Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: autumn

  • A Clean Slate


    On Tuesday night in class the teacher told us, “Karma is never a punishment; there is always a desire to learn.” I was so drawn to the words and to the implication of that truth. A subtle curiosity dawned as to from where the idea of a punishing supreme being came.

      When love and hate are both absent
      everything becomes clear and undisguised.
      Make the smallest distinction, however,
      and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

      ~ From “Views of the Faith Mind”

    We are so very conditioned to polarities, we sometimes take for granted they “exist.”

    What if polarities are really just conditioned states of mind?

    In The Sound of Silence, Ajahn Sumedho describes a state that is “ever present but only noticed if attended to.”

    My blood pressure has been up again since Hurricane Ian came onshore in our beloved community in Southwest Florida, before driving destruction onward across the state and on up into North Carolina. As I was sitting with all of that on October 12, I realized the elevated blood pressure might really be Europe anniversary energy from 2011. I was going to the foot doctor later in the morning so I sat a clear intention to have everything be released with the day’s procedure.

    Before leaving for my appointment I did a drawing and heard song lyrics in my head: What goes up, must come down; spinning wheel got to go round; talkin’ bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin.

    Then a poem:

      A Clean Slate

      My past is a thief robbing me of today
      but only if I hold on — that’s the only way
      I breathe in
      I breathe out
      I let go
      I move out

      No more ruminating
      this is the root
      today renders all those yesterdays
      absolutely moot

      Today the autumn hues
      can erase a history of blues
      the reds
      yellows bright
      orange shining
      with glorious light

      These cells and pores
      win or lose
      when I’m saving scores
      wipe the slate clean
      that’s what we mean

      Do it now
      let it go

      Compassion
      can and will flow

      Debra Basham October 12, 2022

    After I got home from the doctor, I had the first normal blood pressure reading in several days. I finished reading The Cherry Harvest, by Lucy Sanna. I did not like the ending. Online I saw this line in one review, “Really digs into the hidden behaviors that people often have but would never admit.” I wrote in my journal that I prefer a happy ending.

    John Lennon is credited with saying everything will be okay in the end, so if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

    More from “Views of the Faith Mind” that resonates with all of this:

      Do not search for the truth;
      only cease to cherish opinions.
      do not remain in the dualistic state.
      Avoid such pursuits carefully.
      If there is even a trace of this and that,
      of right and wrong,
      the mind-essence will be lost in confusion.

      Although all dualities come from the One,
      do not be attached even to this One.
      When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
      nothing in the world can offend.
      And when a thing can no longer offend,
      it ceases to exist in the old way.

    A few minutes ago I went out and took a video of the sky. To the left and to the right of a heavy band of clouds there was blue sky. It was so obvious that what you see depends on where you are looking.

    A lot of life related to wintering in Pine Island has ceased to exist in the old way, yet another opportunity to breathe in and out and let go….

  • Enough!

    Autumn

    Leaves are falling down
    autumn of my life this is
    I must choose to live

    Watching baby breathe
    innocent and fresh new start
    coming from the heart

    Hands wrinkled from work
    burdened by beliefs not mine
    wake before too late

    She is blind but sees
    his deaf ears hear love’s true call
    death’s doorway beckons

    I stand numb yet here
    garden gate gapes wide with pride
    flowers sing welcome

    Rich soil grows wisdom
    rain settles the dust at last
    soon all will be past

    Debra Basham 03-06-2020 (WC 84)

    One month from today we expect to arrive back in Michigan. It would be denial to say the mold saga has not given birth to worry, fear, and concern. Is it gone? I am not just questioning the mold, but referencing also the freedom turning ever-so-surely into curiosity that has momentarily replaced the worry.

    Putting multiple thousands on my credit card, writing checks for more multiple thousands. Grateful access to what we need. Thoughts, too, of those families helped financially by our plight.

    It is said we do not fear death, but we fear dying as the great unknown. Yet, truth-be-told, we have been practicing living with dying since our first breath. We outlived puppies and kitties, and uncles and aunts. Cars and clothes, and friendships. All these no longer are the way they were.

    Fragile at best, this bed of impermanence upon which we rest.

    Mind goes to the blowing of the wind outside the window. Wondering when it is not blowing, where or what wind is.

    Before I was “I,” what was I. And long after, hereafter.

    Suddenly the idea! I can spend all of my earthy accumulations to run a full-page ad in the newspaper telling of the inner journey.

    Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, hardly anyone reads newspapers any more. Trees are relieved. So am I.

    News is depressing. Of course, the really good stuff gets ignored.

    Disaster and doom, debauchery and damage—this is what people read.

    All arises from the conditions. When the conditions are present, wind will arise.

    Death, too, arises—like the sun—when it is time.

    I write an open letter to the tiny house:

    To whom it may concern,

    The problem was more extensive than we anticipated, but we have done what we can. We are optimistic what we have done is enough.

    Love,
    Debra

    My goodness, that is perhaps the words for the ad in the newspaper: WE ARE OPTIMISTIC WHAT WE HAVE DONE IS ENOUGH….