Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: painting

  • A Cloudy Day

    The past few days have unfolded very differently from my plans. I had expected to share fish-fry with Linda and Larry and Linda and Fred and play Hand-and-Foot on Friday evening, and to make vegetable beef soup with my mother’s cornbread for dinner on Saturday with Janis and Larry. I planned a visit with Delcy Kuhlman on Monday morning (to see the new retreat space already sporting a bed). The bed is on loan. She says the veneer has slivered off the headboard, revealing the image of an angel. Jane Foster was scheduled to come for lunch on Wednesday.

    Each of those wonderfully wanted experiences were crossed off my calendar when we received a text from Lora at 8:21 am Friday, “Asking for your prayers. John and I have tested positive for COVID.” John and John had gone out for coffee on Thursday morning and in the evening John and I had been with John for about 40 minutes.

    Normally there are 12-20 people at the Thursday jam. When no one else showed up for the jam, we went home.

    On Wednesday the CDC updated Covid exposure protocol. Ten days of precaution: first five – isolation or being with others only with a proper medically-approved mask, even if no symptoms test on day 6, and if negative, continue to mask until day 10. Thursday was our Day Zero.

    Day 1, Friday, August 12, 2022:
    Well before noon, I was painting paneling in the great room.


    Perhaps the job was begun a bit too impulsively since I was using only the paint left over from the previous kitchen cabinet project, without any primer. That paneling was soaking up paint like a lawn after a six-week drought when the rains come…

    I had the wherewithal to stop.

    Friday evening, after a conference call with Larry Britton, I knew I needed to put on gloves and a mask, and make a trip to Sherwin Williams before continuing. I needed supplies.

    I’ve begun reading The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright, in which the main character, Sang Ly, learns to read with the hope of creating a way out of their current living conditions: they live in and survive by picking through garbage in Cambodia’s largest municipal dump.

    Day 2, Saturday, August 13, 2022:
    Saturday morning at 8 o’clock I called Sherwin Williams to say I did not have Covid, but would be coming into the store in gloves and a mask because I had been exposed. “Laney” said that was okay. She did keep her distance, and as she carried the two gallons to my car she told me in two weeks she was going on her first vacation in two years. I told her I understood completely and that was why I could not come in without calling first.

    The name of paint color is Cultured Pearl. According to Wikipedia, cultured pearls are formed within a cultured pearl sac with human intervention in the interior of productive living molluscs in a variety of conditions depending upon the mollusc and the goals.[1] Just as the same as natural pearls, cultured pearls can be cultivated in seawater or freshwater bodies. Nowadays, over 95% of the pearls available on the market would be cultured pearls.

    By dinner time, two walls were painted and everything in the area cleaned and furniture put properly placed!

    Day 3, Sunday, August 14, 2022:

    “That is a wonderful lesson, Sang Ly. Remember it.”

    “What was it again?” I ask, not certain to what she is referring.

    She repeats it for me. “In literature, everything means something.”

    We open the pages and read.

    ~ The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright

    It is cloudy today. My knees and hips are sore from all of the squatting. This is a low job…. I am not sure if I will take the day off or persevere.

    I had anticipated Friday, August 12, 2022. Sixty years earlier, when I was twelve years old, my dad and I were in a serious auto accident — an accident in which I had an out-of-body near death experience (NDE) that has shaped my view of the world. I had expected to write, to ride my bike, to give space to be on a very inner journey. I certainly had not anticipated painting paneling.

    A poem gives rise on the page in my journal.

      A Cloudy Day

      Daily light replaces darkness
      and light begats light
      Where nothing reflected
      now everything does

      Oh, for sure
      you can see perfections
      formerly hidden
      now quite obvious
      but soooooo worth it

      Seeing all in the light
      even the flaws
      are lovely
      each adds an element
      of uniqueness, telling a tale

      Today the sun is hidden
      clouds rule the sky
      But still the sun shines
      and the light is, only
      waiting to reveal its gloriousness

      The sun still shines
      even on a cloudy day

      ~ Debra Basham, August 14, 2022

    P.S. Word came last evening from Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul, that his beloved, Linda Francis, transitioned on August 6. Linda Beushausen Gunter and I had the honor of spending a day with them some years back. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

      My Dear Spiritual Partner,

      Linda Francis, my Beloved, my spiritual partner, my life partner, my co-creator in everything, my co-author, my inspiration and model, completed her journey through the Earth school on August 6. Her soul returned home to nonphysical reality. When a soul decides to return home, nothing can stop it. I saw this happen before my eyes. Linda was at my side in our kitchen when the stroke came. Within hours an experienced surgeon had attempted three times to remove the clot in her brain, yet it could not be removed.

      I am still reeling. Each time I turn to say something to Linda and realize that she is not here to answer me, and each time I rush home with groceries to be with her again and remember that she will not be there when I arrive, and countless experiences like these are each a source of great pain for me and also an opportunity to create authentic power. Each hurts a lot before I recognize it for what it is – a frightened part of my personality – and move my attention away from “what ifs” and “if onlys” to what is actually happening in the moment, and toward an opportunity to love, to support, to contribute.

      This is not over for me, and it is probably not over for you. I and our precious support team will send you some practical thoughts and suggestions over the next few weeks so you can practice transforming your experiences into opportunities to create authentic power. You will receive your first emails next week. I invite you to experiment with them and to let me know at garyzukav@seatofthesoul.com what happens.

      I hope you are healthy and joyful and appreciating the power and beauty of each moment.

      Linda joins me in sending you love.

      Love,
      Gary

  • Listen to the Trees


    This quotation by William Blake was hand lettered beautifully onto the whiteboard hanging on the wall. A fortunate few gathered at the Pine Island public library last evening for a presentation by Zan Henegan Lombardo—artist, poet, friend, and teacher extraordinaire.

    Once in a while, you are soooooo blessed to be part of something organic, unimaginable, and magnificent. Previously, I have written about Zan’s first 30-foot watercolor painting. Now she has done it again, this time with a piece about some of my favorite sentient beings: trees.

    Here is the dazzling 4 foot by 30 foot painting, titled, “Dance of All This,” when it was hanging in the round at the Sydney and Byrne Davis Art Center, 2301 First St, Fort Myers, Florida:

    And, shared with her permission, Zan’s amazing poem that goes along with the new painting:


    Listening to the Lights in the Trees

    With forehead pressed against the trunk
    Where the music is embedded,
    I make this request: “Please, sing to me about your angels.”

    The slender tree responds with percussive impulse,
    Pushing me squarely back,
    Flaying my chest, exposing my heart,
    Invisible wings flexing from shoulder blades.
    A cacophony of sounds and light flash through me,
    Full on,
    Indecipherable.

    I back off.
    Old trees offer more seasoned melodies, I hope.

    Gingerly stepping over gnarly roots to a
    Welcoming section with thicker waist,
    Gently placing my brow in contact with the weathered bark,
    Silently, I ask.

    This time I find myself in the heart of God,
    Wings still flexing from my shoulders.
    And the messenger says,
    “The ballad is more than can be sung
    In a single verse.
    Our angels require you sit
    In communion with us
    Throughout your life
    In order to internalize the lyrics
    Of that which you desire.

    It’s complicated.”

    –Zan Lombardo, 2018

    Zan led us in an exercise about listening, during which were asked to share a memorable experience we have had with a tree. Mine was from the 1970’s, when I was a camp counselor at Lake Louise United Methodist Camp, in Boyne Falls, Michigan. The theme of the week was ‘Acclimatization.’

    The activities were designed so we experienced ourselves as a part OF nature, rather than a part FROM nature. We worked with a partner, who guided us safely in the woods. We were invited to listen, and let a tree call to us. We remained with that tree for some time, practicing hearing it, before being led out of the woods.

    Once safely at the edge of the woods, our blindfold was removed, and we were invited to use our new-found listening skills to return to our tree. I did that! It was truly amazing.

    We were asked by Zan to inner listen and go stand by the section of the painting that spoke to us. This is the section that was speaking to me:

    You can listen to trees. Trees are sentient beings.