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Chuck’s Place: It’s Time for Ego Refinement

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Energy in action…
– Detail of Artwork by Jan Ketchel

We live in the most stupendous of times for ego development. From the moment we awaken each day we are barraged with outer world events, bodily needs, and an internal dialog which all clamor for our attention. Attention is where we employ our vital energy. Ego must decide in rapid succession how it will spend this vital energy.

Will our decisions enhance or deplete our energetic reserves? Will our decisions be in alignment with the state of our body? Will our decisions channel the deeper calling of our spirit? These are examples of the myriad of decisions the ego must make in our hyper, fast-paced, rapidly shifting modern world.

Ego has gotten a bad rap. This is largely because it is associated with enhancing one’s self-importance and outer-world possessions to the detriment of others, as well as to the detriment of the spirit. Indeed, ego can decide to employ the vital energy of the body and the spiritual self to its own aggrandizement.

In fact, perhaps the most exaggerated example of this attitude confronts us daily in the governance currently in power of our world. We all must face the real possibility of nuclear holocaust in the hands of such leadership, but here also lies the very heart of opportunity for the moment we live in.

We must all choose whether to spend our energy worrying about this fact, and this is an ego decision, or not. True, we must acknowledge the threat to our survival, the existential anxiety of pending destruction and disintegration, for not to do so would be to dissociate from our animal knowing of the real and present danger to our existence.

However, as the shamans discovered long ago, death is our greatest advisor. Knowing that we are beings who are going to die is our greatest support to stay awake and take full advantage of the opportunities of life in this dimension. The ego must decide what to do with this information.

The ego can employ the classic defense of denial and go about daily life as if nothing is different, all is predictable and unfolding as it should. Modern events, however, are really rattling this defense.

The ego could become concretely opportunistic, gobbling up power and wealth to enjoy its time here in material abundance, paying little heed to the side effects of its choices. Nature is dramatically confronting this attitude right now.

The ego might alternatively choose to face reality and attend to the impact of its animal knowing on its central nervous system through a variety of meditative and breathing practices.

Further, ego might turn its attention inward to the subtler energies of its spirit. These are the energies of manifestation, these are the energies of intent. These are the energetic pathways open to the evolving human. We all may glimpse them in the magical occurrences that frequently follow shortly after the loss of a loved one when, in heightened awareness, we are opened to the energetic possibilities of quantum connection.

Ego turning its attention materially toward outer control and accumulation are Old World technologies. It is obvious that from an evolutionary standpoint they are not favored. Don’t be fooled by the current last stand of the worst of these practices, they need to have their last dance.

We are being prompted now to discover life at a deeper energetic level. This entails tuning into the subtle energies of synchronicity and serendipity where the ego is presented with feedback and energetic possibilities that can guide life into truly sustainable evolutionary directions.

These are the amazing opportunities for ego refinement in our current volatile times. We are evolving into a  New World of energy as well as a world of concrete objects, a far more expansive world, with a wise ego at the helm.

In refinement,

Chuck

A blog by Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Light Side of the Dark Side

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Light emerging from its soulful partner…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

No dispute that the dark side is ascendant now. Bringing light into the darkness is the spark of creation. Darkness and light are the eternal partners of creation and new life.

Genetically I hail mainly from drinking Irish stock. My violent alcoholic father knocked out my mother’s teeth while I shivered in her womb. Darkness.

By the time I was two my mother managed to divorce us from this violence, delivering us to my new Russian Jewish musician father, eighteen years her senior. My Jewish father interrupted my genetic predisposition and unfolding by providing stability, predictability and an example of well-grounded rationality. Light.

I learned to honor Mother, the most venerated in both Russian and Jewish tradition. By age sixteen I had to free myself from the containment of this maternal dominance, the darkness of the womb of the mother complex. Darkness.

In my senior year of high school I began my mentorship with Dr. Efren Ramirez, the Puerto Rican psychiatrist who became my spiritual father. Efren was ultimately to deliver me to Carlos Castaneda, Carl Jung and the I Ching—the fathers who have subsequently guided me through life. Light.

Efren was Puerto Rico’s shining star in the early 1960’s. He had solved the opioid crisis in his native soil through his innovation—Existential Confrontation and the Therapeutic Community. John Lindsay, New York City’s bright light mayor, seduced Efren away from Puerto Rico to tackle heroin addiction in NYC. Light.

Though drawn to the opportunity, Efren was heartbroken to leave his beloved Puerto Rico. His father-in-law had been governor of Puerto Rico and Efren lamented frequently the loss of native culture and autonomy of the island under the shadow of American possession. Efren proposed a “free association” status for Puerto Rico in relation to America, but it never came to pass. In truth, Puerto Rico became a welfare state with a debt to the mainland that it could never repay. Darkness.

Fast forward to today. Devastated by Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico remains still largely flooded and without electricity. President Trump has threatened to abandon the territory’s relief, chiding Puerto Ricans for their debt. Where is the light in this darkness?

Elon Musk proposed that he could power the entire Island with solar  electricity. The current Puerto Rican governor’s response was, “let’s talk.” Perhaps Puerto Rico will be lighted with the true energy of the future. Perhaps Puerto Rico will take Trump up on his offer to be abandoned, galvanizing their own energy and spirit, ultimately leading to the realization of Efren’s dream of independent status. Light.

These are the seeds, long buried in the shadows, that might sprout from the light side of the dark side of Puerto Rico’s current crisis. Like night turned into day,  all creation springs from the light emerging from its soulful partner, the dark.

Light and Dark,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Sex & The Uninitiated Male

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Why would men with such material wealth and power need to abuse that power for sexual contact with a woman? In fact, why would any man need to abuse his power to have a sexual experience with a woman?

True union…

Abuse of power is aggression. If a man exercises aggression to gain access to a woman, that man must, on some level, be terrified of woman. In his eyes, woman wields some power over him, which he must subdue to feel safe enough to engage with her.

It must also be stressed that “sex” under these circumstances has nothing to do with union, true joining with another person. Though the man may indeed gain access to his victim’s body, his sexual gratification remains purely narcissistic, locked within himself. Regardless of his victim’s physical reaction to his intrusion, there is no actual meeting in such an encounter. The man exits this kind of encounter still a prisoner to his own terror of woman.

All human beings issue forth into life as infants from the most powerful being on Earth: Mother! She who gives, nurtures and can even take life. The terror and total dependency upon this powerful Mother Goddess may recede into the unconscious as a man ages and develops in autonomy, but the power of this female imprint persists and is projected onto all women, the fascinating but terrifying, dangerous other. Even nonaggressive males deal with this terror.

Male initiation rituals, puberty rites of the ancients, resolved this dilemma for all males in a community by breaking the initiate’s dependence upon Mother through deliverance to the power of true adult standing within the community. From this position a man could stand on equal, albeit different footing from woman, and a genuine meeting with woman could happen devoid of violence.

Our modern world has rationalized itself beyond the need for initiation rites. Today these are largely held in the sacred journeys of therapy where the patient-initiate must slay the dragon of his Mother Complex to finally be able to see woman as equal partner.

What modern powerful men such as Weinstein, Cosby, and even Trump with his “pussy grabbing” reveal is that the acquisition of economic and material power in no way initiates a male into true adult manhood. Power might position a man to touch a woman as he pleases, but he’ll never touch a woman’s  soul or experience a genuine union with her unless he achieves true manhood.

Manhood requires initiation. Initiation requires the defeat of the dependencies and the entitlements of childhood. Modern men must find their way to the initiation chamber on their own, with little or no community support. One modern initiation chamber, the psychotherapist’s office, is ready and waiting to provide the sacred space for the journey to real manhood.

Sex for the uninitiated man is his own narcissistic cell, a world of one. No amount of material acquisition or political muscle will release him from this solitary confinement. Only through taking the journey to slay his inner dragons may he be freed to enter the world and truly and safely be with a woman in real union.

Chuck

A special Sunday blog by Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R

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Chuck’s Place: Video Poker

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About a month ago I was introduced to a book entitled Heaven is for Healing by Joseph Gallenberger, a clinical psychologist and trainer at The Monroe Institute. The book details his healing process, including OBEs and channelings, following the death of his brother, Peter, who committed suicide in Las Vegas in 1991.

Shadowland anyone?

Very familiar with the OBE work of pioneer out-of-body explorer Robert Monroe, founder of The Monroe Institute, and having used Hemi-sync products from the Institute for many years, I had nonetheless never come across Joseph Gallenberger.

I purchased his book and was fascinated by his experiences, which paralleled many of my own, particularly his OBE explorations and the channelings he’d received, messages delivered in a language style very similar to those Jan receives from Jeanne.

Jan became interested in him too and discovered that he’d written another book, Inner Vegas, where he describes using psychic abilities to win big in Las Vegas, often playing video poker. Jan’s inner imp bought that book, which set the stage for a reconsideration of our basic values and became the basis for a whole new adventure.

I’ve never allowed myself to invest in the Stock Market, despite a pretty keen intuition of where money can be made, because to do so would have forced me to be indifferent to the impact that demanding high profits has upon the earth. I also never wanted to have my attention monopolized by constant tracking of world events and their impact on the markets.

The notion, however, of video poker, where you test your skill against a machine, seems like a cleaner opportunity to open to abundance. Interesting proposition: you invest your skill and money; you might be very successful, you might lose, fair and square. No one is harmed or tricked in your attempt to win big!

A gambling experience is one I shunned all my life as well. It seemed like a foolish waste of money. However, after reading Joseph Gallenberger, plans quickly germinated to go to a casino to try our skills, something neither of us had ever done before.

Suddenly, Stephen Paddock, a multimillionaire, highly successful at video poker, massacred 58 people and injured hundreds of others from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas. No motive has been ascertained.

On the surface his life circumstances, at age 64, would appear to be the flowering of the American Dream: successful in business, multimillionaire, freed to fully enjoy the luxury and pleasures of gambling at video poker, well known and well attended to in the top casinos.

How were Jan and I to understand the flow of synchronicities appearing in our lives around video poker just as we were about to set off on an adventure into casino land? Clearly this man, Stephen Paddock, had fully indulged in the opportunities of amassing abundance in the material plane. Why would he choose to end his life with such horrific carnage?

My speculation, as a psychotherapist, is that he misread an inner call to open up to his spirit. He had spent his whole life concentrated on the material plane to the total neglect of his spirit. I suspect, by way of compensation, that he harbored a psychotic voice that instructed him to kill off his materialistic, fun loving side. From his vantage point high above the casinos he likely projected his materialistic side onto a fun loving concert audience. From this “spirit” vantage point he killed off the material side of many, including himself.

Indeed, to open to the spiritual plane one must be willing to tame the material side of oneself. Unfortunately many suicides have resulted from a misreading of this inner command, which really says “time to kill off obsession with the material,” NOT “time to kill the physical self or others.”

Last week someone sent me an article entitled Jung and the Trumpian Shadow* by Alexander Blum. The gist of this essay pinpoints Trump as embodying America’s projected, disavowed shadow. This shadow part of the self is far more instinctual and conservative, focused on self needs and wants.

The American persona and spiritual ideal of altruistic values, progressive in its inclusiveness of all diversity and care for the deepest needs of the world, is countered by a hidden, self-centered preoccupation and entitlement that feels held back from speaking and living its true mind. Trump singlehandedly is living out this unacknowledged side of the American psyche. The real problem is the conflict of the evolved mind of modernity with its instinctual core. The tragedy in Las Vegas is an expression of the clash of these Titans.

In fact, if we could erase the bizarre behavior of that Sunday night in Las Vegas, many Americans would have seen Stephen Paddock as a shining example of their own unlived shadow side. To the contrary Stephen Paddock emerged as the darkest example of the shadow unleashed, wreaking utter destruction.

The dilemma we all must face is that if we don’t acknowledge, live out, and assume responsibility for our shadow/materialistic side, we will manifest people who will completely act it out for us, abusing with lethal power. On the other hand, we can open up to our deepest earthly impulses and with consciousness (spirit) and responsibility live a whole and fulfilled life.

With full knowledge of this backdrop of world events, Jan and I took it upon ourselves to have a conscious adventure in shadowland. Perhaps the imp will write about it sometime!

Play responsibly,

Chuck

*Read Jung and the Trumpian Shadow by Alexander Blum here

A Blog by Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R

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Chuck’s Place: Nature’s Way

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My body stilled as I stared in heightened awareness at the fish, equally frozen, some twenty feet below the ocean surface. Effortlessly, without thought, I gently sank as my fish awaited my spear, the first I was to shoot, ever, after many weeks of trying.

Immediately following the calm of this numinous encounter I was overtaken by a surge of hunter energy that possessed me to shoot wildly in a feverish effort to add to my bounty. My spear missed every fish.

Frantically I raced to reload my spear, great pressure exerted to reset the spear in the back of my slingshot style gun. This time the spear missed its setting completely and forcefully penetrated the palm of my hand. I blacked out.

Next thing I knew, I opened my eyes to find myself sitting alone on a deserted beach, spear and gun at my side, my injured hand packed in sand. I brushed aside the sand, no bleeding, only the imprint from the back of the spear stigmatized into my palm: a Zia, the Pueblo Indian mandala of the sacred circle and the four directions. The gods had meted out both their punishment and their healing. I had been initiated  into the human hunter clan. My hubris was humbled. I was taught moderation and respect for life.

The Age of Aquarius was ushered in with overwhelming numinous energy. The Beatles, themselves a four-sided mandala, heralded an archetypal influx of spirit energy that put the world into trance and opened human consciousness to infinite possibility. If I put my original Meet the Beatles on the turntable right now I am immediately delivered to that energy; it is sacred shamanic music.

The 60s broke open direct experience of the spiritual dimensions. There were many casualties of excess. As the Modern Age has progressed so has the shattering of limits reached every sphere of existence. Most excessive has been the human population, which treats the world as its oyster, with little concern for balance, health, or the  sanctity of all life on the planet.

Like my mishap in loading my gun our world is now being humbled by nature to temper its greed and disrespect. Nature has delivered its hurricanes, fires and floods with volcanoes abrewing. Nature has taken possession of world leaders, rendering them untethered hot air balloons, catapulting the demise of greedy rule.

The destructive side of Nature also shows up in a human psychosis that results in a mass killing spree. This storm reeks its havoc through human psyche and human hands. Nothing is impervious to nature’s intent for change.

Indeed, Mr. President, it is “pure evil”. Evil, however, will always take charge when the will of the ego has transgressed the laws of nature and thrown the world into untenable imbalance. Are we ready to question why the uninitiated human hunter is allowed to be armed with an arsenal? If we cannot submit to moderation we must suffer the consequences of excess.

How far will nature’s destructive side need to go? When will it deliver its healing balm? Destruction is leading us to the healing. Love that transcends greed is birthing in the Caribbean. Necessity is so great that only true human compassion can ensure survival.

Nature has launched an all-out offensive to shift human consciousness, to bring it to truly embrace moderation or face further destruction. Until we are solidly fixed in this new attitude as a species we can expect the destructive side of nature to continue to unleash its war on our old attitudes of superiority and unbridled greed, like the inflation I experienced as I voraciously sought to possess all the fish in the ocean!

But nature, as I experienced sitting upon the beach, wants us to learn not to perish. Nature nurtures life and nature heals our wounds. It’s Nature’s Way. May we join nature’s healing intent: drop the greed, embrace compassion and accept moderation. Moderation is indeed nature’s intent for our species now. May we find our way there and be healed.

Embracing Nature’s intent,

Chuck