Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Surrendering to Healing

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At 4:45 this morning fierce winds knocked down two of our large pines sending one to the ground shaking and groaning as it fell and the other into our house. For about 15 minutes it sounded as if the house itself were about to fall. I actually shouted to Chuck: “The house is going!” In actuality it was the second pine falling onto the roof. The force of the fall as it hit the roof broke its eight-foot crown right off and sent it sailing over the peak of the house. “We’re in the Wizard of Oz!” Chuck said, as it landed with a shattering crash onto the deck right outside our bedroom. “Oh my god! There’s a pine tree on the deck! Where the heck did that come from?” I wondered. “We don’t have any pines near the deck.”

My daughter, who was asleep upstairs, came running downstairs as the first pine tree crashed past her window and just as the other punctured the roof a few feet from her bed. Opening the front door we saw the extent of the damage and even in the dark we could see that it looked pretty bad. The two tall pines, 80-100 feet high, which we always suspected of being vulnerable to the kinds of winds we get up on our little hill lay sprawled out, their roots yanked from the ground, huge holes exposing the earth that had been their home for the past 40 years.

Those trees were also resting and nesting places for numerous birds and they have been flying around in frantic disbelief all morning. It’s still quite windy as I write this and I’m a little worried that the last pine too will topple onto the house. About 5 years ago the fourth one went down in a similar windstorm, though it fell away from the house taking out the electric box as it went. We are lucky that the side of the house that was damaged this morning does not house any wires or lines of importance, so I sit comfortably enough inside at my computer, though if it rains again we fear more damage. The insurance company has been called and the first project is to get the tree off the house. I’m waiting for my neighbor, a tree man, to come and take a look.

I had planned to write about the process of recapitulation again today, with the idea of acquiescence uppermost in my mind. I am not surprised to be dealing with the loss of the presence of these two powerful trees for they are showing us something that we as humans have such a hard time with: letting ourselves fall.

As I neared the end of my recapitulation journey I had a powerful dream that signified for me why it had been so important to learn how to acquiesce to the process of that journey. In the dream I was preparing to meet my adversary, a huge space age monster, as big as a building, made of solid gleaming metal equipped with weapons of all kinds. I was dressed in a tattered padded dress with a tool belt tied around my waist that did not have any tools in it, but I knew I did not need weapons. The only things I needed were inner calm, balance, perseverance, the ability to remain in total alignment with the inner self and the ability to shift at the right moment. During the course of the dream I outwitted the terrible monster simply by remaining aware and alert. With utter calmness and balance I simply shifted out of his way, incrementally moving at exactly the right moment into the right position as I watched him repeatedly lunge at me and fall to the ground, his bulk no match for my agile accuracy.

From this dream I understood that during the process of my recapitulation I had learned not only how to successfully fight off an old monster from the past but that I had also won the battle against resistance to change. To begin with, I had to learn that I couldn’t move on in my life until I learned that things could change. That was the first big insight, and the second was as simple as surrendering to healing, yet it was the hardest thing I had ever done. I had to fall, like those two pines, in order for things to change and for eventual healing to happen.

This is what we must all do, surrender to the journey of confrontation with the inner demons and find the path to healing. The inner demons may not be fully known until we allow for change and even the path may not always be clear at times either. But with perseverance, by staying connected to the personal inner journey, the path undoubtedly reappears when we most need it. And it is indeed a path of surrender, first to the most apparent truths of the self and then to the most hidden ones as well. We can learn to accept the journey as one of healing, even as we struggle daily with what comes to awaken us to the deeper self, by surrendering to the natural process of our personal recapitulation.

Chuck and I have both loved those pine trees for the shade and privacy they gave us and known that some day they would have to come down. We were not yet ready to lose them, but now we are forced to face what the loss of them means. We must prepare for a new look to our front yard and get used to a new kind of exposure. We will get more sunlight into the house, but we will feel the heat in the summer as well. I think the recapitulation lesson here is that like the pine trees falling in the wind, sometimes our recapitulation comes to greet us unexpectedly, in abrupt and forceful ways. Sometimes we do not have a choice. Sometimes we must acquiesce to nature’s will and fall in the wind. Sometimes the power of nature, inside or outside of us, is all we need in order to surrender to the healing journey.

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#735 A Lesson in Opening

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
If you were to teach people how to be open and available to their personal spirit guides or to you, as I am, what guidance would you offer?

My first lesson in learning to be open to guidance beyond the self would entail learning about the self. A good place to start this process regarding self-exploration is learning how you feel. I don’t mean your opinions, but your feelings of the inner self.

Most often, when one attempts a process of exploration in other realms, the experiences are easily dismissed by the rational self, while indeed the inner self may be quite surprised to find that it is not such a big deal. And the inner self would be right! It is not such a big deal, but one must be able to access the sensitive, tender, and most frightened self first in order to allow the truth of this access to become available.

My first advice is to access the feelings of the inner self by doing heart-centered breathing. In so doing, the hardened self will crack away and the tender self will be exposed, and this is the self who we guides are most interested in. The tender, sensitive self, whom you keep perhaps protected from the world, must not be kept secret from your own self.

If one is to begin a process of opening the heart one must commit also to a process of trial and error but also studiousness. I suggest a few minutes a day be set aside to sit calmly and do some heart-centered breathing. Set the intent to break through the surface of the frightened and rigid self, with the main purpose being, first and foremost, to access the real self. This is enough of a beginning.

Do not wish for too much. Do not wish for more than you can handle. Do not wish for a big jolt of energy from your spirit guide, for you may not be able to handle it. Begin with seeking a means of starting a small practice of inner centering, breathing, and shedding of the rational mind.

Seek impeccability in this endeavor alone, five minutes at a time, and see if you find a moment of utter quiet within the self. This is what you seek, simply a moment of utter calm tenderness and stirrings of love for the self, so that you may find your way back to this same spot again and again. Begin with that!

Thank you Jeanne!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Most fondly and humbly offered.

Chuck's Blog

#734 Chuck’s Place: Meeting Fate: The Seers, Job & Jeanne

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I open The Wheel of Time and land on page 120:

“A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as grounds for regret but as a living challenge.”

Actually, I’m soon to go into session and want to quickly research a motif of relevance for this next session. I open The Oxford Companion to World Mythology and my eyes land on Job. Job, perhaps God’s most loyal servant, is stripped of family, possessions, and health. Job asks God to appear to him in a form he can handle, to discuss his confusion over his fate. Instead God appears as a terrifying whirlwind and chastises Job for questioning God’s decision making. The lesson: God’s will is independent; humanity’s will has nothing to do with the matter.

I ponder the relationship between these two readings. I come to acceptance and acquiescence. We are who we are. For the seers of ancient Mexico the message is: see clearly what you are and spend no energy bemoaning your fate. For Job, accept that you are subject to the will of God. That will is impersonal, don’t take it personally: accept that you cannot change your fate.

Jung pointed out many times that nature is not democratic; nature is not fair. This was Job’s lesson: being good guarantees nothing. One of Jeanne’s deepest challenges in her cancer journey was to face the fact that, in spite of her impeccability, cancer was relentless.

This left her in Job’s position, resenting how her impeccability had no influence upon her fate. Ultimately, she achieved detachment toward her fate and asked the question: What is the challenge my fate presents me with? This is the seer’s wisdom: face the truth of where you are and take on the challenge of it.

For Jeanne that challenge was to break all attachment to self-importance. Her impeccability had served as a life long shield from her deepest issue, abandonment. That shield had been so powerful that only an agent such as cancer was able to break through it and lead her to completion.

From the point of view of a humanity bent on a healthy life without end, this explanation is absurd and irrational. But as Job was forced to face, there are greater wills present in our lives that, from a human perspective, might make no sense yet may be serving our deepest spiritual and evolutionary needs.

The seer’s advice is critical here: accept your lot with deep humility; waste no energy on regret, instead turn it toward meeting the challenge, wherever that leads; it’s what you need to find fulfillment. Incidentally, in the end, God restored everything that Job had lost. Job’s fulfillment required total acquiescence to his fate. When we learn the lessons we need to learn or discover the truths we need to discover, fate takes us in new directions, presenting new challenges.

If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Gazing at the Golden Monk

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“I would like to experience energy as it flows in the universe.” Yesterday I set this intent, asking both Jeanne and don Juan to hear me, and then promptly forgot about it. I then went about my morning yoga practice and afterwards sat down to meditate for a few minutes before jumping into the day.

I faced the backyard, sitting on my pillow in front of the sliding glass door, as is my preference; looking out into the gray, overcast morning. The leaves are gone from the trees now and the branches of the large catalpa tree are but gray sticks crisscrossing in an intricate pattern. I noticed a pentagram shape formed by two large branches and several smaller branches and in the center of this pentagram a nice triangle at eye level. This is where I chose to focus my gaze. I did my usual breathing to clear my thoughts and bring my attention inward. Then I let my gaze soften, holding it on the small triangular shape in the middle of the pentagram.

Gently breathing in and out and continuing to clear my head of interruptions by repeating the mantra I’ve given myself—”I detach” on the in-breath and “I intend” on the out-breath—I continued to soften my gaze. (This is a shortened version of a mantra I’ve been saying for a couple of months now as I meditate. The longer version, which captures the spirit of my original intent, is: “I detach from the structures of this world and I intend a new world.” But having set that intent a long time ago I now simply say the shorter, equally effective mantra, shutting out the world as I do so. So far it’s worked really well.)

Softening my gaze, keeping it focused on the triangle in the tree, the world and the branches began to blur. In a few minutes I noticed a golden glow beginning to emanate from the now blurry triangle. It took on the shape of a human torso, as if a golden statue were standing there, radiating golden light. There was no head and no legs, just a simple torso; neck, shoulders, chest, waist, and arms with hands clasped in front at the lower abdominal area, looking rather monkish.

As I gazed at this golden monk I heard a soft voice saying: “Let your gaze soften, just stay with it.” I followed the instructions and watched as the golden glow extended outward from the torso, filling the tree and the entire back yard with vertically flowing waves of golden light. Suddenly, the backyard was no longer dark and gray but instead full of trees with golden leaves and bright light, and everything was vibrating. I held it as long as I could, until my mind popped back in and questioned: “Is that the sun shining?” I lost the gaze and came back into this world. There I was looking out at the gray tangle of branches, the world as dark and overcast as it was when I’d started.

“What the heck was that?” I wondered. Then I heard that soft voice again saying: “You can find it again. Go ahead, do it again.” Once again, following instructions, I gazed at the triangle of branches. Immediately the golden torso returned and began to glow. I lost it. I snapped back to this world again, to the gray and overcast morning as my mind interrupted the experience with logic and doubt.

I heard the voice again: “Go ahead, do it again, just gaze.” I suspended all judgment and did it again. The golden monk returned, I held my gaze slightly longer and then lost it again. The voice returned, instructing me each time I lost my gaze to keep practicing.

“Do it again. That’s right; hold it as long as you can. Let your mind go,” it instructed, “just have the experience.”

I did this six or eight times in a row. One more time I was able to hold it long enough for the back yard to fill with the golden waves of vibrating light, for the trees to become clothed in golden leaves, to see the vertical flow of energy before it all snapped back to the overcast and dull morning that it really was, in this world. This world looked asleep and dead, but I saw it as totally energetically alive.

As I practiced I understood two things. One, that this was what the seers of ancient Mexico did when they sat and gazed. They held the experience for as long as possible, but then, rather than getting caught in the amazement or the doubt of the experience they simply did it again and again, training themselves to see energy as it flows in the universe, volitionally. Persistence is the key. Here I learned the value of repetition as Chuck wrote about in his blog the other day.

The other thing I understood was that by setting my intent and having forgotten I had done so, I called infinity to me. And infinity came! I could have brushed all this away as just my vivid imagination, dismissed it, but I chose instead to stay with it, to value it for the experience alone. By paying attention to that quiet voice telling me to try again and again, I got beyond the possibility of seeing energy to accepting the truth of it. This was my experience of learning to see energy as it flows in the universe, volitionally.

I learned that by setting my intent, letting it go, doing my practice—which included repeating my mantra, paying attention to what was placed in front of me, shutting down the internal dialogue, and listening to the guidance—I could have a shamanic experience with the golden monk and whoever else that was who was whispering so gently yet so convincingly in my ear.

I humbly offer this practice and these experiences of meditation, intent, and repetition so that others may find the courage to go have their own moments of seeing energy as it flows in the universe; in whatever way it comes, learning to trust the personal experiences. Oh, and by the way, enjoy them fully for just that: personal experiences of seeing energy!

If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below.

Sending you all love and good wishes for good energy experiences,
Jan

Messages from Jeanne

#733 Become Eagles Today

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Jan Ketchel channeling Jeanne Marie Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
I awoke in the middle of the night and as I drifted back to sleep I asked you to teach me a shamanic lesson in a dream. I then fell into a dream about transforming energy from the dominant right side of this reality to the magical left side and back again. In the dream I was taking awareness from “The Eagle.” I had huge eagle wings myself, and I was sweeping energy toward my body, pulling it in from the right side, then from the left side, and then inward toward my chest and shoulders. I seemed to be learning a magical pass.

Can you please elaborate on this dream? What did it mean and why did you feel it was important to teach me that lesson?

My Dear Jan, when you ask, you receive. As you know, this has always been true, but, as you also know, specifically how you receive is up to the giver. This is true in all realities. On the other hand, if you ask for something specific, as you did in asking for a shamanic lesson, you will receive that specific request, however, the delivery is up to the giver as well. You see, in your request for knowledge I felt it was most meaningful to offer you something practical: a magical pass.

There are millions of magical passes, though not even a fifth of those millions of passes are known or utilized. Many of them you do without even knowing they are magical passes, though you may include them in your daily lives. So many and so frequent are these movements, filled with intent, that it is hard to be concerned with calling them one thing or another.

Be contented with the fact that in your very lives every action holds buried intent, and this is the crux of all magical passes, the intent that lies behind them. When you walk or skip or run you stir up ancient intent. Though you may not be aware of just what that intent is, you may be aware that something in you shifts, your energy, your mind, your senses. You stir up intent with practically every movement in that world, with the potential to offer you insight into infinity.

Now, in your dream sequence, I did indeed send you, upon your request, into a state of awareness where you knew how to shift your awareness from your right-sided self to your left-sided self and back again. This is an energetic process related to the energy body of course, but your physical body is what you must work with in that world. So, suffice it to say, your right side is your awareness in one world, the world you reside in most often, and your left side is your awareness in other worlds, including dreaming. Neither awareness is keenly aware of the other. Most of the time they are separate entities, only fully utilized one at a time. However, in dreaming a shift takes place whereby you may indeed maintain awareness of both sides of the energy body simultaneously. That was what you were learning last night.

The eagle’s wings pass is indeed an option for gathering your personal energy to greater awareness at all times. By sweeping the intent of awareness from the right side and then from the left side, as if you did indeed have broad feathered eagle’s wings, and pulling it into your heart center you begin to stir up these two awarenesses, mixing them together inside your energy body. But I also hazard that they will be most noticeable in your physical body as well. The eagle’s wings pass is quite accurately a good energy builder if you feel somewhat depressed, have low energy, or need a mental and physical boost. Simply sweep in energy from the right with your right wing, then from the left with your left wing, and then both together ending by wrapping your wings around your shoulders in an embrace of sealing in that energy.

This will invigorate your spirit, clear your mind, stir your heart and present you with inner calm all at once. Do not hesitate to do this pass whenever you feel the need. It is my gift to you.

Thank you, Jeanne. I am passing this message on to others. Is that okay? And may they also use this eagle’s wings pass?

Of course! That is a fine idea. It is not meant for you alone but for you to pass along, as are all the messages you encounter, if it feels appropriate. I encourage all of you to pass on what you learn in whatever way feels most right. For only in so doing will your lives evolve and your world too.

In the past you have mentioned that you thought the disciplines of the seers of ancient Mexico might be too archaic for modern man, yet here you have given us a magical pass. Have you changed your thoughts about Tensegrity as a practice? Should it be taken up more seriously by myself, as well as by others? I have never found it especially suitable to my personality, as I prefer yoga and meditation, though there are certain magical passes that I do regularly.

I do not advise anything along the lines of practice, except to advise that you find ways to stir up intent within your body, in both your physical body and your energy body. In order to evolve one must become aware, and to become aware one must wake up out of the slumber of that one world. One must open the eyes and be ready and alert to the experiences that abound, that in fact are being missed every day due to a lack of awareness. So however you choose to stir up your awareness works fine. In my book, your personal preferences must be appreciated and acceptable to you over anyone else, for it is your journey and your life. However, that being said, I do advise that in order to promote healing and evolutionary growth, awareness of the self as energy must be part of the process and this is why some sort of energy work is most beneficial.

This can be as simple a process as walking, as I mentioned earlier. This can be as easy as sitting quietly and learning what your personal energy feels like, as I have spoken of before in other messages. This can be a practice of yoga and meditation, as I know you are so fond of Jan, for it does indeed fit your personality and your quiet temperament. This may also be a more vigorous activity if that is what one needs to stir up the personal energy. It may depend on how long it has lain dormant and how far from its calling you really are.

Have you not heard your personal energy calling you? If not then it might be a good idea to begin stirring it up with the eagle’s wings pass as laid out thus:

1. Stand up and face the direction that feels most personally right and spread your eagle’s wings.

2. Breathe into your heart center and awaken your self. From the heart center invite your tender self—who may be afraid or simply dozing and unaware—to join you now, a little at a time, on your journey through that life, as you begin a new trip, so to speak, into the world of energy.

3. Sweep in energy from the right with your right wing and press it to your body and then release your wing back out to the side.

4. Then sweep in energy from the left with your left wing and press that into your body as well, releasing your wing back out to the side.

5. Then sweep in both wings of energy together, ending by wrapping your wings around your shoulders in an embrace of sealing in that energy.

6. When you are done release your wings and discover, My Dear Readers, that you do indeed have a vast storehouse of energy at your disposal, in fact an endless amount.

Invite yourself into the dream of awakening with your energy body fully present and participating in life. It is not so frightening as you may fear, for in reality it is who you are, in the reality of the true meaning of life.

Lift your wings, stir up your heart-centered energy and become eagles today, My Loved Ones. You cannot harm yourself or anyone else by doing so. You can only grow, heal, awaken, become alert, aware, and more fully present. Enjoy the experience!

Thank you Jeanne! As I was channeling and putting this up on the website today the winds were whipping and howling, as if the eagle were outside flying back and forth stirring up the energy!

Please feel free to post comments or respond to this message from Jeanne in the post/read comments section below.

Fondly and most humbly offered.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR