Tag Archives: recapitulation

Messages from Jeanne

#773 Know the Ancient Self

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Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

I sometimes wake in the middle of the night, the weight of the world on my shoulders. I toss and turn worrying about how this crumbling world is going to end up, how everyone is going to survive and thrive. The nighttime is often a difficult time to slough off such worries. I turn to dreaming, setting the intent to resolve my attachment to such issues as I drift off to sleep, asking the universe, Jeanne, and my higher self to guide me to resolution. Sometimes I just end up entangled in fear, my mind racing, knowing I’m personally being challenged but unable to gain clarity.

Last night, in the middle of tossing and turning, I heard the following admonishment: Stop projecting! Face your own fears and challenges. Let others take their own journeys, including humanity itself!

In the light of day, I understand how pragmatic and sensible this guidance is, but in the middle of the night it appeared as daunting and even somewhat cold-hearted. Often the frightened child in me simply chooses to turn away, wanting sleep instead, but in reality I am far from a scared child. However, I know I must constantly turn to my child self to guide me to face my fears, for they reside with her. There are always new challenges to face as life unfolds, and who, but my child self, the knower-of-all-things, would be able to show me where I need to go?

Today, I ask Jeanne to give us all guidance on how to face our nighttime, and daytime, fears. How do we turn our fears into deeper inner work? Do you have guidance for all of your readers about how to keep going ever deeper into inner work, how to face our fears and find our way to new levels of awareness?

Here is how Jeanne responded:

Deep inner work requires awareness that there is work to be done, first of all. You acknowledge your fears—GOOD! That is step-one in going deeper. One must be humble and open to the facts of human imperfection and struggle. All human beings are imperfect; it is the nature of being human. Your lives are meant to be lives of struggle, conflict, and challenge. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but, in truth, it is just so. That’s why you are alive—to work through core issues so that you may evolve beyond them.

If one constantly pushes fears and difficulties aside one will fail to grow. Imagine a child, an infant who never evolves beyond infancy, who never meets the challenges to grow physically or mentally, though it is perfectly formed and fully capable of doing so. Would it not be frustrating if that child did not take up the challenges in life, even the physical ones, though it is perfectly fine and more than capable of doing so?!

In turning from their true challenges in life, many people are like such an infant. In pushing aside fears, in not facing or accepting the horrors in life, one remains infantile, in a state of paralysis. In such a state one does not really relieve the self of any of the fears and horrors but simply becomes entrapped in them. They gain power and control and thus there is no release for the true spirit self, lying entwined in such powerful stuff.

Turn to the ancient self and face all your fears

At the core of each one of you is an ancient self—the all-knowing self—who requires more than paralysis and acquiescence to the infant who refuses to budge. This ancient self is the one calling to you at night, using your childhood fears, asking you to go inside and find your way ever deeper.

This ancient self has already faced every fear there is; yet it asks you to review what is most important for you to review in this lifetime. The fears you face in this lifetime are the challenges your evolving spirit self must face in order to grow. It asks you constantly to face them, often using your child self to alert you to what they are, asking you to resolve them, and gain awareness of the self as an evolving being, fully capable of meeting all your challenges, in that world, and in other worlds as well.

It’s easy to think that life in that world is all there is, to believe that one cannot change circumstances. But, in truth, each one of you has more power than you think to change your circumstances, both your outer circumstances and your inner ones as well. You just need to remind yourselves, fairly often, that your ancient self has all the answers. Having already faced everything you are now facing, this ancient self is present to guide you through your reliving. Your reliving will lead you to a new place this time because you are awakening to the fact that you have been here before, done this many times, in many other lives. You sense the déjà vu of life in all its aspects. You know, at your core, that your real challenge this time is not really to face your greatest fears, they are just the premise from which to launch. Your greatest challenge this time is to become more fully aware of this ancient self and what it has to tell you beyond your fears.

Accept your fears as necessary steps to learning about the ancient self. When you desire to turn away from your next moment of fear, I suggest that you stand your ground. Ask your ancient self to take your hand and guide you through that fear, so that you may find the root of it. It may not at all be what you think!

Thank you, Jeanne!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: What the World Needs Now is Recapitulation

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Are we all ready to face the real truths that are so obvious?

Jeanne was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 right in the midst of our move to Tivoli, New York. Simultaneously, Carlos Castaneda was launching Tensegrity, a modern format in which to pass on the knowledge of the Seers of Ancient Mexico. Around the same time Jan, living in the deep South, was also diagnosed with cancer while at the same time being energetically stirred to make the trek back to the Hudson Valley, called to a new potential destiny. All three of these energetic events, Jeanne-Carlos-Jan, were about endings and new beginnings.

For Jeanne and I, it was to mark the final stage of our life together in this world as we began preparing to meet again on new energetic terms after her death. For Carlos, also soon to die, it marked the end of his shamanic line. Carlos, a socialist at heart, broke all the rules of secrecy in shamanism and offered everyone equal access to the tools of his shamanic line with the launching of Tensegrity. Tensegrity offers practitioners the tools to discover the energy body and the opportunity to evolve to new levels of human possibility. Jan was to heal from cancer, move North, and discover the need to end her sixteen-year-long marriage. On a profound personal level, an old illusion of herself was to die and she moved deeply into energetic life.

The energetic cord that was to bind these three events together was the shamanic tool of recapitulation. Jeanne and I were introduced to recapitulation at a workshop we attended led by Carlos. Recapitulation aided Jeanne in leaving her human form, landing her in her energy body, like a bodhisattva—an evolved being available to guide others still in this world. I introduced Jan to recapitulation, the tool that allowed her to discover her unknown self, shed her attachment to a horrific past, and revamp her energy to become an energetic channel able to connect with Jeanne in her evolved energy body state. Through Jeanne’s channeled messages to Jan, Jeanne expanded the practice of recapitulation outside of the shamanic format, to include the triggers and synchronistic events of everyday life as energetic promptings to recapitulate.

Personally, the day I introduced Jan to the tool of recapitulation was the day of my full coming out. It was my transformation, as I dared to openly use a shamanic tool in my clinical work. Up to that point, though I was well aware of the value of recapitulation as a tool for healing deep trauma, I relied more heavily on EMDR, a therapeutic tool with some similarities to recapitulation. However, it was really a subset of the far more comprehensive practice of recapitulation.

I introduced Jan to recapitulation over a decade ago. As is evident from my writings and work over the past decade, I can’t say enough about the healing value of recapitulation as a tool to fully heal from the deepest and most horrific of life’s traumas. In a couple of weeks, Jan will be releasing the first of three books, The Recapitulation Diaries: The Man in the Woods. This book, almost three years in the making, is a detailed description of every important facet of her recapitulation process. With this publication we enter a new era in our work as Jan makes available, to anyone, guidance on how to do recapitulation, how to discover who you really are, how to release the self from illusions about life and life’s experiences, and how to revamp energy to enter new and fulfilling life.

Before he left this world, Carlos fully understood and appreciated the value of the internet as a communication tool. His foresight has proven true. We will be publishing Jan’s book first on Kindle, the wave of the publishing future. We discovered, with out last book, The Book of Us, that the old structures of the publishing world could not serve as a medium for our ideas and experiences. In fact, none of the old structures work for us. We find ourselves constantly being energetically led to new formats.

A bit of Carlos’s socialist heart has rubbed off on us as well. Jan’s Kindle book will sell for $.99 (yes, ninety-nine cents!) making it available to everyone. It isn’t about the money—it’s about the energy and evolution. On the other hand, you do have to pay. Carlos and the other seers of his line discovered that you have to pay, no matter what world you’re in. If you give it away, it simply is not valued. Perhaps it’s just the nature of evolution; without challenge we simply don’t grow. But there doesn’t have to be greed—the number one cause of our crumbling world.

The relevance of the shamanic tool of recapitulation for our rapidly decaying world is obvious. Don Juan predicted that for human beings to survive now, a mass redeployment of energy, such as occurs through a recapitulation, was critical. Human beings need to be willing to drop the illusions that can no longer sustain the world, face the real truths, and move forward in a new energetic configuration.

What the world needs now is recapitulation on a personal, interpersonal, national, and international level. We see the sentinels of illusion busily trying to guard and uphold a world that is crumbling around them. And then we see many brave seekers recapitulating and preparing to lead a new energetic possibility.

Everything is possible—and a new recapitulated possibility is happening!
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Who Are You?

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When my children were first born I stared at them intently as they lay in my arms, wondering who they would become.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Where have you come from? Why are you here? Why did I get you? Where are you going? Who are you going to be?”

I was fascinated by those tiny, helpless creatures who seemed to know everything, yet who could do nothing for themselves. I sensed they held all the mysteries of life, yet it was my responsibility to teach them about life. How could I teach those complete little beings anything! I could only offer them utter respect and love, knowing they held memories of things I had long ago lost touch with. New to the world, I saw them as fully in touch with all knowledge, so recently coming from the wellspring of all life.

Who are you?

From the moment of birth, I saw them as miniature adults, intelligent, intuitive, beautiful beings that I was charged with launching into life. While preparing them for whatever life held in store for them, I rarely stopped to think about the daunting task that it really was. With my intent already set, I plowed ahead, carrying them forward, aware most of the time that I was challenging them; that I was doing what they needed me to do. Now they’re both freshly graduated from college, looking for jobs, and they are indeed those intelligent, intuitive, beautiful beings I always saw them as. And yet, I still look at them with awe and wonder who they will become in the future.

Why did I get them? Why does anyone get the children they get? I no longer wonder why.

I believe our children are our opportunities to transform. We are constantly asked by them to face our fears while at the same time we are challenged to free them of us. We are challenged to free them of everything we hold onto, both that which we hold sacred and that which we fear, so they can become thoughtful, aware, evolving beings. We are charged with unburdening them so they can move on, totally free, unencumbered by our darkest secrets, our inhibitions, our rules, our agreements, and yes, our fears. I was conscious of this from the very minute I first set eyes on my children. Even if we don’t have children we are asked to face these challenges in all of our relationships, whether with partners, parents, siblings, co-workers, etc. We are all offered opportunities to transform.

When I whispered to them that I would do the best I could, I was promising them that I too would transform. Perhaps that was the moment when I set my intent to do a shamanic recapitulation. I don’t know for sure, because I was far from embarking on that journey, but something inside me knew that I must not burden those kids with me. I knew my biggest challenge was going to be setting them free of me, so they could become the beings they had the potential to become and the only way to do that was to face who I was. And I have indeed had to face my own fears as I raised my children.

My two children don’t even know it, but they have always been the impetus behind my own healing journey. I see them now for what they truly are: they are beings of recapitulation, having brought me to this point in my life, for they have constantly challenged me as much as I challenged them, and as much as I challenge myself.

When I worry about them, I know I must turn my eyes inward and work on my own reasons for that worry. I know I must ask myself to take the worry off them and use it to cleanse myself, sending them off with the freedom from me that they deserve. I refuse to burden them with me. Even so I know they will have to do their own work on shedding the mother they got, and in the meantime I give them permission to do so, to go out into the world and truly become who they are.

In continually facing who I am, in reflecting back onto myself what I project onto them, I ask myself to become who I truly have the potential to become as well. We are all here for many purposes, for many reasons, and for many challenges. We are all imbued with the potential that I first realized in my infants, when I first allowed that they did not really belong to me, but only to themselves. I knew my job was to bring them into life in the best way I could. I chose to do that with awareness.

When I see them sad, I ask myself: what is it in me that is sad? When I see them angry at the world, I ask myself: where is my anger? When I feel their disappointments, I must ask myself where my own disappointments are. I know I must resolve those issues in myself so we can all be free.

I ask only that they go into life and embrace it as their own, for life is ready to embrace them in return. I ask that they let me go, accepting me as a separate being on a separate journey, as much as I accept this truth about them.

As Jeanne suggested in Monday’s message, I use heart-centered breathing to send them on their journeys into the next stages of life—I use heart-center breathing and Tonglen too. I breathe in my worries and breathe out their full potential. I breathe in my fears and breathe out fearlessness for them. I breathe in my maternal instincts and breathe out their own maternal instincts and abilities to care for themselves.

I unburden them of me. I feel it is my greatest duty as their mother, to set them free, of me especially. I don’t own them. I love them and cherish them for who they are. I watch with awe as they launch into the world, as I once watched with awe as they first learned to roll over, to sit up, and as they stumbled through their first walking steps.

When people tell me I have great kids, I know they speak the truth.

“Yes, they are great kids,” I say, “because they are themselves!”

I still whisper the same words to them each day that I once whispered when they were infants: “Be yourself, be who you are. I can’t wait to see who you will be!”

I’m still fascinated as I watch them take their next steps—I’m just as fascinated by all the people I know and meet. I wonder: Who are you going to be?

Love to you all,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#772 Proceed With Awareness!

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Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

My Tattered Peace Sign—reminds me of the inevitability of constant change

Dear Jeanne,

Today, I ask for guidance that all of us may navigate the coming week with awareness, that we may not get caught, but that we may flow—the energy within and the energy without synchronized, in balance, yet still moving forward in growth. I ask that we may all learn something transformational as we go through our week and that we are aware enough to grab onto our moments of enlightenment and ride them into a new place. I ask that you guide us all throughout the week, answering the calls of the many who seek you out and trust you, and the many who are learning that we are indeed guided through life. I ask that your readers not be too hard on themselves or full of blame, but that they look inward at why they are the way they are and find greater understanding of themselves through your guidance.

In general, I ask that you continue to stay beside us all as we continue our journeys. Our intent to grow is already firmly set—I believe we all made this decision a long time ago, before we were conscious of our present life’s journey. I ask that you offer each one of your readers a sure sign that they are on the right path as they go through their week, and the assurance that they will find what they need in whatever way is most meaningful. I ask all of these things on behalf of all your readers, as we enter another work week in a world that is spinning out of control, so far from connection with the true nature of kindness, compassion, and love for all, including self.

Here is Jeanne’s response:

My Dearest Ones,

Find solace in your own seeking hearts. Remain deeply introverted during this time of recapitulation, for this is indeed a time of questioning, of controversy, of falling into an old familiar place. Yet is it also a waiting period for a new phase of growth, for self, and for humanity as a whole.

In such times, the best process to engage in is the inner process. But the inner process must be clearly stated and clearly utilized for a final sweep of old issues. Rather than getting trapped in old places, as many are apt to do, this time of return to the deeper issues of self must be done with awareness.

Do you find yourself stuck, spinning your wheels, rehashing the same old issues and finding no resolution in your old methods of attack? If so, then you are caught.

In that case, step back. Look at the process you are engaging and note that it isn’t working. Don’t repeat it nor return to the same old self-judgments, but tell the self: Enough!

Shift away with awareness!

Ask the self to look in new directions for new answers. Pry the self out of the doldrums with heart-centered breathing, asking the self to breathe out the old stale air of familiar self and breathe in new air of change and enlightenment.

Do this throughout the day, as soon as you find yourself slipping onto an old habit, an old place of remorse, regret, resentment, anger, fear, judgment. Immediately shift away—literally turning your body—abruptly shifting and breathing out the old self and breathing in the new self. This is my guidance for this week.

As you breathe, you will discover exactly what you need. You will be tapping into the underlying intent of the energy of the world you now live in. Though it may seem out of control in so many ways, the truth is that it’s so necessary for change to happen. Your decisions, personal and otherwise, must now be in greater alignment with that ancient intent if you are to shift out of the places you have been stuck in for so long.

Align with the underlying current of inevitable change and begin to see progress. This means taking the personal inner journey of change, flowing along with the outer energy of change. The truth is that it is unstoppable.

The secret is that the inner energy and the outer energy are already in synch. You really have to do very little except wake up to the fact that this is true and get on board. In some way, everyone is being pushed now to change. Can you do it? Can you flow with the inevitable? Can you bear the tension of letting go of the old and flowing with all that is already in motion?

You just have to acquiesce to the available potent energy and take the ride it offers! With Awareness!

Thank you, Jeanne!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Tricksta!

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What happens when we’re tricked? We’re trapped, caught in illusion.

The game of peek-a-boo is both exhilarating and terrifying for the baby. Suddenly you, the adult trickster, are gone—evaporated, disappearing into thin air. For the child, a moment of excitement, anxiety and anticipation ensues, and then joyful release at the sheer magic of you popping up again, out of nowhere! “Do it again! Do it again, and again!” More fear, anxiety, excitement, and utter exhilaration, please!

The trickster is magical, playing a mercurial game. The encounter with the trickster leads us onward to higher awareness. Eventually, we figure out the game: when you leave, when I can’t see you, you still exist, and your reappearance is no longer magical. This achievement is called object constancy. Peek-a-boo is no longer a game the child wants to play. Trickster can’t catch the child now. It’s boring. On to new tricksters—illusionists who both excite and terrify, but ultimately pose a challenge to move on to greater consciousness. In the broadest sense, trickster is the boundary-crosser, a being that challenges our complacency and security, and forces us to confront the deeper truths of reality.

And what are those truths? That life isn’t fair! That all kinds of possibilities exist in the universe, both good and evil and, ultimately, nothing can protect us from encountering those forces in some form. We must reckon with them, master them, and go deeper into life, deeper into the mystery.

Trickster or Tricksta?

Tricksters come in all forms, some are gentle and playful like the rabbit, the monkey, the fox, and the coyote, all found in legend and folklore. These are the tricksters we seek to adore, encounter, and learn from in childhood.

The truth is, tricksters come in many forms, and some may deliver lethal blows, to adults and yes, to children as well. Tricksters appeal to our innocence, that curious, open part of ourselves that trusts and seeks fun, play, attention, discovery, and love. Our innocence is drawn to the excitement the trickster brings, along with the tension of being caught, once again, by the trickster’s illusion.

Life without the trickster is too boring, stagnant, predictable, and routine.

The predatory trickster—what I here term “Tricksta,” following the slang term for gangster as “gangsta”—is the most challenging of all tricksters. Trickstas trap the innocent to feed their own predatory appetites. Trickstas are the most formidable of tricksters. Trickstas don’t care “if you live or if you die.” Each time I contemplated Tricksta this week, these lyrics triggered in my mind, an incessant replaying of the 1968 Steppenwolf version of The Pusher: “The Pusher don’t care, if you live or if you die.”

Innocence gets caught in addictions. Perhaps the innocence of exploration, adventure, or the innocent push of inflation, to be a hero—take the heroin plunge. Perhaps it’s the regressive push to soothe lost innocence in a chemically altered calm world where the demons of intense feeling are kept at bay. The pusher is the Tricksta that lures this innocence, then ensnares it, imprisons it, and feeds off it while it sleeps unknowingly in the poppy field. It’s always scary with addiction because Tricksta really doesn’t care if you live or if you die. If you’re to live you must awaken and release the self from the clutches of Tricksta. Free the self from the slumber of inertia and numbness. Tricksta drives a hard bargain. It’s all on you whether you resume the journey or perish.

That same predatory energy goes in search of the energy of children, trapping, tricking and manipulating their innocence. No child is a match for Tricksta’s trappings, though it might take a lifetime to stop blaming the self for the encounter. Tricksta is a deeply impersonal energy that challenges whomever it chooses to touch at the deepest level. Tricksta is indeed the darkest side of trickster. Tricksta has no mercy. Often the only defense is to forget childhood encounters with Tricksta. The benefit of forgetting is survival, the cost: lost innocence and guarded living.

At some stage in life, spirit knocks and announces to our adult selves that it’s time to resume the journey. This is the beginning of recapitulation, where the illusions of a lifetime, especially the past, are released along with Tricksta’s ancient grip.

Innocence is restored, older and wiser, with truth fully in hand. Time to go onto deeper, fuller adventures—real life adventures and fulfillment.

Don’t take it personally,
Chuck