Freedom is the ability to be alone with the truth. On the eve of his assassination, Martin Luther King stood alone at the podium, and, in the private knowing of his imminent death, uttered these final words:
“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now, I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”
“And so I’m happy, tonight.”
“I’m not worried about anything.”
“I’m not fearing any man!”
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
In the shaman’s world, Martin Luther King was a warrior. In The Wheel of Time don Juan says this about a warrior on page 120:
“A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as grounds for regret but as a living challenge.”
To accept our lot is to be fully with the truth of who we are, where we have been, and, in full awareness, where we go next. To accept our lot is to soberly realize the dream we’ve been cast in and to accept full responsibility for that dream: to complete it and dream on.
The other night at the White House, the rapper/poet Common validated the completion of the dream Martin Luther King had glimpsed and so profoundly hinted at while speaking at the podium on April 13, 1968. Common ended his poem with the following lines:
“For one King’s dream He was able to Barack us.”
“One King’s dream He was able to Barack us.”
“One King’s dream He was able to Barack us.”
Dream to Freedom
Martin Luther King did not die a victim or a martyr; he died a dreamer completing his dream. There was no regret in his voice as he covertly bade farewell. Martin was living the shaman’s code: I am a being who is going to die. Martin accepted the living challenge of his pending death, without regret. This was a dream worthy to die for.
To obtain freedom in our own lives, we too must be warriors discovering and taking full responsibility for all our own dreams—for accepting our lot. In recapitulation we awaken to the full truth of the dream we are in. We cast out the energy of those who shattered our innocence. It’s not about regret, because we are not victims; no one is a victim.
It’s not about forgiveness; there’s nothing to forgive. No, in recapitulation we release the energy of others; all must carry their own burdens, discover and face their own truths and forgive themselves for their own actions. No one can forgive anyone of anything. The real challenge is to take back the full truth and energy of one’s own life, to be with it in full awareness, in full acceptance.
Our living challenge is to discover the full scope of our own dream. Are we ready to release it, having stared it down and faced every bit of it? Do we need to hold it any longer? Is there something more to learn, some fragment not yet discovered, not yet acceptable to know?
Are we ready to release that dream and move into new life, no longer needing the safety of old illusions, like believing that we are unworthy beings, unfit for this world? Are we ready to let go of everyone we have clung to who made us feel safe while caught in our repeating dreams, as well as old myths of who we are? Can we fully be alone with the full truth and, like Martin, flow effortlessly into the next dream?
This is the cost of freedom. But, as don Juan states, on page 123 in The Wheel of Time:
“Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible to pay.”
Often we are dragged into recapitulation, a shamanic term for revisiting memories, by the usher, the moment of collapse of one reality as we enter another. The usher shows us something of cataclysmic proportions, jolting us out of our complacent and compliant life, and asks us to do inner work. We can also do recapitulation volitionally, by choosing to mindfully investigate something about ourselves that constantly needles us, that just won’t go away yet does not interrupt the flow of our lives. Such needles are often the first awakenings that we have deeper issues to resolve.
Not all recapitulation involves memories. It may also involve habits and behaviors that we do automatically, without thinking, though they may in fact be keeping us from evolving and growing. The following quote, from Full Catastrophe Living by John Kabat-Zinn, offers a gentle approach to mindful recapitulation, a nice description of a process that will, as we persist in its practice, aid us on our journey of change. Here is what he says:
Like the cat, be mindful and alert
“The way of mindfulness is to accept ourselves right now, as we are, symptoms or no symptoms, pain or no pain, fear or no fear. Instead of rejecting our experiences as undesirable, we ask, “What is this symptom saying, what is it telling me about my body and my mind right now?” We allow ourselves, for a moment at least, to go right into the full-blown feeling of the symptom. This takes a certain amount of courage, especially if the symptom involves pain or a chronic illness, or fear of death. But you can at least “dip your toe in” by trying it just a little, say for ten seconds, just to move in a little closer for a clearer look.”
Be courageous. Change your world. Change the entire world
The other day we watched a swallowtail butterfly alight on our small lilac bush, noting that, in spite of all the bad news lately, nature is back in full swing. But that doesn’t mean we are safe from harm. Life seems to be going on as usual and I’ve noted that people do not really get it that our world has changed since the nuclear disaster in Japan. But this is change that we can’t see, so there is little incentive to believe the truth of it. As a result of that-which-we-can’t-see, poisoned earth and food are not even an issue for most people. Little real change seems to be taking place as to how people eat and view food and this is worrisome.
What are we thinking? Why do we choose not to face the truth of our changed world? How do we protect ourselves from ingesting even more toxins than ever before? Even in local gardening, in growing our own foods, in picking from nature, the truth is that the soil is contaminated now with radiation.
In my opinion, this changed environment requires diligence and questioning on the part of the consumer. It requires that we take the initiative like never before to confront the hypocrisy of the media and the corporations, that we demand full exposure of the truth of reality, in straight spoken terms, so that everybody gets that we are in a crisis here, and, above all, that we push for the closure of nuclear power plants now in operation and stop all plans to open more. There is nothing safe about them.
I don’t think it’s too late for us, or the earth, but a lot of people may have to get sicker before the food and power industries begins to change, based on the consumer making demands based on reality, even the kind you can’t see.
The crows are trying to tell us something. This bird of omen, if you note, as we have, has been flying low lately. What does this mean? The crows are swooping down in front of us as we drive, walk, sit on our deck. They are trying to tell us something— perhaps to be careful, to be watchful. Are they swooping low to remind us of what came raining down upon us from the nuclear explosions in Japan? Are they trying to tell us that our world is changing more rapidly than we think? Are they warning of impending attacks? I don’t mean to alarm, but I really wonder what they are foreshadowing or implying in their erratic behavior? Normally birds of the sky and the tree tops, they are diligent at watching over the world from on high, but now, for some reason, they have left their sentinel posts and are flying at low levels and this is mighty curious.
I don’t take the unseen lightly. I know it is powerful energy, the unseen web of interconnected energy that is both healing and spiritually enlightening, but that is also where negative energy and the potential for destruction reside as well.
Be thoughtful, be careful. Detoxify, heal the self, treat the earth as you would treat your children, your loved ones and she will treat you well in return. Nuclear power, oil drilling, and natural gas fracking are not treating the earth well; they are harming it irreparably and our human population as well, more than we can see.
It is not that which we see that is important now, but that which we can’t see. Keep that in mind as you think about how you really want the world and yourself and your loved ones to look in a few years time.
Take a look at this article from The Center for Public Integrity: A More Likely Nuclear Nightmare that just got posted while I was writing this blog. It’s time to protest the absurdity ever more loudly.
Always hopeful and optimistic, yet alert like the crows,
Jan
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
The world is awakening, blossoming and beautiful, showing her finery. It reminds me of how easy it is to take everything for granted, to forget the truths of our world, of what we humans have been doing for centuries to Mother Earth. She is so strong and resilient, we say; she always comes back; she takes care of business.
The recent natural events in Japan so starkly underscored the folly of many of the choices we have made to keep our lifestyles booming, unwilling as we are to compromise. We want to fulfill demand rather than curb demand, rather than change to better, more sustainable and natural means of seeking and utilizing energy. We have become, for the large part, a world of consumers who just want more and more.
Regard and respect for our natural, life-giving Mother Earth has waned, as we have turned to pseudo products: everything from our food and medicinals to our creation of nuclear power; as we have contrived, manipulated, tampered, in order to have more, with little regard for life. We want more money, more fuel, more commodities that we can trade and make more money off. Yet little of what we are doing in those regards is real or helpful or protective of people or the earth. As a result, as well, we have become frightened, self-judging, unable to speak and act on our own behalf; feeling that we are wrong to question, to oppose, to say no; afraid of the powers that control and make decisions for us, telling us how to think, act, and be.
So, as we now enter a known time in the life cycle of the natural world, as spring comes more fully to our part of the globe, we see the power of nature to rejuvenate, to grow, produce, and replenish. And, yet, I fear the complacency that may also arise as we see everything returning to normal, at least on the outside. I fear the urgency that we all felt a few short weeks ago will disappear, as we fall back into the comfort of knowing that nature will return and once again take over, making us feel safe. Yes, nature will return, but if we observe nature it does not rest in that knowing. It keeps going; no matter what, it keeps barging ahead.
Nature's alarm clock
As I wake up each morning to the cawing of the crow outside my window, to nature’s alarm clock, I also wonder what this bird, the bird of omen, is trying to tell me. This morning I saw the crow swoop down into the lower branches of a tree and I heard a racket of other birds, another alarm filling the air, and I wondered if he was reminding me to be vigilant, because someone may be tampering or harming in my world, as he is in his, raiding another nest. Be alert, he says, wake up!
I notice also that though the hawks raid the crow’s nest, and the crows raid the robin’s nest, and the bluebirds kill the moth and the fox kills the chickens and races after the cat, none of these creatures pause to feel sorry for themselves. None of them are victims. They don’t judge themselves or their assailants, they don’t stay caught in feeling sorry for their plight; they are not big babies. They simply move on to new life. They learn a lesson, perhaps; to be watchful of the hawk, the crow, the bluebird, the fox, yet they barge ahead, with the energy of life that never stops.
Today I ask Jeanne: What guidance do you offer us to specifically stay awake, aware, and alert, learning from the propensities we all have to both manipulate and destroy, as well as fall into complacency; and as we so easily allow ourselves to be taken advantage of, while we feel sorry for ourselves, bemoaning our situations and the circumstances of our lives?
Jeanne responds:
It is, My Dears, of utmost importance that each one of you recognize yourself as a living, breathing entity fully capable of survival upon that earth in a natural way. As I have spoken of before: you hold more power than you realize. You can, if you are prepared to take on the challenge, change your world simply by the decisions you make.
It is not only time to wake up each day and go about your routine, but it is time to wake up to the greater truths that abound, warning you all that something is greatly amiss. In awakening to the disturbing facts that come into your awareness, and to the things that make you most uncomfortable, you are offered the opportunity to accept responsibility for undertaking a personal challenge to do things differently.
Awakening to truths, both inside and outside the self, to the contaminations of both inner and outer world, you awaken to the opportunity for discovering that you are so much more than you now perceive, that you have more personal power than you could possibly conceive of.
It is within your power to heal your body, to heal your mind, to heal your sick and sorry soul, your depressed and sad self who feels powerless, controlled, and frightened. But you will not be able to access this powerful self if you do not accept its presence. You do not have to search for it, but you do have to listen for it.
In order to stay awake and access this most powerful self, one must quiet the voices of commercialism, of greed and manipulation, and talk to the gentle voice of your own knowing heart. This heart-centered voice speaks only of taking responsibility for self. It asks for the rhetoric of old to slow down to a hum, to nothing more than the background hum of busy bees, present but not intrusive.
In turning down the voices of convention and turning up the voices of Mother Nature and Mother Self—calm and truthfully knowing as they both are—a shift may begin to take place. In accepting the voice that says ‘I have the answers within,’ one may begin to take the first step toward truly becoming responsible for the self, with the goal of personal responsibility leading to engaging personal power and using it each day.
By accepting the fact that each one of you has a relationship with the natural world, by accepting your personal alignment with what natures does and shows you each day, your personal and very natural power to change the self may begin to be engaged on a greater level. Begin by accepting that you alone are enough, guided by a natural self, in alignment with an energetic reality that says: I am an energetic being with enough personal power to make decisions of merit and value in alignment with the energy of all living things, seen and unseen. I am enough, and I take responsibility for utilizing and learning just what that means in my personal life.
In so doing, may you grant yourself access to the true meaning of life. In so doing, may you grant yourself access to the power of nature, of energy embodied in your physical form, to lead you on your journey.
Find a means of connecting with your personal power. Take a calm walk. Lose your thoughts to the breeze for a few minutes each day. Feel the earth beneath your bare feet. Listen to the calls of nature, to the birds, so apparent. Breathe the shifting winds, the energy of life wafting past you every moment of every day. Take time to note how you feel when you connect to the sun, the air, the earth, the water, in whatever your environment may be. Nature is available to everyone in some way. Then, holding your experience close to your heart, accept that you belong to this natural world too.
The power of nature is in you. You too, like nature, have the ability to revitalize, to re-emerge, to change, to take over your world after months and even years of dormancy.
It is time to awaken, but it is also time to stay awake, to keep going, to not stop, no matter what comes to thwart you, confuse you, control you, decide for you, manipulate you and take you on a journey you did not personally choose. In fact, though, you did choose wherever you are at this moment, so do not be a victim. Be a changing being.
Accept your power to do so, and live on in a new manner. That is how you will really find your place and change yourself and your world, by accepting full responsibility for your entire self, life, thoughts, actions, and place in the world.
Welcome to a new world. It belongs to you. Don’t make the same mistakes. Wake up and do life differently, inside and outside. I say ‘Good Morning’ to you each moment of each day. I’m saying ‘Good Morning’ to keep waking you up. Good Morning!
Thank you to Jeanne for that message. I hear the crows calling again. They too call all day long, waking and warning to be on the alert, to be alive, in alignment and flowing with what comes.
“When I reflect on the fact that I have made my appearance by accident upon a globe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens, when I see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral and incomprehensible as I am myself, and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras, I experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have loved and suffered and that erelong I shall die, in a dream. My last word will be, ‘I have been dreaming.'”—Madame Ackermann quoted from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.
The Greek mythological character Narcissus never engaged in actual life as he could not see or feel anything beyond his own reflection—he never transgressed beyond his personal mirror. The spring flower, narcissus, is named after him due to its narcotic properties, meaning to numb or put to sleep. Narcissus, the man, was unable to awaken from his own very personal dream.
We all share the fate of Narcissus, as our very personal lives are dreams projected upon the people and things on the outer world. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this life is to recognize the mirror we place in front of everything, as we, like Narcissus, live life as in a state of narcolepsy, fully asleep, actively living out our personal dreams upon the backdrop of the outside world.
Interestingly, there is evidence that even on the astral plane, though we might meet familiar others beyond the self, we remain locked within our personal dream, asleep to life beyond the self. We awaken from these encounters completely unaware of where we’ve been and who we’ve been with. Out-of-body explorer, Preston Dennett, concludes, from his own astral experiences as recounted in his book Out-of-Body Exploring:
“Most of my family members do not recall these visits. Only Christy has been able to recall one meeting. However, this appears to be normal. Most people are unable to recall their dreams, much less their OBEs…” [Out-of-Body Experiences]
“Many times I have found my extended family visiting each other on the astral plane. As we are sitting at a table, my mother [deceased in this world] is looking at me. She knows that I am lucid and that I will remember these meetings, while everyone else in the room thinks they are already awake, or they know that they are not at the point where they are able to remember. How somebody can know that they won’t remember is beyond me. However, when I’m there, I know I will remember.”
How does this play out in the world of everyday life—a world where we are utterly convinced that we are interacting and making real contact with others?
Our lives in this world are largely waking dreams interspersed with brief moments of awakening. For instance, our collective world dream of safety now—Osama is dead—lulls us back into complacency. Global warming, environmental catastrophes, contaminated food supply, rampant greed, all slip away into yesterday’s forgotten dreams. Mother Nature will stir us awake again with some new dramatic alarm clock and, in that moment, we will awaken and lift the veil of our collective dream. But, the challenge is whether we will stay awake long enough and remember—hold onto the truth—so we can move into a new, sustainable dream.
On an individual level, our lives are marked from birth, perhaps from before birth with our own personal life dream. Our mission in life becomes one of waking up to the encapsulated dream we are in, to the world outside that dream. Until that time, the world and all its players serve as our personal mirrors, reflecting the drama of our individual dreams.
This proposition may seem preposterous as we reflect upon the relationships we are in, the people we genuinely communicate with and love, the people we touch and who touch us as well. But even our most intimate connections are but impressions on the outer surface of the personal bubbles that encase us. When we touch we are still pressing upon the contours of our personal dreams, our personal mysteries.
Perhaps my dream is one of core inadequacy and unlovability. In that dream, I crave to be loved, to be worthy; yet, everywhere I look, I see rejection and disdain reflected.
The characters in my dream are cruel and abusive. I cannot drive my car without feeling that I am offending someone. Clearly the truck behind me is angry, that I am too slow. I don’t have the right to take up space in this world or even to slow down to make a turn.
There is someone I deeply love, someone I pine for. But I am so beneath her; I shiver to look at her. How could she ever be interested in me? I am utterly compelled to be near her glow in my thoughts, fantasies, and interactions as well, but I know I lack the beauty and skill she would require. I am destined to loneliness.
I am surrounded by men far superior to me. They dismiss me, they don’t even see me. They are reflections of everything she needs, mirrors of everything I am not. In this dream, my golden princess is beyond my reach; at best I might be her lowly servant.
The characters of this dream project themselves powerfully upon the world screen of waking life. So who really are these characters within the self, within the personal dream, that I am utterly convinced exist outside of me?
In this dream, the golden princess is my anima—she who holds the place of my deepest value; she who lures me to complete my dream, to enter a new dream of fulfillment and wholeness. She is projected so powerfully on a character outside of me that I am compulsively attached to HER as my salvation, unattainable that she might be. I am convinced this is not a dream. In this reality she is outside of me, not me. Without her, I am doomed.
The truth is, if I had her, I wouldn’t know what to do with her. I could never trust that she was really wanting me, the unlovable, the unwantable. I’d be terrified; I’d surely enter the triangle dream.
In that nightmare, I am haunted by other men—worthy men, real men who will steal her away. In that dream there is always the third character; he who reflects all that I am not, all that she wants. Am I a real man or simply a boy in the nursery, seeking mother’s comfort, fantasizing about becoming a knight and winning the fairytale princess?
The men in that dream are all mirrors of my personal shadow: reflections of conflicts, complexes, and potentials I’ve yet to discover within myself. Can I awaken to the truth that the real work is in lifting the inner veils of old beliefs within myself to discover who I really am? Can I take full possession of my shadow self, slay the dragon of the nursery, and enter a new dream, individuated, fully owning the gold of my inner princess; perhaps ready to fully awaken from my old dream, to have an amazing relationship with a real person outside my personal dream.
Face the dream, release the dream...dream on...
This imaginary dream is but one in a thousand personal dreams we find our lives encased in. We are all Narcissus, narcotically staring at our reflections in the pools of our personal dreams. We spend our lives fully acquainting ourselves with the dramas of those dreams, painted on the faces of the world. We are all offered moments of awakening: opportunities to discover our truths and our personal myths. Can we claim our full stories, our full selves and move into amazingly new possibilities—new dreams, new lives?
