#Nakshatra #Uttara-Ashadha

This lunar junction of the Guru meets us annually when the Moon is in the #star of #UttaraAshada. A position of power that encompasses the vast array of universal spiritual forces.
The other major Tantric festival that occurs when the Moon is in #Uttara Ashadha, that is worth mentioning here, is Dusshera.
This is the 10th and concludent night of victory after the 9 nights of the Goddess in the Navaratri ritual festival.
The Navaratri ritual festival links together all aspects of the feminine mysteries, by traveling through a spiritual story that traces the path of the Goddess and her many expressions. This point of multiplicity is greatly poignant to the energy of Uttara Ashadha as we shall consider in the next section below.

This star signifies hard-earned #victory and accomplishment.
Its victory is one that comes through drawing all psychic and physical forces into focus.

In our daily lives, we regularly apply this principle of gathering a multiplicity of forces together towards accomplishing an activity.
For example, the act of just going shopping, draws together many forces towards the single end of acquiring groceries.
It encompasses a vast array of activities… from finding our hat and coat and putting on our shoes, to navigating the many aisles of a supermarket, to gathering the right ingredients for the cake we are baking.
This is a mundane example of an accomplishment that many of us might take for granted.
It has elements of the accomplishment of Uttara Ashadha in that it draws together many elements and abilities. In the case of Uttara Ashadha, all the universal powers and skills are drawn together unto the attainment of the greatest of all victories… which is the revealing of the sacred heart.

Bringing All Things Together

Uttara Ashadha is sometimes called the star of victory and accomplishment, this is the wish and desire of this Star energy.
Ashadha is the urge and wish that focuses on the victory.

The god or gods that dwell on this Nakshatra are very interesting when considering the nature of the energy that this star carries to us.
The god of this star is #Vishwadeva, who is not a singular being, but rather the collection of all goddesses and gods.
The Vishwadeva(s) is/are the collective of all the #goddesses and the #gods.
They are nourished by, and in turn nourish this star through the reflective lunar mediary of the Moon.

#Vishwa literally means all and everything. Vishwadeva is the ultimate plurality of all #sacred #celestial beings. This multiplicity is the nature of the far-reaching force that is delivered by this Nakshatra.

It is also of note that some Puranic writings highlight a specific number celestial gods who are also called the Vishwadevas.
These 10 Vishwadeva deities and are the 10 qualities of Uttara Ashadha.

Vishwa is a word that implies multiplicity, interestingly, there is no one unanimous account of what the Vishwadeva really is. Some accounts single out a specific number of celestial deities, some accounts signify all deities, while some Mantras and accounts acknowledge all Devas and Asuras as coming under the title of Vishwadeva. What is unanimous in all accounts, is the idea of multiplicity and the conjunction of many forces.

And so, Vishwadeva is the god of this Nakshatra, as we have seen, it can be taken to mean the conglomerate of all goddesses and gods and even Asuras, but it can also be taken to mean 10 specific deities who carry the traits of Uttara Ashadha.
Sometimes an additional 2 Vishwadeva deities are also given, but we will highlight 10 for now.

Let us list the qualities of the wisdom of this Nakshatra, by naming the 10 Vishwadeva’s, and consider the 10 wisdom qualities that the Nakshatra of Uttara Ashadha represents and transports.

Vasu

1) Vasu is fullness, expansiveness, illumination and brightness. This is wisdom in a broad sense. Wisdom that encompasses all things. It is a wisdom that is both elevated in metaphysical principles, but equally, it is a wisdom that is able to articulate on a street level. A wisdom that is able to touch and make contact with any arena of life. This is a totally non-exclusive quality to put it in a nutshell.

Satya

2) Satya is truth and reality without sentiment or bias or restriction to any singular perspective.
Again, it carries the fullness and broadness of the previously highlighted Vasu quality. And because of this vast perspective, it is able to see the wide picture of reality in which all perspectives are at once acknowledged. This is the quality of not leaning towards any particular side. It is a quality of not escaping reality through any drama, distortion or sentiment.

Kratu

3) Kratu is focus of intention and will. This is the measured expertise that knows how to apply just the right amount of exertion. It is the focus that has forbearance and a deep intelligence, measurement and strategy. Kratu feeds its own certainty. Once it has considered the best angle of action and is certain about its course, it will approach its action with the quality of a charging elephant that will attempt to go through everything with unwavering persistence and urge.

Daksha

4) Daksha is skill, it is geometry and dexterity, it is a subtle creative vision that is able to link all things together into inner and outer harmonious forms. This is the skill of ritual, the ability to cloth metaphysical realities in tangible form. This is the skill of Tantra.

Kaala

5) Kaala is Time. It is the power to have the awareness of the reality of time in the phenomenal world, and at the ‘same-time’ it is the quality and power to be able to go to that plane of reality which is beyond the constraints of time.
Interestingly, Kala pronounced with the shortly accentuated ‘A’, means artistry, an artistry with a love for carefully detailed beauty. This is the artistry that comes from timing. Timing and rhythm are like the forms in which beauty is distilled, refined and expressed.

Kaama

6) Kaama is desire, it is the urge of the soul, the unstoppable wish and hope (remember that Asha in Ashadha means urge and hope) Dha means wealth, this is the victory of desire. Not necessarily the fulfillment of desire as one is apt to think. But rather, to be possessed of the secret urge is the wealth itself here.
Kaama is the root power behind all desire, it is the spiritual longing and wanderlust that underlies all desires. Pure desire, if you will.

Dhrti

7) Dhrti is concentrated ruthless firmness and focus, this is the focused shot of the arrow. It is the ability to hold to a thing with full psychic involvement and endurance and patience. This is a quality of a healer and a Tantric magician, who focuses upon a thing and therefore manifests it, through their sheer Shakti of focused power.

Kuru

8) Kuru is ancestral power, it is the strong relation to the realm of the ancestors. It is a spiritual sensitivity that at once lives in the manifest world, while at the same time being aware of the subtle movements of the inner planes. Kuru is to see the multi-dimensional interrelationship between matter and ghost, or spirit and body. The word Kuru is derived from the root Kri, which means to do or to act. Our actions carry power when they are related to our roots. When the acknowledgment of our roots and heritage informs our action, then it is truly potent.
Kuru then is connected to actions of healing ancestral imprints, so as to potentise and bring healing depth to our action.

Pururavas

9) Pururavas is abundance, broadness and generosity. The generosity of Pururavas is the kind that comes from a trust in the invanquishable and self-perpetuating well-spring of the heart. Pura means fullness it is to be remembered. The quality of Pururavas is that it’s not afraid to take risks or to lose. There is a deep trust that beneath any apparent loss and failure, is am inexhaustible wellspring of reserve life power. Pururavas is on the way to Madravas because of this fearlessness and trust in life force.
Generosity is not just a saintly virtue. It is a natural quality of the wisdom principle of ever-fulfilling a inexhaustible force. When we move away from the inexhaustible force of nature, we simply become exhausted. Pururavas is natural power that is effective because it burns like a steady flame, we could liken this to the endurance of an elephant that knows deeply about the wise handling and distribution of its life-force.

Madravas

10) Madravas is natural power and joy of heart. It is accomplishment and the celebration of the freedom of the sacred heart. We are here dealing with a joy that is not dependent on any condition or form of entertainment. It is an inner natural power of spiritual essence that is not obscured by any hint of Ahamkara

So as we have now seen, The Nakshatra of Uttara Ashadha draws from a wide array of universal forces.
This star brings together the collection of a vast array of attributes. Let us say that it is the star that possesses the celestial toolbox, and has access to the broadest and most diverse range of spiritual instruments.

The Celestial Tusks

The two twin stars of Ashadha are represented by Yogins as the #elephant #tusks of the celestial realm.
Uttara Ashadha is the matured elephant power that represents the full potential of grounded celestial forces in an earthly sense.
The Yogins connect to, and invoke the penetrating force these dual astral-tusk-points of energy, in rituals where Uttara Ashadha is worked with.

#Ganesh is the grand Chakravatin, which means he is the earthly foundation structure upon which all the other Chakra spin.
Ganesh and all creatures that have tusks are connected to Uttara Ashadha Nakshatra. The tusk obtrudes beyond the sphere of the body towards the sphere of vision… in a similar way that horns do.

This is the star of focused victory. A focus sharply focused with a penetrating sharp tusk like urge of vision.
The tusk of Uttara Ashadha points – through its focus – towards a victory to which it is very close. Remember Uttara means mature, and the wise force of maturity is implicit here.
This star has the celestial blessings of its ruling deity, which as we have seen, is in fact the collective of all goddesses and gods, or alternatively, are highlighted as a group of the 10 qualities of wisdom.
This is indeed a heavy Nakshatra, possessed of the force of wisdom, we could say the heaviest.
It is like the weight of Ganesh, the elephant god who sits at the very foundation of the Chakras. It is the very weight of deep Saturnian wisdom in the cavern of the soul.

Uttara Ashadha is the focus of celestial forces into the vessels of earthly being. It deals with bringing together the most celestial with the most earthly, as we shall soon see in the next section.

The symbol of this lunar house is a tusk. Indeed, the energy that this Nakhatra imparts has the ability to bring us the tenacity of teeth and bone. The elephant and other tenacious creatures with tusks are linked to this Nakshatra.

Uttara-Ashadha is often considered to be the 21st Nakshatra. This is interesting when we consider that the number 21 is sacred to the Ganesh, the god with the elephant head.
The number 21 further links Ganesh to Nakshatra.
Ganesh rituals are well-known to involve 21 offerings along with the chanting of his 21 names. Ganesh as well as many other deities – as we shall see – are linked to this Nakshatra.

Dual singularity of Focus

Big obstacles are overcome by focused force and endurance – is the teaching of this Nakshatra, focus being the operative word here.
Uttara Ashadha is ruled by Surya (the Sun) and the quality of this Nakshatra is the transmission of powerful burning solar force through the mirror of the Moon.
Where an object meets the sun, there is a shadow, to take away the shadow is to take away the object.
Uttara Ashadha is certainly singularity of focus, but the paradox is that it’s singularity is aware of the multi-layered dualities of life. The dualities of life can be perceived as a singularity, for example, when the principle of sun and shadow are taken together. Sun and shadow are a unity when the object is in the picture, take away the object, and we have duality and endless metaphysical abstractions only. The object can’t be taken out of the picture if reality is valued.
The two tusks of the elephant bring together dualities by the space of life between them.

In the next concludent section of this text, we shall take a look at a spiritually cosmological teaching story that highlights the dualities of the tusk that saved the earth.

Uttara means mature and Ashadha implies a victory that is eternal.
But more accurately, it is the desire and urge to reach that victory that this star presents.
This star moves one towards victories by its power of enduring focus and discipline. It brings all seeming dualities and forces together in a single point. Or let us rather say, two unified points, like the tusks of an elephant.

The wisdom that Uttara Ashadha Nakshatra brings to us, is a wisdom that is aware of the dualities of light and shadow upon all its octaves.
To understand and know a thing comes through understanding and knowing it’s opposite.
To truly see the revealed, is to acknowledge and be aware of the unrevealed half.

Focus is a quality where all our powers are beamed in one direction and one direction alone.
Tantra is but the art and science of focus, ritual is focus.
Extraneous expenditure of our life forces must be reigned in and harnessed towards the most needed point in the path of our destiny, if we are to receive the teaching of Uttara Ashadha.

Uttara-Ashadha gives the teaching of enduring focus.
As already outlined, its focus is singular and unwavering – this is the quality of the Guru.
The Guru is an uncompromising force that endures in the vision for the very deep and enduring truths.
Guru Purnima is an age-old festival Uttara Ashadha Moon festival that honours the Guru.

In a world of beliefs opinions, likes, dislikes, dualistic information and endless modes of self-expression of all of these, we risk the very opposite of what Uttara-Ashadha wishes to show us.
If we spread our energies wide and thin, we risk dispersing our psychic spiritual power. But at the opposite spectrum, if we gather our forces together in concentrated unity and singularity of urge, we bring all the celestial forces to one point. This is the secret of communing with Vishwadeva.
It means to open ourselves to all the forces by maintaining a seat of power.
Like being in an observatory or a planetarium that sees all the multitudinous revolutions of realities orbiting the spirit that we are.

Uttara-Ashadha is the very opposite of light dispersing action. Guru is an adjective that means heavy, who is just like the elephant energy, that is the prominent earthly expression of the weight of this Nakshatra.
Just like the weight of memory possessed by the Elephant that never forgets… Uttara Ashadha gives power to mind and memory.
Heavy weighted enduring focus is given to us when the full Moon is in this lunar house.
When the full Moon meets this Nakshatra, it presents the gift of its qualities to us on earth.
We will open up in ritual to invoke and receive the lunar emanations of Uttara Ashadha Nakshatra.

The Power of the Earthly Tusk

Varaha is the Boar headed earthly deity of mighty tusk, who carries the lesson of Uttara Ashada very well, so let us consider it here.

The story of Varaha tells of how he saved the earth from drowning in the subterranean waters when the Asuric forces attacked and threatened to ruin the earth.
Varaha and Bhumi (Earth Goddess) are lovers, together they birthed Mangala (Mars). Varaha saved Bhumi from drowning in the subterranean waters by lifting her in his tusks.
The impossible concentration it took Varaha to lift the earth out of the enveloping waters in which she was drowning, required the exclusion of all else but the matter at hand.
Or rather we could say, the matter at tusk – for Varaha hooked the earth in his tusks and carried her to safety.

Varaha presides over the Dhatu (physical element) of bone – this is the most hard of the Dhatus, and symbolises strength solidity of focus.
Varaha, in saving the earth, drew together all skills and abilities towards the single end.
The tusks are sharp and – being two – represent the dualistic forces concentrated into one action to achieve the victory that it is our Karma to accomplish.
What that victory is, is a personal journey to discover.
The discovery and realisation of our destiny requires dualistic forces to come together. This is the focus of Varaha, he is a most mighty deity… mighty of focus.
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Uttara-Ashadha can be seen to signify the imminent victory of the very real and deep pressing matters. Its imminent victory comes through the application and uniting together of all extraneous forces and subtle energies.
Its victory can’t be assumed without endurance and determined clarity of focus.
This endurance and determined clarity of focus is a Saturnian quality.

The story of Varaha saving the earth from drowning in the waters holds a Saturnian code within it. The Saturn ruled constellation of Capricorn is known as Makara to the Yogins. This is the constellation of the crocodile, who gives us the wisdom and power to articulate deeply between the dualities of its realms of mastery – water and earth.
Just as the mighty and fearlessly focused Varaha and Bhumi reveal the initiation of earth and water through the power of the tusk.

https://healinginthewillows.com/uttara-ashadha/

#PURVA ASHADA #NAKSHATRA
Watery Star of Hopeful Urge
“By the Power of the unstoppable urge
Now you can drink it or you can nurse it,
It don’t matter how you worship
As long as you’re
Down on your knees.
So I knelt there at the delta,
At the alpha and the omega,
At the cradle of the river and the seas.
And like a blessing come from heaven
For something like a second
I was healed and my heart
Was at ease.”

L. Cohen – Light as a Breeze

Purva Ashada Nakshatra is in the constellation of Sagittarius and brings clearing, cleansing purification. The deity of this Nakshatra is Apa, she is the cosmological river Goddess of fresh water and the lover of Varuna the god of the seas.

Losing one’s individuality and merging into the greater sea of being, is the energy that this Star brings to us. This is a Shukracharia (Venus) ruled Nakshatra and rules conception. The river wishing to rush to meet the ocean is relatable to the urge of the sperm moving to meet the ovum.

“Purva Ashada Nakshatra
brings fluidic transitions
just as the inherent symbolism
of the river Delta…
where one water body
loses its identity for another.”
Transition from individual states of being to awareness of more expansive states of being comes from a losing of established identities. By purification of the subconscious sediment that we carry, we rush into the vaster ocean of reality. It is interesting to note that a river delta is also a place where underwater sediment in most pronounced.

Our subconscious sediment colours and expresses itself in the rivers of our being. Transition to new states of being come as things are resolved and purified from the underground. This is the lesson that Purva Ashada Nakshatra brings to us – That we have to leave some things behind if we are to come into more fluid states of being. Figuratively speaking – surface skiing upon the water does nothing to really resolve ones Karmic themes, though it certainly gives the feeling of moving.

On the path of a Tantra, the Yogin is careful to not exchange superficial surface maneuvers for the introspective healing work of facing the deep dark depths.

Bhairav Astami
The science of lunar houses is very detailed and subtle because it is dependent upon which Moon phase transports the energy to earth. Uttara Ashada Nakshatra occurring upon

“The Bhairav Astami
of half descending Moon
brings a movement
of unconscious sediment
and offers a transition
out of individual unconscious patterns
into a new sea of being.”
Bhairav is the deity who makes us face that which we fear, that which we turn away from and do not wish to face becomes our unconscious shadow that lives in the depths, and just like the undercurrent, it informs all the maneuvers of our consciousness.

Bhairav Astami has been ritualized by Yogins since time immemorial as a Moon day for accessing the unseen and unconscious shadow elements of our reality.

The occurrence upon Bhairav Astami of Purva Ashada Nakshatra is a time of working ritualistically with water. There are many inner and outer practices in Tantra that work with the healing powers of water.

The Gurus of Creation
Purva Ashada is under the rule of the 2 Gurus. #Venus is #Shukracharia, the #Guru of the #Asuras, and #Brhaspati ( #Jupiter) is the Guru of the #Devas. The Asuras are the dualised creative energies of the egg that splits upon fertilisation. The spermatozoa is the Devic singular force. We see that Purva Ashada is ruled by the Venusian Guru Shukracharia and is in the constellation of Sagittarius.

The stories tell that Shukracharia has in his possession a magical power that puts him in the possession of abilities that make him superior. It is the power of Sanjeevani Vidya that he possesses. This is the wisdom and power of bringing the dead to life. Shukracharia it is who brings life to the soul in an eternal circle of life and death.

“The seed holds the spirit,
but the egg is the doorway
of Sanjeevani
that permits incarnation.”
#Purva-Ashada Nakshatra is an auspicious time for the conception of a child, as power is given to the ovum and the spermatozoa. This Nakshatra brings the energies of Venus and Jupiter together, these planets are dualistic forces that if brought together result in creation.

Mythology & the Watery World
When Venus and Water Meet we get the mermaid, hence the star of Purva Ashada being connected to the Yakshinis, who are the elemental spirits connected to the water element in the unconscious. The Yakshinis stir in their depths when this Nakshatra is present.

The Yakshinis are the sexual elemental spirits of the second water ruled Shakti Chakra.

“Some aspects of Tantra
work with summoning & evoking
these sexual beings.”
The picture above is called Hylas and the Nymphs by the British painter John William Waterhouse. The Naiads are the water nymphs of Greek mythology. This story presents many poignant themes of Purva Ashada Nakshatra. The story tells how Hylas was on a search for fresh drinking water when came to an enchanting pond where the Naidas lured him in with their beauty.

The Naidas are similar to the Yakshinis of the unconscious watery worlds. They are energies that can lure us in by the promise of something wonderful.

The Yakshinis in the Indian mysteries offer treasure, pleasures and powers untold by those who find them, but like the story of Hylas, they can submerge us in an elemental world and keep us from fulfilling our karmic tasks. Hylas was looking for fresh water for the team of Argonauts but he never returned. We see him holding a jug of water in his left hand, the pond abounds with water lillies which interestingly are called Nymphaeaceae in Latin.

The tree of Purva Ashada Nakshatra is called the #Sita-Askhoka #tree. The stories tell us that the Ashoka forest was where Sita was kept captive by Ravan when he kidnapped her. The Expansive urge of Ravan was enticed by the Venusian caverns of Sita. Sita literally means a cavernous incline and is suggestive of the female Yoni. The Venusian ovum draws the expanse Jupitarian force, Ravan was so overcome that he stole her away. This is the theme of the Epic Ramayana.

The Ashoka is the tree that is sacred to the sensual water nymphs known as the Yakshinis. The Yakshins dwell in the deep unconscious levels of the inner world. Tantrics who make the unconscious conscious are able to see into the world of the Yakshins. Some Tantric magicians work primarily through Siddhis (powers) they gain from these elemental beings. Tantrics consider it a dangerous practice to enter into union with the elemental world for magical powers. It carries many dangers and karmic consequences for the soul.

We see in many fairy stories that humans become submerged in the fairy realm to their detriment. The story of the Fisherman and his Soul by Oscar Wilde hi-lights this allure of the elemental world wonderfully. The occult novel of the Sea priestess by Dion Fortune also covers the theme of elemental possession. The well known story of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson reverses the polarities and tells of a Mermaid who comes to the human world as opposed to the other way round.

Shooting Off
This Star brings a strong sense of Tapasya – this is quality of ruthlessness and fearless voyage towards the unseen. A yogin is for this reason called a Tapasyin. The word Asha in Ashada means hope and urge. This watery lunar house brings a battle like rush of water. It is activates the urge of the spermatozoa to merge with the ovum.

“The Ovum is Shukracharia (Venus)
and the Spermatozoa is Brhaspati (Jupiter).”
The urge to rush into the realms of life can become dispersing to our Shakti if we are focused on barren pursuits. Whether physically or psychically… we become aware of the nourishing or vampiric quality of our pursuits as the unconscious becomes conscious. When we gain insight into the motivation behind our urges, we come to see the mechanism of how they express into the fabric of our lives and the resultant effect thereof upon the Shakti we carry.

Brhaspati (Jupiter) is the biggest planet in our solar system. He abounds with an abundance of boundless energy. Purva Ashada is a time to study the focus of our urges. As this star is in the Brhaspati (Jupiter) ruled constellation of Sagittarius, the tendency to shoot out is pronounced. Under this star in concentrated ritual – Tantrics make a pronounced focus upon reversing the outward tendency of motion known as Privritti to the inward energy known as Nirvritti.

Brhaspati (Jupiter) is the ruler of Sagittarius. Brhaspati is the expansive energy of subtle wisdom, that is why he is the Guru of the Deva’s. The energy of Brhaspati is to expand and subtlety penetrate things. But the state of the fields of life that we are penetrating is to be taken into account, they will produce either barren or fruitful produce. The Tantric honours Shakti by discerning whether they are watering the field of death, or the field of life.

“The merging of the river
with the sea symbolism of this Nakshatra
is very much about the unconscious
becoming conscious.”
Remember the deity of this #star is #Apa, the #goddess of the #river. In the symbolism, she merges with the lover #Varuna the god of the #ocean through the releasing of parts of her identity that are born of unconscious imprints.

https://healinginthewillows.com/purva-ashada-nakshatra/

#Moola #Nakshatra
#Characteristics
#Mula
male
The male native born in Moola Nakshatra values time specifically and is always working to create a peaceful environment for himself and the people around him. The male also has a tendency to do everything on his own, which, at times, makes him vulnerable and way occupied with additional things in life. The male native is also too worried about the future, which is something that stops him from choosing anything else apart from the hustle. In fact, the native is too influenced by the people around him. Within, the native is a God-fearing individual and lives with a belief that God would take care of everything for him. However, the belief doesn’t stop him from working hard.

Profession male
The male native born in Moola Nakshatra is prone to debt traps as he has a tough time managing his finances. Hence the best idea for him is to save as much as he can. In fact, when it comes to managing finances, and even other things in life, he is good at advising others but is not capable of following the same advice himself. Talking about money, the native earns through multiple sources. Also, he may change his profession multiple times in his life. After 25 years of age, it is the best idea for you to stay away from friends who are extravagant by nature, as in their company, you too may end up spending more than you can afford.

Compatibility male
The male native born in Moola Nakshatra loves his close ones more than anything else. However, at times, he is either not able to show that feeling or doesn’t have the time to, which may make him feel disconnected from his family. Talking about family, the native is unlikely to get any benefits from his parents and is a self-made man. He is very helpful when it comes to managing and raising his children. Also, as the native thinks of the future, he is a good planner.

Health male
The male native born in Moola Nakshatra may have to deal with symptoms that can lead to tuberculosis, paralysis, or persistent stomach problems. The ages at which the native needs to take special care of her health are 27, 31, 44, 48, 56, and 60 years.

Characteristics female
The female native born in Moola Nakshatra is a pure-hearted person. The ladies will go any height for people who they love. This nature sometimes messes things up for them as people tend to use their goodwill for personal benefits. Hence you need to be cautious of who you call friends. Besides the good, the female born in Moola Nakshatra can also be very stubborn, just like a bull. This may show her in a bad light but she, certainly, knows how to use her stubbornness for her good. Her stubbornness is something that makes her achieve greater things in life, but coupling it with jealousy can lead to a disaster. The female may have to go through multiple heartbreaks in her life.

Profession female
The female native born in Moola Nakshatra generally has a tough time garnering education for herself. This is certainly due to her less concentration on studies and more concentration on other artistic and social things in life. However, at times when Jupiter is placed favourably in the Moola Nakshatra, that is one good time to start anything related to education as Jupiter will help you in pursuing it. The lady born in Moola Nakshatra also does well in medical-related jobs.

Compatibility female
The female native born in Moola Nakshatra always has a danger of separation hovering over him. This could be due to her husband’s rebellious nature. The lady born in Moola Nakshatra seeks a lot of attention from people close to her, and she can very quickly get upset about not getting it. However, on the positive side, favourably placed planets can mitigate the hindrances in her marriage. Pleasing Mars for a happy married life is something she can try apart from talking out the problems with her husband as well as her children.

Health female
The female native born in Moola Nakshatra may have to deal with stomach problems. She will have to be particularly careful in the following years of her age: 27, 31, 38, 56, and 60.

Dates for Purvashadha Nakshatra in 2022
Jan 1 & Jan 29, 2022 Feb 25, 2022
March 24, 2022 April 20, 2022
May 1 & May 28, 2022 June 14, 2022
July 12, 2022 Aug 8, 2022
Sept 4, 2022 Oct 2 & Oct 29, 2022
Nov 25, 2022 Dec 23, 2022

Moola Nakshatra Padas
Pada 1st: The first pada of the Moola Nakshatra falls in the Aries Navamsa and is ruled by Mars. The native born in this pada needs to be careful about materialistic desires. It influences the native toward the material world.
Pada 2nd: The second pada of the Moola Nakshatra comes in the Taurus Navamsa and is ruled by Venus. The people born in this pada are hard working. They are very particular about their material growth.
Pada 3rd: The third pada of the Moola Nakshatra falls in the Gemini Navamsa and is ruled by Mercury. The people born in this pada are highly intellectual. Such natives are very balanced in nature.
Pada 4th: The fourth pada of the Moola Nakshatra falls in the Cancer Navamsa and is ruled by the Moon. The people born in this pada have a spiritual and philosophical way of taking care of others.

Features of Moola Nakshatra
Symbol- Bunch of #roots tied together

Ruling planet- #Ketu

Gender- #Female

Gana- #Neuter #Rakshasa

Guna- sattva/rajas/rajas

Presiding Deity- #Nirriti

Animal- #Male #dog

Indian Zodiac- 0° – 13°20′ Dhanus

https://astrotalk.com/nakshatras-constellations/moola

#Jyestha #Nakshatra is the elder star sister. The word Jyestha derives from ‘Jye’, which means ‘the eldest and the most powerful’. Of all the 27 star sisters who are the #Nakshatras, Jyestha is the eldest.

The main star of this Nakshatra is the brightest central star of #Scorpio, which is known as #Antaris.
This is the heart of the scorpion. It is a star emits the infrared frequency and appears slightly red in the night sky and most visible in spring, it is particularly visible at the end of May, when it is opposite to the Sun.
The ancient star-gazers of China envisaged Antaris in the constellation of the Dragon, and referred to Antaris as the fiery star, on account of its red glow.
The Name Antaris, comes from Latin and means ‘not Mars’, or ‘anti-Mars’. The planet Mars comes close to Antaris in periodic cycle, every two years. They both share the red colour but Antaris is not-Mars.

The Heart of the Scorpion
Jyestha Nakshatra is the #heart of the Scorpion. This fits very well to the energy of this Nakshatra as we shall see. The Scorpion is a mysterious creature of mystical and frightening fascination, unique in that it carries its sting in the end of its tail.
The scorpion is a symbol of dark toxicity and alchemical and occult secrets. Just like the star of elder wisdom that is Jyestha, scorpions are believed to be one of the oldest land animals. Fossils have come to verify this. Very fitting that Jyestha means ‘the eldest’.

We see the principles of alchemy at play in the scorpion, when we consider that scorpions are nocturnal creatures that gather energy from the Moon. Scientists have postulated and found that the whole body of the scorpion is one big eye, with which it is able to navigate in the deep dark after having stored up visual power through absorbing lunar rays. They appear startlingly bright under ultraviolet light, and they grow in their night-vision by the lunar energy they absorb.

Old and Bitter
The Old Finger

The middle finger is considered the eldest finger by Tantrics. It is generally the longest and most developed finger, hence it being the Jyestha finger.

In the astro cosmology of the Yogins, the 27 Nakshatras married the Moon, but they felt a sense of injustice when the Moon’s attention was not shared equally with all of them, but given more to Rohini.
Jyestha, the eldest amongst the celestial sisters, was the one who suffered extreme jealousy at the injustice and ended up complaining about the unfairness of the Moon. This caused the Moon to be cursed to a life of waning away. Jyestha came to regret this curse that her sting had initiated against her beloved. The Moon was saved as the curse was mitigated. The Moon did not fully overcome the curse however, and so thereafter had to undergo the cycles of waxing and waning.

Jyestha Nakshatra is opposite to Rohin. They are literally at opposite poles of the zodiac. They are opposites in many ways. Jyestha is an old wise crone of a woman with the potential for a competitive and bitter scheming nature, whereas Rohini is possessed of sweet innocence and creative fertility.
One sister has the fresh outlook of youth and a spontaneous wisdom that is not burdened by time and experience. The other sister has the weight of experience and the weathered experience of years weighing heavy upon her back.
That Jyestha is opposite to Rohini in the sky is of much consequence when understanding the energy of Jyestha Nakshatra.
The elder Jyestha watches the young sister carefully, and the elder can become bitter when she feels that the experience and wisdom that she has earned with age is disregarded.

This brings us to the lesson of Jyestha. This Nakshatra is connected to the wish to prove ourselves, and is prone to paranoia and jealousy. Jyestha Nakshatra rouses our unresolved themes connected to competition, paranoia and jealousy.
Working with Jyestha brings us the ability to gain the vision of our inner conflicts and battles. Jyestha brings these inner battles and conflicts out of us and into the field of our manifest lives.
Our inner conflicts and battles are what make up our scorpionic sting, and they also the cause of us ourselves the receiving the sting.
The scorpionic sting within us can backfire upon ourselves. But by cutting off our sting, we kill the ancient potential of the scorpion. By cutting off the sting and smoothing over it with niceties we risk becoming old and bitter.

Suppressing or denying
the sting in the tail of the scorpion
causes an internal poisoning
that manifests in bitterness of the Heart.

The sting is a danger, yes. Its free expression depletes us and wreaks havoc. Handling potentially dangerous power is the wisdom of the elder. Wisdom is denied, if the sting is denied. Fighting the sting, or sugar-coating it, is an insidious form of denial.
By knowing how and where and to apply our agonies we can turn them to the profoundly of time-honoured power and artistry within our lives.
The agonies of the spirit hold great potential, if they are handled with care. They have the potential for both creativity and destruction.
The sting in the tail of the scorpion is a formidable force. On the one hand, its untamed expression leads to destructive results, and on the other hand, restraining, denying, destroying or seeking to blanket over the sting within us also leads to destruction.
Harnessing and working with the power of the sting within us, without wishing to destroy it or deny it, ‘is’ the great elder potential wisdom of Jyestha.
Locating our sting is the first part in the steps to the wisdom of Jyestha. Identifying which stings we hurt ourselves or others with, is a path of discovering our karmic essence.
What is behind our tendencies, becomes revealed as we investigate our sting. This leads us deeper into the wisdom of the elder that is known as Jyestha.
Jyestha is the queen. We come to our royal power through her initiation. The initiation of Jyestha is about coming to our real size. By neither downsizing, or over sizing our capacities and authentic expressions, we take a seat upon the royal throne of our true power.

The Power of Talismans
Amulets, Earrings and Umbrellas

The Talisman is the symbol of Jyestha Nakshatra, along with earrings and an umbrella. There are several relevant stories that relate to Jyestha that hi-light this. Here we shall look at one, or perhaps two, of them.
The sacred amulet has been prized across cultures. Sometimes the lucky charm is an object that is found, or it can be something that is prepared through ritual empowerment.
Healers the world over have prized these objects of power, and have used them as tools for healing, protection or blessing.

Amulets have the ability to ritualistically focus the mind and awaken power. Awakening or having power is one thing, but the ability to hold power and harness it wisely is another thing altogether. The stories that relate to the Talismans of Jyestha stress this point very much.

Amongst Tantrics, objects of power are given as indicators of initiation, sometimes they are handed on and earned. The belief that an object can be imbued with power spans the world over. Within Tantra there are many detailed and sometimes complex formulas for imbuing objects with power with energies, so that they can serve as healing instruments and objects of power.

It takes time and wisdom to imbue something with power, and is no overnight thing. In the same way it takes time and dedication to earn and learn a skill, so it is with the amulet.
This is the meaning behind it being the symbol of the elder Star Jyestha. Like the wisdom of this Star, an amulet is a time honoured thing.
In the circles of Tantra the secrets aren’t given easily. They can’t be claimed or bought, but are to be earned and gradually received through slow-time honoured application.

In the Mahabharata epic, there is a story that tells of the protective earrings and armour that belonged to a warrior named Karna. Karna was the child of Surya (the sun) and inherited the armour and earrings that made him invincible from his solar father.
Indra took the earrings and Kavach (protective talismanic armour) away from him.
It is important to remember that the main protagonist on the battlefield in the Mahabharata is Arjuna, who is the son of Indra.
Whether Indra was protecting his son, protecting his own throne, or had other reasons for taking the protective armour and earrings, is a worthy subject of study and meditation.
The Mahabharata is all about the strategies of spiritual life and psychic warfare. It takes much spiritual strategy to grasp the deeper meanings of the codes inscribed in the Mahabharata. The deciphering of its wisdom is earned with time-honoured contemplation, study and introspection.
We see one example of the protective talisman here in relation to the Indra. Indra is the king of the Devas and the ruling deity of Jyestha Nakshatra.
Another story tells of the robbery of the earrings of Indra’s mother Aditi, by an Asura named Narak. Again the earrings were a powerful protective talisman that in this instance enhanced clairaudience.

A contemporary take on the umbrella-shaped Jumka earring

Let’s look at a story that tells of Indra and a protective umbrella. Indra owned an umbrella that was, like his mother’s earrings, also stolen by the Asura Narak. But in this story we are dealing with a different umbrella.
Once upon a time the farmers were preparing a mass ritual with many offering to Indra. Indra is a thunder god who also controls the rain.
The ancients were in the habit of giving spiritual offerings to the deities who stood behind the expression of natural phenomena. The farmers depended upon the rains and so they gathered in ritual, to give power to the god who controlled the rains.

Krishna is known as the cosmic trickster, who managed to convince the farmers that their offerings were a waste. He asked them rather to feed cows and each other with the ritual offerings. Krishna told the people to forget these old customs of offering honour to the gods. The farmers feared that by not honouring the gods with offerings the gods would be malnourished and start to demand things and retaliate in unfavourable ways.
Krishna laughed it all off, and his laughter was so contagious, that the people went along with him. And so the animals and people enjoyed the feast and offerings that were meant for Indra.

Meanwhile, Indra did not receive his expected offerings of energy and devotion, and so he decided to look into the matter. Needless to say, he was furious when he saw the farmers making merry, not only withholding their offerings, but enjoying them themselves. Incense was burning and feasts were distributed all amongst themselves and the cows.
Indra grew jealous of the young child Krishna. This young child who thinks that he can upset the cosmic order enticed Indra’s wrath.

Indra mounted his elephant, Airavata the storm elephant, and together they charged the skies. Airavata can expel water from his truck at the speed of light, and has the power of storm clouds in his flight. He usually guards the doorway to Indra’s paradise and has many tusks and trunks. So, in a fit of vengeful rage, Indra rode wildly upon Airavata and together they let loose thunderbolts and torrents of rain.

The Samvartak, as it is called, is the mighty storm weapon of Indra. It releases thunderous roars of electric and ice. Indra did not hesitate in his intention to destroy child, woman, man and cow, along with many other creatures. Indra in his frenzy, he sought to punish them for consuming and enjoying the offerings that he believed were rightfully his.

The villagers feared drowning and death by lightening. Krishna continued to laugh through it all, and lifted the sacred mountain Govardhan upon the fingers of his left hand, creating an umbrella for the farmers and creatures to be safe. Indra applied the full force or storm for 7 days and 7 nights.
The Govardhan mountain is the mountain of the cows that is sacred to Krishna.
‘Go’ refers to cows and ‘Vardhan’ means ‘that which nourishes’. Krishna is the keeper of cows, who are the symbol of motherhood and nourishment. Krishna himself means the dark one. He is the cosmic trickster who poses unfathomable riddles to the mind and captures the heart.

When Indra could not prevail he realised that the young boy was no ordinary child, but an incarnation of Vishnu the preserver. Indra accepted defeat and offered Krishna a divine cow and gained pardon for his cruel, overactive and unjust behaviour .
This story of the protective mountainous wielded by Krishna, highlights the themes of Jyestha very well. The talismanic-mountainous-umbrella saved the people with the real matured and elder wisdom of Jyestha Nakshatra. The behaviour of Indra, the god of Jyestha, on the other hand, fell into the rags of jealousy and conceit. But Indra did realise that he had erred and bowed low and learned a lesson by shamefully taking account that it was no way for an elder king to act.
Jyestha is invested with power. It’s power can selfishly initiate drama and suffering, or it can be a wise protective beneficent force, as the story shows.

Protecting the Throne
I’m the King of Paradise

Indra is the King of the Devas who is given to enjoying the luxuries of his realm of Paradise. He likes to consume and become intoxicated on large amounts of Soma. Already as a child, he was stealing supplies of it to quench his thirst. Indra encapsulates the haughty narcissistic power drive of Jyestha Nakshatra.
Like Jyestha Indra has power, but it can be executed with a sting, as illustrated by the story just told.

Indra means ‘ruler’, ‘leader’, ‘someone with power’, all of which he is. On top of this, Indra is handsome with a golden shine to his skin.
He will stoop to very underhanded means to get what he wants. Once he desired the wife of a great yogi, and shape-shifted to resemble the yogi and had his way, but he brought a curse upon himself. Another time Indra was too busy enjoying merriment and Soma drinking that he ignored his Guru and lost his blessings, after which Indra fought ruin on himself and had to undergo terrible ordeals to set things right.

Indra represents the soul who grows through his mistakes. He makes many mistakes that cause great suffering to himself and others, but he bares the consequences and grows wise in the predicaments and burdens of the consequences that life exacts from him.
Sometimes it seems that Indra never learns and is just too full of his own power and royal standing. The dangers of Jyestha are revealed by his star. With power comes danger. Having the upper hand and the sting of the scorpion on one’s side can corrupt. The deepest lesson of Jyestha Nakshatra is to hold power wisely without brandishing it proudly and without unnecessary display. Power is lost, if it is not kept wisely.
Arohan Shakti is the power of Jyestha, this is the power of conquest, dominance, leadership and the King. This power comes from the solar-plexus Chakra. Power imbalances and struggles can show themselves in the solar plexus that is not in balance. Learning about handling power is the balancing of the solar-plexus Chakra.

The power and integrity of the royal overseer is the ability to articulate between the realms, and have awareness of the predicaments of his subjects.
Indra’s Nakshatra is ruled by Mercury and this presents an important point.
Mercury is the only planet that is friendly to the planetary adversaries that are Saturn and Mars.
Indra has the power to bridge opposites, he literally is a bridge between these opposite energies. His apparently ambivalent nature, that articulates between the dark and light themes of Saturn and the Sun are explicit in the stories that deal with Indra and his exploits. Indra is sometimes a brutal punisher like Saturn. He is as magnanimous as the Sun, and lives the extremes, often to the detriment of himself and others. He is a candidate undergoing the initiation of Jyestha himself.

Indra’s Nakshatra is in the midpoint between water and fire. This is known as the Nakshatra Gandanta point in the zodiac. Ganda implies a knot and Anta is the end. The Gandanta points are the junctions between the opposing forces of water and fire. They represent the coming to the very ends of karmic lessons.
Water and fire create steam. Indra rouses much steam in his wake and is in fact the controller of the clouds.
Gandanta points are powerful stations where Karmic knots can potentially unfold the themes that keep the second and third Chakra separated.
This Gandanta point represents the point between the water ruled sexual Chakra and the fire ruled solar plexus Chakra.

One relevant story of Indra hilighting this junction tells of him overcoming the giant serpent Vritrasura. This was one of Indra’s greatest conquests.
After Indra beheaded his Asuric Guru, the father of the decapitated son, enacted revenge by summoning Vritrasura.
Vritrasura was a giant serpent that brought drought by holding the waters of creation in his giant belly. The battle between Indra and Vritrasura went on for a whole year and in the end he swallowed Indra whole. The place where Indra broke free from Vritrasura was in the belly, between the watery and fiery Chakra. The serpent died as Indra broke free of his oppression. Indra overcoming the serpent represents his initiation of opening the Karmic Gandanta knot between the two Chakra’s.

This principle of bringing adversaries together is also visible in the relation between the opposite Nakshatras of Jyestha and Rohini, which are at opposite poles of the sky. Rohini is in the most auspicious yielding fertile side of the zodiac. Whereas Jyestha is in the inauspicious part of the zodiac that is concerned with power, conquest and dominance.
One star is Aldebaran, the red star, in the eye of the Taurean bull (Rohini), and the other is the red star Antares, on the opposite side, in the heart of the constellation of Scorpio (Jyestha). Both are giant red stars, with one pole representing the elixir of life, and the other representing the poison. Rohini represents the teachings of Lakshimi, and Jyestha represents the teachings of Alakshmi.

Rohini represents the Devas
& Jyestha represents the Asuras.

We see that Indra had many dealings with the Asuras. After he managed to offend his Guru and lost his sacred protection, he even hired the servers of an new Asuric Guru to help him maintain his Paradisal realm.
On each side of this zodiacal belt, these star poles walk together on the path of wisdom. Each star has its own lessons, along with its pitfalls and potentials, as we shall see in the next section.

The Hare
An Elder Creature

The hare is the animal of Jyestha Nakshatra. Tantrics consider the hare an elder creature with the wisdom of years behind it. The hare is nocturnal and unlike a rabbit doesn’t care for the protection of the social burrow.
Hares come out in spring. The saying ‘Mad as a March Hare’ highlights their behaviour at the height of their breeding time in the month of March.

Although they breed for half of the year, the month of the spring equinox is the time when they are most active in daylight hours. Almost as if they come to actively meet the beginning of the waxing year. They undergo some quite extraordinary mating rites that reflect the nature of Jyestha Nakshatra.

The female hares will test the male to the extreme buy running him to the point of exhaustion. Hares can reach speeds of 80 km/h. They then will fight in the famous boxing manner that they are known for to further test the power and endurance of the male.
Jyestha Nakshatra is the old formidable crone that tests how far we have come in terms of wisdom. Jyestha is a feminine energy that cares to raise our potential and, just like a female hare, will test us by exposing our weak-points on our march through life.
Easter and its association with the Hare, or Easter bunny, becomes clear in this light of the rising light that the spring equinox brings.
The hare has a highly solitary nature just just like Jyestha Nakshatra. When Jyestha is in orbit, the energy of introspection is beamed to us on earth. This is the introspective scrying over the past and gaining insight into the nature of the soul wandering through the fabric of times many weavings. The statements made by our life experiences can come to define us, for better or for worse. The wisdom of the crone is the ability to unstitch the soul from the fabric of experiences that it is woven within. Freedom exists in studying the defining stitches that keep repeating and weaving ever onwards into the tapestry of our life.
If we find we are repeating cycles over and over and over, then we are crossing a habitual stitch and freedom is but a fancy word.

Ready Matured
Eyes Wide Open

The hare is one of the few animals born with eyes wide open. It is literally born as an elder and very fittingly so, for it is the assigned creature of the elder Nakshatra of Jyestha.
The hare is a creature that is born mature. It has minimal support from its mother and can even manage – if left on its own – very soon after birth.
Most creatures require a period of days or even weeks to even open their eyes and start to move effectively on their own. But the Hare is ready to jump shortly after its birth, with vision already developed.
The eye is central to Indra the ruling deity of Jyestha. Indra is covered in eyes and has a hyper awareness that watches carefully from all directions for opponents to his throne.

The hare also shares a connection to Indra through its sexuality. The hare has often been taken as a symbol for sexuality and fertility.
The hare reaches sexual maturity very soon in life and has a prolonged mating season that lasts half the year. Science has come to discover that the female hare has two synchronised ovarian cycles which gives it the ability to become pregnant while already pregnant.
The hare was connected by the ancient Greeks to the goddess Aphrodite, on account of its sexual and fertile nature.
Indra too is known for his legendary sexual conquests that were the cause of him being cursed to have his reproductive organ fall off and his body to be covered in a thousand Yonis.
The story tells us that he fled into hiding until the curse was mitigated by celestial intervention. He was given the reproductive organ of a ram and, into each of the Yonis, was put an eyeball, with which he could watch potential opponents from all sides.

The Generational Curse
Stirring Cyclones of Time

Jyestha Nakshatra illuminates the wisdom that we carry in the deep recesses of the Soul. Its wisdom is not of an abstract metaphysical kind. Rather, it is the kind of down to the bone type of wisdom, based on the lessons we have really learned through experience.
Age and time does not indicate that we have actually learned the lessons that destiny puts on our path. Sometimes we may even grow blind with time. Indeed, we might do well to take the introverted gaze of Jyestha and look back upon the cycles of time.

Are we repeating the same cycles as we did in previous years?
Sometimes the format might be different but the cycle is the same. This is how the generational curse gets passed down the line. The old saying that ‘the sins of the ancestors are visited upon the young’ is a very apt phrase for Jyestha. She is the old woman who holds the key to breaking or making the generational curse.
Elders have a big spiritual task in the Tantric tradition. As they grow closer to the spirit world and come to learn the lessons of destiny, they can potentially unlock astral doorways and energies that the next generation can benefit from. If they don’t resolve the cycles of what destiny is repeatingly showing them, then they don’t open the astral doorways and may even put more locks in place for those in their line.

The question here becomes: what are you repeating? Are you following the same pattern and rhythm as you were in past cycles? Jyestha is an energy that can’t be tricked. She is an ancient beady-eyed old hag who has her eye on all the tricks and strategies of the trade. She sees all the routes that we take to avoid facing wisdom. Jyestha is so old, that running is no longer an option. She tells us that sometimes the form might change but the energy has not been resolved. She asks us what are we brewing up and handing on?

An example of this would be that we step out of a life of riotous living fuelled perhaps by drink and drugs and destructive relationships, and step into a healthier path of spirituality and herbal tonics. We might have really resolved the form but not the underlying energy. If the energy of drama and ungrounded hysteria still informs our life, then the form has been changed but the heart still beats the same old tune.
When the destructive pattern and rhythm of past cycles is not resolved, then cycles turn into cyclones that keep us spinning in the same old!

The Tale of the White Hare
Sweet and Bitter

The old English folktale of the White Hare, very interestingly encapsulates some of the key principles of Jyestha Nakshatra. We have seen how Jyestha shares a jealous and vengeful relationship with her opposite, Rohini.
Jyestha is the old white haired women, rich with the wisdom of the years upon her. She can have a tendency to become bitter and vengeful, if she feels she is not honoured.
Rohini, at the opposite pole in the sky, is the young maiden, red with life and blood, being innocently fresh and inexperienced is her charm.
In order to grasp the lessons of these Star sisters they must be considered and taken together, their opposites teach us of each and the other.
The old folktale of the White Hare ties together the opposites, reflected in the principles of ripe innocent maidenhood turned sour with intrigue and embittered experience. This here attempted retelling of the story seems rather fitting in this context.

Once upon a time there was a young maiden. She was rosy cheeked with crimson lips. Her eyes were like fresh sparkling pools of blue topaz and she wore a woven magenta cape that had been handed down for generations through the line of wise women behind her.
Her cape was a blessing for it had been stitched and repaired by many a wise hand and held intact, never had the hands behind her allowed it to fray or wither, even across generations.
This young maiden was body, heart and soul in love with a local boy. Together they frolicked through grassy pastures under many shades of sky.
They would sit silent together, drinking the juice of fermented apples by the river, and watch the March hares play their games, and then fall asleep together under the azure sky of fresh spring nights.

Their love was pure, their love was sworn,
But sometimes good things get ravaged and torn
Gone was her love on the morn
Leaving her broken heart to tragic to mourn

She learned that he had run away
with another girl astray

and gone to seek his fortune elsewhere.
How did he dare, how did he dare!

Betrayed, abandoned and forlorn
With time she took a look of scorn

In bitter hours she passed many a day
Her mantle soon began to fray

She didn’t care to stitch its wounds
And met her death in misery doomed.

Her bitter spirit once so sweet would not rest, and she hunted him down. She would appear to him first in troubled dreams as a white Hare, reminding him of the last nights they spent on the cool nights of Mach at the riverbank, reminding him that to forsake love is a destiny that leads to destruction.
The young man had grown worldly wise and forgotten about his past in the present wheelings and dealings of daily affairs.
Yet he was haunted by an eerie feeling that something had been left behind, or had been forgotten. Try as he might, he just could not recall what it was.
Each time he would have these reveries that something was amiss, the white hare would appear out of nowhere and cause a stroke of bad luck.
Sometimes a horse would run away, or some other incident of ill luck would follow. What was even more peculiar was that no one else seemed to see the white hare but he, they joked that he had probably seen a ghost.
The tragedies that came with the sighting of the white hare got more and more extreme, the ruin of his livelihood was soon followed by a bad accident, and then the death of his now beloved.
He became more and more paranoid, unstable and fearful of mind as he sank into an abject shadow of his former self.
One winter morning as the sky carved upon itself and covered the land with snow, he was found mangled in a frozen pool of crimson blood.
As crimson as the lips of the love he had once cruelly forsaken.
The local folk were confused when they saw that the footprints of his runaway horse were followed by those of a hare.
The wise amongst the townsfolk knew what it had meant all along and right unto the end.

https://healinginthewillows.com/jyestha-nakshatra/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNeTiJTJPzM
#Anuradha #Nakshatra #Secrets in #VedicAstrology

#SVHATI #NAKSHATRA
THE #STAR OF UNFOLDING #DESTINY

#Breathe, breathe, breathe deeply
And I was seething, breathing deeply
Spitting sentry, horned and tailed
Waiting for you.”

D. Bowie – The Width of a Circle

Dear Friends of the #Healing #Circle of the #Breath

Tonight’s Full Moon will be in the star of unfolding destiny. This is #Swati Nakshatra. It is a single star known commonly as #Arcturus.

This Star is far North of ecliptic belt and is an outsider star that is not really part of a team. We see this principle of the outsider expressed when we consider another name of this Nakshatra which is #Nishtya. Nishtya means outsider and very much expresses the energy that this star brings to us.

The energy of Svhati
awakens the thinker outside-the-box
and teaches us how to get along
with the radical forces
that blow around and rustle
the leaves in the garden of our soul.

This further brings us to the word Svhati. Svh translates as ‘the self’ and Ati relates to ‘a high amount’. So, quite literally Svhati means ‘the star of much self’. This star is often called the hyper-individual star, it is an outsider star that raises themes of individual drive and destiny.

This star is ruled by the Rahu who is the Northern Node of the Moon. Rahu is the ever-hungry head without a body that is responsible for eclipsing the sun. The energy of Rahu keeps us following the taste of our karmic involvements. The energy of Rahu does not distinguish between good or ill effect, just in the same way it is possible to follow a destructive path with great conviction and energy.

Rahu is a very hungry concentrated energy that goes into areas of addiction and obsession. If the forces of Rahu are made conscious, he breeds focus and power of determined will, that can be channelled into the unfolding of our destiny.

The Answer is Blowing in the Wind
When the full Moon is in the lunar house of Svhati, it transfers its teaching to us most generously. Under the star of Svhati we are given a blessing to gaze into the ways we are using our life-breath. Upon the psychic plane, under the auspices of Svhati – by the concentration of our life-force – we are fully given a glimpse into our unique individual and independent expression of life.

Our breath is the link to our individuality, the patterns of breathing that we have are at the essence of individual expressions and responses to life. By opening the doorways of Prana, constraints of the self are literally released into the wind.

We see that a new born baby exerts its independence from the mother’s womb by the taking of its first breath. We come to this world upon the inbreath and leave upon the outbreath, Vayu is the one who takes us through our destiny with every breath.

The Musical God of Breath
The ruling god of this star is Vayu who is the god of the wind element. Vayu is the deity who brings us the energy of Prana, which is the life giving principle in the air element. Prana is distilled from the air as awareness is made more subtle, rhythmical and tender.
The air element is also the element that transfers sound. Vayu happens to be the god of the celestial musicians who transfer the wisdom of sound through the air element.

The symbol of Svhati is a tiny sapling trembling in the breeze. Svhati Nakshatra awakens those parts of us that rebel against constraints upon our tendencies of individualism.
Those parts of us do not seem to fit into the constraining circumstances that destiny puts us into, are the special teaching that the star of Svhati brings to our awareness.

Svhati transmits the teaching of how to work within restraints and keep a dignified sense of empowerment. The power of this Star is independent of circumstances and conditions. We are talking about the deep internal power of Prana.

The Sword of Force
Svhati’s lesson is very much about how we deal with restraints. Another symbol of Svhati is the sword, in fact Svhati also means sword. The doubled-edged sword of exerting our individuality is what Svhati makes us aware of.

When we intelligently identify the things that constrain life, then we might gain insight into the opposite. This way we learn to move through our destiny. Svhati Nakshatra is the energy that seeks to move through constraints by finding a solution. We could say that Svhati welcomes the challenge of restraints.

This is the energy of forbearance, patience and strategy. Such a standing takes a rhythmical steady involvement of the breath. If we consider the opposite of this, then we can see the malfunctioning expression of Svhati.

When the energy of Svhati malfunctions, we lose the awareness of strategy and we can start going off course in the use of our power. This is the energy that is not able to hold its power, regulate itself and compromise cleverly while it considers the strategy out of its predicament. Such a stance is ultimately defeating and deflating. It either sets one up against things at one’s own expense of breath, or at the opposite pole, causes resignation in declining the strategic, regulated use of life force.

What then is the panacea for the malfunctioning of the energy of Svhati? The answer lays with the god of this star. We have seen how Vayu is the lord of wind and breath. When we work with the breath, then we bring Vayu into his full power. When Vayu is in his full power, then we have a healthy unfolding of our individual capacities without having to brandish the sword to prove ourselves.
Remember that the sword is one of the symbols of Svhati Nakshatra.

A Single Breath
All battles that we envisage are battles within our very own breath. By guarding the power of our breath, we strengthen the true power of our individual life expression.
Though it might blow like a single sapling in the wind (another symbol for Svhati), it can maintain its unique power because it does not waste its breath against the many winds that blow.

On a practical level, wind (Prana) is strengthened through working with the breath, all introverting and focussed activities strengthen the Prana. Moving slowly and steadily with awareness of every breath is the surest way to the power of Prana.

https://healinginthewillows.com/5612-2/

The #star of #Chittra #Nakshatra is called #Spica. This is the brightest star in the constellation of #Virgo. The stars of Virgo form the reclining figure of a woman, with Spica as the left hand of the Virgin – this yoga practice deriving from the left hand path of Tantra.

Spica is most visible in the sky in the northern hemisphere, in the months March to July. The Spica star can be seen well in the triangle formed by the 3 bright stars of Arcturus, Spica and Regulus. The base of the triangle is made by Spica and Regulus.

Virgo is the biggest constellation in the zodiac. It is most visible after sunset in the month of May. As the largest zodiac constellation the Sun takes 44 days to pass through it, longer than for any other constellation. The constellation of Virgo is also notable as it has 20 stars with known planets, which is more than any other constellation.

The long transition of the sun through the Virgo constellation gives the jewel of the Spica star an extended period to harness the solar force. Chittra is an active Nakshatra of radiance, many thousands of times brighter than the sun.

#Mangala (planet #Mars) is the ruling planet of Chittra. Mars rules the solar-plexus Chakra as the active expression of its energy.

The Manipura chakra, as the solar-plexus is called, translates as the Jewel in the City. This is the fire in the belly that inclines us to action. The red planet of Mars is the fire of action that flows in the blood. The desire and impulse of action is put into creative use by the force of Chittra. Chittra is the second of the Mars ruled Nakshatras. All the Mars ruled Nakshatras deal with the skill of transforming and refining the elements of life.

How we use
and channel our life force
is the initiation
of the Mars ruled Nakshatras.

#Mrgasirsa is the first Mars ruled Nakshatra that gives the initiation of cultivation and gathering Shakti. Chittra comes next and gives the initiation of shaping the Jewel of life with the Shakti we have preserved through the first initiation. The final Mars ruled Nakshatra is #Dhanishta, which teaches us the further lesson of caring for the radiance of the jewel by honouring the law of rhythms.

These Nakshatra’s are dealt with in more detail in past blogs entries, which you may refer to here.
http://healinginthewillows.com/mrgasirsa/
http://healinginthewillows.com/dhanishta-nakshatra/

We can start to see how #Nakshatras fit together when we consider them as a group under their planetary rulership, in this case Mars. By considering them as a group, we may get a deeper insight into the lessons they present to us.

Chittra Nakshatra travels between Kanya (Virgo) and Tula (Libra) and brings the creative earthly juices of the Virgin to an awareness of the opposites. The balance of force is revealed by Tula, which means to weigh. When we consider our life force carefully, we become aware of the options we have. Creation is a process of weighing things up and applying the weight of our life force with consideration.

The creativity
that Chittra Nakshatra teaches us
is one of consideration,
calculation and implementation
of our energies.

Chittra is the careful cutting and shaping of the facets of the jewel. This is a detailed use of creative force, that has power in considering the formations and outcomes of applied life force.

We see that Chittra is oftentimes symbolised by a pearl in an oyster. Like the delicate work of faceting a jewel, the creation of the pearl is a slow and gradual process. It is the intelligent and sober application of force. Chittra brings us the awareness of the jewel of our life-force. It is the pearl of great price. Carefully looking at where we cast our pearls is the teaching that the rays of this Star shines upon us here on earth.

The Virgin in the Cave
The Tale of Persephone

We see that the Ancient Greeks put the celestial codes of the constellation of Virgo into the story of Persephone. Persephone was a beautiful Virgin. Her light spring-like nature was the opposite of the underworld god, known by the name of Hades.

Hades fell in love with Persephone and, one day, while Persephone was gaily picking flowers in a lush meadow he left his dark underworld kingdom and came to the earth to abduct her.

The earth became barren until Persephone found release from his cavernous clutches. But Persephone was bound to return to the underworld, upon account of a trick played on her by Hades.

Her return to earth corresponds to the months of abundance, when the Constellation of Virgo is most visible in the night sky. The season of spring occurs when the constellation of Virgo appears in the early evening above the horizon. When she’s no longer there, it is winter. That is when Persephone returns to the underworld. From the Northern Hemispheres perspective, Virgos absence from the evening sky is found in late autumn, winter and early spring. Virgo’s reappearance in the sky at nightfall comes again with the rising season of spring.

The Celestial Architect
The Polarities of Creation

The God of Chittra Nakshatra is #Tvashta. He is the #celestial #Architect who transfers his inspiration and energy to us through his star Chittra.

Tvashta seems a bit multi-faceted himself. He appears complex at first glance. Tvashta has a dual form. One facet of Tvashta is Vishwakarma, who is the architect of the Devas.
We see, interestingly, that in regions of South India the crafters are known as the Vishwakarmas. The other facet of Tvashta, is Mayasur, who is the architect of the Asuras.

Both these faces of Tvashta deal with his skill in design, architecture, and crafting with creative force. As Vishwakarma, Tvashta creates forms that are diaphanous and creative. And as Mayasur he creates destructive forms coated in glamour and trickery. Tvashta, it can be seen, is the force and skill of the creative energy.

How is the creative force is wielded in our hands? As the life-force is released from the grip of unconsciousness, the range of possibility of creative force is liberated from limitation. The Tantric is a creative voyager who releases the skills of Tvashta by attempting to awaken from unconscious dreams.

One other noteworthy thing about Tvashta, is that he is one of the 12 Aditya’s. These are the deities that are assigned to each calendar month. The Aditya’s transport and give the teaching of the particular month that they rule over.

All the Aditya’s hold lotus flowers.

What is unique about Tvashta, is that his lotus flower, is the only one amongst the Aditya’s that is closed. This is a worthy symbol of meditation that reveals many meanings when pondered upon. Perhaps we might rather simply say that creativity requires a stage of introverting to gather force, before it is put to action. We see this principle at play in the creation of life in the womb.

When the introverted gathering of elixir is not honoured, then real creative force might very well de deficient. Creativity without elixir, might then come to be replaced by a predictable and creatively dead clock-work engine. When night falls, not only does a lotus close its petals, but it enters back into the waters from whence it came.

The stone and the Jewel
Channelling the Life-Force

Chittra Nakshatra is the star that brings us the teaching and blessing of channelling our life energies towards the creation of beauty. Someone who works with cutting and polishing diamonds is called a diamantaire. The skill of a diamantaire, encapsulates very much the quality that Chittra Nakshatra presents to us.

To become a diamantaire, requires long years of study into the science and art that is diamond polishing. Painstaking attention to detail and patience is required. The fine work of cutting and polishing is preceded by separating the diamond from the ore. Many hours are required to cut a diamond.

A diamond
can only be cut
by another diamond.

This fact is something worth pondering on, when considering the creative work of polishing the diamond of our lives. The diamantaire takes the rough diamond stone and with the magic of an alchemist, transforms of to a sparkling and mesmerising jewel.
Life energy can be used to launch a stone and create injury and destruction. But, the very same life force, can be channelled into the detailed work of artfully shaping the facets of a stone, and creating a jewel.

By the focus of our life energies, we can take a stone that was once a rough sharp object – perhaps able to cut the hand, and not particularly alluring – and shape it into a jewel of fascination and reflective beauty.

The word Chittra means radiant, shining, delicately-detailed, multi-layered, multi-faceted and lustrous. It is most appropriate that this star is symbolised by a Jewel.

Chittra also contains the word Chit, which means ‘pure awareness’ and could be seen as referring to the shining jewel of the soul. Chit is suffixed by Tra, in the name of this Nakshatra. Tra is derived from the Sanskrit word Tryate, and means to set free. So Chittra in this sense, translates as ‘the setting free of the jewel of pure awareness’.

A work of art, such as a painting, is referred to as Citr in Hindi. This is derived from the word Chittra. Again, this points to the principle of this star, to bring us the illumination to shape the jewel of our life. Chittra for this reason has come to be known as the star of carving the jewel.

What is the condition of our jewel? Is it in the workshop, with us sitting attentively at the desk? Or, has it fallen to the wayside, as we nurture concerns, other than the jewel of our life?

Chinnamasta
Pure Life-Force

Chinnamasta is the pure ruby red life force. She is the multifaceted jewel, that tells us of the possibilities of movements within the constellation of life. She shows us the options we have, of how to apply the life-force that we carry. She is the Vidya (wisdom) that meets us at the ‘tripple-crossroads’ of power.
In every movement of desire, we play either a passive or an active seat.

Chinnamasta is the seat between the two familiar ways. She is the teacher of transmitting and transmuting our life-force into sacred and spiritually potent action. Her jewel shines with the secret lustre of the union of two forces. Her Jewel is the meeting of polarities, and transmits the wisdom of sacred equilibrium. Her Jewel is the place where opposites and opposition are magically fused together.

When we hear the word equilibrium we might be prone to think of peace and wellbeing. But the equilibrium that Chinnamasta transports to us is a double sided balance and integrity, between the forces of rapturous chaos and poised awareness. She tears her head from her body, but she drinks of the middle stream of equilibrium force, without spilling a single drop from of the jewel coloured elixir of her life blood.
https://healinginthewillows.com/chittra-nakshatra/

The #Hand of #Destiny

Hasta literally translates as Hand.
The #Nakshatra of #Hasta is situated in the #constellation of #Virgo. This Lunar house is concerned with skill, dexterity and balance.
If we look deeper behind the symbolism of Hasta, we see into the nature of the skill that this star imparts to us. The skill of Hasta Nakshatra is concerned with transition and the balancing force of handing one thing over to another.
The ruling planet of Hasta Nakshatra is the Moon and the ruling deity is Savitr the sun god. These are explicitly two opposites. But there is yet another duality that works in unison when we consider the #Sun #god #Savitr.
Savitr is of beautiful golden hands, he hands over the power that enlivens the sun at sunrise.
Savitr is the name that the Yogins give to the sun after sunset and before sunrise… the midnight sun if you will.
Savitr is the one who illuminates and empowers the rising sun from dawn to dusk. At each dawn, Savitr hands over the celestial-stage unto Surya. They can be thought of as twins that bring us the ebb and flow of sunrise and sunset.

The Initiation of Hasta

The theme of halves is a central key to seeing into the nature of Hasta Nakshatra. We have seen already how the ruling deity is Savitr of the illuming force behind the Sun, and we have seen that the ruling Planet of Hasta Nakshatra is the Moon.

These two opposite energies are instrumental in giving Hasta the energy of moving between extremes. The skill that the Hasta star constellation brings us is its ability to see across the whole range of the spectrum, and see into the nature of halves.

Remember that we are dealing here with the star of utmost dexterity.

Speaking of halves, we know that the Moon has two halves, the rising and falling, dark and light halves. Hasta is the hand that can reach to the depths as well as to the pinnacle. Hasta carries the energy of both the Full Moon and the Dark Moon. Hasta is the hand that can expand and dilate. It is the extreme of skill in all directions.

When we peer a little deeper, we see more, indeed, Savitr, the god who dwells in this star constellation, confers vision and insight. He is the enlivening illuminator.

The constellation of Hasta makes us aware of details. Working with Hasta Nakshatra brings to us the vision of the minute things that we might easily overlook.

The smallest details hold the deepest keys, for the smallest details are the things we don’t easily see if we are out of rhythm.

Hasta brings us the fascination and beauty of details, details might be seen as something tedious, boring and unimportant. This attitude towards finery comes when we ourselves have lost touch with nature’s rhythm. The slapdash approach is the path with no heart. If we look closely, we will see that the disregard of details is at the root of all ills.

How to come to the beauty and magic of details becomes the question here?

A thorough examination of things is the key to psychic and spiritual health.

The beauty of awakening Hasta is that we need no special equipment or measures.

We could go so far as to say we require no spiritual practice or intelligently philosophical insight, even no spiritual teaching. Details themselves become the Teacher and the teaching when we align to them.

Hasta is an internal spiritual energy of simply noticing and caring for the details.

Hasta has a secret teaching:

If we address what might seem like insignificant details, the secrets of wisdom open up. It takes power, patience and the acknowledgment of a steady and regular rhythm, to arrive at the wisdom of all wisdom. Hasta is the helping hand to the gateway of wisdom.

Just like the ruling planet of Hasta that is the very epitome of steady rhythm. If we consider the Moon clock as the ancients did, we come to intuition… we come to wisdom.

By simply noticing the movements of Lunar energy and the effect they have upon us, we learn more than any astro texts can ever tell us. When we ignore the law of rhythm, we risk physical and psychic ruin.

The Ancient Yogic science put the Moon in the position of the greatest of all lovers. The Moons beloveds are the 27 star sisters known as the Nakshatra’s. As the Moon moves through the constellations, each are payed a visit under the law of celestial rhythm.

There is a point that is brought out here. The Moon does not alter his speed, but he appears to spend a longer time with the star sister of Rohini Nakshatra, thereby breaking rhythm. Rohini is said to be his favorite star sister who gets an extended stay of attention lavished upon her.

This imbalance evokes controversy, jealousy and scandal with dire consequences to the Moon.

Why the Moon spends more time with Rohini is an eternal mystery that makes no sense when the degrees of distance are the same for all the star sisters, and the lunar speed remains constant. It has been explained by astro physics as something to do with a gravitational incline. Looking deeper into this, with the detail and insight of Hasta, might be a worthy study to undertake.

If we are out of sorts physically or psychically, remedies and practices are certainly good to pursue, but a deeper remedy would be to align to the teaching of steady Moon-like rhythm.

The moon absorbs everything, it misses nothing, it takes in and responds to every single detail. To be like the Moon is a profound teaching that slows us down and aligns us to the rhythm of nature. Anything that goes against nature is sickness.

If we are to open to the Initiation of Hasta, we are brought to question the structures and rhythms of ourselves, and the things that we are aligning to.

Hasta Mudra – Hand Gestures

The hand tells us many things. Maybe the hand tells it all.
Cross my palm with silver!

By observing the way we use the hands and the considering the underlying energy behind their motions, we get many deep insights into our relationship to the energy of Hasta.
The hands can be gracious, generous and open, or conversely they can be knotted, closed and unyielding.

When we hear the word Mudra, we are apt to think of hand gestures. The branch of Mudra that relates to hand gestures is called Hasta Mudra, and involves working with the hands to effect psycho/physical reactions in ourselves.

Sometimes we grip the hands, sometimes we bite the fingernails, or make gestures habitually. By becoming conscious of these sometimes unconscious processes, we can awaken to the unconscious implications behind our doings.

The inner psychic life is reflected in the day to day movements that we make with the hands. The Yogins have found that by consciously observing our hand gestures in each moment, we can gain insight into our soul. By such insights, we may begin to unknot and heal automatic psychic patterns, that are based on response to trauma.

Hand gestures carry immense power. By working with the nerve junctions in the hand, one can awaken many latent areas of the soul.
The ruling deity of Hasta Nakshatra – as we have seen – is Savitr. One of his names is Hiranyahasta, which translates as the golden handed one.
His touch illuminates. He is the base power behind the revealed part of life. His touch causes Surya to become enlivened with the power to enlighten the day.
Working with the hands is a movement towards the base power behind the curtain of the manifest.

The Dark Power Behind the Sun

Savitr is the presiding deity of Hasta Nakshatra. He is described as having beautiful skillful hands that transfer power to the sun at each sunrise. The famous Gayatri Mantra sings his praises. The word Demahi occurs in the Gayatri Mantra and presents a central teaching of Hasta Nakshatra, and is a central principle on the Yogic path. Demahi means to be aware and look deeply at things.
Skill comes from the ability to see deeply. To notice details is too care for depth. To care for depth is wisdom.
We explored the principle of Demahi, in the second section above entitled Hasta Mudra when we considered observing the underlying energy behind the manifest motion of the hands. Demahi is the focus of looking behind deeper beyond the revealed.
Demahi is the penetrative insight that concentrates energy toward looking into the nature of things. Demahi is the honouring of the foundation and base of the manifest. Demahi is to look into the causes and roots of manifest effects and phenomena. Demahi is Savitr.

In the art of awareness, Hasta plays a primary role.

This is the star of revealing. This is the star of vision. This is the star of insight and applied care to the fine details of existence.

The ruling deity Savitr, is the one who enlivens the sun.

Savitr is described often as the sun, and he is, but he is the sun after it sets until sunrise, at dawn Savitr touches Surya and causes him to rise.

Savitr is described as having the golden hand of Hasta, Hiranyahasta. When Savitr touches the sun of the day time who is called Surya, he enlivens him to fulfill his task of revealing and spreading rays of light. Savitr.

Savitr is the birther who gives conscious vision.

In the night, Savitr is with the Moon. The Moon is the ruling planet of Hasta and has an ever changing face. Savitr is devoted to the faces of the Moon, he studies and knows intimately, every single detail of the lunar sway. To fully form a relationship with the energy of Hasta, our vision must be honed to catch the underlying movements and truth’s that surround us. The Moon is a great teacher of rhythm that is ever there to observe and learn from. Savitr is the natural power of awareness that sees and feels all of the Lunar movements. Savitr brings us Demahi.

The Yogins have a detailed system of wisdom that names and honours every face of the Moon. There has endless goddesses and gods that tell the stories of the detailed celestial movements. These celestial movements told in the form of stories and symbols are pointers towards the forms, stories and movements within us.

The celestial outer spheres are directly related to our inner astral body. The Karmas in human astral body are effected and swayed by the astral movements in space.

Yogic ritual is a way to align to these movements. We could say that Yogic ritual involves opening the psychic ear and eye to listen to, and look upon the starry secrets.

And so for the Yogin, the stars and their lessons are not outer abstractions, they are the intimate inner realms of our psyche. Our inner life manifests into our outer life.

What we are seeing and living thorough, is the reflection of an inner psychic configuration, or constellation, if you will.

#Corvus, the #Crow Constellation

Corvus is the star constellation of #HastaNakshatra, it is Latin for Crow.

Let us take a little look at the Crow, considering that in Tantric vision, it is the emissary of Saturn. Corvus means crow and is the Greek name given to the 5 starred constellation of Hasta.
The crow is also the animal of Hasta Nakshatra in the far older Indian system of Astrology.

The Ancient Greek mythology has some relevant parallels with the the Yogic perspective that are worth considering. It was Apollo who in a fit of rage, threw the crow into the sky. He grasped the crow in his hand and flung him into the starry firmament.
The crow was meant to fill a chalice with water for Apollo, but he was delayed because he was tempted by the serpent Hydra to take a break and feast on a fig tree.
When Apollo questioned the crow as to why he was so late, the crow did not reveal the reason. Apollo is a sun god who sees past present and future. And feeling deceived by the crow, he flung him along with the Hydra and Chalice into the stars for eternity. We see the the Hydra, Chalice and Corvus in the picture below.
Take note of the interesting parallel here, that Savitr the Sun god is the god of Hasta, Apollo is also a sun god.

We once again find the symbol of opposites in relation to constellation that we are considering at present. We see that the Greek Apollo is the twin brother of Artemis. His sister is the famously sworn Virgin of the Greek mysteries. Apollo on the other hand is rather a romancer. His passions and romantic conquests with both genders, more than makes up for his twin sisters chastity. The one twin, being sworn to maidenhood, and the other, opening the doors of excess.

Artemis denied the most prized of lovers, while Apollo would cunningly and obsessively keep watch on his love affairs.

The story tells that the Crow was once white. Apollo’s fiery rage turned its feathers black after he had sent the crow to spy on his latest woo.

When Apollo heard that she was getting up to that which he did not want to hear about, his rage found expression against the crow and burned his formerly white feathers to a crisp.

Later in another fit of rage, Apollo was to fling the crow into the stars as the constellation of Corvus. Which as we have seen, is the Hasta Nakshatra of the Yogins.

The 5 stars of Hasta are related to the five fingers. The constellation also resembles the shape of palm. The Hasta constellation is the constellation of meticulous detail and skill.
The hand is the medium through which one touches life.
It of course represents the physical hand, symbolically the hand is here taken to mean the inner sense of skill, dexterity and attention to detail.

The Crow is known for its intelligence and wit. Let us next consider this in story form, in the well known old folktale called of the Crow and the Pitcher.
It is worth a retelling here, as it beautifully highlights some central themes of Hasta.

Story Time
The Crow and the Pitcher

Once upon a time,

on a hot summers day, a thirsty crow was scouring the land for a drink of water.

There was a drought and the river had dried up.

His thrust was torturous, but there was no water to be found anywhere.

His beady black eye caught something glimmering in the distance.

He thought that it must be a little pool of water, and so be dove down at the speed of black lightening to reach it.

He discovered that it was a pitcher of water and not a puddle shimmering in the blazing sunlight.

When the Crow peered inside, he saw that it was more than half full with water that glistened freshly.

The problem was that the neck of the pitcher was too thin for his beak to enter in and drink from it.

He tried to push the pitcher over, but it was too heavy for him to move.

He tried to fly at it full speed in the hope to knock it over and thus get the water to pour out.

He even tried to hurl stones at it, in the hope to smash it.

His efforts came to no effect.

Feeling somewhat defeated and deathly thirsty. He sat down quietly, and pondered ways that he could get a drink out of it.

After a moments meditation, the insight came to him. (Demahi in action)

He started gathering little pebbles that would fit through the narrow neck of the pitcher.

Carefully he put them into the pitcher, one by one by one.

It took a long time and was a work of care and patience. A stone that was too big risked getting stuck and blocking the water in pitcher from ever being reached.

After what seemed like an interminable infinity, the water had risen and the crow happily had a drink.

This story highlights the skill and patience of the hand (or in this case the beak), to accomplish a task. The crow is a very intelligent creature that is placed as the animal of Hasta Nakshatra, for its dexterity and skill of mind.

More than this, for the Tantric, the Crow is a creature that can fly between the worlds of darkness and light.

Notice again, how the opposites are at play again in Hasta, this time in the Crow.

Hasta is ruled by the Moon and is presided over by the deity Savitr, the one who hands the initiating spark to the rising sun. We can see a parallel between hasta and the crow in how the both articulate between the realms of the seen and the unseen.

The Unconscious becoming Conscious

When we start to understand the energy of the star constellations, (or better expressed, stand under starlight), we begin to see the themes that the star constellations represent in all areas of our lives.

Every life situation that we might be involved in, can be thought of as a constellation.

Every level of the psyche, every action and situation can be comprehended as a reflection of an astral energy principle.

Everything from a pleasant stroll in the park on a Saturday afternoon, to a family feud on a Sunday, can be seen as an energy constellation.

If we work and apply ourselves to becoming conscious of underlying causes, we can begin to see the star lessons and their astral teachings reflected in all the scenarios of our lives.

We can see the reflection of the star principles everywhere. They are manifest in thoughts, feelings, behaviors, ambience, music, films, stories, clothing and food, to name but a few places where reflections are manifest.

Things that are unconscious become conscious when pondered with a reference point to the stars and their lessons. For example, if we do a job poorly and have carelessly rushed through it, then we have not aligned to the detail of the energy of Hasta.

By recognising that we in an energy configuration contrary to Hasta, can make us conscious of where we are and what we are doing with our energy.

To learn the wonder and beauty of detail, is to resolve something deep in our soul. If details pass us by, we are out of step with the the potency of our awareness.

A life rhythm that misses details is one that is locked in a destruction hyper-rhythm. Hasta is a study of ‘the art of detailed skill and dexterity’ of both spirit and hand.

Hasta Nakshatra Symbols in a story

Let us take a read of a story with reference to the themes of Hasta Nakshatra. We are going to consider a fairy tale written by Hermann Hesse in 1916.

Firstly, let us consider how the story is full of meticulous details, this is rather typical of Hesse’s style, but in this short story the vast explosion of tiny details are potently compressed. Though it is a short story, it could easily become a book.

Detail and skill is primarily the energy of Hasta, as we have seen in the previous text about Hasta Nakshatra. This story is certainly very skillfully put together. The way the narrative of the many stories within the story are bound together with such dexterity, is very much an example of Hasta Nakshatra in action.

Hasta concerns very much how we apply the effort and skill to get the wish of our destiny.

The story below tells of the old bachelor or who grasps poorly to his half coin. He is a perfect example of the destructive side of Hasta Nakshatra, the bachelor has a closed grip that keeps him in a spirit of inner and outer poverty.

The girl with the elegant hands in the story, is the perfect symbol of the potential of Hasta Nakshatra. She is an independent figure who is diametrically opposite to the bachelor. Children love her, and she weaves together stories and magic for them by the power of her beautiful hands.

Hasta means hand and she is indeed imbued with the full power of the hand. Creating fairytales and spreading joy all around, with little regard for riches or relation. She lives in the power of her destiny.

She is a good figure to compare ourselves too and ask of ourselves… what are we creating and spreading all around?

Do we spread the magic and skill of Hasta?

Or are we caught in cycles of drama and stress?

Sometimes we choose the path of stress and loudness, to escape the deeper lessons and learnings. Some details are only received in the quietude where the dust settles.

The story tells of the musician hidden in his attic with his friend. The creative dexterity to wield a musical instrument is an art of Hasta. It is the refinement of the soul and the hand in a unified marriage. The friend of the musician who listens deeply, is in a realm of appreciation art and finery. We could say that he is an introverted Hasta power, his wish is just to receive the music and let it’s beauty, finery and detail imbue his soul. His love of the art of music is so pronounced, that he wishes to just become a mountain and observe everything. These two together hidden away in the attic, oblivious to the happenings in the town, very well represent the active and receptive sides of Hasta Nakshatra.

The stranger in the story who grants the wishes of destiny, can be seen as the amplifier of power of our efforts. Hasta Nakshatra is the hand of destiny. We do things with the psychic and physical hand. Every step is a step towards our destiny. Sometimes the steps go round and round, sometimes the step is a standstill. What we work for doesn’t always manifest directly. Learning a subject takes time. Sometimes we look into the mirror of destiny and see what we are creating with the energy of the spiritual hand.

Where do we put our focus and our work?

More important, how do we put it?

The hand that puts the food into the mouth is far more important than the content of the spoon.

Even great good actions can be an escape from our destiny. Good actions such as helping are good indeed. But sometimes they can be a side step from our destiny. They can be a way that we avoid to face ourselves. In helping others, it is possible that we can deflect the focus from helping ourselves where we most need it. Hasta is the star of noticing the most subtle details and movements of our spiritual and physical hand. Hasta is the vision to see deep beneath our actions, unto the motivating causes. Good actions for example, can be a way we might habitually take to redeem ourselves of the anguish of an energy configuration of guilt. Hasta brings awareness to look at that which we do and why we do it. Some of the things that we continue to repeat can be addictions. Addictions are not always to unhealthy things like sweets. Addictions can also be to noble behaviors and good actions.

If there is a drive in us, then there is a deep place of investigation waiting for us. Hasta is the energy of finding the details of why we do what we do. We might grow up in a culture that presents having a drive and a passion as a good thing. Hasta is the penetrating energy to question this and other such unquestioned details. When we have not opened to the Hasta energy principle of subtle psychic dexterity of vision, then we never pause to question the motivation of our actions.

Our actions reflect back to us and create the results of our lives. It is of note to consider that in the story that follows below, the wish fulfilling stranger stood before a mirror stand.

Everyone’s destiny was being reflected back in their wishes. Some wanted sausages and they got sausages.

As the wish fulfilling stranger comes to town, he sees every small detail. He sees the hedge that the bachelor had been trimming and how it had started with care and ended in a rush. Such an acute vision as the stranger has, is the perfect principle of Hasta awareness.

This Story that now follows, was written by Hermann Hesse in 1916. It encompasses many themes that are pertinent to understanding Hasta Nakshatra.

Rather, it might be better to say, that this story encompasses many themes that are pertinent to standing under the starry shine of Hasta Nakshatra.

With all the insights we gleaned from the text above, we will now look at Hasta Nakshatra through the context of this following story by Hermann Hesse.

https://healinginthewillows.com/hasta-nakshatra/

The enjoyment and bondage of our karmas arrive in the form of Dasha in this birth, the fifth house showing the accumulated karma, and the ninth house, commonly known as fate. Determines our destiny. And it is chosen what our experience will be in this birth based on the birth constellation.

Sanskrit Name: उत्तर फाल्गुनी ( #Uttara-phalguni) comes from the Sanskrit words उत्तर (latter) and फल्गु (spring season).As “the latter reddish one,” #UttaraPhalguni might stand for the sweltering late-spring heat, boundless vitality, and a depth of understanding beyond their years.

The Uttara Phalguni #Nakshatra, signified by the word ‘ #bed,’ has as one of its general characteristics the desire to pursue truth via knowledge and action. One of its most prominent characteristics is marital prosperity. Among the general qualities of the Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra are the achievement of truth and liberation from the bonds of worldly existence.

The #sun is the lord of Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra in #Vedicastrology. It appears that the back leg of the bed or cot represents a comfortable and luxurious life. Uttara Nakshatra’s Hindu deity is #Bhaga.

People born under the influence of Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra have kindness, charity, and protection as personality attributes. They are charming and appealing, and they are respectful, obedient, and knowledgeable. In their personality attributes, they reflect royal qualities like compassion, generosity, and honesty. Their pleasant temperament and righteousness are very attractive, in addition to the main characteristics of helpfulness, friendliness, and generosity. Honesty and truthfulness are also appealing qualities.

It is important to note that, being in the same pair, both Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra and Purva Phalguni Nakshatra have some common features. Despite the similarities, positive traits predominate in Uttar Phalguni Nakshatra.

Favourable traits: Marriage, Sexual Activity, Beginning Activities, Founding an Organisation, Dealing with Authority Figures, Administrative Work, Buying a Home, Inaugurations, Performing Ceremonies, Giving to Charity, Diplomacy, and Wearing New Garments or Jewellery

Unfavourable: Endings, Completions, Confrontations, Retaliation, Activities requiring Harsh Behaviour, Retribution, Combat, and Lending Money

Uttara-Phalguna Careers

Teacher or professor, Business advisor, financial advisor, or diplomat, Philanthropist, social worker, or counselor, Writer, actor, or media personality, member of the clergy or other religious leader

Weaknesses

In the successful, admired life of the Phalgunis, it is difficult to avoid the pitfalls of vanity. Their belief in your own purity can make them think that you are better than others. This can make them inconsistent or aloof with people when they are not trying to get anything out of them.

They can become restless and if they lose interest in something, they may have difficulty sticking to it. When their intelligence is not stimulated, they get bored. This could lead them to premature desert projects.

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Lord: Sun. In astrology, the sun is considered the king of the planets. This planet is associated with the soul or self, leadership, happiness, success, self-realization, and spiritual enlightenment.

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra: Body Parashara: Heart

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Symbol: Bed, legs of a cot

(The back legs of a bed, particularly the marriage bed, are symbolic. The hammock represents a state of deep meditation and the pleasure associated with the stillness of life and thoughts. The four legs of a couch symbolize the four planes of the soul’s evolution: physical, mental (conscious), astral (subconscious), and ethereal (supra-conscious).

Uttaraphalguni Nakshatra Deity: Bhaga-the Sun as bliss

Shakti (power to/of…): Giving of prosperity through union or marriage

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Caste: Kshatriya

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Nature: fixed or permanent (Dhruva)

Manushya Gana: (The Nakshatras are classified as either “monsters,” “humans,” or “gods.” The nakshatra of Uttara-phalguni has a human quality. Members in this group tend to be ambitious and dedicated to their careers. Although typically good, they have a dark side and can be vengeful and self-interested.)

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Rashi / Zodiac: Leo/Virgo sign

Leo (first quarter) and Virgo (second through fourth quarters). Leos are strong, courageous, and generous-spirited individuals who may struggle with vanity. Virgos are intelligent, competent, and practical problem-solvers who enjoy using their skills to assist others. (They have the potential to be critical.)

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Marriage: Auspicious

Ruling Deity of the Sun: Shiva

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Number: 12

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Gender: Female

Uttaraphalguni Nakshatra Names Letter: Tay, To, Pa, Pee

Uttara Phalguna Nakshatra Lucky Stone: Ruby

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Lucky Color: Bright blue

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Lucky or Favorable Numbers: 1

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Element: #Fire

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Guna: #Rajasic

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Dosha: #Vata

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Bird: #Beetle

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Yoni/Animal Name: Vrishabha (#Bull)

Uttaraphalguni Nakshatra Tree: #Badari #Tree (Ber, Jujube)

They like to live a life of luxury and comfort
https://astrokavi.com/2021/12/20/uttara-phalguni-luxury-and-comfort/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh53ppDyhkc
#Rohini #Nakshatra by #PaiTeam #Vedic #Astrology

#Rohini-Nakshatra by #Pai Team #VedicAstrology

The two bright stars in the Leo constellation, Zosma (Delta Leonis) and Chertan (Theta Leonis) form #PurvaPhalguni. They are located to the left of the bright star Magaha or Regulus.
Also known as #Bhagadavaita, Purva Phalguni is a potent #nakshatra. The nakshatra blesses the natives with positive feelings like love, pleasure, prosperity, and enjoyment abundantly.
The nakshatra is believed to harbor the seed of creation, its development, and its dissolution, i.e., its merger into the universe to pave the way for a new life.

Astrological Range: 133°20′ to 146°40′ Leo
Nakshatra Number: 11
Gender: Female
Symbol: Front legs of a Bed; Swinging Hammock
Presiding Deity: Aryaman – God of contracts & union, Sun as friend
Controlling/Ruling Planet: Venus
Ruling Deity of Ruling Planet: Lakshmi
Shakti: Procreation or Prajanana Shakti
Caste: Fierce, severe
Nature: The fierce or Severe (Ugra)
Gana: Manushya Gana (Human)
Body Varāhamihira: Genitals
Body Parashara: Shoulders
Rashi/Zodiac: Leo or Simha
Marriage: Not auspicious
Translation: A Fig Tree or Former Reddish One
Beejakashra for 4 pada’s: Mo, Ta, Tee, Too
Lucky letters: M & T
Lucky Stone: Diamond
Lucky Color: Light brown
Lucky or Favourable Numbers: 9
Common Name of Associated Tree: #Palasha
Botanical Name of Associated Tree: Butea monosperma
Astronomical Name: Delta Leonis
Dosha: #Pitta
Guna: #Rajasic
Element: #Water
Bird Name: Gridhra Pakshi, #Eagle
Yoni/Animal Symbol: #Rat
Career: Criminal psychologies, Research, Administrative studies, Government services, Transport management, Automobile industries, and Hotel industries

https://pujanpujari.com/nakshatra/purva-phalguni/

#MAGHA #NAKSHATRA
THE STAR OF HERITAGE & POWER
Magha means power, majesty and rulership. This Nakshatra is our very heart of power. Magha gives us grand royal standing, and the power of rulership.

The power of rulership comes by embracing the dualisms within the Heart. When the Heart no longer divides, it takes the seat of power in all the realms of existence.

Magha is found in the constellation of Simha (Leo) and is actually the Star Alpha Leonis, which is the very heart of the Lion. This Star is also known by the name Regulus in Latin, which interestingly, means ‘the little king’.

Magha Nakshatra is often symbolised by a throne, representing our heritage and power. The seat of power of this star is the seat of our hereditary power. It concerns the power of our past and our ancestry.

This star
brings us to question
the actual meaning of power.
Magha’s power is the power of the Heart. The deepest lesson that this Star represents is opening to an all-encompassing Heart that unites all, and rejects nothing. This is the vision of the Yogins.

The Headless Past
We see that the planetary ruler of this Nakshatra is Ketu. This is the Southern node of the Moon that is responsible for lunar eclipsing.

Ketu concerns the past. He is the body without a head, and is the storehouse of the unconscious rudiment of our being.
When we work with Ketu, we go back into the past, where those forgotten and unseen elements of ourselves are brought into focus.
The Moon rules the mind and our psychic awareness.

#Ketu,
having the power
to eclipse the mind,
represents the storehouse
of personal history
that can impose itself
upon the vision of reality.
Afflictions of Ketu make one into a library of past manuscripts and transactions that obscure the flexible vision of ever changing reality.

When Ketu holds strong sway in our lives, we have family disputes, and we grind on the grudges of the past.
When we come back to the roots, we are in effect taking the journey to Ketu.

By addressing root issues we impact the fruit if our experiential life. The root distills the essence and sap, which in turn translates to the taste of the fruit. Tantric’s know this Sap to be Soma. Soma is made up of Tejas, Ojas and Prana: mental fire, fluidic potency and breath power, respectively. The balance of these constituents is a preoccupation of Tantra.

Taking The Seat of Power
Ancestral issues might present some of the dustiest shelves in our psychic library. Spiritual unrest in the energetic plane of the ancestors, spans concurrently across realms of time and space, and resonates and reverberates into the very fabric of our everyday life and being.

When we make peace
with our ancestral line,
we nourish the roots.
Without the roots,
their will be no fruit.
Having dispute with the family is a deep and subtle issue that is often the cause of much heartache and pain and anguish. Sometimes we enter into unconscious seats that have their origin on the subtle levels. It might not be easy to approach long held family issues.

The energies of the family heritage pass along the line until they are resolved in the great odyssey of destiny. Cutting off our roots might be one way to give the tree of our being space to grow. It is not uncommon that family members do not see eye to eye, but…

… to cut away our ancestral roots
out of anger, shame or denial
is to cut away
a great portion of our power.
Coming to accept the good, the bad and the ugly of our heritage is to take the seat of power.

#Healing the #Family Tree
All our relationships
are mirrors
of our ancestral dynamics.
Are connections are coloured by the energies of our line. Some of the patterns and footprints that we walk in are woven of ancestral twine. We may see how our children follow the paths that we ourselves transferred to them. We may see how we take on the energies of our elders too. The root is the undercurrent that can’t be cut away without affecting the fruit.
Reclaiming our power by standing for our heritage, is the first step in resolving the past.

“Can we resolve the past
Lurking jaws, joints of time?
The Base
To come of age in a dry place
Holes and caves.”

J. Morrison – American Prayer

When we redress the issues from a spiritual angle, we effect changes in the manifest realm. Merely holding a positive thought in mind is of little consequence in this pursuit. At the best, it might convince us that things are all well and good. The Tantric learns to employ all facets of their being in the spiritual pursuit of healing.

When we approach the spiritual world with a holy sense of purity we confine our psychic forces, and therefore confine their expression in our manifest life.

Angelic lightness
is just one facet of being,
but it is not the whole picture.
The pursuit of the holy stems from fear, denial and escapism to the true face of reality. The Goddess has many faces. Some of which are blinding, some of which are dark and consuming. To sit in the seat of power and to allow the full impact of feeling the effect of her ever changing gaze upon us is to be in reality.

To superimpose the Goddess’ face with a wished for visage, it to apply shadow and lipstick to the mirror. If we keep sticking things upon her mirror, we will create a fantasy and lose touch with reality. This is not the way spirituality is meant to be.

The #Ancestors
“Gorgeous girls are bound to meet
To talk of stars and kings and feet
Through the chromosomes of space and time
Me, I’m fast like bad infection
Gasping for my resurrection
Swear to me in times of war and stress

Seen his family with a shrinking smile
See his family at the happy games
Standing in the mouth of all that’s pure
Come straggling in your tattered remnants
You’ll come to me with tears and blame
I am the future
I’m tomorrow
I am the end“

D. Bowie – Earthling

The ancestors dwell on this star. They are known as the Pitris and are made up of guardian spirits and deceased ancestors.
Yogic culture works profoundly with ancestry. Our heritage is understood to be our root that yields the fruit of our being.

There are various rituals in Tantra for blessing the ancestors, and connecting to their blessings. Tantric work spans across many planes of existence. By connecting to the root energies resonating through time, we see how time is a concurrent thing, existing and moving together in sync, like the fingers of a wristwatch.

We release spirits and energy through the chromosomes of space and time, by our involvement in the spiritual side of life, when we approach the world of the ancestors by way of ritual.

There are many special days for Tantric ancestral rites. These are days, when the world of the ancestors is said to open up and be within view to the eye that looks.

Dark Moon days,
for example,
are times when the spirit world
intersects with the earthly plane.
That is a day
when the ancestors are worked with.
Tantric ritual dedicates a whole month to Ancestral work in the autumn. There is the ritual festival of first honouring the mothers line for a fortnight. Which is then followed by honouring the fathers line for a further fortnight.

When the Moon is is Magha Nakshatra, it is also a day when the ancestors come close to us spiritually. The half ascending Moon of Bagalamukhi supports us to touch the balance of dark and light ancestral themes. And so, on this ritual night, while the moon in in the Star of ancestry, we shall take a journey to the world of the ancestors. This night is blessed under the auspices of the Goddess Bagalamukhi. She it be, who pulls the spirit beyond the terrestrial.

https://healinginthewillows.com/magha-nakshatra/

#ASHLESHA #NAKSHATRA
#Kundalini #Constellation
Ashlesha Nakshatra

Ashlesha Nakshatra is the celestial snake constellation.
The #stars in the head of the #Hydra form Ashlesha.
The word Ashlesha is comes from the root Shlesha, which means to #entwine or to wrap around.

This is one of the Nakshatra’s that has a collective as its presiding deities.

Review also the text on the collective deities called the Vishwadeva who dwell upon the Nakshatra of Uttara Ashada. http://healinginthewillows.com/uttara-ashadha

The collective deities of Ashlesha are the #Naaga #serpents. In the course of this text we will be looking at some of the implications of the Naaga serpents.
It is a vast and fascinating subject that we will attempt to look at from the stance of this ritual work.
There are many mythologies of serpents in the Yogic teachings that carry encoded teachings. Consider that Shiva wears the serpent Vasuki around his neck.
Vishnu rests upon the serpent with an infinity of heads who is known as Ananta Shesha.
Ganesh wears the Serpent belt around his thick waist.
Krishna battles with the venomous serpent Kaliya.
Or the serpent.
Buddha was sheltered from the storm for seven days and nights by the Mukhalindh.
These are just a few serpent teaching symbols and stories of Yogic wisdom.
Khodiyar Maa is also a Tantric Goddess connected to the Naaga serpents. You can review a past text about Khodiyar Maa here.
http://healinginthewillows.com/khodiyar-maa

The constellation of Ashlesha Nakshatra brings us the teaching of the etheric serpents that the Yogins call the race of the Naaga.
These serpents relate to the Kundalini serpent of the central spinal channel in a direct and yet subtle way. The Naaga energies are the basis of reality. They are the etheric matter that informs all phenomena from behind the veils of awareness.

How the celestial serpents relate to our experience of the personal Kundalini phenomena will be a study of this nights ritual. The ritual of Naaga Panchami spans India across many thousands of miles, there are many unique and particular regional celebrations and rituals that mark this festival. The sun is in Ashlesha Nakshatra between the 3-16 of August and this is when the ritual of Naaga Panchami takes place. It is ritualised on the 5th lunar night.
Naaga Panchami is a time when snakes are most present and prevalent on earth.
It is a time when the snake constellation of Ashlesha spreads its teaching to us on earth. The 5th lunar day is known as Panchami. It is the Moon phase that is sacred to the Naagas, rather interestingly, Ashlesha consists of 5 stars in the head of the Hydra constellation.
The 5th lunar day is a day of release and reception of lunar and etheric force. Every Panchami is reserved by Tantrics for work with the snake energy. But Naaga Panchami is the main Panchami of snake power in the Tantric calendar.

Celestial Snakes & the Doors of Perception

The Naagas inhabit the deep subterranean realms that are beyond the reach of Moon and sun. Naaga Lokh is the world of the Naaga. It is a place of unparalleled beauty and is described in the Yogic mythologies as the most beautiful paradisal realm where the most splendid jewels and treasures are to be found. The jewels of Naaga Lokh are described as radiating their own light and thus lighting the dark world of the Naaga from within.
How do we respond when we hear of a subterranean realm without light that is inhabited by serpents?

We may make interpretations according to the customs and thought forms assigned to the archetypes of our culture.

This highlighted sentence is central in getting an insight into the energies of Ashlesha. The Naagas are the underlying energy essence of phenomena.
Akash is their element and this is the subtle-most ‘physical’ element. Akash is the etheric element that is described by the Yogins as the subtlest of the 5 elements Pancha Bhoot elements.
Akash gives sense to phenomena at the most fundamental level.
Let us take a practical example of these principles that so easily can start to sound like mere wordy metaphysics:

Maybe we are blessed enough and used to living in a fine house with fresh running water. Perhaps we have a soda-stream machine that gives us access to refreshing sparkling water. Perhaps we even have a refrigerator to tune the water to our exact preferred temperature.
Now, if we were to pass a puddle of muddy water in the street, we would not think much of it, and would most probably seek to avoid stepping into it.
But the self-same puddle of dirty water would be a prize for someone else.
We all know that there are parts of the world where drinking water in very scarce. For someone living in such a situation, the dirty puddle water becomes highly precious. It is still the same puddle, but it has a different value put upon it that is relative to the situation.
In the same way, for some, a snake is a terrible creature denoting sin and the very opposite of spirituality, to others it is a sacred creature.
Some view the regions below the earth as infernal pits of damnation, but for some, they are regions of beauty and paradise.

It is the thought form that is assigned to the symbol, that creates the symbol.

A muddy puddle can verily be a source of life, or a thing of disgust. The same with a snake, which can be a divinity or a devil, or the underworld can be beautiful or ugly, horror or wonder!
The energy that we assign to phenomena is not in the thing itself, but in us.
The Tantric’s call this underlying force the Akash element that informs all phenomena and creates phenomena to be what we turn it into.
The snake is either a devil or a divinity depending upon the underlying Akash element that we shape in the furnace of the soul. We can think of ourselves as a blacksmith that is ever shaping and creating reality.
Knowing that we are giving meaning to everything around us, does not offer us any solutions to extricate ourselves from the meanings we assign to phenomena.
We might be disgusted by the same thing that someone else is inspired by, but the energy that assigns disgust or inspiration to phenomena is in the realm of the deep unconscious.
It is in the realm of the Naagas, in a realm of no external light, but a realm with internal light that creates from the inside out. Remember that Naaga Lokh has only internal light that emanates from its jewels. We could liken Naaga Lokh to the unconscious underworld workshop of the blacksmith soul that fashions reality based upon unconscious impulses.
The Tantric works with the Akashic element that is ever creating reality and assigning meanings to things.

What happens when we un-invest the energy of meaning from phenomena?

What happens when we relinquish our thought forms and see reality without the coloured lenses of the unconscious world?

Here written in his own hand, the 19th century English mystic William Blake encapsulated this in a few verses thus:

When we travel to the underworld of Akash that is deep within the caverns of creation in our soul, we encounter the Astral serpents that live in our soul.
The Naaga Akash beings are like astral energies that whisper with lisps, slivering deeply, silvery and silently behind the lens of our life experience.
The realm of the Naaga is created by our personal Karmic impressions. Things such as cultural, religious and ancestral energies, travel deeply into the underworld and live in the unseen.
Such things enter invisibly into the hidden realm because they are so fundamental to the fabric of our being. Cultural, religious, ancestral and gender energies are often part of the consensual reality that we are woven and intertwined with. But it is a question of relativity of notion, that is nourished by focused attention with no actual basis in naked reality.
The established codes of culture and civilisation might even run contrary to nature?
The Tantric does attempt to move into the naked reality, while acknowledging and moving within the consensual streams of realty that prevail in the life they live move and have their being within.

The 19th century French Occultist Eliphas Levi had popularised the principle of the Astral light. This is worth mention here because it has parallels to the Subject of the Naagas element of Akash.
The Astral light is a term that Levi much popularised in the area of occultism. The Astral light is a neutral substance that pervades and underlies all phenomena. Levi’s system of occultism worked very much with imbuing the astral light with one’s intention through working with one’s Will and Imagination.
Tantrics recognise this absorptive quality of the etheric substance to take on the character that we impress upon it. Though we often impress upon the Astral light or Akash element in an unconscious way, it is possible to effect the phenomena of our lives by wilfully manipulating the underlying energy behind manifest phenomena.

The Tantric branches that deal with healing, seek not so much to imbue the Akash element with one’s will, as they do to un-imbue or un-invest it from the energy of will and imagination.
Tantra covers a broad spectrum and scale of practices and practitioners, a practitioner of Tantra can be a magician or a healer, or both.
In the healing arts of Tantra, the practitioner attempts the healing of the vision through approaching the pure perception that was so beautifully versed by William Blake in the quote above.

Rather interestingly, Levi called the Astral light the great Serpent. He described the astral light as being a serpent like receptacle that is open to receive and reflect back all the deviations and pollutions of consciousness.
He describes the Astral light to originally consist of pure energy which can take in all manner of spiritual pollution and distortion of reality, ranging from a slight blemish upon the face of reality to downright toxicity. Once invested of inceptions and deviations from pure awareness, the astral light has the ability to bite back like a serpent and cause spiritual and physical suffering. Levi described the astral light as being a mirror of our consciousness that connects our inner reality to the pure energetic essence. The scale of deviation from the essence reality is vast. Levi said it gives us back what we put into it.
Levi also hinted that the astral light takes on collective energies and creates a mass-consensual-reality that reverberates back as psychic and even physical events such as collective waves of consciousness and happenings of collective tragedies such as epidemics.

Without digressing too far off topic, it is worth noting how the Russian Occultist H. P Blavatsky said that the ability to access the universal Akashic Chronicle is dependent upon how good a contact one has with the unembellished form of Astral light. She implies that memory becomes opaque if we do not do the work of purifying the thought forms that live in the personal and collective Astral light with which we are intertwined. The process of extracting ourselves from the thought forms of the astral light is a rather universal theme across the magical systems of many cultures.
Even in the Kabbalah, we see the spiritual map of taking back the symbols and moving towards the pure manifest.
Those who would like to read further into these subjects are recommended to read any of the books by Eliphas Levi, such as A History of Magic, translated by A. E Waite, and Isis Unveiled by H. P Blavatsky.
These books were written a few decades before the close of the 19th century, but they underlie many of the Spiritual notions that have become inherited into the Western spiritual tradition, the ideas presented in these books inform much that came after.

Shedding the Skin

We have looked at the Astral light as an analogy of the Akash element of the Yogins that underlies and informs all phenomena.
Let’s look a bit more into how one would go about the act of freeing oneself from the encasements that wrap themselves around the soul.

Through the course of our souls journey, we develop skins, some of which we shed, some which we keep. Costumes and Uniforms around the soul might be a way to navigate the many terrains of existence, We shift in and out of characters to suit the situations we find ourselves in. Some situations in life are restrictive and some give us the liberty and space to be free.
Perhaps there is a way to gain the inner liberty to shift between forms without feeling the poles of freedom and restraint?
This is a question to ponder.

What would it take to feel unrestricted by situations around us?

Maybe if we are not inwardly restricted, then we wouldn’t feel restricted by ‘outer’ happenings?

To become so predictable as to react to outer situations and phenomena in a clockwork manner, is the very opposite of liberty.
Ashlesha can be translated as the restricter.
This Nakshatra brings us the awareness of what it is that restricts us from without. The gift and awareness of Ashlesha is to find that the outer restricter lives within the Akash element within us.
This Nakshatra presents us with a profound teaching.
Some might never look at the outer as being a reflection of the inner.
The Tantric’s attempt to look.

Shedding the skin like a snake is no easy thing. When a snake sheds its skin, it is in a state of hyper sensitivity and vulnerability. It is even temporarily blind. It is the time when the snake is most exposed and prone to attack. Losing our skins, even the ones that are comfortable and familiar and yet squeeze the life out of us, is to enter into the nakedness and sensitivity of the snake at the time of shedding. This is a lesson that the snake transports to us.
The vulnerable place is a place of power. It is a transitional rite of passage but it’s not only easy sailing and pleasant.
Tantric’s approach the vulnerable place. When the vulnerable place is lost. We become encased. The avoidance of the vulnerable place is not strength, but stiffness.
When we approach the vulnerable place, the body heart and spirit melt.
Stiffness of mind, body and heart mask the wound. The only way to approach the vulnerable place is to have courage.

Kundalini Constellation

Shiva has the Naaga king named Vasuki wrapped around his throat. Shiva is the Yogic god who symbolises among many things the awakened Kundalini.
Kundalini is a heavily loaded word, Kunda is the pot at the base of the spine that houses the coiled Shakti energy,
Kundala is a swinging vibration. When the energy from the pot is freed, it creates a psycho/physical circuit of energy that gives the sensation of a swinging vibration.
Some of the Tantric practices create this sensation rather immediately, this inner swing is visited and gradually cultivated, it can become a perpetual inner motion of Shakti.
Kundala is also the literal word for the earring that Shiva and many Yogins wear.
It is a type of earring that swings side to side when one walks.
To wear the Kundala earrings is a meditation technique in itself that some Tantrics practice.
It involves becoming aware of the swing and sensation in the ear, and meditating thereon.
At advanced levels, the practitioner of the way of the Kundala earring starts to synchronise breath and Mantra with the swings of the Kundala.
The Kundala offers a practice of the utmost awareness.
By becoming acutely aware of our conscious actions, we gain insight into the underlying unconscious elements that inform consciousness.

A particular weight is selected according to the capacity of the practitioner. The piercing of the ear connects with the sexual Nadi (energy channel) and has a subtle effect upon the Sexual Chakra, which in turn affects the Kundalini.

The Jewel of Ashlesha

The Naaga Snakes of Yogic Mythology are said to be the Keepers of the Naagamani. This is a jewel of great healing power. It is said that very old Cobras have this jewel inside them. Some Tantrics believe that it is in the throat Chakra of the snake, while some say it’s in the crown Chakra of the snake. It is said to be a stone with magical healing powers that is very rare to come by. Some have postulated that the jewel is the dried venom glands. Others say that it glows in the dark. Some have taken the jewels to be the innermost power of the Chakras.
In the following section, we will apply a meditation of looking into the Jewels within.

Coiled Force

The Kundalini rises as the Jewels of the Chakras are polished and refined. The polishing of the Chakras is the healing of the Akash element from its inceptions and energy investments.
The Chakras carry skins that are sometimes blocking the opening of the Shakti in the pot. This Shakti in the pot is known as Kundalini.
By looking at our Chakras and studying the psycho/physical energies of these power stations, we get insight into the coverings that might be obscuring the self-illuminating radiance of the Chakric jewels.
Tantric’s speak of the 3 Granthis which are sometimes called the 3 cities, or the 3 jewels. Untwining the Granthis is the un-obscuring of the jewels.

The realm of the lower Chakras, which are linked to the creative force and is called the Brahma Granthi. This is the knot upon the creative force. When untwined, the Kundalini force moves from this point.
The heart region, is the preservational force which is linked to Vishnu and is called the Vishnu Granthi, this is the knot upon the heart. When untwined, it opens the heart.
The throat/head Chakras, which are the realm of Shiva the destroyer. Known as the Rudra Granthi. Its untwining is the destruction of all formulated realities.
Meditate on these 3 areas in your body and spirit.
Look into the 3 jewels by way of contemplation, and ask yourself the following questions by letting your psychic vision unfold the teachings of the 3 jewels.

What is the condition of your base, creative and solar plexus Chakras. How does the jewel of this realm appear?
What is the condition of the Heart Chakra. How does this jewel of the heart realm appear?
What is the condition of the jewels in the realm of Shiva, spanning the throat to the crown Chakra. What does the Jewel that has the power to destroy reality have to tell you?

Snake Bite

The many bites that destiny delivers to us are our lessons.
Some bites can be mild, maybe even pleasurable. Some bites can inflict venom and be paralyzingly painful.
The outer bites might come to us in many forms and mediums. Outer bites become inner bites and cause us to bite back until we have our teeth well sunken into the realm of the Naagas, and be chewing away at a corner of personal reality.
Personal tragedies can be like a sharp bite to the heart. Financial, existential or health struggles can be like gnawing, chewing bites. Accidents and injuries can be like sudden bites.
In this here reflection, identify 3 bites that destiny has delivered to you.

Identify a bite first on the physical level. Perhaps you have a physical symptom or had an accident or operation that causes you discomfort.
Next, identify a bite that destiny delivered to your heart. Maybe a personal loss or any other cause for heartfelt lament.
Identify a Mental bite, meditate deeply on the things that move through your mind. Maybe regular thoughts or phrases, maybe you labour under a conviction that might be causing you suffering. It might not be so easy to separate the mental from the feeling level, but try in your own way to access your mental body and discover your mental bite.
Some bites might be slowly poisoning and venomous, some might be drinking blood quietly in the background unnoticed. When we silence inner and outer happenings by applying contemplation or Tantric practices, we sometimes get an insight into the bites that live behind the surface.
Silence and contemplation has often been a key component in Tantric practice.
Silence and contemplation offers a route to sink behind the surface layers and gain vision of that which lives in the undercurrent of our being.
Sometimes the wish for, and the seeking after many external waves in our lives is an attempt to escape the undercurrents of the soul.
Deep healing of the soul and spiritual empowerment comes from traveling to the undercurrents.

https://healinginthewillows.com/ashlesha-nakshatra/

A Generous Helping of Starry Moon Milk

#PUSHYA

I got a better way
I discovered a Star
I got a better way
Ready, set, go.

D. Bowie – New Killer Star

#Nakshatra (lunar house) of #Pushya – which means, quite literally the nourisher. #Brhaspati ( #Jupiter) is Guru to the gods and is the deity of this lunar house. He is connected to wisdom, expansion and subtle thought.

Pushya is an auspicious star, that shines nourishment, prosperity and growth to us on earth. The Motherly Pushya Nakshatra is contained within the constellation of Cancer and has 3 stars. Pushya Nakshatra occurring on an ascending Half Moon is a powerful and auspicious placement that helps us to see into the consequences of the decisions we make. Pushya offers us the energy conducive to nourish new beginnings, decisions and opportunities.

The Star Goddess Tara has her Jayanti (annual commemoration) upon this night of nourishment. Tara appears only at night, just as her name which means Star implies.

Tara has the wisdom of converting poison into nourishing medicine. She feeds us with the healing blue twilight milk of her celestially starry breast. Hers is the twilight milk that dissolves the sharp definitions between dark and light, safety and fear, seen and unseen.

The story tells us that when the mighty Shiva suffered great turmoil for drinking the Halahala poison. Out of maternal compassion, Tara fed Shiva from her breast with a generous helping of healing Starry Moon Milk.

The Mirror of Nourishment
Brhaspati is the planet Jupiter. He is the Guru to the gods. He is the deity of this lunar house and is connected to wisdom, expansion and subtle thought.

Pushya is the amplifier, Pushya as an adjective indicates someone who is well nourished, healthy and rosey-cheeked like a well fed baby.

Brhaspati knows which things give nourishment and which things do not. Brhaspati sees into the subtle underlying forces of the phenomenal universe and knows and shows exactly which things are magically reflected back by the decisions that we take. When we look at the meaning of his name we see this principle at play, Brhas means that which nourishes and magnifies, Pati means master. So literally Brhaspati is the master of that which nourishes, magnifies and increases.

In this Nakshatra,
Brhaspati brings us this very teaching,
giving us the vision
of the mirror of nourishment.

The mirror of nourishing force might be smeared, if so, it won’t fully reflect things back to us. If the mirror is pristine then it reciprocates that which is given into it. Nourishment is like this. We could just as well say, if the soil is well tilled and receptive, then it will give back of the seed that we sow there. If the soil is hardened and strewn with rocks then the seeds will fall into a barren death.

We sometimes put our energy into things where nothing comes back to us. If we focus our concentration and go into the subtle underlying forces of the phenomena of our lives, we might get closer to the vision of what we are actually feeding. The reasons we might be feeding some things that do not nourish us is a lesson of the highest magic, this is the investigation of the Tantric. Nourishing dead soil naturally leads us into a life of malnutrition. If the soil fertilizes the seed then we have harvest. Harvest starts on the subtle planes and manifests into the tangible.

A Time to Decide
Pushya is the magical milk of nourishment. The lunar vessel on the night of Pushya is half full with the illumination of Moonlight. The Moon will be beaming the rays of Pushya to us on earth on this coming half Moon. As it is the rising Moon, it will continue to expand the psychic action and decision we take upon this night.

This is a most favourable position
to give an impetus of growth
to our visions and decisions.

The half rising Pushya Moon brings an impetus of nourishment that can profoundly support our human undertakings. This Nakshatra is aptly symbolised by a milk-filled fortifying cows udder and a lotus flower in the height of bloom.

The Pushya Half Moon is a good time for new undertakings and making clear resolutions of the stray and fraying edges of the psychic fabric of our being. The lunar energy on the half rising Pushya Moon, reveals, two roads of our destiny in stark distinction. It is a time of thinking soberly about where we are going and perhaps even seeing into… what the outcome of our endeavours could really be.

Pushya pours milk-like nourishment and fulfilment into the infancies of our visions upon earth, it is a mothering star for this reason, who like a mother, gives flesh, form and nourishment to the infancy of any vision and undertaking. Those new ventures undertaken on a Pushya full Moon can bear great fruit and success if one continues the ever attentive work of nourishment.

Living off the Fat of the Land
The lesson of Pushya Nakshatra is all about developing the awareness of nourishing the opportunities we receive. There might be opportunities around us that we don’t always see. There might be openings that we are not able to recognise as doorways to power.

There is an old Indian teaching story of a person wandering in a dark labyrinth-like place. They went round and round, ever and always looking for the doorway out of their prison, but each and every time they actually reached the door to their freedom, the draft that came in, caused a moment of distraction in which they scratched their head, and so they ever missed the way out and continued in eternal circles.

It is perhaps easy
to take our health, successes
and opportunities for granted.

Even if our receivings are generous, they dwindle away if the law of nourishment is forgotten. What is that law? Perhaps the work of a good earning is never to be taken for granted and one must remember that the soil must be eternally nourished and tilled. Perhaps we are brought to question our notions of wealth by the Pushya star constellation.

If we realise that there is no resignation or retirement in magical matters of growth, then we might be spared from psychic death. Living off the fat of the land and laying down one’s tools is perhaps the biggest and most crippling of all fallacies.

The Lotus in Bloom
Pushya also carries another law of nourishment to us by its rulership over the lotus flower. The law of nourishing by halves is implicit in our lives. A period of exertion is naturally followed by respite. Living by the sun is replaced by the nightly retirement into the darkness.

This law of dualisms is starkly reflected in the being of the lotus flower. A flower held in high esteem by the Yogins. The Lotus is a flower with far-reaching roots that gains her nourishment from deep dark of marshy subterranean places. The lesson and law of nourishment by the way of polarity is inherent in the Lotus. This flower is greatly prized for its beauty and honest and generous teaching of the laws of reality. The Lotus flower spreads magnificence and emanates an aura of an almost otherworldly beauty. This mystical bloom shows us how it’s beauty and nourishment comes from the underground of dark, womb-deep places. The precious Lotus flower that spreads her colour and scent in the visible world obeys – perhaps like no other – the law of nourishing by polarity. The Yogins tell us time and again to be like the Lotus flower.

Pushya is the deep introspective study
of the Lotus flower…
so magical and so natural.

The Psychic Web of Karma.
Pushya is regarded as the lucky star, but luck is dependent upon the actions that we take. What is luck exactly? The luck that Pushya offers us is conditional upon the choices that we make and the energies that we nourish. A bloom is a thing of beauty. Throwing seed upon wintery granite grave and hoping for luck to bring us the beauty of a blossom growth is obviously an act of absurdity. The same seed cast upon fertile moist soil in spring is far more likely to result in growth. We see in this way that what we might term as luck, is dependent on choices of wise vision.

Karmic effect
is the manifestation
of a resonant energy field
that lives in the psychic hemisphere
of our being.

When something involves us and touches all the aspects of our being then it becomes a web that catches the phenomena of our lives. Tantric ritual practices work with the principle of the psychic web of energy, by attempting to engage the full range of our being, both the unrevealed and revealed parts of ourselves.

The law of Karma is often summed up as ‘what you sow you reap’. Karma is not as simple a matter as to reduce actions to a moral code of obedience, that is punished or rewarded according to the degree of abidance or deviation.

Karma lives in the very psychic realities that we align ourselves to. Some of what we align to might be out of sight and invisible to us. The Tantric process of making the invisible become visible, then becomes a way to navigate beyond the psychic webs of Karma. What lays beyond the webs of Karma is unknowable while we are within the web, we are dealing with a great mystical voyage.

The psychic karmic realities that are we aligning to, become the investigation of Pushya.

Karma could aptly be described as a magnetic psychic web.

What kind of web are we weaving?
Perhaps we are the spider and the fly?
Are we catching life of death?
Or perhaps a little bit of both?

Still from ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’, 1945
Smears on the Psychic Mirror
What are the reasons why we might be feeding dead soil and therefore reaping a desolate harvest? Might it be based on the illusions that we have taken in? These illusions are called the Granthis by the Tantrics. Granthis are like smears on the psychic mirror of the self. It is these smears that cause the reflection of life to be reduced to obscure knotted forms.

Brhaspati (Jupiter) is the Guru of the gods and he is a strict discriminatory force. He is most generous indeed but he only gives to those who meet his subtle psychic standards.

Shukracharia (Venus) is the opposite of Brhaspati. Venus is the Guru who gives generously and indiscriminately of his riches. This is why he is the chosen Guru of the Asuras.

The Asuras are the beings of dualistic destruction. Very often we see that the Asuras are described as demons, but this does not at all translate correctly what the Asuras really are and carries too many foreign connotations to be accurate. Venus gives us prosperity, joy and pleasure in an earthly sense (Shukra in his name literally means the essence and seed). Venus spreads out and down and is received by laying down. Jupiter on the other hand moves up and out and takes the opposite action to gravity. In other words…

…to reach the levels of Jupiter,
it takes a psychic climb
through the winding
labyrinths and stairways
of the mind.

Polishing the Mirror
Brhaspati (Jupiter) is reached through psychic Tapasya (effort). Tapasya could be called the polishing of the Psychic Mirror of the self.This is the effort to go beyond the frontiers of consciousness and towards the ultra-terrestrial potentials of the psyche.

Brhaspati is the master of magical ritual formulae. It is he who leads us beyond the limits of consciousness through his penetrating force within magical ritual. He is the Jupitarian high-priest with the magical wisdom that transforms the subtle layers of reality… which in turn change the experience of reality itself. He is the doorway keeper to the mysteries beyond the known, his conditions take the work of undoing and outdoing oneself. Unlike Venus who gives it for free.

Pushya brings a blessing of vision to us on earth. That blessing is the ability to make the right decisions. There are other Nakshatra’s that bring us different lessons pertaining to nourishment. The Yogin studies the lessons written in the stars, by tuning into the celestial forces through ritualistic formulae and devotion.

In conclusion, Pushya’s particular lesson, as we have seen, is very much concerned with finding the distinction between that which nourishes and that which does not. One of the symbols of this Star is the cow’s udder. This is the naturally most nourishing place for the baby. The soul that finds the nourishing breast in all arenas of life, becomes the baby, nourished by Mother Nature.

https://healinginthewillows.com/pushya-nakshatra/

#Purnavasu is the #star of infinitely repeating cyclical patterns. Purna means to repeat and Vasu means to to shine and reveal. And so, this star is the revealer of cycles and patterns.

The teaching of Purnavasu comes by showing and revealing to us, the patterns that we live within and are repeating.
Repeating actions breed repeating results and weave the matrices of reality.
We don’t always see the reoccurring patterns that we repeat and follow, when we ourselves live in the midst of them.
The work with Purnavasu Nakshatra is concerned with getting insight into the roots that underlie the repetitious formations of our soul. Inner creates the outer and vise versa.

When we become aware of the repetitious installations in the cyclic geometry of our soul, then the very nature of our personal reality is brought into question. Revealing of the repetitious cycles is the first step towards liberating ourselves from them.
The cycles that we repeat, begin as a psychic imprint, that in turn become a pattern in our soul. This can further manifest itself into our feelings and then find expression in our behavior, which in turn shapes and forms reality for us.
The origins of our cyclical patterns is a deep inner study. Some of them may be picked up through ancestral codes of conduct that we have inherited through the energetic line of our heritage.
We may also unquestioningly inherit and move within cultural and societal codes and patterns. Consider if you will… if we were transplanted to a culture with a code and pattern different to what we know, we would most probably question it.
Say for example, that we were transplanted to a past era with another pattern and structure altogether. We might, and most probably would – from our present vantage point – call some of the patterns, mysoginist, oppressive, racistic, fascistic and brutally warped.
We would not even need to go back in time to step into places where such patterns are repeating themselves. The modern age offers an ample variety of places with patterns that move within the above aforementioned ‘isms’.
Cyclical Twin Energies

Purnavasu #Nakshatra’s 4 Padas, (steps) span from the constellation of Gemini into the first degrees of Cancer. The stars of Purnavasu are known as #Castor and #Pollux who are the celestial twins of Greek mythology. These two twins are worth mention here, as they present some pertinent themes of Purnavasu.

Castor and Pollux are the children of Leda. The famous story of Leda and the swan is rather well known in many circles, from ballet to feminism to renaissance art.
The Greek mysteries tell us that Castor was the mortal twin and Pollux was the immortal twin. Zeus disguised himself as a swan and mated with Leda, who in turn layed eggs from which the twins were born. The immortal Pollux was born of Zeus and the mortal Castor was conceived through the mortal union of Leda and her human husband.
And so the mortal twin Castor remained on earth, while Pollux lived with the immortals on mount olympus.
Esoterically, Pollux represents the etheric plane while Castor represents the echo upon the earth plane. We will cover this principle of echoes and exchange further and deeper in the section below, where we will consider the symbol of Purnavasu, which is the ever returning arrow.
When Castor died, he was reunited with his twin brother in the stars. A peculiar deal was struck with Zeus, that they could cyclicly exchange places between the earth and the etheric plane.
And so, in an eternal cyclical rhythm, the twins would alternate between the ethers and the earth. Each time one brother would die, they would be together for a period and shine bright together, before the other would move to the earth plane, and the ever repeating cycle of exchange would go on.
The whole theme of Purnavasu is the ever repeating cycle.
The word Purnavasu could be well translated as re-manifesting, and understood through the story of these twins.
In the following sections, we will look further and deeper into rhythm and cycles.
Dancing through Cycles of Karma

Patterns and geometry of soul may be invisible to those who live in the midst of them.
Our ancestry, education, culture, religion, generation and gender, to mention a few things, are all areas that are imbued with patterns and geometric structures, that if not unmasked, become a repeating cycle that crushes liberty and creativity of spirit.

The Tantric could be called an inter-dimensional voyager, who relinquishes the soul from the imposing reflections put upon it by the kaleidoscopic masks that cover the face of the Goddess. Shakti is power, she is the Goddess who gives birth to endless coverings.
Her coverings can become patterns and confining codes of conduct.
The Yogin aligns to the naked Mudra that strips themselves of the patterned confining coat of conduct.
The patterns and codes that shape our experience of reality are made up of psychic energy. Psychic energy might sound like a flimsy esoteric term of sky walking, but it is the causal root of reality and action.
Psychic energy patterns become convictions. Some of those convictions have spurred genocides and atrocities, upon not only human life.
Psychic energy patterns then, are nothing flimsy at all, almost invisibly, they verily define personal and collective reality.
The Yogin takes nothing for granted and explores the most established and accepted codes and patterns of so-called normalcy.

We become part of the structures that we create. Being liberated from them does not mean that we can’t, or don’t, have the option to function in them.
Not living with structures is not the same as rejecting them because we are incapable of living with them.
But rather, being liberated from structures means, that we are not constrained by them.
Not being constrained by them, would actually give us the autonomy to move in and out of them.
Not being ruled and constrained by psychic structures does not mean that one denies and rejects them, this is indeed a point to ponder.
The yogin is a magician who learns to work with psychic structures. The Yogin trains themselves to be able to put the mask of structure on to suit the situation if needed. A mask here, can be thought of as a psychic energy formation.
The Yogin tries to be careful not to be defined by the mask of structure that (s)he wears.
Masks come in many shapes and sizes, some good, some bad and some ugly or beautiful.
For the Yogic voyager, each conviction and station of being is but a mask upon the naked truth.
When we wear a mask and can no longer remove it, then we have lost the naked truth and come into the world of masks and identifies.
Tantic practice is an investigation of the masks that eclipse the naked truth.
All masks fall in time.
A mask can wear us if we are not vigilant.
We may be busy shaping the mask in the hope to wear it eternally?
Such things are part of the Tantric investigation.
The Ever Returning Arrow

The symbol of Purnavasu is the ever returning arrow, returned cyclicly and eternaly to the quiver.
This is the arrow of Raam, who is the great solar warrior and weilder of the bow and arrow. Raam is considered the greatest of all masters of the bow and arrow. His arrow represents the quality of absolute focus. Raam is the ultimate warrior of mystic and legendary status, his birth star, in point of fact, is Purnavasu.
Every arrow that Raam shot is returned to the quiver, in the eternal cycle of the laws of exchange.

What is sent out, returns back to us. What we give comes back.
An example of a pendulum obeys this law perfectly. The swing in one direction, is mirrored in the other. If we send out the energies of precise focus and intention, they are returned to us.
Contrarily, if our energies are muddled, a muddled energy returns. The law of echo and reflection is intensified on a Purnavasu Moon.
The stars give us an opportunity here to work with our deepest intention. Perhaps the one that has been wished for and forgotten, or perhaps the failed one that we gave up on, and therefore never reached fruition.

An intention of what we truly need, is brought to us by Purnavasu Nakshatra, results come under rituals of this Moon, if our focus is honed and applied.
Ritual is an act of applied focus. On this ritual night, we shall be working with intention amongst other things. Making an intention on a Purnavasu Dark Moon night is like planting a seed. A seed needs care and focused awareness to plant and bring to fruition.

The subtle energy patterns in our soul, that echo and reflect back to us cyclically and repeat themselves, can effect us personally in a variety of ways.
They may keep us in unhealthy patterns. When we find ourselves living over, and repeating a well known pattern, it may be of liberating benefit to us, to investigate and look into its foundations.
Cyclic patterns in our soul might run like clockwork, they might repeat themselves with regularity when particular phenomena come before us and entice a predictable effect from us.
For example, we might have a ‘psychic-sore-spot’ that if touched in a certain way, is certain to react in a predictable fashion. We might come to know our reactions very well and even come to fabricate our lives so as to remove them where possible.
It is of course an option to step out and away from things that cause us to react like clockwork. But there is also another option of facing the things that cause us to react with an autonomy that is not based upon the predictable pattern of repeating cycles.

When we cut something away too much, we might end up cutting part of ourselves away and reducing the motion of our spirit.
The path of the victim is chosen in fear and helplessness. A victim does not only imply a downtrodden impotent state of being. A victim might be a leader of their lives who has steered events to such an extent that their position of avoidance of their triggers, almost promises them never to be touched.
And when the trigger should appear, one would take to the strategy of avoidance and therefore turn away from their own power that comes to them in a guise they would rather not see.
This we could say is the masquerading victim. They might be at the top of their game, whatever it is, but they have no freedom of motion, for when the revealer of their pattern shows up, the clockwork predictability of their inner pattern of psychic cyclical repetition is revealed and causes them to act with avoidance strategy.
This we could call the spiritual aristocrat, it’s quite an apt description of one who protects their assets but never opens the accounts of their soul to discover a reality beyond the spiritually provincial constrains that they have invested in.

Our psychic patters my range from anything between highly destructive and self sabotaging, to functionally routine and manageable. What lays beneath and beyond the cycles of Karma is the voyage that the Tantric takes. The Tantric takes a step through the matrices of personal and collective reality, as they dance through the cycles of Karma.
When the unconscious dance becomes conscious then infinity reveals itself.
The Naked Truth
Akka Mahadevi
The cyclic nature of patterns is the insight that the Nakshatra Purnavasu brings to us.
If we have the liberty to select rhythms and patterns of being, then we are invested with a deep spiritual autonomy. But, if we are caught in patterns that define our reality then we become devoid of autonomy.
We do not here intend at all to get fatalistic and final about the patterns and structures that we carry within the psyche. These structures may be deeply intrenched in us and get are revealed cyclicly though the course of our lives. But the cyclical wheel of Karmic effect, also carries a Karmic cause, that is in fact, something not set in stone, though it may indeed be set in the ether.
The Yogin is known in Hindi as Akash Pahane, this means clad in sky, or more accurately, dressing in the ether.
Many Yogins in the classical sense, emulate the great nakedness and literally do not wear any clothing. There are several lines of Yogins in India who honour the great spiritual nakedness of Shiva by never covering themselves.
Shiva is called Digambaar, this is a deep word with many connotations, on a basic level, it means one who is sky-clad, it means naked but it’s nakedness is it’s formlessness, and having no acquaintance to, and not being limited by the structures of psychic forms.

A naked Yogini of the past was called Akka Mahadevi, and is held in heigh esteem by the Yogins.
Akka Mahadevi was a naked wandering mystic who lived in the 12th century, known for her rejection of convention and her devotional verses of mystical poetry.
An ever reoccurring cyclic symbol found through her poems is the mystical nature of Shiva who she repeatedly likened to the scent of the Jasmine flower.
Akka Mahadevi was a radical outside of the box Yogini, who rejected societal standards as illusionary coverings and mirages upon the naked truth.
In her poems she addresses all manner of mystical and emotional themes. She is often erotic in her depiction of the yogic path, and forthrightly addresses the illusions of sexual and gender stereotypes, as well as the illusionary institutions that wrap themselves around such stereotypes. Akka Mahadevi is a figure of mythological proportions, and much about her is gleaned from her poetry. She is said to have lived a simple life of yogic devotion in the mountainous wildness, befriended by Mother Nature. As we see in the picture of herbelow, her hair was said to be very long.
Her verses hint at the nakedness of truth without form. A truth that is free of structures and the cyclic forms of Karmic covering.

Here are a couple of her wondrous poems that point to the reality beyond coverings

You Can Confiscate
You can confiscate
money in hand;
can you confiscate
the body’s glory?
Or peel away every strip
you wear,
but can you peel
the Nothing, the Nakedness
that covers and veils?
To the shameless girl
wearing the White Jasmine Lord’s
light of morning,
you fool,
where’s the need for cover and bejewel?
People, Male and Female
People,
male and female,
blush when a cloth covering their shame
comes loose
When the lord of lives
lives drowned without a face
in the world, how can you be modest?
When all the world is the eye of the lord,
onlooking everywhere, what can you
cover and conceal?
The ritual nakedness and the Tantric work of stripping away patterns is ever a reminder that structures and patterns are something pliable, in that they can be altered and played with. They may live within us and we within them. But when structure gain an immovably fixed status upon the sweep and sway of the spiritual heart, then we are closed to the creative liberty of the Goddess

For the Tantric voyager, what seems fixed, can become pliable and offer previously unknown spheres of being.
Her Farthers Mother

Aditi is the great mother Goddess. She is the principle of the eternal cosmic mother.
Aditi is the mother of all the Devas and the 12 Adityas. The 12 Adityas are the Solar deities, who through the course of a year, manifest as the 12 aspects of the sun in each lunar month. The rebirth of the same essence in endlessly cyclical repetitions is expressed in Aditi. We see this most boldly expressed in the apparently boggling notion that Aditi is the mother of her own father. Her father is Daksha, who is in turn the father of the 27 star sisters who are the Nakshatras. Aditi is his mother.
This is a deep subject of meditation that reveals further and deeper the secrets of Purnavasu.
The Yogin takes time to meditate and ponder on this notion of the mother who mothers her own father. By such contemplations of inner celestial intuition, the Yogin psychically opens to the deeper secrets of Aditi
When reading these Yogic mysteries and mythologies of stars and Goddesses, it is easy to skim over them with the conscious mind. When we skim over these mystic notions, then they remain just that. Their roots then don’t bloom any deeper into inner grasp.
As such, they become easily forgotten facts of fascination.
To retain a grasp of these subjects and tap the inner reservoir of deeper meanings. Meditation upon the subject is required. This is a secret to not forgetting these things and gaining a deeper grasp of their mysteries.
Aditi is the etheric Akash element that pervades space invisibly. It is the essence at the root of things.
When we don’t retain a system of wisdom, then we are but skimming the surface with our overland consciousness.
By ground to the underground roots, we deepen and have a foundation that creates a solid tower of wisdom, that is not easily dispersed in the winds of life’s motions.
Aditi brings us the secret grasping a system, by reminding us of meditating on digesting that which we imbibe. Scoffing things down without touching the sides, is the great superficial evil of the high speed age.
Akash is the fundament. It is subtle spacious energy, yes, but it is also that which underlies gradually manifesting form, call it the causal plane if you will.

Aditi is the queen of etheric energy. Her all-pervasive element pervades all space. The Yogins refer to this as Akash. Akash is an element of extreme subtlety. Interestingly we see that the subtle element of Akash is also the element of the ruling planet of Purnavasu. We will consider this in the next section. Akash confers great sensitivity and is an impressionable all pervading essence that imbues all things. Purnavasu is indeed a time of sensitivity and realisation of them subtle realms.

Aditi has the wisdom of every Moon cycle, and is thus held in highest esteem by the Yogins. After all, she mothers the Aditya’s, who be the 12 Solar deities of the Moon cycles of the year.
Each lunar month is a season in itself. The Yogins work ritualistically through the seasons of the Moon cycles. They do this in their ritual calendar with its encoded wisdom.
For the codes to be birthed unto a living breathing tangible life, deep travel is needed, pondering, contemplation and meditation, if you will.
Otherwise we merely participate in surface maneuvers and see the Yogic stories as fantastical notions that have nothing to do with us.
In fact, they have everything to do with us, and are doorways to principles that we face in our souls journey through infinity.
A scholarly approach is not needed, but rather a deep introverting sense of pondering.
The Yogins have called this Swadhyaya, which is sometimes taken to mean to read scriptures and sacred works. The deeper meaning though, is to contemplate, meditate and ponder upon the mysteries, until the door of intuition is approached.
”All that exists outside, exists within”, is a well used Yogic axiom.
Perhaps it actually needs more use and less mention?
Aditi knows each of her ‘sons/suns’, and the Moons that they are bound to. At a later date we may consider each of the Adityas in deeper detail.

Aditi means unlimited, and unbound. She is the unbound mother of the Devas.
She has a sister that is called Diti, which means bound and limited. The ‘A’ as a prefix implies a negation. Diti is the mother of the Asuras and is in opposition the the designs of her sister Aditi.

The principle of motherhood is to be brought to focus here. The generating force that generously pervades the entire universe without bounds, also finds its reflection within us. Motherhood is an eternally creative principle that is the very power of the soul.

Aditi presents us with a conundrum of being able to grasp structures, but at the same time, not being limited and defined by them. The heart of the mother is unbound, it is beyond all structures.
Jupiterian Growth

Purnavasu Nakshatra is ruled by the Brhaspati. This is the planet Jupiter. He is the expansive planet that expands to the further most reaches of the subtle world.
The mythologies tell us that Brhaspati is the Guru of the Devas. He provides the Devic world with the subtle wisdom from beyond the frontiers of the Cosmos.
The Bamboo tree is the plant of Purnavasu Nakshatra. It is a plant of Jupiterarian expansion that is imbodied in its being the fastest growing plant on earth.
A Bamboo tree can grow several centimeters in a single an hour. It is perfectly the planetary plant of Jupiter for its far reaching and expansive nature. It is a plant that aligns to the Akash element of boundless space, we might also consider that it is hollow and carries space internally within itself too.
In India Scoffolding of Bamboo is often used, the bamboo poles are bound together with string in a special knot. Scaffolding with Bamboo can reach phenomenal heights in the seemingly Jupitarian creation of building structures.

Purnavasu as we have seen, is the Star of growth, it is ruled over by the mother of mothers, the question here becomes: What really is growth?

In the sense of Purnavasu Nakshatra, growth is a freeing of the structures that stand in the way of expansion. When no structures obscure the path of Jupiterian expansion, then the infinite reveals itself. Releasing the Karmic structures and patterns that stand before expansive growth, is a work indeed.
Star of Growth
And so, upon this Dark Moon night, we will be working with Purnavasu Nakshatra. This Moon will touched by the lunar house of expansive growth.

Purnavasu is a star of growth that can deeply expand the ritualistic work done on its night. Purnavasu can also be taken to translate as fullness of growth.
Purnavasu gives blessing and assistance to bring the seedling of intention to fruition. The planted seed can sprout if nurtured onwards into the waxing Moon cycle that is soon upon us. A ritual continues in power, if it is honoured and allowed to unfold with careful nurture.

Purnavasu Nakshatra, as we have seen, is very much the star of growth. It is the star that teaches us to look into that which stands in the way of creative growth.

This star brings to the fore, the patterns that keep us in cyclical reality. The energy invested in a cycle can be worked with and liberated towards the endless exploration of infinity. This is the vision of this Stars potential. This is a guiding vision of the Tantric Yogins.

The Dark Moon is the peak of the introverting of the lunarly sway.
The Dark Moon is the deepest point of the waters ebb, just before a cycle of growth commences.
Purnavasu Nakshatra occuring on a Dark Moon, is a time of expanding inwards, and introverting the spirit to look upon the structures and edifices of our psychic inner world.
The waxing lunar growth thereafter, can then commence from a point of inner potency and realisation.
Magical work done upon the Dark Moon is carried into growth upon the waxing cycle.

Since time immemorial, Tantrics have honoured the magical lunar cycles of ebb and flow. The Dark Moon reveals the dark underground roots and depths. By looking into the roots, we address the fruit.

The Dark Moon of Purnavasu, does not highlight or strengthen our Karmic patterns as it would if it were on a Full Moon.
A Dark Moon of Purnavasu is a time when we are presented with an opportunity to step into the deep unconscious origins of our patterns.

The first Dark Moon of the darkening years half, puts us at the edge of the deep well of the unconscious world. The Dark Moon lunar vortex pulls the most unconscious energies from us.
This is a good time to reflect and be aware of what is really going on within us, and reflect upon the tapestries of reality that we a weaving and re-weaving…

Tantric ritual is built upon subtle formulae that work with the energies of the Moon and stars… in their perpetual motion.

The ritual work on a Dark Moon night in the Nakshatra of Purnavasu is very much concerned with the study of our automatic reactions and the cyclical Karmic realities that we revolve and live within. And further and deeper than that, it is concerned with liberation from the codes and structures that confine the sacred heart
https://healinginthewillows.com/purnavasu-nakshatra/

#Rudra is the teacher who teaches us
to contain, and to spiritually empower ourselves
with the Primal rage of existence.

#Ardra #Nakshatra is the lunar house of the raging god Rudra.

Destruction and Re-creation are both themes of Ardra.

This #Star is connected deeply to the #water element, #Green is the colour of Ardra, we can take this green colour to mean the growth that ensues after the moisture fertilizes the soil of the #soul.

It is the star #Betelgeuse in the shoulder of the hunter, in the constellation of #Orion.

This is the celestial warrior Orion, whose name is most probably derives from the Greek word Arion which means hunter.

Ardra actually means #moist. The symbol of this star is a #teardrop, a teardrop of emotion and the rains of life.

The lessons of this star is given by considering how the rains bring growth and life, while also considering how the rains can also flood and ravage.

Ardra also contains the word Rudra and is also simply called Rudra Nakshatra.

The rain of Ardra is a furious thunderous storm and not a sprinkling twinkling shower. The water of Rudra is not a sweet refreshing freshwater stream in the height of summer, but rather it is a tempest of crashing screaming waves in the bone splitting coldest and darkest corner of the ocean.

The Primal Scream

Rudra arrived in the world howling and roaring like comic thunder.

Rudra in fact, means the howling screamer. He was born androgynous, purple and wild.

Creativity takes destruction and combustion to ensue, like a cloud that opens its waters for the sake of growth and nourishment. Creation takes death and transition. Death is implicit in every act of creation. Rudra is that death.

Rudra is Shiva in his primal aspect. Rudra is the furiously red lord of Tantra who becomes the cool blue Shiva, after immersing himself in Yogic practices.

Shiva is the mastery of the raging Rudra energy. Shiva contains the root Shva, which implies death, calmness and stillness. Rudra brings the death of rebirth. Rudra is the transitional maneuver twixt the poles of tension and suspension. Rudra takes us from one state to another.

That becoming Shiva, is representative of the transition between storm and calm. Rudra to Shiva is the path of integration of the stormy forces of the heart.

Rudra is the teacher who teaches us to contain, and to spiritually empower ourselves with the Primal rage of existence.

When the storms of the heart are brought forth. Rudra can and does shift back from his Shiva state and unto his raging Rudra state of wild and destructive force.

We will now look at some stories that highlight this transition between Rudra and Shiva.

The Birth of Rudra

The stories tell us how the desire of the creator to populate creation gave birth to Rudra. This will be a simplification a longer more detailed tale, but we will bring out the most poignant points.
At first the creator had a desire to populate the creation. And so some children were birthed. But the children were so calm and detached, that they had any desire to do anything of the sort and refused to populate the creation. Instead, they wanted fly the starry sky in meditation of the great mysteries.
These were the 4 Kumar brothers who are perpetually young little boys, they never reach puberty and fly around the skies naked. They were not interested in the least about the creation, but rather just wanted to be left alone, so that they could meditate of the mysteries of the great beyond.
The creator became furious that these children defied his will. The creators anger built up in his third eye Chakra. A frown knotted his brow and built up to such an extreme, that it erupted as a storm. And so Rudra was born of the rage and frustration of the creators third eye Chakra.
Rudra was born bright purple, it’s significant that Rudra is a mix of opposites. He contains both male and female and the colours red and blue.
Rudra roared and screamed so forcefully that his rage threatened to erode and crumble creation. His rage was so destructive that it had the potential to create.

Rudra then exploded into half. He became Rudra and Rudrani the red. They further exploded into 11 furious forms and continued to populate creation.
Rudrani is the female half of Rudra. Rudrani finds her expression in her various incarnations of the Urga (fearsome) Devi’s (Goddesses). The fearsome goddesses such as Nrritti and Matangi are two such manifestations of Rudrani.
The male Rudra also has his incarnations, Hanuman and the serpent Ajaikapad, for example, are two of the manifestations of Rudra.

The Rudric forms that started to populate the creation were at the same time destroying it.
The creator told Rudra that there is a way to manage this destruction if he would do Yogic practices and Rudra was very interested in the proposal.. And so the creator taught Rudra the Yogic art and science of yore.
Rudra went far into the wilderness and mountains and there spent aeons mastering Tantric Yogic wisdom.
Rudra developed the Yogic wisdom to levels far beyond what even the creator had taught him or ever even conceived of. Rudra broke on through to the other side, far beyond the known borders of creation. That is his secret magic trick that he brings to us. Rudra destroys the known order, in order to create something yet unknown.

Rudra is the ultimate Yogi who works with the forces of destruction.
When Rudra came down from the mountain, he was Shiva.
He had worked with the malefic destructive force and appeared as the ultimate benefic mellow Yogi that is Shiva. Now the creation had another face and destructive force could be balanced.

Consider some of the key points of this story in the list below and meditate upon the symbol of Rudra going up the mountain and coming down as Shiva. What connotation could the upward and downward maneuver imply.

The calm firstborn children 4 Kumaras who had no desire for to populate creation.
The androgynous Rudra splitting into the male Rudra and the female Rudrani.
Rudra, going up the mountain to work in solitude with his anger.
Coming down the mountain as the calm Shiva.

The Outcast

Rudra is an out cast, he doesn’t see within the known bounds, this is the power that his star brings to us. The time-honoured conservative, along with his precious structures, is torn to bloody shreds by the bare hands that gleam in the starlight of Ardra Nakshatra. These be the Hands of Rudra.

The story of Rudra and Sati is a central Tantric tale that tells that the princess Sati was in love with the wild Rudra who lived in the wilderness. Sati was determined to unite with Rudra. This destiny of hers caused great storms with her father Daksha who was a highly honoured master of ritual and magical creation of forms. He was a royal king of high prestige, possess of profound pride stubbornness and arrogance.

Daksha was the ultimate patriarch who was concerned with royal appearance, dominance and prestige. Rudra on the other hand couldn’t care less for outer appearances, he was too far-sighted beyond the surface of the appearances of things. Rudra saw into the depth into a place where there was no form to cover the naked essence. Rudra is verily that deep essence. He has no need for anything because he has everything in his vision that sees the indivisible pure essence behind all forms.

Sati is the link between wilderness and propriety. She is the one who stands between the worlds of wilderness and propriety as we will see.
Sati had a hard time getting Shiva’s interest, as he was often deep in trances of visiting the realms of pure energy behind the surface of appearances. Locked in Samadhi, (meditational absorption) Shiva would sit on the earth but hardly be interacting with any of its endless infinity of forms. Sati did prevail in her wish to be with Shiva, and she joined him in the ways of the wilderness. They both stood far outside and beyond civilisation, Rudra initiated Sati ever deeper into the ways of nature. Rudra didn’t dress or wash or even comb their hair. His friends were the earth bond spirits and ghouls. Shiva indulged in ecstatic trance and kept warm by the fires of the funeral pyres where he would befriend the lost and wandering ghosts.
Sati was of high class aristocratic stock, but she found more jewels wealth in her time with Rudra. Sitting in Yogic wonder beneath the dark star-sprinkled night, Sati found real royalty.
But Sati wanted to do things properly and formally, and so she told her father Daksha that she would get married to Rudra.
Her opulent honourable father hated Rudra to the core. In Rudra, he saw his very opposite. To him, Rudra was a filthy outcast who didn’t know the appropriate way to behave in proper society. Sati’s father Daksha, time and again brutally opposed the marriage. This is an important point in the story that points to Sati’s role as the bridge between two worlds of the wilderness of Rudra and the aristocratic propriety of her father Daksha.
Sati prevailed and she brought Rudra Home. Of course, within moments, Rudra caused outrage and scandal.
In the royal court, Rudra was quite a sight to behold, naked with matted hair, accompanied by hoards of ghoul and ghost.
When Daksha entered his own royal court, everyone stood to acknowledge him as was the custom for such an esteemed dignitary as he. Everyone that is, except Rudra.
Insults and outrage ensued and Rudra stayed self-contained and walked away.
At this point Rudra had already been doing the sacred Yogic practices for aeons.

Hearts will Burn

Time passed magically in the wilderness for the two lovers, when one day Sati wanted to go and see her family, she had developed a profound disgust and hatred for her father. She had been the youngest favorite daughter but bitterness had ensued since her willfulness to go and live with Rudra the wild one.
Rudra tried to stop her from going as he knew what would happen, but of course the forcefully willed Sati went ahead anyway.
In the royal palace, argument ensued between Sati and her father.
Rage shook Sati as insults were hurled between her and her father. Sati shouted out at her father that all would witness how his arrogance, hate and pride will disgrace him, and that he shall forever-after be known as the epitome of patriarchal ignorance that resulted in his daughters death.
And so Sati sat down and prepared to say the Mantra which would cause her to combust into flames. Some variants of the story said she jumped into the sacred sacrificial Yanja fire. A Yajna is a ritual fire to which sacrificial offerings are given.
Sati burned to death right in front of everyone in the palace.

The shame and guilt of his youngest daughters death was on Daksha. But he was soon to meet a foe far worse than any of this.
The ghosts of Rudra informed Rudra what had happened, and his wrathful side was evoked. Rudra tore at his Jutta (locks of matted hair) and threw them on the ground in rage, from one of the Jatta appeared the giant Bhadravira, the potent force of Rudras rage, Rudra as Bhadravira charged the galaxies like a raging storm that went tearing its way through creation.
Meanwhile, in the royal palace, insults were hurled between ghost and saint. The storm clouds rumbled through creation and the royal assembly felt the terror in the pit of their bowels. When Bhadravira arrived in his raging form of Bhadravira, the full force of his primal screaming rage set lose, eyes were squeezed out of heads, wise old beards were yanked clean off the face, most probably with half the flesh of the face.
Pushan the milk drinking god had his teeth smashed out.
(Note that Pushan is the god of Revati Nakshatra, you may review the text here.)
http://healinginthewillows.com/revati-nakshatra

Heads will Roll

Before going further with the story, let us consider the ruling planet of Ardra Nakshatra, which is Rahu. Rahu is the headless North lunar node as pictured above. He is considered as one of the Navagrah, (9 planets of the Yogins) Rahu moves out and forward and is ever consuming hungrily what ever he can. He represents the future and also the results of ones past actions. It is interesting to look at how the head symbolism plays out very strongly in Ardra Nakshatra. This will be our next line of study. But first a little more on Rahu. Though Rahu is often described as being male, he is also said to carry the energy of the ultra destructive feminine.
The destructive Goddess Nirrti carries a Rahu energy, she is the Goddess of Mula Nakshatra, she is a Rudrani.
You may review the text on that which was sent in the newsletter on the 24th of June 2021. (Please request it if you have not got it and wish to read it.)
Nirrti’s Nakshatra is ruled by Ketu which is the South lunar node, she is a destructive goddess who moves between the past and the future, she is Rahu personified yet works with the root and uprooting. Her Nakshatra Mula literally translates at the Root star.
Ketu represents the roots of the past, all things ancestral and of heritage.

Rahu are the ultimate Asuras, they were once one being that became divided.

It’s interesting also that Rahu is the planet that causes the eclipse of the sun by literally gobbling it down. Interesting because Daksha was the great solar patriarch who worked with fire in his rituals. He was a master at manipulating fire for magical purposes.
The name Daksha can also be taken to mean the great skillful manipulator.
We could say that the Rudra force of Ardra Nakshatra backed by Rahu, came and gave Daksha the result of his past actions of disregarding and insulting his daughters feelings and harboring hatred for Rudra, not to mention the rebound echo of beheading so many animals for the magical rituals in which he was engaged.
Daksha lost his head quite literally in the Story.

The Daksha aspect of Rahu is represented in the hunger and want of Rahu. Daksha is ever on the quest for more power and prestige. He is like the Rahu head without body, ever consuming and yet is never satisfied. The Rudra aspect of Rahu is the eclipsing of the fire and shading things into obliteration. Daksha along with his dear Yajna fire was obliterated. Sati as Rudrani combusted to a charred body without its previous glow.
This is what Rahu does, he is a planet that works on different octaves of eclipsing.
The story shows these different octaves of Rahu force in the form of Daksha, Rudra and Sati.

And so finally, for the grand finale, the head of Daksha was wretched screaming from his body and the headless patriarch was born. Some accounts tell that Rudra wielded the Moon sword known as Chandrahas, and decapitated the head from the body of Daksha.

Daksha was a master of ritual and was given to the sacrifice of animals for magical gain. There is such a branch of magic still in existence where the etheric force of sacrificed animals is gathered and put towards the fulfillment of the desired ends. Though it is a powerful form of magic, it carries rather costly Karmic consequences.
There are some parts of India where even orthodox priests still adhere to this practice to fulfill requests. Religion is a big business in India, one can pay for such rituals. Obviously there are other rituals that do not involve animal sacrifice. There are many types of practitioners that come under the title of a Tantric . Some are doing rituals for others, those in the line of teachers of the techniques are more on the side of teaching others how to do their own rituals. Some Tantrics believe they find loopholes to get out of the Karmic repercussions of actions like animal sacrifice.
Some of the branches of Tantra deal with healing and study of the soul, but not all branches do. Some of the modern Western branches of Tantra deal with drinking strong chocolate and masturbating their clients on a massage table while New-Age music plays peacefully in the background. The spectrum of what is considered Tantra is indeed broad.
Dasksha was of the side that indulged in ritual for material gain. He was a powerful manifester. His name in fact means he who is highly adept. Daksha is a Prajapati, which means he is one of the progenitors of creation. He it was who gave birth to the 27 sisters who are the Nakshatra’s. He was arrogant, haughty and proud. To him, beauty form and manners were paramount.
Daksha is the energy that cares for what people think.
Daksha is the energy that cares for facade and appearance.
Because of this love of external form and obsession with order and cleanliness, Daksha dispised the wild natural Rudra who lived outside the principles of convention.

It was the Daksha Yajna story that really highlights the meeting of the two worlds of raw natural impulse and exterior edifices of propriety.
The Yajna had invited everyone apart from Sati and Rudra. But Sati had gone anyway and as we have seen, met her end.
The story is very detailed and has many subtle meanings woven into its narrative, right down to the directions where the many events happen are poignant and give teaching of the qualities and powers of the directions.
We are here dealing with the main points.
One such detail of note, is that the Bhadravira form of Rudra could not kill Daksha so easily.
Daksha was protected by the rituals he had been conducting for aeons in his own place of power.
Rudra’s form of Bhadravira saw that there was one place where Daksha was not protected, and so he dragged the pitifully screaming Daksha to the place where he had been sacrificing animals. He placed Daksha on the sacrificial altar and…
Off with his head!

Off with his head!
Oh! but there are a few other heads that come off in the story of Rudra, there are several stories and variants of heads being withdrawn from their bodies when we look at Rudra. Note again the Rahu connection. Rahu also once had a body before his head sliced from it . He was once an Asura who drank the elixir of immortality. Vishnu steppers in and cut the head with his spinning Chakra weapon. The head and body were hurled into the celestial expanse, where the head became Rahu at the north of the Moon, and the Body became Ketu at the south of the Moon, forever they became immortalised at the cosmic shadows upon Moon and sun.

Let’s look at another head of interest that was dispensed from its body. The sacrifices of Daksha are known as Yajna. And Yajna is also the name given to the one who does the sacrificing himself.

Yajna saw the storming Rudra charge the palace in his Bhadravira form. Yajna trembled in fear and knew he had to escape. Transforming into a Deer, he leapt from the palace, but with the force of a steaming thunderbolt, the giant Bhadravira grabbed the head, yanking it clean from the body, he threw it into the starry firmament. That head became the Nakshatra of the Deer head. Known as Mrgasirsa Nakshatra. This Deer star is beside Ardra Nakshatra.

Mrgasirsa literally means Deer headed lunar house.

To review the writing of Mrgasirsa, you may refer to the text on the website with this link.

http://healinginthewillows.com/mrgasirsa

The events of this particular part of the tale occur in the Nakshatra of Ardra. This story gives us an insight into what the energy of Ardra Nakshatra represents.

A Time to Cry
On with the story!

After a sufficient amount of bodies were made headless. Rudra picked up the dead burned body of his beloved Sati and proceeded to freak out in primal rage and trample his way all over creation.

His tears do water the land. Rudraksh means the tears of Rudra. Rudraksh is a sacred seed that is carries a potent force, Yogins recognise many types of Rudraksh, the seeds have segments which are called Mukhi (face) each different number of faces on a Rudraksh gives it a particular quality and so different types of Rudraksh have different effects. This is a wisdom kept by Yogins. It’s a very detailed subject that assigns different types of Rudraksh seeds to different planetary forces and deities. Sometimes medicines are prepared from the beads in the Siddha secret medicine of the Yogins. There are many stories both written and unwritten that tell of how the sacred Rudraksha came to earth and it’s significance for Yogins. Let us consider one such story here.
The Tantric wears a bead necklace of 108 beads to represent the 108 tears that Rudra cried as he howeled his way through creation in utter distress, carrying the burned rotting body of his only love Sati.
Each time a part of the dead body of Sati fell off, Rudra wept a tear as she faded further from him.
Where his tears fell with the body part of Sati, that place became one of the 108 Shakti Peeths. The Shakti Peeths are places of magnetic power of the temples of the Goddess in her different aspects. Each Shakti Peeth carries a different power. For example, where the Yoni and the Womb of Sati fell, that place became the Shakti Peeth of Kamakhya Devi. Kamakhya Devi is the Goddess of menstruation and desire.
Kamakhya’s Shakti Peeth is located in Assam.
In some of the lines of Tantra, the wandering Tantrics wander the land in the footsteps of Shiva, and give honour to the Shakti Peeths.
For example, on the Moon of Bharani Nakshatra. Some Tantrics travel to the Kamakhya temple in Assam for connection to the mysteries of the Goddess. Shakti Peeths are astrologically aligned to the Nakshatra’s and transport their teachings.
Bharani Nakshatra is the lunar house of the celestial Yoni.
You may review the text on Bharani here.
http://healinginthewillows.com/bharani-nakshatra

Water and Fire

Rudra is the storm god of water, we have seen how his Nakshatra is symbolised by a teardrop. The word Ardra means moist.
But Rudra also symbolises fire. The story of Rudra shows how he came in a storm to the royal Yajna of Daksha and took the still burning body of Sati away with him. There are some accounts that say that his houses and ghoul companions had pissed of the sacrificial Yajna fire and created noxious gasses that caused abject suffering for those who breathed them in.
This contention between Fire and water is very poignant to Rudra.
When a Nakshatra spans two signs between water and fire, then that junction becomes what is an own as a Gandanta point. It is a place of steam. Steam is rain, this is the steaming moisture of Rudra. A Gandanta point carries Karmic lessons and is a place of learning though the art and style of Rudra, often with tears and fire.
The whole movement of a Rudra storming into the fire ceremony of Dasha’s Yajna, is a portrayal of the Gandanta point. Rudra verily is the Gandanta point. He came in a storm and left with fire in the form of Sati’s still burning body.
It is known that Rudra lives in the cremation grounds where he warms from the funeral fires and befriends wandering ghosts. Rudra wears the ash of the funeral pyre, this is a custom that some Yogins still follow. Ash is the place where fire and water meet.
Let us look further into the implications of the fire and water that Rudra represents.

Rudra has two other Nakshatra’s that further point to the principle of him ruling the Gandanta points.
The 2 Bhadrapada Nakshatra’s of Purva (origin) and Ashadha (maturity) are the two Nakshatra’s of Rudra that are ruled by him in his form as the incarnations of the celestial serpents of fire and water.
The first serpent form of Rudra is called Ajaikapad who the fire serpent and ruling deity of Purva Bhadrapada. The second serpent form of Rudra is called Ahirbudhyana who is the water serpent and ruling deity of Uttara Bhadrapada. They are two aspects of Rudra, and are both the fiery and watery incarnations of Rudra.
In the human body the Gandanta points are called the Granthi’s. These are the psycho/physical knots where Karma is tied up. Rudra is the one who releases the Knot, He offers 11 incarnations, which are the teachings of releasing Gandanta. The Ritual work with Rudra of Saturday’s dark Moon will further develop towards the home meditation of working with the 11 faces of the Primal Rudra.
The primal Rudra is the primal rage.

https://healinginthewillows.com/ardra-nakshatra/

Rudra and the Patriarch
This nights half descending Moon ritual
will be in lunar house of #ArdraNakshatra.
Also Known simply as Rudra Nakshatra.
This is the lunar house of raging
storming god of destruction.
The destruction we are talking of
when we address Rudra,
is not mere revolutionary reactionism,
but rather the force of full-on potent dissolution.

We can help each other by listening to each other.

Dear friends of the healing power,

We are now in the Pakasha (two week phase) of the father. This is the time of ritual Yogic healing of the patrilineal thread of ancestry.

Since time immemorial, this annual Lunar junction has been kept by Yogic culture to undertake the ritual work of healing the spirits and energies of the patrilineal thread of ancestry.

Patriarchy has become a tainted word
that is synonymous with
oppression and inequality.

Consider these questions if you will:

What is the the most dignified potential of the Patriarch?
What is the dubious deviation of the Patriarch?
Pondering such questions, obviously brings us to assess and consider the how and why of dignity and deviation.

What is the foundation of dignity?
What is the foundation of undignified deviation from the sacred heart?

The Wounds of the Patriach

The wounds of the Patriarch can cause more wounds to those who would oppose him.

The wounded Patriach is the sick King who rules perversely and spreads septic spiritual infections to those he oppresses.

The seat of the Patriarch has the potential to care.
His seat has the potential to fortify the
sacred heart of those in his domain.

An even brief glimpse as the that misdeeds of the Patriarch along the line of history will show the kind of disruption he leaves in his wake.

Consider just a few of the regimes of the last century. We also see what is in plain sight in the present, if we but look at the shadow cast by the hand without integrity.

The Patriarch cares not for integrity and,
by his own hand, loses everything,
all the while thinking he’s filling his sack with gold.

Water, Milk & Blood

There is a Tantric saying that is often attributed to the legendary Tantic Yogi known as Goraknath.

If you ask you get water
If you don’t ask, you get nourishing mothers milk.
If you take, you get blood

Water sustains, Milk nourishes but Blood is hard to digest and condemns one to a state of the living dead.

When no more blood is available to take, then the hand of the sick Patriarch withers in plain view.

Now think about these 3 energies of Water, Milk and Blood in terms of the 3 Gunas.

Gunas are the principles of nature.

Very simply put, we could say that to plant the tree and harvest the fruit takes action. Climbing a tall tree can be quite a feat.

Nourishing oneself from luscious fruit, balances us and connects us to earth, and then at the end of the day we shit the fruit out.

The tree once fresh and fruity dries up and goes barren in the winter.

Constipation is one of the deadly sicknesses of mind body heart and spirit.

The Patriarch is basically a constipated killer of the helpless, that he binds to himself through his sick power.

Blood Milk and Water
by the legendary artist Ciel Bergman
Here are listed the 3 qualities that are know as the Gunas.

Rajas – Action, life and birth.

Satva – Balance, joinery and nourishment.

Tamas – Tiredness, withering and decay

How can the patriarch be brought to a seat of dignified and noble power that expresses its force with compassion, humanity and integrity?

Excuse the expression please, but The Patriarch is well and truly fucked, and as a result of that, he is a fucker of the wound of fuckery that he tears out for himself.

He heaves his bloated bundle of fuckery up a hill made of the bones of those he oppresses.

Rudra Mudra
Potent Action of Heart

Rudra is the god of Rage who is infamous for his beheadings of the Patriarch!

The Tantric tales of the oral tradition are to be found scattered throughout the Yogic scriptures in written form

These are not mere stories to entertain, but rather, they are teaching guides about the intricacies of energy dynamics.

There exist several variants, but the stories tell of Rudra who is the king of rage, beheading his own father, and also his father in Law, and most probably a few others.

#Rudra inhabits his #Star #constellation of #Ardra #Nakshatra in the celestial sphere of #Orion.

When we ritualistically work with his Star, we work with rage and the themes of the father and child relation. This action is known as Rudra Mudra to the Tantrics.

This nights half descending Moon ritual will be in his lunar house of Ardra Nakshatra. Also Known simply as Rudra Nakshatra. This is the lunar house of raging storming destruction.

The destruction we are talking of when we address Rudra, is not mere revolutionary reactionism, but rather the force of full-on potent dissolution.

Rudra is the hunter of the Head of Patriarchy

Right next door to Ardra Nakshatra we have Mrigishira, which is the Star of the Deer head. Mrigishira is the star of the all-father creator god Brahma.

Another name for Brahma the creator is Mrigayu and this means a hunter and exploiter of the timid… the sick Patriarch in other words.

Now why is the gentle humble and timid star of the deer, the dwelling place of the exploiting hunting Patriarch?

The creator god Brahma, is well known for sexually hunting his daughter, hence the name Mrigayu?

The word Ardra literally implies ‘storm of tears’.

Rudra cleanly beheads the farther creator who oppresses and acts outside of the laws of integrity.

The story tells us of another sick patriarch named Daksha.

This Patriarch was known for executing ritualistic violence against animals, and also for his hatred against femininity and Women. So much so, that he caused his own daughter to combust because of his ridged narrow-hearted heartlessness.

She had warned him, but he persisted until her death.

The Patriarch is the destroyer of Love
and in the end, loses everything precious,
including his worthless head.

One chop is all it took for Rudra to separate head from body.

The Patriarch saw the raging storm of Rudra come screaming from afar, and assumed the form of a deer fled in terror.

Rudra means the screamer incidentally. And he made the sick Patriarch scream as head was shaved from off body.

Though the Patriarch was the pinnacle of prestigious pomp and a comander of the honour of his subjects, Rudra saw right through the facade, and like a head-hunting cascade of fury, he gruesomely decapitated the groveling governor.

Rudra is the vision to see
beyond the outer surface.

Rudra is the natural vision that sees the spirits of undignified Patriarchy that can infest the sacred heart.

Rudra sees the ghost and has a vision that sees way past the mannerisms and affectations of the host.

As the Patriach fled in fear from Rudra in the form of a deer.

Rudra got the head off the bloated body and tossed it into the celestial firmament, where it became the lunar house of Mrigishira, literally the Deer head star.

The Yogic teaching stories often tell of the Patriarchal grandfathers of creation and their misdeeds, such as we have seen in the above story.

The creator god Brahma attempting to sexually molest his own daughter is another tale that tells of a resultant head loss at the hand of Rudra.

For that stunt, Brahma lost one of his 5 heads. It was the one that looked up, and was connected to the subtle 5th element of Akash.

This story hides a code:

When we step into the seat of the sick Patriarch and use our power over those that we can oppress, then we sever the connection of the Crown Chakra.

Some variants tell of the body of the patriarch
getting a replacement goats head.
The Patriarch commits a whole hoard of atrocities against the feminine.

Womankind are hated by him. In fact, it could be said that the atrocities of the Patriarch are against the sacred heart.

He comes in many forms and lives in our midst, and perhaps even within us.

We have seen him portrayed in the tales above. We have read of how he indulges in everything from power driven animal sacrifice, to abuse and control.

Before we think that these atrocities are merely the stuff of stories, let us consider the rape, and pillaging of the Patriachal institutions.

Let us also consider the lingering astral tentacles of Patriarchy that we may carry even within our breast… the ones that strangle the sacred heart.

The story of one woman going up in flames in some old Indian scripture is no fantastical tale. It has been magnified in relatively recent times of mass-woman-burning by the hand of Patriarchal spirituality… These are real stories that pass the scent of burning flesh and boiling blood right under our noses.

Ruhu and Ketu
Be head or be body? Topless or Bottomless?

Beheading is symbolic of Rahu and Ketu.

Ponder on and review recent investigations into the North and South Moon axis to go further in to the subtleties of this story if you will.

We uncover the codes inherent in the teaching stories through meditation upon them.

Through meditation we open doors within.

Merely reading and scoffing down and consuming a few starry tales without them touching the sides of awareness, is for example to be in the spell of Rahu.

The spell of Rahu leads to decay. Everything simply passes through the bodiless, consuming, yapping head of Rahu

#Rahu is a big force in this realm called earth where we live.

Rahu is the consumer with nothing to give but empty promises.

Rahu is fast food and also eating fast.

Just by eating and moving slowly,
we delve into the secrets of Rahu and Ketu.
This is a deep Yog to folow and is worth doing
for the sake of the sacred heart
The Tantrics say: Yog Karoo.
It means: Do the Yog

In this Ritual, we will set the Head-Master in a place of dignity.

Those who wish to work with, and heal the father and child relationship are welcomed.

Those interested in healing the energies of the unresolved spirits of ancestral transference, inference and influence, are welcomed to this nights ritual.

Energies of the ancestors live as imprints that are passed down the line if left unresolved.

https://healinginthewillows.com/rudra-and-the-patriarch/

The #Deer #Star of #Seeking
Tomorrow night’s Matangi’s Jayanti, the day and night during which Tantrics honour the Mahavidya Goddess Matangi, will happen under the auspices of the #Mrgasirsa #Nakshatra (lunar house). Mrgasirsa translates as the head of the deer and is symbolised by a Deer searching and scouring the land for nourishment.

It is formed of a cluster of 4 stars in the constellation of Orion, the brightest star of this Nakshatra is Bellatrix. These stars form the shape of a Deer head.

This #Mangala ( #Mars) Ruled Nakshatra traverses both Taurus and Gemini. Mangala being the ruling planet of this Nakshatra, gives the force to search and quest. This is the quality of enthusiasm that is the fountain of youth, ever seeking and searching to know and to find.

Right Under the Nose
Uniting Opposites
The desire to unite disparate parts is the wanderlust of the Tantric voyager. Opposite poles mysteriously magnetize and attract each other, while simultaneously also having the force of repelling or de-magnetizing each other.

We find that all the Mars ruled Nakshatra’s are possessed of the adventurous spirit. We see that all the Mars ruled Nakshatra’s sit between two zodiac constellations, they are half in one sign and half in another, giving them the quality that inspires the quest of searching to unify opposites.

In the case of Mrgasirsa the bridge is between Vrishabha (Taurus) and Mithuna (Gemini). Taurus is an earthly sign of heart that is ruled by Venus. It is concerned with the immediate earthly sensorial territory.

Gemini is Mercurial etheric sign of the metaphysical mind. It is concerned with travel and movement in the metaphysical spheres. We can see these opposites at play clearly in Mrgasirsa, we could call it the joinery between the head and the heart.

When the head and the heart move in harmony with each other, then we have a great level of practical wisdom. When they are out of sync with each other, then we have abstractive irrelevance in the earthly sense and overly emotional indulgence in matters of the heart.

The Deer is a most practical creature of heart, infact it is the animal that symbolizes the Heart-Chakta for Tantrics. The Deer possess the eyes of a lover and has the swift movements of the air ruled Heart-Chakra.

When we look at pictures of the Nebula of Orion, we very interestingly even see that it presents a heart shaped form to us.

The Deer beautifully brings the qualities of the heart and the head together. It is a measured creature that is in touch with the mysteries inherent in its environment. It is not a chancer that that looks for wonderment far afield, but rather discovers the delights that are right under its nose.

The Deer is known famously for having the musk gland. This gland produces a substance that has been widely prized in perfumery. The gland contains pheromones that strongly attract and affect the heart of those who catch the scent. It is a scent that Deers attract mates by.

All creatures have such glands that incite and allure. The musk of the deer has been recognised as exerting a particularly powerful impact upon the heart. This has made of it a much sought after commodity. The paradox is that the harvesting of this gland might be anything but heart-full in the exploitation of the Deer.

The Deity of Mrgasirsa is #Soma, Soma is the lunarly Elixir of life. Soma is the fountain of eternal youth and steady energy.

When Soma flows smoothly, the energy and the emotions are rhythmic and regular. Soma does not blow hot and cold, nor does it have drops and dips between energy and depletion. Soma is not a quality of excitement and restless stimulation, it is rather a smooth creamy continuity that brings life.

When Soma flows, then Prana (breath power) Tejas (psychic fire) and Ojas (watery essence) is abundant. Soma is the Elixir that the Yogins are careful to preserve. Without Soma, the waters of life run dry.

The Deer is a reminder of the cultivation and preservation of Soma. It is a creature that measures its capacities and knows its capabilities well. It is familiar with what its environment brings and has to offer. It equally knows dry well, what it’s environment does not have to offer. The deer is a teacher of the sacred heart that is practical to that which is right under its nose. It does not waste its essence in far off pursuits, but brings the vision of magic to the pursuit right under its nose.

On the path of the Deer, we are asked to measure our resources.

To go beyond what our resources actually are, is not the path of devotion, it is rather the opposite path that goes against the sacred heart.

On the path of the Deer, we are asked to look closely at the promises and searchings of chasing rainbows to the detriment of our Soma life fluid.

On the Path of the Deer, we are asked to look at, make use of and appreciate the particular shade of the green of our grass.

Way of the Deer
This Deer-driven star of Soma, shines the energy of searching and seeking. The spirit of the quest, and the wonderlust towards innocent discovery is reflected in the eyes of the Deer.

The wonderlust of ever looking, searching and being on the eternal quest for the magical Elixir, may far outdo the need to find and obtain the certain treasure when seen through the vision of a Deer.

The vision that looks deep into that which is below the nose, is the path of efficiency, functionality and appreciation.

If the vision of ever looking into the wonders that are hidden in our midst is not with us, then all love, appreciation and gratitude are thrown out of the window.

The Deer vision is the wonderment and devotion in each and every little thing that is in our path. The deer spirit, is the spirit that is attuned to catch the voice of the flowers and the scent of the Moon.

Mrgasirsa is made of two words, Mrga implies Deer and other related species, such as antelope and gazelle, and Sirsa, which implies the head.

This points towards the power of this star to shine down upon our highest point ‘the head’, and turn us towards the search of deep mysteries.

The symbol of this star is the inclined head of the focused deer, sniffing out it’s path. The ritual journey taken under this star is one of inclining our head to look into the basis nourishment of our spirit.

This concerns things that are very close at hand, so close as to be right under our nose. The deer is an animal that is a wanderer within its familiar territory. It is a very practical creature that is in deep contact with its immediate surroundings. It could be said that the Deer is the seeker of adventure in the familiar.

This quality of knowing, studying and appreciating it’s territory, makes the Deer incredibly adaptable to new conditions, perhaps like no other creature.

Sometimes we might live in a cycle of achieving things. We naturally may have to strive under a schedule of duties and fulfilling tasks. When things become monotonous, we might see it as an indication of a needed change. The change that the Deer eyed vision of Mrgasirsa brings to us, is a change of our vision, to deepen our focus into the magic that is around us and learn to look for the unfamiliar in the very midst of the familiar.

The wonder that is brought to us by the Deer-eyed gaze of this star is to keep the journey of-the-sparkling, ever with us.

When we aim for a distant star, we risk losing the closer scent of the magical things around us. By slowing down the frequency of our sniff, the scents of magic that are right-up-close to us come under our nose.

This star brings us to question things such as excessive movement, striving and speed.

The Search For What is There
Searching is a word that is redefined by this Star. The search for the magical Deer-eyed vision is what is implied by the wisdom of this Star.

A search that goes pushing and rushing along in pursuit of the treasure, blindly misses daisy secrets that only the Deer-eye catches.

It might one day arrive at the treasure, only to find a mirror that reflects back the dried up loss of power that such a blind journey created.

The vision of the Deer is one that catches the sparkles along its way. The Deer vision gathers the treasure in its very gaze. Learning the secrets of the Deer is the path of learning to honour the Deer-eyed-gaze.

The way back to the magical gaze of the Deer, might be an arduous path. A path where we come to question our internal power of soul. We may come to see parts in ourselves, where we have thrown out precious nourishing things from our heart in exchange for inedible dirt.

Exotic perfumes in distant lands sweep the heart into magical fantasy it could be said. But discovering the scent of the home we are in, the one right under-our-nose, unfolds a fantastical reality that we might be bypassing… or by-sniffing and missing the essential treasure of being.

We might miss the rainbow in search of the pot of gold if we lose the lesson of the Deer. We might have taken influence from some place, and feel that wonder is far away from where we are. Maybe wonder is so close that it’s in the very gaze that we see things with. In the gaze of the Deer

Mrgasirsa brings us its blessing if we tune in and listen to the frequency of its starbeams. This Star makes us Deer-eyed and Deer-nosed. It teaches us to be able to beam the focus of our psychic forces right to the fundament of where we are in each and every gaze and sniff.

Chasing the Golden Deer
The Golden Deer that captivated Sita in the Ramayana epic, is what starts the whole story of her abduction and resultant rescue under the powers of Hanuman’s devotion to restore Love.

Sita, upon seeing the golden Deer was so captivated by it beauty, that she just had to have it.

The Deer shimmered like the golden sun and had silver moonlike spots that entranced Sita, so much as, as to forget where she was and what was around her. Her desire for the Deer, caused her to lose all ground.

A whole odyssey of separation and battle ensued as a result of seeking the golden Deer, who was infact a trickster.

The teaching inherent in this tale is clear when we consider the quality of the Deer as outlined above. The search for the Golden Deer carried consequences for all involved, but the paradox is that without the overstepping of ones territory, the path of Karma does not unfold. Straying is a necessary part of learning.

Playing it too safe can be the path of living death.

Much blood and Soma may spill in the pursuit of the golden Deer, but it becomes a deep teaching of the nature of overstepping the lines of reality.

By the teaching of this Star, we are brought to question and look at our own golden Deer pursuits.

Spirit of the Deer
The Yogins consider the animals as teachers and emissaries of particular qualities of the Spirit. A theoretical study of the habits of animals is certainly a very interesting way to get familiar with the qualities of the various creatures that live on earth. Tantric’s meditate upon the animals and evoke their particular spirit and quality within themselves. Observing the actual animal by meditation and tuning in to its energy has been a favorite pastime of Tantric’s, as a way to learn and attune to the animals secrets.

Observing how the coat of a Deer changes with the seasons communicates many mysteries to us if we open the receptive channels to its teaching. Mimicking the bark of the Deer is a way to comprehend where the energy of the deer is located in its body and spirit. The sound of the Deer engages the heart and the throat equally. This becomes poignant when we consider the Venus and Mercury aspects that the Deer Nakshatra stands between, as hilighted above in the ‘Uniting Opposites’ section.

The spirt of the Deer is a determined but innocent one that is more interested in the divine play than in the divine accomplishment.

When we look at the gods who have a deer with them, we get some pointers into the meaning of this Star.

Krishna is the player of the celestial game known as Lila.

Lila is the romantic play of the spirit with all phenomena. Krishna is often pictured with the deer, as we see here above.

Another deity who rises upon Deer back is Vayu.

Vayu is the deity of the wind who rides swiftly upon Deer-back and carries the jewel of Pranic breath power to us. The Heart is the transformer of the common air element, into the the life force of Prana that the Yogins honour and awaken.

Soma
Soma, the Moon deity, is another who also rides swiftly upon deer-back. He plays an important position here as he is the ruling deity of Mrgasirsa.

The parentage of Soma is of worthy note and points to secrets of lunar balance. The Moon rules the psychic movements by its ever changing rhythms. To balance the Moon energy of the psyche is open the secrets of Soma.

Soma is born of Bhanu and Nisha, Bhanu is the hot fiery father, Nisha is the mother who is cool, dark and moist. The first child of this couple was Agni, the second was Rohini and the third was Soma.

Agni is the fire god of the Nakshatra Krittika. Rohini is the most fertile red star woman. Rohini’s Nakshatra stands right between Krittika and Mrgasirsa. We have seen that Mrgasirsa is the cool star of Soma.

Rohini is brought to her fruitful power by standing in balance balance Agni and Soma. Heat and coolness in balanced measure is needed for her to thrive.

The lunarly journey of the Moon, travels through these three Nakshatras in the sequence in which they were born.

Soma is the Moon, but it is equally the Elixiral fluid of magic and wonder.

The force of this Star is to translate the fountain of eternal youth to us here on earth by shining them to us by the light of the Moons fourth waxing night.

Those places where inspiration and wonderlust are most unstable in us, are brought to life by this particular Moonshine.

A Woman of Heart
The Deer is the animal that is connected to the Heart-Chakra. The Heart-Chakra resonates with the Green colour spectrum.

This brings us to Matangi, the Green Goddess of tomorrow night. We shall meet for the ritual that Annually honours Matangi.

She is the Green Goddess of unconditional Love. Matangi lays no condition upon the form that love is offered to her in. Her green-eyed vision sees with the eye of the Heart-Chakra.

Matangi is the deep essence of motherhood. Like a true mother who is equal about handling warm milk or warm shit, Matangi’s hands fear not to touch all sides of love.

Matangi is a powerful ally for us in determining the value of the things that we receive in our lives. Sometimes the most bitter medicine is administered with the greatest love, this is something that Matangi makes us aware of and sober enough to see.

Alternatively, sometimes the sweetest things are backed with empty sentiment that does not nourish anything deeper than our surface fancies.

https://healinginthewillows.com/page/4/?s=nakshatra

Symbols of #Rohini #Nakshatra

The symbols of Rohini Nakshatra are very interesting and worth considering if we are to get an understanding and insight into the red woman Rohini.

While reading into these symbols, let us remember that the word Rohini comes from the root word Rohana. Rohana implies fertility and growth.

The #Bull

There is firstly the bull. The bull of virility is implied – male desire and reproductive desire are enhanced by evoking the Rohana Shakti of Rohini Nakshatra. Rohini Nakshatra is in the constellation of Taurus, which further is signified by the symbol of the bull.

The #Tree

The symbol of the #Banyan tree is also given to Rohini Nakshatra. The Banyan tree is a tree that ever keeps growing and is therefore a perfect symbol of for the fertility that Rohini transports.

The Banyan tree is considered a holy tree to the Yogins and is to be found growing in places of power and temples in India.

The Roots of the Banyan tree grow from above downwardly, so it presents a paradox to the usual tree. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna mentions that the Banyan tree is a reversal amongst the trees that reflects the spiritual world within. The paradox that it presents is a subject to meditate and ponder upon.

Ponder upon it…

Whenever one becomes
like the moon,
they are crowned upon the head
of the infinite wisdom of Yog.

Mantras of Rohini
The Bija (seed mantras) of Rohini are sounds that relate to the womb energies of fertility, along with the rhythmical Lunar movements of the mind and the Venusian sexual chakra. These mantras are practiced in Tantric ritual When Rohini visits the Moon. Some of them are:

Ohh,
Vhaaa,
Vheee
& Vhuuu.

When intoned with a specific shape of the lips, these mantras activate the Nadis (energy lines) of the Moon ruled movements of the astral mind and the womb and Shakti chakra. The womb is the source of fertility and birth, the dark creative cave where Rohini shines brightest – for she is creativity itself.

Rohini is also a word for the maiden at her first ever menstruation. Working with the star of Rohini helps in balancing issues of fertility, sexuality, menstruation and menopause. Rohini addresses the hormonal rhythms and sexual function in both male and female on both physical and psychic levels – it is to be remembered that Rohini is the Moon’s favorite lover. She brings stability to the sensitive astral self, as she balances the Lunar forces that intersect with the mind.

Bull Power
Rohini Nakshatra is found in Vrishabh (Taurus). Rohini is the star #Aldebaran, a star of great red radiance and the brightest star of Vrishabh… the eye of the Venusian Taurus which is the Shukracharia (Venus) ruled zodiacal constellation of the Bull. The Ox pulled cart is a symbol of Rohini that alludes to this detail.

The Bull is a virile potent force of tempestuous nature, very much the active expression of Rohini – it can run amok in our lives or it can be channeled as in the case of the agricultural Ox. Rohini is not a castrator but a boundless force of growth that can be put towards ploughing the field of our lives and reaping harvest. We find that Kamadhenu – the great wish fulfilling cow who represents the feminine aspect of Taurean force – is also another name for Rohini Nakshatra.

Between the #Moon & #Sun
If we consider the previous Nakshatra to Rohni we find Krittika (Pleiades) and see that it’s ruling deity is Agni, who is the god of heat and Fire. Rohini is then followed by Mrigashirsha Nakshatra (Orion) which is ruled by Soma, who is the fluidic cooling Moon god. We see that Rohini is ruled by the deity of creation Prajapati Brahma.

Rohini is quite literally balanced between the energies of heating Agni and cooling Soma. The implicit wisdom inherent here is that Rohini brings creativity through the balance of Moon and Sun. Hatha Yog is often interpreted as the union of the Moon and the Sun, or the union of Hot and Cold, Woman and Man, Earth and Sky. Ha refers to the heating solar force while Tha refers to the cooling lunar force. Rohini is the creative energy what weaves them together and is born of their union. Practices of Hatha Yog open creativity in all dimensions of our being.

Stars in Herbal Medicine
Brahmi is an Indian herb, but it the word Brahmi is also another name for Rohini Nakshatra. Brahma the creator is the deity of this Nakshatra and has as his Shakti (feminine power) Brahmi… hence this being another name for this Nakshatra. Rohini it is, above all else, the star of creativity.

The Indian herb Brahmi
is taken to improve memory
while at the same time
acting as an aphrodisiac.

This synchronicity reflects the Moon and Venus involvement of this Nakshatra. The Moon’s most beloved Nakshatra is Rohini. The Moons memory is intense in remembrance of her, and the love for her, even more so. The Moon rules the movements of the Mind, whereas Venusian energy manifests in love and sexuality. Brahmi is a good herb for balancing Rohini afflictions in the support of healing the feminine.

The Red Fertile Woman

Rohini is the red Star in the eye of the Taurian Bull. It is the star known as Aldebaran.

The word Rohini means fertility and growth, but is also translatable as the red woman, it implies the fertile menstruation process and reproduction. The fertility of Rohini is the red blood of Life.

Consider all the connotations of the colour red that you can, from passion to heat, from blood to birth.

Kali Ma & Rohini

In Kali Ma we see the symbol of blood in a pronounced way. Kali Ma is the Mother of the womb energy. She is the dark cavern of the womb.
The creativity of Kali Ma can be seen as being the opposite of Rohini.
We are talking about the destructive side of creativity here!
Kali Ma is the blood of death. Although life and death appear to stand at opposite poles, they are inseparably interwoven with each other.
The process of destruction leads to birth, as birth leads to destruction. We can also say that birth follows destruction.
The Tantrics refer to the feminine womb as Kali Mandir – this translates as the Temple of the Dark Mother.
The womb clothes the spirit In flesh.
It is creative and life giving, yet the birth into form and manifestation that the womb brings, is the death of the spirit from its previous energetic state.
How many wombs can you think of that usher something into manifestation? A pen for instance, could be seen as a womb for birthing a book.
When death approaches, we again enter birth in the cosmic womb, as we part from form.
In this way, birth and death are really the same thing. We might say that they do not follow one after the other, but rather, are ever moving towards each other.
Rohini is the side of blood to create, and Kali Ma is the side of blood to destroy.
Looking from an absolute vantage point… When creation and destruction are seen as forces that magnetise each other, then Kali Ma and Rohini can be seen as one.
But when we envision Kali Ma and Rohini from the perspective of dualistic opposites, they seem Poles apart.
There is a teaching story that presents this Paradox of creation and destruction. It is a story that centralises around blood.

Bloody Tales of the Tantric Goddess

The stories of Kali Ma tell of the fate of the near invincible Asura Raktbija.
Raktbija epitomises the self perpetuating destructive urge.
He would not be defeated and would simply recreate further forms of himself wherever a drop if his blood would spill.
Rakt, in his name means blood, and Bija means Seed.
So literally, his name means, he who’s every drop of blood is a seed.
By this power to reproduce himself, he seemed invincible.
In battle, he only grew more and more powerful and numerous.
Only Kali Ma had the ferocity to consume his endless duplicates and defeat him by drinking every drop of his blood until there was nothing left of him.
Kali Ma is the consuming force that can never be escaped or sidestepped.
As the consumer of the seed and blood Asura Raktbija, she is called Rakteshvari.
Her infamous bloodlust knows no limits.
The story goes on to tell that when Raktbija was consumed by Kali Ma, she became unstoppable and continued to consume life until Shiva intervened as a way to stop the all consuming raging bloodlust that threatened to consume everything including him.
The solution was to place an innocent child before her.
Kali Ma’s motherly instincts were aroused and in an instant she became the nurturing mother of womb power.
This fantastical tale is full of codes. When we meditate upon this story and glimpse behind the ‘outer story’ and into the deeper meanings of the ‘inner story’, we see into the energies of creation and destruction and how they meet.

The Head in her Hand

Kali Ma holds a head in her hand. This is a significant symbol as we will soon see.

As we have already seen, Kali is Rohini in her Destructive creative aspect. Kali cuts the head off and stops the familiar motion of the mind.

Rahu is the North node of the Moon that eclipses the sun. Kali Ma carries the power of Rahu in her Left hand.

Let us pause and Look at opposites for a moment:

Rahu is the separated head of Ketu the South lunar node.

Though they are separate, they can’t really be separated. They are always 180 degrees from each other as mirror opposites. Rahu is the automatic response of habitual consuming consiousness that does not pause to contemplate deeper layers of being. Rahu simply feast eternally and hungrily as everything simply passses through him with no body to retain any of it. Rahu is never satisfied.

That is what Kali Ma holds. She at once has the power of Rahu – (As the story of Raktbija demonstrates) – and she also has the power over Rahu.

Kali Ma is the dark that envelops and eclipses the eclipser of the sun that Rahu is.

Kali Ma is a Darker shade of solar eclipse!

Ponder on this…

Now, astrologically speaking, Rahu is exulted in Rohini Nakshatra. This detail gives away who whole story and decodes the code.

The Nakshatra of Rohini is the dwelling Place of the Creator Brahma. It makes sense that the most fertile creative constellation should house the creator! Kali Ma is the destructive creatress – she can be seen as the opposite to Brahma.

Ponder on this…

The Shakti behind the Shakta

In conclusion, let us consider that in peering into the mysteries of the Dark Mother Kali Ma, we have to bring the poles of Destruction and Creation together if our vision is to go deeper than surface layers.

Tantric practices reunite these perhaps divorced principles. The principles of creation and destruction are the two universal categories into which all things fall.

The deeper mystery is that the meeting of these principles of destruction and creation, creates a marriage where there is only one category for everything to fall into. This category is the wide open mouth of Kali Ma, the creative/destructive tunnel of eternity.

This is the singular Vision. This is the Eye of Shiva that destroys duality.

Kali Ma is the Shakti behind the Shakta that is Shiva. Shiva is the destroyer of time, and Kali Ma is the destroyer of the destroyer of time.
https://healinginthewillows.com/?s=rohini

“And who by fire, who by water
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial
Who in your merry merry month of May
Who by very slow decay
And who shall I say is calling?“

L. Cohen – Who by Fire

#Krittika #Nakshatra translates as ‘the cutting star’. This Nakshatra spans Aries and Taurus. Its ruling planet is the Sun and its presiding deity is #Agni, the #fire #god.

The #Pleiades is the #star #constellation of this Nakshatra. They are the 7 mother #stars, who as legend tells us, mothered #Kartikaya, the warrior god of Mars who fights and battles to establish cosmic justice.

On the Dark-Moon ritual night of Shuni Jayanti, the Moon will be in the lunar house of Krittika. In the year 2021, Saturn is in a place of power, as he is in his very own of Makar Rashi (Capricorn). The next time he will be there, will be in 12 years hence.

We have a particularly strong planetary focus on this ritual day for the energy of Saturn, Mars and the Sun are at play – in the India astrological wisdom the Sun is considered part of the Navagraha, the nine planets, along with the South and North Nodes of the Moon.

These 3 planets are the hard teachers that carry the heaviest and most valuable lessons to us.

Furthermore, we have Surya Grahn – the Solar Eclipse.

The Shadow entity Rahu is in force at the solar eclipse. Ketu also aligns to the dark Moon time of opening the door to ancestral forces.

To say that
this is an extremely potent
ritual day
would be an understatement.

At such potent energy junctions the ancient Yogins have advised to take advantage of the portal to the depths of the self that is offered.

Fasting and staying indoors is prescribed for eclipses by Tantrics.

Saturn is the protector of the feminine. In the stories he burns the sun to blackness in honour of the forces of the Shadow and the feminine. Remember that his beloved is Damini, the mistress of all feminine arts, and another aspect of her is Neela, the sapphire woman who is so close to him, that she lives within him.

Neelam is a Saphire and it is her stone, interestingly, it is said that a Sapphire magnifies the power of Shuni.

This is a Time when the deep-most Saturnian feminine aspects in us are revealed and drawn out by the shadow forces of Rahu and Ketu through Mangala (Mars)

Visually the form of Krittika Nakshatra constellation of Pleiades bears a striking similarity to the 7 stars of the Saptrishi (Big-Dipper). We will look deeper into why this is as this text unfolds.

Legend tells us that the 7 Krittika stars were once the lovers of the 7 Saptrishi stars and dwelt with them in love.

The Saptrishi are described as the 7 wise men. Fiery intrigue ensued when Agni fell wildly in love with the seven Krittika star women. The result of the intrigue was that the Krittika star women became cut off from their former lovers and moved to another portion of the sky.

They retain the similar shape of the constellation but exist light-years-of-love apart from their former loves. They literally are cut off from their past loves. Kritt, contained in the word Krittika, literally means ‘to cut’.

The Krittika are the sharp cutters prone to fiery, sharp, burning and singing extremities of action.

This star constellation brings us the teachings of fire and its wise handling.

THE POWER OF FIRE
Laws of the Flame

Fire requires fuel. Fire extracts the essence from fuel it transforms, while providing heat and light. A good relationship to fire and the laws and principles of fire is needed for psychic and physical health.

The spiritual work with fire, and the study of the principles of fire, is not an intellectual pursuit. It is a deep investigation into the nature of the laws of energy itself.

The forces of Krittika Nakshatra functioning well, in her sevenfold power, makes one powerful and gives the fuel of fire. When we have fire, we can spread it through our lives. The seven stars of the Pleiades relate to the 7 fires in the 7 chakras.

These 7 star women are the 7 Shaktis of each Chakra.

How we handle
the power of fire
is paramount
in both spiritual
and physical life.

THE LAWS OF THE FLAME

Malfunctioning Krittika energy is the opposite of living well. When our relationship to the 7 flames of the Chakra’s is not healthy, then the laws of fire are to be considered. Establishing spiritual rapport with the 7 mother stars of Krittika Nakshatra, gives birth to the corresponding flames in the 7 Chakras.

Upon the Dark Moon that is upon us in the Nakshatra of Krittika, the fires of chakras are called from us to burn in the last dark moon of the waxing half of the year.

When our relationship to Krittika malfunctions, we have that feeling of being burned out, feeling hot and itchy but essentially tired and lacking in power.

We sometimes might see that we switch between these states of healthy fire and burning-out, or sparking-out.

Fire can either make us smooth, warm and enduring, or nervous, restless and rushing – these latter 3 are the quality of a weak connection to the Laws of the Flame.

This is the fighting to stay aglow, reaching hungrily for scraps and twigs to effectively stay aglow.

Which scraps, twigs do you reach for when your fire burns out of hand?
How do you light your fire when it’s burning cool?
How do you cool it when it’s burning hot?

Fire becomes expansive with plenty of fuel behind it. A well-considered rhythmical supply of fuel in backup is part and parcel of keeping the stove going. This applies in a spiritual sense, as much as in a household sense.

We wouldn’t by choice be reckless about a supply of winter firewood, if we lived by the stove. Are we equally as conscientious with the supply of spiritual firewood? Or maybe we believe such things are of little import?

For the Tantric, the spiritual fire is of great importance. The laws and principles of fire are a primary study for the Tantric practitioner.

Knowing all about how to generate power and spiritual propulsion is a question of understanding some obvious but easily denied laws of fire.

Honouring the laws of the flame makes us powerful, effective and royal in all areas.

FLAMES OF DESIRE
Putting out fire with Gasoline

Let us consider the nature of Krittika Nakshatra by looking at its ruling deity who is the fire god Agni.

Agni is the deity of Krittika Nakshatra.

His name means ‘fire’. It also means ‘foremost’. Indeed Agni’s fire plays a foremost part in many Indian rituals and rites of passage. Birth is commemorated by the lighting of lamps. Weddings involve 7 circumambulations around a sacred fire, each circumambulation representing the taste of the flame of each of the seven chakras that Agni tastes with his 7 tongues. It is also Agni who conveys the dead across the sea of life at the time of death, in his presence in the funeral pyre. Indian culture has always burned the dead and never buried them.

Agni has 7 tongues of flame and has a voracious appetite for experience.

The scriptural stories often tell how he suffered indigestion because of his over consuming habits. He rules the digestive fire.

Agni’s appetite for everything is vast. A single woman was not enough for him. He fell in love with all the 7 Krittika star women (Pleiades) who were already married to the 7 Saptrishi’s (Big Dipper).

Agni is the fire of experience that is drawn to experience and taste all things.

The seven Krittika’s represent the 7 Shaktis of the 7 chakras. Agni has 7 tongues of flame that long to taste in all 7 directions.

One specialism is not enough for him, he longs to taste the essence of life in all its divisions.

Awareness of time, along with the awareness of our capacities within the realm of time is needed if we are to taste far and wide. Without this awareness, indigestion and overstimulation of a psychic nature can occur.

Without the wisdom of timing, and without selecting a well measured and well considered channel for our fire, we can lose the wisdom and geometry of rhythm, and risk scattering and dispersing our energies with little outcome.

Of course, fire does not care to hear this, it couldn’t care less for well proportioned considerations. Fire likes the gear of action. Fire likes to put itself out with only gasoline.

The solar force is disproportionately pronounced in the world culture in which we live. The time we spend in the light and in solar pursuits, usually outmeasures the time given to the cooling night forces.

An extended period of light through electrical means, overstimulates the solar plexus and arouses active energy within us.

An over emphasis of fire in our nature, is an imbalance that runs the risk of eclipsing the receptive night forces, this can put us out of touch both physically and spiritually with the nourishing forces of reception and femminity.

The teaching of Agni is to balance the feminine and the masculine energies. Although Agni is often described as being male, he has androgynous qualities, as we shall soon see.

GETTING HOT
The Cooling Night Forces

The heat and burn of fire is attractive and stimulating, but too much fire spread too far and wide creates superficiality. When the soul is drawn into the realms of superficiality it seeks ever more fire and experience to fill its empty gaping pit of hunger.

Seeking action and life experience might easily become a motto for the experience-hungry-fire that, in actuality, is not really driven by wanderlust, but rather by its own emptiness.

Heating fires abound on all sides. Coffee is served on every corner and sugar saturates the modern diet and creates unnatural fire in the system.

Music to stimulate the life rhythms is hard to escape in the metropolis.

Even fast-track spirituality is available in sensationally effective courses, with abundance of exotic plants offering quick realisation in the spiritual market place.

At the extreme end of fire we have chemical intoxicants and substances that stimulate the senses and give the illusion of equipping one for life when, in fact, the effects are rather different and, in some people, turn them into a frantic aggressive person.

The same could be said in some measure, of all the above listed things that feed the flames of an unnaturally inclined solar-dominant word-culture.

The price of all these fast measures, cited above, is quite high upon the heart, body and soul. Hot and fast seems to be the motto of modernity. But Tantric’s seem to attempt to gain admittance to the sometimes forgotten realms of coolness and slowness.

Solar, active, sunny, bright and fiery are considered powerful words, but their opposite lunar, moony, passive and dark, are all too often designations of insanity, weakness and badness. It does well to ponder the reason why the womb-deep, feminine, cooling, nourishing-night-forces are given such a bad wrap.

A look at the way that the most ancient art and science of childbirth is handled in the modern era will reveal much.

LESSONS OF THE STAR MOTHERS
The Cooling Night Forces

The lesson of Krittika is to be cautious not to lose oneself in the pursuit of wanting to experience life.

To know the right measure of a thing is Wisdom. This would be the fitting axiom for this Star lesson.

Restraint and suppression of desire is not necessarily what is meant here. Rather, harnessing the fire of desire and pausing to get the insight into the nature of fire. Fire spreads and consumes. The lesson of fire is how can it burn freely without becoming destructive?

It takes insight and forbearance to pause in the midst of heat, to see what is going on. Without the pause, fire can rage and consumes. To work effectively and safely with fire, takes a sober knowledge of one’s capacities and the effect of phenomena upon us.

This sounds like a very simple matter-of-fact level of base reality, and it is, but why does this obvious knowledge of measures and effects and causes evade so many?

Might it be that the over-handling of fire in our lives burns the nerve endings of the spirit unto numbness?

A comfortably numb state of being poses no risk. In such a state, fire can be swallowed in a mindlessly rampant and flaming march through the circus of life.

To handle the forces of our lives,
a sober glimpse of reality is required.

Striving sentiments have no place where reality is concerned. To choose wisely and with insight from the variety of ‘isms’ that are broadly on sale in the pick-and-mix shopping centre of life, is needed in the art of handling fire.

Without sobriety, and the insight into the nature of fire, the indiscriminate mix and pick of fiery ‘isms’ can merely create a reality made-up of masks upon the face of reality.

Fire must be denied in order to know its power. Fasting introverts the physical fire and gives us insights into our fiery power. Fasting from activity has been a favourable past time of Tantrics.

In the suspension of action, we glimpse into the nature of stray sparks that throw us and our true will, along with their fire fly motions.

RIDING THE RAM
Digesting Life’s Experiences

Agni rides upon a ram. His power animal is an indicator of Agni’s active charging power. A ram is a creature that is imbued with a tenacious spirit. The force of the ram burns outwardly in the solar doings that keep us in fiery motion. As we have seen the Tantrics work to discover that the solar force can be introverted with a view to discover the mysteries of the inner spiritual realms.

The golden rams fleece that was dearly sought by Jason and his band of Argonauts in the ancient Greek Odyssey might well represent the secret wisdom of spiritualised fire.

The key to the lessons of the Nakshatras are revealed in their deities, who present an encoded teaching in their being.

Each deity has a Vahaan with them. This is a power animal that represents their essence. By studying and meditating upon the animal connected to the Tantric deities we get further insights. Agni rules the digestive fire and transitions between realms from this solar station.

The ram is a creature with an interesting digestive system. It is well known that they can eat and digest almost anything, including thorns, wood and other normally inedible substances. Rams express a powerful digestive tenacity. They have the ability to swallow large clumps of wood and store them, only to later regurgitate what they ate and chew on it some more, and again sending it back into one of their 4 stomachs. Just like fire that extracts the essence from something, rams are highly refined extractors of essence. This gives them a tenacious enduring spirit.

This holds a lesson for us, if we carefully consider the symbol.

By being very thorough about things and chewing continuously on the phenomena that life feeds us, we generate great power and endurance in ourselves. This is the power that awakens Kundalini and can take us deep into the spiritual realms.

It is known that rams and their relative species can climb to mountainous heights that few can reach.

The secret potential of the ram is to extract the most hidden essence from something. The Ram in us that has not touched its potential might scoff things down and extract nothing nutritious from its existence. Tantrics honour the god of fire by honouring the ram that he rides upon. They honour him by chewing carefully on all experience.

To swallow blindly
is the path
to spiritual indigestion.

Agni is the masculine fire force in its purest form. Agni longs to know the feminine in all her Chakric aspects. He literally burns for the feminine. He can’t help falling in love with the feminine mysteries. The 7 Krittikas are also known as the 7 Matrikas (mothers), which are probably at the root of the word Matriarch.

As already mentioned, they are the Shakti of the seven Chakras. We are dealing with a powerful feminine star constellation that spiritually exerts an impact on the 7 chakras through interacting with the 7 glands of our glandular system.

The 7 Matrikas
can be thought of
as 7 types of desire.

Agni has two heads that point to the dual nature of his being. His nature is fire, and fire has two expressions. One is heat and the other is light.

We see these expressions clearly expressed in fire and in solar force.
His two heads also represent these two aspects of the fiery Manipura Chakra.
Agni is the jewel in this Chakra. Manipura literally means place of the jewel.

He rules over the Manipura Chakra of the Solar Plexus with his dual nature, receiving light nourishment and alchemically turning it into the expression of heat. Agni is a synonym for the digestive fire in which he dwells. The Solar Plexus Chakra receives the light of the Sun and expresses the heat of Mars. This brings us to another fiery deity connected to Agni and the Krittika constellation.

Kartikaya is the active expression of fire. He is the heat of Mars. Kartikaya, or Krittikaya, takes his name from Krittika. They are the mothers who raised him, as we will see in the next section. He is pure hot heat. So hot in fact that even the river Ganges could not hold him.

PEACOCK POWER
Child of the Stars

Kartikeya is the 7 day old child, who was foretold would save the Devas from destruction at the hands of the Asuras. Yes 7 days old, so powerful was he.

The story is complex and comes in several variants. Here we will simplify it to the basics and set aside some of the interesting and numerous details for another place.

The Devic world was under threat and there was no being powerful enough to save them. A child born of Shiva and Shakti would have the necessary power.

Kartikeya has more than one mother. He was born of Shiva and Pharbati’s love after aeons of effort and many celestial interventions. Yet Kartikeya grew in the womb of Agni and was raised by the Krittika star mothers. The root of Kartikeya is Kritt (to cut), he is also called Krittikya. The child of the Krittika.

Agni is usually designated male, but he has a dual nature, symbolised by his two heads. Agni is actually Androgynous and carried Kartikeya in his womb, but the embryo was too hot for him to handle, and it almost finished Agni off.

Agni survived somehow and Kartikeya was raised by the Krittika star mothers.

That the star mothers could handle Kartikeya’s heat is an important point in understanding the true power of Krittika Nakshatra. Kartikeya was multi mothered and multi headed.

With the force of Krittika Nakshatra behind him, no battle was too great for him, even though he was only 7 years old.

Kartikeya was a ferocious force that set the cosmic order back in balance. On his 7th day he fixed things so that the Devas could once again rest from the persecution of the Asuras.

Suffice it to say, he grew to be the Martian Lord of Battle.
He rides on a peacock and burns with the active force of a warrior.

The peacock is the bird with the strongest digestive fire of all birds, able to digest all manner of venomous plants, substances and creatures. The digestive fire of the Peacock is unparalleled. It is a creature of profound beauty, with its mystically feathery blooms. It transforms poison into dazzling geometric beauty. Kartikeya does much the same as his Vahaan (power animal), he turns the force of Mars to establish sacred order. He is a king of strategy and the wise handling of potentially destructive force. There are tales that tell of Kartikeya going astray in his use of force, but he learned to handle it and channel it wisely as he grew.

HORNY OLD GOATS
Fiery Longing

“O, solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind.”

L. Cohen – Come Healing

Agni is a sex god-dess, Agni is the mistress of reception of power for the female. But Agni is also the master of the force of ejaculation for the male.

We have seen that Agni’s passion could only be satisfied by 7 lovers. His love endures and charges with the force of his a ram.

Agni yearned for the Krittikas and was in danger of destroying cosmic order, until his longing and passion was remedied by Svaha.

As we have seen, Agni is referred to as a male god, when in fact ‘ he’ exhibits qualities of an androgen. His nature is dual, for he has two heads, he is male and female, he is heat, he is light. He is celestial fire, he is earthly fire.

The child of Shiva was destined to be the only saviour powerful enough to save the Devic realm from the Asuric oppression it was under, and that was leading to its destruction.

Much celestial intervention was carried forward to get Shiva out of his Samhadi (meditational trance) and become interested in anything else.

The story tells that Shiva was so slow and deep in all things, that his love making with Shakti continued for aeons. The Devas were getting so inpatient at suffering the persecution and torment at the hands of the Asuras that, one day, they all gathered together and decided to pay Shiva a visit and tell him to hurry up.

It happened that, in the exact moment that Shiva was about to ejaculate, they stormed their way into his grotto in the mountainous expanse of the Himalayas and caused shock to the Lovers at the very moment of climax. The seed of Shiva was not expelled into the womb of Shakti, but cast upon the walls of the cave.

As Shiva ejaculated all over the cave walls he was in a divine rage for being disturbed at the wrong moment. The Devas looked on in despair, realizing what they had just done.

Shiva’s wrath reached unbeknownst scales of rage and imbued his seed with a fire so hot that it penetrated and melted the mountainous earth.

The seed of Shiva is said to have sunk into the bowels of the earth and created mines of silver and gold.

Shakti was furious at the interruption, and the Devas knew they had really seriously messed up by their inopportune timing.

They begged Shakti to gather the seed into her womb but she was in a rage and refused.

The force of Shiva’s ejaculation was so strong that its fiery expulsion had summoned Agni who had taken a drop of it into his womb. Agni carried the child who became Kartikeya, until the Krittika took over the role of motherhood. Some accounts tell that Shiva’s seed was mixed with Agni’s own seed after his numerous lovings with the numerous forms assumed by the shape-shifting women that was Svaha.

Indra, the king of the Devas, is famous for ever fearing that someone will usurp his throne. When Kartikeya was born, Indra saw that Kartikeya was a force beyond measure and that he might be able to take his throne away.

Indra, we may add, is covered with a 1000 vaginas because of his passion for the feminine. In each Yoni is an eyeball with which the paranoid Indra watches from all directions, in case someone might be able to claim his beloved throne.

And so the Yoni covered lord of the Devas sent the Krittika goddesses to poison the baby Kartikeya. Even though Kartikeya was the one meant to save Indra’s Devic Kingdom. Indra feared the loss of his throne more than the destruction of his kingdom.

It is easy to call the Krittikas a motherly beneficiary force, but they have a fierce side. Many texts and depictions relate them as wild and witchy child-consuming goddesses.

As they went to follow Indra’s orders and destroy Kartikeya, their hearts melted upon seeing the child. Kartikeya overtook their hearts by his Martian power and magnitude and inspired their maternal instincts.

And so they took him as their child and mothered him.

Kartikeya turned out to be a Martian force who was too busy with battle and strategy to be interested in Indra’s throne, so Indra was able to relax and enjoy his Yoni, Soma and legendary romance.

BETWEEN THE STARS & EARTH
Journey Through the Planes

The 7 Mother Stars of the Kritta constellation are in a portion of the astral plane, which gives form to human souls upon their last junction to incarnation upon the earth plane. The Saptrishi constellation of the Big Dipper can be said to give the form to the mental and causal bodies of the soul, whereas the Krittika of the Pleiades, give birth and form to the astral emotional and subtle bodies that more closely connected to the physical plane.

The Mother stars are the last star junction the spirit crosses until it comes to the plane of Bhumi (Earth) where it is physically birthed by the Mother.

The myth shows how the Seven Mother Stars separated from the 7 Rishi Stars. This manoeuvre created a bridge from the spirit realms to the Earth. This happened in a previous Manvantara (inestimably earlier age). This created a linking of the causal/mental plane to the astral/earth orbit, through a bridge like connection from the 7 mothers to their once beloveds – the 7 Rishis.

An autonomy between the astral and the causal is something that is built through the astral thread known as the Antankarana. This thread exists within the spine and is equally a thread that connects the mental/causal plane to the astral, and furthermore to the earth, through the intermediary of the stars we are speaking of.

By bringing the 7 mother elements into balance we bring a balance to the Chakra in the body, astral and mental/causal levels. The seven mothers are important to balance and bring into harmony, if we are to establish connection between the various planes upon which we exist. We can exist in an unconscious way upon some planes until we take birth there. This birth goes through the seven mothers who preside over the astral plane.

The Krittikas are the mothers who from the astral level give form to the 7 physical Dhatus (body constituents) of bone, marrow, muscle, fat, skin, blood, Bindu in the male, or Rajas in the female. The 7 mothers are the essence of astral energies that live behind, and the manifest in the Dhatus that express on the earth plane.

INTRIGUE IN THE STARS
A Time of Cutting

Let me be the only one
To keep you from the cold
Now the floor of heaven’s lain
With stars of brightest gold

A. Lennox – Song for a Vampire

Agni fell intensely in love with the 7 stars of Krittika, known also as the Matrikas. The seven star beauties that Agni longed for were the lovers of the Saptrishis. Sapt means ‘seven’ and Rishi means ‘seer’, they are the 7 star teachers of the Big Dipper star constellation. It was the Saptrishis themselves who summoned Agni by their Tapasya (fiery invocations).

Agni fell profoundly in Love with the 7 star goddesses of Krittika Nakshatra because of their brightness and luminosity. Agni is their opposite. The 7 Matrika star goddess’s represent the cooling creative fire of Tejas, and Agni represents the heating, consuming and destroying fire.

The balance
of these two types of fire
is the way of Tantric Wisdom.

These fires belong together as they balance each other, but at the same time they are opposites that repel and cancel each other out, much the same as the dance between night and day, cold and hot.

Agni became depressed as a result of the star beauties being unavailable. He even resorted to watching them clandestinely through the flames of the hearth. Their cool bluish glow aroused magical wonder in his heart of red flame.

Agni’s Love for seven star beauties of Krittika was so great and so intense, but it was unrealisable because they were already the lovers to the Saptrishi star sages.

Agni could not bear it any longer and he fled in flames from the celestial spheres.

With his heart ablaze he sung his way through the astral realm of the stars in the anguish, desperation and the sorrow of a love that was not to be. One of the names of Agni is Vahani, which means ‘to fly with the wind’.

Agni escaped to the earth plane and became the first fire here. His presence threatened to consume the entire earth.

Meanwhile, up in the world of the Stars, things had gotten barren for the Krittika beloveds of the Saptrishis. The fire had literally gone out without Agni’s presence.

It had been the invocation of Agni by the Tapasya of the Rishis that had kept the flame of love burning strongly. The Rishis became impotent old wise men that the their beloved began to suffer after Agni ran away to the earth plane.

The Saptrishis were now only fit for writing and spreading scriptural knowledge. And so they started to write and edit thoughtful texts for spreading throughout the galaxy. The once hot lovers, who had been aflame with the fires of wisdom, had become a grey ponderous bore.

“A long winter
Along winter
The sun within you,
will turn into a tongue of flame
The kiss you dream of,
will shimmer like the summer rain.“

Tongue of Flame – Transglobal Under

Back on Earth Agni’s sorrowful tears were burning strong as the flames of love burned in his fiery heart. The Goddess Svaha found him weeping fiery tears in a forest made barren by his laments.

Svaha fell in love with Agni for his intensity. Svaha is a goddess who has the ability to shape-shift. When she realised the cause of Agni’s lamentations she changed her form to look just like one of the Krittika star goddesses, and together with Agni she entered into rapturous union. Their love making stayed aflame for aeons, never dwindling. Svaha transformed herself into the other Krittika stars in sequence, and Agni stayed engaged in fiery kisses with his seven tongues for aeons long. One of Agni’s names is Saptajihvi, which means ‘the one with seven tongues of flame’.

Agni was overjoyed as his wildest dreams were realised. His deepest burning wish was being eternally satisfied.

In the end Agni discovered that Svaha was behind the illusion, as she was not able to completely shape-shift into the 7th star beauty known as Arundhati. Arundhati was so devoted to her Saptrishi Lover that the force of her love would not provide sufficient illusionary astral covering to be replicated.

Agni did not revolt and was quite happy with what fate had given him. He loved Svaha for the chemistry that they had together. Svaha was imbued of pure Tejas by the power of her Love for Agni. Agni and Svaha were thereafter always together.

One may note that in many of the fire rituals of India, both Tantric and orthodox, the name Svaha is uttered, as mantras and offerings are given into a ritual fire.

Svaha being the cooling Mantra that cools the hottest element of fire, so that it can be alchemically converted into Tejas, that is, into a psychically workable and handleable form. The story encapsulates this principle in the way that Svaha is able to calm Agni’s fiery tears from becoming all-consuming.

Intrigue ensued when the Saptrishis got word of the escapades of Agni. They didn’t know the full story as they had lost their penetrating insights into matters of the heart. Accusations of infidelity were coldly thrown at their Krittika lovers.

The Rishi’s secretly hoped to rouse Agni once more by their angry displays, but all they succeeded in doing was to distance themselves from their once beloveds.

The Krittika beauties cut away, as the flame of love no longer burned. They travelled to another part of the sky, many light years of love away, leaving the Rishi’s to their books. The Rishi’s didn’t much notice, as without Agni on the scene they were bereft of fire and were only good for the books.

As the cut to their former lovers was made, a bluish cloud of stardust formed and surrounded the Krittika. This sapphire cloud can be seen to this very day. The cutting away, earned them the name Krittika – Kritta, literally meaning ‘to cut’.

And so we see, there was a time when the 7 Krittika beauties and the Saptrishis existed beside each other as Lovers. But that time is no more. However, if one looks closely at the two star constellations, it can be seen that they still have a resemblance to each other. Could this suggest that the form of true love never dies?

https://healinginthewillows.com/?s=krittika+agni