Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today, I would like to know: is there another step in detachment that would be helpful for us to learn at this time?

My Dearest Jan, and all of My Readers, do not doubt that there are many steps in achieving balanced detachment so that you may live a life of compassion for self and others severed from the issues that now attach to and attack you. However, the steps thus far imparted are the most crucial every day steps that one must not only learn, but also embed in the psyche, so that they become active participants in your lives. I stress that awareness of the self as an evolving being is of utmost importance as you continue to work on the self.

Inner and outer awareness combined are essential aspects of growth. I do not wish to command or contend too much at this point. It is far better that you work with what you now have at your fingertips, keeping aware of the self as desirous of change that will free you from the repetitive doldrums of life. Keep in mind that in order to truly change one must offer the self useful tools, but one must also push the self to utilize them.

I understand that it is often the case that the tools are readily understood, found extremely useful, but the difficult part comes in maintaining a practice. This must be your daily concern, My Dears. Once you daily remind your self of the process of learning detachment in Not Doing, Knowing of Purpose, and the third step of accessing the greater Responsible Energies of the Self then it is time to put them to use, in actions. This involves learning to care about the self, learning to trust the process of your life as it unfolds, and disciplining the self to truly allow for change, without fear and without sadness.

This process of enacting change is based in awakening the creative self, offering the self creative energies that may lie dormant, latent, or already quite active. Is it not far better to tap into the creative self rather than allow the big baby to rule? The big baby loves the creative self, and if you contemplate what this means you will find that your big baby will automatically sit in awe of the creative, troubling you less with its hungers and desires, its needs and its issues. The big baby is in need of some entertainment. It asks for something from you and although you may think it wants the usual, it is, in fact, asking you to notice that it needs something different; otherwise it would not be bothering you.

If your big baby were satisfied it would not rise up and make outlandish demands at the most inappropriate times or at its scheduled appointed times. You have trained your big baby to alert you, much as an alarm clock alerts you to wake up. It is not really asking for the same thing that your mind and body immediately revert to, simply because you have created a habit that easily quiets the big baby. No, your big baby is asking you to change. It is quite bored after all these years of the same thing and would like a change. Offer it some creative energies. Offer it something that has nothing to do with satisfying the human hungers, but offer it something that satisfies the spiritual hungers that it is alerting you to.

By practicing the first three steps in detachment you will gain insight into just what your big baby is truly yearning for. This is what I suggest is the next part of your process of change. Utilize what you are learning by taking it innerly and enacting it outerly. To gain a better understanding of how you truly operate ask the self to slow down, to listen very closely to the small voice inside, and just suppose that it is saying something you have never heard because you were too busy shushing it. What would that be?

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
We have been discussing the process of learning what it means to be detached yet compassionate. So far you have taught us that learning detachment requires practicing Not Doing and Knowing Our Purpose in Life. Last night I dreamed something about the importance of understanding attachment though I failed to write it down. I wonder if this has something to do with the process of learning detachment. What is the third step?

As I spoke of earlier, one must know what one is detaching from so, obviously, attachments must be fully understood for how they affect and direct a life. Detachment requires knowing the self fully, as an evolving being, and this requires quite a bit of self-knowing with the understanding that one is seeking release from the conventional, the expected, and preconceived notions of how life should be lived.

Detachment requires a rejection of the norms, but only after they have been fully explored, for one cannot truthfully say that one has lived if one has indeed not done so. Detachment requires having experiences to fully understand and know the self and others. This you already know. In order to fully understand anything one must experience it.

As one seeks to learn about the self, one must do so in the environment one lives in. You are in the perfect environment for you to learn what you must learn about the self in this lifetime. The next step in the practice of learning detachment is to slow down and reconcile with the gifts you are given by your environment, your choices made regarding relationships, jobs, life situations, and acts of God. Stop asking why and find out what you are meant to learn about the self in your current situation in life. Accept responsibility for it. This is the third step: to accept full responsibility for the self, for the life you live, and everything that it entails. No one is to blame for where you find your self, and no one is to blame for where others find themselves. You see, you must take total responsibility for your life, and you are not to blame for the choices others have made in their lives. Though you may be quite entangled with others, and they with you, what is the deeper meaning of that entanglement?

In untangling the mysteries of your outer environment you will begin to understand what it means to detach the self from the conventional and pre-laid expectations of the world around you. Are your experiences in life thus far limited to the rules as laid out by others? Are there rules you can break that do no harm, nor go against the legal systems? Are there rules of the self, imposed by the self that keep you limited, unadventuresome, and confined to a life of little or no exploration? Can you change your routine, even slightly, to offer the self the opportunity to have a new experience in life? Can you shift the self in some small way today that expresses this next step in learning detachment? Can you do something that places you in the position of having to take full responsibility for your actions and know it, fully experiencing what this means, out of your normal routine? Do something different today and, in so doing, experience the fullness of taking responsibility and feeling what it means to have an experience out of the ordinary.

If you are normally constrained, do something generous. If you are normally effusive, do something for the self. If you are often judgmental, be thoughtful of the feelings and issues of others, even while you clearly see that they are responsible for their own place in life. If you are unable to shift your self out of your current malaise, find someone else in a similar situation and spur each other to do something new. Seek a shift in experience by taking responsibility for the self, gaining insight into what it means to be fully responsible for the self, no matter what your experiences in life have dealt you. Learn to detach your experiences from conventional forms of explanation. Look at life differently each day now, breaking your normal perceptions, offering your self a new outlook, so that your next step may take you more fully into understanding how you are fully responsible for everything you do, think, act upon, engage in, and entice towards you.

Life will begin to appear differently if you begin to understand that you are loaded with the power of full responsibility. What a gift this is! What are you going to do with it? How are you going to use it? Responsibly? In a new way, or in an old way? Which way will give you more energy, more insight, more clarity on your life and that of others? Which way offers something new?

Take responsibility for the self and the life you live. You will only understand what detachment means by doing so, fully, and in alignment with your spirit’s intent. Today’s mantra: I am fully responsible for my self!

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Today my question is twofold. Lately, I have re-read the accounts of the shamanic journeys of Florinda Donner* and Taisha Abelar** as they encountered the sorceresses of don Juan’s group. Each night before sleeping I state a dream intent. Since these sorceresses were dreamers I have asked them to teach me something of importance while I dream. Over a period of several weeks I have channeled, while dreaming, ten steps for developing a shamanic practice, which I will relate at another time. As I have channeled the energy of these specific sorceresses I have felt a kinship with your energy, a familiar type of energy, though I do not perceive your specific energy. My first question is: Are you in alignment with or working within this group of sorcerers while I am dreaming?

My second question today has to do with the channeling from the other day regarding detachment. I sense that there may be other steps to detachment that might be helpful for us to learn and utilize. What comes next after Not Doing? Over the past few nights I dreamed about the two selves, the rational everyday, worldly self and the spirit self. I got this message: Align with spirit. Is this the next step in learning detachment?

My Dearest One, when you dream you allow the self access to all-knowing, yet does the self not easily claim this right. When dreaming with intent you give the self permission to claim this right. In channeling, your intent is to connect through our channel and thus a sense of familiarity and continuity are established, nurtured, and practiced. By intending to channel in dreaming you leave your self wide open to that which you intend and, though you may feel a familiarity in your dream channeling, I must state that you are not tapping into my energy, though your channel, honed by our work together is operating as you have trained it. You see? You are using a familiar process, thus it is the process that is familiar and recognizable, but you are connecting elsewhere, as is your intent. So, to answer your question, you are not channeling me or my energy during your dreaming process, you are channeling where you direct your self. I wish to point out that you are in control by placing your intent, stating your desires, and asking for information from these specific sorcerers. Continue to hone this skill of dreaming intent, for it is very useful.

Thank you. Okay, so what about detachment? Is alignment with spirit another step?

I must say that your perceptions are correct, that, yes, alignment with spirit is an aspect of detachment. It is, in fact, the overall intent of detachment to remain in spirit alignment. Detachment cannot be perceived or achieved without knowledge of spirit self. Alignment with spirit self is a given in the process; it is the overall awareness factor, so I am not going to include it, per se, as a step, though I include it in each step. Alignment with inner self, with spirit intent, with spirit purpose must be accepted in order to begin a practice of detachment, otherwise the idea of detachment will seem anathema to life upon that earth.

So what is the second step in detachment?

The next step to take is the step toward Knowing of Purpose. This may take some time, it may take a whole life in fact, to discover your purpose in that lifetime. In Knowing of Purpose, your focus of self, of energy, of greater good, in alignment with inner spirit self, allows for attention to be placed where it is needed, yearned for, and required for your evolutionary growth. In order to determine your purpose in life you must pay attention to your spirit, your heart-centered knowing, and the true words spoken to you throughout your life. These true words, though they are often pushed aside for ego intent, will lead you to discovering your greater spirit’s intent, your purpose in life.

Purpose in life may be innerly centered or it may be outerly centered. By this I mean that many of you will find that your purpose is directly attached to your inner process and many others will discover that their true purpose is related to their place in the outer world. There are introverts and extroverts among you, as has been described by many thinkers. What type you are will aid you in discovering your true purpose in life and it would not be a bad idea to more thoroughly research the self in order to discover where your strengths really lie. Many who believe themselves to be introverts may, in fact, find that their true purpose is in becoming extroverted and vice versa. True purpose must therefore be related to ego in alignment with spirit. These are the questions I pose in response to your question regarding the second step in detachment: Who are you really, and what is your purpose? No one can answer these questions except each one of you personally, My Dear Readers. You must explore the self, uninhibitedly, openly and unafraid, with intent to discover your true purpose. Put that into your dreaming intent and see what happens!

*Being-in-Dreaming, An Initiation into the Sorcerers’ World, Donner, Florinda. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
**The Sorcerers’ Crossing, A Woman’s Journey, Abelar, Taisha. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

Both of these books are available through our Store.

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Last night, while dreaming, I accessed a place of utter calmness, detachment, and clarity. In this place of peacefulness, I fully understood what it meant to be loving and compassionate toward the self and others, while at the same time totally detached and in a state of perfect inner calm balance. I yearned to stay there and I wanted to wake up in the morning and find myself still there. In this state I realized that I did not have to think about anything because the answers to all of life’s mysteries were totally accessible, simply by being open and receptive to them. There was no sense of fear or worry and everything was available because I had no interfering earthly attachments. I failed to write down what I was experiencing. At the same time that I struggled to alert my dreaming self to pick up the pen and write in the notebook I keep beside me while I sleep, I also struggled to alert myself to the importance of holding onto this experience so I could carry it over into my waking state. Eventually, I did pick up the pen and wrote only the following, knowing that it was not capturing the experience: “Rely on the self, the inner knowing.” When I woke up this morning I was disappointed when I read what I had written because I knew it did not express the feeling of detachment that I had achieved. The calmness felt very connected to a sense of complete detachment from everything that is present in normal waking life. I knew that it was very important to find a means to carry this detachment into my day. My question is regarding this sense of utter detachment. How do we understand what detachment means and how do we maintain it? In my dream it felt so natural, yet upon awakening I know that the challenge is to actualize it without attaching to worries and fears that I may be doing something wrong. Can you explain what detachment means?

Detachment, in an evolutionary sense, is a total release from life upon that earth, a release from human emotions, attachments, and cares, but also a total release from all that binds one to that plane and makes one return to it numerous times for fulfillment of human challenges. In order to learn what detachment means one must fully understand what attachment means.

Attachment, in an evolutionary sense, means to use the challenges that life upon that earth presents during a lifetime, to fully explore what it means to be human. To be human to excess or human to detriment are both aspects of attachment. To be utterly controlling of self and others, to be utterly controlled by self and others, and to be absolutely uncontrollable, are all aspects of attachment to life upon that earth as a human being. Such challenges must be met, accepted, and experienced in order for true evolution and detachment to take place. To attach is to learn what it means to be human. To attach to all that life offers, whether in a few lifetimes or in one (though this is highly unlikely) is necessary in order to achieve compassionate detachment, fully loaded with love for all beings, including the self, without attachment.

So you see, though you may find your self caught in your humanness, I suggest that you take your issues seriously as progressive lessons in evolutionary growth. You must learn what it means to be attached to all that life offers in order to take the steps toward detachment that will eventually lead to your calm and peaceful place of all-knowing.

Those who elect to pay attention to the self, as well as the outer world, are doing themselves a favor. In order to evolve, the deeper mysteries of the self must be addressed; the deeper problems, you might call them. The challenges are, in fact, necessary. So, I ask that you first accept your challenges; accept the fact that you are a human being. You are there to experience being human and I suggest that you do it impeccably. Then, by your own intent to grow, I suggest that you ask the self to gradually shift to a place of interest beyond humanness. This intent to shift beyond experiences of humanness will open the door to experiences of spirit, which will, in turn, lead to understanding detachment.

To understand detachment one must understand what you are detaching from. Each personal life is attached in personal ways. Within the context of your own life you must seek to find what these attachments are. Where are your greatest attachments and where are your lesser attachments? Where can you begin a systematic detachment from those attachments?

Imagine saying no, or refusing the normal controlling routines. Imagine pushing aside the desires and needs of the human body and sitting with the utter emptiness of Not Doing. Not Doing must become a new device, a new tool, a new habit, to learn about and experience detachment.

For today, I urge Not Doing as an act of detachment, simply Not Doing something that is normal, routine, habitual, thoughtless, oblivious, whether it be a spoken statement that slips out because of habitual judgments, or whether it is an automatic behavior that you have controlled or has been controlling you for years. Do not substitute this Not Doing activity with anything. Do not put anything in its place. Do not reward the self for Not Doing. Simply experience Not Doing.

This is the first step of learning detachment. This is enough for one day. Today is a day of Not Doing and sitting with the energy of Not Doing, fully experiencing it, disciplining the self to stay in Not Doing, and seeing what happens!