Nothing is original. Everything has already been created, dreamed, invented, constructed, designed, written, and delivered. When you can understand that, you can understand that you are not special, that everything is impersonal. Any yet, if you can pull out of the ether one of those dreams, one of those creations, and bring it to manifestation, then you have done yourself and all of humanity a great service, for everything that lives in the ethers, all those dreams, have value.
Without owning, give the creative its due. Even the recapitulation of your own life is the retrieving of a dream once dreamed, as equally impersonal as any other dream. Give it its due, its impersonal due, and then, without attachment, move on, reaching for another new dream. For you are not special. You are just another dream, plucked from the ethers.
This is what I plucked from the ethers today, and without attachment, I send it back to the dream that we are all dreaming.
When we are ready to recapitulate traumatic memories, the Usher comes, inviting us to take the journey back into our most profound experiences in life.
I first experienced the Usher back in 2001 when I was baking cookies for my kids’ lunches. I was hit with such an insight that I fell to the kitchen floor gasping for breath, for it felt as if what had flashed before my eyes had simultaneously knocked the breath out of me.
The Usher came many times during my recapitulation, reminding me to stay the course, reminding me that recapitulation is the portal to freedom, and that the only means by which I was going to gain my freedom was to fully recapitulate everything that had happened to me as a child, and everything that had happened subsequent to that time, as I strove to maintain sanity and stability in a world that I had always experienced as all too unstable.
I learned to let the Usher in, to open the door and pay attention to what was being shown to me, knowing that it was the next step on my journey toward wholeness. With nerves of steel, with unbending intent, and with as much sobriety and stability as I could muster, I faced my past, what my abuser had done to me, and what my child self had formulated in order to survive.
I learned, through the recapitulation process, that freedom would never be mine if I did not recall, relive, and release everything from my past. I worked on my recapitulation for three years, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At the same time I was raising my two children, working as a freelance artist and writer, running a gallery and faux finish painting business, even teaching painting classes for a time, while also deeply engaged in my local arts community. Somehow I found within me the strength and courage to do all those things while facing some pretty horrific events from my past.
It was the most painful period of my life, but it was what set me free. In doing my recapitulation, I believe I also set my own children free, for I was intent that they would not carry forth into their own lives my depression, my fears, my defenses, or my judgments. It was just as important to free them of the old me as it was for me to free myself of the old me. I wanted freedom for myself, but I also wanted it for them.
At the same time, however, full integration of the old me was part of the healing journey. I had to learn to love every part of myself, fully, and allow every aspect of who I had been come along on my changing journey. In the end, I was only going to be allowed to move forward into new life if I could accomplish the feat of becoming a fully integrated, whole being. It was a most humbling and most stupendous journey.
I am grateful for every step of that three-year-long journey, and for what I learned during that time. My books document that time in my life and all the things I learned about our fuller capabilities as beings of energy. It was during that time that I was taught how to be a channel, how to trust what I was hearing and seeing and experiencing, and how to integrate my spirit into my life along with all the other parts of myself.
When the Usher shows up, I wish that you too may have the strength and courage to take your own recapitulation journey, for it truly is the path to freedom, and your true path of heart. Wishing you all the best!
There comes a point during a recapitulation when there is no turning back, when there is nothing to do but hold steady and proceed on the journey, for it is indeed a journey, a path with heart. At this point, the old world and the old self are no longer viable and yet the new world and the new self are not yet fully formed, but there is nothing to do but plod along, no matter how painful and debilitating.
Eventually, the tensions of the recapitulation will subside, the original intent having been fulfilled. One day you will wake up in that so-longed-for new world, and you will notice that you feel and look different. From that point onward the old world begins to decelerate, to disappear from view, and only what lies ahead is of any importance.
Here is an excerpt from my next book, during a time when I was just on the verge of getting to that most important turning point yet still dealing with walking the abyss between the old and the new:
“The pain stays away during the day, I realize, because I’m focused, quietly painting, staying in the moment, intently aware of what I’m doing, present in the surroundings I find myself in. But being in the moment is a kind of Limbo, a holding place, an unreal world. The real world is being in the turmoil of my inner work, confronting the issues I have to deal with, being innerly attuned and aligned with my inner journey. The real world is my recapitulation and my search for wholeness. Everything else pales in comparison.”
Not long after this entry into my journal the final shift happened and I was free. Remember, that’s the final outcome, freedom. And though there is much pain to encounter and many truths to face, it is the most stupendous journey you will ever take.
Wishing you well as you continue on your own journey into your own very real world.
What is this body that we are so attached to but a mere bag of bones. When the life force leaves a body, what is left is just that, a bag of bones. Yet we spend our lives and our energy totally attached to the bag of bones that we identify as “Me.”
We are, in reality, so much more than that. As Robert Monroe has taught so many explorers of higher consciousness: “You are more than your physical body.”
Our life force, our spirit energy, though it resides inside our bag of bones finds ways to also leave it, to go beyond it and explore. Exploits outside of our bag of bones happen most naturally and most familiarly at night, when we dream. We all dream, even if we can’t remember doing so. Thus, we’ve all had experiences of our selves as spirit energy alone, sans bag of bones.
So many things can hold us back from uninhibitedly experiencing our spirit energy. To fully appreciate such experiences, to be able to engage in them with our full awareness, we need to be freed of our fears, our incessant internal dialogue, our traumas, our sexual abuse, our judgments, and anything else that might hold us back from further exploration of the many and varied spiritual possibilities we all hold within us.
Recapitulation is one means by which to rid ourselves of the things that hold us back from greater enjoyment of life, from spiritual exploration, and from understanding the knowledge and wisdom that our spirit might present us with.
During recapitulation, our spirit helps us to recall and relive past events while simultaneously keeping us grounded in our bodies, that bag of bones that we love so much, or hate so much, or just can’t seem to reconcile with.
As we recapitulate, old beliefs about ourselves are stripped away. Our energy is freed from where it has been stuck; in memories, in all those old beliefs about ourselves, in entanglements with the energy of others, in pains, regrets, resentments, self-pity, judgments, etc.; the list is endless.
In the process we learn to trust our spirit, that part of ourselves that is so eager to explore beyond the physical body, that just can’t wait to show us what we are really made of—energy! Our own spirit then becomes our greatest teacher and guide, and we come into our wholeness.
As we lose our fears and discover that we are really energetic beings, we become fluid and fearless explorers, in-body and out-of-body. But best of all, we become loving beings, fully happy in our bag of bones.
Sending you love,
J. E. Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries
Woke up at midnight to a powerful headache. So begins the internal dialogue: “You didn’t take care of yourself. You brought this on. You won’t be able to sleep well. Tomorrow will be compromised. There is no way this headache will go away. Well, maybe if you took some Motrin. Some healer you are. You are powerless to change this pain…”
Stalking healing intent… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The impact of this messaging stirs anxiety and fear, and a general belief of defeat and failure, accompanied by a somewhat depressed mood.
The net effect of this internal dialogue is to securely embody a definition of self as flawed, limited, and of low value. To stalk such an experience is to add an impartial observer alongside this internal dialogue, with the intent to separate itself from these negative wrappings, and unleash the fullness of possibilities.
From this impartial place of awareness, the observer suspends judgment, awaiting other possibilities. Suddenly, a vague memory appears with some certain knowledge: “You can relieve your headache through your own agency, through your own intent.”
Immediately, the internal dialogue chips in: “That experience you think you remember was a fluke, maybe it didn’t really even happen. There’s no way you can eliminate your headache short of 1000mg of Motrin. Some healer you are.”
The stalking observer decides to place its full attention upon the details of its prior self-healing experience. Recapitulating that experience, it knows it began by placing full awareness upon the sensation of pain in the exact locale of the head from which it pulsated. From there, the command had been issued to release and relax, deeper and deeper.
The stalker decides to apply this method. The inner dialogue casts its aspersions, but the stalker finds inner silence, by simply placing its full attention upon the sensation, and giving the command to release and relax. No attention is given to the internal dialogue nor any other thought thread. The stalking observer then fully merges with the intent, into a state of being intent.
Within minutes, as relaxation and release deepen, the head becomes completely spacious, as inhaled breath flows freely through its caverns. The headache is completely erased! It never returns. Being intent has operationalized and fully realized its intent.
Don Juan Matus joked with his much younger apprentice, Carlos Castaneda, about how much physically older Carlos appeared than he. Don Juan attributed his youthful vitality to his refusal to uphold physical agreements he had never signed up for.
Socialization shapes and limits what we believe we are capable of physically changing. The body itself is governed by inherited archetypal intents, in the form of subconscious programs. The internal dialogue upholds these ‘facts’ of physical life. These facts are rarely challenged by consciousness.
Yogis, for eons, have demonstrated that full consciousness can be brought to, and take control of, every organ and biological system in the body. Being intent is the active agent of that consciousness. The key is to suspend the judgments of the internal dialogue, leading to inner silence, and then shifting into being intent.
The Sorcerers of Ancient Mexico became such masters of being intent that they turned their prowess into defying death, staying in human form indefinitely. Modern seers, though they appreciate such feats, see them as traps, as all beings must eventually change form through physical death, the destiny intent of the human form.
Nonetheless, being intent certainly opens the door to possibilities in human form, which are well-worth exploring. To be able to erase a full blown headache and slip into deeply rejuvenating sleep is deeply appreciated. It may not always be possible, but my motto, taken from my earliest mentor, Dr. Efren Ramirez, has always been: Anything is possible, until proven otherwise.
May all discover the possibilities of being intent for themselves.
