Water for Renewal
Every Friday a reminder in my calendar prompts me to water the houseplants. If I fail to look at the calendar each plant has its own way of reminding me. The orchid drops a petal. The bamboo leaf tips dry out. The succulents wrinkle and the dirt in which they are planted pulls away from the sides of the pot. The cyclamen is most dramatic, it faints, two dozen blossoms falling over, dragging their stems with them.
Once watered, the orchid’s lavender color darkens and the green stem expands, the bamboo leaves thicken, the succulents become smooth and fill their pots, and the cyclamen stems miraculously lift themselves from the rim, raising the drooping petals to unfurl in the light.
This is the power of renewal, the living Shakti of rejuvenation as is seen in the Nakshatra of Punarvasu, where today’s Moon visits.
Renewal is a constant process in nature, and as our bodies are natural products they are subject to the same forces as the plants. We wither when dry, cold, or held in darkness, and denied the attention and nourishment of life giving elements. But unlike plants, we have it within us to provide the essential nourishment for renewal, or if we lack some measure of this, we have the ability to ask, to seek, and for those of us with an abundance of healing substance, to give.
When the Moon visits Punarvasu we are reminded of this ability, but like the Moon, which never settles in one house for long, we may feel stirrings of restlessness that color our ability to give and receive so that the full bloom of humanity isn’t achieved. Being able to apprehend this means we also can act intentionally to change it.
My encouragement to myself and to you is to check your calendar often. Who in your life has dropped a blossom, grown wrinkled, dipped toward the earth due to weakness, or fainted for lack of healing water? What will you do for another today? Will you give selflessly to bring more balance to the distribution of the elements of life?
American Vedic Astrology 