Tag Archives: spirit & matter

Chuck’s Place: Replenish The Body With New Thought

Try on some new thoughts…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Thoughts issue from the mental or spiritual plane of our being. Our mind, or spirit, is located in our energy body, or soul, and is intimately connected to, and oversees, all the operations of the physical body. Thoughts have an energetic momentum that profoundly influences our physical body.

 Our ego mind, though actually of spirit origin, is so deeply identified with the material world, that it simply cannot believe in the primacy of spirit behind physical life. To entertain this spiritual perspective, as suggested in this blog, suspend temporarily the judgment of the material mind view and open to an insinuation of spirit from your higher mind.

The world is so reflecting to us at this time how rapidly changing thoughts are dismantling and reshaping our material reality. Long held medical, environmental and economic beliefs and truisms are being eliminated with the stroke of a pen. This is a grand scale example of how the force of a spirit, as exercised through thoughts, is reshaping our material world.

The big question is how the material world will carry and sustain the demands of these radically demanding thoughts. As individuals we are equally challenged to contend with the impact of our own thoughts upon our physical bodies.

 Spirits choose to enter an earthly life to test out their thoughts in a material playing field. Choice of family and physical circumstance provide the materials to mold a physical life to embody the thoughts it seeks deeply to explore through a human life. Our physical lives are thus our spirit’s laboratory for discovery and growth. Spirits may actually need a physical life to advance in their more subtle dimensions of existence.

For a spirit who lacks the experience of emotional attachment and the maturation and refinement of love needed to advance on its spiritual plane of existence, an earthly life in time, space and the dense energy of physical relationships can provide all the necessary materials for advancement.

As a spirit works its way through the developmental stages to mature love in physical form, it will materialize or attract to it a plethora of relationship experiences to refine its experience of love and relationship  from its crudest to its most sublime form. This subtle energetic achievement of refined love will allow it to deepen its spiritual horizons in infinity.   

Of course the truth is that we need spirit to advance our life in physical form as well. Spirit, or the mind, generates the thoughts whose substance builds the body. Yes, we build muscle and physical skill through physical exercise and repetition, but we equally generate those physical results through their repetition in the imagination. This is the action of suggestion from the conscious to the subconscious mind. It is the subconscious mind that materializes spirit intent.

Not only are our bodies shaped by our own thoughts but also by the thoughts of others who are attracted to our thoughts and moods. If we are burdened with our own negative thoughts and absorb the negative thoughts of others, our bodies, the physical representatives of those thoughts, will reflect the weight of those burdens upon our slumped shoulders and the sad, depressed feelings impressed upon our wrinkled brows.

In order to replenish our bodies we must allow for new thoughts to saturate our minds. May these new thoughts be for the greater good of self and other. Like attracts like. When we bathe in positive, loving thought, we magnetize our energy to draw to us people, circumstances and outside thoughts that reflect our state of mind. This also has the effect of detaching us from others whom we may have attracted from our prior negativity. Thoughts, people and spirit entities drop away when they find no sustenance in our current positive thinking.

Of course, we must contend with the ruts of old thoughts that have been habitually stored in the automatic functioning of the subconscious mind. These habits are the triggers associated with old thoughts. The good news is that the subconscious is always open to suggestions in the form of spirited new thoughts.

However, before the subconscious abandons an old directive it will test your resolve and patience through seeing your reaction to old triggers. Don’t get caught. Prove your sincerity. Firmly tell the old thought to get lost, but most importantly, emphatically and often, state the new thought. And then, with unswerving faith in the power of one’s new thought, calmly follow its yellow brick road to completion.

Try this one: My body reflects my spirit. My spirit is completely healthy, wealthy and wise. My deepest spiritual desires are realized in human form. Everything is possible.

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: It is Change In Desire, Not New Rules, That Cures

The Spiritualization of Desire…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

Stop having to stop anything. We get hooked on this materialist imperative for the obvious reason that our senses provide a constant barrage of physical impressions that dominate our attention and mental consideration. We are led to believe that if we are to improve our lot we must change something physically.

In this scenario, our spirit, in its ego form, takes charge and insists upon a new schedule of defined behaviors that will advance it toward its goal. Inevitably there is habitual resistance toward this stated intent, but ego basks in the power of its determination as it pushes through.

The shadow of resistance might lie dormant as ego flexes its muscle, but inevitably there is a coup that overthrows the best of ego intentions. Ego intent is no match for desire. The fire of desire will reign supreme until the fuel that feeds it runs out. That fuel is the spirit of the lower mind that is identified with the denser energy of the physical body, as well as all things physical. Its battle cry is, generally, “More!”

It may be that we want desperately to truly change a behavior and, in fact, must to stay healthy. But in order to achieve this in a sustained way, the change must come at the level of spirit, not from efforts directed at the physical plane, which ultimately terminate in defeat.

The needed change is the refinement of the spirit of desire that issues from the lower self of the physical body and ultimately rises to the higher Spirit self that resides, in the transparency of truth, at the immortal dimension of our being. We experience that elevated dimension from the truth of our heart, the clarity of our intuition, and in our partnership with the divinity of all that is through the portal of our subconscious mind.

To avail itself of the power of this divine relationship, ego does well to focus its attention on suggestions to its subconscious mind, rather than focus on new rules for physical behavior. In this scenario, an influx of spirit energy from a higher plane of self is released to effect a greater spiritualization, at the coarser plane of the physical body.

Specifically, the ego could ask the subconscious mind to lift its desire for a particular behavior, and transform its energy into a changed expression for the greater good of self and other. How might such a transformation feel?

Say, for example one was dealing with a sexual addiction. Under the compulsion of such desire, one spends most of one’s day trying to secure objects to serve as a release for this desire. These casual hookups have no connection except the mutual desire for sexual release. Sexual desire at this level is at its coarsest—physical contact for physical release.

If one were to strongly and consistently demand that the subconscious engage its energies to lift this compulsion, the first effect might be the experience of a reduced actual desire, or physical neutrality, at exposure to a possible object for release. What one then confronts is more the old habit of thought of desire, but not actually the compulsion itself.

In this scenario, the ego is charged to make the choice to accept this gift of grace, and not purposely try to activate the desire for habit’s sake. The ego is asked to be the adult that has been provided with grace by its Higher Self and choose to stay in the peace of this actual moment. This is not a new rule, it’s simply being where you actually are in that moment. Ancient habits may require many rounds in this choiceful cycle.

The actual spiritual lifting of this coarser sexual desire might ultimately refine it into the experience of true loving connection and cherished sexual union in a committed partnership, with a true soulmate, versus mere release with an indiscriminate playmate.

Obviously, these transformative stages are relevant to the refinement of all compulsive desires. These might include food, wardrobe, substances, perfection, negativity, the getting of attention, rage, self-importance—the list is endless. Life in human form is life in the refinement of spirit, from the coarser to the finer, the ticket for spiritual adventure and advance.

The technology for this advancement rests in spirit relationship. This includes spirit at the physical level, spirit at the mental level of the ego, and spirit at the level of the divine in the relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds.

Forget approaching change with a new set of rules for the body. Get instead to the spiritual heart of the matter. With love and demand, ask and you shall receive. Be receptive to grace as it arrives as it will, every day, in some way.

An equanimity mantra from Jan, said slowly, with emphasis on “I am”:

I am at peace.
I am at peace.
Within and without,
I am at peace.

An equanimity mantra from Chuck:

Everything is Meditation.

Only the best,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: The Essence of Attraction

Like attracts like…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The energy of attraction is magnetism. Our subtle states of mental and emotional desire generate a magnetic charge that draws toward it like energy that both reflects and interacts with it. If one is in a joyful state of positive radiance, its impact is infectious. Even the most somber person will experience the activation of its radiant joy within themselves.

When we think of magnetism we generally think of the attraction of opposites, not like poles, as expressed in the principle that opposites attract. To understand the true essence of magnetic attraction, we must look to the primary relationship between the supposed opposites of Spirit and Matter itself.

Spirit, for instance, is a substanceless essence that produces subtle blueprints that draw matter to them, to give them material expression in physical form. In the beginning was the word, and the word drew to it the matter that organized into flesh, according to its design.

Thus, though Spirit and Matter appear as opposites, their attraction is actually one of joining their different states of sameness. Matter without Spirit is void of form. Spirit without Matter is void of expression. Creative expression is the mirror of Spirit as Matter and Matter as Spirit, permutations of states of sameness.

Life itself is an evolutionary process. Life in human form hastens evolution because Spirit, as expressed in incarnate, material form, has a beginning and an end. Evolutionary changes are dramatically, physically expressed through the course of a lifetime, from infancy to old age. Discarnate Spirits lack a material playing field for their discovery process. Spirit form does have its material limitations!

Spirits in discarnate form are empathically drawn to the physically alive to act as both teachers and guides. We attract the spirit guides and teachers that match our energetic essence. Thus, in my work, I might attract the guidance of a Carl Jung or Carlos Castaneda, as I explore and practice their teachings, to clarify and deepen the depth of my own understanding.

In exchange, my research and experience in physical form constitutes a physical playing field, an actual physical laboratory, for resonant Spirits outside of human form to deepen their own knowledge in areas of their own interest, as well as karmic challenge.

As well, I might attract a trickster entity interested in vicariously living and encouraging my many vices. Thus, we can’t blame entities for our troubles, they merely piggyback on our own growth process, slow as it may be, to bathe in and resolve their own issues, latent karma from their own sojourns in human form.

Indeed, our guides and teachers contribute greatly to our potential spiritual advancement as they share their wisdom from a higher, more refined subtle plane. Of course, free will is the essential factor in spiritual advancement. We can only advance ourselves spiritually through our choices, whether in discarnate or incarnate form.

If I choose to live in my vices, the trickster entities I attract are actually reflecting to me the intent I am manifesting, which I might not even be aware of. The shadow of the personality houses many desires that our consciousness may be blind to.

Rather than project blame toward others in our lives, we might do well to discover how we have magnetically drawn them to materially reflect our hidden—especially from ourselves, though generally not from others—motivations.

The subtle energy connection points of the human body, called chakras, rise from the base of the spine to the crown of the head in ascending spiritual subtlety. While the base chakra is concerned with physical groundedness, security and safety, essentially the core needs of the human animal, the crown chakra is the opening to one’s highest spiritual essence.

As we focus on different chakras, according to our spiritual and material unfolding and realization through life, we send out energetic signals of attraction that bring forth guides, teachers, and companions, in both incarnate and discarnate forms.

May we appreciate the guidance they provide, as well as the service our lives offer in exchange, as we all advance through this particular journey of infinite discovery.

Indeed, the ultimate spiritualized essence of attraction is love, total love for all. May the force of your attraction bring deep fulfillment.

And may the force of attraction issue from the most refined love in all of us,

Chuck    

Soulbyte for Thursday April 8, 2021

Keep your feet on the ground, even as you seek connection with your spirit. For you will find your spirit as much in this world as any other, for that spirit reverberates with all the energies of Mother Earth, in her air and sunlight, in her trees and wind, in her stars and waters. For like the spirit of Mother Earth your own spirit resonates within and without.  Being grounded means being of the world of Mother Earth as well as of the world of Spirit, matter and ether both. In this manner find your place in the life you are in and rejoice in the simplicity of that—life itself!

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne