By Debra Basham, on June 10, 2021 My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,
An everlasting vision of the everchanging view,
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold,
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.
~ Carole King
Today is day five of a five-day workshop that in music might be called the crescendo of the past three years of an intensive spiritual program with Barbara Brodsky called “Dharma Path.”
The closing ceremony is one in which we are to express our deepest intention for our highest purpose of this human life. I wrote in my journal:
What is my highest intention for this incarnation?
- It is my highest intention in this incarnation to participate fully in what Aaron calls raising earth’s vibration and assisting in it’s becoming positively polarized.
-
It is my highest intention to know the realms of support for this coming to be.
- In the personal realm, that translates to balancing old karma, freedom from habit energy related to that old karma, stabilizing new patterns that activate the highest possible frequency and: Living, encouraging [and enjoying] a conscious spiritual journey.
- To respond to reactivity with clarity from this highest intention, I remember the great prayer: May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings feel joy. May all beings realize their intrinsic perfection and find perfect peace.
~~~~~~
This morning I awoke at 5:00 am and unable to fall back asleep, went into the front bedroom which is simultaneously serving as my meditation hall, office, and guest room. I opened my email to a promotional piece for a book by Cynthia Bourgeault, Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm, and listened to an interview with her as she speaks about the book. Here is a link to the podcast: A Different Way to Live Virtuously, in which she says:
The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The opposites tend to play out on our planet.
These things [fruits of the spirit] aren’t just virtues, they are not just nice little moral qualities, they are not just nouns. They’re actually energy packets, they are food. And they’re nutrients that our planet needs directly because the lack of them causes things to get so harsh and so desiccated and so dry and barren and parched that you can’t stand to live here. Craziness enters….
We do have something that we have to give back and pay back, and it is not only food for our own realm but for realms above.
She speaks about George Gurdjieff, Russian philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, and composer of Armenian and Greek descent, who died in 1949. She says her book is mostly about “World 24” – from his metaphorical number system about human consciousness.
World 24:
The world of Presence, deep equanimity, of deep mindfulness and of the conscious circle of humanity, the place where we actively receive on this planet assistance from above (from what Christians would call the Saints and the rest of the traditions would call the enlightened ones). Where we hand up our transformed gifts of goodness and love and forbearance and patience and devotion and where we bring down onto our planet the benefits of faith, coherence, temperance, forgiveness, courage. It’s a realm of very active interface between the visible and the invisible, what the senses and reason says is logical and sensible and what the heart knows is good and true.
World 12, accordingly, for the Christians it is Heart of Christ and for the Buddhist it is the Boddhisatva Consciousness – identical states of consciousness where human beings know we are bound to each other.
For over ten years now, my signature line on my email is this quotation by Mother Teresa: “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
I ask you to offer support for my intention, and to craft your own.
May all beings come to the end of suffering.
By Debra Basham, on May 30, 2021 When I picked up the spoon off the napkin to stir my morning tea, a huge ant fell out onto the kitchen counter. I carefully picked it up with the napkin, and carried it out onto the porch.
Looking up “ant as animal totem” I was surprised to see a reference to MOLD:
The plant spirit medicine of mold is in partnership with Ant medicine and it teaches of the psychedelic dimensions of Earth.
The insect nation is in direct communication with such dimensions which is why it is often very disconcerting to encounter Dragonfly, Ant, Spider, and all the other tiny crawlers of Earth.
(Regular readers of Yellow Brick Road know we had quite the dance with mold.)
Coming back to get my tea, I saw a long-legged spider in the sink. I grabbed a tissue and carefully delivered the spider to the porch as well. Very unusual happenings both of these….
The following morning, another (near-identical) spider was in the sink!
Over the past week I have been gifting contents from my professional office. While it was not an easy decision to give up a formal practice space, I have already had many confirmations that opportunities abound to love, serve, and remember, as Betty Lue and Robert (Reunion) taught us to sing.
My massage table went to Tina at Creative Therapy School of Massage.
The elephant statue was dropped off to Kimberly.
It has been my hope that the love and healing related to each item and all of our history will continue to bless the world with remembered wholeness.
I had an odd interaction when I dropped off the door name plate to one colleague. Knowing she had last expressed not having been vaccinated, I put on my mask and offered a hug. “No hugs,” she replied. “I have to protect you.” The words did not match the energy.
“I am masked to protect you,” I responded.
“No hugs,” she repeated, shaking her head.
I got back into my car feeling some sadness. I was very grateful our next delivery was to drop off the afghan with Jesus surrounded all the forest creatures. It was a wonderful visit…. complete with hugs.
One of the members of the Zen Empty Circle shared the stressful situation with his in-laws, who neither mask nor choose to be vaccinated against the coronavirus — understandably wanting his young daughter to come spend time with them. They miss her. He does not feel comfortable allowing her to go. The meditation teacher said, “Remember you are not keeping her from them, you are protecting her from the virus.”
In our own family we have this dynamic.
In many families, this polarized world view expresses itself.
What will our post-pandemic world be? The wondering comes if we will we be like the Sneetches (Dr. Seuss) and get over ourselves, but at a cost like when McBean drives away with the Sneetches‘ cash, exclaiming, “They never will learn. No. You can’t teach a Sneetch.”
It did not feel as though she refused a hug “to protect me” but I do know she is not a Sneetch, and neither am I….
If you want to go fast,
go alone.
If you want to go far,
go together.
~ African Proverb
(The tag line on the ant totem reading.)
By Debra Basham, on May 20, 2021 Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
A long way from home, a long way from home.
Odetta knew what LIFE can feel like.
Just yesterday — one day of LIFE holding sooooo much feeling.
A dear friend, navigating tenuous steps speaking her feelings toward her husband (related to the complications of decisions that could birth a new beginning):”This father does not want the child,” she says, speaking metaphorically, of course.
Another dear friend welcoming a companion as she was filled with trepidation reading online the results of a recent PET scan (positron emission tomography).
Sad news from our daughter that our grand-kitty, Thor, crossed the rainbow bridge. Thor, one of THOSE beings. Love oozed from Thor’s pores. Thor massaged love into your most tender spots, and his purr moved mountains of misunderstandings.
Utterances from the lips of a wife, candidly wondering aloud if they would both be better off if her husband stayed in long-term care.
“We are called beyond and empowered by the silver thread of hope that hangs by a thread below,” this expression of LIFE written by my friend in the midst of it all drapes over the feelings of the day like low-hanging clouds.
Don’t do things for personal benefit. And don’t do things to avoid personal damage. Do things to feel personal authenticity. Then your life will make sense, no matter what is going on around you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch
Today is the anniversary of my mom’s “rebirth” day on May 20, 2003.
May 20 is also the rebirth day of the woman who owned and lived in this tiny home for 33 years before we purchased it in 2017. Ursel had actually purchased the home on May 20 – 33 years prior.
According to the teachings of the Buddha, emotions are a fundamental part of who you are — an expression of our basic intelligence and creative energy. “When you can connect with the essence of your emotions, you can respond without preconceptions and judgments.”
Experiences are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
We tend to grasp after the pleasant feelings, try to avoid unpleasant feelings, and miss the neutral feelings much of the time.
Thought for Today
Breathing in, I am aware of you, of your suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for your suffering. Breathing in, I am aware of my suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for my suffering. Your suffering and my suffering, the same.
~ Aaron
By Debra Basham, on May 17, 2021 If it happens, it needs to occur.
~ Neale Donald Walsch
Jerry Ashmore, senior dharma teacher at Empty Circle Zen center in Hobart, Indiana, said simply, “If we don’t clear our stuff how can we help others?”
But how do we know what our stuff is? We can pay attention to the tendency we have to “perseverate” — meaning when we repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased.
We have an interaction that triggers something. Thoughts pop into mind over and over and over again. For example, guilt or resentment might arise because we are looking at past actions not recognizing the experience as a moment of unconsciousness. (We don’t need to personalize it.)
Forgiveness is when we bring presence (consciousness) to the thought as it pops into our mind yet again. We can notice that something has not yet been undone.
This is not a new idea. Epictetus, a Greek Philosopher who was born in 50 AD and died in 135 AD, said: “Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events whichever way they happen: This is the path to peace.”
Suffering is simply arguing with the way things are. Sokukoji Buddhist Monastery broadcast a dharma talk with a very interesting phrase: Path of Zen starts at the mountain top and goes up.
Grandson, Adam, while he was in Europe.
Jerry Ashmore went on to say that all practice starts by releasing tension in the body. He said, “We can be OK. Don’t discount OKness… the more you experience things as they are rather than how you want them to be, you are on your path.”
Yesterday, The Mother (channeled by Barbara Brodsky) spoke this Darshan (blessing) to me:
Dear Friend, you are making a difference. Let go of the ten thousand (this is a reference to the person tossing stranded starfish back into the ocean) and stay focused on whatever is present in front of you and let your heart sing with joy for the difference you have been able to make in that presence.
Will you try to do that? And if the mind goes to the ten thousand, just, “Shhhh…. Stop.”
Contracting.
Fear.
Ahhh…
Right there with fear is the heart of love. And the heart of love must be allowed to be free to continue making the difference.
Today, I took a friend for cataract surgery and received such a lovely confirmation in her thank you card:
The opening quotation by Neale Donald Walsch concludes with this comment about path: “Whatever experiences the universe brings your feet are a part of your path, inviting you to consciously engage in a process of becoming the highest version of you.”
By Debra Basham, on May 13, 2021 The definition of complaining is the expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.
A popular phrase is to speak of an undesired state (for example, complaining) as your eating rat poison expecting the rat to die. It is not always obvious, but our emotional state has myriad influences on US.
Often, John and I remind one another of the valuable awareness to not waste our creative energy complaining about what is. Any moron can do that.
Real wisdom arises as you devote your creative energy to what else is.
This morning, a short poem came through which articulates this so well:
What Else Is
Stewing or fuming
about what is
such a waste
of energy
Open heart
open mind
open up to
what else is
Debra Basham 05-13-2021
Sometimes it is helpful to be willing to see in what ways what is might be protecting you from what else is. Feeling anger might protect you from feeling powerlessness. Feeling impatience might protect you from feeling worry. Feeling boredom might protect you from feeling discouragement. A handy way to explore all of this is to be aware of an emotional guidance scale, such as the one described by Abraham-Hicks:
1. Joy/Appreciation/Empowerment/Freedom/Love
2. Passion
3. Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
4. Positive Expectation/Belief
5. Optimism
6. Hopefulness
7. Contentment
8. Boredom
9. Pessimism
10. Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
11. Overwhelment (feeling overwhelmed)
12. Disappointment
13. Doubt
14. Worry
15. Blame
16. Discouragement
17. Anger
18. Revenge
19. Hatred/Rage
20. Jealousy
21. Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
22. Fear/Grief/Desperation/Despair/Powerlessness
Thought for Today
Sometimes you repeatedly find yourself faced with an unpleasant situation, until the mind begins to obsess with it. You may begin to ask the question, why am I so attracted to this obsession? It’s not a conceptual question. One begins then to investigate the nature of obsession itself.
Different of you have different patterns of obsession. For example, some go into old stories, casting blame on others or on yourself. Others may look for a way to solve it, planning. Others of you may just feel anger and helplessness and move into a state of depression.
You each have your own patterns. This is part of understanding the nature of obsession, to understand the habitual patterning with obsession. When mind becomes obsessive, what do you gain?
~ Aaron
Aaron, as channeled by Barbara Brodsky, refers to emotions as “aggregates.” Aggregates are non-self. Aggregates are impermanent. Aggregates arise because of the senses, triggered by smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing.
Aggregates rise up out from the sense experience and subside when the sense experience of our life changes. We feel worry when a person we care about is experiencing a health challenge. But worry (each emotion) is an aggregate, so YOU are not that worry.
In fact, the one who is aware of worry is not worried. That one is aware.
This is not about trying to not worry. In fact, as our friend, Yoda, says, “Do or Do Not. There is No Try.”
Hmmmmm, if there is just do or do not that makes me really appreciate what else is….
By Debra Basham, on May 10, 2021 Forgiveness is the fragrance
that the violet sheds
on the heel that has crushed it.
~ Mark Twain
Barbara Brodsky and Aaron say you learn a lot by noticing what you are still getting caught by:
Remember that you are not separate, that whatever you see is simply yourself reflecting back to you. When you see the beauty in another, you are seeing the beauty and radiance in the self. When you see the shadow side of another, you are seeing the shadow in yourself. If you relate to it as separate, it’s easy to move into a contracted place that wants to fix or blame. Cease to see it as separate and simply remember, ‘The negativity I am experiencing here is simply the mirror of that negativity in myself that I have not fully attended to. In this moment, can I smile and hold this fear and negativity within the self with love?’
“Conditions” give rise to negativity. Negativity does not just jump on you out of the shrubs….
Over the winter “conditions” of negativity had been painfully present with a Michigan friend.
As John and I were out walking Friday morning, I said I would really like to understand what that was all about for me.
The “conditions” would be that my friend and I would have an agreed upon time to do something (during covid, this was admittedly virtually either on Zoom or Facetime or the phone) and she would cancel last minute.
This pattern quickly became a relational habit. My friend had started dating a man.
I would get up and be ready for our 9:00 a.m. agreed upon time and then open a text at 8:45 saying, “He was over until after midnight. I am going to crawl back into bed to get some more sleep.”
I told her it was not working for me. I needed to not make plans she could not keep. She admitted anything we planned would be canceled if something came up with him.
So a very l-o-n-g silence between us ensued. Occasionally over the next few months one or the other of us would initiate a brief text message exchange, but that was it.
John and I had been home from Florida for a month when I sent a text message offering to return a book she had loaned me. “I will drop the book off tomorrow on our way to dinner with my sister and brother-in-law,” I offered.
She replied, “Sounds good! I’ll be home.”
We are both fully vaccinated.
I curled my hair. It is quite long now.
I used mouthwash and freshened my lipstick.
I felt nervous.
I sent a text message letting her know we were leaving our house. I did not receive a reply, and as we turned into her neighborhood, I was pretty sure I saw her in a vehicle with a man!
“I just saw her in that vehicle,” I told John. “Go ahead, go by her house. I can leave the book in the door.”
I slipped the book into a Ziplock bag, left it behind the storm at her front door, and got back into the van. That familiar heavy-hearted feeling… Those darn “conditions” were present again.
I sent a text message saying I had seen them heading out as we were coming in and I had left the book in the door.
“We were at his son’s house for dinner. I found the book! Thank you!”
The following morning I could see clearly how I had treated John this way for years while I was involved with SCS. The adventure and the fun of that life was obvious to anyone who looked. I was always going off somewhere doing something that excited me and excluded him. I saw how I had been taking our relationship for granted.
Interestingly, this is the exact story line of the book I was returning!
“As comforting as a mug of chamomile tea on a rainy Sunday.”
(New York Times Book Review)
When John woke up Sunday morning I shared all of this with him and asked his forgiveness and told him how grateful I am that he remained faithful and kept his heart open… I never intended to hurt him. He was not even in my radar.
Aha! That is exactly what I had been feeling: I was not even in her radar.
I don’t think she has any idea how this felt.
I certainly did not.
I do now.
And I am so grateful for the way life (karma) remains sticky until it brings us full circle.
By Debra Basham, on May 2, 2021
This world deserves a kiss on both cheeks
on the way out of the door
and you have to let people see you do it.
Failure to do so becomes —
you are just another advocate
but not much of a practitioner.
~ Stephen Jenkinson
Since arriving home in Michigan one month ago, the yet-unanswered questions include: am I going to reopen my practice and if (or when) I will see a friend who went from a daily contact to essentially a lack of contact over this past winter.
Of course, there is a much deeper structure than the surface of these (and all) questions.
It has taken me days to be able to listen to the entire conversation with Terry Patten and Stephen Jenkinson — an episode titled: “Overwhelming Beauty — and Being OK, Dying.”
On his 70th birthday, Terry was informed that there is a probably metastatic cancer in his lungs.
The talk is available on the State of Emergence podcast now.
Shortly after listening, a dear friend who is losing her hair in the current process of cancer treatment included this in her recent post about her hair loss: I made a common error…..I didn’t let my painful feelings have any air time. I shifted so quickly that there was no recognition that this particular development has impact. I’m aware where it ranks in the big picture ….. but it’s not meaningless.
I notice where the questions about my practice or the change in my relationship ranks in the big picture…. but they are not meaningless.
I appreciate my willingness to stay with the listening and to feel the painful feelings that were evoked by this podcast. To stay with the listening was not easy. The subject matter is not light. It was not pleasurable.
But it is meaningful and as I stay with the listening, I notice a bit more about what I found intolerable with my friend over this past year.
As I stay with the listening, Stephen’s words suddenly stimulate a whiff of clarity that sweeps into my being:
She is still selling comfort as the place to get to….
If you’re lucky, there are a few people who tend to your silence without asking you to break it….
I suspect it’s like war, in the following way. You come back from war, and there’s nothing to say for one of two reasons. Either the language has not yet caught up with the realities of war and so explicitly there is nothing to say that doesn’t digress. Or, there is nothing to say to anyone because they weren’t there and there’s no way to bring them closer to it, and if they were there, you’re not talking about it anyway….
The mother of gratitude is grief. It doesn’t come from being spared….
If you don’t die of this now, you will die of that then….
Terry’s stark honesty and his transparency of his not knowing pulls me back so I can stay with the listening:
We all have the terminal diagnosis. We don’t know the time or the contours….
The beauty of this life — the thing I don’t want to kiss goodbye — has made itself especially vivid and the fact that I am totally not in control makes everything poignant, tender, full of vibrancy….
You can’t kiss that goodbye except with tears and they’re not “unhappy.” They’re deeply felt, they are hardly knowable….
Jenkinson is the author of Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (2018), the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul (2015), Homecoming: The Haiku Sessions (a live teaching from 2013), How it All Could Be: A workbook for dying people and those who love them (2009), Angel and Executioner: Grief and the Love of Life – (a live teaching from 2009), and Money and The Soul’s Desires: A Meditation (2002).
By Debra Basham, on April 27, 2021 I woke up this morning thinking about a beautiful woman, who happens to be the daughter of a dear friend of mine. A remarkable feat of love — her going this past weekend to visit her biological father on his deathbed to assure him of forgiveness for his abuse.
That same woman is undergoing surgery today.
This is how I came to ponder the life cycle of a butterfly.
Amazing words leapt off the page as I read under the heading: Do butterflies remember being caterpillars?
The study showed that memory, and therefore the nervous system, stays during the complex transformation from the caterpillar to the adult moth.
So while a moth or butterfly may not remember being a caterpillar, it can remember experiences it learned as a caterpillar
This woman’s life cycle as a daughter is no less remarkable. While her nervous system has stayed during the complex transformation — so she remembers the experiences she learned — she is definitely no longer the victim of abuse.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Just like the butterfly, we can remember our experiences and benefit from the learning even as we are being transformed. My meditation teacher speaks a lot about our collective transformation (from negative polarity to positive polarity) and assures us we are moving to a stage of consciousness where we not only learn from our own experience, but we are truly transformed by the collective learning.
Becoming a Teacher to Others
When you begin to work with other people as a teacher, that is a very dangerous point. Unless you are willing to learn from students—unless you regard yourself as a student and the students as your teacher—you cease to be a true teacher. You only impart your experience of what you’ve been taught, a package deal. And having done that, there’s no more to say—unless you repeat yourself again and again.
Excerpted from: “The Bardo of Meditation” in Transcending Madness: The Experience of the Six Bardos, by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (page 63)
Last evening, her mother and I were talking about how hard it is for all those facing surgeries during the pandemic. I had been to my primary care physician for the first time since the pandemic earlier in the day. EVERYTHING is so much harder.
People are dropped off at the door.
Family has to wait elsewhere.
When notified, they pick up the patient.
I was remembering ALL of the support I received when I had the abdominal mass removed in November, 2012. A friend came with John and me. She stayed with him until the mother of this remarkable woman arrived to relieve them. I had a revolving door of caregivers.
It was not just easier on me. Every act of support and care provided to me by this “care team” was support for those employed to care for me.
My heart was filled to overflowing as I watched the extra effort everyone at the doctor’s office had to take to make sure we are all safe. My doctor’s husband is an ER doc. She expressed her hope that humanity will pull together so we will all be able to enjoy communal life again. She said, “I am so looking forward to being able to hug you when I walk you out.”
This admitted “white-coat syndrome” sufferer had a blood pressure reading of 122/70 in that atmosphere of love. That, too, is no easy feat.
Today, I bow to each beautiful specimen of transformation.
By Debra Basham, on April 22, 2021 “Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
And between the two my life flows.”
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
I am still in a lot of process, triggered again and again by the teachings and the practice on the 8-day Emerald Ilse retreat, a process fueled by an intention to wake up to wisdom. The process, and the practice, is not done for a personal self, it is housed in the concept that there is no personal “I” and all is done in service to all beings. The goal is literally to wake up the collective consciousness called humanity.
My poetry writers group (Southern Circle) has been such a staggering catalyst for practice. After a strong triggering while I was still in Florida, (See: 3 Faces of Happiness) I have not been in attendance due to preparing to return home, traveling home, arriving and settling in, and then attending the retreat. Last evening when a text came through asking who was able to attend Southern Circle Poetry Group this morning, I chose not to respond.
This morning I did more process — inner asking about whether or not I am to attend.
You know there is no running away from anything.
Wherever you go, there you are….
“What is true about my attending Southern Circle?” II – The Inner Voice
There are times in our lives when too many voices seem to be pulling us in this way and that. Our very confusion in such situations is a reminder to seek silence and centering within. Only then are we able to hear our truth.
“What is true about my not attending Southern Circle?” King of Water – Healing
Be aware of your wound. Don’t help it to grow, let it be healed; and it will be healed only when you move to the roots. The less the head, the more the wound will heal; with no head there is no wound. Live a headless life.
As I was preparing to draw the two cards from the Osho Zen Tarot deck, I heard that I was also to draw one single card from the Angelic Messenger deck. This message would be true regardless of attending or not.
A Rejuvenation Card, number 35 “Change” was the card was from Angelic Messenger Cards: A Divination System for Self-Discovery.
Whatever comes to you can be a significant opportunity for spiritual growth, whether it was intended as that or not. Your larger life goal is to grow in grace and to find union with the divine Presence through love.
After reading all three of these cards, I used the “library angel” process of just randomly opening a book and seeing what guidance or message is being divinely sent to you. The Daily Word randomly opened to May 21 (one month from today). FYI- I do not have the March/April edition because those do not get forwarded while we are in Florida.
Sometimes I may become so immersed in dispiriting practices and behaviors that I become blind to the blessings and beauty in front of me. When I engage the world with love instead of fear, I more easily behold the Christ within myself and all others.
At the retreat, we received Darshan with “The Mother” (See: Remembering Wholeness/Darshan With the Mother). Each individual receives a message of divine wisdom. The message that came for me was an expansion of the previous message to a dear friend, Dorothyann.
Dorothyann:
So much light and love pouring out of your radiant heart. You are getting much better at not getting caught in the story of “not good enough.” It still comes, of course it still comes.
This week when that story arises, would you just bow to it and say, “I do not accept that, no thank you. Shhhhh….”
Don’t try to drown it out, just, “No thank you.”
Right here along with the one who still has some belief about not good enough, where is the radiant one? Can you touch that radiant, open-hearted aspect of yourself — and know this is the true self.
I love you and I am helping you.
Debra:
I love you. Here I am going to have an opportunity to spare a few words because you heard what I said to Dorothyann.
“Shhhhh…. Thank you, Teacher, but no thank you. I am not taking that into me.”
Remember who you are. Remember your light and loving heart. That’s all you need to know.
I love you and I am helping you.
By Debra Basham, on April 13, 2021 With all that takes place in our lives,
it can sometimes be easy to overlook the fact that
we’re part of something greater than ourselves —
a collective consciousness, the Universe, a greater cause.
~ Daily Om
The March 2021 skies over Pine Island, near Ft. Myers, in Southwest Florida (winter home of this snowbird) demonstrate a very important fact: light is present within darkness.
During the past few weeks of “the season,” instead of the usual blue skies, the horizon was often dotted with dark, billowy, ominous-looking bumps of clouds with amazing streams of light simultaneously peeking out. Some clear, some bright, some pinkish-orange enough to resemble remnants of a dwindling campfire…. Those glowing embers that you only see late, late—late enough that you think you should give up and go to bed. Despite the chill, you are drawn to sit where you are as a witness to what is dying.
For the past three years I have been in a study group looking at the spiritual phenomena of light within the darkness.
I am attending and helping Zoom host a meditation retreat this week.
As I was doing walking meditation early, I saw a black stone on the sidewalk. I noticed it but did not pick it up. Continuing, about half a block up, also on the sidewalk, I found a white stone. Neither of these were located with anything similar nearby. Seeing the white stone, I looped back and also picked up the black one. Light in the darkness.
((Confession, this is an article scheduled for publication in May. But the time for me to share it with you is NOW.))
Every religion, Western and Eastern philosophy, and each individual artistic world view provides commentary on this subject of light in the darkness.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5
Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. Anne Frank
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. Og Mandino
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. Plato
Don’t fight darkness – bring the light, and darkness will disappear. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
In an audio presentation, Living and Dying, Ram Dass says about his work with people as they were dying: I watch some people who are able to open to the new stage and say, “Ah, so….” and those people don’t suffer. And then I watch somebody who looks at the shoes in the closet that they’ll never wear again and sits around feeling sorry because they can’t wear the shoes anymore. They’re holding onto the model of who they were a moment ago. A moment ago, they were somebody wearing those shoes, and now they are not wearing those shoes.
I have been wondering about a similar phenomenon related to the pandemic. It is undeniable that the coronavirus has brough considerable darkness. (Another of our friends passed the day I was writing this article, in Florida, and then a 42-year-old relative, father-of-five, in Michigan.)
Have you also been able to see the light this global pandemic has brought to you over this last year?
My online search of “benefits of the pandemic” produced a lot of evidence of light within the darkness. Reduction of the carbon foot print made every list I read. Improved health and cost-savings from less eating out and more home-cooked meals was another. Parents spending more time with children; partners having more time together; time for reflection and opportunity to reevaluate your life. Within each of these is both light and darkness.
It has been said about picking up a stick: you pick up both ends.
What Buddhism calls wisdom mind is the recognition that only light has ultimate reality. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, says you do not go into a room and look for a “dark” switch. The switch you are searching for is the “light” switch. Of course, with that switch you are either turning the light on or off….
Ram Dass wrote of a friend’s passing.
“Well, you know what I know. Probably I won’t see you again in this body, so, stay conscious.” And I left.
Her husband called me the next morning at 7:30, and said she died during the night.
And he said her dying was just like ink being poured into water. It was just expanding outward. He said, “I came away from her death with one of the deepest experiences of peace I’d ever had in my life.”
We are a collective witness to the dark and the light, to what is being born and what is dying.
Some individuals have hated working from home. Some students have been miserable with online schooling. Some of us have grown calmer, others catastrophically chaotic. Attitudes reflect the moment-by-moment position of the light switch.
Less and less frequently do I hear people yearning for things to get back to normal, but often people express specifics of what they are eager to resume. I made up a set of rules for “distant dominoes” with good friends that live down the street from us in Michigan and also winter on the same street in Florida.
While in Florida, the four of us drove across the state to receive our first (and second) vaccines. We expressed excitement to once again safely play dominoes by the original Basham house rules, sitting around a table touching the tiles. We agreed we will all likely needed a refresher….
This snowbird gleefully anticipated being able to meet our great-grandson, Jackson (born December 28), on our trek north. I could almost smell his baby breath. Almost feel the weight of him. Almost hear his coo….
*Note – It was exquisite!
Awareness of the collective “benefit” of our collective glee, relief, appreciation, and joy almost takes my breath away….
Just as those clouds on the Florida horizon revealed the truth of light within the darkness, we are a collective witness to the dying of what was and the collective welcoming of what is.
We have no need to fret over an unworn pair of shoes.
We can join together and blissfully walk barefoot hand-in-hand on the beach….
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