Living Our Deeper Song
Ashe
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!
“Expect the best. Do not settle for second best.” That is a quote from the book Opening Doors Within by Eileen Cady, co-founder of the Findhorn Community in Scotland. Do not settle.
I realized I had not set my sights and expectations high enough as I move to self-heal my body from some of its aging process. I am expecting only small goals for myself. Small changes. Why not set larger goals? Raise my expectations of what is possible. I’m not talking about unreasonable here, but I am talking about a higher expectation of what is possible than I have been holding. How would that change my mood? I would feel joyous. I would feel excited. I would be more determined to take the steps necessary to make it happen. All because I expected more of the situation and of myself.
Where in your life are you letting yourself off the hook? Where are you expecting too little of yourself? What do you believe is not possible that actually is possible if you would simply believe it is?
Notice where your beliefs and expectations are keeping you from advancing, what you think is not possible at all, or whether you think it’s not possible for you. Change is always possible in some form. Take one step and examine the results to see if your expectation is high enough and go for the goal. Trying makes a difference. The trying will take you further.
Acknowledge the changes and shifts, the wins and the non-wins, and adjust accordingly. Offer gratitude to the universe for the support it always gives you as you move forward in your life.
What are you settling for? Expect the best. Do not settle for second best.
DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION
I always expect the best.
DEEPER SONG PROCESS
- Raise your gaze. Use your imagination to see what is possible and explore different routes to obtain your goal. But most of all raise your sights. Do not settle for second best.
===INNER WORK===
Deepen Your Inner Awareness
Too Much Stuff
I am now on the waiting list for assisted-living and have no idea when there will be an opening but I do have an idea of how small the space will be. So I have to get rid of a whole lot of stuff. If you were packing a suitcase for an on-going life journey, what would you take with you?
What I’m doing is creating what I’m calling “My Journey” shelves. It happens to be a four-shelf bamboo bookcase. On the top shelf I have placed a small pewter figure of a woman holding a crystal high which is me and this life-long journey. The setting is woods and rocks in nature. On that same shelf is my first spirit guide which was a giraffe because she has a far-reaching and elevated viewpoint until someone pointed out giraffes have no voice. My second major helping spirit came when I was in a guided meditation and was told a flying object was coming toward me and I saw a very large dragon. Then the person guiding the meditation said, “It settles on a branch.” The dragon and I looked at each other with amazement and she settled on the ground. Her name is Gwen and I have a dragon statue to represent her. That goes on the top shelf of my journey shelves.
The second shelf contains representatives of my journey as a communicator and teacher and explorer. The third shelf seems to be holding items that represent some of the guides that have helped me along the way.
I don’t yet know what will go on the bottom shelf but it’s an interesting adventure to pick out the core elements of your life as objects and place them in a display.
It’s the sheer number of crystals I have that have me working to identify what needs to move forward with me. This week I gave a lot of big crystals to my daughter Cathy who has a yard. And my goddess piece of driftwood will go live with her.
If you are called upon to move into a smaller space, what will you take with you and what will you release? I have to let go of most of my drums and at least one of my flutes. I have a lot of stained glass in my three windows and I will only have one window where I am going. So again, I get to choose what is important and release my stuff in the world. What are you hanging onto? If you had to move to a smaller space and take one small bag with your life in it, what would you put in it?
===SELF-HEALING===
Take Responsibility for Self-Healing
Notice the Wins
The shifts and changes may be quite small but we need to notice all the wins that come our way. I managed to stand for about three minutes of Qigong practice during the last online class. I practice several times a day as I work to learn the sequence of moves. Of course the goal is to stand for much longer and I need to focus on the wins – how my body is changing and becoming willing to do so. Notice the small wins and build on them.
===OUTER WORK===
Exploration of New Potential and Possibilities
Break The Rules
It was a huge realization and release for me when Daisy Lee in our Wuji Hundun Qigong class said to simply practice which ever move calls to us in the moment. Rather than trying to master all 18 moves or even do all 18 in one session, we can take time to explore one move more deeply and find out the message and gifts it has for us.
I gave myself permission to choose what I need in the moment. I gave myself permission to explore what is being offered one step at a time so that I understand its meaning for me and the changes it creates and integrate it into my life.
Are you trying to learn too much in one sitting? Is your life too full of projects or thoughts or ideas that you’re not savoring anything? Take time and leave space to develop ideas and patterns and practices that help you own the new concepts and integrate them into your life.
This is a huge thing to consider, particularly when you are trying to learn something new and bring it into your life. Take time to savor it. Take time to explore its possibilities. Take time to see if it’s right for you. Learn at you own speed.
I want to learn all 18 of these movements but I don’t have to learn them in the seven weeks of class. The videos and transcripts are there for life.
How do you learn? What size bites do you need to take out of life in order to save what you experience? Question the rules, adjust them to your needs, and take time to absorb and own what you have chosen to learn or do or become.
What Is Holding You in Place?
Retirement is a big decision-maker for all of us. When do you retire? How much income do you need to retire? Where do you want to live? It’s a huge shift in our life as we prepare for an unknown length of time and actually unknown physical circumstances.
My daughter is waiting to become a certain age for her retirement money to kick in. She lives in a split level house that will not be good for aging.
Another friend just moved to part-time work and is in the process of creating and developing and training for the healing center she wants to create for her “next.”
Retirement is a good chunk of your life and it’s a huge chunk of unknown. My daughter knows that she wants to work with Reiki and animals but she’s too busy with a big job to consider the details. My friend knows her direction and is actively exploring the possibilities. She is taking classes and experimenting with her offerings and she is building a new home and is very aware of her own unfolding process.
I’m sort of dealing with what shows up physically for me – both the restrictions and the possibilities. I think the best way to prepare for retirement is to understand your heart and your yearnings. And nurture them both. Expand on a hobby. Learn a new skill to do for fun or for income. Retirement is a new phase of your life in which to explore and earn and create a new experience of life, to reposition yourself in the world. It’s like a clean slate that you can write on whatever you’ve learned from all that living you’ve been doing. What do you want to draw on your retirement vision board? And what ideas do you have for making it happen? Be creative and expect the best!
Downsizing
I have no idea when an opening will occur in the assisted living place I have chosen to go to but I do know that I am letting things go like a mad woman. And selecting those very specific important things that I want to continue to keep. I am creating an incredibly powerful altar. The new space is very small so each thing I choose to take has to be meaningful. If you had to take a journey and take only one suitcase, what would you put in it when you knew you were not coming back. It’s interesting to think about that and see what’s truly important in your life. What will you bring with you on the next phase of your journey?
===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===
Self-Healing Spiritual Practice and Deepening Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness
What is Meaningful?
I am in the process of creating the most powerful altar I’ve ever had in my life. Part of it is because I have powerful things to put on it at this point in my life. And the other part is that I know my journey now, where I want to go next. Each day I play my kalimba to honor the day. I drum and sing to the directions and I make up songs to the elements of my life that I am working on now. And then I do my Qigong. I actually do this twice a day. How do you want to change your spiritual practice as far as content and time? Go exploring.
===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===
Raise Your Sights and Your Expectations
Let Go
I voted. Yeah. My homemaker Shelley helped me fill in the ballot because I can’t see well enough to do that. It needed a stamp. I don’t have any stamps. But Shelley had Christmas stamps and offered to mail it for me. When she mailed it, she voted too.
The world is changing so rapidly that our way of doing things, whatever it is, is quickly becoming outdated. So when we vote to keep things the way they are, we are not paying attention to the rapid scientific and technical and social changes that offer thoughtful and useful new solutions and opportunities. The world is changing. People are changing. Their needs are changing. The best way we can be in service in this world is to stay flexible in our thinking and make room for the scientific changes and environmental changes and social changes that are evolving. We must be aware of the new needs in the world and what is now outdated or destructive. We must stay aware of change and the evolution of both our needs and our thinking. Change is happening very rapidly. It is tricky to keep up. But we must build on the new science, the new discoveries, the new needs, the continuous unfolding of our new world.
The ways that you are stuck in are the beliefs of your parents that certainly are probably out of date. Keep watching the world and change what you believe is possible. New doors and opportunities open every moment. Don’t hang onto the past, help create the future – a positive, all-encompassing, aware future. How does your thinking need to change? What new choices do you need to make? Do that.
===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===
Support and Encouragement for our Unfolding Role in the Future
Our Ripple in Future Timelines
I’ve been thinking a lot about my birthday earlier this year than usual because I will be 90 in November and that seems really old. That’s also reaching a point when you have no idea how long you will be on the planet or what shape your body will be in as you continue your journey. I think “next” is a great adventure so that’s not a problem. We all hope we leave the planet peacefully.
What do you choose to do with whatever time you have left? Do you have a major goal? What are you doing to achieve it? What is important to you to do now that will impact the future, whether you are here or not? Do I want to battle the restrictions that are showing up today for women? Climate change seems like a big challenge to me from where I am in my life. What can you do now that will impact what follows? Given the approximate amount of time you have left and where you are in your life, what causes will you choose to support and change for the well-being of yourself and the world? Give it some thought.
===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===
Expanding Awareness
Journey to a Chamber of the Seven Sacred Rays
Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
and the
===CARA’S CORNER===
A Major Move
I need to move into assisted living. It will be a huge change with less room but more help. My daughter Cathy has checked out the place that would be my choice which happens to be across the street from where I am now. We are doing the paperwork and I will get on the list. There are five people ahead of me. It is unfolding.
All of the major moves in my life have been made in the space of an hour or so. I knew in a second then I was going to move to New York from Kansas City. It took me 20 minutes to arrange to have some financial help from my mother to move from New York to California. And it took me an hour to find the place I was going to move to here in the Kansas City area.
My daughter will take my cat because he can’t come, perhaps he signed up for this big change too. I have begun to let go of things and find smaller versions to fit into the space but I will be very, very grateful to have the physical help around me. I only spoke to my daughter a few days ago to suggest we look into it and she called me four days later and said she had an appointment across the street from where I am. It is hard to find low-income affordable care and this is the best one in the area. So I am on the list. Change is coming. Another path will be taken. Here I go adventuring.
===SING A DEEPER SONG ===
I Am Willing
I am willing to embrace change. I am willing to go exploring. I am willing to create new opportunities. But to do so I have to give up some things.
I am willing to embrace change. I am willing to go exploring. I am willing to create new opportunities. But to do so I have to give up some things. I begin to let go. I thank and release many of the possessions that have served me well and begin to design my new life.
I am willing to embrace change. I am willing to go exploring. I am willing to create new opportunities. But to do so I have to give up some things. I begin to let go. I thank and release many of the possessions that have served me well and begin to design my new life. I thoughtfully select what will support me into my unfolding new adventure!
Cara Lumen, July 2022
We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.
Namaste,
Cara
Come Sing a Deeper Song
I help adventurers who are ready to explore the new possibilities in the emerging energy of the Divine Feminine to align their dreams and choices with what is emerging as possible today so that they go beyond their own expectations.
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