Monthly Archives: January 2010

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Flowing

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Here is the first recitation of my own experiences as I attempt to learn from Jeanne’s guidance. May it be helpful.

As I was typing yesterday’s Message #632 from Jeanne I decided to track my experiences of the day to see if I could successfully, and with intent, follow her instructions to flow with what the day brought. Here is a log of what transpired as I attempted to stay focused on flowing.

The day began as usual at 5:20 AM with our old dog waking us for her morning walk. Usually we are ready to hop out of bed with her and begin the day. Both Chuck and I had anticipated that we would awaken fully refreshed from a good night’s sleep, like the morning before, but the first words out of Chuck’s mouth were: “I feel like I got run over by a truck!” and I felt the same way. Though we had slept well we woke in muffled energy almost as dark as the still lingering night. As Chuck got ready to take Spunky on her walk I dragged myself out of bed and did my own early morning chores, making the coffee, feeding the cats, turning up the pellet stove in one room and feeding the wood stove that heats most of the rest of the house during the cold winter months. When Chuck and Spunky returned from their walk we did a most unusual thing and returned to bed. This presented us with all kinds of dilemmas, not only throwing us off our routine, but affecting everything else that I had intended for the day.

My intention for the day was to wake as usual, have our coffee together, do my Wednesday channeling, see Chuck off to the office, post the message from Jeanne, get in a good hour of yoga practice and spend most of the rest of the day working on the book I am writing about recapitulation before heading in to the office for sessions later in the day. This is not what happened.

We dozed in bed for an extra hour. After Chuck left the house at 8:30 I am left feeling frustrated and a little anxious about sticking to my pre-planned agenda for the day. I end up doing my channeling several hours later than normal. At this time of year we have our college aged children home on winter break. Usually they stay up very late and sleep most of the day so I am afforded quiet mornings for my work with Jeanne. However, this morning my son is still awake downstairs after having stayed up all night and my daughter is sick upstairs, coughing and running to the bathroom a lot. I sequester myself in my room and in spite of ambient noise from above and below I get a good message from Jeanne. I spend the next hour typing, coding, and carefully proofreading it before posting it on the website. I have been besieged with computer problems lately and failing internet connections and my attempts to post the message are repeatedly thwarted. I get increasingly agitated and frustrated by the failure of these technical aspects until I recall Jeanne’s instructions to flow with what the day brings. I begin to release the frustrations of the day as I open up to the realization that this is going to be a very different day from what I had planned. I finally resolve the issue with the internet connection and post the message, but it is now much later in the morning, I haven’t done my yoga, and now my son is playing a video game that is booming through the floor. After I ask him to lower the volume I jot a few notes down for this log.

Oh yeah, the night before as I was going to bed I found that I had lost an earring, which really bothered me because it was a pair that I was enjoying wearing lately, so my intent was to look for that earring during the day. (I do not lose earrings, so this is unusual. I have only lost an earring once since I got my ears pierced when I was ten.) I use my psychic abilities to determine where it might be. I clearly see it lying outside on the ground, face up, by the woodpile, but I don’t go outside to see if I am correct. I am too uncertain of my abilities to test it this soon. Instead, I decide to keep an eye out for it throughout the day.

I am so put off by the morning’s events that I have to center myself and re-envision how my day will go. I decide that even a little bit of yoga will do me good, so finally, with the sun pouring in the windows and Spunky asleep on the floor next to me, I get in a good twenty minutes of yoga, magical passes, and breathing exercises followed by five minutes of meditation. I keep my eyes closed during most of it to block out the world and keep my focus inward, attempting to detach from the frustration over the lateness of the day. However, by the end of it I have become obsessed with keeping this log, my mind whirling with whether or not this is really right and what I actually want to say. I command myself to let it go. It’s not important, just flow with the day. The old doggie shakes violently in her sleep, eyes half open. I am afraid she is dying, but then she lets out a big sigh and opens her eyes and looks at me and I clearly understand her saying: “No, not yet, Jan” and she falls back asleep. I feel good after my yoga practice, more centered, and innerly calm. I take that for what it is, a nice gift, even though it was not as long or deep as I had wanted.

It is now after noon. I reload the wood stove and turn my focus to eating something and getting some work done on my book. I let the dog out and keep one eye on her to make sure she doesn’t cross the road and go off into the field on the other side. She is deaf and senile and if she wanders away she can’t hear me calling. Her arthritis is so bad now though that she doesn’t wander much beyond the front door. I watch her plop down in the snow and let her stay outside enjoying the coolness from below and the warmth from the sun above.

One of our cats is chronically ill and my son comes up to tell me that she has vomited on the floor downstairs again. I finish my lunch and put off work on my book to take care of the mess. While I am down there I spend some time talking with my son and then decide to clean the litter boxes as well. I let the dog back in and wash up the pile of dishes that has accumulated in the kitchen sink. By this time I am resolved to just flowing with the day, there is not much else to do, and I keep reminding myself of Jeanne’s message to let life unfold as it will. I feel like I am doing a pretty good job of that, no longer attached to the frustrations of the earlier part of the day, not resentful at all. I am actually getting more curious as the day goes on, eager to see what transpires.

Finally, I sit down at the computer and work on my book for an hour, then take the dog for her afternoon walk, talk to my daughter for a while, and talk to Chuck’s daughter on the phone who calls to discuss plans for working with a new company down in North Carolina. As I am getting in enough wood to last through the night and into the early morning I find my earring by the wood pile, exactly where I had envisioned it earlier in the day. (I must be psychic!) I have another hour to spare so I work on my book before I head off to the office.

This may not seem like a very exciting day, but what was I learning and being shown? First, I take note of the fact that I lost an earring, a most unusual event for me. In retrospect, I see this as the first sign that things are not going to go according to plan. Waking up groggy and feeling like I had not slept well, when I had in fact slept quite soundly made me think that the energy had shifted and it would not be like the day before, which had flowed very smoothly. I posed my question to Jeanne around retaining balance because I was already feeling off balance, though I was, at that time, still attempting to salvage my preset intentions. By eventually acquiescing to what the day presented me with I did, in fact, get quite a bit of what I had originally intended accomplished, albeit not in the order or amount as previously planned. I did get to do yoga, I did get to work on my book, I got to spend some time chatting with each of the kids, and I got my household chores done. On top of it, I was shown that I can trust my psychic abilities and I didn’t feel rushed once I allowed myself to detach from my original plans and just flow.

In the end, it was a pretty satisfactory day. Once again I am reminded of how insightful Jeanne’s guidance is and I am also reminded of her very early guidance to me, as she would often repeat: “Just trust me, Jan, everything will be fine, everything will work out, don’t worry, you will be fine.” These were some of the most soothing and prophetic words I ever heard, and they still are.

Funnily enough, as I write this up today, I am once again faced with having to acquiesce to the flow of what the day brings. In spite of my original intentions to get this posted early this morning, I have had to get beyond my frustrations of the day, releasing my control of events, and just go with the flow. So here you have my first posting in a new blog, a day in my life as I attempt to follow and learn from Jeanne’s guidance.

I hope this has been helpful! I look forward to writing again soon.
Go with the flow!
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#632 Life Gives You What You Need!

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Can you talk about the inner process today? Specifically, I am feeling a great desire to go much deeper into my inner work and practices, yet I find the perfect balance between Self and the demands of others and the outer world allusive. Often the best intentions seem to dissipate as reality takes over. I am thankful for the few quiet moments I am allotted, but I’m left feeling frustrated and yearning for more. I know this is a universal struggle and one that you have addressed before. Today, I ask for some guidance for all of us around our attempts and resolutions to gain a better balance between our inner worlds and our outer worlds, between our most sincere intentions to change and grow and the conflicts that arise as we wake up each day to new challenges. I would like to flow through my day without feeling resentful or like a failure for not accomplishing what I have set out to do.

My Dear Readers, this is not only a process of balance but an equal process of attachment and detachment that Jan seeks guidance on. It is not an easy task that you set your self, for I know that your world is comprised of many necessities, distractions, desires, and yearnings. I also know that part of your process must be allowing your self to have whatever experience you have each day, regardless of your desires, for only in being open to that which comes unexpectedly will you indeed learn what it means to flow in your life. Say that you set an intent for your day to be solitary and without outside interference, yet you are immediately bombarded with outer demands and the energy of others needing attention, whether people or things. This is a call to shift for the moment, to in fact flow with what is being presented to you. If you fight it you will only gain in resentful frustration. But if you allow your present intentions to take a back seat while you take the other fork in the road you will learn much more than if you had taken that solitary road. You see, life gives you what you need.

Your intent to gain balance, to grow, to further develop your inner practices, if set with pure desire, is already embedded in your psyche, and by default in the universal intent. In other words, if you are ready for such a journey you will be awarded all the opportunities and tools you need to take that journey. It just might not happen as you wish. In fact, if you look back on your life, when has anything unfolded exactly and as smoothly as you wished? Though you may prefer a seamless and calm existence, it is not usually how the universe offers you your challenges, though it has been known to comply when the occasion is right.

For instance, once your intentions are set, I recommend that you be open to what comes in your day to greet you. Push aside interruptions and conflicts by asking the self to accept that this is what you need at this very moment and, even though it is not as you had planned, accept that it is going to show you something important about the self. In this manner you are learning a vital step in the process of attachment and detachment, in what it means to set an intent and then let it go, knowing full well that it is already on its way, giving you exactly what you need. Does this make sense?

Yes, it does. Even though it is often hard to give up the desire to have it go my way, I do understand the importance of learning to flow with what comes.

In learning to flow with what awaits you each morning as you open the door to what life offers, you will find that your physical body will begin to release its expectations, tensions, and even ailments that may be present as a result of your need to control your inner world, your outer environment, and even the process of your psyche. Your best intentions must be set free, let out the door, in order for them to return to you bearing their learning tools.

So, for today, I suggest that you take this first test in learning to flow by setting your intentions within and then releasing them without, setting them free by asking the universe to hear you and to show you what you need in order to gain progress in your inner work and practices. You may be quite surprised to find that your inner work is going to be done totally outside of you one day and totally inside of you on another day. But keep in mind that no matter what appears as your lesson plan for the day that it is going to be exactly what you need at that moment.

If you can allow for such a process you will be well on the way to gaining the balance you seek. You will learn how to flow in your life. Your physical and mental bodies will begin to release their hold on old habits and your psyche will find resonance in whatever is presented to you because it will recognize that it is what is best for your growth. Can you flow with that?

Yes, I think so. It seems that if I allow myself to let go of expectations, of a mental construct of expectations, that I am often quite surprised by the outcome as regards a certain situation or process. If I allow myself to have no expectations then I am more open and end up feeling freer.

That is the process that I speak of as I invite you to set your intent free and release it from your incessant mind control. By releasing your intent you free your mind and body, without expectation, to experience the flow of your day and, ultimately, your life, in a mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual way. This is what you seek, though you may not quite speak of it in such terms, but all of you seek total release from the confines of life as it had been conjured.

It is time to unconjure yourselves from such restrictions placed on you by your self, your world, your intentions, your desires, and release everything to the universal intent, already working diligently on your behalf, though you may not be seeing it in quite this way. You may be seeing the flow of your life as interruptive and challenging or frustrating when, in fact, it is perfectly in alignment with the intent of your spiritual self to grow. This is the main challenge for all of you to eventually discover: What is the intent of your spirit?

Thank you for this guidance.

May you all find the soft self inside who will allow you to trust the process of your life and, without fear, allow you to let go, allow you to face the flow of your day, accepting that it is as it should be. What are you supposed to learn today? That is your greatest challenge, even greater than your challenge to stay in balance. Get it?

Yes, I get it.

NOTE: I set a new intent for the day: I intend to keep a log of my experiences today and I will report back with a posting tomorrow morning as to what I have personally learned as I attempt to do as Jeanne suggests and release my intentions and just flow with what the day brings. It is already not as I expected!
-Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#631 Today All Things are Possible

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Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message for us as we all head back into our daily routines after a long New Year’s weekend? What is important for us to keep in mind this week?

This is a time of setting forth on new journeys with resolute and steady steps, a time to take upon your backs only that which is necessary to travel with. It is a time to consolidate, to travel lightly, without overdoing or overusing the natural and unnatural resources alike. This is a time to consider not only your resolutions of change, but the greater impact your lives have upon that earth and all who live upon it.

Today, I ask that you consider your personal impact on your personal environment. I ask that you notice how you tread upon the earth, how you mark your territory, how you control your world, and how you consider your self in it. I ask you to notice more closely the impact that you, each one of you, personally have upon the earth and upon the interconnected web of energy that holds you all knit together in its interwoven fibers.

Are you aware that you do indeed impact everything else that exists and not just your self? Are you aware that your place upon that planet is dependent upon all others as well? Are you aware that all of you, though you exist as one single being are in fact multi-beings, energetically and infinitely attached by the energy fibers that you may not be able to see but that, if you allow your self, you may feel?

It is important to remain always aware of the constant flow of energy, of interconnected energy. Even as you do your inner work, which is of utmost importance, do not forget that you are part of a greater whole. But that greater whole will not be correctly perceived in its energetic form until you can connect to the energy of self and fully understand, by your personal experiences, what it means to be energy. Thus I stress the importance of inner work in order to gain insight into the feelings, emotions, and mysteries of others upon that planet too. Only in understanding the feelings, emotions, and mysteries of the self will you be able to fully connect to the source of all things, existing in all things: the energy that you are all comprised of.

So begin your week with fresh resolve to remind your self often that you are a being comprised of energy. Everyone else is too. This is often all you need to sink into inner contemplation and feeling what that means on a greater scale, as interconnected beings who are interconnected in that realm but also in infinity, where energy is not only the source of life, but is the only form of life as well.

In a state of energy all things are possible. In life all things are possible. Today all things are possible. Stay connected to that!

News and Notes

My New Year Intent

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Greetings! To all our readers, I wish a Happy New Year. In Jeanne’s message yesterday she referred to the New Year and the reality that we find ourselves on the brink of disaster. Of course, she equally reminded us that we are responsible for everything and can turn our intent in a different direction. For my part, my intent for this blog for the coming year is to focus on pragmatic, empowering tools available to all, in simple form, to forge a link to the intent for a different outcome by taking charge of our evolution.

See today’s blog on the pragmatic tool of softening, directly below this post.

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

#630 Chuck’s Place: Softening: A Gateway to Infinity

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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.

On New Year’s Eve, Jan took me to a most unusual yoga class. The entire class focused on softening, just allowing the body to gently and slowly sink deeply into a few asanas. I found my body responding, awakening to an old memory of infinite release.

I first contemplated infinity as a young boy, daydreaming in a grammar school classroom. I reasoned, back then, that a small finite grain of sand was infinite because if you cut it in half, and then cut it again and again the process would never end, there would always be something to halve again. Of course, I realized that the instruments that would be needed to halve the diminishing grain probably did not exist, but this didn’t change the reality that infinity existed in the halving process.

With my body, it’s the same experience. I focus on an area and intend it to relax, release, or soften. Immediately it responds. As it arrives at its new place it presents a new sensation, or boundary, that is actually a new, albeit lesser, level of tension. If I keep my awareness on this new place and once again ask my body to release, off it goes, to a new place, half as tense as a moment before. This process could go on forever, if I could hold my awareness on it.

At the end of the yoga class, I mentioned to the teacher, Nicolas, how wonderful and effortless was the stretching. I was gently reprimanded for my use of the word stretching to describe the process. What he teaches is softening, no pressure or rigor applied to the muscles, simply a deepening of release, allowing the body to find its own way. In my experience, it’s keeping my awareness on the muscle, noticing its level of tension, and asking it to release. It seems always capable of softening to a new level of tension.

Ultimately, I experience this as a gateway to my energy body and infinity. At a certain point in the softening process my body, as a physical form, disappears, dissolving into sheer energy. For me, the sound of energy kicks in at that point, an almost deafening vibratory sound. It feels like an energetic massage and attunement. This is an opportunity to maintain awareness in a sheer energetic state of interconnectedness, awareness without a body.

What I am describing is an extremely pragmatic tool to access the energy body. Bringing your awareness innerly, by focusing on your physical body, sending it the intent to soften, again and again, is a gateway to infinity. It requires no books, no training, no money, simply the honing of awareness to the sensations of the body with the intent to go deeper and deeper into softening. This is a tool anyone can hone, at any time and any place, through a simple shift of awareness and intent. Try it!

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