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A Day in a Life: Intent—Uh-oh, It Really Works!

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Be careful in the shaman's world! What may look enticingly beautiful could be deadly if not used cautiously and knowledgeably. - Photo of datura by Jan Ketchel
Be careful in the shaman’s world!
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!

Entities are everywhere, just waiting to hook in! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Entities are everywhere,
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

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Lockdown

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Like a monk in a cell, a hermit in isolation, I bear the tension that will lead to resolution… Trapper's hut in the Manchac Swamp, La Place, Louisiana -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Like a monk in a cell, a hermit in isolation, I bear the tension that will lead to resolution…
Trapper’s hut in the Manchac Swamp,
La Place, Louisiana
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

My entities are active. I wrote about them last week, introducing them in all their finery, their insistence upon being in my life. I get that they are necessary if I am to evolve, as they present what more or less lies at my core, my fears and truths alike, and what I must face in the world outside too. So, I’ve done a full recapitulation, why do I still have to deal with entities? you might ask. Well, as far as I know, if we are alive and living upon this earth we all have to deal with entities. It’s just the way life is.

Awareness of their existence is the first big challenge. Have no doubt, they will come; it’s what they are programmed to do. In fact, once we study them, we realize they’ve been present during our entire lifetime. It’s only when we are ready to see them as entities that we will begin to more readily recognize and work with them. After a while we begin to know them on a deeper level, as they come repeatedly, like old friends, bearing the same messages until we no longer need to hear them. We do not need to seek them out, that is dangerous activity, instead we must be patient and alert. We must find out who they are, why they have attached to us, and if they truly belong to us, as there are entities out there that may not really be appropriate for our growth, and those kind are best expelled, though they too hold some message of significance for us. And so, after my dream encounter with my entities last week, I expected they’d return at some point. And they have.

This is how my entities approached me this week, in another dream: I am in a hotel room, on a high floor in a hotel in New York City. I sense that I am being watched. I’m pretty calm, but pretty tense as well. I know that Chuck is downstairs waiting for me, but also that he expects to wait a long time. I don’t seem to be doing anything special in the hotel room. I’m just waiting, but for what? I’m not sure. I go into the bathroom and close the door. Suddenly, I’m aware that someone has locked me in. My sense of there having been someone else in the room with me confirmed now. I try the doorknob. Yup, it’s locked from the outside. Through a chink in the doorframe I see a man sitting in a chair, his back to me. I can’t see his face, but I recognize his clothing, similar to the colorful clothing worn by my entities as they first appeared. My reaction is one of caution. “Do not give anything away,” I tell myself, “stay calm and quiet.”

I don’t want the entity to suspect that I am aware of his presence, which is pretty absurd thinking, since we both know that I’m fully aware of him. At the same time, I decide that calmness, stealth, and planning are my best options. Once again, I am aware that Chuck is waiting for me downstairs in the hotel lobby, that he will become suspicious and come looking for me. At the same time, I’m aware that he won’t even think of coming, because our agreement has been that I can handle things on my own, that I have come up to the hotel room on my own, for a reason that only I know.

I get very calm, soberly calm. Barely breathing, I steady myself and contemplate the situation I’m in. I could find something to pry open the lock on the door. I could somehow break open the doorframe, widening the chink that I can see through. I’m not totally without resources. I already know I will get out, that all is not lost. I feel trapped, however, my spirit suffering in spite of my knowing that this situation, untenable though it feels, is not totally hopeless. I look through the crack in the doorframe again. The entity sits without moving, his back to me, his head still. Almost like a statue he guards the room, his energy like that of a museum guard, non-threatening, but intent upon his task. I don’t really feel threatened by him, only by my own predicament. Once I realize this, I know I must stay inside the locked bathroom and figure some things out. Indeed, I am here for a reason.

Upon further contemplation, I realize that I am being pushed to reconcile something within myself, that this really has nothing to do with the entities in my life, but only with tensions and frustrations within my deeper self. The entity is merely a conduit to my facing this. Why must my spirit be held captive? Why has my psyche conjured up this lockdown situation? What part of me feels jailed or needs jailing?

While I ask myself these questions, there is another part of me that savors the isolation, the time to do deep work, and when I wake up that is what I take with me, the opportunity to sit in deep inner contemplation, my time in isolation well guarded, my entities pushing me to evolve. Even my dearest companion, Chuck, is aware of this, respectful of my need to withdraw into inner silence, as I am aware that he will not come to disturb the situation, that he will not, in fact, be coming to rescue me. This is my gig.

I have been given the go-ahead to do some deep work. This is all that matters now. I find it significant, just as we come into the season of the year when normally we open ourselves to the outside world, to gathering, sharing, giving and receiving, but all of that pales in comparison to what really matters, the deeper issues of the self in this world. I already know that I will be of no help to others if I do not help myself first.

And so, I turn the fear and paranoia of the first part of the dream, the sense of being watched and held captive, on its ear. Instead, I welcome my captor. I intend to let my spirit guide me through this process. In order to discover what I must, restraint and limitation must be enforced. If I am to evolve to a new level, I must force myself to endure a shift. And this is how I am being asked to shift now; to go into isolation for a time, to become innerly quiet and bear the tension, to be resolved to my situation and make the most of it.

I accept that one of my entities has come to guide me through this process of deeper self-contemplation, guarding my door, so that I may be undisturbed, even by those closest to me. The inner journey can only be undertaken alone. And so I thank my entities for their presence in my life at the same time that I face my spirit and ask it to tell me what is going on, what’s happening at a deeper level? I await the answer. In the meantime, I remain fully present in the rest of my life as well, even though I am locked in a cell, contemplating deeper issues. This situation, I am aware, is the next step on my journey.

Locked in and bearing the tension,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: There’s Weird Energy Out There

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Cold energy entered the room… - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Cold energy entered the room…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Here is an account of what happened to me last week: I’m sitting in a yoga class, in sweet pose, a comfortable meditation pose. I intend to keep my energy to myself, innerly calm and protected. I don’t want to be affected by outside energy and so I do not turn my palms up but keep them face down. I do not wish to receive from without but only to hold sacred space within.

Placing my hands palms down on my knees, in chin mudra, with thumb and forefinger together, I think about entities, that they are everywhere. I am not interested in engaging them. Within seconds of silently declaring this intent, I feel a burst of cold air sweeping past me on the right, as if a window has suddenly sprung open. Swirling around, it hovers nearby, a strange sort of mini tornado. In the next second, cold energy hovers over my right hand, as if someone has placed a cool wet hand over mine. The sensation lasts at least 30 seconds, perhaps longer.

I have time to consider that perhaps the teacher has gotten up and is walking around the room, that he is doing some kind of energy work, but even so the rush of cold air that I’m feeling seems impossible to be made by anyone walking past, and I very much doubt that his energy would feel so cold. This energy has an otherworldly feel to it. I peek at the teacher just to be sure. He is sitting calmly in front of the class, eyes closed. Obviously he has not moved. Then I think: “It’s an entity. There’s an entity in the room.” And I am certain that it has come to convey the truth of my own insinuation, that there are indeed entities everywhere. It pays to be careful.

That night I dreamed. In the beginning of the dream, I am at an art gallery opening. The room is crowded. I slowly weave my way through the crowds, avoiding contact. I do not want to engage anyone. Seamlessly, I flow like water through the room and out the door. Once outside, I’m glad that I did so well at protecting myself from outside energy. Now I have to cross a stream. The water is fairly deep. I look down and see that four men, each dressed the same and looking remarkably alike, are lying in the water. They form a log-like bridge for me to walk across. I don’t want to go near them, for I am aware that they are entities, but at the same time I know I must cross the stream.

“Come on,” they say, “cross over. You have to.”

“I don’t want to step on you,” I say, concerned. “I’ll hurt you.”

“No you won’t,” they say. “Just do it!”

And so I do. I run as fast and as lightly as possible, still worried, however, that I might hurt them or that I might be infected by their energy. As soon as I get to the other side of the stream they immediately hop out of the water and surround me, standing in the four directions—North, South, East and West—facing me.

“I don’t want entities attached to me,” I boldly say.

“You need us,” they say. “You have to encounter us and you have to engage us. We are your entities, and you can’t get away from the fact that we exist.”

“You won’t advance until you accept us,” they say. “You won’t get anywhere without us.”

Like water I intend to keep flowing… - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Like water I intend to keep flowing…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I know I must acquiesce, for I know the truth of what they say. I am fully aware that everything that is placed before me must be encountered and dealt with, that indeed, I need it in order to advance. I am aware, as I dream, that these four beings will be with me now, my very own entities. I am aware that I must learn about them, who they are and how they operate. I must befriend them and make them my allies, as don Juan Matus discussed with Carlos Castaneda. I must utilize them to my advantage.

I am struck, as I awaken from this dream, how my intent to avoid contact with outside energy—both in my yoga class and in my dream—has resulted in my being presented with exactly what I was trying to avoid. There is great meaning in that. I am also struck by the fact that my entities, inorganic beings, as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico call them, all look exactly alike. And why are there four of them? I surmise that this is part of their teaching methods, tricksters that they are. I expect to be fooled by them until I no longer need to be.

Carlos Castaneda, in The Art of Dreaming, describes his own encounters with inorganic beings. Don Juan tells him he must make friends with them. “They have singled you out themselves,” don Juan says. “When they do that, it means that they seek an association. I’ve mentioned to you that sorceress form bonds of friendship with them.”

Don Juan goes on to explain that a friendship “consists of a mutual exchange of energy. The inorganic beings supply their high awareness, and sorcerers supply their heightened awareness and high energy. The positive result is an even exchange. The negative one is dependency on both sides.”

I am already aware of this exchange of energy. In fact, as I mentioned, I was not interested in engaging in such an exchange. In fact, I have always sought to avoid it. But now I understand that my inorganic beings have come to help me. If I am to advance, I know I must engage them. But I also fully intend to not become dependent. Even in my dream, I was aware that our association will be temporary, only as long as is necessary. I don’t know if that’s possible, or how it will come about, but that is my intent, for I fully anticipate moving on, advancing, which they also implied would happen if I engaged them. But perhaps they were only tricking me. I’ll have to wait to find out!

“Watery beings are given more to excesses,” don Juan tells Carlos, as he explains the two kinds of inorganic beings, water and fire. “The old sorcerers believed that they were more loving, more capable of imitating, or perhaps even having feelings. As opposed to fiery ones, who were thought to be more serious, more contained than the others, but also more pompous.”

From this description, I know that my four inorganic beings are water energy. This makes perfect sense to me, as I am a water sign, and because my own energy has always been watery, flowing for the most part, just like I did in my dream as I flowed out of the gallery. But water, though capable of gently simmering, is also capable of great force and power. And so I am both cautious and intrigued.

What does your inorganic being look and feel like? You never know!- Photo by Jan Ketchel
What does your inorganic being look and feel like?
You never know!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

When Carlos asks the meaning of his own two entities, don Juan replies: “The meaning is too vast to discuss at this time. My recommendation is that you vanquish fear from your dreams and from your life, in order to safeguard your unity.” He tells him that he himself refused the inorganic beings, because he did not want to be at the mercy of any entity, organic or inorganic. He tells Carlos that his inorganic being wants his energy and he warns: “It will come to you for more.”

From this exchange, I intuit the necessity of remaining independent, to maintain my unity, my wholeness. But I must also learn how best to use these four watery energies for my advancement. The fact that they all look alike, capable of imitating, as don Juan tells Carlos, is going to be quite a challenge. I see that already. In fact, i believe they entered the yoga studio, invited in by my first challenge, my intent to avoid them. They saw an opening and they took it. “Be extremely careful,” don Juan tells Carlos, and that is exactly what I intend to be: Extremely careful!

Alert to what may come next,
Jan

Quotes from: The Art of Dreaming by Carlos Castaneda, pp 52-55.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Those Darned Tiny Seeds

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There it is! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
There it is!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I dream a universal dream. I hear these words clearly spoken: “The truth is but a tiny seed.” And then I see a seed, a speck, a flash of insight. Then black clouds and white clouds roll in, covering the seed. I know they are the dark clouds of fear and the white clouds of illusion, covering what we don’t want to know, what we will not face. I understand that this is what we do with our deepest truths—we hide them from ourselves. They are still there, however, tiny seeds waiting to be discovered.

I lie awake in the night and know that I must always dare myself to part the clouds and find the meaning of the seeds. I must not let the seeds of truth lie there untended, never properly nurtured. If I don’t tend to them they will grow moldy and create problems.

Contemplation of this dream leads me back along a winding road, to a spark of a memory that emerges, grows, and is nurtured as I face the truth of it.

I was living in New York City in 1984, working for a publishing company. It was the height of the AIDS crisis. An office meeting was called because a man among us had AIDS, in fact was dying. I will call him David. David was about 50, a man of energy and vitality, an actor and singer, so sweet and kind, so gentle and considerate. He kept a jar of chocolates on his desk. He’d invite anyone in to sit, have a chocolate, and shoot the breeze. His health had been steadily deteriorating. In the few years that I knew him, I watched him go from healthy physique to skeletal sickness. He worked until he could no longer do so. The day that the meeting was called he was still coming into the office on occasion, though on that day he was not there.

The meeting was a real eye-opener for me. When asked to be open and honest, assured that no one was taking notes, people revealed themselves. People I had thought kind and compassionate showed that they were judgmental, bigoted and homophobic, hate-filled and fearful. There was a guy I had a slight romantic interest in. When he spoke at this meeting, a very intelligent guy, I lost all interest in him. I was, in fact, floored by the ignorance I heard. Was I being judgmental myself? Probably, but that’s where I was at the time. I could not believe that others did not share the same love that I felt for this deeply suffering fellow human being. On that day, however, I also saw what was kept so carefully guarded at all of our cores, the fearful seed of truth that we will all face death one day.

David got sicker and sicker. About two weeks before he died a friend came into my office and asked me, as an illustrator, if I would make a card for him that everyone could sign. I accepted the assignment with a heavy heart, knowing how important it would be.

A happy llama... - Drawing by Jan Ketchel
A happy llama…
– Drawing by Jan Ketchel

I knew that David loved llamas—the furry animal kind—that he’d had some transformative experience with them while traveling, and so I knew I had to incorporate them into the card. I faced also that he was dying, that he was leaving this world, and so I didn’t want to paint a ‘let’s pretend you’re NOT dying’ picture.

I sat at my drawing board for a long time and then I let the illustration come through me. I channeled it. It flowed out of my pens and brushes, a four-part comic strip story. Winged angel llamas grazed peacefully in a bucolic setting. A new winged angel llama flew up to be with them and was lovingly welcomed amongst them. Contented and at peace, he too grazed and frolicked happily, finally at home among the llama angels. When I was done I sat back and looked at the card. It was beautiful and sensitive, but it frightened me. I’d written something inside too, about his friends waiting to greet him again, or something like that.

I stared at what I had created for a long time, left it sitting, came back to it over and over again, finally decided that it was just right. It had to be right, for David; deeply respectful of this man who was facing an early death with such graciousness, his sense of humor intact throughout his illness, his thankfulness for having had such a good life. It had to be the right, meaningful, personal, sendoff.

I brought it to work and handed it over to my friend, a little fearful that she might think it was too much, that I had gone too far, for I had a sense that it was a little daring, confronting the fact of death, even in this gentle way. “This is great!” she said. “Oh my God, he’ll love it.” It went around the office and everyone signed it, everyone loved it, except one person.

Normally a pussycat, and someone I knew as a friend, stormed into my office. “How dare you!” he fumed, a big man, barely able to keep his voice down. “He’s dying! You can’t send a card like that to a dying man! You can’t put llamas on his card! He loves llamas! I won’t sign it!”

Sometimes we cannot control what lies in our darkness... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Sometimes we cannot control what lies in our darkness…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

My retort was just as angry as his, though I did not hold back. I didn’t care that anyone else heard me either. I stood up from my chair, looked up into his red face towering above me, and yelled at him. I told him that he didn’t have to sign the card, that I felt the card was totally appropriate and that the llamas were there for a very good reason, exactly because David had such a spiritual connection with them. And in the frightened face of that big man, I knew I was facing my own fear of death, what he himself could not face in his friend. His fear was real, and yet I would not back down or even sympathize.

He stomped out of my office in an angry huff and didn’t speak to me for a long time. He stared daggers at me every time I passed his desk. He stepped away from me on the subway train that we both rode. In turn, I had to face why I got so angry when he confronted me. Why did I usually get angry like that when confronted by something, especially something that I knew to be true? Why did I always run from the truth? I could have been more diplomatic: “Well, I felt the same way at first, but that’s just what came to me, and it felt right, but of course you don’t have to sign it if it doesn’t feel right,” was what I should have said, but I knew there was more to it. I had to face, not only that I was really just as scared of death as he was, but that for some unknown reason I had vitriolic anger boiling inside me. How easily it slipped out!

Eventually, I approached the big man and apologized for screaming at him. By this time word had gotten around that David did indeed love the card. He sent back word, thanking me, telling me that he kept it near him, looked at it often, laughed and felt so happy every time he looked at it. It was in his arms when he died. I’d also heard that it ended up incorporated into an AIDS quilt, on a section commemorating David.

I know now that no matter where we are in our lives, our inner world is interwoven in our everyday world. The seeds of our truths lie at our core, festering and asking to be reckoned with, consciously on occasion, but, more often than not, unconsciously. Even those who live lives greatly disconnected from their inner world, who have no sense of its existence, are dominated by it in a myriad of ways: in anger, depression, jealousy, pain; in acting out; in feelings of worthlessness, inflation, hopelessness; in fear.

Our inner world dominates us until we finally clear away the black clouds of darkness and the white clouds of illusion and reveal the seeds of truth at our core for what they truly are and what they truly mean. And then we are offered the chance of gaining some equilibrium, for otherwise we are sorely off balance.

Finally, I have learned that signs and synchronicities constantly come to point us inwardly, yet they are often missed, dismissed, or too frightening to bear. But it is only in the bearing of the tension of them that we discover just where we need to go and just what we need to face. In facing our deepest issues, those signs and synchronicities take on magical significance, their messages offering direct experience of life on a totally new level, out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.

Looking at those seeds very closely,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Little Horse

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I walk along a country road... -Photo by Jan Ketchel
I walk along a country road…
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

I dream that I’m walking along a country road. To the right is an old farm, sprawling along a flat expanse of land. There is a low white stucco farmhouse. The grass is very green, the landscape low rolling hills, a row of trees in the distance. As I look around and take in the landscape, I’m aware that this is an important dream. As I walk up to the farmhouse, I have an overall sense that I am going to learn something significant about myself.

Outside the front door, sitting inside a round pen, I find a small horse, the size of a Shetland pony. The horse is covered in mud, the ground it sits upon muddy too. It looks uncared for. I’m immediately worried about it, aware that it needs water.

I find a small white bowl and go into the house with the intention of getting some water for the horse. I walk into a long narrow room, somewhat like a throne room. Upon a dais sits an old great aunt, now dead, a person who had been pampered and taken care of her whole life. Adoring daughters, other relatives and family friends—all familiar to me—line the sides of the room and sit at her feet. I walk down the center of the room and up to her where she sits above everyone. I look up at her and tell her that the horse needs care, that I will come by every day to give it water and hay. I’ll take it for a walk. It needs exercise, I say. It will need a halter or leash, I say. I will also clean it, I say, because it needs to be brushed. Its back, I had noticed, was covered with clumps of mud.

After delivering my message, I turn and leave the room. When I am just outside the door I hear laughter, the people in the room giggling over my concern for the horse. It doesn’t bother me; I don’t take it personally because I know how important the horse is.

I go into a bathroom to pee and put water in the small white bowl, but when I flip the light switch there is no electricity. The bathroom is totally dark, with no windows. I find a flashlight on the counter and switch it on. It gives me enough light to see the toilet and the sink. I pee and then fill the bowl with water.

I go outside and give the bowl of water to the horse. I tell it that I’ll be back to walk it and take care of it every day. As I leave, I run into my brother, a builder. I tell him that the house needs some repairs, that the electricity in the bathroom isn’t working properly and that he should check it out. It isn’t really of concern to me, as only the welfare of the horse is of interest.

This is called "The Unicorn in Captivity," a detail from the seventh tapestry in the series, The Hunt for the Unicorn. I think we are all hunting for our own unicorn... -Photo by Jan Ketchel
This is called “The Unicorn in Captivity,” a detail from the seventh tapestry in the series, The Hunt for the Unicorn. I think we are all hunting for our own unicorn…
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

In the morning, as soon as I tell the dream to Chuck, I see the mandala: the horse sitting inside the round pen. Chuck, immediately thinking of the Medieval tapestry of the white unicorn sitting inside the round picket fence, asks me if the horse was white. I don’t think so, I say, it appeared to be brown in color, but it was covered in mud, so I don’t know for sure.

I decide that the appearance of my old great aunt, sitting above everyone, implies the ego, while the lack of light in the bathroom implies the conscious/unconscious. I’m aware that the horse is important, to me especially, but that’s as far as I get in my analysis. I let the dream sit for a while. Before long, however, greater meaning emerges, especially when I remember that Chuck and I had been reading about the Vedantic traditions of the kosas the night before. The kosas are the five sheaths that enclose the spiritual germ—the Atman—the spiritual energy that we all are. I begin to see the dream in the context of those sheaths, how everything in the dream was set up to lead me to the horse, what I see as the fourth sheath, the kosa of ancient wisdom. I did go back to an ancient place of family in the dream. The setting was not, however, my family’s estate as I had known it, but completely different, though in the dream I was aware that it was the family farm.

I begin to see that the dream had me encounter the first four sheaths or kosas: the physical, the breath, the ego/mental, and the ancient wisdom. The first kosa comes in the form of family members in their physical bodies, a lot of them overweight, but also ignorant as to why I cared so much about the horse. I am intent upon giving water to the horse. I see water perhaps representing the breath, the second sheath, the etheric pranamaya-kosa, which gives energy to the body. I then encounter the great aunt sitting upon her throne, representing the ego and the mental kosa, also represented by the dark bathroom which I light with the flashlight, the conscious and the unconscious. Finally, in the form of the horse, I encounter the wisdom sheath, vinjanamaya-kosa which I am intent on tending, bringing what it needs to live in health and harmony. Inside this last sheath lies bliss, anandamaya-kosa, the Atman. This is the ultimate goal of this life that I live, to experience my inner bliss, that eternal kernel of ethereal self.

I understand that the dream stresses all the things I’ve been doing for myself as I work on my physical body, as I do my inner work, my yoga and meditation, as I constantly realign and balance myself on my path. Lately, my personal process has evolved around bringing together all that I am, in harmony, in acceptance. I have been learning how to be the evolved person I had worked so hard to become during my recapitulation process, that assimilation also a process, as I always seek the next step that will take me into deeper and greater self-knowledge.

The dream stresses how to care for the ancient wisdom, how to exercise it and nurture it, while also allowing it to more fully live in my life every day. Just as I tell the horse that I will tend to it every day, so must I do the same in my daily life, tend to the wisdom of the ancients that I have learned about, that I channel and that I teach others about.

This is a very supportive dream, I conclude, in alignment with all that I am, with all the work that Chuck and I do, with what we talk about, write about, and are drawn to read about. It’s what we strive for. It’s about harmony, balance, and careful tending to all parts of the self. As Joseph Campbell says, we are constantly seeking to make ourselves transparent to the transcendent.

An hour later, something becomes clear and I reinterpret the dream slightly, but in quite an eye-opening way. I suddenly remember how important the little horse was to me in the dream, and that nothing was going to stop me from taking over its care. Now I see that the little horse actually represents the neglected fifth kosa—bliss. The dream itself, I realize, and the farmhouse setting represent the fourth kosa, ancient wisdom. I had a sense of this during the dream, as I walked toward the ancient farmhouse, aware that I was entering deeper into a dream of importance and significance.

Bliss is... -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Bliss is…
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

The dream actually leads me to where my bliss has been silently and patiently waiting for me, inside the sheath of the fence, which is actually rather flimsy and couldn’t really hold back the horse if it wanted to escape. I see this as the truth about our bliss, that it waits for us to find it. And once we become aware of it, it’s not that hard to access, nor is it really held back by anything other than our own inability to see it for what it is, and perhaps our inability to allow ourselves to have access to it, as we are taught that to seek our bliss is selfish. In reality, however, it’s all that matters. And so I name my little horse, Bliss.

Only by properly caring for and nurturing my bliss/Bliss will I be able to bring it to full health and life. And rather than having to search for it outside in the world, I now know that I have it inside me. It’s been there all along, always with me, at the center of my being. How could it be otherwise? Perhaps it’s a little white horse after all, the innocent unicorn that lies at the center of who we all are. In innocence lies the magical, the utterly transcendent. We just have to free it from it’s sheath, tear down its flimsy fence. Thank you, dreamworld!

I most humbly express my thanks for being able to tell you this dream. Perhaps it will help in your own dream interpretations. I know from experience that those sheaths have a habit of popping up quite often, in dreaming and in real life. They are the veils we talk about all the time, keeping us from our truths, and from our bliss. In the end, they fall quite easily, once we see what they are really made of.

Taking down the fences, and the sheaths, and the veils, and whatever else happens to get in the way of going deeper still,
Jan