Cara Lumen | Sing a Deeper Song

Sing a Deeper Song

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Be an Instrument for Experiencing

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Be an Instrument for Experiencing
An Inner-world Exploration

“We must transform ourselves into the instruments for experiencing
the deepest spiritual essence of life.”Deng Ming-Dao

I loved that idea but I had no idea how to do it.  Become an instrument – one that has the ability to deepen the experience of my spiritual essence.  

Well, wow. I want to do that. 

What is the form of your instrument?

First of all, the instrument is me.  Me, here in my body suit, and you, there in yours.  We have the ability to experience on the physical plane and we also have the ability to go exploring on the spiritual plane – out into the Unseen World which happens to make up 95% of everything. 

How do you play your instrument?

You have been given gifts to help you play your instrument.  I write.  I write to figure things out.  That’s how I learn.  That’s how I go exploring in the unseen world.  Sure I have practices – shamanic journeying, raising my vibration, mudras, meditation, ceremony. Those are the tools I use to allow my instrument (me) to experience the deepest purest essence of life.  Or at least begin to. 

What do you seek to experience?

What is the deepest spiritual essence of life?  What does it look like?  What does it feel like?

The experience of the deepest spiritual essence of life will be different for each of us.  It may be found in the serenity of deep meditation or the exhilarating high that comes with accomplishing a physical goal.  

And because we are exploring, we don’t exactly know what we will find. 

Accept what shows up

Trust the Universe to provide you with what you need.  If I need an idea, it will show up.  If I need a new opportunity, it will show up.  It’s up to me to be aware enough of my own path to make wise choices.  You don’t have to act on everything.  But it is there for you to consider.  As you make choices, your path will be more defined.  

Look for the auspicious signs

“Auspicious signs are not a superstition, but a confirmation. They are a response,” continues Deng Ming Dao.  

Perhaps I will pause at the end of my day and journal about the “auspicious signs” that showed up for me that day.  What is the Unseen World confirming for me?  How is it directing me?

I simply need to observe, absorb and accept the guidance of the Unseen World within me.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I learn to recognize the guiding responses of the Universe.

Deeper Song Process

  • How do you get your messages from the unseen world?  Is it a voice in your head, a simply knowing, a recognizing of a new possibility?  Probably all of those.  See if you can identify your personalized form of communication from the Unseen World.
  • Cultivate that.  My inner voice is so loud that I know to stop and write down the core idea it offers. Often I stop and try to answer the question I have formed about what that phrase or idea means to me and how I might use it. 
  • Act on a few of these nudges and notice what happens.  
  • Keep exploring. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

The Light Vibration of One

The Pillar of Light Process 

Another Part of You – The Unseen World 

How to Interpret the Messages from Within 

When I See Myself As Light

Broaden and Deepen
Your Personal Journey 

I help spiritual adventurers explore the Unseen World
so that we broaden and deepen our personal journey an
d learn to share our discoveries with others.
We are guides and wayshowers with our light held high.

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Deeper Song Insights and Applications,
Join the Deeper Song Community.

Make Use of Emptiness 

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Make Use of Emptiness
An Inner-World Exploration


Why is bamboo a symbol of exemplary conduct? Because it makes use of emptiness. That emptiness makes it flexible, open to receive, and ready to respond as needed.

We should cultivate the emptiness of bamboo. 

How to be empty

Our body suit keeps us busy.  It stimulates us and talks to us. In order to be empty like bamboo, we must cultivate stillness, mindfulness, and serenity. 

One waits in emptiness.  Does nothing. Says nothing.  Sits silent and empty.  Not even expectation. Just being.

And therein lies the power of emptiness.

That’s one of the purposes of a spiritual practice.

Be flexible 

Bamboo is empty and it is flexible. Just as bamboo does, think of yourself as moving in a soft breeze.  Gently swaying.  It changes your view, brings you fresh air and gives you more options.

When you are empty, you are present and capable of moving in any direction. And you can also continue to stay perfectly still.  There’s no forward movement to stop.  There’s no bending to unbend.  There’s simply a presence and a sense of expectation. Simply being.  Empty.  And present.

Be open to receive

When you are empty you have room to consider whatever shows up.  You can observe, explore, make choices.  You can decide what you want to bring into your emptiness.  Or perhaps you would just rather stay empty for a while.  You have great flexibility of the possibilities you can choose. 

When we fill ourselves too full, there’s no room for anything else.  Practice emptying yourself.  Empty your mind. Empty your breath.  Sit in stillness and see what shows up. 

Be ready to respond as needed 

There’s a readiness about being empty.  There’s no forward motion to check. No backward motion to halt.  You’re in a state of simple readiness. But emptiness is even less active the that. It’s stillness. It’s simply being.  

Then you can respond, not react.  A circumstance presents itself.  You see it, consider it, weigh your options. Maybe you explore a bit before you choose. Be flexible in your response to whatever shows up. 

The choice is yours

To move or not to move, to accept or not to accept. To believe or not to believe.  In your emptiness, there’s an awareness.  An awareness of your destiny, your reason for being, your purpose.  And in that emptiness is the opportunity to view your options.  To consider choices.  

Still, you do nothing. You are empty. You observe.  

Act only when you are ready

At some point, you may choose action.  And for the moment you fill yourself with purpose and plans and readiness and choices.  

Then you return to emptiness.  Observing.  Simply being.  Being present.  Being still.  

Cultivate emptiness

Empty. Being. Simply being.  No expectations or concerns, no thoughts, or planning. Simply being present. In an emptiness that’s full of presence.  

Until it’s time to fill yourself with a new choice. 

How do we cultivate emptiness?

Time Stands Open

I sit before an
empty parcel of time.
Mine to fill.
Mine to squander.
Mine to enjoy. 

I sit. 

I feel. 

I experience
the emptiness.

The waiting. 

There is no
expectation. 

There is simply
an open space,
a segment of time
that is mine to do with as I choose.

I go within
to see what time
wants from me.

Mindfulness.
Stillness.
Emptiness.

Experience emptiness.

Clear your mind
and soul.

Be empty. 

I do. 

I sit mindfully
in an open parcel of time.
And simply am.

-Cara Lumen, 1995

Deeper Song Affirmation

I cultivate the art of emptiness. 

Deep Song Process

  • Sit silently and empty your mind.  Simply be.
  • With gentle persistence, release any thoughts or worries or mental activity that shows up. 
  • Simply be. 
  • Do not make an effort to empty your mind. Simply empty your mind.
  • Practice nothingness throughout your day. 
  • Notice how you feel and how your experiences change.

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider

The Packed Potential Before the Beginning

The Pillar of Light Process

The Intentional OM Hum

How to Walk a Path of Inner Stillness 

Another Part of You-The Unseen World

How Do You Make Your Actions Lasting and Meaningful?

How to Interpret the Messages from Within 

I help transformational thinkers raise their personal vibration so that we, collectively, can raise the consciousness of our planet.

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

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

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Walk the Sacred Path Within Surely and Steadily
and Leave a Trail
An Inner-world Exploration

Because our paths are similar, you and I find ourselves traveling adjacent paths. Sometimes our paths veer off in slightly different directions.  But we are to walk our personal paths. 

The personal paths of our destiny, our purpose, our pace of service are all slightly different. Although we walk alone, many of us walk together on parallel journeys. Who is walking beside you now?  Who are you traveling with?

Go where you are led

When I pause to look around, I will meet up with others going more or less in the same direction.  It is good to pause and compare notes and get ideas from each other.  We are not walking the exact same path, we are simply conjoined for this section of the journey, but we will both benefit from walking alongside each other for a while.

Sometimes our paths are straight and to the point.  Sometimes our gifts and enthusiasm make us wander off toward unexpected places that are also fulfilling.  We find ourselves enriched and expanded by these unexpected side journeys. And sometimes we find the side journey has become our main road. 

Explore the side roads

Your main path is higher and more esoteric than what you see on the physical plane.  You may or may not be aware of it. Raise your gaze.  Raise your sails.  Take a side path. Go exploring.

I use words like “explorer” and “map maker” to identify how I feel about my own journey. I recently came across a Robert Frost quote:  “I am not a teacher, I am an awakener.”  ” Awakener”   – that was a very freeing word for me. 

Can you choose a few words that describe how you walk in the world?  How you are seen? How do you shine and how you are unfolding? Honor that.  Identify that.  Explore that.  Develop that. 

What do your side paths teach you?

My main path is exploring the unseen world.  A parallel path, for now, is vibration, how to raise your personal vibration, how to use vibration for healing. I have taken side paths in which I learned to drum and to deepen my Qi Gong practice.  These are all steps along the way, parallel paths that enrich our main path.  I honor them, see where they take me, and then come back to my main spiritual path enriched by the experience. Then I move forward based upon what I have learned on my side trips. 

We are on a constant journey

Like nature, our lives move in cycles. We had a childhood cycle, a young adult cycle, a livelihood cycle, a relationship cycle, a reflective cycle, a giving back cycle, a spiritual expansion cycle.  These cycles overlap, they may be consecutive, they may be ongoing, they may be linked.  You don’t even have to understand the cycles, but it’s helpful to know there are many cycles in our body suit life and many more cycles in our unseen world.

Stay open. Observe.  Explore, Evaluate and choose. 

Deeper Song Affirmation

I take time to serve, explore and absorb the many opportunities and side roads on my path. 

Deeper Song Process

  • Make a list of the many roles you see yourself playing.  Circle the one at your core.  It will have to do with your path only, not how you interact with others.  
  • How does this role make you feel?  What does it teach you? How does it inform you?
  • What do you need to add/change about the major path you see yourself on?  
  • Do that. 

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

You ARE Vibration and Why it Matters

Why We Need To Raise Our Vibration

The Pillar of Light Process 

Raise Your Vibration Through Visioning 

Build a Launching Pad for Your Inner work 

Raise Your Vibration and Change the World. 

I help transformational thinkers raise their personal vibration so that we, collectively, can raise the consciousness of our planet.

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications,

join the Deeper Song Community.

Why We Need To Raise Our Vibration  

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Why We Need To Raise Our Vibration
An Inner-World Exploration

Everything is vibration. Everything we say and do and think reflects our vibration. 

You know how soothing your vibration is when you’re calm and peaceful.  And you know how harsh and harmful your vibration can be when you’re angry. That vibration, whatever it is, affects not just our own experience but the experience of those around you.  

To change your life experience, change your vibration

The good news is that we can consciously mellow out our own vibration whenever we choose to. We do that through mindful body-suit choices and we do that through intention. 

Where does your vibration come from?

Everything about you is vibration. You are like a broadcast tower sending out vibrations into the world.  Everything in the world is vibration.  We have only to listen and feel and experience to know that to be true. 

The energies of anger, hate, divisiveness, and fear, are all a lower vibration. You want to avoid being around that. You want to avoid sending out any of those vibrations through your own thoughts and actions and beliefs. 

The vibration of love, acceptance, kindness, inclusion, and compassion are gentle and soothing. We could all use more of those – both to give and to receive. 

How do you change your vibration?

We change our vibration with our thoughts, our intentions and our personal monitoring of our own vibration.  We must maintain a steady, ongoing, conscious practice of raising our own vibration to a higher and greater awareness of the Energy of One. 

There’s only one energy.  And we are it.  That means we have great power and great responsibility. 

We raise our vibration through self-monitoring and conscious choice  

I know a person who does a very good job imitating others, but what she chooses to imitate is actually her way to criticize them.  I don’t spend any time with her. 

My sister worries.  About everything.  Her vibration is one of fear and worry.  It paralyzes her. 

I can feel the vibration of anger across a room.  It hurts me physically. I literally turn and leave under those circumstances.

I have an online friend who radiates helpfulness.  Each of his newsletters is focused on helping us do a better job in our business. 

I have another friend who radiates support.  I gratefully accept it. 

My intentions for the vibrations of my own work is to raise awareness and offer insights and possible actions we can take to raise our own vibration.

What vibration do you put out? 

What vibrations do you actively look for to explore and incorporate?  What’s the vibration of those you hang out with?  Begin to change your vibration by monitoring and changing your environment.  Notice how you feel in different situations.  Become aware of what’s happening in those times that feel soothing. Seek out more of those.

As my personal interests in vibration become more focused, I have to go online for teachers and people with similar interests. As a liberal in the conservative Mid-West, I have to go online to find people who are thinking and exploring concepts that draw me.

I love shamanism. I take online classes and have a shamanic partner in another state who was paired with me in an online course. We support each other in our individual life journeys. 

Seek out people of similar vibrations, ones who will help you raise your vibration and spend time with them. Find ways to raise your own vibration.  That’ll change your life. 

Choosing to be around positive vibrations is the first step you take to change your own vibration. Who you hang out with, the values you believe in and the values you reject all have powerful impacts on the level of our personal vibrations.  Become aware of the vibrations around you and make choices that are meant to change your own vibration.   

Deeper Song Affirmation

I’m now more aware of the vibration I put out and
the vibrations I let in. I make mindful choices. 

Deeper Song Process

  • Mindfully pause during your day to become aware of the vibrations around you.  The ones coming toward you and the ones that you’re sending out.
  • Move away from the negative vibration coming to you.  It may even mean leaving behind a friend who is no longer traveling the path you are on. 
  • Look closely at your own vibration to make certain it is as inclusive and compassionate as you can make it. 
  • Repeat.  

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

How to Interpret the Messages from Within

When I See Myself as Light 

Raise Your Vibration with Serenity 

Raise Your Vibration Through Visioning

Raise Your Vibration and Change the World. 

I help transformational thinkers raise their personal vibration so that we, collectively, can raise the consciousness of our planet.

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications

join the Deeper Song Community.

Energy Cannot Be Destroyed – Only Re-Purposed

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Energy Cannot Be Destroyed – Only Re-Purposed
An Inner-World Exploration

Energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be dismembered, then rearranged, refigured, and reassembled.

That is very powerful knowledge.  It means that negative energy can be turned into positive energy. You don’t have to stay stuck, you can simply dismember the negative energy and reassemble into positive energy. 

That’s a powerful concept to embrace. 

Do not focus on the negative energy

Transformational thinkers all over the world see their contribution to the well-being of the world as personally raising their own vibration so that it affects the collective consciousness. Changing the vibration of our own energy is the cornerstone of all change. 

While I work daily to raise my own vibration, I looked for ways to assist in the dissemination of the negative energy that’s so dense, so destructive.  

We do dismemberment – reassemble work through intention

There are several ways to create change. Somethings have to be leveled in order to build anew. We have to destroy, remove, clear, clean them out.  Then something new can be planted and nurtured in the clear energy that remains.  

For our own growth, we need fertile ground that we’ve prepared through our spiritual practice and sometimes we have to clear a space of unwanted thoughts and energy before we can plant and grow something new.  

The intentional inner work we are to do is to disassemble the unwanted energy and then use our intention to build up a new form,  bringing the energy together in a new harmonious design. 

It’s a process and we each have to find our own ways to dismember and reassemble, but I’ve figured out a few ways to begin. 

Identify the energy you want to change

You may want to change a negative attitude within yourself, a negative situation you experience in your life, or yes, a negative experience in your world that feels beyond your control. 

Choose the focus for your dismemberment. 

What is the current purpose of the energy you desire to change?

Even negative energy has a purpose.  It may be there to force you to examine your personal values, make a different choice, deepen your conviction, or rearrange your beliefs.  Once you have used thoughtful self-awareness to identify what you want to change and why, mindfully begin to change your responses and your actions.  

There’s a purpose for whatever situation we find ourselves in.  It may be blatantly obvious or patently subtle. We need to be willing to change.  We need to be willing to release what’s no longer useful. 

What are the messages you are receiving in your life and how will you dismember the negative energy you see around you, then rearrange, refigured, and reassembled it in a positive form?

 All healing/change begins within you.

Negative energy is sneaky

Negative energy is insidious.  It creeps up on you and gradually takes up more and more space until suddenly you’re pretty much immersed in the negativity.  A very important first step is to notice your own energy and the energy that you’ve allowed to surround you in your life. 

This negative energy might be as simple as a judgmental thought you have about someone you meet during your day.  It might be a feeling of anger at something on the news. The next thing you know you’re sitting there upset and angry and rather full of negative energy.  It creeps in and builds up. 

Be aware of the negative energy you come across in your day.  Be aware of any negative energy that you create in the course of a day.  And begin to make changes by 1) being conscious of negative energy and 2) creating a spiritual practice that helps you not just notice the negativity but clear it from your life. 

Why that negative energy is there?  

What’s the lesson of negative energy? It highlights where your attention is focused and what you expect to be present in our life.

That’s easy to change.  Shift your gaze. 

Dismember the negative energy in your life 

Once you have identified the negative energy you wish to eliminate, thank it for its service, for its lesson.  You will see it immediately begins to lessen in strength.  Then invite that energy to transform into a happier, lighter form.  Keep looking for scraps of negativity in the corners of your life and allow all the negative energy to dissolve and disappear. 

Dissolve your personal attachment to the negative energy

Why has this negative energy been important to you? Why did you need it in your life?  What did it make you do – or not do? How did it make you feel? Perhaps identifying with the negative energy made you feel right, or part of a group consensus.  What are you personally getting out of being attached to or focusing on this negative energy? 

Once you identify it, let it go. Then simply walk away.

Create a level playing field

The practice of dismembering in shamanism is to take the energy you are changing completely apart so it no longer exists in the form it was in. Reduce it to “unformed” energy.   

Create a level playing field.  Simply visualize the dense energy changing.  You can feel a wind come through to disperse it. You can see a rainfall come to put wash it away, or a flame to burn it up. You can feel the earth move to cover it up.  I like to see negative energy simply becoming lighter, joyfully happy to be lighter. It becomes white light and simply dances off.  Dancing formerly-negative energy – ha!  Use your imagination to see the negative energy disappear or grow lighter, or…you are dismembering it so that it no longer exists in the negative form.

Begin to reassemble

Reassembling is like having a fresh ball of clay before you that you can make into anything you desire.

What do you want to build with it? How do you want to reassemble it?  

Remember, we cannot destroy energy but we can change its form.  

Give careful thought to how you want to reassemble the energy before you.  It’s not about creating the opposite of what was just there.  It’s about moving forward in your thinking to shape that energy into something better than before. Perhaps something not thought of until now. 

We cannot see into the future so your request to your helping spirits may be to reassemble that changed energy into the form that’s most useful for you and your evolution.  Then simply see what shows up. 

Keep flexible.  As the energy shifts, you may want to repeat this visualization to clarify your intention in order to continue to lighten and reshape the vibration in a positive form.

Create a ceremony of continued reshaping

Each day, in your spiritual practice, release your connection with any negative energy you see around you. You may simply see the energy gradually grow lighter, or begin to dissipate or drain into the forgiving earth.  You may release it in a breath. You may be at the point where you easily see the level field and begin to reassemble, to construct what you need next in a positive form.  

Although this will probably be a gradual process, it will be hastened by your focused attention and your intention.  Work with this process of disassembling and reassembling energy.  

Be aware of what changes

Sometimes change happens simply because we shift our focus.  We start focusing on the good that’s happening.  Make the act of looking for the positive a part of your daily spiritual practice.  Cultivate gratitude and awareness.  And encourage a willingness to let go and change. 

Change the negative energy as it shows up

Create your own physical act that reminds you to send positive energy toward – whatever you wish.  Maybe you blow a breath over the top of your index finger at the negative that you hear or see.  Perhaps you hold your palm up to halt it or mentally send a stream of energy from your third eye. Just make up some gesture that reminds you to intuitively send positive energy to a person or situation emanating negative energy.  

The power is in the awareness. The power is in noticing the negative energy and sending it positive energy through thought and intention.  And it’s about becoming aware of the negative energy and taking steps to shift it in the moment. 

Create your own technique to alter the negative energy that comes to your attention. 

Keep your own energy positive

Each day in my spiritual practice, I simply sit and vibrate light.  I see my light energy moving out into the world to make others aware of the power of their own light. I send my vibration out to heal and comfort and support the planet and all who live here.  You, too, can simply sit and radiate your glorious inner light out into the world. Become more aware of your own goodness, your own power to simply gaze upon and thus change the negativity you come across.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I nurture and support the positive energy in my life.

Deeper Song Process

  • Identify a form of negative energy you want to transform.
  • Identify the thoughts, beliefs, reactions that are behind it. See if you can understand its reason for its existence.
  • Through your intention and any ceremony you wish to create, begin to disassemble your attachment to the negative, your belief in the negativity, and your fear of the negativity.  Cultivate a willingness to have that negative energy disassemble into neutral energy. 
  • Watch the negative energy begin to shift.  Does it change color? Does it grow smaller?  Does it melt into the ground?  Notice how the energy changes. 
  • Sit quietly in contemplation at the level playing field you’ve created. The blank slate. The energy is still there, it’s now neutral energy waiting for its new shape.  What will you invite it to become?
  • Use your imagination and intention to begin to reassemble the energy into a positive form.  It doesn’t have to be specific, it can be greater awareness, deeper conscious behavior, a willingness to act for the highest good for all.  
  • Notice how the world changes with the reassembling of the energy into a positive form. 
  • Repeat as desired.

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

Another Part of You-The Unseen World

How to Interpret the Messages from Within 

When I See Myself As Light

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

 The Power of your Imagination

What Core Beliefs are Guiding You Today

How Do You Make Your Actions Lasting and Meaningful?

Raise Your Vibration and Change the World.
I help transformational thinkers raise their personal vibration so that we, collectively, can raise the consciousness of our planet.  

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Newsletter
with Insights and Applications,
join the Deeper Song Community.