Category Archives: Chuck’s Blog

Welcome to Chuck’s Place! This is where Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R, expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Currently, Chuck posts an essay once a week, currently on Tuesdays, along the lines of inner work, psychotherapy, Jungian thought and analysis, shamanism, alchemy, politics, or any theme that makes itself known to him as the most important topic of the week. Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy page.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Alzheimer’s & The Journey Of The Soul

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Who knows what we will encounter as we take our first steps into the bardos... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Who knows what we will encounter as we take our first steps into the bardos…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The rational sensibility of the modern world observes the deterioration of the brain with Alzheimer’s disease and questions the validity of the soul. In effect, it asks the question, “What is left to ascend after death, when clearly there appears to be a total dismantling of the personality as the disease progresses?”

All religious systems, nonetheless, propose that a soul, an ethereal essence, separates from the body and continues to live after death. Hindu scientists have an elaborate understanding of the composition of that soul, or what they have termed the astral body. According to their findings, our abilities to think and feel originate in the astral body. The astral body, or soul, is intimately connected with the physical body; feelings are experienced in physical sensations and mental processes are connected with the brain. These two bodies, physical and astral, are inseparable except in dreaming, shamanic journeying, and in severe trauma, when the astral body—though still attached to the physical body—separates and goes off on its own journey.

Shamans utilize dreaming and journeying to explore life beyond the body, as they prepare for life after death, for the moment when the astral body completely separates from the physical body.

The Tibetan Buddhists, as outlined in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, have identified several bardos, or in-between worlds, that all humans encounter shortly after death. In the bardos we are all confronted with unresolved issues from our lives. Our ability to resolve, or not attach to these issues in the bardo states allows us to progress deeper into our soul’s unfolding journey in infinity. However, this cosmic recapitulation process in the bardos may require many lifetimes before we achieve true freedom. Alzheimer’s, as I see it, is the beginning of that cosmic bardo adventure, begun while still living in the human body, offering the opportunity to engage in recapitulation.

With the deterioration of the brain during Alzheimer’s, the astral body is freed to enter the bardos and deal with deep issues, as it is freed of engagement in the affairs of daily life. Deterioration of personality in this world in no way reflects loss of self, it simply reflects a breakdown of cognitive functioning connected to the physical body.

Things may clarify the deeper we go... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Things may clarify the deeper we go…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The mental and emotional self is fully present in its astral travels and is deeply engaged in working through karmic issues with souls from other lives, as well as those who have already crossed over, whom one was associated with in this life. Alzheimer’s offers an individual an extended opportunity, while still in human form, to resolve issues of many lives, with the added benefit of possibly breezing through the bardos after real death, moving quickly into higher spiritual realms. What appears in physical form as a difficult to manage and heartbreaking pathological disease, in spiritual form is actually an opportunity for great healing and advancement.

Relatives of Alzheimer’s patients are often treated to stories of these adventures in the bardos when the Alzheimer’s traveler is in lucid moments. He or she may speak of adventures with relatives and other beings in the astral realm. And, yes, some of those encounters with entities in the bardos realm can be quite terrifying, as patients might report their terror at feeling robbed or attacked, or having met evil or monstrous beings.

Nonetheless, if we can value their experiences as coming from layers of reality that we are unable to witness, rather than simply dismissing them as hallucinations, we might be granted glimpses of life beyond life. Not only are we offered valuable insight into what we will all one day encounter as we enter the bardos ourselves, but we are able to support our loved ones as they deepen their soul’s journey in infinity, preparing for their final launching.

Is Alzheimer's seeding new life? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Is Alzheimer’s seeding new life?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Looking at Alzheimer’s from a different perspective,
Chuck

I wish to thank Elmer Green, PhD, brain researcher and pioneer of biofeedback, for his insight into Alzheimer’s as he took the journey with his wife, Alyce, learning what she was encountering on her trips into the bardos. You can hear him talk about it here: The Ozawkie Book of the Dead He mentions his findings about Alzheimer’s within the first few minutes and goes into it in greater detail throughout the recording. It’s well worth listening to!

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Prayer For Another

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We all have access to the sacred oneness... - Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel
We all have access to the sacred oneness…
– Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel

In Tibet a delok, usually a woman, undergoes a temporary death, or Near Death Experience, and ventures into the astral realm where she receives messages for the living from the non-corporeal spirits that inhabit that realm. One such delok from the 16th Century reported how she met her master in the astral realm while he simultaneously protected her “dead” body and spoke to her. As he prayed for her, she merged with him in a state of cosmic oneness. From that place of oneness, she was moved and guided by his prayers to explore the afterlife. Upon return from her Near Death Experience she brought back what she had learned. From that state of cosmic oneness, accessible to all of us, we can experience the intent of another.

When we pray for someone, we send them an energetic invitation to, in a state of oneness, merge with that intent. In so doing, that person is invited to expand themselves beyond their current fixation into a whole new possibility.

Perhaps we know someone deeply encumbered by an addiction, with the limiting belief that things can’t change. From a place of compassion, we might seek to be helpful.

First we must accept that all beings are challenged to take responsibility for their own choices in life. To make a choice for another person cannot relieve them of their karmic debt to solve the dilemma they are faced with in this life. If we are successful in relieving another of their own choice making, it assures a return of the dilemma, either later in life or in another life to come. Thus, we cannot solve the challenges that others face, but we can send positive prompts through our prayers, offering them support by envisioning a different possibility for them.

Can we imagine this person transformed beyond their addiction? Can we hold that possibility fully within ourselves? From there, in a prayer, we can send that positive intent to that person.

Our prayer will energetically solicit the attention of that other person and they will be offered the energetic impact of it, perhaps in a fleeting thought, a feeling, or a sensation that invites them to expand themselves beyond where they are caught.

Imagine someone transformed... - Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel
Imagine someone transformed…
– Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel

For a moment in time they are afforded the chance to play dress-up with another possibility. That pause affords an interruption in the incessant continuity of the addict sense of self. That pause offers a moment to merge with a different self, and it might indeed be a life-changing moment.

American psychic Edgar Cayce spoke of a kind of therapeutic intent whereby the consciousness of one person can affect another. He believed that we all have the ability to channel health and healing for others. It is the purity of the intent, without ulterior motive, that will bring about the possibility of change.

And so, we are cautioned to examine the purity of our prayers. If the intention of our prayer is to change another person to meet our own needs, then our intent is overshadowed by our own merchant mentality. Indeed, the other person will be energetically impacted by our prayer even though our prayer is not freely given. In fact, the true message of such a prayer might be translated as, “please change to take care of me!”

That prayer, even if listened to, sows the seeds of its own demise. The actual invitation in that prayer is to help me not to grow, to stay fixated where I am through your support. This is not an evolutionary offering. True prayer is selfless. True prayer is non-conditional. True prayer is compassionate. True prayer is evolutionary. True prayer does not ask for anything in return. It does not ask another to change to benefit me but only the person it is directed to. True prayer offers visions of true possibility for another, inviting that other person to throw their own intent into manifesting change for themselves.

Pure prayer is powerful... - Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel
Pure prayer is powerful…
– Detail from a collage by Jan Ketchel

I, as the giver, must fully accept that you, the receiver, might not be ready for the vision of the prayer and I accept your right to refusal. Nonetheless, I might incessantly offer my good prayers on your behalf, without attachment to the outcome, that you might be surrounded with reminders of what is possible, because, as Cayce also said, “Thoughts are things, and they have their effect upon individuals…” And if I can imagine you as a profoundly changed being, perhaps someday you’ll find your way to envision that same possibility for yourself, and merge your own intent with it.

I will continue to pray, but also continue to fully take responsibility for my own evolutionary choices, as we all must.

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: We’re All In The Same Dream

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Chuck starts off with our first blog of the New Year, restating the intent that we embody, to take full responsibility for who we are and how we choose to participate in the dream of this reality. It’s what we at Riverwalker Press are all about. As the New Year begins we invite all of you to participate in dreaming a new dream with us. Happy New Year!

Warmly, with love and gratitude from us both,
Chuck and Jan

This is the dream we are in today... What does your dream look like? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
This is the dream we are in today…
What does your dream look like?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Every cell in our body has a life of its own. It is challenged daily to obtain necessary resources for its survival, maintain balance, rid itself of wastes and spawn new life. Little does that single cell know that it is actually part of a much greater integrated whole, a human body.

The interdependent reality of our wholeness escapes us as we focus daily, like every single cell within us, on our individual tasks of survival and fulfillment. Nonetheless, if we contemplate our greater cosmic reality, perhaps we might glimpse, through reason or intuition or experience, the oneness of everything. And, from that place of oneness, all of us are responsible for the dream we are in and where we are going to take it. We are all empowered, through consciousness and intent, to advance the dream, that is, to change the world we live in.

Over the past couple of days, the stock market has been in a downslide. Why? Because the price of oil has been plunging rapidly. Meanwhile, the auto industry has had its best year in sales in decades, due in large part to increased sales of gas guzzlers, the consequence of cheaper gas. Meanwhile, many, whose economic survival is dependent upon the stock market, are faced with threatening losses as “safe” investments like oil plummet in value. Behind all these challenges to daily survival lies the reality that fossil fuels are a major contributor to the rapid destabilization and destruction of the planet that feeds and houses us.

We, as individuals, are empowered to decide where this dream will go next. Many are so focused on personal survival that they feel obliged to make the best investments, irrespective of environmental consequences or the total destruction of lives and cultures outside of their own. Gas guzzling cars are one of the things that most of us use daily and yet most people can’t afford to switch up to hybrid vehicles or they are drawn to the perks of less fuel efficient cars, while still others have much more basic needs of daily survival, putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads.

If we look to government to solve the greater issue of climate change we are confronted with the likes of today’s headlines: Big Threat For Obama’s Climate Efforts From GOP-Run Congress.* It’s easy to indulge in powerlessness and point fingers at the GOP, but to be truly responsible we must examine the GOP within ourselves. No one can separate themselves from deciding which way this dream will unfold; we’re all part of the same whole.

The GOP reflects an old dream that insists that the world is ours for the taking, that consideration beyond the needs of self and ours is unnecessary. That dream downplays the interdependent reality and the global concerns that effect us all and instead focuses on the individual’s responsibility to ensure survival of the personal dream. That dream has been given full latitude to play itself out and now finds itself approaching nightmare, as that dream and the world it has generated are unsustainable. This nightmare has caused many to wake up and face the facts, but still many others, reflected in the newly elected American Congress, remain staunch champions of the supremacy of the old dream; self above all.

The truth is, we are all living cells of the same dream, each empowered to decide, within the context of our own lives, which way the dream will proceed. On a concrete level, if I refuse to invest in fossil fuels, I am changing the dream. If I choose to buy a fuel-efficient car, regardless of other sales’ enticements, I choose a different dream. If I choose to replace my light bulbs with an expensive, highly efficient LED bulb, I choose a different dream. There are even simpler choices we can all make, such as to recycle or to be less wasteful overall.

How powerful a little pocket of intent is! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
How powerful a little pocket of intent is!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

When Jeanne was in this world—as the Hindus say: at the gross level of reality—she strongly preached the power of the purse to effect change. Now she resides fully in the astral plane, the next, finer dimension of reality that houses our soul or spirit, guiding us to exercise the power of intent to effect change in our lives within and without. Though the main fuel of the astral dimension, intent is equally effective in the gross dimension of our reality, awaiting our discovery of its power.

When we pray, when we state our intent, repeat our mantras, send love and compassion, we are transforming the dream world we are in. Everyone who loves their enemy reconciles with their own divided wholeness and advances the dream.

If I can love the GOP within myself—the part that demands individual responsibility but is also so susceptible to self interest—exploitative and greedy—I can make responsible choices in the myriad of decisions I make today to advance the dream in a new direction for all living beings. Such a decision might be as simple as where I choose to place my awareness, how I choose to think or spend my personal energy.

If worry and fear beckon, I might shift to some moments of intentional release of tension in my body, into calm, deliberate breathing. This simple act changes the energy I bring to the integrated wholeness of the one dream that we all live in and are dreaming together.

Imagine if each of us decided to awaken to the power of intent and bring it into the gross dimension that we all live in in such a calm and nurturing way. It might just be a strong enough intent to course-correct the orbit of the dream we are now in, sending us into a new dream of sustainability. We are never powerless.

Staying awake in the dream,
Chuck

* Headline in The Huffington Post January 6, 2015

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Union

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Front cover of Autobiography of a Yogi.
Front cover of Autobiography of a Yogi.

Almost every morning, as Jan channels the Soulbyte for the day, I go off and open a book at random to let the divine deliver its message to me.

The other day, I opened Autobiography of a Yogi to an interaction between Yogananda and his master Sri Yukteswar. Yogananda had just experienced a great physical healing, which he thanked his master for. Sri Yukteswar craftily worded his response to suggest that the healing was actually effected by a change in Yogananda’s own thought process. Yogananda anxiously sought to disavow this power and the next day awoke completely unable to physically get out of bed, restored to the comfort of the familiarity of his old weakness. Sri Yukteswar then instructed: “The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God…whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.”

Can we take ownership of that Divine Spark, that God within us all? Can we wisely direct our thoughts toward greater union within ourselves, within the world? Are we ready to take full ownership of our power?

On another recent morning, enveloped in a mood of despair and stagnation, as Jan channeled, I turned to the I Ching for guidance. Not surprisingly, hexagram #12, Stagnation, appeared. Here heaven and earth are flying further and further apart, deeply out of alignment with each other.

It’s hard now to not see the signs of this dissociation every day, whether it be beached whales, fish fleeing the too warm waters of Maine, children slaughtered at school, women brutally raped, and the stories go on and on. We are in a time of total disintegration as nature and spirit dissolve the world as we have known it and move toward a new position, rebalancing into a new and sustainable format.

The I Ching tells me (nine in the fourth place) that the time of stagnation is nearing the point of change into its opposite. And finally, nine at the top, that though this time of standstill does not last forever, it does not cease of its own accord either; the right leader is needed.

Here I am led back to my opening quote, stating that the spark of God resides in every person. Every person is and has the power of God within, and that power lies in the power of intent. But we must truly embrace that power and believe it to effect the change we seek. One danger, of course, is to misuse that power. This has been the mistake of our human race to date, to exploit our Godly power to our own advantage: narcissistic greed. That mistake has brought us to this edge of oblivion.

Yesterday morning, I opened Autobiography of a Yogi again, to this quote regarding how to use our power: “Don’t do what you like, then do everything you like.” The guidance is clear. Ego must first check its narcissistic impulse to act. This impulse is cut off from the needs of the interdependent whole, just as the I Ching suggests that the earth and the heavens are cut off from each other, each swirling in opposite directions away from unity and wholeness. It’s all about me, me, me. If we pause, we give ourselves the opportunity to realign, to become the interdependent whole that then is freed to act with abandon, offered the opportunity to achieve true unity based on right alignment, with ego serving the Spark of the Divine.

We are all responsible for the unity we seek... for returning the world to wholeness. - Art by Jan Ketchel
We are all responsible for the unity we seek… for returning the world to wholeness.
– Art by Jan Ketchel

Synchronistically, I turned on the news the other day to hear that two leaders have acted as real leaders, serving the interdependent needs of the whole, Cuomo and Obama. New York Governor Cuomo refused the interests of the fossil fuels industry to value Mother Earth and our true needs. NO FRACKING in New York. Bravo, Governor Cuomo! President Obama has established diplomatic ties with Cuba, ending a long divide. Bravo, President Obama!

Let us all be our own Godly leaders, exercising our own Spark of the Divine. Let us all have pure thoughts of greater union, of care of the true needs of the whole, of heaven and earth, of self and other.

Happy Holidays!
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Ego & Synchronicity

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In a dream I am in a packed country bus, descending down a windy dirt mountain road, in a third world country. A boy holds onto a door at the back of the bus. All of a sudden the door swings open as we round a wide curve in the road, and the boy, gripping tightly, swings in and out. The bus’s momentum is too great and we swerve off the ledge and go airborne, a huge chasm below leading to certain death. I close my eyes as I feel myself float out into the air. I am already vibrating and intent upon raising my vibratory level as we descend, awaiting impact.

Buddha awaiting the great transition... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Buddha awaiting the great transition…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I wake up. I had already awoken earlier in the night with the intent to raise my vibratory level, to connect with Jeanne out-of-body. This dream ended my sleep for the night and soon Jan awoke too.

I hopped out of bed. “You’re very peppy today!” Jan said. As she said the word “peppy,” in my mind I said, “Pepe Le Pew, Jeanne’s affectionate nickname for her childhood dog, Pepe.” Jan spontaneously said, “Pepe Le Pew!”

We decipher my dream as my intent’s method of raising my vibration. It’s raining outside. I head out to feed the birds and discover that the rain is freezing over as I slip and slide to the bird feeders.

Later, as I head out to the office, I put the truck in four-wheel drive to climb the steep driveway. Regardless, I nearly slide back down. Suddenly I remember my dream. I get it! Be extremely careful driving, especially as the steep hills of my dream provide me with the necessary warning. I am more cautious than I’ve ever been as, without thinking at all, I turn to head down our road in the more gentle direction, away from the steep hill in front of our house. Jan informs me later that even the town salt truck would not go down the hill!

I arrive at work. Suddenly it flashes, “Oh, it’s December ninth! This is the day Jeanne left this world!” I’d completely forgotten. But Jeanne didn’t forget. As I had attempted to raise my vibrational level to visit with her in the night, I was left suspended in the air in my dream, in this world. That was the necessary association I got as I drove to work: Drive slowly on the hills and curves. Indeed, the message was exactly right. It sent me into heightened driving awareness as I slowly edged toward work over the icy roads, with little traction in spite of my four-wheel drive vehicle. And to boot, I got the greeting from Pepe Le Pew, an unmistakeable association Jan knew nothing about!

This is how ego and synchronicity differ. Ego has such a focused cause and effect filter that it misses the signs and symbols that appear to communicate vital information. I am quite certain that this morning’s Eureka moment in the driveway prevented a serious accident.

Typically, the ego quickly shifts into judgment mode when analyzing a dream. Must be some kind of psychic inflation, set to take a tumble, if you’re about to crash in a dream. And what about the recklessness of the vehicle you’re being transported in? Aren’t you responsible for that? These questions narrow the view to a judgment of fault and badness. We know how the ego is always on the lookout to avoid exposure of its inadequacies!

And then there is the case of Pepe Le Pew, that cute skunk of long ago cartoons. The ego has to admit to this amazing “coincidence,” but in suspending that judgment I knew it was Jeanne humorously assuring me that we were meeting after all!

Once again, though the ego narrowed the field, saying, “Don’t feel bad, but you are too inadequate to raise your vibrational level to meet as intended,” I know for certain that I was delivered a message, a synchronicity between dimensions, that completely shifted my behavior and perhaps saved my life. All this, before I even realized that, thirteen years ago, this was the magical day of transition!

Love never ends,
Chuck