Here are a few quotes to ponder from Hexagram #48: Well, taken from The Living I Ching by Deng Ming-Dao.
“The muddy well does not feed. No birds come to an ancient well.”
“Well: draw from it, and you draw from the source. No matter how advanced a civilization becomes, its foundations depend on nature. A source of water cannot be replaced.”
“On a practical level, we must maintain our supply of water and food. On a spiritual level, our understanding deepens the more we dwell on the sources of our existence.”
Water from the Earth
“The water comes to us freely from the earth, deposited by the last winter’s rains…This free use of a well is a metaphor for how we should conduct our lives. If we are careful and healthy in our conduct, we will be replenished each day. Accordingly, we must give all that we can today, knowing that tomorrow will bring new support. Those who are narrow and selfish with their energies grow smaller, not greater. Give everything that you can. Do not hold back: unless water is drawn from a well, new water cannot flow in.”
“Water from the earth is wonderfully pure, refreshing, and invigorating. Our scientists can find little different about this water in their laboratories, but those who drink from the wellsprings know better. Expensive bottled water and manufactured beverages cannot help us in the way a well can. Eschew the artificial. Go to the source.”
We must all make personal decisions that are right for us, but we must also challenge our selves to go beyond our limitations. We must ask ourselves: What is the possibility that I may be getting this wrong, that I am not seeing something? What am I missing? We must all take personal responsibility for our lives, for how we interpret our experiences, and how we ultimately decide to view and live in the world.
During my three-year long intensive recapitulation, I learned how to question not only the reality that I was encountering from my past, but also how I was going to interpret it this time around. Could I really trust that what came to greet me out of old forgotten memories had really happened? How could I embrace the truth of what I was learning about my childhood? How could I take it all in and move on to a new interpretation of what it meant when what I was reliving was often so devastatingly overwhelming that some days I could not even get out of bed?
I learned how to question everything. This was the only way I was going to get through the recapitulation of traumatic events from my childhood that had held me so tightly in their embrace for decades, though I had little or no inkling of this fact. I knew little about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the tentacles of trauma that infiltrate every aspect of a person’s life until finally faced. For the most part, I felt that I was not really living life as I sensed it could be lived, but I did not know why until I elected to take the recapitulation journey. When I began to allow old memories to surface I had to face old judgments, prejudices of self and others, truths and lies that were incredibly uncomfortable to confront, disassemble and release myself from.
The entire time I worked through this recapitulation process I also disassembled the world as I knew it, the outer world as well as the inner world—one could not hold up without the other. As I deconstructed the old self, I found that I could not live in the same world that the old self had constructed. Recapitulation meant a total disintegration of the self I had been. So, as a result, who I thought I was and how I viewed the world all changed as I plodded along, chipping away, day by day, at what I thought was reality.
Some days I would wake up in such pain that I immediately wanted to seek medical advice, but at the same time I knew there was nothing in the conventional medical world that would help the somatic experiences that my body was telling me I had to go through. There were times when I did indeed need to go to the doctor, like the time I had Lyme disease and could not walk or think properly. There were other times when what was buried inside produced real physical symptoms that needed attention, though I knew they originated from something deep inside me looking for a way out, like the time I had skin cancer. I knew it was not related to sun exposure, but to the unknown stuff that was putrefying inside me, needing release. I had to learn to distinguish between these issues by questioning the reality of my situation and determine how to address them, taking full responsibility for my choices along the way.
As I faced some very painful memories, I had to learn how to let myself be taken into other worlds, knowing that I had the power within to face the truth that those worlds were indeed as much reality as the everyday world that was looking more and more unreal to me. As I recapitulated, I learned, by taking one incremental step at a time, how to be an observer as well as a participant in those alternate realities. In strengthening my inner conviction to complete the task my body was laying out for me, calling me to, I found that I had within me more than enough personal power to face the challenges presented and change the way I experienced everything.
I learned to question everything too; from the physical symptoms I was experiencing to the way I thought. I let myself learn, through the process of recapitulation, to perceive reality differently—reality being all the conventions I had been taught and adhered to, all the beliefs and ideas that kept the world in order. I allowed myself to blow apart everything that held me together. In the end it was my salvation. It not only changed the way I viewed the world, but it changed the way I viewed my place in it.
What am I really here for? What is it that I must do in this lifetime? I knew I was not here for a selfish reason, that to be eternally depressed and self-absorbed was not going to cut it in the long run. I knew that I was no longer going to be able to hide, to isolate myself in a private world of make-believe. I faced the deepest kind of isolation and make-believe during my recapitulation process and found that they no longer granted me anything of substance, though at one time they had been the backbone of my entire existence.
In constantly questioning the true meaning of my life throughout the recapitulation process, I learned that the main thing I was being asked to do was to break down, literally. I had to deconstruct my entire being, inside and outside, into tiny pieces that I then had to sift through before finding the proper way to reconstruct those pieces into new pictures. As I broke down the past, I also learned how to break down the present and, in so doing, be open to a new kind of future.
I know that all of this may sound very esoteric and impossible to do in the context of a very busy life, with all that we must encounter each day to simply survive, but it is not that difficult if one is committed to change. From personal experience, I can say that the recapitulation process is one of total reevaluation of self and world, leading to the ability to take full responsibility for both. It means taking on the challenge to committing to change with a conviction that defies all other methods.
Perhaps the most helpful part of the entire recapitulation experience, a simple statement that not only anchored me as I entered the darkest and most complicated issues of self and world, was this one: Question reality. Chuck said this to me on more than one occasion.
One day it came up in our conversation as the most meaningful of statements and the next day I was driving behind a car that had an enormous bumper sticker plastered across its fender saying the same thing in large letters: QUESTION REALITY. I could not ignore that it was exactly the right message. In continually questioning reality, I was able to not only face my darkest moments but re-envision them in the context of a new world, a world that I was totally in alignment with, having allowed it to form out of my deepest inner process.
I wish for all people to have a new world vision, but it can only happen by facing the world that we have constructed. This is what we are facing now as a nation and as a global world, but most importantly, personally. We are facing the reality we have created, trusted, and believed in. But now we must re-envision it. It is time to see it for what it is: a reality of exploitation, distrust, greed, selfishness, with little regard for human, animal and natural life. Are we really so heartless?
How can we re-envision a just and right world for all? In questioning reality as it now stands, breaking down the rules and dogmas we have lived by, facing the truth that we are all responsible for everything that has happened and is happening by our adherence to old ideas, tactics, and habits, we can begin to change.
We must all change. This, I believe, is the only way for us to evolve. But even change must be radically different from the means of change as enacted in the past. It is not enough to reinsert new rules that uphold an old order. It is time to face the chaos. Only in facing the chaos within will we be able to face the chaos without. If we don’t do that we will simply reassemble what we have already discovered does not work. We must indeed question everything about ourselves; about the worlds we live in, and ask ourselves to face the truth of the existence we have constructed.
Why am I really here? Personally, I continue to face that question each day as I read, write, meditate, and break through the conventions that arise. The old world will never give up on me; it will continue to pose its side of the story. But I must face it and ask: Are you the reality I wish to live in? The answer that always comes up is a resounding: No.
Skunk cabbage or something beautiful? It all depends on what you want to see.
“Negative thinking is a habit that can be changed—if we really want to change it. It is too often like pressing on a sore spot just one more time to see if it still hurts. Most people’s problems are found in areas of need—the need to have difficulty, the need to have something to deal with so they can feel needed and important. After all, what do we do when no one is depending on us? It is an innate Cherokee belief that we have no need to borrow trouble…let it stay where it is.” —Joyce Sequichie Hifler
“Though we are powerful and strong, and we know how to fight, we do not wish to fight.” —The Cherokees
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
Today, Jeanne says the following:
As I have been expressing quite often lately, turn to nature for guidance. You cannot go wrong if you study the ever-unfolding process of the natural world. You will learn more about the self by placing nature’s process next to your own. By living in concert with the natural world you too will truly live and truly change.
Study nature's process
It is not easy to be human. All of you must learn how the world works. You must truly be in it in order to understand what else is available to you as a spiritual seeker. Use nature as your mirror. Observe what nature does to cause change to happen, to cause new growth and transformation. You too hold within you the power to change and transform the self.
It may take some personal earthquakes, tsunamis, torrential rains and devastating floods to allow for real growth, but if you accept the fact that life would be pretty uneventful without such inner suffering, and that you would not advance otherwise, then perhaps you will be able to welcome your own natural disasters as necessary.
Personal crises are the transformative moments.
Look upon such times in your life as natural shifts and use them to grow.
Jan and I took my oldest son, Julian, out to a nice restaurant the other night. This was a special treat since we rarely eat out. As I perused the menu I realized how few options there really were. I no longer, in full awareness, can eat fish. I reflected on reality: shrimp from the oiled-filled Gulf; fresh water fish from acid rain polluted rivers and lakes; farm bred, as they say “organic” salmon that are force-fed, among other things, shrimp shells to color their flesh; and, last but not least, ocean fish from the interconnected, radiated sea waters.
I recently spoke with someone who had just returned from a trip to Japan, who discussed the Japanese attitude toward what they believe is the world’s overreaction to their nuclear incident. The Japanese say that they had the first deadly encounter with radiation at Hiroshima, and where is that radiation now? Gone, they say. They also point to all the atomic bomb testing that went on for decades around the world. Again, where is the fallout from all of that? Gone, they say. Well, as I sat and pondered the menu, I simply couldn’t go back to sleep and enter that matrix—no fish for me.
When we drove Julian home later to his abode on the Hudson River, the last striper fishermen were packing up. “Ya know, the stripers are running now. They come from the ocean to spawn… safe to eat,” Julian remarked. Yes, I thought, from the radiated ocean to the PCB infested river—from sea to shining sea!
“Am I really such a radical?” I ask Jan. I know that I am not. The layers of the matrix are so deep and intertwined that the crux of doubt arises as we wonder: could things really be that bad? The incredulous truth is that, yes, things really are that bad.
Yes, we are beings who are going to die, and, hence, we must die of something. However, the fact is, our plant’s health and, consequently, our food supply are completely compromised. Yes, I choose not to eat fish, but in reality every item on the menu is compromised in some way. Our healthiest option becomes choosing the lesser of two evils.
First, we are challenged by our own appetites that have been assaulted and conditioned from birth by hypnotic marketeers seeking profit under the guise of nurturance. Then we have heavily under-regulated corporations that dominate and own the food supply—down to its very seeds. They have created well-ordered factory systems: poultry, meat, and farming industries. These industries rely heavily on chemical control with fertilizers, insecticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, additives, colorings, and flavorings to ensure predictable, high-yield, “good looking” and “good tasting” foods at a price the market can bear.
Our food supply is filled with carcinogens that make us unnecessarily sick. Heart conditions, strokes, cancers, are but a few of the consequences to our bodies from the carcinogens we eat, drink, and breathe. Of course, then we enter the medical and pharmaceutical industries that offer endless procedures and drugs to manage our symptoms and conditions. These industries corner the health care market by demonizing treatments that fall outside their purview and pocketbook. Meanwhile, as don Juan once said to Carlos Castaneda, we are like chickens in a chicken coop, happily allowing ourselves to be feasted upon by the forces of greed: a life of joyful, utter captivity. Is it really so radical to just acknowledge the truth of it?
When I turn to the true culprit behind the matrix we now live in, I can’t help but identify it as unbridled capitalism. “The land of opportunity” has become “the land of greed with impunity.” Less I be accused, quickly put into the box of a socialist, let me state that I actually do believe in capitalism, but nature’s capitalism.
Nature provides the soil to nourish and grow unlimited possibilities, however, the hallmark of nature is limitation. No matter how glorious the summer, summer ultimately acquiesces to fall. There is no such thing as unlimited growth in nature! There must be moderation and balance.
If we apply these principles to our capitalist economy, profit must shift from what the market will bear to a just price. Products and procedures should not be introduced just to make money. They need to be in accord with the healthy needs of humankind, sustainable, and in balance with all of nature. Growth must be limited and in balance with the ecology of the entire planet.
When I read Jeanne’s channeled message this past Monday, I was struck, powerfully, by a cord of resonance to the Jeanne I once walked this planet with. Jeanne, while in this world, insisted on taking a stand through exercising the power of the purse. She was a stickler for fairness and truth in the marketplace, often resulting in some intensely powerful and, frankly, embarrassing confrontations. I reminded Julian the other night of the time she confronted the owner of an Italian restaurant down the street that his advertised “fresh daily sfogliatelle” was, in fact, at least a day old. The confrontation was fierce, the three kids and I wanting to hide under the table. Needless to say, that was the last time we ate at that restaurant.
Exercise the Power of the Purse!
If a store was unfair or deceitful, Jeanne boycotted it, end of story, no compromise. If a food product was not strictly organic, or at least local, she wouldn’t buy it. She believed then, as she counsels now, that individual choices and actions matter. If individuals refuse to buy unhealthy products, industry will provide what is truly needed and wanted. If products are presented at the wrong price and are boycotted, industry will correct to the right price. Jeanne’s answer to “I can’t afford organic” would be: eat less and breathe more. Her favorite phrase in this regard was: Exercise the power of the purse!
The deeper individual challenge is to take full responsibility for our lives: that is the source of real power. Can I stare down my industry-commandeered appetite and choose instead to fulfill my genuine needs? Can I accept limitation—have less but have what’s right? Can I choose to live outside the matrix, perhaps only rarely or never use a cell phone because I know the truth of harmful radiation—my body tells me so? Can I step away from sacrosanct medical routines and follow my own knowing, trusting my self?
The choices outside the matrix are endless—and life outside the matrix is a solitary journey, though filled with many enlightened traveling companions. Can we exercise the power of the purse outside the matrix—like scouts stalking a brave new world?
From outside the matrix,
Chuck
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