Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: hope

  • Prayers, Love, Hope: Essential

    One week ago today John Basham and I were on the road to Tennessee. Our drive was uneventful, along a route of perpetual autumn. I had been watching the weather forecasts and we were able to scoot southward as the rains were ending. All but about 15 minutes on Indy’s northside were driven on dry pavement. We were very grateful.

    We enjoyed seeing Jackson dressed up as a firefighter and his mom, Courtney, posing as his faithful Dalmatian. Watching Adam and Rachel celebrate their engagement with family and friends was wonderful. And we got to enjoy “Taco Man” leftovers from that with Stacey and Doug and all of the kids last evening!

    We have helped with Jackson pick-up and drop-off and I spent a day organizing and doing deep cleaning at Courtney and Jackson’s apartment. It is great to see Jackson having fun, like riding on his 4-Wheeler.


    We are beginning to prepare for traveling on to Florida, planning a stop to enjoy playing music with Ed Bennett and friends there

    Amidst these joys are the realities of more and more and more friends and family navigating very challenging situations. It would take a spreadsheet to name all of them.

    I read recently of Robert Redford having written the foreword of a book titled HOPE not long before he passed. His words speak volumes: “Hope does not need to be merely a passive wish. It can be an active force to propel us forward.”

    May all beings know they are the recipient of prayers. May all beings know they are loved. May all beings know the energy of hope.
    Prayers and love and hope, like breathing, are not optional but essential….

  • The Only True Hope

    When my eyes fill with wonder
    and my heart with love or joy,
    I do not betray my concerns for the world —
    I nourish my capacity to attend to them.

    ~ Kristi Nelson, 12-22-2021 Gratefulness.org

    I confess to recently having looked into the mirror and noticing a drooping of my jowls, deep crevasses of a frown on both sides of my mouth. More accurately, not frowning, just the absence of laughter and smiles.

    This past Sunday, I was Zoom host for Remembering Wholeness, a once-a-month event with Barbara Brodsky channeling darshan with “The Mother.”

    Darshan is a reciprocal experience of meeting with a holy or revered person or diety which results in the human viewer’s receiving a blessing. The person just before me to receive darshan had been told, “To be is your gift of the world. There is nothing at all selfish about just being for some period of time and letting yourself feel energetically restored. If you have a beautiful fountain, water must come into the basin or the fountain cannot continue to send out its beautiful movement. Fill the basin — with pure, radiant water.”

    In much of the world, this is the season for giving gifts. But to be able to give a gift, there must also be those to receive. Most of us are familiar with the lyrics of the song about the little drummer boy.

    I played my best for him
    Pa rum pum pum pum,
    Rum pum pum pum,
    Rum pum pum pum

    Then he smiled at me
    Pa rum pum pum pum
    Me and my drum

    I was the last to receive a blessing from The Mother.

    To Debra:

      And this last topic is a little less precise for you. You do take time to restore, but I think after you’ve taken some and you think, “I’ve already had my restoration and its time for me to flow out again.”

      Please stop thinking about in and out. The water comes into the basin of the fountain so it can go out. When it goes out it lands in the perimeter of the basin, flows into the center, then out. And it just keeps recirculating.

      Sometimes you’re more in one phase, sometimes more in the other. For you it would be good to try to find where the balance is. And remember that the basin is never empty, because it is not only you that fills it, but everything around you fills it.

      The gifts that you give to the world… I’ve enjoyed through Barbara reading your blog. It’s very beautiful. This is a gift to everyone. You’re hosting an event like this. This is a gift to everyone.

      Now to whatever degree it’s useful, focus on, “What do you need in order to be more fully nourished? And how can you invite that into yourself, knowing that it will recycle back out? … but in this moment, what will suit me in order for the fountain to be full and ready to pour out again of light?”

    This flowing of water into the basin so it is ready to pour out again brings to mind the ebb and flow of light on our planet.

    It has been a challenging autumn. August 30 we tested positive for Covid. September 24 John’s brother, Jerry, passed. The week of Thanksgiving, our 55-year old niece had a brain bleed. Since the first of November John has had an extremely painful sciatica flare. But the December full moon has come and gone. Known as the “cold moon” by the Mohawk people, this full moon occurs just a few days shy of December 21, the winter solstice.

    Humans have honored the significance of the winter solstice for a very, very long time. The ancient Monument of Newgrange is a 5200 year old megalithic structure built in precise alignment with the rising sun over the solstice each winter. Built around 3200 BC, that means it is 600 years older than the Pyramids at Giza, and 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.

    “What do you need in order to be more fully nourished? And how can you invite that into yourself, knowing that it will recycle back out?”

    I need to remember that spring always follows winter.

    I need to remember that water comes into the basin of the fountain so it can go out.

    I need to remember that, as Stephen Spender so beautifully expressed, “The only true hope for civilization — the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events.”

    I need to remember the face of our great-grandson, Jackson, when his G-ma took him to visit Santa.

    I need to remember that when my eyes fill with wonder and my heart with love or joy, I do not betray my concerns for the world — I nourish my capacity to attend to them.

    From my keyboard to yours, Merry Christmas everyone….

  • Nothing is not the Divine

    “Lightworkers, you are not politicians,
    you are not and it is not up to you
    to reveal lies or march in the streets
    and point out the wrong things.

    The Soul Journey right now says that
    you are here to be compassionate
    with those who are scared of lies
    and diseases
    or any other political theme.

    You can be there as comfort,
    with compassion,
    like a lighthouse on a rock.

    This is the task!

    It’s different from what you might think,
    it’s not evangelistic.
    It’s not about forcing people
    to learn something they don’t want to learn.

    Instead, you should sit there,
    like the masters you have read,
    in silence, with love and peace…
    then you will be the healer.

    This is how spirituality needs you now.

    So you will be the diamond you can be.”

    – Kryon
    (Iceland Tour Channel #8, Iceland, March 2020)


    Today is Good Friday, in Christianity the day that commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. The next day is called Holy Saturday, and then comes Easter Sunday, the third day—a day of resurrection.

    Last Sunday at 7:00 am John and I left Pine Island. I have said my claim to fame may become, “I peed in the van from Florida to Michigan during the 2020 pandemic.”

    Walking into our home at 8:30 am Monday, after 25 hours on the road, nothing felt like this was a good place to safe shelter. EVERY room was in post-remediation chaos.


    Our entire laundry room had to be torn down to the studs, including the wall between the laundry room and our master bedroom. The furnace (new just two years ago) was uninstalled and reinstalled. The house was in chaos. Putting things back together is more complicated because of COVID-19. John had to put on gloves and a mask just to borrow a drill so we could reinstall the shelves in the laundry room and get stuff up off the floor. Returning home after four months under normal conditions is a lot, but current conditions are not normal. Our mail is still in quarantine out in the barn.

    Understandably, emotions are easily triggered. A couple of days into it, I had to grab ear buds and sing (badly) along with two-hours of worship music and various chants recorded at last October’s Vipassana retreat. John worked in the yard. Yesterday morning a friend forwarded an amazing hour-long video: “What the Guides say we need to know about COVID-19.”

    Medium Paul Selig, a resident of New York City, was away from home leading a workshop when COVID-19 locked his city down. He is fortunate to be safe-sheltering on beautiful Maui, but his dog is in NY, his belongings have been moved into another apartment, and people are dying….

    Nothing is not the Divine.
    Everything must be re-known as “of the Source.”
    You cannot lift the world by low resonance.
    You lift yourself; then you lift everything you meet by co-resonance.

    A friend expressed concern about her beloved part-time job. I sent a link to the video, asking her to watch it then address her concerns.

    This is a great initiation for humanity. Initiations are not fun, much of this is very unpleasant. We cannot control things, we cannot stop this situation, and like a woman in labor or a man on a cross, “The only way out is through.”

    Selig’s Guides tell him this is a time when we must be in conversation with the God within. As I was scrubbing water spots from our glass shower doors (which had been left spotless) I felt like Goldilocks, “SOMEONE has been showering in our shower, and they left it a mess.” The stream of triggering thoughts and emotions; inappropriate, disrespectful, unfair, I always get stuck cleaning up other people’s messes, etc.

    I hear from my “Guides” that this is not my first rodeo. I am reminded I cleaned 6,000 square feet of space in the former Holistic Alliance as we disbanded the 501-C3. Overwhelming. My guides remind me this is not a time for blame. This is a time to bring beauty everywhere we can. So, I wiped and scrubbed and shined. (FYI – If you have not yet discovered Mr. Clean’s Durafoam Magic Eraser you will want to check them out.)

    It is not going to be the way we want it.
    We are being given the opportunity to experience a very simple life.
    Say, “Yes!” and celebrate.
    Be grateful for what you do have.
    Care for one another.
    Recognize the Divine in this experience.

    Our entire house is clean now. Most of it is in order, other than the leaking hot-water heater, and the missing trim in the laundry room. Eventually we will have workers in to rebuild the linen cupboard that had to be torn out because of the mold, but for now, all of the essentials are visibly organized in the clear totes I took our Florida stuff out of.

    Selig says, of course, he is devastated and brokenhearted, but he has to hope, “Good is coming from this.”

    He says, “Look at every choice you make in fear. You are going to get more of the same. What you damn, damns you back.”

    Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday, just as spring always follows winter.

    “Behold, I make all things new.”

    The new can be reborn.
    Changed, not fixed.
    Not pretending it is not happening.
    Honoring, valuing the supermarket worker and garbage collector.

    Paul’s guides suggest you say this mantra:

    “I know who I am in truth. I know how I serve in truth. I am free… I am free… I am free.”

    He calls this being in the Upper Room.

    We can say the same mantra on behalf of those we love or judge or fear: “I know who you are in truth. I know how you serve in truth. You are free… you are free… you are free.”

    On the bright side, during our intense putting-things-back-in-order, John found a package of N-95 masks in our barn! Precious, life-saving masks were picked up by our beloved friend, Diana Collins. They are going to Caring Circle (our local hospice). No matter how inconvenient all of this is for us, we are not on the front line, and we have what we truly need.

    I know how I serve in truth…

  • One

    Much of my life I have felt out-of-step with much of the world. Decades before smoking in public places was banned, I put up a “Thank You For Not Smoking” sign on my door. Some friends—even some family members—refused to come over.

    The Way of the Wolf: The Gospel in New Images by Martin Bell was first published in 1968. “What the Wind Said to Thajir” is about a young boy, Thajir, who goes out to play and the wind speaks to him. This is what the wind said:

    “Regardless of what anyone else tells you, regardless even of what your own experience might lead you to believe, everything that is, is good. At the center of things, life belongs to life.”

    You can hear a delightful reading of the short, significant story by Obi.

    The wind went on, “Regardless of what anyone else may ever tell you, regardless even of what your own experience might lead you to believe, you are everyone who ever was, and everyone who ever will be. You are the whole of creation—past, present, and future. Decisions that you make today, in what is called the here and the now, will validate or invalidate everything that has gone before, and make possible or impossible everything that is to come. Anything that hurts anyone, hurts you. Anything that helps anyone, helps you. It is not possible to gain from another’s loss, or to lose from another’s gain. Your life is immensely important. Everything depends upon you.”

    You must listen to hear what the wind said about destiny and hopelessness overcoming joy….

    Messages of hope and a choice to feel joy, especially in the wake of COVID-19 in March of 2020, are immensely important. Joy depends upon you.

    Here is a photo of the order to cease doing business in Michigan. Bars, restaurants, fitness centers, theaters…. all mandated to close through the end of the month!




    This sort of disruption of daily life for WEEKS is unprecedented for those who live in the U.S. We have never hidden in the attic from the Nazi’s. We have been spared genocide. Our idea of starving has been being late for dinner.

    The financial impact is worldwide. The shared humanity is world wide. We will get through this…. and good can come from it.

    In the Christian New Testament, the letter to the Romans, Chapter 8, Verse 28, we read: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

    The wind told Thajir everything that is, is good. How in the name of heaven can we call this pandemic good? By finding the good within.

    David Wagoner wrote “Lost” in 1999, and it is perfect for 2020:

    Lost

    Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
    Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
    And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
    Must ask permission to know it and be known.
    The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
    I have made this place around you.
    If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
    No two trees are the same to Raven.
    No two branches are the same to Wren.
    If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
    You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
    Where you are. You must let it find you.

    — David Wagoner
    (1999)

    Pamela Chappell, recorded a CD titled, “One” and in the title song by that name she sings, “What if we are one? What if we are angels sent to one another? What difference would it make every day in the world?”

    For the very first time in human history, we know the truth of Thajir’s wind. Humanity is one.

    Draw from the depths of your faith, intelligence, kindness, wisdom, and compassion. Your life is immensely important. Everything depends upon you.