Tag Archives: awareness

Chuck’s Place: The Way of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice

December 16, 2011 Chuck Leave a comment

Photo by Jan — He slipped through a crack...

Don Juan never would have chosen Carlos Castaneda as his apprentice. Carlos slipped through a crack in the wall of impeccability that don Juan, a master shaman, a nagual, had crafted to shield his energy from unnecessary encounters in the ordinary world.

Don Juan realized that his initial encounter with Castaneda had to be the work of the spirit and could only mean one thing: he was obliged to train an “imbecile,” as he saw Carlos, to become his successor. He acquiesced to this knock from the spirit and Carlos Castaneda became the sorcerer’s apprentice.

Don Juan, like all naguals of his lineage, knew that apprentices entered the shaman’s world with an interpretation system—a world view—wholly inadequate for understanding the shaman’s world of non-ordinary reality. There is no fault in this; we interpret the world as we have been conditioned and socialized—we know no other way. Shamans take advantage of this condition in their apprentices, systematically trapping their awareness around issues those apprentices believe to be important, indulging them, but really intent upon moving them along to perceiving the world in a vastly new and expanded way.

For example, don Juan knew that Carlos copied everything he did, and so he taught him many magical passes— movements from the shaman’s world used to recondition one’s energy—without Carlos being aware that he was actually learning these magical passes. In Carlos’s cognitive system he was simply doing “exercises,” while in the meantime he was unknowingly expanding his energetic capabilities.

Don Juan knew that if he told Carlos directly that he was teaching him magical passes, Carlos’s cognitive system would have been offended and he would invariably have argued and rejected the practice on rational grounds. Don Juan already knew that it was far more efficient to not challenge cognitive attachments directly, but instead to use them to move the trainee along.

Our spirit operates like don Juan, like a master shaman, as it nudges us along in our growth. When we set out intent to grow, we sign up to become the sorcerer’s apprentice.

As apprentices, we will be nudged along to discover the full truth of who we are, where we come from, and why—all that has happened to us in this life and perhaps beyond it. Like Carlos we enter this apprenticeship in good faith, but suffer from ignorance and a good deal of defensiveness. We naturally defend our sense of self, the self we know; after all, we’ve built our security upon it.

The spirit sets to work to move us along by trapping our awareness, sometimes gently, sometimes intensely. Examples of gentleness are signs and synchronicities placed before us daily, designed to awaken our awareness to a greater reality, one that exists beyond the limits of our rational interpretation of the world. More intense knocks of the spirit are the triggers that seize our awareness, immobilizing it, beckoning us to take the journeys into the realm of non-ordinary reality where we discover locked-away truths of our lives.

In such moments of trigger, fear dominates as we misinterpret a benign event as a mortal danger. Our awareness is completely trapped. Here begins the journey of recapitulation, as our current self is nudged to take the plunge into the world where the trigger originates from. On a recapitulation journey we face our hidden truths as we discover worlds within ourselves previously unknown to our conscious awareness.

As we accept the full truth and impact of the worlds we enter in recapitulation, we free our energy that has been locked away in those hidden worlds, perhaps for decades. We become revitalized, energetic beings, as we recapitulate; magical beings capable of experiencing the world in ways we never dreamed possible. We become capable of fulfillment in this life, no matter what age we are!

The path of the sorcerer’s apprentice is deeply challenging, but it is guided by the spirit, the master shaman within us all that nudges us onward—sometimes gently, sometimes in great haste and intensity—to the full realization of our intent for fulfillment and completion. And, in the end, it all makes sense in ways we simply couldn’t know when we began the journey as humble, eager, but necessarily ignorant apprentices.

Trust your spirit. Continue the journey and know you are being taken where you need to go,
Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Face Your Fears & Your Joys

December 12, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

There is time now to gather the fruits of your inner labors, to clearly grasp your issues before the next shift comes. It is important to carry forth what you have learned about the self over the past few weeks and months.

If you are aware, if you have been doing your inner work with conscious awareness, your issues have been revealed, are readily available and known to you. You are ready to accept them. Take them now to a new level.

A time of shift is upon you, and, in order to move to a deeper understanding of your life and your self in that life, awareness of the truths that have lately been revealed must be carried forth, kept in conscious awareness and used as guides.

On the other hand, if you have not fully grasped what you have been confronted with about the self, do not despair nor be disappointed, for the inner self and the inner process expand upon and present the needed lessons whether you are fully aware or not. Take forward now your commitment to grow, as you too shift to a new level. The conviction to do inner work, to discover the reasons for the workings of the self, the deeper issues behind actions, thoughts, feelings, etc., has been afforded energy that will lead you to a new level. Seek next greater clarity while simultaneously seeking always new life.

No matter where you are in your process of growth and evolution—in your process of self-exploration on your journey of release from the old and embracing of the new—do not lose connection with you inner desire for spiritual life and balance. This inner desire entails awakening to the creative and conscious growth of the inner self who so diligently alerts you to its existence.

No matter who you are or where you are in your life at this moment, your spirit seeks you out. It asks not just for recognition, but for full acceptance. In so doing, it seeks to guide you to release from all that now holds you captive, freeing you to live a fuller life, a balanced life, a life of love, of kindness, of compassion, full of awareness of the self as part of the whole of existence.

Your troubles guide you to your true path. Know this. Accept this process and be not afraid to more fully engage it. Your life is yet to be fully lived; yet it awaits you eagerly.

Know that a new time of shift is coming. Be open to it and notice how your energy recognizes it first, before your mind catches up. This is something to be aware of. Your energetic self, your spirit, your inner process is usually a few steps ahead of you, leading the way. Once your mind catches up and grasps the lead that your spirit tosses, your only job is to take the lead and go where it wants to take you.

You lead yourself in a process of growth. It is your process alone. Find the guidance you need outside of you to gain clarity inside of you, as you do your deep inner work. But know that within the self resides everything you need to gain awareness, clarity, and the energy to face your fears and your joys alike. Do not be afraid of either.

Facing your fears and your joys is the next step, but that is always the next step. This time take that step with awareness that you are doing so, that though both your fears and your joys may be hidden and unreconciled, so do they exist inside you. Face them for yourself, for your growth, and so that you may reach a new level of awareness within the self, as well as in the world outside of you.

These two worlds, the inner and the outer, seek constant balance, putting you in the position of having to constantly regain your own balance. Know that all that you experience in life is caused by disruptions within the self and all these disruptions are really doing is asking you to face your fears, so that you may one day more fully face your joys.

This is where you all stand now, once again upon the brink of a new self-discovery. At all times, stay connected to spirit self and ego self alike, aware and committed to growing. That’s really all you need to do to live a fulfilling life, stay connected to all that the self presents you with.

Good Luck, as you continue your journeys to fulfillment!

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: I Am Here

December 7, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

I focus on staying present. I am doing yoga.

“I am here,” I say. “I am here in this body, in this moment.”

“I am me,” I say. “I am me in this body.”

“I am this body,” I say. “I live here on earth in this body.”

“I am here,” I say. “I am me.”

As I move and breathe, I bring my attention back again and again to the moment, to being present in my body. I thank myself for giving myself this healing time and I thank the universe for providing the paths I took to get to this moment of this day. I take each moment as sacred, as ritual.

I take a moment to write down my thoughts of awareness of being, of being in my body, of being in the moment of doing yoga somewhere in the world, a small speck of awareness in the universe, one small speck of knowing that I am alive, intent on being fully present in my body.

Sometimes I am pretty aware of being present in my body, but most often I am not. Most often I am somewhere else, my body along for the ride. But in this moment, I am aware that my body is my natural environment, my beingness resides in it and depends on it, needs it, trusts it. I am in the moment, present and enjoying the rituals of doing yoga, of breathing, and of being consciously aware.

After I do yoga, I carry the wood from the woodpile. I build a fire and light it, another ritual. I am aware that this is a ritual performed by millions of others. Since fire became a part of human life this ritual has been important. As I carry out the steps of making my fire, I am aware that I am partaking in an ancient practice of firemaking for the same reasons that eons of people have made fires. I do not cook over my fire, but I seek warmth. I am part of an ancient ritual today as I make my fire. I honor the ritual and I honor myself in the process of partaking in this ritual. I honor all who have done this before me.

I take time to notice that I am present. I am me. I am in my body, present in this moment doing this ritual. In the next moment the fire is burning well. I can turn to other things now, back to my writing, back to preparing for other rituals that come throughout the day, if I care to see them as such.

I remind myself to slow down and take the time to feel myself in my body often throughout the day, present in the moment and in my awareness of being, as often as possible. I remind myself to remain aware that my daily activities and chores are part of my ritual life too.

I remind myself to invent new rituals as I go along, making life sacred, simply because it is and it deserves to be lived in sacred fashion. I deserve it, the earth deserves it, all creatures—man included—deserve the honor of sacred ritual. If we all slowed down and made our personal lives sacred rituals, if we all invented our own personal rituals—honoring and thanking ourselves, our bodies, others in our lives, the universe—perhaps we’d end up with enough pauses full of calmness and peace to temper the otherwise busy and fast-paced world we live in.

When we slow down enough we realize we don’t really need that fast-paced world. We discover we don’t really want to live like that. When we slow down we discover that we, by our very animal nature, are more connected to the earth and the sacred ritual of a simple life than we realized. When we slow down we walk and breathe the pulse of the earth and it calms us and nurtures us beyond anything else we might have available.

We desire our vacations by the ocean, a lake, in the calmness of the mountains or meadows because we are animals who crave nature’s slow pace and the beat of our heart knows this. By establishing our personal rituals we automatically slow to the beat of our heart, and automatically our perception of our personal place in the world shifts too. We actually become one with nature, connected and aware of being in the moment, in our bodies, in the right place: in total beingness.

Photo by Chuck — The Sacred Beat of Nature

No matter what is going on around us or inside us, when we slow everything down and take a sacred moment we are at peace. Even if only for a moment, it is enough.

Tomorrow I will build a different fire, but the ritual, the process, will have the same ancient energy in it. Whether I focus on the ritual of it or not, whether I am as aware as I am today, I will still be tapping into the energy of ancient ritual. I know this energy of infinity, as ancient as the tapping of my own heartbeat. It is as ancient as the tapping of your own heartbeat, one pulse, beating for eternity. The ritual is already present. We just have to make ourselves available to it and tap into it.

As humans we have so much available to us. Our creative energy begs us to pause and pay attention to its insistence that we are not so modern as we might believe. We are ancient energy and we know instinctively how to connect with it and what to do with it.

Find sacred ritual in life, in nature, in self. Be in the moment. Be present in the body self. Breathe with awareness. That too is ritual. Be thankful to the self and the universe and then pause and listen to its reply. In the calm beat of your own heart you will hear its resonant beat.

Present in the moment, in calmness, in beingness,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Getting Out of the Maze Before the Rat Dies

November 30, 2011 Jan 1 Comment

In a dream last week it came to me that we live our lives as the shamans of Ancient Mexico say, like chickens in a chicken coop, endlessly pecking away, without question taking what’s thrown to us. The image of chickens did not come into my dreamworld however. Instead the rat in a maze made an appearance, though it’s really the same thing.

The shamans of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage suggest that we train our awareness to avoid repetitive behaviors. They suggest learning how to shift, both physically and mentally, out of places that keep us caught, stagnant, and overwhelmed. By studying ourselves deeply, in recapitulation, we confront the truth of the maze we actually live in. We discover that we are indeed like rats, endlessly caught, endlessly repeating our learned lives. As Simon and Garfunkel write in Patterns:

“From the moment of my birth
To the instant of my death
There are patterns I must follow
Just as I must breathe each breath
Like a rat in a maze
The path before me lies
And the pattern never alters
Until the rat dies”

These lines perfectly describe the constructed world we live in, the one the shamans of Ancient Mexico alert us to and warn us about, that we are indeed caught in. Written at a time of great energetic change in our country, similar to the energy of now, these words alert us to the fact that we tend to live out our lives as we have been taught. We are crammed full of the lessons of this world from the moment we are born, and we follow the paths laid out for us until we die, largely unaware that there are other possibilities.

In my dream, maze after maze appeared, alerting me to the fact that even in thinking we have left the maze we must be alert to the fact that we may fall right into another maze. I woke up wondering what I was doing in my own life that made me have this dream. Was I just repeating old behaviors? Was I fooling myself by thinking I had changed? Was I really caught in another maze?

Although the Simon and Garfunkel song ends on a hopeless note and a sense that we have no control over our lives, the shamans of Ancient Mexico offer a different perspective. They suggest what I learned in my dream: that no matter where we are in our lives we have the ability to break out of our mazes by constantly training ourselves to confront our thoughts, actions, decisions, and the choices we make. In my dream, I was being taught to stay alert and aware of the fact that yes, indeed, I am always in a maze of one sort or another and the only way I will get out is by constantly challenging myself to shift my awareness.

It’s not really that hard to remain aware. It means choosing to constantly challenge myself to note the truth of my reality. A simple question may help in creating a simple shift: Is this something I learned or is this something I truly know? Is this the way I want to live my life or can I approach life in a new way? Am I falling into an old pattern here or can I see this from a new perspective? How could I live this moment differently? How can I shift myself?

As soon as I note an old habit, an old thought, an old judgment, an old idea of self or the world around me, an old fear, an old pattern of speech, an old posture, an old expectation, an old desire, an old view of the world, I know it’s time to question myself. It’s time to refuse to walk another step in the old maze. It’s time to return to the roots of what I have learned in the shaman’s world, in the world of spirit and energy, which is, that nothing is as it appears. The world is an illusion. Everything in the world is presented to help me evolve to a new level of understanding my life and my reason for being here.

The truth is that in the end I will die, just like the rat in the maze will die. I suspect I have traveled the maze a thousand times in a thousand lives, but this time I am electing to journey differently. I am taking my journey with awareness. I am challenged, each day, to break through the walls of the maze. I am challenged, each day, to shift my thoughts and awareness to a far bigger picture.

At the same time, I know that the maze is important, that we must all travel its endless pathways until we wake up to the fact that we are doing just that, walking the same path over and over again. As the season turns soon into winter, as I look forward to the coziness of turning inward, I know I must not become the old me or turn inward in an old way. I must continue my journey of change. I must go through the seasons of life as an aware being, unafraid to change my perceptions and perspectives of the world I live in. I must constantly grow by challenging myself to constantly hop out of the maze.

Recapitulation offers a means of shifting out of the maze. It’s an endless process of training awareness, of challenging the self to change. Chickens and rats that we inevitably are for long periods of time, we all do have the energy to change. It’s what makes us human. We just have to dare ourselves to tap into it.

Our true potential is unlimited, but we may only access that unlimited potential by jumping the walls of the maze and making sure we don’t get caught in another one in the process. Here’s hoping that we may all continue to face our challenges, keeping our eyes on the ultimate prize: life on our own terms, as beings of awareness.

If we can stay connected to the truth that all things are possible we offer ourselves the opportunity to live a different life, without fear, sadness, or regret. But that often means changing the path we are on in order to actualize our fuller potential. By daring ourselves to jump the walls of the maze we may truly live.

Wishing you all good journeying,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Practice Inner Silence

November 25, 2011 Chuck Leave a comment

In meditation we learn to master our awareness. The mind is a powerful thing, a think tank that never stops. When we meditate we are confronted with the products of this ceaseless mind engine: thoughts.

Thoughts approach our awareness like vendors selling their wares on Black Friday, sales people lobbying for our attention. And just like the freedom we exercise to buy or not to buy, we have the inner ability to attach or not attach to a thought. If we attach we spend our inner capital, our energy, on the thought by giving it our attention, letting it unfold and journeying with it wherever it may take us. If we don’t attach we store our energy in deepening silence. When we surrender our awareness to the activity of the mind, we drift along on a current of free association, floating from thought to thought, our awareness completely captured by a mind-constructed world of thoughts.

With mindfulness we learn to exercise our innate freedom to attach or not to attach to thought. We learn to simply notice the inner lobbyists of thought, and choose not to attend to their wares. We decide to bring our awareness instead to our bodies—to our breathing, or to the sensations we notice as we scan our bodies in this moment.

When thoughts of varying intensities vie for our awareness, we notice them. We don’t struggle with them; we simply bring our awareness back to our bodies. In an instant we feel the vibration in our fingers or lips, or hear the sound of energy deep within our ears. We breathe; we are present. We judge nothing; there is nothing to judge.

Judgment engages the mind. It quantifies, rates, categorizes, etc. With mindfulness everything is equal, the same—no judgment, no distinction. Everything just is and we are fully present with what is without attachment.

Mastering awareness is staying present with what is, and freely, consciously, choosing where to place attention. We are no longer adrift on the sea without a paddle; we volitionally place our awareness where we want it.

If we are eating, we are not reading or watching—we are fully present in eating, in chewing, in tasting, with awareness. If we are walking, we walk without purpose or destination—we are fully present in our bodies, slowly feeling the sensation of connecting to the earth beneath us.

The shamans of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage practice magical passes to achieve inner silence. Fully mindful in their bodies, they engage the intent of inner silence and move in patterns discovered by shamans of antiquity during dreaming. These shamans don’t worry if they are doing the movements correctly. They suspend judgment and mindfully move. They know intent alone will correct the movements; they don’t fall for the tricks of the cogitating mind that seeks to interfere with the flow of silence.

Practicers of mindfulness and practitioners of shamanism alike are gentle but persevering in their practices. They know, as the I Ching so often states: perseverance furthers. Eventually, the mind desists and we become masters of awareness, fully engaged in our journeys. Without mind we experience total freedom.

Silence the mind, journey in infinity!
Chuck

Riverwalker Press