Here is Jeanne’s weekly message. May it offer you guidance as you take your journey.
No matter what your pathway looks like, it’s yours to take… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Remember how often I say that “everything will be fine,” one of my favorite sayings? Well, my advice is to heed those words because everything will be fine!
Be open to what comes to greet you as you walk your path through life. Take your life seriously. Do not despise your journey, the turns that life takes you on, but embrace every challenge you face as your most prized possession. Nurture your way through all of life’s vicissitudes with attention to detail, thoroughness, and a keen sense of the rightness of everything, for everything that happens to you is deeply meaningful. It may take awhile to figure out the meaning of everything, but know that it is deeply personal—in some way about you!
All of you must remember not only my words—”Everything will be fine!”—but also that you are the energy, the force, and the resolution of all that you deal with as you go through life. Seek deeper connection with this strong powerful inner self. It’s all you need in order to reach the next moment in life when you realize, “Oh yes, everything is fine!” But do not stop there. Ask what comes next!
Know full well that life wants you to grow and discover yet more things about yourself: how you operate, how you stagnate, how you excel, and how you turn inward and refuse life. The workings of the self, once discovered and explored, will aid you in understanding all other human beings. Such understanding will enable you to live compassionate, loving lives, sensitive to the truth that all struggle and yet all have equal potential to experience that which you too wish to experience.
You are no more or less that the most realized being on earth. You are not more or less than the most ignorant being either. Strive to meet your potential self and then seek your fulfillment as an evolving being, knowing full well that everything will be fine, because everything is now, and you are there experiencing everything now.
Let each moment guide you to the next. With open heart go forward on your journey, trusting yourself and all the gifts of life, all that comes to teach and guide you on your journey.
When I was a little kid I clearly saw that the ultimate goal of life was death. We were all headed in the same direction, going to the same end. What then was the meaning of life? I’d read the obituaries on the inside front page of the newspaper, studying peoples lives and how they had died, trying to make sense of it all. Then I’d flip to the back inside page and read the comics. Nothing in between was of interest to me. I knew I had to look for answers elsewhere. And so my search for meaning began. Little did I know that I didn’t really have to search at all. The answers were all around me, in the synchronicities of the interconnected universe that we all exist in.
Yesterday, lunchtime arrived. I didn’t really feel hungry, but thought I should probably eat something. I prepared a small lunch. I ate a few bites but still had no appetite. Should I eat now when I have a chance or risk being hungry later when it won’t be appropriate to eat? I was on the fence. I picked up a favorite book, Everyday Tao, looking for guidance. I opened it at random, and received the perfect reading for my situation: Hungry/Full.
Regarding Hunger: “The follower of Tao stays hungry.”
“Those who follow Tao make great achievements if they are so inclined to come out and act in the world. Nevertheless, they always stay hungry, so that they are never complacent. They are always out trying to do better. …those who follow Tao know that hunger is a great motivator.”
“In eating be moderate. Leave a little room in your stomach. Try to stay lean, not for the sake of fashion, but for the sake of health and motivation. The mind grows sluggish on too much rich food and fine wine.”
“However, neither should one become a “hungry ghost,” forever searching the world for something to eat. That is too much the other extreme. Like everything in life, those who follow Tao use moderation, and they use everything they can—even hunger—to further their travels through Tao.”
Regarding Full: “Knowing when one is full: that is wisdom.”
“If you don’t want people to rebel, then stuff their bellies full of food. If you want no wars, then make sure there is enough to eat. When a country is on the brink of ruin, it is because the leaders have taken too much in taxes, conscription, and labor.”
“In a simple life, people eat plain food. They have enough. No one needs to lecture them about balance: nature teaches them. …they learn that for everyone to have enough creates contentment.”
“Eat what is proper. Eat what is right. …avoid excess. Although there are fanatic beliefs about diet, fasting, and ritual, avoid obsession. Eat what is natural. Eat enough, but don’t eat too much. The simple application of that dictum is difficult enough.”
I was fascinated by the response I received—both for myself and as regards the state of our country, reflecting our politics as well as the eating habits and health of the American people—but I really shouldn’t have been. I’ve been experiencing the synchronicities of the universe in alignment with my life for a long time, but nevertheless I get excited all over again every time I encounter the workings of the greater world we live in. Once again, it became clear to me that everything we experience is teaching us to become aware, teaching us how to prepare ourselves to become a part of the greater whole. The meaning of life is becoming part of that whole—one with the Tao—the answer that my chid self so diligently searched for. And one way to experience that is in the synchronicities of life itself.
A bunny in the backyard… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
I woke up during the night. “This is the time I usually hear the owl,” I thought. And then I heard the owl hooting in the woods behind our house. “It’s probably hunting,” I thought. And then I heard a flurry of activity, the flicker of swooping wings, the screeching of an animal. “It got one of the rabbits that live in the backyard,” I thought. “Don’t be sad. Let it go, it’s nature at work.” The tussle lasted but a few moments, then it was quiet again.
Once again, I was fascinated by the synchronicities of the universe. Are my thoughts manifesting these things? I wondered. I think a thought, the universe responds. I know I did not cause anything, but I do know that I am part of the greater whole. When I ask the universe for guidance, I am tuning into the greater whole, aligning with intent, and this is why the answers appear so synchronistically. This is what my child self could not grasp, having little concept of the universe, of the oneness of everything.
My child self could not understand that life and death were of the same energetic configuration, just different manifestations of the greater whole that we all are. Now, having had many experiences of the oneness of all things, I feel myself as part of everything. But even so, I tend to forget when dealing with the mundanities of life. We are all capable of forgetting even the most transformational of experiences when in the throes of life and what it challenges us with. But if we repeatedly bring our attention back to those experiences, back to our awareness of our oneness, we enter a new phase of experience.
If we remember that we too are the universe, we insert ourselves in alignment with synchronicity. Once we are open and receptive, we experience synchronicities everywhere. We hear them. We dream them. We read them. We speak them. We hear them spoken around us, reverberating through the interconnectedness that we all are. When we experience our oneness we are in the Tao. And then life is not so daunting. Nor is death. It all becomes a fascinating experience.
The Tao is everywhere, we are everywhere… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In the Tao, in alignment with the universe, the mysteries of life—what lies between the obits and the comics—are no longer mysteries. Everything is us, in us, around us. We are interconnected with everything else, everyone else. In energetic alignment we experience our oneness with everything, and the synchronicities come, because we are fully available to receive them.
From the Tao,
Jan
As I write, a squirrel comes knocking at the window, a hickory nut filling its mouth. “Hello Squirrel, I see you are in the Tao, preparing for the winter ahead.” The owl eating the rabbit, the squirrel gathering nuts, they are in alignment with nature. Are we?
Quotes from:Everyday Tao—Living with Balance and Harmony by Deng Ming-Dao, pp.140-141
Here is the channeled message from Jeanne for this week. May it be helpful and guiding.
Life gives us all we need… Start from where you are… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Do not go overboard in any fashion, emotionally, physically, or otherwise. Do not let the vicissitudes of life overwhelm you. Take life in stride, for it comes that way, one moment at a time.
Life asks you all to pay attention to the truths behind the myths and stories you hear, behind the spins of other people’s lives.
Know that life will take you on your own journey, that it offers everything you personally need to become mature, compassionate, and loving. Not everyone will experience all that life offers, but everyone will experience enough.
Do not be sorrowful for loss of that which has been denied. Instead find your balance within the life you live. Make it good. Make it joyous. Make it truly worth it. For the life you are living is fully available, with all you need, to achieve all you desire in life.
Accept where you are. Begin anew from there. Rather than fight, acquiesce. But acquiesce with graciousness for life itself, knowing that you have everything you need.
You will not receive more than you can bear, nor will you be offered too much. But you may elect to bear too much or take too much and that is not rightful balance. Rightful balance means being in alignment with life, forging ahead with your dreams and your promises yet not succumbing to the vicissitudes and problems that arise, nor being too greedy for more.
Take life more firmly in hand and use it to your fullest advantage, in balance. Everyone has the same opportunity to fulfill their lives. Most people are not aware that they are in control; it is by choice and by decision that life is taken full advantage of.
In rightful balance is everything possible. Seek balance in all you do, speak, and think. Life gives you enough. Take full advantage of it in rightful balance.
Tao is everywhere, in everything… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Tao is circular. Tao is wholeness. Tao is returning always to Tao. But Tao is also instinctual, knowing when to leave the circle, when to step outside the self and interact in the world. Nature is Tao, but nature is sometimes violent, yet it is still Tao. In Tao, in nature, everything returns to balance and harmony after the necessary aggressive deed is done.
To be in the Tao is to learn to flow, but also to be alert. If we were hermits, living in a cave far from others, our daily lives would be quite different from the lives of people living in a busy metropolis. But even so, we would have to remain alert to what was going on around us. We would have to be in harmony with nature. Our existence would be dependent upon and pretty much ruled by our environment, yet we might not have to ever be aggressive in the way that worldly people often have to be aggressive.
Sometimes, Chuck and I have what we call “monastery days.” On such days, we stay calm. We stay in our house, on our property, or perhaps we take a quiet walk around the neighborhood. We eat simply. We meditate, read, and go inward. We stay in the Tao. We use such days to contrast the busyness of life, giving ourselves respite, as we sit at the center of the circle of Tao.
I used to be a runner. Not only did I run for exercise, but I tended to run all the time; up the stairs, down the stairs, to my car, from my car. I’d do everything at a fast pace, trotting along. I had a lot of energy, but I was also running from a lot of stuff back then too. Now I don’t do that as much. Sometimes when we walk, Chuck will put his hand on my arm. I know this means “slow down.” And then I notice that I was going too fast, right out of the Tao of the day, out of the Tao of us.
When I walk alone, I tend to walk faster than we do as a couple, but I know this is okay. When I am alone, I’m in my own Tao and it’s different from the Tao of Chuck and Jan as a couple. But being a couple means being flexible, not being overpowering or overpowered, but finding what works between the opposites, the middle ground—a great opportunity to practice what it means to be in Tao! It can be a struggle, but in the give and take of relationship one learns the lessons of give and take in all relationships, whether they are inner or outer.
Sometimes, as a couple, we are very calm and sometimes we are not. Sometimes, as a solo journeyer, I am very calm too, but I usually try to flow with where I am. I’ve worked hard to be aware of the energy around me, to read it and be in it. As I ask myself to be in the Tao of the day, I go within and check on where I am. I feel my own Tao and try to align it with the outer Tao, try to stay in synch. It can be another challenge, but it’s also another lesson in relationship, relationship to the world, other, and to self. Sometimes it’s appropriate to be in the calm Tao, sometimes it can get you in trouble if the Tao around you is moving at a hearty pace.
We can’t really separate ourselves. Even on our monastery days, Chuck and I know that we might be interrupted. It’s rare that we do not have something outside needing us, but we allow and flow with what comes. Our circle is sacred, but there is compassion and understanding in that circle, there is awareness of other, of world. To be in Tao is to be appropriate at all times.
The Tao of Me Sweater designed by me, knitted by Fanny on her machine, circa 1977 – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Back in my twenties, I had a friend in Sweden who bought a knitting machine. It was a long contraption that she could string four different colors of yarn into and knit with. She made mittens, hats, scarves and sweaters and sold them at various boutiques and outdoor markets. Even though she knitted on a machine—cutting knitting time down to a minimum, considerably upping her production—her goods still had a handmade quality to them. She loved to knit by hand, but she needed to make a living, and so she chose to go outside of her normal world and become a little more commercial. It required an aggressive move on her part, but it worked. She ended up with a very successful business.
We shared a large studio together with five other artists of various skill sets, artisans, performers, and illustrators and painters alike, all of us doing our thing, commercial or otherwise. We existed for several years quite harmoniously in a bustling environment, all of us successful. It was very Tao. The energy of the time, of the people, of the place we inhabited all came together in alignment. But the perfect Tao of that time came to an end. At the same time that I decided to return to America, the lease was up. The landlord wanted the space for himself. Other people in the group had other opportunities coming in, offers to move on too. The knitter became a massage therapist. The signs were there that we could not hold together anymore.
That too is being in the Tao, knowing when it is time to disassemble, time to shift, time to move on, time to move deeper into the circle of self, or deeper into the Tao of the outer world. Tao is knowing when it is time to let go and then following through and actually letting go. Tao is never stagnant.
When we are young, the outer world is our learning environment. We must leave our secure world of family, our dependent childhood and the comforts of the known, and go into the outer Tao. We must experience the wholeness of Tao if we are to become whole ourselves. We must walk hand in hand with others and discover what it means to give and to take, in all the many different situations and relationships that we encounter as we go through life.
Even in our traumatic experiences we are learning something important about life and Tao. If Tao is everything then Tao is sadness, violence, hatred, anger, abuse, pettiness, ignorance, and meanness too. If we are to return to the circle of Tao from which we all come, we must bring our recapitulated, fully assimilated experiences with us, for they are part of our wholeness and they too belong in our Tao of Self. Tao of Self means having no secrets, every part acceptable.
As we go inward, our experiences of having been outward are our greatest guides. If we do not know what we carry in our “inner” world then we will never be in Tao. Likewise, if we do not know the “outer” world and how it works we will never be in Tao either. Our first job is to prepare ourselves for life, secondly to live fully in the Tao of who we are in the world, and thirdly to bring all of our experiences inward, creating a whole self. Then we are ready to sit in the center of the circle of Tao. Then, like the hermit in his cave, our relationship to Tao will be harmonious with nature, because we have fully understood it.
The I Ching offers us guidance in how to live in the Tao…
As we do our inner work and gradually allow ourselves to evolve, we enter into the wholeness of ever-evolving Tao, into the nature of all things in balance but in constant flux as well. If we can learn to be flexible—as Chuck asks me to be whenever he silently puts his hand on my arm, signaling that I am not in “our” Tao—we soon find that it’s easier to be flexible all the time. Tao is flexibility.
Tao is everything, and so we are always in it. But it’s up to each of us to become consciously aware of it, of how we are in relationship to it, to other, to our work, to our dreams. Our dreams are already there, waiting in the circle of Tao for us to find them.
A cushion on the floor may be all it takes to establish sacred space… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
It is not necessary to be overly strict, to be held down too tightly by the reins of rules, processes, and dictum. Yet discipline is necessary in a spiritual practice or in simply instigating change.
In the beginning, use rules and well-deserved practices to gain footing, to learn how to do something new, but don’t forget to allow the Self, the deeper self, to be part of the process, especially whenever that deeper self begins to show signs of awakening. Rigidity may not be beneficial in the long run. After a while, fluidity in everything is more helpful as you evolve a spiritual practice, as you learn a new skill, as you bend your mind to accept new ideas.
If the world is to change then each one of you must change. And if each one of you is to change then you must challenge yourself to take a step forward, to move beyond the self you now are. It is time for all beings to open up to the greater flow of life and the energy that moves through you all. And so I challenge you all to begin a new practice that will open you in a new direction, a direction of your spirit.
Dance. Take a class. Take a walk. And then do it again. Read a book. Write a letter. Think a new thought. All of these simple things may be just what you need to open a door to a new self.
Once the door is open, the next challenge begins—to keep going! And that is where discipline comes in. Set some rules that you know are doable and then do them! Once you get into a rhythm, challenge the self to go deeper. Go to many classes. Take longer walks. Sit in silence for longer and longer. Read more; write more.
Let’s say that each morning you will meet the rising sun and set an intention for the day. Do it religiously for a month. Then add something else to your practice. Read from a meaningful book, something that inspires you. Take your reading with you into your day. Let it ruminate. Begin to see its significance. Let your thoughts flow through you without attachment. Begin to observe the self. You might notice changes, subtle at first, but gradually you will notice that they stick.
Allow the self time for the self each day. Begin with establishing that practice: time for the self. Make this time important, sacred, set, not to be missed. Make it ritual. Make it personally relevant.
Sacred time can then be brought into everything you do. Make your chores sacred time. Make your work sacred time. Make your routines sacred time. Just be where you are, comfortably present.
Begin to observe the self as you allow sacredness to enter your life. I speak of personal sacredness, meaningful to you in your modern life, in anything and everything you do.
