Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Zan Lombardo

  • Creative Mending

    I had some text exchange with my firstborn grandchild, Brad, sharing emotional reactions and perceptions of the current conditions. Some we love dearly entertain the notion that COVID-19 is a conspiracy. I shared with him a recent writing:

    Daily Doula Duty

    My book, I Learned Everything I Needed to Know About Life Working as a Doula, is not yet written, but the awareness is etched into my days nonetheless. The last trimester of pregnancy is no picnic. Sleep is illusive as pressure on the bladder likely means many trips to the bathroom. The rapidly growing fetus works hard to finds comfortable place to stretch out in the tight quarters—often right on the mom’s sciatic nerve. Back pain, leg cramps…. Perhaps all of this is preparation.

    Most women go into labor exhausted, and after that there will be long days and short nights of having an infant to care for.

    The job of the doula is to coach the woman into conserving what precious little energy she has. She is going to need it.

    No matter how long or how difficult the labor, the hardest work comes after the cervix is dilated¬—in the second stage of labor.

    The second stage of labor is when the woman really needs stamina. And stamina takes energy.

    One of my clients had to be put on oxygen to be able to push. Not only was she exhausted, she also had bronchitis.

    My sister delivered her youngest just as intestinal flu was ramping through her family of five, the normal work of laboring was clearly distorted by the accompanying vomiting and diarrhea.

    The human mind is very prone to vomiting and diarrhea….

    When all is said and done, we may be among the fortunate ones to have survived the pandemic of 2020. Suffice it to say, humanity as a whole is likely going into the second stage of labor exhausted.

    High-powered executives confessed to hoping for a scheduled cesarean delivery….

    It is important to conserve our energy. We don’t know what more is going to be demanded of us.

    Bonnie’s daughter is celebrating Mother’s Day this year having just lost her mom to COVID-19. There was no access to the hospital. No visitation or funeral. She writes: “I am going to go pack up some of her things on Sunday. I have some other ideas to share some special moments with her, too. I feel her a lot. It almost feels like she’s not gone because she is around so much. Meaning I don’t miss her physical presence (as much) because her spirit is so strong.”

    The second stage of labor can last a few moments or a few hours.

    Take heart: the second stage of labor means the cervix has already dilated.

    Your body, your mind, and your spirit can do what is being asked of it.

    Key awareness at this point: Don’t be a prisoner to what you cannot change.
    • Remember this is not your birth
    • Remember to rest when you can
    • Remember to breathe through contractions
    • Remember you are not the first or the only to go through this
    • Remember everything you have done to be ready
    • Remember getting through this is the most important thing
    • Remember you will forget the pain
    Debra Basham 05-08-2020 (WC 500)

    Brad responded, “Is this some ninja level NLPing?”

    Zan Lombardo, my friend and artist extraordinaire, was doing some creative mending during our Southern Circle Poets virtual gathering. On the shirt in the photo below, what seems to be a pendant, is actually where a moth hole was. The turquoise is a random doodled line that Zan stitched.

    Transrational Pyramid from Healing with Language (Bowman and Basham p.187):

    The observer’s perspective is both caring and disinterested, free of attachment, neither fearing nor desiring a specific outcome, but wanting only what is usually called the Highest Good for all. That doesn’t mean they have given up playing an active role in causes and activities they think are beneficial. It just means that they do so from a more peaceful and less judgmental perspective.

    Now, that is some creative mending….

  • Listen to the Trees


    This quotation by William Blake was hand lettered beautifully onto the whiteboard hanging on the wall. A fortunate few gathered at the Pine Island public library last evening for a presentation by Zan Henegan Lombardo—artist, poet, friend, and teacher extraordinaire.

    Once in a while, you are soooooo blessed to be part of something organic, unimaginable, and magnificent. Previously, I have written about Zan’s first 30-foot watercolor painting. Now she has done it again, this time with a piece about some of my favorite sentient beings: trees.

    Here is the dazzling 4 foot by 30 foot painting, titled, “Dance of All This,” when it was hanging in the round at the Sydney and Byrne Davis Art Center, 2301 First St, Fort Myers, Florida:

    And, shared with her permission, Zan’s amazing poem that goes along with the new painting:


    Listening to the Lights in the Trees

    With forehead pressed against the trunk
    Where the music is embedded,
    I make this request: “Please, sing to me about your angels.”

    The slender tree responds with percussive impulse,
    Pushing me squarely back,
    Flaying my chest, exposing my heart,
    Invisible wings flexing from shoulder blades.
    A cacophony of sounds and light flash through me,
    Full on,
    Indecipherable.

    I back off.
    Old trees offer more seasoned melodies, I hope.

    Gingerly stepping over gnarly roots to a
    Welcoming section with thicker waist,
    Gently placing my brow in contact with the weathered bark,
    Silently, I ask.

    This time I find myself in the heart of God,
    Wings still flexing from my shoulders.
    And the messenger says,
    “The ballad is more than can be sung
    In a single verse.
    Our angels require you sit
    In communion with us
    Throughout your life
    In order to internalize the lyrics
    Of that which you desire.

    It’s complicated.”

    –Zan Lombardo, 2018

    Zan led us in an exercise about listening, during which were asked to share a memorable experience we have had with a tree. Mine was from the 1970’s, when I was a camp counselor at Lake Louise United Methodist Camp, in Boyne Falls, Michigan. The theme of the week was ‘Acclimatization.’

    The activities were designed so we experienced ourselves as a part OF nature, rather than a part FROM nature. We worked with a partner, who guided us safely in the woods. We were invited to listen, and let a tree call to us. We remained with that tree for some time, practicing hearing it, before being led out of the woods.

    Once safely at the edge of the woods, our blindfold was removed, and we were invited to use our new-found listening skills to return to our tree. I did that! It was truly amazing.

    We were asked by Zan to inner listen and go stand by the section of the painting that spoke to us. This is the section that was speaking to me:

    You can listen to trees. Trees are sentient beings.

  • Aphorisms: You Already Know

    “In the deep end, every stroke counts.”

    “Best not flirt with disaster, lest it decide to commit.”

    “Take two opposites, connect the dots, and you have a straight line.”

    These are a few of the pithy wisdoms included in Where Epics Fail, an upcoming book of aphorisms from Egyptian-American poet Yahia Lababidi, who also said, “Poets, thinkers and artists do not really teach, but remind us of what we already know.”

    This was certainly the case on Sunday, May 21, 2017, when I was honored as guest minister at St. John’s UCC church in New Buffalo, Michigan. The title of the sermon was, “The Light that is You.”

    I opened with a story from way back in the days of full-service gas stations, about a minister who waited in line to have his car filled with gas just before a long holiday weekend. The attendant, a member of the church, worked quickly, but there were many cars lined up ahead of the minister.

    Finally, the attendant motioned the minister toward a vacant pump. “Reverend,” said the young man, “sorry about the delay. It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.”

    The minister laughed and responded, “I know what you mean. It’s the same in my business.”

    In the perfect style of aphorisms, the sermon was summed up by this wonderful image on the bulletin cover, selected by Sandy Orange:

    I was blessed to share the work of some wonderful writers, including Zan Lombardo’s poem “EVERYTHING IS INDEED REACHING OUT TO EVERYTHING ELSE” that is done in calligraphy along the bottom of her amazing 30-foot watercolor (See: Three Sylables), and “Social Ethics,” a poignant opinion article by Kathy Zerler which had recently been published in our local newspaper.

    Confessing that I have already created my own eulogy so I can feel honored while I am still here living this life, and to save my loved ones from having to work to do it when I transition, from that I shared “When I’m Gone,” a poem by Mrs. Lyman Hancock, and “Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep,” written in 1932 by Mary Frye.

    Kathy, my sister-from-another-mister, was with me at church on Sunday, so she got to hear me read her piece. Following the service, Kathy blessed me with the most delicious lunch at Pierre Anne Crȇperie. An authentic French restaurant in a charming Victorian home has been there for 19 years waiting for me to discover it. I am still feeling the lingering effects…

    From the sermon:

    Our lives live on. Our lives are important. Children watch how we live. And children watch how we deal with death. We can live in ways that teach children death is not the absence of goodness, nor the absence of beauty. Perhaps life and death can each be seen as the place where true beauty can be known.

    Death is the only inevitability we all face.

    It seems only fitting to close this blog with another powerful aphorism that reminds us of what we already know—this one found on the St. John’s UCC web page:

    Never place a period where God has placed a comma…

    Can I get an AMEN to that?