self-awareness

Learn the Vibration of Recognition

February 27, 2019 By Cara Lumen

Learn the Vibration of Recognition
An Inner-world Exploration

Our world is made up of vibration. We are vibration. Everything around us is vibration. The more we learn to feel and hear and recognize the subtle vibrations around us, the more aligned and in tune we become with our own vibration.

Begin with feeling vibration

Think of a time when you heard someone sing so deeply from their heart that you felt the vibration tingle all over your body. Sound carried that vibration but the singer’s heart sent it.

Think about some kind words that have been offered to you that touched your heart. A friend recently said to me, “Remember, you are light wherever you go.” I needed the reminder. I needed the validation. Sound vibration can carry unconditional love from heart to heart.

My hand can feel the vibration of my cat’s body, and I can hear his purr of contentment and love.

When I tune in, I can feel the vibration and specific messages of my crystals. When I pause, I can feel the vibrational gifts of my food. When I take a moment as I first enter, I can feel the welcoming vibration of my home.

Vibration is everywhere. It’s a powerful form of communication and we must learn to feel and hear it — and learn how we, from the confines of our body suit, can radiate vibrations of wholeness and unconditional love.

Learn to listen

Sit in your workplace and listen. Listen to the sounds and vibrations of people doing work. Many of them love what they do and you can feel that energy of joyous engagement coming from them.

Stand in nature and listen. You may hear a bird joyfully living its day. You may hear the leaves rustling in the wind whispering to each other. You may hear the wind howling around corners.

Nature is full of sounds. The world is full of the vibration of sound. Learn to listen.

Recognize how vibration speaks and resonates with you

I learned to feel the energy of crystals years ago. A friend simply told me to hold the crystal in my left hand (receiving hand) and see what I experienced. I felt a sensation in my body, identified it with a specific chakra and began to interpret from there.

Now my stones call to me across the room, “Talk to me today. You need me for this.” It’s all a matter of listening and feeling the vibration.

Hear and heed your inner voice

I have a very loud inner voice. I’ll hear a phrase nearly shouted in my mind, or two or three words pop out at me and I know I have to explore them and write about them and learn to apply them.

Sometimes I have an inner conversation with myself: “you want to do this because….“, “you want to rethink that because.“ I sometimes have a running debate with myself until suddenly I just know. The decision is made and I act on it.

Cultivate your awareness of vibration

Your awareness of vibration begins in silence. Just sit in a quiet place and mentally scan your body to listen and feel. Just notice what you experience.

Then move to sound — perhaps begin with the sound “OM” (pronounced “Aum”). It’s the seed syllable of the universe. Say it out loud. Take a deep breath, feel it cleansing and restoring your body suit, then on the exhale say “OM”.

Begin there.

Mudras will change your vibration. A mudra is a hand position. You see them on Buddhist statues. They communicate great energy. I like the Buddhist walking meditation of simply holding your thumbs in your closed fingers making a light fist. It immediately calms me. Experiment with mudras and allow the vibration they create to speak to you.

We are all vibration

When you begin to feel yourself as pure vibration, you’ll experience yourself as nothing and everything. It’s an incredibly expansive feeling. You experience yourself as simply vibration with no boundaries, no limitations, only vastness to explore. Be with that. Explore that. Go where it takes you.

In time you will see and experience others as pure vibrations. You will understand that there is no difference, you are the same thing — vibration. Actually, you are the same vibration, one vibration. One.

And your world changes.

Begin with the awareness of vibration — your vibration, their vibration, the vibration of nature and of your world

Then you, as vibration, go exploring in the invisible world.

As vibration, you can go everywhere and become anything. Merge with a mountain, merge with a cloud, merge with the eagle flying overhead. Merge with the earthworm and the butterfly. Still your mind, cease your separateness, and become one.

One. Just one

All is One.

Be that.

Deeper Song Affirmation
I experience the vibrations around me with deeper awareness.

Deeper Song Process

Feel vibration. Sit quietly and sense the vibration around you. It may be a breeze on your arm, or the breath moving in an out of your body, or the beat of your heart. Begin to explore vibration.
Hear vibration. Ring a bell, or strike two sticks tighter or make a humming noise that resonates throughout your body. Listen to the silence.
Absorb vibration. Feel the sunlight on your face and let the vibration of warmth enter your body. Expand your awareness to feel the vibration of your home. Feel the comfort and nurturing and safety in the vibration. Find other ways to absorb vibration.
Feel the vibration of your barking dog or purring cat.
Put your hand on your diaphragm and sing a few notes and feel the vibration of your own sound.
Listen to music and feel the vibration of the instrument and the vibration message of the melody or the rhythm or the harmony.
Find other ways to experience vibration.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Expand Your Spiritual Heart

Our Defense of Non-Existent Boundaries

What Does Spiritual Friendship Look Like?

How to Weave the Sacred into the Ordinary

When I See Myself As Light

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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.

Messages from a Snowfall

February 13, 2019 By Cara Lumen

Messages from a Snowfall
An Inner-world Exploration

The snow fell thick and heavy and wet and built up on the branches of the trees, bending them into positions of servitude they had never before experienced. They whispered – “Learn this lesson, when it feels heavy, bend. When it melts it nourishes the roots.”

The world was different. Each branch of every tree I could see bent under the weight. It was magical, the ice glimmered in the sunlight and the world was transformed.

It was a beautiful snow, thick and silent and glistening. It was a heavy wet snow. It built up on everything. My empty flower pots looked like they were topped with frothy white layers of whipped cream snow. The sun behind the clouds caused the whole world to look like a fairyland. It glistened. It sparkled. It sat silently in its breathtaking beauty.

The lesson of the heavy snow

I looked for the lesson in the snow – the heavy snow that made everything bend and simply wait patiently for change to gradually come. Sometimes life is like that, it gets heavy and we feel bent over. And all we can do is wait patiently for change. The tree branch bends gracefully. I wonder if I bend as gracefully when the load seems heavy.

There is nourishment in change

As I looked at the heavy snow, I knew that it carried the water that was so welcome in the earth and eventually, one small released drop at a time, it would nourish and nurture where it was needed.

Do I give time and space in my life for events and circumstances to nurture me?

There’s stillness in change

There’s a serene stillness in this glistening world of snow-bent branches. No place to go. Nothing to do. Simply sit there in beauty and with for change to gradually occur.

There’s a leveling that takes place. Everything looks the same – white. Just as we are the same. No differences. Simply nature in a blanket of white so there’s no longer a notable difference. There’s a lesson there. We get lost in how we look on the outside. When we know ourselves as light, we sit in the stillness of a quiet moment of simply being present and experience the oneness of all of nature.

There’s cleansing in change

There’s cleansing in the snow. When it melts it’ll wash away what’s no longer needed. We must be ready to make room for and accept the fresh new beginning that comes when the storm passes.

There are lessons in change

The trees have to adapt to the heavy snow by bending and changing form. The earth, although frozen hard now, will need to thaw and absorb what is offered. Eventually, the roots in the ground will be nourished and in turn, support the tree in growing taller and broader.

But all in good time. All when the cycle moves forward.

Change is like that – unfolding stages Always in a cycle of beginning, middle or end. We have much to learn from nature.

Allow yourself to absorb the change

If I were a tree, I’d bend with the unfolding change. If I were the ground, I’d wait until it was time to absorb the change. If I were an animal, I’d burrow in the proffered change and wait for the warmth to return.

Be like snow – fall softly and cover everything

Feel the stillness. The peace. The simple act of being present calls deeply to me. Perhaps I can learn to live like snow, resting patiently on a branch, waiting for the sun to help me change form so I can move to another level of my calling.

Patience and a willingness to change. I can do that.

And that’s the message I received from a beautiful, very wet heavy snow.

DEEPER SONG PROCESS:

In a quiet place, feel yourself as a snowflake, forming in the sky, falling gently to earth to land.

Notice where you land. You look around and there are many of you – many snowflakes, many points of light covering the world so that what’s underneath is hidden and our wholeness begins to be more evident – covering our world, our earth.

Be with that. Feel yourself being included in and absorbed into a greater whole – a whole with great power to make change.

When you’re ready, allow yourself to melt, to change form, to move on to the work you’re called to do, taking with you the stillness and peace and oneness that you felt when you were simply snow.

To Sing a Deeper Song Consider:

Can You Let Your Life Unfold?

Do Not Conform to the Ways of the World

When I See Myself As Light

Life Messages from a Potter

The Power of Non-doing

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.

To Sing a Deeper Song, Consider:

Who Needs to Give You Permission?

The Power of your Imagination

Do You Believe In Yourself?

Our Defense of Non-Existent Boundaries

What Are Your Weaving in Your Reality?

Can You Let Your Life Unfold?

January 16, 2019 By Cara Lumen

Can You Let Your Life Unfold?
An Inner-world Exploration

Periodically during the year, we make grand plans. Sometimes it’s because there’s a new year beginning, sometimes it’s a new quarter, or a new month or even just one week at a time.

The most productive, aligned way to manage your life is to simply to let it unfold. See what shows up, check it out in the moment and decide if this is the time to explore and develop that idea.

Otherwise we run the risk of being overwhelmed.

It helps to follow the seasons

There’s an unfolding flow in nature that we would do well to align ourselves with.

Winter: Contemplate and explore the possibilities in the seed catalog. Close what to plant.

Choose only the things you really want to do and the things you realistically can accomplish. How many plants can you grow in your personal garden of self?

I’m exploring new ideas and they’re currently in sort of a book format because that’s how I’m organizing my own learning process. However, the idea of working on a book while doing all this inner exploration/discovery work is overwhelming.

So, since it’s winter, I’ll contemplate the choices and experiences before me and go exploring to better understand what I’m being called to do. I place my order from the idea seed catalogue. That’s all I do – choose my priorities.

I may have different criteria for my choices – income, most effective use of time, greatest impact, easiest to do. A full seed catalog can be tempting. Do a reality check before you place your order.

Spring: Choose how many seeds you will plant based on what you can realistically care for, want to harvest and how much is needed.

After choosing what we want to plant, we have to do a reality check on how much we can physically and emotionally care for. How big is the garden plot (your available time). We have to prepare the ground. What skills and equipment or help do you need to produce this crop? Then you have to decide how much to plant based on how much you can care for and harvest and, better yet, use.

These are the decisions of spring. How much to plant. Where to plant. And make certain not to overprint or underplant. Give careful thought to what you actually need to produce.

I seem to have a second book that’s much closer to completion than this one I am creating from my new work. Hmmm. Can I harvest two crops? Oh yes, and there’s a niggle that I might record some guided meditations. Be careful here that you don’t choose too much to plant because there’s a lot of work to be done in the cultivation and care and bringing to harvest of whatever you choose.

Summer: Do the work

This is the part I love – the growth and development of an idea. The unfolding of a book. It’s a time for deep creativity and introspection as I pull together all I have learned in a form that others can understand. I put what I’ve been learning into a form I can share that will help others move along a similar path.

What will be required of you to tend the crops you have chosen to plant? Can you bring the crop safely to harvest?

Fall – Harvest what you sowed

I dread this part. We are talking technical stuff. Not hard, I just don’t do it very often. Get the book out the door stuff. But if that’s all I do for the fall – complete and publish – that doesn’t feel so daunting.

See how working in seasons makes the task less daunting?

There’s another step here I tend to not do well – let others know what I’ve created. So perhaps I can devise practical and realistic ways to do that.

If you found a stumbling block in your projected harvest, what solutions can you explore and what choices can you make earlier in the year to help you move through this challenge?

Completion time is made for giving gratitude for the gifts you have harvested and been encouraged to give.

Fall is also the time to notice what your work produces. What is popular and what is not? What did you run out of? It’s time to evaluate what action has called to you the most. Where did you receive the most satisfaction? What was the easiest part to do? Then set those ideas aside to be contemplated in the planning that takes place in the winter cycle.

Do your inner work

Before you begin a new cycle, do your inner work. What new skills did you develop? What do you want to do more of? Less of? What are the needs of the people you serve? How has the world changed? What is needed that you could provide?

What has changed in you and how will you honor that?

Then it’s time to begin the cycle again.

Deeper Song Process:

Write down what you would like to accomplish in the next year, quarter, month, whatever you choose.
Put a mark by the one accomplishment that would be the easiest to do.
Put a different mark by the one that would make your heart sing.
Use a different mark to identify the action that would bring in the most income, or whatever value you are working to achieve (personal growth, relationships, etc)
Choose one project that you marketed and apply the seasonal steps to it.
Winter – Contemplate the future possibilities. Order seeds.
Spring – Plant what you can care for and harvest.
Summer – Produce. Do the work. Get help if you need to.
Fall – Take your harvest to market and see how it’s received.
Repeat each season.