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Messages from Jeanne

#710 Remain in Renewal

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
I feel as if I’m reclaiming some lost energy after many weeks of foggy discontent. Can you offer us a note of guidance as to how to handle our challenges over the next week?

This is indeed a time of renewal and power, for the fruits of your hard labors are coming to fullness. It is harvest time and, yet, is it also a time of picking through all that you have sown and deciding which fruits to consume and which to save as seedlings for future growth.

With the clarity that has been gained regarding the self over the past few weeks, it is time to determine more fully what you would like your future self to look like, deciding how you want to live but also how you want your life to unfold. You may elect that the unfolding of your life remain in its present process, though you all have the ability to change how you live, by how you perceive your life.

My advice for today centers around setting a new intent based on what you have learned about the self. You may have also learned a lot about the others in your life, especially those who are closest, but I suggest that you turn what you have learned about others toward the self, seeking always the deeper reflection of self in all you meet.

For instance, rather than wallow in your discoveries of self, truly learn from them. If you are bound in repetitive behaviors and you have learned this truth of self, then fully embrace that this is true. Look upon this self with compassion and understanding, as you might have for another, and then do something with this truth.

Electing to change will bring you to a new life. Electing to accept the self as you truly are is the catalyst to change, for if you cannot accept your truths you are bound to repeat them until you do. Now note, I do not call your truths by negative terminology, such as faults or downfalls, and neither should you, but only what they are: truths of the self.

Can you allow yourself to be truthful? Can you be brutally honest with yourself? Can you allow for the facts of the self to be fully revealed to the self? With your truths made known, you will set yourself free to change, to move on, to utilize all the energy you now feel coursing through you, that is asking you to turn inward and continue your deep inner work. It is the only place to go.

Nothing outside of you can compare to what you hold within. This is true for each and every one of you. It does not matter where you are in your spiritual process; you are all equal because you must all face the self, the biggest challenge in a lifetime.

Allow your energy that is feeling renewal to remain in renewal. Even as you harvest your fruits plant new seeds, tending your gardens with future growth in mind. Prepare always for the next planting, for its sprouting time will come.

Set your intent as you set your seeds aside, as you bury the bulbs of spring bloom, and as you determine that you do indeed wish to continue growing, blooming, and developing creatively, spiritually, and personally, in the real world, but most deeply in your inner world.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: The Warrior Bird & The Cat Who Could Talk

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The Warrior Bird

Last week, in Life & Death, I wrote about the snake attacking the robin’s nest. By the end of the day I had seen that one tiny bird remained still alive. Having thwarted death, it was given another chance at life. I wondered if it would make it. From my own experiences, I also know that we are given many opportunities to defeat death, and that, even without our consciously knowing it, we may choose the path of spirit and that once that path is chosen there is no turning back. We are given every opportunity to wake up and notice that the world we live in is set up so that we can evolve, which in my experiences eventually leads us to the opportunity to experience energy. Once we become aware that we are here for reasons beyond reason, our next challenge is to recognize and accept that we have chosen what the seers of ancient Mexico call the warriors’ path. As Carlos Castaneda writes in The Wheel of Time on page 55 in a quote from A Separate Reality:

“When a man embarks on the warriors’ path he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been left forever behind. The means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him: he must adopt a new way of life if he is going to survive.”

After an early morning walk on Saturday, Chuck and I decided to sit in my studio. It was a rainy morning, the first rain we’d had in weeks. The windows were wide open and we were enjoying the sounds of the pattering rain, the thunder and cool dampness. We sipped our coffee and settled into our favorite chairs in the corner of the room by the open windows to read, write, and talk. As soon as we sat down I heard tiny bird peeps coming from the bush just outside the window where the robins were nesting. I feared that the snake had returned, but to my surprise instead saw the small fledgling sitting on the end of a flimsy branch, shaking the rain off its stubby wings, its parents nowhere in sight. The baby bird peeped away, incessantly calling out, looking lost, hesitant, and uncertain. I wondered if the parents had abandoned it. Did bird parents simply fly off and leave their young to fend for themselves when the time came for the babies to fly?

As we watched, the baby poked its head out from under the branches and opened its beak wide. Suddenly the mother bird swooped down, hovered in front of it for a few seconds and dropped some tasty morsel into its hungry mouth before flying off again. I then saw that she and the male robin were sitting in the nearby oak tree, a mere few yards from the bush where the baby fluttered and floundered about. They were gently calling to it, encouraging it to come to them.

We watched, fascinated, as the baby bird made many feeble and unsuccessful attempts to fly toward the parents. It popped its head out of the leaves, flexed its wings, and then dove back into the foliage, again and again, shaking the rain from its wings and head, hunkering down, not quite ready yet. The parents called and the baby seemed to answer back, saying: “Really, is that what you want me to do? You really think I can fly over to that branch? Are you crazy? Nope! No way. I’m staying right here.”

Over and over again, it stubbornly refused the call. It was like watching someone stand on the edge of a swimming pool, unable to make the dive into the cold water, knowing that eventually they would take the plunge, but avoidant, reluctant to experience the shock and thrill of the first dip. The baby bird was like this. One moment it looked like it would go, vigorously shaking the rain from its wings, feeling their full length, tipping forward as if to take flight, but just as it seemed that it would let go and fly it would retreat back into the leaves, grabbing even tighter to the tiny branches.

I realized that the baby would not be returning to the nest, that once it had left it there would be no turning back. The parents had lured it to the opposite side of the bush pointing away from the nest. There was nowhere to go now except out into the world. This was, indeed, its day to conquer its fears and learn to fly. As Castaneda writes: “One of the greatest forces in the lives of warriors is fear, because it spurs them to learn.” (From The Wheel of Time, page 238)

Our encounter with the process of this warrior bird was interrupted by an appointment with death. What Castaneda writes, also in The Wheel of Time, on page 239, is the following: “For a seer, the truth is that all living beings are struggling to die. What stops death is awareness.”

The Cat Who Could Talk

Our elderly cat, Abby, at eighteen, was deaf, blind, and increasingly incontinent. For months we had struggled with her difficulties, knowing that she was showing us obvious signs of her imminent demise. For the greater part of a month we’d been hoping she would die on her own while fearing that we would have to make the final decision to put her to sleep. It is an agonizing decision to have to make, with questions arising about quality of life (hers and ours); about what is more humane, putting her down or letting her live on in obvious discomfort? We also knew that had she lived a more natural life out in the world, she would have been picked off a long time ago, too weak to survive. Did she still have some good moments? Yes, but we knew it was getting closer and closer to her time to be released from this life.

Abby was not an easy cat to have in the household, ever. She was narcissistic, the queen, insisting that she have it her way. She lorded over the other cats, snarled and swiped at the dog, and let us know, in no uncertain terms, that she was not happy with sharing her house with other pets. But aside from that behavior she was the only cat I ever knew who could express herself in a language that sounded very much like English. She used to sit in the window and talk to the birds. “You look so yummy. If I were outside right now you would be in my mouth, a tasty morsel! Yyy-um! Yyy-um! Yyy-um!” she would croak. When she wanted to go outside she would stand by the door and yowl: “Rrr-out! Rrr-out! Rrr-out!” If she needed us for something she would call out, increasingly louder and louder as she got older and deafer: “Hello-Oo! Hello-Oo! Hello-Oo! I need you! I need you!” She used her parrot like talk to warn us many times when something was not right with the other animals, that someone needed us, or that there was imminent danger. She would call incessantly until we came and addressed the issue, and only then would she settle back into her favorite spot, mission accomplished.

For about a week I’d been finding her hiding in small places, inside closets, tucked into tiny spots behind furniture or far back underneath a kitchen counter. I’d hear her calling, “Hello-Oo!” and I’d go searching for her, sometimes finding her, sometimes not. I knew she was looking for a place to die. I remembered this from childhood; dogs suddenly wandering off, going to die; sometimes they’d be found in the places they had selected, sometimes not.

By Friday, I knew it was time to help her, to make the agonizing decision to put her down. As I said, it is never easy. I looked for signs, did some research, waited for her to tell me that it was indeed her time, and then I called the vet. Once I let her know what was happening she calmed down and spent the rest of the day beneath the kitchen cabinet, barely breathing. When I told the kids that she was telling us she was dying, they both accepted it. “Yup!” my son agreed, “I’ve been telling you that for a long time.” My daughter said, “I know, Mom. She told me last night.”

So we left the baby bird to its struggles to launch itself and took our old cat to the vet, to help her launch into her own new world. “What will you be in your next life, another cat?” we asked. “Or will you perhaps be a dog?” She settled calmly into my arms as we drove, wrapped in a towel that Chuck had chosen for her, a maroon one with a golden crown embroidered into it, fitting wrappings for the old queen. She remained calm until the moment of death, and then she fought it, hissing and pulling away, tugging at our hearts, we who dared to put the queen to sleep. Even if it was her will to die, she was going to fight it, because that’s who she was. Once again I quote Castaneda from The Wheel of Time where he states, on page 134: “A warrior dies the hard way. His death must struggle to take him. A warrior does not give himself to death so easily.”

We struggled with the outcome of our old warrior queen’s final seconds, unnerved by the experience, agonizing again over the decision we’d made on her behalf. The vet, a gentle man who does not take this task lightly, confirmed our concerns over whether or not we were doing the right thing. He said that animals rarely die in their sleep; the end we so wished for Abby. “It would be rare to wake up in the morning and find her gone,” he said, “much as we all wish that for our pets.” He too is struggling with his old dog, having to face making the same decision, having to determine that the time is right.

We took Abby home and buried her in the backyard, facing south, our other cat Cosi, her companion in life, opposite her, facing to the north. Our sadness was heavier because we face this dilemma with our old dog, Spunky, who at seventeen has already lived far beyond her expected age and we know we must undertake this most difficult task again in the not too distant future.

Later we retreated to the studio, to see what had transpired with the fledgling. It was still there, still struggling to make the leap, still tentative and still fearful. The parents patiently and gently called to it, allowing the process to take the time it must take. Unfortunately, though we would have liked to have waited with them and watched this most amazing feat of nature, we had other things to do that day, so we left the bird, sending it good wishes for its journey into life. Later, upon returning home, we discovered that it had flown, that this was indeed the day to fly!

I looked for the baby bird in the trees as we sat in the yard that evening, hoping to get a glimpse of him on the wing, but he was nowhere to be found. Every time I heard a tiny peep I’d whip around, until Chuck told me to cut it out, I was driving him crazy. At one point I saw what I took to be his mother, come to speak to us from the oak tree, telling us that all was well. And later, perhaps it was the father who perched in the pine opposite us, singing of his brave fledgling’s journey, having taken flight, now on it’s way to becoming a warrior, the first step taken, no turning back. And later that night I heard Abby purring, letting us know that she too was on her journey, freed to take flight, aware, transformed into energy.

If you wish, feel free to respond in the comment section below.

Wishing you all love and a good week,
Jan

NOTE: The book mentioned in this blog is available for purchase through our Store.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Life & Death

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Last week, while strolling the length of the deck in the morning sunshine, enjoying the last day of beautiful summer weather before the heat wave hit, I looked down into the yard below and saw a young fawn staring up at me. She seemed to have been there for a long time, just standing and observing me. I had been combing and drying my hair in the sun as I walked at a slow, meditative pace. I wondered if my white hair had attracted her, if it looked like the white on the underside of her mother’s tail, the white tail that went up and said, come, follow me.

I stopped walking and stood looking back at her, her spots large and white on her slender back, her ears pricked as she listened to the sounds around her. I saw her mother further down in the yard, nibbling at the bushes where the grass slopes down to meet the tree line. She was walking on one of the paths we’d cut through the tall grass back there, munching on the black caps that we too have been enjoying. Turning on her thin but sturdy legs, the young fawn ran to her mother, frisking about, happy, not alarmed at all. In a moment she reappeared at the top of the yard with her mother in tow. Now the two of them stood and looked up at me standing on the deck looking back at them.

We stood unmoving for several minutes, just observing each other. I sent silent messages that I would not harm them, that they were perfectly safe grazing in my yard and eating the delicious, juicy fruits. I sent energetic feelings of love and compassion to those two wild animals, allowing it to pour out of me and float down upon them in a wave of appreciation for their presence on this day, my birthday. I asked them to stay awhile and just enjoy this moment with me.

The fawn, bored with staring, began to nurse. The doe, feeling safe enough too, began licking her fawn, cleaning her as the fawn bucked and pushed against her. Occasionally the mother would prick up her ears at the sounds in the neighborhood, a car door slamming, a hawk screeching, a saw buzzing down the road, but she stood her ground, not fearing, just alert, aware.

As I watched this little vignette of nature in action, I knew that through all the disasters that mankind does and could put Mother Earth through, the earth and nature will continue. We are not so powerful as we think we are, for here is something that will go on long after we are gone, I thought. Here was life itself, having birthed anew, letting me know that nature will survive, that life will continue with or without man’s interference or man’s participation, that nature can go on just fine without us. And this doe and this fawn did not fear me, for although they were in my yard, eating my berries, they were letting me know that I did not own any of it, that the earth belongs to all living creatures. And I, in turn, fully accepted this, knowing that my own technologically advanced life paled in comparison to nature, for they were showing me what life is really all about.

Monday came and I channeled a message from Jeanne. When I had finished typing and posting the message on the website, I decided to do as she suggested and take a few minutes of quietude before I started my day. I went out into my sunny studio. It was early enough that the room was still cool, the morning sun not yet pouring through the skylights, and the open windows around the room let in a gentle breeze. It was the perfect time to be there because by the afternoon, with temperatures expected to climb into the nineties, it would have been almost unbearably hot. I sat in a comfy chair, settling in for a quiet fifteen minutes of peace when a racket arose outside the window.

Our yard is full of nesting birds this year. It seems as if almost every bush and tree is occupied by robins, blue birds, phoebes, doves, nuthatches, catbirds; you name it. In a small bush outside the window a pair of robins were nesting. They had been busily tending and feeding their young for many weeks. Now they began squawking and screeching, dive-bombing at their own nest, flying to the gutter above the window I was sitting beside and then back at their nest again. I wondered what the heck they were doing. They were acting crazy, their voices shrill and piercing. Over and over again they flew directly at the bush, as if to knock something out. My first impression was that maybe this is how they get their kids out of the nest, perhaps they force them out, but it didn’t appear very likely, not at all like nature, which in my observation is much more gently nudging.

I noticed that other birds were also getting into the act. A pair of catbirds flew to the base of the bush and mewed and snarled, flapping their wings. Blue jays circled around in the yard, cruising like blue and white patrol cars, their voices like sirens sending out calls of distress. A tiny wren perched on a branch of the bush and chirped loudly, fluttering up and down, having a hissy fit. What is going on, I wondered, why are they all attacking this nest? And then it dawned on me that they were protecting it, or trying to, and then I saw it: a long tail hanging down. A cat? It sort of looked like our cat’s tail, but how could a cat get up into that tiny bush? Then it moved and I saw that an enormous snake was entwined around the bush, obviously after the baby robins.

As I ran out of the room, first to grab my camera, and then to go outside to get a better look, I remembered don Juan admonishing Carlos Castaneda to let nature take its course, to not interfere. In The Second Ring of Power, on page 301, Carlos says that don Juan told him that, “every effort to help on our part was an arbitrary act guided by our own self-interest alone.” Don Juan once laughed at Carlos as he removed a tiny snail from a sidewalk and tucked it under some vines because he was afraid the snail might get stepped on. Don Juan suggested that perhaps the snail had spent all day getting that far across the sidewalk and here came this idiot putting him back were he’d started from. Perhaps he was escaping sure death by poison from the leaves of that very vine, or perhaps he had enough personal power to cross the sidewalk. I knew I would not interfere in what was happening, but I also was intent on observing it. For some reason this was what was unfolding before me on this day when my intention was to simply sit quietly.

I stood a respectable distance from the bush, trying to get close enough to get a shot of the snake but also far enough back so I did not interfere in the attempts of the birds to unseat this most uninvited guest. The noise and fury coming from the robins was intense. They flew back and forth numerous times, sweeping the top of the bush, their extended wings like knives cutting into it, but their attempts were to no avail. As many times as they dove at the snake in the bush it was not going to cease the hunt. The other birds, come to help this family in crisis, set up a loud lament, crying and screaming, a Greek chorus pouring out there sorrows.

I am not frightened of snakes but I find them unpredictable, unknown entities. This snake had obviously crawled up into the bush while the robins were out foraging. By the time I saw it, it was well entwined around the bush and, from the lump a few inches along its length, it was obvious that it had already swallowed at least one baby bird. I could see its head moving around in the area of the nest. Suddenly it swung down, a gray snake about four feet long, a tiny bird clamped in its mouth, the small feather covered creature half consumed already. Its yellow legs dangled limply, surely already suffocated. The snake held firmly as it began swinging and unfolding itself from the bush. The birds continued to fly at it, but it would not drop its prize. As I watched, it dropped from the lowest branches of the bush into the ivy below and disappeared.

The robin parents continued to wail and express their deep sorrow at the invasion of their nest, their children taken by this creature of nature, death coming unexpectedly. The other birds soon disappeared and only the stunned robins remained. I sent energetic sympathy to these two birds, feeling their grief, as they cocked their heads in disbelief, keening and pining for their young. And yet I knew that this too was nature in action, the other side of life.

Death is as natural as birth; it is part of the natural order of things. Indiscriminately selecting, coming like the snake in the grass, it will spare none of us. This is what modern man has chosen to ignore, that death is a natural part of life. We must all take our definitive journey as the seers call it, but I feel we have lost our reverence for and our curiosity about its transformational process, and we have forgotten that we are as innocent as those baby birds in the nest, all of us.

Eventually, the mother robin returned to the bush. When I peaked in at her she was sitting perched on the edge, guarding the last of her babies. She voiced a gentle protest at my intrusion, though by now she knew I would not harm her. On Tuesday, each time I looked into the bush, she no longer feared me, but sat silently, just the thing I intended to do before death came so unexpectedly to my yard. I knew she was waiting for two things, for her young fledgling to mature enough so it could leave the nest, and she was also waiting for the snake, for it would soon be hungry again. Death will come again.

If you wish, feel free to respond in the comment section below.

Wishing you all a good week,
Jan

NOTE: The book mentioned in this blog is available for purchase through our Store.