My Three Words for 2021 – Deep Listening, Exploration, Unfolding
Creating Conscious Connection
Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!
Goals are good and goals can be overwhelming. I’m a go-with-the-flow person. I rely almost exclusively on my inner voice to guide me in the moment.
However, identifying an over-arching theme might be a good idea. Chris Brogan suggests we choose three words for the year. I have done that for a lot of years. Here are the three words I have chosen for this year.
Deep Listening. Since my work is unfolding, the first focus for the coming year that I choose is Deep Listening. That means moving to my Still Point multiple times throughout my day to let go of my human thoughts and sit in silent serenity. I am learning that I don’t have to make decisions other than in the moment. I just let my inner nudges show up and I explore where they take me.
Exploration is my second word for the year. I feel pretty certain that most of what I offer is going to come from my inner work, my journeys, and my unexpected insights. That means I am to stay aware, move into deep listening, and when a nudge shows up, I am to take time to examine and explore – a little or a lot, depending on how I feel about the topic of the moment. Here I go adventuring…
Unfolding. I started to chose “change” but this is such a huge period of change. Then I considered “evolution” which seems huge. But in this dramatic and rapidly changing world, I can only sit in thoughtful awareness and listen to my inner voice guide me to my next steps. I let life unfold and shape things as they come.
Deep Listening, Exploration, Unfolding.
What three words will you chose to open up new portals for you this year?
DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION
I move into deep listening and choose three words to guide me this coming year.
DEEPER SONG PROCESS
Here are my three words from the past:
My Three Words for 2020 – Strength, Intention, Explore
My Three Words for 2019 – Vibration, Nature, Portal
My Three Words for 2018 – Invisible, Radiate, Journey
My Three Words for 2017 – Broaden, Deepen, Change
My Three Words for 2016 – Determination, Trust, Explore
My Three Words for 2015 – Impact, Connection, Flexibility
How ChrisBrogan Changed My Life– 2014
OUR GLOBAL DEEPR SONG COMMUNITY
Our Deeper Song Community extends throughout the planet. Welcome new Deeper Song Explorers. I’d love to hear from you – caralumen@gmail.com or let’s have a discussion on the Deeper Song Explorers!
DEEPER SONGS I EXPLORED THIS MONTH
Life Lessons from a Lump of Clay
Sometimes it seems like there is no rhyme nor reason why our lives are the way they are or how we turned out the way we did. But there is. There are choices and beliefs and interactions that created our path, our journey. We are exactly where we should be considering what we thought and did.
There are many circumstances that are pushing and shoving and moving and shaping our lives. It helps to think about some of them and where they might lead.
Cara Lumen, spiritual philosopher and founder of the Deeper Song Community is a cosmic explorer who consciously travels into the unseen world to serve as a bridge to help us expand our relationship with the spiritual world. She shares what she learns and guides us to the next level so we can sing a deeper song.
In this episode we explore
Life Lessons from a Lump of Clay
(17 minutes)
Listen to
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
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To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:
Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life
Stand Steady in Your Own Truth
Build a Strong Bridge to Your Invisible Self
***INNER WORK***
Rediscovery
I drew the oracle card “Rediscovery” on the first of this new year and I am thinking about what that might mean. I will look for gifts I have that I have left by the wayside. I will look for ideas that organically fell into second place along the road. And I’m going to look at what I can repurpose in this rapidly changing new world. In this moment, I only have a vague feeling about what that will be. And it may not be a tangible step. It may be introspective work, an expanded spiritual practice, even a review of something I used to do from my present viewpoint of what is unfolding.
What will you rediscover? Go exploring and look in all the corners….
Our Inner Strength
“When things fall apart around you, you’re really left with what you’ve developed inside you.”- Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
I stopped to consider what I have developed inside me that keeps me moving inward and upward.
I have a deep and varied pattern of spiritual practices. I am mindfully moving to my Still Point more often during my day to encourage moments of deep tranquility and introspection.
I have taken what may be an intuitive proactive step as I become clear what my role is in humanity today. I am not an in-person, interactive contributor to the well-being of our world. My work is to help us raise our vibration. My work is in the inner world, where I explore and interpret and share what I figure out. But my main job, my core work is with vibration – learning to raise our vibration with conscious awareness and encouraging those who can hear the message to do the same. Not everyone will hear this call, but as we each move more deeply into our role as Light Beings, others will recognize it in themselves and make the choice to consciously join us.
There are many things I cannot and am not meant to do on the physical plane. So I focus on what I have developed inside and share that.
What have you got going for you? What do you need to add to your life pattern that would expand and elevate your experience and your place of service? What is not yours to do? Let that go. Keep building your strength within and rely on your inner voice.
***OUTER WORK***
How are you Nurturing Yourself and What do you Need to Change?
We slip into destructive patterns without realizing it. I have been watching too much news and it finally caught up with me. I very much enjoy the fabulous minds and incredible vocabulary of cable news, but the subject matter has been like watching a horror movie. Even with change in sight, and hope on the horizon, I was being drawn deeper and deeper into despair. It even manifested a feeling of depression over the holidays – and I have never been depressed in my life.
Finally, I made a major change. There are wonderful music channels on my TV. I love both classical music and New Age and my life has been woefully short on both. Until now.
What kind of habits have you fallen into that you need to break?
It easy to identify habits you would like to create. But what habits do you have that are doing you harm? And how will you change that?
Use Music to Heal
Music is a powerful vibration. It can soothe you and challenge you and lift you up. Music comes from the soul of the composer and the musician – a gift from them to you. Go exploring into musical venues you have only dabbled in before and see where it leads you. I will explore jazz more. I like it very much but it seems to be third on my list. There is a difference between light classical music and classical music. Composers really give it to you in classical music. It can be very demanding. And stirring. And motivating. It makes you feel like you should rise up and go take on something big. Light classical feels a bit more joyous and less demanding. I get to choose to fit my mood and my need.
Focus on an instrument you love to hear. I’m a cello fan and a saxophone fan – both low, mellow sounds. I play the native flute and have played the piano in the past. And I have sung in lots of quartets and choral groups. Odd that I let music slip out of my life.
I have 8 drums but seem focused on two, a buffalo drum I made in a workshop 30 years ago and a small djembe from Africa. There is something very freeing and releasing about drumming.
Notice the vibrations you allow into your life. Notice what you listen to and how it affects you. Silence is good too. It has a healing sound of its own. Humming as a focused vibration is healing. Making up songs is liberating and creative.
Make a rattle out of popcorn in an empty spice jar. Make a drum out of the bottom of an empty plastic container and experiment with your own rhythms. There is a way to play two spoons!
How are you spending your downtime and are you aware of how it affects you?
Make conscious changes that include adding more sound experience to your life and notice the difference it makes.
Make Room for Change and then Wait for It!
There is nothing more powerful than making room for change and then waiting to see what shows up. I eased up on my publication schedule and in the space that was cleared by that choice I continue to find new ideas and opportunities now that they have room to make themselves known.
How do you invite change in? Sitting in silence with no expectation is a powerful place to begin.
***DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE***
Deepen Your Spiritual Practice Through Art
We get so caught up in our words that we get tangled up in them and ultimately find we are limited by them. Sometimes real clarity comes when we use art to explore our feelings, our thoughts, our inner world. What words cannot describe, drawing can.
I do pencil drawings of my journeys. Not all of them, but when I do take time to draw images from what I see, it clarifies and broadens my understanding of my journey. And when I revisit the drawing, the whole journey pops back into my mind. I keep my drawings in sheet protectors in a binder.
You could use art to describe your feelings or to explore an idea for a project. My drawings have stick figures and signs that point to wavy lined paths. When in doubt about what the image is meant to be, I add a label…! Drawing your idea provides a new way to look at it and explore its possibilities.
You could doodle or paint, cut out paper figures, use clay or finger painting or crayons. Every color has a message, just choose colors that call to you and perhaps write words on your paper that pull up the images from your experience of the thought you want to capture.
Find other ways to explore your thoughts besides words. It will open up new depths of understanding.
***DEEPER SONG INSIGHTS ***
The Question that Heals
“How are you doing?” my friend inquired in an email. I sat down to answer her and uncovered insights and awareness that helped me heal myself. All because my friend knew I had had a rough time and cared enough to ask how I was doing.
When you listen, when you offer other people the gift of your caring presence, it opens up space for them to go within and find the core of their imbalance. Through their self-awareness, self-healing occurs.
How are you doing? I’m listening.
Purpose and Intention versus Unfolding
The article said, “Begin the year with purpose and intention.” And it immediately felt forced to me. I’m an unfolding kind of gal. Now that doesn’t mean I don’t set objectives for myself, I do, but they are broad, not detailed and I’m just not very attached to them – I let them unfold. I go with the flow. I’m pretty relaxed about when I do them or if I do them. I tune in to what I am in the mood to do and then do that.
That’s pretty casual, right? How do I get things done? I listen to my inner voice and respond in the moment. And I am aware of the results of my choices and change those choices as seems appropriate.
Choose, act, evaluate. Repeat. That’s how I let things unfold.
***OUR EVOLVING FUTURE***
What is Your Role?
I’ve been listing to a lot of classical music lately and it makes me think of the long path to becoming a professional musician.
There are very few solos in an orchestra. But the ones I have been hearing are heart-stirringly beautiful. That means that person has spent hours and hours and hours learning to play that well.
What is your role? Are you to be a core member of a group? A soloist in an orchestra? A performing artist in your own right? Or do you just love to play music? What is your role in life – soloist, conductor, member of the ensemble or a joyful player of music for yourself? Whatever level you are, you bring with it joy, commitment and love of music.
Looking back over my life, I have been in ensemble groups that created an experience I could not have done alone – quartets, choirs, the cast of a play. And I have worked diligently and consistently to hone my own individual skills.
But my role now is as a member of a much larger group – the growing ensemble of conscious seekers who are working together to raise the vibration of our planet.
This is a time of change. Our role is changing. The opportunities are changing.
Look back over your life for the signs and signals and the opportunities you did or did not take, and notice the choices that led you to where you are now. You have the power to change direction by changing your choices.
I have spent a large portion of my life writing – both professionally and perennially. What gift weaves its message throughout your life?
Know what is driving your life and your life choices. What is your role and how are you going to fulfill it?
Message from the Sacred Earth Cards
Revolution
I drew this card “Revolution” for myself this week and had to go to the oracle book that came with the cards in order to discover it is about cycles. Revolving cycles. Expanding and waning cycles. We are always in some stage in multiple cycles. They intertwine, and ebb and flow, and our life changes. On the card, a woman is holding a lotus in a globe. A lotus is rooted in mud below the surface, and its awesome flower rises to the surface to share its beauty with the world. Be aware of the mud that nurtures you. Be aware of the multiple cycles you are in and see if you can understand and take advantage of where you are in each cycle.
I am in a cycle that is changing my offerings. It is affecting the frequency, the form, and what I write about. I am in another cycle with my body – a sort of uncomfortable straightening of my body as I release something I have not identified. I am in a cycle of introspection, focused on raising my vibration and understanding my next steps. All three cycles are underway simultaneously.
Let your life unfold, but pay attention to the revolving stages of increase and decline in each cycle. Allow yourself to evolve into the New Consciousness.
CARA’S CORNER
Follow Your Nudges
Amazing answers show up when you stay still and listen.
As suddenly as I got interested in Astrology, I am just as suddenly putting it aside. Or, at least not exploring it more deeply and giving it a lesser role in my own exploration. I have an over-arching intention. I will follow that and it will show me what I need to do, what I need to consider next.
A shift happened when I was writing the opening article. The Deeper Song Process became a list of podcasts and posts that depend on the experience of the topic of the article, and I understood that is another way to help you explore more deeply, that it enriches what I offer.
I created a slightly different format for this newsletter and it is helping me focus on what I offer. It up-levels the content and helps me make more focused choices about what to include.
We are to go exploring more deeply together. I have no real idea what that will look like, but I know I can go deeper and explore further afield and we will expand our consciousness together.
What I invite you to do is to follow your inner voice, your nudges, and explore what calls to you. Be selective, be aware of what is calling you, and when you start exploring, notice how what you are learning and experiencing resonates. Use your response to guide your steps.
We are taking a turn in the path here. We will end up in a new place, a new space of opportunity. We just have to pay attention to the guideposts along our path – and choose each step with awareness.
A DEEPER SONG
It is time to take a step.
It is time to take a step further.
The Unseen World embraces me with open arms.
It is time to take a step further.
The Unseen World embraces me with open arms.
Here I go adventuring!
– Cara Lumen
We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.
Namaste,
Cara
Come Sing a Deeper Song
I help spiritual adventurers explore the Unseen World so that we broaden and deepen our personal journey and turn to share our discoveries with others. We are guides and way-showers with our light held high.
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