Navamsa

Vedic Astrology & Palmistry

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The Tsarnaev Brothers and their malefics

May 16th, 2013 · Astrology, Crime

The Tsarnaev Brothers

Is there anything more problematic for an astrologer than a client or famous person without a birth time?

The Tsarnaev brothers, perpetrators of the April 15th Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and injured 264 others, provide an ideal opportunity to analyze charts from the viewpoint of Chandralagna, a simple concept from Vedic astrology.

Chandralagna is a composite Sanskrit term – Chandra meaning Moon, and Lagna meaning tie-down point (between heaven and earth), aka the ascendant. So Chandralagna means “viewing the Moon as the ascendant.”

If we lack a birth time to calculate the ascendant, this is the next best thing. The Moon is the chart’s fastest-moving celestial body, therefore its next most potent individuating factor.

AstroDataBank and AstroTheme provided birth data for the two brothers: Tamerlan, 21 October 1986, time unknown, Grozny, Chechnya; Dzhokar, 22 July 1993, time unknown, Grozny, Chechnya.

Without a birth time, many western astrologers typically calculate a chart for noon. This usefully captures the mean positions of the planets that day, albeit roughly for the Moon, which moves 12+ degrees in a day.

Other western astrologers calculate the chart for sunrise, or rotate the noon chart to place the Sun at the ascendant, either way creating a symbolic “sunrise” chart.

However, Vedic astrology considers the faster-moving Moon to be a stronger individuating factor than the Sun. Therefore, we rotate the noon chart to place the Moon in the first house, thus giving us a Chandralagna chart.

Before we examine these two brothers, what do we expect to find in the charts of anarchists, assassins, bombers, jihadi, murderers?

Round up the usual suspects – the malefics – in the form of Mars for violence, Saturn for death and anti-social behaviour, Rahu for aberrant behaviour, and the Sun for cruelty. (Note: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto aren’t used in Vedic astrology, so traditional sign rulership applies.)

In Tamerlan’s chart, the Moon is 14 degrees Taurus. (Note: sidereal zodiac, as per Vedic astrology). Although a noon position, no matter what the actual birth time, the Moon remains in Taurus, because in 12 hours it can only move six degrees in either direction. So Chandralagna is definitely Taurus.

Now study the disposition of planets relative to the Moon. Saturn is directly opposite, almost to the degree. (Note: in Vedic astrology, two planets need only be in opposite signs, regardless of degree or orb, to mutually aspect each other.)

Saturn in Scorpio versus Mars in Capricorn are in Parivartana Yoga (mutual reception). This means we hold the option to make these planets exchange signs in our mind’s eye, thus placing Mars opposite the Moon.

Now both prime malefics – Saturn and Mars – influence the Moon, fulfilling our astrological expectations for a perpetrator of violence.

Treating Taurus as Chandralagna, ascendant ruler Venus goes to Libra in the sixth house. Venus is doubly strong – retrograde and in its own sign. Strong planets in the sixth house are associated with martial arts (Tamerlan was a boxer), police and military activities (he tried to join resistance fighters in Chechnya), and combative behavior.

In Dzhokar’s chart, his noon-time Moon is 14 degrees Leo. Again, no matter what the birth time, the Moon remains in sign, so Chandralagna is definitely Leo.

The influence of Mars and Saturn is obvious. Mars is in Leo. (No matter the orb, two planets in the same sign influence each other like two people in the same room.) Similarly, Saturn opposes the Moon in mutual aspect.

Here, we have in addition the nodes in the angles. Rahu acts likes Saturn, Ketu like Mars. Rahu is exalted in Scorpio, Ketu debilitated in Taurus, thus contributing to their virulence and instability.

Treating Leo as Chandralagna, ascendant lord Sun goes to Cancer in the 12th house, implying sacrifice, self-undoing, suicide and incarceration.

These charts show that adopting the Chandralagna perspective immediately sheds light on the character and destiny of these two brothers.

When analyzing a chart whose birth time is known, Vedic astrologers naturally devote most of their attention to planets in houses defined vis-a-vis the true ascendant. But many also take a second step, rotating the chart to make the Moon the ascendant, analyzing the chart a second time.

This serves a dual purpose: to corroborate and reinforce themes identified earlier, or to resolve any contradictions or uncertainties that arose.

 ~~~

Alan Annand has diplomas from the British Faculty of Astrological Studies and the American College of Vedic Astrology, plus 30 years experience as an astrologer. (www.navamsa.com) He’s also a writer, with eight novels published, one of which – Scorpio Rising – is the first in a New Age noir mystery series featuring an astrologer/palmist as hero. (www.sextile.com/books)

 

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Boston: Out of the pressure cooker and into the fire

April 17th, 2013 · Astrology, Crime

After two bombs took their toll on the Boston Marathon, the heat is now on investigators to find those responsible. Can astrology provide clues?

My earlier post suggested religious fanaticism as the prime motivation, due to the overwhelming influence of combust Mars and Ketu in the Aries ninth house. Pursuing that same line of thought, following are several clues to the identity of those responsible.

(As is customary in Vedic astrology, I write this boldly as if it were truth, when in fact I am simply noting the relevant points of the case in line with astrological theory.)

In this sidereal chart for 2:50 PM EDT on April 15, 2013, in Boston, the ascendant lord Sun in the Aries ninth represents the perpetrator(s). This is likely a mature man (Sun), probably assisted by a younger man (Mars). The notion of two collaborators is reinforced by Moon in Gemini (dual sign) and Moon’s dispositor in Pisces (dual sign).

One or both of the perps will be a university student, possibly in an Engineering (Sun conjunct Mars in ninth) or physics (Sun opposite Saturn in third) program. They have likely been influenced by a zealot (Ketu in Aries ninth) who lives elsewhere than Boston.

They will be found living in close proximity to some garage, machine shop, factory or place where mechanical work is done or machinery is kept. The colors red or burnt orange will be visible on their persons, or their vehicle, or within their immediate surroundings, eg, door, wall, curtains, carpet, etc.

Aside from using traditional astrology as above, we can also draw information via other techniques. For instance, a local space chart maps 360 degrees of horizon surrounding an event. In this system, the positions of the various planets as seen from this location are projected onto the horizon using the coordinates of azimuth and altitude. This gives us a sort of “flat earth” perspective.

Converting the Boston bombing chart to a local space map gives us the relative positions of the planets as seen from Boston, radiating out around the world, conceptually identifying zones of cause and effect.

Note the two tightly-grouped red lines emanating NE and SW from Boston. These are Sun and Mars tightly combust at the time of the twin explosions. Although it may later prove relevant, let’s ignore for now the SW track of these two planets down the Eastern seaboard, exiting the USA via the Florida panhandle.

Instead, see the NE track that arcs over the Atlantic Ocean to England, crosses Eastern Europe and Turkey, and passes through Syria, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and the Gulf States of the eastern Arabian Peninsula. These are the likely origins of the Boston Marathon bombers.

Admittedly, the local space projection of Sun/Mars delineates a broad swath, but it also lights up some decidedly hot zones. This is all the more compelling when you follow its continued track around the world and note that the vast majority of it projects across unpopulated oceans.

Will the perpetrators be caught? Combustion never ends well. Total combustion occurs tonight at 8:20 PM EDT, at which time there may be some sort of break in the case. The Moon enters Cancer (twelfth house of the event chart) just three hours later at 11:23 PM, at which time an arrest may be made.

 

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Bombs in Boston and Combust Mars

April 15th, 2013 · Astrology

Bombs went off today at the finishing line of the annual Boston Marathon – at 2:50 PM EDT, 15 April 2013 in Boston, MA.

In this sidereal chart, ascendant lord Sun and Mars are combust in the ninth house. These already-hot planets are further amplified in Aries where they’re respectively exalted/owners. They’re joined in the ninth by Ketu, also considered a hot planet because of its affinity with Mars.

Three inflammatory planets in the ninth house spell religious fanaticism and social disorder through holy war.

Sun, Mars and Ketu make a victim of Venus in the ninth, the object of their direct and collateral damage. As lord of the third, Venus is athletes and their neighbors. As tenth lord, Venus is both society and its governance.

All four planets are in Aries ruled by owner/dispositor Mars. Sun, Mars and Venus are all in Ketu nakshatra. Thus, there is a powerful inter-weaving of Mars/Ketu themes in the ninth – fanaticism and jihad.

Transiting Moon, the barometer of the day, is in Mars nakshatra and Ketu sub. The Mars/Ketu combination is already volatile, and the Sun’s presence fuels it further. Even the ascendant is in Ketu star.

Saturn opposes this stellium from the third, another significator for death among athletes. Rahu there offers a radical surprise for Venus the society.

The only angular planet is Jupiter. As lord of the fifth it represents theater and sports events, as eighth lord it invites tragedy and trauma.

As of this writing, two are dead and 23 injured in Boston. New York and Washington have increased security measures. Organizers of the London Marathon are in close contact with Boston authorities, because the London Marathon is scheduled to go off on Sunday.

There is good cause for concern. On Sunday, Mars will still be combust. Four planets will still occupy Aries. And by Sunday, the Moon will be in a Ketu nakshatra. The heat goes on.

 

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Vedanta in Rishikesh, part 2

March 20th, 2013 · India, Instruction

September 23rd

Swamiji talked about looking at a colored piece of cloth and being able to clearly determine whether it’s red or yellow or green. But with ourselves, self-recognition isn’t so easy. There’s a gap between who we are and who we want to be. To apprehend the difference, we have to think about it a lot.

Imagine that you intend to travel but you don’t know where you want to go. Chances are, you won’t have a satisfactory travel experience. Therefore, you need to have a destination in mind. Once that’s determined, the means will become more obvious.

The clarity of the goal sets the stage for the most appropriate means to reach that goal. Sadhyam = the goal. Sadhana = the means.

Ultimately, we want to be someone who is totally acceptable to ourselves. This acceptance is only facilitated when ignorance is absent.

Imagine you have a sore back that bugs you all the time. But every now and again, someone tells a joke and you have a good laugh and in that moment you forget the back pain. But then the moment is gone and the pain is back.

We can exercise to stay fit, but even after a while the body gets tired. The vitality is eventually lost. The peculiarity of human nature is often that the mind controls us instead of us controlling the mind.

Imagine that someone loves ice cream. Give them one bowl of their favorite and they’re happy, give them a second and they’re happier, and still happier with a third… But after seven or eight, there’s no more happiness. It’s the law of diminishing returns.

Life is cyclic and therefore repetitive. From clerk to doctor, people do the same thing again and again. After a while, they need change, to feel some sense of satisfaction in doing something different.

A person who has a lot of possessions is comfortably unhappy. A person who has no possessions is uncomfortably unhappy.

It’s legitimate and proper to want to be happy. To desire unhappiness is improper. In our pursuit of happiness, it’s a bit like jumping very high to ring a bell. Every now and again we do it, but most of the time the bell doesn’t ring.

In our pursuit of happiness, we’re pursuing a long-term solution, but we generally have to settle for a quick fix that doesn’t last.

Conceptually, we can believe that we’ll be happy elsewhere. The problem is, we haven’t been elsewhere in order to know what it looks like.

Even elsewhere, where happiness resides, there’ll be gradations of happiness. Furthermore, an unhappy person will be unhappy everywhere, just as a complainer will find fault even in a 5-star restaurant or hotel.

Pinning our hopes on something that isn’t adequate or appropriate will only perpetuate unhappiness. Inadequate effort won’t produce results. Inappropriate effort won’t give good results either. The right effort is both appropriate and adequate.

~~~

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Oscar Pistorius: Blade Running for his Life?

March 12th, 2013 · Astrology, celebrity, Crime

Life is full of mysteries. One of them is, How did a guy like this end up in a mess like that?

Oscar Pistorius is affectionately known as the Blade Runner, thanks to the prosthetic “feet” with which he’s propelled himself into the athletic spotlight over the past decade, into the hearts of South Africans in particular and the handicapped world in general.

Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. At 11 months old, his legs were amputated halfway between knees and ankles. Despite this, as a schoolboy he participated in rugby, water polo, tennis and wrestling before acquiring the prosthetics that enabled him to compete in running events.

Called “the fastest man on no legs”, he’s competed in three Summer Paralympics. In 2004 he won gold in the 200-meter category; in 2008, gold for 100m; in 2012, silver for 200m, gold for 400m, and gold for the 400m relay.

He’s been awarded BBC Sports Personality of the Year, made Time magazine’s annual list of the world’s most influential people, and received an honorary doctorate for his achievements. He’s pulled in sponsorship deals from Nike and other corporations worth $2M a year.

He overcame incredible odds to enter the winner’s circle of life – world-class athletic status, lucrative sponsorship deals, and a relationship with a beautiful and talented woman, model and lawyer Reeva Steenkamp.

Yet in the early morning hours of February 14, 2013, Pistorius shot and killed Reeva, whom he allegedly mistook for an intruder in his home. The following day he was charged with murder, the next week in court while prosecution and defence attorneys presented preliminary evidence in his case. Pistorius was subsequently charged with pre-meditated murder but released on $113,000 bail.

Pistorius was born 22 November 1986 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Family recollection places his birth-time between 10:30-11:30 AM. For the purpose of this article, the author used 10:30 AM. Note: the chart presented here uses sidereal zodiacal positions.

Because the ascendant changes from Capricorn to Aquarius after 11:18 AM, we must ask ourselves, given the uncertainty of his recollected birth time, is this the right ascendant?

Pistorius was involved in a major boating accident on 21 February 2009 in which he almost died. He spent a week in hospital, undergoing surgery to repair broken facial bones including nose and jaw. Transiting lagnesh Saturn was in the 8th house, while transiting Mars was exactly on his 19-degree CP ascendant. Although this isn’t definitive proof of the birth-time, it does reassure us the ascendant is almost certainly Capricorn.

Pistorius has a strong chart, although it reminds one more of an artist than an athlete. A strong Venus, retrograde in its own sign in the 10th house, forms multiple yogas – Malavya Yoga on its own, Raja Yoga with Mercury, and Amala Yoga with the help of Mercury and Jupiter.

The Moon in its own sign in the 7th house, coupled with a strong Venus also in a kendra, is a common signature for an artist. Certainly his powerful Moon explains the public’s love affair with him, not to mention a companion who commanded a certain limelight of her own.

He has a Mars-Saturn Parivartana Yoga involving the 2nd and 11th houses, effectively a Dhana Yoga for wealth, while a Shakata Yoga with Moon/Jupiter in a 6/8 relationship threatens his ability to hold onto it.

Although his public image was nearly impeccable, Pistorius had a darker side. Privately, he could be loud and abusive. He was edgy, constantly in motion and reckless. He wasn’t a good loser, and often launched noisy protests against competing athletes and their prosthetics. He loved fast cars, speedboats and collecting guns. He was jealous and controlling in relationships, and threatened violence against a man over the affections of a girlfriend. In 2009 he was charged with assault for slamming a door on a woman.

Saturn plays a strong role in his chart. It rules and aspects his ascendant, and is associated with his Sun, the 8th lord of trauma. It is nakshatra dispositor of both his Sun and Moon, thus reflecting both inner self-doubts and burning ambitions.

At the time of the shooting, he was in Mercury dasa, Saturn bhukti. Mercury is lord of 6th and 9th in the 10th, wherein it served him well to compete for social status. But Mercury also delivers on behalf of its nakshatra dispositor Rahu. Rahu is a proxy for its sign dispositor Jupiter, ruling the 3rd and 12th, both dusthanas, and potentially the source of his undoing due to some uncontrollable desire.

Saturn is lord of 1st and 2nd in the 11th, where it generates both wealth and a “voice” in his community. But Saturn also delivers for its nakshatra lord Mercury, whose rulership of the 6th and 9th brings him into conflict with the police and judiciary.

He returns to court June 4th, and his Ketu dasa starts in August. Ketu, a malefic in the 9th, aspected only by another malefic Mars, doesn’t look good for a man who is facing trial-by-judge. Ketu is also known as “the headless one”, which generally evokes the notion of Ketu’s spirit escaping the dictates of an ego. In this case it could also describe the judge, who must be more heartless than headless, divorcing himself from the public opinion which, in a trial-by-jury system, would almost certainly have resulted in a hung jury and dismissal of the case against Pistorius.

In November 2013, transiting Saturn will enter Vishakha nakshatra, whose lord Jupiter rules Pistorius’ 12th house. Whatever the judgment, a period of incarceration seems likely, at least for the time it takes Saturn to transit the 11th and 12th houses.

 

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Carl Jung: “Like vintage wines, we have the qualities of the season wherein we are born.”

March 4th, 2013 · Astrology, celebrity

“We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.”

~ CARL JUNG

 

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Vedanta in Rishikesh, part 1

February 28th, 2013 · India, Instruction

In September 2005 I went with a large group of jyotish students to Rishikesh, India. We stayed at the Dayananda ashram for a little under two weeks while we attended nine days of classes with our teacher, Hart deFouw, on the subject of the nakshatras.

While there, we were privileged to also receive a morning discourse on the subject of Vedanta given by the ashram’s resident scholar, Swami Brahmavidyananda. This is a rough transcript of Day 1:

22 Sept 2005

The centrepiece of Vedanta is the individual – basically, an issue of answering the question, “Who am I?”

Humans are blessed with the faculties of both language and cognition, which allows one to be self-conscious and also to express that self-cognition.

Mynah birds (coal-grey body with yellow beak and legs) are very chatty birds that talk among themselves, but also have the cognition of recognizing their kind, of seeking food, of building nests. But they don’t have thoughts about themselves.

On the other hand, people as a result of their self-cognition end up having all sorts of thoughts and opinions about themselves – positive and negative and sometimes complex.

Imagine if cattle had these same complexes – looking in the mirror and deciding its horns were too straight or curved, or its color was all wrong. What to do? Go to a salon to get some body work done? Or each day push the straight horn against a wall to curve it a little bit over time? Imagine the cow’s unhappiness.

Imagine if we could take a poll of everyone in the room with respect to the basic question, Are you happy with yourself and the basic elements of your life? Chances are, people will answer with the equivalent of the Indian head wobble. Comme ci, comme ca.

We do the best we can do, but we often don’t get it right. We go too far, or we don’t go far enough. We say too much, too little, the wrong thing at the wrong time.

We know where we are unhappy and generally aware of our shortcomings but we don’t like others to point it out because it makes us even more uncomfortable with ourselves.

First we feel our own guilt for the things done or not done. We get into saying, “I should have…”, but if someone points out our failing, we feel guilt all over again for allowing our faults to be so visible that others can observe them.

Sometimes it’s difficult when someone says, hey, you’re looking good. Yet we say to ourselves, oh no, don’t ask me how it’s going, because only I know what a mess I am inside. We are all too well aware of our own self-limitations.

Even twins do not have the ability to read the other’s mind.

People generally have a certain level of self-awareness via the conscious mind. And although we know it exists, we’re not capable of knowing anything about the unconscious mind. And as the body ages, memory fails – we forget facts, can’t put a name to a face.

Although we have so much baggage in terms of self-awareness of limitations, we always retain the possibility of letting go of those ideas of self-limitation. It’s not that our limitations disappear, it’s just that we can let go and stop torturing ourselves with the ever-present cognition of them.

In sleep (and in meditation) we are capable of dropping the notions of self-limitation and thus become happy with ourselves.

Everyone knows what it’s like to be happy – to be free from wanting, lacking, feeling incomplete. And in those brief moments when we are free, we become acceptable to ourselves.

No matter what our circumstances, irrespective of time and place, we would like to be free of wanting what we do not have or wanting to be what we are not.

The first question is, Do I want to be happy? The second question is, Do I know how to be happy? Answers: yes and no. If we knew how to be happy, we would not have become unhappy. If the means to be happy are not available, then the expectation to be happy is not legitimate.

How to discover who I am and how to be happy with that irrespective of time and place is the subject of Vedanta.

 

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Lindsay Lohan: Fully Loaded

January 19th, 2013 · Astrology, celebrity, Karma

If anyone needed evidence of Rahu’s power to turn an otherwise charmed life into a shit-storm of trouble, look no further than Lindsay Lohan.

Lindsay (LiLo) Lohan was born July 2, 1986, at 9:50 pm in New York. (Data courtesy of Astrotheme.com) Her mother was a singer/dancer, her father a Wall Street trader. She began a career as a child fashion model when she was three, and was acting in the soap opera Another World by the time she was ten.

Aiming to become a triple threat – actor, singer and dancer – like her role model Marilyn Monroe, over the next ten years she enjoyed an almost unbroken run of good fortune. She acted in several movies, including The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Mean Girls and Herbie: Fully Loaded, all of which met with critical and box office success.

With unconscious prescience, however, a critic of The Parent Trap remarked at the time that, “she is more adept than her predecessor [Hayley Mills] at creating two distinct personalities.”

Then her car jumped the curb, literally and figuratively. Like every good drama, there was some fore-shadowing in 2006 when she started partying like a frat girl, and the first of many car accidents occurred. By the time 2007 rolled around, she’d fully morphed into her new-found persona of Good Girl Gone Bad, Really Bad.

It’s been a train wreck ever since: one car accident after another, DUI convictions, community service, in and out of rehab, drug possession, jail time, legal issues, industry doubts about her work ethic, man troubles, girl-on-girl action, probation violations, theft, more legal issues, disastrous box office and critical flops, assault charges, and more family drama than you can shake a stick at.

If you can bear to watch rampant self-destruction in action, this is one of the biggest movies in town, and it’s live!

Note: In the two charts shown below, all rising and planetary positions are sidereal.

Lohan has a relatively unremarkable chart. She has two Raja yogas – Moon/Saturn in the 5/11 axis, Mercury/Venus in the 7th. Her Moon/Jupiter in mutual kendras creates a Kesari yoga (the schmoozer). A Parivartana yoga with Moon/Venus exchanging houses in the 5th and 7th can indicate a person whose mind is always on sex.

There were hints of troubles to come. Venus in the 7th is karako bhavo nashto, indicating relationship problems. Rahu/Ketu in the kendras can manifest as a rebel without a cause.

Most troubling are signs of a disturbed manas, her emotional mind. Destabilizing Rahu is in the 4th house; lord of the 4th, Mars, is afflicted in the 12th; Moon, significator of the manas, is afflicted by a powerful (retrograde) Saturn. These things aren’t enough to put her in a mental institution, but they do encourage visits.

But take an unremarkable chart and give it a good dasa sequence, you get a life like Lohan’s.

Her Moon dasa ran 10 years, January 1990 to January 2000. The Moon mainly works for its nakshatra dispositor Sun. The Sun in the 6th (a malefic in an upachaya house) gives employment and tramples the competition. It doesn’t hurt that the Moon is exalted in the 5th house and participates in two major yogas. Recall, this was the era of her child modelling and soap opera role.

January 2000 to January 2007 marked her seven-year Mars dasa. Mars delivers results for its nakshatra dispositor Venus. Participating in two yogas, Venus in a kendra can deliver a public performance. But Mars’ placement in the dusthana 12th acts out as self-undoing. Thus, a mixed period.

Rahu took control in January 2007 and that’s when the party turned ugly. Rahu rules all poisons – cigarettes, alcohol and drugs – and Lohan has them all in one purse. Rahu dasa will run January 2007 to January never-mind-what-year because she might not make it that far. It’s 18 years, let her do the math. But can she handle 12 more years of what we’ve seen in the past six?

They make me want to go to rehab but I say no, no, no…?

Rahu acts as a proxy for its associate, aspecting or dispositing planet(s). Rahu has no associates or aspecting planets, so it does all the dirty work for its dispositor Mars. With the 4th lord Mars in the 12th, that spells trouble for vehicles or state of mind. That could mean loss of a vehicle, or Lohan could become institutionalized – in hospital, rehab and jail.

Stop the car, I want to take off my anklet.

For confirmation, see Rahu’s placement from Chandralagna – treating the Moon as if it were the ascendant. Thus, Rahu occupies the 12th from the Moon, indicating loss and incarceration. Rahu then acts as a proxy for Mars, lord of the 7th from the Moon, occupying the 8th from the Moon. Relationships, and public relations, could turn negative.

Chandralagna is hemmed by malefics in a Papakartari yoga. Opposing the Moon is Saturn hemmed by malefics in a Papadhi yoga. This pattern puts a terrible strain on the manas that functions as the body’s operating system. Worst scenario, it may presage a nervous breakdown.

Is there a way out of this?

Everyone deserves salvation, and we all like to see an underdog make a comeback. There’s no better time than now for Lohan to make the effort. She runs Saturn bhukti from March 2012 to Jan 2015. Saturn owns two positive houses (1st = Self and 2nd = bankability) and occupies the 11th house, an upachaya (improvement) house where malefics do well.

Saturn occupies its own nakshatra and is exalted in the navamsa chart. The sub-period thus offers promise of renewal through the traditional Saturnine virtues – sobriety, deep self-reflection, and a disciplined lifestyle on both personal and professional levels.

Come on, Lindsay, you can do it. Love yourself and save yourself.

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Taylor Swift: Teardrops on my Guitar

November 26th, 2012 · Astrology, celebrity

Has Taylor Swift embraced an unstable love life just to inspire more “Teardrops-On-My-Guitar” songs? Is this art imitating life, or life imitating astrology?

In a recent interview, Swift admitted she falls in love quickly, but also insisted she was not in a hurry, at age 22, to get married and have kids. “I think every girl’s dream is to find a bad boy at the right time, when he wants to not be bad anymore.” Ironically, despite her tendency to leap before she looks, Swift isn’t sure she’s ever been in love.

Can astrology shed some light on these contradictions by analysing relationships in her birth chart?

Taylor Swift was born December 13th, 1989, at 8:46 PM in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. (Chart data courtesy of astrotheme.com) Note: all planetary positions as per the sidereal zodiac.

Venus sits in Swift’s seventh house of relationships, so you’d think that’d be a good thing. After all, Venus is the karaka (significator) of love and pleasure. And the seventh house is the home of The Significant Other. One plus one makes two-getherness, right?

Nope. The classic texts of Vedic astrology call this karako bhavo nashto, a condition where in fact it’s best not to have all your eggs in one basket, because one blow to that basket could break all your eggs.

So Venus in her seventh house – what seems to promise romantic bliss – is actually a set-up for a fall, because the Rahu-Ketu axis destabilizes both the planet and the house associated with relationships.

When that happens to Swift, she finds catharsis by singing her heart out in music. It pains her, but it pays, because in an angular house, Venus can still deliver the good stuff.

Rahu in the seventh has directional strength that makes it potent. Because of its power to cause eclipses, the Rahu-Ketu axis is associated with unusual and unpredictable people and circumstances. That can mean experimental, unconventional or downright quirky alliances.

Taylor’s love life flickers bright and dark – people coming out of nowhere, and just as quickly returning to never-gonna-make-up-again land. Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, John Mayer, Jake Gyllenhaal… Stop the boy-go-round, I wanna get off.

Swift has Capricorn in the seventh. Its lord Saturn is in the sixth, one of the dussthanas, or houses of destruction. (The others are the eighth and twelfth, and mildly, the third.) The sixth house is especially bad for relationships because it’s in the twelfth house – as counted from the seventh. That makes it misery-making for partnerships as well.

Her ascendant lord Moon occupies the twelfth house. This is another dussthana for her, implying self-undoing, and also one from the seventh house of the partner. Her Moon in the twelfth enjoys a full-on aspect with seventh lord Saturn in the sixth. That initiates contact with potential mates, but involves relationships that can be confrontational and erosive.

Her Gemini Moon is twitchy – emotionally and sexually. Its close association with a bright (retrograde) Jupiter gives her luck, abundance, generosity, a spiritual boost and wisdom with age. But Moon is afflicted by Saturn from the sixth and Mars from the fifth – and there’s the itch that can’t be scratched.

Moon afflicted by both Mars and Saturn is a ‘passion player’, someone who’s amorous. The twelfth house – pleasures of the bed – suggests the playing field. Venus afflicted by Rahu-Ketu can be very adventurous in relationships. ‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it’ could be a song title.

Will Swift ever settle down in a stable marriage? 2020’s looking good, when Saturn will transit its own seventh house. Furthermore, from October 2020 to May 2022, she’ll be in the bhukti (minor period) of ascendant lord Moon during the dasha (major period) of seventh lord Saturn.

Aside from bringing together the Self and the Significant Other, via these two ruling planets that mutually aspect each other, this period will fully arouse her passions in a relationship that may well raise eyebrows.

Since Moon is in a nakshatra of Rahu, the Moon sub-period will deliver the goods for Rahu. Passionate Rahu sits in the seventh with Venus, invoking love relationship, and probably marriage, albeit of an unusual character.

Will that be the end of her “I-Knew-You-Were-Trouble” songs? Probably not. Venus in the seventh is karako bhavo nashto, after all, and it is still destabilized by Rahu, creating a combo that is both erratic and erotic.

Beware the seven-year-itch.

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Curiosity Rover’s (astrological) landing on Mars

October 14th, 2012 · Astrology, Science

The Curiosity rover landed on Mars on August 6, 2012, at 05:17 UTC. This was a momentous occasion for NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory so I was intrigued to see what the event chart looked like.

Since I’m not an astrophysicist, I looked up “UTC” to learn it stands for Coordinated Universal Time, which means GMT, absent any daylight saving time.

After adjusting for time zone, daylight saving time, and the fact that NASA’s control center for the Curiosity mission in La Cañada Flintridge, California, isn’t in the middle of the Pacific time zone, the landing appeared on local clocks as 10:31 PM PDST of August 5, 2012.

In the event chart, Mars is in the seventh house, about four degrees above the horizon and descending. I assume this was planned so NASA would have line-of-sight visual and radio contact until Curiosity landed.

In any major trip, three houses are significant. The third house represents the launch, as when a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The ninth house indicates the destination, the landing opposite from the launch point. The eleventh house signifies the objective to complete the trip on schedule, on target and in one piece.

The lords of these houses are Venus, Mars and Saturn, respectively, and all are dignified. Venus has dig bala in the fourth house. Mars is in its own nakshatra in the seventh. Saturn is exalted in the eighth.

Remarkably, all three are found in nakshatras of Mars. Venus is in Mrigashirsha (23TA20 – 06GE40). Mars and Saturn are both in Chitra (23VI20 – 06LI40).

Mars bhukti will run February 2015 – March 2016. Dare we glance ahead and predict that, in the last week of February 2015, when Venus and Mars will both transit the first house Moon, Curiosity Rover will make some momentous discovery? Does Mars dare? Per ardua ad astra!

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