Currently, I put most of my energy into the weekly channeled messages, the daily Soulbytes, and the completion of The Recapitulation Diaries. An occasional blog does still get written when the creative urge strikes. Archived here are the blogs I wrote for many years about inner life and outer life, inner nature and outer nature. Perhaps my writings on life, as I see it and experience it, may offer you some small insight or different perspective as you take your own journey.
With gratitude for all that life teaches me, I share my experiences.
Not that long ago the possibilities seemed endless… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
I notice how quickly nature gets the upper hand. Before I know it, the weeds have taken over. A few weeks ago I thought I might, this year, finally have time to tackle some big areas on our property that are overgrown before the poison ivy and fast growing vines of all sorts took over, but alas! Nature, as usual, has gotten the upper hand.
I find myself dreaming numerous dreams every night, dreams growing as rapidly as weeds. Chuck reports the same.
Each morning we wake up almost reeling from the amount of nightly dream activity, grasping to remember what we can, though we both find that we have to let most of it go, too many, too quick to catch. It does seem, however, that this is prolific dream energy time and not to be missed.
Recent work on my next book has made me realize just how much nature, both nature outside of us and nature inside of us, and our dream world are in synch, setting us up for what needs to be done now and what is to come. As I reread and edit the journals I kept during my recapitulation, starting 14 years ago, I see just how much was laid out then and just how much has transpired since then.
Experiences I had a few decades ago, and even longer ago than that, as well as things that happened to me in my daily life really did lay out future possibilities. I see that very clearly now. Of course, where I was to go and what I was to do were always my choices.
Forks show up regularly… which road to take? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Opportunities to take a certain route, a certain path, to make a life changing decision, however, are offered to us all the time, in a myriad of ways. This too I see very clearly now, as I see just how my own nature, my own dreams, and my own experiences, as I navigated life, really did support and prepare me to be a changed being in a changed life.
We might find support in the simplest of synchronicities, or in the most profound of experiences or dreams. My dreams were always guiding me, offering advice, spelling out things that I was not sure of, offering help when I asked or needed clarity on something. I took from them what I needed and moved on. Now, however, as I reread and edit what happened to me during my recapitulation, some of those more mysterious dreams are utterly clear now. I see that in part they were premonitions of what was to come. At the time they offered useful guidance, helped me through some tough times, but now, as I look back, they make sense in a different way.
What at the time seemed fantastical has actually come to pass. What at the time I could make sense of in one way, now makes sense in a totally different way. What seemed to be supporting dreams at the time, now prove to be laying plans for a future life and a future me, neither of which I could have ever imagined, but which actually came to be.
I started keeping dream journals in my late teens. Some of them I still have, others got lost in my many moves. There were stagnant years when I did little journal keeping, though I always kept sketchbooks and in many of those I jotted down significant events and dreams too. My own nature likes a pen in hand and quiet moments of contemplation. I can truly say, based on my own experiences and all the dream keeping I have done, as well as the significantly meaningful events in my life, that there really does seem to be a plan to it all, to life. At least that’s how I’ve experienced it!
What your own life really has planned for you may be cloaked in your dreams too. The main thing is to be open to life. And if you think you don’t remember dreams or that they are neither fantastical nor mysterious, think again, because life just won’t let you get away with thinking that way. Just look at the weeds!
Not weeds! …Sometimes it’s not so clear… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Nature has its own ideas and they are sprouting up all around us all the time. We just have to tune in. So watch out what you dismiss from your everyday experiences. You might see weeds, but you might also be missing something important!
Life won’t leave you behind, just make sure you don’t leave it behind. Enjoy what comes to find you and go out and meet it. That is the biggest lesson I’ve learned; if you want something to happen, make it happen. Show up, be present, take action when appropriate, and learn from your experiences, dreaming or otherwise.
In ancient times, mountain dwellers regularly went down to the sea to get food from the nutrient-rich oceans. The body naturally knew what it needed, and instinct—along with knowledge accumulated over time—led them there. Likewise, during the cold season many ancient peoples migrated to warmer climates—they had summer settlements and winter settlements—also led by the true needs of the body. Tradition, habit and physical needs all worked in accord with nature’s imperative to survive and thrive.
We humans have come so far from such innate wisdom that we have totally lost touch with what we really need. Without the need to struggle to survive, as our ancient ancestors did, we have become complacent and greedy. Our needs must be met! With our natural selves turned off we’ve become addicted to things of this world, thinking we need something to reward, stimulate, calm or provide any number of physical placations to the demands and imperatives of life. We have forgotten how to survive and thrive.
Sort of the color of my blue rooms… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Last week I had a profound dream. I walked into a beautiful and serenely calm blue room. The room was familiar. I had been in it before in many dreams. It was always a room in my “house,” another living area that I was, for the most part, unaware of. One side of this big room was comprised of a huge curved bay window. Looking out over a beautiful ocean, this room was empty except for a couple of boxes that were packed and ready to go. To the left and two steps down was an adjacent blue room. This room was a little smaller. It contained no windows and was crowded with ghosts.
As soon as I entered this second blue room the ghosts came up to me, clamoring for my attention. “Oh, please make that delicious dish again,” said a round-faced man, smacking his lips. “That is my favorite meal!” They fought to get my attention. They crowded around me pawing at me, saying things they knew I would like to hear, buttering me up so to speak. There was a big party going on in this room. Every entertainment, every tasty food and drink was in this room, lavishly presented and greedily being consumed by all the inhabitants. Sexual innuendoes abounded.
At one point I noted, “Heck, I’m talking to ghosts!” Finally extricating myself from the ghosts I walked to the end of the room and, noticing that it did not have an exterior wall, stepped down another two steps out into a beautiful primeval forest. Here all was quiet and calm. I could be alone here.
As I walked in the forest, I noticed how enticing those blue rooms were, how comfortable and comforting, how strongly I was drawn to them, as well as to the serenity of the forest. As I stood in the lush forest, however, something didn’t feel right. “Am I in an old place?” I wondered. “I’ve been here so many times before!” With that thought I was immediately back in the first big blue room. I saw the packed boxes and realized it was time to leave. My son was there. I turned to him and declared that we were going to the mountaintop now.
The next thing I knew we were climbing up a steep mountain trail. Everything was pink now. The trail underfoot was dusty pink. It was lined with pointy pink spiraling boulders. There was no vegetation; the sun was beating down and barely a shady spot existed except every now and then in the overhang from a tall pointy boulder. It was a hot, dry hike, not an easy route, but I knew it was the only trail to take if we were to get to the mountaintop.
As we hiked up the steep switchbacks that were carved into the mountain, I talked to my son about trusting the psychic self, to not dismiss the magical things that occur in the course of everyday life but to remain open, that all would eventually make sense.
Eventually we will all get to the crystal mountaintop… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
The dream ended as we reached the sunny top of the mountain and a beautiful pink quartz crystal monastery. It was then that I looked back down the trail we had just come up and noticed that the mountain itself was made of the same pink quartz crystal. All that had appeared as dry and hot was now beautiful, gleaming and glistening in the brilliant sunlight.
Although the monastery building was imposing, I was aware that it contained the accumulation of a life’s work in accessing, trusting, and utilizing the awareness of the innate psychic and spiritual powers inherent in all human beings. Its doors and windows were closed, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I would find my way into the cool inner rooms of this castle on the mountain and discover all I needed to know. Like a giant library containing all the answers, it awaits us all.
My dream points out how far we have come from our own ancient roots, the innate wisdom and knowledge that could guide us out of the blue rooms, away from the ghosts—the entities that keep us captive in our addictions and mundane realities—to find our way to the mountaintop where all will become clear. How far we have come from the knowledge inside us all that is there to guide us to what we truly need!
The blue rooms and the primeval forest represent the three lower chakras. The first big room is the ego, the third charka. The second room is the chakra of sex and the desires of this world. The forest is the root chakra, nature from which we all come. I was so drawn to those rooms of my dream, as we are all drawn to stay in the lower chakra system, attached to the things of this world, as familiar and enticing as they are. We must all live in them as we come into life in this world, as they offer us the rites of passage, but eventually we are ready to move on.
After a while there is something else we want. And that will only be found by climbing the mountain, going higher up in the chakra system. We all have our own mountaintop to climb. Everyone’s trail will be their own, everyone’s journey their own, but we all have within us what the ancient ones had, the innate knowledge of what we really need to survive and thrive.
In my dream I was with my son. I am usually accompanied by my daughter in my dreams. If you’ve read my books, you know she represented my spiritual innocence and she has been my dreaming companion for years. This time I am with my son. He represents my rational self, my doubting self who struggles to balance life in two realities, that of spirit and that of this world. And so, it’s significant that I take him with me when I go to the mountaintop but not unusual, for at this point in my life I have already done the work of assimilating my innocence, my spirit. The part of myself that my daughter has always represented in my dreams is fully integrated.
It’s time now for all of us to leave the lower chakras and really make the journey upward into the higher chakras. As long as we are human, however, we will have to revisit the lower chakras, but once we begin the trek upward those visits will be in accord with what is right and naturally appropriate. As our ancient ancestors knew, there were times to go down to the sea to get what was necessary and there were times when it was necessary to move to a new settlement, but such needs were always in accordance with nature, within and without.
Our trails may vary, but the goal is the same… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
I know that if I am dreaming of this work that others are as well, because I know we are all dreaming the same dream. It is reflected in the world around us. Why else is there so much turmoil in the world? Why else does it seem that addictions are rampant? All of the turmoil and all of the addictions, the excesses, are entities of the lower chakras, enticing us to stay with them, to become slaves to them and to our comforts.
In actuality, we are less and less attuned to nature, to the nature of how our physical body speaks to us, and the natural world around us and how it speaks to us too. We are so busy serving the entities what they want that we have forgotten our true mission. The mountaintop calls to us, now more than ever.
Time to go to the mountaintop, Jan
Refer also to Chuck’s blog, posted earlier this week, along similar lines: Attachments Anonymous
There is still a very small part of me that struggles with my old friend and nemesis Unworthiness. We have been companions on my entire life’s journey. If I have anything left in me that holds me back I’d have to say this is it; the last vestiges are tenacious. And yet, I am well aware of it and how it works within me, of how I have also worked with it and used it to my advantage, how interwoven we are in the unfolding of my life. We’ve become very accustomed to each other.
The old nemesis… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
At this point in my life, Unworthiness has the least amount of control that its ever had, the least impact, and is seldom a visitor. But when something arises, an issue perhaps, something I don’t want to do or feel intimidated by, I just have to sit for a minute to know that my old enemy and cohort is sitting right there, waiting for me to notice. I can almost hear a gleeful laugh as I go about my inner inquiries.
Over the past week the energy has been a little strange. I’ve felt it and Chuck has too. Perhaps others have as well. The daily Soulbytes have been stuck on one theme—to sit and wait. Chuck wrote about it this week in his blog, Activating Change—Staying Put. But it’s spring, a time of bursting forth, a lot going on in nature, activity all around, and so the urge is to do quite the opposite.
My own energy has been in keeping with the sit and wait energy this week, not by choice—it’s just the way it’s been. I’ve noticed that my normal busyness has been replaced by a slower pace as I’ve naturally fallen in step with the advice of the channeled messages. It doesn’t feel as if I’ve accomplished any less than had I expended a lot of high-strung energy, running around feeling like I’ll never get done all that needs to be done. My old friend Unworthiness was strangely absent and silent this week too, I noticed.
Could the slower calmer energy I’ve adopted have anything to do with that? I wonder. I am usually not a high-strung or nervous individual, but I like to get things done and often push myself, perhaps expending a lot of energy unnecessarily. This week I let my mood, my body, and my sense of the importance of taking it slow dominate and decide. Without a sense of having to rush around or push too hard I’ve noticed that I am calmer overall and, as I said, things have certainly gotten done.
It makes me wonder if I’ve unwittingly encouraged old friend Unworthiness to stick around, far beyond its necessary lifespan. I have indeed continued to question my worthiness in so many areas of life, but the noticeable lack of doubt in my thoughts this week raises that question as much as anything else I’ve experienced.
I recently heard someone speaking about “selfie” this and “selfie” that. At first I thought, “Wow! People are so focused on themselves, taking selfies, posting selfies.” I got worried about what all this focus on the outer self would result in. A self-absorbed generation too self-interested to care about the world? But then I realized we all do it! We’re all concerned with out own selfie image, including me with my Unworthiness/Worthiness selfie issue! All of those internal machinations that circle through the mind are nothing more than grand selfies!
I noticed this week, however, as I’ve allowed myself to slow down, to put off a few things and wait, that my own selfie talk has diminished to almost nothing. I’ve gone about life with little attention paid to my usual inner selfie stuff and been focused on the energy instead. The instruction to engage in the energy of waiting has relieved me of a lot of usual mental stuff, and the normal worry and doubt—am I good enough at this or worthy enough of that—has naturally dissipated. This is the true meaning of doing recapitulation, letting the energy of the process guide and instruct, rather than push to make something happen or to process too quickly, going out of alignment with the natural flow of one’s own process. Deep inner work, when undertaken in this manner, is not selfie-selfish but liberatingly self-revealing and self-transformational.
The only Selfie that really matters… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In keeping pace with the natural energy of each day this week, I’ve felt more naturally aligned myself. Sitting in stillness offers quiet inside and outside. My own selfie-self can attest to that, as it has acquiesced to the energy of sitting in stillness all week and felt truly calm and in balance.
And so, I have no fear for the “selfie” generation. Perhaps all the self focus will have a similar selfless experience. Perhaps sitting in stillness, with all the “selfie” paraphernalia put aside for some quiet time, the beautiful warm spring days we’ve had lately in the Northeast can really be enjoyed in calmness.
In sitting in stillness you might notice that you too shed some of your usual anxiety or concerns. In alignment with nature only what is naturally of concern exists, as I found out. I learned that I had a lot of “selfie” stuff that was just not part of my own true nature, the self I truly am. It’s been a calm but strangely enjoyable week. I wish the same for you.
Chuck and I were sitting in a favorite spot one night recently, talking quietly about the events of the day. I had a pain. Persistent and relentlessly present it had bothered me all day. I am not one to complain, nor do I often have an affliction, but this one had gotten its claws into me and would not let go. Chuck was aware. My countenance alone was enough for him to know.
A Portrait of Detachment & Compassion… – Artist unknown
As we talked I glanced up at a print on the wall, a portrait of the Virgin Mary. I post it here so you can see it for yourself. I had always noticed how detached she seemed, this beautiful being, as painted by the artist. Her gaze is a little to the side and down. She does not look directly at the viewer. In her heart chakra sits a large and fiery heart, radiant it sends out beams of light. Though she is not touching the heart, the Virgin’s hands nonetheless keep it exposed.
Even while being present in the room with Chuck, another part of me—the Observer Self or High Self—began an interaction with the portrait. “You seem so detached,” I said. “How can you be so detached and yet be the healer that you are? People have flocked to you, prayed to you, begged to be healed, to be forgiven, to be made whole. Look at me. I’m in pain. Will you take pity on me and heal me? Right now?”
My innocence reached out. Within seconds I felt a change taking place in my body. Chuck noticed it too. “You’re getting better,” he said, with certainty. “Yes, I am,” I said, though I did not tell him of my telepathic conversation with the Virgin Mary. Instead, I started to doubt. Perhaps all the herbal remedies and the meditative exercises I had been doing all day, the Netting that I had written about several weeks ago and other exercises in detaching from negative energies were finally kicking in. But as soon as the doubt arose my High Self spoke up very loudly: “Cut it out! Face the truth and thank her!”
This time, as I turned to the portrait, I noticed that the Virgin was gazing right into my eyes and that her own eyes were filled with compassion. Instantly, I understood that only in learning detachment could she possibly be available to help others, that all of her energy had to be directed to her heart center, her focus always on placing her attention, intent, and energy there, for that was where she worked from. It was a place of vast energetic power. I saw that if she remained attached to anyone or anything in this world her energy would be compromised and her work would suffer.
“You really are a goddess,” I silently said to her, “the Goddess, Gaia, Earth Mother, feminine energy supreme. Though you have been categorized and labeled as something else, you are so much more than the portrait on the wall depicts you as. You have succeeded at what we are all seeking, how to be detached so that our energy may be directed into compassionate living, into the work of compassion.”
She is an example of how to be fully detached and fully loving and compassionate beings. Though her son had died she held no malice toward anyone. She turned her anger, her sorrow, her regret into something good. She did not stay attached to the things of this world. We are all aware of her many miracles, her appearances at Lourdes, Fatima, and most recently in 1981 in Medjugorje, in what is now Bosnia.
We all embody the same innocent light of dawn… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
As I look at her looking at me, I know that everything I have learned through my connection with Jeanne is true, that we are all goddesses too, male and female, that we all have within us the same compassionate energy, the ability through sustained focus on the energy of the heart chakra to become fully compassionate healers too. It is her mission to teach us this through her own work, still taking place throughout the world.
It is not that easy to manifest in this world, Jeanne tells me today as I write this blog, to appear as the Virgin Mary has done over the centuries. If it were that easy, she says, there would be many more sighting of the great enlightened ones, and so they seek to connect and work in energetic ways. That’s why it’s so important for us to lose our self-importance and reach out, to let our innocence out of safekeeping so that it may act on our behalf.
We are all capable of this energetic contact and this directed compassion. Jeanne herself tells us this over and over again, that we are all Psychic Beings. I learned, from my recent interactions with the portrait on the wall, that to awaken this aspect in ourselves we must first achieve detachment.
Detachment means that we are not caught by anything in this world, that our energy is totally removed from everything that entices us—from sadness and self-pity, greed and longings, attachments to family or being special—the gamut of all that keeps us bound to life on earth. Our real life awaits us in energetic form. We must wake up to the truth that we can have access to that energy now, if we dare to take the journey through detachment to compassion.
Once we’ve achieved detachment, and maintain it, our energy will be fully available for the much needed work of compassion, of energetic healing and communication. I know it’s possible and that it works; I’ve done it myself. Though I am in no way perfect, I have had enough experiences to know that a path with heart is a path of detachment as well.
Rarely have I asked for compassion for myself, but my innocence was not going to let me decide the other day. It had something to show me, how energy really is all that matters, and purified energy radiating from the heart chakra, the energy of compassion, is the only way to go if we are to impact and change the world. By learning what it means to detach we sidestep getting caught by anything in this world. Through sustained and diligent attendance to where we put our energy we not only can have impact, but it becomes increasingly clear that we are all equally deserving of compassion and that everyone, even the most hardened criminal, though seriously misguided, is innocent at the core.
Perhaps my experiences will strike a chord. Perhaps your own innocence might have something to show you. Trust it. That’s all I can say, and then see what happens!
At our core is the fire of compassion… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
I also feel that it is significant to mention that Chuck bought the portrait of the Virgin in Vatican City a few days after Jeanne had died while he was waiting for her body to be cremated in Switzerland. Jeanne had told him and their children that she would always live in their hearts. When he saw the painting that was what he was thinking. He brought the portrait home in his suitcase, nestled next to Jeanne’s ashes.
From the Holy City, a place of such powerful energy, this portrait of a loving and compassionate heart traveled here, and we have been under its gaze ever since. It is finally time to tap into its energy and its message. I pass it on.
“How did your innocence survive?” Chuck asked me. I reminded him of my childhood mantra: “It will soon be over; it will end.” I think that was my innocence speaking to me, the part of me that was ready to walk away as soon as possible and move on. Innocence gets bruised but it bounces back. “I always had that innocence in me; it never left me,” I finally concluded, “and that combined with my spirit certainly helped me survive.”
At our core resides our High Self, patiently waiting for us to notice… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
My spirit was strong; my innocence was intact. I knew I could trust them. They taught me that no matter what someone did to Me, the real Me, my innocent spirit was unreachable. That part of me resided elsewhere, separate from the physical, in what I now know as the High Self, untouchable and unaffected by everything that happened to my physical body. That High Self was fully available during my childhood.
That High Self held the memories of my abuse, however, and I just wasn’t really interested in them for most of my life, too painful and horrific to go near. So not only did I distance myself from that strong, innocent and knowing High Self, but I cut her off. I moved on. The farther I moved the more distance I gained from my past and my High Self too. I released myself into the world as best I could, but there was always a part of me that knew that I would one day return to that High Self.
Why do some people survive terrific abuse and others perish? Why do some people give up on themselves and others find the means to change and move on? Why do some people declare themselves hopeless and unworthy of change, while others forge ahead no matter their background or imposed limitations? Is it possible to impart a sense of survival to others? Can you really help another person?
There are many ancient teachings, and not so ancient ones too, that teach us how to find and recognize our High Self and how to work with it. And yet for me, it was never a question of finding or recognizing it, my High Self was always with me, always recognizably part of me, a participant in my life. Even when I had kept her at a distance I knew she was still there, waiting for me. Did I have something that others do not have? I don’t think so. It’s not something that’s unique to me; we all have access to our High Self, to the place where our strength and our innocence reside.
I believe we are all born into our present lives with everything in place, that children are fully equipped with language and wise knowing. When I was still a tiny child, perhaps about a year and a half old, I remember clearly thinking in full sentences though I could not articulate what I was thinking; I did not have the physical dexterity yet that would allow me to speak.
When I did finally learn to speak, my mother said that I spoke clearly and distinctly, in full sentences. My own children were the same way. I had the same experience when I learned to speak Swedish. I had lived in Sweden for about six months, daily listening, and when I finally dared to open my mouth and speak the words just poured out, once again in perfect diction. Complex thoughts are present from the moment of birth, I believe, and perhaps even before. Why not? Consciousness doesn’t need a body and neither does spirit.
Just suppose we all come into life from other lives fully equipped as intelligent, wise, and knowing beings. Life in this world is set up to erase our knowledge and educate us in the practices of the world we are born into. It’s as if our fully functioning hard drive is erased during our earliest years and new programs are downloaded into us. If we’re lucky the original programs didn’t fully erase but remain stored somewhere in our inner database, ready to be discovered or stumbled upon at a later date.
In my case, as is the case with many children, I happened upon this original database because of traumatic sexual abuse. Abuse became an opportunity for me to access the wise and innocent High Self who had once spoken to me through my infant’s mind, a voice of familiarity, immediately recognizable as someone I could fully trust. And so when I returned again to her during my recapitulation, I once again found that I could trust her, that indeed she had been eagerly awaiting my return.
With her along, my journey of recapitulation began to unfold in detail and all that I had kept at bay was relived until none of it bothered me anymore, until it was totally resolved and done with. This time I put it away for good. It stays in the recesses of my database, clicked on only when I want to go there. When Chuck asked me that question—How did your innocence survive?—I zipped into that database and recalled just what it was that had not only kept me alive but also optimistically certain of survival and new life.
In recapitulation we are given the opportunity to shed for good… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Certainly, as a child, I never gave up, though there were some pretty tough times and, as I returned to recapitulate, I would have to say the same, I never gave up, though there were some pretty tough memories to relive and issues to figure out and get through. It’s just who I am. A strong, wise and innocent spirit who never gives up, my High Self, lives at my core. For me the cup is always half full. I don’t think I inherited this trait, nor was it instilled in me, it’s just who I’ve always been. As I said above, everyone has this optimistic High Self, a similar spirit too. Why do some people have easier access to it, while others seem to struggle so deeply with even acknowledging its presence? Why are some people naturally optimists and others pessimists?
Viktor Frankl asked the same questions when writing about the survivors of Hitler’s concentration camps in Man’s Search for Meaning. Those who survived had a certain sense of self, access to a higher self, an awareness of spirit that kept them going, a certain optimism that things would change, that new life would one day come, that ultimately there was meaning in everything, even a worst case scenario.
When spirit is actively brought into participation in life there is a strong sense of never giving up, no matter how low one gets. No matter how ready one may be to die, there is a part of the self that will not surrender, that wakes up, sometimes at the last minute and says, “Stop! Wait!”
In the 2006 film Bridge people who survived suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge related that on the way down they instantly regretted the decision to jump. Does that mean that all suicides regret their decision? I don’t know, but the spirit inside all of us does a heck of job trying to get our attention. It works in mysterious ways, in uniquely personal and poignant ways. It pays to be alert, to learn how to look and listen for the clues to spirit. Not everyone will hear it as a voice. Not everyone will get a clear sign. Optimist or pessimist, however, we are all being prodded to find it. This is certain.
It’s the whole purpose of life, as I see it, to find and connect with our High Self at some time during our many lives and take everything to a new level. If not in this lifetime, at least know that each life is a step in the process. But can we elect to voluntarily move up to that High Self? I believe we can. It takes a little work, perhaps a recapitulation is in store, but first reaching out and paying attention may be enough of an awakening to begin the process.
The first step in the search for spirit and meaning in life might be as simple as putting out a call. Spirit guides are unanimous on this one, they are ready and waiting to be of assistance, but we must ask. Become a trusting child in the asking, become innocent, vulnerable and open. It’s really okay. Let go of self, of ego, of feeling silly and just do it. No one is watching you. You can relax and ask your spirit to come to you, just as you might have asked as a child. Did you believe in a guardian angel as a child, like I did? Ask your guardian angel to come to you if that feels right, or Jesus, or God, or the universe, or ask for Jeanne, the being that Chuck and I channel in our various ways, his first wife. Do whatever feels right.
Learn to sit quietly, as Chuck suggests in his blog this week, Finding the True Heart. Learn to listen to the heart, in the deeper heart chamber where spirit resides. A few breaths may be all it takes. A few minutes of calmness with attention placed on the heart chakra, with mind still, doubt recedes and things can happen.
Get out into nature. Sit on the ground by a tree, a plant, a bush and commune with the living organism before you. Sit calmly and begin to understand it, to feel it’s energy. In calmness communication opens up and you might just find yourself conversing quietly with your selected tree or bush or plant. Plant life can tell us a lot of things we’ve forgotten.
Commune likewise with an animal, a pet, a deer, a bird, a spider, a fly. See what happens as you send your heart chakra energy out to another living creature, as you silently commune from your innocent spirit self.
Lie under the night sky and feel yourself being drawn out into the universe, into infinity. Join the stars for a ride and see where they take you and what they tell you. The vastness of space lies above us every night. It’s mysteries might not be that mysterious once you open up to them, it’s emptiness not so empty, it’s vastness not so vast.
Communication is possible at all levels… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Ask your dreaming self to introduce you to who your spirit self really is, to take you to meet him or her, to teach you how to connect all the time in both waking and dreaming life. Intend to dream an answer to a question and see what happens.
Read some books that inspire you. Sometimes opening a book to a single paragraph might just be the thing to shift out of misery and into the mystical. If you don’t know where to begin, our Store offers a variety of selections.
After asking doubt may come, but that’s par for the course. The next step is to trust. Learn to trust as a child trusts. The innocent infant trusts that it will be taken care of. We must learn to trust that we are here for a reason, that there is meaning in our life and that we will find our way. As Chuck mentioned in his blog this week, once we open up to our spirit, our soul, we discover an expanded consciousness of which we are indeed a part.
We are physical beings, but the greater part of us is spirit, non-tangible and untethered to anything in this world, except what we choose to attach to. Connecting with spirit is the refusal to give attachment the final say.
