Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

Transformational Community

 Our Defense of Non-Existent Boundaries

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 Our Defense of Non-Existent Boundaries
An Inner-World Exploration

There is no separation.  Therefore, there are no boundaries.  

Let me repeat that.  We are all one energy, therefore, there is no separation and no boundaries.  We are not separate selves, we are One Self.  So who are we arguing with?  What are we defending, and from whom?

Erase the idea of separation

There is no “me.”  That’s a hard one for many of us.  As humans in body suits, we are set up with an ego that we think defines us.  Instead, the ego separates us, from each other, and it even separates us from our true inner self.  

We get to work on that. 

Explore the Emptiness that Holds Everything

Call it what you will, All That Is, One, Universal Mind, Void, whatever metaphor you choose to lift yourself up from the limitations of your body suit and go exploring in the Web of Life, the Cosmic Ocean, the One Light.  

When you find your way there, you will dissolve your body suit ego and know your true self. 

If there is only one, what am I defending and from whom?

Since we are not separate, who am I arguing with?  Who am I fighting?  Why do I think I am one tribe or another when there is only one tribe – humanity!

Place yourself on the side of the more encompassing concepts. If I develop a relationship with our Earth Home, there are actions I will and will not support in myself and others.  But that comes from my awareness that I am the same energy as our earth home.  Would you harm your own home?  

Shift how you see what you are “defending” and who you are defending it from.  But most of all turn and deepen your own relationship with the place of disagreement.

Journey to the Void

I take shamanic journeys to the Void all the time.  Your experience will be different, but in my journeys, I have a helping spirit with me, and usually, as I hang out in the Void, other points of light gradually appear, and together we begin to form a layer of light that encompasses the earth.  I feel a connection with my fellow lights, and I also feel support in our common goal, to heal our earth home.  

Erase any perceived boundaries

Free yourself up to go exploring in the unseen realms. Go more deeply into nature, talk to the moon and the sun, open your heart to the essence of others, rather than their physical form.  Seek the oneness that erases any perceived boundaries. 

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Light and Darkness Cannot Exist Together

Do You See and Hear and Walk in a Sacred Manner?

What Core Beliefs are Guiding You Today?

Come Out of the Protective Darkness of the Unconscious

Unleash the Power of your Sacred Garden 

Light and Darkness Cannot Exist Together

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Light and Darkness Cannot Exist Together
Our Luminous Legacy

When you light a candle, the dark recedes.  Light and darkness cannot exist together.  If you don’t like the darkness showing up in the world, get busy brightening your light. 

You cannot think negative thoughts with a smile on your face. It is impossible to think a hostile thought and a friendly thought at the same time. Light and darkness cannot exist together, and that makes it simple to make the changes we need and want to see in the world today.  We simply shift our gaze from the dark to the light – not to ignore the darkness, but to empower the positive to become stronger. 

What are you focusing on?

Each time I start to despair over something going on in the world, I can find a real-life example of someone making a profound difference by a positive action they’re taking.  I shift my attention to what is working and I immediately feel encouraged and hopeful, simply because I focused on what’s making a positive impact rather than what’s causing harm. 

Your power lies in controlling your focus every moment

Notice what you’re focusing on, what you’re thinking about the most. If you feel less than joyous and serene, shift your gaze.  Shift your focus.  Look for and find the positive, the good, the successes in our world and simply be aware of how you feel when you look at the positive. 

Stop now and notice how you feel in this moment.  Are you tense discouraged, upset, angry?   Now close your eyes and take a slow, deep-to-your-core breath and slowly and mindfully release it. 

Notice how your body has let go and relaxed.  All you have done it to take a slow, deep breath and stepped inside yourself for a moment. 

Take another deep breath and let go even more.  

You have the power to shift how you feel in any given moment

You can make this profound inner shift from negative to positive any time you choose.  Simply shift your focus toward the positive, and feel its effect. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, consider:

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like? 

How to Weave the Sacred into the Ordinary

Do You See and Hear in a Sacred Manner?

What Core Beliefs are Guiding You Today?

Where Do You Find Your Inner Circle of Light Beings?

Come Out of the Protective Darkness of the Unconscious

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Come Out of the Protective Darkness of the Unconscious
OUR LUMINOUS LEGACY

It’s much easier to look the other way, to not see the destruction or the evil, or the anger or the hatred.  If we notice, we may feel called upon to do something. It’s much easier to stay in the protective darkness of the unconscious than move into consciousness and feel responsible for all you see around you.  What you don’t know about, you don’t have to do anything about.  Ignorance is bliss.  

But it’s not.

We are responsible.  Our thoughts create our reality!

Our world is created by our thoughts and our focus, so everything that’s happening, good and bad, is because we’re looking for it or looking at it or ignoring it.  Our gaze creates our reality.  What we focus on we get. 

We must take responsibility for creating our own life, our own experiences, our own consequences. And if we don’t like what we see, we simply shift our gaze to focus on positive, inclusive, highest-good expectations. 

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed 

We’ve become more internationally aware of all the plastic in the ocean, and it is daunting.  I stand here with my one plastic bottle and cannot imagine my individual impact can be that great.  But the world is me multiplied by billions.  I can, I must and I do take responsibility for my own actions.

Every action you take impacts the whole world 

You have great power. Every thought you think enters the collective consciousness and shifts it.  Are you stepping forth to take responsibility and make the changes you need to make, or are you hiding in the shadows hoping it will all go away or miraculously heal itself?

Take personal responsibility for one thing 

If you are personally responsible for one fish dying of refuse or open pollution, you have to take action and make sure that nothing you do is impacting our water. You may need to get active in your neighborhood, or your community or your state to help care for the well-being of the water.  

Take as big a step as you are called upon to take, but do take a step.

For instance, I, being a vegan, somewhere along the line saved the life of a few cows.  But I’m not the only vegan in the world. There are a lot of us who share this consciousness.  I just have to make certain my link in the vegan chain is as steady and as strong as it needs to be to become the change I want to see in the world.  It may be as simple as taking a great vegan dish to a potluck to introduce others to the possibilities.

Move out of the unseeing state of unconsciousness. Come out into the world of life-changing conscious awareness and get to work. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, consider:

Live in the Center of Your Being

What are the Foundations Stones Upon Which Your Build Your Life

We Are Responsible

You Are Never Separate

Raise Your Gaze

Do You See and Hear and Walk in a Sacred Manner?

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Do You See and Hear and Walk in a Sacred Manner?
An Inner-World Exploration

Picture yourself walking along the edge of a body of water.  If you move your feet slowly, the water will have some ripples, but the life that is teeming below will not be disturbed. 

If you jump into the water and splash around, waves will go out and the inhabitants of the water will be affected. 

But whatever move you make, consciously or unconsciously, you are affecting the whole. The whole planet.  Everyone on it.  You affect everything by simply being.  That’s a huge responsibility. 

We are one interconnected cosmic ocean.  What we do and think and say ripples out into waves that support the collective environment or damage it.  

We must learn to see and hear and walk in a sacred manner because what we send out comes right back to us. 

How do you walk in the world?  Do you send out gentle waves, or do you splash around?

We affect the world by simply being

Every breath we take affects the world.  Every thought we think sends waves out into the world.  Changing the world, changing our experience of how we live our life, begins with each choice we make. 

We are One. We are sacred space. We affect each other.

Picture yourself as part of a cosmic ocean.  What you put into it affects every part of the ocean. Over there. Over here.  And whatever is happening over there affects you over here. One ocean, many waves.  Many currents. All sacred. All part of the whole.

We have to see each other as sacred 

My life is sacred.  Your life is sacred.  Do we know that? Do we live as if we understand that? What does it feel like to live a sacred life?  What does it look like?  How do we express ourselves as sacred space in our lives?

What does sacred mean to you?

I see sacred as something close to my heart.  Not set apart to worship or admire, but something vital and dear that resonates with my heart, with my soul.  I see sacred in nature – a waterfall, a cloud, the Moon.  Sacred could be the look of discovery on a child’s face or the knowing smile of an artist who has just expressed herself well.

For me, the sacred is all of nature, and all of humanity.  That means I respect it. I care for it. I honor it. 

What feels sacred to you?

It takes mindful practice to remember that everything is sacred. Stop reading and look around you.  Feel and listen to the space you are in. Feel its sacredness. What does it feel like?  How does being in sacredness make you feel? When something is sacred, how do you treat it?

How do you care for the sacred?

“Reverence” is too confining a word, but I would approach something I perceived as sacred with my antennae out, with all sensors tingling so I would not miss a moment.  There might be deep appreciation for its beauty or its power.  There might be a deep inhaling of its scent, or a gentle touch of its texture. 

It’s easy to not notice how awesome life is.  

My cat is sacred.  He is life.  He is love.  He is companionship.  He is play.  He accepts and needs my care. I’m not sure what a cat’s version of love is but to me it’s snuggling next to me in our big chair or sleeping at my feet while I sit at my desk and write.  He joins me in my morning spiritual practice.  He has become an integral part of my life experience. 

Do you have a sacred pet?  How does that relationship nurture you?

There is an intertwined relationship with things that feel sacred to you

Since everything is sacred, we are in an intertwined relationship with everything – we just have to be aware of it. 

Intertwined. That means my tug on my strand over here affects your strand over there. I have control over two things – what I put out and what I take in. How I put it out and how I take it in. 

Mindfulness is the cornerstone of honoring our interconnectedness

Begin at this very moment to think of yourself as sacred.  You have the responsibility of acting with the loving care of the sacred. You have the opportunity to reach the hearts of others through your sacredness. When you know that, when you live by that, you will affect others in a sacred manner.

How do you hear the sacred?

Put your fingers in your ears and listen.  That is the sound of you! That is a sacred sound.

You hear the sacred when you listen to what is not said with more attention than the words that are said.  You listen for the love beneath the words, or the worry, or…whatever is not said.  You listen to the energy of the exchange.  

Remember when you heard someone sing a song with great passion?  Pouring their soul into their performance?  You stopped and listened and felt.  Most of all you felt their passion and love and offering of self in your heart.  One sacred heart speaking to another.

Feel the core energy

As you move to learn to see and hear in a sacred manner, use your feelings.  Let them become an antenna, a barometer, a guide.  Let your intuition and your knowingness help you find the true nature beneath what you see and hear. 

How do you reframe what you see?

I may have to look past the surface to see the light.  We are all light.  We are all one. And yet that angry person over there doesn’t feel very sacred, doesn’t look like light.  I have to look past what is manifesting and how I’m feeling about it to know and understand the soul within, the soul who has come to earth to learn and grow and may be having a hard time.  

It’s not necessarily my job to help or not help another, but it is my job to see the other person as pure light. That allows them to see and know themselves as pure light. And that will comfort them and inspire them and help them feel connected.

How do you reframe what you hear?

We are all pure love.  That’s not always easy to understand, accept or share with others. But if we hear that angry person’s words as one of a “light being” in pain, or a “light being” in need, or a “light being” trying his or her best, it shifts how we hear what we hear.  

Everything we do affects the global community

Our mere existence affects the global community.  Each breath, each action, each thought moves out into this cosmic ocean, this interconnected web of life and affects each part of it. We affect our world both consciously and unconsciously. That’s a huge responsibility – to be certain that your life is positive for the well-being of the collective, that your thoughts, your actions are offered with an awareness that you are sacred space that is affecting other sacred spaces.  

How does that change how you live your life?

Look for light and love

If we walked around looking for the light and love in everyone we saw, life would be an entirely new experience.  Here we are, in our assorted body suits, bumping around on earth, some doing it more easily than others.  But we are all light and we are also all love.  

Can you see everything as light?

Can you hear everything as love?

I, for one, am still working on it. But it is very much worth the effort. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider: 

Where Do You Find Your Inner Circle of Light Beings?

What is the Difference between Spirituality and Religion?

How to Weave the Sacred into the Ordinary

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

Make Work Your Offering

Where Do You Find Your Inner Circle of Light Beings? 

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Where Do You Find Your Inner Circle of Light Beings?
An Inner-World Exploration

The most powerful work we can do is on the inner plane. It’s in inner work that you’ll feel the connection with the energy of wholeness, the experience of oneness. It’s sacred space and available to everyone.  It’s where we connect with each other on the spiritual plane to expand our collective light.

Establish a practice of inner work

The more I journey inwardly, the more populated my inner world becomes.  The love, the support, the adventures, the wisdom, and the guidance are constant and powerful.  All because I have frequent inner interactions with the invisible world, the 95% of our world that is unseen.  

As I do this inner work daily,  expanding my own Inner Light, I’m aware of powerful and ever-increasing support emerging and increasing on the physical plane. It is a “Circle of Light Beings” and we’re covering the planet to raise the collective consciousness.

If you are reading this, you are an illumined explorer living a spirit-directed life. You are a member of the Circle of Light Beings.  And we are in all parts of our world.

Everyone is Light, even if they are not always aware of it.  Those in the Circle of Light Beings are aware that we are One Light, and the more we expand our Inner Light, the more clearly we can see others like us. 

You have a spiritual community within

As humans, we have an ingrained need not be alone.  Even as we walk our path with strength and persistence and distinct individuality, we yearn for the company of at least one or two people who are traveling in a similar direction.  We want that connection, that sense of intertwining, for support, encouragement, and love.  

And we can find that like-minded connection when we journey within. Your experiences in your inner world will help you recognize other aware light beings on the physical plane.

Your spiritual community may be experienced in layers

 Members of the Circle of Light Beings are all over the planet.  We know that and experience that energetically. But to find conscious, active light beings, we often use the internet.  We subscribe to e-newsletters, find Facebook pages that call to us, take courses, and then connect one-to-one on Skype or Zoom. 

I connect regularly with my two primary fellow travelers by Skype. Although we are not on the exact same path, we intertwine enough that our personal support is both welcome and effective.

The Shift Network is an example of an organization that offers summits with free interviews with 20-30 people in a particular field. You learn a lot and you find people from whom you may wish to learn more. You expand your Circle of Light Beings. 

Another layer of spiritual community I’ve found is in online courses I take, connecting with a broad range of people with shared interests who are on a similar path.  We have come together to learn how to travel forward in a particular manner.  We usually build community online and sometimes expand that to one-to-one contact.  We have similar interests that enable us to help each other in this particular part of our journey. 

Find people who inspire, motivate and expand your awareness and subscribe to their blogs or newsletters. Then let their presence and insights deepen your awareness of the power of our collective light. 

The third level of experiencing the Circle of Light beings is planet-wide. Through the internet, we can explore the ideas and innovations from all over the world and investigate the paths that call to us. We meet on summits that have a specific focus – World Peace Day, Earth Day, Full Moon Meditations. One focused purpose, worldwide participation, great collective power.

When we are aware of our Circle of Light Beings, we experience a sense of belonging

As the world dramatically rearranges itself, I felt quite helpless. What does an old woman in the mid-west do to save the world? I deepened my spiritual practice and found the Circle of Light Beings – in my inner shamanic journeying and in both energetic and active body suit actions all over the planet. I now feel connected and empowered.

As we participate with this chosen collection of spiritual communities, there’s a sense of intertwining.  Suddenly we know people in other parts of the world. We know that we come together with our collective hearts for a positive shift in our collective consciousness.  

We know that we are not alone. We feel our collective and increasing power. We know that we are part of a much larger heartbeat – the heartbeat a of spiritual community, the Circle of Light Beings. There’s a sense of intertwining of our souls and our soul’s purpose into a greater, focused, powerful group consciousness.

As members of the Circle of Light Beings, we experience the power of collective tending

There’s power in group energy. As the chaos of the world becomes more blatant, we come together in our planetary, energetic community with an awareness of the power and effectiveness of our collective tending – the power of our focused unconditional love.  Our focus may range from the environment to the people, nature and peaceful co-existence; but the work of collective tending is the same. There are many of us all over the planet, working to heal and whole and offer unconditional love. It’s empowering. It’s comforting.  It makes our focused energy work extremely powerful. 

As members of the Circle of Light Beings, we experience a new level of personal awakening

As we interact on both the physical and energetic planes with other souls who are also focusing on the well-being of our world, we experience a sense of personal awakening, of personal empowerment.  We grow stronger and clearer and more effective.  We expand our reach. We brighten our light.  We have more impact.  The world immediately around us feels the shift and our expanding wave of light ripples across the world. 

Our Circle of Spiritual Beings is a refuge

Interacting as a circle of focused spiritual beings on the physical plane, we begin to establish our own sanctuary, a place of refuge.  We create a way to be with an energetic spiritual community that is directing its attention to world service, the lifting of hearts, and the spreading of unconditional love.  

We do that by deepening our personal spiritual practice.  Whatever form your spiritual practice takes, deepen and broaden it.  Through visualization, journeying or whatever calls to you, begin to actively work on the inner planes with the Circle of Light Beings to cover the planet with Light and the awareness of our Oneness.

In my inner work I’m sometimes a recipient in the center of the Circle of Light Beings; at other times I’m a member of those gathered to focus light on a particular need in our world. 

In my shamanic practice, I begin each journey in my Sacred Garden.  Each element of the garden is a metaphor for some element in my life. It’s there that I first discovered the Circle of Light Beings and a safe haven from which I begin and end my explorations of the inner realms.

In your spiritual practice, include an energetic place of refuge for yourself so you can personally experience the support of the ever-expanding Circle of Spiritual Beings. Place yourself in the middle of the circle and soak up the light!

Feel the increasing power of your focused light

Working as a member of the Circle of Light Beings, your power is greatly expanded.  As situations seem more challenging to you, the power of your personal participation is hugely increased when you mentally and energetically join your positive thoughts with those of others in the Circle of Light Beings.  

Simply sit in a chair and radiate your light.  Picture other lights coming from all over the world. See our collective light as a layer of sunlit haze covering the planet and growing ever thicker. Feel your collective unconditional love enfolding the earth.

Experience the intertwining of our light energies to weave a pattern of combined awareness 

Not everyone is aware of their own light, let alone the power of our combined light. They do not yet understand or see the power that their light – and our collective light – has for their own lives and the lives of those around them.  

As members of the Circle of Light Beings, our job is to shine our light so brightly and so frequently that people all over the world recognize that same light in themselves and begin to nurture it and grow it – until they, too, understand that they are members of the Circle of Light Beings. The presence of your light helps others see their own inner light.  

Expand your place of service as an integral member of a Circle of Light Beings

Our collective energy has great power. As more and more of us see the light, we individually and collectively project and expand our own light, and others are drawn to join us in focusing wholing energy on our planet.

Use your inner spiritual work to connect with this intangible but very present Circle of Light Beings.  Allow yourself to be drawn into inner journeys and conversations that offer you support and insight and inspiration.  Focus your collective energy toward the healing and wholing of our planet.

You are not alone.  There are many of us around you.  Open your heart and listen. Then add your powerful inner light to the Circle of Light Beings so we heal our world. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

How Modern Mysticism Will Save the World

What are the Foundations Stones Upon Which Your Build Your Life?

We Are Responsible 

Do Things from the Soul