf ball and end up covered in blood, that that golf ball was a cosmic golf ball and that there's something about that, that even if it doesn't happen right away, it takes a few days to really think about. It makes even a very bizarre accident like that comical or interesting.

We know that the gods are real because we find suddenly that we're not just roadies, but we're roadies for some kind of cosmic rock show. You know, we know that the gods are real because we know that the estrangement between a daughter and a stepdad is somehow written even though it's painful, and our constellation becomes rooted in the sky.

We know Aunt Dorothy's disappointment that we're 35 and not married and the beautiful blanket that she gives us. We know that it's rooted in Venus opposite Saturn, and so we can find a kind of dark humor in Aunt Dorothy's disappointed blanket. We know that when a co-worker passes so quickly, they're writing a fairy that is driven by the gods.

We know that standing up for ourselves and a moment of karmic or cosmic justice with the van salesman is appropriate. For the time and moment that we're in, you don't have to second guess if we're doing the right thing because we can see it and feel that it's the right time to do something. That sense of timing is precious.

We know when our psychotic disappointment about our rejected screenplay is being fueled by the tectonic plates of karma that have been moving below for months, so we can eventually laugh after our angry crying is over.

We know when our artistic disappointment years of trying and struggling to do what we love and that we carry across creatively is something precious and sacred that makes the struggle worthwhile. That makes the struggle something more than just what the ledger book says about the value of what we've been doing.

We know that the cross we carry as creative beings is part of what makes it so important, and so we can process disappointment, we can process anxiety, and we can still have those experiences being held in a sense that we're doing what we must. We know that our little five-year-old is being possessed by the gods as she's scrubbing the kitchen spotlessly clean, and we can marvel at how even the souls of little children are acting as chariots for the gods, and we can just appreciate it.

When a lover comes back, we know with Venus retrograde, it's right on time; when they get serious on the eve of an eclipse, we sort of go, oh, shit, this, this is gonna be interesting. Our intuition knows that as well. But isn't it nice that somehow, up in the heavens, there's a language, a script, a kind of music that's playing that cues us into the time we're in? My boyfriend's back.

When our beloved animal is released from their body, we know that they're being carried by waves of eternal intelligence to their next life, and just as surely as you are out there delivering the mail as a messenger, you know that the gods are messengers that are telling you that this was this time.

When our siblings are going through turmoil or a divorce, we can trust that there is an intelligence guiding the process, and with that, we can remember that we are here and wherever you go; if you live with astrology in your life, we know that we are spiritual siblings, all of us that were spiritual cousins, friends, colleagues, in a celestial community and even if you have very few people in your literal life, that do astrology, that understand the language that believe in it, you know that there are so many people out there walking with a divinity mindset, who pay attention to signs and omens and use them as a way of living a meaningful life.

So we'll leave us there for the day. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed anything to our series; there were hundreds that I received. I read through almost all of them.

Sometimes, time doesn't allow me to read; we have staff that reads through them, I read through most of them, and we gather and collect what we think will make for a good storytelling episode. But please know that your stories are witnessed and cherished by me and my staff, and thank you for sharing so deeply and so honestly, with such integrity, about your experiences; if you ever want to share, use the hashtag grabbed and then tell us the transit and then tell us your story in the comment section of any of the videos we ever do or feel free to email your story to us grabbed@nightlightastrology.com Just don't write anything you don't mind us actually reading in an episode like this in the future. But that's it for today. I hope you guys are having a good one. Take it easy bye.