Tag Archives: recapitulation

#768 A Sip of Infinity

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!

A Day in a Life: Now is Now

I write again about the process of recapitulation, the process that has changed my own life from one of fear—bound by feelings of inadequacy leading to resistance to fully experiencing what life has to offer—to one of fully embracing life.

Recapitulation frees us from the promises and vows we made as children, whether consciously decided upon or placed upon us by others. In my own case, as an extremely sensitive and withdrawn child with little self-esteem, if anyone told me something I immediately believed it and took it on. I was told that I could not sing and so I rarely opened my mouth, when in fact I have a nice singing voice. I was told I could not dance and so I rarely danced, when in fact I can indeed dance in my own fashion. In Taisha Abelar’s book The Sorcerer’s Crossing, her teacher Clara says the following:

“…as children, we often make vows and then become bound by those vows, even though we can no longer remember making them.”

“Such impulsive pledges can cost us our freedom…”

“…vows, oaths and promises bind our intent, so that from then on, our actions, feelings and thoughts are consistently directed toward fulfilling or maintaining those commitments regardless of whether or not we remember having made them.”

If we ponder where we first heard some of the beliefs we hold so tightly to about ourselves and question their truths, we may find that they are indeed true statements that we must accept in order to move on in life or that they are far from true. The process of recapitulation enables us to gain clarity, so that we can move on, freed of ideas of the self that hold us back from leading fulfilling lives.

Taisha goes on to say that “[Clara] advised me to review, during the recapitulation, all the promises I had ever made in my lifetime, especially the ones made in haste or ignorance or faulty judgement. For unless I deliberately retrieved my intent from them, it would never rise freely to be expressed in the present.”

In Taisha’s case she had to confront the truth that she was not loved by her family, and her mother specifically: “It was your fate not to be loved by your family. Accept it!” Clara says to her quite bluntly.

As an example, Clara goes on to explain to Taisha some of her own history:

“I too had a problem very much like yours…I was always aware of being a friendless, fat, miserable girl, but through recapitulating I found out that my mother had deliberately fattened me up since the day I was born. She reasoned that a fat, homely girl would never leave home, and she wanted me there as her servant for life.”

“I went to my teacher, who was definitely the greatest teacher one can ever have, for advice about this problem,” she went on. “And he said to me, ‘Clara, I feel for you, but you are wasting your time because then was then: now is now. And now there is only time for freedom.”

It may sound too easy and too simplistic to just accept and move on and indeed that is not what Clara is asking of Taisha. She is asking her to confront her bitter truths by recapitulating their sources, by reducing herself to her child self again in order to relive the moments of greatest pain, when intents were set that controlled and inhibited her from fully expressing herself and exploring her fuller potential. If we remain bound by ideas placed on us as children we might never grow up, mature into responsible adults, or evolve into acceptance of our greater potential both as human beings and as energy beings capable of far more than meets the eye in our everyday reality.

When Clara tells Taisha that “You have only time to fight for freedom, Taisha…Now is now,” she is asking her to investigate the possibility that it might just be okay to reinvent herself at each confrontation with the truths and the untruths of old, by staying in the present, knowing that there is no time to waste.

Life will not wait for us. It greets us every moment of every day, yet we must consciously, and with awareness, greet it in return, tackling what it presents us with, decisively and with impunity, intent upon learning what our own truths might be, not what someone else has decided for us. From the perspective of now, we are offered daily opportunities to dig for our deepest underlying truths. If we can hold onto our awareness of being independent beings, with our deeper knowing of what it means to be human held in highest regard—that we are energy beings at our core, that our lives here are meant for evolutionary purposes—we can allow ourselves to embrace the fact that it is always our choice to break out of the webbing placed over us a long time ago, and repeatedly placed over us as we live out our lives.

When we recapitulate we must pose many challenges to ourselves, along with those placed on us daily by life itself. We must dare to break our old allegiances, our old pacts, and question every thought, idea, and belief that arises. We must challenge ourselves to change every tiny detail about ourselves if that is what will lead us on to becoming our true selves.

We must ask ourselves many questions as we recapitulate. Are we ready to discover and embrace our truths and become someone new, someone unrecognizable to those who once knew us in the past? Do we dare go beyond the old beliefs that have held us captive? What will happen if we sing and dance when we were once told we could not? What happens if we tell ourselves that we are beautiful, not fat and friendless, as Clara did? What happens when we admit to ourselves that our family did not love us, as Taisha did? Well, nothing happens except an enormous sense of freedom!

Now is now, and I choose to live now. I hope you do too! It’s really the only place to be: living in the moment. I have found the only means of getting here, to this moment, is by taking a personal inner journey of recapitulation.

Sending love as you take your journeys, embraced with intent for good recapitulations to freedom,
Jan

Excerpts from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice are from pages 117-118.

Chuck’s Place: Change

To reincarnate or not?

I intend not to reincarnate into this world. The Buddhists recommend that those who hold this intent not wait until they find themselves in the Bardos as a departing soul to prepare for this challenge. They recommend that the intent not to reincarnate be the central focus of life while in this world. The Seers of Ancient Mexico similarly recommend that those who are intent upon taking their definitive journey into infinity, with awareness after death, make that intent the central focus of life in this world. How does this intent manifest in everyday life in this world? Through intimations to change.

Every time we refuse the call to change in this life we opt for reincarnation. Reincarnation, simply put, is the consequence of non-readiness to let go, to move on when it’s clearly time to do so.

Is this the road to change?

If a relationship has run its course, can we face that truth and end it? Can we give ourselves permission to release our grasp on a deeply familiar way of life, send our former traveling companion off with love, and move into new life?

When the call to recapitulate tugs at our bodies and psyches, beckoning us to awaken to deep truths we’ve pushed away for a lifetime, can we heed that call and acquiesce to the journey of the dark night of the soul? What we discover and experience on that journey will lead us into a different self as we put down the burdens we’ve carried that have kept us from entering life more deeply, more soulfully.

Can we allow for the changed world that appears when one we love departs this life? Can we release our hold on the physical presence of that being who once was the center of our lives? Can we open to the magic of a changed relationship, life and connection on new terms, and enter into a new world?

Is this the way?

Can we release ourselves from the obligations and expectations of roles that have long outlived their usefulness? Once we reach adulthood we are all equal beings responsible for discovering and meeting the challenges of our core reason for being in this world. The old roles of parent and child must be released to allow all to gather their full energy and take charge of their journeys. Can we release our parents, our children, ourselves?

Can we allow ourselves to fill our cups to the brim with experiences in this world, challenging ourselves to free our wounded innocence to love deeply without illusion? Can we live our illusions and release them when it’s time to move on?

Moving on?

Can we suspend judgment and feel compassion for even those possessed of brutality? Can we suspend judgment of ourselves and allow the awesomeness of this magical journey to course through our veins? Can we allow ourselves to be the magical beings we truly are?

These are some of the many faces of change that present themselves to us through the course of everyday life. These are the manifestations of the intent to evolve versus reincarnate.

What’s it gonna be, the red pill or the blue pill?

Taking the Red Eye,
Chuck

P.S. After I had read the early draft of this blog on Thursday morning to Jan, she happened to read the daily astrology reading for the day on PlanetWaves.net and sent me this link. Pretty cool synchronicity!

A Day in a Life: A Shamanic Journey

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the human form as an intricate permaculture, from a holistic point of view containing everything we need to be healthy in mind, body and soul if we can keep our living world of the self—psyche, soma and spirit—in good balance. If we think of our body self as a biological unit and tend to it as we wish all people to appreciate, respect, and treat the earth, we may discover that we have the power to maintain not only a healthy persona, but the power to do anything we set our intent to. In fact, we humans are multifaceted, multilayered beings, not simply one size fits all, living organisms as deep as the oceans, as varied as the earth’s crusts, and as expansive as the universe. We are very complicated beings.

Everyone feels that they are different on the inside than they are on the outside. We may present one side of ourselves to the world, the safely prepared and carefully honed ego self but keep our inner self private, as is appropriate. When we delve deeper into the world of the inner self, exploring the layers of the unconscious, we discover that we are more elaborately constructed than at first suspected.

What follows is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Recapitulation Diaries: The Man in the Woods, year one of a three-year shamanic journey through my own multifaceted self. During my recapitulation I discovered that, by intent, I could volitionally experience more than one world simultaneously. I was reminded of the following experience from nine years ago by the violent thunder, rain, and lightning storm that barreled through our area last night. It feels appropriate to post it in this blog.

Entering another world

It’s thundering and lightning and I’m sitting on my bed in my room at night in the dark, surrounded by windows on three sides. I begin doing the recapitulation magical pass, the sweeping breath. Lightning flashes and thunder cracks loudly as I sweep my head back and forth, back and forth, breathing in my own energy and passing out my abuser’s negative energy. The flashing of the lightning and the crashing of the thunder accompany me as I sweep my head back and forth. The rain beats against the windows and the winds whip as the tremendous storm pounds out its flashing, drumming rhythms.

In the dark haziness of my room I’m aware of a scene off to the left and slightly in front of me. The silhouette of a seated figure on top of a mountain ledge appears, clearly discernable through the rain that is pounding down in torrents on this scene, remarkably like the storm raging outside. I’m aware that I am both sitting in my room at this moment and that I am also that figure sitting on the ledge and that I should go to that mountaintop.

Suddenly I’m no longer just sitting on my bed. I am also in ancient times, sitting on the ledge of a cliff, overlooking a vast valley in the dark of night, on a promontory sticking out into air, into the storm raging all around me. I am aware of the presence of others behind me in the shelter of a cave, but it’s my time to sit in the elements, to brave the forces of nature, to unflinchingly allow myself to sit exposed, unprotected, but fully aware that I have within me the strength and courage to sit here for as long as it takes, until I’m done with this challenge.

The storm rages and someone places a rough-woven, thick woolen blanket over my head and shoulders. This is allowed, the blanket is woven with symbols and icons that will protect and provide me with added strengths. I am a native woman, a tribal woman on a journey. Meanwhile, I am still in my bedroom, sitting on my bed doing the sweeping breath, breathing in and out, sweeping my head from side to side, the storm continuing to drum as I ride its energy.

Back on the ledge, I become the storm; I breathe it in and out. The thunder, the lightning, the darkness, the earth, the stone ledge I sit upon become one with me. I am earth and sky, water and sound, light and dark. I am journeying and yet sitting solidly at the same time, both on the ledge and on my bed simultaneously. I am strong, committed to taking this journey without fear and without regret. I know this is my duty, my destiny, and my challenge, but also the fulfillment of my shamanic line. I am completing my tests of worthiness and humbleness before all the gods of nature. I am testing my inner strengths, while acknowledging those sitting behind me as my guides. In full awareness I am marking this moment of my journey, knowing that this is part of my process, trusting all I have experienced in the past, all I am experiencing at this moment, and all that is to come as necessary, if I am to evolve.

Suddenly I am taken into the belly of the storm. I leap into its mouth, I sit upon its tongue, I swallow its saliva, I feel the beat of its pulse, I tremble with the rumble of its heart, and I withstand the blinding light of its intent. I am its apprentice at the same time that I acknowledge its power as my own, simultaneously humbly grateful for it and daringly accepting of it.

When it’s done, when the storm subsides, I am spat out of its mouth. As the winds die down, as the thunder rumbles off into the distance and as the rains slow to a drizzle I find myself back upon the ledge where I have been sitting for days, still under my blanket, now damp on the outside though warm and dry in the inside. My guides come out of the cave. They lift me by my arms, steadying me upon my feet. Helping me to walk upon my wobbly legs, they take me with them into the warmth and dryness of the cave where they have kept a fire going.

“Well done. You have done well,” I hear them say.

As I finish my recapitulation breath magical pass the storm ceases, the thunder rumbles off into the distance and the lightning quiets to intermittent flashes. The mountaintop scene where I have just journeyed disappears from my room. I’m still sitting on my bed, fully aware of having been in two places at once, having gone on a journey of significance into an ancient experience while expelling alien energy from my current body self. Though I’m not sure what it means I come away with a greater understanding of my self as wholly in alignment with the greater universe.

I also now know that my inner strength and determination are solidified, firmly aligned with my spirit and with my greater intent to continue trusting this shamanic recapitulation process that I have been allowing myself to take. I also know that I am indeed just beginning my journey, a journey of humbleness and awe, of inner self constantly being asked to make adjustments, to nonjudgmentally acquiesce to the process, to stay in alignment with what comes to guide. In addition, by constantly pushing myself to keep taking the inner journey, I have found that true self and innocence are completely compatible, trustworthy, reliable, and viable, no matter what world I might find myself in. I am indeed on a magical journey!

Here’s to magical journeys for everyone!
Jan

Chuck’s Place: Present Without Props

The female cohorts of Carlos Castaneda would laugh mysteriously as they described Carlos’s romance with knowledge. He would lie down and cover his body with books, literally absorbing knowledge through their many points of contact with his body. Carlos had released the prop that reading must happen through the eyes only; he suspended judgment and opened to new channels of learning within himself.

Oftentimes, during recapitulation, people begin to experience all kinds of physical sensations at different places inside and on the outside of their bodies. These sensations can be so unexpected and powerful that many times medical consultation is sought. Once cleared of medical etiology another possibility may be considered. Perhaps the sensation is an active communication of knowledge from some other point on the body self. Perhaps the recapitulation has opened the channels to knowledge that may have been stored by the body self some fifty years ago. Perhaps the body self is inviting us into the full knowledge of the experiences of our life lived through direct sensorial experience.

This is very often the case in recapitulation; a united effort by the body self to fill in the blanks in our memory of life already lived. This experience of recapitulation, whether intentionally sought or unintentionally triggered, asks us to drop the prop of our rationality that tells us that the body neither stores memory nor communicates independently of the mind.

How terrifying it can be to stay fully present and absorb this body of knowledge! The body generally “speaks” through direct sensorial experience that can range from pleasure to overwhelming pain. Often, if we allow ourselves to take the sensation journey with our body, channels may open to smells, temperature, and sounds, as well as triggering images, scenes, and eventually full movies of forgotten experience. The overall experience can range from subtle to riveting—the roller coaster of a lifetime.

Intimacy, in relationship, might also be defined as staying present without the props. How deeply might we allow ourselves to stare into each other’s eyes? How accepting might we be of sitting with each other, fully present, in utter silence? How long before the mind provides a thought to be discussed, a prop of distraction to create conversation, abstraction in place of presence? Can we not do the routines that have formed the crust and definition of our relationship—the props of habit—and open ourselves to new truths of who we are or who our partner is?

Finally, can we be fully present with ourselves, occupying the seat of the observer? Can we let go of the props of music or voice at the ear, computer or TV in the eye, food or drink in the mouth, book or cell phone in the hand?

Can we simply be present without judgment, unattached to thought, experiencing sensation and energy as it flows in the body? Can we notice the sound and vibration of energy? Can we allow it to deepen? Can we journey with it, uninterrupted by props?

Let’s see what happens!
Chuck