Tag Archives: journey to wholeness

Chuck’s Place: BPM III And The Blood Beaver Full Moon

In the throes…
-Illustration © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Through his own clinical observations and the pioneering work of Otto Rank, Stan Grof discovered the missing link between Freud’s postnatal biographical unconscious and Jung’s transpersonal collective unconscious: the perinatal dimension of the unconscious, which records our actual birth into this world.

The perinatal dimension of the unconscious includes these four Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM):

BPM I: primal union with mother—the symbiotic union of fetus and mother prior to active labor.
BPMII: cosmic engulfment and no exit—the initiation of labor prior to the cervix being dilated.
BPMIII: death-rebirth struggle—full on labor, the cervix has dilated and mother and child are in the struggle that will lead to birth.
BPMIV: death-rebirth experience—actual birth of an individual person, which terminates the symbiotic unit of mother and infant, as the umbilical cord is severed.

BPM III is the stage of great conflict and activity as, with the cervix widened, the confluent energies of mother and fetus must synergize to birth new life. Today, 11/8, marks the segue into this stage of labor for Mother Earth and her fetus, the human race, as the frantic activity of political elections and movements impact the next phase of our embryonic planetary development.

Furthermore, the full moon has just peaked, with the accompaniment of an eclipse that has rendered it the Blood/Beaver moon. These influences contribute guidance and understanding to this stage of transformative labor.

The eclipse itself is a darkening of the light at the time of the moon’s greatest power, her fullness. This portends powerful encounters with shadow energies without the defense of the moon’s exposing light. The clash of the world’s shadow energies are palpable in our own elections and across the globe, both on the actual surface of the Earth and in the behaviors of her peoples.

From another angle, the eclipse also points to the absolute unknowing of what might happen—like a baby about to be born, we are completely in the dark. Time to buckle our seatbelts for this wild ride of sudden surprise and encounter with the unexpected. We truly do not know what will happen.

The totality of the full moon’s eclipse generates a blood red color, certainly a color associated with birth. This blood moon color is also associated with passionate emotions that accompany the chaos in the struggles for survival.

A dark and foreboding example of such bloodshed appears daily in the country of Ukraine. Netflix recently issued a powerful historical rendition of such horrific bloodshed from WWI in an enacting of the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front.

The Beaver quality of this full moon offers guidance around a helpful attitude to assume in the passionate chaos of now: an unrelenting commitment to the individuation of the dream of realizing the full self.

Ted Andrews, in his book Animal Speak, points out that beavers can remain under water for 15 minutes before they must surface to replenish their store of oxygen. Clearly a suggestion is offered to use the breath to regulate the central nervous system in these calamitous times.

The beaver demonstrates the ability to maintain focus upon one’s path of heart, despite being submerged in the ruffled waters of passionate emotion. Though completely under water, the beaver never wavers in its effort to build and secure its dream home, regardless of the turbulence it encounters. Thus the guidance is: keep your personal link to intent free of attachment to negative thought, returning, incessantly, to the intent of wholeness.

Such is the determination of the fetus, who, in BPM III, is strongly enlivened to fight for its own survival amidst riveting pulsations of contractions that exact their crushing threat upon its umbilical lifeline.

Grof convincingly extends Freud’s psychosexual stages to the perinatal dimension of the unconscious, where, in BPM III, sexual energy is released that awakens the fetus to its own pulsating agency of autonomous, vigorous movement. The journey to birth through the birth canal becomes a confluence, indeed, of separate energies in both conflict and unison.

Our collective journey through BPM III now depends largely on the dream that we, as a collective fetus, choose to embrace. Of course, we are not alone in this decision, as the process involves the independent contractions of Mother Earth herself, as she shapes us through our tumultuous trauma of birth.

BPMIII can be a very long and wild stage of labor. Don’t draw conclusions too quickly, regardless of the intensity and rapidity of the various contractions experienced.

Sustainable birth in our world will be the realization of our collective soul’s dream, the ultimate intent of this Blood Beaver full moon eclipse, with its initiation of our world’s BPMIII.

Buckle up, breathe, find your body’s comfortable rhythm to navigate the confluent energies of now. Remain fixed upon the dream, with utter perseverance and equanimity.

And know, with utter certainty, that the day of full birth, BPMIV, will indeed eventually arrive.

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: 50% (+) & 50% (-) = Harmony

In perfect harmony…

If the equation that is the title of this blog is accurate, then the world, as it is currently energetically distributed, would seem to be on a grand trajectory of achieving harmony. In need of immediate clarification however, is the understanding of (+) and (-).

(+) and (-) are not to be confused with good and bad, as commonly assigned. (+) and (-) are instead the primal energies that make up everything. Thus, for example, the primary building blocks for all the hexagrams in the I Ching are Yang and Yin, the masculine creative (+) and the feminine receptive energies (-).

Yang as spirit and Yin as matter are the primary equal sources of all that is. Thus, man and woman are composed equally of Yang and Yin, spirit and matter. However, when focusing only on outer appearances, the sexes have been innacurately pigeonholed into polarized opposites. The current questioning of gender categories reflects an effort to break the blinding power of these stereotypes when applied to people.

To be in a state of total polarization is the precursor to union. When the positive and negative poles of magnets face each other, a powerful attractive force draws them to unite. When a negatively charged electron meets with a positively charged proton, they are, once again, powerfully attracted to unite. This is the essence and energy of electricity.

The social polarization that currently dominates our world reflects a repulsive vs. attractive force. This occurs in nature when two like poles face each other. If the like poles of a magnet are brought in close proximity they exert a powerfully repulsive energy that absolutely refuses union.

This energetic likeness, in opposition, suggests that what actually underlies the apparent polarization of now, is actually the animus of like energies vying for supremacy and separateness. Thus, the very active energies of Yang are battling for supremacy. The receptive energies of Yin, that would lead toward union, are in very short supply.

Nonetheless, repulsive power is an energetic fact of nature. It serves the function of energetically maintaining distance from another. Within the tension it generates, consciousness has the opportunity to examine rejected and underdeveloped potentials within the self.

This would be what Jung identified as shadow work. This is where ego encounters unknown and unowned parts of the self in a state of opposition. Though repulsed by each other they are nonetheless bonafide parts of the self. These are the male figures that men struggle with in dreams and the female figures that women struggle with as well.

To achieve inner harmony, Yin must be introduced into shadow work. Though the repulsive force of Yang upon Yang energies is powerful, it is also unstable. Again, just try holding the same poles of opposite magnets steady; it’s nearly impossible. The instability of this potent opposition will require the introduction of Yin to achieve the stability and necessary attraction for the harmony of greater unity to occur.

Yin, as the receptive, receives all things. The energy that is capable of complete receptivity is none other than love. Love is the ultimate energy that receives and rejects nothing. Thus, shadow work ultimately requires fully loving all parts of one’s repulsed shadow self. Loving one’s shadow neighbor neutralizes repulsive energy, as the shadow consolidates in wholeness with ego. This sets the stage for the greater union of Yang and Yin, the true equation of harmony.

In recapitulation, one actively engages Yang and Yin energies to arrive at a state of inner harmony. In trauma, the energy of Yin protectively freezes all the aspects of the traumatic experience into a consolidated mass that is then generally stored somewhere in the physical body. This chrysalis of separated energetic experience awaits the action of Yang to free its energy and to ultimately be transformed and integrated into one’s living wholeness.

The ego, the conscious active Yang force, must embark upon the hero’s journey to find and free its imprisoned Yin. Thus, with intention, the ego scans the body in search of its lost Yin. Yin sends out sensations of appreciation and often pain, signaling the greater experience frozen inside it. As well, feelings of fear and anger might emerge to defensively keep one at bay.

Here, Yang might employ the recapitulation breath to bring the Yang and Yin forces into active engagement. As the head moves from side to side, or pole to pole, the breath accompanies it, actively mixing and releasing these opposite energies of matter and spirit. The full experience of frozen Yin is experienced by its partner Yang, as they, as a couple, dissolve the frozen energy in the chrysalis, which re-forms into the butterfly of liberated energy within the self.

Subjectively, one applies loving acceptance toward every aspect of the experience once lost to one’s greater wholeness. Everything and everyone is completely emotionally neutralized by this all-accepting power of love. Nothing remains that has the power to trigger. The full truth is known, fully appreciated, accepted, integrated and transformed into wisdom.

Recapitulation advances harmony through intentionally bringing (+) and (-) energies into active engagement and passive receptivity. As holograms of the whole, every time we recapitulate we advance the cause of outer harmony. May these efforts accrue to lead the world back into harmony.

Begin the reconciliation process within to further the intent for harmony without. To come home for the holidays is to find this harmony at home, within the self.

As within, so without,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Monday September 27, 2021

Powerful energies call for a shift now and though you may feel yourself getting pulled backward it is really only a final lookback before the forward movement sets in for good. When change comes it brings with it the reluctant spirit as well as the adventuresome spirit, the tug of war between the old and the new, between the old fears and the openness to new life. All of this is natural as one faces change. Embrace the shift with all that comes to join you and carry it forward one day and one step at a time, for it all belongs in the integrated wholeness that is you.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Wednesday March 17, 2021

There are no mistakes; there are only lessons, lessons learned, lessons still to learn, and lessons that have shifted one’s perspective and left a lasting impression. Some lessons are immediately life changing, while others must be experienced again and again for their significance to sink in. Have patience with the self as life’s lessons are experienced and fathomed, as their challenges come each day and prod you along on your journey toward wholeness. One day and one step at a time make up a whole journey. Have patience as your journey unfolds one lesson at a time, and make no mistake about it, your ARE learning and you ARE growing. Don’t give up!

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: Archetypal Completion

Get your circuits in order…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In a nutshell, archetypes are the inherent programs that govern the behaviors of a species. Human archetypal programs rely heavily upon attachment and interaction to complete the inner circuitry of the growing child.

For instance, attachment to and attention from a loving parent figure are critical to the establishment of basic security in a growing child. The quality of these interactions will impact neural pathways in the brain that will reflect in the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development of the child. For instance, a neglected child may precociously exercise conservative survival circuitry, whereas  a more well-attended child might branch more comfortably into curious interaction with the outside world.

The legacy of incomplete development of brain circuitry at critical periods in life results in one becoming biologically older while remaining  emotionally and cognitively younger than one’s physical age. Human adaptive ingenuity frequently develops compensatory strategies to work around such limitations imposed by incomplete circuits.

Thus, for instance, a neglected individual might seek a special relationship with an alternative parental figure to compensate for needed attention. Another strategy might be to utilize one’s own body to provide soothing, via rocking or thumbsucking behaviors.

Generally, one develops a persona, or outer self presentation, that varies significantly with how one knows oneself inwardly. This gives rise to a sense of being a ‘false self’ or living an ‘imposter syndrome’. Often, the hope in romantic relationships is to receive the longed for attention and validation from one’s partner that  can provide a bridge to the completion of unfinished or malformed circuitry.

In the honeymoon stage of most relationships, partners glimpse such an idyllic experience of being loved and valued as they truly are. This reprieve from a more limited sense of self can result in a dependence upon reinforcement of one’s worth by one’s partner, as the actual internal transformation into a different sense of self has not occurred.

This predicament generally ends the honeymoon period of a relationship, as the symbiotic oneness of the couple evolves into contentious separateness, as individual selves with personal needs emerge. This is the very familiar course of most relationships that become polarized and lose the glow of their former promise.

Couples who can be vulnerable enough to reveal their truer sense of selves, versus projecting blame upon their partners for inadequate responsiveness, may be able to actually provide an emotionally corrective experience that could help facilitate the creation of new circuitry.

The key here is transparency. One must be able to be completely transparent to all that one is, to one’s own self. Beyond this is the ability to be equally transparent in owning and sharing one’s true self with one’s partner. This is a monumental feat, to accept the fullness of one’s own shadow and share it with one’s partner. That’s intimacy.

Nonetheless, the lion’s share of that possibility requires deep inner work, with each individual decidedly working toward their own inner self-acceptance. No outer relationship can supplant one’s own inner conviction of non-acceptability.

Ultimately, beyond childhood, the completion of inner circuitry rests in the inner work of every individual. Fortunately, all individuals have a higher self that orchestrates life events to challenge the ego to take this daring restorative journey to the wholeness of completed circuitry.

This journey can take many forms. As a psychotherapist and shamanic practitioner I am a huge proponent of this journey of individuation via dreams, synchronicity, and recapitulation. On the physical side, I highly recommend yoga. Yogic knowledge of bodily and subtle body functioning  is unsurpassed.

The regular practice of pranayamic breathing literally changes the automatic central nervous system’s reactions to subconscious programs, such that it can override a fear reaction with deep calm. Equipped with such leverage the individual is afforded greater tolerance and opportunity to carve new circuitry, as they encounter a long-held trigger.

Similarly, meditation, aided by simple neurofeedback or biofeedback equipment, can empower one to develop direct mastery over one’s brainwave state, enhancing the ability to heal disjointed circuitry. These body focused practices greatly enhance mental and relational efforts to change.

Archetypal completion is the necessary mandate to heal and forge our deepest connections. Inner work, relational work, and bodily mastery all offer tools and venues to achieve such completion. Completion then becomes the solid foundation of fulfillment in human form.

Build on,

Chuck