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Messages from Jeanne

#674 Three Levels of Detachment Reaction

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today, I ask for guidance for all your readers, those we know and those we don’t know, for those who are near and those who are far, for anyone who might happen to stray upon our work in the course of searching for meaning in life. What message do you offer all of us, as we continue our journeys upon this earth?

My Dearest Ones, do not hesitate to fully embrace who you are, the inner you but also the outer you. The life long process to achieve balance and depth must include both aspects of self. To reject one aspect of self over another is to invite derision and conflict into the journey. The process of inner work involves enough conflict and derision without projecting and rejecting parts of the self. The greater process is one of acceptance, mergence, and wholeness. The ultimate journey upon that earth is one of acquiescence, for you cannot stop life’s unfolding. You cannot call a halt to the facts of your being, of your physical self or your conscious engagement in the world, but you can gain inner peace, balance, and reach a depth of study of self that will lead to detachment, acceptance and acquiescence.

If you consider the facts of your life, you will admit that they happened. Can you deny that you were born and have lived, thus far, all that you have lived? You also cannot deny that you will continue to have the process of life unfolding in your future. In some form or another your life will unfold. You will wake up each day and be presented with who you are, what you have done, and what you will do next. You will either find your process acceptable or you will fight it. Those are the two basic choices you are presented with as each day unfolds.

Your decision to fight your life process will present you with certain challenges, and your decision to accept it will present you with another set of challenges, even though the circumstances of your life will be the same. You see what I am getting at? Your life will unfold as it will. It will be the same whether you fight it or accept it, but you are fully in charge of how you decide to meet it. Do you choose to meet your next day with anger, regret, hostility, or sadness, or other such debilitating energy drains? Or do you elect to accept, learn, and move on with a new attitude about the self, firmly accepting of your inner process to lead you beyond the immediate reactions you have to your self and the events in your life?

Wow, I guess I find that statement somewhat judgmental on your part, as well as challenging, Jeanne. We have to experience all those debilitating energy drains too, don’t we?

Yes, my Dear One. As you know I have said many times that one must be where one must be, but today, I am asking you to challenge the self to try something different in order to push the limits of your abilities, to go beyond the normal process that may have become stagnant. So bear with me as we proceed on this unfolding process. Okay?

Yes, I acquiesce to this unfolding process. Keep going with your message.

You see, what I challenge you with today is to go beyond your immediate reactions to the self and others, to your circumstances and your current position in life and to accept that this is life unfolding, to accept that you cannot stop what has happened, but you can change how you react. And this is an evolutionary growth step.

To take a step forward it is often quite reasonable to first take a step back from the self, to step aside and view the self as an unfamiliar object. If you can allow the self to do this, I ask that you stand aside and look over at that self you are at this moment and note your immediate reactions. What do you feel, see, interpret, as you honestly look at the self? What are your first impressions? Write them down in one column labeled: First Level Reactions.

Next, I request that you calm your self with some heart-centered breathing. Take a few minutes to do some calming breaths and then look at the self standing over there from this softer heart-centered place. In a column titled Second Level Reactions jot down what you notice about that self now, allowing your detached heart-centered self to truthfully note feelings, reactions and truths.

Now, I ask you to go another level into the self and into detachment for self at the same time. Going deeper into calm heart-centered breathing ask the self what is needed to move beyond this moment. Ask the inner self to ask that self standing over there to tell you what you truly need in order to become acceptable so that you may choose to react to life differently. Write down what you hear being spoken in a third column called: Deeper Level Reactions.

These three columns of words are your truths of this moment, of this day, of this time in your life. They may be different tomorrow or in the future, but for this moment they are the truths of the self. Now comes the challenging part. As you look at the truths of self that you have written down, I ask that you do not attach to them as either good or bad, but simply accept them. These are things that are true, and truths are just that: the truth.

To process these truths, to accept them without judgment and without attachment, one must now decide what comes next. What must you do to change something that is keeping you from enjoying your life? What must you do to accept that truth that bothers you so much? What must you do so that your reactions to the truths of the self may be no reaction at all, except: Yes, it is so. This is my truth. I accept these facts of self without attachment to emotional reactions such as anger, sadness, regret, self-pity or horror. I accept these aspects of self.

The next step is to send out a request, an intent for help and guidance in one form or another, perhaps in this prayer: And now I desire change. I ask: Please allow me to take my journey each day, allowing me to accept who I am, and help me to challenge myself to change. Help me to detach from the old, having fully accepted the old me, knowing that in order to grow I must change. This I desire.

By setting the self on a daily path of change, with acceptance and acquiescence as part of the plan of attack, you will, undoubtedly My Dears, discover that you are fully equipped, within the self, to learn self-detachment, self-acceptance, and to teach the self how to move beyond the old self who holds you from your promise. And what is your promise? It is fully acquiescing to the fact that you are a being comprised of energy. You are deeper and more daring than you know. Until you detach from the old ideas of self, and dare to interact with the inevitable truths of the self, you will only brush up against the true promise you hold within.

Today, I dare you all, My Dear Readers, to stand apart from who you think you are. Gain a little perspective, then gain a little detachment, then gain a little insight to take you on the next step with a different attitude about the self, remaining fully aware of all that you are. You are you, and that is the truth. But now, what are you going to do with your self? You can’t stay there, can you?

Is there something still missing? That is what you seek. What is missing from your process that has not allowed you to fully embrace your wholeness, your compassionate, true self? What is keeping you from moving, every day, toward discovering your true promise?

NOTE: At three in the morning I heard two owls calling to each other. The call of the barred owl is quite distinct, eerily haunting and magical at the same time, visceral and grittily predatory while at the same time stirringly beautiful. Whenever I hear the owl calling I always feel the presence of the dark side and the light side at the same time. The call of the owl always makes me wonder: What is to come? From Animal Speak Ted Andrews writes that the owl presents us with the mystery of magic, omens, silent wisdom and vision at night. Owl symbolizes the feminine, the moon, the night. It is associated with healing, fertility, seduction. It is the bird of magic and darkness, prophecy and wisdom. Owl is able to extract secrets. With its acute vision and hearing it is related to seeing the truth. Owls have secret knowledge to share: they get to the truth. As I read through the interpretations of Owl in Animal Speak I saw the synchronicity of my nighttime visitor and Jeanne’s message today. She is asking us to be our own Owl, to use owl medicine, so to speak, to reach into our deeper darker selves and, using our clairvoyance and truth-seeking detached selves, reveal our truths and work with them. Look into our souls and face our truths. This is our challenge this week and we have the energy of Owl accompanying us. -Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Being-in-Dreaming

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Back in October and November 2009 I began re-reading the works of Florinda Donner Grau and Taisha Abelar, two of the women sorcerers who learned from the same line of shamans as Carlos Castaneda. The women were taught primarily by the women shamans or sorceresses of don Juan’s lineage, while Carlos was taught primarily by the male shamans, though not exclusively. I have wanted to go back to my experiences of last fall because I had some very interesting dream channelings while in the midst of reading about these women. Today, I begin passing along some of those experiences. As I re-read my dreaming experiences I found them fascinating all over again and I hope you too will find something of significance. I also think that some of these experiences tie in with Chuck’s blog regarding becoming a warrior.

On October 14, 2009 I wrote the following in my journal: Yesterday, while reading Being-in-Dreaming by Florinda Donner Grau, I came upon a passage where her dream teacher tells her that all women must turn back into the cage that is inside them to fully discover who they are. I was struck by this mention of the inner cage because Jeanne used it as a metaphor for doing inner work in her message on Monday October 12, 2009: Why Must You Return to Your Cage. As I read this book I am also struck by how familiar what I am reading is and how much sense it makes to me at this time in my life. I have been a dreamer all my life and, as Jeanne always says and did in that Monday message, the challenge is to be a dreamer with awareness. Last night I dreamed of hiking along a crowded path and it seems related to this reading I have been doing, that I am coming out of the crowd now and going in a new direction, on my own. I am fascinated by this process. (End of journal entry.)

Later that day, in the same book, I read about don Juan telling Florinda (though she is not aware of who he is) that the crows flying overhead were a good omen, and to see them as a promise that they would meet again. He described the crows flying as like a painting in the sky (p. 65). The very next day a blue jay appears to me. At first, I assume he is admiring his own reflection in the glass sliding door, but then, as he flies up to the window a second and then a third time, as if to be sure I notice, and as he spreads his wings before me and hovers there for what seems like a long time, I am reminded of what I had recently read. I take it as an omen. In Ted Andrews book Animal Speak I read that the blue jay represents the choice of being a dabbler in the world of spirit and magic or of fully going for it and embracing it and becoming it. I am often afraid of what I will encounter when I channel, fearing that I will fail or that nothing will come, though in the end I do plunge boldly ahead, even though I may be uncertain. Fully becoming and embracing this new me has been a struggle. As I leave behind the old me I must encounter my fears. At the same time, I do not want to be a dabbler. I understood that the blue jay was challenging me to be bold and to love my spiritually evolving self.

At this point, I knew that I had to find a way into the shaman’s world. Instinctively, I knew that I had been in it for a very long time, but that it was time to be in it with greater awareness. A couple of days later I finished reading Being-in-Dreaming and decided to experiment with dreaming. That night, as I lay down to sleep, I took a small round flat dreaming bag, a heavy bean bag type leather pillow about three inches in diameter that Jeanne had gotten at a Tensegrity workshop, and placed it on my lower abdomen, over my uterus. The female shamans say that a woman’s energy is in her womb and that this is dreaming energy. The pillow/bag is an anchor and may also stimulate dreaming, as I see it. My intent was to call the women shamans to me, to have an experience of them, to learn something from them. I had a few dreams right away. I was aware that I was quickly in and out of dreams and that they were different somehow from other dreams.

The next night, I went to sleep with the same intent, to learn something from the women sorceresses and I had this dream: I am at a spa, a place of healing. Part of the healing treatment is sitting in huge hot tubs, old-fashioned concrete slab tubs. I take off my clothes to get into the tub that has been prepared for me when I look around and recognize other people, including a big heavy-set man, a very enthusiastic, good natured, happy man with a lot of energy who I do not know personally but I have seen him around. When this man comes into the room I pull a towel over me because I am naked. My dreaming self does not give a hoot, but my awake dreaming self cares very much. My daughter is also there. She is talking with this man and then I see her going off with him. In the dream I make no judgments about this, but my awake self in the dream wonders what he wants with her, a young girl. When he leaves with my daughter I get into the hot tub to soak. There are other women in the room also soaking in their own individual tubs. It is very calming. My dreaming self makes note of my daughter walking off with the large man towering over her. There is no fear on her part and my dreaming self does not attach, but my awake dreaming self conjures up scenarios and suspicions. I am of two minds. My dreaming detached self has absolutely no attachment to it, not even that it is okay; it just takes note, without opinion. My awake dreaming self immediately gets suspicious and fearful that the guy is up to no good.

When I woke up I was immediately struck by the fact that I had both aspects of mind in the same dream: the conjuring mind and the totally detached mind. They were present in my two selves: my dreaming nonjudgmental detached self and my judgmental attached fearful self. I realized that I was being given a lesson in learning the distinct difference between the knowing mind, the inner knowing self, and the rational, conjuring mind, the ego self. In the dream my inner knowing mind was utterly calm, flowing, accepting and fully acquiescing to everything that unfolded, without attachment or judgment. The conjuring mind, on the other hand, was totally attached, assessing, creating scenarios, busy, preoccupied with imagining all sorts of things. The inner knowing had absolutely no attachment; it was simply present, observant yet knowing that what is simply is.

Upon awakening, I realized that fully experiencing the difference between these two minds was the first lesson in understanding the shaman’s world. In the late afternoon that same day a swarm of wasps hung over the front yard, dancing, twirling, tiny buzzing ballerinas, their legs dangling as they calmly swirled in the sunlight beneath the pine trees. I was struck by their beauty and mass of calm energy, lightly present, barely making a stir. The next morning a flock of large blackbirds flitted about in the same place, holding together in a wave of busy movement, noisy, pecking in the leaves on the ground, chirping loudly, clumsy compared to the wasps, and as they took flight with a sharp loud motion they became a dark angle, a shadow painting whirring in one sweep across the sky, perhaps a sign of more to come as don Juan had suggested to Florinda. At the same time I wondered if perhaps those two sights represented the two minds: the calm and quietly flowing wasps as the detached knowing mind, and the loud blackbirds as the attached conjuring mind. As I write this today, I am also struck by the distinct energy of each of these, the feminine energy of the wasps and the masculine energy of the blackbirds, two energies that we each have inside us. We are encouraged to access and utilize these energies, both by the shamans and by doing deep inner work in Jungian psychotherapy.

As the blackbirds flew off, I sat and ate my breakfast feeling happy and contented, knowing that I was ready to more fully enter the shaman’s world. I had set my intent to take up the challenge of the blue jay and now I knew that, in my dreams, I would be shown what that meant. As I proceeded with this process of dreaming intent in the weeks to follow I received some interesting guidance from the women sorceresses, which I will write more about next time. In the meantime, enjoy the spring, look for signs, ask for help and do the inner work. Oh, and of course: DREAM!
Love,
Jan

Note: The books mentioned in this blog are available through our STORE.

Messages from Jeanne

#672 The Ultimate Goal

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Here we are, it’s Monday again, and a new work week begins. As I sit and feel the energy of today I find that I don’t have any specific questions for you, but I wonder: Do you care to offer us a spring message of guidance?

My Dear One, and All My Readers, do not forget, as you feel and test the energy outside of you, to also feel the unique inner energy that describes who you are, your constant hum of self, which nestles deep inside awaiting visitation. I suggest that this week ahead of you is ideal for gaining inner clarity, inner resolution, and inner calm, and it is ideal energy for taking action based on this inner connection. Inner self must now be acknowledged more fully. Inner self must be given the respect deserved, so hard earned and eagerly awaiting recognition. Inner self speaks words of wisdom. And that is what you must now connect to.

In quiet reserve will your inner hearing and speaking become more pronounced, but it is your outer self who must make the decisions to act, to listen, and to decide that, yes, inner self, you are absolutely right! I am in alignment with you. I dare to act on what you say, for I know, wholeheartedly, that you speak words of truth.

So, set an intent this week, My Dear Ones, to meet in a quiet spot; your inner self and your outer self sitting together in order to make a decision that will propel you both forward. For you know, deep inside, that this is what you need right now. You are at a point of great decision regarding something in your life, something that you both fear and desire, and that something is CHANGE.

Change arrives in many forms. It may be large and looming or small and subtle. It may frighten you because you see it so clearly or it may not even affect you consciously because you have no inkling of it. Yet in both instances you feel restless, uncertain, and obviously desirable of SOMETHING. What is the SOMETHING that has arisen in your life, My Dear Ones? What looms or approaches? What seeks your attention? What comes quietly to ask you to help it emerge from out of you, the same way the flowers and greenery in nature burst forth from the spring ground? What inside you is asking for release? For that is the energy you are now confronted with: the energy of release.

How do you choose to walk upon that earth knowing that SOMETHING desires release? I suggest that some deep inner quiet is going to be most necessary as you move forward in your lives. I suggest that only in finding the inner voice, the deeper self, will you find the answers you seek. You may look outside of you for signs that you are making the right choices, but allow those outer signs to truly reflect your inner self and not the desires of the outer self.

And how will you know what is right? The desires of the inner self will challenge you. They will ask you to break out of your shells, away from your old habits and expectations, to truly embrace a new you. This new you will ask you to stand in solitary repose upon your quiet spot and to feel your independence, your free spirit self, your inner self yearning for freedom. This inner self will ask you to be daring, to be brave, to push aside your fears and to know that whatever decisions and choices for change that you make in your life will be right for you to make, because the inner spirit knows that you will only make the choices that you need to make. But it will leave it up to you to figure out why you are making the choices you are deciding are most right for you to make now, at this current time.

Be advised that no decision is permanent, for if you are looking for permanence then you are not ready for true change. For true change means that everything is in constant flux and evolution, even you, My Dears. Can you accept that your decisions will open new doors in the weeks ahead? Can you enter a world of change and be accepting of what is to come? Can you allow your self to be open and daring, aligned with inner spirit, even though you are afraid?

In conclusion, I suggest that you take in the energy of change in heart-centered breathing, in quiet self-reverie. And, in inner calmness, give the two selves —the inner self and the ego self— some time together so that a consensus may be achieved, so that energies may align for the ultimate goal: CHANGE.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Mind Body Release

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Last week I was unable to find a theme to write on. I kept looking for something that would be pertinent or significant, both as I worked on my book and as I pondered Jeanne’s answers to the questions I had asked her in Message #668, but alas nothing stuck out. This week, however, several themes have come up.

Today is quiet and the ending of some rainy and very windy weather is in sight. The other night, however, the wind blew harshly all night long. Sudden gusts knocked things over on the deck and rattled the house. It was a difficult night to sleep and I was constantly startled awake. As I lay there listening to the wind, the phrase, the winds of change are upon us, kept running through my head. Today, I present you with the following, beginning with a dream I had during that noisy and windy night:

In this brief dream, I pull open the double doors to our linen closet and stand there looking in at everything neatly folded, everything in its place, neatly compartmentalized on the shelves and I immediately think: “Oh, my mind did this. I don’t want to dream about this! I want to fly!” And with that thought I woke up.

Waking up out of that dream, I realized that what Jeanne had been reviewing over the past few weeks is that change is indeed inevitable, that tomorrow will always arrive, that we cannot stop time from marching on, just as we cannot stop the wind from blowing. The wind will always blow. It is what it does. The challenge we face, each day, is: do we allow ourselves to do the same, to constantly change? Or do we elect to sit tightly in our complacent lives, rearranging our linen closets and pretending that change is not happening? As soon as I called that dream for what it was, a mind conjuring call to stay complacent and caught in old fears, I allowed myself to let go a little more, to acknowledge that I do indeed want to be open, to dare myself to fly, as Jeanne called it the other day.

Do I dare to fly with the winds of change, to flow and become like a leaf on the breeze and truly let go of all the foreign installations, as Chuck calls them, all the neatly compartmentalized linen closets in my life? Where can I let go today? I must constantly ask myself this question rather than huddle in fear at the sounds in the night, of the wind doing what the wind does best. And how do I let go? How do I learn to fly?

As I ask myself these questions I immediately go to my body. Where am I tense, I ask, and where am I holding? Where can I soften? The body is the place that I personally find I must return to, over and over again, in order to truly let go. Releasing physical holdings is a big part of the letting go process. How many yoga classes have I walked out of feeling like I am in a new body, a softer, looser and more flowing body? Thousands of yoga classes that I have attended over the past thirty-five years have continually proven the simple fact that physical release is a vital aspect of allowing for change. Every week I experience this softening, this letting go of the physical, and the result is always startlingly amazing, because even after I have left the yoga class I notice that the softening automatically carries over into the rest of my day. Daily shavasana (relaxation) and daily meditation also suffice when I cannot get to a class or don’t have time for my own practice.

Finding that my physical body held most of my issues was a big discovery for me during my recapitulation process. When I first heard someone suggest, many years ago, that the physical body stores memory I found it hard to believe, but the longer I worked on myself the more true that idea became. Even though I had recapitulated my memories in my conscious mind, I found that my body still held so much more. The body, in its silent way, with its sturdy structure, seemingly so present in the moment, does indeed hold much more than we can see. Once I was ready to go to it and to allow myself to actually feel, asking it to show me what it needed me to learn, I began a more thorough recapitulation. Once I was able to leave the conjuring mind that told me I was done with my recapitulation and enter my body, I learned what it really means to fly, in the sense that Jeanne speaks of.

During one Embodyment Therapy session, which helped in the process of physical release, Jeanne came to me and said the following: “Let the bad out, keep only the good, only the essentials.” In a subsequent session she came again and guided me through the removal process of old memories, old ghosts as I saw them during the session, which I documented afterwards in my journal:

Jeanne is with me, pulling old ghosts out of me like tissues out of a box, all strung together. My body responds to the expulsion of them, reacting to the tearing sound each one makes as it leaves, the sound of a tissue being pulled from its slot in the box. Jeanne reminds me: “Remember, I told you it’s all about change, getting rid of the old that you have no use for, making room for the new.” I experience the physical ripping out, as if actual body tissue is being pulled out of me. It is quite painful, not easy to handle. I call to Jeanne to help me get through it. “Take my hand,” she says. “I will take you where you need to go. You aren’t dying, it’s just a removal of all the old dead stuff that you don’t need, dead issues, bad stuff, all the leftover memories and feelings that will bother you if left behind.” It is like having radical surgery. I am not sure that the pulling out of the old ghosts, the old demons, feels good. It feels like being disemboweled, that something is being yanked out of me, but I can’t stop it and I don’t want to either, because I know it is the right thing to do. I see the horrors of my life with my own eyes. I see every horrible aspect of the past as it gets pulled out and dragged away. In a quick blink of an eye everything that has ever happened to me gets pulled out and leaves my body. The process is fast, wrenchingly painful, but I go with it. I let go. I let it happen. I try to follow, to see where the ghosts go, but I am not allowed to follow. I am forced to stay in my body and experience the removal. (From a session in 2004)

This experience came to mind again during the night as the wind blew and the old demons fear and worry crept into bed with me, attempting a takeover. My dream, having jolted me away from them, prepared me for the winds of change that were blowing outside, reminding me to let go again of the old, to flow with the inevitable. I dozed and startled awake throughout the night, as the winds howled, never quite able to rest deeply, but at each awakening I would remind myself to physically relax, to physically let go. I repeated Jeanne’s recent words of guidance, to let go to the inevitable, finding that my intent to change had to be focused, as usual, on releasing physical holdings.

Self-hypnosis, repeating mantras, doing full body relaxation, quiet moments of breathing and calming meditation, as well as taking yoga classes, (and many other modalities of healing and relaxation) all offer release and bring attention to the physical body. If none of these processes are accessible or appealing, then simply notice the body and ask: Where am I holding? And then let it go and see what happens. And, as Jeanne has suggested, go deeper each time you ask the question, allowing for release and change to not only become a mind process, but a physical one as well.

Until next week,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#670 Choose Your Attitudes & Embody Your Wishes

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Currently, I am only channeling you for our readers once a week so that I can devote more time and energy to my own work, which is going well. I have certainly been feeling the energy of change and have been attempting to put it to good use. While it feels like a very creative and promising period in human history it also feels precipitously precarious. I feel that if we are not careful we could miss a very big opportunity. Can you discuss this today? Is there something that we, as human beings, are supposed to be grasping now that remains just out of reach? Because that is what it feels like. How do we, on an individual level, take advantage of this time for our personal evolutions and that of our divided world as well?

My Dear, you ask quite a question, but I get your gist and feel your frustration also, for that is what lies at the core of mankind at this brief moment in time. Frustration may be utilized for good, for the spark that is needed in order to jumpstart a stagnant situation. I suggest looking at the self, the personal situation, and using the energy of now to precipitate change. Precipitous, as you use the word, implies standing on the verge, and this is where you do indeed find yourself today, both individually and universally.

I would suggest that it would not be a bad idea to do a full evaluation of the self as an independent being who is also a member of a collective. No matter what your personal domestic situation is, My Dear Readers, you all belong to a larger group of family and community. The collective energy of the world around you impacts you no matter how busy, how contented, how isolated, how detached or how connected you may feel. And you impact it in return, of course.

A personal assessment of how you are using your time, your energy, your free time, and your daily activities in the world is the opportunity to channel your energy, so that you may take full advantage of this time of change. Perhaps you might question the self as follows:

What is truly important to me?
What do I truly want?
Who do I want in my life, and who do I need to remove myself from?
What energy resonates with mine and where is my own energy being drained?
How do I see myself in the near future?
Am I ready for big changes, or small changes?
Do I act as I speak?
Do I really care about my world and my impact on it?
Have I taken time for myself lately, for my inner self, myself as one part of the whole, of nature and the universe?
Have I found my spiritual connection yet?
Am I happy?
Am I truly alive in the way I most desire?
Am I daring myself, every day, to go beyond my limitations?
Am I facing my fears and allowing my inner spirit self to walk in my shoes and show me what I have been missing?

I could go on for quite some time posing questions, but I realize that I might make you more frustrated than you now are. You must learn that your emotions are your signs of discontent, of issues with the old self who continues to be in the forefront of your life, though your efforts have been to disengage this well-worn self and allow a new self to come forth and speak out for a change. When frustrations, moods, and discomforts arrive it is time to take advantage of such catalysts of change.

The energy of now is quite available for change, but it can go either way. Change will always happen, but by your intent, by your personal energy, you can make that inevitable change be for good, be advantageous, heart-felt and heart-directed. You have the power to affect the right kind of change. Every one of you upon that earth has the ability, simply by your conscious thoughts, to change the self and the world, for good. Positive intent and thinking as catalysts for change are not hocus-pocus, but real-time interventions that, if enacted, will have impact.

As I spoke of last week, you are each personally responsible for taking on the challenges of the self. In order to shift the self, one must dare the self to step out of complacency and the old ways of doing things and force new means of action upon the self by asking the self to breathe more deeply, to sit more calmly, to take in the earth energy beneath your feet. These are all actions of significance. To notice nature and to truly evolve with it, you begin to recognize that you truly belong there. But you are also responsible for everything that happens there upon that earth, and by your thoughts, your intents, your desires, your truths made known, you may afford the self new life.

Seek new life at all times. Think differently. Act differently. Accept the self and others with a new attitude. Be different, and you will notice that the world outside of you will respond differently as well.

Hatred cannot survive in a desert, for it will die without new hatred to fuel it. Without new despair, despair will dissipate. Without new love, love will also die. Choose your attitudes. Embody your wishes. Be what you most desire. Become the person you dream of becoming, and you will become that person.

It is not so hard to change the way you act, think, perceive, believe, or intend, but it takes a personal decision to be different, and that is what you must each seek now in order for the precipice you now each stand upon to impact you in a positive way. You can choose to fall, or you can choose to fly. It’s up to you.