The ACVA Comet, September 2024

American College of Vedic Astrology

Note from the President of ACVA

By Professor Charlotte Benson (Jyoti Devi) President, ACVA

September 2024

Dear ACVA members and recipients of our publications –

Please note that we now have three different channels to stay in touch and up-to-date with what’s going on in ACVA. We’d love it if you would encourage your students, interested associates and others to follow us by one or all of the following means:

Join our mailing list and we’ll start sending our free regular publications – a monthly newsletter, and a quarterly journal – each with a forecast of upcoming astronomical phenomena, advance notice of webinars, educational and entertaining articles on jyotisha, and information on notable Vedic festivals. Just visit our website at https://acvaonline.org/comet-the-acva-newsletter/ and sign up to start receiving these regular communiqués.
Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/acvaonline where we regularly advertise our scheduled events, such as the popular “Ask Jyoti” webinars, and with many more educational webinars to come as the year progresses. Again, please alert all in your circle who are interested in the divine science of jyotish.
Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/acvaonline/ where our account is so new that we’ve barely had time to post anything yet. But rest assured, things will soon be appearing with regular frequency. Again, please help us, via word-of-mouth, email, or sharing within social media to alert students, friends and acquaintances.

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Professor Charlotte Benson (Jyoti Devi)

President, American College of Vedic Astrology

Pitru Paksha: the Fortnight of the Ancestors 2024

September 17 to October 2, 2024

By Professor Juliana Swanson

ACVA Provost and Dean of Academics

The Vedic tradition of Pitru (Pitri) Paksha will be celebrated from September 17 to October 2 this year. This annual festival starts at the Full Moon in the Bhadrapada month which extends from September 3 to October 3. The Divine Mother celebration of Sharad Navratri will begin on the eve of October 3 after Pitru Paksha culminates.

Also known as Mahalaya Paksha and the “Fortnight of the Ancestors”, Pitru Paksha is a 16–lunar day period when the ancestors (pitrs or pitris) are honored and invoked through special offerings and ceremonies. The ancestors include family, friends, teachers, and all members of society. Pitru Paksha is rooted in the Rig Veda and described in the Puranas of the Vedic tradition.

The Rishis of ancient Vedic culture charted the yearly calendar in observance of nature’s changing cycles. These highly evolved masters of the greatest mysteries of life and death understood that the early autumnal season of the year is a profoundly sacred period. During this time, the Earth’s electromagnetic energies in the northern hemisphere are beginning to shift and turn inward, just as our own sublime energetic systems are moving deeper within.

The Rishis recognized that revering and invoking the ancestors during Pitru Paksha is necessary to maintain harmony within our own individual nature as well as among all of humanity. This tradition remains very much alive today in modern Hindu culture.

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Street Fighting Mars?

By Alan Annand

ACVA Editor-in-Chief of Publications

As Vedic astrologers, we’re typically less likely than western astrologers to obsess over transiting planets, but this presidential election cycle may offer a worthy exception to business-as-usual. Witness the upcoming transit of Mars in Cancer, its sign of debilitation, during which period it will also go retrograde.

Specifically, here’s the “weather report” for transiting Mars:

Mars in Cancer (debilitated, weak), 20 Oct 2024 – 20 Jan 2025
Mars retrograde (bright, strong), 12 Dec 2024 – 24 Feb 2025
Mars Rx in Cancer (mixed condition), 12 Dec 2024 – 20 Jan 2025

From August 26 to October 20, transiting Mars will be in Gemini, during which time we’ll witness the typical war of words between conflicting political parties, motivated and driven by their respective agenda and underlying beliefs. This of course plays out in every election cycle, but the 2024 election is shaping up to be something like we’ve never seen before.

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The Observatory September 2024 Equinox Edition

By Dr. Lynn Bootes, MD

ACVA Dean of Students and Registrar

registrar@acvaonline.org

This year the fall/spring equinox and the eclipse season are mingled, with the lunar eclipse on September 18, the equinox on September 22, and the solar eclipse on October 2. The weather is often unstable as the Sun and Moon pass near Rahu and Ketu. So too is the weather at the September equinox, when the full light of the sun shifts south of the equator.

The major planetary event of the season will be the movement of Mars, as its apparent forward motion slows and stops on December 7. Mars will appear to move backward (retrograde) compared to the stars until February 24, 2025. The entire cycle will continue into the first half of 2025, with Mars dipping back into Gemini for a while. As a result, Mars spends many months in Gemini and Cancer between August 28, 2024 and June 7, 2025. Please refer to Alan Annand’s article Street Fighting Mars? for an additional perspective.

The march of the seasons and the lunar cycles continues as always. Please take time to notice how the change of seasons is a total sensory and spiritual experience – a change of the quality of light, of sound, smell, taste and touch.

There are a number of days and weeks while the Sun, Mercury and Venus pass through Virgo and Libra on which there are auspicious days for social, cultural, and spiritual undertakings. We must not fall into doom and gloom over difficult things going on in the world this season. Rather, let us continue our efforts to shed light and do our part “for the welfare of the world,” as stated in the first chapter of Parashara.

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Assessing the Sphutas for Children

By Alan Annand

ACVA Editor-in-Chief of Publications

When a client asks “When will I have children?” or “How many children will I have?” they are already getting ahead of themselves. This is because the first and fundamental question should be, “Will I have children?”

To answer this basic question, astrologers will typically examine any and all planets that associate with or aspect the 5th house, the 5th lord and Jupiter. Depending on the influence and strength of male or female planets, they will thereby assess the prospects for male or female children.

In a similar manner, astrologers will also look for planets that associate with or aspect the 5th house – from the lagna, from the 5th house, from the 5th lord and from Jupiter. As in the previous protocol, they will again look for strong planets of either sex to suggest the viability of children.

The sphutas

In addition, many astrologers also use the concepts of bija sphuta and kshetra sphuta to assess the virility or fertility of a man or woman, respectively. In brief, these are two symbolic points, derived mathematically from the zodiacal positions of key planets. The calculations are as follows:

For a male nativity, the bija sphuta = zodiacal longitude of the Sun (representing man) + longitude of Venus (representing semen) + longitude of Jupiter (representing child)
For a female nativity, the kshetra sphuta = zodiacal longitude of the Moon (representing woman) + longitude of Mars (representing ovum) + longitude of Jupiter (representing child)

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Coming Attractions at ACVA

Thursday, 11/21/24 – Monday 11/25/24 Maharishi Parasara Conference: Online.

Faculty for this event include ACVA’s Dr. Dennis Harness, Alan Annand and Charlotte Benson.

Friends of ACVA scheduled to appear: Sarbani and Pandit Sanjay Rath, Komilla Sutton, Dr. Andrew Foss, Ronnie Dreyer, Sam Geppi, and Simon Chokoisky – among many other luminaries.

Use Discount Code: ‘ACVA108’ for a substantial discount for ACVA friends and alumni.

This will be the largest online Jyotish conference in recent years! Please join us there online.

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In gratitude,

The Leadership Team

American College of Vedic Astrology