Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Who’s Yin and Who’s Yang? Whose Yin and Whose Yang?

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Vignette #1: Your Yang over My Yin

“What’s for dinner?”
“I haven’t really thought about it… maybe rice and some vegetables.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t seem very excited about that… what would you like? Would you prefer pasta?”
“That sounds great!”
“Okay.”

Vignette #2: My Yin over Your Yang

“I feel really calm and relaxed with you.”
“How ’bout we get naked?”
“That feels like such a disruption. I just wanted us to stay connected, go deeper into calm.”
“I was feeling for deeper connection as well.”
“I get that, but I’d have to get there… this feels so right now.”
“So, you don’t want that, it’s not natural… sounds like you’d be accommodating me. I certainly don’t want that.”
Silence.

In Vignette #1, Yin, the Receptive, awaits the impulse to action from Yang, the Creative. Once the Yang impulse is clearly defined, Yin springs to action and materializes the pasta. Though Yin had its own Yang idea, rice and vegetables, its dominant Yin nature pushed aside its own Yang impulse and fully embraced the outer Yang desire.

In Vignette #2, Yin was sinking deeply into its restful, restorative, dormant state. Yin invites outer Yang to join in still union. Yang suggests active union—creation. Yin calls upon its inner Yang to protect the legitimacy of still union. Outer Yang is defensive. It realizes that to acquiesce to Yin is the only possibility for union at this time.

Yin and Yang are the primal energies of this world. Yin is associated with water and earth, hence, energy in a denser form or simply solid energy. Yin energy is the substance of our material world: matter. Yin is the primal state of rest or stillness where energy is amassed and stored. In contrast, Yang is associated with fire and air. These elements lack substance. However, their influence creates definite movement. This is the ethereal, mental, spiritual activity that produces ideas, thoughts, designs, and actions. Yin, as the denser material energy, receives and gives form and substance to the impulse of Yang. If intent is Yang, then the physical realization of intent is Yin. In a deep state of Yin meditation, a Yang idea might be born.

We are all comprised of Yin and Yang energy. Often woman is associated with Yin and man with Yang. Men don’t produce eggs. Men have no womb. Men cannot hold and deliver life. But the tiny sperm that scratches the enormous egg is the impetus to action that the dormant egg awaits to begin the process of unfolding new life. This reality gives rise to the assignment of Yin and Yang to stereotyped sex roles. However, this is a misconception. For instance, all beings, male and female, require restoration and sleep to gather energy to live life. This is a Yin state that all partake in equally. Yang states of decision-making and creativity are equally utilized and necessary for both men and women.

To manifest (Yin) any thought (Yang) we must have energy. For water (Yin) to produce steam, energy, it must have fire (Yang) beneath it. If the fire is too weak Yin dominates and the water cannot boil to steam. If the fire is too great the water overflows the pot and puts out the fire, again, no energy produced. The only way to produce continuous energy is for these opposite elemental forces to be in balance, working together to produce the energy for life: the fire burning at a low, steady flame, the water simmering gently.

Balance, however, does not mean always being equally dominant. At night, the sun acquiesces to the moon. In the day, the moon acquiesces to the sun. Together, each taking the lead in succession, they create the deeper balance of our world—night and day.

We do well to assess the interplay of our inner Yin and Yang energy states. Often, we favor either Yin or Yang. Bringing these energies into internal balance is the key to outer relational success. You can be certain that your non-dominant primal energy state will show up in your choice of partner. If you choose a partner of similar dominance, something will be missing in your relationship. If you are Yin dominant you will be attracted to a Yang dominant partner and vice versa. This has nothing to do with your biological sex. Men and women may be dominated by either Yin or Yang energy.

Yin and Yang are mutually dependent. If we are favoring one state inwardly, we will seek to balance it out in outer relationship. This does not necessarily mean that we’ll find harmony in relationship. For instance, if we feverishly reject our inner Yin in favor of our inner Yang, we are certain to battle our Yin dominated partner. If we’ve had difficulty accessing our inner Yin or Yang, we are likely to become overly dependent on our partner who gives us a connection to our missing inner energy. Dependency often creates strife in relationship. As depicted in the opening vignette, we might easily dismiss our budding but inferior inner energy in favor of the whim of our dominant partner.

The first question to answer in relationship is: Who’s Yin and Who’s Yang? Knowing this, you can examine the patterns in your relationship that are driven by both the oppositional and complementary interaction of these energetic forces. From here, you can also answer the question: Whose Yin and Whose Yang might be dominating inside the self and outside in the relationship?Examining the Yin and Yang of relationship from an energetic standpoint, allows for a deeper understanding of self and other beyond blame. Yin and Yang are opposite sides of the same coin, inseparable and necessary in all life.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Observer

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Take note: The Observer is always present. It’s clear that we all have one. But how do we access this most pragmatic and sage voice of wisdom? I like to call this aspect of the psyche the Ancient Spirit Self, but for today I will stick with the term Observer.

Lately, in dream work, I have noticed this Observer most clearly. Having set my intent to access this aspect of self over the past few weeks—writing about it on the website and meditating into quiet specifically to access it—its voice has grown more pronounced. That is how intent works. I bow to intent today in writing about my experiences of the Observer.

Last week, I wrote about two dreams I had in Dreaming Intent. I noted during those dreams that I was both Participant and Observer and since then I have been aware that I am always both Participant and Observe while I dream. Even in waking life we are Participant and Observer, though perhaps it is easier to experience these two sides of the self in dreaming. With our busy minds and the difficulty we have in shutting down our thoughts, the dreaming world might be a good place to begin experiencing the Observer and note the difference between this voice and other voices, such as those related to the ego, the voice that speaks most loudly as we navigate the everyday world.

We all dream and I suggest that in dreaming we all clearly experience ourselves as Participant and Observer. Think about it. Recall a recent or old dream and note from what perspective the dream was viewed. Most likely, even though while deeply immersed in the dream there was another aspect of awareness that was present, as if directing the action or watching from afar. This is the Observer.

For instance, while dreaming recently, I clearly heard my Observer self telling me to wake up and write the dream down. “You know you’ll forget it, or you just won’t get it right if you don’t wake up now and write this down,” it said to me, rather sternly. I rather reluctantly got myself up to a sitting position, reached for my notebook and pen, which I keep open and ready beside the bed, and, in a half-awake state, in the dark, I wrote out the experience of the dream.

In the morning, my first thought was that I would most likely have to elaborate on what I had written, sure that I had not captured the essence of the dream during my bumbling state in the night. But, when I took a look at what I had written in the dark of the night, I saw that I had most clearly captured the dream, that I did not have to elaborate or alter a single word that my Observer had instructed me to write down.

This fascinated me on two levels. First, I noted how my ego jumped right in with its judgments, sure that I could not have captured the full essence of the dream. But when I read what I had written, I pointedly asked my ego to step down and be humble, to not be so quick to jump to conclusions. Second, I was fascinated by the language that flowed out of me in that dream state. I decided that I must learn to trust the Observer more often. I liked the tone of this Observer. It had simply and truthfully captured the dream. I note that the Observer, present in both my dream state and in my half-awake state, was the voice of truth, of reason—the one who knows all—and when I listen to it, I see that it does, in fact, get things right.

It is humbling and almost frightening to note that we all have this voice of reason within us. We all have the potential to get our lives in order, to live as ancient spiritual beings, and yet we relinquish this most central aspect of ourselves as we navigate the world from our participant selves, our egos, thinking that they have all the answers. I find this pretty scary while at the same time I note that it is how we must live in this world. We must build our egos to the point where they can topple without our attaching to them, without our needing them anymore. They will always rise up again and again to test us, to challenge our Observer-Who-Knows-All, seeking to thwart our true need for this aspect of self to live more fully. The ego is there to both draw us from this inner aspect of self, and challenge us to more fully embrace it.

In our dream world we have the opportunity to more fully connect with this Observer self, to understand how it directs us to not only observe and take note of the truth, but how it pushes us to act, as it did in my dream, asking me to: “wake up you sleepyhead and write this down!” In gently nudging us awake, night after night, it asks us to remember its voice, its sober and truthful tone, its pragmatic and knowing insinuation that we are fully capable of hearing and acting on its directives. We just have to train ourselves to do so.

As I mentioned above, we are both Participant and Observer in dreaming and in waking life. Personally, I intend to keep studying this inner and outer phenomenon. I intend to be more alert to myself in both roles. When am I Participant and when am I Observer? Am I indeed both at the same time, all the time? Can I switch over to Observer, ancient spirit self, volitionally in waking life, even when I am not meditating? Yes, I believe it is possible. And to do that, I must remind myself constantly to stay present in the moment.

I know—and perhaps it is my Observer telling me this—that if I constantly remind myself to stay in the moment that I will more fully access this aspect of self. So, I elect to challenge myself this week to more fully stay in the moment. That is the intent I set, with the added intent of being able to hear the clear voice of the Observer, as clearly as I heard it in my dream.

I ask that my Observer wake me up throughout my day and tell me what I need to know. This is my intent. Why not try it too, and then let’s see what happens!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#747 I Set My Intent

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Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

I set my intent to channel a message from Jeanne for all of her readers. Let this message be personally and universally significant for our times. I ask that those who read it receive a deeply personal experience from the words and the meaning they imply. Let this message convey a profound and enlightening insight for each reader and let them see its personal significance reflected and synchronistically repeated throughout the day and the coming week. I ask that this message from Jeanne be imbued with the intent of the seers of ancient Mexico, that it catapult those who read it into deeper awareness of themselves as beings comprised of energy and that they see this and know this more deeply than normal. I ask that this message also be imbued with the reminder to all of us to stay in the moment, to retain what we learn, and to give ourselves permission to act differently from this day forth. I ask all these things of Jeanne, of the universe, and of the seers of ancient Mexico and any other enlightened energy that wishes to partake in the greater effort to move us, the human race, on our journeys to awareness and change. Thank you.

Jeanne once told me that we channel through our heart chakra. I do heart-centered breathing to open my heart chakra. I feel it slowly cracking open, widening like an aperture, as I set this intent and wait for the words that I am sure will come to guide us today. I wait.

These are the words I perceive:

There are many beings capable of guiding you, My Dearest Ones, but the most important one is you. Each one of you is set with all you need. Your main job as a human being is to find your river of energy, the wellspring from which your energy flows. It is within and without.

You will tap into its source deep within the self through your greatest organ that pumps your life blood, that sends all your energy pulsing through your body: your heart. As Jan says, this is where we channel. From beyond place and time, I access this scribe who so faultlessly passes on my missives, through her heart.

I encourage on this day that a concerted effort be made, in the name of all true human potential, to access this vital organ of significance. Do not ask for more than awareness of its potential at this point; it is all you need to begin. Find its personal meaning.

Is your heart indeed your wellspring? Is it your pump, your river, your flowing energy button? Can you push this, prod this, or nudge open this central place of life and awareness, asking it to awaken?

Yes, you can. Try it. Ask the self to simply place a hand of intent upon your heart and feel its beating, its efforts to alert you to the truth of its energy source. Your heart is your source center, your beat of life, your grand cheerleader that nudges you along and allows you to exist in that form, but in all forms as well.

This is your center of energy. You can accept this idea or not, but if you wish to be part of the intent of this message I ask that you become acquainted with this truth. Your heart beats your greater truth, your awareness of connection to all things.

Find this center of self. Notice how it personally communicates with you and begin to ask it to remind you of its importance in your life, not only as the place of flow of life blood, but as the place of flow of all life energy.

Listen to your heart. Place your attention upon it today and in the coming days. Make this your personal intent. Ask your heart to speak to you, to guide you to awareness of the intent of both this query and this response. Ask it to tell you what you must truly know about the self, at this moment, in order to advance another big step upon your journey.

Ask it to remind you to stay connected to it and your personal intent. Find that it answers you in many languages: in spoken language, the language of visions and insight, of seeing and knowing, of interplay with mind, body and spirit reflected all around you. Ask it to keep you on the path that is right; on the path that may not be clear but that is clearly your path to change.

I ask, as Jan does, that this message carry forth its purity of intent to purify your heart of all negativity, judgments and condemnations alike, forced upon you by others or personally accepted though no longer right or necessary to bear. I ask that your heart grow soft and open to new awareness, insight, and experiences that only you may understand.

Do not fear your heart’s own intent, which is that your personal journey be transformative without restrictions; energetically enlightening, so that you may all suffer through your issues of contentment and disturbance, brought on by your restless spirits so that you may no longer suffer ignorance or fear of the true journey you have before you.

Open your hearts to yourselves first, My Dears. Accept your path. Listen to your truth-speaking heart. Be guided by the significance of your present life. And do not fear your journey.

This is how you will learn what awareness is, what intent is, and how it is present at all times to guide you. Ask it to come forth from the self, to meet the greater intent outside of you, greeting you on your path.

Look with optimism and joy for your true awareness of self as an energy being, and take your next step forward from that place. And don’t forget to look at the world around you as you go into each moment of your day. You may indeed experience a new kind of self in a new kind of world. Welcome to the magic!

Thank you Jeanne and all our guides in the universe—ancient and wise—as well as our own heart-centered personal energy, ancient and wise as well!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below. And thank you for passing the messages on!

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Midas Touch of Intent

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I intend a change. Midway through the night, I am suddenly awoken. Outside sounds abound around me. I am captive; they will not let me return to sleep. For hours they exhaust me. All I can do is breathe, breathe into deep relaxation.

The next day, I am present, but a step behind the action. My intuition, ordinarily my guiding light, is shut down. The world moves at its normal pace, but all I can do is watch it unfold as I fumble for words and meaning. I meet extraordinary challenges in the day. I notice an exhausted, detached calm.

The next night, I dream I am at the Grammys. I sit next to Bob Dylan. From his seat he delivers an acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award. He rambles on, monotone, almost incoherent, like he’s talking to himself. Someone from behind, with a long wooden pole, tries to poke Bob, to make him shut up. I protect him by deflecting the pole. He deserves respect.

In another dream, I’m in a large lake at night. I’m swimming. A huge oceanlike wave is approaching. I dive through it, only it doesn’t pass, it engulfs. I realize it’s a tidal wave. I’m now well beneath the surface. I do seem to be able to breathe. I’m not overwhelmed by fear, but it does feel like death is imminent.

More and different challenges appear the next day in waking life. Encounters coalesce around the theme central to my intent. It’s clear I am being softened, made malleable, as intent pulls me forward, pushing me to experience a much deeper level of groundedness and detachment.

The next night, in a dream, a Chinese man translates the soup choices on the menu at a restaurant. I choose the soup called: “A Light Between a Rock and a Hard Place.” Something has shifted; light can now pass through where once I was caught, between a rock and a hard place.

This series of events, which occurred in different states of my multidimensional self—dream body, physical body, social body—were all different ripples of the same intent, synchronistically related. This is the Midas Touch of Intent. Once the universe engages our intent, like Midas with his golden touch, intent turns everything in our path into gold; everything becomes the substance of our intent. You simply can’t get away from it. Everything, indeed, becomes meaningful and is tied to the intent of our intent.

On the first night, after I set my intent, intent awoke me and refused to allow me to sleep. It was as if the Sirens had me under their spell, all I could do was relax my body. This physical experience shut down my intuitive function and rendered me a therapist without vision. In the dream with Bob Dylan, I sought to protect the icon that deserved respect, but the truth is, it was time for new life: change. This is the time of revolution. The old kings must now die to usher in a new era. Jan informed me the next day that an Indie band from Canada called Arcade Fire, had won the Album of the Year Award at the Grammys. Like Bob Dylan, I too had to let go of the old self to make room for the new.

In the next dream, a tidal wave, like Noah’s flood, swept away the old and ushered in the new. There was nothing I could do but breathe and go with the flow, into the unknown. Finally, I experienced a new self, my intent realized, a new life, where once life was frozen between a rock and a hard place.

Jeanne cautions us to be careful of what we ask for when we set an intent. She suggests we be specific, but also be prepared, as the path intent chooses to realize our intent may not be as we expect. Midas might have been wise to choose a more careful intent so that he would have been able to eat his food, rather than have it all turn to gold when he touched it!

Intent will ripple through all the dimensions of the self. At first, the meaning of events may elude us; sometimes we are simply in the grip of the experience and need to allow ourselves to be led along. What choice do we really have, once we are in it?

Suspend judgment. Go with the flow. At some point you will arrive at the shore of a new self, intent realized, and marvel at the magical journey that brought you there.

Bon Voyage!

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Dreaming Intent

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To follow up on Jeanne’s message of the other day, Navigating the Mystical, I decided to practice intent last night. Right before falling asleep, when I was already drowsy, I set this intent: I intend to know the moment I am falling asleep and remain aware of dropping into a dream. I want to know the moment this is happening and retain the experience. Immediately, I closed my eyes and was aware of literally feeling like I was dropping into a dream.

This is what I experienced: I felt as if I were more than one being or awareness. I was the dreamer in the dream and a dreaming observer as well. I saw my own hand reach out from the left, palm open and facing upward. “Oh look, there’s my hand,” my dreaming self thought. Then almost immediately another hand appeared on the right holding a red flower in its palm, as if showing it to me or offering it to me. I felt I should look at it closely. My dream observer, aware of also being the owner of the hand said, “Oh, look at that, two hands, and look at that beautiful flower.” At the same time, my awareness as the dreamer in the dream concentrated on looking closely at the flower. It was as if I were looking through a microscope at this close up scene of the two hands, and I was both inside the scene with awareness and I was also the outer observer looking through the microscope. I woke up immediately and thought: “It worked! My intent worked!”

Enthused by this experience I decided to try again. This time, I set a new intent, which was: I intend to see everything in my dream with crystal clarity. Again I felt myself dropping into dreamland. This time I landed in a small rowboat. I appeared to be on an arctic lake formed by a melting glacier. It reminded me of hiking up Svart Isen, a huge glacier in Norway that I once tramped up and had a most amazing experience on, as I watched and heard the rumblings and shiftings of this massive ice flow, its colors almost Caribbean blues, a contrast that, at the time, I found remarkable. There on top of the northern world were the same intense blues of the waters of the Caribbean Sea; fascinating.

Anyway, in my dream, I am in this tiny boat floating without oars into the center of this huge glacier. Everything is crystal clear! The word “Crystalline” was repeating throughout the dream experience, in a sort of voiceover, though I knew it was my own voice. I floated further into the glacier and was soon surrounded on all sides by this crystalline world of ice. It was not blue as in my experience in real life, but absolutely “crystal clear,” just as I had set in my intent.

Again, I woke up out of this experience quite fascinated by the literal quality of my dreaming self and the response of the universe, as it so nicely allowed me to have these experiences. This reminded me of what Jeanne had said in the message on Monday, that you must remain aware of how your intentions or requests are answered, that they may not be as clear or straightforward as you desire. However, I thought my dream experience was humorously playing right into my intent to have an experience of crystal clarity. It literally gave me an experience of just that!

I find this process fascinating, the way the psyche and the universe, the dreaming body and awareness, do work hand in hand. I got what I asked for! In this case, I received several gifts: proof that intent does indeed work because I fell into a dream, I retained the dream experience, and I got crystal clarity, all the things I desired. And, in addition, my intent from the first experience “to remember” carried over into the second experience, thus showing that intent, once set, is planted for future use.

Perhaps my recitations on these experiences may add to your own personal incentive to try dreaming intent or any other intent. As subtle as these experiences may seem, they were in fact just what I asked for and I felt quite satisfied with the night’s work. The rest of the dream night proceeded from there. As I fell back to sleep the third time, I simply set my intent to keep going along the same lines. As I went deeper into sleep and dreaming, the word “crystalline” kept popping up, my awareness reminding me to look closely, very clearly at my dream world, which I was aware of doing.

See if this conversation that Carlos Castaneda had with don Juan, from pages 22 and 23 in The Art of Dreaming makes any sense in how dreaming intent works:

Don Juan explained that there are entrances and exits in the energy flow of the universe and that, in the specific case of dreaming, there are seven entrances, experienced as obstacles, which sorcerers call the seven gates of dreaming.

“The first gate is a threshold we must cross by becoming aware of a particular sensation before deep sleep,” he said. “A sensation which is like a pleasant heaviness that doesn’t let us open our eyes. We reach that gate the instant we become aware that we’re falling asleep, suspended in darkness and heaviness.”

“How do I become aware that I am falling asleep? Are there any steps to follow?”

“No. There are no steps to follow. One just intends to become aware of falling asleep.”

“But how does one intend to become aware of it?”

“Intent or intending is something very difficult to talk about. I or anyone else would sound idiotic trying to explain it. Bear that in mind when you hear what I have to say next: sorcerers intend anything they set themselves to intend, simply by intending it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, don Juan.”

“Pay close attention. Someday it’ll be your turn to explain. The statement seems nonsensical because you are not putting it in the proper context. Like any rational man, you think that understanding is exclusively the realm of our reason, of our mind.”

“For sorcerers, because the statement I made pertains to intent and intending, understanding it pertains to the realm of energy. Sorcerers believe that if one would intend that statement for the energy body, the energy body would understand it in terms entirely different from those of the mind. The trick is to reach the energy body. For that you need energy.”

Intend by intending? Find the energy body? Does it all sound too idiotic, as don Juan suggests? So what, just try it, set your dreaming intent and see what happens. These are the means to beginning a process of navigating the mystical, as Jeanne suggested. It works. Good luck and good dreaming!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Thanks for reading! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR