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J-1 Foundation For The Journey Within – Create Your Sacred Garden

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REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG
An Inner World Exploration

J-1 – Foundation For The Journey Within –
Create Your Sacred GArden

Within the inner world of your invisible self is a personal place of power and healing. It is a sanctuary for guidance, introspection, and spiritual deepening.  It is available to everyone.

Your Sacred Garden in your personal sanctuary. It is a place of self-healing. It is the starting place for meditation, for shamanic journeys.

It this episode, Cara Lumen, spiritual explorer and founder of the Deeper Song Community, leads you on a guided meditation to create this inner sanctuary for your own spiritual practice.

Using the ancient introspective method of shamanic mediations called “journeying”, Cara guides you to the inner realms where you create your personal place of refuge. Everything you find in your Sacred Garden is an aspect of you, a symbolic, metaphoric message from your inner self.

Whether you want to mediate for self-healing, a deeper understanding of your soul purpose, the well-being of our world, or insights and wisdom for your daily life, you begin your meditative journey in the sanctuary of your Sacred Garden.

In this episode. Cara will guide you in building a transpersonal bridge between the inner and outer world and help you uncover the treasures of your inner self.

In this episode: 

1. Discover the purpose of Your Sacred Garden. What is it, why you want to use it, how to create it.

2, Journey to your invisible worlds to create this sacred inner retreat.

3. Learn how to immediately add the Sacred Garden to your own spiritual practice.

Resources: 

Drumming Recording: For your personal practice, this drumming tape by Shamanist Sandra Ingerman will help you move gently into a receptive state for your journey. Your journey can be as long or as short as it turns out to be.

In this episode Cara use a Tibetan Hand Bell / Meditation & Prayer Bells / Dorje / Vajra – Medium.  There is a variety of these available.

Further Study: If you want to learn more about shamanism I suggest you begin with the book Awakening to the SpiritWorld, the Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation by Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wesselman, both of whom I have studied with.

You can also take courses from both Sandy and Hank at The Shift Network.

THE JOURNEY TO THE INNER WORLD SERIES

The first three podcasts should be listened to in order.  They lay the foundation.

J-1 Foundation For The Journey Within – Create Your Sacred Garden

NEXT: J-2 Connecting with your Power Animal

Listen to Earlier Podcasts of
Reflections of a Deeper Song 

Nurture the Garden Of Self

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Nurture the Garden Of Self
An Inner-world Exploration

Our strength comes from within.  Our ideas come from within.  Our entire life expression comes from within. Within you, accessible by your imagination, there’s a Garden of Self and we are each responsible for planning, cultivating, and harvesting our own crops.  

Intention plants the seed

Starting your Garden of Self is as simple as setting an intention.  

Today I plant the seed of Serenity in my Garden of Self and I will water it with patience, nurture it with silence, and harvest it throughout my day. 

Well, wow!  Let’s do more of that.

Today I plant the seed of Wisdom in my Garden of Self.  I nurture it with contemplation and mindfully harvest it throughout my day, picking one succulent berry at a time and savoring it.

More?

In my Garden of Self, I planted an acorn called “Cara” and it immediately grew into a giant oak complete with a bird’s nest, a rainbow parrot, a squirrel and a bunch of acorns that are future Cara trees.  

It’s a mature tree, as I am mature, but it has a lot of life and a great deal still to offer. Insights, wisdom, hope.

What will you plant in your Garden of Self?

The Fountain of Love

In your Garden of Self create a water source.  In the Sacred Garden where I begin each shamanic journey, I have three separate water sources:  a reflecting pond, a bubbling brook, and a waterfall.  So I was surprised to find a different water source in my Garden of Self, which is down the road from my Sacred Garden.  But a fountain showed up, a happy, bumbling, spray-sharing laughing fountain. It is from this Fountain of Love and Joy that I am to nurture the crops I plant.  

Build the support you need

You may need to provide a trellis for some of your crops.  A support system that encourages growth and the space to expand or elevate above the ground.  What in your life needs support?

You may need to prune a plant in your Garden of Self in order to encourage the growth of one strong central plant.  Don’t be afraid to prune and let go. It will make the core stronger. 

My Cara tree has obviously been around for a while. Do I need to prune it?  Support a branch here or there?  Drop a few more acorns of wisdom?

Cultivate, encourage and support whatever you grow in your Garden of Self. 

Share your harvest

In the Garden of Self, you plant the things you need in order to elevate the vibration of your Body Suit.  

At some point, you are going to share your harvest.  Perhaps you will share a little.  Perhaps you will share a lot.  Who will you share it with?  How will you take it to market?  Who needs what you have to offer?

I’m dropping acorns of wisdom like a wild woman. Sometimes the wind helps me and carries them farther afield.  Sometimes they just drop to the ground and take root.  Sometimes they go to feed a bit of nature like a squirrel.  I just keep dropping seeds of Insight and Wisdom and let them fall wherever they may. What seeds are your sharing from the plant that is you?

Allow the cycles to unfold 

Gardens go through cycles.  Their needs change.  Sometimes they take.  Sometimes they give. It’s all part of the process of nature’s cycles.  Know where you are in the cycle and what you need to do/provide next. 

You may need rest in order to restore. You may be harvesting the best crop you ever produced.  You may be simply looking over the seed catalog to see what you want to plant.  Each stage is perfect.  Immerse yourself in it. 

Plant some experimental crops

You won’t know whether you like the crop until you harvest it and put it to use.  You don’t have to grow a lot of an experimental crop, but do plant enough so you can understand its needs, its demands, its preferences and how the final harvest nurtures you.  Even planting one seed and following it through its process can provide the information you need to make a decision on whether or not to plant more. 

Keep the Garden of Self nurtured

What does our Garden of Self need right now?  Where are you in the cycle? Not all crops will be in the same stages of readiness.  Give them what they need.  And remember one cycle leads to the next. So while one field is allowed to lie dormant in order to restore and replenish, another will provide multiple harvests.  Be aware of the difference and honor the process and the cycles.  

Intention provides direction and growth

Each day, pause to consider the intention you have for your Garden of Self.  That pause to balance and gain awareness will help you set an intention that will carry you forward in the most positive and productive manner.  Set an intention and let it unfold. Then follow the path that opens up. 

Deeper Song Affirmation

I tend my Garden of Self with conscious intention every day.

Deeper Song Process

  • In a state of meditation, journey to find your Garden of Self and begin to explore.
  • See what crops need to be planted.  What do you want to grow and encourage in your garden of Self?
  • Plant some staples, but perhaps start a few experiments crops.  
  • Tend your Garden of Self every day.
  • Harvest when ready and share what you have grown.
  • Look over the seed catalogs and plant some experimental crops….!

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

Unleash the power of your Sacred Garden

What Seeds Do You Allow to Grow in Your Garden? 

What Seeds Do You Plant for the Future?

What are the Foundations Stones Upon Which Your Build Your Life?

The Power of a Releasing Ceremony

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.

The Secret Garden

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insights-logo

As we begin to expand our inner work, this exploration of our Invisible Self, the Great Mystery, we want to create a launch pad, a Secret Garden from which we begin our exploration. It is part of our inner world, our Invisible Self.

Cara Lumen, spiritual philosopher, explorer, map-maker and founder of the Deeper Song Transformational Community help us sing a deeper song.  In this episode she explains how to create and use a secret garden of your imagination as a safe space for contemplation and exploration.

Everything in the universe is within you.  Ask all of yourself.  – Rumi

(7:35) In this episode we consider: 

1 – The Purpose of the Secret Garden

2 – The meaning of the elements in the Secret Garden

3- The Sacred Garden and healing

For Deeper Insights Consider:

Deepening Our Connection

How to Find Your Spirit Guides

Power Journaling

Your Body Suit and Invisible Self

Important Links & Mentions From This Episode

“Awakening to the Spirit World, The Shamanic Path of Direct Revelation” Sandra Ingerman and Hank Wasserman

Members of the Deeper Song Transformational Community are Light Holders, Hope Shiners and Gatherers to our heart. Will you join  us?

Explore The Rewarding Path of Change

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Explore The Rewarding Path of Change

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
 The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

I’m not exactly in limbo but there is change occurring all around me and I don’t know where it’s leading or what my role is to be. I can’t force it. But I keep looking for ways to help it be revealed to me.

I pulled some tarot cards to get some answers. The first one I drew was “changed and possibilities.”

“Possibilities” is a door opener.  It is a game-changer. What do I need to let go of or do more or change in order to open up new possibilities? Sometimes all we need to do is sit still and contemplate the changes and openings in the new path that show themselves.

We must explore.  We must identify what calls the most to us and walk down that path a bit to see where it might lead. See how it feels. See if it’s a direction we want to go in. We must be willing to change.

We must explore our new interests deeply enough to have a sense of the possibilities it opens up. Their potential. The direction it will lead us. The gifts it will bring. We can’t always identify what opportunities and challenges a new choice will bring so we need to stay alert as we travel the path and keep making changes, keep exploring, keep questioning. We need to know how it feels, what changes would be possible and where they might lead. And with each step, we must reevaluate the new perspective it reveals. Consciously explore each developing new pathway, make your choice, and move forward. We must be persistent in our search, resilient in our exploration, and patient for the path of change to be revealed. 

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I stay open to change and the new possibilities for me to make a difference. 

DEEPER SONG PROCESS 

  • Keep a lookout for new concepts and choices that open up new possibilities. 
  • Explore those that call to you. 
  • Draw them into your life and go exploring.

===INNER WORK===

Create a Shamanic Ceremony for Guidance

Several things will influence the experience you have creating a ceremony. You will get better with practice over time.

The first is the skill and life experience you bring to the table. 

There are many ways to design a ceremony. It can be short or long it can be elaborate or simple. Explore different forms of ceremony and perhaps identify several that are applicable to different situations you find yourself in. 

My major form of ceremony is a shamanic journey. I journey all the time. My process is very simple. I decide on the purpose of my journey.  It may be guidance, it may be self-healing, usually I have a question and seek clarity. 

Begin your ceremony by centering yourself. I could play my flute or look out at nature. Or close my eyes and focus on my breathing.

In a quiet place, I use my imagination to go to my Sacred Garden and ask for guidance. The images that show up are mine to interpret. They are my spiritual guides speaking directly to me. The first three times I journeyed I saw nothing but a campfire and only sensed others around it. Be patient with yourself as you learn to journey. And don’t be surprised with the form it takes.  Trust what shows up.

The second contributor to your ceremony/ritual is your relationship with the unseen world and the guides that show up which deepens over time. 

I have a resistance to angels and when one started to appear in my journeys, it was only her feet and the tips of her wings that I could see.  It took awhile for me to let her in but now the Angel With The Golden Wings is often present to guide me on my journeys.

Trust the images that appear and trust how you choose to interpret them. All of these images are metaphors for only you to interpret. If you are not clear, ask them for clarity.

What you do with the guidance you receive is also an important influencer on the effectiveness of the rituals and journeys that you take. Do the work. Explore the suggestions. Let your guides help you unravel the question you’ve asked. 

Be willing to believe what you see. Be willing to listen to talking rocks and fly on the backs of big birds and communicate with dolphins. Listen and interpret whatever images and thoughts and ideas show up and trust your interpretation. Keep practicing and you’ll get better at it. This is one of the ways that the inner world speaks to you.

Always give gratitude for all the guidance and awareness that you’ve been given. Your guides are there to be helpful.  Thank them for their insights and wisdom.

Keep a journal. Take notes right after you have your journey or ceremony. And be aware of any changes and ideas that show up in the days and weeks that follow. Record those too. It helps to clarify the overview.

Our shamanic work comes with the obligation to honor the power and spiritual magic and not take it lightly.

Know that you are safe. 

Have a clear intention.

Treat the experience with great respect. 

Add a shamanic journey as one of the forms of ceremony in your spiritual life and gather to you the insights of the inner world.

You are responsible for your own experience.  Keep exploring. 

===SELF-HEALING===

Trust the Stillness

How much time do you spend in silent stillness? There is no better place to heal and regroup than in the silence of our inner world. I don’t mean sleep, I mean meditative stillness.  A time when you go within and create space for your inner wisdom, your inner guidance, to make itself known.  

The form that guidance takes may vary.  Allow it time to evolve.  

I was to lead a segment in a Zoom call.  I had an idea.  As the days progressed, I got ideas for different versions the experience could take.  I explored them as they came up, taking them a step deeper or in a slightly different direction.  I trusted my inner voice to take me in the right direction.  I gave the concept space to evolve and trusted the process. 

Set an intention and then sit with it.  Notice what comes up without judgment.  You will know when to choose and what to choose.  Let the stillness nurture and clarify. 

(It turned out to be a powerful experience for all of us on the call…)

===OUTER  WORK===

What Makes Life Meaningful?

The facets of your life that are meaningful in the moment change over the years as your life changes, as your focus changes, and your expectations change. What is meaningful for you right now? My mind is meaningful. Without it for me there’s nothing because it’s entertaining, it’s informative, it’s creative, it helps me reach out to others. 

Do you have a gift that you particularly enjoy or find meaning in sharing? Do you need to do more of it? Do you need to find a broader audience to share it with? How are you using your gifts? Who are you sharing them with? And how can you widen your reach? 

What Do You Want?

What do you want? What are your priorities? Is it your health? Your relationships? Your work? Your future? Choose one and begin to do some active work on it – both inner and outer. That means visualization. How could it unfold? What does that look like and feel like?  How will the choices you are considering affect others? The world? Your own life? Take a few steps.  See how it feels and where it is leading you.

Perhaps you need to work on not just what you want, but what you need right now in your life. That could help you sort out your priorities. Do you need friendship? Do you need money? Do you need better health? What is your main need right now and what are you doing to make it happen? 

On the physical plane, I want my body to feel better. On the spiritual plane, I want the world to feel better. I can work on both of those. But I need to know that I need them both and I want them both, so I can choose the right steps to take and the right beliefs to hold to help it come into being.

Make a list of a few things that you want and then prioritize them. Pick the first one and design three steps to move you forward in your awareness of its potential and impact. Your future is yours to design. It is yours to create. It is yours to cultivate. Choose in alignment with the highest good of all. And get to work.

Ideas and Discipline

I get tons of ideas. They crowd my head. They crowd my day, they crowd my work. I love them. But I continue to develop criteria by which to choose and measure the usefulness of an idea. 

Not all ideas are yours to do. They may be an idea to give to someone else. They may be an idea to be done at a later time. Don’t let yourself get so crowded with ideas that you don’t act on any of them. Learn to be selective and choose the ideas that take you the furthest in the direction you want to go next.

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

Above and Below

More and more healing practices that I come across begin by connecting deeply with Gaia and bringing up her powers, then turning and connecting with the cosmos, your Soul Star, Source. We bring both of those energies into our humanness and use them to release, restore, repair, and rebuild. I sometimes feel those energies coming from above and below turning into a counter-clockwise spiral, releasing, repairing, and replacing all throughout the column of my body. Use your imagination and take time to bring the energy from below and from above where you do your self-healing work.

===HOW TO BE A STRONG CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF THE DIVERSE CIRCLE OF LIGHT BEINGS===

Work With Another Light Being

When my daughter retires in a few years she wants to move into animal healing using energy techniques like Reiki. I’ve connected her with a friend of mine who is a very gifted animal healer. She will have an example and a mentor and a guide as she moves into her new field.

I have a small group of women that I interact with regularly and each time I do, I find insights and meaning and often new steps to take to enrich my own life. Do you have that kind of circle of friends? Start with one person. Find a friend that is on a similar track and arrange to talk on a regular basis, to encourage each other, and to share what you have learned.

I have a primary longtime friend that I was paired with when we were in one of Sandra Ingerman’s shamanism classes and we have continued to talk weekly for five years or so. We have grown alongside each other. We have supported each other in that growth. We know each other’s patterns so we can be supportive.

You will have different friends for different facets of your life. Encourage that. Explore that. Expand on that. In my case, I’ve introduced those friends to each other. They have developed their own relationships.

As you grow, your friends will change. Allow that to happen. And seek new friends that will help you move higher on the new path that you’ve chosen.

===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===

Adventure and Potential

How do we know our potential if we don’t go adventuring? If we don’t try new things? Or explore new venues? How much exploration are you doing currently? Do you go a little way down the path you’re on to check out what else is there? Are you turning and exploring a whole new path? Will it take you on an adventure that will lead you places you cannot imagine? Be aware that you must continue to explore. You must adventure down unexplored paths and look around and see what calls to you.  When you go exploring you will find a new adventure and your greater potential!

===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===

Choice

There sure are a lot of us on this planet making a lot of different decisions, going in a lot of different directions, not at all in harmony with each other. It’s kind of a mess. I suppose it’s a growth stage. Each person trying to expand and find their role. Some are more aware of the consciousness of the earth and some have more compassion and empathy than others. It’s an eclectic collection of people all here on the same planet and we are not working in harmony. 

We must consciously define and follow our own path, our own heart. We must constantly strive to take the higher path – the path of inclusion. Not everybody’s going to be on that path. But we must continue our journey on the highest road we can find and keep making conscious choices for the highest good of the most people.

===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
Apple / Spotify / Google

and the 

Deeper Song Website

===CARA’S CORNER===

Building My Web of Life

As I look around to see how my “next” will unfold, the lesson of the spider calls to me. She weaves her world from within herself and builds on what she finds around her.  She also can’t see so she works only from vibration.  Hummmm. I want to create like a spider.

I am probably forcing my search for what I am to do next. In fact, I’m pretty sure I am. So if I take a lesson from the spider, what do I do? 

I am patient. I pay attention to what is inside of me. My thoughts, my urges, my insights. And I wait patiently to discover where I might apply those ideas. It’s the patient part I’m not too good at. But there is a serenity and surety and resilience about building on what you find around you and building from within you. I will keep practicing.

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

The Nudge

One idea.  One nudge.  I explore.

One idea.  One nudge.  I explore. I experiment, I imagine. I vision.

One idea.  One nudge.  I explore. I experiment, I imagine. I vision. My new path opens up, my new calling unfolds, and I move into a new adventure!

Cara Lumen, February 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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Past Issues of this newsletter are being curated on my site on a page called Insights.

Our Global Deeper Song Community

Our Deeper Song Community extends throughout the planet. Welcome new Deeper Song Explorers. I’d love to hear of your experiences –  caralumen@gmail.com or let’s discuss on the Deeper Song Explorers!

Clear Space for a New Cycle

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Clear Space for a New Cycle

Living Our Deeper Song

Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
 The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!

The Winter Solstice is December 21 and a new calendar year begins soon.  What a perfect time to rethink, regroup and reorganize.

Rethink

Take a long look at what you have gathered to you in your life.  What is still relevant?  What have you outgrown?  What do you want to add? What do you want to accomplish? Pause to make a list.  Give this some thought. You are designing your “next.”

Regroup

There’s nothing like a cleared space to create room to rethink everything. What is now currently important in your life? What do you need to have near you in order to make that happen? Begin to prioritize based on what you know now and what you want to create next. This means you will leave some things behind. It means you may need new tools in order to create this new next or expand on what you are already building. What do you want to create? What do you need to make happen? Where will you get it?

Clear out things you take for granted, or have outgrown, or are simply a habit you have fallen into that no longer serves you. Make room for change.

Reorganize

One of the things about reorganizing is that when you reposition things, you make them more accessible, to give them more time, more energy, more space, and  more predominance in your thinking. What do you want to accomplish in the next year, in the next quarter? Choose just a few things that you can focus on and list some steps you can  actually accomplish. Then begin to structure a plan. Learn the new skills you need. Reorganize your schedule to make room for growth. This is a time of creation. Make room for what you love to do. Let your imagination flow as you design your “next.“

DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION

I celebrate the beginning of a new cycle by rethinking and rechoosing – everything. 

DEEPER SONG PROCESS 

  • Perhaps divide your reorganization into segments like personal and career and relationships. Some areas may need more attention than others. 
  • Set a mission statement for each area.  I want my professional life to… I want my relationships to… I want my health to…
  • Let go, rethink, rechoose, reorganize and prepare to move forward.

===INNER WORK===

Nudge Notes

As a new idea starts to come in I get it in small snippets.  I call them nudges and I started a Nudge document on my computer to capture then, where I can quickly record and expand on my nudges and help them come into being. 

Having a place to write down the one or two word nudges that your intuition gives you may be an interesting way to help your ideas develop and expand. 

Contemplation Brings Wisdom

As I contemplate what the unfolding of the Divine Feminine could look like I am questioning all my beliefs and especially my expectations of what is possible.  Most of these ideas are not mine to live out because of my age, but it is precisely because of my age that I can see the overarching patterns and how they might change. 

When faced with a decision or a need to understand more, contemplate and explore.  Contemplate the possibilities.  Explore the alternatives.  Use  your imagination to create new combinations.  Take one piece and expand it.  Take one piece and remove it and see how the whole is affected. All of these possibilities can be explored in your mind when you simply take time to contemplate the alternatives, visualize the possibilities and let  your expectations soar!

When We Don’t Know That We Don’t know

My friend Christina and I often journey together on our Zoom calls.  On 12/12 she said it was the day of the black madonna, the Virgin of Guadalupe.  I had never given that much thought. She suggested we journey to her. We each took our own journey and at the end of mine I was in my Sacred Garden and looked in the Reflecting Pool and there was the Circle of Light Beings in all manner of ethnic expressions.  It was only then that I realized that I had been thinking of the Circle of Light Beings as more “me’s” not a wonderful variety of “we’s”.  It was a huge realization.  How is your imagination limiting you and can you change it? Where are you unconscious about the narrowness of your vision?

===SELF-HEALING===

Trust

As I proceed to work with the biofields in order to heal and balance my body, I get to trust the choices I make and the nudges I receive.  I get to trust my deep knowing that healing does take place in the energetic fields. Are you listening to your inner voice and hearing its nudges?

We Get What We Expect

Our thoughts create our reality and our possibilities. 

Our thoughts create our experience. How do we  alter both our thoughts and the result?

What do I expect?  If my experience in getting out of a chair is pain, guess what I’ll get.  If I consciously start acknowledging the times I get up that there is no pain then that reinforces that belief. You see where I’m going with this -our mind and beliefs and our expectations create our reality. What we expect we deserve we get. What we expect is possible we get. We have a great deal of control and determination over the flow of our thoughts and the outcomes they produce.

Positive thoughts. A belief that it can happen. No, I’m not going to stand here and imagine myself running down the driveway but I will stand here and envision myself walking tall and straight and effortlessly down the hall even with a walker. That’s progress. That’s a shift in my belief in what is possible. That is a shift in my focus toward the positive rather than on the negative. Our thoughts create our reality. What are you creating for yourself?

===OUTER  WORK===

Are You Stuck Or Are You Purposefully Planted?

There is a difference between being joyfully planted in a nurturing environment that encourages growth and experimentation and being stuck in a non-nourishing environment. Are you stuck or are you planted?

It takes courage to change.  It takes courage to let go and move on, and yet all life is a cycle and that means we must regularly make new choices.  

I can feel cycles ebbing and flowing in my life.  When a new cycle is coming in I know it is coming but that’s all I know.  Then one day there it is – clearly defined.  This exploring of the Divine Feminine was like that.  It burst upon me and demanded my attention and my exploration. It is an idea that deeply excites me and I am eager to explore.  It holds many answers for our “next.”

Pulling up roots can be big or small. I have moved across the US four times and those were really big changes. I have changed my current environment by establishing more online friends than in–person friends so even though I don’t physically go many places, I have a rich world of emotional and intellectual exchange with like-minded people in many parts of the world.

Even if you feel you are planted, check to see if there are some weeds crowding you that need to be removed so you have room to grow wider and taller and deeper.  Bloom where you are planted and have a good time doing it.

What Motivates You?

Motivation is a driving force. What motivates you to do what you do?  My need to explore what my mind offers is so huge that I get up out of bed to go write what is coming in.  And yet I am not doing as much physical work on my body as I could and should and want to.  How do I change my motivation?  I want it to be enticing and encouraging, not scary and full of dire results.  If I don’t do it thus and so will happen.  The motivational change will come from within. I have to want to do it.  I have to feel it is important.  And I probably need to feel satisfied after doing it.  

How do you motivate yourself and what do you need to motivate yourself to do more of?

Simplify Your Schedule – Work in Clumps

Having three things on your To-Do List feels a lot better than having 20.  What if you thought of your work in clumps?  You would have a clump for Self-Care, a clump for Relationships, a clump for Working your Passion.  It would make you feel like you had accomplished more. You can work in time clumps – 90 minutes, 2 hours, a half-hour on one focus.  But then shift to another major focus so each gets some action.  

The first parcel of time after I am dressed for the day is spiritual – meditation, playing my flutes, a little Qigong. It also includes dawning a SpiritSong Tarot card to help me think about my choices and my progress and my potential. 

Then I open my email and tend to wherever that takes me.  

My second time slot is always creative – my favorite time and action.   Since my work is creative it often looks like I am moving projects forward because I am. 

When you focus on the purpose of each period of time it becomes richer and deeper.  Eating is mindful, study is enriching, connecting with others is invigorating. 

Whatever you are doing, immerse yourself in it, give it your full attention, and then pause to acknowledge what you have accomplished. 

===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===

All Change Begins Within You

Our old way of life is simply gone.  It does not exist anymore. What we create next is up to us.  It is within our imagination, our expectations, our beliefs in what can happen and the choices we make. What are you dreaming into being?

===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===

Who We Are

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but rather spiritual beings having a human experience.”—Pierre Teilhard de Charin.

How do we learn to consciously come from our spiritual essence in everything we do? 

===THE UNFOLDING DIVINE FEMININE===

Revolving Friends

Do you have any friends you have had all your life? Probably not. I can think of people who nurtured me during different periods of my life. No one person has walked the entire path with me but there were always gifts of insight and awareness involved in our time together. 

That is the point of life – to go on our specific adventure, walk beside different people on the path who deepen our experience and our expectations. As we move through our journey of life we cultivate change within ourselves – in our beliefs and our expectations of what is possible for us. And thus draw to us new people who are walking that part of the path too.  

As a woman who was married twice and lived the majority of her life alone, I’m a fan of the walk-the-path-alone adventure.  It allows me to stop and fill myself up or move past something that does not resonate.  I chart a path that is mine alone and I do it without accommodating the needs of another. 

We all walk the path on our own, at our own tempo in our own direction.  Allow yourself to be open to new friends and exchange gifts with them that enrich you both.  And let go when your paths need to separate.  There is another adventurer up ahead waiting to walk beside you in encouragement and support and new insights.  Do not be afraid to walk the path alone. 

===OUR UNFOLDING ROLE===

Planning for a Future We Cannot Imagine

My daughter and her husband help me with physical things that I need as I grow older. You may not have children. I have Social Security and subsidized housing which makes it possible for me to live comfortably and safely and affordably. Will that be in place for you when the time comes? 

What do you teach your children about the plans for their lives when you have no idea how the future is going to unfold and what dramatic changes it is already bringing to it? 

Flexibility in our willingness to change is the cornerstone for a successful life. Do not go down a paved road that may lead nowhere. Walk an eclectic  path of winding opportunity and go exploring to find what resonates with you.

===INTENTION BLESSING===

May we hear and heed the call of the Divine Feminine. 

May we expand our hearts and our expectations.

May we walk the Path of Light with a sure foot. 

May we keep our gaze on the summit.

May we take this journey with a full heart. 

I entwine my light with yours and we move forward to guide the way.

===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===

Spiritual Practice

The Gaia Gateway and Your Soul Star

Self Healing

The Space of Inner Knowing

Expanding Awareness

Do You Hold the Beat or Play the Melody?

Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Google

and the 

Deeper Song Website

==DEEPER SONG BOOK SHELF===

Cornerstone Books

It depends on what you want to learn but there are books to take you adventuring everywhere. Here are a few of my cornerstone books.

The Prophet , Kahlil Gibran.  There is such life wisdom here.  On the last page, in the last paragraph, I found the phrase “I will return and you will sing to me a deeper song.”  I caught my breath.  I wanted to sing a deeper song.  And so I am.

Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman BarksI love Rumi. Deep wisdom and insights I need to expand into my life. 

The Complete Works of Lao Tzu: Tao Teh Ching & Hau Hu Ching by Hua Ching Ni Another cornerstone book for me is Lao-Tzu. It holds the core concepts of Taoism and that path resonates with me.  

==== DEEPER SONG EXPLORATION ===

Winter Solstice is December 21 – Create an Experimental Garden

Winter Solstice is the day I honor in December.  It is a time of deep contemplation and realignment. It is also the beginning of a new year. I’m suggesting that we create an experimental garden of crops we may want to plant in the coming year. Fill it with ideas you want to explore, new directions you want to expand, and qualities you want to develop. And of course you want a compost pile in which to put beliefs and expectations that no longer serve.  

Take pencil to paper and  draw your Experimental Garden to help you see what choices you have made, choices you want to make.  How much of each you want to plant. What’s working, what’s not. Drawing up our “Garden of Next” is as simple as labels for rows, labels for varieties of the same idea and wiggly lines for the rows. More rows of one thing, less of another. As you think about this you may keep making new versions.  It’s a drawing, draw away. Capture your ideas visually.

You may have crops for income, health, personal growth, creativity, exploration – whatever you want to experiment with and develop in the coming year. This is an easy way to explore and clarify your feelings and expectations. 

Give some thought to what you would like to explore next, even just enough to see if it supports the direction you want to go and especially if it will change the direction you think you are headed. What do you want to bring into your life and how much of it do you want? Let us each design an Experimental Garden to guide our “next” and draw it into being. 

===CARA’S CORNER===

Get a Handle On Your Beliefs and Expectations

As I work on creating my Experimental Garden for 2022 I get to examine both my beliefs and my expectations.

The problem is that possibilities are changing very rapidly. Ideas are shape-shifting as rapidly as I can think them up. I need to glide into this – be more like a shape-shifting cloud, constantly changing but with the larger form emerging slowly.

A small change can make a huge difference.  As my body moves through its changes, it makes small shifts that affect the overall structure.  Standing a little straighter realigns the whole body.  Do not underestimate what a small shift will make in your beliefs, your choices, and your opportunities.

===SING A DEEPER SONG ===

What We Notice

It was a small change, I barely noticed. Like a bud peeking out of a plant.  

It was a small change, I barely noticed. Like a bud peeking out of a plant.  But it grew. It expanded my possibilities.  It extended my expectations. 

It was a small change, I barely noticed. Like a bud peeking out of a plant. But it grew. It expanded my possibilities.  It extended my expectations. And a whole new world opened up. 

– Cara Lumen December 2021

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 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 expectation.

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Our Deeper Song Community extends throughout the planet Welcome new Deeper Song Explorers. I’d love to hear of your experiences –  caralumen@gmail.com or let’s discuss on the Deeper Song Explorers!