Tag Archives: inner work

Messages from Jeanne

#765 Set Your Intent

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Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Today, I asked Jeanne for a message of guidance as we begin a new week. Here is what she offers us all:

My Dear Ones:

Do not be thwarted by the interferences that may appear as blockages in your paths—they are mere hurtles to be leapt over, mere lessons to quickly assess and move on from. If you find yourself stumbling along, unable to gain clarity, I ask that you point your radar innerly and question the self most directly, asking why. For it is only in asking the self to take full responsibility for all actions and decisions in life that you will evolve into an emerging being of light and energy, ready for the next journey. In finding the self open to life and its vicissitudes as a path of learning and higher evolutionary potential, you offer yourself the way to truth.

Do not shirk your responsibilities in life. Take care of those who need you and depend on you. Guide them, protect them, educate and teach them when necessary and appropriate, but do not force an agenda nor do their lessons for them. All must learn even as you have had to learn.

Some students of life are reluctant, refusing the greater calling, but that is not your problem. You can only be an appropriate teacher to such recalcitrant ones by your own example of living harmoniously, flowing with what comes to greet you each day, accepting your direction, taking responsibility and keeping yourself always in tiptop inner shape. By that I mean: keep your own inner process alight. Fan the flames of your inner work so that they never die, no matter what comes from outside to thwart you from your intentions.

On this day, I suggest that you set your intent for yourself and that you abide by the terms of your spiritual and life path as you desire, but also working with what comes to you each moment of the day. All may not go as you wish, but wait and see, for in the end your intent will rule. How that happens is the mystery and beauty of life. Learn from this day and walk on into your week stronger, both innerly and in the world you live in.

You are all on a journey of enlightenment. You are all prepared well. Everything you need is with you already. You are not alone and you will not fail.

Accept yourself as your own guide and life as your teacher. Pupil and master together, walk now onward into a new day. Every minute of your life is open and waiting for you to greet it.

Take this with you as you go into your day:

You are expected. The world awaits you. Greet it with openness as it also greets you. You are exactly where you should be. Happiness is in your heart and in your hands. Open both and you will discover that they work quite well together if you allow them to be your guides. Look at your hands now and ask them to hold your heart gently and kindly today as you venture on your day’s journey.

Here is a prayer to the Self:

Take me on my journey with gentleness and humility.
Carry me where I need to go.
I take full responsibility for myself.
My life awaits me.
I am open and awaiting it as well.
I go now into my life with openness and joy.

I am alive.
I am grateful.
I am faithful to my self and my journey.
I love myself for the lessons in my life,
as they lead to my own higher Self.
This I accept.

I am one.
I am whole.
I am all that.
Today my life begins anew.

Most humbly offered and with thanks to Jeanne.

Messages from Jeanne

#764 Flowing

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Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Today is the eve of the summer solstice and of Jeanne’s birthday, entry into the astrological sign of Cancer under which I was also born. I believe that a water sign challenges us to flow with life, to accept what comes our way and yet to not attach, but to constantly learn how to let go and keep moving on. This has been my personal process and now, as we enter the water sign of Cancer, perhaps it’s everyone’s present challenge: to learn how to flow with life.

As Riverwalkers, the name Jeanne gave us years ago when we set up this website, she urged us to learn from the river, to walk beside it rather than jump into it unaware. But, obviously, sometimes we find ourselves in the water, in constant motion, churning along seemingly out of control, dragged along by the current. Today, I ask her for guidance as we enter a new time of energetic alignment and consequence. What message do you offer us today, Jeanne?

Here is her response:

To flow with what life presents also means getting the self into a good state of inner balance and calm, for it is only in being innerly set that one will truly be able to flow through life.

What do you mean by innerly “set”?

I use the word “set” to mean grounded, anchored by inner knowing that the journey you are each on is prefect, that you are exactly living the life you should be living, dealing with what you should be dealing with at this particular time in your life.

Being set implies acceptance, but it does not mean that you sit back and let the river of life drown you in its turbulence or even its quiet boredom, but that you truly engage it, knowing full well that you are set on your journey. All you have to do is flow with it, as Jan suggests. This idea of flowing with life allows one to constantly confront what is presented while simultaneously investigating it for the potential it holds.

I suggest that deep questioning and processing of life’s issues, challenges, turmoils, emotions, and joys be fully explored so that all aspects of possibility in life are investigated and nothing is left behind unexplored.

One never does know where one will be led by the vicissitudes in life and that is the beauty of it. Do you choose though to be sad and depressed at your lot, tossed about by the waves and swells of the river of life, or do you choose to swim out of it to new ground? Do you choose to struggle against the current when there is another option? Are there boats in sight, islands to stand upon and gain new insights and perspectives from? Are there places of rest, both within and without, that you have failed to anchor in?

Get set inside the self as to how you desire your life to go from this day forth. Turn inward and confront the fears that keep you floating along but not necessarily flowing. There is a difference; floating implies no action, while flowing implies action and decisiveness.

Do you float through life without firmly being present and self-accepting, or do you flow through life accepting your own powerful abilities to direct, by choice, your direction?

Life is full of possibility. It offers, each day, a new choice, a new direction option. Even in the mundanity of life is there great opportunity to shift the self, even incrementally, if one chooses to be optimistic.

Seek the light upon the water, but be fully aware of the dark depths as well. Have respect for the power and the softness of this metaphor for life, for water cleanses, bathes, and gently touches the skin of babes, yet does it also destroy, cut down and through the strongest of mountains of stone. An essential ingredient to life, it must be protected, guarded, admired, and properly used for life to indeed survive.

Think of your own lives now, My Dears. Do you merely survive, or do you engage in life to the fullest? There are many things to learn from water, the flowing life energy not the least of them. How do you intend to flow with your life this week? What decisions will you make that are energetically in alignment with a new time upon that earth?

Set yourself firmly in your calmly centered self, anchored in your inner knowing, before you set off on your adventures into life—only then will you indeed be able to flow. Know the self well and then will you be set to know what else comes your way. You will know what to do because your alignment will be immediately apparent, your energy linking properly to its only possibility at that moment. That is what you will find if you can indeed flow with your life!

Good luck as the sun enters the picture, rising and setting over the picture of your life. Watch the moonlight as well, for all life is lit from above. Use both sun and moon, light and dark, day and night, inner and outer life aspects to guide you as you seek right alignment.

Most humbly offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: A Very Magical Time

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It’s been a little challenging lately to detach from all the political hoopla and hype, all the name-calling, finger pointing, joking, judging, and ugliness going on. In an effort to go into deeper solitude I’ve decided not to post what I consider apropos articles and blogs, even though they may certainly contain messages in alignment with what Chuck, Jeanne, and I regularly write about, because I find that my energy tends to stay stuck on them. Instead, I’m weaning myself off my usual checking-of-what’s-happening-in-the-media morning routine. Often just a quick fix—”Just to see what’s happening!”—I’ve decided to remove all the links from my bookmarks bar and stay away. Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! There they go! I just removed myself from the Internet. It’s so easy and really so freeing! From this day forward I am not doing, as the shamans say.

Not Doing what I normally do allows for experiencing everything differently, even if ever so slightly. My intent now can focus on what’s most important to me personally rather than on what is being thrown in my face according to someone else’s intent, greed, passion, fixation, penchant or desire. No longer bombarded by ads, pop-up windows, moving icons, and numerous other distractions, I can stay focused on nature—the magic of real nature—inside myself and right outside my window.

As I experience the early morning hours, before most people are out of bed, I offer myself the opportunity to connect directly with nature’s process. I stir when the birds stir. I listen to their morning chatter, the darkness of the night gently moving aside as the sky begins to lighten in the East and I’m happy to be alive, right then, at that moment. It’s a special time. Just waking from dreams, I’m often still connected to other possibilities. Still softened by the night, I don’t immediately jump to thoughts, but let my senses, my intuition, my spirit speak to me. It’s a magical time.

The opportunities to do something personally desirable and fitting are fully available at 4:30 a.m. I can meditate, channel, pray, write in my journal, jot down my dreams, or simply stand on the deck and watch the birds, the deer, smell the dew, catch glimpses of the last stars and breathe in the cool morning air. It’s a magical time.

As I continue working on the final draft of my book, The Recapitulation Diaries: The Man in the Woods—the first of three volumes—I’m struck by how intensely healing it is to be able to squarely face our traumas, to relive them, and excise them from our bodies, minds, psyches and spirits. In so doing, we offer ourselves the opportunity to return to a natural state of being, or perhaps even for the first time to experience what it means to be calm and contented enough to feel present in this world. It was all I ever yearned for, to feel like I really belonged here and to find out why I existed. I could not have achieved the place of calmness I now inhabit had I not challenged myself to go on a journey of a lifetime: into myself. In fact, I am certain I would be dead, eaten away by the stuff that festered inside me.

Electing to take a recapitulation journey was perhaps the greatest conscious challenge of my lifetime, which led to my discovering that I was indeed opening up to a journey of magical proportions. My experiences, as I took that journey, unfolded most naturally, as I relinquished my hold on the things that I had always counted on, much as I did today in excising the media links from my web browser. As I took that recapitulation journey I had to turn my back on a lot of crutches, habits, behaviors, safety measures, and even relationships, that I thought I could not live without and throw myself out into the unknown. I had to dare myself again and again to face life and my recapitulating process with nothing familiar in hand. I had to continually challenge myself to break through the barriers that kept me from fully experiencing myself in the world. And truthfully, just as I experience early morning as a magical time, my recapitulation process was also a magical time.

Deciding to take a recapitulation journey is deciding to truly live—on personal terms—unfettered by opinions, judgments, rules, pacts, secrets and lies. It is choosing to deconstruct, sort through the mess, and reconstruct the self with only that which is personally relevant. At first it may indeed feel like a death, because it is a dying process as the old self dies and a new self, mostly unknown, dares to push into life. The process is natural. Like nature we too have the capability of dying to old ideas and old selves and allowing for new life.

Now, during this growing season, I watch the seeds I’ve planted bursting forth from the earth, thrilled at the speed and energy of this new life. As I listen to the birds and taste the wild strawberries, I am reminded that recapitulation, that death to new life, is the most natural of processes. As I walk, I find the road littered with the critters hit by cars, yet I know that the crows will soon swoop down and feed off the carcasses, death leading always to life giving energy. If we choose to view it as such, we clearly see that this is a most magical time.

In choosing not doing, I choose to live on my own terms. I choose to continue recapitulating, going even more deeply into myself, questioning my actions, my thought processes, my habits, challenging myself to keep changing, to keep doing things differently, to face life and to face death, knowing that both of them are part of the cycle of nature. I find that in studying nature and the ancients—the Shamans, the Buddhists, the Hindus, etc.; teachings connected with nature, spirit, energy, and the experiences of being in all worlds simultaneously—I am not so fraught with concern about the changes taking place on the world stage. I am not so caught up in the frenzy or worry, but taking it all very seriously nonetheless.

I know that I must do my part to energetically stay in alignment with nature, to trust that Mother Nature (Pachamama, Gaia) is doing what is appropriate—perhaps she too is recapitulating because she knows it is time to do so. The Earth, as a living being, is most powerful and decisive and I must trust that her own process must be as destructive as my own recapitulation process was when I began it ten years ago. I must continue to accept that destruction is necessary for new growth and that the things happening in the world are all in alignment with a far greater process that none of us can fully comprehend. It’s a magical time.

I look forward to not doing today and every day, to seeing what else comes to greet me, what naturally unfolds as I set about my workday. It’s exciting to be alive during this magical time. The energy of change is powerful. I choose to ride it. I hope you do too!

Meet you out there,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#763 Time for Solitude

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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

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Moles of Recapitulation

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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