by Joanne Helfrich

When John McNally, chief editor of Sethnet Journal, asked if I’d like to write an article about my experiences channeling Rose, at first I was daunted because my experiences have been so intense that I wasn’t sure where to begin. Since the experience is also so new, I haven’t had a chance to sort it out much myself.

I was reminded of a passage from The Rose Agenda in which she said “… the beautiful thing about Essence [is] that all you need to do is to knock on the door and we will answer.” Rose went on to say “be aware that while you will be connecting with Essence…. you will incorporate many modes of learning in order to do so. She [Joanne] has connected a great deal with Integral Institute’s program of Integral Life Practices…”

I realized that Rose could help with this article, to help me process my experiences while sharing them with others. The conversational question-answer format is much like the way we converse in my mind and through autotyping, so you’ll see a bit of our process, too.

Rose, what do you mean by “knock on the door”? Is this something that everyone does?

That was a good question! We suggest we have been knocking on your door to ask this question, so you may conclude that the knocking goes both ways.

I suppose you mean that essence tries to connect with us in objective awareness as much we try to connect with essence, right?

Your essences are in need of speaking with you directly, and they continually try to interrupt your thinking thinking thinking so as to interest you in more direct experiences with their essence selves. We suggest you are aware of this at times, you just tend to push them away.

How do we know when they’re trying to get our attention?

You are weaning yourself of your need to continually be looking at unauthorized information so as to invite your essences in, so to speak. The way we mean unauthorized information is that the information you are reading is, in some ways, too much information about ways to connect with essence. We suggest you may not know what we mean. We will explain.

You tend to over-worry the way you may connect with essence. We suggest essence was not intended in every way to come through your words. We suggest that essence comes through your deeds in every single way. We suggest you pay attention to what you are doing and allow yourselves to notice how you do intend to connect with essence but also don’t intend to because you are afraid. The way you know the difference is to appreciate that essence is continually working for your fulfillment, you just don’t always acknowledge it.

So you’re saying that essence tries to get our attention in many ways, but we distract ourselves by reading about how essence tries to get our attention.

Exactly. The way you know you are distracting yourselves would be to notice how you feel when you are reading. Do you feel connected with your essence? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. The point is that you don’t always feel connecting and the way you may, in some ways, connect more is to put down your books and papers. That will be a good first step. We are not saying to not read interesting or informative things, we are only saying that in practice you will find ways to implement what you’ve learned.

Right, I was involved in studying many types of information, and the way I was able to access you was to finally put the information aside and get it more directly.

Exactly. We suggest that was as important as the information, and you may note that you did not avail yourself of your information, in your terms, while you were connecting with Rose initially. The information was knowing yourself, not reading yourself. There was an initial informative inspiration, and you did find this extremely valuable, but there came a time you needed to put it aside.

Yes, I felt like I’d incorporated whatever I needed to. I felt like there was something, too, that I wanted to contribute to the body of information that was missing.

That was an excellent statement. You did want to contribute, and many people feel the same way. They are in many ways swirling, and your desire to help them stop swirling was a large part of your knocking on our door. We suggest you provide a little background on how this happened.

Okay. People who are interested in reading the details can do so, but basically I felt there was a gap in the information I’d been exposed to, and that people inside and outside the conscious creation community would benefit from the typologies that Seth and Elias had presented. Continuing to acknowledge channeling as an integral part of the integral map would also allow others to help legitimize the phenomenon in ways that allow it to take its place in the world of ideas (see Integral Conscious Creation: Rocket Science for the Soul). So there were a lot of pieces that fit together in my mind, including this need area, and this was something I did in order to stop my own swirl and help other people stop theirs.

I amended my Ouija board to include the families of consciousness (provided by Seth and developed further by Elias) and Elias’ orientations to divine these for others, therefore helping people connect with their intent and passion, and contributing to the overall map. I’ve been interested in what I consider a critical need for people to connect with their intent and passions for many years. So I stuck colored dots on the Ouija board thinking that while I’d had little success with the board in the past, I might be able to eek out a few hits on a few dots. After incorporating a daily practice, eventually I did, then decided to try letters, and quite naturally progressed to autotyping and voice channeling. It was funny that in the process I realized that the intent name I’d given myself years ago, in doing Elias’ intent name exercise, was “Brings Colors.” At the time I didn’t know exactly what it meant, so when I had success with the colored dots, I felt I was on the right track.

That was an excellent summary. We suggest you continue.

There were other clues that, when I look back on them, were so perfect. It’s like I always knew they somehow fit, but didn’t know how until the channeling experience happened, and I began to view my life as having this symmetry that I’d never fully realized objectively. There are just tons and tons of things that I realize go back to my childhood that were little signs all pointing in this direction.

We expect you will continue to be finding interesting images that you will be making yourself objectively aware of. These images and sensations were always there, you just weren’t aware of them.

And this is true for everyone.

Yes, they will be continuing to connect with essence in ways that make the symbolism of their lives into a poetry of your trust in self. That was, in a way, a description of how you do encourage others to incorporate their essence objectively by showing yourself as an example of how this can be done. As we said in our Rose Agenda: if you can do this, anyone can.

Thanks, Rose… I know you mean that in a nice way, ha!

You are correct, we do mean it in the nicest way possible, for this is your intent, to help others connect with theirs. We suggest that once you realized this and took action, you opened the door. We are aware you do know you did this, so we will allow you to share your experiences as to what that was like.

It felt extremely strange and extremely familiar at the same time. There was a period of disbelief, which continues today… sometimes I think, my god! I’m channeling a nonphysical entity! The reason it felt so odd, I think, is that while I was prepared for channeling—reading channeled works, knowing channelers, promoting the work—I still didn’t expect it. Looking back, I’d been knocking on that door for years without really being aware of it, in my admiration for Jane, Mary, Serge, and Emmy, in my wanting to channel my historical novels to help me with my research, and so on. I had a lot of limiting beliefs about that not being possible for me, that evidently I was able to work through by sitting in front of that lifeless Ouija board for hours and hours.

Yes, you did an excellent job of pushing, in your terms, through your fears. We suggest that your first attempts were very frustrating, but worth it once you were able to get some interest, in your terms, from us. For you know we are always interested in you, but you don’t realize that we do get frustrated with you as well so we do hold back when we sense that you really don’t want to speak with us.

That sounds like a test… are you challenging my beliefs about connecting with essence?

Yes, that was a good impression! Of course essence will always wish to speak with you. We suggest that the readers would like to know that we nuns in this state of your channeling do test you very often so as to allow you to respond in ways that are discerning. The way we do this is intended to teach you about yourself so as to identify your limiting beliefs. We will speak about this more at a later time. We suggest you continue.

I’m glad you did that so readers can see what a challenge this has been for me personally. It’s been a bed of roses… complete with very prickly thorns! It’s been a unique experience, even for a channeling one, as most individuals performing an energy exchange like mine don’t typically interact with their energy personality essences this way. The intimacy of our experience has been the most interesting part, in that I can’t hide anything from you. This took a lot of getting used to, but I’m a pretty honest person so this has helped a lot. So I imagine everyone’s channeling experience is a little different, each experience as unique as the individual.

That is correct. Your experience was, in your terms, extremely strange to you, even though you were prepared in many ways. We suggest that while yours was in some ways strange, that others will not have this experience. They will incorporate a more gradual interest in their channeling, and in many ways are, in your terms, channeling already. We are aware you are interested in how this will be done, so we will continue. Your mode of channeling sounds like a very unique one, and it is in some ways, and in other ways it sounds like a very scary, interesting way, and in some ways it is, but there was a point where you felt as if the experience was “meant to be,” correct?

Totally. I felt, as I do now, that everything in my life was an invitation to allow the experience to happen.

That’s correct. We suggest you were knocking on the door since before you were born, and this was in some ways what you came here for. We don’t wish to provide information that would seem to encourage you to be producing, in your terms, a worry-free life, as that is not our intention. But you do see that your worries were always about how you would be intending to be fulfilling your intent.

We suggest that there is a partial truth inherent in the word “destiny,” although the term is in itself flawed: you do not have one destiny that you are so involved in finding, because in some ways everything you could possibly do is your destiny. We are saying, in your terms, that you do each have an intent and a purpose in life and we suggest you each find it. We suggest you continue to interest yourselves in your Seth, Elias, and Brahm/Kris information to continue your incredible journey of self. We will speak in your terms, later, so as to provide you more guidance on how you may continue to be knocking on your doors and we will be answering. We trust you will.

That will be all for now. We will continue in essence to be connecting with you… and look forward to future interactions of the cosmic reading kind!

Love, Rose [Session #73 ~ Monday, June 18, 2007]