Tag Archives: spirit

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

Psyche & Soma

Leave a comment

Psyche, in Greek, means soul or spirit, especially that part of the soul which manifests in the mind, in the conscious and unconscious parts of our wholeness. Soma refers to the body, especially to the nerve cells of the body. Psychosomatic is a combination of these two root words, meaning that which the spirit manifests in the body.

In my books, comprising the series called The Recapitulation Diaries, I write often about the incessant pain in my body. As real as the pain was, excruciating and debilitating at times, I discovered that it was really messages from my spirit, my psyche, directing me to what needed attention as I progressed on my journey. I discovered that during recapitulation what is manifesting in the body must be explored.

At first, I had almost every pain checked out by one doctor or another. I was doing this long before I even knew about recapitulation or began my journey of change and transformation. I’d go to a doctor and describe my pain, but there was never any diagnosis that those doctors could come up with to pinpoint what was causing the pain.

When I was in my early forties, I developed a skin cancer, a small red spot that turned out to be two types of cancer, basal cell and squamous cell. It’s unusual to have two types of cancer manifesting in the same area, the doctor who did the biopsy told me, but as soon as I had developed the red spot, and as soon as I was informed that it was cancer, I knew immediately that it had nothing to do with my exposure to the sun as a child, as was repeatedly questioned. I knew it had to do with what was festering inside me, that there was something much worse, that that little red dot was just the beginning of something far greater.

I knew, instinctively, that I had some dark thing inside me that I had been trying to forget my entire life. By the time I was forty, I had been pretty successful at forgetting, though I suffered in numerous physical, mental, and spiritual ways. That small red spot was just another indication that I might have to remember.

It was then that I acknowledged that my psyche was hiding something from me. It had protected me up until that point, but if I was to not get more skin cancer, or any other disease, I knew the time had come to face what it really meant. It took another five or six years before I finally took the leap, the leap into my own darkness and what lay there waiting for me to discover.

Pain is an indicator that the body has something to tell us. It might indeed be that we have a serious illness, or it might be that it is trying to protect us from that which we do not want to know. Pain can be a defense against that which is too painful to know.

As I recapitulated, I began to look at the pain in my body as a message from my spirit. I would ask it to show me what it knew, to guide me where to go next. I developed nerves of steel so I could face what my body had to tell me, what it knew and what it meant.

As I faced the pain and asked my body to be my guide, I also discovered that I always had the strength to face what it had to show me. I knew that it would not be asking me to face it if I was not ready. Whenever the pain showed up, and it showed up incessantly, relentlessly right to the very end of my recapitulation, I used it to heal.

That’s a strange idea, to imagine that our pain is actually our healing balm, but it’s true. Without my pain showing me what I needed to face I might not have freed my spirit and my body from the torment of years of abuse that had been so well-hidden inside me.

I often thanked my body and my unconscious for showing me what it knew, for revealing to me the truths not only of my own past but the truths of what the spirit and body are truly capable, how they inform and guide, how they really only want us to heal and discover the magical beings that we all are.

Even today, I still use my psyche and soma to guide me. I constantly question any pain I might have. Often, I realize, it is what I call “stuck energy,” a thought, idea, or attachment, a conjuring of the mind that I’ve latched onto that does not belong to me, stuck energy that needs to be moved along and out of my body, tension that when allowed to naturally release brings instantaneous relief.

Or it might be something that my psyche, my spirit wants me to be alert to, something that needs recapitulation. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons of recapitulation is that we are always being asked to grow and evolve, to confront our deepest issues and resolve them so we can move on into even greater freedom.

Our minds and our bodies, our psyche and soma, are amazing partners as we take our journeys through life, as we seek to know ourselves at the deepest of levels and as we seek to find the meaning in our lives.

I highly recommend any of the books by Dr. John Sarno, especially The Mind Body Prescription, as guides to understanding how psyche and soma work together to bring us to consciousness, to help us heal.

Our defenses are incredibly strong but our spirit is stronger. That is what we discover as we recapitulate.

I wish you all well on your journeys, and I send you love,

J. E. Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries

Jan's Blog, Recapitulation

Recapitulation: Movement is Crucial

Leave a comment
Just Breathe… anywhere, anytime…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

There are many phases of a recapitulation, especially a recapitulation of childhood, especially a recapitulation of a childhood of sexual or physical abuse with its many layers of psyche and soma.

Each layer needs its own separate recapitulation time. Memories are multifaceted and multidimensional, like the skins of an onion, layer upon layer of thin veils of information that must be addressed one at a time. This is one reason that a recapitulation can take a long time. But we can facilitate a recapitulation by consciously attending to each of those layers with intent and awareness, paying attention to where we need to go next by what comes to guide us.

Recapitulation is guided by spirit, that of our body and that of our high self. Dreams guide us too, and we should pay attention to where they take us; our spirit speaking to us in its own language of symbol, myth, and possibility, tapping into other dimensions of truth and fact that we may be missing during our waking life.

During my own recapitulation, I discovered how the many layers of memory came. First there were visual flashbacks. Then those flashbacks fused together into movie-like scenarios, with sounds, smells, feelings, in both physical body and emotional body. Eventually each of those separate somatic experiences required their own recapitulation, so that in the end my recapitulation became a many-layered experience, as each part of each experience took its own time to show me what it had to show me.

The body holds just as much memory, or possibly more than the mind. This is what I came to discover, that the body holds its own memories, separate and yet connected to the memories that come from the deep recesses of the mind, that which is stored in the memory centers of the brain.

These body memories appeared as stuck in my body, energy caught in various places, causing pain and discomfort, anxiety and tensions, and they often acted out real physical disabilities, such as unexplained limping, numbness, swelling, rashes, etc. Often, just the remembering and reliving of a memory did not fully release it from my physical body. Such memories remained deeply embedded in my muscles and sinews until I did something physical to urge them out of me.

I found running, walking, doing yoga, Magical Passes and breathing, Embodyment Therapy® and energy work by an energy worker helpful in releasing these memories from the sinews of the body. Massage, making love, with a partner or alone (yes, masturbation is an excellent means by which to release stuck energy); physical work, gardening, creative endeavors like painting, dancing, singing, playing music, even taking lots of soothing baths. Don’t force; do what comes naturally to you. Anything that stirs the body is helpful in addressing the deep needs of the body to release what it has stored alongside the mental memories.

If physical activity is limited, pain and incapacitation will continue. Mysterious symptoms that no doctor can explain will continue. Illnesses of no origin will continue. So, I urge all of my readers to get up off the couch, out of the bed, and onto the yoga mat. Do some exercises that appeal to you. Put on some running or walking shoes, ride a bike, do something you enjoy in order to get moving.

If physical movement is difficult, even just lots of deep breathing will begin to open the passageways to release what’s stuck; either the recapitulation breath or any other deep breathing technique will suffice. Or simply breathe consciously, with awareness, paying attention to the gentle and natural in-breath and out-breath that your body makes on its own. Breath is life; breath is healing.

Whatever you choose to do, begin slowly, proceed at a pace that you and your body can handle, but be persistent. Ask your body to show you what it needs; this is often the best way to start the physical release of recapitulation. Your body will respond and show you what it needs.

Both your psyche and your body will thank you for getting in touch at a new and deeper level. Your recapitulation will get unstuck, and you will be better prepared to handle what it reveals to you.

It will make you stronger in mind and body, psyche and soma. And your spirit will be overjoyed.

Wishing you well on your continued journey of recapitulation.

Sending you love and support,

Jan Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries

•Published simultaneously on The Recapitulation Diaries Facebook Page

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Repetition

Leave a comment

Repetition is a law of nature, but like the serpent we can shed our skin… and break away, renewed.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Human beings are receptors. Human beings are natural hypnotic subjects. Suggestions rule our lives. Suggestions are intents that, if we attach to them, become our destiny.

The optimal relationship with intent is consciousness, to be in command of what one intends.

Many suggestions have become independent entities, programs that we inherit that determine our biology. The modern exploration of transgender beings speaks to the deepest reality that even these programs may indeed be altered.

Many programs have proven useful to human evolution. Our bodily systems operate efficiently due to their automatic execution. We breathe automatically. We can consciously influence our breathing, but we don’t need consciousness to breathe.

Beneath consciousness is the subconscious. The subconscious is the receptive center of all human beings. The subconscious does not think, it obeys commands. Like the Earth itself, the subconscious receives the seeds of suggestion and manifests them into life.

Our lives are truly lives of trance; determined by the automatic programs we have inherited as well as by the internalized programs we have been socialized by. Religious systems embrace practices to optimize suggestions to the subconscious to orient it to the intent of Spirit.

The Jew, at all comings and goings, touches the Mezuzah to orient to God’s will. The Catholic dips the fingers in the holy water and makes the sign of the cross to invoke purification of one’s link to God, as well as his protection. The Moslem call to prayer is the call to orient toward God’s salvation. The Buddhist turns the prayer wheel to stay on point to one’s spiritual advancement in the release of karma.

The key to all these practices is repetitive action, to reinforce commands and suggestions to the subconscious, to stay oriented to the ultimate Spirit, in whatever form it is dressed. Religious traditions provide a bulwark against the power of instinct, which manifests inherited programs, as well as toward the power of ego, with its tendency toward narcissistic commands.

The spirit currently dominating our time is one of dissolution. The complete interruption to modern humanity’s way of life is profound. Both the ancient Hindus and Toltecs point to now as the completion of a long cycle of time. Completion requires breakdown in preparation for new life.

The I Ching, perhaps the greatest embodiment of the cycle of time, states that the power of the cycle to play itself out is nearly incontrovertible, however, there exists the very real possibility that history needn’t repeat itself. However, for this to happen, consciousness must assume full responsibility for its link to intent.

How can this happen? Repetition. Consciously, perseveringly, without begging or marketplace motive, state your intent. Think to your heart’s delight, but don’t try to reason your way to intent. Intend by intending, over and over again. Finally, have no attachment to the outcome. Attachment makes it a business arrangement. Keep your link to intent pure.

Shamans, like many religious traditions, encourage that one keep one’s intent oriented to one’s Spirit. Ultimate Spirit is love, the glue that adheres everything together in its wholeness. To align with that Spirit might indeed create the possibility for overcoming the usual course of human history, in this most extraordinary time of dissolution.

Incessantly intend, with consciousness, and see what happens!

INTENT!

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Tempering the Warrior’s Spirit

Leave a comment

The calmness you seek is all around you… and within you…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The intent of the warrior’s spirit is freedom. COVID-19 is a predatory virus that has taken control of the world, vastly limiting freedom. The human spirit is currently gathering steam to blow through the bottleneck of this quarantine retort.

This is a natural reaction of spirit, to push beyond all limitations. Some explorers push beyond the limits of the physical body to explore their spirit potential. Others stay focused on transcending all supposed boundaries and limitations imposed by the physical world.

The warriors of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage discovered that the most valuable practice to obtain freedom was not in great feats of power in this world, or in any other. Freedom can best be obtained through the tempering of spirit, they discovered, through encounters with a formidable tyrant, such as COVID-19.

The first lesson in such an encounter is to willingly accept COVID-19’s power to infect us all. Our human self-importance has been greatly checked, in respect to the deadly power of this smallest of microbes. Our entire world’s familiar way of life has had to be tabled, denying us the basics of human social interaction.

Losing self-importance enables us to more objectively see what we are up against. To be offended by the predator costs us cascades of emotional energy, spent to no avail. The predator thrives on our offense, both in terms of the emotional energy we deliver to it, and in the co-mingling we may engage in, in defiance of necessary limitation, whereby providing potential new hosts to the predator.

Humbling of the warrior spirit equips the warrior to face the unknown, without the veil of self-importance. Freed of prejudice, the scientist in all of us is on the road to solution. However, great detachment is required to not fall prey to the battle cry of unfairness. In a predatory universe, unfairness is a dominant of reality.

The battle with unfairness is formidable. It is our core human predicament. We are all saddled with the reality that we must attach to this world to survive, yet we must fully release it in death. Where is the fairness in these diametrically opposed demands?

The greatest obstacle to our freedom is the emotional energy the predator can drown us in. When we become emotionally activated by the limits imposed by the predator, we may become possessed by fear, sadness, and rage. The warrior, on the other hand, becomes attuned to the triggers of these emotions and, while not denying them, actively refuses to attach to them.

Fear is a natural reaction to perceived threat. Fear, however, is generally greatly augmented by attachment to thought and imagination. The practice of taking charge of the mind, specifically where it exercises its focus and attachment, can keep fear in modest proportion. Thus, a warrior does not let fear take over the mind.

Sadness is a legitimate emotion, however, a bottomless pit of sadness is inhuman. One caught in this place is likely channeling an entity, such as an archetype, that seeks expression through possession of a human life. To dis-identify with such an archetype is to maintain one’s humanness. Thus, a warrior refuses to relinquish personal power.

Rage is the extreme of anger, often sparked by being overwhelmed by feeling offended. Beyond the affront to self-importance, it’s natural to want to take an action, such as setting a boundary, or acting in self-defense during an objective attack. A warrior strives always to act as fits a situation, devoid of feeling offended.

The world’s encounter with COVID-19 offers all warriors on the path to freedom the opportunity to temper their spirits, in preparation for a successful journey into the unknown. The pitfalls of self-importance and emotional extremes are tempered, as clarity, sobriety, and practicality guide the warrior’s  journey instead.

Use this opportunity to go with the flow, and restore the magic of being a warrior in this wonderful world at this awesome time.

Tempering spirit,

Chuck

Soulbytes

Soulbyte for Tuesday April 21, 2020

Leave a comment

Guard your energy like a miser. Like someone with a secret, keep it to yourself as if it were all you owned, for indeed, it is all your spirit does have to offer. Keep it safe from harm. Protect it so that it may grow and enable you knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, so that you may gather enough of it to adventure beyond the body and discover what it can really do. Your spiritual energy is as real as you are, and yet it is more than you are. It is eternal.

Sending you love,

The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne