Tag Archives: recapitulation

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Shock

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I pull this card a lot... It's always deeply meaningful... From the Thoth Tarot Deck, the 2 of Disks.
I pull this card a lot… It’s always deeply meaningful… From the Thoth Tarot Deck, the 2 of Disks.

I go to the Tarot for advice and guidance. “What is the most important thing to write about in my blog today?” I ask. I shuffle the deck. Holding the stack of cards against my heart, I pull a card, the 2 of Disks: Change. I read that this card represents external change. It’s about achieving external balance by remaining always fully aware that change is constant, cyclic, unending. The number 2 is also significant, implicating that we must change now, within a matter of a few minutes, days, weeks or, at the most, months. There is no time to waste.

Change comes to aid us on our journeys, to help us evolve, to spur us out of our inertia. And so I must ponder what this card is trying to alert me to on this day especially, as I am poised to write something that others will read. I say that not in self-importance, but only in humility, for I am aware that words have power. Even my own words have power; all words do. They can inspire or they can hurt.

In the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon on Monday, I am aware of goodness, selflessness, courage, heroism. I am also aware of evil, hatred, fear, anger. This is a sensitive time for us. We are hurt, confused, afraid. We want to blame. We want there to be a bad guy, a villain. We ask why, why would someone do such a thing? We feel the pain of others, the maimed, the lost, the grieving. We want answers and yet the answers are slow to come. We might even ask: “What would I have done?”

The 2 of Disks asks us to change ourselves, to get ourselves in balance with nature. It asks us to enact external change that will be lasting, based on what we know about human nature and the cyclicity of nature itself. It asks us to become responsible for change in our lifetime—now.

The symbol on the Tarot card is the oroborus, the snake eating its tail, the figure eight, representing infinity. It also represents the repetition of behaviors and habits internally that keep us static externally. The card suggests that it’s time to question our deeper selves as to why these things keep happening, the mass shootings and bombings as well as the other horrors: the raping of woman and girls, the starving of children, the insatiable greed. Why do we keep hurting each other? Why are our ideologies more important than our truths? Why will we not stand up for what is truly right? These are the questions from the oroborus.

From the reactions of people at the bombing scene it’s apparent that we care deeply about each other. Who knows, perhaps one of the injured was the bomber, unknowingly aided by a good samaritan, simply because it’s in our human nature to help one another. No one questioned if the injured were worthy of saving, they simply acted to help other human beings in pain. On that day there were many actively engaged in enacting the oath of humanness that we all took upon entering this life, the oath of affection.

I must look for myself reflected in this image... I know I'm there somewhere... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
I must look for myself reflected in this image… I know I’m there somewhere… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the Golden Rule says. It’s good to see that it’s still alive. But why do so many of us turn our faces and run from horror, rather than look it in the eye, take in the gory details, knowing that we too will suffer and die one day? Why are so many of us afraid of truly living our lives to the fullest? Why are we so afraid to meet our fellow human beings face to face? Why are so many of us afraid to look at our own deepest fears?

I think these are some of the things we are being asked to confront today. As the Shamans of Ancient Mexico state: We are beings who are going to die. Why is this so hard for us to think about? Why do we pretend that we alone are invincible when we are shown every day, from around the world and in our own country, that death will come. We must use death this time as an advisor, this is what the 2 of Disks is saying.

We must dare ourselves to take in the grisly truth. We must look at what has happened, knowing full well that we are not immune, and let it shake us awake. The pictures of horror must burn holes in us so that we do not forget what we human beings are capable of, both the good and the evil.

Perhaps we have come so far from our true humanness that we must be shocked awake before we will change how we perceive the rest of humankind and the world we all share. If we Americans are to change, we must first recognize that we are the same as all other human beings around the world. We are no more or less than the good and evil that resides in the people of the Middle East, India, Africa. We are no more or less human than our staunchest opponents, our perceived enemies, than those who wish to destroy us. We all have some aspect of aberrant behavior that rules us. We are all in need of balance, and external change is what brings that to us. Just as the seasons change, bringing the balance that nature needs in order to regenerate, so do we need external shocks in order to change too. This, I believe, is what the 2 of Disks implies, that external change will come to rock us back into true balance.

We are all both light and dark, yin and yang, good and evil, etc. - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We are all both light and dark, yin and yang, good and evil, etc. – Photo by Jan Ketchel

As the 2 of Disks implies, we are all the oroborus, cyclic beings, endlessly eating our tails. We must accept this. We are all going to die. And so we must accept what comes from without to help us change within, so that change can happen without that is lasting and good. We must once again retake the oath of humanness and truly live as affectionate beings, without self-importance, knowing that we are all capable of the most horrific of deeds, but also the deepest affection. This is the balance of the 2 of Disks.

We must seek balance without, in all ways, now. But we must also constantly deal with the evil bombers within. The shamanic practice of recapitulation offers a method of deep self-investigation that leads to selflessness and true affection. As we constantly recapitulate, we shed our fears and lose our personal self-importance. If we do this as individuals, our nation may lose its fears and self-importance as well. If we recapitulate until we are nothing more than beings who are going to die, when it comes our turn to act externally, only the affectionate beings that we truly are will immediately respond.

Offered in humility, with thanks to the guidance from the universe, today in the form of the Tarot,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Doubt—The Guardian

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What the heck is that! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
What the heck is that! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

We humans are a lot to manage, a lot to really keep in mind. The possibilities that we might perceive, that we might interact with, that we might experience are quite extraordinary, and quite unpredictable.

It takes a tremendous effort to limit our perceptions; to reign in our possibilities; to create a uniform cohesive being, familiar and recognizable, constrained yet utterly bored. That constrained human being is funneled into the habits of greed and consumption with the fallback of self-pity for all that we are deprived of. However limiting this construction is, it’s the price we pay for our consensus reality. That reality is bursting at the seams with discontent now—bored to death with its limiting and limited purview—and it remains for doubt to hold us together, to uphold the old world of reason.

I pick up the shell of a bug and place it on a stone where it sits lifelessly. Later, I turn my awareness to it and, lo and behold, it gets up and walks away! For a moment I leave this world, this consensus reality of reason. I am in heightened awareness, where anything is possible, where the lifeless get up and walk away!

I stalk that reality, the bug indeed keeps on walking. I am sober. I am grounded. However, the guardian now swoops down and issues its edict: What I just saw is unreasonable, impossible, it could not happen. It did not happen. Obviously, there was a flaw in my perception.

Doubt moves solidly in and explains the misperception. Obviously, the “shell” I thought was an empty carapace was not empty at all. We must always be thorough in our investigations. Life must have been camouflaged or neatly curled up in that shell because new guts do not simply reappear in empty shells and walk away.

Carlos Castaneda recommended that we suspend judgment and allow ourselves to truly see. He also pointed out that we never fully lose our rational minds so we might want to consider giving them an appropriate outlet, say some form of study. Carlos and all of his cohorts were academics pursuing doctoral degrees, their rational minds intensely focused and busy, allowing their awareness to travel into other realms freed of the guardian of doubt.

Be careful when you drive. The rational mind is so preoccupied with upholding the laws of the road that heightened awareness can slip through the guardian’s grasp. People often have the most extraordinary experiences of expanded reality—entering other worlds—when driving. Not recommended! Keep your eyes on the road!

Do we dare sneak a peek? - Art & Photo by Jan Ketchel
Do we dare sneak a peek? – Art & Photo by Jan Ketchel

Recapitulation is another gateway to our true birthright of heightened awareness. In recapitulation, we often walk into the heightened awareness of alternate realities that we once fully lived but subsequently denied. In an effort to construct a cohesive self, the guardian of doubt censors much of our experiences, particularly experiences that break the rules of reason, of what one should expect in a familiar world.

Sometimes we are seized in recapitulation so completely by an experience that, for a moment, doubt can’t help but be suspended. And yet, but a moment later, doubt sweeps in to restore the order of a familiar self, a familiar world, a reasonable mind, effectively blocking out real experiences of the extraordinary. However, once we intend the path of self-knowledge, we open the door to the fuller experiences of all we are—beings far more capable than the limits of our reason.

Doubt, the guardian at the gate, the gargoyle of limitation must be confronted repeatedly. It warns us that if we go outside the gate it cannot protect us, thus we are challenged to find cohesion in the greater truth of our being.

That’s where we are now, in our time, as individuals and as a species, beings needing to pass by the guardians at the gate. We are charged with constructing a new consensus reality of affection for ourselves, each other, and the fuller truth of all that we really are.

Guardianless,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Seek Refuge In Intent

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Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high… -Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up

We must do the freeing ourselves... - Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel
We must do the freeing ourselves… – Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel

For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico the calling of INTENT is the channel to the power to change the self and the world. If calling intent is a prayer, it’s a prayer of conviction: I INTEND THIS! But it’s also a prayer of humility: Though I state my intent with command, I accept the response I receive.

Perhaps my intent is an ego intent, misaligned with spirit self. I must examine a non-response from intent with humility. I do not attach to the outcome of my stated intent, that is control. I am beckoning power, I must accept with equanimity the response I receive. Perhaps my intent requires that I linger longer where I no longer wish to be. Perhaps I have more to learn before it’s time to awaken from this dream.

Intent insists on strength. We must come to intent as adults. Intent cannot advance us if we beckon with begging, pleading hands. In this case, intent will contain us in our begging stance until we are able to stalk—to truly embody—the shift we seek.

Intent requires that we use our words. Thinking an intent is not calling intent. We must verbalize, with clarity, our intent. Stating our intent establishes a link between a definite being—a being embodying its right to ask—and the power of intent to fund the intention.

I must prepare the ground for intent. Have I done all within my power to receive the fruition of my intent, or am I asking intent to do the work I rightfully can and must do myself? How can intent bring me fulfillment if I have not faced my recapitulation? If I am not ready to open and free myself from the restricted beliefs I hold of myself, how can intent present me with new possibilities that would simply not be possible for me to embody?

I’m ready for new life when I’m willing to shed the old through a completed recapitulation. Until I’ve completed my recapitulation I am not even aware of the beliefs and habits that bind me. How can intent free me when I am not free to go forward?

Finally, a personal note of caution. Intent is real and it’s powerful. Do be careful what you ask for! As a young child I beckoned intent on a Good Friday. Intent responded with a force barely containable in my young body. I opened a portal that day that, quite frankly, I was never able to close. Though I wouldn’t have it any other way, I caution: Use extreme sobriety when beckoning communion with infinity!

We must prepare our humanness to ride freely on the wings of intent. To seek refuge in intent we must assume full responsibility for our lives. That’s the ticket.

With the intent of affection,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Don’t Ask Why

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According to whom? Photo by Jan Ketchel
According to whom? Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico were tenacious in their disciplined effort to retrieve their energy and free themselves from the constraints of the social order. These shamans saw the social order as the indexing arm of the interpretive system of our minds, which is both inherited and reinforced through the process of socialization we are all born into. These preset indexing categories interpret and define our fixed reality and deprive us access to our full birthright—access to unlimited worlds of possibility.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered that our interpretation system is completely restricted by a biased obsession with self. This constriction manifests in a lifetime obsession with worthiness, attractiveness, lovability, ranking, valuation, and validity.

As a psychotherapist deeply engaged in the intent of healing, I realize that all of these human concerns are profound challenges that require examination and action if we are to free the self from their restrictive reach. I have benefited from the perspective and methodology of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico to free the self to move into its own deeper potential.

The shamans define discipline not as a compulsive commitment to self-improvement routines, but as a persistent and unbiased examination of the self. They suggest that we not begin our inquiry into the self with the question, “Why did this happen to “me?” To those shamans this question is likely to trip us into a victim index of interpretation with follow-up statements like: “It’s not fair!” “I didn’t deserve this!” “I’m entitled to _______!” “I’m so bad!” “I’ll never be good enough!” “It’s my fault!” These statements are likely to further drain energy by entrenching the self in a depressed mood of hopelessness, futility, and surrender. Of course many of these statements may have some validity. However, they tend to bias the self toward an entrenched victim interpretation of reality that can see no world of possibility beyond this fixation.

Examine what is... Photo by Jan Ketchel
Examine what is… Photo by Jan Ketchel

The shamans suggest that we begin our inquiry into our lives with the questions: “What is the situation that I am in?” “What do I need to do to change it?” “What can I learn from the situation I find myself in?”

Beginning the inquiry from this different perspective avoids the trappings of self-pity or self-defeat that the why question is likely to trigger. Such unbiased examination remains descriptive and factual, freed of judgment. Such examination is objective, focusing on what is, not whether I’m good or bad for being in it, whether I’m being punished or rewarded, whether I’m worthy or unworthy, whether it’s fair or whether I deserve it, whether I’ll ever be loved, etc. Those kinds of judgments have no validity in an inquiry into reality that seeks only to know the true nature of what is.

From the perspective of what is, I can examine my life as a being born into a family of characters who socialized me within the greater macrocosm of the social circumstances of the time I was born into, further elaborating that socialization process. From this perspective, I can see the pitfalls of that socialization and identify the opportunities available for learning to extricate myself from the limits imposed by the experiences of that socialization process. From this ability to know reality unfiltered by the judgments of worthiness, fairness, etc., I can retrieve my energy previously encased in such judgments and engage in actions to free myself from the bondage of a constricted reality.

Change what is and become fluid... Photo by Jan Ketchel
Change what is and become fluid… Photo by Jan Ketchel

From this linchpin, I enter the fluid possibility of expanded reality—a life open to fulfillment in unlimited possibility—beyond the why, into the what is of the infinite.

What is,
Chuck

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

A Day in a Life: Evolving Recapitulation

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I really am in the final throes of editing my next book in The Recapitulation Diaries series: The Edge of the Abyss. For this week’s blog I post another excerpt, as I am conserving my time for editing. As the recapitulation proceeded I constantly discovered just how my inner process was leading me to learn what I needed to learn about myself. Guided by the intent of the process of recapitulation itself—its intent set long ago by the Shamans of Ancient Mexico—I was swept up in that intent, for better or worse, married to it. Though I often felt that I had married a monster, at other times I knew I had married a prince. In the end I discovered that I had been married to myself all along—if that makes any sense! I don’t believe this excerpt needs the same kind of warning as some of the others that I’ve posted. It’s really just about gaining valuable insight about the journey of life and moving forward with renewed intent.

"Look what I bring!" my child self says... Bottle art by Haldis. Photo by Jan Ketchel
“Look what I bring!” my child self says… Bottle art by Haldis. Photo by Jan Ketchel

From February 6, 2003: My son, sick with the flu and a 103° temperature, sleeps in today. I get my daughter off to school and contemplate what I woke up thinking about earlier this morning: shame, and the child inside me who continues to carry it around like a heavy boulder. I’m pretty sure the adult self let it go a long time ago, but the child self sneaks into the adult world at times still bearing this heavy burden. She plunks it down in front of me and says: “See! It’s still here.”

As I peer at this big boulder of shame that she drags around, I suddenly experience complete separateness from this child self, and with utter clarity I understand that she is the one who so tightly rolls into that fetal position every night. Clutching all the pain and shame, she’s still very much alive, residing somewhere deep inside me, while I—the adult—have gone on into life. I’ve grown up and done a lot of adult things, distancing myself from her as much as possible in order to do so. Now, I clearly understand that I went on so I could one day return to this moment, so that I could one day be in the position I’m in right now, intent upon rescuing the child self still inside me and, in so doing, rescue myself.

Until today, I’ve had such a difficult time seeing and believing myself to actually be more than one being, fearful of what it might mean about me, perhaps that I’m crazier than I thought. But only in acknowledging that I am many beings simultaneously will I be able to embrace the crystal clear insight that right now, in this moment, hits me: fragmentation is a valuable skill!

In one aspect of fragmentation, my fully present adult self is able to step outside the memories and from her perspective carefully and sensitively guide my child self. I see this as an evolving aspect of the recapitulation. I realize that in so doing I’m finally able to reciprocate what my child self once so protectively did, as she fragmented, repressing the memories in the process, so I could grow up. I’ve simply not been in a position to fully embrace this insight until now, but it’s very clear that fragmentation is an important tool that has a valid place in the healing process.

"I can do this now," my adult self says... Photo and painted bottle art by Jan Ketchel
“I can do this now,” my adult self says… Photo and painted bottle art by Jan Ketchel

As I continue to hone the use of this skill, I imagine that all of my parts will eventually merge. As my adult self joins forces with my fragmented child selves—my sixteen little girl selves—and grants them each an opportunity to express themselves, they will no longer be alienated parts, separate from the whole. Once each part has told her tale and been fully acknowledged for both her pain and her bravery, another part will link into this healing process, another part offered the way home. Clarity and wholeness will eventually come, as new ideas and new perceptions about life in general and the past in particular are accepted and assimilated too.

It’s really the job of the adult self now to make all this happen, to introduce the guidelines, for only she has the wherewithal and the stamina to take on this monumental task. It’s what I’ve been preparing for. She must nurture and prepare each of the fragmented selves now too, make them welcome, and fully assimilate them into the inner circle of the new self. It can’t happen without a strong adult presence, a loving, respectful, and compassionate self. That kind of maturity is key to this whole process.

Thanks for reading!
Jan