Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Category: Yellow Brick Road

  • Better than an Orgasm

    We almost won money at the Trivia night at Bob’s BBQ in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Our grandson, Brad, is the MC for the Thursday evening game. The play-off question was when Mother’s Day had become an official holiday. I guessed 1923. The other team guessed 1922. It was really 1914.

    I am not at all sure why 1923 popped into my mind, but the moment I said it, John said, “That is the year my mom was born.” Is it possible her spirit influenced my guess? I am not sure, but I do have those sorts of connections happen often.

    A few weeks ago, I met with a couple. He asked me if I thought I had some sort of gift beyond what I have been trained in. My response was, “I hope I do.”

    Every day we have opportunity to decide what we are going to believe about life.

    John and I were on our way to Tennessee late Wednesday evening. We were just north of Nashville, driving South on I-65, when we saw a line of taillights strung across all five lanes. John began to slow down when he realized what was going on. “They are about to do a race!” Sure enough, those drivers were lining up to run a quarter mile.

    Right in the middle of the thoughts about how dangerous, careless, and selfish a choice to do that on the highway was, I heard those car engines peal out. I was transported back to my adolescence and could only speak the truth, “There was a time when that sound was more pleasurable to me than an orgasm.”

    One thing I know for sure, right in the midst of whatever difficult, dangerous, or despicable event that is happening is something more. As my brother-in-law goes through cancer treatment he is surrounded by family and friends who care. Many contributed to a fund-raiser. Most say prayers. Some visit.

    Ryan Jon knows he was adopted. He posted an amazing video on FaceBook to his birth mother thanking her for making the difficult choices to give him his life. He wanted her to know he appreciates her and wishes her a happy Mother’s Day.

    Whatever Mother’s Day or drag racing means to you personally, take some time to reflect on the gifts right in the midst of any rough spots. What are the odds we would be at that exact spot on the highway at the exact moment those cars were lining up to race…. Chances are the chances are very slim, but we were at the right spot at the right time. Knowing that moment to moment is even better than an orgasm!

  • Shoo Shoo Shame

    Listening to a podcast titled “Empty Out the Negative” by Joel Olsteen this morning has my process stirred. Of course, that stirring began before today. A few days ago, as the sorting, purging, packing and staging continued here on Lincoln Avenue, I found the following penciled-in note in the back of my first NIV bible. A bible gifted to me by my friend Rick, who has since died of AIDS.

    My precious notes are barely legible but an internet search attributed a significant quotation to Dr. Ray Anderson, published in Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement, page 147, by Mark D. Baker:

    Shame is the perceived loss of our place with others. Those who have the power to create our history have the power to make us feel worthy or unworthy at the core of our being. Since our being is dependent upon how others view us, we feel shame as loss of being. It is this deep sense of shame, which seems to deprive us of our very right to exist, that drives many over the edge of guilt to suicide.

    Shame is a sense I have been all too familiar with in this life. Many of you know the story of my conception and birth and teenage pregnancy (Loved and Wanted: Listen to Your Mother Southwest Michigan 2016). The idea of our need to empty out the negative in order to enjoy the positive is what I appreciated most in Olseen’s podcast.

    If your life is filled with frustration, anger, sadness, resentment, guilt or any other unpleasant emotional states, little space is left for life to fill in all the good stuff. Olsteen offered the metaphor of a catheter draining the body of toxins to our need to release stored toxic emotions through forgiveness.

    I agreed wholeheartedly with Olsteen that forgiveness is something you do for yourself, not for the one thought to have done you wrong. However, him saying we don’t have to seek vindication because God is the judge drew my heart back to a line at the bottom of the page of penciled notes: “Remember Christ died for my sins, not because of them.”

    While releasing toxic emotions, best to let go of any stubborn toxic theology, too.

  • Ecclesiastes 3:6 – A Time for Casting Off

    I love organization. I enjoy cleaning, sorting, packing. For me, it is the same process as putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It takes time, observation, and patience.

    We are getting our home ready for putting it on the market. It has been a wonderful home with a beautiful yard. We would like to downsize, preferring to not have an acre to take care of. To help us, we had an amazing woman walk through and make suggestions and share tips.

    Since you end up packing things you want to keep, she suggested using clear totes to see what is inside. I chose ones with a strip of foam in the lid for keeping out moisture (and critters). This was especially important for books and important papers, including almost 50 years of journals!

    Thinking ahead to living in a potentially smaller home, I have been using a process of mindfulness in determining what to keep, what to pack, and what to keep out for staging. It is a time for casting off. Boxes of books have been taken to the local resale shop. Papers so important at some time in the past have filled the recycle bin to overflowing. Significant trinkets are now being given away.

    A woman was being moved out of her home into assisted living due to what was then called memory problems. Pointing to a beautiful painting of the Lord’s Supper that had been hanging in that dining room for two generations, her daughter asked if she wanted to take it with her. Her mom waved her hand and shook her head no, saying, “I am sure at one time I knew all of them, but I don’t recognize a one of them anymore…”

    I still remember.

    I could not stand the thought of packing away what has become a life-altar, gifts and representations of special people and places and ideas I value. (See my recent post: Treasures)

    I was inspired by a beautiful pottery piece gifted to me by my sister Janis recently for time assisting her settling in to their new home. This pottery was special, made by her dear friend, Louie, in the gallery Janis had in the home that had belonged to our parents. His pottery was a perfect foundation for all the messages of love, inspiration, healing. Elements of rock, shell, wood, gems, and paper—all harmoniously gathering!

    It was pure joy to witness each finding space. And best of all, the doors can be closed, allowing privacy for my treasures and an appropriate simplicity to welcome the new owners!

  • Love and Affection

    Untitled
    by Ryōkan

    It is not that
    I avoid mixing
    with the world;
    but I do better
    playing alone.

    This poem was excerpted from Sky Above, Great Wind: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryōkan (page 2). It was translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi.

    What I found most fascinating about Ryōkan (1758-1831) is not that he lived much of his life as a hermit and a beggar, or that in spite of never heading a temple or monastery, he is considered one of the three giants of Zen, and has become one of the most popular poets in Japanese history.

    Something inside me was moved by his words because I understand them. Some days you’d like to tell your boss off, yell at your beloved, or run away from it all. That’s when you have to take a breath and remember what you truly want.

    Because April is National Poetry Month, our Pine Island Poetry Meet has no specific assignment for 27 April. We are inviting our muse to have fun. As a tribute to my knowing I am the only barrier to my own happiness, I am sharing “Laid to Rest,” an Insult Poem.

    NOTE: AN INSULT POEM OFFERS A WAY FOR THE POET TO EXPRESS ANGER WITHOUT ENGAGING IN A TOTAL SNARK FEST; THE MAIN HALLMARKS OF AN INSULT POEM ARE HUMOR AND EXAGGERATION. INSULT POEMS DO NOT GENERALLY DEAL IN UNIVERSAL THEMES—THEY ARE PERSONAL AND ARE DIRECTED TO A SPECIFIC PERSON OR GROUP. HOWEVER, THESE POEMS ARE ARTISTIC IN THAT THEY EMPHASIZE THE POET’S VERBAL SUPERIORITY WITH WORDS (AS OPPOSED TO DOWN AND DIRTY FIGHTING AND NAME-CALLING).

    Laid to Rest

    You think you’re so smart
    You think you’re so wise
    The truth is your blindness
    Can be seen in your eyes

    You hide behind intellect
    Totally failing to feel
    Cast your net of blame
    Miss the chance to be real

    You open your mouth
    And close down your heart
    You wax eloquently on
    Playing your part

    Someday maybe
    you’ll see
    Beauty so near
    lurking in me

    But whatever may come
    As the years pass us by
    Too swiftly for most
    Gone in the wink of an eye

    For now I forgive me
    for not giving you
    the space to be
    the freedom to do

    Our past is now gone
    a shadow at best
    too soon, my dear friend
    we’ll both be laid to rest

    Debra Basham 3-21-2017

    I recall the day I stood in my kitchen and spat out an announcement: “I wish I could just run away!”

    My husband looked straight ahead and calmly replied, “What keeps you from doing that?”

    Tears filled my eyes and spilled out onto my cheeks. “I cannot think of anywhere I can go that I will not be there.”

    I loved reading that as an old man Ryōkan fell in love with a young Zen nun. She became his student and the poems of his later period are influenced by his affection for her.

    I’m glad he recognized there is something better than playing alone. I am glad he chose love and affection….

  • Treasures

    Would anyone recognize the importance of these treasures? Without my providing a guided tour, might they just look like useless items delinquent on the trip to the trash?

    Might my sweet spirit whisper to anyone who was willing to listen how significant each really is?

    The round tuit—such a valuable reminder!

    A simple wooden acorn that allowed me to recognize my spiritual calling to healing work.

    NONME stamped right into the material by the manufacturer of a piece of PVC pipe, found in the garden at a Sangha silent meditation retreat on no-self.

    The shaman’s medicine bundle from the back-yard blessing provided by a beloved Carmelite Sister.

    Yet, even right now I realize these items themselves are of no significant value.

    I welcome awareness and learning slipping into an ease of being much like pulling on your favorite pair of slippers…

  • Reunion

    It was 1:53 AM when he got up to pee. Faint shadows from the streetlight danced lazily on the wall. It had been almost midnight when she got to sleep, but she forced her eyes to open sufficiently and adjust to the darkness. He expected it, and she predictably said, “It is 2 o’clock. We might as well get up and get on the road.”

    They never think of themselves as leaving their winter paradise. Nor do they think of themselves as going home. They think of themselves as going to see the kids.

    Two days ago a good friend died. He probably didn’t think about himself as leaving or as going home either. I can imagine him thinking of himself as going to see the dogs.

    Traffic was pleasantly light, obviously one of the benefits of their 3 AM departure. More than a few vehicles passed, bicycles obediently following behind. Ontario license plates. Wisconsin license plates. Michigan license plates. A few Florida license plates, but mostly snowbirds driving north.

    A snowbird is a person who moves from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada and migrates southward in winter to warmer locales. Snowbirds think they have the best of both worlds…

    While nonsnowbird friends, family members, and colleagues scrape ice from the windshield, shovel snow from the drive, and brace against the cold wind, snowbirds ride bikes, play shuffleboard, watch Eagle chicks grow and fledge, play music, and go out to eat dinner at five o’clock in the afternoon.

    Some snowbirds write poetry.

    From a source of poets and writers poetry prompts “Creative Guidance for Writing Poems and Experimenting with Forms” comes a great exercise:

    If you’re having trouble starting a poem, begin at the end. Take a single collection of poems and make a list of the last two words from each poem. Then write your own poem using only these words. Be vigilant at first utilizing just the vocabulary from the list. After a couple of drafts, stray from the limited words to help bring the poem to its full realization.

    Here are two words from a collection of 9 poems by Mary Oliver:

    could save
    something better
    of things
    a star
    to pray
    your life
    morning light
    the universe
    of dust

    This poem, written on 3/3/2016, is dedicated to Joseph, now reunited with his beloved dog,Tramp.

    Of Dust—Version One

    Your life, of dust; of things?

    Something better?

    To pray…

    Could save the universe; morning light, a star.

    A Star—Version Two

    Longing for something better

    Pray to the universe—celebrate a star—dance in the morning light

    These are some of the things worthy of longing for

    Turning longing into loving could save your life

    From dust we come, and to dust we return. Farewell, Joseph, we celebrate a star! Enjoy your reunion.

  • Safe Trip Home

    Every day I hear about somebody having surgery. Some of those surgeries are major, some are minor. I understand the definition of “minor” surgery as something someone else is having….

    Almost every day I hear about the death of someone I know, someone I love, someone I’ll miss. So much dying.

    This too shall pass. Living with impermanence is at once both gratifying and terrifying.

    Imagine standing on the seashore. As you watch the waves roll in and break, what has rolled in? What have you seen break? Are not the waves continually a part of the ocean?

    My friend, Rabbi Rami Shapiro asks what happens to an ice cube when it melts in a glass of water—he says dying is like that.

    Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (the famous “Death and Dying” lady). Elisabeth had suffered 19 or more strokes and was completely paralyzed on one side, yet she continued to live alone.

    Author Melody Beattie came to her home and did an interview at bedside. Melody asked Elisabeth if she really believed in life after death. Wasn’t she the least little bit afraid?

    Elisabeth laughed. “Didn’t you read my book, dear?” she said. “It’s not about believing. I know there’s life after death. Dying is the easy part. It’s life that’s hard.”

    Melody leaned over and whispered in Elisabeth’s ear, “Thank you. And have a safe trip home.”

    Rabbi Rami says that life is like a giant rope, and we are all connected to one another before birth, during life, and in our life-after-death. Rami says birth is like the tying of a knot in the rope. Dying is like the untying of that knot.

    This is my farewell writing for this winter’s season. Thursday morning I’ll be heading north with many other snowbirds.

    May we each have a safe trip home….

    Debra Basham 3/21/2017
    WC 301

  • Bright light. Warmth. Profound love.

    “Oh, Daddy, she is not going to stop!” I screamed.

    Squealing tires, honking horns, then mangled metal and shattered glass gave way to twisted bodies and altered minds.

    It took a few moments for me to realize my own flesh was garishly peeled back, dangling down over both of my eyes, preventing me from seeing my father’s feet in the floorboard of the car. Preventing me from seeing anything.

    It was August 12, 1962. I was twelve, going on twenty.

    “Daddy! Daddy! Are you OK, Daddy!?!” I called out.

    Silence hung in the air.

    Then suddenly, from somewhere, hands pressed against my forehead. I remember blurting out my name and telephone number—along with the name and phone number of the pastor of the little country church I attended each Sunday morning.

    Those skillful hands pressing firmly against my scrambled tissue, slowing the bleeding, were the hands of a nurse, a woman who lived in the house at the exact location of the accident. A nurse who had just arrived home from work when she heard the crash. A nurse whose sweet voice reassured me over and over again, “Your daddy is OK. You are OK, too.”

    Sirens in the distance became deafening as they bared down on that intersection… “Please make them stop!” I cried.

    Almost two decades would slip by before I would read about death and dying, the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. Better-late-than-never comprehension of my first out-of-body experience. All I knew that day was a total lack of pain, a lovely sensation of floating above my body, looking down, watching hands meticulously sewing dozens of stitches in my forehead.

    But, I would not understand then (and perhaps not fully even now) how much my world view was changed the day that drunk driver stopped in the middle of the intersection at M-140 and Territorial Road.

    My body was in a hospital room in traction when I came to. I had no knowledge of having been transferred to this hospital after the stitches, no awareness of having surgery to set my hip that had been dislocated at my pelvic bone.

    Two weeks later I would go home. My father’s broken ribs would heal. My scars would always be hidden by bangs.

    At the surface, my life seemed unchanged.

    I got really good on the crutches. Living right next door to the school, carrying my books and my lunch, I could get across the lawn and be the first in line when the bell rang.

    When did the dreams begin? Was it before or after I read about near-death awareness?

    It is difficult to say when the dreams began, but they did not just happen when I was sleeping in bed at night.

    Bright light.
    Warmth.
    Profound love.

    Was I the nurse, or was I the patient? Was I the drunk-driver or the young girl tossed like a beach ball into the windshield?

    When did the premonitions begin?

    It is difficult to say when the premonitions began, but they did not just happen when I was sleeping in bed at night.

    Bright light.
    Warmth.
    Profound love.

  • Tapping into Gratitude

    My grandson, Brad, and his wife, Christina, spent five wonderFULL days with us on Pine Island. Brad had been working for Charter Media in Murfreesboro (Tennessee) since earning his Master’s Degree three years ago. Recently, though, he declined a large promotion with Charter that would have meant their move to North Carolina. It was not the move itself that was a deciding factor, it was the corporate lifestyle that demands you live to work rather than work to live.

    They called their visit “Retirement Training.” He decided the reason they call it retirement is that first you are tired because you are working so hard, then you are retired because you are playing so hard.

    They rode bikes, went kayaking with dolphins, watched manatee in the canal, took a pleasure boat ride to lunch at Fort Myers beach, grilled fresh shrimp, participated in music on the island, played shuffleboard, and went to dinner at early-bird schedules. In the early morning, and late in the evening, Brad would work remote as a consultant in data management. It was way beyond great.

    After they left, I participated in a World Tapping Summit talk on gratitude with Carol Look. I loved her words, “Expressing gratitude is like planting seeds; many good things will come from it.” She stressed the importance one not do it because you will get something. Do it because it feels good.

    But what about those times when it is difficult to catch a whiff of gratitude? The darkest of the dark days? Especially then, it is important to start where you are and cast a net of well-being with the WHAT IF frame: “Even though thus and so, what if there could be a solution I don’t yet know about.”

    I also appreciated learning the importance of tapping thank you to the universe or god or whomever/whatever you conceive: “Thank you for brining me a solution to thus and so.”

    Finally, Carol says you will benefit by moving through the points just expressing anything and everything you are grateful for. “Nature, family, friends, sunshine, dolphins, manatees, health, freedom, kindness, flowers, trees, birds, bicycles.”

    Today, I am tapping thank you for Brad and Christina having been able to visit, and for the wisdom they have at 27 years-old to avoid clamping on golden handcuffs.

    (If you are new to it, here is a short instructional video and introduction to EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), commonly called just “tapping” with Jessica Ortner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAclBdj20ZU)

  • Catching Rays

    Have you ever seen any of those 3D “magic eye” images? You have to hold the image close to your nose, look through it so it is blurry, and maintain your gaze as you slowly move the image away from you. As your eyes relax, your focus changes, and you can see amazingly beautiful things. This image contains two giraffes.

    Just like those hidden images, you have undoubtedly been able to see the way an unusual event will bring something else into view. Like seeing not one, not two, but three gopher tortoises one day during a bike ride. Or catching not one, not two, but three stingrays one day fishing off the dock.

    The odd thing about catching the rays while fishing off the dock is that the people right next door who have fished from the dock for years have never ever caught one stingray here. Let alone three in one day.

    So, I looked up the symbolism of stingray.

    Stingrays represent your emotions and how you may be hiding them from others. If it’s calm, stingray suggests maneuvering a challenge in your life with ease and grace. If the ray is aggressive; it means you may be reacting to your emotions, rather than using careful deliberation in your approach, which could be costly.

    Oh, my goodness. The first and largest of the three rays fought very hard. For the longest time. Taking the line way out. Darting away from the dock. Digging down in the mud. This first and largest one was about the size of a garbage can lid. In case you are wondering, the ray was able to be safely released.

    The guy who managed to wrestle with and land that big old ray on an ultralight rod and reel currently has two younger brothers navigating cancer treatment. One of his brothers was having his right kidney removed at that time! Another of his brothers has been dealing with the side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy treatment for lung cancer. His platelet count was too low for him to receive chemo at that time! While the fisherman has been snow-birding in Florida this winter, he has begun saying he is bored with being here and thinks he might go home early.

    Stingrays may be telling you to not overreact to your emotions, to calm down and wait before reacting. Stingrays maneuver themselves quite well despite their size and shape and they tell us to also carefully maneuver the complex emotional waters of our inner world.

    This week, I am participating in the World Tapping Summit. I especially enjoyed the interview with Dr. Paul Sheele, “Feeling Abundant: Attract More Wealth and Prosperity Into Your Life!”. Sheele made the distinction between abundance and prosperity. The universe is abundant. Prosperity is the degree to which we are aware of and participating in the true state of the universe.

    I am thinking about all of this in relationship to catching the rays, and those magic eye photos. I am going to think about it this way: well-being (like abundance) is there even while going through all those challenges, hidden right there just out of view.