Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

Spiritual Heart

What is the Difference between Spirituality and Religion?  

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What is the Difference between Spirituality and Religion?
An Inner World Exploration

Consider this: Religion is taught and interpreted through the limitations of the human mind. Spirituality is discovered through the soul.

Religion is taught and interpreted by mankind in accordance with the prevalent group consciousness. Spirituality is discovered through your individual and unique awareness of the whole.

Your spirituality continually unfolds

Your spiritual awareness and experience will expand and contract and shift directions as you get to know yourself, define and clarify your personal values and make self-aware, aligned choices that create your life experience.  These all lead to individual choices in what to believe and how to apply it.

We have choices in evolving our spirituality. We can mindfully take time to question the religious beliefs we have been exposed to since childhood to see if they still resonate.  We can look around at what we’re experiencing, choose the values we want to live by and forge not only our own life path but a spiritual path that supports our journey.  We do that by exploring our inner world.

There are three phases in developing your own spirituality: 

– question your core beliefs
– explore unfamiliar spiritual expressions to see what resonates
– create your own unique spiritual practice.

Question your core beliefs

Because our core beliefs have been around so long, they’re familiar and comfortable and seldom called into question.  But we should periodically examine and define these beliefs to see if they still resonate with what we’ve learned and what we believe.  

For instance, there are a great many things we believe because that’s what our parents taught us or reflected back to us.  Now, this can range from good to bad. A drug-addicted parent gives us one view of life, a conservative parent another, a free-floating explorer of life another.  Stop for a moment and put your parents in a general category. Also reflect on the cultural climate they grew up in, how it restricted or motivated them. Then see how their life experience differed from your present one and what that means about the choices you should/could make today about your core values and beliefs. Question what you believe and why you believe it and re-choose based on who you are today.

There’s a difference between a taught-from-childhood religious education dictated by the beliefs and backgrounds and choices of your parents and an experiential discovery process of your own unique, individualized spiritual expression.  You may have to look closely to see what you inherited and what you consciously chose.

Like the core values we learn as children from the belief systems of our parents, it’s probable that our specific religious training, or lack of one, was also dictated by them.  

My mother was Presbyterian.  My father Morman, which my mother actively didn’t like as a religion.  I got a strong message there.  

As a young divorced woman, I was drawn to the low Episcopal church but could not enter a second marriage through that church because I had been divorced. So I felt rejected by a religion I was drawn to.  I went back to the Presbyterian church to get married.  Then back to the Episcopal church for the ceremony and structure that appealed to me at the time. I had begun my own spiritual exploration by noticing what called to me and taking steps to go exploring.

My first major discovery or what truly called to me, what I truly believed, all by myself, for myself, came from one book, The Aquarian Conspiracy by Marilyn Ferguson.  I was a wife and mother living in the conservative mid-west. That book told me about people all over the country (particularly on both coasts)  who were doing and thinking and being like I wanted to be.  I had not even known they existed.

I made a major life decision to go exploring for myself and that’s when I recognized the difference between the handed down religious beliefs I had been indoctrinated in and the very personal spiritual exploration and discoveries I embarked on in my forties.  I became a metaphysician!

I continue to explore.  And choose.  And modify.  I have not stayed with any one form of spirituality or one religious practice. My spiritual core is based on metaphysics that includes New Thought, many forms of energy healing, Taoism and Shamanism.  I see myself as spiritual, not religious.   Eclectically spiritual, for my spiritual beliefs come from my exploration as a human on this planet. I have chosen what calls to me.  What resonates with me.  What is effective for me. It’s never the whole system, simply the parts and pieces that resonate. 

Religion to me is a formal, handed down doctrine that’s taught and interpreted by people steeped in the beliefs and prejudices of their own time. Spirituality is what you evolve for yourself. It comes from many sources and is chosen because it resonates deeply with you. And you take only the parts that feel aligned with your own spiritual path.

Be aware of your unique spiritual path

Instead of seeing yourself as a member of a congregation, you are now aware that you have an individual spiritual responsibility, a path of service that’s yours alone to walk.  And you set about selecting the beliefs and concepts and ideas that support you in making that individual journey.

As our life evolves, and we learn about and understand ourselves more intimately, we need to question our beliefs, whether they come from a particular discipline or have become an eclectic mix of spiritual principles that call to us. Do you have the courage to do that?  Do you trust your own inner wisdom to discern what’s currently for your highest good? 

Even if we’ve explored and taken parts and pieces of various forms of spiritual expression, we still need to periodically examine and evaluate to see if those ideas and practices still serve us. 

Explore unfamiliar spiritual expressions

The first time I had a clue about anything other than my Presbyterian upbringing was in a Comparative Religion course in college.  I had no idea all those spiritual approaches existed.  My question to myself was, “If there are all these different religions, how do I know mine is ‘right’?”  Right in the sense that it gets me closer to a higher energy?  Right in that it makes me a kinder, more thoughtful person?  Right in that it answers my need to feel connected to a greater energy? 

What is right for you?

Here’s my problem – all of these religions have been interpreted by humans and are filled with the limitations of being a human.  

Spirituality is of the unseen world. There are no boundaries, no limitations.  The core is Oneness.  The oneness of all things.  If each of us could live our lives as if we were all one energy –which we are – can you even begin to imagine how our world would change?

So I went exploring over the years. Becoming a metaphysician took me exploring in energy techniques like reiki, transcendental meditation, yoga, tai chi, chi gong, Bach flowers, herbalism and Ayurvedic principles.  

When I left New York City for Santa Rosa, California, I found the Center for Spiritual Living and spent five years becoming a licensed practitioner. That is New Thought with a lot of Emerson influences and has elements of all the world’s great religions.

But I moved on.  Poets like Rumi and Gibran spoke deeply to me.  I was steadily drawn into Taoism, which seems more free-wheeling to me than Buddhism. As I explored, I took what resonated and left the rest.  

A few years ago, I began to immerse myself in shamanism, learning its powerful form of meditation called “journeying”.  I have developed an exceedingly strong and active inner life connecting with my helping spirits for their guidance and wisdom.  Is it religion? – No.  Is it spirituality? – Totally.

I studied the work of a past-life regressionist Michael Newton, who, by leading his patients into descriptions of their lives between lives on earth has opened a whole realm of possibilities for me. It’s part of my personal spiritual exploration and what I have come to believe about it is very aligned with being 85. There is a great “next” waiting.  

And that’s the point.  Take what works for you and leave the rest behind.

Understand and periodically redefine your core values

What are your core values?  If you are like most of us, you don’t even know where to begin. 

Core values are our fundamental beliefs. Our guiding principles. They help us understand the difference between what we see as right and wrong. They are our guideposts, our measuring sticks, to help us find our way on our chosen path. And they may prioritize themselves differently as we move through life.  

“Spiritual exploration” is at the top of my list of core values.  Finding my place of illumined service is right next to it.  Learning is near the top.  I value life (I’m a vegan – “do no harm”). I value inclusiveness.  Honesty is high but it’s so ingrained as a core value I almost forget to list it. You get the picture.  Make a list of a few of your core values, those guidelines, and guideposts, the choices you make on your life path.

What concepts offer you the most comfort, the most strength, the most “whatever you need right now” in your life?  Pick and choose and add the elements that support your personal spiritual practice. 

I begin my day with a personalized ceremony that’s eclectic and open to change.  It includes sound healing, chi gong intention setting, gratitude and blessings for the day to come. I deepen my inner awareness by taking a shamanic journey every day.  I do mindful breathing. I pause in my day to meditate with nature. My spiritual practice is eclectic and totally nurturing to me.  It’s also open to adding, subtracting and rearranging all of the elements. 

What forms of spiritual expression have you explored? Have you given yourself permission to pick and choose the practices that call to you?

Create and evolve your own expression of your spirituality

Because spirituality is individual, because it’s made up of elements that resonate with your current needs, you can let the form evolve. You can add things and drop things. The point is to have your spiritual practice, your spiritual exploration, expand your awareness, deepen your connection with All-That-Is and make you a better person.

I don’t like to be restricted.  I don’t like rules. I don’t like to be told what to do. Formal religion feels constricting. It has too many rules, too much conformity. Even after five years of training to become a practitioner in the New Thought Center for Spiritual Living, I formally practiced only a few years before I moved on to my own more eclectic version of spiritual expression.  I had grown spiritually and the format was too rigid for me. And that’s a pretty relaxed church.  

As I explored I moved to terms like the All-That-Is, and the Nowhere That We Came From, (Rumi) the Web of Life, and one I made up: The Emptiness that Holds Everything. That frees me from a limiting human, male, dominating father-figure and frees me to feel and be and explore my core essence, which I feel is light”.

Whatever beliefs are at our spiritual core, we base our lives on them and make our choices from them.  Everyone’s spiritual path is different.  We must learn to honor that. We must allow that.  And we must not try to make others think the way we do or condemn them if they don’t.  Each person is on their own spiritual path with their own version created by them alone to guide them on their path.  

Just work on your own spiritual path.  There’s enough there to keep you busy. Each person has their own version. Our personal experience of religion/spirituality is all up to interpretation.  Whether you’re looking at the doctrine of an organized religion or an oral, generationally developed spiritual tradition like shamanism, the individual interpretation and application is up to each of us. Even what looks the same on the outside is going to be seen and experienced differently on the inside depending on our personal viewpoints and cultivation of our own spiritual experience. 

At the core, nearly everyone believes in something greater than they are  

But from there the journey and the beliefs are as varied as we are.  It may be seen as a force “out there” or “in here”. It may be described in many metaphors, but it is actually indescribable.  It is felt. It is known. It cannot be described. 

Our spirituality is also so fundamentally vital in our life that whatever version we’ve defined for ourselves is seldom questioned and seldom changed.

Therefore, human-based differences based on our core religion/spirituality will continue to be the source of discord – until we all can see ourselves as One Light, One Interconnected Web of Life and know that our strand in this Web of Life strongly affects others.  The focus and depth of our inner light as reflected in our own life has a ripple effect that shapes our world and our life experiences.

How is your light doing? 

Does your life reflect your current beliefs or have you changed a bit?  Do you need to become kinder, more inclusive, offer more unconditional love?  Can you feel the connection of your inner light with others? Do you feel like we are all part of one Light Community?

In order to expand your spiritual experience, do you need to look around at other spiritual philosophies? I love the Taoist concepts of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching. I find shamanism gives me the most direct spiritual experience I’ve had so far.  I love the Buddhist concepts of mindfulness and the messages of nature that life is always unfolding. 

Question your core beliefs

The first step in exploring this difference between religion and spirituality is to be willing to go exploring. To be willing to identify your core beliefs and let your inner voice guide you into your personal expression of spirituality. 

Look around.  Talk to people of different belief systems. Read the authors who describe different forms of spiritual expression.  See if they’re repeating the dogma they have been taught or if they are actively thinking about and exploring certain facets of their religion.  Go exploring.

Evolve your own spiritual experience

Begin to create your own expression of your spirituality. Be eclectic.  Be selective. Take what speaks to you and adapt it into your own spiritual path. 

Then walk your spiritual path, with openness, expectation, and a willingness to change. 

Have you questioned your spiritual foundation recently?  Will you?  I wonder what you will discover…

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

Abide at the Center of Your Being

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

How Your Spiritual Life Changes You

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

The Path of Supportive Service

Does Your Path Have Heart?

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

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What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

As an introvert and a loner, I’m a tad shy of friends.  And that mostly works for me.  But when I came across the words “spiritual friendship”, I paused to see what I thought that would look like. 

Spiritual friends walk alongside each other on connected paths

Friendships are often based on similarities and mutual interests. That means we share values, are at similar stages of development and each has about the same level of knowledge and experience around our mutual areas of interest.

We are peers, fellow travelers going the same direction – at least for now.  The more esoteric my path becomes, the further afield I have to wander to find like-minded friends. I keep looking because everyone comes bearing gifts. 

I get excited about what I’m learning and discovering, and I need to share that fascination and amazement with someone who understands what I’m talking about. Having someone on a similar path helps me go even deeper in my own exploration.  My spiritual friends offer me insights and experiences that are aligned with our mutual journey.  We learn from each other.

Your role in a spiritual friendship may shift back and forth from student to teacher to student to teacher

In a spiritual friendship, we have shifting roles.  Sometimes you are the teacher who deeps our mutual journey with your insights and observations.  Sometimes you are the student who asks questions that make both of us stop and think. And we’re always partners on a journey, walking steadily beside each other, shining our lights on the unfolding path before us and walking alongside each other in illumined service. 

We learn from each other. We teach each other. We challenge each other. We encourage each other. 

At some point, our paths may separate.  We usually walk alongside a spiritual friend for only a portion of our journey, taking from the experience what we need to deepen and expand our own journey and give what we’re destined to give to the other person. The length of our journey together may vary from long to short, even a momentary connection, but the impact will be profound and long-lasting.

You’ll find your spiritual friends everywhere

Once you begin looking for spiritual friends you’ll find them in all manner of unexpected circumstances. One of my spiritual friends is a healer friend I’ve known since I lived in California and we have currently deepened our connection.  Another is a doctor who was assigned to be my partner in a shamanic online course we took together. I talk with both these spiritual friends regularly on Skype. 

Another spiritual friend is a very special man I took a course from five years ago. There was and is a deep connection which continues even though his field is entrepreneurial advancement.  We read each other’s newsletters and posts and steadily support each other through periodic emails.  

Thanks to the Internet our spiritual friends can be found any place in the world. 

Who have you walked beside?

If you look back over your life, you may recognize times when you’ve shared your path with someone. I only became aware of the idea of walking beside someone in service four years ago when my one male spiritual friend shared the concept and said that is what I was doing. Now that I have fully and enthusiastically embraced the idea, I consciously work to walk beside others whenever I can. With this awareness, I can look back over my past and see other spiritual friends who have walked beside me for a while.

The spiritual friends I currently find myself walking alongside happen to be from a younger generation. They’re at different crossroads in their lives. Their objectives are different – not yet ready to retire, but doing a bit of planning for it. They’re at a high point in their careers. However, we are spiritually on similar paths, and we each bring our unique experience and insights to our walk beside each other. We enrich each other’s journey. We learn from each other.

Your unique personalities add differences deepen your learning experience

My shamanic partner is a medical doctor who has been studying shamanism several years longer than I have. In our exchanges, she helps me clarify and consciously apply the principles. I offer insights from my extensive holistic background. I’m also approaching shamanism from a creative and free-flowing direction and that broadens the range of our mutual exploration. We bring our individual approach to our spiritual friendship and weave it together into a stronger journey for us both. 

She stretches me.  I stretch her.  

Our needs are different.  She is preparing for her retirement in six or seven years.  At 85 my focus is to still be here and still contributing. But for the time being, we walk beside each other in spiritual friendship.

Each person you spend extended time with is sharing their gifts with you. What are you giving? What are you receiving?

How do you actively seek spiritual friendships? 

I was feeling very alone until I redefined how I saw myself.  

I’ve thought of myself as a metaphysician, a spiritual philosopher, a Light Worker, a Transformational Thinker, an Agent of Change,  a student of Taoism, and a shamanism practitioner, but that is such an eclectic mix I can usually only find people who embrace one facet. And I could not bring myself to identify with only one group. 

Then one day I came across a broader, more encompassing definition for myself that brought me in alignment with many, many people all over the world. I saw myself as part of a larger, more expansive group instead of a unique collection of all my individual interests. 

Stephen Dinan of The Shift Network said, “You are part of the shift if you are growing a business that is offering products or services that help enlighten, evolve, or transform humanity.”

Enlighten, evolve, transform.  Big words.  Big job. Big purpose.  I suddenly know a great many people who are doing this kind of work and I feel connected, intertwined, supported by and moving forward with them as we walk along this broader path together. 

It’s not the type of work you do, it’s the spiritual intention behind it that connects you with other spiritual partners.

What words do you need to find to describe your work to yourself that will lift your awareness of the many light beings who are actually already walking beside you on the same path? Think in broad, encompassing, spiritual definitions rather than the specifics of how you do the work. That will help you identify others on your same path.

Look online for people who are on a similar path. They may be teaching, or studying, or simply shining their light through their work. Offer an unconditional generosity of spirit, and reach out to your fellow travelers by shining your light in their direction. 

Let your spiritual friendships evolve and take you where you need to go – together

Opportunity for spiritual practice and spiritual friendship is not someplace else – it’s right here. We can make a move to establish it.

Who will you reach out to next? How will you find more spiritual friends?

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

How You See Yourself – You Are

The Power of Being Different

The Path of Supportive Service 

Live in the Center of Your Being

What are the Foundation Stones Upon Which You Build Your Life?

Do You have the Willingness to find Common Ground?

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Do You have the Willingness to find Common Ground?

There were great articles on where and how to create peace in The Shift Network newsletter.  I didn’t read them.  I couldn’t read them because…I don’t know.  I didn’t want to read about people doing cruel things to each other or systematically destroying our planet.  I feel helpless in the midst of the current chaos and friction in the world and, well, I don’t think I am really willing to compromise. And compromise we must in order to find the common ground that will bring us peaceful coexistence. 

I don’t even want to be around people who are slightly angry – their negative energy physically hurts my body.  So I avoid conflict.  I avoid disgruntled people. I avoid anger.

But that isn’t going to really make things better.  I have to participate. I have to compromise. I have to find common ground. 

We are all totally interconnected

My action here affects your life there.  If we both don’t raise our consciousness, we will neither one improve our level of participation, our level of life experience.  

For instance, if I am not consciously recycling trash, it may end up in the ocean affecting the fish you need to catch to feed your family. 

We each have different priorities, but we’re all connected. 

Can we have one core focus?

When we each decide that our primary concern/focus is sustaining our planet for ourselves, for our children, for our descendants, then we immediately identify specific steps to take. No pesticides. No GMO. More organic food production, no plastic wraps for food, positive emission steps to help slow climate change.  When we think of our future, our consciousness shifts and we make different choices. 

If you and I lived in a community built around a central garden that provides all our food, we would each do our best to make it the best, most productive garden we could.  We might try different methods.  And we would probably have an argument over organic versus genetically modified.  And I bet it would be an animated conversation, depending on what we each thought was more important – quantity or quality.  

We need to find common values

Let’s say everyone in our small community that has gathered around this one garden primarily wants to be healthy.  Finding common ground, common values is where you begin. But do you know how many versions of how to be healthy there will be?  One for each of us. 

An important awareness we must each develop is to know that we’re free to do what’s best for us according to our own knowledge and understanding – as long as it only affects us.  

As long as it only affects us.  So you really can’t put pesticides out anywhere near my organic vegetables because they will drift over to my plants and I won’t eat any of your genetically modified produce.  We have to grow our own food separately because our viewpoints are so opposing.  And yet our fundamental, common goal is the same.  Feed ourselves and our families. We simply have different ideas on how to make that happen.

I’m not going to change and you’re not going to change because our beliefs are very, very strong and it’s our survival we’re talking about, what we eat.  

That’s both a terrible example and a good example.  I’m a vegan so I have lots of strong feelings about what I eat.  But it does highlight just how core our opposing viewpoints can be and how difficult it can be to find common ground.

Fortunately, in today’s world, you can buy what you want and I can buy what I want.  Although here we go again, pesticides are killing the bumblebees and genetically modified food puts the entire food chain at risk of being totally eradicated because it is not diverse and if it goes, our entire food supply will go. 

Learn the facts

If you never thought about what’ll happen if all crops were genetically modified, it might be good to do some online research. Who is pushing for it (one chemical company) and what are the repercussions? One new blight, one adverse organism could wipe out our entire food supply.  

The dying, pesticide-poisoned bumblebee population is important to remedy because they are necessary for the cross-pollination of our crops.  Before we dig our heals in on a particular position we owe it to ourselves and to our world to educate ourselves about the degree of repercussions our choice would/could make.  We need to keep up with the latest discoveries, the new solutions, and be open to changing our views. The old way is obsolete nearly as fast as we figure it out. Change is a constant and we absolutely must be willing to keep up with it.

Live and let live only goes so far

We don’t live on the planet alone.  Every action we take affects everything, everyone. We must learn to live as globally conscious, flexible, innovative members of a planetary community.  I have no idea how to get everyone to do that.  I can see how a group of like-minded people would choose to live around a cooperative organic garden.  But what about the rest of the people in their community?  If they are doing things we see as destructive to our planet, what do we do?

We each have to give up something

We have to find common ground.  We will each have to compromise, give a little.  Maybe give way a lot.

But wait.  If I mess up my food source, I’ll die. That’s pretty basic.  I can see a “live and let live” approach to a lot of things – free choice about a lot of things – until it infringes on my clean air, my organic garden, my fresh water.  Then I dig in and refuse to budge.  That’s my survival that’s being messed with. 

If I were starving, I’d eat pretty much anything.  But we don’t have to get to the starving stage to find agreement. 

It’s when we come together to build something that conflict arises because compromise must be the core of collaboration. 

Let’s say we, in our community of both organic and non-organic believers, come together to organize and expand our town. 

First, we have to decide between short term and long-term planning. What is our over-arching goal?  Then we have to examine the repercussions. Everything is tied to everything else, so if I pull a string here, something unravels or tangles up over there.  Are we exchanging one knot for another?  What is best for the highest good?  How does filling this need now impact our children’s lives?

The first step is to agree on our over-arching purpose 

What is our over-arching purpose for this planet?  Survival would probably get everyone’s vote.  How we do that starts the discussion and referee the arguments. We may have to compromise because of cost.  We may have to prioritize because of pressing need.  We may have to forgo immediate results in order to take active foundational steps because they create positive long-term results.  We have to see the overview and hold it in front of us as we plan. We have to see the connection, how this move here will affect that situation over there. And we have to hold the same primary goal and keep moving toward our agreed upon end goal as we move forward together. 

Oh yes, and we all have to be flexible as the movement unfolds. We have to make adjustments for new discoveries, and new entanglements. 

So I’m going to join with other organic gardeners and have a plot to grow my food.  I’ll share some of my organic produce with those who have made other choices.  I may or may not point out how much healthier and stronger those of us who eat organic are, but maybe that will simply become noticeable.  That gradual awareness may cause others to make more conscious choices for their own well-being. 

That works unless I am forced to eat genetically modified food with pesticides on it.  

Then we’re back to core conflict.  

We must each learn to see the overview

If you’re in survival mode only, you can’t raise your gaze to see the long-term.  You don’t see the water table lowering or the seas rising or the glaciers melting. You can’t look that far beyond today’s survival. Therefore, you can’t or won’t be able to see how your actions of today affect the future.  Your focus is on the ground before you, one foot of survival at a time. 

But those of us who can see the overview must take steps to protect us all.  We can begin to do that by example.  If an organic diet makes us live longer, then others will see it.  If I carry my cloth grocery bag to the grocery store, others will see it and may think to carry their own.  If I’m very careful to recycle what I can, perhaps I need to offer to carry my neighbor’s recycling out for her to make certain it’s done.  

What can you offer to do for someone else that moves the world a little closer to wellness?

I can network.  I can tell my neighbors that when I order my groceries delivered, the drivers will take the plastic bags from the last delivery back and the store ships them to a special place for reprocessing.  They may not know that.  They may not choose to do that.  But I have passed forward the information of some positive, environmentally supportive choices they can make.

Raise your consciousness and the consciousness of others

I didn’t know the water table in Cape Town, South Africa, was so low it was at crisis level until I watched a PBS news report, which also informed me that California has a similar water table problem. I have no idea how a water table works or how to protect one. I’m in the mid-west so I’m not certain what I can do about either of those particular problems, but I can educate myself to figure out what that means and how my community is caring for our water table.  

If it turns out we need to make changes, I could go so far as to report what I find to the local government.  Maybe I have to do some educating.  And find like-minded people who are concerned. And be pro-active in helping to find a solution.

We cannot just sit around and let it happen to us

Many people will do nothing.  It’s simply not in their nature.  They’ll accept whatever shows up.  Others may find one particular cause, like animals that are nearing extinction, and donate money or join groups who are being pro-active in saving public lands. 

Whatever you’re called to do to preserve our planet, do it.  Make it a positive participation. Make certain it moves the cause forward.  Even if it’s in your small corner of the world.  Let others know what you found. Give them the information they need to make informed and more pro-active choices. 

Raise your sights. Raise your values. Be an influencer

Do not settle.  Be an influencer.  Make others aware of their choices and the repercussions of their actions through education and actions.  Don’t force.  Just do. Be an example. Raise the level of consciousness in your corner of the world and when you look up, you’ll find there are others around the world doing the same.  Meet each other’s gaze and keep going. 

FOR DEEPER EXPLORATION

How Modern Mysticism Will Save the World 

Live in the Center of Your Being

What Is The Foundation StonesUpon Which You Build Your Life?  

We Are Responsible 

One Powerful Way to Change Our Future 

The Path of Supportive Service

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The Path of Supportive Service

We help others by simply walking beside them in supportive service.  

We don’t push.  We don’t pull. We don’t tell them what to do.  We simply walk beside them in service. Supportive service.  Loving service. Loyal service.  

We do it for others.  Others do it for us. 

We move gently into their life and match their steps.  

We may shine a light here and there to highlight possibilities, but mostly we walk in loving support beside them as they move through their own journey.

It’s an interesting feeling for me to know that I don’t walk beside you as a teacher or a leader.  I’m simply here to support.  And shine a little light along our shared pathway. 

I see myself on a path.  It’s not a particularly steep path, but it’s heading steadily upward.  

At this point in human time, I have two people with whom I’m actively interacting as we walk along together. We’re going in the same direction, but we are taking separate journeys. 

That’s as it should be.

I’m also walking beside others through my writing, even if I’m not always in direct interaction with them. 

I know that just as I find support and inspiration and motivation from other people whose work I read, we never know how the waves we send out impact others. 

Support by listening

For me, the greater service my two walking-beside-me-in-service partners give is to provide a space for me to share my excitement over what I discover and what I learn. They’re strong sounding boards and reflective mirrors. In that sense, we teach each other because we’re going more or less in the same direction, but we each have chosen a distinctive pathway. 

We listen well.  We exchange ideas with enthusiasm.  We give informed feedback and encouragement. Sometimes the gift is an idea we pick up from the other person that they’ve chosen to put in place themselves.  Listening is learning.   As we share our experiences and our response and interpretation of our own journey, we each expand our awareness – of self and of possibilities. 

Because my path is so focused on deepening my own spiritual understanding, for me the most important aspect of walking beside someone in service is that we’re at similar levels of interest and accomplishment along our path.  We can understand each other at the deepest levels of our journeys.

It has occurred to me, in writing this, that you are the third person I’m walking beside in service. You, who read what I write and sometimes offer comments.  Thank you for your thoughtful steps beside me. Thank you for sharing in my journey.

We follow our heart when we select who to walk beside in service. It’s always an exchange.  We both give and receive as we move along our journey. 

Support by mirroring

One of my walk-beside partners is very detailed.  I’m at the other end of the spectrum.  I grab an idea and run with it.  She holds it and studies and absorbs it.  Both are perfectly appropriate ways of learning but it was important for both of us to see and honor each other’s learning styles.  She helps me be willing to be a little more detailed – I help her be a little more experimental. 

Support by reflecting

One of my partners is a fellow shamanic practitioner.  We’re both exploring how we want to fit that incredible work into our lives, for ourselves and for assisting others.  She wants an active in-person shamanic practice. I want to primarily use the journey work to explore and write about what I discover and show others how to apply journeying for their own self-awareness. Two different objectives.  One shared path.

We practice on each other.  We reflect back to each other.  We learn from each other. We talk on Skype every week. 

Learn from their path

The other major person I’m walking beside in service is also a healer, but her path is different from mine.  She’s exploring things I never even thought about and some of my experiences in my shamanic explorations expand her knowledge. We have broad-ranging conversations as we walk alongside each other.

As you walk beside someone in illumined service, there’s an exchange.  You learn from each other as you also support each other’s journey.

Learn from helping

I’ve just begun to walk beside someone else in service.  She wants to learn shamanism.  As I prepare an outline for the guidance I want to offer, my own knowledge deepens and expands. Her questions and needs and interests will guide our journey together. 

Helping her helps me clarify how I want to be in service on a broader scale.  The words I want to write. The insights I want to offer.   You learn from the person you’re walking beside even as you’re the one doing the supportive walking.

There are people you serve you don’t know

Here’s the unmeasurable one. Our presence has a ripple effect. Our work has a ripple effect.  My work with the people I’m actively walking beside supports them and helps them expand their reach. I can see the movement that comes from our exchanges.  But through these people, I’m also in service to others I do not know in places I cannot see, as they expand their own reach into their world.

I also am aware that I’m walking on a planetary-wide path with people I do not know.  But I know our purpose.  I know our direction.  We are Illumined Explorers expressing our spirit-directed living and we are moving through the world to tap on the shoulders of receptive people.  As we shine our light, others see it and recognize the light in themselves, and they join in to help raise the collective consciousness. It’s very inclusive, impactful work for the wellbeing of our planet.

It’s trickier for me to gauge the impact of my own written offerings.  I occasionally get emails that indicate that a particular post has touched a life.  And I know there’s a consistent number of “opens” on my weekly posts.  But I have no idea what my work prompts each reader to turn around and give their world. And I never will. I have to trust and keep shining my light their way.  So that’s what I keep doing. 

You walk beside someone in service with every exchange

I live in a senior community in the conservative Mid-West and with my metaphysical interests, there’s no one here I can talk to about them.  But my mere presence is part of my service.  My persona, my participation, my appreciation for the opportunity to interact, those are all ways I walk beside them in service.  Your mere presence is a light that shines upon the path. We must be conscious of everything we offer the world, even by simply being present.

Point out the possibilities

If you picture yourself walking along a path beside someone, you may periodically shine your light on other possible paths to explore.  They may take one detour. You may explore another.  When you continue on the main path together, you each have new insights to share from your separate side journeys.

Help them over the high places

When we walk beside someone in service we help each other over the high places – and the low places. That’s simply the nature of walking along the same path. We’re supportive of our respective journeys.

Appreciate their light upon your path

Not everyone is going to think of their personal journey as shining their light upon the path of another.  Perhaps as you walk beside someone, you tell them how much their light means to you.  Perhaps you even find ways you both might shine your lights in other directions.  Stay aware.  Keep on the lookout and respond to the opportunities that appear. 

What does it feel like to walk beside someone in service?

Look at your life.  Who are you walking beside?  Who is walking beside you?  Some may be walking more closely to you, some may be nearby but at different points on the journey. Some may be willing to take that interesting detour with you. Others may not. 

Simply shine your light brighter.  Expand your beam. Draw in more people. And keep walking.

FOR DEEPER EXPLORATION:

Live in the Center of your being

What Is The Foundation Upon Which You Build Your Life?

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

How Effective Is Your Spiritual Practice? 

One Powerful Way to Change Our Future 

If You Are A Rock – Who Supports You?

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One Powerful Way to Change Our Future

By

One Powerful Way to Change Our Future

It’s natural for people to be tribal.  For early man, it was about survival – some people could hunt, some could heal. In other words, it took a tribe to make a village.  So it makes sense that we tend to collect around people we find supportive and like-minded, to be part of a tribe.

The problem is, within our own tribe we seldom question, we seldom explore.  We seldom examine alternatives.  We settle into the security of the familiar, the routine and safety of our own tribe. And when we come across another tribe, we are suspicious of them and protective of our own way of life.  

We don’t even consider that this other tribe might have insights to offer and gifts to share.  We move into our own protective mode and sometimes even go to war to keep things the same
– familiar and unchanging.  

We need to be willing to explore and accept the gifts of other tribes

The world is changing so rapidly we’re spinning.  There’s no way we can hang on to the way it was because the way it was is no longer the way it is.  We must be willing to see what the other tribes have come up with, how they have solved similar problems, what new challenges they face, what values they’ve chosen to guide them.  

And then we get to question our own life – everything. Our own thoughts, our own values, our own way of doing things and look to see what new options have appeared and what new paths we might follow. 

Life is changing very rapidly and we have to change with it. 

But at the present moment, we are rooted in a tribal mindset of self-protectionism.  

What if we can see the world as one big tribe?!

As a country, if we were attacked, all our individual, separate tribes would join together as one. As a world, if aliens attacked us, we’d suddenly all be on the same team. 

The solution to a more peaceful coexistence is to see ourselves as ONE BIG TRIBE!!!  One Planetary Tribe.  ONE WORLD TRIBE.  

If I see myself as a member of the World Tribe, my focus shifts from “me” to “we”. It makes the job of living more complex because there are many, many variations of living in this world, but it’s not an adversarial approach, it’s a unifying feeling, a world family feeling. Finding ways to take care of each member of our family, our World Tribe. That idea broadens my viewpoint.  And my choices

That’s a big leap.  How do we do that?

See us all as the One Light Being we are

The truth is, we’re all one energy, one light, one wholeness.  And what we each do, think and say affects this wholeness. I can shift to see myself as a contributor to the wellbeing of this wholeness.  That means my conscious acts of kindness, gratitude, blessings and positive interaction affect the whole. My actions ripple out. 

A shift in our consciousness can change our behavior, our voices and our actions, both individually and worldwide.

The entire planet is your home

Expand your thinking to see past your home, your neighborhood, your city, and take a giant leap to see the entire planet as your home.  That means we have to care about pollution, and air quality and climate change. We have to do everything we can to protect the well-being of our planetary home. 

See and feel the connection we have with everything

As a One World Tribe, we all live in the same place – Earth.  Earth sustains us.  It offers us what we need to survive.  Unless, of course, we don’t take care of it.  I need to take care of the section of earth that I impact, and you have to take care of the section of earth you impact. 

We must each monitor and control our personal impact on our planet.  Be conscious, learn what is damaging to our planet, and stop participating in the destruction. 

We can co-exist in world-wide peace

How peaceful it would be to co-exist with mutual support and respect. We would all exist to support each other, to take care of the natural flow of our existence for the well-being of everyone. 

See yourself as a member of the World Tribe

It’s challenging to consider the entire planet as your tribe.  Some of the choices being made seem far away and totally out of our control.  But we have our thoughts.  We have the powerful energy of our intention.  And we can sit in our personal space and radiate the pure light energy that we are so that it reaches and touches and changes everything in the world, in the galaxy and beyond, to the Emptiness that Holds Everything. 

By each choice, each thought, each belief, we heal and whole our planetary home and every member of our World Tribe. 

Thinking as a member of a tribe is a natural inclination.  All you need to do is expand what you see as your tribe.  The entire planet becomes a part of what you are responsible for, what you care for, and since we’re all one tribe, there’s nothing to defend. There’s only peaceful and supportive coexistence to master.

The shift is within you.  It can happen today.  It can happen in this instant.  Be the agent of change that you already are.  Shift your consciousness.  Make the entire world your tribe. 

This World Tribe idea is more than about our planet home; it’s about how we see each other. We would each take our role in the global community, and everything we think and do would be for the greater good of our World Tribe. 

Will you see yourself as a member of the World Tribe?

If you begin today to feel you are a member of the World Tribe, the entire world will begin to change. Just by your one shift in how you see your participation in the world, you will begin to make different choices.  As a member of the World Tribe, I have to be conscious of the overall effect of each choice I make. My small choice here sends waves of impact into my World Tribe!  

With that kind of thought, you may choose differently. 

Begin to experience our oneness in your inner plane

I don’t know what a World Tribe is going to look like on the physical plane, but I do know how it looks and feels like on the inner plane because I actively participate in it every day. I’m a global light-bearer.

As are you.

All over the planet people are meditating on the well-being of our planet.  They’re gathering in person and in online events to focus on the broader welfare of our planet.  They may focus on one area like Earth Day or World Peace Day, or on taking part in other like-minded Light Worker Groups. 

We’re all focused on raising the group consciousness by elevating our own consciousness. We’re expanding our collective hearts. We’re sending our light energy to every corner of the planet.  By doing so, we invite others to see and feel the light within themselves and honor it, develop it and expand it. We, as transformational thinkers, are focusing on our contribution to our World Tribe and encouraging more emphasis on our collective well-being. And that’s the stuff a World Tribe is made of. 

You’re already a member of the World Tribe.  Know that and let that awareness shift your thinking and your actions. 

Let us join together in this powerful way to change our future. 

For Deeper Exploration:

How Modern Mysticism Will Save the World

What are the Foundation Stones Upon Which You Build Your Life?

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

Join the Circle of Light Beings

How to Access the Divine Feminine