Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: respect

  • Tree of Hope

    Right after posting this blog, I was gifted a box of blank cards titled “Tree of Hope.”
    I am posting again, with the new title and with the front of the card now included.

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    “If you wish to live in (a certain city)
    what might block you from manifesting that move?
    Is there any question about your worthiness
    to live in a place that is most delightful to you?
    Any question about fear of getting what you want?
    The question here is not where you will live
    but how will you manifest the situation you seek,
    and that must be asked by,
    What blocks that manifestation?’
    Because when the blockage is gone
    then it can be allowed to manifest.”
    ~ Aaron

    Last week our big tree was removed. I have been sitting with the question Barbara Brodsky asked me about whether the tree still lives in my heart. (See my previous blog, “Does the tree still live in your heart?“) It took a few days to honor the intense sadness, but a couple of times I could see the empty space in the yard. I was able to feel an open space in my chest and abdomen. I was reminded of the way organs and limbs that have been removed remain energetically present. I also thought of all of the loved ones in spirit whom we feel and experience as here with us after the physical form is gone. My prayer became to allow my majestic tree to live in my heart.

    Monday afternoon our park owner stopped by our house because our water meter was needing some repair. After the repairs were made, I mentioned the removal of our tree. I told him how sad I had been over the removal. “I am not trying to get anyone in trouble, but you need to know that the tree workers told me they found no rot.”

    We walked out back together and stood together in the opening under the sun where the tree’s branches used to wave.

    “I am sorry,” he said, “I would have sworn this tree had rot in the crotch and was infested by ants.”

    Looking into his face, I shook my head, and repeated, “The workers told me they found no rot.”

    I felt the spirit of the tree bolster my heart as I continued, “This park is your business, but it is also our home. We need to be able to have open communication and to trust and respect one another.”

    “I could not agree more,” he replied. My heart felt his sincerity. It was as though the magnificent old tree was smiling at us. He, too, genuinely felt the loss. Maybe not his own loss, but definitely mine. He said he is still planning to remove other trees.

    “Is there something I could have done differently?” I ventured.

    “I have learned the importance of not dismissing a communication,” he said as we parted ways.

    I trust the old tree will continue communicating. I wish to live in a world where magnificent old trees and property managers recognize their value and contribution to our planet. I wish to live in a world where men listen to women and women forgive men when they don’t.

    It still remains what will become of the potential of the space here in our yard. A gazebo? A flowering tree? A small labyrinth? A fire pit?

    When we stop fighting with what is, we begin to see the infinite possibilities.

  • Infinite Possibilities

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    “If you wish to live in (a certain city)
    what might block you from manifesting that move?
    Is there any question about your worthiness
    to live in a place that is most delightful to you?
    Any question about fear of getting what you want?
    The question here is not where you will live
    but how will you manifest the situation you seek,
    and that must be asked by,
    What blocks that manifestation?’
    Because when the blockage is gone
    then it can be allowed to manifest.”
    ~ Aaron

    Last week our big tree was removed. I have been sitting with the question Barbara Brodsky asked me about whether the tree still lives in my heart. (See my previous blog, “Does the tree still live in your heart?“) It took a few days to honor the intense sadness, but a couple of times I could see the empty space in the yard. I was able to feel an open space in my chest and abdomen. I was reminded of the way organs and limbs that have been removed remain energetically present. I also thought of all of the loved ones in spirit whom we feel and experience as here with us after the physical form is gone. My prayer became to allow my majestic tree to live in my heart.

    Monday afternoon our park owner stopped by our house because our water meter was needing some repair. After the repairs were made, I mentioned the removal of our tree. I told him how sad I had been over the removal. “I am not trying to get anyone in trouble, but you need to know that the tree workers told me they found no rot.”

    We walked out back together and stood together in the opening under the sun where the tree’s branches used to wave.

    “I am sorry,” he said, “I would have sworn this tree had rot in the crotch and was infested by ants.”

    Looking into his face, I shook my head, and repeated, “The workers told me they found no rot.”

    I felt the spirit of the tree bolster my heart as I continued, “This park is your business, but it is also our home. We need to be able to have open communication and to trust and respect one another.”

    “I could not agree more,” he replied. My heart felt his sincerity. It was as though the magnificent old tree was smiling at us. He, too, genuinely felt the loss. Maybe not his own loss, but definitely mine. He said he is still planning to remove other trees.

    “Is there something I could have done differently?” I ventured.

    “I have learned the importance of not dismissing a communication,” he said as we parted ways.

    I trust the old tree will continue communicating. I wish to live in a world where magnificent old trees and property managers recognize their value and contribution to our planet. I wish to live in a world where men listen to women and women forgive men when they don’t.

    It still remains what will become of the potential of the space here in our yard. A gazebo? A flowering tree? A small labyrinth? A fire pit?

    When we stop fighting with what is, we begin to see the infinite possibilities.

  • Filter Bubbles

    The one you seek, is the one who seeks.
    Therefore, It’s not “I” who reads spiritual books;
    it is not “I” who sits ZAZEN,
    paying attention to body, BREATH, and mind.
    IT is not “I” who let’s go of everything, but THIS, only THIS!
    ~ Jerry Ashmore, posted in Empty Circle Zen Group

    Most of us are aware of algorithmic editing at some level. All information we access is filtered according to a predetermined “sorting.” The news is full of Russia’s manipulation of social media (Facebook) and the hidden criteria of search engines (Google). Even if you are not new to the truth and implications, check out Eli Pariser’s TED talk about filter bubbles.

    Pariser says the key threat is this: “If I search for something, and you search for something, even right now at the very same time, we may get very different search results… And you know, the funny thing about this is that it’s hard to see. You can’t see how different your search results are from anyone else’s.”

    The biggest algorithmic editing risk might just be to our relationships. What if we have family and friend “filter bubbles” operating and we don’t even notice? Sky Nelson-Isaacs has looked at a model for synchronicity based on a process called “meaningful history selection.” His book, Living in Flow: The Science of Synchronicity and How Your Choices Shape Your World, is due out in the spring of 2019.

    This is so alive, so organic, so vital. Our brains operate just like these search engines: our thoughts and emotions are generated by our memories, and then our experiences are generated by our expectations. I don’t see you as you. I see you as my history of you. I don’t experience you as you, I experience you as I expect you. I am co-creating you in my image of you.

    Of course, as Jerry Ashmore wrote, “YOU” and “I” don’t exist on the ultimate level of reality. Even at the relative level we can see this is truth. We can look at our hand and see all of the fingers and we know the fingers are a part of the hand. We know the hand is also part of the body. Everything and everyone is part of everything and everyone.

    A precious friend has a life-long history of difficult interactions with a sister that has resulted now in a choice to “put her out of my life.” Conversations with my friend are around my hope/wish/insistence we can access genuine freedom inside buy changing how we look at things.

    Experience the bliss of Self-Respect and give respect to others at all times. When I am prejudiced against another, my narrow vision and small heart lower my self-dignity and self-worth.

    If you are insulted by another person, and you become angry in response, the sin is the anger which you create not the insult. You are asleep to the truth that you just hurt yourself, and that you are the creator of your anger not the other person. And now you have a recording in your consciousness that contains an image of the other surrounded by the energy of anger. You put it there, not them. Next time you see them, up comes the anger again, and in that moment you are at your least effective, paralyzed by self created anger, you are effectively out of the game until you cool down.

    “Thought for Today” ~ Brahma Kumaris