Today's DailyOM Offerings...
January 5, 2010
Shaman's Vision Journey
Dave & Steve Gordon
2006
Brothers Dave and Steve Gordon got started with shamanic music via their love for the Sequoia Forests, which they visited as youths studying music together. They recorded the sounds of those woods and incorporated them into their music. It’s been documented as medical science that certain drum timbres and rhythms can lull a listener into a trance, and a whole rediscovery of the art of shamanism has merged around this, connecting the science of biorhythm with the spirituality of modern trance, reconnecting the modern era with the underworld. Shaman’s Vision Journey is another chapter in the Gordons’ amazing contribution to this field. It’s a trek homeward, a galvanizing and evocative progression of incessant, hypnotic shaman drum and shaker beats, accented by voice, synthesizers, guitars, and flutes and, of course, the mysterious and soothing sounds of the great forests they love.
Each track is approximately 17 minutes in length, making them all ideal for single sitting meditations, or-if you’re going all the way to the center-you can just play the CD through to the end and never look back (until the final bells). Each track winds down to cricket noises or running streams, helping you move back up out of the center of the earth where you meet your "spirit animal"-the creature within your unconscious who can bestow gifts and information. Each track reflects this mystery with coiling, sinuously smoky atmosphere. Percussion and wooden flutes conjure rattlesnakes below and strange birds in the distance. "Dream Body" builds upon a basic shaman heartbeat-style rhythm, adding birdsong, whip-poor-will flute, voice, slide guitar, and otherworldly reverberations.
"The Upper World" fuses the dangers of a rattle and drones below the seen topography of the gentle, insistent percussion, with the delight of the upper regions of sky. On the ground, the steady beat of the relentless march through time. Through the mists comes a female voice almost audible around the fringes of the long, drawn-out flute notes. Are you just imagining that vocal presence? By the time you reach it, it shouldn’t matter whether this was something "real" or "just" a dream. So long as it feels right and true, it can set you free to wander into the space between where there is no difference between the two. The Gordons know the way.
January 5, 2010
The Power of Ambition
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope
Your ambition may be strong today, and as a result you may be on the lookout for opportunities to excel. You may feel confident enough to expand your goals by requesting a pay raise, researching a new career path, or accepting a position that requires you to use your creativity. Your motivation may be stronger than usual, making you feel compelled to explore aspirations you might have once thought were out of reach. You can make the most of your ambition today by examining your life to determine how you can make the pursuit of your goals a larger part of your existence. You may discover that a hobby can be parlayed into a career or that you feel confident enough to set high goals for yourself.
Owning your ambition can help you expand your goals and achieve your dreams. When you’re ambitious, you have your goals in mind almost all the time. If roadblocks impede your progress, it is your ambition that gives you the strength to look for solutions rather than turn away disheartened. Your ambition inspires you to reach for new heights of success and look for the opportunity buried in every challenge. Ambition keeps your dreams alive even when your circumstances don’t appear conducive to success. No situation or person will be able to dissuade you from your chosen path when you own your ambition. Your determination to fulfill your ambitions today will make attaining your goals more feasible.
January 5, 2010
Revealing Your True Self
Essential Authenticity
Identity is an elusive concept. We feel we must define ourselves using a relatively small selection of roles and conscious character traits, even if none accurately represents our notion of “self.” The confusion surrounding our true natures is further compounded by the fact that society regularly asks us to suppress so much of our emotional, intellectual, and spiritual vibrancy. Yet we are, in truth, beings of light-pure energy inhabiting physical bodies, striving for enlightenment while living earthly lives. Our true selves exist whether we acknowledge them or not, often buried under fears and learned behavior. When we recognize our power, our luminosity, and our divinity, we cannot help but live authentic lives of appreciation, potential, fulfillment, and grace.
At birth and throughout your childhood, your thoughts and feelings were more than likely expressions of your true self. Though you may have learned quickly that to speak and act in a certain fashion would win others’ approval, you understood innately that you were no ordinary being. There are many ways you can recapture the authenticity you once articulated so freely. Meditation can liberate you from the bonds of those earthly customs that compel you to downplay your uniqueness. Also, communing with nature can remind you of the special role you were meant to play in this lifetime. In order to realize your purpose, you must embrace your true self by letting your light shine forth, no matter the consequences.
Rediscovering who you are apart from your roles and traits takes time and also courage. If, like many, you have denied your authenticity for a long while, you may find it difficult to separate your true identity from the identity you have created to cope with the world around you. Once you do find this authentic self, however, you will be overcome by a wonderful sense of wholeness as you reconcile your spiritual aspect and your physical aspect, as well as your inner- and outer-world personas. As you gradually adjust to this developing unity, your role as a being of light will reveal itself to you, and you will discover that you have a marvelous destiny to fulfill.
Shaman's Vision Journey
Dave & Steve Gordon
2006
Brothers Dave and Steve Gordon got started with shamanic music via their love for the Sequoia Forests, which they visited as youths studying music together. They recorded the sounds of those woods and incorporated them into their music. It’s been documented as medical science that certain drum timbres and rhythms can lull a listener into a trance, and a whole rediscovery of the art of shamanism has merged around this, connecting the science of biorhythm with the spirituality of modern trance, reconnecting the modern era with the underworld. Shaman’s Vision Journey is another chapter in the Gordons’ amazing contribution to this field. It’s a trek homeward, a galvanizing and evocative progression of incessant, hypnotic shaman drum and shaker beats, accented by voice, synthesizers, guitars, and flutes and, of course, the mysterious and soothing sounds of the great forests they love.
Each track is approximately 17 minutes in length, making them all ideal for single sitting meditations, or-if you’re going all the way to the center-you can just play the CD through to the end and never look back (until the final bells). Each track winds down to cricket noises or running streams, helping you move back up out of the center of the earth where you meet your "spirit animal"-the creature within your unconscious who can bestow gifts and information. Each track reflects this mystery with coiling, sinuously smoky atmosphere. Percussion and wooden flutes conjure rattlesnakes below and strange birds in the distance. "Dream Body" builds upon a basic shaman heartbeat-style rhythm, adding birdsong, whip-poor-will flute, voice, slide guitar, and otherworldly reverberations.
"The Upper World" fuses the dangers of a rattle and drones below the seen topography of the gentle, insistent percussion, with the delight of the upper regions of sky. On the ground, the steady beat of the relentless march through time. Through the mists comes a female voice almost audible around the fringes of the long, drawn-out flute notes. Are you just imagining that vocal presence? By the time you reach it, it shouldn’t matter whether this was something "real" or "just" a dream. So long as it feels right and true, it can set you free to wander into the space between where there is no difference between the two. The Gordons know the way.
January 5, 2010
The Power of Ambition
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope
Your ambition may be strong today, and as a result you may be on the lookout for opportunities to excel. You may feel confident enough to expand your goals by requesting a pay raise, researching a new career path, or accepting a position that requires you to use your creativity. Your motivation may be stronger than usual, making you feel compelled to explore aspirations you might have once thought were out of reach. You can make the most of your ambition today by examining your life to determine how you can make the pursuit of your goals a larger part of your existence. You may discover that a hobby can be parlayed into a career or that you feel confident enough to set high goals for yourself.
Owning your ambition can help you expand your goals and achieve your dreams. When you’re ambitious, you have your goals in mind almost all the time. If roadblocks impede your progress, it is your ambition that gives you the strength to look for solutions rather than turn away disheartened. Your ambition inspires you to reach for new heights of success and look for the opportunity buried in every challenge. Ambition keeps your dreams alive even when your circumstances don’t appear conducive to success. No situation or person will be able to dissuade you from your chosen path when you own your ambition. Your determination to fulfill your ambitions today will make attaining your goals more feasible.
January 5, 2010
Revealing Your True Self
Essential Authenticity
Identity is an elusive concept. We feel we must define ourselves using a relatively small selection of roles and conscious character traits, even if none accurately represents our notion of “self.” The confusion surrounding our true natures is further compounded by the fact that society regularly asks us to suppress so much of our emotional, intellectual, and spiritual vibrancy. Yet we are, in truth, beings of light-pure energy inhabiting physical bodies, striving for enlightenment while living earthly lives. Our true selves exist whether we acknowledge them or not, often buried under fears and learned behavior. When we recognize our power, our luminosity, and our divinity, we cannot help but live authentic lives of appreciation, potential, fulfillment, and grace.
At birth and throughout your childhood, your thoughts and feelings were more than likely expressions of your true self. Though you may have learned quickly that to speak and act in a certain fashion would win others’ approval, you understood innately that you were no ordinary being. There are many ways you can recapture the authenticity you once articulated so freely. Meditation can liberate you from the bonds of those earthly customs that compel you to downplay your uniqueness. Also, communing with nature can remind you of the special role you were meant to play in this lifetime. In order to realize your purpose, you must embrace your true self by letting your light shine forth, no matter the consequences.
Rediscovering who you are apart from your roles and traits takes time and also courage. If, like many, you have denied your authenticity for a long while, you may find it difficult to separate your true identity from the identity you have created to cope with the world around you. Once you do find this authentic self, however, you will be overcome by a wonderful sense of wholeness as you reconcile your spiritual aspect and your physical aspect, as well as your inner- and outer-world personas. As you gradually adjust to this developing unity, your role as a being of light will reveal itself to you, and you will discover that you have a marvelous destiny to fulfill.