#500 Three Issues of Growth: Past, Present & Future

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have some guidance for us today? Your messages have been extremely helpful to many people. Many of your readers have been expressing their appreciation, so I pass that acknowledgment of our work on to you.

Be aware now that the tumble and turmoil of shift is smoothing out to a gentler flow. The waves, whether tidal, rough, or churning, have now broken upon the shore and the immediacy of their intensity has passed. Do not, however, resort to complacency or become lulled by the now less turbulent energy that surrounds you. For in a time of such transition the lessons encountered must be fully accepted and carried forth; your own energy must flow now with the force of the energy outside of you for the transition to complete its providence (its forecast).

Continue your training in awareness, cognizant of this time just passed. This is your challenge now, to not forget where you have been, to remain attached to your emotions and your thoughts regarding the self and others. In essence, to not forget your lessons, your revelations, and the advancements you have made.

As you return to calmer waters, to the gentler lulling of the waves crashing upon the shore, do not lose your awareness of past, present, and your openness to continued growth. The lulling calm may put you to sleep, but the splashing waves will attempt to keep you alert; the duality of the water metaphor is quite apt, if I do say so.

Today, I suggest that you take a new assessment of your position in life. Where are you now, at this moment in your life? Assess the damage done, accept the necessities and truths of it, take your mind off the troubles that have spun off into nothingness now, and focus on where to go with what you have in your life. This is now a time of rebuilding, of moving forward, having learned some valuable lessons, continually training your awareness to stay focused on the three issues of growth, the past, the present, and the future.

All three of these lesson times offer much guidance. Do not forget the past, but do not remain caught in it. Take its hard earned lessons, insights, and opportunities forward with you into the present. Do not get caught in the present either. Though you must live in the moment, keep your awareness turned to the fact that you are on a mission, a journey of growth.

Your present provides you with the necessary clues to your future, showing you the direction to take, the possibilities that are available, leading to your future. Your future is not far off. It overlaps each moment of your day. Your future is the next moment, and now, again, it is this moment. It comes as the waves upon the shore; suddenly it is here, and it is to be expected. These three promises of growth not only align, but merge upon the shore of your life, offering you their lessons, possibilities, and signs, laid right at your feet.

So sit upon the metaphorical shore a moment today. Put your feet and your hands into the sand. Feel the wetness of your tears of the past, your grainy moments of truth now revealed, and see the future as yet dry sand, untouched by the waves, yet so close it is but another moment and you will be immersed in its energy, as the next wave comes upon the shore, inching toward you at each energetic thrust.

This is your life. Where you sit, now, is your life. What are you going to do with where you are now, with what you have learned and discovered, and with what you are being asked to do now and shown that you should do next? Remain alert.

#499 Take Your Rightful Place as Monarch

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message for us today, perhaps following up where you left off last week?

Now I intend to take you deeper into your own issues, My Dears, asking you to consider your issues and the signs you receive to guide you as so perfect for your growth. When you question, asking why, so do I request that you pause for a moment and instead of asking why, that you simply acknowledge your sign as one that is leading you along your path, showing you your deepest issues and the direction you must take in order to confront, head on, your deeply seeded lifetime issues. (The visual I received here was of a seed buried deeply in the ground, eager to emerge.)

Each of you carries, deeply embedded, a life lesson. Each of you must discover what this lesson is and where it is manifesting. You must accept the awareness of it, rather than your continual avoidance, and you must take steps to address it in a mature, spiritually oriented manner. A spiritual manner may be any number of processes, and that is totally up to you, but by addressing all problems as spiritual in nature, so may you find that you have many more tools at your disposal than if you categorize an issue as merely physical, emotional, or mental.

All problems and issues are spiritually related and that is what I wish to stress next in our evolutionary conversation. Each of you must learn to know and understand the self. How do you react to what you are being shown in your life? How do you react to the gifts presented to you? Do you protest, argue, and deny? Do you avoid, pretend, and bury your signs and gifts so that they must be dug up and presented over and over again? Do you run away, pursuing outer interests to the total elimination of inner self? Do you ask others to carry your worries and your burdens?

As you learn that your gifts are your stepping stones, so may you also simplify your life, offering your self the signs and presentations that are daily handed to you, not as difficulties, or as means of setback, but as obvious gifts. Your time upon the earth is a spiritually awakening journey. Your energy is asking for recognition and awareness of its fuller potential. Your life is prepared so that you may evolve. Your daily lives are a means of training your awareness as a warrior of the spirit.

Today, I urge and encourage you to make plans to sit a mature adult self upon your throne. Graciously accept the gifts that have been presented as only a fair and compassionate leader would, and allow that the mightiest gift is as full of potential for growth as the tiniest.

Look for the significance of each gift as relates to your spiritual self, who must sit firmly implanted in, and expressed by, that reigning mature monarch, who must now come forth to guide you, to teach you, and to protect you from the foibles of your old self.

It is a time of newness, but it is also a time of decision and action. Do not wait any longer for the reluctant self to emerge, but force the hand of resistance now, and take your rightful place as adult leader in your life. Your child self, your big baby self, your shy and scared selves, your fearful and denying selves, all desire this. They have waited long enough for the adult self to wake up, to reawaken, and to emerge more fully, once and for all. Whether this self has been present before or not, it is time to reestablish precedence, to take over the leadership role, to become the mature self who knows, who is aware, and who is fully connected to spirit within.

This is your next challenge as you continue to find that the gifts that are daily laid at your feet are both challenging and beautiful, intricate and simple, fruitful and confrontational, inner and outer gifts of growth. Today, My Dears, is a day of take-over, a day of solid vision and clarity. You do truly know what to do in your life in order to evolve. You know exactly what I am talking about. Your signs have been repeatedly presented. Your guidance has been direct and unwavering. Your spirit has been awakened to the truth.

Now make your ultimate decision to grow, to mature, and to guide the self from this throne of power, this throne of mature self-love, in spiritual companionship. This is what is truly needed, along with a firm determination and push toward better understanding that this is, indeed, the way to go. The spiritual way is the way, firmly guided by the mature leader who is waiting to take over the throne of goodness, of kindness, of compassion, of leadership, of awareness, and connection to truth of spirit and what that truly means to your individual life. I urge all of you to go for this bid for self power, this ultimate take over, this adult seizure of your direction, your process, your seat of guidance, for now is the right time.

#498 Chuck’s Place: Preparing for Enlightenment

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences!

According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, when we die, our consciousness separates from the body to take its journey through a series of bardos where it must face challenges that will determine its future evolution. The most desirable outcome right after death is to become enlightened, to be able to hold onto the true nature of reality as our consciousness encounters the light. This requires a willingness to let go of all one has cherished and attached to in this life, accepting the utter irrelevance of all that seemed so relevant but a moment ago, fully shedding ego attachments and ego itself, acquiescing instead to the full truth and nature of reality without a spin. In The Book of Us Jeanne describes her experience of this moment as follows: “I took off like a shot, a loud rush, an explosion out of my body, as fast as I could ever imagine, not wanting or needing to stay any longer, aware that it wasn’t ever going to be the same, that that life on earth was done, that the new life wanted to begin. I died as I was born, rushing into the world, out of one into the next, not missing anything as I went, not wanting anything, except to get where I was going so I could see what it was like there.”

According to the Buddhists, if one is not ready to relinquish attachment to this world at the beginning of the journey after death, then the potential for enlightenment is lost for this round; one reenters the spinning of consciousness, as the mind starts to project its wants and fears, leading to attachments and the re-crystallization of consciousness as we prepare to reincarnate in this world. Jeanne’s description of her awareness, moments after death, reflects the necessary detachment to transcend reincarnation and continue to evolve beyond this world. Buddhists spend their lives preparing their consciousness for this moment of decision, to have the clarity to choose enlightenment. This is what the shamans call, embarking upon the definitive journey of awareness.

In the West, we spend most of our lives and technology manifesting a world of eternal youth; almost no attention is paid to what really matters: our moment of death. Compared to the Buddhists, stated bluntly, our spiritual maturity is somewhere in the stone age. Not that I suggest that we sell our homes and dedicate our lives to saving Tibet. Even the Dalai Lama appreciates that the Tibetan diaspora is part of an evolution of an interdependent one-world that must integrate the findings and awareness of its formerly isolated parts to advance in maturity. How does this ancient wisdom apply to our modern world? How can we use this knowledge to better prepare ourselves to greet our deaths?

The Buddhist knowledge of the encounters that consciousness faces upon dying elucidates the core projective nature of the mind and the challenge to not attach to its familiar comforts and fears. Jeanne describes her experience of this encounter as follows: “There is a great gate, wide and high, majestic, the entrance into the unknown, the unknowable, which few choose. There is another path, and another gate also, which many choose because it is the way where everything is seen and explained and there is little to challenge. The other gate is expansive and opens up other worlds and other possibilities.” Here Jeanne is describing the choice one is faced with upon dying. Do we choose the evolutionary gate, which sends our consciousness on an evolutionary journey into the unknown or do we cling to the known and familiar, allowing the mind to project and place us back in a familiar world? Understanding that the reality we currently live in is but a spin of this projective mind that has crystallized into the solid world we live in affords us an opportunity to practice making choices that reflect the true nature of reality while still in this world. This practice prepares us to choose the less chosen gate when we embark on our definitive journey at death.

We have discussed many faces of projection over the past several weeks. Refusing the compelling projective spin we are daily drawn to by withdrawing our projections and owning the true nature of our personal reality offers an ongoing practice of preparation for the moment of death. Through this process we exercise the choice of “enlightenment” in our daily lives over the comforts of our minds’ projective illusions. Ultimately, this is the practice of detachment: choosing to not attach to the spinning illusions constantly conjured by the projective mind. Take worry, for example. Worry is nothing other than the spinning of empty imaginings by the mind manifesting its fears in a series of imagined stories. If we attach to the story we are then tormented, and we suffer, as our energy is depleted and we stay entrenched in illusion. Practice instead, staying in the moment. How do you stay in the moment? Focus on your heart center. Is your equilibrium being rocked through reaction to the mind’s conjuring? Focus also on the synchronicities of the moment. What are the signs suggesting? Is there true cause for concern or, again, are you being duped by the restless conjuring mind? Refuse the products of worry, state the intent: don’t attach! Focus awareness on what actually presents in the moment, meet it fully, then relinquish it, equally as fully, as you prepare your awareness to greet oncoming time and what comes next. These practices strengthen fluidity and non-attachment, which prepare us for our moment of death and decision.

As always, I am open to discussion or comment. Should anyone wish to write, I can be reached via email at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com

Until we meet again,
Chuck

#497 A Jolt is Needed

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have guidance for us today?

Continue to watch your own energy as we go into this time of shift and reflection. Use your mirrors of self-reflection to determine how your personal energy should be used outside of you. As you take back your energy from areas in your life that no longer need, deserve, or require your attention, determine, with utter honesty and truth, how best to utilize it for self-growth. Though this time upon that earth pushes for participation, and though many issues come to the foreground as they struggle to remain prominent, do not falter in your quest for wholeness, for that is your main goal.

Though your lives are busy, your outer world demanding, and your inner world often distant and removed from that outer reality, so must you maintain the link between inner self and progress on your evolution, no matter what comes from outside to tempt you or push you away from your mirror of self-reflection.

Your mirror of self-reflection is your main guide right now. It offers the only clear picture of what you must deal with. It speaks the truth, though your ears may not want to hear; your eyes do not lie. Your ears may be covered and spoken truths appear as muffled, unclear sounds, easily ignored, but you must acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with your eyes. Your eyes see the truths being reflected, revealed, and repeatedly pointed out as your major areas of interest, the issues needing attention. This you cannot deny, and this you must not push from you, or you will get into trouble.

This is a good warning to present to you, My Dear Ones. I know you like my kindness and concern to be gentle, but every now and then a jolt is a good approach, and now is such a time. So I will state it very plainly: if you do not pay attention to what you are seeing, and I use that word to mean seeing with your eyes, but also with your inner knowing, you may end up in a place of difficulty that will take a long time to dig your self out of. (During the channeling this appeared, visually, to be a physical dilemma, possibly health related, but it could also be mental or emotional stagnation manifesting in a physical manner.)

Clarity of seeing is a gift and it is offered so that you may take swift action. Your clarity may reveal any number of things, but it is not to be feared. It may jolt you, but action taken now will place you far ahead of where you now stand. If looking in the reflective mirror has become painful for you, I suggest that you must confront the painful truth, accept its solid and honest approach, and take action to remedy and resolve the issues that are being presented. Only in action, in acceptance, and in truthful self-concern and self-guidance, will your life change drastically for the better.

This is a time of action, even as you are pulled to ignore, once again, the truths of the self. This is a time of fighting through the old ways of ignoring, pretending, and covering the truths being pointed out, reflected daily in your mirror of self discovery, self guidance, and self love. It is where you will first see the real you reflected, the new you, the awakened you.

Allow the self to push forward now. Jolt the self forward to a new place. You are aided in your growth, even as you are accompanied into your places of old. You are never alone.

It will be nice to see you on the other side of the current mirror of reflection, the new you looking back at the utter grandeur of the new evolving self who is unafraid, open to the adventures of life as yet unrevealed.

What is your mirror showing you? What is the jolt that is coming to wake you up? This is the next shift that you have been expecting, and how you deal with it is very important. Good Luck!

#496 Your Energy Usage

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message of guidance for us today?

Some determination needs to be made now as to what you will accept as part of your life. It is time to seriously consider how you wish to use your energy, determining what is most important to focus your attention on, based on what you receive in return, for to use your energy slovenly is not a good idea.

It is time to allow the self to study the attachments in your lives and the energy drains, to decide why and how you are going to use your energy now, and in the future. Your underlying premise must be that you only have a certain amount of energy, and most of that energy must be used to promote spiritual health, for that is most important now.

I suggest that an assessment of energy usage is now called for, an honest look at your life from the energetic point of view, determining how and where you are spending, wasting, or best utilizing your allotted energy. Present your selves with the honest truth that you only have a certain amount of personal energy. Some of may have more than others because you have already begun a concerted effort to retain it for the self, having learned to withdraw it from outside attachments and utilize it for the work on the self. This is a good beginning because only in the true work on the self will your energy become available for better usage outside of you as well. As you turn to your inner work, you will regain much of your lost and spilled energy and re-ignite your own coffer of fuel.

First, you must take an assessment of how you use your energy, as I have said.

Secondly, it is important to fully understand why you use it in the manner that you do. Why are you so attached to certain people, behaviors, habits, and outward seeking pleasures and fulfillments?

Thirdly, you must take time to consider what it will mean to the self, and others, if you decide to withdraw much of your attention from where it is now attached. Are you asking others to become more responsible for themselves by withdrawing your focus from then and turning it back upon the self? If so, this is a very good action to take!

Fourth, you must determine where all of your own inner aspects are in regards to your energy usage now and, again, as you reserve your energy for your self. Where is your adult self, your inner child, your big baby, your anima, your animus, your controlling self, your allowing self? Where is your most useful self and where is your most reluctant self?

As you shift your attention from outward focus to inner focus, deciding that you wish to reserve your energy for the work on the self now, you will experience a shift. This shift will be quite noticeable. You will have outer reaction of the self and of others, but your inner structures will also shift.

You may find that certain aspects of the self, previously ignored or even unknown, may come forth asking for recognition and attention. You may find that your inner world is much more demanding than your outer world. You may discover that your outer self is not quite ready to turn from outer expenditure of energy, no matter how depleting it is. You may have a period of scrambling as you experience a shift and a reconnection to the self, causing a power outage of some significance, as you determine what it really means to reclaim your own energy.

Lastly, I suggest that the reason you would want to do such a thing as reclaim your own energy is that as you age upon that earth, you may begin to experience a depletion of energy, a physical and mental tiredness or drain. You may experience this as an abrupt loss or as a gradual loss, but I suggest that, in some manner, you will discover that it is noticeable and perhaps even more significant than that. In fact, a noticeable loss of energy may be the ultimate reason you seek to reclaim your energy from others and from outer attractions and attentions.

A withdrawing of your energy from outside of you, no matter your age, is a good practice to begin cultivating. In the long run, you will be glad that you have cultivated skills of inner work in order to maintain and have available vital energy to carry you forward. Your main focus in doing so is to learn as much about the self as possible, all the parts of the self, but also all the possibilities of the self as you return your energy to the self.

It is important to keep in mind that your life is full of opportunities to grow and to evolve. With your inner work focused on such growth and evolution, open to a changing self, so will you require energy to keep moving forward. With energy focused inwardly so will you gain enough clarity to eventually know how best to use it outside of you.

Take time now, during this changing time, to offer the self an opportunity to flow with the changes offered, by reclaiming your personal energy and utilizing it for further study of the true self, the honest self, the pure and innocent self, who may feel that your attention has gone too far astray. Time to return to the self!