The Spring 2011 Greece trip was a lot of fun and very healing for all. There is a 9 page pdf with pictures and insight into the trip. Also please read page 9 for some information that you may find personally useful.

We are contemplating a new trip in 2013. Please send me an email to let me know if any of these places call to you for 2013:

Machu Picchu in Peru

Egypt-Jordan with private time in the pyramids and also go up to Abu Simbel (really big statues) and a side trip to Petra ( a World Heritage site you saw in an Indiana Jones move) in Jordan. The politcial situation will have to settle down to make this one viable.

Return to Greece to do a water trip including Sparta, Crete, Santorini, and maybe even a side trip to Istanbuhl.

African Safari ? I am toying with the idea of setting up a trip with psychic and South African Bev Martin where we would visit sacred sites, have classes and meditations, possibly meet with a Zulu wisdomkeeper, take photos of wildlife, and leave some improvment such as a water purification system.

13 people traveled to Greece for a land based tour May-June 2011. It was a very healing trip for everyone, and Greece has a way of opening your heart. The trip was magical in that there were constant "coincidences" ranging from walking out of a restaurant the moment an unexpected fireworks display begins to one of Zeus's thunderstorms waiting until 2:50 PM to begin after doing ceremony asking him to hold off until 2:50 PM.

Several people have asked me to compare Egypt to Greece- a difficult thing to do. Explaing Egypt is easier than Greece, I think. Egypt felt like home, but I would not want to live there. Egypt was very dynamic with giant "ah has." Egypt grabs you. Greece tends to sneak up on you and enfold you in her energies. You soak in the beauty of the Aegean Sea and the peace of the small mountains. Greece is very healing and you feel like you become a part of it without even knowing it is happening to you. Your heart opens in Greece and you feel safe to allow it. I could live in Greece- and I love the women there! By the final ceremony just before getting on the bus to go to the airport, I could not speak (for a change!), so others in the group had to say the words to close out our trip.

We chanted Om's in a cave and went underground in Hade's Temple on the day of a solar eclipse. I love high places, so going to the mountain of the centaurs in Pelion was very special to me. We did healing ceremonies, meditations, release techniques, looked at the astrology of why we were there, and had a lot of fun through the process. Even at the very end, the non-english speaking transfer agent to the airport was an indian from Peru who radiated a wise old soul vibration.

For me, travel takes me out of the hole I can get into in my busy life. It helps me see beyond my little perspective of the world. Yes, it can be uncomfortable and expensive and a whole lot of other things that you would not choose in your daily life. But it is still worth the effort and expense. You get to remember that your life is more than paying your bills or tending to all those things you think you have to do.

I urge you to start a travel savings account. You can throw pocket change into a jar and it adds up. You may receive small amounts of money that you will not miss if you put it into a jar or special bank account that you set up just for travel Even if you do not have the desire to go to distant lands, you can still use your special account to rent a cabin in the woods or a condo at the beach. Above my head in the dentist chair, a list of things to do to stay healthy holds an item "take a vacation whether you can afford it or not."

We used Danny at YD Travel Designers to help us plan our tour. They were very helpful, and we loved our guide Marissa.

The March 2008 Egypt trip was great. Here are some personal notes on the trip because so many people asked. We are also putting up pictures on Flicker.com under the Astromark Egypt group.

We are contemplating returning to Egypt in 2013. In addition to private time in the Great Pyramid, I would like to go up to Abu Simbel for the large statues and also take a side trip to Jordan to see the World Heritage Site at Petra.

A few comments on the 2008 Egypt Trip by participants:  

 Hi Mark, Thanks for giving the opportunity to chime in.  I would say something about the fact that I had NO real energy about going to Egypt until I was asked by Hante to sit and think on it.  When I did, it quickly became clear that the energy around that trip was huge.  I didn't understand fully until things unfolded on the trip, but I am certainly glad that I trusted that guidance.

 So it doesn't have to be an "I always wanted to go there" kind of thing at all.  And yet until we open to the possibility, it can't bear fruit. M. O. , Oregon

Great Mark!  Mark organized a complete and wonderful trip to Egypt.  The cost was reasonable and worth every penny!  We are here to experience life and to reach dreams.  Egypt was tops on my list.  What better time than now to follow your dreams.  I am planning on going to Greece too.  It's in my top 10!    N.G., Washington

Depending on who you are and what your needs, this caliber of experience holds the potential to present the daunting adversities that provide the blessed insights that are life changing.  It takes a great deal of courage to submit to such an experience (and then expend the required energy for it!) but I found that Mark and the tour group he worked with provided a unique "safety net" that supported my journey even beyond the guidance therein, and I'm eternally grateful for what inevitably has indeed been life changing. P.P. Oregon

Although not a direct quote, I paraphrase the words of a traveler from the USA east coast: This person was concerned about spending the money on the trip due to personal financial concerns. After coming out of private time in the great pyramid, and sitting on the giant blocks of stone watching the sunset over Giza, she said that the value of the trip was priceless. And this was just the first day.

Initiation into New Energies

Transforming Pluto Moves into Capricorn through 2024

The intent of our March 2008 journey to Egypt was to open to energies of higher initiation at sacred sites, including a private, guided mediation in the Great Pyramid. 17 people participated on the trip. The planet Pluto made its initial entrance into Capricorn for our trip, giving us a head start on opening to these energies that have not been around since the Revolutionary War and Industrial Revolution.

The trip turned out to be more of an adventure than anticipated. The weather was warm but not yet hot. Cairo is an intense city with heavy traffic and polluted air. Sanitation leaves a lot to be desired. As an example, we saw a dead horse on the side of the street. Still, Cairo is an exciting city and a feast for the eyes. You see a big Mercedes driving along side a donkey cart, and both drivers are on a cell phone. Riding in the bus on the way to our hotel in Giza on the first day, we had our first encounter with a camel cutting in front of us- and the camel was so high it looked us in the eye as we drove by.

The hotels we stayed in were top of the line. I had a view of the pyramids from my room. After a hot and dusty day, it was nice to return to a spotless hotel. Forget those youth hostels of days gone by!

The first sight of the pyramids from my hotel room brought tears to my eyes. Pictures do not do them justice. Climbing up and down the shafts was a big physical challenge. You are bent over, it's hot, you have someone's butt in your face and yours in someone else's, and breathing the humid air inside the pyramid is an effort. Yet to walk, hunched over, in energy that is so ancient, is quite a feeling.

We rented private time in the Great Pyramid, which is the only way to do it. We chanted, we were quiet, we took pictures in the King's Chamber filled with light orbs, we were excitedly loud- pretty much the gamut of emotions. By the second day, several people were feeling the stress in their knees.

We were happy to have our bus driver, Hamed, getting us around Cairo. Driving in Cairo is an adventure all in itself. It is a mix of modern buildings, ancient mosques, slum-like apartments, cemetery cities, lots of pollution, and a sense of magic-all wrapped into one.

Many of us discussed wanting some major sacred event, like an ascended master coming up to show us the way to enlightenment. It quickly seemed enough just to be in the intense energy of the place.

For myself, I did feel a sense of familiarity on the camel ride behind the pyramids. I had not even planned to take the ride, so was happy to have changed my mind. Later, when we went up the Nile, I dressed like a Bedouin desert person, and that felt really familiar- especially when we stopped for tea in Kom Obo in a tent that was of the Bedouin style.

Many in the group seemed to resonate with the region up river rather than at the Giza plateau (Karnac, Luxor, etc.). The temples are set up to have an impressive entrance, with an open area for all people just inside. The next layer in was for the low level priests, and the innermost area was for the high priests.

My experience was a sense of familiarity in the low priest area at Karnac Temple. My big experience was not one of those jaw-dropping 'this is it' experiences, but more of a quiet set of tears. We were at a temple called Edfu just up the Nile from Luxor. After taking the group tour with our professor guide, Dr. Wael Soliman (who did not believe in astrology but seemed to know a lot about the subject from an ancient Egyptian perspective), we would get time on our own to walk around.

I walked back to the non-crowded rooms of the high priests (not crowded because they did not have the tourist appeal of some of the other chambers). It was a room that felt very much at home to me. Another tour guide came into the room. He introduced himself and was making nice because he was bringing in a big group of people to disrupt my solitude. You quickly learn when someone is just being nice, and when someone is being nice to set you up for something in Egypt (like setting you up to sell you something by acting like a long lost friend). This guy way just being kind because he was disrupting my silence with a group in tow. Long story made short, he made comments that no one else did anywhere along the trip. He said things like ' you are home now' and 'this is the place.' So Edfu was my place of remembering. There wasn't anything in the physical structures that said it was this place, but the emotional feelings were definitely impossible to ignore.

We highly recommend Guardian Travel for your Egypt trip, be it a small or a large group. Phone 757-422-5568
www.guardiantravel.com