Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: spirit

  • Shaman Woman

    I got to join my friend, Carol L. Myers, artist extraordinaire, for a gallery walk. Carol’s work is being featured in a one-woman show at the Box Factory for the Arts. Here is Carol:


    Carol’s Solo Art Exhibition, which is titled Embodied: Embracing Spirit, is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

    Here I am in front of Carol’s “Shaman Woman” quilt, which lives on the massage table in the office at 815 Main Street:


    Today like every other day
    We wake up empty and scared.
    Don’t open the door of your study
    And begin reading.
    Take down a musical instrument.
    Let the beauty we love be what we do.
    There are hundreds of ways to kneel
    And kiss the earth.

    Rumi

    Having witnessed Carol’s finding her voice and being able to articulate about her art has been a great honor.

    Wayne Dyer said, “Don’t die with the music still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul.”

    Carol L. Myers is a woman who is doing that….

  • Mulling About the Mundane

    I am working on the theme of Mundane Made Holy for the Mother’s Day service at Pilgrim United Church of Christ. That had me checking online for antonyms for ‘mundane.’ Here are just a few:
    One rainy morning this week, I was moved near tears with gratitude for being able to walk over to the little community center and ride the stationary bicycle. It is not always possible to do what you really desire, but life continuously provides us with wonderful options. I could have grumbled about not being able to ride outdoors in the warmth and sunshine.

    Walking home, as I went past the home one of our neighbors, Mark, I was again awash with gratitude. Shortly after we moved in, Mark came over and helped John with the demo and construction of our new deck. It was hot. The work was hard. We did not know Mark, and he certainly did not owe us anything. Some internal sense of willingness moved him to this generosity of time and energy.


    I hope you can see the list of opposites to the word mundane and find yourself inspired.

    Mother Teresa is given credit for having said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

    This is how you make the mundane holy….

  • Ambiguous Loss

    Last week was a week with loss. Good Friday, the husband of a client/friend/colleague passed. Holy Saturday, the father of a business acquaintance passed. Easter Sunday, a loyal member of Saint Joseph Buddhist Sangha passed. A Buddhist teacher invited me to use the 49 day ceremony.

    49 Day Ceremony

    When someone passes away, in addition to a funeral service that usually occurs three or seven days after the death, we have a ceremony on the 49th day. Traditionally, the period of 49 days after someone dies is seen as a time for that person to check their consciousness and digest their karma. According to Buddhist teaching the bodhisattva Ji Jang Bosal helps the deceased during these 49 days to perceive their karma so when they return they are reborn to help this world, rather than continue in the cycle of birth and death. Buddhism teaches that there is a life in this body, then a time of investigation or consideration, and then a new life …

    Loss is such a raw part of human life.

    Listening to a TED talk by Nora McInerny, I was moved to laughter and to tears. McInerny is the author of The Hot Young Widows Club: Lessons on Survival from the Front Lines of Grief.

    McInerny said something members of our Grief Journey Group have said to one another over and over for over twenty years: We don’t move on from grief, we move forward with it.

    The next day, opening the May 2019 Guideposts, I see, ‘A Different Kind of Grief’ by B’ette Schalk. Schalk felt she lost her husband to anxiety and depression, writing, “Gone was the vibrant man I’d fallen in love with 24 years earlier, the man who liked going to parties and playing cards.” The article closes with a single page with 5 headings of great wisdom for caregivers: How to Cope With Ambiguous Loss.

      How to Cope With Ambiguous Loss

      Put a name to it.
      Use “both…and” thinking.
      Accept that good enough is enough.
      Manage your mixed emotions.
      Imagine new hopes and dreams.

    Ambiguous loss is what my friend is living as her husband is in a facility for those with Alzheimer’s disease.

    Ambiguous loss is felt by students afraid to be at school for fear of a mass shooting.

    Ambiguous loss is felt in the aging and staging of life.

    On the light side of 40, she recently shared with me she had read on a website about cancer that having cancer was like living with a loaded gun pointed at your head. You did not know when it would go off, but you knew it would.

    Ah, ambiguous loss….

    Whether it is our youth, our goals, our jobs, our homes, our health, our strength, our courage, or our loved ones, or our memories, we all navigate the waters of ambigious loss.

    The best way I can think to close this post is with this Deep Spring Center Thought for Today:

    “Your loved one is not dead, only he has left his human form. He is now expressing himself through you, through your growing open heart that can allow itself the experience of grief and allow that grief to become a catalyst for compassion. He is expressing himself through you in all the ways he spoke to you in your life, the joys and the sorrows. He is expressing himself through every human that he touched in this lifetime. And he is in the soil and the stars and the rain and the sun. You cannot lose him.” ~ Aaron

    Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me nor mine.

  • Learn the Tables

    Recently I wrote a poem titled ‘Longing’ that was inspired by an exchange with a dear friend that left me feeling less than valued, wondering if I should have, or could have, done something differently in our past to allow for a more pleasant current exchange.

    Sitting heart-to-heart with another precious friend a week or so later, I was stunned to have her say to me, “You are more invested in saving my marriage than I am.”

    Later, as I was writing in my journal, some clarity came about all of this, inspired in part by the Thought for Today from Deep Spring Center.

    You as a world are inviting conflict but then not doing the needed practice with it, so you must invite it again and again. You are like the child in school doing endless multiplication table drills; they are unpleasant but you have not studied the tables, and will not, so the teacher repeats the drills. Your inattention calls forth the repetition. If you wish the drills to cease, learn the tables.
    ~ Aaron

    The “D” stands for Debra, and the “V” stands for the voice of wisdom I call Holy Spirit, from my journal entry:

    D: I know the truth that ‘wherever you go, there you are.’ If she is so easily offended because he yelled at her, she will encounter that energy again. It is today’s quotation from Aaron about calling difficulties to us over and over to learn what we need to know.

    V: If you had a lesson you are still learning that expresses itself in the ‘Longing’ poem, what might that lesson be?

    D: Take nothing personally. I am not responsible for another person’s emotional state.

    Note—As I wrote these words on to the journal page, I could feel something leaving my energy!

    V: What else?

    D: Wonderings are a symptom of not being present moment where I can gently say, “Oh, this is that old habit energy. I know you. Come, sit, have tea. I’ve been expecting you.” *

    V: Tell all who know. They all know. Love, Holy Spirit

    A very wonderful message on an Easter morning.

    Going right along with that, was the quotation, “When humanity awakens, it will move beyond time,” which came from the Brahma Kumaris with this image:

    *This is a reference to the stories of Milarepa (c. 1052 – c. 1135 CE), one of Tibet’s most famous yogis and poets.

  • Holy Notre-Dame

    WORD FOR THE DAY

    I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,
    acutely miserable…but through it all
    I still know quite certainly that
    just to be alive is a grand thing.

    Agatha Christie
    Visit Gratefulness.org/

    This week’s news out of Paris was shocking, and of all times to have it be Holy Week for humanity to experience such a devastating loss of such history and magnificence and relevance and beauty. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame destroyed by fire.

    Reminding ourselves of impermanence at times like this, we could/should read all of my blog posts rolled into one message. The message essentially is Agatha Christie’s: Just to be alive is a grand thing.

    We might start with Does the tree still live in your heart? and Tree of Hope.

    Then move back to Hey, Ma Durga. The following quotation is from that:

    “My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came in this earth, I was the same. As a little girl, I was the same. I grew into womanhood, but I was still the same. When the family In which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, I was the same… And, in front of you now, I am the same. Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same.”

    Nothing—NO THING—lasts forever. We know that, and yet we deal with loss as though it is some sort of personal punishment.

    Yes, it is loss. Yes, it is sad. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is painful.

    But we do not have to suffer.

    We suffer because of our subtle judgment, the way we tell the story in our own heart and mind. Today’s Thought for Today from Deep Spring Meditation Center explains that well.

    Deep Spring Center
    Thought for Today

    Subtle judgment is caught up in the story that contracts and says,
    ‘I’m not good at this’ or,
    ‘I should be able to do it better.’

    I might look at it and say,
    ‘I can do it better.’

    That’s not a judgment.

    I know I CAN do it better.

    Can you feel the difference?

    ‘I should be able to do it better.’ Tightness, tension.

    ‘I can do it better,’ is a relaxed and spacious perception.

    ~ Aaron

    I have been dealing with Comcast this week, updating router, cable box, and DVR. It took me five trips to the store, and many hours on the phone to finally get everything working. Right in the middle of all of that frustration (and I was feeling frustrated!), I knew nothing that was happening was eternal.

    Whatever is happening, watch the stories you tell yourself about what is happening.

    Make this a truly HOLY WEEK. Give up suffering….

  • I Could Smell Him

    Sacred Stories

    She and her mom were both still reeling from the death of her brother, who was a senior in high school.

    One day her mom said, “Did you smell him? I could smell him….”

    It was such a new thing for both of them. They knew what they smelled.

    “Yes,” she said to her mom, “I smelled him too.”

    (One of the more common ways the spirit of a loved one can manifest when it is near, is scent.)

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Answered Prayer

    Sacred Stories

    Her husband was being cared for in a facility, due to advanced Alzheimer’s disease. She was feeling some concern about her upcoming scheduled time away.

    Before going to visit him that day, she said a little prayer, asking if he was doing OK.

    His communication essentially had become “word salad.” The term word salad refers to random words or phrases linked together in an often unintelligible manner.

    During that visit, her husband burst out in a spontaneous clear declaration, “I don’t have anything to be concerned about!”

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Butterflies….

    Sacred Stories

    People often see butterflies, and butterflies are symbols of new life.

    So many butterflies….

    She knew they were messengers, telling her he was with her.

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life.

    Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • Simon and Garfunkel

    Sacred Stories

    She was shopping for some special gifts.

    The shop was quiet when she entered, but soon Simon and Garfunkel began to play.

    She had to breathe deeply and hold it together.

    She’d just left a session doing profound healing work around her mother’s death.

    Simon and Garfunkel was her mother’s favorite group. She knew this was a message of confirmation and love….

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.

  • “Dad”

    Sacred Stories

    Her dad had lived with her for about 5 months before he passed.

    The bedroom set in the guestroom where he stayed, had belonged to his sister.

    After he passed, she put a few of his belongings in the bottom drawer, but the handles have since broken off and she cannot get the drawer open.

    Perhaps that is the reason that room smells like her dad….

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.