Does this sound familiar? “Where am I going to find the time? I don’t have time for this!”
Time is not a renewable commodity. You create lack in trying to cram to-dos, jobs, activities, children and relationships into 24/7.
Vital life energy, on the other hand, IS renewable. Your divine nature has a direct line to this expansive, unlimited source. What does it take to unhook your perception of lack and connect to this expansive source?
Try this visualization…
Imagine your are standing over the mother spring of a clear, sparkling, pure source of water. Sit for a moment next to this bubbling fountain of pristine liquid and breathe in the life force that is present. Listen to the gentle sounds…and reflect on how alive it feels…It never stops!
Now, plunge your hands in this cool stream and take a sip. This water is so sweet in taste that your deepest thirst is instantly quenched. Sit here a few moments…allow the water to melt away the tension in your neck and shoulders.
Take another sip.
This flowing, gushing water represents the divine energy that is available to you at any moment…all day long.
Now, jump in. Go ahead. Immerse yourself in the holy vibration from the Source. Take deep, slow breaths allowing this liquid light to fill every cell and atom of your being.
What if, during the weeks ahead, you focused on what is renewable - ever present - always available - vast and limitless… rather than what seems to be ticking away?
The energy you feel or not during your day can be redirected and reconnected to divine flow. Begin to ask yourself:
Do I have the energy for this? (Rather than do I have the time for this?)
Stop the Leaks
As you tap your unlimited well of energy, creativity and vital life force you may begin to notice how some days you wake up tired and go to bed tired. Ask yourself, what has happened to my energy? Why am I so tired?
Leaks in your energy field happen on many different levels and for many different reasons. Here are few for you to monitor:
Keeping agreements. Even small agreements with yourself (I’m going to bed tonight at 10pm) when broken leak energy. Big agreements not kept (I’m losing 10 pounds this month) pull the plug and undermine the best intentions.
Incompletes. All those unanswered letters, emails, phone calls, unread books, stacks of magazines, unfinished hobby projects around the house drain your vital energy reserve. At the end of each day declare all unfinished or incomplete projects complete, appreciate your accomplishments as good and well done… Write down all the agreements made with yourself over the last month. If you are not going to keep them - renegotiate or declare them null and void.
Take a thinking break. Worrying, obsessing, negative mind chatter, rehearsing unspoken conversations distract focus, attention and create unfulfilled energy leaks. Observe your thoughts. Let go of distracting mind patterns…and redirect your thoughts into upliftment, beauty, gratitude, or contemplating the goodness that you are.
Self-Mastery: The Master at the Controls
Your Basic Self, located in your body around the belly button, is the Master operator of your vital life force and energy. This small, dedicated, loyal and wise servant is directly connected to your Higher Self, who is the conduit of divine light, love, inspiration, and guidance into your body, and the energy field around the body. (the “aura”)
Daily check-ins with the Basic Self can help you stay on course increasing, sustaining and renewing your energy. It will gently remind you of your limitless source.
When all three: conscious mind, basic self and high self are moving together in one direction flow and magic happens!
Awareness Practice:
Close your eyes…take in a nice deep breath. Place your hands over your stomach and ask to connect with your basic self. If you are unfamiliar with this part of your self it may take a few minutes or several times to establish contact. Be patient.
To prime the pump imagine a smaller version of you standing at a large control panel with levers, buttons, screens, monitors all connected to the various centers in your body, mind and spirit.
One button could say energy…another joy…another rest…and another driving the car.
When you are comfortable that you’ve made a connection ask your conscious mind to check in with the basic self through out the day and monitor where you are placing your energy. The mind loves a task that is repetitive.
Ask your basic self to allow more inspiration, intuitive hits, ease and grace today from your higher self. Keep the channels open. Bathe often in divine light and love.
At the end of the day, thank your basic self for a job well done, and feel the subtle flutter of gratitude from your basic back to you. Honor all parts and you will reap a great harvest of self-loving, self-esteem and unlimited supply of life renewing energy!
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Rebecca Skeele, President of Make It Heaven LLC, is an author, speaker and master facilitator who teaches cocreating heaven on earth. She is the author of You Can Make It Heaven: How to Enrich Your Life with Abundance and Loving and numerous articles supporting personal and spiritual growth. She combines her extensive years as a spiritual counselor and coach, two Master’s degrees in Spiritual Counseling and Spiritual Science, her certification in the Noetic field of consciousness and her study as an non-denominational minister to support conscious choice and awakening to the truth within. Her new course, Becoming a Spiritual Scientist: A Course for Cocreators is offered in Santa Fe, NM. Visit http://www.spiritual-scientist.com or http://www.makeitheavenllc.com for more information or email Rebecca at rebecca@makeitheaven.com
In the hierarchy of musical priorities, dynamics have often appeared to me to be relegated to fairly low niche and left there to languish, their immense potential for beauty and expressiveness being overlooked and ignored. Even in recordings of professional orchestras it is not at all unusual to here a crescendo or diminuendo begin and end without any unified idea of where it is heading. Concerts or recordings where the music making is otherwise of a very high calibe all to often approach the dynamics with far less care and intelligence than other musical matters.
Every musician knows what dynamics are and will tell you that when they see an mf on the music, by golly they play mezzo forte! And when they see a crescendo to a fff, watch out, buddy!
Crescendos (or crescendi, for our purist friends) seem to bring out a primal Darwinian, survival of the fittest impulse in many of us. If you can do it, e.g. low brass, most percussion, etc., then do it. If you can’t, e.g. low register flutes, middle register clarinets, etc., then get out of the way. It is quite understandable. After all, you flutes and clarinets get all the great melodies and technical calisthenics while we timpanists and trombonists are stuck back here counting rests. So, when we are finally allowed to speak, our voices will be heard! Then to our delight and to the delight of our audiences, excitement happens! Everybody wins, right? Absolutely. The only casualty is the music.
I don’t wish to claim any tremendous pre-eminence in this area, but I have listened to what others have to say on the topic and have explored a number of approaches on my own. I also don’t wish to suggest that any of my findings are original with me. Au contraire, anyone with keen musical sensitivities would be very apt to make similar explorations and discoveries on their own. So with your kind indulgence, perhaps we can investigate a few of these principals together. If you find something here that might squeeze your own creative juices, then my fondest hopes will have been realized. If not, then I recommend you demand a full refund from the author.
Why don’t we continue flogging the subject of the crescendo for just a moment or two? Most of them seem to have a destination or a specific point in the music when the energy and momentum gathered by it is released in a heightened moment of drama or intensity. Obviously, for the full dramatic potential of the passage to be realized there has to be general agreement exactly where and when that moment will arrive. If a few people in the ensemble peak on the crescendo prematurely the effect is spoiled, and the audience slinks out of the hall feeling violated and unclean.
A question that is too rarely asked is, “What should the shape of the crescendo be?” The written symbol has two converging straight lines, yet in most instances, to shape the crescendo like a trumpet bell would be musically and dramatically much more effective, i.e. very little crescendo at first, then gradually increasing the volume, saving the final 50% of the crescendo for the last 10% of the passage. You may wish to experiment with this idea in a few select passages to see if you agree with the results. My guess is that you will be heralded as a genius and promoted at least as high the custodial staff.
Another oft-neglected question is, “Who should crescendo when?” May I offer a suggestion here, also?
A typical passage containing a crescendo might consist of the melodic material in the upper voices, the harmonic or accompanimental figures in the middle voices, a bass line, and some rhythmic figures in the percussion. If you were to encourage the melodic instruments to begin the crescendo first and the accompaniment to construct their crescendo entirely in support of the melody, but never upstaging it, you will find that the melody will maintain its primacy. Now, if through coercion or perhaps even bribery, you can appeal to the percussionists’ better angels and make them aware of the ever-present danger of premature gesticulation, you may have crated the ideal crescendo. If the percussionists save a solid 80% of their crescendo until the last couple of beats before its apex, they will provide the perfect dot for the perfect “i” and prove once again, even to the most skeptical, that, except in certain one-on-one disciplinary actions, intelligence and sensitivity trump brute force every time.
It is my fervent hope to continue to lobby for the liberation of the crescendo. If there is any true justice I have recruited you to become a like-minded zealot to this most noble of causes.
Any comments about your own glorious victories you might wish to contribute would, no doubt, serve as an enduring inspiration to us all.
Carl Hammond is a 35 year international music veteran and CEO of http://www.musicalcompsoitions.net where you may purchase and download sheet music for concert bands, choirs,chamber ensembles,& jazz groups. See it,hear it,download it, rehearse it. FREE Newsletter and FREE Special Report
