Tag Archives: Taoism

Chuck’s Place: Truckin’

When there are no blockages, all roads lead to the heart center…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

When I look out at the world, I see reflections of the human Body and Spirit. The Taoist guidance—as within, so without—guides my perspective.  Synchronicity, the meaningful co-occurrence of events, supports the parallel interpretation of world events and events within the individual.

Oceans, rivers, and roads are the Earth’s circulatory system. Vessels and trucks are the carriers of the world’s supplies, distributing, where needed, the nutrients and material building blocks for modern civilization. These are equivalent to the red blood cell truckers of the human circulatory system.

Recent truck blockades have interfered with the normal free flow of the world’s supply chain. What might this blockage reflect in the human body and psyche?

The adrenal glands are the body’s first and primary centers of response to real or perceived threats to survival. Typically, the hormone adrenalin is secreted by the adrenal glands to increase blood circulation to the muscles in order to respond to a perceived threat via flight, fight, or freeze.

This survival response, when maintained over time in a constant state of readiness and vigilance, creates an over-concentration of blood flow to the muscles, cutting off the supply of vital nutrients to other organs and cells in the body. This blockage in the supply chain can lead to vascular collapse as the roads to these other vital centers are blocked.

The human mind is intimately implicated in this toxic predicament. The survival response itself is an inherited instinctual reflex habit stored in the subconscious. This program is triggered both in response to actual sensory stimuli that communicate real danger, as well as imagined danger that might be generated from one’s internal dialogue.

The subconscious does not discriminate between real and imagined danger; it responds equally to each. Thus, the thoughts and stories that we attach to in active thinking directly contribute to roadblocks in our circulatory system, which both overstimulate the musculature into constant rigidity and deprive the rest of the body of nutrients and avenues for waste management.

The ability of the mind to release itself from the toxicity created by negative thinking is fundamental to adrenal care and smooth sailing throughout the circulatory system. To this end, the I Ching recommends that, rather than battle negativity directly, to instead make energetic progress in the generation of positive thought and action.

Practically speaking, this could mean feeling compassion for one voicing pessimism, hatred, and blame. For myself, I seek to find within my own self the qualities of the one who so offends or threatens me outwardly. I then appreciate that internal part of myself that holds that same point of view. This defuses inner turmoil and often broadens my perspective. Outwardly, I send love to the other that they might find calm and resolution as well.

Physical action also provides a release of energy prompted by adrenalin, as well as through deep breathing, where fresh oxygen binds with adrenalin, reducing its presence in the musculature.

Listening to heartfelt music can also shift one’s emotional landscape, as feelings of love, awe, and reverence begin to circulate throughout one’s being. As well, devotional actions of mantra, prayer, and intent guide the subconscious to call off the adrenal troops and return to calm.

I appreciate the image the truckers have provided as a diagnostic x-ray of the blockage in our current human predicament. I encourage that we all find our way to the positivity of compassion, love, and gratitude that we might find ourselves, flowingly, on the road again.

Grateful,

Chuck

Soulbyte for Tuesday February 15, 2022

Remain centered no matter the circumstances in your own life or the circumstances in the greater world. For to remain centered within the self is to know that all will resolve in due course, that patient waiting, undertaken with a positive attitude and a heart-centered intent for resolution that will benefit the greater good, will lead to the right outcome. For the wise ones know that negativity will be smothered by the outflow of good. It’s just a matter of time.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Tuesday February 1, 2022

Life is like a river in which you choose your method of concourse. You can choose to float along, letting life take you willy and nilly. You can choose to anchor yourself in one spot. You can choose to swim with or against the current. Or you can even choose to get out of the water and walk beside it. Whatever you choose, give it all you’ve got, without complaint, and you will have accomplished what you set out to do, to traverse the great river of life.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Soulbyte for Tuesday December 7, 2021

Turn always to the steadiness of your own heart’s knowing and rather than get drawn outward to engage in the trials and tribulations of the world, big and small, rest in the calm knowing of your spirit’s intent, which is always evolution. Be like nature in the way she proceeds onward without pause, as day turns to night, as the oceans ebb and flow, as the wind continues around the planet and as the Earth itself makes its shifts, great and small. Go with the flow, and without dispute remain always heart-centered and loving, no matter the storms that rage.

Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne

Chuck’s Place: God Is A Lymph Node

Heart centered harmony in the Tao…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Polarity is the essence of life. Electricity is the intimate dance between positive protons and negative electrons. Likewise, magnetism is the energy of attraction between opposites.

The interplay of these opposites are the ups and downs of life. When we jump up in the air we are drawn down to the earth. Though we are light spirit beings we reside in a dense physical body. This bipolarity of our beingness is the essence of life. Our ability to reconcile these opposites is what brings balance to life. Harmony is balance generated within the interplay of opposites.

Governments reflect the interplay of opposites. Generally there is polarization between left and right viewpoints. Governments seek harmony of governance through reconciliation of these opposites. Our world today reflects extreme polarities that resist reconciliation through the integration of opposites.

The extreme polarities of now are deeply enhanced by a third factor: the pervasive extraction of human data through the internet. This extracted data allows corporations and special interests to manipulate consumers and citizens to buy and believe. It can now be argued that the internet has created its own world governance that rivals and controls both reality and elected governments.

This current state of affairs has led to an extreme world bipolar disorder. Nonetheless, this, even in its extreme imbalance, is part of the Tao. Humans are challenged with the reconciliation of these extreme opposites that are insistent upon remaining one-sided, fueled by morally  indifferent special interests. Human beings must restore the balance of opposites to return the world to harmony. But how?

In Jan’s recent dream, a group of Mennonite women knocked on the door with the message, “God is a lymph node.” A group of men were down the driveway arranging stones to create a waterfall. The water was filtered as it flowed over the rocks. End of dream.

The action of the waterfall personifies the function of the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is our body’s filtering system. If the dream is assigning this system the rank of God, then the ability to properly filter is being given the highest spiritual value.

The algorithms of the internet target the subconscious mind to influence human emotion, cognition and action. We are all being catered to, both positively and negatively, by algorithms tuned to our personal habits or virtual footprints. For instance, in a recent blog I discussed wrenches on my workbench. Within the hour of it being published an email selling wrenches appeared in my inbox! Make no mistake about it. Everything we research, write or purchase is extracted as a datapoint on how to influence us.

Jan’s dream brings the highest value to the ability to filter. The internet, for all its wonders, is filled with toxicity. When we are catered to we tend not to recognize this toxic implant. For instance, if it is known I have a specific point of view I might be sent news articles or supposed studies that validate my perspective to influence my thoughts and feelings, as well as stir my emotions and actions.

Filtering can best be achieved by seeking the truth of the heart. If I am excited and feel self-righteous about an issue, my heart will tell me the truth: I am being inflated and attaching to a one-sided truth. As I cling to one pole of my bipolar being I throw myself out of balance and lose the harmony that is maintained through reconciliation of opposites.

Humbly incorporating this truth prevents nefarious internalized programs from taking root in my subconscious mind. I am now freed to incorporate the value of views opposite to my own. This reconciliation of opposites restores inner harmony.

May we all embrace the filtering and immunity-boosting benefits of our body’s lymphatic system. On the mental plain, let us utilize the cleansing system of the heart to arrive at both inner and outer truth. The heart, without prejudice, will lead us to harmony in polarity.

Filtering,

Chuck

Interesting reading: You Are the Object of a Secret Extraction Operation