Kindle Update on Jan’s New Book

Here it is!
Here it is!

The Edge of the Abyss-Volume 1 is now available in both Print and Kindle editions! Simply click on the book cover icon in the left sidebar and you will be taken directly to the book’s page on Amazon.

We always invite our readers to write comments at Amazon and on our Riverwalker website and Facebook pages. Although we have elected to publish our books and let them go into the world in an energetic fashion, without advertising or self-promotion, we are fully open to the energetic flow of the universe in whatever way that unfolds. So, in all humbleness, we invite our readers to be energetically available to write reviews and spread the word in whatever way feels right, or not.

Volume 2 of The Edge of the Abyss will be published in the next couple of months. Jan has already begun work on the final edit.

Such an exciting time!

Thank you from both of us,
Chuck & Jan

A Day in a Life: In The Pit

You're driving me crazy!!! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
You’re driving me crazy!!! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Leonard Cohen sings: I had to go crazy to love you, had to go down to the pit, had to do time in the tower, begging my crazy to quit…Had to go crazy to love you, had to let everything fall, had to be people I hated, had to be no one at all…

I’m a Leonard Cohen fan, have been ever since I first saw him perform in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1976. It was just him and his guitar. He sat alone on a folding chair on the stage, a cup of something at his feet. He touched the poet in me and I recognized his agony. Since then he’s spent time as a monk, but he’s also perfected his outer persona and through many trials and errors become the consummate performer, giving his all, even at the age of 78 performing for three hours to packed houses.

I still hear his agony in his songs, recognize the imperfect human creature he presents us with. And this song, Crazy To Love You, is all about that. It’s about projection and facing the self, doing the recapitulation time, going down into the shadows of the self, ascending into the inflations of the self, confronting everything hateful about the self, becoming nothing—egoless—and in the process learning to love the self. It’s all about taking the endless contemplative inner journey and not giving up, no matter what is encountered. It’s about seeking a kind of perfection, a humble impeccability that knows that everything is okay, everything is necessary and permissible, everything leads to love. When we acquiesce to our humanness we discover that our greatest challenge in life is to love the self. If we can love the self, then we’re on the way to honing a new kind of impeccability devoid of self-importance, the impeccability of being able to love others, to being able to embrace all humanity as being as imperfect and as lovable as we are. We all have to go crazy to love one another.

Recently I dreamed a dream of deep encounters with the self. I sat with Chuck and many hundreds of others at a huge banquet table, perhaps a hundred feet long and a dozen feet wide. Perhaps you were all there as well. We were all under the control of a tiny woman who stood opposite me at the far end of the table. From my position I could see that she was tiny, but her voice was booming, commanding, and her image, projected onto a giant screen above her, loomed over us, making her seem bigger than life, more frightening than she appeared in person.

Had to go into the pit... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Had to go into the pit… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

She made demands, gave us absurd and demeaning challenges. Like a dictator, she barked out commands, telling us what to do as she timed us, and then punished us for not completing our tasks within the time limitations she had set. At one point, she told us all to take a shit, right at the table. We were only given so much time and so much toilet paper. I failed this test. I fumbled with the paper, and by the time the few seconds she’d given us had passed I was in deep doo-doo, so to speak. From then on I had to walk around with shit in my pants.

After the table scene ended we had to hike through some fields. It was dark. We were heading to a big bonfire. We were commanded to bring our most valuable possessions with us, packed in small glass jars and wooden boxes. I told Chuck that if she instructed us to “go into the woods,” that I wasn’t going. I was adamant about that, a clear reference to my abuse. “Oh yeah,” Chuck said, and I could hear him trying to figure out a way to tell this little tyrant woman that I would not go into the woods and be humiliated, that I was done with that. We knew she was unapproachable, that she wouldn’t care and that no excuses would be accepted. It didn’t matter what you had been through in your past, she was not going to let anyone off the hook. Feeling sorry for anyone was not allowed. It was expected that every experience would be confronted if she deemed it necessary. She demanded that we erase all personal attachment and self-importance, and humiliation was as good a means of getting us there as any.

We finally got to the site of the bonfire. The little woman told us all to throw our most valuable belongings into the fire. “Do you think it’s a good idea to throw glass jars into a hot fire?” I asked Chuck, but it didn’t matter. “Just do it!” the woman screamed. We all tossed our things onto the fire and stood around watching them burn. I woke up as she came over to me, looked me straight in the eye, and then turned her back and walked away. “Fuck you,” I thought.

Upon awakening, it didn’t take me long to see this dream as confrontations with habits, with the mindless things we do and how they control us. Obviously, it’s also about self-importance. The little woman was me, a part of me that sets me up to do as I have always done, keeping me a prisoner of my own doings, as I clearly felt like a prisoner in the dream. And if you were there, you were a prisoner too. “Had to go down to the pit,” as Leonard Cohen writes, had to sit in my own shit.

It's true!!! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
It’s true!!! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

We all have a little petty tyrant inside of us, someone who humiliates us and whom we hate. We feel trapped and helpless. It could be related to anything: to constant worry or fear, to overspending or over-consuming, to being too hard or too easy on ourselves or lazy and undisciplined. It could be attached to being angry all the time or sad all the time, full of self-righteousness or self-pity, things that really get us nowhere.

Our personal petty tyrant knows us so well. She knows how to slip in and take over, how to humiliate us and make us face our shit. In my dream, the tiny woman pushed us all to be something we hated and “no one at all.” In the burning of what was most precious, she forced us to let go of everything, of both our shame and our self-importance. I was nothing more than a woman walking around with shit in my pants, my possessions gone. Had to go into the fire and let it all burn.

In this dream, my petty tyrant, whom I so viscerally hated, became my guide, and so I have to love her. She is the knowing part of myself, leading me to the naked truth that I am nothing at all, and only in that place of naked truth can I love myself. As Leonard Cohen learned: Had to go crazy to love you! In recapitulation, we discover that going into the pit means accepting everything about ourselves; even the shit in our pants must not be attached to. Even the implication of my abuse must not be more important than anything, than nothing. “Don’t get attached to anything, Jan,” this tiny petty tyrant self is saying in this dream.

Getting to the beauty in all parts of the self... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Getting to the beauty in all parts of the self… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Everything is of the same value and everything has no value. There is no point in shame or anger, in self-pity or specialness. The only thing that really has value is pushing the self every day to keep going—just as this tiny woman dictator did—to keep confronting the self, to keep shedding attachments to what we think we need and want. In the end, although I said “Fuck You,” I was really thanking her for helping me face myself, for emptying out. Because by the end of the dream that was what I felt, empty, light, bereft, as if something had died, but bereft in a good and cleansing way. It was as if I had finally let something go that had been bothering me for a long time, and I know that it was my own attachment to feeling that I had to be perfect all the time. How absurd!

I hope this makes sense. Our struggle is to really let go of self-importance by facing our most private and intimate self, and fully accepting that we are all really nothing at all. I find such release in knowing that I am nothing. I’m able to relax into who I truly am, offered the freedom to live without fear and without the need to always get it right. For it’s in our failures that we learn, it’s in facing our shit that we evolve.

Going on, shamelessly facing myself, living in the moment, without attachment. Thanks for reading!

In all humility,
Jan

Many thanks to Leonard Cohen for a lifetime of beautiful work!

And without self-importance—because I really do reveal my most intimate self in my books—here’s a shameless plug for my new book. It’s really a good read! The book icon in the left sidebar leads directly to Amazon. I’m working on getting the Kindle edition linked to the main book page, so you should find it there shortly.

Readers of Infinity: Patient Waiting

Here is this week’s message of guidance from Jeanne.

Center the self and wait patiently... - Image by Jan Ketchel
Center the self and wait patiently… – Image by Jan Ketchel

This is a time of waiting. “But what,” you might ask, “are we waiting for?”

You, My Dears, are waiting for everything and for nothing. You wait for life and you wait for death, yet every move you make, every thought you allow to form, every word you utter, every action you take must become part of your patient waiting.

In patient waiting, practice and intent are of the utmost importance. Without attachment to outcome, personal gain, or getting your due in any way, patient waiting asks only that you live impeccably.

To live impeccably is to assign the utmost importance to the self, devoid of selfless and selfish feelings or sentiments, so that you may hone your energy, and thus your evolving self, to perfection.

“Is perfection the goal?” you might ask. Yes, I say, perfection of the self in all you do is a perfectly acceptable goal, but that perfect self must be energetically perfect as well. And even though the human self may constantly battle or defend or disappoint you as you seek perfection and impeccability in all you do, remember this: that’s its role!

I suggest you find or accept what you are good at and make it your goal to be the best at whatever that is. This seeking of perfection must enter all parts of the self and all aspects of your life. You may be a good friend, a good parent, a good cook, a good writer, a good athlete, a good doctor, a good clerk, a good gardener, a good samaritan, a good teacher, have great talent or be a good guide to others. You may even be a good lover. Learn from yourself. Notice how you have honed your attentive and impeccable self, how you constantly learn your job better and better, how you constantly seek higher ground professionally, and as many skills as possible to keep up in a changing world. Such seeking to better the self must extend into all areas of the self and life, into your inner world and your outer world.

Include compassion, kindness, and gentleness into your every movement and decision. Include firmness and high expectations in your intent to change as well, yet be also flowing and open to what life brings to the table. Notice when life is asking you to change, when circumstances do not permit you to move in a certain direction. Do not force what life itself says must not be forced. Accept limitations with humbleness, knowing that you are being guided to go in a new direction. Learn how life itself, without any input on your part, naturally pushes you to change.

Drop your controlling habits and acquiesce a little bit more each day to the flow of life, honing your impeccability to flow naturally without worry or regret. In this time of waiting, allow the self to be both open to opportunity as regards your skilled self and also open to the changing self as well.

Be flexible. Be aware. Be open. Be accepting of change. At the same time, firm up your intent so that in both your inner world and your outer world your intent may be heard, so that its firm commitment to change may be acceptable, adaptable, unresistant to the true self, the impeccable self you seek to know better. This is the self who, without doubt, knows exactly how to live through this time of waiting. This self also knows how to take you forward into new life, if you can allow yourself to be taken.

With patience and in full awareness that this impeccable self exists, begin your time of waiting. Set your intent and then practice becoming the new you. Each day as you awaken reset that intent and often throughout the day as well. Whenever there is a lull, remind yourself of the following:

I am a being you is going to die, but before I do I intent to fully live impeccably and with awareness. I invite my most impeccable, honest, and truly compassionate self to emerge and fully live!

Chuck’s Place: The Mind Is A Great Thing To Lose

Forced out-of-body... - Art by J. E. Ketchel
Forced out-of-body… – Art by J. E. Ketchel

The term out-of-body experience, also known as an OBE, is specific to an energy body state where consciousness is separate and away from the physical body. The physical body might remain in full view to the energy body during an OBE, or the energy body might travel away from the physical body to the ends of the earth, though remain tethered and fully capable of snapping back into it in an instant. This separation of energy and physical body is quite natural, especially in dreaming. It can also happen volitionally in waking states or involuntarily under the impact of trauma.

Traumatic separation of physical body and energy body is considered a dissociative psychological defense that occurs when overpowering physical or psychological events—events that are too much for the body to process—send consciousness into refuge away from the body.

As opposed to an OBE, dissociation can also occur within the body, in an in-body experience. In contrast to a separation of energy body and physical body, this dissociation involves a separation of mind and body where the mind dominates as an in-body energy center that preoccupies our attention—or consciousness—with an incessant internal dialogue that judges, critiques, and compares us to others without pause. This nonstop stream of chatter can so absorb our awareness that our bodies are completely rigidified and fatigued by the emotional energy generated by these internal messages. In fact, our internal messaging systems, like the texts and pings we constantly hear on mobile devices as we walk, sit, talk, sleep, and drive, completely dissociate us from the location and action of our bodies in space and time.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico called this dominance of the human body by the mind, a foreign installation—an aberration that grossly limits our humanness and the fuller realization of our true human potential. Pragmatic practitioners, those shamans realized that they could not fight the mind with the mind. They discovered instead that they could find inner silence, the shutting down of the incessant dialogue of the mind, by practicing bodily movements that required their full attention in order to be performed successfully. Toward this end those shamans saturated their lives with these physical movements, which they called Magical Passes. With full attention placed on doing these bodily movements, they were able to achieve increasing moments of inner silence that released access to their fuller potential as navigators of infinity outside the limited confines of the mind.

I encourage the practice of movements such as tensegrity, yoga, martial arts, or any physical activity that when practiced mindfully— with full awareness of the body experience—separates the practitioner from the meanderings of the dissociative mind.

Awareness, in full association with body, unleashes our true potential as human beings and frees us from the bondage of a mind-driven dissociated life, which is the current fixation of our species. The mind in this fixed state is a great thing to lose, as awareness is then freed to fully coordinate with the wisdom and action of the body in alignment with our unlimited potential.

Always moving,
Chuck

Jan’s New Book is Here!!!

Here it is!
Here it is!

The Edge of the Abyss-Volume 1 is now available in both Print and Kindle editions! Simply click on the book cover icon in the left sidebar and you will be taken directly to the book’s page on Amazon.

We always invite our readers to write comments at Amazon and on our Riverwalker website and Facebook pages. Although we have elected to publish our books and let them go into the world in an energetic fashion, without advertising or self-promotion, we are fully open to the energetic flow of the universe in whatever way that unfolds. So, in all humbleness, we invite our readers to be energetically available to write reviews and spread the word in whatever way feels right, or not.

Volume 2 of The Edge of the Abyss will be published in the next couple of months. Jan has already begun work on the final edit.

Such an exciting time!

Thank you from both of us,
Chuck & Jan