These turned up yesterday. Three Red Coral pendants in silver mountings.

As for ‘why’ – well, there’s two overlapping reasons for this acquisition on my part.

Red Coral is the Mars Ratna [‘Jewel’] – it is worn for Victory, whether that is over external opponents or indeed over one’s own self. As a part of this – it is particularly recommended if one is under sorcerous attack by practitioners of black magic.

The logic here is obvious – it is, after all, a metaphysical contest or combat; and what better to marshal the defence against such turgid assault than the Commander of the Armies of the Gods – what better to energize and incite one to overcome the oft-accompanying assailings via despair than the Vigorous and Aggressive One. ‘Hope’, it seems, wields and is wielded by a Blood Red Banner of Iron.

Now in Hindu astrological terms, my Nakshatra [‘Lunar House’ – basically like how we tend to think of star signs in the West] is Mars (Mangala) ruled. To add to this, my personal chart has … Triple Mars going on.

This has caused some … concern on the part of priests, astrologers, for obvious reasons – all of that Mars energy is liable to do … interesting things.

Mars means much the same in Hindu terms as it does in the more familiar European sphere : Violence, Warfare, Wrath, Death.

This sets up an array of rather glaring personal difficulties – although I’ve gotten a lot better with various of them over the years; perhaps in part because, as fate would have it, one of the other approaches to getting on top of Mangala Dosha issues is through Hanuman pious engagement. As with Saturn (Shaani).

However, while we are often used to thinking of Mars as having a strong and forceful side – there’s also a corresponding corollary of being a bit ‘all over the place’, lacking focus and staying power.

The thing about Red Coral in Hindu terms is that wearing it is supposed to, I suppose you might say ‘potentiate’ the Mars – certainly help to bring Mangala on-side.

Hence, it is somewhat paradoxical – at once the significant abundance of Mangala in the chart correlates with these various issues, and yet it is also the enhancement of the connectivity with Mars via the talisman and other such potentiations which grants relief from various more overtly problematic elements thereof.

Perhaps it is that they are ‘counterbalanced’ via the improved accession to the strong and vital qualities with which Mars is also irreducibly associated and causally linked to.

Of course, keen-eyed observers with some acquaintance with the ‘practical remedy’ side of Hindu astrology may have noticed that the Red Coral on show here is not of the variety usually utilized in India itself for these purposes. Which, interestingly enough, is often actually Italian in origination.

Instead, these are of a different species more common in our Pacific waters.

I have – thus far, at any rate – not uncovered anything suggesting that this difference of provenancy ought obviate the protection and empowerment provided for me by the Stone.

And, in any case – if it is that the strongly salient connexion with Mars is what grants sure armament and armouring against the Black Magic of the foe … perhaps that Triple Mangala of my Jyotisha shall come in handy after all.

That – and the surest source of both protection and prosecution in such contended circumstances … an Active and Unyielding Divine Faith !