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Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: A Very Magical Time

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It’s been a little challenging lately to detach from all the political hoopla and hype, all the name-calling, finger pointing, joking, judging, and ugliness going on. In an effort to go into deeper solitude I’ve decided not to post what I consider apropos articles and blogs, even though they may certainly contain messages in alignment with what Chuck, Jeanne, and I regularly write about, because I find that my energy tends to stay stuck on them. Instead, I’m weaning myself off my usual checking-of-what’s-happening-in-the-media morning routine. Often just a quick fix—”Just to see what’s happening!”—I’ve decided to remove all the links from my bookmarks bar and stay away. Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping! There they go! I just removed myself from the Internet. It’s so easy and really so freeing! From this day forward I am not doing, as the shamans say.

Not Doing what I normally do allows for experiencing everything differently, even if ever so slightly. My intent now can focus on what’s most important to me personally rather than on what is being thrown in my face according to someone else’s intent, greed, passion, fixation, penchant or desire. No longer bombarded by ads, pop-up windows, moving icons, and numerous other distractions, I can stay focused on nature—the magic of real nature—inside myself and right outside my window.

As I experience the early morning hours, before most people are out of bed, I offer myself the opportunity to connect directly with nature’s process. I stir when the birds stir. I listen to their morning chatter, the darkness of the night gently moving aside as the sky begins to lighten in the East and I’m happy to be alive, right then, at that moment. It’s a special time. Just waking from dreams, I’m often still connected to other possibilities. Still softened by the night, I don’t immediately jump to thoughts, but let my senses, my intuition, my spirit speak to me. It’s a magical time.

The opportunities to do something personally desirable and fitting are fully available at 4:30 a.m. I can meditate, channel, pray, write in my journal, jot down my dreams, or simply stand on the deck and watch the birds, the deer, smell the dew, catch glimpses of the last stars and breathe in the cool morning air. It’s a magical time.

As I continue working on the final draft of my book, The Recapitulation Diaries: The Man in the Woods—the first of three volumes—I’m struck by how intensely healing it is to be able to squarely face our traumas, to relive them, and excise them from our bodies, minds, psyches and spirits. In so doing, we offer ourselves the opportunity to return to a natural state of being, or perhaps even for the first time to experience what it means to be calm and contented enough to feel present in this world. It was all I ever yearned for, to feel like I really belonged here and to find out why I existed. I could not have achieved the place of calmness I now inhabit had I not challenged myself to go on a journey of a lifetime: into myself. In fact, I am certain I would be dead, eaten away by the stuff that festered inside me.

Electing to take a recapitulation journey was perhaps the greatest conscious challenge of my lifetime, which led to my discovering that I was indeed opening up to a journey of magical proportions. My experiences, as I took that journey, unfolded most naturally, as I relinquished my hold on the things that I had always counted on, much as I did today in excising the media links from my web browser. As I took that recapitulation journey I had to turn my back on a lot of crutches, habits, behaviors, safety measures, and even relationships, that I thought I could not live without and throw myself out into the unknown. I had to dare myself again and again to face life and my recapitulating process with nothing familiar in hand. I had to continually challenge myself to break through the barriers that kept me from fully experiencing myself in the world. And truthfully, just as I experience early morning as a magical time, my recapitulation process was also a magical time.

Deciding to take a recapitulation journey is deciding to truly live—on personal terms—unfettered by opinions, judgments, rules, pacts, secrets and lies. It is choosing to deconstruct, sort through the mess, and reconstruct the self with only that which is personally relevant. At first it may indeed feel like a death, because it is a dying process as the old self dies and a new self, mostly unknown, dares to push into life. The process is natural. Like nature we too have the capability of dying to old ideas and old selves and allowing for new life.

Now, during this growing season, I watch the seeds I’ve planted bursting forth from the earth, thrilled at the speed and energy of this new life. As I listen to the birds and taste the wild strawberries, I am reminded that recapitulation, that death to new life, is the most natural of processes. As I walk, I find the road littered with the critters hit by cars, yet I know that the crows will soon swoop down and feed off the carcasses, death leading always to life giving energy. If we choose to view it as such, we clearly see that this is a most magical time.

In choosing not doing, I choose to live on my own terms. I choose to continue recapitulating, going even more deeply into myself, questioning my actions, my thought processes, my habits, challenging myself to keep changing, to keep doing things differently, to face life and to face death, knowing that both of them are part of the cycle of nature. I find that in studying nature and the ancients—the Shamans, the Buddhists, the Hindus, etc.; teachings connected with nature, spirit, energy, and the experiences of being in all worlds simultaneously—I am not so fraught with concern about the changes taking place on the world stage. I am not so caught up in the frenzy or worry, but taking it all very seriously nonetheless.

I know that I must do my part to energetically stay in alignment with nature, to trust that Mother Nature (Pachamama, Gaia) is doing what is appropriate—perhaps she too is recapitulating because she knows it is time to do so. The Earth, as a living being, is most powerful and decisive and I must trust that her own process must be as destructive as my own recapitulation process was when I began it ten years ago. I must continue to accept that destruction is necessary for new growth and that the things happening in the world are all in alignment with a far greater process that none of us can fully comprehend. It’s a magical time.

I look forward to not doing today and every day, to seeing what else comes to greet me, what naturally unfolds as I set about my workday. It’s exciting to be alive during this magical time. The energy of change is powerful. I choose to ride it. I hope you do too!

Meet you out there,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#763 Time for Solitude

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Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Here is the message I channeled from Jeanne this morning, simply asking her to give us all some guidance as we go into the day and the week ahead. This is what she advises:

Seek some solitude today...

I can only stress today that you take some time for solitude. It is crucial now that mankind turn inward for solace, inspiration, creativity, and even entertainment, for in constant outward attention is the spirit soon drained and left gasping for breath and notice.

Please treat your inner life as well as you treat your outer life—or even better than that—and you will have long days of peacefulness upon that earth.

Continue learning how to flow with your changing world. Change your attention to your inner world now more succinctly, paying attention to what comes to you as you sit in reverie. Use it to guide you in your outer life and in the world, as it spins, spews, and seeks to bring the messages of concern and change that are so necessary now.

Do not become desperate beings in the wake of disasters, but become silent introspective soul seekers. Only in alignment with nature will man survive the next few decades of severe drought and commercial devastation that will befall an unenlightened population.

Find notice of what is to come all around you, but find what you need within for your survival. The idea of survival of the fittest may determine your way, but for the future that is going to mean something beyond the physical. Learn what that might mean for you personally by investigating your deeper self. It is there that all answers lie.

Seek calmness and fortitude inside the self. Stop looking outwardly so much now. Turn to a different center of attention—at the core of every human being. It awaits your arrival. Visit it often now.

Channeled in a moment of solitude—from Jan and Jeanne

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Ark of Emergence into the Fifth World

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In Hopi cosmology the world we presently inhabit is the fourth incarnation of previously destroyed worlds. Like our own, those worlds were composed of the same primary elements and life forms of plants and animals, as well as populated by peoples challenged to responsibly handle their own natures.

With a mythology nearly identical to that of Noah in Genesis, Hopi legend—or history—recounts the failure of human nature and thus the gathering of the worthy few to be saved, as each successive world is destroyed and created anew, for a fresh start led by the wise, saved ones.

Hopi prophecy predicts that the Fourth World we presently inhabit is in its final stages, with the process of destruction and transformation to the Fifth World quite apparent in current world events. In Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters, on page 33, the Hopi spokesmen state:

“The Fourth World, the present one, is the full expression of man’s ruthless materialism and imperialistic will; and man himself reflects the overriding gross appetites of the flesh.”

The Hopi view of the energetics of the human body is remarkably similar to the chakra system of Eastern mysticism. The Hopi focus on the spinal cord as an energetic pathway with energy centers beginning at the crown chakra. The energy center at the solar plexus or the navel, what the Hopi call The Throne of the Creator, is the place of dominant fixation in our current world. This chakra in Eastern mysticism is called Manipura, the place of personal power.

This center, from a psychological perspective, focuses on the ego/Self dilemma. The Hopi designation, Throne of the Creator, acknowledges that true power ought rest with the Creator, God, Self, or Tao. With the birth of ego consciousness man must learn to exercise personal power in alignment, and in respect for, this higher power. There are many trials and challenges to arrive at this correct alignment.

At one end, the challenge is for the individual to discover, claim, and exercise legitimate power. This is about self-acceptance and self-confidence—emergence from fear, shyness, dependency, and meekness onto solid footing.

The challenge at the other extreme of this chakra is the complete usurping of the higher power of the Self by the ego, the ultimate hubris: I am Man, the Creator. We see examples of this attitude played out daily now on the world stage: man the bully, abuse of power, greed, rape of woman and material world. This is masculine power, dominant and out of control.

This week, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, known as “The Seducer,” is charged with sexual assault. Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Mr. Universe,” separates from his wife as he admits to a love child. The shadow of Senator John Ensign’s sex scandal extends to other Republicans, and Osama Bin Laden’s apparent porn stash is exposed. In one week the sexual abuse of masculine power by some of the most powerful men in the world is revealed.

In that world view, of man as entitled to do what he wants, the feminine exists for the use and abuse of the masculine will, as well as to feed the sexual appetite of narcissistic men possessed by their own sense of absolute power. That world can never know anything of “the magnitude and splendor of the bliss and ecstasy of a clean, uninhibited and fully abandon-packed sexual union [that] could never contribute to anything derogatory to human dignity.” (From Yoga and Sex by Pandit Shiv Sharma, page 29.)

This quote describes a full union of complimentary opposites: a meeting based on commitment, trust, and mutual respect; the Tao of love. In this union, power is expressed in upholding these tenets to channel the full energy of divine primal love.

The IMF chief is an apt symbol, as well, of a power-based organization that has turned nations into indentured servants to serve the greedy few. Witness the plight of Jamaica when the IMF destroyed Jamaican industry and agriculture whereby undermining Jamaica’s ability to remain a self-sufficient economic entity. This debacle is well-documented in the film Life and Debt.

Beyond the IMF is the complete rape of the feminine physical earth, of its natural resources, purity, and balance by unbridled greed. We see now, every day, the reaction of Pachamama to these abuses in the earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, swollen rivers and floods.

The Hopis prophesized that the revolutionary energies of destruction/transformation of the Fourth World would arise from the peoples who first received The Light of Divine Wisdom in the countries of India, China, Egypt, Palestine, and Africa. We indeed see, every day, the revolutionary stirrings in those lands.

Carl Jung was fond of telling the true story of the rain-maker, told to him by his dear friend Richard Wilhelm, a German scholar and Protestant missionary who immersed himself in the study and translation of the I Ching while living in China. Here is the story, as Jung describes it in Mysterium Coniunctionis, page 419-20:

“There was a great drought where Wilhelm lived; for months there had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss-sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result. Finally the Chinese said, ‘We will fetch the rain-maker.’ And from another province a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked was for a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days. On the fourth day the clouds gathered and there was a great snow-storm at the time of the year when no snow was expected, an unusual amount, and the town was so full of rumors about the wonderful rain-maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it. In true European fashion he said: ‘They call you the rain-maker, will you tell me how you made the snow?’ And the little Chinese said: ‘I did not make the snow, I am not responsible.’ ‘But what have you done these three days?’ ‘Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order, they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I also am not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao and then naturally the rain came.’ “

Wilhelm’s experience dramatically validates the principle of synchronicity, but even further demonstrates the far reaching effect of one individual who finds his way from a state of disorder, like that of our current world, back into the Tao. This is a story of empowerment, the story of how to find one’s way onto the ark of emergence into the Fifth World.

The Hopi spokesmen point out:

“It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life… Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another world…” (Book of the Hopi, page 408.)

The rain-maker demonstrates the truth of our holographic universe. In a hologram, every minute slice of the hologram actually contains the full picture of the entire hologram. We are all holographic slices that contain within ourselves our entire world. Like the rain-maker we reflect the disorder of our entire world. If but one of us truly restores order within the self we can, like the rain-maker, profoundly influence our world.

What does it mean to restore order, to return to the Tao within the self, in the chaos of this Fourth World we currently inhabit? We must individually address the issues connected to the fixation of this world on the Manipura chakra with all its challenges and how they play out within our personal lives.

What is our relation to personal power? Are we meek, like beggars seeking permission to be in this world? Are we bullies with no regard for our interdependent world? Are we seducers who use and abuse, or lovers fully capable of meeting? Are we in alignment with powers greater than our individual ego, like the Self or Pachamama, or do we rape the planet of its resources for our own greed? Do we care for our bodies, our nourishment, or do our appetites make us ill from greedy overconsumption?

If we can find our way to balance in alignment with spirit, Tao, Self, in all of these questions, then nature will release us onto the ark of emergence into the Fifth World.

Let’s meet in the Tao,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: In Constant Flux

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A trinity of recent dreams has afforded me a deeper awareness of nature and life, nature and life as we perceive them in this reality, nature and life as powerful beyond the ideals and hubris of mankind, and nature and life as eternal energy.

The first dream, which has recurred in some form or another throughout my life, since early childhood, depicts a barren, burned out landscape after some kind of bomb had fallen or fire has raged. Perhaps this dream first originated as a result of the cold war, when the illusive Iron Curtain was spoken of almost daily, the threat of attack from Russia as great as getting a simple cold. During my elementary school years we had frequent bomb drills, the way school children now have fire drills, learning to go into the hallway of the school building and duck down and cover our heads, or wind our way into the dark basement, hundreds of kids standing in the dark awaiting the threat of annihilation, just the push of a button away. Sometimes the nuns at my Catholic school were calm during these drills, at other times a heightened sense of urgency made the drill seem very real, the danger imminent.

Perhaps this dream of annihilation originated from within my own unconscious, teaching me something about myself, my true potential. In any case, I dreamed this dream again a few nights ago. It was the same dream as always. First, I notice that the earth is entirely burned to blackened cinders, nothing is left, it is totally razed, as if indeed an atomic bomb, a nuclear attack, or a huge firestorm has come through, completely wiping out every living thing on the entire planet. Not a twig or blade of grass remains, not a building or structure, not another human being. I am alone in this charred landscape.

Nature in renewal

I am never frightened in this dream. As I stand and calmly gaze out over this barren landscape, understanding that I must somehow find the means to survive on my own, I begin to see the stirrings of new life. The earth at my feet begins to crack open and as I stoop down to peer closely at the ground I see tiny green shoots beginning to poke up out of the earth, life seeking light, nature regenerating itself from the most devastating of circumstances. Each time I have this dream I receive the same message: Nothing can destroy nature; life will always find a means of seeking its full potential, and that, no matter what happens, the seeds of life are always present, within me too.

The second dream I had took this idea one step further. In this dream, I am attempting to invigorate life energy in others, to inject enlightening ideas, literally using a hypodermic needle to inject positive life energy into people’s arms. I knew that people were putting all kinds of things into their bodies in an effort to evolve, using all kinds of spiritual and mental processes and nutritional substances, but I saw how difficult it was for people. I wanted to help ease their sufferings. I knew that relief was only just an injection away. If I could just inject enough people with the right stuff the world would be a better place. It was not hubris or inflation on my part, just concern for the suffering of the struggling masses that made me want to help in whatever way I could.

Let it be...

In this dream, I was told to stop trying to control nature, that nature itself, within each human being on earth, would right itself, that everyone had the potential within to grow and find true alignment with nature, in their own time. The message was: Let nature take its course; it will come out right in the end, as it should be.

The third dream went again another step further. Now I had learned that nature was unstoppable, that it would correct itself when the time was right, but in this third dream I was asked to notice something else.

In this third dream, I am teaching a nature drawing class, asking everyone in the class to really look closely at the leaves and flowers and trees we are drawing, at the landscapes and scenes of nature that lie before us. In this dream, spring is in full bloom, everything is bright green, fully alive, perfectly beautiful, nice and neatly returned to pristine beauty after a long hard winter. The message here is to notice that even though the landscape has returned to a recognizable state, we must not assume that it is stagnant. We must not fall into complacency or take anything for granted.

“If you look closely,” a dream voice tells me, “you will notice that everything is still growing and changing, that nature never stops!” I ask all of my drawing students to peer closely at the blades of grass, the leaves of lettuce and the tips of the branches before them.

“Look,” I say, “everything is still in motion, always changing.”

This is the message of this third dream: to not stagnate or assume that just because everything has returned to a semblance of normalcy that it’s so. No, nature is doing so much more. We too have this same potential, this same life inside us. We are all in constant flux; like nature, our growing time is endless.

As we now face the truth of a rapidly changing natural world, as we continue to drill for oil and frack for natural gas, as we continue to send men into the depths of the earth to dig for coal that blackens not only their lungs but the air we all breathe, as we return to complacency after the recent natural events, saying that everything will take care of itself, we must look more closely at the decisions we make.

Yes, we must face the truth that we may destroy the earth, as depicted in my first dream. We must remember that we are the ones who have made the bombs that destroy nature, the nuclear power plants that hold annihilation at their core, with the potential to destroy the earth. We contaminate our water, the air, the earth we grow our food in. We do have the power to destroy and we may well be the generation that tips the scales. We may have to accept our part in annihilating ourselves. So what then?

Do we simply sit back and let that happen? Is that where we are now? Are we so disconnected from nature and our true interconnected potential that we will let that happen? Maybe.

The decision to grow...

Maybe we are the ones who will really change the world; we do hold that power, in a destructive sense, right now, at this moment in time, as well as in a positive sense if we so choose. But we do not have the power of nature to renew the earth. That power belongs solely to nature. We do not have the power to inject life, as I tried to do in my second dream, a false hope on my part, because real change and new life can only happen when people are ready to change and embrace new life. But we all have the power to make decisions to change, right now, so that our hubris does not destroy us and all other living things on this earth.

As in my third dream, if we observe the power of nature, use it as our guide, showing us that we are life itself, we are the energy of nature and life too, we are offered the opportunity to grasp that life will go on, in some form, with us or without us. Just as nature restores itself and changes constantly, in alignment with the energy of life itself, so do we have that same potential for unending life energy inside us. The final message of my third dream was that life is unending, that it never stops, that in some fashion it will keep going.

Yes, we must let nature take its course, but we must be in alignment with true nature, not with what we have done to her, not what we want to keep doing to her, curtailing nature to fit our needs. We must get in alignment with the fact that nature has the power to restore, but we must not be so accepting and complacent of this power either. We must wake up and read the signs of nature. She is asking us to change now and we must accept that we do have the power to enact change.

I do not accept that we are doomed, though it often feels that way. But I also feel that it is critical that we make personal and universal choices that uphold the truth of life.

Life is eternal, always changing and growing, in constant flux.

Seeking alignment,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#759 Right Direction of Change

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Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

As I observe nature in spring unfolding, I feel the urgency to keep up, to keep changing and growing too, to not waste a second, but to continually evolve. This is not an urgency to go beyond nature, but to go more deeply into it, to learn from it, both how to live in better alignment with it, part of it, as well as how to better understand life and the meaning of human existence.

Today, I ask Jeanne: What guidance can you offer as I struggle to evolve in right alignment with nature?

Jeanne responds:

Do not look too far beyond your own intimate world for the signs and guidance you need in order to learn about the meaning of life. Each one of you have, within your home environment, the seeds of nurturance and evolution. Whether those are seeds of sustenance or seeds of decay, so are they seeds of change. Whether your tendency is to attach to a positive outlook or a negative outlook on life, so are you fully equipped with the tools you need to change.

Begin where you are, with what you have. State your intent to change, grow, learn, and then allow nature within the self to guide you on your journey.

Are you stuck in inertia? In complacency? Are you not sure? Or are you simply unaware of your true state?

It does not matter what your mind knows or does not know, so much as what the stirrings of your spirit know. True spirit knowing is often fear inducing, for your spirit is your greatest challenger, confronting you always with the truth of your situation.

You may wish to blame others or the outer world for your predicaments and circumstances, but, in truth, only you are to blame for your life, your situation in life, your health, your awareness, your clarity, your abilities to dare yourself to move on and truly live a full life.

Do not turn to others to resolve or solve your most urgent matters, but constantly turn inward and ask the self to show you the way. It may help to SLOW DOWN, even though you may feel the urgency of nature unfolding all around you. Slow down and OBSERVE how nature reacts to situations it finds itself in. Observe the SPIRIT of nature itself as unbending, unbreakable, unthwarted by what comes from the outside. Spirit leads to understanding LIFE itself, and this is where your most necessary lesson is—in learning to grasp what the energy of LIFE, that which you all hold within your personal world, really means to you as an individual and as a member of the society you live in.

The world is large and diverse, and populations are at different stages of life, yet each population and each individual within those populations around the world are living a life of meaning, potential, and purpose. It is up to you to find the true meaning for your life and act upon it with energy, daring, and in right alignment with the truth of all nature.

When Jeanne says this it reminds me of what the Buddhists say, that everyone has within them the true potential to be a Buddha.

Jeanne continues:

Within your personal permaculture must you each find your rhythm, your sustenance, your signs of growth. Within yourself must you seek your guidance.

When Jeanne said the word “permaculture” I immediately understand this to mean the physical body, that our bodies themselves are our total and complete world—that everything we need is embodied within the permaculture of our human, physical form. This is what she refers to when she speaks of our true natural world. We must keep it in balance, richly tended, attended to like a good organic farmer.

Jeanne goes on to say:

Look to nature at your feet, not at someone else’s, for your personal direction. Look for guidance in your own heart, not someone’s else’s, for your knowing. Look for the answers to your questions in calmness of self, knowing full well that your outer world is showing you that it is only within the self that truth and spirit lie.

The events outside of your inner world, even the events around the greater world, as they erupt daily, effecting everything about your life, are really only pushing you to confront your own inner events and conflicts, for that is where your life energy resides, caught in conflict.

Even as you work your soil, take in the sunlight, the moonlight, and connect to your natural world, dig deeper within, for that is your fertile ground where all the answers lie, seeds waiting for your mind to release them. They hold enough energy to burst open without your controlling mind attaching importance based on old, outer knowledge. That is done now. It is the inner knowledge of the ancient self that must come forth and guide each one of you now.

If you want to change your world—your personal world as well as your greater world—you must change the self, otherwise there will be no success. Lift your heavy mantles of intellect now, the mantles of rational thought, as great and powerful as they are. There is nothing so great and knowledgeable as the true knowing heart of each one of you.

The Ancient Circulating in Nature

Join in heart-centered energy and find the answers you seek. You will recognize them immediately, for they have always resided inside you. You have used them many times to guide you in the past. In all lifetimes, these are the answers you seek. Your ancient answers, your ancient knowledge—which has been circulating for eons—has always spoken, always been present in some form. You just have to hear it, recognize it, feel your true heart’s response, and get in alignment.

Watch out for the false words and the false heart’s response. Watch out for the ego’s alignment. Danger lies in this alignment. You know what I’m talking about: FEAR!

Yes, I must interject here, because I do know exactly what she means. Jeanne warns us earlier in this message that: True spirit knowing is often fear inducing. This is where we must face our greatest challenges because, indeed, fear shows us where we have to go to really change and grow. Normally fear makes us want to run back into our old comforts, but the true challenge is to confront the fear, go through it, and find out what it has been blocking us from. This is the challenge of recapitulation, to keep facing the fear rather than retreat into our old world, our old behaviors, and our old ideas of self. If we don’t face our fears we will never change our world.

Jeanne offers this final advice today:

Turn now toward LOVE, universally present inside all of you.

That’s enough for today. Find the difference between LOVE and FEAR, between the heart’s true alignment and the ego’s false alignment. This is where you will distinguish between right direction of change and old direction of complacency and no real change at all.

It takes daring to change. Watch Nature. It shows you all that you need to learn how to face the daring self who truly desires change, as the daring self challenges the fearful self.

Most humbly offered,
Jan