Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: The Boxcar Children

  • Fairy Wands & Making Magic

    The Secret Garden was written by English-American author and playwright Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924). It was originally serialized in The American Magazine in 1909 and 1910 and was then published as a book in 1911.

    Originally published in 1924, The Boxcar Children is a children’s book series originally created and written by the American first-grade school teacher, Gertrude Chandler Warner.

    As a youngster, these were my two all-time favorite books, and I finished rereading The Secret Garden today. I marvel at how we are shaped without noticing it. Or perhaps, it is more accurate to see our soul’s destiny has been pulling us along all along.

    “In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any other century before. In this new century hundreds of things still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they see it can be done- then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of these things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts- just mere thoughts- are as powerful as electric batteries- as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

    When I was Founding Director of Holistic Alliance I would often be asked to lecture about holistic health and the weaving together of body, mind, and spirit. Many times I said, “All new ideas are met with three distinct phases: First, they are ridiculed. Then, they are resisted. Eventually, they are accepted as the norm.”

    Searching some of the key words nestled within this idea, I found The Three Phases of a Great Idea, by Peter H. Diamandis :

      It turns out that there’s a predictable process for the evolution of great and breakthrough ideas. Ideas that are revolutionary.

      I learned about this process from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, inventor of the geostationary communication satellite and author of dozens of best-selling science-fiction books, including 2001: A Space Odyssey.

      In the 1980’s and 1990’s I had the great honor to know Arthur C. Clarke, he was “Uncle Arthur” to me, Bob Richards, and Todd Hawley: the three co-Founders of International Space University.

      Clarke described three phases of a great idea:

      1. In the beginning, people will tell you that the idea is “crazy”—that it will never work.

      2. Next, people will say: “Well, it might work but it’s not worth doing.”

      3. Finally, they’ll say: “I told you that it was a great idea all along!”

    Terri McClernon is a “Dharma Sister” and we have spent many years in classes and at meditation retreats together. A few years ago, Terri gifted me a Notched Fairy Cooking Wand, hand crafted by Harry Clarke of Kitchen Carver. I am OFTEN baking cookies for friends, and I ALWAYS use my Fairy Wand.

    Imagine my surprise and delight yesterday morning when I fired up the oven to heat the house a bit after overnight temperatures dropped down below sixty degrees Fahrenheit and I noticed a heart on my Fairy Wand!

    A winding path led me to listen to an episode of the ‘Gina Gardiner & Friends Show’ – this episode featured Mitzi Perdue and the theme was ‘A New Perspective On The War In Ukraine’. Mitzi had just returned from her third trip to the Ukraine as a war correspondent. I heard her speak of how the Russians are using weaponry to launch bombs containing hundreds of land mines each into prime agricultural lands. This prevents the growing of food to feed the people and it paralyzes the future economy of the country.

    Would I have listened with the same presence if I had not just learned that Mitzi was a colleague and friend of Linda, my beloved friend who died July 5? This from her online bio: Mitzi Perdue has had a lifelong fascination with what it takes to lead the best life.

    And:

    She got to watch up close and personal how her father co-founded and was President of the Sheraton Hotel chain, and she also got to watch how her late husband, Frank Perdue, built his father-and-son chicken company into a company that today employees 21,000 people.

    And:

    In December of 2022, she auctioned her Atocha emerald engagement ring for $1.2 million, with all the proceeds going to benefit Ukraine.

    I confess to feeling like I know Mitzi, although I had never even heard of her — let alone knowing about her friendship with Linda or her work in Ukraine — until a few days ago.

    Terri has plans for starting a mobile soup kitchen. You can watch more about the vision for The Food Fairy® Mobile Soup Kitchen.

    Imagine what we might see accomplished through Mitzi and Terri and people like us if we all use the Fairy Wand of our hearts and live by Colin’s motto in The Secret Garden): “I shall never stop making Magic.”

  • The True Meaning of Home

    The other evening we were talking about our favorite childhood book/s. Mine was The Boxcar Children. It is a story about four orphaned siblings who must find a way to fend for themselves or risk being separated.The children have a grandfather they have never met, but they are afraid he is mean because he did not seem to like their mother. An abandoned boxcar, near a stream, is luxury compared to sleeping inside a hay stack all day! Working odd-jobs, the children use hard work to cultivate self-reliance until they must seek medical care for Violet, at risk of losing their independence.

    After much process and some candid conversation with my dharma sister physician friend, Stacey decided to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while she was here. It was convenient. She, admittedly, still had some reservations.

    As she was waiting for her shot she said, “The first person who thanks me for getting the shot is going to piss me off.”

    “Then let me be the first so you get it out of the way. Thank you.” We both cried and hugged.

    When she sat down to go over the paperwork, I said to the woman, “She is doing this for her mother.”

    The woman glanced at me, “Are you her mother?” When I said I was, she turned back to Stacey and confessed, “I did it for my dad.”

    I am not exactly sure why Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny were so memorable, or why I can still FEEL the safety of their boxcar. The relief they expressed upon discovery of a safe place to call home was familiar to me as a child. Having grown up with an alcoholic father, I know that feeling of longing for a home in the core of my being.

    Although I loved to go visit friends, overnights often turned into feelings of homesickness. I sometimes feel that even as an adult.

    One website addressed “cosmic” and “Lemurian” homesickness: Sometimes you feel trapped in your life, in your body, separated by your skin from the truth of the world and the people around you. Lonely and disconnected. You gaze skyward, knowing home must be up there, somewhere. You long for the feeling of your soul’s most familiar surroundings.

    Yes, that is the longing I had during the time Covid (and politics, and religion….) created the feeling of homesickness.

    Wynn, from Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, in Grade 5, wrote about home so clearly.

    Home means an enjoyable, happy place where you can live, laugh and learn. It’s somewhere where you are loved, respected, and cared for. When you look at it from the outside, home is just a house. A building. Maybe a yard. But on the inside, it’s a lot more than wood and bricks. The saying “Home is where the heart is” says it all.

    Home is also where your memories lie. Home is where I got my head stuck under the couch. Home is where I fell in the goldfish pond. I remember sleeping in the playhouse, falling down the stairs and climbing up the apple tree. Without memories, most people wouldn’t be the people that they are today.

    Just like memories, home is also where your hopes and dreams are.