Denial is strong. But it hardly matters. The changes the channels have forecast are indeed upon us. “Anything is possible” is unfolding daily upon the world stage.
Why am I here too? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
If you are alive today, in human form, you are indeed a part of this sweeping energy of change. What a magnificent time to be here! I suggest, to make the most of the opportunity, everyone of us address the question: Why am I personally here upon this earth at this time of unprecedented change?
The answer to this question lies in where we put our energy, attention, and deepest longing. I stress deepest longing because planet Earth is the playing field of attachment. Robert Monroe went so far as to call Earth the “planet of addiction.”
Attachment and addiction run hand in hand. If you are on this planet you had to emotionally attach. You are seeking something. Until you run the course of that desire, you will not be ready to move on. That is a pretty accurate description of addiction: running the course with an attachment until you’ve learned what you need to learn, or are completely fulfilled and bored, ready to release and move on to new adventure.
As I see it, the planet we are alive on is in a major phase of restructuring. Very clearly, human attachments or addictions have resulted in such an unsustainable environment that the Earth is being challenged in its ability to sustain life altogether. Clearly, the overload of human desire, with its myriad of attachments, has come to a point of total saturation.
The restructuring I speak of is an evolutionary advance that refines our relation to attachments. We must advance from ego want to Self need. Self here is defined as the greater whole of what we are versus the narrow, isolated ego that puts its wants and desires over that of the greater Self, within and without.
If we inventory our deepest driving desires, we might discover them to be issuing from ego’s desire for comfort, security, and attention of the kind that ego calls love. Ego is desperate to achieve its aims because ego, devoid of a connection to its greater self, knows only getting its needs met in the immediacy of this life—and it’s desperate to do so!
Resolution may lie in Investigating life and the self on the deepest level… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
With the ego in a leadership role of decision making, this can lead to many repetitive, poor decisions for the personality and the planet. Only in turning inward and discovering the greater Self, and acquiescing to its guidance and true needs, can we advance individually and evolutionarily as a species.
Ego on its own is addicted to the pursuit of its attachments, come what may! Ego serving the heart-centered true needs of the Self brings the personality and world itself into interconnected balance.
We are all here to advance beyond our attachments/addictions, to a greater Self and a greater world that drops its illusions and restores balance. That is the contribution we are all afforded in this time of great change and great advance.
May we all advance together, Chuck
Additional reading: Here is another posting with the same title, channeled back in September 2007 that offers guidance in the process that Chuck writes about in his blogpost today: #153 Why Am I Here
And a fish shall lead them… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
When Jeanne and I lived in Jamaica, back in ’79, our dear and modest spear-fisherman friend, Baba, introduced us to his favorite brew: fish head soup. He explained, quite simply, that in observing fish on his many voyages into the ocean he noticed that it was always the head that led. To him it was common sense to nourish oneself from the most intelligent part of the fish. Though I was never able to actually eat the brains and eyes myself, I never forgot his simple wisdom.
Elmer Green suggests that humankind is the neocortex of the Earth, the brain, now responsible for leadership of the planet. It all began with the awakening of consciousness and the power to choose, outside Eden’s garden. Since then, humankind has, with both delight and greed, manipulated the matter of Gaia, the fruit of the Earth, in both wondrous and bizarre ways. As the brain of this planet, our leadership is still in its infancy, less intelligent than the advanced wisdom of the lowly fish that does not defy the laws of nature to its own peril.
Humanity, in its inflation, dissociated from its true responsibility to lead the planet in a healthy way, floats in greed and self-righteousness while the planet suffers great imbalance. If humanity is the cortex then the rest of the planet is the limbic system, nature in its most primitive, which is clearly unleashing its own instinctive offensive in an effort to reeducate its cortex as to the needs of the whole interdependent planet.
The utter pervasiveness of rampant sexual abuse throughout the planet in its most sacred institutions—family, government and spiritual houses—is, at its core, flagrant evidence of humanity’s disowned instinctive nature, a rabid wolf preying upon the innocent. Humanity, which has collectively disowned its animal nature, is subject to the ravages of that animal, who, abandoned in the darkness without guidance and care, becomes the Minotaur in the labyrinth of the human subconscious that psychopathically consumes its visitors.
Out of the darkness, into the light… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Sexual instinct is not the culprit; it’s the diseased human psyche that views itself a superior mental being, without any recognition of its fundamental animal self, that is the culprit. The disowned animal self, left in the darkness without acknowledgement, connection, and guidance, is indeed a ferocious, predatory creature.
We see another sign of the reaction of disregarded nature in ISIS, the current threat to civilization in the Middle East. Isis, in another context, is actually the Egyptian Goddess of Rebirth and a powerful symbol of empowered femininity. Such an archetypal goddess of nature has now unleashed her fury in a storm of violence to decapitate modern civilization. Gaia herself is unleashing earthquakes, volcanoes, and devastating environmental changes that are delivering severe blows to humankind’s mental disregard of her needs.
We are indeed in the midst of major transition. Meanwhile, humankind is challenged to make an evolutionary leap beyond greed to interdependence, wherein lies its only hope of survival. When I ask the I Ching how best to transit through this turbulent time of transformation, I am given hexagram #15: Modesty.
In Modesty, the mountain finds itself beneath the Earth. The mountain, at its summit, is the place of the spirit’s facsimile ruler on earth, the ego, whose job it is to dispense blessings downward; that is, to bring spirit into the body. The Earth is the lowest spiritual place, hence to position the mountain beneath the earth is an extreme image of modesty or humility.
To be modest, the ego must be utterly humble, abandon its greedy or separatist alienated causes and serve the true needs of the body, of humanity, and Gaia at large. “It is the law of heaven to make fullness empty and to make full what is modest…” states the I Ching.
As Gaia, Isis, disowned instincts, and talking heads tear apart that which has governed, a truly modest ego dedicated to compassionately serving the true needs of the full self, and the world, will be filled with all it needs, with abundance, to distribute as truly needed in our rapidly evolving world.
Reflecting modest balance… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The storms now upon us will tear down that which clings to its fullness and make full that which is empty. Modesty is the ticket to life in our radically transforming world. It is both the individual and world ego corrective.
May we become the modest cortex that, in its emptiness, is filled with the golden light of enlightenment that ushers in our reformed world. And may we not have to eat fish heads to get there!
Our energy selves are in alignment with our mission on Earth… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
When we are born into this world, our energy body self joins with a physical body self as an entwined unit for the duration of our physical lifespan. Though partners in this life, these two bodies are distinct entities that separate daily in the out-of-body explorations of dreaming, or under willed or inadvertent traumatic jolts that cause these two bodies to separate.
The physical body is constructed of the elements of this Earth and has a finite lifespan. The energy body is constructed of finer elements, distinct from earth’s elements, and houses our spirit, that which separates and ascends at the moment of physical death. This spirit self is the home of consciousness and awareness in our human personality, and though it partners with the human brain in human life, consciousness is separate and distinct from the dense hard drive of the physical brain. This consciousness lives on when the physical body dies, returning to the higher realms from whence it came.
We are indeed beings in this world, but ultimately we are not of this world. We come into this world through the host of a physical body, which we shed upon the death of that body—ashes to ashes, dust to dust—and consciousness, or spirit, lives on. And so, why do we come here?
It is said by the ancients that planet Earth is an “unsacred planet.” (This is not a moral judgment; it’s simply a description of a planet of very dark, dense energy that is engaged in its own process of evolution, so keep in mind that Earth is also a living being, ripe for change.) Evolution is a process of growth that slowly moves toward consciousness as its guiding force. Nature, as depicted by the Garden of Eden, is life devoid of consciousness and choice. For nature to evolve, its consciousness must emerge. We are the light beings, the spirit beings of consciousness, come to partner with the dense energy of earth, charged with advancing its evolution. We are the beings prompted by the kundalini energy, the powerful life-force in us all, to eat from the tree of knowledge and advance the consciousness of earth’s own spiritual development. If you are in this world, you are indeed an advanced spiritual being.
Within the darkness shines always the light… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Earth is an extremely dense planet, pure nature and, as previously mentioned, devoid of consciousness, unaware of even itself. As we humans continue to live upon this planet we awaken it to its beauty and bestial qualities alike, to its majesty and its destructive powers, giving it conscious awareness of itself. Imagine how many people have stood high upon a dense mountaintop and marveled at the beauty spread out below, exclaiming “How beautiful! How exquisite! How stunning!” Earth hears and awareness of Earth’s natural beauty expands.
Imagine how many times people have exclaimed over the devastation of volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, the power of nature unleashed. “How frightening! How terrible! How destructive!” Earth hears and awareness of Earth’s natural power expands. These are simple examples of how Earth, a living entity, receives consciousness and awareness through our presence. We are all part of a vast interconnected energy, and whether conscious or unconscious, aware or not, we all impact each other and everything else by our thoughts, our ideas, our agreements and our disagreements.
Of course, as it now stands, we have made a mess of things! Perhaps Earth questions its decision to partner with such spirit beings as us! Well, the truth is that consciousness or spirit energy does not guarantee loving compassion and right action. Consciousness can settle in the lower chakras of “me, me, me,” power, domination and exploitation. This is the dark side of the force of consciousness.
The ancient sorcerers and modern power manipulators—spirit beings of the dark side of consciousness—take their journeys in infinity for their own pleasure and power trips. Spirit beings must contend with their own challenges with these tendencies within themselves, as well as with spirit beings outside themselves who seek to dominate this dense energy planet for their own selfish goals. We are all in this together, conscious beings of the light and dark side of the force. We are all also the embodiment of both light and dark energy, both sides of consciousness. It is up to us to determine the path we will take during our lifetime. A path of heart is consciousness seeking what is right.
Ultimately, our energy body selves utilize planet Earth as our own divine playing field, for our own awakening, clarification, and advancement. Eventually, we must all encounter and reconcile with the dark side of our own spiritual nature, and Earth’s energy field offers the perfect density in which to do that. In turn, Earth benefits from this cosmic drama, as our forays into the dense energy of Earth in our physical bodies awakens and enriches Earth with consciousness through the lives we live while we are here. Simply put, the materials we leave behind when we leave contain an awakened consciousness that serves Earth’s evolutionary imperative. The consciousness we take with us serves our own spiritual advancement.
In balance of light and dark we find what we need… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Reincarnation is our continual working project toward spiritual enlightenment, embodying many Earth lifetimes, while also enriching the consciousness of the planet. This joint venture is the ultimate symbiotic partnership, until it consummates in our final separation, in enlightenment, representing the end of our reincarnation cycles: no more compulsory lives in physical form.
Upon enlightenment, our spirit selves choose whether to return to Earth as teachers, to guide Earth from a higher plane, or to move on to new worlds and adventures in infinity, to ever-expanding journeys of consciousness.
We are eternally indebted to planet Earth for offering us the playing field of her physical form for our spiritual advancement. May we pay our debt royally by helping her advance beyond the destructive tendency of the dark side that currently holds her in its grip. May we advance her to the fourth chakra of love and compassion, to the level of the heart, before we fully leave and go on to our own next adventures.
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.
The other day we watched a swallowtail butterfly alight on our small lilac bush, noting that, in spite of all the bad news lately, nature is back in full swing. But that doesn’t mean we are safe from harm. Life seems to be going on as usual and I’ve noted that people do not really get it that our world has changed since the nuclear disaster in Japan. But this is change that we can’t see, so there is little incentive to believe the truth of it. As a result of that-which-we-can’t-see, poisoned earth and food are not even an issue for most people. Little real change seems to be taking place as to how people eat and view food and this is worrisome.
What are we thinking? Why do we choose not to face the truth of our changed world? How do we protect ourselves from ingesting even more toxins than ever before? Even in local gardening, in growing our own foods, in picking from nature, the truth is that the soil is contaminated now with radiation.
In my opinion, this changed environment requires diligence and questioning on the part of the consumer. It requires that we take the initiative like never before to confront the hypocrisy of the media and the corporations, that we demand full exposure of the truth of reality, in straight spoken terms, so that everybody gets that we are in a crisis here, and, above all, that we push for the closure of nuclear power plants now in operation and stop all plans to open more. There is nothing safe about them.
I don’t think it’s too late for us, or the earth, but a lot of people may have to get sicker before the food and power industries begins to change, based on the consumer making demands based on reality, even the kind you can’t see.
The crows are trying to tell us something. This bird of omen, if you note, as we have, has been flying low lately. What does this mean? The crows are swooping down in front of us as we drive, walk, sit on our deck. They are trying to tell us something— perhaps to be careful, to be watchful. Are they swooping low to remind us of what came raining down upon us from the nuclear explosions in Japan? Are they trying to tell us that our world is changing more rapidly than we think? Are they warning of impending attacks? I don’t mean to alarm, but I really wonder what they are foreshadowing or implying in their erratic behavior? Normally birds of the sky and the tree tops, they are diligent at watching over the world from on high, but now, for some reason, they have left their sentinel posts and are flying at low levels and this is mighty curious.
I don’t take the unseen lightly. I know it is powerful energy, the unseen web of interconnected energy that is both healing and spiritually enlightening, but that is also where negative energy and the potential for destruction reside as well.
Be thoughtful, be careful. Detoxify, heal the self, treat the earth as you would treat your children, your loved ones and she will treat you well in return. Nuclear power, oil drilling, and natural gas fracking are not treating the earth well; they are harming it irreparably and our human population as well, more than we can see.
It is not that which we see that is important now, but that which we can’t see. Keep that in mind as you think about how you really want the world and yourself and your loved ones to look in a few years time.
Take a look at this article from The Center for Public Integrity: A More Likely Nuclear Nightmare that just got posted while I was writing this blog. It’s time to protest the absurdity ever more loudly.
Always hopeful and optimistic, yet alert like the crows,
Jan
