Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Jane Foster

  • Relief!


    The Comcast saga came to an end late yesterday morning. Today my fingers are on the keyboard of my PC and I am connected to the SCS domain. The solution was actually simple. And it is what Donny, my customer service agent at my local Comcast store, suggested to me weeks ago: Swap out the modem.

    Relief is an interesting concept. Relief is defined as a feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress or assistance, especially in the form of food, clothing, or money, given to those in special need or difficulty.

    Alison, I’m not sure to whom this message of appreciation should be addressed, but I want someone within the Comcast organization to know what you did for me.

    I had been struggling between Comcast and my web host since October 18. On November 7, when I found you I had spent over 30 hours having to give the same information over and over, and never being able to follow up with someone I had spoken to previously.

    I was rude, frustrated, angry, and you stayed right with me and assured me you would not leave me until the issue was resolved.

    Although you were not able to resolve the issue that evening, you gave me your extension number and email. I became a real person to you. I cried!!! I mattered to you, and that matters to everyone.

    During this period of time I was struggling with the problem with my service we had two deaths in our family. People have a lot going on….

    You suggested we swap out the modem and when I got the new one the following morning, you were able to assist me to get the help from Kevin to activate it.

    I sent email and left voice mail letting you know we were successful. Then you called again to make sure everything was working correctly.

    Donny, at the Benton Harbor, Michigan, store was the first one to suggest we swap the modem. I wish everyone could work with you and Donny…. everyone deserves to!

    Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

    During these weeks of frustration I have said many times I recognized this as an opportunity. I have learned a lot. I learned we do not have to call Comcast and go through 30 minutes of being passed from one person to another only to have to tell them the exact information before getting to someone who cannot help you. Using the Comcast app on your phone, you can give the information once and request a call back. The appropriate person calls you back. Oh, my….

    Another learning has been to see how kind the conditions are. Regardless of how challenging, right here within the conditions is kindness.

    It is kindness to let it go each time no resolution was at hand.

    It is kindness to persevere and make another call when I had a couple of hours. (EEK…)

    It is kindness to remember nothing is a life or death matter—not even life or death.

    It is not denial to say not even life or death is a life or death matter. It is truth.

    Over lunch yesterday my dear friend, Jane Foster, shared that even having lived with cancer for over 35 years now she still bumps into a fear of death. “Will it hurt? Will I be alone? How will my husband handle things? How will my son get through this?”

    It occurs to me these are not evidences of fear of death. They are evidences of desire to control. We want to know. We want assurances. We want things to go a certain way.

    I sent out a prayer request:
    I have a precious client named Jessica.

    She is thirty-something…

    13 months ago she was told she had 17 months to live.

    Three months ago she was told she was in remission, but her most recent scan showed tumors on her liver.

    She has been at MD Anderson in Houston this week and if she is a candidate for an experimental surgery and treatment she will fly back down on November 17 and have the procedure on November 19. If there are no complications she will be able to fly back to Michigan on November 22.

    They were not very optimistic… Possibly extend her life six months.

    She asks for help with her mental state.

    Here is her Bitmoji saying:

    If you are inclined to pray, please add a special prayer for the mental state of all humans. May all beings know peace. May all beings love and be loved. May all beings come to the end of suffering.

    Pray for Alison and Donny and each of those who work in organizations that inflict such pain in the delivery of service. Pray for Jane Foster to embrace sacred life and sacred death. (See Corpse Prayer) Pray for Jessica as she navigates such turbulent waters.

    Pray that all sentient beings feel relief….

  • Yoga108

    Tonight is one of those times when tears are just so close to the surface. Perhaps it is because 57 years ago yesterday I had a near death experience. Things that happen to you change your world view….

    Perhaps it is because this morning I got to work with a man, and a woman, and their precious dog. The woman had just stepped backwards into the motor pit on their boat. She began expressing her concern about not wanting to intrude on her husband’s session. We ended knowing you cannot take blessing from someone else by receiving blessing yourself. Even the dog came over to me and asked to receive healing attention! We were all so blessed by our time together as we were in that stream of the ever-perfect.

    Perhaps my heart feels so tender because 11 years ago today Nonnie’s beloved Mike passed….

    Perhaps tears are close to the surface because the evening sky is breathtakingly beautiful.

    Or because I read this precious truth written by Danusha Laméris about how small kindnesses are the ‘true dwelling of the holy’:

    I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say, “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

    I like The Giving Hat that belongs to my dear friend, Jane Foster.

    Perhaps my heart is so open because Jane was told she had less than a year to live by her surgeon who also said she needed to find a holistic healer. That was almost 20 years ago. Jane now coaches and encourages others to live life regardless of any medical diagnosis. So perhaps my heart is open because today Jane was on the mat beside me doing yoga for the first time!

    As I drove back downtown to the office after yoga class, the vehicle at the red light in front of me had this license plate:


    I sent the photo of the license plate to Jane and to Kathy, our wonderful yoga teacher. Kathy wrote back that 108 is a very special number. She said, “The number 108 is significant in yoga. It is the number of beads in a mala, and it is the number of sun salutations done daily in India. It is probably significant in other ways, too.”

    I wrote back, “Also 108 movements in Tai Chi.”

    “Did not know that!” Kathy shot back. “That would be a good blog entry…. I’d read it.”

    Lord Buddha’s footprint is imprinted with 108 auspicious illustrations.

    In Islam, the number 108 refers to God.

    In the Christian Bible, the phrase ‘first born’ is used 108 times. Both ‘in truth’ and ‘to forgive’ are also used 108 times, in the New Revised Standard Version.

    In numerology, the number 108 is reduced to 9, but adding all the digits together. Nine represents the earthly lesson of humans, which is ‘forgiveness’.

    Nine is about selflessness and compassion.

    People with nine energy are said to work without motive.

    Nines know their purpose is for the greatest good of all.

    Nines also have a protective energy, and they have great power, and great love in their soul.

    Today was the birthday of the woman I met with after yoga. I gave her a copy of The Gift: Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master. Her husband passed a few months ago so she is in the process of reinventing her life. She is only 73, not 108, but I am quite sure it would be OK with her if we put 108 candles on her cake and sang happy birthday to her. I had her read the last poem in the book.

    AND LOVE SAYS

      And love
      Says,

    “I will. I will take care of you.”

      To everything that is
      Near.

    I also gave her a lovely decorated heart-shaped empty box. My friend, Claudia, learned to set a special box on your nightstand or dressing table, as a reminder that each day is a present and being present is a gift you give to yourself.

    108 times today I will say, it is such a privilege to be alive. It is such a joy to be awake.

  • The Giving Hat

    P.S. When Jane Foster received the hat (see previous post) she sent this photo, and a message saying she thought the hat needed to be named.

    She decided to name it the “Giving Hat” because her husband gifted her the hat, it is giving her so much pleasure, and the proceeds that will go to cancer research is giving others a chance at a longer and better quality of life.

    Here she is in the “Giving Hat.”

  • It is Never About the Hat

    I am so blessed to have beautiful, soulful, women friends. I had lunch with one, Jane Foster, on Friday. Especially after all these years, hearing Jane share her story still touches me. (See Jane Foster’s Story)

    Jane was telling me about a custom hat she is having made by a woman out west. The woman’s husband has been very ill, so she is homeschooling their children, caring for her husband, and the custom hat business helps them make ends meet.

    “Look at me. I am 72, and I am still here, and here you are making me a hat!” Jane told the hat-maker, who thanked Jane for restoring hope.

    It is never about the hat.

    This week, I finally got over to Kalamazoo and Joel and I watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars. The results were shocking, but the dancing and the special music, was, well—very special! I loved Lauren Daigle’s singing “You Say”. Here are some comments about the story behind her writing that song:

    It was the day after my very first Dove awards, and I remember being completely overwhelmed. I walked into the studio, and Paul and Jason, my producers, were in there and they’re like “All right what’s going on in your world, how’s it been?”

    It was the first time we had written since How Can It Be…I just remember feeling like so much had happened the night before, wondering How do I come back down to normal, how do I come back down to reality? And I started realizing these patterns of really high highs and then, okay now there’s a low. Really high high, now there’s a low…And Involving expectation in that space can just leave you kind of questioning your identity- Where do I fit in, where is my security, where is my footing?

    So when writing “You Say,” I just remember feeling for the first time pretty conflicted. It was definitely the first moment in just being an artist that I was like Okay, where is all this going excactly? And I know that we’ve all faced moments in life where we can feel a crossroads happen— where we can see the past and also see the future, and realize how we are supposed to exist in the present. And it was one of those moments where I could see where things were going and I knew exactly where I came from, and I needed those worlds to still be married. (CCM Magazine)

    Here is the first stanza of Daigle’s “You Say” lyrics:

    I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough
    Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
    Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?
    Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know (ooh oh)
    You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing
    You say I am strong when I think I am weak
    You say I am held when I am falling short
    When I don’t belong, oh You say that I am Yours
    And I believe (I), oh I believe (I)
    What You say of me (I)
    I believe

    Songwriters: Paul Mabury / Lauren Ashley Daigle / Jason Ingram
    You Say lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

    When she was 15 years old, Daigle had an autoimmune illness that kept her down for about two years. She says that is when God taught her about her character.

    Today I had Christmas Tea with another precious friend, Kathy Zerler. As we sipped on tea made from the peppermint Kathy grew in her garden, dried in her basement, and blessed by her meditative working of the mint with her hands, we treated ourselves to a few “cards.”

    We exchanged gifts. I gave her a hand-crocheted kitchen scrubby, home-made jalapeno jelly, and yummy socks. She gave me fabulous glass containers to hold crackers and nuts on my kitchen counter, more peppermint, and an eye pillow and soap made from lavender she grew.

    We shared how each of our spiritual lives are deepening—my two year commitment to the Dharma Path, and Kathy’s renewed commitment to bible study and contemplation. I read to her from Rupert Spira’s The Transparency of Things: “Non-Duality is not an immunisation against feeling. In fact, it is the opposite. It is complete openness, sensitivity, vulnerability and availability. Actually, suffering is our resistance to feeling, rather than a feeling itself.”

    I confessed to feeling like our lives are being pulled away from one another, and read a bit more from Spira: “Consciousness is absolute Freedom. We allow this Freedom to express itself as it will, how it will, where it will and when it will. In one body/mind this might take the shape of a character that is quiet and sensitive, whilst in another it may express itself in a wild and exuberant way. We should not be misled by appearances.”

    It is never about the hat or the tea.

    P.S. When Jane received the hat, she sent this photo, and a message saying she thought the hat needed to be named. She decided to name it the “Giving Hat” because her husband gifted her the hat, it is giving her so much pleasure, and the proceeds that will go to cancer research is giving others a chance at a longer and better quality of life. Here she is in the “Giving Hat.”

  • The Greatest Gift

    The holiday season is a time when we do a lot of giving and receiving. One gift I received was enjoying lunch out with Jane Foster. Jane had 22 malignant tumors on her liver when her surgeon closed her up in 1999 and told her he could not keep cutting on her. He said she needed to, “Find a holistic healer.” I’ve included a link to a video interview with Jane in 2011 at the end of this post. She lights up my life…

    Jane has discovered she loves horses and I was blessed to gift Jane with one of Amy Midnite Remisoski’s adorable Pine Pony wreaths.

    Jennifer Louden’s Self-Care Minder, Year 2, #29
    November 30th, 2001
    SELF-CARE MINDER

    It’s holiday time. Do you know where your soul is?

    Have you asked soul what she wants to do and feel during this month? Can you give her lots of time to respond (a thirty-second check while in line at the bank doesn’t work so well with soul)? And after asking, would you be willing to honor what she has to say?

    Here’s an excerpt from the Self-Care Minder written this time last year:

    This is such a tender, heart-open-wide time of year. Simple things like the blood orange and lime yellow leaves wiggling outside my window and the sound of our heater coming on bring tears to my eyes. A deep yearning to nest, to deeply connect with those I love, to know soul comfort as well as I know the curve of my daughter’s smile, simmer in me.

    A spiritual longing breaks through the surface of my life and catches my heart. It is a radiant song that I can’t quite hear the lyrics to. I want to stop and listen but instead I find myself emptying the dishwasher, sweeping the floor, sorting Aunt Edna’s silver.

    Perhaps the barrier between this longing and our daily lives grows thinner during the holidays. All that is required to cross the border is courage and stillness, and perhaps a friend for support.

    We are entitled to “to feel ourselves beloved on this earth” as the writer Raymond Carver wrote shortly before his death. Yes, dear ones, we are.

    I asked my daughter what she wanted the holidays to look like and she said, “Games like hide-and-seek and sleeping giant and everybody just being together, and you know, I would like just a few presents.”

    How strong and sincere it feels to be living soulfully during these days of darkness and glitter, yearning and connecting. What does that mean specifically? To live soulfully, I am: Stopping and pausing OFTEN to ask, “What do I really want to do?” Questioning every “I have to” especially the ones that seem so IMPORTANT. Watching for bodily sensations of feeling hurried, panicked, or pressed upon, and using these sensations to wake me up to what I’m thinking and doing, and is there another choice I would rather make?

    Basically, I’m learning there is no real reason to be freaking out over when or where to buy the Yuletide tree. Reminding myself the only thing that really can’t be replaced is time with those I love: my 82 year old Dad, my 7 year old daughter, my sister, my mom, my husband and you know, they just want peace, laughter, and a little sleeping giant game once in awhile.

    I’m letting the rest go, gently, gracefully, and with a good guffaw at all my shoulds.

    Fortunately we don’t have to wait for a health crisis to discover what our sweet soul wants. A bit ago I received a text message from Jane. “I want to write a book. Because I’ve been on this journey for 30 plus years, I think I can inspire others.”

    Like Jane’s, my sweet soul wants everyone to Imagine Healing!