Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Yoga

  • Treasure this Day

    If what I say resonates with you,
    it’s because
    we are both branches of the same tree.

    ~ W. B. Yeats

    I’m not a “follower” of astrology, but MANY years ago something occurred that led me to respect the wisdom there.

    Decades ago now, driving home on a snowy day, the roads were glare ice. Less than a block from home, I was blinded by a cloud of snow by a person blowing out his driveway. I rear-ended the car stopped to make a left-hand turn onto a side street. I was not considered at fault due to the unusual conditions and I did not receive a citation. But when I opened the paper a bit later at home, still shaken, my horoscope for the day read: The highway will not be a happy place for you today. Be careful, even on short trips.

    And now a warning?

    Perhaps just a coincidence, or more likely something ancient and pure and worthy of being reported in the bible as announcing the coming of Jesus.

    Yesterday’s comment by a friend about the current astrological line-up led me to look up The Cosmic Tides by Leah Whitehorse. Here is an excerpt from April 9, 2022: It’s imperative to take time out to reconnect with the emotional body before direct action. That way, we can tune into our gut instinct which tells us where to best place our energy and effort. There will be time enough to conquer goals and fight the good fight. Be tender with yourself. Listen to your feelings. Know where you belong. Never doubt that you are strong enough. Nothing can extinguish your inner flame.

    We have snow again today!

    Thought for Today from Deep Spring Center for Meditation:

      It is valuable to sit in private meditation. It is lovely to walk in the woods or on a warm and sandy beach and enjoy that beauty and sense of connection. Your joy at those moments does offer light, does have real value. But at physical levels it does not touch the fundamental deprivation in the world. How can you allow that connection with spirit to begin to transform the world? This does not mean you should not take holidays, but your work is in the world. How do you bring joy and love back into the stressful situations? Would you worship a hollow god that stands above the world, superior to the world, that will not get its feet dirty? Would you strive to pull yourself up to those heights and leave the world to suffer with itself in the dark alleys? Or do you give your love to a loving God, a God willing to partake in pain through entering the human illusion?

      ~ Aaron

    A couple of days of hard work has rendered our tiny house clean and neat and ready for visitors. It is funny that our seasonal home on Bounty Lane is the larger space. Just as we squeeze back into 1,120 square feet, we continue to share one vehicle (writing all of our “times I need the car” on the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall).

    Already this morning I have done 45 minutes of chanting and some yoga. I will at some point go over to the community room and ride the stationary bike while John walks on the treadmill. We await warm weather that welcomes walking and biking in the beautiful Michigan outdoors.

    Treasure this day and treasure yourself.
    Truly, neither will ever happen again.

    ~ Ray Bradbury (Gratefulness.org “Word for the Day” April 9, 2022)

  • I Am So Blessed

    Sacred Stories

    As she finished the morning yoga practice, reclining in rest pose, she began to spontaneously sing, “I am so blessed, I am so blessed, I am so blessed, I am so grateful for all that I have.”

    She grabbed her phone, did a search and came up with that single by Karen Drucker on YouTube.

    Curious, she said out loud, “Alexa, shuffle songs by Karen Drucker.”

    “Shuffling songs by Karen Drucker. Playing first, I Am So Blessed,” Alexa announced!

    May the wonder of the world find ways to guarantee that we notice….

  • Someday When

    There are seasons in a marriage.
    I’ve heard a therapist say,
    “Every marriage has cause for divorce.”
    Not every day.
    But there are those days.
    ~ Deborah Berecz,
    Conflict as Catalyst™ Newsletter October 2020

    In an email exchange last evening my dear friend who had asked me about any preference for a Presidential candidate wrote,

    Your response to my question was most intriguing. You changed your answer from the person to their traits. Yes, I agreed with everything you wrote about the essences of both men, how those essences connect to us, and your wish that whomever wins would live and lead from those traits and from that true essence. To quote the lyrics from a song, “What a wonderful world that would be.” If only….

    John sings a song titled “Some Day When Things Are Good” by Merle Haggard.

      Someday when things are good
      I’m gonna leave you
      I can’t seem to go
      When things are bad

    For the past 7 months, I have done yoga daily. Kathy Zerler and I started our daily practice the morning after Michigan was mandated to “stay safe at home.” Kathy has inched her way into technology, and since late April we have been recording daily practices using the Zoom platform and sharing those on YouTube. (Just search: Kathy Zerler Youtube.)

    Today, Kathy is starting back teaching in person restorative yoga classes at the YMCA. Eight foot squares have been taped on the gym floor, everyone is required to wear a mask, temperatures will be checked upon entry, and a list of all participants generated for contact tracing, if the need should arise for that. It would be dishonest to say I don’t have concern as the COVID-19 numbers are spiking.

    This morning Kathy opened our Zoom practice with a reading from The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane: A Novel, by Lisa See. It is a powerful story about a family, separated by circumstances, culture, and distance. Kathy started class by reading a section about the virtues of drinking tea.

    “Always remember
    If you don’t love tea,
    you can’t make good tea.”
    (pg. 191)

    I was telling John yesterday morning that it was about 50 years ago when I did a term paper on this shift away from valuing character traits (Honest Abe). I well remember the research — some related to the “God is Dead” movement that occurred when the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. From that horror, for the first time in history, we perceived that humans really could destroy life on earth.

    That jarring awareness of what humans did to humans in Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused a shift of our collective psyche from a longer-term view to preferring shorter-term relief, ushering in the devastating era of “the end justifies the means” living. We collectively became short-sighted and pleasure-seeking. Hence fast-food and drive-through banking, and a divorce rate in the US of 40 to 50 percent. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.

    Kathy read, “Just the physical process we experience when we drink tea — our search for huigan — causes us to turn inward and reflect as the liquor coats our tongues, shimmers down our throats, and then rises again as fragrance.”

    Huigan is the pleasant aftertaste of tea, literally meaning “Returning Sweet.”

    Humanity is at a turning point. We can see the bigger picture. We can co-create the world we dream….

    Kathy continued reading, “Buddhists grant tea the highest spiritual qualities, ranking it among the four ways to concentrate the mind, along with walking, feeding fish, and sitting quietly….Together, these three disciplines have taught us to look upward to see the state of the heavens and downward to observe the natural arrangement of the earth. But whatever you believe or however you view life, the quality and goodness of a tea are for the mouth to decide.”

    Ah, those days: days leading up to the election, days as we navigate a global pandemic. Days that cause us to turn inward and reflect. Perfect days to drink tea!

    This short video is from Remembering Wholeness, October 25, 2020. Aaron, channeled by Barbara Brodsky:

    If you are unable to view the video, here is the transcript:

    To know that we’re co-creating this — all of us — not just us, but the people who might wish a different person to be elected. But, not holding who will win so much as the world we really want to envision: a world of love, of respect, of support for all beings.

    May the candidate that can best help that to happen win this election. That, rather than, “I want my candidate to win.”

    The one who can best support a healthy environment, an end to the pandemic, financial well-being, adequate food and home, respect, lovingkindness….

    May the candidate who can best support this win this election. And then may that support flow from all of us to create the world we envision. Thank you.

    ~ Aaron, channeled by Barbara Brodsky at Remembering Wholeness, October 25, 2020

  • Angie’s Mom

    Sacred Stories

    “How is your yoga practice working or not working for you?” the yoga instructor asked as they began the second yoga retreat using the Zoom platform since the beginning of the pandemic.

    One woman confessed she had been having difficulty finding a location in her home to practice yoga. She said she was currently in her bedroom, which offers the best space, but she would be lying on a dirty rug that smelled like dog.

    They had only recently lost Angie…

    The Zoom host read a powerful paragraph 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)

    The host mentioned that an online grief journey group attended by a mutual friend of Angie’s mom would be meeting virtually the following day from 4-6 pm. The mutual friend was currently in Atlanta — awaiting the welcoming of a new grandchild — and would not be in attendance. The yoga instructor said she also attends the group (her husband had passed seven months earlier) and would be there.

    Just as the invitation to attend the grief journey group for support was being offered Angie’s mom, a text message popped in from the friend in Atlanta!

    There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

  • Transformation

    Recently, I included some information about transformation from J. Krishnamurti in my clergy “Insight’s” article.

    Transformation is said to occur only when NONE of the following are present:

      desire to change the experience
      judgment
      analysis
      justification
      grasping
      selfing
      resisting
      believing that “I am witnessing”

    Since the coronavirus stay-safe-at-home order in March, I have done daily yoga with Kathy Zerler. We started out by phone, but when it became obvious that the YMCA could not safely and legally hold the classes onsite any time soon, we started recording her yoga classes using Zoom. Kathy’s videos are available on Youtube by putting “Kathy Zerler yoga” into your search engine.

    This morning I had a heart-felt experience of transformation — exactly as Krishnamurti describes it — during the guided meditation at the end of class. “Your World is Your Greatest Creation” was published in Kathy’s Joyful Meditaions:

    Imagine yourself on a solitary beach at sunset. You are very relaxed after a long day…

    You come upon a raft that is half on the beach and half in the water. Your name is written on a flag that waves from a mast in the center of the raft. You understand that this raft is yours to use for as long as you need it. You decide to load up every person who has ever hurt you. Politely, you help each person onto the raft. When they are all seated, you toss in the baggage they have heaped on you along with a few things of your own that you no longer need. You push the raft out toward the setting sun and watch as these people and their baggage float out of your life.

    You are allowed to let them go. Just let them go….

    I have heard Kathy do this guided meditation several times before, but something truly remarkable happened today when the only person that got into the raft was me!

    I was alone in the raft and I could see clearly that only my distorted thoughts, beliefs, attitudes had hurt me.

    I gently oared the raft toward the setting sun in perfect peace.

    Transformation….

  • And There is Room for Everything

    Poem
    by Debra Basham 05-27-2020

    “At This Time”

    Right now, where you are, are you aware?

    Breathe in and feel connection to all you love

    Birds fly and view the world from a higher perspective

    Fabulous fruits, decadent desserts, marvelous munchies

    Mundane made sacred by joy

    Sheer silliness, satiating stillness, somber stoicism

    All reaches all, as we relax into All That Is….

    At this time

    This morning, like almost every other morning since the middle of March, I enjoyed practicing yoga with my dear friend, Kathy. Right now, we are meeting via ZOOM, and recording the videos for her YMCA classes. It does not appear likely that our (mostly senior) students are going to be Studio B any time soon.

    Amelia Vogler, Executive Director of HTPA (Healing Touch Professional Association), sent the membership an email message today which included a link to “When Life Is Good Again” which was premiered exclusively on Entertainment Weekly on the 27th of May, 2020.

    Dolly Parton was inspired by the COVID-19 quarantine. She told People of the quarantine in April of 2020, “We will come out on the other side of this, and we’re all going to be better people for it. Take care of each other from afar and continue to send love to your friends, family, and everyone suffering.”

    I resist grasping at social-distancing being necessary for so long that it no longer feels odd. I resist clinging to the ease of hugging those I want to hug when I want to hug them, meeting for hours of sharing over tea, having a house filled with musicians, and doing jigsaw puzzles with friends.

    Dolly’s last stanza says is all:

    God’s the reason for all things
    You want rainbows, you get rain
    We’ll all be forever changed (Forever changed)
    I’ll sell my boat and fly my kite
    Walk in the park, go out at night
    And hold my loved ones extra tight
    When everything is on the mend
    I’ll even drink with my old friends
    Sing and play my mandolin
    We’ll make it through this long dark night
    Darkness fades when faced with light
    But everything’s gonna be alright
    When life is good again

    The next email message I opened was Alan Seale’s weekly newsletter, also dated May 27, 2020. Forwarded by my friend, Roann Altman, moving home today after having spent these past couple of months quarantined with a friend with cancer. Roann’s friend, Richard, transitioned this week. In the newsletter, Alan quotes Etty Hillesum, a Jewish diarist who lived in Amsterdam and died in Auschwitz in 1943.

    Through me course wide rivers
    and in me rise tall mountains.
    And beyond the thickets
    of my agitation and confusion
    there stretch the wide plains of my
    peace and surrender.
    All landscapes are within me.
    And there is room for everything.

    Yes, there is room for everything in your heart at this time….

  • Yoga108

    Tonight is one of those times when tears are just so close to the surface. Perhaps it is because 57 years ago yesterday I had a near death experience. Things that happen to you change your world view….

    Perhaps it is because this morning I got to work with a man, and a woman, and their precious dog. The woman had just stepped backwards into the motor pit on their boat. She began expressing her concern about not wanting to intrude on her husband’s session. We ended knowing you cannot take blessing from someone else by receiving blessing yourself. Even the dog came over to me and asked to receive healing attention! We were all so blessed by our time together as we were in that stream of the ever-perfect.

    Perhaps my heart feels so tender because 11 years ago today Nonnie’s beloved Mike passed….

    Perhaps tears are close to the surface because the evening sky is breathtakingly beautiful.

    Or because I read this precious truth written by Danusha Laméris about how small kindnesses are the ‘true dwelling of the holy’:

    I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say, “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

    I like The Giving Hat that belongs to my dear friend, Jane Foster.

    Perhaps my heart is so open because Jane was told she had less than a year to live by her surgeon who also said she needed to find a holistic healer. That was almost 20 years ago. Jane now coaches and encourages others to live life regardless of any medical diagnosis. So perhaps my heart is open because today Jane was on the mat beside me doing yoga for the first time!

    As I drove back downtown to the office after yoga class, the vehicle at the red light in front of me had this license plate:


    I sent the photo of the license plate to Jane and to Kathy, our wonderful yoga teacher. Kathy wrote back that 108 is a very special number. She said, “The number 108 is significant in yoga. It is the number of beads in a mala, and it is the number of sun salutations done daily in India. It is probably significant in other ways, too.”

    I wrote back, “Also 108 movements in Tai Chi.”

    “Did not know that!” Kathy shot back. “That would be a good blog entry…. I’d read it.”

    Lord Buddha’s footprint is imprinted with 108 auspicious illustrations.

    In Islam, the number 108 refers to God.

    In the Christian Bible, the phrase ‘first born’ is used 108 times. Both ‘in truth’ and ‘to forgive’ are also used 108 times, in the New Revised Standard Version.

    In numerology, the number 108 is reduced to 9, but adding all the digits together. Nine represents the earthly lesson of humans, which is ‘forgiveness’.

    Nine is about selflessness and compassion.

    People with nine energy are said to work without motive.

    Nines know their purpose is for the greatest good of all.

    Nines also have a protective energy, and they have great power, and great love in their soul.

    Today was the birthday of the woman I met with after yoga. I gave her a copy of The Gift: Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master. Her husband passed a few months ago so she is in the process of reinventing her life. She is only 73, not 108, but I am quite sure it would be OK with her if we put 108 candles on her cake and sang happy birthday to her. I had her read the last poem in the book.

    AND LOVE SAYS

      And love
      Says,

    “I will. I will take care of you.”

      To everything that is
      Near.

    I also gave her a lovely decorated heart-shaped empty box. My friend, Claudia, learned to set a special box on your nightstand or dressing table, as a reminder that each day is a present and being present is a gift you give to yourself.

    108 times today I will say, it is such a privilege to be alive. It is such a joy to be awake.

  • Dust!

    When I saw this image on someone’s Facebook page, I knew there was a blog coming….

    In the several decades I have been involved in what used to be called Alternative Medicine, but is now most often considered Functional Medicine, I would marvel at how people approached something new. One acupuncture treatment; does not work. One herbal remedy; does not work. One “you-name-it” and the mind shuts down like a steel trap deciding something does not work.

    My yoga instructor said a guy came to class once and said yoga does not work for him.

    People try meditation and say that.

    It all sounds a lot like dusting once and when the dust comes back deciding not to fall for dusting again.

    Dr. Lissa Rankin said when she was researching her book, Mind Over Medicine, she stumbled across the Spontaneous Remission Project, put together by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. They collected over 3,500 case studies published in medical literature about people who experienced spontaneous remissions from seemingly “incurable diseases.” (See 9 Key Factors Affecting Radical Remission from Cancer)

    Recently a client recommended Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds, by Kelly Turner, PhD. The book is a New York Times bestseller.

    So what were the 9 key factors that these patients with radical remissions employed?

  • Radically changing your diet.
  • Taking control of your health.
  • Following your intuition.
  • Using herbs and supplements.
  • Releasing suppressed emotions.
  • Increasing positive emotions.
  • Embracing social support.
  • Deepening your spiritual connection.
  • Having strong reasons for living.

    • My client has been able to identify the area/s she needs to strengthen and has made a commitment to doing that. My mind went automatically to how if these nine key factors can allow someone to return to health from a diagnosis of cancer, how much might our lives be enhanced by them.

    I will keep dusting. I hope you will too. Meanwhile, you may enjoy my most recent poem, “Catching my Reflection.”

    Catching my Reflection

    Blowing my nose with an expensive hand-painted silk scarf
    it is clear now my body can be used as a weapon against itself
    The cookies eaten as my lunch and
    the wine gulped down to dull the inner pain
    Razor blades I did not use for shaving that caused
    scars I wore as membership in a tragic club

    Feeding the pages of my journal into the shredder
    systematically three sheets at a time
    Decades of broken dreams and promises
    chewed into tiny bits
    Now lining the bottom of the bird cage
    finally good for something

    The doorbell rings “Some Enchanted Evening”
    perhaps a friend, a stranger, or some gift undelivered
    I feel no obligation to answer
    no fear that something wonderful could be missed
    Catching my reflection in the puddle
    lips turned up in a quiet smile

    Debra Basham 10-21-2018

  • Renewal of Mind, Body, and Spirit

    “Without renewal of mind, there is no transformation.”
    ~Lailah Gifty Akita, Ghana-born PhD student in geosciences, author;
    age not provided at goodreads.com

    This opening quotation in a friend’s daily thought really spoke to me. June 16, 2018, I celebrated the birthday of my dear friend and yoga teacher in a small class that meets on Saturday mornings at my office. The five of us are close, not just friends, but more like sisters.

    Left to right: Norleen, Debra, our teacher Kathy, Nancy, and Claudia.

    Let’s just say we are all women of a certain age.

    As women, we share a lot more than yoga, but yoga is something we love. We each have come to yoga for different reasons, at different times, and in different places, but we treasure being together in yoga now because yoga is about renewal of Mind, Body, and Spirit.

    The five of us are beautiful women, inside and out. We have spent well over a hundred years meditating, practicing yoga, and being intentional about our being.

    After an hour of yoga practice, we brewed peppermint tea grown in Kathy’s garden, sweetened with an old fashioned peppermint stick. We ate my nearly world-famous vegan bran muffins, and we were nourished by love and respect and commonality.

    We were infinitely grateful to honor Kathy, who honors us by bringing yoga to our life. Yoga is not just about what happens on the mat.

    We each drew a card from the Wisdom of The Crone deck. Kathy drew “Passages.”

    Nancy recently gifted me a copy of Frank J. Cunningham’s Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older. This book may seem a bit too religious for some, too early for others, and irrelevant to many, but at any stage and especially at our age the wisdom and inspiration is worth integrating because, as Cunningham writes, “… we are in a phase of life that we will not look back on as we do on childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We do not grow out of this phase.”

  • Yoga Space

    Sacred Stories

    Looking through some journal entries from a few years ago, she came across this one:

    I want to create a space for yoga. It has good light and good energy.

    She had given conscious thought to that entry since she wrote those words toward the end of 2013 or early in 2014. Here it is, mid 2017 and she finds the entry.

    She brought the journal with her to her yoga class she was teaching in a sweet, intimate, well-lit, wonderful feeling space. She had begun teaching there one year ago. Her story reminds us how powerful our intentions really are….

    These are sacred stories. Do you have as story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.