Krittika: The Caveman discovers fires | by The Hidden Octave

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Let us set the stage for Krittika nakshatra. Krittika comes right after Bharani, which represents the introduction of man into the realm of earth. Bharani is a nakshatra ruled by one of Saturn’s forms, Yama, and like Saturn, Bharani is the separator. Bharani has separated man from the direct experience of the light of his own soul by chaining him to his physical body. Bharani then proceeded to trap man within the teeth of mother nature, the wilderness of earth. Despite her title as “mother”, nature does not cradle her children lovingly and provide for them all that is needful for their strength and survival. Often referred to as a “cruel mistress”, her only desire is the survival of those fit of form and sharp of tooth. In every bush there lies in wait a savage beast, whose eyes are attuned to the frailty of both mind and body of the vulnerable passerby and so it is every creature’s responsibility to make themselves strong to resist them.

This initial phase of Krittika emphasizes his Martian qualities, his survivalist nature. Krittika nakshatra represents man having to fend for himself within the wilderness with nothing but his animal intelligence as weapon. Bharani represents the jungle, but Krittika is man in this jungle, scavenging, harvesting, hunting, and mercilessly killing his enemies. One develops the most sophisticated strategies that are both highly effective but energetically economical, making use of very few materials to trap prey and kill beasts.

Krittika is man spat out into the wild without defenses, without caretakers and without guides, he is left alone to make his own path and fend for himself, knowing neither friend nor foe not mother not God — this relates to the birth story of the god of this nakshatra Kartikeya, whose other names include śaravaṇabhava which means “born amongst the reeds”. Kartikeya or Skanda which is his other name, was born from the fiery seed of lord Shiva, which dropped into the river Ganges. As this child develops, since he is not socialized or tamed, he provokes great disturbances and with his voice of thunder, wreaks havoc about the land.

But eventually, he is seen by the six of the seven brightest stars cluster in the night sky called Krittikas in Hindu text who essentially adopt him and pacify him. Krittika is therefore a nakshatra connected to adoption or being an orphan.

It’s interesting that many of the most popular stories of orphans abandoned in the wilderness share a similar background. Samurai Jack, the popular cartoon network program developed by Genndy Tartakovsky, tells the story of a young Samurai whose civilization and parents were attacked by a powerful foreign evil — he was taken away as a very young and fragile boy before he, too, could be consumed by it and sent to live a strict life of training to one day be strong enough to return and vanquish this evil.

This theme of a young child with potential to slay evil but being too young to do so and needing to be kept hidden wonderfully parallels the story of Kartikeya being concealed from the demons that wishes to destroy him first. The Samurai begins his very difficult training, which involved developing all sorts of martial arts techniques and other faculties that he learned from the different cultures that he was brought up in. A few examples are the following: from his African teacher he learned the art of combat but particularly that of Nguni stick-fighting, from his Egyptian teachers he learned hieroglyphics and other academic subjects, from another he learned astronomy and how to use the stars as a map and . All these teachers taught him how to make use of the world around him to his advantage.

He was taught a variety of fighting styles and taught how to be resourceful, how to identify a weapon, be it external or internal, to be able to defeat any force. This is beautiful, because it illustrates the aspect of Krittika that is loved and nurtured by different mothers or in this case different cultures. In the legend, Kartikeya split himself into multiple forms to be able to learn and grow from all the influences around him, as fire consume everything around it, purifies it and reduce it to their most useful essence. Only after the completion of his training does he then return to the land of his father, the king, to slay the great evil.

Tarzan tells the story of a very young boy whose parents were devoured by a ferocious leopard, and he was left to be raised by the native beasts, the gorillas. George of the Jungle, which was inspired by Tarzan tells a similar story. Even one of the original creators of Batman was possibly a Krittika moon native — Bruce Wayne, which is Batman’s true identity, witnessed his own parents’ death at a very young age and then vowed to avenge them.

Weaved into this nakshatra are tales of survival, having no one on one’s side and needing to make ends meet on their own. Here the individual develops a silent and secretive nature, being always on the defensive, on the lookout for enemies. With no one to provide for him, he is left to distinguish what is edible from what is not edible on his own. One’s parents and guardians are representative of society and its civilizing programs; without them man grows up untamed without the necessary corrections and limitations necessary for his assimilation. Krittika is where man is left to determine for himself the true nature of things and their true value.

As one of the most resourceful nakshatras, it can look around itself an identify a tool. A twig becomes a toothbrush, a flat stone is a plate to heat one’s food, a strong branch on a high tree is a place to hang one’s hammock for resting. Krittika is the nakshatra of tools because to the man of the jungle, all things are an instrument if they are appropriately sharpened and mended and forged. The wilderness is a space of scarcity, so the mindset of the savage is that of making them most out of the little that surrounds it. Mercury in Krittika becomes a very good combination for one who can make a tool out of anything.

A Krittika native’s dream is to be able to fit all things in his pocket and pull them out like a Swiss army knife, selecting a blade if he needs to gut a fish or a lighter if he needs to make a fire. Likewise, this most minimalistic of nakshatras attempts to simplify and streamline their whole lives, selecting only the most practical of tools.

This explains Krittika’s strongly minimalistic preferences reflected even in their sartorial choices. They are not ones to fuss too much about their appearance, instead preferring clothing that is simple and flexible. It is not that they are turned off by “excess” per se, but that in their eyes, they already have more than what they need around them, even if in the eyes of others, their lives are stripped to the bare bones.

The first stage of Krittika represents man in his most uncivilized, his most beastly, like an animal in the wild knowing neither friend nor foe, doing whatever it is he needs to do to survive and operating instinctually.

In the beginning stages of Krittika, there is a greater concern over one’s own self over others. One’s own needs, one’s own desires and one’s own survival. In the earliest stages of Krittika, we see these natives at their most Martian and individualistic, not wanting to attach themselves to other people as making it through the thickets is a task rendered harder by human baggage. Even when they do open themselves up and include more people under their care, they still carry a sort of black and white mentality. In a world of struggle, scarcity, and strife they know that they cannot concern themselves over everybody, or else they will be stretched so thin, they won’t have enough to care for those they are most concerned with.

Too much material baggage is a liability in the wild, you cannot allow yourself to have too many attachments lest they weigh you down. You must only select the items that are needful for your survival and totally forego everything else, keeping only the bare necessities.

As an animal in the jungle, the Krittika native does not only kill to not be killed but he also kills to acquire. If he finds himself lacking in resources: food, shelter, and even sexual partners, he does what is necessary for their acquisition, be it involve themselves in the trade of illicit products like drugs, guns and other dangerous goods or even going as far as eliminating individuals who stand in their way. This is the wilderness where anything goes, and the only mission is to keep from perishing. In these early stages of Krittika, we are taught that we cannot allow ourselves to be overly empathetic with others, as this can lead to our own demise. We should instead listen to our instincts that tell us to value our own lives over those of others. Mother nature goes by different laws then society. Society values compassion and neighborliness, whereas nature gives way to selfishness and tribalism.

This struggle between man and nature is not merely an external one but is also internal. Earlier we saw how Krittika had to forgo compassion and softness and other such qualities that spell disaster for itself — it had to quiet the voice of empathy and bury within itself where it causes little disturbance. Krittika had to give himself over to his beastly self to wrestle and win the battle against mother nature’s external forces. These external forces included: one’s enemies and surrounding predators, starvation, and even one’s own physical weakness. But of course, to inflict harm upon others, one must necessarily repress one’s inborn sympathy for others, and in a way, deny them their humanity.

We considered some of its external battles but now we will consider the internal weakness that define Krittika’s struggle with its sensual self. Man in his most savage is not only survivalistic, but he also gives himself over to lust and other such pleasures.

Krittika is a Kama nakshatra. The nakshatra itself represents Agni and when the moon, soma, is placed there, it brings out a very lustful side to it, since Agni and Soma represent the foundational sexual energies of feminine and masculine — fire and water. Krittika natives naturally battle with a lot of lustful thoughts and desires, but the goal of this nakshatra is to overcome them.

One classic tale that illustrates this, is that of Agni and his struggle with lust. Agni, another deity of Krittika nakshatra, was once so overcome with lust for the seven wives of the seven sages, he decided to disguise himself as their home fireplace. After coming to his senses, he reproached himself and left in shame. But then another goddess Svaha, being herself desirous of Agni, disguised herself as the each one of the wives and visited Agni in succession and laid with him. Agni, observing this opportunity to be with his object of desire, totally abandoned himself to each one of them as they approached him. We must recall again that this early side of Krittika is no different from a lowly, hungry animal that has no morals and simply gives himself over to his instincts.

There are other tales that further illustrate this, but that are more modern in their context. We have the example of the story of Tannhäuser which was popularized by Richard Wagner’s opera — Richard Wagner himself was a Krittika sun and Venus, and his ‘C’ rated birth time puts his ascendant also on Krittika.

Tannhäuser tells the story of a young man who wonders into the “otherworld” where he encounters an aspect of the goddess Venus. Venus of course represents the abandoning of the self to the pleasures of the lower senses. Venus’ red flesh and lolling tongue dissolve the intellect of the civilized man and even the hard-earned virtues of the soul into its wet abyss. Upon becoming acquainted with Venus, Tannhäuser worships her for years and years until one day, something inside of him alerts him and he decides that he must return to his homeland and abandon Venus.

After first attempting to lull him back into her arms with her charms and finding him resistant, the goddess reveals her ferocious side and curses Tannhäuser. But Tannhäuser prayers to the Virgin Mary and is successfully freed from Venus’ spell. The Virgin Mary in this case is to represent all that Venus is not — the Virgin Mary is to represent piety and the giving up of sensuality for higher virtues.

After escaping Venus’ clutches, he tries to get back to his normal life but internally he struggled with a desire to return to Venus. In the famous opera, this inner turmoil is projected upon everyone around him. In the famous opera by Wagner, in a dramatic singing battle between Wolfram and Tannhäuser, Wolfram sings about love and how pure and spiritual blissful it is, but because Tannhäuser was blinded by his own disgust of his own self, upon hearing his rival, Wolfram sing, he does not accept love as anything good but instead evil. Tannhäuser assumes a combative stance and begins singing about the true nature of love, expressing his contempt for it — singing that it is carnal and appeals only to the flesh, but as he sings, he begins to allow a force to take hold of him and then from his lips break hymns to goddess Venus. He gives himself over to her worship and in the end he fights to return to the “otherworld” to be reunited with his goddess of lust.

Krittika nakshatra is marked by the war between passion and piety, and we can take the next classical example of ‘Paradise Lost’, written by John Milton who is most likely a Krittika moon.

The classic work is an epic poem based on the book of genesis. It once again tells the tale of the struggle of man, between obeying God and allowing himself to be seduced by passion. Adam as chief protagonist is made to choose between following the simple instructions of his creator and allowing himself to fall prey to the foolishness of his playmate Eve. Adam is encouraged to sin, to take a bite out of the forbidden fruit after having been persuaded to partake of it by the charms of his beautiful lover who in this case is being animated by Satan, the devil. Adam knows that the fruit is death, but he chooses it anyways, renouncing his light to dissolve in the blackness of his passion.

Venus, which represents women in general, is said to be the priest of the asuras, a class of entities often seen as demonic. The reasons for this are easy to understand. The demons and Satan use Venus as their main weapon in their war against man, since man’s steel-like will power is easily eroded by Venus’ gentle licks. Saturn and Venus are best friends in Vedic astrology and since Saturn is the divider, the planet that veils the divine in darkness and separates the divine from itself to create polarity, it has often been connected to Satan. Saturn divides not only the divine from itself, but also divides man from God — you will recall that one way he does this is in Bharani nakshatra, whose deity, Yama, traps man’s light within a body such that he cannot perceive it.

Saturn as a planet wishes to chain the light of the divine, which include its many rays which are the souls of man and bring them to their knees. Working together, both Venus and Saturn overwhelm the will of man and subjugate him, by drowning the whispers of the soul under the moans of the flesh and dazzling the eye so that it may not close and recede back into the immaterial. One of the goals of Krittika nakshatra is true independence, which can only happen when one fully embodies their individual will, which is a blessing from God. Because Venus and Saturn work against the will, part of the path of Krittika is to resist them.

Continuing with the plot of the book, Paradise Lost, in the end, when lucidity prevails, Adam is struck with incomprehensible guilt and is severely punished. He and his love are stripped of their ethereal nature and are forced to walk the earth as lowly creatures. They lost the sight of God, the light that burnt away the shadows of mother nature. Now existing outside of this light, they are thrown fully into the mouth of mother nature and forced to live as the beast live, as beasts know not the sight of God as they operate purely on instinct.

In the first part of this essay, we described the initial stage of Krittika nakshatra — the beast, hunting, killing, and giving oneself over to lust knowing not the greater implications of his deeds. But in this section, we will be discussing the inner consequences of past actions. And we will introduce this with one of the most important symbols of Agni, lightning.

Agni, the deity of Krittika nakshatra, is said to exist in three forms: on earth as fire, in the atmosphere as lightning, and in the sky as the sun. As a means of tying all these symbols together in an easy-to-understand narrative, one can consider fire, at its most mundane, as relating to the necessity of the caveman, which is Krittika’s earliest manifestation. The Sun is the light of the soul and the virtues of heaven, and so relates to the final expression of Krittika — which we will explore shortly. And lightening is the intermediary stage between the two where one gains shocking revelations about life, reality and especially one’s own self and actions.

Perhaps another conceptualization of all the above symbols, as well as Krittika’s expression is, the first expression, fire, relates to the Freudian id — man’s impulses, sexual drives, and aggressive tendencies. The Sun or soul relates to the superego or moral conscience. Finally, lightening relates to the ego, the mediator in between the two — man as fulcrum.

Lightning strikes are devastating and wreak havoc. Thunder, which often accompany these frightening strikes of light, petrify us with their incomprehensible howls, as if a higher being were expressing a deep disapproval of our actions, standing over his chariot of dark clouds, his screams resound through the atmosphere.

The howls of the storm are meant to represent the torment of the soul, the lightning strikes are the shocking revelations of the true weight of our deeds. The screams of the soul are at first incomprehensible because the flesh cannot properly interface with the soul, much how the heaven cannot directly communicate to earth and so these first attempts of the soul are painful and torturesome. These messages of the soul strike with a violence, not least because they express the individual’s guilt and the sorrow experienced by their celestial body.

In the earlier expressions of Krittika, we observed an individual having to do whatever it is he needed to do for his own survival and the survival of his clan, even if it means stealing, killing and other acts of violence or “evil”. We also observed him give himself over to his lowliest of desires and all of this seemingly without consequence, but unbeknownst to him, his internal storm was brewing and before he knew it, he was brought to his knees by his own inner clamoring.

We are going to see a clearer picture of the path of Krittika — where at first, he was a beast, a caveman, a Neanderthal, as savage as the most savage among them, he was then cursed by evolution, the “baptism of the intellect”, which would set him apart from all other animals. This strike of light is his initiation into true manhood and wrestling with a soul is his prerequisite.

This aspect of Krittika is illustrated wonderfully in the character Angel, played by Krittika sun and possible also Krittika moon native, David Boreanaz. Angel is a vampire but is unique in that he is a vampire with a soul — this is a twist in the often-told myth as vampires are often thought to be demons in possession of human bodies, and the actual essence of the human, the soul, is thought to be departed. Even before being sired, he lived as a drunken vagabond but after being transformed into a vampire he began a sadistic streak of carnage earning a reputation as one of the most terrible and hedonistic of vampires. Angel was sired by Darla, played by the actress Julie Benz, who is herself a Bharani sun — again, Bharani represents the teeth of mother nature, which brings out the more beastly side of Krittika. Bharani also being a barbarian nakshatra and representing the vagina and female sexuality, also represents the Venusian forces that erode the will of man. In this sense, Bharani represents both Saturn (through Yama) and Venus (through the yoni), both of which are forces that bring out Krittika’s uglier side and are forces Krittika is meant to overcome. Angel’s origin story reflects the early phases of Krittika.

Angel, Darla, and their group of vampires went on centuries long rampages, setting towns on fire, rejoicing in orgiastic festivities, always with a trail of innocent blood left behind them. They were unique in that, they did not only kill to live but they killed for pleasure, representing how totally they had given themselves over to their inner animal. This is Agni at his most indulgent, devouring whatever comes before him.

But one day, Angel makes the mistake of violating the wrong person — the victim of this latest crime was the favorite daughter of a Romanian tribe. Their vengeance was in using their special magic powers to bring back his soul.

Whereas before, Angel was but a beast, senselessly destroying all that was in his path, now he was cursed with a conscience, which meant that he would now endlessly reflect upon all the evils he had caused to the innocents about him. Before the whispers of his soul were silenced but now, they screeched violently as the reel of faces of his innumerable victims rolled endlessly in his mind, almost killing him if he were not already immortal. This Romanian curse was his strike of lightning — the light or consciousness which would set him on the path of becoming a higher being.

For a long time after this curse, Angel could no longer bring himself to kill humans, lest his own soul choke him out of guilt, and so he only drinks the blood of ally rats or bags of blood from hospitals. His shame and disgust of his own self is so great, for decades or even centuries, he hides in shadow representing how much he does not want to confront himself to his own ill deeds. Despite all of these difficulties, he grows to love his soul and wishes to keep it and sets himself on the path of doing what he believes to be right and no longer shying away from his duties and responsibilities but instead confronting his shadows head on, but there is on final caveat to his curse — if he ever experiences true happiness, he will lose his soul and he will revert back to his unevolved, vampiric state.

So we first witness the Krittika archetype being torn to shreds by the memories of his actions and then also watch him brood as he considers the life of a hermit. Before he gave himself over to hedonism, but now he so severely denies himself any joy, lest he unravel again.

The element of Angel’s story, that of not drinking human blood, is reminiscent of another tale of Vampires — twilight. Edward Cullen, portrayed by Krittika sun native, Robert Pattinson, only drinks animal blood having sworn off the blood of humans — which is unique even in the twilight universe as other vampires freely drink of the blood of humans. But this is a struggle for him especially after encountering Bella who tempts him more than any other human.

An interesting quote in their dialogue is “so the lion fell in love with the lamb”, which illustrates again this twisted dynamic between Krittika nakshatra and its object of desire. Agni wants to be fed, but risks giving himself over to his unsatiable side. He wants to partake of pleasurable experiences but is afraid of totally devouring his object of desire until it is reduced to ash and he lost along with it to lust.

From a qabalistic perspective, Krittika nakshatra is torn between the sphere of Geburah and the sphere of Chesed, the 19th path. Geburah is ruled by the planet mars, which is the planet of our animal selves, that acts selfishly and is carnal by nature. At it most individualistic, Mars hunts, kills, destroys for its own survival. Opposite to mars is the sphere ruled by Jupiter which represents the collective conscious and recognizes the need for empathy, compassion, mercy in seeing others as extension of oneself. In this tension, Mars represents the self, and its own interests and Jupiter represents the collective and other humans. One of the symbols of the 19th path is the serpent, which can represent the uncoiling of the beast within us as it leans towards Geburah or the negation of this carnal instinct by focusing on the heart and the ways of compassion. Another symbol of this path is the Major Arcana card, the strength card of the tarot, which also represents the balance between giving oneself over to the fires of the instincts or the coolness of reason, balancing one’s burning lust with logic — this balance is the path of the Krittika native but also the Vishaka nakshatra native, which we will explore in the future. Whereas Krittika starts out in beastly fire and then moves closer to the center, it is Vishaka that starts out in total denial of their own instincts and then moves closer to the center itself.

The strength card is parallel to the goddess Bagalamukhi as they both represent mastery over the carnal forces within an individual and also over external animal forces, leading to victory and domination. Both the strength card and Devi Bagala stop and tame uncontrollable thoughts before they run amok and allow for the proper expression of energy. Carnality provokes agitation which allows for a lack of control, but with her power of Stambhana shakti, the power to stop and hold all forces and energies, Devi Bagala allows for the development of the will and self-mastery.

Worshipping the goddess is then very auspicious for anyone who suffers from a lack of self-control and is susceptible to attacks whether psychic or physical.

Another story that illustrates this tension between instinct and reason or animal vs. man is Batman. The original story was created by two men, one was Bill Finger, and the other was the possibly Krittika moon native, Bob Krane. Batman’s origin story is that of a young boy who witnesses his own parents vicious murder, which leaves him a scared orphan for life. As an adult, he decides to take on a secret identity that would allow him freedom to dispense senseless vengeance upon the criminals of his city, whom he blames as a collective for his childhood traumas. He is a most frightening character, dressed in black or very dark colors with a mask and demeanor designed to strike fear in the hearts of his prey, and although he seems to be doing “good” from the outside, by targeting “bad guys” his presence is deeply unsettling to all people, innocent and guilty alike. It is only later, when he realizes the error of his own ways — that it is not right to mindlessly torture small time criminals as payback for the crimes committed against his childhood self — and recognizes that even these ne’er-do-wells are human themselves, that he begins to correct himself and introduce a more stringent moral code to his work.

Originally, Batman was as much a savage as the very savages he would hunt down — in his thirst for vengeance, he lost his humanity or, to follow along the lines established by the tales of Angel, he lost his own soul and to regain it, he needed to burn the darkness within him to make space for light.

Angel, Edward, and Batman are all examples of how the Krittika native, with his own internal struggles, is always wrestling to maintain a sense of control over his own self. Whether wrestling against lust, or childhood trauma or vengeance or even the most basic physiological need like hunger, each one needed to tame the animal within them to achieve a state of conscious manhood.

Skanda or Kartikeya, according to the Garuda Puranas, is also an incarnation of lord Kamadeva, the god that personifies lust and all carnal pleasures — which not only include the pleasures of women and wine but also the intensity of rage and other rajasic emotions. One of Kamadeva’s names is Madana, which means intoxication, illustrating the insanity and lack of control that arises from intense desires, which helps us understand how passionate Krittika nakshatra is and how hard to control its passions are. Controlling itself is the feat of a hero.

Krittika nakshatra can be described as the combination between the sun and Venus. Krittika is associated with the sun in 2 ways, the first is the rather controversial concept of vimshottori dasha lords. But the 2nd is what I have earlier discussed. Agni, the deity of Krittika exists in 3 forms: as fire on earth, lightning in the atmosphere and finally as the actual sun itself in the sky.

Shiva is also associated with the nakshatra of Krittika. Kartikeya or Skanda is said to be born from the spilt semen of Shiva himself. Shiva is also associated with the sun as a planet because both are supposed to be inanimate and existing outside of manifestation in an unshakeable yogic state.

The combination of sun and Venus, then, can be understood in the classic tale of Shiva and Kamadeva. The god of yoga and the god of carnality. The story is told thus. Shiva was in a deep and unshakeable meditative state and could not be shaken out of it by anyone, but the world needed Shiva to defeat a great evil. Everyone scrambled as to what to do and finally decided that only Kamadeva could distract and interrupt Shiva’s flow. So Kamadeva assailed Shiva with his flower arrows of passion and brought him out of his deep state. When Shiva saw his consort, he was inflamed with passion, but when he realized what was done to him, that same passion turned to rage, and he destroyed the god of love.

This story gives us the fundamental essence of the Sun and Venus conjunction. Such an individual, even as he attempts to keep himself on one path, will find himself easily distracted and compelled to act in ways so carnal that it later brings shame upon his own head. Such an individual would be one who struggles to rid himself of lustful thoughts but would routinely find himself prey to the traps of the exciting Venus.

I provided one solution against the agitations of the body and mind and that was the worship of the goddess that paralyzes all movements, including the throbbing of the flesh, Devi Bagalamukhi. But, meditating on the manipura chakra and chanting the ram bija can also help with the development of the will.

The manipura charka contains the ram bija within it but around it possess syllables which correspond to the spiritual vrittis of ignorance, thirst, jealousy, treachery, shame, fear, disgust, delusion, foolishness and sadness — which are qualities to which the Krittika native is susceptible to falling prey.

I would like to add 2 more stories to illustrate this tug of war between man and beast and how victimized Krittika nakshatra is by its intoxicating lust. First, the 1938 movie La Bête Humaine, or in English, the Human Beast, starring Krittika sun native, Jean Gabin.

His character, named Lantier, struggles with sensual passions, particularly alcohol and women, and to distract himself from these devilish thoughts he over occupies himself with his train, being a railroad engineer.

One early example in the movie of his inability to control himself around women is observed when he goes to visit his aunt. During a stop for repairs in Le Havre, Lantier goes to his aunt’s nearby village where he meets a girl, a former girlfriend. The two walk and sit by the railroad tracks, but as they embrace, his hands tighten on her neck, and he is stopped from strangling her only by the sudden roar of a passing train. Even a taste of the feminine threatens to lure the beast from its cave.

Back on the train, there is a violent altercation that occurs with another set of characters with whom Lantier is not yet entangled. A woman with a torrid affair is confronted by her husband with her lover. Her husband murders her lover, but the incident is later discovered by Lantier who threatens to go to the police but is persuaded against it by the woman and instead the blame is cast on an innocent man.

Later, Lantier, the Krittika sun native, and the woman begin their own affair as the woman’s husband laments his violent sin and sinks into a depressive state. Taking advantage of Lantier, the woman seduces him into murdering her husband so that she could be free from him. Lantier, the Krittika sun native, resist this insisting that it is a crime too great, but when the woman threatens to leave him he acquiesces and agrees to try to kill him. But before he manages an opportunity, because his inner animal had been so aggressively stirred by their relationship, he accidentally kills the woman. And in the end, he kills himself too likely out of a deep sense of guilt that he can no longer shake off.

The second story is the movie, The Great Sinner staring the Krittika moon and ascendant native, Gregory Peck as Fedya. Gregory’s character is first introduced as intelligent and sober, in an environment where people uncontrollably give themselves over to the addiction of gambling. One man who severely struggles with the habit even steals from Gregory’s character, but pitying him, he offers him money to leave this sinful town, but instead this man squanders even this charity on his addiction. Gregory Peck’s character sees how dangerous the game is, but it is his infatuation with another character, Pauline, that thrust him into this card shuffling and Russian roulette spinning world firsthand.

The issue with Pauline is that she is to be married to another man whom Gregory’s character is not convinced she loves. Pauline’s father raked up a huge debt in the casino, which is owned by her betrothed so Gregory, for his own selfish reasons, decides to free her from this arrangement. Since he is not a wealthy man himself, his only money-making scheme is playing the game as everyone else does and so he begins gambling. Though initially he earns a lot of money, he is quickly hooked on the game and is trapped in the loop of the roulette like all the other sad souls there, to the extend that he even sells all of his possessions and even goes as far as to borrow money from Pauline’s fiancé to continue playing — whether he continues to do so to win Pauline for himself or to experience the short lived highs of winning is now unclear. He is now totally financially ruined and he even begins to contemplate suicide.

We find once again, Venus and her wiles, calling the naked savage from his cave only for him to be shamed and destroyed.

One of the many obvious psychological dilemmas we can observe in this back and forth between the Dionysian and Apollonian, the sensual and the purely pious is repression. Denying themselves pleasure is another big theme in the Krittika narrative. Some natives may enter periods, and even others, go entire lifetimes, with a very black and white view concerning matters emotional and sensual. Some may even go as far as to reject within themselves any lowly desires, perceiving them as grotesque, crude and even exaggerating their hedonistic qualities as a means of demonizing them and extolling only the most apollonian actions and activities.

But of course, to be stable and balanced as a member of society, which is filled with much sensual pursuits and even to be stable as a human who has yet to more naturally evolve out of these desires, one must still partake of the joys of the senses to some degree — to totally reject this inherent element of one’s humanity is to create yet more psychological issues for oneself. And even the goal, that of achieving a perfect state unexcited by the tickles of the flesh, is made even more impossible if one denies oneself human pleasures while still, secretly desiring them.

It’s interesting how repression is another subject that Krittika native are also fascinated by.

A short example of this is Krittika moon native, Arthur Janov, wrote a book about called Primal Scream and promoted a school of psychology called Primal Therapy that dealt with releasing forgotten, repressed childhood traumas based around many things from the need for parental attention and even sensual desires as well as the subsequent neurosis that resulted from such repressions. Part of the process of primal therapy is taking the patient back to his childhood state of mind and have him scream, yell and throw tantrums as a means of release and realizing what has been denied him — the ideal result of this exercise is integration. Whereas before the individual was one shrunken and neurotic, now he is fuller and more complete.

The ideal result of Primal therapy describes the balanced stage of Krittika, where the native neither abandons himself totally to his animal self nor does he deny it totally, instead he becomes closer to becoming a more balanced individual.

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