The other day we watched a swallowtail butterfly alight on our small lilac bush, noting that, in spite of all the bad news lately, nature is back in full swing. But that doesn’t mean we are safe from harm. Life seems to be going on as usual and I’ve noted that people do not really get it that our world has changed since the nuclear disaster in Japan. But this is change that we can’t see, so there is little incentive to believe the truth of it. As a result of that-which-we-can’t-see, poisoned earth and food are not even an issue for most people. Little real change seems to be taking place as to how people eat and view food and this is worrisome.
What are we thinking? Why do we choose not to face the truth of our changed world? How do we protect ourselves from ingesting even more toxins than ever before? Even in local gardening, in growing our own foods, in picking from nature, the truth is that the soil is contaminated now with radiation.
In my opinion, this changed environment requires diligence and questioning on the part of the consumer. It requires that we take the initiative like never before to confront the hypocrisy of the media and the corporations, that we demand full exposure of the truth of reality, in straight spoken terms, so that everybody gets that we are in a crisis here, and, above all, that we push for the closure of nuclear power plants now in operation and stop all plans to open more. There is nothing safe about them.
I don’t think it’s too late for us, or the earth, but a lot of people may have to get sicker before the food and power industries begins to change, based on the consumer making demands based on reality, even the kind you can’t see.
The crows are trying to tell us something. This bird of omen, if you note, as we have, has been flying low lately. What does this mean? The crows are swooping down in front of us as we drive, walk, sit on our deck. They are trying to tell us something— perhaps to be careful, to be watchful. Are they swooping low to remind us of what came raining down upon us from the nuclear explosions in Japan? Are they trying to tell us that our world is changing more rapidly than we think? Are they warning of impending attacks? I don’t mean to alarm, but I really wonder what they are foreshadowing or implying in their erratic behavior? Normally birds of the sky and the tree tops, they are diligent at watching over the world from on high, but now, for some reason, they have left their sentinel posts and are flying at low levels and this is mighty curious.
I don’t take the unseen lightly. I know it is powerful energy, the unseen web of interconnected energy that is both healing and spiritually enlightening, but that is also where negative energy and the potential for destruction reside as well.
Be thoughtful, be careful. Detoxify, heal the self, treat the earth as you would treat your children, your loved ones and she will treat you well in return. Nuclear power, oil drilling, and natural gas fracking are not treating the earth well; they are harming it irreparably and our human population as well, more than we can see.
It is not that which we see that is important now, but that which we can’t see. Keep that in mind as you think about how you really want the world and yourself and your loved ones to look in a few years time.
Take a look at this article from The Center for Public Integrity: A More Likely Nuclear Nightmare that just got posted while I was writing this blog. It’s time to protest the absurdity ever more loudly.
Always hopeful and optimistic, yet alert like the crows,
Jan
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
The world is awakening, blossoming and beautiful, showing her finery. It reminds me of how easy it is to take everything for granted, to forget the truths of our world, of what we humans have been doing for centuries to Mother Earth. She is so strong and resilient, we say; she always comes back; she takes care of business.
The recent natural events in Japan so starkly underscored the folly of many of the choices we have made to keep our lifestyles booming, unwilling as we are to compromise. We want to fulfill demand rather than curb demand, rather than change to better, more sustainable and natural means of seeking and utilizing energy. We have become, for the large part, a world of consumers who just want more and more.
Regard and respect for our natural, life-giving Mother Earth has waned, as we have turned to pseudo products: everything from our food and medicinals to our creation of nuclear power; as we have contrived, manipulated, tampered, in order to have more, with little regard for life. We want more money, more fuel, more commodities that we can trade and make more money off. Yet little of what we are doing in those regards is real or helpful or protective of people or the earth. As a result, as well, we have become frightened, self-judging, unable to speak and act on our own behalf; feeling that we are wrong to question, to oppose, to say no; afraid of the powers that control and make decisions for us, telling us how to think, act, and be.
So, as we now enter a known time in the life cycle of the natural world, as spring comes more fully to our part of the globe, we see the power of nature to rejuvenate, to grow, produce, and replenish. And, yet, I fear the complacency that may also arise as we see everything returning to normal, at least on the outside. I fear the urgency that we all felt a few short weeks ago will disappear, as we fall back into the comfort of knowing that nature will return and once again take over, making us feel safe. Yes, nature will return, but if we observe nature it does not rest in that knowing. It keeps going; no matter what, it keeps barging ahead.
Nature's alarm clock
As I wake up each morning to the cawing of the crow outside my window, to nature’s alarm clock, I also wonder what this bird, the bird of omen, is trying to tell me. This morning I saw the crow swoop down into the lower branches of a tree and I heard a racket of other birds, another alarm filling the air, and I wondered if he was reminding me to be vigilant, because someone may be tampering or harming in my world, as he is in his, raiding another nest. Be alert, he says, wake up!
I notice also that though the hawks raid the crow’s nest, and the crows raid the robin’s nest, and the bluebirds kill the moth and the fox kills the chickens and races after the cat, none of these creatures pause to feel sorry for themselves. None of them are victims. They don’t judge themselves or their assailants, they don’t stay caught in feeling sorry for their plight; they are not big babies. They simply move on to new life. They learn a lesson, perhaps; to be watchful of the hawk, the crow, the bluebird, the fox, yet they barge ahead, with the energy of life that never stops.
Today I ask Jeanne: What guidance do you offer us to specifically stay awake, aware, and alert, learning from the propensities we all have to both manipulate and destroy, as well as fall into complacency; and as we so easily allow ourselves to be taken advantage of, while we feel sorry for ourselves, bemoaning our situations and the circumstances of our lives?
Jeanne responds:
It is, My Dears, of utmost importance that each one of you recognize yourself as a living, breathing entity fully capable of survival upon that earth in a natural way. As I have spoken of before: you hold more power than you realize. You can, if you are prepared to take on the challenge, change your world simply by the decisions you make.
It is not only time to wake up each day and go about your routine, but it is time to wake up to the greater truths that abound, warning you all that something is greatly amiss. In awakening to the disturbing facts that come into your awareness, and to the things that make you most uncomfortable, you are offered the opportunity to accept responsibility for undertaking a personal challenge to do things differently.
Awakening to truths, both inside and outside the self, to the contaminations of both inner and outer world, you awaken to the opportunity for discovering that you are so much more than you now perceive, that you have more personal power than you could possibly conceive of.
It is within your power to heal your body, to heal your mind, to heal your sick and sorry soul, your depressed and sad self who feels powerless, controlled, and frightened. But you will not be able to access this powerful self if you do not accept its presence. You do not have to search for it, but you do have to listen for it.
In order to stay awake and access this most powerful self, one must quiet the voices of commercialism, of greed and manipulation, and talk to the gentle voice of your own knowing heart. This heart-centered voice speaks only of taking responsibility for self. It asks for the rhetoric of old to slow down to a hum, to nothing more than the background hum of busy bees, present but not intrusive.
In turning down the voices of convention and turning up the voices of Mother Nature and Mother Self—calm and truthfully knowing as they both are—a shift may begin to take place. In accepting the voice that says ‘I have the answers within,’ one may begin to take the first step toward truly becoming responsible for the self, with the goal of personal responsibility leading to engaging personal power and using it each day.
By accepting the fact that each one of you has a relationship with the natural world, by accepting your personal alignment with what natures does and shows you each day, your personal and very natural power to change the self may begin to be engaged on a greater level. Begin by accepting that you alone are enough, guided by a natural self, in alignment with an energetic reality that says: I am an energetic being with enough personal power to make decisions of merit and value in alignment with the energy of all living things, seen and unseen. I am enough, and I take responsibility for utilizing and learning just what that means in my personal life.
In so doing, may you grant yourself access to the true meaning of life. In so doing, may you grant yourself access to the power of nature, of energy embodied in your physical form, to lead you on your journey.
Find a means of connecting with your personal power. Take a calm walk. Lose your thoughts to the breeze for a few minutes each day. Feel the earth beneath your bare feet. Listen to the calls of nature, to the birds, so apparent. Breathe the shifting winds, the energy of life wafting past you every moment of every day. Take time to note how you feel when you connect to the sun, the air, the earth, the water, in whatever your environment may be. Nature is available to everyone in some way. Then, holding your experience close to your heart, accept that you belong to this natural world too.
The power of nature is in you. You too, like nature, have the ability to revitalize, to re-emerge, to change, to take over your world after months and even years of dormancy.
It is time to awaken, but it is also time to stay awake, to keep going, to not stop, no matter what comes to thwart you, confuse you, control you, decide for you, manipulate you and take you on a journey you did not personally choose. In fact, though, you did choose wherever you are at this moment, so do not be a victim. Be a changing being.
Accept your power to do so, and live on in a new manner. That is how you will really find your place and change yourself and your world, by accepting full responsibility for your entire self, life, thoughts, actions, and place in the world.
Welcome to a new world. It belongs to you. Don’t make the same mistakes. Wake up and do life differently, inside and outside. I say ‘Good Morning’ to you each moment of each day. I’m saying ‘Good Morning’ to keep waking you up. Good Morning!
Thank you to Jeanne for that message. I hear the crows calling again. They too call all day long, waking and warning to be on the alert, to be alive, in alignment and flowing with what comes.
Spring is eagerly looked forward to in our house. The first signs of green growth, what some people would call weeds, herald platefuls of nutritious meals and the making of tinctures, infusions, and decoctions. At this time of year we are gathering those weeds, drying some for teas, cutting and infusing others to become medicinals for winter use, and cleaning and eating others fresh from the ground. Those weeds are full of energy, the first signs of offerings from Mother Earth after a long winter of making due with what we can find in the local markets. As the winter waned we watched the struggle, the earth awakening, the buds growing a little more each day, the need for sunlight and rain to aid in the natural unfolding of what has been lying dormant for so many months.
As a young teenager, I hiked along the Appalachian Trail that ran along the top of the mountain where I lived, a copy of Euell Gibbon’s Stalking the Wild Asparagus in my backpack, learning to identify plants and trees, digging for roots, picking leaves, and always on the lookout for that elusive wild asparagus. My daughter tells me that Stalking the Wild Asparagus has taken on a cult meaning now, within a new hippie culture; her friends posting that they are out ‘stalking the wild asparagus’ when walking the land or simply unavailable. I like that, the idea that a book written by a man who Johnny Carson regularly used as a brunt of jokes, but also respectfully invited to his show, The Tonight Show, is still important, still valued. I know that this modest man and his book are extremely valuable now as we face the call to change how we live upon this earth.
Yesterday, while driving and listening to the radio, I happened to hear part of an interview with Vandana Shiva on Alternative Radio, a woman from India, a nuclear physicist turned environmentalist. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide a link to that interview, called War on Earth, originally recorded on April 26, 2011, but I urge anyone who is interested in the environment and what is happening to our food supply to read her books, look for interviews, and pay attention to the truths she so eloquently speaks of. At the end of this blog I link to some You Tube video recording of interviews with her, for convenience, in an effort to aid in awareness of her lifelong calling to save what rightfully belongs to Mother Earth and to us as human beings living on this planet.
In the interview I listened to yesterday, she spoke of the differences between Eastern and indigenous knowledge of the earth as true Mother and the Western concept of earth only as nature, totally separate from man. No, she says, the earth is Mother; she gives us everything. In fact, we are the guests here, though we have lost this most vital and humble connection to our presence on this earth.
As visitors for only a brief period of time, are we not responsible for being better guests? Are we using the earth as a cheap hotel, leaving it in a shambles for someone else to clean up? Are we going to keep trashing, burning, drilling, cutting, tampering with, poisoning, and destroying what Mother Earth provides? Are we going to let a greedy few take away our health, our land, our most vital resources because we don’t have the energy or time to care?
A few weeks ago, someone turned to me in the aisle of the grocery store as they read the label on a can of tuna fish that stated it was sustainably caught and caring of the planet. This person looked me in the eye and said: “I don’t care about the planet, let the planet take care of itself.” When I heard this utterance I felt my face turn into a mask, my entire being becoming earthen and solid, as I felt the deep well of disrespect that I know is rampant in our country. To speak even the word ‘mother’ in the West, as Vandana Shiva mentioned in her radio interview, is often rebuked as silly, dismissed as naive, unimportant.
In truth, we are so distant from the true reality of ourselves as related to all things. We prefer to be superior, above and beyond nature. We are a culture resistant to breastfeeding, where a woman’s body is no longer sacred or respected; mother no longer held in the highest regard, as the giver of all life.
Vandana Shiva is part of a group of international environmentalist working toward earth change, part of the group that recently helped enact the law in Brazil calling for returning equal rights to Mother Earth. As she said: She is mother.
How can we not understand that? The indigenous cultures know this and they see what has happened to their mother and they want to stop it. Can we not also see this and embrace this cause? Can we not see that our very lives are at stake?
It takes more than an individual effort; it takes a global effort to enact this kind of change. But, in the meantime, we must still, each one of us, do our individual part. Today, I suggest that we each take a look at what Mother Earth offers us in our own environment so that we can truly begin to understand just what she provides us. I follow with a few examples from our own backyard.
Chuck and I have been resurrecting our acre of land over the past several years. Once highly landscaped, it fell into disrepair and by the time we purchased it most of the gardens were overgrown, hiding the ornamental trees and bushes; the rock walls covered in poison ivy, sumac sprouting up everywhere. When we lost our tall pines in the tornado that came through last fall, we at first bemoaned the loss of those majestic trees, home to many birds, that had shaded us in the summer and protected us in the winter. Now however, we have embraced what nature did, for we have sunlight and the ability to grow food that we didn’t have before. As we have cleared and cleaned our property we have discovered its hidden offerings as well. As we walk the land, we find that we could actually survive off it, food aplenty, medicinals and healing opportunities abounding.
Crab apple and magnolia trees, though often thought of as only ornamental, offer many healing properties. Their blossoms, leaves, and barks hold many properties that have been used by indigenous and Chinese herbalists for centuries, some of them making their way into products we find on the market today. If you chew the bark of the magnolia you may recognize that it tastes like something familiar, used in many dental products, because it is good for the gums and teeth. The pesky sumac, the kind with red berries, not the poisonous kind with white berries, is actually full of healing properties as well, as is the rapidly growing catalpa with its large leaves and long pods, the seeds especially medicinal.
Dandelions, the leaves, roots, and blossoms are full of vitamins, minerals, and healing properties as well. Plantain, the lowliest of wild plants probably—everyone has this in their yard or can easily find it alongside the road—is amazing in the healing of cuts and stopping the flow of blood. We use it often; chewing the leaves and laying the pulp over a cut to stop the bleeding and knit the skin back together faster than anything I have ever seen. In telling his story Black Elk, the holy man of the Oglala Sioux, refers to being healed in this way after having been in battle, his guts hanging out and the shaman having him chew the leaves of this lowly plant and it knitting him back together so that in a matter of days he was back on the battlefield.
Last night, Chuck and I had a meal of tender dandelion greens sauteed with shitake mushrooms and garlic in olive oil, a little lemon juice sprinkled over it, salt and pepper. We also sauteed, in butter, tiny buds of dandelion flowers. Tasting like tiny asparagus they are the little green nuggets at the center of the plant before the stems grow. We sprinkled our plates with a few edible purple violet flowers. In picking the greens before the flowers grow the characteristic bitterness is avoided; after that soaking them in salted water removes this taste if it is unpleasant.
We make salads or sautes of chickweed, garlic mustard, plantain, prickly lettuce, wild onion or ramps, and clover, all found in our backyard. We make dandelion brandy from the flowers of this so-called pesky weed; its properties cleanse the liver; its roots a tonic for many ills of the digestive system. We make tinctures of chickweed, good for the skin; lemon balm, good for the nerves, heart, and brain; burdock for innumerable reasons.
Get a good book, research ancient folk remedies on the Internet, learn to identify what Mother offers in your own backyard, neighborhood or park. Everyone, no matter where we live, can have access to what the earth offers if interested. She is right below our feet, we don’t have to go far to find something to sustain and heal us. She does indeed offer us everything we need.
Last week Chuck and I had many discussions around the subjects of good and evil, death as an advisor, impermanence, the shadow, accepting that we all have inner demons, negative energy, the capacity to commit murder, and that we must all face these things at some time in our lives or risk having to reincarnate. The subjects kept coming up again and again in various circumstances and encounters. As we sat at the breakfast table early one morning over the weekend a synchronistically powerful event occurred right before our eyes that we just could not escape. It was supremely meaningful, underscoring the very conversation we were having at the time, which centered around the capacity that we have as human beings to hide from our true nature, to want to pretend that we are only good, and how hard it is to confront the truths of our inner darkness. Life would be so much easier if everyone were happy, good, loving, kind and compassionate. I totally agree and could wish for nothing more. But as any Buddhist will tell you, it can take a lifetime of intense inner work to reach even a moment of enlightenment.
The following is a quote from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche, which I am particularly fond of and drawn to almost daily.
“One of the chief reasons we have so much anguish and difficulty facing death is that we ignore the truth of impermanence. We so desperately want everything to continue as it is that we have to believe that things will always stay the same. But this is only make-believe. And as we so often discover, belief has little or nothing to do with reality. This make-believe, with its misinformation, ideas, and assumptions, is the rickety foundation on which we construct our lives. No matter how much the truth keeps interrupting, we prefer to go on trying, with hopeless bravado, to keep up our pretense.” -from page 25.
The author goes on to say the following:
“Reflect on this: The realization of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing we can hold onto, perhaps our only lasting possession. It is like the sky, or the earth. No matter how much everything around us may change or collapse, they endure. Say we go through a shattering emotional crisis . . . our whole life seems to be disintegrating . . . our husband or wife leaves us without warning. The earth is still there; the sky is still there. Of course, even the earth trembles now and again, just to remind us we cannot take anything for granted . . .” -from page 25 and 26.
So, what occurred before our very eyes last weekend that so profoundly affected us, as we sat at the breakfast table and chatted over our omelets and toast?
I was sitting and facing the backyard when I noticed a pair of crows doing a funny dance in the sky. They were twirling, diving and whipping about as if in the throes of a mating dance. This was my first exclamation as I pointed them out to Chuck: “Look at those dancing crows!” But there was something odd about them at the same time; they did not look really happy and I had never seen crows doing such antics. Normally they are very businesslike. They fly with purpose, heading directly to their intended destination with little fanfare or distraction. These crows were acting very strangely indeed.
We both got up from the table to watch more closely when I saw that they were not doing a mating dance to new life at all, but were in fact doing something more like a dance with death, for we saw that a huge hawk was sitting in the tree close to their nest and they were dive-bombing him, trying to scare him off. They were dealing with the true nature of reality: death comes to call; no one can escape it. They could not ignore this truth, but they could put up a valiant fight to save their young. And indeed they did. We watched as the crows repeatedly attacked the hawk, and eventually, scared it off the branch. Their fight continuing in the sky, they dove at it continually, cutting it with their wings, sending it spinning at one point and, eventually, the hawk flew off. I said to Chuck: “He’ll be back. He’s not going to give up. Just wait.”
The hawk came back
Perhaps an hour later I happened to look outside and saw that the hawk was indeed back, his head stuck inside the nest, pecking away. The crows were nowhere in sight, but I could hear their gentle keening coming from a distance, acquiescing to the inevitable. Death had come. They were accepting the impermanence of life, that change had come and they could not do anything to thwart it, their mournful cries marking this truth.
Chuck and I watched the hawk tearing at something under its claw, though even with binoculars it was difficult to see what it was; an egg or a baby crow we could not tell, but the truth was plain to see. Eventually the hawk flew off the branch and, as it did, the crows flew up out of hiding and, with one last cry of pain, attacked it again before it flew off for good. I expected the crows to return to the tree where their nest lay disturbed, but was surprised to see that they did not. “Wow,” I thought, “they really do accept the loss, they aren’t even looking back, just moving on.”
I don’t know what transpired after that, if they did in fact go back to see if anything had survived, but I think they already knew that nothing remained, that the hawk was just doing what he should do, what they in turn do to smaller birds; that it was just nature. But the sky was still there, as Sogyal Rinpoche writes, and they took off into it. The earth was still there too.
What is our life but a dance with death?
“What is our life but this dance of transient forms? Isn’t everything always changing: the leaves on the trees in the park, the light in your room as you read this, the seasons, the weather, the time of day, the people passing you in the street? And what about us? Doesn’t everything we have done in the past seem like a dream now?… We are impermanent, the influences are impermanent, and there is nothing solid or lasting anywhere that we can point to.” –The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying pages 26 and 27.
The only thing we can really count on is now, this moment, this breath we take, this truth that at this moment in our life we are alive. And then the next moment is upon us, even as we let the last one go. Each moment is as impermanent as the last.
Personally, I am awestruck by such acts of nature. They are always thrilling moments. I feel lucky to live where I do, that I can have such moments of brilliance in my life, that I am offered such grittiness to reflect on. I cannot say that I would be able to fly off as easily as those crows did, though eventually I get there. I know myself well enough now; that after many years of inner work I am fully capable of walking on into life without regret or sorrow. I know how to face new life, letting go of the past, though I have learned to appreciate that death, in its many forms, always accompanies me.
I don’t mean to be morbid, especially with so many experiences of life abounding now, each new spring day bringing nesting birds, emerging plants and flowers, the earth reawakening. But I cannot help but point out the truth that we are all impermanent, that we must all one day dance with death. We already do it all the time, in so many small ways.
We must learn to face our own deaths each day, preparing for it in our thoughts and actions, learning from the crows how to let go. We must also learn from the hawk that we too are capable of taking what we need to live; we too kill to survive. We must keep learning from the people in our lives how to face the transient nature of life, learning from them what the most important questions to keep asking are. We must all face the truths of our make-believe worlds and face the grittiest of the truths of reality. I am thankful for everyone who is a part of my life, even if only peripherally, for showing me that everything is meaningful and how important it is to keep working on the personal inner process.
As the seers of ancient Mexico are so fond of saying: I am a being who is going to die. The hawk and the dancing crows teach us this. Chuck and I learned this again last weekend as we watched this lesson play out in the sky. But, in the meantime, we intend to fully live, for we have so much to still learn.
Living fully, sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post comments, photos, and quotes.
Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.
Today I ask Jeanne to address the world situation. Already the news about the situation in Japan has dipped from the front pages of most newspapers and blogs, even though what happened there affects us all and will for decades to come, and most likely even longer. I feel strongly that it is wrong for us, especially in America, to slip back into comfortable complacency, to forget the truth of what has been revealed with the amount of radiation pouring into the earth, the sea, and the air. Locally, in New York State, there is a tremendous push to frack through the earth with deadly chemicals in search of natural gas, wreaking havoc on a par with what has recently happened in Japan. With the safety of nuclear power now in question on a broader scale, natural gas companies are pushing ever harder to sell their “clean energy,” which is absolutely false promotion. There is nothing clean about how they extract gas from deep inside the earth.
I ask you, Jeanne, why are people so cavalier about how they treat the earth? Why don’t we, as a species, care enough about nature to protect it above all else? Why are we so narcissistic when we need the earth to be clean and pure for our very survival? Don’t we get it?
Jeanne responds:
The earth is a garden, but mankind has forgotten this. A long time ago, the truth of the earth was turned under with the machinery that man developed in order to produce on a massive scale. In tilling for profit mankind killed the truth of Mother Nature’s intent and bounty. In essence, what is happening now is the fault of mankind.
Do not blame what is transpiring only on the greedy few, the profiteers, the moneymen, the commodity markets—for all of you are responsible for the decline in true agriculture and true garden tending.
How many of you truly appreciate the earth you walk upon? How many of you speak to the earth and to the wilds of nature? How many of you walk upon the earth with gentle tread and open heart, thankful for every breath of air you take?
Is it not possible to take in the truth of the devastation that man has wrought? Each one of you must face what you have done as well. You cannot place mistakes and negative decisions only upon a few. You must face what each one of you do each day, for you too are at fault no matter how pure your intent.
You see, that is the other truth. Man is but another beast who walks upon the earth, doing what beasts do; using, taking, destroying; yet in all cases is there symbiosis to study. Even the most destructible of creatures serves a purpose and so man must accept that his penchant to take, to increase exponentially, is natural, but that it will be challenged in some way, leading to a new level of nature development. But, and I say this in all certainty, mankind must use what he carries in his head–his advanced mind in alignment with his knowing and tender heart–to begin a new process, or dire circumstance will arise and change things for him. This is not a flippant warning of world’s end on my part, but the truth of the devastating split that has occurred over the past one hundred years and more, as mankind has divorced himself from nature; nature outside of himself and his true inner nature as well.
Have you not all been poor stewards? This is the first question you must answer in the affirmative. For if you suggest that you have been good stewards the world would look mighty different right now. It is not enough to sit in your comfy homes and declare the self an environmentalist, a lover of nature, a partaker in energetic alignment. You must all take greater action now. You must all participate on a wider scale.
I interrupt and ask Jeanne the following question: What do you suggest we do? What can people who, for instance, live in a large city do to help the natural environment that is so far away from the concrete jungle they live in?
Jeanne says:
Take responsibility for your own health. Everyone breathes the same air, drinks the same water, eats of the same foods grown in the same earth. It is not too far-fetched for all to demand that these three things, the air, water, and the earth itself, the soil that sustains all life, be unpolluted, be free of manmade chemicals, be pure and natural. Everybody eats, and this is the first place to begin the demands of change. Eat only that which is real, pure, and intentionally produced with sustainable practices.
Well, many would find that prohibitive. Organic, healthy, clean and chemical free food is often expensive and many people struggle just to put even the basics on their tables.
Jeanne suggests:
Nature reveals her truth
Yes, but with increased demand for clean food and refusal to purchase poisoned food, a shift in practices now so rampantly damaging would be forced. After all, if money is the bottom line, don’t spend your money on that which sickens you, you only injure yourself and make the poisoners happy. If mankind is indeed to survive diseases, cancers, and most physical ills, a change in what he puts into his body is the first step. To allow the self to simply decay due to the greeds of a few is but an excuse to not take responsibility for the self.
Do you, My Dear Ones, wish to decay, to become a widely spreading fungal entity rather than a human thinking, acting, feeling, breathing machine far more capable than you are now? How do you expect to evolve if you cannot use your time upon that earth wisely and properly? Remember, your time is of short duration upon that earth in comparison to most life. And yet, do you keep this in your awareness?
It is time for mankind to live consciously, to live in awareness of self and surroundings, to make demands upon the powerful so that they may face the truths of their own short life spans, and to take action for change.
What you are proposing sounds like it will take some time because many people are caught in just trying to survive right now. The world we have created, I admit, does not work for the vast majority, but really only for the few. And yet, it seems that what we have created in America is spreading like a cancer to other parts of the world, where ancient wisdom ruled until recently and now capitalism is making inroads, sickening human beings, reaping money over real food. In light of why we are really here, it feels wrong.
Jeanne responds:
I understand the dilemma, but you must all, My Dear Readers, fight against the stupidity of governments that do not work for you and declare that some things are just wrong. For what is a democratic government if you do not participate in some way–it becomes merely a tyranny and then, yes, everyone struggles.
Find your personal balance. Make your personal commitments to change the self, how you walk upon the earth, how you feed yourself and your family. How you think and formulate your opinions should not be based on rhetoric and mimicry, but only on heart-centered truth. You cannot dismiss that something is seriously wrong, so how can you begin making it right? And who do you choose to listen to?
Basically, I suggest that the best place to look for answers is inside the self. But do not simply sit and mull for too long. Make some pertinent decisions. No matter what your station in life, your situation, you can do something to change the world. You all have power; you must find and utilize your own personal power. Remove the cloak of despair, the negative thinking, the fear of not having enough, and do something positive for the self, for the air, the water, the earth.
Can you end today’s message with some advice about what is happening in Japan?
The circumstances surrounding the catastrophe in Japan is your wake up call, My Dear Ones. This is what you must recognize and then you must stay awake. Be careful now, for what comes next will be of utmost importance, for it will decide the future. Be careful how you treat the earth. She has been so careful of all of you and yet now she weeps and moans. Her painful cries must be heeded. It is time to listen to what she tells you.
The Earth is a Garden
Walk upon your Mother Earth softly now and ask her to tell you what to do. She will reveal her answers to those who can truly listen. Listen with your heart and you too will hear her speaking what is now the most necessary step. Keep purity in mind now for the earth, for the self. The human body and the body of Mother Nature both need it, since both encompass a far greater ecosystem that you can fathom.
Everything is interconnected; keep that in mind.
Thank you to Jeanne for this message today.
Most humbly offered,
Jan
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