Franco Santoro's Blog: Astroshamanism, page 43

Astroshamanistic Quest report

Astroshamanistic 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.

Gateway of Spring

St Mary Magdalen’s Chapel, Ripton

The gateway of Spring is open!

You hold the key of this doorway, leading to a luminous cycle of clarity, vision and awareness, bestowing blessings of authenticity, courage and honesty on all those who are ready to embrace them.

The previous cycle through autumn and winter involved the cleansing descent into the realm of darkness and the retrieval of precious gifts from the roots of our ancestors.

Remember that darkness dwells in the sacred uterus, the secret sanctuary of your divine presence, which allows light to be born and emerge.

You hold the keys of that precious place. Allow your most luminous intentions to emerge from the depth of your being, setting off foremost healing enterprises and luminous pathways for the benefit of all, including next generations.

 

Blocks

“I saw the angel in a block of marble and carved until I set him free.” (Michelangelo Buonarroti: born on 6 March 1475, Sun and Moon in Pisces, and Ascendant in Sagittarius)

And what about you? Who and what have you seen?

You don’t need to be Michelangelo to see angels or anything marvellous beyond what everybody apparently sees.

You don’t need to be Michelangelo to be capable to give form to what you see despite what everybody apparently sees.

Hence, if you have seen an angel or anything that you value, and you want to set them free, please be aware that they all abide in your blocks. All the blocks in your life are angels waiting to be carved and set free.

 

Franco Santoro

 

 

Did you say astroshamanic trance dance?

In a scene from the movie Zorba the Greek, Anthony Quinn playing Zorba says: “When my little boy Dimitri died and everybody was crying. Me… I got up, and I danced. They said ‘Zorba is mad.’ But it was the dancing, only the dancing that stopped the pain… When I’m happy, it’s the same thing.” For Zorba life is a dance, and his motto is “whenever life collapses around your shoulders, dance, dance, dance.”

Since ancient times and in all cultures dance has been used for releasing grievances and connecting with deeper aspects of our nature. The mystery, esoteric and shamanic traditions were well aware that frequency vibration is the primary underlying force in the manifested universe. Hence they developed specific dances, chants and sounds to expand beyond the limits of the ordinary self and explore multidimensional realms.

Dance and sound are the most ancient forms of language and the main methods of communication with alternative realities. They are also channels through which we can best convey our authentic nature and express ourselves beyond the restrictions of conventional languages and behaviours.

Passionate dancers are aware that there is a deeper intelligence abiding much beyond our ordinary mind. This intelligence is what ultimately creates the dance and the physical body is capable of connecting directly with it, bypassing the conditioning of our consensus mind.

The body can spontaneously align with its multidimensional nature and also move accordingly. The conditioned mind may continue to indulge with its narrow ideas, yet the body, if allowed to do so, cannot help responding to its profound matrix. When this is the case, major healing shifts can occur in the environment and the people involved in the dance. A mysterious, yet familiar, power is unleashed and transformation inevitably follows.

From the astroshamanic perspective all life is a dance and since there are several aspects s 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 thhe 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.

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 also 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.

 

Franco Santoro

Full Moon in Virgo

On 12 March 2017 at 14:53 GMT the Sun in Pisces opposes the Full Moon in Virgo, precisely at 22° 13’.

The effects of any Full Moon are usually experienced during the two days before and after the exact time of the Full Moon. The preceding days can challenge our conventional perspective and cause release of pent-up emotions or excess energies, while the following serve the purpose of integrating what has emerged during the climaxing time.

The general aim of a Full Moon is to bring balance between the areas where the Sun and Moon are transiting through a process that involves acknowledgment, tension, reconciliation and healing.

With the dynamic Pisces-Virgo, the integration is between collective and individual service, transcendence and manifestation, free intuition and sense of duty, and any themes related with Pisces and Virgo.

Pisces is the most mystical and boundless sign of the zodiac, surrendering to the flow of life, thriving in situations of paradoxes, confusion and bewilderment, while Virgo is technical, efficient, scrupulous, painstaking, systematic, concerned with acknowledging, discriminating and preserving resources.

Pisces is romantic, haphazard, irrational, indistinct, yet inspired and ecstatic, aligned with the visionary realm. Virgo is proficient, analytical, precise, sensible and selective, focused on the ordinary and mundane aspects of life.

The dialectic between Pisces and Virgo, being the last polar interaction of the winter season, carries the energetic climax of the entire annual cycle.

This binary exemplifies the dynamic between the inner and the outer, the anima and the ego, our provisional roles and who we truly are.

The theme here is selective disidentification. By activating Virgo power of discrimination, we can release the identification with roles, physical conditions, jobs, partners, places, emotions, thoughts and whatever is bound to end. The intent is to unveil what remains unchanged, undisturbed by outer circumstances, totally aligned with Light.

During the Full Moon we can let go of predatory emotions and confusing energies, which urge us to chase illusory goals and cravings. We can choose to let Light triumph, as an act of will, allowing our self to identify with what is permanent and luminous.

“We are dominated by everything with which our self becomes identified. We can dominate and control everything from which we dis-identify ourselves. In this principle lies the secret of our enslavement or of our liberty. Every time we ‘identify’ ourselves with a weakness, a fault, a fear or any other personal emotion, we limit and paralyze ourselves. Every time we admit ‘I am discouraged’ or ‘I am irritated’, we become more and more dominated by depression or anger. We have accepted those limitations; we have ourselves put on our chains. If, instead, in the same situation we say, ‘A wave of discouragement is trying to submerge me’ or ‘An impulse of anger is attempting to overpower me’, the situation is very different. Then there are two forces confronting each other; on one side our vigilant self and on the other the discouragement or the anger. And the vigilant self does not submit to that invasion; it can objectively and critically survey those impulses of discouragement or anger; it can look for their origin, foresee their deleterious effects, and realize their unfoundedness. This is often sufficient to withstand an attack of such forces, disperse them and win the battle.” (Roberto Assagioli, born with full moon in Virgo)

During a Full Moon energy reaches a climax, making the entire body a vast vibrant zone eager to express and act out. This is one of the reasons why the Full Moon has always been regarded as the best time for meditation and inner awareness.

The Full Moon is a pulsating and invigorating time, unveiling the arcane mechanics of the interaction between polarities. The lunar cycle, started with the New Moon, reaches the culmination with the Full Moon.

The sign where the Moon was placed at New Moon, which in this case was Pisces, defines the basic intent. Hence, this current lunar cycle based on Pisces, features themes such as: compassion, service, unconditional love, imagination, art, sacred theatre, empathy, transcendence and trance states.

On a Full Moon whatever was conceived during the New Moon, calls for direct expression and achievement. Here we may confront ourselves with the pragmatic implications of our intent.

Traditionally this Full Moon was called with a large variety of names, such as Snow Moon (for in certain zones it happens at a time when the heaviest snows fall), Hunger Moon (for the scarcity of food and provisions), Worm Moon (the ground tends to soften and earthworm casts reappear), Crow Moon (when the cawing of crows heralds the end of winter), Sap Moon (signalling the time of tapping maple trees), Crust Moon (the snow becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night) and even Death Moon.

From an astroshamanic perspective this Full Moon in Virgo aligns with Manas (pure lake), the spirit keeper of Mionahils, incorporating the development and implementation of healing powers.

These are some celebrities born on a Full Moon in Virgo: Rudolf Steiner, Arthur Schopenhauer, Lou Reed, Peter Fonda, Jack Kerouac, Ted Kennedy, Roberto Assagioli, Douglas Adams, John Irving, Irving Wallace, Glen Miller.

 

Image: “Undine” di John William Waterhouse

21 October

Bruce Lipton (7.9.5, Pluto cjn Asc) born October 21, 1944 at Mount Kisco, New York, American developmental biologist best known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person’s beliefs. He is the author of the bestselling book, The Biology of Belief, and is a former researcher at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.

6 December

Byron Katie (born December 6, 1942, American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as “The Work of Byron Katie” or simply as “The Work”. She is married to the writer and translator Stephen Mitchell. She is the founder of Byron Katie International (BKI), an organization that includes The School for the Work and Turnaround House in Ojai, California.

8 October

Thomas Moore (7.10.8) born October 8, 1940 in Detroit, Michigan) American psychotherapist, former monk, and writer of popular spiritual books, including the New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul (1992). He writes and lectures in the fields of archetypal psychology, mythology, and imagination. His work is influenced by the writings of Carl Jung and James Hillman.

Multimensional sexuality training

29 July – 3 August 2017, Merizzo (Massa), Multidimensional Sexuality, training with Franco Santoro.

This is  a unique training course, which explores  sexuality and intimate relationships from a multidimensional and shamanic perspective with the aim of healing connections with yourself, partners, relatives, friends and significant people in your life.

Drawing from the astroshamanic healing approach, we will track and release blocks that inhibit the capacity to express our true sexuality, identifying the underlying issues that hinder relationships, promoting compassion, healing, peace and fulfilment.

The workshop is designed for all types of relationships, encompassing couples in intimate or platonic connections, work partnerships, service and spirituality, as well as, rapports with friends and relatives. It consists of two workshops:

29-30 July 2017, Basic Workshop. (It is also possible to take part only in this workshop).

31 July – 3 August 2017, Training and Certificate Workshop.

“For ages on our planet conflicts around sex issues have been a major cause of suffering, addiction and frustration. As we move into a path of rapid spiritual reawakening it is vital to acknowledge these wounds and strenuously promote ways to heal them. From a multidimensional perspective sex is a symbolic representation of the energy pervading the web of life, often described as an ongoing multidimensional intercourse between the earth and the sky, the seen and the unseen.

Many healers and also ordinary, yet highly sensitive, people stand on the threshold of this copulation, right at the point where polarities meet, between the ordinary and non-ordinary, day and night, life and death. Whether they know it or not, they are intensely tied to the essence of creation, stirring up the energy and using it to sustain the web of life. As they do so, they are involved in healing soul-fragmentation, which is the result of belief systems based on separation and the cause of all fears held in our culture.

People who are aware of this healing process work at an archetypal or collective level, as opposed to the personal or self-centred levels most individuals operate from. As a result, they constantly move to different ways of perceiving and using sex energy. Due to the conventional denial and distortion of such themes, this can be unsettling for them and their relationships…” (read on at http://astroshamanism.org/sexuality-holistic-awareness-and-shamanism/)

The event starts at 10:30 on Saturday and ends at around 18:00 on Sunday.

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

For further details or information please contact us at info@astroshamanism.org.

Casale in Lunigiana, Ronco

località Merizzo

Villafranca in Lunigiana 54028 (Massa, Italy)

Tel. 0187420736

Shining your vision in the world

12-16 August 2017, Merizzo (Massa), Shining your vision in the world, with Franco Santoro.

with Franco Santoro

This workshop is for those who long to take a decisive leap into the discovery and manifestation of their unique talents and authentic potentials, so as to provide benefits to themselves and the whole environment.

Embracing the Leo cycle of the year we will focus on creative luminous empowerment and find ways to tap into the core of your vocation, giving it opportunities to shine and be generously available. This is a special astroshamanic training week devoted to the acknowledgment of one’s life purpose and is also designed for participants who intend to use healing tools in their practice with others.

The workshop also aims at showing how apparently insurmountable obstacles and crisis can be used to give shape to our most ambitious dreams. During our time together we will also unveil how in every moment of our life, dark times included, we are never alone and there are immense forces available to provide support.

Weekend workshop only (12-13 August 2017): Euro 140

Full workshop (12-16 August 2017) Euro 265.

The cost does not include accommodation and board, which can be around Euro 45 per day/night. Bursaries are available.

For further details or information please contact us at info@astroshamanism.org.

The workshop starts at around 10:30 on Saturday. It is possible to arrive earlier or stay extra nights.

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.