Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.

This morning I thought about someone whom I am deeply concerned about. I must be careful to remain present to the signs that direct me to act upon my concern. Were I to act impetuously upon my concern, versus reading the more objective signs placed before me, I would be addressing my needs and not truly the needs of the other. I had the opportunity to inquire about this person in conversation with another. Instead, I heeded an inner command: Don’t ask! The energy of my curiosity, with its myriad of thought associations, quickly dissipated. I moved on, stayed present, and wondered: What will the day bring?

The action, to not ask, is based on the intent to stay present, to trust the flow of energy, as it presents itself in the unfolding of the day, to highlight what is meaningful and most necessary for my attention. This is letting go of control. Asking takes me out of the flow. It would send me on an inner expedition, on roads of thought off the path of the greater energetic flow of the present moment. Furthermore, that detour activates a string of associative thoughts that generate images, feelings, and a slew of possibilities, all of which generate energy. When energy is generated in thought, about a person, it acts upon that person, like calling them on the phone.

This was why, for most of his adult life upon this earth, Carlos Castaneda was the ultimate trickster of anonymity. No one could get near him. No one ever really knew who he was, or where or when he was born. He, like the shamans of his line, positioned himself to be shielded from the energetic consequences of people’s thoughts about him by assuming personas that kept him illusive and untouchable. At a tensegrity workshop, I recall him sharing a story of going to a party where he was introduced to Carlos Castaneda. He joked that this Carlos Castaneda was playing Carlos Castaneda quite well. Obviously, the fact that Carlos was sharing this story to a large group of tensegrity practitioners showed a shift in his need to uphold total anonymity. In fact, he had become quite enamored with the use of the internet to communicate to the masses.

We live in a time where the sharing of personal information and staying connected at increasingly faster speeds dominates the world economy and networks of communication. The challenge of our time, as recipients of these energetic invitations, is to filter the superfluous and the predatory from the truly meaningful and energetically necessary. This is how we need to protect our energy in the modern world, as the shamans did through the use of anonymity in their time.

Of course, there are times when it is appropriate to ask. However, for me, this is when synchronicity places the issue before me in the present moment in a way that resonates; it becomes clear that it is time to act, to actively pursue the path of acting upon concern for another. This discernment filters out both my inner curiosity as well as the static of outer energetic invitations, the thoughts of others, which present but don’t require attachment.

By not asking, because it is not necessary to ask, I both maintain my energy to fund my awareness to stay present, as well as not burden another with the energy of my attention. To simply not ask is a highly pragmatic tool to conserve energy, remain present, and support the greater tool of detachment. So, try it, don’t ask! See what happens!

As always, should anyone wish to write or ask, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.

On New Year’s Eve, Jan took me to a most unusual yoga class. The entire class focused on softening, just allowing the body to gently and slowly sink deeply into a few asanas. I found my body responding, awakening to an old memory of infinite release.

I first contemplated infinity as a young boy, daydreaming in a grammar school classroom. I reasoned, back then, that a small finite grain of sand was infinite because if you cut it in half, and then cut it again and again the process would never end, there would always be something to halve again. Of course, I realized that the instruments that would be needed to halve the diminishing grain probably did not exist, but this didn’t change the reality that infinity existed in the halving process.

With my body, it’s the same experience. I focus on an area and intend it to relax, release, or soften. Immediately it responds. As it arrives at its new place it presents a new sensation, or boundary, that is actually a new, albeit lesser, level of tension. If I keep my awareness on this new place and once again ask my body to release, off it goes, to a new place, half as tense as a moment before. This process could go on forever, if I could hold my awareness on it.

At the end of the yoga class, I mentioned to the teacher, Nicolas, how wonderful and effortless was the stretching. I was gently reprimanded for my use of the word stretching to describe the process. What he teaches is softening, no pressure or rigor applied to the muscles, simply a deepening of release, allowing the body to find its own way. In my experience, it’s keeping my awareness on the muscle, noticing its level of tension, and asking it to release. It seems always capable of softening to a new level of tension.

Ultimately, I experience this as a gateway to my energy body and infinity. At a certain point in the softening process my body, as a physical form, disappears, dissolving into sheer energy. For me, the sound of energy kicks in at that point, an almost deafening vibratory sound. It feels like an energetic massage and attunement. This is an opportunity to maintain awareness in a sheer energetic state of interconnectedness, awareness without a body.

What I am describing is an extremely pragmatic tool to access the energy body. Bringing your awareness innerly, by focusing on your physical body, sending it the intent to soften, again and again, is a gateway to infinity. It requires no books, no training, no money, simply the honing of awareness to the sensations of the body with the intent to go deeper and deeper into softening. This is a tool anyone can hone, at any time and any place, through a simple shift of awareness and intent. Try it!

As always, should anyone wish to write, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.

Students of meditation are well aware of the monkey mind, with its undisciplined, ADD, free-associative activity determined to derail any attempt to rein in its mental dominance of our energetic selves. Shamans have labeled the mind a foreign installation, seeing its alien energetic activity as frantic back and forth energy compared to the swirling circulative flow of the other vital energy centers of the body. One thing is certain, the mind is a conjurer, and left to its own devices it will monopolize our lives with thoughts that evoke all kinds of emotional activity that drain our vital energy. If we are ever to gain full possession of our energy to journey beyond the veils we must find a way to detach from the seductive control of the mighty conjurer, the mind.

Two dominant religious traditions, Buddhism and Christianity, offer images to address the challenge of the conjuring mind, each picturing a man and a tree. In Buddhism, Buddha sits utterly still beneath the bodhi tree as the conjurer floods him relentlessly with images beckoning his attachment. Similarly, Christ is utterly contained, nailed to his tree/cross as he detaches from his conjuring mind in his reconciliation with God. In mythology, Odysseus, like Christ, strapped himself to the tree/mast of his ship to refuse the call of the conjuring Sirens in order to survive his journey. These are dramatic examples of restraint from attachment to the conjurer’s offerings. Jeanne speaks more simply of detachment in the flow of everyday life. She coaches us to use our intent to refuse the conjurer by stating: “Don’t attach!”

I have found this practice extremely effective. There was a time when the conjurer could trap my energy in an obsessive mental process of worry as it projected countless scenarios that might possibly occur, some so frightening that they absolutely demanded attachment. Over time, I observed that almost none of these projected scenes ever came to fruition, though they might just as well have, given the emotional energy they had consumed. I also observed that when a real challenge presented itself I spontaneously handled it with no advance cognitive process. I eventually began to trust that I could count on my challenged self to act in my best interest and that the real trick was to empower that self with sufficient stored energy. The way to store energy was to cut off its depletion by not attaching to the incessant sales pitches of the conjurer. I learned to state my intent: Don’t attach! In the beginning, I’d state it incessantly, singing the don’t attach song, rapidly blocking the intensity of the conjurer’s intrusive thoughts. Today, I can state don’t attach, once or twice, and the thought and image disappear and calm emptiness is restored.

I agree with the shamans that the key is perseverance over time. The mind usually wins because it puts up a big fight in the short run and we are tempted to give up, give in, and simply feed its demand to perseverate. Defeated, we think: I really have to get back to learning to meditate. I suggest, keep it simple. You don’t have to sit still in a lotus position or strap yourself to a tree. Simply move along and state: Don’t attach! And, oh yes, then don’t attach to the outcome. In other words, suspend judgment, be persevering, and watch what happens!

As always, should anyone wish to write, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.

Until we meet again,
Chuck