Franco Santoro's Blog: Astroshamanism, page 42

Training in Astroshamanic Healing & Soul Retrieval, 1-2; 3-6 July 2017, Merizzo (Italy)

With Franco Santoro.

This training is part of the Foundation Training in Astroshamanism and represents a full initiation to astroshamanic healing, soul retrieval and astroshamanic touch as tools for soul retrieval and multidimensional awareness.

The training consists of four workshops: two introductory weekends (1-2 July 2017, and 8-9 July 2017), which can be taken independently without attending the training workshops, and two training workshops (3-6 July 2017 and 10-13 July 2017), which requires participation to the introductory weekend. It is possible to take part in only one of the two weekend or training workshops.

1-2; 3-6 July 2017, Merizzo (Massa), Astroshamanic Healing, training with Franco Santoro.

8-9; 10-13 July 2017, Merizzo (Massa), Astroshamanic Theatre, Dance & Touch, training with Franco Santoro, click here for details.

For details on astroshamanic touch please click here.

The first workshops (1-2; 3-6 July 2017, Merizzo (Massa), Astroshamanic Healing, training with Franco Santoro) involve a process of recapitulation and energy assessment of our human interactions, aimed at identifying and healing soul losses due to past relationships or engagements with ordinary reality.

Soul retrieval is based on the understanding that most painful issues we experience are due to the fact that significant parts of our souls are trapped or lost. When this is the case individuals sense that a vital part of themselves is missing, feel regularly stuck or in a vicious circle, at times experiencing severe disruption and misery in their life. The task is to identify and retrieve these missing parts, restoring them into the wholeness of the individual.

In astroshamanism the 12 signs of the zodiac strategically represent the complete setting of the soul. In traditional soul retrieval sessions the client usually remains passive and unconscious, while the practitioner does all the work. In Franco Santoro’s astroshamanic soul retrieval sessions, clients are fully present and directly involved in the process, while the practitioner supports and guides them. Soul retrieval here involves first the acknowledgement of the missing parts and their original separation, followed by their search and retrieval. Franco’s approach also aims at effectively restoring those parts, by returning luminous talents, allowing their harmonious integration in accordance with the client’s intention. Franco can help at various levels of this process.

Participants will learn to use healing tools that allow them to continue the healing work autonomously after the workshop, providing a solid basis for more advanced practices.

The weekend workshops start at around 10:30 on Saturday and end on Sunday at around 6 pm. It is possible to arrive earlier. The training starts on Mondays and ends on Fridays at around 2 pm. It is possible to stay extra days and take part in further workshops of the Foundation Training in Astroshamanism for the whole month of July.

Weekend workshop only: Euro 140

Training week and weekend workshop: Euro 415

The event takes place at il Casale in Lunigiana, a light nature centre entirely surrounded by the Apuan Alps and the Appenine, brooks, on the Via Francigena in the historical territory of Lunigiana.

Casale in Lunigiana, Ronco

località Merizzo

Villafranca in Lunigiana 54028 (Massa, Italy)

Tel. 0187420736

How to get to Il Casale:

By car: take A15 (Autostrada della Cisa) Parma/La Spezia, exit at Pontremoli if you come from the North, or Aulla if from the South. Continue to Villafranca in Lunigiana, then to Merizzo (5,20 km). Once in Merizzo, use as reference the Church of the Archangel Michael. 50 metres after the church turn left at the little parking square then take the only path to the left. After one km you will reach our parking.

By train: you can arrive to Villafranca/Bagnone railway station with the line Milan-Livorno or La Spezia-Parma. Let us know your time of arrival and we will pick you up.

By plane: the closest airport is Pisa’s Galileo Galilei. Also the airports of Florence and Genoa are close.

Full Moon in Scorpio

This Full Moon takes place at 21:42 GMT on 10 May 2017, when the Sun is in Taurus and the Moon in Scorpio at 20° 24′.

Both Taurus and Scorpio build up, gather and concentrate energy aimed at empowering creative expression.

Taurus stresses the pragmatic, physical and constructive side, while Scorpio emphasises deep emotional and transformational currents, the materia prima of any relevant manifestation. Here intense emotions, covering an ample range of frequencies can easily erupt. These can either be released for the general highest good or directed towards specific practical achievements.

The Full Moon in Scorpio is known in the Theravada Buddhist countries of South East Asia as Wesak: the birthday, enlightenment and entry into Nirvana of Buddha. In this respect it is considered as the most powerful Full Moon of the year.

It was on the night of the Full Moon in Scorpio that Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree at Buddhagaya and attained total enlightenment. According to esoteric traditions the Buddha returns at this time every year to dispense healing light to the world. Spiritual masters led by the Christ gather in the Wesak Valley, a mythic multidimensional location in the Himalayas, position themselves in a vast pentagram, while the Buddha radiates light.

It is believed that during the five-day period of the Full Moon, which includes two days before and after the day of exact Full Moon, direct contact can be established with the Great Masters and the Forces of Light that hold the planet.

When a sufficient number of people come together, connecting personal with collective history and aligning with luminous intent, this strengthens the foundations for the expansion of human awareness and the reawakening of our multidimensional nature. In this respect all group meditations and rituals, sustained by a clear collective intent and inspired by a healing basic purpose, provide major benefits to the human and general environment.

Here any activity can indeed be transformed into a meditation or ritual, especially those involving expression of vast amounts of energy or significant transformational processes, such as eating, going to the bathroom, being sensually involved, etc.

What counts, as often as possible, and in any circumstance, is to keep the connection with the web of life, reminding ourselves that no matter what feelings we experience, we are always part of the whole, which means that even though we may appear separate and disconnected, the reality is that we belong to this universe to which we continue to give our precious contribution. Unveiling, understanding and accepting the nature of such contributions involves reawakening our memory, releasing the veil of autistic illusions that keep beating us up and fully embracing what we truly are.

On this Full Moon in Scorpio seekers throughout the world join in meditation or ritual events, releasing the veil of their limitations and becoming receptive to their multidimensional nature. The day of this Full Moon is known as the Day of Safeguarding, which involves holding the energy generated by the alignment with our multidimensional nature. The two days following the Full Moon are called the Days of Distribution, implying passing on the accumulated energy to the web of life.

For a meditation on this Full Moon in Scorpio, please click here.

Image: astroshamanic seal for the Full Moon in Scorpio, drawn at Findhorn Bay, Wesak 2012

Astroshamanic Trance Dance, Saltburn

This astroshamanic trance dance evening workshop held by Franco Santoro is designed for newcomers as well as for those who wish to consolidate previous experiences with shamanic trance dance.

The dance runs from 7 – 9 pm on 11 May 2017 at Earthbeat Centre, Marske Road, TS12 1 Saltburn-by-the-Sea.

Costs are on sliding scale from £5/£7/£10

Astroshamanic trance dance works as a superb practice for releasing blocks and grievances, which can be identified by the patterns of astrological aspects and transits. The dancers let go of emotions, feelings and thoughts through physical movement, releasing whatever they experience in that particular moment (excitement, vitality, pain, weakness, restlessness, sexual energy, craziness, etc.) until they reach a space of inner void and stillness. This is the sole environment that allows them to truly receive. Having relinquished what is in excess, dancers are ready to receive vital gifts for healing and transformation.

From the astroshamanic perspective all life is a dance and since there are several aspects of life there are also many varieties of dance. There is a dance for each zodiac sign, and there is also a dance for each combination of signs, including triads and larger groupings, making patterns of dance virtually infinite.

There is a dance for every feature of life, which also includes all the features of death. Each living being dances a specific rhythm, which may change in the course of one day, month or year, or following a connection with other dancers and rhythms. Every time we wake up and start our day, we also begin to dance with other living beings. Some of them may be moved by the same music, others will dance to a different rhythm. We may meet ideal dance partners, while other dancers may present challenges, or teach us new steps, while we also teach ours.

Astroshamanic Trance Dance is a holistic system of healing based on rhythm and movement, the result of the integration of dance, music, energy work, shamanism and astrology. Its aim is acknowledging, retrieving and integrating the lost pieces of our soul as they are astroshamanically represented by the 12 zodiac signs.

Each sign has its own vibratory frequency and through dance we can align to its modalities of expression and incorporate them in our awareness. With astroshamanic trance dance we open to profound archetypal forces allied to stars, planets, animals, plants, minerals, spirits and whatever exists around and within us.

By physically dancing and playing these forces, we reactivate the memory of our ancient communion with them, embracing their rhythm and experiencing their healing energies.

Article by Franco Santoro

Franco Santoro

Astroshamanic Dance & Theatre

Calendar

Retrograde

“Retrograde” is a term used in astrology to describe a planet that from the perspective of the Earth appears to be moving backward through the zodiac, i.e. from east to west. When the Earth was considered stationary this situation appeared rather unfathomable and gave rise to all kinds of conjectures.

The retrograde motion is indeed an illusion caused by the revolution of the planets and the Earth in their orbits around the Sun, which is the same illusion that occurs on a train when seeing another train in the adjacent track moving slower, and perceiving it going backward while it is actually moving in the same direction. In traditional astrology retrograde planets were usually regarded as a weakening or disruptive element.

In the astroshamanic approach this disruption affects only the consensus reality, which is based on illusion. In retrograde situations you can be dramatically confronted with events that can disrupt such illusions, unveiling a more expanded or multi-dimensional perspective.

When Mercury is retrogade there may be disruptions in communication, networking, mail, computers, trade and contracts occurring in consensus reality. These are times when e-mails or letters can go astray, parcels are delivered to the wrong address and appointments are missed.

Mercury plays here the role of Coyote or trickster. Whenever you attach too much importance to ordinary reality, there comes Coyote. In its company the only way out is to laugh.

When the retrograde motion of Mercury is at work it can be useful to expect disruptions, finding way to see them from another perspective when they really occur. Laughter is a powerful medicine for release. As Osho says: ‘All that this world needs is a good cleansing of the heart of all the inhibitions of the past. Laughter and tears can do both. Tears will take out all the agony that is hidden inside you and laughter will take all that is preventing your ecstasy.” The area of your astrological chart where Mercury transits in retrograde motion could provide clues regarding in which areas of life disruptions can occur.

Decision making is at low ebb when Mercury is retrograde as well as finding clarity or solving issues with others. It is however an ideal time for releasing, pondering, and communicating with spirits, and for any kind of multidimensional relationship. A retrogade motion allows the illusion of ordinary reality to escalate, while providing major gaps for experiencing the multidimensional reality beyond. What does not work from an ordinary perspectice, works at its best from a non-ordinary perspective.

 

 

 

Restoring the Fragmented Heart, Udine

With Franco Santoro

Relationships are the most fruitful grounds for holistic healing and spiritual growth. Despite their grievances and turbulence, they exemplify human collective wounds longing to be released and transformed into unconditional love and joy. This workshop explores relationships from a holistic and shamanic perspective with the aim of healing connections with partners, relatives, friends and significant people in one’s life. We will track and release blocks to our capacity to love, identifying the underlying issues that hamper relationships, promoting healing, fulfilment and peace. The workshop is designed for all types of relationships, encompassing couples in intimate or platonic connections, partnerships in work or service, rapports with friends and relatives, celibate life and chastity.

The workshop takes place in Udine, at Centro Omeopathos.

Cost: Euro 135.

For information: info@astroshamanism.org

Restoring the Heart, Yorkshire

With Franco Santoro

Relationships are the most fruitful grounds for holistic healing and spiritual growth. Despite their grievances and turbulence, they exemplify human collective wounds longing to be released and transformed into unconditional love and joy. This workshop explores relationships from a holistic and shamanic perspective with the aim of healing connections with partners, relatives, friends and significant people in one’s life. We will track and release blocks to our capacity to love, identifying the underlying issues that hamper relationships, promoting healing, fulfilment and peace. The workshop is designed for all types of relationships, encompassing couples in intimate or platonic connections, partnerships in work or service, rapports with friends and relatives, celibate life and chastity.

For information: info@astroshamanism.org

Full Moon in Libra

This Full Moon takes place on 11 April 2017, at 6:08 GMT. The Moon is in Libra at 21° 33′ and the Sun is in Aries at the same degree.

This time presents opportunities for challenging and harmonising apparently antagonistic forces, as well as embracing the power generated by pure love and passion. Here whatever abounds with energy, also and especially when it is perceived as anger or any intense emotion, indicates the presence of love and passion.

Hence the invitation is to be aware of what you are truly passionate about and find ways in which you can express that passion in a healing way and definitely through non-violent expressions.

A Full Moon in Libra is an opportunity for disengaging from the conventional scripts that rule our lives, tapping into what we truly are at a much deeper level.

Most human beings spend their whole life trying to fit into social roles. These roles are mainly part of a consensus reality based on separation and conflict, constantly downloaded and updated mainly through the media and social interaction.

What we believe to be our individuality is in most cases the mere repetition of scripts played throughout ages and by huge amounts of people.

The Full Moon is about giving expression to whatever vital and authentic within you has not been dealt with. The combination Aries and Libra challenges to reach a balance between your spontaneous and genuine desires, the way your energy would naturally move, and our connection with others and the environment, our dependency issues as well as our need for relationships.

A question you can ask yourself here is:

“Am I being truly myself or am I just trying to fit into a social model? Am I just imitating what I should be in accordance with my social environment, culture, conditioning, or am I being myself? And what does it mean to be myself?

Whatever the answer to this question is, what counts is the fact of being aware of what is happening. If it is your conscious choice to fully interpret a specific role, no matter whether it is a conditioning or not, this provides power, because you are aware of it and choose to do so. Choice is power, which means that when you are tired of playing a certain role, you can drop it and play another.

The Full Moon is the apex of the New Moon in Aries on 28 March 2017. The degree of the New Moon, or Lunation point (7° Aries 37’) indicated an area of life that would operate as Intent and driving force during the cycle, reaching the apex at the Full Moon and in the related zone (21° Libra 33′).

At New Moon, both the Sun and the Moon are conjunct. Hence, they are in a condition to experience their original unity and formulate a common Intent. On a Full Moon whatever was conceived and experienced during the New Moon, calls for direct exposure and accomplishment. Hence, this is the moment when you confront with the practical implications of the New Moon issues. This is the time for Aries manifestation, resolute discrimination and selective action!

This Full Moon represents the maximum level of horizontal magnetism, allowing grievances and blocks to reach a peak, which can either escalate separation or release it. Hence there is a most healing opportunity to liberate deep layers of ancestral conflicts and divisions between polarity, letting them go and moving beyond our limited nature into the reality of our unified self…

I wish you a most harmonious, reconciling and courageous Full Moon!

© Franco Santoro

April

Here comes APRIL!

April comes from the Latin “aperire” (to open), indicating the month when flowers are opening up. In the calendar of ancient Rome this was the month devoted to Venus, goddess of love.  It follows that April is the ideal month for opening to love, fow allowing to spring and blossom.

April is about opening your heart. And since April starts with the first of April (April Fool’s Day), perhaps you can do so with playfulness, lightness and a bit of loving foolishness.

Image: “The reunion of the Soul with the Body”, by Luigi Schiavonetti, born on 1st April 1765, from a drawing by William Blake.

 

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An Astroshamanic Workshop…

Astroshamanic Quest for Manifestation: Shining your talents in the world: March 11-18, 2017, workshop at the Findhorn Foundation, with Franco Santoro

My personal experience: Michael Bohoskey

I had no idea what this meant when I first read it. Sounded like one more new age flashcard, a glossy title for a feel-good escape from a world of painful entropy. But I was drawn there, to Findhorn, at this time, on those dates, for a reason, and I trusted his eyes, ecstatic and haunted in the same glance. He’d been to places my soul understood. He was an ally. But just to make sure, I bought his first book on Amazon, for a penny, plus shipping, and I read it before I left for Scotland.

There are so many components to this journey. The actual travel experience, the workshop itself, the cast of characters, the Findhorn community, and the land and seas and weather. And then again, my personal journey of dreams, spirit connections, and multidimensional shapeshifting, as I crafted intentions and gave them form through metamorphic dances and movement.

The recipe for manifesting and shining your intentions and abilities is fairly simple. Begin with allowing full range to your wild imagination. No limits. Let your deepest, heartfelt, higher minded imagination expand and run free. We are dancing the Sun energy here. We began here with finding our inner sanctuary, our power place, which will be our reference place for setting intentions and expanding beyond the limits of our ego driven personalities, into multidimensional awareness, or what I call Soul space.

So, you imagine your highest intention, then you act it out, you dance it out, ground it in your body, in your breath, your heartbeat, in nature. That’s step two. It’s like testing your hypothesis, according to Franco. Does it really work for me? As I act it out and move my body and feel it taking shape? It’s a chance to check it out before “submitting it for publication”.

The third and final step is manifestation, taking action. And there are ways to do this.

It’s simple and yet not so simple. There are layers here to look into. For instance, we begin with wild, uncensored imagination, to open the psyche for amped up life energy flow, and we learn later that this is to connect us with our multidimensional power source, which will actually be the fueling station for the more specific and practical intentions we desire to manifest. For if we use very abstract and vague intentions, the outcomes, according to Franco, are usually disappointing. Practical, measurable intentions are more easily achieved.

And there is something else. On “moon-day” we danced the shadow. What does that mean? Well, the moon is an invitation to enter the unconscious, the lower worlds, if you will, and meet with the energies of limitation and denial. This is a crucial component in doing “real” work here, and not just new age fantasy hallucinations.

If we didn’t have shadow, self-limiting, negative programmed beliefs, we would naturally be creating and manifesting positive, spirit rich and heartfelt, joyful realities, 24/7. But we’re not doing that, for the most part, save a few enlightened beings assisting here on this planet.

So here I found Franco very creative. His thoughts go like this: Negative programs, usually unconscious, demand attention and energy. If I’m hooked on an old wound and am triggered with anger say, or fear, or shame or whatever, a lot of my budgeted energy flows down that drain. Let’s say I have such and such amount of energy in my life budget. I want to create something positive and wonderful, but 85% of my budgeted energy is feeding my shadow issues and wounds etc. I’m too busy putting out internal fires and chasing my demons that there’s nothing in the tank for my dreams.

Now there are lots of different approaches as how to work with the shadow. One thing that most agree upon is that it’s not a good idea to ignore it. Deny it and it just festers and grows, and oozes through the cracks of consciousness at the most inappropriate times. The more I fight is and push it down, the uglier it gets. Not a good idea.

This workshop is not a therapy session. I liked that, and yet it took us as deep as we wanted to go. It’s like we were cradled in a loving, powerful container that stretched out over eight days as a tapestry of ritual, movement, conceptual retooling, and archetypal natural cycles of earth and body. His integration of astrological wisdom and shamanic journeying, and his utilization of music and movement and archetypal energies in grounding our multidimensional experiences was masterful, in my opinion. He was gentle and yet emphatic, clear and yet flexible, Virgo organized and yet unattached to outcomes.

Scorpio intense and yet wistful and encouraging. What’s not to like here?

This is a man who though highly sensitive in spirit and pure of heart, has not allowed the coarse density of third dimensional human mass consciousness to beat him into submission. He’s kept his soul alive and awakened while managing to put together this remarkable template for healing and visioning.

So, its not therapy. What then to do with this shadow stuff? Well, we recognize its existence, and its hunger for attention, and we decide that we will create a ritual that acts it out, in a way we control, which then satisfies its need for conscious connection, making it less likely it will burst into our life in unconscious and inappropriate ways.

So, Moon-day we danced our our resistance, our fears, our whatever blocks to the rising Sun of our imaginations and highest intent. And of course, Franco chose chthonic, lower chakra, intense music to get us moving in that direction.

And here’s the wonderful twist for this ritual (moon dance). Rather than view it, however horrific, as something evil, or ultimately negative, we instead embraced it as shit to shine “compost”. In other words, we take the dark, bowel releasing residue of our unconscious crap,and give it to Mother Earth to be transmuted as fuel to grow our intentions. We do this because we are physically made of the Earth and energetically we are supported and grounded and revitalized by the Earth.

So now, this dance of shadow becomes a ritual that supports our manifestation of our dreams, an ally, rather than something to fear or avoid.

Our workshop started Saturday, Saturn’s day, perfect for setting the structure and grounding the exhibition. And Sunday was the full moon. And in northern Scotland it blazed through the clouds like a huge floodlight. I remember not sleeping much, or well, that week, and that particular night, as well as the next, getting up at 3am and sitting on a bench facing the moon and feeling the silent thunder of its pulsing, blazing reflection of light, and having a smoke to ground me.

We were twelve, in this workshop. Perfect for representing the Zodiac, not to mention twelve dimensions in our universe, twelve realms of consciousness in each dimension, twelve major meridians for twelve bodies, etc, etc. You get my point. It was symbolically rich, and added to the power of our movements.

One session we were given musical tracks to move to and feel and imagine, twelve of them. Each was frequencied to represent one of the zodiac signs, but we weren’t told which was which. We were to experience each one and then write about it, and then Franco told us what they were. It was fascinating. My mind wanted to guess. Is this Gemini? Taurus? Pisces? But when in my head I couldn’t truly feel through movement and vibration what the music portrayed.

So I chose to just feel it. And whenI did guess, I was wrong 90% of the time. Some signs really engaged me, energizing me, or triggering me. Others didn’t move me at all. It was interesting to me that the earth signs Virgo and Taurus were two of the most powerful energies I danced, and that my deep intent for this workshop was to fully ground my soul essence in nature, having spent lifetimes feeling separate from both my God-essence and the earth. Capricorn was a card I drew at another session as an ally card. More of that practical, grounding energy.

There were so many varying rituals we traveled through that offered mini epiphanies and gifts of insight. And yet nothing was rushed. Always free time to reconfigure, reflect, integrate, walk to the ocean, lean against a tree, or grab a chocolate at the cafe. And always Franco’s breezy, lilted, Italian inflected speech, offering wisdom with wit, and a twinkle in his eye inviting us to take the scorpio plunge into the “other worlds” of our multidimensional souls.

You can google Findhorn Foundation to find out about the center and programs and the area. Lets just say that I felt like I was home. It’s a Scottish thing. A large DNA component I didn’t know I had until recently. I fantasized about links golf and peat smokey single malt, neither of which I had time to indulge in. But I did learn the proper way of making porridge, with just a dash of salt, and quite a bit more from my Scottish roommate, who never complained about my evening snorts and sleep walking, though he did laugh about it.

I was drawn to Findhorn with a deep soul desire, and a practical goal as well, and I found both unfolding in the garden of my being as the week progressed, in a structured and yet non-linear fashion. While dancing forth the Sun, I envisioned myself as a powerful evergreen rooted in the golden orb of my higher mind’s pure intelligence and unconditional loving essence, with my soul family dancing about my trunk with lyric ease and joyful tranquility. This was my power place that anchored the enactments of more practical intents I later brought to the alchemical processes of manifestation.

In my evening dreams I witnessed my internal resistance to expanding my imagination, as teeth clenching upon the balloons of light bubbling forth from my inner core. My dead mother appeared in a visitation, wanting access to my energy, as a last attempt to suck my libido in old cords of dysfunctional agreement and emotional and mental wounds, and I “composted” that energy into compassion and realized a metamorphosis so powerful it brought me to tears when I shared my experience with the group.

I danced forth a ritual within my psyche that saw the blessing of my life as a man by a “healthy” mother, through a progression of rescripting events from infancy to adulthood, with my dead mother actively participating.

Before even thinking about this place I had a dream of meeting a beautiful woman and blending with her ecstatically on every level. She looked at me and said “My name is Emma, and I’m from Scotland”. I shared this with my eleven companions and got ribbed mercilessly. “Have you met your Emma yet?” They asked.

But Emma was my anima, my feminine inner half, and the culmination of a lifetime journey to heal the wounded feminine within me, and my mother, herself abused, dark, and dangerous, has been my greatest teacher in reflecting this wound back to me.

During this ritual I experienced the healing of my relationship to the “mother” and a release and blessing to finally be free to then meet and wed to this “Emma” who came me when I descended from the hill where my blessing had occurred, and merged with me in a ceremony of endless white lotus flowers falling gently from the sky.

This healing for me was neither abstract or practical, or maybe both, but it was the culmination of years of intentional healing, and a freedom I have longed for.

So I’m grateful, and I managed to effect a manifestation utilizing Franco’s template that went beyond my imagining.

And as for my more practical goal? Gracefully it came into perspective and became more manageable and less urgent, and thus more doable.

There was magic for me in this journey, in the way each of us became blended with the intentions and souls of others, as egos melted and deeper, multidimensional energies flowered, pollinating one another’s dreams. And everything we did was routed through the powerful cycles of nature, with a peaceful, reassuring awareness of appropriate timing and rhythm to all acts of creation. A season for planting, a season for germination, a season for harvesting, and a season for dying and rebirth.

I loved it. Thumbs up. Five stars.

Grazie mille. Thank you Franco Santoro.