When I was 20 years old I went on a trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. I stayed at my friends´ who lived across the street from the beach called Botafogo. My friends told me not to walk alone after dark and especially not on the beach, it was dangerous. But I wasn´t afraid and I went for a walk every evening.

One night I went for a walk on the beach. After some walking I sat down on a bench and listened to the ocean. It was around 11 pm and the beach was completely deserted. A young, big man came along and sat down next to me. He tried to engage me in a conversation, but he didn´t speak any English and I didn´t speak any Portuguese. I turned away from him. At that point I wasn´t afraid yet, but I wanted him to leave me alone.

He tapped me on the shoulder. I turned towards him to see what he wanted and all of the sudden I was staring at his private parts, which weren´t private any more. For some reason he must have concluded, that it would help our conversation if he just took it all out.

I got up and tried to walk away, but after only few steps I felt his arms locking around me from behind. A tug followed, as I was trying to do my best to free myself. He didn´t hit me, but in the struggle one of his arms came in contact with my face, broke my glasses and bruised my cheek.

After a few minutes it was obvious, that I didn´t stand a chance, I might as well try to stop a tank. When he squeezed me, I could hardly move at all.

My mind came up with a logical plan B. “Scream” it said. “He will be afraid that somebody will hear you and that they will come running to your rescue, so he will let go of you”.

I screamed all I could.

The next moment a big knife was put to my face, it´s sharp end right in front of my left eye. I was afraid. I felt the fear physically, as if something was moving up inside my body – from the stomach to the chest and then to the throat. I had a strange feeling, that death personified was breathing me in the face.
I got literally scared out of my wits.

And when I did, something else seemingly took over.

I stopped screaming and struggling and waited quietly for his next move. When I stopped fighting, he became more gentle with me. He was still holding me firmly, so that I couldn´t escape, but the knife had disappeared out of my sight and he started to stroke my hair instead. Then he tried to kiss me but I turned my head away, so he couldn´t do that.

He then attempted to make me lie down on the sand, which should have been easy for him. In response to that, I started to behave in a very strange way. I began to stagger, as if I was drunk or dizzy, holding on to him for support, which made him somewhat unsteady on his feet and very confused. He tried for several minutes to make me lie down, but because of that strange movement of my body, he just couldn´t do that. He became so confused in fact, that a few times, when it looked as if I was going to fall down, he forgot that that was what he wanted and he instinctively tried to hold me up instead.

The next thing he attempted was to take my handbag from me. It was as if my body had a mind of it´s own – it immediately adjusted the strange, staggering movement in such way, that he was unable to do that either.

My mind was knocked unconscious by that scare with the knife, I couldn´t think a thought. I seemed to be able to feel much more though and I had some sort of physical awareness, that I normally don´t have. I could feel his growing confusion in the way he moved, in the way his moves felt to my own body when he tried to make me lie down or attempted to take my bag.

I was as confused as he was. I didn´t know what I was doing or why I was acting like that. I remember, that in the middle of that experience, I felt embarrassed by my odd behavior. As illogical as it seems, I felt some concern, that the man would think I was crazy.

After a few futile attempts, he gave up trying to get hold of my handbag and was standing still, holding me and trying to find out what he was going to do with me. A few minutes later he made up his mind, took me by my arm and led me out on the street. As we came out on the sidewalk, I felt his hand with the knife on my spine, under my jacket. From the outside it must have looked as if he was just holding around me.

It seemed that the sidewalk was as deserted as the beach at first, but after a few minutes walk, a group of around 10 young people approached us from the opposite direction. As they reached us, they stopped and asked him about something. He stopped to answer them, but before he had time to say anything, I ran. Nobody tried to stop me. I ran as if possessed by something all the way home to my friends. I didn´t even take time to look back to check if he was chasing me, because I was afraid, that that would slow me down. But I don´t think anybody came after me.

Back home, my mind returned to normal and I was able to tell my hostess what had happened. Or rather: I was able to tell her the facts, because what was behind the facts was a mystery to me.

I got so scared when he put that knife to my face, that it seemed I became temporarily disconnected from my mind. I couldn´t form one word in my head, I couldn´t think at all. Yet something was very much awake and in charge inside me and whatever it was, it didn´t need my mind, it was doing just fine without it. It didn´t need any time to think, it knew what to do right away and it made me do it. It didn´t need my logical thinking, its nature was rather illogical , it seemed – it made me behave as if I was out of my mind – which I was. And somehow that bizarre behavior produced the desired outcome. From what looked like a hopeless situation, I came out free and unharmed (apart from a bruise on my cheek and broken glasses), my money was intact, I had my handbag with me and nobody got hurt.

If I could predict that experience and prepare several different ways to escape, I would never come up with anything as strange as that odd behavior. And if somebody told me to act that way, I doubt I would be able to duplicate those strange moves, which proved so effective, with my wits intact.

If it isn´t my mind that is in charge of me, then who or what is it?

I couldn´t feel angry at that man, I couldn´t feel anything negative towards him at all. When my mind shut down, I became aware of things, that were otherwise hidden from me. I had some sort of x-ray perception, I could see right through him. I could see through the person he appeared to be, I could see through the man, who he himself believed he was, and into something behind. It was as if something behind my usual self looked straight into something behind his usual self and realized some truth:

“No, you are not as bad as you appear to be. You are not even as bad as you yourself think you are. And in fact – you are not even that different from me”.

Before that realization, when I was going through that experience, I was terrified. But when I look back, I have a strange feeling, that somehow I was safe. That no matter how scared I was at the time, no matter how dramatic it looked like, throughout it all – I was safe.

Sometimes, when I think back, I ask myself what really happened on that beach.

Or why.

Copyright © 2008 Aida Gundersen
24 April 2008

Parts of the horoscope active:

Aida in Aquarius in the 11th house, square Ascendant/Descendant axix
Neptune conjunct Descendant
Aida quincunx Uranus
Saturn in Aquarius, in the 11th house, Retrograde