Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
Here is the message I channeled from Jeanne this morning, simply asking her to give us all some guidance as we go into the day and the week ahead. This is what she advises:
Seek some solitude today...
I can only stress today that you take some time for solitude. It is crucial now that mankind turn inward for solace, inspiration, creativity, and even entertainment, for in constant outward attention is the spirit soon drained and left gasping for breath and notice.
Please treat your inner life as well as you treat your outer life—or even better than that—and you will have long days of peacefulness upon that earth.
Continue learning how to flow with your changing world. Change your attention to your inner world now more succinctly, paying attention to what comes to you as you sit in reverie. Use it to guide you in your outer life and in the world, as it spins, spews, and seeks to bring the messages of concern and change that are so necessary now.
Do not become desperate beings in the wake of disasters, but become silent introspective soul seekers. Only in alignment with nature will man survive the next few decades of severe drought and commercial devastation that will befall an unenlightened population.
Find notice of what is to come all around you, but find what you need within for your survival. The idea of survival of the fittest may determine your way, but for the future that is going to mean something beyond the physical. Learn what that might mean for you personally by investigating your deeper self. It is there that all answers lie.
Seek calmness and fortitude inside the self. Stop looking outwardly so much now. Turn to a different center of attention—at the core of every human being. It awaits your arrival. Visit it often now.
Channeled in a moment of solitude—from Jan and Jeanne
On my morning walk today I noticed several dead moles. I’ve been seeing them for days now, always at the same places in the road, at what I now call The Mole Crossings. I imagine many moles making the trek across the road each night and the cars that come upon them. Invariably one or two moles lose their lives each night. I find their tiny, silent remains when I walk. They look so peaceful, eyes closed, their long sharp claws turned slightly under, done with digging.
Why am I seeing so many dead moles? What is the significance? I can’t help but ask myself these questions because I know that everything is meaningful. The immediate answer to my questions is, as I see it, glaringly right: Recapitulation. Well, you might ask, how did you get that answer and why is it so right?
I see the mole as the perfect totem for doing a recapitulation, the one who goes underground, into the earth. Blind to the trappings of this world it is drawn into the energy of the underworld, where it picks apart, digging and gnawing its way through every tiny morsel of dirt and sand, pushing aside blockages of stone and gravel, working its way around and through stumps and roots on its quest for a place of deep inner solitude. That is very much the same kind of work that a recapitulation entails and the end result is a place of quiet calmness deep within the self. If you want to take a shamanic journey there is none like it.
There are many shamanic practitioners who, acting as seers, will journey on behalf of another and return with insight and information that is meaningful and significant for that other. This is similar to what I do when I channel for other people, seeking insight beyond this world that is specific to that person. I also act as a guide when people come to me for hypnosis, becoming the facilitator to accessing an inherent process rarely made available or even acceptable until it’s been experienced. Once a journey has been experienced, an opening has been created and the spirit wants more. I usually end a session by saying that anyone can do a journey anytime, they just have to learn to let go of their fears—both inbred fears and fears of the great unknown.
I’m not special and I don’t do anything to anyone, I simply offer a means to that opening. The fact that I can go outside of my conscious self and gain insight from sources beyond this realm is in fact a universal human potential. Innate though it may be, this ability is often first encountered and utilized during a traumatic event, as the impact of sudden trauma or intense fear allows it to naturally emerge in a superb act of survival. It steps in and acts as a protective measure but is actually, as I see it, a highly evolved spiritual self who knows immediately how to transcend this reality and thus the event that triggered its emergence.
During an out-of-body or near-death experience people discover that they can indeed leave the physical world, have incredible experiences and safely return to their bodies victorious and triumphant—this is the essence of a shamanic journey. Once undertaken, such an experience remains implanted in the psyche. Whether kept alive and utilized or allowed to sink into memory it nonetheless leaves an imprint and has an impact. It can play out over and over again, consciously or unconsciously, known and strikingly familiar or unknown and completely foreign. It is, nonetheless, alerting the journeyer that at one time an experience was had that was like no other.
Having once gained a shift in perception there is often increased interest in finding a means back to that moment of bliss and insight. This too may be a conscious or unconscious longing on the part of the journeyer. The truth is that once the spirit has awoken—made itself know in whatever transcendent way it needs to use—it tenaciously attempts to remind us of its full potential.
During a recapitulation one revisits the moments of trauma, fear, or even mystical experience that originally gave insight into true spirit potential, relives them, discovering this time around the true meaning of why they were had, what they meant, and what they mean for the future. When our journeying self ventures into recapitulation in full awareness, we are ready to encounter what our past holds for us. Our ability to dig like the mole is also simultaneously awoken, ready to be activated. If we so choose we can become the mole and tenaciously and voraciously eat our way through the muck of the shadowland inside us, the very earthen self who keeps everything buried. If we are prepared to once again transcend this reality and, with our claws of intent, dig in and through our visceral present-day selves we will eventually reach the wide-open land of our spiritual selves.
In our world, to take a shamanic journey may be seen as a strange or unique way to tackle the problems in life, highly suspect in some circles and highly valued in others. But, having gone on many shamanic journeys myself in many different ways, I know that it’s just another description of our innate human potential, offering us access to our ancient selves and the ability to perceive and experience many realities simultaneously. A shamanic journey lets us experience ourselves as energy beings, freed of the fears that bind us to this one-sided, flatly defined world that we live in most of our lives, obediently doing the things that are expected of us.
Electing to take a recapitulation journey, a shamanic journey, must become a conscious choice at some point, for if we are to reach our full potential we must keep our awareness about us at all times. If we continue to fight our spirit, if we refuse the journey it prompts us to take, we will be reminded of it throughout our present life. We are supreme students of denial. We learn how to suppress, repress, and push away access to the knowledge of this potential self for decades, but eventually it will get to us in one way or another.
We may fall into illness. We may suffer broken hearts, literally and figuratively. We may never achieve the peace and calm we know is possible. We may live angry, resentful, regretful lives, always certain that someone else is to blame for our misery. We may stubbornly refuse to face our fears and decide that we just don’t want to do the work of fulfillment in this lifetime. And all of that is okay, because even our spirit is part of that decision making.
But, having faced many of the above symptoms and many more besides, I can say that there is nothing like what we experience as we go through the tunnels of our psyches, our conscious and unconscious minds, and our bodies. Having become like the mole, having dug my way into my darkness, having wallowed in the muck inside myself in a transformative recapitulation process, I can finally say that I live a most fulfilling life, no longer burdened, sad, fearful, traumatized, or afraid to love. I have emerged on the other side of the tunnel of recapitulation, victorious and triumphant indeed, in a new land. It is what I wish for all.
I return to work on my book, the first year of The Recapitulation Diaries, soon to be published, hoping that my journey will inspire others to take a shamanic journey into the self, volitionally, with awareness and intent, allowing the spirit self to lead the way. A recapitulation journey is really a lifetime shamanic journey, for we are always offered moments of insight, like trying to figure out why there are so many dead moles on the road. What we encounter as we walk in this world is meaningful.
I’m always wondering what will appear next to guide me.
Until next time,
Jan
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
I woke to the sound of thunder rolling across the hills. Oh, how fitting for Memorial Day, I thought. The sound of cannon fire, guns, and bombs echoing over the landscape reminding us of how we have always resolved conflicts in the past. My intent has been centered on finding a different approach to conflict, hoping that the leaders of the world will implement nonviolent means of resolution. As I turn to channeling, I ask Jeanne: What message of guidance do you have for us today, as our country remembers the war dead?
Jeanne responds:
My Dear Ones, conflict resolution lies buried within. The struggles in the world are mirrored by the struggles within and vice versa. And just a little deeper lies the answers you seek in your personal life and in the greater world.
On any day the challenge is to remain calmly present within the self. When conflicts arise, rather than emote or express outwardly, the solution that will work best for anyone is to take the smoldering coals of anger and discontent inward. Fan the flames and gain clear insight into just why you feel the things you feel. By the light of your anger and your discontent examine your personal demons. Ask them to emerge out of the darkness and show themselves by the light of your fire within and reveal their necessity.
I speak in metaphor to illustrate the darkness within and the unknown self. The challenge to personal resolution is to fearlessly confront the unknown self, the self who may in fact be quite controlling yet totally unknown.
By gaining awareness of the self, the opportunity arises for change to happen. By studying the parts of the self who engage in the outer world and then the parts of the self who engage in the inner world will give you a clear idea of how you operate physically, mentally, emotionally, how you interact with others, and how and why you tend to treat yourself the way you do as well.
Only in studying and understanding the truths of how you really behave in life, innerly and outerly, will you have an opportunity to change the self. Obviously, I speak of this often because it is the greatest challenge for all humans; to face and learn about the self is the most important aspect of being upon that earth.
You, as human beings, though you are one with nature and must learn this fact, are also equipped with a conscious Self who does not really need to live in a human form at all, does not need to suffer through life upon that earth. But until you discover this fact within the confines of your own life set-up, you will continue to be in conflict, both within the self and without.
In order to change you must allow the self to be explored. You must confront your fears and discover that they are but conjured ideas keeping you from your full potential as a consciously aware being.
Do deep inner work, My Dears. Spend your time in the world, but keep focused on your other job: to evolve. You are on a personal journey that each one of you must accept. You must choose it. You must decide that this life is going to be the evolutionary one. If you do not choose to know the self by accepting all your inner demons as parts of you, then know that you are making that choice and that you are creating the world you live in. Unhappy or not, bitter or not, angry or not, sad or not, you create your world.
You see, My Dears, you are the only one responsible for your life. It is set up specifically for you. So, if you choose to study the self, you may discover exactly why you are in the position you are in today. If you choose to go to your flames of conflict and sit around the campfire of your own dilemmas, you may discover the meaning of your life.
One day your fires will die down, your life understood, your calmness well-earned. When you turn away from your campsite you will see the path revealed that you just could not see before, always right there, the only one for you. And then, with awakened consciousness, you will know it is where to go next. Your inner voice will clearly state: That is the way to go.
Today, while conflict is remembered across America, celebrate your true ability to resolve all conflict by studying the self. The true path to resolution and change begins within. Become a better person. Change your life by changing your relationship to the self. Study the self and elect to do life differently. In so doing you will become a good citizen of a new world.
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
There is such energy now, energy of change, disruption, and transformation, asking us all to go to higher levels of conscious awareness, as I interpret it. A lot of people are feeling it in their personal lives as well as in the world outside of them. Nature continues to show us just what it means to really change as well, as she erupts from deep within and creates whirlwinds of destruction from without. Nature is showing us that this is really a time of cataclysmic change, meaning, as I interpret it, that we must all really change now too.
In order to do what we’ve all been talking about, in order to fully embrace a new world order, we must all face our challenges head on, allowing ourselves to break with the old world order, in whatever way it takes, and start anew from totally different precepts, or no precepts at all.
This is my question for Jeanne today: I see so many people fearful, almost paranoid in the face of the truth of how things now stand on earth—with radiation embedding itself into the food chain as only one example. Our health and the world we live in are evermore compromised and what we have always trusted in is no really longer trustworthy or viable. How do we arrive, Jeanne, at a new understanding of ourselves so that we can face a totally new future without fear and paranoia?
This is how Jeanne responds:
My Dear Ones: I ask that you all begin anew from a place of calmness, that you start within your own body by listening more closely to the dire truths that you hear being spoken within the self. In order to do this, you must shut off the outside world in every sense. You must refuse to open the doors to paranoid fear and to the rabble from outside that is not truly in balance.
Take a minute to contemplate who you have been getting your information from. Question the truth behind the news organizations, the pundits, the truthsayers, the naysayers, and the soothsayers. Question, question, question EVERYTHING and then push it all aside. Know what is really being spread around the world as the truth of reality. Accept the bitterness of it, but do not attach to its taste in your mouth.
Accept that, indeed, the world is crumbling on many levels. From the highest peaks to the lowest valleys of the ocean floor you are being shown some rare truths. But do not attach to those truths as the only truths available because there are far greater truths, always accessible, that must be adhered to.
The far greater truths have we spoken of many times. They are the energetic truths of the power of all of mankind to effect change associated with the balance of nature.
Get in balance with Nature.
This means: get in balance with the forces of nature that are both calmly proceeding as normal, as well as the forces of nature that are shaking things up, coming with such powerful energy of change that you cannot help but take note.
This is what it means to get in balance: to accept both the good and the bad, the calm and the storm, the pure and the putrid, the beautiful and the ugly, the angel and the devil inside all of you—in your world, in all of energy, and in all of nature.
Can you accept that all of you are part of the world you live in, right down to the grittiest truth? Why do you turn away when I call you on this? Why do you turn from the hard facts of life that you are both angel and devil, that you are of the highest and the lowest, both enlightened being and ugly beast?
Not one of you will change, nor will your world, until you accept these truths. And you will not access such truths until you take the time to confront yourself with them. Take your lessons from outside, but do not attach to them on the outside before you attach to the same lessons on the inside. In order to get in balance with nature you must understand what nature is, both inside and outside. You must accept the disasters along with the enlightened potential in all of you.
You are all capable of rising up to a new level, but first you must go down into the depths of your soul and confront who you are.
You will not lose your fear of the world until you lose your fear of yourself. And once you sink your hands and teeth into your own fears and taste their bitter bite you will realize their significance in your personal life. Everyone must do this in order to change.
What are you afraid of? What do you run from every day? What do you turn from with such disgust and discomfort? What do you find most disagreeable and disturbing in others and in how the world operates? These are the things to face within. These are the guides to your unconscious self, to your secrets. Your fears, your sicknesses, your most painful thoughts and ideas of the self and others, your frustrations and despairs, are your most precious teachers.
The world is showing you that in order to really go to a new level—as Jan asks about today—in order to change the very foundations of life, you must face your most inner foundations and question what they have been built on. Do they truly hold up, or are you supporting an old world inside you? How can you expect the outer world to change if you do not change yourself?
This is the hard task at hand: Slowly and methodically dismantle the self. Pick through the ruins, take only that which is viable and real, and move on to new life basically foundationless, on the wings of your own cleared energy. You don’t really need more than that. Begin anew by becoming a new you. That is where you need to go…into a new you.
Keep your eyes open, your mind open, your heart open. Be ready at all times to observe and interpret with that openness, no longer attaching to your old rules, ideas, teachings, but fully open to new concepts, ideas, and views.
You never know where you will go as you do this inner-world work, and that is the beauty of it and the true beauty of life…that you just never know anything. That is how you learn to truly flow with the energy of nature, never knowing anything, except the truth of your place in that great unknown.
You do belong exactly where you are now, but everything else is completely untrue, non-existent, a great illusion. All that truly exists is the unknown, and that is what you must prepare yourself for every day: to enter the great unknown.
You know how to get there. It’s what we talk about all the time. Do it! What are you waiting for?
Nothing is as it seems— begin there.
Thanks Jeanne!
Most humbly offered from out of the great unknown where I am nothing.
—Jan
“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?
