The audio channeled message, usually posted on Mondays, will appear tomorrow morning, Tuesday, instead. Here is today’s Soulbyte:
It is always appropriate to be loving, kind, compassionate and thoughtful about others. The same goes for the self. In due time, all will even out, but as one navigates through life the path of heart, which subscribes to the laws of love, kindness, and compassion, is the best road to take. In moments of anger, despair, pain or sorrow, turn always to the path of heart and engage once again in acts of love, kindness, and compassion. Engaged thus, in a thoughtful and considerate fashion, your life will unfold in equal measure and with grace will you walk through the days of your life.
What does it mean to be generous, to consider others first, to truly be kind? True generosity does not come from duty, from adherence to a contract, from a prescribed notion that one must be a certain way in order to attain enlightenment. Generosity has nothing to do with the laws of man or mind, but only with spirit. A generous spirit does not think or plan but acts unceremoniously, doing what it knows is right. Often ego will intercede and present reasons why it is good and necessary to be generous, but ego does not have what spirit has. Spirit knows something that ego does not; spirit acts purely on the laws of alignment with energetic reality, that which is not seen but is felt, and is known by no other name than love.
Love, on an energetic level, transcends all human related issues and takes one into the meaning of spiritual energy, the oneness of all beings. A generous spirit will always do what is right for the oneness of all beings, transcending what is right for ego self. In alignment with spirit, the world would run a little better and all beings would not only be equal but equally generous. Give generously in this manner of spirit and your own oneness of being will be experienced and enhanced, as well as reinvigorated, your path cleared and your spirit enlivened. It is the way to make a new kind of connection with your fellow human beings, on a deeper, different level. No need to speak of it; just act. That is spirit.
To be openhearted is to release first the self of supposed issues, attachments, and concerns. I say “supposed” because in reality all that you are is energy, and so anything else that you perceive you are is construed by thought. Imagine your heart chakra is fully open, as wide open as a camera lens, as open as the full blooming daisy, as open as a door. In this openness exists the true you, without beginning or end, with only the constant flow of energy that you truly are. Give this openheartedness first to the self. Let go of all that keeps your heart closed, so that you may open your heart to all that you are part of. Give then this openheartedness to all beings equally. In this manner, you will begin to understand and experience love at the deepest level, on an energetic level. Through the open heart of you, and through the open heart of all other beings, love flows without disturbance, hinderance, or attachment; it simply is. Find your heart center and open it more fully today. Love the self so that you may love all other beings equally. In this manner you will discover true love.
From inside the tunnel of self… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Shortly after I finished college and went to live in Sweden, long suppressed memories began to stir. They came in short bursts, most often as dissociative states. I would suddenly retreat from the world, tunneling down into myself, where I’d view the world as if from inside a telescope.
Such moments could last for a few minutes to a few hours. I had no idea why they happened, but there was something incredibly familiar about them, though fuller memories of my childhood sexual abuse were not to surface for decades. I had never heard of recapitulation nor was I seeing a therapist at the time, but there was a deeper part of me that knew that one day both of those things would become central to my existence.
It was also about that time that I had the clear insight that one day I would have to retreat into a cabin of my own, as I thought of it, and do the deeper inner work that I sensed would one day be necessary.
To combat those disturbing moments of dissociation, I began keeping a list of all the things I would take with me into my cabin. I planned to go for a long time, a year or more. I made lists of foods, water, personal supplies, how much of each I’d need. I made lists of art supplies and writing implements, clothing, bedding, batteries, pots and pans, etc. My cabin was heated by a wood stove, so I stacked wood outside the walls, lining it several feet deep, both for lighting fires as well as insulation during the coldest months. I expected that I would be buried under several feet of snow for months on end, it was Sweden after all.
The lists were long. I’d check them over and over again, adding new things, deleting others that seemed unnecessary. I tried to think of every item I would need and every circumstance I would encounter. I wanted to be sure that I had not forgotten one thing that I would need in my isolated cabin. Whether my imaginings were practical or not didn’t matter; it was a deeper part of me that was making the plans.
Here is the cabin on the mountaintop that I envisioned for myself and drew and painted over and over again… – Detail from painting by Jan Ketchel, 1979
My cabin planning became an art piece. I worked on it for months, drawing floor plans, exterior views, picking the perfect mountaintop spot with beautiful views, incorporating it into all my other art works for years to come, getting it just right. Putting the final touches on it, I put it away, for I knew it was not going to become an actuality, at least not then. I would have to wait for the right time, because I was certain that someday I would be going into a cabin of my own, that I would be there for a long time. Once there, I knew I would be ready to finally face my demons, all that tortured and plagued me.
Little did I know that, in a sense, my mental planning would one day prove useful, though the entry into my cabin took a far different route from my early imaginings. In the planning stage, I was establishing a real cabin, but in the reality of my recapitulation, many decades later, I entered a metaphorical cabin, as I personally became the cabin. My own body housed me, protected me, nourished and supported me throughout the three years of my inner journey. It contained everything I needed to do my recapitulation. And just as I had imagined, I did finally face all that had stirred back when I was just a young woman starting out in life. Though I had been granted a taste of what was to come, little did I realize just what it would mean or where it would take me.
I am struck now by the patience of my young self. I seemed to know that when things are ready, they will come. It was a valuable lesson, one that I relearned many times as my recapitulation unfolded. Often I would want to push the process, get it over with as quickly as possible. I remember one day saying to Chuck, “Why don’t we just spend a whole day doing the recapitulation and get it over with once and for all.” Ha! Little did I know that it doesn’t work that way.
There was no point in pushing. Pushing, I learned, only created unnecessary tension and anxiety. Far better to wait. The recapitulations, the memories, came on their own. I didn’t actually have to do anything to trigger them. I had to learn to be available, recognize that I was being prompted, and take the journey that was offered, because that’s what I was being taken on, a journey. My job, if I was to truly get through the memories as quickly as possible, was to consciously let them go through me, in whatever form they came, and learn what I needed to learn from them, both what they offered me in childhood and what they came to teach me again as an adult.
I even envisioned a future happy self! – Detail from a painting by Jan Ketchel, 1979
The recapitulation process was invaluable. Painful as it was, I would not trade it for anything. It was the journey my spirit was setting up for me so long ago, letting me know that one day I would indeed be going into a cabin of my own. I just had to wait for the right time, the time when I was ready.
The lesson of patient waiting can be applied to other areas of life as well. If we want something and push for it, it might backfire on us. It might not be the right time or be the right thing for us. But if we wait, if it’s right, it will come and we will be ready for it. This I know.
What has value? What is truly important to you? How do you decide your true path? What does it mean to be on a path of heart? These are questions that should be asked often. As you take your journey and encounter challenges it is good to reassess and make new choices, even small ones, each day. Allow for practical choices so that your life in the world functions, so that you provide for and are provided with all that you need. Then turn inward to your heart and ask yourself for the answers to your deeper needs and desires. Sort through all that arises until you find the shiny diamond in the center of all your thoughts and feelings, the real nugget of truth. Allow this to become your focus and, if it is truly the jewel you believe it to be, it will continue to shine through all the stages of your days and nights, leading you on your ultimate path of heart. Remember this: often the shiny diamond is the rarest of nuggets, yet can go unnoticed because of its simple nature and appearance.
