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Chuck’s Place: Losing the Human Form

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Losing our human form makes us fluid…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In a very real sense the events of our world are shattering the solidity of all that we hold dear. We are, quite literally, being forced out of the world of ordinary reality. Our reason makes a valiant attempt to restore its normal premises to explain all that is happening, but, by being saturated with such a constant barrage of uncertainty, we are being thrust into other worlds of possibility.

The human form is the shaman’s term for the fabric of archetypal programs that govern our world of ordinary reality. Having a parent and being a child are examples of archetypal structures that generate uniform roles, expectations, needs, and relationships. These core archetypes can define an entire life in ordinary reality.

Beyond ordinary reality is the solitary journey of the soul, an incarnate life that was fashioned with a human form in order to experience archetypal life in ordinary reality. Nonetheless, that soul must one day exit from its life in ordinary reality; and though the life it has lived in ordinary reality will never be erased, it must journey beyond the limits of ordinary reality into new worlds of non-ordinary reality.

In ordinary times many do not encounter this greater reality until their moment of great transition, at death, from ordinary to non-ordinary reality. All religions, in some form, focus on preparation for this great transition. Thus, all religions strive to prepare one to smoothly lose one’s human form.

The ruptures to the basic fabric of our world, currently generated by both nature and human nature, are forcing a collective encounter, while in human form, with states of non-ordinary reality. Lack of preparation for such encounters is often the true precipitant of psychosis, where one loses the command of attention needed to navigate the rapid influxes of such jolts.

Evolutionary urgency appears to be the underlying culprit heralding our current world crises. Human attachment to material accumulation, human insistence upon unlimited growth, particularly of the human race itself, and human hegemony over all life, other than itself, are all archetypal programs gone awry.

Survival requires the voluntary acceptance of limitation in all aspects of life. Survival requires a meeting of all races and social strata at the heart center, where the true needs of the planet’s survival trumps all individualistic agendas. This evolutionary advance means meeting at an energetic level, where family is experienced as everyone and everything.

Energy medicine, energy body travel, and energetic connecting are the evolutionary waves of now. The human form of ordinary reality must release its fixation on a material world as the only potential world and prepare for other worlds and other realities.

Energetically shifting emphasis to the capabilities of the energy body is the greatest solution to the fossil fuel energy crisis. Even the internet will prove obsolete in a world where thought transmission and akashic record consultation replace social media and Google.

The magic of now is that our world is evolving into a world that opens up to life at an energetic level, the soul’s greater journey, while still in physical life. Though we must surrender our outdated human form, we needn’t relinquish physical life as we open to greater exploration of infinity, through actualizing our energetic potential.

Dreaming is our most immediate access point to that dormant energetic potential. Remember, write down, think about, talk about, and bridge your dreams to waking reality. Take seriously this portal to the energy body, with the intent to sharpen attention while exploring this ethereal dimension of being. You won’t be disappointed.

Lose human form, dream on,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: PTSD—The Doorway To Expanded Reality

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Ordinary reality is perceived this way...
Ordinary reality is perceived this way…

Ordinary reality is our world of solid objects constructed by the building blocks of time and space as organized by the mind through its faculty of reason. Ordinary reality is a discreet world that increasingly sees itself as the only world, the one true reality. This is an old world view not dissimilar to the view once held that the earth was the center of the universe, that even the sun had to revolve around it. We now know that this egocentric, earth-centric view of the universe is false. The truth is that Earth is actually a minor player in a vast, endless universe.

Many people today also know that ordinary reality is but a subset of a far greater reality, that of infinity and the many worlds that coexist within it. Just as in Galileo’s time, today we encounter the fierce guardians who protect and uphold the notion of the one and only true world of ordinary reality. These guardians fear the collapse of the world as we know it—if the doors were to open to the experience of life beyond ordinary reality.

These same types of guardians operate within the psyches of all of us. There are veils that protect our version of who we are, what’s happened to us, and what really exists in this world. In trauma we are jolted beyond the confines of ordinary reality into a state of heightened awareness. In the world of heightened awareness, time and space as we experience it in ordinary reality are suspended. Many people report that time slows considerably during a trauma, that very slow motion and a sense of clarity to each unfolding detail are experienced.

Heightened awareness changes the way we perceive reality...
Heightened awareness changes the way we perceive reality…

The laws of space and reason are suspended as well in the heightened awareness of trauma. People report being partially out of or completely separate from their physical bodies, witnessing the entire traumatic event from a great distance, often with a remarkable sense of detachment.

Once a trauma has completed, consciousness immediately shifts back into ordinary reality. Similar to emerging from a dream world state back into waking reality, the experience of trauma disappears like a quickly evaporating dream. The guardians of the psyche of ordinary reality return and go to work to fit the residue of the experience that won’t disappear into some reasonable story that fits the guidelines of ordinary reality, once again ensuring the sanctity and supremacy of ordinary reality—known as sanity.

Jan relates that in her experiences as a sexually abused child, as soon as she left her abuser’s world—walked back out through the veils and into ordinary reality—she left the traumatic event behind, but there were still physical and emotional residues to deal with. As a six year old, pain in the pelvic region or crotch was given a reasonable explanation, coming from too much bike riding, or later as a teenager from horseback riding. Sometimes, even before crossing back into ordinary reality, the pain had already settled in some other area of the body, such as in the arm or neck, also related to the trauma but much easier to bear, more acceptable than a pain in a most private part of the body that no one ever spoke about or was supposed to touch. Emotional pain turned to acting out and anger, as she blamed others for the turmoil inside that she could not fully encapsulate.

Ordinary reality does not permit a world where time and space are suspended and reason falters. So the guardians of ordinary reality employ forgetting, doubting, and revisionism to secure the borders from the irrational intruders of experiences of trauma, that is, heightened awareness and non-ordinary reality.

A Guardian of Reality...
A Guardian of Reality…

PTSD is the result of the collision between that world of ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality. In PTSD the psyche is forced into a state of hypervigilance as it attempts to keep at bay the intrusions of the experiences of non-ordinary reality into its perfectly reasonable state of ordinary reality. Society-at-large fears and denies PTSD because of the threat it poses to the supremacy of ordinary reality over all reality. Certain experiences just don’t fit into the perfectly reasonable world that the guardians uphold: “How could someone forget something like that?” “Repression doesn’t exist!” “It’s impossible to have sex with an infant!”

The current incidences of mass trauma played out on our world stage are rapidly pulling down the veils that the guardians of reason uphold, revealing the existence of powerful worlds beyond that of ordinary reality. In recapitulation we voluntarily undertake exploratory journeys into our personal experiences in non-ordianry reality: traumatic or otherwise. The challenge for all recapitulations of traumatic states of heightened awareness is allowing the truths experienced in those states of non-ordinary reality to be permitted into the knowing of ordinary reality, to accept the validity of other worlds within the self. It’s both a humbling and a terrifying process.

Doubt so often appears to undermine the knowing of the truths so overwhelmingly presented during recapitulation. Frequently the body replays, in excruciating sensory detail, the experience that occurred in the heightened awareness state of trauma. The nightmare of this trauma is relived in all its intensity to prove to the consciousness of ordinary reality that indeed it happened! Amazingly, doubt can disavow even such powerful experiences for a long time. Ultimately, however, as a supportive process of recapitulation unfolds, ordinary reality expands to include the truths stored in the timeless world of non-ordinary reality.

Eventually these two worlds merge into greater wholeness and we become beings less attached to a narrow view of the universe. Like Galileo, we become proponents of and explorers of a new universe, beings far better equipped to navigate and discover the deeper dimensions of infinity, the infinity of ourselves.

In many worlds,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Redeploying Intent

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Transition time: the Moon and Venus at 5 a.m.
Transition time: the Moon and Venus at 5 a.m.

Every morning as we awaken, if we pause for a moment, we can observe the process of our transition from one world to another. In that moment we stand between worlds, between the world of dreams—of higher vibrational energy body states—and the world of ordinary reality, the one that our dense physical energy body wakes up in and prepares to live the day in.

We might also notice how we call that waking world to us, what the Shamans of Ancient Mexico refer to as calling the intent of life in the human form. That intent is stored in the habits and beliefs we enact as we enter the day. As soon as we awaken, our internal dialogue awakens too and begins its spin, reminding us of who we are in our human form.

“Oh yes,” it might tell us, “I am a being who is afraid of people in authority.” Or it might suggest, “I am a being who is afraid to lose my job,” or “I am a being who doesn’t feel attractive,” or “I am a being who must clothe over my flaws,” or “I am a being with physical ailments that I must create tension around to feel present in my body.”

It’s possible that our internal dialogue may produce the following as well, “I am a being who is tired in the morning,” or “I am a being who must stay anxious in order to remain focused,” or “I am a being who must rush around and worry,” or “I am a being who is sad and lonely.”

Once we’ve established our link with the intent of who we are in human form, our internal dialogue is geared up to remind us incessantly throughout the day with its repetitive mental thoughts of who we are and who we are not. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico say that every ounce of energy we have is given over to upholding the intent of who we are and how we define this world, so much so that all the possibility of perceiving or conceiving of life beyond the structure of that intent is completely screened out. Our intent to uphold who we are and what this world is comprised of is completely sealed off by the gatekeeper of the mind, constantly chattering away, repeating the same old phrases.

What does your Gatekeeper say?
What does your Gatekeeper say?

We see an exact replica of this internal dialogue in our digital age. The speed and constancy of our hunger for nonstop digital input into our central nervous system to define and know our world is matched only by the incessant internal dialogue inside our minds that nonstop feeds us our stories of who we are and what our world is made up of. We’ve become terrified of a pause, a gap, a movie that streams too slowly, calmness, aloneness, a quiet moment with no input, a gap that just for a moment throws us a glimpse of another world.

We constantly long for change, yet we grasp at the familiar. The truth is though that our internal dialogue keeps us stuck, as the world we currently uphold seduces us to believe that faster delivery of information or quicker connection is all we need to experience our unrealized potential. But, in actual fact, this is our world swinging us to the Rajas pole, our world of ordinary reality on a manic speed trip. Inevitably, the great revving up then alternates and swings us in the opposite direction and we crash, as we ride the pendulum that Jan wrote about in her blog this week. But the truth is that even this bi-polar swing remains safely locked in the boundaries of ordinary reality. How could it be otherwise when what we hear in our heads are the same mantras repeated over and over again.

As I have often written, don Juan Matus states that to truly travel in the unknown we must be extremely sober. Sobriety bears the tension of the pendulum swings of this world. In sobriety we offer ourselves the opportunity to avoid the lure of the extremes. The seduction of the extremes is transcendence—the opportunity to achieve a spiritual experience—a going beyond life in the mundane, with the boring repetition of our stuck patterns. It’s a trap, however, and that trap is called addiction—the use of excess to offer the opportunity to glimpse beyond the mundane, beyond ordinary reality. Such excess may result in death through the recklessness of daring or the suicide of depression.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest a real alternative to breaking the patterns of the mundane, offering an opportunity to truly discover and live our unknown potential: Redeploying Intent.

Calmness is good!
Calmness is good!

Just as we semiconsciously and automatically call the intent of this world to us each day upon awakening and monotonously repeat it to ourselves throughout the day, we can consciously call a new intent and engage in repetitive practices to fully realize and reenforce that new intent. That new intent might be to dream lucidly, to peer beyond the known self into the un-recapitulated self, to heal the body, to experience fulfillment, to unite with the divine—the possibilities are endless.

All that is really required is that we soberly state our intent in words, that we repeat it often, letting it become our new personal mantra, a new personal prayer. In stating our intent incessantly, mindfully shifting our attention away from the ever-present internal dialogue that has so far controlled us, we offer ourselves the opportunity for real breakthrough and lasting change leading to fully realizing our greater potential.

Each one of us can make room for the realization of our personal intent. To do so, we must take back our energy that is currently entwined in the habits and beliefs of our incessant dialogue, ridding ourselves of the gatekeeper of the mind by disrupting our familiar habits, routines, and mantras. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico never look in the mirror to break themselves of attaching to self-importance. Perhaps that’s something to give up, only using a blurry mirror to groom or shave.

Take an energy inventory. How do you personally spend your time each day? What is your incessant dialogue? What activities steal your energy? Cut out the unnecessary, particularly activities connected to upholding self-importance, i.e., constantly checking Facebook or some other digital drain, or that mirror. Enjoy the pauses afforded as energy accrues, recouped from habit.

Engage in something new and creative...
Engage in something new and creative…

Engage instead in physical activities and practices, such as simply walking, yoga, meditation, martial arts, dance, tensegrity, playing an instrument, or something else that shifts attention from the internal dialogue to bodily awareness. You will be supported by the ancient intent implied in many of these practices, as well as the creative that always seeks engagement.

Finally, I suggest embracing the sober not-doing of knowing that your intent will be realized. Have no attachment to the outcome of the realization of your intent, simply intend it, with the clear certainly that it will be realized. And then, as Carlos Castaneda was so fond of saying: See what happens!

Intento!
Chuck