Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today feels like the day we have all been waiting for, the culmination of a long and serious transition time. This morning I pulled a Tarot card and received The Chariot, a fine affirmation of all my personal intentions to live, work, and be within the flow of nature, both calm and flowing but also in motion, constantly daring myself to go beyond my limitations. This card is perfectly in alignment with where I am at this moment in time.

Drawing this Tarot card struck at the heart of change as I personally enact it in my life, setting my intent from a calm place of heart, yet remaining fully aware that I must push myself and sometimes even force myself to stick with my well-laid and well-intentioned plans. While I feel a shift today I also know that challenges will arise because that is the nature of the universe and it is how we are shown where our path lies. I know that I must stay connected to my intentions and on my path, but that I must also be alert, aware, and prepared for anything.

Perhaps many of your readers are starting this week in a similar state of calm determination, feeling the shift in energy as I am. Can you offer us advice for the week ahead as we set our intentions to flow, while at the same time we know full well that there will be challenges ahead?

My Dear Jan and All My Readers, find your heart center as you begin each day, taking but a few moments to locate and feel the intensity of this calm place that lies within each of you. This is nature at the core of each of you, the pulse of the universe inside you. This universe you speak of is not outside of you, but deeply embedded inside you.

This is the first thing to note: Your challenges come from within. Even though you may notice them being mirrored outside in the world and the people around you, and in your daily lives unfolding, note that they originate inside you, conjured by your spirit urging you to confront that which holds you back. The universe and all of nature lie at your heart center. Visiting this place daily will set you on your path and invite openness to that which comes, for you will, in your openheartedness, recognize your challenges as perfectly matched to where you are in your life. There will always be something to get beyond, to work through—and it will always be something personally important or it would not be there confronting you each day—until you have solved the riddle of it to your heart’s content.

The second thing to note is: Each day you must also make note of the energy outside of you, for it will also show you how your inner process must be conducted. You must learn to read the energy outside of you, in the atmosphere, in nature, but foremost in the people you come in contact with. You must learn to assess what is happening for others in your proximity and adjust your expectations and your own energetic output to both accommodate and challenge this outer energy. You must find balance between your self and your outer world without compromising your intentions to change and grow.

It is a good idea to consider the self as a separate being with a separate inner process that must be attended to. But remember that the inner self is not the ego self. It is not one of the archetypal personality functions of the psyche, but the spiritual self who adjusts and flows without attachments, without demands, without really revealing itself, but simply flowing with what comes, even though it is absolutely in the fore, in charge so to speak.

In directing your inner and outer worlds from your heart-centered inner spirit self, using your knowledge of how change needs time to unfold, to present challenges, and to be worked through, you will both maintain good balance and forward movement toward not only culmination, as you mention Jan, but transformation, so that you go beyond it to a new level.

And, of course, when you reach that new level you start all over again, challenging the self to change and grow some more, for that is life. But also, at each level, you are more aware, more firmly heart-centered, flowing more easily, and more firmly grounded in who you are, why you are there, and what you are meant to do with your life.

Good Luck. Ask for guidance in the form of balance, in the form of inner calm, and in the form of daring, so that you might push through all that appears before you.