Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Author: Debra Basham

  • Anxious Feelings – Power of Presence

    I was awake a few times during the night. My friend is in the hospital. She just got home from Florida on Tuesday about dinner time and when I took “Welcome Home” cookies to her about noon on Wednesday, it was obvious she was not in tip-top-shape. This friend had MAJOR back surgery while in Florida, and her history of heart issues resulted in a longer-than-expected stay in the hospital with MANY complications. We were so looking forward to her being home and healthy.

    A call to her cardiologist office resulted in her going to ER. Sparing significant details, suffice it to say, she is in the hospital now. It seems she is having pauses between beats. She has called these “spells.” Feeling like she was going to faint, but not actually losing consciousness. The pauses have been getting longer and the plan is for her to receive a pacemaker. If you have a practice of prayers, please pass along some for her.

    I had seen this post on Facebook from “Fabulous Lovers of Weird Everything” about ten days ago, and I knew this post was coming, even before the situation with my friend and before Mother’s Day.

      “Piglet?” said Pooh.
      “Yes?” said Piglet.
      “I’m scared,” said Pooh.
      For a moment, there was silence.
      “Would you like to talk about it?” asked Piglet, when Pooh didn’t appear to be saying anything further.
      “I’m just so scared,” blurted out Pooh.
      “So anxious. Because I don’t feel like things are getting any better. If anything, I feel like they might be getting worse. People are angry, because they’re so scared, and they’re turning on one another, and there seems to be no clear plan out of here, and I worry about my friends and the people I love, and I wish SO much that I could give them all a hug, and oh, Piglet! I am so scared, and I cannot tell you how much I wish it wasn’t so.”
      Piglet was thoughtful, as he looked out at the blue of the skies, peeping between the branches of the trees in the Hundred Acre Wood, and listened to his friend.
      “I’m here,” he said, simply. “I hear you, Pooh. And I’m here.”
      For a moment, Pooh was perplexed.
      “But… aren’t you going to tell me not to be so silly? That I should stop getting myself into a state and pull myself together? That it’s hard for everyone right now?”
      “No,” said Piglet, quite decisively. “No, I am very much not going to do any of those things.”
      “But – ” said Pooh.
      “I can’t change the world right now,” continued Piglet. “And I am not going to patronise you with platitudes about how everything will be okay, because I don’t know that.
      “What I can do, though, Pooh, is that I can make sure that you know that I am here. And that I will always be here, to listen; and to support you; and for you to know that you are heard.
      “I can’t make those Anxious Feelings go away, not really.
      “But I can promise you that, all the time I have breath left in my body…you won’t ever need to feel those Anxious Feelings alone.”
      And it was a strange thing, because even as Piglet said that, Pooh could feel some of those Anxious Feelings start to loosen their grip on him and could feel one or two of them start to slither away into the forest, cowed by his friend, who sat there stolidly next to him.
      Pooh thought he had never been more grateful to have Piglet in his life.

      ~ Thinushi Jayarangi

    When I got to the hospital on Friday, my friend had experienced an adverse reaction to an IV medication. Her heart rate and pulse had plummeted. The nurse and doctor were still there with her…. and my friend kept telling me how wonderful the nurse had been through the event, “She just stayed here with me and she kept calling me back….”

    Perhaps today is the perfect day to share this story because it is Mother’s Day. I just sent a text message to a friend saying that not every woman (and not one man) gives birth to another human, but we all share in that universal love called MOTHER. That friend lost her mother recently and today is the first Mother’s Day with her mother in spirit.


    Even when our physical mothers are not here in bodies we are receiving a Mother’s Love. Calling the planet we live on “Mother Earth” seems perfect. Every moment we are in these bodies we are being nurtured and held and sustained, especially when we are navigating challenging conditions and have anxious feelings.

    Women and men are doing that for one another. The Holy Spirit is doing that for each of us. Our ancestors, our deities, our partners, our pets…. this is the Power of Presence.

  • From All Sides

    I have been working with a habitual habit energy. I’ve been at that place in the process where I could see clearly it was habit energy but I was not yet able to see what was driving it. You cannot see it until you can see it, and you cannot release it until you can see what is fueling the pattern from all sides..

    This past Sunday Barbara Brodsky, (as The Mother), spoke to me about resistance. I was encouraged to just note it gently so the resistance can inform me about the places where I still hold something separate from myself. She reminded me that it is subtle, and cautioned me to not try to fix anything. Just be present with whatever is happening in the mind and body. Be aware of the overlap of that with the essence which is so open and broad and filled with love.

    This reminds me of the holy experience of fully experiencing both the grief and the relief with loss. This morning it was the loss of a friend as navigated with her kitty. Eddie, an indoor-only de-clawed cat, got out and has been missing since Saturday. On Wednesday she was resolved to accept Eddie’s was the shriek she heard in the night on Saturday, rather than a rabbit being eaten by a coyote (as her neighbor and kittie-sitter wants to believe). Of course, neither of them has proof. (Please see update at the bottom of this page.)

    Related to the habit energy I have been navigating, I am now able to observe how underneath the resistance has been sadness and fear. I am more aware of the sadness. This reminds me of the question: If a lion roars in front of a mirror, do you think the mirror roars? The mirror does nothing, it simply reflects.

    The opening of a retreat with Barbara Brodsky includes taking The Five Basic Precepts, derived from the Tiep Hien Precepts. The second seems relevant to my having seen what has been fueling this habit energy pattern from all sides.

      Possess nothing that should belong to others. Respect the property of others. Prevent others from enriching themselves from the suffering of humans or other beings.

      In what ways do I take that which is not mine? Do I take more than my share? Can I become more mindful of when, why and how this happens?

      I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not freely given.

    This is not the first time I have written about this habit energy. (See: It’s So Simple Isn’t It)
    What I am able to see now is a time in the past when the shoe was on the other foot. What I have been experiencing as both recurring and painful I once was doing to another. I know harm was not intentionally inflicted, but I see clearly now that I was inflicting harm nonetheless.

    A memory just popped in from years ago when I had seen some trash on the beach and a judgment about “someone who would litter” arose. Moments later as a receipt on my passenger seat was sucked out when I opened the car window on the drive home.

    A stressful event occurred when the woman I was traveling in Europe with changed her mind about some directions she had given me without communicating that change. She was frustrated, angry, and lashed out. As she was admonishing me for not doing what she now wanted me to do, I had lucid awareness (time and place) of my having done that to another.

    If someone calls us a fool and we
    get angry, we think that this person
    made us angry. But we don’t see the
    subtle thought process that goes on:
    the identification with self; the pride
    that doesn’t want to be called a fool;
    and all of that. That’s what makes
    the mind angry, not anyone
    calling you a fool.
    ~ The DailyTejaniya

    In both of these past situations — and thankfully also with this current habit pattern — release comes when you see the pattern from all sides.

    Update: Eddie is safely back home! Interestingly, the same family that saw his post on Nextdoor and sent a photo of another cat yesterday was successful in assisting Eddie’s safe return this evening…. So grateful for all.

  • Hair Experiences

    I almost did not go for an out-of-doors bike ride today because of a threat of rain and a fairly stiff wind, but the newborn leaves making their debut on the trees outside my window moved me. About 7 miles in, and very near home, the three walkers looked a rather odd trio from behind, and I spontaneously called out, “A rather unusual looking group of walkers!” They repeated my words and let their laughter speak agreement.

    Then I saw her from the front. She had one of those BRILLIANT streaks of color on one side only of her longish hair. Suddenly I had the judgment, “I am pretty mundane when it comes to hair.” My sister, Janis, has had light hair/dark hair; short hair to almost no hair; normal-colored and not-so-normal colored hair. Sometimes she has had more than two of these in the same day!

    In some traditions, hair is considered a metaphor for spirit and uncut hair the symbol of interconnectedness of all life. To cut one’s hair was thought to diminish strength or wisdom, while long hair represented a connection to the natural elements, including the spirit world and ancestors.

    I have an album of photos on my iPhone titled: Hair. I have selected three. One is my photo from the year I was Number One in Sales at Creative Galleries. The dark hair phase photo shows me giving a tiny grandson, Adam, a massage as he smiles a sleepy slur saying, “Every peoples ought to have a massage.” The back shot is of my post-Covid hair taken by my brother-in-love, Larry Britton, shortly before I donated it to Wigs for Kids.

    Last Friday evening we went to a “reunion” of The Dunns, a benefit concert of a Southern gospel band that Michael Springer, our music friend, toured with for many years. In addition to some old familiar gospel tunes, I heard some lyrics new to me that still linger, like the words to When I Get Carried Away © 2024 Heritage Singers.

    It is interesting that I had unknowingly changed the words of that song ever-so-slightly from when to ’til:

    I’m gonna have the time of my life ’til the time of my life is over; I’m gonna get carried away ’til I get carried away.

    Perhaps my hair experiences have not been as mundane as I first thought.

  • The Coupon Queen

    It was the first Easter after his mother had passed. He was wondering how he was going to make it through Easter without her. On the week leading up to that first Easter without his mother, he was in the grocery store on a very long check out line. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and it was an elderly woman handing him a coupon as she said to him, “Young man, I noticed the cereal you are buying. I have a coupon for it.”

    No one had ever done that for him in all of his years of grocery shopping. And when he reached out to get the coupon from her, he looked into her eyes. He really felt like his mother was present. The woman did not look like his mother, but he felt his mother’s presence. It was so real, so palpable, so undeniable….

    His mother was a child of Italian immigrants from the Great Depression, so she really loved saving money. Every Sunday she would take the newspaper and she would cut all of the coupons. She would even cut coupons for items she herself did not buy. She would leave them on the grocery store shelves next to the items for other people to find and to use.

    His mother was not a reader, she did not do puzzles, she did not knit. What his mother did for fun was cut coupons. She was the coupon queen!

  • Red-Shouldered Hawk – A Close Encounter

    On Sunday, she received this wonderful blessing from a spiritual teacher who goes by the name Mother.

    I am with you and I will climb on the back of your bike and enjoy the outings with you. If you go past something that catches your eye, just tap me on the shoulder and say to me, “Mother, did you see that?”

    Or I’ll tap you on the shoulder and say, “Did you see this???”

    Monday morning she was out riding her bike when she saw a Red-shouldered Hawk on a power line. Hawks are often skittish, appearing to be almost “camera” shy. Speaking to the hawk, she stopped her bike and began slowly walking closer. The hawk watched her as she took some photos and then flew up, landing in the yard across the street. Still speaking softly to the bird, she was able to stand within about three feet! She was even able to get a video of some ground behavior she had never seen before. An online search said this seems to be a hawk hunting technique: rooting around the dry grass like a chicken.

    When the hawk flew to the edge of the garage, she stood directly below as the hawk looked down, making direct eye contact.

    She felt the Mother’s energy and imagined her saying, “Did you see this!!!”

    It is thought that hawks represent focus, clarity, determination, and intelligence.

    “Thank you, Hawk, and thank you, Mother,” she breathed.

    Hawks symbolize spiritual awareness because these are all traits you need to be more spiritually aware.

  • Help Buying a New Van

    She and her husband had the sense they were to explore trading in their car for a new one. Their sense about this grew stronger the more they laughed about how silly it was to think about a new car since theirs was only a year old. And, further, they had just had a hitch installed on their car before traveling to Florida for the winter so they could bring their bicycles. How would they possibly get a hitch installed on a new car in just a couple days? None of it seemed feasible! Yet for several days they felt as though several close family members, no longer in body, were sending them messages in dreams that it was important to explore doing this.

    The final message came from her mother who had died several years earlier. When she was in body she often exclaimed, “This will be fun, fun, fun, or great, great, great!” Her presence in the dream was one of this enthusiasm. In the dream, her mother told her, “Just wait until you hear the name of the person who waits on you at the car dealership!” So, off they went to the car dealership in Florida, 3 days before they were to leave to travel back to their home in the north. They had learned to trust the messages that find a way to get through to them from their loved ones on the other side, yet they felt a bit skeptical and even a bit ridiculous, trading in a car that only had 17,000 miles on it!

    When they walked into the dealership and asked to talk to a salesperson, they were introduced to Liam. One of her mother’s great grandson’s was named Liam. When he was born, her mother thought it was a unique and fun name and told all of her friends at the retirement community where she lived how excited she was with having a new grandson with the name Liam! She thought it was a “great, great, great name!”

    She and her husband enjoyed getting to know their sales person, Liam, and found him to be very friendly and helpful. He was able to get them exactly what they wanted and most importantly, was able to make the numbers work out so it was feasible, and, the car came with a hitch!

    Liam is a boy’s given name of Irish origin. It is a diminutive of the British name William, meaning “helmet of will” or “protection.” She and her husband looked at each other with amazement and knew they had an army of angels helping them!

  • The Guest House

    Today is March 21 and I have absolutely no “excuse” for not having posted on Yellow Brick Road since February 26. Yes, we have had house guests off and on for the past six weeks. Yes, I have been riding up to 20 miles per day on my bike this year rather than the normal 5-8 miles of recent years, including time for stopping to share affection with this kitty on Harbor Drive.


    Yes, I have completed 19 one-thousand-piece puzzles, and, yes, I have also read five books since we arrived here in Punta Gorda early December, but, the real reason my posts have been few and far between is far deeper.

    The real reason is I am profoundly present with the play of light and darkness within my mind and that can be awkward to speak about. At Tuesday evening’s North Fort Myers Bluegrass Jam after the sun had gone down light was pouring in from from the nearby baseball field behind the line of trees. I was transfixed by this juxtaposition of the light and darkness so I snapped a photo.


    I am likely continuing to mine gifts of intentionally working with shadow. These past years of classes with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr and Aaron during which we navigated the Sacred Darkness. Sacred Darkness is very much with me. As is the Light. Each experience brings myriad thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions…. all can be welcomed, even while not all are comfortable, and some are outright uncomfortable.

    As a guide, Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” comes to mind frequently.

      This being human is a guest house.
      Every morning a new arrival.

      A joy, a depression, a meanness,
      some momentary awareness comes
      as an unexpected visitor.

      Welcome and entertain them all!
      Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
      who violently sweep your house
      empty of its furniture,
      still, treat each guest honorably.
      He may be clearing you out
      for some new delight.

      The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
      meet them at the door laughing,
      and invite them in.

      Be grateful for whoever comes,
      because each has been sent
      as a guide from beyond.

      Copyright 1997 by Coleman Barks. Posted with permission. All rights reserved. From The Illuminated Rumi.

    Every line of this poem played itself out on Sunday when I watched a china pasta bowl I bought at the flea market for one dollar break in half against the asphalt. A hundred things cannot fully express the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and emotions melded into an experience.

    “It was only one dollar,” were the words I spoke at the time of the crash.

    Totally true words, but not the totality of my experience.

    I could not get that bowl out of my thoughts.

    I wished I had taken it to the van.

    The best way to describe it is like a too-brief encounter that leaves you yearning for a deeper knowing of one another. Who made this? How did it come to be at this flea market today? Who gave it such a low price? What is/was it’s real value? What would it feel like and look like filled with delicious food sitting in the middle of the table?

    I wished I had taken a photo of that bowl it to remember it by. I think I recall there having been a couple of butterflies and some flowers. I know there was green along the rim. The bowl was made in Italy, but I do not know if it was hand painted. I wished I had carefully brought the two halves home and glued them back together rather than having John toss them into the trash can. It could not hold pasta but perhaps it could have held fruit on the counter…. I grieved the loss.

    Complicating factors were the unanswered questions around the mishap. Details I did not have access to as I longed to put my mind at rest. I wanted to know the who, what, when, where, why, and how. I longed to free my mind of the ruminating. This being human is a guest house.

    The experience is not just about that bowl. It is about the nature of mind. A loved one dies. A loved one survives. All of the unanswered questions. A welcomed baby. An abused child. Kindness. Unkindness. Pleasant and painful. Light and darkness playing itself out on that inner landscape of mind.

    This being human is a guest house. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. ~ Rumi

  • Hallelujah!

    Her friend, still hospitalized with complications following back surgery two weeks ago, was very much on her mind as she was getting out of her car to run into Dollar Tree. The song Hallelujah was being played in the parking lot. She had just texted the K.D. Lang version to her friend a couple of days earlier. Exiting Dollar Tree she realized that the beautiful music was not being piped into the parking lot — at the far side of the parking lot she could see a man playing a saxophone!

    She walked to Winn-Dixie at the opposite end of the strip mall, appreciating the music so much. As she was about to enter the store she stopped to speak to two women who were also hearing the music and trying to figure out where it was coming from. The younger woman was in a wheel chair. I gushed, “It is live music! You can see the guy way over there playing the horn. When I first got out of my car he was playing Hallelujah. I had just sent that song to my friend, Linda, who is in the hospital with complications following back surgery.”

    The older woman pushing the wheel chair said, “My name is Linda!”

    The younger woman in the wheel chair added, “My mother’s name in Linda!”

    We all felt something so holy…. They said in unison, “We will be praying for your friend, Linda.”

    When I got back in my car I drove to the far side of the parking lot where the man was playing. Rolling down my window and thanking him for the surprise of the beautiful music playing, I told him about having heard him playing Hallelujah, and about Linda. He said he would pray for Linda.

    He had a tip jar so I pulled a ten-dollar-bill out and handed it to him. As an after thought, I asked if I could take his photo. He grabbed his saxophone and posed!


    Earlier that morning when I had sent a text to my daughter updating her about Linda, my daughter texted back this beautiful prayer:

    Lord, there are times in our lives we do t even know what to pray for, but we know that you know our hearts. So for our sweet friend, Linda, we ask for healing and the absence of fear. For Fred and her friends we ask for peace, comfort, and for all we ask for hope. We beg for understanding as we struggle to surrender to your will. Comfort us dear Lord. We ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

    Looking at the photo later I read the minstrel’s sign: PLEASE HELP ME. I HAVE 3 KIDS. I DON’T HAVE MONEY FOR FOOD AND RENT. GOD BLESS YOU.

    And, I noticed his hat: FBI JESUS. Expanding the photo more, beneath the FBI in small print I read FIRM BELIEVER IN.

    Hallelujah!

  • Marquette

    Her sister and brother-in-love had been planning a move from their hometown to the upper peninsula of Michigan, where their youngest grandchildren were. She wanted her sister to be where she needed to be, but to be honest, in her heart a move to Marquette for them felt like loss. Significant relief came when they had decided to stay in the area, but sell their current home and move into something else.

    “We just found a duplex to rent. It has a basement!” her sister’s text read. “What a story to tell. Call me when you can.”

    They were in the car driving to a jam session so she she called her sister right then.

    The duplex was on Marquette Woods Road, very near her! And close to everything…. She heard her brother-in-law say in the background, “We thought we were going to be moving to Marquette, and I guess in a way we are!”

    Directly across from her at the jam session was a musician wearing a hat with one word on it: Marquette.

    “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11

  • Missing Ear Bud

    Finishing her meditation, she popped her wireless ear buds into the charger case, snapped the lid closed, and set it on the bedside table until she got up and plugged it into her computer. Late that evening as she was readying for bed, she put the charger case back on the bedside table so it would be ready for her meditation.

    The following morning the one for the right ear was missing!

    She searched on the bed, under the bed, under the bedside table…. but did not find it. Later that morning, she recruited the assistance of one of the friends she was visiting. They took the bed linens off, even removing the pillows from their cases. Her friend intoned: “Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost that needs to be found.”

    “What might the lesson or gift be?” her friend asked.

    “That I should only use the left ear bud?” she mused. The left ear is connected to the right brain, so that made some sense.

    The ear bud for the right ear remained missing. In their fastidious searching they did find a domino behind the bed side table. It was an eight and a six: 14. They looked up the spiritual meaning of 14 only to discover the same message they had been speaking about a few minutes earlier.

    The number 14 is associated with new starts, fresh opportunities, but also balance and harmony. Your angels could be using this number to encourage you to be more adaptable and not to let self-doubt hold you back. Divine forces are on your side and want you to thrive – so any risks will surely be rewarded in time.

    A bit later their other friend also searched for the missing ear bud without finding it. When her friend who had helped with the earlier search asked her exactly where was she and what was the exact sequence of her actions she hopped up on her bed and provided a play-by-play reenactment, including testing what might have happened if the case lid had not been closed tightly. She could not even shake the ear bud out of the case! Could the missing ear bud have not made it into the case?

    Her friend stretched out on the floor between the two beds. From that eye-level view, she saw what she thought was another shred of dryer sheet. She had picked one up in her previous search but as she ran her hand under the bed she came out with the missing ear bud!

    This information about processing our listening with only one ear comes from the internet: Depending on which ear you receive the input from, the information will be processed a bit differently, but the general structure will be the same, and obviously, the end result will be the same. Information from your right ear is initially processed by your left hemisphere, and information from your left ear is initially processed by your right hemisphere. The right side controls attention, memory, reasoning, and problem solving.

    She thanks the divine forces and says she will do her meditation without the missing ear bud for a while!