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A Day in a Life: Signs Of Change

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I notice this happy face smiling at me when I open the milk carton...another good sign perhaps? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
I notice this happy face smiling at me when I open the milk carton…another good sign perhaps?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I wake at 3:45 a.m. to wind gusts that shake the house and rattle the furniture on the deck. I wonder if the umbrellas will blow over. I try to fall back to sleep but another gust comes along. I see the trees against the night sky bending low, pushed to breaking by this sudden shift. The night has been calm. We have our bedroom sliding door open wide to the deck and the night air. We love to watch the sky at night and awaken to the sounds of the birds, the phoebes and cardinals especially. They are our alarm clock. Another gust comes through, and another and another. Now I can’t fall back to sleep. I wonder what’s coming, for I sense that these are winds of change.

Later, as I’m drying my hair, the hair dryer goes on the fritz. In fact, it totally blitzes out, shoots a flame, smokes and fizzles out. It’s fried. Change, I think. Yup, change is coming. Am I ready for it and what will I do with this opportunity?

Astrologically, I read that we are in for some interesting energy, so my sense of change feels in alignment with the planets. I look forward to change, to new possibilities, to the challenge of doing things differently and of becoming someone new. I wonder what else, besides the wind and my hair dryer, will be the catalyst. Something else is sure to come along to support me today in my quest and desire for change. I know for a fact though that I must be my own instigator of change. I must be my own arbiter, my own catalyst, and yet I am thankful for the signs that show me that the time for change is now.

The fact that the cicadas are here this summer is right in alignment with the idea that it is high time to make some big changes. They have been singing their way through the days, letting us know that we don’t have much time left. And it’s true, we don’t, they don’t, none of us do. As the Shamans of Ancient Mexico like to say: We are beings who are going to die.

Here it is, trying like heck to turn over... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here it is, trying like heck to turn over…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I thought about those shamans yesterday. I was just about to check the hot tub water chemistry when I noticed a large bug on the hot tub cover. It was on its back, trying desperately to turn over. A cicada. I watched it for a while, remembering how don Juan had once told Carlos not to interrupt the progress of some critter crossing the road, a snail perhaps. He told him that he had no right to interfere, for he did not really know the snail’s story. I tend to not interfere with nature myself, knowing that nature can pretty much take care of itself. However, it was taking the cicada a long time to flip itself over and I was getting impatient. Of course, I could have come back later, but I wanted to test the water now.

After a while, rather than actually touch the cicada, I blew at it hard enough that it was able to flip over and fly off the hot tub cover. Satisfied I opened the lid and went about my business. A few seconds later as I went to the other side of the hot tub to turn on the jets, I stepped on something that went CRUNCH under my clog. UH-OH! I looked down and in a moment of horror realized that I had just killed the poor cicada that I had tried to help! I was devastated. I had interfered and had caused a death. On the other hand, that cicada, as far as I knew, had been singing its heart out for days that it was going to die. It was right. We are all beings who are going to die. However, I couldn’t help wondering how it would have fared had I not interfered.

Chuck mentioned this morning that as long as we keep the thought of our death uppermost in our minds then no moment is any more significant than another. At the same time, every moment is precious too, but all the moments really carry the same message, letting us know that time’s a wastin’! What have we been putting off? What do we want to accomplish in our lives, in our next moments? Why wait?

I sense that new opportunity arrived on the wind in the middle of the night. It loudly proclaimed its presence. It said, stay alert and grab this opportunity to make those changes that are so badly needed. This is a personal challenge as well as a universal challenge. We are all being asked to go deeper into our inner world and make changes there, while we are being pushed to live differently in the outer world as well.

Doesn't this cloud look a little monsterish? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Doesn’t this cloud look a little monsterish?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The wind is not always good, the shamans like to warn, but it does suggest a stirring of energies. This one, by all accounts, is a good wind of change, bringing us to a new level of awareness. If we are ready to grow, it’s time to latch on, dig in and go with it. Change! It’s the kind of wind that will take us far and we could all use that kind of help in our efforts to evolve and grow, individually and as a human race.

It’s time, the wind shouted in the night. In the most bone-shattering way, it said: This is it! This is the time of your lives! This is what you have been waiting for, so don’t miss the opportunity! Go with the flow of it. Acquiesce to what you know is right, to what must be done to move you beyond the pale, beyond the horizon, beyond the old self.

I wish you all well in your inner work and your outer work. It feels like they will now come into greater and more fruitful alignment. The winds bode well!

Going with the flow,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Experience Energetic Reality

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Here is this week’s message of guidance from Jeanne, channeled most humbly by Jan:

Don't ask why, just take it in and enjoy... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Don’t ask why, just take it in and enjoy…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Underneath everything and everyone flows the same current of energy. You see differences with your human eyes, but in energetic reality there is no difference between one being and another, one thing and another, one life and another. If you can find your own source of energy and life you will be able to experience this current that I speak of.

Stay connected to your path of growth. This is the best advice I can give. Stay focused on changing, growing, and discovering the self on the deepest levels. Only in working deeper inward, into the self, will the energetic truths that I speak of be more fully revealed and acceptable to you.

Many of you know what I speak of because you have had experiences of energy that you could not otherwise explain. My advice is to not question but to accept and discover the gift that you are being asked to receive. Learn to block the unanswerable questions so that you may be open to the energy—that is what all of your questions are about anyway. If you stop asking them and pause long enough to enjoy your own energy you might begin to discover just how exciting and life-affirming your energy of self, as a being of infinite possibility, is. Be open to that and then see where it takes you!

Experience the self as an energetic being and then discover the current that flows through all things, all life, all that your eyes see. You must “feel” energy, perceive energy, so your eyes are not necessarily the right organs to guide you. Seek heart connection instead. Start there.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Visitors From Another Era

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We are privileged to observe an evolutionary happening... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We are privileged to observe an evolutionary happening…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I cannot help but ponder our visitors, the cicadas, come from the depths of the earth to mate and die, all within a few weeks time. What’s the point? Chuck reminds me that it’s nature, archetypal, doing what it has always done, programmed in a way that we find hard to fathom. I get that, but I keep looking for some reason, some purpose. Are we humans supposed to learn something from them?

Are the cicadas beneficial in any way? Is there some symbiotic relationship between the cicadas and nature that we’re missing? Like the bees pollinating so that other life can survive? The only benefit I see is that the cicadas offer lots of food for the birds and other critters. Like mice, they come in the billions, and even though a couple of million might get picked off there are still plenty of them left to do their thing.

“What a boring life!” someone said the other day, referring to the cicadas seventeen years spent underground. I couldn’t help but compare them to us. We humans take about seventeen years to emerge from our childhoods, which are often lonely, trapped as we are by the dictates of our families and society. Perhaps our childhoods are not much different from the isolated cicadas living in their underground tunnels. Once we leave home, we often do what the cicadas do too, though at a slower pace; find mates, perhaps have children, live through our lives until we too die.

When I stand on our deck, the sound is deafening, a symphony to rival Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the cicadas triumphantly playing their instruments. I hear strings, percussion, and woodwinds. I hear chanting and rousing church choirs. I hear life stirring, knowing it has so little time. I hear that archetypal element that Chuck brought up, declaring itself with impeccable intent.

Last night I dreamed. A voice spoke to me. “The hardest part of life,” it said, “is getting here. Once here, flow. Learn to flow because this is your life. You can’t stop it, but you can choose how to live it.” When I woke up I saw that I had been granted the answer to my question: What are we supposed to learn from the cicadas?

Such a struggle to birth... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Such a struggle to birth…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

In my dream, I saw all of our lives, all of our previous efforts to evolve gathering the strength and wisdom to make this life the one that finally carries us to fruition, to fulfillment of our soul’s journey. There is great intent and effort behind that one purpose: for us to evolve. Each time we are born we renew that intent, to make this the life that tackles and resolves our core issues. In my dream, I saw the soul’s struggle to emerge more fully with each birth, much like the cicada’s struggle to emerge from its casing. Those previous lives are the hard part. Our archetypal past is the hard part. Setting that intent to evolve and getting it to pierce through the veils of this life is the hard part.

Now that we are here, my dream seemed to be saying, there is little to do except live out that intent to evolve. Much like the cicadas, we often don’t know why we are here. We too are archetypal beings, until we decide to break the pattern of reincarnated lives. Unlike the cicadas we have the power to change our patterns of behavior.

The other part of my dream, suggests that in order to break through the boring life cycles we must flow with what life presents us with. In the dream, I was aware that fighting and protesting about our lives will get us nowhere. Only in acquiescing to the true facts of who we are and how we got here, and then making some real choices to change our circumstances will we evolve and live a more fulfilled and enlightened life. It’s our choice. If we are going to be victims, then we will continue to live out boring cicada-like lives, endlessly returning every lifecycle to go through the same cicada-like patterns of behavior.

We humans do have a bit more going for us. Perhaps, if we could grasp the bigger picture, we could change. Perhaps, if we could fathom the meaning of our interconnectedness, our link to all within the human family, across the globe, we could change. Perhaps we could embrace our innocence and our true abilities to love one another. Perhaps we could learn to be a kinder gentler race. Perhaps we could actually learn to love ourselves for who we are and what we’ve been through, enough to intend healing for ourselves, enough to allow our true purpose to unfold—our evolutionary purpose. Perhaps we could soften our controls and flow with life, allowing ourselves to join with that kinder and gentler race of humanity that we are really all part of. If we really woke up, then we might begin to take seriously what we’re actually doing to the world, to the earth, to our fellow human beings.

Will we leave more behind us than this ghostly imprint left by a muddy robin smacking into the window? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Will we leave more behind us than this ghostly imprint left by a muddy robin smacking into the window?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

I wonder what the cicadas will find here when they return in seventeen years? What will be left? Will we have so poisoned the earth that they’ll die in their isolation chambers? If they emerge, will there still be trees for them to sing from, to lay their eggs in, to hatch in the ground beneath? Will we humans resolve all the problems we’ve created in the next seventeen years? Do we have seventeen years? I don’t think so. That’s what the cicadas are telling us; we don’t have time. Now matters.

We all need to act on our own behalf right now and make some personal decisions about how we want to live this life and how we want to impact our planet’s future and our fellow human beings. Whether we evolve beyond this world or whether we return for another lifecycle, one way or another what we decide to do now is going to matter. Like my dream said, we have the power to choose how we want to live, no matter what our circumstances. And that is how we are different from the cicadas!

Chirping away, but seriously,
Jan

In case you haven’t seen this: Here is a great time-lapse film about the cicadas by film maker Samuel Orr. It’s really quite an amazing little film. We posted this on our Riverwalker Facebook page and in this week’s channeled message, so some of you may have already seen it, but for those who haven’t, here is the link to this short film.

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Advice For The Changing Self

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Here is Jeanne’s guidance for the week. Have a great one!

It's a struggle, but keep going! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
It’s a struggle, but keep going!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Keep doing what you are doing to change yourself. If you are trying to do too many things, pick one and stick with it. Pick what feels most resonant and conducive to you, your life, and your inner process.

Simplify your practice and simplify your life. Remain committed to the path you have chosen. Do not get drawn too far afield. Return always to your path and continue onward. Only in a focused and concerted practice will you find what you seek. It does take work, but let it be joyous work. Let it be loving, kind and compassionate work on the self, even as you care for and about others.

Work on the self is the greatest challenge and the greatest adventure of life upon that earth. You will find the answers you seek in the land of the self. And those answers will apply to everything you encounter outside of the self as well. Make your inner work count by simplifying and committing to an ever-deepening practice, a practice of change. This is how to evolve.

A note from Jan and Chuck along the lines of change and evolution: Here is a great time-lapse film about the cicadas by Samuel Orr. It’s really quite an amazing little film. We posted this yesterday on our Riverwalker Facebook page, so some of you may have already seen it, but for those who don’t do Facebook, here it is the link to this short film.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Intent

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Occupy bluebird box! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Occupy bluebird box!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

One recent morning we noticed that a pair of wrens had taken up residence in a bluebird box in our yard. What I know about wrens is that their delicacy belies an underlying fierceness. Tiny and cute, they bob and flutter about, but they are warriors of the most impeccable kind. They chirp loudly and incessantly, very loudly in fact, demanding to be heard.

We watched as our new move-ins prepared their nest, poking sticks and grass through the hole in the bird box. When a stick was too long to fit in sideways the wren was smart enough to poke it in headfirst. I wondered if it was mere nature or did they actually have to think about it the way we humans do. The wren did not seem to think at all, it simply did what it needed to do to get the stick in. I also noted their impatient nature. If one of them was inside the box and the other arrived with a mouthful of nesting material, it just could not wait long before opening its mouth, announcing loudly that it was there, immediately dropping its mouthful of sticks and grass. Impatient, I thought, but the wren has so much energy that it didn’t seem to matter. In an instant it was back on the branch awaiting its turn to go in the box, a new clump of grass in its beak. As you can see, we watched them for quite a while!

It was a calm morning, and it was the weekend, and we felt honored that the bird box—probably a little too close to the house for bluebirds to take—was finally being occupied. Suddenly a pair of bluebirds swooped down and a scuffle began. Wrens and bluebirds were on the ground in a swirl of blue and brown; in the branches too, with wings fully extended and cutting, like drawn weapons. There was a lot of noise, the bluebirds peeping and the wrens angrily answering back. The battle raged for quite a while. It was a sight to behold. In fact, other birds appeared to watch. Robins and house finches, bluejays, and even a pair of goldfinches showed up and stood around on the ground, circling the fighting birds like spectators at a wrestling match. One of the wrens even dive-bombed me later in the day. I guess I appeared threatening in some way. Size didn’t matter, they were going to protect and defend their right to occupy!

In the end, the tiny wrens won. Their tenacity, their determination, and their fierceness never waned as they fought off their foes. I was pretty sure the bluebirds would never have wanted the box anyway, as they like their privacy and our human presence so close would have bothered them, but perhaps they just couldn’t resist the call to battle. Like a pair of roaming thugs, perhaps they simply couldn’t resist the challenge.

Afterwards, I thought about the wrens as tiny shaman warriors. Having set their intent to nest in the bluebird box they were not about to give it up. As tiny as they were, they were determined to maintain their ownership. They fought impeccably. As soon as the battle was over they resumed their nest making, assured that the bluebirds would not return for another attack. I paused and thought about myself, about the intents I have lately set. Am I that impeccable? I wondered.

A few days later, as I write this blog, I hear the wrens happily chirping away. I see one of them fly out of the box and the other poke its head out the hole. They are happy. They have great energy. They are firmly settled and working on their next phase of life, becoming parents and raising their young. I feel privileged to have been an observer of this part of their journey. They will not, however let me photograph them!

The wrens seem to live by certain rules. Once a decision is made they uphold it with utter determination, impeccably. They are fiercely protective of their right to live where and how they choose. They are warriors of intent. They also know how to play, how to let loose and sing out, boisterously and without restraint, daring the world to interfere, to try and thwart them from their intent. That, I think, is a warrior’s impeccability—to never break from the intent, no matter what comes from outside, no matter how grave or threatening.

This is what Jeanne asked us all to ascertain in her message the other day, to observe and learn, to determine what the signs and situations in our own lives might mean to us as impeccable warriors, intent on our own paths of change and growth. She asked us to constantly be aware of what is happening around us, and to use it in our inner work. If I had been too busy to notice the wrens, perhaps I might have missed an important message. If the wrens had not fought back they might have lost their home.

The wrens have taught me something about intent, about sticking to plan, no matter what comes along to interfere. By observing their determination to face off outside threat, I understand what it means to fight for what is right. I’m here now; I intend to occupy this space. This is my time; this is my life. This is where I belong and I will not give up. There is a lesson in everything as Jeanne implied in her message. We just have to sit with it long enough to discover what it might be.

Observing and learning from the wrens,
Jan