Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.
For me, as a young boy, the election of John F. Kennedy represented the possibility of real change. His election ushered in the dream of the sixties, a possibility fully realized now with the election of Barack Obama. Kennedy brothers John and Robert were early martyrs of the winds of change. I was struck with awe last night, as I listened in tears to all the accomplishments of their brother Edward who was left to manifest the dream through concrete actions.
As I watched speaker after speaker, in rapid succession, share their heartfelt anecdotes I noticed that even at this solemn occasion we were afforded not a moment to catch our breaths and feel the fullness of our inner reactions to the stories being told. I am reminded of Jung’s comments in a letter to his wife a century ago on his own trip to Boston. “Our time is dreadfully crammed. The Americans are real masters at that; they hardly leave one time to catch ones breath…I am looking forward enormously to getting back to the sea again, where the overstimulated psyche can recover in the presence of that infinite peace and spaciousness. Here one is in an almost constant whirlwind.”* Four days later in another letter he reflects: “As far as technological culture is concerned, we lag miles behind America. But all that is frightfully costly and already carries the germ of the end in itself.”**
That germ of the end Jung intuited I see matured in our all-encompassing need for technology to provide us with instant connection. In my own informal survey I see more drivers on cell phones than not. When I walk the streets I observe at least fifty percent of people, either alone or accompanied by others, on cell phones. The burning need for instant connection has made even voice mail obsolete as texting, whether driving or not, has supplanted listening to “ancient” messages. This obsession with connection has deeply disconnected us from the fullness of our selves. We are alienated from our dreams, from our natures, from our deepest selves, which we are left to encounter in fragmented projected rapid-fire moments in the outer world as we stop not to listen to our beleaguered inner voices.
This is the value of Jeanne’s message. Hers is the call to turn inward, to discover and trust the inner self, the truest traveling companion for this journey. She coaches as well in the art of connection through accessing our selves as energy beings, interconnected in a world of energy.
This, I believe, is the next step in the realization of the dream: the inward turn and the experience of energetic interconnectedness. Let us view our technological gems as symbols of our spiritual longing and answer instead the inner call for connection. Like the Kennedys, we are charged with making what appears impossible a possible dream.
As usual, should anyone wish to write, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.
Until we meet again,
Chuck
* C. G. Jung: Memories, Dreams, Reflections p. 367-368.
**Ibid: p. 368.