Readers of Infinity: Transformation Time

Have no regrets as you move on into new life now, for regrets belong to an old world. Regrets form binds that will hold you fast to places you no longer belong in. Regrets do not belong to the fleet-footed, spirit-driven beings, or in the transitory energy of now, which asks for acceptance of the truths of the self.

Change. We noticed the toad came out from underneath the umbrella stand today where it has lived for months now. Wonder what it means?

This is a time of transformation. Sometimes transformation comes in unusual forms, circumstances and events, planned or unplanned. Real transformation, however, is truth spoken loud enough that you hear it and act on it. It may create chaos in your life, but know that such chaos may be necessary, for chaos carries the energy of change in its debris. In facing the chaos, one learns to discern what is of value and that is what this time of transition asks of all of you who reside upon the planet earth: What is of value to you?

Decide this as you elect to move forward. Whether because you have prepared well, fully in alignment, or whether your transition comes as a surprise, it doesn’t matter. There is something to be learned about the self and then there are lessons and things of value to carry into new life. Decide what is most important and in alignment with the truths so clearly revealed. And then, without regret—but in full awareness, taking full responsibility for every step you take—move into new life.

This energy is good energy. It will take you far if you are ready to meet it. It is new, while the old is old and will remain so without change. All that you have planned for now has the potential to be fulfilled, but really it’s up to you to take it on, in full awareness, fully committed, fully knowing that you are accepting real change and the energy of such change, which, as you know, can be uncomfortable. It’s a new game now and it’s your choice whether you want to play or not. Are you ready?

Work with where you find yourself. Take one step at a time, consciously aware that you are moving forward into new life. Be alert. Be present. Be disciplined and take full responsibility for every decision and action. Remember, it’s your life.

Without regret, fully embrace your journey, knowing that you alone are responsible for all that you encounter. But know also that all that you encounter is necessary and good.

Go in peace. Follow your calm heart. That is all you really need to guide you, so give it the attention it needs. Take time to listen to its inner truths and concerns. Accept the challenges it puts before you, knowing that such times of transition are paramount to growth.

Be thoughtful and kind to the self and others. And pay attention to the outer signs that come to guide you as well. Be alert for the next one. It will come soon.

Thank you to Jeanne and Infinity! As I channeled, I got the distinct sense that change now is inevitable. We are all facing it on some level. What we choose to do with this knowledge is what matters. Sending Love and Good Luck,
Jan

Chuck’s Place: Barking Meditation

It’s 10:30 p.m. A dog barks incessantly. “What dog is it?” I wonder. “Whose dog is it? Who would allow their dog to carry on for so long?” I return my awareness to my tiredness and the dog’s barking fades into the sounds of the night.

It’s 1:00 a.m. The dog is still barking. Someone must have gone away, left their dog outside. The dog is frightened, helpless, terrified of the night, terrified in abandonment. Perhaps I should go and find the dog, find out its situation, reassure it. Perhaps I need to rescue this poor dog in need. I’m sad. The image of the shivering victim dog is haunting.

I breathe. Thoughts tell me I have an obligation to care for, to take responsibility for, this trapped, scared, frightened animal. I notice my thoughts and my feelings. I return my awareness to my tiredness. The barking is absorbed into the sounds of the night.

Now it’s 3:00 a.m. The dog barks on, without pause, an incessant, monotonous bark. Someone must be hurt. Its owners. Perhaps they’ve died. This is a loyal dog. This is Lassie calling for, demanding, help. Those barks may be a deep cry for needed attention, for someone in need. How can I possibly not respond?

I’m anxious, worried, sad. What kind of person would close their eyes to such need, such tragedy? What kind of person puts their own needs and comforts above the suffering around them? Shouldn’t I do something?

I breathe, releasing the mobilizing energy that accompanies my thoughts. The sounds of the night, deafening, once again absorb the barking.

It’s 4:00 a.m. Same rhythm, same intensity of barking. I isolate the barking cry of what must be a dog being punished by being left outside. It must be an owner that has an idea about training his dog. It’s necessary to give a dog firm consequences. Perhaps it soiled in the house or chewed the couch. A righteous owner is teaching the dog a lesson, I surmise. It will never forget this lesson for disobedience. This owner has cut off any feeling for this frightened dog in pain. This owner is proud of its ability to be firm and consistent. I’m angry at this owner. But then I find compassion, reminded of my own ignorance, once having humiliated a dog, feeling it necessary in training. I remember my father training a dog of my youth in the same manner. It’s what men do, cut off feeling, do the necessary deed.

My body is tense. I breathe. I release the tension. My awareness melts once again into the sounds of the night.

It’s 5:00 a.m. We sit and drink our coffee. We ponder the barking dog, still active as we sip. Jan suggests that it’s the sheep dog at the sheep farm down the road, protecting its flock from the coyotes that roam at night. I hadn’t considered that possibility.

I ponder my journey through the night, the sleep I lost and found. I notice my heart. Calm, unstirred. I turn to my spirit. No impetus to act. It’s my mind that has conjured the horrors of the night. The mind, with its thoughts, seeking to stir agitated feelings, draining my energy, commanding my awareness.

The shamans call the mind the foreign installation, an entity that feeds on worry and agitation, an entity that conjures and projects without substance. In the night, I noticed its wonderings, but never fully took the bait. The feelings stirred were never true messages from the heart. They were feelings triggered by projections of the mind, not feelings triggered by my real perceiving self.

The shamans teach that we are perceivers, that is our true nature. We perceive—we know—with our whole being. Then we know what’s truly there and we can act with certainty. The mind, on the other hand, has become a symbiotic appendage that has gained ascendancy over our perceiving being, draining us of our energy, of our perceptual certainty.

Last night, as I drove up the hill to my home, I encountered the young female fox that roams the neighborhood. I stopped. She stopped. Head moving side to side, sniffing, perceiving, she showed no interest in spending energy on connecting with me. She knew immediately that I wasn’t a threat. She perceived rightly, her energy being spent only on what was real and necessary. My own perceiving self, I’ve learned—like the fox—will alert me when it’s truly time to act, when there is a real danger at hand, a real concern.

My Barking Meditation Teacher

After the night of the barking dog, I left for work early. I drove slowly past the homes of the suspects of the night. I doubted that I’d see anything, but asked the universe to please reveal the source of the mystery. My last pause was in front of the farmhouse of the sheep farm. I sat. Nothing. Then suddenly, the large white sheep dog appeared by the side of the house. Staring at me, it barked the now familiar bark. I continued to sit and stare. It started to advance toward me, ready to chase me off, perceiving me as a threat. It was time to leave.

Jan was right. It was a guardian dog, with unrelenting persistence, protecting its flock from predators. As I drove off, I thanked it for my nightlong training in mindful meditation.

Perceiving more, thinking less,
Chuck

A Day in a Life: Experiencing Contentment

Nature, content in the moment...

Wandering through the backyard early in the morning, I pick a handful of blackcaps. Their sweetness on my tongue brings me back to warm spring days gone by, and yet, I do not reminisce with longing, for I am in the moment. I savor this spring day, these luscious berries, this moment. Indeed, I am thankful for all the other times I have tasted these wild fruits from the earth, and it is enough to be here now, today, having this experience. I am content.

Perhaps moments of contentment are fleeting, as thoughts and worries soon intrude, as the world and all that is so wrong returns to awareness, as inner issues arise and grip. And yet, as I walk in the morning dew, I pull myself back to the experience of now. I discipline myself to stay in the moment. What am I experiencing?

I allow my sensations to be fully present. I listen. I hear the calls and songs of many birds. I hear a truck passing on the road below. I hear the rustling of leaves in the trees. I even hear a heavy drop of fruit from the ornamental cherry tree nearby. I am in the moment. I let everything else go, all the busy thoughts and stresses, knowing they won’t change, they will still be there, but fully aware that these moments of sensation, of being alive now, are changing rapidly.

I look around me. I see clouds moving in. I see a blue jay swoop into the catalpa tree. I see a mosquito. I peer into the prickly blackcap bushes, notice the spiky thorns as I pick around them, careful to not get scratched. I notice just how full the bushes are, how many berries ripening on the branches this year. I let my eyes gaze into the yard, taking in what is in sight, the play of shadows and light, letting my eyes and my awareness be in the moment.

I smell the sweetness in the air. The scent of floral and fruit that only comes on days like this, before the field across the road is cut. I smell the new mown grass in the yard, the dew dampened stones beneath my feet, the scent of earth. In this moment I am still. I am fully present, breathing, alive in the moment.

I feel the air against my skin. I feel the quiet of my heart, the stillness of the moment inside and outside as I stand in my environment, aware that I am nothing, just a small part of all of this. Some other creature is watching me, smelling me, hearing me, feeling me. I am content being part of this world at this moment.

“Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall,” writes Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. “Consciousness itself does not hinder living in the present. In fact, it is only to a heightened awareness that the great door to the present opens at all.”

Contentment is being aware. Contentment is being okay with everything the way it is. Contentment is letting go to the energy of the moment, staying in balance, no matter what is going on outside of us or inside. Even while standing in the midst of storm and trial, moments of contentment may be reached. This contentment comes in knowing that this moment too is important, that this moment in life, no matter how difficult, untenable, or frightening, offers something meaningful.

Contentment is staying mindfully present, breathing deeply, aware that this is the moment I am in right now. Can I bear the tension of it? Can I let myself just be in it? Can I let myself discover what it is I must learn right now? Perhaps I learn that I am getting good at remaining calm through a storm, whether an inner or an outer storm. Perhaps I discover that I am not really as attached to things that once held me in their grip, that I am evolving into a different person, contented to be moving on now. Can I let myself move on? Can I be content in knowing that I am changing? Can I let myself change and be okay with it? This too is experiencing contentment.

No matter who I am, where I am, or what I am facing, there are moments of contentment. I must stop, breathe, and accept this moment in my life and be content in what it offers me. I must be truthful with myself, totally honest and open to change. For it is only in accepting change, in myself and others, that I will grow with contentment.

I taste sweet contentment

In this moment, as I lift my hand to my mouth and taste the sweetness of the berries in my hand, I experience peaceful contentment. However, brief, I taste it. Mindful contentment is quiet, calm, connected to the energy of the earth, of the sun, stars, and the moon, because it is the energy of being alive in the moment. In this moment of contentment everything is perfect. And when I experience such perfection, I experience nothingness and then the great doorway to infinity opens and countless moments of calm explode.

I let myself experience infinity by constantly bringing myself back to the moment of now, over and over again throughout the day. Building on my experiences, small stepping-stones at first, I am eventually leaping onto boulders of contentment, calmly accepting everything that comes my way. I stay in balance, knowing that this too is right, this is the moment I am in, and I choose to remain aware of its significance. I am mindful of everything, meditating my way through my daily life, constantly bringing myself back to awareness of the moment.

I am not placid and inactive, but fully engaged. I am proactively present, knowing that what I choose to do or express next is important, aware that what I choose to focus on, think, allow, is important—extremely important. My choices affect everything in my environment. If I stand in my yard and make noise, if I intrude on nature, nature will react to my intrusion. If I elect to be in alignment, in balance with my environment, it will react by being in balance with me. If I base my awareness on being present in this moment, appropriately present, I move through life in mindful contentment.

I decide to let life unfold, accepting it, making my choices based on what comes to me, because I know that I cannot stop life. It intends to live. I make the choice to live as well, to go into the next moment fully present and aware.

Life is always changing. Can I? This is where I experience contentment, in knowing that, yes, I am finally ready to keep changing too, making choices that allow me to grow and change. Life is contentment in action. Live it.

Sending love and contentment,
Jan

Readers of Infinity: Accept Change

Realign with spirit—even if your wings are a little battered, they will still work...

Reassert priorities. Realign the inner world and the outer world.

Face what comes with dignity and maturity, but do not get overly attached to what may transpire in the lives of others or the world around you. Now is a time of shift. And, as always, shift comes differently to different people. And people react in different ways during times of transition and change. Keep this in mind as you hold yourself in balance, grounded in your inner knowing of life’s truths and challenges.

Stay connected to the journey of the inner self as life itself offers transition in the coming days. Allow the self to be with what comes, confident that all that transpires is as it should be, leading the way for the next phase of life.

Accept life’s challenges and changes. Flow with the energy of the spirit self, making choices based on what is right for now.

Change is coming. It is nothing to fear. It is time. Accept that and accept the path you are on. Let inner vision, wisdom, and maturity guide you.

All is well. Find your love inside you and give it to yourself. It’s what you need now.

Channeled by Jan, with love.

Chuck’s Place: The Tao Of Melanie

Melanie a year after Woodstock

It was a Friday night. I put on some old Melanie albums. Jan and I sat and drank a glass of soon-to-be “leftover wine.”

Earlier that day, Jan was perusing the local news and events when she suddenly called to me. “Melanie is playing in Woodstock tomorrow night!” she said. “Do you want to go?”

“Only if we can sit very close and in the center,” I replied.

We checked the seating charts and there were indeed two seats, front and center, in the second row. Boom, we bought the tickets. We were going to see Melanie at an intimate 250 seat venue.

I’m not a nostalgist. I am drawn to music that is alive now. When I listen to old Melanie songs I feel the extreme purity of innocence seeking connection that she always embodied. This Grand Dame of the Woodstock Music Festival so captured the energy of rejuvenation of the time, of freedom, clarity, and the simplicity of love, so that every time I listen to her music it’s like opening a Gran Reserva 1969. I am never disappointed.

Melanie opened the set with “Beautiful People.” Her voice was a little shaky, seemed a bit strained, barely warmed up. I wondered, rather nervously for a moment, if she had become a glass of leftover wine. But in no time she began to open her heart and speak from her innocence. Her voice warmed and she took us on her deepening journey into new songs of love and innocence.

Melanie: Still singing, still relevant...

Like a shaman, in sweet playfulness, she reminded us that we are all beings who are going to die. She laughed and said, “Look, I wouldn’t have designed it that way, but it’s how it is.”

She appreciated the sweetness of youth, but valued our evolving selves in maturity as well. I was reminded of my blog on sexual maturity as she spoke, each stage of life offering its own unique fulfillments, if we can allow ourselves to enjoy each and every moment of the ride.

Standing transfixed on the stage, gazing off into another dimension, she sang about angels watching over us. Her husband of 45 years, who had recently died had left a note in their hotel room, addressed to her and her son, letting them know that “Angels are always with you.” And then he dropped Melanie off at Whole Foods in Framingham MA while he went off to Best Buy, something about his cell phone, telling her he would pick her up later, but he never returned. She turned his final communication into a song and when she sang it, he was there, watching over us.

And then the Tao of Melanie truly revealed itself in Smile. She spoke and sang in vintage form of the power of the smile; so simple, so down to earth, so practical, so available to everyone. Change the self, change the world, in this moment, by stalking a smile. SMILE! :)

She spoke of Amma, the Hugging Saint of India, soon herself to come to the Bearsville Theatre. For years she’s resisted “getting the hug.” Perhaps out of shyness or doubt, but finally she got “the hug.” And she was blown away! “That woman is connected to the source,” she said. “Get the hug! Get the hug!” And with that, I determined to get the hug.

My purple tie-dyed LP!

After the concert I stalked being a fan. I’ve never waited for an autograph, but there we were, on line.

Before the concert had started, I had purchased her new CD. As I waited on line after the concert, I thought, “No, all my Melanie albums are on LP, vinyl, and frankly that’s how I most enjoy listening to music.” So, I cashed in my CD for her limited-edition, purple, tie-dyed LP for $50—the realization of a lifelong dream for Melanie, as she had always wanted to have an album that was a color other than black. Now I shared the dream and became the proud owner of one of the 300 limited-edition, purple, tie-dyed LPs!

As she signed the LP, Jan commented to her, “You’re not so shy anymore.”

“Well, not on stage,” she replied, “but in my personal life I still am.”

And then I told her I didn’t have my camera to get a picture with her, but asked, “Could I give you a hug?” She hesitated only briefly and then said, “Sure.” And with that, I got the hug!

That woman is connected to the source!

Smile,
Chuck

NOTE: The new purple tie-dyed album Ever Since You Never Heard of Me is only available through Melanie’s website or at her concerts. The CD is available through iTunes and there are a few songs not on the LP and vice versa, so they are different, the CD cut in 2010 the LP 2012. Here is a link to her website. Also listen to Melanie sing Smile with her fans in this fun YouTube video in the Netherlands.