Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Neale Donald Walsch

  • Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

    Today is my birthday.

    As my birthday ritual I did an audio Mudita meditation with John Orr from an online retreat day April 11, 2021. Mudita is a Sanskrit and Pali word that means “sympathetic joy” or “appreciative pleasure”. It’s a Buddhist concept that involves feeling joy for the good fortune of others.

    The first person you choose is someone you can feel a genuine sense of happiness for their good fortune and happiness. Today I chose my older grandson, Bradley. Currently I am sharing substantial time with him as he his helping me get DebraBasham.com set up. It will be the new home to Yellow Brick Road and Sacred Stories and many of the resources that have been located on SCS-Matters.com.

    The second person is often called The Benefactor — someone who has been loving and supportive for you at some time or times in your life. I chose Reverend Betty Lue Lieber, who founded Reunion with her husband, Robert Waldon. This is the the program I was ordained through in 1997.

    The third person is a neutral person. It may not even be someone you know personally, but it is someone who is feeling happiness and good fortune with a recent accomplishment, something that likely brings that person joy. I chose Donald Trump. You are instructed in the meditation to notice any old mind states like jealousy or envy. Right there with those feelings say, “May joy infuse your life. May it continue all of your days. May you truly be happy. May you truly be free. May all of this grow. May it infuse your heart.”

    The fourth person is sometimes called The Enemy but it is just a challenging person (a person you are having a challenge with). You are encouraged to notice all of the happiness in that person’s life — loving family and friends and relationships, meaningful work. “May you be truly happy and well.” You are invited to be genuinely grateful for all that you have learned from this person.

    After the guided meditation ended I played a recording of the chant “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” from a residential retreat day October 10, 2019. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu is a Sanskrit phrase that translates to “May all beings everywhere be happy and free”. It is a prayer for global well-being and peace, and a perfect chant to support the Mudita Meditation.

    When I finished I looked at a list of others I know share a January 22 birthday:
    1. Wayne Kaiser
    2. Emily Warner
    3. Phillip Largay
    4. Joyce Zerbe
    5. Aaron (Linda Gunter’s son)
    6. Allen Mumper
    7. Emily’s husband’s cousin
    8. PT at Borgess
    9. George Ross
    10. Izzie (granddaughter Courtney’s friend)
    11. Carrie Startcher (daughter Stacey’s friend in Clarksville)
    12. Sivia’s mother

    I like to also contemplate the day’s messages that come on this day from sources I value and follow.

    Daily Reflection from Deep Spring

    In a moment of darkness, you are wont to ask, “Why this darkness?” You have a sense that if you could but understand the darkness, you could protect yourself from it. Such thinking only further strengthens the illusion of the self. Can you sit there in that darkness and simply know, “Here I sit in darkness and I will wait. I need not fight with the darkness. I need not try to push it away. I need not grasp, even at faith.”

    Just faith: faith expressed as the willingness to sit in darkness, if darkness is what is there, without a need to grasp at the light but with the willingness to open the doors and allow in the light. ~ Aaron

    On this day of your life Debra, I believe God wants you to know that not everything has to turn out exactly the way you planned in order for you to call it a success. Sometimes all God wants you to do is to “get the ball rolling.” Then, She’ll take it from there.

    So when things turn out other than the way you wanted them to, don’t be so quick to say, “Bummer!”

    Many a Bummer is a Blessing in disguise. Consider the possibility that life is magic…and that there’s a rabbit in that hat.

    Love, your Friend, Neale Donald Walsch

    From Gratefulness.org

    You must live life with the full knowledge that your actions will remain. We are creatures of consequence. ~ Zadie Smith

    From The Daily Tejaniya

    When you are truly aware you aren’t focusing, yet you are
    aware of objects. You are aware of thoughts of the mind, sensations
    of the body, and perceptions (sights,sounds, etc.) of the world.

    By practicing in this way, the mind stays fresh.

    It may not be usual to be happier for someone else’s birth than your own on your birthday, but today I truly feel greater joy that Stacey was born than that I was born. I get that she could not have been born unless I had been, but emotions don’t always make sense. In fact, they are often very distorted. That is just how it is. So at three quarters of a century I am grateful for the wonderful woman who came in as a teenage pregnancy and those that came in from her.

    RIP Wayne Kaiser and Allen Mumper.

    May all beings everywhere be happy and free. Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu….

  • A Profound Truth

    She had received an email of condolence following the passing of a friend from heart failure. In her thank-you reply she shared a few more details including that her friend’s younger son had died of a bee sting at the age of 42, leaving her friend truly heart broken.

    “Her son will be thrilled to greet her….”

    Something about this idea did not sit softly so she wrote back, “I wish we didn’t just think of a reunion happening when we lay the body down but more understand the ongoing love across the veil. Do you know the Abler Soul work? I deeply resonate with it.”

    She sent a link to Sounds True Cynthia Bourgeault: When Two Become One: Love Beyond Death.

    https://resources.soundstrue.com/transcript/cynthia-bourgeault-when-two-become-one-love-beyond-death/?print=print

    Early the next morning she opened to the following message from Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations with God series:

    On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know that there is a family reunion awaiting you, and you will be more overjoyed than you can now begin to imagine.

    On the day you leave your body — what I like to call your Continuation Day you will be greeted by everyone you have ever loved in any way for any reason… and, standing in front of the group, every person who has been so very dear to you. It will be a grand and glorious reunion, with joy and laughter and pure wonderment filling every heart and soul!

    This has also been experienced by everyone who has ever left here — all those who have gone before you — of course.

    So do not grieve for them. They are so very happy!

    I’m not sure why you were meant to hear this on this particular day…but I bet you are…

    Oh, yes, totally clear why she was meant to hear it on this particular day. She was having a conversation with God!

    As Niels Bohr said, “The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.”

  • Sea of Life Not Stay Same

    Opening email this morning and reading Neale Donald Walsch’s words: “… in moments when things look bleak — especially in those moments — see only perfection, express only gratefulness, and then imagine only what manifestation of perfection you choose next.”

    Cellular memory of our daughter Stacey’s move to Tennessee shortly after the birth of our first grandchild flooded in while sharing recently with a person who had made a cross-country move soon after her mother’s transition in the Midwest. While she was sure she was where she was to be, she was navigating intense feelings of “missing” her family and the fear of additional loss felt overwhelming.

    Speaking about loss, grief, and the necessity of regaining our emotional equilibrium in the midst of a sea of changing conditions was a reminder my current feelings are woven together with the collateral losses resulting from Hurricane Ian.

    My deep listening to Adyashanti shed some light on the universal journey with all of this. The talk was called “Self-Realization: I Got It!, I Lost It!” but it was excerpted from “The Timeless Nature of Being” given October 6, 2019, in Palo Alto, California.

    Something about it is still with you. Not by grasping at it but just almost like that intuitive sense, “What haven’t I lost?” – just sensing that, making space for it…. ~ Adyashanti

    I was at Walgreens waiting at the check-out counter for someone to come help with a rain-check for Ultra Soft Kleenex tissues. A young girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old, was next in line. As my wait time became longer and longer, I told her she was welcome to go ahead of me rather than wait. She said, “Its okay, I have my whole life ahead of me.”

    Unable to stop myself, I responded, “I have my whole life ahead of me, too, but I suspect you have more time than I.”

    A very wise expression came over her face….

    The sea of conditions is ever changing, that is for certain. But notice how much our expectation creates our experience of what is, what was, and what is yet to be. That young girl might have transitioned before I got up this morning. No, the odds are not in that direction, but the life that we experience is not always what the odds might indicate.

    We played a crazy-fun game this week while Linda’s sister, Brenda, was visiting. Poetry For Neanderthals is a word-guessing game like Password, but with a couple of quirky twists. First, you can only use one syllable words as clues. Second, if you use a larger word you get bopped in the head with a 2-foot long inflatable club.

    For example, if you are trying to get your team to guess the word broccoli, you might say “Green thing you eat for live long and have good health.” The game forces you to explain complex ideas using simple words. I like that. I am good at that. That is why this post is SEA OF LIFE NOT STAY SAME.

    One might go on to add SEA OF LIFE CAN STILL BE GOOD.

    It takes a bit to be good at it but you can even say SEA OF LIFE CAN BE GREAT.

    WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR YOU TO BE GLAD FOR WHAT IS WHILE YOU STILL FEEL SAD FOR WHAT WAS?

    I THINK YOU GET THE POINT NOW. RIGHT?

  • Lower Case “p” in Plan

    My face is clear and I have completed two of the five prescription protocols. Three continue for the balance of the 14 days. I am very thankful my face is no longer swollen and burning and itchy.

    It is quite interesting how big the little things feel.

    It has been a wonderFULL time here in Tennessee. I have been busy with “projects” for Stacey (the greatest of which was organizing, arranging, and detailing her at-home-office). Here she is, working from there right at this very moment.

    On Friday, Stacey and John and I took Doug’s truck to Franklin (just under an hour drive) to pick up a futon for the office. We were on a tight schedule because Stacey wanted to get back for her Barre class. Good thing she changed into her exercise clothes before we left home….

    We had that futon loaded in record time. We felt the white-hot, sinking-feeling as we realized the keys (and our phones!) were locked in the truck. Stacey called Doug to come let us in. The wind was a bit brisk, so the three of us were semi-huddled on the seller’s porch when I said, “Perhaps this experience has multiple opportunities. I wonder if I am to get to know who she is.”

    At that moment, Amber Westerman (singer-songwriter) came out to offer us water and ask if we needed anything. Amber had studied sustainable farming in Hawaii. Our grandson Brad had an interest in that during college. She studied Ayurvedic Medicine in Iowa, along with meditation practices.

    OKAY, I get it…. likely not everyone picking up a futon would even know what Ayurveda is…. needless to say we had a very nice connection.

    And Stacey made her Barre class!

    Check out amberwestermanmusic.com or search her name. It was fun to see some videos of her original music. I still have a strong sense there may be something else calling our paths to cross in the future.

    Stacey had purchased the furniture for her office. She had gotten her computer set up and had been working some in the space for a while. Settling in had definitely been derailed when our great-grandson, Jackson, had seizures and subsequent hospital stays.

    We like to think we are planning our life and living our plan, but Life, with a capital “L” takes president over our plan, with a lower case “p.”

    This morning, I opened Neale Donald Walsch’s message and read, “… what your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, and he was correct.”

    Walsch continued, “The mind is the last part of yourself to listen to. It thinks of everything you can lose. The heart thinks of everything you can give, and the soul thinks of everything you are.”

    This comes at such a significant time. Results from Jackson’s genetic testing are due on Thursday afternoon’s follow-up with the pediatric neurologist at Vanderbilt. John and I are very grateful we will be here with them all for that.

    Usually, I am one who likes bare windows to let light in but when I hung the pretty little sheers on Stacey’s office window a transformative softness immediately fell over the space.



    The future you shall know
    when it has come;
    before then,
    forget it.
    ~ Aeschylus

  • Dissent with Love

      WORD FOR THE DAY

      Love takes off the masks
      we fear we cannot live without
      and know we cannot live within.

      ~ James Baldwin (Gratefulness.org)

    Group 2 sharing last evening was active with exploring the question of the value of being ordained (in Buddhism). This was not so much an intellectual discussion, but a sincere reflection of the yearning many expressed toward living in a community that honors, respects, and supports those deeper dynamics of mindful living. Several in our group have been exploited by spiritual leaders in this lifetime — emotionally or mentally or sexually — and sometimes all three.

    Many said the time of hero worship or guru gazing have personally passed us by.

    Interesting, just yesterday morning out on a bike ride, Larry was telling me about the great-grandmother of a child Linda had the privilege of doing a baptism for last week. He said this woman is Hispanic, and he assumes she likely has a Catholic background. She also has dementia and, although she never said a word, he felt he could see in her eyes the accusation, “That woman is no priest!”

    Over the years, many miles on this Yellow Brick Road have been walking away from the past where patriarchy choked the rights of women out of our collective lives. This morning, two daily writings address the benefit of having “right view.” The first is from Neale Donald Walsch (author of the series of Conversations with God books).

      … that a point of view different from your own might be well worth entertaining. Sometimes it is not easy hearing an idea that is different from the one you are advancing — yet it might be that second idea for which you were actually reaching. Answers arrive in more ways than one. Sometimes they come through us, and sometimes they come to us.


    Brandon Morton’s son with a baby goat!

    Our bicycle-riding conversation continued, “The church Linda’s brother and sister-in-law and her sister and brother-in-law go to still will not allow women in leadership. The husband is the head of the house, and the wife is by scripture ordered to be submissive to his will. Do you think Linda would go along with that?”

    I responded to Larry, “I would hope she would not, and more than that, I would hope you would not ask that of her.”

    Reading online this morning from The Discrimination of Women in Buddhism: An Ethical Analysis: “Men and women are considered the two wheels of a cart. They should be considered equal if we want the cart to move ahead. If one wheel is smaller than the other, the movement will definitely be impaired.”

    One of the headings in that article leapt off the page: Is Buddhism a Sexist Religion?

    I would also ask, Is Christianity a Sexist Religion?

    Perhaps (blatant or latent) sexism, along with other forms of discrimation, is within all religions and all of our human history. It is HIStory, for heaven’s sake…. But where do we go from here? We only pretend to repair a cart with imbalanced wheel size by exchanging it for a different cart that also has an unbalanced wheel size.

    The second writing that speaks us forth in love and wisdom and respect for all beings comes from Deep Spring Center for Meditation:

    Thought for Today by Aaron

    As we work with these practices, please realize that they are leading you in the direction of trusting your own ability not to enact anger or other negative movement when it arises. To hold it in the heart with compassion until it dissolves. To reclaim your power as higher density beings— no longer a third density human but higher density, able to trust that those around you will not be projecting negativity so it’s safe to share, and you will not be projecting negativity so it’s safe to share. But that you are still capable of saying, “No, I disagree with this or that.” That’s very different than expressing negativity. Expression of view is not an expression of negativity, it’s simply an expression of view. And we learn how to hold different views and deeply hear each other. Then one unified understanding arises and we move forward with it. Or, if one is not in full agreement, one sees that the rest of the group is and abstains from obstructing the process. But if one person thinks, “This will be totally destructive,” one will still hold, “I cannot agree. Go ahead and do what you need to do, but I dissent. But I dissent with love.”

    I was just about ready to push “publish” when I received this additional confirmation from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Thought for Today:

      The wise person questions himself, the fool others. ~Henri Arnold

      We pray for wisdom, and sometimes we achieve it. The strongest and wisest of men are not threatened by questioning their own answers. If we draw conclusions and blindly stick to them, we can never learn anything new. We have often made the mistake of avoiding the appearance of ignorance.

      Instead, we are at our best when we give ourselves the privilege of being a learner. When someone tells us something we don’t understand or agree with, our best response is to ask for more information. We can take our ego out of the equation, surrender our need to be right, and simply try to learn what is being told to us. What is it that I don’t understand here? What does the other person see that I am missing? When we attain a moment of wisdom, we are open to learning.

      Today, I will give myself the privilege of being a learner.

      From the book Stepping Stones: More Daily Meditations for Men.

    Once your intention is clear, perhaps the answer is also already clear!

  • Walking in Wonder

    Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God puts it this way: Life works out in the process of Life Itself. All you have to do is trust that it will, and allow it to.

    My blood pressure was 126/80 at the doctor’s office on Monday afternoon. I reported that I am doing deep work with Laura. Dr. Mancini asked if my left knee had been bothering me. She said it is the hip flexor pulling at the knee and she has me doing a hip-drop stretch. I am doing on the massage table that we currently have set up in the great room here in our tiny house!

    From the “Voice of the Holy Spirit” in my journal writing yesterday:

      We appreciate your surrender, Dear One, as it truly brings relief along with it. You so skillfully told John it is not surrender to an “outside” God (like Good Old Uncle George in the Good Goats book). It is your own abiding with what is, knowing this too shall pass.

      We know you are not sure what you are to see your friend, Laura, about today, but you are willing to look. In fact, you are willing to look at the emptiness of catalysts!

      The catalysts don’t cease as much as they cease to trigger you into mindless reactivity. We know your history with storms. Monday evening you were appropriately watchful. You are appropriately watchful at this time about possible conditions related to blood pressure and your heart.

      Debra: I am wondering if you can give me clarity if I have sleep apnea?

      Would you trust what your guidance tells you over what the tests reveal?

      Debra: I know sometimes I can fool myself. Other times, I am able to trust. For example, you have assured me I am done with melanoma. And that no cancer was related to the ovarian mass.

      Notice the tendency to future or past. What is your experience in this present moment?

      Debra: Like when I was walking and would get lost in thought by planning or remembering and my heart rate would skyrocket!. I began walking as though I was with my three-year-old grand daughter, taking it all in, present with my present experience.

    I shared this awareness with Laura. She wondered what this little girl might need from me. My sense is she does not need anything from me but she wants to give me a carefree life experience. I told Laura about the soul collage I did at a retreat on living and dying well I attended in 2014. Here I am:


    Notes from Evening with Aaron:

    It is about waking up. What does waking up mean?

    There is no “other” only myriad faces of the self — all expressions of something — all interacting.

    I am not born, I do not die.

    One is always awake, but not yet aware of that awakeness.

    You don’t want to suppress anything, or act it out…. There is a middle ground. (speaking of rage)

    Money is energy. What if everyone who has money said, “I’ll help people learn how to feed themselves.” We are not in control — let it be. You can’t hold on to it. (speaking of the stock market)

    Joy is holding the world afloat. Be grateful to yourself for the joy you feel. Offer it out to the world.

    Sharing the story of Nathaniel and his friends being robbed of everything: food, clothing. He was lamenting about not being able to do anything but was asked what he would do that morning if he had not been robbed and had food and clothing. He said he would eat breakfast and walk on to his destination. He was told, “Well, even with out breakfast, you best walk on.” They were given food and clothing and blankets and a place to lie down by individuals living in a leprosy camp. Those with so little were so generous.

    Hello, Darkness, my old friend. The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls….

    Acknowledge the emotion. Offer it good will.

    I shared an experience I had as I was riding my bike. I saw a man spraying weeds in the cracks in his driveway. I was very aware of the bias about that. Suddenly the weeds I pull in my Zen walkway asked me if I thought it was kinder to pull them up by the roots than it was to have that man spray the poison on the weeds. “Does that mean that you would be in favor of the gas chamber, but not the electric chair, or the electric chair, but not the guillotine?”

    Sitting in meditation a little later in the day I recall awareness of comparing and judging mind. A voice begins to tell me about different chemicals having different properties. Asks me to think about being in a chemistry class or having a chemistry set. One chemical produces one result, and another chemical produces another result. It is not at all that one chemical is bad and another chemical is good. Telling me, “From your perspective, you see one result as being more desirable. To think of your seeing one result as being more desirable as wrong is just more comparing mind and judging.”

    Aaron responded to my sharing of this experience with such clarity and kindness. “If you set out the ant trap you are not killing the ant, you are giving the ant the free will choice to eat the poison or not.”

    This morning as I sit down for meditation, I read the Word for the Day from Gratefulness.org:

    One way to open your eyes
    is to ask yourself,
    “What if I had never
    seen this before?
    What if I knew I would
    never see it again?”

    ~ Rachel Carson

    Sounds very much like walking in wonder as the one in my soul collage!

  • R-E-S-P-E-C-T

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Aaron’s Daily Quote for today:

      Deep Spring Center
      Thought for Today

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

      ~ Aaron

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Also from this morning’s inbox:

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

    ~ Peaceful Heart
    The Buddhist Practice of Patience

    by Dzigar Kongtrul, Edited by Joseph Waxman, page 39

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

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

    Abraham Hicks joins the integration today:

      Making Peace with My Today Will Improve My Future…

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

      Excerpted from The Vortex on 8/31/09

      Our Love
      Esther (Abraham and Jerry)

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

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

  • Mindful Gap

    Joy to forgive
    and joy to be forgiven
    hang level in the balances of love.

    ~ Richard Garnett

    Last evening after our Zoom dominoes game ended, Linda asked us when we are planning to head south. One of the realities of the pandemic: It is difficult to plan.

    The one thing we have put into place is a reservation at a hotel in Smyrna for Saturday night. It feels undeniably awkward to not be pulling into 1500 Clayton Court and having Baxter come running out to meet us, followed closely by Thor and Butter and Stacey and Doug.

    Also undeniable is the lump in my throat and the tears running down my face.

    For some reason, this move is triggering an avalanche of sadness and missing and fear of the unknown that staying safe at home since April has held back.

    On the surface, it would be easy to blame our son-in-love, Doug, for the emotions. Doug has expressed his unwillingness to wear a mask in his own home over the four-day weekend. Since Stacey let us know that mind has been spinning, churning up the hurt.

    Listening this morning to a talk by Pema Chödrön on the “Mindful Gap” allowed space for the wisdom mind to look at the neurotic mind, and now I am feeling what I am feeling: I don’t know what will allow me to feel safe visiting the kids.

    You see, it is not just that I am afraid of John or me getting the virus from them. I am afraid of having them give the virus to one or the other of us and then them having to live with that.

    Shantideva, an 8th-century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet and scholar cautioned against letting the mind be wild with impatience, gossip, attachment to things going your way. “When the urge arises…. do not act, be silent, do not speak, and like a log of wood, be sure to stay.”

    So this morning, I am staying with the truth of the painful feelings that things are not going to go my way.

    Suffering is transcended
    by total surrender.
    ~ Shantideva

    Meeting with our Grief Journey group yesterday brought home this universal suffering of arguing with what is, and the universal necessity of surrender.

    One mother lost her adult son in August of 2020.

    One wife lost her husband in January of 2020.

    One wife lost her husband 15 years ago… In 2020 she is still navigating life as it is. As we all are.

    This quotation by Hermann Broch, shared by a 70-something woman who lost her mom at age 5, points wisdom mind to the truth: No one’s death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness.

    In our collective humanness, we are not just navigating the loss of persons. In the year 2020, we are collectively navigating the loss of the way things were, and the loss of the insistence things go our way.

    Weather permitting, perhaps we could gather a picnic and meet at a park. (Right now the forecast says 50% chance of rain.)

    Perhaps we could get take out from our favorite Thai restaurant and meet at their church fellowship hall.

    Neale Donald Walsch says, So, don’t try to “figure it out.” Stop it. Just focus on what you now wish to create. Keep moving forward. There’s nothing behind you that can possibly serve you better than your highest thoughts about tomorrow.

    In whatever ways it unfolds, all thoughts today about tomorrow deserve to be our highest.

    That is a mindful gap….


  • “Keeping Quiet”

      Deep Spring Center
      Thought for Today

      When you stay in the relative reality box, you create the kind of fights with each other, ‘I’m right.’ ‘No, I’m right.’ ‘No, I’m right.’ You can’t hear each other. You become more and more polarized. And this of course is consonant with the lower stages of consciousness, the magical consciousness that believes that somehow it can prove to everybody that it’s always right. I think you all know that one! If you don’t remember it in your own experience, go and find a 2-year-old. It’s very much engrossed in the magical consciousness and very certain that it’s always right. Slowly you begin to open out, and as the stage of consciousness rises you move more into the openness that can view infinite possibilities. ~ Aaron

    From my journal this morning:

    D: I fully recognize the thought, “when I make a choice that is right for me, it is right for everyone,” as a relative reality thought. The thought holds a subtle distortion because of the separate self.

    What is whispering to me is awareness of the interconnection of everything. Like waves in an ocean.

    So how do I navigate?

    V: The awakened heart knows one person is planning a picnic — a big event serving lots of people. A “thank you” event to many, for great service to humanity. That heart also knows the farmers in the region need rain. The time is crucial. The seed has been planted but rain is needed to bring forth the sprout. Many will feed upon the bread made from the farmers’ wheat.

    What happens to support highest good for all beings?

    D: This is exactly what I am asking!

    V: In relative reality, a conflict-of-interest seems to exist. This is not real.

    Imagine an all-night, slow, steady rain. Imagine the rain nourishing the soil and causing the conditions that bring forth a healthy harvest. Now imagine the sun coming up, a light breeze blows over the face of the earth, drying up the surface moisture. The picnic takes place now on a ground that is well-watered.

    When you are drawn to notice a seeming “conflict-of-interest” simply greet the situation with an open heart, saying, “Hello, Teacher.”

    All of the elements: earth, air, fire, water, and energy — they all know how to collaborate. You are made of these elements. You do know what to do for the highest good of all beings, and harm to none.

    As Aaron says in the opening quotation, slowly, you begin to open out, and as the stage of consciousness rises you move more into the openness that can view infinite possibilities.

    From Neale Donald Walsch:

      On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know that most dramatic conflicts are perhaps those that take place not between men, but between a man and himself.

      What are you battling with right now? What unwanted habit? What undesirable behavior? What old pattern? Claim victory over these, and your entire life can change.

    Last evening I looked up and saw a soft pink haze in the western sky. I stepped out on the front porch and saw a rainbow out to the north. I grabbed my phone and took a photo, and as I turned around the western sky was ablaze with color.


    On May 11, 2020, the poem of the day was “Keeping Quiet” by Pablo Neruda. Please go to Duke Trinity College and read the entire poem. Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He transitioned from this earth plane in 1973, but “Keeping Quiet” is his perfect gift for us at this time. Sharing here the next to the last stanza:

    If we were not so single-minded
    about keeping our lives moving,
    and for once could do nothing,
    perhaps a huge silence
    might interrupt this sadness
    of never understanding ourselves
    and of threatening ourselves with death.
    Perhaps the earth can teach us
    as when everything seems dead
    and later proves to be alive.

    You will want to visit Duke Trinity College to read the entire poem.

    Michigan has gone back under stay-safe-at-home orders as the numbers of coronavirus cases from community contact skyrocket. This is happening across the globe as the second wave of the pandemic crests.

    Humanity is invited by this “teacher” to view infinite possibilities as we are keeping quiet….

  • See Every Event as an Opportunity

    This morning I enjoyed listening to Linda Beushaushen Gunter’s sermon, “Life’s Story.” She told the first “version” of her life and then, reporting on the exact same history, another “version.” The first story focused through the lens of things being unfair, difficult, painful. The second told of the same events, but without all of the doom and gloom and blame and shame. She told of having been the eldest child; her mother’s depression; her divorce; her widowhood…. each was seen as rife with opportunity and blessing, shaping her into the servant leader she is today. Her closing quotation from The Tiny Buddha was not attributed to anyone, so we can each make it our own,if we choose:

      In this life we are all just walking up the mountain, and we can sing as we climb or we can complain about our sore feet. Whichever we choose, we still gotta do the hike. I decided a long time ago singing made a lot more sense.

    Yesterday while I was out on a bike ride I received this email message from a dear friend, a loyal reader of Yellow Brick Road. She is someone I have shared a lot about life with.

      I’m trying to get to a good place about all of this, so I again send you my gratitude for all of your election-related YBR posts. Thanks to you, I don’t feel like a loser, but I fear that our beloved country will become one if the Democrats win in the Senate too, allowing what I view as impractical concepts to become the norm. Chuck Schumer announced that Joe Biden will help the US change the world! I’m not ready for that. However, as much as Trump or Biden want/wanted to believe that were/are/will be in charge, I’m comforted that God is our ultimate leader, yes?

    I thought of this friend as I listened to Linda’s sermon, and also when I read Neale Donald Walsch’s daily thought.

      If you were thinking rightly you could not possibly
      imagine that anything was going ‘wrong.’ You would
      know that nothing in the Universe is working against
      you. By definition, given Who You Are, this is impossible.

      Move, then, to gratitude when you encounter your
      frustrations. And see every event as an Opportunity.

    I posted “Why Cycling Can Make You a Happier Person” on the Imagine Healing Facebook page yesterday before I went on my ride. Truth be told, love of cycling is probably my strongest pull to snow-birding. Cycling is good exercise. It gets me out in nature. To stay safe cycling you really do have to be mindful. From the article:

      Within 10 minutes of being on a bike, things that are immediately worrying you – that piece of work you haven’t finished – have been dismissed. Ride for 45 minutes and you hardly know what you were thinking about and then something else drops in – a line from a poem or something your child said.

    While cycling yesterday, that happened! Something profound opened up to reveal the structure of the universe. I saw EVERYTHING! And everything is unfolding in divine order.

    I sobbed telling my sister, Janis, about my experience, and she kept saying, “You had an epiphany….”

    Now the epiphany is similar to the way dream images vanish upon waking where the details are no longer clear but you totally recall having had the experience. The most I can articulate right now is that we are all playing roles, each contributing to the divine unfolding. Some are moving out into the change, some are leaning back to the familiar — together all of it balancing our progression.

    I had an epiphany….

    I could see with a different understanding the experience I had had in Europe in 2011 where options would close or open depending upon my inner state.

    A wave of profound appreciation came over me for my brother-in-law’s having broken the water line installing the new sink in the guest bath. Sure, finding the mold and facing the expense of remediation meant going through all of the frustration, but now John is healthy!

    Frances Newton said “I can stand what I know. It’s what I don’t know that frightens me.” Our central nervous systems react poorly in the face of the unknown. Fear of the unknown, often referred to as free-floating anxiety, catches up to us on occasion. But it needn’t. Pompe Strater-Vidal has some great guided meditations you can enroll in for free at Relax Breathe Flow to help you.

    We can sing as we climb or we can complain about our sore feet.

      The path forward may sometimes be unclear. And it may be messy. But the shared heart is calling, and we have an opportunity to make lasting shifts toward love and justice in our world.

      ~ Kristi Nelson


    Photo of Lake Michigan by Kathy Kreager, used with permission.