Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: COVID-19

  • Bless the Sea Snakes

    Joel has been having ongoing challenges with his gmail account. I reached out to Rebecca, our wonderful webmaster, and she is on it. When he wrote saying, “I think I must have been cursed by the gods of the internet. What did I ever do to them….” I wrote back:

    “Well, bless the sea snakes!!!! Rebecca is going to see if Geek Squad can help her help you!”

    The following morning, Joel responded:

    I don’t remember how the sea snakes got in this. They play a prominent role in Coleridge’s “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.” Everyone on the ship has died except for the “hero,” and the ship is floundering and adrift. The only person left alive on board is about to die. He has to bite his tongue to have enough moisture in his mouth to speak, but with what he thinks will be his last words, he blesses the sea snakes surrounding the vessel. With the blessing, the wind comes up, and the ship makes it back to England.

    Recently I was listening to a dharma talk by Kyoun Sokuzan. Sokuzan met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a preeminent teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, in late 1973 and became a student. In 1974, Sokuzan attended the first session of Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In 1975, he established the Dharma Study Group of Battle Creek, Michigan. The group is currently meeting via Zoom. When someone asked Sokuzan if we need protection from the coronavirus, Sokuzan answered, “You don’t need protection, but you ask for protection. You participate in the realm you are in.”

    Continuing, “Everything is temporary. Work with it however it shows up in your neighborhood.”

    This all comes as I see my mind grasping for a safe way to be with friends and family. I hear Sokuzan say, “Go into the darkness. That is where the light is.”

    Human experience is polarized. I was one of those odd ducks who was anti-abortion and pro-legalization of abortion. A woman desperate not to birth a baby will take dangerous measures to end that pregnancy. Coat hangers are just one… Truth. Some people argue that making abortion legal motivates more women to choose that option. This is just not truth. The same argument is happening around the legalization of marijuana. Truth?

    Sokuzan: “It’s all relative truth. You can’t see the truth.”

    A friend stopped by briefly yesterday, willing to do me a huge favor. I had placed the two chairs on our front porch at the furthest distance. I donned my cute little kitty mask (a gift from my sister, Janis) and went out onto the porch. As my friend got out of her car, she saw me in my mask. “Do you want me to put a mask on?” she asked. She had one in the car. I said I would appreciate her putting on a mask.

    My friend was obviously not comfortable in the mask she was wearing. Every few seconds she would need to adjust it. The mask just did not fit her face well. As I watched, I had the thought it was more like a thong than a bikini. I hate when my underpants ride up in the crack of my butt. I have never understood someone wearing a thong. Maybe it is like Erma Bombeck’s having said she does not eat chocolate cake — she just smears it on her hips and thighs because that is where it is going to end up!

    Early in the pandemic, I began making masks that are fun. Many of those iterations have been shared in previous posts. Why? Because, as Sokuzan says, “It’s all relative truth.”

    If my friend or I had been an asymptomatic spreader of the virus, would our actions have been enough to protect the other? Sokuzan said we don’t need protection but we do need to work with things however they are showing up.

    Sokuzan used a Buddhist teaching term I had not previously run into, unless I had heard it and did not yet fully embody the dharma these words are pointing to. Trycycle has an excellent article on the teaching if you are interested. Here is the link: “Drive all blames into one.” From the article:

    “Conveniently, blaming others allows us to avoid looking into our own role in the problems and conflicts we encounter. We look outward, but we do not look within. And even in looking outward, once we have assigned the blame, we go no further. So we do not get to the root of the problem. We stop short, satisfied that we are off the hook and someone else is at fault.”

    I think a lot about my family. I take drive all blames into one to heart. If we went for a visit (as we soooooo want to do) and one of them was an asymptomatic spreader, and John or I got ill and/or died, who would be to blame?

    “This slogan {drive all blames into one} is quite radical. Instead of blaming others, you blame yourself. Even if it is not your fault, you take the blame. It is important to distinguish this practice from neurotic self-blaming or the regretful fixation on your own mistakes and how much you are at fault. It also does not imply that you should not point out wrongdoing or blow the whistle on corruption. Instead, as you go about your life, you simply notice the urge to blame others and you reverse it.”

    If my action exposed me to the virus, not even the virus is to blame. But if my action exposed someone else to the virus, I am responsible. It is simply how things showed up in the neighborhood. Drive all blames into one….

    “Pay attention to how blaming arises and what patterns it takes. See what happens when you take on the blame yourself. Notice what changes in your own experience and in what you observe around you.”

    A friend rented a hotel room near her daughter’s cottage as the extended family gathered for the Labor Day weekend. My friend took her own provisions, and she was masked and maintained safe-distance as she joined them for the wonderful celebration of her grandson’s 25th birthday.

    Other friends are leaving this weekend to visit their son and family out of state. They, too, will stay in a hotel and enjoy time with the family out-of-doors.

    Soon, in the Northern hemisphere, it will be winter. “What then?” you might ask.

    Bless the sea snakes….

    Everything is temporary.

  • Ambiguous Gain

    My sister and I are having a wonderful experience with the Magic Eye calendar for 2020.



    We meet via a video call on the first day of each month and we turn the page together. We love the sharing: looking; not seeing; relaxing; looking again; seeing. That is how the process works!

    September was a very challenging image to see. We both had to make at least a half-dozen attempts.

    Relaxing is key.

    Our collective exhilaration when we finally see is palpable.

    My writing time with Southern Circle Poets began with someone’s post about “Ambiguous Loss” that I had re-posted on Facebook:

    Someone once said when you love someone with dementia you lose them more and more everyday: when they are diagnosed, when they go through different stages, when they go into care and when they die.

    This is called “Ambiguous Loss.”

    ‘Rapidly shrinking brain’ is how doctors described it.

    I wouldn’t wish Dementia on anyone. As the persons brain slowly dies, they change physically and eventually forget who their loved ones are. They can eventually become bedridden, unable to move and unable to eat or drink.

    There will be people who will scroll by this message because dementia has not touched them. They may not know what it’s like to have a loved one who has fought or is fighting a battle against Dementia.

    My friend, Claudia, knows this experience well, as does Katey, one of the Southern Circle Poets.

    I wrote:

      I cannot expect you to understand what it feels like to see someone struggle with tasks that once were as easy as breathing. To hear a loved-one say or ask the same comment or question over and over again.

      And to know the truth, “I cannot fix this.”

      Being present with my own inner struggles with wanting it to be fixed is the best I can do.

      I begin a poem:

      You Once Were

      You once were so skillful; and willful.
      You once were so strong.

      The writing doesn’t go anywhere from there, so I begin again…

      Ambiguous Loss

      I wonder when I first recognized you were losing precious skills we had both taken for granted. Like scales falling off the catch-of-the-day, your identity seems to be hell-bent on shedding strengths.

      Crossing the street as the afternoon sunlight was casting shadows, I saw autumn trees on the face of the glistening parking lot still damp from a brief shower. This the first time I had accepted it was me cautioning you to watch your step. Red, yellow, orange and gold…. green now sleeping soundly somewhere.

      I cannot see your world from here.

      Permission granted to enjoy the hint of fall as the breeze blows in from the window behind me, almost cool enough to cause a chill.

      Permission granted to witness the tightness moving mechanically across my chest as I wonder what your future will unfold to.

      Permission granted to be content with both the not knowing and the wanting to know and the soft, sensuous dance between seeming opposites.

      Memory drifts back to delivering my mom to the adult foster care home. Grief at leaving her there as she looks into my face calling me Debbie, and pleads, “Don’t leave me with these strangers….” and the guilt at being my relief to be leaving her there. The years of her decline, the day of her passing—edges blur as they burn a hole in my emotional body, a single heart breaking open enough to hold the whole human happening.

      Profound gratitude now for the dear ones who have walked this path previously, providing a trail of recognition along this treacherous terrain. Remembering Hansel and Gretel and their crumbs of bread being consumed by the birds….

      I make the choice to trust I am still moving toward the center of our being.

    This morning I had a near-identical conversation with two people I love. One was about the news that a job would be ending. The other was about having been at an eye doctor’s office with frighteningly lax procedures for prevention of the spread of Covid-19. Although the content of these two experiences looks dissimilar, the words that came crossed the chasm of delusion: Every experience will be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We learn from it all.

    I said, “When you have already already felt the pain of the experience, be sure you reap the benefits.”

    Having worked at jobs which demanded so much that life balance was sacrificed isn’t failure. Noticing is gaining insight.

    When a child is burned by touching a hot stove, the child learns from the pain how to be safer.


    Now, this is “Ambiguous Gain…”

  • What Are You Doing Today?

    The farmer may only be planting a seed,
    but if he opens his eyes
    he is feeding the whole world.
    ~ Omaha Bee

    This opening quotation kicked off a precious story about a three-person construction crew who was approached by a man asking what each was doing. The first said he was working for pittance and was getting tired, the second said he was laying concrete, the third (a woman, in the version I read) said, “I am building a hospital where people will receive needed medical care and many lives will be saved.”

    The man responded, “Yes… You are building my hospital.”

    The man was the benefactor, and he made the woman head over the entire project.

    I don’t know if this story actually happened as it is written, but the essence of this story is happening all over the planet at every moment as we are either working for a pittance, laying concrete, or saving lives.

    What are you doing today?

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    You ask why there seem to be increasing obstacles. If you’re muddling around thinking about being more loving and caring and connected in your lives but not really doing much about it, negative polarity can relax. They see you’re not really getting anywhere. Since WWII, there has been a tremendous move toward positive polarity in the world. Many old souls are coming into birth, especially in the past 30 years. Here are many beings really intent on finding a way to live with love in the world rather than with an ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ doctrine. Negative polarity looks around and says, ‘What’s happening? This is getting out of hand! Look how loving they’re becoming. Let’s toss in some opposition here.’ ~ Aaron

    Deep Spring has a new blog! Here is a link to the first post: The Vibration of Love is Protection from COVID-19

    Sign up to receive all of the posts real-time!!!

  • Mario’s Italian Market Remains!

    In response to “When Everything Falls Apart, What Remains?” posting, I received a precious email message from a Florida writer-friend.

    Thank you, Paul, for igniting my heart by sharing your powerful writing of your poignant experience.

    (Soft edits only!)

    Welcome to the Yellow Brick Road, and please come again….

      Dear Debra,

      I stared at the title of your recent blog for moments before I opened and read the email.

      The title described exactly, in a few short words, what I’ve been feeling for weeks. Seems that we’ve experienced a string of negative events these past few months that have made July/August 2020 among the most unforgettable in recent memory.

      I’ve tried to remain positive, yet have found this challenging.

      Although not the root cause, COVID-induced separation is a likely contributor to a nagging sense of disconnect.

      I wonder sometimes if we’ve gotten too good at “social distancing.” We stay at home; work from home in separate rooms; spend all day in different mindsets. We frown under our mask if someone is shopping in the wrong direction in the supermarket aisle. We are cautioned to avoid people who are sick, when we used to be encouraged to do the opposite.

      E.M. Forster begins his novel “Howard’s End” with the words “only connect.”

      A final thought on human interaction and connectedness: One of our favorite activities since moving to Southwest Florida is shopping at Mario’s Italian Market in Fort Myers.

      Having grown up in Brooklyn with parents who were raised in Little Italy, I feel qualified to comment on the salumeria experience in America.

      The magic of Mario’s is that everyone there—regardless of ethnicity or nationality—is for that moment bound together by a familiarity and fondness for this food. We make sure that number 75 doesn’t answer before we hold up our ticket number 76. We ask the woman who ordered the long-hot peppers if they’re really hot; she replies with a smile and left-right wag of her hand. The counter man offers a sample slice of Calabrian salami—an inducement to order a half-pound instead of a quarter. We discuss the merits of gorgonzola versus blue cheese with a stranger.

      Perhaps this is what will remain when everything falls apart.

    Perhaps, when everything falls apart, what remains is everything that is loved….

    You are loved, Paul!

  • When Everything Falls Apart, What Remains?

    I am technically practicing silence in a meditation retreat at Heartwood Refuge and Retreat Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina. But I am attending via Zoom and my fingers are on the keyboard. The focus of this retreat with John Orr is When Everything Falls Apart, What Remains? This was John’s blurb about the retreat:

      Our world has seen a massive upheaval as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the continuing racism and political divisiveness. We are all having to deal with changes in our lives and the communities we live in. At times it may seem like everything is falling apart and we are left with a profound feeling of uncertainty. Now more than ever the dharma and our meditation practice can be a refuge to meet the present challenges.

      During this retreat we will explore the ancient teachings of:

      The Don’t Know Mind (making friends with uncertainty)

      Impermanence (this too shall pass)

      Dissolution (when everything falls apart, what remains?)

      Non Duality (Something isn’t separate from Everything)

      Our meditation draws on Mindfulness, Vipassana and Pure Awareness. Clear instruction will be offered for all levels.

      Loving Kindness and Compassion Meditation and chanting are also part of our retreat together. A special focus will be how to practice and hold our hearts open with the inconvenience, discomfort and uncertainty of today’s world.

    On Wednesday afternoon before the retreat began, I had yet another tender conversation with our daughter about our diverse approach to precautions related to this virus. We did not argue, but we make very different choices. A few hours later, during the opening introductions, I received news from a good friend–also attending via Zoom–that she was not feeling well. Here is the rest of the story, posted on Facebook a few moments ago in response to another friend, Kate:

    Kate posted:
    I feel like I’m one of the few people still practicing social distancing, and sheltering in place. FB is full of pics of people out to restaurants, at pools and beaches or sharing space with relatives they haven’t seen in awhile. I would love to see our kids but I can’t guarantee I’m not infected nor can they. Am I just over sensitive to this?

    I responded to Kate:
    Kate, THANK YOU! I could have written this post. Today I would add that another friend, thinking the same way you and I have been thinking, relented and got together with her family.

    Her adult children drove in from out of state, each household traveling in separate vehicles, taking proper precautions along way.

    Each household brought a tent. My friend rented a party-potty and set up an outdoor kitchen. My friend’s family did not enter her house, and when the family went hiking each family drove in his/her own car. They maintained social distance along the trail.

    Shortly after they arrived, her daughter’s partner received a call from work that his colleague had tested positive. He got in their vehicle and drove to the nearest location and had a Covid test.

    Of course the results from his test didn’t come back until AFTER he was already back home, and not until AFTER he was already symptomatic. His test came back positive.

    On Wednesday evening, gathered via Zoom, my friend reported that she had a “wicked cold” and had gone to get a Covid test. She would know in a week.

    Yesterday, she sent a private message via Zoom chat, “I tested positive. I have COVID.”

    Even the precautions level that you and I are committed to, may not be enough….

    Kate, keep teaching by example! So much to learn from this.

    ❤️🙏🏼🦋

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    It is not the teacher who is the authority; it is the dharma that is the authority. It is sati, mindful presence, which is the authority. It is awareness, which is the authority. It is the deeply loving and open heart that is the authority. It is the Ground of Being, the divine essence of each, which is the authority. The teacher who has done his or her work, understands the practice and has developed a depth of realization of how things are, has no need to be the authority to another, but is willing to offer what he or she knows with a certainty, offering it for the guidance of others, but with no need to say, ‘This is it!’ If it really is it, others will discover that through their own practice. ~ Aaron

  • I Concur

    The weather changes very quickly. At 8:45 today, my friend sent a text suggesting we cancel our 9 a.m. bike ride. Rain and thunderstorms were in the forecast. My response: “I concur.”

    Concur is one of those words rarely used. It means to agree, be in accord, go along, be in harmony, be in sympathy, see eye to eye, be of the same mind, or be of the same opinion. It also means to happen or occur at the same time; coincide.

    On one hand, I can see why the word is rarely used. On the other hand, it should be tattooed on our foreheads. Case in point, my recent letter to the editor:

    Confusion and misinformation about COVID-19 has run rampant, making matters worse. Individuals have to make their own choices, but our individual choices affect how we come through this as a whole.

    As a spokesperson for and practitioner of what has been called alternative medicine or holistic health for almost 30 years, I see two vital points of clarity:

    First: At any moment, you cannot be 100% confident you aren’t an asymptomatic carrier. Just as chicken pox is highly contagious before a person knows he or she has the virus, many people are being exposed to COVID-19 by individuals who do not know they have the virus.

    Second: Just breathing can spread this virus. Talking, laughing, and singing are as dangerous as coughing. Infectious aerosols can accumulate especially indoors, but also in any poorly circulating air, and can then easily be inhaled into the lungs.

    Studies are being done as quickly and effectively as possible due to collaboration in the global scientific community.

    Initially the CDC said to wear a mask only if you were sick or caring for someone who was sick. But this was due primarily to the global shortage of masks that were desperately needed by those on the front lines. Research has found that wearing masks significantly lowers the risk of spreading the virus, and that many unnecessary deaths will be prevented if everyone wears a mask. Mask-wearing has been widely adopted in Asia since SARS, and has been seen as a civic duty and a signal of “support” to health-care workers and the national economy.

    Myriad reasons exist for not wearing a mask: Masks can be uncomfortable, they fog up your glasses, they are hot, some people feel claustrophobic in them, hearing can be compromised.

    But there is only one reason to do the right thing.

    You wear a mask and safe distance not because of what you might GET, but because of what you might GIVE!

    It goes against our nature to isolate. We are social creatures. It goes against our nature to wear masks. But our nature has been shaped.

    By 9:00 this morning, just 15 minutes after our text concurring to cancel our bike ride, the skies were clear. I called my friend and said, “Let’s get on our bikes and ride toward one another.” We did just that. And we had lovely sharing.

    The previous evening she had heard a talk about why it is vital we bring native plants to suburban yards. A talk by Doug Tallamy, an entomologist at University of Delaware, author of Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants. From Doug’s website: Garden as if life depended upon it. You see, native plants support pollinators and food webs far better than introduced ornamentals, and some native plants support much more life than others. Choosing the best plants for your area is the key to success.

    Heading home from our ride, as I turned onto my road I was gifted an amazing view of nature’s linear wildflower garden! I pulled into the entrance of our park, got off my bike, and walked out to the road to take a photo. (See Sacred Story: Linear Garden.) Right there, without any fertilizer, and no need for irrigation, nature’s gorgeous, life-sustaining plants.

    Perhaps nothing since the Civil War has revealed our ability to see things differently from those we love the way this coronavirus has.

    Some see beauty and perfection when looking at a perfectly manicured lawn with the sprinklers twirling—totally missing the warning signs.

    The neighborhood in which we rode today is proliferated with a variety of evergreens planted widely in many housing developments a couple of decades ago. Those trees are dying a premature death. An appropriate species, but not native to this zone. Pines are among the oldest trees on Earth. Ponderosa pines, common throughout the western United States, have a lifespan of 300 to 500 years, with an 800-year-old tree documented in Utah.

    Shortly after we got home from our ride, my friend sent a text: Raining quite hard here! Lucky us.

    Our nature has been shaped just as surely as have our landscapes. We need the rain. We need the native plants. Right now, we need the masks.

    I so appreciated reading the words of a friend on his Facebook post: “I will wear my mask when out in public to respect your right,” and I also felt the sting that came with the rest of his sentence: “to live out your lives in fear.”

    Noticing the warning signs does not mean one is living out life in fear.

    Where are the bees?

  • Trees!

    Sacred Stories

    She sent a tree emoji in a text message to a friend, including one with the yoga tree pose.

    A little later during a gathering via Zoom, several people expressed how trees help them get or stay grounded and centered. Late arriving to the group, one woman explained that she had been painting a tree, and even turned her iPad around to show the group the trees outside her window!

    While her phone’s ringer was off, she had received a text message from another friend. That friend was sharing a video of her baby daughter looking out the window, talking to the trees.

    The baby was so engaged with the trees she did not even respond when her mom softly called her name a couple of times.

    The only words in the text message were: She knows about the 🌲 🌳

  • Through the Darkness

    Start where you are,
    use what you have,
    do what you can.

    ~ Arthur Ashe

    I am tempted to schedule this to post so readers don’t know that I have my fingers on the keyboard at 4:21 am while on retreat. If I were not retreating via Zoom because of COVID-19, I would not have the option. I would have a room mate and I would be awake and watching the mind movements. I am awake. And I am watching the mind movements. And my fingers are on the keyboard.

    This week I have been doing seva (service) by transcribing audio for our teacher, Barbara Brodsky. Most of you know that Barbara is deaf. Because she is channeling the teachings, she “hears” what was taught only after someone listens to the voice memos and sends her a document. I have been doing that for her almost real time. This, along with Barbara’s releasing the raw audios to the students, is a huge change.

    The catalyst of these changes is COVID, but, the benefit of the changes is trust.

    Last night’s evening talk, a summary of this group’s two-year commitment to the Dharma Path, began with the question, “What is the Dharma Path?”

    First, is the truth of duhkha, a Sanskrit word usually thought to mean suffering. The clearest meaning is a wheel that is off center causing the vehicle (car or cart) to lurch. Lurching makes the ride very uncomfortable, further amplified by our expectation that the ride should be smooth.

    Human beings can get off center and lurch. Suffering because we have aversion to the lurching, we grasp for the expectation and desire for no lurching.

    COVID-19 has amplified the lurching, and the aversion and grasping. Lots of duhkha…. but there is a path out.

    Earlier in the retreat, we were to answer the questions, “In this moment, what is the hardest thing for me to hold in love? What seems to sit outside of the heart?” I wrote down one word: IGNORANCE. A saying that represents ignorance is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Wasted effort. Squandered resources. Denial. Refusal to look with the eyes of love.

    A couple of evenings ago watching two juvenile birds at the bird bath inspired a poem:

    I AM That

    The juvenile bluebird
    standing stiffly
    in the center of the bird bath

    The young starling
    watching in amazement
    before jumping in and splashing exuberantly

    As much as saying
    “Here, I’ll show you
    so you can enjoy it too”

    Exiting the bath
    Making space for the willing-to-learn
    “I-can-do-that-too!”

    Bluebird to follow suit
    Again and again
    We teach and we learn

    We center our wheel by holding clearly in view several highest intentions for our lives. I wrote: I serve those who serve. I assist humanity to transcend seeming limitations and move out of delusion and awaken to our true power to bless all.

    Lofty aspirations, for sure, but we are not alone in these endeavors. The creator of worlds is here offering us support. We are often like that juvenile bluebird, standing stiffly in our human form, ignorant of the amazing joy available to us.

    There will always be pain. The conditions around the pandemic, racial inequality, violence, desperation, despair — lurching, lurching, lurching.

    As Chris McCall sang “Here I am Lord” for us I was crying like a baby. Many of us were. Humanity is tired of the uncomfortable lurching. “I will go, Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.”

    If a juvenile bluebird and a juvenile starling can do it, so can we. We are not just humans. We are also divine.

    One of the closing lines in last night’s dharma talk: “Ahhhh, I see we have passed through the darkness….”

  • And There is Room for Everything

    Poem
    by Debra Basham 05-27-2020

    “At This Time”

    Right now, where you are, are you aware?

    Breathe in and feel connection to all you love

    Birds fly and view the world from a higher perspective

    Fabulous fruits, decadent desserts, marvelous munchies

    Mundane made sacred by joy

    Sheer silliness, satiating stillness, somber stoicism

    All reaches all, as we relax into All That Is….

    At this time

    This morning, like almost every other morning since the middle of March, I enjoyed practicing yoga with my dear friend, Kathy. Right now, we are meeting via ZOOM, and recording the videos for her YMCA classes. It does not appear likely that our (mostly senior) students are going to be Studio B any time soon.

    Amelia Vogler, Executive Director of HTPA (Healing Touch Professional Association), sent the membership an email message today which included a link to “When Life Is Good Again” which was premiered exclusively on Entertainment Weekly on the 27th of May, 2020.

    Dolly Parton was inspired by the COVID-19 quarantine. She told People of the quarantine in April of 2020, “We will come out on the other side of this, and we’re all going to be better people for it. Take care of each other from afar and continue to send love to your friends, family, and everyone suffering.”

    I resist grasping at social-distancing being necessary for so long that it no longer feels odd. I resist clinging to the ease of hugging those I want to hug when I want to hug them, meeting for hours of sharing over tea, having a house filled with musicians, and doing jigsaw puzzles with friends.

    Dolly’s last stanza says is all:

    God’s the reason for all things
    You want rainbows, you get rain
    We’ll all be forever changed (Forever changed)
    I’ll sell my boat and fly my kite
    Walk in the park, go out at night
    And hold my loved ones extra tight
    When everything is on the mend
    I’ll even drink with my old friends
    Sing and play my mandolin
    We’ll make it through this long dark night
    Darkness fades when faced with light
    But everything’s gonna be alright
    When life is good again

    The next email message I opened was Alan Seale’s weekly newsletter, also dated May 27, 2020. Forwarded by my friend, Roann Altman, moving home today after having spent these past couple of months quarantined with a friend with cancer. Roann’s friend, Richard, transitioned this week. In the newsletter, Alan quotes Etty Hillesum, a Jewish diarist who lived in Amsterdam and died in Auschwitz in 1943.

    Through me course wide rivers
    and in me rise tall mountains.
    And beyond the thickets
    of my agitation and confusion
    there stretch the wide plains of my
    peace and surrender.
    All landscapes are within me.
    And there is room for everything.

    Yes, there is room for everything in your heart at this time….

  • Ageless in this Moment

    This week is the anniversary of my mom’s transition. May 20 is also the date Ursel, the former owner of our home, passed, as well as the date Ursel purchased the home 33 years earlier. Both Ursel and my mom had their funeral/celebration of life on May 23. (See the Sacred Story: May 20).

    My mom passed in 2003. That was also Memorial Day weekend. No picnics, no parties, no plans this year.

    I am choosing to find ways to enjoy the moments.

    The leaves have come out this week! Scrumptius spring greens are silouetted against the sky.

    I continue to wear a mask when I go for a bike ride. I do not feel a need for a mask when I am out-of-doors doing activities on my own, but it is an important reminder.

    Yesterday I made some more no-sew masks, as it looks like social-distancing and safe-sheltering is going to be with us for a while longer. Let me know if you want a couple of easy patterns. One is made from a sock, and another is made from a sleeve. Stretchy fabrics are preferred….

    One of my mask-enhancements (inspired by a Dharma friend) is a photo of my smile! It is a black and white printer-quality paper print that I colored with crayons. Quickest teeth-whitening ever! I used clear packing tape to cover both sides and to adhere it to my sock mask.


    Ageless in this Moment Debra Basham May 22, 2020 (WC 250)
    Hiking in the western US for the first time we were
    stepping on rock beneath our feet instead of soil
    nothing seemed familiar except the sun overhead

    A small pool of water caught the sun’s light
    and I kneeled down to take a closer look
    myriad life forms were swimming together

    Precious life-giving water is at a premium here
    nature taking full advantage of resources
    as they present themselves

    This modest puddle is teeming with activity
    but I feel like a voyeur as
    I silently watch closely in awe

    Tiny minnow-like swimmers
    unnamed bugs skating on the water’s smooth surface
    a small lizard lounging

    In the distance I hear others approaching
    I notice a sudden feeling of protectiveness
    hoping those coming along will also be mindful

    A young girl—perhaps six or seven
    wordlessly asks permission to join me
    we peer together into this pool of possibility

    We both have a zillion questions but
    only our eyes give hint to the intellectual activity
    our lips remain still as we keep vigil

    She is motioned to rejoin the others
    reluctantly she leaves our shared perch
    glancing over her shoulder as she obeys

    Many times I’ve abandoned my delight
    when beckoned by some outer call
    wishing I had been able to stay where I was enjoying myself

    I am no longer I but she and all children and adults who can remain ageless in this moment in time and space if we take full advantage of the resources as they present themselves