Chuck's Blog

#642 Chuck’s Place: Liquid Energy is Our Primary Birthright

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Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.

Yesterday, we sat in the waiting room, Cosi in Jan’s lap, both of us touching her, feeling her vibration, feeling our own sadness. In a few minutes the vet would see us, examine Cosi, and concur with what we already knew. Jan had faced the truth first: we were keeping her alive, she could not live without our intervention, she was in pain, it was time to let her go. Jan had previously fanned the pages of the I Ching in front of Cosi, asking her to show her what needed to happen. Her paw stopped on Hexagram #23 Po, splitting apart, the inevitable, unstoppable collapse of the house. There was no stopping Cosi’s body from splitting apart; it was time to release her energy. After that, Jan opened the book at random three times and each time it fell open on Po. There was no changing the inevitable.

Others came into the waiting room. They had no attachment to our cat. Though they occupied the same room they were in a different, disconnected world. That’s how it is with the human operating system; the archetypal substrate that governs our experience breaks us into units, a world of disconnected solid objects that we learn to differentiate. We are drawn to attach to certain objects to experience our emotional selves as we form bonds with other individuals. Our experience of connectedness beyond those we have attached to is quite limited. Haiti, for instance, is another world. Perhaps we might make a contribution on the cell phone. It is hard really to feel connected for very long beyond our immediate world and those we are emotionally attached to. That is the nature of fragmented, disconnected units. The advantage of fragmentation is the ability to obtain deeper knowledge of a part. In medicine this is called specialization. The challenge for medicine is to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again and see a person as a whole unit, holistic medicine.

This same challenge confronts our world now at a major evolutionary juncture. Our world has reached its limit in sustaining fragmentary beings with special interests. This fragmented world must allow itself to also be a holistic unit. This was don Juan’s conclusion: for this world to survive, it must be able to now be experienced as a world of interconnected energy, as well as a world of solid objects. This was Jeanne’s guidance yesterday. She gives us the image of liquid energy versus solid objects. She describes her experience as one of total detachment, that is, freedom from specialized attachments, which results in the experience of utter calm and pure love and compassion for all. This experience is our birthright, just as much as our experience of the world as one of solid objects is our birthright. For our world to survive, we must make the evolutionary leap to experience our liquid energy birthright and allow the experiences of interconnectedness, utter calm, and totally detached loving compassion for all to flow into our world of solid objects. This will transform how we act and react in a world of solid objects.

Cosi lay on the exam table, calmly awaiting her transformation; we laid our hands upon her and she received her injection. Both Jan and I then simultaneously experienced a subtle swoosh of light energy move from her body, through us, and then beyond. She is now in her pure energy state, the place we are all headed. The opportunity we are being offered now, while in our solid form, is to experience ourselves as liquid energy, all interconnected in a far greater reality. The experience of Cosi, as energy, was a reminder that ultimately we are all destined to return to our pure energetic state. However, we also have the opportunity to experience ourselves in our energetic state while we still reside in our solid human form. In fact, this is what is being required of us now, in order to allow our world of solid objects, itself on the verge of splitting apart, to continue to exist and evolve, to become an interconnected, holistic unit.

This evolutionary challenge is actually urging us to rediscover our energetic birthright because, once we enter the matrix of solid objects, we forget. As don Juan put it, “we are energy first.” As Jeanne put it yesterday, once we find our way to utterly calm and detached loving compassion we discover we are in a familiar, known place; we are home. This place is already in us, we just need to allow ourselves access to it. Can we stay in this place of familiar home, with all its truths, and reenter the world of solid objects, bridging the two and, in so doing, evolve this world into a sustainable world?

As always, should anyone wish to write or ask, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#641 You Are Liquid Energy

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Today, Chuck asks a question.

Dear Jeanne,
Yesterday, a reader, Pat, commented on having an experience of your presence as she struggled with her responses to Message #640 regarding a relationship. Her description, in the comments section of that posting, of your energetic presence was unmistakable. Jan and I have felt you in exactly the same way. I wonder if you can explain what your own experience is, Jeanne, as you respond to those of us in dire need, in the midst of deep torment, tumult, or disaster. By describing your experiences you may provide a link for someone here to find that place of utter calm and love within themselves. If we can feel it so intensely in our bodies as it comes from you, from without, can we not conjure it up ourselves, from within?

Right now there are many people struggling with so many financial and economic issues around money, job loss, illness, etc., unable to cope, as our world is in such a state of deterioration and conflict. It feels like a lot of people are just coldly unresponsive to the true nature of the human condition and unable to feel love and compassion for others. At the same time that many are suffering with very basic needs to survive from day to day, others, in Haiti for instance, are suffering with the loss of thousands of lives due to a horrific earthquake and its aftermath. Compared to being here on earth, in the midst of calamities of all sorts, what is your experience of our situation, from your far greater energetic reality?

My energy, My Dears, is totally detached from the world you live in, detached from the troubles and the concerns of that world. As energy unattached, it finds no hold in that which so deeply holds you bound to that earth. This is the energy that I impart in making myself known upon that earth, pure, unattached energy of love and compassion. This is certainly the state of energetic self that you seek as you learn what it means to be an energy being. If you consider that your training is to understand energy and the self as energy, then you will also understand that you are all fully capable of producing a state of utterly calm energy from within. Although I say “from within,” I also add that it is achieved through knowledge of all energy, without as well as within, an understanding of energy of good as unattached and free, as evolutionary, as all loving and compassionate.

If you can find this description of energy to be understood within your mind and body, by accepting your experiences of it, you will have achieved the intuitive first step in knowing that energy exists as a pure state, which you are fully capable of accessing, now, upon that earth. In fact, this is the whole point of becoming spiritually awakened and evolved.

In channeling experiences, and in many other forms of spiritual encounters and experiences, in out of body and dream exploration, for instance, you gain access to the energetic self. These processes are your training. They have been training you your whole life. To realize and acknowledge this and allow such experiences to grow, accepting them as more than just coincidences but true wake up calls, is a true deepening of your energy process.

To find the self in a place of utter detachment allows for a greater understanding of pain and disaster. I see your world from that different perspective of utter detachment and, not only that, I also experience it from the energetic standpoint where nothing truly exists as you know it. You see, all that you perceive and experience visually, emotionally, and physically, etc., only exists in your reality and only for the time that you exist in it. As you are given experiences of other realities, energetically, as you describe with Pat and yourselves, you are offered true knowledge of the unreality of your present reality. You see?

In such moments, you are shown the truth of energy as pure experience, unattached to what you perceive right before your eyes. Your reality melts before you as you access experiences of pure energy. And, if you can allow the self to hold onto the reality of energy, as Pat did, you are offered enlightenment related to the energy that truly exists for you, in you, and all around you. It is an experience of the interconnectedness of all things, as liquid energy, rather than the solid world you normally perceive and experience.

When I enter your energetic fields and unite with your liquid energy, I offer you access to experiencing interconnectedness. You may experience it as utter calm, as loving energy like nothing you have experienced before, but, if you think about it, you will recognize it as utterly familiar. In accepting its utter familiarity you will reconnect with your own ability to access it more fully, knowing that you are also it, that you are liquid energy, at all times.

I know this is not quite as plausible when you are fully immersed in the cold reality of economic and social upheaval, war, disaster, and the natural calamities such as that which now exists on the island of Haiti. I know that life as you experience it is rarely liquid, but once having felt it you will understand the truth of it as another reality. It may not be easy, but if you can accept it as true fact, it will become more accessible. Your interactions with energy will broaden as your own experiences show you the melting point, the moment of disappearing into pure energy.

At such moments, your challenge is to consciously state, so that you track your experience, that: “I am going into the liquid energy field now. I am experiencing the interconnectedness of all things. I am energy.”

In such a state, you will have a glimpse, or longer, of what it means to be unattached energy. You will have clarity of your world. You will understand the greater interconnectedness, the meaning and purpose of all life, all experience, all disaster, pain, and death. You will simply know. And it will be as utterly familiar knowledge, even as your experiences of my energy have been, as interconnected energy. In recognizing this familiarity you will gain in energetic experience and you will become more fearless in your pursuit of it.

I ask that you open yourselves to such energy, liquid or otherwise, by asking for it, by requesting help, by trusting that you are fully acceptable to those of us who are waiting for you, by accessing your innocent self, as Pat does, as your trusting readers do, trusting that you will receive energy in return.

In death, liquid energy is accessed, all is known, and release from that which so holds you and confuses you is achieved. This is what you are describing and experiencing now in life, and to have such experiences, while in that reality, is your ultimate spiritual goal and achievement. It allows for greater growth as a human being. To access liquid energy, true loving compassion, and the utter detachment of such energy, is a gift showing you what you truly seek in that life, leading you to the true self, the utterly familiar energy self. Ultimately, it is leading you to knowledge of how to utilize that self more fully in your life. Eventually, you will discover, as Chuck asks, that this energy self is fully within your grasp. You just have to allow your self to trust that this is the self you seek, even though it may require that you detach from so many beliefs and perceptions of the world you live in, difficult and disintegrating as that detachment may be.

In life, as in death, you have access to liquid energy. You have access to clarity, to knowledge, to complete understanding, to love and compassion, in the broadest sense imaginable. And that is what you must remain open to, a new idea of your entire world, both without and within, now, in order to access that which my energetic companions and I so readily offer: pure energy, interconnected and fully available. But this is so only if you can believe it, and that is only achievable if you allow for experiences. Experience is your true test of everything, as it is mine.

In conclusion, I offer that in collusion with you upon that earth I too am allowed expression of my current state and I thank you for being open and asking for me. I will come to you; to all who ask. How I come will be right for each one of you.

Trust your experiences. Trust you own energy, and then experiment with it, without fear, for there is nothing to fear. But you already know that!

Messages from Jeanne

#640 You Do Not Need Mirrors Now

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Today we have a question from a reader asking for guidance around a relationship issue that Jeanne had previously addressed in Message #586 Why Must You Return to Your Cage?

Hello again Dear Jeanne and Jan,
Several months ago, when I was still in relationship with my “soul twin” male partner, I wrote to you. I was in a state of confusion and anxiety about whether to continue being in a sexual relationship with him because for 2 years it had been triggering trauma and an aversion reaction linked to sexual violation and abandonment by my father when I was a child and teenager. I couldn’t bear it any longer and wanted to know if I should just end it and stop trying to have sex with men, because it just seemed to re-create the same awful cycle, ending every time with my aversion, revulsion, rejecting them or myself and then pushing them away.

In response to my inquiry you had written, through Jan, that I needed to go back into my cage once more, and that R was like a mirror that reflected back to me all the parts of myself that I did not want to see, the darkness, and that before I could spread my wings and fly away to be free, I had to hunker down and do the deep inner work and face my self in that cage.

I feel like R and I had made a soul contract previously, to come together to do this stretch of intensified work together over the last 2 years. We triggered each other’s early child wounds so perfectly and kept them activated, accelerating our movement forward, the pain motivating us both to keep working until it came to a point where it couldn’t continue. I didn’t exactly understand what you meant when you wrote to me. But then R suddenly, and with non-negotiable finality, ended our relationship, gathered up his remaining belongings and was gone for good within 10 minutes. He soon after that announced that he was going away for 6 months. I went into such a deep and scary journey, meeting so many personal deaths, feeling like a limb was cut off, and it sent me into places inside myself that I don’t think I’ve even more than scratched the surface of before. Layers of the bands of armoring around the excruciating pain of my inability to access my love for my father because of the hurt and betrayal and therefore my inability to really love the men in my life, the unwillingness to really love them, under the anxiety. There is such a narcissistic sense of entitlement around expecting men to make up for what my father didn’t do for me. I only want the man to meet my needs and I don’t really care about the man’s needs. In fact I resent and am angered and disgusted by the needs of the man. I have sex with men as a way to ensure that I get taken care of and not abandoned, which of course does not work. It simply perpetuates what happened with my dad over and over. In conclusion, I realize that I am still in a pre-oedipal moving into oedipal stage of my sexual development. I get that. I’m 55 and going on 6. I don’t feel like I’ll ever be ready to have adult sex in this lifetime.

On the other hand, being a Libran, I truly long to learn how to really love and be in a healthy relationship. I love companionship, I love affection, I love communication, and I love romance above all, if it’s with a man that I am attracted to, energetically and heart-wise. Even though I felt disemboweled, like my intestines were dropping out, like I was liquefying inside when it ended with R and he announced that he was going away for so long (the perfect re-creation of my abandonment issue with my dad), on another level, I felt that I had dug my way further to China than I ever had before in terms of getting closer to accessing the original love I had for my dad under all the negativity I project out onto him and the men in my life. I feel that somehow I have gotten closer to the possibility of learning to really love and want to meet the needs of a man, more than ever before. I feel hopeful, though more alone than ever before, my worst nightmare.

I pray every morning to you, Jeanne, and your soul group to stay close to me and whisper into my ear what I need to hear so that I will remember that I am energy moving forward into infinity.
My question Jeanne is, did I meet my self fully in the cage, in that reflection that R held for me? Is there anything else I am not seeing, any shadows that I am avoiding? I want to go for the “Full Monty” while I am catapulting through this accelerated growth period. Am I completed with R? It feels like it. I want to learn to love. I want to stop hating men, stop refusing to see and respond to their needs, and stop just using them for meeting my own needs, like a selfish child. I want to become an adult.

Thanks for listening. Please communicate if there is anything you can tell me that I need to do for completion re: what you said about the time in “the Cage ” with myself.
Soul Trecker, returning from the outer inner galaxies

My Dearest One, I feel your pain and see you in the shadows of your inner self, still searching for that which you lost. To refer to your self in the cage, looking into the mirror, as presented by this man in your life, is but Stage One of your progress. To understand that he was offering you the gateway to your inner work and to allow him to stay present in your life through much turmoil was quite a feat. That he has removed himself from your cage is a definite sign that you do not need him anymore. He has shown you what you need to know about the self and where your inner work lies. Do not regret your companionship with this man, for he has been your greatest ally, though now you must go deeper, and this deeper work must be done alone.

For all intents and purposes, yes, you are done with your relationship with R, but it might not be under the terms that you perceive. You are done because, as I said, he no longer offers you anything new, simply a replaying of the old scenarios, the old behaviors and emotions that will remain in stagnant rehearsal until a shift is achieved. By his removal he offers you this gift of shift. It is not time to look outward for new companionship, but only to look inward for companionship with self that will lead you to self-compassion, self-love, and self-truth.

I do not ask you to forgive or to simply move on, but I suggest that, in order to truly resolve your deep issues of rejection, abandonment, and desire for completion, the only place to look now is deeper inside the self. You do not need mirrors now, My Dear Soul Trecker. Your mirrors are but pictures pasted upon a wall now, the same pictures you have seen for many years. It is right for your companion to leave you to your inner work, and it is right for you to turn your head under your wing and find out what else lies waiting inside you.

Your resolve to grow and your prayers for wholeness do not go unheard. Your first step each day must be to turn to the self and trust that you carry within all that you need. Your habitual looks outward must turn continually inward as you ask your self to show you where to go next. What do I still need to learn about myself? What is it that I have not truly resolved yet? If I cannot find true happiness, contentment, and peace within myself, I will not find it outside of myself either, so what is it that I am missing? Indeed, that is the question that must be presented to the self.

Do not doubt that you are on a journey of evolutionary growth. Do not pause upon questions of doubt regarding your place of growth, relationship, companionship, or the possibilities of intimacy in the future. At this point, such conjecture is not appropriate, for the future has many possibilities, as yet unseen, and you have not completed enough steps of the inner work to be shown those future steps yet.

I do not mean to discourage you, but to offer you the true insight that you must always carry within: Everything is Possible! I suggest that you admonish your self, quite harshly, for bemoaning your fate; that you become the appropriate adult director of your life’s learning journey; that, although you may not feel mature in relationship, you are fully adult and have within the necessary maternal/paternal tools to parent your self. Do not ever doubt your abilities or your journey. You are fully taking the journey you subscribed to, that you found necessary to take, and that you must take in order to free your self of having to repeat it, both in this life and in the next, for that is always a possibility too.

Reconfirm your commitment to SELF. This is your greatest challenge, My Dear: YOU! There is no other person upon that earth to look for or hope for at this point. You must embrace your aloneness, love your self in your aloneness, and nurture and parent your self through your alone time, as you have never done before.

When your partner left the sanctity of your cage he left the door open, but this does not symbolize a time of flight for you. It symbolizes a time of openness to outer energy that will find its way to you, presenting you with what you need, as you continue your inner work.

You, your SELF, will know when the inner process is completely done in Stage One, so that you may begin the Second Stage of your evolution. You will know when you have finished with all that has so far controlled your feelings, emotions, and decisions. How will you know? You will change. You will think, feel, act, and choose differently. But most of all, you will look inwardly for your answers, and you will fully trust and know that your little bird heart has all the answers. You will no longer fear the self, as you do now.

In conclusion, I advise that you tidy your cage, not in anger at the loss of your companion, but only so that your inner work may be focused, balanced, and calmed by the presence of neatness and beauty all around you. It is time to clean house, to get rid of all that is non-essential, to simplify and find only that which is peaceful and perfect for you alone to have in your presence. Your cage must now reflect the changes thus far achieved in the inner you.

It is time to bring the new inner you outward. This will aid you in seeing your growth. It will no longer be a reflection of the other, but purely a representation of the inner other, the one you have been searching so diligently for. This is where you will find your new love, you know: inside the self.

Messages from Jeanne

#639 I am a Student on the Path of Life

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

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

Now, My Dear Ones, is a time of self-acceptance. For in reality, all of your inner work will be to no avail if you are not able to take yourself into your arms and begin with who you are, where you are, and why you are where you are now. You will grow further only by finally saying: Okay, this is who I am. I accept myself for this truth alone; that I am not prefect or whole; that I am not yet revealed, but that I am a student on the path of life. This I can accept about myself: I am a student on the path of life.

Give your self permission to be vulnerable, to be sad, to be joyous, to be free, if even for a moment in thought or wish, allowing the self to feel one small moment at a time. Give your self permission to look outward at the world around you in order to find your mirrors. And when you find the places that disturb you, the people, the situations, and ideas that bother you, look directly into them and ask the self: What do I see, feel, about this person, situation, or thing that disturbs me? What is it that I too must find in myself? I too am this.

This is how you must proceed each day, looking into the mirrors in your life, in whatever form they appear, and say: I too am this person, this thing, this idea, or this emotion that bothers me so much. I too must face within all that bothers me without in order to grow and heal.

Today is a good day to hold the self for a moment of acceptance. It is a good day to pledge a new outlook on the self and a new turn in the inner work. It is a good day to pledge fairness and openness, honesty and trust, gentleness and love for the vulnerable self who is just looking for answers, like everyone else. Allow your process to unfold. Look to the self for how that will happen. You hold all your own answers, but you have left so many of them projected on the world around you, your bits and pieces draped over the mirrors in your life.

It is time to take a look at the creations in your life, to straighten them up, to take back your bits and pieces and find the reason you left them outside of you for so long. Rediscover your inner self today. Go deeper.

Chuck's Blog

#638 Chuck’s Place: OOPS! I Asked!

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Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.

In last week’s blog, Don’t Ask, I explored the tool of not asking. I focused on the machinations of the conjuring mind that lures us to attach to worries that deplete our energy and sidetrack right action. The specific impetus for last week’s blog was my concern for someone I had not heard from in weeks. Throughout those weeks my mind kept presenting highly plausible scenarios regarding this person, beckoning my attachment. I had successfully not attached my inner attention to these possibilities, nor outwardly asked by actively pursuing contact.

The day after I wrote that blog, Jan and I watched a movie that concluded with the main character, whose journey reminded my of the person of my concern, dying. I instantly decided that this was my sign to ask: I would make a call.

At the exact moment of that resolve the phone rang. The person on the phone told me that he had just received a phone call inquiring about the whereabouts of the person of my concern. I read this as another sign to keep asking. Furthermore, that phone conversation was described to me as being sketchy, suggesting that the person of my concern was in dire straits, which fueled my worry. I initiated a three-way phone conversation, gently interrogating the third person as to what he really knew and was perhaps too uncomfortable to reveal to me. No new information was offered, only the thought that other people might have heard something. I doubted his honesty and with increasing passion undertook a campaign of asking. I made more phone calls to no avail. My anxiety mushroomed. I was completely stymied; my mood shifted to fear and sadness.

Finally, I sat quietly and tuned into my body. I noticed that no concern had genuinely emerged from my heart. My heart was calm. With this, I detached from my mind and decided to see what would actually present, independent of my mind. I shifted.

Within a short period of time I received a call stating that there had been a recent sighting of the person of my concern, an actual interaction. By the next morning, I received a direct call from the person of my concern; in fact, two calls. By the second call I was invited to reengage in a codependent pattern of enabling, an energetic noose I had worked so diligently to free myself from. I refused that call. I was able to experience a change in me. It really wasn’t that difficult to say no.

However, what I was shown was the validity of all that I had attempted to teach in last week’s blog. Do not trust the mind! Make sure that alleged synchronicity is indeed resonant synchronicity. Are you being lured by the conjuring mind? I should have realized that I had just watched a movie, a PROJECTION that my conjuring mind drew me to identify with. This was not a resonant synchronicity emerging from my heart.

Furthermore, my decision to ask activated an instant energetic response, engaging the energy of others without any physical action on my part, simply the energetic decision to ask. Decision is intent. We are energetically interconnected. If we decide to ask, that alone engages the energy of others, sometimes instantly, as in this case. The true discernment, however, is: Is it right to ask? Before we send out our intent, we must appeal to the feedback of the heart, seeking true resonant affirmation in that place of knowing. This discernment is the difference between OOPS and AHA!

As always, should anyone wish to write or ask, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR