Issue #2 · March 16 to 22, 2026 · Phālguna Kṛṣṇa Pakṣa to Chaitra Śukla Pakṣa
Happy Sunday!
So many of you read Issue #1, thank you so much.
Here is Issue #2.
ākāśa / the week at a glance
Calendar Strip with Predictions from Astrokarak
Zoom in if you are on a small screen. Take a screenshot to refer to it throughout the week. It has a lot of information which may be useful for you.
this week in the sky
This week brings us two important things: Mercury retrograde ends and lunar year turns.
Mercury has been retrograde since February 26, 2026. It turns direct at 1:02 AM on Saturday, March 21, in Aquarius.
If the last few weeks brought circular conversations, unclear intentions, delayed replies, poor judgement, bad timing or language that sounded right but carried the wrong meaning due to the situations, this transit will explain a lot of it. Since Mercury dictates the area of communication and technology, this direct motion will also bring positive changes in those domains.
Communication, between any two parties, will get better. It may be at a personal level or the geopolitical level. In the retrograde period we saw:
- outage of Amazon Web Services in the Middle East,
- global outage of Anthropic Claude,
- amazon.com shopping platform outage,
- infrastructure disruptions in Cloudflare,
- US-Israeli strikes on Iran,
- US-Spain military base dispute,
- Samsung spec-sheet miscommunication at S26 Ultra’s launch,
- disruptions in AWS and Cloudflare impacted other apps like Instagram and Rocket League.
When you think about it, this is a lot packed in a little amount of time.
Anyway, it is getting direct on the 21st, which means there is space to breathe after a lot of fights, all because of unnecessary misunderstandings. The areas of communication and technology won’t face such massive disruptions again until the next Mercury retrograde.
The second event, happening on Thursday, March 19, marks Chaitra Śukla Pratipadā, the opening of the bright fortnight and the start of the new lunisolar year in many Hindu calendar traditions. The dark half closes, Amāvasyā passes, and the month turns. If you keep saṅkalpa, vrata, japa discipline, or any formal spiritual beginning, this is the cleaner threshold.
one concept, explained
Nimitta, the branch of Jyotiṣa most people leave behind
निमित्त (Nimitta):/nɪ.mɪt̪.t̪ə/
A noun primarily meaning"cause," "reason,"or"instrumental agent."
Context:In grammar, it means"for the sake of"; in astrology, it refers to an"omen"or a predictive sign.
Philosophy:Refers to being amedium or tool(Nimitta-matra) through which a larger event is facilitated.
When most people say “astrology,” they mean chart reading. However, that is only one part of Jyotiṣa.
Nimitta is one of the older and more neglected limbs of this tradition. The word nimitta means a sign, indication or omen. In practice, it is the reading of meaningful signs arising through the immediate environment.
Not paranoia. Not “the universe sending random messages.” A sign becomes useful when it appears in direct connection with a question, an action, a doubt, a decision, or a moment of judgement.
That is why Nimitta belongs beside serious predictive work. To understand it in simpler language: it is a feedback system.
Nature is responsive and it speaks through pattern, timing, interruption, direction, movement, sound and atmosphere. Classical Jyotiṣa does not treat this casually. Bṛhat Saṃhitā preserves full chapters on omens and Praśna Mārga explicitly instructs the astrologer to observe the querent’s words, dress, direction, gestures, surroundings, sounds and the exact atmosphere at the time of the query.
Nimitta can appear through three broad channels:
- Celestial: unusual planetary events, meteors, comets, halos, striking sky phenomena.
- Atmospheric: wind, rain, glows, thunder, sudden shifts in temperature or feel.
- Terrestrial: birds, animals, insects, plants, physical movements, sounds, interruptions, what enters the room, what breaks, what stops, what insists.
But not every event is a nimitta. For starters, the event must stand out in some way. It must carry force, timing, or strangeness. And next, it must arise in living relation to the matter at hand.
A dog barking three streets away means nothing by itself. A fight breaking out outside while you are judging a violent Maṅgal-Śani combination is different. A random phone call is ordinary. A phone call that lands at the exact moment confusion breaks in a reading is not ordinary anymore. That is how Nimitta works. Not through obsession (when you are looking for that one sign, or when you are desperate), but through relevance and observation.
The astrologer’s mind matters too. A restless mind reflects everything and receives nothing. A quieter mind starts noticing pattern without forcing it. That is why many practitioners prepare through mantra, silence, breath regulation, or simply by sitting long enough for noise to settle. In Praśna work especially, you are not only reading the Prasna kundli, but also noticing and observing what it is that happens around you.
The classics go further than most people realise. Theytreat body-contact, direction, atmosphere, and interruption as readable data. What the querent touches at the time of the question matters. What direction they face matters. Whether the place is clean, blooming, harsh, decaying, noisy, or calm matters. Even the mood of the astrologer and querent matters. This is one reason good Praśna is so difficult. The answer is not only in the horoscope. It is in the entire moment.
A simple directional rule often given in omen-reading is this: what appears on the right tends to support arrival, gain, or movement toward the matter, while what appears on the left tends to indicate departure, loss, or something moving away. This is not a one-line shortcut for every case, but it remains a useful working principle in live observation.
And this is not theoretical for me.
Let me share an incident which happened last week. One fine day, my stomach started hurting badly. I had not eaten anything unusual. I had not changed my routine. The discomfort stayed through the next day. Then I sat down for a consultation. I opened the chart and immediately saw heavy 6th-house affliction, not only in the D1, but echoed across the divisional structure as well. The session itself turned toward illness, imbalance, and 6th-house suffering. Once the consultation ended, the pain ended too. And when did it start? The same time the call was booked.
That is the kind of thing Nimitta makes you respect. The sign came before the explanation. The body knew before the intellect had the chart in front of it.
I have seen too many readings where the field around the chart starts answering before the technical judgement is complete. This was just one example and I am sure many astrologers share the same view.
However, remember:
Used badly, Nimitta becomes superstition.
Used properly, it becomes confirmation.
It does not replace rāśi, bhāva, daśā, varga, or Praśna structure. It tells you what is already alive in the moment.
If you want one practical instruction for this week, use this:
Observe what appears around decisive moments.
Especially around March 19, when the lunar year turns, and March 21, when Mercury begins to recover, watch what interrupts, what repeats, what arrives, and what leaves. Not everything means something. But when timing, atmosphere, and relevance converge, pay attention.
from the vault
Śatru Hantā Yoga: the 6th-house placements that make a person hard to defeat
This week’s main concept was about reading signs outside the chart, and this reel is about reading what is already built inside it.
This is one of my favourite reels we have created, the song choice, the visuals, the amazing POVs, the entry, sounds, editing, all of it blends together to give you this masterpiece. Fun fact: I watched this 6 times when I first saw the final product.
The placement of these grahas in 6th House ensures a Śatru Hantā Yoga.However, it depends on the kundli how it is impacting you.
that's a wrap
That is it for this week.
If you have had a real nimitta experience, something that appeared at the exact right time and made sense only later, do share. I read those emails.
See you next Sunday.
Pranjal
KarakNotes byastrokarak
