You CAN attend to these things — to the blizzard, to the hurricane, to the forest fire, to the automobile accident, to the volcanic eruption, to the political hate-throwing — with an open heart. You can respond to these with a consciousness that refuses to be drawn in with fear, but instead comes forth to attend. It’s very helpful to remember, as it’s often said: ‘This too shall pass.’ But you cannot hide yourself and say, ‘Well, it will pass, so I don’t have to pay any attention to it.’ It will pass, and it still must be attended to. ~ Aaron
Sweeping under beds, cleaning beneath cushions, emptying the jar with a half-teaspoon of salsa…. I am mindfully paying attention to pre-packing and cleaning in preparation for our heading home. Always mixed feelings about leaving Florida, but before the pandemic these snowbirds’ twinges of leave-taking were tempered by the lovingly longing to be with family in Tennessee and visiting with friends over breakfast or lunch in Indy.
The Beatles long ago named a song (In My Life) after the title of this blog post. Here is the opening:
There are places I’ll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
April, 2020, John and I drove straight through from Florida to Michigan, and did not even stop in Tennessee.
November, 2021, we stopped for one overnight but stayed in a hotel. Our brief time together was somewhat stressful. Only the cats seemed unaware of the unspoken perspectives that separated us more than the safe-distancing and masks.
John and I are now 9-days post our second vaccine, and we will be just under the recommended two-week wait time when we get to Smyrna on Saturday.
We are so excited that when we get home on Monday, we will be able to come together safely with others we love who are also fully vaccinated. Look out Janis and Larry. It is going to be one heck of a hug-fest!
Yesterday morning as I placed puzzle pieces and sipped tea, a “stream-of-consciousness” came through. I shared it with John, and with Linda B/G, who said, “Maybe it is important to share this now. Last year, lots of people were speaking up about this. Not so much right now, but it needs to be said.”
As she spoke, my iPhone popped in with a “notification” of the federal government having to consider a mask mandate. People are ignoring the guidelines, refusing to avoid non-essential travel. Continuing to gather in large numbers without safe-distancing or masks, and the numbers of covid-19 cases sadly are increasing again.
This is what came through:
Open letter to my friends, family, neighbors, and total strangers who have chosen not to mask, safe-distance and/or be vaccinated to help curtain the spread of this coronavirus.
I am a 71 year old woman enjoying an amazing quality of life given how I began. My mother had syphilis when I was in utero. She spent her entire pregnancy with me fearful of any damage this sexually transmitted disease might do to me, a result of my father’s indiscretion.
When I was five years old, I was hospitalized and treated for polio. Never having spent one night away from my mother previously, I was placed in the pediatric unit at the hospital in isolation. When my mom would come, she was on the other side of the glass wall. At the ripe old age of 71 years, I can still feel my spindly legs holding me up as my urchin thin arms reached toward her devastated face.
A serious auto accident at age 12, resulted in months on crutches, and I still wear the scars from the stitches necessary to reattach the flesh to my forehead.
At age 62, a 22 cm ovarian mass was removed, along with all of my feminine parts. I spent some time in the cardiac intensive care unit, what I call the high rent district, a result of aFib, most serious of the post-surgical complications.
My blood pressure can spike and my pulse will routinely be well over 100 at just a routine doctor visit.
Am I afraid of dying? I don’t think so. Do I have PTSD around medical processes? Obviously…
I have spent the past 12 months doing everything I can to avoid “getting or giving” this novel virus that has killed so many, left many others with life-limiting complications, and wreaked havoc with our global economy, but my investment in living a long and healthy life didn’t begin in 2020.
I have spent 71 years, 72 if you count the time I was in my mothers womb, choosing life.
This may be the first time in my life I’ve ever asked you to help take care of me. I know the masks are hot. I know the bands pull on my ears. I know voices are muffled, and deaf people can’t read lips.
I know we can’t see one another smile.
But this morning I got to see the moon and the sun in the sky together. I got to wake up with my husband of 55 years lying in bed next to me snoring.
I know I won’t stay in this body forever, but I really don’t want someone’s political view or stubborn independent streak, or aversion to temporary discomfort to end my life unnecessarily. And I don’t want to end someone else’s life unnecessarily.
Is it my destiny to have you give me a deadly virus? Perhaps…
Or perhaps it’s my destiny to ask you not to….
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I’ve loved them all
Some are dead from this virus…. including my dear friend, Bonnie, the first casualty in my life. And Fred, the second. Patty’s mom. Four high-school classmates (all in one week in December). And Jackson’s Paw Paw…
Perhaps it was their destiny to die of something preventable.
“No matter how someone is acting,
they want to be happy.”
~ Lion’s Roar
Jerry Ashmore, senior teacher at Empty Circle Zen group shared this opening quote in his dharma talk this morning. As an aside, if you are looking for a wonderful Zen sitting with teachings, this group meets on Zoom twice per week: Tuesday evening and Saturday morning. I have really been grateful for this addition to my practice.
Following Jerry’s talk, my search for “happiness quotes” showed 734,000,000 hits.
This is a very important reminder. More meaningful in my personal experience this week that most.
I sent a text message to my poetry writing group. “I am going to go for a bike ride instead of writing this morning. I need some grounding.” I shared some of the details (not pretty) about what was going on, and assured them I would log on in time for the update of an important project one of the women is currently working on. Her project is huge, and we all qualify as midwives….
Lots of people find balance by exercising. Many find their center when they can get out in nature. For me, biking is a blessed bonus of both….
Logging on after my ride, I was surprised to see one of the women in the group on line that had sent word earlier saying that she would not be there.
“Deb, tell us how you are, and how things are with your _____ _____.” (She named the stressful situation. One of the other women in the group told me later that she had filled this woman in since she had not been expected to attend and, therefore, had not been included in my earlier text message.)
As I began sharing, the woman who had asked me to share interrupted, “Deb, just the short version. We know you are grieving.”
Now, admittedly, I have had some triggers with this group before.
Whereever I go, there I am.
“There is no short version,” I responded, and muted my mic.
Humans can’t touch unconditional love sufficiently to extend it fully to all all of the time.
Jerry said this morning, “That is where getting to non-hate is the wisdom practice.”
I did more than get to non-hate. I have been so focused on something else that I offered a pretense to presence. As I forgave myself, I was able to not take her action as a personal attack.
I was also able to do more than get to non-hate with the situation I had been challenged with for the past several weeks. The word that falls from my lips about the others involved most easily is: unskillful.
Empathy does not show up for me in my top five in the Clifton Strengths Assessment. People who are really strong in empathy “feel what others are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through the others’ eyes and share their perspectives.”
I have come closer to a heart of compassion through decades of mindfulness (Vipassana) practice.
To be mindful means to be aware. It’s the energy that knows what is happening in the present moment. Lifting our arms and knowing that we’re lifting our arms—that’s mindfulness, mindfulness of our action.
When we breathe in and we know we’re breathing in, that’s mindfulness.
When we make a step and we know that the steps are taking place, we are mindful of the steps. Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something.
It’s the energy that helps us be aware of what is happening right now and right here—in our body, in our feelings, in our perceptions, and around us. ~ 5 Practices for Nurturing Happineess
Her comment was unskillful, but my response was unskillful as well. The unskilled volley left us all raw. Hell, I was already raw. For all I know, so was she…
That is the trick, isn’t it?
Not even a person Clifton says is endowed with empathy truly sees the world through another person’s eyes. The stressful situation has been stressful precisely because we don’t see the situation the same way.
Jerry asked us to ponder some questions about happiness:
What is happiness? What does happiness mean for me? Is happiness just pleasure? Is it joy? Can I be happy without a sense of well-being? Is that possible? Can I be happy without a sense of purpose in life?
We cannot truly speak about happiness in the Buddhist way without a nod to suffering.
Being able to enjoy happiness doesn’t require that we have zero suffering. In fact, the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well. When we learn to acknowledge, embrace, and understand our suffering, we suffer much less. Not only that, but we’re also able to go further and transform our suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and for others.
One of the most difficult things for us to accept is that there is no realm where there’s only happiness and there’s no suffering.
How can I wish for myself
what I do not wish for everybody,
including those I think of
as my worst enemies?
~ Aaron
Another drive across the state of Florida, this time for our second vaccine, and this time we know where we are going. We are going to an ALL Spanish-speaking pharmacy near Miami. (See: A Dios Mio )
I have been transcribing Ram Dass speaking about Living and Dying.
So, now once you want to be free—at first you want to hang out with people that keep you high—later, you want to confront the fires that catch you, you want to purify through those fires. You just find yourself drawn towards the things that are still catching you, so that you can get to the point where you can be in them but not lost in them. Where you can keep your space even when you’re in them.
And dying is one of the big ones that sucks everybody in, and so part of the work is developing the ability to be with somebody that’s dying, or be dying yourself, and stay very clear and very present because those that are from religions that focus on the moment of death, which is most of the religions that have reincarnation in them, see life as a preparation for the moment of death
Many people in this culture don’t want to talk about death. They resist aging. They want an easy way out of something that is inescapable. So, there is suffering….
Our Canadian friends, Davey and Eli, had to leave Florida and go back to Canada or risk losing their medical coverage because he had been hospitalized with diverticulitis. The night before they left, we rang their doorbell, stepped back, and when Davey opened the door, John and I began to sing: Davey, Davey, give us your answer true, we’re half crazy, all for the love of you. Courtney’s won’t be a stylish marriage, without you there in your carriage, and we’ll be switched if she’ll be hitched without Davey and Eli there, too.
His eyes met mine…. and he said softly, “The best part of your singing was getting to see your smile.”
Davey has not seen me without a mask for over a year now.
Dass says any time there is suffering, it’s a clue to where your mind is holding.
My mind is holding to the question of how to see/be with my family (and meet our new great-grandson, Jackson) who are all in Tennessee. It is right on the way from Florida to Michigan. Visiting with them has always been what made leaving Florida something to be embraced. We saw Stacey and Doug and Adam and Brad and Christina briefly on the way down, but we have not seen our grand-daughter, Courtney, since November 2019. We have yet to meet the baby in person. We long for things to be normal again. To see smiling faces. To eat at the same table. To touch the same playing cards as I win 500 Rummy….
We will do what we can to help us all be able to gather again without fear of getting or giving a virus that humans don’t yet have herd immunity toward. A virus that ended the life of our grand-daughter’s other grandpa. Paw Paw was in the hospital with the coronavirus and he did not get to meet Jackson.
How can I wish for myself what I do not wish for everybody?
Dass says when Mahatma Gandhi was dying he walked out into his yard, an assassin shot him three times. Our image of an assassin in America – we think of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, always there is horror and violence connected with it, and we imagine (if we can the imagine) that the moment someone is shot they are stunned or confused. Gandhi had just as much time as the others when he was shot, but when he was shot and falls over he just says, “Ram.” He goes out on the name of God.
We, too, go out on the name of God. We will again drive to Florida’s East Coast.
“All shall be well,
and all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well.”
~ Julian of Norwich
I heard a story years ago (and have shared it numerous times when appropriate) about a couple who arrived home with their newly purchased motor home. As they attempted to get it into their driveway, she was directing from outside the vehicle.
“Honey, do you see the mailbox?” she called out.
“I see it,” came his reply.
As he inched closer to the mailbox, she asked again, “Honey, do you see the mailbox?” with a little more urgency.
“I see the mailbox,” he called back, with minor annoyance developing.
Inevitably now heading right for it, she yelled, “HONEY, DO YOU SEEEEEEEE THE MAILBOX?”
“I SEEEEEEEEE THE MAILBOX!” he shouted back.
CRASH!
They were looking at two different mailboxes. The mailbox she was watching him bear down on was out of his vision. The mailbox he was carefully avoiding by looking in his mirror was blocked from her vantage point.
It is not easy when we see things so differently. We may actually be looking at different things.
Jeanne Robertson tells of a situation with her husband, whom she affectionately refers to as “Left Brain.”
She asked him to go by the store for her. He grumbled about not wanting to be late for his badminton game. She promised to keep the list short enough he could scoot through the express lane.
She gave him her list, and off he went.
1 pound of butter
2 large bottle of vanilla flavoring
3 dozen eggs
4 big tub of lard
5 5# bag of sugar
6 5# bag of all-purpose flour
7 bottle of 7-Up (six pack with handles)
When he returned from the store, it took Left Brain multiple trips to unload everything —- because he read her numbers on the list as quantities!!!!
Imagine how long it will take to use 25 pounds of sugar and 30 pounds of flour….
She had never written numbers on a list before, but she did it this time because the mailbox she was looking at was wanting to be sure he could go through the express lane. Oh, my….
If you are a person who prays, just add a few extra intentions for all humans to realize our point of view is only ONE way of seeing things, and how important it is to learn from what we cannot see.
Meanwhile, keep a sense of humor. Especially during difficulties.
“Being engaged in a struggle
may give us a sense of security,
so that at least we feel that
we are doing something.”
~ The Heart of the Buddha, by Chögyam Trungpa
It is another of those amplified times with a roller coaster of emotions. Several dynamics in my life account for the ride, but the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.
Yes, my friend’s beloved former husband passed in his sleep this week.
Yes, my brother-in-law has a renal carcinoma and needs a procedure. (He lost a kidney to cancer a few years ago.)
Yes, we are approaching the one-year mark of the pandemic pause.
Yes, we are again preparing to travel back to Michigan without clear plans for an unencumbered visit with the kids in Tennessee.
Yes, we are at that friction-point where I know how much will need to be done to pack, load, clean, depart, travel, arrive, unload, unpack. And did I say clean?
And, yes, we are experiencing a stress so deeply personal I dare not speak of in this article. Grief has taken up residence in my mind.
But grief has a twin sister: relief.
What helps you come into balance and allows you to feel the relief, especially during stressful times?
Yes, nature is one thing that helps a lot of people, including me!
Yes, on our walk yesterday Deva, the dog, came running over to me for some petting. She dropped at my feet, rolled over, and would have been content to stay there if her human had not summoned her out of the middle of the road.
Yes, we were able to watch two dolphins frolicking in the canal last evening. One shot right under the dock we were standing on!
Yes, the adult eagles are now regular visitors as they leave the chicks alone for longer and longer periods, encouraging them to fly. The adults cannot teach the young to feed themselves until they are willing to fly.
Yes, I think that is true about humans, too.
Yes, angels and birds and bees (perhaps, everything with wings?) are always reaching out from what my friend Anna Marie called the perfume of the effulgent formlessness.
Yes, life, with all its uncertainty, including this tree, is showing us a pretty face!
Imagine our surprise to realize we had arrived at an ALL (perhaps I should say ONLY) Spanish-speaking pharmacy for our first covid vaccine in Hialeah, Florida, on Monday….
I would be lying if I said I was not nervous.
Hell, I was nervous before we drove across the state of Florida.
Seeing where we were was just the next step!
I was tapping away on the side of my hand.
Sheldon Kopp (29 March 1929 – 29 March 1999) was a psychotherapist and author, based in Washington, D.C. Very powerful hint to his person-hood that his month and day of birth is the same as his month and day of transition….
“I don’t know what your destiny will be,
but one thing I do know:
The ones among you who will be really happy
are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
~ Albert Schweitzer
Tapping with Scarlett Lewis of The Forgiveness Project during the World Tapping Summit, my heart opened deeply related to a stream of past energies. Scarlett’s 6-year-old son, Jesse, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the deadliest mass shooting at a school in U.S. history.
Interestingly, soon after tapping in forgiveness with Scarlett I was gifted some precious stories demonstrating what happens when you do what YOU can do.
Leaving work late, “K” had to use the maintenance door at the back of the building. The cement stairwell was packed with snow but there sat a fat toad! As she picked the toad up, he was very cold but his eyes fluttered open briefly.
That toad rode home in her passenger seat. She “turned the heat off and the music down.” He was safely placed in her monarch cage before she searched how to care for toads in captivity. Following instructions, she added a pan of sand and a bowl of water. The next morning he had dug down in the sand and covered himself with leaves. “K” put him in a dark cool part of house and he remains in hibernation. If he wakes, she will feed him. She hopes to keep him until spring and release him.
“K” did what she could do. She truly is a shaman. I sent her the toad totem meaning: Toads have always been ascribed supernatural powers and they are believed to have a special connection with invisible dark forces we people cannot understand.
“BJ” is a CNA working in hospice care. Covid-19 has certainly had an impact on patients and those who care for them. Standing at the bedside (gowned, masked, and gloved), a dying patient looked into her eyes and said, “Can I please hold your hands?” She felt like she was being touched by an angel for those short moments the patient held her hands before thanking her, and afterwards found a quiet place to reflect.
“BJ” just does what she can do. Every day she is present with patients, family members, co-workers and HERSELF, providing support and a safe space.
“A” also does what she can do. “A” just turned one-year-old.
Born at the beginning of the pandemic, she has spent her life without many of the things we had believed we needed to be happy.
But, at just 12 months old, “A” can wave and say bye-bye.
Her mother sent a video of her waving and saying bye-bye over and over! It was soooooo cute.
And then her mother asked if she wanted to say be happy. “A” smiled her biggest world-winning smile right into the camera and said clearly, “BE HAPPY!”
You can only imagine what gifts “A” will bring the world as she continues to grow…
We are not expected to do it all.
We are not expected to do it right.
We are invited to seek and find ways to serve and to be happy.
The surest way to do that is to just DO What YOU Can….
One of the women at Grief Journey yesterday said she reads everything she can about death. For her, this interest was triggered by the passing of her husband. This morning I received an email message about this book:
Another woman shared yesterday how her 99 and 1/2 year-old father is still wanting to delay talking about or preparing for his death. Just this past year she was able to get him to update his will. Her mother (who passed 30 years ago) was still listed as the beneficiary….
From the promotional listing about Living with Dying:
Whether you know you only have a few months to live or think you have your whole life ahead of you, death is a reality that will have to be faced sooner or later. And as far as the Buddhist teachings are concerned, the sooner you face it, the better.
No matter how rich, well-connected, famous, intelligent, talented and compassionate a person may be, no one can avoid death. Yet how many of us believe death will happen to us? Or wonder what dying will be like? Or imagine what comes after death? Death is certain and inescapable, so wouldn’t it be sensible to at least inform ourselves about an event that we have no choice but to experience?
In Living Is Dying, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse presents us with everything we need to face death calmly and confidently. Each stage of the dying process is described in detail, along with clear, practical advice about how to guide the dying through the bardos and into the next life. Rinpoche also addresses many common questions, such as: How honest should we be with the dying? How should we talk about death to someone who has no spiritual beliefs? How do we help someone who is already dead?
Regardless of your spiritual preferences and beliefs—or lack of them—if you are coming to terms with the imminent death of a loved one, your own death, or if you work with the dying, Living Is Dying will help prepare you to meet death consciously, soberly and with a mind full of compassion.
My new mantra: “May all beings prepare to meet death consciously, soberly, and with a mind full of compassion.” This seems to guide us to a life of compassion.
I have been obsessed with taking photos of the sky again.
This morning I was text-chatting about the changing nature of skies with my brother-in-love, Larry, who is a very skillful photographer / gifted artist. A powerful scene from the film, “The Last Samurai,” came to mind and I was able to find a clip I have long held in my mind and heart. I watched it a few times. I find it quite compelling.
While not historically true, this story of an American military officer who is hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country’s first army in the act of modern warfare is worthy of noting:
As the government attempts to eradicate the ancient Samurai warrior class in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly policies, Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) finds himself unexpectedly affected by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds.
Early on, Katsumoto (the samurai) tells Algren, “The perfect blossom is a rare thing. You can spend your life looking for one and it will not be a wasted life…”
True also about skies….
Like Katsumoto humans have found ourselves at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds.
With his dying breath Katsumoto discovered the truth:
“Perfect…. They are all…. perfect….”
Why wait to know that truth?
Continuing from the Daily Om opening quotation about coming full circle:
We know that we can handle challenges
that seemed insurmountable when we began our journey,
and there is the feeling that
we might be ready to take on a new problem,
or some new aspect of the old problem.
We feel empowered and courageous
to have taken on the challenge
of stopping a pattern,
releasing a habit,
or overcoming a fear,
and to have succeeded.
“Bhutan’s approach as a Buddhist country,
a country that values Gross National Happiness,
is different from a typical technocratic approach.”
~ Tenzing Lamsang,
an investigative journalist and editor of The Bhutanese
Those who know me well are well aware I rarely read news. Today, I was drawn to read the article about Bhutan’s experience of the pandemic.
While many points in the article moved me near tears, the most uplifting aspect of the article is that it gives my mind a space of hope. I have had many conversations about the need for a new model of leadership in the world.
Could this tiny country be a demonstration of what is possible?
Lets look closely at each aspect for what we can learn and apply.
First, hope that you are lucky and your country’s leaders are thoroughly engaged. Bhutan had trusted, smart, and hands-on direction from its king, whose moral authority carries great weight.
Second, invest in preparedness…. Bhutan’s health ministry staged a simulation at the country’s international airport. The scenario: a passenger arriving from abroad with a suspected infection caused by a new strain of coronavirus. All these measures reflect what Bitton sees as a dynamic, system-wide self-awareness. “You could call it humility; you could call it curiosity,” he said. “It’s this idea of, wow, we have a lot to learn.”
Third, act fast and buy time…. Bhutan’s system of community-based primary care had sowed the concept of prevention, and its free universal health care and testing meant that logistics and supply chains were already in place.
Fourth, draw on existing strengths. (They shifted workers from one segment to another as needed, and provided additional training where necessary.)
Finally, make it possible for people to actually follow public-health guidance by providing economic and social support to those who need to quarantine or isolate. Nuzzo calls these “wraparound services.”
First and foremost, we must understand ourselves: when humans are naive to the thought viruses that infect individuals, communities, and species, we are very vulnerable.
Whatever it might take, it is time for US (ambiguity intentional) to adopt a higher standard of collective being. If you are not familiar with the polyvagal theory of happiness and well-being, please enlighten yourselves. Creativity, productivity, respect, kindness, wisdom — all the virtues of a healthy relating — are needed for us to reach the other shore.
The Other Shore
Sitting
gazing longingly
across the surface
of the water at the “other” shore
Breathing
releasing contractions
throughout the body
all caused by distortions in the mind
Feeling
wholly spacious
emotions rise, fall
denying nothing and at ease
Hearing
birds sing
birds’ songs dance in the air
the air, joyful, joins the movement
Thinking
memories float
some pleasant, some not
illusions seen now for what they are
Debra Basham
February 11, 2021
Note* This poem is about the five aggregates of self: form (or material image, impression) (rupa), sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental activity or formations (sankhara), and consciousness (vijnana)
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