Christmas is the archetypal birthday, a universal day to honor and give to the golden child. The golden child is our innocent child, the child we enter this world with, the child we lose touch with as we grow disillusioned in a world of suffering. It is the child we spend a lifetime seeking to retrieve from the shroud of protection we build to avoid further shame and the highly sensitive pain of not being met or received.
We learn to shut down our anticipation, excitement, wonder, and love. We will not be fooled into hoping again, into opening that sealed door of vulnerability to our innocent, golden child. We vow not to be disappointed again.
We never forget our innocent child. Often, though, we cannot go near it within ourselves, that is, we cannot allow ourselves to receive. We are able to project it outward onto our children or other’s children, or onto the puppies and kittens of our dreams. Somewhere in our lives, no matter how terrified or avoidant we might be of it, we project our innocence and are drawn to the renewal of contact with it.
We project our innocence but it's really an endless cat and mouse game
The real journey to retrieve our innocence begins with the journey of recapitulation. We cannot allow our innocence back into life until we go back and fully free it from the encounters and experiences that caused it to go into hiding in the first place. This is a delicate, raw, and tender process. Though it might be facilitated interpersonally, through some kind of relationship, the true healing relationship is within, between the adult person we’ve become and our lost, innocent child self.
The adult we’ve become, however disillusioned and defended, is still a wise self. The adult has learned that Santa Claus is a myth, that evil is part of reality, that things constantly change—people die and nothing is forever. The adult self knows about broken promises, abandonment, and betrayal. The adult self has somehow found a way to navigate the world, however impoverished it may feel, however cut off from the joy and renewal of its innocence.
And this adult warrior self is the one—the one true parent—who can find and help that golden child to return to life; a life of fullness and completion.
A Gift to the Self: Recapitulation
The adult self is the one who can be with the child as it shares the truth of its lost innocence. The adult can hear the truth, feel the truth, withstand the truth, bear witness to the truth, and fully accept the truth in solidarity with the child. The child is not alone. The child is worthy to be fully known on its own terms, not pushed away because its feelings are too much, not talked out of what it truly feels. The adult will stand with the child and hear the fullness of the truth.
Next, the adult can help the child broaden the picture. There are things that the seasoned adult can see that the child couldn’t possibly see at the time. Such things can help the child self unravel the mystery of “why,” clearing up misconceptions, such as: It was my fault; I wasn’t good enough or worthy enough.
The adult self goes on to help the child self express and release all the feelings that have been held back, perhaps for a lifetime.
As recapitulation proceeds, innocence is freed from its old trappings and a new self, a wise, innocent, fully integrated self is born into the world. This self knows about the ways of the world, it doesn’t need the world to change to live out its innocence. It no longer needs to suffer disillusionment, to be reminded of its lost innocence. It can choose wisely in relationship and accepts that nothing stays in one form forever. This is no longer a deal breaker for innocence. Innocence, with wisdom, can now flow with the changes.
At Dawn: Out of the darkness rises new life
This is the one true gift of Christmas, the one only we can give to ourselves. That is the gift of recapitulation, the adult that takes the journey of truth with its innocent self, ultimately merging with it. Born anew, there is now new life to live.
I step out onto the deck in the early morning darkness. It’s balmy today and I’m comfortable standing there in the calmness before dawn. The world is quiet, not much stirring yet, though I hear a rustle of squirrel in the woods and I can just make out the broad, shadowy side flanks of two deer nibbling in the backyard. Today is the shortest day of the year and the longest night, a pivotal point for all of us as the season changes into winter. I wonder what this day will bring.
On one level we have already been feeling the intensity of this time, the build up to some kind of breakthrough, the feeling that something must give way prevalent for weeks now. Each of us must face within ourselves what that might be. Perhaps this is the day that we will be rewarded for our deep inner work, for our ability to withstand the tensions of our psyches, our bodies, our inner world being confronted by our outer realities.
Last week my 92-year-old aunt said to me: “I wonder why I’ve lived so long? It must be so I could relive my life and see it from a different perspective, because that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been doing a life review and as I go back into different scenes and phases from my life I now see myself as arrogant, judgmental, boastful, mean, and stupid when in the past I saw myself as right, smart, and having all the answers. This is meaningful. I’m being offered the opportunity to change, and that’s good. It must be what life is about.”
She realized, as we talked, that her life review, her recapitulation, was teaching her new lessons. In looking at every action and situation in her life from a new perspective she was shedding her ego’s need to be in charge, to control, to be right, and to judge. She softened as we spoke, the awe of her inner process clearly showing on her face and in the words she used. She understood how our self-righteous attitudes and our judgments hold us caught in old places for most of our lives, until we face them and soften, with compassion for ourselves and others, and finally let them go.
The edge of change is infinite
Although she is old now, her demeanor that day was refreshingly young, innocent and alive. As she talked she became lighter, her face glowed with new life as her awareness shifted. The next day she called me and told me that she had more energy than she’d had in months and that she was certain this recapitulation work was so necessary for her evolution into new life, so near that on some days she wonders if she’ll make it to the end of the day.
We talked about death as being no different than life, a day like today, a solstice, a passage into new life and new awareness. The ocean doesn’t end just because you can see the horizon, I said. The sky is not finite just because we only see a small part of it. Life is the same; the energy of life passes from one reality to another, from one phase to another, through solstices and seasons, through times of turmoil and conflict, through times of great understanding and revelation. Through recapitulation my elderly aunt was preparing for her death, preparing to ride the solstice and accept the energy of new awareness.
No matter how old we are, no matter where we are in our lives, what our circumstances are, we always have the opportunity to do a life review, to recapitulate our lives in a new way. On this day, on this solstice, we are offered transition to new life. As my aunt sees it, she has a great future ahead of her. We all do. We can face it with awareness, as my aunt is electing to do, or we can go fighting, resistant and resentful, but in the end we are all going.
Honor change
We are offered moments of solstice every day, though we may not see them as such. It’s often easier to embrace them when they are pointed out to us, made significant by tradition, ritual, and feast, by predictability and seasonal alignment. But in reality, every day offers us moments to shift our awareness. It’s time to embrace all of those moments as significant, to make everyday life a sacred ritual, as if we are all 92 years old and facing our deaths.
I honor my aunt on this day. I honor all of you. I honor myself, and I honor those closest to me, as we all take our next steps on our journeys.
The dawn begins to lighten the dark sky as I finish typing this blog. I breathe in its first energy and send it out to you, wishing you all happy solstice, and happy holidays,
Jan
Today, I ask you for advice as we find ourselves steeped in ravenous energy. At least that is what I personally feel. I feel it pushing, signifying that a time of great change is soon upon us, asking us to not only note it, but to work with it to get to a new level of advancement, as individuals and as humans. I feel this energy viscerally. I feel it in others, in the energy of our times, and in the very earth.
On a worldwide level, I feel that this year is ending on a confrontational note, that we are all being asked to be brutally honest and truthful, to seek and speak our deepest truths, to ourselves and others, and to face the world outside of us with equal honesty and truthfulness. It feels like everything is laid bare now, plain to see, and our greatest challenge now is to accept what has been revealed to us, knowing our habitual tendencies to gloss over, protect, and control. I feel that we must now CHANGE, each of us personally, and all of mankind as well.
Do you have some advice for all of us who struggle, though we do indeed seek greater awareness and though we do wish to fully embrace a life of truth and change?
Here is Jeanne’s lengthy, but very pragmatic and helpful response, asking us all to pause, turn inward, and study our deepest issues, for that is where our challenges really lie, as usual, deep inside each of us:
Yes, My Dears, the universe has set everything in motion for great change to happen. You may feel this on a personal level, on a national level, on a global level. If you so choose to be led to a new level of personal growth and evolution, you will find the way open now, though the process will be challenging, as all processes of change must be.
A cell does not divide without suffering the brutal energy of transformation. An infant is not born without having to undergo the passage through the birth canal and suffering through the agony of taking the first breath of life. The child does not experience life in the world without having to suffer separation from the parent. The young adult does not embrace life without first having to confront the loneliness and challenge of being fully responsible for the self in the world. The adult does not grow further until confronted by all that has transpired throughout life, understanding it on a deeper level. All such challenges lead to change.
Take note of your reality
The world around you has indeed been shouting for humanity to change for a long time now. The universe has been in cahoots with the planet you live upon, pushing for you all to take note of the REALITY of your situation, both personally and as a person residing upon the planet Earth, as a member of the human race.
Each of you are responsible for your self, for what you decide to do with your life and for learning how your decisions affect you, those closest to you, the environment, and that which determines the course of humanity. Everything is interconnected, everything impacts everything else, outside of you and inside of you.
This day and this time upon Earth are leading you all to a greater awareness. Even just a glimpse of greater awareness may be enough to captivate enough people so that real change may happen.
Take some time to quietly reflect upon what is happening in your personal world. Where do you see change being presented? Look in the outer world. Where do you see change being urged upon you? I guarantee the answers you arrive at are connected.
Reflect upon the self deeply now. Where is your wounded child caught in struggle? Where is your dictator domineering you? Where is your creative self pushing for expression? Where is your reckless self making decisions? Where is your truthful self seeking words of expression, and what words are they really? Who are you today as this energy of change hits you over the head and urges you to pause and take in the deeper meaning of your life and this time? It may not be what you first suspect. Go deeper and deeper into the self, to the raw self and face the fears that arise over and over again. Ask them to show you what else it is that has you so fearful. What is it that you fear at the deepest root of self?
You are all like the trees in the earth, anchored, though in human form. You reside upon that earth with deep roots and wide, sky-reaching branches. You rely upon the ground, the water, the air, the sun, the night and day, the changes of seasons for sustenance and nurturance, for you are all as natural as all that the environment provides for life. And just as the seasons change so must you.
Go Deeper
Your true self asks you to feel your roots going deep into the soil of your life. Your true self asks you to take in the air around you, the water the earth provides, and accept this life-giving energy. Use it for growth. Your true self knows that what is outside of you is merely reflecting what is inside you.
As you face the truths of the self, do not wallow in sorrow, blame, and self-pity, but embrace the energy of change that is pushing you all to become greater beings, greater human beings and greater spiritual beings as well.
You are all on a journey of life leading to more life. That is always the case. Can you keep embracing more life? This is the true confrontation that life and change present: How far into the energy of life can you go?
Remain aware that there is always more to embrace, to study and learn, as you allow the self to ride the changing energy of your life. Remain aware that the lessons of life teach the same process of change and awareness that leads to embracing eternal life. For yes, death does await all of you, but as you face your challenges in life you learn that every time you confront a fear, a challenge, an uncomfortable situation, you conquer your fear of death. Eventually you get it, that death is nothing to fear, for it is, as I have experienced it, just more life! Life in the extreme!
As you travel the path of your life, you will learn that life fully lived, fully confronted, and fully embraced—as it is presented to you each day—is all that you need to evolve. And eventually, as you continually grow and change, you understand that the lessons of life are all you could wish for too, though growing means constantly going through the same kind of pain that birth entails, facing the same moments of trauma and enlightenment.
In order to evolve, one must take each step of life bravely, knowing that great contentment and great expression come from challenging the self to truly live more deeply each day.
Know that I am with you all as you face your challenges. Look for me in your hearts. Find me, and those like me, in your own voice, as you speak your truths. Our energy is behind you as your own spirit seeks to bring you news that you are fully capable of evolving into new life. By constantly accepting what comes to guide you, from inside and outside, you will evolve.
Your pain is your gain. I don’t mean to be facetious, but it’s true! But as I said before, the deeper meaning of why you suffer may not be what you first think. Go always another step deeper into the a new truth and ask it to show you something else. Eventually you will find a new answer to carry you forth.
All of this deep work takes courage, and I know you have it! Don’t be afraid to use it.
Thank you, Jeanne! Personally, I have to admit that I have felt the need to embrace a time of pause, to slow everything down and take a deep breath, fully aware that I am facing a moment of great shift and that I must prepare properly to go into it in the right way, in energetic alignment, with openness to accepting the challenge that is being offered to once again change. The real challenge is to keep growing. I know that and, yet, I must reintroduce that concept to myself each time I face a personal fear. I wish you all good travels as you journey onward into this time of great shift. Keep in touch. -Jan
Don Juan never would have chosen Carlos Castaneda as his apprentice. Carlos slipped through a crack in the wall of impeccability that don Juan, a master shaman, a nagual, had crafted to shield his energy from unnecessary encounters in the ordinary world.
Don Juan realized that his initial encounter with Castaneda had to be the work of the spirit and could only mean one thing: he was obliged to train an “imbecile,” as he saw Carlos, to become his successor. He acquiesced to this knock from the spirit and Carlos Castaneda became the sorcerer’s apprentice.
Don Juan, like all naguals of his lineage, knew that apprentices entered the shaman’s world with an interpretation system—a world view—wholly inadequate for understanding the shaman’s world of non-ordinary reality. There is no fault in this; we interpret the world as we have been conditioned and socialized—we know no other way. Shamans take advantage of this condition in their apprentices, systematically trapping their awareness around issues those apprentices believe to be important, indulging them, but really intent upon moving them along to perceiving the world in a vastly new and expanded way.
For example, don Juan knew that Carlos copied everything he did, and so he taught him many magical passes— movements from the shaman’s world used to recondition one’s energy—without Carlos being aware that he was actually learning these magical passes. In Carlos’s cognitive system he was simply doing “exercises,” while in the meantime he was unknowingly expanding his energetic capabilities.
Don Juan knew that if he told Carlos directly that he was teaching him magical passes, Carlos’s cognitive system would have been offended and he would invariably have argued and rejected the practice on rational grounds. Don Juan already knew that it was far more efficient to not challenge cognitive attachments directly, but instead to use them to move the trainee along.
Our spirit operates like don Juan, like a master shaman, as it nudges us along in our growth. When we set out intent to grow, we sign up to become the sorcerer’s apprentice.
As apprentices, we will be nudged along to discover the full truth of who we are, where we come from, and why—all that has happened to us in this life and perhaps beyond it. Like Carlos we enter this apprenticeship in good faith, but suffer from ignorance and a good deal of defensiveness. We naturally defend our sense of self, the self we know; after all, we’ve built our security upon it.
A gentle sign...
The spirit sets to work to move us along by trapping our awareness, sometimes gently, sometimes intensely. Examples of gentleness are signs and synchronicities placed before us daily, designed to awaken our awareness to a greater reality, one that exists beyond the limits of our rational interpretation of the world. More intense knocks of the spirit are the triggers that seize our awareness, immobilizing it, beckoning us to take the journeys into the realm of non-ordinary reality where we discover locked-away truths of our lives.
In such moments of trigger, fear dominates as we misinterpret a benign event as a mortal danger. Our awareness is completely trapped. Here begins the journey of recapitulation, as our current self is nudged to take the plunge into the world where the trigger originates from. On a recapitulation journey we face our hidden truths as we discover worlds within ourselves previously unknown to our conscious awareness.
An intense knock on the door...
As we accept the full truth and impact of the worlds we enter in recapitulation, we free our energy that has been locked away in those hidden worlds, perhaps for decades. We become revitalized, energetic beings, as we recapitulate; magical beings capable of experiencing the world in ways we never dreamed possible. We become capable of fulfillment in this life, no matter what age we are!
The path of the sorcerer’s apprentice is deeply challenging, but it is guided by the spirit, the master shaman within us all that nudges us onward—sometimes gently, sometimes in great haste and intensity—to the full realization of our intent for fulfillment and completion. And, in the end, it all makes sense in ways we simply couldn’t know when we began the journey as humble, eager, but necessarily ignorant apprentices.
Trust your spirit. Continue the journey and know you are being taken where you need to go, Chuck
Each day as I wake up I must face who I am. I am not perfect. I am not special. I am nothing.
These words may sound like negative mantras, but in reality they are extremely freeing. In the context of the world we live in, it may be hard to understand what that kind of freedom means. It means that, as I do my inner work, I slowly free myself from ego, judgments, attachments, greed, etc. I free myself from the desire to be special and, in so doing, I can simply be. Largely, this kind of freedom means facing my fears, for really there is little else that keeps me caught. As I see it, fear is the biggest challenge to overcome in this life.
The Tangled Web of Fear
If I ask myself why I reacted a certain way in a certain situation, I will find that at the root of my reaction was fear. We all suffer from fear. There is fear of what others will think or say about us. There is fear of doing or saying something wrong. There is fear of making the wrong decision. There is fear of getting hurt or hurting others. There is fear of financial loss, of loss of our jobs, our homes, our lovers, and those closest to us. There is fear that we are not enough, that we have failed to live up to expectation, that we are unloveable, bad, not pretty or handsome enough, that we are too fat or too thin, that we are doing everything wrong. And finally there is fear of death.
When we look at all the things we fear we see only negatives; depressing truths or untruths, perceptions or judgments that keep us caught in an endless cycle of suffering. Fear is tied to being inadequate, unfulfilled, unevolved, imperfect. So how do we accept that we are not perfect, not special, that we are in fact nothing, and actually feel good about it?
The Buddhists say that we are here to suffer, that it is how we evolve. That evolution is tied to transcending suffering, but only by facing it. The Buddhist sitting in meditation confronts what arises, going deeper and deeper into the dark space that yawns wide open inside the self as fears arise. What we discover as we confront our fears is that they lead to truths, whether hidden and totally unknown or known and rejected, they all eventually give way to more fears and more truths. Each layer of fear and truth asks to be explored and reckoned with. This is the same process that the shamans engage in while doing recapitulation. Both meditation and recapitulation offer the means of facing fear, the means of finding out why we suffer, and they both offer the transcendent quality of nothingness that we reach as we go deeper and deeper into the self.
Meditate with Open Mind and Without Fear Face The Truth and The Answer Will Come
As we meditate or recapitulate with an open mind—letting loose those ideas and judgments that I spoke of earlier—we allow what comes from within to guide us. As we mediate or recapitulate with an open mind, we ready ourselves to face each fear and ask, over and over again, “Why do I have this fear?” And then, as we meditate or recapitulate with an open mind, we allow ourselves to explore deeply—until we hear an answer.
Our answers may be as varied as we are, but I guarantee that our answers will eventually lead to just another fear, another thing we are afraid of, lying just beneath the last thing we were so afraid of. As we face each fear, we peel away judgments and perceptions—some self-imposed, some imposed by others—and find a little bit more of Self, a little bit more of who we have the potential to truly be.
As fear after fear gets peeled away and the thick layer of our suffering selves begins to thin, we begin to feel lighter, better, less negative, less attached to the old self. We gradually become more and more intrigued by our process. We want to see how far we can actually go. We want to know what else there is to learn about us. We want to become as free as possible.
In undergoing this process of peeling away our fears we offer ourselves access to what it means to be imperfect, to not be special, to be nothing—and to be totally satisfied with being in this state. In fact, we might discover the joy of being in that state of non-attachment. We might discover that our suffering has a greater purpose; that it has the potential to lead us beyond the confines of this world, tapping into far greater freedom, enlightenment, new life, and wholeness than this world alone can offer.
In facing our fears we face our humanness in its entirety, and yet we also face our immortal, infinite selves, for in doing our deep inner work we face all of our fears, including our fear of death.
It may seem like a daunting task, but facing our fears will lead to the freedom of non-attachment and opening the door to greater exploration of our fuller potential now, while in this life, so that our death becomes just one more seamless exploration of our greater potential.
I am not perfect, I am not special, I am nothing,
Jan
