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Chuck’s Place: Talk To Your Avatar

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You are loved…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Theoretical physicist Tom Campbell likened the relationship between mind and body to that of a video game where mind is the gamer with the controller and the body is its chosen avatar on the screen. This analogy accomplishes two points: 1) Mind exists beyond the brain of the physical body and 2) Mind, at some level, is completely in control of its physical body.

In spiritual terms, mind is Soul, that which exists in its own energy body and lives on after the death of the physical body. The Soul is ever-present  and interactive with its physical avatar yet lives simultaneously in transpersonal dimensions beyond the physical world.

The Soul contains what we identify in psychology as psyche, which includes the ego as the center of the conscious personality, the subconscious mind, which houses the programs that essentially run the physical body, and the unconscious, which includes personal and collective dimensions.

The physical body is so linked to the operations of the subconscious mind  that the two have been identified as synonymous. One need only observe the physical materialization of hypnotic suggestion by a subject in trance to see how powerfully the subconscious controls the body.

Of course, the precise manipulations of a surgeon will greatly shift the movement of the physical body, as will pharmaceutical interventions that alter chemical balance and affect healing of a disease. But, at the most subtle energetic level, where thought meets matter, the subconscious can completely transform the condition of its avatar, the physical body.

This is completely evident in the placebo effect. If we believe a sugar pill will cure us, it will. Belief is a strong suggestion presented to the subconscious mind that produces the expected change. Discovery of this positive effect having been caused by a placebo will often cancel the suggestion to the subconscious and reverses its miraculous effect.

Belief systems restrict the subconscious to stick to pathways that conform to their rules. For this reason, though I am driven to learn and experience, I personally try desperately to avoid any system that insists on its set of facts as the one and only unchanging reality. Infinity is, as I experience it, an endless adventure into ever-deepening paradigm shifts. Best to follow the shaman’s dictum, Suspend Judgment, when approaching any new learning.

Nonetheless, we can operate within the state of our present knowledge, as long as we understand that our facts will ultimately be washed away by future discoveries. Nothing is sacred; nothing is permanent. Hence, we can talk to our avatar and see what happens.

When we do some form of progressive relaxation, we suggest to each body part that it release and let go. As we deepen this practice, we will notice the body lighten to a state of pure energetic relaxation. If we visualize our hands being penetrated by the sun, we will experience our hands getting warmer. In both cases, our suggestions and imagination instruct the subconscious to change the condition in the body.

If we state a healing intent to the body with calm but enduring perseverance, the subconscious may eventually be persuaded to enact the called for change. Again, suspend judgment. Limiting beliefs may impact the flow of our intent, but don’t argue with them; simply let them go. Simply persevere, without attachment to the outcome.

Talk to your avatar in a state of loving kindness. This magnificent vehicle we are granted for our physical lifetime should be loved and cherished. Be accepting of the state of the body, at all times, even if great changes are desired. The subconscious has programs that can compensate for, and override, errant programs. Instruct it with love and clear intent.

Loving the Avatar,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Miracle Drug Of Air

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Just Breathe…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Even somewhat polluted air is free, and it is Spirit. As Stan Grof, whose contributions I am currently immersed in, points out: in ancient Greek the word pneuma means both spirit and air. In Latin, spiritus means both breath and spirit. In Hebrew, ruach means both breath and creative spirit.

When we breathe we join our material, physical, animal body with our ephemeral spirit. Air is our ultimate soulmate. The simple act of breathing brings us communion with spirit.

The Christian Eucharist transfigures the materials of bread and wine into vehicles to merge with Spirit. It could certainly be argued that the effect of drinking wine and eating bread relaxes the tightened muscles in the body, allowing for an expansive breath and melding of social boundaries into greater oneness.

Wilhelm Reich’s greatest contribution to psychoanalysis was his concept of body armor, the tightened muscles of the body that house our traumas and vastly constrict the breath. In order to experience the fullness of release and spiritual wholeness of orgasm, one must discover what he called the orgasm reflex, which requires total freedom of breath and deep breathing to be activated.

Neuroscientists Daniel Siegel and Andrew Huberman stress the role of the breath for mental and physical health. Air reduces anxiety by simply binding with adrenalin and removing its effect upon the central nervous system. Mindful breathing calms an overly active spirited mind.

The shamans of ancient Mexico discovered the recapitulation breath, a bilateral movement of the head as one inhales to one side and exhales to the other. The benefits of bilateral movement to calm the amygdala and allow processing of traumatic experience was discovered in modern psychotherapy in the therapy of EMDR. In combination with the shamanic recapitulation breath, bilateral movement greatly enhances access to the innate holotropic healing potential activated at the subtle dimensions of our spirit being.

A seasoned practitioner of the recapitulation breath, used to activate a clinical soul retrieval, is my wife, Jan, whose journey is chronicled in her five-volume series The Recapitulation Diaries. I asked her to describe the details of her use of the breath for her dramatic holotropic healing.

Here’s what she said:

“I found the most benefit came when I did the recapitulation breath for an extended period of time. Often I would sit and breathe for over an hour, gently sweeping my head back and forth while sitting in a relaxed and supported pose, usually on my bed, with plenty of cushions to support my back. I found it suited me to have my eyes open, though many people keep their eyes closed. As I swept my head from side to side, breathing in and out, I kept my open eyes stationary in my head so that they too swept from side to side along with the movements of the head. This allowed for a softened gaze in which images appeared, memories that I could dive into and relive, seeing them as if they were movies playing before me, allowing me to process them and release them in whatever way I was ready for at the moment. I kept a journal beside me and was able to immediately jot down my experiences upon finishing the breathing pass. I suppose a phone, on ‘Record’, could also be used for this purpose, both during and after the experience, though I did not have that technology available to me at the time. My final breath was always a quick clearing breath, a swift sweeping of the head from side to side while holding my breath before releasing with a final, long exhale at the end of the session.”

Jack Schwarz introduced breathing patterns that give access to brainwave states associated with transpersonal dimensions of the psyche and promote the activation of holotropic healing. He emphasized allowing for deeper breathing through relaxing of the abdominal area, allowing for more air to enter the lungs.

Alpha brainwaves are reached by breathing in to a count of 8, holding for 8, and breathing out to a count of 8, followed by a holding of the breath for a count of 4 and then beginning again: 8-8-8-4. Theta brainwaves correspond to a 4-8-16-4 pattern. Delta corresponds to a 4-8-32-4 rhythm.

One should slowly work up to the longer held breath patterns and never push beyond what is comfortable. Simply breathing in and out with no holding restores the beta brainwave state of ordinary waking reality.

Accessing physical union with the spirit through the use of the breath is the essence of yoga with its pranayama breathing.

Air is indeed the ultimate miracle drug to promote the deepest healing and union of body and spirit. Most significantly, the fullness of breath opens us to the fullness of the physical life we are in, our deepest reason for being here, in this form, in this time.

Gently bring attention and intention to its healing balm. Become one with your airy soulmate.

In fellowship with all fellow breathers,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: BPM III And The Blood Beaver Full Moon

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In the throes…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Through his own clinical observations and the pioneering work of Otto Rank, Stan Grof discovered the missing link between Freud’s postnatal biographical unconscious and Jung’s transpersonal collective unconscious: the perinatal dimension of the unconscious, which records our actual birth into this world.

The perinatal dimension of the unconscious includes these four Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM):

BPM I: primal union with mother—the symbiotic union of fetus and mother prior to active labor.
BPMII: cosmic engulfment and no exit—the initiation of labor prior to the cervix being dilated.
BPMIII: death-rebirth struggle—full on labor, the cervix has dilated and mother and child are in the struggle that will lead to birth.
BPMIV: death-rebirth experience—actual birth of an individual person, which terminates the symbiotic unit of mother and infant, as the umbilical cord is severed.

BPM III is the stage of great conflict and activity as, with the cervix widened, the confluent energies of mother and fetus must synergize to birth new life. Today, 11/8, marks the segue into this stage of labor for Mother Earth and her fetus, the human race, as the frantic activity of political elections and movements impact the next phase of our embryonic planetary development.

Furthermore, the full moon has just peaked, with the accompaniment of an eclipse that has rendered it the Blood/Beaver moon. These influences contribute guidance and understanding to this stage of transformative labor.

The eclipse itself is a darkening of the light at the time of the moon’s greatest power, her fullness. This portends powerful encounters with shadow energies without the defense of the moon’s exposing light. The clash of the world’s shadow energies are palpable in our own elections and across the globe, both on the actual surface of the Earth and in the behaviors of her peoples.

From another angle, the eclipse also points to the absolute unknowing of what might happen—like a baby about to be born, we are completely in the dark. Time to buckle our seatbelts for this wild ride of sudden surprise and encounter with the unexpected. We truly do not know what will happen.

The totality of the full moon’s eclipse generates a blood red color, certainly a color associated with birth. This blood moon color is also associated with passionate emotions that accompany the chaos in the struggles for survival.

A dark and foreboding example of such bloodshed appears daily in the country of Ukraine. Netflix recently issued a powerful historical rendition of such horrific bloodshed from WWI in an enacting of the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front.

The Beaver quality of this full moon offers guidance around a helpful attitude to assume in the passionate chaos of now: an unrelenting commitment to the individuation of the dream of realizing the full self.

Ted Andrews, in his book Animal Speak, points out that beavers can remain under water for 15 minutes before they must surface to replenish their store of oxygen. Clearly a suggestion is offered to use the breath to regulate the central nervous system in these calamitous times.

The beaver demonstrates the ability to maintain focus upon one’s path of heart, despite being submerged in the ruffled waters of passionate emotion. Though completely under water, the beaver never wavers in its effort to build and secure its dream home, regardless of the turbulence it encounters. Thus the guidance is: keep your personal link to intent free of attachment to negative thought, returning, incessantly, to the intent of wholeness.

Such is the determination of the fetus, who, in BPM III, is strongly enlivened to fight for its own survival amidst riveting pulsations of contractions that exact their crushing threat upon its umbilical lifeline.

Grof convincingly extends Freud’s psychosexual stages to the perinatal dimension of the unconscious, where, in BPM III, sexual energy is released that awakens the fetus to its own pulsating agency of autonomous, vigorous movement. The journey to birth through the birth canal becomes a confluence, indeed, of separate energies in both conflict and unison.

Our collective journey through BPM III now depends largely on the dream that we, as a collective fetus, choose to embrace. Of course, we are not alone in this decision, as the process involves the independent contractions of Mother Earth herself, as she shapes us through our tumultuous trauma of birth.

BPMIII can be a very long and wild stage of labor. Don’t draw conclusions too quickly, regardless of the intensity and rapidity of the various contractions experienced.

Sustainable birth in our world will be the realization of our collective soul’s dream, the ultimate intent of this Blood Beaver full moon eclipse, with its initiation of our world’s BPMIII.

Buckle up, breathe, find your body’s comfortable rhythm to navigate the confluent energies of now. Remain fixed upon the dream, with utter perseverance and equanimity.

And know, with utter certainty, that the day of full birth, BPMIV, will indeed eventually arrive.

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Equanimity At This Point Of Confluence

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Embracing confluence…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The conflicting energies of independent ocean currents meet at a point of confluence, such as Cape Agulhas, at the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans come to meet. Sailors experience such points of confluence as particularly hazardous waters to navigate. The challenge is one of equaniminous accommodation of such clashing energies in a living domain of ruthless opposition.

Such is the state of America, and the rest of the world, right now, as we approach the coming crescendo of election day, November 8th. The true, underlying point of confluence has always existed, as all parts of all that is are represented in our greater wholeness. What distinguishes now is the full unleashing of these primal energy undercurrents to the Earth’s surface, exploding the usually dependable walls of civilized restraint.

These currents are archetypal energies whose passions excite numinous fascination. Numinous experience is defined as spiritual awe and ecstasy, a true meeting with the divine. For the human ego, an experience with the energy of the collective unconscious is numinous. Though ego may be threatened with disintegration at such an encounter, it craves contact with its spiritual source.

The conscious experience of leaving one’s body, or communing with a disembodied spirit, is numinous. Some numinous experiences are ecstatic, others terrifying. Nonetheless, the fascination with either can be quite compelling. Apocalyptic and horror movies are frequently blockbuster successes, as vicarious brushes with the terrible of archetypal energies claim their due.

Archetypes are the prototypical gods and goddesses behind our perceptions and emotional relationships in this world. Fear of encounters with authority figures is actually fear of the Old Testament God, Yaweh, in his wrathful mood. Craving the attention and validation from a beloved is actually a numinous hunger for mirroring from the Great Mother goddess, superimposed upon a mere mortal woman or man.

When the archetypes are activated, the passions they arouse demand release, sometimes with fatal consequences. On this Day of the Dead may we be reminded of our human form’s finiteness. Though we crave numinous union with the divine, may we survive it as well.

I approach the coming point of confluence, November 8th, with equanimity. I, like everyone, have my version of what would be best to serve stability in our rapidly changing world. I voted my preference. But now I stand back in even-tempered awe, awaiting the outcome.

I have no attachment to that outcome, whatever it may be. I await it in the spirit of total equanimity. I intend to accept and live the outcome as the majority chooses it to be. I am part of a greater whole and must reside within the developmental level the majority has achieved. 

Numinosity is felt in the perilous grasp of the undertow, as well as in the calm of the eye of the storm. Either way, we are in the presence of divine encounter.

Equanimity allows us to truly go with the flow, without resistance. The spirits present on this Day of the Dead remind us of life everlasting, as we cling tightly to our current dream. May we dream on and awaken with equanimity, as we navigate the confluence of now.

 Remember this fact: I am free to choose the attitude I will take toward anything I encounter.   

With Equanimity,
Chuck 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Our Promethean Debt

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The power of One…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Prometheus stole fire from the gods, delivering to humanity the gift of consciousness and the ability to chart its own course. For his transgression, Zeus condemned Prometheus to eternal torment. Human beings must also suffer nature’s torments, as she evens the score for transgressions to nature, within and without.

At the deepest transpersonal dimension of our psyche we all share the same roots and laws that govern our being. These are the instincts and archetypes of the collective unconscious. When the decisions we make deviate too widely from those archetypal roots, our Promethean debt must be paid and, as Jung put it, “from time to time with hideous consequences.”*

This is the usual course of human history with its eternal torment of wars. Outwardly, the conservative laws of the instincts are diametrically opposed to the decisions and directions of detached consciousness. Instinct and reason are fighting for supremacy. The lines are drawn, with no interest in reconciliation.

Inwardly, the consequences of one-sided attitudes are the torments of restlessness, anxiety, terror, and depression. Resolution of these painful states is to be found on the path of individuation, where we reconcile and live the fullness of our wholeness. To travel this path brings benefit, both within and without. It takes but one rainmaker to bring rain to an entire village. As within, so without.

Every one of us is a fragment of the same hologram. Though outwardly we appear unique, at the transpersonal, quantum level of our being we are all all that is. Look no further than yourself to confront the same dynamics being played out, at this very moment, upon the world stage.

Individuation requires that we suffer the opposites of our wholeness. All beings are actually bipolar beings. Wholeness cannot be found in one-sided dissociation. We must suffer full ownership of our shadow, all the parts of us that we reject or simply don’t know about.

It is not enough for consciousness to shine its light into the darkness, it must accept and bring into life all of itself. Sometimes, for example, you must speak the truth, however painful the consequences. As a result, a rejected part of the psyche that had turned aggressive might feel reconciled with consciousness for its willingness to take such heartfelt action.

Those deep truths, though they may appear transactional, and require outer action, actually originate within the interplay of dynamics within the self. Outer truths merely mirror inner facts. Be sure to always bring it home, not leaving a projected part of the self in the person and behavior of an other. Take full responsibility for owning, suffering the torments of, and living your wholeness.

We, each individual, are the world. Every character upon the world stage is within us. The energetics without are the energetics within.

The playing field for our Promethean debt is the structure and dynamics of our inner world. Find the balance within; advance the world without.

In so doing, perhaps the usual course of history might be averted. Grab the opportunity to truly make a difference.

Going for it,
Chuck

*Essays On A Science Of Mythology, C. G. Jung and C. Kerenyi, p. 82.