Here is the channeled message from Jeanne for this week. May it be helpful and guiding.
Life gives us all we need… Start from where you are… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Do not go overboard in any fashion, emotionally, physically, or otherwise. Do not let the vicissitudes of life overwhelm you. Take life in stride, for it comes that way, one moment at a time.
Life asks you all to pay attention to the truths behind the myths and stories you hear, behind the spins of other people’s lives.
Know that life will take you on your own journey, that it offers everything you personally need to become mature, compassionate, and loving. Not everyone will experience all that life offers, but everyone will experience enough.
Do not be sorrowful for loss of that which has been denied. Instead find your balance within the life you live. Make it good. Make it joyous. Make it truly worth it. For the life you are living is fully available, with all you need, to achieve all you desire in life.
Accept where you are. Begin anew from there. Rather than fight, acquiesce. But acquiesce with graciousness for life itself, knowing that you have everything you need.
You will not receive more than you can bear, nor will you be offered too much. But you may elect to bear too much or take too much and that is not rightful balance. Rightful balance means being in alignment with life, forging ahead with your dreams and your promises yet not succumbing to the vicissitudes and problems that arise, nor being too greedy for more.
Take life more firmly in hand and use it to your fullest advantage, in balance. Everyone has the same opportunity to fulfill their lives. Most people are not aware that they are in control; it is by choice and by decision that life is taken full advantage of.
In rightful balance is everything possible. Seek balance in all you do, speak, and think. Life gives you enough. Take full advantage of it in rightful balance.
Here is this week’s message from Jeanne, on the reality of creating your own life.
Today’s dream… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Find a center of balance no matter where you are in your life. Even though you may be caught up in the turmoils of life, so will there be a spot within that turmoil to find rest and distance. Set your intent to not only find this place but to recognize it and utilize it, even in the worst of circumstances.
Remember: There is always calm within a storm, even if it is only in the moment before the storm hits or the moment after it strikes. Take the energy of that calmness within, fully experience it, and retain the markings of it within. Draw upon it later, for its experience will reside in you, its memory everlasting.
That is what you seek in order to find balance in daily life, memories of those moments of experience that have shifted you. In your experiences come the ability to control, to a certain degree, the content of your days. I advise allowing the self access to the ability to control the self by grabbing onto the experiences of calmness that have reigned throughout your life, the moments that remind you that nothing lasts forever, that everything changes, that life constantly shifts and adjusts itself. For growth is always life’s intent.
In your own lives, growth too is the intent. With this intent being your personal intent—even if you are unaware of it—be assured that everything that comes to you, each day, is leading and guiding you to grow, to face that which you must in order to move beyond fear and attachment.
Always find your balance within yourself. Pull up your anchor repeatedly as you shift, placing it in a new spot of calmness each day, depending on circumstances, and as you flow with life.
One day your calmness may lie in your dreams, so place your anchor there. Set your intent to learn as much as possible from your dreams. And then follow the guidance that comes to you.
On another day your calmness, your certainty, may lie in your creativity. Place your intent, your anchor there, and allow your creative self the expression it desires. This will send you into new energetic configuration, both mentally and physically, aligning your life more fully with your spirit’s intent. And remember that creativity takes many forms. Where your personal creativity lies may not be yet clear to you, but it’s there.
Seek balance each day. Take moments to sit in calmness and find your peace in where you are, fully aware that each day you are being guided to advance. Pretty soon, the anchoring calmness will become most natural, and you may even find that you are there without having to think about it. Then you will have the experience of your previous turmoil being only like a distant dream.
Remember it’s all a dream anyway. Which dream do you wish to dream today? It’s really up to you.
Here is this week’s channeled message from Jeanne.
A spider bit my foot and then I found this logo on the bottom of my shoe…What did it all imply? I had to go inward to figure it out… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Seek change. What use is life if one does not use it to grow? If all you do is repeat the same mistakes, boredom will ensue. Boredom offers little resolution or explanation. For what true purpose do you exist upon that earth? One will never know if one does not pay attention and constantly ask the self to evolve. Why do you exist? Don’t you want to know the answer?
Utilize your experiences to help you grow. Pay attention to what comes to teach you. Everything—from your encounters in the world to your dreams and revelations—are there to lead you, but you must do your part. You must do inner work to put everything together. You must give yourself permission to be a little selfish each day, in an introspective way. How else will you figure things out?
Empty the mind and listen to your body and your spirit. These are your greatest resources of knowledge—the physical and the spiritual being the two most important aspects of life upon that earth. Let the busy, conjuring mind be silent and empty. Let the physical body and the spiritual body feed your mind with their innate wisdom. This is how to gain balance and attain the evolutionary path.
If you only live in the outer world, you will miss one of your greatest resources and assets: the true self and all that resides within. Go inward today, and each day from this day forth, to resolve your current difficulties. The answers are to be found within, in the alignment of the only true selves that matter: the physical self and the spiritual self. Meaning will come from within this union. Then go without, taking your daily inner lessons with you into your life. In this alignment will your way evolve naturally, and your balance will be assured.
Jeanne seems to be implying that we will only evolve as we let go of the mind—the busy, obsessive, judging mind—and as we drop into the deeper mind, getting to the real crux of our life’s intent here on earth, which she suggests is to get body and spirit in alignment so they can take the evolutionary path that is ready to receive us all, the real intent of our lives. At least, that’s how I interpret it, and it seems significant in terms of where our world is right now, on the brink of decision.
-Jan, channeled most humbly.
From the Crowley Thoth Tarot Deck: Change with Yin & Yang in harmony and balance…
I ponder the pendulum, how once set in motion it swings back and forth, around and around, sometimes pulled inward, sometimes pushed outward, and how life itself is like this pendulum.
Michio Kushi the founder of the East West Foundation and a proponent of the macrobiotic lifestyle says: “Macrobiotics focuses on the dynamics of yin and yang in daily life. Yin is the name given to energy or movement that has a centrifugal, or outward, direction, and results in expansion. Thus diffusion, dispersion, expansion, and separation are all yin tendencies. Yang, on the other hand, denotes energy or movement that has a centripetal, or inward, direction, and results in contraction. Fusion, gathering, contraction, and organization are yang tendencies.” *
I set my intent a long time ago to study the Middle Way, the Tao, seeking greater harmony with my environment. For the past several years I’ve been engaging in adopting a macrobiotic lifestyle, for its principles of yin and yang and harmony with nature are exceedingly appealing to me. Having at times throughout my life been vegetarian and having always sought diet-related balance, the macrobiotic theory is both familiar and timely for me personally, but I find its principles especially poignant as we face the situation of our planet. And so, when I read Chuck’s last blog regarding Tamas, Sattva, and Rajas, it all made perfect sense to me: the pendulum, the Middle Way, macrobiotics, life itself.
Kushi says: “Everything in the universe is constantly changing. Each day we experience the result of this unceasing motion as night changes into day, activity changes into rest, youth into old age, life into death and death into rebirth. An understanding of the changes that govern our lives and the natural environment, and a recognition of the interrelationship between opposite yet complementary tendencies within these changes, helps us to achieve harmony in our bodies and minds.”
And so, for the past few days, as I ponder the image of the pendulum, the yin and yang in all of nature, the Vedic principles of Tamas, Sattva, and Rajas, a song runs repeatedly through my head. Part of it goes like this: “Oh would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar, and be better off than you are, or would you rather be a pig!”
I first heard this song as a child when watching a Little Lulu cartoon. It was one of my favorite cartoons, and yes, I always preferred the part about swinging on a star, but I could not get away from the image of the pig rolling in the mud. The shift in the melody from a high note to a low note as the cartoon shifted from Little Lulu swinging on a star to the pig is significant.
It’s impossible to escape what comes to greet us as we walk our paths…
The synchronicity of these two images, the pendulum and the song about swinging on a star, arriving together do not escape my notice. Here we have the same image, the realities of life that we are all presented with every day of our lives, as we swing between the opposites. It’s impossible to escape the yin and yang of life, the Tamas and the Rajas, for we would not be in harmony with nature if we did not flow with what comes to us. Kushi says: “The forces of yin and yang are the most basic and primary, and are found throughout creation. All movement, formation, change, and interaction can be understood in terms of a basic yin and yang equation.”
We could not survive if we did not allow ourselves the experience of all of nature. Life itself is impossible without air, but too little air leaves us dull and unhealthy, while too much breath leaves us lightheaded. Sometimes we need a lot of breath to get through a situation, so on occasion excess of breath is necessary. For instance, a runner needs to breathe more vigorously when hitting a challenging terrain and this is good, but once the challenge is conquered a return to a calmer though still slightly heavier breathing pattern is appropriate when running. In our every day walking life, however, more normal breathing is appropriate. We all need sleep, but too little sleep leaves us dull and listless. On the other hand, if we were to sleep all the time we’d end up equally compromised, ending up as stagnant and inert beings with little incentive to return to life. Sometimes, however, more sleep is appropriate, just as sometimes more breath is appropriate. A return to normalcy, to the Middle Way, however, once the occasion for excess has passed, is necessary.
I see life as a swinging pendulum, energy in motion, and I swing with it, going where it takes me, making choices as I go, constantly being aware of choosing appropriately, considering my behaviors, my food choices, what and whom to engage, and how best to use my energy in order to remain in harmony within myself, nature, and the world without. This is riding the pendulum, deciding what feels energetically right for me, the person I am, in this body I reside in on a daily basis. Sometimes I go into excess and when I do I know that there will be an equivalent balance in the opposite direction. If I eat too much carrot cake, for instance, I might feel the loss of energy associated with the drop in blood sugar as the effects of the sugar wears off. This is the principle of yin and yang in action, the swinging of the pendulum, and as Kushi says: “In everything there is a front and a back.”
I try to keep these things in mind as I go about my daily life, noticing how my own pendulum swings, how it reacts to my environment, to my inner desires, how I may be momentarily drawn in one direction, but if I wait a little I notice how I swing away from that desire rather quickly. Sometimes a pause is all it takes, that split second before the turn of the pendulum, a slight hesitation before it swings in the opposite direction. I know that as it swings I will have new things to encounter, new desires might arise or not. Calmness and balance might ensue, agitation or worry might ride the pendulum with me for a while too, but eventually I get to the place of knowing that everything I encounter is okay. It’s all part of nature, of yin and yang, Tamas and Rajas; accepting what comes to greet me is all part of the Middle Way, being in balance, in Sattva.
The intent of my personal spiritual practice has long been in learning how to flow, how to allow for the swings of the pendulum without greater attachment. I have learned that though it swings this way now, it will swing in a new direction soon enough. And so, I am in harmony as I swing, though always seeking deeper meaning, deeper connection to my natural state of being, to my environment, to the people in my relationships, to my inner work. This is life. It is enough.
Riding the pendulum,
Jan
* Quotes are from The Macrobiotic Way by Michio Kushi.
Sobriety is a state of calm and balance that belies an underlying state of tension. This tension is the holding together of opposite tendencies in a cohesive functional way, to allow for a full actualization of self and an ability to flow with and navigate change. Chiefly, these bipolar opposites reflect some interplay of Yin and Yang or finite and infinite or mater and spirit.
We are spirit/material beings. When spirit stirs, we seek to transcend our human/mater limits. We might deaden the body with numbing “spirits” to release our spirit and end up falling down drunk—the opposite of sobriety. On the other hand, we might exert such material restraint upon the self that we shadow over desire completely, becoming a “dry drunk,” equally non-sober. Sobriety demands a reconciliation and inclusion of each of these very opposite needs into an integrity of self.
In Vedic philosophy, Sattva is the fundamental principle of BALANCE that constructs our world. In this cosmology there are two other fundamental building blocks, Rajas and Tamas, that entwine with Sattva to construct our reality.
Rajas, like Yang, is active movement: spice, desire. Tamas, like Yin, lies dormant in deep inertia. For life to happen both Rajas and Tamas must participate. Life dominated by Rajas is life consumed by desire, knowing no restraint. From a bipolar perspective this is life on one big manic trip. Life dominated by Tamas is a life frozen in potential, completely restrained. From a bipolar perspective this is a major depression.
Tamas, Sattva, Rajas…
Sattva, like sobriety, is the principle of balance that reigns in these opposite tendencies to work harmoniously to promote change and growth. If Yin and Yang don’t join in a complementary relationship, there is no new life. Sattva bears the tension of finding the right place for these opposites to promote life and balance.
The Middle Way is the path that the Buddha discovered that leads to liberation from suffering the failure to reconcile the opposites of self-indulgence and self-denial. Buddha pointed out that addiction to sense pleasure was equivalent to extreme denial of pleasure. His own life began in the kingdom of his father where he was exposed only to pleasure. Eventually he forsook his father’s kingdom for the ascetic life of complete renunciation of worldly pleasures. Ultimately he accepted a bowl of rice milk from a young girl, realizing that the nourishment of Mater was essential for the realization of Spiritual enlightenment.
The Middle Way is a path that neither denies pleasure nor denies restraint, but instead finds the necessary balance between these needs in order to achieve the calm necessary for enlightenment. To deny pleasure or to deny restraint sows a Karmic seed of continued suffering until we can achieve a balance of liberation. Thus, the Middle Way is the path of sobriety and Sattva, a state of balanced tension that reconciles the opposing tendencies within all of our selves.
In Magical Passes Don Juan states, “To navigate, in a genuine way in the unknown…a sorcerer has to be extremely sober.” The unknown is all around us, it is now. To part the veils and fully live in the unknown we must achieve sobriety, Sattva, and the Middle Way—a balanced whole of opposing tendencies and needs that flow with the changes, versus clinging to the extremes.
The Middle Way
P.S. Jan gives permission for me to reveal that she did eat a piece of carrot cake and she says it was yummy!
