The primordial horror of Ashlesha🐍
And a timeless tale
You might have heard that in vedic posts on the internet Bharani and Ashlesha are almost always talked about when topics of femininity, mother nature, primordial feminine, female passivity, raw sexuality and feminine harshness (in any sense) are being discussed. And for good reason too. Bharani and Ashlesha_ two mleccha nakshatras associated with feminine planets (Bharani's nakshatra lord Venus and Ashlesha's rashi lord Moon) and saturated with feminine symbolism, are both connected to primordial, raw, pure power of passive femininity.
I'm going to explore Ashlesha's role in this in a less sexual and more internal context.
Do recommend this for Jyeshtas, Revatis, Bharanis and Punarvasus too, as the themes are going to be familiar to all of these, in different ways.
The medicine and the poison, the monster and the pure angel
To start with, Ashlesha's main symbol_ the coiled serpent, already spells danger. Something is reaching its critical point and cannot be contained, for better or for worse.
Ashlesha's power is vishashleshana shakti ("Vish" means poison, "ashlesha" means control). Ashlesha, having the power to control its energy, power and reactions, learns how to be immune to things, out of necessity.
In a way, Ashlesha's power is to simply have power over things, but that exchange of energy between you and the thing/person you're controlling can be dangerous.
4th house and the sign of Cancer deal with the spiritual/mental/emotional safety of the person, 4th house sitting at the bottom of the zodiac wheel. Being a water sign and ruled by the Moon, it is related to extreme vulnerability and energy flow. Moon is dependancy. Ashlesha's nakshatra lord_ Mercury, is the nervous system. Ashlesha is the very force that binds and connects your emotions to your nerves and their sensations.
Sidenote: Ashlesha is about nourishing(Moon's sign) the nerves(Mercury ruled), Hasta is about controlling(Mercury's sign) the nourishment(Moon ruled).
Those reptilian instincts, that primal awareness and animalistic conciousness that Ashlesha leaves you with are as vulnerable as they are scary. To the person themselves, they have been stripped bare of their defences, and no matter how hard they try to find a way to be safe, it feels like the only safety is in no defence. Building or cultivating defence is not natural to the pure, passive Ashlesha. It requires some kind of action, and any action, in its essence, requires the disregard of absolute receptivity_ the state in which Ashlesha is naturally in (Bharani too, by the way).
Ashlesha is about not lying to yourself about your weaknesses, it's about knowing how vulnerable you really are. In a way, it's also about testing the limits of pain to know how much you can hurt, how much of that pain you really feel and have been repressing, how much of it you can handle. It's about settling in your nature and slowly gaining strength, so that your weaknesses are not really weaknesses, but just parts of you that have not yet reached their full potential. It's not a place of excess, but a place of economy and necessities.
From the viewpoint of the feminine, it's their natural place_ the watery, sensitive, impressionable, pure force. But it does not want to stay in that one place. It's known that still water is dangerous, it's been associated with all kinds of unpleasant things. Being in the state of Ashlesha is like that_ it's like the water that has nowhere else to go and wants to flow (release) with any opportunity to do so, but there's danger there too.
For the feminine in that state, there is danger in staying and there is danger in going.
There is a lot of concern for purity because it recognizes that it needs to move on but it absolutely cannot do so without doing it correctly, or the purpose will be defeated and all the work will be wasted.
Some hate medicine, some favor all kinds of vaccinations. Ashlesha needs to build immunity but it's also paramount for it to feel everything with as little interference as possible, preferably none at all. Purity has to be radical.
So, there is struggle and patience built into them. But whatever they do, in the end, their strength, their energy, their power is growing towards a critical point. It's like if you take a sensation from one part of the body to the other or if water goes from one end of the vessel toward the other_ it's still there, the only temporary relief might be moving that energy inside you, waiting more and more impatiently for that perfect opportunity to release.
So we go back to the start_ the coiled serpent, the dangerous force, the deep need.
In terms of sexual energy, the feminine is both intensely desirous and incredibly cautious. The need/desire of Ashlesha to move on to the next stage while waiting indefinitely to do so because of safety concerns can be interpreted as the desire/need for sexual experience, and the fear of abuse/not being pure anymore. The theme of the complete passivity is intertwined with this nakshatra, as if the origin and rules that were set in Bharani demand to be fulfilled.
The law of nature and the passive feminine are restrictive and suffocating to masculine, active forces. If the feminine does not settle and gain power through her natural passivity (flow, receptivity, being as opposed to doing), then she's at the risk of being annihilated.
The result of Ashlesha nakshatra: "destruction of the victim"
No mention of who the victim is. The point is, that in Ashlesha, a place of dependancy, attachment and control, where everyone is either the abuser or the abused, there is no place for mercy. The stronger one wins.
This is the game of subtelty and ruthlessness_ trying to gain some sense of humanity after feeling like a dangerous, vulnerable animal_ a monster that wants to take, because it's an innocent creature that has little.
But no matter how much you wait, how much you gain, it's all going to turn to poison, unless you can dare to oppose.
To break the chain_ it's a risk, but what else is there to do when safety becomes a cage?
But the smart, calculative Ashlesha knows the dangers, it just waits for when it's strong enough to attack, it waits until it knows every medicine and poison, until it hurts so much that it does not hurt anymore, so that when it faces the enemy, the victim will no longer be a victim, but an opponent, who has been hiding its strength under the covers of fragility, who uses what others called a weakness to strike. Until the poison is medicine and the tears are poison, it waits. But when the milk turns sour and the gentle touch suffocates, it's ready to go.
The tale of Snow White
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Crediting Claire Nakti for mentioning this association in her Ashlesha video
Snow White's story is a great example of how Ashlesha's energies play out.
I'm not going to go into too much detail of why it's related to Ashlesha, as I think it's going to be obvious as I go on, but the key associations are: the pure young woman (reinforced by the symbolism and imagery that her name evokes), the controlling feminine authority, danger, poison, power struggles.
I love the 2012 film "Mirror Mirror", because it does not hesitate to show the power struggle between Snow White and the evil queen. The struggle is depicted mostly through metaphors and/or symbolism in the original tale.
It'd be great to mention that Snow White's tale is said to be based on actual real life women. The first_ Margaretha von Waldeck who lived in the 16th century Germany, died young and as evidence by her last letter suggests (her handwiting indicated that her hand was shaking), she died by being poisoned, and it was also known that her stepmother was jealous of her. She also lived in a town where children had to work in the mines (inspiring the seven dwarves).
In "Mirror Mirror" Snow White is played by Ashlesha moon 🐈⬛ Lily Collins, and Evil Queen is played by Magha moon 🐀 Julia Roberts.
There is tiny chance that Lily is Pushya moon but that would only be true if she was born before one in the night, so I'd say she's Ashlesha, especially after observing her.
The beginning of the movie: the queen is sitting on her lavish golden throne (Magha's symbol), dressed in an equally lavish golden dress (Sun's color), positioned above Snow White, who is forced to kneel before her. The Queen is weaving her insults and humiliations into her words that seem genuinely caring at first, even Snow White falls for it in the beginning. That's how the feminine repression and bullying works in Ashlesha_ it's all the more powerful because it's gradual and seems non-threatening, especially to masculine people.
As always, the villain and the hero are determined by which nakshatra is the focus of the story. In this case, from Ashlesha's perspective, its enemy nakshatra_ Magha, is obviously the villain. This theme of "whose story is this" is another display of the power struggle in this transition. I highly recommend watching this film, because for all of its jokes and slight changes, it still retains the original message.
"The kingdom fell into an icy despair..."
_ narration from the queen
Ashlesha's yoni animal is the male cat, Magha's is the male rat, its enemy yoni. As Magha comes directly after Ashlesha and begins the second stage of nakshatras, marking the start of the sign of Leo, together they also mark the first gandanta point.
The Evil Queen is a blatant example of a Magha character, especially symbolically. It is implied and then obvious that she married the king for power and material advantages. Her ego is almost cartoonishly bloated, and all of these qualities are amazingly contrasted to Snow White_ a quieter character, who is naturally humble and subtler, not as direct as the rat yoni Magha.
In the beginning of the film she's dressed in a more golden dress, symbolizing her merging with and submission to the queen, stuck in the helpless state. After she gets the bravery to sneak out into the town, she wears a hooded cape the color of cooler, brighter yellow (more her coloring). When she comes back to attend the ball, she wears a pure white (symbolizing her purity and cool energy, resonant to Ashlesha) dress as her swan (grace, humility) costume. The Queen is dressed in bright red as a peacock (confidence, vanity, pride). That white dress is the one she stays in as she runs away and finds the home of the seven dwarves, the same white as the snow in the forest. In this adaptation, the whole kingdom is in an eternal winter under the queen's enchantment, just like the Ashlesha stage.
As she finds dwarves, they quickly become each other's allies and supporters, and, in a way, it taught her her own power. As she was gathering strength to attack and become the new ruler of the kingdom, she already was a ruler of her new tiny kingdom (dwarves_ her new family).
In the Ashlesha stage there is a separation from the things you were clinging to. At first it's seen as a tragedy, but with distance and time, the individual realizes that it needed solitude. Snow White is forced to run away (because of danger, to literally not die), but she thrives away from the queen (restrictive, abusuve influences). There's another side to this: an avoidant person, aware of its sensitivity, who does not realize how much they crave real connection. Attachment to the "wrong" people and environments and longing for the "right" ones is the issue here, along with the paradox of needing to escape and move on (critical point, built up tension and energy) but risking the much needed purity by doing so (just what I've discussed above).
Since a lot of the time the vulnerable Ashlesha feels dependant on outside forces, the movement is forced, for better or for worse, but it never recoils completely or gives all of its energy away, as it feels like it has to remain guarded.
Snow White learns to fight on her own, with the support from a genuinely nurturing environment.
She starts to wear a blue dress (cool toned, contrasting Queen's gold and red) while she's literally fighting on the side of the Queen's exiles.
When the prince joins her and the dwarves, they hear the "beast" that has been terrorizing the kingdom. She locks everyone else in the hut so that she alone can face the enemy (even though they don't let her), which is a key point in retaining your power in the state of Ashlesha. Her desire to face it alone shows not only the growth of her bravery, but mainly, her strength, as it was precisely what allows bravery for her.
Transition to Magha
There's a blatant display of power from snow white, right at the end, after she reclaims the kingdom (and at the end she's wearing a blue dress with a bright golden-orange ribbon_ finding her own power and embracing it, without losing herself). It's the last test and a chilling reminder that Ashlesha's stage is prolonged, almost never over, and can subtly sneak up on you and defeat you if you lower your guard.
At her wedding with the prince, she's given a ripe, red apple.
"And so it was Snow White's story, after all"
_ the magic mirror.
She gives the Queen her apple back, finally cleansing herself completely from that poison and using it to harm her enemy. Now she's the one in power, repeating the queen's own words back to her.
The result of Ashlesha nakshatra: the destruction of the victim.
The individual moves to Magha nakshatra_ ruling, power, lineages, detachment from the body (Ashlesha is the attachment to the body), and takes their own place on their throne.
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Gif credits to @tecrystali , @xiaolanhua , @elvencantation .
Pictures are from Pinterest.
Thank you so much for reading 💕
