To learn from one’s mistakes is a crucial lesson along the warrior’s path. A journey is not a journey of evolution if one does not pay attention to the lessons life automatically poses from day to day. When a warrior makes a mistake there is no doubt of acceptance of responsibility and contemplation of how to avoid making the same mistake twice.
Above all, a warrior faces life with curiosity and deep contemplation of how best to conserve energy and proceed along a path with heart. To do this a warrior knows that everything is a lesson and so a warrior’s every deed is undertaken as a task to be confronted with heart and soul, for everything matters; there is nothing that does not fall under the category of lesson. And yet a warrior know that to be too analytical is one-sided, and so a warrior’s journey is always undertaken with a good attitude, a happy countenance, and an eager heart.
Chuck and I were sitting in a favorite spot one night recently, talking quietly about the events of the day. I had a pain. Persistent and relentlessly present it had bothered me all day. I am not one to complain, nor do I often have an affliction, but this one had gotten its claws into me and would not let go. Chuck was aware. My countenance alone was enough for him to know.
A Portrait of Detachment & Compassion… – Artist unknown
As we talked I glanced up at a print on the wall, a portrait of the Virgin Mary. I post it here so you can see it for yourself. I had always noticed how detached she seemed, this beautiful being, as painted by the artist. Her gaze is a little to the side and down. She does not look directly at the viewer. In her heart chakra sits a large and fiery heart, radiant it sends out beams of light. Though she is not touching the heart, the Virgin’s hands nonetheless keep it exposed.
Even while being present in the room with Chuck, another part of me—the Observer Self or High Self—began an interaction with the portrait. “You seem so detached,” I said. “How can you be so detached and yet be the healer that you are? People have flocked to you, prayed to you, begged to be healed, to be forgiven, to be made whole. Look at me. I’m in pain. Will you take pity on me and heal me? Right now?”
My innocence reached out. Within seconds I felt a change taking place in my body. Chuck noticed it too. “You’re getting better,” he said, with certainty. “Yes, I am,” I said, though I did not tell him of my telepathic conversation with the Virgin Mary. Instead, I started to doubt. Perhaps all the herbal remedies and the meditative exercises I had been doing all day, the Netting that I had written about several weeks ago and other exercises in detaching from negative energies were finally kicking in. But as soon as the doubt arose my High Self spoke up very loudly: “Cut it out! Face the truth and thank her!”
This time, as I turned to the portrait, I noticed that the Virgin was gazing right into my eyes and that her own eyes were filled with compassion. Instantly, I understood that only in learning detachment could she possibly be available to help others, that all of her energy had to be directed to her heart center, her focus always on placing her attention, intent, and energy there, for that was where she worked from. It was a place of vast energetic power. I saw that if she remained attached to anyone or anything in this world her energy would be compromised and her work would suffer.
“You really are a goddess,” I silently said to her, “the Goddess, Gaia, Earth Mother, feminine energy supreme. Though you have been categorized and labeled as something else, you are so much more than the portrait on the wall depicts you as. You have succeeded at what we are all seeking, how to be detached so that our energy may be directed into compassionate living, into the work of compassion.”
She is an example of how to be fully detached and fully loving and compassionate beings. Though her son had died she held no malice toward anyone. She turned her anger, her sorrow, her regret into something good. She did not stay attached to the things of this world. We are all aware of her many miracles, her appearances at Lourdes, Fatima, and most recently in 1981 in Medjugorje, in what is now Bosnia.
We all embody the same innocent light of dawn… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
As I look at her looking at me, I know that everything I have learned through my connection with Jeanne is true, that we are all goddesses too, male and female, that we all have within us the same compassionate energy, the ability through sustained focus on the energy of the heart chakra to become fully compassionate healers too. It is her mission to teach us this through her own work, still taking place throughout the world.
It is not that easy to manifest in this world, Jeanne tells me today as I write this blog, to appear as the Virgin Mary has done over the centuries. If it were that easy, she says, there would be many more sighting of the great enlightened ones, and so they seek to connect and work in energetic ways. That’s why it’s so important for us to lose our self-importance and reach out, to let our innocence out of safekeeping so that it may act on our behalf.
We are all capable of this energetic contact and this directed compassion. Jeanne herself tells us this over and over again, that we are all Psychic Beings. I learned, from my recent interactions with the portrait on the wall, that to awaken this aspect in ourselves we must first achieve detachment.
Detachment means that we are not caught by anything in this world, that our energy is totally removed from everything that entices us—from sadness and self-pity, greed and longings, attachments to family or being special—the gamut of all that keeps us bound to life on earth. Our real life awaits us in energetic form. We must wake up to the truth that we can have access to that energy now, if we dare to take the journey through detachment to compassion.
Once we’ve achieved detachment, and maintain it, our energy will be fully available for the much needed work of compassion, of energetic healing and communication. I know it’s possible and that it works; I’ve done it myself. Though I am in no way perfect, I have had enough experiences to know that a path with heart is a path of detachment as well.
Rarely have I asked for compassion for myself, but my innocence was not going to let me decide the other day. It had something to show me, how energy really is all that matters, and purified energy radiating from the heart chakra, the energy of compassion, is the only way to go if we are to impact and change the world. By learning what it means to detach we sidestep getting caught by anything in this world. Through sustained and diligent attendance to where we put our energy we not only can have impact, but it becomes increasingly clear that we are all equally deserving of compassion and that everyone, even the most hardened criminal, though seriously misguided, is innocent at the core.
Perhaps my experiences will strike a chord. Perhaps your own innocence might have something to show you. Trust it. That’s all I can say, and then see what happens!
At our core is the fire of compassion… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
I also feel that it is significant to mention that Chuck bought the portrait of the Virgin in Vatican City a few days after Jeanne had died while he was waiting for her body to be cremated in Switzerland. Jeanne had told him and their children that she would always live in their hearts. When he saw the painting that was what he was thinking. He brought the portrait home in his suitcase, nestled next to Jeanne’s ashes.
From the Holy City, a place of such powerful energy, this portrait of a loving and compassionate heart traveled here, and we have been under its gaze ever since. It is finally time to tap into its energy and its message. I pass it on.
A warrior has no regrets. A warrior is aware that everything is meaningful, everything is part of life’s lessons and for everything that happens there is a reason. A warrior knows that the answers to life’s questions and the quest for clarity and meaning may only come at a later time and so a warrior does not regret anything but holds close to the knowledge that eventually the answers will come and meaning will clarify. A warrior lives life to the fullest and moves on with what is, without regret, knowing that a path with heart is the only real concern.
To think that you have control of anything is a fallacy. Your sense of control is alignment with what is necessary for you to experience at the moment and often that is to have the experience of utter control. And yet, there will come a time when you will have to let go, for that is the law of nature. Nature will let you have your way, but in the end nature will always have its way. And what will you do then?
The only thing to do is acquiesce, in one way or another, to change; for that is the ultimate and final challenge for all of life and all of nature, to change, to transform, to evolve. It is the path of all life. So why are you still so afraid?
Don’t just let change happen to you. Be the changing being that you truly are and with open arms embrace the opportunity for new life. Nature will wholeheartedly embrace you back. There is nothing to fear except the loss of something that you do not control to begin with.
Life reflects the dilemma of our energy body… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
The human body is an animal. The human animal is the host of the energy body, the mental and emotional part of ourselves that generates the thoughts and desires that largely determine the fate of our physical, animal body.
It is the energy body that leaves our physical form upon physical death. Yet, while in physical form, this separate energy body—or soul—controls, like a dog on a leash, the activities of the physical body in daily life, determining its health and care.
Our food choices are not made by the physical body; they are made by the desires and rules of the energy body. Our sleep patterns too are largely determined by the wants and interests of the energy body.
Our obsession with pets is largely a projection of empathy and love for our animal physical body selves, largely dominated by the whims of our energy body. Our energy body is a more subtle body that tends to use the physical body to experience its wants and ideas through the sensory systems available in the human body, thus the pleasures of excitement can be played out in the sweets and spices we consume in our food and drink.
Left to its own natural predilection, the human animal self might select food that it really needs to remain in optimal health. Mental constructions, however, result in behaviors that often override the body’s true needs, either through restriction or overindulgence. Rarely is the human animal body ever included in decisions that reflect its wellbeing, rather it simply goes along with the dictates of the subtler energy body.
Last week, fifteen buffalo herded together and broke through the confines of a ranch in Rensselaer County in upstate New York. They swam across the Hudson River and then sauntered across a major interstate highway until they were finally slaughtered in nearby woods. They utilized the power of their innate archetypal herding instinct to break through their condition of servitude. I can’t help but applaud those buffalo soldiers as they danced their final dance in this world in utter freedom.
Two days later, Gaia herself violently shook her body self as thousands were swallowed in Nepal, that most ancient holy country. What is the message here, in these two recent examples of energy gone wild?
We are all energy beings entwined with physical animal bodies, our hosts while in physical life, charged with treating the earth with spiritual leadership. When we tyrannize the earth, the animals, and even our own animal selves, treating them as playthings for our ethereal pleasures, then Gaia, the buffalo, and our own physical bodies rebel and refuse to be partners on our spiritual journey.
Our mission as energy bodies entwined with our animal host selves, on a spiritual level, is to resolve our karmic challenges with the materials that life on earth offers us. Our gift to the earth in exchange is to enliven the spirit potential of this physical world to evolve itself in new directions.
The sketch Jan made in her journal as she contemplated her dream…
The problem for humans is that their purest spirit intentions, as they come into physical life, get clouded over in the rich darkness of earth’s soil. It’s our journey in this life to release our karma as we journey from the darkness to find our way back to the light of spirit—pure consciousness of the truth. This morning Jan awoke with a dream that clarifies and illustrates the drama of this dilemma.
Here is Jan’s dream as she described it to me: “Come on, I said, let’s take a walk. I thought I was walking with another person. My observer self, who hovered behind and above me, however, pointed out: It has no legs! As I turned to look at the being beside me, I saw that I was walking beside a large paper-thin black square out of which hung a tendril of root. The root almost touched the ground as the sheet of blackness floated beside me. I realized that this black shadowy figure was my ego. Then I realized that everything that I am and seek to be is inside me; I am all I need. Ego was a shadow entity that inhabited me, clearly not human. I realized I no longer needed it. I knew that I just had to follow the Tao.”
The shadow square of Jan’s dream is a mandala, the representation of the spirit embodied in the energy body who then projects its ethereal self into the physical body as an ego. The ego is the spirit, or energy body representative, rooted in the physical body. But the truth is, it has no legs. It’s really an empty shadow. However, in human life it becomes the active force, the ruler of life. In its shadow state it is not oriented to spirit and uses the energy body for its own desires and appetites. This exploitation has resulted in the protests of Gaia and her buffalo, who bravely contest our inferior leadership.
The resolution of our human karmic dilemma is for the spirit’s energy body representative in human form, the ego, to find its way and eventually acquiesce to the dictates of the heart chakra, where the true intent of the spirit resides in what Aurobindo called the Psychic Being.
The quest for freedom requires that the ego self, like the buffalo, must lead itself out of the confines of servitude to the physical and into the light, graciously giving up its life for the evolution of the spirit. In the final analysis, the march for freedom is always death of the physical, ego included.
The heart chakra center of the energy body is grounded in the Tao and knows only truth, compassion, and right action. The Tao elevates everything to a spiritual level. Humanity elevated to this level sheds its shadow ego and aligns with the light of spirit, burning through its karma and leading earth into proper balance and evolution. It is the goal of all our spirits.
Chuck dancing with the spirit of the buffaloes… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Our dear animal friends, the buffalo, teach us that tyranny is wrong action and that the quest for freedom is all that matters. This is spirit lived at the highest level, life shedding the tyranny of illusion, marching forward into the unknown, bringing light into new frontiers.
I honor those mighty Buffalo Soldiers, as did Bob Marley: Buffalo Soldier.
