Today’s Soulbyte:
Reveal who you truly are.
Be met with true spirit in return.
This is how to live.
Jan reveals who she truly is in her books, the latest, Into the Vast Nothingness, just published.
Here is a link to the Kindle version where you can take a look inside and read the introduction: Into the Vast Nothingness-Kindle
Here is the paperback version: Into the Vast Nothingness-Paperback
I don’t really know that much about astrology. I follow a few blogs, but I get lost in the planets, in the alignments and polarities. I find the details mind-boggling. It’s often like reading a foreign language. But even so, I know what I feel.
I woke up in the middle of the night. I was awake during the moment of the cardinal grand cross, a rare four planet pattern that occurred last night. As I lay awake, I knew it was time to make further inroads into the changes that I’ve been instituting over the past several years. “Now,” I thought to myself, “is the time to fully make the shift.”
Life challenges us all the time. Life asks us to make decisions, to face our difficulties, and to keep growing. I just have to look out the window and I know that facing my challenges is in alignment with nature, planetary or otherwise. Nature dies and then pushes through. The grass grows, the flowers bloom, the leaves appear once again.
I notice the signs that come to greet me, underscoring this time of shift. A butterfly flies over our heads as we sit in the yard, a little early we think. Two moths appear at the window, right in front of my eyes. I cannot fail to take in the significance; spirit is calling.
Spirit is always calling. As Chuck and I were discussing this morning, we are all born equipped with it. Then we lose it. We lose touch with our innocence, our connection to the wonder and the magic, but then we spend our lives looking for it. Sometimes we are doing this with purpose and at other times we do it unconsciously. But spirit calls out to us in so many ways, asking us to come back to our equipment again, that which we were born with, our connection to the energy of everything. In answering the call, we are declaring that we are ready, knowing full well that changing ourselves will take work. We put on our warrior self and we fight alongside our spirit self as we break through old worlds and old behaviors, old patterns that have kept us in bondage, so that we can achieve our own perfect grand cross.
When I began my recapitulation, it was really because my spirit was calling so loudly that I could not ignore it. Following that call meant the collapse of everything, but it also meant the beginning of new life. In shift, in change, there is death and rebirth, breaking apart and building up. Endings and beginnings are bundled up, tangled up in the process of change. Gradually the destruction turns to construction, as new structures based on spirit begin to take over and the new world that we’ve been working on for so long finally begins taking shape.
The feeling is that now is the time to implement that which has been taking shape, to not only notice the signs of spirit but act on them. We all have something inside of us, some goal, some desire, some creative urge, our spirit calling out to us in some way. My spirit once called out to me because it was dying, but now it is alive and well, living a full and productive life, but still it calls out to me: Time to go deeper still! And so I pay heed. “Yes,” I say, “time to go deeper still!”
It’s time for all of us to let spirit take us more fully into experiencing just what “deeper still” means. I’m game!
Change is good,
Jan
Here is today’s channeled message. May you all feel safe enough to be open-hearted today, if only a little. Let in what comes. It might be just what you need! Thanks for listening!
I lived in Sweden in the 1970s. One day there was a knock at the apartment door. I answered it and saw three little girls standing there.
Dressed in long skirts, with kerchiefs around their heads and brightly painted red cheeks, they held out copper kettles, singing something indecipherable in lilting voices. It looked a lot like Halloween to me, but it was Pink Thursday, the day before Good Friday.
Luckily, I was baking cookies for the guests who would be arriving the next day. I couldn’t speak Swedish very well at the time, so I held up a finger—wait a sec—and went into the kitchen to grab a handful of warm chocolate chip cookies, a rarity in Sweden at the time. (I’d had the chocolate chips sent to me by my parents as they were not available there.)
“Kakor?” I asked, reappearing with cookies in hand.
“Ja!” they replied, quite happily.
Grabbing the cookies they gobbled them down, making pleasing sounds while I smiled at them and nodded, saying, “Ja, ja,” or something like that. We waved goodbye as they turned to knock on my neighbor’s door. I shut the door and ran back into the kitchen, just in time to rescue the next batch of cookies from being burned in the oven.
Those little girls were enacting a tradition, playing the witches who supposedly cavorted with the devil on that day; all part of the springtime rituals, I was to learn. Usually coins were placed in the tea kettles but, as I told my husband, those little girls didn’t mind the cookies at all!
A few weeks later, at the end of April, another spring ritual was enacted. We’d traveled to spend a few days with my in-laws at their summer house on the West coast of Sweden. A bonfire ensued, the natural consequences of doing winter cleanup of the yard, but this too had significance. It was Walpurgis Night, the annual ritual to greet spring’s arrival. Many bonfires were lit that night along the coast, songs were sung and a lot of alcohol, another part of the tradition, was consumed.
It was the first time I was being exposed to ancient traditions outside of those of my Catholic upbringing. I found them intriguing. It was an eyeopener that nature itself was not only leading the way, but was actually being celebrated as the most significant guide in breaking through to new life. It made perfect sense to me, but I’d never encountered it before. Everyone knew the ritual, and everyone participated. Without judgment, it was a tradition that just was, nature allowed its place in a celebratory, honest, and most practical manner. As that Walpurgis Night fire burned, the ritual of the witches cavorting with Satan made perfect sense too. All of a sudden, I understood that nature was a real and powerful ally and entity, and it needed to be paid attention to, honored, and reckoned with.
I’m ready for my own bonfire now. It’s been on my mind that we should have a fire soon in our outdoor pit. The idea has been stirring for weeks, as we’ve waited for the snow to melt so that we could actually see the fire pit! It’s time to intentionally enact the ancient ritual of shedding and burning that which we no longer need. It’s time to begin anew.
Last night I dreamed. My skin was cracking and peeling away. Not like skin that has been sunburned and peels in thin layers. No, this skin was about an inch or two thick. It was old crusty skin. I knew, as I dreamed, that it symbolized that which is no longer necessary, a protective layer that no longer has any use. I was wearing it for no good reason, only out of habit. Beneath the thick old skin lies new pink skin, the tender, innocent and true self. It’s time to fully expose her, to let her live all the time, not just when it feels safe or appropriate, because I suddenly understood that it is always appropriate to live from the tender and real self.
My dream reminded me of a dream I’d had when doing my recapitulation. At that time I’d dreamed of removing a layer of the same kind of thick crusty skin from the soles of my feet. I still cringe as I recall peeling it off only to find beautiful pink soles underneath. In that dream, I put the crusty soles back on because I still had a lot of recapitulation work to do. But it was enough to know what lay in store for me, the innocent and pure self revealed by those tender pink soles. I wasn’t ready at the time to do more than hold the secret of this true self, but last night’s dream tells me that I’m more than ready now. I’ve been walking on the soles of that tender self for a long time now, but as my dream tells me, it’s time to shed everything else I’ve used to keep her protected and let her fully live!
And so, in celebration of spring, I intend to shed the trappings and ideas of an old self. I intend to set upon the altar that which is no longer necessary or desirable. In lighting the pyre, I intend to sacrifice that which oppresses and keeps me from experiencing my fuller self, all the thoughts and ideas that no longer belong in my life. I also set the intent to no longer hide the pure tender soul of who I am. I will be burning that crusty old coat of skin that I no longer need to wear!
I will allow nature to be my guide, both through this ritual burning and in the next steps. I have no idea where I’m going, but in this shedding and burning process I declare that I am open, willing, and ready for new life.
We’ve all come so far in our lives and in our work. Let us not be held back. Let us light the fire on the altar and raise a glass to nature and to spring, to renewal of the true self, and many happy new beginnings.
As I light the fire and raise a glass to spring, I hope you will too,
Jan
Here is today’s channeled message brought to you by Jan.