Tag Archives: seers of ancient Mexico

Chuck’s Place: Not Doing

November 19, 2019 Chuck Leave a comment

A Not Doing, one red shoe, one black shoe…

Not doing is a practice developed by the Seers of Ancient Mexico to break the fixation of habitual behavior. The most powerful reinforcer of habitual behavior is the internal dialogue, the things we tell ourselves, over and over again, about ourselves and the world we live in.

The ultimate not doing of the internal dialogue is inner silence, the springboard into unfiltered perception. Inner silence is a coveted state, achieved through an arduous unbending intent. That intent might include the not doing of a new internal dialogue, such as an oft-repeated statement, like, for instance, “I am silent.”

What makes this mantra a not doing is that when we say it we are not doing what we usually do. Our typical inner dialogue might say
“that won’t work” or “that’s not the way my mind works.” Thus, to state “I am silent” requires volition to oppose the limitation imposed by the default position of our internal dialogue.

The trick with this, and all not doings, is no attachment to the outcome; simply perseverance in performing the prescribed action. Attachment belongs to the inventory of the standard internal dialogue that insists reality be what is prescribed.

In that case, if our not doing is not quickly realized through our new internal dialogue, we can suffer the emotional energy drain of failure, which becomes defeat. Defeatism reinstalls the primacy of the familiar internal dialogue, which quickly shifts us back into our habitual self.

Not doing is a volitional action that forces our consciousness to be present in new ways. To eat or write with one’s non-dominant hand is an unfamiliar behavior. Energetically, a not doing explores untapped energy potential, as it ventures beyond the known boundaries of the habitual self.

While at a practical level, a not doing interrupts the habitual flow of our energy into repetitive thought and behavior, at a truly sublime level, we are learning the fluidity to fixate upon new worlds of possibility. This includes a very different experience of self and the world that we can fixate upon or hold onto at will.

Suspending all moral judgments, both nature and world leaders are introducing global not doings that are generating new worlds of possibility that we might fixate upon. Of course, there remains the not doing of not tracking world events, but none of us are immune from their impact on the ultimate, interconnected energy we are all a part of.

As I began writing this blog yesterday morning, a Monday, Jan was simultaneously channeling Jeanne’s spoken message for the week. Synchronistically, Jeanne prescribed a not doing breathing technique, to cancel the internal dialogue and experience a moment of inner silence. When I heard the message, I realized I must continue this blog, as it was prompted by the Tao of now.

What makes the prescribed breathing technique a not doing is the fact that it interrupts the natural flow of unconscious breathing, as one must consciously remain present to monitor the steps of the in breath, the pause, and the out breath. This not doing opens up new assemblages of energy, as it ventures beyond the narrow frame of automatic behavior.

Our automatic internal dialogue rests upon a very narrow set of beliefs, which limit our access to our true potential. Even nonsensical not doings, like wearing unmatched shoes, sends our awareness into uncharted territory, as it breaks its typical habitual fixation.

The intent of such a not doing, as wearing unmatched shoes, is quite private, loosening one’s tendency to fixate, unconsciously, upon the same things. The intent is not to feed the self-importance of being seen as an oddity. Not doings might be quite public actions, but not for the purpose of attracting attention. Such a motive would defeat the intent of not doing, which is to open the door to energetic possibility by learning to fixate on new behaviors.

Training awareness to be fluid, through the practice of not doings, hones our ability to navigate the unknown, particularly the unknown sides of ourselves waiting to be actualized. Not doings also promote the inner silence that leads to discovering our dormant potential.

As Jeanne suggests, take a breath of fresh air. Out with the stale breath of the internal dialogue, in with the not doing of new life.

Not doing,

Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Petty Tyrants & The Quiet One Within

March 21, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Art and Photo by Jan — Petty tyrants come in many forms.

Petty Tyrants come in many forms and present us with many disturbing quandaries. I recently faced a petty tyrant, not a person I had perceived as such before, and it took me a few days to realize that I had been challenged very deeply. My petty tyrant ascertained that I must, of course, feel a certain way.

“No, actually, I don’t feel that way at all,” I responded. But almost immediately a small voice inside me posed a question. “Am I doing something wrong?” it wanted to know, and a feeling that I’m not doing life properly set in. I’m a disappointment. I’m bad. I don’t uphold certain conventions of family, of relationship, the structures of society that are often perceived as so proper and utterly necessary: this is how things are done and if you don’t uphold these standards then something is wrong with you. I was uncomfortable in that moment. A shadow descended and stayed with me for days before I finally realized that a petty tyrant had come into my midst.

A petty tyrant, according to the Seers of Ancient Mexico, is anyone or thing that makes us question ourselves, makes us angry, puts us on the defensive, affronts us or makes us feel foolish, diminished, unworthy. They come to fool with us, to challenge us, and to ask us to face our true selves. Unfathomed by boundaries they slip into our lives and wreak havoc, wrecking our staunch perceptions of the world. Judging, condescending, and selfish, they criticize us and pummel our egos.

In psychological terms, a petty tyrant bears our projections; our deepest issues and fears are placed on another, while we unconsciously ask them to carry them for us. In turn we may despise this other person, find fault with them, disagree with them, and overall find their company disturbing and uncomfortable.

We can stay attached to our petty tyrants for years. We begin our lives with them, in our parents, our teachers, our siblings, our childhood friends and foes. Often they follow us into adulthood, deeply embedded inside us. Along for the ride they find new residence in others we meet and interact with, in those we marry and have relationships with.

In my book, The Man in the Woods, book one of The Recapitulation Diaries, I write of my process of facing the petty tyrants that had haunted and controlled me far into adulthood. I confronted not only people but also ideas, thoughts, and beliefs that had been ingrained in the natural process of growing up in the family and society I encountered during childhood.

Later, in adulthood, with those conventions still active, I lived steeped in great inner conflict. Uncertain as to what was so wrong with me, I nonetheless knew that I was deeply wounded. However, I could not allow myself to attach much significance to that deep inner truth, for I had been taught that it was selfish to even think about the self in any way. Time and thoughts were meant to be utilized in the rational world, in being part of an external world that I found deeply disturbing.

It was not until I faced the disturbing world inside myself that I was finally able to release myself from that disturbing outer world that I just could not find a foothold in. Through recapitulating everything about myself, by allowing myself to be selfish enough to do deep inner exploration, I found my way through a myriad of false impressions and beliefs. Fully conscious, I faced and did battle with all manner of petty tyrants during my recapitulation. I reconnected with my inner spirit, the quiet one within, who had been calling to me for decades, asking me to find her again and live her life, a life of individuality and freedom, open to a far greater world than the conventional, rational, fearful one I had grown up in.

I think I did a pretty good job of recapitulating, so that when I recently found myself being challenged to react in an expected way, I immediately recoiled. “No, I don’t think that way at all!” But in the next second I found myself stumbling before this mighty view of reality. I faltered in the face of expectation that, of course, I would give the correct, pat answer, that I would agree, conventional boundaries upheld, the world as it should be, undisturbed.

In the second that I stumbled, I became inarticulate, and the inner child self immediately stepped in and asked that old question, “Oh dear, am I bad? Am I heartless, cold and unfeeling because I don’t think like that anymore?”

Now I see that I was set up to confront the decisions I make every day as I continue my journey. I have been offered such freedom as I have shed old world structures and ideas that I no longer believe in or care to uphold. No, I was being challenged to more firmly realize just how committed I am to my path.

For a short while my foot wavered as I lifted it, ready to take my next step. Where would I put it down? Would I let it fall back in an old world, simply for convention’s sake, to appease the petty tyrant? Or would I let it fall solidly on the path I have been on for so long now, committed to following my spirit, in spite of what others might think of me? Could I shed my ego in more ways than one, inflated ego and deflated ego alike, and stay true to my evolving spirit self?

As I put my foot firmly down on my spiritual path, solidly aligned with my recapitulating self, I also acknowledged the role of the petty tyrants in my life. Those petty tyrants do indeed still step out of the shadows and challenge me. Some of them I am used to. I meet them regularly enough and I am rarely thrown by them. But there are others, friends and strangers alike, who offer more abrupt and unexpected challenges. And then the question becomes, whom do I disappoint, them or my spirit? I choose the path of my spirit every time, even if it takes me a few days to realize that I have been wavering, confused, doggedly pursued by a petty tyrant.

Now, having recognized the situation for what it was, I am once again back on track, seeking balance in this world while simultaneously exploring the meaning and possibilities that lie ahead, in this world and all worlds.

As boundaries between worlds constantly dissolve, I find that we are all petty tyrants, to ourselves as well as to others. We challenge as much as we are challenged. Can we accept ourselves in such roles? In addition, I have discovered that my inner spirit is my own greatest petty tyrant, the quiet one within who constantly challenges me to keep questioning and keep questing. Who are your petty tyrants and how do they challenge you?

Recapitulating in everyday life is the way to keep changing and growing, to stay connected to the quiet one within, the inner spirit self who, we discover, knows all.

Much love to you all, as you take your journeys,

Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Intent, A Natural Solution

January 20, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

A solution is reached when a problem is solved. Problems dissolve when a solvent is applied. Solvents break down barriers, divisions, and oppositions that result in a sense of unity and wholeness. This is known as resolution, or “re-solution” for the purposes of this blog.

The psyche is composed of many opposing parts, each with their separate points of view, separate needs, and separate desires. This is why, on some level, we are all bipolar beings, beings charged with the task of re-solving our polarities into a unified whole, what Jung called individuation.

Humans often ingest substances to re-solve the rigidities and polarities within the self that block unified action and fulfillment. A glass of wine might prove to be the dis-solving agent to loosen rigidity, relieve stress, quiet the mind, unleash vision, or allow us to open to the body and creativity, as we seek to transcend the wear and tear of daily life or the stilted energy of our deeply fragmented selves.

Wine is the highly celebrated fruit of Dionysus, the god of creativity and spontaneity. Wine is the transforming agent at the heart of the Christian mass. Wine is the agent that dissolves differences and takes us beyond our humanness. With it we commune with the gods. Of course, when we dry out, when the potion has run its course, we return to our humanness.

At the end of these journeys, however, the rigidities and polarities of our everyday lives return with a bad mood—a sobering moment to say the least. But, spiritual beings that we are, we long for the resolving qualities of dissolution again, a solution to solve our boredom and limitations, a solution to take us out—out of ourselves, beyond ourselves, or to feel fully free and whole within ourselves. We may find ourselves dependent on solutions, liquid or herbal, to solve our dilemmas.

The shamans of don Juan’s lineage recognized the power of these solvents. They realized that behind the solvents were entities that willingly catered to the desires of humans. The Ancient Shamans called these inorganic beings Allies, and they reveled in the belief that they could control these entities, who would reveal secrets like the fountain of youth to them. It was the contention of the New Seers of don Juan’s lineage, however, that this was the fatal flaw and downfall of those Ancient Shamans. The New Seers contended that the Ancients were duped into obtaining extraordinary powers in exchange for their attachment to these allies. In the shamanic world, this is the equivalent of addiction.

In the world of everyday life, we ingest all kinds of substances as we seek resolution to our problems, as we seek to achieve fulfillment and to transcend our human limitations. By our very nature we are consumers. We consume to solve and resolve our lives. From a shamanic point of view, this is a recipe for bondage, dependence upon substances that themselves consume the lion’s share of our lives.

The urge to seek resolution, wholeness, and transcendence is utterly healthy—it’s why we are here—and although it may be necessary to consume and engage the slippery slope of the inorganic world of allies, knowingly or unknowingly, there is a better solution: Engaging INTENT.

The shamans discovered Intent as an energetic wave that permeates the universe. We naturally engage intent to define our world. In our time, the mind has intervened to rationally limit our human potential. We engage intent largely to reinforce a known world and a known self. However, intent has the capability to open us up to the full realization of our true human potential, if we allow it to do so.

The mind, however, makes us nonbelievers, too shy to call out to intent, too impatient to allow it to unfold, too doubtful and judgmental to accept its path. In my experience, when we set an intent, simply by repeatedly intending it, it works its magic in the events, synchronicities, and encounters of our lives. Eventually, our intent is realized, though perhaps not as we might have expected.

In actuality, we constantly engage intent to create and reinforce the world we live in. We have become so entrenched in rigid definitions of a world of solid objects and unchanging self that we don’t believe anything else is possible and thus we limit our access to a greater world and greater solutions. We get caught in addictive behaviors as we turn to consuming solutions, seeking to gain temporary entrée into our hidden resources. Our access to intent and higher resolution, however, is limited by what we staunchly believe, what the mind rationally insists upon, and what the judgments of others reinforce.

We all have to encounter the inorganic world in our lives, we must all become consumers of one sort or another, but that world always exacts a toll in return for its gifts. Even as it asks us, “Are you really going to go down that path?” it entices us to do so, for its own energetic purposes.

The Ancient Shamans thought they could handle the power of the inorganic world, but the New Seers discovered that it was far more efficient to shift away from extraordinary powers in the human form and eternal life on earth to a new kind of freedom: no contracts, no attachments that could exact a toll on their energy, but instead total freedom to humbly continue without any special powers, other than that of engaging the pure power of intent on their continuing journeys in infinity.

When Carlos Castaneda got caught in the inorganic world of the Allies, don Juan, because he had refused to enter such worlds, didn’t know what to do. He turned to Carol Tiggs—another apprentice in Carlos’s group who had fully explored that world—and asked her to lead a mission to rescue Carlos. In this example, we are privy to don Juan’s process as he refused to break with his intent and be pulled into something that he knew was potentially harmful.

Once we set our intent, even if we forget that we have done so, the energetics of it are set in motion. This is not a rational process; it’s an energetic process. It defies logic, it defies rationality, it defies the belief system of the mind. It is not connected to effort, will, goodness or badness—the constructs of change ordained by the mind. It does not involve hidden contracts to arrive at its solution. It’s part of our inheritance, our natural endowment, if we can allow ourselves to engage this most natural solution, with unbending intent.

It is truly an energy thing! Just do it, as the shamans do, and literally call it to your changing self.

INTENT!!!
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

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

August 19, 2011 Chuck Leave a comment

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: Dream Guides

August 10, 2011 Jan Leave a comment

During recapitulation, dreams may act as guides taking us deeper into our inner world, revealing repressed memory, stimulating senses, signifying where we need to go next. While undergoing my own recapitulation—a magical pass used by the Seers of Ancient Mexico to reclaim lost energy—I encountered lost parts of myself in my dreams. They had been sitting and waiting for me for years, to return and bring them into life. By coming forth to engage me in dreams those parts got my attention, often in striking ways. But it wasn’t until I was ready to fully accept that I was on a journey of significance, as we all are, that I woke up to what those dreams were trying to tell me.

Dreams allow us to explore our inner world without the overriding dominance of the mind and the judging personality, without the ego sticking its nose into an experience that may be transformative. Pay attention to your dreams, they may hold more than you think.

I once dreamed a situation that was, in fact, laying out my entire recapitulation process, showing me very clearly what was at the core of my discontent, laying out the future as well. In that dream, I encountered an aggressive figure that I recognized as being long dominant in my life. I lost all of my identification and wandered through unknown territory until I finally reached a place of peace. In fact, that was what happened to me as I began the journey of recapitulation within a short time after that. Portending my future, that dream opened the door to deeper exploration of who I was. In fact, “Why am I the way I am?” was the question I continually asked myself. I couldn’t fully answer it until I fully recapitulated.

Artwork by Jan Ketchel — The door to dreaming...facing fear

During recapitulation we do lose our identity, as my dream suggested. We shed all that we carry, things that we take on in our efforts to grow, as we struggle to be in the world, as well as burdens placed on us by others. We find ourselves continually freeing ourselves from old ideas and perceptions of ourselves and the world we live in, as we recapitulate. As we take the journey into the deeper self, we discover a new self. We are offered the opportunity to work our way into filling this new self with new ideas, thoughts, and perceptions. We are offered the possibility of fully taking on this new identity, one that is truly us. This may be a dream identity that we never imagined we could fully own. This may be a spiritual self we had distanced ourselves from. This may be an absolutely strange and amazing self, a magical self. We all have the opportunity to transform.

In wandering the strange lands of our dreamworld, with awareness, we’re offered access to our greatest potential. If we can dare ourselves to take a dream journey, facing our greatest fears in both our dreams and in real life, we offer ourselves the opportunity to totally transform. Some of those amazing dream worlds we’ve encountered while asleep are actually available to us in our everyday world as well. In taking hold of our dreams as significant participants in our journeys throughout life, we find the dreams themselves to be our most remarkable companions. Our dreams may be where our fullest potential is accessed, where our deepest issues are revealed, and where our past, current, and future challenges and potential lie.

In experiencing our dreams as our innermost caring and supportive guides, we may more quickly wake up to our true journeys. What path is your dream pointing out to you? Who visited you last night to show you where to go next, what to do, and how to go about it? I find great meaning and pertinent information in my dreams. Indeed, by paying attention to them I gave myself the opportunity to change. And don’t forget, our dreams may approach us while we are awake or asleep.

The importance of the recapitulation process reveals itself every day, in the work Chuck and I do, in the communications we receive, and in our own lives. We personally use the practice of recapitulation constantly, in pursuit of our greatest potential; always more to learn, to explore, and access. Our journeys are endless, our spirits constantly nudging us to keep going. In fact, anything that appears in our lives may actually be trying to alert us to something special and important about ourselves and our true direction in life.

There are indeed many ways to transform, and indeed recapitulation is really a natural process that we all engage in all the time: in remembering, in experiences, in thoughts, in illnesses, in repetitive habits and behaviors, in our choices and decisions, in the kinds of things we elect to avoid or pursue and yes, in our dreams. Do we dare to call life itself “recapitulation?” Do we dare to fully embrace our spirit’s call and give it a structure with a name? Are we really so daring as to go all the way to transformation? That is what we are challenged with really. Our spirits ask us every day: “Are you coming with me? Are you ready today?

In a few weeks, I intend to have the first volume of my book The Recapitulation Diaries available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. One does not need to have a Kindle device in order to download e-books. Free apps and tools are available for all kinds of devices including phones, computers, and ipads. We’ll have all of that info available when the time comes. We’ve decided that we won’t be publishing a paperback copy at this time as I intend to immediately jump into working on the second volume. That being said, my greatest hope is that my book will aid others, showing what it means to recapitulate in the context of everyday life, offering the tools to undergo a shamanic practice in full awareness.

Dream on. And remain aware: dreams are just waiting to be fulfilled. What dream do you have that is knocking at the door? May you find your way to it, in whatever way works. Recapitulation is only one way, I know that, but I can only say that for me, it is the only way. Nothing else works. I always knew there were other worlds available to me. I just didn’t know how to get into them. Recapitulation, as a tool to transforming myself and the world I choose to live in, offers me total access.

Much love,
Jan

Riverwalker Press