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: Becoming A Shifter

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Many shifts are required in seeking the deeper self...

One of the most important things that I’ve learned in my life and continually utilize is the process of shifting. Shifting might mean deciding not to get drawn into someone else’s drama, even when I feel I might be helpful. Shifting might mean something as simple as making the decision to drive in a different direction from the usual route. Shifting might mean breaking a comfortable routine, allowing the self to encounter something new, even if that something is potentially disturbing or challenging. Shifting might mean asking the self to forego a habit or an emotional attachment, nurturing or otherwise. Shifting might mean asking the self to turn inward rather than project onto another person or situation that which is creating turmoil or incident within. Shifting might mean asking the self to take a big leap into new life, or acquiescing to the inner process, or beginning the process of recapitulation.

The main thing about learning to become a shifter is that it requires action, and action comes from making a decision that, for better or worse, will lead to change. Sometimes shifting means going back and revisiting something that we haven’t quite finished, such as a relationship, an emotional attachment, a fantasy, until we get what we need or learn that what we thought we needed never existed there to begin with. It might mean finally accepting that our dreams are in our own hands, not in anyone else’s, and then making them reality. Shifting—asking the self to move out of one place and into another—offers us the opportunity to experience life differently and more fully.

During my recapitulation process, I discovered that in physical shift, by actually moving my body, I could aid my process. I could cut through stagnancy, repulsive thoughts, physical paralysis, and repetitive behaviors. I could shift out of memories that took over and consumed my energy. But what I also learned was that shifting took work. It required grounding and alertness so that I could maintain enough awareness to know exactly when it was time to shift. It meant daring to allow myself to take back control in situations where I felt I had no control. It meant that I had to forge a steady adult presence that could appear when necessary and make a decision about how to proceed.

This was a growing process that ran parallel to the recapitulation process. So that while I was breaking down and breaking through old stuff—disassembling the protective, defended self I had become as a result of trauma—I was simultaneously building up a strong and independent self, an evolving self. This evolving self gradually learned that it was okay to say no at the proper times, to take back as well as nurture fragmented parts of myself. This evolving self allowed the recapitulating self to have the necessary experiences, even some very difficult and frightening ones, but this self never abandoned the recapitulating self. Even when it was just in the beginning stages of being forged, it had an underlying sense of what was necessary. And so it learned to stand aside so I could have the experiences I needed to have, but at the same time it was busy capturing lost energy, strengthening each time an experience was recapitulated.

Recapitulation affords us the opportunity to become a shifter, in a shamanic sense to know immediately how to act, how to move, how to speak, and how to protect our energy without having to even think about it. For that is the ultimate goal of recapitulation, to recapture our lost energy in the healing process it affords, so that we may have it for impeccable use in this life and in the next. However, to get to that place of being able to act so succinctly and impeccably, we must train ourselves during our recapitulation to become fully conscious and to stay conscious.

Although recapitulation may take us on a journey we had not anticipated, we must forge a self willing to take the journey, not be a slave to it, but a fully accepting participant. Indeed, there are times when in the midst of recapitulation we might feel overwhelmed, taken places we don’t want to go. We might even allow ourselves to go places we know we shouldn’t go. But we must train ourselves to pull our heads up out of the muck long enough to remember that we are recapitulating for a reason, and we must be ready to face whatever that reason is. It might be clear or it might be a mystery, but we must remember that once we begin recapitulation we are surrounded by the ancient intent of recapitulation.

Emergence of a new self...

As we take our journey, we must become conscious of how the unconscious guides us, how intent works, and how we are guided in all sorts of ways through our trials. It is in times such as these, when we might feel helpless, that our shifting abilities are honed. In our darkest hour our greatest challenges come to teach us.

Becoming conscious requires acquiescence. Acquiescence may be the most difficult part of the recapitulation process, but once we clearly speak the words of acquiescence—Okay, take me on this journey, I’m ready to do it—consciousness will naturally arise and lead us to hone our skills. In acquiescence, we will gradually experience that which we thought we might never experience, that which we projected onto others or rejected out of hatred for ourselves, thinking we were unworthy of love, of happiness, of a life worth living.

In acquiescing to our recapitulation journey, we accept that a new self is going to emerge, in fact in acquiescing we intend a new self. We become braver and more daring as we recapitulate, as we hone our fragmented self into a new stronger self. As we dare to face what comes to greet us, we hone the ability to shift out of any potentially harmful attachment or experience. We might suffer a few failures at first, but that is just to awaken our consciousness to the reality of the recapitulation process, letting us know how it will steer us along, helping us to see just where our greatest work lies. Whatever our greatest work is—whether getting beyond self-hatred, self-pity, self-doubt, inflation or deflation, negativity or inertia—our final oath of acquiescence offers us a major tool in honing our ability to shift.

In acquiescing to our recapitulation journey we are accepting that we are part of something bigger, far beyond the world as we experience it on a normal day. We are accepting that there is good energy available to us too, and as we take our journey we find it making its way toward us more often than ever before.

Once we decide to take our recapitulation journey we discover that in conscious awareness, in honing ourselves as shifters in both waking and dreaming states, we become aware of the truth of interconnected energy, aware that we are all part of it, that it flows to us and through us. Such energy exists for all of us, but we must work at achieving such awareness and the means to accessing it. The tools are within.

Simultaneous self experiencing darkness and light...

The biggest and most ready tool is what our unconscious brings to us, and the next tool is our conscious decision to go deeper into our unconscious, into our darkness and our light, for they reside side by side, just as our recapitulating self resides alongside our evolving self.

We are all offered, many times in a lifetime, the choice to either go on a journey with our spirit or to reject it. If we make the choice to reject it, I can state that—based on my own previous life lived during the first 50 years of this lifetime—we will suffer. If we make the choice to join our spirit, we will free ourselves of our suffering and reconstruct ourselves according to our deepest truths, our spirit alive in us, taking us into vibrant new life. This I can state from my own decision to do so, and my own experience since then. As always, it’s a personal choice. Do I stay the same or do I evolve?

There is always support as we take the recapitulation journey. Support comes from without and within, from our guides in this world and beyond, from our spirit’s intent and the intent of the shamans, from our unconscious and conscious selves, from our memories as they challenge us to recapitulate and our evolving selves as they challenge us to trust the journey, to sweep away doubt and judgment, the old voices and the old fears, and to keep going. And that is my intention today, to pass on the energy that urges us all to evolve. Keep going! You’ll get there! Life awaits!

Sending love and energy as you dare to take the full journey to freedom,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Rejecting The Chaos

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Finding calm retreat...

We gather our books, our notebooks and writing pens, and go into retreat. We leave everything else behind. Perhaps we take a cup of tea, a jug of water, an apple or two, but little else. We leave the phones, laptops, all forms of communication with the outside world, and disappear. No one knows where we are. For the time we’ve allotted ourselves, we are free.

We sit amongst the catbirds, quietly conversing or silently reading. We meditate, or perhaps even doze in our chairs. A doe and her two fawns come out of the woods and walk past. We are so invisible in our intent to retreat that they take no notice of us. We are present yet not present.

We reject all attachments, including the needs of those closest to us. On another day of retreat we sit in our canoe on calm waters. We drift, going nowhere. We let the world rumble by, all its troubles and turmoils, all its fears and desires, all its crisis and calamities. We are free.

We know what awaits us upon return to the reality of our world, yet we allow ourselves to turn from it as often as possible. In this manner we offer ourselves balance, we create a container in which to nurture our spirits. We offer ourselves sacred space in the midst of everyday life. We lift the veil of one world and enter another, rejecting the chaos that constantly seeks attachment. In the simplest of ways, at little or no cost, we seek retreat as often as possible.

Choose a new path...

Perhaps we take a walk at dawn, or at midnight. Perhaps we go to a movie. Perhaps we sit on our deck as the sun rises. Perhaps we build a fire and watch its sparks light the night. Perhaps we take a friend out to dinner and sit in a calm garden cafe. Perhaps we take a yoga class, or hike along a new path. All of these things offer retreat from the energy of the world constantly stirring around us.

Part of going into retreat, part of disappearing for a few hours or a few days, requires careful planning. It requires honing detachment by setting limits on the self and the outside world. It requires that we reject the chaos. It requires that we leave everything behind that might interrupt our retreat, anything that might interfere with our solitude. Often enough it requires leaving behind worry and fear, leaving behind the thoughts and ideas that we are needed, that we are important, that the world might collapse if we are not available every minute of every day to those who need us, want us, rely on us for whatever reasons. Going into retreat requires honing nerves of steel while simultaneously extending a tenderness toward the self that we might not ordinarily feel. Foremost, going into retreat requires rejection of all outside energy.

In turning inward, in going into retreat, in rejecting the chaos of everyday life, we learn how to care for ourselves. We learn how to detach from the critics, whether outside of us or inside. We learn how to suspend judgment: what others might think of us, what we might think of us, how the world judges us every day.

In successful retreat, we achieve calmness and contentedness. Our minds slow down; our hearts slow down. We become better givers, lovers, kinder more gentler people, because we give to ourselves, love ourselves, are kind to ourselves. In desiring to be giving beings we must first learn how to give to ourselves. In desiring to become more compassionate beings we must first experience what that means, and the best way is to practice compassion toward ourselves. In desiring to be loved, we must first learn how to love ourselves.

If we are in the midst of painful recapitulation we have already learned how to leave the world behind, for we do it every time we go into a memory. We know how to retreat, but it’s vastly important that we give ourselves sacred space for healing retreat during recapitulation too. In small increments we must learn how to care for ourselves, even though we are not used to caring about ourselves at all.

Recapitulation is forging a new self...

Recapitulation is really a time of retraining our minds and bodies, of reawakening our spirits, and remaking ourselves into a different being altogether. It’s a time of rephrasing how we think and speak, recreating our life styles and agendas to fit the changing beings we are in the process of sculpting. And so, even when deep into painful recapitulation—especially when one is in deep painful recapitulation—one must take responsibility for occasionally pulling out of the chaos and advancing the healing process. By finding some means of rejecting the chaos—however captivating it may be—one establishes balance.

Keeping in mind that the intent of recapitulation is to heal, the balance comes in learning healing activities and skills, and actually practicing them. Nothing will change if one does not act on what one is learning during recapitulation. This entails regularly stepping back from the intensity of the process and assessing the progress made. This entails reevaluating the self, appreciating the self in a new way, actually rewarding the self for the difficult work that has been accomplished. This entails reframing the state of one’s mind by offering it positive accolades as one rejects the old negative thought language. This entails learning how to be gentle, kind, and compassionate with the self, and eventually learning how to love the self.

Although recapitulation is an ongoing process of change, there will always be times when it is appropriate to reject the chaos of recapitulation—even if only for a few minutes at a time. In such moments of respite—think calm retreat—one builds stamina and regains balance that may have been lost during intense memory recapitulations. One learns how to detach from energetic attachments, nurturing one’s own reclaimed energy in the process, experiencing small doses of freedom along with a newly unfolding self.

A young woman told us of losing her phone and how free she felt. Sitting in a circle of friends, she noticed how everyone had their head down, looking at their phones, texting, reading, only peripherally attached to the conversation of the group. In that moment she clearly understood the addiction that she normally carried in her own pocket, the addiction to constantly needing to be in touch, to not missing something, to having everything at her fingertips. In that moment she saw her friends as slaves and she experienced her own freedom. Forced to break her own habit, she experienced a sense of relief, for a moment glad she had lost her phone. For a moment she basked in her own place of calm retreat.

No matter who we are, where we are in our lives, no matter what is happening, we must learn to take moments of retreat. We must learn how to reject the chaos, turn from our addiction to the chaos of life, and take responsibility for our spirits needs for calmness and balance. We must learn to nurture ourselves. It’s not that hard to do.

Love to you all, as you find calm retreat today.

Rejecting the chaos,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Fermentation

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In containment...

For the past several months I have been studying the art of fermentation, an ancient process of preserving and transforming fresh raw food for later use. Most cultures around the world have some form of traditional fermented delicacy, whether eaten daily or looked forward to on special occasions. Even we Americans eat fermented foods all the time. Yogurt, cheese, sauerkraut, pickles, sourdough breads, tofu and tamari, as well as wines and beers, are all made using a fermentation process that involves containment in an environment that is conducive to growth. Containment is key if new growth is to be achieved.

Chuck and I recently discussed the nature of the times we are living in. The whistle blowers have been telling the truths for decades and longer, telling us over and over again that we are destroying the planet, that we are poisoning our bodies, our food, our environment. But have we heeded their calls? No. And that brings us to the truth of where we are now. The world as we know it has reached a point of no return. There is no way that we will ever have what we once had. We humans, by our greed and negligence, have forever changed the life of our planet. This is clear. It is also clear to me that we can no longer look to others to do the right thing. We have been waiting for someone with means and power to wake up and carry us forward, but in spite of some fierce arguments and efforts, nothing is happening in the world outside of us. And so, the way I see it, it’s time to stop looking outwardly for transformation and go inward, which brings me to the subject of fermentation.

The practice of inner work, changing the self in a deep way in order to evolve the world outside of the self, has never been more crucial than now. In containment, we offer ourselves the opportunity to transform. The process of fermentation offers insight into this process of self-preservation and transformation in a very practical and methodical way, resulting in healthy life-giving sustenance and the opportunity for new life.

I gather cucumbers from the garden, wash them thoroughly, put them into a container, add garlic, dill, and peppercorns, and pour a solution of brine—water and sea salt—over them until the entire pot is filled. Adding a weight to keep the raw foods totally submerged, contained within the transformative solution, I cover the container with a cloth, allowing just the right amount of air to enter and begin the process of fermentation. And then I watch and wait. I must be patient, but it doesn’t take long before I see activity. Within a few hours bubbles begin to form and the fermentation process is under way. The next time I look I see that it is percolating nicely.

There is continuous activity within the container. How could it be otherwise? The temperature is right, the ingredients are right, and the solution is right, but the key is that all of these things are being contained—offered the opportunity to transform—single ingredients that by themselves are just that, lonely vegetables. I am looking for something new to emerge out of this process. I want my vegetables, the beautiful bounty of all my hard work, to evolve into something different, something lasting and delicious. Is this not the same thing we all want in our lives, our souls to transform into something everlastingly enticing?

Each day I must tend to my pots, skimming off what rises to the surface, accepting it for what it is, bacteria that has risen and become exposed to air, showing me that the process is functioning as perfectly as I intended. What is happening under the surface is that good bacteria are forming; the lactobacilli that we all know are so beneficial to our body’s health and immune systems. Transformative activity is taking place within my containers.

In the fermentation pot, all that is good and all that is bad go to work on each other. Forced containment means that one will win out over the other. In a balanced environment, with the right ingredients, the good bacteria take over and eat the bad bacteria. During the battle some bacteria rises to the surface and this is what I skim off. But I know that underneath, my intention to transform raw ingredients is well underway.

If we apply this process to the inner process of personal change, the same thing will happen. As we sit in containment, with the right ingredients of spirit and intent, and submerge ourselves in a transformative process, we will begin to see changes. Before long the real truths of the self, the good bacteria, awaken and overpower the untruths, the bad bacteria. That which we once valued and held onto but no longer find life-giving is allowed to release, perhaps thoughts, ideas, and lies that have held us in captivity, exposed for what they truly are. Once skimmed from our conscious awareness, we are free to return to our container, now filling up with good bacteria—new ideas, thoughts, and truths about ourselves—and before long we discover that something has happened to us on a very deep level; we are different. Without the old bad bacteria infecting our souls we now have the opportunity for the good bacteria to multiply and transform us into new healthy beings.

In allowing ourselves to be contained, in taking back our outer projections and need for others to fulfill our deepest needs and desires, we offer ourselves the opportunity for self-nurturance and self-love to blossom—the good bacteria that changes the very fibers of our beings—just as the raw vegetables change within the good fermentation solution.

Raw ingredients waiting for the process to begin...

Recapitulation is the process of fermentation, an intentional journey of change. We must remember that we are beings who already contain all the right ingredients. And the solution is the decision to turn inward and let them percolate. In containment we allow the ingredients that are our deepest selves to sit in the solution that is our intent to change, where they lie submerged, fermenting and changing. Eventually they will reemerge in new form.

It’s not that hard to get started—remember all the ingredients lie within—but it does take patience and fortitude to stay with the process, to stay contained while we go through the transformation that our spirits seek. Checking in each day, as we wrestle with our demons and our bad bacteria, we must remain aware that everything that arises, all the struggles for truth and good bacteria, are necessary parts of the process. I also know that if I open my pots too early I will not get the results I desire. And so I taste the ferment throughout the process, checking that it’s working right, that it smells good, but I know that I must be patient if I am to get what I desire. And so I turn everything back into the solution again, weigh it down, cover it over, and wait. When it’s done to my liking, I’ll know, because it will taste exactly right! Just as I know that my inner process has done its work, because I always feel exactly like the real me when I’m done!

Our inner work is always waiting for our inner process of transformation to begin. Though it may be too late for our planet, it’s never too late for that! We just have to turn inward and let the fermentation begin!

Thanks for reading, and good luck as you take the inward journey,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Buffalo Soldier

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I read in the news that a white buffalo calf has been born on a farm in Connecticut, a most promising omen in Native American culture. I remember a dream I had months ago, a dream that has sat in the back of my mind, a dream that I knew I had to sit with and wait for its meaning to be revealed. And so I put it away, knowing I’d come back to it at some point. Now is the time, for the meaning has been revealed.

I tell Chuck about the dream, in which I pull a bone out of my foot, a bone that grows larger and larger as I carry it around, sometimes giving it to him to hold, until it transforms into a white buffalo. The white buffalo is the size of a calf, yet it’s ancient, old and tired. It will not leave my side; everywhere I go the small white buffalo follows along. I confront issues of detachment and ego in the dream while the buffalo gets sicker and sicker. It vomits and keels over, exhausted, barely able to hold up, yet it will not leave me. It constantly gets back up and trods onward, its nose to the ground, its bony hump old and brittle, dutifully keeping pace with me. I worry about it, though I also accept its presence, for I recognize it. I’m aware that it’s been walking beside me forever.

I tell Chuck that as soon as I woke up from the dream I knew it was important, but I couldn’t make any sense of it at the time. With the birth of the white buffalo calf that I read about, I am spurred to figure it out.

What is the significance of my dream? As I begin pondering this question I feel the pull of outside energy, of ego telling me that I am special, though I know I’m not. I slow down and pull inward, knowing I have to investigate this in my inner world, to find out the significance and specialness of this dream omen as I progress on my personal journey. I’m certain this has nothing to do with anyone else, but only to do with some bone of contention that I still carry within. I’m aware that this white buffalo omen is prompting me to take the next step on my journey of growth and transformation.

Chuck and I discuss the dream. We discover that I have been like this buffalo, dutifully bearing up under all circumstances, always getting back on my feet and plodding along, nose to the grindstone.

“That’s it!” Chuck exclaims. “This is what I’ve been searching for, the answer to the question: Where is Jan’s ego? It’s not in inflation, I’ve always known that, but I just couldn’t get a handle on it. This dream is clearly showing that it’s in willfulness. Jan’s ego is a martyr!”

I acknowledge the truth of this. I see that my challenge is to shed the martyr archetype, to let the sick buffalo die, transforming its willfulness into energy that is useful, life giving, and healing. Pulling the bone out of my foot was the first step in this transformational process. Now it’s time to take the next step and shed the buffalo hide. And then Chuck gets up and plays Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier and it makes perfect sense to me. Chuck also suggests that I write about the white buffalo in my next blog, but I tell him that I’m not sure I’m ready yet.

We go to sleep. I wake up after an hour or so, this challenge of shedding the martyr-self, the buffalo soldier, running through my mind. I know I must be available to the people who need me, but differently now, not as a martyr dutifully carrying out her duties, but balancing kindness, compassion, and being available while fully standing in my truth. These are things I have worked at consistently for many years, always feeling like I was not quite getting over the final hump within that would free me of the deeply ingrained sense of duty that weighs so heavily upon my shoulders. As I lie awake, I think about shedding the bony carapace of the buffalo, the garment of the martyr that I have worn my entire life, now scruffy and old.

I fall back to sleep and into a dream. Someone is sick and must go to the hospital. I never see who it is, but it’s me of course. A nun meets us at the door of the hospital and takes my cell phone from me. I watch as she puts it into the deep pocket of her long black habit. No cell phones allowed; no outside interference. While we sit in the hospital room of the sick patient, I work on the blog for the next week, the one about the white buffalo, as Chuck suggested I do. It’s partly channeled, partly comprised of the dream I had about the bone in my foot, and partly about the new insight that Chuck and I came to. Every now and then Chuck screams and bolts upright, as if he’s having a heart attack. Clutching his heart he says: “My heart tells me it’s true! My heart tells me it’s right!” I tell him he’s freaking me out, but he keeps doing it.

At one point a woman artist walks into the room. She stays for a while, leaning over the bed of the sick person, and then leaves. Then a yogi comes in. He too goes to the hospital bed, says something, and leaves. The third person to walk in is a wine merchant. He too goes over to the bed of the sick person, speaks softly, and then leaves without saying a word to us. I see these characters as parts of who I have been in the world—the ego, the artist self who worked in the real world; the spirit self who worked in my inner world; and the self of pleasure and desire who fulfilled the needs of the human self—saying goodbye to the old self.

I get up, leaving Chuck to watch over the sick person, while I go for a walk out into the surrounding desert. I stand in the middle of the desert and hear a loud crack and then the sound of bones dropping to the ground. Standing up straight and tall, I easily release the garment of the martyr, the carapace of the white buffalo. At the same time, glancing to my right, I see a large snake slithering out of a clump of grass. It lifts its enormous head and looks at me with a huge smile on its face. I am filled with unbelievable happiness and delight at the sight of it. I walk back to the hospital with the snake slithering alongside me, just as the white buffalo had once walked beside me, but it doesn’t feel like duty now, there is only joy accompanying me.

The nun meets me in the lobby as soon as I enter the hospital. “She’s dead,” she tells me, glancing at the snake beside me. I go back to the room and tell Chuck that now I have to rewrite everything that I’d written earlier.

“Now that she’s dead, my blog won’t be true anymore,” I say, and I tell Chuck to sit quietly, to not disturb me. “I have all these parts out there floating around,” I say, “and I have to bring them together in a cohesive whole. I have to write a new story.”

I will not be distracted. I work intently on the story while Chuck reads quietly beside me, the snake curled at my feet. Eventually, the nun comes back to the hospital room and tells us that we have to leave, that we have to pack up the belongings of the dead person so they can clean the room. We carry a few boxes to the car. I see that the nun has laid my cell phone on top of the car.

“You have two messages waiting for you,” she says. “The phone has been beeping away every half hour, letting you know that someone is trying to reach you. You can listen to them now if you want, before going back to cleaning out the room.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t need to listen. They can wait.” I have a sense that they are calls from people who want something from me, demanding to know where I’ve been and why I haven’t been in touch with them, people calling the old buffalo martyr self who always responded. But she’s dead now and I will not be distracted or pulled away from the work at hand. The only duty I have is to return to the hospital room, pack up the belongings of the person who has died, and continue working on my new story.

I wake up from this dream feeling refreshed, lighter and freer. Reliving the moment of shedding the buffalo carapace again, I realize that I experienced the same transformative energy in this dream as when I stood up and faced the seagulls on Great Duck Island that I wrote about a few weeks ago. I shed the old bones of the martyr self and walked away, leaving them behind without attachment or regret, just as I had shed my fearful self and walked away from the seagulls. Death of the old self occurred in the action of shedding the white buffalo carapace and a new self, the snake of transformation and healing, was instantly born.

As Bob Marley says in Buffalo Soldiers: “If you know your history, then you would know where you coming from.”

And if you know that, I say, then you can change.

From all the worlds of dreams and reality, sending love and transformational energy,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Dreaming of Pie Dough & Desert Wind

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I don't want to become flyer food...

It’s a bit early to go to bed, but I’m tired. Something’s bothering me and I don’t want to wake up in a few hours with it still on my mind. I don’t want to lie awake for hours, my mind crawling with thoughts, becoming what the shamans call flyer food. Shamans see flyers as entities that feed off human agitation, and thoughts generate agitated energy. As I drift off to sleep, I ask the universe and my dreaming self to take the “bothersome something” from my mind so I can sleep peacefully.

“Please give me something so I can get through the night without disturbance,” I ask.

Immediately, I am standing in a windy desert. I look down and see an aluminum pie plate in the sand at my feet. I put my thoughts into it, in little bits and pieces like rolled bits of pie dough until the pie plate is filled. The wind, already strong, grows stronger now. I watch, as first one and then another bit of pie dough blow away, then another and another, until all the bits of pie dough have blown away. Then the aluminum pie plate blows away too.

“Oh,” I say, “that’s how I’ll do it. I’ll just keep putting bothersome thoughts into the pie plate and let the desert wind blow them away.”

I go into the desert many times throughout the night and each time I do the pie plate is lying at my feet, once again returned for use. Dropping little thought-clumps onto the pie plate I watch them pile up and then watch as they and the pie plate blow away in the wind. Each time I do this, I am aware of the power of intent to create exactly what is needed. I remark to myself in my dream how well it works and how calm and peaceful I feel. In addition, I notice that the contents of the thought-clumps never materialize in my mind, not even for an instant. I am so intently involved in the process of rolling them up and watching them blow away that they never become real. Thus, my mind is totally empty and at peace.

I sleep deeply. When I wake up in the morning I am calm and well rested. I tell Chuck of my nighttime process.

“It really worked, I slept so soundly,” I say. “I was able to not only sleep deeply but my mind was perfectly empty and calm even when the “bothersome something” arose. I just went through the process as it came to me and let the wind take it. It’s really an excellent mindfulness practice.”

Chuck reminded me that I had mentioned to him the other day that Byron Katie spent a lot of time in the desert after her awakening in 1986, listening to her inner stories, letting the winds take her thoughts, thoughts that came out of her, both her own and those that did not really belong to her personally. Although I live far from the desert, the desert winds appeared just when I needed help too. Who knows what else lies waiting to help us, just for the asking.

To be clear, there’s a huge difference between ridding the mind of bothersome everyday thoughts and what goes on when one is engaged in deep recapitulation. As Byron Katie discovered, she had to encounter her own darkness; in order to heal she had to face everything that came up out of her. In contrast, I just didn’t want useless thoughts interfering with my sleep last night. I had no intention of inviting the flyers to a feeding frenzy.

In addition, I had no intention of going back to or revisiting any thoughts that might arise. I sensed them hovering about, waiting to see if they’d find an opening, and set my intent to do exactly the opposite, to not become available. Instead, I encased them in pie dough, letting them know that they were inconsequential thoughts of no significance and I would give them no energy whatsoever. In letting the wind take everything, including the pie plate, nothing was left behind for the flyers to feed off; no crumbs even to lick clean.

Peaceful healed mind enjoying life...

We have to accept that thoughts naturally arise, seeking a place to land. In meditation practice, it’s the eternal process of letting go of thoughts that eventually allows us the experience of peaceful mind, as they drift through our mind without attachment. I see the pie plate and wind of my desert dream as a natural meditation tool. Give it a try; it really does work!

It’s even often appropriate to send thoughts away during recapitulation, but we have to be aware that some of the issues we’re trying to push away will return, no matter how far the wind blows them, until we are done with them. This is because the intent of recapitulation is to heal, totally, and total healing takes many forms, painful and blissful alike. However, I could see using the same practice as a recapitulation tool to send interfering thoughts away that are blocking the truth, or for sending away self-defeating thoughts, old scenarios that are no longer true, as well as the voices of others. It may also help in dealing with the onslaughts of messages from the deeper self that we are just not ready to acknowledge yet.

Once we’ve healed, the flyers leave us alone for the most part, and we are free to dream new dreams.

Passing it on,
Jan