Rahu Transit in Taurus

Taurus is the sign most texts give as Rahu's exaltation, and its lord Venus is Rahu's friend in the usual lists. Rahu gives material results freely here. For about a year and a half the sign's themes swell: wealth, luxury, food, speech, land and the pleasures of the senses. Foreign trade and unconventional sources of income prosper.

Ketu stands in Scorpio, its own sign of exaltation, so the whole axis is strong. Rahu pulls toward comfort and accumulation. Ketu pulls toward the depths, toward secrecy, research and renunciation. A person who honours both, earning well and going inward, gets the best of this transit.

The nakshatras are Krittika, Rohini and Mrigashira. Rahu moves backward, so Mrigashira, ruled by Mars, opens the transit with a restless search for the next thing. Rohini, ruled by the Moon, is the fertile centre of the stay and the peak of Rahu's material gifts. Krittika, the Sun's nakshatra, closes it with a burning away of excess.

Rahu's favourable transit houses, the third, sixth and eleventh from the Moon, fall to Pisces, Sagittarius and Cancer Moon signs. Taurus Moons carry an exalted Rahu in the first house, which brings ambition, weight and a taste for excess. Scorpio Moons have Ketu in the first and Rahu in the seventh, where partnership brings a foreign or unusual person. Libra Moons meet Rahu in the eighth and Gemini Moons in the twelfth, and the lagna is read alongside the Moon.

The tendency in view is desire itself. Rahu exalted in Taurus gives what one wants, and the transit reveals whether wanting was the problem. Overeating, overspending and attachment to possessions are the common shapes of an unwatched Rahu here.

• Give a portion of every gain away on Saturday, the dana that keeps Rahu's gifts clean.
• Recite Om Ram Rahave Namah and worship Durga.
• Keep the diet simple and speech truthful, since Taurus rules both.