Transformational Community

The Guardianship We Hold

May 30, 2017 By Cara Lumen

It’s been a long time since I thought about my position as a guardian. A guardian of the earth. A guardian of peace. A guardian of my calling. It’s both empowering and challenging to step into the role of guardianship.

Hold High Watch for the World

Some years back, as a practitioner in the Center for Spiritual Living I helped hold “High Watch” during the sermons. That meant I kept my consciousness focused on the greater good of the collective experience. I became very aware of the group energy and how my participation as guardian influenced the experience.

Become a guardian of what? You choose

You may feel called to become a guardian of the planet. You may feel called to serve as guardian of a special group: women, children, LGBT, immigrants, endangered species, air, water, homeless peoples, abandoned animals, a particular country, a specific cause.

Pick a group that touches your heart and position yourself energetically as a guardian.

Educate yourself

Understand the culture of what you’re protecting. I constantly learn new things from the in-depth reports on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) news. I get a glimpse of people who have ideas so far removed from my own that I watch in disbelief. I also see people do marvelous creative, innovative things that change lives and help move a group forward in their evolution. I learn of new technology, new scientific discoveries.

The world is experiencing a lot of dramatic change and it’s certainly challenging to keep up. What change do you want to see in your world? Choose one cause and begin to learn the beliefs and fears and needs of both sides.

Begin by changing yourself

Get yourself out of the way of the change you choose to support. Look closely at your unexpressed beliefs that will affect how you respond or react. Make certain you can see the situation from both sides and all points in between. Clear out your own unconscious judgment, and move into a neutral, supportive, nurturing place of holding high watch for the situation. Send the energy of inclusiveness so that opposing sides can recognize they are one and the same energy. Send the energy of empathy so that the choices people make are less self-focused and are oriented toward the highest good for the most people.

Find the community “yes”

I’m certain the majority of people want the environment to be safe but the opposition comes from what they think harms the environment. One group thinks pesticides are OK. Others feel certain they are not. How do you bridge that?

The extent of your ability to serve as a guardian depends on where you are in your own life. If you’re in survival mode, the wellbeing of the planet is not very high on your list. The more secure you are in your self-care, the more time you have to become a guardian, a steward, a protector.

The level of survival a person is experiencing affects their participation in situations outside their own needs and that’s why some other people are not as concerned or as involved as you are.

Be a guardian of our planet

A new consciousness is rising – a transformational consciousness of inclusiveness, a consciousness of deep reverence for nature and her gifts. And yet, those of us who are aware, and who are caring, are still in the minority.

However, because we are working with our higher consciousness, because we serve as energetic guardians, we do make a difference. Our focused consciousness and energy create positive waves in our world.

Spend more time visualizing the world you want. Learn new ways you can help make the change and share that with others. Meditate with others. March with others. Become active in your community, your state, your country.

Think of the world seven generations in the future

What we do today will impact future generations. We must think beyond our own life and be concerned with our legacy.

A guardian. A protector. A preserver. We are all of those. For ourselves and for our children’s children. We have a big job to do. How can you express and expand your role as guardian?

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Building a Transformational Community to Heal Our World

Wakan Tanka, the Originating Mystery

Abracadabra! I Will Create As I Speak

Where Do YouPlant our Stake?

Our Work in the World

VLOG: Insights of a Deeper Song

PODCAST: Reflections of a Deeper Song

Build a Transformational Community to Heal Our World

May 25, 2017 By Cara Lumen

A Transformational Community emerges from the spiritual awakening that results in people gathering together to envision a world of conscious, aligned, peaceful energy. This spiritual consciousness has the power to change our world and our life experience.

To be a contributing activist in the Transformational Community requires personal awareness and a willingness to expand your thinking. You need to become more “transpersonal”.

Transpersonal refers to states or areas of consciousness that are beyond the limits of personal identity – beyond yourself, encompassing the whole. Moving from yourself into the whole is the basis for building a Transformational Community.

We come from everywhere, drawn by the belief that when we focus our group energy toward the positive it will raise the collective consciousness and create positive change. Call us what you will: spiritual explorers, agents of change, light workers, mystics, visionaries, metaphysicians, explorers of the Great Mystery. We all seek to experience a direct connection with the vast part of the unknown, the All-That-Is.

We use all manner of techniques to connect with the Great Mystery, the collective consciousness, the web of life. Meditation, shamanic journeying, prayer, dreaming, and any manner of altered states can take us out of the limitation of our mind and the physical plane and open ourselves up to experience our deepest inner self.

The Transformational Community covers our planet

The internet is instrumental in helping us find each other. We gather in group meditations or participate in coordinated demonstrations in our community that coincide with a worldwide movement. Earth Day, World Peace Day, Woman’s Movement Day, Science Day.

We join with others who are passionate about the same things and add our wholing energy to group visualizations that are focused on raising the vibration around that cause.

The Transformational Community has been emerging over the last 40 years. It is national and international. We are greatly concerned about the material environment and have a deep desire for peaceful coexistence.

Looking back, I realize I have been a part of the Transformational Community since my 40’s when I moved to New York City in 1997 and immediately began my holistic training through many venues. Today I pass forward my eclectic viewpoint in hopes of adding insights to the experience of others.

Consciously connect with other transpersonal workers

You are a visionary member of the Transformational Community the minute you decide you are. Begin by expanding your own spiritual practice to include sending energy to raise the group consciousness. Join with groups who are supporting causes that call to you through group meditation.

Transformation work is energy work

Transformation work is about wholeness. It’s about intention. It’s even more powerful when we gather together to focus our spiritual energies. We are one energy, each of us the same, each of us connected.

When we join our hearts with others, this expands our own spiritual awareness; and together that light, that love, that wholeness moves out into the world and into the lives of others. Together we raise the group consciousness to embrace more inclusion, more empathy.

Find and connect with the people who share your values, people who inspire and motivate you and with whom you can join to support change in the world. Learn what they’re doing, go where they’re hanging out, discover what they’re learning and thinking and join them in the adventure. When you cast your net and allow yourself to resonate with what you find, you will have many choices.

We must offer positive energy to the collective dream

The current collective dream is changing. There’s chaos and uncertainty because there’s change. That means people are still holding on to the old, are reluctant to let go of the familiar, and fear about what’s coming. Our job as members of the Transformational Community is to expand our personal and group work and focus our thoughts and intentions on over-arching values, like feeling and honoring our oneness with each other, with the planet, with our vision.

Where there’s negativity and chaos, our job is to focus on peace, serenity, and awareness of our collective unity. That’s the impact and input we want to have on the collective dream.

The shift begins with the expansions of our personal inner work. Your focus, your expectations, your beliefs, your actions. Transformation begins within you.

The View from the Transformational Community

Members of the Transformational Community are inclusive and empathetic. We’re open to change. We seek creative ways to help others express their highest potential. We’re environmentally aware. We’re spiritually focused creative people who are deeply in service. We come together in a world of consciousness, and of aligned, peaceful energy.

Transformation comes from within.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

The Great Collective

I Am You

We Are Part of a Larger Spiritual Order

Our Work in the World

How to Hold the Space for the New Vision to Emerge

VLOG: Insights of a Deeper Song

PODCAST: Reflections of a Deeper Song

Your Gift to the Future

May 4, 2017 By Cara Lumen

I was on a webinar in which we took a shamanic journey to 200 years into the future. We were to see what descendants were there and to ask what our purpose is in this lifetime.

What does 200 years in the future look like?

In my inner journey to 200 years in the future I found that we were gathered around a fire. Not because it was all there was but because it was a connection with nature. The guide that was there for me is the guide from my past and present. Her name is Sage and she is a wise woman.

What do your descendants look like?

I gave a brief thought to the descendants I have in this lifetime; but 200 years down the line? Is that four to five generations? That could be a lot of people. It was a bit daunting to know that what I do now will influence the lives of a great many people in the future. It makes me look carefully at the actions I take today. The world has changed so fast in my own lifetime that it’s hard to imagine 200 years from now.

What gifts have you forwarded to the future?

In this internal, visioning journey, when I asked what my gift to my descendants was, the word “storytelling” leaped out. The idea touched me deeply.

Yes, I write. Yes, I figure things out and I think that helps other people, but a storyteller feeds the imagination of her people, she inspires and motivates them. The idea of passing forward ideas to people 200 years down the line is sobering. And it intensifies the focus of my work.

There are many ways we will pass our work forward. Some of our art will survive, our music or writing and videos will preserve a lot of our ideas, but it is the values and the insights that we share now that will influence, inspire and shape the choices of future generations.

So what am I doing now that will benefit future generations? What kind of impact do I have or will I have? That is a question for each of us to answer for ourselves.

In my spiritual exploration I continue to go deeper to explore, to interpret, to draw maps that others may follow. As I age, I work to figure out the meaning of life and how to be productive to the end. I offer insights and unique combinations of concepts that I hope increase self-awareness and help people achieve personal transformation.

What you do now affects future generations

The biggest insight I received from this imaginary journey into the future was that the work we do now has the potential to touch someone and help them shine their light brighter. They, in turn, focus their brightened light toward another person and that light moves across and forward or backward to heal and balance and whole. It affects this lifetime as well as the life experience of future generations.

What gift are you leaving the future? See if you can understand what it is. Then do more of it.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

How to Manage Your Subtle Energy

Our Work in the World

How to Hold the Space for the New Vision to Emerge

The Emergence of Collective Individual Spirituality

How do You Put your Spiritual Insights to Work?

VLOG: Insights of a Deeper Song

PODCAST: Reflections of a Deeper Song

The Buck Stops Here

April 25, 2017 By Cara Lumen

The blame game that seems prevalent in US politics is wearing very, very thin. What happened to leaders who would say “The buck stops here” and “Whatever shows up is of my own doing”?

As I watch people in leadership positions set themselves in opposition rather than looking for a solution that will be the best for all of our country, I wonder how well I am taking responsibility for what I create around me.

We draw to us what we think

It’s a very powerful premise to know that what we focus on, we get more of. If I think bad things are going to happen, they will. If I look for the beauty in everything, that’s exactly what I’ll see.

It’s that simple. The buck stops here. I create my own reality by what I say and do, what I think about and what I expect to happen. We have great power over our own life.

What fills your world?

I’m working very hard not to be afraid. I have a tendency to feel helpless, and particularly at the effect of the beliefs and actions of people who seem to be in a position of power that are so non-aligned with mine.

It’s not a fear of change, it’s a fear of continued division and intolerance for our natural and powerful diversity. It’s a fear for the well-being of our environment. It’s a fear for the existence of our planet. Major stuff.

And I need to stop being fearful because it’s not what I want. I have to focus on inclusiveness and empathy. I can do that.

How do you change?

You change by shifting your focus. As I look for people focused on peace and oneness and environmental well-being, I find them —in droves — all over the world. And I know that by joining my energy with theirs to focus on what I want, collectively we have tremendous power to change our world.

Focus on the positive, not the negative. Don’t ignore the negative but use it to build your positive viewpoint.

As I failed to anticipate or understand the negativity that has emerged from the US political choices, I look very, very carefully, to make certain that somehow I can hold those negative and vengeful people in compassion. I’m working hard on that. It’s not easy.

I watch the bullying at Standing Rock and participate in group meditations and online activities. I read that global warming will create huge numbers of refugees in the coming years and I look at specific ways I can personally stop contributing to global warming. The next step will be to encourage others to do the same and more. Sometimes we simply do what we can and know that every bit helps.

Join energetically and mentally with others

Thanks to the internet, we can join with people all over the world in Earth Day meditations and World Peace meditations and Environmental meditations. Those of us who participate in consciously focused group energy do not make up a very large percentage of the population but we live all over the world and our collective energy has worldwide impact.

So, here I am, at 84, sitting in my apartment, sending energy in my daily practice, joining with activities on The Shift Network and see if I can make the buck stop here. Can I take responsibility for everything in this world? Can I watch the refugees from wherever they’re fleeing, and hold their well-being in my thoughts and send them wholing energy in my daily energy work? Do I hold in my heart the belief that we, as energy workers, can see and salvage and even heal our planet?

We can’t pass it off to others. And we can’t do it all by ourselves. But we can mentally and energetically join with like-minded peace-keepers all over the world and shine our light on the path to give hope and guidance to those who are lost or less aware or even afraid.

You are a “light being.” Shine. Shine with empathy. Shine with knowledge. Shine as an example of what is possible when we each say, “The buck stops here.”

Change yourself. Change the world. Monitor your human participation and live more deeply from your inner universe of total connection with all.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:
How Choosing the Right Word will Clarify your Choices
Why We Are Afraid of Change
Why Do You Believe What You Do?
Our Work in the World
How to Hold the Space for the New Vision to Emerge

VLOG: Insights of a Deeper Song

PODCAST: Reflections of a Deeper Song

How To Write a New Life Story

April 13, 2017 By Cara Lumen

Some of us are now called to join together in a conscious focus on wholeness. Wholeness of the planet. Wholeness for its inhabitants. Peace, wisdom, understanding, empathy, inclusiveness. Whatever we feel is missing, whatever we feel called upon to change.

We manifest this wholeness with our minds and our intentions.

Are you being called to serve?

Whatever you feel called to protect, or change, or help manifest, you can do it in your own spiritual practice, whatever form that takes for you. Change is in the intention. Change comes from the vibration of focused thought.

We have work to do.

Alone or collectively?

I’m very busy sending positive energy to the negative news I hear, to the people who are making the news, to the safety of the planet and the people, and… I’m very, very busy.

I actively join in worldwide group meditations focused on peace and balance and planetary well-being. That strengthens and supports my individual work and increases the power and reach of the focus of our collective work.

We can change the world

Each thought we think, each word we speak, each action we take has impact. For better or for worse. Check yourself for anger and judgment and clean your inner house. Look for the core value of inclusion and see how well you’re doing that. There are many ways we can help change the world. Inner work is a powerful place to begin.

Our inner and group work will help write a new story. There’s a reason all these strong emotions and dramatic changes and feelings of being off balance are emerging. We’re in the midst of major, major changes. That means we have to look within ourselves. And we have to study and acquire a broader more global viewpoint. How do we do that?

We have to understand, connect and then proceed.

But first we have to create balance

We have to create balance in our own feelings, our own responses. No fear. Just a deep knowing that we are light workers and we are here to hold the light so the darkness in the corners can be uncovered and that new insights and ideas may fill them.

As the change begins to unfold, we’ll be an active presence participating with our strong spiritual awareness to help write a new story, create a new world, to heal and nurture and balance with an ever-deepening awareness that comes from our continued energy practice.

It begins with the work within.

What new story do you want to help write?

Something that is now unbalanced calls to you. What is it? Where do you want to focus your “enlightened energy”?

Energy workers are a small percentage of the world’s population but we’re everywhere on the planet. Even if we come from different spiritual practices, our common connection is for the greater good. What new story do you want to help write?

I, for example, am very concerned about the planet. How would I rewrite that story?

My story would see an increase in the acceptance as true and awareness that global warming is vitally important to everyone and there are things we humans can do to slow it down.

No planet, no home, no life on earth. And in my story, no one kills for food. Ever.

In my story, we become so attuned with nature that we live in organic, naturally unfolding cycles and all striving and struggling ceases.

You get the picture. What story do you want to write and what would it look like?

Focus on directing your energy toward that cause. Do it by yourself or join with likeminded others. But do it regularly. Your consciousness can change the world.

As spiritually conscious inhabitants of our world, we are very, very important in the rebalancing that is necessary and for the creation of the new story that’ll be told.

Do your inner work.

To Sing a Deeper Song consider:

The Core Value of Inclusion
The Shedding of Your Skin
Clean Your Inside Home
Accept Yourself as You Are
The Move From Inner to Outer Work
Change Your Expectations