Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Joseph Campbell

  • Currently Open on my Laptop

    Texting with a close friend early one morning as she started her busy day, her friend sent the day’s “Daily Reflection” from Deep Spring Center for Meditation:

    Consciously envision peace. Spend at least a few minutes every day envisioning what this world could look like in a very detailed way if beings were able to live peacefully with each other, making space for different views, and free of hatred. Practice peace in all the simple ways. Smell the flowers as they emerge this spring. Take time in your lives to be peaceful. Do not allow yourself to get caught up with the spectacle that your media may present. Watch unpleasant news a few minutes if you need to, and then go and pray and meditate. And in these ways, you will find yourselves becoming centers of peace for yourself and for all those who touch your own life. ~ Aaron

    She immediately sent back this photo of a quote by Joseph Campbell back to her friend: “We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person influences,” along with a four-word message: CURRENTLY OPEN ON MY LAPTOP.


    Called or uncalled, God is present.

    This is actually a statement that Jung discovered among the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus, who declared the statement had been an ancient Spartan proverb. Jung popularized it, having it inscribed over the doorway of his house, and upon his tomb.

  • Dr. Bernie Siegel

    “When you are on the right path,
    invisible hands will come to your aid.”
    ~ Joseph Campbell

    Imagine my delight to log onto a Zoom meeting of Greater Boston IANDS and see Dr. Bernie Siegel It is no exaggeration to say Bernie is/was my first conscious step onto the path of awareness as self-healing tool, and thus a long-time idol.

    Geoffrey Hayes, our pastor at the time, loaned me his copy of Bernie’s book, Love, Medicine and Miracles, which I read at our small travel trailer on Pitcher Lake Campground, in Dowagiac, Michigan. This was a period of my life during which I was experiencing daily chronic pain. It was revolutionary for Bernie to suggest I ask myself what that pain allowed me to do or be or have that would otherwise elude me.

    The answer?

    REST!

    The synopsis of Bernie’s life-changing words of wisdom: Find another way to give that gift to yourself and the symptom/s may subside.

    I became aware I had been in the habit of pushing myself through tasks.

    The chronic pain gave me “permission” to rest.

    This week, I gave our kitchen cabinets a much-needed fresh coat of paint. That meant taking off all of the doors, doing a light sanding, removing and cleaning all of the pulls and hinges, painting the doors, reinstalling the pulls and hinges, and rehanging the doors. Whew….

    Not having a basement or garage,
    I set up my work station in the great room!

    The morning after the doors to the upper cabinets had dried overnight, I was awake early. They had to all be rehung for me to have room to paint the lowers.

    I figured out a way to stand on a step stool, put one leg up on the counter top, aim the hinge on the door perfectly over the corresponding hole on the cabinet frame. I could use that leg like a third hand, and pick up the screw and screwdriver with my other two hands.

    I now call it my prehensile leg (a term referring to an animal’s limb or tail capable of grasping).

    Hanging the cabinet doors (and aligning them properly) certainly had a learning curve, but by the time John got up, the uppers were all hung and I had started painting the lowers.

    Noteworthy: I have never previously hung a cabinet door.

    That brings me back to Joseph Campbell’s opening quotation, Bernie Seigel’s message, and my current awareness: I cannot say I hung the doors alone, nor all by myself, or even without another human being helping. Each step of the way I was consciously inviting and, more importantly, receiving help.

    And the kitchen looks so fresh and clean!

    Bernie’s wife passed about 3 years ago. On the 4th of July, his family was visiting. Bernie could not find his cell phone. They tried calling the phone; they looked and looked. No luck finding the phone.

    Shortly after his son had left for home, the son came back, saying, “Mom told me where your phone is.” Way out in the back yard, Bernie’s phone was on the chair, exactly where she said it was.

    The kicker of this story is that they had not been out there!

    I have written about a sense of beyond-personal capacity many times before. Many others share this recognition. We can benefit by being intentional in encouraging others to ask for and receive these types of non-physical support.

    I will save how Bernie made me quit my job for another post and close with his words:

    “Learn from the wisdom of others and enjoy your life experience. Remember the Bible ends in Revelations, not Conclusions, and graduations are commencements not terminations.” ~ Bernie Siegel

  • 2021 – A True Spiritual Path

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today
    December 31, 2020

    So often beings have a
    limited view of spiritual life
    that creates a duality in themselves,
    so that they only see themselves
    as ‘being spiritual’
    when they’re being kind and loving.

    When painful emotions arise,
    then they think,
    ‘I am no longer being spiritual.
    I should fix or get rid of these emotions
    and come back to kindness and
    then I will be spiritual.’

    But this dualistic thinking only
    enhances the fragmentation of the self and
    enhances negativity and suffering.

    To open the heart to the self,
    just as it is in this moment,
    is the true spiritual path.

    ~ Aaron

    As we turn the page on our calendar to 2021 at midnight tonight where ever you are, hindsight will be 2020. New Years has held a nostalgic space in my heart and mind for as long as I can remember, but just as 2021 offers unlimited possibilities, tomorrow is also just another day.

    What will you remember most from the past year? High on my list is the consistent kindness and generosity of our friends, Linda and Larry, consistently doing our grocery shopping for us. First, using InstaCart, and then going to the grocery store, just so we could limit our exposure to the coronavirus.

    I will remember the blessing of Zoom bringing the meditation hall into my home.

    I will also feel the sting of not going to Tennessee to visit Stacey’s family on our way home in April. Or having to tell Melody I could not do an in-person ceremony for her mom, my friend and colleague, who contracted COVID-19 while in the hospital with acute pancreatitis. Bonnie passed without Melody or Dan, Bonnie’s husband, having opportunity to be with her.

    No service of celebration of life for Fred Gibby yet either. They say it will be an ultimate hug-fest when the time is right. and Fred loves that idea!

    It is otherworldly to not have gotten to Kalamazoo to see Joel and the kitties; and very hollow that I did not unpack the office when contents were moved to the beautiful new space at Lakeshore Acupuncture.

    Immense gratitude for Barbara Brodsky and John Orr and Aaron and Jeshua (and all who help me remember who I really am) seeps deeply into every day.

    The take-out dinners and dominoes by Zoom.

    And now, Jackson Taylor Yarber, born December 28, 2020, has joined our family, and I am loving my first great-grandchild fully from Southwest Florida as he is in Tennessee. Fingers crossed it will be safe to hold him and smell him on our way back home in the spring.


    In the spring — the spring of 2021!

    It feels otherworldly to say that…

    2020 is ending.

    2021 is beginning.

    Suddenly, I am hearing a song from the musical Godspell in my head: Where are you going? Where are you going? Can you take me with you?

    Last December I was fixated on accessing a Magic Eye Wall Calendar! When I found one, I decided to gift a bunch of folks! Janis and I have ritualized the turning of the page on the first day of each month, letting the image come into view, noticing how some are very easy and others quite challenging.

    Interestingly, there will not be a Magic Eye Wall Calendar for 2021, as announced on the website: Our calendar publisher has asked us to wait until next year to publish a Magic Eye 2022 wall calendar, as printing, shipping and distribution channels have all been disrupted by Covid-19. We will not be releasing a Magic Eye 2021 wall calendar. Wishing everyone a happy & safe year!

    Janis and I have agreed to go back through each month of the 2020 Magic Eye Wall Calendar, enjoying again in 2021 what we learned in 2020.

    The missing and longing, and seeing and being. It has all been here all along.

    Here’s to 2021, a true spiritual path. It, too, has been there all along….

    “If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” ~ Joseph Campbell