Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Aaron

  • Free!

    From my journal:

    Dear Holy Spirit:

    I wrote to Barbara Brodsky confessing that I was not feeling drawn to the Deep Spring Center for Meditation fall program and expressing some confusion and concern. Aaron incorporated to clarify, and I listened to the audio last evening. This morning, I read the transcript Barbara sent to all of the Dharma Path students.

    Immediately after reading that, I opened Aaron’s Thought for Today:

    I had many teachers, including Jeshua. Each one served a purpose, but each one was temporary, even the greatest teachers simply pass through to remind you of something of which you need reminding, something you already know but had forgotten. When you have awakened to that, that teacher passes, and then the next teacher will come.

    Then I logged onto Facebook and see a post by Pamela Johnson on her page: Supernatural Love and Life After Death. She writes: “It breaks my heart to see so many people, literally thousands upon thousands (more like millions according to Alan) grieving the loss of a loved one when I know they are literally standing right there next to them….”

    I know my frequency is with this message!

    Then I open the Daily Word from Unity:

    Free!

    I am free to be the best me I can be… an exciting future awaits me, and I boldly take my place in it. I am ready to live my life to the fullest.

    You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

    ~ John 8:32

    I don’t get a commission from Facebook, and I am not in denial of the downside to this platform, but people can figure out how to access the best without the rest. One friend named a page after her dog and that allowed her to log on and read/see posts about her grandchildren.

    Pamela and Alan Johnson will have a book out next spring, but I wish every one who wants to be free NOW could see all of the post that I read this morning. I took these screen shots. You might have to save the photo and enlarge it to be able to read it, or just soak in the truth.

    You will know the truth, and the truth will make you Free!


  • A Place Where All Understand Their Oneness

    “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life.” Golda Meir said that and it is something you live moment-by-moment.

    I am navigating this by noticing all of the places where I feel responsible for something that I do not have control over. Perhaps this is a UNIVERSAL application, but the way it has revealed itself for me this week in in 3 situations.

    (1) A friend who is getting her house ready to sell.

    (2) Joel’s cat, Zeus, who has matted fur that needs attention.

    (3) The fall Dharma Path classes, for which the links do not work properly.

    I realized these three were/are all revealing the same habit energy of feeling responsible, wanting to fix, and having an emotional reaction to the feeling helpless.

    Referring to number 3, I wrote to my fellow students: Note — I am only the postal carrier delivering these messages. I do not have access to fix the technology issues, nor do I have any more information about the classes than you do at this time.

    I asked the others to have patience and to support my doing the same.

    This morning I stopped in to see Mary Anne’s set up. Mary Anne is one of three Monarch Mavens I know and love. The previous day she had to put her bridal veil into service to cover the container until she can get to the fabric store to buy more netting. What a beautiful labor of love.

    Aaron speaks so beautifully to all of this:

    Thought for Today

    You move into the experience of ‘oneness’— the essential oneness, the identity with God — which is different than unity.

    Then you start to know the true divinity of yourself and All That Is. You are that divinity and have always been.

    From that experiential understanding of identity with God your whole moral system is shaken up. You cease acting from a place of doer, from a place of ‘should’ or outward moral imperatives. Your choices of action are based on the simple fact that there is nothing here that is not God, so you may not harm any of it. To hurt another is to hurt myself and to hurt God. It then becomes unthinkable to do harm. That is why moving towards this experience of identity with God is so important, because until then the earth will need to be run by moral dictates — shoulds and shouldn’ts, commandments. And there are always going to be those who break commandments.

    Eventually, your Earth will evolve to a place where all understand their oneness, and the commandments will no longer be necessary.

    It is clear to me that I am filtering all of these experiences through the lens of what Jeffrey Olsen describes in the aftermath of an auto accident that took the life of Olsen’s wife, and younger son. An accident which resulted in Olsen’s “near-death” experience that forever altered his view of the world. This is what the attending ER physician, Dr. Jeff O’Driscoll, had to say:

      O’DRISCOLL: I sensed a divine presence in the room. And then I noticed a light. In it was the form of a woman, floating above the patient’s bed. She had flowing, curly blonde hair and was dressed in various shades of white. Her form was almost transparent, and the look on her face was serene. She looked vibrant, otherworldly—I knew innately that this was the man’s wife. The divine presence in the room was allowing me to view her eternal soul.

      She smiled at me, as if she’d known me forever. I sensed her immense gratitude toward the doctors who were working to save her husband. She looked directly at me and back at her husband, then back at me. Her eyes were intent.

    You can read their remarkable story as published in Guideposts Magazine.

    Or watch the interview with Olsen, “Knowing: A Journey Beyond The Veil”:

    As Betty Lue shares:

    July 30, 2021 Loving Reminders- Peace First!

    Peace First…… Understanding Follows.

    Do you want to understand?
    Do you need to know what happened?
    Are you trying to figure our what went wrong?
    Do you persist in asking “why?”

    When we are not peaceful, we cannot understand.
    When we are afraid or upset, our thoughts are distorted.
    When we are hurt or angry, we think through our judgments.
    Emotions confuse and come to faulty conclusions.

    The understanding comes when our minds are open.
    Understanding will unfold as we know more.
    Being open and willing is key to real understanding.
    Wisdom will not be available in closed minds.

    May the world as I experience it today (and every day?) be a place where all understand their oneness….

  • Pondering Fathers

    I cannot swear that Tami Simon, the founder of Sounds True, which produces Insights at the Edge had pondering fathers on her mind when she shared “Fierce Intimacy” with Terry Real. Now, I have to confess, I devoured two of Terry’s books — I Don’t Want to Talk about It : Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression and How Can I Get Through to You? Reconnecting Men and Women — long enough ago that he was going by Terrence Real.

    Perhaps being a teenage wife (to an equally teenage husband) was part of the motivation of my avid interest, but I am honestly assuming the relationship of my own mother and father as I was growing up played an even more significant role.

    In the interview with Tami Simon, Terry answers her question about how he developed the core skills he teaches with brutal transparency:

    Bloodily. [and he laughs] People have asked me how I became a family therapist and I jokingly always say, “I started about four years old in my dysfunctional family.” I come from a violent, dysfunctional, depressed family and I was pretty messed up for most of my life. I write about it in I Don’t Want to Talk About It. That’s autobiographical in part. There’s this old joke that therapists are people that have to be in therapy 40 hours a week.

    I had never heard that line about therapists being people who need to be in therapy 40 hours a week, but it resonates. I had also never heard of using the parallel of becoming relationally fit to becoming physically fit.

      Tami Simon: In your book, The New Rules of Marriage, you actually make this comparison in the beginning of the book that becoming relationally fit has parallels to becoming physically fit. If you work out, if you do it, you’ll become physically fit. I thought, for most people, they think… I think most people think, that happiness in relationship is a lot more mysterious than becoming physically fit.

      To become physically fit, this is something I’m going to do on my own. And I know that if I’m not physically fit, it’s because I haven’t been to the gym. I’ve been eating ice cream. Whatever. I take responsibility. I know inside, I’m not physically fit. I haven’t been doing it. But relational happiness, this is going to take a miracle outside of my own energy and effort because there’s this other person involved. And this other person’s really difficult.

    Terry responded with, “Yes, isn’t that amazing the way the other person is always so difficult and we’re all so nice?”

    Last week during the Dharma Path Intensive, we heard an amazing teaching from Aaron, channeled by Barbara Brodsky, about bringing beautiful flowers up from the deep crevasse of darkness. That certainly seems to fit with becoming relationally fit. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of a talk given by Aaron on June 1, 2021.

    Now let us brave the long ladders that we find. Going down, and down, and down into the darkness.

    Your feet finally touch the bottom. Firm ground. But what is there around you? Is it safe? But there is a sweet scent in the air.

    Just as you get your footing, the sun crests over the edge high above you and shines straight down and illuminates a land filled with flowers and beauty. Just a few seconds, because the crack above you seems so narrow, so high above, and then it passes and you’re in darkness again.

    Can you imagine this? You came down the ladder with courage and fear. You land on your feet, not knowing if you’d be attacked by something that wanted to destroy you, to eat you. And there in the darkness were radiant flowers with a beautiful scent.

    You have large baskets on your backs. You ask the flowers, “Who will come with me?” And so many of them shout out, “Me! Me! Take me!” So you begin to fill the baskets with flowers. You carry them up. Some of them you cut; some of them you actually dig out by the roots and put in small pots. You climb back up.

    Now instead of just your heart carrying the light of the Dharmakaya onto the bridge and out into the nirmanakaya, instead of just reaching for those who are able to come on the bridge and directing them toward the Dharmakaya, you have something of substance.

    You carry it across the bridge. You do not set it on the nirmanakaya end of the bridge. You do not set it off of the bridge, but you set it on the edge of the bridge, so that people must take one step into the sambhogakaya to reach this wonderfully-scented offering.

    Picture the beings who come and take these flowers, beings living in a nirmanakaya realm who have never seen anything except the most mundane flowers, and those still being beautiful, the dandelions and such. But this is something with such an exquisite scent and beauty…

    Feel yourself there on the end of the bridge, holding out these flowers and asking people to simply take one step up to reach the flower and to receive their flower. Inhale the heavenly scent. See the radiant colors, colors so much more vivid than anything in the nirmanakaya realm.

    But to reach this you had to have the courage to move off the safety of the bridge and into the darkness. There are flowers there. There are also tigers with enormous fangs, and huge snakes. This is not a realm only of light.

    But as you brave the darkness and bring up the flowers, who say, “Take me! Take me!” and offer them out to the world of suffering, that world also can become transformed.

    Janice Keller has transcribed Aaron’s teaching for decades. When she sent this one, she included an image and the precious line: bringing beautiful flowers up out of the crevasse.

    You will know it is significant that you are reading this. I only know it is significant I am writing it as I am pondering fathers….

  • Motherless Child

    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,
    A long way from home, a long way from home.

    Odetta knew what LIFE can feel like.

    Just yesterday — one day of LIFE holding sooooo much feeling.

    A dear friend, navigating tenuous steps speaking her feelings toward her husband (related to the complications of decisions that could birth a new beginning):”This father does not want the child,” she says, speaking metaphorically, of course.

    Another dear friend welcoming a companion as she was filled with trepidation reading online the results of a recent PET scan (positron emission tomography).

    Sad news from our daughter that our grand-kitty, Thor, crossed the rainbow bridge. Thor, one of THOSE beings. Love oozed from Thor’s pores. Thor massaged love into your most tender spots, and his purr moved mountains of misunderstandings.


    Utterances from the lips of a wife, candidly wondering aloud if they would both be better off if her husband stayed in long-term care.

    “We are called beyond and empowered by the silver thread of hope that hangs by a thread below,” this expression of LIFE written by my friend in the midst of it all drapes over the feelings of the day like low-hanging clouds.

    Don’t do things for personal benefit. And don’t do things to avoid personal damage. Do things to feel personal authenticity. Then your life will make sense, no matter what is going on around you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

    Today is the anniversary of my mom’s “rebirth” day on May 20, 2003.

    May 20 is also the rebirth day of the woman who owned and lived in this tiny home for 33 years before we purchased it in 2017. Ursel had actually purchased the home on May 20 – 33 years prior.

    According to the teachings of the Buddha, emotions are a fundamental part of who you are — an expression of our basic intelligence and creative energy. “When you can connect with the essence of your emotions, you can respond without preconceptions and judgments.”

    Experiences are pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

    We tend to grasp after the pleasant feelings, try to avoid unpleasant feelings, and miss the neutral feelings much of the time.

    Thought for Today

    Breathing in, I am aware of you, of your suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for your suffering. Breathing in, I am aware of my suffering. Breathing out, I hold space for my suffering. Your suffering and my suffering, the same.

    ~ Aaron

  • What Else Is

    The definition of complaining is the expression of dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.

    A popular phrase is to speak of an undesired state (for example, complaining) as your eating rat poison expecting the rat to die. It is not always obvious, but our emotional state has myriad influences on US.

    Often, John and I remind one another of the valuable awareness to not waste our creative energy complaining about what is. Any moron can do that.

    Real wisdom arises as you devote your creative energy to what else is.

    This morning, a short poem came through which articulates this so well:

      What Else Is

      Stewing or fuming
      about what is
      such a waste
      of energy

      Open heart
      open mind
      open up to
      what else is

      Debra Basham 05-13-2021

    Sometimes it is helpful to be willing to see in what ways what is might be protecting you from what else is. Feeling anger might protect you from feeling powerlessness. Feeling impatience might protect you from feeling worry. Feeling boredom might protect you from feeling discouragement. A handy way to explore all of this is to be aware of an emotional guidance scale, such as the one described by Abraham-Hicks:

    1. Joy/Appreciation/Empowerment/Freedom/Love
    2. Passion
    3. Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
    4. Positive Expectation/Belief
    5. Optimism
    6. Hopefulness
    7. Contentment
    8. Boredom
    9. Pessimism
    10. Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
    11. Overwhelment (feeling overwhelmed)
    12. Disappointment
    13. Doubt
    14. Worry
    15. Blame
    16. Discouragement
    17. Anger
    18. Revenge
    19. Hatred/Rage
    20. Jealousy
    21. Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
    22. Fear/Grief/Desperation/Despair/Powerlessness

    Thought for Today

    Sometimes you repeatedly find yourself faced with an unpleasant situation, until the mind begins to obsess with it. You may begin to ask the question, why am I so attracted to this obsession? It’s not a conceptual question. One begins then to investigate the nature of obsession itself.

    Different of you have different patterns of obsession. For example, some go into old stories, casting blame on others or on yourself. Others may look for a way to solve it, planning. Others of you may just feel anger and helplessness and move into a state of depression.

    You each have your own patterns. This is part of understanding the nature of obsession, to understand the habitual patterning with obsession. When mind becomes obsessive, what do you gain?

    ~ Aaron

    Aaron, as channeled by Barbara Brodsky, refers to emotions as “aggregates.” Aggregates are non-self. Aggregates are impermanent. Aggregates arise because of the senses, triggered by smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing.

    Aggregates rise up out from the sense experience and subside when the sense experience of our life changes. We feel worry when a person we care about is experiencing a health challenge. But worry (each emotion) is an aggregate, so YOU are not that worry.

    In fact, the one who is aware of worry is not worried. That one is aware.

    This is not about trying to not worry. In fact, as our friend, Yoda, says, “Do or Do Not. There is No Try.”


    Hmmmmm, if there is just do or do not that makes me really appreciate what else is….

  • Sioux – The Great Contact

    Sacred Stories

    She saw a friend’s Facebook post about his dog, Bassie, passing.


    She has several favorite quotations about dog’s passing, and she most often shares a very special one from The Dharma of Dogs, but she sent this one:

      In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered most wakan, most holy. There’s a sense that when someone is struck by the sudden lightning of loss, he or she stands on the threshold of the spirit world. The prayers of those who grieve are considered especially strong, and it is proper to ask them for their help.

      You might recall what it’s like to be with someone who has grieved deeply. The person has no layer of protection, nothing left to defend. The mystery is looking out through that person’s eyes. For the time being, he or she has accepted the reality of loss and has stopped clinging to the past or grasping at the future. In the groundless openness of sorrow, there is a wholeness of presence and a deep natural wisdom.

      ~ Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

    Her friend responded:

    Thank you, this is how I experience it now. Very special things are happening in my life right now. The great contact is becoming more and more noticeable. It is a special time for me.

    And my dog, who is my soulmate, is called Sioux.

  • R-E-S-P-E-C-T

    This post might be considered “The High Road Part 2.”

    I learned to think of re-spect as the willing to look again and again.

    I am not attending an eight-day workshop Healing and the Everhealed with Barbara Brodsky (January 23-30). It was very odd to not be guided to attend, especially given that my life’s work is just this.

    In fact, it was more a matter of my having been guided not to attend.

    I watched the mind games: “I will miss out,” or “I already know this stuff,” or “I should attend to support others,” and even, “This is all just ego.”

    Fortunately, I have the privilege of sending out the audio recordings from the workshop, so I am benefiting by the teachings!

    Even the introductions of those attending the workshop was humbling. It is an amazing group of individuals with such diverse experience in the healing arts. Great love and sincere commitment to path. I bow to each….

    Perhaps this “birds-eye-view” of the workshop is allowing just the right space for integration. Meanwhile, notice the amazing synchronicities!

    Aaron’s Daily Quote the opening day of the workshop was, “Remember that at the deepest level there is nothing to heal. The ever-perfect is always there. We move through the distortion, to reveal the ever-perfect. In another articulation, the human uncovers the light body template for the ever-perfect and shines it into the body, asking the etheric and physical bodies to pick up that image, and to replicate it. All the healer is doing is holding the mirror.”

    Note* Aaron’s Daily Quotes are selected randomly by a computer program from a pre-loaded field of hundreds. No human being has the ability to select from that field.

    Yesterday morning I had a phone conversation with John’s cousin. I asked about her brother following a stressful interaction we had with him about masks (conspiracy) before we left home. She and her husband will be vacationing on Sanibel Island in a few weeks and wanted to know also about Pine Island for some friends. I had to admit to her I am not a good one to ask because it does not yet seem wise to live life as though there is no coronavirus.

    Aaron’s Daily Quote for today:

      Deep Spring Center
      Thought for Today

      If you get into a situation with somebody where there’s a lot of anger and verbal clashing, and you start to hear a little voice inside that says, ‘But he’s wrong and I’m right!’ do you think that voice is just from you? A lot of it’s from you. And then there’s your negative polarity cheering team that says, ‘Ooo, here’s a place to wreak havoc. We can make a mess here!’ So it’s egging you on, ‘Yeah, you’re right and he’s wrong! Tell him!’

      ~ Aaron

    And then I open today’s teaching from Neale Donald Walsch:

      On this day of your life Debra, I believe God wants you to know …

      … that negative passions may run high, but they do not
      have to rule you.

      Your inner peace, and the sanctity of your being, are
      not worth trashing because of some negative feeling
      you have about something. Just let it go, and return to
      the knowing and experiencing of who you really are.

      Try not to abandon the self. Try very hard. In the end,
      your soul will be so grateful.

    A subtle cue that I am releasing some long-held cherished ego position and integrating awareness is how EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS SAYING THE SAME THING.

    Also from this morning’s inbox:

    Respect toward yourself is more significant than any respect from others because you know yourself better. When you practice patience, for example, you must know why you’re doing it and how it benefits you. If you value self-respect and do virtuous things that are unknown to others, you will naturally gain self-confidence, strength, and freedom from your neuroses. You will feel more and more inspired to develop your tsewa and shed the eight worldly concerns because of the benefit and freedom you personally experience by doing so. Your heart will be at peace, and eventually others will respect you as a person who has truly been transformed.

    ~ Peaceful Heart
    The Buddhist Practice of Patience

    by Dzigar Kongtrul, Edited by Joseph Waxman, page 39

    * Vihiṃsā (Sanskrit; Tibetan phonetic: nampar tsewa) is a Buddhist term translated as “malice”, “hostility”, or “cruelty”. It is identified as one of the twenty subsidiary unwholesome mental factors within the Mahayana Abhidharma teachings.

    Over and over and over in this workshop comes the gentle reminder there is nothing to fix. Trying to fix anything thwarts availability to have every thought, word, and action guided by the open loving heart.

    Abraham Hicks joins the integration today:

      Making Peace with My Today Will Improve My Future…

      It may sound odd, but the fastest way to get to a new-and-improved situation is to make peace with your current situation. By making lists of the most positive aspects you can find about your current situation, you then release your resistance to the improvements that are waiting for you. But if you rail against the injustices of your current situation, you hold yourself in Vibrational alignment with what you do not want, and you cannot then move in the direction of improvement. It defies Law. In every particle of the Universe, there is that which is wanted – and the lack of it.

      Excerpted from The Vortex on 8/31/09

      Our Love
      Esther (Abraham and Jerry)

    And just one more synchronicity from my inbox: They may not deserve forgiveness, but I do. ~ Anne P.

    Now, this is R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

  • Repercussions and Moral Awareness

    We are all volunteers, come to awaken ourselves and all human beings. ~ Aaron

    A pithy line from the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors in the Hebrew Old Testament has been working on my heart. The story is familiar to many: Joseph, the youngest son and his father’s favorite, was given the special coat that had been (according to patriarchal tradition) owed to the eldest son. Joseph’s brothers were insulted, enraged, and vengeful. They sold Joseph into slavery and told their father Joseph had been killed.

    The karmic wheel is always turning.

    Joseph won favor with the Egyptian Pharaoh, and was put in charge of all of the stores of food. Years later, Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt desiring to buy food because of the famine. Imagine their shock to see the brother they had abused be the one in charge!

    Joseph could have justifiably responded in myriad ways, but Joseph responded from AWARENESS: As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. ~ Genesis 50:20

    In my awareness, Joseph’s story was related to yet another covid death. Two days after our granddaughter, Courtney Ross, gave birth to our great-grandson, Jackson, her other great-grandfather died from covid-related pneumonia. RIP: George Ross.

    The mask and safe-distancing polarization…. Knowing many in that family continue to gather without precautions. I saw those as the “You meant evil.” I could also see the perfection of the timing – just a couple of days after Jackson’s birth. Many ancient cultures recognize the perfection of the coming in and passing on which happens in families.

    I could also see a gift that—being so soon after Jackson’s birth—his mom would not go to be with the extended family and take him, possibly exposing herself or him to the virus. I have been easy to tears about everything.

    Joy without sorrow would be hollow: having without losing. ~ Aaron

    My friend, Patty, recently lost her mother to covid-related heart failure. Her brother (an anti-masker) exposed Alma. Yes, she was 97, and Courtney’s grandfather was 90 — but both were fully engaged in life, both vital at those ages. Patty’s pain continued as her family was split in how to celebrate their mother’s life. Patty and some of her siblings not seeing it as responsible, made the difficult choice not to attend a large public gathering insisted on by other siblings.

    The karmic wheel of action was different for each.

    “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” ~ Romans 8:28

    It is possible to see the good/gift/perfection without denying the responsibility of an unwholesome action, as spoken recently in the dharma teachings: That was the first time I recognized my choices had repercussions in the world: I had the power to do good or to do harm.

    A Buddhist articulation of life describes Sila, or moral awareness, as “right view” (Eight-Fold Path): the seeing of things just as they are.

    It is said that in Hindi India the idea, “Oh, the gods willed it,” holds a lot of devotion, but not much responsibility. Regardless of what else is there, you are responsible for your choices as each choice has repercussions….

    My choice is to not give or get the coronavirus, if I can help it. Their are repercussions to every choice, such as my friend missing her mom’s funeral.

    The shadow is no less an aspect of the divine than the light.

  • 2021 – A True Spiritual Path

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today
    December 31, 2020

    So often beings have a
    limited view of spiritual life
    that creates a duality in themselves,
    so that they only see themselves
    as ‘being spiritual’
    when they’re being kind and loving.

    When painful emotions arise,
    then they think,
    ‘I am no longer being spiritual.
    I should fix or get rid of these emotions
    and come back to kindness and
    then I will be spiritual.’

    But this dualistic thinking only
    enhances the fragmentation of the self and
    enhances negativity and suffering.

    To open the heart to the self,
    just as it is in this moment,
    is the true spiritual path.

    ~ Aaron

    As we turn the page on our calendar to 2021 at midnight tonight where ever you are, hindsight will be 2020. New Years has held a nostalgic space in my heart and mind for as long as I can remember, but just as 2021 offers unlimited possibilities, tomorrow is also just another day.

    What will you remember most from the past year? High on my list is the consistent kindness and generosity of our friends, Linda and Larry, consistently doing our grocery shopping for us. First, using InstaCart, and then going to the grocery store, just so we could limit our exposure to the coronavirus.

    I will remember the blessing of Zoom bringing the meditation hall into my home.

    I will also feel the sting of not going to Tennessee to visit Stacey’s family on our way home in April. Or having to tell Melody I could not do an in-person ceremony for her mom, my friend and colleague, who contracted COVID-19 while in the hospital with acute pancreatitis. Bonnie passed without Melody or Dan, Bonnie’s husband, having opportunity to be with her.

    No service of celebration of life for Fred Gibby yet either. They say it will be an ultimate hug-fest when the time is right. and Fred loves that idea!

    It is otherworldly to not have gotten to Kalamazoo to see Joel and the kitties; and very hollow that I did not unpack the office when contents were moved to the beautiful new space at Lakeshore Acupuncture.

    Immense gratitude for Barbara Brodsky and John Orr and Aaron and Jeshua (and all who help me remember who I really am) seeps deeply into every day.

    The take-out dinners and dominoes by Zoom.

    And now, Jackson Taylor Yarber, born December 28, 2020, has joined our family, and I am loving my first great-grandchild fully from Southwest Florida as he is in Tennessee. Fingers crossed it will be safe to hold him and smell him on our way back home in the spring.


    In the spring — the spring of 2021!

    It feels otherworldly to say that…

    2020 is ending.

    2021 is beginning.

    Suddenly, I am hearing a song from the musical Godspell in my head: Where are you going? Where are you going? Can you take me with you?

    Last December I was fixated on accessing a Magic Eye Wall Calendar! When I found one, I decided to gift a bunch of folks! Janis and I have ritualized the turning of the page on the first day of each month, letting the image come into view, noticing how some are very easy and others quite challenging.

    Interestingly, there will not be a Magic Eye Wall Calendar for 2021, as announced on the website: Our calendar publisher has asked us to wait until next year to publish a Magic Eye 2022 wall calendar, as printing, shipping and distribution channels have all been disrupted by Covid-19. We will not be releasing a Magic Eye 2021 wall calendar. Wishing everyone a happy & safe year!

    Janis and I have agreed to go back through each month of the 2020 Magic Eye Wall Calendar, enjoying again in 2021 what we learned in 2020.

    The missing and longing, and seeing and being. It has all been here all along.

    Here’s to 2021, a true spiritual path. It, too, has been there all along….

    “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” ~ Joseph Campbell

  • Warp and Weft

    This post begins with a reprint of a Sacred Story published December 23, 2017: “Husband’s Clothes:”

    As she stood in line at the grocery store the man in front of her looked so much like her late husband it almost took her breath away. The same height, the same built, even a similar style of movement.

    Without thinking she spoke, “My husband passed recently and you are of such a similar build I am wondering if you are open to receiving his clothing. Some people are funny about that. I have been wondering what to do with them. He even has jeans he’s never worn…”

    “Well, that is very kind,” he smiled softly.

    They also discovered he wore the same size shoes as her husband, so those went with him, too. As he was leaving with his treasures he thanked her and confessed, “I have a new job that I have to wear ‘good’ jeans for. I only had this one pair, and I have been washing them every night and wearing them again the next day.”

    She suddenly realized she had obviously truly been guided.

    Warp and weft refer to the orientation of woven fabric. The warp direction refers to the threads that run the length of the fabric. Warp yarns are finer and stronger than weft yarns.

    Life is comprised of warp and weft. But the greatest of these is warp….

    Larry, the now beloved husband of my dear friend, Linda, had lost his wife, Joyce. Soon after we met, Larry wondered aloud to Linda, asking if she thought I would be offended to be offered some of Joyce’s clothing. Many of the items still had tags hanging on them…

    Assured by Linda that I would be honored, the clothes were lovingly given and received. As my fingers glide across the keyboard right now, I am wearing one of Joyce’s dresses.

    One of my friends is in the process of “death cleaning.” In Swedish it is called döstädning—dö is “death” and städning is “cleaning.” The process is simply to get rid of unnecessary things, especially important as you age. You know you will eventually leave the planet, taking nothing tangible with you — we all will.

    While we take nothing, we leave everything.

    After their passing, the influence of our loved ones remains.

    Thich Nhat Hanh shared a beautiful story:

      A friend of mine has been taking care of her ninety-three-year-old mother. The doctors say that her mother will die any day. For more than a year, my friend has been teaching her mother meditation exercises that have been very helpful. She began by watering the seeds of happiness in her mother, and now her mother becomes very alive every time my friend comes around. Recently she told her mother, “This body is not exactly yours. Your body is much larger. You have nine children, dozens of grandchildren, and also great-grandchildren. We are all continuations of you, and we are very happy and healthy. You are quite alive in us.”

      Her mother was able to see that, and she smiled. My friend continued, “When you were young, you were able to teach many people how to cook and do many other things. You made people happy. Now we are doing the same thing; we are continuing the work you have begun. When you were young, you wrote poetry and sang, and now many of us write poems and sing beautifully. You are continuing in us. You are many beings at the same time.” This is a meditation on nonself. It helps her mother see that her body is just a small part of her true self. She understands that when her body departs, she will continue in many other forms.

    During the December 16, 2020, “Evening with Aaron,” I heard an amazing story about Nathaniel, a follower of Jesus. Nathaniel’s group had been brutalized, all of their ceremonial objects stolen, along with their food!

    When Jesus learned of this, he took Nathaniel with him and went to confront those responsible. Nathaniel was frightened they would be beaten again. Jesus admitted they might, they were outnumbered, but Jesus insisted that they must be willing to say, “No!”

    Confronted by the Divine Love in Jesus, the men stepped back.

    Imagine Jesus speaking about this:

      I would not have hurt them — how could I hurt them?

      But they had to hear this truth. “Where is that within you which is capable of love, which is capable of non-harm? Remember from whence you have come and cease to destroy. I ask this in the name of our Father and with love. Cease to do harm to each other and yourselves.”

      I motioned to Nathaniel to pick up the blanket and the candlesticks.

      He was a bit afraid, but I nodded to him, “Take them. They belong to our Father, not to this band.”

      “Keep the food,” I told the men. “If you are hungry, please eat. But these tokens of the Sabbath I bring back with me, lest you desecrate them.”

      No one stepped forth to stop us.

      I’m sure if Nathaniel were here in the body he would tell you he was trembling! And yet, his love, his deep commitment to service of all beings —

      Here I am, Lord.
      Is it I, Lord?
      I have heard you calling in the night.
      I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
      I will hold your people in my heart.

      The same commitment you all have.

      We took these candlesticks, rewrapped in the blanket, and simply walked off into the dark. We walked back to the village. These men never came to brutalize that village again.

      People can learn.

    The warp direction of our fabric is the Divine Love that runs the length of human existence. The warp of this Divine Love is finer and stronger than greed, hatred, brutality or any of the faces of fear. Just as the band of men who had stolen from Nathaniel were disarmed, every face of fear vanishes with the warp of love.

    Warp and weft. People can learn….