Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Rite of Spring

Leave a comment

Today we post Chuck’s blog. Jan’s blog will appear on Friday this week.

Will spring ever come? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Will spring ever come? – Photo by Jan Ketchel

As I write, millions of Hindus celebrate the festival of Kumbh Mela at the mythical river Ganges. The Tibetans have just celebrated their New Year, the year of the water snake, on the day the Pope resigned. Fat Tuesday, the height of Carnival, lands on the day of President Obama’s State of the Union address. Today, Ash Wednesday, ushers in Lent, forty days of sacrifice—carne denied—before nature ushers in the Rite of Spring.

The juxtaposition of these human traditions built upon the deepest cycle of nature—the end of winter—reveals the exceptional tumult and uncertainty of our time. Will spring ever come, will life survive this most tenuous time of year? A Pope resigning, an unheard of event, is a strong testament to our time of fragility and rapid change, and the need for new governance to lead us forward. The King is dead, long life the King!

On Monday of this week, I turned to the I Ching for reflection on the extraordinary synchronicities of these archetypal events. I offer its guidance as I received it: I threw hexagram #64, Before Completion, with moving lines in the first, second, and fifth places. The resulting future of this hexagram is hexagram #25, Innocence.

Before Completion is the time of very early spring, the time we are in now. The image is that of the fox crossing the semi-frozen surface of a lake. How wisely will that fox cross so as to not accidentally fall through a crack in the ice?

Hexagram #64 is the final hexagram in the I Ching, the Book of Changes. It ushers in the beginning of a new cycle, the time of year we are in now. It is the time of new governance that we are now in as well. It’s the time of planetary transition, at the deepest level, that we are also now in. The question is, as the earth enters its new cycle, how wise will we humans be as we cross the thin ice? How well will we fare?

The two elements that comprise hexagram #64 are fire above and water below. These elements are opposites and they are moving away from each other. Something must happen to bring these elements into a harmonious relationship. Our human country and human world suffer this same opposition now, a great division. Will we find a way to reconciliation and the fostering of new life?

The first moving line states that the fox is too hasty; it gets wet. The I Ching suggests that we are quite vulnerable to get it wrong; to move too hastily is to form a less than perfect union. Restraint is suggested to avoid failure and humiliation.

In the second line, the fox exercises its brakes and does not cross the thin ice. Patience, to accrue the inner strength that together with firm intent will provide the right vehicle to cross the lake, is the guidance here.

The six in the fifth place is the ruler of the hexagram. Victory is achieved. Steadfastness leads to a superior personality that crosses the ice successfully. And with this, the potent, medicinal, nourishing sprouts of spring break through the surface to support new life.

The hexagram of Innocence guides the practice outlined in these moving lines. The essence of innocence is the alignment of ego with spirit self. When ego acts in the service of spirit it is restored to its innocence. This is not a return to the unconscious innocence of the Garden. This is evolved innocence, consciousness that acquiesces to the truth of the spirit.

Last night we witnessed opposition—fire and water, Democrat and Republican—as presented in hexagram #64 in real time, as the archetypal drama of excess, sacrifice, death and the hope for new life played out before us. Mardi Gras closed on the heels of death, Ash Wednesday, as Guy Fawkes—the giant straw man, in the guise of Christopher Dorner—was burned in the arms of Big Bear, CA. The TV networks struggled to decide which reality to display as President Obama simultaneously, in his State of the Union address, spoke of a realignment of governance to face the truths of a planet in peril. He spoke of global warming, energy that doesn’t pollute, and greed tempered to provide a fair wage. These are the sacrifices spoken about in the I Ching under innocence, where the ego—the governing body of the self and of humankind—acquiesces to the truth of the spirit. And Obama stood there before the opposites of fire and water to bring these two opposing forces into fruitful alignment and the hope of a new spring and sustainable life.

Will we take the advice of the I Ching, so in alignment with now? Do we have the humility of a Pope who retires his ego, recognizing that he can no longer hear the spirit and properly serve the people? Can we of the human race surrender our collective ego as the fathering principle of this planet, and acquiesce to the truth of spirit as our Rite of Spring? With a hopeful outlook, the Book of Changes comes to a close and simultaneously enters a new cycle of life. Let’s see what happens.

In anticipation,
Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: The Eternal Self

Leave a comment

Here is today’s message from Jeanne, followed by a Tarot reading, both of them channeled through me for you, for all of us, for we are all living here now. I humbly offer this channeling.

It might look like quite a mountain, but just like the inner journey it's not what you think. - Photo by Jan Ketchel
It might look like quite a mountain, but just like the inner journey it’s not what you think. – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Although things may feel dire, do not lose hope, for there is always light. Even in your darkest moments there is light guiding your way, for how else would you have evolved to the person you are today? Through all of your lifetimes that light has shown you the next step. That light is not to be found outside of you but only inside, for it is your eternal self showing you always what you need to know.

You might feel that it is showing you only darkness, but you also know that isn’t true, for even in the darkness you are learning. Your life—all your lives upon that earth for that matter—are learning projects. Not tiresome like some learning projects, life offers you your own special lessons. Whether or not you engage them on a deeper level is up to you.

If you are bored with your life, feeling stuck or complacent, unable to grow further, look not outside of you for what you lack, but look inside at what you have ignored. For I guarantee there is something of great value inside you that you have been afraid or reluctant to face.

If your life and your eternal spirit are already taking you on a journey you had never expected or perhaps never wanted to take, know that it is your true path to resolution and freedom that you are traversing, and though it may be painful and difficult you will one day reach a new plane. Your eternal self will not desert you, for your goal in life is to unite with this eternal self, take your destined journey together, and be freed of all that keeps you bored, stuck or complacent. And this true journey of freedom can only be taken in the company of this eternal self. All the answers you seek lie within, in the hands of this most brilliant and capable self.

Though your journey may meander, backtrack, falter, and stagnate, your eternal self will bring you signs and messages as to how to take your next step. It is your choice as to whether or not you accept the guidance. Life is what you seek, life itself, fully lived. For that is really why you are there upon that earth—to live! It’s that simple. You are there upon that earth to live and experience what it means to be human, to be eternal, to be humanly alive and yet full of the eternal knowing self as well.

In companionship with your eternal self will you flourish. Seek the light that shines within!

Thank you to Jeanne for that enlightening message today.

The Nine of Cups from the Thoth Tarot deck.
The Nine of Cups from the Thoth Tarot deck.

Following is the guidance from the Tarot card I pulled as I asked for a followup to this guidance, offering another source of inspiration. I think it dovetails nicely with Jeanne’s message, pointing out the happiness and wholeness that await as we take our journey and do our inner work. Balanced happiness and a sense of fulfillment will ensue. Although Jeanne suggests we look within, there are always messages from without that may help us as we go within. So take this guidance from without to your eternal self and ask that deeper self to make sense of it all for where you are now. Perhaps it is the right guidance, the next message you needed. Be aware that the next step on your journey will be revealed in some way, big or little, subtle or profound. The light within is always shining. Good Luck!

Nine of Cups

“The Nine of Cups is happiness. The pewter cups reflect tangible happiness that is associated with either health, finances, work, creativity or relationships. This is happiness that is fulfilling internally as well as externally. Internal happiness is represented by the three vertical cups representing happiness of body, mind, and spirit; the horizontal three cups represent happiness experienced in body, mind, and spirit externally…When you pull the Nine of Cups, it is an indication that you are able, in the next nine weeks or the next nine months, to experience emotional expansion that comes from the feeling of fulfillment in completion, internally and externally. There’s an ability to integrate and balance feelings in deep and expansive ways for your own emotional happiness and well-being.” -from The Tarot Handbook by Angeles Arrien. Tarot card from Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot Deck.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Multiple Personality In Order

Leave a comment
In the dreaminess of the dream, what do you see? -Photo by Jan Ketchel
In the dreaminess of the dream, what do you see? -Photo by Jan Ketchel

Carl Jung brought our attention to nature’s use of the mandala as a symbol of our wholeness. Whenever some configuration of a circle and a square appears in a dream, follow that trail. Pick up that lowly copper penny inside a box, something of your valuable wholeness lies there. Follow that bouncing ball as it hits the square pavement stones. It may lead you to the next piece of the puzzle of self.

Typically, the mandala is divided into four sections, symbolic of our divided selves. Wholeness requires that we discover, develop, relate to, and bring into an integrated life, our very divided and separated inner selves.

Perhaps at the deepest level our divided selves reflect our lives lived through infinity, our incarnations in different worlds at different times. Sometimes in my consulting room clients are compelled to visit and integrate the challenges and lessons of past lives. More often than not, however, this deeper integration awaits as a final task to completion of our present life, as we prepare for transition into new life.

Division within the self is often a function of trauma. In childhood trauma especially, our developing selves are confronted with challenges beyond our ability to emotionally and cognitively master. Such experiences are split off, frozen in time, stored in the body for future reconciliation when our evolving self has greater mastery and an ability to meet the challenges of its lost self or selves.

All individuals experience splintering of self through the normal socialization process known as education. During schooling we are sharply molded into more uniform beings, despite personality differences. Unacceptable thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are relegated to what Carl Jung called the shadow personality that takes up life in the darkly impersonal unconscious mind and body.

That shadow personality seeks life in our fantasy, in our less than conscious states where it can seize control in psychic projections and obsessions that dominate our attention, regardless of conscious rational intent. Even predatory behaviors may be viewed as compensatory states of shadow possession, reactive to the dominating power of socialization. It’s no wonder we have a society up in arms about limitation of its arms, so aware are we of the destructive power of the shadow. Would that we were equally aware of the nature of projection; where the shadow is so easily disowned within the self, only to be feared and projected, placed out there, in the dangerous other.

The truth is, we are a multiplicity of beings, in fact a multiplicity of energetic beings. As Jan hints in her blog, we may indeed all be the same being. Wow, the integration of that realization is indeed of the highest order!

Our challenge, as Jung’s discovery of the archetypal mandala suggests, is to find all our missing parts and fit them into a unified whole. These parts all come with their challenges, ranging from facing a past life to facing down the tyrants of trauma and freeing the lost children of the self, to finding one’s voice in song or finding one’s rhythm in body movement.

The shamanic tool of recapitulation, like following the bouncing ball of the mandala in dreaming, is a time worn tool to putting in order the multiple personalities we call Self. That task is a journey of a lifetime. It’s why we’re here.

I end with a quote from The Book Of Us, Jeanne speaking of taking the road to life’s completion, channeled by Jan on May 30, 2008:

The ultimate purpose and reason for living in that realm is to complete your evolution at that level of learning, and to prepare the self to move on to the next level. Completion entails taking into consideration every bit of who you are, and putting together the puzzle of the self, holding the self responsible for finding what you need to make this completion happen …To achieve completion must you be prepared to leave your recapitulated self upon the shores of that world and advance to a new level where only completed souls may go..

Following that bouncing ball and dreaming on,
Chuck

Excerpt from page 207 in The Book Of Us.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Are We All Just Living The Same Life?

Leave a comment
We're all in the same golden universe, aren't we? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We’re all in the same golden universe, aren’t we? – Photo by Jan Ketchel

A year ago, during this first week in February, I was at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. A dear relative lay dying. She had asked me to be with her. I got there at 9:20 in the morning. “Let’s do it,” she said, and then she closed her eyes. She didn’t open them or speak again. She died at 9:20 that night. Nonetheless, she was energetically present, in full awareness the entire time.

I sat beside her during those twelve hours, whispering in her ear, both guarding her energy and guiding her to take her journey. Many doors opened for both of us that day. I sat on the threshold of each door as she passed through. Our lives intermingled. Sometimes I was the person in the bed dying and she was guarding and guiding. Sometimes she was my mother, my father, my child, my sister, my brother, my lover. Sometimes I was her daughter, her mother, her father, her sister, her brother, her lover.

We lived through many lives that day, easily flowing in and out of them, reliving experiences and relationships, without attachment letting everything go. As each door opened we said our goodbyes at the threshold, fully aware that we had done this so many times before, with exactly the same intent and awareness, unafraid of death, knowing that it led only to new life and new adventures. Finally, I sat back and told her it was time to go the rest of the way alone. I would be present to witness, but it was time for her to take over. She had done her life well, her journey here was done, she could leave anytime she was ready. I kissed her one last time, let her hand go, and sat quietly beside her. Shortly thereafter, without a backward glance, she leapt into the light of new life.

Even so, I have a sense of her energetic presence in my life still. Though we completed many relationships in this world on that day, we began a new relationship too. Since her passing, I have continued to honor her each week on her death day; for all that she gifted me, for who she was, for taking her journey like the strong, independent being she always was, for continuing to guide me. I feel her energy the same way I feel Jeanne’s energy—Jeanne, a being who did not know me in this world, who nonetheless connected with me in the same fashion as someone who did know me well and who I knew very well too.

I hear from people all the time. People report that my experiences are their experiences, that my life parallels theirs, that my story is their story. I have thoughts coursing through my head that belong to the petty tyrants in my life, thoughts that I’ve long ago detached myself from, yet they return unbidden, asking for my attention. I wake up and find that I have dreamed the same dream as Chuck, that we hear words spoken when neither of us has opened our mouths. We often hear music playing in our house, old-timey music—a jukebox playing jazz, swing, the blues—when there is no one else in the house and no music being played. I have walked through glitches in the universe and experienced scenes from the past, sometimes as a participant and sometimes as an observer. Like a spy, I have entered parallel universes in energetic awareness and returned awed and shaken.

I am you and you are me. - Photo by Jan Ketchel
I am you and you are me. – Photo by Jan Ketchel

And so, I wonder, are we all just living the same life? Are we all dreaming the same dream? Are your thoughts my thoughts? Are all experiences in constant flow, being relived again and again? Are the air molecules that we’re breathing in and out today the same air molecules once breathed in and out by dinosaurs and wooly mammoths, Buddha and Jesus, by Lincoln and George Washington, by Carl Jung and Carlos Castaneda? This is an interesting question that has been circulating for some time now. Are we all the same energy, the same being? Are we all living each other’s lives?

When I once asked Jeanne how she was able to use her energy now, how she could be in so many places at once, helping so many people, she described it as being like an exploding roman candle, like fireworks bursting, one candle opening into many other candles, sparkles of light and energy, an endless array of energy free to go in any direction. Intent, she said, was the catalyst.

I’m aware how intent works; that it’s available in both positive and negative form, for both giving and taking. We might set a conscious intent to be more open, kind and loving, or we might unconsciously set an intent to retreat, to be depressed and angry. Perhaps we’ve tapped into someone else’s intent. We might be living a universal intent, a political intent, an energetic intent not our own. We might be caught unaware by intent that is flowing through the universe that is negative or downright evil.

As I sat beside my dying relative last year, I very strongly experienced the intent of energy as it flows through the universe, falling now here and now there, giving and taking, yet always moving on to new experiences. And so I sense that now again, as I ponder where we are now, as the world continues to progress in the direction it is going. If my personal experiences are anything to go on, I believe that we are all the same, that indeed we are one being and we’re all having the same experiences. We live them over and over again until we don’t need them anymore. When we finally take leave of this earth for the last lifetime, and our energy rejoins the source from which it came, we discover that we are not who we thought we were. Our individuality that we are all so attached to is, at that point, revealed for what it is: a myth. Our ego is not where we reside; our energy is.

And yet, that being said, it’s of the utmost importance how we choose to live our lives. How we choose to live every day of every life, no matter who we are, is critical—because our choices impact all of us. If my energy is also your energy, if my breath is also your breath, if my thoughts are also your thoughts, then the responsibility lies heavily upon me to make sure that what flows out of me is good, healthy, positive, healing, and loving energy. If my experiences are your experiences, it behovs me greatly to make sure that I resolve my internal difficulties—my anger, my pain, my negativity and my judgments—so that you need not suffer. If my intent is to spiritually evolve then that too is your intent. It’s this kind of energetic awareness that is so badly needed now. I believe it’s how we can all be part of a changing world.

These are just some of the thoughts I woke up with today, thoughts that have been circulating through me for a long time. Did they come from you? Wherever they came from, they’re out there, and they flow through others as well. If more of us pay attention to them, quell those old negative voices that say, “Oh, that can’t be true,” and just let it be true for even a little while we may offer someone else the opportunity to not just sit on the threshold to new thoughts and ideas, but actually dare to leap—with full awareness—into a new and changing world too.

Letting your thoughts flow through me,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: New Rules of Engagement

Leave a comment

Here is the channeled message for the week from Jeanne:

This is what greeted me when I looked out the window this morning! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
This is what greeted me when I looked out the window this morning! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

First, abide by rules of love and compassion for self and all other living beings. Take heed of life around you and note that there is grave need of such love and compassion, which is by far stronger than the rules that now permeate your world, destroying cultures and living creatures alike. Take a look at this worldwide view of things and know that each one of you has the opportunity to be part of a changing attitude and a changing world. Be thoughtful in all your decision-making now, keeping always this worldview in mind.

That being said, the most important decision that any one being can make is the decision to change the self, to align with the greater forces of good, that is to say, the universal forces of love and compassion.

Look now for more opportunities to change the self. They will become more apparent. Though the opportunity to change always exists, you will begin to be bombarded with direct messages of how to change, when to change, and what to do once you make these changes in the self. The world, on a mass scale, will begin to receive these drastic messages of change as well—for they are much needed and will be much supported.

It is time to take life in a new direction. Do not mourn what can no longer be sustained, but be strengthened by the energy that no longer need be wasted in areas that no longer provide the necessities of life. Move the self forward, taking only what is truly resonant and useful, allowing for new forms of energy and progress.

Do not dismiss the messages from the deeper self, especially those you have long ignored, for they are your guidance now too, bringing you individually to your next plateau so that you are better prepared for new life. In working on issues of the deeper self, you will be freed to accept and align with the changes you so desire and need, personally and collectively.

Freeing the self of old ideas will aid the progress of the worldwide effort to be freed of old ideas too, hateful and disharmonious ideas, as well as ideas of inflated superiority or deep degradation, of self and other. For at the core you are all the same. All human beings, now and forever, suffer the same needless issues. All human beings have the same opportunities for meaningful change to take place, now and forever. With conscious awareness that everyone will benefit from change, please make an attempt to change the self. Now is a good time!

Observe, as I said, the rules of love and compassion. In some manner, allow the self to warm to a new personal process, stirring up new feelings for the self. With honesty and truth, face your lies and untruths, most of which are both true and untrue.

Where have your thoughts and ideas about the self and the world come from? That’s the first place to begin. Who told you that you were not worthy of life and love? Not you, I guarantee!

Open your heart, just a little, to the truth that as a being of energy you are also a being of light and love. Try that being on for a change and take it out into the world today. And then try it on again and again, and see what happens as you step out into the world. You might notice a change all around you as you, a being of light and love, enter your old world structures and light them up a little!

Do this simple exercise that offers the opportunity for a shift and notice how you begin to feel, as you are received differently, and how you act differently in return. This is the lesson for the week: Be the loving and compassionate being you really are!

Thank you, Jeanne! Just as I had finished channeling the message, which I write by hand, I looked up to see a large dog in the front yard. It’s not unusual that one of our neighbors’ dogs might wander across our yard during the day, and so I expected it to sniff around, chew some bread crumbs perhaps, and then wander onward. This dog, however, stayed around. It wasn’t until I looked a little closer that I saw it was dragging a long lead that had gotten caught on a low rock wall. It was stuck! And so I quickly bundled up and went out to rescue it, Jeanne’s message fresh in my mind. I greeted it with love and compassion and it greeted me with the same. An old dog, I was pretty sure I recognized her and where she lived, and so I freed her from the frozen rock wall and off we trotted quite happily together down the hill and around the corner. I thought she would be happy to be heading home on this frosty morning, but she really wanted to take a walk, so we took our time. She sort of huffed, “Oh, okay, if you say so,” as we got to her house. A knock on the door and we were greeted warmly. Names were exchanged between us, people who had passed on the road and waved many times, but never made a deeper connection. Now I know the dog’s name too! As I walked back home, ready to type up this message, I realized that the message was already working in my life. I hope it does as quickly in yours too! Love, Jan.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR