Imagine calmness. Beginning with your heart, set your intent to be more open and loving, more understanding, more ready and willing to let go of old resentments, regrets, attachments, and offenses. With your calming heart, release from your mind its old ideas and thoughts, its incessant chatter, so that it becomes as calm as a still lake on a warm summer day. With your calming heart and your calming mind, release from your body what it hold so tightly, its memories, injuries, its aches and pains of old. With your calming heart, mind, and body, interact in your world and notice that you automatically exude calmness from every pore in your body, with the look in your eyes, with your voice, in the words you speak and in the actions you take. Imagine what you want and them become it.
When you need help don’t be afraid to ask for it. Trust that it will come in some form. When you least expect it and in a surprising manner you will be given exactly what you need. Your spirit is always ready and willing. Are you? There are guides aplenty, just waiting. Give doubt the boot and let innocence be your first guide. It will show you how to ask in the right way, with a humble heart. Give it a try and see what happens. It might be just the right thing for you at this time in your life.
What is this body that we are so attached to but a mere bag of bones. When the life force leaves a body, what is left is just that, a bag of bones. Yet we spend our lives and our energy totally attached to the bag of bones that we identify as “Me.”
We are, in reality, so much more than that. As Robert Monroe has taught so many explorers of higher consciousness: “You are more than your physical body.”
Our life force, our spirit energy, though it resides inside our bag of bones finds ways to also leave it, to go beyond it and explore. Exploits outside of our bag of bones happen most naturally and most familiarly at night, when we dream. We all dream, even if we can’t remember doing so. Thus, we’ve all had experiences of our selves as spirit energy alone, sans bag of bones.
So many things can hold us back from uninhibitedly experiencing our spirit energy. To fully appreciate such experiences, to be able to engage in them with our full awareness, we need to be freed of our fears, our incessant internal dialogue, our traumas, our sexual abuse, our judgments, and anything else that might hold us back from further exploration of the many and varied spiritual possibilities we all hold within us.
Recapitulation is one means by which to rid ourselves of the things that hold us back from greater enjoyment of life, from spiritual exploration, and from understanding the knowledge and wisdom that our spirit might present us with.
During recapitulation, our spirit helps us to recall and relive past events while simultaneously keeping us grounded in our bodies, that bag of bones that we love so much, or hate so much, or just can’t seem to reconcile with.
As we recapitulate, old beliefs about ourselves are stripped away. Our energy is freed from where it has been stuck; in memories, in all those old beliefs about ourselves, in entanglements with the energy of others, in pains, regrets, resentments, self-pity, judgments, etc.; the list is endless.
In the process we learn to trust our spirit, that part of ourselves that is so eager to explore beyond the physical body, that just can’t wait to show us what we are really made of—energy! Our own spirit then becomes our greatest teacher and guide, and we come into our wholeness.
As we lose our fears and discover that we are really energetic beings, we become fluid and fearless explorers, in-body and out-of-body. But best of all, we become loving beings, fully happy in our bag of bones.
Sending you love,
J. E. Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries
Hone your energy. No matter your age or your condition, it is the most important aspect of life in human form. Your energy is your life force, your spirit’s vehicle within you, your guiding force through life. It is your most valuable asset, your greatest friend and traveling companion. Without it you would not exist as you know yourself. Keep it in tiptop form. Hone it by your intent but also by how you take care of yourself so that it does not get damaged. By your intent keep your energy in good shape, keep it interested, engaged, and always eager for a new day. It’s so easy to get lost in the mundane, to forget about it. When that happens, bring your attention back to your energy and with your intent, with your breath, and with your lust for life give it a boost. It’s up to you to do all you can to keep your energy alive and well!
Woke up at midnight to a powerful headache. So begins the internal dialogue: “You didn’t take care of yourself. You brought this on. You won’t be able to sleep well. Tomorrow will be compromised. There is no way this headache will go away. Well, maybe if you took some Motrin. Some healer you are. You are powerless to change this pain…”
Stalking healing intent… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The impact of this messaging stirs anxiety and fear, and a general belief of defeat and failure, accompanied by a somewhat depressed mood.
The net effect of this internal dialogue is to securely embody a definition of self as flawed, limited, and of low value. To stalk such an experience is to add an impartial observer alongside this internal dialogue, with the intent to separate itself from these negative wrappings, and unleash the fullness of possibilities.
From this impartial place of awareness, the observer suspends judgment, awaiting other possibilities. Suddenly, a vague memory appears with some certain knowledge: “You can relieve your headache through your own agency, through your own intent.”
Immediately, the internal dialogue chips in: “That experience you think you remember was a fluke, maybe it didn’t really even happen. There’s no way you can eliminate your headache short of 1000mg of Motrin. Some healer you are.”
The stalking observer decides to place its full attention upon the details of its prior self-healing experience. Recapitulating that experience, it knows it began by placing full awareness upon the sensation of pain in the exact locale of the head from which it pulsated. From there, the command had been issued to release and relax, deeper and deeper.
The stalker decides to apply this method. The inner dialogue casts its aspersions, but the stalker finds inner silence, by simply placing its full attention upon the sensation, and giving the command to release and relax. No attention is given to the internal dialogue nor any other thought thread. The stalking observer then fully merges with the intent, into a state of being intent.
Within minutes, as relaxation and release deepen, the head becomes completely spacious, as inhaled breath flows freely through its caverns. The headache is completely erased! It never returns. Being intent has operationalized and fully realized its intent.
Don Juan Matus joked with his much younger apprentice, Carlos Castaneda, about how much physically older Carlos appeared than he. Don Juan attributed his youthful vitality to his refusal to uphold physical agreements he had never signed up for.
Socialization shapes and limits what we believe we are capable of physically changing. The body itself is governed by inherited archetypal intents, in the form of subconscious programs. The internal dialogue upholds these ‘facts’ of physical life. These facts are rarely challenged by consciousness.
Yogis, for eons, have demonstrated that full consciousness can be brought to, and take control of, every organ and biological system in the body. Being intent is the active agent of that consciousness. The key is to suspend the judgments of the internal dialogue, leading to inner silence, and then shifting into being intent.
The Sorcerers of Ancient Mexico became such masters of being intent that they turned their prowess into defying death, staying in human form indefinitely. Modern seers, though they appreciate such feats, see them as traps, as all beings must eventually change form through physical death, the destiny intent of the human form.
Nonetheless, being intent certainly opens the door to possibilities in human form, which are well-worth exploring. To be able to erase a full blown headache and slip into deeply rejuvenating sleep is deeply appreciated. It may not always be possible, but my motto, taken from my earliest mentor, Dr. Efren Ramirez, has always been: Anything is possible, until proven otherwise.
May all discover the possibilities of being intent for themselves.
