All posts by Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Balance, Restless Dog & Broken Buddha

Leave a comment

Last week I wrote about balance being important during a recapitulation process, but maintaining balance is of course important at all times. By balance I mean everything from keeping the body and mind healthy with good eating, sleeping, exercise, and stimulating mental activity, to living a thoughtful, compassionate, loving, aware existence in the world, as well as finding a spiritual practice that personally resonates and allows for exploration of the inner self.

For me, balance means all of these things and much more. I’m in balance when I have time for creative work and meditation, even if only for a few minutes during especially busy or stressful times. I’m in balance when I cook, delighting in preparing even the simplest meal with fresh ingredients, and being offered the opportunity to share it in the presence of good company. I’m in balance when I take a few minutes to walk the dog or stroll down the road on a sunny afternoon taking in what nature offers. I’m in balance when I’m focused on a task or project. I’m in balance when I do inner work, attending to what arises during the day to puzzle or challenge me. I’m in balance when I write this blog. However, I awoke feeling very out of balance this morning and with absolutely no idea what I would write about today.

The dog was restless all night. We wondered if she was perhaps letting us know that her time here is almost done. She’s old. Her legs are bad. She’s deaf. When she sits outside in the yard the vultures begin to circle overhead. We’ve been noticing this phenomenon for weeks now, their keen senses of smell and sight picking up on the vulnerabilities of an old animal who would be unable, at this stage of life, to survive out in the wild. During the night I heard the coyotes howling several times and I wondered if she heard them too, calling her to the next world, come to accompany her spirit on its next journey. I worried about letting her out during the night, though she insisted, knowing that they were out there on the prowl.

She has a tendency to wander off. Early this morning I let her out for the millionth time since the night began and went into the kitchen to put the coffee on. Most of the time she goes outside and just stands motionless or wanders around marking her territory then heads back to the front door to be let back in, it’s a predictable routine. This time when I went to let her back in, she was nowhere in sight. Pulling on my rubber boots I went outside to look for her, noticing that the night sky with its brilliant spread of gleaming stars was beginning to cloud over. I saw her heading toward the neighbor’s open garage and set off at a jog, hoping to head her off before they discovered me standing between their cars in my pajamas. Before I could catch her she darted inside. Embarrassed, I darted in after her and coming up behind grabbed her by the thick mane around her shoulders, surprising her. She whipped around and stared at me, as if to say, “What the heck!? What are you doing?” Which is what I said to her.

Stubbornly, almost digging her heels in, she reluctantly allowed me to push, drag, and shove her back into the house. A little while later, Chuck had left for the office and she needed to go out again. By this time I was beginning to feel extremely frustrated, more out of balance at each scratch at the door signaling her desire to go out. This time I put a leash on her and took her for a walk. Upon returning to the house she refused to come back inside with me, though it was beginning to rain. I left her sitting outside, her leash looped around the neck of the stone Buddha we have sitting in front of our entryway. That ought to keep her safe, I thought.

Every few minutes I checked on her. Like the Buddha she sat quietly, sedately, the grand dame, the queen surveying her land, seemingly contented. All of a sudden she got up and before I could get to her she had dragged the heavy stone Buddha off the step. It fell, smashing its head into the step below, severing it from the body. The dog stood there, unaware of what had just happened. I grabbed the leash before she could do anymore damage and just stood there looking down at the beloved Buddha, the calm sentinel marking our door for so many years, now broken.

The Buddha has always been a symbol of balance to me, serene and calm, he sits unmoving, nothing bothers him and now he’s lost his head! “What does this mean?” I moaned, absolutely regretting the moment I had decided he was strong enough to keep our big dog from wandering. What does it mean indeed? I placed the head back onto the shoulders, where it now sits quite comfortably again. You would never know it was broken simply by looking at it.

I pondered the meaning of the Buddha losing its head. Suddenly I saw the significance of it: he doesn’t need his head! In other words, the Buddha is not the Buddha because of his head. He is the Buddha because he practiced losing his head, by sitting in stillness, detaching from the foibles of the conjuring mind. The Buddha is the symbol of mindlessness, empty head, having finally achieved ultimate clarity, enlightenment, and freedom from the temptations, frustrations, and restless activities of this world.

I must face my own attachment to this beautiful stone Buddha. Though the Buddha has lost his head I must not weep. I must be as contented as Buddha. Even now, with head severed by restless dog, he sits perfectly still, keeping watch over our front yard, still presenting me with the utter calmness of balance that I seek. Or perhaps now truly symbolizing what it means to maintain balance in life, that no matter what comes along to interrupt the flow of our lives or knock our heads off we must learn to anchor ourselves in the inner peacefulness and joy of just being.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love, good wishes, and balance.
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#723 Facing the Dispersion

Leave a comment

Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
What message of guidance do you offer us now?

This is a time of great culmination and dispersion. Imagine waves at sea, with no sight of land but far from any shore, slapping into each other, rising up in collision and confrontation, and yet there is little to do as a result of this clash but to sink back down into the great wide ocean once again. Such is the time of now, the time of culmination and dispersion, yet what is the deeper meaning?

Beyond returning to the unconscious, the great wide ocean of discontent, all of your experiences are meaningful for the moment, and far beyond as well.

All are challenged to take not only meaning from the events in life but to learn the lessons about the self those events send swirling up into awareness. The deep sea that does tend to the earth and its inhabitants in so many ways does also keep hidden the deeper meanings of life, evolutionary or otherwise.

I do not mean to confuse or speak only in metaphorical or allegorical terms, for I do not intend wasting words. I seek to expand awareness, to prod you, My Dear Readers, awake; to ask you to use your intuition and knowing to guide yourself more steadily through life—so bear with me. Who can you rely on to offer real advice? In truth, you must resort to the self, for only the self knows what lies deep inside you. You must, if you are to evolve, find the means of allowing the self to express, to be expressed and fully known, both inside and outside the self.

This inner process requires a good dose of humility, a large portion of innocence, and the ability—learned, practiced or innate—to trust that you can allow the energy inside you to guide you, as the waves upon the sea, to the point of culmination and dispersion.

It is only through calling up the deeper truths of the self, often by force, that the spreading of them will occur. In forcing the self to face the deeply sunken treasures of truth, long buried or otherwise hidden, the next step in personal growth may have a chance.

That next step is facing the dispersion I speak of. To face this kind of dispersion requires affording the self the deepest respect, first of all. Only with deep respect for the self will you be able to take seriously all that shoots forth and falls around you as your inner and outer waves crash and disperse.

In honesty must your self-respect be guided to acceptance of all that lies floating about on the waters that are your life. You see, you are but nature itself, like the ocean, with things seen on the surface and things hidden below, even to the very bottom and beyond, in the muck that lies far beyond normal reach. You are nature itself and as such you have within you the same forces that nature bears. These include unknown forces that emerge when you least expect them, forces that will shake you awake and ask you to humbly step back, to look at your life in all its broken bits and pieces floating like debris upon the ocean top. These forces ask you to accept that indeed these doings are honestly my own, and then to allow this humble self to accept the responsibility for not just picking up the pieces and putting them away. No, the real process of clean up after a storm is to examine how this storm happened, whether it was conscious or unconscious, and to use those fragments of self to build a new more naturally acceptable self.

All humans are innocent beings at the core. All fear life, as much as they fear death, yet do they too easily elect to pretend that neither is that important. Caught in an alternate reality of sameness, they lose sight of the truth of life. They forget they are the ocean and the moon and stars alike. They forget they are innocent beings with the forces of nature rocking inside them. They quell and soothe this true nature. They pretend it could not possibly exist, that what they experience could not be true. “How could this happen?” they ask. “This could not happen to me!” they cry. “What did I do to deserve this?” they wonder.

In truth, if you look at your life as the ocean itself you may be able to better understand the reflection of self as nature. If you prefer, look to the sky, for it too is like the ocean. One lies above and one below, yet do they offer the same opportunities for growth. They offer the opportunity to look beyond what you see before your frightened eyes. They ask you to pierce the surface of your world and explore what lies beyond.

My advice for you, My Dear Ones, is to continue piercing your own world. Do not accept it simply because it presents itself in one form or image. Look at your life and remind yourself that though this is my life at this moment, it is but the surface that I must break through. I must use the forces of nature inside me to explore my inner world for guidance but also for direction.

One must be ready to undertake the shattered bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam that float upon the ocean of life as indeed that which is laid before the self to examine. This is indeed a time of energetic self-examination. If you take a moment to study the self you may find that your culmination has already occurred. It may have happened years ago when you least expected it and since then you have been trying to put the pieces together again, in the same way, attempting to re-form an old image. However, that is not possible. The only thing to do now is to accept that a new world, a new self is called for. A new self must be prepared now.

A new life must be created from the dispersed self. But be sure to keep in mind also that this is the opportunity you have waited for, the moment of decision you have longed for. Do not miss it this time. Do yourself the honor of doing it differently!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Fondly and innocently offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Balance

Leave a comment

Maintaining balance may be the most important part of undertaking a recapitulation process. Entering into the unknown self or unknown realities is a very serious matter and should never be taken lightly. When I was very near the end of my recapitulation I had some frightening experiences that nearly freaked me out. Though I clearly understood that I had entered an alternate reality and that some evil entity was making a last ditch effort to recapture the energy that I had worked so hard to regain, it was not until I sat with Chuck at one of our regularly scheduled shamanic sessions that I was able to calm down and return to a sense of normality. Chuck calmly and softly said: “Don’t worry, Jan, the shamans have an explanation for everything you’ve been experiencing.” That alone was enough to calm me down and bring me back to reality, to tuck my fears away as we went on to explore in greater detail just what had happened and why.

In many of his books, Carlos Castaneda writes of don Juan being the sobering factor in many of his adventures into inner silence. Specifically, on pages 197-199 in The Active Side of Infinity he relates an experience he had with don Juan of going into inner silence and ending up walking in the Sonoran desert. He said that he could not speak during these adventures, that only don Juan, whose grave voice guided him when necessary, could talk. At the end of the experience, he writes the following:

Suddenly, I felt don Juan’s arm hooking my right arm and pulling me from the boulder. He said that it was time to go. The next moment, I was in his house again, in central Mexico, more bewildered than ever.

“Today, you found inorganic awareness, and then you saw it as it really is,” he said. “Energy is the irreducible residue of everything. As far as we are concerned, to see energy directly is the bottom line for a human being. Perhaps there are other things beyond that, but they are not available to us.”

Don Juan asserted all this over and over, and every time he said it, his words seemed to solidify me more and more, to help me return to my normal state. [End of quote.]

This captures many of my own experiences when working with Chuck during my recapitulation process. Over and over again he would bring me back to solidity, to balance in this reality with sharp calls to return to now, to the present moment, followed by sobering though at the time I thought rather “otherworldly” explanations of the experiences I was having.

Balance requires awareness. In the beginning of recapitulating it may be exceedingly productive and even crucial to have a seasoned guide, for it is very easy to get drawn into fear by foreign energy and get lost in the dramas of old memories, old situations, and old behaviors. It is also possible to get lost in other worlds, which it may take weeks to extricate oneself from. I had all of these kinds of experiences and many others during the three years when I did the bulk of my recapitulation. However, every time I had an experience and returned to balance in this reality, often grounded by Chuck’s pragmatic discussions of how the seers of ancient Mexico understood the universe, I gained and retained new awareness that I then utilized in further explorations.

Often I visualized balance as straddling a river, the river being this reality, the present, and either side of it, where my feet were planted, being my experiences. One foot was firmly planted in the past as I recapitulated and relived experiences from my entire life. The other foot was planted in a new world of awareness as I gained an understanding and perception that had previously been rejected and denied because of my need to control my world and be safe. Chuck seamlessly entered all three of those worlds with me, guiding me to truthfully observe my experiences in whatever reality I was in at the time, but then drawing me back into balance, sometimes quite forcefully as don Juan did Carlos, asking me to deeply study and bring into cohesion all three realities.

During my recapitulation I also learned that finding balance meant forging a connection to spirit, to the heart-centered inner guide. If I found myself in an unfamiliar world while recapitulating, in an alternate universe for instance, and could not figure out what I was supposed to do and was not able to talk to Chuck about it, I learned to rely on what my heart said was the right thing to do. This became a steady and reliable source of guidance during many uncomfortable and strange encounters. As I learned what my own energy felt like, absent of negative outside energy and old embedded energy planted in me by others and by life’s experiences, I was more quickly able to return to awareness and inner truth. The more I connected to my own inner spirit, the more anchored and aware I became, gaining not only increased self-confidence, but also a new sense of personal power.

It became increasingly easier to return to relying on the self with the more experiences I recapitulated. As old untruths gave way to previously hidden truths the reason for taking a recapitulation journey clearly revealed itself as the only way I was ever going to really change. I learned that my personal experiences belonged to me alone, for reasons that were meant for me to grow from, and even though others may have been involved it was up to me to take responsibility for dissecting from them my own life’s lessons.

Staying in balance is not only necessary during the process of recapitulation but is crucial to living a life of awareness. Without balance our lives may become scattered, stressed, unfocused, and we may even succumb to old habits and behaviors. In a dream last night I was shown how my personal energy is directly connected to remaining in balance. In this dream I had my hand on a square motherboard, slightly larger than my hand, of luminous energy connections. This motherboard was centered on a larger square, creating a mandala, held in place in the center of the back by a single metal spring soldered to the larger square, so that it was quite wobbly and shook when even lightly touched. When my hand was perfectly and lightly balanced in the center of the small board, the energy was fantastic, vibrating, glowing, and alive, but when I removed my hand the energy died immediately. If I shifted it slightly or removed a finger or two, the energy and the luminosity dimmed. It was clear to me that to be in perfect balance takes focus, attention, and awareness. It is not to be taken lightly. In understanding the precarious nature of being human, with little shifts here and there, I saw that my energy is really under my own control. I am responsible for remaining aware, each moment, of how I decide to use my energy or not. In the dream it was also clear to me that this motherboard was heart-centered and that this is where my connection to the energy of myself and the universe is to be found.

To remain in balance is to do so in reality, whatever that reality may be. As Carlos learned in working with don Juan, and as I learned in my shamanic work with Chuck, the more experiences I had in the seers’ world and in my own recapitulation the more I was able to navigate all realities with greater awareness and energy. Eventually, as Carlos, I became fully capable of taking journeys alone, able to see energy as it flows in the universe, and able to return to balance, without the guidance of another.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of doing a recapitulation is that one becomes open to life in a different way, perceiving and understanding the universe differently but also the self. I have certainly found that it has been far easier, and much more fun, to just be alive without the burdens of untruth that I carried for so many years. I humbly offer these blogs about recapitulation so that others may dare to journey into themselves and into other realities. Perhaps these experiences are helpful.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love, good wishes, and balance.
Jan

NOTE: Books mentioned in this blog are available in our Store under the Shamanism category.

Messages from Jeanne

#721 Prepare for a Long Winter’s Meeting

Leave a comment

Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
The signs of autumn are early upon us this year in the Northeast. The leaves are changing their colors and dropping to the ground, the grass has mostly stopped growing and after a dry summer the spiders are coming into the house looking for warm crevices to winter over in. Our personal activities, conscious or unconscious, reflect this time as we prepare for the darkness that now comes earlier and earlier each day. Perhaps we notice this incremental change in season more strikingly this year due to its early arrival. Perhaps we are at an age of appreciation for the chance to draw inward once again after the warm and largely external lives we have led during the summer months. As Chuck wrote about, this is the time of Po, of breaking down and dissolution, yet it does not carry sadness with it, only the looking forward to what comes next as we enter a time of turning inward with the prospect of deep reflection and study ahead.

The moon, recently shining so brightly at night, stresses that this time of death and dissolution is also brightly lit, that there is indeed light in the darkness, and if we allow ourselves to wake up during the night we see that everything we experience in the day is still there at night, though illuminated by a different light, thus allowing us to see it differently too. In the night and in the darkness we have the opportunity to explore differently if we choose to wake from our slumber and look into that darkness. This is all metaphor for doing inner work, of course.

I can’t help but notice that nature is setting everything up for us, perhaps a little earlier this year because nature itself requires that we human beings become more innerly focused and reflective over all. It is telling us that it is time once again to face our personal darkness and resolve our inner issues so that when the spring comes we will be in synch with the new life all around us. No matter what happens to us or to the world over the next few months new life is certain. That too is the insight of the time of Po.

With all of that in mind, Jeanne, what message do you offer us human beings at this time of preparation for turning inward, as we enter a new phase? Whether we like it or not we must go inward now. I feel this strongly on a personal level, but also perhaps even more strongly on a universal scale. Great change in the human race feels pressingly required and exceedingly important. I feel we are truly being confronted to do the work of transforming ourselves. Within each of our inner worlds we have the opportunity to do this work. Then the challenge becomes bringing it into our outer worlds. This is a long monologue leading up to asking for your guidance, specific to this time, which is both personal and universal. What guidance do you offer us today and in the weeks ahead?

Metaphor, My Dear, is a fine vehicle for teaching, yet at this time it is most important that practical and pragmatic decisions be made or your inward turning will have dire consequences. It is a time of staying in reality. Even though, as you state, it is of utmost importance to accept the darkness that comes creeping into your awareness, so is it equally important, if not more so, to accept the fact that you cannot go into that darkness unprepared.

What do you mean by “dire consequences?”

To be unprepared for the onslaughts of the inner world could lead to shutting down, to fear, to disaster. Be always conscious that the outer world reflects the inner world, but be also conscious that beneath the cold earth the seeds of spring wait patiently, holding in the energy of new life. However, one must prepare for that which is present at each moment until that time of birth. One must guard one’s energy in a healthy manner and go forth, not haphazardly, flippantly, or inflatedly, but soberly, with focus on the moment in hand, at all times.

You must, each one of you, prepare for what lies ahead. You already know what that means. You cannot have lived even a few years upon that earth without recognizing the change of seasons. Now however, as adults, you are more aware that you must be responsible for the self. You must be as the animals in nature that have been busily preparing for this certainty of darkness, of cold shutting down and hibernation; their entire lives revolve around this activity. They are conditioned to this moment, for it is as important as the fact that they do live. Without this instinct to survive there would be no new life.

As adults, your natural instincts must now be brought forth. Where is your own instinct to not only survive but to do so with impunity, impeccably, but also with desire to be your natural self?

As you prepare for the time ahead, as the season changes once again, remain aware, alert to the behaviors of the self that have become so natural to you but are not in fact nature at its core inside you. Inspect your process for habitual tendencies that do not actually have anything to do with the true desires of the self, with survival, or with inner work. Inspect your inner nature for what it truly needs to be doing to prepare for the time of inward turning. Your true nature, your spirit self, absent of society, of ego, and of attachment to the things of that world, might actually surprise you with what it truly wants. I can guarantee that it wishes for expression in some manner.

Do not “think” about this expression, do not give it tools, but allow it access to life simply by intending, by opening the doors of your mind and your physical self without judgments, without old ideas or behaviors, but simply allowing the self to “know” that this spirit self exists. And the other thing is, do not think that you know this side of the self, because you don’t. You may have inklings, you may hear it calling, but you do not fully know this self, because it has not yet fully lived. In order to live fully it must be released and that is a high order.

In order to prepare for your inward months of spirit work, you must balance that time in practicalities. You must prepare for the winter ahead. Do what you must in your own world and environment to set yourself up for this time. In all matters be pragmatic. At the same time, question your automatic reactions, responses, and habits. Do things differently now, by allowing your conscious mind to disseminate that which has not been working for you so that you may be open to the guidance that will come from your new acquaintance, your spirit self. Allow yourself to flow naturally during this time, by both accepting the changes in your outer world, without sorrow and attachment, but also by acquiescing to the quiet stirrings of your inner process.

Do not reach for the normal comforts of the darkness. Reach instead for the discipline to stay present with what your spirit shines its light upon. And do not pretend that you are safe in your world, because that is too complacent. Instead, challenge yourself to be constantly alert and aware of the fact that nothing ever stops challenging you. Be as aware as the animals that predators lurk all around you. They may be as familiar as your own habits, or they may be as foreign as disaster striking, but do not for a moment pretend they do not seek you out. You are not special.

This is a time of closing down, yet is it also a time of confrontation with what comes next. This is where your adult self and your spirit self must remain alert and cognizant as they confront each other in the darkening light and challenge each other to lay down their arms and sit at the conference table for a long conversation about the truth of the self. This is the meeting that must convene in order for change to become acceptable, for this time to be productive, and for each one of you to offer the self transformative work.

Come to your meeting fully prepared by being open and nonjudgmental. Allow each part of the self to speak. But, the number one rule at this conference is that only the truth be spoken. It may take a while to reveal that truth, but it lies at the center of your world, waiting to be discovered like the seed in the ground.

Autumn is inward turning time. Begin your preparation for a long winter’s meeting. Consciously or unconsciously you are all headed there. It is your choice in how you approach this time. I wish you the best of luck. I wish you openness, but above all, I wish that you may face your truths fearlessly, honestly, kindly, and lovingly toward the self.

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Offered humbly, in service.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & The “Not I”

Leave a comment

Once again I take up the subject of inorganic beings. Last week, in Recapitulation & Inorganic Beings I stressed the importance of familiarizing ourselves with our own energy and being able to recognize the good inorganic energy that is present in our lives, such as my own connection to Jeanne, an inorganic being on a mission of aiding those of us who are seeking to evolve, whom I am energetically compatible with. I also stressed the importance of recognizing the incessant chatter of the mind as inorganic energy. Today, I write about another type of inorganic being from the seers’ world of ancient Mexico, energy that wants something from us. Though it also wants to teach us something, its main intent is first and foremost to find a means of attaching to us, the ultimate goal being to siphon our awareness, our energy, for its own survival. However, our ultimate challenge, in all of these cases, is to train our awareness so that we may be in a position that is energetically strong, grounded, utterly sober and pragmatic, so that we may be able to navigate all worlds.

In The Active Side of Infinity and The Art of Dreaming don Juan teaches Carlos Castaneda about the power of inorganic beings. He tells him that they exist as outside forces, predatory beings that seek control of human awareness. He calls them scouts, probes from the universe looking for awareness. They are always present in some form. As I wrote about last week even our thoughts are considered, by the seers of ancient Mexico, to be inorganic beings, which they call Flyers and when they are busy chomping away at us, our thoughts swirling and driving us crazy, they refer to us as being in the throes of the Flyer’s Mind. The only recourse we have is to learn how to manipulate them to our best advantage, but this takes work in strengthening our awareness. On page 217 in The Active Side of Infinity don Juan says:

“There are scores of outside forces controlling you at this moment,” he says. “The control that I am referring to is something outside the domain of language. It is your control and at the same time it is not. It cannot be classified, but it can certainly be experienced. And above all, it can certainly be manipulated. Remember this: It can be manipulated, to your total advantage, of course, which again is not your advantage, but the energy body’s advantage. However, the energy body is you, so we could go on forever like dogs biting their own tails, trying to describe this. Language is inadequate. All these experiences are beyond syntax.”

During recapitulation we are given the opportunity to train our awareness through re-experiencing our pasts. This is the ultimate gift of doing a thorough and fearless recapitulation; our awareness not only grows, but eventually becomes a seamless and natural accompanist as we navigate our lives. During my own recapitulation I often met inorganic beings in dreams, often frighteningly odd creatures that captivated my attention. One day when I mentioned them to Chuck he told me not to focus on them. “They are the scouts in the universe looking to grab your awareness,” he said, “and take you back to an old place, attempting to usurp your energy for their own use.” I took this very seriously. Don Juan basically tells Carlos the same thing in The Art of Dreaming. On page 28 he says:

“…Dreaming has to be a very sober affair. No false movement can be afforded. Dreaming is a process of awakening, of gaining control. Our dreaming attention must be systematically exercised…”

Lately, perhaps because I have been reading and writing about them, inorganic beings have been appearing in my dreams. In one dream, Chuck and I travel to a Mexican desert town by car. Upon arrival at a crowded bus station we come upon two strange men covered from head to toe with yellow dirt. I know that they have been fighting and that we are in the midst of drug-related gang territory, that everyone at the bus station is somehow connected to a drug cartel. Chuck tosses them a towel from the car so they can wipe the sand off. At this point my awareness kicks in and I am immediately cautious. It is then that I begin to notice that everyone in this town is odd in some way and many of the people have large pumpkin shaped heads on skinny bodies. I thwart my gaze so that I do not look at anyone directly. The dream goes on, but the point I am making is that my awareness took note of the oddness of the situation and without hesitation took appropriate action to protect my energy. As opposed to earlier dreaming during my recapitulation when my awareness would speak to me, saying, “Don’t look!” at such times (essentially warning me, as Chuck had, to not get caught), now my awareness and I are in synch.

In a second dream, a tiny naked man, about a foot tall, appears several times, crossing slowly and suggestively back and forth in front of me, obviously trying to get my attention. He looks like a tiny skinny naked Waldo from the Where’s Waldo series of books. Once again my awareness takes note and without hesitation, my guard kicks in and I shift my gaze. I do not focus on him, though at an earlier stage in my awareness training I might have been very drawn to his comical appearance.

In a third dream, my mother appears, looking very odd, her head large, her features distorted, acting in an uncharacteristic manner. I immediately know that the inorganic beings are trying to trick me. They know that we are drawn to attach to those who are most familiar, yet my awareness is immediately aroused by this strange version of my mother. I do not fall for the attempted trickery. Again, I turned my gaze downward and watch sideways through my eyelashes as this odd being does some exceedingly strange things, not at all like my mother in her true form. Eventually she meets up with two strange looking men whom she links arms with and the three of them go wildly dancing and skipping down the street, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz prancing down the yellow brick road with the lion and the scarecrow. Without attachment I turn away and go back into the dream that had been unfolding before I was interrupted.

In these examples, I stress the importance of being aware, of training our awareness. And how do we do that? The first thing is to understand the “Not I” of our dreams. Jung suggests that everything in our dreams is us, but he also cautions that we must learn about archetypal energy so that we do not get caught by it. In essence, he warns us to not engage the collective unconscious, inorganic beings, until we are ready, even though archetypal energy seeks us out all the time. As don Juan suggests to Carlos regarding inorganic beings: they exist all the time and they are trying to control us; which is equally true for the archetypes that exist in the collective unconscious.

So, by questioning what is “Not I” we begin a process of inner work that eventually will lead to recognizing the scouts, the inorganic beings that come to us in whatever shape or form they may use. Their attempts may be very personal, they may come in the form of our biggest fears or they may be comical, clownish attempts to attract our attention. We can begin training this aspect of recognition by intending this step before we dream or even before we begin our day. Perhaps a simple mantra will do: Please help me to recognize and be aware of that which is “Not I” in my dreams and in my life, or something like that.

The next step is to decide what to do about these inorganic beings once we do recognize them as “Not I.” Don Juan says that it is always an individual’s choice what to do with them, but he also cautions not to engage them until we have enough energy and awareness or we risk getting into trouble. As Jung suggests, engaging the collective unconscious without doing our homework can lead to psychosis. The dangers are that we might get fascinated by them, that we might get inflated and think we can handle them, or that we might underestimate them, seeing them as harmless and funny. It is equally important to not get frightened by them and run away. If we are indeed to gain awareness, we must learn to stand our ground. Here are some practical precautions, as inorganic beings approach in dreaming and perhaps in real time as well:

Don’t play with them.

Don’t stare at them.

Don’t draw them to you.

Don’t engage or speak to them.

Don’t throw yourself at something you don’t understand.

Be suspicious and cautious.

Protect your energy.

Learn to use the inorganic beings that appear in dreaming and in life to strengthen awareness. In strengthening our dreaming awareness we eventually arrive at a place where we can begin to engage what appears so strange and mysterious in our dreams, but from a place of power, just as we train our awareness to recognize the Flyer’s Mind in our everyday reality. This training leads to appropriate detachment and new stores of energy that we can then use for ourselves alone.

When we get to this place of strength, with enough personal power to navigate the world of the inorganic beings and the collective unconscious, when we are naturally more aware, acting from instinct and knowledge, our journey becomes fascinating rather than frightening. When we have worked with our personal energy, successfully contained and trained it, then are we ready to find out why the inorganic beings are present and what they are trying to tell us. For they do in fact have something to teach us, they come to challenge us, but they also want payback. They give, but they also take. There is always an exchange and until we are prepared and strong enough, we may get ourselves into trouble, caught in energy draining unawareness.

I have been aware of the inorganic beings in both my dreaming world and my everyday world for a long time now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get caught by them. Again and again we fall for their trickery, we let them entertain us, and we get caught in old habits of repetitive behavior that keep us stuck. There is always the opportunity to learn from them, but the first challenge is always the same, and it resides in the choices we make. For even though we may have learned to recognize the inorganic beings in our lives, we are still apt to engage them, inflatedly thinking that we can outwit them this time. Or even, as I have been doing in my dreams, avoiding them, perhaps because of an underlying fear of what they might have to tell us about ourselves, or because we fear they may take us into unknown territory.

Fortunately, being the seekers that we are, we eventually get the message that it’s time to confront our nemeses and take our awareness to a new level. And that is what I intend to do next in my dreams. At least I think I might do that, but of course I may decide at the last minute that I’m not ready yet, and that’s okay too!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes; and watch out for those inorganic beings!
Jan

NOTE: Books mentioned in this blog are available in our Store under the Shamanism category.