Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Mary Oliver

  • Stand Wherever I am to be Blessed

    Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.
    ~ Mary Oliver

    As we have nights with no cockroach sightings we began the conversation about how we will know when it is safe for us to stop the vigilant lifestyle of keeping everything in snap tight storage bins or Ziplock bags. As the end feels more possible, sightings that do occur produce more of a sense of contraction and a needing to fix — to get rid of — the problem. As I kill a cockroach I feel some sadness in my heart. I am finding it more challenging to stay in the present moment.

    We had a lovely Christmas dinner with the owners of this home. Their own home has been rife with renovation since early June. They fired the contractor the end of last week. So, even though they do not have a kitchen, they brought a smoked prime rib. It was delicious food and delightful company. The Christmas tree they gifted us with has been decorated with the Christmas cards we have received.


    I have been enjoying bird encounters on my bike rides, including some excellent Red Shouldered Hawk sightings, a pair of Florida Scrub Jays, and more than once I have seen a Limpkin. One bird I watched had a very unusual flight pattern. It moved in a rolling up and down action, reminding me of the way a dolphin plays in the wake as it follows a boat.

    Biking and birding provides me with great meditative moments. This undulating action of the bird I had been watching (Woodpeckers, Finches, and some song birds undulate) stayed in my mind for days, resulting in a gift of great peace.

    During a phone conversation, a friend asked me how I really am. I took that to mean what might be worrisome for me. I spoke briefly of the religious (literal) view of the Bible and the belief that Christians are the only humans a judging God is going to “save.” It is not that I have no experience with this world view. I see clearly having held that view and then having my faith deepen until I no longer hold that view. What has been baffling to me is seeing someone who had been free from dogma choose to go into it.

    Seeing in my mind’s eye that bird moving smoothly up and down, feeling the motion of its rolling rising and falling brought to mind Ken Wilber’s stages of consciousness. The first tier stages move away from the stage that came before it; forward motion resulting from an away-from action. They are all associated with a sense of lack and needing the world to be different to how it is. We can see intolerance of others races, colors, sexes, or creeds; thinking is absolutist before we can take the perspective of all human beings. (Or, perhaps the perspective of a cockroach.)

    The friend who had asked me how I really am shared a fun gift she and one daughter received from her other daughter. It is a pair of hand-holding socks. (If you cannot see the image of them here, please search for hand-holding socks so you can see them for yourself.) They are adorable. If a simple pair of socks can do it, so can we.

    Oh, yes, Mary Oliver, sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed….

  • Midnite’s Purple Petunia Plant

    From my journal:

      Friday, June 3, 2022

      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:

      Saturday, June 4, 2022

      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.

  • Poppies

    Sacred Stories

    She had just spent 8 days on “virtual” retreat. Her closing remarks included her sharing of Poppies, a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. As many, this Mary Oliver poem focuses on elements of nature.

    Moments after her sharing of the poem, a friend also attending the “virtual” retreat sent the following photo and message:

    My recent purchase: poppies on glass.

    The following morning, she sent her friend this message:

    Just had to share with you this amazing additional piece of synchronicity with poppies, this one by this year’s Nobel Prize winner Louise Gluck (whom I’ve only recently discovered and like a lot). This came just yesterday, as the poem of the day, but I saw it in my email today. I think it’s interesting that once again, the themes of our retreat and the teachings we receive in general are mirrored in this poem in the voice of a poppy.

    A few lines from Mary Oliver’s poem: Poppies

    There isn’t a place
    in this world that doesn’t

    sooner or later drown
    in the indigos of darkness,

    But I also say this: that light
    is an invitation
    to happiness,
    and that happiness,

    when it’s done right,
    is a kind of holiness,
    palpable and redemptive.

    Thank you, Mary Oliver, thank you poppies….


  • Your Place in the Family of Things

    A few days ago, the mold saga continued as late in the evening our friend ripped up carpet preparing for solid flooring installation in the manufactured home she bought here in our park and found this:

    (see Lessons from the Mold)

    She was having a very difficult time navigating all of the uncertainty. I totally get that. I said I would come the following day while she was at work and I would get the rest of the carpeting up so she would know the scope of the problem.

    We are now lovingly calling my friend’s space ‘AREA 51’ as her home is located on Lot 51.

    It never occurred to me that evening I would know to ask for help even as I was giving help.

    There is a story of the Buddha when in a past life he offered himself as food to a hungry tiger and her cubs. The story says when you start off by sharing your dinner with the hungry tiger cub and then some years or lifetimes later, you are giving your dinner, it’s only a natural next step to simply give yourself. For one for whom there is a giver it would not be an appropriate action, it would create an unwholesome karma for both you and the tiger cub. What happens is at some point there is no giver and no one given to. You are not making a martyr of yourself, because there’s really no distinction between you and the hungry tiger. You see the being suffering and you give.

    The following morning, as I prepared to head over to her home, I spontaneously wrote a note to the guy across the street, “I need someone with strength at Lot 51 for a few minutes.” He arrived home from the gym as I was writing the note, so I walked across the street and knocked on his door. I pointed to the note, told him what happened, and said simply, “I could use your help ripping up the rest of the carpet.”

    He walked over as I drove. There he stood—with a large pair of pliers, a utility knife, and a snub-nosed spade. He was amazing…. He showed me how to use the spade, and by working together, in less than an hour, we had all carpet and pad removed.

    And we found NO additional mold. I sent my friend these photos:

    I came home to have some lunch and rest a bit. I wrote a ‘thank you’ note, slipped 3 twenty-dollar bills into it, and taped it on his door as I headed back to remove the tack strips, pull up the linoleum, and sweep up the mess.

    When I got back home the 3 twenty-dollar bills were in this envelope taped on my door:

    When I saw him later, he grinned and said, “I kept the card.”

      Wild Geese

      You do not have to be good.
      You do not have to walk on your knees
      for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
      You only have to let the soft animal of your body
      love what it loves.
      Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
      Meanwhile the world goes on.
      Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
      are moving across the landscapes,
      over the prairies and the deep trees,
      the mountains and the rivers.
      Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
      are heading home again.
      Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
      the world offers itself to your imagination,
      calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
      over and over announcing your place
      in the family of things.

      ~Mary Oliver

  • Reunion

    It was 1:53 AM when he got up to pee. Faint shadows from the streetlight danced lazily on the wall. It had been almost midnight when she got to sleep, but she forced her eyes to open sufficiently and adjust to the darkness. He expected it, and she predictably said, “It is 2 o’clock. We might as well get up and get on the road.”

    They never think of themselves as leaving their winter paradise. Nor do they think of themselves as going home. They think of themselves as going to see the kids.

    Two days ago a good friend died. He probably didn’t think about himself as leaving or as going home either. I can imagine him thinking of himself as going to see the dogs.

    Traffic was pleasantly light, obviously one of the benefits of their 3 AM departure. More than a few vehicles passed, bicycles obediently following behind. Ontario license plates. Wisconsin license plates. Michigan license plates. A few Florida license plates, but mostly snowbirds driving north.

    A snowbird is a person who moves from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada and migrates southward in winter to warmer locales. Snowbirds think they have the best of both worlds…

    While nonsnowbird friends, family members, and colleagues scrape ice from the windshield, shovel snow from the drive, and brace against the cold wind, snowbirds ride bikes, play shuffleboard, watch Eagle chicks grow and fledge, play music, and go out to eat dinner at five o’clock in the afternoon.

    Some snowbirds write poetry.

    From a source of poets and writers poetry prompts “Creative Guidance for Writing Poems and Experimenting with Forms” comes a great exercise:

    If you’re having trouble starting a poem, begin at the end. Take a single collection of poems and make a list of the last two words from each poem. Then write your own poem using only these words. Be vigilant at first utilizing just the vocabulary from the list. After a couple of drafts, stray from the limited words to help bring the poem to its full realization.

    Here are two words from a collection of 9 poems by Mary Oliver:

    could save
    something better
    of things
    a star
    to pray
    your life
    morning light
    the universe
    of dust

    This poem, written on 3/3/2016, is dedicated to Joseph, now reunited with his beloved dog,Tramp.

    Of Dust—Version One

    Your life, of dust; of things?

    Something better?

    To pray…

    Could save the universe; morning light, a star.

    A Star—Version Two

    Longing for something better

    Pray to the universe—celebrate a star—dance in the morning light

    These are some of the things worthy of longing for

    Turning longing into loving could save your life

    From dust we come, and to dust we return. Farewell, Joseph, we celebrate a star! Enjoy your reunion.