Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Author: Debra Basham

  • Cody: Forever Loving

    Cody: Forever Loving

    Checking in with the teachers and his small group while at a meditation retreat, he shared he would be leaving group early to go home for a few hours. A veterinarian was coming to assist their beloved dog, Cody, to freedom from suffering.

    He recorded the group chanting as support for him and his wife and their fur friend and, “All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you….”

    He was told how others in this group had been supported by this chant as a loved one died. Several times the person’s passing occurred while a retreat or workshop was happening.

    He found the chant very helpful each time he heard it and once during the chanting he expressed to Cody that he was free and did not have to stay around to support him. He had a clear sense of Cody responding, “I am chanting it to you!”


    From The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers, by Tami Simon: “The pain of her death was exquisite. I cried for weeks, but felt an incredible joy and comfort that was an equal part of the grief. I was so grateful that I had spent time with her — only with her, fully present and joyful.” (p.163)

    RIP Cody…. Forever loving.

  • The Perfect Week for a Retreat

    I leave for Holly, Michigan, where I will attend a silent meditation retreat titled “Remembering our Awakened Essence” with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr from Deep Spring Center for Meditation, and sangha sisters and brothers from all over the world. The retreat will be held at The Maryville Retreat Center. This week Barbara’s husband, Hal, had a heart attack and has been hospitalized, receiving a pacemaker. Many know Hal previously had a gravely serious stroke and has been being cared for in their home since Covid. John Orr lives in Alexander, North Carolina, very near Asheville, where hurricane Helene has left his area with roads out, power down, and horrific destruction.

    There is a lot going on.

    This is not my first rodeo. I have been to MANY week-long silent retreats with this group, but due to the pandemic it has been five years (October 2019 being the last) since I attended a residential retreat. I definitely feel like a newbie. And a lot of rain and cool is forecast. Likely not going to be easy distraction by walking the beautiful campus.

    Plus, there is a lot going on this week.

    1. John will be staying alone for the first time since he had open heart surgery and the TIA from noon Sunday until Stacey arrives Thursday late afternoon.
    2. Our neighbor (Joe) is having heart valve surgery on Wednesday.
    3. Friends are navigating the losses and messes following Hurricane Milton.
    4. Our friend (Molly) is having a pacemaker.
    5. Our friend (Nancy) is turning 80.
    6. My long-time client and friend (Jane) is experiencing colon bleeding that cannot be surgically repaired. It is a complication from radiation therapy.
    7. Our country is approaching a Presidential Election that has amplified differences of opinions without highlighting the truth that we are interconnected.

    In the busyness of preparations for going on retreat, I took time yesterday to watch a video of Tara Brach with Dan Harris. Here are a few nuggets I am taking with me, and since you will be going with me in my heart, from “Timeless Heart Wisdom for our Times.”

      The most compelling and sacred work of these times is bridging divides.

      Unless we are seeking the well-being of all we are going to end up in some way perpetuating the suffering of our times.

      The Zen Masters say the most important thing is remembering the most important thing.

      Ours is a relational universe of aliveness that we’re inextricably a part of that’s influencing us that we are influencing that we are to pay attention to that in a way that is not abstract.

      The felt sense of that changes everything.

    It is probably obvious some of the reasons why I am nervous about turning off my phone and not checking for calls or texts or emails.

    It is also probably obvious why this is the perfect week for a silent meditation retreat….

  • Milton’s Mayhem and Message

    Last evening we had dinner with two long-time friends. One friend lost her winter home on Pine Island two years ago to Hurricane Ian. As Hurricane Milton is crossing the Gulf of Mexico right now barrelling toward Florida we have friends who are year-round on the island. It felt good for us to gather here in our tiny house and enjoy hearty soup and savory salads. And fresh-baked bread.

    The other friend and I will be attending a residential retreat all of next week. She said the retreat comes at an ideal time for her as she is so wrapped up in the political stuff and global conditions.

    This morning I sent both of them the opening words of our Florida meditation group who meets online each Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 pm EST. The leader hosted this gathering in her home on Pine Island for several decades until she moved into a senior living center on the mainland. At the time of yesterday’s Zoom gathering, she was there in her apartment.

    Her opening words were salve…. “It is a different feeling when I feel that if I don’t like what’s going on right now, I can change it. But the reality is that all I can do about that is change my attitude about it. I can’t necessarily change what’s actually happening. So it’s sort of humbling to sit here in this same space, but it looks much differently because, you know, all the windows are covered up, the doors are covered up. You can’t see out. There isn’t anybody out there to see anyway. So it’s quite a different reality.”

    Three of us online with her sat in our homes here in Michigan.

    One other friend online with us told us she was staying on Pine Island in the home of friends. The same home and the same friends with whom this friend survived Hurricane Ian two years ago. This friend’s home had been destroyed in Matlacha.

    This morning I wake to a text message from another friend who had spent a day with us on Pine Island before Hurricane Ian. He was sending a photo and this message, “With all that is going on in Florida sending you one of my guardian orbs.”


    Perfectly round orbs appearing in photos are often interpreted as signs of harmony and purity, believed to represent balanced energy and the presence of a peaceful spirit. Some see them as guardians or guides. They are thought to be evidence of the presence of our departed loved ones who are watching over us.

    A while later this morning as I opened email the loving messages continued.

      The world is a creation of our mind. Everything we experience happens in the mind. So there is no need to look outside. Everything is happening right here in our own minds. ~ The Daily Tejaniya

      Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, light and dark—these are seeming opposites. But nothing is truly an opposite but always part of everything else. What would joy be without sorrow? How would you recognize joy? How would you recognize the light if there were no sense of darkness? How would you know spaciousness if there were never contraction? But we must recognize the distinction between ultimate reality and those mundane objects that arise from conditions and pass away. Reflect on the beauty of light and love as ultimate realities, and how darkness and contraction arise out of conditions and pass away. ~ Aaron

    The opening words for our meditation time continued: “And although I know that this particular building, as you know, I’m on the sixth floor, which is the top floor, it’s poured concrete. So all the floors are concrete that’s twelve inches thick, and the walls are not quite that thick, but the outside walls are. Maybe it’s eight inches on the walls. And so it would have to be a really tremendous storm to take any of it out. And I just know that that’s not forthcoming. I don’t think we’ll really even know that it happened. And it will happen between tomorrow, between bedtime and midnight. So they say. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and I said, you know, you and I have had a nice long association in this lifetime, and if you never hear from me again, just know that I love you. And it threw her a bit for me to say that. And I was very conscious of what I was saying, because that’s always true. It’s not just because there’s a storm. It’s true for all of us today, right now. However, our lives usually are focused in a different direction. Thank goodness.”

    And as we settled into the stillness, these assurances were spoken: “Yes, this is comforting, and all of you are comforting. And I know that there are many others that are also. And hopefully they have found a place where they can express their own comfort. So if everyone is ready, shall we go into our meditation? So taking a couple of deep breaths, and just feel the breath as it fills our lungs. And exhale. And then with the next breath, fill the lungs as much as they were, and then add a little bit more. And I ask Spirit to be with us, the higher selves of each of us, to guide and protect us, acknowledging that that’s what they are doing all the time. And then as we take that deep breath, and a little more, know that every time we do this, we are a little more of who we are. I don’t know that it’s possible, well, let me put it some other way. I accept the possibility that when we take all we can that we are, and then we add a little more, that there will always be a little more. In the evolution of humanity, of life on this planet, I can imagine there’s always a little more. And it’s not necessarily definable, not something that we can describe. And yet there’s a sense within each of us that knows there’s a little more. So as we go into the silence today, into the uncertainty of how nature will conclude this day, we set an intention to be a little more.”

    May all beings find an end to stress and suffering. May all beings know peace.

  • Good Intentions

    It depends where you look.

    As I slide the drape back from the window this morning the sky to the west is very dark.

    I have been initiating conversation about the upcoming Presidential Election with John. For decades we have not spoken of such things, but it seems vital to be able to speak openly with others about things we see differently without fear and anger and denial.

    I was coming in off the porch when John was heading down the hall on his way to coffee with the guys at Roger’s. He asked what I was doing and I told him I had gone out and tried to get a photo of the western sky that was so black.

    My phone rang. It was John and I had a sense before I answered why he was calling, “If you look out the front window you will see the rainbow.”

    The sky has always been observed by humans. The earliest recorded meaning given to the rainbow is as a symbol of hope. For Christians and Hebrews, it appeared as proof of a covenant between God and all living creatures in the book of Genesis. The significance of a rainbow was also found in Chinese, Egyptian and Native American history.

    Sharing with a dear friend a bit later, I could see the rainbow as it related to this being a time of truly releasing disappointment around unmet expectations. For my friend, it was a dinner she wanted to prepare as a special gift for us. She considered it awful. It was very easy for me to see that her criticism was part of the pattern of judging the manifestation without looking at the loving intention.

    Our conversation led me to disappointment related to Holistic Alliance which we closed in 2005. She was able to say, “I think you are not looking at it clearly. I remember the joy I felt when I would walk through that door. And all of the people we helped. We were so ahead of our times….”

    We were both able bear witness to the amazing gifts that were given and the incredible love behind them. Richard (of NLP fame) Bandler would say that disappointment requires adequate pre-planning.

    I begin hearing the lyrics to the song Good Intentions, as it was sung by Randy Travis: “And I hear tell the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But mama my intentions were the best.”

    It depends where you look for information on issues like “open boarders” or “secure borders.” Or the “criminalization” or “decriminalization” of abortion. Even things like ethics or the lack-thereof in industry related to insurance or pharmaceuticals or financial management. It is a lot easier to talk about the problem/s than it is to sit with the insecurity of the overwhelming complexity of it all.

    Last evening as we played cards with Fred and his friend, Kay, I tried to express to John my view on a play he was choosing to make. He could not (or would not) see it the way I wanted him to, and he made the play as he wanted to make it. As it turned out, it likely cost us that hand.

    Often life is referred to as a game. The quote “Life is too important to be taken seriously” is attributed to Oscar Wilde. The quote is a paradox, as it seems contradictory at first. Wilde’s suggestion is that the more important something is, the more important it is not to take it seriously.

    Elbert Hubbard also said, “Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”

    After Tuesday, November 5, 2024⁩, someone’s favored candidate will have lost and someone else’s favorite candidate will have won.

    Will you see disappointment or good intentions? Is it true that we can only see clearly when we see both? That it depends where you look?

    Praying we not miss the rainbows that come with the dark clouds.

    “Mama my intentions were the best”…. Praying we learn to be able to say this with honesty and confidence.

  • Barrel Through It

    He decided to cut his exercise session short at only two sets. While doing that second set, the radio station came in loud and clear, “Ain’t no love in Oklahoma, just the whistle of a long black train….”

    Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma is the theme song for Tulsa King, an American crime comedy-drama television series which stars Sylvester Stallone playing Dwight, a member of the Mafia released from prison in New York and sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he begins to set up a criminal organization. He had recently watched the episode in which Dwight gives an impassioned speech about going forward.

    “You can’t go back once you’ve started this damn journey, you can only go forward. So, you have only got to choices. You get scared and you give up, and then you burn up. And the second one, you say F-it, F-it, F-it…. F-fear. And then you barrel through it. And when you come out on the other side I guarantee you are going to be stronger than you ever thought possible.” ~ Dwight

    That speech had motivated him to burn years of his late wife’s medical records.

    He made the choice to barrel through the rest of his exercise session….

  • Morning Star

    Instead of reading this morning, I decided to just sit by the picture window on the porch and watch the full moon through the trees. As I was watching, I got a reply I was not expecting. The sky lit up with a shooting star that came from east and headed west, and it was very high up. It traveled very slowly and very brightly way out over Chicago. And I took it as a sign, an affirmation.

    I was pondering, could my late wife have been affected by our visit to Ashwaubenon Creek and the Fox River years and years ago? When I showed her the river I think she remembered her grandfather. He is of Native American heritage. Her mother had that dark skin and dark hair and brown eyes.

    The meteorite I saw this morning reminded me of a morning star, Wahbenukqua. Wahbenukqua, which means Morning Star, and her husband, Ashwaubomay, lived on the South side of the Creek.

    There’s quite a story. When a young maiden was kidnapped, he found her. In appreciation, the Chief Standing Earth offered him his choice of two of the prettiest maidens in the village. He chose instead the youngest daughter of the Chief.

    Wahbenukqua and Ashwaubomay were friends with both Indians and Whites alike.

    I take that shooting star to be exactly that — an affirmation.


    Note* Ashwaubomay Park is an 84 acre park that is located at 2881 South Broadway. The land was purchased in 1972 and the park was developed in 1973-74. Ashwaubomay Park is named after “Chief Ashwaubomay” of the Menomonie and Ottawa Nations. The Village name is taken from Ashwaubomay who lived along the river and who is buried along the stream. You can read more about Wahbenukqua and Ashwaubomay at: Village History and Demographics.

  • Fairy Wands & Making Magic

    The Secret Garden was written by English-American author and playwright Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924). It was originally serialized in The American Magazine in 1909 and 1910 and was then published as a book in 1911.

    Originally published in 1924, The Boxcar Children is a children’s book series originally created and written by the American first-grade school teacher, Gertrude Chandler Warner.

    As a youngster, these were my two all-time favorite books, and I finished rereading The Secret Garden today. I marvel at how we are shaped without noticing it. Or perhaps, it is more accurate to see our soul’s destiny has been pulling us along all along.

    “In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any other century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they see it can be done- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of these things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

    When I was Founding Director of Holistic Alliance I would often be asked to lecture about holistic health and the weaving together of body, mind, and spirit. Many times I said, “All new ideas are met with three distinct phases: First, they are ridiculed. Then, they are resisted. Eventually, they are accepted as the norm.”

    Searching some of the key words nestled within this idea, I found The Three Phases of a Great Idea, by Peter H. Diamandis :

      It turns out that there’s a predictable process for the evolution of great and breakthrough ideas. Ideas that are revolutionary.

      I learned about this process from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of the geostationary communication satellite and author of dozens of best-selling science-fiction books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey.

      In the 1980’s and 1990’s I had the great honor to know Arthur C. Clarke, he was “Uncle Arthur” to me, Bob Richards, and Todd Hawley: the three co-Founders of International Space University.

      Clarke described three phases of a great idea:

      1. In the beginning, people will tell you that the idea is “crazy”—that it will never work.

      2. Next, people will say: “Well, it might work but it’s not worth doing.”

      3. Finally, they’ll say: “I told you that it was a great idea all along!”

    Terri McClernon is a “Dharma Sister” and we have spent many years in classes and at meditation retreats together. A few years ago, Terri gifted me a Notched Fairy Cooking Wand, hand crafted by Harry Clarke of Kitchen Carver. I am OFTEN baking cookies for friends, and I ALWAYS use my Fairy Wand.

    Imagine my surprise and delight yesterday morning when I fired up the oven to heat the house a bit after overnight temperatures dropped down below sixty degrees Fahrenheit and I noticed a heart on my Fairy Wand!

    A winding path led me to listen to an episode of the ‘Gina Gardiner & Friends Show’ – this episode featured Mitzi Perdue and the theme was ‘A New Perspective On The War In Ukraine’. Mitzi had just returned from her third trip to the Ukraine as a war correspondent. I heard her speak of how the Russians are using weaponry to launch bombs containing hundreds of land mines each into prime agricultural lands. This prevents the growing of food to feed the people and it paralyzes the future economy of the country.

    Would I have listened with the same presence if I had not just learned that Mitzi was a colleague and friend of Linda, my beloved friend who died July 5? This from her online bio: Mitzi Perdue has had a lifelong fascination with what it takes to lead the best life.

    And:

    She got to watch up close and personal how her father co-founded and was President of the Sheraton Hotel chain, and she also got to watch how her late husband, Frank Perdue, built his father-and-son chicken company into a company that today employees 21,000 people.

    And:

    In December of 2022, she auctioned her Atocha emerald engagement ring for $1.2 million, with all the proceeds going to benefit Ukraine.

    I confess to feeling like I know Mitzi, although I had never even heard of her — let alone knowing about her friendship with Linda or her work in Ukraine — until a few days ago.

    Terri has plans for starting a mobile soup kitchen. You can watch more about the vision for The Food Fairy® Mobile Soup Kitchen.

    Imagine what we might see accomplished through Mitzi and Terri and people like us if we all use the Fairy Wand of our hearts and live by Colin’s motto in The Secret Garden): “I shall never stop making Magic.”

  • Dressed by Love

    She was visiting her husband’s mother when a neighbor asked how she was about gently used clothing. A dear friend of the neighbor had died recently. “I have a few things that look like they would fit you,” the neighbor told her.

    They items fit perfectly, as though they were tailor-made for her! She felt such a connection to this woman she had not previously met. “It is like we are soul sisters,” she said.


      ~ Excerpt from “The Clothes of the Dead”, posted on October 13, 2021by Gail Crowther

      I’ve been thinking a lot recently about clothes of the dead. This is partly because I am writing about them, but also generally I’ve been thinking about the status of a dead person’s objects. I’m curious about their value and their meaning….

      Margaret Gibson writes eloquently about the powerful immediacy that clothes can offer us — sometimes containing a trigger of memory, sometimes a record of the past, often returning the dead to the spaces inhabited by the living. She says clothes mobilize our emotions because they are partly how the dead person chose to construct their identity. After their death, we are left with these fragments, which we can piece together to somehow reanimate, resurrect.

      In this sense then, clothes of the dead offer some sort of continuity.

      Three-Martini Afternoons at The Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton (20 April, 2021) by Gail Crowther: Simon & Schuster: New York.

  • Gateway to Freedom

    I have been finding dimes for a friend over a decade now. He had told his wife he would send her dimes from heaven because anyone could send pennies but she was worth more than anyone else. Immediately after I met her, I started finding (and saving) dimes for her.

    Soon after my dear friend died just two months ago, I found a quarter while out riding my bike. It was unusual to find a quarter and as I was picking it up, I heard my friend’s voice in my head say, “Your friend’s husband sends her dimes from heaven but I am going to send you quarters.”

    I found a second quarter. I told my friend’s husband all of this.

    He and I have begun doing a riding ritual as part of the grief journey and he was with me today. He spoke of her loss 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.

    At that moment, we made a U-turn and I saw a quarter. I stopped to pick it up. Then I noticed there were two quarters! They were lying very near one another. He said, “One for you and one for me.”

    I made some comment about how I save them, and tucked both quarters into my coin purse before we rode on….

    Fishing them out of my coin purse now to put them into my jewelry drawer for safe keeping, I think he is right. I think the 2001 New York State quarter is for him.

    The New York State Quarter features the Statue of Liberty superimposed over an outline of the state along with the inscription “Gateway to Freedom.”

  • 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.