Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: love

  • Super Blue Blood Moon

    I am blessed to be part of two writers’ groups, and one of the precious gifts of winter for me is that I take more time to write. Do you notice how seemingly unconnected things are not? For example, this morning people all over the U.S. got up early enough to see if they could get a glimpse of the Super Blue Blood Moon. One online comment said the skies have not been like this since Andrew Johnson was President, the second dome on the U.S. Capitol was completed, and Jesse James completed his first robbery.

    Time seems linear, but is not. My writing seems melancholy, but I am not.

    Poem Widow Wake-up by Debra Basham 01/23/2018

    Morning had still not yet come when she rolled over in the bed and instinctively reached her hand to the other side. This day, like so many she had tried to hold back with her sheer will, her hand found nothing to grasp on to. Nevertheless, she left it there as though memories of his warm body could will her body to greet this day.

    But it was not death that had stolen her joy. No, she herself had day-after-day driven the very sense of peace and well-being she longed for from her own heart. Living never in the now, her fears had wound themselves so tightly into her reality no distinction remained.

    “Please God,” her daily prayer as rote as the morning rosary at St. Michael’s Elementary Catholic School, “don’t let today be the day I become a widow.”

    But, not even God could keep that from happening today because in her mind it already had….

    As we take in to account that more is always happening in our lives than we are currently aware of, I suggested a client check out the energy of the Super Blue Blood Moon and how his current experience might well be connected to a childhood trauma. He sent this quote from an article he read online, “The last time there was a celestial alignment of these three things was in 1982.” 1982 was the year of that childhood event…

    Driving to a meditation group, I called the hostess to let her know I might be about 5 minutes late. “I am under the weather so we are not meeting today. I sent an email message.” I did not receive the message, but making that call saved me about an hour-long round trip.

    Maybe we don’t all always pay attention but inner guidance and meaningful coincidences are always there for each of us. Noticing them help us stop torturing ourselves with our minds. We can instead offer kindness. This quote of the day comes from my meditation teacher:

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    No matter how many times the world comes to the verge of war or enters into it, each time is new, a new moment that has never happened before, with its own sorrows and also its joys. You ask what joy there can be. Joy in the fact that so many of you do not hate a supposed enemy but in your hearts take the enemy to be fear and hatred itself. The joy that so many of you can offer wishes for well-being, even to those who hate, and at the same time, be willing to say no to those beings who would do harm. A no based on kindness.

    May the energy of this Super Blue Blood Moon remind us of all we can do. Today and everyday…

  • Corpse Prayer

    Each year I enjoy some ritual on my birthday. Yesterday afternoon I still did not know what that was to be. Riding to the birthday celebration of our 85 year old friend, I learned of a marvelous exercise called “Corpse Prayer.” It comes from Jarem Sawatsky’s book, Dancing with the Elephants: Mindfulness Training For Those Living With Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain (How to Die Smiling Series, #1).

    The “Corpse Prayer” exercise resonates deeply with me because it is essentially my own Imagine Healing process where you anchor positive images along your future timeline to allow the worry brain to turn off. In my process, you build in the caveat although things won’t happen exactly as you imagine it, as you make an image that lets know things have gone so well, even better than you imagined it….

    As Sawatsky suggests, I imagine the last three minutes of my life.

    I am propped up in a big fluffy bed. The bedclothes are pristine white. Stacey is there with me. I have no pain or illness, just old-age. It is time to let go. I see Stacey as old too. That comes as a surprise. White hair. Wrinkled hands. I feel sadness for a moment that her life will not be much longer, then I let that go as I celebrate sacred life and sacred death. I love her so much. I am so blessed she has been with me since I was only a child. I breathe the familiar Corpse Prayer:

    Corpse Prayer

    Be not afraid.
    I give thanks to god who created all things good.
    In christ, all things hold together.
    I am not entitled to life without death.
    I embrace sacred life.
    I embrace sacred death.
    I embrace the growing and crumbling in between.
    Smile at yourself in the silence…
    Jarem Sawatsky

    Sawatsky says to next imagine the moment you will be buried. Since I plan to be cremated, I saw that happening and breathed the Corpse Prayer again. I am not entitled to life without death.

    Two years after death, you are to see your body decayed. I see the place my ashes had been spread. Barely any shards are left. A cat walks on the ground and I think, “I love kitties.” I breathe the Corpse Prayer again. I embrace the growing and crumbling in between.

    Now I am to imagine myself 80 years after my death. My granddaughter (Courtney’s) child is old. I breathe the Corpse Prayer to her. Be not afraid…

    I smile at myself in the silence. Happy birthday to me!

  • No Ordinary Face

    Listening to the wind blowing, thoughts come to mind of how relative our perspective is. A prime example of that is weather.

    Bundled up out for a walk, Floridians see Michiganders riding bikes in shirt sleeves.

    Americans look into a brimming pantry complaining about nothing to eat.

    “No Ordinary Face” was first shared at an open mic. I have since been encouraged to share the story more widely. It certainly is a powerful demonstration of perspective.

    No Ordinary Face

    It has been over twenty years since I met her, but hers is a face I will never forget.

    I work as a wellness consultant, sometimes called a holistic healer. She had been referred to me by one of my colleagues, for a surgical support session. Physical healing happens more easily when you are emotionally and mentally prepared. Combining hypnosis and energy medicine I help people “imagine healing.” I knew she was facing an extensive reconstruction following serious burns, but nothing I had been told about her prepared me for what I was seeing.

    “So, you are scheduled for plastic surgery?” I asked. As she answered I jotted the date and time and hospital onto her chart without looking away from her face.

    With a poise not anticipated from her shocking physical appearance, she provided a brief highlight of her MANY previous surgeries.

    As she answered my unspoken question, without permission my chest with it’s now rapid-beating heart leaned forward ever so slightly, “I set myself on fire. I did not want to live,” she was not apologizing but merely helping me understand. “More than my not wanting to live, I thought no one would care if I died. I was wrong, nearly dead wrong.”

    “As the flames caught,” she continued, “I heard a voice yell ‘OPEN THE DOOR AND GET OUT OF THE CAR…. NOW!’”

    She went on to tell me that her life had been totally changed by that event. I thought to myself that was an understatement. There was no person who yelled. She recognized the voice as god, an angel, or some divine guide.

    As though proof of these changes and her true value, she reached in her purse and produced a photograph of a red-haired, blue-eyed toddler sitting on the most realistic rocking horse I have ever seen. “I have a daughter now… My daughter knows she is loved,” her voice trailed off wistfully as she placed the photo back in her purse.

    “There are other people who feel like no one cares but it is not true. I would not be here today had it not been for that voice… Someone cares. Call it what you want. I am living proof someone cares about each of us.”

    “I don’t really remember what I looked like before,” she added with twisted grin, “but I love this face.”

    When she had doused the car with gasoline, climbed in behind the steering wheel, and struck the match, her previous face had melted away like a candle burning in the August wind.

    This face. A face made from other body parts: abdomen ears, underarm eyes, back-of knee nose, and labia lips: this definitely was no ordinary face.

  • Winter Wonderland

    As a writer, generating material is as easy as paying attention to the burr beneath your saddle. On January 5 of this year wishing our granddaughter happy birthday pulled me back 19 years to the day she was born. The words “winter wonderland” — one of the nicknames for Michigan, my home state, were not the first on my lips.

    Drifts were piled outside that rivaled the summit of Mt. Everest. Visibility was reduced to the nose in front of my face. Temperatures had plummeted so low the gas line in our car was frozen solid even while it was parked in the garage.

    We were not getting to Tennessee for our granddaughter’s birth.

    January 5 that year I cried all day.

    There are times in our lives when our human efforts are just not enough to bring about what we want. I could not clear the roads, and I could not stop my granddaughter’s timed entry into this world.

    For several years our family has drawn names and made hand-crafted gifts. This past Christmas, I got my granddaughter’s name. I designed a deck of cards, and a companion book of inspired writings to correspond with each card, based loosely on the symbolism in a Tarot deck.

    Yesterday I received a gifted copy of The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, by Diane Lockward. Our poetry group has begun working through this wonderful book. As I opened to the first chapter, our assignment, I read:

    Those who have caused us early pain and loneliness, the sources of our art: should we detest them or kiss their feet? ~ Wesley McNair

    A tear formed in the corner of my eye as I read my granddaughter’s words in response to my happy birthday message. “I’m so thankful that you’re my Gammie…”

    To which I replied, “And I’m so thankful that you’re my granddaughter. Sometime today or tomorrow draw a card from ‘Courtney’s Cards’ and see what the message is for your birthday. You can share that with me!”

    “I’d love to.”

    She picked the King of Spades.
    “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good; but that God will make us good because he loves us.” ~ C.S. Lewis

    Amen.

    I am symbolically kissing the feet of the snow that has piled around my home this week this year freezing the water line into the house. Even the most bitter of our days will thaw out and the difficult will be made easy. Spring always follows winter…

  • A New Home

    This morning as I am so grateful for making time to get my fingers on the keyboard as my “to-do-list” grows longer and my time-table grows shorter. I notice how relevant that is to all those who are in their later years. I have lived 67 years, and in this body probably do not have 67 more. We have our home of 40 years scheduled to go onto the market today and have purchased an 1120 square foot home in a 55 and over park literally right around the corner. The simultaneity of the sacred and the mundane dancing across the moments we call time have my eyes leaking and my heart aching in its perfection….

    As we paint, clean, pack, (See Garage Floor!) we witness miracle upon miracle in the journey of John’s brother, Jim, who is journeying through metastatic cancer. From the ease and timing of finding of our new home to a vivid pray without ceasing demonstration the lines blur between now and then, here and there, alive and dead, mortal and immortal.

    We are living Harry Chapin’s Circle song. I hope you will take time to listen.

    As I have said before, we are living a charmed life. Last evening we said goodbye to an antique china cabinet that had sat in our kitchen for 25 years. It belongs to a friend, Doris. We kept it for her when she went through a divorce and had no place for it. That cabinet had belonged to her grandmother. There is now floor space in my kitchen, and I can feel my mother smiling to see her carnival glass gleaming in the light of our new home.

    Yesterday afternoon my yoga teacher and another friend met me at the new house for yoga. We offered gratitude for Ursel, the woman who had made that house her home for 31 years. We reminded ourselves we were on holy ground. After I packed each piece of glassware carefully in washcloths (no need to wash the dishes like you have to if you pack them in newspaper) John brought his guitar and played and sang as they were moved into the built-in china cabinet at the new house. Every action is intimate with thoughts and prayers regarding Jim and the unfolding of our shared destiny. The best way to share this holy thought is to let you read a journal entry by Krista Meyer, Jim’s daughter, posted about 7:00 pm Saturday, the 4th of July, 2017.

    Blessings

    Sometimes God just surprises you with an unexpected miracle.

    After nearly 48 hours of not being able to speak or communicate with anyone, Dad suddenly started talking this afternoon! Kurt and Heather and Sam and Ben were here, along with Uncle Jerry and Aunt Jeanne, Uncle John, and some of our kids. We had an amazing time of talking and laughing and visiting! I’ve attached one of the videos I took of Dad talking to our nephew, Craig, and Hannah and Jonny.

    I sent this message to my cousin:

    Everyone else left and I was sitting in the room with mom and dad. Mom went over to Dad’s bed and said, “I’m so proud of you! Are you proud of me too?” Dad replied, “Yeah!” Mom asked why he was proud of her and he said, “Because you’re the best wife in the world!”

    I can’t get over what a huge miracle this is. Over the past couple of days, my heart was hurting for him because I wondered if he had things he wanted to say to mom, especially, but hadn’t said them before he lost the chance. And mom said this morning when she went home for a bit, she had a meltdown and was telling God she missed hearing Dad’s voice and wished she could hear him talk again. She came back an hour later and he was talking!

    However long it lasts, whatever lies ahead, we are thanking God for this amazingly wonderful gift. Trying to remember to carve our blessings in marble and write our trials in sand. ❤️

    Once in a while, we witness what has been there all along. The blessings we carve in stone today are of a new home and moments of life spent with those we love. Rabbits hop in my backyard now. May rabbits hop in the yard at the new house, too.

    Here are the lyrics to Harry Chapin’s Circle:
    All my life’s a circle;
    Sunrise and sundown;
    Moon rolls through the nighttime;
    ‘Til the daybreak comes around.
    All my life’s a circle;
    But I can’t tell you why;
    Season’s spinning round again;
    The years keep rollin’ by.
    It seems like I’ve been here before;
    I can’t remember when;
    But I have this funny feeling;
    That we’ll all be together again.
    No straight lines make up my life;
    And all my roads have bends;
    There’s no clear-cut beginnings;
    And so far no dead-ends.
    I found you a thousand times;
    I guess you done the same;
    But then we lose each other;
    It’s like a children’s game;
    As I find you here again;
    A thought runs through my mind;
    Our love is like a circle;
    Let’s go ’round one more time.
    I found you a thousand times;
    I guess you done the same;
    But then we lose each other;
    It’s like a children’s game;
    Songwriters: Harry Chapin
    Circle lyrics © Harry Chapin Foundation

  • Opinion Columnist

    I applied for the position of an “Opinion Columnist” in our local newspaper. A good friend/writer colleague had suggested I apply.

    It might seem odd to those who might think a committed spiritual person may not have a lot of interest in the things of the world, but that is untrue. We care deeply about all of life, and we recognize our life in this world as the richest venue for development of consciousness.

    Admittedly, spiritual practices are not the most commonly recognized ways of making a positive contribution.

    For example, this quotation by Lewis Thomas that was the WORD FOR THE DAY from Gratefulness.org today: Society evolves not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other. An entire program of Nonviolent Communication has been developed by Marshall Rosenberg.

    When I opened the Thought for Today from Deep Spring Center, Aaron’s words fit beautifully:

    When groups get together to make a statement such as about the war, it’s easy for the fear elements of the group to become the most loudly heard. Thus in your present world it is all the more important that those of you who have some clarity and know how to be present with your fear with spaciousness, step forth and become an active voice for a force of change, a true expression of soul force, or satyagraha. You must be willing to actively involve yourself with the world rather than withdrawing from the world, for it is only by the modeling of you who are more clearly that others can learn such clarity.

    Satyagraha is the idea of nonviolent resistance (fighting with peace) started by Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi used satyagraha in the Indian independence movement and also during his earlier struggle in South Africa.

    The best way to understand this idea is to be honest about what I am feeling. If I am feeling angry, I am adding anger to the pot. Fortunately, it is possible to desire change, to speak up against things like cruelty or injustice, and to do so with a heart of genuine love. I can even feel compassion for those I am calling forth a different behavior from.

    The Kusala Sutta from the Buddha speaks clearly to this idea:

    Abandon what is unskillful . . . One can abandon the unskillful. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do so. If this abandoning of the unskillful would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to abandon it. But as the abandoning of the unskillful brings benefit and happiness, Therefore, I say, ‘Abandon what is unskillful!’

    Cultivate that which is skillful. One can cultivate the skillful. If it were not possible, I would not ask you to do it. If this cultivation of the skillful would bring harm and suffering, I would not ask you to do it.

    I will let you know if I get the columnist position. It is a nonpaid job, but my opinion might just be very valuable.

    In the meantime, just remember it is possible!

  • Jeremy’s Baptism

    Today, I am attended the baptism of a young friend. Jeremy Charles is delightful!


    Jeremy Bubbles

    Jeremy’s Yaya is one of my dear friends, and I am so moved by her deep love and delight in him. He is thriving in the environment of her love, and I am thrilled for them to have found a spiritual community that welcomes and loves them.

    I confess to having some reservations about the traditional language often used in Christian Baptism, with a focus on the ritual as necessary because of “original sin.”

    Last December I wrote a contemporary ritual of infant baptism:

    Life is not immortal only for Christians. Immortal life for Christians is known through the Christ but it is not limited to any single religious path. In the traditions of the world religions this nature of the more of life beyond the body is common. Life goes on. To the Christian it is immortal life in Christ. To the Native Indian, to the Buddhist, to the indigenous peoples around the planet, it is expressed in different ways. But the fact that it is expressed in different ways does not mean that the reality is different.

    Life springs from that which is eternal and life is created in the image and likeness of that which is source to all of life. That image and likeness we are created in is spirit and spirit is eternal.

    In Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, writes: “Where does an ice cube go in a tub of warm water? You are the cube, God is the water. For a while you seem separate from the water, but eventually you melt – you die – and discover that you, too, are water. Have fun being a cube; just don’t forget that all cubes are water, and everything is God.”

    Baptism is a recognition of the true nature of our existence. We are part of that stream of eternal life. We come from God, and we return to God. We exist before birth, we exist after death. We ARE that I AM.

    Baptism has power, it is affirmative, it is positive. It is the most precious gift of God and comes to us because we seek first the kingdom of God, because that kingdom is our true home.

    In the September 2016 Beyond Mastery Newsletter, I share this quotation from a talk Pope Francis gave in Poland that was recently reported in our local newspaper: “People may judge you to be dreamers, because you believe in a new humanity, one that rejects hatred between peoples, one that refuses to see borders as barriers and can cherish it’s own traditions without being self-centered or small-minded.”

    Oh, this is a dream my heart shares…

    This morning, I recorded a short video of this hand puppet, a gift to Jeremy:


    Jeremy video snip

    The inspiration for the video came from a story Yaya shared with me recently. She and Jeremy had been talking, and he told her she was in his heart and he was in her heart. A few days later, driving past my new office, Jeremy announced, “That’s Debra’s office.”

    Yaya was amazed. Jeremy had only been to that office once, briefly, weeks earlier. She asked him, “How do you remember where Debra’s office is when you have only been there one time?”

    His precious response: “Because Debra is in my heart and I am in Debra’s heart.”

    You certainly are in my heart, Jeremy Charles, and I am honored to be in yours. And as our beloved puppet friend shares with you in this video, we are all also in God’s heart. We always have been. We always will be. That is just the truth about God.

  • October 7

    Sacred Stories

    Her husband had passed over 20 years prior. When she passed shortly before midnight on Sunday, October 4, the family was not thinking about his birthday coming up in a few days.

    As the schedule for visitation, funeral, and burial unfolded, none of them were consciously aware of the significance: Her burial took place on what would have been his 98th birthday: October 7!

    Love is the only possession
    which we can carry with us
    beyond the grave.
    ~ Suzanne Curchod

  • Kitty Cat Love

    She received a request for prayer support from a friend. Her friend’s partner was facing heart surgery. Before responding to the request, she sat quietly thinking about his upcoming surgery, and holding her friend in love and support.

    As she sat there, she kept having the sense of a cat. When she sent an email back, she included that information.

    “I have an image of you being held by I’m going to say a kitty cat’s love. I have never known you to have a cat, but that’s the image that came through. I love cats, so it’s possible that my joy at their purr would be part of supporting you, too.”

    This response came back: “We had to put down my beautiful 20 year-old cat this winter, who had shiny long black fur & green eyes. And always purr, purr, purred.”
    black cat