Change is inevitable; it happens. Even when you are unaware of it, doing your habitual routine, change is underway. Little by little, one day and one step at a time things are changing. To become conscious of change and to participate in a thoughtful, wise manner is to partake in your own evolution, as well as that of the planet. To make important decisions that support positive change is the ultimate participation in the inevitable. To have experience of what change means and how it impacts is partaking in your own destiny. Consciously be the changing being you already are, and with awareness turn your journey into one of learning, enlightenment and positive, meaningful outcome. It really is all in your hands. Be your own change maker.
Change comes when you question your beliefs, when you challenge the status quo, when you break with old ideas and begin a new journey, when you are ready to be more open to the possibility that beyond beliefs, status quo and old ideas lies something else, something new and exciting. Change comes when you are ready but also when you instigate it because you are bored, unhappy or simply can’t take another day of life as it is. Let change into your life the same way you let fresh air into a room by opening a window. Without fear, sadness or regret let change in so that life may once again be exciting and fulfilling. Let change show you all that is possible and all that you are capable of. Within and without, change is good.
Patience. In solitude find your center within yourself—that quiet mind, that still body, that calm heart—and wait patiently for the voice of Spirit to speak words of guidance. In return, express gratitude for communion with the Self who knows what to do and let that Self guide you. With thanks, be guided forward each day, one step at a time to what is right, good, and evolutionary. For that is the real reason you are there, to evolve from ignorant human to knowing spirit, to fully knowing all that you are and all that you are capable of. And there is much to learn indeed! Be patient, but also take the evolutionary “A” Course: be Awake, Alert, Aware, and Act appropriately when Spirit says the time is right.
Though you may struggle, remember always to look at the bigger picture, your Soul’s journey, for it is this journey that matters in the long run, this journey that seeks completion, that yearns for fulfillment. And what is your Soul’s journey? It is the journey of many lifetimes of accumulated teachings, of the lessons you have selected to learn, allowing you to live the challenges you have decided would be most useful and beneficial. It is a journey of ultimately learning the greatest lessons of all, those of love, kindness, and compassion and what they really mean in the context of your own many lives and all the lives you have had the opportunity to intersect with. Some of life’s greatest lessons come in some of the most difficult forms, but they are also to be the most treasured, for they are the ones that have the potential to catapult you into greater awareness, consciousness, and true understanding. They are to be treasured for the possibilities they offer you to more fully learn, resolve, and put to rest life’s most difficult lessons. Trust that your own lessons are allowing you to finally master something that is important to your Soul and your Soul’s journey, so that you may move on into a more perfect state of union within your Soul self, having fulfilled the greatest lessons of them all; loving kindness and compassion for self and other. Journey on knowing these things and that you are indeed on the right track!
In a moment of awe amidst the turmoil, I look into the woods and see Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles, calmly looking back at me… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
When asked, “What is the meaning of life?” Joseph Campbell responded thus: “There is no meaning. We bring the meaning to it.”
Our very lives provide us with everything we need to discover who we are and why we are here, offering us everything we need to find meaning. We are all heroes on meaningful journeys.
Chuck and I have revealed intimate details of our lives over the past several weeks in our blogs, having had to face moments of deep anguish and wrenching sadness. Yet interwoven within those moments of turmoil were many moments of awe, moments of breakthrough and insight, moments of transparency leading to transcendence, for all involved. Meaning is being discovered and lived each day as the members of our family take their journeys, as they face their deepest issues and broken selves, as we all face where the devastating and the magical have landed us.
All of us live magical lives. If we accept ourselves as magical beings, as magical pursuers of meaning, we find that the very lives we live are more than fulfilling. There is great power and energy in turning what on the one hand may appear as devastating and hopeless—those knocks on the head, those wake up calls—into meaningful encounters with what we need to progress and grow. “To refuse the call means stagnation,” says Joseph Campbell.
We are all offered supremely necessary encounters with our inner darkness as we live our lives and face the reality of where we are. Our real duty in life is to take what is offered as a new opportunity to face our fears and challenges with a shift in awareness. That shift in awareness must be that we are being asked to evolve, that we are being asked to wake up and take the hero’s journey. Suddenly, our journeys take on new meaning. Suddenly we are no longer victims but warriors of our own destiny. “Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging,” says Joseph Campbell.
And so, as the energy of change that has rolled through our family reverberates throughout the world—for none of us are alone in our moments of darkness or our moments of awe—as we look for the higher meaning in all of our lives, we share the energy of change with all of you. For we are aware that there is a greater interconnected web of energy that courses through us all.
As we acquiesce to that greater interconnectedness, we discover that we are all the same, that we are all nothing and that we are all everything; we are darkness and transcendence alike. We discover that we all must suffer personally for the greater good, for if we are to change the world we must suffer the changing self.
We are all capable of experiencing the transcendent. As we reach up out of our stuckness and seek meaning for all that befalls us, we offer ourselves the answers that we seek. Why did this have to happen to me? Well, it happened so you could grow. This is what we personally have had stressed to us over the past several weeks. We are all in the process of growing every day of our lives. Let that be the guidance that moves you along on your own journey.
In the deepest of challenges, and in the most radiant experiences of awe, we discover the meaning of who we are and why we are here. Joseph Campbell, whose words of wisdom have helped us weather through the flood of recent events, says: “Breaking out is following your bliss pattern, quitting the old place, starting your hero journey, following your bliss.”
Keep breaking out and bliss will meet you.
-Jan
Joseph Campbell quotes are from: Reflections on the Art of Living, A Joseph Campbell Companion, Selected and Edited by Diane K. Osbon
