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Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Through Portals & Wormholes

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The portal presents itself... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The portal presents itself… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

“We just went through a portal,” I said to Chuck, after an unusual weekend about a month ago when everything seemed strange and different, when we’d lost all energy and all we could do was lie around in a daze, moaning about our inertia. Suddenly, everything became clear. “This is just what we asked for!” I said. “This is exactly what we need!”

Indeed, we had set the intent to shift. With spring on the horizon and so much left undone, it was time to rev up and face the truth: we were bored. We were suffering from the winter blues. Boredom became our catalyst, but there was something even deeper that was stirring, our spirits calling out to us from beyond the veils of everyday life, calling us to keep going, to not forget that we are beings who are going to die.

“Make this time in this world extraordinary,” Carlos Castaneda said to his audience on August 7, 1995 at a workshop in Culver City, California. “Make this time in this world extraordinary.” Such simple and yet such provocative words! What more could we need to jolt us back into truly living!

Just what was it that had gotten us into such a bored state to begin with? The answer is: “The encumbering weight of Me,” wise words also spoken by Castaneda at that same workshop. “We have let something win by default and we will never actualize our possibilities,” he went on to say. “It’s worthwhile to get rid of this encumbering weight.”

And so began a great unencumbering. Weighed down by all we carry within, recapitulation was the necessary and effective antidote. In the weeks that followed our portal weekend, the portal itself seemed to narrow. Holding us in its tight embrace, we faced what we needed to face. Such were the inner workings of our intent to shift, while on the outside our lives flowed along, the energy of our intent and the honed energy of being in the portal keeping us focused and alert. Suddenly it was time to shift again.

"Make this time in this world extraordinary." - Photo by Jan Ketchel
“Make this time in this world extraordinary.” – Photo by Jan Ketchel

We spent the weekend in Manhattan. Quickly planned for, almost spur of the moment, we arranged for a couple of key events. The rest of our time there was spent on the Upper West Side, in the dream that is New York City, in the vastness of energy that only a big city can provide. We entered the flow of that energy for the time we were there. By the time we were heading home on Sunday night, our energy had honed to accomplish the return. With little attachment, we left the city and all of our experiences behind. We entered the next dream. Chuck drove us out of the city and then I took over the wheel. My intent now was to seamlessly flow northward along the energy lines that led back to Red Hook where we live. The empty Taconic Parkway stretched before me. We were the only car on the road.

I made the decision to speed up. I have a perfect driving record. I’ve never gotten a ticket, not even a parking ticket. Well, maybe one $10 parking ticket back when I lived in Brooklyn in 1983. I thought St. Patrick’s Day was a federal holiday, and so I decided not to put a coin in the meter. It was only a ten cent fee, and something told me to do it anyway, but I didn’t. When I came back to my car there was a ticket stuck to the windshield. But on Sunday night there was no uncomfortable feeling to accompany my decision.

“I don’t want to get a speeding ticket, but I just cannot let this opportunity go by,” I thought. “There’s no one on the road. This could be fun!” And so I sped up, not enough to risk being pulled over, but certainly enough to enjoy the ride, the thrill of the open road.

After a while, I noticed my mind starting to wander, thoughts of the weekend seeping in, one dream overlapping another. I had to stay focused. “Okay,” I said to myself. “You are in a new dream. You have to wake up and stay awake in this dream.” And so I dreamed within my dream. I entered a video game dream, with the intent to maneuver past all obstacles. Keeping my attention honed, I played to perfection. Following the narrow beam of the headlights, I sped along, into the ever-narrowing portal of the night.

The next morning arrived, the intent of my video game dream still operative as we began our week with a similar intent: to flow seamlessly and without distraction, to make each moment important and fruitful, to, as Castaneda said, “Make this time in this world extraordinary!”

Time to pop out of the video game dream... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Time to pop out of the video game dream… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

The week progressed. Energy and attention honed to work. By the middle of the week I began to feel as if I were in a vise; my energy felt like it was being squeezed out of me. “Oh my God, I never left the video game; I’m still driving down the Taconic!” I thought. “I have to wake myself up and dream a new dream!”

With that intent, a new dream began. Instantly things shifted. I felt myself pop right out of the video game and land with a plop, my energy released, my mind suddenly clear. “I just escaped the wormhole I’ve been in all week,” I said to Chuck. “You were there too! We were dreaming the same dream. We were stuck on the Taconic, still driving in my video game dream. Welcome to our new dream!”

And what is the new dream? Well, it’s really pretty simple. It’s just what Carlos Castaneda said to his audience that day in Culver City: “Make this time in this world extraordinary!” Keep dreaming a new dream. Set the intent and let it happen. It really works!

Dreaming all the time,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Dreaming It Forward

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Where it all began...
Where it all began…

From the moment I opened Carlos Castaneda’s first book, The Teachings of Don Juan – A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, in the early 1970s, I was hooked by the energy of the intent of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico. Many people I have encountered over the past 40 years, who opened Castaneda’s books, were similarly affected. Others could barely get through a chapter.

There are many paths to knowledge. We are all challenged to find for ourselves the one—or the many— that resonate with our heart’s intent. The issue really is to discover our individual energetic configuration and what is needed to uniquely advance it forward. The challenge is to get beyond the self-importance of “my method” and wake up to the fact that we are all part of the same transformative dream. The secret is grasping the awe, the awesomeness of this all-inclusive dream.

Carlos Castaneda’s shamanic family, of this generation, was preceded by 27 generations of similarly configured small shamanic groups. Carlos’s generation was the end of that shamanic line as previously configured. This ending/transition coincided with the 1960s and the dawn of a new era in human consciousness. Castaneda has been considered the Godfather of the New Age. I think Carlos was an insinuation of a possibility. I think there were many Godfathers, and Spider Grandmothers too, ushering us into this evolving dream.

Castaneda and his shamanic partners merged with the intent of their sorcery line and launched a new shamanic configuration: No secrecy, no hierarchy, all knowledge, open to the masses. In this new and daring configuration, the Nagual—the traditional head of a shamanic party—resides in each one of us. This is similar to the Buddhist’s view that we are all the Buddha. Though we may participate in life as a mass, we are all charged with the individual responsibility of meeting the challenge to lead ourselves to freedom. Castaneda was uniquely suited to herald in this transition, as his mother had been a committed socialist.

In this new line of shamanism, the core culprit to be wrestled with is self-importance, which leads to greed. Freedom is to be found only through piercing through the veil of the greedy self that has led the world as we know it—our concensus reality—to the brink of destruction. How timely the unleashing of this shamanic guidance on the worldwide stage!

Carlos was fascinated by the energetic potential of the masses to effect great energetic change. He would sit on the stage and look out over us in the audience of his lectures and workshops and marvel at the energy circulating and building through the crowd. Everyone who has been drawn into the energetic dream that he and his cohorts unveiled is part of dreaming this dream forward, a new world built on the solid footing of the intent of affection—the Shaman’s version of the Buddhist’s intent of compassion—to lead us beyond the crumbling walls of self-importance and greed.

I was deeply immersed in Castaneda’s world throughout the 1990s and emerged to discover my small part in this vast dream of transformation. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was to retrieve the tool of recapitulation from the shamanic world and apply it to the clinical condition of PTSD. I had realized, while in that shamanic world, that EMDR shared a bilateral similarity with the recapitulation breath, but I realized it fell short of accessing the magic and awe of the shamanic world—the gateway to evolutionary change. It took me a while to fully grasp the true potential of these two tools, when used in combination, to offer total healing from PTSD. The intent of this shamanic dream is not simply about healing, however, it’s also about freedom.

Carlos dreaming it forward...
Carlos dreaming it forward…

We all want to heal; we all need to heal. But let’s face it, we’re all going to die anyway. The real challenge is to maintain awareness and continuity at death—to continue the dream, to dream it forward, as it transforms into new arenas in infinity. From this perspective, PTSD is a portal—the initiation into a shamanic journey that opens the door to the magical tools to intend a new world. Trauma offers us a glimpse of the awe of that new world.

All shamanic journeys begin with some form of traumatic knock, as we take journeys beyond the body—beyond the confines of the reality we’ve been socialized to uphold. PTSD is the unsettled legacy of those journeys as we brace ourselves to straddle the different worlds we have experienced. In recapitulation, we reconcile those worlds and are offered the opportunity to launch ourselves into new worlds of possibility. In recapitulation we are offered the opportunity to experience the awe, unfettered by the crumbling constraints of a world previously upheld by fear, greed, and self-importance.

All who take up the challenge of facing and aligning with their inner truth are part of the mass energetic current of change that is now sweeping through our world, the same mass energy that Carlos would stand before us and speak of with awe. We are all dreaming it forward.

It’s not about believing, it’s not about allegiance, and it’s definitely not about self-importance. It’s actually the end of self-importance. Everyone, everything matters equally. That is the key to affection. It’s not about one practice or another being the one and only practice; it’s about doing whatever resonates. It’s about dreaming forward a new dream now, founded on truth and affection—a dream that soars on the wings of intent.

Dreaming it forward,
Chuck

Jan's Blog, Messages from Jeanne

A Day in a Life: Your Guts Of Steel

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Where do you turn for inspiration? - Photo of poster of St. Patrick's Cathedral by J. Ketchel
Where do you turn for inspiration? – Photo of poster of St. Patrick’s Cathedral by J. Ketchel

I look for inspiration for my blog. I’m putting all my energy into finishing my book, so I look for something to guide me. I pick up The Art of Navigation by Felix Wolf. I open it to page 141 and read the following: There was such beauty in intending impeccability and integrity. I believe, however, that the abundance and generosity of life that I was experiencing were not so much tied to the effort of intending and following principles, but rather the result of simply honoring and acknowledging the aliveness of life, every step of the way. Ultimately, looking life in the eye with recognition seems to be all that is truly necessary.

I like this quote, it inspires me, and yet I wish to save my energy. I look to Jeanne for another message today. When I channel, the words just flow out of my pen onto the paper before me. It’s easy on my brain, my time, and my energy. And so I break my attachment to my usual Wednesday blogging routine once again and go to the energetic source of life, as I experience it, to my spirit in alignment with infinity. And so I offer you the following channeled message that came through, as I looked the energy of life in the eye and asked: What message do you have for us today?

Here is what Jeanne replied:

It is of utmost importance that each one of you become fulfilled beings of light and energy, that you work through the issues that hold you in fear and regret, so that your energy may be used to benefit all of mankind. I do not say this lightly, but only because mankind is at such a turning point that good energy may be the only saving grace. The more people who free their energy—from greed and inflation, from sadness and petulance, from the insignificance of neediness and desire-of-no-benefit—the more hope will stir.

The world, as you all know it, is suffering. This suffering is largely due to the energetic component of man’s unstoppable greed. Where have all the good ones gone? Nowhere and everywhere, for all of you are the good ones. You know this already.

Do not get caught up in feeling one way or another about the self, but work to free the self from that which holds you back from fulfilling your true potential. And what is your true potential, you ask? Your true potential lies in your energetic self, your spirit self. Bound by the rules of the world, it is fearful. It holds back. It stays safe in its encasement. This encasement, however, will only last so long. In order to truly embrace the true self, it takes guts of steel. You know you have such guts—you all do.

Fear and worry are figments of imagination. They exist only in your mind. Your mind controls your body. Release the figments of mind and you release your body. Release your body and your spirit will find room, your energy will emerge from its encasement and give you all that you need in order to fulfill your highest potential.

Let life in. Let the encasements of an old world go so that the earth may finally be respected for what it is: a life giver! Let life give itself by aligning your personal intent with life today. Allow the self to take the first step in cracking the encasement that surrounds you and keeps you from your greater experiences of life and the world around you.

Seek the fire within... - Photo by J. Ketchel
Seek the fire within… – Photo by J. Ketchel

Sure, the world is a dangerous place. In many areas there is strife and evil, but do not look upon such devastation and disregard of humanity as someone else’s problem. Look inside the self for where you have the same strife and the same dangerous situations going on. The outer world is merely a reflection of the inner world and just as you all share the outer world, so do you all share the inner world. Do not think that your neighbor is not like you, equally holy and equally self-destructive, equally good and equally fallible, equally fine and equally exhausted by the need to uphold the insanity that life has become.

Find within that which you seek without, but also let life lead you and guide you to the answers you strive for within. Reconciliation with inner self will come from reconciliation without, but alignment will come from within. However, it is only in acquiescing to the non-specialness of the self—because all of you are equally special—that you will be able to access your guts of steel and forge a path to your inner self. Once that pathway has been secured, let it lead you into the world in a new way, in an energetically aligned way.

I cannot stress enough that in order to change your reality, you must dare first to change the self. How can you expect the world to change if you do not change your own habits and behaviors? How can the world change if the people who make up the world do not change? You are the first necessary agent of change. Be the agent of change in your own life. Grip your guts of steel and take the first step to cracking through your environment of encased energy and see what happens. Be open to life and life will meet you with equal openness.

Love to you all,
Jeanne

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Seek Refuge In Intent

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Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high… -Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up

We must do the freeing ourselves... - Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel
We must do the freeing ourselves… – Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel

For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico the calling of INTENT is the channel to the power to change the self and the world. If calling intent is a prayer, it’s a prayer of conviction: I INTEND THIS! But it’s also a prayer of humility: Though I state my intent with command, I accept the response I receive.

Perhaps my intent is an ego intent, misaligned with spirit self. I must examine a non-response from intent with humility. I do not attach to the outcome of my stated intent, that is control. I am beckoning power, I must accept with equanimity the response I receive. Perhaps my intent requires that I linger longer where I no longer wish to be. Perhaps I have more to learn before it’s time to awaken from this dream.

Intent insists on strength. We must come to intent as adults. Intent cannot advance us if we beckon with begging, pleading hands. In this case, intent will contain us in our begging stance until we are able to stalk—to truly embody—the shift we seek.

Intent requires that we use our words. Thinking an intent is not calling intent. We must verbalize, with clarity, our intent. Stating our intent establishes a link between a definite being—a being embodying its right to ask—and the power of intent to fund the intention.

I must prepare the ground for intent. Have I done all within my power to receive the fruition of my intent, or am I asking intent to do the work I rightfully can and must do myself? How can intent bring me fulfillment if I have not faced my recapitulation? If I am not ready to open and free myself from the restricted beliefs I hold of myself, how can intent present me with new possibilities that would simply not be possible for me to embody?

I’m ready for new life when I’m willing to shed the old through a completed recapitulation. Until I’ve completed my recapitulation I am not even aware of the beliefs and habits that bind me. How can intent free me when I am not free to go forward?

Finally, a personal note of caution. Intent is real and it’s powerful. Do be careful what you ask for! As a young child I beckoned intent on a Good Friday. Intent responded with a force barely containable in my young body. I opened a portal that day that, quite frankly, I was never able to close. Though I wouldn’t have it any other way, I caution: Use extreme sobriety when beckoning communion with infinity!

We must prepare our humanness to ride freely on the wings of intent. To seek refuge in intent we must assume full responsibility for our lives. That’s the ticket.

With the intent of affection,
Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: The Pragmatist’s Way—One Step At A Time

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Today, I asked Jeanne: What message is most important for us to receive today? Here is her answer:

Are you ready for the energy of spirit? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Are you ready for the energy of spirit? – Photo by Jan Ketchel

If you open to the world of energy you must be prepared for it. If you wish to invite intent into your lives you must be shored up with practical knowledge of how the world really works. You must be a strong pragmatic adult, but you must also be innocently open so that your experiences of a new reality will not be dismissed or denied.

In order to prepare, one must work hard to stabilize the self in the world you now inhabit. Determine within your own lives, My Dears, what this means to you and how you intend to go about it. Some things to keep in mind as helpful goals and objectives are the following:

Choose a path that will work for you, that is resonant with your inner spirit. This may take a while, but if you listen to your heart you will know when you have found it. You may even already be on it and not even know it. Keep in mind that life itself, your daily life and the life you were born into, is part of this greater path. The spirit’s path may be as simple as walking in nature or communing with a pet. It may suggest meditating, listening to music, breathing, dancing, just sitting quietly in calmness. In spirit will you know this path, for your spirit will be the communicator. Your spirit will take the path. Your spirit will guide you and speak to you of having found the way. This path will lead to others as you take it, each new path an off-shoot, but always resonant and connected to the original path—simply the next step. In spirit communication will you know where to go—your OWN spirit, by the way, not through or with someone else’s spirit. I speak only of your own inner spirit. No one can really make the connection with this inner self, except you. Someone else may provide structure, and this is good. The best guide is a good listener who will help you hear what you are saying, will point out the obvious, and will ask you what you want to do next.

Study the reality you are in... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Study the reality you are in… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Know your present reality well. Study how it works and how you respond to it. Notice your habitual patterns of behavior, your tendencies, and your patterns of abuse, reaction, complacency, and inertia. Notice how you attach and how you reject. Notice how you allow and disallow; how you follow and refuse to follow. Know your strengths and your weaknesses, your inflations and your follies. Above all, be perfectly and ruthlessly honest with the self. Notice how quickly you lose all that you gain. Do not be discouraged, just keep going.

Absolve the self of so-called sins. With compassion for the self and others move forward. With love allow yourself to take your journey, even while you allow others to take theirs. Be responsible for those in your care and learn from them. Whether they are lovers or foes, whether you are duty-bound or acting out of love and compassion does not matter—they all have something to teach you.

Be impeccable in how you treat others. Treat all beings equally, with love, kindness, and compassion, with respect and understanding that all are on journeys of evolution. All are great. All are fallible. Even you. Even the most lowly creature and the most profound of scholars are innocent beings—some aware, some not, and which ones are aware you may never know, so treat all equally.

Guide those in your care with gentleness and awe, awe for their journeys. Be non-judgmental, even as you wish to be free of judgment from others yourself. Allow the self and others to fail, this is how you learn. Allow the self and others to struggle. Allow the self and others to go off the path when necessary so that the way back may be discovered. Allow the self and others to embrace results and advances, but do not get caught in inflated ideas of the self. Encouragement is always good.

Maintain a positive outlook. If you are naturally pessimistic, find out why and what that means to you and use it to your advantage. This same kind of examination for all energy types must be explored. Find out what energy type you are and use it as both your challenge and your catalyst. Find out where your talents lie and use them until you find some new ones.

Each day dawns anew... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Each day dawns anew… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Always advance. Even if you cannot see the road ahead of you, know that it’s there waiting. Each step into the darkness is just like a step into the light—in both cases you are blind. Allow your inner vision to guide you. Hold fear in check. Hold the big baby inside you in check. Hold the ego in check. Find your way through practical navigation of the life you find yourself in. This is where you are. Begin there. Look around and discover something that you did not notice before.

Do a reality check several times a day. Say: Okay, where am I? And then decide what to do next based on your reality and your spirit’s intent. Don’t know your spirit’s intent? Don’t worry—just follow the path that opens before you. Eventually you will know that your spirit’s intent is to evolve. Just what this means for each of you will be unique, and how you discover it will be unique as well. How you experience it will be unique. How you grow will be unique.

If you are truly ready for the journey of your spirit, or even if you don’t know if you are ready but you hear the call, I suggest you pay attention. Heed the call and begin your journey with one step today. It will be the first step on a journey of greater fulfillment. One step at a time is the pragmatist’s way.