OUR LUMINOUS LEGACY

Unleash The Power of Your Inner Garden

When I first realized that my thoughts create my reality, I began to actively monitor my thoughts, my beliefs, and my words.  Sometimes I was rendered totally speechless as I stopped myself from saying something negative and said nothing until I could find something positive to say instead. In the beginning, there were definitely unexpected pauses in my conversations.

Speaking in only positive phrases and ideas took practice to learn. I’m essentially a positive person, but I still had to change some of my thinking. It took a constant awareness of what I was thinking, how what I was about to say would resonate in the world around me, and an active monitoring of my thoughts.

Your words do create your reality so learning to speak only in positive terms is a very powerful step to take in order to change your life experience.  It begins with what you think.

Your Inner Garden defines your world

Imagine that you have an Inner Garden.  In it, you grow your life.  You harvest what you plant – both good and bad.

Your Inner Garden is a powerful metaphorical idea that’ll change your experience in the world.  Like any garden, it needs constant attention. On a regular basis, in a quiet setting, go within and notice what crops you’re growing, decide what new seeds to plant and look for weeds to pull out.

Remember, since your thoughts create your reality, the most effective and powerful way you can change your life is to change your thinking.

What seeds are you planting?

Our thoughts are industrious little things.  Always popping up where they’re not expected.  Some of them are fun and exciting. Others are scary and harmful. And our limiting beliefs are the sneakiest seeds of all.

The good news is that we have control over our thoughts.  And our thoughts are the seeds we plant in our Inner Garden.

Which do you plant, positive thoughts or negative thoughts?

Here’s an important concept to consider.  Your life is determined by what you think you deserve and what you think is possible. So the limiting beliefs, the doubts the fears that you allow to take root, need to be removed.   And that means that tending your Inner Garden is one of the most life-changing spiritual steps you can take.

What are the crops you have planted?

Pause for a moment and close your eyes.  Move inside to your invisible self and look around at the Inner Garden you’ve planted.  What crops are there?  How are they doing?  What do they need?

You may have different crops for different facets of your life – work, family, spiritual practice. Some crops may be larger than others.  Look carefully at your Inner Garden.  How balanced is it?

Our Luminous Legacy publication is a brand new seed. And this is actually the first seedling in the crop.  In the process of deciding on this new field I wanted to harvest, I spent some time looking at inner “seed catalogs” that are based on my experience and talents.  I was looking for the right format and the right “purpose” seed to plant.

I made many inner journeys to my helping spirits, asking for guidance. Gradually I chose my designer seeds (a name, a format, the cornerstone topics), the size of the crop, and how often I wanted to harvest it (once a month).

As I designed this new crop, I knew its purpose is to expand our Spiritual Hearts, help us focus wholing energy on our world and find new ways to expand our spiritual practice. I planted the starter crop of Our Luminous Legacy. 

See how this is done?  You get to decide what you plant in your Inner Garden. And you can rearrange it anytime you change your thinking.

To make both time and space for this new crop, I cut back on some of the other crops I’d been growing in my garden. And although this is a small seed, I’ll work to give it the best growing conditions I can. Choosing what to cultivate in my Inner Garden was deliberate – it was thoughtful, it was powerful.

Prune your Inner Garden

It’s easy for your Inner Garden to become overgrown.  Sometimes it’s because you’re enthusiastic about one crop and plant too much.  Another time, overgrowth comes from neglect, and another crop gradually takes over from the neglected one. Keep a careful eye on the size of your inner crops and the space they’re taking up.

For instance, with the planting of the seed of Our Luminous Legacy, I had to cut back on some of my other crops to make room and time for this new one – fewer posts, fewer books. But that’s the point of cultivating your Inner Garden.  You go within and consciously decide what you want to grow and what you have time to cultivate.

Look out for the sneaky weeds

In the course of our daily lives, unwanted seeds sneak in.  They hide in our beliefs and our thoughts and before we know it they’ve taken root.  It’s important that when we go within to tend our Inner Garden, we look at the weeds that need pulling out. This especially includes negative thoughts and limiting beliefs.

On one journey to my Inner Garden, I was surprised and not pleased to find that there was a belief that my work held little value in the world.  Well, I yanked that one right out and looked hard for the cause of it.

I produce a lot of content, and I love doing it.  Others seem to respond to it.  How did that sneaky weed of self-doubt get in there?   You have to keep an eye out for the seeds of unwanted crops, particularly limiting beliefs.

With the planting of this new seed of Our Luminous Legacy, I feel I’m fulfilling a purpose that’ll be of value to all of us.

Prune your plants

When a crop gets too old, it gets woody, and it’s hard for new growth to flourish.  What do you need to prune in your Inner Garden?

If I stop trying to self-publish a few ebooks, I’ll eliminate the anxiety that always seems to be provoked by the technical completion.  For the moment, I prune back that crop.

On a personal crop level, I have a Reluctant-To-Exercise crop that needs to be replaced and re-planted with a Love-To-Exercise crop!

Prepare the soil of your Inner Garden

The quality of the soil is always important for a gardener. You want the soil to be rich and welcoming to the seeds you plant and the crops you grow. How do you do that? How do you prepare the soil of your Inner Garden?

You develop a strong spiritual practice, whatever that looks like to you. I’m referring here to the inner realms, the place of your soul, your Invisible Self that is the Nowhere That You Came From. We each have our own version of a spiritual practice.  Our unique exploration and embracing of the spiritual is what nurtures and nourishes our inner garden.

Plant different varies of your main crops

I have two main crops – spiritual exploration and communicating what I find.  I already combine those in the work I do.  And there are different varieties in each crop.

In my communication crop, writing has been my foundation, but I have also planted and harvested podcasts and videos and ebooks.

Even my spiritual crop has different varieties.  It has been fundamentally metaphysical for most of my life, and has included varieties like New Thought and Taoism and more recently, shamanism, which is becoming the more prevalent crop in my Inner Garden.

You will plant a variety of crops in your Inner Garden, and they will change throughout your life.  What crops are you presently growing and how would you like to change that?  You can alternate crops, you can change varieties, you can change the size of the crops that you grow.

This is all leading up to what you want to harvest in your life.

Combine your inner crops

Sometimes crops are planted together because each one assists the other.  One of my crops is to deepen my study of shamanism.  Cultivation of this crop means study and practice and a shamanic partner with whom I speak weekly.  We journey for each other and are supportive partners in the cultivation of this particular harvest. So in my overall crop of spiritual expansion, I have a plot specifically for the cultivation of my absorption of shamanism.

My shamanic partner is a healer. She is artfully beginning to combine two crops: she’s a medical scientist and is also embracing the spiritual healing of shamanism. Her new crop will be a combination of the mysticism of shamanism and the physical world healing she’s trained in.

I’m using my crop of shamanism as a guide to my higher purpose.  I’m relying on my shamanic journeys to guide me to what to share with you.

You might combine two talent crops.  You might combine two ideology crops.  Look in your Inner Garden for what crops can be planted together.  Come up with your own unique hybrid that makes both crops stronger.

Encourage cross-pollination in your Inner Garden

Allow the ideas in your Inner Garden to intermingle.  See those ideas as butterflies and bees that move among your crops and whisper ideas from one crop to another.  Allow the wind of your inner vision to cross-pollinate the crops in your garden. See what new hybrids emerge.

In my journeys I keep getting the words “Healing Voice” and I’m not certain what that means.  It could be my writing voice.  It could mean my actual voice in my podcasts and videos.  I have to let that concept move among the crops in my garden and see what develops.

Make your Inner Garden a retreat

Ninety-five percent of our world is unseen, and our Inner Garden is a perfect place to begin our exploration of the invisible realms. Make your Inner Garden comfortable and welcoming.

When I planted a seed for a tree in my Inner Garden, it grew to be a lovely shade tree the minute I planted it.  Now the Element of Water is beginning to speak to me in my shamanic journeys, so I have created a reflecting pool in my garden.  I will add a nature walk with old growth trees. Make your inner garden a place you love to go, to contemplate, to rest and to restore.

How you see yourself affects what you plant

Thanks to my shamanic journeying, I’ve made a huge shift in how I see myself.  I knew I was an explorer.  I was content to leave guideposts and maps along the path we all journey.  And I knew I was not the one to go back and lead a group on the journey.  But in one shamanic journey, I was told I was a messenger for the Inner Realms.  And that totally shifted how I see what I am to do.

A messenger explores, interprets and comes back with guidelines, maps, perhaps a plan and certainly a meaningful message.  That’s a greater responsibility than simply posting a few signs along the path we share.  A messenger needs to make certain the message is both heard and understood.

How do you see your work in the world?  Can you take on a new role that’ll make your work more meaningful to you and to those who follow it?

Begin to cultivate you Inner Garden

Set aside regular times to cultivate your Inner Garden.  Look for the limiting beliefs that may have snuck in and weed them out.  Prune plants to make them grow stronger. Tend your soil. Water your crops with attention. Examine the crops you’re cultivating and decide how much of each one you want to grow.  Select new crops you want to grow and plant those seeds.  Cultivate your soil. Harvest the crops that have matured.

Let your Inner Garden be the source of your positive work in the world.

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A LUMINOUS LEGACY PRACTICE

How to Harness the Power of the New Moon

Each month, in Our Luminous Legacy, I explore the inner worlds and ask for messages to guide us. And each month I’ll provide us with active steps we can take to deepen our understanding of what was shared. It may be a specific action.  It may be a ceremony you can perform and repeat.  The purpose is to expand the reach, both inner and outer, of how we express Our Luminous Legacy.

New Moon, New Beginning

Because I see the New Moon as a new beginning, a time to evaluate, release and re-choose, Our Luminous Legacy will be delivered once a month a few days before the New Moon so you can review your month, make new choices and new resolutions for the following four weeks.

Your New Moon Ceremony has three parts

1. Review and release
2. Refocus and reframe
3. Explore and choose

The first step in creating a New Moon Ceremony is to review and then release

Review your month

Because we are mostly water, it makes sense that our body suits respond to the pull of the moon.  I found that, for me, the time of the New Moon is like being shot out of a cannon.  At the New Moon, I go from almost being at a standstill to being swamped with ideas and energy.

But mostly I like the idea of creating a new conscious beginning for myself every month.  I look back to see what I accomplished and make a new commitment to some new ideas for the following four weeks.

It also helps to keep a list of your accomplishments, so you become aware of the wins you’ve had in the previous four weeks.

Start a folder on your computer and begin a “Luminous Legacy Acknowledgement List” in which you record both your accomplishments and acknowledge your movement forward. As you accomplish a step, acknowledge your success. How did you change?  Who did you change?  What hearts did you touch?

Release what no longer serves you

Around the time of the New Moon, go into your Inner Garden and spend some time looking for limiting beliefs such as  “I can’t”, “I didn’t.”  Pull those weeds out and put in some positive affirmations. State them in the present tense as if they have already happened.  “I do”, “I am”.

Releasing can mean everything from cleaning your physical space to releasing a project that now seems unnecessary, or identifying and releasing an unconscious habit that’s holding you back.

The second step in creating a New Moon Ceremony is to refocus and reframe

Refocus

Look over your Inner Garden to see what crops you want to focus on during the coming month.  What’s growing well? What needs pruning?  Is there a new crop you want to plant? Look closely at what you’ve grown this past month. Are you growing what you want to plant and is that crop serving you?

Reframe

Notice what’s changed – in you, in your circumstances.  How have you changed your expectations and your beliefs? How do you now see yourself? What has changed about you or your work?  What have you learned that has opened up new doors, new opportunities?  Look at your overall purpose and see if you have a new view of it.

This is the time to let go, weed out, and replant for the next four weeks and do whatever work is necessary for the continued growth of your Inner Garden. What’s your overall calling?  What work do you need to do in your Inner Garden during the next four weeks in order to support that?

The third step in creating a New Moon Ceremony is to explore and choose

Explore

Spend some focused times in exploration.  What has opened up?  What’s calling you? What needs more work?  What needs to be combined?  Try out different scenarios to see how you’d like to proceed in the next four weeks.

Choose

Choice is not so much about making new lists as about opening up to new possibilities.  Choice is about sitting in contemplation in your Inner Garden and feeling what calls to you, what you’re willing to do, what you want to do – or what you don’t want to do.  Then plant a few seeds and let them unfold.

Track your month

Because we’re tracking subtle movement in most cases, it’s helpful to note any accomplishments.  Notice your stuck places, too, particularly in relation to understanding how you personally respond to the cycle of the moon.  Notice how your energy changes with each phase of the moon.

Look for the new ideas and insights that surround you.  Let your life unfold and at the same time become aware of the changes that are happening so you can make use of the moon’s energy more effectively.

In your Acknowledgment journal each month:

1. Review what you have done and release what no longer serves you.

2. Refocus your purpose and direction based on what has changed in the past four weeks and reframe it into new steps that take your work in the adjusted direction

3. Explore and choose how you move forward.  Perhaps outline a few steps, rearrange your schedule to relieve some pressure and develop a series of actions that you can and will achieve.

Track for your own self-awareness so you can see the ebb and flow of how you’re living your life.

Repeat at the next New Moon.

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CIRCLE OF THE SPIRITUAL HEART

Our Collective Work in the World

As we expand our spiritual practice to be whatever it needs to be and learn to explore the inner worlds, we change our own vibration.  In turn, we join with others who are doing the same.  The collective energy of our raised vibrations resonates throughout the world and attracts others to the idea of raising their own light vibration. We increase the strength of the collective vibration and the overall coverage.

I hope you join us.  Each month when Our Luminous Legacy arrives:

– pause and make some plans of your own

– review what you have accomplished in the last four weeks

– spend some contemplative time exploring and outlining some possible choices for the following four weeks

– create your own way of celebrating and welcoming the New Moon.

(The day after the November New Moon is my 85th birthday, so it seemed fitting to begin this new monthly series now.)

Namaste – the Light within me honors the Light within you.

Cara