One day, when I was a child, there was a family gathering at our home and on that particular occasion I was the only child present. We sat around the table, the grown-ups were talking and I was listening. I had been raised very strictly and wasn´t allowed to take part in the conversation of the grown-ups, but I could listen.

At one point somebody looked at one of my aunts, who was pregnant at that time and wondered what would the gender of the new baby be. At that time, and where I grew up,it wasn´t yet possible to check it out  – everybody had to wait until the baby was born to find out. It could be fun with all the guessing though.

It was going to be my aunt´s fourth child. She and my uncle had three daughters already and were hoping for a son. My mother said, that it would be interesting to see, what it was going to be this time. There was a few seconds silence as everybody thought about it, then the guessing started. Or rather – everybody was trying to be nice to my aunt and uncle and tell them, what they wanted to hear. One by one, everybody would say, that they thought this time it would be a boy – for sure. After all – someone said – that´s how it was with her (my pregnant aunt´s) parents (my grandparents) – they had three daughters first and then came a son. (I don´t think it would matter as the gender comes from the man – so I´ve been taught, but maybe they didn´t think of it or perhaps they were just trying to be nice).

But right before all that optimistic guessing – during those few seconds silence, when everybody pondered on the gender of the baby – I had an unusual experience. I suddenly had the answer inside me – and it surprised me. It wasn´t any guessing (I wouldn´t  have guessed that), it wasn´t a belief, it wasn´t any thinking – it was certainty. I don´t know where it came from, but somehow, without any effort from me, I knew for sure what it was going to be.

The feeling was so strong, that I felt pressured from inside to say it out loud, even though I didn´t want to. I hesitated for a couple of minutes, I thought, that my mother would be annoyed with me for interrupting the conversation of the grown-ups and I was certain, that the others wouldn´t take me seriously. The answer wasn´t what anybody expected, but it wanted out. In the end I blurted out:  “There are going to be twins – two girls”.

I was right – they shook their heads over my silly idea and the next moment it was forgotten. Just a child´s nonsense. I felt rather silly.

In few months time, in the springtime, my aunt gave birth by a caesarean section to twins – two girls. It was the only twin birth in our family that we knew of. It was also the last time my aunt and uncle tried for a boy.

By that time, everybody apparently had forgotten, that I had foretold the event, at least nobody said anything about it (it looked to me like they forgot it the moment I said it – because it was just something that a child had said and because they judged it as pure nonsense, not worth keeping in mind). But when I reminded my mother about it, she thought back and said surprised: “Yes, indeed. You did say it that time. How did you know?”. I couldn´t answer that.

How could I know? Where did the answer come from? Did it come from myself or from some other source? Why can´t I control it? Why can´t I get all the answers I want, in the same, effortless way? What happened there?

Later in life, I would have several experiences of similar kind, but usually they would come in my dreams. I could dream a detailed dream about what was to happen and then it would all come true, exactly how I dreamed it. It would usually be something negative, so I dreaded it and wondered what such dreams were for. All they did was to scare me and I couldn´t do anything about it. They didn´t do me any good. The last dream of this kind was a real nightmare. I dreamed of a whole chain of disastrous events in my life and the next several months I was terrified, because I couldn´t see how I could stop anything of that from happening. Then I watched helplessly how it all unfolded, one detail after another, exactly how I dreamed it. After that, I thought a lot about these dreams and their meaning in my life. I came to the conclusion, that I couldn´t see anything positive in this kind of experiences and that if it was up to me, I would rather be without them. Thankfully, I haven´t had any more of these dreams in recent years and I don´t miss them. So perhaps this part was up to me after all.

The twin sisters are grown-ups now. And I still don´t understand:  “How could I know?”.

Aida Gundersen

10 May 2008

Parts of the horoscope active:

Mercury conjunct Uranus

Mercury sextile Neptune

Moon square Uranus

Ascendant trine Uranus

The handle of the bucket Saturn in Aquarius in the 11^th house

Aida in Aquarius in the 11^th house

Sibylla conjunct the North Node