Today, Jeanne asks us once again to face our fears. Just so you know, I faced my own fears to bring you this message today, so when she suggests that everyone we meet is as fearful as we are, take it from me, it’s true! That being said, here is this week’s channeled message:
Thanks for listening! Sending you love, good wishes, and good luck!
Living a healthy life, for as long as we are here, is all about care of the self, striving to know the self at the deepest level, learning to love and to receive, giving the inner self and the outer self equal attention and importance. It’s about valuing who we are and what we have to offer, because we all have something to offer. It’s about fully embracing the real self—the true self that we all know we are but are often afraid to express—allowing it live to the fullest.
This is not an easy task! We must struggle to maintain balance, both internally and externally, while we simultaneously must wrestle with our human desires and appetites. If we are to succeed, we must pay attention to our bodies, our minds, and our spirits, as well as all the parts of ourselves that constantly vie for our attention. We must learn to be okay with where we are. We must remain fully aware that life itself wishes us to grow and change. We must be okay with what comes to us from outside, knowing that it is there to guide and teach us. I see both negative and positive aspects of life as obstacles because whether they are harsh or difficult challenges and confrontations, diseases and physical impediments, or even if everything comes easily to us, they all challenge us to individuate and mature so that we may reach our fullest potential.
If we can begin to accept that life is more than just a mundane, sad, unfulfilled existence; if we can embrace it as an exciting experience in a most fantastic realm, we open ourselves to something far beyond the norm. In simply deciding that the life we are in is enough, in acknowledging that what we must contend with everyday is our necessary pathway to change, we begin to experience life in a new way.
I create my own reality, and so, if I constantly complain about my life then I will never experience life in a new way. I will only experience what I say and tell myself. But if I shake off the negative speak that runs through me and contaminates my experience, I offer myself the possibility for a new experience. This is what Jeanne speaks of in her messages. Each week she asks us to be open and willing to face life in a new way, not viewing it as a horrible or frightening experience, nor as a tiresome task or depressing situation, but as an exciting adventure. She asks us to be energetically available to life in a new way.
Living a healthy life, and gaining awareness of who we are and where we are really being led in our personal lives, entails constantly seeking balance, paying attention to what our bodies tell us, honing our skills of self-communication and dialogue with the inner self—all parts of that inner self. A good way to begin intending and asserting a new attitude toward life, is to pay attention to our physical bodies. In simply paying attention to our body’s messages, we might just have the first big breakthrough to new life.
Recently, I have been struggling with a lower back ache. It’s due to heavy lifting of 40 pound bags of pellets and the hauling of firewood. I have had to pay attention to it, as it will not let me do otherwise. It’s forcing me to stay in my body. I already know that this is one of my greatest challenges in this lifetime, to be present in my physical body. Through my entire recapitulation, being present in my body meant facing the pain and humiliation of the sexual abuse I suffered as a child. As a child I got really good at leaving my body—it was a means of escape from the pain it carried—so good that for most of my life I was never really in it. My recapitulation taught me that my body was a good place, my vehicle through life, absolutely necessary if I was to evolve. And so I struggle constantly to remain present, to not drift off as I am naturally wont to do.
To change a habit that once saved my life has been challenging. And so, I am thankful for the aches and pains of my lower spine, reminding me every day to pay attention to what my body is telling me. I am addressing it constantly in a multitude of healing practices, but my biggest healing has been to let it be present, to work with it, to let it guide me to what I should and should not be doing at this time in my life.
I have always been physically strong, able to do exactly what I wanted, and so I never limited myself in anyway. Now, I must face that I am limited and sometimes, I must admit, it has been a real pain—pun intended! I can’t just do anymore; now I have to think before I do, and that is both a challenge and a contemplative process. I must stay in my body basically all the time, in every moment of the day. If I do not, it reminds me —OUCH!— to come back! And so, I am constantly present, paying attention to what I am doing in each moment. Life has become a constant walking/sitting meditation. I am paying attention to the fact that my back, always so strong and readily available, is now saying: Don’t take on so much for others; don’t give away your energy so easily, protect it, use it for what is most important. You are not allowed to bear so much anymore. You are important—take care of you!
Each morning, Chuck and I begin the day by each pulling a card from our favorite Tarot deck. It’s a way of anchoring ourselves in our intent—the intent to remain balanced, aware, and open to life. Each day we ask the cards to supply us with what we need most to guide us. The answer, whatever it is, always reminds us to pay attention to our internal worlds as well as our external worlds, as they mirror each other perfectly. Each day we both pick the perfect response to where we are individually, and as a loving, growing partnership as well. How could it be otherwise? The universe is always in alignment with us! The challenge is for us to get in alignment with it!
My little back ache is asking me to pull back from too much experience in the outer world, to hone my skills in my inner world in a new way. And so I have been daring myself—as you know, if you’ve been listening to my weekly channeled messages—to deepen my experience as an energetic being. Yes, I must live life fully in my body, accept my strong physical self, but equally my strong spiritual self as well. And that is why I have a backache!
I see this as part of my process of growth and change, in alignment with my spirit’s intent to constantly grow. I don’t believe we are here to just grow once and then plunk down and say, “Okay, I did it, I changed.” No, the challenge is to keep growing. Likewise, if all I do is moan about my aching back, nothing will shift for me at all, all I’ll have is a painful back and a depressing life. But, if I elect to use this challenge, then I am doing something to shift myself, to change my perception of life, and hone my awareness. In fact, I create a new reality for myself.
I hope you all find out what your little or big aches, pains and challenges are trying to alert you to. Mostly, they ask us to confront something, to get to the bottom of who we are, to make amends, and move on to the next challenge. We just have to be ready to face and accept the truth of that challenge, and act upon it in a positive, healing way. Acting upon it is often the greatest challenge. Many times I have had to feel the searing pain in my lower back to remind me of just how I am being asked to act upon the messages I receive.
Good luck! And be careful out there if you are shoveling all that snow today!
Jan
Dear Everyone,
Here is today’s channeling. I began with a little introduction and unfortunately hit the stop button rather than the pause button, so I am posting two audio files. The first one is my intro and the second one is the channeled message for today.
On a synchronistic note, I opened my eyes as I finished the channeling to see a large shape seemingly sitting in the bird feeder. “What the heck?” I thought, thinking at first that it was a large hawk, but as I got up and went to the window saw that it was the head of a deer! I knew that deer were coming in the night and eating the leftover seeds from the day, since the feeder pan was always empty each morning. Now I had the culprit! I knocked on the window, but the deer only moved back a little onto the lawn. She stayed around for a good fifteen minutes while I got the camera and took pictures of her.
She came back to the feeder too! Taking small steps, as we are encouraged to do in today’s channeling, she trusted that she was safe. She knew very well that I was at the window, as she’d glance up every now and then, as if to say, “I see you, but I am not afraid. You are open and I too am open.” I sent her my welcome in return, allowing her to be present, as she was clearly giving me, and all of you, a meaningful message in return. She was allowing herself to be open, innocent, flowing and trusting of everything, perfectly in alignment with today’s message.
Personally, I interpret the presence of the deer this way: as innocent energy that will do no harm to anyone, as good energy, in fact, and so I intend to keep the innocent self open to receive today, just as Jeanne suggests we do in the channeled message. I hope you will too, as this deer came for all of us!
Thanks for listening and being a part of this new shift that I am going through. And I’m very happy it was not a groundhog that showed up!
Here is my little introduction:February 3, 2014-Introduction
Here is today’s channeling:February 3, 2014-Shift
I grew up not far from Beacon, New York, the home of Pete Seeger. My dad would point out a certain road leading up the mountainside whenever we passed it. “That’s where Pete Seeger lives,” he’d say. I knew who Pete Seeger was. Somehow, I’d always known. I knew he was an activist and a pacifist, but most of all a musician.
When I got my first job at 16, working as a chambermaid, as they called it back then, at the newly constructed Holiday Inn in Fishkill, Pete Seeger was often a topic of conversation among the maids there, most of whom were from Beacon. He seemed to stir ire, and there were many times when I could not grasp how one person could stir such anger in others, nor how people could hate so vehemently someone they had never met. “But he’s a good person, he just wants fairness for all,” I’d say, in my attempts to convince the opposing side. It was my first exposure to virulent hatred for someone who was different, who saw the world in a different way and was not afraid to speak out about it. He thought for himself and acted on it and that, I knew, was good.
Beacon was also where the dentist was, Alp’s Sweet Shop, and Schoonmaker’s Department Store. There was a ferry that took you over to Newburgh on the other side of the Hudson River, which I believe has once again resumed service. We’d ride that ferry pretty often, summer and winter. My dad would take us across, just for an outing. In the winter, we’d huddle outside against the bitter wind watching the hull break through the ice, heading to the Western bank of the river to shop at a big department store I can’t remember the name of; we’d get our shoes there.
Beacon was the home of Matteawan. At the time I was growing up it was a prison for the criminally insane. We could hear the honking siren from our house 15 or so miles away, screaming out a warning of escape. It was a time to lock your doors and windows until you heard the siren again, letting you know they’d found the escapee. Beacon had been a bustling, prosperous city of hat factories, but by the 1950s it was pretty run down, a place known for its rough side, the kids at the high school notoriously unruly. Beacon was where the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., founded by Pete and Toshi Seeger, had its home and the boat would often dock there. It’s where you caught the train to go into New York City and beyond. The station is right alongside the river, overlooking a small park and the murky Hudson River.
I was standing on the crowded train platform one day, in my early twenties, heading back into the city. It was a hot summer day. A damp and smelly tunnel led under the tracks. A young woman came and stood next to me. She waved back to a small group of people standing across the parking lot, next to where the Clearwater was docked. A car drove up and a man got out. He quickly walked over to the tunnel that led to the train platform. Suddenly he was standing next to me too, a tall and lanky man with thinning hair, a big glowing smile on his face. He’d gotten there just in time to say goodbye to, I assumed, his daughter. It was Pete Seeger.
I couldn’t help but listen to their conversation. He was so loving, a concerned parent. Did she have everything, enough money, food? “Call us when you get there,” he said, the words kind of jumping out of him. The conversation was of mundane topics but the energy that the two of them exuded was anything but mundane. They vibrated! They looked directly into each other’s eyes and I felt how much they loved each other, how intensely they knew and understood each other at the deepest level, how close a family they were.
The energy between the two of them vibrated so palpably that it flowed right out and filled the air around them. Standing so close I could not but feel it too. I suddenly understood what being alive meant, what loving another being felt like, what being focused and committed meant. I understood how Pete Seeger could captivate an audience and lead a march. His energy leapt out of him much like his words did and it was almost overwhelming.
I perceived Pete and his daughter as joyous people, so happy and full of life. I felt how unafraid they were to be themselves. It was invigorating and inspiring just standing in their presence, feeling their vibrancy, and yet at the same time I felt my own fears, how they controlled and ruled me. I felt how I wanted to be like them, full of so much life that I vibrated in the same fearless manner.
The train pulled into the station and we got on. Pete stood on the platform waving to his daughter as the train pulled out. I felt like he was waving to me too, like he was really waving to all of us, and so I lifted my hand and waved back. He stood there smiling big, his face aglow with the vibrancy of a spirit that had so much to give. A humble man in worn jeans and an old short-sleeved plaid shirt, no one special, just Pete Seeger.
This memory came to me as I thought about Pete Seeger when I heard of his death the other day, and in honor of his passing, I pass it along. That day on the train platform something stirred deeply within, something that would take me years to fully release. And yet, here I am feeling quite alive and glowing myself, having dared myself to think differently and act differently, to confront those fears that at one time kept me so frightened and closed, so quiet and unable to speak or act on my own behalf. It was my personal journey of healing that awakened my own energetic vibrancy, vibrancy that we all have within us.
Thank you, Pete Seeger, for 94 years of sharing your energy! It was nice to brush up against your vibrancy,
Jan
As we transition through our darkness there is always light!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here is a channeled message from Jan and Jeanne. We hope that you will find this new audio format acceptable. We ask you to change with us, as we challenge ourselves to change. As a listener rather than a reader, there is the possibility of having a different experience, just as there is a different experience happening for the channeler. Each time you listen you might hear something new, something that you didn’t hear the last time you listened. You might also hear the fire crackling in the wood stove on this chilly morning! We hope these words offer helpful guidance as you go through the week ahead. Thanks for listening!