News and Notes

A Few Good Movies

The other day we had mentioned the movie, Ripple Effect, for its views on the interconnectedness of all things, of what it means to call your future to you, recapitulate, and acquiesce to the journey, allowing the process to unfold, as the signs, synchronicities, and challenges are paid attention to, worked through, and resolved. It is available on DVD.

This past weekend we saw, The Secret Life of Bees, another powerful example of daring to take the inner journey, following the signs, seeking and daring to face the truths, no matter how painful. It also deals with the mother figure, the resolution of the lost mother, the lost child, and basically a lot of lost souls struggling during another time of great change in America, the writing into law of the Civil Rights Act by President Johnson. A very good movie not only for our times, but also for those of us who are doing the inner work. The bee metaphors are also wonderful. We highly recommend it. This one is in the theatres.

A third movie we recently enjoyed is, The Art of Travel, another fine example of daring to follow the signs, and having some pretty amazing adventures as one things leads to another. This one is also on DVD.

Enjoy!
Jan and Chuck

News and Notes

Time For a Few Changes

Dear Readers and Fellow Journeyers,

Once again we are making some changes to the website, adding Chuck’s Place as a forum for other thoughts, synchronicities, and views to be expressed. The first posting was on Saturday, November 8, 2008, Message #400. We will also be posting interesting tidbits, such as notes about books, films, videos, other websites, etc. when it feels right. It was never intended that Riverwalker be devoted only to the Messages from Jeanne, but that it evolve over time.

Jeanne’s messages will continue to appear three times a week, but they will now be accompanied and interspersed by editorials, comments, and insights from Chuck in his new “Club.” This feels so right, for Chuck and Jeanne to share a platform, and for the processes that are so often expressed in Jeanne’s messages to be lovingly sculpted, tweaked, enhanced, and brought into this world by Chuck’s unique perspective.

The information that normally appeared above the messages now appears in a sidebar titled: Channeling Info. Although we have considered opening up our website to commentary from you, Our Readers, we just don’t have the time to undertake such a task, so we continue to encourage you to use the discussion option on our page at Amazon. It is free, open to you without our oversight, and who knows what kind of dialogues might evolve.

So look for a bit more daily activity on the website, the new blog, Chuck’s Place, and additional news and notes, as we continue this amazing process with Jeanne and with all of you.

We all three thank you so much for your participation, your lovely messages to us, and your dedicated readership. Thank you also for passing on your knowledge of what we are doing. Our website is visited by thousands of seekers from around the world who have found us through energetic means, without advertising, commercialism, or us asking for or making a penny of profit. This is our energetic giving, but it is greatly aided by your participation in energetically spreading the news about our website. So thank you, for energetically sharing in this intent.

With love and appreciation,
Jan, Chuck, and Jeanne

Messages from Jeanne

#401 Something is Being Pointed Out to You That Will Shift You

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message to guide us today, as we begin a new work week?

My Dearest Ones, this time now is one of continuing conflict of opposites, of pulling apart, but also of counteraction, required to bring together the disparate parts of the self, the society, and the world. Why is there so much conflict? Why is there so much still unresolved inside of you and outside of you? Why is there so much fighting? Why go to war against the self and others when it is far more acceptable to meet on common ground? For all are reflections of the self. All conflicting views, all uncomfortable suggestions and encounters, all differing thoughts, are but the grit that must be sorted through inside the self for true and lasting resolution to occur.

This is a time when each of you must remain focused on your own inner process, but do not dismiss or disregard what is happening outside of you. Continue to use your world to aid you as it points out to you your own difficulties and issues that need attention. If you tend to judge the decisions of others, the thoughts, the actions, the spoken words of others, so turn to your self and ask: Do I speak, think, act, and decide in much the same manner? Am I truly learning to forgive, to flow, to depart from the old rhetoric? Am I evolving?

These questions are the present questions for Now, for this time upon that earth, for this time of change to do more than simply blow over your heads and stir you with its sweet scent of things to come. You must take in that breath of fresh air, deeply into your gut, and allow it to shake you out of your slumber and your stagnancy. Your progress must now be granted the truth of the insights being shown, and they must be processed and accepted. Now must you ascertain that you will make the leap, taking in a full breath of fresh and invigorating change, allowing your self to make the leap forward now.

No matter where you are in life now, no matter who you are, no matter what place you find your self stuck in, so are you being shown the way out of your dilemma now. Look around you and you will see the signs. You will see the possibilities being offered. You will notice something is being pointed out to you that will shift you.

But you must make the move, the decision, the choice. You must dare your self; fully knowing that times will be hard; that yes, it is the way to go because otherwise I will remain unfulfilled. In this lifetime, are you all being offered a grand opportunity to change. This is not only so for your country, or your brother, or your children. This is also true for you.

So I leave you with the possibilities all around you. Today, turn your awareness to what is being offered to you. Look outside of you and reflect on the direction of growth being offered. Ask your self: Will this opportunity lead to change? Will this step show me a truth? Will this daring move get me beyond this place I have been stuck in? Question your existence, My Dears. But do so in the context of all the gifts being offered, the signs showing you the way, and the possibilities being presented to you. Then it’s up to you to choose what you will do next.

May you trust your journey. May you feel centered and aware of your inner calm self, even as you fear the daring self who pushes you forward, even as you know you must confront other fears before you will be free. But that is what life is about, you know. It is a long process of confronting your fears. No matter what shape they take, so must they be met, face to face, then investigated, dismantled, and accepted, before being crumbled to a fine powder and swept from you, shaken off, so that you may be free to walk on lightly, trusting your journey and your prowess, with humility, gaining awareness, and learning always what it means to truly love, and to truly give love, to self and others.

Chuck's Blog

#400 Chuck’s Place: America Chooses the Black Doll

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

Jeanne and I fantasized that one day we’d open a club called, “Chuck’s Place,” since I always seemed to be a DJ who could set the mood with the right next song in the mix. The reggae sirens had drawn us to Jamaica for the better part of 1979, initiated by a thundering speech delivered by then Prime Minister Michael Manley who sought to bypass the colonial intent of the IMF, achieving financial independence for his struggling Jamaica. The deep spiritual energy and rhythms of the Rastafari religion, seeking and calling for one world, so deeply resonated with our own spirits, already awoken in the 1960s by John Lennon and Carlos Castaneda.

As the movie Life and Debt documents, Michael Manley’s efforts were ultimately squelched by the financial recolonization of Jamaica by the IMF, imposing such requirements as free zones. Nonetheless, the Rastafari, like the mature hippies and civil rights activists in other parts of the world, continued to patiently tend the flame of unity, hidden and protected, through the darkest of times.

When Jeanne and I returned from Jamaica she worked for Dr. Kenneth B. Clarke, whose seminal research on the choice of white dolls by black children was the compelling argument in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which led to desegregation. What would Dr. Clarke think today, that America, including a huge percentage of white America, has chosen the “black doll,” Barack Obama, to lead the country, in effect, to lead the world? Is this not the true realization, the maturation of the dream for one world?

Early in my career, while working in the addiction field, I tried to share my discovery of Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow with a black colleague. He pointed out to me that Jung’s description of the shadow, as the darkest part of the soul, was always identified as black. He felt this contributed to a distorted and dangerous world view perspective, since it reinforced white fears and prejudice, as well as contributed to a negative black self concept. Take one look at the prison population, the ratio of incarcerated blacks to whites, as well as how and where people live, and you see the consequences of the projection of evil onto blackness. Though his observations were enlightening, the symbology of the collective unconscious is impervious to sociological tinkering or wisdom. That which is unknown, unaccepted, and perhaps most frightening lurks hidden in the darkness of night. Dreams universally reflect this symbolism. The challenge, however, is to discover and engage one’s inner hidden truths, rather than avoid, deny, and hatefully project them onto outer reflections of darkness. Furthermore, that which approaches in the darkness holds the seeds of tomorrow, our evolutionary destiny. Do we decide to seek unity within the rejected and unknown self, or do we remain segregated from our own deepest truths and potential?

Barack Obama is the symbol of our destiny, a united self, one world, the union of black and white, focused on right action. He is the realization of many world dreams. But let us not project the messiah onto this man, as between one to two hundred thousand Rastafari did to the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, whom they considered to be God, upon his arrival in Kingston Airport, Jamaica, in 1966. “I and I” are all the messiah, but the work lies within each of us to achieve true union of our white and black selves, all truths revealed, embraced, and integrated into evolutionary beings bent on right action. Let us truly mine the black gold of our souls.

From a synchronistic point of view, the coincidence of this message being number 400, is meaningfully reflected in the song, 400 Years, written by Peter Tosh, the reggae artist. Note the significance of the lyrics to now.

400 years (400 years, 400 years. Wo-o-o-o)
And it’s the same
The same (wo-o-o-o) philosophy
I’ve said it’s four hundred years;
(400 years, 400 years. Wo-o-o-o, wo-o-o-o)
Look, how long (wo-o-o-o)
And the people they (wo-o-o-o) still can’t see.
Why do they fight against the poor youth of today?
And without these youths, they would be gone
All gone astray

Come on, let’s make a move:
(make a move, make a move. Wo-o-o-o, wo-o-o-o)
I can (wo-o-o-o) see time (wo-o-o-o) – time has come,
And if-a fools don’t see
(fools don’t see, fools don’t see. Wo-o-o-o)
I can’t save the youth:
The youth (wo-o-o-o) is gonna be strong.
So, won’t you come with me;
I’ll take you to a land of liberty
Where we can live – live a good, good life
And be free.

Look how long: 400 years, (400 years, 400 years)
Way too long! (wo-o-o-o)
That’s the reason my people (wo-o-o-o) – my people
can’t see.
Said, it’s four hundred long years – (400 years, 400 years.
Wo-o-o-o)
Give me patience (wo-o-o-o) – same philosophy.

It’s been 400 years, (400 years, 400 years)
Wait so long! Wo-o-o-o, wo-o-o-o.
How long? 400 long, long years.

On many levels, it is time now to enter the promised land, the land of liberty. Recapitulate, lift all the veils, embrace all the truths, and be free!
-Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#399 Choose to Flow; Make the Shift; There is No Other Option

Today, Jan asks Jeanne for guidance.

Dear Jeanne,
Today is Friday, the end of a very intensely emotional week. Each day seemed to carry energy extremes followed by exhaustion. All of that up and down energy has been experientially interesting, but I’m wondering if we have something a little calmer to look forward to. Can you speak about the energy of the next few days, and offer guidance, now that we seem to have really achieved a place of shift?

Energetically speaking, have you been experiencing a rarity. A mass shift in awareness has taken place. Even if your own awareness is not keen to this outside of you, so will you begin to realize it inside you as the next few days unfold in a continuation of such energy that causes shift of such cataclysmic proportions. I do not mean this in the normal sense of bursting or abrupt shift, noticeable, and in-your-face-obvious. But I mean this on a very deep, almost cellular level, a very subtle, but undeniable shifting of energy in each one of you.

Your direction now is carved out quite clearly. Do you see it before you? Do you have a good picture of your place now upon that earth and what you must do in order to evolve? Do you instinctively feel the direction you must proceed in now?

Though you may attempt to deny that truths have been revealed, and though you may wish to remain in a state of lazy complacency, so do I suggest that you flow with the waves of change, for they are mighty and powerful, but they are also present for personal growth and gain.

I do not like to prod. I prefer that you choose to flow; that you accept the necessity of change; that you decide that there is no other choice to make, all on your own. But this time, with this great flow of positive and revealing energy now so readily available and so deeply penetrating, do I ask that you make the shift. I dare to ask you to read and interpret your life now as not only needing change, but that there is no other option.

I do not often make such a definite request. More often than not do I prefer to ask you to consider making change, to process the idea, and then to choose how you want to proceed. But now, My Dear Readers, do I suggest most heartily, and with love and compassion for you and your journeys, that you take the leap forward, for it is not only necessary, but it is about time. If you are going to remain on the path of growth, I urge you not to miss this opportunity, for it will not return for a long time to come. I do not like to hear regrets, or moans of, “I should have.” Now is your time, My Dear Ones.

Now during this time of energetic alignment and joining of powerful forces are you being offered the acceptance of your true path, your next step, your future to discovering your own power, your own potential, and your means of being able to continue at a rapid pace forward.

Complacency or shift? What do you choose? For though I urge, is it still your choice to make. Do you not see the signs of change all around you? Do you not see that you are privileged to live during this time of not only historic proportions, but also spiritual awakening, which is personal, but also collective? Why are you alive now? Why have you been offered the opportunity to live in such times? Why have you been awakened? Why are you reading these messages I offer? Why are you there?

I’m sure you think about those things often enough. Do not get caught in the questions, but use them to shift your self to your inner truths. That is what this is all about, you know; truths exposed, revealed, spoken, delivered, and accepted. Accept your truths. Speak your truths. But also hold them before your self, and ask your self to be accountable to the new discoveries that you have made about your self; that have been revealed; as the energy aids you in pulling back the veils, forcing open the doors, and swiping aside the covers, revealing the truths that will set you on your true path.

Okay, so have I pontificated enough? The next few days and even the next few weeks will maintain an aire of importance and explosive energy that will continue to guide you. I warn, first of all, that you do not trust everything you hear. For this energy is available for negative as well as positive progress. Just because you are on a path of good, does not mean that all others are too. This energy is available to whomever desires it and discovers how to utilize it. So keep that in mind. You may be ready to accept your truths and use the energy to move forward, but others in your life may feel the opposite and use the energy to dig themselves deeper into their pits of darkness and despair. So watch out where you place your focus, and be smart as you utilize the energy.

Do not push others aside without stating your truths, but also revealing the love and compassion that is stirring inside you. You are being presented with insights into the struggles that all encounter as they go through life. So do not dismiss or judge the details of conflict belonging to others as any less important and meaningful than your own. This is a most important factor and the second big awareness to maintain during this time of profound change and opportunity. Do not push aside the problems and dilemmas of others simply to gain progress for your self. If appropriate, offer what you know in order to aid them to reach a place of shift too, or for them to reach a place of concerted choice; choice for them selves, without your participation, without your making it for them, but being available to urge them to face their truths, and grab on to this opportunity to shift in their own direction. For that is the third option you have available, and that is clarity. You are all being clearly shown a new vision, a new way of life, a new direction. And as I have already said, this is the direction that must be taken for shift and change to affect all mankind, in all aspects of life upon that earth.

You are not alone in your struggles right now. No matter how simple or how complicated they may seem, so is everyone struggling with some aspect of growth. Everyone is being urged to do something to move forward now, to opt for the energy of change that will lead you all in a new direction.

So, I end this message of guidance with these words: Go innerly. Go deeply calm and quiet, and really listen to your inner voice of truth and reason. And then, dare your self to walk your new path and become a part of this energy of change that is monumentally drastic in its power, but is also full of love and compassion for you as you take your journey. And that means that it is powerfully offered, topped off with plenty of guidance. How much more inspiration, incentive, and words of safety do you need? You will be safe. You will be guided. You will be offered all the energy you need, for the energy now is universal. And that means that it expands beyond just you.

There are great forces at work to bring about this monumental shift. I urge you all to accept your appointment with your own agent of change, your self. You are your own agent of change. You have every ability and every quality to move forward now. I’m looking forward to hearing how you all do, as I wait for you down the road. Be truthful. Be loving. Be aware. Read the signs that now are so clear.

NOTE: We will be starting a new blog, Chuck’s Place, with the first message coming on Saturday, titled, “America Chooses the Black Doll.” So look for that. This will be Chuck’s forum for expression, focusing on the synchronicities in Jeanne’s messages with life in general, but also encompassing his own deep process of unifying everything we experience and have experienced.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR