#755 The Earth is a Garden

Written by Jan Ketchel with a channeled message from Jeanne Ketchel.

Today I ask Jeanne to address the world situation. Already the news about the situation in Japan has dipped from the front pages of most newspapers and blogs, even though what happened there affects us all and will for decades to come, and most likely even longer. I feel strongly that it is wrong for us, especially in America, to slip back into comfortable complacency, to forget the truth of what has been revealed with the amount of radiation pouring into the earth, the sea, and the air. Locally, in New York State, there is a tremendous push to frack through the earth with deadly chemicals in search of natural gas, wreaking havoc on a par with what has recently happened in Japan. With the safety of nuclear power now in question on a broader scale, natural gas companies are pushing ever harder to sell their “clean energy,” which is absolutely false promotion. There is nothing clean about how they extract gas from deep inside the earth.

I ask you, Jeanne, why are people so cavalier about how they treat the earth? Why don’t we, as a species, care enough about nature to protect it above all else? Why are we so narcissistic when we need the earth to be clean and pure for our very survival? Don’t we get it?

Jeanne responds:

The earth is a garden, but mankind has forgotten this. A long time ago, the truth of the earth was turned under with the machinery that man developed in order to produce on a massive scale. In tilling for profit mankind killed the truth of Mother Nature’s intent and bounty. In essence, what is happening now is the fault of mankind.

Do not blame what is transpiring only on the greedy few, the profiteers, the moneymen, the commodity markets—for all of you are responsible for the decline in true agriculture and true garden tending.

How many of you truly appreciate the earth you walk upon? How many of you speak to the earth and to the wilds of nature? How many of you walk upon the earth with gentle tread and open heart, thankful for every breath of air you take?

Is it not possible to take in the truth of the devastation that man has wrought? Each one of you must face what you have done as well. You cannot place mistakes and negative decisions only upon a few. You must face what each one of you do each day, for you too are at fault no matter how pure your intent.

You see, that is the other truth. Man is but another beast who walks upon the earth, doing what beasts do; using, taking, destroying; yet in all cases is there symbiosis to study. Even the most destructible of creatures serves a purpose and so man must accept that his penchant to take, to increase exponentially, is natural, but that it will be challenged in some way, leading to a new level of nature development. But, and I say this in all certainty, mankind must use what he carries in his head–his advanced mind in alignment with his knowing and tender heart–to begin a new process, or dire circumstance will arise and change things for him. This is not a flippant warning of world’s end on my part, but the truth of the devastating split that has occurred over the past one hundred years and more, as mankind has divorced himself from nature; nature outside of himself and his true inner nature as well.

Have you not all been poor stewards? This is the first question you must answer in the affirmative. For if you suggest that you have been good stewards the world would look mighty different right now. It is not enough to sit in your comfy homes and declare the self an environmentalist, a lover of nature, a partaker in energetic alignment. You must all take greater action now. You must all participate on a wider scale.

I interrupt and ask Jeanne the following question: What do you suggest we do? What can people who, for instance, live in a large city do to help the natural environment that is so far away from the concrete jungle they live in?

Jeanne says:

Take responsibility for your own health. Everyone breathes the same air, drinks the same water, eats of the same foods grown in the same earth. It is not too far-fetched for all to demand that these three things, the air, water, and the earth itself, the soil that sustains all life, be unpolluted, be free of manmade chemicals, be pure and natural. Everybody eats, and this is the first place to begin the demands of change. Eat only that which is real, pure, and intentionally produced with sustainable practices.

Well, many would find that prohibitive. Organic, healthy, clean and chemical free food is often expensive and many people struggle just to put even the basics on their tables.

Jeanne suggests:

Nature reveals her truth

Yes, but with increased demand for clean food and refusal to purchase poisoned food, a shift in practices now so rampantly damaging would be forced. After all, if money is the bottom line, don’t spend your money on that which sickens you, you only injure yourself and make the poisoners happy. If mankind is indeed to survive diseases, cancers, and most physical ills, a change in what he puts into his body is the first step. To allow the self to simply decay due to the greeds of a few is but an excuse to not take responsibility for the self.

Do you, My Dear Ones, wish to decay, to become a widely spreading fungal entity rather than a human thinking, acting, feeling, breathing machine far more capable than you are now? How do you expect to evolve if you cannot use your time upon that earth wisely and properly? Remember, your time is of short duration upon that earth in comparison to most life. And yet, do you keep this in your awareness?

It is time for mankind to live consciously, to live in awareness of self and surroundings, to make demands upon the powerful so that they may face the truths of their own short life spans, and to take action for change.

What you are proposing sounds like it will take some time because many people are caught in just trying to survive right now. The world we have created, I admit, does not work for the vast majority, but really only for the few. And yet, it seems that what we have created in America is spreading like a cancer to other parts of the world, where ancient wisdom ruled until recently and now capitalism is making inroads, sickening human beings, reaping money over real food. In light of why we are really here, it feels wrong.

Jeanne responds:

I understand the dilemma, but you must all, My Dear Readers, fight against the stupidity of governments that do not work for you and declare that some things are just wrong. For what is a democratic government if you do not participate in some way–it becomes merely a tyranny and then, yes, everyone struggles.

Find your personal balance. Make your personal commitments to change the self, how you walk upon the earth, how you feed yourself and your family. How you think and formulate your opinions should not be based on rhetoric and mimicry, but only on heart-centered truth. You cannot dismiss that something is seriously wrong, so how can you begin making it right? And who do you choose to listen to?

Basically, I suggest that the best place to look for answers is inside the self. But do not simply sit and mull for too long. Make some pertinent decisions. No matter what your station in life, your situation, you can do something to change the world. You all have power; you must find and utilize your own personal power. Remove the cloak of despair, the negative thinking, the fear of not having enough, and do something positive for the self, for the air, the water, the earth.

Can you end today’s message with some advice about what is happening in Japan?

The circumstances surrounding the catastrophe in Japan is your wake up call, My Dear Ones. This is what you must recognize and then you must stay awake. Be careful now, for what comes next will be of utmost importance, for it will decide the future. Be careful how you treat the earth. She has been so careful of all of you and yet now she weeps and moans. Her painful cries must be heeded. It is time to listen to what she tells you.

The Earth is a Garden

Walk upon your Mother Earth softly now and ask her to tell you what to do. She will reveal her answers to those who can truly listen. Listen with your heart and you too will hear her speaking what is now the most necessary step. Keep purity in mind now for the earth, for the self. The human body and the body of Mother Nature both need it, since both encompass a far greater ecosystem that you can fathom.

Everything is interconnected; keep that in mind.

Thank you to Jeanne for this message today.

Most humbly offered,
Jan

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Chuck’s Place: Finding the Way Back Home

I don’t often encounter depressed feelings, but by Monday of this past week I was laden with the weight of the futility of the national political civil war. I’d been in the world too long; I needed to find my way home.

Whenever I connect to the moment, that final moment of life in the body, feeling my energy body separate and lift for the last time from my physical body, I am treated to such a different perspective. All that seemed so important, worth fighting for but a moment ago, becomes actually light and even humorous. The relativity, the transitoriness of all that was once held so dear, melts into a glow of loving compassion. All that matters really, for all of us, is the infinite journey and what comes next.

As I struggled Monday to find my way home, to the perspective of this final moment, I turned to my old trusty friend, the I Ching, for counsel. The I Ching tells me I’ve been treading on the tail of the tiger. Fortunately, this tiger is so caught off guard; it bites not and heads for the hills!

Path of Heart

The tiger symbolizes wild, intractable people—the kind I wrote about in last week’s blog, those currently energized with evil energy. I broke my vow of detachment and ventured into that energy field. It didn’t bite back, but its negativity caught me unaware. It’s a world of ego gamesmanship, a world that separates me from my spirit. Without my spirit, even for a day, I feel like I could die! I have no interest in dying, but in my innocence I strayed. This, according to the I Ching, is not correct conduct: walking can be carefree, but ought not be naive.

The I Ching suggests I return to the calm and level way of the lonely sage. “He remains withdrawn from the bustle of life, seeks nothing, asks nothing of anyone, and is not dazzled by enticing goals.” —Wilhelm translation.

This is coming home: the egoless clarity of the moment of death. Finally, I am counseled to look where I walk, to look into what will be favorable and turn toward it to find great fortune. In essence, to turn toward what makes me happy, for that is the right path. For me, this is alignment with that final moment of separation: a path of heart, the warrior’s path, a being who is going to die.

When it comes to finding the way back home, turn toward that which truly makes you happy. Here you will find your path, a path of heart; follow your bliss.

From home,
Chuck

Back in 1969 Blind Faith’s Can’t Find My Way Home resonated with my spirit. Check out this early video and then in 2007 Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton got together and sang it again.

Can\'t Find My Way Home—1969
Can\'t Find My Way Home—2007

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A Day in a Life: Seeds Scattered Upon the Earth

I sit on my meditation pillow and do the sweeping breath; exhaling, emptying of breath while turning my head to the right, breathing in while moving my head to the left, and then holding my breath while I sweep my head back to the right again. I do this over and over again, sweeping back and forth in an effort to recapture the dream I had last night. I have most of it, but there are a few details that I want clarified. The shamanic sweeping breath, the recapitulation breath, works like EMDR to capture experiences, dream and otherwise.

In my dream I am planting a garden. Chuck is with me. We have prepared everything according to what we feel is good for the earth, for the soil, imbuing everything with our intent to do it right so that everything we plant will feel welcomed and loved and provide us with sustenance and nurturance in return. Now it is time to put the seeds into the ground. I am standing with my cupped hands full of seeds. I am looking at them intently, knowing that I have done everything to prepare for this moment, but still I am aware that something is missing.

Ethereal Light

Chuck is standing next to me, also looking at the seeds in my hands, both of us trying to figure out what it is we have forgotten. Suddenly there is a loud crack and the pile of seeds is emblazoned with energy. They glow with a vibrant ethereal light and then I know that this is what is missing, the energy of Mother Nature beyond what we personally could intend. At the same time I am startled awake, because the loud crack was, in reality, a powerful jolt of lightning and thunder that rumbles on and on, Mother Nature, the earth reminding us of her power.

“It sounds like an earthquake shaking the earth apart,” Chuck said, as we lay awake listening to its insistent rumblings, the significance of this statement highlighting the truth of what has been happening lately in Japan and other parts of the world. As we fell back to sleep I thought about writing the dream down so I didn’t lose it, but I chose instead to replay it over and over again in my mind so I could more readily remember it in the morning. Alas there was something missing when I woke up too, just as I knew there was something missing as I stared at the seeds in my hands during the dream experience itself.

Doing the sweeping breath helps clarify the intent of the dream, which I am aware, is teaching me something important. What I remember now is that at the moment of the crack of thunder I was aware that I was as the tiny seeds in my hands, that no matter what I personally did it was the energy of Mother Nature, in all of us, that would determine the outcome of my garden. It is important to prepare for life, for planting, making preparations according to what is in alignment with what is right, but it is hubris on our part to think that we can control anything. It is important to be an active participant in life, but the truth is that the energy of life, of nature, is unstoppable.

This is what I also understood as I lay in the dark listening to the thunder rolling and cracking open the silence of the night. In all that I have been writing about lately—pointing out the decisions that we have all taken and that we are all responsible for, whether we agree with them or not—in the end, the one who will determine our fate will be the Earth itself. Mother Nature holds the real power.

We are but seeds scattered upon the soil, we fall were we fall. We must each one of us find our way with where we have landed in this life. Some of us live in the richest country in the world, in a material sense. Some live in a country with a belief in the richness of Mother Nature, Pachamama, as I mentioned in a note yesterday regarding Brazil’s law of equality, granting nature and all living things equal status with humanity. How is it possible that such diverse and drastically different attitudes exist? On the one hand our own country of America continues making decisions to ravage and destroy the earth in an effort to uphold our standard of living, while another country seeks to return to ancient alignment with the earth. The truth is that Brazil too has ravaged the earth, but now seeks to return to ancient alignment and identity with nature. Something powerful is being expressed in turning to this other truth that lies at the heart of our human presence upon this earth.

As in my dream, something is asking us to pause now and question what we have done. We are at a crucial moment in our time, but synchronistically in the time of all living things. We must all ask what is missing. What is it that we have not done to prepare, what is not right here? What have we forgotten?

Mother Nature has the answers. As we see happening in Japan, in Arizona where fracking for natural gas has unleashed earthquakes deep inside the earth, in the tragic truths of gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, mother nature is responding, even as she did in the night as I dreamed. I take the synchronicity of that loud crack of thunder at the moment I was dreaming very seriously. I also see its synchronicity in all that I have been reading and writing about recently, in the wake of national and international events and discussions regarding how we all treat the earth.

Even as I was wondering in my dream what was missing from my own little effort to do something earth-sustaining, taking personal responsibility for growing some of my own food, nature herself spoke loudly and clearly, reminding me of her powerful presence in my life and in all life as well. She is life and she has something to say. We all need to listen.

I don’t mean to be preachy nor do I wish to impose my personal beliefs. I think we must all come to what feels right for us personally, but at the same time I do strongly feel that it would be amiss to not point out the synchronicities all around us. I truly believe that Pachamama must be treated with respect and awe—not simply granted equality with humankind, though this is a good start—because she is far more powerful than we are. This is the truth I learned in my dream.

I am just one little seed, sending you all love and good wishes.
Jan

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post comments, photos, and quotes.

Quote for the Day: Stalking

Have we gone too far?

“We live in a vastly complex society which has been able to provide us with a multitude of material things, and this is good, but people are beginning to suspect that we have paid a high spiritual price for our plenty. Each person would like to feel that he is an entity, a separate individual capable of independent existence, and this is hard to believe when everything that we eat, wear, live in, drive, use or handle has required the cooperative effort of literally millions of people to produce, process, transport, and, eventually, distribute to our hands. Man simply must feel that he is more than a mere mechanical part in this intricately interdependent industrial system. We enjoy the comfort and plenty which this highly organized production and distribution has brought us, but don’t we sometimes feel that we are living a secondhand sort of existence, and that we are in danger of losing all contact with the origins of life and the nature which nourishes it?” –From Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons, copyright 1962

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR