By Debra Basham, on January 27, 2023 A friend wrote this week asking me, “So tell me your blog experience. How did you get into doing that? How many people follow you? Is it hard to get it up and going technically?”
It took a bit of thinking time to respond, and, still, I had to start with the easiest aspects first. Here is my response to her:
Not very many people follow me. In fact, most of the people who know me well and love me are among those who do not read my blog regularly. I have a few very loyal readers. I have come to the conclusion if it is true that ‘We read to know we are not alone,’ – the character of C.S. Lewis says this line in William Nicholson’s play, Shadowlands, I write to know that we are all one. I would write if no one would ever see what is written. If it means something to someone else, that is just a bonus.
That said, I first set up a blog on Blogspot. It was super easy and you can read over 180 posts from December 24, 2011 to July 26, 2016 made on this platform. https://dbasham.blogspot.com/
Then my blog was set up on Word Press by our webmaster. I “think” there is a way to know who follows you, but I have not paid attention to any of that, especially now that I am in the business of not maintaining a professional business. My grandson is working to dismantle the online persona of Debra Basham of SCS-Matters, the professional partnership I had for 20 years with Joel P. Bowman.
The Word Press blog is called Yellow Brick Road. https://scs-matters.com/YellowBrickRoad/
I do not allow comments. It is a full time job that I am not interested in: cleaning out spam, phishing, and obscene stuff. People who know me and are touched by something I write and share have legitimate ways of reaching out to me.
It may be worth some insight about what you want to give (and/or receive) by creating a blog.
Willing to muse about this more if something is helpful! Love, D
As I was out for a bike ride yesterday I was musing about Aaron’s Daily Quote.
How can a third density human co-create a fourth or fifth density Earth? You can plant seeds. But for it fully to happen you need to come into the fourth density, fifth density aspect of yourself. Imagine you are a fourth or fifth density being. How would that feel? What would it be like? There would be joy and sadness; those are experiences for fourth density also. But there would not be suffering, loneliness or separation. There would not be fear or hatred. What would it be like to be a fourth or fifth density being co-creating a fourth or fifth density Earth by sharing that energy and light that you are? ~ Aaron
That sent me into the Deep Spring archives where I read a bit more about what Aaron calls densities. I think of them as stages of consciousness but not in a linear way, more like the mighty oak tree that is already within the acorn, or the butterfly that is already within the caterpillar.
Simply put, Fourth Density is about learning compassion, and Fifth Density is about deepening wisdom. Think about these as already being within in that same way. Just as a bird needs two wings to fly, to be wholly wholesome compassion and wisdom must be used together. Unwholesome compassion commands us to sell all you have and give it to the poor without the wisdom (spoken by Richard Bandler) that understands clearly the best way to help the poor is to not be poor.
Densities remind me of the chakras. The fourth chakra is the heart chakra. The fifth chakra is the throat chakra. The heart chakra is associated with unconditional love, compassion, and joy. It is the source of deep and profound truths that cannot be expressed in words. The throat chakra is about hearing and being heard, where you find your voice, where we speak our truth without blame or shame. From the Deep Spring archive: Fourth Density is beyond the dictates of the emotional body that would lead you to feel shame or pride.
Awake VERY early this morning I was grateful to sit in the silence feeling the night sky. Now past dawn, the busyness of the day will likely soon push the stillness out of my awareness.
Perhaps that fourth or fifth density earth already is in the same way the butterfly already is within the cocoon and the oak tree already is within the acorn.
As Adyashanti said, “The more okay we are when we are not okay, the more okay we are.”
ALL ready….
By Debra Basham, on January 24, 2023 “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~ Thomas Merton
Last night after a rousing game of Hand and Foot, John announced that there was a LOT of water under the kitchen sink. Larry and I sprung into action. I got things mopped up and he was able to finger tighten the elbow joints on the drain that had come completely disconnected. We had a leak previously and insisted the homeowner get a repairman to tend to it. This morning I was writing in my journal:
D: What would you have me know about this house?
V: We know you are feeling that the owner has been rather dismissive and you are wondering about whether or not you want to come back here next season.
D: Yes… these things cross my mind.
V: If you did one of Linda’s spread sheets what might you notice?
D: There are some pros and some cons, and a subtle contraction of not having a place or having something EVEN worse. A fear of loss.
V: It is a heavy feeling in your sacral chakra, and a sinking feeling in your gut?
D: Yes.
V: And can you feel it in your friend who is awaiting results on Wednesday of a breast biopsy she had done on Monday?
D: Yes.
V: Can you feel it in your dear friend who is now on hospice care, or in his beloved wife?
D: No. Not any more.
V: That feeling is impermanent. That feeling is a part of a process.
D: Yes.
V: Read some of the poems your friend, Janice, shared with you on your birthday.
OMG… I begin to read from A Hundred Falling Veils: There’s a Poem in Every Day, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
from “Getting Out”
January 9, 2023
we are made of—
more energy than matter,
more nothing than something,
more everything than we ever dreamed.
from “Everything is Changed”
January 11, 2023
…everything is possible, sweetheart, everything.
Moments later, I open to these words from Neale Donald Walsch for today and read …its not only possible, it is indeed the truth!
By Debra Basham, on January 22, 2023 “Our inner lives are every bit as astonishing,
baffling, and mysterious
as the infinite vastness of the cosmos.”
~ Adyashanti
Adyashanti’s words speak volumes to me as I am in the pondering process related to culling everything SCS-Matters in preparation for a new DebraBasham.com website. What to keep, what to save. What to repackage or repurpose. What to give away, what to sell; what to forget and what to savor. Timely for my birthday today.
I wake up this morning having turned 73. While some dread aging, I experience each day of aging as grace. It seems having had birth trauma, and medical trauma at age 5, and a near-death experience at age 12 prepared me for LIFE.
Again today a mocking bird was sitting on the fence directly outside of the kitchen window of the house we are sharing with Linda and Larry this winter. The title of To Kill a Mockingbird has very little literal connection to the plot, but it carries a great deal of symbolic weight in the book. In this story of innocents destroyed by evil, the “mockingbird” comes to represent the idea of innocence. Some of the key characteristics and attributes of Mockingbird Animal Spirit include inventiveness, keen-mindedness, happiness, playfulness, protection, thankfulness, security, and, most of all, communication.
For sure, the Imagine Healing process is something I want to have available to the world. It is such gift to see in every surgery or injury or experience myriad opportunities. Why just go through whatever it is on the surface level. Let that bruise be an evidence procedure of healing of memories, beliefs, behaviors, or attitudes that lessen the amazement of living. Every moment of every day we are meeting life on infinite levels and awareness provides a HUGE happening from the most mundane. I don’t even just brush my teeth!!!
When Joel Bowman and I were actively training folks in the Imagine Healing process we always did mock surgery as a role-play and students experienced an ectomy (removal of something they and others in the world would be better off without) and implant (something beneficial they and others in the world had not been able to have previously). Imagine a fear ectomy and a joy implant….
January 22 is a birthday I share with my friend Wayne Kaiser. This is the first year since we have been friends that I am in body and Wayne is in spirit. I do not think of Wayne as dead. In fact, I cannot comprehend death as different from birth, and this week I listened to an amazing account of Rabbi Stephen Robbins (who has had 8 near-death-experiences!!!) and, as my birthday ritual, will share some of his beautiful comments about life.
“Every soul is formed to do one of three things. One is to take something out of the world which no longer belongs — either a treatment or a system of genetics which don’t belong in the world anymore or a spiritual quality that can be stopped. The other is to bring something new into the world of knowledge or experience — an insight that has not been there before. And the third is to synergize both of them so that what comes in is the sense of what it means to live a life for service and for purpose rather than for our own gain.”
“So that in our leaving this world and realizing there is no death, we change the genetic out-pour that will stop the repetition of the destructiveness like drug addiction, child abuse, violent acquisition — and at the same time will add a sense of insight and understanding which will lead beyond living with a sense of the limitation in this life.” (Rabbi Stephen Robbins 8 Near Death Experiences)
If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Yesterday Linda and I spent our day busy in the kitchen. She roasted a turkey and we have made a dinner for friends out on Pine Island that are living in (while doing rehab) after Hurricane Ian filled their manufactured home with four feet of floodwater. Four months later they do not yet have a stove. Mind you, theirs is a three-generational family including their adult daughter and their 4-year old grandson. Today we will deliver turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, two-corn casserole, and brownies. These can be warmed in the microwave oven they do have. I told Linda that this is my best birthday dinner ever.
After the delivery, we will attend a matinee of “The Sound of Music” at the Cultural Park Theater in Cape Coral, before meeting Nancy Green for dinner at Miceli’s in Matlacha. In 2013 John and I went there for my birthday dinner and discovered they give you a free entree plus desert ON YOUR BIRTHDAY. We have gone back every year since. It is bittersweet to go this year after soooo much of what was familiar and special about our beloved Florida community was damaged, devastated, or destroyed.
Even in the midst of loss there is gift….
A Happy Birthday Haiku
I am young no more
Neither am I old
I am timeless like the wind
I do change a lot
No longer the same
I’m here and there however
Here and there am I
Not one single place
Ever moving, always free
Happy Birthday, Wayne Kaiser. Happy Birthday, Debra Basham.
And many happy returns.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. – Ecclesiastes 3:11
Don’t Go Back to Sleep
by Rumi
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
By Debra Basham, on January 13, 2023 I almost remember where my fingers fit on this keyboard…. I was logged on to my laptop last at Stacey’s in Tennessee on Saturday, December 17, 2022. The last time was last year! I could not get it to boot up at all once we arrived here in Florida. For the rest of the story about this, see the link at the end of this post.
John and I drove to Florida on Sunday, December 18 and spent a couple of nights with John’s brother, Jack, in Largo (near Tampa). On Tuesday morning, December 20, we arrived at our rental in Port Charlotte. Many of you have already heard that the house needed a LOT of detailing for me to get comfortable here. It was a VERY busy few days before Linda and Larry arrived late Friday afternoon.
Steven Covey spoke of effective life management as our putting in the big rocks first, then the small rocks, then the pebbles, then the sand. That way our life has room for EVERYTHING. As I was beginning this Yellow Brick Road post, I came across a thoughtful post about a flaw in that lesson. (Steven Covey’s Big Rocks First Strategy is Wrong; November 15, 2017 | Renée Fishman) Her essential message is what you leave out is space: space to breathe, space to relax, space to be.
For example, the big rocks of deep cleaning the kitchen had to be done before I was comfortable to cook and eat what was cooked! I am sooooo grateful John and I share a regular yoga practice and for my multiple “commitments” to meditation and mindfulness; and glad to have eased back into that regular practice now that the cleaning is done.
I have no way of knowing how much of the cleaning that was needed to be done was hurricane related. Obviously not all of it was, but some likely was. The windows were VERY dirty, including overspray from a probable recent painting, plus obvious hurricane contribution of vegetation and shards of plastic and glass jammed in the sills. Having lived with Johnny on the Spot Window Cleaning Service for decades, the condition of the windows was a big deal to both John and me. These would have been called “a full-scrape, inside and out” plus the windows are French style. LOTS of corners to clean. VERY labor intensive.
As I spent MANY hours cleaning these windows, I found myself slipping into subtle judgment of the condition of the house. It is quite an expensive rental (thus the need for our two households to combine for this season). I could send you photos of the condition of the kitchen, but that seems unkind. I am sharing only because the lessons learned here are significant for us all.
Noticing my mind whirring about the unacceptability of the lack of cleanliness, the voice inside my head says, “Cleaning up your own messes does not clear karma.”
The voice went on, “And cleaning up messes that you did not make does not clear karma if you are doing it with resentment or frustration in your heart.”
And finally, “In fact, the resentment or frustration in your heart is generating negative karma for you….”
Wow.
And then came the greatest insight.
“You chose to come to this area, and you brought your window cleaning supplies, because you wanted to be of service to those who were impacted by the hurricane. This is your first person to serve….”
I was inside the house cleaning the dining room windows when the guy came to mow the lawn. He looked at me quite oddly and I said, “I know it is a bit unusual to see someone cleaning windows in a rental.”
He quickly responded, “I thought to myself that you must be related to Chris.”
Chris is the homeowner.
My heart was so opened by this comment. I could feel his effort to care for this home. The linens are good grade. The dishes are nicely appointed. There was obvious care in the choosing. I had appreciation for the home being made available flood in. I knew the concern and the expense and myriad other emotions around owning a home you plan to live in when you retire and needing to generate rental income to make all of that happen. The vulnerability of having someone in your home, using your stuff, doing God-knows-what settled in.
I am grateful Linda and Larry did not arrive until after the biggest rocks of detailing “our” home-away-from-home were done, but I am also grateful they were here to see the before-and-after of the window cleaning.
Window cleaning that has definitely let way more light in — far beyond the physical!
P.S. You can see the rest of the story about my computer repair and why the last time I posted a Yellow Brick Road was last year in the Sacred Story: Tarpon Technology Solutions.
By Debra Basham, on December 14, 2022 It is not the answer that enlightens
but the question.
~ Eugene Ionesco
Tuesday evening as our group met on Zoom, physically located all over the globe, we were fully present with one anothers’ questions. “How do you know if you are awake?”
“I can feel that still center. I can tell when I am not there as well.”
“How do you know you are receiving guidance or listening to your higher self?”
“I am less impatient. I am more able to sit in the unknowing.”
I mentioned an experience I had a few years ago when Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within, a book written by Janet Conner, appeared on my co-author’s Kindle.
My co-author did not purchase the book, and although I share access to his Kindle, nor did I. That this book just ‘appeared’ caught my attention. When I synced his Kindle, my attention was held as I read Conner’s words: “After all, it is no accident that this book has come to you. In the big scheme of things there are no accidents, only divine appointments.”
Conner’s outer life had fallen apart. Her husband abused alcohol, threatened suicide, and put their son in harm’s way. Her dog dragged a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way down the hallway from her bedroom to where she was seated in a stupor of sadness and despair. Picking up a pen and paper and opening to the power of writing in a journal changed her life. Along the way, she wrote out her covenant:
Janet’s Covenant
7. Pray always
6. Seek Truth
5. Surrender, there is no path but God’s
4. Come from Love
3. Honor Myself
2. Live in Partnership
1. Unite to create Good
A few minutes ago when my son-in-law came home to take an important phone call. My daughter said, “Do we need to pray about it?”
Without even thinking, I replied, “Are we not already praying?”
My soul seems to have integrated these high hopes written so succinctly in Janet’s Covenant because I do not use prayer as something I “do.” Prayer is truly a wonderful sense of being continually in the Presence of the Divine.
When others ask me for prayer, and I say, “Praying,” my experience is that I am moving my attention into a stream of well-being that is already flowing toward that person or situation. My prayer is not a request for an intervention so much as it is an acknowledgment of an omnipresence of grace and love available to all at all times.
“And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)
Buddhist “prayer” activities, such as the recitation of sutras or mantras, are about connecting with our own inner capacity to develop constructive emotions such as compassion, enthusiasm, patience.
The motivation to prayer is to engage in constructive actions of helping … for the benefit of all.
May your heart soar as you read the Great Spirit Prayer translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887:
Great Spirit Prayer
Oh, Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
ever hold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
Help me remain calm and strong in the
face of all that comes towards me.
Help me find compassion without
empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.
Whatever your questions, be willing to ask them. The very asking is an expression of your soul’s willingness to be one who knows.
Questions enlighten….
By Debra Basham, on December 6, 2022 My face is clear and I have completed two of the five prescription protocols. Three continue for the balance of the 14 days. I am very thankful my face is no longer swollen and burning and itchy.
It is quite interesting how big the little things feel.
It has been a wonderFULL time here in Tennessee. I have been busy with “projects” for Stacey (the greatest of which was organizing, arranging, and detailing her at-home-office). Here she is, working from there right at this very moment.
On Friday, Stacey and John and I took Doug’s truck to Franklin (just under an hour drive) to pick up a futon for the office. We were on a tight schedule because Stacey wanted to get back for her Barre class. Good thing she changed into her exercise clothes before we left home….
We had that futon loaded in record time. We felt the white-hot, sinking-feeling as we realized the keys (and our phones!) were locked in the truck. Stacey called Doug to come let us in. The wind was a bit brisk, so the three of us were semi-huddled on the seller’s porch when I said, “Perhaps this experience has multiple opportunities. I wonder if I am to get to know who she is.”
At that moment, Amber Westerman (singer-songwriter) came out to offer us water and ask if we needed anything. Amber had studied sustainable farming in Hawaii. Our grandson Brad had an interest in that during college. She studied Ayurvedic Medicine in Iowa, along with meditation practices.
OKAY, I get it…. likely not everyone picking up a futon would even know what Ayurveda is…. needless to say we had a very nice connection.
And Stacey made her Barre class!
Check out amberwestermanmusic.com or search her name. It was fun to see some videos of her original music. I still have a strong sense there may be something else calling our paths to cross in the future.
Stacey had purchased the furniture for her office. She had gotten her computer set up and had been working some in the space for a while. Settling in had definitely been derailed when our great-grandson, Jackson, had seizures and subsequent hospital stays.
We like to think we are planning our life and living our plan, but Life, with a capital “L” takes president over our plan, with a lower case “p.”
This morning, I opened Neale Donald Walsch’s message and read, “… what your heart thinks is great, is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, and he was correct.”
Walsch continued, “The mind is the last part of yourself to listen to. It thinks of everything you can lose. The heart thinks of everything you can give, and the soul thinks of everything you are.”
This comes at such a significant time. Results from Jackson’s genetic testing are due on Thursday afternoon’s follow-up with the pediatric neurologist at Vanderbilt. John and I are very grateful we will be here with them all for that.
Usually, I am one who likes bare windows to let light in but when I hung the pretty little sheers on Stacey’s office window a transformative softness immediately fell over the space.
The future you shall know
when it has come;
before then,
forget it.
~ Aeschylus
By Debra Basham, on December 2, 2022 There are opportunities
even in the most difficult moments.
~ Wangari Maathai
It has been a busy couple of weeks. We left Michigan on Monday, November 21, and have been staying with Stacey and Doug here in Smyrna, Tennessee. We had an easy trip down, and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner with all of the kids on Friday. Things took an unexpected turn a few days ago…. seems as though I was not complete with that yeast infection and the remorse.
The itchy face began again in earnest. By Tuesday morning, my face was quite red and dry, itching and burning. Wednesday morning, November 30, I woke up with my entire face inflamed and so severely swollen I am barely recognizable. (Note – I have attached a photo. If you receive Yellow Brick Road by email you will have to click on the title and follow the link to the website to see it. I warn you, it is not pretty….)
Not a coincidence that this event occurred five months to the day since I last had a FaceTime call with Joel, this after over twenty years of almost daily contact, including many, many trips to trainings, conferences, and speaking engagements. Mind you, I made the decision that the kindest thing might be for me to stop trying so hard to maintain contact given the increased dementia that resulted in his move to be near his son.
The team at American Family Care was so kind and very thorough. Soon after a steroid injection I was looking more like myself and feeling a whole lot better. I am on a 14-day aggressive program, hopefully this will both ease the yeast out without triggering another histamine storm. They are speaking the truth when they stay skin is the largest, most sensitive organ of the human body.
From my journal yesterday morning at 3:33 am EST:
Dear Holy Spirit,
I open email to the Gratefulness.org Word for the Day: The flower is always the bud’s undoing. Let it go. Pavithra K. Mehta wrote that. She is a writer-filmmaker, in a family of 21 (and still counting) eye surgeons. This might explain her fondness for stories that help people see…
This is to be the theme of the conversion pages as we leave a legacy of SCS-Matters on line for the world.
I watched the CBS Morning interview with actor and comedian, Rob Delaney. Rob’s heart-wrenching memoir is titled A Heart that Works. The title was taken from the lyrics of the song by Juliana Hatfield, Universal Heartbeat: A heart, a heart that hurts, is a heart, a heart that works. Rob’s son, Henry, died at two-and-one-half years of life from a brain tumor on Rob’s birthday.
It has been five months since I last spoke to Joel on FaceTime….
I draw to find meaning from the pain, and I write to share meaning with others. There are opportunities even in the most difficult moments.
The drawing is titled “No Blame, No Shame.” There is a thought bubble with the words, “What did I (or you) (or anyone) do to deserve this pain?”
The face has one tear and the red, swollen, itchy realty of my current face.
I write in the first of the Four Noble Truths: Everybody suffers just like you.
I ponder what has me awake. The coughing spell (our Jackson had a bad cold with fever and coughing when he got here on Friday and first Doug, and then I got a cold)? The five-month anniversary of last speaking to Joel? The haunting remorse of my choice to not try and force contact?
I notice a slight uphill to the words on the page. I misspell hallelujah and have to look it up. (Ha! I misspelled it when keying it in just now, too.)
I change the description from uphill to upward slant.
As the heat of the histamine storm releases, perhaps my heart is easing into a steady beat of loving what is, even if I’m not able to enjoy it.
I add the lyrics to “Universal Heartbeat” by Juliana Hatfield: A heart that hurts, is a heart, a heart that works.
I draw a sun in the upper right corner of the page and add: The sun shines even on a rainy day.
Along the left margin I write: I am not ashamed to share my messes with the masses. It is beautiful to know you are not alone. I add arrows and the words: No more red marking pens.
I have attached a photo of the drawing. Remember to click on the title and follow the link to the website if you want to see it.
This morning’s Daily Quote from Aaron really speaks to my heart: “Remember that your energy does touch everything in the world. When you are caught up in fear, that frightened energy reverberates around the globe. When you feel compassion and lovingkindness, that energy spreads around the globe.”
A heart that hurts is a heart that works.
By Debra Basham, on November 12, 2022 Well, the itching that I endured during an eight-day silent meditation retreat was not contact dermatitis after all. AND a yeast infection can be made worse because topical corticosteroids weaken the skin’s defenses and allow yeast infections to invade deeper into the skin. This week I have been on three prescriptions (oral and topical) and I am almost totally itch-free. This all ties in so well with themes from the “Awakening – As Sudden, Gradual and Both” Deep Spring retreat, and with a conversation begun this week with the Chairman of the Board for the Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center – a federally qualified health center in Kansas City, Missouri.
You see, as Barbara Brodsky stated so clearly, “Its not the agitation that is a problem, its the aversion to the agitation.”
Barbra continued, “The mind that is constantly worried about it is not part of the solution. The mind in stillness is.”
And then, “The only way we can resolve any of this is within ourselves.”
On the first day of the retreat, Saturday, October 29. 2022, Jackson (our 22 month old great grandson) had a seizure in the parking garage of Children’s Hospital at Erlanger in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he had been admitted on the evening of Monday, October 24. He was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
On the last day of the retreat, Saturday, November 5, 2022, he was re-admitted into PICU and placed on a vent.
“Sometimes you can not fix it. Sometimes you are living life one strobe light after another…” Aaron was speaking of Barbara’s having been awakened shortly after falling asleep many times hour-after-hour by a flashing, vibrating, strobe light. “She could not control the outcome. She could control what was inside her own heart.”
The folks in Kansas City are justified in being frustrated by the snafu in the system that leaves entire populations under-served and individual persons with less-than-optimal lives. But, every moment of agitation adds agitation to the universe. The world’s waters are chaotic.
Barbara Marx Hubbard told folks to ask what you are born to do and then follow the compass of joy. Samuel Ulysses Rodgers did just that. (See: More Than a Doctor: The Extraordinary Life of Samuel Ulysses Rodgers) The book demonstrates, through family stories of triumph over adversity, that core family values are the cornerstone of character essential to integrity-filled leadership.
Rodgers is not the only one who has a destiny to make a difference. One of India’s greatest spiritual teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, opened Larry’s heart and told him his destiny was to work for the World Health Organization to help eradicate killer smallpox. He would never have believed he would become a key player in eliminating a 10,000-year-old disease that killed more than half a billion people in the 20th century alone. Larry’s story, and his last name, is chronicled in Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History. Check out his TED talks about smallpox and Covid, and see if you might want to buy the book.
More importantly, please buy the truth: every moment of agitation adds agitation to the universe.
Thinking outside of the box, moving through experiences with presence, having an open heart, listening without judgment — these are the transformative results of RESTING.
Resting. Not wrestling.
I laugh about the many iterations of what we call everything other than allopathic medicine: alternative (coined by the AMA), holistic, integrative, functional…. the best comment I ever heard was when someone asked a doctor whether he practiced holistic medicine. He said, “Medicine is either effective or ineffective, nothing else.” Whether patient, doctor, nurse, care-giver — it is clear the system is in chaos. I could write a book about the ways a one-size-fits-all approach works (as well as with pantyhose). But, wrestling with it only strengthens it.
When I was a spokesperson for (at that time) holistic health in our wider community, I would say that a true holistic model considered the best of the West, and all of the rest.
My friend, Anna Marie, said imagine living with awareness of the wisdom within: “Somewhere in that person’s life, he or she has available the next thing needed.” I have said it only slightly differently: “There is no right thing for every one, but there is a right thing for this person at this moment.”
The love and support that is holding space for our Jackson is palpable. You could walk across water and never get wet we are being so held up. We do not know what the next moment will bring for him, or for us.
Jackon enjoying reading with G-pa
at Vanderbilt Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
What do I want to bring to the next moment? Awareness. Presence. An open heart.
Flight of the Garuda conveys the heart advice of one of the most beloved nonsectarian masters of Tibet, Shabkar.
This self awareness is naturally free from the very first. How amazing that it is liberated by just resting — at ease in whatever happens!
~ The Flight of the Garuda
By Debra Basham, on November 5, 2022 The 8-day silent meditation retreat will take more than one Yellow Brick Road to share with readers. Day One included 22-month old, Jackson, our great grandson, being air-lifted from the hospital in Chattanooga to Vanderbilt after he had a seizure in the parking garage following discharge.
Day Eight is complete with nurse Linda diagnosing the rash I have been plagued with all week as likely a yeast infection. I will spare you photos of that, but more about both of these strong catalysts are sure to appear at a later date….
Birds were an active part of my inner process this past week, so I will share with you their respective totem meanings in the order of their appearance:
1. Chickadee Meaning
Lots of Chickadees were in the grasses out back when I went for a short walk on dinner break of the Deep Spring Center Oakwood-at-home retreat with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr, and a host of spirit friends, as well as dharma sisters and brothers.
People with the chickadee totem animal are fiercely protective of their “flock.” This manifests itself as vigilance which can at times become excessive. It is crucial that people with this totem animal learn to recognize the difference between healthy caution and anxiety.
Chickadee tells you to be cheerful and hold your head up in all situations. You can transform your life and dictate your outcomes by thinking positively.
Click to hear the Chickadee.
2. Swan Meaning
Each day I would choose a “touch” stone. I held the swan rose quartz on Monday.
You become aware of your own inner beauty. You also unfold the ability to bridge to other realms and powers. The swan medicine helps you see the beauty of yourself as well as of others despite outer appearances. And that ability makes you like a ‘magnet’ that draws other people to you.
3. Woodpecker Meaning
The woodpecker teaches us to look beneath the surface of things and to open up our minds to the hidden meanings, lessons, and opportunities that life on earth has to offer.
4. Blue Jay Meaning
Blue Jays relate to everything from strength to confidence to communication, depending on the context in which you see them. For some, these birds have the reputation of being loud, aggressive, and mean. However, certain cultures see them as lucky or a symbol of good things to come.
5. Crow Meaning
Crows show up to let you know that there are spiritual shifts happening around you and remind you to pay attention to the spiritual messages that are sent to guide you. They represent transformation, cycles, psychic tools, and insight into unseen realms. Crows are problem solvers and can help you tune into a solution when you are faced with a challenge.
6. Sparrow Meaning
As the carillon at Pilgrim UCC church on the corner nearby began playing, the Sparrows in the shrub just outside my window began to sing right along! I noted in my retreat journal that this was happening, and clearly I heard in my mind, “Would you miss my sweet song just because I’m so ordinary?”
Surprising Sparrow facts.
The sparrow totem animal is connected with unity, selflessness, and integrity. People with the sparrow as their totem tend to be great team players…
The House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) is, in fact, one of the most common and widespread animals on this planet. Although our familiarity with these birds often desensitizes us to their beauty, these common birds are no less fascinating and beautiful.
Sacred to the goddess Aphrodite of the Greek pantheon, to Vishnu in Hindu mythology, and both Branwen and Rhiannon in Welsh mythology, the sparrow’s common nature has earned it a place in cultural traditions around the world.
7. Blue Grosbeak Meaning
Okay, the Blue Grosbeak sighting was in the wonderful article by my friend, Hart Rufe. His article posted on November 1, but I just saw it today after the end of the retreat. You can access the column at: https://www.stlucieaudubon.org/hart-beat-2022. New with this column is access to all past columns right in the top of the current page
Symbolic of many things, including faith, adaptability, romance, and good news; the grosbeak is an endless source of wisdom. Like all birds, grosbeaks teach us to appreciate the beauty and blessings of the natural world. Different grosbeak colors have different symbolic meanings. Rose feathers symbolize emotions and they tell you to find a heart song that will heal your pain. Blue and green feathers signify abundance, fortune, harmony, and the possibility of a wedding.
It is my sacred intention for that wedding to be a union of each human being with the higher self. May the benefits of this retreat be a blessing to all beings.
Thank you, Claudia Mierau, for sharing this beautiful poem from the book, Go In and In, by Danna Faulds.
“Allow” by Danna Faulds
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in –
the wild and the weak –
fear, fantasies, failures, and success.
When loss rips off the doors of the heart
or sadness veils your vision with despair,
practice becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.
By Debra Basham, on October 27, 2022 This post was started on October 17, 2022. Today is now ten days later. I cannot explain fully what derailed my completing the entry, but, say only, a lot has changed during this interim. The post began with this:
On Sunday, October 16, this loving blessing came through Barbara Brodsky:
The Mother to Debra (10/16/2022)
I love you.
I know you heard what I said to the friend before you. The joys, the challenges, and with the challenge, “What gift have you brought me?”
You are wise, My Dear One, and you understand that the challenge comes with a gift, but sometimes in your hurry to get through the challenge you don’t pause long enough to really see and to know the gift. Watch that fix-it mind that wants to push through it rather than pausing and saying, “Yes, ah…. Challenge, challenge. I am here to receive your gift.”
And just rest there for a bit.
The gifts reveal themselves to you but you’re still in a hurry to move through the challenge rather than experiencing the fullness of the gifts.
“What gift have you brought me? Thank you. Thank you.”
And it’s fine at the same time to say, “Yes, but this is too heavy for me right now so I wish to release it.” It’s fine to ask that, and the gift will return again in another form.
I am with you and helping you. I love you.
The “challenge” over the past few days surrounds our 22-month-old great grandson, Jackson. On Monday evening, October 24, Jackson had a seizure. He was taken by ambulance and admitted to Pediatric Intensive Care at Children’s Hospital at Erlanger in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he has continued to have absence seizures, meaning they are detected on the EEG, but not by the human eye.
Imagine a toddler with tubes and leads and restraints, and lots of pokes and lots of medications, and nothing at all normal…. that is where Himz (one of our nickname for Jackson) still is at the time of this post on Thursday morning, October 27.
Of course, our concern and compassion is for Jackson, but also for his mom, our granddaughter, Courtney. And for our daughter, Stacey, Courtney’s mom. And for Jackson’s dad; Papa Bear, G-Pa…. Uncles, Brad and Adam. We are all shook to the core with these developments.
John is so bonded to Jackson. Jackson was a major part of John’s healing goals when he went through the open-heart surgery in January. Getting to Tennessee in April on our way back to Michigan was about seeing Jackson.The color of Jackson’s favorite green blanket became a cue image for John’s recovery.
This has been such a clear time for me of noticing myriad points of view in a single experience. My own childhood medical trauma (being hospitalized and treated for polio at age five); my terror when Stacey was about that age and face-planted into a fieldstone fireplace requiring a trip to the emergency room for stitches; month’s old grandson Brad’s being taken by ambulance during a Saturday night snowstorm with RSV…. Seeing every condition like waves in the ocean. Each appearing as separate, but part of the whole.
Here is a recent photo of Jackson happily eating his first sandwich.
I was not very skillful when Stacey had to have stitches. In fact, they would not allow me to go into the room with her because I was so distraught. The memory of John and me leaving the hospital with our baby (Stacey) folded into the crib under an oxygen tank with her baby (Brad) is as active now as it was 32 years ago.
Each experience is woven together. Some threads are more obvious. Some patterns are more hidden.
On Tuesday afternoon as Jackson was being sedated for an MRI, having a spinal tap to rule out some infection that might be causing the seizures, and wired with a continual EEG…. I wrote in my journal: “Good can come from this.”
At meditation online that afternoon Sheilana’s poignant opening words, ”Why do we try to figure it out? Why don’t we just live and breathe and let it just be what it is? Is there any reason for me to believe that it should be anything or any way other than it is?”
The theme for that evening’s class with Barbara Brodsky: When something startles you, or pain arises or fear, what state and stage of consciousness opens habitually with that challenge?
Wednesday morning waiting news about how they were all doing, I put the following scripture on the Basham Family list:
Romans 8:26
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans….
Again this morning I wrote in my journal: “Good can come from this.”
P.S. On Wednesday afternoon Stacey stepped out of Jackson’s room to give us a call. It was the first time we had spoken on the phone since all of this occurred and she was crying. A stranger handed her a card. Many of you have seen that card in a Sacred story post, but for any who have not, here is the link: Card From a Stranger
P.S.S. Just as I was about to push publish, news that when the EEG was taken off Jackson sat up and smiled. His mom said, “I never knew how much I missed that smile!”
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