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.
Don Juan called the White House “the site of power of today’s world, the center of all our endeavors, hopes, fears, and so on, as a global conglomerate of human beings—for all practical purposes, the capital of the civilized world.” *
In archetypal terms, from the deepest patterned level of our inherited collective unconscious, the American president is the KING of the World.
No More!!!
On Wednesday, the King of the World spoke and changed the evolutionary course of our species as he proclaimed that “same-sex couples should be able to get married.”
You can’t take back an evolutionary moment. The King has spoken! An American president has said the words. It matters little the reactions of a divided country or a divided world or the outcome of the next election. The die is cast. Humanity in evolution: gay marriage is proclaimed the norm.
Marriage, with its 50% failure rate, is no guarantee of anything. Marriage, like sexual maturity, is a process that must be worked at to achieve lasting, fulfilling union. However, what the King of the World, President Obama, has proclaimed, grants legitimacy to both homo- and hetero-sexual relationships to embark on a sacred path of true conjunctio versus being relegated to the shadows of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Whether President Obama seized the political moment, as my ego mind suggests, is immaterial. Whether Vice President Biden was dispatched, on some level, to be the advance guard, preparing the ground for the King of the World to make the proclamation, is immaterial. Obama—with strong support and likely urged by Queen Michelle—took the evolutionary leap, like his channeled mentor Lincoln, to stand for full legitimacy and the right for all people to marry, and for that he is, indeed, at this moment, the King of the World.
We, as a world, are moving at the speed of light now. The dark shadow of 12/21/2012, the proposed end of the Mayan calendar, looms large, but its counterpart, the evolutionary consciousness of humanity to right its course, looms bright.
Can President Obama, the King of the World, continue to seize the moment, to right the course of carbon emissions, nuclear development, fallacious and unnecessary wars?
May all who wish walk beneath the marriage bower in search of true conjunction...
Let’s see what happens. Me thinks we first have to complete the civil war, now reactivated—our country once again divided by an emancipation proclamation. But the first challenge is a tough one: Can we get beyond civil disunion to true marriage?
What a lovely epitaph this emancipation proclamation is to Maurice Sendak, the famed author and illustrator, who died a day earlier, a man who lived for 50 years with his gay partner, Eugene Glynn, in true conjunctio.
Thanking the King of the World, for moving us one step closer to emancipation for all,
It takes decades to climb the many stepping stones to full sexual maturity. Great effort is required. Aging without effort guarantees only old age. Deep sexual union may, in fact, be the opus of a lifetime with the failures of the first half of life actually being the necessary preparatory steps for true fulfillment beyond midlife.
Nature's imperative...
Those failures include the fertile years where nature, in a most impersonal way, secretly dominates the sexual drive, masking its demands for recreation in the inappropriate attractions that spellbind us into sexual union. Many of those unions, though they may achieve nature’s aim of procreation, lack compatibility, sustenance and duration.
Nature fully takes advantage of the naiveté of youth to romantically do its bidding. Beyond copulation, nature provides little to support relationship. Yes, it does provide bonding and nesting urges, on an instinctual level, but that doesn’t stop nature’s compulsion; it will not be limited. That’s its survival strategy: quantity of children over quality of relationship. And true commitment, true containment, is hard to submit to in the fertile years. All humans must reckon with this debt to their animal natures, with its exorbitant interest toll evident in relationship casualties. If we truly grasped the power of nature to commandeer even our minds during the fertile years, we wouldn’t take so personally our failures. We didn’t stand a chance against nature’s imperative.
Coexistent with nature’s biological dominance in the fertile years is the ego’s growing control over sexual life. These include encounters with adequacy, self-esteem, performance, power, and the ability to connect.
Can I do it?
Some of the ego challenges that men may encounter as they attempt to firmly establish their potency and power are questions such as:
Am I attractive enough?
Am I virile enough?
Am I worthy of this person?
Can I approach and hold my own in interaction?
Do I know how to seduce?
Is my penis adequate, large enough?
Can it get the job done?
How do I turn her on, what’s the best method?
What’s the deal with oral sex? Can I handle it?
How are you supposed to do it?
Where’s the clitoris?
Can I handle a real life encounter?
Can I stop shaking?
Can I get an erection?
Can I maintain an erection?
Can I handle the responsiveness of her body?
Will I ejaculate too soon?
How will I know if she’s satisfied?
Can I share my fantasies?
How did I measure up?
Why doesn’t she ever approach me?
How can I get more?
Am I sexy enough?
Women are challenged by many of the same ego and self-esteem questions, but their are others specifically female related, such as:
Am I pretty enough?
Am I smart enough?
Am I desirable enough?
Do I have an attractive body?
Are my breasts too little, too big?
Do I smell good?
Does he really like me?
Can I tell him my dreams?
Will it hurt?
Where is my clitoris?
Will I orgasm?
How do I tell him he’s not doing it right without hurting his feelings?
Is this love?
Will he come back or is this just a one time thing?
What if I just want to cuddle, will he be okay with that?
What if he comes first?
Do I have to fake an orgasm so his ego isn’t hurt?
How do I stop him, say no, if it doesn’t feel right?
Why do we have to do it so often?
What if I get pregnant?
These questions and thousands more, including a readiness and willingness to commit, pervade men’s and women’s thoughts during the fertile years. Concerns are largely self-centered, only marginally relational. True readiness to be with, take in, and merge with another person, in mature union, transcends the ego’s preoccupations during the fertile years.
Biological aims and ego insecurities dominate the fertile years and must be experienced and burned through to prepare the ground for the depth of spiritual union inherent in sexual maturity at midlife and beyond. Midlife crisis is actually the spirit’s call to recapitulate and complete the learnings of the first half of life’s lessons to prepare for deep union in later years, what the alchemists called: conjunctio.
A major component of recapitulation is reliving our complete sexual history, facing the full truth, releasing the myths as well as the myriad of feelings combusted and stored around all sexual encounters. In recapitulation, we retrieve our freed energy; we enter our bodies deeply; we accompany the free flow of libido with calm presence and openness, as we prepare for union without barrier.
Recapitulation itself is an arduous process. As we climb the stepping stones to full maturity we learn that it takes time, patience, and a deep yearning for, and commitment to, the truth and fulfillment of this life. During recapitulation, ego issues and traumatic underpinnings that once froze the free flow of sexual energy are discovered for what they truly are, dismantled and released. Recapitulation is conjunctio within the self, as energy previously separated is reclaimed and merged into a unified whole within the self. From this recapitulated place of wholeness, extraverted conjunctio, matured sexuality, is possible with an “other.” If the residual sexual issues from the fertile years are not resolved through recapitulation, these issues will be carried forward, interfering with conjunctio, both within and without.
Ecstatic union
After recapitulation, the physical changes of midlife, and beyond, matter little. With ego relativized through recapitulation, full spiritual, sexual union—at the deepest energetic level—is completely possible! After recapitulation conjunctio is no longer thwarted by such issues as body image or mechanics, for no physical limitations or ego limitations can stop true sexual, energetic union. There simply are no limitations! Two fingers alone can touch in ecstatic orgasmic union!
For those still in the midst of the necessary challenges of the fertile years, stay patient. Full sexual maturity awaits if you allow yourself to have your own necessary experiences and acquiesce to recapitulation when it beckons. For those with limited or deeply compromised sexual experience during the fertile years, recapitulation provides the necessary process of integration of self that will lead to openness to union in later years, when true union is really possible, offering the ability to fully actualize the sexually mature self, in true relationship!
The full realization of sexual maturity ultimately includes the biological, ego, and energetic or spiritual dimensions of our beings. It’s far more than nature just taking its course. It requires us, as conscious beings, to evolve as individuals to really meet each other.
What did Buddha really go through as he sat for 49 days beneath the bodhi tree, intent upon achieving a quiet heart? As he sat, his petty tyrant helper, Mara, projected a rapid-fire succession of intense scenes before his eyes, provoking feelings of lust, sadness, terror and rage. Buddha’s challenge was to remain fully open to his experiences and simultaneously arrive at the place of a quiet heart.
A quiet heart is the place of groundlessness. In groundlessness nothing is rejected, the full experience is felt and known. There is no attempt to “get grounded,” no need to “attach” to something to stop the action and restore control. Nothing in the flow of images or evoked feelings has the power to interrupt full presence, full awareness, and full living in the present moment.
No wonder it took Buddha 49 days of nonstop sitting to fully achieve a quiet heart, the groundlessness of “enlightenment.” That is, 49 days on top of years of prior training. We should all keep this humbly in mind as we face the deep challenge of recapitulation. It’s a process! Here are some of the major components of that process to keep in mind: that every journey is unique, with its own components.
As with Buddha’s quest, the goal of recapitulation is to achieve a quiet heart amidst the parade of truths and myths of life lived, as they present themselves in the form of memories, bodily sensations, emotions, and beliefs. Can we stay fully present with the images that appear, whether slowly collecting or rapidly firing, as memories coagulate and come into sharper focus? Can we stay fully present with the physical sensations, at times so subtle as to be dismissed, at other times excruciatingly painful or pleasurable? Can we stay fully present with journeys of disintegration, dissociation, blackout, the terror of pending death, times of dissolution and altered awareness? Can we stay fully present with emotions that have been sealed away for a lifetime, that come coursing from the heart like a raging river, a current of energy that leaps across synapses of never-used neurons along the motherboard of the spinal column?
Can we sit with quiet heart no matter what comes?
Can we stay fully present with overloaded, interrupted circuits—physically painful, emotional misfirings? Can we allow the pent up energy of emotion and sensation to release through the breath, the tear ducts, the voice, the genitals?
Can we be fully present with the voices of old beliefs, constructions that defended the selves of bygone years? And, finally, like the Buddha, can we be fully present with the fullness of the experience with a quiet heart, with no attachments or need to stop the show? Can we be fully present in groundlessness that fully opens us to enlightened life?
We must remember that Buddha spent countless hours encountering and honing these components of recapitulation before he achieved the quiet heart that allowed him to step into groundlessness.
We must be patient and nurturing as the heart unlocks its feelings, as the body releases its memories, as our newly discovered neurons stretch and grow in order to carry and release our long pent-up energies.
Enlightenment awaits in the form of new, fully present life—NOW. And that means life unfiltered by the vicissitudes of the past, energy freed and restored, fully present, ready to live NOW.
We are overwhelmed with instructions. We hunger to do it right even when we are addicted to doing it wrong. Hard not to appreciate and value ancient traditions that have honed techniques over generations. How can our knowing and growing compete with that knowledge when we’ve only this one brief moment to live? At least as far as our rationality informs us, that is.
I do value ancient knowledge. Yoga, meditation, magical passes, martial arts—those traditions are indeed imbued with the intent of generations of living beings. To partake in those traditions is to tap into a river of energy that flows into deeper knowing of self. This is not a cognitive truth, this is a living truth, available to anyone willing to step into that river of energy through persistent disciplined practice.
On the other hand, we are the beings alive at this time. We are center stage. It’s our moment to be in this world and to discover life through our own direct experience of being alive, in our bodies, NOW.
I thank everyone who came before. I thank everyone who has remained behind to teach. But it’s my responsibility to discover what it means to be alive in this life, at this time.
This is our opportunity for direct experience with living. This is our opportunity to encounter the unique energetic configuration of Now. How do I greet it? How do I be with it? Where do I go with it? I am responsible for evolution.
Can I experience this energetic configuration?
Energy wants to go where it has never been. Energy seeks new life. Energy abhors boredom. We are on the cutting edge of new possibility in this world, in this life, in the bodies we are in, right Now.
This simple truth packs a powerful wallop. It grips us with fear. How could it be otherwise? To allow ourselves to flow freely into the unknown—into the never-known—is truly awesome. How natural to fall back into self-doubt, into judgment, into the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Ones who have gone before.
We counter our fears with socialized structures, giant monuments of the past to house our souls. We forget, however, that those structures are not immortal. They are relics, wisdom of other times, of other energetic configurations. They can only take us so far in our encounters with the unique energetic configurations of Now.
The more we attach to the solutions of other times, the more we distance ourselves from our own direct experience of Now and the unique energetic configuration of our time. We miss the show and then, before we know it, it’s lights out!
Can I flow with the breath of now?
Ancient wisdom has informed us of the value of the breath. I say, thanks for that hint! Now I must ask myself: What is my relationship to my own breath, right now, in this energetic moment that I live in? Can I turn my awareness to the house of fear deep within the abdomen, for instance? Forgetting all the rules, all the systems, all the instructions in breathing and mindfulness practices, can I simply be in my body in this moment, acknowledging that fear? Can I loosen its grip, expand its horizons with ever-deepening breath? Can I do this with no rules, no set-aside time, no goals, no objectives other than simply being present, deeply in my body, at the main attraction—NOW?
We are beings in the process of becoming. Our families, through socialization, help us to mold our first containers to hold and manage the prima materia, the innocence from which we are all created. This human mold becomes our identity, our sense of self—a being with continuity—a being we can wake up to in the morning who resembles the being we were when we went to sleep, what psychology calls an ego self.
The truth is, however, that what we are molded into says very little about who we really are, or who we will become. In truth, it’s just a working model, quite universal actually, a mold used and reused billions of times in forming the human race. That mold is the birthplace of our consciousness, our first bicycle, precious for a time but hardly a tool of navigation for an entire lifetime. In truth, consciousness must grow and become increasingly aware of its full nature to remain an effective navigational tool.
It was nature that decided to become conscious in the first place and we human beings are just that: nature that decided to become conscious. Our container, or ego self, is nature’s organ of consciousness. Our fledgling ego self, though, knows nothing of its true nature; it knows nothing of its true parents, nature itself. Our young ego self is an orphan child, separated at birth from its true parents and thrust into a mold that is supposed to know everything about navigating life, yet is so lacking in nature’s true knowledge.
Face it, consciousness enters life seriously stuck behind the eight ball, so different from its natural parents—the deep unconscious of nature—yet expected to have all the answers. The ego self, separated from its roots, has no answers and so little experience, yet is supposed to figure it all out for itself. All it has to work with are the rules, the laws, handed down through its socialized container’s book of rules. Those rules might be helpful in the beginning, but they are not the products of conscious experience and, underneath it all, we, as conscious beings, are deeply insecure beings; all of us nature’s orphans.
Nature's Opus...
And yet, at the same time, we are nature itself, nature’s most evolved experiment! Nature intended to take life in a new direction when it created the human, to not remain bound to its old, redundant patterns. Consciousness was born, conceived to herald in this change that evolved into the human being. What nature didn’t bargain for was that consciousness in the human ego container would become a renegade ship, a child overwhelmed by its power and ability to create, hoard, dominate and destroy. It’s the renegade stewardship of ego consciousness that’s brought us to where we now find ourselves: perched on the brink of destruction, with our true parents, nature, attempting to reign in this runaway ship before it’s too late.
What nature really seeks of us is that we take its prima materia, all the stuff of what we truly are, of what is, and find new expression for all of it in the living out of our lives.
In order to do this we must, of necessity, encounter, in consciousness, all the forces or essences of true nature inherent within all of us. These are the compulsions that come to grip us in fascination, in love, and in terror. These forces rock our containers, beckoning us to face them, own them, and find life for them. How will we fit them into our containers? Do they really belong in our containers, or must we simply acknowledge them and make peace with them? Are we ready to expand our containers, perhaps like the hermit crab that parts ways with its old shell and looks for a new one? Is it time to trade up to a new, expanded, conscious ego self?
The forces of nature within us are varied. Some are radiant and nurturing, others are greedy, vengeful, and deadly. All insist upon some place in our lives. It is the fundamental charge of consciousness to discover these forces of nature, acknowledge the truth of their existence, experience them fully and figure out what to do with them—how to live, balance, express, and evolve them forward.
Is it time to look for a new shell?
Consciousness is nature’s evolving organ, it is nature’s grand experiment and its decision making organ, and we are its container. To date, consciousness has largely mismanaged its nature. Collectively and individually we walk the razor’s edge of psychosis, which is nothing other than nature’s way of reasserting its control over a renegade ship and a failed experiment.
On the other hand, nature is completely supportive of its offspring, if that offspring is willing to squarely face the full truth of all that it is. This requires recapitulation—the process of learning to release ourselves from the containment of old, those limited containers of self, as we discover and integrate the fullness of our true natures. This also requires a willingness, on our parts, to take our full natures into the adventures of uncharted waters, within ourselves and in the world without. This is nature’s imperative at this moment in time—to keep evolving into new possibilities, but now responsibly, in full consciousness!
