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 Power of the Small

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We are one cell, one bundle of energy in the great mystery of Gaia…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

If we peek inside one single cell in our body we discover a self-contained universe of differentiated parts, working in unison to maintain the life of that single cell. Thirty-seven-trillion of these micro-universe cells coordinate to form a single human body. The health and well being of each of those individual cells contributes to the overall health and well being of the entire human body.

The Earth, Gaia, has its own biological body, of which humans, as cells, comprise a specialized unit. I would propose that on a macro-level the human race, as a whole, forms the frontal cortex of Gaia’s brain. In simple terms, the human race is Gaia’s ego consciousness center, the youngest part of the brain, that which is associated with the ability to override instinct and act instead with free will and reason.

Thus, when we speak of global warming as a function of human decision making, Gaia’s frontal cortex appears to be acting contrary to its overall survival needs. In fact, to carry the analogy further, the more ancient part of Gaia’s brain, the limbic system—home of powerful instinct and emotion—can be said to be releasing its destructive reaction toward human behavior in the storms, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, and diseases that punctuate our time.

Just as the frontal cortex does not fully come on line in humans until about age 25, the collective human frontal cortex is clearly in its early adolescence, with narcissistic and self-serving behaviors in control of some of its most vital decision making. This reality is wholly reflected in current world politics where leadership is completely self serving, unable to align with both truth and the greater survival needs of the world as a whole.

The good news: as individual cells of the collective human race, we are each in a position to address and impact the very issues confronting our greater world. The operative analogy here: As within, so without.

We begin by assuming responsibility for the fact that we, as individuals, reflect the reality we see without. Although it may be difficult to face this shadow truth, it is also quite empowering. If I can face, and change within myself, the same power dynamics now being acted out in the world, I contribute toward the maturation of Gaia’s frontal cortex. This truly is a healing action.

Turn inward to your own inner universe with new awareness. Recognize that consciousness is the psyche’s youngest acquisition. Whereas human functioning was, for eons, directed by its instinctive, pre-programmed limbic system, consciousness—for better or for worse—can now consult Google and make its own decisions! Furthermore, consciousness can indulge its desires at any time, not just when its stomach says it’s time to eat, or its hormones say it’s time to mate. Consciousness also has the ability to reflect upon itself and question its real motives, i.e., really be honest with itself.

However, this ability to reflect has its dense physical trappings. Consciousness also likes to look in the mirror and  play dress up with life. The shamans call this tendency self-reflection, which, from their experience, absorbs the lion’s share of human motivation and energy. We are currently seeing such a caricature of self-reflection in the behavior of our leader, but can we see it in ourselves?

Every one of us has the responsibility to face our own obsession with the presentation of self in everyday life, as glaringly mirrored in our fanciful leader. I am reminded incessantly of this fact by our male cardinal who continues to peck away daily at every window and car mirror at our home. Can we ever get to life beyond this level of self-reflection?!

For ego to rise above its own reflection and unholy alliance with the appetites of its limbic system, it must find its way to right action. Right action is action based on reason that transcends the trappings of the Me-Me-Me self. Right action issues from a higher spirit, one that considers the true needs of the whole, not just the ego self.

That spirit resides within the heart, but its voice is largely obscured by the ego self’s physical obsessions. Nonetheless, the ego has many opportunities to channel its higher spirit, as it must suffer its failures and defeats in this life. Ego defeats result in deflation and sobriety, where we then have the opportunity to really reflect and then  choose or acquiesce to right action, the insinuation of the spirit.

We have, as well, the ability to invoke the help of our spirit by simply asking. When we set an intent, say a prayer, or ask for help, we are directly soliciting the guidance and support of spirit. The response we get might send us down quite a serpentine path, but it’s also likely to be the path that will best mold our ego to do right action.

Take for instance the most recent presidential election, which forestalled the coming to power of the matriarchy. The more inclusive values of the matriarchy would seem to be the healing balm needed in our time, and perhaps it ultimately will be, but for now we must take the serpentine path before us and deal with what we have delivered ourselves: the ultimate patriarchal trickster. And so, spirit might have had a hand here; showing us that to properly be ready to receive the matriarchy, we must first crack the mirror of our own self-reflection. Without first mastering this challenge, we’d likely just be transferring our childish neediness to mommy!

Be empowered within the walls of your individual cell self. Be compassionate with your ego self’s developmental process. As Gaia’s ego brain, we have a long way to go, but if we can take responsibility for our own leadership role, and reach out to spirit with humility, the power of the small is sure to manifest our healing intent.

Taking responsibility,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: No Worry

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Let go into the expansive energy of no worry…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

My observation, over many years, is that each day brings its own wave of energy that manifests and reflects at different levels of intensity in all beings. In my therapy practice, the theme of my first encounter of the day is very often the theme presented by many clients that day. Even the words used to describe experiences similarly resonate throughout the day.

Personally, I notice that my encounters in dreaming from the prior night, as well as the books I open to in the morning, or Jan’s hot off the press channeling, already announce the contours of that energy wave as it splashes upon the doorstep of oncoming time. Worry issues forth from anticipation and manifests in concerned projections upon possible outcomes of the impact of that wave.

The fact is that that daily energetic wave will run through all of us. The fact is that somewhere in the world that wave may crest in a fatality today. This will be a major transitional moment for someone. We all have that ultimate appointment with death, but we needn’t treat all moments of life in human form with the adrenaline rush of Russian roulette.

Yes, when a person leaves my home, setting off on a long drive, anything might happen beyond the security of the departing moment. My intent is always that all will be safe. My experience teaches me that if something could or should be known it will reveal itself, inwardly or outwardly, in direct terms. If nothing is directly revealed, all will either flow smoothly or it will be someone’s destiny to encounter a rougher wave. Worry, however futile, offers to step in, to somehow fill the void of unknowing, to somehow protect.

Worry presents as the great conjurer of many a possible story. Worry scoops up the lion’s share of our energy, which it then formats into a speculative reality that our bodies are then forced to live, biochemically, as the playing field for its virtual fantasy. We experience this as stress, anxiety, fear, and dread. Our muscles clench, our breathing becomes shallow and infrequent. Our eyes become dazed and glazed, as they turn inward to view some variation of the conjurer’s horror show.

Perhaps hours later, the text arrives: “We are home safe”. Now we can relax, all is well. But what if instead we send them off with loving safe intent and refuse the conjurer’s call to worry? This is the beginning of a shamanic journey.

Without worry, we are ushered into a vast emptiness, filled with cascades of available energy. The psychic structures that worry generates, which typically populate every nook and cranny of life, suddenly evaporate, and we are delivered to the void, where all of those usual conjurings of the worrying mind slip away.

Do I look OK? Did I eat the right thing? Is my weight noticeable? Is it my fault? Is he angry at me? Did I look foolish? Is she OK? Will I meet the right person? Are they angry with me? Is everyone safe? Is it going to work out for them? Should I have done more? What if something happens? Am I good enough? Am I too old? Am I losing it? Did I make a mistake? What if I lose my job? Did I turn off the stove? Will I ever be good enough? …………..?…………..?…………….?…………..?

In the vast emptiness of no worry we enter inner silence. Tension in the body releases as the breath expands. We experience deepening relaxation, perhaps for the first time, at a level so free we may fear its expansiveness. Worry immediately offers its services once again, to create tense boundaries around ourselves. Refuse that call! Stay with the mantra: no worry.

Retrieve and bathe in the boundless energy previously expended on the stories and structures of worry. Make that energy available for new possibilities of life and fulfillment. Protect that energy with a no worry wall that encases your being. I am a being of no worry.

Make no worry a succinct command from consciousness to the subconscious, that part of the soul that automatically controls our attitudes and habits. State it often, as a firm clear intent: Don’t worry. Know that the instruction is heard and that the repetition of it will result in its manifestation. Do not attach to when, nor be discouraged. Simply persevere in stating the intent.

No worry,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Thanks

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We’re all heading down the same human highway together…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Thank you, human animal, for housing our tumultuous spirits. In this time of The Battle of the Titans, i.e., the clashing and thrashing of major belief systems, as reflected all around us every day it seems, the human animal continues, loyally, to bear the dictates and consequences of our wild spirits.

Often the animal in us, with its powerful instincts, is blamed for the excesses and extremes of human nature. But what animal engages in pornography, creates and gorges sugary concoctions, or cheats? The human spirit, with its desire and mental body, is the genesis of our material obsessions and excessive behaviors. The human spirit alone is responsible for the highest and lowest of our creations. The hands of the animal body merely obey the promptings of the dominant spirit, the human mind.

Thanks, as well, to the human spirit that has chosen this embodied life in time and space. With its consciousness it knows its days are numbered. This is the engine behind its boundless invention and exploration. Still a child, compared to its instinctive animal host, the human spirit, in its innocence, is driven by curiosity into infinite discovery.

The major discovery of now is the relativity of our world, how uniform belief systems are the building blocks that congeal our material world. And belief systems are the province of the spirit. We are forced now to discover and explore our spirit realm, as in our unconsciousness we have generated chaos. The key to material survival is responsibility at the spirit level now.

Fortunately, we are multidimensional beings. Indeed, we are watched over and guided by our spirit families beyond human form. Let us give thanks to those who continue to care for and guide us, though they be far removed from the ignorance and sentimentality of us in human form. May we do our best to contribute to our soul group’s greater exploration of infinity and beyond.

Thanks to Gaia, for inviting us, for tolerating us. The great changes of now reflect her transformation, though certainly we bear marked responsibility for her changed course. Nonetheless, her changes are driving, symbiotically, our own spirit maturity, as we are compelled now to face the truth of our own desires and mental illusions if we are to survive the mess we have created.

Thanks to the wholeness behind it all that decided to discover itself in the multitude of forms and possibilities we partake in. Indeed, we are all endowed with the active energy of infinity, no possibilities excluded. Thus, we must embrace evil as a fundamental permutation that must be explored. Of course, love remains the overarching all-inclusive truth. Love is greater than evil because it accepts it. Evil always requires an enemy.

Though we must limit and destroy it, we ought to give thanks to evil itself. Evil is the change agent, the destroyer of forms. Where would we be without the change of seasons? How long could we be in paradise before boredom would set in? Our curiosity, the hallmark of our spirit, must journey on, or be dammed in the inferno of changelessness. Evil’s excesses must be checked, but the truth is that evil forces us into new life.

Thanks to reason, that which allows us all to be the scientists performing the experiments of our lives. May reason humbly accompany us, as we wake up to our greater interconnected spiritual essence. And may our reasoned conclusions chart our future course, once our obsession with armageddon has burned itself out.

Thanks to love, which grows and refines, and allows us to know and be one with us all, no exclusions.

With thanks and gratitude, and love to all, no exclusions,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Relativity and Dream Space

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What Einstein proposed, and proved, is that time is relative. When matter moves at great velocity it ages slower than it ages on Earth. Time is relative to the velocity we travel at. It is not constant under all conditions.

Frozen leaf energy body?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

This is most noticeable in dreaming. One might drop into a REM dream state for but a few real-time moments and then awaken. As  dreams experienced just moments before are recalled and recorded, one might find oneself writing for an hour or more, as one documents the many adventures from the just dreamed dreams.

The time it would have required to actually experience these adventures in real time would have taken hours. Nonetheless, as dream recall proves, they were fully experienced, almost instantaneously, in dream time. This is an example of how consciousness can travel and live in different, even very elongated timezones. Consciousness, the active force of the soul, lives and travels in different dimensions.

As Einstein discovered, the significant variable in shifting time dimensions is velocity. In dream state terms, this is experienced vibrationally. When we go to sleep our soul energy body prepares to leave the timezone of waking life by revving up the velocity of its vibrations to a very high frequency.

This increased vibrational state normally occurs when we fall asleep. If, however, one remains conscious during this process it is frequently experienced as increasingly higher vibrations sweeping over the physical body, as the soul energy body prepares and then launches out of the sleeping physical body. Energy body dimensions then experienced are increasingly subtle, with their own different timezones.

The first energy body timezone is actually the real-time zone of waking life, where out-of-body explorers travel our world and solar system in real time. More subtle dimensions—where time is elongated and many dream adventures occur in very few real-time minutes—reflect energy-body adventures beyond this real-time dimension.

The ancient Hindus called these more subtle dimensions the astral dimensions, where one engages in interactions with deeper parts of one’s own soul, as well as with guides and teachers intent on supporting life in this densest energy region, that of real-time waking life in the physical body.

In the truest sense, the soul never sleeps. When the physical body goes into deep sleep it enters a state known as REM sleep paralysis, where the motor cells of the body are switched off, as the soul ventures in infinity. Basic logic explains the need for this temporary paralysis, as without it the downloads of dream energy-body experiences to the sleeping physical body would result in physical movement that might be both awkward and potentially hazardous. In fact, sleepwalking is an example of what happens when the normal shutting down of motor activity in the body does not occur and the physical body acts out the energy body’s movements.

Normally, the body is completely still and asleep in unconscious semi-paralysis while the soul ventures in infinity, both processing the previous day’s waking life experiences, as well as being schooled and guided in spiritual advancement by the higher self and guides that live in the higher astral dimensions.

If you successfully meet a challenge in a dream, it is likely to reflect in similar success the next day. It matters little if we remember the actual dream, the lesson has been learned and will unconsciously benefit the ego’s knowing in the challenges of the day ahead. Sometimes the experience of deja vu reflects this awareness, that I have been here before; yes, in my dreams!

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, such as simply having to pee, our soul may be called abruptly back to the body before a dream is complete, or before the body is ready for reintegration with its soul. This is often experienced as a powerful waking vibrational state in the consciousness of the energy body, as it is confronted with the physical body’s inability to move.

This is a very temporary out-of-phase experience that quickly passes, as we are restored to full body motility. Should this happen, simply realize what is happening, stay calm, and await the transition into familiar normalcy. It may take a few moments. It simply reflects the recalibration of soul with physical body.

Whether we are aware that we are in our soul state when physically sleeping or not, our soul has its rich experiences, which both rejuvenate mind and body from the prior day’s activity and present guidance and exercises to prepare us for the coming day’s challenges. We can enhance and more volitionally participate in these journeys if we cultivate the intent to remain conscious in our dream and out-of-body states.

As the outer world continues its major transformational activity at this time, relativity and dream space offer us avenues of exploration and preparation to meet the challenges of oncoming time in waking reality. Intend awareness in your energy body and see what happens! The soul offers many blessings.

Pleasant dreams,

Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: The Tripartite Soul of Now

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I am writing to the future, the day this will be published, the morning after the midterm elections. For the record, my final edit for this blog was on the morning of November 6, 2018, well in advance of outcomes in time and space. My intent is that the electorate free its mind from manipulation and vote from the heart for the greater good of all. I will accept the outcome of the election as a true reading of the status of our collective soul now.

Tripartite: heaven and earth with the light of the intellect in between…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I define mind as soul, the subtle body companion of our physical body for the duration of our lives in this world. The soul is a tripartite structure consisting of the inherent collective unconscious with its instinctive knowing, the ego with its intellect and capacity for reason, and the high self that is guided by infinity through intuition and love.

Recently, we have seen the rapid emergence of instinct, with its passionate emotions, take charge of world governance. This is an archetypal response, from the collective unconscious dimension of the soul, to the Earth’s current major reshaping and the primal dread it awakens at our animal core. Survival is its battle cry.

Our reasoning mind has either been convinced of instinct’s call to arms, and leant it support, or opposed its radical approach, embodying, instead, calls for greater unity and compassion.

The question for this midterm was whether the escalating instinctive approach would continue to grow, or a movement toward more inclusive values would begin to assert itself.

Regardless of outcome, the Earth will continue its radical changes, and the human animal will continue to experience fear and anxiety in response. The problem for humans, as well as all species on Earth, is that the environment is shifting into unknown territory, where old tried and true instinctive responses cannot effectively assimilate the current dangers.

The intellect that has the capacity to analyze a problem and oppose even its own nature to effect a solution may be equally disadvantaged if it cannot detach from personal interest or the thrill of unbridled emotion. Furthermore, the real solution to survival in this changing world might require opening to the guidance of an intuition that transcends pure reason.

Clearly, cooperation by all parts of the tripartite soul would best prepare us to ride the tide of our evolutionary challenge. From our instinct emerges the alarm of real threat to survival. From our intellect emerges the ability to analyze and act in our best interest. From our high self comes the experience of pure love, which binds the world together in common interest. Thus, the combination of instinct, intellect, and love are the winning ticket.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, our evolutionary path requires us to access the fullness of our tripartite soul to find our way. Regardless of the outcome of the election, every individual is free to travel this evolutionary path within the confines of their own physical body and tripartite soul.

In fact, the greatest of leaders throughout history were masters of their tripartite souls, to such a degree that they inspired humanity to higher spiritual directions, merely through the presence of their evolved personalities.

Focus now on evolving the personality through acknowledging the anxiety from below, through thinking objectively and initiating right action, and by finding inspiration and intuitive solution from the love and wisdom that comes from above. This is the tripartite ticket to facing one’s deepest issues within, as well as managing one’s reactions to the volatility expressed without.

Never feel powerless; you are the agent of change. Change the self, change the world.

In gratitude,

Chuck