Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: intention

  • Words – Come from the Heart

    Sacred Stories

    The words had been displayed in their beautiful open space (they called it the lighted room) in the center of the office suite. Moving out of that space, the words knew where they needed to go.

    These words were to be mailed to a friend in Florida…. But the friend lives in a very tiny space. Where would these big words fit? “Well, even a tiny house has a ceiling,” was the suggestion.

    These words are significant and she had brought them to the jam session asking everyone to learn “Come from the Heart” by Kathy Mattea.

    Here are the lyrics:

    You got to sing like you don’t need the money
    Love like you’ll never get hurt
    You got to dance like nobody’s watchin’
    It’s gotta come from the heart
    If you want it to work

    Of course, these words come from the heart!


  • America’s Got Talent

    What do you see? When you look at the world, what do you see? This is not a frivolous question, and it may be one of the most vital choices you make for yourself and our world.

    This morning the Buddhist group that gathered for meditation via ZOOM spoke of the violence that had erupted in Minnesota, and spread from there. One couple shared information indicating the violence likely was done by an international trouble-making group that uses social media to organize. Most (maybe all) of those protesting were genuinely peaceful.

    We, of a certain age, remember all too well the racial tensions from fifty years ago, and many were involved in working toward justice and harmony. What I found almost as disturbing as the news of the violence and destruction was the expressed emotions of helplessness and discouragement and sadness generated by watching the new reporting. If my Dharma brothers and sisters who are committed to lovingkindness and equanimity can lose touch with their light within, what about those who have not practiced access to a balanced world view?

    Last evening, while some were watching the distressing news, John and I were watching the season premier of America’s Got Talent. AGT is not a show I normally watch, but, a friend had been persistent in encouraging me to watch it. I had actually turned it on the night before when I crawled into bed, and I watched a couple who train pigs to do acts like you normally see dogs do in the circus. I fell asleep. I told Linda, but Linda is a friend who knows me well. She simply said again, “It was one of the best we have seen, and I think you will be glad you saw it.”

    Two of the acts I watched show an amazing world view. The first was Archie Williams—a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape. Archie was arrested in 1982, and imprisoned in a Louisiana prison the following year. Archie spent 37 years in prison for a crime he knew he did not commit. Finally, forensic evidence proved he was innocent, and he was released in 2019. You owe it to yourself to search for and watch the entire nine-minute version of Archie’s singing “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.” Archie told AGT, “My body was in prison, but my mind was not…. Prayer and singing got me through.”

    A person can sometimes let a mind be in prison even though a body is not.

    The final America’s Got Talent act was “Voices of Our City Choir” which was founded in 2016 by San Diego resident. While living downtown San Diego, Steph Johnson, a jazz singer-guitarist, met a lot of talented musicians—people living in shelters and on the street. Today her nonprofit operates several music and advocacy programs, has a choir of over 225 people, and distributes approximately 7,000 pounds of food per week! The group wrote the number it performed on AGT: “Sounds of the Sidewalk.” Another nine-minute video, as my friend said, that is definitely worth watching….

    Tomorrow is the first day of June. I am excited to look at the Magic Eye calendar image for the new month. (See Our True Nature.) My sister, Janis, and I are both excited. Regardless of the news, we get to turn over a new page. We will meet over some device and we will together see what beauty is hidden in plain sight, depending (of course) on your world view….

  • And There is Room for Everything

    Poem
    by Debra Basham 05-27-2020

    “At This Time”

    Right now, where you are, are you aware?

    Breathe in and feel connection to all you love

    Birds fly and view the world from a higher perspective

    Fabulous fruits, decadent desserts, marvelous munchies

    Mundane made sacred by joy

    Sheer silliness, satiating stillness, somber stoicism

    All reaches all, as we relax into All That Is….

    At this time

    This morning, like almost every other morning since the middle of March, I enjoyed practicing yoga with my dear friend, Kathy. Right now, we are meeting via ZOOM, and recording the videos for her YMCA classes. It does not appear likely that our (mostly senior) students are going to be Studio B any time soon.

    Amelia Vogler, Executive Director of HTPA (Healing Touch Professional Association), sent the membership an email message today which included a link to “When Life Is Good Again” which was premiered exclusively on Entertainment Weekly on the 27th of May, 2020.

    Dolly Parton was inspired by the COVID-19 quarantine. She told People of the quarantine in April of 2020, “We will come out on the other side of this, and we’re all going to be better people for it. Take care of each other from afar and continue to send love to your friends, family, and everyone suffering.”

    I resist grasping at social-distancing being necessary for so long that it no longer feels odd. I resist clinging to the ease of hugging those I want to hug when I want to hug them, meeting for hours of sharing over tea, having a house filled with musicians, and doing jigsaw puzzles with friends.

    Dolly’s last stanza says is all:

    God’s the reason for all things
    You want rainbows, you get rain
    We’ll all be forever changed (Forever changed)
    I’ll sell my boat and fly my kite
    Walk in the park, go out at night
    And hold my loved ones extra tight
    When everything is on the mend
    I’ll even drink with my old friends
    Sing and play my mandolin
    We’ll make it through this long dark night
    Darkness fades when faced with light
    But everything’s gonna be alright
    When life is good again

    The next email message I opened was Alan Seale’s weekly newsletter, also dated May 27, 2020. Forwarded by my friend, Roann Altman, moving home today after having spent these past couple of months quarantined with a friend with cancer. Roann’s friend, Richard, transitioned this week. In the newsletter, Alan quotes Etty Hillesum, a Jewish diarist who lived in Amsterdam and died in Auschwitz in 1943.

    Through me course wide rivers
    and in me rise tall mountains.
    And beyond the thickets
    of my agitation and confusion
    there stretch the wide plains of my
    peace and surrender.
    All landscapes are within me.
    And there is room for everything.

    Yes, there is room for everything in your heart at this time….

  • Privet Promise

    Sacred Stories

    It was not unusual for their dog to look out toward the deck and bark. The dog obviously could see people walking on the path to the beach, or a squirrel in the yard. This day was different.

    Walking to the patio door and looking out, she saw nothing that would invite the barking.

    What did catch her eye was one lone privet branch sitting up about a foot above the deck, twirling around like a whirlpool. Just spinning round and round.

    Looking at the branch, their dog continued to bark.

    There was no wind this day — no lake breeze was moving this branch. It was totally still. So still that not even a single leaf was waving in the highest branch of the poplar trees.

    Four months today her husband passed.

    Suddenly she realized the manifestation! Standing for about ten minutes in silence, she watched in gratitude knowing he was still with her….

  • 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

  • Hot Tub Visit

    Sacred Stories

    She was alone in the hot tub praying and having awareness time.

    She was thinking of him.

    Today was his 53rd birthday.

    Twenty five years ago, her husband had been 28-years-old when he passed.

    All of a sudden, the hot tub jets turned on!

    Just like someone had pushed the button….

  • Satellites!

    Sacred Stories

    He is not very religious. He grew up Roman Catholic, and even went to Catholic School, but by college he says he was done with the Vatican.

    Every evening he goes out to look for satellites and when he sees one, he prays gratitude to God who gave us the intelligence to put huge pieces of junk in orbit.

    She always thought this was crazy.

    Since they had moved from Southwest Michigan to Detroit, he had not seen a satellite, although he would watch every night.

    She passed away….

    She was Seventh Day Adventist. She was taught to believe once you die you go to sleep until the second coming of Christ. If you lived a good life, you wake up with Him. If not, then you would stay asleep.

    Three weeks after she passed, he went out looked up into the sky. He prayed and asked her that if her “dirt nap” theory was wrong, and that she was actually looking down on him from heaven, to please allow him to see a satellite.

    At that moment, he saw one… then two, three, four, five….

    He saw a total of 17 satellites in consecutive order, spaced about 4-6 inches apart to the naked eye. It took all of about five minutes.

    It was so incredible! He called one of her best friends and he called her brother, telling them what he was witnessing.

    He says, “Just way too cool!!! She knew that would be what I was looking for.”

    She made sure he had no choice not to know!

  • Creative Mending

    I had some text exchange with my firstborn grandchild, Brad, sharing emotional reactions and perceptions of the current conditions. Some we love dearly entertain the notion that COVID-19 is a conspiracy. I shared with him a recent writing:

    Daily Doula Duty

    My book, I Learned Everything I Needed to Know About Life Working as a Doula, is not yet written, but the awareness is etched into my days nonetheless. The last trimester of pregnancy is no picnic. Sleep is illusive as pressure on the bladder likely means many trips to the bathroom. The rapidly growing fetus works hard to finds comfortable place to stretch out in the tight quarters—often right on the mom’s sciatic nerve. Back pain, leg cramps…. Perhaps all of this is preparation.

    Most women go into labor exhausted, and after that there will be long days and short nights of having an infant to care for.

    The job of the doula is to coach the woman into conserving what precious little energy she has. She is going to need it.

    No matter how long or how difficult the labor, the hardest work comes after the cervix is dilated¬—in the second stage of labor.

    The second stage of labor is when the woman really needs stamina. And stamina takes energy.

    One of my clients had to be put on oxygen to be able to push. Not only was she exhausted, she also had bronchitis.

    My sister delivered her youngest just as intestinal flu was ramping through her family of five, the normal work of laboring was clearly distorted by the accompanying vomiting and diarrhea.

    The human mind is very prone to vomiting and diarrhea….

    When all is said and done, we may be among the fortunate ones to have survived the pandemic of 2020. Suffice it to say, humanity as a whole is likely going into the second stage of labor exhausted.

    High-powered executives confessed to hoping for a scheduled cesarean delivery….

    It is important to conserve our energy. We don’t know what more is going to be demanded of us.

    Bonnie’s daughter is celebrating Mother’s Day this year having just lost her mom to COVID-19. There was no access to the hospital. No visitation or funeral. She writes: “I am going to go pack up some of her things on Sunday. I have some other ideas to share some special moments with her, too. I feel her a lot. It almost feels like she’s not gone because she is around so much. Meaning I don’t miss her physical presence (as much) because her spirit is so strong.”

    The second stage of labor can last a few moments or a few hours.

    Take heart: the second stage of labor means the cervix has already dilated.

    Your body, your mind, and your spirit can do what is being asked of it.

    Key awareness at this point: Don’t be a prisoner to what you cannot change.
    • Remember this is not your birth
    • Remember to rest when you can
    • Remember to breathe through contractions
    • Remember you are not the first or the only to go through this
    • Remember everything you have done to be ready
    • Remember getting through this is the most important thing
    • Remember you will forget the pain
    Debra Basham 05-08-2020 (WC 500)

    Brad responded, “Is this some ninja level NLPing?”

    Zan Lombardo, my friend and artist extraordinaire, was doing some creative mending during our Southern Circle Poets virtual gathering. On the shirt in the photo below, what seems to be a pendant, is actually where a moth hole was. The turquoise is a random doodled line that Zan stitched.

    Transrational Pyramid from Healing with Language (Bowman and Basham p.187):

    The observer’s perspective is both caring and disinterested, free of attachment, neither fearing nor desiring a specific outcome, but wanting only what is usually called the Highest Good for all. That doesn’t mean they have given up playing an active role in causes and activities they think are beneficial. It just means that they do so from a more peaceful and less judgmental perspective.

    Now, that is some creative mending….

  • It Hurts


    Old doors close
    so new ones can open.
    Don’t get stuck on what
    fell apart just because it hurts.
    Transformation requires
    growth and letting go.

    ~Brahma Kumaris Thought for Today

    My friend, Kathy, lost her husband on January 18, 2020. She had been his care-giver. Their home was visited almost daily by friends and a devoted team of home-care and hospice-care helpers. For weeks now, she and their dog and cat are there. The pandemic means EVERYTHING social is lost. It hurts.

    Yesterday was to have been the college graduation ceremony of our only granddaughter, Courtney Nicole Ross. All face-to-face classes at UTC went online Monday, March 23, and for the remainder of the spring 2020 semester. Courtney is the first female college graduate in my line. With all A’s and B’s, she has graduated, but the ceremony and our family gathering together to celebrate as we watched her walk in her cap and gown did not happen. It hurts.

    My client/friend/colleague, Bonnie, passed away from COVID-19 in a hospital—a hospital her family was not allowed to enter. I had to decline an invitation to come offer a brief ceremony at the funeral home or cemetery, saying, “Let’s wait and honor her Celebration of Life when we can be together.” It hurts.

    In May of 2003, my mom was nearing the completion of her transition. I was finally alone with her for a few moments. I began to spontaneously sing (badly) a made-up song, “Momma’s gonna get a brand new pair of wings, fly, Momma, fly….”

    A social worker walked in and, embarrassed, I stopped singing.

    The social worker softly whispered, “Please, go on….”

    I continued to sing until I felt my mom’s center of gravity shift from her material body to her energy body. My mom’s face softened into a beautiful shade of pink as she relaxed into her wings.

    Moments later my sister and her son and daughter-in-law and their young son returned from having gone to get something to eat. I knew it was OK for me to leave. It hurts.

    Soon after, my sister was alone with our mom. My sister said, “Mom, I would really like to be with you as you cross. If you want me to be with you, it is time, because I am very tired and I need to go home soon.”

    Three minutes later, our mom was soaring with her brand new pair of wings.

    Old doors do close so new ones can open. We don’t have to get stuck on what fell apart just because it hurts. The transformation of humanity and our soaring with new wings requires growth and letting go.

    I found myself singing another ditty about flying with new wings while I was out riding my bike wearing my mask.

    I sent the voice memo titled “My Bonnie” to Bonnie’s daughter, Melody.

    It makes me laugh because my Bonnie had a semi-professional singing voice!

  • Directions in Antwerp

    Sacred Stories

    She had recently moved to Antwerp, Belgium, to begin her student teaching in the American School.

    Antwerp is the capital of Antwerp province in the Flemish Region. As in all Flemish provinces, the official and standard language of the Antwerp province is Dutch. Common with Flemish Brabant, North Brabant and Brussels, the local dialect is a Brabantian variety.

    She had gone out, gotten lost, and could not find her way back home. She was surrounded by people who were all speaking different languages—mostly Flemmish or French.

    A woman appeared, and told her how to find her way back home.

    She had not seen the woman approach, and she did not see where the woman went.

    She knew she had encountered an “angel” just at the moment she needed the help.

    The universe is filled with angels….