The New Moon is dwelling today at the heart of the air sign Libra, in Swati Nakshatra. Here in Libra, the natural 7th house of Sunset, Sun is weakened in debilitation. With the death of the Sun comes the birth of his daughter, the night. In the words of the starry Goddess Nuit (from the Book of the Law): “I am the blue-lidded daughter of sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.”
In myth, the Egyptian Goddess Nut swallows the Sun God, Ra, at Sunset. From her Vulva she births him again at Sunrise. Nut has a range of beautiful correlations to Swati nakshatra. Swati is presided over by the God Vayu, who rules the Anahata (heart) Chakra. The Shakti Bija of the heart Chakra is HRIM, the seed sound of the Goddess of the starry sky & space in India, Bhuvaneshwari (who is worshipped facing West, towards Sunset). Swati is Rahu-ruled, tying to Nut as She Who Swallows the Sun, and Nut is identified by wearing a water-pot, associated with the next Rahu-ruled Nakshatra in Aquarius’ core, Shatabhisha (which also has key connections to feminine spiritual energy).
Understanding the feminine power of Nut helps one to understand an important part of the female spiritual path that is found in Swati, in Libra, the Heart-Path. Swati is one of only two nakshatras ruled by two feminine planets; in this case, it is the nakshatra combining Rahu & Venus energies. As I outlined in my latest video, Swati has a range of traditional connections that all support it as the least “grounded” of all nakshatras. Being unrooted and associated with the winds and space, Swati is the freest thing in nature, the freest thing we can conceive of, the freedom we experience in our dreams associated with such a lack of grounding that we are completely weightless. Only consciousness is real here; it dictates form and environment. With the Venus rulership of Libra, there is something special about Swati’s immense freedom. Being untethered to any fixed identity, roots, or tradition— despite its dangers— has one major benefit: the ability to follow a path paved only by the heart, being led by the whispers of love and passion. One is completely flexible then to, like the wind, change and transform in all ways by the impressions of Love. So, in order to have “true love”, one must have the airy freedom and flexibility to make decisions with Love as the guide. Following the heart means blowing through the blockages to its path. It means ignoring the signposts aggressively pointing you towards outcomes produced by decisions rooted in any other desires or impulses: wealth, safety, stability, submission, tradition, fear, and so on. To be winds-led-only-by-love means to dissolve emotions that inhibit you from it. It means eradicating fear to embrace love with courage; it means defying submission to embrace love through rebellion; it means disobeying tradition to embrace love through individuality, and so on.
“Freedom is the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love”. - Rudolf Steiner, Swati Rising
As I have discussed before, Purva Bhadrapada nakshatra relates to liberation especially from the perspective of the masculine principle or male adept. It is the cosmic state where one philosophically deprograms from moral restraints and socially-imposed boundaries in order to assess and assert one’s own True Will & follow its path authentically. “Thelema” means “Will”. Swati, however, is the sense of being Free by being led by Love, another sector of this philosophy, called “Love (Agape, αγάπη) under Will (Thelema, θέλημα)”. Love under Will is the essence of the female spiritual path. The male path finalizes with control (directing his energy and his consort’s) but the female path finalizes with release; the blissful dissolving of control into love & trust (as dancing Shakti, unbound). Applying Love under Will for her then means her path of Love being dictated by her Will (not against her Will).
As Nuit recites, “I am divided for Love’s Sake, for the chance of union. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.” In The Book of the Law, the scarlet woman is described as being “Girt with a Sword” . This relates to her courageous, Venusian path of love & attachment, but meaning bravery in “cutting off” and rejecting all influences other than the one who is truly worthy of her. With this sword, she is also unapologetic about embracing the power of her channeling of Maya— her femininity, beauty, and seduction along this path— that angers many. The parts of the Path of Love she has walked already, now behind her, are riddled with the fallen rejected who weren’t radiant enough to navigate her expanding Darkness & weren’t knowledgeable enough to fill her growing Silence. She embraces the expansion of illusion, as the “the infinitely-expanded circle whose circumference is unmeasurable and whose center is everywhere” 🌀, relating to Swati as the freedom to move in various directions and scatter like the wind. The sword is an alternative symbol of Swati. The Sword symbol also ties to this rashi and nakshatra in that in the Tarot, Swords are the Air Element suit. On the Thoth card “Adjustment” (or Justice), the Libra Trump, the High Priestess now holds her Sword. The card’s mnemonic sheds light on this wild freedom, but which is actually following the careful path of Love: “Adjustment! Rhythm writhes through every act. Wild is the dance; its balance is exact.”
To initiate a woman it was said traditionally that a male adept should whisper “HRIM” in her ear. In this way, she is oriented onto this powerful path of the Heart, of magical rejecting and finally sacred “yielding”, which takes her all the way to completion. To be on the path of the heart as a woman means to embrace your Darkness, and therefore swallow into your Universe only the most beautiful displays of light and color. It means to be unafraid of your Silence, so as to only be a womb for the most beautiful & meaningful Words, and to reject all else. In this way, the masculine is “the word”, and the sacred feminine receives this word. She swallows the various inputs into her Universe, melds them together, & charges them with the power of illusion and the Mechanism of Maya & pleasure. It is the feminine then, who takes the Word, holds it with Love, and turns it into Poetry.
It is due to the Feminine principle of our Universe (as the Goddess herself and her inspiring manifestation through each woman on Earth) that the Earth contains art, pleasure and beauty— the Maya & illusion that captivates us & makes us want to learn and play here. You can reflect on this in that in my art survey, those with feminine-planet nakshatras contributed most heavily to the art world. That is why when spiritual practices instruct a woman to become “pure” or “holy” specifically by removing her feminine beauty, her power, her love of illusion, her ability to draw energy projection into reality, they are instructing her to remove her connection to the Goddess within her and to her own spiritual center. They are asking her, begging her, to pretend to be the masculine principle, to stop tempting energy to project outwardly. She is the “video game” matrix of our reality itself, and the masculine is the Player of the Game (Nuit’s consort, Hadit is “the infinitely small point within the core of every single thing”). Do not listen to the addicted player demanding you to turn off, who won’t hold the rose from fear of the thorns. Of course some of these players think if they get the game to turn itself off they’ll be free from it. But turning off the game and winning the game are two very different things. Turning off the game is lifeless & uninspired Death and enslavement; playing the game can be rich & beautiful Life; and winning the game is Love (union), liberation.
My latest video on Swati Nakshatra:
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