Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: DebraBasham.com

  • A Real No-Brainer

    John and I are in Tennessee at Stacey’s. We drove down yesterday. While he was napping, I logged onto John’s MyChart to check for the last of the test results from his annual exam with his primary the day before. His thyroid is off again. His medication will be adjusted. But the results from the EKG need further investigation. Although he was already scheduled to have an echo-cardiogram, now seeing these EKG results the situation is experienced with a greater level of stress.

    Interestingly, several friends are navigating unknowns related to health. Some are worrisome. Some are severe.Some are life-threatening. It is very difficult to not get triggered into worry brain. I have been working on my upcoming Insights clergy article for the local paper. The theme is how life’s longest journey is the distance between the head and the heart.

    Tired from our travel day I was able to fall asleep, but several hours later I was wide awake in worry brain. In my heart I heard my own words from the Insights article, “If I had my life to live over again, I would ask that not a thing be changed, but that my heart be opened wider.”

    Knowing I needed to activate the heart, I listened to with Dawson Church. I could see that it was even challenging to identify a person or a place which gave me peace. Finally, on the second listening to Dawson (“EcoMeditation”) I was able to remember the joy I feel when watching the birds at our bird bath from my kitchen window.

    The 7 Steps of EcoMeditation

    Before you begin, turn off your cell phone, laptop, and alerts. Give yourself the gift of 20 minutes of undisturbed time. You can do this first thing in the morning (my favorite time), last thing at night, or during a break in the day. Sit upright in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.

      1. Use your fingertips to tap on each of the EFT acupressure points in any order, while holding the intention that you are in a calm and peaceful state, and nothing matters except the gift of undisturbed time you are now giving yourself. Tap from top to bottom, and when you get to the last point, start on the first point again. If you don’t know the tapping points, you can find them on the diagram here.

      This is time just for you. Let all your preoccupations vanish, and allow yourself to be fully present. As you tap, say, “I release any and all blocks to inner peace. I release all tension in my body. I release anything in my past, present or future that stands between me and inner peace.”

      2. Stop tapping and relax your hands. Close your eyes, and let your tongue rest loosely on the floor of your mouth.

      3. Feel your hands. Feel your feet. Feel the space inside your hands. Feel the space inside your feet. Feel the space inside your legs, your arms, your torso, your neck and head. Feel the space inside your whole body. Picture a big empty space behind your eyes. Picture a big empty space between your eyebrows. If thoughts arise in your mind at any point during the meditation, just let them go. Watch them drift like clouds across the sky, without attachment.

      4. Breathe slowly, for 6 seconds per out-breath, and 6 seconds per in-breath. Count to 6 silently each time you breathe in, and each time you breathe out. Notice how relaxed your tongue is. Picture the big empty space behind your eyes. Keep your tongue relaxed.

      If physical sensations arise in your body, such as aches or pains, just observe them. You don’t have to do anything about them. Keep your attention focused on your breath, counting 6 seconds in, and 6 seconds out.

      5. Visualize the location in your chest where your physical heart resides. Imagine breathing in and out through your heart, while maintaining 6 second in-breaths and 6 second out-breaths. Maintain a relaxed tongue.

      6. Imagine a beam of love pouring out through your heart toward a person or place that you love with each out-breath. Stay in this state for several breaths. Notice the big empty space behind your eyes, and how relaxed your tongue is on the floor of your mouth

      7. Bring the beam of love back into your body, into the area of your physical heart. Send that love to any part of your body that is uncomfortable or in pain. To end the meditation, take 3 deep 6 second breaths.

      When you feel complete with the meditation, return your attention to the room you’re in. Open your eyes and look at the object closest to you, and observe its characteristics, such as color, texture, and weight. Shift your gaze and look at the object furthest away from you. Notice your breath. Notice the weight of your body on the chair or on the surface on which you’re sitting. Feel your hands and feet. Be aware of the time.

      Bring yourself back to the here and now. While a meditative state supports our well-being, it’s also vital to orient yourself to the “real world” and function there effectively at the end of each meditation period.

      Do this every day for a week, and you’ll notice a difference in how you feel during the rest of the day. Do this every day for a month, and you’ll be hooked. It only requires 20 minutes, though you may want to gradually increase your time frame to 30 or 45 minutes.

    John is notorious for saying, “I realized that 99% of the things I have worried about never happened. That is proof worry works.”

    If you are not so sure that worry works, you will be interested to know that MRI scans show EcoMeditation decreases activity in the brain regions associated with self-focus and suffering, and increases activity in the areas of compassion.

    This seems like a real no-brainer to me….

  • Another Quarter!

    She had reached out to a friend inviting her for a bike ride but the friend was not available, and she was feeling a bit lonely as she headed out alone.

    Last year this time her close friend was navigating end-of-life. After her friend had passed, she had come in spirit saying she would send quarters.

    Crossing the street at the four-way stop, she saw a quarter!

    She motioned to the approaching van to stop and she reached down and picked up the quarter. Spontaneously, she motioned to the driver of the van to roll down her window.

    “Thank you for stopping for me. I had to pick up a quarter. Last year this time my good friend died. She promised me she would send me quarters from heaven,” she shared.

    “You are giving me chills,” the driver of the van responded.

    Peace is only a word until it is felt in the body…. She had heard those words at church the previous morning and another quarter allowed her to feel that peace now.
    People do leave their bodies, but they do not leave their loved ones.

  • I’m Here for You

    Her daughter had a biopsy on her leg and it came back squamous cell carcinoma. She was to have an excision that would be done by a plastic surgeon to minimize scarring. She sent a message to a prayer list, saying, “Our daughter would use words asking for prayers for those doing her procedure; requesting that she have peace of mind and minimal discomfort and also that they be able to remove all of the sick cells, and that she would heal easily and completely.”

    She continued, “I would add that anything else be removed along with the tissue: anything that blocks or limits our daughter’s health and well-being on any level. Let this be a healing on all levels over all times: memory, belief, attitude, behavior. May the ultimate result be freedom from all that she and all beings would be better off without. Pray that this experience will be a deep healing blessing Stacey, her family and friends, the whole earth and beyond. Let it be a feeling-based prayer. Amen.”

    Included in the message was information on feeling-based prayer by Gregg Braden:

      Prayer researchers identify multiple kinds of prayer, and everyone has a place. For me, prayer is like a tool. It’s like if we have a toolbox, different tools can be used for different things. Different prayers may be used for different things. There are prayers of supplication. For example, when we feel powerless to do anything in our world and we ask for intervention, “Dear God, if you let my car get to the bottom of the freeway, this one time I will never let my gas tank get this low again.” That’s a prayer of supplication. There are prayers where we literally petition a higher power. “Almighty I Am, I petition the Lord for the right to heal and be healed now in all past, present, future generations.” That’s a petitionary prayer.

      There is a form of prayer that typically has not been recognized by modern prayer researchers, and it is the form of prayer that is used by the indigenous peoples to do seemingly miraculous things, including healing of the body. It is feeling-based prayer. It is feeling the feeling as if the prayer has already been accomplished, rather than asking an external force to perform this thing, this healing or this miracle, for us. The difference in this mode of prayer is we become part of the solution rather than feeling powerless and asking for an external intervention.

      When we feel the feeling that our perfect relationship is already present, our abundance is already present, the healing in our body has already happened, we set into motion a cascade of events that reflect that feeling that modern physics is only beginning to bear out through quantum theory. Entanglement, the principle of interconnectedness, of us being connected to the world beyond our body, as well as the world within our bodies. The heart – and the heart-brain connection – these are the tools. They provide the mechanism for us to make these communications.

      So, prayer, when we say prayer, [we mean] a feeling-based prayer, does have the potential to influence the world outside of our bodies through electrical and magnetic and quantum forces we’re only beginning to understand. But it also has the ability, through that feeling, when we feel the feeling that we are already healed, for example, that we go into the heart-brain coherence without the attachment to the outcome, okay, and we’re feeling the feeling, and we can see that in our mind, our mirror neurons are seeing the healing in the presence of a field that supports that healing without the judgment, without the attachment, without the goodness or the badness or the rightness or their wrongness.

      And this is what frees us, frees our body to respond very, very quickly.

      Healing, what we call healing, is harmony. It’s bringing our body into harmony with itself and with the forces of the planet that we live upon. And heart-based harmony, heart-brain harmony and heart-based prayer are ancient tools that have been validated in modern laboratories, now that tell us precisely how this works and what to do.

    Following the surgery, an update on her daughter reported the surgery went well and she has showering restrictions for two days and directions to follow for wound healing until the stitches come out in two weeks and thanking everyone for the prayers. She soon received an email from a friend on the prayer list:

    Please tell your daughter “Thank You” for me. I will follow her example on Friday with surgery with the same diagnosis. The location on my aging body (all 82 and 3/4 years of it) is on the back of the left leg below the knee and on the upper right arm just below the shoulder joint. You have shaped my requests for the better. I wish my husband was here with skin on to walk with me through this also but I know he will coach me through this as he has all of the other past hiccups since he passed.

    You don’t always know so directly how much your experiences touch others but there is always someone saying, “I’m here for you.” Feeling-based prayer going forth!

  • Say “I Do”- Marriage as Sacrament

    I may have previously written about this, but I am intentionally not searching, because whether or not I have previously written about it, today I need to write about it again. One of the women who is part of our Glen Aire Wednesday evening jam was singing in the choir and we were invited to a nearby church for a program of gospel and hymn singing. I enjoyed the melody of most of the numbers, and while I resonated to some of the lyrics, I had an unpleasant reaction to the theology of original sin.

    Yesterday we attended a wedding at that same church. It was a beautiful ceremony with a very special couple. The mother of the groom was in our youth program way back in the 1970’s. She is actually the one who introduced me to Healing Touch! We are so blessed to still have her in our lives. She even chose to move into Glen Aire after her mom and dad had both passed. Although I have officiated dozens of weddings since 1997, I learned some new things:

    In addition to the six adorable flower girls, two little boys provided “Ring Security” complete with bow tie, badge, earphones, dark glasses — and a safety deposit box designed to hold rings!

    While our friend and the mother of the bride were lighting the individual candles that the couple would use to light their unity candle “A Mother’s Love” by Jim Brickman was playing. Sharing some of the powerful lyrics:

      Thank you for watching over me
      All of the sleepless nights you lay awake
      Thank you for knowing when to hold me close
      when to let me go
      Thank you for every stepping stone
      And for the path that always leads me home
      I thank you for the time you took
      to see the heart inside of me
      You gave me the roots to start this life
      and then you gave me wings to fly
      and I learned to dream
      because you believed in me
      There’s no power like it on this earth
      No treasure equal to its worth
      The gift of a mother’s love

    After lighting the unity candle, the couple and then the two witnesses signed the marriage license. Getting that task done was often more difficult than performing the ceremony, so what an insightful way of transforming the mundane into something deeply meaningful. Following the signing of the license, a music video to “When God Made You” by E. Carswell and M. O’Brien showed the bride and groom from little to now, culminating with their engagement photos.

    An interesting tidbit about this couple is that they were born in the same hospital one day apart so they were in the nursery together. They went to their high school prom “as friends” and, needless to say, they have each navigated numerous twists and turns separately to arrive together at the altar of holy matrimony. Imagine watching decades of images, including their prom picture, as you are hearing the lyrics “When God made you, He must have been thinking about me.”

    Absolute perfection…. I sat barely breathing basking in the benefits of my recent experience of feeling so uncomfortable in that same sanctuary where I had an inner dialog with Jesus about the theology of unworthiness. I heard Jesus saying, “Of course, I am present in original sin theology. How could I not be? I am present wherever anyone is. I meet each person right where that person is.”

    Being present at this wedding is something I will long remember. I understood the truth that humans react to things we don’t like. We are more often than not conditional with our loving. But unconditional love does exist. In Christianity Jesus is often seen as an embodiment of divine love, sacrifice, and redemption, representing a compassionate and nurturing aspect of the divine masculine. Known in Tibetan Buddhism as Chenrezig, Avalokiteshvara embodies compassion and mercy, showing a gentle and nurturing side of the divine masculine. In Native American Cultures often seen as a father figure, the Great Spirit represents creation, wisdom, and guidance, integral aspects of the divine masculine.

    When the man and woman say “I do” to one another they are said to be married. The sacrament of marriage is a sacred covenant we enter into with ourselves first. It is a means of grace that strengthens relationships and helps individuals on the path to holiness. It’s a lifelong commitment, a public witness to God’s love, and a foundation for building a family and community.

    Grateful to say, “I do,” and honored to experience this sacrament deeply.

  • My Cup Runneth Over

    The quote “Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof” by Richard Bach is a common saying that suggests true family bonds are not always defined by blood or persons living under the same roof, according to Goodreads and Tumblr. It emphasizes that family can be found in the connections we form with people who bring us respect and joy, regardless of blood relations. This is not to deny or denigrate blood relations that are also “members of the same family,” but brings to mind a saying on a Little Tramp greeting card I saw well over twenty years ago that love does not subtract or divide, it adds and multiplies.

    This has never been truer in my experience than when I met the significant other of a precious friend for the first time on Wednesday of this week. The instant I saw into his eyes I felt love. We sat at a small round table in the farmhouse kitchen and shared deeply. Two days later my cup still runneth over.

    The phrase comes from Psalm 23. This past Sunday morning a friend of over 50 years gave the message at her church, with that Psalm as the basis for her sharing, “My cup runneth over means my cup — my life — is full to the brim and running over like a cup that was dipped into a bucket of water and full to overflowing. This represents the fullness of God’s blessings in our lives.”

    Over the past couple of months I have been listening to and/or watching individuals I have no prior experience with talk about things I barely comprehend, such as Richard Tarnas in The Second Axial Age saying Carl Jung calculated the birth charts of his patients and wrote to Sigmund Freud about synchronicity existing on a cosmic scale. He described a continual meaningful correlation between the movements of the planets and the archetypal patterns of human experience and said, “The psyche is not within us. We are in the psyche.” It is helpful to realize that astrology was taught at Oxford until the 1600’s.

    Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and an American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these for theology. In Off the Page | Ep. 4 | Ilia Delio | A Theology of the Future she says the heart is a deep, deep center of personhood that’s opened up to the mystery of God. And that God is unstoppable in that highest good or love, and will go to the ends of the earth, and how not only is God good, but God desires to share that good with all beings. As she was in the process of the video recording of this interview I watched her cat wanted in. She got up and let the cat in and told the interviewer, “That act of love is higher than the act of knowledge alone.”

    Whether you are fluent in astrology or even know what an axial age is, you know what love is. You know love is more than a feeling and love is not something you “do” or something that is “given” or “withheld.” But to say that love is higher than the act of love is likely a profound truth.

    When Burt Bacharach offered Dionne Warwick the song What the World Needs Now initially, she turned it down, saying she found it “too country” and “too preachy.” The song proceeded to become a massive hit for Jackie DeShannon in 1965, and Warwick responded by recording it herself the following year, as well as re-recording it in the 1990s.

      What the world needs now is love, sweet love
      It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
      What the world needs now is love, sweet love
      No, not just for some, oh, but just for every, everyone

    Tarnas says it this way, “You really have to have an opening of the heart as well as the mind to take in the possibility of an enchanted cosmos…. It’s not just an intellectual conclusion, its something you have to bring your whole being into….”

    My cup runneth over means we value all beings, not just human beings, and see family as not just blood relations.

    Remember just put the spider out and let the cat in❤️

  • Getting Out of My Own Way

    If I had my life to live over again,
    I would ask that not a thing be changed,
    but that my eyes be opened wider.

    ~ Jules Renard,from Gratefulness.org

    It seems otherworldly a month has gone by without a Yellow Brick Road post. I could blame it on being busy, but I am not sure that is truth! This week I have been intentionally spending significant time with a focus on releasing mental constructs and/or habit patterns as an initiation inviting beings to live as a conscious creator of infinite possibility!

    During this time of intentional focus I had a somatic breakthrough — awakening to a cat’s meow! Reading online now some very timely (and interesting) information about the spiritual message of hearing a cat meow:

      Hearing a cat’s cry may signify a need to heighten your spiritual awareness. Cats possess sharp intuition and can sense energies humans often overlook. Their cry could be a gentle nudge, urging you to tune into your surroundings with greater mindfulness. Embrace this chance to cultivate deeper consciousness within yourself.

      In the realm of spirituality, a cat’s cry may symbolize an impending emotional transition or shift within your being. Be open to exploring newfound depths of feelings that could surface. Approach this process with patience, allowing yourself to fully experience and integrate these emotional currents for personal growth.

      Cats are often associated with mystery and the unveiling of hidden truths. When you hear their cry, it could signify that a veil is lifting, revealing insights or wisdom previously concealed from your understanding. Remain receptive, for profound revelations may be on the horizon, guiding you towards enlightenment.

      Cats embody the essence of intuition and trusting one’s instincts. When you hear their cry, it may be a divine message urging you to embrace your innate intuitive wisdom. Learn to quiet the mind and listen to the subtle whispers of your soul, allowing them to steer you towards enlightened choices.

      The cry of a cat could symbolize the importance of independence and personal freedom within your spiritual journey. These creatures value their autonomy, reminding you to honor your individuality and resist conforming to societal expectations that may restrict your authentic expression.


    Wow. This “energy” is exactly what I have been sitting in and with this week. Cats are thought to symbolize the feminine. The following quotation is from Eluña, the channeler who has been leading a group to the Great Pyramid (with some time along the Gaza Strip). The intention being awakening a higher collective consciousness.

    “Really allow the feminine in a non-distorted way to express itself in you. That might mean, allowing yourself to express your creativity in ways that you currently do not or that you used to, much as through writing, through drawing, through singing, painting, creating music…. Of course, spending time with our beloved mother Gaia…. Just tuning in and joining your consciousness with that energy, the energy of the Mother, is going to allow that energy to come through you in a balanced way. Regardless of the relationship that you have had with your own mother, you are going to be able to take on a different energy…. It’s not just the feminine, it’s The Divine Mother.”

    And this week I found a wonderful song titled Shine Through by Goldford.

    Shine Through
    [Verse 1]

    My memory’s fading, are the good days all gone?

    I ask for my maker, she shows up in song

    I see my behavior and where I go wrong

    I guess it’s my nature, my head is too strong

    [Chorus]

    If I can only get out of my own way

    That’s when the light shines on through

    I’ve got nothin’ to lose but the weight

    That made me a mountain to move

    If I can only get out

    Only get out of my own way

    That’s when the light shines through

    As the song says, if we can only get out of our own way the light shines through!

  • A Cute Young Boy

    Her grandmother was being cared for in a facility. Meanwhile, she and her husband and two daughters had been renting her grandmother’s home. Although her grandmother’s will gave her first option to purchase the home, when her grandmother passed and the house came up for sale the situation was complicated because of her divorce.

    Thus, her grandmother’s home ended up being sold to someone else. Her mother told her, “I sold your grandma’s house to a cute young boy. He would be perfect for you.”

    Interestingly, he never came down that road. His home was being bought as part of a property development. He saw the For Sale sign, and as life would have it, she ended up married to that cute young boy. Their family lived happily in her grandmother’s former home!

    “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11

  • The Invisible String

    A friend had been out-of-town for the birthday celebration of a six-year-old granddaughter and was just heading home when this message popped in: “We just left. She was crying so hard she couldn’t get on the bus. Her mom is consoling her and then driving her to school when she settles down.”

    I responded with understanding and shared that when our older grandson was 3 or 4 he had gone through this if he was not asleep when we left. I said I had taught him to feel us together in his heart.

    The friend wrote back, “She’s working on feeling us (me) with her heart but not quite there yet.”

    Later that morning, at a reunion luncheon, a colleague mentioned the The Invisible String, a series of books written by Patrice Karst and Joanne Lew-Vriethoff. The series is a tool for children coping with all kinds of separation anxiety, loss, and grief. Although both grandmothers had significant experience with grief work, The Invisible String series was new them and the discovery was divinely timed.

    What wonderful ways Life works!


  • 37

    “Heading to Mayo. Appointment is tomorrow. Setting intention for hope for more time and relief of pain in my arm.”

    “Prayers pave the way. Thank you for the update,” came her friend’s reply. “Do you have time for a Stories of Jesus this morning?”

    No quick replay came, so her friend fired off two more brief text messages, “Pick a number between one and 47,” and then, “I’ll share the highlights with you.”

    “37” appeared in the text window.

      There was a child who was brought to Jesus because the child had fallen into a fire as a baby and lost his vision in the accident. The child’s face showed signs of burns. The child was placed in Jesus‘s arms. Jesus simply asked him, “Do you wish to see again?”

      “Yes.”

      “Do you believe I can heal you?”

      “Yes.”

      He held the boy in his arm so tenderly and put his hands over the boys, eyes and face. In a few moments, when he took his hands away, the terrible scars were healed, and the boy could see.

    “Wow!!”

    “I wish to be healed.”

    When she had been diagnosed with and was being treated for stage four breast cancer a number of years earlier her friend would ask her to choose a number between one and forty-seven. That story would be shared from the Forty-Seven Stories of Jesus book.

    “Yes,” her friend wrote back with praying hands and a heart.

    “Thank you,” she wrote and she said her husband had picked that number….

    (Prayers happen in divine timing. Whenever you read this Sacred Story, please offer up a prayer for anyone asking for healing. Pray in the way that your heart speaks most naturally.)

  • Croquet Set

    They stopped in to browse a small resale shop near their home when a couple entered shortly inquiring about a croquet set. “Let me ask the guy in the back,” responded the woman working the register.

    The man who was working in the back room told the couple, “I have one. Let me get it.” As he carried the set to the front of the shop for the couple to see he added, “It only has one wicket. I was trying to decide what to do with it. It just came in this morning….”

    Smiling broadly, the woman said, “Guess it was meant to be.”

    A common quote about synchronicity, particularly attributed to Carl Jung, is: “Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.”

    Another quote from Jung emphasizes its acausal nature: “Synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence of two or more events in which something other than the probability of chance is perceived.”

    Talk about timing.