The Spirit Guide
My meeting with Franco Santoro happened in a very curious way. I have always loved the writings of the guru Osho Rajneesh and at a certain point, wherever I went I met a car with Osho written on the rear window, most surely a car of one of the centres in Rome inspired by the works of the master. I started to believe that there was a message for me in these repeated meetings with this car and that the time had come to acquaint myself with the master’s thought more deeply by frequenting one of the centres named after him. I visited a couple but didn’t find what I was looking for. As at the time I was organising an in-residence seminar on medical astrology, in which I was dealing with the theoretical side of the discipline, I would have liked someone to conduct a practical healing experience during the seminar, and so I was looking for someone who inspired me in the magazines related to this field. At a certain point I came across an advertisement for a seminar on experiential astrology led by Franco Santoro, in which one could experience one’s planets using a zodiac circle on the floor, and amongst other things it said that Franco had been the press agent for Osho Rajneesh. Still under the influence of my meetings with the mysterious car, I phoned Franco who willingly came to lead an experiential astrology session in my seminar. From that experience a three year course in astro-shamanism was born, led by Franco at my house; something which changed my life, firstly because it involved my first encounter with the Spirit Guide, the later “investiture” by my Guide to put other people in contact with their own Guides, as well as the possibility of working the zodiac floor circle as a very potent source of awareness and healing. My work, and that of Franco Santoro who now lives in the Findhorn community, in Scotland, are motivated by the same light, but out of a natural propensity and following the suggestion of my Spirit Guide, I personally have not gone more deeply into the more shamanic aspects of Franco’s work, which he, by the way, exercises with great mastery; I am rather a channeler, someone who helps other people to enter into contact with their Spirit Guide. Through their work with me people may get in contact with their main Spirit Guide, also identified as the Guardian Angel. Is very important for me to stress something: generally one speaks of channeling as using a medium as a means for talking to one’s Spirit Guide. Personally speaking I am rather against this type of contact, because I maintain that there shouldn’t be intermediaries in our rapport with our spiritual world. The presence of intermediaries causes dependence, and on the other hand, in the dialogue between the intermediary and our Guide (always admitting that he can contact our real Guide), other presences insinuate themselves, the result being that the message yes, does contain the answers of our Guide, but also some interference, which lead completely off track. Starting from the premise that the Guide accompanies us from when we are born, what I mean by helping people enter in contact their own Guide, is to make sure that everyone becomes aware of its presence, giving it a name, physical traits (hardly ever true Guides reveal their faces clearly) a place in time. All this makes it possible to call the Guide easily when we need him/her, obtaining mindful advice, or even when we just need the comfort of his company. Many of us in various circumstances of life have had sensation of a presence, protection, for example someone has been miraculously saved from an accident or put on the right track by an invisible friendly hand. This happens because the Guides watch over us, they protect us when we’re in danger. To enter into a conscious contact with the Guide means taking a step forward, that is asking our Guide not only to protect us when we’re in difficulty, but to help us to create enlightened works on earth. It signifies choosing to live in the Light, to unify spirit and matter. In the first period of my contact with my Guide, it seemed absurd to ask advice on my daily life, but Franco explained me that the Guides yearn to be called on, because through us they may create works of Light on earth. However to be able to do this they have to be called on. They can’t intervene in our karma, so if we don’t call them they limit themselves to protect us when we’re in danger and when karma itself doesn’t require us to go to the very heart of that danger. Evoking them we have the chance to change our karma into dharma, that is, ransom ourselves from a state of painful repetition of karmic situations by rising to a level where the laws of karma don’t exist anymore, in that they’re transformed by spiritual Light.
From the point of view of astrology this means we have the opportunity of transforming the difficult aspects of our natal chart. For this to happen it is enough to live every zodiac sign, astrological house or planet in its high vibration instead of its low vibration. Uranus, for example, in its low vibration means separation, break ups, the repenting degeneration of situations, rebellion at all costs. In its elevated vibration it indicates constructive openness to the new, subtle energies, astrology, sustainable advanced technology, spirit of community. It suffices for a person to have difficult aspects of Uranus on his chart (Venus Uranus square which gives an inclination for emotional separations) to live out Uranus in one, or more than one, of its high vibrations, in order not to come up against painful separations in the emotional sphere. It sounds like a miracle but indeed miracles do happen when we begin to vibrate on a higher level, but on the other hand the energy of a planet is just one, and it’s for us to decide to experience it at which level. It’s exactly this type of effort of passing from a dense material vibration explicit with all the sufferings of human nature to a fine elevated vibration where there is no more suffering, but harmony, peace, acceptance that the Guides help us to make. Without them, for man thoroughly steeped in the physical, material world, it’s often difficult to make this metamorphosis: generally when we manage to elevate the level of our perception it is due to some great suffering, like a grave illness, or the loss of a loved one. The Guides teach us to make the leap in vibrations, following a path of joy, not pain, but they definitely need our collaboration, our endeavour and effort for it to take place. It’s not a journey therefore for sluggards, but for those of good will.
Finally, the Guides don’t really look like how they reveal themselves to us. They are pure Light, and don’t have human form. Yet they present themselves to us with human features to be more comprehensible to us, and what’s more, the energetic significance of their appearance is important. In terms of energy in fact it’s different to have as a Guide a woman or a man, a warrior or a shaman, a priest or a farmer, an adult or a child. The energetic significance of the Guide has always something to do with us, usually our better side, or the side we should develop to be ourselves to the full and to be happy: it’s as if the Guide were our double in light of a spiritual dimension, or someone, again from that dimension, who guides us, so we may come closer to the Light.
This book is a blessing for those who desire to widen their consciousness as to the rapport with the Spirit Guide and what dwells in the undocumented multidimensional spheres of being. The material gathered in Paola’s book is bathed in the integrity of a long initiatic journey and experiences of Light, enhanced by the impeccable, enthusiastic identification with the direct font of the subjects involved. The text is full of precious testimonials and considerations, the fruit of the dedicated professional work of support that the writer has for some time offered, both as an astrologer and as a facilitator in the relationship with the Spirit Guide. The language is simple explicit and precise, and aimed at anyone who has the sincere desire to regain or enrich the relationship with resonating dimensions of unexpected potency, yet of boundless intimacy and grace.
Franco Santoro, astro-shamanism facilitator, member of the Findhorn Foundation
When Paola made me the gift of letting me read the first draft of her book, even before finding the editor she’d give it to, I thought I knew the subject because several times I’d listened to her as she shared her experiences as a channeler with me and others. Reading with attention made me see how vast and profound the subject was, and that just hearing a report was not sufficient for a full knowledge of it.
I’ve read the book twice: the first time to mentally assimilate the contents; a second to perceive its heart. It was only then that I saw the golden thread that waves its way harmoniously through the pages bearing, or as Franco Santoro says honouring, the integrity of Paola’s vision.
In this rereading I was able to identify how this thread of energy, like all currents of pure energy goes to bridge and illuminate exactly where it’s necessary, that is the twilight zone of every reader; and exactly for this reason that a hundred readers would comment the book in as many ways.
For me the first zone lit up is to do with distant memories of my childhood and homeland. I was born in Sardinia, and though I’ve lived for years “on the continent” as Sardinians say, images sounds, and colours of the country of my origin resound in me. I can see especially groups of people around a fire and the dance that is none other than the descendant of an ancient rite, currently known as “su ballu tundu”, that is a circle dance.
I see once more the arms and hands of those taking part holding each other, sustaining each other, and feet moving together, and I have the feeling of strength, union, together with a vision of the future already in act in which every one sharing the energy of the participants of the circle, makes a network of energy for the whole planet, as described in Sandro’s vision.
Another area illuminated by Paola’s writing is that to do with the problems of the Ego, certainly also mine, which as a psychologist I live indirectly through my patients. I found especially comforting that the contact with the Guide helps many people find the meaning for their existence in the world and therefore the purpose for which we are incarnated.
The image of the inauguration of the Soccer World Cup 2002, which I found very striking, comes to mind in connection with this. For a few minutes hundreds of people moved on the pitch in groups or lines as one, forming beautiful figures which transformed with grace and fluidity. To see this marvellous performance was almost an illumination, because it gave me the sense of what could come and what our earth could become, when everyone has acquired the awareness of their own worth and role, besides the certainty that everyone is absolutely equally indispensible for the realisation of the wonderful project intended for our planet and ourselves.
Knowing that there are people like the writer of this book, who work indefatigably so that all, abandoning the ego, may discover and use their own talents for the common good, is the source of great joy and optimism for the future.
Thank you Paola
Vanna Melis, psychologist and writer.
INITIATION TO CONTACT WITH THE SPIRIT GUIDE
