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Chuck’s Place: After Completion, A New Era

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Through the darkening of the light, remain steady…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

On the day of the assassination of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, I consulted the I Ching for its perspective on it, as well as on the conflagration in Australia. Hexagram #63, After Completion, moving line in the fifth place, was my answer. The future of this constellation is hexagram #36, Darkening of the Light.

Completion, for the I Ching, marks the climax or culmination of a cycle that must, alas, begin anew. Think of the highpoint of the lunar cycle, the full moon. Once fullness is reached the light begins immediately to wane, as a new cycle begins. The events of January 3, 2020 mark the completion of a cycle; we are in a whole new era now.

Both the dramatic actions of nature, in its fires, and of human nature, in its decision to assassinate, mark the completion of a dream. We awaken now to a new dream. The moving line in the fifth place addresses the first order of business for that new dream: What attitude will prevail now?

This moving line in the fifth place is an action line that typically overreacts or takes action of its own accord when it is actually most appropriate to be patient, sober, and humble. This is an instance of the ego pushing the river, when what is called for is going with the flow. Here ego acts on its own willfulness, rather than assuming its proper place, as General to the intent of the High Self/Soul.

Though history does tend to repeat itself, the I Ching holds that we are not absolute victims of our habits, tendencies, and proclivities. The moving line in the fifth place depicts the usual course of history, history repeating itself. With that outcome in mind, it forecasts Darkening of the Light for the future, which is a time when shadow forces predominate, and the forces of light retreat, for safekeeping.

Within the hologram of every individual is the collective dream we are all confronted with and share, in some way, within ourselves. Thus, the fires of nature rage in the anxieties and mounting passions we all experience within our individual psyches and lives. As well, we all must contend with our ego selves that seek immediate relief and solution from the tension.

All of us must face the clouded perception brought about by the Darkening of the Light, as special interest entities try to steal our attention, energy, and allegiance to support their intent for this new dream. We truly are in a waking dream that has unleashed all manner of fantastic characters.

Keep it simple; address the dream of your individual life. Own every character that you are drawn to, or are afraid of, in the world. Find that character in the self, particularly the emperor with no clothes. Lead that character, not censoriously but definitely, into the light. Face the truth, and let it set you free through right action, action in alignment with the Tao.

For those characters that have taken up residence within but truly don’t belong there, vote them out. Send them off with compassion that they might find their own way home to wholeness.

And then, regardless of the duration of the darkness, guard your guiding light, as we embark upon A New Era.

Happy Guarded New Era,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Return of the Light

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The inevitable return of the light…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year. At a certain level they are all interchangeable synonyms of the same event: return of the light. These events symbolize bringing forth new life, and in one form or another the human species is transported, by such events, to the experience of awe. These events create a natural bridge to the magical side of life.

The polar opposite of awe, and the human being’s greatest achievement, has been its ability to fixate upon reason, the main pillar of modern civilization. Reason breaks down the world into units that defy awe. With pure reason there’s no such thing as magic. Without magic, however, humanity loses its soul. Modern humans are truly beings in search of their soul.

The appeal of modern charismatic world leaders is their messianic capacity to channel awe. Anger that knows no limits is one ticket to infinity. The appeal of the energetic thrill of the shrill has swept the world. Reason shrinks in its ability to shield one from the draw of such passion. Even the most reasonable beings are unwittingly drawn into the madness of their passionate defense of reason.

Starved for immersion in the ocean of awe, humanity is currently gripped in a tidal wave of emotion. Tidal waves are unstoppable forces of nature, but, like wildfires that require fresh wood to continue their passionate burn, their time is truly limited, though there may be much destruction in the interim. All things do pass.

Currently, reason has become the fuel of awe. The irrational dominates the rational, the time of darkening of the light. In the time of darkening of the light, the guidance is to shield and tend the small candlelight of reason in the safe cave of the heart. In the time of the return of the light, the guidance is to be patient; the return of the light is inevitable.

The magic of this moment is awe inspired by the light of consciousness. Reason and awe needn’t be strange bedfellows. We are in an evolutionary advance now, charged to become more fully our magical energetic selves, with the light of consciousness as our guiding light, charged to explore beyond the limits of reason, yet with reason at our side.

May reason embark upon the dance of true fulfillment with us all. May awe be navigated by reason. Wishing all a safe, ecstatic, and fulfilling return of the light.

With Reason and Awe,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: A Break in Continuity

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The coming of night affords a natural break in continuity…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Most simply defined, the quality of our mental health reflects the degree of continuity we can maintain as our known selves, the familiar, separate human beings that we are. Familiarity rests upon a predictable world and a predictable self that interacts with that world. When our normal expectations of ourselves and the world are disrupted, our security and sanity are threatened, as reflected in psychiatric symptoms in response to this break in continuity.

Our notion of ourselves as separate beings traces back to the birth of consciousness, or the coming online of our ego. In biblical terms, this was the moment we were separated from the Garden of undifferentiated wholeness, Eden, and were cast into the world as separate, thinking beings, capable of our own decision making.

Alienated from our true energetic oneness with everything, where knowledge of what was right to do came as unthinking knowing—what the Shamans of Ancient Mexico call silent knowledge—our orphaned separate selves were challenged to find a way to successfully navigate life.

Thus began our history as thinking human beings, alienated from our original connection to direct silent knowledge. Knowledge obtained through thinking is grounded in rational cause and effect, observation and interpretation. Direct knowledge is channeled from the source through our greater energetic self, whom we lived more fully and intimately before the fall.

Ego, as a defined separate self, creates boundaries to ensure its unique integrity. These boundaries have the secondary effect of severing the ego’s connection to its greater energetic self, which lacks such defined boundaries. As a separate self, ego is constantly focused on its own importance as the means to maintain its integrity as a functional unit.

Nonetheless, the cynic in all of us sees through the falseness and limitations of the persona, or mask, that ego presents to the world. Underneath it all, ego is a fragile, inadequate part of the self, trying to hold its own in the world. Hence, its constant obsession with self-worth, self-esteem, and the positive attention of others, in order to bolster its fragile existence.

Our evolutionary destiny is driving us to regain our wholeness, the energetic self we left in the garden. To get there, we must break from our obsession with maintaining the self-important defense of our ego as a superior separate entity. In essence, we are all being called now to break the continuity of our ego’s stand as the one and only self.

Trauma could be defined as a break in the ego’s continuity, which forces it to confront the irrationality of power exercised beyond a rational world. Trauma levels ego; ego is completely humbled by a rupture that transcends its ability to assimilate. Lucky are those who have had the opportunity that trauma affords! And yet, we are all confronting the trauma of now!

The full assimilation of traumatic experience requires fluidity, the ability to go with the flow of what is or was, not the limits of what the ego expects the world to be. Healing, for the ego, requires an expanded ability to acknowledge power and forces that exist beyond its rational expectations.

Achievement of this expanded ego state is fundamental to ego discovering its true home, as an energetic being, first, and as a separate solid being, second. Ego is then positioned to accompany its energetic foundation on journeys in this world, and beyond, with access to the full library of silent knowledge.

Our time might be defined as a major break in continuity. Our world leaders are tricksters, who are unapologetically rupturing our expectations, throwing us into the thrill and the chaos of a tidal wave of unpredictability. From this perspective, they function like teacher shamans, recklessly opening a door, exposing us to our fuller energetic reality.

At the same time, they threaten the stability of mental health, which is dependent on a predictable world. And we see the casualties of this break in continuity in the shootings that abound daily. We are confronted with a collective PTSD of a world ego under fire. Nonetheless, healing can only be achieved by ego achieving the fluidity needed to navigate the greater energetic world that transcends rationality.

Our trickster leaders, ironically, mirror our greatest stumbling block to achieving that needed fluidity: self-importance. In fact, world leadership boldly embodies its separatist self-important superiority, ego’s greatest defense. We could say, that our leaders both deliver the punch and mirror the culprit that must be transcended if our ego is to truly find its way back to the garden of its energetic oneness with everything.

We have no choice now but to ride this train of break in continuity, as that train has already left the station without brakes. Change the metaphor, to that of the Tao, of the river that flows. Rather than try to push the river, as the ego used to do, become a riverwalker, one who knowingly walks with the flow.

Riverwalker,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Beyond Human Indulgence

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A simple way of understanding the need to reincarnate is to appreciate the very human reluctance to leave the human form. Humans are bipartite beings, humanly attached to the physical world, and energetically attached to infinity.

Beyond indulgence lies the magic of the energetic self…  – Photo by Jan Ketchel

As energetic beings, we have a living connection to everything in the universe. However, as human beings, we limit the scope of our connectedness.

Carlos Castaneda writes in The Power of Silence:

“Don Juan had asserted that our great collective flaw is that we live our lives completely disregarding that connection. The busyness of our lives, our relentless interests, concerns, hopes, frustrations, and fears take precedence, and on a day-to-day basis we are unaware of being linked to everything else.”

We come into this world equipped with a sensual body that is granted a finite life to experience, in magnified form, sensations and feelings of pleasure, pain, love, and hate. Indulgence can be defined as the intensity of attachment that we give to these transitory experiences, which we unconsciously maintain throughout our lives.

If we’ve yet to fulfill our experience of these states, or simply can’t get enough of them, our indulgence is tenacious. Mastery of these sensations and feelings could be defined as sobriety, a readiness to let go and deepen exploration, beyond the limits of indulgence.

Human exploration inevitably fixates on excess. The greater the excess, the more powerful the experience. Part of the exploratory process drives us to extremes to discover the boundaries of the human form. This drive to push, even beyond those boundaries, is often fatal, yet at the same time it is at the heart of our evolutionary imperative.

Even now, as the Earth dramatically reveals its limits to our human indulgence, humanity insists upon more, more, more. We can see the fatality of this attitude on the very near horizon, yet indulgence still dominates. At the same time, this indulgence is delivering us to our evolutionary destiny: the discovery of our energetic core.

We are being guided to discover our energetic selves out of survival necessity. At an energetic level, we are collaborative beings, all parts of the same whole. Survival requires a unity and an equanimity of our species that puts the needs of our wholeness over the specialness of our separateness. At present, despite the disintegrative signs that abound everywhere, we are still able to indulge in the excess of our specialness.

However, intuitively and viscerally, we know that our current level of overindulgence is unsustainable. This knowing is constantly under attack by the heightened concerns of everyday life, that which hypnotically showers upon us daily.

Our propensity to seek refuge in the worry of self-reflection—that is, in perseverating about our personal standing—keeps at bay the full impact of the direct knowing of our energetic selves. If we can luxuriate in the luxury of pure reason the full truth isn’t necessary, or so we surmise.

Nonetheless, we are precipitously close to abruptly awakening to our energetic selves, as the Earth, that great sentient being, moves closer to shutting down our viral overindulgence. The introduction of the interconnected energetic self is critical to survival after the fall of our current overindulgence.

Individuals can begin to experience their energetic selves through connection to their dreaming selves. The practice of not doings promotes the inner silence that allows for encounter with the energetic self.

Specifically, one can introduce the not doing of reversing one’s dependence on their dominant side, inviting their non-dominant side to take part in daily life. The intent behind such controlled folly is to cross the bridge to one’s energetic side and more fully experience the contributions of both sides of the self, beyond human indulgence.

Another simple gem, from the shaman healer’s world, to connect with one’s energetic self, concerns the use of water. Pour a glass of water. Then vigorously rub your hands together until they become hot. Next, place your hands upon the glass and allow the heat to transfer to the water. At this time, state your intent, then drink the glass of water. Be careful, however, to not overindulge this drinking practice! Once at night and once in the morning is all that is recommended. Then, see what happens.

Non-dominantly typing,

Chuck

Quote from: The Power of Silence, Carlos Castaneda, p.103.

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Chuck’s Place: We Are What We Say We Are

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What we wish for is right there, beyond the boundaries we surround ourselves with…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

To make room for the new, we must clear out the old. The challenge, in letting go, is the depth of our attachment to the familiar. The identity we have forged secures us within the safety of the known.

The known identity is often heavily laden with negative and limiting beliefs, which become the boundaries of the self. To find the self in new ways, we must venture beyond the comfort of the chrysalis that has provided stability, darting past the limitations it has imposed upon the unfolding of our fuller selves.

The internal dialogue, specifically, the words we say to ourselves and others, powerfully determines the self we know. St. John begins his Gospel: “en arche en o logos” (in the beginning was the word). And that spoken word became the flesh. Or, as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico put it: words are directly linked to intent, the key to manifestation. As Descartes put it, “I think therefore I am.”

Norman Vincent Peale highlighted The Power of Positive Thinking, as a practice to suspend the power of judging words to forestall the unfolding self. We are all programmable beings, much like the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of Siri and Alexa.

Our subconscious awaits commands in the form of the words we tell it we are. Those words manifest in the behavioral patterns, moods, and beliefs that we program ourselves to automatically enact. Change the words, change the mood and the outlook.

Would, of course, that change were so simple. And yet, in many ways it is that simple. Observe the power of a charismatic leader whose words galvanize the mood of the world. This is the action of mass hypnosis, and, at some level, we are all hypnotic subjects. Why not give ourselves positive, supportive, and encouraging messages?

Always forgive the self, for everything and anything. Rather than bemoan one’s weaknesses and limitations, validate the willingness to face the full truth, and move forward unburdened with negativity.

Observe and interrupt automatic conclusions about one’s abilities, such as, “I am a terrible writer.” Reframe it with, “I am a being learning to write.”

Treat words as power objects capable of casting spells. Cast only positive spells upon the self.

Try, “I am a being open to the magic and mystery of life.”

Or, “I am a caring being open to sharing myself with a compatible other.”

Beyond the words that we consciously state are experiences we may store unconsciously, beyond our awareness, that hold their own powerful words of influence. These are made known to us through the triggers of everyday life that suddenly transport us to dark, frozen places.

To neutralize the spells these triggers cast, we must take the journey of recapitulation. In recapitulation we relive and fully retrieve our lost selves, as we open to full acceptance of every aspect of life lived. With acceptance comes love. With love comes the energy to open to new life, with all our vulnerabilities.

Finding self is the journey of a lifetime. Carefully chosen, supportive words and ongoing recapitulation are the tools to achieve this wholeness of self. Exercise these tools! See what happens!

Warm words,

Chuck