Tag Archives: Carlos Castaneda

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Chuck’s Place: The Marrying Maiden & The Petty Tyrant

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Images in search of resolution... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Images in search of resolution…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

The Marrying Maiden, hexagram #54 of the I Ching, is a reading I’ve grappled with much of my adult life. The Petty Tyrant is a central theme in the training of the warrior in the shamanic world of Carlos Castaneda. I see the marrying maiden and the petty tyrant as mirror images of wisdom, pearls from two ancient traditions that reflect so relevantly in the world of now.

Contrary to a sweet, innocent image that the marrying maiden might evoke, hexagram #54 depicts an unchosen life, a woman forced into the role of second wife as she must enter the home of her marrying sister’s husband, an ancient Chinese custom. Not the chosen bride she nonetheless must accept her new station and all the duties it entails. Thus, hexagram #54 depicts an unchosen, unwelcome fate.

From a broader perspective this predicament captures a salient feature of the reality of life in this world. As Buddha concluded, “Life is suffering. There is no escaping old age, sickness and death.” This is our collective reality—we are all marrying maidens to forces we cannot control.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered that we spend the bulk of our energy fighting these deeper truths of our human condition. They saw this as absorption in self-pity. I understand this as absorption in the child state of resistance to the inevitable loss of paradise that we may or may not have experienced in our early childhood. Regardless, we feel entitled to have it restored or finally delivered, refusing to leave the garden, stubbornly demanding our due.

Of course, this is a very young hero that holds the world accountable, but this young hero is ill-equipped for the adult truth of old age, sickness and suffering, that which ultimately afflicts us all. The Shamans see humankind as fixated at the stage of this young hero, wasting most of its energy fighting fruitless battles. The marrying maiden is doing the same thing, bemoaning her fate. The I Ching guides her to see the reality of her situation and to position herself appropriately without self-pity. Similarly, the Shamans encourage us to identify our petty tyrants—those who ruthlessly show no consideration for our needs—as our teachers.

Rather than spend energy on fruitless anger and resistance, a warrior stares down any energetic spillage of self-pity. A warrior fully accepts the circumstances that life presents and with clarity and full energy acts in accordance with what is possible, with what is the best decision to make, and with what is the best action to take in the moment. To achieve this readiness one must be fully present without an ounce of energy spent feeling sorry or sad for the predicament one finds one’s self in.

Ahh...peace at last! - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Ahh…peace at last!
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

In a world currently dominated by violent opposition, where the opposites are dissociated and only seek resolution by destroying each other, we are confronted with being marrying maidens to these petty tyrants all over the world, most especially in our own country. It is challenging to not succumb to the self-pity of helplessness in such a state of chaos. On the other hand, we are gifted an opportunity to train in warriorhood.

A warrior pauses, examines the true nature of things and awaits decisive action in full clarity. A warrior spends no energy bemoaning his or her fate; all circumstances are equal opportunities to transform one’s position as fateful marrying maiden into that of decisive warrior. A warrior is grateful for all teachers, especially the petty tyrants.

Once broken of the fixation of self-pity and entitlement, we are truly freed to be leaders advancing into a new world beyond the filters of self-obsession into deeper truth, fulfillment and new balance.

Most humbly,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Portal Of Disorientation

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Where am I? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Where am I?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Many times I woke in the night. I couldn’t orient myself to time or space. Each time, I’d ask myself, “Is it time to get up?” Finally locating the clock, I discovered that only 15 minutes had elapsed. Meanwhile, I’d been in many intense dreams. The night became an endless tide of vividly clear dreams, confused awakenings, the inability to find the clock, locate the window or the table with the water glass upon it. Nonetheless, I entered the day filled with energy, refusing any definitions of a restless night.

I left on my drive to work. As I descended a hill, a tidal wave of energy washed through me from head to toe. I felt leveled, nearly breathless. The after currents continued as I focused on steering the car with mindful presence. I refused all inner promptings to format my experience as dangerous. “A wave of energy had simply gone through me,” I told myself.

Carlos Castaneda taught how we build our reality through chains of associations that then define the world we perceive, creating the structures and habits we live by. These habits are actions generated by thoughts rationally paired that define “reality” and dictate behavioral responses.

I might have defined my experience as a consequence of my lack of sleep, the humidity and poor oxygen intake. I might have associated it with prodromal symptoms of a stroke or heart attack. I might have driven myself directly to the hospital if I’d settled on that set of associations to define my reality. Had I given it that definition, perhaps my body would have heard that intent and generated a series of more disturbing symptoms requiring immediate medical attention.

Seth, in Jane Robert’s channeling, spoke similarly of the sequencing of time, a proclivity of the intellect or the narrowing of the intellect into its rational mode to structure a world of cause and effect, with its sequencing of the day into logical components.

From this perspective, night is for sleeping. If I don’t sleep I will not rejuvenate; I will be tired and testy the next day. The other night I slept, by this logical definition, “poorly.” Yet, I resist this definition. I resist the instruction to my body to be groggy and unfocused.

The known world distorted... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The known world distorted…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I realize that I was treated to a journey outside time and space the other night. With each awakening I had the sensation of much time having passed, yet it hadn’t in “real time.” Despite my lucidity in dreaming, each time I awoke I could not orient myself in my room, regardless of my rational knowing of the layout. I was fully awake, but not in the room of my rational knowing. It was fascinating to walk about in such a “known” space with no sense of orientation. How relative reality really is!

I seek out disorientation; I intend it. Disorientation releases us from all the familiar places of our well-worn world where we have deposited the lion’s share of our energy to generate a known, definite world. The more I enter the portal of disorientation, the more I recover energy I once invested in living comfortably in a solid world. I find each time that I pick up increased freedom to journey beyond the narrow compound of reason.

Seth remarks that the intellect has far greater capacity than its logical reason. When the intellect is narrowed to logic, it cuts itself off from all the natural portals of information available to it from the multidimensional self, such as intuition that peers beyond the senses, to telepathy that reads the interconnected energy all around us, to clairvoyance that has access to information that can inform the present with future knowledge.

The shamanic key to these portals of experience is disorientation: the interruption of the typical flow of energy that defines our reality and suppresses our fuller potential.

The world is in free fall now, ever since the election of Obama. Obama’s rise to power interrupted the flow of world energy at the seat of world power—The White House—forever. It matters not that his ability to effectively govern has been so ridiculously undercut. Most important is the rupture to white power dominating the world. It’s like the rupture of the Catholic world with a retiring Pope. It just doesn’t happen that way!

Through the portal into the unknown! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Through the portal into the unknown!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Who could have imagined gay marriage becoming the law of the land at this time? Who could have imagined the legalization of marijuana either, rapidly advancing through the land at this time? The wars rage throughout the world as the energy of change exhausts in destruction. Disorientation does destabilize, but it also opens the door to a more inclusive world, seeking now to find its way to new balance.

What a joy to be alive and participating in such an adventure of freedom and change as we traverse this portal of disorientation!

Breathe, stay calm and focused as you grip the wheel,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Mythbusters—The Rites Of Spring

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We must all sit upon the immovable spot if we are to achieve new life... - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
We must all sit upon the immovable spot if we are to achieve new life…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

An eager workshop attendee once asked the Nagual, Carlos Castaneda, “Should we recapitulate what’s happening right now?” Carlos hesitated, then said softly, “Not yet,” with no further explanation. I knew in that moment that Carlos was saying that the luster of the myth we were all participating in would fade once recapitulated. He wanted us to enjoy the energy we were in for just a while longer. Isn’t that what we all seek when we fall in love, to enjoy the energy of it just a little while longer?

The truth is that once we have sat upon the immovable spot, as we sit beneath the Bodhi tree of our recapitulation, the energy and allure of the old illusions are released from our newly enlightened selves. We are freed from the terror, longing, and both negative and positive beliefs of old energetic attachments. We are able to walk out of the myths that once governed our lives into whole new worlds of possibility, real worlds of possibility.

Carl Jung recognized that all lives embody a core myth. If we look around to the cast of characters we were born into and the formative events of our lives, we can begin to identify the myth we were born into. Perhaps it’s our karmic challenge to solve a problem that has held us in check for eons. How could it be possible to be freed to new life if we have not cracked the nut of an old problem—our mythical nemesis? There is no escape from an unsolved problem; we continue to meet it everywhere. If we are convinced that we are unlovable, no amount of attention will convince us otherwise. If we are to be loved, we must first free ourselves of our attachment to the myth of the ugly duckling.

This requires recapitulation. We must be able to be present to all the truths to free ourselves from the myth we have been captivated by. Those truths might include that the mythic giants who conceived of us in this life were, indeed, quite flawed mortals without a clue. We’re all equals now, outside the myth of familial promise in the nursery; equal beings who are going to die; equal beings trying to crack the mystery of our myths, seeking new—real—adult life.

The violent, unrefined destructive energies of new life are boiling beneath the surface of spring. Birth is an aggressive, violent process—let’s bust any romantic myth to the contrary right now. The energies of earth quake beneath the surface, the intensities of storm surround us. Right now, at spring’s awakening, we all sit upon the immovable spot.

There really is new life beneath the hardened surface! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There really is new life beneath the hardened surface!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If there is to be new life, the rigid ground of myths that no longer channel life must be cracked. New life promises Abundance, the 3 of Cups, the first Tarot card that I pulled on the first day of spring as I contemplated writing this blog. However, the rigid structures, the myths we have clung to, must be sacrificed, the Hanged Man, the second card I pulled. We must allow our ego attachments, the myths we cling to, to be busted by the living waters rushing beneath the surface. Like a crucified being, we must sit upon the immovable spot of recapitulation that will allow the truths to set us free to new life. To achieve this we must allow for clear and truthful communication, The Magus, the third card I pulled, the winged messenger of Mercury, to deliver the truth clearly, to allow the Rites of Spring to be performed, busting through the old myths, bringing new life in abundance.

Mythbusting,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Changing Dreams

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The morning light cuts into this moment, offering an opening to a new dream... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The morning light cuts into this moment,
offering an opening to a new dream…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I sit, sun pouring through the window. I absorb its heat and the glow of the light. I know we’re at the precipice of a major shift, but in this moment I bask in the awe of the sun’s rays. This week has been about changing dreams, minor shifts of focus that take us into other worlds, worlds of rejuvenation and awe, worlds that take us deeper into the magic.

I open The Eagle’s Gift by Carlos Castaneda, to a moment in time when Carlos and la Gorda were caught in powerlessness and gloom. “One day, in order to alleviate our distress momentarily, I suggested that we immerse ourselves in dreaming,” Carlos wrote. “As soon as I voiced my suggestion, I became aware that a gloom which had been haunting me for days could be drastically altered by willing the change. I clearly understood then that the problem with la Gorda and myself had been that we had unwittingly focused on fear and distrust, as if those were the only possible options available to us, while all along we had had, without consciously knowing it, the alternative of deliberately centering our attention on the opposite, the mystery, the wonder of what had happened to us.” (p. 127)

In this moment, I am thankful for the coming uncertainty, the forced interruptions in the continuity of routine. These are the wake-up calls to change the dream. These are those moments in a dream when we are invited to lucidity, when the absurdity of circumstance stirs our awareness to wake up and realize this can’t be real, we must be in a dream. If we awaken to that truth, without waking from the dream, we are freed to enter new dreams of possibility in full awareness.

In waking life, as well, we can find or create glitches to awaken ourselves from the trance we are induced into from the habits we mostly inhabit through the routine days of our lives, through the repetition of our behaviors, and the slumps we find ourselves so often stuck in. These trances of habit so define our actions as to shape our needs and daily outlook into fear, distrust, and boredom.

Yet, at any moment we can intentionally pause and reclaim our awareness! In the moment we skip outside the mundane—the routine, the expectations, the pain, the frustration, the sadness, the shame, the fears, the disappointments—and choose instead to occupy “the wonder of what has happened to us,” we offer ourselves the opportunity to enter a new reality, a new dream entered in full waking consciousness.

We are beings on magical journeys, fully capable of shifting our lives in an instant, making ourselves available to love and enjoy every moment of our magical lives, simply by, as Carlos says, willing a new dream.

Enjoying the magical momentary pause,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: New World Family

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Everything is changing now, including what it means to be family... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Everything is changing now,
including what it means to be family…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

My lifetime symbol in the Tarot deck is the Hierophant, card number 8. Lifetime symbols reflect the central archetypal myth and challenge to realize during a lifetime. I am struck by the emphasis of this card on the value of family.

When I reflect on my personal history in this lifetime, it is noteworthy how many conventional rules I’ve been willing to break in the service of revisioning family to fit our evolving needs. I know I was drawn to Carlos Castaneda’s shamanic line to service this intent. Carlos ended the limited shamanic family of his ancient line. Like a true socialist shaman he freed all the secret teachings, all the secret practices, for anyone energetically ready or inclined to take perception to new levels. He ended secrecy and selectively of apprentices, launching shamanism as an equal opportunity employer. The time of shamans is over. Everyone needs to become their own shaman now and take their own soul retrieval journey. Castaneda knew this. That was the ending and the evolution of his line.

Carlos’s shamanic line also put a premium on releasing energetic agreements that bind one’s energetic potential and limit fulfillment. This practice is called “erasing personal history,” not to be mistaken as erasing the truths, in fact, recapitulation insists that we fully face our personal history. However, in recapitulation we also are charged with withdrawing our energy from old energetic agreements and attachments, especially those that go back to our families of origin, where we innocently assumed roles and beliefs that overshadow our lives. Whether meaningful and truthful or not, those roles and beliefs must be dissected and questioned as to their true relevance and usefulness in our evolving lives, as beings totally separate from our families of origin.

In erasing personal history, we free our own energy as well as the energy of those whom we have been attached to, allowing all of us to grow and evolve without the limitations of old needs, expectations, or conventions ill-suited to evolving beings. From my perspective, this is caring for family at the deepest level, loving deeply, while simultaneously freeing all to fully become who they truly are capable of being, with no expectation to turn back and asking nothing in return. This is the empty-nester who frees all to new life, and enjoys new life as well!

We are in a new world now. However, the old world lives on, posing as new. Fiercely unwilling to die, it constantly tries to reassert itself, tempting us with new tools of communication, inviting us into the new family home of cyberspace. The internet now offers us a new family—with the possibility of unlimited connection—but it also pounds us with all the old tricks, enticing us closer with promises of more, unrelentingly targeting the rabid consumers that it knows we are, gathering marketing information to sell its wares. Of course the internet is much more than this, but it still dominates with an old world economy, one ill-suited to serve the true needs of our interconnected world. It has opened the doors to greater communication and connection yet it lacks selflessness—keep in mind that this true new world family does not discriminate. Tribalism, filial piety, paternalism, self-interest, must all be revisioned away from the bindings of specialness and entitlement if we are to truly evolve.

We all belong to the new family tree of energy and transformation... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We all belong to the new family tree of energy and transformation…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Decisions and actions must flow from the place of right action to serve the true needs of our real family, our world family. Decisions that serve the self or one’s own family interests to the detriment of others is an old world order that literally poisons the environment and melts the polar ice caps. This old world order is slipping away because it is not sustainable—don’t be fooled by the bravado of those who tout its sustainability, it’s simply the last stand before the inevitable fall.

The call to change and evolve is not about fighting the old world, it’s about staking a personal claim in the new world. Every decision we make and every action we take determines which world we live in. The new world is still a world of family, but it’s a one-world family. This is one of the worlds that Carlos Castaneda’s shamanic process of recapitulation allows us to join. Through the deep process of erasing personal history we offer ourselves the possibility of new life, as, in shedding the old world of self, we naturally experience our interconnected oneness; the new one-world family.

When we turn off the water, decide to walk, refuse to invest in profitable but destructive stocks, charge a fair fee, are guided by our hearts and synchronicities, eat local and real; when we give service without discrimination as we are energetically able, and as is energetically appropriate to those who cross our paths, we assume our rightful place as full citizens in our brave new world; a world where no one is more important than anyone else. As a steward of the Hierophant in our time, I offer this message: family does matter—the one-world family!

From the new world,
Chuck

In loving memory of Pete Seeger, the man who gave so selflessly and tirelessly that we might all join this new one-world family.