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.
Freedom is the ability to be alone with the truth. On the eve of his assassination, Martin Luther King stood alone at the podium, and, in the private knowing of his imminent death, uttered these final words:
“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now, I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”
“And so I’m happy, tonight.”
“I’m not worried about anything.”
“I’m not fearing any man!”
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”
In the shaman’s world, Martin Luther King was a warrior. In The Wheel of Time don Juan says this about a warrior on page 120:
“A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as grounds for regret but as a living challenge.”
To accept our lot is to be fully with the truth of who we are, where we have been, and, in full awareness, where we go next. To accept our lot is to soberly realize the dream we’ve been cast in and to accept full responsibility for that dream: to complete it and dream on.
The other night at the White House, the rapper/poet Common validated the completion of the dream Martin Luther King had glimpsed and so profoundly hinted at while speaking at the podium on April 13, 1968. Common ended his poem with the following lines:
“For one King’s dream He was able to Barack us.”
“One King’s dream He was able to Barack us.”
“One King’s dream He was able to Barack us.”
Dream to Freedom
Martin Luther King did not die a victim or a martyr; he died a dreamer completing his dream. There was no regret in his voice as he covertly bade farewell. Martin was living the shaman’s code: I am a being who is going to die. Martin accepted the living challenge of his pending death, without regret. This was a dream worthy to die for.
To obtain freedom in our own lives, we too must be warriors discovering and taking full responsibility for all our own dreams—for accepting our lot. In recapitulation we awaken to the full truth of the dream we are in. We cast out the energy of those who shattered our innocence. It’s not about regret, because we are not victims; no one is a victim.
It’s not about forgiveness; there’s nothing to forgive. No, in recapitulation we release the energy of others; all must carry their own burdens, discover and face their own truths and forgive themselves for their own actions. No one can forgive anyone of anything. The real challenge is to take back the full truth and energy of one’s own life, to be with it in full awareness, in full acceptance.
Our living challenge is to discover the full scope of our own dream. Are we ready to release it, having stared it down and faced every bit of it? Do we need to hold it any longer? Is there something more to learn, some fragment not yet discovered, not yet acceptable to know?
Are we ready to release that dream and move into new life, no longer needing the safety of old illusions, like believing that we are unworthy beings, unfit for this world? Are we ready to let go of everyone we have clung to who made us feel safe while caught in our repeating dreams, as well as old myths of who we are? Can we fully be alone with the full truth and, like Martin, flow effortlessly into the next dream?
This is the cost of freedom. But, as don Juan states, on page 123 in The Wheel of Time:
“Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible to pay.”
“When I reflect on the fact that I have made my appearance by accident upon a globe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens, when I see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral and incomprehensible as I am myself, and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras, I experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have loved and suffered and that erelong I shall die, in a dream. My last word will be, ‘I have been dreaming.'”—Madame Ackermann quoted from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.
The Greek mythological character Narcissus never engaged in actual life as he could not see or feel anything beyond his own reflection—he never transgressed beyond his personal mirror. The spring flower, narcissus, is named after him due to its narcotic properties, meaning to numb or put to sleep. Narcissus, the man, was unable to awaken from his own very personal dream.
We all share the fate of Narcissus, as our very personal lives are dreams projected upon the people and things on the outer world. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this life is to recognize the mirror we place in front of everything, as we, like Narcissus, live life as in a state of narcolepsy, fully asleep, actively living out our personal dreams upon the backdrop of the outside world.
Interestingly, there is evidence that even on the astral plane, though we might meet familiar others beyond the self, we remain locked within our personal dream, asleep to life beyond the self. We awaken from these encounters completely unaware of where we’ve been and who we’ve been with. Out-of-body explorer, Preston Dennett, concludes, from his own astral experiences as recounted in his book Out-of-Body Exploring:
“Most of my family members do not recall these visits. Only Christy has been able to recall one meeting. However, this appears to be normal. Most people are unable to recall their dreams, much less their OBEs…” [Out-of-Body Experiences]
“Many times I have found my extended family visiting each other on the astral plane. As we are sitting at a table, my mother [deceased in this world] is looking at me. She knows that I am lucid and that I will remember these meetings, while everyone else in the room thinks they are already awake, or they know that they are not at the point where they are able to remember. How somebody can know that they won’t remember is beyond me. However, when I’m there, I know I will remember.”
How does this play out in the world of everyday life—a world where we are utterly convinced that we are interacting and making real contact with others?
Our lives in this world are largely waking dreams interspersed with brief moments of awakening. For instance, our collective world dream of safety now—Osama is dead—lulls us back into complacency. Global warming, environmental catastrophes, contaminated food supply, rampant greed, all slip away into yesterday’s forgotten dreams. Mother Nature will stir us awake again with some new dramatic alarm clock and, in that moment, we will awaken and lift the veil of our collective dream. But, the challenge is whether we will stay awake long enough and remember—hold onto the truth—so we can move into a new, sustainable dream.
On an individual level, our lives are marked from birth, perhaps from before birth with our own personal life dream. Our mission in life becomes one of waking up to the encapsulated dream we are in, to the world outside that dream. Until that time, the world and all its players serve as our personal mirrors, reflecting the drama of our individual dreams.
This proposition may seem preposterous as we reflect upon the relationships we are in, the people we genuinely communicate with and love, the people we touch and who touch us as well. But even our most intimate connections are but impressions on the outer surface of the personal bubbles that encase us. When we touch we are still pressing upon the contours of our personal dreams, our personal mysteries.
Perhaps my dream is one of core inadequacy and unlovability. In that dream, I crave to be loved, to be worthy; yet, everywhere I look, I see rejection and disdain reflected.
The characters in my dream are cruel and abusive. I cannot drive my car without feeling that I am offending someone. Clearly the truck behind me is angry, that I am too slow. I don’t have the right to take up space in this world or even to slow down to make a turn.
There is someone I deeply love, someone I pine for. But I am so beneath her; I shiver to look at her. How could she ever be interested in me? I am utterly compelled to be near her glow in my thoughts, fantasies, and interactions as well, but I know I lack the beauty and skill she would require. I am destined to loneliness.
I am surrounded by men far superior to me. They dismiss me, they don’t even see me. They are reflections of everything she needs, mirrors of everything I am not. In this dream, my golden princess is beyond my reach; at best I might be her lowly servant.
The characters of this dream project themselves powerfully upon the world screen of waking life. So who really are these characters within the self, within the personal dream, that I am utterly convinced exist outside of me?
In this dream, the golden princess is my anima—she who holds the place of my deepest value; she who lures me to complete my dream, to enter a new dream of fulfillment and wholeness. She is projected so powerfully on a character outside of me that I am compulsively attached to HER as my salvation, unattainable that she might be. I am convinced this is not a dream. In this reality she is outside of me, not me. Without her, I am doomed.
The truth is, if I had her, I wouldn’t know what to do with her. I could never trust that she was really wanting me, the unlovable, the unwantable. I’d be terrified; I’d surely enter the triangle dream.
In that nightmare, I am haunted by other men—worthy men, real men who will steal her away. In that dream there is always the third character; he who reflects all that I am not, all that she wants. Am I a real man or simply a boy in the nursery, seeking mother’s comfort, fantasizing about becoming a knight and winning the fairytale princess?
The men in that dream are all mirrors of my personal shadow: reflections of conflicts, complexes, and potentials I’ve yet to discover within myself. Can I awaken to the truth that the real work is in lifting the inner veils of old beliefs within myself to discover who I really am? Can I take full possession of my shadow self, slay the dragon of the nursery, and enter a new dream, individuated, fully owning the gold of my inner princess; perhaps ready to fully awaken from my old dream, to have an amazing relationship with a real person outside my personal dream.
Face the dream, release the dream...dream on...
This imaginary dream is but one in a thousand personal dreams we find our lives encased in. We are all Narcissus, narcotically staring at our reflections in the pools of our personal dreams. We spend our lives fully acquainting ourselves with the dramas of those dreams, painted on the faces of the world. We are all offered moments of awakening: opportunities to discover our truths and our personal myths. Can we claim our full stories, our full selves and move into amazingly new possibilities—new dreams, new lives?
I could not get enough of Professor Luther. I took four undergraduate history courses with him. A supreme dramatist, Professor Luther made history come alive. When you sat in one of his lectures, the door to the present world was closed and you were transported into the midst of the Russian Revolution or the Protestant Reformation. Professor Luther stopped the world.
He was always impeccably dressed, conservatively, in a three-piece suit and narrow tie. He was thin, of medium height, with eyes that were shifty with an almost hidden condescension, but truthfully hiding a scholarly knowing, and as his student you knew that he was alone in his knowledge and awareness. You were never going to be his friend; you were always the student of this man who so clearly knew something that you did not know. He would take you on a journey into a different world, but in the end he would leave you back on the shore as he turned and walked away without a backward glance. He was gone, without attachment to his students, until the next journey.
As I sat in the classroom, waiting for class to begin, I would wonder where he was. He always simply appeared, out of nowhere. Calmly and quietly closing the door, he’d walk in measured step, in deliberate trance, to the podium and with a glint in his eyes, his face almost vibrating, he’d shift us, the students, into another time and place. He was a mouse that could roar. He’d whisper and he’d boom in a thundering voice, like an opera singer that could span the vocal range in an instant. Equally, he would pause in dead silence for what seemed like an eternity, as we sat waiting for what came next. We were captivated.
I’ve come to realize that Professor Luther’s dramatics were actually a subterfuge to his real teaching, which was, in his words: It’s not the truth that matters; it’s what people believe to be true that constructs reality. As Professor Luther recapitulated history in his courses, this truth was exposed over and over again. Professor Luther’s technique was to catch our attention through stopping the world, whereby showing us that reality was merely a consensually accepted description or interpretation.
The shamans teach us that it is only through stopping the world that we might glimpse the relativity of what we call reality; that our world is a description we all agree upon. Reality, in shamans’ terms, is: where we decide to place our intent. Likewise, the shamans contend that there are other worlds we might inhabit, other truths we might discover, if we are willing to shift our intent, if we are willing to let go of the description we cling to so desperately in an attempt to consolidate ourselves and feel secure.
As I laid down my pen after writing these words, I next spoke to a journeyer fresh out of the rainforest, having just experienced sacred ayahuasca ceremonies under the guidance of shamans. In synchronistic agreement, this journeyer shared the experience of having the world stop: Reality is where you place your intent. The interpretation that is assigned to an energetic experience becomes that experience. For instance, if we think dark thoughts our world becomes hell. Our beliefs, what we attach to, generate our reality. Our beliefs, our descriptive interpretations of life, create and construct the world we live in.
Within that same hour, in another synchronistic agreement, I read Jan’s blog after it came out on Wednesday. Jan describes how, in her own recapitulation, she completely dismantled her ancient description of herself. She stopped the world, deconstructed and reconstructed herself. She entered a new reality unburdened of past secrets.
America, at this very moment, finds itself poised to stop the world and generate a new reality. The lines are drawn now between the truth and the forces richly investing in influencing what we believe to be true; the simple truth against a total lie; total simplicity versus total greed. What world will we choose to now construct? The truths couldn’t be more apparent—thank you nature! The lies couldn’t be better funded nor more comically presented. The stage is set for the ultimate revolution: Do we evolve into a new sustainable description of reality or do we go down, nobly dancing and singing on the sinking Titanic? Let’s thank both nature and the extreme forces of greed for offering us this amazing opportunity to stop the world.
Stop the world—tolerate the tension of disorientation. Let it be.
Are we going to evolve or are we going to stay the same? This is our collective challenge, but, like all revolutions, it is but the subterfuge, the drama. The real challenge is whether we, as individuals, can look into the mirror of the outer world and take on the responsibility to truly stop the world—the world we signed up for, the world we uphold, the world that must be stopped. It is our extreme attachment to the security of the world we know, regardless of how insane and unworkable that might be, that keeps us the same, merely complaining about the mess we feel powerless to change. The real culprit in all of this is our personal unwillingness to stop the known world we are so attached to and place our intent on a new description, a new viable description of the world.
The shamans have extremely pragmatic tools to accrue the energy to stop the world. One such tool is to erase personal history. The shamans are definite that upholding a uniform description of the world requires tremendous reinforcement. Every day we engage in an incessant internal dialogue that judges and categorizes everything, especially our selves, as we constantly reaffirm the same description of who we collectively are, who you personally are, and how it all fits together.
Socially, we engage in the dialogue of catch-up. “So, what’s new? What have you been up to? How’s so and so, and such and such?” What ensues here is filling each other with the data of each other’s lives, which is then affirmed, categorized and judged. Energetically, we walk away comfortably reinforced in who we are and who they are. We now hold each other to the expectations emanating from the presentations of ourselves. Our world is protected, defined, and known. This is family; this is friendship.
Catch-up ensures consistency and uniformity, as we remain fixated within the known world, the known compound of the self. When shamans suggest we erase personal history they mean to break all the rules of the familiar, in effect, to shatter the uniformity of the known and open the gate to unfamiliarity—the gateway to stopping the world.
If we are used to playing catch-up we might try withholding, not sharing, some or all of our experiences with family and friends, simply allow ourselves to hold them in total aloneness. In contrast, if our familiarity is to withhold everything, we might challenge ourselves to tell all. The operative principle is to break ranks with a familiar definition of self, consciously and mindfully intending and engaging life beyond a static definition: engaging life beyond the veils of illusion. Take a walk on the wild side; inhabit a new description of self. Make room to become a self unknown to the self. Change your name, but be careful not to stay the same, with merely a new name that fits an old description.
Another related tool that shamans employ to accrue energy to stop the world is to disrupt the routines of life. Many people wake up in the night and struggle to return to sleep. Redefine the night. Choose instead to get up, get dressed, and take a walk—outside. We can be assured that within moments we will feel the sensation of stopping the world and stepping into a new reality. We will notice how frightening and exhilarating crossing the threshold from routine into the unknown can be. That is the real challenge. Can we really do it?
Can we eat two meals a day or eight? Furthermore, whatever we do today, can we not repeat it tomorrow? Can we take a different route to work? Sit in a different seat? Watch a different show? Wear our underwear backwards? The possibilities are endless.
Every time we disrupt the routines of life or erase personal history we accrue energy toward a major stopping of the world as we practice becoming comfortable in flux. It is only through becoming comfortable with consciously stopping the world that we can allow for new possibilities. All who individually engage in these practices are stalking life in a new world. This kind of new world is truer to the flow of energy. This new description of the world is sustainable, a description in flux with the true flow of natural energy.
Be empowered, stop the world, and when it comes time to vote, change the world!
Jan and I took my oldest son, Julian, out to a nice restaurant the other night. This was a special treat since we rarely eat out. As I perused the menu I realized how few options there really were. I no longer, in full awareness, can eat fish. I reflected on reality: shrimp from the oiled-filled Gulf; fresh water fish from acid rain polluted rivers and lakes; farm bred, as they say “organic” salmon that are force-fed, among other things, shrimp shells to color their flesh; and, last but not least, ocean fish from the interconnected, radiated sea waters.
I recently spoke with someone who had just returned from a trip to Japan, who discussed the Japanese attitude toward what they believe is the world’s overreaction to their nuclear incident. The Japanese say that they had the first deadly encounter with radiation at Hiroshima, and where is that radiation now? Gone, they say. They also point to all the atomic bomb testing that went on for decades around the world. Again, where is the fallout from all of that? Gone, they say. Well, as I sat and pondered the menu, I simply couldn’t go back to sleep and enter that matrix—no fish for me.
When we drove Julian home later to his abode on the Hudson River, the last striper fishermen were packing up. “Ya know, the stripers are running now. They come from the ocean to spawn… safe to eat,” Julian remarked. Yes, I thought, from the radiated ocean to the PCB infested river—from sea to shining sea!
“Am I really such a radical?” I ask Jan. I know that I am not. The layers of the matrix are so deep and intertwined that the crux of doubt arises as we wonder: could things really be that bad? The incredulous truth is that, yes, things really are that bad.
Yes, we are beings who are going to die, and, hence, we must die of something. However, the fact is, our plant’s health and, consequently, our food supply are completely compromised. Yes, I choose not to eat fish, but in reality every item on the menu is compromised in some way. Our healthiest option becomes choosing the lesser of two evils.
First, we are challenged by our own appetites that have been assaulted and conditioned from birth by hypnotic marketeers seeking profit under the guise of nurturance. Then we have heavily under-regulated corporations that dominate and own the food supply—down to its very seeds. They have created well-ordered factory systems: poultry, meat, and farming industries. These industries rely heavily on chemical control with fertilizers, insecticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, additives, colorings, and flavorings to ensure predictable, high-yield, “good looking” and “good tasting” foods at a price the market can bear.
Our food supply is filled with carcinogens that make us unnecessarily sick. Heart conditions, strokes, cancers, are but a few of the consequences to our bodies from the carcinogens we eat, drink, and breathe. Of course, then we enter the medical and pharmaceutical industries that offer endless procedures and drugs to manage our symptoms and conditions. These industries corner the health care market by demonizing treatments that fall outside their purview and pocketbook. Meanwhile, as don Juan once said to Carlos Castaneda, we are like chickens in a chicken coop, happily allowing ourselves to be feasted upon by the forces of greed: a life of joyful, utter captivity. Is it really so radical to just acknowledge the truth of it?
When I turn to the true culprit behind the matrix we now live in, I can’t help but identify it as unbridled capitalism. “The land of opportunity” has become “the land of greed with impunity.” Less I be accused, quickly put into the box of a socialist, let me state that I actually do believe in capitalism, but nature’s capitalism.
Nature provides the soil to nourish and grow unlimited possibilities, however, the hallmark of nature is limitation. No matter how glorious the summer, summer ultimately acquiesces to fall. There is no such thing as unlimited growth in nature! There must be moderation and balance.
If we apply these principles to our capitalist economy, profit must shift from what the market will bear to a just price. Products and procedures should not be introduced just to make money. They need to be in accord with the healthy needs of humankind, sustainable, and in balance with all of nature. Growth must be limited and in balance with the ecology of the entire planet.
When I read Jeanne’s channeled message this past Monday, I was struck, powerfully, by a cord of resonance to the Jeanne I once walked this planet with. Jeanne, while in this world, insisted on taking a stand through exercising the power of the purse. She was a stickler for fairness and truth in the marketplace, often resulting in some intensely powerful and, frankly, embarrassing confrontations. I reminded Julian the other night of the time she confronted the owner of an Italian restaurant down the street that his advertised “fresh daily sfogliatelle” was, in fact, at least a day old. The confrontation was fierce, the three kids and I wanting to hide under the table. Needless to say, that was the last time we ate at that restaurant.
Exercise the Power of the Purse!
If a store was unfair or deceitful, Jeanne boycotted it, end of story, no compromise. If a food product was not strictly organic, or at least local, she wouldn’t buy it. She believed then, as she counsels now, that individual choices and actions matter. If individuals refuse to buy unhealthy products, industry will provide what is truly needed and wanted. If products are presented at the wrong price and are boycotted, industry will correct to the right price. Jeanne’s answer to “I can’t afford organic” would be: eat less and breathe more. Her favorite phrase in this regard was: Exercise the power of the purse!
The deeper individual challenge is to take full responsibility for our lives: that is the source of real power. Can I stare down my industry-commandeered appetite and choose instead to fulfill my genuine needs? Can I accept limitation—have less but have what’s right? Can I choose to live outside the matrix, perhaps only rarely or never use a cell phone because I know the truth of harmful radiation—my body tells me so? Can I step away from sacrosanct medical routines and follow my own knowing, trusting my self?
The choices outside the matrix are endless—and life outside the matrix is a solitary journey, though filled with many enlightened traveling companions. Can we exercise the power of the purse outside the matrix—like scouts stalking a brave new world?
From outside the matrix,
Chuck
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post daily comments, photos, and quotes.
I don’t often encounter depressed feelings, but by Monday of this past week I was laden with the weight of the futility of the national political civil war. I’d been in the world too long; I needed to find my way home.
Whenever I connect to the moment, that final moment of life in the body, feeling my energy body separate and lift for the last time from my physical body, I am treated to such a different perspective. All that seemed so important, worth fighting for but a moment ago, becomes actually light and even humorous. The relativity, the transitoriness of all that was once held so dear, melts into a glow of loving compassion. All that matters really, for all of us, is the infinite journey and what comes next.
As I struggled Monday to find my way home, to the perspective of this final moment, I turned to my old trusty friend, the I Ching, for counsel. The I Ching tells me I’ve been treading on the tail of the tiger. Fortunately, this tiger is so caught off guard; it bites not and heads for the hills!
Path of Heart
The tiger symbolizes wild, intractable people—the kind I wrote about in last week’s blog, those currently energized with evil energy. I broke my vow of detachment and ventured into that energy field. It didn’t bite back, but its negativity caught me unaware. It’s a world of ego gamesmanship, a world that separates me from my spirit. Without my spirit, even for a day, I feel like I could die! I have no interest in dying, but in my innocence I strayed. This, according to the I Ching, is not correct conduct: walking can be carefree, but ought not be naive.
The I Ching suggests I return to the calm and level way of the lonely sage. “He remains withdrawn from the bustle of life, seeks nothing, asks nothing of anyone, and is not dazzled by enticing goals.” —Wilhelm translation.
This is coming home: the egoless clarity of the moment of death. Finally, I am counseled to look where I walk, to look into what will be favorable and turn toward it to find great fortune. In essence, to turn toward what makes me happy, for that is the right path. For me, this is alignment with that final moment of separation: a path of heart, the warrior’s path, a being who is going to die.
When it comes to finding the way back home, turn toward that which truly makes you happy. Here you will find your path, a path of heart; follow your bliss.
From home,
Chuck
Back in 1969 Blind Faith’s Can’t Find My Way Home resonated with my spirit. Check out this early video and then in 2007 Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton got together and sang it again.
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post daily comments, photos, and quotes.
