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Chuck’s Place: Love & Laughter—Tools Of Detachment

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Incredible lightness of being... waiting to be freed... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Incredible lightness of being…
waiting to be freed…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

If we understand karma to be unfinished business, that which grounds our flight, then we can understand detachment as the necessary tool to free our incredible lightness of being to find fulfillment in this life and beyond. Detachment unhitches us from the energetic drains that keep us tied to people and situations that impede our freedom. Energetic drains take the form of intense emotional attachments, be they fear and hate or, quite the opposite, unrequited love. Either way, attachments keep us tethered, and, until released, we cannot journey deeper into life.

But what are the nuts and bolts of detachment? Often enough, Jan and I write about the formal process of recapitulation to free and reclaim all the entangled energy knotted in the lives we’ve lived. Love and laughter are tools at the heart of the recapitulation journey.

Prior to his assassination, Gandhi had expressed, “Even if I am killed, I will not give up repeating the names Ram and Rahim, which mean to me the same God. With these names on my lips, I will die cheerfully.” He also said, “If I am to die by the bullet of a madman, I must do so smiling. There must be no anger within me. God must be in my heart and on my lips.”

Rahim also means compassion. When Gandhi was actually assassinated, he raised his hands in front of him, in a common gesture of greeting to his assassin. And he did call out to God, according to some accounts, speaking the words “Ram, Ram.” In speaking these words, and with this final gesture, Gandhi forgave his assassin, leaving this world completely untethered to what his assassin had done to him, but also thanking the man for delivering him to the next stop on his journey.

Jesus similarly cried out to God while on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He also left this world completely untethered to his accusers, who delivered him to his future.

From wherever we come, we land; we move into life on this earth. It’s where we are now. If we turn around we turn to stone and can move no further, according to a common concept. Recapitulation, however, requires us to turn around, but with the intent of removing all the energetic strings that keep us bound in regret, anger, sadness, longing, and hate. In retrieving these energetic strings of self, we can turn to the unfolding awesomeness of continuing our journey untethered.

Buddhist wisdom guides all who leave this world to glance only briefly at the bardos of their discontent and stay focused on the light. To remain attached to the emotional ties of our life, loving or traumatic, forms the seeds of our karma and interrupts our journey to spiritual wholeness and enlightenment. Gandhi was well aware of this, as he faced his assassin in the common greeting of respect, namaste, meaning “I bow to you; I bow to the God within you.”

We all travel in and out of the light and the dark all the time... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We all travel in and out of the light and the dark all the time…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

To release emotional attachment to those who harm us frees our karmic load. We are then freed to proceed into new life unburdened by emotional heaviness. Karmic attachment requires us to stay put, until we can free our spirits to move into new life.

The love or compassion that Gandhi and Jesus portrayed transcends the attachments we have to our lives, interrupted as they are by our assassins. Instead, it accepts the reality of our unexpected launching into a different journey. Those that launch us must then grapple with their own karma—for the choice made to act from the dark side. We can extend the love of compassion to them, as they continue their journeys into that karma, and appreciate our own opportunity to free ourselves, at their hand, from attachment to the dark side that would have us stew in powerful emotions. If we look instead to the dark side and send it love—the last thing it wants—it releases its talons from our light being.

Laughter, like love, is equally freeing of energetic bindings. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered that the greatest hook to our energetic selves from the dark side is self-importance. When we are offended by another, or by life circumstances, we are drawn to the seriousness of anger, pain, and resentment. These emotions, though transiently valid and necessary to encounter during recapitulation, are equally capable of keeping us attached to the dark side, for the dark side looks for ways to hook us, to entrap us indefinitely by feeding on the energy of our fixated, negative emotions. We can completely break the chains of these offenses by learning to laugh at ourselves.

We can laugh at our attachment to seriousness. We can laugh at our own human frailty. We can laugh at our tendency to judge the self and other. And we can laugh at the frailty and foolishness of others. If we can find our way to the divine comedy of self and other, we are freed of all karma associated with the injustices we have engaged in and those that have been foist upon us—however serious!

Can we learn to laugh at our predicaments? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Can we learn to laugh at our predicaments?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Love and laugher are powerful tools that, when genuinely engaged in, free us from the binding attachments that tether our fulfillment to our karmic lives. As we exercise these powerful tools, we offer ourselves the opportunity for new and different outcomes. Love and laugh! Try it, and see what happens!

Loving and laughing,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Alter In The Body Temple

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We all have inherent wisdom within the body temple... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We all have inherent wisdom within the body temple…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Deep work on the self is inevitably accompanied by equally deep encounters with anxiety. Heightened anxiety states not only shut down our ability to explore and process our self-discoveries, but often become a major preoccupation, taking most of our energy and attention to manage.

Inherent in our body are physical movements that regulate our anxious states. When we dream our eyes move rapidly back and forth as we put to rest disturbing experiences from our days. This is an unconscious, built-in body movement that regulates our anxiety every day. Without this body processing function, our lives would be overrun by the anxiety of one long run-on sentence without the punctuation of completion and rejuvenation that our daily dreams provide us with.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered, in their dreaming, the Magical Pass of Recapitulation. This pass also involves a back and forth movement, similar to the rapid eye movement of dreaming, though not just of the eyes, but of the entire head. This movement is accompanied by an inhalation and an exhalation as the head sweeps from side to side. Those shamans discovered that those movements could be consciously performed to put troubled life experiences to rest, whereby reducing anxiety through release of energetic attachment to the past.

Francine Shapiro inadvertently discovered the same bilateral mechanism inherent in the body in what has come to be known as EMDR. In EMDR, like in shamanic recapitulation, anxiety is reduced through bilateral movement that enables processing and putting traumatic experiences to rest.

The ancient Hindus discovered many body poses and breathing techniques to master the central nervous system, which manifests anxiety. They came to call these body practices yoga. One such breathing technique is called Nadhi Sadhana or alternate nostril breathing.

In this pranayama exercise, using our right hand, we close off the right nostril with our thumb while breathing in through the left nostril. When the inhalation is complete, we close off the left nostril with the ring finger, in effect gently pinching the nose closed for a brief pause, before lifting the thumb and exhaling through the right nostril. At the completion of the exhalation we inhale through the right nostril, close it off with the thumb, pause for a moment with pinched nose before lifting the ring finger and exhaling through the left nostril. This back and forth breathing practice counts as one complete breath. The sequence is repeated, going back and forth through alternate nostrils.

Jan and I practice this breathing at least twice each day for a total of at least twelve complete breaths. Our personal finding is a significant reduction in anxiety, resulting in a calming of the central nervous system that lasts throughout the day. This yoga breathing activates the inborn automatic bilateral movement of dreaming in a conscious way, offering a high level regulation of anxiety.

We do not recommend this breathing to accompany the processing of memories or trauma, as the recapitulation breath takes care of that. However, it is highly effective, if practiced regularly, to reduce the overall tension and levels of stress in the body. And for that we recommend it.

The body is our temple. Though itself mortal, it houses all that we are and all that we will become beyond our mortal lives. The body as temple houses physical movements that we can consciously access and exercise that greatly support our spiritual journeys, and that prepare us for our ultimate life without a body.

Enter the temple of the body self with reverence for its movement wisdom. This is not a mental process, but a physical doing. Do it, and see what happens!

From the body self,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Alzheimer’s & The Journey Of The Soul

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Who knows what we will encounter as we take our first steps into the bardos... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Who knows what we will encounter as we take our first steps into the bardos…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The rational sensibility of the modern world observes the deterioration of the brain with Alzheimer’s disease and questions the validity of the soul. In effect, it asks the question, “What is left to ascend after death, when clearly there appears to be a total dismantling of the personality as the disease progresses?”

All religious systems, nonetheless, propose that a soul, an ethereal essence, separates from the body and continues to live after death. Hindu scientists have an elaborate understanding of the composition of that soul, or what they have termed the astral body. According to their findings, our abilities to think and feel originate in the astral body. The astral body, or soul, is intimately connected with the physical body; feelings are experienced in physical sensations and mental processes are connected with the brain. These two bodies, physical and astral, are inseparable except in dreaming, shamanic journeying, and in severe trauma, when the astral body—though still attached to the physical body—separates and goes off on its own journey.

Shamans utilize dreaming and journeying to explore life beyond the body, as they prepare for life after death, for the moment when the astral body completely separates from the physical body.

The Tibetan Buddhists, as outlined in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, have identified several bardos, or in-between worlds, that all humans encounter shortly after death. In the bardos we are all confronted with unresolved issues from our lives. Our ability to resolve, or not attach to these issues in the bardo states allows us to progress deeper into our soul’s unfolding journey in infinity. However, this cosmic recapitulation process in the bardos may require many lifetimes before we achieve true freedom. Alzheimer’s, as I see it, is the beginning of that cosmic bardo adventure, begun while still living in the human body, offering the opportunity to engage in recapitulation.

With the deterioration of the brain during Alzheimer’s, the astral body is freed to enter the bardos and deal with deep issues, as it is freed of engagement in the affairs of daily life. Deterioration of personality in this world in no way reflects loss of self, it simply reflects a breakdown of cognitive functioning connected to the physical body.

Things may clarify the deeper we go... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Things may clarify the deeper we go…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The mental and emotional self is fully present in its astral travels and is deeply engaged in working through karmic issues with souls from other lives, as well as those who have already crossed over, whom one was associated with in this life. Alzheimer’s offers an individual an extended opportunity, while still in human form, to resolve issues of many lives, with the added benefit of possibly breezing through the bardos after real death, moving quickly into higher spiritual realms. What appears in physical form as a difficult to manage and heartbreaking pathological disease, in spiritual form is actually an opportunity for great healing and advancement.

Relatives of Alzheimer’s patients are often treated to stories of these adventures in the bardos when the Alzheimer’s traveler is in lucid moments. He or she may speak of adventures with relatives and other beings in the astral realm. And, yes, some of those encounters with entities in the bardos realm can be quite terrifying, as patients might report their terror at feeling robbed or attacked, or having met evil or monstrous beings.

Nonetheless, if we can value their experiences as coming from layers of reality that we are unable to witness, rather than simply dismissing them as hallucinations, we might be granted glimpses of life beyond life. Not only are we offered valuable insight into what we will all one day encounter as we enter the bardos ourselves, but we are able to support our loved ones as they deepen their soul’s journey in infinity, preparing for their final launching.

Is Alzheimer's seeding new life? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Is Alzheimer’s seeding new life?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Looking at Alzheimer’s from a different perspective,
Chuck

I wish to thank Elmer Green, PhD, brain researcher and pioneer of biofeedback, for his insight into Alzheimer’s as he took the journey with his wife, Alyce, learning what she was encountering on her trips into the bardos. You can hear him talk about it here: The Ozawkie Book of the Dead He mentions his findings about Alzheimer’s within the first few minutes and goes into it in greater detail throughout the recording. It’s well worth listening to!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Prayer For Another

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We all have access to the sacred oneness... - Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel
We all have access to the sacred oneness…
– Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel

In Tibet a delok, usually a woman, undergoes a temporary death, or Near Death Experience, and ventures into the astral realm where she receives messages for the living from the non-corporeal spirits that inhabit that realm. One such delok from the 16th Century reported how she met her master in the astral realm while he simultaneously protected her “dead” body and spoke to her. As he prayed for her, she merged with him in a state of cosmic oneness. From that place of oneness, she was moved and guided by his prayers to explore the afterlife. Upon return from her Near Death Experience she brought back what she had learned. From that state of cosmic oneness, accessible to all of us, we can experience the intent of another.

When we pray for someone, we send them an energetic invitation to, in a state of oneness, merge with that intent. In so doing, that person is invited to expand themselves beyond their current fixation into a whole new possibility.

Perhaps we know someone deeply encumbered by an addiction, with the limiting belief that things can’t change. From a place of compassion, we might seek to be helpful.

First we must accept that all beings are challenged to take responsibility for their own choices in life. To make a choice for another person cannot relieve them of their karmic debt to solve the dilemma they are faced with in this life. If we are successful in relieving another of their own choice making, it assures a return of the dilemma, either later in life or in another life to come. Thus, we cannot solve the challenges that others face, but we can send positive prompts through our prayers, offering them support by envisioning a different possibility for them.

Can we imagine this person transformed beyond their addiction? Can we hold that possibility fully within ourselves? From there, in a prayer, we can send that positive intent to that person.

Our prayer will energetically solicit the attention of that other person and they will be offered the energetic impact of it, perhaps in a fleeting thought, a feeling, or a sensation that invites them to expand themselves beyond where they are caught.

Imagine someone transformed... - Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel
Imagine someone transformed…
– Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel

For a moment in time they are afforded the chance to play dress-up with another possibility. That pause affords an interruption in the incessant continuity of the addict sense of self. That pause offers a moment to merge with a different self, and it might indeed be a life-changing moment.

American psychic Edgar Cayce spoke of a kind of therapeutic intent whereby the consciousness of one person can affect another. He believed that we all have the ability to channel health and healing for others. It is the purity of the intent, without ulterior motive, that will bring about the possibility of change.

And so, we are cautioned to examine the purity of our prayers. If the intention of our prayer is to change another person to meet our own needs, then our intent is overshadowed by our own merchant mentality. Indeed, the other person will be energetically impacted by our prayer even though our prayer is not freely given. In fact, the true message of such a prayer might be translated as, “please change to take care of me!”

That prayer, even if listened to, sows the seeds of its own demise. The actual invitation in that prayer is to help me not to grow, to stay fixated where I am through your support. This is not an evolutionary offering. True prayer is selfless. True prayer is non-conditional. True prayer is compassionate. True prayer is evolutionary. True prayer does not ask for anything in return. It does not ask another to change to benefit me but only the person it is directed to. True prayer offers visions of true possibility for another, inviting that other person to throw their own intent into manifesting change for themselves.

Pure prayer is powerful... - Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel
Pure prayer is powerful…
– Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel

I, as the giver, must fully accept that you, the receiver, might not be ready for the vision of the prayer and I accept your right to refusal. Nonetheless, I might incessantly offer my good prayers on your behalf, without attachment to the outcome, that you might be surrounded with reminders of what is possible, because, as Cayce also said, “Thoughts are things, and they have their effect upon individuals…” And if I can imagine you as a profoundly changed being, perhaps someday you’ll find your way to envision that same possibility for yourself, and merge your own intent with it.

I will continue to pray, but also continue to fully take responsibility for my own evolutionary choices, as we all must.

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: We’re All In The Same Dream

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Chuck starts off with our first blog of the New Year, restating the intent that we embody, to take full responsibility for who we are and how we choose to participate in the dream of this reality. It’s what we at Riverwalker Press are all about. As the New Year begins we invite all of you to participate in dreaming a new dream with us. Happy New Year!

Warmly, with love and gratitude from us both,
Chuck and Jan

This is the dream we are in today... What does your dream look like? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
This is the dream we are in today…
What does your dream look like?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Every cell in our body has a life of its own. It is challenged daily to obtain necessary resources for its survival, maintain balance, rid itself of wastes and spawn new life. Little does that single cell know that it is actually part of a much greater integrated whole, a human body.

The interdependent reality of our wholeness escapes us as we focus daily, like every single cell within us, on our individual tasks of survival and fulfillment. Nonetheless, if we contemplate our greater cosmic reality, perhaps we might glimpse, through reason or intuition or experience, the oneness of everything. And, from that place of oneness, all of us are responsible for the dream we are in and where we are going to take it. We are all empowered, through consciousness and intent, to advance the dream, that is, to change the world we live in.

Over the past couple of days, the stock market has been in a downslide. Why? Because the price of oil has been plunging rapidly. Meanwhile, the auto industry has had its best year in sales in decades, due in large part to increased sales of gas guzzlers, the consequence of cheaper gas. Meanwhile, many, whose economic survival is dependent upon the stock market, are faced with threatening losses as “safe” investments like oil plummet in value. Behind all these challenges to daily survival lies the reality that fossil fuels are a major contributor to the rapid destabilization and destruction of the planet that feeds and houses us.

We, as individuals, are empowered to decide where this dream will go next. Many are so focused on personal survival that they feel obliged to make the best investments, irrespective of environmental consequences or the total destruction of lives and cultures outside of their own. Gas guzzling cars are one of the things that most of us use daily and yet most people can’t afford to switch up to hybrid vehicles or they are drawn to the perks of less fuel efficient cars, while still others have much more basic needs of daily survival, putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads.

If we look to government to solve the greater issue of climate change we are confronted with the likes of today’s headlines: Big Threat For Obama’s Climate Efforts From GOP-Run Congress.* It’s easy to indulge in powerlessness and point fingers at the GOP, but to be truly responsible we must examine the GOP within ourselves. No one can separate themselves from deciding which way this dream will unfold; we’re all part of the same whole.

The GOP reflects an old dream that insists that the world is ours for the taking, that consideration beyond the needs of self and ours is unnecessary. That dream downplays the interdependent reality and the global concerns that effect us all and instead focuses on the individual’s responsibility to ensure survival of the personal dream. That dream has been given full latitude to play itself out and now finds itself approaching nightmare, as that dream and the world it has generated are unsustainable. This nightmare has caused many to wake up and face the facts, but still many others, reflected in the newly elected American Congress, remain staunch champions of the supremacy of the old dream; self above all.

The truth is, we are all living cells of the same dream, each empowered to decide, within the context of our own lives, which way the dream will proceed. On a concrete level, if I refuse to invest in fossil fuels, I am changing the dream. If I choose to buy a fuel-efficient car, regardless of other sales’ enticements, I choose a different dream. If I choose to replace my light bulbs with an expensive, highly efficient LED bulb, I choose a different dream. There are even simpler choices we can all make, such as to recycle or to be less wasteful overall.

How powerful a little pocket of intent is! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
How powerful a little pocket of intent is!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

When Jeanne was in this world—as the Hindus say: at the gross level of reality—she strongly preached the power of the purse to effect change. Now she resides fully in the astral plane, the next, finer dimension of reality that houses our soul or spirit, guiding us to exercise the power of intent to effect change in our lives within and without. Though the main fuel of the astral dimension, intent is equally effective in the gross dimension of our reality, awaiting our discovery of its power.

When we pray, when we state our intent, repeat our mantras, send love and compassion, we are transforming the dream world we are in. Everyone who loves their enemy reconciles with their own divided wholeness and advances the dream.

If I can love the GOP within myself—the part that demands individual responsibility but is also so susceptible to self interest—exploitative and greedy—I can make responsible choices in the myriad of decisions I make today to advance the dream in a new direction for all living beings. Such a decision might be as simple as where I choose to place my awareness, how I choose to think or spend my personal energy.

If worry and fear beckon, I might shift to some moments of intentional release of tension in my body, into calm, deliberate breathing. This simple act changes the energy I bring to the integrated wholeness of the one dream that we all live in and are dreaming together.

Imagine if each of us decided to awaken to the power of intent and bring it into the gross dimension that we all live in in such a calm and nurturing way. It might just be a strong enough intent to course-correct the orbit of the dream we are now in, sending us into a new dream of sustainability. We are never powerless.

Staying awake in the dream,
Chuck

* Headline in The Huffington Post January 6, 2015