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Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Alzheimer’s & The Journey Of The Soul

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Who knows what we will encounter as we take our first steps into the bardos... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Who knows what we will encounter as we take our first steps into the bardos…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The rational sensibility of the modern world observes the deterioration of the brain with Alzheimer’s disease and questions the validity of the soul. In effect, it asks the question, “What is left to ascend after death, when clearly there appears to be a total dismantling of the personality as the disease progresses?”

All religious systems, nonetheless, propose that a soul, an ethereal essence, separates from the body and continues to live after death. Hindu scientists have an elaborate understanding of the composition of that soul, or what they have termed the astral body. According to their findings, our abilities to think and feel originate in the astral body. The astral body, or soul, is intimately connected with the physical body; feelings are experienced in physical sensations and mental processes are connected with the brain. These two bodies, physical and astral, are inseparable except in dreaming, shamanic journeying, and in severe trauma, when the astral body—though still attached to the physical body—separates and goes off on its own journey.

Shamans utilize dreaming and journeying to explore life beyond the body, as they prepare for life after death, for the moment when the astral body completely separates from the physical body.

The Tibetan Buddhists, as outlined in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, have identified several bardos, or in-between worlds, that all humans encounter shortly after death. In the bardos we are all confronted with unresolved issues from our lives. Our ability to resolve, or not attach to these issues in the bardo states allows us to progress deeper into our soul’s unfolding journey in infinity. However, this cosmic recapitulation process in the bardos may require many lifetimes before we achieve true freedom. Alzheimer’s, as I see it, is the beginning of that cosmic bardo adventure, begun while still living in the human body, offering the opportunity to engage in recapitulation.

With the deterioration of the brain during Alzheimer’s, the astral body is freed to enter the bardos and deal with deep issues, as it is freed of engagement in the affairs of daily life. Deterioration of personality in this world in no way reflects loss of self, it simply reflects a breakdown of cognitive functioning connected to the physical body.

Things may clarify the deeper we go... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Things may clarify the deeper we go…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The mental and emotional self is fully present in its astral travels and is deeply engaged in working through karmic issues with souls from other lives, as well as those who have already crossed over, whom one was associated with in this life. Alzheimer’s offers an individual an extended opportunity, while still in human form, to resolve issues of many lives, with the added benefit of possibly breezing through the bardos after real death, moving quickly into higher spiritual realms. What appears in physical form as a difficult to manage and heartbreaking pathological disease, in spiritual form is actually an opportunity for great healing and advancement.

Relatives of Alzheimer’s patients are often treated to stories of these adventures in the bardos when the Alzheimer’s traveler is in lucid moments. He or she may speak of adventures with relatives and other beings in the astral realm. And, yes, some of those encounters with entities in the bardos realm can be quite terrifying, as patients might report their terror at feeling robbed or attacked, or having met evil or monstrous beings.

Nonetheless, if we can value their experiences as coming from layers of reality that we are unable to witness, rather than simply dismissing them as hallucinations, we might be granted glimpses of life beyond life. Not only are we offered valuable insight into what we will all one day encounter as we enter the bardos ourselves, but we are able to support our loved ones as they deepen their soul’s journey in infinity, preparing for their final launching.

Is Alzheimer's seeding new life? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Is Alzheimer’s seeding new life?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Looking at Alzheimer’s from a different perspective,
Chuck

I wish to thank Elmer Green, PhD, brain researcher and pioneer of biofeedback, for his insight into Alzheimer’s as he took the journey with his wife, Alyce, learning what she was encountering on her trips into the bardos. You can hear him talk about it here: The Ozawkie Book of the Dead He mentions his findings about Alzheimer’s within the first few minutes and goes into it in greater detail throughout the recording. It’s well worth listening to!

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Where Is Our Soul?

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What are we seeking that is not right where we already are?
What are we seeking that is not right where we already are?

The eminent American psychologist and Jungian analyst, James Hillman, once remarked that all countries have ancient roots and ancestral teachings that define the soul of all the people who inhabit that country. Though we Americans may search the world for our gurus, going to ancient lands in the East to find, connect, and reacquaint ourselves with our soul, he suggests, that our true soul lies right here, in the ancient practices and teachings of the Native American Indians. This land that is America holds within it everything we are searching for. Our soul is here, waiting for us to discover it.

As a child growing up, whenever I’d ask my mother what our ancestry was, she’d bluntly state: We’re American. I knew that I was part Swiss because I knew the story of my paternal grandmother, how she came to America from Switzerland as a child of seven with her mother, in search of her father who had deserted the family. He’d gone off to America to make his way, promising to send for the rest of them, which he never did. My great-grandmother set off to find him, taking my grandmother, her youngest child, with her. Though my grandmother tended to embellish her life story as time went on, the story of her early entry through Ellis Island and her uncle’s boarding house on East 22nd street in Manhattan, where she grew up and that her mother took over running, never changed.

It was not until I was much older that I learned that I also had English, Irish, and Welsh blood in me. Some of my ancestors had come to America even before the Mayflower arrived; their blood, sweat and tears are part of this land. My immediate family, however, had no rich cultural traditions, no ethnic attachments.

In the 1970s I lived in Sweden, having moved there when I fell in love and married my first husband. Upon that land I became Swedish, learned to speak like a native, embraced the culture and traditions, learned to eat herring, salmon, potatoes, sour cream and dill, learned what good bread and cheese was, learned to drink aquavit, and supped on tea and open-faced sandwiches every evening.

I so completely embraced the culture that I felt more Swedish than I had ever felt American. When the Swedes would ask me what traditions we had back home, I’d feel lost, homeless, disconnected. I could think of nothing, no special foods or traditions, for none had ever been part of my life.

A memory from Sweden.
A memory from Sweden.

While I was also living there I met a guy who ran a record shop in Stockholm; he’d landed there as a Vietnam war deserter. He had the largest collection of Swedish traditional music in the city. He always bemoaned the fact that all the young people came in asking for American records when they had a rich musical heritage of their own; fantastic stuff that he blared out into the street, songs of love and loss, of sailing adventures and longing for home, for the cool air, the rocky shores and calm waters of the archipelagoes of Sweden. The musical riches are all at their feet, he’d say. I took this to heart and fell in love with many a Swedish troubadour, poets of song that sang to my own soul’s longing for a true home port.

Eventually, I left Sweden and the rich culture I had embedded myself in so thoroughly. I returned home, back to America, back to searching for my own home, my own sense of belonging. The funny thing is that my favorite books, books on Native American Traditions, had accompanied me to Sweden, the myths of the Indians, long before the white man ever set foot on the land that belonged to everyone and to no one. I read them while living there, searching for what I knew not, but I had always been drawn to their myths and teachings.

In one of those books, Rolling Thunder, the author Doug Boyd, back from his own sojourns to India, writes of sitting with Rolling Thunder, a medicine man and spiritual leader. It’s the early 1970s. “A lot of things are on this land that don’t belong here,” says Rolling Thunder. “They’re foreign objects like viruses or germs. … A lot of the things that are going to happen in the future will really be the earth’s attempt to throw off some of these sicknesses. This is really going to be like fever or like vomiting, what you might call physiological adjustment.”

“It’s very important for people to realize this. The earth is a living organism, the body of a higher individual who has a will and wants to be well, who is at times less healthy or more healthy, physically and mentally. People should treat their own bodies with respect. It’s the same thing with the earth. Too many people don’t know that when they harm the earth they harm themselves, nor do they realize that when they harm themselves they harm the earth. Some of these people interested in ecology want to protect the earth, and yet they will cram anything into their mouths just for tripping or for freaking out—even using some of our sacred agents. Some of these things I call helpers, and they are very good if they are taken very, very seriously, but they have to be used in the right way; otherwise they’ll be useless and harmful, and most people don’t know about these things. All these things have to be understood.”

“It’s not very easy for you people to understand these things because understanding is not knowing the kind of facts that your books and teachers talk about. I can tell you that understanding begins with love and respect. It begins with respect for the Great Spirit, and the Great Spirit is the life that is in all things—all the creatures and the plants and even the rocks and the minerals. All things—and I mean all things—have their own will and their own way and their own purpose; this is what is to be respected.”

“Such respect is not a feeling or an attitude only. It’s a way of life. Such respect means that we never stop realizing and never neglect to carry out our obligations to ourselves and our environment.”

As I reread those words of Rolling Thunder, so many years after my own sojourns to other lands, I realize that to access the wealth of knowledge of the ancients of our own country, of the Native American Indians, we must take full responsibility for living here. We must learn the first lesson of any novice, to love and respect the teacher, the earth we live upon. We must be mindful of and questioning of every action we take. Am I being respectful and loving toward this land I live upon, toward the earth, toward the Great Spirit—which is all life in all living things—and toward myself?

Am I a good, loving and respectful steward of this land? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Am I a good, loving and respectful steward of this land?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Whether we are of Native American ancestry or not, we live here now. Just as I became a Swede when I lived there, embracing it with love and respect, so is it our responsibility to treat all living things in our own country with love and respect, as we too wish to be treated. As we seek our path of heart, we must remember this.

Our soul is here. In everything we do, we must give back to the soul of the land we live upon. If we are to heal, we must also heal the land.

Respectfully, from our shared home port,
Jan

Excerpts from Rolling Thunder by Doug Boyd, pp. 51-2

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Waiting For Springtime

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The jay has waited its turn... Photo by Jan Ketchel
The jay has waited its turn… Photo by Jan Ketchel

I love this time of year, the end of winter, the first signs of spring. The birds are fast returning. We have bluebirds checking out the nesting boxes. The geese have been flying south, their travels etched across the sky in long arching Vs. We’ve noticed that the vultures are back too. Where they go during the coldest months I have no idea, but they are noticeably absent in the dead of winter. The daffodils are poking through the ground. The first chickweed is growing close to the house where we get the most sun. The deer that have overnighted in the woods at the back of the house all winter have moved on. We’ve sighted our neighborhood foxes, ready to start the mating process again. We expect to soon see baby foxes playing about as we do every year. And we’ve smelled skunk, a sure sign of spring!

In the dead of winter I began laying out bread crumbs for the birds, only occasionally. I didn’t want to start a new habit after spending so much time breaking myself of the old habits of a lifetime. I noticed that the crows were always the first to arrive. They’d take what they wanted and then the jays would arrive for second pickings. After that, the brave little juncos came and so on down the line. After about an hour there was generally nothing left.

I started to hear the crows calling at about 6:30 every morning, sometimes earlier. “Where’s our bread, Jan!” they seemed to be saying. “We’re hungry!” And so a little guilt crept in; now I felt I had to feed them. I knew our yard was only one stop on their daily rounds through the neighborhood, but I saw that they liked punctuality and that they actually depended on the meagre crumbs I put out. It was exactly what I was trying to avoid—being predictable. But these sentinels of nature, ever watchful, would not let me be so aimless and irresponsible. And so they call me out each morning, very loudly commanding that I contribute to their welfare, that I meet their demands.

We don’t actually eat much bread, so on days when none is available I scrounge through the fridge and pantry looking for something that might appeal. I refuse to buy commercial birdseed, with its chemicals and corporate intent. I believe in recycling. The other day I put out some sweet potato fries. “Thumbs up!” the birds said. “YUM!” Then I put out some stale tortilla chips. “Thumbs down. YUCK!” they said, and the pile of yellow corn chips lies there still. I’m sure that the Jehovah’s Witness who stopped by the other day and stuck a flyer in the door wondered just what that pile of chips—organic too—was doing there!

My observations of nature during winter lead me to write this blog today. I’ve noticed how beneath the snow there is vibrant life, energy gathering for the moment of emergence. When the time is right, the tulips and daffodils poke through the frozen ground, the wild onions pop up, and the first wild garlic-mustard turns toward the morning light. I was thrilled the other day to see just these signs of life as the snow finally melted in our yard. It got me to thinking about us, how the human condition is much like nature.

We too have something struggling to emerge.... Photo by Jan Ketchel
We too have something struggling to emerge…. Photo by Jan Ketchel

We too have lots of things inside us struggling to emerge, secrets waiting to reveal themselves, beauty waiting to blossom, desires waiting to be lived, repressed memories waiting for the right moment to be known. We too hold back until the time is right. Can I dare to be the person I truly am? Must I wait another season before I finally give myself permission to do this or that? How long can I hold back that which is stirring inside me?

Nature doesn’t think. Nature acts. Nature doesn’t hold back. Nature is in constant flux and change. Nature is constantly transforming even when we think it’s dead, in the dead of winter, frozen and covered in snow. So is our physical body like nature, constantly changing and transforming. Our cells slough off and regrow, our organs totally regenerate every few years, some quicker than that. We aren’t even aware of how like nature our bodies are. Without thought we are like the seasons.

There’s another part of us that lies inside the physical body, our spirit, and even deeper than that lies our soul. Inside this vehicle we call our body these two parts of who we truly are, our ancient reincarnated selves, lie waiting. More deeply hidden from our awareness than even the mysterious workings of our physical bodies, these parts go along with us as we face the world each day and go about our lives. But these are the parts of us that are like the crows calling, asking us to attend to them, urging us to become predictable and reliable sources of nurturance. “Wake up and feed us!” they say. These are the parts that lie below the frozen surface and wait for the warmth of spring. These are the parts that when we are ready will pop up and take us forward on new journeys of transformation and change, in both our inner and our outer world.

In recapitulation, these are the parts that emerge alongside our memories. These are the parts that lead us down the paths of memory and retrieval of self. These are the parts that teach us that we are all the same, that we are all beings of love and compassion. These are the parts that at some point in our spiritual evolution must become the most important aspects of being human. When we are ready we will know them more fully. When we are ready our own springtime will arrive. Until then, I suggest tossing a few morsels of sustenance, a few hellos, a few nods of recognition. “I know you’re there, I’ll be back someday soon.”

It’s okay to wait, but be aware that until the time is right for these parts to emerge and inform us of what we must learn about ourselves, preparations are underway. We may already have received many knocks at the door, asking us to venture deeper into our physical bodies and discover what’s there. We may have already been invited deep inside, gone down to our roots. We may have already gotten to our core issues and our core reasons for living this life we live now. We may have already done a recapitulation or be in the midst of doing it.

The real key to being human is that we are not really like nature at all. We have the ability to think, to reason, and to explore our inner world. We have parts inside us asking us to work with them, to make something happen that will transform us. We have free will, the freedom to learn how to enact our own transformation so we can be different, so we can live our lives in a new unpredictable way, yet fully in alignment with our true spirit and soul nature.

The crows of recapitulation will come calling... Photo by Jan Ketchel
The crows of recapitulation will come calling… Photo by Jan Ketchel

And so, even if it may appear to be quite impossible that we could ever change our circumstances, we really do have the ability to choose how we want to live. We can choose to live as if it were springtime all the time. In fact, I believe this is what our spirit and our soul ask of us, to always be connected to them, to know them in the deepest way.

They ask us to not forget that they are what make us who we are, make us human, for they are the energy behind our human physical body. They ask us to be aware when the snows come, to be ready to thaw the ground and let our flowers blossom in spite of it. They are like the crows calling us to responsible tenure, to attend to these most important aspects of our human condition. It is here, in our spirit and soul selves being allowed to live, that we will truly evolve.

We will know when the time is right to answer the knocks on the door, either in this lifetime or another, but eventually we will all have to answer. We will all have to feed the crows of recapitulation, the spirit connectors that come asking us if we are ready yet.

Today the crows got bread! And my spirit and soul? They got to express themselves in this blog.

From the heart and soul of me, I wish you well,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: A Little Bit of Magic

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Spirit knocks at the door. What do we do? Answer it! Where will it take us this time? Who knows, but can we allow ourselves to go? Can we hold onto our awareness and go, with fluidity? Can we accept that we really have no choice in the matter and find the beauty and the magic in every journey our spirit invites us to take? These are the questions that come up often in life. If we are aware of spirit and ready to take a different kind of journey, ready to accept a different viewpoint, we may just find that the door we open is indeed a magical door.

Facing the darkness

During my recapitulation I was constantly confronted with knocks from my spirit inviting me into the depths of my own soul. Did I really want to face what loomed up out of the darkness every time I heard those knocks? For a long time I didn’t. I ran away as fast as I could, the darkness and the shadowy scenes that popped up too frightening to contemplate. Eventually my spirit told me, in more ways than one, that it was dying, that it just didn’t want to do life the way I’d been doing it for almost fifty years. That was when I knew it was time to face the darkness.

As I tentatively took my first peek through that door into the depths of my soul, my first discovery was that the darkness, and everything else that had bothered me throughout my life, was actually inside me. I understood that, until I faced it, I would continue to bear the burden of it and all the stuff that was naturally piling on top of it. I saw that I was carrying a tremendous, depressingly heavy load. So, when the darkness called again, I didn’t run. This time I knew that if I didn’t face it I would die under the weight of it, and I wasn’t really ready to call it quits. I knew, as I’d always known, from the time I was a young girl, that I had to do something important with my life. I just could never get a handle on what that was.

I made the decision to face the darkness, circumstances leading me to the inevitable necessity of finding out what was wrong with me and what was wrong with my spirit. Once I set that intent, the universe took up my cause and one day I found myself sitting across from Chuck Ketchel. And that was the beginning of taking the next step into the darkness. He taught me how to face the darkness. He introduced me to the shaman’s world. He taught me magical passes, and a new perspective from which to view my life and all life, from a magical perspective.

The first little bit of magic that Chuck handed me was very simple. He said: “You’re on a spiritual journey.”

At first I wanted to spit it right back at him: “Yeah, I’m on a hell of a journey!” But something made me pause and in that pause I dropped into the depths of my soul and I knew he was right. That was enough to keep me on the path that I knew lay ahead of me, dark as it was and impossible to see.

Next he said: “You’re going back to find out what you missed the first time around. What are you supposed to find out about your child self?“

In constantly revisiting my child self I learned how fierce she was, a warrior without even being aware of it. She not only survived years of sexual abuse, but she transcended it again and again. As I recapitulated, I was constantly reminded that I had once been a magical being. The challenge then became to find the means to accept this fact, for my adult self, but mostly for my child self, to allow her full integration into my life, magic in its rightful place, inside me; now replacing the darkness that had once loomed so frighteningly.

We are all magical beings!

With this shamanic, magical perspective as my anchor, I traveled back in time and met my child self and relived her journey over and over again, in great detail. As I took that journey I gained knowledge of the shamans world, of reality as illusion, of everything as meaningful, of everything as leading to awareness. A little bit of magic in the beginning was enough to cut through the darkness and give a little bit of light and hope, enough to traverse the darkness in its entirety. Eventually, I learned that I was nothing special, that everyone is equally magical. And that too was a magical lesson.

It was hard work. Facing the darkness inside the self is perhaps the most challenging and frightening encounter we can undertake. But, in truth, it is where the outer world and the people we encounter, where our relationships and everything else is reflected. It’s where all our challenges really lie.

The inner world may appear as darkness to the uninitiated, but I found out that every time I poked my head up out of the darkness I was totally amazed at where I had been and what I had experienced. I knew then that I had to keep diving into the deepest, darkest self in order to evolve, to change myself and the direction of my life. My spirit showed me exactly where to begin.

We are all magical beings. Sometimes our journeys present us with our magic early in life, and then we must go and retrieve it from the past. Reuniting with the lost self is a magical journey. As tough as it is, it leads only to more moments of magic, if we let ourselves open up to the possibility that magic is indeed meant to be part of life. And yes, I still have my inner darkness—that never goes away—but now, with a little bit of magic in hand, I’m not afraid to venture there. I continue to challenge myself to dive in there and face what my spirit shows me I must still face. I find the inner process to be the most important, fascinating, and magical part of life.

I wish that all might find the magic within. It’s just waiting, the golden nugget inside that darkest hunk of coal. The next time spirit knocks, answer the door. Look into the darkness and contemplate it with the magical self. That too is there waiting within.

Sending a little bit of magic and love,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

#714 Chuck’s Place: Soul/Not Soul, Uh-Oh! Merging Dreams: Recapitulation

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I was in a conversation about the power of romance. It suddenly dawned on me that the topic that had been coagulating in me, that I expected to eventuate in this blog with the title Soul/Not Soul, Uh-Oh!, was exactly what we were discussing. What happens when our projected soul becomes not soul, when our mate or date disappoints us? I shared this synchronicity. That was Wednesday; today is Saturday. I am confronted with the question: is that title still appropriate, is that the topic today? Do I have to struggle to uphold that dream or has that dream ended?

In fact, that dream has deepened and so that dream merges into this dream as I write this blog today; I am still in the same dream. The rest of the title Merging Dreams: Recapitulation reflects my deepened perspective on soul play. Recapitulation, from another perspective is the ability to merge dreams, to achieve a place of continuity of consciousness where dreams, whether they be sleeping or waking, are all part of the same reality. The fragments of the self, whether they be long stored away, forgotten horror stories or challenging truths in a current relationship, are all allowed to be fully known as a united whole within the self.

It’s early morning, 40 degrees outside. We sit quietly in the hot tub. A subtle mist emerges as cold air meets warm water. I gaze through it as the morning sun gently peeks through the trees. The rays are refracted in a dazzling display of energy. I breathe it in and I am back on the gym floor at UCLA at a Tensegrity workshop, 1996. Lying on my mat, staring up at the lights, it’s the same energy I see, and I breathe it in. You see it too, lying next to me. I can fully hold onto that dream. The feelings I encounter having that dream can stay with me now, even though it is not you next to me now. I can live that dream, I can share that dream, I can live this dream, all together. No need to fragment, file it away, or shut it down. I merge the dreams and experience greater wholeness and continuity

We start to talk. I am animated. I am discussing Jung’s thoughts on anima/animus, soul image. You show great interest, I am energized. Suddenly, your attention is drawn way up in the sky. “Look!” you say. I am crushed. What could be more important than my words?! Suddenly, soul becomes not soul. Uh-Oh!

I am quiet. Slowly, begrudgingly, as instructed, I look up and witness two large birds flying overhead in perfect synchrony, an amazing sight in the clear blue sky. Can that experience be allowed into this dream? I am caught between two dreams. There is the dream of my projected soul, my anima, transfixed by my ideas. And then there is the dream where I am cast aside, birds more important than my words. Can I merge these dreams? Must I stay in the dream of rejection, withdrawing, brooding, and distrusting? Or can I allow the dream of an overarching magnificent display of nature to be a good reason to pause my words?

And actually, does there even need to be a good reason not to listen? Can I allow the truth of your separateness to be? Can I face the trap that my inner anima has snarled me in? She, my inner anima, caught me in a dream of self-importance, knowing full well the outcome of that dream. She knew you’d disappoint me. She challenges me to either retreat—brooding in deserved want for the all-giving, satisfying anima/mother who has no other purpose than me—or to wake up from my inflated dream and join reality with my real life partner.

“Aren’t you going to tell me the rest of the story?” she asks. I’m considering it. Am I ready to merge this dream? To fully merge these dreams they must be accepted and communicated to soul and to not soul. With this, dreams are merged, recapitulation completed, for this moment and this dream.

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

Until we meet again,
Chuck