Read Paul Elisha’s commentary regarding Jimmy Carter’s observation that racism is at the root of the current political debacle. Did Carter go deep enough? Paul doesn’t think so. Read his comments, broadcast on WAMC on September 22, 2009.
Monthly Archives: September 2009
The Red Book
For those who have an interest in Carl Jung and The Red Book a recent Sunday New York Times Magazine article explores the somewhat lengthy and excruciating process the book took on its long journey to publication. The Red Book, Jung’s documentation of his own inner journey, can be ordered at Amazon through our Riverwalker Store, under the Journeys category. Read the New York Times Magazine article HERE.
#574 What is the Significance of 2012?
Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel
Today, Chuck asks a question regarding the 2012 predictions of spiritual transformation or apocalypse, which many people wonder about.
Dear Jeanne,
I was struck by your message on Friday, as regards the evil energy. I waited to see what the weekend would bring. I’ve been struck by the Republican strategy to destroy President Obama at all costs. The level of vitriol and stirrings of fear and hatred, inciting violence and assassination, are utterly obvious to me. I can’t help seeing the energetic forces being unleashed as equivalent to the dynamics of Nazism during World War II. There is absolutely no interest in reconciliation. I perceive a bloodlust awaiting its opening. Three times last night I heard the coyotes in their aggressive vigor, their lustful laughter as they approached the kill.
We had a dinner guest on Saturday night, a dear friend. She asked what we thought of 2012. Personally, I resist the collective momentum of apocalyptic fear. On Sunday morning, I was drawn to watch a movie, which I could not find among my collection, but instead, unexpectedly, reconnected with Matter of Heart, a documentary about Jung. In the final minutes of the film a close confidant of Jung’s admits that in his final days before his death, in 1961, he had visions of apocalypse. He stated that mankind had only fifty years left upon this earth, which would equate to 2011. He saw utter destruction in his first vision. The confidant took notes and stored them in a drawer, reluctant to speak of them. In a second vision she states that Jung saw the earth surviving, but with vast areas of major change. Her descriptions of Jung’s visions mirror your own of a few years ago and the statement you made in your message on Friday that: “The world is not on a collision course toward annihilation, but it is enroute to a new phase.”
I must admit, as I observe and feel the energies of now I see little possibility of reconciliation of the dark and the light. It feels inevitable that nature itself must provide the impetus for our evolutionary advance. Of course, like Jung, I feel that as individuals we can make the necessary advances, as all that is in the world exists within us. Take on that challenge and you advance the world. Your comments?
Thanks!
Chuck
2012 is simply a date proposed by the calculations of man. Whether ancient or of present day concern, it remains a manmade proposal. Yet do I not dismiss it in its entirety, for change is always imminent and predictable. Shift is ever-present, and death, the ultimate transformative tool, is sitting upon the shoulders of all, awaiting the moment of predicted arrival.
You ask, My Dear Chuck, many questions at once. First you must remember, as you conclude, that change has been coming for a long time. Yes, I have predicted natural changes, and those of you who are alert have seen and heard these dire statements. You have acknowledged the scientific phenomena of warming and shift, heeding the experts who have studied the earth’s surface and discovered change. Such changes are both naturally occurring and devastatingly affected by the activities of mankind. I do not like to speak of doomsday scenarios because I do not foresee such a cataclysmic event or a totally destroyed physical planet. Yet do I see great changes taking place. Whether they occur today, tomorrow, or in a few years time, so are they necessary for mankind.
You mention my previous concerns for the climate of earth and the inner climate of man as a collective entity. I do not fear for mankind or the earth, for I am greatly aware of the existence of energetic life. My suggestions to all of you, today, are to recall these facts: that all of you are energy, and everything else is energy. With that in mind construct a scenario of earth’s demise and you will realize that energy will survive; you will survive in energetic form. This may not be what you think of when you allow yourselves to ponder the destruction of all that you know, love, and treasure, personal and historical, but it is the truth of existence and must be held in the back of your awareness at all times.
What about C. G. Jung’s visions as he neared death? Do you have a concept of what he saw?
Yes, his awareness knew of the timelessness of all things, of the inevitability of shift and change. The fifty-year prediction was historically correct, for as I mentioned the other day, within a one hundred year span many great shifts occur. In your own case upon that earth now, My Dear Ones, I wish to press upon you the need to remain aware of the fact that you are energy, first and foremost.
You exist in a place of great learning where great forces of collective energy have great power. This is what you are now contending with upon that earth. The synchronicity of predictions of demise soon to come and the build up of powerful energetic forces at this time have the potential to lead to great shift. Shift is inevitable, that I can say with certainty, but I also state that shift will happen anyway because it is the proper time for it, based upon the energies upon that earth.
I have spoken often of the need for awareness and awakening to the power of energy. You are living in a time when both awareness and energetic awakenings are taking place, both in negative and positive forces. This is creating the tension that you, Chuck, so well perceive and that others also sense.
Awareness of the number 2012 is significant in that the tension of combative energy creates the need for an outlet, a moment of diffusion. This may come at any time depending upon the energetic intent of the human race as it now stands. There is no time for a new savior. Those of you now upon that earth are the generation of change and hold the power to enact either destructive forces or positive forces. Humanity now holds in its vast hands a burning ball of fire. Will the fire consume, or will the fire be put out? It is up to you. It is not up to time to resolve this issue, but it is firmly in the hands of those of you who are privileged to live upon that planet at this time.
The time of change and shift is already happening and has been for a long time. Our Dear Jung spoke of this awareness his whole life, his purpose to alert mankind to the potential that now holds him in its grip: the fear of annihilation. But mankind holds the key to annihilation as transformation, by daring to awaken his energetic intent to resolve the tensions by his own inner examinations. I do not contend that Our Dear Jung had all the answers, but he is right about one thing, and that is: that man holds all the world within himself. Each one of you holds within you all the tension that you feel and observe without, making each one of you responsible for the outcome of your generation. This is why I continually ask you to discover why you, each one of you, are alive now upon that earth, during this time of transformation. Each one of you carries the answer within. Each one of you battle good and evil within the self, in some form, and each one of you energetically affects the outer world.
It is indeed a time of great shift, awakening, and of energetic awareness. The power of energy is immense, and this may be your greatest challenge to understand and to use within your self and without. Within the self everything exists. This is not an inflated statement designed to empower you to act as mighty giants of self-purpose and self-desire, taking all that you want, greedy for power. Such giants of greed and desire are all around you, going too far upon the steeds of destruction, riding into the flames. But each one of you is being challenged to right the balance within the self, to accept the true facts of energy: that all are equal and have both negative and positive forces within. You are all also nothing, for, in total acquiescence to energy, attachment to all ideas and all intents dissolve into pure nothingness, where attachments become the clarity of recognizing that all are of the same energetic bounty, and potential is great for all to heal and to evolve.
Your time upon that earth is one of destructive spiritual healing, the negative leading to the positive, the wrong pointing out the right, surrounded by the awakening spirit within, and spurred by the truth that the same evil exists both within and without. Only in discovering the potential for evil within the self will your fears of annihilation become awareness of real spiritual change, without fear.
This is the ultimate goal of life upon that earth, your own many lives and the collective lives of earth time, historically and energetically: the resolution of all things as energy, devoid of fear of change and devoid of fear of true evolutionary potential, where other worlds do await the population.
I know it is often difficult to fathom what it means that other worlds exist, but if you maintain awareness of the self as pure energy, as a being living a human life upon that earth to reconcile this fact, then awareness of continued life, eternal life as energy, may be more clearly achieved. Mankind must get over the biggest block to his evolution, at all stages it is the same thing: fear of the unknown. I ask you to keep in mind that each day, each moment, you face the unknown, and yet you continue to exist; in some form you continue to exist. Whether you are facing yet another day of life or you are facing death, the end of that life, so are you facing the unknown and, energetically speaking, it is the same thing.
The answers to the dilemmas of the individual and the world as collective human energy and earth energy are: that everything is energy and all energy exists in perpetuity, but each one of you is charged to discover this within the self. Just because someone tells you this fact does not make it true for you. You must experience it, and to do this you must face your own fears, your own unknown darkness and your own unknown light as well.
In conclusion today, I wish to leave you on a positive note. As I suggest, you must discover, for yourselves, that you are fully capable of self-exploration leading to energetic awareness. But, as always, it is your choice. I know it is not an easy task, but I offer you this caveat: if you begin the process, you will not be disappointed, for your way will be well-laid out for you. And you may even recognize the path as it unfolds, that you have indeed traveled it before, the people you meet along the way your trusty companions and guides, well-known entities, for you have been this way before. Don’t you see?
C. G. Jung Video
Today our VCR didn’t work when we wanted to watch Matter of Heart a film portrait of Jung that we are very fond of, so we found a Youtube version to watch instead. If you are at all interested in the man here below is the link to the video, which also includes a brief nod to some visions Jung had shortly before he died regarding the survival of mankind, suggesting only another 50 years, which would bring us to 2011. I intend to pose a question about this to Jeanne tomorrow. Here is the link to the movie; it’s an hour and forty-five minutes long and well worth it:
#573 Chuck’s Place: Daphne, The Big Baby & The Pit of Annihilation
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.
We are instinctual beings. As infants we are completely dependent upon the world to meet our instinctual needs of hunger, security, and love. At best we can scream, cry, smile, or withdraw to communicate the state of our needs. If you are reading this, it is a fact that your basic needs were met, “good enough,” to emerge into adulthood, capable of some level of self-sustenance. However, the quality of our adult lives rests upon our own ability to find fulfillment of our deepest instinctual needs.
In the hexagram of The Well, in The I Ching, it is stated, “we must go down to the very foundations of life. For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made.” (From the Richard Wilhelm translation of The I Ching, page 186.) Foundationally, the quality of our early parenting sets the stage for our own ability to be good parents to our instinctual self. Our ability to nurture and soothe ourselves, find safety and security, pleasure and love, rests completely in the hands of our adult selves. No one else is responsible for our fulfillment but us, our adult selves. Our adult selves may be severely handicapped in our ability to successfully parent ourselves and meet our instinctual needs; however, we remain completely responsible for solving this dilemma.
In a dream the other night I was on vacation, yet having to baby sit a child named Daphne. Daphne, in Greek mythology, was sworn to virginity and when chased by Apollo turned into a tree rather than acquiesce to a sexual encounter. Here we have a person choosing to completely physically rigidify and refuse instinct altogether, rather than face the onslaught of instinctual energy and desire. Many of us, at least in part, become trees rather than open up to the torment of unmet needs and face the vulnerable feelings related to the failures of those who supposedly loved us. In fact, we often elect to become rigid rather than vulnerable. Actually, the decision to become a tree is driven by an over-attachment to the instinctual need of self-preservation. My dream depicts the dilemma of clashing instincts, for how does one have fun on a vacation when saddled with babysitting the overpowering dominance of self-preservation, the Daphne in all of us.
This constellation is a common dilemma for many adults. The instinct of self-preservation can so dominate the adult self that the rest of our instinctual needs become relegated, by way of compensation, to the big baby who screams for attention. In fact, the big baby is really a bundle of frustrated instinctual needs demanding, with cries of entitlement, to be integrated into our lives. Often the adult ego-self avoids this dilemma by projecting responsibility for the inner child upon the world, like the helpless infant who needs to be cared for by others. This enables the rigid instinct of self-preservation to continue to reign by blaming and lamenting the failures of others to meet its obvious basic needs. Generally, the world greets the big baby with rejection, which leads to further disappointment, bitterness, and deep sadness. Unfortunately, this approach will never solve the challenge of fulfillment, which requires the individual to assume full responsibility for life, regardless of all crimes perpetrated by others upon the self. The individual must realize that the true culprit, at this stage of life, is the adult self, the real parent to the whole self. It is the up to the adult to forge the connection to the instinctual self. No one outside the self can do this.
Jan shared a dream the other day that reflected her current recapitulation of her recapitulation as she writes her book. She and three other women stood at four equidistant points around a deep circular black pit, the Pit of Annihilation. This configuration formed a perfect mandala, the psyche’s symbol of wholeness and healing. The task was for all to descend into the blackness facing all the truths, all the traumas accumulated through life experiences. At the bottom of the pit they were to face the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, after which they were freed of the burdens and limitations of their painful experiences, in fact doing a complete recapitulation, becoming fully released, opening to a full relationship with the instinctual self.
As the women stood beside the pit, contemplating their plunge, they experienced extreme tension; this is Daphne fleeing from Apollo. What was required was for the rigid adult self to let go and take the plunge into the abyss of truth, to relive all the experiences of feared annihilation in order to release itself from the rigid hold of self-preservation, to the exclusion of all other needs. This is the path of wholeness and healing. The adult self is the only parent who can solve the dilemma of the big baby. If the adult refuses to take the plunge the individual will end up controlled by, and catering to, the deeply saddened big baby, behind whose cries lies a bottomless pit of unregulated instinctual forces demanding attention, a true pit of annihilation. Only an adult self that has totally withdrawn the expectation that the outside world parent its baby can take the journey through the pit of annihilation to arrive at truth, reconciliation, and release. From this place the personality is in a position to integrate the instinctual energies of the deepest self and achieve fulfillment in this life.
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