Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Author: Debra Basham

  • FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

    Here in Southwest Florida things are heating up, and I am not just referencing this week’s 80 degree temperatures. Following two deaths in Fort Myers—confirmed coronovirus—many are practicing voluntary social isolation with an eye toward protecting those most vulnerable.

    A Michigan colleague, Jane Oelke, N.D., doctor of homeopathy, just published a great newsletter article. Please take time to read the entire article as “What’s in Your Cupboard?” provides some very wise steps we can all easily take.

    The simple things are often most powerful.

    For example, keep your mouth moist. We have all heard to “drink plenty of liquids” but did not know viruses thrive in a dry mouth.

    That makes perfect sense as a dry mouth is one of the first signs of stress or anxiety.

    We love the doTERRA Breathe drops, but sucking on a lemon drop or hard disc is good because your body being in parasympathetic nervous system helps your immune system stay strong. See Debra’s Wellness Tip “Vagus Nerve Stimulation” for more about that.

    The closing paragraph in Jane’s article is very significant:

    Most important – Stay positive!

    Recently I read a mind-body manual that states viral outbreaks come at times of mass negativity. Do you think we have too much fear and other negative messages going on right now?

    Rise above any negative thoughts you may have and take positive action toward believing in your own healing ability and support it with your activities.

    Focus on the blessings in your life and create positive conversations.

    Jane Oelke, ND, PhD
    Natural Choices, Inc
    www.naturalchoicesforyou.com
    269-429-9554
    You can schedule online at this link.

    While negativity can be subtle, the body knows.

    Yesterday, while out riding my bike I saw a yard sign: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ANYONE BUT TRUMP IN 2020. This is not a political commentary, it is a vital truth: Supporting anyone but anyone for anything is insane.

    Can you imagine going to a restaurant and ordering anything but anything?

    FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, you have a heart and a brain and a gut for good reason.

    And you have an immune system to keep you healthy.

  • Hari Om, Holy Spirit

    Whoa…. fear can spread like wildfire. We can put that fire out.

    A friend/colleague is part of several groups I attend here in Florida. She has cancelled the meditation group she hosts in her home and has reached out to another of our mutual groups suggesting the meetings be cancelled because “at least one, and possibly two, deaths in the county from corona virus.”

    Her closing line in the email message is quite telling: I’m sorry to miss the group if you do go ahead and meet on Monday.

    Admittedly, her husband is an epidemiologist, and we do not yet know the extent of risk.

    But we do already know the results of fear.

    Last evening I received (and passed along) a very mindful message from the Dzogchen Center and Foundation:

    Dear Dharma family,

    Lama Surya has asked that we lend our energetic support tomorrow morning. He will be leading a prayer ceremony in Northampton, Massachusetts, and has asked that, if possible, we take the hour from 9 AM to 10 AM EDT (Sunday, March 8th) to chant or pray with the clear and specific intention of pushing back on this destructive coronavirus, COVID-19, and purifying and supporting all those who have been / will be infected or otherwise impacted.-19,

    He has specifically asked that we practice where we are, rather than trying to participate in person.

    We look forward to holding the energetic space with you tomorrow as we lift our body, speech and heart-minds in unison, in support of our beloved Lama, on behalf of all beings.

    Don’t forget to put your clocks forward tonight before you go to bed if you are in a place that uses daylight savings time. Oh, and don’t forget to wash those hands!

    Warmly,

    The Dzogchen Center and Foundation

    I got up in plenty of time to chant for the hour with this group. I have recorded voice memos of many of the chants we do on retreat. Hari Om is one of the chants I did this morning. In Sanskrit, “Hari” is a mantra to remove troubles and pain. In Hindu, Hari references the god Vishnu, remover of bondages.

    Omniscience (/ɒmˈnɪʃəns/) is the capacity to know everything. In monotheistic religions, such as Sikhism and the Abrahamic religions, God is omniscient. “God” has the capacity to know everything. In Jainism, omniscience is an attribute that any individual can eventually attain.

    Since the 6th century BC, and continuing today, Jainism has three guiding principles: right belief, right knowledge, and right conduct.

    Here is another of the chants I sang this morning: Seems like such a long time, Holy Spirit, waiting, since I’ve drawn your breath in, silent and all pervading.

    It is important that we DO something with the energy of fear that can get stirred up. We can sing, pray, chant. We can dance. I clean. My sister sleeps.

    It is vital to remember we are able draw in the breath of the holy spirit and extinguish the raging wildfire of fear.

    Life depends on us….

    If you have requested email updates for posts, click on the image below to listen to the audio of the Hari Om chant:


  • 49 Days

    Sacred Stories

    Chanting GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA from the heart sutra for 49 days to-the-day of transition is a significant act of love in the Buddhist tradition. PARASAMGATE means completely gone to the further shore. The prefix SAM is intensive in meaning: completely, thoroughly, altogether.

    She had been chanting for the husband of a close friend.

    “Saturday is the 49th day,” she told her friend.

    “Saturday? Saturday is March 7. March 7 is his birthday!” her friend exclaimed.

    They were both brought to silent awe realizing the perfection of the date of his transition positioning the 49th day of chanting to be on his birthday.

    Completely gone to perfection.

    Thoroughly blessed.

    Altogether in love.

  • Enough!

    Autumn

    Leaves are falling down
    autumn of my life this is
    I must choose to live

    Watching baby breathe
    innocent and fresh new start
    coming from the heart

    Hands wrinkled from work
    burdened by beliefs not mine
    wake before too late

    She is blind but sees
    his deaf ears hear love’s true call
    death’s doorway beckons

    I stand numb yet here
    garden gate gapes wide with pride
    flowers sing welcome

    Rich soil grows wisdom
    rain settles the dust at last
    soon all will be past

    Debra Basham 03-06-2020 (WC 84)

    One month from today we expect to arrive back in Michigan. It would be denial to say the mold saga has not given birth to worry, fear, and concern. Is it gone? I am not just questioning the mold, but referencing also the freedom turning ever-so-surely into curiosity that has momentarily replaced the worry.

    Putting multiple thousands on my credit card, writing checks for more multiple thousands. Grateful access to what we need. Thoughts, too, of those families helped financially by our plight.

    It is said we do not fear death, but we fear dying as the great unknown. Yet, truth-be-told, we have been practicing living with dying since our first breath. We outlived puppies and kitties, and uncles and aunts. Cars and clothes, and friendships. All these no longer are the way they were.

    Fragile at best, this bed of impermanence upon which we rest.

    Mind goes to the blowing of the wind outside the window. Wondering when it is not blowing, where or what wind is.

    Before I was “I,” what was I. And long after, hereafter.

    Suddenly the idea! I can spend all of my earthy accumulations to run a full-page ad in the newspaper telling of the inner journey.

    Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, hardly anyone reads newspapers any more. Trees are relieved. So am I.

    News is depressing. Of course, the really good stuff gets ignored.

    Disaster and doom, debauchery and damage—this is what people read.

    All arises from the conditions. When the conditions are present, wind will arise.

    Death, too, arises—like the sun—when it is time.

    I write an open letter to the tiny house:

    To whom it may concern,

    The problem was more extensive than we anticipated, but we have done what we can. We are optimistic what we have done is enough.

    Love,
    Debra

    My goodness, that is perhaps the words for the ad in the newspaper: WE ARE OPTIMISTIC WHAT WE HAVE DONE IS ENOUGH….

  • Stacey and Courtney

    Sacred Stories

    She had traveled a distance, while wintering in Florida, to be evaluated for an intervention for relief from chronic back pain.

    She sent her friend an update via text message: “We made an appointment for the treatment tomorrow! And it just happens that Stacey and Courtney helped us out with the schedule.”

    FYI – Stacey is the name of the daughter of her friend, and Courtney is the name of Stacey’s daughter.

    She recognized the significance of the coincidence. Omens are everywhere….

    But God has blessed you, because your eyes can see and your ears can hear! Matthew 13:16

  • Glass Globe

    Sacred Stories

    Her husband had recently transitioned. The friend she was talking to on the phone asked if she had noticed communications from him. Initially she said she had not noticed anything, then she remembered something that might be!

    “Last week when I was down with the flu, I was lying on the sofa with the dog. Something happened that has never happened before or since. That blown glass globe hanging from a cord in the living room started moving. It just started swinging back and forth and I had a thought, ‘I wonder if that is him.’”

    Even though she was curious what could have set the globe in motion, she was not feeling well and she did not give it another thought until her friend asked her about her experiences of her husband’s visiting.

    “That globe is a substantial object—and the cord is no flimsy thing either. I made that cord…” she continued.

    All of a sudden, she burst out, “It’s swinging again!”

    Her friend exclaimed, “Hello! Thank you for visiting! We love you!”

    She was so excited. “I am going to hang up and take a video of it swinging. I will send it to you so you can see it too. I want to keep this to remind me….”

    Soon after, a video was received in which you can clearly see the beautiful globe swinging back and forth. Here is a still shot from the video of the swinging globe:

  • Scorpion

    Sacred Stories

    Her husband was going through some health challenges. He was scheduled to go to Mayo Clinic.

    She was so stressed about all of this.

    When her husband came home, he made three scorpion wire sculptures.

    Curious, she looked up scorpion totem meaning.

    Holy Cow, this was insightful.

    The article described her husband’s best traits and his worst traits.

    The page that had caught her attention was “Totems of a Scorpio”.

    Her husband is a Scorpio!

    This was a direct message from the universe for her through him.

  • Chicken Soup

    Sacred Stories

    A text message titled “Ailing” came to the yoga group:

    … “I woke up yesterday with a dry cough; made it though Thursday’s yoga class. Today this is a full-blown, achy, stuffy ailment. So sorry, (sad face) but I need to cancel our Saturday morning yoga.”

    One of the students who attends Saturday’s class by phoning in while out of state wrote: “Sending cyber Chicken Soup for the Body and Soul….”

    “Ailing” responded:

    … “I have chicken noodle soup in the refrigerator ready for later. Thank you for your good thoughts.”

    Having noticed the teacher’s under-the-weather voice, about to walk out of the door, one of the Thursday students felt guided to offer to make the teacher some chicken soup. The offer was graciously received and the soup was made and delivered later that day.

    In Sunday School children are told God has no hands but ours. Compassion and love produced a strong intention of that offer of chicken soup. The healing soup was lovingly prepared, delivered, and received by God’s hands.

    LOVE ignited is not limited by proximity, and it is not limited to chicken soup….

  • Human Feet

    My mind is so busy. I pull myself away from the Tapping Summit to join my Friday morning writing group, and the group seems so focused on the mundane I want to leave. I want to be inside where it is safe.

    Finally, Mary reads an incredible poem: “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in its Human Feet” by Joy Harjo

    I hope you will read this poem. You will relate. We all have human feet.

    I begin to write:

    Loss and Gain

    Searching for safety and security we wander aimlessly through the lostness of our own minds, opening door-after-door only to look into a mirror. Caught in the haze of a maze, thinking the same thoughts year after year without so much as questioning where they are leading us.

    A few tell-tale feathers lay on the ground outside the window

    A ghost-like image where they wiped the dust upon impact

    Beak, wing, and silence now where the THUD had been

    Heart breaking loneliness hits my mind the same way the bird hit the window: suddenly and without malice of forethought. An old friend, this feeling of not being wanted, loved, or safe. I open another door. Perhaps this time something else will be there.

    Eyes grow dull

    Search for a stress-free environment begins

    Danger results from well-meaning help

    Snakes shed their skin to allow for further growth. The process is natural and happens throughout their lives, but it is not an easy process. Being human is not an easy process either, and I, too, search for a stress-free environment in which to shed.

    Nigger

    Negro

    African America

    Black

    Words reveal our progress

    Slogans from mindfulness t-shirts I have seen come to mind: Meditation is not what you think, You Have the Right to Remain Silent, Don’t Believe Everything You Think.

    Perhaps hopeful, trusting, and calm will be the result of my new skin.

    P.S. The Deep Spring Dharma Path Study Group with Barbara Brodsky is finishing our two-year commitment. We are finding the light within Sacred Darkness. Whatever the conditions in your life right now, you in your human feet are never alone.

  • Closer to Fine

    Sacred Stories

    She posted a long entry on Facebook, “My sweet dad passed away two days ago.”

    Her dad had been diagnosed with cancer about 8 months earlier. He was SO strong and resilient and yet so gentle and kind in spite of the pain he was experiencing. He wanted to survive and live, but cancer is so brutal and finally there was nothing more they could do.

    “I am eternally grateful that I was able to see him several times a day for the last few months, but I hoped for 20 more years…” she wrote.

    Some of his last words were to her step-mom, “Everything is fine. Everything is going to be OK.” Soon after he said this, he went into a deep state of transition.

    Shortly, as she was leaving the hospital briefly to check on her kids, she was thinking about how she felt she’d received some messages from her little brother after he died a few years ago. She wondered if her dad would reach out to let them know he was OK. She wondered if her brother would meet her dad to help him on the path. And she wondered if she would notice if there was a message from her brother or her dad. Or maybe something meaningful from both of them to let her know they were both “fine.”

    So she let these thoughts go and did what she needed to do at home.

    She got in her truck to drive back to be with her dad. The radio was on and NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion” was wrapping up with a live song.

    Tears flowed. She immediately began to record a video driving along the road to share with her other brother later.

    She hadn’t heard this song in years. Her dad had taught this song to her and her two brothers as they were learning to play guitar in the 90’s when they were young, early college-aged kids!

    The Indigo Girls song was a family favorite—a feel-good song at the time.

    She was blown away feeling so grateful for this message. The title of the song is “Closer to Fine”….

    To top it off, as she pulled to the stop sign at the top of the hill, and pointed the video toward her dad’s old wood shop he built years ago (now for sale) the chorus rang out:

    There’s more than one answer to these questions
    Pointing me in a crooked line
    And the less I seek my source for some definitive
    The closer I am to fine
    The closer I am to fine
    The closer I am to fine, yeah

    This moment was a much needed respite from the grief she was feeling.

    She shared the video and this image, and says, “I think this was my brother’s saying all is fine with him, but maybe my dad’s saying that too, since he was beginning to make his way home about this time.”




    She concluded her post, “I don’t know what happens exactly when we leave this plane and move to the next, but I feel like my dad deserves the best of it…. ‘and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.’”