When we lie awake at night, steeped in worry, can we accept that our spirit is calling us to change? When we are confronted by change, can we accept that it is not only necessary but truly desirable? Who are we anyway but a spirit seeking to evolve?
When change comes knocking at our doors we must embrace it like a well known guest, invite it in, sit at the table with it, and discuss the next step to take on our journey. We must ask change itself to lead us. We must remember that we did invite it though the invitation may have been sent out a long time ago. We must remember that change will never desert us nor ignore us. Keep in mind that its timing is always perfect.
Listen
We must sit across from our welcome guest as if before a mirror, look closely, listen closely, and question change intimately, going as deeply into our souls as possible to hear the news that change brings us.
Only in such close encounters with truth will change reveal why it has come knocking. If we turn change away it will only return, bothering us, urging us, scaring us and needling us in myriad ways until we open the door and let it in.
We must open our arms wide to change, acquiesce to its offerings knowing that our soul needs it, our heart knows and desires it, and our body craves it. Perhaps only then, in acquiescence, will the path become clear, the landscape before our eyes revealed, and the world we live in become recognizable. Until then our conflicts will not resolve. Our problems will loom ever larger and our inner turmoil will clutch at us in the wrong kind of embrace. We must allow ourselves to reject the embrace of fear and accept the embrace of a new journey.
The first lesson in becoming a reader of infinity is learning to listen. Listen without fear. Listen without judgment or doubt. Make no decisions, simply allow for listening. And that entails listening with the whole self.
See what happens as the world unfolds its beauties, as the universe presents its diamonds, and as your own spirit shows you the way.
I dare to evolve, to take the next step. The reason I am writing this blog today is that my personal next step involves what I have been writing on this website, as myself and as a channel. I have been in training, as I see it, for the past ten years or even more, depending on how you look at it. I accepted what was presented to me and began a journey of a lifetime, which has led me through the past several years where I communicate with an entity and publicly post her messages, that entity being Jeanne.
Over the past month or more I have struggled with intense restlessness. All of my personal inner work has been focused on achieving balance between my two selves, my inner self and my outer self, and getting them in better alignment, fully accepting who I truly am now and being always open to who I might become. It’s a lifelong process as I see it, leading always to deeper experiences and deeper meanings. Why am I in this life and who am I supposed to become? This is a question I ask myself constantly because, as I see it, I have so much more to do.
I’ve always expected to live a long life. The women in my family live into their nineties, in full mental awareness, and I expect I will too. That means I have thirty plus years still to live upon this earth. My question to myself every day is: What am I supposed to do with those thirty years? Many answers have come through. One of them is that I must clarify who I am and continue to evolve to my fullest human potential, which involves evolving to my fullest spiritual potential as well. So that is what brings me to this day in my life when I declare that I am taking the next step on that thirty year journey.
Steppin' out
My recent period of restlessness has led to a breakthrough in my personal inner work. I have discovered that my spirit has been pushing me to take the next step in my spiritual development, daring me to go beyond the place I now find so comfortable. Yes, this is all about allowing restlessness and discomfort to guide in an ever-evolving process leading to fulfillment of greater potential. Here is the present challenge: Can I accept the role that I find myself in, as spiritual guide?
Jeanne and I have had quite a history together. She came to guide and teach me. The first thing she taught me was learning how to trust, which involved challenging myself to let in what was appearing in my life: people, signs, and her own guidance. I elected to pay attention and that was my first big lesson in understanding the universe, infinity, and the greater interconnectedness of all things. Throughout that process I learned to detach from the old and allow for the new, old worlds, old habits, old expectations of self and others being shed along the way. Jeanne’s position has been one of master teacher, mine as student.
Jeanne told me, about a year ago, that I didn’t really need her anymore, but at the time I still felt quite dependent on her guidance. I also felt that I had to uphold the expectations of others, many others, by being her channel. In essence, I was upholding an old world, one that I knew would have to change.
She told me that when I was ready I would let her go, that the time would be right for both of us and everyone else involved as well. I’m electing to pay attention now to what Jeanne told me last year, my spirit in alignment with her prediction that I would, in essence, go solo, take the solo journey as a spiritual guide.
This is not an ego thing, I have very little ego invested in what I do. I am bent on finding ways to use what I’ve learned to help others, and that’s why I’m daring myself to declare this personal challenge publicly. I’m not leaving Jeanne, nor is she leaving me, but I am facing the challenge of mergence now, moving more fully into being a reader of infinity without needing the master teacher constantly by my side. I am electing to take the next step alone. It’s what we all have to do.
I have already long been practicing this merged self. When I meet with clients for hypnosis or just to talk, as many request, I don’t go as Jeanne’s channel, though I have also done that in the past. I go as myself and seamlessly flow with what comes through me; whether it comes from one entity or another makes no difference.
The master, Jeanne, has been waiting for me to take up the greater challenge of becoming me, a spiritual being who is fully aware that she has access to infinity. It’s what she taught me to understand and practice so well. It’s what she dares me to accept now and fully live. I feel that I have no time to waste, thirty years or not, it can all go by in the blink of an eye.
This is an evolutionary thing. And I say that because, as readers of this blog, you know that we are all readers of infinity. This is what Jeanne has taught us all. It’s what don Juan taught Carlos Castaneda and his cohorts. It’s what anyone with a spiritual practice or bent on having experiences beyond the body discovers: We all have access to everything, ancient wisdom, and the ability to read the present and predict the future.
If I am in fact going to live upon this earth for thirty more years I must, because I am me, keep evolving. I must leave the last vestiges of an old world and an old self behind and find out what else I can do. I want the next thirty years to be as spiritually driven as possible for reasons I have yet to discover, but I guarantee will be pretty exciting as long as I keep challenging myself. I also know that, by my example, others may dare to challenge themselves to live lives of meaning, spiritually seeking greater possibilities for themselves and others as well.
We all have a voice. We must discover how to use our own voice to change the world. That’s where I’m challenging myself, declaring myself as an evolving spiritual being capable of reading infinity, just like everyone else.
So, in the future there won’t be messages from Jeanne posted on the website. Instead I’ll be taking over in a new blog called Readers of Infinity. I’m accepting the challenge. I look forward to taking all of this to a new level. Let’s see what happens!
On behalf of Jeanne, I want you all to know that she is there for you, just as she is and was for me. Call on her for help anytime. She has not left any of us. She’s carefully watching as we take our first steps.
Love to all of you as we take those next steps,
Jan
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
Today, I ask Jeanne for a message to begin a new work week, which I always view as a new beginning of sorts. Here is what she offers us today:
Sit quietly with the inner self each day and set an intent. Whether it be an intent to change, for life to unfold as it will, for the signs to appear to guide you, for that which is wrong to right, for that which does not feel right to resolve, let the self be open. Let the self be accepting. Let the self be humble. Let the self be aware of inner resources both known and unknown. Let the inner process guide the outer process.
Change is inevitable
Set the intent to change and grow, first. Then set the most important personal intent. Ask for guidance. Ask for your life to guide you to change so that you may flow with greater ease, with greater kindness, with greater comfort in your world. Ask these things for yourself and others, that all may find peace and calm, so that all may face the challenges that come, with awareness of the greater journey in mind.
For that is the intent you set a long time ago: to take the journey of this lifetime. You have been doing well upon your pathways as they lie at your feet, taking your steps forward. Now take each step with greater awareness and set the firm intent to change the self and the world.
This is possible. Only you can do it for yourself. Only you are in charge of change. Only you are responsible for setting your course and achieving the goals and intentions you set. Accept that and then take your next step fully facing the change that greets you and asks you to flow with it each day.
That is your other job: to learn to flow with the inevitable changes as they greet you.
Intent alone is enough to begin anew. Set your intent and then see what happens. And then find out why.
The sun was shining, seemingly brighter and earlier than normal after a couple of days of overcast skies and thunderstorms. I was eager to walk in it’s first light.
“Don Juan says never carry anything in your hands when you walk,” Chuck reminded me, so I put my tiny digital camera in my pocket, wondering if I’d encounter something special, beautiful, or profound to photograph as we walked.
After we’d walked along for a while, talking quietly, I noted that there wasn’t much happening in the world around us. It wasn’t presenting its usual natural wonders, nothing to take a picture of. It seemed quiet. One car passed us. Then a bicyclist passed by, head down. Slumped over the handlebars he seemed focused on the front wheel endlessly turning as it rode the pavement. I recognized him as someone we pass often at that hour. He always seems depressed, never utters a greeting, never looks up, focused only on the road in front of him. Other than that I noted again the quiet of the morning. But then, at the same time, we both saw a rabbit, the first sign of real life. We smiled and acknowledged that nature does not disappoint.
Then I realized that I’d been like the man on the bike today, my head down, my eyes on the road ahead of me. As I’d taken each step I’d been aware only of what lay at my feet: the color of the pavement, the interplay of shadows and light, the leaves, bark, twigs and branches that came down in the violent storms that came through yesterday afternoon. The rabbit reminded me to look around, to lift my head from the path and see what else was available in my world at that moment.
Now the walk was different. Suddenly I was engaged in what was happening around me. Suddenly the perceived dull and sleepy world was alive and I was too. I noted how mistaken I was in my assumption that not much was happening. I recalled the first sounds we’d heard upon awakening in the morning, the baby foxes yipping and yelping in the backyard. I remembered the male bluebird who sat outside our window on the railing of the deck, letting us know that he and his mate have returned to the nesting box nearby for a third time this year, another egg-laying in progress, life giving new life.
As I recapitulated these earlier experiences, I studied again the bike rider, envisioning his riding posture, his energy stuck in his routine of riding along the same route each day, not noticing what else was around him. Unable to lift his head, I wondered what plagued him, and what he might be missing that could set him on a different path. I found myself empathizing with his dilemma, whatever it might be, for I too fall into the same patterns, ride the same road, only taking in the next step as I watch my foot hit the ground in front of me. Little changes, and even less is noticed, if I do not lift my eyes from the path in front of me.
This is what happens to all of us as we live out our lives, staying within our routines, caught in the endless turning of the wheel, whether it’s the endless wheel of work-worry-sleep, followed by more work-worry-sleep, or if it’s simply the daily routines we set out for ourselves. Even as we act out the habitual must-dos that really lead us nowhere, underneath it all we really do know that we need something else to make our lives meaningful and happy. But how do we step off the wheel? Today, I was reminded that if I just look up and away, in an instant the world becomes an entirely different place.
Once we set the intent to recapitulate, we can fall into the same kinds of habitual patterns, get stuck on similar wheels. Our personal dilemmas and deepest issues can overwhelm us. We can get caught in feeling sorry for ourselves, feeling neglected, abandoned, sad and depressed as we revisit our past and confront how we have lived, whether by choice or by circumstance. As we’re drawn back to recapitulate, we may forget to take in the world around us. Even while in deep recapitulation we must lift our heads and be in the world, for in my experience, it’s the world around us that offers us the help we need to interpret, to guide, to revision ourselves, as well as offering us the means to resolution. It’s also only in the world around us that we will find the means to relieve the stresses and intensities of doing deep inner work.
It’s also the world around us that offers us the opportunities to stretch our legs, so to speak, to experience ourselves as changing beings. As we recapitulate, we’re offered the chance to show ourselves and the world just how much we’ve changed, by refusing to do things the old way. As we face daily challenges in our old world, we’re offered the opportunity to test the new perspectives gained through the hard work of recapitulation. There is no better test ground or world in which to advance than the one we live in. This is the place we must do our evolutionary work in, and recapitulation is evolutionary work.
After the sighting of the rabbit I knew all I had to do was look up and allow the world to greet me with whatever it had to offer. As the second half of today’s walk progressed I lifted my eyes from the road and began to notice all the edible wild foods growing alongside the rural road we walk along, the prickly lettuce, the lambs ear, and plantain. I lifted my eyes higher and noticed that swallows now line the wires near the wetlands area where a few weeks ago the red winged blackbirds sat, sentinels guarding their nesting flocks in the tall grasses. As I walked even a week ago they’d dive down at me, warning me to keep away. They’ve moved on now, leaving the swallows their old perch. The world is constantly changing, I noted.
I heard the croak of a raven behind me and, looking higher still, I saw a tiny bird attacking him high in the sky, keeping him from raiding a nest no doubt. The hungry raven was no match for the tiny sharp-beaked bird and he flew off, cro-cro-croaking his guttural cry.
“What does that mean?” I wondered, for I find the raven most significant in my own world.
“Cro-Cro-CROAK! Cro-Cro-CROAK! Cro-Cro-CROAK!” replied the raven in answer to my question.
I repeated this phrase to myself a few times before I finally got the meaning of the raven’s call.
Don't Forget!
Don’t Forget! Don’t Forget! Don’t Forget! he seemed to be saying.
Don’t forget to use the world around you every day as you go through life. Don’t forget to lift your eyes from your well-worn path, from the routines, and notice what else is available to guide you along. Don’t forget that everything is available, possible, a guiding force, a messenger, a reminder. Don’t forget that as you recapitulate you learn new things about yourself and that you may not be as stuck and unavailable to change as you may think. Don’t forget to exercise the new you in the world. Don’t forget to actually put to use the new ideas, thoughts, and experiences you’ve been having. Don’t forget to trust your journey as perfectly right for you. And overall, don’t forget to allow yourself to experience the world differently.
You already know that the world is not as you at first perceive it, the raven reminds. This is what you learn all the time, but can you allow yourself to actually participate in that different world that you have worked so hard to enter, to understand, and to embrace?
The world of nature and the personal world we each live in, offers us everything we need to grow and change. To recapitulate or not is our personal choice. However, in my experience, everyday life is offering us opportunities to recapitulate and to use what we learn about ourselves all the time. We just don’t know this until we decide that it’s so, when we set the intent to re-experience how we’ve understood the world. Sometimes all we need to jump-start new life it the realization that we’re eager for a new perspective because the old one just doesn’t work for us anymore. That was my walking experience this morning.
As soon as I lifted my eyes from the hard gray road in front of me, I discovered a world of wonder. What is recapitulation anyway, but an opportunity to look at ourselves and our world with different eyes. Sometimes we need someone else’s eyes to show us what we’ve been missing. Sometimes we have to dare ourselves, push ourselves to go beyond our routines, ask ourselves to break through our old habits. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves to face our truths so we can move on, without regret, without sadness, simply because it’s time and right to do so. Recapitulation is happening all the time. Do you notice?
By the time I’d gotten home from my walk, I was in a new world. The bluebird greeted me on the deck again, showing me just how much in alignment with my spirit’s eagerness for changing life our natural world really is.
What are you being offered today to change your perspective, your outlook, your inner world, your relationship to self and others? There’s always something out there. What was the first indication in your world today that it’s just not as routine and boring as you’ve perceived it to be? Even in the subtlest ways, nature guides us.
Sending love and good wishes, and I thank the raven for posing ever so briefly so I could snap a photo of him!
Jan
I intend not to reincarnate into this world. The Buddhists recommend that those who hold this intent not wait until they find themselves in the Bardos as a departing soul to prepare for this challenge. They recommend that the intent not to reincarnate be the central focus of life while in this world. The Seers of Ancient Mexico similarly recommend that those who are intent upon taking their definitive journey into infinity, with awareness after death, make that intent the central focus of life in this world. How does this intent manifest in everyday life in this world? Through intimations to change.
Every time we refuse the call to change in this life we opt for reincarnation. Reincarnation, simply put, is the consequence of non-readiness to let go, to move on when it’s clearly time to do so.
Is this the road to change?
If a relationship has run its course, can we face that truth and end it? Can we give ourselves permission to release our grasp on a deeply familiar way of life, send our former traveling companion off with love, and move into new life?
When the call to recapitulate tugs at our bodies and psyches, beckoning us to awaken to deep truths we’ve pushed away for a lifetime, can we heed that call and acquiesce to the journey of the dark night of the soul? What we discover and experience on that journey will lead us into a different self as we put down the burdens we’ve carried that have kept us from entering life more deeply, more soulfully.
Can we allow for the changed world that appears when one we love departs this life? Can we release our hold on the physical presence of that being who once was the center of our lives? Can we open to the magic of a changed relationship, life and connection on new terms, and enter into a new world?
Is this the way?
Can we release ourselves from the obligations and expectations of roles that have long outlived their usefulness? Once we reach adulthood we are all equal beings responsible for discovering and meeting the challenges of our core reason for being in this world. The old roles of parent and child must be released to allow all to gather their full energy and take charge of their journeys. Can we release our parents, our children, ourselves?
Can we allow ourselves to fill our cups to the brim with experiences in this world, challenging ourselves to free our wounded innocence to love deeply without illusion? Can we live our illusions and release them when it’s time to move on?
Moving on?
Can we suspend judgment and feel compassion for even those possessed of brutality? Can we suspend judgment of ourselves and allow the awesomeness of this magical journey to course through our veins? Can we allow ourselves to be the magical beings we truly are?
These are some of the many faces of change that present themselves to us through the course of everyday life. These are the manifestations of the intent to evolve versus reincarnate.
What’s it gonna be, the red pill or the blue pill?
Taking the Red Eye, Chuck
P.S. After I had read the early draft of this blog on Thursday morning to Jan, she happened to read the daily astrology reading for the day on PlanetWaves.net and sent me this link. Pretty cool synchronicity!
