Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
What guidance do you have for us today?

I must congratulate you all on your efforts to maintain balance in your lives. This is what you must continue to focus on, no matter what comes to greet you from inside or outside. Your ability to straddle your worlds, with perfectly balanced footing, yet still able to flow well in either world, unafraid, is your ultimate goal. Along with that, your challenge is to remain aware, and this may perhaps be even more challenging. Awareness is the challenge that you must hone and take with you into the worlds that you experience now, while in human form, and later when you transition into new life.

To maintain balance at all times may seem impossible. You may find your self feeling imperfect in your attempts to maintain stability, focus, and clarity. Do not, however, chide the self, nor attach frustration or blame to the process you must undergo. Your feelings of imperfection are but struggles that must be encountered. Look upon them as challenges, as openings to events of recapitulation, or steps in learning your greater challenge of awareness.

I do not like to see you caught in struggles with your self over who will have control, remaining in battle without first gaining some insight, even if it be the insight that: “Oh dear, here I am again, caught in the same battle with myself. Why am I here again? I must have something still to learn. What can it be?”

Asking these questions is recognizing the self in the process and, no matter what place you inhabit in the process, acknowledging that it is meaningful and necessary. Your next step toward training your awareness becomes to go beyond the questions of why and what, to look around you and see what it is in your world that has gotten you to this place now. For even if you have been presented with the same battle over and over again, each time you enter into that battle, familiar though it may be, it is actually being triggered by something in your environment of now. So, what in your life, now, is signaling your place of work, your issues that need attention, and your process?

To look upon life as a process of self discovery and growth, as well as participation in the outer world, each equally necessary and available, while learning detachment from both of them in order to evolve, is your ultimate goal. You see? You must fully live every aspect of the self, every aspect of life upon that earth, with all who you must encounter, even your inner people, before you can evolve to new life. Encounters with the inner aspects of self are perhaps the greatest challenges and this is what I seek to aid you with. For the inner selves are quite well-hidden and trained to keep you on your toes, urging you to confront what you must. Perhaps an inner self now urges you to go into deep depression or contemplation of some aspect of self that is dark, unnerving, shameful, uncomfortable to take into consideration? Perhaps you resist this aspect that must be encountered in order to grow? Perhaps you prefer to by-pass it, ignore it, or step on it, to keep it quiet in one fashion or another? Well, in so doing will your balance be tilted, unseated, and pushed off kilter. Am I right?

As you attempt to push away what comes to you in your growth process, perhaps because it is so difficult to consider, so do you interrupt and disturb the natural flow of your process, as it desires to unfold. Then you get into your battles of resistance and the whole thing falls into quite a mess. I know the process well. But I also know the process from the warrior’s point of view, and that is what I seek to teach you about.

Now be mindful, when I speak of the warrior self, I do not attach to any conventional or unconventional practice or religion. In fact, the warrior’s process involves you alone, what you are presented with, and how your life greets you with what you need to learn, regardless of religion or affiliation of beliefs. I speak of life itself showing you what it means to become a warrior. Your most enabling task is to learn balance, the warrior’s stable stance, a foot in one world, and the other foot in another. Whatever those worlds may be in your life, and they may shift many times throughout the day, so must you learn to hold your self in a good, firmly grounded stance, no matter what comes to shake you from your foundations, to scare you into submissiveness, or to force you to consider other options.

There are no other options. Your balance is necessary. Do not ever think that this is of no consequence, or that you can evolve through that lifetime without the balance of a warrior. Without it you will float through life, but you will not evolve. You will not truly face your challenges, for how could you without your feet planted firmly? Your challenges would simply blow you away with a mere puff of air. Is that what you want? Is that how you foresee your self, an unstable individual? I do not think you do, My Dears. And if you do, for even a moment (or longer), perhaps that is where you must go. Perhaps you must evaluate the self who is struggling to find the balanced stance of the warrior self. You see, nothing is ever a wrong perception, or a misguided directive.

Every aspect of life is a valuable lesson. But your questions must be based on growth, with balance. They must be based on your process, with awareness of future evolution, and on gaining clarity of who you are and for what reason you exist, in order to become the warrior that you are fully capable of becoming now, in this lifetime.

I know I present you with a lot of ideas to contemplate. But today, on this first day of your new President Obama’s life as your taskmaster, as he presents you all with challenges, so must you all learn to balance your selves. This entails inner/outer work; child/adult balance; crybaby/maternal balance; weakling/paternal balance; sordid/beautiful balance, and so on, and so on. It is quite a task! But as you undertake it, you will begin to feel what it means to be in balance, to stay in balance, and eventually to shift into your balanced warrior state upon a second’s notice. You might also find that you are naturally there more often than not, because it feels so right, so natural, and so proper for you to be there.

Wherever you are in your process, I ask this of you, as I conclude for today: Slow Down! Slow down your frustration. Slow down your desire to grow, to jump ahead, to have it done. You must take each step of your journey in order to reach your goal. It is the journey that teaches. The goal is but an enigma, because you do not know what the goal is, what the prize is, until you have taken the journey. You may have an idea of what it is, but I can guarantee you that it does not exist, for you are not yet who you will be, so how can your goal be already present to greet you. You would find it not quite fulfilling when you got there if you hold it too closely to your heart, for, ultimately, your goal is to learn detachment in order to be totally open for a new journey ahead, beyond anything you can now imagine, in this life and the next.

So, My Dear Ones, the question of balance remains always present to remind you to ground your self in the reality of life, the place where your lessons are presented, and your tasks laid out before you. In balanced awareness will you be able to process and progress. Good Luck!

NOTE: I just wanted to mention that Jeanne has, in a previous message, spoken about gaining balance through physical movement. I will try to find the reference later and I’ll post it under Guidance. So look for it there, probably titled, Balancing Act, or something like that. In the meantime, if you are a yoga practitioner, any of the balancing poses are really good for feeling your balance and for strengthening your ability to shift into balance whenever you need it. (i.e.: tree pose, triangle, even mountain, to name but a few off the top of my head.) -Jan

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have guidance for us today, as we begin this new week, the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States?

My Dear Ones, joys and sorrows come together, accompanying each other in a life unfolding. Do not slump into unawareness, or the dreaded state of complacency now that your mission is accomplished, now that your country has spoken and is on a new path. Do not lose sight of the long road ahead, nor the problems that lie close at hand, nor forget, in your exuberance, that fear lurks in the bushes and behind the doors of old. Do not be naive, nor indifferent to the troubles that remain around the world, needing attention, as you embrace your jubilation.

I do not mean to dampen your spirits, My Dears, but I do mean to train your awareness. Celebrate, but remain keenly aware that, even as you do so, there are plots being hatched to destroy your happiness and your joy at the sight of this young man among you. For although he may stand before you, as your president, so does he walk among you as no president has done before. He will lead you into a new world, asking you to follow, asking you to use your awareness and place your attention on the blatant realities of your world, asking you to participate in that new world where the riches of compassion, love, and care of each other, become more important than any other wealth imaginable. Underlying this entrance into a new world lurk the fearful and the greedy, still hoping to overshadow and strong arm their way back into the good graces of the American people. You must remain aware of the truths laid out before you, clearly shown, even as the salesmen return with their glittering wares, seeking to entice you back into blind complacency.

Awareness of truth and presence in a new reality are necessary aspects of progress in the new world that President Obama will introduce you to soon enough. His directives will be spirit driven, with truthful caring at the core, yet will he expect a firm commitment from all of you that may defy your sense of superiority, achieved in the wrong field. He will ask for a new superiority, a complex set of new rules of engagement in life in the United States and in the greater world. He will ask for sacrifices, yet will he also ask for growth and progress in compassionate living. It is not a time to feel defeated, deflated, or dependent. It is a time to shift thinking, perspective, and desires to a completely new means of perceiving your place in the world. Even as I have asked you to participate in your own growth and evolution, proceeding forth with awareness of your spirit self speaking truthfully to you, so will this man of utter sanity and truth ask you to listen to this inner individual spirit and allow it to come forth in collective progress.

As this time of positive energy continues, as this shift happens over and over again, in many ways, in a ripple effect, as waves crashing and recreating, so will you experience many changes. Your awareness, your commitment, your participation are being asked for. As I have often said, you really have no choice in the matter. Change is happening all around you. But you do have a choice in whether or not you will flow with acceptance of these changes, or if you will choose reluctance, sitting upon your old thrones of power and refusing to see and participate. In so choosing, will your energy fuel the old salesmen who will come knocking at your door with their fantastic schemes of safety and riches, far superior to the nitty gritty needs of true reality. Where do you wish to place your own energy in the world outside of you, on positive but not necessarily easy change? Or on old and dusty memories of a world that can no longer exist?

Do you not see the parallels, that your own life, your own world, is in the same position of shift and change now as well? Do you not see that you are being asked the same questions? Are you ready to flow with the new life, or do you choose to remain attached to the old? As I have stated, the new life will be full of joy, but it will also be a hard road to travel, for you will be asked to change many times along the way, as you will confront many aspects of the self, and of life, that need to be dismantled, and detached from. You will learn what it means to really grow, transform, and evolve now, as a nation, as human beings and, ultimately, as individuals.

Seek now your own heart centered truths, your inner knowing, and require your self to push this self to the forefront of your life now, unabashedly allowing your loving, compassionate, truthful self to become your spokesperson, no matter what may come knocking at your door to interrupt or push you off your path. Your own journey depends on your ability to change; as does the journey that your country of America is embarking on, shifting, and shifting, and shifting in a never-ending wave of new spirit energy. Catch the wave and keep its energy alive for all the hard days ahead. You know it is the right energy, leading you where you must go as a nation and as an individual. Good Luck, my lucky traveling ones, I await your progress!

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
Do you have a message of guidance for us today, as we continue to experience this time of shift and change?

Placate not the big baby in your self or others, but gently and firmly speak the truths that reveal themselves now in the light of dawn. For the dawning of truths is the new reality and the future must be based on the brutal facts that may come to interrupt the flow of your iniquities. Do not fall prey to worry. Do not fall prey to false assumptions and false pretenses. Do not fall prey to the protests of the underlying manipulators that exist inside you and outside you.

I warn, but I also urge awakening and alertness, for without conscious awareness of your own reality will you not be able to sustain your inner delight at the progress and the change now soon upon you. I know you do not wish to fall prey to your old habits, ideas, and fantasies, nor bury your self in oblivion. You do not wish to draw the blankets over your head or pull the curtains of your awareness closed, but you will be tempted to do so. Your balance now remains in focusing on the cold hard facts of your reality, your true life situation upon that earth. For there will be no progress if the truths and facts of your life are not fully examined and fully accepted. How can you move on, be free in your inner self, and free in your outer self, if you remain bound by old ideas, old darknesses, old methods of blindness, oblivion, and comforts that will keep you perpetually caught in a cycle of happy/unhappy, truth/untruth, newness/oldness, clarity/oblivion, in endless repetition, unable to move forward as the old wheels turn constantly in mesmerizing predictability?

Now it is up to you to jolt your self awake and out of the rut, leaping off the wheel of time that has you attached by its enticingly hearty motions that appear attractive, for it offers such regular glimpses of inner delight. But it does not take you to new places of interest and growth, though yes, it does treat you to good insights quite often.

In order to move forward now with the energy of change, with full participation, must you determine your own future based on the truths that constantly reveal themselves to you. Do not look to protect or nurture the old means of creating a balanced life, based on unclear facts and dim views of reality. Now, with truths in hand, make a choice for lasting change, a choice that will propel you through the golden door of opportunity, even though you do not see what is waiting for you there. Even though you are blinded by the light as it shines upon you, revealing the direction to take; in fact lighting your way; so do I encourage you to trust where your journey is leading you.

As a traveler, you have been preparing for this next leg of your journey for a long time. You have packed your bags with the essentials, knowing full well that everything you have experienced up until now has been and continues to be necessary for your journey. Now you are being asked to trust that the journey ahead is as necessary as the one in the past, that what is not being revealed is as valid as what was not revealed in the past, that your progress now is based on abilities already gained on your journey thus far taken.

To allow your self to be in command must be your next step of acquiescence to your self, the journeyer of truth, the one who knows full well that you can be trusted, for this you have already revealed to your self all these many years of life and adventure.

What do you fear? Do you fear others in your life? Or do you fear your own abilities to accept the gifts that others present you with? Do you request help and then refuse it? Why? Your gifts are meant for you or they would not be placed before you. Your gifts of clarity, awareness, and the gifts of your past are all prepared now in order for your future to be procured, accepted, and lived fully, which means differently, based on the challenges that letting go of the old and accepting of the new pose to you, as an individual journeyer.

I must admit that in my own life, as Jeanne Marie Ketchel, did I confront fear at every turn. I was not so advanced as you may believe, for I struggled constantly with being drawn back to my child self, abandoned at birth, but even before then. My child self sought comforts that did not allow for progress, but my warrior self did not allow that child self to rule the roost. My warrior self stood the test of the journey, over and over again, pushing me forward, sometimes without my conscious participation, in fact quite often was this so. But eventually, as I acquiesced to the journey that the great challenger, cancer, took me on, I learned that the only resolution for the inner child was for her to trust the warrior side, the connected-to-infinity side, to guide us correctly.

We must all learn what it means to let go, to acquiesce to our journey, step by step, letting go of something at each step forward. That is what you must keep in mind, that the history of a journey is not just a moving forward at all costs, but a process of letting go in order to move forward, as we make ourselves available for new adventures, new ideas, and new possibilities. There will be no newness of anything, if we do not participate in the process, if we do not give as we take, if we do not let go as we accept our new gifts.

Your gifts are asking you to trust your process. Your truths revealed, no matter how difficult and hard to bear they may be, are asking you to trust them too. Your journey is asking you to participate in its unfolding, now with consciousness more often than unconsciousness, with acquiescence rather than holding back, with letting go of the old rather than being stuck by the limitations of an old world that is not only crumbling, but that no longer has any value.

Whether you look at the outer world or your own inner world, it does not matter, the analogy of crumbling change is the same. The question to now pose to your self is: Do I want to remain behind in the crumbled remains, upholding ideas that are as ancient as the remains around me? Or do I want to determine my future based on what I now know about myself, the truths I have uncovered and revealed to myself, and the gifts being shown to me?

Am I ready to reach out and accept the hands offering those gifts of change, put my hands into the light and feel resonance, even though I may not clearly see where I am stepping? Am I ready to say yes to the journey of change, trusting it, though the future is not being revealed, and even though it is just a figment of imagination at this point? Am I prepared to go for it, scared though I am, trusting that it is right?

Trust that it is right. Trust your warrior self. Allow your inner child self to look to you now, your warrior self. Allow that child self to finally acquiesce to the journey you propose; that your warrior self and your guides propose. Allow your child self to be a participant with your adult warrior strongly and firmly in charge, for this is how it should be now.

Your new leader in America, your Obama, is one of these gifts being offered, asking you to go with him into the light. He asks for trust, and for participation from all of you, as equal warriors, like him, ready to blaze through the crumbled remains of a society and a world that no longer function in truth, honesty, and love. He is your warrior symbol outside of you, but he asks each of you to become warriors too, for he will lead, but he will not carry. He will point out the way, but he will not walk the path for you, but he invites you to walk the path beside him in full warrior fashion, each of you present, and protective of each other, for that is the warrior’s way. It’s your choice. Now is the time of choosing.

Good Luck, My Dear Ones. I must stress to you that the times now hold the power and the energy causing shift, that there are changes, and there will be more. What is happening now is but the tip of the iceberg. Do you not understand? You really have no choice regarding the truth of change. But you do have a choice in whether or not you fully embrace it, acquiesce to it, let go of the old, and pull your self up, fully present, so that your choice is conscious, based on true facts, and based on your adult knowing self offering your child self the gift of warrior strength, clarity, and daring. Your child self will be happy you did this, mine was.