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Chuck’s Place: The Caldron Of The New

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Please Note: My next weekly blog will be published on July 8th, as I am taking time off from my writing schedule. Jan’s Soulbytes, however, will continue to be posted daily.

Do the good work of the caldron…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Recently, I consulted the I Ching to provide clarity and guidance for my readers as they navigate the next couple of weeks of these uncertain times. I was presented with hexagram #50, The Caldron, with a moving line in the second place. The future of this configuration is hexagram #56, The Wanderer, or the state of being in transition.

A caldron is a cooking vessel used to prepare food over an open fire. In ancient China, huge metal or ceramic caldrons were used in temples to prepare food offerings to honor the ancestors, as well as heads of state and those of wisdom, who contributed their guidance on such an important occasion as the birth of a new dynasty. This huge cooking vessel served the spiritual transformation of a nation, a metaphor quite apropos for our time.

The Caldron is also an alchemical vessel that contains and transforms a volatile mix of opposing energies into a delicate balance. The elements that build the pictogram of The Caldron are fire beneath water. Fire is the active, heated masculine energy that is absorbed and tempered by the calm, receptive feminine energy of water. This artful womblike handling of polarity gives birth to new life in the form of steam.

Steam is the resultant transformation of water into a new state of energy that can  power an engine or provide cleansing in purification practices. Psychologically and spiritually, the water of the subconscious mind, heated by the fire of suggestion—coming from the masculine ego of the conscious mind—provides the energy and construction materials for new life.

The Caldron is an apt symbol for the subconscious mind. All knowledge and wisdom is contained in the subconscious with its additional ability to divinely manifest into the flesh any suggestion it absorbs. The collective caldron of now is manifesting extreme volatility, at the behest of the dominating masculine ego, whose powerful suggestions it absorbs and dutifully produces.

But these manifestations cannot cancel the karma they generate. Regardless of how things play out on the surface, the karma of now is irrevocably to become the greater good for all, the absolute consequence of the unbounded narcissism and one-sidedness of now.

The existence of this karmic shift is fully formed at the subtle, purely energetic dimension of reality. Physical reality is always preceded by mental activity that, when fully complete, delivers its dictum to the subconscious mind for physical manifestation. The transient revolutions and chaos of now are simply the later stages fueling the coming karmic shift.

The moving line that presents in the second place of The Caldron, as well as its resultant hexagram of The Wanderer, contains powerful guidance for now: While we are in a fine position for good and necessary change, we must exercise caution and avoid arrogance. Humility and proper conduct cannot be overstressed.

The Wanderer depicts the state of a journeyer who arrives as a stranger in a strange land. Firstly, the journeyer should maintain integrity and clarity in interactions with others. Humility and modesty dissuade distrust and aggression. The journeyer does well to suggest to the subconscious mind that it be provided signs to direct right action, which enables the journeyer to be adaptive and go with the flow.

The journeyer has clear thoughts and the resilience to patiently wait for the world to transform for the greater good. The journeyer is nourished by the wisdom provided by The Caldron, and submits willingly to the containment and refinement of heated transformational processes that must be endured for transformation to complete. The Wanderer maintains loving compassion for all as the world is born anew.

In summary, take solace in knowing that the stupendous change toward the greater good is but a step away. Of course, cosmic time is a bit more relative than our earthly clocks! Be patient, humble and full of gratitude. Believe, believe, believe! Throw your intent daily behind the absolutely inevitable karmic shift to the greater good destined to befall us all.

Let go and know,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Karma Is The Active Side Of Infinity

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Shift the wheel of Karma toward the greater good….
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

“Only on the wheel of karma is there inequality; within eternity we are all the same, all One.”*

Karma is a term that depicts the universal law of cause and effect. All actions cause definite effects. The underlying principle that governs all consequences for actions taken, is balance. That imperative of balance is expressed through Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

When we enter the active side of infinity we take a ride on the wheel of karma. When a soul separates itself from the inert state of oneness with everything, in infinity, it loads itself upon the wheel of karma and is delivered to a specific identity, which will unfold in a specific way, as contrasted with its former state of identity with the utter wholeness and oneness of everything.

When we are born we go from a state of oneness with mother into the powerful perinatal stages of birth trauma. This violent disruption of total care and containment eventuates in a state of total dependence and relative powerlessness, as a small separate being in a huge, unfathomable world.

This action of separation alone defines the primary karma for all life: to find its way back to its original wholeness. The wheel of karma is that journey homeward. The wheel depicts the cycles of actions and reactions we live through as we accrue the knowledge to ultimately find our way home.

Karma forces us to attach to a specific identity, which influences our actions and their consequences. For instance, if I am born with dyslexia, I may learn to compensate for my difficulty with writing, spelling and reading with enhanced intuition and explanations of written works provided by ChatGPT. I might learn to hide my spelling challenges with an eccentric handwriting that no one can read.

If I am dealt the hand of poverty, I might compensate with envy, a life of crime, or a powerful intent for an abundant life. Each of these options are equal energetic options to bring balance to the action of poverty. The wheel of karma might have me explore countless compensations in my journey with poverty before I find my way back to wholeness.

The key to my ultimate release from my impoverished karma is detachment, detachment from my identity as an impoverished being who must take action to feel better about his lowly self. Total acceptance of the experience of an impoverished state, without identifying as a poor being, restores my wholeness. I am now a being with intimate knowledge of a facet of all of wholeness, that of poverty.

Detachment does not deny the full experience of an impoverished life. To the contrary, the suffering attendant to a life of poverty is fully explored with all its karmic consequences. Detachment does, however, allow one to lift the veil to one’s greater wholeness, of which poverty was the chosen facet to be explored in the taking on of a human life.

Thus, the reality of inequality, injustice and victimhood are valid descriptions of the experience we enter when we enter the active side of infinity, in physical form, to explore a facet of the jewel of all that is and all that we are. To fully know the self we must fully explore and know our shadow. To know our infinite self fully there are infinite adventures to be taken, many of which include journeys into the karmic dark side of infinity.

Growth is the imperative of the active side of infinity. To grow we must fully know every facet of all that we are. Ultimately we must experience everything. That’s our infinite destiny.

Fear not and judge not the fullness or unfairness of the life you are in. All lives are equal and valid facets of all that is. Our differences are merely the current seat we occupy on the karmic wheel of existence. It’s a relative, not a permanent, seat.

No matter what life circumstance you are currently in, free yourself from total identification with it. See it as a necessary stop in your infinite journey of exploration of all that is. Furthermore, wakeup to the power  of suggestion in your subconscious mind. You can direct the energy of karma into materializing consequences for your greater good.

The thoughts you most often entertain will be compulsively manifested by the power of your subconscious mind. Take control of your thoughts and enjoy their resulting karma. The equal and opposite reaction of a thought is its manifestation in physical form. From the spirit of thought comes its opposite, its physical birth in matter. Spend your karmic thought wisely, for the greater good of self and other.

Beneath it all, we are all one,
Chuck

* Sam Reifler, I Ching: A New Interpretation for Modern Times, p. 238.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: How Are You Living Your Wholeness?

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What’s the balance in your wholeness?
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

We are always whole. The question is not whether or not we are whole, but rather, how are we currently living our wholeness? Our lives might currently reflect balance or chaos. Each alternative generates its own configuration of our same inherent ingredients of wholeness. Whether in balance or chaos, we are always whole.

If I long for something that I don’t currently have, the suffering I feel, whether as sadness or anxiety, holds the emotional place for the wholeness I seek.  A depression might hold the place for a missing or lost relationship.

The law of compensation is nature’s law of wholeness. Elsewhere known as karma, compensation insists that we fulfill our wholeness by living the natural consequences of our actions. If, for instance, we attempt to keep a trauma at bay through repression or willful suppression, the compensation may express itself in physical symptoms or triggers, which now serve the function of holding space for the unprocessed experience.

Many communication issues in relationships reflect this imperative for wholeness. If one partner presents their interpretation of reality the other partner might automatically see and feel compelled to express the other side of the argument. Wholeness insists upon both sides being represented.

Of course, often couples, or friends who share one’s point of view, will need to project the opposite point of view upon a person or group, outside their personal circle, whom they fervently dislike. In some form, wholeness insists that a one-sided point of view be compensated for by its opposite, which is then lived and owned inwardly, through emotional attachment to one’s projected antagonist.

Hate is a powerful expression of emotional attachment. It’s often very hard to not be obsessed with thinking about someone one hates. Once we can accept that these projections actually reflect aspects of our own wholeness, we can take the first step in shifting the volatile state of balance that our wholeness is in.

Wholeness includes everything. We are riddled with pairs of opposites that comprise our wholeness. Once we outwardly withdraw and take ownership for a hated projection, we can begin the process of reconciling the oppositions that comprise that opposition within our wholeness.

First we must bear the tension of holding this opposition within. Once contained, we can appreciate the value of our formerly hated other. Perhaps, for instance, this hated other reflects our own disdain for the limitations authority figures have imposed upon our lives.

By acknowledging this part of our wholeness, our heavily rational prefrontal cortex can come to appreciate its aggressive limbic  counterpart, and those two parts might come to accept their complementary roles and find acceptance and room for each other. This is how we shift the balance in our wholeness.

Accepting and finding room for all that we are allows for a more fulfilling wholeness. When the Rainmaker went into his hut to restore the Tao in the village riddled with drought (see last week’s blogpost), his effort reflected a rebalancing of the oppositions within himself, which then triggered greater balance in the outer world.

Wholeness is the same wholeness, whether it be in drought or rainstorm; the difference is in how we do our wholeness. Finding a compatible relationship between the opposites within ourselves is the key to balance.

The difference in personalities among us is simply that which is emphasized within our wholeness that then results in the state of balance we live with. That which is not emphasized is still part of our wholeness and must still be lived in some form.

If I am a true introvert my wholeness requires that I include extraversion  somewhere in my life, even if it is only fulfilled by obsessively hating what I judge to be shallow extraversion in others.

Our journey in infinity, beyond this life, may comprise many lives, where different aspects of wholeness are emphasized. This allows for an ever-deepening knowing of wholeness by exploration of it from many different perspectives. In fact, this is how we truly change the past, which completely shifts the balance of our present and future selves.

Trauma freezes our perspective in the past. Beyond the release of previously frozen emotions in processing trauma is the greater perspective of the present self that frees long-held limiting beliefs and definitions of self. Our wholeness then has the opportunity to come into new balance, which allows for greater exploration and expression of our innate potential in the present.

Ultimately we are all part of the same wholeness. The separateness we experience in this life is all a journey to truly know the self and advance our personal and collective evolution through the achievement of a broader perspective, which can’t help but result in the attainment of refined love, for all.

In wholeness,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: At the Threshold of the Matrix

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The Dweller awaits…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Rudolph Steiner identified the dual nature of The Dweller At The Threshold as both guardian and adversary. In trauma, this inner guardian steals away and absorbs the traumatic experience, enabling consciousness to go forward, relieved of the impact of the unacceptable.

The price for this amnesia is an illusory life in the matrix. The guardian dweller plants triggers at the threshold of the truth, explosive emotions that electrify the nervous system and repel deeper knowing. The seeker is led to mistakenly identifying the trigger as the culprit, and to value successful avoidance as the cure.

At the simplest level, the vulnerable ego is protected by mechanisms of defense, as Anna Freud labeled them. Some of these are, at the very least, semi-conscious, such as with suppression, when we knowingly push down a disturbing feeling. Most defenses, however, operate automatically, at the behest of the all-powerful subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is nature, with its sweeping survival instincts that protect life at any cost. The subconscious represses that which would hurt the ego, regardless of the truth that it blocks from consciousness. The subconscious projects onto others the ownership and responsibility for the ego’s thoughts and actions that, if truly owned, would hurt its self-esteem.

The subconscious is also the Dweller, in both the role of the guardian and the adversary. The subconscious houses unlived karma, that which is yet to be discovered and resolved. The subconscious is like the moon, which ultimately upholds the fundamental balance of nature. Though it can shield at its dark side, it will ultimately reveal all in its fullness. Karma, like the moon, also holds the complete cycle of nature, those personal truths we are all here to work on, to reveal, face and resolve.

The ego is equivalent to the sun. With the light of consciousness at its helm, the ego has free will, to do as it chooses. In fact, via suggestion, that impresses itself upon the subconscious, the ego can override and violate nature’s inherent laws. The Dweller stores the effects of these choices in the form of karma. Although withheld, this karma will ultimately be repaid, by nature exacting its balance.

The ego can fashion its own persona identity, and even believe it to be its true self, but nature’s storms of anxiety, fear, anger and depression will inevitably prevail and breakdown of this fragile identity will occur. For ego to advance in health and wholeness, it must ultimately make the journey to the gate of the Dweller, in the hidden recesses of its shadow, and retrieve its lost soul, its true identity.

Ironically, as the journey into the shadow begins, Dweller as guardian will turn into Dweller as adversary, triggering ego back to the sensibility of its comfortably uncomfortable life in the matrix. Better safe than sorry. To overcome this, the ego must drop its false pretensions, lose its self-importance, and relentlessly pursue the fullness of truth before it can find its way to freedom beyond this stagnant moat of the matrix.

“Yes,” stated don Juan to Carlos Castaneda, “this is a world of solid objects, but first it is a world of energy.” This was the ultimate solution to the paradox that eventually freed Neo from The Matrix. When you lock into a solid definition, you generate your karma in the solid physical world.

In The Matrix, Neo learned to suspend judgment. He refused the story,  the subconscious habit that generated a lethal certainty. His energy was then freed to open to an empowered interpretation of self. The shamans call this shifting the position of the assemblage point, where freed energy assembles into a new reality. To do this one must suspend a fixated judgment.

Present events on the world stage suggest that the karma of WWI is beckoning us for resolution and a new reality. Judge Hatch*, our Astral dimension war correspondent throughout that war, was clear that the spiritual intent for that war was: to make the world safe for love.

Though Christ, as shaman, stalked that position of the assemblage point, the chakra center of the heart, and America embraced it in principle, neither America nor the rest of the world has moved beyond the ego and the personal power center of the chakra located at the solar plexus.

Clearly, the souls on the Titanic continue to draw us down to her depths, where we must face her truths but also her tests. Though two years before the start of WWI, her sinking foreshadowed the challenge that was about to eclipse the world.

The hubris of the Titan sub’s CEO, Stockton Rush, was parallel to that of Captain Smith, who insisted, in 1912, that the Titanic maintain full speed despite the threat of icebergs. Humbling is the lesson that ego—despite its solar-plexus power gymnastics, or inflated reach for adventure—is no match for the Dweller, who can only be approached with utter caution,  respect and truthfulness.

The sunken Titanic, whose passengers included Stockton Rush’s wife’s great-great grandparents, is populated with many souls who sacrificed their lives that others might live. This is the myth that resolves the paradox at the gate of the matrix. Those souls reached the heart center, the spiritual center that puts equanimity over class, gender and race.

The Titan was drawn down to the mothership of the Titanic. Its journey captured the heart of the world. May its fate lead us to fixate upon the truth, humility and compassion of the heart center. To return it to the judgment at the solar plexus would be to misinterpret it as just another competitive loss and failure, missing its golden message.

The Russian Revolution was ignited in the midst of WWI. Stalin and Lenin have either reincarnated as, or exerted influence upon, the cosmic dance between Putin and Prigozhin, once partners in crime, as they now face off with shades of the 1917 Russian revolution coming to life. In their time, Stalin turned on Lenin, whom he had poisoned to death.

In this present incarnation, the deeply ingrained Russian Tsarist subconscious habit, of total massacre of all who revolt, was averted, perhaps for the first time in Russian history. Like magic, the river of energy approaching certain bloodbath in Moscow completely reversed itself, all charges dropped. Strategic or not, this action is utterly unprecedented.

The significance of these events—insinuations of WWI karma emergent in our time—is that the ego has the opportunity to exercise its free will; all is not predetermined.

If the world ego exerts its will in alignment with the truth, with interconnectedness and compassion of the heart center, it might successfully navigate beyond the Dweller at the Threshold of the matrix, who keeps us embroiled in the karma of past mistakes, and instead launch us into heart-centered interconnectedness.

The best training, for all whom embark upon this quest to exit the matrix through the heart center, is the Four Fold Way:

Show up.
Pay attention.
Tell the truth.
No attachment to outcome.

At the Threshold,
Chuck

*War Letters from the Living Dead Man
Also, see Resources section in the left sidebar for links to other related books by Elsa Barker, who channeled Judge Hatch’s messages from the afterlife.

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Chuck’s Place: The Human Animal Body Is The Soul

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Soul within Body within High Spirit…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The soul is our everyday sense of self, a subtle energy body that fits snugly inside the contours of our physical body. The glow, or aura, around our physical human animal body is the radiant energy of the soul within.

The soul houses both our mind and our emotional self. Our emotional self includes our desire body. It is the magnetic draw of the desire body, in conjunction with the subconscious portion of our mind, that initially attracts to it the physical body that the soul will extend itself into to participate in a life in human form.

The soul completely controls the physical body, particularly through suggestions delivered to the subconscious portion of its mind. The soul often drifts out of the physical body, particularly in times of physical sleep. Though it remains connected to the physical body, and can return instantly if needed, the soul is free to travel out of body, where it interacts with its subtle home territory of the astral world. When its cord is severed from the body, at physical death, the soul returns to life in the astral realm.

The soul itself is a vehicle of our High Spirit, that portion of ourselves that lives in infinity and sends the soul on missions in finite time space. Thus, as our soul moves into a physical human life it acquires experience and knowledge that it ultimately brings home to its High Spirit in its afterlife existence. Both the soul and the High Spirit learn, grow and evolve with each lifetime lived.

Karma is generally the leitmotif of one’s next mission in human form, as it reflects the need to further explore and master the consequences of  decisions and actions taken in one’s just-completed life.

Upon preparation for new life, the subconscious is preprogrammed by our High Spirit’s blueprint for our soul’s next earthly existence. In preparation for incarnate life, the soul attracts to it the best earthly family, physical body and life circumstance to achieve its assigned mission in its new life.

Of course, genetics do play their role. However, the choice of a specific genetic history and potential is already preset in the desire body’s attractive force, for example in the family we are drawn to be born into. Thus, the human animal body that we are is actually the product of pure High Spirit intent. As above, so below.

The physical body and the soul are not opposites. In fact, they are really extensions of the same thing. Our earthly body is the clothes our soul wears to have its earthly existence. Physical death is merely a shedding of old clothes that once fit so well. At death our soul ascends, taking with it the experiences of our physical lifetime, into a soulful period of reflection and rejuvenation, as well as a reconciliation with our High Spirit.

The human animal body that we inhabit is largely governed by the archetypes that shape our species. These include the core instincts of survival and reproduction. The body is maintained by the subconscious mind, which follows the laws of nature to ensure its survival.

Essentially, we are unconsciously being governed by archetypes and genetics until our blank slate ego matures into consciousness. Ego is actually a part of the soul’s mental body, fashioned to identify with its physical body and social context in what we call our personality. The ego has an imposed amnesia of its true royal heritage—that is, its immortal High Spirit—to enable it to attach to the earthly circumstance it needs to fulfill its mission.

As the ego matures in life it begins to have greater access to its broader identity and divine lineage. These developing realizations offer opportunity for clarity, through greater detachment from personality, as the ego fulfills the goals of its soul’s true mission. As the ego moves beyond its narcissistic wrappings it is better positioned to serve its soul’s and, ultimately, its High Spirit’s intent. Free will eventually is exercised as acquiescence to true need.

The process of ego maturity consumes most of our earthly life. Much of our existence is spent trying to realize our earthly personality’s ambitions. Self-importance, victimhood and entitlement dominate our lives. The resolution and refinement of these attitudes and emotions ultimately accrue to our High Spirit’s enhancement, allowing it to advance as well.

Ego, in the early stages of maturation, exercises its free will from the bondage of archetypes to prove its worth through wealth, accomplishment and fulfillment of desire. Too often does the body, with its animal instincts, get scapegoated as the source of excess and evil. No, the human animal body is the product of the soul’s creation, as well as the soul’s choices. The animal body reflects the true curiosity and necessity of High Spirit.

What High Spirit asks of soul, with its extended physical body, is to master its challenges in time space so that High Spirit can launch further into infinite possibility.

The archetypes are our babysitters until we are ready to assume responsibility for life in full maturity. Foolishly transgressing the laws of nature are a necessary stage of development. Heart-centered transcendence, or refinement of archetypes, is the propulsion for High Spirit advancement.

The chaos of now reflects attempts to restore archaic archetypal laws, or to indulge in the total freedom of narcissistic free will. These are reflections of the collective soul’s current healing crisis, a time of great turmoil and transformation.

Remember: The karma of now will provide great advancement of soul.

But don’t ever blame the human animal body. The animal body is High Spirit’s honest material reflection of its own soul’s journey. As above, so below.

Spirited Animal,
Chuck