Keep Your Meditation Creative
Living Our Deeper Song
Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!
Sometimes we get so excited about new ways to meditate or concepts to contemplate or consider that we end up with this huge, bulky obligation that we then cease to do because it’s gotten too big. This is not about streamlining your meditation but it may very well be about changing it up periodically. You might choose to focus on one meditative practice more than another for a while in order to develop your skill and your experience of it. I’ve had some breathing techniques I have frequently added and I have to watch it doesn’t make my meditation period too long. Perhaps I find a different place in my day that I practice breathing.
I play my flute sometimes longer than others. I haven’t played my drums much recently. They are fun to do. I could have a whole separate drumming meditation. Like drumming down the sun.
There are affirmations I used to say at my window altar that I have put off for a while. They are very nurturing strong affirmations. I would like them back in my life.
So what do you do when you have so many ideas for your spiritual practice that you don’t do any of them? You get creative. You adjust. You modify. You may have a week of one focused type of practice to deepen it and also find the key components to include daily.
You may have a few days in which you write affirmations on dissolvable paper and put them in water and watch that disappear. You may read a Tarot card for the week rather than one for each day. Do you see where I’m going with this? Have you by any chance overburdened your meditation practice with too much detail?
The point of meditation is to quiet your mind and bring your attention inward and stay there for a while, allowing that stillness to heal and balance your body and your emotions and your mind. Even a pause for a period of consciously releasing exhales helps to bring you back to center.
I have some songs I wrote that I play with my drum while looking out the window at nature. That could just be one form of meditation. I am learning more Qigong for self-healing and I might want to make a whole meditation using those practices. I have a singing bowl I haven’t used in a while. See how this goes? And let’s not even discuss the number of crystals that I have not held for quite a while. Those are deepening experiences unto themselves. It’s not a matter of routine, it is a matter of tuning into the moment, the day, the current need, to create a meditation segment that does what you need to have done in that moment. Do you need healing? Do you need centering? Do you need encouragement? What is the purpose of your meditation, the result you want, and what are the best forms of meditation to use?
I’m not doing nearly enough of my Transcendental Meditation. It doesn’t fit if I add in all these other things that I do. So I have to get creative. New times. More sessions. Different days. Can you see where I’m going with this? Keep your meditation practice flexible and creative. Create, experiment, explore, be flexible and notice what shifts. Keep your meditation practice fluid and responsive to your life.
DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION
I examine my meditation practice and find ways to make it more flexible.
DEEPER SONG PROCESS
- What are your favorite forms of meditation? Begin with one of those and perhaps do only that one in your meditation practice. Then move on to explore another one for a week or so until you deepen the practice and find what the results are.
- Explore different times of day to do your meditation. I have one after I’m showered and am ready for my day but using meditation as a shift from a workday to an evening of personal time is a good place too. Create a flexible meditation practice.
- Experiment with length. You’re not going to have a lengthy meditation every day so pick a length that works for you. 20 minutes was the recommended time for Transcendental Meditation. I don’t do that much.
- Notice what forms of practice speak the most to you. I find my Qigong practices are very soothing. I would like to lengthen my TM practice. I would like to play my drums more frequently. Do the work and make your own meditation practice creative, individualized and perfect for you.
===INNER WORK===
How to Help People You Don’t Like
I have a problem here. I know that I am supposed to send love and light to everyone but there are some people and situations and actions that are taking place in this world that I can’t bring myself to send light to. Their deeds are too horrendous. And they are the situations that need it most. What do you do, what do I do when we see people expressing anger and hatred and evil and we’re supposed to send them light. How do we do that?
I have to back off from thinking in terms of individuals and individual actions and send wholing energy to the whole. Send peace to their hearts. In my cynicism I’m not sure it could get in. I can send energy to a situation, holding for the highest good for all of us. I only know to help a situation by sending light and holding my own vibration as high as I can manage. And hope they see it and recognize it in themselves.
I am not to drop down into human emotions of anger or hatred. That hurts only me. It does not touch those I am focused on. Work on your own vibration. Work on elevating it. Work on keeping it the highest frequency you can manage. And keep on walking the high road. Make sure that your thoughts and your actions and your choices are all on the highest possible level you can manage. Stay on the high road. Shine your light. Show a different way. And know that others will see it.
===SELF-HEALING===
Learn from the Past
Everything we’ve ever done has contained a lesson for us. Sometimes we get the lesson, sometimes we don’t. But if we pause to reflect and look at the overview of the path we have traversed, we will begin to see a pattern. A pattern of choices. A pattern of responses to those choices. I have a strong pattern of having written all my life starting in high school. I have a strong pattern of being interested in spirituality since my comparative religion class in college. Those are trails that have blazed their way through my life. Look to see what patterns you’ve been drawn to, what choices you have continued to make. And see if you like what you’re doing and where has taken you. Then see how you might change it to have a different outcome. Learn from the past. Use it to create your future.
===OUTER WORK===
Partner With the Univers
Letting the universe handle the perfect unfolding of our goals strengthens our confidence and reinforces our belief that anything is possible. We release our need to control and intentionally invite the universe to co-create the perfect outcome.
What are you forcing into being? What are you trying to rearrange that makes you go in the wrong direction? Are you listening? Are you observing the outcomes? Are you continually making positive choices?
Slow down. See what you are creating in your life. Decide what you would like to create in your life. And partner with the universe to make it happen.
Have You Fulfilled Your Dream?
Did you have a dream as a young person? Gifts you wanted to expand? A path you thought you would follow? And did you do that?
Looking back, it wasn’t so much following a path as honoring my passions and interests in the moment. I did a very good job of that and there has been a pattern of flexible, spontaneous, in-the-moment choices. I seem to have a very strong need to share my discoveries and observations and lessons. I do that in these newsletters. But at the core of my path, I think it has been about being an explorer. An explorer of meditation, an explorer of yoga and Qigong and Tai Chi. An explorer of metaphysics. Always learning new concepts, always trying on something new to see how I like it or how I can adapt it to my life. There’s been a strong pattern of exploration. Underneath it may be the simple joy of learning. But as I have grown older, the calling has become a demand that I constantly explore something or learn something or share something or absorb something or apply something to my life. I am an explorer. Which also means I don’t stay with one thing for a particularly long time. I learn what I need and then build on that, rather than become extremely efficient at one particular step. Jack of all trades, master of none. Except in the broader sense of focusing on my spiritual practice.
Two friends in my life are entering into retirement and have the opportunity to structure an entire new 30 year path. It will be interesting to see what they keep and what they let go. 30 years is a long time. Do you know what you’ll move into when it’s time to retire, to stop working your regular job?
Is there something you want to learn? Something you want to do? Someplace you want to go? What dreams do you still want to fulfill in this lifetime? Do that next.
===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===
Awareness of Our Cosmic Oneness
We are like musical notes in a cosmic orchestra. Each of us has our own tone and timber to contribute to the overall symphony. So on one hand we want to make sure we’re playing our tune right, and on the other hand, we want to make certain we are enhancing the entire symphonic piece. We wanna play our part right. We want to play our part well. And we want to support the collective effort as we do so.
So part of that work is how we think. The positive thoughts we hold, the positive expectations we have, the positive steps we take. All of those add to the uplifting of the all-encompassing energy.
Another part of our path is our beliefs in what is possible. That light is fairly dim in the world right now. How do we counterbalance the negativity that is prevalent on so many levels today?
We are guardians of our own light. That’s our job. We are to hold our space with the highest level of awareness and expectation we can possibly manage. We must make our choices out of that centered, focused universal space.
What are you saying? What are you thinking? What are you doing? Make certain your choices are for the highest good of all. And keep holding a vision of oneness.
===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE DIVERSE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEINGs===
Let Your Light Shine
Does your inner light need polishing? Is it bright enough to change lives? Show others the way? To guide your own steps? We’re not on this path alone as humans, we are light beings working with the highest vibration that exists which is within all of us, to express ourselves in this life in a meaningful and impactful manner. That means we have to move deeply within ourselves to find out the gifts we are to share, the goals we are to achieve, the way we are to serve.
Is there some gift tucked away that you haven’t thought about for a long time that you would like to share? I’m thinking of something like a love of singing. Are you to sing in the choir, or a quartet or a choral group? I’ve done all of those things along the path of my life. How am I now expressing my love of singing? Get creative when it is time to reposition your gifts.
You never know when or how you will touch the lives of another person. One of the staff here who sweeps the halls on Thursdays told me that every time he hears me play my native flutes he stops and leans up against the wall and simply listens. I didn’t know that. I was just playing my flutes because I need and want to play my flutes.
I write in this newsletter because I need to figure things out and anchor them in my own life. And it is exciting to share what I discover. With you. I don’t always get feedback from you, but sometimes I do and that’s supportive and welcome and encouraging. I have to share in my excitement of what I discover. So you’re going to get this newsletter whether you write me back or not.
What gifts are you neglecting at this point in your life? If you used to be a runner and are kind of old, try walking. My fingers wouldn’t work on the piano anymore and my eyes are not able to read the music but I sure can tune into the classical music channel and hum along and remember melodies I know and listen more deeply. What kind of substitutes for a love or a gift or a talent are you making in your life now? And what gifts have you been neglecting? Do something about that.
===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===
The Eagle’s Eye
One of my earliest spirit guides is an eagle. His name is Sampson and in my journeys I get on his back and he takes me to see the overview. The beginning, middle, and end. The possibilities. I can’t see them from my human life. So I get on his back and we go exploring to look for a new potentials, new possibilities, new insights.
How do you keep an eye on the overview? How do you see it? How do you explore it? Are you constantly looking for new possibilities? Or are you sort of mired down in the detail of whatever you were doing? Keep your eye on the broader possibilities and potentials. Be like the eagle – soar high, look for and plan from the overview.
===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===
New Opportunities to Live Longer
Every day in science something new is discovered. Things that make us live longer. And better. And more productive. And new ways to extend our lives. It’s not easy to keep up with the dramatic changes.
I haven’t read this, but Brian Clark suggested this. “In the new book The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology, the authors envision a scenario based on today’s current research and advances that has human aging reversed within the next 10 years — just as the eldest Gen Xers cross 65.”
“Which brings to mind some questions:
- What’s your purpose that keeps you going?
- What would you like to change going forward?
- What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”
It may give us an opportunity and a need to rethink our potential and possibilities.
I find out about a lot of new discoveries by subscribing to Good News Network.
===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===
Expanding Awareness
The Vibration behind Your Beliefs
Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Google
and the Deeper Song Website
===CARA’S CORNER===
Do Something You Have Not Done For A While.
I have begun to play my skin drum again recently. And yet I am applying some of the techniques I learned when I learn to play my synthetic Remo drums. I’d like to say I made the skin drum. However, it was a workshop 30 years ago in which what I really did was weave the skin onto the frame. I had nothing to do with obtaining the deer skin or cutting it in a circle or poking holes around the edges of the rawhide. Nor did I make the round frame that it went in but with help, I wove the skin onto the frame to make my drum. And then I didn’t know what to do with it.
I bought a hide beater from the woman who held the workshop. When I started studying shamanism ten years ago, I began to play it more. I have created my own songs to the different directions. I just let them show up and evolve until they are what I want to sing. But I’ve been playing this drum with my hands in the manner I was more recently taught by Christine Stevens in her Shift Network classes. Funny how things come in cycles and you get to revisitg amd reexplore and refame an experience. Interesting how we combine various phases of our life into the present moment.
What do you need to bring forth into your life today? I have so many crystals I have not held and talked to for a very long time. I have several shelves that have special items on them that could host many ceremonies if I chose to do so. What have you put aside that you want to revive? And when will you do it?
===SING A DEEPER SONG ===
My Drum Calls
My drum said, “Pick me up, play me, let me sing again.”
My drum said, “Pick me up, play me, let me sing again.” I lifted her into my hands, turned to look out at nature, and let her speak again.
My drum said, “Pick me up, play me, let me sing again.” I lifted her into my hands, turned to look out at nature, and let her speak again. I play better now. We talked for quite a while. It was good to get to know my friend again. We have both gotten better with age.
Cara Lumen, April 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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