Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Ram Dass

  • Sunset

    The work of wisdom is to differentiate between what is skillful, and what is unskillful. ~ The Daily Tejaniya

    My days continue to include bike rides and sharing with Fred. It has been two months and two days since Linda died.

    We ride and talk. Most days we have a water break sitting somewhere or another.

    We talk about Linda, about the loss we feel, about our lives that loom much smaller than they did decades ago.

    Following this morning’s ride — taken in cloudy, breezy, chilly conditions — I read again from Ram Dass Here and Now #176 – Loving and Dying:

      So, a lot of the work that you are doing in a lifetime is the preparation for the moment of death, and keeping death present enriches the moment of life. That the optimum way to be healed is the optimum way to die, which is your full consciousness. But your full consciousness listens, does what it can to preserve the precious human body, but also allows what is to be, and a lot of people lose it because they are so attached to which way it all goes all the time.

      Like, I work with people that are having a slow illness, terminal illness, and they are losing their motor abilities and their control (sphincter controls and things) and each stage they lose, I watch some people who are able to open to the new stage and say, “Ah, so….” and those people don’t suffer. And then I watch somebody who looks at the shoes in the closet that they’ll never wear again and sits around feeling sorry because they can’t wear the shoes anymore. They’re holding onto the model of who they were a moment ago. A moment ago, they were somebody wearing those shoes, and now they are not wearing those shoes.

      The minute you let go into what is, “Ah….”

      The minute you hold onto the model of what might be, or what ought to be, or what should be, or what was: suffering. It’s that disparity that creates the suffering. So that any time there is suffering, it’s a clue to where your mind is holding, and that is why you keep using suffering.

    We also talked about the story of the Two Wolves. From Wikipedia: It is a legend of unknown origin, commonly attributed to Cherokee or other indigenous American peoples in popular retelling. The legend is usually framed as a grandfather or elder passing wisdom to a young listener; the elder describes a battle between two wolves within one’s self, using the battle as a metaphor for inner conflict. When the listener asks which wolf wins, the grandfather answers, “Whichever one you feed”.

    Fred spoke of the loss of Linda like a backpack that is weighing him down making it difficult for him to move forward. I suggested he might choose to set the backpack down.

    Another quote from the Loving and Dying podcast by Ram Dass:

    Maharishi, the saint, was dying of cancer and those around him were saying, “Don’t leave us. Don’t leave us.”

    He looked confused and said, “Don’t be silly. Where could I go? I am just dropping the body. I am not going anywhere.”

    And, so you realize that the grieving is part of the dramatic story line of your separateness, because you can’t grieve for something that didn’t go anywhere.

    Perhaps the skillful action is for us to not try to get rid of the emotions and not try to carry the weight of the loss.

    Last evening John and I were downtown St. Joe at sunset. The clouds were ablaze. Today on Facebook I saw a video of the same sky taken by our niece with her comment: “The sky last night was one of the most incredible ones I’ve ever seen. Some things just stir up the desire to worship the one who makes all of the beautiful things.”

    I added: “And makes all things beautiful.”

    Here are just two of the unedited photos of an extraordinary sunset.

    Evidence.

    Let those who have eyes see. Seeing beauty in what is IS skillful.

  • Walking Each Other Home

    “…we might almost say silence is the tribute we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we slip off shoes. A ‘moment of silence’ is the highest honor we can pay someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over (words run out when feelings rush in).” ~ Pico Iyer

    A few days ago as I was riding my bike, I stopped to pick up a Coke can. I give them to friends who let their grandson take them back for the deposit. In Michigan that is ten cents per can or bottle (carbonated or alcoholic beverages). It was an oversight to not include water or juices.

    Just a bit further on the ride when I did not stop to pick up a Gatorade bottle I felt a twinge. As I rode past the second non-deposit bottle I heard a voice inside say, “So, is it that you are concerned for and care for the planet, or are you just interested in the dime?” Wondering how familiar the average person is with that level of awareness of thought, feeling, impulse or insight.

    The following day I came home with two non-deposit bottles and one ten-cent can.

    This past week I was Zoom host for an online forum called Dying and Death: A Conversation. I hope many of you will have an opportunity to read the transcript when it is available, if you are interested. Some of the teachings were related to Buddhism, but even those which are specific to that path are relevant to any human being. I think you will easily see what I mean by taking a quick look at “Subjects for Contemplation” (or five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained).

    1. I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging.
    2. I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.
    3. I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death.
    4. I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.
    5. I am the owner of my actions,
    heir to my actions,
    born of my actions,
    related through my actions,
    and have my actions as my arbitrator.
    Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.

    Think about how familiar number 5 is to all of us. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. What goes around comes around. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

    Yes, terms are for sure more conditioned to specific beliefs or traditions, but it is easy to see the universal meaning. The last question in the Q&A time was whether the term ‘our eternal soul that was created by the Divine from the beginning and is ongoing’ is the same as “our true essence’ which was used often by the facilitators.

    Barbara Brodsky clarified that we are not ‘created’ but expressions of the divine. “We are that, otherwise there is duality. If we are not the divine (however we name that) but the Divine is out there and created us there is duality.” Arron says his experience is that there is no duality and we are all expressions. He uses the sun and the sunbeams as an example. The sunbeams are not created – the sun beams are the sun.

    Interesting for sure that this was the last question. It certainly makes the point.

    During the upcoming live-streaming retreat (June 3-1)) I will be staying in the efficiency apartment at the new home of my dear friends, Delcy and Tom Kulhman, who owned and operated Still Waters Retreat House for decades. I was a frequent guest at Still Waters during that time and this will be the first opportunity since October 2019 to have solitude during a retreat. Stacey will be visiting John during my time away. I know they will have a great time. They always do. And I will be a little envious and a lot grateful.

    This morning I opened email from a friend and read this daily thought with the heading: “Taking a time-out will benefit everyone.” It went on to say, “Reacting too quickly to any situation, grave or mundane, can lead us astray. Only by pausing first to hear God’s suggestion can we be certain of doing the right thing or saying what’s best. Somebody has to be willing to back away from an ugly conflict, or it can turn violent. Let’s be the ones.” This reminder came from the book, A Life of My Own: Meditations on Hope and Acceptance rings so true.

    The deepest work of my heart at this time is softening around judgment and comparison. My aspiration is to be more legitimate with the commitment to care for and about the planet without feeling like others who do not recycle or choose to use disposables without thought to the environment are somehow making a wrong choice.

    John Orr spoke of a friend from his youth who has expressed some fear of an “eternal” judgment following death. Here is John’s precious reply to his friend:

    I said to my friend, ‘Nobody’s going to judge you but yourself’. The judgment, any judgment that’s going to be happening is going to be happening within your own mind. And we have the opportunity to look at that judgment of ourselves, judgments of others, in our practice. And if we work with this, if we work with judgment in the judging mind now, in this lifetime, and see that a lot of that judgment comes from our fear, comes from our negativity, especially negativity and hatred towards the self. Judgment comes from the memories of unskillful things that we have done, or the feelings of unworthiness or inadequacy, these different habit pattern energies we experience in being human.
    ~ John Orr, Dying and Death: A Conversation, May 20, 2023

    Oh, yes, Ram Dass is so right. We are all just walking each other home….

  • 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.

  • A Kind of Deeper Wisdom

    It has been quite the week…. my blood pressure numbers had continued to be high…. lines of poems kept coming forth to carry me through, like a flower cannot be opened with a hammer….

    On Friday morning I saw a Titmouse at the bird bath — the first I have seen here at this house. The totem meaning is very significant: when this bird visits you, it asks you to step away from the past and to worry less about the future. And a friend gave me the image of a young child learning to walk and how the adult will reach down and take the child’s little hand, giving confidence. Her guidance was that we cannot do this deep of integration on our own as humans, it has to come with help from above. That image of reaching up to one who can help steady us was the perfect image for me because Stacey recently sent a video of her walking with Jackson, our now 17 month old great grandson.

    From my journal on Friday, May 27, 2022:

      Dear Holy Spirit,

      Listening to an audio with Nick Ortner on tapping to release the emotional charge from events that happened in the past.

      I tapped on “Leaving the Garden” – the past life when I was pregnant for Joel. I saw myself slip out of the gate. (This is another of those points that deserves its own post.) I spent some time confidently living off the land in the forest. I was in perfect harmony with the experience.

      When the man (Joel’s former wife in this lifetime) who found me in the forest took me to his home, I went willingly to teach him how to love his experience too.

      Memories of him molesting me merged with the distaste of a tongue in my mouth in this lifetime, merged with the panic at weight on my body, distaste of sex and distrust of my own body.

      Memories of escaping “out the gate” again, this time from his home, and returning to the forest.

      He found me because he knew where I had been before. This time he took me to his home against my will.

      (As I wrote this last sentence, I heard a ‘ceiling walker’ as confirmation from spirit.)

      Entering a New Garden

      Seeing the parallel of having cut my wrists and having bled to death, resulting in the death of the fetus as well, and my cleaning up a friend’s blood after he intentionally cut his wrist following his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. (Significant – but not sure how – my friend’s friend helped me with the clean-up.)

    A friend phoned just as the audio ended. I told her about the song “If I Could Only Fly” by Blaise Foley and the title of Merle Haggard’s album by that same name, in which Haggard is clearly channeling and expressing grief. Almost felt you touching me just now / I wish I knew which way to turn and go…. “Why Merle Haggard’s If I Could Only Fly is his masterpiece (by Noah Berlatsky, Wed 6 Apr 2016, in The Guardian): …remains the last great Merle Haggard album in part because it looks ahead with such clear eyes to this moment when we know there won’t be anymore.

    This journey is right at the core of impermanence.

      Saturday, May 28, 2022

      Dear Holy Spirit,

      Listening to a talk by Ram Dass (BEHERENOWNETWORK.COM). A caller said his brother had been given a mantra when their mother had died but the brother had forgotten the tune so Ram Dass sang it for the guy. Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ram-dass-here-and-now/id518366323?i=1000562049355

      Listen, listen, listen to my heart song
      Listen, listen, listen to my heart song
      I will never forget you, I will never forsake you
      I will never forget you, I will never forsake you
      Listen, listen, listen to my heart song

      The next caller was a young-sounding man who asked Dass what his view was on abortion. Dass kept asking the young man for clarity, what was he really asking. Finally, the young man confessed that a woman had carried his child for a while and then she could not do it any more, and she had an abortion, and they were both in a lot of pain.

      Dass said he had once been talking to a very spiritually awake being who had told him no being leaves a moment too soon or a moment too late. Dass went on to say there is a kind of deeper wisdom in the universe that if that child – if that being – was to come into life and come into form, you wouldn’t have been able to abort that child, no matter what you did. Its soul would demand manifestation. And I see it as the relationship among the three souls: you, and the woman who was carrying the fetus, and the fetus. And all of them have some kind of contract with one another – and sometimes beings just have to come in to fetal form to finish whatever they have to do and then they can go on beyond that.

      What I also feel is that the more conscious you become the less likely you are to call forth a being by procreating that you are not ready to carry through and embrace and support. So, because your life changes with a pregnancy, as you become more conscious, you say, “Alright, new moment. My life has changed. Now what will I do with this new moment. So, I think what I can say to you is that I can understand your pain and all of the feelings you are feeling, but I –think that there is a deeper wisdom in the whole situation and that you should just listen to hear that and let the pain of all of this deepen your compassion so that your actions in the future are ones that – so that you can have the legacy from this being who came briefly to be with you and let that legacy be one of increasing wisdom and compassion in the way you live your life.

      It would be terrible if the fetus sacrificed its life and all it left you with was guilt and incrimination. That would seem to be an unfortunate legacy so I invite you to have that and then get on with it. Okay.

      Young Man: “Yeah, that would be the best way to heal.”

      Dass: That’s the way I would do it.

      Young Man: “Yeah, she is having a lot of trouble with it, you know.”

      Dass: And all you can do is just love her and be present with her and just you keep your heart as open and be strong and keep your faith in the deeper wisdom of the universe. That’s one of the things you can do that can be very helpful to her. But just keep your heart open with hers as much as you can. But you can’t take away her suffering, she’s got to do her suffering until she’s done doing it.

      Young Man: “Yeah, suffering….”

      Dass: Okay?

      Young Man, “Yeah, okay.”

      Dass: Okay. (Dass laughs gently.)

      Young Man: “Happy New Year.”

      Dass. Oh, Happy New Year to you, my dear. Happy New Year. I hope it is a happy new year for her too. Will you send her my love?

      Young Man: “Yeah, I’ve told her quite a bit about you.”

      Dass: Good. Well, tell her that I’m thinking about her and I’m holding her deeply in my heart and I just hope she can come through all of this quickly and realize the joy and the beauty of her life and now take it and live it as richly and happily as possible. Thanks.

    The colleague who did EMDR with me reached out. I heard myself admit I’m afraid I’m going to have a stroke. The voice within says, “You are not going to have a stroke, Debra. You are going to have a stroke of insight.”

    She sent a release exercise, saying, “It’s a powerful process to get to the unconscious. Perhaps asking your blood pressure to tell you without words sometimes why it is so high. What is causing this pressure still ….”

    Sit quietly for a bit, maybe 10 minutes, with a blank pad of paper and markers, crayons, or oil pastels in front of you. Then pick up what moves you and draw whatever comes — not artistically but from your insides. Then look at it and write whatever comes. Name the drawing.

    Yesterday the damn broke and my blood pressure numbers are coming down.

    Today I had the first news from Joel, a text saying, “Not well.”

    Grateful, grateful, grateful.

  • Mysterious Ways

    Sacred Stories

    She had been practicing meditation for many years. She understood that there was something that she needed to understand—where to go, what to do.

    She walked into a bookstore that had a large area of spiritual books and was just standing and looking. Just at ease, standing and looking. Not even taking books off the shelf; looking at the titles.

    A man walked up to her, pulled two books off the shelf, handed them to her, and said, “This is what you need.”

    She was startled. She looked. The first book was Be Here Now by Ram Dass.


    The second was a book of instruction on Insight Meditation. Not on Buddhism, but on Insight Meditation.

    She was startled. She looked around a minute later for the man. He was gone. She went to the counter and said, “Where did the man go that was just standing here?”

    “There was nobody else here. Only you were in the bookstore.”

    Well, of course she bought the two books! She took them home. She read them.

    What you need will come to you, sometimes in what seems to be mysterious, but always loving ways.

  • Hand-in-Hand

    With all that takes place in our lives,
    it can sometimes be easy to overlook the fact that
    we’re part of something greater than ourselves —
    a collective consciousness, the Universe, a greater cause.

    ~ Daily Om

    The March 2021 skies over Pine Island, near Ft. Myers, in Southwest Florida (winter home of this snowbird) demonstrate a very important fact: light is present within darkness.


    During the past few weeks of “the season,” instead of the usual blue skies, the horizon was often dotted with dark, billowy, ominous-looking bumps of clouds with amazing streams of light simultaneously peeking out. Some clear, some bright, some pinkish-orange enough to resemble remnants of a dwindling campfire…. Those glowing embers that you only see late, late—late enough that you think you should give up and go to bed. Despite the chill, you are drawn to sit where you are as a witness to what is dying.

    For the past three years I have been in a study group looking at the spiritual phenomena of light within the darkness.

    I am attending and helping Zoom host a meditation retreat this week.


    As I was doing walking meditation early, I saw a black stone on the sidewalk. I noticed it but did not pick it up. Continuing, about half a block up, also on the sidewalk, I found a white stone. Neither of these were located with anything similar nearby. Seeing the white stone, I looped back and also picked up the black one. Light in the darkness.


    ((Confession, this is an article scheduled for publication in May. But the time for me to share it with you is NOW.))

    Every religion, Western and Eastern philosophy, and each individual artistic world view provides commentary on this subject of light in the darkness.

      The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

      Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness. Anne Frank

      I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. Og Mandino

      We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. Plato

      Don’t fight darkness – bring the light, and darkness will disappear. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

    In an audio presentation, Living and Dying, Ram Dass says about his work with people as they were dying: I watch some people who are able to open to the new stage and say, “Ah, so….” and those people don’t suffer. And then I watch somebody who looks at the shoes in the closet that they’ll never wear again and sits around feeling sorry because they can’t wear the shoes anymore. They’re holding onto the model of who they were a moment ago. A moment ago, they were somebody wearing those shoes, and now they are not wearing those shoes.

    I have been wondering about a similar phenomenon related to the pandemic. It is undeniable that the coronavirus has brough considerable darkness. (Another of our friends passed the day I was writing this article, in Florida, and then a 42-year-old relative, father-of-five, in Michigan.)

    Have you also been able to see the light this global pandemic has brought to you over this last year?

    My online search of “benefits of the pandemic” produced a lot of evidence of light within the darkness. Reduction of the carbon foot print made every list I read. Improved health and cost-savings from less eating out and more home-cooked meals was another. Parents spending more time with children; partners having more time together; time for reflection and opportunity to reevaluate your life. Within each of these is both light and darkness.

    It has been said about picking up a stick: you pick up both ends.

    What Buddhism calls wisdom mind is the recognition that only light has ultimate reality. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, says you do not go into a room and look for a “dark” switch. The switch you are searching for is the “light” switch. Of course, with that switch you are either turning the light on or off….

    Ram Dass wrote of a friend’s passing.

    “Well, you know what I know. Probably I won’t see you again in this body, so, stay conscious.” And I left.

    Her husband called me the next morning at 7:30, and said she died during the night.

    And he said her dying was just like ink being poured into water. It was just expanding outward. He said, “I came away from her death with one of the deepest experiences of peace I’d ever had in my life.”

    We are a collective witness to the dark and the light, to what is being born and what is dying.

    Some individuals have hated working from home. Some students have been miserable with online schooling. Some of us have grown calmer, others catastrophically chaotic. Attitudes reflect the moment-by-moment position of the light switch.

    Less and less frequently do I hear people yearning for things to get back to normal, but often people express specifics of what they are eager to resume. I made up a set of rules for “distant dominoes” with good friends that live down the street from us in Michigan and also winter on the same street in Florida.

    While in Florida, the four of us drove across the state to receive our first (and second) vaccines. We expressed excitement to once again safely play dominoes by the original Basham house rules, sitting around a table touching the tiles. We agreed we will all likely needed a refresher….

    This snowbird gleefully anticipated being able to meet our great-grandson, Jackson (born December 28), on our trek north. I could almost smell his baby breath. Almost feel the weight of him. Almost hear his coo….

    *Note – It was exquisite!


    Awareness of the collective “benefit” of our collective glee, relief, appreciation, and joy almost takes my breath away….

    Just as those clouds on the Florida horizon revealed the truth of light within the darkness, we are a collective witness to the dying of what was and the collective welcoming of what is.

    We have no need to fret over an unworn pair of shoes.

    We can join together and blissfully walk barefoot hand-in-hand on the beach….

  • Muy agradecida. Muy agradecido.

    How can I wish for myself
    what I do not wish for everybody,
    including those I think of
    as my worst enemies?

    ~ Aaron

    Another drive across the state of Florida, this time for our second vaccine, and this time we know where we are going. We are going to an ALL Spanish-speaking pharmacy near Miami. (See: A Dios Mio )

    I have been transcribing Ram Dass speaking about Living and Dying.

    So, now once you want to be free—at first you want to hang out with people that keep you high—later, you want to confront the fires that catch you, you want to purify through those fires. You just find yourself drawn towards the things that are still catching you, so that you can get to the point where you can be in them but not lost in them. Where you can keep your space even when you’re in them.

    And dying is one of the big ones that sucks everybody in, and so part of the work is developing the ability to be with somebody that’s dying, or be dying yourself, and stay very clear and very present because those that are from religions that focus on the moment of death, which is most of the religions that have reincarnation in them, see life as a preparation for the moment of death

    Many people in this culture don’t want to talk about death. They resist aging. They want an easy way out of something that is inescapable. So, there is suffering….

    Our Canadian friends, Davey and Eli, had to leave Florida and go back to Canada or risk losing their medical coverage because he had been hospitalized with diverticulitis. The night before they left, we rang their doorbell, stepped back, and when Davey opened the door, John and I began to sing: Davey, Davey, give us your answer true, we’re half crazy, all for the love of you. Courtney’s won’t be a stylish marriage, without you there in your carriage, and we’ll be switched if she’ll be hitched without Davey and Eli there, too.

    His eyes met mine…. and he said softly, “The best part of your singing was getting to see your smile.”

    Davey has not seen me without a mask for over a year now.

    Dass says any time there is suffering, it’s a clue to where your mind is holding.

    My mind is holding to the question of how to see/be with my family (and meet our new great-grandson, Jackson) who are all in Tennessee. It is right on the way from Florida to Michigan. Visiting with them has always been what made leaving Florida something to be embraced. We saw Stacey and Doug and Adam and Brad and Christina briefly on the way down, but we have not seen our grand-daughter, Courtney, since November 2019. We have yet to meet the baby in person. We long for things to be normal again. To see smiling faces. To eat at the same table. To touch the same playing cards as I win 500 Rummy….

    We will do what we can to help us all be able to gather again without fear of getting or giving a virus that humans don’t yet have herd immunity toward. A virus that ended the life of our grand-daughter’s other grandpa. Paw Paw was in the hospital with the coronavirus and he did not get to meet Jackson.

    How can I wish for myself what I do not wish for everybody?

    Dass says when Mahatma Gandhi was dying he walked out into his yard, an assassin shot him three times. Our image of an assassin in America – we think of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, always there is horror and violence connected with it, and we imagine (if we can the imagine) that the moment someone is shot they are stunned or confused. Gandhi had just as much time as the others when he was shot, but when he was shot and falls over he just says, “Ram.” He goes out on the name of God.

    We, too, go out on the name of God. We will again drive to Florida’s East Coast.

    And for that we are very grateful….

    Muy agradecida. Muy agradecido.

  • True Freedom

    “When the water is muddy
    and you can’t see the bottom,
    no amount of stirring
    can clear the water.”
    ~ Debra Basham

    In the U.S. the 4th of July represents freedom. People often think of freedom as freedom FROM something outside of us, but true freedom is an inside job, and nothing outside of you needs to change for you to enjoy it.

    Wednesday night I was unable to fall asleep after John came to bed, so I got up and came in on the bed in the office. At 2:00 am, I was still awake, but I fell asleep some time after that.

    At my normal waking time (about 6:00 am) I was enjoying a very stable (lucid) dream state, and I knew I had a choice (or not) to feel (or not) tired. It really isn’t sleep that restores one—we are restored by alignment. What is alignment? Activation of your parasympathetic nervous system….

    I have previously posted several tips on activation, but maybe it is worth another quick reminder: (See PNS is BIG; A Chilling Way to Calm Down; Covid-19.

    For decades I have enjoyed the benefits of doing a Self-Full Body Connection or meditation or prayer at bedtime so I fall asleep in alignment. I use this metaphor: If your TV is on channel 19 when you fall asleep, it will still be on that channel when you wake up.

    With all the stress around the globe, most people are running the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) much of the time. Now, like never before, it is vital to bring ourselves back into alignment again and again.

    Ram Dass said that compassion is the ability to see how it all is. When you are worried about “X” or “Y” or “Z” your body is processing EVERYTHING via the sympathetic nervous system. Even if you worry yourself to a solution about SOMETHING, your TV is still set on channel 19.

    I saw a beautiful quotation by Haruki Murakami, a Japanese writer: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm is all about.”

    How amazing that without being fabricated,
    This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
    Is spontaneously present from the very beginning!
    This self awareness is naturally free from the very first,
    How amazing that it is liberated by just resting — —
    At ease in whatever happens!

    Flight of the Garuda
    Lama Shabkar, Tsogdruk Rangdrol

    Think about activation of your sympathetic nervous system as being the storm. Not something outside of you, but what is happening inside. Think also about activation of your parasympathetic nervous system as being coming out of the storm. Also not something outside of you, but what is happening inside.

    True freedom is an inside job.

  • Honesty


    “I am always doing that which I cannot do,
    in order that I may learn how to do it.”
    ~ Pablo Picasso

    Some days—more than others—you are aware how connected we all are.

    My dear friends/colleagues and I are experiencing palpable loss and questioning around changes with regards to massage therapy services provided by our local hospice organization. We value these therapies. The massage therapist was the one person on her hospice care team who knew when my mother-in-law had begun her active transition in October of 2015. The nurse was caught off guard, but Marjie was not.

    As my heart finds relief through my fingers on the keyboard, a lot is happening.

    Carol is driving three hours to check on her son. He has experienced alcohol addiction, and has not been going to work or answering his phone.

    Claudia is doing her best to support herself and her husband, Wayne, as they deal with the day-to-day experiences of his Alzheimer’s.

    Another friend is navigating misunderstanding and fears around her psychosis-like symptoms, most likely related to a kundalini awakening.

    During my inner time this morning, holding all of this in my heart, I asked, “What is real about all of this, and what would Spirit have us know?”

    Faeries Oracle Card
    # 62 The Glanconer
    Illusion. Delusion. Lust. Projection. Clear sight.

    We may claim that something means little to us when, in fact it means a great deal. The situation needs to be handled with care. This is the time to call upon Honesty for aid!

    Faeries Oracle Card
    # 40 Honesty

    Reminds us not only to be clear in what we say and do, but also to act and speak with compassion and tact. Dishonesty, even in the name of tact, is not helpful.
    ~~~~
    How does this situation get redeemed? I can barely hold it in my heart, it is so painful. Knowing how valuable Marjie’s massage therapy was for John’s mom; seeing the loss, but knowing it is important to not activate the drama triangle.

    Thoughts of the Old Testament story about Joseph and the coat of many colors pops into mind. Joseph’s brothers, smitten with jealousy, sold him into slavery. Years later, desperate to buy grain, the brothers come face-to-face with Joseph. Joseph is now second in command to the Pharaoh, and in charge of the supplies. The brothers feared for their lives! But, Joseph was not vindictive. He was conscious of the bigger picture. The proof of Joseph’s world view is demonstrated by him telling his brothers, “You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good.”

    Zen Osho Tarot
    Knight of Water
    Trust

    When we take trust to the level of the quantum leap, we don’t make any elaborate plans or preparations… No, we just jump, with hardly a thought of what happens next.

    Trust life. With trust, something immense opens up.

    You are not deceived; there is nothing that can be taken away from you… You cannot lose your real treasure.
    ~~~~
    I have wondered before if this is about offering massage therapy house calls for critically/chronically ill as private pay. This might just be a step away from dependency on insurance. For sure, the insurance industry has been problematic for our society. It has not been financially good for doctors. It has not been mentally good for patients who have lost touch with self-responsibility as an employer paid premiums and an insurance company paid charges. Might this current chaos have a good long-term outcome, as with Joseph all those years ago?

    What would spirit have us know about all of that?

    Angelic Messenger Cards
    # 39 Cooperation
    A Nourishment Card

    Cooperation between your feelings and your body create physical health and feelings of happiness and fulfillment. Cooperation among your feelings, your body, and your spirit give you the ability to experience the grace of God as love and to interpret the energy of love as the guidance you seek. The spiritual energy of love is arising from the divine Presence and raises you to the status of inspired mortal and wise healer of other living things.
    ~~~~
    I don’t know how everything is going to unfold in all of these situations. We do know we can choose how we view LIFE. For example, Abraham Hicks’ take on Alzheimer’s. Listening to that may bless you, too.

    In the meantime, remember the truth: We truly are, as Ram Dass says, all just walking each other home.


    snip-elephant-ram dass