Category Archives: Jan’s Blog

Welcome!

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.

Jan Ketchel

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Visitors From Another Era

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We are privileged to observe an evolutionary happening... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We are privileged to observe an evolutionary happening…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I cannot help but ponder our visitors, the cicadas, come from the depths of the earth to mate and die, all within a few weeks time. What’s the point? Chuck reminds me that it’s nature, archetypal, doing what it has always done, programmed in a way that we find hard to fathom. I get that, but I keep looking for some reason, some purpose. Are we humans supposed to learn something from them?

Are the cicadas beneficial in any way? Is there some symbiotic relationship between the cicadas and nature that we’re missing? Like the bees pollinating so that other life can survive? The only benefit I see is that the cicadas offer lots of food for the birds and other critters. Like mice, they come in the billions, and even though a couple of million might get picked off there are still plenty of them left to do their thing.

“What a boring life!” someone said the other day, referring to the cicadas seventeen years spent underground. I couldn’t help but compare them to us. We humans take about seventeen years to emerge from our childhoods, which are often lonely, trapped as we are by the dictates of our families and society. Perhaps our childhoods are not much different from the isolated cicadas living in their underground tunnels. Once we leave home, we often do what the cicadas do too, though at a slower pace; find mates, perhaps have children, live through our lives until we too die.

When I stand on our deck, the sound is deafening, a symphony to rival Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the cicadas triumphantly playing their instruments. I hear strings, percussion, and woodwinds. I hear chanting and rousing church choirs. I hear life stirring, knowing it has so little time. I hear that archetypal element that Chuck brought up, declaring itself with impeccable intent.

Last night I dreamed. A voice spoke to me. “The hardest part of life,” it said, “is getting here. Once here, flow. Learn to flow because this is your life. You can’t stop it, but you can choose how to live it.” When I woke up I saw that I had been granted the answer to my question: What are we supposed to learn from the cicadas?

Such a struggle to birth... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Such a struggle to birth…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In my dream, I saw all of our lives, all of our previous efforts to evolve gathering the strength and wisdom to make this life the one that finally carries us to fruition, to fulfillment of our soul’s journey. There is great intent and effort behind that one purpose: for us to evolve. Each time we are born we renew that intent, to make this the life that tackles and resolves our core issues. In my dream, I saw the soul’s struggle to emerge more fully with each birth, much like the cicada’s struggle to emerge from its casing. Those previous lives are the hard part. Our archetypal past is the hard part. Setting that intent to evolve and getting it to pierce through the veils of this life is the hard part.

Now that we are here, my dream seemed to be saying, there is little to do except live out that intent to evolve. Much like the cicadas, we often don’t know why we are here. We too are archetypal beings, until we decide to break the pattern of reincarnated lives. Unlike the cicadas we have the power to change our patterns of behavior.

The other part of my dream, suggests that in order to break through the boring life cycles we must flow with what life presents us with. In the dream, I was aware that fighting and protesting about our lives will get us nowhere. Only in acquiescing to the true facts of who we are and how we got here, and then making some real choices to change our circumstances will we evolve and live a more fulfilled and enlightened life. It’s our choice. If we are going to be victims, then we will continue to live out boring cicada-like lives, endlessly returning every lifecycle to go through the same cicada-like patterns of behavior.

We humans do have a bit more going for us. Perhaps, if we could grasp the bigger picture, we could change. Perhaps, if we could fathom the meaning of our interconnectedness, our link to all within the human family, across the globe, we could change. Perhaps we could embrace our innocence and our true abilities to love one another. Perhaps we could learn to be a kinder gentler race. Perhaps we could actually learn to love ourselves for who we are and what we’ve been through, enough to intend healing for ourselves, enough to allow our true purpose to unfold—our evolutionary purpose. Perhaps we could soften our controls and flow with life, allowing ourselves to join with that kinder and gentler race of humanity that we are really all part of. If we really woke up, then we might begin to take seriously what we’re actually doing to the world, to the earth, to our fellow human beings.

Will we leave more behind us than this ghostly imprint left by a muddy robin smacking into the window? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Will we leave more behind us than this ghostly imprint left by a muddy robin smacking into the window?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I wonder what the cicadas will find here when they return in seventeen years? What will be left? Will we have so poisoned the earth that they’ll die in their isolation chambers? If they emerge, will there still be trees for them to sing from, to lay their eggs in, to hatch in the ground beneath? Will we humans resolve all the problems we’ve created in the next seventeen years? Do we have seventeen years? I don’t think so. That’s what the cicadas are telling us; we don’t have time. Now matters.

We all need to act on our own behalf right now and make some personal decisions about how we want to live this life and how we want to impact our planet’s future and our fellow human beings. Whether we evolve beyond this world or whether we return for another lifecycle, one way or another what we decide to do now is going to matter. Like my dream said, we have the power to choose how we want to live, no matter what our circumstances. And that is how we are different from the cicadas!

Chirping away, but seriously,
Jan

In case you haven’t seen this: Here is a great time-lapse film about the cicadas by film maker Samuel Orr. It’s really quite an amazing little film. We posted this on our Riverwalker Facebook page and in this week’s channeled message, so some of you may have already seen it, but for those who haven’t, here is the link to this short film.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Intent

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Occupy bluebird box! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Occupy bluebird box!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

One recent morning we noticed that a pair of wrens had taken up residence in a bluebird box in our yard. What I know about wrens is that their delicacy belies an underlying fierceness. Tiny and cute, they bob and flutter about, but they are warriors of the most impeccable kind. They chirp loudly and incessantly, very loudly in fact, demanding to be heard.

We watched as our new move-ins prepared their nest, poking sticks and grass through the hole in the bird box. When a stick was too long to fit in sideways the wren was smart enough to poke it in headfirst. I wondered if it was mere nature or did they actually have to think about it the way we humans do. The wren did not seem to think at all, it simply did what it needed to do to get the stick in. I also noted their impatient nature. If one of them was inside the box and the other arrived with a mouthful of nesting material, it just could not wait long before opening its mouth, announcing loudly that it was there, immediately dropping its mouthful of sticks and grass. Impatient, I thought, but the wren has so much energy that it didn’t seem to matter. In an instant it was back on the branch awaiting its turn to go in the box, a new clump of grass in its beak. As you can see, we watched them for quite a while!

It was a calm morning, and it was the weekend, and we felt honored that the bird box—probably a little too close to the house for bluebirds to take—was finally being occupied. Suddenly a pair of bluebirds swooped down and a scuffle began. Wrens and bluebirds were on the ground in a swirl of blue and brown; in the branches too, with wings fully extended and cutting, like drawn weapons. There was a lot of noise, the bluebirds peeping and the wrens angrily answering back. The battle raged for quite a while. It was a sight to behold. In fact, other birds appeared to watch. Robins and house finches, bluejays, and even a pair of goldfinches showed up and stood around on the ground, circling the fighting birds like spectators at a wrestling match. One of the wrens even dive-bombed me later in the day. I guess I appeared threatening in some way. Size didn’t matter, they were going to protect and defend their right to occupy!

In the end, the tiny wrens won. Their tenacity, their determination, and their fierceness never waned as they fought off their foes. I was pretty sure the bluebirds would never have wanted the box anyway, as they like their privacy and our human presence so close would have bothered them, but perhaps they just couldn’t resist the call to battle. Like a pair of roaming thugs, perhaps they simply couldn’t resist the challenge.

Afterwards, I thought about the wrens as tiny shaman warriors. Having set their intent to nest in the bluebird box they were not about to give it up. As tiny as they were, they were determined to maintain their ownership. They fought impeccably. As soon as the battle was over they resumed their nest making, assured that the bluebirds would not return for another attack. I paused and thought about myself, about the intents I have lately set. Am I that impeccable? I wondered.

A few days later, as I write this blog, I hear the wrens happily chirping away. I see one of them fly out of the box and the other poke its head out the hole. They are happy. They have great energy. They are firmly settled and working on their next phase of life, becoming parents and raising their young. I feel privileged to have been an observer of this part of their journey. They will not, however let me photograph them!

The wrens seem to live by certain rules. Once a decision is made they uphold it with utter determination, impeccably. They are fiercely protective of their right to live where and how they choose. They are warriors of intent. They also know how to play, how to let loose and sing out, boisterously and without restraint, daring the world to interfere, to try and thwart them from their intent. That, I think, is a warrior’s impeccability—to never break from the intent, no matter what comes from outside, no matter how grave or threatening.

This is what Jeanne asked us all to ascertain in her message the other day, to observe and learn, to determine what the signs and situations in our own lives might mean to us as impeccable warriors, intent on our own paths of change and growth. She asked us to constantly be aware of what is happening around us, and to use it in our inner work. If I had been too busy to notice the wrens, perhaps I might have missed an important message. If the wrens had not fought back they might have lost their home.

The wrens have taught me something about intent, about sticking to plan, no matter what comes along to interfere. By observing their determination to face off outside threat, I understand what it means to fight for what is right. I’m here now; I intend to occupy this space. This is my time; this is my life. This is where I belong and I will not give up. There is a lesson in everything as Jeanne implied in her message. We just have to sit with it long enough to discover what it might be.

Observing and learning from the wrens,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: I Eat The Weeds

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Yup... I eat 'em! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Yup… I eat ’em!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

It’s been hot. I’ve been trying to get the weeds pulled and the seeds planted. The dandelions have taken over. I like dandelions. I pick the young leaves and add them to salads and chop them into sautés. I juice them along with chickweed, lemon balm, and plantain leaves. I snip wheatgrass and mint into the mix too. But the dandelions are insistent this year, so I’m letting them take over one section of the garden. I water them and thank them for coming to feed me.

I’m pretty sure that if things got really bad in our present day world I’d find enough food to eat right here in my yard. It’s a grim thought, but the more I discover that not only our food and water sources, but practically everything we make, consume, and depend on in this country is compromised in some way, the more I wonder about us as a people and a nation. I wonder if I really belong here. Should I leave, desert a sinking ship so to speak? Really, I think about it sometimes.

I try not to get depressed about it. I try not to worry about what our children will have to contend with. I try not to think about ignorance and stupidity and aberrant behaviors. I try not to think about unfairness and greed, about the corporations selling us their poisons that make us sick, everything from the food in our supermarkets to the drugs in our pharmacies. Nothing is real anymore, and that’s what bothers me the most. “Just eat real food,” I tell my kids. “Moderation and balance in everything, but keep it real.”

We don’t even treat our fellow human beings as real people with real needs, needing things like a living wage to simply afford the basic necessities. I lived in Sweden in the 1970s, when its Socialist agenda was in its heyday. Olaf Palme was Prime Minister. He’d sometimes walk home to his apartment after a hard day at the Riksdag, wending his way through the streets of Stockholm, greeting people as he went. He even rode the subways like other normal working people. It was really a pretty idyllic society, good intentioned. Sweden lost its innocence when Palme got shot coming out of a movie theater with his wife one night, a place I had been to countless times. Sweden wasn’t perfect by far, but people mattered—children mattered, women mattered, the unemployed and the sick mattered—and as far as I can see they still do. There were no poor people in Sweden, everyone got what they needed.

The Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland all lived by the same ideals, that no one should be without the basics: food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare. Things were affordable, such as housing and food, and a lot of things were free, paid for by the high taxes we all paid, but I always felt it was a great deal. You got what you paid for; it was pretty real in that way. The government delivered on its promises. As an immigrant I received the same benefits as a natural Swede. From day one I had my health card and access to free education. I took free Swedish language courses through a variety of schools, including the University of Stockholm. You had a sense that the government was just like you, the Prime Minister just another working guy, and that you were really cared about.

An overall sense of social justice, responsibility, compassion and respect for fellow human beings prevailed that I have rarely experienced since, especially on a governmental level. The cold people of the north—as they were sometimes referred to—had warm hearts at their center. As a society they were not selfish or greedy. Memories of their own recent history of hard times were still raw and still talked about. Human suffering became the most important matter to address and they found a means of relief. There were a lot of problems too, the homogenous population was fast changing and new difficulties loomed on the horizon, but overall there were few complaints. Everyone mattered.

I noticed one of those obnoxious polls the other day: The Most Democratic Countries in the World! I couldn’t help myself; I had to look. The U.S. got a mediocre ranking, 21 out of 25, but guess who was at the top: Norway, followed by Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. I wasn’t surprised. Back in the 70s, Norway was the first of those countries to ban certain food colorings and preservatives because they were deemed carcinogenic and how could you feed your people something that was poisonous! With no food coloring, things looked kind of unappetizing. It was most noticeable in the street vendors selling gray hot dogs and sodas that were clear in color. We still haven’t banned food colorings and preservatives from foods, in fact we’ve simply renamed them. And as for feeding people carcinogens, don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around! As I said, I try not to think about these things, but I can’t help wondering when the greed is going to be stopped so REAL can become the norm again, when the new buzz word is REAL and it really is REAL!

The Buddhists say to accept ignorance and have compassion. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico say that life is an illusion anyway, so why fixate on it. Both of them say work to free yourself. And so I work to free myself from my own ignorance and from my own illusions. I refuse to get caught in the fear and the worry that comes so easily whenever I think about the earth and the world we have created. I see it as my duty to work on myself, to free myself of the corporate greed, to detach as much as possible from what seeks to draw me in. I decide what I really need and what I can do without.

And so, in keeping with that decision to energetically detach as much as possible, I canceled our cable TV. The bill was outrageously high, and I saw no reason for it. Someone has been making a lot of money off us. We don’t want the meaningless spin and the constant selling permeating our home environment. Even what once seemed to have integrity no longer appeals. I see commercial television as a home invasion and I don’t want it or need it. There are other things to do. We recently cut the expensive car insurance we were paying in half by going with a different company, and our escalating health insurance premium by a good amount too by finding a new carrier. We weren’t getting better service for all our dollars, but some corporations sure were reaping huge benefits! We’ve put thousands of dollars a year back into our own pockets, money we can put to better use.

Very local greens... from my yard! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Very local greens… from my yard!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

So, as I pare down my life, I stay local, as local as possible, REAL local. I support the efforts of my fellow human beings to produce real foods and goods and so I shop at the Red Hook Farmer’s Market and the Red Hook Natural Foods Store where local produce is always available. I simplify. I eat the weeds in my yard. I constantly look to new places to pull the plug on the things I don’t need. It feels like a lot more people are doing this too. Local organic farms with everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and cheeses are growing in number, and it’s really good to see. I don’t see it as just a trendy thing, but more as a longterm trend toward taking back what we’ve lost: our personal power as real human beings. All of this local-ness is helping us regain our realness, our compassion, and a sense of social responsibility to the earth and our fellow human beings.

It felt good to be out in the heat, planting my seeds, welcoming them to my soil. The birds sang to me all morning as I weeded and planted. The robin nesting in the rafters of the deck didn’t fly off her nest as I worked just a few feet away from her. She’s used to me now, she knows I’m real and that I won’t hurt her, that I’m just doing what she does, tending my nest, keeping it real.

Eating the weeds,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: True Motherhood

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What kind of mother did you get? - Art by Jan Ketchel
What kind of mother did you get? – Art by Jan Ketchel

Motherhood seems to be the theme of the week. It all started on Mother’s Day. I decided not to call my mother. It was a deeply considered act on my part. I absolved myself of upholding a tradition that has no meaning for me. This was done not out of spite or resentment, but only because there is nothing to be gained in continuing a tradition for tradition’s sake. It would have been different if I had some attachment to my mother.

I felt no need or obligation to continue playing an old charade. It would have been ingenuine. I have moved on to a new world where old habits and behaviors and meaningless acts are questioned as to value, truth, and importance and dealt with in a compassionate and affectionate manner. And so I allowed myself to have a completely free day. I flowed with the energy, weaving in and out of worlds as the day went on, enjoying every minute of my freedom from old stale duty. I received phone calls myself from my sweet children, but they also know that I have no expectations of them. They don’t have to uphold anything on my account. Our bond however, is real and genuine. In contrast, I have no connection with my own mother. I never did.

I have no memory of my mother as a mother. Any tender mothering she administered was over pretty quickly. After that she became someone I dodged as often as I could and who I dealt with as little as possible. An impeccable petty tyrant, she often loomed as big as the nuns at the Catholic school I went to, as big as the Church itself.

I have distance from that mother now. As I worked through my parental relationships during my recapitulation, there were many things about my parents that I had to confront and consider, but there were also plenty of things about them that I had to own and encounter inside myself as well. I explore this deep inner process in The Edge of the Abyss as I faced the mother—and father—I got and understood how I had become just like them. There was always, however, a part of me that didn’t want to be like them, that struggled to become independent of them and how they lived their lives, to become my own separate being.

I granted myself permission to become a different kind of mother when I had my own children, an openly loving mother. I also granted this new mother to myself as I recapitulated, teaching myself that it’s okay to be expressive and joyous, tender and considerate of myself. I learned how to become my own mother and my own father, a different mother and father from the ones I got, fully present and attentive, connected and available to the evolving being I was. This was how I also learned to love and appreciate the parents I got; how I learned what it meant to have compassion for others.

A different kind of mother... - Art by Jan Ketchel
A different kind of mother… – Art by Jan Ketchel

And so the motherhood theme—perhaps because I rejected the status quo on Sunday, or perhaps because it’s in the energy of the planetary alignment right now—continues to arise. As the week has gone by, I have had to face the motherhood question.

Am I still carrying my mother around inside me? I pose this question to myself as a challenge and I have to be honest: Oh yes! I am not totally free of my mother. It’s not that easy to cast off that which was long ago embedded inside you, especially if it still exists in reality and must constantly be reencountered. I may still have to encounter her inside myself after her passing too, though I work now to free myself of that possibility. I have no intention of dealing with her ghostly enigma. But the truth is that it’s not my mother that I must face. It’s really only the enigma of the mother of my childhood, who’s shadow sometimes falls upon my brave new world. I don’t want her living inside me, in my body or in my thoughts, and so I constantly work at exorcising her tags of energy still embedded in my psyche. I do this not with any hatred, but only because we are done, our work as parent and child was finished long ago. However, the old mother inside me can still draw me into old places. Those times are less and less frequent, but they are still there, waiting for me to lapse. “Don’t leave me,” she pleads, “take me with you!” I notice it especially in my body, in my posture, moments when I feel the weight of that old mother, as if I’m literally carrying her around on my back.

The body is such a bearer of bad habit. It so easily slips into old postures of submission and fear. I notice that I’m not emotionally feeling like my old self when this happens, I remain my new strong self, but some part of me remembers and my muscles slip back so easily into their old molds. I have to constantly be aware of how I sit, walk, and move around in general. I have to constantly readjust myself inside my new body self. “I’m stalking a new self,” I remind myself, as I shrug off the old. “I’m stalking a new me!”

My life in this world has, for the most part, been an introspective one. Deeply introverted, my inner dissociated self was never a stranger, but this body was. I have claimed back my body, but I still have to remain in it. It’s so easy to slip out and go elsewhere. As I worked through my recapitulation, I realized that my greatest challenge in this life is to be fully physically present. I know that now. And so that is the work I do now. On a daily basis I remind myself that I exist in this body. And so, I have to thank my mother for her part in this process of self-discovery. Even though I didn’t call her on Mother’s Day, I am grateful for the mother I got. She has helped me to grow, but it was necessary for me to be totally in my own body, mothering myself as a physical being in a new world, being my own mother on Mother’s Day.

As both a mother and a daughter, I can say that the best Mother’s Day gift anyone can give—or father’s day gift for that matter—is to become totally independent beings all around. Mothers, mother yourselves. Children, mother yourselves. Fathers, father yourselves. Children, father yourselves. Become the parent you never got and love yourselves. In this way, we absolve each other of the hooks and kinks that keep us attached, that keep us all immature adults, that keep us bound by old stale rules that keep us repeating unhealthy dynamics, traditions for tradition’s sake that have no meaning, that keep us big babies.

Intent we keep posted on the fridge... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Intent we keep posted on the fridge… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Traditions must be upheld, it seems, until we no longer need them, until we find ourselves free at last. And so I constantly remind myself that it’s okay to break the rules, to see where I am in my life, how far I’ve really come. Can I pull this off? Is it right and for the right reasons? Just look around and see how many people you know who are already doing it. Are you? Who in your life is daring to break with tradition and not show up at the family gathering? Are they doing it for the right reasons? Not out of resentment, fear, guilt or hatred, but because they’ve truly evolved and moved on? And can we let them go, without resentment too? At other times, it’s vitally important to go beyond personal issues and show up for an occasion, to transcend grudges or disputes and be present for others. Sometimes it’s just important to step into another’s world and flow with what they need. I am, for instance, still very present in my mother’s life. She depends on me. I have deep affection for her, but I need nothing in return.

Just think of those 17-year cicadas waiting for their moment of emergence, their moment of freedom from what their parents did to them! I imagine it feels pretty much like what I felt as I did my recapitulation and came out of the shadow of parental expectation and duty. I had to find my own way in life, in my own way. It’s what we’re all charged with. As you burst through the crust of the old self and feel the sun on your face, for the first time perhaps you realize— like I did, and like those cicadas know—that this is not the end, it’s only the beginning. There is yet another moment of transformation to come: growing your wings. And after that you have to fly! And then where will you go? That next step is always there, just one more step ahead of you.

It’s time to leave the pit and spread new wings of intent, as free mature beings. Imagine the sound that all of us freed human beings would make, our spirits shouting, drowning out the sounds of the cicadas. Now that would be something to hear!

With deep affection,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: In The Pit

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You're driving me crazy!!! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
You’re driving me crazy!!! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Leonard Cohen sings: I had to go crazy to love you, had to go down to the pit, had to do time in the tower, begging my crazy to quit…Had to go crazy to love you, had to let everything fall, had to be people I hated, had to be no one at all…

I’m a Leonard Cohen fan, have been ever since I first saw him perform in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1976. It was just him and his guitar. He sat alone on a folding chair on the stage, a cup of something at his feet. He touched the poet in me and I recognized his agony. Since then he’s spent time as a monk, but he’s also perfected his outer persona and through many trials and errors become the consummate performer, giving his all, even at the age of 78 performing for three hours to packed houses.

I still hear his agony in his songs, recognize the imperfect human creature he presents us with. And this song, Crazy To Love You, is all about that. It’s about projection and facing the self, doing the recapitulation time, going down into the shadows of the self, ascending into the inflations of the self, confronting everything hateful about the self, becoming nothing—egoless—and in the process learning to love the self. It’s all about taking the endless contemplative inner journey and not giving up, no matter what is encountered. It’s about seeking a kind of perfection, a humble impeccability that knows that everything is okay, everything is necessary and permissible, everything leads to love. When we acquiesce to our humanness we discover that our greatest challenge in life is to love the self. If we can love the self, then we’re on the way to honing a new kind of impeccability devoid of self-importance, the impeccability of being able to love others, to being able to embrace all humanity as being as imperfect and as lovable as we are. We all have to go crazy to love one another.

Recently I dreamed a dream of deep encounters with the self. I sat with Chuck and many hundreds of others at a huge banquet table, perhaps a hundred feet long and a dozen feet wide. Perhaps you were all there as well. We were all under the control of a tiny woman who stood opposite me at the far end of the table. From my position I could see that she was tiny, but her voice was booming, commanding, and her image, projected onto a giant screen above her, loomed over us, making her seem bigger than life, more frightening than she appeared in person.

Had to go into the pit... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Had to go into the pit… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

She made demands, gave us absurd and demeaning challenges. Like a dictator, she barked out commands, telling us what to do as she timed us, and then punished us for not completing our tasks within the time limitations she had set. At one point, she told us all to take a shit, right at the table. We were only given so much time and so much toilet paper. I failed this test. I fumbled with the paper, and by the time the few seconds she’d given us had passed I was in deep doo-doo, so to speak. From then on I had to walk around with shit in my pants.

After the table scene ended we had to hike through some fields. It was dark. We were heading to a big bonfire. We were commanded to bring our most valuable possessions with us, packed in small glass jars and wooden boxes. I told Chuck that if she instructed us to “go into the woods,” that I wasn’t going. I was adamant about that, a clear reference to my abuse. “Oh yeah,” Chuck said, and I could hear him trying to figure out a way to tell this little tyrant woman that I would not go into the woods and be humiliated, that I was done with that. We knew she was unapproachable, that she wouldn’t care and that no excuses would be accepted. It didn’t matter what you had been through in your past, she was not going to let anyone off the hook. Feeling sorry for anyone was not allowed. It was expected that every experience would be confronted if she deemed it necessary. She demanded that we erase all personal attachment and self-importance, and humiliation was as good a means of getting us there as any.

We finally got to the site of the bonfire. The little woman told us all to throw our most valuable belongings into the fire. “Do you think it’s a good idea to throw glass jars into a hot fire?” I asked Chuck, but it didn’t matter. “Just do it!” the woman screamed. We all tossed our things onto the fire and stood around watching them burn. I woke up as she came over to me, looked me straight in the eye, and then turned her back and walked away. “Fuck you,” I thought.

Upon awakening, it didn’t take me long to see this dream as confrontations with habits, with the mindless things we do and how they control us. Obviously, it’s also about self-importance. The little woman was me, a part of me that sets me up to do as I have always done, keeping me a prisoner of my own doings, as I clearly felt like a prisoner in the dream. And if you were there, you were a prisoner too. “Had to go down to the pit,” as Leonard Cohen writes, had to sit in my own shit.

It's true!!! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
It’s true!!! – Photo by Jan Ketchel

We all have a little petty tyrant inside of us, someone who humiliates us and whom we hate. We feel trapped and helpless. It could be related to anything: to constant worry or fear, to overspending or over-consuming, to being too hard or too easy on ourselves or lazy and undisciplined. It could be attached to being angry all the time or sad all the time, full of self-righteousness or self-pity, things that really get us nowhere.

Our personal petty tyrant knows us so well. She knows how to slip in and take over, how to humiliate us and make us face our shit. In my dream, the tiny woman pushed us all to be something we hated and “no one at all.” In the burning of what was most precious, she forced us to let go of everything, of both our shame and our self-importance. I was nothing more than a woman walking around with shit in my pants, my possessions gone. Had to go into the fire and let it all burn.

In this dream, my petty tyrant, whom I so viscerally hated, became my guide, and so I have to love her. She is the knowing part of myself, leading me to the naked truth that I am nothing at all, and only in that place of naked truth can I love myself. As Leonard Cohen learned: Had to go crazy to love you! In recapitulation, we discover that going into the pit means accepting everything about ourselves; even the shit in our pants must not be attached to. Even the implication of my abuse must not be more important than anything, than nothing. “Don’t get attached to anything, Jan,” this tiny petty tyrant self is saying in this dream.

Getting to the beauty in all parts of the self... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Getting to the beauty in all parts of the self… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

Everything is of the same value and everything has no value. There is no point in shame or anger, in self-pity or specialness. The only thing that really has value is pushing the self every day to keep going—just as this tiny woman dictator did—to keep confronting the self, to keep shedding attachments to what we think we need and want. In the end, although I said “Fuck You,” I was really thanking her for helping me face myself, for emptying out. Because by the end of the dream that was what I felt, empty, light, bereft, as if something had died, but bereft in a good and cleansing way. It was as if I had finally let something go that had been bothering me for a long time, and I know that it was my own attachment to feeling that I had to be perfect all the time. How absurd!

I hope this makes sense. Our struggle is to really let go of self-importance by facing our most private and intimate self, and fully accepting that we are all really nothing at all. I find such release in knowing that I am nothing. I’m able to relax into who I truly am, offered the freedom to live without fear and without the need to always get it right. For it’s in our failures that we learn, it’s in facing our shit that we evolve.

Going on, shamelessly facing myself, living in the moment, without attachment. Thanks for reading!

In all humility,
Jan

Many thanks to Leonard Cohen for a lifetime of beautiful work!

And without self-importance—because I really do reveal my most intimate self in my books—here’s a shameless plug for my new book. It’s really a good read! The book icon in the left sidebar leads directly to Amazon. I’m working on getting the Kindle edition linked to the main book page, so you should find it there shortly.