AshwiniThe 27 nakshatrasVedic Astrology · Jyotisha

The twenty-seven nakshatras divide the zodiac into equal 13°20′ segments, and that number comes from the Moon: it circles the sky in about 27.3 days, roughly one segment a day. Your nakshatra is the one the Moon stood in at your birth, and in Jyotisha it does something very practical besides: the Vimshottari daśā periods are counted from the ruler of that nakshatra — the timetable of a whole life is dealt from here.

Ashwini is the first, ruled by Ketu. Its symbol is a horse's head and its deity the Aśvins, the twin physicians of the Vedas — the two called on in the hymns for emergency rescue: setting a severed leg, restoring an old man's youth, pulling the drowning from the water. Ketu as ruler plus that deity gives the character: fast, undeliberating, unattached (Ketu is the end of the axis that doesn't cling), with the force concentrated in the first stretch.

Where you'll recognise it: quicker off the mark than others, strong response to the new, patience spent on beginnings rather than endings, good physical recovery, low tolerance for 'still discussing'. Running well, you're the best starter there is: moving what was stalled, doing the right thing in the first chaotic minute, giving people a beginning. Stuck, you're only beginnings — switching too fast, things half done, speed treated as the answer. After the first comes Bharani: having bolted, you have to learn to carry.