Tag Archives: recapitulation

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Experience as a Path

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As I write today, we are again immersed in frozen winter weather in the Northeast, a time that offers a most singular experience, forcing us to curtail our activities and deal with its impact, which can suddenly and unrelentingly take over, causing devastation and undesirable change. It is at times like these that I realize how insignificant we are in the path of nature.

I find myself of no importance as I face the snow and ice, the downed limbs and power lines, and as I battle to clear our driveway, scrape the ice off our cars, and keep our house warm. We don’t really matter to nature, and yet we are part of it. This is, as I see it, the same message from the shaman’s world, the world of the seers that asks us to accept our insignificance, to lose our self-importance, yet to utilize and value our experiences. How do we reconcile that dilemma, the idea that we are insignificant with the idea that we are here in our lives to have incredible experiences? How do we make sense of this conundrum?

For the past ten years I have been immersing myself in the shaman’s world; specifically, but not limited to, the world of the seers of ancient Mexico as described by Carlos Castaneda. I came into the seer’s world by intent, I believe, intent that I set long before I was even conscious, nature at its most basic. But my life’s challenge was to gain enough awareness, by becoming fully present in this world, by becoming increasingly open to seeing that everything I experience in this life may not be what I, at first, think or perceive.

My true introduction into the seer’s world really began when I first met Chuck Ketchel, though, as I have mentioned in previous blogs, I had read and felt an intense resonance with the early books of Castaneda when I was in my early twenties. It was not until I was ready, however, that the seers’ world really opened up for me, or perhaps that I opened up to it.

In the beginning, I admit, I was somewhat skeptical about the seer’s world, though never reluctant to explore its meaning or the possibilities it offered. I was ready and I met the right person to introduce me to a way of viewing life and life’s experiences from another perspective. In learning about this world of the seers, I learned that the experiences I had previously had were the necessary foundations for taking a journey of intelligent and complicated growth. My continued experiences are equally necessary, if I am to lose my self-importance and face my own insignificance, as well as my death.

Of course, this is a very personally resonant journey that I am on, and I know that not everyone will find what they seek in the seer’s world. There are many other paths that run parallel to this experiential world of the seers and I have a strong connection to some of them, having also been deeply immersed in yoga and meditation, and having had paranormal and psychic experiences my entire life. But even those paths and strange experiences became clearer, began to make greater sense to me, as I continued my voyage into the world of the seers of ancient Mexico, for I found that the seers offered explanations for experiences and encounters that I could not find explanations for anywhere else. Other paths and modalities did not offer the fuller picture that I have felt so resonantly in the seer’s world, often dismissing or avoiding the deeper healing that I have gone through as I engaged in the processes of recapitulation. The seer’s world gave me a new understanding of life from the experiential perspective.

I was never a religious person, but I have always been a spiritual person. Although raised a Catholic, taught by nuns, I knew at an early age that there was no resonance in the rhetoric and teachings of the catechism or the dictates of that paternal organization. Even at the age of seven I knew I was a doubter, that I could neither uphold nor fit into the Catholic mold. Perhaps with that knowing I unconsciously set the intent for future experiences that went far beyond the world of parochial education and expectations.

I have learned more fully, especially over the past ten years, that our singular journeys hold all we need to evolve, in our experiences. Our experiences are showing us what we need to learn, as they provide us with exactly the challenges that will move us beyond our present incarnation. In the seer’s world, I have found indescribable release from the dictates of a world that never quite made sense to me.

I have also found that my years of discipline in yoga and meditation serve me well in the seer’s world, and are in fact deeply utilized in that world—though different terms are used, the principles and practices are the same. The Buddhist principles of the middle way, of detachment, and gaining enlightenment are also deeply entrenched in the seer’s world. In the seer’s world all of these things, and many more that I may not even be aware of, are given credence and value. Everything is given a place in the seer’s world, without judgment, yet at the same time we are constantly presented with not attaching to any of them. The seers expect us to fully live our lives, embrace our experiences, and yet never forget that we are going to move beyond this world.

As I look out the window now and see the cold white snow and ice, I understand this concept, this dilemma more clearly. For what the seers present to us is the truth of nature—it is what it is—and we can do nothing about it, except accept that we are here and be impeccable in how we choose to live in this world, how we choose to face oncoming time, winter included, death included, as well as all the experiences that nature affords us. For yes, we are beings who are going to die, but in the meantime we are forces of nature that cannot do otherwise than live in this world. And yes, I have more snow and ice to shovel!

If we choose a path of experience, perhaps we will not only advance ourselves, but offer a new kind of challenge to those around us: to advance and evolve as well.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Our Blizzardy Ways

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It’s snowing heavily in the Northeast today, the snow piling up as each hour passes, covering the remnants of last week’s storm, beautifying the world in a way that only snow can do. But what lies beneath that thick coating of winter white? Everything that is present throughout the year is still there, though it is hidden, unseen and so also unknown, in a sense. The psyche can work like a snowstorm at times, hiding from us the truth of what lies at our core, protecting us and even tricking us into thinking otherwise. When the psyche rescues us or protects us in this manner we can become so used to its covert operations that we end up relying on it when, in fact, it may be doing us a disservice, causing harm rather than keeping us safe. One day we may wake up and realize that it has been snowing for far too long and that it is finally time to dig ourselves out of our blizzardy ways, out of the muffling drifts, the cold coverings that have kept us from truly knowing our deeper issues, our truths, and our honest selves.

At times of such awakenings, as we sweep and shovel our way to the inner self that lies frozen, as the earth now lies frozen, we discover that beneath the cold outer covering we are soft and vulnerable, pliable and alive. It may take some probing, but eventually we discover that we have long buried feelings, that we are sensitive beings needing attention. It may be revealed that we are indeed seeking a means of evolving beyond the state we have existed in for so long.

Recapitulation is one means of carefully removing the layers of snow, the protection that we have used so successfully to keep us going. Recapitulation helps us to understand how we have survived the worst of the blizzard, how we have remained alive in spite of our long-term frozen state. Recapitulation, when fully embraced as a means of self-discovery is a process of scraping away the snow and ice that have kept us safe, but also kept us from fully living, from fully experiencing our true selves and all that life itself offers. During the process of recapitulation we may actually discover more about ourselves than we have ever really known or imagined we could know. We may find that we are truly a mysterious, unknown being full of surprises and wonder.

Beneath the heavy cold snow lies the frozen earth, and within the frozen earth lie the seeds of life to come. We are the same way. We too have seeds buried deeply inside us that are just waiting to be discovered. In undertaking a process of recapitulation, we offer ourselves access to not only our deeper selves but all the potential that lies within that deeper self, the potential that will not have access to life if we do not dig deep enough to uncover it. If we can allow ourselves to dig deeply enough so that we discover these seeds of opportunity, greeting them with light and nurturance, we offer ourselves access to far greater life on earth than if we continue to ignore them or pretend they don’t exist.

And what if we choose to leave them alone, to not to take an inner journey? That is our personal choice, but to be fair to the inner self it seems only right to make that decision in full awareness that we are choosing to leave those seeds untouched. Is it not far better to know of their existence and determine that we are not ready to unearth them in this lifetime, to be that truthful with ourselves, knowing that in another lifetime we will return to deal with them again? Can we do this and be okay with this choice? Will our spirit let us make this decision?

I believe that our spirit may let us go along with this decision for a while, letting us get comfortable with being in control, but then it will make attempts to jolt us. It will find ways to make us face the fact that we have these seeds of true life, natural life within us, seeds that are just waiting to germinate and grow. Just as nature waits so patiently for spring to come, so do the seeds of new life within us wait for the opportunity to sprout.

Our spirit is like nature in that way. It will return like the seasons, attempting to wake us up to our true potential, to warm us with awareness and offer us the light we need to see into our darkness. But I also believe that modern humanity has come so far from nature, so far from how truly close we are to the natural world that we have lost our connection to our own natures, our own cyclical awakenings, our own innate, instinctual natures. We have relied on other means of perceiving and valuing life, but really we are as natural as the earth.

In this winter season we may lie covered in snow too, but keep in mind that spring will come, it always does. The sun will shine, it will melt the snow and the truth of all that lies buried under it, right now, will be revealed. It is then that we will be confronted with the process of recapitulation, when we can no longer deny the facts that lie at our feet. And the real truth is that we don’t have to wait for spring to come.

We can become our own natural force of discovery. We can elect to acknowledge that we have indeed led frozen lives far from our true natures, and we can accept the stirrings of our spirit now, rather than wait for the natural disasters that are sure to come to shake us up. Recapitulation offers us the opportunity to become one with ourselves, our natural selves, flowing with and allowing nature to guide us, to show us the way to true alignment with the greater self.

As I have been writing this blog nature has been showing me how its natural course is in alignment with my intent to keep growing and expressing what I have learned. The world is changing as I write. The snow still falls, but less heavily. The sun has poked out a few times, the squirrels are running through the trees in the backyard, the birds are landing on the stark winter branches of the trees knocking snow to the ground. Life, nature, never stops; even though it may seem to be smothered and asleep, it is in fact very much alive, just as we are.

Nature is eternal and so are we, but just how energetically and deeply alive we decide to be is up to us. Our spirits reflect this eternal aliveness, letting us know that we are fully capable of awakening to our true selves, at any time. Do we dare to align with the natural self, the spirit, the body, the innate memory self who knows full well just how real and alive to be? There is more life available than meets the eye.

What is your spirit trying to tell you today? Look to nature and then look to the natural self where all the answers lie, within. In alignment with your spirit, throw your intent out to the universe and watch it present in nature, as it guides you through recapitulation to uncover your deepest truths and riches.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Intending Change

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I have been practicing intent as prescribed by the seers of ancient Mexico to enact change. Every day I state my intent and let it go out into the universe. I shout out or silently speak the word: INTENT! Sometimes I don’t even feel that I have to keep repeating each personal intent that I have set, I just shout the word INTENT and ask that my already prescribed intent bind with the intent of the seers of ancient Mexico, with the intent of the women seers, with don Juan, and with the intent of good, because I feel that it is important to imbue my intent with pureness of heart.

In the old days, before I did a recapitulation of my childhood and learned about the seers of ancient Mexico, I would take drastic measures to force change in my life. My favorite method of enacting change in those days was to move, sometimes across the country or even sometimes across the ocean to another country. I once counted eleven moves in seven years, from state to state, city to city, apartment to apartment. Sometimes I moved alone, sometimes with a partner or with a husband. When it was impossible to move house I would rearrange the furniture in every room, shoving and pushing sofas, beds, dressers, bookshelves around until I got just the right feeling that I was seeking. Often I was seeking a sense of contentment, peace of mind, inner quiet and if my outer environment could reflect that I could calm down.

Restlessness was more often than not the catalyst for these moves, a restlessness that I bore my entire life but never quite understood as a deeply inner restlessness. I thought I just needed to keep moving all the time, that I was innately a person who sought experience and adventure, but it wasn’t until I sat down with Chuck and began to explore that restlessness that it revealed itself as something else. It took a while for me to fully grasp that with all of that moving and rearranging I was trying to run away from none other than myself.

During the recapitulation of my early childhood I understood just what it was that I was running from, devastatingly frightening memories of experiences of near annihilation that would have sent anyone fleeing. I learned to sit in one place and bear the tension of those memories as they reappeared, not to haunt me this time, but to teach me something about myself. I learned that, even though I wanted to get up and run, sell my house and move to another town, another city, another country, I did have the courage to stay and face the demons, as I had once done so strikingly well as a child.

In facing my demons, both my old abuser and my personal inner demons who had stood by me for the first fifty years of life, becoming increasingly more familiar as each year passed, I learned not only about how useful they had always been to me, but also how well I had utilized them to keep going, to stay not only alive but to grow up and eventually be ready to recapitulate. I learned that my inner demons were not all scary beings, that many of them helped me, that in fact I controlled many of them for my own purposes. I learned how powerful I had become, mostly in order to keep them quiet and to feel safe.

Now after having learned the lessons of recapitulation, one of them being that we hold everything inside us, I no longer feel the urge to run when I feel the need for change in my life. I know that in simply sitting, by intending change on an energetic level, I can profoundly impact my life and the lives of those around me. When restlessness hits me these days, I acknowledge its powerful intent. I thank it for alerting me to the fact that I am perhaps stagnating again and that, yes, I do indeed need to shift, but then I sit with it. I ask it what it wants, why it came at this moment, and I look for the deeper meaning inside myself now, rather than focusing it outside of myself.

When the universe sends me a sign asking me to change I know that it means I must re-examine where I am and why I am here. Perhaps it indicates that an inner course correction is necessary, or that I am not fully present each day, or that I have slipped a little too far from what is most meaningful in my life. Perhaps it indicates that I have fallen back into an old pattern of behavior that no longer works for me, that I am doing something to myself that is harmful or just plain old boring. Perhaps it is pointing out something as simple as an old idea or judgment of myself that is simply not true, but perseverates along an old path of thinking, a trench long ago traversed and worn deep, a trench that I actually got myself out of a long time ago.

Perhaps when restlessness arises now it is time to reenter that trench one last time and look more closely, with eyes wide open, at the false images and ideas of myself that I once had, to now fully grasp how wrong they were and are. Then it is time to turn my eyes upon the truth of where I am now, who I am now, and more fully embrace that changed being that I have worked so hard to become.

Perhaps when restlessness comes knocking now it is just telling me that it is okay to be me. It is okay to intend change, to keep going, to want to grow and to evolve. It is okay to leave the past behind, but only when it is fully revealed and done. It is perfectly acceptable to move into life more fully whole and present, truths accepted, self accepted. It is perfectly acceptable to fulfill even more of my personal potential in a more meaningful way, without fear that someone will be offended or that I have to carry old burdens or demons that are no longer useful.

Intending change, by sending our intent to the universe that is so ready to help us, is perfectly all right and perfectly right. It is perfectly acceptable to keep seeking to be all that we can be. After all, what else are we here for?

INTENT! INTENT! INTENT!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#740 On Becoming a Person of Awareness

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Written by Jan Ketchel and including channeled guidance from Jeanne Ketchel.

When I began my recapitulation journey, a life changing journey, I easily identified Jeanne as a main guide in my life when she appeared before me in a numinous experience that I could not have conjured up, nor fully comprehend, at the time. From that first appearance and as she reappeared again and again, I began to trust the experiences of her, whether in visionary or energetic form. Later I was able to identify other helpers as well, sometimes just unknown guiding voices that spoke clearly and soberly, offering me straightforward and pragmatic advice as I journeyed onward. But what I learned from Jeanne at the very beginning was the importance of continually allowing myself to trust the guidance I was receiving.

It was not an easy process. It entailed not only learning to trust the truth of the memories that were triggered and resurfacing almost daily, but also to trust the universe as a whole, learning that it was all I really needed in order to evolve. This was a major step in both learning how to let go and how to become more aware.

Jeanne says: All wisdom lies within. As a New Year begins it is time to more fully accept this fact, that you alone are enough, that you have within you all that it takes to learn to trust, to learn awareness, but also to learn what it means to truly love both the self and others. Only in learning these things will your wholeness be fully available to you.

She often told me, as I elected to go on a journey of total personal transformation, that all I had to do was trust, be open to the signs that appeared before me, but that to fully trust I had to learn how to let go of the old me. This meant letting go of my need to control everything in my life, in my everyday world, but also releasing control of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, and what came out of my unconscious. I had to learn to let the universe become my guide. This letting go was often as painful as the reliving of memories, but it was equally freeing and necessary.

Jeanne says: In learning to let go of the controlling self—both the known controlling self, the everyday self who acts and sees and relates to the prescribed world, and the unknown, hidden, controlling self who sits upon an inner throne and dictates and directs life as if it were a play—one begins to not only act and relate differently but one begins to perceive differently too. One becomes gradually more aware; aware that in letting go of controls one receives new life and new energy.

Letting go of the old self is part of the process of learning to trust, as I learned from my work with Chuck as my shaman guide in this world and Jeanne as my shaman guide in the world where awareness counts above all else.

Jeanne says: Awareness means being present in an uncommon way, in the form of heightened alertness to the world around you, fine tuning all your senses, but also the innate ones that all of you have buried deeply within. These innate senses are rejected by most Western cultures and thus become dormant, often never revived in a lifetime. In becoming a person of awareness, one asks these innate capabilities to awaken and guide one’s progress through life. In becoming a person of awareness, life will be perceived in a different manner, but this must become acceptable and that is where I stress learning to trust all that comes to greet you from outside and inside. It is only in learning to trust your experiences that you will understand what I am talking about. Life is meant to be experiential. And I do not mean only in the world you perceive every day, but in the worlds that you may not notice except only occasionally.

I learned to trust the guidance I received during the process of recapitulation, over time, as I plodded along one step at a time. I learned, by doing, to let go of preconceived ideas, of judgments, expectations, and really everything I thought was so important, indeed everything I had learned since infancy. I learned to reinvent myself in my own image.

In teaching the process of awakening and awareness, I must fully agree with Jeanne that the most important step is learning to trust your personal experiences, the experiences that life and your body offer, whether they are physical, mental, emotional, paranormal, numinous, psychic; any experience that shifts you, that jolts you out of yourself and your world, that unexpectedly throws you, exposes you or presents you with experiences of the sublime, the magical, the fearful, the darkness, God, the angels, clarity, enlightenment, etc. These are the experiences to pay attention to. They teach us how to trust and how to let go, so that we may have the opportunity to evolve if we so choose.

Another important lesson in learning to trust the universe in a process of transformation is learning patience. “All good things will come,” Jeanne always used to tell me, “just wait.” Sometimes that meant waiting patiently for years, holding onto the truth of time, keeping the inner light honed on moving forward, knowing that eventually everything would work out just fine. “When the time is right, when you are ready, when the universe is in the right alignment you will evolve to a new stage of life.”

As we begin this New Year I am going to be allowing the Monday channeling session to evolve, without preconceived format, to be open to what feels right to offer—conversations, tips, experiences, etc.—as each week brings something new. It’s a New Year, so it’s time for something new!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message in the post/read comments section below.

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Magic & Insight

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A few weeks ago, I began reading a book called Anastasia, the first book in The Ringing Cedars Series, that someone had mentioned to me over a year ago. It is another “magical” book—series of books really—infused with powerful energy. I finished reading Anastasia and one night last week, before bed, I picked up the second book in the series and laid it on top of my dream journal as I prepared for bed, intending to read it next. That was all I needed to do to have a profound dream experience, touch the book with intent. Here is the dream I had that night:

I give birth to a girl child although I am not pregnant. In the dream, I go to the bathroom and, sitting on the toilet, I begin to feel and intuit that I am having a baby. At first it feels like a log, like I have a huge log stuck in my vagina. I try to feel with my hand if the baby is in fact down the birth canal or if the cervix is dilated. I move off the toilet after I see blood and go to look in a mirror. In the mirror I see the head has already emerged and so I know for sure that I am giving birth. I also know, from experience, that once the head is out the hard part is over and that the baby will come fast now. I have a moment of panic that it will get stuck like this, halfway out, and that I will have to walk around with a half-birthed baby protruding from my crotch. But in the next instant the baby pushes out. I catch her easily and bring her up to my breast. We bond immediately. She smiles up at me, looks deeply into my eyes, and snuggles against me. I hold her close, knowing that the warmth of our two bodies is enough to keep us safe, even in the coldest of climates.

I remember the book Anastasia at this point in the dream and the title character who contends that a child can survive in the world, even naked, as long as it is held close. I don’t know if she actually says this in the book, but this is what I get in my dream and she herself had survived in the Siberian Taiga through close nurturance and care by animals.

At this point, I take the baby to my parents who are sitting at a cafe table talking to my brother who died. I tell them I have had a baby and I show her to them, but they do not even look at her or show the least bit of interest. They say nothing and just stare blankly, gazing right through me, as if I don’t even exist. My brother looks at me tenderly and shrugs as if to say: “What did you expect?”

I walk away from them and bump into a few other people I know. I am aware that I have dried blood on my legs and that the baby and I are almost naked. I am wearing a short white shift, similar to what Anastasia is described as wearing, and I have the baby wrapped in a shawl. The people I meet acknowledge her, but only in uneasy glances. She is not well received or given any attention. I accept this, even though at first I am puzzled by the lack of interest, because I am having a most amazing experience, full of insight and intuition and I feel totally calm and at peace with this baby in my arms. I also know that she belongs only to me, that she is my responsibility and that I do not really need acknowledgement from others.

The details of the dream get fuzzy at this point, but the child grows almost immediately into a small thin creature, more doll like than human. I watch her running and skipping around. She can talk from the moment of birth like a well educated, spiritually evolved adult, full of wisdom and insight. I know that I must watch her carefully, not let her stray too far from me, and that I must keep her warm so that she not only survives, but also thrives.

As time goes on, I realize I have been forgetting about her more and more, that I forget to warm her against my body, that I am neglectful of her. When I notice she is looking cold I grab her, hold her against me and apologize for my lack of attention, but then I let her go again. At one point I see her lying in the shawl on the ground, not moving, and when I pick her up I see that she has dried up and that her right arm has cracked and broken off, as if she were made of clay. I feel terrible because I forgot all about her and let her get cold and dehydrated to the point of partially crumbling into dust. I am worried that she is dead. I am aware that I must take better care of her, that I must never forget about her again.

The dog woke me at 5:30 in the morning and I immediately forgot this dream. After I let the dog out I returned to bed, feelings of the significance of the dream staying with me, but still unable to recall it. The only thing I could remember was that I had dreamed of a log. As I lay in bed I felt a heavy feeling, almost a soreness in my pelvic floor. I heard a voice say: “Do a Kegel exercise,” which any woman knows is an exercise to strengthen the pelvic floor muscles, especially recommended after giving birth. As soon as I squeezed the muscles I immediately recalled the dream. I had indeed felt like I had given birth in the night and my body held the memory of it until I recaptured it! From that point on the dream reemerged and as the day went on more details became clearer.

Immediately I noted the significance of having set the intent to read the second in that magical book series. I won’t go into details, but the series is based on the experiences of a Russian man who, in 1995, meets a woman, Anastasia, living in the forests of Siberia. She is energetically alive and evolved. His experiences in her company remind me of Carlos Castaneda’s experiences in the company of don Juan, and of my own experiences with Jeanne. Anastasia tells him things that he cannot imagine ever happening and yet they do, similar to my own experiences with Jeanne. Anastasia is directly connected to and channels energy and insight related to the planet and the environment. Whenever I have asked Jeanne questions about the environment, she has always stated that there are other soul groups working on that and that it is not her expertise. Jeanne is connected to a soul group that is involved with soul advancement. This distinction struck me, as I read the first book and thought that perhaps Anastasia is connected to this environmentally concerned soul group energy.

Anyway, that was my first insight as my dream unfolded, that I had set the intent. The second insight I got was that this dream was about my personal transformation. When I recapitulated my childhood, when my abuser did in fact molest me with wooden objects, I rid them from my body as I relived each memory. In the dream, perhaps I feared that this was just another wooden object, another memory to be removed, but then I see life, a real baby instead of a log. I see this as indicative of the transformational process; having released the trauma I can now allow myself to give birth to new life within myself.

When I attempted to show the child to my parents and other acquaintances neither it nor my transformational process was given any attention. In every attempt to introduce this innocent child to the world, the old world, there was no resonance. My personal experiences did not matter in that world. I received the insight that I must further detach from that old world now and more fully embrace this new world that the child represents. Anastasia’s story influenced my dream experience: I knew that the child must be nurtured to thrive. It was pretty clear and simple. All I had to do is keep her with me at all times. I am enough; I am all she needs.

However, I seemed to still need reminding of something, some piece was missing, because every time I laid the child aside, apart from my physical body, something happened to her. She got cold or brittle, and eventually dried up. When I discovered her all dried up and with a broken arm, I immediately felt deep remorse, regret, sadness and extremely guilty for leaving her to fend for herself. I realized that I had not been doing something right. I was killing her by forgetting about her. In the dream, I instinctively knew that I had to keep her close to me, that we did not need anything else, we were enough; that we were done with the old world, had already left it behind. We had already done the work of transformation. I was reminded, as I picked up the broken child in the end of the dream and held her close once again, that she is my innocent self, and that I must stay connected to her at all times, not just when I feel like it. I must remember that this is what my wholeness feels like, and yes, that I am enough. I also knew that if I stayed connected, bonded with her, that everything else would take care of itself, that life would unfold, as it should.

As the day went on and this dream stayed with me, I received a final insight. Pictures of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child kept popping into my head, paintings from my art history books that I’d studied a long time ago. Each time one of these paintings came to me, I re-experienced holding that child in my arms in the dream, nestling against my chest, snuggling in, totally trusting me, totally calm, knowing that she was exactly where she belonged. As I re-experienced these feelings throughout the day—utter calmness, contentment, wholeness—I saw the significance of these paintings; virgin and child, maturity and innocence; appropriate symbols of giving birth to the Self and to true spirit innocence, which, in my case, I worked so hard to reunite with and nurture into life during my years of recapitulating my traumatic childhood, a time when I was mostly concerned with simply surviving. With this insight I now clearly understand the symbolism of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child as Whole-Self, complete. I had gotten it right, finally the missing piece was found.

We are all the Virgin and we are all the Christ Child in her arms. No matter if we are male or female, we are all totally capable of giving birth to the total Self. This is not the wounded child self, but Christ as innocence within, Self and God-Self fully merged. I know I must not be afraid to embrace this wholeness. I must not put her aside again or depart from the path. I must stay connected to this magic within. I know she was not damaged throughout the whole childhood journey; she remained whole, waiting for me to reconnect.

I know how hard it is to stay connected to this spirit self at all times. We must all deal with the reality of our lives and remain connected to this world, but I also know that the magic is available to us, reminding us that this is really the biggest challenge, to keep turning toward it. Once we have connected to the magic of our true spirit self, whether through our experiences, dreams, processes of inner work, through our intent to change, or through the books we elect to read, our challenge then becomes to never put it aside again, but to hold our experiences as close as a child in our arms, remembering why we are here and what we are really seeking. The magic is really inside each one of us.

I humbly offer these intent-dream-book-insight-magical experiences as we enter a new phase of winter magic. Happy Holidays! May they be magically meaningful, personally, by intent.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan