News and Notes

Did You Catch the Weekend Postings?

Dear Readers and Journeyers,

If you haven’t checked the website since last week you may have missed some postings over the weekend. On Saturday, we added a new Chuck’s Place essay. On Sunday we posted an audio recording we made on Friday afternoon, channeling Jeanne as The Prophetess, asking her to speak about Love, the first chapter topic in Kahlil Gibran’s, The Prophet. It was a lot of fun, so we hope you’ll have some time to listen. The recording is 23 minutes long. We hope to ask Jeanne for her perspective on the remaining topics in The Prophet as well. We also updated the Store page with a new category, Spirituality. We’ll be adding new items to the Store categories when it seems appropriate.

Have a great week!
Jan and Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#437 Wait and See What Happens!

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Your messages of last week guided us through some tricky energy and have been of great help in staying balanced and aware. What guidance do you offer us today?

Now is a time of acceptance, and thus acquiescence, as you follow your nose, leading you through the energy into greater awareness of your journey. Have you not also felt the shift upon the earth itself? The fact that everyone and everything around you has shifted focus now; have you felt this? Within your self and within your own lives, are you not, My Dear Ones, aware that the time has come to move forward now, as new doors open and old ones ask to be closed, after full resolution and recapitulation? This shift that I speak of carries with it the energy to do this, to accept the facts and to move both backward and forward simultaneously, using your mirror that I spoke of last week to guide you.

There is plenty of time to do what you must. You do not need to rush the process, but you must find the means to accept it, to understand the way the process works, and to acquiesce to it. Your individual journeys may be reflected in others around you, but, ultimately, it is a solo journey, one you must take alone, as you confront your issues, past and present, learning to accept that they are your challenges, and that they must be dealt with, in order to move on.

If you feel stuck, do not worry, for something will come along to move you forward. This time now will ask you to resolve old issues as it brings them forward over and over again, placing them in your mirror where you must confront them every time you look into it. Your past will be revealed in this manner, staying with your present self, until you deal with it. This is the unrelenting act of recapitulation, with its own energy that knows the right time, the right place, and the right method to induce you to acceptance of it, and acquiescence to learning the process, but also allowance to move into it more fully.

This is now your challenge: to fully accept your own process, allowing your self to take the journey as it is presented, and finally to fully acquiesce to its unfolding. The unfolding part have we not talked too much about yet, because I have tended to focus on your awareness of the self in the energy of now, and maintaining balance. Those two things must be cognitively attained in order for acquiescence to occur. Once you accept your world, your part in it, and your truths, so will you enable your self to move into total acquiescence.

I know this is easier said than done. I know that fear lurks in your mirror along with your past, as yet unresolved, and your future, as yet unrevealed. But fear is nothing more than an enigma that must be dissolved by your confrontations with it. As you confront your fears, dismantling your attachments to them, one layer or part at a time, so will you find that your fears belong to an old self, the old self in the mirror, who you are asking to smile at you now, to break through the haze, the maze of craziness that has been your life, and to look back at you with clear insight, asking for companionship on this journey you are on.

You can do it, you say. You can take this journey with me. You are strong and worthy, oh my self. You are free and unattached. You are present and accepting, aware and acceptable. You are present self, past self, and future self on this journey together.

Acceptance of self allows new doors, which are opening all around you, to be stepped through. Acceptance of journey leads to finally acquiescing to where it would like to lead you. Acquiescence allows self to be open, unafraid, trusting that not only the journey will lead you on the right path, but that the self will allow for the unfolding to now begin.

Trust is the blessing you need and desire for acquiescence. It is a gift that you can only achieve by allowing the self to take each step of the journey by shedding fears, shedding attachments, and shedding the ways of old, accepting new thoughts, ideas, and perspectives, as you allow the journey to show you what comes next.

Today, I advise quiet awareness. Do not push too hard to achieve anything. Keep calm and balanced awareness in your center today. Await the presentation of the facts of your journey and use your awareness of the process to allow your self to go onward now, one step at a time, one challenge at a time, one day at a time. Ask the self to wait and see, wait and see what unfolds to lead you where you need to go. You will get it right because it will take you to the right places of inner and outer work. Can you acquiesce to that, to letting the journey take you on its unfolding course, as your see what happens next?

Live at The Chocolate Factory, Messages from Jeanne, The Prophetess

#436 The Prophetess: On Love

We invite you to listen to Jeanne speaking on love, as the Prophetess. This recording is the first of a series of topics modeled after Kahlil Gibran’s classic work, The Prophet. (You might enjoy reading the original along with Jeanne’s perspective.)

This was recorded “live,” meaning without any preparation or plan, unedited, leading to potential errors. The spontaneity of the recording session also means that Jan has no idea what the topic will be. Her role is to disengage from her ego’s thoughts, to clear the channel completely, to experience Jeanne in words, feelings, images, and sensations.

During the channeling Jan experienced the shedding of ego and attachments that Jeanne talks about as being part of the maturity of love. She felt herself shooting forward into a strong wind, like a rocket, with all attachments, thoughts, judgments, etc. physically being shed in the wind. When Jeanne spoke about love being available for everyone, Jan felt three fingers tapping on her leg and then immediately on her heart center. At the end, when Jeanne was talking about giving, Jan’s heart chakra opened wide with an intense burning heat. When Jeanne talks about love as all encompassing and also expansive, Jan was physically embraced, arms wrapping her up, then released, with arms thrown wide open, expanding into infinity.

This recording is about 23 minutes long.

Chuck's Blog

#435 Chuck’s Place: Day & Night

Welcome to Chuck’s Place, where Chuck Ketchel expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences!

As the morning sun begins to rise, we are born into a new day or possibility. For a moment, our awareness is drawn to the wonder of it all, a deep spiritual pause, when suddenly and automatically our energy is stolen away, as we become fully engaged in the familiar habitual patterns that uphold our world and define our place in it.

In the broadening light of the rising sun, our consciousness grows, as we perceive the increasingly differentiated landscape. We define the world we see with increasing clarity. We define our familiar selves with similar precision. As contrast becomes more apparent, we separate our selves, and those around us, into distinctly separate, disconnected units. We reflect upon our selves as well, clearly differentiating our good and our bad traits. We review our faults, our sins. We establish our goals and intentions. We establish meaning and purpose. Our judgments become sharp. We move into our daily self, the acceptable presentation to the social order, the adaptive self. We push aside, refuse to acknowledge or allow expression to, the unacceptable, shameful parts of the self.

This is the price of the light of consciousness. The decision to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, to choose the light of consciousness over the paradise of unconscious wholeness, is what casts us from the garden. Our awareness is born, torn from wholeness into a fragmented world of objects. Knowledge requires the separation of energy into distinct objects to be known, classified, and differentiated. The truth of interconnectedness is compromised in the light of day. All things, as they become known, are alienated from each other. Light creates shadow as it shines upon an object. Each object has its own shadow. Consciousness creates shadow, as it pushes aside the unacceptable or unknown aspects of the self. But does the conscious self own the fullness of its being, its shadow? This is the evolutionary challenge, to own the fullness of the self in full awareness. The ability to return to the garden, a fully recapitulated self, in total awareness, is what Jung called, the process of individuation.

Our world requires that we acquiesce to darkness every day. As the midday sun wanes through the mid-afternoon hours, the stirrings of the shadow can be felt within. Perhaps there is fear, as secrets, safely concealed in the darkness, can no longer be restrained by the dominance of the light. Perhaps the drums of the deep, instinctive self begin to stir, as we ruminate about elixirs of release in the welcoming darkness to come, where we are freed of the harsh light of judgment and accountability. Perhaps we become Mr. Hyde, or the willing victim of the vampire, releasing our shadows to fulfillment in oblivion. Perhaps we leave it to our dreams alone to balance out our one sided daytime life, through adventures in fantasy or journeys in other worlds.

The bottom line is that we cannot escape the full living of our wholeness. Since we made the decision to enter this world led by our own consciousness, we are saddled with discovering our wholeness, fragment by fragment. In the meantime, all the fragments of our wholeness demand life, in some form, which manifests as our personal balance. Balance will happen with or without consciousness. Our challenge is to assume conscious responsibility for our personal balance.

If we can use our awareness to shine the light on truth, with total acceptance, through suspending judgment, we are well equipped to find the ideal balance of self, light and shadow, and return to the garden, restoring, with awareness, the full energetic interconnectedness of all things. This is the essence of love, the dissolution of separateness in full awareness.

Until we meet again,
Chuck

P.S. Please be sure to “tune in” tomorrow to a special audio channeling, recorded live at The Chocolate Factory!

Messages from Jeanne

#434 The Time of the Mirror

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message of guidance for us today, as this week rolls now into the energy of a weekend? Will things slow down? Or is the energy going to continue to challenge us?

The energy has only just begun to challenge you, My Dears. Now will it offer you many possibilities in which to focus your intentions and your attention. It will now offer reflection, deflection, and introspection as possibilities. By this, I mean that it is the time of the mirror, the energy of mirroring and looking at the past, the present, and the future. You may experience one of these aspects, or all three, separately and simultaneously. This is a very complicated energy system that now comes to greet you and that will present you with the complications of the inner self, many of which need pondering.

Hold a mirror up to your self, as you go into this energy. Carry it with you at all times. I mean this metaphorically, but if you wish to carry a real mirror in your pocket, that is quite suitable too. Offer your self a peek in this mirror as you encounter your areas of weakness, of challenge, and of attachment. By looking at the self in positions of recapitulation and retrospection, so can you use the mirror as a magic mirror to look deeper into your past. Look beyond just the face you see. What else was happening in your past that you could not see then, but will now? For the mirror holds the whole story and is willing to reveal the hidden secrets, if you care to go looking. This involves deep reflective, introspective work and looking beyond the ideas of the self of the past, tilting the mirror slightly to get a different picture.

Who are you now? Who were you then? You are different now, yet are you still drawn to recapitulate some aspect of the old self, long forgotten or unfinished. Look deeply into the mirror of the old self from your present self, with all the knowledge you now hold about how life unfolded after that memory. Find out what the old self wants to know, and act as intermediary, as the evolved mature one who carries as many secrets as the mirror holds. This will be the challenge of part of the energy of the mirror as you are pulled back in retrospection of places of old; to memories, to unfinished business, or to unclear moments, as yet unresolved in your psyche, but also perhaps in your present reality as well. This energy will assist you in gaining clarity, if you use your mirror to remain present in now, grounding your self with your own face of now, even as you look beyond it to see what the mirror holds.

That is retrospection of the past, remaining grounded in the present, yet able to observe, feel, and integrate the past from a new perspective, fully accepting it with the knowledge you have gained as life has unfolded.

Your mirror is also a good tool for deflecting energy, for learning detachment, and to ward off evil energy, or energy of bad intent. Disturbances in your energy field that come from outside sources, that are neither conducive to nor necessary for your growth process, may be successfully deflected by use of your mirror. Use it as a shield to bounce negative or parasitic energy off you. This type of energy will become known to you by your study of it, as it appears in your mirror.

You can use your mirror to look over your shoulders, to see what is approaching, to study energy and people around you, to give yourself time to prepare for what is to come. You may use your mirror quite effectively in this manner if you stay grounded in your present adult self and maintain your awareness of who you are now, of what feels right, and of what feels resonant, based on your adult knowing self. Use the mirror to prepare your self for outside energy that comes seeking to disrupt you and topple you from your balanced place of confidence.

We talked greatly about the balance of self the other day. As you practice it, learning to maintain it, so can you use your powerful mirror to warn you and suggest to you that it is time to be protective of that steady and balanced self. Your efforts to remain balanced must be maintained now as you enter this energy time, as you step into the time of the mirror.

So, use the mirror to protect your energy. Do not use it blatantly and haphazardly though. You must always use it accompanied by deep inner work, deep retrospection, and introspective processing, guided by who you are now, always staying in the present, even as you view your past and observe what is approaching you now.

The mirror may also catch a glimpse of your future. For as you view your secrets, your revelations, your energetic challenges, so may you also get a gleam of brightness, a blinding flash of possibility, as yet unknown, but with quite a powerful and substantial feel to it. You may experience a surge of creative energy during this mirroring time. You may find your self intellectually stimulated and spiritually reawakened, as that gleam of brightness flashes in your eyes, jolting you into alertness. You can use this aspect of the mirror whenever you need it too, by your own hand and your own intent. Simply catch the light to jolt you out of places where you are caught, where you slumber too long, or where clarity is not achieved. Use the power of the mirror in this way to reposition yourself in your balanced present state, reminding yourself to return to your adult self.

Also, do not hesitate to look at others around you in your mirror. Look at them standing beside you in your mirror and study what it is about them that you also hold. Why are they in your life? The mirror holds the secret there as well. In relationships do we seek some aspect of self. What aspect of self do you admire in your partner or friend? What aspect of self do you abhor? What aspect of self do you desire in that person, who also seeks the same in you? You see, your little pocket mirror is quite a worthy tool for a warrior to learn the uses of, is it not?

Now is both a crumbling down time and a building up time. It is a shattering apart time and a piecing together time. It is a time of breaking patterns and destroying illusions, while, at the same time, of strengthening possibilities, and choosing to proceed in new manners. By choosing new methods of working through your issues, and by answering your questions with deep reflective, introspective work, may you succeed in deflecting the old patterns of behavior from continuing to attach to you, while you simultaneously offer your self new ideas, new paths, and new opportunities for growth.

Look into the mirror of self and find a new self, a deeper self, an endless self, who is waiting to be discovered, waiting to be invited out of the mirror, waiting to join you on the journey, waiting to merge with you, as you resolve your past, accept your present, and acquiesce to your future, fully aware and ready for adventure.

Chuck Ketchel, LCSWR