As I am fighting a fever (not covid), I can’t help but wonder the speed at which we are traveling the distance. It’s the middle of a pandemic and we all feel stuck, restricted or confined in our lives with little to no give. Lying on my bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling I started to ponder on the heavy, slow energy of Shani or Saturn. Collectively, we are all feeling the drag, like a heavy metal prison ball chained to our ankles. There are 6 planets (7, if you count Pluto) this new moon in Capricorn (Cap) – Saturn’s sign. Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Mercury, Venus and Saturn in a planetary war from our perspective on Earth. (Yes, planetary war is only from ‘our vantage point’ on Earth as astrologers try to figure out which planets rays distilling through our skies has the dominant influence on the collective). Some may freeze in their footsteps calling this a doomsday as they did on Feb 4, 1962 when 8 planets had piled up in Cap, while others are taking the leap of faith
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Cap is symbolized by the crocodile: awkward & vulnerable moving on land with its four stout feet but mighty in the waters where it uses the power of its magnificent tail. Cap is where we learn to traverse two worlds; one that requires practicality and grounded approach to life, and the other that requires letting go and going with the flow – just like the crocodile who traverses the landscape yet swims effortlessly in the current. With several planets in Cap right now we are feeling the pressure to manage our worldly affairs – whether its our jobs, money, practical structures in life that provide security, our inner insecurities and draining attachments, the tenacity and tenderness of life, our legacy, inevitable death and limited time
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How do we handle this pressure? The trick is to tune into the energy of the nakshatra or constellation where this new moon is happening. This new moon sets off a new cycle in Dhanishta – literally meaning the rich one. Dhanistha is symbolized by Shiva’s damaru, a two beaded drum shaped like an hourglass. Shiva as Nataraja, lord of dance, is depicted playing the damaru in Ananda Tandava (dance of bliss) to produce the primordial sound that creates and regulates the rhythms of the Universe. What has playing a percussion instrument got to do with being the rich one? The rhythms created by Shiva’s damaru are synonymous to the rhythms that run our lives – our daily routines, daily practices, exercise patterns, habits, music, dance, clock ticking, time ticking, and even our heartbeats have a rhythm to it. In materialistic sense, mastering the rhythms, routines & disciplines of everyday life without clinging too tightly to outcomes (Cap lesson) will eventually compound to one becoming Dhanistha, the abundant one, themselves. In spiritual sense, mastering sound, which requires one to really listen, follow the sound to its source, and follow the source to its silence is what unlocks the richness of the Universe. It is not the act of making sound but the act of ‘listening’. When one is in tune or in union (yoga) with the Universe, the rhythms in the substratum of sound and the substratum of silence becomes evident – the very technology built into mantra practice. So next time when you chant a mantra pay attention to the meter you are chanting it in. Keeping the meter makes you present to the chants 
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Dhanistha also leads Cap energy into Aquarius, a sign where we are universalizing our worldly pursuits but also getting ready to let go of it all. Since, Aquarius is a fixed sign, the efforts made during the Cap cycle start to show up as fixed, long term humanitarian outcomes. This is a good time to make room in your busy schedule for causes that may outlive your own lifetime. Whether it is planting a tree whose fruits you won’t be able to enjoy in this lifetime, striving for a cause whose benefits you may not reap – like climate change, or consciously influencing the socio-economic fabrics of society for the generations to come. All of this requires humanitarian ambitions with Cap-like planning. It’s like a river that’s departed from its source, making its way step-by-step through the muck into the unknown, without any external validation of its direction or destination, and only with an internal wisdom that one day it will merge with the ocean
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And for those like me, who sometimes cannot help but feel heavy and stuck, remember that if you are absolutely still right now with no movement or action – that stuck-ness itself is an illusion. For you, like me, are being carried on this globe called Earth, around the Sun at 67,000 mph. The Sun in turn is carrying Earth and our solar system through space at 490,000 mph – Such great speeds we cannot fathom but only experience
PC: Dharmesh on pinterest
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