Archive for Timeless Articles

Beginner’s Corner with Sheridan – September 2021

Posted by Kimmberly on

September 17, 2021

Use Astrology to Become More YOU

We all want to know why we’re here, who we really are, what’s our purpose, and what are we meant to be doing. Right? That’s often a big part of what draws us to astrology in the first place. We’re trying to make sense of our lives, our experiences. We’ve got big questions and we’re searching for big answers.

Some of us even come to astrology looking for psychic answers. We want to find out what’s going to happen in our lives and when. Should we do this or is doing that better. We approach our sessions as if astrologers are clairvoyant and have a magical connection to other realms of knowledge we don’t.

Shamanic Astrology isn’t predictive and won’t tell you what is going to happen and when. We don’t pretend to know what Great Mystery has in store for us. Our special sauce is using astrology to help you become more YOU! That’s what really gets us excited. We look to the sky to better understand you and your unique path.

Your birth chart holds the clues to your Soul’s intention.

The precise alignment of our Solar System at your first breath is the outward energy you chose to birth yourself into. Where the planets were in relationship to one another and the archetypes they were present within shows us what you came here to learn about, experience and explore. This is your Soul’s intention for this lifetime that you are living right now.

Use astrology to mine the gold that is you! No one else has your exact birth chart, born under the same sky, at the same time, in the same place. Not even your identical twin. You actually are a special snowflake, so live it. Your birth chart is the map to discovering those reasons. Astrology is the language used to decipher that mystery.

Still unclear why you’re here?

Before you put undue stress and pressure on yourself, know that this unfolding is a process. A lifetime process, so you’re only job is to keep getting clearer and clearer as you go. None of us will ever arrive at a perfect moment where we have all the answers. Hopefully, we will all be evolving right up to our very last breath. But, continuing to study your birth chart and the transits you go through teach you everything you need to know for that evolutionary process.

Your natal chart is the starting place. What are the predominant archetypes you are learning about this go round? Start there. Then, once you’ve got a feel for the archetypes playing the leading roles in your life, begin to understand their significance within the planets held by those signs. Is Libra big on your chart. Learn about Libra first. Then, what does it means to have both your Venus and Mars in Libra. Look at your personal planets first: Moon, Sun, Mars, Venus and Mercury. These are the lesson plans of your life.

Next, look at the outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond. Which of them are in a dynamic aspect (conjunct, square or opposite) with your personal planets. These outer planets are your guides and teachers for the above lesson plans. How have they guided your experiences that make up you? How do they guide you into expressing more of you? Initiation cycles aren’t always easy, but the intent is to clear away more of the muck that isn’t you.

Finally, look at the transit cycles you are currently experiencing. These are your current life teachers and initiation cycles. The more you understand, the more you can interact consciously with what you are trying to learn. It doesn’t necessarily make it all easy breezy, but it sure helps to feel like you’re steering the ship of your own life. Knowing where you’re going and the intent behind it makes all the difference between feeling like a victim and feeling like a student of your own life.

It’s a process, so be patient and allow yourself the space to blossom into you

Like learning a new language, it’s a process. It takes time and simple tuning into… you! It’s not rocket science and you don’t need a genius IQ to get there. You just need a willingness, a desire, and taking the time to feel into yourself. If things don’t feel right in your life, go deeper. There’s always a silver lining, even if it’s hidden behind a huge storm cloud.

It’s all about unraveling the mystery that is you. It’s about learning those lessons and bringing yourself more and more into alignment with your Soul’s vibration. You’re always walking on your path, but does it feel right? Do you feel in alignment with your higher self and purpose? If not, then dive more deeply into your chart to get the clues as to where your Soul wants to go. That is always the solution to feeling better.

Astrology is here to help you, step by step, see the path in front of you and learn more about yourself, your true nature, who you are and what you’ve come here to be and do. You may not like the path always, but it’s yours, so don’t fight it. Keep going. It’s an uncovering process that takes a lifetime, your lifetime. You got this or you wouldn’t be here.

Sheridan Semple
https://sheridansemple.com/

Beginner's Timeless Articles

The Shamanic Astrology Paradigm™ is not predictive!

Posted by Kimmberly on

September 3, 2021

· No Comments

By Daniel Giamario

“It’s Tough to Make Predictions, Especially about the Future” – Yogi Berra, baseball playing philosopher

“Prediction is Very Difficult, Especially about the Future” – Niels Bohr, Danish Physicist

The assumption is often made that astrology is a predictive science. Many still cling to that notion. But it had seemed in the late 1960’s, and early 1970’s, that the era of predictive astrology was over. In these times now, within the time-frame of a great Turning of the Ages, prediction is a dubious and often perilous enterprise.

It often seems that simply making a prediction, and placing attention on something, be-it positive, or negative, could even be seen as a strategy to insure that it does not happen! This may well be related to a principle of quantum mechanics, where the consciousness of the observer connects mysteriously to the outcome. The Shamanic Astrology Mystery School™ has never been about prediction. Let me explain.

I first became aware of astrology through the books of Dane Rudhyar (1969 through 1973), and was part of a movement that, at that time, was known as Humanistic Astrology. Later, Rudhyar changed the name of his approach to “Transpersonal Astrology”. I had the great fortune of having Dane and his wife Leyla Rael as early mentors. It was the era of an astrological renaissance, with many, many young people taking a keen interest in astrology. This was actually a part of the overall cultural revolution that gripped the world in the late 1960s.

Interestingly, the excitement and interest that astrology held for us had little connection with a predictive or deterministic kind of astrology. Rudhyar, and the others who inspired us in those days (including Zipporah Dobyns, Stephen Arroyo, Tony Joseph, Richard Idemon, and many others) favored an approach blending mythology, psychology, and spirituality. Before I even began using the expression “Shamanic Astrology” (starting in the early 1990s), I had always steered clear of predictive astrology.

Highly influenced by Rudhyar, I have always felt that astrology is about “intent” (see note below) with the capacity of the astrologer and the client to tune into, as best they can, the intent and purpose of a natal chart or any astrological timing. The chart, or any particular timing, is a set of potentials, likened also to a set of instructions, that can either be carried out, or not.

As Jung so beautifully stated: “Free will is doing gladly, and freely, that which one must do.” It’s the responsibility of the astrologer to illumine the highest set of possibilities and the full potential of the client. This will then assist in discerning the purpose and meaning of their lives, the higher purpose of a person, not the egoic desires of the client (or the needs of the astrologer to be right).

By focusing on intent, it stands the predictive approach on its head. Instead of looking for a fixed future outcome, by tuning into intent it’s easier to align with lines of probability that most likely will produce the intended outcome. I suggest that we look at the extraordinary global configurations and my recent explorations of the US chart from that perspective.

Two other experiences have galvanized my non-predictive approach. The first was my involvement with the Ridhwan School, also known as the Diamond Heart Approach. The One Reality that we are all part of is in motion and it evolves according to certain natural laws.

An expression of this is known as “The Holy Plan.” People who love astrology generally love getting close with this holy plan, and then end up believing that they have it all figured out. But the “problem” is that the astrologer is part of the evolving One Reality, and can never be separate and objective to it. Therefore it’s not really possible to know for certain what the holy plan is intending. That’s why it’s also known as Great Mystery!

In concert with these insights, I have also been quite impressed by the work of English astrologer Geoffrey Cornelius, the author of The Moment of Astrology. One point he makes is that there is no such thing as “objective time.” Without the existence of objective time, prediction as normally understood is simply not possible. Astrology is actually just an infinite number of divinations. And as many of us are experiencing, there are seemingly an infinite number of possible timelines, even if not really infinite, then certainly a rapidly expanding number of lines of probability.

These two sets of insights remove prediction, as it has been known, entirely off the table. There is no way of knowing completely, ahead of time, what is going to happen. Each birth chart, or each specific astrological timing, when seen as a divination, in and of itself, can be seen to have an intention, with its own meaning and purpose, which the astrologer can then form a relationship with, in concert with the client. From this, an awareness can develop concerning the intent, meaning, and purpose of the chart, or any specific timing or cycle.

Shamanic Astrology is completely in harmony with this view. As astrologers, and as lovers of astrology, of course, we love our closeness to the holy plan. We would not be in this field if we did not feel the intimacy derived from this closeness. However, the greater this closeness and this intimacy, the greater a humbleness and humility will grow, because it’s not possible to really know what Great Mystery has in mind. We can only get close. And that is a thrill indeed.

Much has changed since that halcyon late 1960s and early 1970s. Much to my shock and disappointment, a good deal of mainstream astrology has regressed in my view. So much astrology has gone back into Medieval, Hellenistic, and often deterministic Vedic systems, not to speak of “Sun Sign Astrology”. Dane Rudhyar would be rolling over in his grave!

Many of the gains from the astrological renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s have been seemingly lost, stranded on the shores of determinism and prediction. I suspect it’s time for another Renaissance. Certainly there are other astrologers who are part of this Re-Renaissance. To name a few, there are: Mark Jones, Gemini Brett, Dale O’Brien and Eric Francis. The Shamanic Astrology Mystery School will always stand firmly on its Rudhyarian, humanistic, divinatory and non-predictive foundation.

Note: Regarding the word “intent”. It stems from Old French and Late Latin: Intentus; meaning a “stretching out” and a “leaning toward”. It is actional, and includes concepts like goal, an end, aim and purpose.

Archetypes in the Sky and on the Earth – Beginner’s Corner August 2021

Posted by Kimmberly on

August 20, 2021

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Beginner’s Corner with Sheridan

Archetypes in the Sky and on the Earth

These two Aquarian Full Moons in a row have me visioning more deeply into what I do and what I bring to the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School. Many of you new to Shamanic Astrology have probably wondered, at some point, does the “shamanic” part refer to plant medicines? For most Shamanic Astrologers it doesn’t, but for me it does. I came to SAMS as a Holistic Health Practitioner well versed in plant spirit medicine specifically. Plus, with a Virgo Moon and Virgo Jupiter conjunct my Ascendant, Earth medicine is my jam!

What does any of this have to do with you and your delving into your chart through Shamanic Astrology? Well, I’ll tell you 😊… the archetypes aren’t solely in the sky. They are here within you. “As above, so below” is one of our truths at SAMS, as is “as within, so without”. These powerful statements help us to understand the archetypal energies are everywhere, in the sky, in our bodies, and on the earth.

See the Archetypes on the Earth

Your birthday anchors you into a seasonal time of the Sun. If you just had a birthday, you’re a Leo. If your birthday is next week, you’re a Virgo. That’s your Sun sign, of course. Your Sun sign fixes you into a certain season of the earthly cycles. It places you around a Solstice or Equinox, or around a cross-quarter holi-day. The Householder signs (Capricorn, Cancer, Aries, Libra) kick off the Solstices and Equinoxes. The Self Exploration signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) settle us squarely in the Cross-Quarter days. The In Service to Spirit signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces) carry us into the next Solstice or Equinox.

You were born into a certain timing of the seasonal cycle of the Earth and the Sky. The Sun is in the same part of the Sky, with the same constellations and stars every year. (Note: this changes slowly over time with the precessional cycle.) The Earth is also in the same season. As astrology enthusiasts we tend to look up at the Sky, but it is equally powerful to look down and around at the Earth to better understand your personal Sun archetype. And, ALL of the archetypes as well. What does the energy feel like at different times of the year? What is the temperature like? What plants are growing? Are they sprouting, fruiting, seeding? What are the birds or animals doing? Increase your awareness and understanding of yourself through the energy that the earth is experiencing as well. This isn’t hemisphere specific. It’s you and your surroundings specific. It’s tuning you more deeply into your ancestral roots, when your life was intimately intertwined with the Earth and the Sky.

Discover the Archetypal energy wherever you live

For example, I’m in Colorado, in the northern hemisphere, where Leo season marks the middle of summer. It’s hot. The Sun is high in the Sky. The land is turning beige and brown, from the heat. But, I can feel the coming Fall Equinox in the cooler nights. Lush golden flowers and shrubs are blooming, such as Rabbit Brush (pictured in image) Goldenrod, and Gumweed. All very heart opening plants. Very Leo types of plants that support loving yourself more deeply.

Nearer the equator, Ylang Ylang trees are blooming. Another self-love powerhouse of a plant spirit. It has these golden yellow blooms that smell of the tropics, sensual and sultry. Ylang Ylang is used for anything to do with the heart physically, emotionally and spiritually. It helps us stay with our emotional healing and brings us into profounder states of self-love.

In the southern hemisphere, Leo season anchors in winter, but like Aquarius season here in the northern hemisphere, you can feel the hints of spring. Depending upon how far south you live, you may even have the first bulbs starting to come up, such as golden daffodils, reaching for the lengthening daylight Sun. Again, opening your heart, bringing light within. One could even see the growing light as being more Leo in the southern hemisphere than the northern where the light is lessening. It’s all about your perspective and what you see and feel when you walk outside.

Get in touch with your surroundings and let the Earth teach you more about yourself, the archetypes in your chart and the path you are walking in this lifetime. What does Leo season feel like to you? Virgo season starts in a few days, how does that feel different? What does the Earth teach you about Virgo? What’s blooming or turning to seed? What are the trees doing? The animals? The birds? How do you feel? It’s your experience, so you can’t get this wrong. There is no one right answer, just your growing connection to yourself through the Earth and Sky around you. This is really what Shamanic Astrology is all about.

For a deeper dive into how the archetypes work in both hemispheres – and so much more – check out “Further Adventures of Shamanic Astrology, episode 12” with Daniel Giamario and Gemini Brett here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MopXYtVkXCc I highly recommend this video!

Sheridan Semple

https://sheridansemple.com/

Beginner's Timeless Articles

Lion’s Gate Portal Demystified

Posted by Kimmberly on

August 7, 2021

· 3 Comments

by Levi Banner, M.A.

You might have noticed more and more people posting things about the 8/8 Lion’s Gate Portal coming up each year on August 8th. This article is an attempt to make sense or possibly talk some sense into those with this popular intention.

Though I love to align my chakras towards ascension and manifest my destiny as much as the next spiritual person, I thought that perhaps the information out there isn’t so accurate. Most of it is quite vague and not written by credible astrologers. I want to share what I have found surrounding the subject.

Is there a portal opening on the 8th day of August that has to do with your solar plexus chakra, lion or Leo energy, the Sirius star group, the great pyramids, sphinx and the Sun? Well… let’s discuss.

To start, there is no such thing as a Lion’s Gate Portal from ancient Egypt or any ancient culture. Simply put, it seems to be a new age terminology utilizing pieces of ancient ideas and renaming and putting new meaning on them. I’m not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. Though, when so many people are subscribing to an idea I tend to ask questions. Also being an avid Shamanic Astrologer who bases much of my astrological approach on not only mythological and cosmological events, though also practical and tangible alignments that I can connect to personally, I wanted to know what was actually aligning, when and why.

So, what is in alignment? What is all the fuss about?

The star Sirius is said to play a large part in this portal opening. There is some depth to this statement. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky other than the Sun and does in fact begin to rise around this time of year in the early morning sky. The ancient Egyptians did honor this rise with ceremonial reverence and even based one of their calendars on this very star. The pyramids are said to have possibly been built in part to align with Sirius as well as the constellations such as Orion.

They would celebrate or honor the heliacal rise of Sirius, or Sopdet to them, and they noticed it was right before the annual flooding of the sacred Nile river. However, the ancient Egyptian event of Sirius rising would have happened in early July and not August. Due to a wobble of the earth and what is called precession, it has shifted into August. So the August event practiced nowadays couldn’t have been on 8/8.

Back then they believed that Sirius gave heat to the Sun and added to the summer weather. One of the many meanings of the word Sirius means scorcher or one with heat. Back then Sirius rising also coincided with the “Dog Days of Summer” as the star Sirius is in the neck or nose of the Canis Major or Dog constellation. Though, the Dog Days started in a different month than now.

Orion is the other star group mentioned a lot in the new age Lion’s Gate lore. Known to the Egyptians as Osiris or Sah, this constellation was indeed revered and rises before Sirius in the year. It is said that the 3 stars of Orions belt, sometimes referred to as the 3 magi or the 3 wise men from those great mythic stories are aligned to the 3 great Giza Pyramids. Even though that seems to be plausible, and very incredible, however debatable, it was not at this time of year the Pyramids would have been built to align with that star group.

I have also read in recent Lion’s Gate activation invites that the Galactic Center is aligned with the Lion’s Gate Portal. However, if they are referring to the Sun at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, well the Sun is aligned to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy during the December Solstice. Not anywhere near August. Galactic Center is below the horizon at sunrise and above at sunset in August, though not precisely straight up on that day.

Sirius is not conjunct the Sun in early August either. Sirius was conjunct the Sun on July 5th this year. This bright star is just barely far enough from the Sun to become visible again during Leo season. Yes, this is sometime around August 8th, sure… Though in 2021, it’s more like August 11th, depending on your sky visibility.

Let’s say you were watching the Sun rise at the Pyramids in Giza, Egypt. This would be the time in each year that Sirius would start to become visible just before the sunrise. This is true, though it rarely happens exactly on the 8th day of the 8th month in the calendar we use.

So there was no “Lion’s Gate Portal” in ancient Egypt on 8/8 or any date.

Think about it. Did the ancient Egyptians use the Gregorian calendar at all? No, they did not. They used several different calendars. One Sothic, aligned with Sirius, one lunar aligned with the Moon cycles, and one solar comprised of three seasons with 9 day weeks.

The beginning of the Sothic calendar would start with the first sighting of Sirius. Though definitely not August 8th in the Gregorian calendar by any means.

Numerology is an amazing tool, though it can be misused.

The very calendar we are set to in society is not aligned in any way to nature. Not that it’s bad or wrong, as it is quite a challenge to create a system everyone can follow. However speaking with nature, it’s quite hard to confirm dates each year as the pattern of the planets and stars are slightly more fluid and change from year to year. Hence the leap year making up for the lost time of a 365 day solar year.

So is it actually the 8th day in the 8th month anyways?

Well not originally. The word August is named after Augustus Caesar who wanted 31 days in his month like his brother Julius in which July was named for. They took days from poor February. This along with Pope Gregory changing the beginning of the year to January 1st made all the months off schedule to their very names. Oct means eight… October is the 10th month… Oops.

So when you see the clock on your phone say 11:11 again and again, there could be some magic involved. As if spirit is speaking to you or giving you a message. Though on the other hand, if we literally name what time is and what months are called and what a month even is, and it’s misaligned with the natural rhythms of the earth and sky, the very makings of spirit, then don’t we then lose some of the magic and meaning?

There are also a myriad of numerology schools that say completely different meanings for the sacred number of 8. From infinity, to abundance, to balance and harmony. What meaning do you give it? Regardless, Numerology works best in its intended form like we find in the way the sacred geometry of the ancient pyramids and indigenous temples were built, all in relation to seasonal and star alignments.

More important to the ancients and to me is actually following the lunar cycle for each month and the Sun’s precise timing for a year or tracking the rising of certain stars. The Sun conjuncts Sirius on July 6th this year and Sirius is visible on more like August 11th.

However, this year, 2021 out of all years, the August New Moon does fall on this magical date of 8/8. It won’t do that again for a very long time. Though the Moon aligns with the Sun every month and in this sign of Leo once per year, every year, there is some potency on that day this particular year.

Indeed a good date for New Moon intentions and manifesting abundance ceremonies or whatever else you might fancy. Though that’s because New Moons are always good times to set intentions and quite literally plant seeds. Depending on the time of year.

However, in regards to the New Moon aligning with the Lion’s Gate, well, the Lion constellation has nothing to do with the sign of Leo (wait, what?). The signs and constellations are not the same thing in western or tropical astrology, the astrology that most everyone in western culture follows (Mind Blown).

That could be a lot to take in if you don’t yet understand the precession of the equinox. In brief, the stars move slowly in the background of the seasons over long periods of time. That’s why Sirius was not rising in the middle of summer in ancient Egypt and the Lion constellation is in a different part of the sky during Leo season.

The Sun is not in the Lion constellation during Leo sign time. Sorry if this disrupts your projected image of the Lioness Queen or Leo King of the jungle. Though you could easily pick a different king like animal to identify your Sun sign with.

On August 8 the Sun is actually near the beehive cluster or the Crab constellation. Not even a bit of the Lion is covered by the Sun in Leo time. This is why a Vedic or Sidereal astrologer will say you’re a Cancer after your horoscope always said you were a Leo. Though, those that use western or tropical astrology are working with the seasons as the signs, not the stars! The season of Leo will always be Leo season, regardless of the star grouping behind it. In either case, the Lion Gate date of 8/8 is not aligned with the Lion constellation.

The Sphinx is said to have been facing the Lion constellation during March equinox when it was built. Now, the Sphinx looks due East to where the Lion constellation rose 12,800 years ago. Today, it’s a mirror image, as the Water-Bearer constellation is beginning to rise there at that time.

What is a portal anyways? What is this gate leading to really? In the many years I have been tuning into astrology, ceremony and global meditations, I haven’t seen anyone transcend into 5D during the Lion’s Gate Portal except if they got a new cell phone.

I hope this sheds some light on the light coming from Sirius and the timings aligned with pyramids, lions and gateways. If you’d like more info or have something to tell me that I missed, please reach out.

My intention with any of this info was to encourage reverence, respect and gratitude for ancient and indigenous star wisdom that is speaking to us now in this modern world.

Sincerely,

Levi

Timeless Articles

An Investigation Of The Astrological Chart Of The United States: 2021-2025

Posted by Kimmberly on

August 6, 2021

· 1 Comment

Part 3 of 4 by Daniel Giamario

THE NEPTUNE AND GEMINI FACTORS

Introduction and an embarrassing admission

I have been working extensively on the chart of the United States for maybe six months now, in monthly “ramblings” newsletter posts, a number of FaceBook posts, as well as seminars and vlogcasts. I have covered the quadruple eclipse pathways, the Chiron return, the Pluto return, as well as important Jupiter, Saturn and Lunar Node transits. I have even been mentioning the US natal Neptune square to Mars. But through email exchanges with Greg Knell, who has become a marvelous researcher in related areas of inquiry, out of nowhere, I realized that I had totally not seen that the United States is in its Neptune opposition! I just had not noticed! Very humbling indeed! This part three will hopefully remedy this situation. I will weave this currently happening second Neptune opposition to the natal US Neptune into the larger scenario that I have been developing. And I think you will agree that it’s as important as any of the other factors so far presented.

The Neptune Factor

I believe that the natal square of Neptune to the US Mars is one of the most important elements of the US chart. Neptune is 22Virgo25 in the 10th house, and Mars is 21Gemini22 in the 7th. Using the windows of initiation that we use with the Shamanic Astrology Paradigm ™ applied to a natal chart, here is a complete accounting of cycles of 2021-2022 related to this US natal square. The window of initiation lasts from March 3, 2021—December 4, 2022. Read More

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