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.
Carlos Castaneda in conversation with don Juan, excerpted from A Separate Reality:
From where I was seated I could see the group of boys through the glass window… After three days of watching them go like vultures after the most meager of leftovers I became despondent, and I left that city feeling that there was no hope for those children whose world was already molded by their day-after-day struggle for crumbs.
“Do you feel sorry for them?” don Juan exclaimed in a questioning tone.
“I certainly do,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m concerned with the well-being of my fellow men. Those are children and their world is ugly and cheap.”
“Wait! Wait! How can you say that their world is ugly and cheap?” don Juan said, mocking my statement. “You think that you’re better off, don’t you?”
I said I did; and he asked me why; and I told him that in comparison to those children’s world mine was infinitely more varied and rich in experiences and in opportunities for personal satisfaction and development…
“Do you think that your very rich world would ever help you to become a man of knowledge?” don Juan asked with slight sarcasm… “Can your freedom and opportunities help you to become a man of knowledge?”
“No!” I said emphatically.
“Then how could you feel sorry for those children?” he said seriously. “Any of them could become a man of knowledge. All the men of knowledge I know were kids like those you saw eating leftovers and licking the tables.” –from pp. 20-22.
We in America still live in the richest economy in the world. Do our freedom, opportunity and richness make us people of knowledge—people able to see and align with the true nature of reality? Do our educational institutions enlighten us or merely groom us to uphold an old world order? This old world order is so out of balance that nature is leading the revolution now to bring it down.
The Truth
Nature has delivered a profound blow to the country of Japan. Perhaps we can ignore dead sea turtles in the oil-polluted Gulf of Mexico as new drilling leases are approved for oil companies, but can we really ignore radioactive waste filling the ocean? Who really feels reassured at the suggestion that by the time this waste finds its way to the human dinner table the radioactivity will be negligible and fit for human consumption? How can we ever really feel comfortable eating fish again? Are not the oceans all interconnected?
Don Juan challenges the worldview that privilege and wealth create advantage. In fact, he would argue that privilege and wealth lead to complacency and clinging to delusional beliefs. Don Juan would likely suggest that what appears as compassion for Japan is, in fact, displaced self-pity emanating from a deeply threatened old world order.
Our world of solid objects may be maya—sheer illusion—but even illusion requires some integrity to hold it together. The Newtonian dimension of our world—that of dense solid energy—is so out of balance that nature is unleashing its own corrective measures to root out the culprit: GREED!
The invasion of greed into the quantum level of reality through nuclear energy has now completely exploded. In a world of interdependence and interconnectedness, no amount of prosperity can insulate us from nuclear fallout. We are all in it together; we all live in Japan now.
Traumatized Japan is not a victim. Japan has been jolted awake. Japan is challenged to take the lead and overthrow greed, and align itself with needed change: a new world order in balance with nature. Can we all take that lead, see reality and become a people of knowledge?
Can we align our actions, policies and intent with what the seers of ancient Mexico call direct knowledge, or the Taoists call the Way: right action based on truth? This is our challenge: Truth or Consequences?
Citizen of the new world,
Chuck
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Such an important time. I struggled mightily to offer the right guidance. I wrote an entire blog and then could not keep my eyes open as I read it. It’s not the right message; I was forcing it. I’ve let it go; maybe it’s a message for another time. I humbly approach The Oracle: What is the guidance for now? I ask.
The answer I receive is hexagram #9: The Taming Power of the Small, with stirrings in the first, fourth, and fifth places. The interplay of images: wind blowing over heaven. The wind has the power to gather the clouds, but it cannot make it rain. For this we must wait.
The hexagram is composed of five powerful yang lines restrained by the influence of a single weak yin line. The yin influence has its limits. Although it has the power to restrain it cannot overcome the obstacle.
The radiation in Japan can only be minimally restrained, the circumference of evacuation must widen. Global Supply Lines at Risk as Shipping Lines Shun Japan says a headline in the New York Times; the entire world is now impacted with nuclear fallout. It is time to restrain our global appetites. Think local. Eat local.
Qaddafi can be restrained from flying his planes and from committing out-and-out genocide, but as yet he cannot be stopped. Again the influence possible in this time of revolution is, at best, a restraining influence; we can only have limited influence on the course of the revolution. It must play out in its own way and its own time.
Republicans chip away at the unions, Roe v. Wade, and cast Obama as a foreign infidel. In response, the discontent of the masses is stirring but, as yet, exerts little restraint on the madness. Revolutions are happening, but the time has not ripened for major changes in governance, though the necessary ingredients for change are indeed beginning to coalesce.
We find ourselves in a time of waiting, with limited influence. What should we do? The charged first line of the hexagram reads:
“Return to the way. How could there be blame in this?“
-From The I Ching, the Richard Wilhelm translation, p. 41.
This line depicts being stirred to act in response to the energy of now, of revolution; we all want to do something to help. We seek to push forward and make progress. We are met by obstructions. We are guided to return to the way—the Tao—action in conformity with the true nature of the situation.
It’s not time yet for the clouds to bring forth the rain, so we must take out the garbage, do our taxes, clean out the litter box, and make a commitment to daily self-cultivation. Prepare our bodies and our spirits for the coming changes. Focus on the doable and the necessary. “Tame ourselves, our greatness will build—and we can yoke it for further actions.” -From The Living I Ching by Deng Ming-Dao, p. 125
The moving line in the fourth place again counsels the need to exert restraint upon a being of power and influence, perhaps the mighty ego self who is frightened, angry, appalled, and pushes for immediate action. The restraint here is to stay aligned with the truth and restrain from unnecessary action. Don’t fight the racist, the birther. Know the truth of nuclear energy. The time of great influence is not yet upon us, but we can restrain ourselves, save our energy and cultivate right actions, good habits in our lives—habits consonant with the coming changes to the world. Rest assured, the rains are coming.
The charged line in the fifth place, the ruler of the hexagram, counsels us to restrain by embracing our interdependent and interconnected One World—to bond and share the wealth. This is the restraint that must be placed on individual greed that can only accumulate and care for itself with no thought to the needs of others. This One World is the one we must restrain ourselves and hold out for, not a world restored to power as was.
If we follow the restraining influence of the time of The Taming Power of the Small by forging ourselves in the proper way, The Book of Changes predicts a future of advanced civilization in hexagram #50: The Cauldron.
The Cauldron was a huge three-legged pot, cast of bronze, a sacred vessel unique to early Chinese civilization with huge handles flaring up like dragons. The Cauldron, used in the temples, stood directly in the fire to cook food for the nourishment of all during ceremonies of sacrifice and honor to God.
The Cauldron is a manmade object, one of the few depicted in the I Ching. This makes it highly significant for an oracle that focuses almost exclusively on the influences of the elements in nature. The ability of mankind to create a vessel that can be used to commune with God, as well as nourish the people, is given archetypal significance in this book of wisdom. It is possible for us to achieve an advanced civilization that can acquiesce to the higher self or spirit through right action and thereby care for and nourish all.
What a hopeful change the I Ching suggests as our future possibility! The Cauldron is, in fact, the hexagram that directly follows the hexagram of Revolution in the I Ching. Under the best of circumstances the world revolution now might forge a true cauldron. However, this is predicated upon acquiescing to the limited influence and restraint necessary in The Taming Power of the Small, for that is where we are now.
Now is the time to engage in the painstaking process of forging the giant cauldron. This translates, on an individual level, into cultivating our selves into beings that can channel right action. Specifically, we must restrain ourselves from the old ways and keep the light of truth lit in our hearts. The time for great influence has not yet come, but it will come, it always rains eventually.
For now, we must take out the garbage, do our taxes, clean the litter box, cultivate a daily spiritual practice, limit our appetites, tend to our organic gardens, and wait for the rain. We must store our energy, not waste it on fighting the talking heads. Nature is leading this revolution. Change is inevitable.
“Smallness tames. How slight the secret. How monumental the effect.”
-From The Living I Ching, by Deng Ming-Dao, p. 125.
Simply,
Chuck
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News of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 came to Huashan with the monthly supplies. The students who had gone down for provisions had rushed back up the mountain with the report that Japan had swept across the Marco Polo Bridge outside of Beijing, overrun the iron- and coal-rich northern mountains of Shaanxi Province, and had begun a second drive from Tianjin toward Nanjing…
The exceptionally gruesome stories of the fighting and atrocities shocked everyone, including Saihung… Every priest, acolyte, and student had a different opinion…
A large number of Taoists advocated noninvolvement in the war. They insisted that they as ascetics, “people-who-had-left-their-families,” should not return to worldly affairs and break the purity they had so long cultivated. The world was a place of war, deceit, dishonesty, money, killing, politics, and danger.
Patriotic Taoists disagreed, saying that if China was overrun or destroyed, ascetics would have no place to practice their arts… Renunciates or not, they were needed by their country and people.
These are the words I was reading in The Wandering Taoist last Friday when I paused, put down my book, and picked up the news of the tsunami attacking Japan. The synchronicity of aggression by Japan and upon Japan, at that moment, for me, was unshakeable. But what did it mean, what was I being shown?
The meaning became clearer as I contemplated the context of the Sino-Japanese War for the Taoist monks who had left the world and now, high in the mountain retreat of Huashan Monastery, were forced to struggle with deciding what should be the correct action in the face of this worldly aggression.
The Taoist sages knew that this world is but one illusion—they need not attach—and yet many of these highly evolved martial artist monks felt compelled to come down from their mountain and meet aggression with aggression.
Later, as I pondered the deeper meaning and response to the tsunami in Japan, I consulted The I Ching, perhaps the wisest and most immediately useful of Taoist texts. I received Hexagram #49: Ko/Revolution (Molting) with moving lines in the third and sixth places.
The original sense of this hexagram refers to the changes to an animal’s pelt or skin in the course of the year: the molting process. This is a natural event. This is nature’s transforming work, effecting necessary changes to accommodate shifting environmental conditions. Later interpretations of this hexagram extended its meaning to include revolutions that effect necessary changes in governance. Hence, the hexagram represents a change in nature and a change in governance.
These indeed are the attributes of now: the tsunami strike (nature) generating a revolution to overthrow the governing principles of our world. We see this reverberating in the many revolutions taking place throughout the Middle East, heralding a change in governance, while the molting action of nature is destroying a nuclear energy and containment system, which the earth deems destructive to its health and future evolution. Nature’s action and revolution are messages for the entire world, not just Japan and the Middle East. We are all pressured now, through this molting action, to realign governance in accord with nature. Revolution challenges an ideology of greed that refuses to consider balance and the needs of all of nature, human and nonhuman alike.
The moving line in the third place states: “When change is necessary, there are two mistakes to be avoided. One lies in excessive haste and ruthlessness, which bring disaster. The other lies in excessive hesitation and conservatism, which are also dangerous.”
We are challenged here to pause and reflect upon the deep meanings and truths that are being revealed, as well as the lies that are being promulgated, about nuclear power specifically, and then to act decisively. If we contemplate what gives rise to a world that accepts the need to contain highly radioactive materials for hundreds of thousands of years we will arrive at the understanding that at the root of it is a governing belief that unlimited growth is a necessity for the human species. This self-serving principle forces our species to detach from balance and instead exploit and threaten all that nature provides for the survival of all things. Precipitous actions focused on immediate containment and greater securing of a system of deriving energy destructive to life, without a deeper appreciation of the need for a major shift in how we derive energy, would be as futile as monks deciding on bloodshed as the proper action, but in essence just attaching to a different narrow illusion.
The moving line in the sixth place states: “You are reserved and withdrawn. Because of your quiet and uncomplicated philosophy of life, the effect on you of the great changes that are occurring throughout the world will be small and insignificant.”
What does this mean? Stand in the truth. The great changes happening in the world are inevitable. The ego of man will stand unrelentingly firm until nature completely levels it and restores it to humility where it assumes the proper relation to the Tao, or the course of nature. I emphasize here that it is out of our hands now; nature will have its way. This is necessary because man’s ego refused to acquiesce to a governance that respected natural balance and the interconnectedness of all things. In the meantime, we must spare ourselves great energy expenditure fighting that which only the heavy artillery of nature will level.
This was the lesson to the Taoist priests, who ultimately returned to their temples having learned the futility of bloodshed. With this lesson, it was time to take on the true demon on a level playing field, that is, to go within and lift the veil of illusion within the self.
We are all interconnected. What happens without happens within. We are all confronted with a tsunami right now, within ourselves, blowing the lid off truths turned toxic in their nuclear containment within the self. Our personal energy sources, the illusions we uphold to fuel our lives are being exposed now with unrelenting force. Can we face these truths within that we see mirrored and revealed without? What truths are being revealed now that demand changes in the governance of ourselves and our relationships? Are we willing to make major changes in our lives to achieve true alignment? These are the opportunities we are personally being presented with to change the course of our lives, which in turn reverberate into a changed life on this planet.
The future hexagram that emerges from the changes in revolution is #25: Innocence. In innocence we are presented with the image of thunder beneath heaven. When movement (thunder) follows the law of heaven, man is innocent and without guile. Here we have the strong suggestion that the outcome of revolution be a governance that acts in accordance with the Tao, that is, an ego that humbles itself and serves the true needs of the self—the rule of heaven—acting from a place of pure innocence versus tainted egoistic greed. This is the place of humility where man assumes the proper attitude within the interconnectedness of all things. In this paradigm, energy is derived from doing that which is right, working with versus exploiting nature, deriving energy from sources in concert with nature, accepting limitation, versus unlimited energy at all costs.
In summary, my reading of the Taoist response to Japan’s attacks, synchronized with the tsunami in Japan and the reading of The I Ching, all point to lethal power overthrowing the world as we have known it. Japan is simply the latest country to experience the molting of our planet. Think back to 2004, to the tsunami in Indonesia, as well as the recent debacle in the Gulf of Mexico. As well, let us not get distracted by the significance of relief efforts and restoration to normalcy. Victims of these disasters are warriors heralding a new world. Don’t let sadness and grief distract us from the real message: these are necessary encounters with nature’s imperative; everything is changing now on a dramatic worldwide scale.
There is need for revolution, and nature is providing it. Understanding the true nature of this occurrence can bring us to a place of calm and simplicity. We arrive at this place through acquiescing to the deeper truth of fundamental change that we are in the midst of; we can’t stop it. We must align our intent with nature’s intent and remain calm in knowing that what is happening is right. This is not passive surrender. This is the proper position of the ego that supports the truth. Take action within the self and outside the self that aligns with the Tao of nature, because the world, as we have known it, is undergoing major change now, fortunately, heralded by nature itself. No longer is man’s greed going to be allowed to dominate the planet.
Don’t waste energy in psychotic arguments. Embrace the real truth, within and without, without blame, and move toward a life of simplicity that takes only what is necessary and respects the needs of everything else. This is the way of the Tao.
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.
I am nothing,
Chuck
References:The Wandering Taoist, Deng Ming-Dao, p. 186; The I Ching, Richard Wilhelm translation, p. 189-192; I Ching, Sam Reifler, p. 220.
Buddha in the Midst of the Mist: Sitting in Calmness
We are beings who enter this world needing personal attachment in order for life to take root and grow. Failure to experience personal love and care at a basic level results in a failure to thrive, leading to death. Less fatal woundings with our primary attachments can severely compromise our ability to love and receive love throughout our lives.
The strange twist of personal love in this world is that, even under the best of circumstances, it is ultimately unsustainable. Everything personal comes to an end. Early in life we can be shielded from this fact through the veil of a world without death, however, like Siddhartha, someday, we all must stray beyond the walls of this illusion and confront the truth of impermanence.
To encounter impermanence is to brush up against the impersonal, the coldness of that which is not a person, that which is not of this personal world. Where we came from, before we came into this world, and where we will go, when we leave this world, is in the realm of the impersonal: beyond the person we are while in this world.
Reconciling our personal life in this world with both our impersonal underpinnings and ultimate destination, is the core challenge of life. Foundational to this challenge is the ability to give and receive love in full awareness of the personal and impersonal dimensions of our reality. So challenging is this task that many would prefer death itself to the vulnerability that full openness to love requires.
To love, we must access our pure innocence. This is the innocence that, in its infancy, entered this world with the blind trust that it would be welcomed and cherished. This early stage of innocence inevitably suffers the fall of disappointment. However, innocence, with its tenacious need for love, remains quite resilient. These early woundings in our personal lives are encounters with the impersonal, encounters that shake us out of our tender narcissistic shells.
Then may come more serious brushes with the impersonal: deep disappointment, neglect, loss, or downright abuse. Some of these encounters are brushes with pure evil, a cold predatory energy that mercilessly feasts upon innocence, completely smashing our shells of safety.
Under these crushing blows, and for pure survival, our innocence fragments and takes refuge deep within, seeking protection in the body. This is a wise strategy for survival, but a major freeze to the challenge of giving and receiving love.
Strangely though, it is the shattering of our secure personal world that pushes us into the non-personal dimension of reality. This shattering mimics all shamanic journeys, where ritualized woundings push the initiate beyond the personal into the infinite. These may be journeys beyond the body, or some form of dissociated experience. In traumatic experiences we dissociate to protect our precious innocence.
The resulting fragmentation, caused by dissociation, may be necessary to maintain for decades, as we plunge into life with our lost innocence buried beneath causes, careers, and relationships of discontent. We might even convince ourselves of our unique ability not to ever need love in this life.
Eventually, however, our triggers and seasons of discontent overwhelm us, as we are ushered to awaken to the fullness of our journeys already taken, as well as the need for completion in our continued journey. Thus we begin the recapitulation journey where we reconstruct and relive the full truth of our lives.
Recapitulation restores our connection to our lost innocence, as it is freed from old beliefs, confusions, and blame. The adult self, that we have accrued through our other journeys, is the traveling companion that helps our innocence withstand the full truth as it emerges during our recapitulation.
Our innocence matures through this process and is now challenged to reenter life from this new mature, knowing place. Here, innocence sheds its earliest illusions and needs for personal protection. Rejections, endings, and woundings no longer result in dissociation and a retreat from life as innocence has moved beyond the personal and embraces the full impersonality of life; the shamanic initiation complete.
From here, we are poised for fulfillment in this life. We can know that we have loved before; that we have completed many lives; and that we will leave this life and go into new life where everything will be different. We can love with total openness in human form, without needing to possess or hold onto anything. At this point, our innocence is open to experiencing the relativity of our personal life and equally open to the journey in infinity. Perhaps even open enough to experience that infinity now!
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What masquerades and torments as self-blame is often, underneath it all, the placeholder for painful truths we are not ready to assimilate. How does this work?
Trauma comes in many forms, but what makes all trauma, trauma, is the encounter with an experience we are unable to assimilate. By assimilate, I mean, able to take in—physically, cognitively, emotionally—the full breadth and truth of an experience regardless of how disruptive, intrusive, or devastating it might be.
When we are unable to assimilate part or whole of an experience we must store it within ourselves, in some form, until the day we are ready to fully assimilate, or recapitulate, the experience.
The storing of traumatic experience creates a fragmentation within the self because one part of the self can no longer communicate with, or know about, another part of the self. However, some form of inter-self communication can occur in a traumatized self, if the traumatized part wears a disguise that doesn’t reveal the truth hidden within, the real trauma.
Self-blame is often a disguised trauma. How does that work?
Self-blame implies “criminal” activity. This criminal part of the self is seen and felt as bad, abusive, unworthy, lazy, unlovable, or inadequate. On some level we hold onto self-hate and loathing, and blame ourselves for all the misery in our lives.
We then get caught in a cycle of old guilt and compensatory intentions and efforts to improve the self, to reform the criminal. Inevitably we fail, and around and around we go on this vicious wheel of suffering and redemption as our inner criminal resurfaces over and over again.
But, what if this blamed self is actually hidden trauma? After all, isn’t a trauma itself actually a “criminal” who invades our stable lives? Isn’t the trauma actually bad and abusive? Isn’t there an aggressive intensity inherent in trauma equivalent to the punitive energy of self-blame? Perhaps self-blame is the perfect placeholder for trauma and the unrecapitulated self.
In order to discover the true culprit behind the mask of self-blame, we must avail ourselves of Carlos Castaneda’s number one intent: Suspend judgment! Suspending judgment, in the context of lifting the veil of self-blame, means assuming a perspective of detached objectivity. We are looking to both understand the energetic function of self-blame in our lives, as well as discover the true nature of the experiences we have carried under the guise of self-blame.
As I pondered the energetic influences this past week, I consulted The I Ching. I received the answer of The Marrying Maiden, hexagram #54. This hexagram selects the role of the concubine to illustrate being selected to play a part, not for personal reasons, but because of the impersonal needs of others. How do we navigate being acted upon, as in the role of the concubine, simply because we are there and can fill a need of others, however inappropriate? If this is the objective truth of it, however distasteful and unacceptable that situation may be or feel, the truth is: it is impersonal.
Accepting the reality of the impersonal in our lives is a daunting challenge. To hold onto the truth of the impersonal and not change it back into the personal and self-blame, as a means of holding onto some degree of control, is what suspending judgment is all about.
Perhaps for decades we’ve needed to disguise the truth of abuse in self-hate. Can we now allow ourselves to know the real facts of that abuse? Can we now allow ourselves to encounter the truth of the impersonal forces that acted upon us, totally for their own needs? Can we face that we had no control and did not matter, in any sense?
In another example of impersonal experience: Can we take in that we were not loved, but that it was completely not personal—it was simply not our fault? Can we let go of our illusions of those we loved, and needed to preserve as loving people, in order to feel safe and cared for? Are we ready to take down the defenses that protect our wounded selves and release our true innocence, or do we need to hold onto the shield of badness and self-blame? Can we accept our lovableness, though others could not? Or, again, must we continue to protect ourselves with a cloak of unworthiness and self-blame?
Are we ready to release ourselves from the illusions of badness we repeatedly uphold through compulsive, self-destructive behavior patterns that falsely substantiate our sense of unworthiness? This is how that criminal wheel of suffering and redemption keeps spinning. Perhaps, for instance, we hold onto laziness as an ancient means of protecting parents who didn’t love us. In this example, we carry our laziness as a way to blame ourselves for our parents rejecting behavior. In other words, we deserve rejection because we are lazy. This keeps us from being confronted with the impersonal reality that they may just have been incapable of loving, and it was not our fault. Are we ready to face this truth, allow ourselves to break the criminal hold of self-destructive behavior and release the parents we’ve held onto for some kind of security? Can we release ourselves from this ancient flawed perspective and accept our lovability? Are we ready to be the adult self that suspends judgment and frees our innocence, seeing clearly, and releasing all who crushed our hopefulness and joy?
Are we ready to not flip self-blame into blame? If we attach to blaming others we remain bound to a new criminal. This is not about having to forgive. This is about being an adult and an innocent self, ready to open to life with a new found wholeness. With the truth revealed, the self is no longer bound by old ideas and fragmentations. The criminals, once needed to house unrecapitulated events, can be released.
Are we ready to come out of the shell of the blamed self and allow fresh air to touch our innocence? Lifting the veil of self-blame takes great courage and may take a lifetime, but it promises fulfillment in this life and opens the door to new worlds of possibility.
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.
