Deep Spring Center for Medition Archives - Page 2 of 4

Nothing to Attain

We are so brief.
A one-day dandelion.
A seedpod skittering across the ice.
We are a feather falling from the wing of a bird.
I don’t know why it is given to us to be so mortal
and to feel so much. It is a cruel trick, and glorious.

~ Louise Eldrich

We looked at sacred darkness and emptiness a LOT over the five-day intensive that finished about dinner time yesterday. During those five-days humans were living this. Joan was with Bob at the hospital. Pneumonia. His dementia complicates things further. He would be going to a care facility rather than coming home. For how long? Virginia had Paul to ER. Bleeding. Awaiting emergency surgery for a massively enlarged prostate. Barbara Brodsky‘s carefully selected caregiver for her husband, Hal, had to call off when his young daughter tested positive for Covid. The second had to call off when his wife was hospitalized and he was in charge of their 18-month old. John is in a sciatica flare, and we have to cancel the 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure study he was scheduled to start this morning because he cannot ambulate right now.

The opening line from Aaron this morning: “People seek safety, and they believe that safety is in stability and no change.”

During this intensive we were encouraged to let ourselves go into the darkness and learn to be the light. Profound sadness washed over me as I had total cellular memory of surgery in 1992 to correct my having been born tongue-tied. A lingual frenectomy removes a band of tissue that connects the underside of the tongue with the bottom of the mouth. At birth, this is a relatively simple procedure. I was forty-two years old….

I felt the depth of the trauma from the point of view of the tongue. It was traumatized by the surgery. Then it was lost. It was not able to get back to the familiar. It did not feel like it belonged and it did not know what to do. Thirty years later, I am noticing the stress in my jaw and the pull to the side of my neck, aware now that this has been a chronic situation.

I cried, reporting all of this to my dharma family in Group 2. I heard the words and I recognized the correlation to the human incarnation. Even the simple shift from living in the fluid world of the womb to the instability of the room is traumatic. Sounds are startling, light is harsh, energies feel like an assault.

Aaron quoted from Dante’s Inferno: In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear.

Humans see and feel so much, often it appears too much to process, and, yes, it can feel like a cruel trick.

One beloved introduced us to Jeff Foster’s “Guru of Darkness” on his Facebook post. Jeff’s writing was woven into our intensive with the skill of a world-class weaver.

…we are not here to destroy, eradicate, fix, transcend, or even ‘heal’ our darkness — the grief, the terror, the anger, the shame, those deep feelings of guilt from childhood. For these are just places in ourselves that we haven’t been willing or able to illumine yet. They are not inherently evil, sinful or dangerous. (www.lifewithoutacentre.com)

Another beloved suggested speaking to the contraction of the self where there is suffering, “I feel you. I love you. I care, and this is important.” I have begun speaking this to my tongue and jaw and neck. I can be patient since we have thirty years of my ignorance to soften the impact from.

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” ~ Edward Everett Hale, American Author

“To see myself as on a journey through the universe is delusional. To come to know myself as the universe journeying is awakening.” ~ Falling into Grace by Adyashanti

Letting my heart open to the pain and loss that had been pushed away or ignored or deflected led me right to the heart of SCS, which has not been active since 2012 following the surgery I had to remove the ovarian mass. The Osho Zen Tarot card (8 of Water Letting Go) so direct: A recognition that something is finished, something is completing, whatever it is — a job, a relationship, a home you have loved, anything that might have helped define who you are — it is time to let go of it, allowing any sadness but not trying to hold on.

SCS was all of that: a job, a relationship, a home I have loved (and the cats I have loved), and my identity.

The Osho card continues, You are past the point of no return now, and gravity is doing its work. Go with it — it represents liberation.

We were guided in the meditation by Aaron: “There is nothing you can hold onto forever except the essence of your being, and you do not hold onto that, you simply are that. This is your truth; this is what you are. I move ahead of my own free will, with the intention of releasing suffering in this universe, of helping beings wake up — including myself…. This is my intention to support release of suffering, an increase of happiness for all sentient beings.”

OMG – All semester I have thought of Aaron’s teaching the SCS material Joel and Debra developed from Steven Karpman’s Drama Triangle. I write in my journal: It’s not Aaron teaching Debra’s material, Debra has been teaching the dharma as Aaron does!

I look down at my Fitbit and it shows 9,999 steps. I don’t want to move but I have to move to reach my goal…. I dig out a CD and listen to Everlasting Peace, my own voice telling me “Circumstances have changed and it is time now to look to new directions to learn how to fly once more….”

The last morning of the five-day intensive, Barbara shares that the mother of the caregiver who had been pulling the weight of the week as Barbara was teaching the intensive fell overnight and broke her hip….

As Barbara says, “There is always going to be something. If it needs to slide away; let it slide away.” Barbara begins to share her process of coming back to the light right there in the darkness. Although deaf and off tune, we listen to her chant:

Mary Magdelene incorporates and notices Barbara’s voice is hoarse from so much teaching time this week. Mary takes a sip of water, then tells us there is never any hurry. She quotes a poem by Karen Weber: I am the place where god shines through, where god and I are one not two. Mary tells us that our beloved teacher, Aaron, was so helpful because he was not yet fully awake but he knew how to not get caught up in negativity. To see the negative story as it is, and to know that right there with fear there is love. Hari Om. When I call on the love in my heart, I come home. Mary tells us to just keep coming home. To remember why you have come. To hold the darkness as a sacred energy. There is nothing more powerful than love.

My closing sharing was to see that what is in the way is the way. I mentioned Jana Stanfield’s song If I Were Brave and how we know we are all brave became we came! Someone quoted Nelson Mandela’s quoting Marianne Williamson:

I do a drawing from the question, “What is released as we fully manifest the true self?”

I can’t find the beginning and wonder if that mean none exists.

I write Mary’s last question to us: “At the end of attaining, what remains?”

An answer comes, “The tapestry of attending to without giving it substance.”

I title the drawing from the Heart Sutra: for there is nothing to attain.

June 9, 2022

Midnite’s Purple Petunia Plant

From my journal:

Dear Holy Spirit,

I am listening to a podcast by Ram Dass. (Ep. 199: The Continuity of Consciousness)

“Somewhere between not enough and more seems to be enough.”

At least a few moments go by before i have a thought about Joel — that’s progress. I have heard nothing from him since last Sunday evening when he sent email saying he was on the floor in his bedroom and could not get up.

Ram says the concept ‘I am meditating’ is still “rush collecting.” He continues:

You have been born many times and many times you have died and each time you have died you have struggled against death. You have said: “Why me? Save me. Heal me! Do whatever you need to do, doctor: Transplant, freeze, do whatever needs to be done. Cut. Mend. But keep me here.”

And you hold desperately to the bed sheets and you struggle against it. And then you’re dead. And then a voice says to you, “Hello.”

And then you say, “I guess I didn’t die.”

And the voice says, “Oh, to the contrary, you are quite dead.”

Time and time again, death after death, you have rejected that voice, and stayed in what the Christians called purgatory. You stayed in a state of confusion between births.

(Ram Dass uses the term ‘veil of illusion’ — I’ve never heard that. I’ve heard the other side of the veil but I’ve not heard it said that it is the veil of illusion.)

2/5 of the population of America have had transcendent, mystical experiences. That is 40 million people. Of those 40 million people, a sampling shows that 85% said, “It was the most powerful experience of my life and I never want to have another one.”

For only some of the people, when they see through that veil, they are able to utilize that new awareness… And when you are really ripe, that one millisecond changes your whole life from now on — that lifetime. And when you are really ready, that one moment makes you say, “From here on all I wish to do now is to get free.”

Now, when you have started to awaken in a particular lifetime, and then you die, you say, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,” and then you are dead and somebody says welcome and you say I guess I didn’t die and they say yes you did and you are confused and then that moment of that previous birth when you awakened comes to you and you say, “Ah, right, this is what that was about.”

(I have the awareness that suffering is grace.)

Up until that time, you’ve been seeking to optimize pleasure.

A birth is like a process of getting you straight or cleaning you up or awakening you…. You are part of a far more interesting game which you begin to be aware of in terms of your own identity….

The meaning of every act in life starts to change. You look at all of it as process for awakening, for cleaning up your game. You don’t begrudge your history — no matter how neurotic it has been — for it has in it the stuff which has created the space you are in at this moment which allows you to hear right now.

(I notice that I am trying too hard as I am chopping vegetables for quiche and then I hear, “Let the tool do the work.”)

That may be the lesson of the power washer. No amount of stress or strain enhances the work. I hear that the central message again and again as I continue. No amount of effort forces sleep. No amount of worry produces peace. No amount of effort produces clarity. One cannot TRY oneself to anything.

My mind recognizes that we can aim. A – I – M. Already is (or always is) mentality.

Peace already is like the sun is always shining. Peace always is. Love always is. Light always is. Nothing we can do “makes” it.

I realize consciousness is also a tool. I feel fluttering in my heart as I write this sentence.

My blood pressure continues to be quite high, although I have had two readings over the past week and a half that would be considered normal.

I am on Zoom attending the year-end “intensive” right now. Perhaps additional insight is to emerge during these five days. This morning’s Thought for Today from Aaron is quite interesting for me:

Whatever it is that you’re praying for, be it health or well-being of yourself or for a loved one or whatever the prayer-intention may be, that innate perfection is always there. If you approach it from a place of fear, you keep manifesting the distortion. When you come back to the place of love, you center yourself in love and invite others to take hold of the strands with you and pray with you from that same place of love. Energetically they’re weaving together with you, weaving together a tapestry of healing with you, of growth, of love, of joy. So this is the power of prayer.

I find it fascinating that I had just written the string about always there. Plus, when I first started my practice in Healing Touch, I named my business “Tapestry” with the tag line weaving together the threads of body, mind, and spirit. Also on the card: For when you are ready.

I am ready.

From my journal:

Dear Holy Spirit,

Very much aware of anticipatory stress. I am willing. I ask Alexa to play Karen Drucker’s “Morning Prayer: I will surrender to my greatest highest good.”

As I listen, I am aware of a sensation in my left jaw and my right thumb. I look up the Louise Hay meaning of thumb and it is about intellect and worry. The affirmation is “my mind is at peace.”

I look online and find the five hindrances. One is restlessness and worry. Uddhacca, defined as a mental factor characterized by disquietude, like water whipped by the wind.

I imagine my body as a wide container where the energy is allowed to bounce around freely like a pinball machine. As I am sitting with the sensations and allowing them to bounce around, the sensations settle on their own.

Joan is online from the hospital, where her husband, Bob, is in very serious condition. I have the precious memory of John’s and my experience of being held in this sangha’s awakened heart while he was in the hospital with the TIA during the Emerald Isle retreat in April. A profound awareness washes over me that if one was to complete the transition back to non-physical, this is an ideal place to do that.

From Gratefulness.org: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. (Mary Oliver)

Perhaps a perfect image to remind me is Midnite’s purple petunia plant. Every one of these variations arise from one plant.

June 5, 2022

Safe!!!

What happens in your heart when you simply state: “I am Light.”?

You are not trying to convince yourself,
but to invite yourself home,
to remember your deepest truth:
“I am Light!”

Yet, sometimes the mind is so contracted with fear, doubt, anger or greed that the words seem hollow. Then it may be helpful to choose to recall to mind something beautiful—something that will draw attention back to the Light that exists right there with the darkness, the spaciousness that is right there with the contracted and solid. You may look at a flower, hear laughter, offer a smile to a friend, remember a moment of kindness offered to you or to another.

Right there with darkness,
with sadness, fear or anger,
where is lovingkindness?
Where is joy?
Right there with contraction,
where is spaciousness?

Use no force; be patient with yourself. Light is ALWAYS there with the darkness. ~ Aaron Thought for Today

Yesterday, last evening, and this morning my blood pressure numbers were high. I have the freshman psych 101 syndrome where I think I have everything wrong with me that John does. Fortunately, I know better than try to wrestle myself into well-being. This line is spoken by The Borg in the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994): resistance is futile.

From my journal:

My blood pressure has not come down. In addition, I have been having morning headache, pain in my jaw, and some shortness of breath. Wondering if I should go on anti-anxiety medication.

My inner voice reminds me of ascension flu, a term used when you are awakening on a deeper soul level. What is happening is that your whole body from the cells to the chemistry in your body is changing and shifting at rapid speeds. It feels like you are dying or there is something seriously wrong with you.

I am willing to awaken to a deeper soul level. I surrender. This is not a decision to try and “fix” something but to welcome the best support for all — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. I am inviting awareness.

I realized this morning that I had forgotten to pay our lot rental that was due on June first. I just scheduled a reminder to go off on my phone two days before the first of the month from now on and I will set up auto pay when the new credit cards come. This is kindness.

I bear witness to the panic pattern: It’s all up to me and it is dangerous. What if I do it wrong?

Spirit, this poisonous terror of doing it wrong has served its time. I am reminded of the 3D image on the Magic Eye Calendar. Janis and I flipped to June yesterday. The 3-D scene is a ball player sliding into home plate. The catcher is over the plate, gloved-hand stretched as far forward as physically possible, almost touching the ball. The runner is on the ground sliding toward the bag. Only one word could be used to describe what is happening in the game: SAFE!!!

A mnemonic pops spontaneously onto the page: SURRENDER ATTACHMENT; FREEDOM EMERGES.

I am guided to listen to Freedom from Fear, Anxiety, and Panic Attacks, an old SCS audio production. I dig through stuff and find an old CD. I get the pillows that for years were on the massage table in my office and I stretch out on the yoga mat, covered with a cozy blanket. It was a bit otherworldly to allow myself to surrender to my own voice. Appreciating anew the musical masterpiece Christina Beushausen created.

As the audio ends, I remember this quote by Ajahn Chah:

If you let go a little you will have a little peace;
if you let go completely you will have complete peace.

Another mnemonic comes forth: SIMPLE ACCEPTANCE FREES EVERYTHING.

June 2, 2022

This Day’s Dawn

Those who are awake live in a constant state of amazement. ~ Jack Kornfield

This day’s dawn comes on the heels of a dark night. Actually, every day’s dawn does.

Last evening we took John to my primary. She agreed with the medicine list. She encouraged patience and confidence in the specialists he will be working with, along with his primary. I was almost in a heap when we left. I was in search of relief.

Aaron’s thought for today from Deep Spring Center for Meditation expresses it this way: Each of you is walking right now through dark valleys, unable to see what the future will hold. But your heart controls that future. Hold that dream of love, of an earth in which all beings cherish every other sentient being and the earth itself, knowing we are one and we love. We love, and we are love.

Awareness sees so many gifts in all of this, not the least of which is how John is navigating the perfect catalyst for my overcoming habit energy of fear around medical stuff. It is not easy, but it is rich with opportunity.

The Empty Circle Zen Group’s Mindful Moment for today refers to the raw truth — Everyone we cherish will, someday, get sick and die. If we don’t practice the meditation on emptiness, when those things happen, we will be overwhelmed. Concentration on emptiness is a way of staying in touch with life as it is, but it has to be practiced and not just talked about as connectedness.

For example, while Stacey and I were working on the jigsaw puzzle a couple of days ago, waves of emotion would wash over me. I would swallow the threatening tears and observe the thought. After several close encounters, clear seeing allowed me to notice the delusion. Once stable with it, I was able to speak to Stacey, starting with the caveat I did not even believe it. I said, “You have always been closer to your dad more than to me. If one of us had to get sick and die, I wish it could have been me so you would still have your dad.”

As Stacey’s initial loving heart instantly began assuring me that isn’t true, I interjected immediately, “I am sharing this with you because I absolutely agree it is not true.”

Waking reality does not exist in as concrete a manner as people might think.

Following my foray into the darkness last evening, on this day’s dawn Stacey sent me some wonderful words of wisdom:

If you don’t feel your best today, allow yourself that space. This is hard. You don’t have to process this all at once.

May 10, 2022

I Surrender

Entry from my journal: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 @ 3:37 am:

Dear Holy Spirit,

I am awake and in the TV room listening to Karen Drucker’s “I Surrender.”

I will release every fear that’s in my way…

and I am grateful every moment of every day.

I spoke with my doctor late last evening. I had called because my blood pressure had spiked the past few days. At home in my pantry is a prescription bottle of an anti-anxiety medication she prescribed for me in 2017 when this had happened. I took one once, and I have carried one with me in my purse every day since. I took 1/2 on Sunday, and 1/2 on Monday, but the pressure was still elevated when Linda B/G checked it last evening.

I love that my doctor knows my blood pressure goes up because of anxiety, rather than thinking it is organic. When she prescribed the anti-anxiety medication in 2017, she said, “Anxiety driven blood pressure doesn’t respond well to the classes of medications normally used to lower blood pressure.” And that list is long: Diuretics; Beta-blockers; ACE inhibitors; and Vasodilators, just to name a few.

Of course, John’s recent experience of having had severe “silent” coronary artery disease (CAD) has triggered my childhood pattern of being terrified of all things medical. Now that we are home and things are moving along smoothly, this current tremendous anxiety is a result of my having just gone through everything with him. Waking up early Saturday morning to not-one-but-two tornado warnings blasting on our phones probably added insult to injury…

My doctor said she is not worried about me. She has years of good blood pressure readings taken in her office by her nurse. She assured me they have done research about the spouse of a heart patient going through this sort of thing.

I took 1/2 of one 2mg Valium (with permission) and I went to bed optimistic about getting a good night’s sleep. I went to sleep, but I woke up in massive ANXIETY. While there were no conscious thoughts of scary things, I could feel my body in high alert, totally overrun with adrenaline.

I grabbed my phone, popped in my earbuds, and began tapping along with some Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) audios. After a couple of shorts — including Tapping Universal Reversals — without much measurable benefit. Then I tapped through FEELING SAFE IN YOUR BODY with Nick Ortner. During the 6 minute 50 second closing I began to feel a shift. I repeated that part. I repeated it again. And again.

Conditions came to mind: womb trauma when my mom had syphilis and was a terrified inpatient; being traumatized by hospitalization in isolation after the diagnosis of polio at age five; the out-of-body experience at age 12 when I was in the auto accident; the terror I felt during the trip to Europe in 2011. An avalanche of more minor situations that reveal the deeper structure of anxiety also came forth in my mind. When one is driven by amygdala hijacking, even choosing the ‘right’ color of paint can feel like a life-or-death situation.

I felt my body releasing the pattern and welcoming bliss back.

My niece, who has recently shared her life-long struggle with anxiety and depression, came to my mind over and over. I had said to John a few day ago I was feeling like I need to reach out to her.

My nephew, who has used drugs to combat severe anxiety, resulting in his having multiple incarcerations, came to mind.

And so many others….

I began listening to the Surrogate Tapping audio, and I said out loud to myself, “I dedicate the merit of this to all who suffer from anxiety…” Jesica Ortner’s words encircled my body and soothed my mind:

…. This is a blessing in disguise and I am so grateful…. I let go of my need to control this situation….

I can feel some hints of integration as I listen.

….As I heal in the presence of darkness, we are all uplifted….

I wonder if this pattern of fear and anxiety might actually be a part of our collective divine mission.

….I no longer live the lie; the lie that I don’t have what it takes; the lie that others don’t have what it takes….

I can still hear the refrain of Karen Drucker singing I surrender to my greatest highest good in the background of my mind’s ear. I can feel myself breathing! I look and my heart rate on my Fitbit is showing 67 beats per minute!

My grandson, Brad, comes to mind. He has spoken of his own awareness of this pattern of anxiety-driven achievement.

….This person has what it takes to have what they want….I have faith that this person I love will do what’s right for them. The outcome is greater than I could have ever imagined so I let go of my need to predict. I let go of my need to control. Everything is in divine order. I am grateful for this situation for it helps me learn and grow. I am grateful for this situation for it helps me learn and grow. I’m grateful for this blessing in disguise. I’m grateful for this blessing in disguise.

When the surrogate tapping audio is finished, I open my email and read two “Thought-for-today” messages that speak directly to my current experience.

Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now. ~ Lin-Manuel Miranda (from Gratefulness.org)

Get to know fear. What is fear? It’s very interesting. Fear is always about what might happen, not much about what’s happening right now. When you’re present in the moment there may be discomfort, even real pain or sadness, but not a lot of fear. Fear is about your projections. ~ Aaron (from Deep Spring Center for Meditation)

And when I turn on the computer to write this Yellow Brick Road post, this is the random screen saver image I am looking at. And I surrender to my greatest highest good….

January 18, 2022

The Only True Hope

When my eyes fill with wonder
and my heart with love or joy,
I do not betray my concerns for the world —
I nourish my capacity to attend to them.

~ Kristi Nelson, 12-22-2021 Gratefulness.org

I confess to recently having looked into the mirror and noticing a drooping of my jowls, deep crevasses of a frown on both sides of my mouth. More accurately, not frowning, just the absence of laughter and smiles.

This past Sunday, I was Zoom host for Remembering Wholeness, a once-a-month event with Barbara Brodsky channeling darshan with “The Mother.”

Darshan is a reciprocal experience of meeting with a holy or revered person or diety which results in the human viewer’s receiving a blessing. The person just before me to receive darshan had been told, “To be is your gift of the world. There is nothing at all selfish about just being for some period of time and letting yourself feel energetically restored. If you have a beautiful fountain, water must come into the basin or the fountain cannot continue to send out its beautiful movement. Fill the basin — with pure, radiant water.”

In much of the world, this is the season for giving gifts. But to be able to give a gift, there must also be those to receive. Most of us are familiar with the lyrics of the song about the little drummer boy.

I played my best for him
Pa rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum,
Rum pum pum pum

Then he smiled at me
Pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum

I was the last to receive a blessing from The Mother.

To Debra:

Please stop thinking about in and out. The water comes into the basin of the fountain so it can go out. When it goes out it lands in the perimeter of the basin, flows into the center, then out. And it just keeps recirculating.

Sometimes you’re more in one phase, sometimes more in the other. For you it would be good to try to find where the balance is. And remember that the basin is never empty, because it is not only you that fills it, but everything around you fills it.

The gifts that you give to the world… I’ve enjoyed through Barbara reading your blog. It’s very beautiful. This is a gift to everyone. You’re hosting an event like this. This is a gift to everyone.

Now to whatever degree it’s useful, focus on, “What do you need in order to be more fully nourished? And how can you invite that into yourself, knowing that it will recycle back out? … but in this moment, what will suit me in order for the fountain to be full and ready to pour out again of light?”

This flowing of water into the basin so it is ready to pour out again brings to mind the ebb and flow of light on our planet.

It has been a challenging autumn. August 30 we tested positive for Covid. September 24 John’s brother, Jerry, passed. The week of Thanksgiving, our 55-year old niece had a brain bleed. Since the first of November John has had an extremely painful sciatica flare. But the December full moon has come and gone. Known as the “cold moon” by the Mohawk people, this full moon occurs just a few days shy of December 21, the winter solstice.

Humans have honored the significance of the winter solstice for a very, very long time. The ancient Monument of Newgrange is a 5200 year old megalithic structure built in precise alignment with the rising sun over the solstice each winter. Built around 3200 BC, that means it is 600 years older than the Pyramids at Giza, and 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.

“What do you need in order to be more fully nourished? And how can you invite that into yourself, knowing that it will recycle back out?”

I need to remember that spring always follows winter.

I need to remember that water comes into the basin of the fountain so it can go out.

I need to remember that, as Stephen Spender so beautifully expressed, “The only true hope for civilization — the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events.”

I need to remember the face of our great-grandson, Jackson, when his G-ma took him to visit Santa.

I need to remember that when my eyes fill with wonder and my heart with love or joy, I do not betray my concerns for the world — I nourish my capacity to attend to them.

From my keyboard to yours, Merry Christmas everyone….

December 22, 2021

Being of Genuine Service

Tuesday evening while still in the post-overnight-drive malaise, I tried to log on as Zoom host for our Dharma Path class. It said “username / password incorrect” so I tried again. Same thing. Then the foggy thinking took over and I questioned if the link was set up on one of the other accounts. I tried both, but neither of those worked either, so I tried the main account once more.

Up popped, “YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN LOCKED FOR 30 MINUTES DUE TO FIVE INCORRECT LOGIN ATTEMPTS.”

About 15 minutes late opening the room, and about 15 minutes before the class is to begin, I used the student link to log in as a participant. That worked, but I was unable to support the class as host by making the teacher/s co-hosts, muting, spotlighting the teacher, recording the class, etc.

I asked one of the other students who is also a volunteer host to give it a try. He got the same message. I sent a text message to the Zoom team leader who was not attending the class. Perhaps she could help.

Barbara said we would begin and we would just rely upon audio recording with her iPad.

About 15-20 minutes later, the Zoom team leader was successful logging in as host! She was able to make me host, and I was able to perform my hosting duties.

You so want to be of genuine service….

I was very aware of the significance of Aaron’s opening illustration about a young child’s coming to dinner and lamenting, “I don’t want that black stuff on my potatoes.”

Note* I am allergic to black pepper. It gives me a sour stomach and “juicy” burps.

Aaron had Barbara share her experience at age 17 of being on a freedom ride with a group of students from the north who went into the deep south working toward the end of segregation. When Barbara voiced her fear in anticipation of the following day’s event, an elder church member said to her, “WE would not want you to do this if you were not afraid — you need to recognize the harm that could be done so you can already forgive them for any possible harm.”

It is like Jesus saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

The following day their bus was run off the road. It was tipped on its side. The angry mob was breaking the windows. Glass and rocks were raining down on them. Amidst this shock and risk a single voice began to sing, “We shall overcome…” before they all joined in.

Barbara remembers that as a pivotal moment.

Great harm or even death may have come to them if not for the arrival of the National Guard.

Many of us are old enough to remember segregated movie theaters, drinking fountains, schools. Forward movement is not always a straight line.

A substantial theme of the class was this path of genuine service while navigating an ongoing pandemic and divisiveness. We were asked how we would (or could) respond if a neighbor’s child fell on the sidewalk and was obviously seriously injured. The parents of this child had been very hostile toward social distancing, wearing a mask, or getting a vaccine. Perhaps one of the parents currently had Covid. Several student were able to describe ways to tend to the needs of the child while still protecting themselves from potential exposure to the virus.

During the Q&A, sincere anger and frustration was expressed about a grown son who refused to get a Covid test for his mother to be comfortable coming to and assist the family with a toddler and an expectant mom. Aaron used the example of saying a firm “no” from a place of compassion as one would do if a teenage son had been drinking and wanted to drive the car.

Aaron responded to the anger and frustration with such wisdom and loving kindness.

“Compassion does not make you weak.”

Another person expressed fear around the deepening of positions of humans around alternate views.

“They are not here as destroyers of each other, they are teachers for one another.”

As this last month of 2021 unfolds, my sister (Janis) and I continue to use the 2020 Magic Eye calendar as a spiritual template for the upcoming month.

December’s is a lovely holiday scene.

As you let your focus relax, three deer appear in the foreground. The one on the left is looking toward the right. The one on the right is looking toward the left. The one in the middle is looking forward.

Varying slightly from culture to culture, symbolism of deer is gentleness, awareness of surroundings, unconditional love, and mindfulness. A deer represents innocence, kindness, grace, and good luck.

May all beings act from these qualities that are within each of us.

That is being of genuine service….

December 3, 2021

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:

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….

July 30, 2021

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.

The New Rules of Marriage

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….

June 20, 2021

The Path to Peace

If it happens, it needs to occur.
~ Neale Donald Walsch

Jerry Ashmore, senior dharma teacher at Empty Circle Zen center in Hobart, Indiana, said simply, “If we don’t clear our stuff how can we help others?”

But how do we know what our stuff is? We can pay attention to the tendency we have to “perseverate” — meaning when we repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased.

We have an interaction that triggers something. Thoughts pop into mind over and over and over again. For example, guilt or resentment might arise because we are looking at past actions not recognizing the experience as a moment of unconsciousness. (We don’t need to personalize it.)

Forgiveness is when we bring presence (consciousness) to the thought as it pops into our mind yet again. We can notice that something has not yet been undone.

This is not a new idea. Epictetus, a Greek Philosopher who was born in 50 AD and died in 135 AD, said: “Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events whichever way they happen: This is the path to peace.”

Suffering is simply arguing with the way things are. Sokukoji Buddhist Monastery broadcast a dharma talk with a very interesting phrase: Path of Zen starts at the mountain top and goes up.

Grandson, Adam, while he was in Europe.

Jerry Ashmore went on to say that all practice starts by releasing tension in the body. He said, “We can be OK. Don’t discount OKness… the more you experience things as they are rather than how you want them to be, you are on your path.”

Yesterday, The Mother (channeled by Barbara Brodsky) spoke this Darshan (blessing) to me:

Dear Friend, you are making a difference. Let go of the ten thousand (this is a reference to the person tossing stranded starfish back into the ocean) and stay focused on whatever is present in front of you and let your heart sing with joy for the difference you have been able to make in that presence.

Will you try to do that? And if the mind goes to the ten thousand, just, “Shhhh…. Stop.”

Contracting.

Fear.

Ahhh…

Right there with fear is the heart of love. And the heart of love must be allowed to be free to continue making the difference.

Today, I took a friend for cataract surgery and received such a lovely confirmation in her thank you card:

The opening quotation by Neale Donald Walsch concludes with this comment about path: “Whatever experiences the universe brings your feet are a part of your path, inviting you to consciously engage in a process of becoming the highest version of you.”

May 17, 2021

Tag: Deep Spring Center for Medition