Energy travels many paths… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Energy is blood at the ethereal level. Blood is the carrier of the vital life source in the physical body. Energy is the active life force in the energy body. As sometimes we may require a blood transfusion to preserve life in the physical body so the energy body seeks energetic enhancement through exchanges of energy at the ethereal level.
Actually, we can notice this energetic transmission of energy on the physical plane through the exchanges of everyday life. Attention is a form of energy. When we give something our attention we transfer some of our vital energy to it, which then enlivens it in some form.
However subtle, we can often feel in some way that someone has their attention upon us. Often it might register as a sudden thought about the person who is thinking about us or actually looking at us, even from behind.
Human beings often interpret attention as a form of validation. Attention is currency. Like money, it fills us with value and worth. This can result in attention seeking behavior. The greater the attention given, the greater the feeling of personal worth. This was the theorem Mark Zuckerberg exploited with the launching of Facebook: the more friends who like us, the better we feel about ourselves.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico were well aware of the energetic dynamic of attention seeking behavior. In fact, they determined that our human obsession with validation monopolizes the lion’s share of our vital energy through our entire lifetime.
The experience of being validated may deliver a temporary energetic boost. In actuality it proves to be an energetic drain when factoring in the amount of mental and emotional energy spent each day seeking attention and validation from the outside world.
The shamans teach us to become energy misers. They employ techniques to free themselves of the energy drain of upholding self-importance through external validation. They relish opportunities to release themselves from being offended, a major source of energy drain in human interaction.
If we can release ourselves from being offended by others whose narcissism prevents them from seeing or valuing us, in fact even causes them to bully us, then we are actually storing tremendous caches of energy. Releasing ourselves from any attachment to victimhood is central to this practice.
This doesn’t mean we simply turn the other cheek. In fact, we might have to actually fight back, but our approach is not driven by rage or revenge or preserving self-importance but is simply a pragmatic response to the challenge presented, based on what is possible in a given situation.
The energy gained and stored through losing self-importance allows that energy to be redeployed toward exploration of one’s true purpose for coming into this world, as well as the ability to explore life in other dimensions of infinity while still in physical form.
Best use of attention is to observe the tendency to be offended by others. Identifying it enables a process of detachment that both saves and frees energy for spiritual deployment.
Energy in action… – Detail of Artwork by Jan Ketchel
We live in the most stupendous of times for ego development. From the moment we awaken each day we are barraged with outer world events, bodily needs, and an internal dialog which all clamor for our attention. Attention is where we employ our vital energy. Ego must decide in rapid succession how it will spend this vital energy.
Will our decisions enhance or deplete our energetic reserves? Will our decisions be in alignment with the state of our body? Will our decisions channel the deeper calling of our spirit? These are examples of the myriad of decisions the ego must make in our hyper, fast-paced, rapidly shifting modern world.
Ego has gotten a bad rap. This is largely because it is associated with enhancing one’s self-importance and outer-world possessions to the detriment of others, as well as to the detriment of the spirit. Indeed, ego can decide to employ the vital energy of the body and the spiritual self to its own aggrandizement.
In fact, perhaps the most exaggerated example of this attitude confronts us daily in the governance currently in power of our world. We all must face the real possibility of nuclear holocaust in the hands of such leadership, but here also lies the very heart of opportunity for the moment we live in.
We must all choose whether to spend our energy worrying about this fact, and this is an ego decision, or not. True, we must acknowledge the threat to our survival, the existential anxiety of pending destruction and disintegration, for not to do so would be to dissociate from our animal knowing of the real and present danger to our existence.
However, as the shamans discovered long ago, death is our greatest advisor. Knowing that we are beings who are going to die is our greatest support to stay awake and take full advantage of the opportunities of life in this dimension. The ego must decide what to do with this information.
The ego can employ the classic defense of denial and go about daily life as if nothing is different, all is predictable and unfolding as it should. Modern events, however, are really rattling this defense.
The ego could become concretely opportunistic, gobbling up power and wealth to enjoy its time here in material abundance, paying little heed to the side effects of its choices. Nature is dramatically confronting this attitude right now.
The ego might alternatively choose to face reality and attend to the impact of its animal knowing on its central nervous system through a variety of meditative and breathing practices.
Further, ego might turn its attention inward to the subtler energies of its spirit. These are the energies of manifestation, these are the energies of intent. These are the energetic pathways open to the evolving human. We all may glimpse them in the magical occurrences that frequently follow shortly after the loss of a loved one when, in heightened awareness, we are opened to the energetic possibilities of quantum connection.
Ego turning its attention materially toward outer control and accumulation are Old World technologies. It is obvious that from an evolutionary standpoint they are not favored. Don’t be fooled by the current last stand of the worst of these practices, they need to have their last dance.
We are being prompted now to discover life at a deeper energetic level. This entails tuning into the subtle energies of synchronicity and serendipity where the ego is presented with feedback and energetic possibilities that can guide life into truly sustainable evolutionary directions.
These are the amazing opportunities for ego refinement in our current volatile times. We are evolving into a New World of energy as well as a world of concrete objects, a far more expansive world, with a wise ego at the helm.
The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered that the real culprit undermining humankind’s survival is the unshakeable quest to be important. In modern terms, this manifests as how many friends we have, who likes our postings, our pictures, tracks our tweets, wants our attention at any moment, day or night.
While the lion’s share of our vital energy is trained to hear the crystal sounding ding on our cellphones, announcing that “I am wanted! I am important!” a predatory dark force rapes the earth of its vital energy and relegates its human inhabitants to being, as don Juan Matus called it, “chickens in a chicken coop.”
Nothing but a little island grounded in the vast everything… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
For years, I strove to be somebody by cracking the nut of the truth of our existence and sharing it with other seekers. I discovered early on that this naive romance with stardom was barred to me. Advertising generated nothing. Mainstream book publishers had no interest. I had traveled so far from the mainstream that the mainstream had no interest in my “good news.” Perhaps what I was really being taught was the foolhardiness of my own self-importance.
Side by side with self-importance is yet another energetic path that has ruthlessly hemmed humankind in, the path of inaction. Carl Jung noted that the yin and yang of our world are expressed in two different energetic systems: animal and plant.
Animal energy is the energy of action, it is masculine energy. It derives its sustenance from outside of itself, in the world at large. This is extroverted energy. A dominance of animal energy in humankind has led to power, control, and dominance games—that which rules the world at present. This dominance of extroverted Western values has also infected the greatest spiritual strongholds of the East, India and China.
Self-importance, on a global scale, is typified in the likes of Donald Trump who unapologetically mirrors the flippant, egoistic male action reaching, in comic crescendo, for world dominance.
Contrasting animal action is the rooted plant. The plant world, the feminine yin of our planet, is self-contained, deriving its energy receptively from the rays of the sun. Like any pregnancy, it produces from within, needing not to travel about and dominate for its substances and metabolic processes but requiring only nurturing stillness.
In human terms, plant spirituality is the Buddha beneath the bodhi tree, Christ upon the wooden cross tree. Both exemplify rootedness, stillness, the patience of the immobilized tree. In this deep groundedness, in this stillness, comes detachment from the grasp of illusion, detachment from extroverted action, detachment from the actions of needing to be somebody.
By withdrawing energy from attachment to the action of self-importance—the energy of definition and meaning through hierarchy and dominance—we are freed to see beyond the veils of self-importance, retaining our energy to truly evolve, not as being somebody but simply being and becoming what we truly are.
The energetic antidote to the one-sided dominance of human animal energy is human plant energy, the energy of yin, now uprooted from Tibet and planted throughout the world, particularly in America. Even the most prized Western brain science now embraces the technology of mindfulness as the key to neuroplasticity—real change.
Ultimately, the Taoist rebalancing of yin and yang, plant and animal, action and inaction, will evolve us into a new chapter in this Earth dream that we are all sharing. But for now, we must burn through the deluge of self-importance that is exhausting us in our need to be somebody. The ground is prepared to receive our planted energy and the seeds of genuine, needed change.
I have had to remind myself lately to not forget the experiences of awe that I have had in the past and constantly have in life. I get so caught up in the mundane, in this world, that I often lose track of where I’ve been and all of the amazing things that have transpired in my life. Jeanne suggests some useful guidance around this issue in her latest message.
Life in this world can drag us down. We become so fixated on things that are wrong, things that offend us, things that make us angry, resentful, hurt; feelings that leave us shamed, blamed, helpless and lost. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico would call all of those things issues of the ego, issues of self-importance. Lose your self-importance, they constantly suggested.
I try to be impeccable, but I am not. I try to be balanced and in perfect alignment with my spirit’s intent, but I am not. I try to be selfless, kind, and compassionate at all times, but I am not. I like to think of myself as on top of things when in reality I just am not. I’m often lazy. I had to face my imperfect, lazy self over the weekend when the hard drive on my computer crashed. I also had to face my psychic self, who kept warning me to do things that I ignored. “Make a copy of this, back this up, notice this sign and this sign that things are just not working right,” she warned me. But did I pay attention? No. And so I had to suffer.
We took my computer to the Apple Store and when they ran the diagnostics on it, a large red banner appeared that read: FAILED! Immediately, I felt like a bad person, because I knew I had not backed up at the end of the work week as I normally do and I wondered how much stuff I had lost. I did attempt a backup as soon as I noticed something was seriously wrong, but did it take? Only time would tell.
My MacMini is happy again… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Back home again with a new hard drive, I had to face the truth. Not only that, but I had to face it with other people looking over my shoulder, my techie guy and Chuck. “Seriously,” my techie guy said, “you didn’t back up like I told you to do?” “Once a week,” I said, meekly, “but I didn’t do it last week.” “ARRGH!” This is something like what the conversation went like and boy did I feel bad, and really really stupid. “So much for impeccability,” I thought. “Jan, you suck!”
As time wore on it became clear just how much stuff I had lost. The hard drive was so corroded that my last ditch backup effort had failed. I got more depressed, felt more stupid, admitted I was a real jerk and got depressed. By the time Monday morning rolled around I wondered what I would find when I looked at the last revisions I had made on my book, had I saved them? Uh-uh. Nope. More depression. Then along came a different me, the fighter/warrior, cut-your-losses and move-on person that I can be and she said: “Get over it! This is meaningful. It’s not so bad. It’s teaching you things you need to learn about yourself.” How could I argue with that?
I have my backup machine plugged in all the time now. I backup to DropBox as well now. I found that once I let go of trying to recall the changes I had made to my book, the editing of Volume Two of The Edge of the Abyss ran smoothly, with a new precision and conciseness that had been lacking for the past month. I had gotten so bogged down in trying to finish that I was forgetting to enjoy the process. I got so caught up in the mundane that I forgot about the awe that comes along even in the most trying of times. I forgot to really savor the people in my life, and life itself.
In awe… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
“I want to laugh more,” I said to Chuck the other day, and then someone showed us a funny video and we laughed so hard! I forgot that you just have to ask and you receive. I forgot to lighten up and enjoy where I am. I forgot that there is awe in life every single day, you just have to see it that way. I forgot to lose my self-importance and just enjoy every moment.
There is awe in my computer crash, there is awe in my depression, there is awe in my stupidity, if I so choose to see it that way. And yes, I do choose to see it that way, thank you very much!
Leonard Cohen sings:I had to go crazy to love you, had to go down to the pit, had to do time in the tower, begging my crazy to quit…Had to go crazy to love you, had to let everything fall, had to be people I hated, had to be no one at all…
I’m a Leonard Cohen fan, have been ever since I first saw him perform in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1976. It was just him and his guitar. He sat alone on a folding chair on the stage, a cup of something at his feet. He touched the poet in me and I recognized his agony. Since then he’s spent time as a monk, but he’s also perfected his outer persona and through many trials and errors become the consummate performer, giving his all, even at the age of 78 performing for three hours to packed houses.
I still hear his agony in his songs, recognize the imperfect human creature he presents us with. And this song, Crazy To Love You, is all about that. It’s about projection and facing the self, doing the recapitulation time, going down into the shadows of the self, ascending into the inflations of the self, confronting everything hateful about the self, becoming nothing—egoless—and in the process learning to love the self. It’s all about taking the endless contemplative inner journey and not giving up, no matter what is encountered. It’s about seeking a kind of perfection, a humble impeccability that knows that everything is okay, everything is necessary and permissible, everything leads to love. When we acquiesce to our humanness we discover that our greatest challenge in life is to love the self. If we can love the self, then we’re on the way to honing a new kind of impeccability devoid of self-importance, the impeccability of being able to love others, to being able to embrace all humanity as being as imperfect and as lovable as we are. We all have to go crazy to love one another.
Recently I dreamed a dream of deep encounters with the self. I sat with Chuck and many hundreds of others at a huge banquet table, perhaps a hundred feet long and a dozen feet wide. Perhaps you were all there as well. We were all under the control of a tiny woman who stood opposite me at the far end of the table. From my position I could see that she was tiny, but her voice was booming, commanding, and her image, projected onto a giant screen above her, loomed over us, making her seem bigger than life, more frightening than she appeared in person.
Had to go into the pit… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
She made demands, gave us absurd and demeaning challenges. Like a dictator, she barked out commands, telling us what to do as she timed us, and then punished us for not completing our tasks within the time limitations she had set. At one point, she told us all to take a shit, right at the table. We were only given so much time and so much toilet paper. I failed this test. I fumbled with the paper, and by the time the few seconds she’d given us had passed I was in deep doo-doo, so to speak. From then on I had to walk around with shit in my pants.
After the table scene ended we had to hike through some fields. It was dark. We were heading to a big bonfire. We were commanded to bring our most valuable possessions with us, packed in small glass jars and wooden boxes. I told Chuck that if she instructed us to “go into the woods,” that I wasn’t going. I was adamant about that, a clear reference to my abuse. “Oh yeah,” Chuck said, and I could hear him trying to figure out a way to tell this little tyrant woman that I would not go into the woods and be humiliated, that I was done with that. We knew she was unapproachable, that she wouldn’t care and that no excuses would be accepted. It didn’t matter what you had been through in your past, she was not going to let anyone off the hook. Feeling sorry for anyone was not allowed. It was expected that every experience would be confronted if she deemed it necessary. She demanded that we erase all personal attachment and self-importance, and humiliation was as good a means of getting us there as any.
We finally got to the site of the bonfire. The little woman told us all to throw our most valuable belongings into the fire. “Do you think it’s a good idea to throw glass jars into a hot fire?” I asked Chuck, but it didn’t matter. “Just do it!” the woman screamed. We all tossed our things onto the fire and stood around watching them burn. I woke up as she came over to me, looked me straight in the eye, and then turned her back and walked away. “Fuck you,” I thought.
Upon awakening, it didn’t take me long to see this dream as confrontations with habits, with the mindless things we do and how they control us. Obviously, it’s also about self-importance. The little woman was me, a part of me that sets me up to do as I have always done, keeping me a prisoner of my own doings, as I clearly felt like a prisoner in the dream. And if you were there, you were a prisoner too. “Had to go down to the pit,” as Leonard Cohen writes, had to sit in my own shit.
It’s true!!! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
We all have a little petty tyrant inside of us, someone who humiliates us and whom we hate. We feel trapped and helpless. It could be related to anything: to constant worry or fear, to overspending or over-consuming, to being too hard or too easy on ourselves or lazy and undisciplined. It could be attached to being angry all the time or sad all the time, full of self-righteousness or self-pity, things that really get us nowhere.
Our personal petty tyrant knows us so well. She knows how to slip in and take over, how to humiliate us and make us face our shit. In my dream, the tiny woman pushed us all to be something we hated and “no one at all.” In the burning of what was most precious, she forced us to let go of everything, of both our shame and our self-importance. I was nothing more than a woman walking around with shit in my pants, my possessions gone. Had to go into the fire and let it all burn.
In this dream, my petty tyrant, whom I so viscerally hated, became my guide, and so I have to love her. She is the knowing part of myself, leading me to the naked truth that I am nothing at all, and only in that place of naked truth can I love myself. As Leonard Cohen learned: Had to go crazy to love you! In recapitulation, we discover that going into the pit means accepting everything about ourselves; even the shit in our pants must not be attached to. Even the implication of my abuse must not be more important than anything, than nothing. “Don’t get attached to anything, Jan,” this tiny petty tyrant self is saying in this dream.
Getting to the beauty in all parts of the self… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Everything is of the same value and everything has no value. There is no point in shame or anger, in self-pity or specialness. The only thing that really has value is pushing the self every day to keep going—just as this tiny woman dictator did—to keep confronting the self, to keep shedding attachments to what we think we need and want. In the end, although I said “Fuck You,” I was really thanking her for helping me face myself, for emptying out. Because by the end of the dream that was what I felt, empty, light, bereft, as if something had died, but bereft in a good and cleansing way. It was as if I had finally let something go that had been bothering me for a long time, and I know that it was my own attachment to feeling that I had to be perfect all the time. How absurd!
I hope this makes sense. Our struggle is to really let go of self-importance by facing our most private and intimate self, and fully accepting that we are all really nothing at all. I find such release in knowing that I am nothing. I’m able to relax into who I truly am, offered the freedom to live without fear and without the need to always get it right. For it’s in our failures that we learn, it’s in facing our shit that we evolve.
Going on, shamelessly facing myself, living in the moment, without attachment. Thanks for reading!
In all humility,
Jan
Many thanks to Leonard Cohen for a lifetime of beautiful work!
And without self-importance—because I really do reveal my most intimate self in my books—here’s a shameless plug for my new book. It’s really a good read! The book icon in the left sidebar leads directly to Amazon. I’m working on getting the Kindle edition linked to the main book page, so you should find it there shortly.
