Category Archives: Chuck’s Blog

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.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Journey of Love

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All is love.
– Artwork © 2021 by Jan Ketchel

Love is the glue of Oneness. Ultimately, everything adheres as part of the Oneness, though in our journeys of separation, distinctions veil our underlying interconnectedness. Our soul’s evolution marks love’s stages of refinement, as we find our way home to the greater Oneness.

The journey of this life begins with separation from one’s most local oneness, what has been called one’s soul group. An analogy to this group might be the consortium of cells that make up an organ, say, the liver, in the human body. Though all cells in the body share an underlying similarity and interconnectedness, those of the liver share a more specialized cohesion that makes their grouping a unique cell group.

Similarly, one’s soul group has journeyed together in various permutations, as well as separately, to solve karmic challenges that impact the group. Individual successes contribute to group wholeness and preparedness to venture further into the ever-unfolding mystery of continued life.

The refinement of love through this life and beyond is the awakening and receptivity to the increasingly subtle dimensions of life and its greater interconnectedness. In journeying deeper into the ability to love all, one finds their way home to Oneness.

Entering a life on Earth, our individual soul begins a physical life through attachment to family. This is the first experience of love in this life, which is supported by many archetypal promptings to protect and nurture the young. Love at this stage is largely the meeting of basic needs, which allows development to proceed. Ruptures in family attachments are frequent and often provide the context for one’s karmic mission in this life.

For love to move beyond the narcissistic imperative to shore up the self, one must establish a well-grounded ego, capable of basic trust. To truly enter the world of relationship, one must be able to grant another their own existence beyond their ability to satisfy one’s personal needs. The refinement of love at this stage is the ability to authentically meet the soul of an other.

Love is further refined when one can value all life with equanimity. This is the love that values all peoples, in all cultures. This is the love that values the planet as a living being needing our loving support. This is the love that realizes that all beings, even our greatest enemies, are at various stages in their own refinement to love.

See all your worthy opponents as providing opportunities to refine your relationship with love. To love a petty tyrant, we must get beyond our attachment to experiences that rendered us victims. These are the greatest challenges of all, as they frequently result in confrontation with unresolved trauma that has been walled off by a moat of defenses.

These journeys of recapitulation and resolution take us into the core issue of love, within the self: total acceptance of all one has experienced, all that one has done, and all that has been done to one. This is the essence of soul retrieval, a total consolidation of self.

Full acceptance includes the knowing that we live in a predatory universe and that our pure innocent selves will be wounded in life. Retrieving and freeing the wounded parts of ourselves is followed by a matured innocence daring to venture back out into the world, despite the known and unknown dangers.

Perhaps the finest refinement of love is helping, as a way of life. The first impulse many get after a Near Death Experience (NDE) is to write a book, to share the good news of life after life with others. To gift others with the knowledge we have gained aids all in their personal journeys of love’s refinement.

Of course, no-one can ever carry nor solve the burdens of others, but one can offer love, patience and knowledge to another in their own encounters with the predatory universe. This is love freely given, no expectation or need for reciprocity.

All life journeys are journeys in the refinement of love. The greater the refinement, the greater the advancement in soul groups, as they join with fellow soul groups on that ultimate journey of Oneness, and then, of course, beyond.

In refinement,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Being In Presence

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Being in presence…
– Photo by Chuck

Our truest parent is our Spirit, which has provided us with a reflection of itself as an ego entity, and charged us to lead this human life of material being with consciousness, on  a mission of progress, the underlying intent of all nature.

Spirit’s material clothing for its fledgling offspring is the prefrontal neocortex of the brain, that houses the functions and states of ego that make conscious decision making possible. Spirit, in its intent for progress, equipped little ego spirit with the ability to alter the accrued binding laws of life, known as archetypes, which, without interference, directed life actions until the dawn of ego consciousness.

Ego, with its ability to quickly override the rules of its conservative evolutionary inheritance, is nonetheless still but a child quaking in its boots, as it assumes its assigned task to responsibly lead both its individual life and the life of the planet. The world stage today reflects ego’s developmental struggle to emerge from its insecure narcissistic adolescence into assuming true adult responsibility, for the greater good of all.

Spirit never abandoned its ego progeny; its eyes rest peacefully and lovingly—but not interferingly—behind the ego’s eyes that, of necessity, remain fixated upon the outer material view of the world. What Kahlil Gibran counsels all parents, as regards their children, applies to Spirit as well:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 

Nonetheless, Spirit’s seeing is not encumbered by the shadows that veil  ego’s perception and interpretation of its limited worldview. Spirit sees ego’s projections upon its fellow humans that mirror its own unknown or disavowed self. Spirit sees the power drives of the archetypes, powerful spirits in their own right, competing and vying for life through the ego’s decisions on life’s earthly stage.

Ego, in its humbleness, might at any moment turn inward and ask its Spirit what it sees. Spirit never judges; all roads lead to evolution and must be trodden. Spirit only tells the truth if ego seeks its guidance. If ego is hiding from the truth, Spirit will show it this truth by way of a compensating dream.

Spirit will suggest ego get calm and notice all the events that are happening within its purview, from a blinking light to a cardinal’s song to an open book that falls to the floor. This is the language of truth that greets all of us every day, in every which way we turn.

Spirit also offers ego the communion of being in presence. In the quiet calm of meditation, as the sensory world is put to rest, ego and Spirit come home to each other in the deepest of calmness and oneness of being. Ego can walk any road in life with the knowing of this most intimate relationship ever present, within and without.

Walk with confidence and tread lovingly,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: I Want

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Spirit wants matter…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In the beginning was  Intent, and Intent attracted to it a material world and all life in it. Intent, as represented in thought and image, is the magnetic blueprint that draws to it the material life we are in. One “I” of “I want” is the intent of our spirit  that has drawn to us the physical body we don during our human journey in this world.

Our spirit body, the home of intent, is composed of our high self, ego self, and subconscious self.

From the high self is delivered the blueprint for the life we will enter. This encapsulates our spirit’s intent, our mission for the life we are in.

The ego is the seat of our individual consciousness that allows us choice, our personal connection to intent, within the life of our spirit’s design.

The subconscious is the home of the desire body that, through the law of attraction, transforms suggestion (spirit) into physical existence (matter). When the subconscious is given the suggestion, “I want,” it automatically prepares the body to receive and act to produce the desired outcome.

The subconscious is a highly sophisticated manufacturing and maintenance facility. The subconscious is nature’s brain. The subconscious automatically operates all physical systems and cycles of life, without consciousness, in the human body.

The subconscious does not think, it follows orders. Its inborn orders are the genetics, instincts and archetypes that govern a specific species. The subconscious also has access to the akashic library, the reservoir of all human experience and knowledge, past and present.

When life presents us with any circumstance, the subconscious scans its resources and activates the program it associates most specifically to the situation presented. This action is called habit; no conscious thinking involved. When we drive and someone runs in front of us, the subconscious automatically reads the danger and directs the foot to brake.

The subconscious can be influenced by suggestions beyond the dominant programs of nature. The ego can choose actions that override nature’s laws. Though we may be dead tired, we can force ourselves to stay awake. Though we are attracted to somebody, we can choose not to approach them. Though we may not be truly hungry, we can force ourselves to eat.

The ego, with its constant internal dialogue, writes programs that the subconscious obeys. Thus, if my ego tells itself that it is inferior, the subconscious activates neurotransmitters that provide it with a depressed mood.

The subconscious also receives the suggestions that spirit forces seek to deliver to us. The universal law to progress, in this life and beyond, is to be helpful to those whom one can truly help. Spirits beyond human life, who have evolved and have guidance to offer, known as spirit guides and guardian angels, constantly offer helpful suggestions to our subconscious minds, the medium that receives their subtle energetic impressions.

These suggestions suddenly burst forth upon our ego consciousness in the form of images, thoughts, intuitions, inspirations and wants that the subconscious presents to the ego as it awaits orders. Often the ego is unaware of the origin of these offerings ushered upon consciousness by the subconscious acting as medium to spirit.

Frequently, the ego takes credit for these creations in an inflated state of grandiosity. Nonetheless, consciousness is given the opportunity to examine the suggestion and choose a course of action. However, the ego must choose wisely, as not all suggestions are the offerings of benevolent spirits!

Just as the living human race is challenged by greed and self interest, so is the spirit world populated by souls at different levels of development. Many a departed soul clings to life in this material world through association with the physically living. Though their suggestions might appear desirable, their human impact might prove detrimental. Choose wisely.

To return to the phrase ‘I want’, we do well to question who the ‘I’ is within us. Suggestions abound from the spirit world, and the material world, in the form of subtle marketing suggestions. These suggestions are impressed upon the subconscious, with many rising to the level of consciousness, for review.

To really claim ownership of ‘I’, consciousness must own and agree to the suggestion. This is called acting responsibly. Acting without conscious reflection is ego signing up for a temporary state of possession. Though the ego remains responsible for its actions in this case, those actions are likely irresponsible.

When ‘I want’ chooses with consciousness, for the greater good of self and other, we can be certain that the ‘want’ is the desire body acting to manifest the intent of the higher self in the flow of our human life. And that is what I want!

I Want the greater good,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Advancement

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Advancement… seeking ever higher…
– Photo by Chuck Ketchel

Memorial Day invites our attention to connect with those who have passed beyond physical life into pure spirit existence. In fact, we are all currently in spirit existence, for the soul that will someday pass on from physical life is alive and operational now, deeply attached to the physical body, at this very moment.

Those souls that have released from the physical body awaken to discover that their soul body, though lighter and brighter than their former physical body, is its exact replica or blueprint, the reason shamans have always called it the double. The desire of the soul body to sojourn for a life on the physical plane attracted to it the dense matter that clothed its soul during its earthly life, in the form of a physical garment.

Souls beyond physical life are often shocked to discover that nothing has changed. The soul and character that they lived in mortal life is the exact same soul and character they arrive with in the afterlife. The first great task in the afterlife is to fully recapitulate the life just lived, in the fullness of truth. Deeds and misdeeds must be acknowledged and reconciled before the soul can truly advance into the subtler possibilities of life in the afterlife.

What separates souls in this evolved position, from most people still in physical habitation, is the lightness of being and higher vibration of soul states beyond the sensory spectrum of the physical body. Nonetheless, these souls innervate our world and readily communicate through the medium of synchronicity, dream visitations, and, for those whose psychic channels have opened, clairvoyance and clairaudience. The spontaneous thoughts that arrive to us daily, through song or creative inspiration, are often the suggestions of guiding souls.

Those who reside in the higher vibrational dimensions, concentric with our Earth, are frequently dedicated to lives of service, the key to advancement on all planes of existence. Life on the Earth plane is socialized, from early on, to accumulate material wealth as its most important goal. The byproduct of this emphasis is a narrow narcissistic worldview that veils over our more fundamental interdependent whole.

The transparency of interconnectedness prevails in the afterlife, where everyone is confronted with the shadow of their former earthly life. That which remains unfulfilled must be completed. The burden of wrongs accumulated must be righted. Advancement demands completion and restitution. This is the law of compensation, cause and effect, and karma that prevails in all dimensions. This is not about being judged by anyone; it’s about living the necessary balance required by the truth of life lived.

Service at the soul-body level, delivered to the greater good for all, is both a means to give back that which was wrongfully taken and, more importantly, to refine one’s relationship to love, the most crucial factor to advancement on all levels of being.

Those of us still in human form do well to listen to the promptings of our own spirit, as well as to the suggestions offered to us through the spirit channels of those we memorialize, who live across the bridge we will all someday cross.

Granted, not all spirits have awakened to their greater potential and some may even seek human accomplice to their cravings. We must be careful how we interact, and so it is good to exercise keen judgment and assume full conscious responsibility for all our thoughts and actions.

Nonetheless, the guidance to be of service, to be fair, and to be loving in this life, particularly toward the promptings of our own spirit, who seeks only our advancement, is surely the road to fulfillment in this life, and beyond.

With love,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog, News and Notes

A MEMORIAL DAY GREETING

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Greetings to all whose physical lives were sacrificed,

On the battlefields of Earth in all times past and present.
To those who have yet to become aware of their changed life status,
Caught still in the PTSD of battlefield trauma,
Be awakened now by the thoughts and prayers of your earthly Brethren.
Look around at the oft relived scenes of your prior battles;
Notice they are no longer substantial.
Notice the luminous transparency of your Spirit body.
Yes you have died and yes you live.
Turn your gaze upward to the loving faces, the welcoming arms,
Of those family, friends and comrades who predeceased you.
Join them in your new lightness of being.
Sending love and good cheer from this dimension to yours,
Let us remain connected in Spirit even across this denser divide,
In time we will all fully unite.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSW
May 31, 2021