Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: scs-matters.com

  • It’s Not a Wall

    Yesterday morning I received a text message from Joel, simply, “Not well.”

    This was the first news from him since Thursday morning, May 19, when a staff member came in and swabbed his nose, testing him for Covid while we were on FaceTime. After that he did not answer text messages, or return calls. I heard nothing…. nothing at all…. nothing for t-e-n days.

    I assured him when he feels up to it, we can FaceTime, and I encouraged him to, “Just rest, as best as you can.”

    At 5:37 pm, he sent email: I need your help. I am on the floor in my bedroom and I can’t get up.

    At 6:03 pm, he sent the same message again.

    I had been watching text messages, in case he reached out for support. I did not check email as he had not sent email for over a month.

    At 6:39 pm I forwarded the message to his son and daughter-in-law.

    At 7:02 pm, when I called his cell phone he answered, briefly, before a female voice said he was being taken to the hospital to be checked out.

    This morning I could again feel the attachment to outcome; the familiar habit energy of wanting to fix; trying to control; desperate to care for my friend. A steady stream of largely unskillful conversations (called ruminations) with his son and daughter-in-law were flowing inside my head. I knew I needed to draw and write again.

    I draw a wall or fence that divides the page. On the right side is a broken heart and a face with tears. A hand holds a flower. No one or nothing is on the other side.

    Here is the writing:

      Dear Debra,

      Can you see on the drawing that you are the only one in the picture? What are the thoughts, feelings, impulses that produce the broken heart? You don’t have to list them, just be aware.

      Nothing is other than it is.

      Somewhere at your center is the deeper wisdom of the universe. Perhaps “the one who knows” is just on the other side of that wall. Perhaps the way over the wall is through “don’t know mind.”

      What will allow you to realize you do not know what gifts Joel is offering to his son and family?

      What might be the kindness and compassion “energy” you truly wish to bring?

      I can see that at some level I have the perception it would be easier if I had access to information.

      “Is that so?”

      Remember the four pillars of freedom:

      1. I could be happy if I had access to information
      2. I could be miserable if I had access to information
      3. I could be happy if I had no access to information
      4. I could be miserable if I had no access to information

      Truly, having access or not is out of my control.

      What image comforts me?

      The memory of Joel with his cats and his nature (the beggar squirrel — the opossum — the fawn) at his home.

      Barbara Brodsky’s asking me, “Debra, does the tree still live in your heart?” when I was so upset at the beautiful old (only) tree in our yard being cut down.

      You are remembering how comforted John was to imagine that his brother’s consciousness might not be in his body suffering after he had the abdominal aortic aneurysm; perhaps Jerry was actually hanging out with Brother Jim and (son) Scotty.

      I am drawn back to Iyanla Vanzant’s tapping prayer on TRUST. Jessica Ortner was told by Louise Hay to trust life. Iyanla says trust is:
      T-trust
      R-respect
      U-understanding
      S-surrender
      T-timing

      I listen to Karen Drucker singing “The Healing Song” and I add a stanza with TRUST.

      Trust fills every cell in my body,
      every cell is alive with trust.
      I relax into the healing process,
      I allow spirit to do what it does.

    I sing for a while and then I title the drawing: It’s Not a Wall…. It’s Only a Mirror.

    We had a Flicker visit our yard this morning. We often have Red-bellied or Downy woodpeckers, but not a Flicker. I look up the totem meaning of Flicker.

    Flicker enters your life is when you are out of balance. You might feel you’re in a whirlwind and about to lose all sense of sanity. Flicker Spirit Animal teaches you how to use your “feet,” stand your ground, and weather the storm.

    Flicker, as a Spirit Animal, encourages you to be more flexible. The Bird’s message suggests you go with the flow present in your life, and not to let your ego impede what could be something amazing. Humility goes a long way. Being modest doesn’t mean losing yourself to another person’s vision, but being willing to compromise to gain the rewards of cooperative effort.

    If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. ~ Wayne Dyer

    Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

    This afternoon I gave my faded red bicycle wind feature a much needed facelift.

    P.S. Sharing this response that came from Barbara Brodsky:

    Thank you for today’s post, Debra. Joel is in my prayers.

    On Thursday I found myself with some sadness, thinking about so many wonderful Memorial Day weekends at the lake, Thursday evening packing up to go as soon as Hal was home from work, first long weekend of the summer, so welcomed. I went out to the deck asking myself, what is there to cherish here, right now. Enough health to stroll (with walker) around my pretty yard, stopping to sit where something lovely caught my eye. The tall spruces, flowers, many birds, green meadow, deer in the orchard…Then some gardening, sitting on the deck with Hal, reading, playing a game… So clear I cannot enjoy the gifts of today if I’m caught up craving the gifts of yesterday. So it’s been a peaceful weekend. Mind does go to craving the lake, a swim, kayaking at dawn, meditating in the forest on my screened deck. I’m giving thanks for those gifts. And yes, I do miss them. But I have so many gifts right here if I will pay attention. So it has been a bittersweet weekend, but mostly sweet.

    Love. Barbara

  • 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.

  • Beyond Illusion

    Sacred Stories

    They were enjoying a beautiful afternoon, visiting on the porch. Deep, rich sharing, that spontaneously wound itself to the mention of Beyond Illusion, Card 20 in the Osho Zen Tarot deck.

    The butterfly in this card represents the external world, which is constantly moving, which is not real, but just an illusion. Behind the butterfly is the face of consciousness, observing inner, and looking for eternity.

    “Pick a card, any card,” quipped her dear friend, as the deck was handed to her.

    The first cut of the deck revealed Beyond Illusion!

    In a world that lives like a fist,
    mercy is no more than waking with your hands open.

    ~ Mark Nepo

  • Dear Former Me

    When I saw my primary on Monday she said I needed Zoloft or a therapist, maybe both. I had been overwhelmed with the stress of everything John has been going through, complicated mightily by the situation with Joel. For those new to YBR, Joel has been my co-author for over twenty years. He has developed dementia, and after being hospitalized in March for a medical issue, deemed unable to return to his home. He is now in a memory care facility near his son in Tennessee. On Wednesday his voice sounded raspy, and on Thursday morning a staff member swabbed his nose while we were on FaceTime with another friend. He has not answered text or a FaceTime call since.

    It is said one can handle work stress or home stress but not both at the same time.

    The story is more complex than appropriate to share in a single blog (would likely make a best-selling book), but what is important for this post is to recognize there is a distinction between pain and suffering.

    I have a lot of pain about Joel’s son not answering my email asking about his dad. It is almost incomprehensible the seeming lack of compassion the son has for those of us who have been with his dad. Several of us have been supporting him, caring for him, assisting him in meeting his stated desire to live out his life in his own home. Suffering comes when I go into resistance and blame about the choices the son is making. Suffering rides in on the shame that I participated in Joel’s current conditions by getting the paperwork in place that gave the son the legal right to make decisions for his dad. Shame also arises when I face how little compassion there has been for how difficult it is to supervise someone’s care from out of state.

    Yesterday’s news of yet another school shooting. Incomprehensible. At least 19 children and two teachers were killed yesterday when a gunman opened fire in a Texas elementary school. Incomprehensible. Many on social media speak of the heart-wrenching pain of this horrendous violence to innocent children. I was touched profoundly by one sharing that added wisdom to the mix.

    When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me, “LOOK FOR THE HELPERS. YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND PEOPLE WHO ARE HELPING.” To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers, so many caring people in the world. ~ Mr. Rogers

    Yesterday I had an EMDR session with a very special colleague. I am grateful she was available to assist my finding some equanimity. I have been suffering. There was A LOT OF pain released with the emotion. As follow up to our time together, she suggested I write a letter to the former me.

    May 24, 2022

    Dear Former Me,

    I knew you would appreciate the special paper. You were such a loving creature and your heart wanted to do the right thing. You could not see all that was involved. It was not just about that time and place. It was as much about this time and place. That now and this now are one and the same, just as “you” and “I” are one and the same.

    You have done everything within your power. This is true for me, too. Fortunately for both of us, there is a higher power.

    We have neither had a childhood. It is time for us to have that chance. Children deserve to wake up in the morning and feel excited for their day. They do not thrive in the fields of constant vigilance.

    Do you remember the joy you felt in the gardens? You remembered it at the aviary at the zoo in Battle Creek. Your entire being was bliss. That is what you remember when I listen to the mockingbirds in Florida. We don’t have birds singing to us every moment but we have an experience of “ALL IS WELL” in our sweet bodies.

    I want you to do something for us. I want you to let go of your part. Let go of the feeling responsible for Joel. Let go of doing something wrong that hurt him.

    I’ll let go of my part, too.

    While neither of us carries all of the emotions, we both have carried the imprint – and the imprint has created a distortion.

    Can you see how the words on the page are now gradually going uphill? Things are looking up for us. Joel lives. I live. You live on, too. All endings are really new beginnings. May is going to be memorable for us. Our new beginning.

    I love you. Thank you. Please forgive me. I forgive you.

  • Drama Triangle Revisited Again and Again

    Lately, almost EVERYTHING I read or see or hear or feel reminds me of The Drama Triangle Revisited, one of the more infamous SCS/NLP offerings.

    A key awareness of Healing with Language is built on the Drama Triangle, developed by Steve Karpman. The main roles of the Drama Triangle—Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer—are well-known, but not everyone is familiar with either the Cognitive Triangle or the Transrational Pyramid.

    For more information, see “The Drama Triangle Revisited” (a free download in PDF format).

    It will help you identify the various roles and allow you and your friends, family, and clients to move away from the drama of life and gain a sense of awareness, clarity, and harmony available from the Transrational Pyramid (Healing with Language, 2008, Bowman and Basham).

    For example, on Sunday, the blessing of Darshan with The Mother was clearly related to John’s medical process: You can hold your own aspirations and choices with love and offer them out for him to receive, but the highest aspiration always needs to be for that which is for the highest good for him and for yourself. Because you are straining yourself trying to carry him. And you cannot carry him. I will not help you carry him, but I will help you hold a field of love around him, around each other.

    At Tuesday’s Evening with Aaron, we were encouraged to move beyond any old fix-it habit energies. While Aaron did not use the term Drama Triangle, the message was clear: Fix-it energy helps to hold in place those two roles of victim and victimizer. What if you step out of that idea, holding space for both of them, seeing how they’re constantly pushing at each other. You can instead say, “I will not play with this whole cycle anymore. I step back out of it. You are responsible for finding the power in yourself to cease being the victim or victimizing others. And I will support your doing that in wholesome ways.”

    That is precisely what The Mother had told me about John! “I will not help you carry him….”

    Aaron went on to explain that the role of the fixer assumes there is something broken, and if something is broken, then something needs to be fixed. It is a never-ending cycle — until you stop being victimized by it. And you can. ONLY you can. Only YOU can. Only again and again.

    I have been invited as guest pastor at St. John United Church of Christ on June 19, which is Father’s Day. The theme of our time together will be observing your masculine teacher (for most of us our father). I am excited about the music for the day: Father’s Eyes by Amy Grant, and Father I Adore You, and Our Father (The Lord’s Prayer). I was looking for a wonderful piece of work from The Celestine Prophecy: An Experiential Guidebook on a flash drive holding the remnants of my previous PC that crossed the rainbow bridge.

    While searching for that, I came upon some old notes from a self-retreat at Still Waters. The notes were from a book by SARK. Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, check out her amazing work. I am sorry that I do not know what book this saying is from, but I know the page number is 217.

    I am willing to live by this saying, “I don’t know why this has happened, but since it has, I must have helped cause it.” ~ SARK

    SARK made an important distinction: this is different from belief that an experience is happening to me because I need to develop such and such a characteristic. This is awareness we are co-creators.

    John and I are certainly experiencing awareness through all of this. A dear friend wrote today, “I continue to admire your wisdom, insights, courage and perseverance as I read your blog posts. It sounds like a long difficult passage, but with many blessings along the way.”

    I responded,”Like birth! And incarnation!!!!”

    While Joel P. Bowman and I were developing the body of materials we called SCS/NLP, he was triggered by a reference I made to a shared office space as”my office.” My comment, or perhaps more clearly his response to my comment, set of a chain-reaction and weeks of stress. Working together for over twenty years, we came to say we had fights so fierce we named them. This one was named: my office.

    During the “my office” drama, John and I were in the car on our way to Grand Rapids to have dinner with a friend. I was again and again hashing over the event when John asked simply, “What are you and Joel working on right now?”

    “The Drama Triangle,” I responded before continuing, “Why do you ask?”

    “Because you are always living the material,” was John’s wise reply.

    Joel and I recognized the third “triangle” in the human psyche is actually not a triangle at all. It is a pyramid. The Transrational Pyramid is centered in the heart chakra, and it is transrational in the sense we are able to be with our experiences beyond our personality. We live in a meta state throughout which Awareness is aware of the conditions or context; aware of our personal issues, and aware of the thoughts and feelings of the others affected.

    Aaron is fond of saying there is nothing needing to be fixed. From transrational awareness, we simply bring loving attention to what ever needs it. Transrational Awareness combines with Clarity and Peace to produce a sense of Harmony within self, with the other, and with the universe as a whole.

    Ah…. Transrational awareness. One of the many blessings along the way of this long difficult passage called life….


  • ZZZ Sleep Study Scheduled

    Sacred Stories

    A sleep study had been prescribed for him on May 5. He had missed a couple of calls trying to get it scheduled, and the clock was ticking to get the results before he was scheduled to see the cardiologist.

    Not knowing he had missed a couple of voice mail messages, his wife called. She had to leave a message. The scheduler called the wife on Friday at an inopportune time, so they agreed to a return call when the wife got home.

    The wife got voice mail again. No call back on Friday. They knew nothing would happen over the weekend.

    At 8:00 Monday morning his wife left yet another message, even specifically saying they would not be able to take a call from the scheduler between 9:30 and 10:30, they would be at another appointment.

    Shortly after noon, the scheduler called!

    As the wife mentioned her husband having gotten a new patient visit because of a cancellation, the scheduler told them just few minutes earlier a patient had to reschedule. There was an opening for him on Tuesday, May 24 if he could make that.

    To prepare for the study, he needs to keep a one-week sleep diary – today is the start day!

    (Note* The scheduler knows his friend who called to get him the new patient visit!)

    And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span? – Matthew 6:27

  • New Patient Visit

    Sacred Stories

    Receiving a text message from their friend informing them a mutual friend was holding an estate sale (the friend’s dad had recently passed), the husband and wife dropped everything and went to the sale. It would be wonderful if they could get a new watering can.

    While at the estate sale, the friend inquired how the husband was doing following his recent hospitalization for a TIA (often called a mini-stroke). The wife expressed frustration that they been seen by the physician’s assistant but had not yet seen the neurologist and were not scheduled to. The husband had an acute low blood pressure event during that visit and the husband had been taken by ambulance from the office to the Emergency Room.

    Their friend said, “Come with me into the house. Let’s call now and see if we can get him in.” As it turns out, their friend is a very close friend of the receptionist at that neurologist’s office.

    Following social pleasantries and dinner plans for next week, the friend filled the receptionist in about the husband. The receptionist recognized the husband’s name — her husband and the patient were business colleagues! The receptionist knows the patient as well. “Small world,” the receptionist said, before continuing, “I am so sorry, but we don’t have a new patient visit with the doctor until August.”

    They agreed to an appointment for the following day with the physician’s assistant they had seen the week prior.

    “Oh, I think I am seeing a miracle occur right before my eyes,” the receptionist exclaimed. “Oh, no, sorry…. so, so, sorry.”

    Then, “Oh, wait, wait… A new patient visit with the doctor at 9:00 am tomorrow just cancelled! Can he make that?”

    They assured the receptionist they could indeed make that new patient visit with the doctor.

    With great gratitude they hugged their friend, and as they got into their car to drive home, the wife said, “Obviously it was not about a sprinkling can.”

  • You Will Come to the Right Decision

    Sacred Stories

    Her husband was having complicated medical issues. The uncertainty with his medications had triggered her habit pattern of distrust and insecurity. Sharing opening about all of this with her daughter and sister, she was brought to tears several times.

    She recognized fully that the conditions were ideal for her to recover (along with her husband) and for them both to reside in that deep core of peace.

    Moments after their sharing, when she checked her email she saw a message from her website. The email associated with the message is advertising a product. Although the message was clearly spam, the words went right to her heart:

    I think you will come to the correct decision. Do not despair.

    “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” ~ Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

    From the original Latin phrase: Vocatus atque non vocatus, deus aderit

    The eminent psychologist Carl Jung had this carved, in Latin, over the front door of his house in Zurich, to remind those entering that: Awe of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom (Psalms 111.10). The words are said to originate from the reply given by the Delphic Oracle to the Spartans when they were planning a war against Athens: Yes, the Gods will be present, but in what form and to what purpose? Jung came across this as a student reading the works of Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar and humanist. It is also carved on Jung’s tombstone. (from Wild Goose Studio)

  • May 7, 1992

    Sacred Stories

    She was with her husband and a friend when it popped into awareness that this might be the anniversary of her dad’s transition. She went to look up his obituary.

    At the exact moment she was telling them that May 7 is the date, a text message from her sister popped in: “Do you remember 30 years ago today?”

    The two of them had been on the scene as the medic’s tried to resuscitate their dad on May 7, 1992…. 30 years to the day.

    “Soul to heaven, body to earth.” ~ The Egyptian Book of the Dead

  • This Day’s Dawn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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