Venus Transit in Ashlesha

The Nagas are the deities of Ashlesha, Mercury is its lord, and its symbol is a coiled serpent. It fills the last third of Cancer and ends at the gandanta with Magha. Mercury is a friend of Venus in Parashara's reckoning and the Moon, lord of the sign, an enemy. Venus is clever here, and uneasy.

Desire turns inward and becomes strategy. Attraction works through hints, through withholding, through knowing what the other person wants before they say it, and the transit favours healers who work with poison and medicine, negotiators, and artists whose subject is the hidden. Venus stays around eleven days. In that time a relationship can be bound tighter or quietly poisoned.

Ashlesha is tikshna in muhurta. It suits the ending of a bad contract and the removal of what clings, and a wedding or a new partnership is better fixed elsewhere. The last pada, near the gandanta, is where Venus's affairs are least steady.

By the Moon and the lagna:

• Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries and Pisces Moons hold Venus in the first to fifth houses, favourable in Phaladeepika, and gain through speech and charm.
• Sagittarius, Scorpio, Virgo and Leo Moons receive it in the eighth, ninth, eleventh and twelfth, favourable too, with gains through hidden sources and elders.
• Aquarius, Capricorn and Libra Moons have it in the sixth, seventh and tenth and should watch for manipulation, their own included.

The transit shows how a person holds on, and whether love has turned into holding too tightly.

Recite Om Shukraya Namah, offer milk to the Nagas, and give white cloth or curd on Friday. Say what you want plainly, once, and let go of the rest.