Cancer this week

Monday. The seven weekdays are the seven grahas — each day is named for the planet ruling its first hora — and Monday belongs to Moon, which owns Karka. That makes it the natural day for anything begun under this rashi. Sunday and Wednesday are also favourable, their lords being a natural friend of Moon. This is a general rule for the rashi; a muhurta for a specific event also has to satisfy the tithi, the nakshatra and the hora.

Because Rahu and Ketu have no physical body and therefore no hora. The day is named for the graha ruling its first hora, and horas run in the Chaldean order of decreasing apparent speed — Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. Twenty-four horas advance you 24 mod 7 = 3 places along that list of seven, so stepping by three from the Sun gives Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn: Sunday through Saturday, exactly the order we use, closing back on Sunday. Rahu and Ketu are the Moon's orbital nodes rather than bodies, so they enter the scheme nowhere, which is why they rule no day and why Rahu Kaal is an interval inside a day rather than a day of its own.

About a quarter of the zodiac. The Moon crosses all twelve rashis in 27.32 days and so spends about 2¼ days in each — meaning it passes through roughly three signs in seven days. It also covers about one nakshatra a day: 27.32 days divided by 27 nakshatras is 1.01 days each, which is precisely why the nakshatra is the daily unit of a panchang rather than the rashi. One consequence people get wrong: the Moon is not in your sign every week. It returns to Karka for about two and a quarter days roughly once every four weeks, not once every seven days.

Punarvasu (pada 4), Pushya (all four padas), Ashlesha (all four padas) — three nakshatras and nine padas, as every rashi has. At about a day per nakshatra the Moon takes a little over two days to clear Karka. Which of the three it is in matters more for a daily reading than the rashi does, because your Moon's nakshatra is what fixes your Vimshottari dasha sequence.

From the Moon sign, in Vedic astrology. Jyotish treats the Chandra rashi as primary and reads the Sun sign as a secondary indicator of vitality and position, which is the reverse of the Western convention most people have met. So this page is written for people whose Moon is in Karka. If you have only ever been told your sign from your birth date, that is the tropical Sun sign — and on the sidereal zodiac Vedic astrology uses, it is often not even the same sign. Cast a free Kundli to get your actual Moon sign and nakshatra.