By Debra Basham, on August 6, 2013
I have been more than aware of patterns and habits while attending a series of workshops on higher states and stages of consciousness. The second day of the second workshop was about meditating on the four elements of nature. We were instructed to do this while floating in the water, or sitting with feet in the water, or while looking out at the water. We braced for the cool wind and each chose our space and settled in.
I did have some thought of getting into trouble as I got pulled out of my meditation practice because I saw a snake sliding its way along the edge of the bank of the lake, weaving in and out the legs of the chairs and the legs of the participants sitting in the chairs in the shallow water. Many were wrapped up against the chill.
I knew one other participant saw the snake, and I was deep in delight as I waited almost breathlessly to see if any others of those sitting on the chair or along the bank would feel a close encounter or see our slithering friend. None did—or at least no one reacted.
No one else seemed to notice at all, so I easily tucked my memory into my open heart and returned to pure awareness of the wind and the earth and the water and the sun. It is amazing to notice how everything really is a blend of the elements, and those are both in the world and inside us.
The sand at the bottom of the lake is made up of air, water, and earth, and the wind was blowing ripples across the surface of the water. My face got a bit sunburned, even in the low temperatures. I was aware of choosing to experience the blessing of the elements as I remembered the teacher had previously mentioned the story of a meditation student who had complained about construction noise nearby his meditation hall, to which the master simply replied, “Did you note it?”
As we were wrapping up the weekend with questions and answers, an interesting exchange occurred. Our teacher had responded to an email question someone not at the workshop had asked me, and as she began addressing the question, a participant in the workshop raised a hand and expressed discomfort and confusion as to why our teacher was addressing the question. Our teacher did her best to reply kindly that she was addressing the question because I had asked it.
I felt a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach—and I noted “awkward…”
Early the previous morning, on the way to the location of the workshop, the morning mist had cast a spell of delight on the forest floor. It was as though the fairies were holding a gala! The entire length of the lane leading from the house is hugged by tall tree people. Slender trunks and upward reaching branches guard the way with as much poise as the soldiers at Buckingham Palace.
Just as we pulled onto the lane, the sun broke through an opening in the trees and we were greeted with an almost endless row of rays! Totally stunned by the view, I stopped the van, put it into park, got out and snapped this photo:
As I sit in meditation now that I am home, my intention is to be moving on into awareness of those higher states of consciousness. I noted I had had a fleeting wondering what the energy would have been like in the workshop if the teacher had said to the person who expressed confusion with an annoyed tone of voice, “Did you note it?”
For a while, maybe for a long while, I will appreciate the moment that mist greeted the morning sun. Amazing where you can find true and lasting beauty, isn’t it….
By Debra Basham, on July 28, 2013
In the midst of gathering darkness,
light becomes more evident.
~ Bonnie Bostrom
Over the past couple of weeks I have found myself very busily engaged with an internationally known philosopher in some deep philosophical questions. Our lively explorations grew out of a quotation he saw in my on-line bio. “What’s in the way, is the way.” We have invited pondering ideas that have broad implications for us all such as:
Is there any truth to the idea that what you focus on you get more of?
If so, what is the most appropriate relationship to have with what comes into awareness?
Is there a going beyond awareness?
I have started to blog about all this several times, only to be interrupted. In the meanwhile, the ultimate truth of “What’s in the way, is the way” keeps revealing itself.
For example, last Thursday morning, I had some miscommunication about the sequence in which we would run some errands. The result was to put us in the precise place at the precise time to make significant connections, so much so that it could only be called meaningful coincidence. Not being able to find the door to the Nazareth post office allowed us to walk in as a person we know was walking out. This person had information we needed, but would not have ever thought to seek her out for.
The confusion about the sequence of the errands, the delay in finding the door to the post office, then the exchange with the person there, all managed to put us at the bank just as a huge line formed. The line brought a financial service coordinator out into the lobby asking, “If anyone has just a simple deposit, I can help you.” Our conversation with this woman quickly revealed multiple connections that would not otherwise have been made. The precision of the tiny windows of opportunity never cease to amaze me.
A few minutes ago, I received this message from a friend vacationing in another state:
“I turned on my computer yesterday morning and found ants crawling all over the desk. Then our toilet plugged up. I went to the front desk and very graciously reported our problem. Then they very graciously asked if we would like to move to another room…. We are now staying in the “Queen Suite” with all the comforts for $57.00 per night!!! How’s that for manifesting abundance?….Thank you to the little ants that made it possible.”
Reading of her ants made me recall an incident I experienced while staying in Thailand in 2010. The counter of the home I was staying in was covered with ants! When the mother of my hostess stopped by, with great indignation I reported the ants all over the counter to her. She very calmly and compassionately responded, “Ants. What you going to do?” I guess that was that to a Buddhist sincerely living the call to harm no one.
It may be undeniable that our outer world is experiencing chaos.
“Chaos. What you going to do?”
It may also be undeniable that in the midst of all that global outer chaos is a silent rhythm and pattern of order unseen by the human eye, unheard by the human ear, but nonetheless felt in the stillness of the human heart.
That outer chaos might be a call to experience deeper inner calm. Thanks be to god if that is true….
By Debra Basham, on July 10, 2013
It was very late in the evening, but before calling it a day, I was diligent to wash some fresh lettuces that had been gifted to me by a friend. As I was taking the trimmings out to the garage fridge (I save those for another friend who has chickens), out of the corner of my eye, I saw something fly by. For just a moment, I wondered if it might have been a bat, but it was a very large moth!
The moth was about the size of my fist, and not only did I get to enjoy seeing it, it decided to enjoy walking on me. It walked on my arm, then down my body and onto my leg. It was as though I was being rewarded for my kitchen work. I was very honored, and a bit amazed by the experience, and as I escorted it out into the front yard, I thanked it for the visit, and I wished it a good life.
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| Waved Sphinx moth going for a ride on the back of my leg! |
I have thoroughly enjoyed learning the way Native peoples instinctively knew to look to nature for life meaning. This is commonly called “animal medicine” and is related to the practice of your having awareness of totem animals that are significant throughout your life, as well as specific messages at a given time. Several wonderful books are in my personal library, including Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small, by Ted Andrews, and Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals, by Jamie Sams, David Carsonand Angela C. Werneke.
Additionally, you can learn the meaning of specific animals by doing a Google search. Try putting in the name of the creature you have seen in nature along with the words “medicine totem.” It is wonderful to recognize the way the divine is always guiding and supporting us, and nature has become a significant part of that communication in my life.
A few days after my moth encounter, my brother-in-law spotted an Imperial Moth on a garden rock he had painted for my sister, Janis. The rock is her fairy door, and Larry—an artist, writer, and photographer— took this amazing photo.
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| Imperial moth photo taken on the garden fairy door, both by Larry Britton. |
This excerpt is from my recent search for moth medicine totem:
Philosophically speaking, night creatures do not fumble in the dark, and neither do humans. We use our dreams, our awareness, and our deeper, inner knowing to navigate through the darkest hours of our lives.
Faith is another tool we use to move through shadowy times of uncertainty, and the moth also shares this aspect. The moth never questions provision. She has complete faith that all of her needs will be met each night.
While we may not have the privilege of seeing such a large moth every night, each time we see a moth, or even think about them, or about nature in general, we, too, can have complete faith that all of our needs will be met.
Thank you, Mother Nature, for being such a beautiful reminder to us all…
By Debra Basham, on July 4, 2013
I have always been fascinated by those optical illusion games such as this one with the young woman and the old lady. Have you noticed how obvious something is once you see it?
A good example of the way we can miss the obvious, is the information about whether an exit will be to your left or to your right. You can tell that by noticing which side of the sign the exit number is on.
I recently attended a workshop on higher consciousness. At the workshop, we worked with 8 stages and states from Barbara Brodsky’s book Cosmic Healing, condensed from Ken Wilber’s work.
Another way to think about that is to notice the availability of expanded states of awareness. One message the teacher shared over and over was that we are able to become aware of things being simultaneous. At the same moment, you can see when someone speaks rudely or in a condescending way to you, and also realize that he or she is in great pain and the action has nothing to do with you. In fact, this might be what Don Miguel Ruiz was addressing when he gave the wise advice to take nothing personally (The Four Agreements).
For sure, it may well be worth thinking about how much other awareness is available to us at each moment. Perhaps that is the greatest freedom human beings can enjoy.
Happy Independence Day!
By Debra Basham, on June 28, 2013
I have been giving a lot of thought to meditation, and this week I had a wonderful meditative experience with some tiny toads while I was out for a walk. The tiny toads were about the size of my finger nail on my pinkie. A dozen or more of them were spaced along a stretch of the road; each tiny toad was trying (unsuccessfully) to climb the curb. They did not seem yet to be able to hop high enough to make it up, and as soon as they would get partway up, down they would slide. I have always loved toads and frogs. I took time to help each one up and onto the soil, feeling very connected to the web of life.
Two years ago researchers at Justus Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany and Harvard Medical School integrated decades of existing research into a comprehensive conjectural report, which explains the various neurological and conceptual processes through which mindfulness mediation works (and which recent studies have continued to affirm.)
The report suggests that mindfulness meditation operates through a combination of several distinct mechanisms: attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and a change in perspective on the self. Each component is believed to assist us in various aspects of our lives, and when functioning together, the cumulative process claims to lend an enhanced capacity for “self-regulation” — the ability to control our own “thought, affect, behavior, or attention” (The loss of which has been cited as the cause of much psychological distress and suffering).
In other words, the researchers suggest that the practice allows us to develop a stronger command over the machinery of the mind, a dexterity which, according to a study released this week, stays with you long after you finish meditating.
Long after the experience, the lesson seems to stay with me. The best ones do that…
By Debra Basham, on June 19, 2013
It is amazing how obvious something is as you are able to be more present. Saturday morning when I stopped to pick up my friend Claudia to drive to a three-day silent meditation retreat, I made one last potty stop, using her husband’s bathroom. We got into the car, settled in, and as I backed out of the driveway, I teased her that I like his bathroom other than the fact that his toilet paper rolls the wrong way. I did not yet realize that the message of the retreat was already being revealed to me….
The teachers of the retreat help students work with the practice of Vipassana (mindfulness or insight) meditation. As a prolific writer, it is a miracle that I can limit myself to just a few sentences on the tiny pages in a 3 inch by 4 inch notebook. On Sunday afternoon, I made the first note in my retreat journal: “If I were not judging right now, what might I be experiencing?”
The toilet paper roll came to mind—along with a flood of pain and the thought that what I might be experiencing if I was not judging, was my desire to be “right.” Even toilet paper direction had a right and wrong connotation in my mind. It was as though every act held life or death implications.
Right and wrong are not like perfect pitch, they are like relative pitch. Close enough is good enough. It is important you are moving in the direction of… Be sure to set your intention. Correct and incorrect belongs to the mundane. Words tumbled onto the page as relief flowed in along with the welcomed pure awareness. I could see the past simply as what I was to experience.
Another note in my retreat journal: “If we have a preference, that can be a place of stuckness.”
The bathroom adjacent to the meditation hall had a twin toilet paper holder. I reversed one so it went under while the other went over. I experimented with noticing my preferences and soon began to feel a palpable ease in accessing tissue from down under!
I began to notice how deeply connected that old fear of doing something wrong had been connected to the tension in my shoulders and the tightness in my abdomen. As I saw the old conditioning for what it was, I began to set my intention to not be in tension, choosing instead to experience ease in my body, mind, and spirit, by letting grace flow in. My shoulders relaxed and my belly softened. What an amazing relief….
We were instructed to notice how much even our sensations of pleasant and unpleasant are influenced by our perceptions which have been conditioned. Barbara said if you feel something on your skin and you see that it is a fly, the sensation is likely to be considered unpleasant. However, if you see that what is walking on you is a butterfly, you are much more likely to consider delight in the tickling of that touch. As is often the case, you have the opportunity to practice experiencing the truth you are integrating…
 This morning, as I was immersed in the tasks around catching up, I began to feel that old pattern of stress in my shoulders and tightness in my belly starting to reassert itself. I remembered hearing a teaching about the one who is aware of tension is not tense. I set that intention to see that bigger picture, and I began to ponder that idea of right and wrong applying only to the mundane world. When I am putting a phone number in the customer profile, if I put in a 7 where there should have been an 8, I have put in a WRONG number. If I decide to buy this car over another make and model, is one choice right and another wrong? Perhaps if I am buying a Corvette and I can only pay for a Ford Focus, that may not the best choice, but notice how clearly you are able to see that idea of relative pitch.
Barbara shared about having gone into a local soda shop with a friend of color. This was about 50 years ago, in the old world of hatred and biggotry we lived in back then. Barbara and her friend sat down at the counter and Barbara said, “We would each like a coke.” She thought things were going well as she watched the soda jerk turn and draw two glasses of cola, but when he came back over to the counter where the two young girls were sitting, rather than set the glasses on the counter for them, he poured the ice cold contents over each girls’ head! A riot broke out and Barbara was arrested. With her in the cell was an elderly black woman (elderly to Barbara’s then twenty-something, but probably no more than fifty). The woman commented to Barbara about how angry she was.
“Yes, I am angry. You should be angry, too. Aren’t you angry?” Barbara snapped.
“Of course, I am feeling angry, but I am also feeling love. They are so afraid…” came the woman’s life-changing reply.
As Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
I don’t know if you will agree or disagree with all of this, but one more note of truth in my journal worth remembering: “Nothing is ever finished.”
By Debra Basham, on June 7, 2013
A few days ago I received a message from Betty Lue Lieber, co-founder of the interfaith program I am ordained in. She was reporting that there are now 42 ordained Ministers of Reunion, and she provided us the invitation to “check in” if we would like to do that.
Immediately, I thought “4 plus 2 = 6.”
The Lovers!
This has been an amazing week for me. On Monday, my husband’s (John’s) business (Johnny on the Spot Window Cleaning Service) was officially sold to a young man who had been his employee for years about a decade ago—before falling in love and getting married to a woman who lived in another state. We have been close, and I performed their wedding!
Like with most changes we want (I am thinking of couples with children who want to divorce and then find they need to cooperate more fully in the new relationship than the previous one, or a person with a painful joint who undergoes surgery), I am finding this next phase of freedom—training and assisting the new owner and the new administrative assistant— is far more challenging than I imagined.
That takes me to this week’s major awareness as I worked with a client who had a total knee replacement. As I watched her dance in the debilitating daze of the anesthetic and narcotics, I was reliving my own postsurgical experience from last November. I had such compassion for both of us, and I knew there was only ONE of us and I was actually reliving my experience. That happens to me more and more now….
Most days I bring pleasure and well-being to my busyness by riding my bike to the credit union to make the deposit, or finding a point of connection more clear than windows while scheduling a job. Even so, more often than I would like, I find my body in stress as though I am in rush with life or death. This strikes me as very odd for someone who sees death as the doorway to life eternal.
When I catch myself armed against the very peace I say I seek, I remember Betty Lue’s saying, “Awareness without judgment is healing.” I bring my shoulders down, soften my abdomen, take a breath, and sometimes even express my gratitude for life right out loud.
Yesterday when I got back from my weekly trip to Kalamazoo (in addition to having an office here in Saint Joseph, I am still working part time at Borgess Integrative Medicine at the Health and Fitness Center in Kalamazoo), the new admin was leaning back in my office chair looking out my window into the amazing bird sanctuary that is home to ducks, orioles, jays, cardinals, rose-breasted grossbeak, finches, robins, doves, and a host of other winged ones. I felt my body cringe…
When he left, assorted papers were strewn across the surface of MY desk and on MY floor. The outer chaos churned against my own inner questions about what life will be like without this distraction which brought the illusion of security into our lives. I thought immediately about how children often will play the game of, “He/she is on my side of the _____.” You can fill in the blank… and get the idea.
Every day I remember that this moment is opportunity for spiritual practice. The best way to express what I believe about all that now is to share this familiar writing from 1st Corinthians. I am using a contemporary version called The Message.
1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)
The Way of Love
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all God’s mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies.
Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing God directly just as God knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
Ah, yes. The best of the three is love. And there is great love for each of you!
By Debra Basham, on May 21, 2013
I almost cried this morning when I thought how long it has been since I posted a blog—ten days! It has been a very busy time, working with/for Johnny on the Spot Window Cleaning Service.
It would be very easy to be in resistance, both to the pace and the tasks. It is so much more my preference to be leisured, and to be doing what I think of as healing work. My spiritual practice is to remember that the key is live from a soul awareness and to recognize when I have been in an illusion (time, money, energy, etc.).
I do appreciate when I can notice the connections to the folks who are calling about windows. Johnny’s tag line is to see clearly. Well, that is a worthy goal for all of us.
Today my heart is filled with compassion for those who have been affected by the tornadoes in Oklahoma.
Today, I also remember my friend, Evelynn Lewis, who was originally from Oklahoma. In some ways, she is the reason I learned Healing Touch™ and am where I am today missing the business of healing work as I am in the busy-ness of window cleaning. Evelynn and her husband Gene, are both in spirit now, along with those children who were in school when the tornado hit.
How do you see clearly when you are looking at what appears to be destruction and death? Today I am reminding myself to breathe and remember the truth.
Energy can be neither created nor destroyed and everything is energy…
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| Keepsakes of Carol’s beloved Lizzie… |
By Debra Basham, on May 11, 2013
“Timing is of the essence…”
“Timing is everything…”
“It is all about the timing…”
So many phrases in our lives have to do with timing. I certainly experienced that yesterday. Since before lunch, I had been intending to get to the grocery store. One phone call after another kept delaying my departure. At one point, I had my shoes on, my purse over my shoulder, and my keys in my hand just as one of the window cleaning crews pulled in, blocking my vehicle in the garage. I slipped my shoes off, set my purse and keys down, and said to myself, “Oh, well, they have been working so hard, and they will not be there long. I can wait.”
Imagine my surprise and delight to see one of my dearest friends who was just arriving in town after a three-day drive back to Michigan from Florida! Had I been at the store any of the other times I planned, I would have missed seeing her and welcoming her home.
The timing was perfect, because this woman is not just any friend. We have shared a lot over the years, but a very special bond was forged between the three of us when she was by our side last fall when I discovered I had a very aggressive mass growing in my abdomen. She accompanied us to the hospital the day of my surgery. In pre-op, I was told I needed to remove my wedding band. It would not fit safely on any of his fingers, but it slipped right on her finger. When the doctors and nurses came in, I introduced her as, “My husband’s other wife.”
She is the one who sat with him, awaiting news of my fate. She is the one who drove me to my post-surgical visit. She was holding the workings of our trembling hearts in her hand, and just as she was keeping my wedding ring safe, our hearts were safe with her.
Something of the raw stuff of all of that came flooding back to me this morning when I read what (for me) was a very emotional article titled “My Husband’s Other Wife.” It touched me deeply, and it might touch you, too. The author’s husband had been married briefly to a woman who died from breast cancer not long after they were married. The cancer and treatments made it impossible for them to have a child. These tender thoughts are at the heart of the story:
When our daughter was 8 she found the same box of photos that I had seen that day I moved in. She brought them downstairs to our bedroom and said she wanted to look at the old pictures of Daddy. She asked about the pretty, dark-haired woman always standing next to him. My husband told her that was Robin.
After a few more minutes she looked up and said, “There are so many pictures of her.”
“Dad loved her,” I said.
“If you loved her so much, why didn’t you marry her?” she asked her father.
He looked at me, and I nodded.
“I did,” he replied.
Our daughter looked at the picture she was holding in her hand, her eyes widening, then at me. It was like one of those moments in Dickens when a foundling discovers her true origins.
“It’s like I have two mothers,” she said in a kind of astonishment.
What an innocent view of love. And what amazing wisdom to create a safe enough space for that innocence to be expressed freely.
As I sit at my computer writing, I am watching three pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks outside my window. A few moments ago, one male flew straight to my window, fluttered back and forth in front of me, then landed on the pavement below my window looking up at me. This about grosbeak from Animal Speak, by Ted Andrews:
This totem [grosbeak] can help teach us to heal all the old wounds and hurts of family origin…A grosbeak has a beautiful melodious voice. This is significant. A melody is formed by a relationship between notes. A single note does not make a melody. The grosbeak can help us to see our family relationships as a true melody—each note separate but part of a larger whole. They can help us to see how our family has affected our life patterns…It can help you in seeing family patterns that you have brought over into your present life, along with your present family members.
In ways too complex and maybe even too intimate for this post, it feels as though my heart is healing so completely from those ancient wounds and that you now are being allowed to view love and life through the eyes of that innocence again. What wonderful timing for Mother’s Day!
By Debra Basham, on May 5, 2013
I began, like so many of us, in a household where
it was somehow my job to be the lightening rod for the family’s tensions
of unexpressed emotions.
~ The Book of Awakening:
Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have
by Mark Nepo
I have come to believe that one of the causes of mental illness is having universal experience and thinking it is somehow worse for you or unique for you. Perhaps we are looking more at spiritual disease than mental illness, but without a doubt, it is a source of deep distress.
Mark Nepo is describing the reality of being born into a human family. Infants are lightening rods for the emotional experiences around them. This was not just a report of his personal life, it is a fact of each of ours.
Previously (including in my book Falling Together in Love: Stories From My Heart for and about YOU), I have written about the emotional climate I was born into around my mother’s having discovered she was pregnant for me at the same time she was told she had gotten syphilis from my father. It is quite easy to imagine the emotions I was a lightening rod for in those first weeks and months in the womb….
Brent Haskell, in Journey Beyond Words, says it like this “The past is the creator of judgment. Without a past, and without your judgment, all people are equal.” This is probably true about our experiences, too. Without a past and without our judgment, we are free to just experience life.
I have been working on an up-coming tip for well-being around the importance of the practice of meditation. The benefits are being proven by science more and more every day. For the tip, I have developed a core line, “You must be present to win.” We must develop the ability to be present to our own emotions, including those we took on from our family of origin, to win at the game of life. What you win is inner peace and stability and the joy of living.
As Emily Dickinson put it:
To be alive is power,
Existing in itself,
Without a further function,
Omnipotence enough.
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| Like clouds moving in water, problems make me forget I am clear… The Book of Awakening, May 5 |
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Water reflects everything it encounters.
This is so commonplace that we think water is blue, when, in fact, it has no color.
Amazingly, while soft and flowing, water—as ocean or lake or even as the smallest puddle of rain—takes on the image of the entire world without ever losing its essential clearness.
~ Mark Nepo
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