Monthly Archives: March 2013

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

A Day in a Life: Evolving Recapitulation

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I really am in the final throes of editing my next book in The Recapitulation Diaries series: The Edge of the Abyss. For this week’s blog I post another excerpt, as I am conserving my time for editing. As the recapitulation proceeded I constantly discovered just how my inner process was leading me to learn what I needed to learn about myself. Guided by the intent of the process of recapitulation itself—its intent set long ago by the Shamans of Ancient Mexico—I was swept up in that intent, for better or worse, married to it. Though I often felt that I had married a monster, at other times I knew I had married a prince. In the end I discovered that I had been married to myself all along—if that makes any sense! I don’t believe this excerpt needs the same kind of warning as some of the others that I’ve posted. It’s really just about gaining valuable insight about the journey of life and moving forward with renewed intent.

"Look what I bring!" my child self says... Bottle art by Haldis. Photo by Jan Ketchel
“Look what I bring!” my child self says… Bottle art by Haldis. Photo by Jan Ketchel

From February 6, 2003: My son, sick with the flu and a 103° temperature, sleeps in today. I get my daughter off to school and contemplate what I woke up thinking about earlier this morning: shame, and the child inside me who continues to carry it around like a heavy boulder. I’m pretty sure the adult self let it go a long time ago, but the child self sneaks into the adult world at times still bearing this heavy burden. She plunks it down in front of me and says: “See! It’s still here.”

As I peer at this big boulder of shame that she drags around, I suddenly experience complete separateness from this child self, and with utter clarity I understand that she is the one who so tightly rolls into that fetal position every night. Clutching all the pain and shame, she’s still very much alive, residing somewhere deep inside me, while I—the adult—have gone on into life. I’ve grown up and done a lot of adult things, distancing myself from her as much as possible in order to do so. Now, I clearly understand that I went on so I could one day return to this moment, so that I could one day be in the position I’m in right now, intent upon rescuing the child self still inside me and, in so doing, rescue myself.

Until today, I’ve had such a difficult time seeing and believing myself to actually be more than one being, fearful of what it might mean about me, perhaps that I’m crazier than I thought. But only in acknowledging that I am many beings simultaneously will I be able to embrace the crystal clear insight that right now, in this moment, hits me: fragmentation is a valuable skill!

In one aspect of fragmentation, my fully present adult self is able to step outside the memories and from her perspective carefully and sensitively guide my child self. I see this as an evolving aspect of the recapitulation. I realize that in so doing I’m finally able to reciprocate what my child self once so protectively did, as she fragmented, repressing the memories in the process, so I could grow up. I’ve simply not been in a position to fully embrace this insight until now, but it’s very clear that fragmentation is an important tool that has a valid place in the healing process.

"I can do this now," my adult self says... Photo and painted bottle art by Jan Ketchel
“I can do this now,” my adult self says… Photo and painted bottle art by Jan Ketchel

As I continue to hone the use of this skill, I imagine that all of my parts will eventually merge. As my adult self joins forces with my fragmented child selves—my sixteen little girl selves—and grants them each an opportunity to express themselves, they will no longer be alienated parts, separate from the whole. Once each part has told her tale and been fully acknowledged for both her pain and her bravery, another part will link into this healing process, another part offered the way home. Clarity and wholeness will eventually come, as new ideas and new perceptions about life in general and the past in particular are accepted and assimilated too.

It’s really the job of the adult self now to make all this happen, to introduce the guidelines, for only she has the wherewithal and the stamina to take on this monumental task. It’s what I’ve been preparing for. She must nurture and prepare each of the fragmented selves now too, make them welcome, and fully assimilate them into the inner circle of the new self. It can’t happen without a strong adult presence, a loving, respectful, and compassionate self. That kind of maturity is key to this whole process.

Thanks for reading!
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: It’s Time To Change

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Today I asked Jeanne to show us something important for now. Here is her response:

There are many methods of change... do what resonates... Photo by Jan Ketchel
There are many methods of change… do what resonates… Photo by Jan Ketchel

Now is the time of great unfolding. By that, I mean that life will progress as it is set to until conscious shift is made. This refers to the lives of individuals, as well as nations and the entire universe. Energetically, you have already been swept into a process and as it is now so will it continue, until each one of you makes a concerted effort to change yourself in some deep and meaningful way.

The message for today is to take responsibility for the self. Investigate your personal life—looking for the mundanity, the repetitiveness—and the lack of energy that it gives you. Make it clear to yourself just what it is that you would like to keep in your life and what you know must go. Then begin a methodical shoring up of the good and letting go of the bad. Methodical is the key word here, not the likes or dislikes. Methodical implies diligence and attention, a method by which you elect to change yourself and the discipline you apply. There are many methods of change. I do not have to enumerate them. You know them already. Pick the method that works for you and do it impeccably. Do it in the unfolding of your everyday life.

It’s time to change. It’s time to really change yourself so that everything else around you can change too. This is absolutely possible. Everything will change if you begin to change yourself. Take my word for it—it works!

Change yourself; change the world! Those words have truth and power in them. I suggest you give it a try and then thank yourself for daring to break through the impasse that now holds you captive.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: At The Gate Of The Failed Sorcerers

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The gift of gargoyles is that they come in all shapes and sizes, ugly and beautiful... Photo by Jan Ketchel
The gift of gargoyles is that they come in all shapes and sizes, ugly and beautiful… Photo by Jan Ketchel

At a lecture in a Pasadena bookstore in 1992, Taisha Abelar, a sorcerer in the same lineage as Carlos Castaneda, spoke of the graveyard of the failed sorcerers as the second gate of dreaming that Carlos wrote about in The Art of Dreaming. Dreaming, in the shaman’s world, is the act of gaining awareness, training with intent to hold onto that awareness no matter what world one enters.

This graveyard of failed sorcerers is a kind of shaman’s limbo, filled with journeyers who couldn’t release their attachment to this world upon dying. Those failed sorcerers continue to feed upon life in this world as the ghosts and vampires that both fascinate and terrify the living. Energetically, these inorganic beings continue to experience life in this world through the emotional roller coaster they induce in those who interact with them.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, through interaction with these inorganic beings, were able to venture deeper into the layers of the onion—into worlds of awareness beyond normal perception. But many were also destroyed by attachment to the “gifts” offered by these failed sorcerers.

Prominent among these gifts peddled by these inorganic beings are a variety of elixirs of immortality that allow those in human form to partake in the nectar of infinity. These elixirs come in a variety of flavors, such as the sweet perfume of timeless romance, the passion and dreams of alcohol, the soothing nursery of opiates and food, the adventures of psychedelics, the rush of possibility in the bet, the excitement of “more” material possessions, or the rapture of power.

These elixirs of immortality quickly transform into habitual bondage. That which once thrilled becomes the source of sustenance to merely maintain life. The thrill thrills less or is altogether gone, but the dependence on the habit takes center stage to life—freedom exchanged for dependence.

The failed sorcerers at the second gate of dreaming are gargoyles—guardians of deeper knowledge. To pass by the gate we must partake of the treats they offer. We all must interact with these sorcerers; stoicism is nothing but a dry drunk addicted to the self-importance of refusal and resentment. In one form or another we must all take our sensual journeys in this world. We are humans after all—why else would we be here! The challenge, however, is attachment. Can we let go when it’s time to move on, or will we insist on the addiction of MORE?

That is the trial of addiction, the refusal to move on when it’s time to leave. That’s the dilemma of the failed sorcerers parked at the second gate of dreaming—their refusal to relinquish attachment to life in this world and move on, yet a refusal as well to fully reincarnate. They are stuck with one eye looking forward, the other backward. It’s wanting the best of both worlds. They hold onto this world through their addiction to our energy, which in turn is caught in addiction to the elixirs they offer.

Nonetheless, these gatekeepers must allow those ready to refuse belabored attachment—addiction to their array of elixirs—to travel beyond their gate into the next layer of dreaming awareness. If we partake in the elixirs of life in this world and refuse MORE we advance. This is sobriety.

The truth of Buddha is that he represents the Atman in all of us... Photo by Jan Ketchel
The truth of Buddha is that he represents the Atman in all of us… Photo by Jan Ketchel

True freedom lies in sobriety. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico observed that humans who refuse the bait of self-importance change their energy state and the gatekeepers let them pass. Ultimately, self-importance is the trapping of addiction. Partaking on an ongoing basis of the nectars of immortality is treating oneself as if one were a god. Somewhere it was once written: Thou shalt not have false gods before me. The energy state of addiction is an inflated state of self-importance, a false god.

The ancient Hindus maintain that Brahman, the Atman, God, is indeed within everything. However, to be one with that true God is to peel away the layers of the onion, the trappings and wrappings of illusion. Illusions are the false gods, the elixirs peddled by the failed sorcerers.

The energy needed to find total freedom, union with Atman—the energy the failed sorcerers don’t touch—is sobriety. Sobriety is grounded energy that stays aligned with truth and fact on its path to divine union. This is the shaman’s path—sobriety.

Intending beyond the gate,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulating All The Time

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Breathe in the healing energy of the first morning light... Photo by Jan Ketchel
Breathe in the healing energy of the first morning light… Photo by Jan Ketchel

In an intense moment, in an out-of-the-ordinary experience, when I was at the beginning of my recapitulation journey, Jeanne Ketchel told me that this—recapitulation—would be my work now. At the time I took it to mean that all of my time and energy would have to go into my process of reclaiming my energy from my abusive past, until I was done. Later I understood this missive on a deeper level. She was actually telling me that recapitulation would be my work, period, now and in the future. And so it has become. What started as a deeply personal search for truth has evolved into a life’s work—on many levels.

Recapitulation is both what I spend my working life on and also what I spend my personal life on. My view of the world and life in general have been so greatly changed by my deep inner work, especially this process of recapitulation. I am not in the shaman’s world, but I found my way to a practice, a way of doing life that is deeply resonant. The Shamans of Carlos Castaneda’s line released tensegrity into the world, including the recapitulation, with the intent that it find its way to those who are energetically ready for it, ready for a way to change and evolve. It has helped me greatly to broaden my understanding of the world and my life in particular, and so I accept it into my life. In my own way I practice it daily.

When I met Chuck he had already understood that the world of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico offered certain techniques that could be utilized within a therapeutic setting. He saw how the recapitulation breath, the sweeping breath, mimicked the bilateral process of EMDR. He understood the value of recapitulation, not only as a deepening tool, but also as an agent of real change in a deeply transformative process. For the real process of recapitulation asks us to change ourselves so deeply that we shed all self-importance, so that we are more readily available to navigate life without fear, without feeling offended, without feeling special. If we are to experience all that life has to offer, Chuck discovered, we must do more than just manage our traumas and stresses, we must totally heal from them so that we may become receptive, constantly evolving beings.

As I work now to finish my second book in The Recapitulation Diaries series, I encounter my recapitulating self over and over again. I reencounter all I sorted through, all that held me captive, all that I struggled to shed. Insights blossomed the deeper I went into my inner world. As I took on the questions of my own ego or lack there of, I encountered and systematically dissected just what it was that held me captive and defended. The answer more often than not revolved around self-importance: that I was scared, that I was worthless, that I was afraid of everything, that I could not speak and break the pact of silence I’d upheld for almost fifty years. All of these things might not sound self-important, but they were. I discovered that any attachment to self had to be revealed for what it truly was and meant. And then even that had to be discarded. In regaining my energy from my abusive past, by taking it back from my abuser, I freed myself. I healed. That was the beginning.

Buddha sweeping away the veils of illusion, breathing in new energy... Photo by Jan Ketchel
Buddha sweeping away the veils of illusion, breathing in new energy… Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest the process of recapitulation for everyone, as a path to freedom. They do not relegate it to healing from trauma, but as a means of healing ourselves of the world we have been raised in, taught to adhere to and trust. They suggest that only in facing the beings we became—through a systematic process of socialization that began the moment we are born—can we dismantle that old world and gain enough energy and perception to live differently in this world, while simultaneously learning what it means to be sober enough to enter other worlds with impeccability.

In order to begin taking this path to freedom, they suggest making a list of all the people we have ever encountered and then doing a new kind of systematic process, a process of recapitulation that involves investigating ourselves in every situation we’ve ever been in, within every relationship. In questioning why, how, and for what reason we got into certain situations—whether by choice or by force—we offer ourselves the opportunity to change. As we do deep inner work we begin to see our lives from a greater perspective. For even as we go deeply into minute details of who we are and why we are the way we are, we begin to gain a far wider view of life in general and ourselves as beings on an evolutionary path. Eventually, we ask ourselves: If I am here in this life facing this situation, what does it mean in the context of my soul’s journey? What am I supposed to learn so that I can evolve? In gaining a bigger perspective we gain meaning for our lives, our eternal life included.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest doing a recapitulation of our lists and then going back and doing it again and again. Each time we go back we discover more about ourselves and we also shed more of our self-importance. We gain a greater respect for the journey we’ve taken while we also totally let it go.

Once our past has been recapitulated, we also discover that who we have become since then must be recapitulated too. Who was I yesterday? What can I change in my life each day? What can I shed today that will help me to change and grow? Life requires this of us, as each day new memories come asking us to pay attention to the messages they carry to us. In the midst of my second year of recapitulation—even though I often hated doing the recapitulation process as I was constantly being dragged back into horrific memories—I understood that it was, as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered, really a lifelong process. Once begun I knew I would be doing it my whole life, gladly. How could I not when I saw the value of it? I saw myself changing, felt my physical body changing, felt my very cells and my brain changing on a daily basis.

And so now, as I finish my second book, I am once again recapitulating. I breathe the sweeping breath over my old traumas, releasing them again. They no longer bother me as they once did, but still I breathe them out and breathe in new energy. As I breathe out the old self, even the new recapitulated self, I am aware that even that deeply changed self must not be attached to. I must breathe her out and turn toward new life and a new self yet again.

Breathing in all that is yet to come,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Pay Attention To The Signs

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What are the signs telling you today? Photo by Jan Ketchel
What are the signs telling you today? Photo by Jan Ketchel

Here is this week’s channeled message from Jeanne. May it be helpful and guiding.

There are so many helpful signs that you miss as you go about your daily lives cloaked in your everyday lack of awareness. There is really a tremendous amount of guidance that seeks your ears and eyes, your hearts and body attention every day.

Now is a good time of year to reignite the curious and open self, the seeking self. Do not ignore or shut out the voices and signs that come to show you how to live your life in a more fulfilling and nurturing way.

Most of you are fully aware of the folly that has taken over the true heart of mankind, the greed and desire that have nothing to do with the true desires and needs of evolving beings. Most of you are aware that something else, no matter how much you have materially in that life, calls you most insistently. That other thing that seeks your attention is your evolving self. Ask this deeper self to listen and take note of the signs that come to guide you and to take action on your behalf so that you may be supported and guided in your efforts to change and evolve.

Allow your intent to flow from but also to be determined by this source of self, this deeper source, this deeper self. This is innate wisdom. This is the knowing self. Pay attention to what it tells you and act upon its advice more frequently now. This is how to train yourself to become a new being.

It’s not really that hard. Listen and act on what your heart and your spirit guide you to do more frequently now. These parts of self are in your human body—not outside, inside! Turn inward for the best advice ever. That’s all!