This relates to the tremendous amount of work and energy that would pour down to move piles of old tires and auto wrecks off of the land and turn the main house into a sadhana room and gurdwara and living spaces. Work was needed to turn the barn into bunk rooms, build a kitchen, langar hall and office spaces and continue so many expansions on and on to the present day. We continue to grow produce on the land, build and improve Ram Das Puri and are about to install two magnificent chandeliers to further embellish the gurdwara.  The gurdwara used to be a dirt-floored storage room for apples and included a fireplace right where the new gurdwara expands out from the small gurdwara in the niche, so the Mars fire was there in seed form.

The Mars in the Solstice maps is further magnified by being joined to the planet called Rahu, also known as the Dragon’s Head, the point in the sky where eclipses occur, and which is called the point of Karmic Control.  Rahu and its opposite end of the axis are both mentioned in Siri Guru Granth Sahib.  This eclipse axis points a direction of flow in the heavens. Rahu with Mars is a phenomenal massing of energy, and one of the things Rahu rules is foreign influence, that which causes one to go beyond borders.  It well presages the birth of the Khalsa and the appearance of the form of the Khalsa here in the valley and mountains of New Mexico. The Singhs and Kaurs with their turbans and beards and chunis would take some time to find acceptance  but ultimately become befriended and loved by the people of the valley.  The kids who used to attend the Sombrillo school across from the property would come and watch the men making adobe bricks for the niche that would become the small gurdwara alcove, and make fun of the techniques saying “My grandpa does that faster than you vatos!”

Going next around the diagram we come to Mercury in the North and following it is Sun in the Northwest direction; the two of them are fused together in the same degree in the chart to make a special yoga giving exquisite brilliance, expertise in techniques, high energy and siddhi (yogic skill).  Obviously this refers to the vast gifts of Kundalini Yoga and Sikh dharma which the Gurus and our spiritual teacher have endowed the sangat with. The degree of this Mercury/Sun combo is full of magic and mantra and arts and skills. They perch on a double-edged sword however, which is evident in the way they are placed in the horoscope.  Mercury and Sun in Gemini are in the eighth house, which is a house of deep spiritual transformation. It is where the phoenix rises from the ashes of old karmas. These are the very best techniques the mind of God can bestow for ending the hold of old karmic debts. But planets in the eighth house are challenging to bring out to the outer world to capture worldly and commercial success. The tension is built in here with Mercury on the diagram in the North where it has greatest mastery and prosperity of all kinds, but opposed to Saturn in the southern direction.  Mercury opposed by Saturn means the treasures and gifts face opposition and barriers from all kinds of causes, from normal entropy, aging, apparent death and decease, to enmity, jealousy, lies, scarcity, stealing and the normal lower self processes that always have to be overcome by untiring work and no-cutting-corners earning of spiritual crowns.