From week to week in this Pulse of Spirit blog, we address essential matters for us as human beings, believing that if we do that, we can figure out all the rest. If the most primal aspects of a human life are clear, they energize everything else. So we are vitally interested in our Attunement with the very source of our Being. We are interested in receiving the creative flow from that source, empowering us to attune our world.

What does it mean to receive that flow fully? And what does it mean to bring it—to bring the power of Attunement to the world?

Author Johann Hari just published his latest book entitled Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again. He noticed diminishing mental focus in his own experience. And then he went to experts on human psychology who had studied world trends. They reported a sharp decline in the ability to focus mentally.

Hari says that the average American college student cannot focus for more than two minutes. If that is even a little bit true, it is troubling. He also reported that, on average, an American office worker focuses for three minutes on any given task.

The book reports on factors that it says are behind this trend, including these:

• Technology
• Increasing stress
• Deteriorating diets
• Confinement of children

 

The ability to focus mentally is clearly crucial for a creative life. And without mental focus, everything else in the human experience is likely to stay unfocused. But mental focus is only part of the picture. And my guess is that you are not reading this Pulse of Spirit to sharpen your intellect.

As I write this, I am staying mentally focused. Without that, what I write is not likely to be coherent, and it would be of little interest to my readers. Mental focus facilitates a flow of thoughts and words. Through that flow, I am inviting you to not only follow what I am saying but to read so thoughtfully that you open up a correlating mental flow that is uniquely yours. 

But more than that, there is a larger purpose for what I write. With a tranquil, focused mind, I am allowing a flow of thought to unfold that opens me to a spiritual reality that I perceive emotionally and spiritually. I am consciously guiding my heart to open and receive the flow of creative spirit from Source. And I am inviting you to do the same.

As a songwriter, this is a familiar process. For me, writing a song takes huge mental focus. It is as if the whole world disappears except for me and that song. Mental focus leads me to emotional and spiritual focus.

I just saw a fascinating interview with Paul McCartney talking about songwriting. He and John Lennon wrote close to 300 songs together. Paul said that he and John would meet for a songwriting session to write those songs. And in almost all cases, they would finish the song they wrote in that session. Paul credited it to their work ethic. He said that there was never a time when they sat down together to write a song, and nothing came. Talk about focus! I always wondered how they produced all that fabulous music.

Paul commented that, at the time, he thought of it as just working with “this bloke called John.” But now, as he looks back, he realizes he was working with John Lennon.

I imagine that if a songwriter didn’t bring focus and commitment to their work, the process could go on forever. It would never complete. But if a songwriter disciplines themselves to bring mental and emotional focus to the process, they find that there is also a creative focus, which is an intense Attunement with the invisible essences of the song.

This process is so essential to Attunement. We have to have the kind of mental focus that brings a heart focus and connects us spiritually. That is what brings the creative spiritual flow—not just for the two minutes that a college student might focus on their schoolwork or the three minutes that the average American office worker might pay attention to their work. The focus has to be held for the entire creative cycle—to write the song, share the Attunement, and finish whatever is to be accomplished in that cycle.

Last Saturday night, for me, I had the opportunity to participate in an online Sunday morning worship service at the Riverdell Spiritual Centre in South Australia. As the service began, it was still. It seemed like nothing was moving. That is the beginning of things. We are just in the space together, and as of yet, there is no flow. Then Ruth French spoke, Cheyne Morris read a poem, and we listened to the song One Voice. The heavens opened. It was like the clouds parted in the conscious field we shared, and the sun’s rays illuminated the space. I felt the vastness of the reservoir of creative power we touched. Out of that vastness, the flow of Attunement current began to fill the vibrational space we shared.

This is about receiving the flow of Spirit fully. It is about letting it in and participating consciously in that process through mental, emotional, and spiritual focus.

But that is only half of the process. For the process of Creation to be fulfilled, we have to not only let it in. WE HAVE TO BRING IT!

If Lennon and McCartney only heard their songs but never wrote them down and never played or recorded them, the world would not have heard their music.

If I enjoyed a magnificent meditation on these things during my morning walk in the hills above Sunrise Ranch but never spoke of it or wrote it down, no one would have the same opportunity to be in the meditation with me.

And so it is for anything creative that might potentially happen in the world in which we live. Someone has to receive it and bring it fully. Someone has to allow Creation to flow from beginning to end without losing focus, without being distracted, so the flow enters the creative field of consciousness and energy that is the human experience.

We have to do something to bring it. It is a nice thought that it will just flow through. We receive it, and we just let it flow. Of course, that is essential. But there is more to it than that.

Has the flow from you been welcomed every time you brought it? Have people always responded, Oh, that is wonderful; we want more? Some people might have. But in reality, when we truly bring it we endure and transcend all kinds of blocks to let the flow of Creation fulfill what is possible.

We face human distraction—lack of focus. We’re bringing it, but people suddenly look away and start paying attention to something else. So, we have to hold people’s attention and overcome their distractions if we are to fulfill what we potentially could fulfill in any creative undertaking.

But there is more to it than that. There are factors of resistance.

I don’t want it.

Or, I don’t want it from you. 

I don’t believe it. 

Well, that may be your experience—it’s not mine. 

You’re just making it up.

There are factors of resistance that can be conscious or unconscious. And what are you going to do then?

I led a memorial service recently. What transpired was familiar to me from years of experience leading transformational workshops, Attunement trainings, and worship events. What we shared in poetry, song, and story was heart-stirring. And while many people were deeply moved, I could feel the distraction and resistance in the space.

All the presenters continued to bring it. And finally, the dam broke. A flood of Love filled our collective heart and surrounded the family who had just lost someone so dear to them. Cycle fulfilled!

We are all in this space of consciousness together to receive something, and if that does not happen, nothing is on. We are here to receive something deeply, and then we are called on to bring it. We give it to each other in the space. And as it overflows, we bring it to the world. That is our end goal—a spiritual outpouring to the world so that everyone who is on our vibrational wire is feeling it from you and me and from all of us in this field. All who are connected to us, individually and collectively, are feeling the outpouring because we are bringing it.

The reservoir of power behind us is not only visiting us. It is acting in us, through us, and as us. We are experiencing a visitation from the source of all power, and there is a spiritual visitation we are bringing to the world.

Of course, Spirit is present always, for everyone, regardless of this Pulse of Spirit. And yet we have a role in making what is invisible immediate and palpable, right here in the field of consciousness and energy we inhabit.

So good to be with you in this process, in the delight of opening up and becoming so moved by Love that we enjoy it together and bring it to the world.

Bring it!