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.
If you have read my first two books in The Recapitulation Diaries series, you know that the recapitulation journey that I undertook was often a painful process, peppered with memories and mental and physical anguish as I searched deeply within myself for explanations for why I felt so disconnected from and reluctant to experience life. I was really on a search for my spiritual self but also my authentic self, as I sought to live life on my own terms, fully safe in the world as my true self.
All of that might sound pretty esoteric, as it certainly sounded to me when I began my journey. I had only a vague idea what a true self might entail and I had no idea what it meant to do a recapitulation, and all of that esoteric talk frightened me as much as my memories did. It wasn’t until the journey was well underway that I began to embrace the esoteric lingo, for nothing else was available to describe what I was going through. Even the esoteric words I grasped at did little to convey the true depth of the mind-blowing experiences I began having.
In my next book, Into the Vast Nothingness, all that I had been working toward finally began to unfold. Ever-increasing and evermore intense episodes of breakthrough in both dreams and waking reality began to affect me on the deepest levels. By the middle of the second year of my journey, although still recalling and working through memories, experiences of the transcendent began to increase and often supersede the memory blitzes. The recapitulation went way beyond the recalling of a childhood of sexual abuse and revealed itself as the means to achieving true transformation.
I began to perceive of the recapitulation as absolutely necessary. More than just a deep self-study, the recapitulation transformed as I transformed. It offered the means to discovering not only who I was in this world, but who I had been for millennia. All of a sudden it seemed, I was granted access to ancient knowledge and a vast perspective that had I stayed my depressed and frightened old self I would never have experienced.
As I took the journey, I often stopped to thank myself for being so daring and brave, for doing the most frightening thing I had ever done: face myself. Facing myself meant dismantling myself down to the essence of who I really was, letting go of ideas and identities, rules and constructs that I thought I needed. It meant staying the course no matter what came to thwart me.
It meant withstanding the tensions and frustrations of what the recapitulation confronted me with, everything from painful memories and vivid dreams, to struggles and confrontations in daily life.
And yes, in dismantling the old self, in breaking down my ego, I finally did meet that spiritual self I had so longed to connect with. But far more importantly, I was granted access to experiencing myself as universal consciousness, as part of the oneness of everything, as simply energy taking a dip into this world for as long as I needed, in order to learn what I needed to learn. There’s all that esoteric talk again!
I learned that I had to live out the life of a sexually abused child until I no longer needed to, until I could say, “Enough! I’m done with playing that game!” It was at that point that reincarnation and the lives we live in this world became totally clear and acceptable to me. I “knew” that I had found the key to life in this world, the answer to the mystery: Why are we here? Well, I discovered that we were here until we don’t need to be anymore. And then a new kind of peace reigned and a new kind of motivation took over, and then the recapitulation and I were more perfectly aligned, for I had glimpsed the real truth and the real purpose of my life on this earth: to keep transforming.
If one is truly ready to transform, the path will appear. I offer my thoughts, my books, my weekly blogs as incentives to the transformational being inside all of us.
May your path take you to your own truths and may you find your own answers to the meaning of your life. Good Luck!
Staying the course,
Jan
My next book, Into the Vast Nothingness, is in its final stages and will be published soon! Thanks for reading!
May today’s channeled message offer you the guidance you seek!