Tag Archives: change

Chuck’s Place: Squeezed In The Time Of No Exit

Eventually we exit, we birth…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Earth is birthing. Humanity is birthing. The human psyche is birthing.

At the current stage of the birthing process contractions have begun; we are in active labor. The fetus is tightly encased in the birth canal, with no possibility of exit, as the cervix has yet to dilate enough to enable the birthing journey into the light of this world. Stan Grof has named this stage of the birth process Basic Perinatal Matrix II (BPM II).

Nature’s hurricanes, massive flooding, erupting volcanoes and earthquakes, and worldwide conflagrations are all part of Earth’s contractions, closing in upon all life on the planet. Gaia is rebirthing herself into a new configuration of life, which is currently sealed in, like a fetus, in her alchemical pressure cooker of a womb, planet Earth itself.

Humanity finds itself squeezed by drought, tidal wave and famine, as it migrates, seeking safety and new life. Borders are closing. Nationalistic impulses are squeezing in upon sovereign nations, as greed and violence expand, seeking to stave off the stage of no exit.

Political heroes have emerged who promise to restore a former paradisal time of Shangri-La in the midst of this time of no exit. These so-called saviors intend to ignore, defy, or totally control the feminine. The entire world awaits the outcome of the American Election Day to determine how humanity will choose to position itself in the midst of this active labor.

Within the psyche, the ego finds itself squeezed by anxiety, terror, hopelessness and helplessness, as totalitarian archetypes threaten possession from within. Conversely, many people experience religious ecstasy and fervor, as they bathe in numinous identification with the masculine gods of war, certain to fully rein in and control the feminine birth process, within and without.

The fragility of ego muscle, no matter how well armed and defiant, is no match for nature’s current squeeze upon human emotion. The random violence of our time is ego’s impotent attempt to forestall the birth of a radically new world. What then is the correct attitude for ego to assume in this time of no exit?

Ego must face its pending death and rebirth, the story of all new life in this world. Our first breath in this world is also the death of our former life as aquatic beings, who were passively fed oxygen and nutrients in our symbiotic life as one with mother. The end of life in paradisal union with another requires letting go of hoarding our former material security, as we must meet the demands of changed conditions.

In the time of no exit it is possible to get calm. If we can’t escape the claustrophobic squeezing of ego by tumultuous emotions, ego still retains its existential ability to choose the attitude it will take toward the inevitable. Ego can breathe, however constrictedly, and instruct every cell of the body to go calm.

Just as ego knows that the numinous experience of body orgasm will result, if it can calmly let go of resistance to the higher power of instinct, ego can cognitively know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, as it lets go to the inevitable birthing of new life. And what does that new life look like?

Glimpses of new life are evident in the current psychedelic trials that activate the healing forces of the transpersonal dimension of the psyche. During psychedelic experiences, many individual’s hearts are opened by their recapitulation journeys through old traumas, with the resulting inner experience of total love and acceptance.

Others encounter past lives, ancestral trauma, and spirit encounters that break down old ideas and neutralize emotional intensities, while they simultaneously experience their death and rebirth into a broader, interconnected knowing of life.

I am neutral with regard to the coming renaissance of psychedelics as facilitators of healing and rebirth. Carlos Castaneda, mistakingly identified as the father of psychedelics and the New Age, was adamantly averse to their use.

Personally, I know that the mere invoking of intent is all that is needed to reach the holotropic powers of the transpersonal psyche that both break down and refurbish the ego with broadened and truthfully driven agency.

Know that the time of no exit is transitory. No matter how tight the squeeze, the opening will eventually appear.

Be patient, be calm, beware the false prophets and redeemers. Trust your innate ability to find the true light.

Taking the journey,
Chuck 

Soulbyte for Monday October 17, 2022

                                                    -Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Focus on what is going right in your life rather than on what is going wrong. Incline toward the positive rather than the negative. Lean toward looking ahead rather than looking at what you did not get right, do right, or say appropriately. Everyone makes mistakes. Accept your role in the unfolding of your life and look forward to playing a new role in the days to come. It will do you good to be humble.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Friday October 14, 2022

                                -Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Continue the good work on the self, seeking balance, moderation, and the kind of awareness that only comes from getting to know the self on the deepest level. Ask the self often: What is right to do today? Am I furthering myself in a good way? Seek adventure and experience that is nurturing for the whole self, offering a good balance of spiritual pleasure as well as physical, for you are more than just a physical being, you are an infinite being as well.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: The Way Of The Mandala

The Way…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The appearance of a penny on the street in a dream is a healing trail marker. Follow that coin! A four-sided rectangle, a box, or simply the number four showing up in waking life, or dream, may be another communication from our High Soul that we are involved with something that furthers our intrinsic unfolding of Self.

The circle and the square, separate or in combination, form a mandala,  the archetype of wholeness. Our individual mandala blueprint, at the core of our Soul, attracts to us the raw material circumstances and relationships needed to fully realize our wholeness in this life. The mandala archetype is the central organizing archetype for all life.

Jung pointed out that the primary atom for all organic life is carbon, whose outermost ring has a valence of four electrons that form the chemical bonds to create the basic building materials of life. Thus, at the material level of existence, the mandala is the central organizing blue print for physical life.

Our inner mandala, operating at the spiritual dimension of our life, accentuates activities we are engaged in, with synchronicities or images of mandalas, as suggested in the dream images mentioned above, when we are heading in the right direction or when we need a course correction in our decisions and behaviors.

Sometimes a broken, messy, round public toilet of a mandala appears in a dream. In this case, we are shown that our path to wholeness requires that we face that which we seek to flush away and be rid of. Our mandala of wholeness forces us to face that which humiliates us, as it refuses to allow us the release of repression. The mandala will insist that we claim and own all of our wholeness, regardless of how bad it smells!

The precursor to the number four, on the number line, is three, which, as a geometric image, forms a triangle. A triangle has integrity but is a volatile energetic force of change, like the Bermuda Triangle.

In the shamanic lineage of Carlos Castaneda, the leader, or Nagual, was always a human being with four energetic compartments, until Carlos came along. Though he was pointed out as the next Nagual, he had only three energetic compartments, foreshadowing the coming of great change for his shamanic line.

In fact, Carlos ended his shamanic line’s traditional transmission of knowledge to simply a new generation of selected leaders and apprentices. Instead, he unwrapped the secret, sacred technologies of his lineage and freely offered them to anyone interested in learning them. In Carlos’ new world, everyone needs to become their own personal shaman, taking the soul retrieval journey of their lifetime.

Carlos correctly read the energy of the need for total transparency as our evolutionary destiny. The days of the witch hunt and the need to hide shamanic knowledge from the Conquistadores has ended. The modern era needs all the sacred knowledge of yesteryear to correctly navigate the profound changes of our time.

Carlos’ decision allowed me access to the practice of recapitulation, with its ancient shamanic roots, as a complement to the use of EMDR in modern psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD. Carlos, with his energetic configuration of three, freed ancient shamanic wisdom, allowing it to find new manifestations in the healing of our world.

The number three seeks its mandalic completion. The Christian male God triangle of Father, Son and Holy Spirit points to the need for Mary, as Goddess, to square its mandala. The struggle to achieve this configuration, in many spheres, is the story of our time.

The Catholic Feast of the Assumption never granted Mary true Godly status. The best it could do was offer Mary continued existence in physical form in heaven. The masculine gods of our time continue to devalue, control and exploit the feminine.

The feminine, in the energetic manifestation of the energies of Kali and Isis, are agents of change, using nature and climate change to point humanity toward squaring the mandala, with the inclusion of the feminine principles of relatedness and interconnectedness, to restore order and balance to the world.

Masculine and feminine energies are present in all life. Jung called the feminine energetic compartment in men the anima and the masculine energetic compartment in women, the animus . As individuals, we are all tasked with squaring the mandalas within ourselves by integrating these primal masculine and feminine energies within our own psyches into fruitful evolution.

Women can be animus dominated and as devaluing of the feminine as abusive, controlling men. Men can be anima dominated, overwhelmed by moods and resentments that dominate impulsive decisions.

All people are charged to follow the way of the mandala now, as it seeks resolution, inwardly and outwardly, in true integrated wholeness.

Tracking the Mandala,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Tuesday October 11, 2022

                                -Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Find solace in knowing that just as nature finds its way to new life each spring, changing and evolving out of the dead of winter, so too will you change. Plant the seeds of spring now within the self, the hopes, dreams, and intentions for change and new life, and tend to them so that all is prepared for their fruition. Hold yourself responsible for nurturing and supporting yourself through whatever matter arises that needs attention. If you remain steadfast upon a path of change that is loving, compassionate, kind and honest, your intentions will flourish.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne