Get right within the self. Rather than turn outward, looking at others to blame or to dismiss as getting it wrong, doing it wrong, or having failed in some way, look to the self. How have you gotten it wrong? What are you doing that isn’t right? How have you failed? Turn inward and investigate the self on many deepening levels as to your personal state. Can you accept the truth and deal with it in an inner way rather than an outer way, with all your feelings and emotions on board and part of the process? It’s time to turn inward and get the self right. As you do that the world outside of you will begin to get right again too. As within, so without. And don’t forget, do so without regret or resentment. Do it out of love, loving the self for all that has transpired and loving life to come. Do it with love.
The inspiration for this blog comes from our neighbor Joseph McMoneagle’s book, The Ultimate Time Machine. His reflections on the relativity of the past, as a “reality” largely based upon interpretation, coincides neatly with the Shamans of Ancient Mexico’s experience of the Wheel of Time.
Changing the past allows completion of the labyrinth…
Recapitulation is an ancient shamanic practice that enables one to change the past. As McMoneagle points out, the past is largely defined by our interpretation system, which is mostly determined by our socialization by significant others since the moment of our birth. Thus, memory is largely colored by a feeling tone and cognitive understanding based on socialization.
When we recapitulate we relive the actual experience of the past with the consciousness of fresh eyes, or a point of awareness from the future, now, that affords a different view. From that new perspective, the past indeed changes. Yes, certain events happened that are the focus of the recapitulation, however, the interpretation of those facts is wide open to change.
Beyond actual interpretation is the feeling experience of the object of recapitulation. A traumatic event of violent proportion may at first be experienced as more physically and emotionally intense than actually previously remembered. This in and of itself changes the past because one is allowed, perhaps for the first time, a fuller experience of what actually happened.
The intensity of sensation and emotion emanating from a past event frequently shifts in recapitulation, to the point that remembering the event actually results in a neutral reaction. This is not the result of suppression or dissociation. The formerly traumatic event truly becomes a content of personal history that no longer casts a trigger shadow over present life. In fact, some horrific experiences in life can actually become transformed into objects of humor.
These are genuine examples of changing the past. The change is in having a much broader experience in all that happened in a way not possible when we first experienced it. We were limited by the level of our abilities at that stage of our development, as well as by the defenses our body and higher self brought into play, such as fragmentation and amnesia, as we simply were not ready to take in and make sense of the event as we experienced it. Now we are freed to know it and be with the past in a whole new way.
Recapitulation, then, is a valid technology to change the past, resulting in a fuller energetic presence in life now. In shamanic terms: we retrieve fragmented energy, parts of ourselves previously frozen in a “past” not fully known. This energetic retrieval is possible, as the past can now release it from the bondage of incompletion. The past is changed and the present is enlivened through this change in the past.
So, yes, change in the past can definitely change the present. Practice recapitulation, see what happens!
What really is fate but the unfolding of a dream, one of infinite possibilities moving to completion.
Outside of time and space is everything; past, present, and future all bundled together in ultimate oneness. Inside time-space are the parts of that oneness fully exploring themselves in the spirit of our individual lives.
Of course there is free choice, but what is free choice but the exploration of a possibility, and all possibilities want to be explored. How else could we find our way back to ultimate oneness if we didn’t know all of our parts?
Life in this world is the active side of infinity where God/Goddess, ultimate oneness, experiences its infinite self through the many varied lives of all sentient beings. There is no judgment, there is no good and evil in wholeness, there is simply all that is.
The Tao of our lives is the river of our particular being. We are who we are. If we are to truly know ourselves we must align with the central current that flows through our being. This is the voice of our true self that seeks to manifest and illuminate our uniqueness as well as our interconnectedness to all that is.
When in alignment with the self we greet oncoming time as it presents, accepting and assembling its unfolding pieces one at a time. Choices are really acquiescences to the true path of the self already lived. For yes, from the point of view of the oneness of infinity, all has already been lived, though we are fully recapitulating for infinity the experiences of our unique possibilities as we go about our daily lives. And this is how the great oneness can truly know itself, in the fullness of all its lived possibilities that we deliver to infinity through our senses and consciousness every day of our lives. And for those who know the experience of traumatic recapitulation, recapitulation is a fully lived, not simply remembered, experience.
We know we are in good alignment when we accept the unfolding of the miracle of life in such an integral way, senses and consciousness fully on board, fully aware and fully active. The next needed item or happening appears; it is recognized, incorporated, and lived. This does not mean we won’t encounter great challenges and unexpected experiences; they are part of the unfolding dream. Nonetheless, there is great solace in those difficult moments when we can accept and know that all has already happened, that we are simply in the living experience of our great unfolding dream.
So get calm and observe. What’s going to happen next? Know that, as you flow through this recapitulation of your life, you have already made it. The intent of the self is unfolding. Live it to the fullest!
Don Juan comments to Carlos Castaneda in The Art of Dreaming: “Your unbiased reaction is that you can’t stand chains, and you would forfeit your life to break them.”
Watch out for those spirit entities, you never know where they’ll lead you! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Carlos had been tricked in his dreaming, as he explored a world of spirit entities. Those entities have much to teach a journeyer, but they exact a huge price for sharing their knowledge. In this case, they sought to entice Carlos to stay in their world, as his high frequency energy provided much entertainment to the more stationary beings of that realm. He survived their obvious attempts to cater to his curiosity but hadn’t bargained for their trickery, which targeted his unbiased reaction that Don Juan spoke of.
What Carlos hadn’t anticipated was an encounter these spirit entities set up for him in their world, contact with a trapped being presenting as a seven-year-old girl, with powerful blue eyes, seeking his help. Spontaneously, he shouted his intent to merge his energy with that prisoner child and set her free. With this impulsive move he became the prisoner, nothing more than a limp figure lying at the bottom of an empty pit, his vital energy completely exhausted.
Carlos was rescued by his warrior cohorts, but his journey marked a turning point for the future of his shamanic line. Carlos and his warrior party ultimately decided to end the shaman’s code of silence and anonymity, launching Tensegrity, freely giving away the technology and knowledge of the Ancient Shamans of Mexico, and formally ending their shamanic line. These actions formatted ancient knowledge to gain footing and have utility in our changing times.
Shamans have always been the spirit journeyers who healed others through soul retrievals, finding lost parts and returning them to the victim, effecting the cure of restored wholeness. Thus, those afflicted with illness depended upon the shaman to provide their cure. In our time it has become clear that healing effected by the hands of another does not hold up if the individual has not inwardly solved the challenge presented by the illness.
The evolutionary shift Carlos and his cohorts made was to offer the tools of empowerment and healing to all to heal themselves. In my psychotherapy practice the tool of recapitulation that I learned in the shaman’s world has proven most effective in the total cure of PTSD. That tool offers every individual the opportunity to completely restore their own lost wholeness as they encounter and integrate split off parts of themselves that were previously lost to traumatic experience.
Through this method, rescue is transformed into self-empowerment. The role of helper becomes one of teaching and supporting this healing practice. The role of healer is transferred to the seeker who is empowered to truly know and reconcile the whole truth of their lives. This is healing through self-empowerment versus the tentativeness and dependence upon the actions of another.
Thus, Carlos transformed his proclivity to rescue into giving away his knowledge that all who truly seek to heal be empowered to heal themselves. In this time of great instability we are empowered to find stability in the consolidation of our wholeness through our personal practice of recapitulation. Thank you, Carlos, for this evolutionary gift.
Like the burning off of morning fog, total acceptance seeks clarity… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The bottom line for total healing is total acceptance. The bottom line for completion is total acceptance. The bottom line of preparation for one’s definitive journey in infinity is total acceptance.
What is total acceptance? It begins with total knowing. We needn’t remember every detail, but if we harbor a wish not to know what we have experienced then our lives revolve around maintaining not knowing. Something that we experienced still feels more powerful than our ability to assimilate it so we keep it at bay, and there we must stay.
There is no negative judgment for this predicament, but it defines our life no matter where we are: we remain fragmented, our wholeness contained in dissociation. That becomes our karma, the path that solves the riddle of our resistance to integration. When we solve that riddle we move deeper into acceptance.
When we can allow ourselves to fully know the truth of our lives we open to the emotions and sensations of our dreaded experiences. The energy of emotion must be felt and released through the sensations of the body’s channels, whether that be in movement, tear, sound, or breath.
When the dust of expired emotion settles we are left with the facts of our experience, but facts can be clouded by beliefs. Before we can view the facts from a broadened perspective we must address the limits of our beliefs.
Often simply allowing ourselves the discourse of sharing our dreaded secrets begins an updating process that clarifies a long held misinterpretation. Part of this is developmental. Often our unexamined beliefs were encased in distortion by our young minds. The encounter of these naive beliefs with our adult power of understanding frees us from the misunderstandings of the past.
Of course this then throws us directly into the moralistic hands of judgment. Adults with their firmly entrenched superegos must contend with the guilt of their imperfections and transgressions, with the fullness of their human nature. Total acceptance requires that we totally accept the full truth of what we have done, of what we have experienced.
Whether something is right or wrong, whether it should or shouldn’t have happened has no bearing here. If something happened it is a fact of personal history. To embrace our whole selves we must embrace the full truth of all our experiences. To embrace we must fully digest everything. The unacceptable of my experience is completely acceptable as a fact of my life because it truthfully is a real part of my life that can never be erased.
Total acceptance demands complete digestion of the facts of an experience. To have negative judgements about an experience may be a necessary part of that digestive process, but we must become freed of the clouds of judgment to know with utter clarity every nuance of our experience.
This is the knowing that is delivered to total acceptance: this is the fullness of the experience I had; I totally accept it without emotional residue, without judgment.
Total acceptance is squaring with the facts of our lives. Reconciled and freed we are fully energetically ready for the next adventure.
