Tag Archives: recapitulation

Chuck’s Place: Traumatic Initiation

Stumped between worlds…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Trauma is a rupture to the security of the known. The sublime effect of trauma is to involuntarily usher one into the transpersonal dimension of the High SOUL. PTSD is the condition of being caught between the everyday world of the known and this deeper transpersonal dimension of being.

Recapitulation is an ego-Soul retrieval practice that reconstitutes the fullness of the self that was fragmented by trauma, curing the condition of PTSD. For many, recapitulation also refines one’s psychic ability to travel in and communicate with the transpersonal realm. Many psychic channels trace their awakened abilities to the blunt force of a traumatic incident.

Thus, trauma can be seen as the ego-Soul’s involuntary initiation into the fuller dimension and abilities of its High SOUL. As with all initiations the experience is shattering and dangerous, and not everyone returns safely. Modern clinical methods like EMDR and SE (Sensory Experience) can also facilitate the ego-Soul’s resolution of its forced traumatic shamanic journey.

The world is currently experiencing blunt force trauma on many fronts. The impacts of global warming upon the body of Gaia are evident almost daily. The fires in California, the floods in the midwest, the Typhoon last week in Mozambique are but a handful of the most recent physical traumas on Earth. The great human migratory movements throughout the world now largely reflect these environmental impacts.

Human beings are the cortex of the living planetary being of Gaia, and as a whole are expressing the polarized symptoms of instability so familiar to an individual in the grip of PTSD. Thus, we see a compromised collective human ego-Soul grappling with survival, as its known world continues to shatter.

The latent impact of the Earth crises of now is a collective shamanic journey for the human ego-Soul. Though the side effects of bipolar and psychotic extremes are evident, many are adjusting to the evolutionary shifts on the near horizon. The almost complete lack of privacy, the transparency of now, though invasive and almost out of control, are actually signs of a coming higher level of consciousness; that is, humans communicating telepathically, with total transparency, in a world with nothing to hide.

Humans have no choice but to reach this level of truthfulness to be able to function sanely as the cortex of Gaia. Seen from this perspective, the trauma of now is actually a planetary birth trauma, where both the Earth and human consciousness are being reformatted for evolutionary salvation.

It was the conclusion of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, in the person of the Nagual Don Juan Matus, that this energetic evolution was the only direction for humankind and for the survival of the Earth dream.

As individuals, we are all empowered to be midwives to a smooth evolutionary transition by facing the truths of our individual lives. Firstly, practice self-regulation, in some form of meditation or body practice, to achieve volitional control over the emotional terrors of the limbic system that react to the shocks of now. Stay calm, limit exposure to extremist rhetoric.

Keep thoughts positive and loving. Love is the most powerful and all-inclusive energy. It’s free. Bombard the world with loving kindness!

Hold onto the perspective that all the destruction of now is part of a major birth and an evolutionary initiation into a more loving, transparent, well-balanced world. Hold tightly to this knowing, protecting it like a candle in the innermost sanctum of the heart, amidst the violent storms of negativity blowing across the world. Know that it is simply another contraction in this amazing birth we are all participants in.

Regulating,

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Messiness of Birth

That which once held life decomposes as new life takes form…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

New life is contained in a sealed casing as it completes its readiness to burst forth onto the world stage. In humans this is the placenta, in butterflies it is the chrysalis, in corn it is the husk. Strikingly, the old order, that which new life emerges from, is vastly different from the consciousness and values of the new life struggling to take form. Once new life manifests, that which so prominently contained it quickly loses purpose, and decomposes into the soil of the Earth.

The New Age, with its evolved human consciousness, continues to birth, as its placenta, the casings of the dominant old world material values, which grip as tightly as possible to counter the forward thrust of new age values. This is tragically evident in the recent New Zealand massacres, where old world, misguided white-separatist values virally asserted themselves.

White is the ultimate absence of all color. White, therefore, is the assigned ‘color’ of innocence, a blank slate entering life. All humans are subject to the loss of this childhood innocence through worldly encounters in the developmental process of growing up. Life on this planet is conditioned with the progressive loss of innocence through the interruptions of trauma, standard socialization, or simply the demand to leave childhood and become an adult in this world.

Jesus remarked that only the Child is ready to enter heaven. As I unpack the meaning of this lesson, I see the child as the ultimate symbol of innocence. What Jesus is likely suggesting is that all must retrieve their innocence, not become the small blank-slate child again. Innocence must be refined, at an adult level, to encompass the trials, traumas, losses, and disappointments that are the inevitable facts of life in human form.

The restoration of lost innocence at an adult level requires a total integration of all experiences, all parts of the self, all parts of the human community. Psychologically, this is the process of recapitulation where one faces their own deepest fears by coming to know and accept all parts of their life experience and their multidimensional self. Adult innocence is reflected in the full color spectrum of the rainbow, not in a return to the blankness of pure white.

The encasing white supremacy energy of now has misguidedly projected, concretely, this quest for the restoration of innocence through the keeping out or extermination of the darker shades of the human family, as well as migrants, as it seeks to preserve its purity and old way of life. In the recent tragedy in New Zealand, in true Hitleresque fashion, we saw the extermination solution acted out and suggested as an option, via social media.

This misguided, powerful wall of energy cannot forestall, indefinitely, the birth of an advanced awareness that knows the true needs of survival for both humanity and the planetary being. This new life of innocence knows that purity is composed of the interconnectedness of all life, as One Life. Love is its operative energy in its embracing of all life. Truth is its acting cognition, unsullied by the illusion of separateness.

The messiness of birthing this all-inclusive loving consciousness is reflected in the massacres and environmental disasters of now. Though horrific, they are not apocalyptic. They are the labor contractions and messes of a major birth, an evolutionary shift, so ready to take charge of human navigation. Even those leaders who so boldly instigate hatred are serving to awaken humanity from its deeply entranced sleep, to take personal responsibility for the fate of the world. Strong hints of that evolved intelligence and loving compassion are evident in the person and actions of Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, as she guides her nation and the world to be ruled by love, for all.

Holographically, all humans have the opportunity to participate in this great metamorphosis, in the homogenization of all the hidden parts of the self. We are all compositions of white and black. The issue is to accept all parts of the self through bringing light, not white, to all the hidden recesses of self. When we can see and accept all that we personally are, we are ready to navigate and contribute to what is truthfully needed now for all.

I am saddened for all the innocent victims of New Zealand, as well as by the almost daily environmental disasters that erupt upon the planet. May these sacrifices be well-served in the quickening to birth of the coming ruling values of love, truth, and interconnectedness as the real solutions to survival.

Humbly facilitating,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Wednesday February 20, 2019

Let bygones be bygones as you turn in a new direction now, with heart open, with love leading the way. Leave old negative thoughts and ideas about yourself behind as you turn toward the light of positivity. When it’s time to finally change it can be as easy as turning and walking in a new direction. Knowing that you have taken care of old business, that you have left no stone unturned, no strings attached, and that you are truly free will make the new journey one of right action. Maybe it’s time, maybe it’s not, but it’s always time to prepare, to attend to that which binds you, and to dream a new dream. You have the power totally within you, within your own mind, to dream a new dream. It’s doesn’t matter where you began, what matters is where you go next. Take life forward in the new positive direction you dream of, one small step at a time, one day at a time, with thanks for where you have been and with gratitude for what you have learned. Keep your dream alive, not just in imagination but in action. Every day is a new dream. Dream on!

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: Archetypal Pause

Calm…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Many people believe that the basic security they lack, due to parental neglect early in life, must be subsequently supplied by someone, somewhere, for healing and confidence to be established in their innermost being. When I began my professional career as a therapist at The Linden Hill School, a psychiatric hospital for nonviolent, deeply disturbed adolescents, I was told tales of former therapists who had attempted to compensate for the early neglect of caretakers by literally feeding their adolescent patients on their laps with warmed bottles of milk.

I myself once had a cat who’d been separated from his mother prematurely; we called him Ricky. Every time Ricky was held and petted he immediately attempted to nurse on anything his mouth could reach. No matter how much Ricky nursed through the years, this behavior never changed.

There appear to be critical periods for meeting certain needs through age specific behaviors. In the field of ethology, the study of animal behavior, Konrad Lorenz discovered that there are critical periods for imprinting and attachment. For instance, a mother goose will not bond with a separated chick beyond sixteen hours after hatching. In other words, that chick has just 16 hours to get the mother goose’s attention! If that fails, it’s on its own.

In humans, nursing behavior enacted beyond infancy will not supply the archetypal love as it does for an infant being loved through this form of nurturance. Fixation upon the now outdated archetype might persist, but acting it out merely provides a temporary fix, with powerful dependency on others continuing to be necessary to provide basic security. An internalized sense of being loved, with its resultant feeling of confidence, remains lacking.

How then does one fulfill a missed first chakra need of secure footing in this world? Regardless of the state of integrity of our personality foundation as separate beings, our bodies continue to grow. We are forced to adapt to new situations in life even if we are lacking in confidence. Fortunately, some inner parent, what I call one’s High SOUL, invokes a variety of strategic maneuvers which prioritize continuing to be able to grow, cognitively and emotionally, in spite of the lack of completion of a secure personality foundation.

One such strategy of the High SOUL is to prompt a child to make believe everything is OK. An adult name for this strategy is to act-as-if.  When we act-as-if, or fake it till we make it, we willfully explore a behavior that stretches us beyond the comfort zone of our habitual repertoire. Though acting-as-if may be experienced as a false self, or may not serve deeper personality transformation, it is useful for adaptation in the moment. It may allow one to stay in the moment and actually continue to grow in vital ways.

Another powerful intervention by the High SOUL is the use of amnesia. Frequently, in the trauma of primal neglect, the memory of the traumatic experience is completely lost to consciousness, stored alternatively in the unconscious mind or somewhere in the physical body. Through this dissociation an individual is enabled to stay somewhat present to the experiences and lessons of the current moment.

Interestingly, as I have witnessed in my personal clinical experience, the High SOUL decides when, at some future point in time, the forgotten experience will surface, often decades after the event. This parental wisdom, exercised by the High SOUL, is to wait until a stage of life when adaptive needs are lessened and focus can shift to the integration of lost wholeness. Indeed, I am suggesting here that our true parent is our own High SOUL, always present behind the scenes, supporting our ability to undertake and fulfill our mission in this life.

Addressing traumatic memory or the fulfillment of basic needs requires a strong adult presence. When one opens to need or trauma, the emotional state of the inner child is evoked through the little soul of the subconscious’s connection to the body and its release of powerful hormones and neurotransmitters to activate emotions specific to the state of the trauma or need. The ego-Soul is then asked to stay present to the activated emotional, cognitive, and body states associated with the memory or need of the inner child.

In effect, High SOUL has determined that ego-Soul is now ready to become the parent to its own child self. This is not a matter of going back to some earlier time and fulfilling a need in the form that was missed out on. What is required is for the adult ego Soul to stay fully present and open up to the experience of its formally dissociated inner child. This means feeling it in emotion and body, and knowing it cognitively as the child believes it to be. High SOUL, who raised ego-Soul, now asks it to become the adult parent to its personality in the time and space of this world.

But how to do this? How does one develop such affect tolerance? One approach is deep relaxation. The little soul of the subconscious does what it is told to do. If, in the midst of a highly clenched physical state, ego-Soul can volitionally place its awareness on the points of tension in the physical body and instruct the body, through suggestion to the little soul of the subconscious mind, to relax the body, the body will respond and lessen its grip. Repeated instruction will deepen relaxation and allow ego-Soul to help its child self to regulate its own emotional intensity in the face of the experience it is in the midst of.

This loving act, of staying present to and helping to transform the inner child’s emotional reaction, opens the door to a deeper cognitive perspective where the child state sees the fuller context of the truth of its early experience, which can clear up false negative beliefs it may have held about itself for much of life.

This adult ego-Soul relationship with its younger self becomes the true supplier of the primal nurturance long sought in life. With this foundation, genuine transformations occur that provide for enriched fulfillment in life, within and without.

Whenever stressed, practice relaxation. Pause, take a breath, shift focus to the subconscious with the instruction to release the body tension. Stay present, see what happens! This is love in action, the right mechanism for archetypal completion, now.

Releasing, completing,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Tuesday February 19, 2019

Find your way to peace within, knowing that life itself supports you in your pursuit of your wholeness. Find meaning in all that has happened to you in a way that makes sense, as a worthy tale of a life thus far lived. For, indeed, all lives are worthy of a consolidated picture of reality. All lives are important, noteworthy, and of great value, for one small person effects many and thus one life counts greatly and is part of the bigger picture that is life as you know it. Be at peace knowing that all lives are interconnected, interwoven, and that each and every life contributes greatly to the whole, and that which is whole is complete.

Your own life and those of others are all of equal value. No one person owns life more than another. So take your own life as seriously as you take that of others. And be at peace knowing that your struggle, your story, and your search for meaning and wholeness have great impact upon the whole world, in matter and spirit, just as much as the next person’s struggle. You matter. With dignity and renewed vigor pursue your Soul’s goal to know and understand at ever-deepening levels, and find peace in knowing that it is as worthy a goal as you will ever encounter among the many Souls journeying with you. To know the self is the ultimate goal. Through this pursuit find your peace and balance within and arrive at peace and balance without.

-From the Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne