Category Archives: Jan’s Blog

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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.

Jan Ketchel

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Confronting the Uncomfortable

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WARNING: Please note, as the title suggests, this blog contains adult content that may be disturbing. If you are in the midst of doing deep work it may be too uncomfortable. Please don’t read it if you feel you may be triggered.

It was important to keep going back into the woods, for as dark as it was that was where I found the light... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
It was important to keep going back into the woods, for as dark as it was that was where I found the light… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

By the time the second year of my recapitulation journey began I was confronting some very deep truths. I’d already recalled hundreds of visceral memories of rape, sodomy, and other forms of sexual assault, as well as deep emotional trauma. As hard as the memories were to accept, my psyche would not let me refuse them. I had to face what was coming through. Here is what I wrote on July 1, 2002:

The memories come like bombs, fast and furious, explosions taking place in my own private war zone. As the bombing missions fly overhead I crouch down and hide, shielding myself from their impact, but in so doing I know I’m refusing to connect with what’s being triggered at a deeper level. I catch a glimpse of something new as each memory bomb explodes, but I still refuse to fully accept what was truly happening to my child self. Jolted, the frightened self turns away, though it’s practically impossible to do so, for the pains are almost constant now, present throughout the day; my hands numb, my shoulders tense, my genitals sore and painful. I don’t have a choice in how this recapitulation process is unfolding—just as I never had a choice when I was a child—it’s just happening. I know what a frightened little bunny feels like; heart beating so hard you’d think it might burst.

On that same day, I went deeper still and confronted what was really being presented as my next challenge. I just couldn’t ignore it:

I admit that I’m avoiding the stark truth that my abuser was having sex, in one form or another, with a very small child, and that child was me. It’s been the hardest part of this recapitulation to accept. Even while excavating all the pieces of the puzzle of the unknown self over the past year and discovering the mysterious, hidden world of my childhood I wasn’t always able to face what my abuser was actually doing to me. Now as new memories torpedo into awareness, the truth presents itself all over again, but each time I admit that he was indeed having sex with my tiny child self, overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame come tumbling out of the depths of me. At the same time, I know I won’t be able refuse the blatant truth. I must fully accept what was truly happening so long ago, and my body insists, not letting me rest until I do. As soon as I lie down in bed at night and curl up to go to sleep, it all hits me again. Fear, pain, and the desperation of my child self come crashing out of nowhere, searing through my body like shrapnel. Much as I’d like to, I can’t really avoid the bombs. Even if I sit down on the couch for a few minutes of respite during a busy day it’s the same thing: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The memory bombs go off and all I want to do is run, to look for safe places to hide, to keep moving, ducking and dodging the incessant attacks, but I know it’s not productive, nor is it really possible.

So shame and guilt arose from my deeper self and came to teach me my next lessons. I confronted the supposed bad self, the self who thought she was at fault and to blame for what happened, and the self who felt so guilty for partaking. By the end of the second year I confronted just how attached I was to those elements of shame and guilt, for they defined me, who I had always been, showing me just how deeply embedded they were in my psyche and just how attached I, a little Catholic school girl, had been—and still was—to their bitter presence. Almost a year later, on June 2, 2003, as I prepared to finally release myself from their cloying attachment, gaining even deeper insight, I wrote the following:

Aware that I’ve just barely stayed in control, by force of will and old habit, I admit to myself that I don’t really want to be the old self anymore. I don’t want to “hold on” or “hang in there.” Physically, I’m exhausted and I’m fairly sure I’ll be unable to keep up this charade much longer. I’m wearing down.

“Try for stillness. Go for stillness,” I hear Jeanne saying.

I barely remember concluding last week that I do indeed need stillness—unhurried, unstressed, quiet living—and a break from this torture. I hoard my feelings, afraid that when they’re gone I won’t have anything left inside me and yet this is my torture as well. At this point, it still feels far better, and safer, to retain my stand, though the children in my dream (from last week’s blog) want me to be a feeling being. Their disappointment was clear as I passed them by and drove on toward the house of fear and emptiness, rather than greet them with equal joy. If I let go, I fear that all that keeps me connected to life will go too, that all my desperate attempts to align myself somewhere in this world will disappear. Maybe I don’t need to try so hard, as Chuck constantly tells me, but there’s a part of me that cannot abide the idea of not being in control, the thought alone sending me into a place of deep shame and anxiety. I know that such deep shame stems from my upbringing, for it was expected that I handle everything so expertly, without a show of emotion; coolly, without expressing needs or desires of any kind. Rather than be scolded, I found it far easier to be the unemotional being that I was so often reprimanded to be. I deduced that to want affection and love were shameful weaknesses to be avoided at all costs, though I harbored a secret desire for them. I was a child full of what I considered shameful thoughts, desiring simple human touch and affection. And yet I do not blame my child self for such basic human needs. She needs to know that it’s perfectly acceptable to want and need simple affection, to know that it’s allowed and necessary. Love is allowed. It is, isn’t it? An epiphany: Love is allowed! Wanting to be loved is allowed too!

The whole idea of needing and expressing love, tenderness, and affection was presented as something shameful: don’t even go there, don’t touch or be touched, it’s disgusting! This is what I was taught at home. Emotions are disgusting; expressing them is disgusting, letting anyone know you have emotions or feelings is strictly forbidden. No touching, no gentleness, no love was exchanged between parent and child, perhaps very rarely a pat on the head, maybe, if I was sick. No hugs, no kisses, no emotional support. Such an unemotional upbringing is wrong. To make a person feel so ashamed and so emotionally isolated is wrong. To deprive another of the most basic of human needs is wrong.

On top if it, I had to deal with my abuser, but I see where his abusive affections, as perverted as they were, tapped into that void created by my upbringing. Even though his type of affection was totally aberrant, I wouldn’t have known that as a child. I had nothing to compare it to. Perhaps I was drawn to him as much as he was drawn to me. I was trapped coming and going. I had no choice. I was a child living in a family completely devoid of human touch and emotions, the most basic of which were squelched at an early age. And then I walked into a family where they took their clothes off and touched each other all over the place, where feelings I never knew existed inside me were drawn out. And then I had to go back to my own family, which, with its cold, distant, and strict Victorian morals was as insidiously abusive and bizarre as my abuser’s family. And all I ever wanted was for someone to simply love me, just for who I was. I just want to be loved for me; that’s all. I see how easily a young child, starved for affection, could be confused and tricked by the attentions of a pedophile.

And so, as I followed where my psyche led me, pushed me, and often times forced me to go, I gained valuable insights. New ideas began to replace old ideas. Old themes that had defined me began to crumble. In that crumbling came new life. I gradually learned to take with me only what truly belonged to me, only what I truly believed about myself and life in general. I learned how to shush up the old voices and how to release my child self from her unemotional upbringing. I learned how to love that child self, as I taught her what I was learning. Having been apart for much of the recapitulation journey, we now joined forces more often. We now knew there was more to life and more to us that had to be discovered and lived.

By the end of the second year of recapitulation I was transforming rapidly. I had burned a lot of stuff that didn’t belong to me, and I was emerging from the ashes a new being. I was evolving in a very personally relevant way. Freed of what I felt I had to uphold—an old world that I no longer fit into—I was becoming the real me.

Thank you for reading. I send love and wishes for good journeying,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Deeper Into The Deepness Within

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When we are ready... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
When we are ready… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

“You must go deeper still.” Those were oft-repeated and frightening words spoken by Chuck as I went through my three-year long recapitulation. Each time he said them I shuttered. I knew what it would entail to go deeper still.

As Chuck writes about in his blog earlier this week, taking the journey within means going into the inferno within, similar to the Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy. And just as Dante’s pilgrim had a guide, I recommend that the deeper journey within be taken with a seasoned guide as well. That being said, the journey can only be taken, fully experienced and its gold excavated, by you—the brave pilgrim.

A note of warning is in order. This may not be the lifetime to take this journey, and that’s okay, but if you dare to venture deeper within, to take the journey through the fires of the inner self: Be careful! It is a dark and treacherous journey. You must have a mature adult self firmly established as your main stabilizing partner, even as your child self often leads the way.

If you decide that it’s time to take such a journey, you will encounter all that you fear, but you will also encounter all that you need. You will receive the most profound of insights even as you walk through the fires and encounter the demons that reside deeper within. You will be granted those “calm and illuminating moments” that Chuck mentions in his blog, glimpses of greater insight and brighter life to come, even as you struggle for footing along your treacherous path. The journey within is the most profound of journeys. When you are ready to take it, in this life or another, know that you will be able to face what lies deeper within.

I am now in the last month of editing my next book, On the Edge of the Abyss, the second year of my recapitulation journey. As Chuck was writing his blog earlier this week I was in the midst of editing some passages from my book that struck me as quite apropos, examples of what it’s like to take that journey, to encounter the deeper darkness within, as well as the light at the end of the tunnel. Here are a few excerpts.

On June 1, 2003, when I was deep within, I wrote the following: When night finally comes I fall exhausted into bed and right into a dream. I’m in a new house where everything is empty, clean, and very white. The house is unfurnished and I know I’ll only be here for a little while. I’ve driven down narrow, crowded streets to get here. Children ran up to me as I drove, their faces alive with excitement, but as soon as they caught sight of my face they stopped just short of stepping off the curb. Their exuberance quelled into silence, as they somberly watched me drive past. I’m inside the house for a short while when I realize that someone else is here. I see that a sliding glass door has been left open and someone has tracked snow onto the carpet, the big footprints of a man. When I look out the door I see footprints in the snow outside as well, circling the house. Suddenly fearful, I’m certain that someone else is in the house with me and I no longer feel safe. I search all over for the man I am certain is hiding somewhere in the house. I can’t find him, but I also see that there’s really no place for him to hide. The house is empty; there are no possessions and no furniture to hide behind. I’m also aware that this is only a temporary place of fear, intense and real though it appears.

Jolted awake by this dream, I see by the clock that I’ve only slept a few minutes, but I know immediately what this dream symbolizes. As long I insist on keeping in what my psyche is pushing me to release then, yes, I must suffer. The children in the dream seem to be eagerly awaiting me—my inner children waiting all day for me to turn to them—for they rush up expectantly, calling out, “Here she comes! Here she comes!” They are stunned that I won’t receive them. They are perhaps expecting me to be different in dreamland, but I coldly drive by. Their enthusiasm dies as soon as they see me. They stand silently, with serious faces, and watch me drive past, my dour expression revealing that I’m not ready yet, that I’m on a different mission, still entangled in the trappings of fear. But it’s as if I’ve conjured up the fears, for although I see the footsteps of a man, there is really no man in the house, and thus nothing to really fear. I understand that if I fail to release my old fears, they will continue to haunt me. My dream makes it pretty clear that this is temporary housing, a transitional stage. And I get it—choosing to conjure up fear is of my own doing!

A few days later, on June 3rd, I wrote the following as I was challenged with going deeper still: I am mostly in the grips of fear at the moment, the fear of letting go, and the vast nothingness that I anticipate awaits the moment of letting go. I envision that letting go and leaping off the edge of the precipice, into the darkness of the abyss, means encountering an even deeper underworld filled with more fear, with more shame and more guilt. And I envision having to encounter all that once led to that pile of shame and guilt to begin with. Disgust lies down there at the bottom of the abyss too, disgust that I have needs and desires.

Even in the darkness there are glimpses of the Buddha in all of us... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Even in the darkness there are glimpses of the Buddha in all of us… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

A few days later, on June 6th I confronted some inner truths, what Chuck wrote about: being human and a deeper understanding of just what that means, one of those calm and illuminating moments that show up in the midst of deep work to encourage us to keep going. Here is what I wrote in my journal on that day:

The yoga studio I’ve been attending for several years now will be closing at the end of the month. I’m sad that one of my safe places will be gone. In the meantime, I’ll practice on my own, as I’ve done for most of my life, though I’ll miss the regular practice that I’ve anchored so deeply in and my fine teacher. I have to take care of myself and learn to give to myself, not only learn how to do it, but learn that it’s allowed. Giving and wanting love are so basic. I’m also slowly learning that I’m allowed to have feelings, that they are human qualities and needs. I must accept that I’m human, though my experiences of being human have been far from delightful. That’s why it’s so important to keep going deeply into the devastation inside and acknowledge it, not only accept the truth of it, but really allow myself to understand that I have indeed been devastated by it, by the lack of affection in my upbringing and by the sexual abuse, and every other abusive situation I’ve landed in. The choices I’d made in order to survive as a child, and all the choices since, have gotten me to the point I’m at today, and excavating and understanding the dynamic behind them is the solution to changing how I react and live my continuing journey.

Though I understand now that I was desperately needy as a child, I mostly recall the bubble of numbness where most of my childhood was spent, my needs dulled and untapped. I realize that I needed love and affection then and I need it now; and although those needs were rarely acknowledged, I’m learning that in order to become a full-fledged human being I must wake them up. I must learn to give to myself, but I also need to learn to accept from others. I deserve, just as every human being deserves, the experiences of being human. We all deserve access to our highest potential. I deserve the praise, the thanks, and the well-meaning gestures of recognition, so that I may fully access the meaning of my own life. I must accept that it’s okay to be happy with my accomplishments, and that it’s okay to FEEL. All of these things are part of making me real.

My second book ends as I go deeper still and tussle with the demon energies of fear, and the demon voices of negativity and control that had dominated me my whole life. It ends on a glorious note, but I had to go even deeper still. The journey would not be over for another year. There were many more moments of pain and fear to be encountered and there were, increasingly, moments of illuminating insight as well. I gained balance as the two—fear and illumination—accompanied me deeper still. I gained a greater understanding of my abusive childhood, what it meant to me as a human being and a spiritual being. I understood why I had to take the deeper journey within. I began to see the greater meaning of all life, understanding that I would have to take the same painful journey repeatedly unless I was willing to put a stop to the endless cycles of living and dying. Like Dante’s pilgrim I had to pass through my own nine circles of hell and see my life for what it really is—realized without ego and without shame, for they were burned in the fires too—a journey of the utmost importance.

We too will transform and rise one day... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We too will transform and rise one day… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

I believe that at some point we are all ready to take the deeper journey within, into our darkness, and that we will be ready then to encounter all that lies waiting for us there. It will be frightening, and we will have to “abandon all hope” as Dante writes, in order to truly be open to what will eventually bring us new life. Only in burning off all that I once thought was meaningful and important was I able to discover what was truly meaningful and important: accepting that my human self is taking a most meaningful journey through life itself, within and without.

I emerged after my three-year long journey, like Dante’s pilgrim, to be greeted by a star-studded sky, released from all that had once pained and frightened me. Cleansed by the fires of my own inferno, I rose like the phoenix from the ashes a new human being, my spirit reignited. I had been reborn into this human life.

And the journey continues,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Parent Child Dreaming

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Getting lost in the confusion... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Getting lost in the confusion… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

I dream. I am with a father and his son, meeting at a busy intersection where two highways intersect. We have to walk a long way to get where we are going. The child is young, about four or five, and I’m aware that it’s too far for him to walk. I find an old metal lounge chair on wheels in a ditch, pull it out, and set it up for the child. I intend to push him. The father wants to lie down and be pushed. “No,” I say, “it’s for the child.” Every time he attempts to lie down on the chair I yell at him. “No, stand up! It’s for the child.”

Next I dream that Chuck and I are at a restaurant with a young couple who have two young children, ages two and four. We have taken the kids to the bathroom and are just returning to the table with the two kids, now naked. As soon as the parents see the naked kids they reject them. “That’s not my kid!” the mother says. “He’s not mine. I don’t want him, he’s not my kid.” She is adamant, as is the father who also pipes up, “Those aren’t our kids, we don’t want them.”

I am stunned when I hear this because of course the kids belong to them. I also see that the two kids are deeply affected by this rejection by the parents. They are hurt, but they also don’t understand. How can they not be acceptable to their own parents? What have they done to deserve this? Nothing; they are innocent. This rejection is painful to behold. I see that the pain of the children is deep. “I don’t care what you think,” I say to the parents, leaning in close. “Even if you are going to reject your children, don’t ever let them hear you say that!” The parents are unaffected. They will not accept their children. Chuck and I stand there wondering what we’ll do now, but try as we might we just cannot convince the parents that these are their very own children. They continue to deny them, speaking loudly so that all in the restaurant can hear. The two children sit at the table looking lost, confused, and clearly in deep pain. These are inner world dreams, confronting the roles and dynamics of the inner parent and the inner child, how to be fully adult and accepting of our true innocence without fear and judgment.

Our role as responsible inner adult may have to go through several phases of development. And just as our childhood asked most of us to withstand some kind of rejection and confusion from our own parents, and from life itself, so does our inner child have to endure the same from us. We might have to be a rejecting inner parent before we can become the gentle and loving parent we are capable of. We might have to become a stern, judging parent before we can become a totally accepting nonjudgmental parent. But no matter what our process entails, in order to become wholly reconciled beings, we must achieve balance between these two personalities that dominate our inner world.

The process of achieving balance will most likely entail something like the dynamics in my dreams. We must accept that we are both the parent and the child. If I were a child, would I want to be treated like that? What kind of parent do I want to be?

We must keep in mind that the child, at its core, is innocent, unaware of the greater world and so what happens to the child is largely a mystery and a puzzle that must somehow be coped with and made sense of. With its limited capacities and knowledge of how the world works, the child will not necessarily have the resources to understand and so conclusions may be misconstrued or downright false. Ruled by feelings and emotions the child seeks only to return as quickly as possible to a state of equilibrium and safety, skewed though that state may be. And so the child is protected by its innocence in one way, but its innocence also makes it extremely vulnerable as well.

We must keep in mind that the parent, at its core, is just trying to figure life out. As adults we know that we had to find our way in the world all on our own. For no matter what kind of upbringing we had, we each had to go out into the world and encounter and live our own separate lives. We had to learn to be responsible for ourselves in a world that was often rejecting, judgmental, and unkind. We had to learn what it meant to be an adult. When we had children of our own we had to learn what it meant to be a parent. Life does not come with an owner’s manual, it has to be lived to be learned. Whether we have birthed our own children or not, does not matter, we all have an inner parent inside us somewhere, just as we all have an inner child inside too. We have all experienced childhood and we have all experienced adulthood first hand. For true reconciliation of our inner world, we must all become our own parents, both our own mother and our own father.

Inner and outer world are equally real... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Inner and outer world are equally real… – Photo by Jan Ketchel

The inner parent must be held accountable for its position of responsibility if we are to heal and evolve, if we are to achieve wholeness in our lifetime. The inner parent must be like the adult I was in my first dream, and say, “No, this is for the child,” as we protect and care for the inner child, appropriately attending to its real needs. When we slip into childish behavior and neediness, our inner parent must speak up and say, “You are the adult, so be one!” I saw clearly in that dream that the child was unfit for the long walk and I found appropriate means to remedy the situation. In my maternal role, however, I encountered the father who sought to be taken care of like a child, when another caring adult arrived and took over. Perhaps I should not have remedied the situation for him, but made him responsible for taking care of his own child to begin with, but my dream did not go that way. It was showing me something else. When someone outside of us takes over, we may very easily fall back into a regressive place, ignoring our own inner child’s real needs, abdicating our parental role of responsibility.

Just as acceptance of our innocence is crucial in achieving wholeness, so is the adult role. The adult self must be firmly established as the one who makes the decisions, fairly and judiciously, with the child’s interests in mind. Even those who have never had the joys and pains of parenting in real life, must face the same dilemmas that all parents face when presented with their inner child. Parenting is a daunting and frightening task and we all want to do a good job. We only have so much time to pour all we wish for our real children into them before they go out into the world. Our time with them is relatively short. The inner parent child relationship, however, has the advantage of longevity. We are together for a lifetime, perhaps even many.

At some point we must face our dual roles as our own parent and our own child. We must do the work of raising our inner child by becoming the loving and compassionate parent that we are all capable of being. We have the opportunity to get it right, even if our own parents didn’t get it right, for having been a child we know what the child needs and we know what we would like in a parent.

In the second dream, the parents reject their children outright. This does not bode well, but I am gifted with the child’s innocence in this dream, for I experience it quite palpably. The child’s reaction to the rejection by the parents is clearly felt, so easy to read. And so we must ask ourselves: Am I as rejecting of my inner child as these heartless parents are? Again I have an adult role in this dream, observer and teacher, and once again I call the adults to the carpet. “Be good parents, even if you have to fake it,” is really what I’m saying. “Just because your children are naked, their innocence exposed, don’t reject them.” Don’t reject your own innocence, in other words, for that is where the deepest issues lie, in what our innocent child self has been bearing, or baring.

These two dreams contain many more sublayers, but my point today is to impart how critical it is that as evolving spiritual beings we reconcile our inner dilemmas. We must be loving adults and parents to our inner children. We must be able to decipher the difference between regression states and states of innocence and real need. Our inner children may present us with just as many difficult situations as our real children do, and so we are asked to be good parents in our inner world, just as we are asked to be in our outer world.

Sometimes we must be firm before we can be soft. Sometimes our inner child must scream to be heard. Sometimes we must fail before we can make some progress. It’s just how life is, inner and outer life.

The inner world is as real as the outer world, as impacting and as important to our lives now as in the future. And so, if we continue to go deeper into our inner world, and resolve the issues of reality there, then our outer world issues will naturally resolve as well. And don’t forget to look closely at dreaming life, for dreams are part of the inner process, offering very personal, as well as universal, nightly guidance.

Seeking balance, parenting and innocent too,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Are We All Just Living The Same Life?

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We're all in the same golden universe, aren't we? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We’re all in the same golden universe, aren’t we? – Photo by Jan Ketchel

A year ago, during this first week in February, I was at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. A dear relative lay dying. She had asked me to be with her. I got there at 9:20 in the morning. “Let’s do it,” she said, and then she closed her eyes. She didn’t open them or speak again. She died at 9:20 that night. Nonetheless, she was energetically present, in full awareness the entire time.

I sat beside her during those twelve hours, whispering in her ear, both guarding her energy and guiding her to take her journey. Many doors opened for both of us that day. I sat on the threshold of each door as she passed through. Our lives intermingled. Sometimes I was the person in the bed dying and she was guarding and guiding. Sometimes she was my mother, my father, my child, my sister, my brother, my lover. Sometimes I was her daughter, her mother, her father, her sister, her brother, her lover.

We lived through many lives that day, easily flowing in and out of them, reliving experiences and relationships, without attachment letting everything go. As each door opened we said our goodbyes at the threshold, fully aware that we had done this so many times before, with exactly the same intent and awareness, unafraid of death, knowing that it led only to new life and new adventures. Finally, I sat back and told her it was time to go the rest of the way alone. I would be present to witness, but it was time for her to take over. She had done her life well, her journey here was done, she could leave anytime she was ready. I kissed her one last time, let her hand go, and sat quietly beside her. Shortly thereafter, without a backward glance, she leapt into the light of new life.

Even so, I have a sense of her energetic presence in my life still. Though we completed many relationships in this world on that day, we began a new relationship too. Since her passing, I have continued to honor her each week on her death day; for all that she gifted me, for who she was, for taking her journey like the strong, independent being she always was, for continuing to guide me. I feel her energy the same way I feel Jeanne’s energy—Jeanne, a being who did not know me in this world, who nonetheless connected with me in the same fashion as someone who did know me well and who I knew very well too.

I hear from people all the time. People report that my experiences are their experiences, that my life parallels theirs, that my story is their story. I have thoughts coursing through my head that belong to the petty tyrants in my life, thoughts that I’ve long ago detached myself from, yet they return unbidden, asking for my attention. I wake up and find that I have dreamed the same dream as Chuck, that we hear words spoken when neither of us has opened our mouths. We often hear music playing in our house, old-timey music—a jukebox playing jazz, swing, the blues—when there is no one else in the house and no music being played. I have walked through glitches in the universe and experienced scenes from the past, sometimes as a participant and sometimes as an observer. Like a spy, I have entered parallel universes in energetic awareness and returned awed and shaken.

I am you and you are me. - Photo by Jan Ketchel
I am you and you are me. – Photo by Jan Ketchel

And so, I wonder, are we all just living the same life? Are we all dreaming the same dream? Are your thoughts my thoughts? Are all experiences in constant flow, being relived again and again? Are the air molecules that we’re breathing in and out today the same air molecules once breathed in and out by dinosaurs and wooly mammoths, Buddha and Jesus, by Lincoln and George Washington, by Carl Jung and Carlos Castaneda? This is an interesting question that has been circulating for some time now. Are we all the same energy, the same being? Are we all living each other’s lives?

When I once asked Jeanne how she was able to use her energy now, how she could be in so many places at once, helping so many people, she described it as being like an exploding roman candle, like fireworks bursting, one candle opening into many other candles, sparkles of light and energy, an endless array of energy free to go in any direction. Intent, she said, was the catalyst.

I’m aware how intent works; that it’s available in both positive and negative form, for both giving and taking. We might set a conscious intent to be more open, kind and loving, or we might unconsciously set an intent to retreat, to be depressed and angry. Perhaps we’ve tapped into someone else’s intent. We might be living a universal intent, a political intent, an energetic intent not our own. We might be caught unaware by intent that is flowing through the universe that is negative or downright evil.

As I sat beside my dying relative last year, I very strongly experienced the intent of energy as it flows through the universe, falling now here and now there, giving and taking, yet always moving on to new experiences. And so I sense that now again, as I ponder where we are now, as the world continues to progress in the direction it is going. If my personal experiences are anything to go on, I believe that we are all the same, that indeed we are one being and we’re all having the same experiences. We live them over and over again until we don’t need them anymore. When we finally take leave of this earth for the last lifetime, and our energy rejoins the source from which it came, we discover that we are not who we thought we were. Our individuality that we are all so attached to is, at that point, revealed for what it is: a myth. Our ego is not where we reside; our energy is.

And yet, that being said, it’s of the utmost importance how we choose to live our lives. How we choose to live every day of every life, no matter who we are, is critical—because our choices impact all of us. If my energy is also your energy, if my breath is also your breath, if my thoughts are also your thoughts, then the responsibility lies heavily upon me to make sure that what flows out of me is good, healthy, positive, healing, and loving energy. If my experiences are your experiences, it behovs me greatly to make sure that I resolve my internal difficulties—my anger, my pain, my negativity and my judgments—so that you need not suffer. If my intent is to spiritually evolve then that too is your intent. It’s this kind of energetic awareness that is so badly needed now. I believe it’s how we can all be part of a changing world.

These are just some of the thoughts I woke up with today, thoughts that have been circulating through me for a long time. Did they come from you? Wherever they came from, they’re out there, and they flow through others as well. If more of us pay attention to them, quell those old negative voices that say, “Oh, that can’t be true,” and just let it be true for even a little while we may offer someone else the opportunity to not just sit on the threshold to new thoughts and ideas, but actually dare to leap—with full awareness—into a new and changing world too.

Letting your thoughts flow through me,
Jan

Jan's Blog

A Day in a Life: Omens Of Crow Magic & Energy

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Why is crow calling? -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Why is crow calling? -Photo by Jan Ketchel

It’s Monday morning, early, still dark. I awaken to the sounds of crows. The sun has perhaps risen, but it’s cloudy and I have no sense of the dawn, yet the crows are calling, already wide awake. Their harsh cries penetrate the darkness. I sense them close to the house, ominous in their intensity. I wonder what they portend. My immediate reaction is negative. Is someone going to die? Is this the dark energy that Jeanne messaged about last week and that I’m supposed to turn away from?

Chuck and I sit and have our coffee by the fire, the door of the wood stove open so we can enjoy a quick blast of heat. I try to settle into the coziness of this winter morning, a dream still fresh, buzzing through my body, an old dream. It’s startling to me that I’ve dreamed of being in old crumbling warehouses, trying to get a baby to safety, a dominant dream theme of my recapitulation. I wonder why I’m back there. Again, I hear the crows.

“The crows are so loud!” I remark.

The morning progresses and still I hear the crows, so many, so close, so loud. What does it mean? Now they’re in the trees of the front yard. I see them in the field across the street pecking at the frozen ground. I hear them calling from the woods in the backyard, loud and insistent. Eventually, I push their energy aside, detaching as instructed by Jeanne last week, and sit down to channel a new message from Jeanne.

This week’s message is quite different from last week’s I think, speaking of positive energy and attaching to it, as opposed to last week’s, which admonished being aware of the energy as negative and largely seeking sustenance for its own purposes. Don’t attach, was the message then.

As I finish the message I notice the crows again. They’re swooping in close to the house now. Startled, I suddenly understand. They’re looking for food. The weather is ominous, not the crows, who are only looking for the crumbs of bread I leave for them on a large flat stone in the front yard. They call to each other. “Yes,” they seem to be saying. “She left us food! Come and get it!”

In abruptly switching my perspective regarding the crows, I accept the positive aspects of the energy of the day as relayed in the message from Jeanne. As I change my perspective I notice how relieved I become. I shed my fears and tension and I am no longer attached to the idea of crow energy as dark energy today.

For the most part I know crow energy is good energy, that crow brings messages of transformation and new life, that they are magical. But do I remember this, even for more than a few minutes? No! Because before long several enormous crows swoop through the front yard. I notice them, sweeping back and forth, as I sit and type up the channeled message. Each time I catch a glimpse of their large black wings, cut at such an angle as to appear threatening and ominous again, I startle. I get drawn right back into an old place and fear takes over. I can’t help but shake a little and wonder once again what they’re doing here so close, so many, so big, so threatening.

Magical Crow -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Magical Crow -Photo by Jan Ketchel

A blue jay swoops down to snatch some crumbs of bread from the stone. Immediately a crow swoops in after it, chasing it off so that it flies with a loud SMACK right into the window. I jump! And then I have to stop myself, I have to laugh. This is just what Jeanne’s message is about, not taking this energy of this day in a negative, fearful way, but in a positive way. And so I calm myself and shake off the energy that seeks attachment. In this moment I’m aware that even though last week’s message and this week’s message appear to be quite the opposite they are really saying the same thing: Be aware of how you perceive the energy in your life, what comes to you, and how you react to it.

Jeanne’s message this week says that life cannot help but evolve, life cannot help but flow. And so I see the crows and the blue jay as life in action, unstoppable. Nature has no problems acquiescing to the moment, to now. Nature does not fear what comes next. Nature does not hesitate to go for what it needs, when it needs it. And so I know I must learn this from nature. From my own abilities to channel I know how to flow with nature, how to detach from my thoughts and let nature flow through me uninhibited.

I realize I’m being challenged in my dream to be fully aware that it’s a very old dream. I’m being challenged by the crows and the jays to notice how old negative thoughts are so easily conjured. I’m being challenged to heed the warnings of my unconscious as it asks me to notice that change really is constant. I’m being asked if I’m going to flow with it, or am I going to keep feeding those old perspectives old notions of an old reality. Am I going to finally free myself of the stuff that I no longer need, that in fact I’ve really already detached from by fully putting it to rest?

I’ve been hard at work editing the final draft of my next book and so I’m aware that I’m rehashing and sifting through old stuff, my second year of intense recapitulation. And so I get the message of my dream, prompting me to take a good look at just how much work I did, and to face the complete truth of it, attempting to startle me by taking me into an old place, to alert me to the fact that I don’t need to run around in old crumbling buildings anymore. There is nothing to attach to there. There are no more babies to save. It’s time to get out of the old dreams and move into the new dreams already in progress. I’m aware that as we move forward in life, daring ourselves to take the next step, old things come to pull us back, seeking to keep us in old comfortable and comforting places, places that are unhealthy, unnecessary, and unevolving. It’s just the nature of the human struggle.

As I put these thoughts down, it begins to snow. Another winter storm has arrived. Nature doing what nature does. I am thankful for the messages from my unconscious, from my dream world, and from Jeanne, all in alignment with the energy of now, which states: Just keep going—whether the energy you sense is negative or positive, whether you feel pulled in an old direction, whether you feel stuck in old thoughts or ideas, whether you feel sad or lonely, fearful or apathetic—just keep moving and changing, looking always for the silver lining, the truth, a new perspective. And that’s what I take with me into this week.

Stay connected to the magic in every moment... -Photo by Jan Ketchel
Stay connected to the magic in every moment… -Photo by Jan Ketchel

No matter where I am, I must constantly pull myself back to the moment, to the present, reassessing my evolutionary journey, knowing that as a being of energetic potential I am responsible for getting myself out of old places, as Jeanne suggests in her messages. I’ve learned the power of the mind to control and I’ve experienced the mind totally free. I look around me now on this day and know which I prefer.

I know how to read energy, we all do. It’s just a matter of constantly checking in with our own energy, questioning what makes us feel energetically alive, and what makes us feel energetically dead, what makes us feel good and what makes us feel bad. And that’s what Jeanne’s trying to teach us to do, feel our own energy, so we can really understand that although her messages over the past two weeks at first appear to be the opposite of each other, in reality they are exactly the same.

Watch your personal energy, guard it closely and let it guide you. Learn to flow with your life the same way that nature flows. Let life flow to you and take you on your journey. Let life make the most of you, as Jeanne says, just as one day flows into the next, night into day and then into night again. Our choice is in how we want to live, and so as each snowflake falls I look at it from a new perspective and shed some attachment that I no longer need. For I am certain that we are all evolving beings.

Love,
Jan

Here is an excerpt from Animal Speak by Ted Andrews regarding crows. I think it very nicely sums up my experience and Jeanne’s messages to us all: The cawing out of the crow should remind us that magic and creation are cawing out to us every day.