Tag Archives: unconscious

Chuck’s Place: Hero & Hydra

July 12, 2013 Chuck 1 Comment

Hydra..guarding the gate... - Photo by Jan Ketchel — Hydra..guarding the gate…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In Greek mythology the Hydra is a nine-headed serpent that guards the entrance to the Underworld beneath Lake Lerna. In modern terms, the Underworld is the deep unconscious psyche, home of the powerful energies that fund our lives with the “rapture of being alive in our bodies.” *

As the myth goes, it took the hero Hercules to slay the Hydra and gain access to the magical, mystical, and awesome energies of the Underworld. In our own lives, we too must access our Hero selves in order to slay the worthy opponent that ferociously guards the gateway to our own magical inner treasures.

Ironically, the Hero and the Hydra are fraternal twins, two sides of the same being, the being of our Ego self. The Ego self was birthed at the moment of decision to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, as another myth portrays it, which led to expulsion from the Garden, the garden of blissful wholeness with nature. Like all children, the Ego, with consciousness and autonomy, must leave the womb of unconscious wholeness and go out and establish itself in the world, separate and distinct from the wholeness of its unconscious origin. To accomplish this, the Ego must break ranks with its deep unconscious nature and become a rational, controlled being, while simultaneously installing the Hydra with all its deadly defenses—projection, denial, repression, resistance, etc.—to defend it from the energies and controls of nature’s instincts.

The Hydra is the greedy, sensually-driven part of the Ego self, the child in us who wants it all. The Hydra is also the power-driven competitor in us who thrives on attention. The Hydra is the frightened child in us who shuns life in self-hate and self-pity. The Hydra is the stoic in us who denies our needs. The Hydra is the defender in us, the repressor, suppressor, who guards the gate to the Underworld and shields us from the truths of our recapitulations, keeping them safely stored just beyond the door to the Underworld. The Hydra is neither good nor bad. It’s the house we’ve constructed to manage our lives. We all need defenses to stem the tidal waves of fear, abandonment, dissolution, and all manner of traumatic events.

Once the Ego has gained a foothold in the world, it desperately seeks its wholeness, that is, access to the deep energies that inspire and electrify life in human form. At this point, the Ego twins are pitted against each other. The Hero seeks to win individuation, that is, union with its alienated, deeper self, in fact, also with the Hydra. This is the moment when the Hero must go to battle, slaying through to everything that has been stored away beyond the entryway to the unconscious, safely protected from memory by the ferocious Hydra. The Hero must face and subdue the Hydra on its journey to adulthood, for its wholeness requires knowing and unification with all the truths of life, as well as the truths of the primal energies that flow just beyond the entryway to the Underworld, in the darkness of the mythological Lake Lerner.

Two-Headed Hydra in the clouds... - Photo by Jan Ketchel — Two-Headed Hydra in the clouds…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Hydra, in its stead, has the task of testing the worthiness of the Hero, proving the Hero’s readiness to undertake the journey into the Underworld and reunite with the powerful energies in the darkness below. The Hero may initiate the journey by undertaking therapy, recapitulation, or some form of initiation or night sea journey into the unknown.

The Hydra is a mighty opponent, a worthy guardian at the door of the deeper self, throwing all the sensual delights at the Hero—food, drink, diet, pleasure, denial of pleasure, etc.—to waylay the journey. If one head is cut off, two heads appear in its stead. In this manner, the Hydra presents distractions, projections, crises, and must dos to snarl and challenge the Hero’s intent—entitlements, resentments, sleepiness, and sloth—in cycles of groundhog days that deplete the Hero’s energy and defeat the Hero’s resolve to complete the journey.

Only if the Hero succeeds in defeating all the Hydra’s heads will the Hydra grant access through the gate, to a Hero proven worthy of feeling the full impact of stored traumas and the numinous reward of the energies of the deeper self. Only with the defeat of the Hydra is the Hero truly ready to join with its wholeness, truly ready to funnel the deepest of energies into rapturous life.

And so, ultimately, these fraternal ego twins—Hero and Hydra—must become necessary partners in our quest for wholeness. May we honor them both for the roles they play in serving to launch us into fulfillment.

On the battlefield,
Chuck

* Quote from Joseph Campbell.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Our Secret Partner

August 3, 2012 Chuck Leave a comment

Photo by Jan — Trickster is always watching...

It’s early in the morning. This week my attempts to write a blog haven’t gelled. I’ve run out of time. As I go in and out of sleep, I’m met with painful images, someone dear always dying. I finally decide it’s not worth it to sleep; it’s time to wake up and write.

Out of my dreams, the topic of this week’s blog that I’ve struggled so hard to pinpoint suddenly becomes clear. What’s been churning in the background of my waking and dreaming experiences is the positive partnership of the unconscious even when applying its most tricksterish of methods. Taking pen in hand, I acquiesce to the guidance of this most secret partner.

The many scenes of death and dying that I enter in my dreams force me to confront excruciating feelings. On the deepest level I’m led to encounter my greatest fears, the loss of all whom I most cherish. Encountering the fears, even in dreaming, is active recapitulation, as I’m challenged to stay present and fully live through the inevitable changes. I’m challenged as well, at each awakening, to not project the experiences and people of my dreams onto real people and situations. I must keep my experiences inside me. The twists and nuances of my dreams make clear that there is nothing “really” to fear. This dreaming experience offers another exercise to awaken to the nature of projection, to not get caught in its tricky web. This is another trial set up by my secret partner—the unconscious—to further my conscious intent: the way of truth; and the Tao of the dream is to further this intent by paying attention to the instructions encapsulated in my early morning waking and dreaming experiences.

My trickster partner knows I must write my blog, and as it has done hundreds of times in the past, it encourages me to awaken at just the right moment. This time it sets the stage by asking me to choose between the unpleasantness of its dreams or the tension of awakening without a clear topic. My dreams, however, become so unpleasant that there is no point in staying asleep and so I “choose” to awaken, delivered to this day with this experience to present.

The message here is that we all have our secret partner. How our secret partner confronts us can vary from the uncomfortable, such as what I encountered in my dreams, to gentle support. The challenge is to awaken to the fact of its presence, tricksterishly presented or otherwise, for it is present whether we are aware of it or not. If we choose to ignore it, it will simply continue to approach us with unpleasantness, asking us to face our greatest fears, to live through them, and experience them for what they truly are. If we choose to engage our secret partner and develop a relationship with it, we will be supported in our intent, that is, if the intent resonates with the wholeness of our being.

We cannot control the methods by which our secret partner will confront us, though we can certainly challenge them, and that we must do. It’s one of the challenges of evolving consciousness, to assert ourselves even in the midst of overwhelming odds, just as I did in my morning experience. That, after all, is our ultimate preparation for our moment of dying, to stay calm and awake, even as we are delivered deeper into life.

Staying awake,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & The Shadow

August 4, 2010 Jan Leave a comment

In The Active Side of Infinity Carlos Castaneda writes about the time when don Juan first introduced him to the concept of recapitulation. Don Juan describes recapitulation, on pages 142-143, thus:

“The old sorcerers used to call it recounting the events in your life, and for them, it started as a simple technique, a device to aid them in remembering what they were doing and saying to their disciples. For their disciples, the technique had the same value: It allowed them to remember what their teachers had said and done to them. It took terrible social upheavals, like being conquered and vanquished several times, before the old sorcerers realized that their technique had far-reaching effects.”

He goes on to say that, as time passed and events took place in the history of ancient Mexico and the old sorcerers disappeared, a new crop of sorcerers, disciples of the old, came along and renamed the old technique recapitulation. The essence and main point of recapitulation shifted to a process for making space within.

Don Juan explained to a bewildered Carlos that in order for him to teach him everything he knew he had to first make space within Carlos:

“The challenge I am faced with,” he says to Carlos, “is that in a very compact unit of time I must cram into you everything there is to know about sorcery as an abstract proposition, but in order to do that I have to build the necessary space within you.” He goes on to say: “The premise of sorcerers is that in order to bring something in, there must be a space to put it in. If you are filled to the brim with the items of everyday life, there’s no space for anything new. That space must be built. Do you see what I mean? The sorcerers of olden times believed that the recapitulation of your life made that space. It does, and much more, of course.”

What don Juan was proposing to Carlos, in actuality, was that he must go into his shadow, into the dark side of his unconscious, the same shadow side of ourselves that Carl Jung suggests we must all deal with in order to become whole. Don Juan went on to explain the technique of recapitulation to Carlos as a process of making lists of all the people he had ever encountered and then recollecting every encounter he had ever had with each person on his list. He suggested that he accompany each memory with a breathing practice of slowly fanning the head from side to side while slowly and naturally inhaling and exhaling.

As Carlos dutifully began the process of making his lists and recollecting the events of his life he discovered that the process took on a life of its own. He writes, on page 144 in The Active Side of Infinity:

“Ordinarily, my recapitulation took me every which way. I let the events decide the direction of my recollection. What I did, which was volitional, was to adhere to a general unit of time. For instance, I had begun with the people in the anthropology department, but I let my recollection pull me to anywhere in time, from the present to the day I started attending school at UCLA.”

When I read this I was struck by how accurately it explained my own process. My own unconscious led me on my recapitulation journey and often my biggest challenge became acquiescence to where it suggested I must go. Sometimes, like Carlos, I went whining and complaining. As he says on page 141 in The Active Side of Infinity:

“There was some part of me that resented immensely being bothered. I wanted to sleep for days and not think about don Juan’s sorcery concepts anymore. Thoroughly against my will, I got up and followed him.” As don Juan says on page 146 in the same book: “The power of recapitulation is that it stirs up all the garbage of our lives and brings it to the surface.”

Sometimes I just did not want to sift through any more garbage and I would turn away, tell Chuck I was done, and attempt to walk away. I too just wanted to sleep for days, but my unconscious, that most helpful partner, always found a way to drag me back to awareness of the process, its meaningfulness becoming more apparent each day. As I had experiences within the context of recapitulation in cahoots with my shadow, and the process took on a life of its own, I began to quite readily take the journey I was being shown was my true journey in this life, because as don Juan suggested, it does more than just make space within.

When I began my recapitulation I didn’t even know that such a thing existed. I hadn’t read any of Castaneda’s books after the first three when I was in my twenties and I wasn’t at all versed in the language or concepts of the sorcerers of ancient Mexico when I began working with Chuck. I was only slightly familiar with the work of Carl Jung at the time as well, though I had also read some of his works when I was in my early twenties. However, with awareness that I had perhaps planted the seeds of this convergence of the sorcerers world and the psychological during my twenties, I understood that my unconscious and a whole series of synchronistic events were leading me to the moment when I could no longer avoid my shadow, the dark side of myself that I had been running from for most of my life. As the process of this confrontation with my shadow unfolded, under Chuck’s guidance, the idea of recapitulation began to emerge.

Now, many years after I did the bulk of that work of encountering my shadow through the process of recapitulation, I am taking the time to read the later works of Castaneda. My own experiences are being further clarified in terms of a shamanic journey as I read of his encounters with don Juan and his line of sorcerers, and the apprentices of his own generation. More often than not, the shamanic terms, as presented by don Juan, mirror the psychological terms, as presented by Jung.

These two concepts, the recapitulation and the shadow of the unconscious work hand-in-hand. Using the technique of recapitulation, in whatever way it unfolds as guided by the unconscious, together with daring to look into the shadows of the self, the concept of emptying in order to be filled with new energy becomes clearer. It does indeed work as a means to achieving wholeness, and much more.

I do not mean to imply that the shadow ever rests or that recapitulation is ever done, because if we are going to constantly grow and evolve they must remain active participants in our lives. Personally, I have found these to be two most interesting and inviting companions as I continue my journey.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

NOTE: The Active Side of Infinity is available for purchase through our Store in the Shamanism category.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

July 28, 2010 Jan Leave a comment

In the introduction to The Wheel of Time Carlos Castaneda writes about don Juan teaching him how to perceive energy and that the recapitulation was an important aspect of learning this process. He states: “One of the most important units, he called the recapitulation, which consisted of a systematic scrutiny of one’s life, segment by segment, an examination made not in the light of criticism or finding flaw, but in the light of an effort to understand one’s life, and to change its course. Don Juan’s claim was that once any practitioner has viewed his life in the detached manner that the recapitulation requires, there’s no way to go back to the same life.” (p. 4)

As Chuck wrote about in his blog, The Power of Experience, the unconscious is a major player in the recapitulation process. Within a lifetime the unconscious offers us many opportunities to access its hidden treasures. It offers us protection when we need it the most. It offers us insight and guidance when we need it, and it also prods us to grow when the time is right for that too.

Many of us fear what the unconscious has kept stored for us, perhaps initially experiencing it as frightening impenetrable darkness. It is indeed the shadowy side of ourselves, often a part that we rarely allow to emerge, or a part of ourselves that we reject as not the real self. The unconscious is in fact present to help us grow, as don Juan teaches Carlos. If accessed, thoroughly explored, allowed to be present in our lives we discover that it is not a frightening alien entity after all, but the most fascinating side of ourselves.

As an artist and writer I have always had a certain relationship with my unconscious, at least the part of it that I used in my creative endeavors. There were other darker aspects of it that often emerged in the creative process, and otherwise, that scared me. Often I would wonder where certain things came from, how I, a shy and gentle soul, could produce such dark and disturbing images, and sometimes truly frightening ones as well. I knew there was a dark side to my personality, but I had no clue as to how it got that way. As much as I allowed myself to creatively explore my unconscious, I was not fully aware of what it held in store for me until I met Chuck and began a process of deeper exploration of it. In that process, which, as it began to unfold, became entitled a recapitulation, I, slowly at first and then quicker as I got the hang of it, explored the depths of that disturbing and frightening inner darkness.

In the beginning, I often felt as if I were falling into an abyss, much like the experience of Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Many times I felt as if I would shatter as I took the plunge downward, fearing that the velocity of the fall itself would annihilate me, a brittle person made only of thin glass, as I rocketed into unknown territory. Other times I feared that I would crash and die upon impact, but these were mental imaginings that eventually gave way to curiosity and amazement as the plunge would invariably bring me to an experience of my past that I had no idea even existed.

The unconscious is both a mighty opponent and a mighty partner. When we fear it we see only the darkness, the possibility of death, the annihilation and the end of who we perceive ourselves to be. But when we engage it as a vital part of life, in dreams, in confronting it and asking it to show us something about ourselves, when we allow it to lead us into that darkness, we begin to understand that it is present not as an adversary but as a true companion who only wants us to grow. When we truly open up to the experience of recapitulation—greeting what the unconscious brings us to, points out to us or challenges us to investigate—we offer ourselves the opportunity to change the course of our lives, as Carlos suggests.

If, as I believe, we are each of us challenged to work through one core issue in a lifetime we will also, I believe, be presented with the means of working through that core issue as our life unfolds. We are invited to the process of confrontation in many ways, but it may not be until we are finally ready to tackle it that we will allow ourselves to take the plunge down the rabbit hole and find out what truly lurks in our inner darkness.

The choice to explore our unconscious is ours alone. Perhaps in the past we did not understand what we were being called to, but once we finally gain a clear understanding of our core issue, do we still refuse the call of the unconscious, as we have done so many times before? Do we elect to push it away, avoid it, die without resolving why we are here? In turning from the call of the unconscious we put ourselves in a position of having to grapple with it on many levels and in many forms, because once we acknowledge awareness of our core issue the unconscious, that wily opponent/partner, knows that we are awakening to the fact of its existence and beginning to understand the power it holds in our lives. During this period of grappling, our unconscious often becomes the leader, offering us what we need in order to get to that point of change that Carlos writes about.

Of course, there is so much more to the process, to the unconscious, and to the conscious self as well that I am not discussing today, but I wish to jump ahead to what Carlos states, that once we have reached a place of detachment “there’s no way to go back to the same life.” This might seem like a frightening prospect as well, but really it is what we are all here for, to keep going forward and eventually to evolve into new life. We won’t feel the need or the desire to go back if we truly allow ourselves to confront our darkness, to recapitulate, to free ourselves of the fear of falling down the rabbit hole. In fact, as the process unfolds we might find ourselves leaping down that rabbit hole, eager for the next experience, eager to see what is in store, because eventually we come out the other side and into a whole new world.