Search Results for: Sacred Garden

Dying and the Invisible World

March 27, 2019 By Cara Lumen

Dying and the Invisible World
An Inner World Exploration

I’m old, but I’m a long way from dying. The most comforting, inviting concept I’ve found surrounding this process of death is the journeying I do in my imagination when I practice shamanism.

95% of our experience is in the unseen realms

I’ve been in touch with my inner world for years through meditation, intuition, hunches, simply knowing, but shamanism has taught me specific ways to explore the unseen world. I find it very comforting now and I know I will find it extremely comforting when I die.

For you see, I have many friends in the unseen world, the invisible realms, the parallel universes. Helping spirits that I work with in my life today, that teach me and guide me and guard me. Today. Every day. In my spiritual practice. When I begin an inner shamanic journey I go to my Sacred Garden, and there they are, waiting to guide me and answer whatever question I have chosen.

Those helping spirits and more will be in my Sacred Garden when I die, ready to show me my “next.”

Aging makes it real

When I first moved into the senior center I call home, I thought I had a really good philosophy of death. Until I watched a steady stream of this population constantly going off to die. It was then I realized that my philosophy of death needed to be more individualized, more personal, because I was closer to the actual process of dying.

So I began to search. It was when I began to perform Shamanic Journeys that I found my most reassuring path.

It would be great if there were no pain when I die, but my helping spirits can help with that.

There is no fear for me in dying because I have long been intrigued by the concept that Rumi calls “the nowhere that you came from.”

As I explore the unseen world, I see how vast it is but also how easily I travel within it. It’s a whole new adventure.

And it will continue to be.

Explore your inner life

Notice your dreams and take time to interpret them. They are metaphors. Look beyond their recognizable representation to uncover the meaning they convey.

I now have many helping sprits. They show up to offer different types of service, to take me on journeys for different purposes. But they are always there, ready to assist, to be of service, to guide my steps.

Go beyond your body suit

Whether you dream or journey or meditate, do your inner work with the intention of understanding “next”. I’m drawn to concepts like the Great Nothingness, the All That Is. The metaphor of the Web of Life is too individualistic for me; it still seems like we are individual threads in the web of life. I’m more drawn to the idea of being part of the cosmic soup, there’s no separate flavor, it’s only the blended result of the combined seasonings. I like the idea that my individual seasoning will join in the cosmic soup and blend with the total, the all that is.

Rumi says, ‘You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in one drop.” We contain that cosmic soup even as we are the drop of our individual body suits.

Can you speak of dying to others?

I can speak about and explore my own ideas of death for myself, but approaching that conversation with someone who’s facing their own death is not something I’ve done yet. I have a friend who is on oxygen, whose doctors say they have now given her all the “big guns” they have in the form of treatment. There’s no timetable for death, but the signs seem to suggest that she’s closer than she was. And yet, I do not have the conversation with her about how she views death. It is probably not my place. I can only seem to do that for myself. Perhaps it’s because she is not a close-up and personal friend with whom I regularly have philosophical conversations.

There are people I could have the conversation about dying with but not many. Not everyone is willing to even think about it. They may be afraid because no one knows what it’s like, or they may not be doing the exploratory inner work that some people do.

We each walk our own path of life – and of death. I’m exploring my “next” by exploring my inner world, the unseen part of my existence, to make the experience of dying a positive passage.

And I really like the support I’m finding there.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I do the inner work necessary to develop
a comforting concept of dying.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Another Part of Me – The Unseen World

Unleash the Power of your Sacred Garden

How to Be Nothing

How Effective Is Your Spiritual Practice?

Come Out of the Protective Darkness of the Unconscious

What is the Difference betweenSpirituality and Religion?

I Row My Boat Alone

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Deeper Song Insights and Applications

join the Deeper Song Community.

Another Part of You – The Unseen World

March 20, 2019 By Cara Lumen

Another Part of You – The Unseen World
An Inner-World Exploration

I am intrigued by the idea that 95% of my “world” is unseen. Particularly when I have found ways to explore that other 95% of me. It’s called my imagination, and the form I use is shamanic journeying. It’s when I purposefully go within to learn from my inner self. I receive insights and guidance. And there is always help.

Our body suit keeps trying to put this inner world experience into body suit terms. That means we use our ego and sense of being just our “self” and we toss in all manner of limitations that occur simply because we see ourselves as humans rather than spiritual light beings. This is very limiting.

So in order to communicate to us in our body suit, the helping spirits assume forms we can understand – metaphorical forms. A symbolic form that suggests the idea they have chosen to communicate.

You’ll find animals, talking rocks and trees, fairies, teachers in human form, scents and flavors, sensations, lessons from the elements, from nature, all simple messages in the symbolic forms the helping spirits use to convey the answer to our inquiry. If we don’t fully understand, we simply journey again and ask for clarity.

We did this easily as children, used our imagination to make up friends and sometime even scary things under the bed. Many of us lose that ability along the line. But it’s there, in that 95% of the unseen world that we can access though our imagination.

What to ask your helping spirits

You can ask for guidance. You can ask for healing. You can ask for clarity. Your helping spirits will not give you a yes or no answer. But if you phrase your question carefully, you’ll receive the guidance you request.

“What is in the way of my self-healing” will give you something to work on. (“Will I be healed of this?” is not something they will answer.) You’re looking for guidance and insights that you can bring back in your body suit world and put to use. It’s your responsibility to change – your choice to put to use the insights you receive.

Your imagination gives you power

We can change our outer world by changing our inner world.

Rather than see the dysfunction of humans in our planetary world, what if we used our imagination to see a world of loving light spirits, all caring for each other and for our planet, all connected, all one light? What a place to live. What a group to be with! But the really interesting fact behind that is that what we imagine comes into being. So we do have the power to imagine this world into a kind, loving place of light beings. Truly we do.

Visit the place within each day

Shamanic journeying is the earliest form of meditation. It offers an active participation in the inner world. You’re not seeking guidance outside yourself. You’re seeking it within yourself. You know you are to make the choices and take the steps. And you are asking for guidance – steps you can take to improve or alter a situation.

It’s not about receiving, it’s about increasing your power, your connection with All That Is, so you can handle whatever shows up. The choices are yours to make. The actions are yours to take.

We’re all one energy

We are all light. One light. One same light. We feel separate because we’re currently in our body suit, which has an ego. But when we go into the world within, the Nowhere That We Came From, we merge into the Great Nothingness and feel and know and understand that we are one energy, one light energy.

And when we know that, when we accept that, when we live that, we change our world.

Learn to come from that all-encompassing place within you, that place of light. That place of oneness. And watch the world around you change!

A Deeper Song Affirmation

I take steps to know the helping spirits in the invisible world.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Unleash the power of your Sacred Garden

How to Be Nothing

When I See Myself As Light

Come Out of the Protective Darkness of the Unconscious

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

How to Interpret the Messages from Within

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications

join the Deeper Song Community.

How I Found Connection – The Visionary Harp

March 6, 2019 By Cara Lumen

How I Found Connection – The Visionary Harp
An Inner World Exploration

It is rather tricky to be an 86-year old woman watching the world collapse around me and feel like I have the power to make a difference.

But I do have that power.

And you have that power.

Together we really have the power.

And, I have recently figured out how to increase our collective impact.

The Metaphor of the Harp

A shamanic journey is a meditation that provides us with metaphors in the form of helping spirits, animals, talking trees, reflecting pools that offer suggestions – all manner of metaphors that we are to interpret. It’s a message from our deepest inner self. We just have to learn to listen.

In a recent journey, I was handed a golden hand harp to play. And a golden feather pen which, as a writer, has been on my logo for 25 years.

And I got the message.

First, we learn to play our own instrument

So here I have this lovely golden harp which I really don’t know how to play. I simply begin. I pluck a string and see how it resonates. Then I pluck another string and see how it resonates with the first string. I may look around at other people playing harps and learn from them. I keep practicing and my playing improves.

The harp represents me as an individual in a body suit and the strings are my inner vibration – how I interact with the world. The music I make.

I begin my work there.

What is the sound I am making?

We have a choice of the type of music we play in our lives. Am I creating a soothing sound or a screeching one? Am I playing a rock tune or a symphony? What are my preferences? What are my gifts? What are my skills? What’s my passion? Those are the stings of my Visionary Harp, my “me” harp.

Practice to increase your skill

Our job in life is to develop our gifts. To hone our skills. To find our place of illumined service. Over the years you’ll develop several skills, just as your harp (which represents you) has various strings to be played at various times, in different rhythms and harmonies.

You’ll explore many types of music. Some you’ll play better than others. Some you’ll enjoy playing more than others. Find your preferences. Find your individual voice. Find the music of your soul.

It’s fine to sing your own song by yourself.

However, playing as part of a group is exceedingly empowering.

Look around for the orchestra you are to join

Now that we’ve figured out how to play our own tune, we want to participate in a larger venue. We want to help our community or the world. We look around for the other harpists who are focused on the type of music that calls to us. We join them. It can be a small ensemble or a full orchestra. Whatever fits your calling.

Your first step is to allow yourself to feel a part of this group you’ve chosen. Not to lose your individuality but to feel empowered by the mere act of belonging – the power of combined energies being able to create an experience that you alone cannot do.

The intertwining of your melodies and harmonies enhances each of your individual sounds as well as your final collective impact. It strengthens and supports you as a musician. Playing together creates a greater impact as you also support each other.

This was a huge realization for me. I work on the inner planes. It’s not that it’s lonely there, far from it, but I didn’t feel very powerful working to lift the vibration of our world by myself. It was then that I realized all I had to do was find the right orchestra and join it.

Now my focus is on keeping my instrument tuned and playing in harmony with others to create a greater whole.

You experience the feeling of inclusion

In my journeys, I have attracted what I call the Circle of Light Beings. They have made themselves known over a series of journeys and they have evolved as I got to know them. I see them as other light beings like myself, who are in deep service to the universe. In the beginning, they simply came and surrounded me to offer support. I still experienced myself as standing apart from the group. I was being helped and healed by them, but I was still separate from the them. I did not yet belong.

Holding myself apart has been a life long pattern. I do not know who was keeping us separate, but I lay odds it was me….!

The gift of the Golden Visionary Harp in my journey changed that, however. Although I hadn’t experienced this before, the Circle of Light Beings turned into an orchestra of Visionary Harp Players and I was now a member! I belonged!

I felt included. I felt part of a group working for the same goals. And I felt my individual impact greatly increase because I was now part of an active group and my voice was enhancing the power and purpose of the group voice.

Learn to play in harmony with other members of your light orchestra

When you join with other players you create a much larger sound. A much deeper sound. A much richer sound. Because each of you is playing his or her individual part with an open and generous heart.

In my journey, I asked if there was a leader, a conductor. And the answer was “No. You play by listening to each other.” Sometimes we play the melody, sometimes we play the rhythm, sometimes we simply deepen the overall sound. It depends on the song and the purpose of the composition. It depends on what is needed. We learn to be adaptable, to listen carefully to what is called for and then choose where we fit in.

Being a part of a light orchestra is exciting, empowering and amazing.

The collective passion is boundless

Every member of an orchestra is necessary. Each transformational thinker in the world is vital. As we each play our part with passion and commitment, the sound deepens and enriches and touches the hearts and lives of more people. Being in a “Light” orchestra is a very powerful way to feel and know and experience how your individual voice makes a major difference. How your individual participation adds greatly to the whole.

We can play our own instrument in harmony

As individual as is our instrument, as unique as is our sound, we must play our tones in harmony with the other instruments of the orchestra we have chosen to join. We learn to listen, to align with the overall goal and support it with our own voice and actions.

The major gift of playing your Visionary Harp in an orchestra is a feeling of belonging

For me, the greatest gift was to find other Visionary Harps, all playing in unison, all looking to raise the collective consciousness of our planet.

I am bolstered by the other light instruments focused on the same goal. I feel aligned with vibrational beings working to raise the collective consciousness. I feel I’ve finally found a place where I belong.

I’m no longer an old lady sitting alone, working on her spiritual practice and feeling isolated. I have found my orchestra and I have joined in!

Begin your own musical journey

See yourself as a stringed instrument that’s in the process of tuning yourself to play the sweetest music possible. Like heartstrings, perhaps.

Listen closely to each string and tune it so it is in alignment with the other strings of your life

Is there an out-of-tune string in your Visionary Harp that is you? Adjust it. Whether it’s a job or a relationship or your spiritual practice. You are the musician. And you are the instrument. Tune your strings so they play in harmony with each other.

What kind of music do you want to play?

I’m deep into shamanic exploration music, and spiritual exploration music. What kind of music do you want to play on your Visionary Harp that is You?

Find others who are playing your kind of music

I am a perennial student and online learning makes it easy for me to “tune my strings” with a teacher that calls to me. I play in that orchestra for a while.

I have a Skype friend I talk to weekly who shares a similar path. We inspire and encourage each other. We are an orchestra of two.

I explore the unseen world and I write and journey. That seems to be the major orchestra of Helping Spirits that I’m playing in who support me in bringing my ideas into forms to share with others here on the planet.

There are ideas everywhere. Online is a huge resource. You simply have to decide what orchestra you want to play in and how you want your harp to be tuned. Then tune it. And start playing…!

Join those that resonate with you to create a larger impact

Now that I feel I am an active participating member of the Circle of Light Beings (all within my inner world) I feel empowered by their presence and positive that our collective focus can indeed help lift the vibration and therefore the future of our planet. I’m no longer alone – I’m in a collective group of higher consciousness that’s focused on the higher good.

That’s how you become a Visionary Harp.

Deeper Song Process

Give some thought to the various strings of your “harp”. Are they in tune with each other? Do they play well together? Is your tone balanced? Work to learn to play your individual harp well.
What type of music do you want to play? It will be a calling of your heart, a cause that you care about.

In your inner world, feel the vibration of the “orchestra” you want to join. Feel it empowering your own intentions. Raising your own vibration.

When you find the right orchestra in your inner (or outer) world, join it and make your Visionary Harp a valuable contributor.

Deeper Song Affirmation

I am a member of the Inner Light Visionary Orchestra.

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

When I See Myself As Light

How to Interpret the Messages Within

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

Journey of a Spiritual Heart

Expand Your Spiritual Heart

Unleash the power of your Sacred Garden

Life Messages from a Potter

To receive our weekly
Deeper Song Insights and Applications

join the Deeper Song Community.

How to Interpret the Messages from Within

February 20, 2019 By Cara Lumen

How to Interpret the Messages from Within
An Inner-world Exploration

We get messages from the unseen world all the time. We first recognize them as hunches and intuitive nudges. We either learn to pay attention to them or we don’t. However, when you pause to listen, your inner voice becomes stronger and clearer.

Nudges and knowing

How often have you acted on a hunch and been right? Many times, I’m certain. Begin to notice the choices you make based on those intuitive insights. See how often they turn out to be right. Learn to trust those inner knowings.

Feel Your Inner Voice

Notice what forms your nudges and knowing comes in. Certainly, you have experienced a sense of simply knowing. No reason for it, just a certainty about the right choice or the next step to take or what was about to happen. You FEEL your inner voices.

Years ago, I remember driving home during a heavy snowstorm. It was a rural landscape and the highway only looked like a larger snow drift while the highway was barely visible. I had driven that highway many times but it was night and there was freshly falling deep snow. I remember the sensation of putting out my antennae all around me and as I drove, I got flashes and pictures and knowing of where I was on the road. I drove by instinct. I drove by feeling. I trusted because I had no other choice. I could barely see. And I got safely home. The feeling of extending my antennae to the countryside around me was immediate and intense. I was really vibrating with sensory listening.

Hear your inner voice

You may hear a loud internal voice. Or a soft one. But the suggestions and information may also come in the form of words. You HEAR your inner voice. It speaks to you in phrases and sentences…!

My inner voice often shouts at me. A word or a phrase will be amplified in my mind – by a book, or the television, or some passing stimulus. My inner voice simply shows up as a very loud thought! Those words, that specific phrase are loud and immediate. It’s as if they are saying, ”You need to look at this. You need to explore this.” So I do. My inner voice is often very insistent.

Interpret your inner voice

I was taught to “read” crystals fifty years ago. My friend told me to hold the crystal in my left hand and see what came up. I got a sensation in a particular part of my body and since I knew the chakra system, I used that as a guidepost for the beginning of my interpretation of the messages of the crystal. As I worked with crystals, I learned to immediately know if a crystal was for the heart or the crown or the third eye. Then one day it was clear to me that a particular green calcite crystal was to be used by people who were grieving. I began to listen more broadly, more deeply.

Just recently a crystal (I have over 150 of them) called out loudly to me from a shelf I was passing by and told me quite clearly it was to be taken to a certain place on my desk. It has not yet fully explained its reason for being here but it’s nearby and I’m listening. And it’s talking…

Nature will talk to you

Whether it’s the warmth of your cat who has come to sit beside you, or the call of a bird outside your window, or the wind rustling the leaves of a nearby tree, nature speaks. We must learn to listen.

One winter, a very wet, heavy snow fell and the weeping birch tree outside my window bent deeply in response. I realized there was an important message so I wrote Messages from a Snow Fall and learned a lot.

Nature talks to you when you listen.

Move when your inner voice tells you

I’ve made some major decisions based on a sudden “knowing.” When it was time for me to move from California to the Mid-West to be closer to my daughter, I made the decision in three hours. I got the nudge, did research about the area I wanted to go, found an apartment complex that felt right, and called my daughter to say I was coming.

In three hours.

Yes, there were other factors building up to that “sudden” decision. A roommate had just moved out, a new one was financially imperative and the choices that were appearing were very unappealing. Was it time for me to move to a more affordable place? It became a major choice made in a small window of time.

Pay attention to your nudges and knowing. You’ll know when it’s time to take action. Trust that. And act.

You can “channel” your inner voice any time

If you’re hearing an occasional voice speaking loudly to you, you’re channeling your inner wisdom, your inner voice. I’ve brought my inner voice more deeply into my writing. Over the years, I’ve found myself typing in things that I wondered where they came from.

I was present. I was typing, but the words seemed to flow from elsewhere. That is your inner voice and you must listen and learn to interpret its subtle messages.

When I do my shamanic journeys, I set an intention before I begin. I close my eyes go within and type my journey. Occasionally my fingers get on the wrong keys and I can’t read what I typed, but I periodically peek at the screen to make certain I’m still making sense. This typing and journeying has allowed me to deeply explore the inner world of my spirit guides and review and thus remember the details. I begin by going to my sacred garden to meet them, each time I journey.

Dreaming your inner voice

It’s very powerful to set an intention for your sleep. A lot of good healing and rebalancing occurs there.

Years ago, I was given a green hand-holder stone. I meditated with it and eventually lay down on the bed and slept while still holding it. I had a very strong dream of being in a group of robed women. We collectively were being called to do spiritual work. When I awoke I remembered every detail of the dream. Forty-five years later I have reconnected with what is now the Circle of Light Beings in my shamanic journeys.

Let your dreams open doors.

You have to trust your inner vision

I take a shamanic journey every day. I place my mala beads around my neck, ring a ceremonial bell to signal my beginning, sit at my computer and type in my intention, my question for the journey. Then I sit with closed eyes and prepare to feel myself disappear until only my typing fingers are moving and the rest of me is busy in my inner world. I am not very aware of my body but am actively following my thoughts.

In shamanic journeying, we are offered metaphors that can be in the form of animals, or helping spirits, or elements or plants. It’s up to us to interpret the metaphor. As I continue this inner world practice, I feel my ability to hear and interpret my inner voice growing stronger, my answers growing clearer, and my calling growing louder.

If you are beginning to journey, a shamanic drumming track may be useful.

Hearing your inner voice may take some practice. You must do it enough so you recognize the signs and whispers you’re given and then more practice and actual experience in order for you to begin to accurately interpret them.

Just begin by talking to your inner self. And listening to the soft answers.

You can ask for physical signs of your inner voice

Kinesiology is actually about receiving information through muscle testing and I have been taught to do that. For my first experience, I was told to stand with one arm outstretched and to resist the downward pressure from the other person. I did. I was strong. Then a packet of sugar was placed in the other hand and all physical resistance whet away. I had been weakened by the presence of a negative. Pretty amazing.

I use a version of kinesiology to explore other choices I make. I may take identical slips of paper and write each choice on one side. I include a paper that says “other” in case I need to make a choice I have not considered. I place them face down before me and mix them up so I have no idea which is which. Then I hold my hand over each paper one at a time and feel and listen to what I’m told. One answer always calls to me.

Sometimes I use that selection system to narrow down my choices in case two things call to me equally. Just listen to the thoughts that show up. Learn to interpret them out of your deeper self-awareness. It’s a very powerful tool.

Pendulum

A pendulum is used for dowsing. You can make one with a bead on the end of a string. And you can buy some lovely ones. It’s a very fast way to get a “yes”, “no” or “maybe” answer for any question. Each time you begin, hold the pendulum away from your body suspended between your thumb and forefinger. Run the fingers of the other hand down to make the pendulum perfectly still. Then one at a time, ask it to show you a “yes” and see which way it rotates, then a “no”, then a “maybe”. The choices will be circle clockwise, circle counterclockwise and move back and forth, left to right or possibly not move at all. After you have identified the form the answers will take, ask your question which obviously should be phrased with a yes/no/maybe answer in mind.

Allow yourself to channel

Learn to trust your intuition, your inner words, your inner nudges.

Begin with your intuition. Learn to trust that. Do some meditation and perhaps ask for a message to be given at the end. Then write that message down. Journey/meditate with a specific intention, looking for a clarifying answer and let your helping spirits guide you.

Learn to interpret the answers you get. No one can do that for you. With practice, you easily learn to do it for yourself.

Let your inner one-word nudges expand into complete sentences. Often when I was writing a few years ago, I would have an entire section come in that I was aware of typing but I thought it was too good to come from me. I pictured a trio of Shakespeare-type writers with feathered pens, dictating to me.

Now, I just listen and type and know that it’s my inner voice coming through. It’s a lovely mix of conscious and unconscious thought that shows up on the page.

Trust what you receive. Learn to interpret it

If the message or metaphor or symbol isn’t clear to you, ask your helping spirits to clarify it for you. Then watch for what they give you. You might also ask, “How am I to use this information?” And see what you get.

Keep an eye out for your ego. Interpreting your inner voice is so much fun and you get such great answers that for me it’s never about me doing anything. It’s about me simply opening up to receive something wonderful. Don’t judge. Don’t filter. Listen. Absorb. Adapt. And maybe you even need to reword your question.

Trust what you find when you speak to your inner voice.

FOR DEEPER EXPLORATION:

Unleash The Power of Your Inner Garden

Live in the Center of Your Being

Discover Your Spiritual Heart

Join the Circle of Light Beings

The Language of the Stubble Realms

How to Explore Your Invisible Self

What Seeds Do You Allow to Grow in Your Garden?

Does Your Path Have Heart?

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

Create a Releasing Ceremony For Yourself

February 6, 2019 By Cara Lumen

Create a Releasing Ceremony For Yourself
An Inner-world Exploration

There is “stuff” within us that’s in our way. It may be making us sick. It may be making us unhappy. It may be keeping us from doing something. Some of it we recognize. Some we don’t. We need to let all those unwanted inhibitors go. We want to release whatever is keeping us from moving forward in our relationships, in our health, in our business. Can you identify a personal problem you want to solve, and can you also identify the cause? Think about letting it go.

Is your body suit showing signs of imbalance? Let go of whatever is causing that. We may not know the specific cause of an imbalance, but we know we want to release it.

Create a Ceremony of Releasing

You may feel the need to reset your life at the New Year, on your birthday, at the solstice and equinox, the full moons, the new moon. Or you just may think, “Today’s the day.”

You want to create a Ceremony of Releasing that works for you. So begin to experiment.

I do my Ceremony of Releasing through shamanic journeying, which is a form of mediation. I can get very creative in how I release what I want to let go.

Put it down and leave it behind

In my meditative journey, I’ve carried an emotion in a knapsack on my back and simply laid it down along my path, only to turn and see it change to water and become a new form to nurture others.

I’ve carried an anger I wanted to get rid of in a bag with the intuition of burying it, only to lay it on the ground and have it turn to earthworms who actually waved at me as they went off to do good work for the earth.

The lesson, it seems, is that whatever you want to get rid of that’s harming you can be changed into something useful.

Let the fire consume your unwanted blockages

Another ceremony for releasing unwanted beliefs, idea, unknown-unwanted things is to put them in a fire. The fire changes it to smoke, the smoke dissolves in the air and it is released into a form that no longer harms.

I, however, seem to have a hard time burning things. Destroying even a twig. I have no idea why. You will create your own Releasing Ceremony to honor your purpose and intention.

Release your unwanted belief into the earth

In a recent shamanic journey, I thought to place the perceived blockage I wanted to release into pinecones, but I didn’t want to destroy them in fire. So I visually buried them with the intentions for them to grow into something useful.

Release your unwanted blockage into water

Sometimes I go and stand under the waterfall in my Sacred Garden. That certainly clears things out. But there’s also a quiet pool there where I can also release what I no longer want to carry with me.

Let water rinse away what you wish to release.

Let air carry away your blockages

Blowing bubbles is a fun way to release whatever you want to release. You could use a balloon. Or, you can simply stand in a gentle breeze and feel the air moving through you to carry away what’s no longer needed or wanted. That’s a good one.

What you release may take different forms

In one of my releasing journeys, I ultimately found myself wearing an imaginary cape that was weighing down my shoulders and affecting how I felt and even how I walked. Sometimes cloaks feel cozy; this one did not. I filled this imaginary cloak with all the emotions and beliefs and feelings that no longer serve me. I thanked them for their service and threw the cape into the fire where there was a loud roaring sound as the flames consumed it. Sparks flew up, smoke rose, and all those burdens, beliefs, unknown “whatevers” that were holding me down, changed form. I stood up straighter and felt myself filled with a golden pillar of light, not one of protection but of inner strength.

This is your releasing ceremony. Do what works for you.

You can make a list of what you no longer want. You can write it on paper, and tear up the paper or burn it over the sink. Whatever symbolic gesture of releasing you can think of will work.

You can simply tear the paper up into small pieces over a wastebasket.

You can dance and release. You can take a deep breath and when you breathe out release what you no longer want.

You might pause as you enter your house each evening to mentally shed your work day and bring yourself as a loving presence into your evening.

You might create a releasing ceremony at the end of your day and put aside anything our have accumulated. You can release it then or you can put it in a bowl to be mutated by your helping spirits during the night. Do whatever works for you.

Look closely for what you want to release

A key part of the releasing process is to identify what you no longer want. Look behind the obvious problem to identify the subtle causes. It may be a belief, a fear, a misunderstanding, a disappointment, an unknown that is causing something physical to appear. The blockage or unwanted energy can take many forms. I found I had expectations of a family member that I had to release. A particular expectation. Something I wanted, but something that was not going to be given.

Identify what you want to release and create a symbolic way to release it.

Blow it toward the flame of a candle. Shake it out with a rattle. Beat it out with a drum. I have a wind whistle and I can release the unwanted, unknown, unidentified “whatever” to the wind by using my breath. I can also do that without a wind whistle.

Set an intention to release

The core of a releasing ceremony is your intention. You don’t have to know the cause but you do want to have the intention: such as, “I release whatever is making my back hurt.” You have no idea what that is, but you can release it. “I release whatever is in the way of my feeling loved.” “I release whatever is holding me back from expressing myself fully.”

What’s your intention for your Releasing Ceremony?

Do a Releasing Ceremony often

Some days it’ll be obvious that you need to do some form of a Releasing Ceremony because something happened and it affected you. The sooner you can release it, the less impact it will have in your life.

On other days you won’t know what you’re releasing but you’ll be willing to let go of what no longer serves you. You don’t have to know what it is, just notice how your life changes after you do.

Before entering your home, you might blow any burdens, worries, upsets or disappointments out into the wind. Just let it go. Then enter.

Offer gratitude

When you release something, thank it for its service and let it go.

Perhaps at the end of the day go back over your day and see what you have been given and look for what you want to release. Do a short releasing breath before you sleep with an affirmation like “I let go of whatever I no longer need.”

If you’re very attached to it, lay it aside to be picked up after a good night’s sleep, but do put it aside.

When you do some sort of releasing, a “thank-you-very-much-but-go-away” ceremony each evening – however short, however elaborate – your life will change for the better. Each day will become a clean slate upon which to uninhibitedly express yourself.

What kind of releasing ceremony will you devise for yourself? How often will you do it?

Deeper Song Process:

What would you like to release? Identify it or identify the imbalance it’s causing.
Choose one of the ways to release from above, or make up your own method.
Choose a time for your Releasing Ceremony where you won’t be disturbed.
Sit quietly and decide what you want to release. You may want to write it down. You may want to say it out loud. You may want to just think about it. Choose one thing to release in this first ceremony. As you progress, you can release multiple things during one ceremony. Try to find the core problem. Anger might be at the core. Or fear, or disappointment. Look for the emotion involved that you want to release.
Create your Releasing Ceremony – whatever that means to you. Music, candles, silence. Do it physically or do it in your imagination.
Do the work. Let go of what you no longer need or want and what no longer serves you.
In the days that follow, notice how you feel.
Repeat as desired.