Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: wellness

  • Dancing in the Darkness

    Aaron Daily Quote
    Everybody wants to be safe and comfortable.
    For most of you, your habitual pattern around being safe and comfortable
    is to move into a control mode.
    And so you try to think it out and plan it out
    and get it perfect
    and then rehash the plans
    and see if they can be better.
    You don’t know how to let go.
    You can’t let go because you cannot yet recognize,
    ‘This controlling voice is simply fear.’
    But it is recognizable if you pay attention.
    As soon as there’s a contraction
    and the mind starts spinning out the plans,
    please just note, ‘Ah, fear is here.’

    During this second year of our Path of Clear Light study group, we are working with sacred darkness. Think terms, ‘dark night of the soul’ or ‘shadow’ work.

    Aaron opened with a couple of extended guided meditations. The first was a narrow bridge over a raging water fall below. We were in a harness but when we got to the middle of the bridge our direction was to allow ourselves to fall! The belief is/was that the harness would catch us, keeping us safe, ultimately preventing us from falling to our death. Fear was so present for this one who does not swim.

    The second scenario is/was sleeping in a cave in the pitch black. We were to spend some time each day in these metaphors, allowing ourselves to feel the fear.

    At the conclusion of the talk, when Aaron opened for questions, I shared that I love sleeping in darkness. I put a pair of socks over the little blue light on the cable box when I go to bed at night. I asked if that metaphor work for me if I was not afraid of the dark.

    One of the other students sent me a private message on the Zoom format, “There is mold in the cave.”

    How brilliant! We are always closer to those habit patterns of fear than we notice.

    In my journal I wrote that I was aware of fear around the mold remediation insurance claim having been paid at more than the actual remediation cost. I had reached out to the adjuster about that, but it was not resolved. What is/was that fear? I know I don’t have to be fearful about not being able to pay it back if I had to.

    I was able to see that it had to do with feeling out of integrity with the vow to not take what is not freely given.

    Fear:
    I am bad
    I will be punished
    I will lose face

    I have a flash of a past life in which I was shunned. We were a dark-skinned people.

    I see the fear that I could be fined, or that our coverage could be cancelled.

    I see how vulnerable that habit energy makes me feel. I recall the 8 worldly dharmas (also called concerns or preoccupations): pleasure and pain; gain and loss; praise and blame; fame and ill repute. Oh, my….

    Journal entry:
    V: You are aware of your habit pattern of wanting to be right. How might that have fueled your fear?
    D: Well, certainly right or wrong (duality) pulls a heavy weight. Notice what the odds are that you will be wrong if there is only one right answer/choice/conclusion. EVERYTHING ELSE IS WRONG.
    V: Doesn’t seem likely in something as unfathomably enormous as life, does it….
    D: So if it is not a matter of right or wrong, how do I best think about it?
    V: You know about wholesome and unwholesome. You know about skillful and unskillful. What do you think those mean?
    D: These seem to be part of clarity, wisdom, and kindness; taking into account all needs/desires/outcomes.
    V: Exactly. You are certainly seeing now how much highest purpose plays a role. If your highest purpose is to love/peace/clarity, many options open up. It isn’t about not having mundane purposes as well. In those times of inner conflict or just not being totally sure, you can rest easily within your highest purpose.
    D: We are all connected. Love is the glue!

    What a beautiful reminder that we are all dancing in the darkness.

    P.S. Updating you on the previous post’s plumbing predicament, more mold was found! A second leak occurred (a chain-reaction to the first break) and in the need to get the belly of the mobile home dried out, PuroClean found a 4×4 board covered with black mold. That was able to be removed. We are so grateful for the miraculous mayhem. The results truly are in the hands of the divine!

  • August 10

    Sacred Stories

    He had for years lived in what had been his mother’s home. The time had come for him to sell it and move nearer his daughter. He had received an offer on the home a week or so earlier, pending inspection and financing.

    Early one morning he was at the laundromat doing his laundry. Usually he was the only patron there, with just the attendant. This day, a couple was also there. He overheard their conversation—about their having put an offer on a house. He thought they were describing his home.

    Approaching the group, he asked about the location of the home they had put the offer on, and then exclaimed, “You are buying my home!”

    What a small world….

    Later that day he located the deed and noticed the couple had put their offer on the home on August 10, the exact date his mother had purchased the home years earlier.

    Share your sacred stories so we can all be more aware of the invisible threads that connect everything.

  • Dad’s Love in an Apple

    Sacred Stories

    She had been thinking about her dad a lot lately, especially that morning.

    As she stood there in the kitchen and took a bite of her apple, she realized her bite made a heart shape in the flesh.

    This was an apple her Dad would have picked up from the apple farm on his way home from work. It was small, and just the right amount of sweet.

    She was so happy that she took a moment, for whatever reason, to pull back and see her Dad’s love in an apple.

    Be alert to those simple reminders…. Love is all around us!

  • Free Lunch

    Sacred Stories

    A couple weeks after her husband’s passing, he received a big postcard inviting him to a free lunch, along with a guest, at one of their favorite restaurants.

    The only obligation was to listen to their presentation on cremation.

    Her girlfriend said he would want her to go, but tell them they just missed him!

  • In the Hands of the Divine

    Years ago I worked in a department store that had a pretty large jewelry section. Every time there was a chain with knots (and there were always chains with knots) I was the one who was given the job of de-tangling. I became really good at it.

    I am doing that right now as I am looking at the threads of events that have brought me here now.

    Many more threads were raveling before the one on which I was riding my bike and noticed a garage sale with a double sink. I rode right on by. I did not need a double sink.

    The following day the sink was by the side of the road with a sign on it: FREE.

    The sign said it was a great sink, that they had just remodeled.

    I rode my bike home and then drove my van back to get the sink. I thought it might be able to be cut in half. If not, I would just take it to our local Habit for Humanity ReStore where they sell donated home goods and use the funds to finance home builds.

    The good news is the sink was able to be cut in half, and my neighbor said he wanted the other half. Woohoo!

    So during the installation process, the removal of the old countertop and sink resulted in a snapped hose fitting, and a cracked water pipe under our mobile home. Not only did the bathroom floor get flooded, but the underneath of our mobile home is wet now too.

    Have you been following my summer of mold????

    My center of peace was shut as quickly and as tight as our water main….

    I grabbed the only deck of cards handy on the counter in my office. Osho Transformational Tarot. The card I drew was #53-Play.

    Play??? You’ve got to be kidding. How could that fit?

    When I got to this line, my pulse began to slow. “The result of your activity is in the hands of the Divine, you simply do.”

    Mind you, this is all unfolding right at this moment as my fingers are on the keyboard generating this post.

    I thought the mold remediation mayhem had all been taken in stride, but the residual fear flared sky high with this plumbing predicament.

    But the context of these words of advice in the Osho Tarot was unique: war.

    War is the most serious affair. You cannot be playful about it, because lives are involved, millions of lives are involved—you cannot be playful.

    And Krishna insists that even there you have to be playful.

    You don’t think about what will happen in the end, you just be here and now. You just be a warrior, playing.

    Don’t get worried about the result because the result is in the hands of the Divine.

    And it is not even the point if the result is in the hands of the Divine or not—the point is that it should not be in your hands, you should not carry it. If you carry it then your life cannot become meditative.

    I think I am going to make this my new mantra…. the result is in the hands of the Divine.

  • Pine Cone

    Sacred Stories

    Her Godmother, who was like a sister to her mother, was visiting. They all met at a restaurant for dinner.

    She brought some pictures and things of her mother’s that she wanted to ask about and discuss with her Godmother. They laughed and joked—sharing a really nice time.

    In the middle of the conversation her Godmother asked, “Do you think she is here with us?”

    “Yes,” she answered, and they both got a little teary-eyed.

    When they had finished dinner, the others had to go to the bathroom, so she and her Godmother stood by the stairs waiting right inside the restaurant.

    She looked down and saw a pine cone.


    This pine cone was like the ones in the mountains—her mother’s ashes were taken into the mountains. Her mother loved nature and the outdoors. When she was a girl and they didn’t have a lot of money sometimes they would go out and pick up pine cones and take glue and glitter and decorate them….

    She said, “I think that she was there with us. Why would there be a pine cone there right as we stood waiting? It wasn’t there before. We looked around and there was no display or anything that even came near to a pine cone.”

    This pine cone was a sign. For certain!

    These are sacred stories. You are always invited to share.

  • Dr. Silverman

    Sacred Stories

    Her mom had been taken to ER the evening before. The following afternoon, they finally got her transferred to a room.

    They were waiting for a cardiologist to see her mom.

    Following a heart attack, her mom had worked with a cardiologist 20 years earlier. Doctor Silverman and her mom became close over the years, until a couple years ago when he no longer had to see her. Dr. Silverman was always inspired by her mom.

    Her mom was really hoping that somehow he would be the one on call but they were at a HUGE Medical Center and the chances were minimal.

    She had tried to ask nurses in the ER, but the ER was super busy. No one got around to talking to her about her mom’s preference.

    She and her husband were walking through the halls while her mom was being wheeled on a cart to her room. She overheard her mom say, “That was Dr. Silverman.”

    Dr. Silverman was talking on the phone when he passed them, but he had heard his name and he came back. He asked her who the patient was that had spoken his name.

    Even though it had been several years, Dr. Silverman recognized her mom’s name right away.

    She explained that her mom was really hoping Dr. Silverman could be the cardiologist to see her.

    Dr. Silverman said, “I will do my best!”

    Miraculous!!!

  • Thursday Music

    Sacred Stories

    For years her husband had hosted Wednesday night jam sessions in their home, but that was the night she was out-of-town.

    She had come to so enjoy the Friday afternoon jam sessions all winter while they were in Florida.

    Early the morning of their last jam before they headed North, she had the thought, “I am going to miss the music.”

    Later that morning, as her husband came into the kitchen for his coffee, he said, “I am going to see if we can move music to Thursday nights so you can be there.”

  • Tangled Webs

    One morning I photographed an amazing web wet with the morning dew. Later that evening, I mentioned the web while at dinner with friends. My one friend grimaced, said she hated spiders, and since dinner was in the home of our mutual friend, who was also desirous for our dear friend’s fears to be gone, I launched into the process of doing a Fast Phobia Cure. The process ended with a significant statement by my friend, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to spend my evening feeling anxious. I want to enjoy our time together.”

    “Nature’s Ways” is the name of my October Beyond Mastery Newsletter article, and it extols the skills of spiders as metaphor for life. I also have a previously post about spider’s and karma, so I won’t go into that now. But I have been reflecting this week on my desire to help my friend overcome the phobia of spiders.

    Oops…. I made a mistake. I wanted something she did not want. It was not respectful to push. We often walk the tangled web of desiring for another something the other is not desirous of. The following morning, I wrote this poem:

    Remembrance

    Dew wet the grass
    then the rains came
    will the sun come again?
    This dance of despair
    familiar like an old pair of shoes
    but far from pleasant!
    One more time
    I recall that you may not remember
    the years of faithful tending.

    Tending the garden
    removing weeds of sorrow
    so buds could grow again.
    Pulling the deep roots
    of delusion
    exposing healthy bulbs below.
    New sprouts of hopefulness
    peeking out from the soil
    rich, pungent, ready for life.

    Once I was caught in the underbrush
    too fearful to let go
    yet not willing to open to the light.
    Like a seed
    fear must be buried
    before reemerging transformed.
    Perhaps I can remember
    for you too
    as new life comes into view.

    09-03-2019

    Tangled webs are woven of fear. My feelings of sadness hanging in the air were tangled webs. My feelings of remorse were more tangled webs. My mulling over and over thinking and wishing things could have or should have been different—tangled webs.

    On June 17, 1999, I wrote An Ode to Letting Go.

    An Ode to Letting Go

    I will not look back at our time together and see it all as bad. I will have the courage to call it all good – our coming together and our coming apart. I will honor your memory by remembering the growth that our relationship inspired. I will not insult either of us by insisting that it could have, should have, or would have been different. It was as it was. I will use this experience to affirm the beliefs I wish to guide my life by; All things work together for good. You are free. I am free. Be with your life lightly as I am with my own. Take not from here a false belief that you or I are less than what you are: a child of the universe, whole, holy, and loveable. Be tender with yourself as you make this adjustment, just as you would be tender with a body part as it heals. Look into the mirror often and recall the truth – I once loved you deeply. Though the feelings have waned as the moon – your worthiness (as my own) has neither diminished nor dissipated. I will always honor your memory. I will always cherish your soul. Go in peace. Live, grow, heal, and continue on your journey. For this time of our being together has ended but the ties that bind our hearts in love continue – even as the love at the center of all of life continues to hold us and guide us and heal us. Amen.

    I cannot even recall now what the 1999 trigger for this writing was, but today, I know that what I am letting go is the weaving of tangled webs….

  • A Father’s Love 2

    Sacred Stories

    Driving back from visiting her husband in the Alzheimer’s facility, she was telling his daughter the story of having drawn ‘A Father’s Love’ Messenger Card the previous month following her surgery. (See previous post: A Father’s Love)

    They were just about home when the story was finished. “Did the medicine container ever show up?” his daughter inquired.

    “Nope,” she replied.

    As they pulled into the driveway, she reached down to the shelf below the console to get the garage door opener.

    Instead of the opener, she pulled out the medicine container!

    They were both were speechless with mouths and eyes gaping open.

    A father’s love truly is one of the strongest bonds any of us will ever experience….