Introduction-𓁧 Wandering Stars

𓁧 Wandering Stars

Introduction


 “Bridging the Gap Between Ancient Egyptian Wisdom and Contemporary Healing Practices.”



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A peek inside the Wandering Stars Meditation, Egyptian Aromatherapy, and Salvia divinorum Velada Tent
 


 

Greetings!
 

My name is Shane Clayton, and I established Wandering Stars as a meeting place and consulting portal for those interested in accessing alternative and ancient methods of Healing, Self Knowledge, and Empowerment.

Located at my cottage home at the Dragonfly Healing & Learning Center compound in bucolic Butte Valley, California, Wandering Stars was formally initiated on the New Moon in Libra, 8:18 p.m. October 8, 2018. 

The Lunar/Zodiacal and Numerological energies of that moment served as the core and foundation to begin forging a balanced center to create a Sacred Space, or Sangha, from which like-minded others could gather, exchange information and ideas, teach and learn together, and generate good works in the collective.

Since then we have become a loose-knit but close circle of a few dozen regular friends, both locally and over seas, who have shared in the Vibratory Current set in motion here at Wandering Stars on 10/8/18.

In particular, I must introduce three of my closest associates:

Alexandra Kriz and husband Jesse Spallina, who started the Phoenix Nest Community Project in 2021, the first psychedelic Ketamine therapy clinic in the Northstate. Due to family necessity, they had to move to Texas temporarily and closed the clinic, but are back in Butte County now developing their new property in Forest Ranch which will become a sort of "Phoenix Nest Rising," and we will be hosting certain Wandering Stars Events there together in the future.

Heather Sanzone, who owns the Dragonfly property, fully supports my work and gatherings here as Wandering Stars. A non-profit spirituality-based members-only school for children, herDragonfly Healing & Learning Center is slated for opening to onsite classes here later in 2025.

All three independent organizations - Dragonfly, Wandering Stars, and Phoenix Nest share a common purpose as Spirit-based Community-building Healing and Learning Centers. Most especially, together we three seek a wider outreach to serve others on our collective Sacred Sojourney upon the personal path to Self-Remembrance, Health, and Inner Peace.

 

The Vietnamese Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hunh, explains it well:
 

A sangha is a community of friends practicing the dharma together in order to bring about and to maintain awareness. The essence of a sangha is awareness, understanding, acceptance, harmony and love. When you do not see these in a community, it is not a true sangha, and you should have the courage to say so. But when you find these elements are present in a community, you know that you have the happiness and fortune of being in a real sangha.
 

The trees, water, air, birds, and so on can all be members of our sangha. A beautiful walking path may be part of our sangha. A good cushion can be also.
 

If we see a group of people living mindfully, capable of smiling, of loving, we gain confidence in our future.
 

In my tradition we learn that as individuals we cannot do much. That is why taking refuge in the sangha, taking refuge in the community, is a very strong and important practice. When I say, “I take refuge in the sangha,” it does not mean that I want to express my devotion. No. It’s not a question of devotion; it’s a question of practice. Without being in a sangha, without being supported by a group of friends who are motivated by the same ideal and practice, we cannot go far.
 

If we do not have a supportive sangha, we may not be getting the kind of support we need for our practice, that we need to nourish our bodhichitta (the strong desire to cultivate love and understanding in ourselves). Sometimes we call it “beginner’s mind.” The mind of a beginner is always very beautiful, very strong. In a good and healthy sangha, there is encouragement for our beginner’s mind, for our bodhichitta. So the sangha is the soil and we are the seed. No matter how beautiful, how vigorous our seed is, if the soil does not provide us with vitality, our seed will die.”

… and so, like the planting and tending of a garden, regular gatherings at Wandering Stars will almost always be scheduled in conjunction with Lunar and Solar cycles. Meetings will take the form of information sharing, presentations, open discussions, guided meditations, feasts, music, sound baths, and simple ceremonies or observations. These may also be accompanied with the use of certain power plant sacraments including Egyptian Blue 'Lotus' (Nympahaea caerulea), Cannabis spp. and Salvia divinorum, which are legal in the State of California.

 


An Appointment With Power

 

The word ‘planets’ comes from the ancient Greek word πλανήτης (planētēs) meaning “wanderer”, and the Greek word for “star” is ἀστήρ (astēr) - and so ἀστήρ πλανήτης (astēr planētēs), means “Wandering Stars,” and that was what the Greeks called the Planets. They appear as bright stars, but they don't twinkle, and their paths deviated or "wandered" relative to the “fixed” stars, which appear to wheel overhead at night.
 

Wandering Stars practices are all Astrologically based and/or timed, according to the movement of the Sun, Moon, and Planets across the backdrop of the Stars of the Zodiac, so the name seemed like a good fit. 

I use both Tropical and Sidereal methods of Astrological calculations to develop highly specific Natal and Progressed Horoscopes for intuitive counseling and for the Astronomical timing of life events, gatherings, meditations, ceremony, and entheogenic divination/theurgy. 

Upon request, I offer a personal Astrological Chart and intuitive interpretations of their Natal (birth) Horoscope at no charge as a basis for one-on-one individual life counseling and wellness advocacy. Depending on each individual, these may expand into methods of shamanic healing guidance - tailored to each individual’s ever-blooming Self Realization - the Remembrance of their own True Will.

The ancient Egyptians had a word for such a Remembrance - Sekhau! Therein lies access to Personal Power.

Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of our Milky Way galaxy, announces in the first four verses of the Book of Law:

"Had! The Manifestation of Nuit.
The unveiling of the company of heaven.
Every man and every woman is a star.
Every number is infinite; there is no difference."


Again, the name Wandering Stars seems a good fit for a loose-knit community of men and women such as this.

 

Indeed, each individual has a uniquely complex birth chart or Natal Horoscope - with Inner, Stellar, Planetary and Lunar influences above and beyond the single (yet still major) Sun Sign of popular astrology. Each Horoscope shows aspects of the Will, the Personality, Emotions, Intellect, Intuition, Passions, Ideals and Limitations, Creativity, Imagination and Regeneration. Each of these correspond to the influence that a respective Planet may have - depending on its placement in the Stellar signs of the Zodiac and the Earthly Houses - revealing inherent talents and gifts as well as personal limitations and challenges facing each individual in their particular Life Wave.
 

I have found through nearly a half century of experience, study, practice and initiations, that Astrology is the perfect doorway for any earnest seeker to come to know their own pure Will - that which the Hindus and Buddhists call Dharma, the Ptolemaic Egyptians/Greeks called Thelema, and what the earliest Gnostic Judaeo/Christians called Gnosis.

Inscribed over the Portico to the Temple of the Oracle of Delphi were the words “Gnothi Seauton” or Know Thyself, the prime directive of Thelema, to Know, and Do, one’s divine Will. Truly, Astrology is a most valuable key to Self-Knowledge or Gnosis, and has always held an integral position in the various world Mystery Traditions, handed down Mouth to Ear for many millennia, in many ways functionally predating the written history of humanity itself.

 

I utilize certain elements of various of these "Traditions," both Eastern and Western, of which my friends and students will inevitably become aware of in our exchanges. These include the Ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) Tradition; the Western Esoteric Traditions (such as Hermeticism, Qabalah, Gnosticism, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and Thelema); the Eastern Traditions (Tantra and Vedanta Buddhism, Hinduism and Yoga, Asian Taoism and I Ching); and most especially Meso-American Nagualism a-la Carlos Castaneda, the Mazatecan Mushroom and Salvia Shamans, and the Amazonian Ayahuasceros.

I know that's a mouthful, but I admittedly cherry-pick.

 

In addition to fairly regular scheduled meetings and personal consultations, I will also be offering a cycle of Basic Astrology classes, should there be enough interest to do so, to empower you individually with the ability to cast Horoscopes for yourself and others, learning the language of astrological symbolism and thereby developing of your own natural intuition in the process. Classes in Qabalah and Tarot as well as Chakras and Kundalini energy work will also be part of the subjects addressed at our Portico Meetings.
 

All meetings are free of charge by RSVP, with honorariums gratefully accepted. Events may have a "ticket price" depending on the guest artists or speakers. Feasts are almost always “pot-luck” with a theme. Since this is not a commercial business, there are no set fees for first time personal one-on-one counsel either, being on the honorarium basis as well. I do not have a "client list." Ours is a more personal relationship as trusted friends. Offer as you see fit.

In particular, the work here is focused on utilizing various healing practices and psychedelic therapies that have been clinically proven to assist people in dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, substance addictions/withdrawals, and other health issues which are a barrier to one's personal well-being and self-realization. The unfortunate byproduct of these is troubled relationships with others, and so we seek to cultivate a sense of community here in order to learn from and guide each other in developing healthy open relationships.

While most of the methods utilized at Wandering Stars are derived from various ancient world spiritual Traditions, there is absolutely no singular exclusive "religious" doctrine preached here - all are welcome, no matter what your beliefs are. Wandering Stars and our associates have seen proven results when applying these healing techniques with everyone who earnestly partakes in them.


Wandering Stars is the culminating focus of my life-long spiritual journey - one that began “way back when” in the Summer of Love of 1967. Like so many of the “boomer” generation, my introduction to transcendental meditation, alternative spirituality, and mystical experience came via the popular “hippie” counter-culture movement and the attendant use of psychedelics - particularly LSD and Psilocybin mushrooms, and of course Cannabis. (You can read my truncated story at Why Egypt? Part One.)

My introduction to the shamanic use of psychedelics to induce mystical experiences in “vision quests” came first via Carlos Castaneda and his series of books during these early years - writings that are still relevant to my work over 50 years later. This led me to research and experiment with authentic Mesoamerican shamanic psychedelic traditions including that of the Southwest US Mescaleros with peyote, the South American Ayahuasceros with DMT, and the Mazateca of Oaxaca and Salvia divinorum, who also introduced the Western world to psychedelics via “magic” psilocybin mushrooms in 1956. The entheogenic practices of Mexican indigenous cultures cross over in so many ways, and these “abstract core” teachings are the primary influence on the vision quest ceremonies held here at Wandering Stars.

My personal Kemetic or ancient Egyptian initiation occured a decade later during an extraordinary visit to the touring Tutankhamun exhibit in Seattle in March of 1978. Then later in 1993, I encountered a trinity of Egyptian divinities (Neteru) I was previously unfamiliar with through my involvement with a group called Ordo Sanctus Gnosis in Sacramento. This Egyptian connection culminated for me on the Spring Equinox morning of 2018 - forty years to the month after my initial Tutankhamun experience - a sunrise observance directly overlooking the Great Sphinx, with the Pyramids serving as gargantuan backdrops and the canine godform Anubis right there at my side.

The Sphinx was ingeniously constructed to align perfectly facing the Equinox sunrises, making this a most auspicious event, intentionally timed on my part. Immediately after that, I was allowed to enter the Great Pyramid alone, and after ascending the Grand Gallery and ducking through the passage into the King’s Chamber, I spent nearly an hour by myself sitting with my back to the East wall facing the red granite sarcophagus in the West. It was then that an overpowering mystical experience swept over me - a transmission seemingly triggered by my vocal vibration of AUM which resonated through the empty granite-walled space. Some folks call these experiences “downloads”, and they wouldn’t be far off the mark.

 


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The Southeast corner of the Kings Chamber of the Great Pyramid, Vernal Equinox, 2018.

 
“The nearer the source the purer the stream. In order to discover first principles we must go to the fountain-head. But a river receives many tributaries in the course of its flow, and these need not necessarily be polluted. If we want to discover whether they are pure or not, we compare them with the pristine stream, and if they pass this test they may well be permitted to mingle with the main body of waters and swell their strength. So it is with a tradition: that which is not antagonistic will be assimilated. We must always test the purity of a tradition by reference to first principles, but we shall equally judge of the vitality of a tradition by its power to assimilate. It is only a dead faith which remains uninfluenced by contemporary thought”
~ Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah


Thus our catchphrase: "Bridging the gap between ancient Egyptian wisdom and contemporary healing methods."
 
And so, the core of my work here proceeds from the study, research, experimentation, and application of the primary source of the Western Esoteric Traditions - the Sacred Sciences of ancient Egypt. While it is not a prerequisite that visitors share my focus on Egypt, it is important to understand the “pure stream” from where this all comes from. I can boil down my answer to the question “Why Egypt?’ to Dion Fortune’s statement above, the “pristine stream” and “fountainhead” of all things Western is undeniably ancient Egypt.

The deeply resounding spiritual or altered states of awareness I experienced in the pyramids and their temple ruins, and my fascinating discoveries and realizations later led me to create reproductions of the fabled ancient Egyptian temple incense - Kepu - also called Kapet or Kyphi by the Greeks - as well as their Merhet - the Seven Sacred Oils. (See my article “Welcome to Egypt!”) 

Based upon the most up-to-date archaeological translations of the hieroglyphic inscriptions carved upon the temple walls, these are to my knowledge the only truly authentic reproductions available for sale to the public at this time. The results of several years of research, acquisition of rare ingredients, and experimentation and familiarity with fragrance alchemy are now shared in limited quantities through my 'The Egyptian' Sacred Scents online shop, which is just the retail “business” part of what Wandering Stars is all about.

 
However, my work at Wandering Stars Cottage is not intended strictly as a business, and that is how 'The Egyptian' Sacred Scents became a separate legal entity. The Dragonfly property is, first and foremost, a powerful Sacred Space - where I just so happen to be fortunate enough to live, practice, and create these potions and fragrant mixtures. Those who come here are always friends and family, honored guests, and associates, in the truest sense - never “customers” “clients” or even “patients”.

My cottage is located on a hill overlooking a pond and eucalyptus grove, across the road from an expansive Butte Valley meadow called Rattlesnake Flats, bordered by basalt cliffs to the East overlooking a fork of Clear Creek. The property itself is bordered on the West by the other fork of Clear Creek which runs through Shirt Tail Canyon with its distinctive pyramidal buttes behind us. Most fortuitously, the cottage and visioning tent are aligned within a degree of true astronomical North, just as are Giza’s great pyramids. Everyone who visits agrees that the Dragonfly property has a deeply peaceful, calming, centering, and healing influence.

When I moved into the cottage on the Autumn Equinox of 2018 the compound was owned by Dr. Paula Barros, a gifted certified yoga instructor, chiropractor, and healer, who established the foundation of the vibes here with her Clear Creek Healing Center. But then, just one month to the day after formally establishing Wandering Stars, the deadliest and most devastating fire in California’s history, the Camp Fire, occurred just a few miles up the hill from us in Paradise on November 8th. 

The property here was part of a 2 mile-long swath that the firefighters protected from burning, from Butte College up to just past my place. When I found out we hadn't lost everything and returned home some 13 days after, the landscape was black all around me until the November rains came, after which the hills turned bright green. Since then, the energy here now, more than ever, is that of Healing, Rebirth, and Regeneration - for all who choose to make "an appointment with power," and visit.

Paula decided to sell soon after the fire and left the state, but returns now and then and will continue to stay spiritually and energetically connected with me and the property. The current owner, Heather Sanzone, purchased the compound in January 2023 thanks to the efforts of the interim owner after Paula, our dear friend Jill Spooner. Heather is looking forward to having things ready for the official opening of her Dragonfly Healing & Learning Center to onsite classes in 2025.

Both Wandering Stars and Dragonfly are uniquely suited to this amazing property and vice-versa, and Heather is hoping to add a small animal farm in the future, housed in the structures Jill built for her many farm animals. Heather and I have developed a very positive and harmonious connection and look forward to the concurrent development of our respective practices here in the coming years as Spirit-based Healing and Learning centers.


 
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Wandering Stars

Open by appointment, Wandering Stars was conceived as a portal for those seeking Integral Mind-Body-Spirit Health. Utilizing interdisciplinary methods of Self-knowledge and Self-repair through Five forms of "Yoga" or spiritual practice, Wandering Stars is also simply a safe, peaceful getaway to share quality time in a beautiful space with like-minded Stars - our friends. 

Here, science and the sacred coalesce - my emphasis is firmly based on archaeological, empirically-derived data and critical research into the properties of the products and potions utilized and sold here; and the same can be said for clinical studies of the psychological import of the practices of diet regulation and physical activity, as well as meditation, ceremony, and especially psychedelic induced mystical experience. 

Wandering Stars has been consecrated as a library and refuge, a sacred space dedicated to communion and vision quests, for those who may wish to seek such things, and so it is my offering in Spirit - there are no preliminary consultation fees or tithing expected for our Portico meetings. Even so, this being a mutual value for value exchange, offerings or honorariums are always gratefully accepted, as one may see fit.

After preliminary consulting, both you and I will know whether Wandering Stars healing services are right for you. We believe our rates for these are aligned with other local independent alternative healing practices, including those of my associates who may assist with my Salvia divinorum “Veladas” or vision quests and other healing work. Wandering Stars includes several associates with thier own certified practices in nursing, massage, cranial sacral, reiki style, etcetera, who are available should you wish such healing art applications in harmony with our work here.

That, in essence, is the core emphasis of our community work at Wandering Stars, but without the additional encumbrances of monthly membership dues and/or culty requirements found… elsewhere. While we certainly will discuss various mystical teachings of the world's religious traditions and seek to integrate the most salient of their ideas and practices into our lives, ours is a far more open, egalitarian, and mercurial community.

In essence, we work primarily with the ancient Sacred Sciences of three of the oldest cultures - Egyptian, East Indian, and Native American, to bring the Spiritual and the Mundane worlds together in our daily practice. 

First and foremost, we seek what works for each of us, what appeals to our inner sense of what is right, what we are attracted to, and our inmost desire. We seek to Know our own True Will. We collect wisdom teachings, make libraries, share them, and preserve them for future generations. We look forward to building this community around the group practice of meditation, ceremony, magic, and the beautiful mystical psychedelic experience.

I warmly invite you to join us in this endeavor!


 
The Work
 
For those who are interested, Wandering Stars offers an ancient way to assist in developing a personalized path, a user-friendly Astrology-based guidance/coaching portal inspired by and built upon the Egyptian Sacred Sciences, which are the undisputed root of Alexandrian  Platonism, Hermetics, Gnosticism, Qabalah, and the Western Esoteric Traditions. 

This eclectic mix includes smatterings of relevant Eastern Vedantic, Buddhist, and Taoist teachings and certain North American and Meso-American shamanic methods. I am not ashamed to say that I have “cherry-picked” what I believe to be “purest streams” from these, but would also point out that their core teachings are all generally found in common amongst each other - all coming as they do from what the wise ones tell us is the same long-lost source.

Therefore, none of these practices are emphasized in particular, nor do I seek to “convert” anyone to any particular spiritual belief system - although I am partial to the ancient Egyptian religion as a form of spiritual technology, the oldest and most completely preserved without distortion or corruption.

The Western Hermetic Traditions of Qabalah, Tarot, and Astrology from Late Period Alexandria are also emphasised here. Although my work is based upon decades of both solitary and group experiences, the methods offered are to be tailored expressly for you by your own Inner Genius, and are provisional at best — Wandering Stars makes no grand promises; and yet, these techniques serve as a historically tried and true framework from which to explore each individual’s path leading to the Remembrance of their divine Center and pure Will. 

My intent is to open up a playful, grounded yet uplifting, and mindful mental and emotional space and dialogue with each friend visiting me or our associates here. No heavy trips or initiations are requisite (unless you are interested in those sorts of things…!) even my atheist/agnostic friends find refuge here. After all, one must have Nothing before one can Begin! As the goddess Nuit tells us in Liber Legis: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" "Love is the law, love under will." "Nothing is a secret key of this law."

Ultimately, I am just a provisionary guide and receiver to assist in focusing on and perfecting one’s own truth and pure Will - not mine. My admonition is always “Physician, heal thyself!” 

Mine is simply to do that too.

Wandering Stars is a place that is expressly dedicated to assisting folks to know themselves and their divine nature and thereby find healing and inner peace, whether here in person or online. Reach out, at any time - a listing of our services, rates, and contact information can be found below…

 
Thank you so much for your interest!
In Ma’at,

Sekhau!

Shane

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Wandering Stars - Services and Products:


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The Velada tent at Wandering Stars cottage - where vision quests take place, as well as small group meditations and Egyptian aromatherapy sessions.


Wandering Stars offers several private and group services and products that support our work and practice. 
 
EVENTS:
Pricing may vary, with a maximum of 12 guests per Inside Event, and 22 guests per Outside Event.
Always RSVP.

 
  • Sound Bath healing sessions $25 per person group session, $111 individual session.
  • Lunar / Solar observances, gatherings, or ceremony - always free! Honorariums welcomed.
  • Guest Speakers, Musicians, Healers, and Presentations - pricing TBA
  • Virtual Egyptian Temple Tour slideshows - honorariums are always welcomed.
  • Monthly Sunday Morning Portico Meetings - always free! Honorarium welcomed.


OTHER SERVICES: 
Consulting, Aromatherapy, Readings, Instruction, Guided Meditation

 
Initial consultation (1 - 3 hours) and printed Natal Horoscope and Interpretations are offered free at no charge (honorarium welcomed). We encourage visitors to learn the Language of Astrology for themselves from this point. After this, the fee for services is a sliding scale based on $56 per hour.
 
  • Egyptian or Vedantic Chakra Activation Aromatherapy Sessions
  • Mind/Body health and wellness consulting
  • Astrological Charts consulting
  • Qabalistic Numerology
  • Tarot / I Ching readings
  • Guided Meditation, Breathing, and Chanting
  • Elemental re-connection on the Dragonfly property
  • Ska Maria Pastora Vision Quest Sessions  - $156 per person, maximum 2 individuals.


Egyptian Theurgy:
Theurgy centers on the practice of ceremony or ritual, perhaps seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invocation/evocation of the noble ideal, action, protection, support, or Presence of one or more deities, in this case the Egyptian Neteru, or divinities. The Noble Ideal is to achieve henosis, that is, perfecting or identifying oneself with the attributes of the said divinity chosen by the aspirant (or truly, vice versa), and availing oneself of our own inherent divinity through them, first in Communion via the 2nd Person and then Union as 1st Person - OneSelf.

Henosis - ἕνωσις is the classical Greek word for mystical "Oneness", "Union" or "Unity." In Platonism and Neo-Platonism, the goal of henosis is identification with what is fundamental in reality: the One, the Source, or Monad. The Gnostics called this realization or remembrance Gnosis - Knowing. The Hebrews call it Yechidah - Unity. The Egyptians called it “B’Hedety” or simply Hadit - or Had. This protective “Great God” was depicted as the Winged Globe with Uraeus found on the lintel over every Egyptian temple doorway:


 
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Wandering Stars Products:
 
Sacred oils, unguents, perfumes, and incense reproductions available online at 'The Egyptian' Sacred Scents e-commerce website, at local markets, and at Wandering Stars gatherings.

Wandering Stars Publications:
Free companion articles here and at 'The Egyptian' Sacred Scents website, also available as formatted .PDF files  which are soon to be published together as books.

Also available is Wandering Stars' huge .PDF Library of Esoterica and Egyptology which will be available soon!.

 
Again, should you require additional information, simply call, text, or e-mail me... my mobile phone number is (530) 434 - 0923 and my email is shane@wandering-stars.net. For location or to drop me a line - visit my Contact page!
 
… and thank you again for your interest in Wandering Stars!

Sekhau!

In Ma’at,
Shane


 
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About Wandering Stars content © R. Shane Clayton/Wandering Stars Publishing 
2018-2025 All Rights Reserved