Of Sabbaticals, Eclipses and the Sacred Marriage

by Daniel Giamario

The death of my Father in February, 2010 opened the door for a long Sabbatical, a sometimes labyrinth and often maze-like initiatory window. It is only now during this amazing heiros gamos conjunctio of Venus and Mars in Libra that enough clues have emerged for me to tell the story.

My Travels
As travelogue, my journey has taken me from Eastern Pennsylvania to Western Ireland; from Maui to the Cook Islands; from Tahiti to the Big Island; from my home in Southern Arizona to San Miguel in Central Mexico; and not forgetting the alternate realities of Manhattan and western Massachusetts. Allow me to invoke and evoke the abundance, richness, beauty and complexity of our Mother Earth/Ocean/Gaia that I have had the privilege of deeply experiencing.

IRELAND: The voluptuous nippled green hills surrounding Sligo to honor Queen Maeve. The alluring provocative Paps of Jura, the austere magnificent beauty of the Dingle Peninsula, the fecund rolling hills of Uisnach at the center, the round hilltops of the chambered cairns of Loughcrew, and the wild power and presence of the Western Sunset from the still living cairns of Carrowkeel.

Navigation heiau on the Big Island

MAUI: The mystical low clouds rapidly brightening and dimming the beautiful Lunar Eclipse from the slopes of Lower Kula; the spectacular never-ending sunset from the very top of Haleakala Crater, with Alpha and Beta Centauri setting in the South; the sweet, pastoral navigation heiau looking directly across the ocean channel to its counterpart on the Big Island.

RAROTONGA: the gorgeous emerald lushgreen jagged pali and tranquil blue lagoons; the magic island of the Great Navigators with compass stones and massive megalithic pointers to New Zealand; center of a renaissance about remembering and relearning the ancient techniques of stellar navigation with zenith stars and knowledge of the rising and setting of 50-60 fixed stars committed to memory; a land where the 30 days of the Moon are again being taught in the schools.

MANGAIA: Endless and bottomless caves of coral and limestone on this 18,000,000 year old island, oldest of all Polynesia; the beauty and heartfullness of her 600 residents, our very curious hosts and guides for the Great Solar Eclipse; the exquisite flavors of her local food: the most delicious taro on the planet and to taste what a non-GMO papaya actually tastes like! Most of all the many evenings of reverie with the splendors of the Southern Hemisphere (20degreeSouth) night sky, transfixed by the Magellanic Clouds and seeing the whole of Centaurus (Chiron), the shaman centaur.

Marae Stone Temple on Aitukaki

AITUTAKI: The otherworldly paradisiacal perfection of the ultimate lagoon atoll with uncountable shades of blue and miles and miles of shallow sandy bottomed, bathtub warm, never more than 5 feet deep, rippling waters. The generosity and wisdom of Ngagatai, master teacher and keeper of the secrets of the marae, and champion of his islands ancient culture and traditions, illuminating the initial stages of the cultural renaissance to recover from the twin debacles of Polynesian human sacrifice and the deliberate cultural genocide instigated by waves of Christian missionaries.

MOOREA: The island of Bali-Hai, “South Pacific” and the Belvedere. The greatest intensity and concentration of the beauty of green and blue, mountains and ocean bays, in the smallest number of square miles I’ve ever known. Almost too much to take in and fully appreciate, but over a period of 7 days I did my best!

Navigation Heiau Mahukona Big Island of Hawaii

BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII: After three and a half weeks south of the Equator in the South Pacific, it was back to my friends and community on the Big Island. I straightaway fell even more madly in love with her. On a sequence of several beautiful clear days, I embarked on pilgrimages to the Pololu and Waipio Valleys, and several ancient heiaus including the one seen across the channel from Maui. Then, my friend Chris, unexpectedly led me to a previously unknown (to me) sacred standing stone navigational heiau at Mahukona, now dedicated to the ancient and now returning art of stellar navigation, star knowledge and honoring the great navigator’s of the double-hulled great sailing canoes.

My Sabbatical
After my father’s death, I had imagined my Sabbatical time to be about writing my next book…..but at that point I had no real inkling about the cycle I was actually in….Uranus square Uranus (0Cancer34) with transiting Jupiter conjunct transiting Uranus…. Upon further research, I found that my previous Uranus square when I was 19-20 also had transiting Jupiter conjunct transiting Uranus. This was the setup that unexpectedly redirected my Sabbatical so that it has turned out to be something entirely different than what I first imagined!

My journey of adventure and travel initially included two main themes.

The first was to research the marae and heiau of Polynesia, the chambered cairns, standing stones and sacred landscape of Ireland, and the pyramids of Mexico, expanding on what has been a great part of my life’s work, living and exploring the majesty of “as above-so below”. I deeply experienced the many similarities in the cosmograms and heirophanies found in these far flung regions of the world. The interwoven tapestry of these ancient shamanic astronomical ways of life will be explored at a later time.

The second theme was feeling what it was like to live for months in a Capricorn Moon-free zone, that is: a sabbatical from doing a lot of teaching, very few private sessions, no responsibilities for leading a group, or having a function in a relationship. This was not easy, but it was a much needed time as I had not had the opportunity to do anything like this since the 1980’s. So much has happened in these past few months that I find I am still in process about it.

Part of my process has been a slowly building force, with a conclusion that was a bolt out of the blue and green*, when I discovered another greater theme was emerging: a deeper core teaching of the Sacred Marriage. Since the desultory breakup with my former partner and the death of my first wife all occurring in the past three years, I have been happily alone and single, not even desiring another relationship. During this time I had the first clear experiences of ‘me’ without reference to a partner or who I was with or who I wanted to be with.

Belvedere Mountain Moorae

It was near the end of my time in the South Pacific, that I slowly began to notice I was getting tired of being alone. (Note: The South Pacific is NO place for a single man or woman; it’s a world of couples and honeymooners!) Meanwhile, Venus and Mars were drawing closer and closer together with their rendezvous council with Lord Saturn! All I could feel was the raw awakening of the desire for Libra realities again together with the complete impossibility of it happening for thousands of reasons.

Culturally and historically, these are not easy times for the Libra Mystery School. It seems, conscious women are committed to their autonomy and men are seen as needy and weak. The diagnosis of ‘codependance’ is indiscriminately applied like scattershot from a shotgun. Few want and even fewer can sustain anything remotely resembling the previous forms of marriage/partnering. And so, as my time in the Pacific drew to a close, a ‘longing’ had arisen in me once again with the very hard and clear boundary of Saturn, a kinesthetic that has very much defined the course of my life.

The Bolt Out of the Blue/Green*
An element of my sabbatical time was the diversity and complexity of the journey, but even more so how fast I was moving through it. There was so much to do and see. The final part of my travel was in central Mexico at Sagrada (sacred) Wellness Center outside San Miguel. Here, in a small and elegant casita, at 8000 feet on the side of a mountain, with a fantastic sunset view and the rich deep skies of 20 degrees north latitude, I had a chance to slow down and integrate.

I had two books with me to read.

Venus Pyramid at Tula in Central Mexico

The first was “Romancing the Beloved”, a new book by friend, colleague, and mentor Joan Heartfield, director of the Divine Feminine Institute (I am on their auxiliary faculty). The book described her personal journey of the sacred marriage and how it led her to a fulfilling collaborative conscious equal partnership. As I read her story, I began to slow down and feel into my heart.

Next I read Martin Prechtel’s “Stealing Benefacio’s Roses”. This book is taking a look from a man’s perspective, at another sacred marriage journey, again arriving at a mutually supportive, collaborative, conscious equal partnership. My heart expanded, cracked open with the floodtide of tears unleashed, as I REMEMBERED and then understood, as if for the first time (and it is always the first time), what had been happening over these last many weeks.

These books were not relationship books, but rather intimate accounts, from a man and a woman, of their love for HER; the heart and soul of Mother Earth/Ocean, the beauty and inscrutability of the indigenous roots of our human species; the unconditional love of HER; the interlocked weaving of the tapestry of all HER life, always beyond the understanding of rational consciousness.

Joan and Martin’s stories are magnificent accounts of courageously working the sacred marriage material, relentlessly all the way through. And in their cases, it resulted in collaborative conscious equal partnerships. But it’s the internal spiritual journey towards wholeness that always precedes any sense of a reward or outcome in the external reality.

And it had been my story also, as I have navigated my life long journey with Venus in Virgo conjunct Saturn. I remembered just how often SHE has been with me. HER many blessings of the wondrous connection to her patterned night sky, the energetic aliveness in my body at sacred sites of earth and sky, the unguarded flowing tears at stone circles, the voluptuous beauty of the Sonoran desert after a rain, the impossible grandeur of Pacific Island landscape…….. How often SHE has blessed me. My sabbatical journey was, of course, a pilgrimage of sacred worship of HER, breathing in HER magic and support.

Whatever will be the ‘outcome’ of my story in my ongoing investigation of the Libra Mystery School is fine with me. I am not sure where the journey is taking me, but what I AM sure of is how much I completely love HER.

Sunset over the Stone at Mahukona on Big Island

*Special Note...In case the expression ‘bolt out of the blue and green’ is unfamiliar, here is what I mean…the experience of blue and green is a way of expressing my experience of our gorgeous planet after being in the South Pacific. It is also a reference to a song I really love “When You Wish Upon A Star” and the line “like a bolt out of the blue – fate steps in and sees you through.” The rest of the lyrics are below…

The Next SAMS Sacred Marriage Chart Analysis Intensive is: 2011 February 16 – 20 near Tucson, Arizona

http://shamanicastrology.com/events/relationship-sacred-marriage-intensive

Divine Feminine Event November 13-20, 2010 in Antigua, Caribbean.
http://divine-feminine.com/index.php?p=Programs&Doc=5

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
Like dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and pulls you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dream comes true
“When You Wish upon a Star” is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney’s 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio.

July 11, 2010 Total Solar Eclipse

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