Tag Archives: I Ching

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Path Of Innocence

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First light, innocence of a new day... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
First light, innocence of a new day…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I am deeply appreciative of the pioneering work of others who have contributed to the clarity of my own unfolding path. As a result, I recently considered a major shift. The question that presented was whether or not to deepen my affiliation with the work of one of those pioneers, a major energetic commitment.

I’ve been at this kind of juncture many times in this life. I recall the moment when Jeanne and I looked into each other’s eyes after our first encounter with the witches of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage. In that moment we knew that this was it. Our lives energetically shifted forever as we aligned our intent with the intent of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, the intent of total freedom.

As I pondered this current potential shift, I threw the I Ching and received the guidance of hexagram #10, Treading [Conduct] with a moving line in the second place. Treading portrays the weak going to meet the strong, the weak literally treading on the tail of the tiger. In this case, the weak is innocent, not meaning harm but in fact seeking connection. And with that the powerful tiger is accepting; it does not swallow up the weak.

To me the tiger, the powerful, is the unconscious in all its deepest transpersonal manifestations including spirit, in all its mystery. The weak is consciousness, innocent but limited in its knowledge of the vastness of self. All healing requires a fluid relationship between the weak and the strong. The I Ching is speaking directly to my question: How best to approach this great mystery of spirit? In the nine in the second place, it refines its answer, as follows:

“The situation of a lonely sage is indicated here. He remains withdrawn from the bustle of life, seeks nothing, asks nothing of anyone, and is not dazzled by enticing goals. He is true to himself and travels through life unassailed, on a level road. Since he is content and does not challenge fate, he remains free of entanglements.“

This answer resonates deeply with my heart, mirroring the path of heart that Jeanne and I embarked upon on that day with the witches of Castaneda’s lineage. It was my head that questioned a shift, but the I Ching answered to my heart! The I Ching produces a future reflection as well, based on this charged second line, the hexagram of Innocence, #25. Here, the point is further driven home:

“When, in accord with this, movement follows the law of heaven, man is innocent and without guile. His mind is natural and true, unshadowed by reflection or ulterior designs. For wherever conscious purpose is to be seen, there the truth and innocence of nature have been lost. Nature that is not directed by the spirit is not true but degenerate nature.“

To underscore: Movement that flows from the head and not the heart loses its innocent connection to spirit.

Energy of true nature... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Energy of true nature…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Jan and I accept that we are lone wolves. We promote not; we seek not to affiliate. We attach no self-importance to our work. We strive to remain purely innocent journeyers, humbly offering our experiences that others may learn and grow. We open to the magnetic draw of spirit as it may choose to move through our works.

Jan’s latest book, Into the Vast Nothingness, published today, is another offering to those seeking the tools to take the deepest of soul retrieval journeys in this life. Our only intent is that her works may inspire and find their way to those seeking to unburden and truly align with their own path of innocence.

As for us, we remain lone wolves, navigating our own paths of innocence—quite happily, I might add!

Remaining on my path of heart,
Chuck

We are very excited to announce the publication of Jan’s new book. We energetically send it on it’s way with the aforementioned intent. Here is the link: Into the Vast Nothingness. The Kindle edition is soon to be published. Updates to follow.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Breakthrough To Wholeness

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The magnolia buds have survived the winter and are ready now for breakthrough... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The magnolia buds have survived the winter and are ready now for breakthrough…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

We are beings filled to the brim with conflicting tendencies. St. Paul said it succinctly: “That which I would I do not, that which I would not, that I do.” Confronted with the opposition of his own carnal sexuality and his deep spirituality, St. Paul went the way of many a monastic tradition and chose celibacy. The challenge of truly reconciling this polarity within the self by rejecting that which is outside of the self is daunting and often misses the mark. The failure of this resolution couldn’t be more apparent than in the modern Catholic Church,* tarnished worldwide with deep involvement in sexual abuse. Clearly, merely shunning or splitting off sexuality does not make it go away—it must be reckoned with.

Carl Jung pointed out that for a tree’s branches to reach heaven its roots have to reach hell. True reconciliation of inherent human oppositions must integrate all sides of human nature into a cohesive whole. A one-sided solution to our problems inevitably sets the stage for a backlash or a breakthrough of the forsaken other—the rejected shadow self.

Times of breakthrough are exceptional times, like the breakthrough of a swollen river over its dikes. In hexagram #43, Breakthrough, the I Ching counsels resolute action in such exceptional circumstances. First, resolution must be based on a union of strengths and friendliness. The adult self must hold its own and not be taken over by the opposing tendency. On the other hand, it needs to greet it with friendliness, lend an objective ear to its point of view.

Second, a compromise with evil is not possible. If the dissociated tendency insists on taking over the personality on its own terms, it must be openly discredited. There can be no compromise with a one-sided truth. On the other hand, the passions and one-sided motives of the ego self must equally be brought into the light and openly examined.

Third, the struggle must not be carried out directly by force. If an opposing tendency has taken on a compulsive habit in the personality, labeling it evil or denigrating the self for its presence in the personality only empowers it as it weakens the adult self charged with shifting the habitual state of affairs, such as with some kinds of addictions.

It's surprising just how much nature shows us how to break through. When the time is right...Just do it! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
It’s surprising just how much nature shows us how to break through.
When the time is right…Just do it!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Finally, the best way to advance is to make energetic progress in new behaviors that serve the true needs of the overall personality. A dysfunctional habit may actually be holding the place of a deeper need for fulfillment. Rather than brand the habit as bad, make use of it to turn in a new direction and engage in behaviors that fulfill the deeper needs of the self. For instance, challenge the self to go into the world and interact versus retreating and soothing the self with lulling talk and substance. Or rather than seeking excessive fulfillment in the outer world, retreat into the deep vibrational experience of transcendent oneness in meditation.

Breakthrough encounters are part and parcel of the individuation process. Breakthrough encounters are necessary guideposts in recapitulation as well. Through these encounters we are afforded the opportunity to integrate our opposing tendencies into a holistic being, truly capable of a new mantra: “That which I would, I do;” the ultimate conscious breakthrough, in consummate wholeness.

Breaking through,
Chuck

* It is interesting to note that an ancient papyrus has broken through the sands of time and been validated by modern scientific method to challenge this one-sided position of the Catholic Church. At least some early Christian communities documented that Christ spoke of having a wife. Here is an excerpt from the NYT regarding the words that have fanned some controversy: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’ ” Too convenient for some, it also contained the words “she will be able to be my disciple,” a clause that inflamed the debate in some churches over whether women should be allowed to be priests.

Read the entire report in The New York Times.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Synchronistic Mirrors

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What does this synchronicity mean??? - Photo by Chuck Ketchel
What does this synchronicity
mean???
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

A wise yogi once shared his hard-earned wisdom with me: “Beware the allure of asanas. The heart of yoga is in pranayama, the breath.” My humble wife, earnest student of svaroopa yoga for many years, warned me long ago that I should approach inverted asanas with great caution and support.

Since young adulthood I have enjoyed inversions, particularly halasana, plough. Over a year ago, as I descended from that asana I strained my sacral muscles, initiating a long journey with back issues. Eventually, at my daughter’s hinting, I sought guidance from a teacher of the Alexander Technique. Most recently, particularly through the heart of the snow storms, I was amazed at the strength and resilience of my fully healed back.

The other morning, as I dressed, I was buoyant with energy, balancing on one foot as I raised the other to put on socks while standing. I quickly lifted my right leg, excitedly thinking how powerful I’d become, when suddenly a powerful pain shot through my sacrum. OW! I’d done it again!

I was thrown into immediate deflation, filled with negative judgments about my cocky stupidity. I was also in the midst of reading some lectures that Carl Jung, my intellectual nemesis, had given at the Tavistock Clinic in London in 1935. Ironically, he spoke of his own struggle with inferiority when a frequent guest at his home, Albert Einstein, would come and speak to him about his Theory of Relativity. Not being himself gifted in math, Jung said he “sank fourteen feet deep into the floor and felt quite small,” as Einstein tried desperately to communicate his thoughts. As I found myself sinking, I evoked Carlos Castaneda’s #1 dictum: “Suspend judgment!” That simple mantra is profoundly useful in allowing us to get to the deeper meaning of synchronistic events in our lives.

Of course I feel foolish for hurting my back so carelessly. But what is the significance of the event? What am I being shown? To get to the deeper meaning of events we can’t stay stuck in judgment, it too limits and clouds our view.

I am stirred to consult the I Ching to deepen my knowledge. I obtain hexagram #37, The Family. This hexagram speaks to the correct relationships within the family as the microcosm for all relationships in the world. I get a moving line in the 4th place: She is the treasure of the house… It is upon the woman of the house that the well-being of the family depends. Well-being prevails when expenditures and income are soundly balanced.

What is this telling me? Not sure yet.

We watch the documentary Cutie and the Boxer, about a married Japanese artist couple. I immediately don’t like the Boxer, he’s out of control, refuses to be limited. Cutie is held in check, keeping balance as best she can in their lives.

Time for the moon to shine a little brighter... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Time for the moon to shine a little brighter…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I pull the 5 of Wands card from the Tarot deck, Strife, as well as the Moon card. Strife results from the energetic clash when Leo, the fiery energetic creative lion, is inhabited by Saturn, the planet of limitation, discipline and boundary. The lion held in check creates strife.

The Moon is the universal principle of choice-making, particularly around karmic issues, that is, work that needs to be done. The moon is also the universal feminine symbol, yin.

Back to the I Ching. I’m being shown that the yin line in the 4th place—the Moon of the Tarot—must take the ascendancy. The strife lodged in the spine is the clash between the fiery creative energy that, like the Boxer, abhors limitation. This leads to structural defeat that throws the body out of the Tao.

The Moon, the yin, the internal feminine, must come to the ascendancy. Cutie is not to be subordinated to a subservient role but must take charge of internal affairs, asserting balance and limitation, making choices in accordance with the restoration of order, allowing for return to the Tao. If this is achieved, the future of The Family is Fellowship with Men, hexagram #13, depicting the restoration of order—balance and inner harmony—strife resolved.

This series of synchronistic phenomena all mirror each other. Yang energy must be properly complemented and balanced by yin energy. Dominance of the creative over the receptive might lead to a broken back!

Acquiescing to the Moon,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Screens & Screams

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What might we experience if we were to turn off our screens? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
What might we experience if we were to turn off our screens?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Brilliantly conceived, chillingly real, Her is a movie that captures the virtual world we are rapidly opting to evolve into. This modern day anthropomorphism of the machine takes us beyond the malevolent antagonists of 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Matrix into the essence of relationship itself, albeit between a human being and a computer operating system.

An astute observer pointed out to me that the evolutionary challenge presented to the central human character by the computer operating system in this movie was identical to the challenge Jeanne posed to me when she left this world: Could I stay connected to a being whose fullness far transcended the confines of our relationship in this world? Was I prepared to let go of familiarity and possession? This challenge indeed cuts to the heart of our evolutionary readiness, however, there are far more basic challenges that must be addressed before we are ready for that giant leap.

Having paid homage to our virtual brinksmanship with screens, we must not ignore the screams of our abandoned primordial selves. Scott Stossel, in his article about his lifelong anxiety in the current issue of The Atlantic, reveals the screams of his own two million-year-old being who, Jung pointed out, resides within each member of the human race. This ancient being has no interest in screens and hardly feels at home in this world of modernity. This ancient being rejects crowds, to say nothing of speaking before them. This being is terrified of the dark, well aware of the dangers that lurk in the night. This being is deeply affected by nature’s moods, be they storms, cold, or absence of sunlight. This being likes to hibernate.

This ancient being is full of passion that seeks expression, but feels imprisoned by reason and shame. This being seeks to establish its true place in the world, based on personal power beyond the dictates of democracy and political correctness. This being seeks physical warmth and closeness with flesh and blood human beings; damn those screens!

This two million-year-old being learned much in the way of transforming primal energies to fit the needs of all stages of the life cycle through rituals and rites of passage. In our insatiable lust for screens we have lost access to the wisdom of our two million-year-old selves, but hardly have we lost our deepest of human needs.

What might we discover if we were to go down into our darkness? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
What might we discover if we were to go down into our darkness?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The I Ching, in hexagram #48, The Well, sagely advises: “We must go down to the very foundations of life. For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made.”

The screams of our deepest needs call us to turn off our screens and face the true needs and true fears of our primordial selves without judgment. We are asked to accept our truths with humility, to not cover poverty with empty pretense. Acceptance with humility of the truths of our most vulnerable selves links us with the support and wisdom of our two million-year-old being, our real operating system.

In true relationship with this rich self, we are sure to be able to let go of our human desire for familiarity and possessiveness—as Jeanne challenged me with—free to take our own journey in infinity, in fulfillment, wherever we land.

From my two million-year-old self,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Human Change

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Are you ready to enter the portal of change... To consciously take the necessary steps? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Are you ready to enter the portal of change…
To consciously take the necessary steps?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

All life is subject to definite laws of change. The I Ching or Book of Changes, is a collection of significant archetypal scenarios that highlight those points of inevitable change. However, the I Ching also points out that though change is inevitable, we are free to make choices that set in motion their own flow of changes.

Freestanding water in an uncovered pot will eventually evaporate into the atmosphere. Such is the inevitable flow of change for this substance. I, in turn, could ignite a fire beneath that pot of water and thereby hasten an inevitable change by my intervention.

We are all beings who are going to die, this is inevitable. However, the choices we make in life may serve to shorten or lengthen the duration of our life, as well as determine the quality and fulfillment we will experience in human form.

Our animal contemporaries utilize the deep roots of accumulated archetypal wisdom to survive life on this planet. Animal decisions are rapid and automatic, involving little if any conscious deliberation. The human animal, with its latest development, the neocortex or rational brain, has, at least on the surface, parted ways with its internal instinctual animal knowledge. Google has become the warehouse of and vehicle to archetypal knowledge—one click away for conscious consideration and choice.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, warn that this neocortex is not to be trusted as a worthy arbiter of decision making, going so far as to suggest its functioning has been commandeered by a foreign installation. We’d be hard pressed to argue that the decision making of the modern brain isn’t under the influence of some aberration, as it has so quickly put us on the brink of destruction!

Perhaps we are at a stage of evolution where our new cog, the neocortex, needs to run its course before it finds its rightful, modest place next to the archetypal wisdom and instinct we inherit largely from our animal selves.

We must also appreciate that life itself spawned this new possibility of effecting change more creatively by growing a neocortex to begin with. Life wants consciousness to participate alongside archetypal wisdom and instinct. We are at the stage now of discovering how to do that responsibly, hopefully before we destroy ourselves.

On an individual level, we are all charged with taking control of our lives with consciousness. We are change agents who must learn about and respect the ancient wisdom we inherit in our bodies—wisdom that guides decision making through image and emotion. To be responsible, we must, with consciousness, discover why our animal selves might react with fear, anxiety, attraction, or aggression. We must face, as well, habits we have fallen into that mollify but don’t truly satisfy our deepest needs.

We are often confronted in dreams by the images of powerful or weakened animals that reflect and communicate the reactions of our instinctual selves to daily neocortex decision making. If we take seriously these reactions from our deepest human nature, and apply them to the decisions and habits of our waking lives, we are free to introduce changes that could realign us, placing us in good balance to hasten boiling the water of our own spirit/body selves and facilitate our own transformation.

Such are the possibilities of human change!
Chuck