The inevitable return of the light… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year. At a certain level they are all interchangeable synonyms of the same event: return of the light. These events symbolize bringing forth new life, and in one form or another the human species is transported, by such events, to the experience of awe. These events create a natural bridge to the magical side of life.
The polar opposite of awe, and the human being’s greatest achievement, has been its ability to fixate upon reason, the main pillar of modern civilization. Reason breaks down the world into units that defy awe. With pure reason there’s no such thing as magic. Without magic, however, humanity loses its soul. Modern humans are truly beings in search of their soul.
The appeal of modern charismatic world leaders is their messianic capacity to channel awe. Anger that knows no limits is one ticket to infinity. The appeal of the energetic thrill of the shrill has swept the world. Reason shrinks in its ability to shield one from the draw of such passion. Even the most reasonable beings are unwittingly drawn into the madness of their passionate defense of reason.
Starved for immersion in the ocean of awe, humanity is currently gripped in a tidal wave of emotion. Tidal waves are unstoppable forces of nature, but, like wildfires that require fresh wood to continue their passionate burn, their time is truly limited, though there may be much destruction in the interim. All things do pass.
Currently, reason has become the fuel of awe. The irrational dominates the rational, the time of darkening of the light. In the time of darkening of the light, the guidance is to shield and tend the small candlelight of reason in the safe cave of the heart. In the time of the return of the light, the guidance is to be patient; the return of the light is inevitable.
The magic of this moment is awe inspired by the light of consciousness. Reason and awe needn’t be strange bedfellows. We are in an evolutionary advance now, charged to become more fully our magical energetic selves, with the light of consciousness as our guiding light, charged to explore beyond the limits of reason, yet with reason at our side.
May reason embark upon the dance of true fulfillment with us all. May awe be navigated by reason. Wishing all a safe, ecstatic, and fulfilling return of the light.
There are alternative roads for now… – Lawn sculpture by Chuck Ketchel, photo by Jan Ketchel
I was born to be a therapist, but my first college degree was in history. I chose history due to my conviction that if we don’t learn from history we repeat our mistakes. As with psychotherapy, a thorough recapitulation of our history frees us from repeating global mistakes.
My bachelor’s thesis sought to understand the etiology of controversial lectures that Carl Jung delivered to the C. G. Jung Gesellshaft (the Psychological Club of Berlin) in July 1933. I will report more on the findings of this exploration in coming blogs, as it delivers keen insights into the world patterns of now.
Barbara Hannah, an ardent student of Jung’s, was determined to attend these lectures, but this would require her to drive from Switzerland through Germany, alone. When she queried Jung about the advisability of such an undertaking, given the current atmosphere in Germany, he quietly deliberated and then replied, “Yes, risk it! Mind you, I don’t know what will happen, but it will be an interesting experience.”
I am reminded here of the sparkle of delight in Carlos Castaneda’s voice when he would tell us to go have our own journeys and, “See what happens!” All must discover for themselves the truth. We must become our own gurus, not simply rely upon what we are told.
Barbara reports that she encountered almost no cars on the highways but instead crowds of listless hikers wandering along the roads. Barbara writes that when Jung “read in the newspapers that the Germans were restlessly on the move, wandering from place to place, he was reminded of the wanderer Wotan and realized that this was an ‘archaic symbol’ that was certainly going to produce an unacceptable situation in Germany, unless enough individual Germans became conscious of the danger in time.”
History proves that consciousness did not prevail, and a collective trance set in that saw a civilized nation devolve into mass murderers, who committed the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Germany was struggling with difficult economic times, much as the world today is faced with growing scarcity, as the impact of climate change dries up resources and precipitates mass migrations. In an effort to empower Germany’s downtrodden, Germany’s ruler tapped into the themes of nationalism and white supremacy, blaming the alien, the not pure-white Aryan, in this case the Jews, for controlling and hoarding Germany’s national wealth that only legitimate citizens should be entitled to.
Despite the hypnotic prowess of a charismatic leader, citizens’ psyches cannot be hypnotized unless the rhetoric being preached by the leaders resonates on some level with their own personal beliefs. This is why Jung determined that consciousness, becoming conscious of the beliefs and forces within one’s own psyche and how they operate and hold sway, was the only hope to avert disaster.
When illegal immigrants are arrested and separated from their families, what is the citizen’s internal psychic reaction to this action? Many law-abiding citizens might express sympathy for the children, but blame the parents of those children for their unfortunate predicament. The underlying belief might hold that the illegal entry of those aliens into a country is robbing legitimate citizens of their entitled resources, which trumps the fate of those children.
Citizens might blame their leaders for such horrific practices, but do they inwardly go numb and passively agree, out of concern for their own personal survival? Only consciousness that is willing to honestly face the depths of those feelings and beliefs, within the self, can be freed to act beyond its narrow, self-centered fixation.
Fear, in this time of scarcity, has resurrected the challenges and behavioral solutions that resulted in WWII. Jung’s sage advice remains fully applicable. If individuals face their own psyches, with deep consciousness, they are no longer vulnerable to outer polarizing suggestions that justify white supremacy and elimination of other.
Just one individual who truly faces the darkness of their shadow can change the world. And what’s in that darkness? As mirrored by world leaders of now, we all have our own narcissistic MEüber alles, within us, that may rule from the shadows of our unconscious minds.
Consider the ME that insists on consuming the substance that places the overall self in crisis. Consider the blind conscience whose stock portfolio flourishes in the greatest market gains of all time, fueled by destruction of the planet’s resources and balance. Consider the ME whose hunger for attention takes actions that negate the true well-being of the whole self.
Can we bear the tension of the volatile energies of desire, like a Christ nailed to a cross, or a Buddha sitting unflinchingly amidst all the sensual delights and grossest fears of this world?
Such are the extremes we see exploding throughout the world now. Mass shootings simply reflect an individual’s inability to bear and resolve tension within, and they foreshadow the mass atrocities that loom oppressively on the horizon, if consciousness does not prevail. Let us not walk sheepishly on an old road to Berlin. Let’s refuse the scapegoat solution.
Let’s not repeat the nightmare. We must face it and wake up. Kali Yuga needn’t end in repetition compulsion. A new dream with true resolution waits on the horizon. But to arrive there, we must individually bear the tension of the polarity of consciousness and shadow within our own psyches.
Go within… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Let’s evolve that dream now. Bring consciousness within, bear the tension of the opposites within, and allow that contained explosive energy to rise to the level of the heart chakra, where we are all in this together, parts of the same whole. And together, as one, we can indeed dream a new dream.
Learning from history,
Chuck
Excerpts and references:Jung: His Life and Work, A Biographical Memoir by Barbara Hannah
Good Morning! Here is our audio channeling for this week, encouraging us all to stay positive and to remember that we are all part of a greater consciousness that only wishes us well. Remember this especially during these times of great change.
May a conscious heart be your guide, a heart of kindness and loving compassion, a heart seeking always to do the right thing. You will find that your heart knows exactly what to do and how to do it, if you let it become conscious, for the heart is the knower of all things, good and kind and loving. Awaken your heart to consciousness. Let it become your guide and you will also naturally be good and kind and loving. And you can’t do better than that!
That which once held life decomposes as new life takes form… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
New life is contained in a sealed casing as it completes its readiness to burst forth onto the world stage. In humans this is the placenta, in butterflies it is the chrysalis, in corn it is the husk. Strikingly, the old order, that which new life emerges from, is vastly different from the consciousness and values of the new life struggling to take form. Once new life manifests, that which so prominently contained it quickly loses purpose, and decomposes into the soil of the Earth.
The New Age, with its evolved human consciousness, continues to birth, as its placenta, the casings of the dominant old world material values, which grip as tightly as possible to counter the forward thrust of new age values. This is tragically evident in the recent New Zealand massacres, where old world, misguided white-separatist values virally asserted themselves.
White is the ultimate absence of all color. White, therefore, is the assigned ‘color’ of innocence, a blank slate entering life. All humans are subject to the loss of this childhood innocence through worldly encounters in the developmental process of growing up. Life on this planet is conditioned with the progressive loss of innocence through the interruptions of trauma, standard socialization, or simply the demand to leave childhood and become an adult in this world.
Jesus remarked that only the Child is ready to enter heaven. As I unpack the meaning of this lesson, I see the child as the ultimate symbol of innocence. What Jesus is likely suggesting is that all must retrieve their innocence, not become the small blank-slate child again. Innocence must be refined, at an adult level, to encompass the trials, traumas, losses, and disappointments that are the inevitable facts of life in human form.
The restoration of lost innocence at an adult level requires a total integration of all experiences, all parts of the self, all parts of the human community. Psychologically, this is the process of recapitulation where one faces their own deepest fears by coming to know and accept all parts of their life experience and their multidimensional self. Adult innocence is reflected in the full color spectrum of the rainbow, not in a return to the blankness of pure white.
The encasing white supremacy energy of now has misguidedly projected, concretely, this quest for the restoration of innocence through the keeping out or extermination of the darker shades of the human family, as well as migrants, as it seeks to preserve its purity and old way of life. In the recent tragedy in New Zealand, in true Hitleresque fashion, we saw the extermination solution acted out and suggested as an option, via social media.
This misguided, powerful wall of energy cannot forestall, indefinitely, the birth of an advanced awareness that knows the true needs of survival for both humanity and the planetary being. This new life of innocence knows that purity is composed of the interconnectedness of all life, as One Life. Love is its operative energy in its embracing of all life. Truth is its acting cognition, unsullied by the illusion of separateness.
The messiness of birthing this all-inclusive loving consciousness is reflected in the massacres and environmental disasters of now. Though horrific, they are not apocalyptic. They are the labor contractions and messes of a major birth, an evolutionary shift, so ready to take charge of human navigation. Even those leaders who so boldly instigate hatred are serving to awaken humanity from its deeply entranced sleep, to take personal responsibility for the fate of the world. Strong hints of that evolved intelligence and loving compassion are evident in the person and actions of Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, as she guides her nation and the world to be ruled by love, for all.
Holographically, all humans have the opportunity to participate in this great metamorphosis, in the homogenization of all the hidden parts of the self. We are all compositions of white and black. The issue is to accept all parts of the self through bringing light, not white, to all the hidden recesses of self. When we can see and accept all that we personally are, we are ready to navigate and contribute to what is truthfully needed now for all.
I am saddened for all the innocent victims of New Zealand, as well as by the almost daily environmental disasters that erupt upon the planet. May these sacrifices be well-served in the quickening to birth of the coming ruling values of love, truth, and interconnectedness as the real solutions to survival.
