“When the water is muddy
and you can’t see the bottom,
no amount of stirring
can clear the water.”
~ Debra Basham
In the U.S. the 4th of July represents freedom. People often think of freedom as freedom FROM something outside of us, but true freedom is an inside job, and nothing outside of you needs to change for you to enjoy it.
Wednesday night I was unable to fall asleep after John came to bed, so I got up and came in on the bed in the office. At 2:00 am, I was still awake, but I fell asleep some time after that.
At my normal waking time (about 6:00 am) I was enjoying a very stable (lucid) dream state, and I knew I had a choice (or not) to feel (or not) tired. It really isn’t sleep that restores one—we are restored by alignment. What is alignment? Activation of your parasympathetic nervous system….
For decades I have enjoyed the benefits of doing a Self-Full Body Connection or meditation or prayer at bedtime so I fall asleep in alignment. I use this metaphor: If your TV is on channel 19 when you fall asleep, it will still be on that channel when you wake up.
With all the stress around the globe, most people are running the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) much of the time. Now, like never before, it is vital to bring ourselves back into alignment again and again.
Ram Dass said that compassion is the ability to see how it all is. When you are worried about “X” or “Y” or “Z” your body is processing EVERYTHING via the sympathetic nervous system. Even if you worry yourself to a solution about SOMETHING, your TV is still set on channel 19.
I saw a beautiful quotation by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm is all about.”
How amazing that without being fabricated,
This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
Is spontaneously present from the very beginning!
This self awareness is naturally free from the very first,
How amazing that it is liberated by just resting — —
At ease in whatever happens!
Flight of the Garuda
Lama Shabkar, Tsogdruk Rangdrol
Think about activation of your sympathetic nervous system as being the storm. Not something outside of you, but what is happening inside. Think also about activation of your parasympathetic nervous system as being coming out of the storm. Also not something outside of you, but what is happening inside.
This morning I saw a wonderful quotation by Bruce Chatwin, an English travel writer, novelist and journalist. Although Patagonia, his first book, cast him as a travel writer, in his own mind Chatwin was a storyteller. His true passion was bringing to light unusual tales.
Chatwin’s quotation that caught my eye is: “Man’s real home is not a house but the road, and life itself is a journey to be walked on foot.”
I was inspired to write the following poem.
No “I”
19 March 2007
Seated in a large room
filled to capacity with the
community’s most
influential
“Modern medicine
is
like
mopping up the mess
without
turning off
the faucet”
Someone
in the audience
asked
“What is the difference
between wellness and illness?”
Placing the marker
ceremoniously
on the clean
white page
of the flip chart,
Dean Ornish, M.D. wrote:
WELLNESS
ILLNESS
Standing
for a moment
in stillness
breathing
before
circling the ‘WE’ in wellness
and the ‘I’ in illness
before pausing again
then speaking slowly
“The difference
between WE and I,”
he continued
“There is no “I”
in wellness.”
A few other comments from that talk:
When you are going to indulge yourself, don’t tell yourself it is good for you.
People are not afraid to make big life style changes, they have kids!
These are choices worth making even if you don’t live one day more—because you will feel better.
Pain is not the problem, it is just the messenger. Bypassing pain is like clipping the wires on your smoke detector and going back to sleep.
I will close this post with a poem by Rumi, a 13th Century Persian poet, and Sufi mystic:
Don’t Go Back to Sleep
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Attending that talk way back in March of 2007, reading Rumi, being a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner and learning NLP and Hypnosis, has been my walking the journey of my life on foot. I have been and continue to be dedicated to helping Western medicine transition from an “I”llness based system to a “WE”llness based lifestyle.
If you are reading this, that has been part of your life on foot, too.
“Skies upon skies are available for your flight.”
– Osho Zen Tarot
I feel a little bit like the morning after Christmas, or the ninth day of Hanukkah. For the closing sharing of this eight-day Intensive/Retreat—the culmination of a two-year commitment to study and practice—I had written: When I logged on this morning, Dallas was the only other one online. I asked him about his virtual image in his background – a waterfall. I showed him a photo of me, also at a waterfall in Maui. We had a lovely visit and I am so glad we shared…
That photo of me at the waterfall is framed and sits on my altar helping me value the dharma path that began long before I knew the word dharma.
I was born in fear and I was living in fear. Not MY fear, but THE fear. My mother was informed that she had syphilis simultaneously with the discovery that she was pregnant. My first trimester in her womb was spent with my mom at a sanatorium being treated. She was angry, embarrassed, afraid….
My alcoholic father had had sex with someone else, and that is how my mother got infected. I knew nothing of this until in my 40s when I began to have awareness of feeling unloved, unsafe, and unwanted. I was a successful professional, happily married, and I had had a good relationship with my mom. Nothing could account for those feelings, but I knew they were there.
I knew I would benefit by uncovering the pain.
In a hypnotic regression to the womb, hearing Les Crane sing Desiderata to me through headphones I had total realization of those feelings. Later I asked my mother if she could help me understand. She told me of the syphilis.
Many of you were there when I shared this as part of “Listen to Your Mother” and it is still available on YouTube.
The fear I lived with, the feelings of not loved, not safe, not wanted arose out of the human condition. I am so grateful to know the truth. Those feeling, any feelings, are not me nor mine.
Instead of sharing all of those words as my closing, I simply shared a series of photos of the sky taken from the window in the guest/room office where I was “on retreat” for those eight days, and where I am now with my fingers on the keyboard, looking at the ever-changing sky:
Aaron’s closing talk was brief and to the point: You have everything within you
to co-create a future
for the highest good of all beings.
A future where beings are awake,
free of suffering.
Two years ago,
we did not know that
there was going to be
a COVID-19 in our future. But of course,
there would be something
in our future.
Some challenge.
And you are meeting it with
wisdom and open hearts. Please do not forget to imagine…
to hold your heart open
and picture an earth free of disease,
free of hatred —an earth in which
all sentient beings
can truly flourish.
May it be.
May it be so.
Start where you are,
use what you have,
do what you can.
~ Arthur Ashe
I am tempted to schedule this to post so readers don’t know that I have my fingers on the keyboard at 4:21 am while on retreat. If I were not retreating via Zoom because of COVID-19, I would not have the option. I would have a room mate and I would be awake and watching the mind movements. I am awake. And I am watching the mind movements. And my fingers are on the keyboard.
This week I have been doing seva (service) by transcribing audio for our teacher, Barbara Brodsky. Most of you know that Barbara is deaf. Because she is channeling the teachings, she “hears” what was taught only after someone listens to the voice memos and sends her a document. I have been doing that for her almost real time. This, along with Barbara’s releasing the raw audios to the students, is a huge change.
The catalyst of these changes is COVID, but, the benefit of the changes is trust.
Last night’s evening talk, a summary of this group’s two-year commitment to the Dharma Path, began with the question, “What is the Dharma Path?”
First, is the truth of duhkha, a Sanskrit word usually thought to mean suffering. The clearest meaning is a wheel that is off center causing the vehicle (car or cart) to lurch. Lurching makes the ride very uncomfortable, further amplified by our expectation that the ride should be smooth.
Human beings can get off center and lurch. Suffering because we have aversion to the lurching, we grasp for the expectation and desire for no lurching.
COVID-19 has amplified the lurching, and the aversion and grasping. Lots of duhkha…. but there is a path out.
Earlier in the retreat, we were to answer the questions, “In this moment, what is the hardest thing for me to hold in love? What seems to sit outside of the heart?” I wrote down one word: IGNORANCE. A saying that represents ignorance is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Wasted effort. Squandered resources. Denial. Refusal to look with the eyes of love.
A couple of evenings ago watching two juvenile birds at the bird bath inspired a poem:
I AM That
The juvenile bluebird
standing stiffly
in the center of the bird bath
The young starling
watching in amazement
before jumping in and splashing exuberantly
As much as saying
“Here, I’ll show you
so you can enjoy it too”
Exiting the bath
Making space for the willing-to-learn
“I-can-do-that-too!”
Bluebird to follow suit
Again and again
We teach and we learn
We center our wheel by holding clearly in view several highest intentions for our lives. I wrote: I serve those who serve. I assist humanity to transcend seeming limitations and move out of delusion and awaken to our true power to bless all.
Lofty aspirations, for sure, but we are not alone in these endeavors. The creator of worlds is here offering us support. We are often like that juvenile bluebird, standing stiffly in our human form, ignorant of the amazing joy available to us.
There will always be pain. The conditions around the pandemic, racial inequality, violence, desperation, despair — lurching, lurching, lurching.
As Chris McCall sang “Here I am Lord” for us I was crying like a baby. Many of us were. Humanity is tired of the uncomfortable lurching. “I will go, Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.”
If a juvenile bluebird and a juvenile starling can do it, so can we. We are not just humans. We are also divine.
One of the closing lines in last night’s dharma talk: “Ahhhh, I see we have passed through the darkness….”
As you speak, so you see
As you see, so you share
As you share, so you become
I am on retreat, and am living the spirit of the law (rather than the letter of the law) by writing a blog post. This intensive / retreat is the culmination of a two-year “Path of Clear Light” study with Barbara Brodsky and Aaron (and a cast of other enlightened teachers). The past semester has been working with sacred darkness. Groundwork is now being laid for a third year: Co-creating with Spirit. This focus is how we move from being in tension to the intention to invite and allow support. Namely this: How do we INVITE the world as we want it to be? How do we INVITE the expression of the self as we wish it to be?
We were led on a guided meditation and then instructed to take paper and crayons or markers or colored pencils and draw this sacred wish for our being in the world. Most of us in my small group commented on our unskilled artistic abilities. There was no lack of skill in the articulation of our sacred wishes….
I did a doodle process where you place a writing instrument on the page, close your eyes and move it around until guided to stop. Open your eyes and turn the page different directions until you see something come into view. The rules are you can embellish or not, add or not, highlight or not. I like those rules.
After I had completed my drawing, I wrote these notes in my journal: I know I take human form in the world as it is. The big shift is instant manifestation. I see people able to transport via thought, create via thought, destroy via thought. Suddenly, I get a jolt of fear — not trusting human ability to manifest from love and wisdom. I choose the intention to invite and allow release of this fear and I hear, “This is the way.”
The words on my drawing that are featured in the top center of this post were written with my nondominant hand. The words on the right side of the drawing were not.
I am the world around me.
What you give birth to has it’s own independence and free will. (Aaron had said this, but including this one might be influenced by learning that I am going to be a great-grandma.)
Everyone has a double and a mirror opposite. Find yourself.
Life expression is joyous.
In my doodle, I included a small section of a process called Zentangle which I learned from Carol Myers. Those words are: I AM LOVE.
Yesterday and today I have thought of the title of the book “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations of Voice” by Terry Tempest Williams. Her mother bequeathed Terry all of her journals, with the promise not to open them until after she had passed. Three shelves of journals were blank….
I opened email this morning to the BK Thought for Today:
No Complaining Zone
If you approach life complaining about what’s missing then you’ll be dissatisfied. Satisfaction comes from knowing things can always be improved but at the same time appreciating what is right in your life right now.
And Aaron’s Daily Quote:
When you say, ‘Thy will be done,’ you’re not saying, ‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ you’re saying, ‘I obey this sacred sound within me, this sacred wisdom and clarity and love. I will listen for that and no matter how quiet it is and no matter how loud ego’s voice is, I will keep coming back to that sacred vibration within the heart. That is the will I will follow and not the voice of the ego.’
Perhaps this new world is simply the sacred vibration of love and clarity in a no complaining zone….
I sincerely hope there is not a limit on the frequency of blog posts, as my process is being jarred profoundly by EVERYTHING.
This morning I saw Facebook photos of Stacey (my daughter) and her friend on the pontoon boat on Sunday. Beautiful smiling faces, cheek-to-cheek, looking into the camera: I instantly became aware of the contractions. I am currently writing my July Beyond Mastery Newsletter article for July on the theme of maskers and nonmaskers, placed alongside the story of the Sneetches, by Dr. Seuss.
Further amplifying my inner uneasiness was the reading this morning of poems by two of my Florida poet/friends: “A Disheartened Heart” by Gail Berreitter, and “Second Sight” by Helen Fox. Please understand, these poems are both excellent writings, but they hit too deeply at the core. Slipping in beside the dystopian sentiment expressed in the poems was my confusingly constant companion question about Stacey: How does she arrive at the conclusion that it is OK to expose folks?
Underneath that question is the pain: Less and less do I feel it possible to be with her.
More and more I hold sadness around all of that.
My friend, Jane Foster, so high risk, speaking of meeting for lunch sooner rather than later. (Our “bat cave” favorite restaurant was opening yesterday.)
I write all of this in my journal, then ask my inner being, “Where is the core of fear I feel?”
V: Are you sure it is fear? Are you afraid to die? Are you afraid to be dead? If it were not fear, what might it be?
D: It is a deep sense of sadness. Like the core loneliness of having felt misunderstood much of my life.
V: We know you just bumped into your mother’s social phobia. The world cannot get small enough for you to live without risk. To live a human life is the risk! But, what is at risk? Only a false identity is at risk. Who would you be without that false identity?
D: Free?
V: Free from what? Free for what?
(Note – at this point, I felt guided to turn to the Mala Recitation / Daily Recollection Barbara Brodsky put together, and I am drawn to these beads:
Bead 56: For one who clings, motion exists; but for one who clings not, there is no motion.
Bead 63: Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me nor mine.
Bead 64: When wholesome thoughts arise, cultivate the wholesome. When unwholesome thoughts arise, abandon the unwholesome.
Bead 65: This is the way to purify the mind and remove the clouds that obscure the vision of ultimate reality.
Bead 70: All dhammas are empty.
Bead 71: They are not born nor annihilated.
The closing two lines from Gail’s poem:
No melody or thought
for a disheartened heart.
The closing two lines from Helen’s poem:
“What have we learned from this crisis?”
There were no definitive answers
Out riding my bike earlier, I would notice the repetitive fearful thoughts and just keep repeating Bead 64: When wholesome thoughts arise, cultivate the wholesome. When unwholesome thoughts arise, abandon the unwholesome.
This early morning is so quiet…. in the stillness of this moment I am feeling the dawn and I am keenly aware of the possibilities alive in this moment.
A melody awakened in my mind as I sat, and I let the stillness be enhanced by listening to a song I know well, by an artist I have personally met. “In the Stillness” is from the album Let it Shine, by Karen Drucker.
Two months ago today, I arrived home in Michigan from wintering in Florida. (See Nothing is Not the Divine.)
We began safe-sheltering in Florida on March 15, and we have continued to safe-shelter since our arrival in Michigan.
But things are starting to open up. When I ride my bike, the quiet is again more intruded upon by cars whizzing by.
How do we take the benefits from this “retreat” time as our lives move outward into the world again? How do/will I? How do/will you?
Deborah King, author of Be Your Own Shaman, and Heal Yourself and the World sent out a message about the June (05-06) 2020 full moon, which is also a lunar eclipse.
[T]here is an opening to bring the unconscious to the conscious level for healing and transformation.
And this full moon combined with the lunar eclipse has this depth tenfold…
In Vedic astrology, eclipses herald change. Combine that with Mars’s energy for making something happen, and Neptune’s energy for oneness, and we have a recipe for people gathering to create necessary change that’s long overdue.
People gathering…. Oneness…. Healing and transformation.
I was one of the first individuals in my world to choose to safe-shelter. I may be one of the last to choose to gather. It is certainly my intention to choose wholesome actions for the good of all.
Today, I will reflect on some of the gifts this time has brought forth. I have certainly made more home-cooked meals. I have not packed a travel bag since December 1, 2019 — the day John and Stacey and I left Tennessee and made the drive to Pine Island. This from a person who had spent most every Wednesday driving the 50 miles to Kalamazoo. I was seeing clients at Kalamazoo Psychology, various other offices, then at Borgess Integrative Medicine. Each week I would stay overnight in Parkview Hills. Over 20 years of co-writing and collaborative working.
The furnishings of the office here in Saint Joseph are currently boxed up, and everything has been moved to the new location. Touch therapies are scheduled to be allowed to open again on June 15.
Choices, choices, choices….
I have certainly done a lot of meditation and I have certainly practiced patience. I have ordered things I wanted/needed online. I have become acutely aware of the difference between wants and needs. I have been content to make do with what I have. I have been content and known how blessed I truly am, in the stillness of this moment. Groceries have come once a week or so, ordered on Instacart, and delivered to our door by good friends, Linda and Larry.
Linda told me last evening that she is going to start going to the store again. She has offered to continue to shop for us if we choose. That is so kind.
Not shopping is my current choice.
Linda said she likes shopping, and she has been out for a few things the past couple of weeks and has appreciated seeing for herself the appropriate precautions that are in place. She feels it is time for them to start generating a more involved living — of course, with continued wearing of masks and social-distancing.
Always we are making choices.
Today, let’s make the choices that create necessary change that’s long overdue….
What do you see? When you look at the world, what do you see? This is not a frivolous question, and it may be one of the most vital choices you make for yourself and our world.
This morning the Buddhist group that gathered for meditation via ZOOM spoke of the violence that had erupted in Minnesota, and spread from there. One couple shared information indicating the violence likely was done by an international trouble-making group that uses social media to organize. Most (maybe all) of those protesting were genuinely peaceful.
We, of a certain age, remember all too well the racial tensions from fifty years ago, and many were involved in working toward justice and harmony. What I found almost as disturbing as the news of the violence and destruction was the expressed emotions of helplessness and discouragement and sadness generated by watching the new reporting. If my Dharma brothers and sisters who are committed to lovingkindness and equanimity can lose touch with their light within, what about those who have not practiced access to a balanced world view?
Last evening, while some were watching the distressing news, John and I were watching the season premier of America’s Got Talent. AGT is not a show I normally watch, but, a friend had been persistent in encouraging me to watch it. I had actually turned it on the night before when I crawled into bed, and I watched a couple who train pigs to do acts like you normally see dogs do in the circus. I fell asleep. I told Linda, but Linda is a friend who knows me well. She simply said again, “It was one of the best we have seen, and I think you will be glad you saw it.”
Two of the acts I watched show an amazing world view. The first was Archie Williams—a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape. Archie was arrested in 1982, and imprisoned in a Louisiana prison the following year. Archie spent 37 years in prison for a crime he knew he did not commit. Finally, forensic evidence proved he was innocent, and he was released in 2019. You owe it to yourself to search for and watch the entire nine-minute version of Archie’s singing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.” Archie told AGT, “My body was in prison, but my mind was not…. Prayer and singing got me through.”
A person can sometimes let a mind be in prison even though a body is not.
The final America’s Got Talent act was “Voices of Our City Choir” which was founded in 2016 by San Diego resident. While living downtown San Diego, Steph Johnson, a jazz singer-guitarist, met a lot of talented musicians—people living in shelters and on the street. Today her nonprofit operates several music and advocacy programs, has a choir of over 225 people, and distributes approximately 7,000 pounds of food per week! The group wrote the number it performed on AGT: “Sounds of the Sidewalk.” Another nine-minute video, as my friend said, that is definitely worth watching….
Tomorrow is the first day of June. I am excited to look at the Magic Eye calendar image for the new month. (See Our True Nature.) My sister, Janis, and I are both excited. Regardless of the news, we get to turn over a new page. We will meet over some device and we will together see what beauty is hidden in plain sight, depending (of course) on your world view….
This morning, like almost every other morning since the middle of March, I enjoyed practicing yoga with my dear friend, Kathy. Right now, we are meeting via ZOOM, and recording the videos for her YMCA classes. It does not appear likely that our (mostly senior) students are going to be Studio B any time soon.
Amelia Vogler, Executive Director of HTPA (Healing Touch Professional Association), sent the membership an email message today which included a link to “When Life Is Good Again” which was premiered exclusively on Entertainment Weekly on the 27th of May, 2020.
Dolly Parton was inspired by the COVID-19 quarantine. She told People of the quarantine in April of 2020, “We will come out on the other side of this, and we’re all going to be better people for it. Take care of each other from afar and continue to send love to your friends, family, and everyone suffering.”
I resist grasping at social-distancing being necessary for so long that it no longer feels odd. I resist clinging to the ease of hugging those I want to hug when I want to hug them, meeting for hours of sharing over tea, having a house filled with musicians, and doing jigsaw puzzles with friends.
Dolly’s last stanza says is all:
God’s the reason for all things
You want rainbows, you get rain
We’ll all be forever changed (Forever changed)
I’ll sell my boat and fly my kite
Walk in the park, go out at night
And hold my loved ones extra tight
When everything is on the mend
I’ll even drink with my old friends
Sing and play my mandolin
We’ll make it through this long dark night
Darkness fades when faced with light
But everything’s gonna be alright
When life is good again
The next email message I opened was Alan Seale’s weekly newsletter, also dated May 27, 2020. Forwarded by my friend, Roann Altman, moving home today after having spent these past couple of months quarantined with a friend with cancer. Roann’s friend, Richard, transitioned this week. In the newsletter, Alan quotes Etty Hillesum, a Jewish diarist who lived in Amsterdam and died in Auschwitz in 1943.
Through me course wide rivers
and in me rise tall mountains.
And beyond the thickets
of my agitation and confusion
there stretch the wide plains of my
peace and surrender.
All landscapes are within me.
And there is room for everything.
Yes, there is room for everythingin your heart at this time….
This week is the anniversary of my mom’s transition. May 20 is also the date Ursel, the former owner of our home, passed, as well as the date Ursel purchased the home 33 years earlier. Both Ursel and my mom had their funeral/celebration of life on May 23. (See the Sacred Story: May 20).
My mom passed in 2003. That was also Memorial Day weekend. No picnics, no parties, no plans this year.
I am choosing to find ways to enjoy the moments.
The leaves have come out this week! Scrumptius spring greens are silouetted against the sky.
I continue to wear a mask when I go for a bike ride. I do not feel a need for a mask when I am out-of-doors doing activities on my own, but it is an important reminder.
Yesterday I made some more no-sew masks, as it looks like social-distancing and safe-sheltering is going to be with us for a while longer. Let me know if you want a couple of easy patterns. One is made from a sock, and another is made from a sleeve. Stretchy fabrics are preferred….
One of my mask-enhancements (inspired by a Dharma friend) is a photo of my smile! It is a black and white printer-quality paper print that I colored with crayons. Quickest teeth-whitening ever! I used clear packing tape to cover both sides and to adhere it to my sock mask.
Ageless in this Moment Debra Basham May 22, 2020 (WC 250)
Hiking in the western US for the first time we were
stepping on rock beneath our feet instead of soil
nothing seemed familiar except the sun overhead
A small pool of water caught the sun’s light
and I kneeled down to take a closer look
myriad life forms were swimming together
Precious life-giving water is at a premium here
nature taking full advantage of resources
as they present themselves
This modest puddle is teeming with activity
but I feel like a voyeur as
I silently watch closely in awe
Tiny minnow-like swimmers
unnamed bugs skating on the water’s smooth surface
a small lizard lounging
In the distance I hear others approaching
I notice a sudden feeling of protectiveness
hoping those coming along will also be mindful
A young girl—perhaps six or seven
wordlessly asks permission to join me
we peer together into this pool of possibility
We both have a zillion questions but
only our eyes give hint to the intellectual activity
our lips remain still as we keep vigil
She is motioned to rejoin the others
reluctantly she leaves our shared perch
glancing over her shoulder as she obeys
Many times I’ve abandoned my delight
when beckoned by some outer call
wishing I had been able to stay where I was enjoying myself
I am no longer I but she and all children and adults who can remain ageless in this moment in time and space if we take full advantage of the resources as they present themselves
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