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Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Limiting Limiting Beliefs

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Beliefs originate in the mind. The mind is the outermost wrapping of the spiritual plane in human beings. In Hindu science the spiritual plane has many increasingly subtle dimensions or sheaths.

We all agree that the sun rises every morning, but what else are we missing…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Using the Hindu analogy, we can compare the familiar mind that we call the ego to a rocket booster of a spaceship, which propels the spaceship, but as it rises higher in the atmosphere sheds itself of the outer layers or sheaths surrounding its core. Hence, when we depart from this world at death, on our definitive journey into infinity, we will shed the outer wrapping, the ego mind we operated with in this world, and open to the more subtle, spiritual dimensions at our core. At this point we will become fully energetic beings, no longer sporting the outer casings of the human form. This is the energetic body from which Jeanne communicates her wisdom to Jan in daily Soulbytes.

The ego and higher levels of spiritual agency represent the Yang or  thought dimension of human existence. The body and all material manifestations in the world represent the Yin or material dimension of human existence.

Ideas, thoughts, beliefs, or intents are all non-substantial possibilities issuing from the spiritual dimension that require physical substance to become what we might call real, substantial, or manifested. Thus, spirit Yang lacking union with material Yin is simply a hot air possibility lacking substance.

Limitations are the necessary boundaries that birth a spirit into substantial reality. Thus, if I have an image in my mind it exists only as a spirit entity, a potential lacking substance. If I then draw and color the idea on paper, my spirit and physical selves have united to create a definite impression. Yang and Yin are conjoined in the process of creative manifestation.

For a Yang impulse to become real it must accept the limiting containment of physical reality. Without limits we don’t exist in a substantial, time and space, way. An idea lacking written or verbal expression is just a roaming, floating thought, a seed seeking earth to germinate in and become real.

Limiting beliefs are the basic building blocks of our world. If we did not collectively agree to believe similar things we could not manifest such a cohesive reality, i.e., the world as we know it. From a shamanic perspective all worlds are consensus realities. Consensus, meaning shared beliefs, is the intent that congeals matter into a specific world.

By exercising the shamanic technology of intent we can shift the world we live in, literally, into a new consensus reality or, put differently, into a whole new world. However, that new world also requires a new set of limiting beliefs to achieve the consistency necessary to become a substantial reality.

If I pick up my metal spoon and it suddenly bends in half my belief in the solidity of the world may be greatly assaulted, sending me into quite a spin. Fortunately, the very powerful belief that the world is rational might quickly reassert itself, providing probable explanations for the bent spoon that can then shore up the shaky assault to my sanity!

Of course, as much as we enjoy the calmness of a predictable world, well-constructed by limiting beliefs, the downside of limitation is limitation. Many more options of experience and manifestation may be available to us that might much more fully allow us to experience both our spiritual and material potential; things that we simply can’t access, as the guardians of our sanity that maintain the consistency of the world as we have known it vigorously encourage us not to stray beyond the boundaries of our limiting beliefs.

It really is a profound consideration to stray beyond the boundaries of rationality, which is currently (though greatly challenged by world events this past year) the major building block of human stability. In general, mental health has been predicated upon the security of a predictable world constructed by agreed upon limiting beliefs. Nonetheless, often at the spirit’s insistence to open to possibilities beyond the known, or as a matter of material necessity, we are compelled to take new spiritual/physical adventures beyond the known dimensions into the deeper interior of our fuller selves.

In fact, one thing is clear about the present state of reality in the world: the limiting beliefs that have defined the world at the highest levels are currently crumbling in full public view. Rather than calming and solidifying the basic tenets of our consensus reality, our leaders function like tricksters shifting gears with pure abandon.

The deeper reason for this dissolution is that our world is in the midst of major transformation. Fear not the transitory extreme new worlds we are confronted with daily; they are untenable as they do not support the deepest needs of our world as it undergoes its very deep and necessary transformation.

We are being pushed into a world that opens us up to our greater energetic potential, a world which greatly expands the limiting beliefs that have so long defined what we believe and experience as reality. This new world of greater entrée into our energetic potential  frees us from the limiting beliefs of fixation on materialism as the source for fulfillment. The technology of that limiting belief has clearly exhausted the planet and, despite its current escalation, has little future.

The  new technology of a metaphysical world, a world of energy beyond strict rationality, utilizes psychic powers, intent, inter-dimensional exploration and the experience of love as its guiding limiting beliefs. This is a far more stable and exciting consensus reality in the making. That is the New Frontier we are privileged to participate in beyond the boredom, frustration, depression, and hardship of this tumultuous time of transition.

The limits of that New Frontier are the kind of limiting beliefs I can sign up for!!!

To our greater energetic potential,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Tending The Magic From Within

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Remember your magical beginnings…
– Artwork by Jan Ketchel © 2017

We are all Magical Beings, journeyers in infinity currently enjoying a life on Earth. Many are born into this life still actively connected to the memories of their soul’s prior journey through infinity or interactive with spirit essences invisible to the adult world. Many parents recognize the advanced wisdom of their young children, calling them Old Souls. Many children have very clear recollections of past lives, even able to tell their parents of their own roles in those past lives, as well as relay in elaborate detail events from those lives.

Young children live in this world of magical possibility and adults largely protect and promote this early magical stage of life. In fact we soon approach the consensus day of magic: Christmas. Regardless of religious affiliation there is general world agreement that this day is an open channel for childhood innocence to encounter the magic of infinite possibility.

For the adult world solidly ensconced in rationality the magic of childhood is a long-forgotten lost paradise. Many find vicarious compensatory solace in a child’s sparkle of surprise when opening a gift. Many need to shun exposure to any trigger linked  to  the vulnerability of expectant hope as the vicissitudes of a lifetime of disappointment seem to necessitate powerful insulation from the live wire of the thrill of anticipation.

Ultimately all children are led to the guillotine of disappointment, a process known as “growing up.” Parents may strive to protect their children’s innocence and connection to the magic as long as possible but ultimately must prepare their children to live in the “real” world.

This process is known as socialization and all adults knowingly or unknowingly collude to insure that children perceive and live in the world in a unified way. Not to do so might land their children in a psychiatric institution, labeled schizophrenic, for their hallucinations and delusions as regards communications with spirit entities and beliefs in other worlds.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico completely concur that this socialization that limits beliefs and perception is critical to being able to live and find stable grounding in this world. In fact they see it as a magical act that we are all capable of agreeing upon the same basic tenets of reality through the universal establishment of an ego-based rationality.

Nonetheless, the shamans do acknowledge that the fallout for this basic tenet of mental health, a strong rational ego, is as tragic as the magic of its creation: we become severely limited human beings cut off from our birthright, our magical connection to infinity. In a rational world magic is make-believe.

The dominance of rationality severely estranges us from our true natures. Though it serves us well in adapting to this world it leaves us deeply bored and unsatisfied. This is the ultimate reason for the profusion of substance abuse in our time. The use of substance dislodges the fixation on rationality and allows a fuller glimpse into human potential, unfortunately with often dangerous outcomes in dark or expansive journeys lacking the reasonable limits prescribed by rationality.

Truthfully, however, rationality alone rarely delivers fulfillment. Consider a relationship that appears perfect on rational grounds, and yet finds no attraction between its partners. Conversely, many relationships of attraction struggle with compatibility on rational grounds.

This dilemma reflects the deep split within all human beings, between their dominant rational ego and their deeper magical nature. Often we are really attracted to a partner, however inappropriate, that can deliver us from the stranglehold of our own rationality.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest a different approach to resolve this inner quandary: tend the magic within. Shamans suggest that we accept the basic polarity of our beings: I am both a rational and a magical being. I am both a physical and an energetic being. Rather than pit these two sides of the self against each other their approach is more synergistic.

When I am in the world of everyday life rationality is dominant as the magical self continues in the background to inform the ego of intuitions and perceptions of a parapsychological nature. When I am in the magical or energetic world rationality can serve as a helpful discriminating and orienting function that also offers grounding via a connection to some needed familiar definition of self. These two parts of self can complement each other’s functioning while enriching the depth of experience and fulfillment of our true human potential.

The truth is, however, that we cannot afford to tend the magic within until we have achieved a strong enough rational ego to make us bonafide adults in this world. The paradox of course is that this accomplishment of adulthood severely alienates us from the magic. And yet, without a strong ego we are ill-equipped to take the journey to recover our connection to the magic.

We are living through a time in human history that is severely rattling our security in the stabilizing power of rationality. Now is the time to use inner rationality to navigate this alternative reality we’ve all been thrust into. In a dark way our current world situation demonstrates the magic of alternative realities that exist in infinity.

Use your rationality to stabilize the self, yet tend also to the truth of the magical self that we all share in common. Tend the magical self within, with love, as we weather the radical shifts of our time. Nothing can take away the magic, let it shine.

Tending the magic, with love,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Portal Of Disorientation

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Where am I? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Where am I?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Many times I woke in the night. I couldn’t orient myself to time or space. Each time, I’d ask myself, “Is it time to get up?” Finally locating the clock, I discovered that only 15 minutes had elapsed. Meanwhile, I’d been in many intense dreams. The night became an endless tide of vividly clear dreams, confused awakenings, the inability to find the clock, locate the window or the table with the water glass upon it. Nonetheless, I entered the day filled with energy, refusing any definitions of a restless night.

I left on my drive to work. As I descended a hill, a tidal wave of energy washed through me from head to toe. I felt leveled, nearly breathless. The after currents continued as I focused on steering the car with mindful presence. I refused all inner promptings to format my experience as dangerous. “A wave of energy had simply gone through me,” I told myself.

Carlos Castaneda taught how we build our reality through chains of associations that then define the world we perceive, creating the structures and habits we live by. These habits are actions generated by thoughts rationally paired that define “reality” and dictate behavioral responses.

I might have defined my experience as a consequence of my lack of sleep, the humidity and poor oxygen intake. I might have associated it with prodromal symptoms of a stroke or heart attack. I might have driven myself directly to the hospital if I’d settled on that set of associations to define my reality. Had I given it that definition, perhaps my body would have heard that intent and generated a series of more disturbing symptoms requiring immediate medical attention.

Seth, in Jane Robert’s channeling, spoke similarly of the sequencing of time, a proclivity of the intellect or the narrowing of the intellect into its rational mode to structure a world of cause and effect, with its sequencing of the day into logical components.

From this perspective, night is for sleeping. If I don’t sleep I will not rejuvenate; I will be tired and testy the next day. The other night I slept, by this logical definition, “poorly.” Yet, I resist this definition. I resist the instruction to my body to be groggy and unfocused.

The known world distorted... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
The known world distorted…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I realize that I was treated to a journey outside time and space the other night. With each awakening I had the sensation of much time having passed, yet it hadn’t in “real time.” Despite my lucidity in dreaming, each time I awoke I could not orient myself in my room, regardless of my rational knowing of the layout. I was fully awake, but not in the room of my rational knowing. It was fascinating to walk about in such a “known” space with no sense of orientation. How relative reality really is!

I seek out disorientation; I intend it. Disorientation releases us from all the familiar places of our well-worn world where we have deposited the lion’s share of our energy to generate a known, definite world. The more I enter the portal of disorientation, the more I recover energy I once invested in living comfortably in a solid world. I find each time that I pick up increased freedom to journey beyond the narrow compound of reason.

Seth remarks that the intellect has far greater capacity than its logical reason. When the intellect is narrowed to logic, it cuts itself off from all the natural portals of information available to it from the multidimensional self, such as intuition that peers beyond the senses, to telepathy that reads the interconnected energy all around us, to clairvoyance that has access to information that can inform the present with future knowledge.

The shamanic key to these portals of experience is disorientation: the interruption of the typical flow of energy that defines our reality and suppresses our fuller potential.

The world is in free fall now, ever since the election of Obama. Obama’s rise to power interrupted the flow of world energy at the seat of world power—The White House—forever. It matters not that his ability to effectively govern has been so ridiculously undercut. Most important is the rupture to white power dominating the world. It’s like the rupture of the Catholic world with a retiring Pope. It just doesn’t happen that way!

Through the portal into the unknown! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Through the portal into the unknown!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Who could have imagined gay marriage becoming the law of the land at this time? Who could have imagined the legalization of marijuana either, rapidly advancing through the land at this time? The wars rage throughout the world as the energy of change exhausts in destruction. Disorientation does destabilize, but it also opens the door to a more inclusive world, seeking now to find its way to new balance.

What a joy to be alive and participating in such an adventure of freedom and change as we traverse this portal of disorientation!

Breathe, stay calm and focused as you grip the wheel,
Chuck