By Debra Basham, on April 20, 2017 Untitled
by Ryōkan
It is not that
I avoid mixing
with the world;
but I do better
playing alone.
This poem was excerpted from Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryōkan (page 2). It was translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi.
What I found most fascinating about Ryōkan (1758-1831) is not that he lived much of his life as a hermit and a beggar, or that in spite of never heading a temple or monastery, he is considered one of the three giants of Zen, and has become one of the most popular poets in Japanese history.
Something inside me was moved by his words because I understand them. Some days you’d like to tell your boss off, yell at your beloved, or run away from it all. That’s when you have to take a breath and remember what you truly want.
Because April is National Poetry Month, our Pine Island Poetry Meet has no specific assignment for 27 April. We are inviting our muse to have fun. As a tribute to my knowing I am the only barrier to my own happiness, I am sharing “Laid to Rest,” an Insult Poem.
NOTE: AN INSULT POEM OFFERS A WAY FOR THE POET TO EXPRESS ANGER WITHOUT ENGAGING IN A TOTAL SNARK FEST; THE MAIN HALLMARKS OF AN INSULT POEM ARE HUMOR AND EXAGGERATION. INSULT POEMS DO NOT GENERALLY DEAL IN UNIVERSAL THEMES—THEY ARE PERSONAL AND ARE DIRECTED TO A SPECIFIC PERSON OR GROUP. HOWEVER, THESE POEMS ARE ARTISTIC IN THAT THEY EMPHASIZE THE POET’S VERBAL SUPERIORITY WITH WORDS (AS OPPOSED TO DOWN AND DIRTY FIGHTING AND NAME-CALLING).
Laid to Rest
You think you’re so smart
You think you’re so wise
The truth is your blindness
Can be seen in your eyes
You hide behind intellect
Totally failing to feel
Cast your net of blame
Miss the chance to be real
You open your mouth
And close down your heart
You wax eloquently on
Playing your part
Someday maybe
you’ll see
Beauty so near
lurking in me
But whatever may come
As the years pass us by
Too swiftly for most
Gone in the wink of an eye
For now I forgive me
for not giving you
the space to be
the freedom to do
Our past is now gone
a shadow at best
too soon, my dear friend
we’ll both be laid to rest
Debra Basham 3-21-2017
I recall the day I stood in my kitchen and spat out an announcement: “I wish I could just run away!”
My husband looked straight ahead and calmly replied, “What keeps you from doing that?”
Tears filled my eyes and spilled out onto my cheeks. “I cannot think of anywhere I can go that I will not be there.”
I loved reading that as an old man Ryōkan fell in love with a young Zen nun. She became his student and the poems of his later period are influenced by his affection for her.
I’m glad he recognized there is something better than playing alone. I am glad he chose love and affection….
By Debra Basham, on April 12, 2017 
Would anyone recognize the importance of these treasures? Without my providing a guided tour, might they just look like useless items delinquent on the trip to the trash?
Might my sweet spirit whisper to anyone who was willing to listen how significant each really is?
The round tuit—such a valuable reminder!
A simple wooden acorn that allowed me to recognize my spiritual calling to healing work.
NONME stamped right into the material by the manufacturer of a piece of PVC pipe, found in the garden at a Sangha silent meditation retreat on no-self.
The shaman’s medicine bundle from the back-yard blessing provided by a beloved Carmelite Sister.
Yet, even right now I realize these items themselves are of no significant value.
I welcome awareness and learning slipping into an ease of being much like pulling on your favorite pair of slippers…
By Debra Basham, on March 31, 2017 It was 1:53 AM when he got up to pee. Faint shadows from the streetlight danced lazily on the wall. It had been almost midnight when she got to sleep, but she forced her eyes to open sufficiently and adjust to the darkness. He expected it, and she predictably said, “It is 2 o’clock. We might as well get up and get on the road.”
They never think of themselves as leaving their winter paradise. Nor do they think of themselves as going home. They think of themselves as going to see the kids.
Two days ago a good friend died. He probably didn’t think about himself as leaving or as going home either. I can imagine him thinking of himself as going to see the dogs.
Traffic was pleasantly light, obviously one of the benefits of their 3 AM departure. More than a few vehicles passed, bicycles obediently following behind. Ontario license plates. Wisconsin license plates. Michigan license plates. A few Florida license plates, but mostly snowbirds driving north.
A snowbird is a person who moves from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada and migrates southward in winter to warmer locales. Snowbirds think they have the best of both worlds…
While nonsnowbird friends, family members, and colleagues scrape ice from the windshield, shovel snow from the drive, and brace against the cold wind, snowbirds ride bikes, play shuffleboard, watch Eagle chicks grow and fledge, play music, and go out to eat dinner at five o’clock in the afternoon.
Some snowbirds write poetry.
From a source of poets and writers poetry prompts “Creative Guidance for Writing Poems and Experimenting with Forms” comes a great exercise:
If you’re having trouble starting a poem, begin at the end. Take a single collection of poems and make a list of the last two words from each poem. Then write your own poem using only these words. Be vigilant at first utilizing just the vocabulary from the list. After a couple of drafts, stray from the limited words to help bring the poem to its full realization.
Here are two words from a collection of 9 poems by Mary Oliver:
could save
something better
of things
a star
to pray
your life
morning light
the universe
of dust
This poem, written on 3/3/2016, is dedicated to Joseph, now reunited with his beloved dog,Tramp.
Of Dust—Version One
Your life, of dust; of things?
Something better?
To pray…
Could save the universe; morning light, a star.
A Star—Version Two
Longing for something better
Pray to the universe—celebrate a star—dance in the morning light
These are some of the things worthy of longing for
Turning longing into loving could save your life
From dust we come, and to dust we return. Farewell, Joseph, we celebrate a star! Enjoy your reunion.
By Debra Basham, on March 26, 2017 Every day I hear about somebody having surgery. Some of those surgeries are major, some are minor. I understand the definition of “minor” surgery as something someone else is having….
Almost every day I hear about the death of someone I know, someone I love, someone I’ll miss. So much dying.
This too shall pass. Living with impermanence is at once both gratifying and terrifying.
Imagine standing on the seashore. As you watch the waves roll in and break, what has rolled in? What have you seen break? Are not the waves continually a part of the ocean?
My friend, Rabbi Rami Shapiro asks what happens to an ice cube when it melts in a glass of water—he says dying is like that.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (the famous “Death and Dying” lady). Elisabeth had suffered 19 or more strokes and was completely paralyzed on one side, yet she continued to live alone.
Author Melody Beattie came to her home and did an interview at bedside. Melody asked Elisabeth if she really believed in life after death. Wasn’t she the least little bit afraid?
Elisabeth laughed. “Didn’t you read my book, dear?” she said. “It’s not about believing. I know there’s life after death. Dying is the easy part. It’s life that’s hard.”
Melody leaned over and whispered in Elisabeth’s ear, “Thank you. And have a safe trip home.”
Rabbi Rami says that life is like a giant rope, and we are all connected to one another before birth, during life, and in our life-after-death. Rami says birth is like the tying of a knot in the rope. Dying is like the untying of that knot.
This is my farewell writing for this winter’s season. Thursday morning I’ll be heading north with many other snowbirds.
May we each have a safe trip home….
Debra Basham 3/21/2017
WC 301
By Debra Basham, on March 16, 2017 “Oh, Daddy, she is not going to stop!” I screamed.
Squealing tires, honking horns, then mangled metal and shattered glass gave way to twisted bodies and altered minds.
It took a few moments for me to realize my own flesh was garishly peeled back, dangling down over both of my eyes, preventing me from seeing my father’s feet in the floorboard of the car. Preventing me from seeing anything.
It was August 12, 1962. I was twelve, going on twenty.
“Daddy! Daddy! Are you OK, Daddy!?!” I called out.
Silence hung in the air.
Then suddenly, from somewhere, hands pressed against my forehead. I remember blurting out my name and telephone number—along with the name and phone number of the pastor of the little country church I attended each Sunday morning.
Those skillful hands pressing firmly against my scrambled tissue, slowing the bleeding, were the hands of a nurse, a woman who lived in the house at the exact location of the accident. A nurse who had just arrived home from work when she heard the crash. A nurse whose sweet voice reassured me over and over again, “Your daddy is OK. You are OK, too.”
Sirens in the distance became deafening as they bared down on that intersection… “Please make them stop!” I cried.
Almost two decades would slip by before I would read about death and dying, the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. Better-late-than-never comprehension of my first out-of-body experience. All I knew that day was a total lack of pain, a lovely sensation of floating above my body, looking down, watching hands meticulously sewing dozens of stitches in my forehead.
But, I would not understand then (and perhaps not fully even now) how much my world view was changed the day that drunk driver stopped in the middle of the intersection at M-140 and Territorial Road.
My body was in a hospital room in traction when I came to. I had no knowledge of having been transferred to this hospital after the stitches, no awareness of having surgery to set my hip that had been dislocated at my pelvic bone.
Two weeks later I would go home. My father’s broken ribs would heal. My scars would always be hidden by bangs.
At the surface, my life seemed unchanged.
I got really good on the crutches. Living right next door to the school, carrying my books and my lunch, I could get across the lawn and be the first in line when the bell rang.
When did the dreams begin? Was it before or after I read about near-death awareness?
It is difficult to say when the dreams began, but they did not just happen when I was sleeping in bed at night.
Bright light.
Warmth.
Profound love.
Was I the nurse, or was I the patient? Was I the drunk-driver or the young girl tossed like a beach ball into the windshield?
When did the premonitions begin?
It is difficult to say when the premonitions began, but they did not just happen when I was sleeping in bed at night.
Bright light.
Warmth.
Profound love.
By Debra Basham, on March 9, 2017 My grandson, Brad, and his wife, Christina, spent five wonderFULL days with us on Pine Island. Brad had been working for Charter Media in Murfreesboro (Tennessee) since earning his Master’s Degree three years ago. Recently, though, he declined a large promotion with Charter that would have meant their move to North Carolina. It was not the move itself that was a deciding factor, it was the corporate lifestyle that demands you live to work rather than work to live.
They called their visit “Retirement Training.” He decided the reason they call it retirement is that first you are tired because you are working so hard, then you are retired because you are playing so hard.
They rode bikes, went kayaking with dolphins, watched manatee in the canal, took a pleasure boat ride to lunch at Fort Myers beach, grilled fresh shrimp, participated in music on the island, played shuffleboard, and went to dinner at early-bird schedules. In the early morning, and late in the evening, Brad would work remote as a consultant in data management. It was way beyond great.
After they left, I participated in a World Tapping Summit talk on gratitude with Carol Look. I loved her words, “Expressing gratitude is like planting seeds; many good things will come from it.” She stressed the importance one not do it because you will get something. Do it because it feels good.
But what about those times when it is difficult to catch a whiff of gratitude? The darkest of the dark days? Especially then, it is important to start where you are and cast a net of well-being with the WHAT IF frame: “Even though thus and so, what if there could be a solution I don’t yet know about.”
I also appreciated learning the importance of tapping thank you to the universe or god or whomever/whatever you conceive: “Thank you for brining me a solution to thus and so.”
Finally, Carol says you will benefit by moving through the points just expressing anything and everything you are grateful for. “Nature, family, friends, sunshine, dolphins, manatees, health, freedom, kindness, flowers, trees, birds, bicycles.”
Today, I am tapping thank you for Brad and Christina having been able to visit, and for the wisdom they have at 27 years-old to avoid clamping on golden handcuffs.
(If you are new to it, here is a short instructional video and introduction to EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), commonly called just “tapping” with Jessica Ortner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAclBdj20ZU)
By Debra Basham, on March 2, 2017 Have you ever seen any of those 3D “magic eye” images? You have to hold the image close to your nose, look through it so it is blurry, and maintain your gaze as you slowly move the image away from you. As your eyes relax, your focus changes, and you can see amazingly beautiful things. This image contains two giraffes.
Just like those hidden images, you have undoubtedly been able to see the way an unusual event will bring something else into view. Like seeing not one, not two, but three gopher tortoises one day during a bike ride. Or catching not one, not two, but three stingrays one day fishing off the dock.
The odd thing about catching the rays while fishing off the dock is that the people right next door who have fished from the dock for years have never ever caught one stingray here. Let alone three in one day.
So, I looked up the symbolism of stingray.
Stingrays represent your emotions and how you may be hiding them from others. If it’s calm, stingray suggests maneuvering a challenge in your life with ease and grace. If the ray is aggressive; it means you may be reacting to your emotions, rather than using careful deliberation in your approach, which could be costly.
Oh, my goodness. The first and largest of the three rays fought very hard. For the longest time. Taking the line way out. Darting away from the dock. Digging down in the mud. This first and largest one was about the size of a garbage can lid. In case you are wondering, the ray was able to be safely released.
The guy who managed to wrestle with and land that big old ray on an ultralight rod and reel currently has two younger brothers navigating cancer treatment. One of his brothers was having his right kidney removed at that time! Another of his brothers has been dealing with the side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy treatment for lung cancer. His platelet count was too low for him to receive chemo at that time! While the fisherman has been snow-birding in Florida this winter, he has begun saying he is bored with being here and thinks he might go home early.
Stingrays may be telling you to not overreact to your emotions, to calm down and wait before reacting. Stingrays maneuver themselves quite well despite their size and shape and they tell us to also carefully maneuver the complex emotional waters of our inner world.
This week, I am participating in the World Tapping Summit. I especially enjoyed the interview with Dr. Paul Sheele, “Feeling Abundant: Attract More Wealth and Prosperity Into Your Life!”. Sheele made the distinction between abundance and prosperity. The universe is abundant. Prosperity is the degree to which we are aware of and participating in the true state of the universe.
I am thinking about all of this in relationship to catching the rays, and those magic eye photos. I am going to think about it this way: well-being (like abundance) is there even while going through all those challenges, hidden right there just out of view.
By Debra Basham, on February 24, 2017 So many sweet friends and family members are going through major STUFF right now. One of the dynamics is how stuff comes out of the blue.
That reminds me of the Captain Ron movie. Kurt Russell, who plays Captain Ron, says, “It’s just a little squall. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast.” Hear this message in a gravely, pirate-style, voice and you will get the picture.
I enjoyed my daughter, Stacey, belting that out several times while we were at Cayo Costa. We went for a beach day. It was sunny when we got dropped off at the dock, and sunny when we started walking along the beach on a shelling adventure.
Off in the distance was an amazing cloud formation—what at home we call a “front”.
As we shelled, that front drifted right over our heads. Before we got back to where we had left our chairs and cooler, the sky overhead was very dark, the wind was quite cool, and the mist that was blowing our way was definitely more than sea spray.
This week, a good friend ended up in ER with chest discomfort and high blood pressure. Her heart checked out fine, but they spotted two lung nodules. She will be having a lung biopsy.
Captain Ron’s words popped into my mind. “It’s just a little squall. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast.”
Over the years, I have been privileged to witness so many folks weather storms in their lives.
From Presence, Kindness, and Freedom: Aaron’s Teachings on Living from an Open Heart by Barbara Brodsky:
Certainly, there are issues that need to be resolved, but you can relate to them in loving ways. First, know that there are no problems, only situations that ask for your loving attention. If you are willing to risk being undefended in a place of pain, as you open your hearts to these difficulties, then there is no “problem,” which implies a negative experience, only a situation that asks for attention. (p. 37)
I am enjoying a poetry group. The group leader, Gail Berreitter shares different poetry forms. The current assignment, Found poems, take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.
A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.
As a sort of poetic prayer for loved ones, I took that quotation from Presence, Kindness, and Freedom, and I created a Found poem.
No Problems
by Debra Basham 2/24/2017
Certainly (3)
there are issues (4)
that need to be resolved (5)
you can relate to them in loving ways. (10)
First, know that (3)
there aren’t problems (4)
just situations (5)
asking us for our loving attention. (10)
If you are (3)
willing to risk, (4)
be undefended (5)
in a place of pain and with open hearts (10)
to these (3)
difficulties (4)
there is no “problem“ (5)
nothing negative, just a call for love. (10)
After that squall, the sun came back out. We had a marvelous day.
May all beings relate to the issues that need to be resolved in loving ways. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast.
By Debra Basham, on February 12, 2017 Where has the month of February gone? I know one week of it was spent with a friend who was going through a painful time. Without sharing personal details, suffice it to say, it is easy for some people to pretend they are something they are not.
What did “he” think? For sure, he knew he was making promises he would not keep.
This image (from the Brahma Kumaris’ Thought for Today) was accompanied by these words:
Just because you are right,
does not mean I am wrong.
You just haven’t seen it from my side.
From her side, she was honest, open, vulnerable.
One thing I can say for sure: She did not lose anything by being authentic, but it is very likely that he lost a lot by not being…
By Debra Basham, on January 31, 2017 Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked,
remain brave and strong.
HILDEGARD VON BINGEN
At no time more than right now, remaining brave and strong is an important reminder. It seems there are more than the usual things to be distressed or discouraged about. In our personal lives, in our communities, in our nation, on our planet.
I loved this image when I saw it on someone’s Facebook page:
Observing the way we look is vital. Recently, I awoke from a dream in which a teacher was telling me some day we would not tell people what to think, we would teach them how to think. This is certainly what my life with Subtle Communication Systems (SCS/NLP) is all about.
Along these lines, I was deeply moved by this excerpt from Chögyam Trungpa’s The Heart of the Buddha: Entering the Tibetan Buddhist Path (page 126). Chögyam Trungpa was a Buddhist meditation master.
The simultaneous experience of confusion and sanity, or being asleep and awake, is the realization of coemergent wisdom. Any occurrence in one’s state of mind—any thought, feeling, or emotion—is both black and white. It is both a statement of confusion and a message of enlightened mind.
How do you look? Are you aware? May all beings awaken their enlightened mind. It is within every one of us.
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