A Day in a Life: The Path Will Appear

When we are ready the path will appear... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
When we are ready the path will appear…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If you have read my first two books in The Recapitulation Diaries series, you know that the recapitulation journey that I undertook was often a painful process, peppered with memories and mental and physical anguish as I searched deeply within myself for explanations for why I felt so disconnected from and reluctant to experience life. I was really on a search for my spiritual self but also my authentic self, as I sought to live life on my own terms, fully safe in the world as my true self.

All of that might sound pretty esoteric, as it certainly sounded to me when I began my journey. I had only a vague idea what a true self might entail and I had no idea what it meant to do a recapitulation, and all of that esoteric talk frightened me as much as my memories did. It wasn’t until the journey was well underway that I began to embrace the esoteric lingo, for nothing else was available to describe what I was going through. Even the esoteric words I grasped at did little to convey the true depth of the mind-blowing experiences I began having.

In my next book, Into the Vast Nothingness, all that I had been working toward finally began to unfold. Ever-increasing and evermore intense episodes of breakthrough in both dreams and waking reality began to affect me on the deepest levels. By the middle of the second year of my journey, although still recalling and working through memories, experiences of the transcendent began to increase and often supersede the memory blitzes. The recapitulation went way beyond the recalling of a childhood of sexual abuse and revealed itself as the means to achieving true transformation.

I began to perceive of the recapitulation as absolutely necessary. More than just a deep self-study, the recapitulation transformed as I transformed. It offered the means to discovering not only who I was in this world, but who I had been for millennia. All of a sudden it seemed, I was granted access to ancient knowledge and a vast perspective that had I stayed my depressed and frightened old self I would never have experienced.

Who is really in control? - Art by Jan Ketchel
Who is really in control?
– Art by Jan Ketchel

As I took the journey, I often stopped to thank myself for being so daring and brave, for doing the most frightening thing I had ever done: face myself. Facing myself meant dismantling myself down to the essence of who I really was, letting go of ideas and identities, rules and constructs that I thought I needed. It meant staying the course no matter what came to thwart me.

It meant withstanding the tensions and frustrations of what the recapitulation confronted me with, everything from painful memories and vivid dreams, to struggles and confrontations in daily life.

And yes, in dismantling the old self, in breaking down my ego, I finally did meet that spiritual self I had so longed to connect with. But far more importantly, I was granted access to experiencing myself as universal consciousness, as part of the oneness of everything, as simply energy taking a dip into this world for as long as I needed, in order to learn what I needed to learn. There’s all that esoteric talk again!

I learned that I had to live out the life of a sexually abused child until I no longer needed to, until I could say, “Enough! I’m done with playing that game!” It was at that point that reincarnation and the lives we live in this world became totally clear and acceptable to me. I “knew” that I had found the key to life in this world, the answer to the mystery: Why are we here? Well, I discovered that we were here until we don’t need to be anymore. And then a new kind of peace reigned and a new kind of motivation took over, and then the recapitulation and I were more perfectly aligned, for I had glimpsed the real truth and the real purpose of my life on this earth: to keep transforming.

Am I really connected to the worms and the water in this little stream? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Am I really connected to the worms
and the water in this little stream?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If one is truly ready to transform, the path will appear. I offer my thoughts, my books, my weekly blogs as incentives to the transformational being inside all of us.

May your path take you to your own truths and may you find your own answers to the meaning of your life. Good Luck!

Staying the course,
Jan

My next book, Into the Vast Nothingness, is in its final stages and will be published soon! Thanks for reading!

Chuck’s Place: Contentment

Who is your real jailer? - Art by Jan Ketchel
Who is your real jailer?
– Art by Jan Ketchel

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. His ability to find contentment and meaning throughout those years prepared him to come to power in his seventies and transform a nation.

We are all in our private prison, contained within the four walls of our private karma, the central meaning of our life. The limitations imposed by our deepest challenges may prevent us from experiencing joy, safety, freedom and love. Our private prison, like Mandela’s prison, may severely limit our fulfillment through the most fruitful years of our lives.

We may find ourselves caught in swirls of sorrow, doubt, depression and deep self-pity. These are all necessary encounters, reminders of the transpersonal spirit that seeks to fly freely beyond the prison walls of our discontent. Our deepest sorrow is the song of the bird of freedom that beckons us to sing its tune.

When we recapitulate, we squarely face our karmic fixation. What happened in life that separated us from our spirit, that sent us into the desert of our discontent? Reliving, recollecting, and reprocessing the experiences of our lives ultimately releases us to the freedom of our spirit’s fulfillment. And this process, like Mandela’s, might take decades; no easy road to freedom.

But we needn’t attach to the outcome of our recapitulation process. Instead, we can focus on contentment in this moment, in every moment, through the breath. Buddhist meditation uses the breath. Yogic meditation uses the breath. Shamanic recapitulation uses the breath.

Simply focus awareness on the breath in this moment. Passively observe it without interference. Direct it at will. Gently deepen it. Focus it on the throat, on the solar plexus, on the perineum, on the big toe!

Count, to rhythmically align with the breath. Hold the breath; release it. Bring it to the tensest part of the body and allow it to gently penetrate and soften. Breathe rapidly if that feels right, fully releasing energy that has long been held in. Or breathe ever so softly, with loving tenderness.

Emancipation is but a breath away! - Art by Jan Ketchel
Emancipation is but a breath away!
– Art by Jan Ketchel

Placing awareness on the in-breath, on the inhalation of air—prana/life force/spirit—allows it to fill the body with its energy and vibration. Releasing the old stuck energies deeply stored in the body as we exhale brings contentment to each moment of our lives. The more we breathe with awareness, the deeper we breathe with awareness, the more we realize our deepest intent—to advance our spirit beyond its karmic containment into new life, full of contentment!

Simply breathing,
Chuck

As Bob Marley sings in Redemption Song: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.

A Day in a Life: Taking The Changing Journey

There is a deep part of us that knows that change is the only remedy... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There is a deep part of us that knows that change is the only remedy…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

All night I dreamed. The theme of my dreams revolved around finding and maintaining balance. It’s necessary, my dreams told me, to experience the extremes, but it is far more productive to gain balance and let experience come to you in the flow of everyday life. In constantly reaching out for experience, one misses out on that which is—the moment one is in that is full of meaning.

I dreamed that I owed a debt. I put cash into my purse and set out by car to deliver it. I was driving fast. I turned left into a city street and slammed on my brakes! The road was blocked off, under construction. I quickly assessed the situation. On the right I saw a passageway, but I would have to get out and walk. I parked the car and walked to my destination. I delivered the money to the woman I owed it to, a good friend of mine whom I knew when I lived in Sweden, a witch. I left her house only to discover that I did not have my purse. There was still a lot of cash in it and I wanted it; it was a lot of money to lose. I went back to the witch’s house, but I couldn’t find the purse. I knew I would have to let it go. Although it was a lot of money, I knew I didn’t really need it. It was not what had value. Paying my debts and accepting a changed journey had value. And so I walked away without attachment.

I woke up puzzled by the loss of the money, as it seemed to just disappear in my dream, but I didn’t bother trying to solve the mystery of it. Instead, I awoke feeling in good balance. I felt deep contentment with the lessons in my dream, that what once held value may no longer really have meaning, that things of this world are not as important as being open to the constantly changing journey.

My Swedish witch friend showing up in my dream was also significant to me. She had once been hospitalized in a mental institution, right before I met her, for unexplainable occurrences in her life that her husband could not handle. She started a fire simply by staring into the fireplace where no fire or embers existed. She was psychic, able to walk into a house and tell the stories that the house held. She and I had a deep bond that lasted for the few years that I spent with her. She told me I was her infant sister who had died when she was eleven, right about the time I was born. I admired her for her psychic prowess, though it scared me as well. It had hints of my own psychic abilities and I worried that I’d end up in a mental institution too. I wasn’t ready to encounter those abilities more fully at the time, I know that now. But what makes us ready?

New life takes work! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
New life takes work!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Change takes work, the work of changing the self at a very deep level. No matter how that kind of change comes about there is suffering to endure. Many people have profound experiences that quickly catapult them into enlightened beings. Near death experiences often have this affect. Upon return to life, such survivors immediately live from this new place, changed beings forever. Others have to work hard to achieve that enlightenment even though they may have had previous experiences of it. Others seek it out their entire lives, aware that there is more to life than the daily grind. A changed reality, however, will only have significant impact when we are fully ready for it.

I had a near-death experience in my teens when I jumped into the churning waters of a lake after an exhausting 50 mile bike ride. The roughness of the water, the result of a tremendous storm that was blowing through, was too much for my tired body and I sank beneath the waves into the calmness below. I left my body and experienced utter calm bliss, but knew I couldn’t stay, that it wasn’t my time. Some kind of energy that was not my own shot me back up to the surface and back into my heavy human body. I knew at the time that death was nothing to fear, but I couldn’t take the experience forward. Indeed, it would take me another few decades to discover that at the time of that near-drowning I wasn’t even done with the traumatic childhood experiences that would impact me so deeply for most of my life. It wasn’t until I was 50 that I was finally ready to face the painful work that had to be done. That painful work liberated me in the most profound ways, more deeply than that near-death experience did.

In the brief episodes and glimpses of another self, in the near-death experience and the projections of my psychic self in my witch friend, I was being shown a future possibility. In my dream I finally paid the debt to my witch friend, thanking her for the part she played in my evolving life, showing me that future self, telling me not to be afraid to face her, for her own experiences in the mental institution only solidified her commitment to fully living as her true psychic self. I had to be ready to meet that future self and fully live her too, and when I was finally ready recapitulation appeared as the main path.

The hard work of recapitulation offers liberation from our traumas and subsequent mental, physical, and emotional issues. It allows us the means by which to arrive at a new place, finally freed to flow with our changing life, freed of what once held us back from fuller experience. In accepting our changing journey, facing our suffering in the flow of everyday life, we achieve deep healing and we are able to maintain the kind of balance that my dream spoke of, balance that is achieved by facing the extremes within us as part of the healing journey.

Like the bird losing its feathers, there is always something we have to shed too as we move into new life... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Like the bird losing its feathers, there is always something we have to shed too as we move into new life…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

So, if you looking for balance in your life, I suggest looking at what’s really important. What in your life is showing you the way? There is work involved, and everyone’s journey is unique, but I guarantee that if you allow yourself to take the journey, leaving behind what no longer is necessary—by resolving the past—your future self will thank you!

The work of suffering is liberating. It is the changing journey in the flow of everyday life.

Staying open to always accepting the changing journey,
Jan