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.

December ninth marks the eighth anniversary of Jeanne’s transition into the fullness of her energy body, in infinity. I have never wavered in my emotional reaction to her death, though I feel deeply the sadness of our children who lost their earthly mother before they themselves reached adulthood. I still find deep contentment at having successfully guarded Jeanne’s intent in this world up to her final decision of when to leave. Since then I have allowed myself to participate in an evolutionary journey of love beyond the personal.

I am most thankful, though not surprised, that Jeanne found a way to turn her attention back to this world, as we had intended, if at all possible. After her death, as she united with the fullness of her lives and loves through many journeys in this world, she chose to open the channel back to our journey together and share her ongoing lessons in infinity. Sometimes I am simply spellbound at her ability to still mother her children. Today, I reflect upon my experiences of, and personal transformation through, these lessons.

I love; I love deeply, but I am no longer attached to the specialness or the possessiveness of love. Had I not learned this lesson the door to a continued relationship with the evolved Jeanne would have remained closed. This is the challenge of death. If we cling to the specialness of what we had we can’t go forward in an evolving relationship.

My family now is far more comprehensive. It is the family of energy, with no special distinctions, no special advantages. I travel with those with whom there is resonance and connection because it is energetically right, not for reasons of self-interest. I have learned, over time, to clarify and understand and not dismiss non-resonant energy, to respect its purpose in our energetic family. The energy I flow with is of an evolutionary bend, as if the head of a fish is the resonant energy, while all energy is included in the body of the fish. The rear of the fish is as significant as the head. It is evident that many in the world today are resonant with this evolutionary energy that seeks a dramatic shift.

I live a life of evolutionary change. I totally trust energy. In my career I seek no advantage. I push not to make connections, to market, to manipulate, to survive and prosper through winning or being special. I will not enter any agreements of self-promotion. I trust that my intent to be aligned with evolutionary energy will provide. This has been proven in the signs and guidance I have received and the decisions I have made based on my reading of these synchronicities. I constantly refuse the urging of the old ways to take advantage. I am certain that our next global state of evolution transcends markets, consumers, accumulation, and unfair advantage. For me, it’s all energy; reading it and acting in the right alignment versus reading it to get rich. What this boils down to is decision making that is right, not decision making that seeks only personal gain, turning a blind eye to the needs of the whole.

We are all interconnected. In order for there to be global advancement, self-interest must expand to include the greater self, the world. The old paradigm of Us against Them is so played out. I must admit, though my love for Obama is deep, and I wanted it to be different, the truth is, this old story was putting the cadets to sleep this week as Obama spoke at West Point. Why couldn’t Obama have watched Joan Baez on PBS’s American Masters series before he made his decision? Joan, the Quaker, walked with Martin Luther King in deeply resonant non-violent revolutionary energy. Obama is the maturation of that energetic dream. Why more troops and CIA drones? We are back in the old boring story of the good and the evil ones, completely separate entities.

The new paradigm truly acknowledges the interconnectedness of all things. If there are terrorists, and there are, then we are connected and part of that terrorism. It is not a separate entity. We are acting in such a way as to create terrorism as a necessary balance, letting the tail lead the fish. We cannot separate ourselves and simply drone out the terrorist extreme. In fact, the more we attempt to obliterate it, the more tenacious we invite its extremist counter reaction.

Can we be courageous enough to reflect upon why the world has come to need terrorists? Can we look inside our own inner truths and see our own deep attachment to self-advantage, self-interest, self-accumulation, and self-comfort at the expense of, and exploitation of, others? Competition is a vital energetic reality but, honestly, when have we ever really played fair? Terrorism both reflects and matches unfair play. If we can embrace a policy of fair play that truly respects the whole fish, we dismantle the compensatory need for terrorism. The real enemy is quite personal. In my view, we all need to examine which self interest we truly serve: our personal wants and desires, those of our immediate family, or those of the greater family of all interconnected energy? To balance that energy and move it forward in a new way now is our evolutionary challenge of survival for this world. The head of the fish must consider the whole fish as it navigates now, or the tail will continue to spin us out of control in its own effort to awaken the head to the needs of the whole.

These are some of the love lessons I have learned as I continue my journey with the evolving Jeanne.

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.

Several years ago, at a Tensegrity training in Barcelona we, the practitioners, were assigned to answer, in writing, the question: “Who am I?”. I was sure I had the correct sorcery definition of self: “I am a being who is going to die.” The truth was, however, that I was a being in hiding, terrified to speak a word in this foreign land. My high school Spanish blended with my college German to form a “foreign language,” the same language that comes to me whether in a Spanish speaking or German speaking country. To avoid humiliation my self-importance chose to become mute. In one store I opened my shaking hands filled with change, holding them like a beggar, while the disdainful shopkeeper picked out the appropriate coins for payment of my purchase. In this moment, the tent of my intent was the cloak of the beggar, embodying my fear and shame.

Jan and Jeanne, in Message #606 The Mystery and Magic of Intent, explored the notion of identifying the intent we are attached to and learning to free ourselves from being bound by that intent. Our personal intent creates a tent around us that embodies that intent; we physically become that intent. In Jan’s dream, Carlos Castaneda introduced her to a magical pass to remove this tent of intent as follows:

Removing The Tent of Intent Magical Pass: Imagine that a sheet is draped over your head and your intent is to remove it. Stand with legs slightly bent at the knees, feet comfortably apart. Bending the left arm at the elbow, palm facing up, raise it to the side of the head above the left ear even with the top of the head, elbow pointing straight ahead. Breathing in, hook the sheet with curled fingers and gracefully push it away, with a definite and forceful exhalation, in a downward sweep out to the left, which then rises in a wavelike gesture away from the body ending with left arm fully extended at shoulder level, fingers pointing to the side and palm back. Return arm to left side. Do this on the right side as well. Repeat at least three times.

In shamanistic terms, when we remove the tent of intent we allow for a shift in the assemblage point, a ball of awareness on our luminous body that, depending upon its position, determines how we interpret who we are and the world we live in. However slight that shift, we become a being unfamiliar to ourselves. With that shift our body changes, our thoughts change, our feelings change, our “issues” change, time changes. We step out of the familiar into new possibility, perhaps for a moment, like a deja vu experience, or permanently, a new being.

Sorcerers have many techniques to remove the tent of intent. They propose that the number one reason we remain familiar, ad nauseam, to ourselves, is our incessant internal dialogue that constantly tells us what we think, what we feel, who we are, and how to act, which we then obligingly manifest in our bodies. This creates the tent of our intent. Shamans would argue that we unconsciously perform self-hypnosis all the time to maintain a consistently familiar sense of self. One exception is in dreaming where the tent of our intent is automatically lifted as the assemblage point is dislodged from its habitual position. This is why shamans place a premium on learning The Art of Dreaming, taught in Carlos Castaneda’s book of the same name. To counter the incessant internal dialogue shamans employ practices to achieve a state of Inner Silence. A set of magical passes for inner silence can be found in Carlos Castaneda’s book Magical Passes.

Another sorcery method to remove the tent of intent is the practice of Not Doings. Not doings are behaviors individually selected to interrupt the energetic flow of habitual patterns. For instance, wearing two different shoes, two different socks, underwear turned backwards, or creating an OCD ritual for a day all serve to disrupt the typical self-hypnotic suggestions that we normally operate under to embody our familiar sense of self. Sorcerers embark on more extended not doings in a practice they call Stalking, where they literally embody the habits and behaviors of an unfamiliar personality, freeing themselves from their familiar selves, going so far as to actually change their names and live as new characters, a kind of improvisation gone semi-permanent. This volitional interruption of the habitual energetic flow of the self develops the ability to fluidly remove one’s tent of intent. I would add to these practices the use of conscious self-hypnosis to disrupt the flow of unconscious self-hypnosis. Create your personal mantra, state it incessantly, like saying an unending rosary. Watch what happens!

Shamans and physicists tell us that all things are connected. The thesis of The Holographic Universe, as presented by Michael Talbot in his book of the same name, suggests that infinity exists, all things exist, in every grain of sand. Everything that exists, exists in you and in me. What is it then that gives us definition, our tent of intent? I believe don Juan’s answer to this question would be our predilection, our personal preferences. In other words, what tent of intent do we choose, perhaps forsaking all others, though with fluidity we have access to them all. If we are able to remove the tent of intent we are free to explore and embody infinite possibility, or simply change.

If today I were asked the same question that was posed in Barcelona (Who am I?) my response would be: I am a being intent upon becoming unfamiliar to myself, intent upon removing the tent of intent.

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

NOTE: The books mentioned in this article are available in our Store. This is not a sales pitch, simply a convenient link.

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.

The good news is this: when shamans view the energetic state of human beings they see the big baby as an inevitable consequence of our human predicament. In other words: IT IS NOT OUR FAULT. IT IS BEYOND OUR CONTROL.

Shamans observe that we enter life with a high sheen surrounding our energetic cocoon. Shamans call this sheen our glow of awareness. Shamans have discovered that this energetic glow is food for inorganic beings, which are self-contained energetic entities that lack physical form; hence remain unseen by human eyes. Shamans call these specific inorganic beings, that prey upon the human glow of awareness, flyers, due to their energetic form and behaviors.

Shamans observe that flyers actually feed upon the glow of awareness of all human beings. Shamans maintain that the universe is predatory. If we reflect upon our own feeding behaviors, or that of all life forms on earth, we can see this same predatory principle in action: life feeds upon life. As grotesque as it is, why would we humans be exempt from serving as a food source for another form of life?

Shamans observe that without our glow of awareness we die. Furthermore, they observe that if we lose some of our glow it does indeed grow back. Flyers are careful, when they feed, to leave enough of our glow on our energetic cocoon so that it will grow back for future feeding. Through this method of “sustainable agriculture” they are assured a replenished food source.

Shamans state that flyers leave the glow of awareness in tact from the level of the ground up to the toes; this is the epicenter of self-reflection; this fixation of awareness at ground level creates the big baby. The big baby simply cannot see beyond itself. It is caught in self-neediness, self-pity, self-survival, self-importance, and its entitlement to be given recognition, value, care, love, and attention from without. Don Juan states that when caught in self-reflection we become easily offended, causing emotional embroilments that result in spikes in our glow of awareness that the flyers, in turn, consume. Don Juan instructed Carlos Castaneda to observe carefully the behavior of seemingly mature adults whom he admired, for instance, certain professors. Carlos discovered that behind the veil of maturity was a well-hidden insatiable self-importance, greedily seeking the admiration of all.

The good news, from the shamanic world, is that this human predicament is correctable. Shamans discovered that if we can break our attachment to the tyranny of the big baby’s perspective, that of self-reflection, etc., our growing glow of awareness changes texture, whereby it becomes distasteful to the flyers palate and they leave us alone. We are then able to restore our full glow of awareness around our energetic cocoon, freeing us from the limitations of self-reflection.

Through the centuries, shamans have devised methods to achieve this detachment from the big baby. One major venue of great relevance and accessibility, in our time, is focusing on our relationships with the petty tyrants in our lives. In general terms, a petty tyrant is anyone or anything that triggers our self-reflection in the form of the experience of feeling offended. This could be a person who refuses to acknowledge us or care about us despite their vows, or someone who blatantly violates us. This could also be a life circumstance, such as poverty or disease that we simply don’t deserve. Behind all offense is a blow to our self-importance: Why me? Being emotionally embroiled in the experience of being offended becomes the perfect opportunity to learn detachment. Shamans would call detachment arriving at a place of no pity, no self-pity, while caught by the “offensive behavior” of a petty tyrant. By arriving at a place of no self-pity in an interaction with a petty tyrant, who is indeed subtly or blatantly violating us, frees us from the self-reflective perspective of the big baby. We simply don’t take it personally.

This does not mean that we must turn the other cheek and allow ourselves to be hurt. However, we can free our defensive actions from the offended place of abuse and victimhood, shift to an objective perspective, and take appropriate action. Simply put, this means not taking the behavior of the petty tyrant personally, no matter how personally directed it is. From this perspective we can see the interrelationship of all things, which includes the petty tyrant as necessary, as both a dark force and as a teacher. After all, success in detachment from the big baby when encountering the petty tyrant frees our glow of awareness, enabling it to restore to its natural state, allowing us a much broader perspective of life.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of this detachment is a newfound ability to truly love. To love another requires going beyond the fixation of self-reflection, the big baby. I repeat: detachment is the highest form of love. Until we can fully detach from the self, we are not available to see, be with, or give to another without some level, however hidden, of self-interest.

Learning to detach from the big baby allows us unconditional compassion for all. We see the connection between the self and all things. Our glow of awareness, fully restored, is now capable of truly engaging the world beyond the self.

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.

Recently, I received a copy of a translation of a chapter from the Spanish edition of Carlos Castaneda’s 1981 book The Eagle’s Gift; this chapter is absent from the English edition. I was not aware of this missing chapter and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Like all of Castaneda’s works, it is timeless. Today, from this chapter, I select the proposition of skimming for discussion: the process that all human beings undergo to perceive a world of solid objects.

Seers, shamans who see energy as it flows in the universe, describe a universe filled with luminous filaments that they believe embody an infinite variety of perceptual possibilities that impress themselves upon our senses. What gives rise to the cohesive world we live in is a process of selecting only certain energetic filaments. This is skimming. Shamans call the resulting ability to perceive a world of solid objects the first attention. In effect, the selected filaments are highlighted while others disappear into the background, ignored and dismissed. Shamans claim that children are naturally open to the vastness of these filaments and only through the process of socialization by the adults in their lives are they taught to narrow their selection process to arrive at the agreed upon perception of the world. Children’s perceptions of imaginary beings, ghosts and creatures that evoke night terrors, might better be understood as a time when expanded perceptual possibilities are still readily available, before the dominance of the first attention has set in. These children are frequently brought to therapists who participate in the socialization process by helping children to learn to dismiss their “empty imaginings” as fantasy, not real and substantial.

The older we get the more intense the socialization as the boundaries of the first attention, with rationality at its core, become thicker and almost impossible to penetrate. What results is a completely known and predictable world: innocence lost. Shamans are emphatic that once the first attention is consolidated it admits no knew perceptual possibilities, all sensory data is interpreted to conform to a rational world of solid objects. The appearance of any “irrational phenomena” is quickly shrouded in doubt and skepticism, explained away and subsumed by the constructs of the first attention. The first attention will never be convinced of a world beyond itself.

Shamans have discovered that to retrieve our lost innocence, that is, to explore the full potential of our perceptual possibilities, we must cancel out the first attention, if only for a moment. Shamans and non-shamans alike have discovered that psychoactive drugs can cancel the first attention and allow for expanded perception. However, the danger with drugs is that once an individual leaves the first attention under their influence they may not find their way back. In psychological terms this failure to return is called psychosis. The shamans of Carlos Castaneda’s line discovered that dreaming and physical movements called Magical Passes are far superior approaches to leaving the first attention and accessing what they call the second attention, where an individual perceives energy untethered by the restrictive skimming of the first attention. These methods allow the practitioner to develop mastery and control of the second attention, which becomes a perceptual option to be exercised at will or by intent.

Shamans appreciate our fuller evolutionary potential to access both the first attention and the second attention. They understand both addiction and spiritual striving as attempts to actualize this fuller potential. Their contributions include pragmatic methods to safely enter a world of energy. The point is to arrive at a viable second attention that can perceive energy as fluidly as the first attention perceives a world of objects, not to expand the first attention to include the second attention, this is not possible. This is the shortcoming of trying to prove any irrational experience to the rational mind. The goal is to have the option to fluidly access and live in both attentions. Ironically, we do anyway; we simply don’t realize it or dismiss it. The dominance of the skimmings of the first attention makes the fuller reality fade into the background, but it is there nonetheless.

When confronted with this paradox, a world of solid objects and a world of energy, Carlos asked don Juan whether indeed objects were solid. Don Juan answered that of course objects were solid, but first they were energy. He urged Carlos to fully appreciate the miracle of the first attention, but to actualize his fuller potential by restoring his innocence in the second attention.

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.

Clara laughed and took a sip of water. “To change, we need to meet three conditions,” she said. “First, we must announce out loud our decision to change so that intent will hear us. Second, we must engage our awareness over a period of time: We can’t just start something and give it up as soon as we become discouraged. Third, we have to view the outcome of our actions with a sense of complete detachment. This means we can’t get involved with the idea of succeeding or failing.” *

In this quote, Taisha Abelar, a cohort of Carlos Castaneda, recounts her sorcery training with Clara Grau, a sorceress from don Juan’s party. We examine Clara’s three steps to enact change in detail.

1. Literally voice your intent. Shout it out loud.

2. Develop a practice and stick with it, no matter what.

3. Have no attachment to the outcome of your practice.

Intent: The shamans insist that intent is an independent energy that exists in the universe, a vast pool. Shamans engage intent through calling for it out loud, beckoning it as they forge a link between their stated intent and this vast energetic pool of intent. The use of prayer and mantras in other traditions also taps the power of intent.

Practice: Shamans engage in many practices to allow their intent to manifest. These include the execution of magical passes, recapitulation, and the art of dreaming. Sorcerers are extremely pragmatic. They insist that practitioners just do these practices and discover for themselves where they lead. Hence, sorcerers do not profess a belief system, they merely report their experiences that have proven to be consistent over time, thus they have accumulated a cohesive body of knowledge. Again though, each individual must discover for themselves the validity of this knowledge through personal experience. The practices one might select to enact change ought to have personal resonance. Practices such as yoga, martial arts, running, breathing, meditating, etc., are all equally valid paths to change. Clara’s central point is the necessity to persevere in one’s practice. Many intentions imbued with promise wash away like sand castles on the shores of inertia. Repetitive practice is critical to all change.

No Attachment: Clara’s final point that we not attach to the outcome of our practice is, perhaps, the most counterintuitive from the point of view of the ego. Most programs for change emphasize the role of the ego with its attachment to a desired outcome. Consider, for instance, any weight loss or body building program that focuses on concrete results in measurable body change. How many times have we attached to such an outcome and, having partially or fully achieved it, regressed to old patterns, only to fall prey to feelings of failure, self-hatred, depression, low self-esteem, defeatism, negativity, self-pity, etc.? By remaining attached to an ego outcome we conjure a world of success and failure, good and bad. In this world of judgments, based on concrete results, we either harness our energy to maintain our completed goals and objectives or fall prey to ego failure. If the ego is allowed to commandeer intent, although it can achieve its goals, it must do so by becoming a task master and control freak, as we enter a world of dominance, threatened with overthrow by subservient energies within the self. The viability of this kind of change is highly precarious. The shamans do acknowledge that the ego plays a necessary part in change. However they limit its role to selecting a practice, following through with that practice, with perseverance, but without attachment to “achievable goals.”

The more subtle limitation of an ego-dominated approach is that it fails to access the energy body, the counterpart of the ego and the physical body. The energy body is the gateway to the world of energy and unlimited possibility. This is at the crux of all shamanic work, to access the vast resources and capabilities of the energy body that remain completely dormant and unknown to a human being that focuses only on the mind and the physical body. The shamans have discovered that the energy body acts on intent, not by the heavy controls of the self-important ego with its goal of mastery and dominance of the physical world. By removing attachment to outcome, whether success or failure, shamans open to the lightness and abilities of the energy body where all things are possible.

Buddha made this same discovery as he sat beneath the bodhi tree and resisted attachment to all ego fears and desires. He realized that we suffer because we attach our intent to these illusions, creating a material manifestation of them or a concrete world to live in. In this concrete world, the ego and the physical manifestations dominate and we are cut off from our pure energy state. Buddha achieved enlightenment and access to unlimited change through non-attachment. Shamans access their energy state, with all its possibilities, by canceling their attachment to outcome. This is available to all. Though it seems contradictory, what is being suggested is to set an intent, engage in a practice, impeccably, yet attach no importance to the end result. Jan once sat in an intensive hypnosis practice where the presenter brought up the subject of auras. Jan simply asked herself, “Oh, I wonder if I can see an aura?” and in the next instant she saw the aura of the presenter, simply by innocently wondering, lightly throwing out an intent, with no expectation. This is the lightness of the energy body, responding to intent, unfettered by ego.

Succinctly stated, the program for change: intent, practice, non-attachment. Try it! See what happens! It will happen, but have no attachment to that!

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

*The Sorcerers’ Crossing: A Woman’s Journey, Taisha Abelar, p. 62. (Available in our store.)