What is freedom? What does it mean to be free? As I work on my book, The Recapitulation Diaries, I feel as if I’m writing about someone else, as if the experiences of my child self happened in a different lifetime. I’m no longer attached to her story as my own. The things that happened to her no longer personally affect me.
Even the adult I was a few years ago no longer exists. I no longer feel the way she felt. I no longer perceive the world as she did. I no longer fear the way she did. I no longer hide or withdraw the way she did. I no longer interact with others the way she did. I no longer even think the way she did. I am a completely different person. That is freedom!
To transform is a choice. Going deeply into the personal is a choice. To achieve the impersonal is transformative and freeing. What do I mean by the impersonal? Well, in the old days, when I was that other person I took everything personally. I trusted no one. I felt misunderstood, bad, ignored, neglected, mistreated, angry, and fearful. The world was not my oyster, but instead a place to withdraw from as often as possible. In fact, the truth is, that was how I perceived the world, not how the world perceived me.
At the time, I was still attached to feelings and issues that had been part of my life from earliest childhood. By the time I was a grown woman those issues had me in their clutches. I was in a critical state of discontent, just holding onto reality by a thin thread. Nervous and afraid, getting angrier and angrier and more depressed than ever, I’d often force myself to make changes. I knew change was good; it had worked often enough in the past to break the deadlock within, at least for a time. But the truth is that the changes themselves never led to anything because they were predictable, fairly safe changes, totally under my control.
Seeking transformation? How?
It wasn’t until I felt death breathing down my neck, clearly knowing that I would die if I didn’t make a real change, that I dared myself to begin a different kind of journey. At the time I didn’t know it would lead to a total transformation. It wasn’t until I met Chuck and began a shamanic recapitulation that the idea of transformation appeared as something even remotely possible.
I know I write about recapitulation a lot in these blogs, as does Chuck, but I just can’t help it. During my recapitulation, I met Jeanne, first in real life and then as an otherworldly entity. She told me, in the early days of my recapitulation when she came to me in her energy body, appearing when I was in the middle of recapitulating a horrific traumatic event, that I had a three-year journey to complete. She told me that I’d already made a good start, and that at the end of that time I would understand everything. She said I had to stay focused on the recapitulation, without being distracted by other things.
“Let everything else go for now,” she said. “Don’t worry about anything. Life will unfold as it should and all that is right will come to pass as you take this journey. Stay focused. It’s crucial that nothing distract you from this most important task. This is your work now.”
This is your work now?! What the heck did that mean? I had no clear idea at the time, but here I am ten years later and I know exactly what that means. My recapitulation did become the central focus of my life then, and the shamanic practice of recapitulation continues to be a central focus.
Once again I’m in a unique position, being offered another transformative opportunity as I prepare my book for publication. The process of writing about recapitulation has been transformative as well, as I realize just how thorough a job I did in recapitulating a brutal past. I am no longer attached to it in any way. I am totally free.
Transformation is possible, but it takes work. There’s no doubt about that, but I would not trade those years of deepest recapitulation for anything in the world. I had more experiences during that time and learned more about life than I could have learned anywhere else. I learned more about everything. And all I had to do was go inside myself. It was all there waiting for me.
Remembering to stay connected to the path of transformation, until next time,
Jan
I sat this morning editing the final version of Jan’s soon to be published The Recapitulation Diaries—Year One: The Man in the Woods. I encounter this dream. With Jan’s permission I include that dream here followed by her reflection upon awakening.
Talking heads
October 21, 2001
“I dream a strange dream about a bodiless head that rides on a small electronic platform that looks something like a large gray plastic model of an aircraft carrier. The features on the face are hard and set, metallic looking, the eyes glaring. I’ve stumbled into a large empty apartment building, unaware of its presence and apparently I’ve disturbed it while wandering around in this vast space. The head on the platform bolts out from underneath a pile of debris where it has lived for a long time and skims along the floor, the face mean and angry. It pursues me around the empty building for some unknown reason. Eventually I turn and attack it and the head falls off the platform. It crashes to the floor and explodes. I’m surprised to see that it’s no more than a pile of fluff, nothing but bits of paper and plastic.”
“In the morning I wake exhausted, tired of feeling so empty, so hollow. The crazy head chasing me doesn’t make me feel any better, but it does make me think that perhaps the praying mantis picking at my head [an earlier dream] was trying to alert me to something besides just the memories. Perhaps I’m not supposed to go after the head, not just supposed to dig through my head for the memories, after all. The head doesn’t really hold anything inside, as this dream shows; it’s just a lot of stuffing. Where do I look then? Where do I go for the memories if not into my head, into my brain, to the place where memories are supposedly stored?” [End of excerpt from book.]
Moments after reading this I opened Carlos Castaneda’s The Wheel of Time, in anticipation of writing my weekly blog, to the following:
“The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such or so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.” — p. 117
Jan’s dream and subsequent reflection illustrate that the mind, the home of the internal dialogue is merely fluff. The internal dialogue upholds the world that we all agree upon, with the consequence being, the creation of a consensus reality. To create a world is indeed a magical act, however, the truth is that it’s just an interpretation of energy spun by the internal dialogue.
Internally, Jan had upheld a world through an internal dialogue that created a story about her past that did not represent the truth of her experience in childhood. She was at a stage in her recapitulation where she needed to free herself of her mind. In order to do this, she had to confront her fear, which had allowed her internal dialogue to spin reality to protect her from painful truth. By confronting her fear and shattering her mind she was soon to free-fall into deeper truth. To discover these truths, as she reflects in this excerpt, she had to go outside the mind and allow her body to reveal the truth unfiltered by the mind. As Carlos points out: the passageway opens once the internal dialogue is silenced.
What keeps us attached to the internal dialogue is fear. We must be willing to confront our fears to get to deeper truth. Confronting the fear does not mean that the fear goes away. What it does mean, however, is that we insist upon pursuing the truth regardless of the fear. Fear continues to be present but it doesn’t stop the journey.
In recapitulation we intend to learn the truth. We don’t attach to the internal dialogue but go directly to the body for a full accounting of life lived.
The sun was shining, seemingly brighter and earlier than normal after a couple of days of overcast skies and thunderstorms. I was eager to walk in it’s first light.
“Don Juan says never carry anything in your hands when you walk,” Chuck reminded me, so I put my tiny digital camera in my pocket, wondering if I’d encounter something special, beautiful, or profound to photograph as we walked.
After we’d walked along for a while, talking quietly, I noted that there wasn’t much happening in the world around us. It wasn’t presenting its usual natural wonders, nothing to take a picture of. It seemed quiet. One car passed us. Then a bicyclist passed by, head down. Slumped over the handlebars he seemed focused on the front wheel endlessly turning as it rode the pavement. I recognized him as someone we pass often at that hour. He always seems depressed, never utters a greeting, never looks up, focused only on the road in front of him. Other than that I noted again the quiet of the morning. But then, at the same time, we both saw a rabbit, the first sign of real life. We smiled and acknowledged that nature does not disappoint.
Then I realized that I’d been like the man on the bike today, my head down, my eyes on the road ahead of me. As I’d taken each step I’d been aware only of what lay at my feet: the color of the pavement, the interplay of shadows and light, the leaves, bark, twigs and branches that came down in the violent storms that came through yesterday afternoon. The rabbit reminded me to look around, to lift my head from the path and see what else was available in my world at that moment.
Now the walk was different. Suddenly I was engaged in what was happening around me. Suddenly the perceived dull and sleepy world was alive and I was too. I noted how mistaken I was in my assumption that not much was happening. I recalled the first sounds we’d heard upon awakening in the morning, the baby foxes yipping and yelping in the backyard. I remembered the male bluebird who sat outside our window on the railing of the deck, letting us know that he and his mate have returned to the nesting box nearby for a third time this year, another egg-laying in progress, life giving new life.
As I recapitulated these earlier experiences, I studied again the bike rider, envisioning his riding posture, his energy stuck in his routine of riding along the same route each day, not noticing what else was around him. Unable to lift his head, I wondered what plagued him, and what he might be missing that could set him on a different path. I found myself empathizing with his dilemma, whatever it might be, for I too fall into the same patterns, ride the same road, only taking in the next step as I watch my foot hit the ground in front of me. Little changes, and even less is noticed, if I do not lift my eyes from the path in front of me.
This is what happens to all of us as we live out our lives, staying within our routines, caught in the endless turning of the wheel, whether it’s the endless wheel of work-worry-sleep, followed by more work-worry-sleep, or if it’s simply the daily routines we set out for ourselves. Even as we act out the habitual must-dos that really lead us nowhere, underneath it all we really do know that we need something else to make our lives meaningful and happy. But how do we step off the wheel? Today, I was reminded that if I just look up and away, in an instant the world becomes an entirely different place.
Once we set the intent to recapitulate, we can fall into the same kinds of habitual patterns, get stuck on similar wheels. Our personal dilemmas and deepest issues can overwhelm us. We can get caught in feeling sorry for ourselves, feeling neglected, abandoned, sad and depressed as we revisit our past and confront how we have lived, whether by choice or by circumstance. As we’re drawn back to recapitulate, we may forget to take in the world around us. Even while in deep recapitulation we must lift our heads and be in the world, for in my experience, it’s the world around us that offers us the help we need to interpret, to guide, to revision ourselves, as well as offering us the means to resolution. It’s also only in the world around us that we will find the means to relieve the stresses and intensities of doing deep inner work.
It’s also the world around us that offers us the opportunities to stretch our legs, so to speak, to experience ourselves as changing beings. As we recapitulate, we’re offered the chance to show ourselves and the world just how much we’ve changed, by refusing to do things the old way. As we face daily challenges in our old world, we’re offered the opportunity to test the new perspectives gained through the hard work of recapitulation. There is no better test ground or world in which to advance than the one we live in. This is the place we must do our evolutionary work in, and recapitulation is evolutionary work.
After the sighting of the rabbit I knew all I had to do was look up and allow the world to greet me with whatever it had to offer. As the second half of today’s walk progressed I lifted my eyes from the road and began to notice all the edible wild foods growing alongside the rural road we walk along, the prickly lettuce, the lambs ear, and plantain. I lifted my eyes higher and noticed that swallows now line the wires near the wetlands area where a few weeks ago the red winged blackbirds sat, sentinels guarding their nesting flocks in the tall grasses. As I walked even a week ago they’d dive down at me, warning me to keep away. They’ve moved on now, leaving the swallows their old perch. The world is constantly changing, I noted.
I heard the croak of a raven behind me and, looking higher still, I saw a tiny bird attacking him high in the sky, keeping him from raiding a nest no doubt. The hungry raven was no match for the tiny sharp-beaked bird and he flew off, cro-cro-croaking his guttural cry.
“What does that mean?” I wondered, for I find the raven most significant in my own world.
“Cro-Cro-CROAK! Cro-Cro-CROAK! Cro-Cro-CROAK!” replied the raven in answer to my question.
I repeated this phrase to myself a few times before I finally got the meaning of the raven’s call.
Don't Forget!
Don’t Forget! Don’t Forget! Don’t Forget! he seemed to be saying.
Don’t forget to use the world around you every day as you go through life. Don’t forget to lift your eyes from your well-worn path, from the routines, and notice what else is available to guide you along. Don’t forget that everything is available, possible, a guiding force, a messenger, a reminder. Don’t forget that as you recapitulate you learn new things about yourself and that you may not be as stuck and unavailable to change as you may think. Don’t forget to exercise the new you in the world. Don’t forget to actually put to use the new ideas, thoughts, and experiences you’ve been having. Don’t forget to trust your journey as perfectly right for you. And overall, don’t forget to allow yourself to experience the world differently.
You already know that the world is not as you at first perceive it, the raven reminds. This is what you learn all the time, but can you allow yourself to actually participate in that different world that you have worked so hard to enter, to understand, and to embrace?
The world of nature and the personal world we each live in, offers us everything we need to grow and change. To recapitulate or not is our personal choice. However, in my experience, everyday life is offering us opportunities to recapitulate and to use what we learn about ourselves all the time. We just don’t know this until we decide that it’s so, when we set the intent to re-experience how we’ve understood the world. Sometimes all we need to jump-start new life it the realization that we’re eager for a new perspective because the old one just doesn’t work for us anymore. That was my walking experience this morning.
As soon as I lifted my eyes from the hard gray road in front of me, I discovered a world of wonder. What is recapitulation anyway, but an opportunity to look at ourselves and our world with different eyes. Sometimes we need someone else’s eyes to show us what we’ve been missing. Sometimes we have to dare ourselves, push ourselves to go beyond our routines, ask ourselves to break through our old habits. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves to face our truths so we can move on, without regret, without sadness, simply because it’s time and right to do so. Recapitulation is happening all the time. Do you notice?
By the time I’d gotten home from my walk, I was in a new world. The bluebird greeted me on the deck again, showing me just how much in alignment with my spirit’s eagerness for changing life our natural world really is.
What are you being offered today to change your perspective, your outlook, your inner world, your relationship to self and others? There’s always something out there. What was the first indication in your world today that it’s just not as routine and boring as you’ve perceived it to be? Even in the subtlest ways, nature guides us.
Sending love and good wishes, and I thank the raven for posing ever so briefly so I could snap a photo of him!
Jan
Last night I dreamed of being a child again, in a house where feelings and emotions were expected to be suppressed, kept tightly under wraps, oppressed by the dictum of the dominant force.
In the dream, I recapitulated the process of holding everything in, of tending to my feelings in the ways my child self had found to deal with them, but at one point in the dream I also snapped. I shifted out of the old obedient child self and ranted and raved at the oppressor. Soon I discovered that ranting and raving against the oppressor gave no real relief nor satisfaction, for it did not remove nor change the oppressor. In fact, my railings only sparked the oppressor to rail against me, to make me feel bad for having stepped outside of long upheld expectations, fair or not. In the dream I was made to feel the consequences of my actions, in the same way that my child self had once been made to feel them for breaking the rules.
In the dream, my child self soon realized that I could neither have an effect on the oppressor’s outburst, because the oppressor was not going to change, nor did I want to stay in the subservient role of being oppressed by this unchanging being. I soon turned away, saw the situation in all its clarity and let the oppression go on without me. It was okay to do so. In fact, the dream was a complete recapitulation process.
In true recapitulation fashion, I was able to immerse myself in an old situation, feel every aspect of it, go through all the questions that needed to be addressed—such as: Did I really want to do this again? Did I owe the oppressor anything? Who had originally decided the oppressive rules? Did I really want to uphold them? What is the reason that I am back here again at this time in my life?—and let the dream guide me to understanding who I was then, who I am now, and how far I’ve come.
In the dream, I was able to reassert that I am not willing to be oppressed, by anyone or anything that I do not agree with, that is not right for me. That may sound egotistical, but in reality it is only part of a process of actually learning to shed the ego’s attachments. For in shedding of ego attachments one learns that one does not need to participate in life according to the needs of others, either to be dominated or controlled by them or held back by their fears. In shedding of ego attachments one learns how to become an individual being. In shedding of ego attachments one learns what it actually means to love.
The Recapitulation Door
In recapitulating one is able to free the self from all the old rules that oppressed, held back, and curtailed the true spirit self, the part of us that holds the desire for life to be fully embraced and lived. In recapitulation one asks the question: Can I allow myself to live my life differently, according to my own needs, desires, wants and to extend those needs, desires, and wants beyond the ego self to eventually fully encompass the spirit self? That is the real challenge in life; to let the spirit self fully live.
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl states: “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.” —From page 99.
Victor Frankl spent three years in concentration camps during World War II. His spirit took up an observer’s role, allowing him to have experiences that kept him alive. He took up his own unique opportunity to bear his burden, under the direct eyes of the oppressor. Like a true shaman he took a journey of suffering and returned from it transformed, never having let his true spirit self be defeated.
The Seers of Ancient Mexico would agree with him that we each have a unique opportunity to perceive our world differently and to live in it differently as well, to dare to take the opportunity that life offers to transform ourselves. The Buddhists also see suffering as the means of reaching enlightenment, for only in samsara, the ocean of suffering, life upon this earth, are we offered, with each new lifetime, the opportunity to transform ourselves.
It becomes our task to shift away from the oppressive rules placed on us by society and others in our lives, accept our aloneness as necessary and liberating. This is just the opportunity offered when we recapitulate. We don’t need to go into a concentration camp to suffer and meet our aloneness; we all have enough of those opportunities in our daily lives. This leads me to the next point I wish to make today: Recapitulation happens all the time. We do not need to do anything. Life itself places our recapitulation squarely in front of us each moment of each day.
In my dream, I saw a recapitulation opportunity, but, in a sense, I had to be willing to see it that way and not get caught in feelings of sorrow for my child self, to not fall into depression and self-pity. I was offered the opportunity to remind myself just how free I really am, not only of the past, but of the suffering that once oppressed me so deeply.
It was pretty clear to me that I was being shown an old world, one I have come far from, but one that still exists. In many ways I must still encounter it, even though I no longer wish to live in it. As I did in my dream, in waking life I must remember to turn away from the oppressor, to leave the house that is oppressive because it does not feed my spirit. This must become a conscious process, yet my dream is reminding me that I must not become complacent or smug about it either.
In the house of the oppressor we are confronted with questions that will help us move on to new territory, to new perspectives, to new ideas of self and life. We must repeatedly ask ourselves to go deeper into our aloneness and ask ourselves to truly answer the questions that arise.
Some of those questions might be: Why do I live in the house of the oppressor? Who is the real oppressor? Have I taken on the attributes of the oppressor? What can I do to leave this place that I feel so stuck in? Can I allow myself to leave the screaming oppressor without feeling that I am bad, neglectful, inconsiderate, unloving, selfish? Can I turn away from an old world and allow myself to enter a world of my own creation? Can I keep going into the aloneness that is necessary to encounter all that I must encounter in this life? And, in the end, can I simply love the oppressor for having set me on my journey, and accept that my destiny is now completely in my own hands?
Recapitulation is a tool to use as we set out on our own journeys of individuation. It may take us many years to discover that it is actually what we are supposed to be doing with our lives. It may mean that we must return to the house of the oppressor many times, even when we think we have left it behind for good, because it still holds something of value for us. In the end, can we ultimately embrace our suffering as our most valuable asset? In the house of the oppressor, Victor Frankl discovered the key to man’s inner spirit and to his own future as a psychotherapist and student of human nature.
What value do I find in my own suffering? I ask myself this question each day as I revisit my own past. My three-year shamanic recapitulation allowed me to revisit the first eighteen years of my life and find the reasons for the oppressive qualities I carried with me into life. I saw very clearly where they came from, how I had attached to them, and how I continued to carry them forth. I learned to remove them one by one, freeing my spirit, the true self who lay waiting for me to return and find her.
Here is to taking the recapitulation journey that we do not have to do anything to jumpstart, it is jumpstarted for us each day of our lives, we just have to notice how it comes. How does it come? Perhaps in dreams, encounters, feelings, sensations, memories, thoughts, repetitive behaviors; in our actions, reactions or no actions; in complacencies and avoidances; in our likes and dislikes; in our political and social views and opinions. What is mine and what is not mine? Who am I? Who do I want to be?
I want to be me, and I want to be okay with being me, without worry, without fear, without needing to uphold things I just do not believe in or need anymore. I hope these ideas help make the journey a bit more clear.
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
In her beautiful description of dreaming awareness, Moya, a reader of Jeanne’s messages, posted a comment last week, asking for clarity. She relates the following process:
When I left NY to go on my journey to the standing stones in Orkney, I set my intent to ride on the wings of intent and trust, and be open to freedom. Upon returning I was thrust into a deep recapitulation. I was totally unaware of what was happening initially as I came up against the voice of cogitation: relentlessly it unraveled using the “promises” and “uncomfortable truths.” Over the last two days I was able to become aware of what was happening, and last night I set my intention to dream silently on the wings of intent. A great large eagle took me to a foreign place, and I watched as things unfolded and this blissful realization came over me without words. I actually was smiling and felt detached and at ease. I was so elated I believe I was laughing in my dream. I realized that those promises no longer have any power over me. It was like I detached from the foreign voice without having to put up a fight. I simply said: you are not me. I also remember drinking from a sweet candle. The candle was handed to me by this light woman being. She was there to help me through this passageway. She broke off a piece of candle, handed it to me, and it started to melt in my hands. I drank the melting wax. It was like pure nectar and I felt a light kindling within me and it went outwards. I was riding between parallel lines. On one side I could see my true self: the self that is free to travel through infinity, and I chose to merge my intent with my true self. I could also see the foreign mind outside of myself—still there on the other side, outside of me. I acknowledge now is now. I am still a little daunted. I feel like that light being has been in my dreams before. I recognized her and yet couldn’t remember from where. Can you ask Jeanne for further guidance on this? I can’t even formulate a question. I feel like something has really changed and am not sure what it means.
Here is what Jeanne responds when I ask her to give Moya some insight into her experiences, real and dreaming. I also include the intent that the guidance that Jeanne offers be helpful to all of her readers.
My Dear Readers, and my Dearest Moya: I must first stress that these two selves, as described in this dream, are totally compatible and appropriate aspects of self. They must meet often throughout life in order for clarity to be gained. The mysteries of life will remain unattainable, unclear and distant if these two selves do not get together to hash out the truths and meanings in life.
That being said, I also pose that this other being that Moya experiences as outside of self awareness, whom she recognizes yet cannot fully grasp, is as much self as the other two beings, one of whom exists with feet and mind planted upon that earth, the other capable of transcending the earthen heaviness—and the power of life upon that earth to keep one bound and attached—to gain clarity.
Consider the self as multifaceted, all knowing, a being capable of understanding and grasping all knowledge. This is the truth of mankind, yet in that world has he been taught to remain solidly planted. Nothing extraordinary is allowed to interfere with that solidity, that final explanation of the world as one of solid objects defined, packaged, and presented. That is one reality, the reality that is acceptable to all human beings. Yet, most human beings have also had experiences that defy reason and the world of solid objects, such as Moya has in this dream sequence.
Man has been taught that he is limited, that he must go outside his meagre self to find explanation. He has been taught to believe in the capabilities of others who are far greater than he, a mere human being, rather than accept his experiences as personal lessons of untapped potential. Man has been taught to let others carry this energy, such as the light being that Moya so graciously shares experience of. In a different world, the world where everything is possible, it is quite acceptable to be energetically multifaceted beings, simultaneously existing in different stages of awareness.
In her dream, Moya is all of these beings. She is earthbound self; aware self who is capable of detachment from that earthen self—all seeing and aware—yet is she also capable of handing herself the cup of truth. In being offered liquid light of awareness, she is being handed knowledge of deeper self, more connected to the flow of all life and all knowledge. And of course she experiences this light being as recognizable: she is self!
The process, as described by Moya, to achieve this dream awareness—recapitulation—whether cognizant of it or not, opened the door to gain greater insight into self. In facing old patterns, old means of coping—and by being dragged into awareness of the repetitiveness of the pain of such recapitulation—the first step to change was not pushed away in fear but faced, and this allowed for a transcendent split to greater awareness. It is only in acceptance of the frailties, fallibilities, and pain of truth about oneself that one will truly be allowed access to deeper aspects of self. For how can one accept the truth of greater awareness if one has not fully understood the self as earthen being first? If one cannot face pain, one cannot transcend pain.
I contend, in offering insight into the many aspects of self, that all beings are offered opportunities to achieve the stages of awareness as described by this evolving being, Moya, but one must simultaneously face the many challenges that accompany such moments of opportunity. One must push the self beyond the norm, beyond the familiar. One must ask the self to trust the process that is presented. One must follow through by facing all the fears that arise, from the most tiny and insignificant to the most astoundingly confrontative. It is only in transcending all fears that one will achieve enlightenment and be okay with being liquid light.
It is the interconnectedness of all things that awaits recognition inside you, My Dear Readers, the mergence of self with all energy. Whether you call it God or any other name, it simply means that you have all you seek within, yet are you nothing; you are simply a sip of infinity. Can you accept that? Can you leave it all behind and become a drop in the vastness of all energy? Can you totally shed your human form, let go of you, all the selves included?
Can you fully own that you are everything and yet nothing? And then can you fully become that nothing, totally detached? This is not only a dream, as Moya experiences it, it is true reality.
Thank you Jeanne, and special thanks to Moya for sharing her experiences!
