We search for love in the solid… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Someone shared with me, rather uncomfortably, a dream that they’d had where it was revealed that Jan and I were breaking up. My immediate reaction was to smile and say, “We already know that.”
Of course, I clarified that we are deeply in love and compatible partners, with no plans to break up, but we both know that change is the only real constant.
I had the same experience of utter love, fulfillment and compatibility with Jeanne in this world, yet she flew off without me into new energetic form. Beyond the veils of this life she has merged with her fuller self—a being far more comprehensive than the Jeanne Marie I knew in this life.
In the final analysis, all relationships break up because in becoming our complete selves we must surrender our attachments of permanence and acquiesce to the fuller nature of reality: Everything changes form.
I remember, as a young man steeped in the existential encounter movement of the 60s, confronting Jeanne with the reality that our relationship, as we knew it, would end in death. She would cry. I felt it was a necessary encounter, this truth.
Little did I know how relevant that confrontation would be for us a few decades later. Though I must say, when Jeanne did fly away I was steeped in joy, love, and utter calm. I have never wavered from those feelings and my love for her has only deepened over the past 14 years since she left.
Jan and I know that love transcends all change, and in fact can continue to grow if it can ride the waves of impermanence, the ultimate reality.
We are all in Earth School to suffer the illusion of permanence. And the solid Earth reality has offered a pretty predictable source of permanent security! But it does not provide all we truly need or want.
The gift of our time is that the Earth is revealing its own impermanence, as it struggles to survive mankind’s hubris. The challenges faced by our planet force us all to grapple with the true nature of reality all around us, that nothing is permanent. Actions taken from this knowing have the potential to be evolutionary, if we respond to the true needs of our planet, our human species, and all living beings.
The truth is, only Love will save us all. And the true nature of this Love is an ever-expanding love that transcends me and mine and includes everyone and every living thing in our interdependent whole.
Ready to ride the waves of impermanence? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
To graduate from Earth School, we must solve its most challenging question: Can love grow and expand in spite of impermanence? Only through solving this question are we really ready to enter more deeply into the ever-changing nature of infinity.
Until then, we grasp for the security of love in permanence, as we glimpse its many dimensions in this world and seek fulfillment here. But “here” is only part of the story. Earth School isn’t all there is, though it offers us all the necessary courses, preparing us for our final exam: to love in impermanence. And then it’s on to graduate school in infinity!
What could those numbers possibly mean? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Shortly after his marriage to Alyce in 1941, Elmer Green had a “vision” dream in which he and Alyce were given golden sweaters, each with a maroon number 47 sewn onto it. Elmer came to understand that these numbers foretold that through their relationship they were each challenged to square their individual karmas with Divine Law, to be freed to end their cycles of reincarnation in this life and move on to new adventures in infinity.
The number 4 refers to the work of the ego in this life, which inherits its karma from past lives and works through, releases, or accumulates more karma in this life. Jung identified the number 4 as the 4-sided square of the mandala, the symbol of individuation and wholeness.
7 is the number of infinity, heaven, higher power—ultimate truth and reality. Jung identified the number 7 as the circle within the mandala. Squaring the circle —47— is thus reconciling our karma with Divine Law, which then frees us to move deeper into enlightenment.
Interestingly, Jeanne died at age 47. And, after a very brief return to complete her karma with her reincarnated birth mother, she was able to release herself from the cycles of reincarnation and assume the role of bodhisattva, or teacher, for spiritual seekers of 47 in this world.
When Jan and I read Elmer’s dream, I reflected on the dreams I’d encountered that day containing the numbers 4 and 7. In one dream, there was a state of isolated waiting for between 4 and 7 hours. In another, there was taking charge of an area identified as district 7. When these numbers appear they reflect the work of squaring core karma with Divine Law, that is, facing and resolving our deepest truths.
The next morning, I contemplated the significance of 47 for our greater Planetary Being, planet Earth. I was drawn to the history of Palestine. As I researched, I discovered that it was in 1947 that the United Nations officially partitioned Palestine, clearing the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.
Not having discussed this process with anyone, I was surprised that the first person I spoke to that morning introduced me to the documentary film The Edge of Dreaming, which chronicles the journey of a 47 year old woman who was told in a dream that she would die at the age of 48. I took this synchronicity as an acknowledgment from infinity that my research was on course.
Who would argue that the world’s survival hinges on the resolution of conflict in the Middle East? The assigning of 47 to the Middle East as the place where the Planetary Being, Earth, must square its karma with Divine Law is completely apropos. At that level the stakes are highest.
Of which we are all a part… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
This past week, on his way to victory, Netanyahu clearly stated his position—no two state solution on his watch. I see this remarkable honesty as an advance, regardless of his subsequent backtracking. The perennial failed peace negotiations have no possible outcome in establishment of a Palestinian state. This position has been fully acknowledged.
On the flip side, I had a visitor this week from the Arab world, who shared with me that no globe or map in the Arab world is allowed to have the State of Israel on it. There we have it: the Arabs refuse the State of Israel, the Israelis refuse a State of Palestine. The mist has cleared! We see the truth: total stalemate.
However, this stalemate has resulted in the great amassing of military might by the Israelis and the equally powerful rise of terrorism in militant Islam. The increasing power and threat of these opposing forces holds the world in constant vigilance, with clear and present threats to survival. Where is the resolution?
The greater Planetary Being must resolve this paradox to survive and evolve. As a therapist, my focus has always been on the cells of the Planetary Being, that is, each and every one of us, each individual human being who, like a hologram, contains the same forces within as the overall Planetary Being reflects without. Yes, that Planetary Being reflects all of us; we are all that Planetary Being; we are all the Middle East, the Arabs and Israelis, the militants and terrorists alike.
The 47 within all of us is the squaring with all the parts within the self. No part of the self may be left behind, just as no citizen or people can be left out of the world. Resolution must include all. Extinction was attempted in the Holocaust, which greatly contributed to the karma of now. It must be resolved, and that can only happen if everyone is willing to reveal their true cards, as Netanyahu has recently done.
How do we integrate opposing parts? How do we each deal with the shadow within ourselves? It begins with honestly revealing and facing the truth of the shadow: all cards revealed. But what will advance it from there?
I think the hint comes from infinity and its teachers, who have returned with their guidance throughout the millennia. Their constant reminder is always the same: Love. Only in revealing ourselves in our honest humanness, can we move to loving compassion. As infinity loves and accepts all its parts, all its children, so are we too guided to love even those we feel we must hate.
Are we really ready to 47? – by Jan Ketchel
To be able to love, we must release all karmic grudges and shortcomings; we must merge the 4 and the 7. Every time we, as individual Planetary Beings, love our neighbor and our own shadow as ourselves, we make room for all in loving kindness. Begin with the self; begin a cellular revolution of Planetary change within, that is our charge. Our greater Planetary Being is counting on us to release it from its karma, to move it forward into enlightened life!
If you protest that the opposing forces in the Middle East will never be able to love each other, I counter: Will you ever be able to fully love yourself, the full unadulterated truth of yourself, no parts excluded? The challenge is equally the same for all parts of this Planetary Being that we all are, as we seek to truly square 4 and 7.
Forty-sevening, Chuck
Reference to Dr. Elmer Green’s vision dream comes from his book, The Ozawkie Book of the Dead.
We may be two at times in our lives, but the real truth is that we are all one… one great love… – Detail of an old lithograph
It was last Sunday. We were sitting on the couch in our living room. Chuck was reading to me from Elmer Green’s book, The Ozawkie Book of the Dead, the title a take-off on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Ozawkie being the name of the town where Dr. Green was living when he wrote the book.
Dr. Elmer Green, now in his late nineties, is a very advanced spiritual guy, a physicist and psychologist involved in early biofeedback experiments and always a seeker of meaning. The subject of the chapter we were reading was synchronicities, how they occur and what they mean.
It was actually a long string of synchronicities that had brought us to discover Dr. Green and the work he was involved in, along with his wife Alyce, both of whom had worked at the Menninger Research Institute in Topeka, Kansas. Back in the 1970s I had purchased and read a book by their son, Doug Boyd, called Rolling Thunder. The book was on our bookshelves when Chuck happened to pick it up one day and began reading. He couldn’t put it down. That was the beginning of a long string of synchronicities that led us to where we were last Sunday.
It was a snowy day. As with most Sundays, we were committed to spontaneity without commitment to anyone or anything, but also with rest and rejuvenation as our underlying intentions. Chuck had been reading for a while when his voice began to get raspy and hoarse. Soon he could no longer speak. He wanted to keep reading but was forced to stop.
Some time passed before Chuck decided to take up the book again and begin reading. This time we started on the next chapter, an autobiographical section about Alyce Green, taken from their previous book, Beyond Biofeedback, in which she tells the story of her upbringing and her early life before meeting Elmer. I had ordered a copy of that other book, which had yet to arrive. I was especially interested in hearing her story. With all that we knew of the Greens, she remained somewhat mysterious and I was really curious about who she was and how she had gotten together with him.
Once again, Chuck began to read. This time his voice only held out for a little while and soon he stopped. I was disappointed. I wanted to grab the book and keep reading, but we had decided that we would read this book together, as it was so deeply informative and rich in spiritual insights. I had to be patient.
Suddenly, I remembered that we hadn’t gotten the mail the day before. “There’s a book out there in the mailbox,” I said to Chuck. “It’s waiting for us. It’s getting cold.”
Chuck getting the mail on that snowy Sunday afternoon… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Just as Chuck said, “I’ll go get it,” and got up from the couch, a hawk flew right past the window, low to the ground, its wings swooping the snow now piled high around the house. It startled me, but I wondered what it could mean. A synchronicity for sure!
Chuck donned hat and boots and when out into the snowstorm to get the mail. The only thing in the mailbox was a book. He brought it in. We wondered what it was. We opened it. It was the Green’s book, Beyond Biofeedback. Just what I had been waiting for. “Now you can read all about Alyce!” Chuck said.
The synchronicities abound in this experience. First we had been reading about synchronicities, then a series of unexplainable things occurred. Chuck’s voice gave out, for no apparent reason, just when I was finally getting to hear the story of Alyce, which I had so yearned to hear. I had even wanted us to jump ahead to that chapter earlier so I could hear about her, but then patiently held back. Then I remembered the mail. I envisioned a book in the mailbox, but not what book exactly, as I had recently ordered several. A hawk flew in front of the window, a messenger delivering a message. “Yes, there is a book in the mailbox!” the hawk was saying. And lo and behold, it was the one book I could have wished for, the one that would grant me the pleasure of reading about Alyce.
Now I come to last night and the subject of my dreams. In another synchronicity, another book I had recently ordered arrived yesterday. It was Robert Monroe’s first book—which neither of us has read—about his earliest experiences in out-of-body travel, called Journeys Out of the Body. Long familiar with Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute, and his Hemi-Sync recordings, as well as his history as an out-of-body traveler, we were, synchronistically, reconnected with him through reading Elmer Green. Monroe had sought help with understanding his experiences and ended up at the Menninger Institute in the 1970s working with the Greens, just at the same time that I was reading their son’s book about Rolling Thunder, a Native American Medicine Man. As you might be able to tell, we find all these synchronicities very interesting and also “very entertaining,” a phrase often spoken by Elmer Green.
To return to last night’s dream. As we were preparing to sleep, I said to Chuck, “Even though we haven’t read Monroe’s book yet, just having it in the house is enough that we may have out-of-body experiences tonight, as it is imbued with that intent. Just touching it is enough for the power to rub off.” Chuck agreed. We’ve had the same experience with other such books, Castaneda’s books and William Buhlman’s Adventure’s Beyond the Body being but a few.
Suffice it to say, it happened. All night I was traveling out-of-body, in the cosmos. I became part of the greater universe, just a drop in the bucket of the larger whole of which we are all a part. It was thrilling, and yet I was calmly part of it all. None of it seemed strange or frightening; everything felt so right. In fact, I was lovingly accepted into all that is, far beyond any human expectation or belief. I tried to explain this to people I met in my dreaming state. “Don’t get attached to anything material or of substance,” I said, “it doesn’t matter. The only substance that matters is energy. Everything is energy. Love is energy.”
As I traveled deeper into the cosmos, I experienced what Chuck wrote about in his blog this week, Being in Love. Indeed, we are all beings in love, part of the greater love that is. I experienced just that, without attachment to anything other than those universal truths of loving kindness and compassion, for all and everything, that we are told to strive for as fulfillment in life on earth. In my dream, I was fully aware that we are all just that.
As I opened more and more into this awareness in my dream, without fear or attachment, and also into the cosmos, I experienced the synchronicities that had gotten me there, everything from Doug Boyd to the Greens to Robert Monroe, all beings who explored meaning beyond this world. And not least, I experienced myself, my own journey and all the people in my life as part of my own getting there, beyond this world in this loving way. I knew there was no need for fear or attachment to this world, that all that is really is love and loving. If we are ready for it, it receives us without bias, simply because it exists. Love is! And we are all part of it.
Synchronicities abound… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
My dream was just the next in the series of synchronicities that have abounded in our recent experiences. Life itself is, if we care to see it that way, a string of synchronicities. Yes, synchronicities do abound, not only in my life and in Chuck’s life, but in each of yours as well. You just have to see it that way. And I think you might just be able to do that if you pay a little attention to what is happening in your life on a moment to moment basis, how everything is connected, just as our Sunday experiences and my dream showed me.
Everything is connected by the energetic fact that we exist as part of the greater universal wholeness that is the cosmic world we live in, participate in, and experience every day in the synchronicities that abound, if we are aware of them or not. It’s actually a really fun project to decide to undertake, to remain aware of what is happening on a daily basis. See where you are led, what comes to show you your own part in all of this grand scheme of all that is.
No matter who you are or where you are in your own journey, you are part of this. If you exist in this world, you too are love. Set the intent to have an experience of that love that is, that you already are simply because you exist. It’s already in you. That is what my dream is telling me. There is no other work to be done but to open up to it. And then to become it, in all that you are and all that you do. Become the love you seek. It’s that simple. This is what Chuck wrote about, and this is what I dreamed about, all in synchronistic alignment with the truth of all that is: Love!
We are all energetic beings. We are all droplets in the greater ocean of awareness, synchronicity, and the love that is.
Just another drop in the bucket, Jan
Another synchronicity! Here is a cool little video I came upon this morning, the theme is, you guessed it: LOVE! But more importantly, that we are all energy bodies having a human experience, and that all the many shapes and forms we come in don’t really matter.
Love comes in many shapes and forms… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
To be a being in love is the ultimate journey. To embody love in all perceptions, in all judgments, in all reflections, and in all actions is the goal. Behind all fear love awaits. Love is full acceptance of all that was and all that is. Love rests upon the truth; it’s all that matters.
Love is not a merchant. It seeks nothing in return; it simply loves. Love is not a pushover. If the truth is that it must kill, it does so with love. This is the lesson of the Gita, a battle guided by Krishna.
Life is hardly the absence of struggle and battle. The challenge is to be a being who comes from the place of love in every role, good or bad. Love has no attachments; love simply is. Can you find it in everything and everyone?
Love seeks not, especially to change another. Love simply accepts the full truth of the other. In full acceptance may lie the truth that it’s not time to meet, that you both need other things. You are in love if you allow for the full acceptance of this truth, as you quietly grant each other the necessary journeys you each must take.
Love with another asks for nothing but the full truth of another, without expectation. This is the place of highest meeting. When two truths align there is meeting. One must give oneself fully to the truth and see what’s there. Meetings can be brief, extended, or not at all, not in this life. But a being in love is always in love. In the fullness of truth one is never alone.
Love is the deepest connection to all that is. One is never alone in love; love encompasses all. Nothing is rejected in love, especially the self, the greatest love of all. This is not narcissism, for a being in love knows the necessity of complete self acceptance, the greatest challenge of all.
Love lets the other go… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Love smiles at the phrase, “getting my needs met.” Love admits there is much to be discovered and much to be experienced. But love also knows the folly of asking another to meet a need. True love may need to venture into the vulnerability of such a request, as the journey of love insists we drop all defenses. But love also knows that only true meetings are real. Role playing is play, but true meeting requires no rehearsal, it simply aligns. This is the substance of true meetings, and precious is that substance.
Yet all meetings are meetings of love. To always be in love and ask for nothing is the challenge. To radiate the fullness of love without expectation, in all situations, is the path of heart. Meetings and mergers in love create growing consciousness of the oneness of all “things.” In the patience and steadiness of this growing awareness we consolidate being in love, gently diving deeper into the unfolding adventures of oneness in love.
To be a being in love is to be a warrior of the highest rank!
For today’s blogpost I decided to channel a message. I’m always interested in gaining a new and different perspective and channeling never fails to produce just that. I hope you enjoy what follows and are not afraid to take it to heart, for at its heart is a message of love.
Love is… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Here is the channeled message for all of us:
What the world needs now is love but, unfortunately, that is not enough. Even love is not enough to change the world. The world and the people in it have too many other problems, the greatest being ignorance. And so, the first issue at hand is to rid the world and the people of the world of ignorance.
Ignorance is responsible for all the ills of the world, for the sicknesses and the disputes, the wars and the battles that wage across the globe—between countries, between factions within countries, within families, as well as within individuals. Ignorance, topped with arrogance, makes things even worse.
To say one has the answer is arrogance. To say one has found the way is arrogance. To declare that one is the prophet of the world is arrogance and yet there are many who say such things and many who believe them. There are as many answers as there are people, and there are as many paths and as many prophets as there are people because all who exist upon that earth have the answers, the way, and the teachings within. But many do not know this, nor know how to find this “within” I speak of. However, that being said, there are many truly good people who are available to show the way.
There are advanced beings who walk among you, quietly going about their own work while offering what they know in a most humble and docile way. It is up to each one of you to determine who they are and, by your heartfelt knowing, allow yourself to be taught and guided by them. Their methods will be without personal gain and without needing anything in return, as they will live by the laws of nature and in alignment with the principles of loving kindness to all beings.
To understand and find the answers within, to take up the task of taking the journey into the self, gaining in knowledge and awareness, will reveal the truth of what I speak of. Such a journey will be the beginning of the end of ignorance and yet, even so, there will be many of arrogance who will say, “You are not capable; you are not doing it right,” and they will try to persuade you to do it in their way, for there will always be greed. And so, you must know that greed lies beneath arrogance and so arrogance will not abate until greed is no longer an issue.
And how will greed be eradicated? It will never completely disappear, but it can be put into perspective, into the human animal’s genome, as an inevitability of life in the human form. Everyone has to contend with greed and to accept it about the self. That you are a greedy human being cannot be denied. It is the first big lesson in losing your own arrogance and overcoming your own ignorance.
Nature’s helping hand… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
To accept that all of you are the same, with the same processes to undergo and the same issues to address will begin the slow trek to abolishing arrogance and ignorance. Once this process is begun then love, real universal love, will find its way into the world.
As the clearing away of all that holds the world now in its grip begins, love will find the channels it needs to seep into the hearts of all the peoples of the world. And then real changes may begin to take place.
On a practical level, on a personal level, it is really about time to learn how to love yourself. Is this not true? And to do this, you all must contend with the three main issues of all human beings: greed, arrogance, and ignorance.
You will not understand ignorance until you understand arrogance. And you will not understand arrogance until you understand greed. And you will not understand greed until you understand the self as a human animal, a being of greed.
First, you must understand that none of these issues are bad. They are the lessons that all living beings must contend with to evolve into loving beings. All of life must contend with such for balance to be gained and for all of life to flourish, on a human as well as a natural level. But the human being must take the biggest responsibility for the imbalance, for it is the ignorant, arrogant, greedy human being who has caused the issues that now confound the very soil, water, and air of the planet. It is the human greed machine—and you are all a part of it—that has created the situation that now plagues everyone; everything from sickness of people to sickness of Mother Earth, anger and hatred, war and destruction. All have been caused by the imbalances created by the human animal.
Remind the self often that the human animal is but one part of the picture of who you are, part of your wholeness. Each human animal is accompanied through life by an energy body self and a higher spiritual self, existing above it all, above life on earth.
The physical and the spiritual… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
These are the other aspects of self that many do not feel or even desire connection with, for encounters with these other aspects of self are often frightening. When the human self encounters these profoundly loving and knowledgeable higher spiritual selves they may be startled and fearful, as they discover that they are not what they have always thought themselves to be. To discover that you are something else does indeed strike fear in the hearts of many!
Accessing these other aspects of self begins the process of letting go of all that is human, and this is what is also frightening, to have to leave the known world and face the unknown! But this is exactly what everyone will be faced with sooner or later.
If you really want to help solve the worlds’ problems, the deterioration and death of the world as you know it, coming closer every day, why not turn and face your own death first, the death of your physical self that will happen anyway? In so doing, you will discover your life force, that which never dies. What is so frightening about that?
If all beings were to begin this process of facing death by reaching out to their spiritual higher selves, the world would have a chance of once again returning to balance and even possibly becoming an environment that is in the Tao, in alignment with nature, and thus without cause for any disputes. For in nature all is natural, all is accepted, all is appreciated, as every living organism is respected as part of the whole and this, My Dears, is what love is.
Do not only admit that you are a greedy human being, but fully explore it and own it by finding out what it means and only then put it to rest. If you can do this before death puts it to rest for you, you will have begun the greater journey that awaits outside the realm of the physical where you will learn your greatest experiences of love and life.
How can you truly love if you do not love all of who you are? How can you totally love another if you do not even like certain parts of yourself? How can you say you are in alignment with nature if you do not own nature in you? How can you say you know everything if you do not allow nature to be your guide and your teacher, including nature inside you? How can you keep saying you love everyone and everything, if this is not really true?
In the Tao… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The work of the world is in each one of you. If you are to act on behalf of the world, and all beings, in the context of the life you lead, then let every day be dedicated to learning more about the self on the deepest levels.
As you face all that you are, even your most greedy and entitled self, you will understand the world a little bit better too. And you will no longer be angry at it and at what is happening to it, but you will know that you are beginning to change it, one compassionate self-directed discovery at a time. Only then will your kindness really matter, your compassion be utilized, and your love be enveloping.
You are the work of the world and the work of the world is the work of you. Take up the challenges you face and you will aid all of humanity, even as you remain an active part of life and the world. For to do the work of the self is not to remove oneself from life but to fully embrace it and live it, consciously and with good intentions always in your heart.
If one human being’s energy changes it affects everything else. That is nature. That is love.
Thank you to Jeanne, channeled with love and gratitude for all of us, Jan
