All posts by Jan

A Day in a Life: Reflecting On Lessons Learned

February 15, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Photo by Chuck — When the crows of recapitulation come...

The crows of recapitulation show up regularly, asking us to reflect on lessons learned, asking us to seek value and meaning in every aspect of life. It is only in looking back, in recapitulating, that we are fully available to see what we might have missed while in the midst of learning our lessons.

Our lessons come to us in a myriad of ways, in the situations we find ourselves in and in the circumstances of our lives, desired and looked forward to or put upon us and feared. It doesn’t matter how the lessons come. The only thing that matters is that we take the time to study them and fully grasp what they are trying to teach us.

I wonder what I’m supposed to learn today? I often ask myself. And then I wait. By the end of the day I may often have to search for meaning, yet, at other times, I have grasped meaning throughout the day. Either way, I am aware that I must recapitulate the day’s events in order to fully integrate the lessons of value into my evolving spiritual journey.

In daily recapitulation, as well as in deeper recapitulation around our past, we are offered the opportunity to become a more fully evolved human being and to grow spiritually as well. Eventually, we might learn that everyone we encounter in our lives has something important to offer us. Whether they appear as angels or devils, it doesn’t really matter, because they are all there to teach us something of value.

Although the process of recapitulation can be extremely challenging at times, if we stay focused on learning we offer ourselves a tool to navigate through even the roughest of memories and situations as they arise. In constantly asking what we are supposed to be learning, we give ourselves a purpose. Often the deeper meaning is only revealed as we constantly return to an event, over and over again, going back over the details, seeing everything from a new angle each time we return.

Photo by Jan — It may not be clear at first just what it is that we are supposed to be learning today...

The gift of distance is the most important gift we are given as we recapitulate. The gift of time having passed offers us the additional gift of reflection from a new perspective because, each day as we live out our lives, we are different; we are inevitably changing. We are a day, a week, a year older and wiser. We are physically different too, as well as mentally and emotionally. Life’s unfolding itself offers us change, even if we are not able to see it clearly.

When the crows of recapitulation descend, when thoughts return to a recent event or a long past event, we are being asked to learn a valuable lesson. Can I be open to it? Can I suspend judgments about my self and others, so that I can reach a deeper meaning and understanding of what I am being offered?

Personally, I discover the intrinsic value of recapitulation more fully each day. In my last blog I wrote about the death of my beloved aunt at the age of 92. It was quite a day we had together. Now, a week later, as I reflect on that experience again I gain a new, deeper sense of what else was transpiring that day. I more clearly see now, in looking back, just what a journey it was.

In a shamanic sense, it was an incredible journey for both of us, but for me, personally, I have gained a level of clarity that I might otherwise not have accessed had I not continued to reflect. I now understand that my aunt was always an impeccable Shaman, present in my life as a teacher of the highest magnitude from the moment I was born. No matter what I presented her with, she never dismissed or doubted me, or my experiences. She was loving and tender, emotionally and compassionately supportive. Sharp and witty, never one to beat around the bush, she was also cuttingly direct when necessary. She taught me how to value experience, how to value the journeys that we all take, what it meant to care deeply about others, and finally she taught me how to leave this world without attachment.

We shared a lifetime of connection: in spending time together in deep conversation, in letter writing, in sharing books, in taking many walks together over the years, whether we were in New York City, the countryside or along the beaches picking up shells. And finally, we shared her dying process together. We were deeply, spiritually connected. Now I know more fully what that means.

At the same time that I accept this woman as a shamanic presence in my life, I must also accept other people in my life—those whom I feel less spiritually connected to—as shamans as well. I must accept that though these other persons may have been strict, withholding, even downright cruel, that they too have been Shaman teachers of the highest magnitude, leading me on my journey, teaching me invaluable lessons. Though presented in a different fashion, the lessons taught by the tricksters, devils, and disconnected journeyers are no less important than those taught to us by the soul mates, angels and spiritually connected journeyers we meet and travel through our lives with.

By constantly recapitulating the events of the past few weeks, I have recapitulated my way to a greater understanding of life itself. This is the ultimate gift of recapitulation. What I know today that I didn’t fully grasp a week ago, is what the Shamans tell us, and what the Buddhists tell us: that we are all Shamans and we are all Buddhas. I now understand more deeply what the Shamans mean when they talk about dreaming and what the Buddhists mean when they tell us that all worlds are interconnected, and that is, that we are all dreaming the same dream; awake or asleep, alive or dead.

And now I can see how I flowingly embraced and proceeded on a journey with my aunt through her final days, taking up the intent she set, as it was presented to me each day. In retrospect, I see how seamlessly her agenda flowed. I learned so much from this Shaman teacher, as she asked me to face each challenge as it arose, personal and otherwise. Synchronistically tapping into her intent, I was asked to perform and facilitate things I could never have dreamed of. In so doing, I learned how to flow with the energy in the universe, going into our interconnected dream world without fear and without attachment, knowing that it was right, that life was flowing as it should.

In facing my fears and challenges—in everyday life and in recapitulating—I have learned so many lessons about the people I encounter every day. In reflecting on life from this newly gained, greater clarity, I conclude: You are all Shamans on shamanic journeys. You are all Buddhas seeking enlightenment. You are all teaching lessons to everyone else you meet—in how you live and learn your own lessons—just as they are teaching you.

As the crows of recapitulation swoop in, it’s important to remember that they are carrying our most valuable life lessons on their broad wings, in their strong beaks and in their sharp claws. If we can withstand their presence, listen to their messages, step back and reflect on the meaning of what they show us, we eventually gain access to the clarity that deep inner work affords us.

And once we have learned our lessons for the day we are free to turn and walk away from the crows, free for the moment, until they reappear another day with new lessons for us to learn. And then, without fear and without attachment, we are challenged to ask once again, most humbly: What am I supposed to learn today?

Noticing the crows,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: You Are All Safe

February 13, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Dear Infinity: Please guide us.

Do not falter, but stay upon your projected path. Though interference may seek to throw you off balance, do not topple in the force of the winds that may come down upon you. Though difficulties may arise, do not attach to that which does not concern you nor seek your attention directly.

Should energy seek your own, remain balanced, aware and significantly concerned as you weigh the meaning of such energy. At the same time, allow nature to take its own course. Allow for the natural unfolding of life to lead all upon their journeys. Neither a savior nor a sinner be, but guide the self to energetic stability and, by your example, show others how life is to be lived.

You are all journeyers of the highest magnitude. Do not ever lose sight of your greater meaning and your greater purpose. Though you may not have succinctly defined either of those deeper aspects of life, it does not matter, for they guide you anyway. Purpose and meaning of the significance of life are the fuels that propel you forward. Let them take you to the next level.

Remember: Life is good. No matter where you are in your lives at this moment, Infinity guides you to the truth. Let it take you there. You are all safe in your world.

As you let your journey unfold, take this deeper knowing with you: You are all safe.

Jan's Blog, The Virginia Chronicles

A Day in a Life: A Clandestine Meeting

February 8, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

“Is this a clandestine meeting?” my elderly aunt asked me when I arrived at her hospital bed yesterday morning.

“Yes, it is,” I said, and we laughed.

We had spoken the night before. She was ready to move on, done with this world, in her 93rd year eager and happy, contented and determined.

“Will you see me through?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I’ll see you through.”

So began a process that we both knew had begun eons ago, lifetimes ago, not clandestine in the usual sense of the word, but more like a final meeting that we both knew was meant to be fulfilled. Not only had we conversed over the past few years and weeks about her death, but we both knew that we had been a part of each other’s lives many times before. There was no doubt that we had sat at each other’s deathbeds before, prepared to “see the other through.”

The day began with determination and focus. She was ready and the mission was begun. We went over everything together, making sure that she knew what to expect as we took her off the machines, and that all of her wishes were attended to. She thanked her body for being such a pleasant and steady vehicle her entire life, letting it know that it would be handled with respect when she left it behind. We talked about the dying process as like being born. In fact, this had been our conversation for many weeks. She had called me the night before.

“Why can’t I die?” she pleaded.

“Well, I’m going to be very straightforward with you. You are dying,” I said, reminding her of what we had spoken about. “You are in the process. You are going through the labor of dying just like you once went through the labor of being born. Your body remembers it even if you don’t. It will happen, you are already on your way. It takes patience and release.”

“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.”

We talked about her diving in and swimming into the light and not looking back or getting distracted. She was thankful for an image that she could work with as she lay dying.

“I’m ready to swim into the light,” she said when our preparatory talk was done, and so began her final journey on this earth.

In a most profound experience we spent the next twelve hours together, both of us going in and out of worlds. She spoke a few last wishes and then relaxed into the process. A few relatives came and went, the priest came and gave her final rites. We prayed for her. The prayers of my Catholic childhood, not spoken in many years, came easily to my tongue, spoken for her, a devout Catholic. I prayed for her in my own way too throughout the day, the things we had already spoken of: that her journey be peaceful, joyous, and happy, that she leave this world and its worries behind and go freely now.

I had told her that I would see her as far as I could, but then she would have to take over.

She nodded, and then asked, “When?”

“You’ll know,” I said, “when you’re ready.”

“Okay,” she said, and that was all we needed to agree on; we would both know when the time was right. I bent down and whispered in her ear, giving her encouragement throughout the day, until I felt my job was done. Then I let go of her hand and sat back.

Chuck came and joined me in the evening. We sat beside her together as she breathed her last breath. We experienced her energy calmly leaving her body, not looking back, her spirit freed, swimming right into the light.

We all have a clandestine meeting with death. My aunt knew this. She was well prepared, unafraid, looking forward to the journey. Today I feel her having that experience, as profoundly and fully as we had our experience together yesterday.

I too will one day swim into the light, and I look forward to going as peacefully and with as much dignity as my aunt did yesterday. I thank her for allowing me to be part of her long journey in this life and I wish her Godspeed on her new journey in infinity.

Jan

See also Chuck’s blog: Here Comes The Judge, on the same subject.

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: A Message From Jeanne—On Patience

February 6, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Dear Jeanne, I ask for your advice on behalf of all your readers. You constantly mention that we are in changing times—that change is happening all the time—and I get that, but I also know that sometimes it feels like change is so slow that we hardly notice it. I know that incrementally we are shifting and changing all the time, both inside ourselves and in the outside world, but it often feels like we don’t really get anywhere. I pose this question because I know many others are struggling to get to a new level of awareness and experience as well, and may be equally frustrated at times: If our goal is to get to a new level, how do we actually get there?

Here is Jeanne’s response:

I suggest, My Dear Ones, that rather than focus on the goal that you focus instead on the process. It is not the goal that will lead you to a new level but the steps you take on your journey. Allow your steps to be enough for now. Allow the incremental process that you might find frustrating to be all that you need to hone your skills. Do not look forward so much, but instead study what comes to teach you every day. You see, that is where the change you seek is already happening.

In those incremental daily shifts, in those signs that come to guide you, though you may miss their significance until you have experienced their outcome, you are already in the midst of change. This is what I do, indeed, talk about all the time. Change is already upon you. But do you notice?

I advise patience in all things now. Watch what is happening outside of you, carefully now, as you take into consideration the truth that fundamental life-enhancing change is happening all the time. Note that each day you are indeed a little further along on your course, that you have learned something new, that you are more open to your process of growth and evolution. And a little bit more each day is enough.

Release yourselves from impatience and let go to patience-with-awareness. Wake up each morning to a new day, for that is what it truly is, a new day to change the self even incrementally. And that is what you must all focus on now, incremental change, each step taken while more fully embracing the progress of the self. Your speed of progress is not an issue, it’s what you learn and what you do with it that is important.

Learn this: trust the process, as you lean into patience and work on gaining the alertness you may need to signal the changes you may have been missing.

Take your time to pause each day and take note, writing down even the tiniest of experiences that may be even slightly odd, quirky, mysterious, or downright phenomenal. And then seek the greater meaning for such experiences. Look at them without fear, and only with consideration for the lessons they seek to teach you. That is where your changing self will meet your impatient self and reveal the mind-blowing moments of awareness. What have you been missing lately? And what does it mean for you specifically? What does “taking it to the next level” really mean to you? It might not be what you think.

As I said, be patient, be alert, take note, learn something about the self and the journey you are on today and everyday. Be open, as open as you can be to the ultimate goal of growth.

Yes, the light of freedom is there at the end of the tunnel, yet do not get blinded by it before you have traveled the road to its true source. It is not the light you seek now, but the necessary lessons that will lead you to fully understanding the meaning of the light at the end of the tunnel. It is inside the tunnel, in each step you take that your lessons lie.

Look with joy on your opportunity to experience a new day in whatever world you reside in. Be joyous that you are learning what you need at the pace you can handle. Your own spirit decides the process, no one else.

Be patient. There is a reason for everything.

Thank you, Jeanne. Personally, I learn from this message that as we change we often seek to replace what we’re missing with something new, a new habit, a new comfort, a new person. Feeling the gap, we grasp at something that will make us feel comfortable again. Perhaps we even grasp at meaning. But what I get from Jeanne’s message today is: don’t grasp, even at meaning. Just keep taking the journey; you will learn everything you need. As she says, it’s the journey itself that is important, and not necessarily the goal. Set the intent and then let intent lead the way. -Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Get What You Want

February 1, 2012 Jan Leave a comment

Be careful what you wish for…you might just get it! This phrase has been going around in my thoughts for weeks now. It has been echoed by Mick Jagger’s voice, singing:

“No, you can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime, you just might find
You get what you need”

The other night, I dreamt of flying over the Valley of Death, a dark landscape of half-exposed corpses stuck in a black bog, thousands of them rotting away in the stagnant scene below me. From my perspective I did not perceive the rotting corpses as horrifying or nightmarish, but as a natural consequence of being human. At one time I might have startled awake, shaking in fright, but this time I calmly noted: “Yes, our bodies will become like that, corpses rotting in a bog when we no longer need them. They are carcasses that will one day reside in the black Valley of Death, but our spirits will live on.” Indeed, as I thought this my dreaming spirit heard a voice that said: “Go toward the light, turn always toward the light.”

I know that once the body’s work is done, we must leave it behind and, without attachment, go into new life.

The Buddhists and the Shamans alike suggest that we create our own reality. If we focus only on negativity, in thought alone, we keep ourselves stuck in negativity. Negativity and negative entities will attach to us, as we become feeding grounds where they know they will find sustenance. We actually compound the situation, bringing more on ourselves, one bad event leading to another as we energetically attach to crisis upon crisis. If we constantly bemoan our state of affairs, crying that our lives are terrible, that nothing goes right for us, that only bad comes to us, then that is what we will get.

I have experienced this myself. In fact, I once believed that I had to accept everything that came to me. “I can handle anything, good or bad,” I said to the universe, feeling powerful, “bring it on!” But one day I got fed up. “I’m sick of bad,” I said, “I only want good now!” And with that simple though hard-earned declaration things began to change significantly for the better. My whole outlook on life began to change too as a result of a new, more positive attitude.

As good began to arrive in my life, the negative slunk away. I learned in the process how to accept goodness from the universe, from others, and, most significantly, from myself. I softened and began to learn how to love myself. I learned the lessons of the Buddhists and Shamans: that I am largely responsible for the world I live in, in fact, that I create it.

In asking for good, I also had to confront what that meant. I got what I needed to propel me forward as I reconnected with my spirit and listened to the truths it told me. I had to leave a lot of my old life behind, leave it to rot in the Valley of Death, without regret and resentment. Those were some very challenging times, but they were also the most transformative times of my life as well.

The biggest challenge of that transformative period, during which I did my recapitulation, was learning how to face myself and my life lived without fixating on having been bad. I learned what it meant to be without judgment. I learned that everything that had happened in my life was necessary. I had to get to the point where I could view everything from a different perspective, as I did in my dream the other night, and clearly see how everything fit together, how everything was meaningful and significant and absolutely necessary for me to get where I am now.

As I turned away from the Valley of Death in my dream and looked into the light all around me, I knew that our spirits always seek the light. They seek what lies beyond the negative, nightmarish outlook we tend to attach to with fear. In the light there is no fear.

If we shift our focus, as the Buddhists and Shamans suggest, to focus on the light, the darkness will shrink away from us. If we change our thoughts to thoughts of joy and peace, love and kindness, as we reject the entities that seek to siphon our energy, we will begin to understand the necessity of their presence in the first place. Shifting our perspective begins with closely and honestly looking at our fears. Rather than focus on them as frightening, and on the Valley of Death as a horrible outcome, we must question the meaning of such symbols in our lives. Where are they leading us? What are they showing us? What are they trying to tell us? Eventually, as we face the darkness within ourselves with curiosity rather than fear, the darkness without will sense our disinterest. It will loosen its hold on us, and our attachment to it will diminish as well.

We may not be able to control how our lives unfold, but we can certainly control how we react. We create our world with our thoughts and what we choose to attach to, but there will come a time when our spirit will ask us to shift our perspective and it will be up to us alone to accept responsibility for doing so.

Accepting responsibility for our lives is perhaps one of our biggest challenges. We may spend a lot of time blaming others, blaming our circumstances, the raw deal we got, the universe colluding against us from the moment of birth. But living life that way, steeped in victimhood, gets pretty stale after a while. Eventually, we learn that our life will not change if we do not make a move on our own behalf.

Today, I wish that joy and peace may be yours, that goodness may come your way, that your thoughts may turn positive, that you may turn toward the light, and that self-nurturing healing and transformation may always be yours,

Jan

Riverwalker Press