Today, Jeanne asks us once again to face our fears. Just so you know, I faced my own fears to bring you this message today, so when she suggests that everyone we meet is as fearful as we are, take it from me, it’s true! That being said, here is this week’s channeled message:
Thanks for listening! Sending you love, good wishes, and good luck!
Perhaps Jung’s favorite story was Richard Wilhelm’s “rainmaker” experience. While in China, Wilhelm—who translated the I Ching—visited a province that had suffered a long drought. Nothing that was done brought rain. Finally, an old Taoist man, known as the rainmaker, was brought in from a faraway province to break the spell. After sitting alone in a hut for three days, it began to rain. When Wilhelm inquired of the old man what he had done to make it rain, the old man said that when he’d arrived he was immediately infected by the disorder of the place and so he had to sit in seclusion until he restored himself to the Tao, to the order of nature. In so doing, the Tao of nature around him was likewise restored, and then it naturally rained.
Look what happens when a Catholic Pope sits in his own quiet meditation. This rainmaker emerges to proclaim that his church has been too “obsessed” with gays, abortion, and contraception. Let’s see how one person’s revelation contributes to realigning with the Tao.
The physicist David Bohm used the holographic metaphor to illustrate the true nature of quantum reality: every particle of the whole has within it the entire whole. Within every person is the entire universe. If we restore ourselves to the Tao, the universe restores itself to the Tao as well.
If we look outwardly, at the macrocosm, we can’t help but see a world of great imbalance. Traditionally, America has projected its shadow self elsewhere in the world and marshaled the troops to subdue the terrorist “out there.” With Syria, the world drew a line. Putin suggested that it’s time for America to get off its exceptionalist kick and face its own shadow. This week, once again, we experienced another mass shooting at home. Indeed, that “shadow” is very active in our homeland. It’s time for us, nationally, to own our shadow, just as, internationally, all are charged with facing the terrorist within themselves as well.
A Buddhist Master, Heng Ch’au,* states: “Other’s faults are just your own—Being one with everyone is called great compassion.”
The essence of true compassion without is acceptance of one’s own inner darkness. From the holographic perspective we are all the terrorist and the victim alike. From the Taoist wisdom, if but one of us can face the truth of our own shadow’s play in our lives then we are in a position to align ourselves with the Tao, with the truth, with the universe—and all is righted.
In the microcosm of the universe within each of us lies the disorder and imbalance that we see in our world without. What is needed is that we suspend judgment and accept the full truth of the attitudes and beliefs that dominate and control our lives.
What impulses within cry for life, yet are held in check by restrictive, fearful, judgmental attitudes? What deep needs are being disavowed, calling for a terrorist overthrow within to right the extreme imbalance of self? What regrets, resentments, bitternesses, hatreds and angers do we harbor in refusal to accept the truth of our own deepest secrets, deepest truths, and deepest disavowed selves? If we can face these mighty truths, fears and imbalances within, in full acceptance, then we arrive at the compassion to restore the Tao within, and vastly right the Tao without.
To project inward is to take responsibility for our holographic selves, to truly take responsibility for our interdependent wholeness.
Sign up for Project Inward!
From within the hologram,
Chuck
P. S.: After I had completed this blog, I posed the following question to the I Ching: How do we restore the Tao? I received the answer in Hexagram #30 Fire, with moving lines in the first, second and third places. The resulting future is Hexagram #4, Youthful Folly.
Fire attains duration by not overshooting its bounds; it burns in proportion to the wood that fuels it. Wood is yin, the darkness. The flame that illuminates is yang. Together yin and yang work in perfect harmony to produce the light of consciousness and the warmth of security. Such is the path to Tao that the I Ching proposes for now, for the individual, the nation, and the universe.
The reading goes on to highlight the first three lines of the hexagram, offering pragmatic counsel for morning, noon, and night that together complete the full cycle of a day, of a life, of an era.
The early morning is the time before ego arises, before world is formed. It is the time for communion with spirit. We awaken with dreams and impressions from our deeper selves. When the spark of consciousness awakens, arise. Ever so gently sit with the messages that came in the night; write them, contemplate them, sing them, draw them. These are the seeds of spirit for the day. Open a meaningful book, or any book, at random. The message you need will appear. Contemplate it. Engage in breathing, candle meditation, yoga, or any spiritual practice that suits your predilection. Take full advantage of the time before the demands of the day kick in. It’s the best time for direct spirit connection.
The midday sun is the height of power. The sun achieves this brilliance because it does not deviate from its path. It does not seek to go beyond itself, and it graciously begins its descent from the zenith. We are advised to align our ego selves with the true needs of our body and spirit selves. Perhaps this means not altering our body chemistry with another cup of coffee to forego our tiredness or push beyond our exhaustion and mental capacity to achieve some ego ideal not suited to the true needs of the self. The operative words here are modesty and balance, as we carry ourselves through the day.
As evening sets in the I Ching warns that we not attempt to extend the day with ecstatic exuberance, be it with substance or entertainment that deprive us of the replenishment needed to be freshly reborn the next day. The I Ching, as well, warns not to slip into melancholy and regret for tasks not accomplished or life not lived during the day. Time instead to prepare for sleep and its journeys, the journeys that hold the seeds of the morrow.
The accompanying future hexagram, Youthful Folly, is the right attitude for us to take forward as we go through our full cycle days and lives. Folly, in youth, is appropriate. It is innocence that approaches new life with curiosity and excitement. Its teacher is life itself, the reactions of the Tao to a being discovering new life without judgment. This is how we should always live our lives, in alignment with life itself. There will be lessons, hard lessons, as life moves in new directions, but there will also be new life as the Tao responds to youthful folly. Let the games begin!
* Buddhist quote from C. G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion And Synchronicity, p. 197
Here is this week’s channeled message from Jeanne:
Proceed slowly and thoughtfully through life. Consider your options and the best method of approach to your problems, your issues, and to life in general as it greets you each day. How do you wish to be in the world? From your heart center will come your answers. Look there.
In all aspects of life seek balance, seek calm steadiness, even while you at times must take quick action and respond without time for forethought. As you more often act from a place of deep contemplation and soul searching, so will your times of stress and reaction be addressed from this place of kindness and compassion too.
As you exercise your balanced self, as you speak from your heart center, so will these aspects of self become more comfortable and more pronounced. Your personal make up will change as you exercise your inner self in your outer world.
In all beings is this possible, for all beings are as one. Do not discriminate or separate the self from others. For in true reality, as energetic life, you are all the same. Seek knowledge of what lies in your own heart and begin to see the world outside of you respond from this place of universal compassion as well. It’s how your energetic make up works!
Be kind to the self today, but be equally kind to others as well. This is how you will begin to exercise a more compassionate self and a more compassionate world.
Your life is vibrantly alive and flowing in the universal energy—if you dare yourself to experience it that way!
I am one with you. We are all one.
Today we offer a powerful message of guidance from Jeanne in response to a question that Chuck asks. No matter what journey we are on, whether we are parents or solo journeyers, whether we are young or old, stuck or flowing, what she says is profoundly important. First Chuck’s question is posed, related to the blog he wrote the other day regarding some personal events, which you can read here, but really it’s a question for all of us who struggle, and then comes Jeanne’s response. Asked and offered most humbly, from all of us, Chuck, Jan, and Jeanne.
Dearest Jeanne,
As you are well aware, the sons we bore, in your life as Jeanne Marie Ketchel, are deeply challenged by their choices in this life. Most recently this resulted in near death for one of them and criminal confinement for the other. Given the public nature of their recent actions, I offered a commentary on their journeys in my blog, believing that their processes may be relevant to the greater journey of our time.
You live now beyond the sheaths of the human form, yet continue to watch over and guide seekers in this life. What message might you offer—from your perspective beyond the loyalty and emotion of human attachment—for all who struggle to discern their responsibility for the lives of others, particularly those closest to them?
Jeanne responds: In all humbleness, and with great appreciation for the journeys that must be taken, I reply. Here follows my answer to your question:
There is great pressure now upon that earth for all to conform to a new idea of growth. This growth is not concerned with need or desire but only with an awakening to the greater meaning of life, as well as to the state of the world, a state largely brought about by the naiveté of the human population. Something has gone awry, and that something is a deep disconnect, a severing of ties with the spiritual self. Far more important has become the rational and the physical self, the desire body and the impassionate self-serving needs of the human body.
I do not blame or fault, but, in my assessment, this is a dire situation. In reality, however, it is in such times of dire circumstance that change happens. As specifically regards the sons we bore, their time has not yet come to advance, though they struggle at the very door of change. In my detachment I am offered the greater picture, the iconic image of the struggles of the human being to accept its place in the physical world, while simultaneously struggling to embrace its spiritual nature, its truth that it does not really belong there. In other words, the spirit self knows that life upon that earth is not the only thing, yet the human self adheres to it like glue, as if nothing else matters.
In truth, all must face the struggles of these two selves, and so as you, My Dearest Chuck, face the struggles of our two sons, so must you allow them to have their experiences, just as you have had your own. You know from your own life that your struggles have advanced you. This is what all must take into consideration as they face the judgments that arise regarding the decisions of others, for surely judgments arise.
Is it right to judge another, to decide that they are doing life wrong? According to whom are they doing life wrong? No one lives wrongly. No one is really making mistakes. No one should be judged for decisions they make and the situations they find themselves in. Yet, to step back and be compassionately nonjudgmental is one of the most terrifying and necessary moments in life. Especially, when looking into the faces of one’s children, one must look with openness, with open heart and open mind, and say: “Look at you, taking your journey, as I once took mine! Look at you!”
Outside of the physical pain lies another pain, the pain of emotional detachment, the most necessary detachment, the most necessary suffering of mature beings. For yes, even as those of you who have children must stand by and watch and suffer, so must you challenge yourselves to do as you request of others. You must evolve to a new level of freedom for the self and others by releasing judgments and emotional attachments, for the idea that you can control, or really even guide another, is quite absurd. I say that with all love and compassion, for I understand the role of parents and others who must stand by while seeing so clearly the futility of such struggles. But the truth is that no one can teach another, for lessons in life come only through experience.
Remember always that everyone learns in their own personal manner and an awakening, a knock over the head for one person, may be nothing more than an annoyance for another.
Value your own process now even as you look upon the processes of others. Know, all of you, My Dear Readers, that in the struggles of others reside your own struggles. Know that the compassion and concern and worry that you direct outwardly should be turned inwardly. Know that even as you intuit devastation and decline for others, so must you take that knowing inwardly. You must face what lies in your own future if you do not face your own struggles, both as they manifest outwardly and as they manifest inwardly in the physical and psychological pain that you suffer as a result of your life, mirrored by the lives of those closest to you.
No one can live another’s life. No one can learn the lessons that another must learn. No one can make the decisions that another must make. To aid too much is to inhibit growth, and so I advise compassionate detachment in the face of outer turmoil. Will you heed my advice? I know, as I have said, that no one can really help another, yet I remain committed to my assignment as guide and helper, just as you each do upon that earth, as adults, parents, and teachers. And so, from my perspective as a being no longer in human form, I advise that you seek this perspective of compassionate detachment as well. For all of you, though you exist in human form, are fully capable of accessing a higher state of being.
Within the body self lies all you need. Your core self awaits your recognition. No one is a superior being, yet in the reality of a spiritual self, all are superior beings. At the same time, no one is a lesser being, no one is a damaged being, no one deserves pity or fear, no one deserves more or less compassion than another.
Allow, My Dearest Chuck, and All of My Readers, life to unfold as it must, for the key to all of this struggling that you carry within your heart is the greater awareness that struggle is necessary for change to happen. If the seed did not have to struggle through the darkness of the earth to break open there would be no flower reaching for the sunlight.
Let the seeds lie upon the ground where they have fallen. Let them become the men and women they struggle to become on their own. Let their decisions take them to their next challenge. Let their circumstances crack their outer shells, so that roots and sprouts may occur, for it is only in the cracking that this will occur.
Life, even in the form of solid rock, evolves as it wears down and changes shape, as it rolls and rattles about in water and wind, being sculpted by the turmoil of nature’s energy. Realize that the human being is only but another object in the turmoil of life’s energies. Tossed and jostled about, in meeting life head on, all that is offered will turn each one of you into new beings.
Even as a stone may one day stand as the cornerstone to a new structure, so must you carry in your hearts the knowledge that each human being will one day evolve into their own cornerstone. But this, for the most part, will only happen through discovering that the cornerstone one seeks is within, not without.
I ask, as you struggle with those closest to you, as you struggle to understand them and their choices, to drop all notion of helping. Take the small stones you carry in your pockets, the memories and knowledge of them as tender children full of potential, and lay them at the alter of life. They are showing you that they are, in fact, ready to more fully engage life now, for in their very struggles does life exist, pushing them now like you never could. They will certainly pay attention to life, though they may still resist you and your advice! Let life become their mother and father now. Let life, full force, carry them where they need to go.
I cannot do more than guide you to detachment. The struggles to achieve a place of compassionate loving detachment are your own. But I do wish to impart that life is not just what you observe and experience in your human form, but a most vital energy shared by all beings. Remember that even as you feel your own powerful life force, so does everyone else.
Awakenings come in many forms and to each person their awakening is appropriate. Even the awakening of death is not to be despaired or attached to beyond loving appreciation for life lived, because the one who has died has evolved to a new level, awakened to new life.
Hold your loved ones tenderly, and tenderly let them go when the time for their own maturity arrives. They let you know in their turning away from you, in their decision making, that they are ready to take on life on their own terms. You cannot outline or plan the life of another, so please step back from attempting to do so. Stand back in awe instead and watch them go into life, fully loaded with all that you once gave them, energized by your continued support in the form of powerfully positive intent that they go live their lives to the fullest.
Detach from worry about others and you release them. Detach from fear for others and you release them of your fears, as well as release them to discover, face, and conquer their own fears. Detach from controlling others and let them discover the seeds of their own intent.
Life wants to live. Let life have its intent realized to the fullest by standing aside. Let the seed sprout, let the stone roll, let the winds blow, let the waters flow. Do not stand in the way of life, and notice—as you step back and out of the lives of others, as you let them seek maturity and responsibility for themselves—how your own life begins to evolve at a quicker pace. In releasing comes release of new energy.
You are not responsible for the lives of others. Once your parenting is done, once the early years are over, the child must grow up. That can only happen by that child becoming fully responsible for its own life. One day you, and it, will realize it is an adult and fully responsible for itself. Then it will discover not only its power, but its passion as well.
The role of the parent is a difficult one, but it is no more challenging than the role of each individual to separate from the past and move on unencumbered by life to a new level of existence, energetically freed and energetically alive in a new way. It is the goal of each one of you, to evolve on your own terms. Good Luck!
It’s been hot. I’ve been trying to get the weeds pulled and the seeds planted. The dandelions have taken over. I like dandelions. I pick the young leaves and add them to salads and chop them into sautés. I juice them along with chickweed, lemon balm, and plantain leaves. I snip wheatgrass and mint into the mix too. But the dandelions are insistent this year, so I’m letting them take over one section of the garden. I water them and thank them for coming to feed me.
I’m pretty sure that if things got really bad in our present day world I’d find enough food to eat right here in my yard. It’s a grim thought, but the more I discover that not only our food and water sources, but practically everything we make, consume, and depend on in this country is compromised in some way, the more I wonder about us as a people and a nation. I wonder if I really belong here. Should I leave, desert a sinking ship so to speak? Really, I think about it sometimes.
I try not to get depressed about it. I try not to worry about what our children will have to contend with. I try not to think about ignorance and stupidity and aberrant behaviors. I try not to think about unfairness and greed, about the corporations selling us their poisons that make us sick, everything from the food in our supermarkets to the drugs in our pharmacies. Nothing is real anymore, and that’s what bothers me the most. “Just eat real food,” I tell my kids. “Moderation and balance in everything, but keep it real.”
We don’t even treat our fellow human beings as real people with real needs, needing things like a living wage to simply afford the basic necessities. I lived in Sweden in the 1970s, when its Socialist agenda was in its heyday. Olaf Palme was Prime Minister. He’d sometimes walk home to his apartment after a hard day at the Riksdag, wending his way through the streets of Stockholm, greeting people as he went. He even rode the subways like other normal working people. It was really a pretty idyllic society, good intentioned. Sweden lost its innocence when Palme got shot coming out of a movie theater with his wife one night, a place I had been to countless times. Sweden wasn’t perfect by far, but people mattered—children mattered, women mattered, the unemployed and the sick mattered—and as far as I can see they still do. There were no poor people in Sweden, everyone got what they needed.
The Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Finland all lived by the same ideals, that no one should be without the basics: food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare. Things were affordable, such as housing and food, and a lot of things were free, paid for by the high taxes we all paid, but I always felt it was a great deal. You got what you paid for; it was pretty real in that way. The government delivered on its promises. As an immigrant I received the same benefits as a natural Swede. From day one I had my health card and access to free education. I took free Swedish language courses through a variety of schools, including the University of Stockholm. You had a sense that the government was just like you, the Prime Minister just another working guy, and that you were really cared about.
An overall sense of social justice, responsibility, compassion and respect for fellow human beings prevailed that I have rarely experienced since, especially on a governmental level. The cold people of the north—as they were sometimes referred to—had warm hearts at their center. As a society they were not selfish or greedy. Memories of their own recent history of hard times were still raw and still talked about. Human suffering became the most important matter to address and they found a means of relief. There were a lot of problems too, the homogenous population was fast changing and new difficulties loomed on the horizon, but overall there were few complaints. Everyone mattered.
I noticed one of those obnoxious polls the other day: The Most Democratic Countries in the World! I couldn’t help myself; I had to look. The U.S. got a mediocre ranking, 21 out of 25, but guess who was at the top: Norway, followed by Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. I wasn’t surprised. Back in the 70s, Norway was the first of those countries to ban certain food colorings and preservatives because they were deemed carcinogenic and how could you feed your people something that was poisonous! With no food coloring, things looked kind of unappetizing. It was most noticeable in the street vendors selling gray hot dogs and sodas that were clear in color. We still haven’t banned food colorings and preservatives from foods, in fact we’ve simply renamed them. And as for feeding people carcinogens, don’t worry, there’s plenty to go around! As I said, I try not to think about these things, but I can’t help wondering when the greed is going to be stopped so REAL can become the norm again, when the new buzz word is REAL and it really is REAL!
The Buddhists say to accept ignorance and have compassion. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico say that life is an illusion anyway, so why fixate on it. Both of them say work to free yourself. And so I work to free myself from my own ignorance and from my own illusions. I refuse to get caught in the fear and the worry that comes so easily whenever I think about the earth and the world we have created. I see it as my duty to work on myself, to free myself of the corporate greed, to detach as much as possible from what seeks to draw me in. I decide what I really need and what I can do without.
And so, in keeping with that decision to energetically detach as much as possible, I canceled our cable TV. The bill was outrageously high, and I saw no reason for it. Someone has been making a lot of money off us. We don’t want the meaningless spin and the constant selling permeating our home environment. Even what once seemed to have integrity no longer appeals. I see commercial television as a home invasion and I don’t want it or need it. There are other things to do. We recently cut the expensive car insurance we were paying in half by going with a different company, and our escalating health insurance premium by a good amount too by finding a new carrier. We weren’t getting better service for all our dollars, but some corporations sure were reaping huge benefits! We’ve put thousands of dollars a year back into our own pockets, money we can put to better use.
So, as I pare down my life, I stay local, as local as possible, REAL local. I support the efforts of my fellow human beings to produce real foods and goods and so I shop at the Red Hook Farmer’s Market and the Red Hook Natural Foods Store where local produce is always available. I simplify. I eat the weeds in my yard. I constantly look to new places to pull the plug on the things I don’t need. It feels like a lot more people are doing this too. Local organic farms with everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and cheeses are growing in number, and it’s really good to see. I don’t see it as just a trendy thing, but more as a longterm trend toward taking back what we’ve lost: our personal power as real human beings. All of this local-ness is helping us regain our realness, our compassion, and a sense of social responsibility to the earth and our fellow human beings.
It felt good to be out in the heat, planting my seeds, welcoming them to my soil. The birds sang to me all morning as I weeded and planted. The robin nesting in the rafters of the deck didn’t fly off her nest as I worked just a few feet away from her. She’s used to me now, she knows I’m real and that I won’t hurt her, that I’m just doing what she does, tending my nest, keeping it real.
Eating the weeds,
Jan