By Debra Basham, on May 28, 2019 I am just back from a retreat/intensive with the Deep Spring Dharma Path group. This group is a two-year commitment to daily practice, weekly meetings, and twice-yearly intensives. I said this morning I have not yet found my feet, but I know where I left them, and I assume they are still there waiting for me.
That is how grace works.
We heard truth articulated over and over. When it is lost, where is joy? Peace? Love? Trust? Hope? You fill in the blank.
Barbara Brodsky, founder and guiding teacher of Deep Spring Meditation Center, announced that she had seen two horses in the middle of the road as she was nearing Triple Crane Monastery in Chelsea (Michigan) where the retreat was being held. Barbara, concerned for the horses, pulled into the driveway. Seeing no one around, she honked the horn a few times. Barbara is deaf, and she has some physical challenges walking. She did not deem it feasible for her to leave her vehicle and walk to the barn to see if she could find the owner of the horses. Reluctantly, she drove on to the retreat.
Aaron, the discarnate teacher whom Barbara channels, spoke to her. I am paraphrasing here. “If you are going to be here, be here. Or get some one to go with you and go back to check on the farmer and the horses. Either is OK, you did what you could. If you decide to be here, let it go, trusting that all shall be well.”
As this was being shared, my mind had gone to a massage therapist in my office. Just before I drove to Chelsea, we had met with the owner of our building, the property manager, and a mold remediation professional. This therapist’s room was discovered to have an unacceptable level of active Aspergillus mold spores. For people with healthy immune systems, breathing in Aspergillus isn’t harmful. However, for one who is allergic, or those with weakened immune systems, breathing in Aspergillus spores can cause an infection in the lungs or sinuses which can spread to other parts of the body.
This therapist has a known allergy to mushrooms, and also has some immune deficiency. A perfect storm….
Many times throughout the retreat my thoughts would go to her. I have great compassion for what she is going through. She has only been in practice for one year, much of that year she has been feeling ill. Financially and emotionally she is drained.
I also have great compassion for the owner of the building, and truly for everyone affected, including myself.
At retreat I would gently remind myself to be present with the thoughts and emotions, and to remember to be here now. I was at the retreat.
I had a precious connection with my roommate, and I worked a lot in the kitchen! One way I deal with stress is to clean. This is going to come in handy with remediation….
We received Darshan (a Blessing) from ‘The Mother’— a very loving being whom Barbara also channels. I was told, “You are a sunbeam. A sunbeam is not diminished in any way by shining its light. Nor does it wonder, ‘Have I shined enough?’ This is a place for you to release. You are that sunbeam.”
Oh, my, goodness!
We received reminders to deepen our intention, and to notice where our true power is. If we feel contracted energy, we were instructed to just notice: fear, sadness, doubt, uncertainty, anger. Say to yourself, “I concentrate this contraction in service to all beings who feel _____.”
Many years ago, a group of friends worked at another office which flooded (with gray water!) and had to go through remediation. Feelings are close to the surface as I am remembering all of that now. Every day humans are facing threat. Every day humans are experiencing harm. But as we heard—we are not just mammals. We are also awakened beings.
From my retreat journal: You don’t have to be fully awake to be fully awake! You who can see the light, rest in the light. Guide others without going into the darkness.
We did quite a bit of sitting, but we also enjoyed learning through play. Here I am STANDING on a balance ball (with the help of others who would catch me if I started to fall).
And here is one of my Dharma sisters flying a kite.
Where does joy go? Or humility? Where is justice when it is lost?
In Buddhism, these fruits of the spirit are called the Paramitas, or the Ten Perfections.
None are truly lost. All want to be invited back.
How do I invite something without grasping? “I have set it in motion by my intention. If it is for highest good, it will happen.”
I was humbled to remember that mold, like a weed in the garden, or the mosquito on my hand, is a sentient being. Can I open my heart to the mold, too, knowing it cannot stay, but cleaning it out with love? Reading about mold: By decomposing organic matter, molds play a big part in material biodegradation, enabling decay and rot necessary in all ecosystems.
May all beings remember these valuable lessons about life, including lessons from the mold.
By Debra Basham, on May 17, 2019 
Some days are so humbling…. women I know are going through so much. I am not saying men are without their challenges, too, but women I KNOW are going through so much.
Three precious women friends are stepping up to work in businesses created by the men in their lives. Two of the businesses came from fathers, and one from a husband. The stepping up is a result of these men having transitioned into spirit.
The precious woman friend who posted this photo on Facebook is herself a widow, doing a remarkable job raising a child amidst challenging financial circumstances:
I love the truth of these words about difficult circumstances meaning you are in a powerful place of transformation and transmutation. I wondered if there was a difference of meaning between these two states. Transmutation is the action of changing or the state of being changed into another form (or into another species), and transformation is a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.
It seems these women are representative of something that is capable of happening to all beings.
I stumbled onto an interesting webpage listing a timeline on the History of Women’s Rights in America. The first two entries were shocking!
1769 – The colonies adopt the English system decreeing women cannot own property in their own name or keep their own earnings.
1777 – All states pass laws which take away women’s right to vote.
Gary Zukav’s were the first words I remember having heard describe authentic power. I hope you will take time to look over the ‘Authentic Power Vocabulary’ from the Seat of the Soul.
Savor these first few definitions from that list and let their energy inspire your own authentic power:
Authentic power is alignment of the personality with the soul (with harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life).
Characteristics of an Authentically Empowered Personality include humbleness, clarity, forgiveness, and love.
Clarity allows you to see the world of physical matter for what it is—a learning environment that is created jointly by the intentions of the souls that share it.
Authentic power evaporates fear.
Co-creation occurs as individuals bring all that each can offer to a joint effort and at the same time, open themselves to a larger, or higher, idea that may not have previously occurred to them….
Women (and men) who are capable of living from authentic power might just hold the keys to the kingdom!
By Debra Basham, on May 11, 2019 I got to join my friend, Carol L. Myers, artist extraordinaire, for a gallery walk. Carol’s work is being featured in a one-woman show at the Box Factory for the Arts. Here is Carol:
Carol’s Solo Art Exhibition, which is titled Embodied: Embracing Spirit, is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.
Here I am in front of Carol’s “Shaman Woman” quilt, which lives on the massage table in the office at 815 Main Street:
Today like every other day
We wake up empty and scared.
Don’t open the door of your study
And begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel
And kiss the earth.
Rumi
Having witnessed Carol’s finding her voice and being able to articulate about her art has been a great honor.
Wayne Dyer said, “Don’t die with the music still inside you. Listen to your intuitive inner voice and find what passion stirs your soul.”
Carol L. Myers is a woman who is doing that….
By Debra Basham, on May 4, 2019 I am working on the theme of Mundane Made Holy for the Mother’s Day service at Pilgrim United Church of Christ. That had me checking online for antonyms for ‘mundane.’ Here are just a few: 
One rainy morning this week, I was moved near tears with gratitude for being able to walk over to the little community center and ride the stationary bicycle. It is not always possible to do what you really desire, but life continuously provides us with wonderful options. I could have grumbled about not being able to ride outdoors in the warmth and sunshine.
Walking home, as I went past the home one of our neighbors, Mark, I was again awash with gratitude. Shortly after we moved in, Mark came over and helped John with the demo and construction of our new deck. It was hot. The work was hard. We did not know Mark, and he certainly did not owe us anything. Some internal sense of willingness moved him to this generosity of time and energy.
I hope you can see the list of opposites to the word mundane and find yourself inspired.
Mother Teresa is given credit for having said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
This is how you make the mundane holy….
By Debra Basham, on April 28, 2019 Last week was a week with loss. Good Friday, the husband of a client/friend/colleague passed. Holy Saturday, the father of a business acquaintance passed. Easter Sunday, a loyal member of Saint Joseph Buddhist Sangha passed. A Buddhist teacher invited me to use the 49 day ceremony.
49 Day Ceremony
When someone passes away, in addition to a funeral service that usually occurs three or seven days after the death, we have a ceremony on the 49th day. Traditionally, the period of 49 days after someone dies is seen as a time for that person to check their consciousness and digest their karma. According to Buddhist teaching the bodhisattva Ji Jang Bosal helps the deceased during these 49 days to perceive their karma so when they return they are reborn to help this world, rather than continue in the cycle of birth and death. Buddhism teaches that there is a life in this body, then a time of investigation or consideration, and then a new life …
Loss is such a raw part of human life.
Listening to a TED talk by Nora McInerny, I was moved to laughter and to tears. McInerny is the author of The Hot Young Widows Club: Lessons on Survival from the Front Lines of Grief.
McInerny said something members of our Grief Journey Group have said to one another over and over for over twenty years: We don’t move on from grief, we move forward with it.
The next day, opening the May 2019 Guideposts, I see, ‘A Different Kind of Grief’ by B’ette Schalk. Schalk felt she lost her husband to anxiety and depression, writing, “Gone was the vibrant man I’d fallen in love with 24 years earlier, the man who liked going to parties and playing cards.” The article closes with a single page with 5 headings of great wisdom for caregivers: How to Cope With Ambiguous Loss.
How to Cope With Ambiguous Loss
Put a name to it.
Use “both…and” thinking.
Accept that good enough is enough.
Manage your mixed emotions.
Imagine new hopes and dreams.
Ambiguous loss is what my friend is living as her husband is in a facility for those with Alzheimer’s disease.
Ambiguous loss is felt by students afraid to be at school for fear of a mass shooting.
Ambiguous loss is felt in the aging and staging of life.
On the light side of 40, she recently shared with me she had read on a website about cancer that having cancer was like living with a loaded gun pointed at your head. You did not know when it would go off, but you knew it would.
Ah, ambiguous loss….
Whether it is our youth, our goals, our jobs, our homes, our health, our strength, our courage, or our loved ones, or our memories, we all navigate the waters of ambigious loss.
The best way I can think to close this post is with this Deep Spring Center Thought for Today:
“Your loved one is not dead, only he has left his human form. He is now expressing himself through you, through your growing open heart that can allow itself the experience of grief and allow that grief to become a catalyst for compassion. He is expressing himself through you in all the ways he spoke to you in your life, the joys and the sorrows. He is expressing himself through every human that he touched in this lifetime. And he is in the soil and the stars and the rain and the sun. You cannot lose him.” ~ Aaron
Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me nor mine.
By Debra Basham, on April 22, 2019 Recently I wrote a poem titled ‘Longing’ that was inspired by an exchange with a dear friend that left me feeling less than valued, wondering if I should have, or could have, done something differently in our past to allow for a more pleasant current exchange.
Sitting heart-to-heart with another precious friend a week or so later, I was stunned to have her say to me, “You are more invested in saving my marriage than I am.”
Later, as I was writing in my journal, some clarity came about all of this, inspired in part by the Thought for Today from Deep Spring Center.
You as a world are inviting conflict but then not doing the needed practice with it, so you must invite it again and again. You are like the child in school doing endless multiplication table drills; they are unpleasant but you have not studied the tables, and will not, so the teacher repeats the drills. Your inattention calls forth the repetition. If you wish the drills to cease, learn the tables.
~ Aaron
The “D” stands for Debra, and the “V” stands for the voice of wisdom I call Holy Spirit, from my journal entry:
D: I know the truth that ‘wherever you go, there you are.’ If she is so easily offended because he yelled at her, she will encounter that energy again. It is today’s quotation from Aaron about calling difficulties to us over and over to learn what we need to know.
V: If you had a lesson you are still learning that expresses itself in the ‘Longing’ poem, what might that lesson be?
D: Take nothing personally. I am not responsible for another person’s emotional state.
Note—As I wrote these words on to the journal page, I could feel something leaving my energy!
V: What else?
D: Wonderings are a symptom of not being present moment where I can gently say, “Oh, this is that old habit energy. I know you. Come, sit, have tea. I’ve been expecting you.” *
V: Tell all who know. They all know. Love, Holy Spirit
A very wonderful message on an Easter morning.
Going right along with that, was the quotation, “When humanity awakens, it will move beyond time,” which came from the Brahma Kumaris with this image:
*This is a reference to the stories of Milarepa (c. 1052 – c. 1135 CE), one of Tibet’s most famous yogis and poets.
By Debra Basham, on April 17, 2019 WORD FOR THE DAY
I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,
acutely miserable…but through it all
I still know quite certainly that
just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie
Visit Gratefulness.org/
This week’s news out of Paris was shocking, and of all times to have it be Holy Week for humanity to experience such a devastating loss of such history and magnificence and relevance and beauty. The Cathedral of Notre-Dame destroyed by fire.
Reminding ourselves of impermanence at times like this, we could/should read all of my blog posts rolled into one message. The message essentially is Agatha Christie’s: Just to be alive is a grand thing.
We might start with Does the tree still live in your heart? and Tree of Hope.
Then move back to Hey, Ma Durga. The following quotation is from that:
“My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came in this earth, I was the same. As a little girl, I was the same. I grew into womanhood, but I was still the same. When the family In which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, I was the same… And, in front of you now, I am the same. Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same.”
Nothing—NO THING—lasts forever. We know that, and yet we deal with loss as though it is some sort of personal punishment.
Yes, it is loss. Yes, it is sad. Yes, it is difficult. Yes, it is painful.
But we do not have to suffer.
We suffer because of our subtle judgment, the way we tell the story in our own heart and mind. Today’s Thought for Today from Deep Spring Meditation Center explains that well.
Deep Spring Center
Thought for Today
Subtle judgment is caught up in the story that contracts and says,
‘I’m not good at this’ or,
‘I should be able to do it better.’
I might look at it and say,
‘I can do it better.’
That’s not a judgment.
I know I CAN do it better.
Can you feel the difference?
‘I should be able to do it better.’ Tightness, tension.
‘I can do it better,’ is a relaxed and spacious perception.
~ Aaron
I have been dealing with Comcast this week, updating router, cable box, and DVR. It took me five trips to the store, and many hours on the phone to finally get everything working. Right in the middle of all of that frustration (and I was feeling frustrated!), I knew nothing that was happening was eternal.
Whatever is happening, watch the stories you tell yourself about what is happening.
Make this a truly HOLY WEEK. Give up suffering….
By Debra Basham, on April 4, 2019 This past winter has been the f-a-s-t-e-s-t in my memory. We enjoyed visitors beginning the last week of January, and continuing right up until the week before we headed north.
Some groaned when I shared that, speaking of how difficult they found it to maintain balance with guests. I would clarify how fortunate I am we enjoyed everyone (well, maybe not everything about having brother-in-law, Jack, come down with stomach flu was altogether enjoyable).
We found an easy schedule, and I had time while many of our guests rotated activities they did without me—like shuffleboard or Tuesday night 60 cent shrimp at The Waterfront.
I honored my Tuesday afternoon meditation group, my Sunday morning online meditation, and my Tuesday evening Dharma Path study group. I attended my writers’ groups. I wrote my daily pages in my journal.
We enjoyed boating with Florida neighbors, going to Karaoke, playing dominoes, and watching HGTV and Wheel of Fortune.
I rode my bike, I enjoyed eating one meal per day, and I ORGANIZED.
As we prepared for departure, my organization really made the difference between struggling and savoring. For example, days before we were to leave, I took everything out of the fridge, washed all the shelves and drawers, placed clean paper towels on two shelves and in one drawer, and placed all of our stuff on those. I returned the homeowner’s fridge items to the door. On departure day, all I had to do was put our stuff into the cooler and toss out the paper towel carpeting.
Voilà!
Maybe because my overall birth number is 2, I live Habit Number 2 of Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®.
The morning of our departure, I rode my bike to the Snowbird Poet’s group. There was confusion about the time and I sat waiting, writing in my journal: What gift to just be.
Workers were trimming a tree two houses down the canal. The heavy-duty equipment was VERY loud. I continued to write: What do I do with the noise? Do I story tell? Do I acquiesce? Might my peace coexist with the sounds? It has been a holy season. I’ll let my heart savor the sound, grateful I can hear.
Then a poem came through.
Saddest of Days
We buried her today
way too soon
Nothing prepared me
for the shock
Then soon she rose up
gathering all of my memories
Reaching the depths
of my despair
Singing my sadness to sleep
so our joy could dance on….
Debra Basham 04-01-2019 (WC 40)
My journal entry included: It is a time of releasing. Notice how easily it is here, then it is gone.
I’m very aware we are all here and gone, too.
You are, and you aren’t. Many of you are “gone” more while you are “here”, and will be more “here” when you are “gone”.
Just be present. That is enough.
You are enough.
Tell all who know. They all know.
Love, Holy Spirit
Today is Day 91, writing down my soul in my journal. Today is another day to let joy dance on. The saddest day is any moment we forget that….
By Debra Basham, on March 29, 2019 I have been wondering about the distinction between self care and nurture (kindness and wisdom) and “distraction.” Might we be doing wholesome actions such as exercise or journal writing, or playing music, without being skillful?
Additionally, I wrote to Barbara Brodsky, Founding Teacher of Deep Spring Meditation Center, asking about all of this. “We are encouraged to skillful practice of support practices, Metta, Tonglen, etc., that are a part of Buddhism. Might it also be appropriate to develop skillful support practices that come from outside of Buddhism? For example, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Tapping on the meridians, while being present with difficult body or mind states, and saying skillful statements can support insight and release of painful karmic patterns. One does not try to avoid the emotion, one feels (touches) the emotion, then moves through a process of working with the emotion at the level of energy and awareness.”
Barbara clarified that the primary distinction isn’t the specific practice but what truly has drawn the practice forth. Was the motivation genuine kindness or was fear present, thereby was the real desire to “fix” something?
Barbara went on to say that all support practices from any tradition are helpful when motivated from a spacious and kind desire to attend, rather than from a contracted fearful need to fix.
Barbara said the ‘Daily Quote’ from Aaron clarified the question perfectly.
When we release some of the self-identity and separation, we come to feel our interconnection with everything. The tree dances with the wind not because the wind forces the tree but because the wind and tree literally inter-are. They share the same core of being. The wind is the tree; the tree is the wind. And so they dance together. You can dance with life in the same way. ~ Aaron
Barbara’s summation was simply, “When our practice comes from that place of interconnection, we are attending with skillful support.”
At the relative level we appear to be separate, but at the ultimate level, there is no separate self. You can understand that no wave is separate from the ocean. The wind and the tree and you and I dance with life. We inter-are….
By Debra Basham, on March 22, 2019 You see, I have this weird, but in my experience, validated faith that if I surrender myself to my own words, the ones that came without too much cogitation or premeditation, they will lead me to a place I didn’t know I’d be visiting; they will show me 1) What I didn’t know was on my mind when I started, and 2) What I didn’t know I knew about that particular subject.
Sydney Lea, page 195, The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, by Diane Lockward.
Sitting in my Snowbird Poets group, I placed my fingers on the keyboard barely breathing and witnessed The Aftermath.
Time is nonexistent, Dear One, non-exist-ant
Standing barefoot
I am aware
of things I am too young to know
Stripped of my innocence
when he climbed on top of me
in the courtyard
beneath the Viburnum
That snowball bush was in full bloom
while I was not
yet
but soon would be
Ten years later
I hear from some
deep drug-induced fog:
“If we don’t get her awake
she is never going to
have this baby!”
Then: “It’s a girl!”
53 years later
my twenty-year-old granddaughter
takes off on a bicycle
as a sinking feeling
of fear
flashed fast across my face
Of course, she was right
I would have let her brothers go—
without so much as a second thought
But the Viburnum will bloom
again and again
unlike a young girl’s innocence
Debra Basham 03-18-2019
See Processing.
Pearl Bailey says there’s a period of life where we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.
Bailey’s words sing the truth. I had come from a legacy of women who had worn the shackles of sexual shame. My mother had a first marriage she did not tell us about, and I did not learn until I was in my forties that she had discovered she had a sexually transmitted disease at the same time she found out she was pregnant for me.
I became pregnant on New Years Eve, three weeks before I turned sweet sixteen on January 22, 1966. I got married, and I was forced to leave high school in tenth grade. (See Loved and Wanted: Listen to Your Mother.)
My daughter, and my granddaughter have carried that legacy of sexual shame, but none of us need carry it any longer. It is time for all women to be free….
A Course In Miracles
LESSON 60
God is the Love in which I forgive.
God does not forgive because He has never condemned. The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God’s Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me up to Him.
I do not have written permission to share these words from Each Day a New Beginning: Daily Meditations for Women by Karen Casey © 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation, but the message must be shared:
For too many of us, feelings of shame, even self-hatred, are paramount. No one of us has a fully untarnished past. Every man, every woman, even every child experiences regret over some action. We are not perfect. Perfection is not expected in the Divine plan. But we are expected to take our experiences and grow from them, to move beyond the shame of them, to celebrate what they have taught us.
Each day offers us a fresh start at assimilating all that we have been. What has gone before enriches who we are now, and through the many experiences we’ve survived, we have been prepared to help others, to smooth the way for another woman, perhaps, who is searching for a new direction.
We can let go of our shame and know instead that it sweetens the nuggets of the wisdom we can offer to others. We are alike. We are not without faults. Our trials help another to smoother sailing.
I will relish the joy at hand. I can share my wisdom. All painful pasts brighten someone’s future, when openly shared.
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