A Day in a Life: Thank You Shirley Temple—You Saved My Life

We're all just passing through... What do we offer? - Photo of our resident deer taking a peek inside by Jan Ketchel
We’re all just passing through… What do we offer?
– Photo of our resident deer taking a peek inside by Jan Ketchel

I grew up in an emotionless household. I write about this extensively in my books, as I faced the truths of my family of origin as well as the truths of my long-repressed childhood sexual abuse. And when I say emotionless, I really mean that.

Emotions were forbidden. Neither crying nor elation, and everything in between, was staunched. Evenness of temper, implying that nothing was ever wrong within the family unit, was critical. Imperfections, if present, were denied and suppressed as appearance was everything. Underneath the facade of perfection, however, the emotions of seven children and their parents bubbled and frothed, seeking outlet. It’s no wonder that all my siblings and I went into creative careers, as writers, musicians, artisans and fine builders. Within all of us, emotion sought release in some form of creativity.

When I was a child, at seven o’clock on Sunday nights Walt Disney presented an hour long television show. Simultaneously, WOR—channel 9 out of New York City—aired the movies of Shirley Temple. My five brothers and I fought over which show we’d watch. They usually won. They’d sit by the new TV upstairs watching the Disney show while I went downstairs into the basement to turn on the old television. I’d fiddle with the rabbit ears until grainy reception came through. The snowy picture would suddenly cut out with loud static and I’d have to get up repeatedly to readjust the antenna. I didn’t give up. It was my private time away from everyone. Sometimes my little sister, seven years younger, would sit with me, though mostly I remember being in the dark basement alone, staring into the eye of the old TV set, weeping.

You see, Shirley Temple let me cry. She never asked me to hold back my emotions. She let me be ecstatically happy and deeply sad too. She let me live beside her, feeling her emotions. In every pouty mouth and every delightful glint in her eye, I was allowed to live from a place that normally I had to keep shut down. And so, I thank Shirley Temple Black, who died this week, for offering me that emotional outlet, for all the movies she made and all the moments of release that my child self received from her child self.

She was making those movies in the thirties and forties, years before I was born, but they carried forth into the fifties and sixties all that I needed in order to connect with my deeply emotional self, a natural self that found little outlet otherwise.

Thank you, Shirley Temple, you saved my emotional life,
Jan

Readers of Infinity: Your Child Self

Notice the pinpoints of light, the richness in your own life, even as you face your fears... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Notice the pinpoints of light,
the richness in your own life,
even as you face your fears…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Today, Jeanne asks us once again to face our fears. Just so you know, I faced my own fears to bring you this message today, so when she suggests that everyone we meet is as fearful as we are, take it from me, it’s true! That being said, here is this week’s channeled message:

February 10, 2014

Thanks for listening! Sending you love, good wishes, and good luck!

Chuck’s Place: Hoffman, Allen, And Cracking Of The Persona

Swords in the Tarot always signify mental levels of consciousness... Our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Swords in the Tarot always signify mental levels of consciousness…
Our thoughts, beliefs and attitudes…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Wednesday’s storm wiped out creative time to conceive a blog. Between consultations with people in faraway lands and snowplowing, I had only enough energy to take in the final episode of Downton Abby, courtesy of iTunes’ release of the full UK season.

That night I dreamt of visiting a heroin-addicted son in prison. A foul smell permeated the visiting room, fumes from a bathroom, reminiscent of the third floor of a nursing home, where those in the most disabled states reside.

The next morning I pulled the Prince of Swords from the Tarot, clearly charged with the task of cutting through limiting beliefs and thoughts that impede the intuitive exposition of where things really are.

The persona is cracking. That’s where things really are. Literally, the actors and directors who wear the personas—Philip Seymour Hoffman and Woody Allen (and don’t forget Roman Polanski!)—deemed by many to be the greatest of this generation, are revealing their shadows, the foul smelling shadows of addiction.

I refuse to enter the debate as to what Woody Allen did or did not do. That is a question that must be answered in one world, but in the scope of our multidimensional, interconnected, many-world-beingness there is meaning for all of us in the specter of addiction, be it heroin or pedophilia.

We must cut through, as the Prince of Swords suggests, the pervasive limiting stigmas and beliefs that refuse to see and accept the truths of our current consensual reality. The walls of the collective persona that uphold that consensual reality are cracking and greater truths are being revealed. The shadow of addiction is pervasive; no matter how hard we try to hide it or put blame “over there,” it is everywhere. I bear the tension too, as a father who has publicly acknowledged the impact of addiction on his own family. I carry no stigma. But what is the deeper issue here?

The shaman don Juan Matus made it very clear that for humankind to survive now, we must enlarge the confines of our consensual reality to incorporate energetic reality. He went on to suggest that the profusion of drugs in the modern world is symptomatic of the need and hunger for expansion. On one level, addiction is about refusing to grow up—choosing in heroin the embryonic return to wholeness, or the seeking of the fountain of youth, eternal life, in pedophilia. These aberrations must be outed and stopped so that a deeper, more meaningful expansion may become acceptable.

If we are to change... we must all face our shadows... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
If we are to change…
we must all face our shadows…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

And so, we must pay heed to the deeper collective bursting at the seams of our current consensual reality. Addiction is a symptom of a world drastically in need of changing its course. Yes, addicts are aberrant; they are destructive casualties of that need for change, driven without consciousness to seek a means of breakthrough to energetic reality. But it is a failed course of action.

The only viable alternative is to take hold of the wheel of change and drive onward with full consciousness. On an individual level, we must face the fallacy of the masks we wear to feel acceptable. With fortitude we must face the truths of the shadow self—all the repressed unacceptable behaviors, thoughts, desires, that lie in our darkness. We must cut through what holds us back from experiencing our own energetic reality. The process of recapitulation clears the channel for the emergence of the true spirit that heralds new energetic possibility—the much needed change that don Juan talks about.

Let the heralding of the cracking of the persona by the actors and directors of our time not go to waste, but lead us into the real life changes that will take us beyond the projective screens of Hollywood into a new energetic reality. May we all be bearers of the sword!

Cracking through,
Chuck

A Day in a Life: Pathways to Change

This deer has constantly challenged itself to come closer and closer, coming by several times a day to raid the bird seed! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
This deer has constantly challenged itself
to come closer and closer,
coming by several times a day to raid the bird seed!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Living a healthy life, for as long as we are here, is all about care of the self, striving to know the self at the deepest level, learning to love and to receive, giving the inner self and the outer self equal attention and importance. It’s about valuing who we are and what we have to offer, because we all have something to offer. It’s about fully embracing the real self—the true self that we all know we are but are often afraid to express—allowing it live to the fullest.

This is not an easy task! We must struggle to maintain balance, both internally and externally, while we simultaneously must wrestle with our human desires and appetites. If we are to succeed, we must pay attention to our bodies, our minds, and our spirits, as well as all the parts of ourselves that constantly vie for our attention. We must learn to be okay with where we are. We must remain fully aware that life itself wishes us to grow and change. We must be okay with what comes to us from outside, knowing that it is there to guide and teach us. I see both negative and positive aspects of life as obstacles because whether they are harsh or difficult challenges and confrontations, diseases and physical impediments, or even if everything comes easily to us, they all challenge us to individuate and mature so that we may reach our fullest potential.

If we can begin to accept that life is more than just a mundane, sad, unfulfilled existence; if we can embrace it as an exciting experience in a most fantastic realm, we open ourselves to something far beyond the norm. In simply deciding that the life we are in is enough, in acknowledging that what we must contend with everyday is our necessary pathway to change, we begin to experience life in a new way.

I create my own reality, and so, if I constantly complain about my life then I will never experience life in a new way. I will only experience what I say and tell myself. But if I shake off the negative speak that runs through me and contaminates my experience, I offer myself the possibility for a new experience. This is what Jeanne speaks of in her messages. Each week she asks us to be open and willing to face life in a new way, not viewing it as a horrible or frightening experience, nor as a tiresome task or depressing situation, but as an exciting adventure. She asks us to be energetically available to life in a new way.

Living a healthy life, and gaining awareness of who we are and where we are really being led in our personal lives, entails constantly seeking balance, paying attention to what our bodies tell us, honing our skills of self-communication and dialogue with the inner self—all parts of that inner self. A good way to begin intending and asserting a new attitude toward life, is to pay attention to our physical bodies. In simply paying attention to our body’s messages, we might just have the first big breakthrough to new life.

Recently, I have been struggling with a lower back ache. It’s due to heavy lifting of 40 pound bags of pellets and the hauling of firewood. I have had to pay attention to it, as it will not let me do otherwise. It’s forcing me to stay in my body. I already know that this is one of my greatest challenges in this lifetime, to be present in my physical body. Through my entire recapitulation, being present in my body meant facing the pain and humiliation of the sexual abuse I suffered as a child. As a child I got really good at leaving my body—it was a means of escape from the pain it carried—so good that for most of my life I was never really in it. My recapitulation taught me that my body was a good place, my vehicle through life, absolutely necessary if I was to evolve. And so I struggle constantly to remain present, to not drift off as I am naturally wont to do.

We honor our guidance from the universe... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We honor our guidance from the universe…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

To change a habit that once saved my life has been challenging. And so, I am thankful for the aches and pains of my lower spine, reminding me every day to pay attention to what my body is telling me. I am addressing it constantly in a multitude of healing practices, but my biggest healing has been to let it be present, to work with it, to let it guide me to what I should and should not be doing at this time in my life.

I have always been physically strong, able to do exactly what I wanted, and so I never limited myself in anyway. Now, I must face that I am limited and sometimes, I must admit, it has been a real pain—pun intended! I can’t just do anymore; now I have to think before I do, and that is both a challenge and a contemplative process. I must stay in my body basically all the time, in every moment of the day. If I do not, it reminds me —OUCH!— to come back! And so, I am constantly present, paying attention to what I am doing in each moment. Life has become a constant walking/sitting meditation. I am paying attention to the fact that my back, always so strong and readily available, is now saying: Don’t take on so much for others; don’t give away your energy so easily, protect it, use it for what is most important. You are not allowed to bear so much anymore. You are important—take care of you!

Each morning, Chuck and I begin the day by each pulling a card from our favorite Tarot deck. It’s a way of anchoring ourselves in our intent—the intent to remain balanced, aware, and open to life. Each day we ask the cards to supply us with what we need most to guide us. The answer, whatever it is, always reminds us to pay attention to our internal worlds as well as our external worlds, as they mirror each other perfectly. Each day we both pick the perfect response to where we are individually, and as a loving, growing partnership as well. How could it be otherwise? The universe is always in alignment with us! The challenge is for us to get in alignment with it!

My little back ache is asking me to pull back from too much experience in the outer world, to hone my skills in my inner world in a new way. And so I have been daring myself—as you know, if you’ve been listening to my weekly channeled messages—to deepen my experience as an energetic being. Yes, I must live life fully in my body, accept my strong physical self, but equally my strong spiritual self as well. And that is why I have a backache!

I see this as part of my process of growth and change, in alignment with my spirit’s intent to constantly grow. I don’t believe we are here to just grow once and then plunk down and say, “Okay, I did it, I changed.” No, the challenge is to keep growing. Likewise, if all I do is moan about my aching back, nothing will shift for me at all, all I’ll have is a painful back and a depressing life. But, if I elect to use this challenge, then I am doing something to shift myself, to change my perception of life, and hone my awareness. In fact, I create a new reality for myself.

Watch those backs! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Watch those backs!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I hope you all find out what your little or big aches, pains and challenges are trying to alert you to. Mostly, they ask us to confront something, to get to the bottom of who we are, to make amends, and move on to the next challenge. We just have to be ready to face and accept the truth of that challenge, and act upon it in a positive, healing way. Acting upon it is often the greatest challenge. Many times I have had to feel the searing pain in my lower back to remind me of just how I am being asked to act upon the messages I receive.

Good luck! And be careful out there if you are shoveling all that snow today!
Jan

Readers of Infinity: Shift

Boldly, she took what was offered, without fear or doubt that it was not meant for her! -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Boldly, she took what was offered,
without fear or doubt that it was not meant for her!
-Photo by Jan Ketchel

Dear Everyone,

Here is today’s channeling. I began with a little introduction and unfortunately hit the stop button rather than the pause button, so I am posting two audio files. The first one is my intro and the second one is the channeled message for today.

On a synchronistic note, I opened my eyes as I finished the channeling to see a large shape seemingly sitting in the bird feeder. “What the heck?” I thought, thinking at first that it was a large hawk, but as I got up and went to the window saw that it was the head of a deer! I knew that deer were coming in the night and eating the leftover seeds from the day, since the feeder pan was always empty each morning. Now I had the culprit! I knocked on the window, but the deer only moved back a little onto the lawn. She stayed around for a good fifteen minutes while I got the camera and took pictures of her.

She came back to the feeder too! Taking small steps, as we are encouraged to do in today’s channeling, she trusted that she was safe. She knew very well that I was at the window, as she’d glance up every now and then, as if to say, “I see you, but I am not afraid. You are open and I too am open.” I sent her my welcome in return, allowing her to be present, as she was clearly giving me, and all of you, a meaningful message in return. She was allowing herself to be open, innocent, flowing and trusting of everything, perfectly in alignment with today’s message.

Personally, I interpret the presence of the deer this way: as innocent energy that will do no harm to anyone, as good energy, in fact, and so I intend to keep the innocent self open to receive today, just as Jeanne suggests we do in the channeled message. I hope you will too, as this deer came for all of us!

Thanks for listening and being a part of this new shift that I am going through. And I’m very happy it was not a groundhog that showed up!

Here is my little introduction:February 3, 2014-Introduction

Here is today’s channeling:February 3, 2014-Shift

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR