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Dharma in the Stars
June 16 - June 18
Dharma in the Stars
Online or In-Person | June 16-18, 2023Connect with a wisdom teacher who has developed Dharmic astrology as a tool for transformation and for benefitting beings. If you are indeed a modern day bodhisattva with the aspiration for a more compassionate world, this weekend of AstroDharma fundamentals will help you better understand and transform your own patterns and potential, and also understand and help the people around you.
Dharma in the Stars: AstroDharma Fundamentals
This course for you if:
- You’d like to study a framework for spiritual understanding with a wisdom teacher in the Namgyal lineage.
- You’re wondering “what should I be doing in this lifetime to make a positive impact”?
- You’d like to transform challenges in your life by leveraging unseen strengths.
- You’d like to use transpersonal astrology for deeper realisation.
- You want to understand the patterns of others, as well as your own, to be a more skilled and compassionate being in the world.
Dharma in the Stars is for those who wish to study a powerful tool to benefit beings: AstroDharma. If you are a modern day bodhisattva with the aspiration to increase clarity and compassion in this world, this weekend of AstroDharma fundamentals is for you.
“AstroDharma” is what Catherine Pawasarat Sensei calls her unique synthesis of Buddhist teachings on spiritual awakening (called “dharma”) and transpersonal Western astrology, based on the teachings of Carl Jung.
These two powerful tools help us better understand ourselves and the patterns we manifest in our lives. The more we know about ourselves, the more choices we have. Then we can make better choices so that we may lead healthier lives. Furthermore, we can also more deeply understand the patterns of those around us, and support the potential in others.
This weekend of study focuses on the fundamentals of astrodharma, with the aim to give you the building blocks for what is a vast and lifelong study. We want you to feel comfortably oriented around an astrological natal chart.
What You’ll Learn: AstroDharma Fundamentals
- Read the fundamentals of your own astrological birth chart.
- Become familiar with the 12 zodiacal signs and their most important characteristics.
- Start to identify the planets and other celestial bodies, and their major qualities.
- Gain clarity on the functions and main characteristics of the twelve astrological houses.
Over the course, we will show you how to find your chart and we will look at participant charts together. You are also encouraged to bring burning questions from your life right now – so we can study how this is reflected astrologically.
We will also learn how to use astrodharma to transform challenges and discover new strengths or hidden resources in our lives. Come all, look within, look to the stars!
Meet the Teacher
Catherine Pawasarat Sensei
Catherine Pawasarat Sensei is a contemporary Dharma teacher, attendant, consort, co-teacher via Planet Dharma and co-founder of Clear Sky Retreat Center. In addition to Buddhist philosophy and its applications to daily life, Catherine also draws on generative living and universal spiritual tools including transpersonal astrology and Japanese arts.
She has trained daily with Acariya Doug Duncan since 1998 in an intensive spiritual apprenticeship that is rare in the modern West. She received lay ordination from Namgyal Rinpoche in 2003.
Bonus Gift for Course Participants
Online AstroDharma Course INCLUDED
Catherine Sensei also offers an online Intro to AstroDharma course which you will be given access to at the end of this course. This will help you continue your studies.
AstroDharma Blog
Articles by Catherine Pawasarat Sensei on AstroDharma:
- Use AstroDharma to Increase Joy and Integrate the Shadow.
- The Three Most Important Parts of Your Chart.
- Turbo Charge Your Freedom: AstroDharma.
Course Details
Time and Location
Dharma in the Stars will be led by Catherine Pawasarat Sensei at Clear Sky Meditation Center in Eastern BC. This course is offered online or in-person, with optional Somatic AstroDharma sessions in person only.
Schedule / Class Times: All listed in Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), and will be 60-90 mins in duration.
- Friday 7pm (please arrive on-site by 3pm at the latest)
- Saturday 9am, 2pm and 7pm
- Sunday 9am and 2pm*
*The course officially finishes after the 2pm class (approx 3:30pm). However, bonus somatic sessions will be offered to on-site retreatants who wish to stay for these:
Somatic AstroDharma (Sunday June 18th)
- Sunday 4:30pm: AstroDharma with Social Presencing Theater
- Sunday 7:30pm: Dialoguing with your Chart – Shifting AstroDrama to AstroDharma
(The somatic sessions will be offered in-person only.)
Online participants are expected to attend classes live. We have arranged class times to be comfortable for most time zones. However we understand that some class times might occur after midnight in some regions, so if this is the case for you, please let us know when you register. Then we can provide a recording so you can catch up on that particular class.
What you will need: Your astrology chart (based on your time of birth or by dowsing). More details will be given upon registration.
What Does the Course Cost?
In-Person Participants: 1) dāna to the Teacher plus 2) accomodation and meal costs for your stay Clear Sky Meditation Centre.
Online Participants: 1) dāna to the Teacher 2) online administration fee of $170 CAD.
You may have come across this elsewhere in the form of “pay from the heart”. Dāna is a Sanskrit term meaning “generosity”. With dāna, we give as a mutual exchange of generosity. It’s our joy to offer this course, and we trust you’ll match our time, energy, and passion by giving an amount of money that feels good and healthy to both you and us.
The dharma has been built on generosity. No-one is excluded for lack of funds but it is also extremely beneficial to give as much as you are able
Typically people give in a range of $120-$500 USD for a course.
As we’re committed to ensuring everyone has access to the Dharma, please feel comfortable to give less if you are not financially secure. Another form of giving dāna is to offer service, and if you are interested in providing support in a non-financial way, we invite you to contact us.
Conversely, if you are financially secure, we invite you to generate merit by providing more financial support to the Triple Gem. Contributions like these make the difference in supporting our teachers, teachings, and center.
Learn more about the practice of dāna here.
In a traditional model of in-person teachings, a retreat center or urban meditation center invites teachers to visit. In these cases the centers have infrastructure and organization costs to cover, which might be covered by an admin fee. For the teaching itself, dāna to the teachers is offered in a bowl. This honors both the sustainability of the teachers, and of the supporting center.
We’ve tried to recreate this approach online. The teachers’ time and the teaching themselves are offered on the basis of dāna, separate to the admin fee. With our dāna offering we are making a direct gift of generosity to the teachers to support their teachings and livelihood.
The admin fee* goes to support the infrastructure and organization necessary to support them to teach. As anyone with an online business will know, it can be surprising the costs of setting up a good infrastructure to support effective teaching and connection online. The admin fee changes based on date of registration.
*We also do not wish to exclude anyone from the Teachings, so if you are not currently in a financial position to afford the admin fee, please contact the course Registrar via [email protected] so we can support you to attend.
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Below are a few of the work and benefits that your admin fee payment is supporting:
- high speed internet (to allow interviews and classes on-line)
- online class systems (Zoom)
- registration / admin systems (Eventbrite, Basecamp)
- communication systems to keep everyone informed, share connection details, teachings and other resources (Mailchimp)
- online storage (for example, Dropbox, to allow us to let students watch recordings, and to store and share selected teachings in other forms such as podcasts and video later, and Amazon cloud)
- quality sound, video and editing equipment (both for live teachings and to provide good enough quality for later sharing as podcasts and video). We are regularly updating our equipment to improve your user experience.
- online calendar booking system to allow students to book interviews
- website hosting and maintenance for sharing upcoming courses, teachings, blogs and other resources.
We welcome any questions. May all our efforts be sustainable, abundant and for the benefit of all beings!
Registration
IMPORTANT: For onsite retreatants the last day to register is June 9, 2023. For online retreatants, please register by Thursday evening, June 16th, 2023.
Questions?
If you have questions about the retreat, please contact the Clear Sky Retreat Manager at 250-429-3929 (phone) or at [email protected] (email).
Why Retreat In-Person?
Retreating in person at a retreat center is the best way to retreat – why?
- You can’t beat live interaction with the course Teachers. Being in the same space with clear beings ‘tunes’ you to more wholesome states.
- We create a welcoming environment and follow a supportive retreat schedule, based on decades of hosting successful retreats worldwide.
- Wholesome and delicious food is provided so you don’t have to spend time cooking for yourself.
- Breath-taking and restful, natural environment puts your body and mind at ease and resets your nervous system.
- Retreating at our center gets you out of your usual home environment and routines – they can be distracting.
- Retreating with others (your co-retreatants) is incredibly supportive and energy building.
And, we work hard to support the online retreat experience.
- We have been delivering online offerings since 2012 and are always looking for new ways to optimize your experience.
- You will be provided with recommendations for making your retreat supportive and generative at home, where there are usually many distractions.
- Classes are live-streamed and some recordings are available for a certain time.
- Group sits with your co-retreatants are streamed to support your practice routine.
- HD cameras and professional audio equipment provide high quality video streaming.
What Do Previous Retreatants Say?
Free AstroDharma Resources
Free AstroDharma Resources
- AstroDharma Reference Chart (Handy printable guide)
- The 3 Most Important Parts of Your Chart (Video)
- AstroDharma and Relationships (Video)
How We Use AstroDharma
At our meditation centre, we use Western astrology alongside Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice. This helps our students transform their challenges more effectively.
There are five key aspects of AstroDharma study:
1. Understand how to read your own astrological birth chart.
2. Harness and develop its positive elements wisely.
3. Recognize and overcome elements that may be out-of-balance.
4. Use this knowledge to redirect your energy into more effective patterns of living.
5. Use meditation and ideally work with teachers and a spiritual community to go deeper and fully investigate and liberate the subtle patterns and conditioning.
Teacher Bio
Since the early 2000s Catherine has provided dharma training and taught the path of awakening to hundreds of students, together with Doug Duncan Sensei and on her own. In addition to Astrology and Buddhist philosophy and their applications to daily life, Catherine also draws on generative living (a.k.a. sustainability) and the arts.
Catherine is from a lineage of spiritual awakening that values the best of Eastern and Western philosophy. Her partner Doug Duncan Sensei and their teacher Namgyal Rinpoche excel in teaching both methods. This is an ideal training for Westerners, and an evolution of traditional teachings for the modern seeker.
In addition to Planet Dharma and Clear Sky, her website GionFestival.org shares her ground-breaking work on the spiritual traditions and sustainability of Kyoto’s 1100-year-old Gion Festival.
Free AstroDharma Resources – Join our Community