Yesterday I did an in-depth interview with John LeKay of nondualitymagazine.org. It was a splendid opportunity to discuss my spiritual background. John is a skilled interviewer and very knowledgeable about the awakening experience. In the interview, I got to express my appreciation for Vernon Howard and talk a bit about my awakening process. It was a trip through hell that ended in peace. I write about it in my book, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT.

Here is the link to John’s interview with me. Let me know what you think about it.

Interview: NondualityMagazine

There is a groundswell occurring on Facebook, a movement away from the neoadvaita trend that has taken such deep root online. It is not enough for some of us, doesn’t go deep enough, doesn’t hit us where we live. I have sat beside my young daughter as she died and also my husband. Intellectual interpretations of “I am” do not rock my world. Enough is enough.

So I left the Yahoo lists after being pilloried for speaking my truth. The objection was that I spoke my emotions, revealed my heart, my flaws and skewed sense of humor. Now here some of us are gathering in this groundswell of unity that has nothing to do with organized neo-anything.

It disturbs me that there are beginning to be “famous people” traveling the satsang circle. My teacher was a rough and tumble guy who took no prisoners. Maybe that is why when I attended a satsang with Gangaji back in the nineties, I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. Too many people wearing white and told to observe silence.

Why am I risking myself in this way? Because a groundswell can’t be stopped. No more teachers satsanging around with students. We are all students. There is no instant “I got it and now I can teach it.” Papaji knew that. Krishnamurti knew people didn’t “got it” and so did my teacher, Vernon Howard. Put that in your hookah and smoke it.

Those of us in this groundswell are running on the milk of human kindness peppered with the spice of insight. Um, um, good.

My writing is that of a medicine woman. I give you what you need to heal. Sometimes it is bitter and sometimes sweet. I give the dosages intuitively, as any good medicine woman does. I am open to the source of healing and I let the words tumble from the specific bottle that is needed. If you are wondering why I am writing this, so am I. “I flow as I am directed,” as a wise sage once said.

Today I am opening up, not a can of whup-ass but a bottle of healing wisdom. Stand up to the world. Say NO, a thousand times NO. The spiritual path is about coming out from among them, about leaving everything that would hold you back from conscious love. Family ties are made of unconscious love and that is why at some point you must separate from the herd.  At first there will be hardships and tests. Walk on. Then there will arise cataclysmic storms that make you vomit over the side of the boat. Cling to NO.

NO, I am not going along with my self-created misery for another second longer. NO, I am not going to paper over my feelings just to save YOU from  harm. Enough is enough. I am walking with what I know to be true. How do I know? By intuition, by scanning my body and feeling what is arising there.  There have been too many weak yeses and not nearly enough NO’s.

I was raised to be a people pleaser. After Vernon Howard’s death he came to me in a dream. He said, “Don’t be so accommodating. Act a little tough.” And compassion is to be tough on what is not compassionate. That sentence also came from him. I learned that dosing the soul is sometimes necessary. Sometimes you have to say drastic things to save someone.

I have walked through fire for years. I finally learned to apply the sweet salve of NO to my aching soul. A NO to the world is a yes for oneself, for the God within that is your salvation. No true teacher offers a steady stream of indigestible pap. They heal you by cutting out the fear and pain and that requires a NO to what is killing you.

I had lunch today at Cancer Wellness. It was a Celtic Feast and the chef had spent time in Ireland. A breast cancer survivor herself, she has written a cookbook and donates a percentage of each sale to CW. We sat down to the most amazing meal. Irish Pub Salad, Shepherd’s Pie, Bubble and Squeak and a fantastic apple pie with creme fraiche and strawberries for dessert. Then one of the facilitators talked a bit about Celtic wisdom. At the end we all wrote little pieces inspired by the class. Of course, I was the first one up to read; I am somewhat of a ham in that small milieu. It was a lovely spring day here in Atlanta. I came home so glad to be a part of that amazing community.

So the days and nights of living with a cancer patient grow further and further behind me.What survives is the spirit of all those who have been touched by its dark hand. Those who choose to be part of a cancer community have much to give. A renewed interest in their own spiritual path and the immediate recognition of what helps and what hurts. I find that what helps is focusing on one’s inner growth and leaving social pressure behind forever. I spoke to a social worker in Bob’s old doctor’s office. I told her I had been advised to share a few copies of LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT with local hospices. We’ll see what happens there; I have no idea.

I would love to sell you a signed copy of LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT. It was written in tears and bathed in grace. How can you resist? Writing and being with cancer survivors keeps me honest. Not for me the the satsang group with its intoning of “I am that.” It is a true statement, but I have lived through the dark night of the soul and am here to testify. Not in blanket statements but in wisdom doled out one tear at a time. The light of true love is blinding, so the darkness can only hang around so long.

Send me an email if you would like to order a copy. As you know, one copy at a time is how I sell them! If you can donate to the site, that is a great help as well.

Jerry Katz, author of One and the owner of nonduality.com, had this to say about my book:

“No other nonduality book has the texture, the quality of writing, the points of focus as Life With A Hole In It. It is an extremely worthwhile addition to one’s nonduality education.” That is high praise for someone who has reviewed as many books on nonduality as he has.

All in all, the reviews speak for the book. If you want honesty, tears and laughter in one small book, you got it! If you already have it, help spread the word. This small writer is looking for an audience.

The joy of being me is erratic. One moment I am trustworthy and the next moment I am not.

I am speaking of the woman named Vicki who is in charge of her inner child. Last night I dreamt that Bob and I left our daughter to go on a trip. I knew she would wake and have no one to care for her. But I went anyway and while I was away, decided that I needed to come back. In the dream, my inner child was represented by my daughter. I went into her room and found her distraught, as I knew she would be. No one had fed her and there was feces on the floor. In the dream I was also pregnant and Bob had fallen out of love with me. I knew I needed to go to the hospital and finally did, only to find that it was a small cot in a restaurant kitchen. My inner child was screaming at me to “Pay attention.”

At night, the hauntings of the soul come to whisper in our ear, “Wake up. Love yourself before it is too late.” And so I awaken, glad that I have another chance to love and tend myself consciously.

I am clairsentient and know character instantly. I think that is one reason I have never felt at home in the world. I see too much. But the path is also about seeing our own “too muchness,” the parts of us that would abandon our inner child and not take care to see to our own inner rebirth.

I know, this is a strange note. For some of you it will strike a chord and others will want to assure me that if I were awake, I would know blah, blah, blah, you are the Self, blah, blah, blah. The days of listening to that voice are over, for they are coming from those who haven’t seen deeply enough into the hell of how it is when one sleeps. I am learning self-mercy slowly, one baby step at a time. Yes, I know that I am the Self, blah, blah, blah. But sometimes I need an arm around me; I need to remember how love feels and how it heals the broken places. No blah, blah, blah can be of help. It’s the music, folks, not the words.

 

 

LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT: That’s How The Light Gets In is my first book and I am looking for reader comments on it. Those of you who have bought it can help me spread the word. I would love it if you would take a moment to add your comment on the book. I can’t afford an agent, so my readers are gonna have to step up…fill in the gap…help the book become an underground best seller, as a psychic predicted it would be.

“Get up and buy it…seriously. You won’t put it down until the last page at which point you can start breathing again.” ~Leslie Read

Her longer review can be found on amazon.com. Order it there or get an ebook from booklocker.com. If you really want to help out, make a donation to help with publication expenses or I will personally sign a copy for you for $20.00, including postage.

Add yours in the comment box 🙂

 

When I was writing my book, I didn’t know it would become a book. I was struggling to get through each day and writing was something I loved to do, although the subject was my husband’s illness. We would get up every morning and face one awful day after another, him pale and quiet, me bustling and frantic. I tried not to show the “frantic,” but it bled through, just like his cancer. There was a wall between us; I struggle what to call it. Each brick was built of fear and isolation. He could not understand my rage at God and I could not understand his stoicism. He was a devout man, a believer in scripture. He had a mystical bent, but not nearly as strong as mine. For my part, spiritual teachings were not enough to lash me to the deck of the sinking ship; I needed my fear and anger to keep me going, or so it would seem.

He always let me rage when he saw I needed it as a safety valve. One day in particular I remember crying in great heaving spasms while he looked on in silent compassion. He was leaving me, damn it, and that was not okay, not okay at all. I had such a load to carry, but so did he. Which was worse, his death or my fear of his death? Both seemed inevitable. I never once thought of giving up, of becoming a drunk or having a breakdown. I was made of stronger stuff. I was still his “Angel,” no matter what. Some of the bricks in his wall were made of a fanatical devotion to me; he did not want to cry in front of me. He did cry with the doctor the day he got his diagnosis, but I was not there.

One day I forced him to weep. “How can you not cry when we are being separated?” I said to him. “How can you not?” And the tears came. I sat there with the chasm of death growing larger by the day as his once six-foot-four frame grew smaller. By the time the ambulance carrying us to hospice arrived, he was light as a feather. They put him in a wheelchair and I rolled him into the hospice sitting room. It was Christmas and there were decorations galore. Fake Christmas trees and fake angels. As I write this, my heart still breaks. I live with this gift of sorrow and give it away wrapped in words as fake as everything else. Only love is real.

I tell our story in my book, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT: That’s How The Light Gets In. Bob would be happy if you bought a copy to support my ongoing work as a writer. The light of my passion keeps me going; it was what he wanted. I will personally sign a copy if you send me an email or facebook message or you can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/LIFE-HOLE-Thats-Wisdom-Awakened/dp/1609102770/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1297273020&sr=8-1

 

 

 

 

Being on Facebook has been an unexpected gift to me. As a writer of personal essays, I enjoy getting feedback on what I write. In another world I would have been a newspaper columnist, but such is life. Primarily I am a spiritual writer, but I sure do like to make people laugh as well as cry. What I avoid is coming from the head; copy addressed to the head is dry.  I used to have things in The Reader’s Digest Towards More Picturesque Speech. That was lifetimes ago, just as the humor I wrote about my two children when they were growing up. I don’t even have the manuscripts anymore; but they were hilarious. We were a nuclear family and Bob and I raised them with no help and could rarely afford a babysitter. When Laurie got ill, I continued to write comedy, but now sold to Joan Rivers and other prominent performers. Tears and laughter don’t interfere with each other in my book.

My son inherited my wicked wit, which I got from my father. He, too, liked to write newspaper columns and had a great collection of humor books. I got those after he died, but at some point got rid of them. I have gotten rid of most of my spiritual books as well. Now I live a pared-down life and love it. One thing I am always working on is reclaiming the inner land for myself. I am not so prone to do things to please people anymore. There are precious few people in my life. When I die, there will be no large congregation of mourners. My ego worries about that. Heck, it worries about everything. But when I sit in silence, it dissolves back into nothingness, as do I.

What, after all, is the good of interacting with a sleeping world, populated by snoring people? if everything is within, and it is, why mingle on the movie set? Joel Goldsmith had many trenchant things to say about going within. He said that “All conflicts must be settled within one’s own consciousness.” How’s that for simplifying your life? Vernon Howard said that you come into life to enjoy the journey, not to pick up hitchhikers in your car. Life is for us, for our inner growth and enjoyment, which prove to be the same thing.

Much of my writing is about grief and loss; I am true to that theme as I am true to myself. I hope my readers understand that I use it as a way into the heart and not as anything else. For the heart’s home is honesty and nothing can bar the door to the heart except unconsciousness. Ram Dass’ guru said, “Never put anyone out of your heart.” Well said, Maharaji, well said. For those of us trying to awaken, the heart is being cleaned by a supreme crew, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They don’t do windows. They make them.

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You know how you cut an orange in half and then turn it inside out to eat it, scraping the fruit off the rind with your teeth? That’s my writing process. It’s messy but fulfilling. I write over the sink, if you will, wiping the words off on my sleeve.

What else do I have to do? The truth is consuming me like I consume an orange, from the inside out. It’s the same way with all of us; some of us just don’t know it, yet. And when we know it, we don’t always remember it. We think of ourselves as the shiny orange peel with the wax and sticker on it instead of as juicy food for someone.

Truth is Vitamin C for the soul. Yeah, I know. Somebody took the food for the soul idea and ran with it. I should have been so lucky. Instead I am writing for a few people about the one truth worth knowing. We are the whole kit and kaboodle, the whole shebang. We are the seed, the sunlight, the pulp and the rind. No one tells us this as we come screaming headfirst into this noisy world. But we learn it soon enough. One fine day a death or illness will turn you inside out, like it did me. A good teacher will finish the job and leave you in open space.

Once there, you feel your nakedness, as if you have just been through another birthing experience. Only this time there is no mother’s milk; only the juice you can squeeze from your own essence. Whew. Time for a nice long rest in the arms of God. He’s been waiting.

 

“May my soul transcend my daily anxiety!”

From a poem by Maurice Nicoll

In the dark night of this lifetime I have had a golden angel.  It has come to me as the inclination of my soul to seek the light.  That is how it works.  You bleed and cry and faint and pray, never knowing anything for sure except that it seems to hurt to love.  But that very pain is what is spurring us on. The stronger it is, the more seeking there will be.  The mystery of love is that it isn’t mental and it isn’t physical.  It does not even have to do with the ego in any way, shape or form.  You might say it is angelic.

It is a good thing that we only know our angels from hearsay or we would grow too familiar.  We would end up sending them to TJ Maxx looking for markdowns or asking them to help us make grilled-cheese sandwiches.  I think angels should be reserved for higher things than finding parking places just to prove that they exist, although I hear that they do that, too.

Those of you who know my writing know that it is about my experiences with the spiritual path and with my family’s cancer.  I try not to exaggerate or overstate my case–it is a soul-shattering experience.  That is why the need for angels.  I have studied the books and thrown them away–memorized the highlights and stuffed them into my psyche.  It has not changed me one iota.  My teacher was right–the spirit is the only place that we will ever find rest.  As Dr. Nicoll says, “All knowledge passes into love of God.”

He goes on to say,

“There is daily suffering and daily suffering,

But only right suffering releases.

There is a place within to suffer rightly

And when found, God enters in.”

Angels are a reality in a higher realm than we can reach.  They don’t just materialize when we sing Christmas carols, either.  They must be shedding their glow as our tears fall into the planet Earth.  We want to do better than we are–that is why we need angels to minister to us.

Sometimes there is no other reason for love bending down to bless us–our need has called it to us and angels are funnels for fortitude and faith to pour into our lonely hearts.  I am glad I have a golden angel spurring me on. Otherwise the night would be too dark and deep.