Jan's Blog, Messages from Jeanne

A Day in a Life: Your Guts Of Steel

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Where do you turn for inspiration? - Photo of poster of St. Patrick's Cathedral by J. Ketchel
Where do you turn for inspiration? – Photo of poster of St. Patrick’s Cathedral by J. Ketchel

I look for inspiration for my blog. I’m putting all my energy into finishing my book, so I look for something to guide me. I pick up The Art of Navigation by Felix Wolf. I open it to page 141 and read the following: There was such beauty in intending impeccability and integrity. I believe, however, that the abundance and generosity of life that I was experiencing were not so much tied to the effort of intending and following principles, but rather the result of simply honoring and acknowledging the aliveness of life, every step of the way. Ultimately, looking life in the eye with recognition seems to be all that is truly necessary.

I like this quote, it inspires me, and yet I wish to save my energy. I look to Jeanne for another message today. When I channel, the words just flow out of my pen onto the paper before me. It’s easy on my brain, my time, and my energy. And so I break my attachment to my usual Wednesday blogging routine once again and go to the energetic source of life, as I experience it, to my spirit in alignment with infinity. And so I offer you the following channeled message that came through, as I looked the energy of life in the eye and asked: What message do you have for us today?

Here is what Jeanne replied:

It is of utmost importance that each one of you become fulfilled beings of light and energy, that you work through the issues that hold you in fear and regret, so that your energy may be used to benefit all of mankind. I do not say this lightly, but only because mankind is at such a turning point that good energy may be the only saving grace. The more people who free their energy—from greed and inflation, from sadness and petulance, from the insignificance of neediness and desire-of-no-benefit—the more hope will stir.

The world, as you all know it, is suffering. This suffering is largely due to the energetic component of man’s unstoppable greed. Where have all the good ones gone? Nowhere and everywhere, for all of you are the good ones. You know this already.

Do not get caught up in feeling one way or another about the self, but work to free the self from that which holds you back from fulfilling your true potential. And what is your true potential, you ask? Your true potential lies in your energetic self, your spirit self. Bound by the rules of the world, it is fearful. It holds back. It stays safe in its encasement. This encasement, however, will only last so long. In order to truly embrace the true self, it takes guts of steel. You know you have such guts—you all do.

Fear and worry are figments of imagination. They exist only in your mind. Your mind controls your body. Release the figments of mind and you release your body. Release your body and your spirit will find room, your energy will emerge from its encasement and give you all that you need in order to fulfill your highest potential.

Let life in. Let the encasements of an old world go so that the earth may finally be respected for what it is: a life giver! Let life give itself by aligning your personal intent with life today. Allow the self to take the first step in cracking the encasement that surrounds you and keeps you from your greater experiences of life and the world around you.

Seek the fire within... - Photo by J. Ketchel
Seek the fire within… – Photo by J. Ketchel

Sure, the world is a dangerous place. In many areas there is strife and evil, but do not look upon such devastation and disregard of humanity as someone else’s problem. Look inside the self for where you have the same strife and the same dangerous situations going on. The outer world is merely a reflection of the inner world and just as you all share the outer world, so do you all share the inner world. Do not think that your neighbor is not like you, equally holy and equally self-destructive, equally good and equally fallible, equally fine and equally exhausted by the need to uphold the insanity that life has become.

Find within that which you seek without, but also let life lead you and guide you to the answers you strive for within. Reconciliation with inner self will come from reconciliation without, but alignment will come from within. However, it is only in acquiescing to the non-specialness of the self—because all of you are equally special—that you will be able to access your guts of steel and forge a path to your inner self. Once that pathway has been secured, let it lead you into the world in a new way, in an energetically aligned way.

I cannot stress enough that in order to change your reality, you must dare first to change the self. How can you expect the world to change if you do not change your own habits and behaviors? How can the world change if the people who make up the world do not change? You are the first necessary agent of change. Be the agent of change in your own life. Grip your guts of steel and take the first step to cracking through your environment of encased energy and see what happens. Be open to life and life will meet you with equal openness.

Love to you all,
Jeanne

Messages from Jeanne

Readers of Infinity: Life Is Waiting To Receive You

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I set my intent to channel and here is what I got from Jeanne for us today:

Once my intent to channel was set, I let it unfold...this is what I received from intent meeting me in return... -photo of handwritten channeling by Jan Ketchel
Once my intent to channel was set, I let it unfold…this is what I received from intent meeting me in return… -photo of handwritten channeling by Jan Ketchel

Postpone nothing. Live your lives to the fullest. Do not reject or turn away from what comes to you as your next step, challenging you to progress. Be open to what life offers you. Know always that you are being guided. These things must be kept in mind if you are to learn how to leave your fears, your old self, and old places that are no longer nurturing, behind.

The time to move on has arrived. Please note that moving on means remaining fully adult, aware of life to come as more fulfilling than the life you now feel stuck in. Moving on requires maturity, compassion, and kindness to others. Moving on requires taking full responsibility for the self. Moving on requires impeccability in all that you do.

Strive for perfection in your daily lives. Such striving brings new energy. It makes you gain, in so may ways, crucial skills and attributes that you will need for your new life ahead. As you move on, new challenges will come to greet you. Life itself will come to your door. You must be prepared to receive it to your fullest advantage.

Impeccability is individually centered, an inner knowing that you are doing your very best in any given situation without inflation or greed for anything in return. To be impeccable is to do your best because there is no reason to do any less, ever.

Give life your all and life will give you all in return. Keep this in mind when you tire. Keep this in mind when fears arise. Keep this in mind when old voices from the past speak out against your more fully embracing life as it comes to you. Keep this in mind as you dare yourself to more fully embrace life and move on.

Life is unfolding, won't you too? - Photo of daffodils emerging by Jan Ketchel
Life is unfolding, won’t you too? – Photo of daffodils emerging by Jan Ketchel

This day is a day of newness, of energetic importance; a day of transition. Make the most of it. Make it be important on an inner level as well as an outer level. You may see it unfolding in transitory fashion in your outer life—one thing leading to another—but notice how your inner world responds as well. Let impeccability, maturity, detachment from the old, and compassion be your stability and your sobriety, as you take full responsibility for yourself and take the next step into your unfolding life.

Life is waiting to receive you. You just have to take the first step out of an old self and an old place, and into a new self and a new place. This opportunity is available every day, at all times. Sometimes it is more energetically apparent; at other times you have to work to discover it. Today, however, it is easily within your grasp.

Let yourself be open today. Look around you and you will notice that something is asking you to tend to it with impeccability. Go tend to it.

Be impeccable and life will meet you with equal impeccability and lead you onward. New life always awaits!

News and Notes

Note to Our Readers

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Chuck takes the opportunity to write a second blog this week—posted below—in order to free up Jan’s time for the final work on preparing her next book, the second year in The Recapitulation Diaries series. The Edge of the Abyss will be published in 2 volumes. Volume One is near completion and will be released in paperback as well as Kindle format. We will let you know as to availability in the upcoming weeks.

The Edge of the Abyss continues Jan’s personal process of recapitulation, filled with, yes, those gritty details but also plenty of magical encounters and experiences in dreaming and waking life. As she takes her journey to freedom, the intent of recapitulation clearly and quite remarkably meets her own intent to change.

As many of you already know, Jan’s books are not self-help. They are realistic portrayals of what it means to take a deep inner journey with intent to change. They are memoirs of the most poignant kind; real, deeply intimate, and often challenging, but full of wisdom and insight that could only be gained in the unfolding of the journey itself. They are books about a healing journey, illustrating the value of undertaking a shamanic process of recapitulation in combination with psychotherapy as a means of total healing from severe, life-inhibiting trauma. They show how one woman gained back her power and learned how to truly live.

Readers have found everything from comfort and validation in her journey to the incentive to take their own deeply challenging journeys. Many others have gained valuable insight into and greater understanding of what victims of sexual abuse have endured and continue to endure from the lifelong effects of early trauma. For the professional, Jan’s process is an invaluable guide to an alternative treatment that goes far beyond what is currently offered.

We will keep you informed,
-Chuck and Jan

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Seek Refuge In Intent

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Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high… -Bob Marley Get Up, Stand Up

We must do the freeing ourselves... - Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel
We must do the freeing ourselves… – Photo of carved wooden Buddha by Jan Ketchel

For the Shamans of Ancient Mexico the calling of INTENT is the channel to the power to change the self and the world. If calling intent is a prayer, it’s a prayer of conviction: I INTEND THIS! But it’s also a prayer of humility: Though I state my intent with command, I accept the response I receive.

Perhaps my intent is an ego intent, misaligned with spirit self. I must examine a non-response from intent with humility. I do not attach to the outcome of my stated intent, that is control. I am beckoning power, I must accept with equanimity the response I receive. Perhaps my intent requires that I linger longer where I no longer wish to be. Perhaps I have more to learn before it’s time to awaken from this dream.

Intent insists on strength. We must come to intent as adults. Intent cannot advance us if we beckon with begging, pleading hands. In this case, intent will contain us in our begging stance until we are able to stalk—to truly embody—the shift we seek.

Intent requires that we use our words. Thinking an intent is not calling intent. We must verbalize, with clarity, our intent. Stating our intent establishes a link between a definite being—a being embodying its right to ask—and the power of intent to fund the intention.

I must prepare the ground for intent. Have I done all within my power to receive the fruition of my intent, or am I asking intent to do the work I rightfully can and must do myself? How can intent bring me fulfillment if I have not faced my recapitulation? If I am not ready to open and free myself from the restricted beliefs I hold of myself, how can intent present me with new possibilities that would simply not be possible for me to embody?

I’m ready for new life when I’m willing to shed the old through a completed recapitulation. Until I’ve completed my recapitulation I am not even aware of the beliefs and habits that bind me. How can intent free me when I am not free to go forward?

Finally, a personal note of caution. Intent is real and it’s powerful. Do be careful what you ask for! As a young child I beckoned intent on a Good Friday. Intent responded with a force barely containable in my young body. I opened a portal that day that, quite frankly, I was never able to close. Though I wouldn’t have it any other way, I caution: Use extreme sobriety when beckoning communion with infinity!

We must prepare our humanness to ride freely on the wings of intent. To seek refuge in intent we must assume full responsibility for our lives. That’s the ticket.

With the intent of affection,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Love & Affection

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Bring the heart out of the shadows of love and into the light of true affection... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Bring the heart out of the shadows of love and into the light of true affection… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

The other night we watched Bruce Wagner’s 1998 film I’m Losing You. It packs a shamanic wallop. We’re left with the emptiness of a group of characters ruthlessly chasing love amidst a harrowing set of losses, exposing the love compulsion at its most hideous. Most disturbing is the power of that compulsion to preempt a genuine participation in life and relationship. Last night we watched another movie with a similar theme, the 2011 film, The Newlyweds.

I know the world that Bruce Wagner was immersed in when he wrote the novel, in 1996, upon which the screenplay and movie I’m Losing You are based. I was totally consumed by that same world, the world of Tensegrity and Carlos Castaneda. Bruce, alias “Lorenzo Drake,” was in the inner shamanic circle, and in fact married the nagual woman Carol Tiggs. This was at the time that Carlos was mercilessly poking fun at the search for love that dominated our world. Carlos would constantly point out that we seek love, but underneath we are really merchants caught in the contract of what we are getting from, or what we are owed in, our loving interactions.

I’m Losing You glowingly highlights that even in the midst of extraordinary opportunities to avail ourselves of the shaman’s greatest wake up call—to use death as an advisor—we are trumped by the flyer’s mind that seeks refuge in a zombie-like pursuit of love.

After the movie, I dreamed of being on an old treelined parkway rest stop on Long Island in between the northbound and southbound lanes. Traffic streamed by in both directions without letup. I was crouching at the curb of the north side picking up garbage. I came across an old, well-worn, 33 RPM album entitled, “I Love You.” I picked it up, read the label, and then pushed it vertically into the mushy sod so that it stood up straight in the grass. I then walked over to the picnic area in the grassy median where two tables had been pushed together. People were anxiously awaiting their reserved time to have their children’s birthday parties there. One parent was haggling over not paying 18 dollars for an extra umbrella for the table. The sense of the scene was that it was a pedestrian, quick drive-thru birthday party factory.

My dream seemed to validate the well worn love recording at the energetic highway of our lives, with its cookie cutter rituals defining our behaviors.

Carlos stated that the Shamans of Ancient Mexico saw that love had been co-opted and corrupted by the flyer’s mind of self obsession. (See last week’s blog Don’t Ask Why.) Those shamans linked instead to affection, an independent wave of energy accessible to all, our true birthright. Once accessed, affection naturally flows through us.

To access such affection, Carlos suggested that we learn to love by giving with a blank check. That is, affection means giving without ever expecting a return on the investment: Giving without attachment to the outcome. This kind of affection takes the “me” out of the equation. You owe me nothing in return for my gesture of affection. I give it freely, no strings attached. I require not even an acknowledgement. You truly owe me nothing.

This is the true nature of affection: Selfless love, conscious acts of affection without self-reflection. I feel it; I give it; I don’t look back.

With affection,
Chuck

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR