Archived here are the blogs I write about inner life and outer life, inner nature and outer nature. Perhaps my writings on life, as I see it and experience it, may offer you some small insight or different perspective as you take your own journey.
With gratitude for all that life teaches me, I share my experiences.
One day our spirit comes buzzing, asking us to “see”… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
We watch a documentary. A small, insignificant moment in the film stays with me. I am struck by the scene in which a father, a Native American, holding his infant son in his arms, says that his child still sees all that the rest of us can no longer see, the spirits of the ancestors, the energy all around us.
While the father is speaking, the child repeatedly bats him in the face. At one point it looks as if he’s biting his father on the cheek or neck. The child laughs at something he sees. The father looks upon the child with love and tenderness, taking the swats and bites in stride, aware that his child is innocent, full of all that we are born with. How can he be angry or resentful; how can he take personally the assaults of his innocent young son who is so full of wonder?
The father is present as a mindfully aware observer. He is fully aware of all that his son embodies. He is tenderly and lovingly appreciative of this son so full of life and innocence, fully aware that his son is on his own journey. With this awareness the father is able to remain stable and loving, no matter what the child does. This is what Chuck wrote about in his recent blog, Synchronicities & A Tale Of Two Siblings. This is what we are all challenged to uphold, for the duration of the lives that we are privileged to be but a small part of. Our children are full of wonder. I have written about this myself in a previous blog—Who are you?—as a mother looking into the faces of my newborns, wondering who they might become.
We must remember that we are all innocent at our cores. We must treat ourselves with the same tenderness and calmness as the father in the film treats his son. We must stand present as the knowing adult self and allow ourselves to take our unfolding journeys. We must free ourselves of our emotional trappings, the things that hold us back, that keep us encapsulated in doubt and fear, in resentment and self-pity, that keep us from acknowledging the bigger picture that the father in the film so clearly sees.
This is what we do when we recapitulate. We allow ourselves to take the journey to retrieve our innocence, so that we may take up our true journey at the point where our innocence was interrupted. We are all seeking a reconnection with our innocence, with all that it knows, all that it sees. As we struggle through life, we are all asked, repeatedly, to wake up and return to this innocent, true, self.
Wake up to your own radiance, said the caller! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In my own case, my big wake-up call came back in 1997, when I was granted a vision of my future. I have written about this in The Man in the Woods and elsewhere, indeed all my books encompass this theme, the call of my spirit and my own endeavors to respond, and to keep responding. I knew back in 1997 that if I did not answer the call that I would die. My spirit was calling to me because it was being smothered. But I was also aware that I would physically die as well if I did not excavate my buried spirit. This is the kind of call that comes only once. This is the call that must be answered.
The small snippet of a scene that I refer to with the Native American father and his infant son is from a documentary called Wake Up, the story of a young man who did one day wake up to discover that he had the ability to see, what the Shamans of Ancient Mexico call seeing energy as it flows through the universe. In opening up to discovering why and what seeing meant for him, the young man in the film began opening himself to the energy of life as it flows in the universe. Maturity comes in being able to balance the innocence of seeing within a meaningful and productive life, allowing it to seamlessly flow in waking and dreaming, always learning, always heeding the next call.
We often wake up in our dreams, knowing that we have woken up and yet knowing that we are still dreaming. Within this kind of lucid dreaming is the opportunity to experience ourselves as energy, as innocent as that infant in the film, seeing the same way the young man in the film sees. This same kind of waking up is available to us over and over again in our everyday world, in this dream of real life. The opportunities never stop, the wake up calls keep coming. Why is it so much harder to wake up in this life and experience it with lucidity, than it is to wake up in our dreams?
In our dreams, we are already in our energy bodies. We are in an altered state, flowing with the energy of the universe, already in the collective, interconnected energy that we all experience whether we are aware of it or not. At different times in our lives, however, we are given the opportunity to become like the innocent infant again, to truly awaken and see once again. These are the times when our wake-up calls come.
What do you see? I see two tree spirits passionately kissing! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In order to be able to handle what comes to us, we must take in the bigger picture, as the Native American father in the film so easily does. We must let in what our innocence is trying to tell us in the context of lives lived and life still to come. During recapitulation we train ourselves to be able to do this. Keep in mind that recapitulation takes place on an energetic plane, just as dreaming does. We are fully in our energy bodies when we access a memory; we are like lucid dreamers. And yet we must also be the adult self, like the Native American father, who stands aside and looks on with awe.
We can always decide to go back to sleep; that’s our prerogative. But, as we recapitulate and achieve a new kind of balance in the flow of our lives, we must remember that our spirit will keep sending us wake us calls. That’s its job, to always remind us that if we don’t keep waking up we’ll miss out on the transformational!
In a moment of awe amidst the turmoil, I look into the woods and see Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles, calmly looking back at me… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
When asked, “What is the meaning of life?” Joseph Campbell responded thus: “There is no meaning. We bring the meaning to it.”
Our very lives provide us with everything we need to discover who we are and why we are here, offering us everything we need to find meaning. We are all heroes on meaningful journeys.
Chuck and I have revealed intimate details of our lives over the past several weeks in our blogs, having had to face moments of deep anguish and wrenching sadness. Yet interwoven within those moments of turmoil were many moments of awe, moments of breakthrough and insight, moments of transparency leading to transcendence, for all involved. Meaning is being discovered and lived each day as the members of our family take their journeys, as they face their deepest issues and broken selves, as we all face where the devastating and the magical have landed us.
All of us live magical lives. If we accept ourselves as magical beings, as magical pursuers of meaning, we find that the very lives we live are more than fulfilling. There is great power and energy in turning what on the one hand may appear as devastating and hopeless—those knocks on the head, those wake up calls—into meaningful encounters with what we need to progress and grow. “To refuse the call means stagnation,” says Joseph Campbell.
We are all offered supremely necessary encounters with our inner darkness as we live our lives and face the reality of where we are. Our real duty in life is to take what is offered as a new opportunity to face our fears and challenges with a shift in awareness. That shift in awareness must be that we are being asked to evolve, that we are being asked to wake up and take the hero’s journey. Suddenly, our journeys take on new meaning. Suddenly we are no longer victims but warriors of our own destiny. “Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging,” says Joseph Campbell.
And so, as the energy of change that has rolled through our family reverberates throughout the world—for none of us are alone in our moments of darkness or our moments of awe—as we look for the higher meaning in all of our lives, we share the energy of change with all of you. For we are aware that there is a greater interconnected web of energy that courses through us all.
As we acquiesce to that greater interconnectedness, we discover that we are all the same, that we are all nothing and that we are all everything; we are darkness and transcendence alike. We discover that we all must suffer personally for the greater good, for if we are to change the world we must suffer the changing self.
We are all capable of experiencing the transcendent. As we reach up out of our stuckness and seek meaning for all that befalls us, we offer ourselves the answers that we seek. Why did this have to happen to me? Well, it happened so you could grow. This is what we personally have had stressed to us over the past several weeks. We are all in the process of growing every day of our lives. Let that be the guidance that moves you along on your own journey.
In the deepest of challenges, and in the most radiant experiences of awe, we discover the meaning of who we are and why we are here. Joseph Campbell, whose words of wisdom have helped us weather through the flood of recent events, says: “Breaking out is following your bliss pattern, quitting the old place, starting your hero journey, following your bliss.”
Keep breaking out and bliss will meet you.
-Jan
Joseph Campbell quotes are from: Reflections on the Art of Living, A Joseph Campbell Companion, Selected and Edited by Diane K. Osbon
I walk along a country road… -Photo by Jan Ketchel
I dream that I’m walking along a country road. To the right is an old farm, sprawling along a flat expanse of land. There is a low white stucco farmhouse. The grass is very green, the landscape low rolling hills, a row of trees in the distance. As I look around and take in the landscape, I’m aware that this is an important dream. As I walk up to the farmhouse, I have an overall sense that I am going to learn something significant about myself.
Outside the front door, sitting inside a round pen, I find a small horse, the size of a Shetland pony. The horse is covered in mud, the ground it sits upon muddy too. It looks uncared for. I’m immediately worried about it, aware that it needs water.
I find a small white bowl and go into the house with the intention of getting some water for the horse. I walk into a long narrow room, somewhat like a throne room. Upon a dais sits an old great aunt, now dead, a person who had been pampered and taken care of her whole life. Adoring daughters, other relatives and family friends—all familiar to me—line the sides of the room and sit at her feet. I walk down the center of the room and up to her where she sits above everyone. I look up at her and tell her that the horse needs care, that I will come by every day to give it water and hay. I’ll take it for a walk. It needs exercise, I say. It will need a halter or leash, I say. I will also clean it, I say, because it needs to be brushed. Its back, I had noticed, was covered with clumps of mud.
After delivering my message, I turn and leave the room. When I am just outside the door I hear laughter, the people in the room giggling over my concern for the horse. It doesn’t bother me; I don’t take it personally because I know how important the horse is.
I go into a bathroom to pee and put water in the small white bowl, but when I flip the light switch there is no electricity. The bathroom is totally dark, with no windows. I find a flashlight on the counter and switch it on. It gives me enough light to see the toilet and the sink. I pee and then fill the bowl with water.
I go outside and give the bowl of water to the horse. I tell it that I’ll be back to walk it and take care of it every day. As I leave, I run into my brother, a builder. I tell him that the house needs some repairs, that the electricity in the bathroom isn’t working properly and that he should check it out. It isn’t really of concern to me, as only the welfare of the horse is of interest.
This is called “The Unicorn in Captivity,” a detail from the seventh tapestry in the series, The Hunt for the Unicorn. I think we are all hunting for our own unicorn… -Photo by Jan Ketchel
In the morning, as soon as I tell the dream to Chuck, I see the mandala: the horse sitting inside the round pen. Chuck, immediately thinking of the Medieval tapestry of the white unicorn sitting inside the round picket fence, asks me if the horse was white. I don’t think so, I say, it appeared to be brown in color, but it was covered in mud, so I don’t know for sure.
I decide that the appearance of my old great aunt, sitting above everyone, implies the ego, while the lack of light in the bathroom implies the conscious/unconscious. I’m aware that the horse is important, to me especially, but that’s as far as I get in my analysis. I let the dream sit for a while. Before long, however, greater meaning emerges, especially when I remember that Chuck and I had been reading about the Vedantic traditions of the kosas the night before. The kosas are the five sheaths that enclose the spiritual germ—the Atman—the spiritual energy that we all are. I begin to see the dream in the context of those sheaths, how everything in the dream was set up to lead me to the horse, what I see as the fourth sheath, the kosa of ancient wisdom. I did go back to an ancient place of family in the dream. The setting was not, however, my family’s estate as I had known it, but completely different, though in the dream I was aware that it was the family farm.
I begin to see that the dream had me encounter the first four sheaths or kosas: the physical, the breath, the ego/mental, and the ancient wisdom. The first kosa comes in the form of family members in their physical bodies, a lot of them overweight, but also ignorant as to why I cared so much about the horse. I am intent upon giving water to the horse. I see water perhaps representing the breath, the second sheath, the etheric pranamaya-kosa, which gives energy to the body. I then encounter the great aunt sitting upon her throne, representing the ego and the mental kosa, also represented by the dark bathroom which I light with the flashlight, the conscious and the unconscious. Finally, in the form of the horse, I encounter the wisdom sheath, vinjanamaya-kosa which I am intent on tending, bringing what it needs to live in health and harmony. Inside this last sheath lies bliss, anandamaya-kosa, the Atman. This is the ultimate goal of this life that I live, to experience my inner bliss, that eternal kernel of ethereal self.
I understand that the dream stresses all the things I’ve been doing for myself as I work on my physical body, as I do my inner work, my yoga and meditation, as I constantly realign and balance myself on my path. Lately, my personal process has evolved around bringing together all that I am, in harmony, in acceptance. I have been learning how to be the evolved person I had worked so hard to become during my recapitulation process, that assimilation also a process, as I always seek the next step that will take me into deeper and greater self-knowledge.
The dream stresses how to care for the ancient wisdom, how to exercise it and nurture it, while also allowing it to more fully live in my life every day. Just as I tell the horse that I will tend to it every day, so must I do the same in my daily life, tend to the wisdom of the ancients that I have learned about, that I channel and that I teach others about.
This is a very supportive dream, I conclude, in alignment with all that I am, with all the work that Chuck and I do, with what we talk about, write about, and are drawn to read about. It’s what we strive for. It’s about harmony, balance, and careful tending to all parts of the self. As Joseph Campbell says, we are constantly seeking to make ourselves transparent to the transcendent.
An hour later, something becomes clear and I reinterpret the dream slightly, but in quite an eye-opening way. I suddenly remember how important the little horse was to me in the dream, and that nothing was going to stop me from taking over its care. Now I see that the little horse actually represents the neglected fifth kosa—bliss. The dream itself, I realize, and the farmhouse setting represent the fourth kosa, ancient wisdom. I had a sense of this during the dream, as I walked toward the ancient farmhouse, aware that I was entering deeper into a dream of importance and significance.
Bliss is… -Photo by Jan Ketchel
The dream actually leads me to where my bliss has been silently and patiently waiting for me, inside the sheath of the fence, which is actually rather flimsy and couldn’t really hold back the horse if it wanted to escape. I see this as the truth about our bliss, that it waits for us to find it. And once we become aware of it, it’s not that hard to access, nor is it really held back by anything other than our own inability to see it for what it is, and perhaps our inability to allow ourselves to have access to it, as we are taught that to seek our bliss is selfish. In reality, however, it’s all that matters. And so I name my little horse, Bliss.
Only by properly caring for and nurturing my bliss/Bliss will I be able to bring it to full health and life. And rather than having to search for it outside in the world, I now know that I have it inside me. It’s been there all along, always with me, at the center of my being. How could it be otherwise? Perhaps it’s a little white horse after all, the innocent unicorn that lies at the center of who we all are. In innocence lies the magical, the utterly transcendent. We just have to free it from it’s sheath, tear down its flimsy fence. Thank you, dreamworld!
I most humbly express my thanks for being able to tell you this dream. Perhaps it will help in your own dream interpretations. I know from experience that those sheaths have a habit of popping up quite often, in dreaming and in real life. They are the veils we talk about all the time, keeping us from our truths, and from our bliss. In the end, they fall quite easily, once we see what they are really made of.
Taking down the fences, and the sheaths, and the veils, and whatever else happens to get in the way of going deeper still,
Jan
I attended a silent meditation retreat some weeks ago. I am not ordinarily a retreat kind of person. I am not a group person. I am a loner, but occasionally I find that going outside of my container offers the opportunity for new vitality and renewed commitment to my path. For me, it was to be a day of stalking, for I was leaving my known world and entering into an unknown world. I would have to be appropriate. Proper attire was required, white clothing, modestly covering arms and legs. Yoga and meditation, as well as teaching, would be part of the day long retreat. I stalked from the moment I got up in the morning and dressed. I followed the rules, arrived on time, ready to begin.
Things did not happen according to schedule. No one was ready for the arrival of the retreat attendees. We had to be patient. As we stood about, some attendees chanted softly to themselves, others practiced yoga, preparing themselves for the day ahead. I walked the grounds of the retreat center, calmly and slowly, already in silent meditation. Talking seemed unnecessary and inappropriate. I exchanged a few nods.
Three ravens flew into some trees ahead of me. I stood and watched as they landed, as they ruffled their feathers, and as small white down loosened and slowly fell to the ground. I heard more rustling and noticed a couple more ravens sitting on nearby branches. I saw more white down flutter to the ground. Suddenly, I became aware that I was surrounded by ravens. Out of the darkness of the leaves the shapes of perhaps fifty or sixty ravens appeared, materializing a few at a time, as if by magic. Raven energy, I thought, the scavengers who pick away at the dead, transforming empty carcasses into something new. Not a bad omen, I thought. I wondered what the day would bring. New life, new energy perhaps?
I walked slowly among the birds as if walking beside the ocean, the rustling of their feathers, like the sound of gentle waves washing upon the shore, accompanying me. I walked in a large circle, respectfully passing by the ravens several times as I waited for the retreat to begin. Eventually, the doors opened. Leaving our shoes at the door, we entered the coolness of the building.
Eventually a yoga instructor emerged. Pranayama, breathing, was followed by a series of chakra and meridian opening poses. I was quite at home, but it was an experience to do yoga in a room filled with perhaps 60 or more people. I began to experience a gentle energetic vibration as the session progressed, as creative energy coursed through all of us. The yoga ended with shavasana, as we all stretched out on the floor and sank into calm relaxation.
Chanting followed, in Sanskrit, which is foreign to me. I can chant some simple mantras, and my personal yoga practice involves personal mantras, mostly in English. Suddenly, however, it seemed as if everyone else in the room could speak the language. All of the other attendees were chanting away with gusto, the beautiful syllables flowing off their tongues as the room filled with vibrant, lilting energy. I sort of hummed along, but I realized I was an outsider, that most of the people at the retreat were seasoned and dedicated practitioners of a specific yogic path, used to satsang, used to group energy, used to practicing together. But even though I was not a member of this greater community, I felt welcomed into it, and there I was, as I mentioned, stalking.
In stalking, one allows the circumstances to dictate the process, even as one makes the initial decision to stalk. In alignment with my wish to have a personal experience, to see what happened, I had embarked on the day, and so I was open and receptive, perhaps a little too much, for as the chanting grew louder, I began to vibrate even more than I had vibrated during the yoga session.
I realized that I was taking in the energy and that perhaps it was too much. I stopped chanting. As good as the energy in the room felt, I could not accept any more of it. It was group energy, and a lot of people thrive on it, but I do not. I am not like the ravens who live in flocks; I am a solitary bird. And so I was relieved when it was time to take a break before the first meditation session began with the guru.
Soon the guru appeared, a tiny woman, revered by the many practitioners who had come to be in her presence. I knew little about her. I have never felt the need of a guru, but I sensed the deep affection that filled the room as she entered and took her place. She was serious, her energy almost heavy, as if she had to bear the weight of adoration and she was uncomfortable with it. This assessment of her proved true, for later it was revealed that she preferred not to be revered in any way.
Many eyes look back at me… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Without further ado, she guided us into pranayama and then meditation. Meditation must be preceded by pranayama, and end with pranayama, she said. Do Yoga, pranayama, meditation, pranayama. Duration, one hour, she stated, as we began. If negative thoughts arise, she said, say your mantra, whatever it is, five times, then silence. Negative thoughts, mantra, silence. One hour.
Thoughts immediately arose. Is that a negative thought? I’d ask myself. Or is it just a thought. Does it matter? A thought is a thought. Mantra, what mantra should I say? Okay, I’ll say that: Mantra, five times, silence. This became the mantra I said as the meditation session began. “Mantra, five times, silence.”
Fifteen minutes passed. My legs hurt. I heard other people moving about, shifting on their cushions, some quite loudly. I carefully moved one leg, then the other, stretched them out for a time. I pulled my knees in and hugged them for a time. I got back into sukasana, sweet pose, with legs crossed. Another fifteen minutes passed. I knew how many minutes had passed by my body, from my years of sitting in meditation. I knew that soon, in the next few minutes, I would level out and not feel a thing, that by the time 45 minutes had passed I’d be floating, effortlessly present in my body. It happened as expected. It was then that I received this mantra: Look into your darkness until you see the eye of God.
I followed the instructions. I looked into the darkness behind my eyes, a place I look into often, a place where I have had some of my most enlightening and magical experiences, in my own darkness. I looked for the eye of God. Almost immediately an eye appeared. I saw the eye of the meditating Buddha head that we have at home. I saw the eye of an elephant. I saw the eye of a snake. I saw the beady eye of a mouse. I saw the eye of a lion. I saw many eyes floating in and out of the darkness, coming and going. Eventually I saw a big bright eye, staring right at me. Is that the eye of God? I wondered, and then I saw that it was my own eye staring at me. As if I was looking into a mirror, my own eye held my gaze, and then it was gone. I had seen the eye of God, and it was my own.
I had peeked at the guru several times during the meditation session. Every time I looked she was sitting perfectly still, a slight smile on her smooth face. Her head was tilted slightly, as if she were listening to someone speaking in her ear.
With the meditation session over, the guru softened, the stern look and the heaviness that she had entered the room with released a little as she smiled and joked. After a while, I began to feel like a student sitting at the foot of the teacher and I did understand why her flock tended to revere her as a guru. I became a part of their community once again, just as I had during the yoga session, the group energy like a blanket hovering just above our heads.
The guru spoke wisely, her concerns for the world in alignment with my own, her healing approach similar to my own as well. In simplicity and alignment with nature, with what we are granted naturally we can save ourselves, we can save the people of the world. Her greatest concern seemed to be with what we put into our bodies, with the contaminated food that is found in every American supermarket. “That’s not food,” she said, “that comes from processing plants. Food is real.” With the right foods in our bodies, we can access greater spiritual practice and we can change ourselves and our world, she said. I felt, for the most part that she was preaching to the choir, so to speak, but perhaps not. Perhaps too many people, even those in deep spiritual practice, dressing the part and knowing all the words, struggle as much as those who have no practice and no words to resort to.
We broke for silent lunch. I was thankful for the gift of silence, to sit and write my thoughts, to eat slowly of the ayurvedically seasoned and balanced meal, food for sitting in meditation—no rajas, no tamas, just sattva—nothing that will interfere with going into silence.
The afternoon started with more teaching by the guru. And then a man got up and stood before a microphone. I didn’t quite hear what he said, as he spoke too quickly, but everyone else seemed to know exactly what was happening as more chanting began. Again I could not keep up, although I hummed along for a time, but I had no sense of what it meant. The words projected on a screen in front of us seemed endless. Surely that’s the last of it, I’d think, and then another screen filled with phrases would pop up. Loud and fervent chanting filled the room, with the shrillness of bells ringing, a radiant energy building. Suddenly, I began to feel ill. Would it never end? Everyone around me seemed transfixed, mesmerized. Then it dawned on me that they were chanting the 108 divine names of the guru. What number were we on, surely we’d already done fifty.
Finally the chanting ended. It was evening, close to the time when the retreat should end. Time for a short break, but there was still the afternoon meditation to come. Shaking, I got up quickly. My stalking time was over. I had to go back to being me. I gathered my things and exited the building. I could not stay another second. I had to get away from the energy. How could I feel like that after being in that beautiful presence? I wondered, for I did feel the beauty and dedication of the guru, dedicated to her life’s task, to bring to the world what she had learned in the manner of her ancient tradition. It was her path. It was not my path. I am on a different journey. We all walk our paths, some parallel to others, some joining for a time, but in the end they are individual paths.
I shifted out of my stalking self and headed home… enlightened… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
My stalking self shed her persona as I slipped into my sandals at the front door and walked to my car. Shaking off the too good, the too much energy of other, I glanced over at my pals the ravens. They were still there, fluttering their wings, waiting patiently, but for what? Then I saw the dumpsters. They were waiting for food, to pick over the leftovers from the restaurant, to feast upon the energy. They had been there the entire time.
When I got home and told Chuck about the ravens, his first reaction was to remind me of the shaman’s world where they would be seen as predatory energy, also known as entities. We had produced, as a group, a lot of energy that day and the vultures where there to feed off it. As soon as he said this, it all made sense, it had been about energetic exchange, and I understood why the guru had entered with such a heaviness, as she was carrying excessive energy to feed her hungry devotees. She lightened considerably as the day progressed. But it was too much for me. I could not eat another bite of her energy.
When I left, I was more certain of my solitary journey, of my own vital and vibrant energy being enough, of my own spiritual practice, and my own road to freedom. I drove away, thankful for the experience, for it had indeed shifted me and introduced a new vital energy, just as I had hoped. Yet it also sent me right back into myself, back into my darkness, which was exactly where I needed to be, looking for the eye of God inside.
Now, whenever I sit in meditation, I have a new mantra to focus on, to swish away the thoughts, negative or otherwise: Look into your darkness until you see the eye of God. From the energy of the guru, I pass it on to you. Mantra, five times, silence.
Look into your darkness until you see the eye of God.
In that dissociative fugue state… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
It’s been in the news, a man wakes up from a coma speaking only Swedish. He doesn’t recognize his wife or family. A diagnosis called Transient Global Amnesia has been applied to his condition. Medical personnel assigned to his case have also decided that he’s most likely in a dissociative fugue state, wherein a person forgets their past and can sometimes take on a new personality. When I first read the headline I was intrigued, having had my own experiences with the Swedish language and inventing a new personality, wondering if the man had woken up in a past life.
The man, it turns out, had lived in Sweden as a child and for much of his adult life, so the fact that he spoke the language was no mystery. The mystery in his case was, how could he forget his current life so easily? The Shamans of Ancient Mexico would diagnose him as having suffered a jolt to the assemblage point, a shift in awareness into a totally new world.
My own first encounters with speaking Swedish came in a dream when I was in my early twenties. In the dream I was traveling across the United States by wagon train. I leaned against the back of the wagon, in which I was traveling with my husband and children, and wept. Great sadness had occurred, the death of our child, whom we had just buried along the trail. My husband came up to console me. We spoke a language I had never heard before. I spoke fluently and without hesitation.
My dreaming self observed the entire dream episode, saw what I looked like and heard myself speaking this strange language. I even understood what I was saying, even though I didn’t understand the specific words. I saw that I was a tall and strapping woman, with thick blond hair tied back in a long braid. I was dressed in neat, clean, but poor cotton clothing, a long dress and apron. My husband was taller and wore a hat. His pants were tucked into high boots. My dreaming self watched as he came over and embraced me.
We wept together and then he told me that we’d have to move on, keep going, that everything would be okay. The rest of the people traveling with the wagon train were preparing to leave. We had to stay with the group. Moving on was essential. It was a strenuous journey, but I knew we’d make it to our destination. I just needed time to gather myself together, I told him. I’d be alright. Then I felt myself pull inward, into deep inner silence. I felt a core of strength shoot through me, like a fire rising out of the depths of me, energy like I had never felt in real life. Then I shook off my sorrow. There was life still to care for, life still to live. Times were tough, but the tough keep going. I woke up as I shrugged off my sorrow, that core of strength burning brightly inside me.
Upon awakening, I was immediately puzzled by the strange language I’d spoken and the sense of connection I felt with the woman in the dream. I knew it really was me, had been me, and that I too had that fiery core of inner strength inside me. I suspected, at the time, that the dream was related to a past life, though I had little knowledge of how that could be possible.
Within a year of the dream, I met my Swedish husband-to-be and six months after meeting him I was living in Sweden. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the Swedish language as the same language I’d spoken in my dream. I took language classes and within no time I was speaking Swedish fluently, like a native I was told, like a native from the southern part of Sweden called Smaland that had been so devastated by drought that the vast majority of farmers left and moved to America during the 1800s. I spent considerable time exploring the country and always found this southern region extremely warm and inviting, the forests and thick-walled cottages so familiar. At the time, all of this reinforced the real possibility that I had indeed lived a past life in Sweden.
Who am I really? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
At the time, however, I was dealing with my own deep issues, undiagnosed at the time. Indeed, I was living out my own dissociative fugue state. Many years later, as I write about in my books, I started working with Chuck. The first thing he did was give me a diagnosis of PTSD. The diagnosis gave me a sort of anchor, an anchor from which I could dive into the dark pool of the unconscious and do deep inner work, but it was not the answer. However, it was during that time that my past, including my decision to move to Sweden in the blink of an eye, all began to make sense. Unlike Michael Boatwright, however, the guy who woke up speaking Swedish recently, I had never lived in Sweden before, though I felt so at home there. I assimilated very quickly, learning not only the language but all the nuances of the culture as if I were, indeed, a native Swede.
Sweden offered me many opportunities. First, I got away from my past and, much like Michael Boatwright, I forgot what had happened to me during a certain part of my life, most of my childhood, in fact, as I write about in my books. I was also offered the opportunity to become a new me, and I did. I changed a lot while I was there. I stalked, as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico call it, a new personality. My introverted, shy self soon felt comfortable to become a new being. The distance really helped. I was so far from everyone and everything that had influenced me up until then that I felt really free for the first time in my life. And so I lived a new life for several years, until it was done, until it was time to return to what I had run away from, for I knew, instinctively, that I had run from something.
It would still be some time before I was ready to face my own mysteries. And, as I was to learn, a diagnosis, whether it be Transient Global Amnesia or PTSD, is not the real answer if one is to evolve. As Chuck likes to say, “Now let’s do the work!” The only thing that was going to help, was the work of recapitulation: facing the past, finding out why I was the way I was, and why I had to move so far away to begin with before I felt safe.
Upon return to the States, I had to reinvent myself once again, for the Swedish woman I had become was not appropriate for the life I embarked upon in New York City. Once again, I stalked a new personality, and I kept stalking different versions of who I thought I really was until I ran out of energy, until I finally collapsed and gave up. It was then that I met Chuck and began to learn about my own inner mysteries, the Shamans of Ancient Mexico, and the process of recapitulation. It was then that real change began and everything made sense.
It was then, as I embarked on a new journey of self-discovery, that I found I really did have within me that fiery core of inner strength that I’d experienced in my dream of the Swedish woman on the wagon train journey. For the most part, it had been deeply buried and inaccessible, as most of my life had been spent in a state of numbness, that dissociative fugue state. It was during my recapitulation that I saw my decision to move to Sweden in a different light. It became clear that it was a move on the part of my psyche to jolt my assemblage point.
With deep inner work, peace will come… – Art & Photo by Jan Ketchel
That journey to a foreign land had been pivotal in rediscovering some important things about myself, to not only awaken a past life experience in this life—and live it again in a sense—but more importantly to give me a hint of the possible self to one day look forward to in the future. For I now know that the free woman I became in Sweden was an immature model of my more mature, true self. I didn’t know any of this at the time, of course, but all of this and much more has been revealed as I’ve stayed on the trail of a life of change, the same kind of trail that my dreaming self was on.
The other thing that my time in Sweden hinted at, I understand in retrospect, was the first hint that I would have to go back in order to go forward. If I was to birth myself into a new woman and allow that fiery core strength to become a part of this life in a real way, I would have to go back into the darkness of my past and retrieve it. I would have to, singlehandedly, move it forward, out of my past life, into this life.
This is the real energy that moves through all of us, through our many lifetimes and many life experiences, but we must discover our own path to retrieving it. We don’t really have to go anywhere to do it, either, unless we have to. We can stay right where we are and do our deep inner work. But if we are to evolve we must take the journey of deep self-exploration so we can harness our energy, hone it, and utilize it as we travel along our life’s journeys.
