Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: 2012 is Now!

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“I am convinced that for man to survive now, his perception must change at its social base,” states don Juan Matus on page 3 in The Art of Dreaming. For don Juan this change, an evolution of consciousness, means that we must embrace the wholeness of our beings, a world of energy, the wavelength self I wrote about in last week’s blog.

Stanislav Grof points out in an interview with nonsoloanima TV that the end of the Mayan calendar at the winter solstice, December 21st next year, simply represents the end of a cycle of time. This cycle is the completion of the sun’s rotation around the solar system upon which the Mayan calendar is based. This completed cycle in galactic astrology results in an alignment that births a new era. However, all birth is preceded by labor. This labor can manifest as aggression, destruction, or violent revolution as new life struggles to be born. In addition, there must be a death, or ending to the old way of being, to bring forth new life. The question for mankind is whether this birthing process will result in the necessary evolution don Juan describes, or will the forces of resistance put an end to our human experiment.

Grof also points out that December 21, 2012 is but the apex of a bell curve. The changes of 2012 have been rapidly unfolding for decades. Undoubtedly, the birth of rock and roll in the 1950s followed by the psychedelics of the 1960s was the unleashing of the energy needed to move masses of humanity to shift into a deeper search for themselves, at more profound levels. In fact, for decades this mass shift in consciousness has launched a major revolution to bring down the solid precepts that have governed awareness for centuries.

Energetic mass movements, such as the Internet, are rapidly tearing down all attempts to maintain or create walls of illusion. Facebook, though I decry its dark side of self-importance and its exposure to the greedy marketing giants, can probably be credited with bringing down the government in Egypt as the energy of change was initially directed by postings on Facebook, telling people where to gather for the nonviolent revolution. The election of Obama, also largely orchestrated through digital wizardry, marked an earlier magical evolutionary advance of consciousness, materially realized.

The energy of 2012 has been advancing for decades and we are clearly near the climax of this struggle. Stepping, for a moment, out of time and viewing ourselves from a cosmic perspective, we are indeed living in a highly charged, agitated energetic time. The speed of change appears greater than our human ability to absorb and indeed this is probably true, hence, the pressure to evolve into out greater energetic selves. Whether this revolutionary energy is sufficient to push through the birth canal and bring forth this necessary transformation into new life is still an open question. The forces of resistance undermining change, so apparent in Obama’s presidency, are evident everywhere on the globe. We are not a world of individual countries and governments, despite those illusory walls. We are now an interconnected global economy where the special interests of the parasitic few are relentlessly seeking new ways to spin reality to hold onto power and control.

Bringing this challenge down to a very individual level, we do well to inventory the status of the power monger within ourselves: the inflated ego with its rationality über alles. Are we taking on the challenge of allowing ourselves to claim the fullness of our energetic beings? What is the status of our own inner revolution, our own transformational journey of rebirth? Are we allowing ourselves the opportunities to wake up in our dreams and explore our greater consciousness beyond the body, or does rationality still dismiss the possibility? Do we allow ourselves to go inward in meditation, or do we choose medication and/or materialism? Do we free our breath, or remain constricted in the rigid body armor of defense? Do we open up to the world of energy by engaging our intent, or do we remain frozen in doubt?

I say, Viva La Revolución! But remember, revolution starts at home, within the self, by embracing the depths of our energetic selves. The revolution of 2012 is now! Let’s all fight for that necessary change at our social base; let’s insure our survival as evolved energetic beings!

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Instinctual Fear & Learned Fear

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In the channeled message on Monday, Jeanne and I discussed fear as the culprit that sets up blockages inhibiting access to the fuller self, as a hindrance on a path of inner growth. After my channeling I began to think about instinctual fear. I know it is necessary and must be utilized and I realized that perhaps it may not have been clear that Jeanne was really only talking about fear that has become habit. Fear that has become habit is something quite different from instinctual fear.

We have a very elderly dog. She is rather large, a shepherd-husky mix, with thick fur, big ears, a long furry tail and severe hip dysplasia, a condition not uncommon in those breeds. She has grown afraid in her old age; in human years she is 119 years old and counting. In the old days nothing would have stopped her from bounding out of the house early in the morning; she would have pounded her way through even the highest of snowdrifts to roll around and do her business. Now she hesitates at the door, looks outside, assesses the situation and if it feels slippery to the first timid touch of her paw on the flagstone porch she will turn around and go back into the house, not at all interested.

This is learned fear. This is fear that is the result of falling on the ice, slipping in the snow, and not being able to get up. When she has fallen she has probably also hurt herself, though she will rarely ever complain or make a sound. This is the natural tendency of an animal to not let it be known that it is weak, for fear of attack from predators—instinctual fear. As we have observed this new behavior over the winter we have noticed that the fear of falling now almost rules her every activity. Even inside the house she hesitates before walking across a stretch of wood floor—preferring to suffer the odds, she often takes it at a run rather than simply walk across it to follow us. We have devised methods of helping her get beyond this very real fear, by putting a leash on and urging her out the door, making a path for her in the high snow, running out ahead of her and urging her forward, laying rugs over the ice and throughout the house. With our help she has, sometimes, been able to conquer her fear.

I like to look to nature for instruction. I think about animal fear, the instinct mechanism that says: Uh-oh, I’m in danger. I see a deer standing stricken with fear before the headlights of my car, before it leaps out of the way, instinctually knowing that it had better move. I see the scared rabbit shivering in the snow as it is approached by a predator, before it too bounds off to safety. I hear the birds instinctively shrieking, sending up distress calls, flying out into the trees to distract hungry predators from their nests.

We humans also have these natural instincts. When a situation arouses this kind of instinctual fear, we tune into our natural state of being and without forethought we act, we use it to protect ourselves or others. Would we not run out of the road if a car were approaching or save our child from being run over? Would we not leap out of the way of a hungry predator? However, we too, just like our old dog, have learned behaviors, learned fears. We all have new fears that we have adopted as we have navigated through life, and these new fears may interfere with our natural inclination to experience life, with the instinctual drive to live full lives, exploring our greater meaning and purpose. These learned fears might actually suppress that instinctual mechanism lying at our core to the point where we cannot even act to save ourselves from danger.

The impact of learned fear must also be taken into consideration as we investigate our willingness and capacity to take a spiritual journey. What fears do we have that prohibit us from taking the journey that our spirit invites us on, showing us almost daily what it wants us to learn about ourselves so that we are not held back any longer from more fully integrating our natural selves into our lives? Personally, I used fear, instinctual and learned fears, my whole life, to protect myself; this is fairly common, most people do this. But also, I knowingly used those fears to keep myself from having experiences that made me uncomfortable. Here the unconscious came into play; though unaware of its aid at the time, it kept me from experiences that might trigger other unconscious, repressed experiences that would have surely interfered in my growth into adulthood. Thus, in using fear, I also perpetuated fear as an integral part of my life. What eventually happened was that by living safely protected within the confines of that fear, I also became controlled by it. As a result, I became increasingly restless, angry, depressed, and felt that I had no life of my own. I saw only death in the future. Underneath it all, however, I was being pushed into alignment with something new by my ancient instinctual spirit self, and yes, a death of sorts, but only a death of that which was not mine to carry. I was being urged into taking a shamanic journey of recapitulation.

In recapitulation we are invited by our ancient instinctual selves to face our fears. As the process of recapitulation naturally unfolds our unconscious opens its doors, kept so tightly locked by our fears, and allows us to see just what it was that taught us those debilitating fears in the first place. In recapitulation we also reunite with our ancient instinct, understanding how it has worked to protect us in the past and how it can be brought out into a more fully integrated new life. Sometimes there may be a fine line between what is instinctual fear and what is learned fear, but that’s okay if we understand that we use them both when necessary, and if we can accept that there is always some aspect of ourselves that will come forth to protect us when we most need it.

In recapitulation we learn to distinguish between fears placed on us by others, fears learned through our experiences, and innate fears, but really what we learn is that our fears have controlled us, no matter where they came from. We gain a clearer understanding of our true inner desires to live differently. We more clearly hear the calls of our ancient spirit self, wishing that we could do and experience life from a different perspective.

And, as we recapitulate, we learn how we used to do things and we learn that we can choose to do things differently. We can change our habits and behaviors for no other reason than that it is good for us to do so. When we dare ourselves to move beyond the old fears we allow the true self to more fully live, confident that we have all we need inside us, instinct and nature more finely tuned to guide us now away from the old and into the new.

Our old dog lies at my feet as I write this blog, sighing occasionally, snoring, her fears at rest for the moment; and that is how our fears work. We can send them away, go about our usual activities, sleep them off, but that is only a temporary reprieve from the demands of the fearful self. Soon enough we have to get up again and face that self that won’t let us live from the ancient heart-centered spirit, that only tells us to live by the predilections of a society that tells us we must fear everything. We know those trappings of fear so well. We may even be bored with them, bored with how they control us, keep us caught doing the same things over and over again, keep us from running out the door and leaping into life, to roll around in the energy of new experiences. If we are as timid as our old dog, our lives become pretty limited, routine and boring, as if we were 119 years old.

Personally, I elected a long time ago to go over to another life, even before this one was over. I elected to err on the side of heart-inspired energy, to grab onto what I always knew lay just beyond this world. I just had to put myself in alignment with it, to see beyond the fear and face a different life, a heart-centered life. That was really what I did during my recapitulation. I put myself in alignment with the teachings of my own heart and I will not ever leave it again.

Of course, I have to face the choices I made. As I go out into the world and meet people who once knew me in a certain way, I have to face the fear that immediately arises like a shield between us when I tell them that I took a shamanic journey and that I am in a new world now. “Literally,” I say, “I am literally living in a different world, and I love it!” There is fear in their eyes when I say this, and that is a fear that I come up against quite often these days, and it is not fear of something harmful, but fear of something beautiful! Why are we so afraid of that which is so good for us, naturally so, our ancient heart-centered intent?

So, perhaps this blog may help in understanding the difference between fear and fear, between true instinctual fear and learned fear, between electing fear and electing something beyond fear. Life is really a good roll in the snow; it really is beautiful. I encourage everyone to reach for the inspiration of the ancient heart-centered self and find out!

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

Thanks for reading! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#745 Navigating Fear

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Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Over the past three Mondays, we have been exploring different means of navigating through life. Personally, I have found that the biggest block to everything is fear. Generally, I find myself coming up against fears that I do not even recognize as fears, though I may know the comforting presence of them, as they have most likely always been in my life, though often unacknowledged as such. When we begin to look more closely at ourselves, at the judgments and declarations we utter, at the choices and inner resolutions we so proudly attain and adhere to, when we dare ourselves to stay more present in the moment and equally more innerly attuned, we may be able to describe everything that gets in our way as a fear.

Why do I continually have the same kind of reaction to a certain situation, person, or challenge? Why do I always get myself into the same kind of relationships? Why do I find so-and-so such a disturbing presence? Why am I so reluctant to change? Why am I so determined to control every situation in my life? Why is it so hard to flow with what life presents? What is it that keeps me from fully expressing my feelings? Why can’t I fully attain my potential, my dreams, a good relationship, a calm place, etc.? What is wrong with me? We might ask all of these questions at some time in our lives.

Before I began my recapitulation journey I used to constantly ask myself: What is wrong with me? It was an inner mantra—incessantly present background chatter that I could not dismiss. I knew that something was wrong at my core and that it held me firmly in its grip. Although I barged ahead into life, I still always came up against that hard stone of truth. As I began my recapitulation, taking a shamanic journey into the tangled and deeply confused self, the first thing I confronted was that hard stone of truth. And when I stood in front of it and faced it squarely and asked it what it was, it revealed itself for the first time, very clearly. And I could not deny the truth of it: I was afraid of everything. I carried this stone of truth always with me, this fear of everything, yet I was also successful in pushing it far enough down inside me that I could engage in life, becoming a fully functioning adult, with a career, a family, and a rich creative life.

Before my recapitulation, this struggling self, pushing this heavy stone around, fluctuated between dealing with the pain of carrying this stone, the inner spirit self unable to fully emerge, with the outer ego self needing to be fully in the world, but also greatly compromised. They often battled against each other, each seeking to rule. This bipolar self, that Chuck so beautifully describes in his Reality blog, often raged in separate corners, fighting fiercely against each other, as is fully appropriate. As we grow out of childhood and enter the world of everyday reality the ego self must take over. But what happens to the spirit self? The spirit self sits behind that stone of truth, holding the secrets of existence and of many other realities, waiting for opportunities to take us there.

Eventually, hopefully, we get to a place in life where the ego self has done enough for us and we can let it take a backseat and allow the things of the spirit to more strongly be heard. But what holds us from accessing and more fully allowing those other more innerly desires of the spirit self to fully live?

First, the ego, long used to holding the seat of power stands in the way with its greatest weapon always drawn: all of our fears. For it has used them so well to navigate life, why would it cease to use them? If we can face and acknowledge that we are truly afraid of everything, we can begin to take a true recapitulation journey. As I began to face my fears and take that recapitulation journey I learned that it meant shattering everything that I had so far lived by, everything the ego had worked so hard to establish and rule by. And I discovered that the gas that the ego, as our vehicle in life, runs on, most of the time is fear. It fuels everything from inflation to deflation, high self-esteem to low self-esteem, our driven self and our depressed self. Fear truly is the hard stone that lies at our core and directs how we live our lives.

Today, I ask Jeanne to join us and give us some pointers on how to deal with our fears. For even if we have done a good job of recapitulating, even if we have spent years in therapy, in healing activities, in seeking to evolve, we cannot get away from the reality of fear. It is in us always. It will always arise, and does so every day of our lives. Think about it.

So, Jeanne, what advice do you offer us today, as we seek to identify, own, and go beyond our fears?

My Dear Ones: FEAR is but a tool to use for growth. FEAR can take one into life and it can take one out of life. FEAR can aid one in aligning with spirit intent and it can also become an ally in promoting the intent of the ego. FEAR is both an accomplice and a teacher.

Do not look on fear as negative. It is not a detrimental aspect of self, but the true teaching self. It is the spirit self and the ego self in alignment, gathered together in proposing the work that must be done.

As I channel, I see a vision of the two selves on either side of a huge boulder or ancient stone monolith, which is speaking to them (sort of like that opening scene from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey) and I hear this: FEAR=Face Everything And Recapitulate!

Yes, that is what fear does—it speaks its truths. But who is ready to hear them and who is not? It does not matter really, for it does not ever stop talking. As Jan mentions, it chatters incessantly throughout life, proposing and imposing thoughts, speaking out of place, sending annoying messages through brain, body, and energy. Fear is always present.

So now that we can perhaps accept that idea, that it is always present and here to teach us, what comes next?

The next step, after acknowledging its grand presence, is to pay attention to it. Ask it what it is trying to tell you. What does it mean to show you? Where is it taking you today? What does it want you to confront? What does it ask you to barge through? What door is it opening? What is it really trying to show you?

Once fear arises and is confronted, it literally seems to disappear, at least until it arises again. But was it really there to begin with? Is it a solid object? Can you touch it with your hands or was it just a figment of your imagination? Fear exists and yet it does not. Fear is present at all times, and yet it is hardly there at all. It is present in the duality of self, representing the ego self who must play out what fear presents to it and it is also the spirit self who knows that, as an enigma, it is most necessary to encounter and understand.

Life is really very simple, My Dears. It is a constant journey of confronting the inner fears. These fears may loom large and imposing, projected in outer encounters, but when you come down to it, they do not really exist. As soon as you barge through them they evaporate, they shatter into nothing more than mental blocks, stones of awareness that, when shattered, give you a boost in energy.

Look thus on your fears as envelopes of energy waiting to be released—pockets of fear are pockets of vital life force. Your job, as a student of life, is to gather your energy. Your tests are to conquer your fears. And your fears are always with you. In one form or another, your challenges will appear totally encased in fears that must be confronted and burst apart, so that you may capture the energy they have been holding for you.

Don’t you feel exhilaration when you challenge yourself to confront your fear and succeed in decimating its power over you? This is how you learn to navigate life; by decimating your fears you grow and evolve, but you also gain energy.

And what happens if we refuse again and again to face and burst through our fears, Jeanne?

In the long run, refusal to meet fear means that fear will take over. That stone you speak of, Jan, will grow larger, until you are totally encased in the hard boulder of it, until you have no more energy. You will live a life unfulfilled, yet still be confronted by your fears. You will constantly go to battle for the energies of your fears, but your own evolution will have been compromised, for the time-being declared unprepared for, unready for. When you are ready you will know what to do. But until then the burden of your fears will grow.

You see, My Dears, it’s necessary to find the means of gaining access to your personal energy. You all have enough to get you where you are going to evolve. You just have to find the way to access it and then use it to gain more.

As you elect to turn your life in a different direction, and face your fears, you will find that some of those fears are very apparent, easily identifiable, known entities and longtime partners in your life. They may be easily burst through as well, but then other fears, not so easily identifiable as such, will come into the game of life. And these are the ones, disguised in many forms, that will really teach you what it means to evolve, to be balanced individuals, and to navigate life with spirit-intent, living in the form of flesh and ego, mind and spirit-thought combined.

Find out who you truly are by facing those fears. It really is the only thing that stands in your way. Your path may not be that clear to you, but I can guarantee that your fears are!

Do you have a last thing to say on this subject today, Jeanne?

Oh yes, don’t forget to love yourself for the fears you bear, and love your fears for guiding you through life, for they are your fuel. They carry the energy you need to truly evolve. They are you, leading you ever deeper to the core of self, the energy self. They may manifest in your life and in your body, but they are your energy self. Find your way to them and gather from them the knowledge they hold. Your fears are your power! You see?

Thank you, Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below. And thank you for passing the messages on!

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Reality of Reality

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I awaken. An abundance of dream traces compete for attention. I have been in many dreams, many worlds. Calmly, I reach for pen, journal, and light, trying desperately to hold onto the images. This is not possible. With the light I consolidate into my solid self, my ego takes over and the bulk of the night’s journeys are erased from memory. This world, the “real world,” dominates the mind, as it begins to categorize, define, and judge what’s left of the myriad of the night’s adventures.

Quantum physicists might parallel this experience of waking from dreams with a mysterious phenomenon that occurs at the quantum level of reality called: the collapse of the wavefunction. When a very small particle—which is a minute building block of everything in our world, including our physical bodies— is observed, it presents as a solid object. When that same particle is not observed, it behaves as a wave—that is, a spread-out form of energy that is in many places at once.

A wave can approach a building and go through several windows at the same time, and yet, if a scientist peeks at it while it is doing so, it suddenly collapses into a localized single particle that only goes through one window. The rest of the wave disappears. Sheer quantum magic!

The parallel I draw here between awakening from a dream state to consciousness, and collapse of the wavefunction, is similar to the collapse of our energy selves, as we go from spread-out energy beings, capable of living in many parallel states or dream worlds simultaneously, into a single solid ego being. With the dawn of the awakening ego self comes the collapse of the broad energetic self with all its multitudinous lives, in many dreams, suddenly collapsing into the consolidated solid self of this world.

This world of solid objects presents as the only real world and, yet, quantum physicists know, for a fact, that at a subatomic level it only becomes solid when it is looked at; otherwise it’s a spread-out world of energy. The solid world we inhabit is real, but it is only a frozen moment upon the vast energetic underpinnings of who we are. At the deepest level, we are—all of us—like the result of a pebble being tossed into a pond: the energetic concentric circles that form outwardly; vast waves of interconnected energy.

But for now, let us examine that frozen moment. So, what is the reality of the collapsed wavelength, the solid ego self? The magic is its ability to generate and maintain a cohesive world, completely independent of its underlying broader nature. However, to pull this off requires a major ego inflation. That is, the belief that we are all that there is, that we are the masters of everything, we are discrete independent objects, disconnected from everything around us. This is solid illusion! Objectively speaking, this construction is an act of hubris and a crime against reality. Underneath it all, the ego feels and knows it is not on solid ground, and it is frightened.

As I was writing the draft of this blog, I checked my office messages. A voice that did not identify itself nor leave a phone number, asked the question: “What can lead to a sudden shift, a sudden loss of self-worth or self-esteem?” The answer is: getting pulled into the feeling experience of the true nature of the ego’s position: alienated and disconnected. Feelingwise, all egos feel a deep underlying sense of dread, aloneness, badness, unworthiness, and inadequacy. This is objective truth and, hence, appropriate. In fact, life in our solid world predisposes us to a bi-polar experience. In some moments we need to inflate—act as if we are solidly grounded—and at other moments compensate this by experiencing dips in self-worth or extended moments of depression, as we sink into the emotional quicksand of our not so solid foundations.

If we can live as solid objects but acquiesce to the truth of our underlying wave status, we can bypass being consumed by, or staying attached to, these negative feelings. If we can admit we are inadequate and isolated, not because we are bad, but because it is the necessary objective consequence of being a solid, we can free ourselves of the responsibility of having caused our state of inadequacy. As solid beings we are simply unable to feel and know our full selves as interconnected to everything. So, don’t take it personally. And indeed, as Carlos Castaneda continually stresses: Suspend judgment! If we don’t get identified with the ego’s unrelenting judgments of self and others we open up access to our broader wavelength selves.

I operate in this solid world, every day, from a wavelength perspective. I know that, at some level, even if I’m not allowed “to peek” that everything is energy. I know that energy is interconnected and everywhere at once. These are the waves, the ripples on the pond of the multidimensional self. And I watch, constantly, for the ripples of energy upon the surface, in the form of synchronicities.

Synchronicity is evidence of our total interconnectedness. Each day, I watch in awe, as those ripples of meaning surface in succession, as I move through my encounters of the day and help others examine the meanings of the events in their lives. Everything is meaningful.

I am utterly compelled now to write of the latest ripple, an example of synchronicity that has just happened and has been weaving itself, over the past few days, into every facet of writing this blog, appearing over and over again. Two nights ago, Jan shared an old dream with me where, despite being wounded and bleeding from the hip, she was totally preoccupied by a giant praying mantis pecking away at her skull. This dream mirrored the initiation of her recapitulation. We had been discussing synchronicity when she shared the dream, which had its own synchronicity embedded in it.

The next day, the book, The Adventure of Self-Discovery, by Stanislav Grof, which I had ordered, arrived in the mail. At random, I opened the book to page 152 where Grof was describing a synchronicity that Joseph Campbell had relayed at a seminar. Campbell says: “…We happen to live in New York City, on the fourteenth floor in an apartment on Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue. The last thing you would expect to see in New York City is a praying mantis. The praying mantis plays the role of the hero in the Bushman folklore. I was reading the Bushman mythology—all about the praying mantis. The room in which I was doing this reading has two windows; one window faces up Sixth Avenue, the other window face toward the Hudson river. This is the window I look out of all the time; the window on Sixth Avenue, I do not think I have opened more than twice during the forty-odd years we have lived there.

I was reading about the praying mantis—the hero—and suddenly I felt an impulse to open the window facing Sixth Avenue. I opened the window and looked out to the right and there was a praying mantis walking up the building. He was there, right on the rim of my window! …He looked at me and his face looked just like a Bushman’s face.”

Later that evening, I sat with Jan on the couch and read her this quote. As we talked a small bright green insect with long wings, very much looking like a miniature praying mantis, was crawling on the lampshade behind my head as I read!

Finally, as I sat next to Jan on another couch this morning, finishing the draft of this blog, and just as I am writing about the praying mantis experience, Jan interrupts me. She has been researching the raven in mythology after her recent experiences of the raven. In Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, on pages 187-8, he says: “The raven has a wealth of myth and lore surrounding it. In many ways it is comparable to the coyote tales of the plains Indians, the Bushman tales of the mantis and other societies in which an animal plays both a significant and confusing role. The coyote was both trickster and wise being—fool and wise one. This was true of the mantis in the tales of the Kalahari Bushmen.”

Sheer quantum magic!

I close with an interaction between Carlos Castaneda and the quantum shaman himself, don Juan, over a discussion about solid and energetic reality. In The Art of Dreaming on page 4, Carlos writes:

“I can’t conceive the world in any other way, don Juan,” I complained. “It is unquestionably a world of objects. To prove it, all we have to do is bump into them.”

“Of course it’s a world of objects. We are not arguing that.” (don Juan speaking.)

“What are you saying then?“

“I am saying that this is first a world of energy; then it’s a world of objects. If we don’t start with the premise that it is a world of energy, we’ll never be able to perceive energy directly. We’ll always be stopped by the physical certainty of what you’ve just pointed out: the hardness of objects.”

And so, there is reality and then there is reality.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Meditating into Egolessness

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Once again nature predominates in the Northeast, another winter storm creating an outer cocoon that is hard to penetrate. At times like this, there is a natural call to go inward, to hunker down, be warm and safe, and hope that the power stays on so that we are not too badly inconvenienced. During one of these recent storms, as I was shoveling the driveway for what felt like the hundredth time that week, feeling dispirited, irritated, and personally put upon by nature, I shouted out: ENOUGH! In the distant woods I heard a loud gravelly cry in reply. It got my attention.

Taking a breather, I flopped down in the snow and stared up into the sky, the snow pelting my face cooling my mood. “Don’t take it so personally,” I told myself. From the woods came a flurry of activity, the sound of wings beating and more loud calls, as if an argument or fight were taking place. In the next moment, a large black bird flew up and out of the tangle of trees, still calling loudly, its adversary shouting behind it. It flew directly overhead, a raven. Now it really had my attention.

The raven rarely shows itself. I see it only occasionally though I know it lives in the nearby woods, having heard it often enough. Its loud groveling voice is easy to distinguish. As it flies overhead I hear it still arguing with the other bird, perhaps ousting it from its territory, or perhaps it was a mate, but all I know is that this moment is meaningful. I ponder what I had been thinking when it so loudly interrupted my inner dialogue. “Who are you to complain?” it seemed to be saying, as it flew directly over me lying spread eagle in the deep snow.

It flew low enough that I could see each separate feather of its distinctly cut wedge-shaped tail, hear the flap of its wide wings, and see its beady eye staring right at me. Out of its long, sharp black beak came another string of garbled sounds, meant for me, I felt. “Don’t take it personally, Jan, but you are nothing. I see you lying down there, nothing more than a speck on the ground, so small and insignificant. I have quite a good perspective from up here you know,” it seemed to be saying. I saw the significance of the synchronicity very clearly then and, indeed, in that moment, I was released of my bad mood.

I got up, brushed the snow off my clothes, my state of mind now shifted. I chuckled at my former disgust with nature. Nature, I knew now, had quite a sense of humor. “Yes, it does!” cackled the raven, as it flew off into the deeper woods where I knew it stayed most of the time. Its chuckles pierced the air, echoing in my head for a long time afterwards.

I thought of this raven again yesterday, as I sat in meditation. I began by chanting a mantra, letting it come out of my unconscious of its own accord, falling into place. It went something like this: I allow my ancient spirit self who knows and sees to be more fully present in this life. As I sat quietly, letting both my breathing and the words take me deeper into calmness I also let the words sink in deeper, taking hold of other thoughts, pushing them away, as I stayed connected to the intent of the moment, to let my ancient self emerge more fully. I felt good. I noticed occasionally that I was not allowing other thoughts to intrude, that I was achieving a sense of detachment and emptiness, staying focused on my intent.

I use meditation in many ways and for different purposes, depending on the day or the moment. Sometimes I just want to achieve a sense of inner calm and peace. Sometimes I want to mull over difficulties, reach a resolution, or gain clarity. Sometimes I want to have an adventure of energetic proportions. Yesterday, I just wanted to see what happened as I attempted to resolve my personal inner dilemma of allowing my inner spirit—that holy/wholly self that Jeanne mentioned in the channeled message this week—to more fully live. It is my challenge, to not fall back into an old and moody self, but to keep moving forward on that path I mentioned in that same channeled message the other day.

So, as I chanted and breathed, after a while I got in touch with that inner spirit and I heard it say that it was not at all afraid to live, to be more fully present in my life, but that my ego kept getting in its way. It cannot emerge if the ego is in control, it told me. The ancient spirit self is always ready and waiting, but it cannot come forth if the ego is blocking the way. When I heard this, I gave myself a new chant: I allow my ego self to dissolve and let go of its need to control as I open to my ancient spirit self who knows and sees.

While I am having this inner conversation with what I think are my inner spirit and my ego, I hear another third voice asking me to question what is ego and what is ancient spirit. It was then that I clearly saw how totally dominant my ego was. Here I thought I was really letting myself go, feeling good about chanting in such a positive spirit-oriented way, saying: “Look at me, I’m doing it. I have successfully shut out all other voices, I am doing a good job with this meditation.” But wouldn’t you know, all I was doing was placating my ego, because that look-at-me-I’m-doing-such-a-good-job voice was really my ego talking. That third voice, so clearly coming from beyond ego pointed out what my ego was doing. This, was the voice of my ancient spirit self, telling me that in order to truly allow the ancient spirit self to more fully emerge I must consider the power of the ego.

So, what if it’s true that the ancient spirit self really does want to live but we are blocking its emergence without even realizing it? What if our ego is so attached to us and in command that we can’t access this true self? It’s something to ponder.

So, what is ego? I think it’s everything that is not ancient spirit self. And I think it dominates. It is the complaining, whining, self-important self; the inflated, so busy I can’t be disturbed self; the poor-me and why-me self. It is the self that says love me and be nice to me, world. It is the self that feels good about sitting and doing meditation and the self that wants experiences of energy and even of spirit connection. Yes, it is even the good self that seeks out the ancient spirit self. It is the self that rails against nature, against even more snow, and it is the self that may not want to hear the truths being spoken.

I had a feeling when I heard and saw that raven that it was a momentous occasion, and yesterday, when I sat down to meditate, the fact that the raven came to mind, as I chanted forth my ancient spirit self, is also significant to me. As I sit here now and once again watch the snow, sleet and freezing rain fall, the piles of snow outside growing increasingly taller, I feel more connected to the raven, showing me what the ancient spirit self is truly capable of. That ancient spirit self is like the raven, able to fly high about it all, to see and know from a different perspective what my ego self can only imagine, to call down and say, “Hey, wait a minute, what is really going on inside that controlling mind of yours?” My ancient spirit self is nature. This I understand more fully today.

And even though I cocoon myself inside my warm house and ponder these things, I know that later today I will be outside once again with my shovel, nature telling me I am nothing. But at the same time I will listen for the call of the raven telling me I am more than nothing as well, because I am also nature. And it is in nature that I will find my ancient spirit self, where I will hear its true call.

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

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR