Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

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Your Future Self

By

Your Future Self  

Deeper Song Insights and Applications

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
 The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

This week take some contemplative time to write a letter to your Future Self.  You can pick a specific number of years ahead or an age you will be.  Write with encouragement, appreciation, perhaps describe the life you are living in that future year.  

It’s part of creating your future.  To imagine it.

Years ago when I was a practitioner in the Center for Spiritual Living in Santa Rosa, California, at Thanksgiving we were each asked to write a letter to ourselves listing what we would be grateful for at the next Thanksgiving.  The church collected them and mailed them to us the following year.  

I think I might begin by writing a letter to myself to be read the following year on my birthday.  It would include gratitude for what I had received and accomplished during the year, acknowledgment for unexpected insights and opportunities I had received, and the future plans I had in mind to see how well they manifested.  It could be as easy as putting in on my computer and making a note on my calendar to read it the following year. 

Remember, our thoughts create our reality. We get what we believe we deserve and what we think is possible.  Are you thinking big enough?

We have a very unsettled year going on.  What is your cornerstone?  What are you establishing in our life that holds you steady?  How do you see yourself next year? Be open to the unexpected and stay flexible.

I might make one document for these birthday letters and actually write a letter to myself ten years ahead.  I can’t even imagine this world it will be so changed.  But I can imagine me so I will write to encourage her – my future self. 

Will you write a letter to your future self?  What will you say?

Deeper Song Affirmation

I find ways to send energy and affirmations to my future self.  

Deeper Song Process

  • Write a letter to your future self – a year ahead, ten ears ahead – your choice. 
  • Figure how you want to remind yourself to read the letter you send to your future self.  It could be on your birthday, at the year’s end, or any date that has meaning for you.
  • My suggestion is to start a folder to hold all your letters.  My plan is to do this on my birthday, read what I wrote to myself a year ago, write what has unfolded and write to my future self, all in one document. 
  • Does writing to your future self resonate with you?  How will you do it?

***

Inner Work

JUST LISTEN

It was not on any list I had made of things to do but suddenly it is important to post these newsletters so new Deeper Song Community members can browse them if they are called to do so. You will continue to get them in your email, but new people can explore what has gone on before. 

I know why it happened, a lovely email exchange with a new member, Noralee from Toronto.  So with the help of Thuy Phan  a few things came off and the menu on my web site was rearranged and I updated the Podcast Page. 

So now I share some of this newsletter with whoever comes browsing to see if they wan to join the Deeper Song Community.

I did not plan this. I did not even spend any time considering it.  The need to take this action was not only immediate but how it would look was also very clear. 

I love my inner voice.  The more I listen the more I hear. 

Are  you listening?

***

Outer Work

TALK TO YOUR BODY

It sneaks up on you if you don’t keep aware.  Your body loses strength if you don’t use it and it is harder to regain that to keep. 

I can no longer get myself off the floor.  I have fallen three times in the last 12 years.  Each time it was an unexpected fall.  I guess they all are. The first time I suddenly found myself face down on the floor. I crawled, which I wasn’t sure I still could do, over to a chair, and got up.  A few years later I fell in the shower, again I have no idea how, but there I was sitting on the floor of the bathroom on a very hard floor. I scooted over to the carpet and found leverage on a chair to get myself up. The third time I slipped on the end of a bungee cord on my kitchen floor I had out to help secure the trash I was going to take out.  I scooted to a chair but what kept me from even trying was that I knew my legs would hurt a lot since I had not been moving those muscles much.  My phone was, of course, at the other end of my apartment.  I kept scooting and finally got to it and called 911.  When they arrived I assured them I was fine, I just couldn’t get off the floor.  Two of them each took an arm, counted one, two, three and I was upright. 

Here’s the message. Don’t lose your ability to do basic things – like get up off the floor. 

I’m working to regain that strength which is a lot harder than keeping it.  I have begun to do leg lifts again.  There are stairs to the second floor I used to take up and down each day when I went to get the mail. I used to walk to the other side of the building and bak.  I used to walk up a few blocks down the street. “Used to” is often a sad phrase.

What are you going to do to keep your body flexible and strong?  Perhaps you turn 15 minutes into gratitude to our body by moving it and stretching it and strengthening it.  There are gentle strength-building activities like yoga and Qi Gong.  I used to do yoga leg lifts on my bed since floors were no longer an option.  I sort of left that one behind too.  I should get that back.  Leg lifts on your back, hip lifts on our back,  leg sifts from each side.  Lie on your stomach and push up with your arms to flex your back.  You also can do that back flex while standing facing a wall.  

And don’t forget dancing.  Let the rhythm suggest the moves and have a good time. 

As I began my “recovery” program I could only do 8 leg lifts while holding on to the footboard of my bed and the cat tree near it.  Now I do a whopping 12!  Not a huge gain but a gain with more to build up to.  I have a Queen Ann chair with a high back that is great to hold on to stretch.  The fastest strength-building exercise I found was the chair sit-ups, a straight chair with your arms crossed and get up and sit don’t 10 times to start.  It got my core stronger very fast. I now do 12 and really focused on standing up straight when I stand. 

How thoughtfully you do the movements is important.  Can  you get a little bit more strength out fo that position? Can you do two more reputations, take 8 more steps?  Your body will give you more when you ask it for more.  Keep asking.

***

BRING YOUR OWN VISION

In the coverage of John Lewis’s funeral, watching his funeral procession move over the Edmond Petis Bridge, I found myself sobbing – at what so many have gone through, how much still needs to be done. I feel great sadness at the resistance to do what is right, to be more inclusive. 

One of the commentators on the CNN panel said John Lewis said we were to “bring your own vision but stand on the shoulders of others.”

I stopped to see what my own vision was.  If I even had one.  How deeply I believed in it.  What I was doing about it.

I used to say I was going for 120 because that seemed far enough away.  I’m in an odd position because of being 87. My future does not hold earning a living in a rapidly changing world, or raising a family or planning my future.  What is your vision?

Stop and think a minute before you read on. See if you can identify your vision for the future.  See if it needs adjusting.  Expand what you believe is possible. 

I like to think I am healing others with what I write.  I want to keep doing that.  I want to keep learning and discovering. 

I am identifying with those of us who are working at a higher vibration, who need to continue to raise our light energy, to hold high watch for the world.  My vision is more esoteric than material.  Give yourself room to make your vision whatever it needs and wants to be. Then work to fulfill it.

***

THE NEXT 30 YEARS

In 2014 I wrote to Chris Brogan that at 81 I wasn’t sure I had any impact.  He wrote back and asked me what I wanted to do in the next 30 years.  (How Chris Brogan Changed My Life)

That was six years ago.  It’s time to ask myself that again. 

That certainly is a loaded question with the world in such a state of major change.  But in 30 years (I know, 117 is an interesting number) I want there to be a major change in the world in which those of us who are working to raise the vibration to be more inclusive and to raise the consciousness of the world have done a really good job.  It is a challenge to visualize that world when there is so much change that needs to happen.  

There is a great “next” coming and I want to continue to explore the Unseen World and share what I find.  I want to continue to touch lives and offer insights that help others create change in themselves and our world. 

I want my body to support all that activity (especially my eyes).  Support that activity, support that vision. Support the actions I take.  My body is a launching pad that I need to take good care of. 

I have only journeyed a few times to my future self, and only ten years ahead.  Perhaps I will journey to see what the planet will be like and how my role has evolved  That would be very interesting.

What do  you want to do in the next 30 years?!

***

HOLD A  HEALING SPACE FOR YOURSELF

That was the name of a free webinar this week that I did not take but as I often do, I resonated with the phrase and wanted to explore what that meant to me.  

A healing space to me is giving myself permission to falter and pick myself up again and move forward. 

A healing space for me is a day when I listen to my own inner urges and follow them 

A healing space for me is when I take a shamanic journey, or write, or figure something out.  It will also be the space I give myself to play my flutes in conversation with nature and move my body in rhythm to music.

What I’m not sure I do is consider those things as Healing Spaces.  But they are and perhaps seeing them as such will take me deeper into the experience.  

I am going to begin to look at an activity as a Healing Space and open myself up to   – well, heal.

How do you create healing space for yourself?  What does it look like?  How often do you do it?  Would you like to give yourself more healing space? Do that. 

**

CARA’S CORNER

I got my third flute this week.  It is a pocket flute small enough to be carried on hikes.  Now I’m not going to hike anywhere, but it is in the Key of G and I wanted that lower key. My Earthtone A 432HZ is in A and her name is Serenity. My Nova Double Flute in G is also called aa drone flute and her name is Tranquility. My new Pocket Flute is in G just came this week and she told me her name is Healer. She is only 12 inches long and her song is much higher than the others.  She makes great bird calls. We will go adventuring tougher. 

You’re talking to a woman who has 8 drums but I’m pretty sure I can stop at 3 flutes.  I am taking this awesome flute class with Christine Stevens on the shift Network and she is teaching us to listen to and then play the sounds of nature. We can play the skyline of a month range. We can play the ebb and flow of the oceans, and we can echo the bird calls.  Several times a day I sit and look out at nature and play the rhythm of the swinging branches of the weeping birch.  If I go outside I can play to the birds and clouds. My flutes sit close to my desk which is by a window so I can pause anytime and play. 

So I have added vibration to my spiritual practice, I have added nature, and intentional pauses to contemplate.  

What will you add to your spiritual practice?

A DEEPER SONG

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.”― Kahlil Gibran

Keep singing a deeper song.

Namaste,

Cara

Come Sing a Deeper Song 

I help Transformational Leaders
deepen our relationship with the Unseen World
and expand our role in the New Consciousness

Please forward this newsletter to a friend and suggest they

Join the Deeper Song Community

What Are You For?

By

What Are You For?

Deeper Song Insights and Applications

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
 The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

Look for what are you for NOT what you are against.  It changes your perspective. It changes what you look for and what you think about.  It also helps you feel more in control when you work to support what you are for rather than change what you are against.  

My list of what I was against was getting longer and longer.  What a relief to focus on the good stuff going on. Not to ignore the dangers evident in our world, we have to look for the opposite of what we don’t want and do that. What are  you for?

Our whole senior housing was given masks right away and I diligently wear mine to take out the trash even though I seldom see anyone. I support the well being of all of us. I am FOR taking care of others by taking these precautions. 

We have so much we need to change.  So many people we need to support in the form of greater education and opportunity.  

I started to beat myself up a bit because my form of involvement is not helping people in need in person.  I never go anywhere but I also live in a well-off county with highly educated, kind people and if there is a population in need here, I am not aware of it.  So I find other ways to serve. There is a great need across the State Line in Kansas City Missouri. Odd what a made-up geographical border creates. 

Each year I seem to pick summer to give to organizations helping animals and the earth like – National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, Environmental Defense Fund, and Audubon Society.  I get a lot of great calendars that way, but that’s not why I do it.  Wildlife and nature are what I choose to support.  What I am for.

What group do you want to help, what need do you want to fulfill? Pick what calls to you and see what they need that you would like to offer.  It could be time, or money, or service.  (I did some computer work for a local Democratic candidate in one election. I never met her, I never left home.)

I have always preferred to help those who are advanced in the areas of our shared interests rather than beginners.  That’s important to know about yourself.  You might want to help someone who is very close to succeeding and your help makes them fly.  Or you may want to help someone learn basic survival skills. Again, know what calls to you.  And do that. 

You are already helping a lot of people in your circle of influence. Notice that and see where you can do more.

I’m sending positive energy to my country in particular, to support those who are working to hold a higher vibration and a more inclusive vision. I should probably send more energy to those who are slightly considering a more inclusive view in hopes that it helps them broaden their choices.  Not to influence, that’s not what we do when we send energy.  We send to the highest good, but I know my core intention is for an increased awareness of and desire for inclusiveness.   Then I let the choices and actions to arise out of the energy of raised vibration that I have sent. 

Support what you are FOR. 

I have been trying to figure out what environment and beliefs make a person want to keep things as they are.  I have some ideas, fear of change, comfort with the familiar, perhaps insecurity about their ability to adjust.  I’m making stuff up here because the divide is so deep in this country that I don’t even know how to have a conversation with people who are unwilling to reevaluate and rethink – everything.

There is going to be compromise, partially cause no one person has a complete picture of all the options and concerns. When we move to assist or change, we need to stay flexible and keep our eye on the goal. 

We do need to question ALL our beliefs to see if they are truly ours today and not a belief we inherited from our family or our life experience so far. We’re back to values again.  What are yours?  Are they focused just on your needs or are they more inclusive than that? 

Know what you are against, but turn and focus on and work with what you are FOR!

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I look closely at what I believe and work FOR what is most meaningful to me.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS 

  • Take a very hard look at your beliefs.  Look to see where you may be holding yourself apart.  It may be not knowing, not have an experience or not caring.  Understand why you believe the way you do. And see if you can expand your awareness and understanding of the opportunities for change. 
  • What beliefs do you want to change?  What quality of coexistence do you want to embrace?
  • Take some action to support your most positive and inclusive beliefs. Focus on what you are FOR. And work to make that happen.

Inner Work

WHAT IS THE MESSAGE WHEN YOU GET MESSED WITH?

The Universe messed with me greatly this week when I wen to put up this weeks’ podcast “What Do You Need to Leave Behind.”  It was the first podcast I recorded in this new series and it was edited and ready and I had not put it out because I wasn’t sure it was the direction I wanted to take the podcasts.  In a recent shamanic journey, I was told to publish it.  So I did.  But I had to really persist.  Since it had been my first podcast in four years there were some steps I had forgotten to take. I had not saved it to an MP3, I had a hard time finding it, the numbering system was all messed up, and… I had to persist – and persist. I had so much intermittent interference that I knew it was a sign, but I didn’t know if it was a sign to stop or a sign to persist.  I eat going. And that was the lesson. That was the gift.  To want to do something enough, to feel it was important enough to keep overcoming the stumbling blocks.  

What is holding you up, or seeming to stand in your way and how are you going to work around it? 

Be persistent  Be curious.  Be flexible

Outer Work

ONE DISH AT A TIME

I am trying to cook more for myself and am only doing a fair job pf it. I was a good cook along the line and even put out a Christmas Cookbook as a gift to my young matron  friends40 years ago.  I am also now a vegan. I have been a vegetarian for 45 years and a vegan for the last 10.  Vegans leave out all dairy. 

It began with garbanzo bean flour. I was excited to discover it.  It turns out it is a little salty for my taste.  This week I made garbanzo flour pancakes and although they have potential they were wired.  First of all. I haven’t cooked a pancake in 10-12 years so I didn’t remember how hot to make the pan. 

But that odd failure aside (I eventually ate all of them) I got an idea of how to make a recipe just enough for one.  I like the idea of putting vanilla and maple syrup IN the batter and there are not many ingredients in a pancake. I can figure this out. Just have to figure out the flour part. 

All that detail aside, how has your taste changed over the years, what does your body need right now, and what will you feed it?

I’m going to try to master one dish at a time.  Find the seasoning and ingredients that I like.  The first step is to identify what kind of food you like.  I like Chinese.  So I’m going to explore Chinese recipes until I find one or two or more that I want to add to my “Cara Loves This” list.  Right now there is not much on that list except raw cabbage with lemon pepper. That’s easy enough to fix.

I bought a lot of noodles and rice and beans at the beginning of the pandemic in a sort of a keep-my-pantry-full reflex.  It turns out I’m not much of a rice and beans fan. If you live with others you may have been compromising for a long time.  If you live alone you can be very much open to experimentation. 

So my goal here is to find one dish at a time that I really like and want to cook again.  Like building the road one brick at a time. 

And the new will replace the old.  I want to make dishes to replace the Amy’s meals that are expensive.  I am trying new seasonings to see what I like. Find substitutes.  I like crackers but I found some wild rice sticks at Natural Grocers that I like even better. I could learn to make a healthy flatbread.  

Yes, it takes some time.  Yes, it definitely takes some hunting for recipes and making room for actual cooking time each day.  But when you do it regularly, when you find the dish you love, it is all worth the effort and time.

Move your life forward, one selected dish at a time. 

THE KITCHEN SINK

Your kitchen sink makes a great ballet bar for exercising.  It is a good hight and the sink edge makes a sturdy holding bar.  I used it daily for stretching.  It is great for stretching your shoulders. When you bend forward, cross your arms on the edge, look down at the floor, and stretch those shoulder muscles.  Move your hips while in that position. Hold o to the sink edge and do some knee bends so you move your leg muscles too.  I use my hold on the edge of the sink to stand up straight and tilt my head toward one shoulder and then the other to stretch my side muscles.  Hang on and do some marching steps.  You get the idea, a strong holding bar for you to use while offering your muscles some exercise.  

There are other areas in your home to use for exercise.  A doorway can be used to lean up against and straighten your back.  I use the footboard of my bed and the nearby cat tree to hold on to while I do leg lifts. 

As I work to undo my stiffness I realize how much I have stopped doing.  I can’t kneel or get on the floor anymore.  In doing these exercises I realize why.  I haven’t used those muscles or a long time so I have begun to march in place and while hanging on safely, do some knee bends.  They are not comfortable.  My muscles have not been used to do that for a long time. But I will keep doing them and keep adding repetitions as I get stronger. Work on keeping a sturgeon range of motion in your body.

Begin by identifying a daily time in which to will add more targeted stretching and balance training. I’ve had enough exercise and yoga and T’ai Chi classes in my life to simply talk to my body and stretch it in ways that help it regain its strength.

And I finally found some music to move to.  It happens to be a call and response video from my flute class with Christine Stevens.  A steady drumbeat with drum rhythms interspersed with wonderful responsive flute melodies that inspire movement.  That will be a game-changer.  Dancing doesn’t feel like exercise.  

I need to add smaller moments of exercise, something like a big stretch each time I get up from my desk – or any chair for that matter.  I have two standing desks that would help me stand at my desk but I never use them.  I need to stand up more.  Maybe just stand up and watch TV. And I can stretch even more at the kitchen sink. 

First comes the habit, then comes the increased repetitions.

I can’t tell you how important it is to keep movement in your life. There is a great deal of benign over and reaching up that takes place in ordinary life.  You want to e able to keep doing that. 

I have to reagin what I gradually let go of. It would have been easier to keep it.  I’m taking steps (literally) to change that.

What form of sneak-it-in exercise can you add to your day?

EXPLORE WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

Reverend Al Sharpton is on CNBC. I listened to him this week and he spoke with others about the passing of John Lewis and that generation of civil rights activists.  It was enlightening to hear from other leaders working with their black communities to learn of the challenges they face and their supportive solutions. Joy Reed is a black woman who was recently promoted to prime time on CNBS. (7 eastern).  I like her for her joy and I also like her for her insights into the black community. 

I have no experience in that culture.  I have to learn what others are facing and perhaps how I can help. There’s a lot I don’t know.  But I am listening and learning. 

What situation, culture, or imbalance o you need to educate yourself on?  Pick one and go learn more.  

OUR EVOLVING FUTURE

I don’t understand what is going on in the world.  It is a HUGE, painful lesson.  It is the rise of the feminine.  I see super-strong female mayors managing big cities.  Strong women are stepping forth everywhere.  I got back to this idea of focusing on what I am FOR – collaboration, cooperating, an awareness of our oneness.  So in my spiritual practice, in my inner work, I will focus on that, radiate that out, let those who can feel it be uplifted and changed by it.  

What are you for, and how are you making it happen?

CARA’S CORNER

I had an odd and unexpected shamanic journey this week in which I was called upon to bless myself at several stages of life.  To understand the choices I made were not dumb, they were necessary. I blessed the lessons I learned, the experiences I had, the people I met.  It was very much about accepting the gifts of those periods in my life as well as the lessons. 

In the metaphorical journey, I was teaching a class.  I finished and exchange with one girl who was standing and went to a second girl who was standing.  The first girl did not sit down.  When I finished my exchange whit the second girl I said,  “You may sit down now.”  The second girl did, the first girl did not.  It turns out that the first young girl said I she would not sit down until we had completed this journey together.  She was me at a  young age and we had a long path to travel together.  So I journeyed with her to help myself at various  ages and stages 

We can’t go back.  We can’t change things. We made the choices at the time that we were meant to make them – even the not-so-wise ones.  

Have you forgiven yourself for your past actions in this lifetime?  It’s over, done with, It’s what you do in the here and not that will propel you forward. You can’t go fix it, But you can move reward with all the wisdom those choices gave you. 

Are you standing in your light of today? Do you need to go back and release and let go of and maybe even forgive some of your o past choices?  

Begin from where you are now and do a good job with what you have been given to work with.

A DEEPER SONG

“We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.” – Rumi

Keep singing a deeper song.

Namaste,

Cara

Come Sing a Deeper Song 

I help Transformational Leaders
deepen our relationship with the Unseen World 
and expand our role in the New Consciousness

Please forward this newsletter to a friend and suggest they

Join the Deeper Song Community