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Chuck’s Place: Hillary As Hermaphrodite

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The hermaphrodite is a being that overtly embodies both male and female characteristics. The name itself is the merger of the male god Hermes with the goddess Aphrodite. In ancient alchemy, the hermaphrodite symbolized an important stage in the merger of chemical products leading to the ultimate goal of the alchemical opus, the creation of gold or a diamond.

Masculine & Feminine together... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Masculine & Feminine together…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

The significant achievement of the hermaphroditic stage during the alchemical process was the incorporation of opposing elements into a single entity. This incorporation did not ensure a fruitful union of these elements, called the conjunctio, however, it did set the stage for this possibility by ensuring that all the opposing or warring elements were present to undertake that unifying process.

At present, America, indeed the entire world, is sharply divided into opposing, warring factions. The only hope for future progress, even saving the world, may be predicated on an hermaphroditic container that can set the stage for a unified whole.

Also at present, Donald Trump has embodied an exaggerated defiant masculine energy that relegates the feminine to a youthful sex object. Beneath the surface, however, he is driven by a Dionysian energy that promises renewal through the destruction of the gridlocked established order. His appeal touches those who identify with the beleaguered masculine, as well as with those excited by the spark of spontaneity he offers and the change it promises. Mr. Trump expresses no interest in integrated wholeness. He boldly extolls the one-sided solution of masculine power, control, and domination. Mr. Trump does not contain all the elements of the hermaphroditic symbol; he represents one exaggerated side only.

Hillary Clinton has been dubbed the establishment politician, identified with an untrustworthy old order that needs major revamping. Of course, this characterization is highly suspect and lacking of many facts. However, the public has been highly conditioned to view her through this filter.

Though far from perfect, Mrs. Clinton does present as a mature, steady person who embodies the caring side of the feminine and the clear thinking side of the masculine. With respect to the feminine, Hillary does not present as a mere sexual object but rather as a wise and stately, beautifully aging crone. I assign her the symbol of the hermaphrodite for her ability to incorporate both the mature yet opposing elements of the masculine and the feminine, the unity of which has the promise of leading toward a reconciling process for America and the entire world.

The other night, the collective unconscious sent me a dream to weigh into this process. I was in a YMCA gym. In one corner of the room, a woman’s basketball hoop was centered on one wall. On the other wall a men’s hoop needed to be put up, centered, and anchored. The set up made no sense. If the men and women played at the same time they would occupy the same space, clashing into each other. It became my job to put up the men’s backboard and hoop. I lifted it up and walked up a ladder to set it on the wall. As I got to the top of the ladder I realized that the backboard was wobbly and unstable. I took a hammer to pull out a flimsy nail, thinking I would set a screw in its place, when the entire thing suddenly fell. Immediately, the scene shifted. Now I was on the roof of a ten-story apartment building. A young teenaged girl was sitting on the ledge of the building. As the backboard fell it turned into a flat TV screen, hitting the girl. Both the girl and the TV screen plunged to the ground, ten stories below. I woke with a start.

Cornered! -Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Cornered!
-Photo by Chuck Ketchel

The salient feature of my dream is its “cornered” setting. First, there is no escape; the masculine and feminine basketball players cannot escape each other. They must contend with each other as they occupy the same space. Secondly, the fact that the masculine and feminine occupy the same space points to the alchemical hermaphroditic container of both masculine and feminine features in one being.

The central problem in the dream is the masculine backboard; it suffers a weakness and ultimately is raised way too high—ten stories—clearly a very unbalanced state of inflation that must be brought down to earth. Here we see Trump’s bombastic inflation, symbolizing the high and mighty abuse of masculine power. This inflation is then characterized as a projection—the TV screen—and a teenaged girl, what the exaggerated masculine, in its high and mighty state, reduces the feminine to, a sex object. The death of the young girl and that projection point to the need to destroy that projection, allowing for the mature feminine to assume its rightful place. There was, in my dream, after all, nothing wrong with the sturdy women’s backboard!

The backboard and hoop are the circle and square of the mandala, the ancient symbol of wholeness that points the way to individuation. The appearance of this symbol and the action connected with it—a repair that destroys an immature feminine projection and brings the exaggerated masculine down to earth from its highly inflated state—are the necessary actions to create the hermaphroditic condition of equally containing these opposing forces in one being, i.e., in one space, the shared basketball court.

Of course, this containment is not the final resolution. One can imagine that once the hoops are properly mounted according to my dream—in the corner—that the masculine and feminine players will have to find their appropriate places and relations with each other to reach a harmonious solution to their competing needs in order to play the game in that cornered situation. This indeed will be Hillary’s task should she be elected. The Dionysian energy demanding genuine change that Trump has tapped into, that is indeed needed, must be incorporated with the balanced steadiness of her mature mind. This will be an evolving process should it come to pass.

On the other hand, Trump’s one-sided passion is such a throwback to the ethnic cleansing of Hitler’s regime, a volatility that the world can hardly afford in our fragile times. The challenge to world survival requires world unification. Only leadership that begins with hermaphroditic inclusiveness has the potential to evolve into a much-needed union of masculine and feminine. May the right being be elected.

Reconciling,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Kundalini Unhinged

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Like a coiled serpent...
Like a coiled serpent…

Kundalini is the Hindu name for the primal energy that fuels creation. In the human being, the microcosm of the macrocosm of all creation, kundalini is said to lie dormant, a coiled snake at the base of the human spine awaiting activation at times of growth.

Kundalini awakens, becomes aroused, and begins its upward climb through various chakras, energy centers located along the spinal column, until it ultimately merges with its male counterpart, Shiva, at the crown of the head. Yes, kundalini, in the form of the feminine Shakti, is the divine energy that fuels and causes to unfold the Self, that which we truly are.

Kundalini energy is not specific to Hindus and Yoga traditions. Mystics of all faiths, who have experienced transcendent encounters in visions and meetings with God, have been struck by the illumined energy of kundalini. In psychology, kundalini would be the equivalent of psychic energy, what Freud first identified as libido, as it innervated the sexual center or chakra in its awakening of the physical body to its primal sexual energy.

The Taoist would know kundalini through what is termed chi, an experience of which every seasoned martial artist can attest. In the realm of everyday life, somatic ailments in the form of anxiety or headaches, for example, aside from their physiological roots, may indeed be the consequences of an awakening kundalini, pushing for developmental unfolding with great urgency.

Even drug addiction can be understood in kundalini’s energetic terms. Methamphetamine activates a compulsion to experience the expansive union of Shakti and Shiva in godly omnipotence. The heroin addict experiences the equally blissful state of oneness of union with Shiva in a blissfully dormant state, like a fetus enveloped in the womb, in the sweet harmony of sleep prior to kundalini’s violent awakening at the time of labor. Hallucinogens are a crapshoot as they stir kundalini to usurp the ego’s control and take one on an unhinged trip with kundalini within or without the body.

The Hindus have defined our current time on earth as the age of Kali Yuga, which essentially represents a Dark Age with the degeneration of human civilization. Carl Jung in the 1930s agreed with this characterization of our time, which he likened to the time of the fall of the Roman Empire.

The events we now witness around us on the world stage reflect this disintegration, as reverberations in the macrocosm of the destructive side of Shakti unleash kundalini throughout the world to prepare the way for a new era. Whereas an individual may be confronted with powerful kundalini energy when it is time to grow up, kundalini can also take the form of a powerful recapitulation experience that rocks the body and psyche as it insists upon burning through the limitations of old trauma.

On the world stage, Trump is definitely controlled by an activated kundalini energy. This is partly the power of his seductive draw. He embodies the energy of destructive change, and everyone feels the desire to break through the gridlock of the current world order.

I have often spoken of ISIS as also being an unconscious agent of the destructive side of the Goddess Isis, who, like Shakti with her kundalini energy, seeks to level the current world order that threatens her planet Earth. The problem here is that kundalini,  lacking the companion of awake human consciousness to safely guide its path of change, will wreak major destruction to the planet. In the nomenclature of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico we are being asked to engage our intent to beckon positive change.

Just as an individual who takes drugs risks death or psychosis with an unhinged encounter with kundalini, so our collective human race also risks serious destruction if we further kundalini’s destructive path by electing madness. As I have previously stated, Hitler was not elected, Hitler seized power. Evolution insists now that we consciously choose our leader, who is entrusted to safely guide us and this kundalini energy of change through the chakras of our current world reality.

Just as a student of yoga is taught to safely guide kundalini through the chakras of the body with the appropriate deliberate guidance of a master, or risk destruction through overzealous action, so may we be wise in our choice of a leader to soberly channel kundalini through a newly formed world backbone. If we miss that opportunity, we will indeed be consciously signing up for the world rollercoaster of kundalini’s unhinging!

In calm meditation,

Chuck

 

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Inflated Tire

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Got enough air? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Got enough air?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If the tires are inflated, filled with air, the vehicle is free to move. Without air there is no movement, without air there is no human life. Air fills our lungs in the region of the heart. With this influx of air the heart is filled with the spirit of the heavens, that which comes from above. This is in contrast to the fiery, watery, earthy region below the diaphragm, in the abdominal cavity, the region of digestion and earthy excretion.

The region of the heart is where the rising sun is lifted into the heavenly sphere, as true light is shown upon all that is. In its heavenly rise the sun reveals the truth and invites us to live in its purity. With this we are lifted beyond our earthy murkiness and introduced to our spirit self. Our spirit self is ethereal. Though it operates within the body, it participates with the gods in infinity. Each breath of air is the commingling of body and spirit.

This communion of ethereal knowing and bodily existence lifts one beyond the bodily constraints with its rootedness in space, time, and gravity. Identification with the spirit self, dissociated from the physical, is the psychological condition of overinflation.

In a state of overinflation one is likely to forget to eat, or to eat so rapidly that digestion is compromised. Instead, one turns to the nourishment of a spirited idea, which now fuels life. A creative project might seize one, as sleep and food are completely suspended, as the spirit relentlessly commandeers the body with its cause. This ungrounded mania, though it may produce a spiritual masterpiece, might eventuate in physical collapse, as the depleted body eventually claims its needed rest.

The key with our spirit self is for it to remain associated and in balance with its bodily partner, rather than dissociated and manic. An automobile is like the body proper. With its properly inflated spirit tires it flows smoothly as it navigates life. The I Ching depicts this as the condition of peace, Hexagram #11, where earth rests upon heaven, their influences in harmonious union.

In energetic terms, this is the body self assuming its position as subordinate to its spirit self. In psychological terms, this is the ego self aligning itself with the intent of its spirit self. To be sure, the ego, for its part, is charged with determining the legitimacy of its own spirit’s intent. Too often the ego is vulnerable to “false gods” catering to its own ambitions, where it gets duped into flying in hot air balloons or taking wax-winged flights of fancy.

Gotta watch those flights of fancy! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Gotta watch those flights of fancy!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

When the true self speaks from the heart center there is clarity and calmed emotion. This is ego and spirit in alignment. To be sure, a highly emotional spirit is not speaking from the heart, and is one that should be carefully explored before it is allowed to drive the automobile of self.

The voice of the true self simply speaks the truth. Its spirit is lifted above the compulsions of the wheel of life that constantly reconstruct “Groundhog Day” and instead calmly points out the true way forward.

Breathing,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Crossing The River

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The crossing... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Crossing in sight…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Crossing the river is a powerful symbol of change. To leave solid ground, to traverse a powerful current of liquid energy, to consolidate oneself on new uncharted ground, succinctly illustrates the phases of change.

So compelling is this image that the I Ching’s closing hexagram, #64, Before Completion, that marks the end and the beginning, is pictured as a fox crossing a river. In Greek mythology, securing the ferryman to cross the river Styx is the journey into Hades, land of the dead. Even the sophisticated modern texter might notice a ping in the pit of the abdomen as they prepare to drive across the bridge of a mighty river. The ping in the abdomen is the body’s archetypal recognition of the tremendum that crossing the great abyss represents.

Perhaps the great change we must face is as simple as closing our eyes and saying good night to the world. What guarantee do we have that the sun will rise or that we will open our eyes to the light of tomorrow as we drift and fall into the cliffhanger of dreams? What monsters, terrorists, sirens, and entities will we encounter in the underwater current of dream sleep? Will we safely rejuvenate and consolidate on firm ground tomorrow, or will our thoughts interrupt our smooth passage into a new day?

Perhaps our solid ground is the quiet calm of our aloneness. The sudden intrusion of a ring or a ding sparks fear in the throat, our sanctuary lost as we are thrown into the river of needs and expectations of another. Can we find our way to new ground that includes both self and other?

To leave the security of our car, wade across the parking lot, and enter the vast ocean of a store, with its sea of humanity, may evoke a furor of dissolution of self. In fact, every simple action of the day, from waking, interacting, leaving, working, eating, and returning, poses challenges for the smallness of self to navigate the bigness of everything.

In days of old, the rituals of the great religions tapped into the tried and true archetypal bridges of our deep nature to facilitate our crossings from one phase of life to another; crossings from childhood to adulthood, solitariness to relationship, life to death. These rituals literally transformed one into a new sense of self, confident to take on a new ground in life. These rituals bathed the ego in the deep wellspring of unconscious resource that reshaped the conscious self.

In our time, these rituals have largely petrified through the ascendence of rationality and the failure of religion to authentically provide a numinous crossing experience. Today, the individual must turn to the dream, which still offers the ritual crossings to new life. Conscious participation in dreaming can access those transformative crossings. Often the dream uses the river or the ocean, with all kinds of helpers and challenges, to facilitate the necessary changes to successfully effect a safe crossing.

Use of an oracle, such as the I Ching, can offer the guidance of a dream. In Hexagram #64, Before Completion, it offers the following guidance for making the crossing:

  1. Don’t advance too rapidly just to get it over with—you may not be ready, it might not be the right time.
  2. Be patient. Develop the necessary strength—the vehicle for the crossing. Don’t lose sight of the goal.
  3. Sometimes it’s time to cross but you’re not ready, you lack the requisite strength. It is necessary to get help. Be humble. Ask.
  4. You must battle the forces of inertia, regression, avoidance and doubt. Be resolved. Respect the power of the dissenters. Lay the foundation for mastery by consolidating intent.
  5. Once the crossing has been effected, keep exuberance in proper measure. Intemperance can drown all one has worked for.

These cautions steer the ego to be in the right relation with the deeper self that then provides its transformative energies to transport the ego solidly and happily across the river to new fertile ground. Remain awake, poised, intent,  patient, and calm. Know that the way will be shown. Perhaps the sea will part, perhaps the right floating log will appear. Simply know that you will cross.

Crossing,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The New Religion

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C. G. Jung suggested that a living religion for the future would accent the embodiment by all humans of their divine nature. He anticipated that the Christian projections of a redeemer, a God/man “out there” who carries the weight of the human shadow would evolve into an internalized divinity reckoning with its own humanness.

Sunrise reflection of the divine within... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Sunrise reflection of the divine within…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In shamanic terms, this would represent the awakening of the energy body to live alongside the human body. Experientially, this is the appreciation and cultivation of the energy body in dreaming, as well as in waking life. Presently, the energy body is dominated by the mental plane with its centralized leitmotif of reason. The mental plane is actually part of the energy body, though our physical focus and reason would have us locate it only in the brain and central nervous system. However, there are other ideas on the matter.

A preponderance of documented traumatic out-of-body experiences—remote viewing of one’s body or another’s body on the other side of the room or the other side of the world—clearly demonstrate that the mind operates independently from the physical body.

The Hindus have long pointed out that the outermost shell of the energy body is the mental body. When we leave our body for good, at physical death, we leave as mental beings, as consciousness. This mental spirit, as we experience it in everyday life, is monopolized by our ego as it uses its powers to uphold and reinforce the validity of the solid physical world we live in for the duration of our physical lives. Only that which is solid is real, the ego says.

However, if we willingly or unwillingly undergo the crucifixion of that fixated hold on the solid world and move from ego consciousness to energy consciousness, the world softens. And as the world softens we move into the greater ability of our energy body to broaden our knowledge of life beyond the ego’s familiar boundaries. As we move into an enhanced energy body perspective, what the shamans call a shift in the assemblage point, all that once bound us, like our petty resentments and our fears, melt away as we move into a state of transcendent awe. We simply can’t stay attached to a personal solid world once we’ve experienced its total lack of solidity; we leave that nailed to the cross as we experience a far more interconnected world of energy.

This dissolving of solidity allows for the erasing of personal history, the state of detachment that the shamans describe as being one of the most important aspects of an evolutionary life. It’s not unfeeling detachment; it’s utter love for everything, all beings equal. Whereas once, in solid form, we held so tightly to our personal love, our personal family, our personal tribe, we are now totally detached and yet totally loving of all that is. This detachment is not a sacrifice of those we love, but an evaporation of the boundaries of our separate love, for all, we discover, is love.

And we can continue to walk upon the earth calmly owning our dual nature: as spirit/energy beings living in, in relation with, a physical body that temporarily houses this spirit self. We can indeed continue to fulfill all the human roles we have been in, but we must now also learn greater cohesion when in our spirit state, which gives us the fluidity to maintain our calmness as we experience the expanded awe of our interconnectedness and living oneness with all that is.

We can learn to playfully flit between the two awarenesses, solid and energy, but it’s really all preparation for the moment when the exclusive personal ego accepts its final crucifixion, when the relativity of personal human life is reconciled with the greater expanded view, and the energy body is finally set to more fully explore beyond the limits of space and time.

Jung’s suggestion as to where religion might find itself in the future is well prepared. Perhaps Eastern religions, shamanic practices, and modern science may eventually find their rightful places in redeeming the God/human schism of our time.

Prayerfully,

Chuck