A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & The Blueprint

November 3, 2010 Jan Leave a comment

Unsure of what to write about today, I opened The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castaneda, a great resource, full of quotes from his books about his thirteen-year apprenticeship with don Juan Matus. I knew I wanted to continue writing about recapitulation, that most important aspect of a shamanic journey, the one that starts us on our true journey when we are ready to take it. Here is the first quote I read on the left hand side of the pages I opened to, excerpted from The Second Ring of Power:

The warrior’s way offers a man a new life and that life has to be completely new. He can’t bring to that new life his ugly old ways.

On the right hand page I found this quote, also from The Second Ring of Power:

Warriors always take a first event of any series as the blueprint or the map of what is going to develop for them subsequently.

Both of these quotes are right in line with embarking on a recapitulation journey, as from the first step we are invited to leave our old ways behind and begin not only a new journey but a new way of perceiving and interpreting the world we live in, as well as the world we are leaving behind, while preparing for the world we are about to enter. Because, in essence, a recapitulation journey requires that we leave behind our old selves, shedding them like well worn rags, no longer useful in the new world we are entering. In fact, our old selves, our old voices, and our old ways just don’t seem to fit in that new world, no matter how hard we might try to make them. Eventually we learn that we must totally acquiesce to that new world and find new means of behaving, thinking, and seeing, for without acquiescing we will never fully emerge from the old world and never fully enter the new one, but remain caught somewhere in between, and that is quite a challenging place to be.

During my recapitulation journey I spent many weeks caught between those two worlds as I struggled to make sense of where I was. In finally discovering the meaning of the event that led me into that between-worlds place, in accepting the “blueprint,” as Carlos writes in the above quote, the blueprint itself became clearer. In acquiescing to the inevitable unfolding of the events that would lead me out of that between-worlds state and into the new world, I began to see the greater meaning of my past but also my future. Each blueprint, each series of recapitulation events, became another step forward, allowing me to break through the murky past now made clear and into the present moment, also made clear by the process of recapitulation and learning to see the world differently.

At one point, towards the end of my intensive three year recapitulation, I was aware that I was going to have to reach, yet again, another breaking point, but this time I knew it would be the final one. How I knew this I don’t really know, except to say that I saw the blueprint and knew I just had to await the unfolding of the process. In essence, I understood, because of all the other series of unfolding blueprints that I had already experienced, that it was already laid out and I just had to acquiesce to taking this final leg of my long and arduous journey. Here is a description of the event that precipitated that final breaking point.

I was taking a walk along a path in the woods, slowly strolling along in the shade of the trees on a hot and humid day. At one point I tripped over a root and suddenly lost sight of the path. For a split second it disappeared, and even though I had been on that path a hundred times and knew every root and turn I suddenly became disoriented. In that second of disorientation, a curtain ripped open in the universe and, in the momentum of that trip over the root, I fell through that curtain into nothingness, suddenly lost, fearful and almost panicking. Then I took another step, regained my balance, and seemed to be back on the familiar path again, but everything had changed. I felt like I was now in a dream world.

From having already experienced many such shamanic twists of reality during my recapitulation I was fully aware that something was happening out of the ordinary. I saw it for what it was, a glitch in the universe. It was as if I was looking at everything from a slightly different angle and I couldn’t shake it back into normality again; try as I might. I had inadvertently, without having a choice in the matter, walked right through that glitch into another world and everything had changed.

This was the first time I did not have a choice in the matter, because there had been many other times when I saw the curtain ripping open and was offered the choice of going through it or not, but this was different. This time I was going whether I wanted to or not and that was how I knew I was going to have some pretty bizarre experiences in the days to come. This was the moment of the blueprint.

Whatever the glitch meant, I took it as a gift, thanking infinity for showing me that things could change in an instant, when I least anticipated them, and for pointing out to me not to expect things to always stay the same; even the familiar becomes unfamiliar in the blink of an eye. I knew from that moment on to expect the unexpected.

As I continued walking that day, I immediately recapitulated the moment when I had tripped over the root. I wondered what I had been thinking about when it happened. I also questioned my feelings of fear and panic, wondering if they were related to my past. I had been abused in the woods as a child and I wondered if a memory was being presented to me of something that had happened to me a long time ago in another woods. I also reestablished with my psyche that I was ready to confront whatever came to greet me because I was determined to stick with my recapitulation process, to keep making progress towards a new life. As in the first quote from The Wheel of Time that I present today: I knew my new life had to be completely new, and totally free of everything that represented the old me.

As I recapitulated that moment I realized I had been thinking about some press releases I’d been writing when I suddenly thought: “Don’t! Not now! Don’t think of work; this time is for myself!” I pulled my eyes back from gazing out over the woods and focused down on the path in front of me and that was when I tripped and the curtain wrenched open and I was lost, hurtling in momentary blackness. I felt my heart lurch as if I had suddenly seen something frightening, when all that really happened was that my view of the world before me changed and I became suddenly aware. “Oh,” I thought, “this is awareness; this is having awareness of all that is around me.”

All of a sudden I had utter clarity, I could see everything in glistening sharpness, but it was so unfamiliar that I wanted to shake it away. But try as I might, by shaking my head and trying to clear my sight, I could not. I was caught in heightened awareness, perceiving reality differently for some reason that was as yet unknown. I knew that it was important not to focus on why the event frightened me but instead to find out why the fear still resided inside me. I knew that I was about to embark on another leg of my inner journey and I was ready for it.

What happened subsequent to that event was exactly as I had predicted, I embarked on the final breaking point of my old self, my old ways of thinking, acting, reacting, and being in the world. Over the next month I acquiesced to the culmination of my recapitulation as one event after another occurred, without my say-so, just as laid out in the moment I fell through that curtain. The blueprint for this final phase was that I was going on the journey and I had no choice in the matter.

In another reality I did have a choice in the matter because I had made the decision to begin the recapitulation journey a long time ago. I had already been learning how to accept, how to acquiesce, and how to let go as events unfolded. I had already chosen to change and change I did, sometimes by choice and sometimes without having a say in the matter, but I always knew I was on the journey of a lifetime and I was going to savor every minute of it and accept what came to guide me.

I admit; I was not always so acquiescent. Sometimes I whined and kicked and protested vehemently, but in the end I knew that everything that had happened to me in the past and everything that was happening during my recapitulation was laid out for my benefit and all I had to do was take responsibility for getting myself to the starting point of each event. From there it was just a matter of following the signs and waking up to the truths of who I was, who I had been, and who I had the possibility to become, and sometimes that was just enough to keep me going.

The blueprint of recapitulation events can happen at any moment, especially when we least expect them. As I learned that day when I went for a stroll in the woods and tripped over a root: Expect the unexpected!

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

Sending you all love and good wishes for good recapitulation experiences,
Jan

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog and other books are available through our Store.

Messages from Jeanne

#731 Free the Mind. Free the Fear. Free the Spirit.

November 1, 2010 Jan Leave a comment

Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message of guidance for your readers today?

Today I speak of detachment and learning to allow others to take the journeys they must. Remember: All human beings are upon that earth to learn lessons in evolutionary growth, but how can one grow if one is not allowed to have experiences in life?

Learning to detach from the sorrows or difficulties of others may enhance a personal journey and may also lead to a greater understanding of compassionate living. In learning detachment may one be granted the means of gaining a fuller awareness of life’s meaning and life’s purpose. In learning detachment may one grant the self, and others, the opportunity to have vital experiences in life. Only in having such experiences will one learn anything of use. For life is meant to be played out on the fields where all energy intersects, coincides, and greets all other energy, on the fields of life.

Allow the self a little freedom today and you will allow the self access to a deeper sense of detachment from the lives of others while also gaining a deeper sense of what it means to be human.

Can you explain further?

In allowing the self a little freedom from the worries that one carries for others, by releasing the mind from its conjuring play by play, its repetitive swirl of emotional attachments, one may find a sense of peace and freedom reigns, so that the work of the self may become the most important aspect of life. In detaching from the worries of others, the self is allowed attention, and this you must understand is most important. For how do you expect to be of aid to others if you do not allow the self to be free, to evolve, to learn what life is about, and to change?

Only in healing and changing the self will freedom from that which plagues you be achieved, but such a process takes attention. Focus must be paid to the self in the world. So the first step in learning to detach from the sorrows and worries of others involves freeing the self from one’s own sorrows and worries. In essence, detaching the self from personal issues by thorough examination of repetitive actions is a good way to start a healing process. Find out why you do the things you do over and over again, to the detriment of self and others, including worrying, avoiding, resisting, and hiding from life, and you will have begun a true journey of change.

So today, on this most auspicious of days, offer the self a new method of living your life by taking a few steps in detaching from that which has kept you bound, ill, worried, confused, in denial, or simply frustrated. Free the mind. Free the fear. Free the adventuresome spirit self to have experiences in life without so many attachments, real and unreal. For what is it that you are so attached to to begin with? Is it something that is real? Or is it simply something in your mind?

Learn to let go of things that do not belong to you, that do not help you grow, that do not allow you to experience the true self. For that is why you are there, to discover the true self, the truthful self, the truly real self.

Why did you call this a “most auspicious day”?

Because it is! But you will only truly understand what that means by offering the self some changes, by detaching from the strict and forbidden, from the rules of old that told you a long time ago that you were not worthy of this life, yet does your spirit seek always to show you otherwise. Follow your spirit and discover why this day is most auspicious for you!

Thank you, Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Fondly and most humbly offered.

Chuck's Blog

#730 Chuck’s Place: Intent & The Left Body

October 30, 2010 Chuck Leave a comment

“The concealed advantage of luminous beings is that they have something which is never used: intent. The maneuver of shamans is the same as the maneuver of the average man. Both have a description of the world. The average man upholds it with his reason; the shaman upholds it with his intent. Both descriptions have their rules; but the advantage of the shaman is that intent is more engulfing than reason.” —From The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castaneda, page 138.

The seers of ancient Mexico, who view the energetic dimension of human beings, observe two distinct energy patterns, on the left and right side of the body respectively. The energy of the right body moves in a continuous rocking motion. The energy of the left body, in contrast, is more “turbulent and aggressive, moving in undulating ripples and projecting out waves of energy.” —From Magical Passes, page 140.

Those seers also note that the energy of the right body is the dominating force in human beings. The right body energy is rationality; the left body energy is what Carl Jung would call the unconscious. For seers, the left body is both the more comprehensive reservoir of human potential as well as the human door to infinity.

The energy of the left body is accessed in various ways. Carlos Castaneda describes many times how, after a blow on the back from don Juan, he shifted into a state of heightened awareness, opening access to the energy of the left body. In non-shamanic life experience, trauma can force a shift out of body into heightened awareness as well. The peculiarity of heightened awareness is a state of detachment with a heightened ability to focus, understand, and know, at a profound level, as the dominance of rationality is suspended. However, like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, heightened awareness suddenly ends with a return to right sided dominance, and all the accrued knowledge and experience of heightened awareness fades and is forgotten. These experiences are nonetheless stored elsewhere in the left body awaiting retrieval. This is a major reason to recapitulate. Recapitulation is an exercise in retrieving stored memory. The functional value of recapitulation is to open the channel to the left body and infinity.

Intent is also linked to left body potential. While the word intent is generally bandied about, full of ego desirousness or right sided control in such expositions as The Secret, intent belongs to the realm of energy and the left body. Intent is beyond ego, beyond reason, beyond the mind.

“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.” —From The Art of Dreaming, page 23.

There is no rationality to intent. If we want something from right sided awareness we develop a plan, employ a strategy, manipulate, and control in order to create an outcome. When you boil it down, that’s simply ego control, not intent.

Intent, from the left side, is a simple intent, stated, sent out—light as a feather—with no attachment. No reason, no control, no manipulation is necessary. A silent knowing that the energy body has received the intent and works its magic is all that is required.

The process of tracking the path of intent is synchronicity: everything is meaningful. Everyone and everything that presents in your life reflects intent in manifestation. Follow it, and be guided by it. Suspend judgment, the dominating influence of the right body, and track instead the meaning and signs of the unfolding events in your life.

These events are the signs of unfolding intent. The challenge becomes one of aligning right sided decisions with unfolding intent. So much energy is consumed by right sided resistance through doubt, fear, indecision, rationality, and, frankly, big baby refusal to take the unfamiliar journey beyond known habit, the rocking chair of right sided energy.

Perhaps our ultimate intent is the one we set from infinity before we entered this world, our reason for being here. That intent persistently presses upon our lives, through the years, seeking to awaken our right sided dominant body to its true mission in the world. In the final analysis, our reason for being in this life is to discover and acquiesce to this core intent; the one set long before the birth of the ego and the right sided human self.

Send your intent to your energy body; see what happens!

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

Until we meet again,
Chuck

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog by Carlos Castaneda, and other books, are available through our Store.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & Walking

October 27, 2010 Jan Leave a comment

During the summer while strolling around our rural neighborhood with Chuck, in a ten minute span, I related to him three memories in vivid detail, the first sparked by the scent of black locust trees in bloom and each subsequent memory linked by some detail in the previous one. This chain of memories was sparked by what the seers of ancient Mexico would call the usher. In The Active Side of Infinity don Juan instructs Carlos Castaneda to begin the process of recapitulation by walking. Here is what don Juan says to Carlos on page 149:

“Walking is always something that precipitates memories. The sorcerers of ancient Mexico believed that everything we live we store as a sensation on the backs of the legs. They considered the backs of the legs to be the warehouse of man’s personal history. So, let’s go for a walk in the hills now.”

“We walked until it was almost dark,” writes Carlos.

“I think I have made you walk long enough,” don Juan said when we were back at his house, “to have you ready to begin this sorcerer’s maneuver of finding an usher: an event in your life that you will remember with such clarity that it will serve as a spotlight to illuminate everything else in your recapitulation with the same, or comparable, clarity. Do what sorcerers call recapitulating pieces of a puzzle. Something will lead you to remember the event that will serve as your usher.”

In my experience while walking with Chuck the strong smell of the locust blossoms sent me back into a memory that seamlessly led to other memories; the smell of those blossoms was indeed my usher on that occasion. Several years ago while in the midst of my recapitulation I was walking with an acquaintance across a field on a hot summer day when he inadvertently slapped me across my shoulder blades while making a point and although the slap was not particularly hard it immediately sent me into an old memory. Suddenly I was four years old again and walking across a sunny field with the man who had abused me during my childhood. In this state of heightened awareness I was once again a frightened little girl sensing that I was caught in a trap I could not get out of. In one reality I walked next to my acquaintance who, still talking, had no idea that I was no longer truly present but was in fact being presented with an old experience. In fact, I believe the slap across my shoulders, light though it was, actually ushered me into that memory, the force of it just enough to cause a shift of the assemblage point.

Carlos writes often of don Juan slapping him on the back in order to cause a shift in his assemblage point. In The Art of Dreaming he mentions, on pages 15 and 16, the following:

“This was the first time, in my memory, that he deliberately talked about something he had been doing all along: making me enter into some incomprehensible state of awareness that defied my idea of the world and of myself, a state he called the second attention. So, to make my assemblage point shift to a position more suitable to perceiving energy directly, don Juan slapped my back, between my shoulder blades, with such a force that he made me lose my breath.”

Although the blow I received that day while walking with my friend was really just a light tap it was enough to send me off into a dark memory of falling into a black abyss because I was already well into and open to the recapitulation process. In fact, once begun, the memories flew up at me, eagerly asking to be acknowledged, clearly studied and relived, and, finally, truthfully accepted and laid to rest. Carlos also writes in The Active Side of Infinity, on page 160, about the unfolding of his own recapitulation in a similar manner. He states:

“The clarity of the usher brought a new impetus to my recapitulation. A new mood replaced the old one. From then on, I began to recollect events in my life with maddening clarity. It was exactly as if a barrier had been built inside me that had kept me holding rigidly on to meager and unclear memories, and the usher had smashed it. My memory faculty had been for me, prior to that event, a vague way of referring to things that had happened, but which I wanted most of the time to forget.”

In the past I used to get up every morning at 5:30 and run for three miles. I did this for perhaps fifteen or twenty years, but one day I could no longer run. I couldn’t get out of bed and run even one more mile. That signaled the beginning of a new life for me. I learned to walk, and eventually I learned a lot more—things about myself, but things about the world too, not the world I used to see every morning as I ran in the dark, but the world I could not see through the darkness inside myself.

At first I used to walk very fast, still trying to run away from that which sought to catch up with me, all the memories I kept at bay. One day Chuck said to me during one of our shamanic sessions: “Why don’t you stroll? Learn to stroll.” In so saying he pointed out to me my penchant for wanting to always stay one step ahead of the past. In learning to stroll I learned how to slow down so the past could finally catch up with me and teach me what I needed to learn about it.

I had no idea that my own past held such treasures, that my own fears and frightening memories were such gems in disguise. In slowing down, letting them come to me in their own time, greeting them—in the beginning with my resistance and fear and later being open to them—I was able to uncover the jewels hidden inside the black hole of that abyss I saw that day as I walked across a sunny field.

Yes, a slight brush against my shoulders was enough that day to send me into a place I needed to go, just as on that other day last summer the scent of the locusts was enough to lead me to recapitulate, in rapid recall, several other events a lot less remarkable and frightening, but recapitulation nonetheless.

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

Sending you all love and good wishes for good walking experiences,
Jan

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog and other books are available through our Store.

Messages from Jeanne

#729 A Little Tenderness

October 25, 2010 Jan Leave a comment

Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today I ask for a message of guidance for all of your readers. What is most meaningful and important for us on this day, as we begin a new week?

Tenderness is not a virtue left to but a few to utilize but a known quality within all human beings that must now be brought forth into everyday activities, interactions, and decisions, applied as a given, so to speak.

Please elaborate on this idea.

I speak of tenderness as a heart-centered emotion often reserved for only the closest of acquaintances or possibly only for one or two people in a lifetime. Mothers tend toward tenderness while others eschew it for more pronounced emotions. Today I speak not only of maternal tenderness but of the tenderness that lies within the self and is often bypassed because it exudes too much in the emotional realm.

I contend that in the world you live in a little tenderness for the self and others is most appropriate. It is also largely lacking and thus its need is great.

Explain what you mean by tenderness and how to go about accessing it.

I interpret tenderness as a quiet need, but I also know that a quiet approach to its awakening must be granted, for now it sits within the greater body of humanity like a scared animal, uncertain of its fate, for it has for far too long been relegated to darkness. This human quality of tenderness is not meant to be pushed aside though that has been its demise.

I do not advocate awakening raw emotional responses to one’s life or the dilemmas of others, pouring out concern or smothering care. Instead, I approach this awakening as a deeply invigorating self-awakening in order to stir up, first of all, a little tenderness for the self.

The idea and the process I offer today is this:

1. Offer the self a means of connection to heart-centered feelings of tenderness, drawing out the maternal feminine that resides inside all human beings, female and male.

2. Understand what tenderness feels like inside your own physical self. Does it cause pain? Is it largely blocked and difficult to access? Is your child self holding it firmly gripped, afraid to let you, the adult, touch it for fear that it may mean annihilation? You must know that often the child self holds the emotions that once were so important but had to be kept hidden and safe. Ask your child self, in such a case, to allow you a small taste of this most precious feeling.

3. Take this tenderness for self into your heart-centered breathing practice, utilizing it as your point of intent for the day, perhaps offering the self a mantra.

“I offer myself a touch of tenderness.

I open my heart to my feelings of tenderness.

I allow my tenderness for self to reawaken on this day.

As much as I can hold within my heart is enough.”

4. Feel your heart’s warm expansiveness as you stir up the energy of the reality of this quality of tenderness inside you.

5. Do not lose sight of the fact that this feeling does indeed reside inside you even though it may be hidden behind rusty doors of old, left locked for good reason, though now it is time to unlock these true feelings.

6. Understand that this is not a selfish act or practice. Keep in mind the goal, which is to awaken a sense of longing that lies inside each one of you to feel love, to feel love of self first and foremost.

7. Only in facing the self with this tenderness will your intent be pure. No matter what you attempt to accomplish in life the most important step is connection to inner self. So use this heart-centered awakening of tenderness as a tool to begin a new process of learning to love the self with the intent for it to blossom into the world around you.

8. Notice, as you take on this practice of awakening tenderness of the self within the self, that other emotions may arise. Use the tenderness to melt them, staying aware that this heart-centered awakening is the most important focus at this moment. Without judgment or consternation accept the pain that may arise as but a quiet voice inside, letting you know that deep within your inner shadows are but tender feelings.

9. To begin this awakening is enough, a little at a time. In meditation or in brief periods of heart-centered breathing begin to open your heart to the needs of the self. Only in doing so will you achieve the most meaningful of gifts you can give the self: love of others, unconditionally, without attachment, simply because it is the deepest purpose of being human.

10. Find the self vulnerable to this stirring up and know that all human beings are equally vulnerable, that all have a heart center and the capacity to hold within that heart tenderness for the self and others.

11. This practice does not require any more action than allowing the self to feel. In awakening heart-centered feelings within the self one awakens heart-centered feelings in all. This is the intent of most importance, for now is the time of necessity for all mankind to carve a new direction.

12. If one is intent on learning compassion and the means of living a compassionate life the first step must be learning the tenderness of compassion for the self. It involves unbiased awakening of all that you each hold within. With heart-centered opening of all the doors to the self, offering the self the compassion you wish to offer others, your journey in that world will truly begin to expand.

Do not forget that one cannot truly embrace another until one has fully embraced the self. I stress this for I know there are many upon that earth eager to do good, to help others, and to succeed at inner growth for the betterment of the world. All of these goals are most worthy but will fall short if the inner self is not allowed to experience that which the outer self professes as so necessary.

Change the self too, even as you seek to change the world. One will not happen without first the other. The inner awakening supercedes all other awakenings.

Remain connected to heart-centered intent through all your days. Invite the energy of this intent into your physical body, for that is where it will have most effect. By your personal practice of this intent your every action will likewise be involved with it, naturally and tenderly. For in embodying heart-centered intent you become one with it, and this is most appropriate, necessary, and desirable, at this moment and all moments to come.