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Messages from Jeanne

#735 A Lesson in Opening

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
If you were to teach people how to be open and available to their personal spirit guides or to you, as I am, what guidance would you offer?

My first lesson in learning to be open to guidance beyond the self would entail learning about the self. A good place to start this process regarding self-exploration is learning how you feel. I don’t mean your opinions, but your feelings of the inner self.

Most often, when one attempts a process of exploration in other realms, the experiences are easily dismissed by the rational self, while indeed the inner self may be quite surprised to find that it is not such a big deal. And the inner self would be right! It is not such a big deal, but one must be able to access the sensitive, tender, and most frightened self first in order to allow the truth of this access to become available.

My first advice is to access the feelings of the inner self by doing heart-centered breathing. In so doing, the hardened self will crack away and the tender self will be exposed, and this is the self who we guides are most interested in. The tender, sensitive self, whom you keep perhaps protected from the world, must not be kept secret from your own self.

If one is to begin a process of opening the heart one must commit also to a process of trial and error but also studiousness. I suggest a few minutes a day be set aside to sit calmly and do some heart-centered breathing. Set the intent to break through the surface of the frightened and rigid self, with the main purpose being, first and foremost, to access the real self. This is enough of a beginning.

Do not wish for too much. Do not wish for more than you can handle. Do not wish for a big jolt of energy from your spirit guide, for you may not be able to handle it. Begin with seeking a means of starting a small practice of inner centering, breathing, and shedding of the rational mind.

Seek impeccability in this endeavor alone, five minutes at a time, and see if you find a moment of utter quiet within the self. This is what you seek, simply a moment of utter calm tenderness and stirrings of love for the self, so that you may find your way back to this same spot again and again. Begin with that!

Thank you Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Gazing at the Golden Monk

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“I would like to experience energy as it flows in the universe.” Yesterday I set this intent, asking both Jeanne and don Juan to hear me, and then promptly forgot about it. I then went about my morning yoga practice and afterwards sat down to meditate for a few minutes before jumping into the day.

I faced the backyard, sitting on my pillow in front of the sliding glass door, as is my preference; looking out into the gray, overcast morning. The leaves are gone from the trees now and the branches of the large catalpa tree are but gray sticks crisscrossing in an intricate pattern. I noticed a pentagram shape formed by two large branches and several smaller branches and in the center of this pentagram a nice triangle at eye level. This is where I chose to focus my gaze. I did my usual breathing to clear my thoughts and bring my attention inward. Then I let my gaze soften, holding it on the small triangular shape in the middle of the pentagram.

Gently breathing in and out and continuing to clear my head of interruptions by repeating the mantra I’ve given myself—”I detach” on the in-breath and “I intend” on the out-breath—I continued to soften my gaze. (This is a shortened version of a mantra I’ve been saying for a couple of months now as I meditate. The longer version, which captures the spirit of my original intent, is: “I detach from the structures of this world and I intend a new world.” But having set that intent a long time ago I now simply say the shorter, equally effective mantra, shutting out the world as I do so. So far it’s worked really well.)

Softening my gaze, keeping it focused on the triangle in the tree, the world and the branches began to blur. In a few minutes I noticed a golden glow beginning to emanate from the now blurry triangle. It took on the shape of a human torso, as if a golden statue were standing there, radiating golden light. There was no head and no legs, just a simple torso; neck, shoulders, chest, waist, and arms with hands clasped in front at the lower abdominal area, looking rather monkish.

As I gazed at this golden monk I heard a soft voice saying: “Let your gaze soften, just stay with it.” I followed the instructions and watched as the golden glow extended outward from the torso, filling the tree and the entire back yard with vertically flowing waves of golden light. Suddenly, the backyard was no longer dark and gray but instead full of trees with golden leaves and bright light, and everything was vibrating. I held it as long as I could, until my mind popped back in and questioned: “Is that the sun shining?” I lost the gaze and came back into this world. There I was looking out at the gray tangle of branches, the world as dark and overcast as it was when I’d started.

“What the heck was that?” I wondered. Then I heard that soft voice again saying: “You can find it again. Go ahead, do it again.” Once again, following instructions, I gazed at the triangle of branches. Immediately the golden torso returned and began to glow. I lost it. I snapped back to this world again, to the gray and overcast morning as my mind interrupted the experience with logic and doubt.

I heard the voice again: “Go ahead, do it again, just gaze.” I suspended all judgment and did it again. The golden monk returned, I held my gaze slightly longer and then lost it again. The voice returned, instructing me each time I lost my gaze to keep practicing.

“Do it again. That’s right; hold it as long as you can. Let your mind go,” it instructed, “just have the experience.”

I did this six or eight times in a row. One more time I was able to hold it long enough for the back yard to fill with the golden waves of vibrating light, for the trees to become clothed in golden leaves, to see the vertical flow of energy before it all snapped back to the overcast and dull morning that it really was, in this world. This world looked asleep and dead, but I saw it as totally energetically alive.

As I practiced I understood two things. One, that this was what the seers of ancient Mexico did when they sat and gazed. They held the experience for as long as possible, but then, rather than getting caught in the amazement or the doubt of the experience they simply did it again and again, training themselves to see energy as it flows in the universe, volitionally. Persistence is the key. Here I learned the value of repetition as Chuck wrote about in his blog the other day.

The other thing I understood was that by setting my intent and having forgotten I had done so, I called infinity to me. And infinity came! I could have brushed all this away as just my vivid imagination, dismissed it, but I chose instead to stay with it, to value it for the experience alone. By paying attention to that quiet voice telling me to try again and again, I got beyond the possibility of seeing energy to accepting the truth of it. This was my experience of learning to see energy as it flows in the universe, volitionally.

I learned that by setting my intent, letting it go, doing my practice—which included repeating my mantra, paying attention to what was placed in front of me, shutting down the internal dialogue, and listening to the guidance—I could have a shamanic experience with the golden monk and whoever else that was who was whispering so gently yet so convincingly in my ear.

I humbly offer this practice and these experiences of meditation, intent, and repetition so that others may find the courage to go have their own moments of seeing energy as it flows in the universe; in whatever way it comes, learning to trust the personal experiences. Oh, and by the way, enjoy them fully for just that: personal experiences of seeing energy!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes for good energy experiences,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#733 Become Eagles Today

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
I awoke in the middle of the night and as I drifted back to sleep I asked you to teach me a shamanic lesson in a dream. I then fell into a dream about transforming energy from the dominant right side of this reality to the magical left side and back again. In the dream I was taking awareness from “The Eagle.” I had huge eagle wings myself, and I was sweeping energy toward my body, pulling it in from the right side, then from the left side, and then inward toward my chest and shoulders. I seemed to be learning a magical pass.

Can you please elaborate on this dream? What did it mean and why did you feel it was important to teach me that lesson?

My Dear Jan, when you ask, you receive. As you know, this has always been true, but, as you also know, specifically how you receive is up to the giver. This is true in all realities. On the other hand, if you ask for something specific, as you did in asking for a shamanic lesson, you will receive that specific request, however, the delivery is up to the giver as well. You see, in your request for knowledge I felt it was most meaningful to offer you something practical: a magical pass.

There are millions of magical passes, though not even a fifth of those millions of passes are known or utilized. Many of them you do without even knowing they are magical passes, though you may include them in your daily lives. So many and so frequent are these movements, filled with intent, that it is hard to be concerned with calling them one thing or another.

Be contented with the fact that in your very lives every action holds buried intent, and this is the crux of all magical passes, the intent that lies behind them. When you walk or skip or run you stir up ancient intent. Though you may not be aware of just what that intent is, you may be aware that something in you shifts, your energy, your mind, your senses. You stir up intent with practically every movement in that world, with the potential to offer you insight into infinity.

Now, in your dream sequence, I did indeed send you, upon your request, into a state of awareness where you knew how to shift your awareness from your right-sided self to your left-sided self and back again. This is an energetic process related to the energy body of course, but your physical body is what you must work with in that world. So, suffice it to say, your right side is your awareness in one world, the world you reside in most often, and your left side is your awareness in other worlds, including dreaming. Neither awareness is keenly aware of the other. Most of the time they are separate entities, only fully utilized one at a time. However, in dreaming a shift takes place whereby you may indeed maintain awareness of both sides of the energy body simultaneously. That was what you were learning last night.

The eagle’s wings pass is indeed an option for gathering your personal energy to greater awareness at all times. By sweeping the intent of awareness from the right side and then from the left side, as if you did indeed have broad feathered eagle’s wings, and pulling it into your heart center you begin to stir up these two awarenesses, mixing them together inside your energy body. But I also hazard that they will be most noticeable in your physical body as well. The eagle’s wings pass is quite accurately a good energy builder if you feel somewhat depressed, have low energy, or need a mental and physical boost. Simply sweep in energy from the right with your right wing, then from the left with your left wing, and then both together ending by wrapping your wings around your shoulders in an embrace of sealing in that energy.

This will invigorate your spirit, clear your mind, stir your heart and present you with inner calm all at once. Do not hesitate to do this pass whenever you feel the need. It is my gift to you.

Thank you, Jeanne. I am passing this message on to others. Is that okay? And may they also use this eagle’s wings pass?

Of course! That is a fine idea. It is not meant for you alone but for you to pass along, as are all the messages you encounter, if it feels appropriate. I encourage all of you to pass on what you learn in whatever way feels most right. For only in so doing will your lives evolve and your world too.

In the past you have mentioned that you thought the disciplines of the seers of ancient Mexico might be too archaic for modern man, yet here you have given us a magical pass. Have you changed your thoughts about Tensegrity as a practice? Should it be taken up more seriously by myself, as well as by others? I have never found it especially suitable to my personality, as I prefer yoga and meditation, though there are certain magical passes that I do regularly.

I do not advise anything along the lines of practice, except to advise that you find ways to stir up intent within your body, in both your physical body and your energy body. In order to evolve one must become aware, and to become aware one must wake up out of the slumber of that one world. One must open the eyes and be ready and alert to the experiences that abound, that in fact are being missed every day due to a lack of awareness. So however you choose to stir up your awareness works fine. In my book, your personal preferences must be appreciated and acceptable to you over anyone else, for it is your journey and your life. However, that being said, I do advise that in order to promote healing and evolutionary growth, awareness of the self as energy must be part of the process and this is why some sort of energy work is most beneficial.

This can be as simple a process as walking, as I mentioned earlier. This can be as easy as sitting quietly and learning what your personal energy feels like, as I have spoken of before in other messages. This can be a practice of yoga and meditation, as I know you are so fond of Jan, for it does indeed fit your personality and your quiet temperament. This may also be a more vigorous activity if that is what one needs to stir up the personal energy. It may depend on how long it has lain dormant and how far from its calling you really are.

Have you not heard your personal energy calling you? If not then it might be a good idea to begin stirring it up with the eagle’s wings pass as laid out thus:

1. Stand up and face the direction that feels most personally right and spread your eagle’s wings.

2. Breathe into your heart center and awaken your self. From the heart center invite your tender self—who may be afraid or simply dozing and unaware—to join you now, a little at a time, on your journey through that life, as you begin a new trip, so to speak, into the world of energy.

3. Sweep in energy from the right with your right wing and press it to your body and then release your wing back out to the side.

4. Then sweep in energy from the left with your left wing and press that into your body as well, releasing your wing back out to the side.

5. Then sweep in both wings of energy together, ending by wrapping your wings around your shoulders in an embrace of sealing in that energy.

6. When you are done release your wings and discover, My Dear Readers, that you do indeed have a vast storehouse of energy at your disposal, in fact an endless amount.

Invite yourself into the dream of awakening with your energy body fully present and participating in life. It is not so frightening as you may fear, for in reality it is who you are, in the reality of the true meaning of life.

Lift your wings, stir up your heart-centered energy and become eagles today, My Loved Ones. You cannot harm yourself or anyone else by doing so. You can only grow, heal, awaken, become alert, aware, and more fully present. Enjoy the experience!

Thank you Jeanne! As I was channeling and putting this up on the website today the winds were whipping and howling, as if the eagle were outside flying back and forth stirring up the energy!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Fondly and most humbly offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Recapitulation & The Blueprint

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Unsure of what to write about today, I opened The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castaneda, a great resource, full of quotes from his books about his thirteen-year apprenticeship with don Juan Matus. I knew I wanted to continue writing about recapitulation, that most important aspect of a shamanic journey, the one that starts us on our true journey when we are ready to take it. Here is the first quote I read on the left hand side of the pages I opened to, excerpted from The Second Ring of Power:

The warrior’s way offers a man a new life and that life has to be completely new. He can’t bring to that new life his ugly old ways.

On the right hand page I found this quote, also from The Second Ring of Power:

Warriors always take a first event of any series as the blueprint or the map of what is going to develop for them subsequently.

Both of these quotes are right in line with embarking on a recapitulation journey, as from the first step we are invited to leave our old ways behind and begin not only a new journey but a new way of perceiving and interpreting the world we live in, as well as the world we are leaving behind, while preparing for the world we are about to enter. Because, in essence, a recapitulation journey requires that we leave behind our old selves, shedding them like well worn rags, no longer useful in the new world we are entering. In fact, our old selves, our old voices, and our old ways just don’t seem to fit in that new world, no matter how hard we might try to make them. Eventually we learn that we must totally acquiesce to that new world and find new means of behaving, thinking, and seeing, for without acquiescing we will never fully emerge from the old world and never fully enter the new one, but remain caught somewhere in between, and that is quite a challenging place to be.

During my recapitulation journey I spent many weeks caught between those two worlds as I struggled to make sense of where I was. In finally discovering the meaning of the event that led me into that between-worlds place, in accepting the “blueprint,” as Carlos writes in the above quote, the blueprint itself became clearer. In acquiescing to the inevitable unfolding of the events that would lead me out of that between-worlds state and into the new world, I began to see the greater meaning of my past but also my future. Each blueprint, each series of recapitulation events, became another step forward, allowing me to break through the murky past now made clear and into the present moment, also made clear by the process of recapitulation and learning to see the world differently.

At one point, towards the end of my intensive three year recapitulation, I was aware that I was going to have to reach, yet again, another breaking point, but this time I knew it would be the final one. How I knew this I don’t really know, except to say that I saw the blueprint and knew I just had to await the unfolding of the process. In essence, I understood, because of all the other series of unfolding blueprints that I had already experienced, that it was already laid out and I just had to acquiesce to taking this final leg of my long and arduous journey. Here is a description of the event that precipitated that final breaking point.

I was taking a walk along a path in the woods, slowly strolling along in the shade of the trees on a hot and humid day. At one point I tripped over a root and suddenly lost sight of the path. For a split second it disappeared, and even though I had been on that path a hundred times and knew every root and turn I suddenly became disoriented. In that second of disorientation, a curtain ripped open in the universe and, in the momentum of that trip over the root, I fell through that curtain into nothingness, suddenly lost, fearful and almost panicking. Then I took another step, regained my balance, and seemed to be back on the familiar path again, but everything had changed. I felt like I was now in a dream world.

From having already experienced many such shamanic twists of reality during my recapitulation I was fully aware that something was happening out of the ordinary. I saw it for what it was, a glitch in the universe. It was as if I was looking at everything from a slightly different angle and I couldn’t shake it back into normality again; try as I might. I had inadvertently, without having a choice in the matter, walked right through that glitch into another world and everything had changed.

This was the first time I did not have a choice in the matter, because there had been many other times when I saw the curtain ripping open and was offered the choice of going through it or not, but this was different. This time I was going whether I wanted to or not and that was how I knew I was going to have some pretty bizarre experiences in the days to come. This was the moment of the blueprint.

Whatever the glitch meant, I took it as a gift, thanking infinity for showing me that things could change in an instant, when I least anticipated them, and for pointing out to me not to expect things to always stay the same; even the familiar becomes unfamiliar in the blink of an eye. I knew from that moment on to expect the unexpected.

As I continued walking that day, I immediately recapitulated the moment when I had tripped over the root. I wondered what I had been thinking about when it happened. I also questioned my feelings of fear and panic, wondering if they were related to my past. I had been abused in the woods as a child and I wondered if a memory was being presented to me of something that had happened to me a long time ago in another woods. I also reestablished with my psyche that I was ready to confront whatever came to greet me because I was determined to stick with my recapitulation process, to keep making progress towards a new life. As in the first quote from The Wheel of Time that I present today: I knew my new life had to be completely new, and totally free of everything that represented the old me.

As I recapitulated that moment I realized I had been thinking about some press releases I’d been writing when I suddenly thought: “Don’t! Not now! Don’t think of work; this time is for myself!” I pulled my eyes back from gazing out over the woods and focused down on the path in front of me and that was when I tripped and the curtain wrenched open and I was lost, hurtling in momentary blackness. I felt my heart lurch as if I had suddenly seen something frightening, when all that really happened was that my view of the world before me changed and I became suddenly aware. “Oh,” I thought, “this is awareness; this is having awareness of all that is around me.”

All of a sudden I had utter clarity, I could see everything in glistening sharpness, but it was so unfamiliar that I wanted to shake it away. But try as I might, by shaking my head and trying to clear my sight, I could not. I was caught in heightened awareness, perceiving reality differently for some reason that was as yet unknown. I knew that it was important not to focus on why the event frightened me but instead to find out why the fear still resided inside me. I knew that I was about to embark on another leg of my inner journey and I was ready for it.

What happened subsequent to that event was exactly as I had predicted, I embarked on the final breaking point of my old self, my old ways of thinking, acting, reacting, and being in the world. Over the next month I acquiesced to the culmination of my recapitulation as one event after another occurred, without my say-so, just as laid out in the moment I fell through that curtain. The blueprint for this final phase was that I was going on the journey and I had no choice in the matter.

In another reality I did have a choice in the matter because I had made the decision to begin the recapitulation journey a long time ago. I had already been learning how to accept, how to acquiesce, and how to let go as events unfolded. I had already chosen to change and change I did, sometimes by choice and sometimes without having a say in the matter, but I always knew I was on the journey of a lifetime and I was going to savor every minute of it and accept what came to guide me.

I admit; I was not always so acquiescent. Sometimes I whined and kicked and protested vehemently, but in the end I knew that everything that had happened to me in the past and everything that was happening during my recapitulation was laid out for my benefit and all I had to do was take responsibility for getting myself to the starting point of each event. From there it was just a matter of following the signs and waking up to the truths of who I was, who I had been, and who I had the possibility to become, and sometimes that was just enough to keep me going.

The blueprint of recapitulation events can happen at any moment, especially when we least expect them. As I learned that day when I went for a stroll in the woods and tripped over a root: Expect the unexpected!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes for good recapitulation experiences,
Jan

NOTE: The books mentioned in this blog and other books are available through our Store.

Messages from Jeanne

#731 Free the Mind. Free the Fear. Free the Spirit.

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message of guidance for your readers today?

Today I speak of detachment and learning to allow others to take the journeys they must. Remember: All human beings are upon that earth to learn lessons in evolutionary growth, but how can one grow if one is not allowed to have experiences in life?

Learning to detach from the sorrows or difficulties of others may enhance a personal journey and may also lead to a greater understanding of compassionate living. In learning detachment may one be granted the means of gaining a fuller awareness of life’s meaning and life’s purpose. In learning detachment may one grant the self, and others, the opportunity to have vital experiences in life. Only in having such experiences will one learn anything of use. For life is meant to be played out on the fields where all energy intersects, coincides, and greets all other energy, on the fields of life.

Allow the self a little freedom today and you will allow the self access to a deeper sense of detachment from the lives of others while also gaining a deeper sense of what it means to be human.

Can you explain further?

In allowing the self a little freedom from the worries that one carries for others, by releasing the mind from its conjuring play by play, its repetitive swirl of emotional attachments, one may find a sense of peace and freedom reigns, so that the work of the self may become the most important aspect of life. In detaching from the worries of others, the self is allowed attention, and this you must understand is most important. For how do you expect to be of aid to others if you do not allow the self to be free, to evolve, to learn what life is about, and to change?

Only in healing and changing the self will freedom from that which plagues you be achieved, but such a process takes attention. Focus must be paid to the self in the world. So the first step in learning to detach from the sorrows and worries of others involves freeing the self from one’s own sorrows and worries. In essence, detaching the self from personal issues by thorough examination of repetitive actions is a good way to start a healing process. Find out why you do the things you do over and over again, to the detriment of self and others, including worrying, avoiding, resisting, and hiding from life, and you will have begun a true journey of change.

So today, on this most auspicious of days, offer the self a new method of living your life by taking a few steps in detaching from that which has kept you bound, ill, worried, confused, in denial, or simply frustrated. Free the mind. Free the fear. Free the adventuresome spirit self to have experiences in life without so many attachments, real and unreal. For what is it that you are so attached to to begin with? Is it something that is real? Or is it simply something in your mind?

Learn to let go of things that do not belong to you, that do not help you grow, that do not allow you to experience the true self. For that is why you are there, to discover the true self, the truthful self, the truly real self.

Why did you call this a “most auspicious day”?

Because it is! But you will only truly understand what that means by offering the self some changes, by detaching from the strict and forbidden, from the rules of old that told you a long time ago that you were not worthy of this life, yet does your spirit seek always to show you otherwise. Follow your spirit and discover why this day is most auspicious for you!

Thank you, Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Fondly and most humbly offered.