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filler@godaddy.com
For the past several months, I’ve been exploring a meditation I “made up” where I send love and blessings out to all forms of life starting with the mineral kingdom, and moving on to plants, insects, reptiles and amphibians, life in the ocean, animals, birds, humans, humans in Spirit, Ascended Masters, the Angelic Realms, the Solar System, the galaxy, beyond the galaxy, to the Universe, other universes, all forms of life, all forms of energy, the whole of Creation , etc. I made up this whole order and noticed something about myself as I worked through each kingdom or realm. I remember the famous quote by Albert Schweitzer, “Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.”
I discovered that my attitude varied toward one form of life to another. I’ve always had a love for minerals, insects, plants, and animals. So, those realms came easily. And, I admit that I found it easier to love them more than people. I am fascinated by insects more so now than ever before, as my heart is opening more and more to all life. Where I may have once feared a bee, now I cherish them. I struggled the most with sending love and blessings to the human race, and learned a lot about my own hurts and biases as I attempted to be as unconditionally loving towards people as I was towards everything else. As a developing Psychic Medium, and Reiki Master the practice of sending love and blessings to those in Spirit, and the higher realms raised my vibration to levels of love and appreciation that I’d never experienced prior. So, I was deeply moved to continue this practice. Which is what led me to this meditation in the first place.
Having made a few Guided Meditation recordings in the past, I decided to try making a recording of this one, as I found this meditation experience to be profoundly beneficial. I’d recently discovered an app to make MP3s on my phone, so I thought I’d give that a try. It was a spontaneous live version, complete with a few vocal imperfections that I did not have a good way to fix. And, trying to do it over again was more daunting than living with those few imperfections. It was a true reflection of me at any given time, a few imperfections.
Next, I ran the recording through a little piece of simple software for recording and engineering that I’d learned, and although its features are limited, I was able to improve the overall sound a little bit. And, then to my own surprise, I took on a new level of engineering I’d never tried before. I decided to improve the pace of the speaking, gathering up spaces of silence to a more flowing cadence. And, then, even more surprising was that I endeavored to soften all the plosives and did it phrase by phrase because I didn’t know how to do it as a whole. It was arduous and exhausting, and took an incredible amount of time and energy to cover the entire 25 minute program. At that point, I began to question exactly why I was doing this. It had been my thought to possibly offer it as something to give.
Then, something else new happened. For the first time ever, I considered adding my own music. I’d never attempted it since I am not a very good musician, and never believed I could do it. I have an electric piano which has some features that could make any novice sound better. And, I knew that by creating my own music I was free from copyright/royalty issues if I wanted to use music someone else had written. After a few false starts, I “stumbled” into a sound that I liked. And the whole thing started to open up. I began to hear different layers of music and which layer to start with. Recording those layers was also arduous and time consuming. If I made a mistake, I had to start all over again because I didn’t know how to create a sound loop. So, I did every track as a live recording, knowing that I did not have a way of punching in and out to correct mistakes the way I would if I was in a recording studio. Eventually, I got the first track down, and was full of appreciation for the level of concentration that it took. That gave me the fuel to continue.
Finding the right sound for the next layer was the next step, and learning how to play the track the way I heard it was the challenge all over again. It took dozens of takes, and I actually gave up at one point after recording a very good take on the wrong setting rendering the sound as awful. But, after taking a break for a few days, I came back and did it again, finding an even better arrangement. And, that gave me more fuel to keep going.
The musician in me heard more layers and I endeavored to add one more layer of harmonies and accents by using my own voice as the instrument to blend in. It felt good to sing the harmonies, but two things changed my mind. I couldn’t get the sound I wanted consistently enough, and, it became a distraction to the speaking itself. I tried a few more times with different piano voices with the same results. I liked it musically, but not for this type of project. So, I concluded that I’d reached the right place to stop. As with all art, less truly is more.
With the audio now complete, I felt it was possible to consider sharing it. But the creative faucet was still flowing. A whole new level came to me, and I decided to make it into a video recording, adding royalty-free stock photos depicting the content throughout. That would enable me to share it on social media like You Tube or Facebook, and not just media like Sound Cloud. It was a lot of fun work choosing the images, timing them to transition at just the right moments with the content of the meditation. And, here came a revelation - that this could be for people who may not care to “meditate.” They could still hear the message while watching the video with some lovely images, whereby still gaining the experience without having to sit with their eyes closed and deliberately do something to develop internal awareness. It was a kind of cross-over multi-media endeavor, and, perhaps a way of bringing the ’meditation” experience to a wider audience.
At this point, I began to examine even more intensely why I was doing this. What was my motive? Was I trying to offer something to others to help spread a message of love? Was I supposed to monetize this project somehow? Other than a handful of friends that enjoy new meditations, would anyone else even care to listen to it? Was this an artistic endeavor or a spiritual one, or both? Over and over again, as I got closer to the completion I found myself questioning whether I felt some form of social pressure or self-imposed responsibility to share it, or worse, did I just actually ruin something that was a personally fun exercise that I enjoyed each morning as I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. On one hand I was aware of the tremendous amount of work, personal growth, and great pride in my own accomplishment, and on the other hand, I’d created a Pandora ’s Box. Despite its vocal flaws and a little bit of out of sequence concepts I still thought it sounded good. But I was troubled all the same by whether I was experiencing some form of delusion of grandeur (since it had flaws). Would I be able to be so well-boundaried that I wouldn’t care what others thought if I shared it? And, would I care whether or not others actually understood the whole point of the meditation? Would it take some long preface to explain the purpose of the meditation was to explore attitudes about how we love conditionally? Would anyone else see feel it as beneficial to voluntarily send love and blessings and appreciation to all these forms of life?
I loved working that hard on something creative, that kept me engaged at a time when the material world was admist a wide-spread health panic. I became so absorbed that I lost my own fears and recognized how gripping fear can be. I began to mourn the completion of the project simultaneously celebrating it. I started feeling like I was swinging back and forth from pride to regret over this precious creation that I was merely a guardian of. Around and around I went for a few days.
At this point, I considered sharing it with two reasonably trusted individuals for their feedback before releasing it (or scrapping it), and I found myself already beginning to brace myself for potential unwanted criticism. But the truth is, you don’t know what you have until you put it in front of an audience and let the shared human experience reveal itself. Having come this far, there really is no turning back. I could easily talk myself into thinking it is no good and belongs in the trash, or, I could savor the personal accomplishment and receive the nourishment from all the digested experiences. Or, I could savor the experience and put it out for anyone else to get what they will from it, detaching myself emotionally from any feedback.
In conclusion, I can only share my experience, and if I choose to share my experience, it cannot be for the purpose of or a hope of achieving any specific outcome. I have no control over how others react one way or the other, as that is their personal perspective (through their hurts and biases) to which they are entitled. I’ve come to understand it is my pleasure and privilege and challenge at times to find a way to let inspiration be expressed, for it did not originate in me. It merely came through me. And, that is a blessing is every sense of the word.
Here is the link to the completed video which I opted to post on You Tube. It is the very first post in my new You Tube channel Building Bridges Meditations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGfHASl8gVM
Rev 3/30/2020
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