Yellow Brick Road: Your Path to Heart & Health

Anxious Feelings – Power of Presence

By Debra Basham, on May 12, 2024

I was awake a few times during the night. My friend is in the hospital. She just got home from Florida on Tuesday about dinner time and when I took “Welcome Home” cookies to her about noon on Wednesday, it was obvious she was not in tip-top-shape. This friend had MAJOR back surgery while in Florida, and her history of heart issues resulted in a longer-than-expected stay in the hospital with MANY complications. We were so looking forward to her being home and healthy.

A call to her cardiologist office resulted in her going to ER. Sparing significant details, suffice it to say, she is in the hospital now. It seems she is having pauses between beats. She has called these “spells.” Feeling like she was going to faint, but not actually losing consciousness. The pauses have been getting longer and the plan is for her to receive a pacemaker. If you have a practice of prayers, please pass along some for her.

I had seen this post on Facebook from “Fabulous Lovers of Weird Everything” about ten days ago, and I knew this post was coming, even before the situation with my friend and before Mother’s Day.

~ Thinushi Jayarangi

When I got to the hospital on Friday, my friend had experienced an adverse reaction to an IV medication. Her heart rate and pulse had plummeted. The nurse and doctor were still there with her…. and my friend kept telling me how wonderful the nurse had been through the event, “She just stayed here with me and she kept calling me back….”

Perhaps today is the perfect day to share this story because it is Mother’s Day. I just sent a text message to a friend saying that not every woman (and not one man) gives birth to another human, but we all share in that universal love called MOTHER. That friend lost her mother recently and today is the first Mother’s Day with her mother in spirit.

Even when our physical mothers are not here in bodies we are receiving a Mother’s Love. Calling the planet we live on “Mother Earth” seems perfect. Every moment we are in these bodies we are being nurtured and held and sustained, especially when we are navigating challenging conditions and have anxious feelings.

Women and men are doing that for one another. The Holy Spirit is doing that for each of us. Our ancestors, our deities, our partners, our pets…. this is the Power of Presence.

From All Sides

By Debra Basham, on May 2, 2024

I have been working with a habitual habit energy. I’ve been at that place in the process where I could see clearly it was habit energy but I was not yet able to see what was driving it. You cannot see it until you can see it, and you cannot release it until you can see what is fueling the pattern from all sides..

This past Sunday Barbara Brodsky, (as The Mother), spoke to me about resistance. I was encouraged to just note it gently so the resistance can inform me about the places where I still hold something separate from myself. She reminded me that it is subtle, and cautioned me to not try to fix anything. Just be present with whatever is happening in the mind and body. Be aware of the overlap of that with the essence which is so open and broad and filled with love.

This reminds me of the holy experience of fully experiencing both the grief and the relief with loss. This morning it was the loss of a friend as navigated with her kitty. Eddie, an indoor-only de-clawed cat, got out and has been missing since Saturday. On Wednesday she was resolved to accept Eddie’s was the shriek she heard in the night on Saturday, rather than a rabbit being eaten by a coyote (as her neighbor and kittie-sitter wants to believe). Of course, neither of them has proof. (Please see update at the bottom of this page.)

Related to the habit energy I have been navigating, I am now able to observe how underneath the resistance has been sadness and fear. I am more aware of the sadness. This reminds me of the question: If a lion roars in front of a mirror, do you think the mirror roars? The mirror does nothing, it simply reflects.

The opening of a retreat with Barbara Brodsky includes taking The Five Basic Precepts, derived from the Tiep Hien Precepts. The second seems relevant to my having seen what has been fueling this habit energy pattern from all sides.

In what ways do I take that which is not mine? Do I take more than my share? Can I become more mindful of when, why and how this happens?

I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not freely given.

This is not the first time I have written about this habit energy. (See: It’s So Simple Isn’t It)
What I am able to see now is a time in the past when the shoe was on the other foot. What I have been experiencing as both recurring and painful I once was doing to another. I know harm was not intentionally inflicted, but I see clearly now that I was inflicting harm nonetheless.

A memory just popped in from years ago when I had seen some trash on the beach and a judgment about “someone who would litter” arose. Moments later as a receipt on my passenger seat was sucked out when I opened the car window on the drive home.

A stressful event occurred when the woman I was traveling in Europe with changed her mind about some directions she had given me without communicating that change. She was frustrated, angry, and lashed out. As she was admonishing me for not doing what she now wanted me to do, I had lucid awareness (time and place) of my having done that to another.

If someone calls us a fool and we
get angry, we think that this person
made us angry. But we don’t see the
subtle thought process that goes on:
the identification with self; the pride
that doesn’t want to be called a fool;
and all of that. That’s what makes
the mind angry, not anyone
calling you a fool.
~ The DailyTejaniya

In both of these past situations — and thankfully also with this current habit pattern — release comes when you see the pattern from all sides.

Update: Eddie is safely back home! Interestingly, the same family that saw his post on Nextdoor and sent a photo of another cat yesterday was successful in assisting Eddie’s safe return this evening…. So grateful for all.

Hair Experiences

By Debra Basham, on April 17, 2024

I almost did not go for an out-of-doors bike ride today because of a threat of rain and a fairly stiff wind, but the newborn leaves making their debut on the trees outside my window moved me. About 7 miles in, and very near home, the three walkers looked a rather odd trio from behind, and I spontaneously called out, “A rather unusual looking group of walkers!” They repeated my words and let their laughter speak agreement.

Then I saw her from the front. She had one of those BRILLIANT streaks of color on one side only of her longish hair. Suddenly I had the judgment, “I am pretty mundane when it comes to hair.” My sister, Janis, has had light hair/dark hair; short hair to almost no hair; normal-colored and not-so-normal colored hair. Sometimes she has had more than two of these in the same day!

In some traditions, hair is considered a metaphor for spirit and uncut hair the symbol of interconnectedness of all life. To cut one’s hair was thought to diminish strength or wisdom, while long hair represented a connection to the natural elements, including the spirit world and ancestors.

I have an album of photos on my iPhone titled: Hair. I have selected three. One is my photo from the year I was Number One in Sales at Creative Galleries. The dark hair phase photo shows me giving a tiny grandson, Adam, a massage as he smiles a sleepy slur saying, “Every peoples ought to have a massage.” The back shot is of my post-Covid hair taken by my brother-in-love, Larry Britton, shortly before I donated it to Wigs for Kids.

Last Friday evening we went to a “reunion” of The Dunns, a benefit concert of a Southern gospel band that Michael Springer, our music friend, toured with for many years. In addition to some old familiar gospel tunes, I heard some lyrics new to me that still linger, like the words to When I Get Carried Away © 2024 Heritage Singers.

It is interesting that I had unknowingly changed the words of that song ever-so-slightly from when to ’til:

I’m gonna have the time of my life ’til the time of my life is over; I’m gonna get carried away ’til I get carried away.

Perhaps my hair experiences have not been as mundane as I first thought.

The Guest House

By Debra Basham, on March 21, 2024

Today is March 21 and I have absolutely no “excuse” for not having posted on Yellow Brick Road since February 26. Yes, we have had house guests off and on for the past six weeks. Yes, I have been riding up to 20 miles per day on my bike this year rather than the normal 5-8 miles of recent years, including time for stopping to share affection with this kitty on Harbor Drive.

Yes, I have completed 19 one-thousand-piece puzzles, and, yes, I have also read five books since we arrived here in Punta Gorda early December, but, the real reason my posts have been few and far between is far deeper.

The real reason is I am profoundly present with the play of light and darkness within my mind and that can be awkward to speak about. At Tuesday evening’s North Fort Myers Bluegrass Jam after the sun had gone down light was pouring in from from the nearby baseball field behind the line of trees. I was transfixed by this juxtaposition of the light and darkness so I snapped a photo.

I am likely continuing to mine gifts of intentionally working with shadow. These past years of classes with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr and Aaron during which we navigated the Sacred Darkness. Sacred Darkness is very much with me. As is the Light. Each experience brings myriad thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions…. all can be welcomed, even while not all are comfortable, and some are outright uncomfortable.

As a guide, Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” comes to mind frequently.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Every line of this poem played itself out on Sunday when I watched a china pasta bowl I bought at the flea market for one dollar break in half against the asphalt. A hundred things cannot fully express the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and emotions melded into an experience.

“It was only one dollar,” were the words I spoke at the time of the crash.

Totally true words, but not the totality of my experience.

I could not get that bowl out of my thoughts.

I wished I had taken it to the van.

The best way to describe it is like a too-brief encounter that leaves you yearning for a deeper knowing of one another. Who made this? How did it come to be at this flea market today? Who gave it such a low price? What is/was it’s real value? What would it feel like and look like filled with delicious food sitting in the middle of the table?

I wished I had taken a photo of that bowl it to remember it by. I think I recall there having been a couple of butterflies and some flowers. I know there was green along the rim. The bowl was made in Italy, but I do not know if it was hand painted. I wished I had carefully brought the two halves home and glued them back together rather than having John toss them into the trash can. It could not hold pasta but perhaps it could have held fruit on the counter…. I grieved the loss.

Complicating factors were the unanswered questions around the mishap. Details I did not have access to as I longed to put my mind at rest. I wanted to know the who, what, when, where, why, and how. I longed to free my mind of the ruminating. This being human is a guest house.

The experience is not just about that bowl. It is about the nature of mind. A loved one dies. A loved one survives. All of the unanswered questions. A welcomed baby. An abused child. Kindness. Unkindness. Pleasant and painful. Light and darkness playing itself out on that inner landscape of mind.

This being human is a guest house. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. ~ Rumi

Trust Your Own Story

By Debra Basham, on February 26, 2024

Early Saturday morning I woke up dreaming. I knew the symbols were significant so by the light of the digital watch I keep on the nightstand I wrote in my journal:

Am sliding head-first down a piece of card stock to show a friend she can “trust your own story/writing….”

My scribbled note was at the bottom of a page, so I flipped to the next sheet and crawled back into bed. At 8:38 am my cell phone rang in the great room. The call, from a Michigan State police trooper, had gone to voice mail before I got there, so I returned the call. The news was quite upsetting, and I apologize for needing to mention having gotten the call without sharing the details of the information in the call. My upset state of mind is what is most relevant, and that I forgot about having had the dream….

I am grateful Stacey was available to talk with me about the call, and thankful we genuinely affirmed for one another the importance of taking things as they come. I calmed down enough to go out for a bike ride.

Making a right turn off one road and onto another, there was a very attractive young woman (well-dressed) with a little white pug-faced dog on a leash in the yard. I didn’t think anything about it until I came around the corner and the dog ran to the end of the leash and W-H-O-O-S-H was off the leash and chasing me down the street!

A car was driving toward us at a pretty fast clip and showed no sign of slowing down. The dog’s owner was running hard, desperately trying to catch the dog. I knew she was terrified the dog was going to run out in front of the car. I kept moving to stay between the dog and the car.

I’ve been bitten by a dog, so I don’t have a lot of confidence when I am being chased. As the dog caught up to me I stopped peddling, began coasting, and raised my feet up so that the dog wouldn’t have access to my feet or legs. After the car passed and the owner yelled, “PLEASE STOP!” I stopped and she caught the dog.

I was sooooooo aware of all of the aspects: I didn’t want to get bitten by the dog, I didn’t want the dog to cause me to fall of my bike onto the pavement, I didn’t want the dog to get hit by the car, I didn’t want the driver of the car to hit the dog…. Each of these aspects of things I didn’t want pointed to the vital truth: I truly wanted the best possible outcome for all.

The owner and I apologized to one another. She did not realize I had kept riding to keep the bike between her dog and the car. We shared a few tears mingled with the stress and the relief. She kept saying she could not understand how the dog got off the lease; that had never happened. With shaking legs but a grateful heart, I rode on.

All I wrote in my journal that morning was that I had gotten the call from the trooper with the upsetting news and “Dog got off leash and chased me.”

Sunday morning I went for another easy ride. It was one of the most pleasant early morning rides in weeks because the temperature was mild and the wind was calm. After I got home I touched base with a dear Michigan friend, Linda Higbee, (another snow-bird) who just had back surgery here in Cape Coral. A headache had her still in the hospital, lying flat.

She wrote: “The nursing assistant, Kristin, came up with getting me high protein ice cream. It’s sticks to the spoon and l can eat it lying down 😋 . I’ve been able to rest well and ask for some spirit help. Stepping back to see both the positive and negative happening is very introspective and kind of calming too.”

The dream flashed into my mind! I could totally see how this had played out with my experience of having been chased by the dog. I wrote back to her, “All good news…. and I’m sharing that awe and calming of seeing both the positive and the negative (maybe it’s more accurate to say both the pleasant and the unpleasant) at the same time. I’ll write up and share my experience of having been chased by a dog on my bike today!”

I hope you are able to see with me how my dream was a gift from Holy Spirit. The symbol was speaking to me about the phone call from the trooper AND speaking to my friend about her recuperation.

An unpleasant experience does not have to be labeled as negative. As Morgan Harper Nichols is quoted by Gratefulness.org, “Peace is an invitation in daily life to breathe deep, right here, in the uncertainty.”

You are able to “Trust Your Own Story,” right here, in the uncertainty.

I Am Made of You

By Debra Basham, on February 22, 2024

It is this disinterested but completely allowing contemplation of the body in the world that the body loses its ‘me-ness’ and the world loses its ‘not-me-ness.’ In this way bodily sensations no longer cry out ‘I am separate, I am exclusively you” and perceptions of the world no longer cry out, ‘I am separate, I am not you.’ Everything sings out, ‘I am made of you.’ ~ Rupert Spiria

Is this a drawing of a duck or a rabbit?

A catchy little trick from NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) was to ask a client if he or she was sure enough to be unsure when that person could see conflicting points of view. This week it has come into clarity how vital it may be for each of us to move toward willingness to live in a state of asking that of ourselves: “Am I sure enough to be unsure?”

The point is freedom from identification with any point of view; a full freedom from attachment to ALL points of view. This does not mean I won’t have a point of view. Of course we will. The shift comes as awareness reveals whatever the point of view, it is simply a point of view.

Points of view can be very similar, somewhat similar, somewhat different, radically different, or even diabolically opposed. I think you will agree that way too often solidified points of view which are widely differing or diabolically opposed can become deadly. Literally….

At the very least solidified points of view have an impact on rapport and can damage relationships, cause stress, and rob us of our natural state of harmony and happiness.

Decades ago it was pretty easy for me to hold a firm intention to have freedom from a “negative” point of view, and to observe the changes within myself when I was free from that point of view. I could quite easily and notice when my Debbie Downer was in charge, and I could choose a better feeling thought. This was quite skillful at that time.

The past several years I have been studying Sacred Darkness with a group of others who are also intentional about awareness with a capital “A.” What is sometimes called “pure” awareness is not a limited awareness of this or that, and it is not attached to a particular point of view. Even preferences of positive or negative are simply part of the continuum of The All That Is.

For sure, I prefer feeling positively, but can you see that this preference is also aversion to feeling negatively? I remember so well letting something negative “go,” but continuing to hold the point of view that it was or is negative.

Aaron’s Daily Reflection:

Many of you were raised with this idea, “Hold it in the light and it will dissolve.” What do I do if it doesn’t dissolve? And of course, sometimes it doesn’t dissolve. If the conditions are present and have not yet been purified, then that condition will arise and will maintain itself until the conditions dissolve. If the conditions for body pain are still there, the pain will remain, no matter how much you try to love it. You do not love it to make it go away. You hold it in love — the body pain, the anger — because that spaciousness is what allows the conditions to dissolve. If you hold it in a kind of idea of love, saying, “I will love it. I will love it. Why is it still here? I’m loving it so hard! Why doesn’t it go?”, well, you’re just more and more contracting, more and more caught up in whatever has arisen, because you’re trying to smash it away.

Rupert Spira is a teacher of non-dual awareness. He is the author of the opening quotation. His words are still a bit foreign to most humans when we try to use the finite mind to know or speak about the world. However, Spira’s work assures us, “It’s not possible to view the world directly from awareness’ perspective,” because, “There’s no room in the infinite for the finite.”

Awareness needs the finite mind to know the world. The finite mind holds points of view.

Every point of view is finite but love is infinite.

Perhaps one way human beings are able to open to and enjoy the sweet fragrance of infinite love is by being sure enough to be unsure…. I am made of you.

Snow Bird Sees Rare Bird

By Debra Basham, on February 12, 2024

It has possibly been the longest ever period between posts for the Yellow Brick Road…. and I cannot say what has kept my fingers off the keyboard, but this Snow Bird before doing anything else this morning has to write about having seen a rare bird.

The significance of this bird began many years ago, but came to full bloom on Friday, and was confirmed on Saturday. Perhaps all of life is like a pregnancy in that way: Between conception and delivery, there are many detailed steps that have to occur. There are three stages of fetal development: germinal, embryonic and fetal. Most people don’t talk about their pregnancy in these terms, but it can be helpful to know.(Cleveland Clinic)

I was riding my bike to a weekly thrift sale at Christ Community Church, here in Punta Gorda, on Friday, February 9, 2024, when I spotted a bird I could not identify. Not only could I not identify this bird, I knew beyond a doubt this was a species of bird I had never previously seen here, nor in Michigan, nor in Tennessee or anywhere else in the world I have ever been. As I stopped riding, parked my bike along the road, took out my phone and started walking that way, the bird flew up onto a utility pole. I snapped several photos but I was far away and the bird did not pose!

The bird was bright blue, close to the blue of an Eastern Bluebird, but much larger, about the size (and similar to the shape) of a Blue Jay. Definitely not like the Blue Jay markings or head.

At home that afternoon I began searching the internet and the fit that kept coming up was the Florida Scrub Jay. This bird is noteworthy on several counts. It’s the state’s only endemic bird, which means the Florida Scrub Jay is found nowhere else. It was listed as a threatened federal species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1987 and is protected by the Federal Endangered Species Act. I knew about this bird because of two dear Michigan friends who were avid birders. He died in 2008, and here is their Florida Scrub Jay Sacred Story:

She and her husband were avid birders. They loved traveling with a group, often going distant places in search of specific birds. One such sought-after species was the Florida Scrub Jay.

According to Wikipedia, the Florida Scrub Jay is the only species of bird endemic to Florida and one of only 15 species endemic to the continental United States. Because of this, it is keenly sought by birders. She and her husband had made this trip previously with their group, but the Scrub Jay had eluded them each trip.

After he passed, she decided to go to Florida in search of the Florida Scrub Jay one more time. This time, while she was there, she would spread some of her husband’s ashes.

Although in Florida, there are no state laws or restrictions on where you can keep or scatter ashes, she wanted to do this privately. When she felt the time was right, she hung back from the group and discreetly scattered his ashes at her feet.

Suddenly the entire group swarmed her! The precious, previously-elusive, prized Florida Scrub Jay flew down immediately and began eating her husband’s ashes!!!

She laughed later with friends saying she wondered what parts of him were being enjoyed, but mostly she let her heart be held by this evidence of his loving presence….

I sent the photos I took to my wonderful birding expert, Hart Rufe, who is a Snow Bird himself. He could not see the bird well on his phone but Saturday morning he responded, “I looked at the photo of the Jay on the wire, and was able to blow it up. It does indeed look like it could well be a Florida Scrub Jay. If there was one in that area, there should be more, as they are birds that hang out in small flocks of four or five together, with one normally on lookout duty.”

I looked up the spiritual meaning of the Florida Scrub Jay. That seems beautifully timed for our world as well: The ability to find solutions when none present themselves obviously requires lateral thinking, creativity and a willingness to be innovative and pioneering. Scrub jay teaches and fosters this ability as a guide, its presence in your life suggests that the ability to problem-solve is strong in you at this time.

Sunday morning I rode back to that area again, and while I did not have another sighting, yet, I had tears of awe realizing the odds of my seeing that rare bird while riding my bike past there at 10 MPH…..

This Snow Bird was certainly blessed beyond words by seeing that beautiful and rare bird which also has such profound meaning related to my friends.

Note* February 16 is the birth date of my Michigan birding friend whose ashes were savored that day by the Florida Scrub Jay.

It’s So Simple, Isn’t It?

By Debra Basham, on January 16, 2024

To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. ~ Will Durant

From the book In God’s Care: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery: “The real root of our struggle to speak well of others is the pain we suffer because of our low self-esteem, and diminishing another person’s worth, unfortunately, gives us a moment of stolen satisfaction. But in reality, the illusion of elevating our own worth for that brief, hurtful moment dies quickly, and our remorse and shame linger on.”

Oh, boy…. life is in our faces right now. Weather is a challenge in so many places. We are grateful to be escaping the frigid temperatures and white-out-conditions at home while having copious amounts of liquid sunshine here in Southwest Florida.

Yesterday’s images from our beloved Pine Island show streets flooded. Of course, friends there are still navigating the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. Widespread flooding and still more rain today. Note* This is a road, not a canal or river.

Perhaps all humans have P-T-S-D – probably thinking something’s dreadful.

As I was online this morning with a group that chats following a 45 minute meditation, I had to be very watchful as frustration, sadness and worry moved through my body. My thoughts were along the order of, “If these are some of my sisters and brothers who are most dedicated to being watchful about emotions and thoughts, do humans stand a chance to survive as a race?”

My thoughts and emotions come on the heals of a visit I had on Saturday. I knew as the visit came to an end I was not sharing a point of view with my hostess. The conversation in both of these experiences was centered on what was not working, what the speaker experienced as unfair or unkind. But isn’t wasting our soul’s energy through thoughts of annoyance and feelings of aggravation just more of the same?

Monday is my birthday and I am planning to share a birthday ritual with a dharma friend in Singapore whose birthday is three days later. We will be using some wonderful information pulled together and shared by Dr. Robert Waldon, from Reunion Living Ministries. Here is an excerpt from Robert’s “2024 – Justice and Balance.”

During this year, you will be faced with opportunities to become aware of any areas in your life where you are drawn off center and lose your focus. Rather than letting this awareness shut you down further, recognize that the gift of 2024 is the energy and support to change these patterns.

Remember that you cannot change an old pattern without first becoming aware of what it is and its impact on your life. Celebrate these awarenesses and use this energy to re-create your life and your world. Don’t allow yourself to be pulled too far from your own center with any project and don’t let self-doubt or doubts from others interfere with what you know is best.

Robert also mentions that the potential “pitfall” is provocation, asserting our point of view at the expense of others, coming across as authoritarian and controlling. He says best to be willing to stand up for a belief or cause and convince others by strength of conviction, not strength of force or control. And he reminds us that our true strength comes out in nonjudgmental simplicity.

He offers these affirmations:

“I am gentle and strong.”

“My greatest strength is my compassion and non-judgmental forgiveness, allowing what is truly right for all to freely make itself known.”

As this morning’s conversation continued to be expressions of what is seen as not working, what people don’t like, and what people express they fear is coming, I spoke up. I am not sure if I was gentle and strong but I do know our greatest strength is compassion and non-judgmental forgiveness.

A precious nugget that came from this morning was learning about Vidyamala Burch and her work around navigating pain. While she is primarily speaking about physical pain, she says the pain could be any kind of pain: physical, mental or emotional.

“The problem is mainly resistance…. Everything we do is about learning to soften resistance…. When we resist, we hold the breath.”

Burch has people do a brief exercise. Make a fist. Notice what happened to your breath. There is a strong tendency to hold our breath when our body is in resistance. She asks you to move your attention into the clenched fist and ask the fist what it would like to do. It wants to soften. To let go. To release the tension. Here is a talk/article Burch gave “How Do I Work With Anger?” that you might really appreciate. This is from her talk:

And we’ve all got an autonomic nervous system in our bodies. And the autonomic nervous system is outside our control and it’s got two wings. It’s got the sympathetic wing, which has to do with activation, activity and the parasympathetic wing, which has to do with calming. And the out-breath, if we let the out-breath go all the way out of the body, we’re immediately bringing online the parasympathetic wing, which is calming. And of course when we’re angry and agitated, we’ve got sympathetic overactivity with all the associated hormones.

We’ve got adrenaline, we’ve got cortisol. We feel hot. We feel worked up. We feel edgy. And, uh, as soon as we allow the out-breath to also be emphasized or to overemphasize the out-breath, to give the out-breath really full expression, we’re immediately bringing online the hormones of the parasympathetic system.

This is oxytocin, endorphins. These are calming hormones, they’re peaceful hormones. They’re good for us. And straight away, we feel a little bit better, a little bit less riled, less agitated, less adrenalized. So this is really important.

And it’s so simple, isn’t it?

Years ago my business partner shared something his former co-author had told him: WHETHER YOU GIVE OFFENSE OR TAKE OFFENSE ADDS THE SAME MISERY TO THE UNIVERSE.I think that is going to be my mantra for 2024 because whether I give offense or take offense adds the same physical, emotional, or mental pain. Whether I give offense or take offense it is my sympathetic nervous system which is activated and floods my physical body with adrenaline and cortisol.

And it’s so simple, isn’t it?

Trust the Magic of Beginnings

By Debra Basham, on January 1, 2024

And suddenly you know:
It’s time to start something new and
trust the magic of beginnings.
~ Meister Eckhart

Today is the first day of 2024.

Yesterday afternoon I went into a different area on my bike ride. I was only lost between 8.88 miles and 12.22 miles….

Suddenly I knew I had gotten turned around and did not know which way to go. I stopped and asked directions back to the main road. The man and woman were out in their driveway because they were checking on a Gopher Tortoise that was on their driveway. They were relieved to know it was just sleeping in the sunshine on the warm pavement. It has been somewhat cool here. In fact, it is 49 degrees right now.

“Is this the direction to Rampart Boulevard?” I asked.

The man pointed. “At the stop sign, make a right. Your next right will be Rampart,” he assured me.

I rode in that direction but when I got to the stop sign I knew right where I was, and I was somewhere I did not want to be — on a busy road with no shoulder.

So many people are right where they do not want to be. Dear Michigan friends here in Florida are very sick with violent intestinal symptoms (either flu or food poisoning); some dharma friends in North Carolina are sick with Covid when he was to be leading a New Years retreat; Stacey and Doug are sick in Tennessee with the respiratory bug that kept Jackson home from daycare all last week.

Part of the challenge was/is a long canal that ran between where I was and where I wanted to be. One gift in the adventure was my successful riding 15 miles just a few days earlier. It had been many, many years since I rode 15 miles, but yesterday I knew it was possible so I was persistent. Assessing my options at that stop sign, I decided to move ahead I needed to begin by retracting my steps. Even after finding a patch of shade where I could see Google Maps on my phone, I still took a few wrong turns and had to back track several times.

What a relief when I finally saw a memorable patio heater along the side of the road, left there for trash pickup. I absolutely knew I was back on the road that would take me home!(My phone was only on 7% power when I arrived home.)

My first hawk sighting here in Punta Gorda was a Red-shouldered Hawk in the neighbor’s yard. Over the next week or so I had several different sightings (one flying with live catch in its talons), a pair sitting side-by-side on the power line right along the sidewalk, a single also sitting facing me on another power line. I was not able to get photos for identification on any of those, but at the exact moment I was enjoying that feeling of relief knowing I was going the right way I saw another hawk. This time I was able to get a fairly decent photo. My beloved Florida birding guide (Hart – such a great name!) identified this one as a Cooper’s Hawk with my photo.

From Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews:

These are the souls that are involved in making the world a better place, whether locally or globally. They will be protectors of the Earth Mother and tread softly upon her, encouraging and educating others to do the same.

Often, they are either found initiating or actively involved in environmental causes, where their keen perception and insight will serve their chosen cause well. Yet it is their day to day existence and fundamental philosophy/foundation of action and belief, that distinguishes these individuals as true champions of Mother Earth as they seek to live in harmony with the ~Ina Maka~ and all that She births, provides, nurtures and sustains.

The ending of the opening quotation by Meister Eckhart begins with trust. Then it mentions magic. Finding the way home after realizing I was lost took a lot of beginnings.

And suddenly you know.

It’s time to start something new.

“Trust the magic of beginnings” is a great mantra for 2024….

Grow Through What You Go Through

By Debra Basham, on December 23, 2023

Light rain was tap dancing on the metal roof of the lanai as I sat in the darkness waiting for the sun to make its debut thinking about a dear friend of mine whose brother-in-love is going to be having lung cancer surgery soon. She has been a champion of ours for decades, having thrived through cancer herself. A video interview of Jane’s Imagine Healing Journey is featured on our website.

I imagined her sharing the Imagine Healing process with him….

Opening email from The Daily Tejaniya I read: “Practice with the idea of not trying to create an experience. Instead, just take your experience as it is and try to learn from it.”

You can see the middle path!

Doing the process of Imagine Healing supports the central nervous system so the physical body has the best opportunity for healing. Having done the process, you are much more capable of being present to learn through your experience.

Our granddaughter is going through a lot right now. I sent her a photo of a sweatshirt I had seen on Facebook with the words: Grow through what you go through.

A quick internet search for that phrase took me to a sweet website which listed 12 Hacks to Grow Through What You Go Through. Number 3 on the list is about how you can grow through your fears.

1) acknowledge them,

2) let them go, and

3) replace them with something else.

That list took me to a post by another Facebook friend and colleague, Lisa Gordon (I was trained in Healing Touch by her mom, Janet Mentgen). Lisa posted a sweet reminder from “The Female Hustlers” offering a perfect way to navigate these last days of December 2023:

Whatever is happening in your life right now, may you grow through all you go through.