Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: synchronicity

  • How Now Shall We Live

    On October 17, 2024, a dharma sister sent an email sharing about a free on Youtube documentary titled “Living in the Time of Dying” a film by Michael Shaw that is 53 minutes and 31 seconds on the ‘how then shall we live’ about the climate crisis, but also about so much more.

    The email came while I was on retreat, and then Stacey was here for a fast-paced week, and then preparations to go south for the winter began in earnest. This morning I have watched this beautiful documentary that breaks my heart. Now fingers to the keyboard, I am feeling perfect timing of watching on this evening before the polarized U.S. Presidential election. I think if you will watch it you would agree that the parallels are obvious.

    Catherine Ingram, an international dharma teacher has an impressive biography and you can watch her TED talk Courage and Acceptance in Troubled Times.

    Stan Rushworth is a teacher of Native American Literature, and the author of Sam Woods: American Healing (Station Hill Press, New York 1992), Going to Water: The Journal of Beginning Rain (Talking Leaves Press, Freedom, CA 2014), and Diaspora’s Children (Hand To Hand Publishing, Topanga, CA 2020). Stan says, “This is the end of life as we know it…. This is something that native people have been dealing with since the colonists came…. We have a sacred obligation of how to be in these times.”

    “You’ve got to be okay in the uncertainty and the emotional difficulty. We’ve got to be okay ourselves and with each other. That’s okay. That’s normal to be confused and to feel pain in this context. And learn how to hold each other in that and in that calmer way.” ~ Professor Jem Bendell

    Lyrics in “Boogie Street” by Leonard Cohen:
    So come, my friends, be not afraid
    We are so lightly here
    It is in love that we are made
    In love we disappear

    Perhaps this truly is how now we shall live.

  • Sunday Hawk Sighting

    They had worked together years ago.

    Their friendship continued for 40 years.

    Every Sunday morning they would talk on the phone.

    Friday, October 25, his friend died.

    On Sunday morning, October 27, as he was driving to the pharmacy to get his medication, the biggest hawk he had ever seen was in the road. That hawk did not move. He had to drive around it. He immediately recognized the sign.

    Hawks are known as the protectors and messengers. His friend loved hawks and had a hawk tattooed on his arm!

  • Better Than Ever

    On Wednesday, October 23, 2024, when she went to the hospital to visit her husband, he said to her, “I am so sorry I missed our anniversary.”

    She told him he had not missed their anniversary, it was coming up on October 31.

    He died on Friday, October 25….

    A couple of days later, as she sorted some paperwork, a sheet fell out: you are better than ever.


    She got a brochure in the mail featuring Backroads 2025 Women’s Adventures.


    She looked at the words on a painted rock: What if… everything you’re going through right now is preparing you for a dream bigger than you can imagine.

    She feels him right there with her guiding, coaching, and encouraging. Both of them better than ever.

  • Cody: Forever Loving

    Cody: Forever Loving

    Checking in with the teachers and his small group while at a meditation retreat, he shared he would be leaving group early to go home for a few hours. A veterinarian was coming to assist their beloved dog, Cody, to freedom from suffering.

    He recorded the group chanting as support for him and his wife and their fur friend and, “All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you….”

    He was told how others in this group had been supported by this chant as a loved one died. Several times the person’s passing occurred while a retreat or workshop was happening.

    He found the chant very helpful each time he heard it and once during the chanting he expressed to Cody that he was free and did not have to stay around to support him. He had a clear sense of Cody responding, “I am chanting it to you!”


    From The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers, by Tami Simon: “The pain of her death was exquisite. I cried for weeks, but felt an incredible joy and comfort that was an equal part of the grief. I was so grateful that I had spent time with her — only with her, fully present and joyful.” (p.163)

    RIP Cody…. Forever loving.

  • The Perfect Week for a Retreat

    I leave for Holly, Michigan, where I will attend a silent meditation retreat titled “Remembering our Awakened Essence” with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr from Deep Spring Center for Meditation, and sangha sisters and brothers from all over the world. The retreat will be held at The Maryville Retreat Center. This week Barbara’s husband, Hal, had a heart attack and has been hospitalized, receiving a pacemaker. Many know Hal previously had a gravely serious stroke and has been being cared for in their home since Covid. John Orr lives in Alexander, North Carolina, very near Asheville, where hurricane Helene has left his area with roads out, power down, and horrific destruction.

    There is a lot going on.

    This is not my first rodeo. I have been to MANY week-long silent retreats with this group, but due to the pandemic it has been five years (October 2019 being the last) since I attended a residential retreat. I definitely feel like a newbie. And a lot of rain and cool is forecast. Likely not going to be easy distraction by walking the beautiful campus.

    Plus, there is a lot going on this week.

    1. John will be staying alone for the first time since he had open heart surgery and the TIA from noon Sunday until Stacey arrives Thursday late afternoon.
    2. Our neighbor (Joe) is having heart valve surgery on Wednesday.
    3. Friends are navigating the losses and messes following Hurricane Milton.
    4. Our friend (Molly) is having a pacemaker.
    5. Our friend (Nancy) is turning 80.
    6. My long-time client and friend (Jane) is experiencing colon bleeding that cannot be surgically repaired. It is a complication from radiation therapy.
    7. Our country is approaching a Presidential Election that has amplified differences of opinions without highlighting the truth that we are interconnected.

    In the busyness of preparations for going on retreat, I took time yesterday to watch a video of Tara Brach with Dan Harris. Here are a few nuggets I am taking with me, and since you will be going with me in my heart, from “Timeless Heart Wisdom for our Times.”

      The most compelling and sacred work of these times is bridging divides.

      Unless we are seeking the well-being of all we are going to end up in some way perpetuating the suffering of our times.

      The Zen Masters say the most important thing is remembering the most important thing.

      Ours is a relational universe of aliveness that we’re inextricably a part of that’s influencing us that we are influencing that we are to pay attention to that in a way that is not abstract.

      The felt sense of that changes everything.

    It is probably obvious some of the reasons why I am nervous about turning off my phone and not checking for calls or texts or emails.

    It is also probably obvious why this is the perfect week for a silent meditation retreat….

  • Milton’s Mayhem and Message

    Last evening we had dinner with two long-time friends. One friend lost her winter home on Pine Island two years ago to Hurricane Ian. As Hurricane Milton is crossing the Gulf of Mexico right now barrelling toward Florida we have friends who are year-round on the island. It felt good for us to gather here in our tiny house and enjoy hearty soup and savory salads. And fresh-baked bread.

    The other friend and I will be attending a residential retreat all of next week. She said the retreat comes at an ideal time for her as she is so wrapped up in the political stuff and global conditions.

    This morning I sent both of them the opening words of our Florida meditation group who meets online each Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 pm EST. The leader hosted this gathering in her home on Pine Island for several decades until she moved into a senior living center on the mainland. At the time of yesterday’s Zoom gathering, she was there in her apartment.

    Her opening words were salve…. “It is a different feeling when I feel that if I don’t like what’s going on right now, I can change it. But the reality is that all I can do about that is change my attitude about it. I can’t necessarily change what’s actually happening. So it’s sort of humbling to sit here in this same space, but it looks much differently because, you know, all the windows are covered up, the doors are covered up. You can’t see out. There isn’t anybody out there to see anyway. So it’s quite a different reality.”

    Three of us online with her sat in our homes here in Michigan.

    One other friend online with us told us she was staying on Pine Island in the home of friends. The same home and the same friends with whom this friend survived Hurricane Ian two years ago. This friend’s home had been destroyed in Matlacha.

    This morning I wake to a text message from another friend who had spent a day with us on Pine Island before Hurricane Ian. He was sending a photo and this message, “With all that is going on in Florida sending you one of my guardian orbs.”


    Perfectly round orbs appearing in photos are often interpreted as signs of harmony and purity, believed to represent balanced energy and the presence of a peaceful spirit. Some see them as guardians or guides. They are thought to be evidence of the presence of our departed loved ones who are watching over us.

    A while later this morning as I opened email the loving messages continued.

      The world is a creation of our mind. Everything we experience happens in the mind. So there is no need to look outside. Everything is happening right here in our own minds. ~ The Daily Tejaniya

      Gain and loss, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, light and dark—these are seeming opposites. But nothing is truly an opposite but always part of everything else. What would joy be without sorrow? How would you recognize joy? How would you recognize the light if there were no sense of darkness? How would you know spaciousness if there were never contraction? But we must recognize the distinction between ultimate reality and those mundane objects that arise from conditions and pass away. Reflect on the beauty of light and love as ultimate realities, and how darkness and contraction arise out of conditions and pass away. ~ Aaron

    The opening words for our meditation time continued: “And although I know that this particular building, as you know, I’m on the sixth floor, which is the top floor, it’s poured concrete. So all the floors are concrete that’s twelve inches thick, and the walls are not quite that thick, but the outside walls are. Maybe it’s eight inches on the walls. And so it would have to be a really tremendous storm to take any of it out. And I just know that that’s not forthcoming. I don’t think we’ll really even know that it happened. And it will happen between tomorrow, between bedtime and midnight. So they say. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and I said, you know, you and I have had a nice long association in this lifetime, and if you never hear from me again, just know that I love you. And it threw her a bit for me to say that. And I was very conscious of what I was saying, because that’s always true. It’s not just because there’s a storm. It’s true for all of us today, right now. However, our lives usually are focused in a different direction. Thank goodness.”

    And as we settled into the stillness, these assurances were spoken: “Yes, this is comforting, and all of you are comforting. And I know that there are many others that are also. And hopefully they have found a place where they can express their own comfort. So if everyone is ready, shall we go into our meditation? So taking a couple of deep breaths, and just feel the breath as it fills our lungs. And exhale. And then with the next breath, fill the lungs as much as they were, and then add a little bit more. And I ask Spirit to be with us, the higher selves of each of us, to guide and protect us, acknowledging that that’s what they are doing all the time. And then as we take that deep breath, and a little more, know that every time we do this, we are a little more of who we are. I don’t know that it’s possible, well, let me put it some other way. I accept the possibility that when we take all we can that we are, and then we add a little more, that there will always be a little more. In the evolution of humanity, of life on this planet, I can imagine there’s always a little more. And it’s not necessarily definable, not something that we can describe. And yet there’s a sense within each of us that knows there’s a little more. So as we go into the silence today, into the uncertainty of how nature will conclude this day, we set an intention to be a little more.”

    May all beings find an end to stress and suffering. May all beings know peace.

  • Barrel Through It

    He decided to cut his exercise session short at only two sets. While doing that second set, the radio station came in loud and clear, “Ain’t no love in Oklahoma, just the whistle of a long black train….”

    Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma is the theme song for Tulsa King, an American crime comedy-drama television series which stars Sylvester Stallone playing Dwight, a member of the Mafia released from prison in New York and sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he begins to set up a criminal organization. He had recently watched the episode in which Dwight gives an impassioned speech about going forward.

    “You can’t go back once you’ve started this damn journey, you can only go forward. So, you have only got to choices. You get scared and you give up, and then you burn up. And the second one, you say F-it, F-it, F-it…. F-fear. And then you barrel through it. And when you come out on the other side I guarantee you are going to be stronger than you ever thought possible.” ~ Dwight

    That speech had motivated him to burn years of his late wife’s medical records.

    He made the choice to barrel through the rest of his exercise session….

  • Morning Star

    Instead of reading this morning, I decided to just sit by the picture window on the porch and watch the full moon through the trees. As I was watching, I got a reply I was not expecting. The sky lit up with a shooting star that came from east and headed west, and it was very high up. It traveled very slowly and very brightly way out over Chicago. And I took it as a sign, an affirmation.

    I was pondering, could my late wife have been affected by our visit to Ashwaubenon Creek and the Fox River years and years ago? When I showed her the river I think she remembered her grandfather. He is of Native American heritage. Her mother had that dark skin and dark hair and brown eyes.

    The meteorite I saw this morning reminded me of a morning star, Wahbenukqua. Wahbenukqua, which means Morning Star, and her husband, Ashwaubomay, lived on the South side of the Creek.

    There’s quite a story. When a young maiden was kidnapped, he found her. In appreciation, the Chief Standing Earth offered him his choice of two of the prettiest maidens in the village. He chose instead the youngest daughter of the Chief.

    Wahbenukqua and Ashwaubomay were friends with both Indians and Whites alike.

    I take that shooting star to be exactly that — an affirmation.


    Note* Ashwaubomay Park is an 84 acre park that is located at 2881 South Broadway. The land was purchased in 1972 and the park was developed in 1973-74. Ashwaubomay Park is named after “Chief Ashwaubomay” of the Menomonie and Ottawa Nations. The Village name is taken from Ashwaubomay who lived along the river and who is buried along the stream. You can read more about Wahbenukqua and Ashwaubomay at: Village History and Demographics.

  • Dressed by Love

    She was visiting her husband’s mother when a neighbor asked how she was about gently used clothing. A dear friend of the neighbor had died recently. “I have a few things that look like they would fit you,” the neighbor told her.

    They items fit perfectly, as though they were tailor-made for her! She felt such a connection to this woman she had not previously met. “It is like we are soul sisters,” she said.


      ~ Excerpt from “The Clothes of the Dead”, posted on October 13, 2021by Gail Crowther

      I’ve been thinking a lot recently about clothes of the dead. This is partly because I am writing about them, but also generally I’ve been thinking about the status of a dead person’s objects. I’m curious about their value and their meaning….

      Margaret Gibson writes eloquently about the powerful immediacy that clothes can offer us — sometimes containing a trigger of memory, sometimes a record of the past, often returning the dead to the spaces inhabited by the living. She says clothes mobilize our emotions because they are partly how the dead person chose to construct their identity. After their death, we are left with these fragments, which we can piece together to somehow reanimate, resurrect.

      In this sense then, clothes of the dead offer some sort of continuity.

      Three-Martini Afternoons at The Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton (20 April, 2021) by Gail Crowther: Simon & Schuster: New York.

  • Gateway to Freedom

    I have been finding dimes for a friend over a decade now. He had told his wife he would send her dimes from heaven because anyone could send pennies but she was worth more than anyone else. Immediately after I met her, I started finding (and saving) dimes for her.

    Soon after my dear friend died just two months ago, I found a quarter while out riding my bike. It was unusual to find a quarter and as I was picking it up, I heard my friend’s voice in my head say, “Your friend’s husband sends her dimes from heaven but I am going to send you quarters.”

    I found a second quarter. I told my friend’s husband all of this.

    He and I have begun doing a riding ritual as part of the grief journey and he was with me today. He spoke of her loss like a backpack that is weighing him down making it difficult for him to move forward. I suggested he might choose to set the backpack down.

    At that moment, we made a U-turn and I saw a quarter. I stopped to pick it up. Then I noticed there were two quarters! They were lying very near one another. He said, “One for you and one for me.”

    I made some comment about how I save them, and tucked both quarters into my coin purse before we rode on….

    Fishing them out of my coin purse now to put them into my jewelry drawer for safe keeping, I think he is right. I think the 2001 New York State quarter is for him.

    The New York State Quarter features the Statue of Liberty superimposed over an outline of the state along with the inscription “Gateway to Freedom.”