Archive for School News

Meet Our Recent Graduate: Sachie Yasuda

Hello. my name is Sachie.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank Daniel and SAMS for changing my life from struggling with my health for more than 20 years to becoming completely healthy – healthiest in my entire life – and receiving the privilege of becoming the first Shamanic Astrology practitioner in Japan as well as working as a full-time astrology counselor and teacher!

I also would like to thank Erik Roth, my mentor, in my journey through the Shamanic Astrology. Without him, his preciseness and efficient teaching, I wouldn’t have made it (Timeline course was a tough one for me)!

Also, I’d like to thank Roy Purcell, the artist who drew the arts for Shamanic Astrology Divination cards. His arts were great inspiration for me and helped to publicize Shamanic Astrology here.

I had bipolar disorder from the age of 17 till 37 (without being diagnosed) and struggled with poor physical health because of it for a long time. Then the symptoms disappeared instantly as if by magic when I started living according to my current life purpose [Capricorn rising] explained by Shamanic Astrology, and giving up on holding on to my past life theme [Leo school and Taurus job]). I’ve been healthy and the healthiest in my whole life since I started giving readings using Shamanic Astrology in the Spring of 2021, which I am soooo thankful!

Then around the Fall of 2021, I started integrating Shamanic Astrology with I-Ching hexagram of Human Design (which is a relatively new system given to humanity in 1987 through Alan Robert Krakower, synthesizing Astrology, I-Ching, and Chakra System) which I started learning in 2014.

It was a very interesting Journey integrating Shamanic Astrology’s 12 zodiac signs and I-Ching 64 hexagrams. I discovered many new aspects of 64 hexagrams through the lens of 12 signs and many new aspects of 12 signs through the lens of 64 hexagrams! (I also created 64 I-Ching Astrology cards which kind of came to me like a download around last Winter😊)

I believe that because Shamanic Astrology’s interpretations of 12 signs are primal and describe the essence that is at the center of the universe, connecting with the 64 hexagrams to them was possible. I don’t think it’s possible with any other astrology interpretations. (Well, I tried to learn other types of astrology in the past but they didn’t “click” with me and couldn’t understand them! But Shamanic Astrology resonated with me so much and understanding came easily!)

It continued to evolve and now has become what I call Soul Mission Re-connection (SMR) integrating Shamanic Astrology and I-Ching using 12 God kingdoms and 64 God messengers (totem animals). I have been doing Soul Mission Re-connection readings since the beginning of this year and started teaching it in Japan last month since I like teaching a lot (Capricorn rising!).

In my view, it is clear that Shamanic Astrology and Human Design (HD) are both for the turning of the ages – for future generations (in HD terms, for nine-chakra beings instead of the old, seven-chakra beings).

I so very much appreciate Daniel for warm support for my creative project. Again, I am forever thankful for Daniel and SAMS for saving and bringing joy back to my life.

I am also thankful for my engineer husband who creates astrology report generating programs for me. Without him, all of these things were absolutely impossible!

I hope that I will continue to be able to bring more love and peace to this world by doing what I love.

My website is in Japanese but you can contact me through emails in English.

(My business name is SEiLA.)

Website (Japanese):

https://www.soulmissionlabo.com/soulmission

Email:

seila.soulconnector@gmail.com

 

In Memoriam:  Sao (Ronald Long)   Jan.5, 1947—June 27,2022

By Daniel Giamario

On Tuesday, the 28th, I received the extremely sad news that my dear friend, Sao, had passed.  It seems that so many are leaving now.  Sao had been battling leukemia for a good number of years now, and had it seemingly licked on a number of occasions and it was in remission.  Apparently he relapsed and had been in the hospital for the last few weeks.  I last spoke with him about a month ago, and his condition had significantly shifted.  Sao’s two sons had driven out to California to get him from the hospital and drove him to his son Alafia’s house near Phoenix.  He passed over a few hours later surrounded by family and other loved ones.  Should you desire to help his family with funeral and memorial expenses, here is a link to their Go Fund Me campaign:

https://gofund.me/6305579f

Sao was one of the very first to be fully certified in the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School.  I will never forget the first event that he attended, which was in Sedona, way back in the 1990s.  Sao was always a bit skeptical about Sedona New Agey type groups and he was afraid that this was one of them!  But when he walked in I was playing some really sublime jazz music, which opened his heart and blew his mind!  Over the years we bonded deeply with regards to jazz, and a mutual love of Dane Rudhyar.   As a Capricorn/Gemini combo with both a strong Uranian and Plutonian emphasis, Sao had a truly unique way of sharing Shamanic Astrology, which he did for many thousands over the years.  His dedication to the school and the paradigm was absolute.   Sao was the first to be honored as “Wise Elder” on our website.  He will be greatly missed by so many, and I will totally miss his friendship and the camaraderie that we shared.

In Sao’s final years he fulfilled so many of his life purpose themes.  He established close loving relationships with his sons and was there for his mother when she passed over.  His was a life well lived and the fourth nodal return was apparently as good an exit point as any.  Sao loved his Gemini Moon and I found it entirely appropriate that he exited with the Moon and Mercury conjunct in Gemini!

Sao, you can now hang with Coltrane, Miles, Bird, and Albert Ayler…..I will look forward to joining you a bit further down the road as we join in that great jazz combo we were always meant to be in together.  You can also now hang out with Rudhyar.  You will be greatly missed.   Love and Magic always.

Sao’s birth and death data:

Jan. 5, 1947   11:58am  Louisville, KY

June 27, 2022   1:38am   Phoenix, AZ

Meet Recent Graduate, Michael Wilson

On March 2nd, 2022 the Shamanic Astrology Mystery School held a graduation ceremony for 6 students who each completed all the required coursework to achieve their foundational level of certification as a Shamanic Astrologer.

Michael Valentinus Wilson personal statement:

I woke up in San Francisco in the late 60s. I joined a non-denominational religious order in 1969,  came into the Light, realized the Self, and became a minister-priest in 1972. In 1974, the founder died and by the time I left in 1980, I was married and had two sons. I got a Masters degree in Social Work in 1984. At 60, I retired from Social work and got a BA in Fine Art in 2009.

I met Amma “the hugging saint” in 2003 and have lived in her ashram in India. I studied Tibetan Buddhism (Kagyu lineage) for about ten years, and was initiated in the Sufi Ruhaniat International in 1987. I am a Master Teacher in the Order of the Holy Cross, and a teacher/learner of A Course in Miracles.

My Shamanic Astrology readings tend to open up the soul and reveal the way forward for my clients. I love Shamanic Astrology because it focuses on the dynamic aspects and follows the Shamanic Timeline of a person’s life revealing the recurrent patterns and the spiraling development of the soul from one lifetime to the next.

Contact Michael for a reading!
mvalentinuswilson@gmail.com
mvalentinuswilson.com

The Shamanic Astrology Paradigm™ is not predictive!

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.

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

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