Author Archive for Kimmberly – Page 5

Mars, the Nodes and the US Chart

This posting originally appeared in a March 22nd Facebook post.  It felt timely to include in the newsletter as a complement to the recent Equinox seminars, particularly the Global update with Levi Banner, and the Mars seminar with Erik Roth.

The Mars transit, together with the transits of the North and South Node, compel us, once again, to look in at the horoscope of the United States.  With Mars moving through Gemini now, as well as the North Node being in Gemini, this week definitely gets our attention.

The US chart, as rectified by Dane Rudhyar, shows the US Ascendant at 13Sagittarius10 and Descendant at 13Gemini10.  Additionally, the US has Mars at 21Gemini22, as well as Uranus at 8Gemini55, all in the 7th house.

Transiting Mars in Gemini will conjunct the US Descendant on Friday March 26th.  Mars will exactly conjunct the transiting North Node the very same day: March 26!  Looking ahead, Mars conjuncts the US Mars in Gemini on April 8th.

Meanwhile, the axis of the transiting Lunar Nodes will precisely align with the United States DSC/ASC axis on Monday March 26nd at 13Gemini22/13Sagittarius22.  The Shamanic Astrology Paradigm ™ uses a 6 month window for these initiatory time-frames, 3 months on either side.  So, the Nodal alignment with the US DSC/ASC axis runs from December 26, 2020-June 26,2021.  

The previous nodal alignment on the US DSC/ASC axis was June 6, 2002 through December 6, 2002 with the bulls-eye on September 6th.  Strangely, just before this, Mars was also in Gemini.  Among the things that occurred then were: an 18 year stock market low, the beginnings of the attacks on Iraq, with hundreds of thousands protesting the US led actions, around the world, there were major Israeli/Palestinian escalations, and the one year anniversary of the 9/11/2001 event.

In recent posts, I have speculated on the Mars in Gemini transit, within the Aries overtone.  And also, we had checked in on the US chart.  With regards to the Nodal alignments, this is most often quite positive and future oriented, and at its best, signifies collaboration with friends, partners, and allies; but only if the country is in alignment with its original intent.  Much the same interpretation could be made for Mars conjunct the US Descendant. 

This Mars transit and the Lunar Nodes transit are highly significant, and clearly we are in their initiatory windows.  And remember, without even taking into considering the US chart, Mars conjuncting the North node on March 26th ,is quite significant, in its own right.  This relates to what Mars, in archetypal Aries can, in fact, learn from new and old insights coming from emerging universal intent from the Galactic Edge, regarding the Gemini mystery school.  If all this wasn’t enough, Mars will enter a rare out-of bounds time frame on March 22nd!  Yet another wild card.

Still to come July 29th, the North Node is with the US Uranus.  Relative to the US chart, the wild card has always been its Mars in Gemini, quite often at odds with the Aquarius Moon and Sagittarius Rising idealistic and revolutionary intent.  This next week should offer a lot of clues as to what is possible.  And another thing to watch closely is the beginning of an 8 month time frame of transiting Jupiter on the US Moon that begins April 16.

Here is a link to the previous look at the US chart from a FaceBook post on February 1st.

by Daniel Giamario

Beginner’s Corner with Sheridan

Send your questions to beginnerscorner@sheridansemple.com

Archetypes and Signs

Shamanic Astrology is archetypally driven. We see the signs, such as Libra or Scorpio, as an archetypal energy. What does that mean? What are archetypes? What do they have to do with you and your chart? That’s what I’m diving into today.

What is an Archetype?

Dictionary.com defines archetype in two ways: 

  1. the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or based; a model or first form; prototype.
  2. (in Jungian psychology) a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern or thought, image, etc. universally present in individual psyches.

In Shamanic Astrology we are more interested in the Jungian definition, but the first one works too. An archetype is the original pattern or prototype of an energy we all have in our unconscious. It’s a power that speaks to us inside, beyond conscious comprehension, yet we still know and understand it. Common examples include: the hero, the sage, the lover. Images and feelings immediately come to mind when you read those, right? That’s an archetype. 

We may all get a different feelings or images, but that is due to cultural teachings and overlays placed on top of the pure archetypal essence. The same happens with the signs or archetypes, but we’ll come to that later. For now, we just need to understand that there are universal symbols and spirits that speak to our Souls. We understand these energies whether we are conscious of them or not.

In Shamanic Astrology we see the twelve signs of the zodiac, as archetypes, a dozen energies we know and experience internally, often completely unconsciously. There were certain archetypal energies present when you were born, based on where the planets in the solar system were in relationship to you. Your birth chart is the map of these archetypes and these powers. It shows us the archetypes you already know or are newly learning about and exploring as part of your Soul’s evolution in this lifetime. Pretty cool huh?

If you have an Aries Moon, you have a level of expertise in the Aries archetype. You naturally know about your inner strength, your individual expression and feel centered when you have a committed path of action. If Aries is your ascendant or rising sign, then you are here to learn lessons that help you step into the Aries archetypal energy.

Each sign is an archetypal energy, not just some personality trait. It runs so much deeper than that and takes us back thousands of years in our ancestral heritage. Our mission is to simply do our best to step into the archetypal spirit we are here to investigate in this lifetime. The more we do that, the more we feel we are on our true path and experience more fulfillment in our lives. It is not always easy, but it ultimately feels good as we arrive there more and more. The trick is in discovering the true archetypal energy and not the current cultural overlay.

Archetypal Essence vs Cultural Overlay

This is a deep topic that can take us down many worm holes, so I’m going to explain the basics and keep this in our collective Beginner’s Corner language. Doesn’t all the astrology-speak in so much astrological writing frustrate you? It’s like legalese – if you’re new to the language you can easily get lost in esoteric and lofty ideas.

The gist is there is the true essence of the archetype that has existed for thousands of years, the original form or prototype (if we go back to the dictionary definition). After that comes the culture’s interpretation or biases overlaid on that original pure essence. We could instead say the culture’s misinterpretation. 

Let’s take the sage archetype example from above. The essence is wisdom, elderly, profound knowledge, been around the block. The current cultural overlay is old, crone, used up, out of touch, dispensable. We feel the beauty of the sage within us, but as a culture we do not value the elderly. How often over the past year have you heard, “Well, it’s just killing the elderly” like that’s ok or not a big deal? 

Getting into the astrological archetypes, let’s use Virgo as an example. Virgo’s archetypal essence is the earth priest or priestess in service to Gaia, sensing and showing us all the patterns of the sacred wheel of life in nature. The current cultural overlay is nitpicky, anal-retentively organized, great at being accountants. When did the druid become a CPA? I saw a post from my stepson once around his Virgo-ness, assuaging people of their fears that he won’t be coming over to organize their sock drawers. It’s funny, but demonstrates society’s misunderstanding around the deepest earth-connected archetype.

Certain archetypes or signs are in fashion in a culture and some are not. Take Pisces for instance. We love Pisces-type women who are healers, have compassion and hold space for our pain, even to their own energetic detriment. But, we run from Pisces men, saying they’re weak or overly emotional. This is all about cultural overlay and nothing to do with the incredible power of the archetype of Pisces. We need more men to step into their healing power, completely communed with Spirit in our world. Or the reverse, we love a stereotypical Aries man, grunting warriors who sacrifice themselves for our protection, but an Aries woman is just flat out a b*!&#. Again, cultural overlay on the beautiful protector archetype who is all in committed to a mission and purpose to make this world a better place. 

It is the archetypes we’re trying to embody, and ultimately heal from the cultural overlays. It feels like swimming upstream if the archetypes on your chart are out of the current fashion, but WOW when you embrace the essence of your archetype, you feel like you’re floating back home on the lazy river. It is the feeling of, “Oh, there I am!”

For more Information on your individual archetypal energy, check out The Shamanic Astrology Handbook by Daniel Giamario with Cayelin Castell.

Sheridan Semple

https://sheridansemple.com/

 

Pisces New Moon – March 2021

The New Moon on March 13 is one part of a Pisces packed place in the sky!

A New Moon is always when the Moon passes by the Sun, therefore creating a new lunar cycle. A time of renewal for all of us as the Moon goes through the light of the Sun, recharging with insights to bring to the darker areas of the sky for a Full Moon two weeks later.

This time, the Moon not only passes the Sun, though also Neptune is merely 2 degrees away and Venus almost as close too!

Pisces is the energy that is being accented. What I suggest is that your New Moon rituals and intentions are punctuated with Pisces particularities.

In specific: Pisces is soft, caring, compassionate and empathetic energy. The archetype of a dreamer, healer, mystic or poet at union with the divine.

These are the usual energies of a Pisces New Moon and Neptune adds much more of the very same thing!

Neptune is an outer planet adding in like-a-teacher it’s influence to the new lunar cycle. Neptune teaches through fuzziness, dreaminess and intangibility. It shows us how to get into our heart and allow a healing to take place. Much like Pisces energy, Neptune adds-in or doubles the intentions set at this particular new cycle with even more Pisces potency.

Neptune is most resonant with Pisces.

Neptune is an antidote for too much clarity.

It’s hard to plan these days. I’d love to travel, though you don’t know if you you’ll be stopped somewhere at a border or put in quarantine as the rules change so quickly.

If you think you know clearly where you are going, you might just be wrong.

Delusion, confusion, illusion. It’s time to just be. Be in our hearts.

by Levi Banner. You can read Levi’s full article here.

March Equinox Seminars Start Next Week

Friday March 19th-Wednesday March 24th, 2021             

Every year around the time of the March Equinox, the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School ™ has celebrated this time of year with special events.  Often it has been in-person all-school gatherings and retreats.  Due to the continuing extraordinary global circumstances, we are offering five different Zoom seminars.  This worked out quite well last year at this time, and we hope that you can join in one or more of these offerings.

THE FIVE ZOOM SEMINARS

Friday March 19th, “GLOBAL UPDATE” with Daniel Giamario and Levi Banner

Leading off will be a GLOBAL UPDATE with SAMS Co-Founder, Daniel Giamario, and Levi Banner, a fully initiated certified Shamanic Astrologer, heading up school efforts in Bali.  These two, from completely different generations, will update us on the extraordinary astrological and historical cycles that global humanity is currently experiencing.  They will explore the larger 26,000 precessional cycle, its relationship with the Kali Yuga, the Jupiter/Saturn so-called “great mutation” in Aquarius, and the triple square of Saturn to Uranus, and the other most important cycles of 2021.  This follows up on the 2017 presentations in the SAMS produced summit “Preparing for 2020”, and several other presentations in 2020 and 2021.  Without much doubt, the times we are in include the most extraordinary set of circumstances for global humanity in 12,900 years, at least.  Click here for background information.

Saturday March 20th, “Sex and Gender in the Shamanic Astrology Paradigm ™” with Daniel Giamario and SAMS President Mary Kern

Next up is evolving new material looking into sex and the ever-expanding gender roles in these deeply confusing times.  Also explored will be how this impacts relational concepts and choices.  Beyond identity politics, this will continue the long process that came into prominence in the early 1970’s, with the emergence of the most recent women’s movements and gay liberation.  They will demonstrate the revolutionary approach of the Shamanic Astrology Paradigm ™ for establishing a foundation to help with the current climate of divisions and separation.  Click here for recent background information 

Sunday March 21st, “Mars Focus with Erik Roth and Daniel Giamario”

The understanding of the synodic cycles of the inner planets comprises one of the five “crown jewels” of the Shamanic Astrology Paradigm ™.  Erik has worked extensively with Daniel over the years to explore and evolve our understanding of the Mars cycle.  This seminar will be an ‘everything Mars’ sharing, including the current Aries “overtone”, Mars cycles, and Mars returns.  They will also discuss the need for a new understanding of Aries, for men and women.  The implications of this for the Inner Sacred Marriage Process (another “crown jewel”) will be presented.  Lastly, the Mars cycle can be seen as a description of the archetypal human lifespan.  Click here for recent background information.

Tuesday March 23rd, “Mercury Focus with Daniel Giamario and Awen Labow”

This will be an “everything Mercury” presentation.  Mercury is often overlooked by many astrologers (even us sometimes!).  Daniel, with the help of Awen, the new treasurer and managing director of SAMS, will share quite unique understandings of the Mercury cycle.  We will also delve into the Aquarius, Gemini, and Libran Mercury overtones of 2021.  Also included will be a deep dive into Mercury retrogrades and Mercury returns.  Learn how all the mythic Mercury/Hermes/Iris roles can be found in the Mercury cycle.  This information has only previously been available in the SAMS Synodic Cycles Online Course.

Wednesday March 25th, “Venus Alchemy with Cayelin Castell and Tami Brunk”

Presented by SAMS co-founder Cayelin Castell and past SAMS president Tami Brunk, this will be a deep dive into the current underworld phase of the Venus cycle and the upcoming evening star phase of the Gemini overtone/meta-goddess.  She will rise from the underworld near the Pleiades and her first gate evening star gate occurs with the royal star Aldebaran, close to where she began her current journey in June of 2020.  Implications for men and the inner sacred marriage process will also be included. Click here for more information.

Click here for event registration and further information

Gemini Venus Cycle: Finding Our Wings At the Edge Between Worlds

The Gemini Meta Goddess has been our psychopomp or soul guide for our collective descent and renewal journey through 2020-21. 

She has been guiding us through the most critical years at the heart of the Great Turning where we are called to simultaneously act as death doulas for a dying culture and midwives guiding the birth of a new world.  

Who better to support us in this passage than the great Shapeshifter, Guide of Souls, Rainbow Goddess, Master of Imagination, Miracle Maker, Trickster and New World Storyteller – all manifestations of the Gemini Goddess in all her glory?

Venus rose as Morning Star on June 9 in the heart of the Jupiter Saturn Pluto transits of 2020.  She began her journey months into Covid’s Great Pause and the righteous outrage and soul searching triggered by George Floyd’s murder in the U.S. Her medicine offers a much-needed silver (or rainbow!) lining for the dark storms of our times.

The sign Venus rises in at the beginning of her cycle is the Guiding Goddess on the world stage undergoing a necessary death and rebirth, as described in the Sumerian and Babylonian epic stories of the Goddesses Inanna and Ishtar’s descent to the Underworld – stories describing the full 584 ½ day Venus Synodic Cycle from start to finish. 

This Gemini Venus Cycle is highly significant for several reasons. First, heliacal rise was with Aldebaran, the Eye of the Bull and Royal Star marking the Age of Taurus 5000 years ago before the onset of patriarchy.  Second, this Venus in Gemini Cycle is a bridge, activating the next level of awakening initiated during the critical passage of 2012/13—the last Gemini Venus Cycle. Third, and most importantly, Venus makes a triple activation to the Gemini North Node for the first time in 56 years, an event not occurring again for 243 years. 

For all these reasons we can see that Venus’s Gemini journey offers us the best strategy to move toward our highest collective destiny in 2020-21. From June to early May 2021, we have been experiencing the descent journey, where we must surrender our attachment to anything standing in the way of full access to the gifts of the sign, in this case, Gemini. It is also a time where we may need to let go of the shadow aspects of Gemini to embody more refined and life-giving qualities of the sign.

How Does the Gemini Goddess Descend?
The question in the Venus Cycle is always this – do we descend as the unwilling victim – Persephone? Or as Queen Inanna, who heard the call of soul and willingly relinquished her throne, made the descent, and accomplished the necessary ego death represented by her give-away of all the “me” or adornments of civilization from her crown to her royal robes and finally her precious life?

We might consider the Gemini Goddess, as one accustomed to guiding others to the Underworld and returning to the surface unscathed, might resist such a journey and we would probably be right. In my view, considering Gemini IS the master of polarity and duality along with Both/And, we should consider two possibilities for how She (and we) descend. Listen for which is your way and know one is not better than the other.

Getting Personal: How Have You Navigated So Far?
The first way the Gemini Queen descends is where she makes it a game. She finds the fun in it, she laughs at the seeming contradictions, she uses her magic to weave her own worlds and her own stories into the larger cultural narrative. She does not waste her precious energy and time playing someone else’s game. She is continually creating her own.  

Can you see yourself in the above description of the playful Gemini Fairy Queen? Have you, over the past nine months, experienced moments of complete freedom, healthy detachment from the World Drama, and an ability to shapeshift the reality around you, jump timelines, bring your full imagination and sense of play to your surrounding community?  

If so, magnificent! Keep doing what you are doing and know that as you do, you create a field of possibility around you making it easier for others to follow your lead and join you in re-imagining our world. Simply know that over the coming months it is possible you might hit a rough spot and land in the territory of great sadness, loss, confusion, uncertainty, rage, or any other number of feelings Gemini does not like very much. 

Best Practices to Navigate Venus in Gemini in the Coming Months
When the intensity arises, what works is to bring alive inside of you your loving inner mother and father, creating space for the sensitive and magical child aspect of Gemini to feel and experience her natural grief at being born into a world of such density, heaviness, suffering, inequality, injustice, and far too many people who have forgotten how to believe in magic.   

Know that what follows the healthy natural tears and outflowing of hidden grief and long held pain is the relief and release of an unburdened heart – what we might feel internally as the Rainbow after the Storm, and renewed energy to continue the adventure into uncharted territory, re-imagining our world with a purified heart and mind.

If, on the other hand, you have been feeling very heavy, and you have been locked into struggle, and seriousness and you cannot begin to imagine how it would feel to play, and laugh and feel hopeful about the future, do not despair. You are right on time.  All this means is that you are still in the work of purification, of letting go of the obstacles, habits and accumulated weariness that keep you separate from your true nature as miracle maker, world changer, and shapeshifter of realities.

The advice I gave above, to let yourself feel and let go of the feelings you so fear may apply to you also.  If it does, and when you do, your rainbow is sure to be big, and beautiful, and bright. In either case, if you are wise enough to be the Gemini Goddess’s willing student, you will be required to let go of your over-attachment to what other people think, and to what society expects from you.  You will learn to release attachment to the kind of false security that numbs your soul and stifles your true voice.  In short, all false allegiance to the Muggle World must be surrendered – it is time!   

This means facing and relinquishing any addiction to unnecessary suffering, to taking yourself too seriously, and believing it is for you to shoulder the burdens of the world alone. It also means surrendering the false perspective that you are or have ever been constrained by your history, your genetic makeup, your cultural conditioning, your race, your class or even your identity as “human being.”

For while it remains important to acknowledge those factors in honoring your human nature, it is also time for you to include them with love AND expand beyond them to your greater Self, always and forever in contact with worlds behind this world and drawing from them varied sources of wisdom, strength, embodied knowledge, and great love.

From What Is to What If: Claiming the Magic of the Gemini Journey
For the truth is – now is the time for dreamers and magic makers, and a collective movement from the safety of “What Is” to the Unexplored territory of “What If?” And when we fully activate the Gemini Goddess within, we will find the Creator and Miracle Maker so desperately needed in our world – and just in time.  

Just in time, because in the Evening Star Phase of the Gemini Cycle, through the summer, fall and winter, you will find yourself at a precipice. If you are reading this during the Underworld phase from Valentine’s Day until May 3, 2021, it is time for you to lighten your load and your heart because in the months to come, as Evening Star Gemini emerges, it will be time for you to leap, and you want to be as light as you can be.  

Discover the burdens you have carried that do not belong to you and put them down.  

Claim only what belongs to you. It is not always easy to know what is for you and what is not but often you will know what belongs to you because there is an overall feeling of rightness, even if the carrying is extremely difficult, over time it leaves you feeling stronger and more empowered rather than weak and drained. And within your burden you will find untold gifts to claim in the months and years to come. 

In the months to come you may find yourself at the edge of your old world, looking across the divide to a new world just beginning to come into view. This shows up as the choice points where you feel something from the future, a bold and beautiful, maybe seemingly impossible yet true, calling you forward.  In these moments where the great courage to leap forward seizes you, may you find your wings – and fly!  

the months to come may you find your words of truth and magic, casting a new spell of hope and possibility in your world and may you speak them. And may you find yourself in the company of great kindreds, shapeshifting the world around you into one of beauty, kindness, care and healing for each other and our beautiful planet Earth. And perhaps most important of all – may you claim the path and make the choice all along the way to create play, and joy, and FUN!   

Article by Tami Brunk past president of SAMS

Consider joining us for the March 2021 Equinox Seminars to learn more

Details and Sign-up for the Gemini Evening Star Ceremony starting May 02, 2021