Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Category: Yellow Brick Road

  • The Whole World Kin


    Yesterday we received our first Christmas card, from Glenda Norris. Glenda goes all out, shopping, decorating, and celebrating life. The image on the card is a very lovely owl, and the quotation by William Shakespeare is equally lovely: One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. The card is from the Arbor Day Foundation, and the inscription reads, “In your name, a tree is being planted in one of our National Forests.” What a beautiful, thoughtful, insightful gift.
    I was pondering this relationship humans have with nature when I read some excerpts from Listening to Your Inner Voice, by Douglas Bloch. Bloch writes about a young minister complimenting a farmer, saying that God had blessed him with an incredible piece of land. The farmer is said to have replied, “Yes, but you should have seen the mess it was when God had it to Himself!”
    It appears to be quite obvious that life works best when we work with the divine.
    This past summer I spent four weekends in an experiential workshop on how you can activate and maintain higher states of consciousness. Why is this significant for all? We are partners in the vision and creation of our world.
    Last weekend while we were enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with our family in Tennessee, my older grandson, Brad, stopped by his mom’s. On TV was a “reality show” about extreme couponing. I had never seen such a thing, and was appalled at the garage full of stuff, wondering why one would want 30 years supply of toothpaste. An extra tube, yes, but hundreds?
    In about ten minutes of watching, Brad had an inspiration to fill food pantries with staples and stock home shelters with toiletries—with absolutely no cash outlay! He could form a not-for-profit program that trained volunteers how to use the process, and suddenly extreme couponing moved from excessive hording to a practical service to humanity.
    As I was working on this blog, Joel sent a link for one of the most popular TEDTalks of all time, Simon Sinekspeaking about great leadership. Using Apple™ and Martin Luther King, Jr. as examples of great leaders, Simon describes the common threads of the most inspired and inspiring individuals or organizations. He says, “People don’t by what you do, they buy why you do it.”

    The image on the card is a very lovely owl, and the quotation by William Shakespeare is equally lovely: .
    I may not ever know for sure exactly why Glenda invested her money to plant a tree in a National Forest in our name, but as Simon Sinek says, “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” 

    Obviously, Glenda and I believe what William believes…

  • Extra Mile


    No one has ever become poor by giving. ~ Anne Frank
    Thanksgiving Day 2013 did not unfold exactly as we expected, but there certainly was plenty to be thankful for. Late Wednesday afternoon, we found out that the family member we had expected to be hosting our traditional feast had been in the hospital with kidney stones. Fortunately, a stop at the store on the way home from work by my son-in-love, Doug, produced a turkey and the makings for dressing. 

    Thursday morning started early, as we participated in Borodash (a fundraiser walk/run). It was a brisk 19 degrees when our warm hearts gathered at the start line with a dozen or more of our family members, including all of our grandones! Imagine walkers and runners—some clad as pilgrims, others as Indian maidens, and a wide variety of turkey hats!

    Besides the sheer joy of being alive and spending time together, a highlight of the event was waiting to welcome the last walker across the finish line, a veteran who had one leg. It is hard to feel anything but blessed when you see how much some people are able to do with their lives, in spite of challenges along the way. 
    So after the Borodash and breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we headed to the house to begin preparing our Thanksgiving meal. We began slicing apples and making preparations to get the pie into the oven. We had planned to take the famous Dutch apple pie—using a recipe cobbled together by my daughter, Stacey, following the death of her Grandma Smith. This year (hoping to move closer to the desired results of my mom’s pie), I brought a different recipe with me.
    We realized we did not have any cornstarch. The Publix around the corner was closed so their employees (including our grandson, Adam) could enjoy Thanksgiving with their families. Walmart is quite a bit farther away, and likely would have been filled with shoppers getting a head-start on the Black Friday specials. The apple slices were already turning brown (and we were waiting for the pie to come out of the oven for the turkey to go in). 
    Only needing ¼ cup of cornstarch, I sent my daughter (Stacey), and husband (John), and granddogger (Baxter), out to knock on neighbor’s doors. The first few houses, no one answered the door. The next house is occupied by a Hispanic family. The parents’ English would best be described as little-to-none. The young daughter tried unsuccessfully to translate. With the dad on his hands and knees mopping the kitchen floor in preparation for their own guests, the family graciously invited Stacey in, opened all their cupboards for her to look for what she needed. Even so, she returned without any cornstarch. 
    We were in the process of trying to make substitutions, when we heard a knock on the door. The young girl and her younger brother were standing there, having been sent over with a container of what turned out to be flour. Stacey told them she had flour, but thanked them for trying. 
    A few minutes later, another knock on the door, and they had returned with this box!
    As Stacey and I took out the needed amount, thanked them, and turned back to the preparations of the pie, I was choking back tears thinking of loving and generous hearts that would motivate you to go to that extent to help someone. I was reminded of the stories of Jesus about going the extra mile. 
    I may never know the details of the conversations between this young girl and her family, but I will always remember the unexpected gifts of this Thanksgiving Day.

  • Yes to the Best!



    One year ago, my grandson Adam, had his wisdom teeth removed. This week, my granddaughter Courtney, did the same. One year ago, when I went to Tennessee for Thanksgiving, I was facing major surgery when I returned. This year feels so much different, and yet I have a sense of déjà vu. 

    For sure, life is at any given moment more unsure than it seems, and also more sure. Last week a childhood friend of mine watched her husband die from lung cancer. We do not stay in these bodies forever….
    When it is all said and done, what have I said and what have I done that has made life better for others? Have I picked up trash that I did not throw out? Have I held a hand, or opened a door? Have I dreamed a better way and done something to bring that dream into reality? I would say, yes. 
    This week a wonderful young woman who has survived a LOT in her 29 years, told me a favorite funny movie of hers is Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey. 
    Here is what I found about the film online: 
    Jim Carrey stars as Carl Allen, a guy whose life is going nowhere—the operative word being no—until he signs up for a self-help program based on one simple covenant: say yes to everything and anything. Unleashing the power of YES begins to transform Carl’s life in amazing and unexpected ways, getting him promoted at work and opening the door to a new romance. But his willingness to embrace every opportunity might just become too much of a good thing.
    It may be wise to exercise some restraint rather than saying yes to everything and anything, but what might the world gain if you brought your authentic self to the fore? Might you be another Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or Ludwig van Beethoven? What awakened the destiny of Christopher Columbus or Jehanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc)?
    While I was in the hospital (6 Garden at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka, Indiana), I was surrounded by angels working as nurses. I am grateful I thought to take photos. Throughout the year their faces have come back to me wrapped in the lovely memories of their kindness and compassion. They were the best.
    Elizabeth

    Francesca

    Kristie

    Pat
    I wonder about each of them and what this past year has brought to them and to those they have cared for. As a tribute to nurses everywhere, paid and volunteer, I would invite you to say this prayer every day from now until the end of the year. “I say yes to the best.” 
    That’s it. Short. Simple. Say yes to the best. Very easy to remember.

  • Storms



    Tonight I am thinking of the many people who lost their homes (or loved ones) in the scores of tornadoes that slammed through the Midwest yesterday. It brings to mind when our friends, Roger and Sharon, lost their home along with every other family in their home town of Firth, Nebraska, May 22, 2004. 
    Here the storm left my 90 year-old mother-in-love without electricity, so she is here with us. We were watching news and looking at some of the devastation on the internet. It is amazing how fortunate you feel when you see what others are experiencing. 
    I certainly am aware of how blessed I was with the surgery I went through last year. Yes, I had a very large (21 cm) ovarian growth removed, and, yes, I had post surgical complications that resulted in my spending some time in high rent district (intensive care).


    If you would like to be inspired, watch this TED talk by branding guru Stacey Kramer. It is three minutes long, and inspirational in both its brevity and its punch. Nobody wishes for adversity but sometimes it is a profound teacher. 
    Tonight the thing that I am most aware of is how the human spirit survives the storms of life

    —far more than one might think possible.


     

  • Just Wait


    Who is it that can make muddy water clear?
    No one.
    But left to stand, it will gradually clear of itself.
    Lao-Tzu
    Tao Te Ching

    One year ago, I was on the roller-coaster ride of my life. Fortunately, a dear friend and wonderful intuitive healer gave me an image that carried me along as though on angels’ wings. When I told Dr. Mary Jo Bulbrook I had been diagnosed with a very aggressive mass in my abdomen, she told me there were be no shortcuts, but I would get through it. 
    Mary Jo told me, “There is a red carpet being rolled out for you.” 
    Things were certainly going quickly. On Friday I saw a gynecologist because I had been feeling a thickening in my lower left abdomen. He did an exam, said I had a hernia, and referred me to a general surgeon, whom I saw on Tuesday. The general surgeon said it was not a hernia; did a surface ultrasound and saw something on or behind the bladder; and referred me to a urologist, whom I saw on Friday. The urologist did an exam and scheduled me for a CT scan on Monday and a cystoscopy on Tuesday. 
    On Tuesday, I went right from the urologist’s office to the gynecologist/oncologist, who did an exam, blood work, urinalysis, and wanted to do surgery the next Monday. 
    Somewhere within this whirlwind, my heart had the presence of mind for me ask if my waiting one week would change the prognosis. 
    You see, the following week was Thanksgiving and we were scheduled to go to Tennessee to have time with kids and grandkids. 
    Dr. Method (there is a Method to the madness?) gave me the cautions of waiting but told me it would probably not make a huge difference. I said, “I need to go see my family.” 

    I shared the decision to wait to do the surgery in a Thanksgiving message to friends this week. I needed to see their faces, hear their voices, touch them and have them touch me. I made that trip lying in the backseat of my van, riding on what we referred to as my “Princess” bed, and the scheduled procedure took place Monday after Thanksgiving, November 26, 2012. 
    Yesterday, we got our first snow of the season here in Saint Joseph—and it was a big one! 
    I grabbed this snip from a video of the near white-out conditions.
    I saw reports of up to 17 inches of total snowfall near here, and I would say we had between 12 and 14 inches at our house! 
    Our snowblower had not even come out of the barn and into the garage yet, and I suggested we use the Tennessee snow strategy of the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. 
    This photo was taken about 3:00 in the afternoon. Who would have dreamed what a difference giving something the tincture of time can make.
    Sometimes the situation resolves itself if you just wait.

  • Lessons of the Lamp


    In some ways, right now I feel as though I am flipping through a tattered photo album. I am recalling precious memories and bringing to mind valuable things I knew but had forgotten. I am savoring where I am now looking back at where I had been. I am so grateful….
    The writing below is my journal entry on November 20, 2012. This was a very tender time as  I was anticipating a major surgery on the 26th. I was to have what was described as a “very aggressive” mass removed from my abdomen (along with all my feminine parts).  
    This morning I was having trouble seeing with a light in the living room. Over a year ago the lamp in there stopped working, and I have kept thinking I don’t want to live in this house so I don’t want to buy new furniture for it, so I have limped along with just the floor lamp. It has made morning devotions in there next to impossible.
    This morning I decided that if I am going to be recovering in there over the next several weeks, I deserve to have a lamp that works. I decided I would go out and buy new lamps, then I got to thinking about these lamps. They are structurally good lamps, in great shape. It is just the touch-on/off sensor mechanism that is bad. 
    Before I had time to think about it, I took the lamp apart!
    I decided, “I could rewire it!”
    All the while, I was working on the lamp, I kept hearing my inner coach telling me what parts I needed,and where to find them. I was being told exactly what I needed to do right now. 
    At one point, it was a matter of making sure that I removed a little metal ring I had left on the lamp and the message (loud and clear) was, “What is not needed needs to be removed.”
    Other messages came flooding in.
    “For too long you have tolerated what wasn’t working.”
    “When you really know what you want, everything you need has been there all along.”
    “Body and mind need to work together, not too much focus on just one or the other.”
    I only found one wire nut, and I needed two. As I kept looking for a second one, I heard, “Working on the body, without the mind or working on the mind, without the body is like only having one wire nut. It just doesn’t get the job done! It’s not much better than working on neither.”
    I had the lamp reassembled, and I thought I had it tightened down, but when I looked more closely, it was actually very caddywhompus. I knew I needed to straighten it out. I was so excited to glue the base back on the lamp. 
    I heard, “It’s important to be patient. You need to prepare the work surface correctly, to ensure that what you are doing is safe, and won’t cause other damage.”
    I was getting quite hyper, desperately wanting to find that second wire nut so that I could get the lamp finished. I only had one small pack of epoxy—the kind that I needed to mix— so I needed to glue the felt bottom on both lamps at the same time.
    I became aware that I was hungry. I had been ignoring my body’s need for food, because I was so focused on finishing what I was doing. The message was clear, “You benefit by having patience and staying aware that the immediate needs of your body must take priority over the demands of your emotions or mind.”
    Today I was telling all of this to some friends who stopped by. He worked as an electrician before he retired, so he knew very well what the steps are in the process of rewiring a touch-on/off lamp. He is going through cognitive challenges, having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. I know my sharing with him was not just about my handyman skills. The meaningful messages for all of us are right here in the lessons of the lamp….

  • Let Your Life Speak


    As this blog post was percolating in my mind, my daughter was sharing some frustration around a situation in my granddaughter’s life. This next weekend, there are two events she really wants to participate in. The two events do not usually conflict, but this year they are on the same weekend. My granddaughter would prefer to do part of one (a youth retreat), so she can do both (a ride with her dad), and her mom was OK with that option. 
    My daughter had figured out a way to get my granddaughter back for the ride with her dad, as her focus was very much on creating a win-win, but that solution did not seem acceptable to leader of the retreat. His point of view was that my granddaughter had to choose one or the other. My daughter felt that his position was unnecessarily harsh. 

    As I listened, I could understand my daughter’s feelings. 
    Suddenly I remembered (and shared) the story of the butterfly struggling to get out of the cocoon. As challenging as it is to watch the struggle, it is vital to realize that the very struggle is necessary because it is thinning the body to enable the butterfly to take flight when it is fully emerged. 
    Without saying anything else, my daughter thanked me, and we ended the conversation. 
    I was imaging how this situation was such a gift to my granddaughter, providing her the important learning of being at ease when making choices, staying peaceful in the midst of negotiations, being respectful to her own wants and needs as well as to the wants and needs of others. I could see such win-win, right there along side the present circumstances.

    You have to love how things are so connected…. 
    I was reading from Forty Seven Stories of Jesus about Jesus and several of his followers. Along their way, they came upon a young boy with a donkey. The donkey had wounds on its legs, looked very undernourished, and so was struggling under an unbearable load. No amount of the boy’s prodding and whipping was helping that donkey to move.

    According to the story, Jesus offered the boy some help. He began to transfer the load off the beast. Jesus and those with him picked up the load, then Jesus led the donkey to a nearby stream. 
    As Jesus began to tend to the donkey’s wounds, and then feed the donkey, he easily engaged the young man with questions about his life: Where was he going? Where did he live? What else was part of his life? What did he enjoy? 
    Reading that story about Jesus made me think of the words of Pamela Chappell’s “Peace Cannon.” If you have not heard it before or have not listened to it in a while, take a few moments now and enjoy her amazing musical invitation to let your life speak. 
     That is probably the true answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?”

    A wonderful photo of my beautiful friend, Pamela Chappell.

  • Retreat


    As the saying goes, and miles to go before I sleep…. It has been a wonderFUL couple of weeks since my last blog post. I have already written about some of the specifics in my article for the November Beyond Mastery newsletter, so you will read about those when that comes out (or you can sign up here). 
    The past three days were spent at a silent meditation retreat in Howell, Michigan. When I mentioned my planning on going to one colleague, this was his response: “Debra, you’re really going to be silent for 3 whole days ????  3 long days ?? Ha Ha………..”
    The amazing gift that comes from Noble Silence within a group on retreat is how clearly you can see that the only things that get in your way are within you. The habit patterns of blame and shame (See The Drama Triangle), mercifully, fall away, and you are left there with the invitation to make something beautiful from your experience.

    I was rooming with two other women, neither of which I know very well. After the last sitting meditation of the first evening, two of us went to bed. It was some time later the third came in to our room, turning on lights, opening and closing doors, opening (or crinkling) something, as she did her bedtime preparations. 

    The annoyance seemed to go on and on and on and on, but, thankfully aware of the gift that is ever-present, I was able to have compassion for my roommate and myself trying to sleep. 

    I forgave myself for any time in the past I was interrupting another. 

    I made up stories about how this woman must live alone so she was not used to being respectful of others. 

    I acknowledged the challenge she must be having trying to find everything she needed in the mostly darkened room. 

    Most of all, I was able to ask, “Can I keep an open heart for all of us through all of this?” 

    As I was able to lie there in the stillness, I was infinitely grateful for the practice and for this woman who was gifting me so beautifully….
    As one of the meditation teachers said, there is no experience in the world that is more rich in practice, more nurturing to body and soul, than retreat. We may be going on retreat with the intention to get away from it all, but while we are on retreat, we find ourselves in love with the ALL THAT IS.

  • What Will It Take?


    Many of you know my personal healing journey of when I had been given a diagnosis of degenerative disc disease—L4, L5, and S1, and osteoarthritis of the hip. I was told that I needed to have a hip replacement but, since I was only 38 years old at the time, it was suggested I wait. Otherwise, it was thought I would have one hip replacement, and it would only last 10 years, then I could only have one more, and would be left with no options at 58 years old.
    I was evaluated at the Post Polio Clinic at University of Michigan. There I was told I had not actually had polio when I was five years old, even though I had been diagnosed with (and had been treated for) polio in 1955. I was prescribed a lumbar support, a shoe lift, and physical therapy. I was taking 1,000 mg of Naprosyn daily.
    With everything that was done to me, my symptoms got worse. I used to say that I had bad days and worse days. At that time of my life, I never had a day where I was pain free.
    The medical doctors told me I would not be able to work, I would be in constant pain, and I was told that I would never have quality of life. I am so grateful that you don’t have to take bad advice, even when it is delivered as a hypnotic command, and even when you paid for it!
    One of my friends was a nurse. She needed some quick CEUs so she attended a Healing Touch Level 1 workshop. She came back from that, brought me her manual, and gave it to me saying, “I don’t know why I took this, but it is you.” I did not know anything about chakras, or auras, or meridians, but I knew a lot about chronic pain, and one of the techniques said it was for relief of chronic pain. Learning about energy healing gave me my life back, and I have since dedicated my life to sharing that with others. Now, over 60 years of age, I bike, hike, and totally enjoy life!
    Dr. Paul Alfalla, chiropractor, shaman, and healer, with Amelia.
    Today while I listened to Dr. Mary Jo Bullbrook’s Wise Chats internet radio interview with Dr. Paul Alfalla, a chiropractor from Lima, Peru, I kept wondering, “What will it take?” I know what it took for me to open up to a paradigm of healing that goes beyond the physical. I have been honored to witness what it took to open up many clients, including Jane Foster who is an amazing spokesperson for Imagine Healing. 
    It may not take a universal movement at all. No, when  it is time, it is time. Thank god that is true.  

  • Molecules


    Last weekend I heard a powerful story about very conscious woman who broke her toe. The toe was quite painful, and she was not able to walk. She was (understandably) upset, thinking about the lost opportunity to enjoy the lake for the rest of the summer. She thought, “I’m not going to be able to walk up and down the hill to the lake. I’m not going to be able to swim. It’s going to ruin my summer.” 
    She works with a nonphysical guide/teacher. He asked her, “Is the toe ruining your summer or are the fears about it ruining your summer? Can you simply remember the whole toe? All that’s happened are that certain molecules have separated. That’s all bone is; it’s molecules. The impact separated them. Now they have to remember that they belong together and re-adhere.” 

    He suggested she sing to her toe as she was lying on her bed with her foot elevated. While skeptical at first he says, “She began to just sing OOOOOMMMMM. OOOOOMMMMM. She began asking the toe in each moment, what tone do you want next? And offering the tones.”
    She went to sleep that second night, and the third morning she woke up realizing that the foot really wasn’t very painful. He said, “It is knit. You can stand on it.” So she gingerly got out of bed and put her weight on it. It was tender, a bit, but not excruciating like a broken toe.
     He said, “Wiggle it.” 
    Some wiggle. It wiggled without pain. 
    He said, “Just be careful with it because it’s still healing.”
    The most amazing part of this story is his closing comments:
    “There was nothing to be done. She simply allowed it to express its wholeness. So she did not fix the toe, she simply invited the toe to express its wholeness and got out of its way, in a sense.”
    This idea has been part of my process for a good many years now. When I was learning Healing Touch, I remember Janet Mentgen saying our role as healers is simply to see the wholeness, in spite of the conditions. When I am most clear, this makes perfect sense to me. You know you are not just your body. Even scientists realize you are energy, and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. 
    In spite of the current conditions, at this very moment, you are whole. I am whole.
    YOU are untouched by any trauma. I am untouched by any trauma. YOU are unscathed by any history. I am unscathed by any history.YOU are unmarred by any accident, illness, or injury. I am unmarred by any accident, illness, or injury.
    What comes to mind most freely when you remember that we are just molecules? 
    It is the truth. 
    I am sure to be allowing this truth to permeate my heart and mind deeply over the next few weeks as I navigate the anniversary of the surgery that removed an abdominal mass. 
    I know there is continued healing happening within and without. 
    I think I will be singing to my abdomen in the days to come. 
    I will start with one of my favorite songs, All is Well, by Karen Drucker….