By Debra Basham, on February 12, 2024 It has possibly been the longest ever period between posts for the Yellow Brick Road…. and I cannot say what has kept my fingers off the keyboard, but this Snow Bird before doing anything else this morning has to write about having seen a rare bird.
The significance of this bird began many years ago, but came to full bloom on Friday, and was confirmed on Saturday. Perhaps all of life is like a pregnancy in that way: Between conception and delivery, there are many detailed steps that have to occur. There are three stages of fetal development: germinal, embryonic and fetal. Most people don’t talk about their pregnancy in these terms, but it can be helpful to know.(Cleveland Clinic)
I was riding my bike to a weekly thrift sale at Christ Community Church, here in Punta Gorda, on Friday, February 9, 2024, when I spotted a bird I could not identify. Not only could I not identify this bird, I knew beyond a doubt this was a species of bird I had never previously seen here, nor in Michigan, nor in Tennessee or anywhere else in the world I have ever been. As I stopped riding, parked my bike along the road, took out my phone and started walking that way, the bird flew up onto a utility pole. I snapped several photos but I was far away and the bird did not pose!
The bird was bright blue, close to the blue of an Eastern Bluebird, but much larger, about the size (and similar to the shape) of a Blue Jay. Definitely not like the Blue Jay markings or head.
At home that afternoon I began searching the internet and the fit that kept coming up was the Florida Scrub Jay. This bird is noteworthy on several counts. It’s the state’s only endemic bird, which means the Florida Scrub Jay is found nowhere else. It was listed as a threatened federal species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1987 and is protected by the Federal Endangered Species Act. I knew about this bird because of two dear Michigan friends who were avid birders. He died in 2008, and here is their Florida Scrub Jay Sacred Story:
Florida Scrub Jay
Published by Debra Basham in Sacred Stories in February 2023
She and her husband were avid birders. They loved traveling with a group, often going distant places in search of specific birds. One such sought-after species was the Florida Scrub Jay.
According to Wikipedia, the Florida Scrub Jay is the only species of bird endemic to Florida and one of only 15 species endemic to the continental United States. Because of this, it is keenly sought by birders. She and her husband had made this trip previously with their group, but the Scrub Jay had eluded them each trip.
After he passed, she decided to go to Florida in search of the Florida Scrub Jay one more time. This time, while she was there, she would spread some of her husband’s ashes.
Although in Florida, there are no state laws or restrictions on where you can keep or scatter ashes, she wanted to do this privately. When she felt the time was right, she hung back from the group and discreetly scattered his ashes at her feet.
Suddenly the entire group swarmed her! The precious, previously-elusive, prized Florida Scrub Jay flew down immediately and began eating her husband’s ashes!!!
She laughed later with friends saying she wondered what parts of him were being enjoyed, but mostly she let her heart be held by this evidence of his loving presence….
I sent the photos I took to my wonderful birding expert, Hart Rufe, who is a Snow Bird himself. He could not see the bird well on his phone but Saturday morning he responded, “I looked at the photo of the Jay on the wire, and was able to blow it up. It does indeed look like it could well be a Florida Scrub Jay. If there was one in that area, there should be more, as they are birds that hang out in small flocks of four or five together, with one normally on lookout duty.”
I looked up the spiritual meaning of the Florida Scrub Jay. That seems beautifully timed for our world as well: The ability to find solutions when none present themselves obviously requires lateral thinking, creativity and a willingness to be innovative and pioneering. Scrub jay teaches and fosters this ability as a guide, its presence in your life suggests that the ability to problem-solve is strong in you at this time.
Sunday morning I rode back to that area again, and while I did not have another sighting, yet, I had tears of awe realizing the odds of my seeing that rare bird while riding my bike past there at 10 MPH…..
This Snow Bird was certainly blessed beyond words by seeing that beautiful and rare bird which also has such profound meaning related to my friends.
Note* February 16 is the birth date of my Michigan birding friend whose ashes were savored that day by the Florida Scrub Jay.
By Debra Basham, on January 16, 2024 To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. ~ Will Durant
From the book In God’s Care: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery: “The real root of our struggle to speak well of others is the pain we suffer because of our low self-esteem, and diminishing another person’s worth, unfortunately, gives us a moment of stolen satisfaction. But in reality, the illusion of elevating our own worth for that brief, hurtful moment dies quickly, and our remorse and shame linger on.”
Oh, boy…. life is in our faces right now. Weather is a challenge in so many places. We are grateful to be escaping the frigid temperatures and white-out-conditions at home while having copious amounts of liquid sunshine here in Southwest Florida.
Yesterday’s images from our beloved Pine Island show streets flooded. Of course, friends there are still navigating the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Widespread flooding and still more rain today. Note* This is a road, not a canal or river.
Perhaps all humans have P-T-S-D – probably thinking something’s dreadful.
As I was online this morning with a group that chats following a 45 minute meditation, I had to be very watchful as frustration, sadness and worry moved through my body. My thoughts were along the order of, “If these are some of my sisters and brothers who are most dedicated to being watchful about emotions and thoughts, do humans stand a chance to survive as a race?”
My thoughts and emotions come on the heals of a visit I had on Saturday. I knew as the visit came to an end I was not sharing a point of view with my hostess. The conversation in both of these experiences was centered on what was not working, what the speaker experienced as unfair or unkind. But isn’t wasting our soul’s energy through thoughts of annoyance and feelings of aggravation just more of the same?
Monday is my birthday and I am planning to share a birthday ritual with a dharma friend in Singapore whose birthday is three days later. We will be using some wonderful information pulled together and shared by Dr. Robert Waldon, from Reunion Living Ministries. Here is an excerpt from Robert’s “2024 – Justice and Balance.”
During this year, you will be faced with opportunities to become aware of any areas in your life where you are drawn off center and lose your focus. Rather than letting this awareness shut you down further, recognize that the gift of 2024 is the energy and support to change these patterns.
Remember that you cannot change an old pattern without first becoming aware of what it is and its impact on your life. Celebrate these awarenesses and use this energy to re-create your life and your world. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled too far from your own center with any project and don’t let self-doubt or doubts from others interfere with what you know is best.
Robert also mentions that the potential “pitfall” is provocation, asserting our point of view at the expense of others, coming across as authoritarian and controlling. He says best to be willing to stand up for a belief or cause and convince others by strength of conviction, not strength of force or control. And he reminds us that our true strength comes out in nonjudgmental simplicity.
He offers these affirmations:
“I am gentle and strong.”
“My greatest strength is my compassion and non-judgmental forgiveness, allowing what is truly right for all to freely make itself known.”
As this morning’s conversation continued to be expressions of what is seen as not working, what people don’t like, and what people express they fear is coming, I spoke up. I am not sure if I was gentle and strong but I do know our greatest strength is compassion and non-judgmental forgiveness.
A precious nugget that came from this morning was learning about Vidyamala Burch and her work around navigating pain. While she is primarily speaking about physical pain, she says the pain could be any kind of pain: physical, mental or emotional.
“The problem is mainly resistance…. Everything we do is about learning to soften resistance…. When we resist, we hold the breath.”
Burch has people do a brief exercise. Make a fist. Notice what happened to your breath. There is a strong tendency to hold our breath when our body is in resistance. She asks you to move your attention into the clenched fist and ask the fist what it would like to do. It wants to soften. To let go. To release the tension. Here is a talk/article Burch gave “How Do I Work With Anger?” that you might really appreciate. This is from her talk:
And we’ve all got an autonomic nervous system in our bodies. And the autonomic nervous system is outside our control and it’s got two wings. It’s got the sympathetic wing, which has to do with activation, activity and the parasympathetic wing, which has to do with calming. And the out-breath, if we let the out-breath go all the way out of the body, we’re immediately bringing online the parasympathetic wing, which is calming. And of course when we’re angry and agitated, we’ve got sympathetic overactivity with all the associated hormones.
We’ve got adrenaline, we’ve got cortisol. We feel hot. We feel worked up. We feel edgy. And, uh, as soon as we allow the out-breath to also be emphasized or to overemphasize the out-breath, to give the out-breath really full expression, we’re immediately bringing online the hormones of the parasympathetic system.
This is oxytocin, endorphins. These are calming hormones, they’re peaceful hormones. They’re good for us. And straight away, we feel a little bit better, a little bit less riled, less agitated, less adrenalized. So this is really important.
And it’s so simple, isn’t it?
Years ago my business partner shared something his former co-author had told him: WHETHER YOU GIVE OFFENSE OR TAKE OFFENSE ADDS THE SAME MISERY TO THE UNIVERSE.I think that is going to be my mantra for 2024 because whether I give offense or take offense adds the same physical, emotional, or mental pain. Whether I give offense or take offense it is my sympathetic nervous system which is activated and floods my physical body with adrenaline and cortisol.
And it’s so simple, isn’t it?
By Debra Basham, on January 1, 2024 And suddenly you know:
It’s time to start something new and
trust the magic of beginnings.
~ Meister Eckhart
Today is the first day of 2024.
Yesterday afternoon I went into a different area on my bike ride. I was only lost between 8.88 miles and 12.22 miles….
Suddenly I knew I had gotten turned around and did not know which way to go. I stopped and asked directions back to the main road. The man and woman were out in their driveway because they were checking on a Gopher Tortoise that was on their driveway. They were relieved to know it was just sleeping in the sunshine on the warm pavement. It has been somewhat cool here. In fact, it is 49 degrees right now.
“Is this the direction to Rampart Boulevard?” I asked.
The man pointed. “At the stop sign, make a right. Your next right will be Rampart,” he assured me.
I rode in that direction but when I got to the stop sign I knew right where I was, and I was somewhere I did not want to be — on a busy road with no shoulder.
So many people are right where they do not want to be. Dear Michigan friends here in Florida are very sick with violent intestinal symptoms (either flu or food poisoning); some dharma friends in North Carolina are sick with Covid when he was to be leading a New Years retreat; Stacey and Doug are sick in Tennessee with the respiratory bug that kept Jackson home from daycare all last week.
Part of the challenge was/is a long canal that ran between where I was and where I wanted to be. One gift in the adventure was my successful riding 15 miles just a few days earlier. It had been many, many years since I rode 15 miles, but yesterday I knew it was possible so I was persistent. Assessing my options at that stop sign, I decided to move ahead I needed to begin by retracting my steps. Even after finding a patch of shade where I could see Google Maps on my phone, I still took a few wrong turns and had to back track several times.
What a relief when I finally saw a memorable patio heater along the side of the road, left there for trash pickup. I absolutely knew I was back on the road that would take me home!(My phone was only on 7% power when I arrived home.)
My first hawk sighting here in Punta Gorda was a Red-shouldered Hawk in the neighbor’s yard. Over the next week or so I had several different sightings (one flying with live catch in its talons), a pair sitting side-by-side on the power line right along the sidewalk, a single also sitting facing me on another power line. I was not able to get photos for identification on any of those, but at the exact moment I was enjoying that feeling of relief knowing I was going the right way I saw another hawk. This time I was able to get a fairly decent photo. My beloved Florida birding guide (Hart – such a great name!) identified this one as a Cooper’s Hawk with my photo.
From Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews:
Part of the Role for the individual beside whom hawk flies is that of Guardian of the Earth Mother. These are individuals who will possess an astute awareness of the concept of the interconnectedness of all things, and will have an inner reverence for all life.
These are the souls that are involved in making the world a better place, whether locally or globally. They will be protectors of the Earth Mother and tread softly upon her, encouraging and educating others to do the same.
Often, they are either found initiating or actively involved in environmental causes, where their keen perception and insight will serve their chosen cause well. Yet it is their day to day existence and fundamental philosophy/foundation of action and belief, that distinguishes these individuals as true champions of Mother Earth as they seek to live in harmony with the ~Ina Maka~ and all that She births, provides, nurtures and sustains.
The ending of the opening quotation by Meister Eckhart begins with trust. Then it mentions magic. Finding the way home after realizing I was lost took a lot of beginnings.
And suddenly you know.
It’s time to start something new.
“Trust the magic of beginnings” is a great mantra for 2024….
By Debra Basham, on December 23, 2023 Light rain was tap dancing on the metal roof of the lanai as I sat in the darkness waiting for the sun to make its debut thinking about a dear friend of mine whose brother-in-love is going to be having lung cancer surgery soon. She has been a champion of ours for decades, having thrived through cancer herself. A video interview of Jane’s Imagine Healing Journey is featured on our website.
I imagined her sharing the Imagine Healing process with him….
Opening email from The Daily Tejaniya I read: “Practice with the idea of not trying to create an experience. Instead, just take your experience as it is and try to learn from it.”
You can see the middle path!
Doing the process of Imagine Healing supports the central nervous system so the physical body has the best opportunity for healing. Having done the process, you are much more capable of being present to learn through your experience.
Our granddaughter is going through a lot right now. I sent her a photo of a sweatshirt I had seen on Facebook with the words: Grow through what you go through.
A quick internet search for that phrase took me to a sweet website which listed 12 Hacks to Grow Through What You Go Through. Number 3 on the list is about how you can grow through your fears.
We don’t run from our fears; we go through them. To get past our fears, we need to do three things:
1) acknowledge them,
2) let them go, and
3) replace them with something else.
That list took me to a post by another Facebook friend and colleague, Lisa Gordon (I was trained in Healing Touch by her mom, Janet Mentgen). Lisa posted a sweet reminder from “The Female Hustlers” offering a perfect way to navigate these last days of December 2023:
De-cember
de-clutter
de-tach and
de-lete
anything that
de-values your life.
Don’t bring
it into 2024.
Whatever is happening in your life right now, may you grow through all you go through.
By Debra Basham, on December 14, 2023 This morning’s Gratefulness.org message by John A. Powell is so perfect as follow up to my having gotten triggered yesterday: “When people’s stories are recognized, it does something. It creates a possibility.”
As so often happens, the Daily Reflection from Deep Spring also spoke so well to this.
Think of somebody in your life who is difficult for you, the ‘famous person’. Watch the way, as soon as you get near this person, you contract. You want to push them away. But that person is not the problem; your mind’s idea of that person is the problem. “Oh, this is that person who is always making snide remarks and is always bitter, is always attacking me.” Of course you want to push them away. But this person is just being how they are. Can you find the place of openness in yourself that can see that this person is as they are because of various conditions, and your reaction to this person is because of your interior conditions and it has nothing to do with them?
The next step is seeing this is not about them but about me. And for me, my reaction is my reaction. Ah, who am I that’s reacting? Can I watch my response to this famous person, or to anything — let’s say the whole Ukraine situation, or the recent school shootings. “AAAH!” Can I watch my reaction to it? It’s a strong object. I don’t want this. But as soon as there’s that contraction into the personal self, it becomes very hard to hold space around what’s happening.
We look at the famous person, whatever it may be, as a gift and say, “Thank you, teacher. What have you come to teach me?” Then we can begin to open our hearts to our own fear, our own sense of limitation, powerlessness or sadness. ~ Aaron
Of course, it’s never about the trigger. I sat on the lanai in the predawn anticipating the coming of the light and meditating on the trigger as gift or teacher. The trigger is like a divine finger pointing to the “story” outside of our awareness waiting for us to see clearly.
The sky changes were magnificent. One minute no color could be seen, the next minute the sky was alive with hues of bright pinks and reds and yellows woven together with the deep gray clouds.
Clouds make the most colorful skies….
A bit later I saw an amazing photo of a frozen-faced bison on Facebook with the following caption: Bison are the only animal that turn into a snowstorm rather than away from it because they instinctively know that walking into the storm will get them out of the weather quicker. There may be a life lesson for humans in this. It also makes for some epic pictures. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
By Debra Basham, on December 7, 2023 I listened to the first 20 minutes of a talk by Mosab Hassan Yousef. A dear friend (who happens to be Jewish) sent me a link to the talk on Youtube. “‘Son of Hamas’ Tackles University Antisemitism, Exposes Hamas ‘Holy War’ to Wipe Out Jews” was given at University of Michigan last week.
Opening email, I appreciated Gratefulness.org for posting this beautiful quotation from Brother David Steindl-Rast today, “The mystic is not a special human being – every human being is a special kind of mystic.”
I grabbed my journal and did a sacred drawing.
The drawing invoked this Haiku:
So busy —— this mind
but space and peace await
One need only be
the change you seek
wait for nothing to come first
You already are
As I wrote today’s date on the top of the page, the breath caught in my chest: Thursday, December 7, 2023.
82 years ago today 2,403 were killed in Pearl Harbor.
We cry “Peace, peace”…. while hating our neighbor and fearing our inner demons.
We need only to lay down our swords —— “S” words —— like should and should not and somebody.
Today’s “Daily Tejaniya”:
Faith Keeps Us On the Path
When we practice meditation,
faith should increase. Only if we
have trust and confidence in some-
thing, can we actually apply ourselves
to it. We must recognize the faith we
have — however little or much. It’s
what keeps us on the path.
This path is perhaps to each human being living fully as a special kind of mystic….
By Debra Basham, on November 23, 2023 Here in the US today we are celebrating Thanksgiving Day.
Last evening was a day of giving thanks in my heart as we shared time and great food with our daughter and son-in-love (Stacey and Doug), grandson and granddaughter-in-love (Brad and Christina), grandson and girl-friend-in-love (Adam and Rachael), granddaughter and great-grandson (Courtney and Jackson). Last year at this time we were navigating the shock of Jackson’s seizures and last night he was climbing up and down on the Little Tikes slide that will be a Christmas gift.
One of the women at meditation on Tuesday morning shared this beautiful quotation:
My beloved child, break your heart no longer.
Each time you judge yourself, you break your heart.
You pull away from the love that is the well-spring of your vitality.
But now the time has come, your time, to live
and to trust the goodness that you are…
~ Adapted from the teachings of Bapu-ji- as shared by kirpal venanji
This speaks deeply of a true sense of thanksgiving. Within every set of conditions resides the potential for kindness and wisdom. I may need to say something that is hard for another to hear, but that can be said with kindness. Wisdom inspires the words, the tone of voice, the expression in the eyes. Every aspect of being can flow from a genuine sense of compassion and strength from within the heart and mind.
I sent that quotation to our granddaughter a couple of days ago. She is in the planning process of making a home for Jackson as a single mom and it is scary and sad and a bit overwhelming. A lot of life is that.
But she and Jackson are well loved and as I told her last night, he will have a better opportunity to thrive wherever she thrives.
Reading from Conscious Divorce: Ending a Marriage with Integrity, by Susan Allison, “Making the decision whether or not to leave a relationship may be the most daunting part of the divorcing process; at least it is the one filled with the most anxiety. This is partly because divorce is a choice made of our own free will, and we sense the enormity of this responsibility. Also, confusion and indecision are uncomfortable for most of us. We want this initial stage to be over, so we can move on. At the same time, we realize that our choice will affect our partners, our families, and our friends; it will be a decision we must live with all our lives. We want to choose carefully.”
Thomas Moore writes in Soul Mates, “Divorce is not a failure of the parties to maintain their commitments, but rather, evidence of the tendency of fate to spin us in different directions.”
He goes on to say that the ending of a relationship can be recognized and experienced as a difficult rite of passage for the soul, and a true ending, not just a defensive withdrawal, that comes about not only through decisions but also with that spinning of fate and the turning of time.
Years ago I wrote an Ode to Letting Go:
I will not look back at our time together and see it all as bad. I will have the courage to call it all good – our coming together and our coming apart. I will honor your memory by remembering the growth that our relationship inspired. I will not insult either of us by insisting that it could have, should have, or would have been different. It was as it was. I will use this experience to affirm the beliefs I wish to guide my life by; All things work together for good. You are free. I am free. Be with your life lightly as I am with my own. Take not from here a false belief that you or I are less than what you are: a child of the universe, whole, holy, and loveable. Be tender with yourself as you make this adjustment, just as you would be tender with a body part as it heals.
Look into the mirror often and recall the truth – I once loved you deeply. Though the feelings have waned as the moon – your worthiness (as my own) has neither diminished nor dissipated. I will always honor your memory. I will always cherish your soul. Go in peace. Live, grow, heal, and continue on your journey. For this time of our being together as husband and wife has ended but the ties that bind our hearts in love continue – even as the love at the center of all of life continues to hold us and guide us and heal us. Amen.
So much to be thankful for…. everything is worthy of our thanks giving. Today, I am giving thanks for each of you.
May each sentient being break our heart no longer.
May all beings give thanks.
May all beings know peace.
By Debra Basham, on November 10, 2023
Friends accept
that friends
will feel out loud
when they are ready.
~ She Recovers Every Day: Meditations for Women
Late yesterday afternoon I had a serendipitous treasure visiting with my dear friend, Jane Foster. Jane is navigating radiation therapy. The linear accelerator was being repaired so she had the day off from her daily drive into Chicago.
One of the foods that sits well with Jane right now is my homemade creamy tomato basil soup. A neighbor grows the basil and it is such a gift-of-the-garden, even more so when it is shared. I delivered soup and fresh-baked cookies.
This has been a stressful week and the visit with Jane was such a bright spot!
As Jane referenced her sense of the deep pain in the world I told her about the stated angst of an elder student around his not being able to go and physically offer support to those in Israel who are suffering violence and killing. Here is the short transcript of Aaron’s significant response, posted on the Yellow Brick Road with Barbara Brodsky’s blessing:
I hear the pain in your heart. The human goes through various stages in its life. At some stages, this action or reply is most harmonious to the true being, and in other stages, a different reply is. As the human ages, often they cannot go off and protest or do whatever else they were moved to do 30 years earlier, and perhaps that is not what is needed.
The world needs an energetic container for compassion.
Feel in yourself the power to help support that energetic container. It is no less a “doing” than any other kind of doing but it is a doing grounded in a certain wisdom and beingness that only someone that has reached some maturity can bring together.
So, this is your special gift at this time of your life.
To pray.
To visualize.
To purify yourself — releasing old animosities, old distinctions of this and that — and truly holding everything in the loving container of your heart.
This is a powerful connection in the world. It can bring forth powerful results. It can draw to you from all over the world, the energy of others like yourself. You don’t have to talk to each other or Zoom with each other. You can; its not a problem but trust the power of your energy and love and release it into this massive container of unconditional love and strong compassion that says “No!” to killing, but without blame of anybody who still is engaged in killing. They are not ready yet not to kill.
You become the ground from which their readiness can arise….
This awareness visits a very humble and willing space in my heart.
“Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something.” is a song by Lewi B and Manga Saint Hilare.
Meditation circles flip that around and say, “Don’t just do something. Sit there.”
But Aaron’s words bring a beautiful balance to these thought polarities by providing us with a true knowing when you and I pray, visualize, and purify ourselves what we are doing is wholly holy….
By Debra Basham, on November 6, 2023 A retreat coming to an end is always bitter sweet. Some aspect of it is relief to return to a “normal” schedule, but there is also a lingering longing for the better balance that seems to be the likely result of a time of intentional insight and successive sitting.
Catching up on email I felt the collective as I read a Washington Post article by Anne Lamont (a pre-promotion for her next book coming out in April) titled: “It’s good to remember: We are all on borrowed time.”
I found her article helpful and humorous. The opening line really gives you a good sense of her message: “Getting older is almost like changing species, from cute middle-aged, white-tailed deer, to yak. We are both grass eaters, but that’s about the only similarity.”
Nothing quite as humorous as honesty, is there….
Some of you might already be familiar with Dancing with the Elephants, by Jarem Sawatsky. Previous posts have referenced this, especially the Corpse Prayer on page 28:
Be not afraid.
I give thanks to god who created all things good.
In christ, all things hold together.
I am not entitled to life without death.
I embrace sacred life. I embrace
sacred death. I embrace the
growing and crumbling in between.
Smile at yourself in the silence…
Writing to a friend about the retreat this morning, I acknowledged that while it was not part of the formal retreat theme, because so many people attending expressed currently navigating health issues often the teachings leaned into how to mindfully accept gracefully our old age, illness, and death.
Robert shared that as his friend, a long-time mediator, was actively dying his friend had a prayer he repeated three times. Someone recorded his final recitation of that prayer and his own voice was heard at his celebration of life.
Whoa…. What words might hold my heart in that sublime stability? This morning I am still processing and wrote in my journal: Why do the birds go on singing? Because it is their nature.
All things with a beginning have an ending. It is our nature. All endings are really new beginnings. It is our nature. Changing species…. it is our nature.
So yesterday was the end of the retreat, and today is the beginning of living life with the benefits of practice. It is our nature.
By Debra Basham, on November 5, 2023 We gained an hour last night here in most of the United States. What an odd concept, that we can lose or gain time….
Gain and loss…. part of the Eight Worldly Winds. It is written that gain obsesses the mind, and loss obsesses the mind. We are attracted to gain and repelled by loss, thus we can be tossed about by our (often subconscious) fears and desires.
This retreat has been placed in the perfect conditions of my life. My nephew David has found himself homeless and without money once again…. I could feel my heart closing after discovering he had not been honest with us.
During the dinner break last evening I overheard John having two difficult phone conversations: the first was about an ambulance and police cars having been at the home of John’s youngest brother. Thankfully, John’s brother was not the one in medical crisis, and the man living on his property was tended to. In the quest for information, however, John discovered something else about his brother that was distressing.
Loss and gain, fears and desires.
The second phone call was about Friday’s evaluation for our great grandson, Jackson. Jackson had seizures one year ago during the fall retreat. While we have lost the illusion that Jackson is neurotypical, we also have watched him gain the ability to walk. He is still not talking. And, yes, it feels like another likely loss that Jackson will be tested this week and it is strongly expected he will be diagnosed as on the spectrum for Autism Disorder.
The last sentence in my retreat journal from yesterday is: “If we had to be perfect to make a positive impact in the world what good could ever get done?”
In the evening dharma talk, Aaron told a story about when he and Jeshua as young boys befriended another boy who would have been called retarded. Aaron would smile so broadly speaking of that boy’s loving heart.
Our son-in-love, Doug, said about Jackson in the aftermath of the seizures: “Jackson is still the same loving little boy.”
We have been learning that compassion is vital in facing the conditions of our world today. We have heard the term “Satyāgraha,” which is a sort of holding firmly to truth, also sometimes called truth force. It is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance.
We have also heard the word ahimsa, which is Sanskrit for noninjury. In the Indian religions of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, ahimsa the ethical principle of not causing harm to other living things. There are said to be three types of ahimsa or harm:
1. Physical, by hurting someone’s physical body.
2. Vocal, by speaking against others, hurting their feelings.
3. Mental, by thinking against others.
From this morning’s Daily Reflection Quote:
Everything is compassion. It’s only when you’re cut off from that compassion that you can begin to realize that you have free will choice to react with holding things away from you with negativity, with fear, or, still feeling that fear, to make the choice, “I will respond with love, even though my reaction is based in fear. I want to fight back. I want to hate. I want to kill. But I will not allow that of myself.” ~ Aaron
Fortunately, we don’t have to be perfect to make a positive impact in the world.
My intention can be: I will respond with love, even if or when my reaction is based in fear.
Love. Perfect love.
(Barbara Brodsky shared a precious video on Instagram of a dog being loved on by ponies. She said, “This is perfect love. They don’t care if they are different.” Here is a photo snip:)
(And also sharing a photo of Junior Bear, my nephew’s Emotional Support Animal, sitting patiently at the table waiting for his breakfast at The Mason Jar Cafe.)
|
|
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 43 other subscribers
|
Comments are closed 
You must be logged in to post a comment.