Past Articles

AR 38
Uranus In
Pisces
2003-2011

AR 37
Twelfth Planet, Plutinos or
Planet X

AR 36
Eclipses – Promise or Peril?

AR35
Solar Fire

AR34
The Lunar Mansions of Vedic Astrology

AR 33
Children of the Gods

AR 32
Wheels Within Wheels

AR 31
Horoscopes of Destiny

AR 30
Zodicac of Dendera

AR 29
A Star Is Born

AR 28
Age of Aquarius

AR 27
Persia's Royal Stars of Ancients

AR 23
The Lore of a Shaman

The Lore of a Shaman
The Ancient Wisdom of indigenous people reveals a
startling hidden side of history

by Julie Gillentine

Anthropological orthodoxy assures us that history began in Sumeria six thousand years ago, and modern "man" is the pinnacle of culture and evolution on the planet. Circa World War II, humanity shattered the rails of our technological play pen, sporting new atomic bombs. Space-faring ETs suddenly took notice, and a proliferation of silver saucers filled the skies. The UFO era was born; Roswell was a defining moment. Or so the story goes.

But an emerging, alternate view is compelling. Mobilized by fulfillment of long-heralded warning signs of prophecy, indigenous elders from around the world are breaking their vows of silence and sharing their secret stellar wisdom. While we slept for millennia in Western egocentricity, the indigenous peoples of the planet guarded the hidden history of humanity, quietly maintaining contact with our visiting and resident stellar family.

Native Americans, such as the Lakota Sioux, have a beautiful expression, "Mitakuye Oyasin," All our relations. Four-leggeds, winged ones, crawling ones, plant and stone nations are greeted as relatives. The Lakota Medicine Wheel is composed of four colors; red, black, white and yellow - four races of humanity. Within Native cosmogony, it is not confusing to include and respect the Star Nations among extended family members.

Standing Elk, Dakota elder and Sun Dance chief, recently came forward with an open letter to the Elders of Turtle Island. His heart told him to speak of the secret knowledge of his people concerning the Star Nations, since the time of their prophecies is at hand. Believing the knowledge belongs to the world, Standing Elk created "Star Knowledge Gatherings," a forum to share this information. Sharing these secrets is controversial and unpopular with some Native peoples; history painfully demonstrates our track record with the Red Nation.

At Standing Elk' gatherings, Native Elders share the conference podium with prestigious researchers in the UFO field. "Alien" contactees speak openly of their experiences. Indigenous Elders do powerful ceremony and give candid testimony of their knowledge and relationship to the Star Nations. Humanity was seeded from the stars, and we have a profound genetic kinship with humanity's stellar brethren.

At a recent Star Knowledge Gathering in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Quiche Mayan Elder, Grandmother Windrider, talked of her visions and her challenging personal path. When she spoke, a hush fell over the room, and the air was filled with a stillness and electricity like the calm before a storm. Her words were carefully chosen, flying straight to the heart like the arrows of a brave warrior. She challenged women to step into their power and help men to balance and heal the planet.

African Epiphany

Across the world, on the continent of Africa, a similar phenomenon unfolds. In South Africa, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, renowned Zulu elder and author of Song of the Stars: The Lore of a Zulu Shaman, has courageously taken the same path. He has come forward to share the secret star lore of indigenous Black Africans in an effort to unite thinking people in the world and diminish the severity of their prophecies.

Credo Mutwa is a master storyteller who has traveled to more than twenty countries sharing his wisdom. His openness resulted in great personal loss; his son was brutally murdered by those who want him silenced. The Dogon tribe's startling knowledge of Sirius and its dwarf companion is well known, thanks to the work of Robert Temple, (The Sirius Mystery). Credo Mutwa affirms that this knowledge is the tip of the iceberg. Indigenous knowledge of stellar relations is vast and complex, often dwelling at the heart of sacred ceremony. Rich oral traditions, including protocol for contact and how to distinguish friendly off-earth visitors from those who are potentially harmful, have been handed down from one sangoma, (shaman) to the next for thousands of years.

According to Credo, "In every language in Africa, the meaning of star is 'bringer of knowledge' or 'bringer of enlightenment.'" Credo has traveled the continent of Africa, sculpting haunting images of visitors from the stars which were described to him by African shamans.

Cradled in South Africa's Krueger National Park lies a private game reserve called Timbavati. This emerald jewel of the African bush is almost mythical in reputation. White lions are born in Timbavati. Credo Mutwa continues, "A very long story is told about a chieftainess called Numbi. Many generations ago, she and her people saw a burning white light like a star fall out of the sky right where Timbavati is today.

The story is, that it was not a star; it was a shining ball of metal, brighter than the Sun. And when this ball came down to the ground, Queen Numbi, who was a sick old woman at that time, went towards the light and was swallowed by the light. And in that light, very faintly seen, were strange beings with very large heads. These beings received Numbi into the light, and for some hours she was inside there. When Numbi emerged from the light, and she walked towards her people, she had become a much younger woman than she had gone into the light.

"After that star fell, stayed on the ground for some days, and then rose back into the sky, strange things started happening there. Cattle with two heads were born repeatedly. Lions, leopards and even impalas with snow white fur and green eyes were born, until to this very day. This story is one of the most amazing stories in Africa. It is one hundred percent true because even to this day, white animals are still being born in Timbavati. Some years ago, a snow white elephant with beautiful blue eyes and long tusks used to roam that place, until white adventurers shot it.

"When a tribe of invaders appeared at Timbavati many years after Numbi's experience," Credo said, "they brought sacred stones which had been taken from Zimbabwe, and they planted these stones there in honor of that place. Timbavati, whose name means 'the falling down of a star,' is one of the holiest places in South Africa. But now its story is lost and has been overshadowed by a lot of nonsense."

The standing stones of Timbavati, brought from Zimbabwe to honor Numbi's visitors, are reminiscent of megalithic sites around the world and give mute testimony to the power and antiquity of the site. I stood among these stones at the March Equinox, beginning of Autumn in the southern hemisphere. The stones have a resonant quality when struck with a smaller stone, similar to Egyptian monoliths. Adjacent to Timbavati is a powerful and enigmatic place known as Manyeleti, which means, "Gateway to the Stars". A community of nearly thirty shamans lives there.

In Credo's book, he relates a prophetic vision. He sees four great leaders emerging in the world: red, black, white and yellow. The colors are the same as the Lakota Medicine Wheel and four races of humanity. These leaders will work to unite the planet. One of these, a female leader, will arise in America. She will be called the Red Savior, because of the fiery color of her hair.

Mayan Calendar

Connection From Central America, Guatemalan Mayan Elder, don Alejandro, speaks eloquently of vast and repetitive cycles of time, noting that the Mayan calendar never has to be altered, because it is based on the stars. Our unwieldy western counterpart has been changed many times and is still not very accurate. This knowledge was bequeathed to the Mayas by the abuelos, the grandfathers, who came from the stars. Don Alejandro enigmatically links the origin and destiny of the Mayas with the Pleiades, who he says were called May. (Astronomically, Maia is one of the named stars in the Pleiades, The Seven Sisters).

Don Alejandro told us of a circle of indigenous Elders from around the world who gathered recently at Palenque, Chiapas, in Mexico to do sacred ceremony and share their visions. Grandmother Windrider also entered that circle. "We worked in silence," Grandmother said.

"Each of us walked to one of the four directions where we were called through inner guidance." Don Alejandro is organizing another circle to be held in the four corners area of America, which he hopes will draw even more people to pray for planetary healing.

December 21, 2012, is the end of the current Mayan long count. According to scholars, this "Great Cycle" began August 11, 3114 BC. In Mayan terms this time period is equal to thirteen baktuns; in Gregorian terms, this equals 5125 years. Five Great Cycles, or suns, equals 25,625. Modern astronomers count one cycle of the precession of the equinoxes as 25,920 years. Mayans say we are living in the time of the fifth sun, approaching the end of a major cycle. Mayan prophecies point to this time as filled with earth changes and transformation.

On December 21, 2012, Winter solstice, a unique astronomical event will occur. This event may occur only once in twenty-six thousand years. From the vantage point of earth, looking through the constellation of Sagittarius toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy, our Sun will conjoin the Galactic Center. What might be the nature of potent energies emitted by the Galactic core and beamed in our direction?

Prophets and Seers

Ancient prophets and modern seers speak with one voice and see with a single eye. The Bible, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, Hindu texts and Hopi prophecies predicted this time on earth would be profound -- marked by miracles and cataclysms -- the storm before the long prophesied golden age. What is required of humanity to step through that portal in divine grace? Before crossing the threshold, we must purify ourselves and our planet.

Modern voices such as Credo Mutwa, Grandmother Windrider, Gordon Michael Scallion, Annie Kirkwood and Robert Ghost Wolf sound a clarion call, echoing earlier harbingers. Robert Ghost Wolf recently shared Hopi prophecies about the "Seven Thunders" with millions of listeners on the Art Bell show. The Seven Thunders roll through the heavens like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Credo Mutwa told me, "Anyone who investigates will come upon this amazing fact. In South America, in Brazil, in Peru and in Bolivia, different Native American tribes are expecting a world-wide cataclysm in this coming century. They have been expecting this cataclysm for centuries, and they knew it would occur very early in this coming century."

If every tradition on earth concurs that we are at the culmination of their prophecies, how did they know the specific time frame thousands of years ago? If the triggering event of global cataclysm is an external object like a comet, with a cyclical orbital period, its return would be predictable and monitoring the movements in the sky would be vital. The last such juncture was the previous ice age roughly thirteen thousand years ago. I believe our story, and that of our progenitors, was recorded in legend and star lore and passed by oral tradition through shamans and elders.

Megalithic monuments around the globe contain critical stellar alignments, conveying messages and timing significance when understood, as researchers like Robert Bauval have shown. Profound physical evidence may have been left on Mars, as Richard Hoagland and others suggest. Other civilizations, perhaps many, have preceded us; their life cycles and attainments terminated by a cataclysmic mechanism which destroys the evidence.

In our time, we have lost touch with our celestial roots. To grasp our peril, and our opportunity, we must eliminate our egocentric arrogance that the present state of western man is the most developed civilization which has lived on this planet. We must heed the voices of our elders and ancestors. The indigenous guardians of our past assure us that we were seeded from the stars, and to the stars we will return.

A common thread binds the clarion call of the prophets and sages. Love and healing can make a difference. We must awaken from our collective amnesia. Corruption and greed must be eliminated, and the common good of all instilled in every heart. Once that recognition is accepted, the rest becomes story line in a celestial drama of infinite antiquity and cyclical repetition. Stars and galaxies are born, flower, decay and die in vast rhythms we can scarcely stretch our human minds to conceive. Sometimes, on some worlds, sentient beings emerge and ultimately seek their origins and their relations in the stars.

Mitakuye Oyasin!