#Swati #Nakshatra takes up 6:40-20:00 degrees in Libra and is ruled by #Rahu and the deity #Vayu, the God of Wind. Interestingly all the Rahu ruled Nakshatras are very powerful and elemental. We have Ardra Nakshatra ruled by Rudra – The Howler and deity of storms and rain, Swati ruled by Vayu the God of Winds, and Shatabisha ruled by Varuna – God of the Cosmic Ocean.

A wonderful story connected to Swati is about the Silk Cotton Tree and Vayu.

Once there was a beautiful Silk Cotton Tree, strong and magnificent in its glory with colourful fruit and leaves and strong branches. The tree has weathered every storm and not even in the strongest wind a single leaf would fall from its branches.

After some time the tree became quite contentious and started bragging that nobody, not even Vayu himself, could harm him and that he was stronger and more powerful than the God of Wind. So he challenged Vayu to a show of power.

Vayu heard of this and blew on the tree with such force that all the trees leaves and flowers blew off and he stood naked and embarrassed.

Vayu told the tree there was a sage who had often sat to meditate and honour the gods under the tree’s branches and that’s why Vayu had showed the tree mercy, not because of the trees power.

This is a great lesson in humility and keeping the ego in check.

As you can see, Swati comes with a force that can go either way. As the middlemost of the Nakshatras it tends to be a catalyst for balance, but that doesn’t mean it can’t sway any which way. The above story shows that Vayu, the God of Wind, is a powerful elemental force and can meet us as a gentle breeze and also as a hurricane. Swati gives the ability to stand in the wind of life and bending to the outside forces coming at us, rather than breaking to the onslaught of energy.

Vayu, in another sense, is oxygen. We need oxygen to breathe and to live, we can’t be without it. This shows the importance of this Nakshatra and working with it if you find it in your natal chart or are effected by it’s transit. I’ve previously suggested a practice of pranayama, in particular the balancing Nadi Shodhana – Alternating Nostril Breath.

Swati has a second symbol, the coral, which connects this Nakshatra to Mars. Only appropriate seeing that we need air to make fire, and in this sense Swati connects to Agni – the God of Fire. We may still feel an overlap of this Mars-ian energy from Chitra Nakshatra which precedes Swati in the Nakshatra wheel, also feeding into the elemental force of fire in the Air-sign Libra, and how Mars’ swift and forceful energy is balanced out here. Everything is connected, even if we have to dig a little deeper to find the intricacies that create a whole.