What does your conjuring mind look like? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Riding in the front of the train, we encounter oncoming time, what is factually, energetically happening right in front of us, NOW. Speculation, in contrast, is riding in the caboose, the back of the train, inundated with mindless ruminating on life lived or life possibly to be lived, as the energetic facts of our life—what is happening now—passes us by without our awareness. Speculation plants the seeds of obsession, which in turn generates phantom life—energetic capital spent on an unreal world, an abstract world that runs on our vital energy. Energetic fact disappears as we are inundated with phantom “what ifs.”
Phantom life is generated by obsessional thinking before sleep or upon awakening in the middle of the night. Phantom life is worry, energy given over to the conjuring mind. Phantom life literally sucks the life out of us. Phantom life cannot exist if we don’t fund it with vast amounts of our energy.
In order to perceive the true energetic facts of our lives, we need silence—detachment from the internal dialogue that incessantly conjures our view of the world and all that we encounter. We need silence so we can see what is really there.
Silence is not the absence of noise, nor the absence of dialogue. Silence is mastery over where we choose to place our attention. If we let the mind say what it will, let the noise in the surround remain while we disengage our attention from its activity, we unhook, or de-tach. In this way, we free our awareness.
I offer a few simple examples of phantom thought and practical aids to achieving silence. If I really focus my awareness on an inhalation, I notice that I cannot hold a thought. If I am gripped by a thought that evolves into a phantom story, I notice that my breathing slows to a mere maintenance level as the story takes precedence. If I shift my awareness away from the phantom story that my mind is busy conjuring up and take a deep breath instead, the story desists. The two cannot exist simultaneously.
If I do Tensegrity, the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda’s lineage, I cannot maintain a thought. If I step into thought, I cannot remember the next move in the pass. I cannot maintain thought and accuracy of movement simultaneously. Magical Passes shift attention away from the internal dialogue, offering moments of silence. Any focused physical movement achieves the same outcome.
If I stare at a candle flame and listen to my internal dialogue, I notice that I lose connection to the flame. The flame remains, however, inviting my attention back, offering the opportunity to burn away my attachment to thought.
In practicing moments of silence, we eventually achieve mastery over phantom life; we hone our energy to be utilized with intent. In silence, we are fully present to the energetic facts of our lives. In silence, our energetic reserves are fully prepared to engage and live to the fullest, in NOW time.
It’s been hot. I’ve been trying to get the weeds pulled and the seeds planted. The dandelions have taken over. I like dandelions. I pick the young leaves and add them to salads and chop them into sautés. I juice them along with chickweed, lemon balm, and plantain leaves. I snip wheatgrass and mint into the mix too. But the dandelions are insistent this year, so I’m letting them take over one section of the garden. I water them and thank them for coming to feed me.
I’m pretty sure that if things got really bad in our present day world I’d find enough food to eat right here in my yard. It’s a grim thought, but the more I discover that not only our food and water sources, but practically everything we make, consume, and depend on in this country is compromised in some way, the more I wonder about us as a people and a nation. I wonder if I really belong here. Should I leave, desert a sinking ship so to speak? Really, I think about it sometimes.
I try not to get depressed about it. I try not to worry about what our children will have to contend with. I try not to think about ignorance and stupidity and aberrant behaviors. I try not to think about unfairness and greed, about the corporations selling us their poisons that make us sick, everything from the food in our supermarkets to the drugs in our pharmacies. Nothing is real anymore, and that’s what bothers me the most. “Just eat real food,” I tell my kids. “Moderation and balance in everything, but keep it real.”
We don’t even treat our fellow human beings as real people with real needs, needing things like a living wage to simply afford the basic necessities. I lived in Sweden in the 1970s, when its Socialist agenda was in its heyday. Olaf Palme was Prime Minister. He’d sometimes walk home to his apartment after a hard day at the Riksdag, wending his way through the streets of Stockholm, greeting people as he went. He even rode the subways like other normal working people. It was really a pretty idyllic society, good intentioned. Sweden lost its innocence when Palme got shot coming out of a movie theater with his wife one night, a place I had been to countless times. Sweden wasn’t perfect by far, but people mattered—children mattered, women mattered, the unemployed and the sick mattered—and as far as I can see they still do. There were no poor people in Sweden, everyone got what they needed.
The Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland all lived by the same ideals, that no one should be without the basics: food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare. Things were affordable, such as housing and food, and a lot of things were free, paid for by the high taxes we all paid, but I always felt it was a great deal. You got what you paid for; it was pretty real in that way. The government delivered on its promises. As an immigrant I received the same benefits as a natural Swede. From day one I had my health card and access to free education. I took free Swedish language courses through a variety of schools, including the University of Stockholm. You had a sense that the government was just like you, the Prime Minister just another working guy, and that you were really cared about.
An overall sense of social justice, responsibility, compassion and respect for fellow human beings prevailed that I have rarely experienced since, especially on a governmental level. The cold people of the north—as they were sometimes referred to—had warm hearts at their center. As a society they were not selfish or greedy. Memories of their own recent history of hard times were still raw and still talked about. Human suffering became the most important matter to address and they found a means of relief. There were a lot of problems too, the homogenous population was fast changing and new difficulties loomed on the horizon, but overall there were few complaints. Everyone mattered.
I noticed one of those obnoxious polls the other day: The Most Democratic Countries in the World! I couldn’t help myself; I had to look. The U.S. got a mediocre ranking, 21 out of 25, but guess who was at the top: Norway, followed by Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. I wasn’t surprised. Back in the 70s, Norway was the first of those countries to ban certain food colorings and preservatives because they were deemed carcinogenic and how could you feed your people something that was poisonous! With no food coloring, things looked kind of unappetizing. It was most noticeable in the street vendors selling gray hot dogs and sodas that were clear in color. We still haven’t banned food colorings and preservatives from foods, in fact we’ve simply renamed them. And as for feeding people carcinogens, don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around! As I said, I try not to think about these things, but I can’t help wondering when the greed is going to be stopped so REAL can become the norm again, when the new buzz word is REAL and it really is REAL!
The Buddhists say to accept ignorance and have compassion. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico say that life is an illusion anyway, so why fixate on it. Both of them say work to free yourself. And so I work to free myself from my own ignorance and from my own illusions. I refuse to get caught in the fear and the worry that comes so easily whenever I think about the earth and the world we have created. I see it as my duty to work on myself, to free myself of the corporate greed, to detach as much as possible from what seeks to draw me in. I decide what I really need and what I can do without.
And so, in keeping with that decision to energetically detach as much as possible, I canceled our cable TV. The bill was outrageously high, and I saw no reason for it. Someone has been making a lot of money off us. We don’t want the meaningless spin and the constant selling permeating our home environment. Even what once seemed to have integrity no longer appeals. I see commercial television as a home invasion and I don’t want it or need it. There are other things to do. We recently cut the expensive car insurance we were paying in half by going with a different company, and our escalating health insurance premium by a good amount too by finding a new carrier. We weren’t getting better service for all our dollars, but some corporations sure were reaping huge benefits! We’ve put thousands of dollars a year back into our own pockets, money we can put to better use.
Very local greens… from my yard! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
So, as I pare down my life, I stay local, as local as possible, REAL local. I support the efforts of my fellow human beings to produce real foods and goods and so I shop at the Red Hook Farmer’s Market and the Red Hook Natural Foods Store where local produce is always available. I simplify. I eat the weeds in my yard. I constantly look to new places to pull the plug on the things I don’t need. It feels like a lot more people are doing this too. Local organic farms with everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and cheeses are growing in number, and it’s really good to see. I don’t see it as just a trendy thing, but more as a longterm trend toward taking back what we’ve lost: our personal power as real human beings. All of this local-ness is helping us regain our realness, our compassion, and a sense of social responsibility to the earth and our fellow human beings.
It felt good to be out in the heat, planting my seeds, welcoming them to my soil. The birds sang to me all morning as I weeded and planted. The robin nesting in the rafters of the deck didn’t fly off her nest as I worked just a few feet away from her. She’s used to me now, she knows I’m real and that I won’t hurt her, that I’m just doing what she does, tending my nest, keeping it real.
In every moment there is the opportunity to change, like these blossoms that no longer exist, but new leaves have sprouted… nature is in constant flux… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here is this week’s message from Jeanne:
There is always room for improvement, for tweaking and perfecting. In all walks of life, in all aspects of life, in all you do, think and perceive there is room for new insight.
Allow the self, over the next few days, to notice just how you repeat yourself, how you go into automatic pilot and without consciousness simply operate as if you were a robot. Robots do not embody spirit. They are mere machines. Is that what you want to be, a mere machine?
Life, in order to be fulfilling, must include goals and goals, in order to be achieved, must involve disciplinary action. Without judgment and self-criticism, but simply because it is time and you are ready, embrace a new disciplinary plan. Set your goals and strive toward them, one step at a time.
Allow the self room to maneuver through the energy that arises each day, not so hard that you can’t flow, because it is in the act of flowing that you will learn what it means to grow and change. If you are too strict there will be no progress, just as there will be no progress if you are too lenient. Inflexibility is just as damaging as overindulgence.
Allow the self to be aware of the energy outside of the self, even as you seek to hone your inner energy, for it is only in compatibility that these two forces—inner and outer—will align and balance. Thus, to be innerly aware is as important as being outerly aware.
Watch how you operate in your own world. Who rules you? Who commands, directs, and charges you with your tasks, judgments, and your ideas of self and other? Who is really in charge? Seek connection with the spirit that resides within and allow it to guide you. This is often easier said than done, but with intent, discipline, and a keen inner awareness you should be able to hone your attention on this inner spirit self over the next few days. Begin there, and then flow with what comes, allowing the self to relax with this inner self. Accept its truths and be open to accepting its guidance. The flow of your life will change as you both release and hone, let go and yet discipline yourself, constantly realigning your intent, innerly and outerly.
Life is an unending flow of moments—of energy and opportunity. You are already in the flow of its offerings. Now it’s time to be in your life fully aware, accepting of what comes to greet you and determined to experience it to the fullest. That’s the challenge.
A rush of energy will follow shortly. Feel it and know that it is the energy of life itself flowing through you. It might feel like too much at once, or not enough, but you will remember it for its truthful presence. It’s up to you to tame it so that it feeds your needs but also so that you remain fully aware, in balanced alignment with it. With your intent set to change, use it to your advantage. You are in charge of how you elect to use it—the flow of the energy of life as it flows through you and everyone upon that earth. Let go of your crutches—in whatever form they are—and let the energy of life in.
Each moment is new and vibrant and available for you to use to your advantage. The choice becomes: Do I grab it and go, shift into new life, or do I have to stay where I am a little bit longer, or even a lot longer? You decide. Then act, take action on your own behalf. Hone your awareness if nothing else.
Change takes proactive energy; that is being in alignment with life and taking action on your own behalf. No one else can do it for you. If you want change, make it happen for yourself. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. What are you waiting for? The energy of life awaits! Feel it flowing through the universe. It is your present and your future, already available to you, already flowing through you. You just have to become aware of this and let it guide you.
Seek compatibility in all you do, in where you go, in who you go with. Compatibility is the key.
What does your Grudge look like? – Art by Jan Ketchel
First, a shout out to a magical being who proposed that the “Raw Deal” be a blog topic, as a personal shift to a “New Deal” takes place. Thank you. You know who you are.
Roosevelt’s New Deal was a radical shift for America, one intended to shift the nation beyond entrenched victimhood into independence. This victim can be subtle and wily, as it can sneak in and bind our energy and take over our view through the character that I call “the Grudge.”
The Grudge is the repository of our accumulated resentments and entitlements, frustrated and fermenting in our chained bodies and spirits. The Grudge casts a negative, gray hue over our moods, thoughts, and interactions with the world. The Grudge gnaws on the raw deal of unmet needs such as betrayal, neglect, and abuse. The Grudge may dominate inwardly in powerlessness, isolation, and depression, or outwardly in open hostility and critical judgment, or both inwardly and outwardly simultaneously.
The Grudge is actually the warehouse for recapitulation. In recapitulation we sift through our accumulated grudge inventories and systematically free our energy for redeployment in a New Deal, beyond the confines of the Raw Deal.
Stalking, in the shamanic world, is learning how to live in any given world. In stalking the Raw Deal, we observe how our attitudes, behaviors and habits construct and uphold what we perceive as an unfair world, at least as we personally experience it. As we stalk the Raw Deal world we live in, we observe ourselves boxed into the corner by fate, circumstance, and choice—beings with clipped wings.
In recapitulation, we identify the building blocks of our raw deal world and follow through to their derivative roots. We discover, through recapitulation, the truths of our victimization; the deep-seated wounds to our innocence that have so restricted our joy and fulfillment. These wounds must be observed and fully felt. Equally, our response to those woundings—our defensive strategies to hide and protect our innocence—must be acknowledged and accepted. Herein lies the heart of the Grudge: the repository of unlived innocence.
The task at hand is to free our lost innocence from the protective hands of the Grudge, free it to come into mainstream life. Often the Grudge will hold on tightly, arguing that it is the job of the world, or those who failed innocence, to acknowledge their mistakes and compensate for lost time, lost life.
Though the Grudge often rightly points to those responsible for the Raw Deal to begin with—those beyond the self—the chance of outer compensation is fairly slim. Fortunately, the adult self that stalks the Raw Deal and elects to undertake a thorough recapitulation, is fully capable of freeing the Grudge, freeing the captive innocent self. Thus empowered, this adult self is then free to live out that innocence to fulfillment in this life. This is the adult self assuming full responsibility for its journey, its life, and whatever challenges infinity might have placed or continues to place before it. This is stalking the New Deal, a victimless life, fully freed from the protective custody of the Grudge, with energy redeployed for truly living.
What kind of mother did you get? – Art by Jan Ketchel
Motherhood seems to be the theme of the week. It all started on Mother’s Day. I decided not to call my mother. It was a deeply considered act on my part. I absolved myself of upholding a tradition that has no meaning for me. This was done not out of spite or resentment, but only because there is nothing to be gained in continuing a tradition for tradition’s sake. It would have been different if I had some attachment to my mother.
I felt no need or obligation to continue playing an old charade. It would have been ingenuine. I have moved on to a new world where old habits and behaviors and meaningless acts are questioned as to value, truth, and importance and dealt with in a compassionate and affectionate manner. And so I allowed myself to have a completely free day. I flowed with the energy, weaving in and out of worlds as the day went on, enjoying every minute of my freedom from old stale duty. I received phone calls myself from my sweet children, but they also know that I have no expectations of them. They don’t have to uphold anything on my account. Our bond however, is real and genuine. In contrast, I have no connection with my own mother. I never did.
I have no memory of my mother as a mother. Any tender mothering she administered was over pretty quickly. After that she became someone I dodged as often as I could and who I dealt with as little as possible. An impeccable petty tyrant, she often loomed as big as the nuns at the Catholic school I went to, as big as the Church itself.
I have distance from that mother now. As I worked through my parental relationships during my recapitulation, there were many things about my parents that I had to confront and consider, but there were also plenty of things about them that I had to own and encounter inside myself as well. I explore this deep inner process in The Edge of the Abyss as I faced the mother—and father—I got and understood how I had become just like them. There was always, however, a part of me that didn’t want to be like them, that struggled to become independent of them and how they lived their lives, to become my own separate being.
I granted myself permission to become a different kind of mother when I had my own children, an openly loving mother. I also granted this new mother to myself as I recapitulated, teaching myself that it’s okay to be expressive and joyous, tender and considerate of myself. I learned how to become my own mother and my own father, a different mother and father from the ones I got, fully present and attentive, connected and available to the evolving being I was. This was how I also learned to love and appreciate the parents I got; how I learned what it meant to have compassion for others.
A different kind of mother… – Art by Jan Ketchel
And so the motherhood theme—perhaps because I rejected the status quo on Sunday, or perhaps because it’s in the energy of the planetary alignment right now—continues to arise. As the week has gone by, I have had to face the motherhood question.
Am I still carrying my mother around inside me? I pose this question to myself as a challenge and I have to be honest: Oh yes! I am not totally free of my mother. It’s not that easy to cast off that which was long ago embedded inside you, especially if it still exists in reality and must constantly be reencountered. I may still have to encounter her inside myself after her passing too, though I work now to free myself of that possibility. I have no intention of dealing with her ghostly enigma. But the truth is that it’s not my mother that I must face. It’s really only the enigma of the mother of my childhood, who’s shadow sometimes falls upon my brave new world. I don’t want her living inside me, in my body or in my thoughts, and so I constantly work at exorcising her tags of energy still embedded in my psyche. I do this not with any hatred, but only because we are done, our work as parent and child was finished long ago. However, the old mother inside me can still draw me into old places. Those times are less and less frequent, but they are still there, waiting for me to lapse. “Don’t leave me,” she pleads, “take me with you!” I notice it especially in my body, in my posture, moments when I feel the weight of that old mother, as if I’m literally carrying her around on my back.
The body is such a bearer of bad habit. It so easily slips into old postures of submission and fear. I notice that I’m not emotionally feeling like my old self when this happens, I remain my new strong self, but some part of me remembers and my muscles slip back so easily into their old molds. I have to constantly be aware of how I sit, walk, and move around in general. I have to constantly readjust myself inside my new body self. “I’m stalking a new self,” I remind myself, as I shrug off the old. “I’m stalking a new me!”
My life in this world has, for the most part, been an introspective one. Deeply introverted, my inner dissociated self was never a stranger, but this body was. I have claimed back my body, but I still have to remain in it. It’s so easy to slip out and go elsewhere. As I worked through my recapitulation, I realized that my greatest challenge in this life is to be fully physically present. I know that now. And so that is the work I do now. On a daily basis I remind myself that I exist in this body. And so, I have to thank my mother for her part in this process of self-discovery. Even though I didn’t call her on Mother’s Day, I am grateful for the mother I got. She has helped me to grow, but it was necessary for me to be totally in my own body, mothering myself as a physical being in a new world, being my own mother on Mother’s Day.
As both a mother and a daughter, I can say that the best Mother’s Day gift anyone can give—or father’s day gift for that matter—is to become totally independent beings all around. Mothers, mother yourselves. Children, mother yourselves. Fathers, father yourselves. Children, father yourselves. Become the parent you never got and love yourselves. In this way, we absolve each other of the hooks and kinks that keep us attached, that keep us all immature adults, that keep us bound by old stale rules that keep us repeating unhealthy dynamics, traditions for tradition’s sake that have no meaning, that keep us big babies.
Intent we keep posted on the fridge… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Traditions must be upheld, it seems, until we no longer need them, until we find ourselves free at last. And so I constantly remind myself that it’s okay to break the rules, to see where I am in my life, how far I’ve really come. Can I pull this off? Is it right and for the right reasons? Just look around and see how many people you know who are already doing it. Are you? Who in your life is daring to break with tradition and not show up at the family gathering? Are they doing it for the right reasons? Not out of resentment, fear, guilt or hatred, but because they’ve truly evolved and moved on? And can we let them go, without resentment too? At other times, it’s vitally important to go beyond personal issues and show up for an occasion, to transcend grudges or disputes and be present for others. Sometimes it’s just important to step into another’s world and flow with what they need. I am, for instance, still very present in my mother’s life. She depends on me. I have deep affection for her, but I need nothing in return.
Just think of those 17-year cicadas waiting for their moment of emergence, their moment of freedom from what their parents did to them! I imagine it feels pretty much like what I felt as I did my recapitulation and came out of the shadow of parental expectation and duty. I had to find my own way in life, in my own way. It’s what we’re all charged with. As you burst through the crust of the old self and feel the sun on your face, for the first time perhaps you realize— like I did, and like those cicadas know—that this is not the end, it’s only the beginning. There is yet another moment of transformation to come: growing your wings. And after that you have to fly! And then where will you go? That next step is always there, just one more step ahead of you.
It’s time to leave the pit and spread new wings of intent, as free mature beings. Imagine the sound that all of us freed human beings would make, our spirits shouting, drowning out the sounds of the cicadas. Now that would be something to hear!
