Monthly Archives: October 2009

Messages from Jeanne

#587 Do a Reality Check

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message for all of our readers today?

Today is a good day to slow down and do a reality check of the self, the life begin led, the life desired, and the realistic steps being taken to achieve that desired life. Of course everyone has goals and everyone has desires, but most people do not achieve their goals and desires, simply because they do not care to do the work required to achieve them. It is far easier to live in the imagination of achievement than to do the work of making that imagination real.

To begin a process of change one must first set a goal, and then one must be willing to temper the enthusiasm for jumping ahead and instead begin the slow process of making change happen, slowly and methodically. Change, if truly desired and truly wanted, must be worked for. I am sorry to say that otherwise it is just a dream. Many stay caught in the dream, without taking action, and that is no better than no dream at all.

Taking a reality check is a personal process, but it can be universally described as a process of assessing the present state of the self. Determine where your strengths lie, where your weaknesses lie, what is useful and what can be discarded in order to move you, one step at a time, toward your goal. What in your life is absolutely necessary to maintain? What is absolutely frivolous and perhaps even a drain? What or who hinders your progress? What or who drains your energy so that you cannot even see beyond your own feet?

I suggest a lifting of the head next and a scanning of the horizon to shake you out of your place of reverie and/or complacency. Look into the future. What do you see for your self if you remain entrenched where you are now? Then look again from a new perspective and ask the self to describe a future with some simple changes involving releasing and letting go of that which is holding you captive. What does this future look like?

With these two pictures in mind, it is now time to look back at the self and do another reality check. Ask the self, truthfully: Which future is the right one, the future of spirit and desire for life or the present course of action? Which is the challenging one? This is perhaps the one that must be taken. And by the way, do not dismiss the look at the future of sameness, for it may be the far greater challenge, and more necessary. It may be far more difficult to remain upon the current path than to shift to a new one. Challenge the self to discover why each path looks the way it appears. Then challenge the self to take the next step into each future, in imagination, and feel what that step would be like. Then step back into the reality of now and ask the self which path feels most right to take and for what reason. Do you need to stay upon the current path, or are you clearly ready to take a new one? Only you will know.

This step by step process of reality checking may aid you now as the energy winds down into a distant rumbling on the horizon. Keep in mind that life is indeed full of many challenges, but keep in mind that those challenges are necessary in order to learn about your life, your specific life, as you attempt to remain open to learning the meaning of it, the purpose of it, and learn to be open to the magic of it as well.

As you take a reality check of your self and your life, I also ask that you remind your self of the magic of life, magic that you encounter each day, but also magic that you must learn about, learn to recognize, and learn to use for purposes of growth.

This magic is available to you simply because you exist upon that earth plane, but it can only be utilized if you allow your awareness to have access to it, if you allow your rational self to sit back as you allow your spiritual self to look out over the horizon of your life and see what is being revealed. Your imagination may be your greatest asset, and it may be quite underutilized in your daily life. And why is this so? I believe that most of you, My Dear Readers, too easily dismiss it as fantasy when, in fact, it may be your greatest asset in offering a catalyst of shift and eventual change.

Taking a reality check involves using your imagination to project a future that goes far beyond where you find your self now. See what happens as you follow your spiritually guided imagination and do a reality check into a projected future self and into the self of now. And then determine the steps needed to make those two selves align and begin the process of meeting, forming a new world for the self, an alliance that is aware of reality, but equally aware of the magic, for both are necessary in order to achieve clarity of purpose and meaning in life. Good Luck!

Messages from Jeanne, Questions for Jeanne

#586 Why Must You Return To Your Cage?

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Today a reader asks a question.

Dear Jeanne,
I feel very connected to you and your soul group (since I read The Book of Us) and, as I hope you can hear, I ask every morning, in my prayers and meditation practice, for you and your group to please come near to me and whisper things in my ear, guide me and help me to keep going on the right track, my head facing forward, into infinity………I’ll keep my real name anonymous, but call myself ” Soul Trecker” just so I recognize your response back to me.

My question is: As someone who has experienced sexual violation by father and abandonment in childhood and adolescence and then re-creates the same dynamic in every intimate relationship, am I supposed to keep trying at intimacy, or stop putting my energy there in this lifetime? I have re-experienced so much panic anxiety around intimacy and am currently trying to commit to a man who triggers physical revulsion and aversion in me to such an extent that I have anxiety attacks when I even think of having sex with him. When I have to have sex with him, I have anxiety and revulsion and feel rage. I am in EMDR therapy and have recapitulated so much trauma and worked on it for many years previous to EMDR through Core-Energetic therapy and Pathwork, but it doesn’t seem to be progressing, but rather getting worse. Am I supposed to keep pushing through this to possibly have a soul movement healing breakthrough? I feel like I’m about to have a “breakdown” with the conflictual feelings in me regarding committing to this man or not committing, having sex when I don’t feel attracted. Is this just my old trigger from childhood? There is very little humor or laughter in our relationship and we are both so literal and serious about things. Can I still continue to grow if I end this quest to find fulfillment/success in intimate relationships or would I be avoiding growth? Or is it time to pull up my pants for good in this lifetime and be celibate and just have good close friends and focus on using the energy to make a bee-line for infinity? I’m tired of it down here.

Thanks,
Soul Trecker

My Dearest One, I will call you Soul Trecker as you request. It is quite an appropriate name for one who struggles to understand what life is offering to guide. For all that you relate to me in your questions is full of signs. First you must fully accept that your journey through life, though it is full of pain and discomfort, is a teaching, learning, and evolving journey. Your life, as it is laid out, is asking that you take up the challenge of it, but you must also firmly accept that you have what it takes to fully take this journey. Your challenges are many, but I underscore that you are fully capable of meeting these challenges.

That being said, I ask that you next allow your self to fully accept your past, that you allow it to become your base, your early achievements meant to lead you on your evolutionary journey, rather than a devastating and destructive beginning. For in the challenges of your early life you have set a standard of ability that is far greater in its accomplishment than you have thus far allowed your self to accept. Do you understand what I mean by this? Your child self took on challenges that your adult self has not fully acknowledged as accomplishments in evolutionary growth. Yes, I fully understand the dire circumstances in which you began your life, but I also wish to offer you a shift in your perspective, away from the conventional outlook on such a childhood. As true as the conventional assessment may be, it is far truer, if you will allow your perspective to shift, that you took the journey of a warrior child. This is my common assessment of such an early journey, and I have made this statement before to others in such predicaments. Predicaments are predicated, prescribed, in my opinion, and those who undertake such predicaments are, more often than not, up to the challenge.

Once childhood is done with the next challenge becomes to fully recapitulate with this new perspective in mind, allowing the self to revisit and relive that childhood, challenging the self to do so in the company of that warrior child self. By taking the return journey, as both a mature adult and a warrior child, all experiences have the potential to return to their original intent, that of being lessons in evolutionary growth.

If you allow the self to acquiesce to a soul’s true journey, as you wish My Dear Soul Trecker, so must you also acquiesce to the true possibility that all of your experiences were specifically prepared so that you might have the preparation to evolve beyond earth’s evolutionary phase. Your pre-laid life plan, this time around, is perhaps your greatest challenge yet, and your early childhood and adolescence, full of pain and confusion on one level were, on another level, perfect for a soul’s evolutionary journey.

My next assessment of your situation, My Dear One, is to advise a slowing down of all pursuits to reconcile outside of the self and to turn inward with your warrior child self fully appreciated, loved, and acceptable to you. You must fully know this warrior child self for the journey taken, even though that journey was taken in unawareness. As an adult you have gained clarity, and as an adult your continuing evolutionary challenge is to utilize that clarity to continue growing, but now with awareness.

Awareness of the self as being on a journey, open to guidance, and seeking more of life is clearly your intent. Your path is wide open before you, for you possess a brightness of spirit beneath the current wave of confusion and disappointment that is unparalleled and this you must uncover and tap into. This aspect of self, your inner warrior, both child self and evolving self, awaits recognition and acceptance.

This warrior self, though remaining in slumber, has alerted you often enough to take action that is evolutionary, but your tendency, My Dear, has been to flit about like a caged bird momentarily freed because the door to the cage has unexpectedly flung open; opportunity arrives and of course you take it! You fly free for the experience of such freedom, release, and potential. But, My Dear Little Birdie, you must return to the cage after such escapades in the great wide world because the cage is your home, your safety, your comfort, as well as being the place where all your mysteries lie waiting to be discovered. You see, as much as you wish to flee, to be done with your past, your relationships, your sexual frustrations, they will not be resolved by running from them, by flying from the cage that though it captivates you does so for a reason.

Now the next questions I pose to you are: Who is your captor? Who feeds you and gives you water? Who cleans your cage and makes sure that you are contented so that you will sing pretty and appear to be happy? Who is your captor, keeping you under lock and key? And Why?

I contend that you are no different than anyone else in that you are always in control of the self, even when you don’t think you are. All beings upon that earth are in the position of self-control and though the wish is to turn to another with disgust or dismay, it is really the self who keeps one locked up, and it is equally the self who allows the caged self to fly free whether it is the right time to do so or not.

We are getting now into very sensitive and complicated areas of the human psyche and it is often difficult to accept that the self, in that human form, is an entire world. Many metaphors hold great value in describing such a world. You call yourself Soul Trecker, and that is indeed appropriate, for you are on a journey that is leading you farther than you have been ready to go before. But I am going to use the metaphor of the caged bird for you, My Dear, for it offers us the opportunity to go deeply into the you of now, into the you of this moment in time. Within your cage is a tiny mirror that you love to look into, to admire your bright eyes, your sleek and shiny feathers of brilliant color. This mirror offers you companionship as well, for that other bird in the mirror is quite fun, a delight to you in your tiny world. This mirror in your cage is the metaphor for all that attracts your attention, your relationships that mirror your innermost needs, desires, truths, and mysteries. This mirror is the key to who you are, My Dear Little Birdie. This mirror holds the answers to all your questions.

Next, I am going to ask you to place yourself inside your little cage, to take it all in, to look at what you have provided for the self in order to create a working world. You have your perch of contemplation, your mirror of reflection, your bowl of nourishment, your nectar, your seed, your toys, your swings. You have your bars to cling to, your pretty beak to peck, bite, and gnaw with, etc. You have your gripping claws to perch and cling with. Your world is quite complete. You also have your wings, which you have tried many times. Now you must go deeper and ask the self why you must return to your cage over and over again. What is in there that is, as yet, undiscovered, hidden, unknown? For though you may think you know every inch of that cage and the caged self, so is there something you have been missing.

And now, I hazard a guess that this has to do with your warrior child self who you have not noticed in the cage with you. Look around and you will see that another bird has been sharing your cage all these years, and yet have you failed to notice. This bird self, this warrior bird, is the one who allows you to escape, knowing full well that you will return, for this is the inner self who knows all, but who has also been waiting for recognition.

This is the self who is leading you in every choice you make, leading you on your Soul Trecker journey, leading you always back to the true self, connected to all things. This self is inside you, but everything in your outer world, including your relationship that you speak so honestly about, is leading you back to rediscover this self. This is the beginning self, the soul self, the spiritually evolving self who asks that you reconcile your inner dilemmas without blame, without judgments, without self-hatred, and that you detach from outer blame, outer judgments, and outer hatred as well. For only in taking full responsibility for your life, your choices, and for this moment in your life will you be able to resolve the issues you pose in your questions.

I propose that your current relationship is not about your partner, but yes, as you suggest, it is about your child self and it is also about your adult self being triggered to return to that child self, not to rescue and open the cage, but to reenter the cage, look into the mirror, and recognize and accept the journey of the warrior child. That journey has set you on your course for this lifetime. You have followed your course well, made choices in your life that have continually led you along a path of growth, but a lot of your decisions have been made in the half-light of awareness, knowing that yes, you are on a journey, but not quite clear as to why or where you are going.

Now My Dear Little Birdie, it is time to return to the inner cage, taking with you all your sorrows, your feelings of revulsion and aversion that you speak of in your sexual encounters with your partner, and ask your warrior child self, that other beautiful caged self, to peck through and show you what you need to know. Your beaks are sharp, your tiny bird feet strong and sharp as well, good tools for digging even deeper. Though I know you are quite adept, intelligent, and capable of completing this life you have assigned your self, you are the only one who can master it. You will master it, not by pulling up your pants and skipping over your truths, but by discovering why you must confront the issues that repeatedly appear to repulse you. These are your challenges leading you deeper into the self, into the cage where resolution awaits your direct attention.

In outer distraction will you wallow in despair, My Dear One. In outer turning will your journey be incomplete. My Dear Soul Trecker, My Little Birdie, only in turning inward, in flying back into the cage, shutting the door, and fully living the caged life will you find what it is that will set you free. Yes, you have wings, but they will not take you far, but always turn you back to the cage at the end of the day, for that is where you must remain until your truths are fully revealed, until your inner work is complete, until the mirror is fully explored, and the doors of the inner world freely opened, with the warrior child self leading the way with the adult self as equal partner.

Of course, the biggest challenge to you, the adult, is to trust that this is so, to guide the self back to the wounded child self and begin to accept that wounded self as transforming, working hand in hand to evolve that self simultaneously with the adult self, so that wounds may heal, strengths may assert and reassert themselves, and the mysteries of the human journey may be revealed as truths of the evolutionary journey of the soul.

Your journey is largely solitary, My Dear Soul Trecker, yet must you live with others who are your earthly guides and teachers, looking to them as much as you look to me and the other spirit guides who are available to you. This is a truth that may aid you now, as you take your next step away from your perceptions of your partner as despicable. Look upon this partner as one of your greatest guides, with fondness, for you are being shown the path you must take, and that path, though it may lead in a new direction of relationship, is ultimately meant to lead you back into the cage, back to the inner work, for there is still much to do.

I hope I have answered your questions. I will end by saying that you are on an amazing journey because your awareness of the self as an evolving being is well awakened and you possess many advanced qualities. Yet must you return, I am afraid, to a well-worn path, for you have not completed your recapitulation of that path. But keep in mind that you go back this time for a specific reason, to go deeper, with a new appreciation and a new understanding of the self as a warrior.

You have always been a warrior. This is not an ego statement, but the underlying truth and that is what you must face. Then you must use this knowledge properly, to fully excavate the self, learning self-love, self-compassion, and self-trust. For only in achieving these three attributes will you be able to move out of the cage, your ego dismantled, your wounded child clearly understood, your cage fully comprehended as both necessary and proper, and your wings fully functional, with your inner brightness freed to guide you out of the cage forever.

Chuck's Blog

#585 Chuck’s Place: INTIMACY: In-to-me, see, or, In-to-me-I-see?

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Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy website.

Carlos Castaneda, like a standup comic, would have us in stitches, poking fun at our obsession with love, “luuuff,” as he pronounced it. This stemmed from the years of humiliating mockery he was subjected to by don Juan, who piercingly attempted to awaken him and dislodge him from his major energetic drain: finding love. Don Juan was definite on this point: if Carlos could not free his energy from this obsession he would never have enough energy to travel beyond the veils into infinity. What Carlos was trying to teach us was that our own obsession with intimacy was, to misquote The Love Guru*, really, at bottom, “in to me, see” or all about me.

The truth is, we enter and exit this world alone. It is, first and foremost, a solo journey. We are, utterly alone. How deeply can we enter this experience? This does not mean simply to be comfortable being alone, but to be able to fully recapitulate, know our deepest truths, and remain in awe of our own magical journey, open to innocently experiencing and truthfully sharing this life. How much of what we attach ourselves to, preoccupy ourselves with, hunger for, or go in search of is really an attempt to distract ourselves from this genuine experience of solitariness? How much of our search for intimacy is, at base, all about me, in the form of escaping me?

Even when we think we have conquered our narcissism; when we think we are “truly available to meet another,” really “able to give,” we must ask ourselves the questions: Is my willingness to go beyond myself and truly be open to another a hidden ploy to escape myself and my dreaded recapitulation? Is my desire to give to another an avoidance of giving myself the true attention I need, not the big baby, but the ability to fully be with all of me, embracing the solitary reality of the journey? Is this really just another well-hidden illusory distraction of selflessness, all about me?

The shamans point out: the bottom line is energy. For most people they suggest years of celibacy and recapitulation to shore up the energy for the solo journey. When Carlos was well into his own solo journey he was quite taken aback when don Juan told him the story of a shaman couple, loves of each other’s lives, making love in a closet. Wasn’t this taboo in the shaman’s world? Carlos wondered. Don Juan laughed. No, of course it’s not taboo, if you have enough energy! I understand this to mean that only if an individual has already accrued enough energy to take the solo journey can intimacy be ventured into without it merely being a distraction from the work, all about me. With enough energy, traveling with a partner has nothing to do with need or distraction. To the contrary, having accepted and prepared for the solo journey frees us to discover intimacy with complete abandon, without need or ulterior motives, known or unknown.

The veil of in-to-me, see drops with sufficient energy to in-to-me-I-see, now available for true intimacy, with abundant energy to fly with ye, free! You see?

As always, should anyone wish to write, I can be reached at: chuck@riverwalkerpress.com or feel free to post a comment.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

*Mike Myers’ movie The Love Guru.

News and Notes

Capitalism: A Love Story

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If you haven’t seen Capitalism yet we highly recommend it. As Chuck stated in his blog last Saturday on Youthful Folly:

Thank you Michael Moore. Not only have you made a movie of supreme importance and relevance to now, but, because you did it so well, I am freed to write about Youthful Folly rather than have to comment on current events that equally attracted my attention this week. We must become real students of the truth of our beloved America. Everyone, go and see Capitalism: A Love Story! Jan suggests that you bring tissues, lots of them. We traveled a bit to view this movie on its opening day. We thought we might enjoy dinner at our favorite city of Poughkeepsie restaurant, The Busy Bee Cafe, only to discover that, like Flint Michigan, Poughkeepsie reveals the true nature of reality in America: our favorite eatery was empty and boarded up! As we traveled north toward home we decided to stop at Sabroso in Rhinebeck, another favorite place, for delicious tapas. They get it right!

On a final note: Congratulations to President Barack Obama for receiving the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize!!!

Look for a new Saturday message from Chuck tomorrow. Hmm, I wonder what he’ll write about? Have a great weekend!
Jan and Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#584 Use Awareness Whether Advancing or Backtracking

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Personally, I have felt the energy as you have described it this week. I felt it begin to shift on Wednesday and by Thursday, as you said, I did feel a distinct difference in mood and in focus. I am interested in continuing to notice it and use it to my advantage. What advice do you offer us today?

Tracking the outer energy is a good way of staying focused upon your own path, of maintaining awareness of that which is outside of you and how it affects you innerly. This is good awareness training and I highly recommend it, but I also caution that you not neglect what your own inner energy is telling you to do, at the same time that you study that which is outside of you. Today, I speak of maintaining your balance and holding onto that which you have been noticing and learning, retaining the ground you have gained as the energy continues to push you in a new direction.

Yes, the energy of now will continue to push, so you must be cognizant, at all times, of the choices you are being offered and investigate them based on what you have recently learned so that your decisions may be advancing ones rather than backtracking ones. Perhaps you have need to backtrack, and that is okay, but I suggest that, if you backtrack, you do so with awareness that you are choosing to do so, and that you are doing so in order to learn something. So, in the case of needing to backtrack: what are you looking for? What are you needing to learn? What does a replay need to show you that you have not yet fully comprehended? What must you go back and get that you have not gotten yet?

These questions, and many more of your own, must accompany you if you are to remain alert and aware as you trek back into old familiar territory. If you trek back into an old oblivion without awareness, what will you learn then? It will be valuable even without awareness, though even lessons in oblivion may not be growth-oriented, but simply lessons that must be stated again in order to offer you the same moment of shift that you have been offered repeatedly. Is this your case? Does your oblivion begin to sound like a broken record, speaking the same message that you have heard a hundred or a thousand times before? If so, I suggest that you make a concerted effort to shift the self so that record does not have to continue playing its well-worn message.

Ask the self to finally take the old message innerly and dissect it for its true meaning and offer the self a new direction. This requires action on your part. The energy of now will support you in your actions, if they are right for you to take. If they are the wrong actions and you take them anyway you will soon find that this is so and have a second or third opportunity to shift, so do not worry. The Universe, the spirit guides in your life, and the energy of growth are always available.

This shifts me over to speaking about the other option that this energy of now offers you as you enter a new phase and elect to proceed, based on the truth of your recent inner work rather than falling into the oblivion of old and backtrack. The backtracking route is fairly known, for all of you have done it many times over, while the advancing route is venturing into unknown territory. In choosing to advance you will want to be quite alert and ready to make decisions and take action in awareness, cognizant of where you have been, where you no longer wish to go, and what you are attempting to achieve in your life now, at this moment in time.

I suggest that there is good energy now for proceeding forward on a journey of change, but I also warn that trickery is abundant in all phases of energetic shift, so do not fall into complacency regarding your decisions, no matter how right they appear to be. You must always remain alert. Judge your actions on your previous experiences in life and remember what you have learned from them. Keep your eyes on the horizon, alert for what is ahead, but do not lose sight of where you have come from. For it is your past that holds the treasures of knowledge, while your future holds the enticements of lessons yet to come.

You, your present self, must bear the tension of these two dynamics in play, the pulls and dangers of the future and the pulls and lessons of the past. You, in your inner and outer worlds, must constantly weight and gauge your decisions based on all that makes up your world.

I send you off into the energy, reminding you that you are in charge. Stay connected to your true needs more than your tempting desires. For it is the true need that will guide you rightly, while the temptation may lead you astray. Stay connected to inner self. Stay connected to the energy inside you, but most of all stay connected to the magic that is all around you, showing you everything you need for this moment.

Look for the magic and you will begin to experience it more often. If you don’t look for it, you will not see it, and you will not have the benefits of it, for it does not seek you out. You must be ready for it. You must ask for it. You must grant your self permission to allow it into your life. And you must be ready to go where it will take you, into the unknown. Are you ready?