Saturn Transit in Ardra

Ardra lies in Gemini, Mercury's sign, where Saturn is welcome. Its lord is Rahu, who behaves like Saturn and is counted its friend in the usual lists, and its deity is Rudra, the howling form of Shiva, with a teardrop as the symbol. Saturn meets a friend in a friend's house here.

Ardra is the storm. Grief, sudden change, sharp intellect, research and the clearing that follows tears are the themes. Under Saturn the storm is slow and long, and a loss is absorbed over months. A quarrel with a sibling or neighbour hardens. A long piece of technical work demands more than it seemed to.

The throat, the shoulders and the breath need care. Saturn takes about a year to cross a nakshatra, and the yearly retrograde usually splits the stay into two or three visits. In Ardra each return reopens the same grief. Each time it is a little lighter.

From the Moon, Cancer, Gemini and Taurus Moon signs are in Sade Sati, with Gemini in the middle phase. Pisces Moons have Saturn in the fourth and Scorpio Moons in the eighth. Aries, Capricorn and Leo Moons and lagnas hold Saturn in Phaladeepika's third, sixth and eleventh and do well.

The transit shows how a person grieves. Rudra weeps and then destroys what is dead, and Saturn in Ardra asks whether the dead thing can be let go. Honest mourning leaves the mind clear and sharper for the work that follows.

The remedy is Rudra's own: chanting or hearing Sri Rudram, water offered to Shiva, and honest tears where they are due. Give sesame oil on Saturday, recite Om Sham Shanaishcharaya Namah, and serve those who labour outdoors in bad weather. Keep away from intoxicants for the length of the stay.