Hello all!
I am putting today’s channeled message out early as the winds are gusting quite fiercely today and when it’s like this we can often lose our internet. So here it is, just in case!
Today’s Soulbyte, a channeled message, poses a most common dilemma. “Interferences happen,” it says. “Even the best laid plans may have to be canned as life, nature, and even death may interfere. Learn to flow with life, with what comes.” How do we learn to let go of control so that we will flow with the inevitable, yet still remain open to the joys of the improbable? That is the dilemma.
Chuck and I decided, quite a while ago, to let the energy of life, the universe, our higher selves, etc., not only guide us but connect us to our higher potential as energetic beings in human form. Acquiescing to this idea has often been a challenge, as we do often want to make something happen, or make plans that we think are best, either for ourselves or others. In acquiescing to the energy of the greater cosmos, however, we have learned to let go of control, to not focus on outcome but to live each day in the moment, allowing unfolding life to guide us.
We practice this in many ways. We don’t rely on anyone else. We do no advertising, no promotions, no soliciting. Our lives, work, and interests are fully funded by our intent alone. Things happen. Things arrive. Things come to us. We find or discover something in perfect alignment with where we are in our lives, as we continually seek out new and deeper experiences and knowledge.
We have discovered that the key to living an energetic life is, yes, to “learn to flow with life, with what comes,” but also in the choices we make. It has not been easy to always flow with life, but it has certainly been rewarding. Even in times of difficulty we have learned to find the jewel. We have no set practice to achieve this other than our attention to the details of our life, and a certainty that everything is meaningful. We have elected to live consciously, making decisions that are proactive and in alignment with spirit, with the awareness that we are here to learn something important about ourselves.
There are many practices that can aid us in experiencing life on an energetic level, the most common one these days appears to be meditation. Any number of practices exist to choose from, but the overall intent of a practice is to gain control, discipline over the mind, thoughts, all that they attach to and the stories they weave, which interfere with our ability to flow with life.
We hear some news. We spin a tale around it. We expect the worst, we spin a worse tale. We tell ourselves bad things, bad things happen to us. We make a wish, the wish comes true. We want something, we get it. We think and think and think, driving ourselves crazy with thoughts. But when we look closely at those thoughts we realize they don’t exist, they are mere stories in our minds. But in the spinning of our thoughts we have created a reality.
If we change our thoughts, actually let them go one at a time as they come into our minds, we free ourselves to exist in the moment. This is the practice that we have found is the most practical method of being present. It is meditation in action, all the time. The purpose being to examine the personal, the life we are in, as we live it consciously each day. Our sitting in meditation, our breathing, our yoga and other physical practices are merely tools to learn how to be in the moment and flow with what comes. But the real practice comes in implementing it, putting it to work in each moment of each day.
Once we set the intent to be in the moment, once we decide we want to live an energetic life, we must acquiesce to that intent. To do this we must learn to let go of our attachments. Attachments include desires, wants, needs, ideas that things should be this way or that way, that life should be a certain way. Letting go of attachments means letting go of our preconceived ideas, what we’ve learned about life and the world, and becoming open to new ideas.
Letting go of attachments means allowing everything to be of interest and yet attaching to none of it. If we are to live an energetic life we must allow ourselves to fully embrace the possibility that everything is possible, that nothing is impossible, that anything can happen. And when we do that we begin to have the experiences of an energetic life.
I think about my daughter. I should call her. The phone rings. It’s my daughter. “Oh,” I say, “I was just thinking I should call you and you called!” “Yes,” she says, “that’s how we operate!” It goes the other way as well. I will call her and she will say, “Oh yes, I knew I would be hearing from you because I’ve been thinking about you.” We operate on an energetic level.
We all communicate on this energetic level, with people we know and with people we don’t know. We might dream of each other, think of each other, run into each other and if we are aware we know that none of these things are coincidences, they are synchronicities, the intent of our higher self directing our lives.
If we can allow this idea, that we have another part of us that directs our life, and acquiesce to this higher self, then we are well on the way to leading an energetic life. I learned how to do this most assuredly during my recapitulation, as I learned to trust the process and found that everything that was happening to me was meaningful. It became the most important and most fulfilling journey of my life. Everything since then has been a continuation of that amazing process, as life since then has unfolded in a most magical, unplanned way.
Anyone doing deep work on the self is in alignment with energetic living, because deep work, the search for self-knowledge is the path that leads to discovery of the higher self. The higher self waits for us to find it and to trust it. But first we must discover and trust who we are in the lives we are living. We must first be interested in ourselves as human beings and how we really operate.
Many people have no interest in knowing who they are at a deeper level. Stepping into the deeper self is frightening, as often the first things we have to face are the things we have suppressed during our lifetimes, the things we consider bad about ourselves, the things we have done, the things we fear, the things that make us sad or pathetic to ourselves. But those things are our challenges to face, obstacles blocking access to our higher self.
In taking the path to self-discovery and self-knowledge we discover so much more about the world too. I am a big proponent of taking an interest in the self! Not in a selfish way, but in exploring the meaning of life.
Someone once said to me, “Oh, that’s such ridiculous stuff!” when I mentioned my interest in astrology. “You really believe that?” he asked, quite disturbed. “No,” I said, “I don’t believe anything, that’s why I’m interested in it. Anything is possible.”
We had two totally different perspectives on life, and although the guy was a very intelligent and warm human being, a college philosophy professor, he just could not ever get out of his head. That is really the first challenge. Can you get out of your head? Try it and see what happens! Think of someone and see if they call you, come into your dreams, knock on your door, or send you a text. Living an energetic life is about having experiences of energy in action.
As today’s Soulbyte also said: “Let the randomness of nature into your life, to be part of it all.”
On an energetic wave,
Jan
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Here is this week’s channeled message, brought to your from the astral plane by Jan and Jeanne. May it guide you for this day, and through the coming week, to continue the deep work of inner and outer change. If we all do it together there should soon be a big impact. Look at what happened in France over the weekend, the intent of change brought the masses together! Our own intent works the same way. May we all use it to our individual and collective advantage.
Chuck starts off with our first blog of the New Year, restating the intent that we embody, to take full responsibility for who we are and how we choose to participate in the dream of this reality. It’s what we at Riverwalker Press are all about. As the New Year begins we invite all of you to participate in dreaming a new dream with us. Happy New Year!
Warmly, with love and gratitude from us both,
Chuck and Jan
Every cell in our body has a life of its own. It is challenged daily to obtain necessary resources for its survival, maintain balance, rid itself of wastes and spawn new life. Little does that single cell know that it is actually part of a much greater integrated whole, a human body.
The interdependent reality of our wholeness escapes us as we focus daily, like every single cell within us, on our individual tasks of survival and fulfillment. Nonetheless, if we contemplate our greater cosmic reality, perhaps we might glimpse, through reason or intuition or experience, the oneness of everything. And, from that place of oneness, all of us are responsible for the dream we are in and where we are going to take it. We are all empowered, through consciousness and intent, to advance the dream, that is, to change the world we live in.
Over the past couple of days, the stock market has been in a downslide. Why? Because the price of oil has been plunging rapidly. Meanwhile, the auto industry has had its best year in sales in decades, due in large part to increased sales of gas guzzlers, the consequence of cheaper gas. Meanwhile, many, whose economic survival is dependent upon the stock market, are faced with threatening losses as “safe” investments like oil plummet in value. Behind all these challenges to daily survival lies the reality that fossil fuels are a major contributor to the rapid destabilization and destruction of the planet that feeds and houses us.
We, as individuals, are empowered to decide where this dream will go next. Many are so focused on personal survival that they feel obliged to make the best investments, irrespective of environmental consequences or the total destruction of lives and cultures outside of their own. Gas guzzling cars are one of the things that most of us use daily and yet most people can’t afford to switch up to hybrid vehicles or they are drawn to the perks of less fuel efficient cars, while still others have much more basic needs of daily survival, putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads.
If we look to government to solve the greater issue of climate change we are confronted with the likes of today’s headlines: Big Threat For Obama’s Climate Efforts From GOP-Run Congress.* It’s easy to indulge in powerlessness and point fingers at the GOP, but to be truly responsible we must examine the GOP within ourselves. No one can separate themselves from deciding which way this dream will unfold; we’re all part of the same whole.
The GOP reflects an old dream that insists that the world is ours for the taking, that consideration beyond the needs of self and ours is unnecessary. That dream downplays the interdependent reality and the global concerns that effect us all and instead focuses on the individual’s responsibility to ensure survival of the personal dream. That dream has been given full latitude to play itself out and now finds itself approaching nightmare, as that dream and the world it has generated are unsustainable. This nightmare has caused many to wake up and face the facts, but still many others, reflected in the newly elected American Congress, remain staunch champions of the supremacy of the old dream; self above all.
The truth is, we are all living cells of the same dream, each empowered to decide, within the context of our own lives, which way the dream will proceed. On a concrete level, if I refuse to invest in fossil fuels, I am changing the dream. If I choose to buy a fuel-efficient car, regardless of other sales’ enticements, I choose a different dream. If I choose to replace my light bulbs with an expensive, highly efficient LED bulb, I choose a different dream. There are even simpler choices we can all make, such as to recycle or to be less wasteful overall.
When Jeanne was in this world—as the Hindus say: at the gross level of reality—she strongly preached the power of the purse to effect change. Now she resides fully in the astral plane, the next, finer dimension of reality that houses our soul or spirit, guiding us to exercise the power of intent to effect change in our lives within and without. Though the main fuel of the astral dimension, intent is equally effective in the gross dimension of our reality, awaiting our discovery of its power.
When we pray, when we state our intent, repeat our mantras, send love and compassion, we are transforming the dream world we are in. Everyone who loves their enemy reconciles with their own divided wholeness and advances the dream.
If I can love the GOP within myself—the part that demands individual responsibility but is also so susceptible to self interest—exploitative and greedy—I can make responsible choices in the myriad of decisions I make today to advance the dream in a new direction for all living beings. Such a decision might be as simple as where I choose to place my awareness, how I choose to think or spend my personal energy.
If worry and fear beckon, I might shift to some moments of intentional release of tension in my body, into calm, deliberate breathing. This simple act changes the energy I bring to the integrated wholeness of the one dream that we all live in and are dreaming together.
Imagine if each of us decided to awaken to the power of intent and bring it into the gross dimension that we all live in in such a calm and nurturing way. It might just be a strong enough intent to course-correct the orbit of the dream we are now in, sending us into a new dream of sustainability. We are never powerless.
Staying awake in the dream,
Chuck
* Headline in The Huffington Post January 6, 2015
I notice how everything aligns, what I’m thinking about, what happens outside in the world, as well as what happens on a deeper subconscious level. The universes are synchronized.
I’m concerned with energetic and spatial alignment and compatibility. I want things in my life to be in good relationship, to each other and to me, as I live and flow through my life. I want to personally be in good alignment with my environment too, both inside and outside the house I live in, as well as inside and outside my physical body house.
While I seek calmness and balance, I must also challenge myself to go beyond my comfort zone, to be appropriately daring but also to not be foolhardy. There are times when we must push ourselves to try something new, but there are other times when it might not be the right time yet. And so patience is part of the process; it may actually be critical that we know when to be daring and when to wait. And so, we must be willing to question our decisions on a deeper level. Am I holding back for the right reason or am I acquiescing to the old self who just doesn’t want to be disturbed? I’ve noticed that the appropriate answer comes when the right question is asked.
My greater intent is to remain in alignment and in the natural flow of things, whether that flow is calm and sedate or frenzied and difficult. I seek to be adjustable in appropriate ways, giving and receiving when right, but also able to pull back and away when that feels right. Sometimes it just isn’t right to be available, no matter how a decision to not engage may appear to others. Sometimes it’s just time to break the old patterns, expectations, and demands of others, and withdraw. Sometimes it’s even time to permanently sever old ties that no longer serve us.
I’m a dreamer. If you’ve read any of my books, especially the latest one, Into the Vast Nothingness, you’ll have encountered my dreaming self. As I recapitulated I became very adept at analyzing my dreams. As I learned more about my own life and began to understand the symbols that arose to show me the way forward, things in my life evened out. I began to access the calmness and balance I had always sought to maintain. Now, at this point in my life, I’ve achieved more calmness and balance than I ever thought possible. During my recapitulation, I’d momentarily access it but it would be fleeting, as I’d dive back into my process or be drawn back in, as was appropriate at the time. Eventually the process took less of my energy and life took more—real life, new life freed of trauma—as life in alignment with my new self took over.
Lately my dreaming self has been going to classes. The other night I earned my doctorate and graduated into a “day of renewal.” The next night I dreamed that I was back in school again, sitting at the feet of an Indian guru, studying the Upanishads. That same night I also studied intent, holding onto my intent to “see” as the Shamans of Ancient Mexico say, seeing energy as it moves in the universe.
Last night my intent for calmness and balance came through, right in alignment with my greater intent to be in the natural flow of things. I sat in the middle of a solid square comprised of 25 one-foot-square stones, laid out like a patio. This square was my place of power, my fortress but also my place of calm mediation and retreat. Though there were no walls surrounding me, I was totally encased inside this square; nothing could reach me that I did not bring into it. The number 25 was significant. Upon awakening I wondered why 25, but when I drew out the pattern I noted that the 25th stone sat solidly in the center of the perfect square. It was the center of my place of power.
As I dreamed, worry arose again and again. I knew that worry was not necessary, that it signifies something from the past that is done and cannot be undone, or something from the future that has not happened yet and so it was futile and a waste of energy to allow it to have my energy. It was appropriate to withdraw. And so each time worry arose in my dream, I retreated into my square. I sat down on the central 25th stone and grew immediately calm, knowing for certain that it was the right thing to do.
Upon awakening and beginning my day, I carry that sense of calmness with me. It is solid like stone. My fortress is both a spiritual container for my deeper self and protection against all that is outside that wants to get in, the dual aspect of containment that is necessary if we are to achieve and maintain alignment and balance in our lives. In going inside my stone square, sitting at the center of my power mandala, I declare that I am not available right now because my own energy needs rejuvenation and exploration, completely devoid of outside energy.
As we seek to know ourselves on deeper levels, we must learn how to contain our energy for our own use, constantly adjusting so that we can also be available, when appropriate, to share ourselves with others. We all need a center of power to return to as we go about our day.
It is certainly appropriate, and even necessary, to establish a place of retreat, a place where we feel safe and secure, away from the demands of the world and the cogitations of the mind—such as the worry of my dream—but also a place where we can spiritually rejuvenate. This place can be an imaginary fortress like a square or a circle, or it can be a quiet spot inside or outside, removed from everyone and everything. It might even mean sitting in our car for a few moments of breathing before entering back into the fray of life. In offering ourselves even momentary retreat we set the intent to not overextend ourselves or lose ourselves to the outer world, but to give our spirit appropriate time alone.
As we give ourselves permission to retreat we also give ourselves permission to reenergize and maintain our power to live life on our own terms. It’s something I worked hard for, as many of you do too, and it’s not something I will very easily give up. So I gladly accept the advice of my dreaming self, taking time for spiritual study, retreat and renewal!
From the center of my 25 stone retreat,
Jan