Question on
Nakshatra Borders

I once read a blog from you talking about how, if a planet is very close to the border of a sign and it’s not in alignment with important points in the chart (for example, the Ascendant), it’s possible that the planet loses potency and becomes “weird”. How does being in the border of a Nakshatra affect a planet? Are there any side effects of something like this happening? If so, how should I go about interpreting this?

Reply on
Nakshatra Borders

No border is conventionally ideal. Think about the border of a nation, or even a home, or the border of any era of your life. Those places and times are volatile and unsettling, and involve a lot of work.

A planet on the border between nakshatras, is not fully committed to its current nakshatra, but not fully connected to its soon-to-be nakshatra. Hence it gets “blurry” and has some qualities from either, and all the qualities of neither.

An exception is the border between the four nakshatra pairs (the three “purva/uttaras” + “Viśākhā/Anurādhā”). The border in the middle of these four pairs is very advantageous because in these specific cases the current nakshatra and the soon-to-be naskahtra blend ideally.

Question on
Nakshatra Influence

In your last video (100% Nakshatra Astrology) you explained that if a planet aspects the Moon, Ascendant or Sun, its Nakshatra earns influence. Is this also true for planets conjunct to those points? Or do Nakshatras only earn influence with aspects?

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Nakshatra Influence

Nakshatras earn influence with conjunctions, yes. In general I consider conjunction to be a type of aspect. (defined by peaking at 0° from the planet and falling off to 0% at 30° +/- from the planet).

An interesting thing here, is that conjunctions are always mutual, and very often happen in the same nakshatra. So very often conjunctions in the same nakshatra are a powerful way to increase the importance and influence of that nakshatra.

Question on
Exaltation

I understand from your video about Mars in Capricorn that exaltation is basically slightly handicapping a planet to push it to its best version. Sometimes, exalted planets end up in negative houses for them or with negative lordships (for example, think of Jupiter in Cancer in the 3rd for Taurus Ascendant, as the 8th lord in the 3rd). Is the difficult house/lordship part of that handicap? If the planet is exalted, does it mean that it overcomes these difficult characteristics?

Reply on
Exaltation

Clearly, house and lordship is not intrinsic to sign position. An exalted planet, however, tends to overcome what might have otherwise been negative about its placement in a house, and as a lord. By “overcome” I mean that it indicates positive variations on, and outcomes from, the otherwise typically negative indications from its house and lordship.

In the example you gave, Jupiter exalted in the 3rd house is very, very, very fertile, and also very very very intelligent for extracting profit and gain from what other people make available.