Self Awareness

Do You Hold the Beat or Play the Melody?

May 12, 2020 By Cara Lumen

Do You Hold the Beat or Play the Melody?

Adventures in the Unseen World

A drum can serve two functions – to hold the beat or offer a rhythm that motivates. Each person who drums is a combination of place holder and creator. it is hopeful to know which role you are playing in any situation.

In one of my online drumming classes with Christine Stevens, Awaken Your Rhythm. we were taught to establish a base rhythm, build on it, and return to the foundational rhythm.

That’s a good metaphor for living life.

What is your foundational rhythm?

We all have a foundational rhythm, a beat that carries us through life. Mine is philosophical curiosity and a love of learning. It is present in everything I do. My son-in-law’s core rhythm is kindness and doing for others. He was a high school teacher and now he focuses on grandchildren. I have a friend who is a highly positioned doctor and is moving into energy healing to practice in her retirement. But her core rhythm is healing others. See how this works?

There is a core rhythm you have built your life upon. Can you identify it?

How do you build on your core rhythm?

You may have built upon your core rhythm in different ways throughout your life. What prompted me to explore this idea was that in my actual drumming on my hand drums, I am NOT content to keep the beat, that is way too boring for me – I have to let the energy flow and play whatever rhythm calls to me. Then I make up my own songs to go with the rhythm. I have to continue to explore.

Some people hold the beat for others to build on. Some people explore the rhythms. Both are vital components in our universal expression.

It is import to know how you want to play your rhythm of life.

Are you playing a soft beat or a loud one? Are you playing a fast beat or a slow one? Do you establish a beat and then build on it? Do you play several types of drums? (I have eight) Do you play other types of rhythm instruments in your life? On the physical plane that might mean bells, and flutes and claves. On the inner plane you express your personal rhythm though the choices you make.

Be aware of what resonates with you

I’m pretty much an improviser in the rhythm of life but there is a steady underlying beat of a strong need to explore – currently, it is vibration and the Unseen World. Can you look at your life and identify what your core rhythm is? What calls you the most insistently? Are you honoring that? Or are you yearning to have a wider variety of rhythms in your life? Or would you like to settle down to a steady, reliable beat? How would you make that happen?

Be aware of the subtle rhythms of life

As I continue to study sound healing I realize there is a whole world of motivating vibration I know nothing about – yet. But I have come to know that everything is vibration, connected one vibration and to change one part of it here is to change a different part over there.

I use tuning forks – (biosonics.com Starter Pack.) The sound is subtle but the effect is noticeable and on-going. I use intention to focus them. I certainly cannot see how they are working, what they are balancing, what they are clearing, but I experience the results. And learn from that.

I also use humming in my self-balancing practice. Humming with intention to right what I want to balance. I cannot see how that works either. But I experience the result.

Rhythm is at the core of life

All of nature moves in cycles. Sometimes the rhythm is slow like the dormant winter cycle. Sometimes the rhythm is like the industrious activity of spring preparation and planting. And within each cycle are smaller cycles.

Begin to notice your own rhythm. The rhythm of your day. The rhythm of your life. The rhythm of your relationships. The rhythm of your spiritual exploration.

Change those rhythms as desired.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I become aware of the multitude of rhythms in my life and adjust the rhythm to bring balance to my life.

Deeper Song Process

Pick a facet of our life – work, family, study, inner exploration – and see if you can identify the rhythms – slow and steady supportive, sustaining rhythm, an enthusiastic rhythm of leadership, a magical rhythm of exploring?
Identify an area you might like to set about changing the rhythm – speeding up, slowing down, brooding its scope.
Do that.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

How Vibration Heals

The Intentional Om Hum

The Deepest Sound is Silence

You ARE Vibration and Why it Matters

Why We Need To Raise Our Vibration

Follow Your Personal Drumbeat

Come Sing a Deeper Song

I help transcendent leaders who are stepping forward
to define their role and potential participation
so together we can build the bridges and pathways
that guide us all into the New Consciousness.

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications

Join the Deeper Song Community

Who is Walking Beside You on Your Path?

March 4, 2020 By Cara Lumen

Who is Walking Beside You on Your Path?

Adventures in the Unseen World

How aware are you of the people that walk beside you on your chosen path? They might be someone you see every day. They may be someone you interact with only occasionally. They may be people whose words you read or heard that offered a meaningful shift in your awareness, a deepening of your understanding.

Those encounters are with fellow travelers who are on a path that is parallel with yours for now and you are to become more aware of them.

The interaction may be brief

There have been two occasions recently in which a phrase in an email has totally shifted my awareness. One new friend said, “I am sooo grateful for your Presence on my path”. I was touched and then turned to look to see who I was grateful for on my path if I was acknowledging their presence enough.

That one phrase shifted my awareness in a split second.

The contact may be lasting

In a recent energy session I received, I was told that I had a lot of family, but they were different from what one views as one’s immediate family.

Family means support and caring and being there for someone. When I stop and think about those people who support me who are in many places in the world, with whom I connect on the internet only, I realize that they are my “family.” My support system is deeper and more far-reaching than I realized.

I am grateful to understand that.

The contact may be in the past

I began my work as a healer in New York City in the 1980’s. Many people contributed to my path there. Sometimes in the form of one workshop. Sometimes in the form of a long training. Sometimes in the form of like-minded friends.

The new friend that invited me to go to the Church of Religion Science in Santa Rosa, California in 1995 changed my life. I spent the next five years being very involved. I became a Licensed Spiritual Counselor and was part of the Teaching Faculty.

Many, many wonderful people walked beside me on my path there.

Do you see how this works? I study Taoism and the people who wrote the books I read walk beside me on my path. I study Shamanism and the teachers who taught the class walked beside me on my path.

Who is walking beside you on your path today?

The more specialized you become in your interests, the more challenging it is to find people to walk beside. I have a few valued friends that I speak with regularly on the internet. Each one nurtures a different facet of my journey and each one is deeply valued.

Look around and see who is walking beside you on your path.

Who are you walking beside in service?

Sometimes you don’t even know that’s what you are doing is impacting others. I put out one post and one newsletter a week and have no real idea how much of either is read, let alone by whom. Until someone writes to me. And then my heart is touched and my step bolstered.

People may walk beside you for a short while or for a very long time. Just be aware of where you are going and who comes alongside to support or guide or nudge you.

Stay true to our path but accept the companions that offer to walk beside you for a while

Whose presence are you grateful for along your path?

Who are you walking beside in service?

Deeper Song Affirmation

I pause to see who is walking beside me on my path.

A Deeper Song Process

Begin by noticing who you are supporting on their path. What do you do for them? How does that feel?
Look closely at those who are walking beside you on your path. How are they guiding you? How are they supporting you?
I am grateful for your presence on my path.

To Sind a Deeper Song Consider:

Walk the Sacred Path Within Surely and Steadily and Leave a Trail

Raise Your Sails

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Ripple

When I See Myself As Light

How to Walk a Path of Inner Stillness

Come Sing a Deeper Song

I help people who are consciously
raising their vibration
to explore the Unseen World
so that we can help create a New Consciousness.

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications
Join the Deeper Song Community

See the Pattern and Then the Potential

February 26, 2020 By Cara Lumen

See the Pattern and Then the Potential

Adventures in the Unseen World

Experiences keep repeating because we keep doing what we’ve always been doing. To change our experience and our results, we only have to change our actions.

However, there is another way to look at patterns. We can see patterns as potential. You become aware that what continues to show up – for better or worse – is a result of your actions and thoughts. The patterns you have set up by your actions and thoughts are working to create the results that appear.

You are the creator of the results you experience. Change your patterns and you will change the outcome. All change comes from within you.

What is working?

Because I’m retired there are a great many things about my life that are working. Because I’m old there are a few things that are not working as well as I would like. Let’s begin with the positive.

I’m a much better writer than I was even five years ago, let alone 50 years ago. That’s a positive that has built over time because it is a passion and a constant calling that I heeded.

Over the course of time, I now know myself well enough to know I like to write in short forms so I do not undertake long detailed projects. That’s a powerful realization – knowing what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. That helps you make good choices.

I love to do shamanic journeying so I do that nearly every day. I love to play my flute so I do that every day. I love to write so I do that every day. See how easy it is to fill your day with things that you love to do!!

Notice what you love to do and simply do more of it.

What is not working?

Because I spend so much time encouraging my mind, my body has taken a bit of hit. I’m smart enough to know what I need to do but I have to find more clever ways to get me to do it. My inactivity is working to make my body less strong. I need to make changes in my viewpoint, my expectation, and my actions.

Look for the pattern

I have to look for places I am willing to put in new actions that will correct the things that are not working. If it means doing some Qi Gong when I stand up from my desk, then I begin there. If it means a few yoga moves at the kitchen skink every time I am in that room, I can build on that pattern and add new designs.

Create a pattern of reminders. I call them pulse points. Walk through a doorway and let it remind you to stand up straighter. When you see the sun set out the window, turn and play your flute and offer gratitude for the day.

A pulse point. Something you do often that will serve as a reminder to begin to establish new choices, new habits.

Look for the potential

There is potential for strengthening my body each time I move around the room. There is potential for stretching even while sitting in a chair.

I have a pattern of preferring to write in relatively short pieces. But the potential becomes a collection of posts to make a book. Use what you are drawn to.

I am doing very unusual shamanic journey work and the potential seems to include processes to teach others. Explore how you will share your passion.

My exploration of vibration healing has moved beyond tuning forks and humming and drumming. I am exploring the Unseen World for guidance and information and your next steps. Let your inner voice guide you.

Every thought you have is filled with potential. It may or may not be yours to do, but if the idea appears, it is certainly yours to examine and perhaps explore a bit.

What is the potential for the idea you just got?

Know what is stopping you and see if it can be released

Thirty-five years ago I was told I could be a very strong motivational speaker.

I did not pursue that because I was bogged down with a bit of shyness. Perhaps a lack of confidence, perhaps not feeling I knew enough to motivate anyone. In order words, I did not understand or know my own value, my own gifts, my own potential.

The result is that I am not a motivational speaker, but I am a motivational writer.

Find where the gift fits and do that.

Identify the pattern and then explore its potential.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I take conscious stock of the patterns in my life and look creatively at their potential.

Deeper Song Process

Take time to make a list of the things you do or think about what you want to do.
Pick one and go exploring. Look at some training videos to see if the idea really appeals to you. What more could you do with the idea? Where could it take you? How could you make it uniquely yours? What is in your way? How can you get rid of that?
Find what is calling you and do that.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Individual Curiosity and a Willingness to Change.

Believe In The Power Of Your Own Ripple

Expand You Own Power Through Self-Leadership

Walk the Sacred Path Within Surely and Steadily and Leave a Trail

Come Sing a Deeper Song

I help people who are consciously raising their vibration
to explore the Unseen World
so that we can help create a New Reality.

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications

Join the Deeper Song Community

The Path Ahead Cannot Be Seen

December 26, 2019 By Cara Lumen

The Path Ahead Cannot Be Seen

Adventures in the Unseen World

Life changes, we change. We know what we’re changing from, but not what we’re changing to.

We have to trust the process.

Where you are now is the result of what you have been doing

You’re standing where you are based on the choices you made up to now, things you did and things you didn’t do.

[Read more…]

The Shift from Gratitude to Honoring

November 27, 2019 By Cara Lumen

The Shift from Gratitude to Honoring

An Inner-World Exploration

Gratitude and honoring each have a different function and they produce different results.

What is the difference between gratitude and honoring and why do we care?

Being grateful focuses our attention

I need to understand gratitude. If we’re all one energy, who am I thanking? Being grateful focuses me, makes me aware of the positive that’s showing up. Gratitude focuses our attention.

What happens when we elevate our gratitude to honoring?

The things I choose to honor seem more vital than the things I’m grateful for. I’m grateful for my mind and I honor its curiosity and wisdom. I’m grateful for my body and I honor the myriad of unseen systems that go into making it work. I’m grateful for my life, that I’m safe and tucked in my old age. And I honor the path that led me here and I especially honor the unseen forces that are guiding me.

Both honoring and gratitude include action

I want to honor my past. I want to honor my present. I want to honor my future. I want to honor the ancestors, the divine feminine, the elements of nature. Honoring is deeper than gratitude. There’s a reverence to it. A respect proffered.

To honor is to respect. To honor is to appreciate. To honor is to care for, perhaps to love. To honor is what I want to be and to have and to express.

Gratitude is more a body-suit energy

The difference between honoring and gratitude may be as simple as the action we take. I may feel gratitude for something. I may even show my appreciation. But I honor it by the reverence and mindfulness of the action I take.

For instance, I feel gratitude for the blessings of life. Gratitude to the blessing of my body. Gratitude to the sun for warmth…

Cultivate the action of honoring

Honor the formation of the present. How it’s gathering in, drawing in, attracting the energies that evolve into the next step, the next idea, the next action. Honor the coming together of the forces into a new shape. the shape-shifting of energy into a new form.

I’m grateful for my mind. I honor it by keeping it stimulated and productive.

I’m grateful for my body. I honor it with the care I give it.

Honor your gifts. Honor your choices. Honor the opportunities you did or didn’t take.

It’s a subtle but distinct difference.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I cultivate the practice of honoring in my life.

Deeper Song Process

Choose something tangible that you’re grateful for. Like your body, or your job or a relationship.
How do you express your gratitude?
How do you honor it?
How do you experience the difference and what does this awareness add to your life?