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: Storytelling Beings

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We’re all just tellers of tall tales…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Ever notice how rapidly the mind assembles a story at the slightest hint of a possibility?

Once the story blossoms, all surrounding extraneous events become added details to support the surety of the story, as absolute reality. Yet, many, if not most of the times the story turns out to be just that, a red herring produced by the internal dialogue.

An incredible amount of energy is spent on these stories that are generated nonstop throughout the day. Furthermore, many of the stories evoke emotional reactions that further deplete one’s energetic reserves.

One way to apply the shaman’s dictum to suspend judgment would be to not attach, as the Buddhists would say, to not give attention to our stories. Perhaps we can’t stop the rapid assembly line of thought that creates the stories, but we can say to ourselves the word “story,” as they are presented to consciousness, reminding ourselves to pause and wait for the real facts to arrive.

Intuition sees in the dark, but it’s not always right. Make sure you get the facts. Synchronicity abounds, but it too can get caught in the tangled web of the storytelling trickster within. Tracking energy is a shamanic activity that seeks out genuine expressions of manifested energy, not cogitations of the mind that spin many a sordid tale.

The storytelling function we all possess is in fact an expression of how our intent is used. Someone fails to call us at an agreed upon time. Our creative capacity, our link to intent, is suddenly commandeered by the internal dialogue that then paints its pictures and authors its novels. When we refuse to attach to these unsubstantiated stories we strengthen our control over our link to intent.

Perhaps the most valuable gift from the current state of the world is the rapidity at which new stories are rapidly assembled, constantly changing versions of reality, blatantly assembled before our very eyes! We are suffering from story saturation, yet the lesson is crystal clear: ‘reality’ is created by stories that people agree upon.

We live in a consensus reality that is currently losing its cohesion due to major conflicting interpretations of the facts. The question to ask is, what interpretation has substance, and which is merely a phantom story? A good place to track the truth is following a path of heart. Seek the truth within the heart, beyond the reach of the cogitating mind.

The practice of recapitulation entails reclaiming energy from the stories we have really lived. As we relive our true stories we reclaim the energy they have held. Our freed energy then becomes available to be redeployed toward walking our true path of heart.

Self-importance is truly believing that the story of ourselves, our personal novel, is a best seller! Indeed, it must be, or we wouldn’t be solidly committed to it! This, of course, is the ego’s pitch, and the ego does have a point. If we weren’t so committed to our personal value we truly would cease to exist. This is one definition of schizophrenia: loss of ego, and with it, the ability to commit to a consistent storyline of self.

So yes, we do acknowledge the magic of our being as a story of great continuity. On the other hand, to become too fixated on a consistent story of ourselves clips our wings, limiting all that we might become, in fact, a very changed being.

Storytelling beings that we are, may we create a new story, a substantial world we can all really live and thrive in.

With love,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Discipline of Awe

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Find the pot of gold in every dream…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Suspend judgment, and entertain this dream, the current consensus reality, with the Discipline of Awe:*

An incredibly aggressive, take no prisoners energy, has swept control of world leadership. Mightily, it rests the validity of its case upon the strength of its heated economy, the ultimate defense against want and need.

Meanwhile, the Earth heats up, as the oceans rise and the lands tremble. Denial is the proffered tool of this new consensus reality, promised to stave off all disruptions to normal life. Can that really work?

Enter stage East, the coronavirus, in the home of the heart of world manufacturing. Could a tiny virus seriously challenge the very financial  order that upholds world leadership? Will aggression, denial, and science be able to circumvent collapse? What’s going to happen next?!!!!

The greatest defense against anxious infection from the dream we are in, our current consensus reality, is to rest upon the perch of Awe, which for shamans is the very definition of discipline. Awe is the calmness of Buddha, as he faced, without resistance, but also without attachment, all the extreme dreams of Maya, as they presented themselves to him.

The potential trapping generated by the dream of current reality lies in how powerfully it invites fear and offense. As soon as one succumbs to those emotions they lose their edge. To spend one’s emotional energy in bursts of extremes actually feeds the consensus reality of that dream, a dream dependent upon the energy of both unbridled and tortured emotion.

Yes, the dream we are in now may be experienced as utterly ruthless. Yet, as monstrous as that dream interpretation might be, the current dream’s medicinal value lies in its ability to test us; to drive us to greater awareness, if we refuse to relinquish our emotional energy to it.

Of course, this lands one in a lonely, inadequate position. Because, if one separates oneself from the tenets of the dream—the consensus reality it constructs—one is excommunicated from the safety of the party line. One is sentenced to think for oneself; an overwhelmingly lonely and fragile task.

It’s not that one loses one’s connection to emotion through the discipline of awe, but one does lay claim to one’s emotional self. One is no longer a victim of the formula that siphons one’s energy, but instead becomes totally responsible for one’s own energy.

For example, when we watch a movie, we suspend judgment and temporarily enter the consensus reality of the story. While watching the movie, we will likely have the emotions prescribed by the archetypal theme being dramatized. However, generally, soon after we leave the movie, we are restored to our familiar selves, detached from the characters or emotions of the movie. We reclaim our emotional autonomy and reaffirm our interpretation of reality.

To take possession of one’s emotional self is to have one’s emotions, without subscribing to upholding the reality being presented. In this respect, one exercises one’s ability to have a romance with emotion, without attaching to the dream or story as my agreed-upon reality.

By grabbing onto one’s personal intent, one is freed from the framework and limitations ‘imposed’ by the consensus dream. With intent, one is freed to respectfully change dreams. This is in no way a denial of the consensus dream; it remains quite real. However, it is experienced as only one of many alternatives. There are other consensual realities to join, or perhaps just visit, as a warrior-traveler, embarked upon the definitive journey of freedom.

To remain fully in this consensus dream, the current reality, but to refuse an interpretation of it that renders one a depleted victim, is a form of changing dreams. To see its predatory dominance as an expression of the true condition of life, one that can be used to sharpen awareness by getting over self-importance, transforms the dream into an evolutionary opportunity.

One does not have to agree to attach to a glum interpretation of this consensus dream either; that’s the true course of freedom. That’s the real revolution:  to refuse to be a victim of the consensus dream; to not attach and to not allow one’s emotional energy to be offended, thus sinking into a hopeless interpretation of reality.

The shift beyond this consensus dream is aided by using death as an advisor. Indeed, it is the ultimate shamanic maneuver. In the Tensegrity workshops I attended for many years, every speaker would introduce themselves by stating their name, followed by the qualifier, “…a being who is going to die.”

I have to admit that my own self-importance interfered with my being able to mimic this style of introduction. I never could do it; it seemed rather trite and morbid. However, like all things those shamans did, there was a truly pragmatic value to this ritual.

For one thing, shamans state their names to affirm their full presence in the reality or particular dream they are currently embodying. Secondly, when they remind themselves of their impending deaths, they are accessing being present to this living moment from the perspective of a dying being, a being who is transitioning into a new reality, seeing the ultimate relativity of the dream they are exiting.

From that perspective of relativity they are freed from an all-consuming attachment to present reality; as it is seen as just a moment—albeit significant, as all moments are—unfolding into the greater unfolding of oncoming time, that which is infinity and beyond! Such an encounter with infinity borrows a perspective from beyond this dream that tempers the emotional energy expended in holding onto, or compulsively needing to change, the outcome of the present dream.

Present reality is merely a dream that exists, with equanimity, among an infinity of dreams, all of which offer golden nuggets of awareness. Exploit the current opportunity to the fullest, regardless of outcome. Defeat and conquest are meaningless outcomes next to an infinity of dreams waiting to be lived.

With this expanded perspective, we’ve come full circle, back to awe, the coveted position from which to truly resume, unfettered, our magical journey, appreciative of all the gifts from our many, rich and colorful dreams.

beingINTENT upon AWE,

Chuck

*As with all my blogs, my ideas presented here are deeply influenced by my experience and appreciation for the path of heart Carlos Castaneda gifted the world.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: A Shift of the World’s Assemblage Point

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Being Intent, no matter what…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Carlos Castaneda faced the most ego-crushing fact. His role, as dictated by Spirit itself, was to end rather than continue his shamanic lineage, a lineage that had spanned twenty-seven generations.

Carlos’ dilemma mirrors the energetic configuration of our time, a time of endings.

Earth herself is in a time of major reshaping as she violently shakes free of the shackles of inertia that have bound her in place. Shamans would call the place of her frozen fixation, the world’s assemblage point, the place where the Earth’s energy is assembled into a consensus reality, the everyday world as we have known it.

The Earth abounds now with dismantling events, be they earthquakes, Senate trials, or viruses. Reality, as we have known it, is being rocked at its core. Institutions are falling like dominoes. Many dreams are vying to become the new consensus reality, the world’s new position of the assemblage point.

As I see it, the destructive phase of now will not be of short duration. The dream currently dominating is the ultimate completion of a one-sided American dream. That dream demands full expression. Perhaps that is the true contribution of our time, to not suppress and pass along that unfulfilled dream for future generations to have to complete. I believe this current dream has been long in the making. That dream spares not even a brush with apocalypse to fulfill its hunger for power and domination.

More comprehensively put, America is completing the ultimate ego over everything dream. This is actually a universal dream, not just America’s. The universality of that dream reflects a world developmental process that tests the viability of fixation at the level of total narcissism.

The current strain of the coronavirus has presented a most interesting challenge to the most populated country on Earth, China, the ancient home of the Book of Changes, the I Ching. Could an alternative dream be unfolding where China shakes off its materialistic dew and gets down to its Taoist roots, action in accordance with Inner Truth (hexagram #61)?

A totalitarian regime has chosen to lose face. No hiding its blemish; it is currently the home of a deadly virus. Superhuman efforts are being made to construct necessary hospitals, isolate large masses of people, and provide accurate safety precaution to all. Economic considerations pale next to the cooperative needs of survival.

Who knows what will happen, but at present this unfolding dream appears to attempt to stalk a position beyond the narcissism of damage control to face the actual danger, with rationality untempered by narcissism. Planet Earth is steadily insisting on a movement that assembles such a reality.

More dreams will  fill the world stage in the coming months; these are the trials of transformation. When Carlos Castaneda was confronted with deciding what to do with the hidden knowledge of his shamanic lineage, as he closed its door, he dreamed forward Tensegrity, offering anyone who wanted it the practical knowledge of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico.

Carlos, while still in this world, would marvel at Tensegrity workshops, that he was able to observe perhaps a thousand people practicing in unison the Magical Passes of his lineage. This was a sight no other Nagual—the shamanic leader of a group of no greater than 16 apprentices in each generation—had ever witnessed: the power of the mass impact of these Magical Passes performed in unison.

Carlos Castaneda believed that the time had arrived where a new power of the mass, spirit warriors from all nations and traditions, would energetically combine their forces of intent  to shift the world’s assemblage point to a new, more comprehensive position to ensure a solid foundation for survival.

The ending of Carlos’ line marked the end of the self-importance of any one tradition holding the exclusive keys to the kingdom. The mass movement of this growing collective intent is fueled by truth, love, and pragmatism. It includes movements such as minimalism, clean energy, small cooperative organic farming communities, respect for the Earth as a living planetary being, as well as the all-inclusive values and practices of all spiritual traditions, none excluded.

The traumas upon the face of the Earth now, though tragic, reflect a shaking loose of the current heavy inert fixation of the assemblage point that has long been preparing for a necessary move. Carlos demonstrated the necessity of letting go of old ways, particularly the dominance of the narcissism of self-importance, to make room for a new position grounded in the greater common good.

We are lured to give over our attention, our hopes and fears, to quick fixes or idealistic dreams that could stem the tide of this destruction. Best to do this with what shamans call controlled folly: detached passion; rather than deplete one’s energy through futility and defeat. Much more important is to place one’s intent upon joining with the Earth’s intent, as she aggressively shifts her own body to a new and necessary position of the assemblage point.

May all beings join in the intent of this new position of the assemblage point, where reason is stripped of its narcissistic veils and applies itself wholeheartedly to the pragmatism of world survival.

being INTENT,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Spirit is an Equal Opportunity Employer

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Spirit in the flow of everyday change…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Every being upon this planet is exposed to the identical pressure of Earth in radical transition. The term transition highlights the growth potential that accompanies the obvious destructive side effects of these far reaching changes.

This pressure, or egalitarian touch of the Spirit, offers all beings an opportunity to evolve. How we interpret this pressure will determine how we respond to this opportunity, which is presented equally to all.

As individual humans we are beings of two minds, the mind of everyday life and the mind of the Spirit. The everyday mind is largely of extrinsic origin, being the product of  the internalized forces of socialization. Though experienced as deeply personal, this is the judging mind of the internal dialogue that tells us who we are and what is what, according to our deeply internalized party line.

The fixation of everyone’s everyday mind is an overarching concern about the self, or by extension, me and mine. That mind interprets the world through the narrow narcissistic lens of being offended, or validated, by all the actions of others, or simply by the world-at-large.  At present, the world is being treated to a mighty reflection of this everyday mind, as mirrored by world leadership.

As the Earth proceeds along her mighty path of transformation, it becomes increasingly obvious that the dominance of the everyday mind is headed for extinction, at least in its current form. How can this self-serving approach to reality possibly survive the absolute necessity of a more comprehensive concern for the survival of the entire planet?

The mind of the Spirit is directly linked to the deeper truth of Earth’s profound transformation. However, this knowing of the Spirit is largely veiled by the mind of everyday life, with its fixation of total energy and attention placed upon its self-centered, worrisome, everyday concerns. From its perspective, my survival, regardless of altruistic verbiage and activity, is as far as it can really see.

The mind of Spirit speaks softly but honestly beneath the dense layers of the everyday mind. Shocks in the everyday flow of life, such as the tragic untimely death of Kobe Bryant, offer glimpses of Spirit.  The far greater outer calamities of the Earth are also messengers of Spirit, inviting a wider audience to hear its truths, as evidenced in the current coronavirus.

Fascinating to watch how quickly the everyday mind restores itself following its rupture by knocks of the Spirit. In Piaget’s nomenclature, assimilation that refuses to accommodate the greater truth is not real adaptation. At best, it’s a temporary sand fortress, soon to be dissolved by the next wave.

Finally, Spirit offers the highest form of adventure. To ride honestly, with knowledge of our transience, and being respectful of our temporary home, while we simultaneously thoroughly take the journey of preparation for the next leap in our journey, is the true path of heart.

This is the call of our Spirit now, our true evolutionary destiny. And Spirit is an equal opportunity employer. All who turn to it in earnest are immediately hired, on a true mission from the Universe.

Employed,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Being Intent

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Woke up at midnight to a powerful headache. So begins the internal dialogue: “You didn’t take care of yourself. You brought this on. You won’t be able to sleep well. Tomorrow will be compromised. There is no way this headache will go away. Well, maybe if you took some Motrin. Some healer you are. You are powerless to change this pain…”

Stalking healing intent…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The impact of this messaging stirs anxiety and fear, and a general belief of defeat and failure, accompanied by a somewhat depressed mood.

The net effect of this internal dialogue is to securely embody a definition of self as flawed, limited, and of low value. To stalk such an experience is to add an impartial observer alongside this internal dialogue, with the intent to separate itself from these negative wrappings, and unleash the fullness of possibilities.

From this impartial place of awareness, the observer suspends judgment, awaiting other possibilities. Suddenly, a vague memory appears with some certain knowledge: “You can relieve your headache through your own agency, through your own intent.”

Immediately, the internal dialogue chips in: “That experience you think you remember was a fluke, maybe it didn’t really even happen. There’s no way you can eliminate your headache short of 1000mg of Motrin. Some healer you are.”

The stalking observer decides to place its full attention upon the details of its prior self-healing experience. Recapitulating that experience, it knows it began by placing full awareness upon the sensation of pain in the exact locale of the head from which it pulsated. From there, the command had been issued to release and relax, deeper and deeper.

The stalker decides to apply this method. The inner dialogue casts its aspersions, but the stalker finds inner silence, by simply placing its full attention upon the sensation, and giving the command to release and relax. No attention is given to the internal dialogue nor any other thought thread. The stalking observer then fully merges with the intent, into a state of being intent.

Within minutes, as relaxation and release deepen, the head becomes completely spacious, as inhaled breath flows freely through its caverns. The headache is completely erased! It never returns. Being intent has operationalized and fully realized its intent.

Don Juan Matus joked with his much younger apprentice, Carlos Castaneda, about how much physically older Carlos appeared than he. Don Juan attributed his youthful vitality to his refusal to uphold physical agreements he had never signed up for.

Socialization shapes and limits what we believe we are capable of physically changing. The body itself is governed by inherited archetypal intents, in the form of subconscious programs. The internal dialogue upholds these ‘facts’ of physical life. These facts are rarely challenged by consciousness.

Yogis, for eons, have demonstrated that full consciousness can be brought to, and take control of, every organ and biological system in the body. Being intent is the active agent of that consciousness. The key is to suspend the judgments of the internal dialogue, leading to inner silence, and then shifting into being intent.

The Sorcerers of Ancient Mexico became such masters of being intent that they turned their prowess into defying death, staying in human form indefinitely. Modern seers, though they appreciate such feats, see them as traps, as all beings must eventually change form through physical death, the destiny intent of the human form.

Nonetheless, being intent certainly opens the door to possibilities in human form, which are well-worth exploring. To be able to erase a full blown headache and slip into deeply rejuvenating sleep is deeply appreciated. It may not always be possible, but my motto, taken from my earliest mentor, Dr. Efren Ramirez, has always been: Anything is possible, until proven otherwise.

May all discover the possibilities of being intent for themselves.

being INTENT,

Chuck