Archived here are the blogs I write 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.
That dang bee would not leave us alone! – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Mercury Retrograde. Some people, when they hear that term, are immediately suspect, wary, and prone to morose depression. Mercury Retrograde means trouble!
Mechanical failures are rampant. The iPad won’t connect to the wifi. The car won’t start. A computer failure occurs. Bothersome memories flare up. Things left undone surface in gnarly and annoying ways.
On the other hand, I see Mercury Retrograde as a time of opportunity, offering very succinct and direct guidance on just what needs to be done right now! It is a time to complete unfinished business so that we can move on into new life. If we don’t do it we will never fully be able to move on.
That which we don’t complete remains attached forever; it WILL come back to haunt us. Why put ourselves into such a compromising position?
Retrogrades also offer us the opportunity to confront and discover our karmic challenges. Our karmic challenges, like unfinished business, return often throughout life, asking us to deal with them once and for all. To face, solve and resolve our issues is the only way we will be able to freely move on into new life, both in present reality and when we die and enter the bardos.
Will this be the life that we move on up the astral ladder? Or will we reincarnate into another life, playing out the same issues once again? It’s a choice we make during each lifetime, evolving a little more, completing a few more karmic issues each time. By the time we’ve lived several thousand lives, however, wouldn’t it be nice to go on to something entirely new?
Something is not quite clear… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
So, with another week of this current Mercury Retrograde still to go, I suggest taking a good look at what has been happening in your life to challenge you. Perhaps the failure of mechanical devices means you should not be using them; perhaps your addiction to your iPhone or Facebook is being challenged.
Perhaps your recapitulation is pushing you to go deeper as it brings up memories. Perhaps your body is telling you to take better care of it as it pains you or shows you some weakness. Perhaps your insistence on doing things your way and them not working out means you should relax and flow better with life. Perhaps old legal issues finding you many months or years later are letting you know they will not go away; that it’s time to finally deal with them.
To face what comes with maturity, to quickly respond, clears the air, clears the mind, clears the body to be ready for what comes next. Retrograde is a great time to learn the importance of taking care of daily business so that it does not follow you beyond its “sell by” date.
If we learn to deal with what comes, when it comes, we have learned one of the great lessons in life: We are only free of something when we take the time to attend to and fully complete what life challenges us with. If something is done right the first time, we will not have to do it again. And that is a karmic lesson too.
So, retrogrades offer us the opportunity to face something about ourselves and clear not only our issues but also to erase some of our karma, which is really the business, the work, of this life. Rather than continuing to sweep things under the bed, it’s time to take out the vacuum cleaner!
With a little work all will be revealed… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
And just so you have something to look forward to, this Mercury Retrograde, which is all about our personal issues, is being followed by a Venus Retrograde in late July, which will be all about our relationship issues.
And so, fresh opportunities for getting those relationships in good form are about to hit! Good Luck with that! But first finish the old business that is popping up now, so that you are free to fully experience what Venus has in mind for you!
Seeds planted long ago eventually bloom… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Life Lesson #1:Everything is meaningful.
Why do things happen the way they do? Why must I do that, confront that, be that, act like that? Why do people get sick? Why do people suddenly die? Why is life so difficult? There is always a meaningful answer. Although it may not be apparent in the moment it will eventually reveal itself.
In a seed’s planting, in a stem’s growth, an eventual blooming will take place. Such are the reasons for the events in our lives. They are our growing lessons; every event, every happening, and every choice and challenge in life are fully meaningful in the long run. Like seeds planted long before we were ever aware, they signal the greater potential that is our birthright and our destiny.
Yes, there IS meaning in everything. Even if we can’t always find it immediately, it is far better to attach a reasonable meaning than to ignore the events in our lives as simply “life.” The idea that “that’s just the way life is” has never been enough of an explanation for me. I’ve always yearned for more, have always known that everything is meaningful and everything is important to my personal journey.
If we are to accept such an idea then we must also be willing to find the importance in everything that happens to us, to those we love, and to the world at large, for we are all interconnected. So, I propose that the first lessons in addressing the events of our lives as meaningful is to search for meaning, to apply meaning, and to patiently wait for meaning to reveal itself. It may take some time, but I’ve learned that eventually meaning will more fully come to light, blossoming will happen.
Sometimes meaning is very apparent, sometimes less so. Sometimes we might instantly see the meaning for others but find it much harder to apply to ourselves. I usually find that if I see the meaning for someone else then I stay there and apply the same meaning to myself. It works, at least to begin with, in helping to face something about the self or to confront emotions or feelings that have never been apparent, or in consciousness for some time.
Outcome may be hidden or unclear… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
To begin with I work with what comes, with first impressions. If nothing comes, if I just cannot find meaning for myself, I apply something that makes sense with where I am and what is happening in my life.
“Oh, this might mean this or that.” And then I wait. But in the meantime I work with what “might” be true. Like a light shining into a dark tunnel it does eventually bring me a bit closer to clarity on the personal meaning of something.
A search for meaning is a bit like working with a dream. Trying to find the meaning of the symbology in a dream, aligning it with what is actually going on in our personal lives is always beneficial. Dreams aid and support our ever-changing lives, giving us insight into aspects of ourselves that need clarification, or revealing that which has been unattainable in waking life. Dreams can also give us direct and profoundly meaningful answers straight up, without the mysterious symbology that we might often encounter. Dream helpers can be very direct!
In applying meaning where none may be apparent, stay focused on where you are in your life, what’s happening inside of you and outside of you. Don’t necessarily “make up” a meaning, but try to apply meaning according to what makes sense and what you might be envisioning, or what you’ve already learned about yourself and how you generally approach life.
For instance, I can sometimes let things slide. I am fully aware that I’m doing so, putting off something that should be done. Part of me knows that I’m being avoidant, an old habit, even if ever so slightly, but there is another part of me that senses it might not be the right time to approach or do something, and so I wait. I might not have full awareness of this other part that is waiting, or why it is doing so, but the avoidant “waiting” behavior may be just the hint I need. “Don’t act now!” that part may be saying, however subliminally. At the same time I must address the dilemma: Am I just falling into an old habit? Or is this the new me telling me to wait because waiting will have a favorable outcome?
It is often a precarious approach, waiting itself offering challenges, and I never let really important things slide. I pay my bills, confront my personal issues, and face what I must during the daily ups and downs of life. At the same time there are other processes in my psyche and in my life that I just can’t ignore, and I guess that’s what I’m attempting to pass on in this blog: Don’t ignore anything because everything is meaningful, whether hidden or clearly apparent.
To find meaning in everything is a bit of an adventure. Enlightenment may come in the very process of sitting and pondering that which might be trying to get our attention. Outcome of sitting in internal pondering is like outcome of life: eventually clarity does come.
Eventually all will be revealed… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
There is great value in intentionally sitting and pondering, in training the self to be aware and to constantly seek personal meaning, no matter what one is confronted with. Why am I put in this position now, at this time in my life? What must I learn right now? Being aware that life is always trying to teach us something is an important aspect of the search for meaning. For why otherwise are we here, if not to learn and grow beyond this reality and this human condition that we find ourselves steeped in?
As life’s lessons are faced, we become more available to notice and benefit from everything that happens to us. Each time clarity comes and new meaning is discovered a new lesson is learned and a new opportunity opens up for us too. And then all of life’s lessons become meaningfully part of the greater whole of our personal journey. And then we evolve too! So remember Lesson #1 as you take your own changing journey: Everything is personally meaningful!
Good Luck in your own quest for a meaningful life! Jan
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.
