A Sacred Skill
Have you ever heard the teaching that a swan has the ability to separate pure milk from water? The sanskrit expression of this is “haṃsa kṣhīra nyāya“… which essentially means the swan [haṃsa] can discern [nyāya] the milk [kṣīra].
I’m not sure if this is true! Though the swan does have a beak feature called a lamellae that allows it to separate water from mud!
The notion of milk here is in keeping with the vedic reference to milk as a blessing and boon of the highest order and the imagery is delightful and meaningful.
“The pain and joy you will experience in this lifetime is encoded in your body, in the earth, and in the stars, at the time of your birth. Karma takes each individual down their path in life.” ~ The Devi Bhagavatam
According to the doctrine of karma you were born with a blend of puṇya and pāpa karma [milk and mud or good result momentum and bad result momentum]. There is some blessing and some burden to be experienced in this life. It’s not that everything is pre-destined… but that you have patterns that are playing out, based on the momentum of your past karma.
And yet, the doctrine of karma also includes and accounts for your free will.
You get to choose how you navigate burdens and blessings along the way. You get to choose to cultivate the wisdom and skill to extract the blessing even in difficult times.
This is a the gift of vedic astrology – at least the way that my guru, Sri Krishan Mantriji shared it. We can use jyotisha to navigate the best thing to do at each time, even the most challenging of times, so that we can extract the milk from the mud.
Your circumstances are due to a blend of destiny, chance and your own effort – Draupadi teaching her husband Yudhisthira about Karma in the Mahābharata
Your Inner Apparatus!
When we look ahead at the vedic astrology for the month ahead, we see at face value, more challenge, volatility and friction that we like to see. Here are just a few things…
- The planet of war [mars] comes together with the tail of the serpent, the node of renunciation [ketu].
- The planet of beauty, comfort and artistic expression [venus] is feeling ambitious yet restricted by the planet of limitation [Saturn]
- A powerful eclipse season in which the cosmic serpent swallows the sun and moon.
- The pitr paksha time of the ancestors continues through October 13/14 and then meets the time of the feminine divine – both of these time frames lovingly call us inward to spiritual devotion and practice in spite of the demands of life.
[More on the above in this month’s Nectar of Time offerings]
This is a time that will challenge us personally and globally, bring unexpected changes, put us at risk for more volatility in relationships.
But the saving grace is that you can use our free will to not only navigate this time with grace… and even come through the end of the serpent renewed.
So the question is not, is this a good or bad time, but rather, what is this a good time for? Then you can use your free will to extract the milk from the mud.
You may not have a lamellae like the swan, but you have something even more powerful – you have a buddhi – this is your intellect, the capacity of your mind to discern and make wise choices moment to moment, deliberately!
“Do not be passive. Free will is a gift of being human. Other animals act purely out of instinct. We have choice. This is a blessing. We have to understand how to choose responsibly and appropriately. Not to choose in such ways that cause harm to self or others.” – Swami Viditatmānanda
A Time for Good Habits
This strange month in which the ancestor time, collides into an intense eclipse, which overlaps with the festival to the feminine divine was launched with a small but mighty blessing….
Mercury moved into its dignified position, its own home of virgo.
This makes the first two weeks of October a sacred window for cultivating GOOD HABITS.
So if I could offer one piece of advice for this time it is to contemplate ONE thing that you want to cultivate – maybe it is a habit to be released, or a new habit to be established.
Take time right now to reflect on it. Choose ONE specific, meaningful and doable thing. And start now. Do it [or stop doing it]… whatever it is, every day for the rest of the month.
Something small is something you can incorporate and integrate until it becomes normalized, a new well established habit.
Maybe it is around your bed time or sleep habits, maybe it is around food, maybe it is around your yogic practices, or your relationships, or your reactions, or your self-care, or your parenting. Pick ONE simple thing. And let it become a new well established pattern.
The window is open for this right now, and doing this will sharpen your inner instrument and help you to ride the rest of the month in the flow of grace… extracting milk along the way.
I hope this is helpful. I will be sharing more about habits and deep habit patterns in the weeks to come inside the Nectar of Time, as well as little bits on my instagram.
I hope to see you here or there, or anywhere. It is always an honor to share.
Remember, when you understand & learn to participate with the ebbs and flows of the cosmic order, and bring in wisdom and divine will, there is blessing to be extracted.
Love,
Kaya
LIVE SESSION [members receive the recording too] THIS SATURDAY for Nectar of Time Members on the Vedic Astrology of this Time… plus so much in this month of the Ancestor time, the festival of the feminine divine and more.