This 22 November, the New Moon falls in the beautiful nakshatra of Anuradha. In your Vedic chart, the nakshatras reveal a deeper layer of interpretation, qualifying and nuancing what the signs and houses signify. The Moon’s cycles define a month, and you certainly know the experience of expansion and contraction in your body rhythms that harmonises with the waxing and waning of the Moon each month. But the Moon has another cycle as well. Every month it moves through the 27 nakshatras or lunar constellations. This movement creates a dramatically different quality of energy every day, which mirrors the shifting expression of consciousness through your energy field. Rich in mythology and symbol, the nakshatras belong to the oldest Vedic root: before the signs, before the houses . . . there were the nakshatras.
Since every day the Moon moves into a different nakshatra, it is the Moon whose movements correspond to very short periods of time. 
The Moon is Chandra, a deity like all the planets. Fickle and changeable, Chandra is married to the 27 daughters of Daksha, one of the sons of Lord Brahma. Each one of these wives corresponds to a different nakshatra. As Chandra orbits the earth, he visits a different wife or nakshatra every night, and so he is likened to a hare in Vedic mythology. His union with each of his wives creates the different flavours of daily experience. In Jyotish, the continuous movement of Chandra through the 27 nakshatras provides a kind of chiaroscuro of change against the steady background of other longer lasting configurations––like Saturn’s two and a half year sojourn into Scorpio that I wrote about last month.
Depending upon the condition of the Moon in your chart, your susceptibility to Chandra’s orbit will vary. Some of us feel more steady and rooted in our moods. Others feel deeply the storms of these shifting astrological weather patterns.
Knowledge of the nakshatras, however, can help everyone. You can observe how the quality of each day mirrors in some way the energy of the nakshatra the Moon is in. And even more important, you can learn how to harness that energy so that it can serve more effectively in your life.
One powerful tool for doing so is the branch of Jyotish called muhurta. Nakshatras figure prominently in muhurta, which involves the timing of events. Why spend your precious time, money and effort in planning something that matters so much to you without ensuring that auspicious energy will be gracing that day? Each nakshatra is good for something, and aligning the energy of the nakshatra with whatever you are planning––a wedding, an important journey, a major purchase, a new business venture or anything of consequence––is part of muhurta.
The Moon represents the capacity of consciousness to grow. And each nakshatra possesses a unique power or shakti that furthers the evolution of consciousness. Whatever nakshatra the Moon inhabits at the moment of your birth instils a powerful imprint upon the foundation of your mind. Its shakti characterises the shakti of your deep soul essence. This nakshatra is your birth star. In India traditionally, it was how birthdays were celebrated, when the Moon returns to the same nakshatra it was in during the month of your birth. Sacred festivals in India also follow this lunar calendar, which is why Diwali, Holi, Mahashivaratri and so on are celebrated on different days every year according to our western calendar. The lunar calendar represents a different orientation towards time, actually much closer to cosmic reality than our calendar with its months of 31, 30 or 28/29 days!
So who is Anuradha and what significance is the New Moon in this placement for you?
Anuradha means “another Radha”, and Radha was the favoured consort of Lord Krishna. She was so devoted in her love for Krishna that He was her whole reality. 
In Him she knew the divine ground of ultimate being; in Him she saw everything, and in everything she saw Him. Radha is the older woman, and as such embodies devotion characterised by maturity and wisdom. She is a personification of wisdom, who knows Krishna in the deepest sense, and that knowledge infuses every aspect of their relationship. It is a love that has ripened through time into profound and enduring friendship. And the expression of this divine friendship forms the basis of the shakti of Anuradha, which is the power of worship.
This theme of maturity and wisdom receives confluence through the placement of Anuradha in the zodiac. Anuradha falls entirely within the sign of Scorpio, from 3°20’ to 16°40’, and consists of the three stars of the Scorpion’s body. As such, Anuradha represents the ripening of time at the end of the growing season, the movement into darkness and the drawing in of the harvest, which can be bountiful or bitter . . . because very often what we thought was coming does not always come.
But the wisdom of Anuradha includes the contraction of winter. It is wisdom gleaned through the experience of time, which serves to rend the veil of ignorance, but accepts too that the path to Ultimate Truth necessarily involves turmoil and letting-go. Anuradha represents the deep psychological urge towards enlightenment, which lies deep within the hearts of all. She is the wizened crone, tempered by knowledge of the world yet ever faithful to the truth of transcendent light that radiates beneath all surfaces.
New Moon is a time for going inwards. The stillness and darkness it brings support deep spiritual work. New Moon corresponds to Lord Shiva in deep meditation, when Shakti is still and all of creation rests in a state of potentiality. So when the Moon is dark, clear your calendar and set aside time for longer meditation, for relaxing in nature, for rumination and setting down roots in preparation for the waxing cycle. But it is also important to consider the nakshatra where the Moon is placed, because its nature has a powerful influence over the quality of your day.
Since Anuradha resides entirely within Scorpio, her element is water. Water signifies dissolution. Water purifies, water accepts, water subsumes everything it contains, gradually dissolving it into ever more subtle form. Water represents the dissolution of body and mind into the ground of pure spirit, and so New Moon in Anuradha signifies a particularly auspicious time for spiritual practice.
As a deva nakshatra, Anuradha uplifts, orienting consciousness towards sattvic preoccupations. The two symbols associated with Anuradha reinforce this theme. 
Anuradha is the lotus, whose roots sink deeply into mud, signifying materiality, but whose blossoms emerge from water and turn towards the Sun, just as the soul evolves and yearns for spiritual union. The lotus stands for Lakshmi, goddess of beauty and abundance often understood in a worldly manner, but whose highest expression is spiritual wealth. Radha is a form of Lakshmi.
Anuradha is also a gateway covered with leaves. She is the threshold, where what is left behind is the bounty of harvest, the culmination of material expansion, and the measure of time; but what lies on the other side is the timeless and transcendent ground of all being. Anuradha represents a doorway into the realm of spirit, graced with leaves, the expression of a life fully lived.
The Vedic deity Mitra is associated with Anuradha. As a form of the solar deity, Mitra presides over rita, cosmic harmony, and represents the highest virtue of friendship. Mitra gives the capacity to understand human relationships and through those bonds upholds a sacred commitment to truthfulness, to keeping one’s word (where the Word is also the manifestation of the absolute in time and space).
All these factors weave together to form the beautiful nakshatra of Anuradha. And if you were born with your Moon in this lunar star, the nature of Anuradha will imprint deeply upon your character. Anuradha people cherish friendship, valuing the connectedness it brings with passion and devotion. As everything in Jyotish, Anuradha has a higher and lower expression. In its lower expression, Anuradha can manifest as suspicion, manipulation or resentment, the negative side of deep connectedness. But in its higher expression, Anuradha manifests as compassion and worship, the positive side of connectedness that recognises the spark of divinity in all beings. Here Anuradha desires friendship with everyone.
It is a mature understanding, where passion fuels prayer and every being becomes an object of devotion. Bhakti is thus the highest orientation of this nakshatra. Remember that Anuradha is the lover of Lord Krishna, and her perfect knowledge of Ultimate Truth through him manifests as abiding reverence for his lotus feet.
Saturn rules Anuradha, and so he functions as the karmic gatekeeper or controller of the shakti of Anuradha. Saturn keeps the passion of Anuradha measured. He ensures that the spiritual fruit of this nakshatra will ripen only after the hard lessons of the material world are learned. This usually involves a certain degree of pain, loss, defeat or relinquishment, because the great teacher Saturn reveals above all the real truth of our materiality, which is the ephemerality and impermanence of all things of this world. Saturn modulates the expression of Anuradha, and highly evolved Anuradha people have a profound understanding of the spiritual wisdom Saturn bestows on those who honour his truth. For all who are born under this star in particular, it is wise to make peace with Saturn in this life.
For everyone, when the Moon comes to Anuradha it is important to know what kind of activities find favour under this lunar constellation. 
Anuradha is a tender, soft and mild nakshatra. Its energy is conducive to revitalising and healing pleasures, so it is a good time for getting a massage or beginning a healing practice or swimming in the sea. It also is good for anything artistic, so find some time to express yourself through music, dance or poetry. Naturally, it is good for anything involving friendship, from simple outings with a close friend to the celebration of a marriage. It is good for romance and pleasure, and anything that enhances those things, such as the buying or wearing of new clothes. It is not conducive to anything requiring brashness, decisiveness, competition or dynamic resolve.
As always, the potential for a lower or higher expression of these energies remains. For those on a spiritual path, there will be little temptation to dissipation, the kind of excess that all of the soft activities above can lead to when out of balance. Instead, when the Moon is in Anuradha, these soft, tender and mild activities can serve to open the awareness to the timeless reality of infinite being that lies just beyond the gateway that Anuradha represents.
This 22 November, not only are the Moon and Sun in Anuradha, but also Venus, planet of grace and luminosity. Venus and Moon will both reside very close to the Sun on that day, tempering the Sun’s fiery pitta with the cool kapha of their fecund white light. Though Saturn is also present in Scorpio (in Vishakha not Anuradha), the whole configuration receives as well the light of an exalted Jupiter from Cancer, another water sign. All this enhances the potential for grace already present in this New Moon in Anuradha.
Wishing all of you the many benefits possible on this most auspicious day.
Happy New Moon in Anuradha!
Om shanti
