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A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Active Imagination

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As Chuck and I write about and work with people who are in the process of recapitulation, many wonder if they are indeed recapitulating, if they are doing it right. Many also wonder simply how to start. In our experience, once the journey begins, everything that follows is part of the process, including our dreams and visions, our incessant thoughts and feelings, and the challenges we are presented with each day. The recapitulation journey continues as one becomes aware of and allows for deeper exploration of the synchronicities in life, the calls of the body to remember, the calls of the psyche to pay attention to certain things, and the experiences in our inner worlds and outer worlds that will not let us rest.

So, when does the recapitulation journey really start? The following quote from The Active Side of Infinity, highlights the moment when you know what it really means, when there is no doubt that you have begun your recapitulation journey.

“Sorcerers believe,” don Juan went on, “that as we recapitulate our lives, all the debris, as I told you, comes to the surface. We realize our inconsistencies, our repetitions, but something in us puts up a tremendous resistance to recapitulating. Sorcerers say that the road is free only after a gigantic upheaval, after the appearance on our screen of the memory of an event that shakes our foundations with its terrifying clarity of detail. It’s the event that drags us to the actual moment when we lived it. Sorcerers call that event the usher, because from then on every event we touch on is relived, not merely remembered.” (p. 148-149)

I clearly remember the day when Chuck said to me: “This is the usher, come to take you on your journey.” At the time I had no idea what he meant, but at the same time I knew exactly what he meant because I literally felt that I was being swept into another world, ushered through a door into familiar and yet totally unfamiliar territory. There was no doubt, when my body took over and began reliving a long suppressed event, while I writhed in pain on the floor, gagging and gasping for air, that I was indeed recapitulating. That first recapitulation did not last more than a few moments, but it opened wide my awareness that something inside me needed to live, or relive, or I would not survive in this world. At that moment, I knew, without a doubt, that I was going on a new kind of journey and that I could not stop it. I also knew that I had been preparing my whole life for it and that I was ready for it.

“Something will lead you to remember the event that will serve you as your usher,” don Juan says to Carlos after taking him on a long walk, because, as he explained to Carlos: “The sorcerers of ancient Mexico believed that everything we live we store as a sensation on the backs of the legs. They consider the backs of the legs to be the warehouse of man’s personal history.” (The Active Side of Infinity p. 149) Instructing Carlos to “do your best” he leaves him alone to experience his own moment of the usher. Within a few moments Carlos falls headlong into a vivid forgotten event from his childhood.

Each person’s experience of the usher will be different, but it will be strikingly apparent that a shift has taken place, a shift that will not let you rest or revert to an old way of perceiving reality or yourself in reality. Carl Jung, in The Red Book recounts his own experiences of encountering the usher. In the section entitled Refinding the Soul he speaks of a vision that would not let him rest.

“The vision of the flood seized me and I felt the spirit of the depths, but I did not understand him. Yet he drove me on with unbearable inner longing and I said:

“My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you—are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet and I have come to you. I am with you. After long years of wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life.

This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine. There is no other way, all other ways are false paths. I found the right way, it led me to you, to my soul.” (pp. 231-232)

By using what he termed active imagination Jung probed deeply into his inner world, confronting his soul, his “I”, all of his inner demons, his projections, his anima, actually doing a thorough recapitulation as the sorcerers of ancient Mexico define it.

These two overlapping worlds, that of the sorcerers of ancient Mexico and the psychological world as explored and practiced by Jung, give us sound guidelines and processes by which to do our inner work. Undertaking the recapitulation journey, in whatever way we are ushered into it, supported by allowing ourselves to do active imagination enables us to fully experience this life. As don Juan explains to Carlos:

“To recount events is magical for sorcerers,” he said. “It isn’t just telling stories. It is seeing the underlying fabric of events. This is the reason recounting is so important and vast.” (The Active Side of Infinity p. 158)

By “seeing the underlying fabric of events” in our lives we begin to understand that, as Jung notes, this life is what we seek, for inside of us is contained everything we need. As we go deeper into our recapitulation, as we return to and explore our soul, everything about us changes. We not only perceive the world differently, but we become different in how we act and think, how we treat ourselves and others, how we engage in life, both our outer life and our inner life. As we gain clarity on who we personally are, as we dare to confront ourselves with the challenges of this life, we offer ourselves the opportunity to experience the magic that don Juan speaks of and the divine that Jung writes about.

May you greet your usher with open arms and may you discover the means of dialogue with your soul, even though your fear may overwhelm you and your body resist. May you allow yourself to go into recapitulation and active imagination, even though it may mean confronting the unimaginable and experiencing the unfathomable. May you allow yourself to take the only journey that matters, into the self, even though you may have to face both the trivial self and the inflated self and all the angels and demons that roam in your inner world.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

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Chuck's Blog

#707 Chuck’s Place: Welcome to Shadowland

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Monday evening, Jan and I were walking to our car in the garage when Jan noticed that the side mirror on my truck, which was parked next to the car, was dangling, obviously having been struck. I was caught completely unaware, blindsided in more ways than one. Just an hour before I had driven home from the office. How could I not have noticed? Could I have done it myself while parking? Could I be that unconscious? Upon examination, it became evident that I couldn’t have done it while pulling the truck into the garage. Might somebody have struck the mirror and elected to drive off while the truck was parked at the office? I might have, at this thought, gone to a vulnerable, victimized place, but instead I found myself deeply pondering—how could I not have noticed, no matter what happened? What does it mean when the mirror that alerts you to what is coming up upon you is knocked out and you don’t even realize it? Welcome to shadowland.

Within twenty-four hours of this incident, having temporarily taped the mirror in place, Jan and I were together in the truck on a mission I had reluctantly agreed to. I stewed within, with feelings of anger, frustration, helplessness, powerlessness, and suspicion. I had indeed been blindsided. Welcome to shadowland.

Twenty-four hours after that, as I drove home alone from the office in my truck, listening contentedly and distractedly to NPR, the radio suddenly turned to static. All stations were lost. I turned off the radio; time to tune inward and shed light on shadowland. Jan and I later processed our drama, and the projections receded. With new awareness, we moved forward, enlightened by our excursion into shadowland.

Synchronistically, possession by and projection of, the shadow had been the theme of the week for many people I encountered, and it was my intention to write about it for this blog. It wasn’t until Thursday evening that I had the opportunity to read Jan’s blog from Wednesday, Recapitulation & The Shadow. Indeed, shadow is the energy of the week.

In his frustration with his students, who always tried to pin down his tentative concepts into final definitions, Jung is said to have remarked, in an exasperated state, that the shadow is the whole unconscious. In the broadest sense, the shadow is the part of us that stays in the dark. We may be completely unaware of this part of the self, though others might see its effects upon us quite clearly in our daily functioning. We may be somewhat aware of our shadow, but nonetheless, be completely rejecting of it, mortified and shamed by this inferior, under-socialized, underdeveloped aspect of ourselves.

Shadow requires light and an object to exist. When light encounters an object, it casts a shadow. If we understand consciousness as light and object as ego, we can understand shadow as intimately connected to ego, as the rejected or unknown, cast off part of it, which is sentenced to live in darkness. In the darkness the shadow exists as a living personality, an alter ego with a life of its own that is often experienced in the blindsided moments in our lives, when we become beings not in our right minds.

When we are born into this world, we are all socialized as we go through the various stages of development. We quickly learn what behaviors and traits are acceptable and those which must be repressed or abandoned. This necessary socialization causes a core fragmentation in the developing self. Traits and instinctive reactions, like strong emotions such as anger or intense expressions of basic needs, may be met with frowns. Interests and potentials might be discouraged for the sake of a standard curriculum or conventional wisdom. Hence, our shadow self contains many unlived potentials as well as basic instincts. Shadowland is also the container of traumatic experiences that are imbued with all kinds of intense energies awaiting the recognition and reconciliation that only consciousness can provide in some form of recapitulation.

In the meantime, these rejected siblings of our egos combine their energies and seek opportunities for recognition and life outside of shadowland. Freud identified verbal faux pas, what we call Freudian slips, as opportunities the shadow seizes to insert its point of view into our lives, much to the shame of the ego. Projections onto others, whom we don’t like yet find ourselves hopelessly, energetically bound to think and feel about, are other opportunities for our inner shadow to find a place in our lives. These attachments give our shadow vicarious life, as our ego remains unidentified with them yet, nonetheless, compulsively bound to include them in our lives. Finally, there is direct possession of our ego by our shadow self. This can happen when we alter consciousness through substance or lack of sleep, or simply through direct ambush by the shadow, as in the case of an intense mood, emotion, or unshakeable belief that takes possession of consciousness. At these times, we feel compelled to act out, live out, the personality of our shadow, as our ego is completely blindsided.

It is only with great effort that we might restrain ourselves in times of possession, yet until we can, we will not have the necessary energy to begin a process of recapitulation where we discover the deeper truths of the self. This recapitulation process opens the door to acceptance of the shadow, without judgment. This acceptance depotentiates the volatile energies of the shadow, born of rejection from consciousness. This process also opens the door to new possibility for life, as the deep well of energy and creative potential contained in the shadow may find new forms of expression.

Ultimately, developing a relationship with the shadow is the key to a fuller, richer life where the deeper resources of the self can be accessed and lived in an individuated state. Failure to do so results in fragmentation and extremist tactics on the part of the shadow, which is forced to become a terrorist who must blindside us to make its truths known. Would that we might comprehend the role of the terrorist on the world stage at this time. Would that, both on an individual and collective level, we would voluntarily visit our own shadowlands and reconcile with our own darker truths, rather than continue to project and war with our disowned shadow selves.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & The Shadow

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In The Active Side of Infinity Carlos Castaneda writes about the time when don Juan first introduced him to the concept of recapitulation. Don Juan describes recapitulation, on pages 142-143, thus:

“The old sorcerers used to call it recounting the events in your life, and for them, it started as a simple technique, a device to aid them in remembering what they were doing and saying to their disciples. For their disciples, the technique had the same value: It allowed them to remember what their teachers had said and done to them. It took terrible social upheavals, like being conquered and vanquished several times, before the old sorcerers realized that their technique had far-reaching effects.”

He goes on to say that, as time passed and events took place in the history of ancient Mexico and the old sorcerers disappeared, a new crop of sorcerers, disciples of the old, came along and renamed the old technique recapitulation. The essence and main point of recapitulation shifted to a process for making space within.

Don Juan explained to a bewildered Carlos that in order for him to teach him everything he knew he had to first make space within Carlos:

“The challenge I am faced with,” he says to Carlos, “is that in a very compact unit of time I must cram into you everything there is to know about sorcery as an abstract proposition, but in order to do that I have to build the necessary space within you.” He goes on to say: “The premise of sorcerers is that in order to bring something in, there must be a space to put it in. If you are filled to the brim with the items of everyday life, there’s no space for anything new. That space must be built. Do you see what I mean? The sorcerers of olden times believed that the recapitulation of your life made that space. It does, and much more, of course.”

What don Juan was proposing to Carlos, in actuality, was that he must go into his shadow, into the dark side of his unconscious, the same shadow side of ourselves that Carl Jung suggests we must all deal with in order to become whole. Don Juan went on to explain the technique of recapitulation to Carlos as a process of making lists of all the people he had ever encountered and then recollecting every encounter he had ever had with each person on his list. He suggested that he accompany each memory with a breathing practice of slowly fanning the head from side to side while slowly and naturally inhaling and exhaling.

As Carlos dutifully began the process of making his lists and recollecting the events of his life he discovered that the process took on a life of its own. He writes, on page 144 in The Active Side of Infinity:

“Ordinarily, my recapitulation took me every which way. I let the events decide the direction of my recollection. What I did, which was volitional, was to adhere to a general unit of time. For instance, I had begun with the people in the anthropology department, but I let my recollection pull me to anywhere in time, from the present to the day I started attending school at UCLA.”

When I read this I was struck by how accurately it explained my own process. My own unconscious led me on my recapitulation journey and often my biggest challenge became acquiescence to where it suggested I must go. Sometimes, like Carlos, I went whining and complaining. As he says on page 141 in The Active Side of Infinity:

“There was some part of me that resented immensely being bothered. I wanted to sleep for days and not think about don Juan’s sorcery concepts anymore. Thoroughly against my will, I got up and followed him.” As don Juan says on page 146 in the same book: “The power of recapitulation is that it stirs up all the garbage of our lives and brings it to the surface.”

Sometimes I just did not want to sift through any more garbage and I would turn away, tell Chuck I was done, and attempt to walk away. I too just wanted to sleep for days, but my unconscious, that most helpful partner, always found a way to drag me back to awareness of the process, its meaningfulness becoming more apparent each day. As I had experiences within the context of recapitulation in cahoots with my shadow, and the process took on a life of its own, I began to quite readily take the journey I was being shown was my true journey in this life, because as don Juan suggested, it does more than just make space within.

When I began my recapitulation I didn’t even know that such a thing existed. I hadn’t read any of Castaneda’s books after the first three when I was in my twenties and I wasn’t at all versed in the language or concepts of the sorcerers of ancient Mexico when I began working with Chuck. I was only slightly familiar with the work of Carl Jung at the time as well, though I had also read some of his works when I was in my early twenties. However, with awareness that I had perhaps planted the seeds of this convergence of the sorcerers world and the psychological during my twenties, I understood that my unconscious and a whole series of synchronistic events were leading me to the moment when I could no longer avoid my shadow, the dark side of myself that I had been running from for most of my life. As the process of this confrontation with my shadow unfolded, under Chuck’s guidance, the idea of recapitulation began to emerge.

Now, many years after I did the bulk of that work of encountering my shadow through the process of recapitulation, I am taking the time to read the later works of Castaneda. My own experiences are being further clarified in terms of a shamanic journey as I read of his encounters with don Juan and his line of sorcerers, and the apprentices of his own generation. More often than not, the shamanic terms, as presented by don Juan, mirror the psychological terms, as presented by Jung.

These two concepts, the recapitulation and the shadow of the unconscious work hand-in-hand. Using the technique of recapitulation, in whatever way it unfolds as guided by the unconscious, together with daring to look into the shadows of the self, the concept of emptying in order to be filled with new energy becomes clearer. It does indeed work as a means to achieving wholeness, and much more.

I do not mean to imply that the shadow ever rests or that recapitulation is ever done, because if we are going to constantly grow and evolve they must remain active participants in our lives. Personally, I have found these to be two most interesting and inviting companions as I continue my journey.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

NOTE: The Active Side of Infinity is available for purchase through our Store in the Shamanism category.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

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In the introduction to The Wheel of Time Carlos Castaneda writes about don Juan teaching him how to perceive energy and that the recapitulation was an important aspect of learning this process. He states: “One of the most important units, he called the recapitulation, which consisted of a systematic scrutiny of one’s life, segment by segment, an examination made not in the light of criticism or finding flaw, but in the light of an effort to understand one’s life, and to change its course. Don Juan’s claim was that once any practitioner has viewed his life in the detached manner that the recapitulation requires, there’s no way to go back to the same life.” (p. 4)

As Chuck wrote about in his blog, The Power of Experience, the unconscious is a major player in the recapitulation process. Within a lifetime the unconscious offers us many opportunities to access its hidden treasures. It offers us protection when we need it the most. It offers us insight and guidance when we need it, and it also prods us to grow when the time is right for that too.

Many of us fear what the unconscious has kept stored for us, perhaps initially experiencing it as frightening impenetrable darkness. It is indeed the shadowy side of ourselves, often a part that we rarely allow to emerge, or a part of ourselves that we reject as not the real self. The unconscious is in fact present to help us grow, as don Juan teaches Carlos. If accessed, thoroughly explored, allowed to be present in our lives we discover that it is not a frightening alien entity after all, but the most fascinating side of ourselves.

As an artist and writer I have always had a certain relationship with my unconscious, at least the part of it that I used in my creative endeavors. There were other darker aspects of it that often emerged in the creative process, and otherwise, that scared me. Often I would wonder where certain things came from, how I, a shy and gentle soul, could produce such dark and disturbing images, and sometimes truly frightening ones as well. I knew there was a dark side to my personality, but I had no clue as to how it got that way. As much as I allowed myself to creatively explore my unconscious, I was not fully aware of what it held in store for me until I met Chuck and began a process of deeper exploration of it. In that process, which, as it began to unfold, became entitled a recapitulation, I, slowly at first and then quicker as I got the hang of it, explored the depths of that disturbing and frightening inner darkness.

In the beginning, I often felt as if I were falling into an abyss, much like the experience of Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Many times I felt as if I would shatter as I took the plunge downward, fearing that the velocity of the fall itself would annihilate me, a brittle person made only of thin glass, as I rocketed into unknown territory. Other times I feared that I would crash and die upon impact, but these were mental imaginings that eventually gave way to curiosity and amazement as the plunge would invariably bring me to an experience of my past that I had no idea even existed.

The unconscious is both a mighty opponent and a mighty partner. When we fear it we see only the darkness, the possibility of death, the annihilation and the end of who we perceive ourselves to be. But when we engage it as a vital part of life, in dreams, in confronting it and asking it to show us something about ourselves, when we allow it to lead us into that darkness, we begin to understand that it is present not as an adversary but as a true companion who only wants us to grow. When we truly open up to the experience of recapitulation—greeting what the unconscious brings us to, points out to us or challenges us to investigate—we offer ourselves the opportunity to change the course of our lives, as Carlos suggests.

If, as I believe, we are each of us challenged to work through one core issue in a lifetime we will also, I believe, be presented with the means of working through that core issue as our life unfolds. We are invited to the process of confrontation in many ways, but it may not be until we are finally ready to tackle it that we will allow ourselves to take the plunge down the rabbit hole and find out what truly lurks in our inner darkness.

The choice to explore our unconscious is ours alone. Perhaps in the past we did not understand what we were being called to, but once we finally gain a clear understanding of our core issue, do we still refuse the call of the unconscious, as we have done so many times before? Do we elect to push it away, avoid it, die without resolving why we are here? In turning from the call of the unconscious we put ourselves in a position of having to grapple with it on many levels and in many forms, because once we acknowledge awareness of our core issue the unconscious, that wily opponent/partner, knows that we are awakening to the fact of its existence and beginning to understand the power it holds in our lives. During this period of grappling, our unconscious often becomes the leader, offering us what we need in order to get to that point of change that Carlos writes about.

Of course, there is so much more to the process, to the unconscious, and to the conscious self as well that I am not discussing today, but I wish to jump ahead to what Carlos states, that once we have reached a place of detachment “there’s no way to go back to the same life.” This might seem like a frightening prospect as well, but really it is what we are all here for, to keep going forward and eventually to evolve into new life. We won’t feel the need or the desire to go back if we truly allow ourselves to confront our darkness, to recapitulate, to free ourselves of the fear of falling down the rabbit hole. In fact, as the process unfolds we might find ourselves leaping down that rabbit hole, eager for the next experience, eager to see what is in store, because eventually we come out the other side and into a whole new world.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Stubborn & The Curious

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Today, I switch from the subject of nature outside of us, which I have been writing about for the past few weeks, to nature inside, as it exists in its many forms inside our physical bodies. I define nature as that which is simply present, that which we are born with, and that which we cannot stop.

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, while watching a doe and her fawn in my backyard, I see nature as unstoppable. It lives and it dies and it lives again. I also feel that we humans have this same unstoppable force of nature inside us. Much as the seasons recur, we are positioned, over and over again, to encounter things about ourselves. Often these are things we do not like about ourselves but know we must confront in order to change. They may be well known issues, perhaps already acknowledged but conveniently ignored until we are ready to go more deeply into them, or they may only exist in our subconscious, blocked, suppressed, and left to smolder. In either case, nature has a way of revealing them to us, in ways that are really quite personally relevant.

First I must state that I believe we are all born with a core issue, one core issue, and although there may be many surrounding and resounding issues, each of us is challenged in our lifetime to resolve this one issue. It may even be an issue or challenge that we have carried over many life times. I feel that nature, our inner nature, in collusion with the forces of nature outside of us, is bound and determined to challenge us to confront this issue, teach us how and why it belongs to us, and ask us to evolve beyond it. This is the basic tenet of recapitulation, to recognize the core issue that is holding us back in life, to confront it, to leave it behind without regret or attachment after being fully relived and resolved, and to move on to new life.

At this point, I must make note of Chuck’s recent blog regarding the contention of the seers of ancient Mexico that everything resides within the human body. This is what I write about today, how our bodies tell us, over and over again, just what our core issue is. We can find out everything we need to know about ourselves by contemplating, studying, and paying attention to our own natural state, our physical body. Our bodies contain all the answers, in our physical, in our psyche, in our energy. Our bodies can tell us where we are blocked, why we are afraid, what our spirit asks of us, and why we are here. Of course, it is much easier to see where others are blocked, to guess at their core issues, and wonder why they so stubbornly refuse to change. I will give some personal examples.

In my family, I am dealing with two very old women, one in her eighties and the other in her nineties, who are nearing the ends of their lives. One of them is in denial, stubbornly pretending that everything is fine; this has always been her way. The other is curious, eagerly attentive to anything she can find that may help her understand where she is going; this has always been her way. When I look at them I have to admit that I see myself in both of them. In the stubborn one, I see my own potential to dig in my heels and kick and scream that I don’t want to go; essentially I see my own fear. In the curious one, I see my enlightened self, eager for the adventure ahead, because this side of me has always known that there is something exciting beyond the veils of this world. In these two women, I see the duality of nature, two very powerful forces in a grand tug-of-war, and they are inside all of us.

It’s natural to be afraid, to fear the unknown, but it’s equally natural to be curious. As I watch these two women struggling through old age, maintaining their dignity while confronting their natural and inevitable physical deterioration in their own ways, I know that nature will win out, but I also know that nature is both sides of this process. In spite of the strong desire to remain in control, nature does not allow us to hold onto anything, it forces us out of the physical body. However, nature also gives us the option of capitulating to our energy body, to finally evolving beyond our need to continue reincarnating in the physical human form with our core issues. It offers our curious selves the option to remain alive, vibrant, and engaged in learning about the possibilities that lie ahead. Energy too is the natural way of things, if we care to engage it.

So who wins the tug-of-war? Well, that is up to each of us; it is an individual choice. Do we allow the tug-of-war to hold our energy in eternal conflict, or do we reconcile the opposing forces, confront our core issues this time around, and evolve? Once we recognize what our bodies are trying to tell us, in all our aches, pains, and tensions, and what our psyches are trying to tell us, in our fears, and embrace the experiences that these two opposing natural forces offer us on a daily basis, we come into alignment with nature, with the opportunity for the stubborn and the curious to finally be reconciled.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes as you take your journeys to reconciliation,
Jan