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Messages from Jeanne

#711 The Groundhog is Dead!

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Thank you for those words of insight regarding my first question for today. Sometimes I feel that I get caught up in feeling the energy of shift but then I fall back into complacency, almost there before I know it. The other evening, Chuck and I were sitting in our yard talking and enjoying the breezes, unwinding after a busy day. I kept smelling something rotten, and in fact pretty soon it was so overwhelming that I said: “We have to go inside; I just can’t stand the smell anymore!”

I was determined to find out where the stench was coming from, certain that a dead animal lay nearby. The next morning I looked all over the yard but found nothing. Even Spunky the dog, sniffing and restless as all heck, could not locate the animal. Every time she went too far her old legs gave out and I had to lift her back up and lead her into the house, for I could not leave her outside to sit calmly, as is her habit, for she was too restless. Later that morning, my son called to me, he had found the culprit! “A half of a rotting groundhog is lying next to my car, the top half!” he exclaimed. And there it lay, just where Spunky had been heading every time she stumbled and fell, a dead top half of a groundhog, neatly severed mid-torso, its arms and head lying in a pile of pine needles. It was quite a strange sight. I shoveled it up and tossed into the woods in the backyard and then called Chuck to tell him I had found the smell, a dead groundhog! “The groundhog is dead?!” he asked in wonderment, for he has written extensively about “groundhog day” habits. “Half of the groundhog is dead,” I specified, for I had no idea where the other half was and though I searched and sniffed around the yard, it was not to be found.

We surmised that this was still a very good sign, that something meaningful was being presented to us, and that we are indeed evolving if even half of the groundhog is dead! Jeanne, can you shed some light on this most intriguing sign?

Yes, My Dear One, I can certainly expound upon your summary, for it is indeed a precipitous sign, if you take it personally, as you do, and not just as an annoying stench.

First, you must note that it is the top half, or front half, of the groundhog, the consuming end: the mouth, eyes, nose, ears, and the digging paws with their sharp claws. It is the end that sniffs out life, but that incessantly digs in and wallows in the ground, for it cannot help itself. It must burrow into the earth. It is the desirous senses, the busy ego self, who digs so diligently to set up a life that is safe, secure, and patterned after the familiar. All groundhogs act this way. No groundhog has ever done otherwise. This is the truth of this creature: it is a creature of nature and it will do what it does until it dies. It is only when it dies that it changes, otherwise it follows its nose and its digging compulsions. It can do nothing else.

Humans, on the other hand, may look upon such a creature as cumbersome, unenlightened, rather boring. However, this is a perfect reflection of the ego in the world, for, in truth, it only does so much before it has utilized all its skills and it can go no further. The bigger the ego, the bigger the burrow, but it is still a burrow.

Look now on the fact that the ego aspect of self, the front half of the groundhog, is dead and rotting in your yard, next to a vehicle of travel no less, its stench so overwhelming that you could not rest in its presence! The habits of the ego—doing what it does so naturally—are now compromised, because the truth is, that in your world, the time of the ego in compulsion is dead. It is a time now of spirit, that which has been missing. But note, it is not likely that spirit has been totally absent from even the life of the groundhog, for its energy did exist in its very life force, though it was unconscious energy. Humans, however, have conscious awareness in every moment of life, yet do you push it away in the same manner that you attempt to push away the stench of decay.

In conclusion, I suggest that half an ego is enough, enough to navigate the world, using it to digest what you must, while at the same time accepting your most necessary inner awareness as your main guide in life. Can you allow your burrowing to become energetic exploration now, going deeper into new habits, while you allow the old ones to remain as compost upon the past, nurturing your future? Can you, My Dear Ones, use your spiritual drive and awareness to continue your digging toward fulfillment?

This is a time of great shift from the old to the new, from old habits to new means of growth. This is always what life is about, but as usual the choice is yours. However, it is very clear that, for all of you, over the past few weeks some old part of you has been creating quite a stench, and you all know that it is time to let it go. It is time to find a new method of digging and tending your gardens, My Dears. All of you have the tools within and that is where you must look.

Remain aware of what comes into your world to show you the means of growth. Life is all about growing and evolving and it will guide you energetically in signs and by all means available in nature and otherwise, so be alert. Take the signs to heart and ask to be shown your new path. Ask to be freed of your fears by facing them. Even as your fears lead you in the direction your life must take, even as they may force you to turn from the decaying remains of an old self, so are they your greatest guides.

We have no idea where the other half of the groundhog is, but I gather that it is not important. I see that enough has been presented to us and I accept the challenge to keep growing, even though I may have to do it differently.

Yes, that is what you are being presented with now: to keep going, using new tools, doing life differently on all fronts, without fear of the old catching up. For, after all, the groundhog is showing you that it is dead. The other half of the process is up to you.

Is the groundhog half dead, or half alive? Which way do you see it? And which half do you elect to use as your catalyst? Still need some groundhog in your life?

Messages from Jeanne

#708 You Are In The Changing Time

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
I am sitting on the deck in the early morning. I hear a bob white calling as I give you voice. What do you deem to be the most necessary message for all of us today?

My Dear Ones, do you not hear the call of your spirit, of your yearning for other life, for rich inner life, cultivated so that your true purpose may become clearer? The following guidelines must now become your focus:

1. Remain attached to your inner life and the call of your spirit, even through the turmoil of your outer life.

2. Push beyond the stagnancy that drapes itself over you and attempts constantly to pull you down into its shadowy depths.

3. Seek new air, light, and food for your soul. Nurture yourself differently, My Dears.

4. Use your superior intellect to determine a new path. Elect, with determination—choosing to go into the realm of spirit self—to release the self of the past in order to move on and grow. By this I mean, most certainly, that it is time to help the self by becoming fully responsible for all thoughts, actions, deeds, decisions, and every step you take.

5. Allow for your failures, your missteps and mistakes, and your unconscious decisions, to be acceptable and recognizable as measures of teaching and growth.

6. Do not fall prey to your old demons, but ask them to explain themselves to you in clear language, but beware: they will attempt to tell you one thing but mean another. The demons look at you through mirrors and when looking into a mirror all things are reversed, including meaning. You think, for example, that you see another looking back at you, even a familiar self, but look again. It is a stranger. It is a self you have not fully accepted yet, for it is but the reflection of a deeper self.

7. Do deep inner work as you go through this time of grand change. As I have said before: you are in the changing time now. There is no more waiting or pending of events. If you are alive upon that earth at this moment you are being shown exactly what you must do to change, to evolve, and to have a rich spiritual life.

8. Remember to keep this mantra uppermost in your thoughts as you go about your days: All things are possible; everything is possible! That must be what leads you into new life, the truth of that statement.

9. Your choice must also be whether to go into the darkness or into the light, for both exist, and life exists in both realms. All things are possible; everything is possible! What you can see and what you cannot see, all of these things, imaginable and unimaginable, are possible.

10. Do not lose sight of the possibilities of the self to change. At all times now, must you push the self to change. That is how you and your world with evolve.

Messages from Jeanne

#700 From This Day Forth

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
What message of guidance do you have for all of your readers today?

Today is a day of attunement and alignment, as well as inner atonement. It is time now to reconcile with the issues of the self, to step out of the mundane world you find yourselves so steeped in and to shift to a new awareness, but also to a completely new way of doing things. It is time to act and to be different, to interpret and to accept the world from a new perspective. It is what the world itself calls for, and, since all of you who reside upon that earth now are members of the world that calls for a new perspective, you must accept that you, too, call for this shift.

In alignment with the world outside of you, your own issues —as petty as they may sometimes seem— are showing you that it is time to become attuned to a greater and broader awareness. It is time to atone for your past selves by accepting who you have been, what you have or have not done with your lives, and move now to acceptance of that which you cannot change. You cannot change that which is done, but you can change your attitude for how you will continue to live your lives from this day forth.

You must, from this day forth, learn what it means to be attuned with this naturally evolving world, attuned with the energy of your time. This may mean that you must change greatly, for there are many upon that earth who do not know or feel their own energy. In order for attunement, one must understand energy, personal energy, earth energy, and universal energy. This may mean that your attempts to live your lives a certain way must be changed, for not all lifestyles are energy giving or energy driven.

From this day forth, you must atone for your past with complete acceptance. This involves recapitulation, the process whereby the shamans of ancient Mexico instruct acolytes to relive every aspect of their lives and turn the tables on themselves as this process unfolds. Atonement requires honesty, truthfulness, and acceptance of the self as fallible, dishonest, conniving, and untrustworthy, as well as beautiful, innocent, and good. This recapitulation process must become the foremost reminder that you have elected to align with the changing natural world and become attuned to the energy around you in nature.

From this day forth, your awareness must be placed on evolutionary tactics and potential. You must learn to view your lives in an evolutionary fashion, My Dears, looking forward as energetic beings who will one day reside completely outside of the physical. Prepare yourselves for this moment by slowly and systematically changing yourselves, by changing how you use and need the offerings of the world around you and by changing your attitudes about life in general.

There are already too many people who continually refuse to change, and this is holding back human evolution. Be a changer, and help your species evolve into energetic beings capable of flowing in and out of both physical realities and energetic realities. By beginning a process of changing the self, you, each one of you, offer your world and the human race the opportunity for greater understanding of everything.

From this day forth, seek knowledge of what the shamans of the world have known for a long time. I do not use the term shaman in a restrictive manner, but I use it to include all holy people, all enlightened beings capable of leaving the physical world and bringing back knowledge of their experiences to those who are struggling to understand the meanings of their lives.

Pay attention to the magic-gatherers in your midst, to those who speak of the unimaginable. Allow your strict ideas of life to be stripped from your mind’s fixation on a certain type of reality, and let yourselves go a little into a new idea of the world. Ride the magic energy once in a while and gather some of its potential. Store it inside you, accepting the knowledge that you do indeed have access to it. Pay attention to what is being spoken and described by others, and grant them the respect they deserve for daring to speak of their experiences, for this is how you will recognize your own alignment with the changing world. By the descriptions of the experiences of others, you will recognize your own as being in alignment.

Do not hold doubt in your minds, as regards this message of change or your own experiences. Let the mind go. Have some openness for a just few moments, and see what happens as you dip into infinity for second or two. All I ask of you, from this day forth, is that you do not doubt the magic, that you do not hide from your experiences, that you not fear or hold back, but that you allow yourself to fully embrace the new world that is coming full force to embrace you.

Will you be in alignment, attuned to its energy, and aware, as this new world washes over you? Will you flow with it, because you recognize it and you can flow with its resonant energy? Or will you fight it? If you fight, you will lose out on the opportunity to evolve completely, in alignment with nature, but at the same time you will be in a good position to change your world the next time around, for there will always come a new day.

Messages from Jeanne

#698 The Energy of Change is Full of Love

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
What message do you have for us today, energetically and practically speaking?

On an energetic level, this is a time for inner work, recapitulation, and seeking balance. It is a time of great forces converging and aligning in preparation for shift to come.

It feels like we’ve already had some big shifts lately. Are there more to come?

Yes. I have spoken of this as a time of change. It is here, and when such energy is present there is the propensity but also the certainty of more change, for once the energetic charge has been fired the snowball effect is in play. I foresee great change still to come. This I see outside of you, but you know that this will also be what you are confronted with inside you, right?

Yes, it seems to be how it goes and, yes, it does seem to be a good time for inner work. It’s been easier to see and understand how I, personally, have projected inner issues onto the world. My inner process has really been progressing well; at least that’s how it feels. I hope your other readers are also feeling the same progress as they take their own inner journeys.

This is a time of recapitulation, and by that I mean that the energy, which asks for inner turning, is highly present, accessible, and engaging, but it is also energy full of kindness and gentleness. What may feel like pushy energy is full of love, My Dear Ones, and if you elect to engage it in recapitulation you will have some very interesting inner journeys. It is energy of protection and it covets the inner working process. If thus engaged, you will find that your inner work will not only be allowed, but time will be presented for it, though it is up to you to elect to do the inner work over some other enticement.

So, what do you offer us on a practical level?

I highly recommend that you, first, remain aware that this is inner work time. Secondly, look for the moments that will be granted so that you may spend time alone, reading, writing, musing in nature, or simply sitting in quietude. Thirdly, look outside of you for what is happening inside of you and turn that projection inward.

You understand what I mean by this, right? For instance, if you think someone outside of you is acting irrationally or abruptly, do not spend too much time pondering that person’s issues, but instead ask the self, where and how do I act irrationally? Where and how to I act abruptly? Is it in relation to others, to ideas, or thoughts? Am I too dismissive of the issues of others, too afraid to make them my own?

You see, My Dears, you always have new issues to address. No matter how well you think you are doing, there is always something else to address. You might find that your outer world is flowing pretty well, is nicely balanced, and that you are in synch with the energy. But I hazard that if you go innerly, to a new deeper level, that you will run up against something that makes you uncomfortable or curious about the self. Right, Jan?

Well yes, Jeanne. I always find that I can go deeper, even if I think I’m doing pretty well. And even though I’ve done a pretty thorough recapitulation there is always something else that comes up, something that I may not be aware of until I meet it outside of me.

Yes, that is what happens. As you live your life, as you go out into the world each day you are bound to bump up against something that will raise your ire, your sense of dignity, your judgments, and confrontations with the choices you make each day.

So, how do we deal with what comes up?

As I said, take steps to calm your outer reaction after fully accepting that it is how you are feeling, by owning that feeling in an outerly projected sense and then turning it inward. For instance, you may get angry about something and that in itself must be accepted by you. But do not stay in anger. Do not allow it to consume you, but instead consume it. In a metaphorical sense, you could allow it to seep into your deeper self, to the fearful self, and ask this aspect of self to confront it. What is it that is causing this anger to boil up? What old issue is being prodded to come forth now so that you may resolve it?

If you attempt to spew anger outwardly it will remain outwardly present, perhaps even infecting others, as well as the balance of your day. But if you bravely face its old familiarity inside you, you may find that it relates to something that happened to you a long time ago. This is the inner work that will be aided and abetted by the energy of now. And, yes, you can and should use this energy of change to do your inner work and change yourself!

Do not be afraid of what lies inside you! Most likely you will find a small child in there just waiting to be rediscovered and released of all the old buried feelings. That’s all; it’s just you in there. And you know that you are just afraid of what you might encounter, when in fact you will find you are just innocence itself. Can you allow yourself to be innocent? That is my final question.

Chuck's Blog

#697 Chuck’s Place: Independent Action

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In the last year of his life, Carl Jung took on the project of expressing his core ideas and discoveries at a level comprehensible by the general public in his final book Man and his symbols. Ten days before his fatal illness, he completed his chapter to this work, which includes chapters written by his closest associates. In what were perhaps some of Jung’s final written words, he states:

“As any change must begin somewhere, it is the single individual who will experience it and carry it through. The change must indeed begin with an individual; it might be anyone of us. Nobody can afford to look around and to wait for somebody else to do what he is loath to do himself. But since nobody seems to know what to do, it might be worthwhile for each of us to ask himself whether by any chance his or her unconscious may know something that will help us. Certainly the conscious mind seems unable to do anything useful in this respect. Man today is painfully aware of the fact that neither his great religions nor his various philosophies seem to provide him with those powerful animating ideas that would give him the security he needs in face of the present condition of the world.” (p. 101)

Last week in my blog, Why BP?, I suggested that the core conflict expressed by the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is the battle between two primary instincts: hunger and self-preservation. Reason, the hallmark of consciousness, is colluding with and actually possessed by the unchecked, insatiable greed of the out-of-control hunger instinct in all of mankind. Esther Harding states, reflecting upon the hunger instinct, in her book Psychic Energy:

Modern man has sought to compass the whole of life with his conscious intellect, only to find that the power of the irrational life force has not been overcome, but has retreated to the unconscious and from that hidden stronghold exerts a powerful and often baneful influence on his life. The power of his primitive greed bursts forth in wars of aggression and manifests itself in asocial business practices, while the exclusive concern with outer satisfactions leaves his soul hungry and starving. For man cannot live satisfactorily, cannot be whole, unless he is living in harmony with the unconscious roots of his being. Yet, how can he be at one with himself while the barbaric impulses of unredeemed instinct continue to hold sway in the unconscious? It is just because the ideals we hold up before us do not represent the truth about mankind that the hopes of peace and progress they embody so constantly elude us. Yet we fear to admit this obvious fact and to relax our efforts at self-improvement, lest we fall again into chaos and barbarism.” (p. 84)

Bringing Jung’s challenge to the “single individual” to change and solve the problem of greed, requires that each and every one of us identify our own relation to greed within our psyches and in daily functioning. If we understand hunger broadly, as the instinct to consume, especially in great quantity, we might automatically associate it with the addictions: food, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, shopping, etc. I suggest that we extend this energetically and ask ourselves, how do we spend the bulk of our energy? From this vantage point, we might ironically look at an obsessional disorder, such as anorexia, as an out of control hunger instinct, considering how much life energy is consumed by not eating.

We might view a fixation on reading as an insatiable hunger to consume words, facts, or fantasies to the exclusion of all other needs in life. Similarly, the insatiable attachment to constantly checking facebook, email, text messages, etc, is an addiction to consuming electronic connection, a barbaric dominance of the hunger instinct. We might view preoccupation with our physical appearance as a greedy monopoly on our daily energy for life. We could view dominating habits of complaining, being cynical, or judging, as acts of avarice feasting upon our energetic storehouse.

The possibilities for greed in our daily functioning are endless, and it requires conscious reflection on our part to take an honest energy inventory and face the truth of how we allow greed to dominate and control our lives. If we can reel in our attention from the greedy mirrors around us and tackle the shadow of our own greed, we can energetically change the world. This is the essence of Jung’s final guidance to us in how to change the world, which he acknowledged was in a very dangerous place. From the same chapter in Man and his symbols, he writes:

“Our intellect has created a new world that dominates nature, and has populated it with monstrous machines. The latter are so indubitably useful that we cannot see even a possibility of getting rid of them or our subservience to them. Man is bound to follow the adventurous promptings of his scientific and inventive mind and to admire himself for his splendid achievements. At the same time, his genius shows the uncanny tendency to invent things that become more and more dangerous, because they represent better and better means for wholesale suicide.” (p. 101)

As I stated last week, Mother Nature has taken the lead to restore balance now, and there is inevitable and obvious destruction in this healing process. If we can cap the greed in our own lives, we put ourselves in alignment with nature’s cure, and change the world!

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck