Tag Archives: 2016

Chuck’s Place: The Trickster King In Us All

I recommend a viewing of Netflix’s The Crown. This modern exposition of the sacred transformation of the human being, anointed and born again as the divine queen in the cathedral, portrays the rich and basic archetypal substrate of the human psyche; the same archetypal substrate that has us project onto our president the ordering of the life of our nation, believing the presidency to be the design, for us, of the divine.

Who should wear the crown? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Who should wear the crown?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

America, of course, long shed itself of the silliness of the monarchy, but we could not erase our psychic predisposition to find sacred order and balance in our president. Our coronation at the cathedral is the ballot box, our king is our president, in whose presence we are equally predisposed to encounter the awe and the awful.

With President Obama, the earthy black shadow rose to kingship and he glowed with progressive intelligence. America, having apparently valued its shadow, appeared to be on the cusp of anointing the feminine to her goddess rank, just in time to rescue the ailing Earth. But alas, America was unexpectedly charmed by the Trickster King, Donald Trump.

What becomes evident is that America did not resolve its shadow by electing Obama. The shadow was stored beneath the surface and the trickster took full advantage of exposing it and tapping into its energy. We were not ready for the goddess. We hadn’t truly reckoned with the shadow.

The Trickster King is the full embodiment now of that shadow, and we must reconcile with it. In a nutshell, that shadow is the ultimate ego self who exalts itself in godly towers. This is the ego that truly only cares about itself, its needs, its wants, its security, its power. This is the ultimate individualistic ego that feels no responsibility for the safety and needs of the world, only insofar as it impacts its own interests. It’s alway only about “me and mine,” it says. In fact, “me” has become extremely narrow by definition, as the impetus now is on a “pure” America, where only those truly entitled to the Kingdom may reside.

As a psychotherapist, I have experienced marriages, families, friendships, business relationships, and relationships within the medical caregivers community experiencing major earthquakes as the fault lines of greater connection have been shattered and threatened by the divisiveness of this election. The grassroots impact of this election has indeed infiltrated even the sanctuary of the bedroom.

America is forced to face and reconcile with its huge shadow in all relationships in daily life in order to find its way to genuine connection where the ground will be properly prepared for the election of the feminine. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

We must face the truth, that though we have long espoused in our faiths and politics heart-centered compassion, the truth is, we mostly live at the level of self-centered survival. Apparently, it is necessary for this to be acted out and lived under our current kingship. Let us not make the mistake of an earlier generation that projected as a nation their divine center onto their divine king: “Adolf Hitler is Deutschland, Deutschland is Adolf Hitler.” *

It is not my intention to identify Trump as Hitler but to draw attention to the human tendency to invest leaders with the divine and follow them blindly.

We must thank and respect our trickster president-elect for mirroring our truth to us, but must individually, as true Americans, secede from the monarch, withdraw the projection from the Trickster King and face the truth of our own inner kingdoms. We must face our own ego king self, and ask: Who will rule the personality? The ego, or the  the divine Self within us?

Time to go into the tower and restore balance... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Time to go into the tower and restore balance…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Self is the divine spark within us all who rests in the truth of our heart center. Our ego’s task is to realign and truly embrace the rule of this heart center and in so doing release us from its own egocentric worldview.

As we succeed in this individual effort we become like the ancient Taoist rainmaker who in restoring balance within triggers the restoration of balance without. As the rains return, the crops are nourished and life thrives anew. Sometimes those rains must provide great floods for life to truly be renewed. Never lose sight of the ark of the heart. It’s near, dear, and a definite lifesaver.

Remaining heart centered,

Chuck

* Quote from C. G. Jung’s Visions Seminars Volume 2, p. 1332

Chuck’s Place: Twilight Of The Gods

The aspiring goddess, Hillary Clinton, states: “I believe in science. I believe that climate change is real and that we can save our planet…

This is a very different “witch,” as she is currently cast as, than those once burned at the stake for evoking the beauty and instinctual power of nature, simply because they were women.

How high is enough? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
How high is enough?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Once upon a time the great religions had to tear themselves away from the dominance of instinctual nature to achieve spiritual heights. Women, the feminine, and the Earth, were the scapegoats of this developing spirit mind, an ego striving to rise above and separate itself from its lowly animal nature.

By the age of the Enlightenment, for all practical purposes, that rising spirit of reason abandoned the God of the heavens. The masculine ego of reason could no longer believe in a power beyond itself and secretly crowned itself God Almighty instead. As Almighty God, the masculine ego claimed complete domination over its heavenly entitlement, Earth, which it divided up and from which it extracted its riches, the true material signs of its godliness: money, power, and control.

With the recent dawning of the Age of Aquarius a radical shift ushered in, the New Age, with its valuing of both spirit and matter, consciousness and the interconnected wholeness of the feminine placed on equal terms. The time we live in, right now, is the most dramatic demonstration of this evolutionary transition from the dominance of the Kingly Ego to the inclusion of the Queen, the rebalancing of yin and yang that restores the Tao of our Earth.

This transition has been long in the making. Hitler was the first modern Ego King who sought to consolidate the total dominance of masculine power over the world. His social alchemical ethnic purification efforts were geared to arrive at Nietzsche’s Superman in the form of the blond beast. This was a dramatic expression and foreshadowing of where we have finally come to, masculinity’s last stand to rule the world in the person of Donald Trump.

What goes up must come down! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
What goes up must come down!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The difference between our current election and Hitler’s rise to power was that Hitler was democratically defeated in Germany in the 1932 elections. When von Hindenburg died in 1934 Hitler declared himself head of state. Hitler mesmerized and tapped into the latent collective undercurrent of unrest and desire for change in Germany at the time, which he then materialized in his Nazi regime with its resultant holocaust.

In our time, evolution has insisted that we, the populace, face the energies before us and consciously choose who will lead the country and, ostensibly, the world. Trump has emerged as an extremely worthy representative of one-sided masculine dominance and control. Like Hitler before him, Trump has his scapegoats, currently people of color, people of the Muslim religion, Mexicans, and women. His ethnic cleansing strategy is remarkably similar to Hitler’s; eliminate in one form or another the blackness of the Earth.

Blackness is the darkness of the night, the color of the rich earth. Blackness is the color of yin, the eternal feminine. Like Hitler, purification and cleansing, a restoration of pure whiteness is Trump’s recipe to make America great again. Evolution absolutely insists, however, that consciousness, the hallmark of the New Age, squarely face off with the old age of total masculine control and this time choose to advance itself.

This is the election we are currently in. Hillary, for her part, is the aspiring Goddess who looks at the sun and sees it rising rather than setting. She mirrors an integration of the value of the feminine, an interconnected world and saving the Earth, with the spirit of science. She includes, powerfully, the mind and its virtues, science, with the feminine perspective, love. Though cast as a witch, she is a worthy representative of an evolutionary transition.

I am so appreciative of both Hillary and Donald’s willingness to completely play and be their parts in this Twilight of the Gods contest. And we, the people, are not simply a vicarious audience; we are part and parcel of this divine play. And it must play out, with all its twists of comedy and tragedy. And in the final scene we must cast our deciding vote. Consciousness must fully participate in this ultimate reality show.

Love... from the Earth - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Love… from the Earth
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

If consciousness chooses Hillary, it marks another milestone in the settling in of the Age of Aquarius where the feminine is granted its equal position next to its masculine half. If Trump wins, it means we are simply not ready for this great transition, that we need another chapter of Earth life for the all-powerful masculine to rigorously live out its power and control before consciousness may be ready to reconcile with the feminine in all her godly manifestations: Blackness, Woman, and Earth.

What an extraordinary time to be alive and participating in this world!

CK