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Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Dream Guides

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During recapitulation, dreams may act as guides taking us deeper into our inner world, revealing repressed memory, stimulating senses, signifying where we need to go next. While undergoing my own recapitulation—a magical pass used by the Seers of Ancient Mexico to reclaim lost energy—I encountered lost parts of myself in my dreams. They had been sitting and waiting for me for years, to return and bring them into life. By coming forth to engage me in dreams those parts got my attention, often in striking ways. But it wasn’t until I was ready to fully accept that I was on a journey of significance, as we all are, that I woke up to what those dreams were trying to tell me.

Dreams allow us to explore our inner world without the overriding dominance of the mind and the judging personality, without the ego sticking its nose into an experience that may be transformative. Pay attention to your dreams, they may hold more than you think.

I once dreamed a situation that was, in fact, laying out my entire recapitulation process, showing me very clearly what was at the core of my discontent, laying out the future as well. In that dream, I encountered an aggressive figure that I recognized as being long dominant in my life. I lost all of my identification and wandered through unknown territory until I finally reached a place of peace. In fact, that was what happened to me as I began the journey of recapitulation within a short time after that. Portending my future, that dream opened the door to deeper exploration of who I was. In fact, “Why am I the way I am?” was the question I continually asked myself. I couldn’t fully answer it until I fully recapitulated.

The door to dreaming...facing fear

During recapitulation we do lose our identity, as my dream suggested. We shed all that we carry, things that we take on in our efforts to grow, as we struggle to be in the world, as well as burdens placed on us by others. We find ourselves continually freeing ourselves from old ideas and perceptions of ourselves and the world we live in, as we recapitulate. As we take the journey into the deeper self, we discover a new self. We are offered the opportunity to work our way into filling this new self with new ideas, thoughts, and perceptions. We are offered the possibility of fully taking on this new identity, one that is truly us. This may be a dream identity that we never imagined we could fully own. This may be a spiritual self we had distanced ourselves from. This may be an absolutely strange and amazing self, a magical self. We all have the opportunity to transform.

In wandering the strange lands of our dreamworld, with awareness, we’re offered access to our greatest potential. If we can dare ourselves to take a dream journey, facing our greatest fears in both our dreams and in real life, we offer ourselves the opportunity to totally transform. Some of those amazing dream worlds we’ve encountered while asleep are actually available to us in our everyday world as well. In taking hold of our dreams as significant participants in our journeys throughout life, we find the dreams themselves to be our most remarkable companions. Our dreams may be where our fullest potential is accessed, where our deepest issues are revealed, and where our past, current, and future challenges and potential lie.

In experiencing our dreams as our innermost caring and supportive guides, we may more quickly wake up to our true journeys. What path is your dream pointing out to you? Who visited you last night to show you where to go next, what to do, and how to go about it? I find great meaning and pertinent information in my dreams. Indeed, by paying attention to them I gave myself the opportunity to change. And don’t forget, our dreams may approach us while we are awake or asleep.

The importance of the recapitulation process reveals itself every day, in the work Chuck and I do, in the communications we receive, and in our own lives. We personally use the practice of recapitulation constantly, in pursuit of our greatest potential; always more to learn, to explore, and access. Our journeys are endless, our spirits constantly nudging us to keep going. In fact, anything that appears in our lives may actually be trying to alert us to something special and important about ourselves and our true direction in life.

There are indeed many ways to transform, and indeed recapitulation is really a natural process that we all engage in all the time: in remembering, in experiences, in thoughts, in illnesses, in repetitive habits and behaviors, in our choices and decisions, in the kinds of things we elect to avoid or pursue and yes, in our dreams. Do we dare to call life itself “recapitulation?” Do we dare to fully embrace our spirit’s call and give it a structure with a name? Are we really so daring as to go all the way to transformation? That is what we are challenged with really. Our spirits ask us every day: “Are you coming with me? Are you ready today?

In a few weeks, I intend to have the first volume of my book The Recapitulation Diaries available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. One does not need to have a Kindle device in order to download e-books. Free apps and tools are available for all kinds of devices including phones, computers, and ipads. We’ll have all of that info available when the time comes. We’ve decided that we won’t be publishing a paperback copy at this time as I intend to immediately jump into working on the second volume. That being said, my greatest hope is that my book will aid others, showing what it means to recapitulate in the context of everyday life, offering the tools to undergo a shamanic practice in full awareness.

Dream on. And remain aware: dreams are just waiting to be fulfilled. What dream do you have that is knocking at the door? May you find your way to it, in whatever way works. Recapitulation is only one way, I know that, but I can only say that for me, it is the only way. Nothing else works. I always knew there were other worlds available to me. I just didn’t know how to get into them. Recapitulation, as a tool to transforming myself and the world I choose to live in, offers me total access.

Much love,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: In the House of the Oppressor

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Last night I dreamed of being a child again, in a house where feelings and emotions were expected to be suppressed, kept tightly under wraps, oppressed by the dictum of the dominant force.

In the dream, I recapitulated the process of holding everything in, of tending to my feelings in the ways my child self had found to deal with them, but at one point in the dream I also snapped. I shifted out of the old obedient child self and ranted and raved at the oppressor. Soon I discovered that ranting and raving against the oppressor gave no real relief nor satisfaction, for it did not remove nor change the oppressor. In fact, my railings only sparked the oppressor to rail against me, to make me feel bad for having stepped outside of long upheld expectations, fair or not. In the dream I was made to feel the consequences of my actions, in the same way that my child self had once been made to feel them for breaking the rules.

In the dream, my child self soon realized that I could neither have an effect on the oppressor’s outburst, because the oppressor was not going to change, nor did I want to stay in the subservient role of being oppressed by this unchanging being. I soon turned away, saw the situation in all its clarity and let the oppression go on without me. It was okay to do so. In fact, the dream was a complete recapitulation process.

In true recapitulation fashion, I was able to immerse myself in an old situation, feel every aspect of it, go through all the questions that needed to be addressed—such as: Did I really want to do this again? Did I owe the oppressor anything? Who had originally decided the oppressive rules? Did I really want to uphold them? What is the reason that I am back here again at this time in my life?—and let the dream guide me to understanding who I was then, who I am now, and how far I’ve come.

In the dream, I was able to reassert that I am not willing to be oppressed, by anyone or anything that I do not agree with, that is not right for me. That may sound egotistical, but in reality it is only part of a process of actually learning to shed the ego’s attachments. For in shedding of ego attachments one learns that one does not need to participate in life according to the needs of others, either to be dominated or controlled by them or held back by their fears. In shedding of ego attachments one learns how to become an individual being. In shedding of ego attachments one learns what it actually means to love.

The Recapitulation Door

In recapitulating one is able to free the self from all the old rules that oppressed, held back, and curtailed the true spirit self, the part of us that holds the desire for life to be fully embraced and lived. In recapitulation one asks the question: Can I allow myself to live my life differently, according to my own needs, desires, wants and to extend those needs, desires, and wants beyond the ego self to eventually fully encompass the spirit self? That is the real challenge in life; to let the spirit self fully live.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl states: “When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.” —From page 99.

Victor Frankl spent three years in concentration camps during World War II. His spirit took up an observer’s role, allowing him to have experiences that kept him alive. He took up his own unique opportunity to bear his burden, under the direct eyes of the oppressor. Like a true shaman he took a journey of suffering and returned from it transformed, never having let his true spirit self be defeated.

The Seers of Ancient Mexico would agree with him that we each have a unique opportunity to perceive our world differently and to live in it differently as well, to dare to take the opportunity that life offers to transform ourselves. The Buddhists also see suffering as the means of reaching enlightenment, for only in samsara, the ocean of suffering, life upon this earth, are we offered, with each new lifetime, the opportunity to transform ourselves.

It becomes our task to shift away from the oppressive rules placed on us by society and others in our lives, accept our aloneness as necessary and liberating. This is just the opportunity offered when we recapitulate. We don’t need to go into a concentration camp to suffer and meet our aloneness; we all have enough of those opportunities in our daily lives. This leads me to the next point I wish to make today: Recapitulation happens all the time. We do not need to do anything. Life itself places our recapitulation squarely in front of us each moment of each day.

In my dream, I saw a recapitulation opportunity, but, in a sense, I had to be willing to see it that way and not get caught in feelings of sorrow for my child self, to not fall into depression and self-pity. I was offered the opportunity to remind myself just how free I really am, not only of the past, but of the suffering that once oppressed me so deeply.

It was pretty clear to me that I was being shown an old world, one I have come far from, but one that still exists. In many ways I must still encounter it, even though I no longer wish to live in it. As I did in my dream, in waking life I must remember to turn away from the oppressor, to leave the house that is oppressive because it does not feed my spirit. This must become a conscious process, yet my dream is reminding me that I must not become complacent or smug about it either.

In the house of the oppressor we are confronted with questions that will help us move on to new territory, to new perspectives, to new ideas of self and life. We must repeatedly ask ourselves to go deeper into our aloneness and ask ourselves to truly answer the questions that arise.

Some of those questions might be: Why do I live in the house of the oppressor? Who is the real oppressor? Have I taken on the attributes of the oppressor? What can I do to leave this place that I feel so stuck in? Can I allow myself to leave the screaming oppressor without feeling that I am bad, neglectful, inconsiderate, unloving, selfish? Can I turn away from an old world and allow myself to enter a world of my own creation? Can I keep going into the aloneness that is necessary to encounter all that I must encounter in this life? And, in the end, can I simply love the oppressor for having set me on my journey, and accept that my destiny is now completely in my own hands?

Recapitulation is a tool to use as we set out on our own journeys of individuation. It may take us many years to discover that it is actually what we are supposed to be doing with our lives. It may mean that we must return to the house of the oppressor many times, even when we think we have left it behind for good, because it still holds something of value for us. In the end, can we ultimately embrace our suffering as our most valuable asset? In the house of the oppressor, Victor Frankl discovered the key to man’s inner spirit and to his own future as a psychotherapist and student of human nature.

What value do I find in my own suffering? I ask myself this question each day as I revisit my own past. My three-year shamanic recapitulation allowed me to revisit the first eighteen years of my life and find the reasons for the oppressive qualities I carried with me into life. I saw very clearly where they came from, how I had attached to them, and how I continued to carry them forth. I learned to remove them one by one, freeing my spirit, the true self who lay waiting for me to return and find her.

Here is to taking the recapitulation journey that we do not have to do anything to jumpstart, it is jumpstarted for us each day of our lives, we just have to notice how it comes. How does it come? Perhaps in dreams, encounters, feelings, sensations, memories, thoughts, repetitive behaviors; in our actions, reactions or no actions; in complacencies and avoidances; in our likes and dislikes; in our political and social views and opinions. What is mine and what is not mine? Who am I? Who do I want to be?

I want to be me, and I want to be okay with being me, without worry, without fear, without needing to uphold things I just do not believe in or need anymore. I hope these ideas help make the journey a bit more clear.

Just being me,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: In Constant Flux

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A trinity of recent dreams has afforded me a deeper awareness of nature and life, nature and life as we perceive them in this reality, nature and life as powerful beyond the ideals and hubris of mankind, and nature and life as eternal energy.

The first dream, which has recurred in some form or another throughout my life, since early childhood, depicts a barren, burned out landscape after some kind of bomb had fallen or fire has raged. Perhaps this dream first originated as a result of the cold war, when the illusive Iron Curtain was spoken of almost daily, the threat of attack from Russia as great as getting a simple cold. During my elementary school years we had frequent bomb drills, the way school children now have fire drills, learning to go into the hallway of the school building and duck down and cover our heads, or wind our way into the dark basement, hundreds of kids standing in the dark awaiting the threat of annihilation, just the push of a button away. Sometimes the nuns at my Catholic school were calm during these drills, at other times a heightened sense of urgency made the drill seem very real, the danger imminent.

Perhaps this dream of annihilation originated from within my own unconscious, teaching me something about myself, my true potential. In any case, I dreamed this dream again a few nights ago. It was the same dream as always. First, I notice that the earth is entirely burned to blackened cinders, nothing is left, it is totally razed, as if indeed an atomic bomb, a nuclear attack, or a huge firestorm has come through, completely wiping out every living thing on the entire planet. Not a twig or blade of grass remains, not a building or structure, not another human being. I am alone in this charred landscape.

Nature in renewal

I am never frightened in this dream. As I stand and calmly gaze out over this barren landscape, understanding that I must somehow find the means to survive on my own, I begin to see the stirrings of new life. The earth at my feet begins to crack open and as I stoop down to peer closely at the ground I see tiny green shoots beginning to poke up out of the earth, life seeking light, nature regenerating itself from the most devastating of circumstances. Each time I have this dream I receive the same message: Nothing can destroy nature; life will always find a means of seeking its full potential, and that, no matter what happens, the seeds of life are always present, within me too.

The second dream I had took this idea one step further. In this dream, I am attempting to invigorate life energy in others, to inject enlightening ideas, literally using a hypodermic needle to inject positive life energy into people’s arms. I knew that people were putting all kinds of things into their bodies in an effort to evolve, using all kinds of spiritual and mental processes and nutritional substances, but I saw how difficult it was for people. I wanted to help ease their sufferings. I knew that relief was only just an injection away. If I could just inject enough people with the right stuff the world would be a better place. It was not hubris or inflation on my part, just concern for the suffering of the struggling masses that made me want to help in whatever way I could.

Let it be...

In this dream, I was told to stop trying to control nature, that nature itself, within each human being on earth, would right itself, that everyone had the potential within to grow and find true alignment with nature, in their own time. The message was: Let nature take its course; it will come out right in the end, as it should be.

The third dream went again another step further. Now I had learned that nature was unstoppable, that it would correct itself when the time was right, but in this third dream I was asked to notice something else.

In this third dream, I am teaching a nature drawing class, asking everyone in the class to really look closely at the leaves and flowers and trees we are drawing, at the landscapes and scenes of nature that lie before us. In this dream, spring is in full bloom, everything is bright green, fully alive, perfectly beautiful, nice and neatly returned to pristine beauty after a long hard winter. The message here is to notice that even though the landscape has returned to a recognizable state, we must not assume that it is stagnant. We must not fall into complacency or take anything for granted.

“If you look closely,” a dream voice tells me, “you will notice that everything is still growing and changing, that nature never stops!” I ask all of my drawing students to peer closely at the blades of grass, the leaves of lettuce and the tips of the branches before them.

“Look,” I say, “everything is still in motion, always changing.”

This is the message of this third dream: to not stagnate or assume that just because everything has returned to a semblance of normalcy that it’s so. No, nature is doing so much more. We too have this same potential, this same life inside us. We are all in constant flux; like nature, our growing time is endless.

As we now face the truth of a rapidly changing natural world, as we continue to drill for oil and frack for natural gas, as we continue to send men into the depths of the earth to dig for coal that blackens not only their lungs but the air we all breathe, as we return to complacency after the recent natural events, saying that everything will take care of itself, we must look more closely at the decisions we make.

Yes, we must face the truth that we may destroy the earth, as depicted in my first dream. We must remember that we are the ones who have made the bombs that destroy nature, the nuclear power plants that hold annihilation at their core, with the potential to destroy the earth. We contaminate our water, the air, the earth we grow our food in. We do have the power to destroy and we may well be the generation that tips the scales. We may have to accept our part in annihilating ourselves. So what then?

Do we simply sit back and let that happen? Is that where we are now? Are we so disconnected from nature and our true interconnected potential that we will let that happen? Maybe.

The decision to grow...

Maybe we are the ones who will really change the world; we do hold that power, in a destructive sense, right now, at this moment in time, as well as in a positive sense if we so choose. But we do not have the power of nature to renew the earth. That power belongs solely to nature. We do not have the power to inject life, as I tried to do in my second dream, a false hope on my part, because real change and new life can only happen when people are ready to change and embrace new life. But we all have the power to make decisions to change, right now, so that our hubris does not destroy us and all other living things on this earth.

As in my third dream, if we observe the power of nature, use it as our guide, showing us that we are life itself, we are the energy of nature and life too, we are offered the opportunity to grasp that life will go on, in some form, with us or without us. Just as nature restores itself and changes constantly, in alignment with the energy of life itself, so do we have that same potential for unending life energy inside us. The final message of my third dream was that life is unending, that it never stops, that in some fashion it will keep going.

Yes, we must let nature take its course, but we must be in alignment with true nature, not with what we have done to her, not what we want to keep doing to her, curtailing nature to fit our needs. We must get in alignment with the fact that nature has the power to restore, but we must not be so accepting and complacent of this power either. We must wake up and read the signs of nature. She is asking us to change now and we must accept that we do have the power to enact change.

I do not accept that we are doomed, though it often feels that way. But I also feel that it is critical that we make personal and universal choices that uphold the truth of life.

Life is eternal, always changing and growing, in constant flux.

Seeking alignment,
Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: What Dream Am I In? Narcissus & Beyond

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“When I reflect on the fact that I have made my appearance by accident upon a globe itself whirled through space as the sport of the catastrophes of the heavens, when I see myself surrounded by beings as ephemeral and incomprehensible as I am myself, and all excitedly pursuing pure chimeras, I experience a strange feeling of being in a dream. It seems to me as if I have loved and suffered and that erelong I shall die, in a dream. My last word will be, ‘I have been dreaming.'”—Madame Ackermann quoted from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

The Greek mythological character Narcissus never engaged in actual life as he could not see or feel anything beyond his own reflection—he never transgressed beyond his personal mirror. The spring flower, narcissus, is named after him due to its narcotic properties, meaning to numb or put to sleep. Narcissus, the man, was unable to awaken from his own very personal dream.

We all share the fate of Narcissus, as our very personal lives are dreams projected upon the people and things on the outer world. Perhaps the greatest challenge in this life is to recognize the mirror we place in front of everything, as we, like Narcissus, live life as in a state of narcolepsy, fully asleep, actively living out our personal dreams upon the backdrop of the outside world.

Interestingly, there is evidence that even on the astral plane, though we might meet familiar others beyond the self, we remain locked within our personal dream, asleep to life beyond the self. We awaken from these encounters completely unaware of where we’ve been and who we’ve been with. Out-of-body explorer, Preston Dennett, concludes, from his own astral experiences as recounted in his book Out-of-Body Exploring:

“Most of my family members do not recall these visits. Only Christy has been able to recall one meeting. However, this appears to be normal. Most people are unable to recall their dreams, much less their OBEs…” [Out-of-Body Experiences]

“Many times I have found my extended family visiting each other on the astral plane. As we are sitting at a table, my mother [deceased in this world] is looking at me. She knows that I am lucid and that I will remember these meetings, while everyone else in the room thinks they are already awake, or they know that they are not at the point where they are able to remember. How somebody can know that they won’t remember is beyond me. However, when I’m there, I know I will remember.”

How does this play out in the world of everyday life—a world where we are utterly convinced that we are interacting and making real contact with others?

Our lives in this world are largely waking dreams interspersed with brief moments of awakening. For instance, our collective world dream of safety now—Osama is dead—lulls us back into complacency. Global warming, environmental catastrophes, contaminated food supply, rampant greed, all slip away into yesterday’s forgotten dreams. Mother Nature will stir us awake again with some new dramatic alarm clock and, in that moment, we will awaken and lift the veil of our collective dream. But, the challenge is whether we will stay awake long enough and remember—hold onto the truth—so we can move into a new, sustainable dream.

On an individual level, our lives are marked from birth, perhaps from before birth with our own personal life dream. Our mission in life becomes one of waking up to the encapsulated dream we are in, to the world outside that dream. Until that time, the world and all its players serve as our personal mirrors, reflecting the drama of our individual dreams.

This proposition may seem preposterous as we reflect upon the relationships we are in, the people we genuinely communicate with and love, the people we touch and who touch us as well. But even our most intimate connections are but impressions on the outer surface of the personal bubbles that encase us. When we touch we are still pressing upon the contours of our personal dreams, our personal mysteries.

Perhaps my dream is one of core inadequacy and unlovability. In that dream, I crave to be loved, to be worthy; yet, everywhere I look, I see rejection and disdain reflected.

The characters in my dream are cruel and abusive. I cannot drive my car without feeling that I am offending someone. Clearly the truck behind me is angry, that I am too slow. I don’t have the right to take up space in this world or even to slow down to make a turn.

There is someone I deeply love, someone I pine for. But I am so beneath her; I shiver to look at her. How could she ever be interested in me? I am utterly compelled to be near her glow in my thoughts, fantasies, and interactions as well, but I know I lack the beauty and skill she would require. I am destined to loneliness.

I am surrounded by men far superior to me. They dismiss me, they don’t even see me. They are reflections of everything she needs, mirrors of everything I am not. In this dream, my golden princess is beyond my reach; at best I might be her lowly servant.

The characters of this dream project themselves powerfully upon the world screen of waking life. So who really are these characters within the self, within the personal dream, that I am utterly convinced exist outside of me?

In this dream, the golden princess is my anima—she who holds the place of my deepest value; she who lures me to complete my dream, to enter a new dream of fulfillment and wholeness. She is projected so powerfully on a character outside of me that I am compulsively attached to HER as my salvation, unattainable that she might be. I am convinced this is not a dream. In this reality she is outside of me, not me. Without her, I am doomed.

The truth is, if I had her, I wouldn’t know what to do with her. I could never trust that she was really wanting me, the unlovable, the unwantable. I’d be terrified; I’d surely enter the triangle dream.

In that nightmare, I am haunted by other men—worthy men, real men who will steal her away. In that dream there is always the third character; he who reflects all that I am not, all that she wants. Am I a real man or simply a boy in the nursery, seeking mother’s comfort, fantasizing about becoming a knight and winning the fairytale princess?

The men in that dream are all mirrors of my personal shadow: reflections of conflicts, complexes, and potentials I’ve yet to discover within myself. Can I awaken to the truth that the real work is in lifting the inner veils of old beliefs within myself to discover who I really am? Can I take full possession of my shadow self, slay the dragon of the nursery, and enter a new dream, individuated, fully owning the gold of my inner princess; perhaps ready to fully awaken from my old dream, to have an amazing relationship with a real person outside my personal dream.

Face the dream, release the dream...dream on...

This imaginary dream is but one in a thousand personal dreams we find our lives encased in. We are all Narcissus, narcotically staring at our reflections in the pools of our personal dreams. We spend our lives fully acquainting ourselves with the dramas of those dreams, painted on the faces of the world. We are all offered moments of awakening: opportunities to discover our truths and our personal myths. Can we claim our full stories, our full selves and move into amazingly new possibilities—new dreams, new lives?

Hopefully, not asleep at the wheel,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Seeds Scattered Upon the Earth

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I sit on my meditation pillow and do the sweeping breath; exhaling, emptying of breath while turning my head to the right, breathing in while moving my head to the left, and then holding my breath while I sweep my head back to the right again. I do this over and over again, sweeping back and forth in an effort to recapture the dream I had last night. I have most of it, but there are a few details that I want clarified. The shamanic sweeping breath, the recapitulation breath, works like EMDR to capture experiences, dream and otherwise.

In my dream I am planting a garden. Chuck is with me. We have prepared everything according to what we feel is good for the earth, for the soil, imbuing everything with our intent to do it right so that everything we plant will feel welcomed and loved and provide us with sustenance and nurturance in return. Now it is time to put the seeds into the ground. I am standing with my cupped hands full of seeds. I am looking at them intently, knowing that I have done everything to prepare for this moment, but still I am aware that something is missing.

Ethereal Light

Chuck is standing next to me, also looking at the seeds in my hands, both of us trying to figure out what it is we have forgotten. Suddenly there is a loud crack and the pile of seeds is emblazoned with energy. They glow with a vibrant ethereal light and then I know that this is what is missing, the energy of Mother Nature beyond what we personally could intend. At the same time I am startled awake, because the loud crack was, in reality, a powerful jolt of lightning and thunder that rumbles on and on, Mother Nature, the earth reminding us of her power.

“It sounds like an earthquake shaking the earth apart,” Chuck said, as we lay awake listening to its insistent rumblings, the significance of this statement highlighting the truth of what has been happening lately in Japan and other parts of the world. As we fell back to sleep I thought about writing the dream down so I didn’t lose it, but I chose instead to replay it over and over again in my mind so I could more readily remember it in the morning. Alas there was something missing when I woke up too, just as I knew there was something missing as I stared at the seeds in my hands during the dream experience itself.

Doing the sweeping breath helps clarify the intent of the dream, which I am aware, is teaching me something important. What I remember now is that at the moment of the crack of thunder I was aware that I was as the tiny seeds in my hands, that no matter what I personally did it was the energy of Mother Nature, in all of us, that would determine the outcome of my garden. It is important to prepare for life, for planting, making preparations according to what is in alignment with what is right, but it is hubris on our part to think that we can control anything. It is important to be an active participant in life, but the truth is that the energy of life, of nature, is unstoppable.

This is what I also understood as I lay in the dark listening to the thunder rolling and cracking open the silence of the night. In all that I have been writing about lately—pointing out the decisions that we have all taken and that we are all responsible for, whether we agree with them or not—in the end, the one who will determine our fate will be the Earth itself. Mother Nature holds the real power.

We are but seeds scattered upon the soil, we fall were we fall. We must each one of us find our way with where we have landed in this life. Some of us live in the richest country in the world, in a material sense. Some live in a country with a belief in the richness of Mother Nature, Pachamama, as I mentioned in a note yesterday regarding Brazil’s law of equality, granting nature and all living things equal status with humanity. How is it possible that such diverse and drastically different attitudes exist? On the one hand our own country of America continues making decisions to ravage and destroy the earth in an effort to uphold our standard of living, while another country seeks to return to ancient alignment with the earth. The truth is that Brazil too has ravaged the earth, but now seeks to return to ancient alignment and identity with nature. Something powerful is being expressed in turning to this other truth that lies at the heart of our human presence upon this earth.

As in my dream, something is asking us to pause now and question what we have done. We are at a crucial moment in our time, but synchronistically in the time of all living things. We must all ask what is missing. What is it that we have not done to prepare, what is not right here? What have we forgotten?

Mother Nature has the answers. As we see happening in Japan, in Arizona where fracking for natural gas has unleashed earthquakes deep inside the earth, in the tragic truths of gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, mother nature is responding, even as she did in the night as I dreamed. I take the synchronicity of that loud crack of thunder at the moment I was dreaming very seriously. I also see its synchronicity in all that I have been reading and writing about recently, in the wake of national and international events and discussions regarding how we all treat the earth.

Even as I was wondering in my dream what was missing from my own little effort to do something earth-sustaining, taking personal responsibility for growing some of my own food, nature herself spoke loudly and clearly, reminding me of her powerful presence in my life and in all life as well. She is life and she has something to say. We all need to listen.

I don’t mean to be preachy nor do I wish to impose my personal beliefs. I think we must all come to what feels right for us personally, but at the same time I do strongly feel that it would be amiss to not point out the synchronicities all around us. I truly believe that Pachamama must be treated with respect and awe—not simply granted equality with humankind, though this is a good start—because she is far more powerful than we are. This is the truth I learned in my dream.

I am just one little seed, sending you all love and good wishes.
Jan

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