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Diwali- the Festival of Lights

and a Solar eclipse in Libra<!–

Happy Diwali!

Diwali (also spelled in many different ways!) is the beloved Festival of Lights.  

There are many symbols and myths associated with this festival, but the triumph of light over darkness is certainly a predominant theme.  As with many festivals of India, each place celebrates a bit differently.  In many places tonight we light up our homes with the lamps pictured above (though tea lights will also do), and welcome Lakshmi in.  Lakshmi is connected with prosperity and bounty, so it’s as if tonight we are lighting the way for her to enter our lives in this upcoming year.  

If you have a Lakshmi practice or mantra do it tonight and light a candle for Her.  In some areas tonight is celebrated with a Kali puja, but that needs more guidance than is possible here, so if you feel inclined, do a little something for Maa Lakshmi today or this evening.  This can include- cleaning the house, making a special meal or a sweet, decorating the entry of the home with drawings (rangoli) or flowers, and finally lighting lamps in the evening so She can find her way in this moonless New Moon sky.  Some also say to leave your windows and doors open, but this perhaps is a more logical practice in the warmer parts of India than for many of us in cooler places.

This Diwali is also accompanied with a New Moon eclipse at around 8° Libra.  Eclipses are considered inauspicious events where fasting and meditating are the recommended practices.  For us in the US, the eclipse occurs during the early morning hours of Tuesday morning.  Those in other parts of the world may want to consult timeanddate.com to check in their time zones and avoid doing much of importance in this few hour window.  Those with important placements in Libra may feel this eclipse more intensely.  As always the recommendation is to take it easy on the day of and the few days surrounding an eclipse.

On October 22nd Saturn went direct (out of his retrograde movement) and will now move forward though Capricorn until he reaches Aquarius on January 17th 2023.  Saturn retrograde can make us feel more inward and unable to move forward, stuck and a bit depressive.  The direct movement of our Vedic slowest moving planet pushes us forward, slowly and steadily.  Though the retrograde movement is over, Saturn is still considered stationary at the moment, so the feeling of stuck-ness may last a few more weeks.  But we are headed in the right direction.

Remember that eclipses come in pairs, and the next one is on November 7th-8th.  These next 2 weeks of the eclipse window, along with the celebration of the other realms that come at this time of the year, make this a very sacred fortnight.

Om Mahālakshmyei Namah

Love and Blessings,
Mrinmoyee

www.mrinmoyeeastrology.com

 

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