Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Author: Debra Basham

  • Airbnb

    Sacred Stories

    Difficult as it was, she determined she probably needed to cancel her plans to go to an Airbnb for her birthday. Money was tight.

    Going online, there was a message on the listing: Aaron wants you to enjoy your stay!

    Her spiritual teacher’s name is Aaron….

    “According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)”
    ― Deepak Chopra, Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles

  • 1:30 pm

    Sacred Stories

    She used her “walking meditation” time to enjoy a bike ride. Summer was gone now, and winter was closer day-by-day.

    Today was beautiful, and she was debating taking a longer ride — soooo welcome after seven long days of sitting meditation. She could use the time set aside for lunch/rest to log another five miles.

    Observing the practice of noble silence throughout the retreat, she had her phone with her but the ringer was shut off. Something nudged her to check her phone, and she saw a text message from the Zoom host. The message had been sent at 12:52 pm.

    “I have some things to attend to this afternoon. Okay to make you the host starting at 1:30?”

    She immediately sent a text message back: “I am out on my bike right now, and it may be a couple of minutes after 1:30 before I get there, but I’m heading back right now.”

    That nudge to check her phone came at the exact point where she could get back.

    She logged on to Zoom as host at 1:30 pm….

  • Barbara’s Call

    Sacred Stories

    She sent email sharing a funny experience:

      While lying in a yoga pose listening to a friend/spiritual teacher’s (Barbara’s) instructions, recorded at retreat the previous day, almost falling asleep, the phone rang.

      Strange.

      It said the call was from Barbara.

      How could she be calling while I am listening to her giving a talk? It was almost an out-of-body experience.

      I answered the phone and indeed it was Barbara!

      Duh!

      I told her about it and she thought it was funny, too! (Sort of like dreams I wake up from, feeling they’re so real, that people are with me in the house, so I go to the back bathroom instead of the one I usually go to so that I don’t wake them up! And then I see that no one is there!)


    The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.
    ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau

  • Poppies

    Sacred Stories

    She had just spent 8 days on “virtual” retreat. Her closing remarks included her sharing of Poppies, a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. As many, this Mary Oliver poem focuses on elements of nature.

    Moments after her sharing of the poem, a friend also attending the “virtual” retreat sent the following photo and message:

    My recent purchase: poppies on glass.

    The following morning, she sent her friend this message:

    Just had to share with you this amazing additional piece of synchronicity with poppies, this one by this year’s Nobel Prize winner Louise Gluck (whom I’ve only recently discovered and like a lot). This came just yesterday, as the poem of the day, but I saw it in my email today. I think it’s interesting that once again, the themes of our retreat and the teachings we receive in general are mirrored in this poem in the voice of a poppy.

    A few lines from Mary Oliver’s poem: Poppies

    There isn’t a place
    in this world that doesn’t

    sooner or later drown
    in the indigos of darkness,

    But I also say this: that light
    is an invitation
    to happiness,
    and that happiness,

    when it’s done right,
    is a kind of holiness,
    palpable and redemptive.

    Thank you, Mary Oliver, thank you poppies….


  • Let it Shine!

    We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

    ~ Pema Chödrön

    This week’s Oakwood Retreat has been very intense. Staying at home for retreat has some benefits. You don’t have the expense of lodging or travel time, and you get to sleep in your own bed. Like all of life, though, everything holds its opposite.

    The morning instruction on working skillfully with distortion and heavy emotions was soooooo relevant…

    I have had one of the decidedly most unskillful weeks I have had for decades. When you are sitting in meditation for 6-8 hours, day after day, stuff will come up. The catalyst for my stuff was the (hopefully) last of the work to complete home repair related to the mold remediation. But vital to realize the catalyst (whatever the catalyst) is not the distortion. The distortion is how we relate to the what is triggering us.

    On one walk, I saw two crickets. On another, about a half dozen earth worms. Twice I had a red-bellied woodpecker hanging right on my window! Every day that shrub is filled with the comings and goings of sparrows. But one morning I heard a disturbance, opened my eyes and saw that a hawk was actually in the middle of the shrub. I had six Blue Jays at the feeder one morning, and this morning I had four big crows.

    Cricket totem: A sign of good luck in many cultures, cricket symbolizes initiative and intelligence, and having the gift of foresight.

    Earthworm totem: Working old ground; examining the past and its effects upon present conditions; including exploring past lives.

    Sparrow totem: Integrity, empowerment, persistence, hard work, peace and wisdom. Guides us to learn to work hard with all.

    Woodpecker totem: The power of rhythm. Discrimination. Connected to the heartbeat of Mother Earth herself. Symbolizes the stimulation and awakening of new mental faculties. New ways to look at things — new wisdom and new rhythms to dance to.

    Hawk totem: Represents focus, strength, and poise, and can show you your hidden abilities to lead yourself and others to a more positive outcome.

    Blue Jay totem: Symbolized by assertiveness, determination, and above all, intelligence.

    Crow totem: Watchful creatures with sharp and powerful foresight. An omen of transformation and change.

    When you go on retreat, you practice noble silence. This does not just mean not talking. You are excused from any of the normal social politeness. No small talk, no anticipating others needs, no distracting yourself with discursive thought. You see clearly the weeds in your own garden. So I wrote a poem.

      When Weeds Grow: A Haiku

      Every place where weeds grow
      Oxygen is shared with you
      Breathe in and feel TRUTH

      Challenges abound
      And LOVE is always around
      We have so much help

      What do you see as
      Weeds grow there in your garden?
      Breathe…. They are pure gift

    During the final sitting, my mind went back to some trauma I experienced while traveling to Europe in 2011 — this exact same week! Mind was churning trying to remember the details. What was the name of the country where I had gone to the exotic gardens? Thinking, grasping, trying to remember until I let my mind soften, like taking a step back, and simply intended access to the information. Pop! Monaco….

    This is not a new lesson for me. I remember leaving the house a bit late with my earrings in my hand. Pulling up to the stop sign, the left earring slipped in but I could not find the hole in my right ear. The next stop sign, I tried again. Again without success. At the third stop sign I asked for help. Pop! The earring went right in and I heard a voice say, “We would have helped at the first stop sign if you had asked.”

    I have wired lamps, lifted heavy objects, remembered things, found things, and received guidance regularly for a very long time. Our teacher, Aaron, was speaking of how the mundane mind can be very helpful to orchestrate some tasks. One student asked Aaron if he uses Barbara Brodsky’s mundane mind for working with the technology. Aaron replied, “No, I just invite the computer to co-create with me.”

    The current conditions are chaotic. We need all the co-creation with spirit we can access. As Aaron said, “How can I save anyone if I can’t save myself?”

    This week I saw a quotation by Thich Nhat Hanh: “The next Buddha may be a sangha.”

    It definitely took a sangha to offer this wonderful week of focused dharma practice. Sharing a few notes from my journal:

    You have come as midwives. You can be the midwife who is there in the room being calm or the one running around the room saying, “It isn’t coming quickly enough!”

    Be with things as they are. Not stoically, but lovingly. Liberation means walking on the unstable ground and finding your own balance.

    Allow the practice to ground us in the innate perfection without denial of the conditions.

    Say, “I consecrate this effort to the good of all beings.”

    Each time you are able to offer kindness in a difficult condition, it changes the world around you.

    One day when we sang “This Little Light of Mine” the teacher said it is really a great big light, so I wrote new words to the tune:

    This GREAT Big Light of Mine
    (sing it to the tune of This Little Light of Mine)

    This GREAT BIG light of mine
    I’m gonna let it shine
    This GREAT BIG light of mine
    This light is divine
    This GREAT BIG light of mine
    Isn’t even really mine
    Let it shine, let it shine, let it

    Let it shine around your town
    We can let it shine
    We have help, we’re not alone
    Please just let it shine
    Let it shine when fear appears
    We can let it shine
    Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

  • Happy 37th Anniversary!

    Sacred Stories

    A big storm blew through and flattened a huge stem of her cosmos. She found it very wilted along the driveway.

    She brought it in and put it in the vase that friends had given to her and her late husband for their wedding.

    The following morning she was so surprised she excitedly sent this photo and accompanying message:

    “Look what greeted me this morning on my 37th wedding anniversary!”

    The ones who love us never really leave us… J.K. Rowling

  • All Roads Lead to Somewhere

    The headline: The first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden deteriorated into a bitter showdown …

    It would be so easy for me to pass judgment about how unskillful bitter exchanges are were it not for the fact that I had just let myself get triggered by a friend I care for very deeply.

    We knew we had only a few minutes to talk before I was to be online for meditation, so in those few minutes she got to the heart of the matter for her: “I feel betrayed.” This was not the first time I had heard her express these same words about her boss over the years. But on this day I had an expectation for something else.

    When I argue with reality, I lose —
    but only 100 percent of the time.
    ~ Byron Katie

    All suffering is essentially wanting something other than what is.

    The following morning I was still watching the subtle contractions with my friend when I said, “All roads lead to Rome,” and she responded, “I don’t know about that, but all roads lead somewhere.”

    The saying that all roads lead to Rome was reality in the days of the Roman Empire. All the empire’s roads radiated out from the capital city, Rome. Commonly, the saying now often means all the methods of doing something will achieve the same result in the end.

    Whether Trump or Biden wins the Presidential election, “Election Day” will take place on the last day of Mercury’s last period of retrograde motion in 2020! (This one lasts from October 14 to November 3.)

    According to the age-old practice of astrology, we are all influenced by the effect of Mercury in retrograde. This from The Old Farmer’s Almanac: Mercury Retrograde Dates in 2020:

    Review projects and plans at these times, but wait until Mercury is direct again to make any final decisions. You can’t stop your life, but plan ahead, have back-up plans, and be prepared for angrier people and miscommunication.

    Some people blame Mercury retrograde for “bad” things that happen in their lives. Instead, this is a good time to sit back and review where you put your energy in your life.

    The Deep Spring Center Thought for Today addresses this, too:

      Please do go out and work for the candidate of your choice and also listen carefully to the other candidate and try to understand any basis of fear or confusion from which the statements seem to be coming. Do so in order not to condemn from a place of opposition but truly try to understand, because you will then have compassion for this opposition view rather than just condemnation for it. From the strength of that compassion you are much better able to say no than from the place of condemnation and oppositionality.
      ~ Aaron

    I drew a couple of Osho cards, inviting balance. Key words from the first: “It is a time when you are ready to let go of any expectations you have had about yourself or other people, and to take responsibility for any illusions you might have been carrying.”

    Key words from the second: “He has no private goals, no desire that everything should be other than the way it is.”


    Oh, my.

    I guess all roads do lead somewhere…

  • Poetry – Brandon Leake’s Got Talent!

    Anyone who lives art knows that psychoanalysis has
    no monopoly on the power to heal.

    Art and poetry have always been altering our ways
    of sensing and feeling
    — that is to say,
    altering the human body.

    ~Norman O. Brown

    Reality TV, like everything else in this human incarnation, has its ups and down, strengths and weaknesses, benefits and costs. This year’s America’s Got Talent cost me a lot of tears.

    As a poet myself, I am no stranger to the experience of having words make me cry. And this year’s AGT winner, poet Brandon Leake, touched the world with words like “Pookie” and “generational healing” and “no more time left for fear” and “you are so much stronger than you think” and “as soon as Covid hit, everything changed.”

    Here is a link to a significant 14 minutes and 11 seconds: ALL of Brandon Leake’s Performances on Season 15 of AGT! on Youtube.

    Brandon Leake said it best, “As soon as Covid hit, everything changed.”

    Last evening I shared a meal at a table with someone other than John for the first time since March 15, 2020. Interestingly, I knew before I got the call inviting us that I would be doing that. Even so, it was not an easy decision when I learned that four households would be gathered!

    I sent a text message to my friend:

      Honest answer: Are you expecting/asking guests to arrive in masks for pre-dinner conversation; remove masks for eating (6 feet or more distance); and to put masks back on for any after-dinner conversation?

    She responded:

      Absolutely. And they all follow these guidelines all the time, the best I can know.

    I wrote back:

      We will see you there.

    I cried when I read her next message:

      I love you and appreciate your process in getting to this decision. ❤️🙏😷

    You see, this was not just four households selected willy-nilly because we are going stir-crazy. These were two of our dearest friends hosting two other families who had been touched by recent loss. We share deep connections through church and loss and Covid.

    Seated to my right is a mother and her beautiful adult daughter, who is currently living with her mom. Their husband and father died late May of a post-Covid complication: stroke. They were unable to be with him as he was moved from facility to facility, until the very last hours of his life in this body. After he passed, they were unable to gather with friends and family to celebrate his life.

    Across from John and me were our hosts. Her mother passed just weeks ago… and they, too, have been unable to gather with friends and family for a formal Celebration of Life.

    The fourth household is a woman seated alone. She just lost her husband to Alzheimer’s disease, after having kept him at home as long as humanly possible, evidenced by the fact that he lived only a very short time once moved to a facility. Everyone at his visitation and funeral were required to wear masks and social distance.

    The serving table stretched about 12 feet with concrete landscaping blocks strategically placed to hold down autumn-colored table cloths. Placed around the perimeter are seven TV trays; each adorned with a brightly colored place setting. Cloth napkins compliment the loving atmosphere. I hear the words from the communion liturgy inside my head telling me this table has been prepared for you.

    The warm autumn wind was blowing as “Eau de Cologne” of garlic wafted from the house.

    After a feast fit for royalty, it was already dark as we slowly rose from the table. It was awkward to not help clear the table, go into the house to help load the dishwasher and wash the pots and pans. We were obviously all grateful for what we were able to share but also profoundly aware how very difficult it was to say goodbye without hugs. The desire rose up in my chest and left a lump in my throat.

    Today I see this message from another friend, along with the photo:

      Here’s my two flightless friends — Rowdy, who can’t fly but ran five miles at 4 a.m. and this monarch who hatched on Monday with imperfect wings. So he hangs out in my office on fresh flowers during the week and here at home on weekends. I feed him sugar water 1-2x day. Rowdy is getting used to sharing his home with a monarch companion.


    Just as Rowdy is getting used to sharing his home with a strange companion, we are getting used to sharing our lives with this pandemic….

  • Toby

    Sacred Stories

    Her beloved dog, Toby, had just passed.

    First, her husband had passed.

    Then both their son and their daughter were out on their own.

    Toby was a rescue, and a rescuer. He was her first dog ever, and he had come into her life when she felt very alone. He had been her faithful companion for 15 years.

    She writes the morning after his passing:

      Toby came through today. I made myself drive to the lake to walk as he and I always went out together in the morning. I had Pandora on. As I was looking over at the empty seat, barely able to breathe in that moment, a hauntingly beautiful song came on. I looked to see the title. It was, “I Am Always Right Here.”

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Correction in Big Fires post

    OOPS…. A mistype of the most important kind.

    Several individuals expressed feeling depressed with all that is going on right now. I mentioned how the uncertainty shifts us into the SYMPATHETIC nervous system – fight, flight, or freeze.

    Some people are said to look for love in all the wrong places. Trying to find peace or trust or love or joy while the sympathetic nervous system is active is like setting a lobster trap in the Sahara dessert.

    The sympathetic nervous system simply can never find peace!