Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: CDC

  • A Cloudy Day

    The past few days have unfolded very differently from my plans. I had expected to share fish-fry with Linda and Larry and Linda and Fred and play Hand-and-Foot on Friday evening, and to make vegetable beef soup with my mother’s cornbread for dinner on Saturday with Janis and Larry. I planned a visit with Delcy Kuhlman on Monday morning (to see the new retreat space already sporting a bed). The bed is on loan. She says the veneer has slivered off the headboard, revealing the image of an angel. Jane Foster was scheduled to come for lunch on Wednesday.

    Each of those wonderfully wanted experiences were crossed off my calendar when we received a text from Lora at 8:21 am Friday, “Asking for your prayers. John and I have tested positive for COVID.” John and John had gone out for coffee on Thursday morning and in the evening John and I had been with John for about 40 minutes.

    Normally there are 12-20 people at the Thursday jam. When no one else showed up for the jam, we went home.

    On Wednesday the CDC updated Covid exposure protocol. Ten days of precaution: first five – isolation or being with others only with a proper medically-approved mask, even if no symptoms test on day 6, and if negative, continue to mask until day 10. Thursday was our Day Zero.

    Day 1, Friday, August 12, 2022:
    Well before noon, I was painting paneling in the great room.


    Perhaps the job was begun a bit too impulsively since I was using only the paint left over from the previous kitchen cabinet project, without any primer. That paneling was soaking up paint like a lawn after a six-week drought when the rains come…

    I had the wherewithal to stop.

    Friday evening, after a conference call with Larry Britton, I knew I needed to put on gloves and a mask, and make a trip to Sherwin Williams before continuing. I needed supplies.

    I’ve begun reading The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright, in which the main character, Sang Ly, learns to read with the hope of creating a way out of their current living conditions: they live in and survive by picking through garbage in Cambodia’s largest municipal dump.

    Day 2, Saturday, August 13, 2022:
    Saturday morning at 8 o’clock I called Sherwin Williams to say I did not have Covid, but would be coming into the store in gloves and a mask because I had been exposed. “Laney” said that was okay. She did keep her distance, and as she carried the two gallons to my car she told me in two weeks she was going on her first vacation in two years. I told her I understood completely and that was why I could not come in without calling first.

    The name of paint color is Cultured Pearl. According to Wikipedia, cultured pearls are formed within a cultured pearl sac with human intervention in the interior of productive living molluscs in a variety of conditions depending upon the mollusc and the goals.[1] Just as the same as natural pearls, cultured pearls can be cultivated in seawater or freshwater bodies. Nowadays, over 95% of the pearls available on the market would be cultured pearls.

    By dinner time, two walls were painted and everything in the area cleaned and furniture put properly placed!

    Day 3, Sunday, August 14, 2022:

    “That is a wonderful lesson, Sang Ly. Remember it.”

    “What was it again?” I ask, not certain to what she is referring.

    She repeats it for me. “In literature, everything means something.”

    We open the pages and read.

    ~ The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright

    It is cloudy today. My knees and hips are sore from all of the squatting. This is a low job…. I am not sure if I will take the day off or persevere.

    I had anticipated Friday, August 12, 2022. Sixty years earlier, when I was twelve years old, my dad and I were in a serious auto accident — an accident in which I had an out-of-body near death experience (NDE) that has shaped my view of the world. I had expected to write, to ride my bike, to give space to be on a very inner journey. I certainly had not anticipated painting paneling.

    A poem gives rise on the page in my journal.

      A Cloudy Day

      Daily light replaces darkness
      and light begats light
      Where nothing reflected
      now everything does

      Oh, for sure
      you can see perfections
      formerly hidden
      now quite obvious
      but soooooo worth it

      Seeing all in the light
      even the flaws
      are lovely
      each adds an element
      of uniqueness, telling a tale

      Today the sun is hidden
      clouds rule the sky
      But still the sun shines
      and the light is, only
      waiting to reveal its gloriousness

      The sun still shines
      even on a cloudy day

      ~ Debra Basham, August 14, 2022

    P.S. Word came last evening from Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul, that his beloved, Linda Francis, transitioned on August 6. Linda Beushausen Gunter and I had the honor of spending a day with them some years back. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

      My Dear Spiritual Partner,

      Linda Francis, my Beloved, my spiritual partner, my life partner, my co-creator in everything, my co-author, my inspiration and model, completed her journey through the Earth school on August 6. Her soul returned home to nonphysical reality. When a soul decides to return home, nothing can stop it. I saw this happen before my eyes. Linda was at my side in our kitchen when the stroke came. Within hours an experienced surgeon had attempted three times to remove the clot in her brain, yet it could not be removed.

      I am still reeling. Each time I turn to say something to Linda and realize that she is not here to answer me, and each time I rush home with groceries to be with her again and remember that she will not be there when I arrive, and countless experiences like these are each a source of great pain for me and also an opportunity to create authentic power. Each hurts a lot before I recognize it for what it is – a frightened part of my personality – and move my attention away from “what ifs” and “if onlys” to what is actually happening in the moment, and toward an opportunity to love, to support, to contribute.

      This is not over for me, and it is probably not over for you. I and our precious support team will send you some practical thoughts and suggestions over the next few weeks so you can practice transforming your experiences into opportunities to create authentic power. You will receive your first emails next week. I invite you to experiment with them and to let me know at garyzukav@seatofthesoul.com what happens.

      I hope you are healthy and joyful and appreciating the power and beauty of each moment.

      Linda joins me in sending you love.

      Love,
      Gary

  • My Longings

    “Strive to be uncynical,
    to be a hope-giving force,
    to be a steward of substance.”
    ~ Maria Popova
    Bulgarian-born, American-based writer

    Last evening as we finished dominoes via Zoom, I asked what the most significant news of the day was. My friend said probably that the Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all COVID-19 patient information to a central database in Washington, meaning that the CDC was no longer going to have access to the real-time data about the coronavirus.

    I had a heavy sensation low in my gut.

    I drew the 5 of Clouds, Comparison, from the Osho deck before I went to bed. I sent the message to my friend. “Just look around. All is needed, and everything fits together. It is an organic unity; nobody is higher and nobody is lower, nobody superior, nobody inferior. Everybody is incomparably unique.” I slept rather fitfully.

    When I woke this morning, I knew I was dreaming again, but these images like the past several dreams of children needing support are gone before my feet hit the floor.

    My mind is very clear, however, about the “Say Only” story of the importance of reserving judgment as things are unfolding. I first read this story in The Eye of the Storm by Max Lucado. I have since learned that it predates Lucado and Christianity, and is still true….

    Perhaps President Trump will be able to report data so that those who have discounted the gravity of the virus and been defiant about protective measures will be able to tolerate (hear) the truth from someone they trust.

    I must begin by calling forth my own trust and calling forth his higher guidance.

    I looked back over several recent Daily Quotes from Aaron:

    July 8, 2020
    When enough of you are ready to hold the real vision of a world at peace, where beings do not manipulate, steal, kill or otherwise harm each other, the capacity to hold that vision will emerge in world leaders. You will call them forth. They do not lead you so much as you invite them! The effective leader can only walk where some are ready to follow.

    July 13, 2020
    Bring into your heart and mind the president of this country and others who help to guide him as he makes his decisions. He has a difficult job. You may not agree with his decisions. But certainly you will agree that in his deepest heart, he hopes that his choices for this country will bring peace in the long run if not sooner. This is a man under enormous pressure and he needs your loving wishes even if you say no to his choices. ‘As you strive to guide this nation, may your heart remain open to love and as free as is possible from fear. May you be happy and find peace.’

    July 14, 2020
    You are ready to take this step, ready not only to be awakened but to help the whole Earth awaken, each of you in your own way. I’m not suggesting you’re all going to be like the Buddha, with his path. Your way of awakening the Earth may simply to be to plant an enlightened garden, a garden of plants that you co-create rather than order around. How do we co-create with the Earth? How do we co-create with each other? How do we use our power and unlimitedness in ways that do no harm?

    July 15, 2020
    You as a world are inviting conflict but then not doing the needed practice with it, so you must invite it again and again. You are like the child in school doing endless multiplication table drills; they are unpleasant but you have not studied the tables, and will not, so the teacher repeats the drills. Your inattention calls forth the repetition. If you wish the drills to cease, learn the tables.

    Aaron’s daily quotes are not selected. The quotes were placed into an archive, and each day one is randomly generated. Some quotes may have never been published, some pop up with regularity, and I have seen some publish two days in a row. Aaron himself established this random generation as a condition when the Daily Quotes began to be shared.

    The impact of the coronavirus, and the divisiveness of of sisters and brothers is unpleasant. Wish the drills to cease; learn the tables.

    Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, The Book of Longings, is a mesmerizing work of fiction. Ana—a rebellious and gifted young woman of Galilee, meets and marries Jesus. Before their meeting, early in the book, we witness Ana in a clandestine rooftop meeting with her aunt, Yaltha, another unusual woman of the time.

    “Do you know what an incantation bowl is?” Yaltha asks Ana. “In Alexandria we women pray with them. We write our most secret prayer inside them. Like this.”

    Yaltha places a finger inside the bowl and moves it in a spiraling line around the sides of the bowl. “Every day we sing the prayer. As we do, we turn the bowl in slow circles and the words wriggle to life and spin off toward heaven.”

    My most secret prayer has been written into my “incantation bowl” and I will sing this prayer every day: May all beings be happy and find peace; may we awaken wisdom mind; filling the universe with love; joy; kindness; and compassion.