#455 Where is the Hidden Jewel in the Dung Heap?

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
I must say that in spite of your contention that calmness is reigning in the outer energy it seems to me that it is not so much calmness as a waiting to burst forth kind of energy, as if a lid is sitting on a boiling pot and it is going to boil over any minute. Any comments?

There has certainly been a calmness of energy, for however briefly, yet has it been your challenge, My Dear Readers, to recognize your own place of calmness within. For in spite of your turmoil there have indeed been moments of calm knowing, moments of clarity, and moments of confrontation. Only in accepting your own process, your own issues, and your own actions, in spite of what I contend, will you continually grow and gain awareness. I turn my awareness of the energy right back to you. I place this awareness firmly in your laps and ask each of you to consider your own place along your path at this visceral moment.

As you read my messages are you not also reading your own inner messages? As you respond with awareness to what I contend, do you not also have awareness of place of self simultaneously? Do you not each read my propositions as specific to you and your conditions in life? Do you not understand that even as I speak on a universal level, so do I also speak on an intimate level, with each one of you? The outer energy is not proposed by me, but is already present. I attend to it in order for you to have access to a greater awareness and so that you may use the outer energy to aid you in your daily lives. You see?

Where are you going with all of this?

Well, what I am saying here is that, in spite of what I say, the energy exists, but the process of awareness involves you learning to read the energy as well. So if I suggest, as I did earlier in the week, that there is calmness outside of you and you do not detect it, so am I challenging you to find it, for it does indeed exist, and not simply because I say so. Your training in awareness is propelled forward by your own ability to detect and utilize what is available in your world, both your inner world and your outer world.

I know that sometimes it is impossible to relate to the outer energy if you are deeply caught in inner struggles, yet do I contend that even so, you are using the outer energy in a manner that is appropriate and meaningful to you, even though you may not be aware of it. So, no matter what I propose regarding the outer energy, I ask you, My Dear Readers, to allow your own energy to take a moment to read the energy around you for your own purposes of growth, awareness, and inner work.

So, I understand that. You are trying to teach us to be always aware of the energy and you are saying that we already read it properly and use it, even if we are not aware that we are doing so?

Yes, but I ask also that you begin to notice your own innate awareness of the energy and your own sense of how to use it.

Fair enough. What else would you like to talk about today?

I am aware of great struggles now, as shifts begin to take place. Once again, even as I might suggest that calmness is present for a final brief space of time, so do I also know that it will now spiral into an inner space, which each of you must contend with on an individual level. Now is a time of retrospection, but it must not become a time of retribution or discourse wasted upon a past that is no longer necessary.

It is a time to move beyond regret, accepting now as the only place to be. Even as you may need to rehash old events, to discover the hidden jewel in the dung heap, so must you stay anchored in the present. For only in the present will the jewel shine forth and be of value, as you stay upon your path of forward growth.

Do not get caught in what I propose, but look, each of you, deeply into your current situation. Where is your jewel buried? What is it that you have been missing? What have your truths been telling you? Do you not see that within each truth is yet another truth? The truth of your own growing awareness is revealed to you at each confrontation. The truth of your own inner guidance and the acknowledgment of your own inner wisdom, your power of knowing, and your own awareness of what to do next, is fully available to you as each truth is spoken.

Your awareness is being trained. It is showing you what you have inside, what is in every one of you: your ability to guide the self, to open to guidance, to trust it, and to stay connected to it. Your truths are showing you what to trust, how to listen, how to know what to do next, but most importantly, your truths are asking you to trust your process, your journey and, even more importantly, to trust your self.

All of your experiences are valid steps along the way. The challenge, now, is to use your inner awareness more fully to your advantage. Your choices, although often made in blindness, or in routine actions, must now come from what you have been learning about your self. Your truths revealed are meaningful, but they are also showing you your deepest desires for growth and connection.

In conclusion, I ask that you maintain these thoughts over the next few days as you encounter what you must: Where is my awareness taking me? What is it showing me? What is my truth here, at this moment?

With these thoughts may you be grounded in the present even as you continue to contend with the troubles of the past. Continue walking forward, no matter how greatly the past wishes to draw you back. The struggles at such a time of preparation for great change are always great. Keep that in mind, for it will help keep your awareness present in your current dilemma, even as it will provide you with focused momentum as you ask your self to keep going forward. Stay in your truth, but also listen to what it is really saying to you. It is showing you just how truly aware you are.

#454 What is the Truth?

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message for your readers today? In spite of the calmness that you spoke about the other day there seems to be such inner struggle now to maintain equilibrium. Can you address this?

The test now is to stay innerly focused, but as you know, this is always the test. The inner journey is the one that leads to change and transformation, but it will only lead to such evolutionary growth if awareness is trained. Whether you still struggle with Part I of the training, or if you have advanced to Part II, or Part III, or even beyond, does not matter. For even with all of your accumulated knowledge of how the world works, so is your training constantly being distilled down to a single issue and that is, maintaining balance (inner/outer, spiritual/physical), at all times, with awareness.

Even though calmness may now appear to aid you in your inner work, so is it there, inside your self, that you must also find your calmness in order to continue your steady work on the self. Even as you encounter your demons outside of you, so must you return to your inner demons at the end of each day. In truth, are your inner demons far more powerful than anything outside of you. But I do not wish to speak of inner demons today.

I wish for continued focus to be placed on stable and steady inner/outer connection with the more intense focus now placed on your inner struggles. While outer calmness may reign only for a short period, use this time well to establish who is in charge in your inner world. Is your inner World Bank in charge, your inner spiritual advisor, your inner critic, your inner restaurateur, your inner schoolteacher, your inner child, your inner car salesman, your inner adult self, etc.? I suggest that even as you ponder the world situation, as it continues to deteriorate, so must you question how you too reflect such deterioration, even while you accept your struggles to grow and evolve beyond what is reflected in this outer world. Do not fall into maintaining superiority of ego, but do maintain humility of spirit, focused on truth.

Your lessons now in gaining awareness must remain focused on truth. Keep the word TRUTH always in your mental picture, speaking it silently to your self. Ask constantly: What is the truth? Look for this above all else as you cut deeper into your psyche for the answers to your thoughts and actions on your search for balance. Only with truth present, at all times, will you achieve balanced awareness.

So this is your struggle. You see? You are not so affected by the outer energy so much as you are very affected by the inner energy of your own struggles. The outer energy is merely a reflection of self, yet is it one of your greatest teachers. Resolution of self, and being able to find balanced awareness, is rooted in your desire to evolve.

So, first of all, I suggest that each day you replant your self in your desire to grow and connect with inner spirit, focused on truth. This is your seedling and your nurturing step, each day, as you remind your self to stay in balance. What kind of balance are we talking about anyway? We are talking about the balance of inner and outer awareness. I know it is far easier to plant the self in the outer world, so readily available, and offering such grounding measures. Often the inner spirit slumbers, but now must you remind your self, each day, that this is no longer true. Your spirit is awakened. So shake it awake with you, each morning, inviting it to remain present in your body, even as you go about your daily tasks, looking for your morning sustenance, and as you prepare for your day. Invite it to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so that it may be present throughout your day. Feed it good conversation and, based in truth, speak about your desires and dilemmas together.

This is how you must constantly rekindle your connection. No matter where you are and how distant you may become during your day, so are you instantly connectable. If you turn inward and ask: where are you, so will your inner self immediately respond. This is how you will find your truths, My Dear Ones, by constantly turning inward.

Do not be afraid of your process. It is but one of purifying the self, of finding the golden self, of understanding the true meaning of life upon that earth, far beyond the mundane. Even though you reside in the mundane, so will it transform and change as you find your place of spirit and begin to observe, study, and learn from a new perspective, from spirit awareness.

I hope this helps in your wanderings and wonderings, My Dears. It is a time of struggle now, but it is a time of struggling to get to the underlying truths, and such times are indeed trying. Think of purity, truth, and balance leading to greater connection and awareness. That is what you seek now, both innerly and outerly.

#453 Sit Across the Table From Your Truth

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message for us today?

Do not look outside of you for the answers, but turn inward, even though calm may reign now more apparently outside of you. Turmoil, confusion, and disappointment may indeed be present if you continually look outwardly for gratification and purpose. Find your inner balance now, using the outer calm to force your attention into your own psyche, for otherwise is there risk for delay in processing that which is most meaningful.

By this interpretation of inner and outer energy, I propose that although your outer world and its energy may now appear to calm down and become almost boring, and even tiresomely non-available, so will this not be true. Do not look to stir up the energy outside of you now. Allow it to slumber, as it gathers force for future needs upon that earth. Use this time of calmness to attend to your inner work without the distractions normally so prevalent and presented by outer forces.

You are being offered a reverie over the next few days, perhaps stretching into a few weeks if you are lucky, as some very important data is processed. Take advantage of this time to process your own inner data. This includes, but is not limited to, what you have been shown and learned about your outer self, your outer life, your relationships, dilemmas, and false propositions over the past several weeks and months of turbulence. Use the knowledge of self that you have so diligently gained, taking it inwardly now, meditating upon its significance as you seek your next step.

Each day are you offered the opportunity to step in a new direction, to make a new choice about something; an opportunity, in fact, to change. This may simply be a change in attitude, a change in perspective, or a change in tone of voice, or a change in viewing what is presented to you by the voice of another. Your daily opportunity is showing you the way to begin making changes in your life, each step leading you to experiencing your own life, and life in general, differently.

Now, after all the energetic twists and turns of recent weeks, after the inner and outer turmoil, I suggest that you sit in quiet contemplation, in inner meditation, allowing for calmness to enter you, to enter your very bloodstream, slowing you down, down, down to a calm flow, to your own energetic resonance. Find this familiar inner calm again. And use it now for personal growth and change.

Now is the time to surrender to the facts, of self and others, that you have learned so well, so painfully, so joyfully, over the past weeks and months. Now is the time to sit and face your hard earned truths, to acknowledge them, and to speak to them, in inner calmness. If you are looking for a plan of action, go to your inner self, who knows the truths, and ask for advice on what comes next. You will not be disappointed by the answers you receive, though you may be greatly challenged and greatly surprised. Know that it will be the answer of truth, speaking plainly and directly, if you allow your self to go to it, sitting calmly across the table from it, and allow it to tell you what it knows.

This process must happen in inner calmness. Though your own voice of truth may be speaking all the time, you may not be able to hear it, until you dissolve your outer world, shutting your curtains, and going into your inner sanctum.

Recognize your truth by its deep resonance with your inner spirit self. You know your own truths. Do not even doubt this. But whether or not you are ready to accept them, and act on them, is another thing. That is what I suggest you use this energetic calmness to accomplish, to go innerly and find your truth, discovering how to fully accept it, and use it to guide you forward now in your inner life, but eventually in your outer life.

Decisions made now, based in truth, will allow for lessons in trust to be fully realized, while lessons in participating in life’s unfolding will emerge from the inner acknowledgment of self as guide. Use your calmness well, My Dear Ones. Find time now to visit your truths, meeting across the discussion table, calmly listening and speaking to each other, relying on your mutual acknowledgment of each other to show you something new.

It is not a time to act yet; it is a time to accept your truths. Taking action will only be right once you are clearly in alignment with the truths, of self and others, as they are revealed in your contemplation. Action will follow, but it must be right action or you will end up back in the meeting room again, to rehash the same truths over and over again, until they are more clearly defined and spoken. And later on, the energy may not be so cooperative as it is now.

Now is the time to take your seat at the table and have a calm talk with your self, freed of outer distractions. Your plans for the future must be hashed out innerly, or they will not be fully available, in energetic alignment for right action to move you forward. You are looking for distillation and purity of truth, for only then will you have clarity of purpose and love at your heart center to move forward with as your underlying energetic component and companion. Without clarity of truth, will your progress remain foggy and unclear. Your truth unaccepted, will keep you wondering and foundering upon your path. Think truth. Seek truth. Acknowledge truth, accepting it as your true guide now, as you go into inner calm, and see where that leads you now.

A Pilgrimage

Dear Readers,

We have added a few new books to our store, under the journeys category. The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho and The Camino by Shirley MacLaine are two accounts of adventures along the same trail, the legendary Road to San Tiago, 500 miles across Spain. It has been our pleasure to read these two books back to back, experiencing the shamanic and the spiritual journeys each of these writers experienced on the long trek from France to the Atlantic Ocean by foot. To understand what it means to take a journey, to follow the signs, to be guided from within and without, to encounter our fears, our petty tyrants, our archetypes, to be confronted with letting go of this world, and more, are all beautifully encompassed in these books. If you are looking for something good to read on a cold winter’s weekend, you might find more than just that in these books.

Until next week,
Jan and Chuck

#452 Chuck’s Place: Impermanence

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Today, Chuck thanks Jeanne and Jan for help with this essay.

Several times last weekend my thoughts and feelings were energetically drawn to a dear woman I knew, though had not seen in some time. On Monday a voice mail from her husband, asking me to call, confirmed what I had already sensed: her passing; the reality of impermanence. I thank her for sharing her passing with me from her energetic form.

The Buddha, in deep meditation, discovered why we suffer: we cling to the false belief that things will never change. To be born in this dimension, on earth, we indeed reside in a physical form that will age and wither and we will die. Sorry folks, but that’s the truth! We will love, we will attach to those we love, we will decay, they will decay, they will die, we will die. Death, for the body, truthfully, is rarely a pleasant process. Morphine is, indeed, a godsend.

Personally, I have done that journey. My depth of love for Jeanne, in this world, knew no bounds. Her death, for me, truthfully, was utter joy. I was given the privilege of delivering her to the next step, at the right time, in alignment with her truth. For me, that was the ultimate fulfillment of our earthly love.

The gift I have been given by Jeanne leaving this world is the opportunity to experience the evolution of love beyond the body, beyond this world. This is not an instantaneous occurrence, but a long process, taking several years, perhaps a lifetime, as I make decisions and choices on my journey without her physical presence, learning to reconnect with her in infinity as a spiritual being. Part of this process entails learning to release myself from my old contracts that no longer work, such as upholding old ideas of the self, expectations of society, expectations of family, and mental constructs about love, about being a man, a father, and the nature of family, all illusions of permanence.

Furthermore, I am offered the opportunity to experience reincarnation without death. I have entered a new life, fully connected to and aware of my recent life with Jeanne. I have opened to new love, relationship, and marriage. I accept, from hard earned experience, that all love, attached to the physical form, is impermanent. Earthly love tempts us to grasp onto our physical form, to stay young, to keep things permanent. Like the young Siddhartha, we are barricaded behind the walls of our illusion that everything we see is permanent, especially our physical bodies and our loved ones. In fact, now, with the advent of Viagra, we are treated to the fountain of youth, offering eternal erections, undying physical love!

The denial of death abounds despite the overwhelming evidence of decay and death all around us. In spite of the underlying reality of our inevitable death, we live encased in the illusion of physical immortality. We are shocked when our dear friends and loved ones become ill and die. We cling to ignorance, it simply won’t happen to me! And so, we suffer. Not because of decay and death, but because we stubbornly live in the illusion of permanence. In order to complete the reincarnation cycle now, in this life, we must embrace impermanence. This requires releasing our illusions of physical immortality, which, in essence, is detachment from the illusion of permanence.

Most important is to remain fully open to life in a world of impermanence. This is the gift Jeanne has given me and presents to all of us. In practicality, this means entering a new life with no illusions. Fully opening to life without illusion is opening to infinite love, reconciling something that dies with something that doesn’t. Opening to new life, fully, requires a release from all prior contracts and grief, what Jeanne calls recapitulation. Through emptying our selves of the burdens of life lived, we are freed to enter new life, fully open, fully capable of loving, and fully aware and connected to the truth of our prior life. That is opening the door to infinity. There is no longer a need to reincarnate, as we have completed unfinished business, because, with truth, there is no need to remain attached to the illusion of permanence. We don’t have to hide from anything we have ever done and we are fully open to any experience. We are ready for the truth and full experience of energetic infinity.

From this stance, we can fully enjoy the impermanence of our life, in this world, as we reconcile the paradox of what we are, finite and infinite. What is finite is our body; it will end. What is infinite in us is that which attaches to nothing and continues to ride the eternal wave of energetic change, fully engaging, experiencing, loving, and releasing when it’s time to go, with full memory and love of where we have been.

Until we meet again, in one form or another,
Chuck

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR