Seek fulfillment in deep inner work; in limitation, containment, respect and love for the self.
Limitation, in all of its forms, is a necessary component of a seeking life. Whether one is simply seeking balance in daily life, or one is seeking deeper meaning and spiritual fulfillment, limitation must be put to use, a most practical tool. For where would man (humanity*) be if limitations were not imposed?
Limitation requires the art of discipline, as well as the ability to know restriction, yet does it also require that one experience it as a balancer, for that is its main utilization in the context of a seeking life. For only in gaining balance in all things will one experience life and all that it offers, as well as the deeper issues within the self, to the fullest.
In studying the deeper self, one must acquiesce to the limitations placed on one by circumstances, yet one must also embrace those limitations, for they are leading one to fulfillment. Lessons necessary for growth are contained in circumstances of limitation just as they are contained in circumstances of excess. Excess—the virtual opposite of limitation one would think—is, in fact, as limiting as circumstances of limitation, for there are lessons to be learned in the circumstances of every life.
Begin anew to appreciate the circumstances, the struggles of life, for it is only in such experiences that one will discover deeper meaning in all things. Man, unlike nature, has the ability to control himself, though he may not at all be able to control that which is outside of himself. Alas, life takes one down a path that may be full of sorrow and woe, yet a man’s heart may know the value of such a path if he but listen to its words of wisdom. The heart does not lie, but without balance in thought, action, and inner and outer experience, a man may never know what his heart says.
Those whom have never known excess may struggle the hardest to achieve balance and that is their circumstance to struggle with. Keep in mind: whether you have lived a life of excess or a life of limitation, you have gotten what you need.
Allow the circumstances of your personal lives to lead you into a new phase of growth and recovery. Each man—as well as the very earth—needs such things in abundance now, for the time of excess has passed. Guided by your individual life’s path, each one of you are already upon a new path of growth, recovery, and indeed transformation. Perhaps you have never noticed it, but know that your life’s circumstances have placed you there.
Perhaps you did not want to notice? Perhaps you did not choose to view the limitations imposed upon you as binding you to your path for good reason? Perhaps self-imposed limitations will be the answer to reinvigorating you, allowing you to more clearly see that only in limitation, i.e.: balance, discipline, restriction and containment, will you achiever your next step.
Mankind is being asked by the greater universe at large, to curb his appetites. The destruction has gone on far too long. Now it is time for limitation, conservation, and deep respect for all life, most importantly your own, to guide you to universal change.
If you must judge, judge the self. If you must be angry, be angry with the self. If you must blame, blame the self. Seek the answers within in order to change what lies within, what speaks within, what hurts within, what refuses life from within. This is the new road to take, to change the self, to change your life’s circumstances, and to change the world.
Accept the challenges that appear to guide you today, for they are to be shared challenges, man challenged to be an evolving being now, on a deeper, broader, universal and innerly level. Let awareness guide you. Do right, and keep evolving!
Change the self by looking to the limitations you are challenged to accept. Utilize them to the fullest in an evolutionary way, first in changing the self and then in changing the world. Do right by the deeper self and you will do right by others; that it the first step in gaining awareness of the self as part of the greater, evolving whole.
Most humbly channeled, with love, by Jan.
Please Note: The word “Man” is used to refer to all of humanity; mankind; men, women and children alike.
It’s early in the morning. This week my attempts to write a blog haven’t gelled. I’ve run out of time. As I go in and out of sleep, I’m met with painful images, someone dear always dying. I finally decide it’s not worth it to sleep; it’s time to wake up and write.
Out of my dreams, the topic of this week’s blog that I’ve struggled so hard to pinpoint suddenly becomes clear. What’s been churning in the background of my waking and dreaming experiences is the positive partnership of the unconscious even when applying its most tricksterish of methods. Taking pen in hand, I acquiesce to the guidance of this most secret partner.
The many scenes of death and dying that I enter in my dreams force me to confront excruciating feelings. On the deepest level I’m led to encounter my greatest fears, the loss of all whom I most cherish. Encountering the fears, even in dreaming, is active recapitulation, as I’m challenged to stay present and fully live through the inevitable changes. I’m challenged as well, at each awakening, to not project the experiences and people of my dreams onto real people and situations. I must keep my experiences inside me. The twists and nuances of my dreams make clear that there is nothing “really” to fear. This dreaming experience offers another exercise to awaken to the nature of projection, to not get caught in its tricky web. This is another trial set up by my secret partner—the unconscious—to further my conscious intent: the way of truth; and the Tao of the dream is to further this intent by paying attention to the instructions encapsulated in my early morning waking and dreaming experiences.
My trickster partner knows I must write my blog, and as it has done hundreds of times in the past, it encourages me to awaken at just the right moment. This time it sets the stage by asking me to choose between the unpleasantness of its dreams or the tension of awakening without a clear topic. My dreams, however, become so unpleasant that there is no point in staying asleep and so I “choose” to awaken, delivered to this day with this experience to present.
The message here is that we all have our secret partner. How our secret partner confronts us can vary from the uncomfortable, such as what I encountered in my dreams, to gentle support. The challenge is to awaken to the fact of its presence, tricksterishly presented or otherwise, for it is present whether we are aware of it or not. If we choose to ignore it, it will simply continue to approach us with unpleasantness, asking us to face our greatest fears, to live through them, and experience them for what they truly are. If we choose to engage our secret partner and develop a relationship with it, we will be supported in our intent, that is, if the intent resonates with the wholeness of our being.
We cannot control the methods by which our secret partner will confront us, though we can certainly challenge them, and that we must do. It’s one of the challenges of evolving consciousness, to assert ourselves even in the midst of overwhelming odds, just as I did in my morning experience. That, after all, is our ultimate preparation for our moment of dying, to stay calm and awake, even as we are delivered deeper into life.
I read in the news that a white buffalo calf has been born on a farm in Connecticut, a most promising omen in Native American culture. I remember a dream I had months ago, a dream that has sat in the back of my mind, a dream that I knew I had to sit with and wait for its meaning to be revealed. And so I put it away, knowing I’d come back to it at some point. Now is the time, for the meaning has been revealed.
I tell Chuck about the dream, in which I pull a bone out of my foot, a bone that grows larger and larger as I carry it around, sometimes giving it to him to hold, until it transforms into a white buffalo. The white buffalo is the size of a calf, yet it’s ancient, old and tired. It will not leave my side; everywhere I go the small white buffalo follows along. I confront issues of detachment and ego in the dream while the buffalo gets sicker and sicker. It vomits and keels over, exhausted, barely able to hold up, yet it will not leave me. It constantly gets back up and trods onward, its nose to the ground, its bony hump old and brittle, dutifully keeping pace with me. I worry about it, though I also accept its presence, for I recognize it. I’m aware that it’s been walking beside me forever.
I tell Chuck that as soon as I woke up from the dream I knew it was important, but I couldn’t make any sense of it at the time. With the birth of the white buffalo calf that I read about, I am spurred to figure it out.
What is the significance of my dream? As I begin pondering this question I feel the pull of outside energy, of ego telling me that I am special, though I know I’m not. I slow down and pull inward, knowing I have to investigate this in my inner world, to find out the significance and specialness of this dream omen as I progress on my personal journey. I’m certain this has nothing to do with anyone else, but only to do with some bone of contention that I still carry within. I’m aware that this white buffalo omen is prompting me to take the next step on my journey of growth and transformation.
Chuck and I discuss the dream. We discover that I have been like this buffalo, dutifully bearing up under all circumstances, always getting back on my feet and plodding along, nose to the grindstone.
“That’s it!” Chuck exclaims. “This is what I’ve been searching for, the answer to the question: Where is Jan’s ego? It’s not in inflation, I’ve always known that, but I just couldn’t get a handle on it. This dream is clearly showing that it’s in willfulness. Jan’s ego is a martyr!”
I acknowledge the truth of this. I see that my challenge is to shed the martyr archetype, to let the sick buffalo die, transforming its willfulness into energy that is useful, life giving, and healing. Pulling the bone out of my foot was the first step in this transformational process. Now it’s time to take the next step and shed the buffalo hide. And then Chuck gets up and plays Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier and it makes perfect sense to me. Chuck also suggests that I write about the white buffalo in my next blog, but I tell him that I’m not sure I’m ready yet.
We go to sleep. I wake up after an hour or so, this challenge of shedding the martyr-self, the buffalo soldier, running through my mind. I know I must be available to the people who need me, but differently now, not as a martyr dutifully carrying out her duties, but balancing kindness, compassion, and being available while fully standing in my truth. These are things I have worked at consistently for many years, always feeling like I was not quite getting over the final hump within that would free me of the deeply ingrained sense of duty that weighs so heavily upon my shoulders. As I lie awake, I think about shedding the bony carapace of the buffalo, the garment of the martyr that I have worn my entire life, now scruffy and old.
I fall back to sleep and into a dream. Someone is sick and must go to the hospital. I never see who it is, but it’s me of course. A nun meets us at the door of the hospital and takes my cell phone from me. I watch as she puts it into the deep pocket of her long black habit. No cell phones allowed; no outside interference. While we sit in the hospital room of the sick patient, I work on the blog for the next week, the one about the white buffalo, as Chuck suggested I do. It’s partly channeled, partly comprised of the dream I had about the bone in my foot, and partly about the new insight that Chuck and I came to. Every now and then Chuck screams and bolts upright, as if he’s having a heart attack. Clutching his heart he says: “My heart tells me it’s true! My heart tells me it’s right!” I tell him he’s freaking me out, but he keeps doing it.
At one point a woman artist walks into the room. She stays for a while, leaning over the bed of the sick person, and then leaves. Then a yogi comes in. He too goes to the hospital bed, says something, and leaves. The third person to walk in is a wine merchant. He too goes over to the bed of the sick person, speaks softly, and then leaves without saying a word to us. I see these characters as parts of who I have been in the world—the ego, the artist self who worked in the real world; the spirit self who worked in my inner world; and the self of pleasure and desire who fulfilled the needs of the human self—saying goodbye to the old self.
I get up, leaving Chuck to watch over the sick person, while I go for a walk out into the surrounding desert. I stand in the middle of the desert and hear a loud crack and then the sound of bones dropping to the ground. Standing up straight and tall, I easily release the garment of the martyr, the carapace of the white buffalo. At the same time, glancing to my right, I see a large snake slithering out of a clump of grass. It lifts its enormous head and looks at me with a huge smile on its face. I am filled with unbelievable happiness and delight at the sight of it. I walk back to the hospital with the snake slithering alongside me, just as the white buffalo had once walked beside me, but it doesn’t feel like duty now, there is only joy accompanying me.
The nun meets me in the lobby as soon as I enter the hospital. “She’s dead,” she tells me, glancing at the snake beside me. I go back to the room and tell Chuck that now I have to rewrite everything that I’d written earlier.
“Now that she’s dead, my blog won’t be true anymore,” I say, and I tell Chuck to sit quietly, to not disturb me. “I have all these parts out there floating around,” I say, “and I have to bring them together in a cohesive whole. I have to write a new story.”
I will not be distracted. I work intently on the story while Chuck reads quietly beside me, the snake curled at my feet. Eventually, the nun comes back to the hospital room and tells us that we have to leave, that we have to pack up the belongings of the dead person so they can clean the room. We carry a few boxes to the car. I see that the nun has laid my cell phone on top of the car.
“You have two messages waiting for you,” she says. “The phone has been beeping away every half hour, letting you know that someone is trying to reach you. You can listen to them now if you want, before going back to cleaning out the room.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t need to listen. They can wait.” I have a sense that they are calls from people who want something from me, demanding to know where I’ve been and why I haven’t been in touch with them, people calling the old buffalo martyr self who always responded. But she’s dead now and I will not be distracted or pulled away from the work at hand. The only duty I have is to return to the hospital room, pack up the belongings of the person who has died, and continue working on my new story.
I wake up from this dream feeling refreshed, lighter and freer. Reliving the moment of shedding the buffalo carapace again, I realize that I experienced the same transformative energy in this dream as when I stood up and faced the seagulls on Great Duck Island that I wrote about a few weeks ago. I shed the old bones of the martyr self and walked away, leaving them behind without attachment or regret, just as I had shed my fearful self and walked away from the seagulls. Death of the old self occurred in the action of shedding the white buffalo carapace and a new self, the snake of transformation and healing, was instantly born.
As Bob Marley says in Buffalo Soldiers: “If you know your history, then you would know where you coming from.”
And if you know that, I say, then you can change.
From all the worlds of dreams and reality, sending love and transformational energy, Jan
Imagine perfection. Imagine stillness. Imagine inner calm and outer calm. Imagine sitting with such stillness inside you and outside you. Let it be—even for a moment—the truth of your life. Experience it. Let it be your reality for this moment. Accept it. Know it. Take it with you into your day, a moment of perfect stillness. Let it sit inside you, the knowledge of it. Carried forth, let it blossom; for once experienced it will not leave you.
Do not turn from it throughout the day, but anchor in its calmness, bringing you to your senses, reminding you of its truth inside you. This is perfection.
“I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are,” says the Joker in the hospital scene of The Dark Knight, 2008.
James Holmes dyed his hair orange, became the Joker, and in REAL LIFE—at the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado—unleashed a fatal assault upon an unsuspecting movie audience.
The Joker is a Trickster. The trickster is a force of nature, an agent of chaos with no attachment to the material world. The trickster’s objective is to disrupt the prevailing order, to break the rules with abandon. The trickster’s pranks may indeed result in tragedy, as evidenced in the horrific Aurora massacre, but they may also reveal truths and weaknesses that if faced squarely might lead to needed transformation and change.
Evolving human consciousness has relied upon spiritual institutions to mediate between its rational, civilized, ordered ego self and the powerful, chaotic energies of the instinctive self. Religious ritual has traditionally offered sacrifice to the instincts in exchange for energy needed to fund the structured, ordered objectives of the ego self in the modern world. In our time, similar to the crumbling of the absolute power of the Catholic Church during the Protestant Revolution, the reigning churches of the day have lost their ability to serve this mediating function.
In fact, modern humanity has become so rational that it has disowned its animal core, and religious affiliation or participation has largely become a place of social gathering or identity. The prevailing consciousness views religious institutions as relics of an unenlightened age.
What has largely replaced the mediating function formerly performed in religious ritual, in today’s world, is Hollywood. It’s a throwback to the days of the gladiators in the Coliseum in Rome or the bullfights in Spain. The modern movie theater is the setting where citizens vicariously project their instinctive energies onto the projections on a screen, as these images duke it out in epic battles of good versus evil. Moviegoers experience contact with their deep instinctive energies through powerful emotions that are enlivened and released, with the outcome being inner balance restored when they are safely delivered back to ordinary life as the movie concludes.
The massacre in Aurora instructs us that the sanctuary of the movie house has ended. It can no longer safely contain our psychic forces. The trickster broke through the screen in Aurora, showing us that the movie house can no longer safely mediate between our ego and deeper instinctive selves. The trickster has shown us that the psychic mechanism of PROJECTION—placing the issues and dangers within us outside of us onto some form of screen—can no longer keep us safe. We must grapple with the psyche directly, finding a new balance, a new relationship to the deep instinctive forces that both threaten us and enliven us.
On a global level, this tenuous balance is evident on every front. Global warming, with its consequent natural disasters, shows us the precarious hold humanity’s decision making has over nature’s wrath. Is it really time for another flood? Or will we do better?
Revolutions sprout up almost daily throughout the world as the urge for change and greater freedom press to topple outdated, repressive regimes.
Revolutionary energy is stirring throughout Europe and the United States from the economic underclass, as they balk at giving more while the 1% accumulate more. This is the energetic climate of Germany preceding the outbreak of Nazism.
All these revolutionary stirrings are threatening to disrupt if not submerge the world as we have known it. All are direct reactions to the collective world ego’s actions in relation to its deeper instinctual needs—nature reacting, both within and without.
On an individual personal level, we are all charged to deal with the psychic balance within our own beings, that is: between our conscious ruling selves and our unconscious instinctive selves.
Those in the midst of recapitulation are well aware of the tenuous balance between the psychic energies of their fragmented selves and their conscious selves. These individuals have heeded the trickster’s warning and have set to the inner work of integrating their deeper truths, to open a cooperative partnership with the deep unconscious.
But for those not currently in the throes of recapitulation, the urgency of the trickster’s exploits must be seen as THE CALL to introversion—to the facing of inner truth.
What are the ruling attitudes of my conscious ego? Are those attitudes listening to my inner revolutionaries: my symptoms and fears? What is my relationship to my deeply instinctive self—to safety, to hunger, to sexuality, to power? Am I being honest with myself? What is the true reality of my psychic economy?
We need to take responsibility for bringing our psyches into new and lasting balance, and not allow the collective imbalance that surrounds us to lead us into hopelessness and surrender. To attend to the self is to bring real change to the interconnected world that we are all part of. To place this call to action upon the self is to honor the victims in Aurora for their sacrifice.
May their sacrifice lead to a transformation that ends the need for human sacrifice as a means to needed change.
