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.
I sit on my meditation pillow and do the sweeping breath; exhaling, emptying of breath while turning my head to the right, breathing in while moving my head to the left, and then holding my breath while I sweep my head back to the right again. I do this over and over again, sweeping back and forth in an effort to recapture the dream I had last night. I have most of it, but there are a few details that I want clarified. The shamanic sweeping breath, the recapitulation breath, works like EMDR to capture experiences, dream and otherwise.
In my dream I am planting a garden. Chuck is with me. We have prepared everything according to what we feel is good for the earth, for the soil, imbuing everything with our intent to do it right so that everything we plant will feel welcomed and loved and provide us with sustenance and nurturance in return. Now it is time to put the seeds into the ground. I am standing with my cupped hands full of seeds. I am looking at them intently, knowing that I have done everything to prepare for this moment, but still I am aware that something is missing.
Ethereal Light
Chuck is standing next to me, also looking at the seeds in my hands, both of us trying to figure out what it is we have forgotten. Suddenly there is a loud crack and the pile of seeds is emblazoned with energy. They glow with a vibrant ethereal light and then I know that this is what is missing, the energy of Mother Nature beyond what we personally could intend. At the same time I am startled awake, because the loud crack was, in reality, a powerful jolt of lightning and thunder that rumbles on and on, Mother Nature, the earth reminding us of her power.
“It sounds like an earthquake shaking the earth apart,” Chuck said, as we lay awake listening to its insistent rumblings, the significance of this statement highlighting the truth of what has been happening lately in Japan and other parts of the world. As we fell back to sleep I thought about writing the dream down so I didn’t lose it, but I chose instead to replay it over and over again in my mind so I could more readily remember it in the morning. Alas there was something missing when I woke up too, just as I knew there was something missing as I stared at the seeds in my hands during the dream experience itself.
Doing the sweeping breath helps clarify the intent of the dream, which I am aware, is teaching me something important. What I remember now is that at the moment of the crack of thunder I was aware that I was as the tiny seeds in my hands, that no matter what I personally did it was the energy of Mother Nature, in all of us, that would determine the outcome of my garden. It is important to prepare for life, for planting, making preparations according to what is in alignment with what is right, but it is hubris on our part to think that we can control anything. It is important to be an active participant in life, but the truth is that the energy of life, of nature, is unstoppable.
This is what I also understood as I lay in the dark listening to the thunder rolling and cracking open the silence of the night. In all that I have been writing about lately—pointing out the decisions that we have all taken and that we are all responsible for, whether we agree with them or not—in the end, the one who will determine our fate will be the Earth itself. Mother Nature holds the real power.
We are but seeds scattered upon the soil, we fall were we fall. We must each one of us find our way with where we have landed in this life. Some of us live in the richest country in the world, in a material sense. Some live in a country with a belief in the richness of Mother Nature, Pachamama, as I mentioned in a note yesterday regarding Brazil’s law of equality, granting nature and all living things equal status with humanity. How is it possible that such diverse and drastically different attitudes exist? On the one hand our own country of America continues making decisions to ravage and destroy the earth in an effort to uphold our standard of living, while another country seeks to return to ancient alignment with the earth. The truth is that Brazil too has ravaged the earth, but now seeks to return to ancient alignment and identity with nature. Something powerful is being expressed in turning to this other truth that lies at the heart of our human presence upon this earth.
As in my dream, something is asking us to pause now and question what we have done. We are at a crucial moment in our time, but synchronistically in the time of all living things. We must all ask what is missing. What is it that we have not done to prepare, what is not right here? What have we forgotten?
Mother Nature has the answers. As we see happening in Japan, in Arizona where fracking for natural gas has unleashed earthquakes deep inside the earth, in the tragic truths of gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, mother nature is responding, even as she did in the night as I dreamed. I take the synchronicity of that loud crack of thunder at the moment I was dreaming very seriously. I also see its synchronicity in all that I have been reading and writing about recently, in the wake of national and international events and discussions regarding how we all treat the earth.
Even as I was wondering in my dream what was missing from my own little effort to do something earth-sustaining, taking personal responsibility for growing some of my own food, nature herself spoke loudly and clearly, reminding me of her powerful presence in my life and in all life as well. She is life and she has something to say. We all need to listen.
I don’t mean to be preachy nor do I wish to impose my personal beliefs. I think we must all come to what feels right for us personally, but at the same time I do strongly feel that it would be amiss to not point out the synchronicities all around us. I truly believe that Pachamama must be treated with respect and awe—not simply granted equality with humankind, though this is a good start—because she is far more powerful than we are. This is the truth I learned in my dream.
I am just one little seed, sending you all love and good wishes.
Jan
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post comments, photos, and quotes.
I ponder the world as illusion. While channeling Jeanne’s message on Monday, I reached a personal moment of enlightenment when I grasped the idea that the inner world and the outer world are the same, that both are real and both are illusion. Carl Jung once noted that the inner world was as real or perhaps more real than the outer world. This has always been my experience, more of an inner world person than an outer world person. What I experienced in that moment of enlightenment on Monday was, from a shamanic point of view, a shift in the assemblage point, a shift in perception. This is when the world, as we know it, suddenly falls away and everything is seen and perceived differently. When this happens we are in another reality, “seeing” the world as it truly is, in shamanic terms, seeing the world as energy. So with that in mind, holding onto the idea that both worlds are real and illusory at the same time, I went into my week.
On Tuesday, I sat down to meditate in my favorite spot, looking out over the trees in the back yard. It was early morning; the sun was beginning to rise, battling the clouds for prominence. I wondered what the day would be like, rain or sun? I meditate with my eyes open. I softened my gaze as I did my breathing exercises, holding onto the out-breath ever so slightly in an attempt to linger a moment in emptiness and detach from thinking. Eventually, by focusing on slowly breathing in and out, I reached an in-between stage, where the outside world dissolved into a blurred picture and the inner world went quiet. This is a moment of shift in the assemblage point.
Sometimes I can stay suspended in this in-between space for a few seconds, sometimes longer. It’s as if my awareness is a thin sheet of glass, suspended between these two normal states of reality. I say thin, because invariably something will interfere to bring me back and then both the inner world of thought and the outer world of everyday reality come snapping back into sharp focus again. On Tuesday it was a flock of crows flying into the backyard that broke through the thin veneer of glass.
“Oh, here come the shamans, come to distract,” I thought. “Don’t attach.” And the glass immediately shattered as I watched the crows land in the trees right at eye level.
“Don’t attach,” I said again, softening my gaze. As I did so, I noticed that the crows literally dissolved as the glass pulled up between the two worlds again, which obviously was enough to pull me right back to thinking, to trying to grasp what I was experiencing. Of course, I wanted to check out if the crows were indeed still in the trees. So I looked directly at the treetops and yes, there were the crows sitting right where they had been.
“Okay,” I thought. “The crows are like these thoughts, flying into my mind and I must learn to let them go. I must learn to detach.” Again, I softened my gaze; focused on breathing, telling myself to let them fly past, just like the thoughts that were interfering.
“Even if those thoughts are attempting to grasp at this awakening experience I am having, it does not matter, let them go,” I said as I pushed everything away: thoughts, crows, trees, the inner and outer world.
“Just let it all go,” I whispered and, as the scenario played out, the thoughts flew away, the crows dissolved, and the thin sheet of shift, the glass, reappeared. I hung again in a moment of shift of the assemblage point, in inner silence, as the shamans call it, in nothingness, ever so briefly.
So, what did I learn during this experience? First of all, I experienced a volitional shift of the assemblage point, changing my perception of reality using a tried and true method: by meditation. Secondly, I saw the crows of thought and illusion dissolve into energy. If the crows are thoughts and thoughts belong to my inner world, I was able to underscore the moment of enlightenment I’d reached on Monday that the inner world and the outer world are both real and both illusion.
As I pondered this idea further, I thought about how thoughts are present only in the mind. In fact, they do not exist except in the mind, but they have the chance to become real when given form. In creative endeavors, as we paint, sculpt, dance, put them down in words and musical notes, as we write what we think, imagine, and discover, they manifest in this world of reality, no longer illusion but real. But until that manifestation they are illusion. These thoughts I now transcribe, though they existed in my mind, remained illusion until expressed in this form. They flew around in my head like those crows outside the window, seemingly real but not necessarily so, until this moment of landing, assembling into a long string of words that, hopefully, make sense.
I understand, in one sense, that my inner world, as real and important as it is to me, does not exist. And yet, I admit that it is extremely necessary, offering me the means to evolve, so I accept that my inner reality does exist. Even those very real crows existed one moment, but in the next dissolved, as I shifted my assemblage point so that the world of normal perception, reality, ceased to exist. At the same time, however, both the inner world and the outer world do exist; they are notches on the assemblage point. They are equally real, but equally illusion. But the thing to note is that our true awareness lies somewhere between or beyond those worlds, in the silence of that veneer of glass that is so hard to stay in. Does this make sense?
What I am getting at is that we all have these experiences. Our thoughts are simply thoughts, non-existent, present as energy inside us. If we can view them as such, we may be able to understand the idea of everything as illusion, but also as energy. When we hone that energy into something else, our thoughts become something different. They become tangible, expressed in forms that others can grasp, our personal experiences of illusion, of inner energy manifested.
Can we see the outside world in similar terms? The shamans say that our conjuring minds are responsible for the world of reality. We are taught from birth to see the world in a fixed position, and yet we all have had experiences of shifts in reality at some time or other in our lives, as Jeanne asked us to note in her message the other day. If thoughts are illusion, conjured by our mind, made manifest in the outer world, is not then the world of reality, conjured by this same universal mind, illusion as well? If everything we experience as reality at one time existed as thought, it stands that it can also dissolve back into its original energy form of thought, and thus, illusion.
As I sat and played with this idea the other day, dissolving the crows out of the trees one minute and placing them back in the trees the next I got it again, just how illusory the world is. My thoughts are nothing, the crows are nothing, I am nothing, but we are all energy. If we can hang just a little bit longer in that thin slip of world between the two illusions we may experience this sense of self as energy.
And why would we do this? As we shift our assemblage point, as we see differently, as our worlds dissolve, as we hold onto our awareness, we begin to train ourselves for the moment of death. This is what the Buddhists do, what the shamans do; they train their awareness for the moment of death. They learn how to hold onto awareness, how to stay connected to awareness of the self as energy so that, at the moment of death, they do not get caught in the illusions. They seek to hone the skills of awareness, so that they do not get caught in grasping, needing, desiring, in sadness or yearning for this world, which they have learned is but illusion.
According to these ancient disciplines, of Buddhism and shamanism, this is what we are here to learn. We are here to free ourselves from the endless cycles of being caught in the illusion that this is all there is. We are offered, with each new life, the opportunity to experience the moments of awakening to our true nature as energetic beings. This is what Jeanne was describing and asking us to note in her message.
Take note of the moments when the illusions of reality disappear, those aha moments when we experience life differently. These are the moments to keep striving for, to string together, until we fully grasp their significance and can volitionally return to them again and again. We must seek the space of thin veneer between worlds and thicken it so that we can stay in it longer. We must seek our true awareness and set it free in that in-between place; because that is what we will need to recall and hold onto at the moment of death.
The cool thing is that we are offered plenty of those moments of enlightenment now, in our present lives, in our present worlds. Try it. It’s fun!
Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes.
In awareness,
Jan
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post daily comments and quotes.
The world has grown larger in the past couple of centuries as we have gone beyond our villages and towns, beyond our states and countries, as we have sailed and flown to foreign parts and discovered other villages, towns, and countries. Hopefully, we have learned that the people in those other countries are just like us; flesh and blood, with feelings, emotions, likes and dislikes; that they also love certain things about life; that they love their children, husbands and wives; that they too are fallible and make mistakes just as we do. Hopefully, we have gained a broader view of humanity as a whole and now understand the greater interconnectedness of all things and that we are all responsible for what happens on our planet no matter where we live. Hopefully, we have learned that we are all the same in so many ways, because now may be the time for us to return to our villages and towns and countries, taking with us all that we have learned. Now may be the time for us to utilize what we have learned, for all humanity.
With the crisis in Japan the world has changed. We must accept this fact. We must figure out how we want to live now that we can no longer rely on trade with Japan to support our abundant lifestyles. Our cars must come from within our own borders, our food must be local, our responsibility to the entire world rests on us all making changes that are good for the Earth. We must not only change our personal lives, but we must pressure our governments to change as well, to be a part of the greater world without a doubt, but to make decisions that take into consideration the larger global picture that we have a greater understanding of now that we have all become world explorers. But it is time for the explorers to take what has been learned and, with that new knowledge firmly grasped, return home and change.
So how can we personally change? How can we as individuals make progress toward changing the way things are done? We can start with mindfulness. In the Buddhist sense, mindfulness is staying present in the moment, in as many moments as possible throughout the day. It is being mindful of how we walk, how we eat, how we talk. It is being mindful of how we drive, how we spend our time, how we think. It is being mindful of how we love, how we give, how we receive. It is being mindful of what we choose to look at, read, and allow into our bodies. It is being mindful of our thoughts, judgments, criticisms of our self and others. It is being mindful of our intents, our prayers, our desires. In essence, being mindful is being aware, and being aware of ourselves in the world is how we can be mindful of how we can change.
In practical terms, we must first accept that we are all living in Japan now. Our world has changed. That is the first thing we must take into consideration as we turn and study our personal responsibilities to this changed world. How can I mindfully be present and aware?
“Most of the time, we are lost in the past or carried away by the future. When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace, and love.” So writes Thich Nhat Hanh in The Long Road Turns to Joy, A Guide to Walking Meditation.
I propose meditation in everyday life, in constantly reminding the self to be present, as the means of gaining greater awareness of ourselves in the world and greater awareness of what we must do to change and flow with the energy of nature, now guiding us in this process of change. This does not have to be anything more than reminding the self to focus on each task that we do, to do it mindfully. Personally, I try to be mindful from the moment I wake up. I am not always successful, since it is impossible to be mindful every moment of every day, but the more often I pull my thoughts back to what I am doing the more I am able to be present. Each one of those tiny moments of presence, of awareness of the moment, adds up. Being mindful throughout the day is really very simple.
When I get out of bed and put my feet onto the floor, I say to myself: I am putting my feet onto the floor. I feel the floor under my feet. I am walking, walking, walking. I am waking up with each step. I am noticing the morning darkness or the morning light. I am walking.
When I make my morning coffee, I say to myself: I am making the coffee. I am running the water, measuring the coffee, thanking the earth for the water, the coffee plantations for the delicious coffee beans. I am staying mindfully focused on what I am doing, turning this process into a mantra as I awaken to a new day mindfully. When I drink my freshly brewed coffee, I say to myself: I am drinking this coffee. I am drinking and feeling each sip I take. I am mindfully drinking my coffee.
As the day goes on, I continue to remind myself to pay attention to what I am doing. When I eat, I say to myself: I am eating now. I am eating this delicious food that someone else has grown and tended and I thank them for it. If I keep thanking and focusing on what I am doing other thoughts easily leave, but they come back quickly, so I must again remind myself of what I am doing. This is practicing mindfulness.
In accepting that we are all personally responsible, as citizens of the world, we can turn to the small things in life as the place to begin making the most changes, having the most impact. As we mindfully go about our day we may discover where we are sloppy with our time and thoughts. We may discover that, as we pay attention to each task, we slow down considerably and in so doing gain not only peaceful moments of calm, but discover that we don’t really need to hurry at all, because we see that in slowing down mindfully we have plenty of time for the things that really matter. And that is the crux of what our world is asking of us now. What really matters?
Mindfulness is awareness of the present moment
“The First Noble Truth,” writes Thich Nhat Hahn, “taught by the Buddha is the presence of suffering. Awareness of suffering generates compassion, and compassion generates the will to practice the Way.” If we are to practice the Way, live mindfully in balance with nature, inner and outer nature, we must be aware of suffering. Right now there is suffering in Japan, in the Middle East, and in our own countries there is suffering every day.
We can mindfully remind ourselves of this by saying: I am aware of the suffering in Japan. I am aware of the suffering as the wars in the Middle East are waged. I am aware of the suffering in my own backyard. I feel this suffering. I accept the truth of suffering. I know what it means to suffer too. I now turn my heart outward and send compassion on the wings of intent. I am mindful of my power to change and to change the world by my intent.
This is mindful living. Try it.
Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes.
In mindfulness,
Jan
If you wish to correspond, please feel free to post a comment below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page at: Riverwalker Press on facebook where we post daily comments and quotes.
I dreamed all night about writing this blog, achieving many aha moments as ideas and thoughts came together, as I connected with the bigger picture of who I am, where I am, and what I have to face ahead of me. All of this converged into a big interconnected web of awareness that we are all facing the same issues, the same challenges, the same inner and outer dilemmas. And so it feels right that I explore some guidance I received earlier in the week, as I turned to the Tarot with some requests.
Request for guidance number one was as follows: Please may I pick the card that is most meaningful and important for me to receive on this day as I seek balance and calm knowing in my life. Please direct me to pick the card that is in alignment with my heart’s intent.
Here is the card I picked: The Magus
The Magus
I use the Tarot as a daily guide when I feel the need for clarity, if I am swimming in inner discourse that I cannot quiet, or if I just want to center myself. On Monday, when I sought advice from the Tarot I was mostly interested in grounding myself, in beginning my week fully present. The Magus or Magician “represents the universal principles of communication. The golden figure of Mercury, the winged messenger from Greek mythology, represents communication that is inspired, resilient, and well-timed,” Angeles Arrien writes in The Tarot Handbook: Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols. In addition, the Magician is surrounded by ten tools, each one of them representing a means of communication, suitable for different situations and contexts; the challenge is knowing which tool to use when.
I was immediately struck by this card showing up in my hands, for personal reasons, as well as for our times; for all of us. I have been personally challenged for the past ten years with using language and my personal abilities to communicate in many different ways in the world, to use communication in all of its many forms as a means of growth. On a universal level, I immediately noted that in the time we are in now communication is so easily accessible, we all have so many tools available to us, and lately we have been using them to great advantage. Take the revolutionary situations in the Middle East, largely orchestrated and carried out through the use of modern tools of communication: cell phones and facebook. The fact that we all have these tools puts us in a unique position but also a rather precarious one as well.
We must be more thoughtful than ever, I believe. We must be careful in how we express ourselves and selective in what we say. In order to fully embrace the meaning of the Magician in all of us, we must be in proper alignment with our times, the energy of Mercury that is flowing and firing through us all, asking us to change, to revolt, to grow now beyond any stage we have previously achieved, but it also asks us to do so from a new base, from the spiritually interconnected, heart-centered place we all have within. We all feel the energy of revolution and the speed with which things are happening, but we must stay in alignment with the far greater truth that this kind of energy can destroy us as well as evolve us.
We must be in balance—our timing must be right. Our sense of purpose must be clear and well thought out, from the proper perspective, in alignment with the greater interconnectedness of all things. This is what Chuck and I have been trying to write about in our blogs, what Jeanne conveys in her messages, that we are at a crucial time in the history of the world, that we have more tools available to us for communicating now than ever before, but we must use them wisely, for the right reasons, with commitment to endeavors that evolve us now to a place of understanding, kindness, compassion and love for all human beings and the planet as well.
This is what Arrien says as well: “The Magician organizes communication patterns by picking the appropriate tools or content and combines it will well-timed delivery. Blunt communication is communication which lacks correct timing. Confused communication is communication which lacks appropriate content, yet may be well-timed in delivery but poorly organized. The wizard-like quality of the Magician is to artfully combine good timing with clear content and appropriate context.” I believe this is the challenge for all of us now. The truth must be spoken, the revolutions must be waged, the world must change, but all of this must be done properly now. We may not have another chance to get it right.
My second request was for guidance related to all of us, especially the readers of these blogs. I asked for clarity on how what I personally write is being received and what I must be aware of as I continue to express myself in this very public forum. I asked that this guidance show me where we all are now, as we take in the truths of the world and as we grasp the deeper meaning. What must we be aware of next?
Here is the card I received: The Five of Wands: Strife
Strife
Strife, as Arrien writes, “is the symbol of the state of strife, anxiety or frustration. Anxiety is an energetic experience caused by holding back… It is the state of having abundant energy but not knowing what to do with that energy, or it’s a lot of energy that’s being contained or held back, which will produce anxiety or the state of strife… The astrological aspect that’s represented on this symbol is Saturn in Leo. Saturn is the planet of discipline, of knowing what your limits and boundaries are and being able to set limits and boundaries. Saturn is the planet that reminds us to do things step-by-step. Leo is the astrological sign of creative power that does not want to be limited, restricted or restrained, and desires full expression.”
So here I see the direct correlation to the Magician card in the energy that is now present, the energy that is revolutionary, in us all, asking to be expressed, allowed to live. Yet we are also held back by old patterns of behavior and what we have yet to face about ourselves, personally, as a nation and a world. We are asked to set limits, which in one sense can offer us the sobriety of thoughtfulness, leading to proper timing, yet also adds frustration to the mix. In holding back we build up anger and tension, which may block our availability to our true knowing, to awareness that is growth-oriented for all of us.
We must be careful as we go into the next five weeks and months, as we face our truths and the world’s truths, as we release old patterns of anxiety and frustration within ourselves and in the revolutions now taking place outside of us. In addition, our energy may get stuck in the frustration of this tension, which sets up the potential for problems and we must be aware that we can easily fall back into old patterns and old complacencies. Even while we bask in this energy, it may be difficult to fully access its power properly.
As Arrien writes: “Any holding back or self limitation will move you into that state in alchemy which was known as leaded consciousness. Leaded consciousness is symbolically represented by the greyed-over areas of this symbol. The lotus blossoms are grey, which means that in states of anxiety you have difficulty in opening or unfolding.”
“In the next five weeks or in the next five months would be a good time to move towards creative endeavors where you feel that you can express yourself fully instead of binding and restricting yourself in any way… This symbol reminds you that in the next five weeks or in the next five months, you are no longer willing to be the lineage bearer of family anxiety patterns.”
This then becomes the challenge to all of us, as the weeks and months unfold, to notice our old patterns of frustration and how we handle them. Are we going to truly change now, embracing this energy in a good and heart-centered manner, or are we going to let the old status quo return and bury us in our inner tensions? Are we truly ready to embrace the power of the energy of these times and change ourselves too, while we watch the rest of the world embrace it, dealing with the strife in all of us?
My third quest for advice revolved around how to deal with people in the world outside of me. How do I apply the energy of the Magus and the power of Strife properly, so that I do not fall into old patterns of personal behavior as regards the people I meet as I elect to change, to take this journey that the energy of this time I live in guides me to take? How do I deal with what comes at me as I seek to transform myself?
Here is the card I pulled this time: Ace of Wands
Ace of Wands
Arrien states: “The Ace of Wands is a symbol of spiritual self-realization, awakening, and is associated with the principle of truth and authenticity… the torch of fire, a symbol of the uncontainable life-force that’s within. The lightning bolts are a symbol of awakening to the spiritual truth and authenticity of who you are… you’ve awakened to the unconscious and irrepressible inherent Being within.”
This card, for me, wraps up the challenges suggested by the two previous cards: we must all stand in and speak our truths. We must be honest and authentic, upholding what we have learned about ourselves as we have journeyed through our lives. We must not hold back who we have evolved into. We know who we are now, and we must fully embrace and become that person. Especially, we must embrace the energy of our times to fully mature into who we have worked so hard to become, but we must balance that energy that wants to burst forth, and declare itself, with the pragmatism and sobriety of the great communicator that resides within us, our ancient spirit self, our knowing wisdom mind, as the Buddhists call it.
As the seers of ancient Mexico will remind us always: we are beings who are going to die, so the question to ask, as we face our death is: How do I want to live?
I feel that these three cards, The Magus, Strife, and The Ace of Wands offer us the balance and guidance we need now, for the times we live in. They offer sobering and at the same time invigorating guidance, encouraging us to stay connected to the energy of life, to plowing ahead, accepting and resolving what we have buried in our pasts that so frustrates and angers us, while we fully embrace our greater potential and our inherent truths. It is time, I believe, for all of us to become more than we have ever dared to become before, but we must do it right.
The tools of communication are not in question; the means are available to all of us. But what we say is of utmost importance, how we say it, and where we elect to speak our truths. We must, I believe, stay in our heart-centered truths, but at all times be mindful of where others are, of the impact our actions, thoughts, and language have. In the media now we hear and read such vitriolic and hateful language, strife between the talking heads, but does it really have any meaning? The same thing can be asked of the language of “the experts” regarding the nuclear disaster in Japan; are they speaking the real truth, or are they “greyed-over” platitudes in an attempt to keep the energy from fully empowering us all now?
We can use these examples by questioning our own speaking tongues, both in our inner world and in the outer world. Are we caught in old patterns of inner and outer strife, in lies that no longer serve us or the energy that is boiling inside us all? It is indeed time to revolt, but it must be done right, both within and without. And you know what, it can’t be stopped. We are in it, we are all responsible for the outcome, as Jeanne mentioned in the most recent message. So the question is, are we going to get it right this time? Everything is available to us, everything is in alignment, everything is already in action.
I awoke from a dream the other morning hearing this: “Yes, good, good,” I heard a voice saying. “You get it, you understand how energy works, you know what you are talking about, but now it is time to not only embrace it and to become it, but to go beyond it.” It’s time for all of us, and the entire world, to go beyond now.
If you wish, feel free to share or comment in the Post Comment section below. And don’t forget to check out our facebook page where we share pertinent quotes, photos, and comments, from us and others, at: Riverwalker Press on facebook.
Thanks for reading and passing these blogs on to others! Sending you all love and good wishes,
Jan
References: The Tarot cards I use and that are pictured in this blog are Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot Deck and the book referenced is The Tarot Handbook: Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols, by Angeles Arrien. Both are available through our Store.
With the crisis in Japan continuing to escalate and the loss of so many lives once again punctuating our complacency, as it did when the tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004 killing over 230,000 people, we in the West must face our own mortality. The impermanence of life, normally ignored in favor of plowing ahead with our lives with little regard for the impact we make on our environment, strikes home when Mother Nature shows us just how insignificant we really are. But if you have been reading the channeled messages from Jeanne that we have been posting lately you might also note that crises such as these can be utilized to shift us, as they ask us to question how we really want to live our lives.
Sogyal Rinpoche says the following, in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: “As the world around us becomes more turbulent, so our lives become more fragmented. Out of touch and disconnected from ourselves, we are anxious, restless, and often paranoid. A tiny crisis pricks the balloon of the strategies we hide behind. A single moment of panic shows us how precarious and unstable everything is. To live in the modern world is to live in what is clearly a bardo realm; you don’t have to die to experience one.”
He then goes on to say: “The constant uncertainty may make everything seem bleak and almost hopeless, but if you look more deeply at it, you will see that its very nature creates gaps, spaces in which profound chances and opportunities for transformation are continuously flowering—if, that is, they can be seen and seized.” (-from pages 104-5)
This is where we are now, at the moment of revisioning our world, taking advantage of the moment that nature offers us to grab the chance to transform everything. We can all do this in some small way.
I insert a picture here of a tree branch that I often stared at off the deck last summer, until I finally took a picture of it. I call it the swimmer because it looks to me like a swimmer diving into the surf or swimming out of it. Speaking of impermanence, that branch, my swimmer, is no longer there. He went down in the mini tornado we had last fall. When I went looking for this picture I had taken of him last summer I was thinking of the people who lost their lives in the tsunami and the impermanence of all things. We can’t hold onto anything, but we can carry love, kindness, and compassion in our hearts at all times, now and as we pass into new life, as we go through the bardos now and later when we die.
For now, I send you good wishes that you may seize the opportunities now being offered to live differently. I am grateful for this opportunity, Jan
