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 Place: Doubt—The Guardian

What the heck is that! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
What the heck is that! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

We humans are a lot to manage, a lot to really keep in mind. The possibilities that we might perceive, that we might interact with, that we might experience are quite extraordinary, and quite unpredictable.

It takes a tremendous effort to limit our perceptions; to reign in our possibilities; to create a uniform cohesive being, familiar and recognizable, constrained yet utterly bored. That constrained human being is funneled into the habits of greed and consumption with the fallback of self-pity for all that we are deprived of. However limiting this construction is, it’s the price we pay for our consensus reality. That reality is bursting at the seams with discontent now—bored to death with its limiting and limited purview—and it remains for doubt to hold us together, to uphold the old world of reason.

I pick up the shell of a bug and place it on a stone where it sits lifelessly. Later, I turn my awareness to it and, lo and behold, it gets up and walks away! For a moment I leave this world, this consensus reality of reason. I am in heightened awareness, where anything is possible, where the lifeless get up and walk away!

I stalk that reality, the bug indeed keeps on walking. I am sober. I am grounded. However, the guardian now swoops down and issues its edict: What I just saw is unreasonable, impossible, it could not happen. It did not happen. Obviously, there was a flaw in my perception.

Doubt moves solidly in and explains the misperception. Obviously, the “shell” I thought was an empty carapace was not empty at all. We must always be thorough in our investigations. Life must have been camouflaged or neatly curled up in that shell because new guts do not simply reappear in empty shells and walk away.

Carlos Castaneda recommended that we suspend judgment and allow ourselves to truly see. He also pointed out that we never fully lose our rational minds so we might want to consider giving them an appropriate outlet, say some form of study. Carlos and all of his cohorts were academics pursuing doctoral degrees, their rational minds intensely focused and busy, allowing their awareness to travel into other realms freed of the guardian of doubt.

Be careful when you drive. The rational mind is so preoccupied with upholding the laws of the road that heightened awareness can slip through the guardian’s grasp. People often have the most extraordinary experiences of expanded reality—entering other worlds—when driving. Not recommended! Keep your eyes on the road!

Do we dare sneak a peek? - Art & Photo by Jan Ketchel
Do we dare sneak a peek? – Art & Photo by Jan Ketchel

Recapitulation is another gateway to our true birthright of heightened awareness. In recapitulation, we often walk into the heightened awareness of alternate realities that we once fully lived but subsequently denied. In an effort to construct a cohesive self, the guardian of doubt censors much of our experiences, particularly experiences that break the rules of reason, of what one should expect in a familiar world.

Sometimes we are seized in recapitulation so completely by an experience that, for a moment, doubt can’t help but be suspended. And yet, but a moment later, doubt sweeps in to restore the order of a familiar self, a familiar world, a reasonable mind, effectively blocking out real experiences of the extraordinary. However, once we intend the path of self-knowledge, we open the door to the fuller experiences of all we are—beings far more capable than the limits of our reason.

Doubt, the guardian at the gate, the gargoyle of limitation must be confronted repeatedly. It warns us that if we go outside the gate it cannot protect us, thus we are challenged to find cohesion in the greater truth of our being.

That’s where we are now, in our time, as individuals and as a species, beings needing to pass by the guardians at the gate. We are charged with constructing a new consensus reality of affection for ourselves, each other, and the fuller truth of all that we really are.

Guardianless,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Dreaming It Forward

Where it all began...
Where it all began…

From the moment I opened Carlos Castaneda’s first book, The Teachings of Don Juan – A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, in the early 1970s, I was hooked by the energy of the intent of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico. Many people I have encountered over the past 40 years, who opened Castaneda’s books, were similarly affected. Others could barely get through a chapter.

There are many paths to knowledge. We are all challenged to find for ourselves the one—or the many— that resonate with our heart’s intent. The issue really is to discover our individual energetic configuration and what is needed to uniquely advance it forward. The challenge is to get beyond the self-importance of “my method” and wake up to the fact that we are all part of the same transformative dream. The secret is grasping the awe, the awesomeness of this all-inclusive dream.

Carlos Castaneda’s shamanic family, of this generation, was preceded by 27 generations of similarly configured small shamanic groups. Carlos’s generation was the end of that shamanic line as previously configured. This ending/transition coincided with the 1960s and the dawn of a new era in human consciousness. Castaneda has been considered the Godfather of the New Age. I think Carlos was an insinuation of a possibility. I think there were many Godfathers, and Spider Grandmothers too, ushering us into this evolving dream.

Castaneda and his shamanic partners merged with the intent of their sorcery line and launched a new shamanic configuration: No secrecy, no hierarchy, all knowledge, open to the masses. In this new and daring configuration, the Nagual—the traditional head of a shamanic party—resides in each one of us. This is similar to the Buddhist’s view that we are all the Buddha. Though we may participate in life as a mass, we are all charged with the individual responsibility of meeting the challenge to lead ourselves to freedom. Castaneda was uniquely suited to herald in this transition, as his mother had been a committed socialist.

In this new line of shamanism, the core culprit to be wrestled with is self-importance, which leads to greed. Freedom is to be found only through piercing through the veil of the greedy self that has led the world as we know it—our concensus reality—to the brink of destruction. How timely the unleashing of this shamanic guidance on the worldwide stage!

Carlos was fascinated by the energetic potential of the masses to effect great energetic change. He would sit on the stage and look out over us in the audience of his lectures and workshops and marvel at the energy circulating and building through the crowd. Everyone who has been drawn into the energetic dream that he and his cohorts unveiled is part of dreaming this dream forward, a new world built on the solid footing of the intent of affection—the Shaman’s version of the Buddhist’s intent of compassion—to lead us beyond the crumbling walls of self-importance and greed.

I was deeply immersed in Castaneda’s world throughout the 1990s and emerged to discover my small part in this vast dream of transformation. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was to retrieve the tool of recapitulation from the shamanic world and apply it to the clinical condition of PTSD. I had realized, while in that shamanic world, that EMDR shared a bilateral similarity with the recapitulation breath, but I realized it fell short of accessing the magic and awe of the shamanic world—the gateway to evolutionary change. It took me a while to fully grasp the true potential of these two tools, when used in combination, to offer total healing from PTSD. The intent of this shamanic dream is not simply about healing, however, it’s also about freedom.

Carlos dreaming it forward...
Carlos dreaming it forward…

We all want to heal; we all need to heal. But let’s face it, we’re all going to die anyway. The real challenge is to maintain awareness and continuity at death—to continue the dream, to dream it forward, as it transforms into new arenas in infinity. From this perspective, PTSD is a portal—the initiation into a shamanic journey that opens the door to the magical tools to intend a new world. Trauma offers us a glimpse of the awe of that new world.

All shamanic journeys begin with some form of traumatic knock, as we take journeys beyond the body—beyond the confines of the reality we’ve been socialized to uphold. PTSD is the unsettled legacy of those journeys as we brace ourselves to straddle the different worlds we have experienced. In recapitulation, we reconcile those worlds and are offered the opportunity to launch ourselves into new worlds of possibility. In recapitulation we are offered the opportunity to experience the awe, unfettered by the crumbling constraints of a world previously upheld by fear, greed, and self-importance.

All who take up the challenge of facing and aligning with their inner truth are part of the mass energetic current of change that is now sweeping through our world, the same mass energy that Carlos would stand before us and speak of with awe. We are all dreaming it forward.

It’s not about believing, it’s not about allegiance, and it’s definitely not about self-importance. It’s actually the end of self-importance. Everyone, everything matters equally. That is the key to affection. It’s not about one practice or another being the one and only practice; it’s about doing whatever resonates. It’s about dreaming forward a new dream now, founded on truth and affection—a dream that soars on the wings of intent.

Dreaming it forward,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Seek Refuge In Intent

Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high
… -Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up

We must do the freeing ourselves... - Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel
We must do the freeing ourselves… – Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel

For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico the calling of INTENT is the channel to the power to change the self and the world. If calling intent is a prayer, it’s a prayer of conviction: I INTEND THIS! But it’s also a prayer of humility: Though I state my intent with command, I accept the response I receive.

Perhaps my intent is an ego intent, misaligned with spirit self. I must examine a non-response from intent with humility. I do not attach to the outcome of my stated intent, that is control. I am beckoning power, I must accept with equanimity the response I receive. Perhaps my intent requires that I linger longer where I no longer wish to be. Perhaps I have more to learn before it’s time to awaken from this dream.

Intent insists on strength. We must come to intent as adults. Intent cannot advance us if we beckon with begging, pleading hands. In this case, intent will contain us in our begging stance until we are able to stalk—to truly embody—the shift we seek.

Intent requires that we use our words. Thinking an intent is not calling intent. We must verbalize, with clarity, our intent. Stating our intent establishes a link between a definite being—a being embodying its right to ask—and the power of intent to fund the intention.

I must prepare the ground for intent. Have I done all within my power to receive the fruition of my intent, or am I asking intent to do the work I rightfully can and must do myself? How can intent bring me fulfillment if I have not faced my recapitulation? If I am not ready to open and free myself from the restricted beliefs I hold of myself, how can intent present me with new possibilities that would simply not be possible for me to embody?

I’m ready for new life when I’m willing to shed the old through a completed recapitulation. Until I’ve completed my recapitulation I am not even aware of the beliefs and habits that bind me. How can intent free me when I am not free to go forward?

Finally, a personal note of caution. Intent is real and it’s powerful. Do be careful what you ask for! As a young child I beckoned intent on a Good Friday. Intent responded with a force barely containable in my young body. I opened a portal that day that, quite frankly, I was never able to close. Though I wouldn’t have it any other way, I caution: Use extreme sobriety when beckoning communion with infinity!

We must prepare our humanness to ride freely on the wings of intent. To seek refuge in intent we must assume full responsibility for our lives. That’s the ticket.

With the intent of affection,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Love & Affection

Bring the heart out of the shadows of love and into the light of true affection... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Bring the heart out of the shadows of love and into the light of true affection… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

The other night we watched Bruce Wagner’s 1998 film I’m Losing You. It packs a shamanic wallop. We’re left with the emptiness of a group of characters ruthlessly chasing love amidst a harrowing set of losses, exposing the love compulsion at its most hideous. Most disturbing is the power of that compulsion to preempt a genuine participation in life and relationship. Last night we watched another movie with a similar theme, the 2011 film, The Newlyweds.

I know the world that Bruce Wagner was immersed in when he wrote the novel, in 1996, upon which the screenplay and movie I’m Losing You are based. I was totally consumed by that same world, the world of Tensegrity and Carlos Castaneda. Bruce, alias “Lorenzo Drake,” was in the inner shamanic circle, and in fact married the nagual woman Carol Tiggs. This was at the time that Carlos was mercilessly poking fun at the search for love that dominated our world. Carlos would constantly point out that we seek love, but underneath we are really merchants caught in the contract of what we are getting from, or what we are owed in, our loving interactions.

I’m Losing You glowingly highlights that even in the midst of extraordinary opportunities to avail ourselves of the shaman’s greatest wake up call—to use death as an advisor—we are trumped by the flyer’s mind that seeks refuge in a zombie-like pursuit of love.

After the movie, I dreamed of being on an old treelined parkway rest stop on Long Island in between the northbound and southbound lanes. Traffic streamed by in both directions without letup. I was crouching at the curb of the north side picking up garbage. I came across an old, well-worn, 33 RPM album entitled, “I Love You.” I picked it up, read the label, and then pushed it vertically into the mushy sod so that it stood up straight in the grass. I then walked over to the picnic area in the grassy median where two tables had been pushed together. People were anxiously awaiting their reserved time to have their children’s birthday parties there. One parent was haggling over not paying 18 dollars for an extra umbrella for the table. The sense of the scene was that it was a pedestrian, quick drive-thru birthday party factory.

My dream seemed to validate the well worn love recording at the energetic highway of our lives, with its cookie cutter rituals defining our behaviors.

Carlos stated that the Shamans of Ancient Mexico saw that love had been co-opted and corrupted by the flyer’s mind of self obsession. (See last week’s blog Don’t Ask Why.) Those shamans linked instead to affection, an independent wave of energy accessible to all, our true birthright. Once accessed, affection naturally flows through us.

To access such affection, Carlos suggested that we learn to love by giving with a blank check. That is, affection means giving without ever expecting a return on the investment: Giving without attachment to the outcome. This kind of affection takes the “me” out of the equation. You owe me nothing in return for my gesture of affection. I give it freely, no strings attached. I require not even an acknowledgement. You truly owe me nothing.

This is the true nature of affection: Selfless love, conscious acts of affection without self-reflection. I feel it; I give it; I don’t look back.

With affection,
Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Don’t Ask Why

According to whom? Photo by Jan Ketchel
According to whom? Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico were tenacious in their disciplined effort to retrieve their energy and free themselves from the constraints of the social order. These shamans saw the social order as the indexing arm of the interpretive system of our minds, which is both inherited and reinforced through the process of socialization we are all born into. These preset indexing categories interpret and define our fixed reality and deprive us access to our full birthright—access to unlimited worlds of possibility.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico discovered that our interpretation system is completely restricted by a biased obsession with self. This constriction manifests in a lifetime obsession with worthiness, attractiveness, lovability, ranking, valuation, and validity.

As a psychotherapist deeply engaged in the intent of healing, I realize that all of these human concerns are profound challenges that require examination and action if we are to free the self from their restrictive reach. I have benefited from the perspective and methodology of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico to free the self to move into its own deeper potential.

The shamans define discipline not as a compulsive commitment to self-improvement routines, but as a persistent and unbiased examination of the self. They suggest that we not begin our inquiry into the self with the question, “Why did this happen to “me?” To those shamans this question is likely to trip us into a victim index of interpretation with follow-up statements like: “It’s not fair!” “I didn’t deserve this!” “I’m entitled to _______!” “I’m so bad!” “I’ll never be good enough!” “It’s my fault!” These statements are likely to further drain energy by entrenching the self in a depressed mood of hopelessness, futility, and surrender. Of course many of these statements may have some validity. However, they tend to bias the self toward an entrenched victim interpretation of reality that can see no world of possibility beyond this fixation.

Examine what is... Photo by Jan Ketchel
Examine what is… Photo by Jan Ketchel

The shamans suggest that we begin our inquiry into our lives with the questions: “What is the situation that I am in?” “What do I need to do to change it?” “What can I learn from the situation I find myself in?”

Beginning the inquiry from this different perspective avoids the trappings of self-pity or self-defeat that the why question is likely to trigger. Such unbiased examination remains descriptive and factual, freed of judgment. Such examination is objective, focusing on what is, not whether I’m good or bad for being in it, whether I’m being punished or rewarded, whether I’m worthy or unworthy, whether it’s fair or whether I deserve it, whether I’ll ever be loved, etc. Those kinds of judgments have no validity in an inquiry into reality that seeks only to know the true nature of what is.

From the perspective of what is, I can examine my life as a being born into a family of characters who socialized me within the greater macrocosm of the social circumstances of the time I was born into, further elaborating that socialization process. From this perspective, I can see the pitfalls of that socialization and identify the opportunities available for learning to extricate myself from the limits imposed by the experiences of that socialization process. From this ability to know reality unfiltered by the judgments of worthiness, fairness, etc., I can retrieve my energy previously encased in such judgments and engage in actions to free myself from the bondage of a constricted reality.

Change what is and become fluid... Photo by Jan Ketchel
Change what is and become fluid… Photo by Jan Ketchel

From this linchpin, I enter the fluid possibility of expanded reality—a life open to fulfillment in unlimited possibility—beyond the why, into the what is of the infinite.

What is,
Chuck