Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Gary Zukav

  • An Experience of Grace

    Wowser, it has been a wonder-filled day. Six women were present for deep sharing following the 6:30 a.m. meditation. Three of those women I have known previously, two are new friends.

    Right afterwards I scored a Royal Flush and earned a whopping 5,000 points on the poker machine in our guest bath. In the decades we have had that game, neither John nor I have even come close to that score! I think the highest previous score was 500 points. The Royal Flush can be formed 4 ways (one for each suit), giving it odds of 649,739 to 1. This morning I had the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten of clubs!

    A bit later, my friend, Mary Anne, and I sat on the porch drinking tea. We had hoped to go for a bike ride, but now the predicted rain began to fall in earnest. She shared how sad she was feeling after the recent passing of her 34 year-old niece following five years of cancer treatment.

    We talked about how important it is to be open to communication, and just as she was sharing having talked to her niece’s fiance about that a rainbow appeared!

    We watched the rainbow hide and emerge, and hide and emerge, along with a faint double above. We both knew clearly that nature was showing us the nature of life and life after life in just the ways our hearts and words were speaking it to one another. It was an exquisite sharing.

    My nephew has had quite a journey — I have spoken of him before. After being incarcerated for many years and then working his way to release from parole, he has had a roller coaster as an over-the-road truck driver. Today he started a local job hauling concrete, but tonight he learned that he will not have access to transportation, extremely inconvenient given that the camper he has just moved onto the work lot has no electricity or water. Feeling grateful for the work but not at all sure how he can navigate life like this, he returned to the camper to find a co-worker / long-time-friend had left him a generator, a microwave, and a bag of food!


    He called a little bit ago because he had not yet been able to get the generator started. John and I went and picked up his food because he has no way to keep it cold, and does not want it to go to waste.

    As we were driving there, it came to mind how YEARS ago several of us helped the son of one of the women in our community get to work and back after he lost his license due to a DUI. He was a single dad with a young son of his own. I took him to work each Wednesday morning on my way to Kalamazoo and picked him up each Wednesday evening on my way home. Others drove one way or another. Each doing a part.

    Today I am wearing my Bee Kind t-shirt, and this evening I am reading words from Gary Zukav: “The Universe gave you an experience of grace. It provided exactly what you needed to transform an experience of a frightened part of your personality (fear and doubt) into an experience of a loving part of your personality (love and trust).”

  • 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

  • Authentic Power / Universal Human

    Fear is excruciating….

    Hearing Gary Zukav express something absolutely obvious — fear is excruciating — is the roadmap to living from authentic power which is our highest purpose as humans.

    Gary adds: Authentic Power refers to our ability to create positive energy and heal any issue through the power of love.

    Whereas our normal idea of power involves control and manipulation of other people, authentic power reverses this idea to assert that the true sense of power always originates within oneself. When you become centered and align with your own states of inner joy and love, you are able to tap into a source of inspiration and creative genius that few people have known. ~ Gary Zukav

    A friend reached out recently asking my advice for his finding a doctor who would respect his desire to safely titrate off mood-stabilizing medication. I responded, “It is the same process as finding anything else we think we want. Get clear on your intention to live from your highest purpose. Ask for and expect to receive divine assistance. Soften resistance around this or anything else. Let awareness guide the way.”

    If you act on an intention with fear, you are going to create painful, destructive consequences for yourself (the same as you’ve created before) because this experience in you didn’t just come about with this partner, this business partner, this neighbor, this roommate, this classmate. You’ve experienced it before.

    And you’ll experience it again as long as you continue to escape the pain of it by changing the world. ~ Gary Zukav

    Almost daily someone is implying that we need to take action against something dreadful. We need to demand equal rights for the LGBT community; we need to protest to protect the environment; we need to demand equality for race, gender, religion. We must stand up for all of these rights.

    Wholesome action is, well, wholesome, but Zukav points out that acting on an intention with fear is definitely not wholesome. In fact, taking action that is motivated by fear can create painful, destructive and even excruciating consequences.

    The Noble Eightfold Path, an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi. Samadhi is calm-abiding meditation, where one intends to not follow the constant flow of thoughts, to not focus on them.

    Recent news: a friend hospitalized following an intentional overdose of anxiety medication; escalation of a teenager’s mental and emotional chaos surrounding child-hood sexual trauma; a mothers recent discovery of her daughter’s anger at not having been protected from early childhood sexual trauma.

    Excruciating news.

    Injustice, abuse of power, corruption, dishonesty and despair is commonplace. These are all manifestations of fear, therefore it does not help to meet any of it with more fear.

    Zukav makes it clear: There’s nothing wrong with following that. The universe isn’t oriented in terms of right and wrong, or good and bad. It is oriented in cause and effect – there is a cause, and for every cause, there is an effect, and if you participate in the cause, you will participate in the effect.

    Today’s Daily Aaron Quote:

    There is no thought for today!

    Perhaps a reminder from the Universe that if we participate in the cause, it is not possible to not participate in the effect, so being a universal human with authentic power is totally the right action…

    Note* Here are links to the two Zukav talks these comments come from:

    Gary Zukav: Become a Universal Human with Authentic Power with Rebecca Zung

    Gary Zukav: The Simple Ways To Create Authentic Power with Vishen Lakhiani

  • Pay Attention

    Elizabeth Lesser wrote a New York Times bestselling book, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow (Random House). That book has sold more than 300,000 copies and has been translated into 20 languages. Lesser says, “When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom.”

    Her newest book, Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes, reveals that humanity has outgrown its origin tales and hero myths, and empowers women to trust their instincts, find their voice, and tell new guiding stories.

    It is not only women who have outgrown the original tales and hero myths. Men, women, children, and societies are capable of skillful relating — seeing each relationship as the fertile soil in which we come to rest in our spiritual maturity.

    Resting in this “spiritual maturity” is our authentic self, and at our core it is always alive and well. Please take a moment to watch an amazing video of former prima ballerina, Marta C. González as she instinctively moves to the music, in spite of advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

    At core, we love to love one another. At core, we love to sing. At core, we love to dance with life. Gary Zukav has a printable version of his Spiritual Partnership Guidelines on his website. (Copyright © 2009 The Seat of the Soul Institute) Guidelines worthy of being tattooed on our foreheads:

    Focus on what I can learn about myself all the time, especially from my reactions (such as anger, fear, jealousy, resentment, and impatience), instead of judging or blaming others or myself.

    Pay attention to my emotions by feeling the physical sensations in my energy centers (such as my chest, solar plexus, and throat areas).

    Pay attention to my thoughts (such as judging, analyzing, comparing, daydreaming, planning my reply, etc., or thoughts of gratitude, appreciation, contentment, openness to Life, etc.).

    Pay attention to my intention such as blaming, judging, needing to be right, seeking admiration, escaping into thoughts (intellectualizing), trying to convince, etc., or cooperating, sharing, creating harmony, and revering Life.

    Indra’s Net symbolizes the universe as a web of connections and interdependencies among all its members, wherein every member is both a manifestation of the whole and inseparable from the whole. (Photo: Indra’s Net)


    During this chaotic time, pay attention to the quality of your relationships. Like the jewels in Indra’s net, our relationships are a web of connection. Each strand is both strong and vulnerable. In The More We Find in Each Other, Mavis Fossum and Merle Fossum remind us that when we feel the pain of separation from each other, we need to reach back and reopen communication.

  • A Time for Cherishing

    When you are in complete alignment
    with your authentic self,
    you will attract everything
    you desire in life.
    ~Brahma Kumaris

    Last week I heard again the message from Aaron, “If you were not ready, you would not have taken birth at this time…. You did not come to fail…. Are ready to trust your heritage as deeply loving?…. You cannot fully express light until you live in darkness…. You and the earth are inseparable…. Be a lamp until yourselves…. It takes your human vibration to co-create the future earth…. You are ready…. You are not alone.”

    I have been living in the darkness. I confess to have been struggling with Stacey’s choice to continue to move about during the pandemic. I opened my journal and let myself be honest: I did not agree and I was mad. In Heart of the Soul, Gary Zukav, encourages us to continue again and again to challenge our anger. First comes the pain, then the fear—the terror of realizing you cannot control all that you feel is essential to your safety and well-being.

    I was making dinner when I looked out on our front porch and saw John and the guy who does maintenance here on our home for us shoulder-to-shoulder with one another! I shot across the great room like a stone out of a slingshot, flug the storm door open, and yelled at them both through gritted teeth: “What the hell are you two thinking? Kissing distance is not social distancing!” It was awkward, painful, embarrassing, and maddening. For all of us.

    It got more painful when Stacey called and asked me how it was going. I shared the experience and felt the pain of the gaping whole in both of our hearts when she asked me what it would take for me to be willing to risk her dad’s being with someone. I told her I was mad at her. I asked her what she would be willing to do to help keep her dad safe. We both cried—the distance between personal viewpoints was a lot wider than six feet.

    The following morning I again wrote in my journal: Some awkward exchange with Stacey about COVID-19. What would you have me know?

    V: Fear is fear, Dear One. Your fear is not helping you. What are you afraid of?

    D: Being on a vent! Being ill in a hospital without my friends and family. Dying in fear.

    V: It is any worse to die in fear than to live in fear? No one is ever alone. You are giving up so much false belief.

    Later that evening, playing ZOOM dominoes with good friends, I tearfully confessed that while extra caution is warranted because of John’s comorbidity risk factors (diabetes, hypertension, and on steroids for Polymyalgia), the anger was covering up my fear. Fear which had been my companion for a long time: I was hospitalized in isolation diagnosed with polio at age five, and I experienced post-surgical complications and ended up in the cardiac intensive care unit due to aFib related to having had a nasal gastric tube in 2012.

    It has been such a tender process, realizing we are incapable of fully expressing light until we live in darkness, but I am willing to trust our true heritage.

    This message came with Darshan yesterday (Darshan is an opportunity or occasion of seeing a holy person or the image of a deity):

    You are so radiant. So beautiful. I am saying this to the one present before me, but to all of you. You are all radiant and beautiful and I love you. Sometimes your forget how beautiful you are. Imagine a very lovely silver pitcher — radiant. But here is a spot of tarnish (just a little one). Does this make the pitcher any less? When it is appropriate, it can be polished a bit, but the form of the pitcher and the radiance and the quality of the water that the pitcher holds is not diminished by the spot of tarnish. And, remember that when you get that spot cleared off, you are go to say, “It’s perfect. NO…. there’s another one!” So relax. Focus instead on the radiance of the entire pitcher, the entire being that you are — mind, body, and spirit — with great appreciation. Pride is not going to come up and destroy your radiance. You’re past that. Now is a time for relaxing and cherishing. I love you.


    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    Watch what pulls you out of balance and
    add what’s needed to bring you back again.
    This is a dance which you learn,
    swaying to the movement of the winds of the world,
    deeply rooted in your true being.
    This essence of being knows what is needed.
    Trust this innate wisdom and goodness in yourself.
    Trust that which I call the angel.
    ~Aaron

  • Power of Choice


    Some days are so humbling…. women I know are going through so much. I am not saying men are without their challenges, too, but women I KNOW are going through so much.

    Three precious women friends are stepping up to work in businesses created by the men in their lives. Two of the businesses came from fathers, and one from a husband. The stepping up is a result of these men having transitioned into spirit.

    The precious woman friend who posted this photo on Facebook is herself a widow, doing a remarkable job raising a child amidst challenging financial circumstances:

    I love the truth of these words about difficult circumstances meaning you are in a powerful place of transformation and transmutation. I wondered if there was a difference of meaning between these two states. Transmutation is the action of changing or the state of being changed into another form (or into another species), and transformation is a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.

    It seems these women are representative of something that is capable of happening to all beings.

    I stumbled onto an interesting webpage listing a timeline on the History of Women’s Rights in America. The first two entries were shocking!

      1769 – The colonies adopt the English system decreeing women cannot own property in their own name or keep their own earnings.

      1777 – All states pass laws which take away women’s right to vote.

    Gary Zukav’s were the first words I remember having heard describe authentic power. I hope you will take time to look over the ‘Authentic Power Vocabulary’ from the Seat of the Soul.

    Savor these first few definitions from that list and let their energy inspire your own authentic power:

    Authentic power is alignment of the personality with the soul (with harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life).

    Characteristics of an Authentically Empowered Personality include humbleness, clarity, forgiveness, and love.

    Clarity allows you to see the world of physical matter for what it is—a learning environment that is created jointly by the intentions of the souls that share it.

    Authentic power evaporates fear.

    Co-creation occurs as individuals bring all that each can offer to a joint effort and at the same time, open themselves to a larger, or higher, idea that may not have previously occurred to them….

    Women (and men) who are capable of living from authentic power might just hold the keys to the kingdom!

  • In the Stillness

    Breaking my own rule, my fingers are on the keyboard as I am listening to Claire Zammit sharing the keys and tools on how to activate and awaken even greater levels of your Feminine Power. As she says, “It might not be linear or logical,” I relate. Hearing her say, “You must find and clear the deep blocks to your connection with your Higher Power,” I have a deep longing for all beings to thrive in this connection.

    Earlier this week, I shared Karen Drucker’s “In the Stillness” with a colleague. As we listened, we both felt that coming into alignment.

    In The Stillness
    Words & Music: Karen Drucker
    In the stillness of this moment there is peace, there is peace.
    In the stillness of this moment there is peace, there is peace.
    And I rest, and trust, and breathe, and know,
    that in the stillness of this moment, there is peace.
    (There is love, I feel love, I am peace, I am love, I am.)

    Zammit describes women who don’t trust life, who don’t value themselves, who don’t feel supported. She says it is not our fault. Her research has discovered how women stepped away from Feminine Power when we took on the masculine power which (1) sets goals (2) creates a plan (3) works hard for what you want. She says we have been brainwashed by this masculine power which says we can do it by ourselves, creating barriers to receive support.

    What are your barriers to receiving support? Have you had beliefs that you were weak or unworthy? How will your life work better as you join with others who are standing for each others’ greatness?

    In the masculine form of power exist competition, comparison, and conquest.

    In the feminine form of power, we gather around one another, and we surrender into the greatness we came into this world to share.

    As much as I enjoy the words feminine power, I prefer to recognize it as our authentic power. This power belongs to women and men. Gary Zukav has been encouraging us to remember and live from the authentic power of love for over thirty years.

    Love
    Intimacy
    Vulnerable
    Compassionate
    Open heart
    Co-operative
    Win-win
    Shares
    Self-responsible
    Open to intuition
    Harmony
    Co-creation
    Wants to heal
    Faces fear
    Creates authentic power
    Integrity
    Self-aware
    Spiritually growing
    Detached from outcome
    Changes inner world

    PLEASE WATCH this interview with Oprah and Gary where they talk about each of us having a “mother ship” that guides us. At about 16 minutes into the interview, Gary speaks with a couple who had recently had a twin son live four days. The interview reminded me so much of the precious gift of Ella and I am so grateful to her mom for recognizing her as a soul.

    In the stillness of this moment I am love. And so is Ella, so are you….