Tag Archives: awareness

A Day in a Life: Moles of Recapitulation

On my morning walk today I noticed several dead moles. I’ve been seeing them for days now, always at the same places in the road, at what I now call The Mole Crossings. I imagine many moles making the trek across the road each night and the cars that come upon them. Invariably one or two moles lose their lives each night. I find their tiny, silent remains when I walk. They look so peaceful, eyes closed, their long sharp claws turned slightly under, done with digging.

Why am I seeing so many dead moles? What is the significance? I can’t help but ask myself these questions because I know that everything is meaningful. The immediate answer to my questions is, as I see it, glaringly right: Recapitulation. Well, you might ask, how did you get that answer and why is it so right?

I see the mole as the perfect totem for doing a recapitulation, the one who goes underground, into the earth. Blind to the trappings of this world it is drawn into the energy of the underworld, where it picks apart, digging and gnawing its way through every tiny morsel of dirt and sand, pushing aside blockages of stone and gravel, working its way around and through stumps and roots on its quest for a place of deep inner solitude. That is very much the same kind of work that a recapitulation entails and the end result is a place of quiet calmness deep within the self. If you want to take a shamanic journey there is none like it.

There are many shamanic practitioners who, acting as seers, will journey on behalf of another and return with insight and information that is meaningful and significant for that other. This is similar to what I do when I channel for other people, seeking insight beyond this world that is specific to that person. I also act as a guide when people come to me for hypnosis, becoming the facilitator to accessing an inherent process rarely made available or even acceptable until it’s been experienced. Once a journey has been experienced, an opening has been created and the spirit wants more. I usually end a session by saying that anyone can do a journey anytime, they just have to learn to let go of their fears—both inbred fears and fears of the great unknown.

I’m not special and I don’t do anything to anyone, I simply offer a means to that opening. The fact that I can go outside of my conscious self and gain insight from sources beyond this realm is in fact a universal human potential. Innate though it may be, this ability is often first encountered and utilized during a traumatic event, as the impact of sudden trauma or intense fear allows it to naturally emerge in a superb act of survival. It steps in and acts as a protective measure but is actually, as I see it, a highly evolved spiritual self who knows immediately how to transcend this reality and thus the event that triggered its emergence.

During an out-of-body or near-death experience people discover that they can indeed leave the physical world, have incredible experiences and safely return to their bodies victorious and triumphant—this is the essence of a shamanic journey. Once undertaken, such an experience remains implanted in the psyche. Whether kept alive and utilized or allowed to sink into memory it nonetheless leaves an imprint and has an impact. It can play out over and over again, consciously or unconsciously, known and strikingly familiar or unknown and completely foreign. It is, nonetheless, alerting the journeyer that at one time an experience was had that was like no other.

Having once gained a shift in perception there is often increased interest in finding a means back to that moment of bliss and insight. This too may be a conscious or unconscious longing on the part of the journeyer. The truth is that once the spirit has awoken—made itself know in whatever transcendent way it needs to use—it tenaciously attempts to remind us of its full potential.

During a recapitulation one revisits the moments of trauma, fear, or even mystical experience that originally gave insight into true spirit potential, relives them, discovering this time around the true meaning of why they were had, what they meant, and what they mean for the future. When our journeying self ventures into recapitulation in full awareness, we are ready to encounter what our past holds for us. Our ability to dig like the mole is also simultaneously awoken, ready to be activated. If we so choose we can become the mole and tenaciously and voraciously eat our way through the muck of the shadowland inside us, the very earthen self who keeps everything buried. If we are prepared to once again transcend this reality and, with our claws of intent, dig in and through our visceral present-day selves we will eventually reach the wide-open land of our spiritual selves.

In our world, to take a shamanic journey may be seen as a strange or unique way to tackle the problems in life, highly suspect in some circles and highly valued in others. But, having gone on many shamanic journeys myself in many different ways, I know that it’s just another description of our innate human potential, offering us access to our ancient selves and the ability to perceive and experience many realities simultaneously. A shamanic journey lets us experience ourselves as energy beings, freed of the fears that bind us to this one-sided, flatly defined world that we live in most of our lives, obediently doing the things that are expected of us.

Electing to take a recapitulation journey, a shamanic journey, must become a conscious choice at some point, for if we are to reach our full potential we must keep our awareness about us at all times. If we continue to fight our spirit, if we refuse the journey it prompts us to take, we will be reminded of it throughout our present life. We are supreme students of denial. We learn how to suppress, repress, and push away access to the knowledge of this potential self for decades, but eventually it will get to us in one way or another.

We may fall into illness. We may suffer broken hearts, literally and figuratively. We may never achieve the peace and calm we know is possible. We may live angry, resentful, regretful lives, always certain that someone else is to blame for our misery. We may stubbornly refuse to face our fears and decide that we just don’t want to do the work of fulfillment in this lifetime. And all of that is okay, because even our spirit is part of that decision making.

But, having faced many of the above symptoms and many more besides, I can say that there is nothing like what we experience as we go through the tunnels of our psyches, our conscious and unconscious minds, and our bodies. Having become like the mole, having dug my way into my darkness, having wallowed in the muck inside myself in a transformative recapitulation process, I can finally say that I live a most fulfilling life, no longer burdened, sad, fearful, traumatized, or afraid to love. I have emerged on the other side of the tunnel of recapitulation, victorious and triumphant indeed, in a new land. It is what I wish for all.

I return to work on my book, the first year of The Recapitulation Diaries, soon to be published, hoping that my journey will inspire others to take a shamanic journey into the self, volitionally, with awareness and intent, allowing the spirit self to lead the way. A recapitulation journey is really a lifetime shamanic journey, for we are always offered moments of insight, like trying to figure out why there are so many dead moles on the road. What we encounter as we walk in this world is meaningful.

I’m always wondering what will appear next to guide me.
Until next time,
Jan

#758 The Power of Nature in You

Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

The world is awakening, blossoming and beautiful, showing her finery. It reminds me of how easy it is to take everything for granted, to forget the truths of our world, of what we humans have been doing for centuries to Mother Earth. She is so strong and resilient, we say; she always comes back; she takes care of business.

The recent natural events in Japan so starkly underscored the folly of many of the choices we have made to keep our lifestyles booming, unwilling as we are to compromise. We want to fulfill demand rather than curb demand, rather than change to better, more sustainable and natural means of seeking and utilizing energy. We have become, for the large part, a world of consumers who just want more and more.

Regard and respect for our natural, life-giving Mother Earth has waned, as we have turned to pseudo products: everything from our food and medicinals to our creation of nuclear power; as we have contrived, manipulated, tampered, in order to have more, with little regard for life. We want more money, more fuel, more commodities that we can trade and make more money off. Yet little of what we are doing in those regards is real or helpful or protective of people or the earth. As a result, as well, we have become frightened, self-judging, unable to speak and act on our own behalf; feeling that we are wrong to question, to oppose, to say no; afraid of the powers that control and make decisions for us, telling us how to think, act, and be.

So, as we now enter a known time in the life cycle of the natural world, as spring comes more fully to our part of the globe, we see the power of nature to rejuvenate, to grow, produce, and replenish. And, yet, I fear the complacency that may also arise as we see everything returning to normal, at least on the outside. I fear the urgency that we all felt a few short weeks ago will disappear, as we fall back into the comfort of knowing that nature will return and once again take over, making us feel safe. Yes, nature will return, but if we observe nature it does not rest in that knowing. It keeps going; no matter what, it keeps barging ahead.

Nature's alarm clock

As I wake up each morning to the cawing of the crow outside my window, to nature’s alarm clock, I also wonder what this bird, the bird of omen, is trying to tell me. This morning I saw the crow swoop down into the lower branches of a tree and I heard a racket of other birds, another alarm filling the air, and I wondered if he was reminding me to be vigilant, because someone may be tampering or harming in my world, as he is in his, raiding another nest. Be alert, he says, wake up!

I notice also that though the hawks raid the crow’s nest, and the crows raid the robin’s nest, and the bluebirds kill the moth and the fox kills the chickens and races after the cat, none of these creatures pause to feel sorry for themselves. None of them are victims. They don’t judge themselves or their assailants, they don’t stay caught in feeling sorry for their plight; they are not big babies. They simply move on to new life. They learn a lesson, perhaps; to be watchful of the hawk, the crow, the bluebird, the fox, yet they barge ahead, with the energy of life that never stops.

Today I ask Jeanne: What guidance do you offer us to specifically stay awake, aware, and alert, learning from the propensities we all have to both manipulate and destroy, as well as fall into complacency; and as we so easily allow ourselves to be taken advantage of, while we feel sorry for ourselves, bemoaning our situations and the circumstances of our lives?

Jeanne responds:

It is, My Dears, of utmost importance that each one of you recognize yourself as a living, breathing entity fully capable of survival upon that earth in a natural way. As I have spoken of before: you hold more power than you realize. You can, if you are prepared to take on the challenge, change your world simply by the decisions you make.

It is not only time to wake up each day and go about your routine, but it is time to wake up to the greater truths that abound, warning you all that something is greatly amiss. In awakening to the disturbing facts that come into your awareness, and to the things that make you most uncomfortable, you are offered the opportunity to accept responsibility for undertaking a personal challenge to do things differently.

Awakening to truths, both inside and outside the self, to the contaminations of both inner and outer world, you awaken to the opportunity for discovering that you are so much more than you now perceive, that you have more personal power than you could possibly conceive of.

It is within your power to heal your body, to heal your mind, to heal your sick and sorry soul, your depressed and sad self who feels powerless, controlled, and frightened. But you will not be able to access this powerful self if you do not accept its presence. You do not have to search for it, but you do have to listen for it.

In order to stay awake and access this most powerful self, one must quiet the voices of commercialism, of greed and manipulation, and talk to the gentle voice of your own knowing heart. This heart-centered voice speaks only of taking responsibility for self. It asks for the rhetoric of old to slow down to a hum, to nothing more than the background hum of busy bees, present but not intrusive.

In turning down the voices of convention and turning up the voices of Mother Nature and Mother Self—calm and truthfully knowing as they both are—a shift may begin to take place. In accepting the voice that says ‘I have the answers within,’ one may begin to take the first step toward truly becoming responsible for the self, with the goal of personal responsibility leading to engaging personal power and using it each day.

By accepting the fact that each one of you has a relationship with the natural world, by accepting your personal alignment with what natures does and shows you each day, your personal and very natural power to change the self may begin to be engaged on a greater level. Begin by accepting that you alone are enough, guided by a natural self, in alignment with an energetic reality that says: I am an energetic being with enough personal power to make decisions of merit and value in alignment with the energy of all living things, seen and unseen. I am enough, and I take responsibility for utilizing and learning just what that means in my personal life.

In so doing, may you grant yourself access to the true meaning of life. In so doing, may you grant yourself access to the power of nature, of energy embodied in your physical form, to lead you on your journey.

Find a means of connecting with your personal power. Take a calm walk. Lose your thoughts to the breeze for a few minutes each day. Feel the earth beneath your bare feet. Listen to the calls of nature, to the birds, so apparent. Breathe the shifting winds, the energy of life wafting past you every moment of every day. Take time to note how you feel when you connect to the sun, the air, the earth, the water, in whatever your environment may be. Nature is available to everyone in some way. Then, holding your experience close to your heart, accept that you belong to this natural world too.

The power of nature is in you. You too, like nature, have the ability to revitalize, to re-emerge, to change, to take over your world after months and even years of dormancy.

It is time to awaken, but it is also time to stay awake, to keep going, to not stop, no matter what comes to thwart you, confuse you, control you, decide for you, manipulate you and take you on a journey you did not personally choose. In fact, though, you did choose wherever you are at this moment, so do not be a victim. Be a changing being.

Accept your power to do so, and live on in a new manner. That is how you will really find your place and change yourself and your world, by accepting full responsibility for your entire self, life, thoughts, actions, and place in the world.

Welcome to a new world. It belongs to you. Don’t make the same mistakes. Wake up and do life differently, inside and outside. I say ‘Good Morning’ to you each moment of each day. I’m saying ‘Good Morning’ to keep waking you up. Good Morning!

Thank you to Jeanne for that message. I hear the crows calling again. They too call all day long, waking and warning to be on the alert, to be alive, in alignment and flowing with what comes.

Most humbly offered.
Jan

#755 The Earth is a Garden

Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Today I ask Jeanne to address the world situation. Already the news about the situation in Japan has dipped from the front pages of most newspapers and blogs, even though what happened there affects us all and will for decades to come, and most likely even longer. I feel strongly that it is wrong for us, especially in America, to slip back into comfortable complacency, to forget the truth of what has been revealed with the amount of radiation pouring into the earth, the sea, and the air. Locally, in New York State, there is a tremendous push to frack through the earth with deadly chemicals in search of natural gas, wreaking havoc on a par with what has recently happened in Japan. With the safety of nuclear power now in question on a broader scale, natural gas companies are pushing ever harder to sell their “clean energy,” which is absolutely false promotion. There is nothing clean about how they extract gas from deep inside the earth.

I ask you, Jeanne, why are people so cavalier about how they treat the earth? Why don’t we, as a species, care enough about nature to protect it above all else? Why are we so narcissistic when we need the earth to be clean and pure for our very survival? Don’t we get it?

Jeanne responds:

The earth is a garden, but mankind has forgotten this. A long time ago, the truth of the earth was turned under with the machinery that man developed in order to produce on a massive scale. In tilling for profit mankind killed the truth of Mother Nature’s intent and bounty. In essence, what is happening now is the fault of mankind.

Do not blame what is transpiring only on the greedy few, the profiteers, the moneymen, the commodity markets—for all of you are responsible for the decline in true agriculture and true garden tending.

How many of you truly appreciate the earth you walk upon? How many of you speak to the earth and to the wilds of nature? How many of you walk upon the earth with gentle tread and open heart, thankful for every breath of air you take?

Is it not possible to take in the truth of the devastation that man has wrought? Each one of you must face what you have done as well. You cannot place mistakes and negative decisions only upon a few. You must face what each one of you do each day, for you too are at fault no matter how pure your intent.

You see, that is the other truth. Man is but another beast who walks upon the earth, doing what beasts do; using, taking, destroying; yet in all cases is there symbiosis to study. Even the most destructible of creatures serves a purpose and so man must accept that his penchant to take, to increase exponentially, is natural, but that it will be challenged in some way, leading to a new level of nature development. But, and I say this in all certainty, mankind must use what he carries in his head–his advanced mind in alignment with his knowing and tender heart–to begin a new process, or dire circumstance will arise and change things for him. This is not a flippant warning of world’s end on my part, but the truth of the devastating split that has occurred over the past one hundred years and more, as mankind has divorced himself from nature; nature outside of himself and his true inner nature as well.

Have you not all been poor stewards? This is the first question you must answer in the affirmative. For if you suggest that you have been good stewards the world would look mighty different right now. It is not enough to sit in your comfy homes and declare the self an environmentalist, a lover of nature, a partaker in energetic alignment. You must all take greater action now. You must all participate on a wider scale.

I interrupt and ask Jeanne the following question: What do you suggest we do? What can people who, for instance, live in a large city do to help the natural environment that is so far away from the concrete jungle they live in?

Jeanne says:

Take responsibility for your own health. Everyone breathes the same air, drinks the same water, eats of the same foods grown in the same earth. It is not too far-fetched for all to demand that these three things, the air, water, and the earth itself, the soil that sustains all life, be unpolluted, be free of manmade chemicals, be pure and natural. Everybody eats, and this is the first place to begin the demands of change. Eat only that which is real, pure, and intentionally produced with sustainable practices.

Well, many would find that prohibitive. Organic, healthy, clean and chemical free food is often expensive and many people struggle just to put even the basics on their tables.

Jeanne suggests:

Nature reveals her truth

Yes, but with increased demand for clean food and refusal to purchase poisoned food, a shift in practices now so rampantly damaging would be forced. After all, if money is the bottom line, don’t spend your money on that which sickens you, you only injure yourself and make the poisoners happy. If mankind is indeed to survive diseases, cancers, and most physical ills, a change in what he puts into his body is the first step. To allow the self to simply decay due to the greeds of a few is but an excuse to not take responsibility for the self.

Do you, My Dear Ones, wish to decay, to become a widely spreading fungal entity rather than a human thinking, acting, feeling, breathing machine far more capable than you are now? How do you expect to evolve if you cannot use your time upon that earth wisely and properly? Remember, your time is of short duration upon that earth in comparison to most life. And yet, do you keep this in your awareness?

It is time for mankind to live consciously, to live in awareness of self and surroundings, to make demands upon the powerful so that they may face the truths of their own short life spans, and to take action for change.

What you are proposing sounds like it will take some time because many people are caught in just trying to survive right now. The world we have created, I admit, does not work for the vast majority, but really only for the few. And yet, it seems that what we have created in America is spreading like a cancer to other parts of the world, where ancient wisdom ruled until recently and now capitalism is making inroads, sickening human beings, reaping money over real food. In light of why we are really here, it feels wrong.

Jeanne responds:

I understand the dilemma, but you must all, My Dear Readers, fight against the stupidity of governments that do not work for you and declare that some things are just wrong. For what is a democratic government if you do not participate in some way–it becomes merely a tyranny and then, yes, everyone struggles.

Find your personal balance. Make your personal commitments to change the self, how you walk upon the earth, how you feed yourself and your family. How you think and formulate your opinions should not be based on rhetoric and mimicry, but only on heart-centered truth. You cannot dismiss that something is seriously wrong, so how can you begin making it right? And who do you choose to listen to?

Basically, I suggest that the best place to look for answers is inside the self. But do not simply sit and mull for too long. Make some pertinent decisions. No matter what your station in life, your situation, you can do something to change the world. You all have power; you must find and utilize your own personal power. Remove the cloak of despair, the negative thinking, the fear of not having enough, and do something positive for the self, for the air, the water, the earth.

Can you end today’s message with some advice about what is happening in Japan?

The circumstances surrounding the catastrophe in Japan is your wake up call, My Dear Ones. This is what you must recognize and then you must stay awake. Be careful now, for what comes next will be of utmost importance, for it will decide the future. Be careful how you treat the earth. She has been so careful of all of you and yet now she weeps and moans. Her painful cries must be heeded. It is time to listen to what she tells you.

The Earth is a Garden

Walk upon your Mother Earth softly now and ask her to tell you what to do. She will reveal her answers to those who can truly listen. Listen with your heart and you too will hear her speaking what is now the most necessary step. Keep purity in mind now for the earth, for the self. The human body and the body of Mother Nature both need it, since both encompass a far greater ecosystem that you can fathom.

Everything is interconnected; keep that in mind.

Thank you to Jeanne for this message today.

Most humbly offered,
Jan

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A Day in a Life: Illusion or Not?

I ponder the world as illusion. While channeling Jeanne’s message on Monday, I reached a personal moment of enlightenment when I grasped the idea that the inner world and the outer world are the same, that both are real and both are illusion. Carl Jung once noted that the inner world was as real or perhaps more real than the outer world. This has always been my experience, more of an inner world person than an outer world person. What I experienced in that moment of enlightenment on Monday was, from a shamanic point of view, a shift in the assemblage point, a shift in perception. This is when the world, as we know it, suddenly falls away and everything is seen and perceived differently. When this happens we are in another reality, “seeing” the world as it truly is, in shamanic terms, seeing the world as energy. So with that in mind, holding onto the idea that both worlds are real and illusory at the same time, I went into my week.

On Tuesday, I sat down to meditate in my favorite spot, looking out over the trees in the back yard. It was early morning; the sun was beginning to rise, battling the clouds for prominence. I wondered what the day would be like, rain or sun? I meditate with my eyes open. I softened my gaze as I did my breathing exercises, holding onto the out-breath ever so slightly in an attempt to linger a moment in emptiness and detach from thinking. Eventually, by focusing on slowly breathing in and out, I reached an in-between stage, where the outside world dissolved into a blurred picture and the inner world went quiet. This is a moment of shift in the assemblage point.

Sometimes I can stay suspended in this in-between space for a few seconds, sometimes longer. It’s as if my awareness is a thin sheet of glass, suspended between these two normal states of reality. I say thin, because invariably something will interfere to bring me back and then both the inner world of thought and the outer world of everyday reality come snapping back into sharp focus again. On Tuesday it was a flock of crows flying into the backyard that broke through the thin veneer of glass.

“Oh, here come the shamans, come to distract,” I thought. “Don’t attach.” And the glass immediately shattered as I watched the crows land in the trees right at eye level.

“Don’t attach,” I said again, softening my gaze. As I did so, I noticed that the crows literally dissolved as the glass pulled up between the two worlds again, which obviously was enough to pull me right back to thinking, to trying to grasp what I was experiencing. Of course, I wanted to check out if the crows were indeed still in the trees. So I looked directly at the treetops and yes, there were the crows sitting right where they had been.

“Okay,” I thought. “The crows are like these thoughts, flying into my mind and I must learn to let them go. I must learn to detach.” Again, I softened my gaze; focused on breathing, telling myself to let them fly past, just like the thoughts that were interfering.

“Even if those thoughts are attempting to grasp at this awakening experience I am having, it does not matter, let them go,” I said as I pushed everything away: thoughts, crows, trees, the inner and outer world.

“Just let it all go,” I whispered and, as the scenario played out, the thoughts flew away, the crows dissolved, and the thin sheet of shift, the glass, reappeared. I hung again in a moment of shift of the assemblage point, in inner silence, as the shamans call it, in nothingness, ever so briefly.

So, what did I learn during this experience? First of all, I experienced a volitional shift of the assemblage point, changing my perception of reality using a tried and true method: by meditation. Secondly, I saw the crows of thought and illusion dissolve into energy. If the crows are thoughts and thoughts belong to my inner world, I was able to underscore the moment of enlightenment I’d reached on Monday that the inner world and the outer world are both real and both illusion.

As I pondered this idea further, I thought about how thoughts are present only in the mind. In fact, they do not exist except in the mind, but they have the chance to become real when given form. In creative endeavors, as we paint, sculpt, dance, put them down in words and musical notes, as we write what we think, imagine, and discover, they manifest in this world of reality, no longer illusion but real. But until that manifestation they are illusion. These thoughts I now transcribe, though they existed in my mind, remained illusion until expressed in this form. They flew around in my head like those crows outside the window, seemingly real but not necessarily so, until this moment of landing, assembling into a long string of words that, hopefully, make sense.

I understand, in one sense, that my inner world, as real and important as it is to me, does not exist. And yet, I admit that it is extremely necessary, offering me the means to evolve, so I accept that my inner reality does exist. Even those very real crows existed one moment, but in the next dissolved, as I shifted my assemblage point so that the world of normal perception, reality, ceased to exist. At the same time, however, both the inner world and the outer world do exist; they are notches on the assemblage point. They are equally real, but equally illusion. But the thing to note is that our true awareness lies somewhere between or beyond those worlds, in the silence of that veneer of glass that is so hard to stay in. Does this make sense?

What I am getting at is that we all have these experiences. Our thoughts are simply thoughts, non-existent, present as energy inside us. If we can view them as such, we may be able to understand the idea of everything as illusion, but also as energy. When we hone that energy into something else, our thoughts become something different. They become tangible, expressed in forms that others can grasp, our personal experiences of illusion, of inner energy manifested.

Can we see the outside world in similar terms? The shamans say that our conjuring minds are responsible for the world of reality. We are taught from birth to see the world in a fixed position, and yet we all have had experiences of shifts in reality at some time or other in our lives, as Jeanne asked us to note in her message the other day. If thoughts are illusion, conjured by our mind, made manifest in the outer world, is not then the world of reality, conjured by this same universal mind, illusion as well? If everything we experience as reality at one time existed as thought, it stands that it can also dissolve back into its original energy form of thought, and thus, illusion.

As I sat and played with this idea the other day, dissolving the crows out of the trees one minute and placing them back in the trees the next I got it again, just how illusory the world is. My thoughts are nothing, the crows are nothing, I am nothing, but we are all energy. If we can hang just a little bit longer in that thin slip of world between the two illusions we may experience this sense of self as energy.

And why would we do this? As we shift our assemblage point, as we see differently, as our worlds dissolve, as we hold onto our awareness, we begin to train ourselves for the moment of death. This is what the Buddhists do, what the shamans do; they train their awareness for the moment of death. They learn how to hold onto awareness, how to stay connected to awareness of the self as energy so that, at the moment of death, they do not get caught in the illusions. They seek to hone the skills of awareness, so that they do not get caught in grasping, needing, desiring, in sadness or yearning for this world, which they have learned is but illusion.

According to these ancient disciplines, of Buddhism and shamanism, this is what we are here to learn. We are here to free ourselves from the endless cycles of being caught in the illusion that this is all there is. We are offered, with each new life, the opportunity to experience the moments of awakening to our true nature as energetic beings. This is what Jeanne was describing and asking us to note in her message.

Take note of the moments when the illusions of reality disappear, those aha moments when we experience life differently. These are the moments to keep striving for, to string together, until we fully grasp their significance and can volitionally return to them again and again. We must seek the space of thin veneer between worlds and thicken it so that we can stay in it longer. We must seek our true awareness and set it free in that in-between place; because that is what we will need to recall and hold onto at the moment of death.

The cool thing is that we are offered plenty of those moments of enlightenment now, in our present lives, in our present worlds. Try it. It’s fun!

Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes.

In awareness,
Jan

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#753 Who Is My Teacher?

Written by Jan Ketchel and including a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Recently, while reading one of my favorite books, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, one that I dip into quite often, I came upon the chapter regarding the need for a teacher or master in order to maintain a proper spiritual practice. According to Buddhist tradition everyone needs a teacher, for how can you know you have reached the true nature of mind if you are not guided in some way by someone who has gone before?

I have never liked the idea of a master and I just could never personally accept the idea of a guru. But as I read this chapter I began to worry that I might not actually be doing my studies to the fullest. As I read a little further, however, I learned that the Buddhist teachers would often speak to the old masters who appeared before them in visions. They sat and spoke for many hours on end, listening to these masters who had lived in ancient times, in one case described as the second incarnation of Buddha. Eventually, these teachers begin to sound like the masters. They channel them. The author describes his own students coming up to him after a talk, telling him he spoke with the voice of his own teacher, long dead.

I laughed when I read this, my worry about having a teacher immediately melting away as I realized that I have had a teacher for the past ten years, a very good one: Jeanne! She has been most present—receptive, challenging, confrontational—pushing me to evolve. I have indeed been her pupil and gone through many stages of growth with her gentle and sometimes not so gentle prodding. I suddenly felt so much better, experiencing a real aha moment. For some reason, I had not fully grasped this idea before. Although I have always called her my teacher, in this moment I got it. She is my guru and as much as I have never liked that term, as much as I could never imagine myself aligning with a guru per se, I now acquiesce to the fact that she is indeed my master teacher.

I began to ponder the idea that we all have a master teacher or guru somewhere in our lives. We may not recognize this teacher in those terms, because the terms themselves don’t really matter. But what I also finally realize is that I did indeed need a guru of some kind to help me get where I am now. I was so caught in an old world that it seemed it was the only one that existed and I could not have gotten out of it without some help. And, I still need a guru to teach me how to continue evolving.

In The Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra writes on page 88: “A Bodhisattva is a highly evolved human being on the way to becoming a Buddha, who is not seeking enlightenment for himself alone, but has vowed to help all other beings achieve Buddhahood before he enters into nirvana… not simply to enter nirvana, but to return to the world in order to show the path to salvation to his fellow human beings.”

When Chuck read this statement to me the other day we both immediately recognized Jeanne as a Bodhisattva. Her messages from the very beginning have stressed that she is present to help others to awaken to the truth that all things are energetically interconnected and alive. This is her mission and that of her group.

Today, I explore with Jeanne this realization that struck me as funny at first, but then as fascinatingly true, that she has been my guru for the past ten years, and an excellent one at that. I am deeply grateful for all I have learned as her pupil. I have stayed connected to her through many uncertain and painful moments of self-discovery and awakening. Through it all, she sat calmly as I made my way back to her again and again asking for help. Over time I learned that she always had the answer, in some form. And indeed, as I evolved, I learned to channel and now her voice flows through me quite easily, though I had to go through many seasons of doubt.

I truly believe that she is available as a Bodhisattva to others as well. Several people have told me that she guides them and I am so happy whenever anyone reveals this. I know how good a teacher she is. And since it is her mission I can only hope that others will find the strength and innocence to reach out to her too.

So, I ask all of you to investigate the possibility that you may already have a teacher in your life. Perhaps one that is very much alive, or perhaps one you speak to as I do Jeanne, in quiet moments of inner work and study.

The Buddhists, Hindus, Shamans, Quantum Physicists, and others agree that what we consider reality does not, in fact, exist; that it is illusion created by our needs, desires, and fixations, and that true reality is an interconnected web of energy. We are all part of this interconnected web of energy, one nature. Within this framework we all have access to the masters, teachers, and gurus who are just waiting to guide us to understand energy and the oneness of all things; the Bodhisattvas who are ready to help us understand also how everything we perceive as real is not really there.

I have learned through my work with Jeanne to dissolve the world of solid objects into flowing energy. Through the practice of meditation I have more deeply grasped what I have learned over the past ten years as her pupil. And each week, as I write this blog, I am challenged once again to accept Jeanne as a Bodhisattva and appropriately express what she teaches.

Today, I ask her to offer us a teaching along the lines of recognizing or finding a teacher. I know that we all have access within; that we don’t have to look too far outside of ourselves. So, I ask Jeanne: How can we all recognize the voice of our true teacher? Can you also offer some guidelines on setting a practice in place with the teachers we already know and trust? As our world changes rapidly now, I believe we need to connect with our inner and outer teachers and guides more than ever. There is a pressing need for spiritual practice based on energetic interconnectedness. Because the truth of nature is that we are all the same.

How can your readers recognize their teacher? How does one begin to listen?

Here is what Jeanne says:

As you know, Jan, often the best moment to access your spiritual advisor is at a moment of despair, collapse, calamity, at the moment of breakdown when an old self is breaking apart. At such a moment, when the old rules you have set for yourself just cannot uphold your world any longer, you are open and ready for contact. However, breakdown or abruptly painful moments are not the only time one has access to the beauty of true life. In a moment of joyful enlightenment the way is cleared as well. In moments of clarity, in brief seconds of “getting it,” whether it be a personal issue finally falling into place or a universal issue finally making sense, at such moments the energy of each one of you is attuned and in alignment with all energy.

These moments of enlightenment are brief, so fleeting that it is almost impossible to hold onto them, profound though they may be. It takes a whole string of such moments, for the most part, before one learns to grasp onto them as the most meaningful moments in a lifetime.

How often, I ask each of you, have you had such moments of clarity, whether blissfully delivered or painfully presented? And how have you dealt with them? Have they faded away, been forgotten as you have gone back into reality? I ask that you each make a note, mental or otherwise, of all of these moments in your life, the moments of magic, of mystery, of clarity and of enlightenment. How many times have you, in fact, already been prodded awake in your life?

I guarantee that everyone has had more than a few such moments. However, so used are you to sleeping through life that the cloak of slumber quickly snuggles you back into the illusion of normality and you forget that you have experienced oneness with all things.

The first challenge to the self in your quest for a teacher is to become alert to your wake up calls. Become a student. Note how these wake up calls come to you and how you have received them in the past. Recognize them as wake up calls and train your awareness to become more alert by reminding yourself throughout each day, to remember, remember, and remember this: I am a being who is energetically connected to all other energy; alive or dead we are all the same. Remember this always: We are all the same energy.

In putting together your moments of awakening to the greater picture of the self as energy you will eventually string together enough moments to build a practice upon. A practice must be in tune with your everyday world. No matter what your situation you can begin a practice, because the practice is within. You carry the tools of your practice always with you. The first tool is awareness. And this is what you will hone as you remember. But you will also hone it by utilizing it daily to gain new moments of enlightenment. Even a simple instruction to the self to notice how the events and signs in your world seem to line up is a way to begin. What are you being shown each day that you have been missing?

Placing your attention on a new means of being in your life, by remembering your moments of awakening while asking yourself to stay awake for a little bit longer each day, should work to further you on your path.

Do not worry so much about who your teacher may or may not be. A teacher will not reveal him or herself as such. It is not how a true teacher works. He or she will never say: “I am your teacher.” This is something that you alone will discover when you are ready to realize it.

I interrupt the channeling as a moment of enlightenment occurs!

Yes, I concur with you Jeanne. Although I have spoken of you as my guide for ten years now I have sort of relegated you to an inner place, a guide related to my inner work, but now I more fully recognize you as my master teacher. I have achieved a big moment of enlightenment today, at this moment, as you help me to more fully grasp that my inner world and outer world are one. You have been asking me to more fully integrate them, to awaken to the fact that I must live outwardly what I have learned inwardly. This is another big aha moment. I thank you and ask if you have anything else to teach us today.

Jeanne continues:

A teacher will be of your own discovery. Only you will energetically be able to align with and determine the process and the teacher that will awaken you. This may take some trial and error, but the end result will be enlightening!

I ask that you begin to more fully accept yourselves as energetic beings. It is difficult to face your death if you consider it the end of the self, if you consider the self only as flesh, blood, bone and organs. But, if you consider the self as only energy you will have a far greater opportunity to push ahead to accepting death as life. They are one and the same. Keep in mind that you all die a little each day as you forget those moments of awakening; you die energetically.

In pulling yourself into alignment with energy you gain life; you gain the awareness you need to navigate through the lifetime you now inhabit with far different insight than in past lives. If you are truly ready to evolve, the concept of the self as energy will not puzzle you for long because you will experience it. Then you must be open to the truth of such an idea as the one true fact of life. That is how you will discover who your teacher is.

In conclusion: Practice remembering. Practice remaining aware.

Do not be angry or disappointed if you can only hold onto a moment of awareness. It is enough for that moment. But then ask the self to notice the next one. Do not give up. Eventually you will wake up more fully. And each day, and even each night, you have the opportunity to do it again!

Stay connected to the idea of everything as energy and you will have learned the beginning teachings that all Bodhisattvas must learn. Start with that!

Thank you to Jeanne for this lesson today.

Most humbly offered,
Jan

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