Messages from Jeanne, Questions for Jeanne

#445 Your Path is Rich

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Today, a Reader asks a question about spiritual awakenings and finding true path.

Dear Jeanne,
I once had a conversation with the divine, God, perhaps angels, I don’t really know or don’t remember, but it has stayed with me for many years. I was a child, maybe a teenager, when I had this dream. This energy was telling me how nothing was an accident. The dream showed me the expanse of the universe and how guided we all are. It was spoken that, after each birth, the baby is programmed to forget because if she remembered then the work would not get done. I recall accepting my duties, my “contract,” with great excitement and I recall being excited to get down there (to earth) and get it done so I could come back “home.” I had no hesitation, no second thoughts, just a pure joy to be able to serve. I also remember, at the time this was revealed to me, how important it was that I remember, and I wondered why I was allowed to remember, seeing as we are “programmed” to forget. For many years I would forget and then re-remember this dream, and in my mind it is very clear, very real, and it is the thread that has kept pulling me back onto my journey. I have never revealed this to anyone, maybe because I did not want to be met with doubt, and it is certainly easier to write this experience rather than try to articulate it. I am certain now, after recent events and synchronicities, that this was a real experience, that I was meant to remember it in this lifetime. After reading some of the book, “Sacred Contracts” by Carolyn Myss, I realize that this was my glimpse into enlightenment, my spiritual awakening. It is the single moment that I draw upon and keep remembering. I know it is significant and, yet, I need or want validation. I also would like to know when, or how, I can open myself up for another one. Is it possible that an experience like this can happen more then once in a lifetime? Also, there are many things that I want to “do,” but how do I know what my true path is? This has been a struggle and a question for me for so long, and so I am just flowing right now, accepting my duties as being a stay-at-home mom, and loving it, but I know there is more, writing a book, opening a business, becoming a fitness model… you get the picture. How do you know what your true path is? And it seems to me that not all paths “look” spiritual.

Thank you for your love and insights.
D

My Dearest Reader, your experience, as described, is indeed an opportunity for spiritual awakening. Many such opportunities may be offered in a lifetime, until your progress is assured and your mission accepted. Though many disregard such information, your own spirit latched onto never forgetting, which is vital awareness training. Such an experience has marked your path.

Do you not see that your true path is the path you are now on? As you search for meaning and experience life as a young mother, so are you being shown all that you now need in order to progress on a path of spirit. Your early dream experience did indeed alert you to many truths that remain buried in the physical body, and in the psyche, until unleashed by circumstances or profoundly moving experiences.

Until the experience is accepted, and acquiesced to, there may be many such awakenings, but even the most clearly defined explanation for life and purpose are often dismissed as mere dreams, rather than deep insights. From your description of your self, I gather that you are not one to dismiss such dreams as mere trivia, but that you are indeed quite awakened, and were so at a young age. Perhaps you have had many other such awakenings in your life, though your awareness was not as attuned as during this episode that you describe? Perhaps you did not need another awakening jolt after that grand one you received? Or perhaps you have not truly wanted another yet?

There are many reasons why spiritual awakenings are presented, many forms in which they are presented, and for what purposes, based on where you are now in your life. Your latest awakening was in your birth-giving process. For if you ponder your experience, from other than that of manual/physical labor (ha! ha!), so will you understand it in the context of a spiritual experience.

I can only say that, yes, many awakenings are offered, but not always of the sort that you have described until you are ready to receive them. You see? In your innocence were you allowed access to such knowledge, for in your innocence could you capture it and keep it safe. The information you received was not only granted to you, but your child self was available to receive it and also to capture it for a lifetime. In so doing were you offered an entry into spiritual pondering of life as much greater than that which is right before the eyes.

That is what you must remain aware of now as well. Experiences of awakening, and of other worlds, are offered in many ways throughout your lifetime, yet is your place in life an important factor in whether or not you are available to receive them. I gather that your attention now is quite focused on your motherhood, your child, your marriage, and your self growth. But if you are honest with your self, you know that you must remain in the world of mother now more fully. Perhaps you are feeling that as your child grows, becoming more active, more demanding, and needing more of your time, that you will lose connection to your spirit self? Perhaps you fear a darkness ahead, as you find your self further embedded in the process of marital discord or harmony, as life progresses as it should? Do you wish for more time for the self, while knowing that your duties as mother and wife are of ultimate importance right now?

I do not mean to imply that you are confused, but I do point out that you are exactly where you should be. For it is the process of learning to become the maternal figure that your life, obviously, has laid out for you as the path to now be on.

In order to fulfill your true path, so must you embrace your budding self, while at the same time embracing your burdening self. Your maturing self is fully capable of taking on the tasks and challenges of motherhood, for they are quite adequate for learning everything you will need to know about the secrets of life that you yearn so greatly for knowledge of. Your path is rich. Your life, though at times tiresome and even unclear as to its future, is fertile and offering quite a plethora of gifts, spiritual, material, and even energetically inclined awakenings.

Look upon your child as your guide, even as you look upon her as your responsibility. Do not hide your spirit self from her, for it is your duty, as a spiritual being, to allow her innocent child self to trust her own experiences as they are presented to her. She is also the mirror of your own innocence. As you watch her discovering the world, remind your self of your own initiations into life, observing how she experiences it in the company of you, who also are her mirror. Your job as mother is a fully spiritual experience, My Dear One, though it is also steeped in the necessities of your every day life.

I bid you turn your head more often to the knowledge your child holds and may reveal to you as she grows, speaks, and articulates her experiences of life, trusting you and your permission to discover that all experiences are valid, necessary, and spiritually based. Your child and you share a path now, teacher and student both, as you reciprocally teach and learn what life is about and what it has in store for you both.

Your future holds many gifts, as does your present. Your awakenings are available, more real than you may notice. It is how you elect to interpret the events in your life that matters. That is how you will discover your next step along your path and the direction to take. You see? How you interpret your life’s unfolding is key to how you will proceed, making choices and understanding the meaning of all that you are provided with, each day, the little things and the big things.

Your gifts are many, your life abundant with signs, synchronicities, guidance, and purpose. Your attempts to remember your vision will always remind you of your innocence, but do not forget that you still have your innocence available to you. Allow your child self to reawaken alongside your own child, even as you remain her mother. Your innocence awakened, and your trust in it, will allow for new interpretations of your experiences in life, enlightening you once again.

Allow your innocence to guide you. Watch your young child for clear-cut examples of how to do that. Accept your role now as guide to her, but also as receiver of guidance. Each day is a new awakening of your innocence, as you go now forward, hand in hand, learning once again what life is all about, accompanying innocence inside you and outside you.

I suggest that you do not ponder too far into your future as to what you want to be when you grow up, as your question regarding your true path in that life is concerned. Your true path is the one you walk now. Your awareness of now, of your tasks and challenges of now, will lead you to your future, as you remain impeccable in your trust of spirit and your role as maternal guide, while reconnecting with that child self, who was once so awakened to the truth of a spiritual journey.

Good Luck! Your path is clear. You see?

Chuck's Blog, Messages from Jeanne

#444 Chuck’s Place: The Archetypes That Bind Us

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences!

Yesterday, Jeanne spoke about achieving detachment through viewing our lives from a different perspective. Three archetypes that are the foundations of family life are mother, father, and child. These archetypes provide the energy and structures that guide and define a significant portion of our lives. Once we choose to become a parent we open the door to being caught by the mother/father archetype for the rest of our lives. When a woman becomes a mother the archetype provides the energy to give, bond, and nurture another being at an unprecedented level of self-sacrifice. This energetic flow is completely appropriate and necessary to sustain a new life. The child, governed by its own archetype, must be completely open to receiving, in order to flourish and advance in growth. The father archetype empowers the man to provide shelter and supplies to support the developing family. Of course, there are many examples where these archetypes are insufficiently activated in individuals, seriously limiting their ability to fulfill these most necessary roles. However, this is not the focus of this essay, which takes up the challenge of “appropriate” detachment from an archetype.

First, let’s look at motherhood as an example of acquiescing to the mother archetype, which means becoming infused with its energy, as one’s life becomes structured by an array of needs, demands, and expectations of self and others. Our world is particularly reluctant to ever allow a mother to retire. Once a mother, always a mother. Is there any more serious crime than a mother who refuses to mother? A mother who would drown her children is, by archetypal standards, more despicable than any mass murderer. Deep within each individual rests the archetypal expectation that mother, at any age, should nourish and be a caretaker. This archetype finds its way into many marital relationships, where the woman is expected, at any age, to cook and take care of her husband. Clearly, once children have been launched, generally by their late teens, it is appropriate for a woman to begin the process of launching her individual self, as she detaches from the archetypal mother structure, which has possessed and defined her life through the child rearing process. In fact, failure to do so can undermine the developmental process that enables the child to become an autonomous, self-sufficient adult, as childhood dependence continues to be encouraged. There are many forces that discourage detachment from the mother archetype. There is the archetype itself, which resists accepting a minor role in life’s drama. There is the mother’s resistance to letting go of such a defined purpose in life, entering the unknown. There is the child’s reluctance to trust its own wings as it leaves the nest. And finally, there is the immaturity of society at large, which places its demand to be taken care of on mother, who must always remain mother. It takes tremendous courage to embrace one’s right and necessity to evolve, as an individual, discovering one’s true purpose for being in this world, and finding completion through detachment from the archetypal role of mother, when it is time to do so.

The archetypal father is responsible for providing and leadership. The challenge for the father becomes letting go of control, allowing for novelty and difference. I think that is the meaning of the phrase, “the king must die; long live the king.” In effect, the rules of the father must acquiesce to change. This is the challenge we are currently confronted with in America. The father archetype, which controlled our economy, eventuated in the extremes of capitalist greed. This ruling system has long outlived its usefulness. It must die and be reborn in some new format appropriate to the real needs of the world. The election of Obama reflects this death and rebirth motif, however, what is currently happening is the struggle to fully accept that the old way must die. The father archetype, seeking to maintain its control, is evidenced in the halls of Congress where arguments continue to be made that the old way is, essentially, sound. The FOXy fear mongers attempt preservation of the preexisting reign of the Bush father archetype by, literally, splicing speeches and rewriting reality. Within the family, the father is challenged to relinquish control and dominance over the decisions and directions of his wife and children toward individuation. How else can those, whom he so deeply protected, learn to trust and protect themselves if they are not allowed to do so? Within his own psyche, the father is challenged to dis-identify his ego with the power of the father archetype and take up the path of his own individuation.

Then there is the child. The ability to remain receptive, vulnerable, and innocent, open to life and the world is the appropriate connection to the child archetype in all of us. Jeanne would suggest that the inappropriate attachment to the child archetype is the big baby, who remains eternally needy, demanding, and entitled. Fixating on the big baby creates a world of security through the veil of narcissism. Detachment from the big baby is assuming adult responsibility in a changing world. That, in fact, is what is being demanded of all of us now. The great mother earth is compromised in her ability to nurture as a result of insatiable demands of greedy babies, supported by the rules and practices of a greedy father who manipulates the truths to maintain his dominance, at all costs. This is the father archetype that must die like Kronos, who ate all of his children until fooled by his wife by being fed a stone, that Zeus might be born to usher in a new era.

Only through allowing ourselves to appropriately detach from the archetypes that bind us, can we see reality clearly and become adults, assuming responsibility for the health and future of our lives and our planet. Yes, it is frightening to see reality clearly, as we are in the midst of death and disintegration and we cannot be taken care of in the old ways. However, the reality is, yes, you can choose to sail on the Titanic, but it is going down. There are alternatives, but they require detachment from the old securities and an appropriate connection, as adults, to the innocence, vulnerability, and receptivity of the child archetype to change and find new life in this world.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#443 In the Throes of Recalcitrant Energy

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
What message do you have for us today?

Today I speak of attachment and learning a process of detachment. During this time of energetic activity upon that earth, which calls for reminiscence and learning to observe the self objectively, so must you also be aware of the possibility of becoming entangled in a web of your own creation. By web, I do not mean the web of interconnectedness, but I mean the sticky sort that will soon have you wrapped up and helpless the longer you struggle to disengage from it in your old manner. Such sticky energy is now apparent and eager for your participation in its game of cat and mouse.

Understand your own process of attachment, as you observe your self over the next few days, by taking care to not only remind your self to be careful of falling into your old traps, but I also suggest that you keep a journal going, at all times, of Observations of Self in the throes of recalcitrant energy. Such energy would be very happy for you to engage in it in a foolhardy manner. It would love to feed off your endless supply of tasty energy. It is up to you to turn your tastiness into a bitter experience for such feeding/siphoning exchange. You do not want to give even a taste of your delectable self-awareness, not ever, but especially not now, for this is a very potent time and the feeders are out in full force now. So it is not only a time to be very aware, but it is a time to use your awareness to your fullest advantage by shifting your perspective on everything you encounter.

Remind your self often to look at everything in another way. You will learn the first lesson in detachment by observing your initial, old, and well used reactions, and by then allowing the self to slow down and say: Wait a minute! What is another way of seeing this situation? What is the opposite extreme?

If you are suffering a pain, for instance, do you immediately think: Oh my God, I’m sick, I’m injured, I’m going to die? Well, perhaps you could instead say: I wonder what my body is trying to tell me? Perhaps it is telling me that I am encapsulating my fear and it is bringing my awareness to it in this manner?

If you can understand your sore throat as your body asking you to investigate the way you speak to others, and your self as well, perhaps you can ease your focus on sickness and place it on healing your attitudes, judgments, assumptions, and dismissal of others or even your self. Perhaps the pain in your leg is just telling you to remember something from your past? Perhaps your difficulty in breathing is reminding you to slow down and face an old fear? Perhaps your sore heart is asking you to love your self?

I do not mean to disregard pain as real illness, sore throats as indications of being in the throes of some disease, but I do mean to point out to you that all illness hides true secrets of the self, as yet unrevealed or thoroughly dealt with.

During this time of energetic convergence, with energy that desires your full participation and energy that pushes, so is it up to you to decide how you wish to deal with it. Are you going to elect to succumb to the energy that would love you to fall into old behaviors and habits so that it may suck your energy off you? Or are you going to accept the possibility that your path has placed before you some very important signs of who you are, who you have become up until this point, showing you where to go and how you can change?

In order to begin to learn detachment it is very important to become aware of how you attach. How do you attach to what comes to greet you in your life? Are you immediately stuck in an old place, so easily slipping into an old role that you don’t even notice? Or are you able to stop your self, at every step of the way now, and ask: Hey, wait a minute! What is this all about? Why am I feeling this way?

Then your task becomes to relate these questions to whatever else is going on in your life. By doing this you are well on the way to allowing a new perspective to open the door to understanding deeper issues of the self. As you pose new questions to your self, based on where you are right now in your life, so do you open your eyes too, because the next step is to observe your outer life, looking for signs and synchronicities that are showing you what is going on inside you. Your inner turmoils, even those of the deepest self, will be reflected outside of you in some manner. Where are your inner issues being shown to you outside of you? In your reflection in the mirror? In the aches and pains in your body? In the antics of the politicians? In the struggles of those nearest and dearest?

As you observe the world outside of you, the first inclination is to judge; to judge the process of others, for it is abundantly clear that they are doing something wrong. What is it that you see they are doing wrong? Now apply that observation to the self. What are you supposed to learn about this observation, this judgment that is so easy to see in others? How does it fit into you and your life?

Suspending judgment is learned by asking the self to take that judgment back and use it to investigate the self. For judgments, placed outside of the self, mirror some discrepancy within the self. To suspend judgment about others is to take back that judgment that so easily flies off the tongue and say: Why do I criticize others? Can I ask myself to do what I ask of them?

Your inner self is asking you to turn your judgments innerly now. That is how you will learn detachment, compassion, and non-judgmental love. It is also how to manipulate the sticky energy of this time to your best advantage.

I continue, respectfully, to offer these ideas to you, for they may help greatly, as you proceed on your path: Slow down. Question your self in a new way, from a different perspective. Observe your reactions, judgments, physical attunements, and use them all as your guideposts, showing you where you need to turn your attention, not in an old worrisome way, but in a new enlightened way. Find a new perspective, by tilting your mirror slightly, so that you are not always looking at the self in the same way. Catch a glimpse of a new self, a future self. And with that new view, may you proceed into this energy fully acquiescing to your abilities to stay in alignment with your spirit, who is only trying to show you where to go, how to view your self differently, innerly and outerly, so that you may notice all the gifts you are being given, even in these times of turmoil.

Good Luck! I look forward to being available as you light your way into the stale old darkness with a new inner light, full of awareness, and eagerness for the tests ahead. Use the light of new ideas, new viewpoints, and the underlying guidance of your own spirit truly showing you the way, with the light of your past, present, and future. It is already showing you where to go, how to go, and why you are going in the direction you are going in. You just have to see it. You see?

The light may not be in the form of light that you would like, but it is definitely there in your life. You just have to allow your self to reveal its secret to you, then you will be fine. But it takes courage to dare the self to tilt the mirror and upset the familiar cart of old habits, ideas, and progress, in order to observe the self and others from a new perspective, and to turn your outer difficulties, observations, and judgments inward, knowing they are meant for you in the deepest, most meaningful way possible. Do this with the utter calm knowing that life is a journey, full of offerings for growth and enlightenment, and, no matter how difficult the terrain, there are plenty of gifts along the way. Good Luck again, as I sign off now!

Messages from Jeanne

#442 Inner Balance & Outer Awareness

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a brief message of guidance for us today? It feels like we are in the midst of some kind of energetic whirlwind. What’s going on?

My Dear Ones, yes, a whirlwind is a good description of the energy of this time in your lives. Just as a coin has two sides, so is there always another side to what you experience energetically. I continue to call for balance and for your careful study of your own energy, even while you remain caught in a whirlwind. Do not, however, dismiss the whirlwind. Do not ignore or pretend it does not impact you or offer you something, for it does, in more ways than you can know at this time.

Continue to write down your feelings and your discoveries about the self. Continue to study how you react, during the day, to what is presented to you. Observe your self and your energy from the aspect of the two sides of a coin. What are you noticing? Are you drawn to extremes of energy, from exhaustion to heightened alertness, or are you more stable, as if perched and balanced, yet still on edge, like a coin sitting on its end?

The energy outside of you will produce tension. It will introduce foreign substances that may interfere or seek to interrupt your self-study and your desire to proceed on your journey. It is essential to be aware that, even though you may have many inner decisions to contend with, you are also being affected by the outside energy.

As always, I advise inner balance and outer awareness in order to navigate such turmoil. Your place now is as commander-in-chief of your own vessel. Make mature and growth oriented decisions so that you may remain upon your course of growth during this time of stormy weather. I know that this always presents additional problems, because whenever the adult mature knowing self asserts command the big baby notices and wants something from the adult self, and other aspects of the self may also come forth when they see that the ship is quite stable and things are being taken care of. So this may be an additional point of contention within.

In order to remain stable, I suggest that you ask everyone to be personally responsible for them selves at this time. You, the adult, can hold everything steady, focused on direction and providing what is needed, but everyone has to do their own work now too. This process should be done inside you, as you speak to your inner selves, your little archetypes asking for attention, but also outside of you, in your world of family, partners, companions, children, etc.

Ask for trust and responsibility from all, inside and outside, as you maneuver through this time of energetic storminess. It will soon be over, but you have a few more days of turmoil to contend with. Good luck, My Dear Ones. Don’t forget to give the self some much needed compliments on how well you are doing. I extend my congratulations to you all!

Messages from Jeanne

#441 This is the Correct Path to Take

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message for humanity today?

Abide by the laws of common sense and courtesy, even as you seek balance in your personal lives. Do not dismiss your life’s necessities nor your position as a human being upon that great earth. Do not falter on your path to attain connection with spirit either, but gain and regain your balance as is necessary. With daily reassertions of your grounding upon that earth, and your inner focus on spirit growth, may you find your equilibrium. May it serve you well to attain and maintain this daily practice, for without it will there be delayed success.

I speak today of keeping your footing upon your chosen path of growth. Though you may, at times, be greatly tested, teased, and taunted, as you proceed on your journey, do not turn your back on this seeking self, but stay in close contact, close enough that whispered words of encouragement may be bantered back and forth. Though your path may not be as clear as you would like at this moment, be assured, by your resonance and your footing, that this is the correct path to take. For your inner self knows that the only way to progress is upon a path of spirit, whether it be difficult and narrow, or wide and joyful. So must you pass through the prickly grasses, make the steep climbs, and go beyond the sloping cliffs before you achieve your equilibrium, for that is the meaning of a journey. Your lessons remain tucked into the crevices and caves in the mountains, and in the rocks at your feet; in the wind at your ears and in the sun in your face; in the rain and sleet upon your hair. With the joys and sorrows of life may you find your way forward.

The energy of today does challenge one to be fit and balanced, to be solidly firm, and pointed in the right direction. Even if you have not quite honed in on your purpose, or your outcome, so must you find your resonance. Find what speaks to your soul. Find what feels so right that you cannot deny it. Find what needs voice and expression, and speak it. Find what feels like life itself, born anew in you, and in so doing find your resonance. Even if it is but the bud of an idea, the taste of a new thought, a far away dream, or long lost spirit joy, rekindle it or discover it today within the self who knows that life’s journey is meant to be special, to be fully explored, unafraid, fearlessly. For what awaits is not dependent upon your fears, but upon your detachment from the fears that hold you back. Do you wish your fears to be the reason you do not dare to fully live? Do you wish fear to be the basis of your life, yet again?

Each day do you have the opportunity to change, to shift, to begin life anew. Each day do you have the opportunity to start over, to finally pay attention to your spirit, which speaks so truthfully and daringly to you. Each day, you have the opportunity to discover what really matters. But your shift and your change to new life must be instigated from your balanced and knowing adult self who is capable of pushing aside your fears and your old habits, childish or otherwise. This balanced adult self must truly dare to step out into a new day of life, and a new life each day.

Today is a day of instigation, of testing balance, of calling forth the adult self, the balanced spirit self, for a talk about the next step, the next determinant, the next daring move. Falter not, nor think upon failure, for such is not the energy of now. It is instead positive, yet also asking to be released by your opting to open the door to it. Your own actions now will catapult you. But they must be right actions, in alignment and balance with truth, reality, and fearless spirit.

Stay calm. Stay balanced. Remain upon your adult feet while your spirit self accompanies you upon your journey. Lift your eyes to look around you. Lift your ears to listen. Lift your voice to speak and your hands to feel. Seek direction. Seek right moment and right actions. Ask for help too. You will receive it. Your answer will come to your resonant spirit self, so it’s a good idea to keep it awake and alert.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR