– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Tag Archives: dreaming
Chuck’s Place: Changing Dreams
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
A Day in a Life: Of Blue Jays, Dreams & Resolutions
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Why are there so many blue jays in my yard? I ask this question because it’s true; the jays have taken over! I study them as they come to feed on the seeds I’ve put out. If I don’t get there early enough they knock impatiently on the window, suggesting that I hurry up and feed them! Their coloring is a combination of blue, gray, white and black. They have come to teach me something, I surmise.
Along with the usual New Year’s resolution to do more yoga and meditation, to eat healthier, to cut back on what I know is not good for me, I have set the intent to become a better dreamer, to train myself to be aware while I dream, and to discover what the shamans and Buddhists, and many others mean when they say that all worlds are one, whether we are awake or dreaming. I’ve had plenty of experiences of this concept, but I’m interested in going more deeply into the true meaning of reality while I’m asleep and my energy body is active. So far, I’ve had some pretty cool dreaming experiences, which I won’t go into here, but suffice it to say, my intent is working.
If I am to use my dreams to evolve beyond this reality, as is my underlying intent, I must learn how to remain fully aware as I dream. This is all in preparation for the time of my death when I intend to seamlessly pass through the bardos and achieve life beyond human form. At least that’s my intent. As far as I know, this is what we are all challenged with, to find a means of not having to reincarnate in human form more than we absolutely have to. If I can do this, I feel that I will have not only accomplished my own personal soul intent, but that I will free up space on earth for others to live more comfortably. We all know that the earth is overpopulated and overtaxed. I don’t really want to come back again, knowing that I could possibly have done more to free myself of this realm, and this realm of me! Now, back to the blue jays.
While they sit and scarf down the seeds I’ve put out, I study their coloring and the way their wings lie enfolded across their backs. When in repose, an intricate pattern appears, so beautiful that I am reminded of stained glass windows. As soon as they spread their wings and fly, solid bars of color appear and the intricate pattern disappears. Okay, this, I see, is what I am being shown, what I must learn something from.
Ted Andrews, in his book Animal Speak, says that the blue jay “has the ability to link the heavens and earth, to access each for greater power.” The jay represents both heaven and earth, the white of the heavens and the dark of the earth separated by the blue of the sky. The gray perhaps represents the veils that keep us from fully knowing and experiencing our full potential, to be both of the heavens and the earth, aware in dreaming and while awake. The colors also represent our light and dark sides, what we show about ourselves and what we keep hidden, to both ourselves and others. Andrews also notes that the jay is a little tricky in that it can be a bit of a dabbler. It shows us our potential, but if we are to gain mastery and fully utilize all that we are capable of we must grapple with this side of ourselves. I see how my New Year’s resolution, to train my dreaming intent could be a challenge if I don’t stick with it, but I have no intent of dabbling.
I notice that when in repose—in dreaming, as I see it—the blue jay’s colors are all present, though the pattern of them is quite different from when they are actively flying—going about in their everyday reality, as I see it. We all wear certain stripes and patterns. We are perceived and perceive of ourselves in a certain way. But in actuality, all that we are is present in us at any given moment. When we dream, I surmise, everything that we are in waking life is also present. Likewise, in waking reality, all that we are when we dream is present as well.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
It’s easy to assign to our dreaming selves some of our more challenging possibilities; the ability to fly or shape shift, to instantaneously be in one place or a thousand miles away. But, if we keep in mind that all that we are, all of our potential, is present in us at all times—like the colors of the blue jay—we might just be able to appreciate what our dreaming self is trying to teach us about the oneness of worlds, the fluidity of our energetic selves, and the fact that all realities, dreaming and awake, are equal and the same, just formatted a little differently. Whether we are in stained glass pattern or striped pattern, it doesn’t matter, we’re all composed of the same substance, and that is energy.
I watch the blue jays fly back and forth, feeding on the seeds and then flying into the trees or off to have an adventure in the world. They drop to the earth with ease; they fly to the heavens with ease. This is what we are challenged to do in our lives, to be fully energetically present in our daily lives, finding the means to realize our fullest potential at all times, all parts of us assimilated and in alignment with the fact that we too can fly. At night when we spread our wings, disrupting the usual patterns of who we are on a daily basis, we earn our energetic stripes as we fly through our dreams.
And so, if we can just remember that we are energetic beings all the time and not only while we dream, we are well on the way to achieving what the Buddhists call enlightenment, freedom from samsara, the suffering of being in human form. With intent, we can gain mastery to fly seamlessly, and with awareness, between heaven and earth, just like the blue jay!
Happy dreaming!
Jan
A Day in a Life: Intent—Uh-oh, It Really Works!
What may look enticingly beautiful could be deadly if not used cautiously and knowledgeably.
– Photo of datura by Jan Ketchel
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest that we state our intent and then let it go, that we send out a call to intent and then let the energy of intent find us, letting it bring us what we need or take us where we need to go. Sometimes our call to intent may be innocently misguided and then we can get into trouble, but if we are working on our personal growth in a sober and balanced manner we tend to be cautious and careful as we tread into unknown territory. It doesn’t pay to be inflated or foolhardy in the shaman’s world; there is too much out there that is eager to hook us and hook into us, desirous of our tasty energy. And so, when setting intent, it is best to be stably prepared for what may come.
Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about entities in my blogs, beings who seem to have come into my dream world for a reason. They’ve been absent for a week, at least I’ve had no recall of them. In fact, I’ve had little or no dream recall at all for the past week. As a result, last night, I decided to use intent to both dream and to remember what transpired in my dreams. To enhance the experience I decided to sleep with Carlos Castaneda’s book, The Art of Dreaming, on top of me. I lay in bed on my back, placed the book over my lower abdomen, and set the intent to absorb the contents of the book, to dream, and to remember what had transpired upon awakening. Perhaps it was a lot to ask.
I got the idea for the experiment from a conversation Chuck and I were having. He remembered that this was how Carlos would read books. He’d lay them all over his body as he slept and when he woke up he’d know the entire contents of the books he’d slept with. Chuck also recently read that Edgar Cayce, the American mystic and medical intuitive had done the same thing. “Yes,” I said, “I remember that’s how he read the Bible when he was a little kid. He became quite an expert interpreter of the Bible at a young age. He’d absorbed the entire book, but also the deeper meaning as well.” This gave me the idea to try it myself, mostly to see what would happen, if I would have an experience.
I already know that Carlos’s books are imbued with the intent of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico; he said this often enough. If you pick one up you are sure to be taken on a ride! The Magical Passes are imbued with that same intent too, not the least of them the Magical Pass of the Recapitulation Breath. This I am personally well aware of, as I discovered during my recapitulation. Once I began the journey, the entire universe seemed to be there with me, fully present, involved in my life 24/7. It was quite a thrilling ride! In just picking up a book about those shamans a strange and wonderful energy flows into the reader, absorbed through the words on the pages of the books, imbued with ancient intent. So, electing to place a Castaneda book over my abdomen had the potential to produce something!
just waiting to hook in!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
I had actually placed the book on top of the covers, telling Chuck that if it fell off me during the night, perhaps he’d have an experience as well. “Okay,” he said, clearly curious. And then I drifted off to sleep. Within seconds I was startled awake by the faces of entities, black, gnarly, weathered faces, treelike, intricately carved, as if they had lived for thousands of years. “No,” I said, reasserting my intent as soon as I saw them. “Not you guys,” I said, dismissing them. “I want to have dreams!”
I fell into deep sleep. I also fell into a dreaming intensity that I have never experienced. I woke with a start after three hours of tumbling around inside nonstop dreams that were grippingly engaging. As soon as I woke up, I could not recall a thing, but boy were they intense! I decided it was enough, perhaps too much, and besides the book, which had slipped to my left thigh, was now burning my skin. Heat like I had never felt before was burning through two heavy quilts right into the skin of my thigh, which felt red hot! “I’d better stop,” I thought, and I put the book aside and fell into heavy, deep and dreamless sleep for the rest of the night.
Upon awakening, I told Chuck of what had transpired. It was a mysterious and thrilling experience, but I’m a careful treader into the unknown, and so I intend to go slowly into dreaming with intent. I do have to say though, that I woke up with great energy, more energy than I’ve had in a long time. So, something imbued in that book affected me while I slept. I’m curious to read it again and see what it might be, what might stand out. Perhaps it’s just the energy of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico as they intend it to be experienced, and if so, that’s fine with me!
On the other hand, I do know that my entities appeared for the first time in a week—those gnarly tree faces—and I abruptly dismissed them. Perhaps that gave them license to play with me a little. Maybe they were the ones who took me on a ride last night, proving to me just how much power they really have! I know they are in my life for a reason, and that I’ll have to continue my excursions into the unknown with them as my companions, for better or worse; for the time being we belong together. Whatever really transpired, it was just the right energetic experience I needed, and I’m thankful for that!
On the ride,
Jan
Chuck’s Place: It’s All In Body
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
The clinical wisdom of our time highlights the role of the body in psychological healing. To resolve our deepest issues, we must go down into the depths of the body to discover our hidden truths and restore a fluid connection to the wellsprings of our life energy.
For many years, I have spoken about out-of-body experiences and energetic life beyond the physical. Soul retrieval journeys, such as the kind taken in recapitulation, are in fact intimately connected to our in-body reservoir.
When we reenter the scene of an earlier experience in life, we utilize the sensations in our bodies to lead us to the actual event. The body stores all experiences and once we arrive at their gate, in recapitulation for example, we are thrust full-body into what happened to us in the prior experience. In traumatic recapitulation, we may have a full in-body sensation and complete reliving of a long-forgotten experience.
Many visits to hospital emergency rooms actually result from unknown, unsupported, tripping into stored bodily memories of trauma, inadvertently triggered by some associatively related current life experience. Often, after exhaustive testing, physicians are clueless in diagnosing the disturbance, often assuming panic attack. For the patient, the physical experience has been so real and in-body that this explanation seems highly dubious. Nonetheless, what ensues is perhaps a trail of treatments to control panic, which misses the true nature of the symptom: the triggering of a dissociated life experience stored in the body seeking re-association through reliving and resolving the turbulence it holds.
Modern clinical wisdom and ancient shamanic wisdom point the way to the innate, archetypal bridge of bilateral body movement to enable the grounding needed to experience and integrate dissociated parts of the soul that lie in wait in the body reservoir.
In dreaming, we naturally experience bilateral rapid eye movement, commonly called REM, that clears and processes the remnants of the day just lived. In nightmares, we experience failed attempts to naturally resolve traumatic moments. When no resolution occurs, these traumas end up stored in energetically volatile and incomplete states in the body—often a cause of physically distressing symptoms. Chronic pain and debilitating symptoms, even anger and fear of intimacy or conflict, may in fact be trauma related.
Francine Shapiro advanced the instinctive bilateral physical movement that we all use when we dream, incorporating it as a direct method to facilitate the integration of traumatic experience, in a waking state, through the protocol of EMDR. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered the bilateral recapitulation breathing Magical Pass millennia ago, as a means to enable reintegration of lost parts of the self. These inherent and consciously facilitated practices provide the bridge to safely encountering and putting to rest the stored energies of unresolved traumas.
The body stores that which is incomplete, awaiting resolution when the time is right. The body equally holds the key to safely resolving that which it holds, through bilateral movement, whether exercised consciously with recapitulation or in EMDR, or unconsciously in dreaming. Only through fully accessing and resolving all that the body holds will we acquire the energetic wholeness to launch, with completion, out-of-body when it’s time to pass on into new life.
In body,
Chuck