Below are the eight main principles of TOTAMS Astrological Approach, also known as the GiamarioApproach™, and previously known as the ShamanicAstrologyParadigm™. The Turning of the Ages Mystery School™ provides transformational teachings designed to further activate the original intent for global humanity through personal and planetary empowerment.
1. The foundational philosophical truth of TOTAMS Astrology ™ (and arguably of everything) is from the opening lines of the Emerald Tablets of Hermes: “As Above- So Below, As Within-So Without”. This is considered to be literal, kinesthetic, organic reality, not an intellectual or spiritual abstraction. The patterns of the constellations and the cycles of the Sun, Moon and planets are the same as the patterns and cycles of the human psyche and the seasons of our lives. The relationship is not cause and effect. The practitioner of TOTAMS Astrology™ is at home with this magical and geomantic intuition.
2. TOTAMS Astrology is experiential and Earth-centered. The sky that can be directly experienced without telescopic or cybernetic enhancement has the greatest importance and power. Therefore, TOTAMS Astrology would be as effective in a non-technological age. This view can be termed Neo-Ptolemaic, an astrology for terrestrial humans experiencing the sky, perceivable with unaided vision without light pollution*. The modern scientific reality of the heliocentric, Copernican worldview is essentially irrelevant to this approach. The practitioner of TOTAMS Astrology™ is trained in the unaided eye knowledge and experience of the night sky, and the sacred rhythms, cycles and motions of the cosmos.
3. TOTAMS Astrology™ is ceremonial and participatory, and operates from a mythic perspective. Shamanic cultures around the world tell us that authentic shamanic ceremonies are mythic re-enactments of cosmological events.
Over time, the cultural ceremonies and mythic stories created by the various civilizations are draped onto the actual physically observed cycles of the planets and patterns of the constellations. The practitioner of TOTAMS Astrology™ actively participates ceremonially with as many cosmological cycles as possible, which rejuvenates and reanimates the ability to source and co-create with the emerging mythos of a new epoch.
4. The death and rebirth motif of shamanism inspires TOTAMS Astrology™ in two basic ways:
- The understanding and experience of the natural rhythms and cycles of the planetary bodies are linked to the initiatory process in human beings. The universe is supportive of, and power is accessed by, human beings who consciously participate with the initiation cycles.
- Planets (especially Venus, Mercury, and Mars) disappearing below the horizon, are seen as entering the underworld, dying and later being reborn when they rise above the horizon.
5. The practitioner of TOTAMS Astrology™ is trained to track and understand the planetary cycles and their relationship to the process of initiation. TOTAMS Astrology™ links to modern psychology through the use of archetypes. An ancient shamanism using gods, goddesses, spirits and animal essences, can now be expressed through a comprehensive, cross cultural, full spectrum approach to archetypes, inspired by astrologers like Rudhyar, and archetypal psychologists from Jung, to Ponce, Perera, and Bolen. The practitioner of TOTAMS Astrology is trained in a thorough and comprehensive non-hierarchical view of archetypal possibilities.
6. TOTAMS Astrology™ values the totality of the human experience with all its light and shadow, equally honoring evolution and involution
7. TOTAMS Astrology™ especially values the Divine Feminine, the Circle of Grandmothers, and that the “Earth Mother” is ultimately whom we serve at this Turning of the Ages.
8. TOTAMS Astrology™ believes that the greater history of global humanity embraced collaboration, cooperation, and a system of non-ranking (gylany) between men and women, with little or no hierarchy or dominator ideals. 300,000 years of our common DNA still reflects this, and these realities can still be accessed. Only in the last 5000 years have we seen the quadruple aberration of hierarchical patriarchy, patrilineal family structure, dominion over nature, and more recently, monotheistic dogma. Universally, for a far greater time, holding the Earth sacred, and valuing the Feminine, was fundamental to society. It is an objective of the Turning of the Ages Mystery School™ to restore and then dream forward this reality through the Renaissance of the Sacred Feminine.
* A phrase frequently used by astrological astrosophy, a form of stellar science inspired by Rudolph Steiner, and elucidated through the works of Willi Sucher, Norman Davidson (Astronomy and the Imagination and Sky Phenomena), and Joachim Schultz (Movement and Rhythms of the Stars)