Here is the channeled message for this week from Jan and Jeanne. May this guidance be helpful to you as you continue along your path.
Here is the message:
Here is today’s message from Jan and Jeanne. May it assist you in achieving some much needed balance and calmness today and throughout the week. In mindfully breathing, one stays more fully present and open to the magic in life. Enjoy breathing!
A man was angry all the time. He drank every night to numb his anger. He wanted to change so he decided to meditate. His intent set, he got up early in the morning, took a shower and sat at his desk. Before long his consciousness left his body, taking him out of his apartment and the city he lived in. It withdrew further and further from the earth. Soon he was in outer space looking down at the world, seeing it in its entirety as his awareness expanded and expanded. He entered infinity and experienced the endlessness of it and the knowledge that he was part of it all, that all life was energetically connected and infinite. When he returned to his body he was a changed man, his perception of life and the world transformed forever. Even so, he knew that in order to hold onto what he had learned, to keep experiencing himself as infinite, he had to shed his anger. Even though he had experienced the light, he knew he still had to face the darkness within.
Not everyone has such an experience when they sit down to meditate for the very first time, but many meditators eventually have this same kind of experience, the experience of the self as energy, interconnected to and a part of all energy. During such experiences the issues of the self pale in comparison to the ecstatic experience. If we are to truly evolve, however, the angry man was right; we must face our darkness.
Last night I dreamed. I was traveling on a train beside the ocean. There was a voice speaking throughout the dream, instructing, chanting a calming mantra, saying that meditation must happen all the time. From the train window I could see a small island with a Greek style temple on it not too far from the coast. I could see that it was possible to get there and I desired to go, but each time I saw the temple the ocean was churning up gigantic waves, fierce and threatening. Many times throughout the night I rode this train. The scenario was always the same. I’d hear the voiceover, see the temple and wish to be on it, notice the dark and threatening waves impossible to traverse. I’d get off the train and enter a large hotel where a gathering was taking place. A lot of people were there, walking around, keeping their energy to themselves, not talking or interacting. Everyone was meditating where they were. I did the same. Outside the vast windows of the hotel I could see the churning ocean and the temple on the island. The voiceover still said the same thing, “Meditate all the time.”
When I woke up, I knew that the message in the dream was that in order to get to the temple we must endure the struggles that we are faced with, the darkness within—the churning ocean. Just like the angry man who wished to change, deep inner work is necessary in order to attain and maintain the transcendent experience—the temple.
During my recapitulation this was exactly what I learned. In spite of the most amazing experiences that literally cracked through reality and presented me with the most stunning view of my life and the world, I knew I still had to face my deepest secrets and challenges if I was to have full access to my energetic self and be able to actually live as the changed being I was working so hard to become. Having a deep and meaningful spiritual practice was as important as doing my recapitulation and, in fact, became the perfect companion to the shamanic work I was doing. It was essential to the entire process.
The true work of recapitulation is reconciliation with the fragments of self, healing the wounds of life, and even lifetimes, so that the true self, the spirit, may finally take its rightful place as the true self in the world. The goal of my recapitulation was to find the means to live from my deeply spiritual self all the time. I could only do that by giving that spiritual self a practice that was as deeply meaningful as the recapitulation. And so, my lifelong practices of yoga and meditation deepened as a result, becoming the prefect companions to my shamanic work.
I encourage everyone to develop a spiritual practice. If you desire to fully experience and embrace your spiritual self, to live as a changed being, from that place of deepest truth, then a spiritual practice is imperative. A spiritual practice will accompany you through life, bringing you constantly back to experiences of yourself as an energetic being, bringing fulfillment of our deepest interconnectedness. (In fact, if everyone was doing a deep spiritual practice all the time our world would surely change, but that’s another blog!) Meditation, as instructed in my dream, can be done all the time. It’s simple and everyone can do it. It doesn’t take equipment or a gym pass. It only takes mindfulness.
For instance, right now I am sitting and writing this blog, but I am also meditating. I am writing; I am only writing. I am mindfully focused only on writing and honing the message of this blog. When I get up, I will focus on getting up. Perhaps I will say: “I am getting up now. I am walking away from my computer. I am breathing. I am walking.”
These are mindful messages to the self that cancel out the constant thoughts that circulate and defeat us. At the same time that I am doing this mindful thought-erasing activity, I am also mindful that at another time I will examine those other thoughts. I will find out where they come from, how they came into my head, who said them to me, and why I still carry them. I will face what is dark and disturbing within myself, mindfully, just as I mindfully remain present in my daily life, focusing on everything I do throughout the day. To have peace of mind, I must constantly and mindfully work on myself. But to remain a balanced and present being, sometimes it’s appropriate to have a calm mind, and at other times it’s appropriate to pay attention to the mind and confront our issues and thoughts. As our mindfulness practice grows we become better able to manage our minds and maturely handle what comes to challenge us.
A practice of mindful meditation is the perfect way to gain balance. To periodically shift our thoughts away from negativity, we simply state what we are doing, over and over again. As the voice in my dream said to me during the night: we can meditate all the time. We might say: I am sitting at my desk working now. I am eating now. I am reading now. I am driving now. I am walking now. I put my foot down, I breathe and I walk, one step at a time, mindfully. I am walking.
A mindfulness practice offers the opportunity to gain balance and calmness even in the midst of turmoil. If we do it often enough, we eventually do it without even thinking. We can turn off bad thoughts by introducing mindful thoughts.
I am good. I am writing. I am breathing. I am love. I am sending you love.
In mindfulness,
Jan
to be open to what comes!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Dear Readers of Infinity,
Today’s channeling message from Jan and Jeanne comes in audio. Please let us know what you think of this new format, which we hope everyone has the capacity to listen to. It should work on all devices. Thanks for listening!
I channel a word, a word that sets in motion the challenges and inspirations for the day ahead. We see it reverberating throughout the day, its significance hard to miss. Sometimes we post these words on our Facebook page, as a Soulbyte, a simple and concise thought or idea that will hopefully be helpful, or sometimes we post words from other sources of wisdom. It has always been my intent to use my channeling ability in a way that is helpful to others, and so I have been looking into expanding what I am doing.
The process of learning to speak rather than write the channeled messages has lately been foremost in my personal exploration. Several impediments have arisen, one being my controlling mind, which by the way was yesterday’s word! Control is different, I learned, from discipline, which was the followup word to control. Control is what the mind does, making us think we are in control, but in reality we are not. Nature is really in control. How we work with what nature presents us with takes discipline. Today’s word, impediment, naturally arises as we consider what it means to give up on the idea that we are in control of anything. The truth is that we just can’t control what happens to us, but we can look at what is presented to us as a teaching tool, offering us the opportunity to change and grow.
As soon as I hear the word “impediment” a huge wall immediately appears in front of me. I am like the little mouse in the Leo Lionni picturebook, Tillie and the Wall, wondering what is on the other side. I am sure that I must get beyond the wall. My first instinct is to get over, around or under that wall, letting nothing get in my way. But if I sit and meditate, if I get calm, I begin to realize that the wall, the impediment is there for a reason. I’m supposed to learn something from it. It might just be that I’m supposed to take a momentary pause, not rush ahead but bide my time, sitting in the tension of my enthusiasm until the time is right. When the time is right, suddenly the wall disappears.
At other times, the wall is there for a very good reason. It’s saying Stop! Don’t go this way! It might also be there as a guide to learning discipline, the other word that is so helpful as we learn to navigate life with awareness. As we let go of control and face impediments we must utilize discipline. It takes discipline to enact intent, whether it’s intent that we set for ourselves or that has been set for us by nature and the unfolding of life. Sometimes we are fully aware of this intent, at other times it may take us a while to figure it out, even years or lifetimes.
Anyway, back to my own process. I intend to evolve my channeling into a new format. I’ve gotten so comfortable with the writing format, almost complacent, and my evolving self feels inhibited by it, wants to change, to become available in a different, more flowing way. Hopefully, in the not too distance future, you will be able to listen to the messages from Jeanne. In the meantime, I have some personal impediments to work through, so the wall I am facing at the moment is not just a pause wall, but also a teaching wall.
The problem is that, as a synesthete, my brain activates several senses at the same time, so that when I channel as I have been—by writing—more of my brain is occupied and thus happy. When I speak a channeling, that other part of my brain, normally busy with writing, wants to be involved. Often it offers helpful images, but lately this other part of my brain has been interfering, inserting its own agenda—thinking, assessing, and judging! It’s been annoying the heck out of me, so I’m devising new ways to keep it occupied so the messages come through totally pure and unadulterated. It’s a process and a good one for me to be challenged with. So, for the time being, I face my wall. I sit in the shadow of it, learn what I must, and bide my time, knowing full well that when the time is right that wall will disappear and the way will be clear to proceed.
If I could only discipline my synesthesia! But that, I have to accept, is just the way my brain naturally works! You see, nature is really in control, but there are ways to work around it! Oh, and by the way, the little mouse, Tillie? She applied discipline to her wondering, dug a hole under the wall, and discovered that on the other side were other mice, just like her. What once appeared so mysterious and foreign was really very familiar, but the work she had done in getting to that place was well worth it, opening a pathway to new interactions and expanded life. This is what we too learn as we face our own walls, our impediments and challenges, our inhibitions and complacencies. Once we slow down and face our fears and desires, in the true reality of life as a never-ending process, we discover that we are right where we need to be, surrounded by the energy of nature in constant motion, asking us to get busy and dig a tunnel to new life!
Learning to speak all over again,
Jan