Take time to pause today, even for a minute, and follow your breath into your body. Allow the mind to be still as you simply breathe and become nothing more than your breath. Each breath you take becomes a reminder of your spirit because each breath is your spirit moving inside you. Become your own breath; become your own spirit.
Let your body accept that it is a mere vessel of this important self, this spirit self. Let it acknowledge its secondary function as vessel even as it must be equally present and equally attended to and cared for. Treat the whole self with the same reverence that you treat the spirit self. As you follow your breath, treat the body and mind to calm detachment knowing that in each breath the only thing that matters is your awareness of your breath as sacred spirit. In this way find your core essence, your life force, your connection to all beings and to life itself.
The other morning, as I prepared for work, my mind was preoccupied with Jung’s “Late Thoughts,” a chapter in his autobiography that spoke of his final commentary on a world he was soon to leave. Jung lamented that the world lacked a living religious mythology that had kept pace with, and could serve as a guide to the modern world. His major concern was the question of evil for the modern world, which is still cast as the fallen angel, separate and distinct from God. How is mankind to reconcile the wholeness of its nature if God is only light, and darkness a fallen angel who failed to remain in the goodness of the light. That fallen angel resides in all mankind in the dark side of its nature?
Eventually the grackle turned over and sat up, still quite dazed… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
At the exact moment of this thought, I was stunned by a loud THUD at the glass door to our deck. I ran to the door to find a large black grackle lying on its back, its wings flailing frantically, its heart beating wildly. It was clearly in shock and my heart sank at the sight of its helplessness and its dubious prognosis.
I knew better than to open the door and attempt to assist. The fatal outcome of the wounded animals I had rescued in my childhood came to mind. Better to give this bird the sanctuary of its own inner resources than to shock it further with outside intervention, however well-meaning.
I quietly walked away, grappling with my own sadness and yet hopeful that this fallen angel might resume its journey. A half hour later, I returned to discover that the grackle’s wings were completely still, its heartbeat barely discernible. The prognosis appeared fatal, though I still held out hope.
Before I left the house, I checked one more time and was excited to discover that the bird had turned over and was sitting calmly in its place. The next question was: Will it actually be able to fly, or does it have a broken wing? An hour later, Jan was able to report that the grackle had successfully regained its poise, spread its wings, and lifted off the deck into a nearby tree.
I am left with the synchronicity of Jung’s lament that religious mythology has not progressed beyond earth and humankind needing redemption and the crash of the black grackle into the glass. Perhaps this bird’s process was the answer to a new mythology, more guiding and pertinent to our modern sensibility and dire predicament.
The first picture that popped into my mind was the image on the cover of Carlos Castaneda’s first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, a black crow perched in the desert. My bird was a grackle, often associated with the crow but not actually of its family. Nonetheless, the association leads me to the mythology of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico.
Those shamans see human beings as magical beings. What an awesome description; human beings are inherently magical! This is a far cry from beings fallen from God, offspring of Satan and earth. This is a description that transcends good and evil, and morality itself. This designation is intrinsically, and wholeheartedly, simply magical!
Preparing to take off… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Indeed, the Shamans of Ancient Mexico see the world we live in as a consensus reality, a fixation of our vast potential, an interruption in our magical flight. We are like the bird that crashed into the glass; we are all lying helpless on the deck of this world, our magical nature ground to a halt.
Like the grackle that smacked into the glass those shamans see the central grounding position of our human fixation as the collision of our magical nature with self-reflection. Self-reflection is the overriding obsession currently mirrored in our attachment to the “likes” of social media. Our species is obsessed with its goodness, badness, value, possessions, and self-preservation, which color our ability to go beyond the self and see the true needs in the world around us.
This obsession with me and mine is the modus operandi behind greed, wars, and the destruction of the planet. Nonetheless, the shamans suspend judgment and instead totally appreciate the utter magic of our ability to create this world, regardless of its instability. Like modern physicists, they understand the world of everyday reality as but one of many possible interpretations of energy. At the same time, they cannot help but marvel at how magical a species we really are, powerful enough to create the consensus reality we all live in every day of our lives. Yet those shamans know that, like my bird who had to find its way back to its wings, human beings have all they need within themselves to restore their connection to their magic.
The world is now like my flailing grackle, charged to recalibrate itself beyond its encounter with self-reflection. That bird needed no outside help, no Godly redeemer to restore it to balance. We have everything we need too. We are, after all, magical.
The world wobbles out of control because it must find its way back to the magic, beyond its destructive hold on self-importance over the greater needs of life. That particular fixation has run its full course and is no longer sustainable. A new world that explores its interdependent wholeness is in formation. And that grackle did rebalance and lift off to a new adventure, and so will we.
Off on a new adventure… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
I distinctly recall Carlos Castaneda, at a tensegrity workshop, turning his back to us as he performed a deep shoulder roll, including his full shoulder blade, telling us to “free your wings.” Yes, in the eyes of those shamans we are magical beings whose wings have been clipped, but needn’t be if we are prepared to do a deep recapitulation and set ourselves free.
I know that Carlos would say that we have two interpretations to choose from: We are the offspring of God’s fallen angels who need redemption from our inability to transcend our evil nature or we are magical beings fully capable of recapitulating and launching into a new adventure.
Remain open to messages from your spirit. Continue giving breath so its life may flourish and become more clearly ascertained as living inside you, its desires and talents more fully realized and actualized. Who is this spirit self that you speak so often of, that you seek connection and union with? It is you without body and yet it is you in-body. You are a unit of two and as such each part must be given care and attention.
As you prepare your body to wake up and greet each day, do not send your spirit back to sleep but prepare it as well. It will give your body the energy and insight it needs and light your path if you give it what it needs. Attention and intention are required if you are to hone its presence and its skills. Breathe consciously and you will discover your spirit’s residence, its warm cave, its home in your body. Just keep breathing with awareness and feel your spirit breathe back, saying, “Yes, I am with you. I am you. We are good together. We are one. Let me live with you more fully now and all will be well.”
Know your body more deeply, intimately and thoroughly. It is your chariot through life, your vessel of life, your traveling companion, container of the breath of life. Find its centering abilities, its function as your anchor and its familiar tendencies and quirks that make it unique. Look at it and figure out how your spirit resides so easily in it, accepting of its place; yet does your mind allow such ease of containment and acceptance?
Allow the mind’s conjuring thoughts about your body to ease a little today as you feel only your conscious aware self inside you. Devoid of the usual messages allow space for breath and the essence of the life force inside you, your spirit life, to simply be. Be only breath today—only spirit—and see what happens.
It might take a while to realize that what blocks our path are our own beautiful truths… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Once we accept that there is something wrong at our core, we are ready for the next crucial step on the healing journey that the process of recapitulation offers. That step is to be open. Being open means allowing life itself—the universe, our bodies, our psyches, and our spirits—to show us what we must face about ourselves, the fears, truths and potential that lie hidden inside us.
If we constantly turn away from what comes to guide us, we may not really be ready. Our steps into our inner world may be so frightening and uncomfortable that we cannot hold ourselves together. We must question whether or not we have the energy or the time to commit to the deeply investigative and healing process that is recapitulation.
Are we truly ready to find out all that troubles us? Or are we better off waiting until we are more ready and available to take the changing journey of recapitulation? I was forty-eight years old before I was finally ready to face what constantly nipped at my soul. Before then I lived with the discomfort of knowing that something was not right, yet I just could not face what it was or what it might mean. I made the choice to live with my defenses and my demons, to struggle along as best I could in the stranglehold of depression, dissociated from life and Self, until I no longer could.
If we are not ready, if it is truly not the proper time to open the door to input from all that we are, our choice then is to get busy with life, to forge ahead into career, family, or creative endeavors. The truth is that we must be able to give ourselves the care and attention that a deep inner journey will require. We must have forged a mature adult self, capable of guiding us through the process. If we have not yet forged a strong adult self then that is the first step to work on as we contemplate our future inner work. A strong adult self capable of guiding our inner child self through the process is a necessary prerequisite of any inner journey.
In addition, if we are at the beginning of forging our identity in the world, still building our ego and finding our feet as independent beings it might not be the right time either. Perhaps its better to put our energy into being fully in the world. However, if our attempts to be in the world repeatedly fail, it might actually be better to tackle what lies within while simultaneously making our way in the outside world. It really depends on who we are, what energetically presents itself to us, and what we are capable of handling.
Whether it is the time for us to begin a deeply life-changing journey or not can be a matter of personal preference and choice, but as with so many choices we are often pushed into them because we have no other recourse but to acquiesce. Some people have life changing events occur that force a change, a serious accident, a near-death experience, devastating illness or circumstances that require starting over, often with a decidedly changed persona and intent. In my own case, I felt death breathing down my neck. I literally felt like I was dying. Though I had no physical disease, I had deeply gnawing spiritual dis-ease. It was time to stop running from it. I knew that if I did not do something for myself, find someone to talk to, I would die.
We might be ready when we least expect it to take the inner journey to facing our fears… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Death was so close I could smell its stench. I was soon to discover that the stench of 16 years of childhood sexual abuse, rotting at the center of my being, was a far more preferable traveling companion, because it meant letting the breath of life in. Soon life was breathing down my neck, urging me on, and the scent of death wafted away with each word I spoke and each breath I took. As B. K. S. Iyengar says in his book, Light on Life: “We carry so many toxins in memory, feelings that we have stored away and allowed to stagnate and fester. We get so used to carrying this sack of rubbish around that we even conclude it is just part and parcel of our character.”
Basically, when our discomfort shows us that we need healing at our very core, we have two choices: to tackle it head on, accepting what comes, or asking it to wait until we are more ready in our personal lives to handle the full impact of it. It’s okay to not be ready, but the question of readiness itself needs careful attention and consideration.
Once we make the decision to begin our recapitulation, or once our recapitulation begins without our total approval as is sometimes the case, we must shift into being open in a way that we have probably never been open before. Openness evolves as we let the process begin, as we become keenly aware of the world around us and the world inside us, as we begin to examine everything that happens to us in a new way, everything that we dream about, everything that we smell, taste, feel, hear, touch and remember.
Our dreams might be the first place our recapitulation shows up. At the beginning of my recapitulation I had a dream that basically laid out the entire first year of my recapitulation. After that I had subsequent dreams showing me where I would go and how things would unfold. It was only in retrospect, as I worked on my Recapitulation Diaries books, that I clearly saw this process. We all dream. As we open to recapitulation, our dream recall improves and we learn to trust that our dreams will guide us.
Another place that recapitulation may show up is in our body. What do our aches and pains really mean? Are we sick or are we being shown where we store our memories? Are our chronic symptoms symptoms of our spiritual dis-ease? If we allow our body to show us what it knows we learn about where we have been and what we have been through. During my recapitulation my throat ached for months as I was unable to speak or cry. I felt a huge ball growing. I painted pictures of it, but it was not fully released until I faced what it really meant about my child self. All that she held in had to be felt and resolved, all hers fears and pain, all her shame.
Being open means learning what it means to suspend judgments and blame, to lose our inflations and self-deprecating criticalness, to drop our protective defenses and humbly revision ourselves as part of a grander universe where all are equal, equally vulnerable and equally unique. Being open means we learn that its okay to have feelings and emotions, to care about ourselves, especially if we have spent our lives caring only about others.
And then there is the light! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Being open means letting go, gradually at first and them more readily, of our need to control our world. Granted this is a necessary defense, keeping us from falling apart, but eventually it has to go too, because recapitulation means that sooner or later we are going to totally fall apart, not because we are not able to withstand the impact of our deepest truths, but because we are fully ready to handle them. Letting go is trusting that we are enough, that we have everything we need inside us, as we dare to put it to the test a step at a time.
Being open means saying, “Okay, I’m ready. Show me what I need to know about myself. I am ready to take the changing journey of recapitulation.” And then we wait for what comes to show us the steps that we will take along our personal path of recapitulation. Once the journey begins we don’t really have to do anything, as it will take us! We just have to keep being open, unfolding like a flower as it turns its head toward the light.
Still walking the recapitulation path, in the light of every day,
Jan
NOTE: See my previous blog First Step Of Recapitulation: HERE
