The heart of the deepest gandanta

This month we have the rare occasion of Mercury and Mars moving through the same gandanta in opposite directions!

As a reminder: gandantas are the three places in the zodiac where fire and water signs meet: between Cancer and Leo, Scorpio and Sagittarius and Pisces and Aries. The last one degree of the water sign and the first one degree of the fire sign are considered very tenuous places, since water and fire elements are inimical and create a bit of a zone of potential explosivity and because the 27 nakshatras which provide continuity between the rest of the sun signs also end in these places. Because nakshatras show us the mental perspective, this creates a certain vacuousness in gandanta that tends is disconcerting for whatever planets transit there.

Gandanta translates as ‘spiritual knot,’ which reflects the fact the planets transitting gandanta tend to become tense and knotted up. Pressurized situations can arise which feel like they have no solution or ‘way out.’ The best way through here is generally remaining as calm as possible, observing the tension but not trying too hard to find solutions until the planet is out of gandanta. Often times the ‘solution finding’ generates more tension and only compounds the knot-effect. Relaxing into whatever the reality is in the moment tends to relax the knot. And it is amazing how many layers there can be to this process. Spending some time in meditation noticing where you are resisting or clenching against life can be extremely valuable during times like these.

With Mars, the sources of this tension are likely to be in our relationship with anger, aggression, assertiveness and boundaries. People who are signified by Mars, such as those in roles of protection, brothers and athletes may become more tense. The areas of life (by house) Mars rules in your personal chart can also experience increased stress and confusion. All of this is rooted in a deep insecurity and the instinct to protect. When Mars is vulnerable he becomes defensive and has the tendency to start fighting.

The effects of gandanta Mars can start to be felt around Christmas. Mars will be within two degrees the infamous Scorpio-Sagittarius divide—considered to be the most perilous division in the zodiac—on 12/24.

This shows that tensions are high, which might be normal for this time of year when many people are spending more time with family than they might any other time of the year. The highest amount of tension falls on the 26th-28th, when Mars is deep in gandanta.

On a physical level this transit can exacerbate issues for those who have pre-existing problems in the hips or pelvic region, which is represented in the Kalapurusha by Scorpio and Sagittarius. Gandanta planets here can create problems due to extreme tension in those areas—a tension which generally has an emotional root.

Almost simultaneously, Mercury will cross the same gandanta in the opposite direction due to his retrograde i.e. backwards motion. Mercury goes retrograde on 12/13, and remains so until 1/1. On 12/27 Mars crosses over from Scorpio to Sagittarius very late that same night Mercury moves backward from Sagittarius into Scorpio.

Mercury’s gandanta is likely to strain communication, information and the intellect. He is no doubt going back to Scorpio to resolve something that was not properly communicated or transmitted in his first round about a month ago (from 11/6-11/27).

Sun and Venus will be the bystanders witnessing this switch, in Sagittarius and Scorpio, respectively. You might expect some swift and surprising changes of circumstance, which look to me fairly benign if not beneficial . This is an excellent time for refinement and deepening of structures of organization, business practices and ideas, and reconsiderations around learning. Mercury—the planet of information— returning to Scorpio is really wanting to understand something on a new level of depth. And the Venus conjunction should make the process of negotiating these changes enjoyable.

There is another element to this bidirectional gandanta transit, which is that these planets will influence once another as they cross the depths from different directions. A Mercury-Mars combination is a very logical one, wherein information is dealt with very pragmatically with the outcome generally being very practical. When these two planets get together they can generate material, real-world solutions for complex problems. This is why they are considered to be an engineering combination. Being that they are generating their ideas in such unique territory as the heart of the deepest gandanta, we might see some interesting ideas come out of this transit.