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.
The above link explains what is happening in the world environmentally and in terms of the utter disintegration of morals. From a rich Hindu understanding of cycles of time, what we are experiencing now is objective and far transcends the foolishness of blame, which is rampant in our world today. The year 2025, only 6 years away, represents the completion of the Kali Yuga age, the darkest period in human civilization that accompanies major environmental transitions on a planet wide level. What is rapidly changing is inevitable. We are at the completion of the darkest of dark times, which will be followed by a regenerated civilization, whose consciousness will move gradually toward a new Golden Age. This conception of cycles vastly contrasts with the notion of evolutionary progression as linear. From this cyclical perspective evolution progresses in a cycle that ultimately regresses. We are now at its lowest stage of regression. As the last placed 1960s Mets used to say: “The only place to go is up!” And voila! In 1969 the rock bottom Mets became the Miracle Mets, winning their first World Series.
Today, we celebrate the landing of the Apollo astronauts on the moon, 50 years ago in that miracle year of 1969, the same year that the Woodstock Music Festival forecasted a world of peace and love. So, don’t despair, the only place we have to go is up!
Let the light of love shine bright… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Recently, Jan and I ran into an old timer from Bob Monroe’s early days of setting up The Monroe Institute and the New Land Community where we live. He was brimming with vibrant energy and enthusiasm. I happened to mention how fortunate it was that we had just averted a war abroad.
His response was that he wasn’t aware of that and he showed no interest in even knowing with whom we had averted war. He explained that since the Vietnam War he’d taken his attention off the affairs of the outside world and focused on being present to his more immediate experience. He was filled to the brim with the fullness of life afforded by his decision to take control of where he focused his attention.
The negativity of now is overwhelming and infectious. Perhaps the method of our newfound friend to completely stop the world of news from reaching his ears might seem drastic, but as Jeanne’s channeled message of yesterday suggests, we all must find protection.
Don Juan Matus suggested avoiding interaction or any behavior that draws attention as a stranger in a strange land. The I Ching gives similar guidance to The Wanderer, who must find a place to stay at an unfamiliar inn. The disintegration of social mores at the highest level each day now renders us all strangers in a strange land.
Turning inward with the unbending intent to remain positive is a powerful protection. Negativity needs the fertile soil of reaction to feed its fire. Let one’s reaction simply be to inwardly remain positive. Let the candlelight of love be shielded in the heart. Know that its time of sharing its flame with an outer torch is on the horizon. Love will win, love conquers all.
Jeanne warns of entities seen and unseen who can influence the energy of now. She encourages to call upon protective guides and high self to guide and protect in this time of vulnerability. I offer, in closing, the Gateway Affirmation developed by Bob Monroe, perhaps the most experienced multidimensional journeyer while in human form, as a prayerful request for support in such challenging times:
I am more than my physical body.
Because I am more than physical matter, I can perceive that which is greater than the physical world.
Therefore, I deeply desire to Expand, to Experience; to Know, to Understand; to Control, to Use such greater energies and energy systems as may be beneficial and constructive to me and to those who follow me.
Also, I deeply desire the help and cooperation, the assistance, the understanding of those individuals whose wisdom, development, and experience are equal to or greater than my own.
I ask their guidance and protection from any influence or any source that might provide me with less than my stated desires.
Don Juan Matus contended that in the final analysis all paths lead to the same place, death. However, a path with true heart offers fulfillment in the finite life of human form. Thus, to find the truth of the heart is central to life while in human form.
The heart has been popularly associated with the path of romantic love. Romantic love is a spiritualized quest for one’s true soulmate. That quest is imbued with archetypal energy that generates a heightened state of awareness that erases boundaries and creates the experience of oneness or wholeness between two people.
Most seasoned human travelers come to discover the trickster ally inherent in romantic love. What is experienced in one moment as deep closeness can abruptly shift into great distance in the next.
For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, an ally was an entity that enabled one to enter the world of non-ordinary reality. Romantic love is indeed entry into a state of non-ordinary reality. However, the ally that works its projective magic to land us there also tests us.
Are we merely hooked on the ecstatic energy of romance or does our relationship truly have heart? If it’s the high we seek, the ally will send us on many journeys of illusion. Despite the highs and lows, we remain hooked compulsively to the pursuit of the next candidate that shines with promise.
Though Cupid, as the Romans named romance’s ally, may be useful to awaken to love’s potential, only the truth of the heart can tell us if we are on the path of love. The truth of the heart is calm and clear. The truth of the heart is not swayed by romance. The truth of the heart is a feeling and a knowing of whether something is right or not.
Thus, our attachment to the heart, as the home of romance, clouds our ability to access the objective truth of the heart. This is the test of the ally. Despite the wonderment of romance, can we get calm and ask our heart the truth about our potential traveling companion?
The true nature of the heart is compassion, rooted in its knowledge of the interconnectedness of all things. Romance is in fact an experience of greater interconnectedness with someone, however, it may be so narcissistically tinged by one’s own needs that one is unable to actually see their partner.
Furthermore, the heart is the meeting place for ego Soul and High SOUL, our ultimate Soulmate. Our High SOUL knows our intent for the life we are in and can guide and support us through the trials and tribulations of life in human form. But we must be able to sacrifice the pressure of our needs if we are to get calm and be open to the truth delivered by our High SOUL.
The truth of the heart is the key to finding one’s path of heart. If a path has heart it resonates in both ordinary and non-ordinary reality. Love is constant in all realities. Romance that does not transmute into the fullness of love in ordinary life fails the ally’s test.
Love, in this higher sense, is the true energy of the heart center, which is connected to the indivisibility and, hence, compassion for all life. As well, the heart center is connected to infinity, which puts into perspective the relativity of life in human form.
From these considerations, the truth of the heart guides the journeyer to their specific path of heart, truly the journey of a lifetime.
“There’s always a bit of heaven in a disaster area!” exclaimed Wavy Gravy, as the rains fell and the traffic snarled at the Woodstock Music Festival, fifty years ago this August. When I listened to Marianne Williamson at the 2020 Democratic Presidential Debate, I shared Wavy Gravy’s reaction, toward the chaos of now, “there’s always a bit of heaven in a disaster area!”
Love has arrived at the top echelon of political discourse. Love rises when it faces a truly worthy opponent. To continue on a path of knowledge in the world of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, one must encounter a truly worthy opponent. In a recent Netflix episode, David Letterman and Howard Stern respectfully acknowledged the power of love’s most worthy opponent as they discussed the many personal interviews they had each conducted with Donald Trump over the past 30 years.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal called this past June the warmest gain in the Dow since 1938. This past week, France suffered the warmest temperatures in its history. Where’s the connection?
Last week, Duke Energy representative Randy Wheeless, in North Carolina, explained his company’s reluctance to pursue renewable energy. “I think a lot of environmentalists talk about the end of the world, but there are a lot of people still worried about the end of the month, and how to pay bills,” he said. What bills will be left to pay “when the Garden is gone,” as Neil Young sings?
The truth is evident. The issue of now is not what is true but what is right. Immigrant children are taken from their parents; this is government policy, which will cause deep, perhaps irreparable psychological damage to those children. This is scientifically known truth.
In this case, the coveted ‘end’ of illegal immigration is said to justify this inhumane ‘means.’ America First has supplanted what once made America the world’s great beacon of hope. America has lost its connection to the heart in the service of personal gain at all costs.
This national foray into heartless narcissism has been an incredibly humbling outing of America’s shadow. We all must face the preponderance of self-importance and the facade of altruism behind our noble American Dream. America stalked the heart center at its founding but has always masked its self-serving intent.
Thankfully, but dangerously, that facade has crumbled. As individuals we are challenged to face the preponderance of our narrow personal survival fears. Is the stock market’s contribution to our retirement more important than the survival of the world? Is trade really the highest god?
The worthy opponent of now is fixation at the third chakra, the home of narcissistic personal power. That fixation is obsessed only with the accrual of its own power. From its perspective, personal needs trump the survival of the world. We must all reckon with our attachment to this fixation. Masked altruism is what landed us here.
Real love awaits at the heart chakra. Real love embraces the truths and needs of the one world we are all part of. The heart chakra faces the truth of survival needs and will require, of all, great sacrifice to survive as a world.
We find our way to the heart by facing our own deepest truth with compassion. We then turn that compassion, however ruthlessly, to all the worthy opponents who boldly honor narcissism. No parts can be left out of the whole. From there, the heart will guide.
I hear Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young singing to me, from within, “Carry on, love is coming, love is coming to us all…..” Happy 4th. Celebrate true Independence.
Go down to the wellspring of life… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
On the eve of the summer solstice, the most enlightened day of the year, President Trump abruptly cancelled a retaliatory strike upon Iran.
The year is cyclical and repetitive, punctuated by seasons that mark life’s beginning to its completion. The summer solstice elongates the light of consciousness at its highest peak, a supreme opportunity to be in alignment with inner truth.
Perhaps under the impact of solstice energy, President Trump was influenced momentarily to be patient and acquiesce to the greater good.
I threw the I Ching this morning, with the question: Where are we now in the cycle of the Tao and how best to promote fulfillment?
The I Ching responded with hexagram #48, The Well, with moving lines in the fifth and sixth places. The model for The Well in nature is the tree, whose wooden roots penetrate the earth to draw up the water that sustains its life. The well, in ancient China, was accessed by a wooden pole that dipped a bucket into the water, which was raised to nourish all.
The I Ching warns that carelessness in raising the bucket can be disastrous, such as, “if for instance the military defense of a state is carried to such excess that it provokes wars by which the power of the state is annihilated, that is a breaking of the jug.”
On an individual level, the I Ching counsels that, “every human being can draw in the course of (their) education from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in (human) nature. But here likewise two dangers threaten: a (person) might fail in (their) education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention… or (they) may suddenly collapse and neglect (their) self- development.”
Interestingly, the future work proposed by the I Ching to solidify the best use of the well is hexagram #18: Work on what has been spoiled. That hexagram has us address the contents of the shadow or personal unconscious that create decay within the personality, as well as the attitude of the ego in a state of avoidance or inertia.
The two moving lines of the hexagram are extremely hopeful. The nine in the fifth place states that the water in the well is exceedingly pure, fed by a spring of living water. Thus, the channel to the living spirit is available in the hearts of everyone. However, what is lacking here is the volitional drawing from this wellspring of wisdom. Though the knowledge and right guidance are available, they must be drawn upon to arrive at right action.
The six at the top takes it to that final step: “One draws from the well without hindrance. It is dependable. Supreme good fortune.” All are empowered to draw from the inexhaustible guidance and nurturance of their inner well, situated in the higher truth of the heart chakra.
Thus, the I Ching highlights in these accentuated lines that the guidance we truly need is readily available within our hearts. We are primed to receive it, since we already have available to us the tools to procure it. The time is right to exercise such actions.
These tools include, reading the synchronistic signs that appear to guide us through our days, as well as the dreams which foreshadow the opportunities for self-development each night. In the calmness of meditation we open directly our channel to spirit.
Specifically, the I Ching asks us to face the source of our guilt. By facing and addressing the issues behind our guilt, the water of our inner well is clarified to nurture our fulfillment. Sometimes we must undergo shocks to our well before we are fully ready to deepen our fulfillment. This is the work of recapitulation that fully frees our energy from the ‘impurities’ of the past.
The time is right for deepening fulfillment through drinking the pure waters that await in the deepest caverns of the heart.
