There is no time
and there are no edges.
This insight gives rise to
a thousand imaginary
cruelties wrought by
the deluded mind.
There is no deluded mind.

Vicki Woodyard

Thanksgiving. We got through it, my son and I. We went to a local restaurant for a buffet. It was crowded with people and we sat with strangers for almost an hour before they called us to a table. Before that, a couple of women I had been chatting with offered to share their large booth with us. I felt that would be uncomfortable, so we waited and got our own large booth.

The dressing was wonderful and the white chocolate bread pudding was outstanding. Good coffee kept coming and it was rather nice to be with friendly strangers as our family for the evening. One never feels complete on holidays after close family members have passed on. But you do the best you can. I took a long slow walk, the weather being almost balmy.

As I walked I addressed my husband in my heart. “Here I am, missing you as always.” The trees are almost bare now and the sky was cobalt blue, as blue as my heart. Clear blue emptiness of eternal love. Nothing to block out my view of love, love shining inside, love burning into the void.

Writing enlivens me. To share these lonely words with you is healing, for you have your own loneliness to deal with. Roy Orbison really had a handle on the lonesome style. So clear and true. I try to do that with my words. I want them to vibrate on the same universal chord as his. Phrasing should be musical; emotional intensity should build. I want you to know me, to know my heartache, to understand that is the path of healing for me. I have no intention of building a rose-colored palace of enlightenment in which to dwell. I am content with the simplest of things. A piece of pumpkin pie with whipped cream, sitting on my cozy green couch watching HGTV. They are showing how Rockefeller Center is decorated for the holidays. My heart is bare and that is how I like it. That way emptiness and fullness are seen to be the same. You understand, don’t you?

My writing is my passion and my calling. It rises from the ashes of thought and transcends my ego high jinks, hopefully. Yesterday was a day of irony and humor in my Facebook notes, but like perfume and wines, there are always different notes in each essay. That is just how I roll.

One of my favorite bloggers is Crazy Aunt Purl. She uses her daily life as grist for the mill. Her writing, like mine but better, is infused with inner angst and hope, peppered with confession and intimacy. We are alike in that way. I, however, have never caught on with the masses and likely never will. But I write because I write because I write.

I have been looking at my life and see that changes are forthcoming. I am acknowledging that the astral plane is real and that often we meet “somewhere out there” before we actually meet in person. This also happens with anything we create. We first come up with it in our heads before we share it collectively. I am watching my fingers hit the keys, trusting them to transmit what it is I am trying to say. They are my partners in crime and time and sometimes rhyme.

I have written about my friend David, whom I met in a dream before I met him in four-square reality. We both recognized each other immediately. I told a psychic friend about him and she said “You have known each other for eons.” And I believe her. Outwardly I am alone; inwardly I companion with a few rare souls who are tuned in to something higher than the everyday.

She also told me not to do an interview I was asked to do. So I said no and that proved to be the right decision for me to make at the time. I have often felt guilty for not living an outer life; I just do my writing and inner work and spend the rest of my time taking care of business, puttering, watching TV, walking, etc. She always says that I am learning to trust my gut and that my gut usually says to keep to myself.

So here we are together this morning. We are strewn all over the planet trying to make sense of who we are and what we came in to do. I loved the David Whyte clip that I posted yesterday. In it he says that when we feel estranged from home, all we have to do is acknowledge that. That IS home. So true, so deeply true. That is why my notes ring a bell with some of you. You who know what “not at home” feels like. You who are returning home via this very knowledge. Namaste.

David Whyte on YouTube:

I dreamt that Swami Z took me out beyond Planet Earth just for the night. I had to fall asleep first; that was a prerequisite. But then I awoke to another level, where it was all magical.Swami nudged me out of my body gently by rapping on my little round head. I popped out easily and we were off!

“The first thing I want to do is see Wynken, Blynken and Nod’s little ship,” I said, reverting easily to my childhood essence.

“Sure, anything you want, Vicki. We can even get pizza after we get back home. This is your night.” He pointed upwards and right overhead was their wee little trundle bed sailing so happily on a sea of stars.

“Oh, it’s just like I thought it would be,” I said, shivering ecstatically. “Can I see the cow jump over the moon?”

Swami just grinned happily. “Look down, because we are above the moon right now.” He was right; I was over the moon with happiness. I looked down and saw a gentle brown cow just clearing the surface of the moon. So it was all true!

Swami and I floated around the cosmos for what seemed like days; in reality I don’t know how long we were “somewhere out there.”

“Is the moon really made out of green cheese?” I asked him as we swung through the rings of Saturn.

“It sure is,” he said. “Wanna go get a bite?”

“You betcha,” I said. Soon we had made a moon landing and were happily eating dainty samples of green cheese being handed out at The Swiss Colony Store at the Moon Mall.

When the stars begin to go out one by one, I knew it was time to go home. I had one last question I wanted to ask Swami. I looked up at him with awe that he could have the power to take me on this galactic expedition so easily.

“I want to know if God loves me,” I said. “And does He know all about me?”

“He not only loves you,” Swami said majestically. He IS you. He is everything tied up with a bow. You can have it all. You can have your daydreams and your nightmare and your wisdom and your foolishness. You can have your suffering and your silliness, your loves and your hates, your wonder and your despair.It all belongs to you.”

I looked around the cosmos one last time. I thought I saw Santa Claus coming home from a test run of his sleigh. No, I know I saw him. Nothing is made up that hasn’t first happened on one level or another.

Life is good. We stopped at Domino’s and pigged out on cheesy pizzas that tasted almost as good as the moon. Now don’t tell anyone I wrote this. There is no scientific evidence that we are all God. None at all. But the last time I looked, there was no evidence to disprove it either.

Vicki Woodyard
Author, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT—Order it now!

I woke up before five this morning. Ugh. After laying in bed for a while, I knew I might as well get up. So I had oatmeal and reread A GURU IN THE GUEST ROOM for the umpteenth time. Such is the nature of a book in progress. I have portrayed myself in the book as uptight, nitpicking and ridiculous. Why? Because I am. I have invented a guru that is confounding, irritating and elusive. Why? Because that is just how I roll.

When I first began attending Vernon Howard classes, Bob and I were asked to attend a work party. People were always needed to stuff envelopes, apply postage, etc. One of the men at the first gathering said to me curtly, “Leave yourself alone.” He had been watching me fret over the possibility of making mistakes. Even now, many years later, I can still profit from that pithy piece of advice.

Last week I got talked into buying a pair of boots that looked good but felt bad. Yesterday I knew I had to return them. The saleswoman has been helping me buy shoes for years and she said, “You always wear slacks and these will look great with jeans or any kind of pants.”

“They aren’t comfortable,” I said. She was more interested in how I looked in them, so I caved. Brought the boots home, along with a comfortable pair of flatter shoes. Not as flattering, but flatter. The boots were brown and they didn’t have the flatter pair in brown, so I had bought the black ones. I found a pair just like them in brown online, so I ordered them. I will take the boots back and feel guilty about not being fashionable enough to suffer for my looks.

Now is the time to leave myself alone. My essence is about comfort, not style. My essence, as Vernon said, came down from the stars. It knows itself. My nitpicking ego knows nothing; it just tries to run the show regardless. It wanted to look good; it really did. But it also deferred to my essence when it came to comfortable shoes. Life is a struggle. If the shoe fits….get it in brown.

First something happens inwardly and then it happens outwardly. Where we make our mistake is in giving the word “outwardly” too much power. We begin to hope for outward results and that is the very essence of sleep.

This morning I woke up imbued with a physical ecstasy. I brought it in here to the keyboard to share with all of you. From whence did this ecstasy arise? It can only come from the mystery of being alive and present. Now my fingers of flame are burning up the keyboard in the mystery of inner connection with the outer.

There is a book called Daughter of Fire, written by Irina Tweedie. Some of you know it well. One person has had the privilege of sitting with Mrs. Tweedie. Her book is huge; my mother said I was probably one of the few people who read it word for word. Heck, I have read and reread it, underscoring passages, pondering the mystery….

My life has been licking at my feet for a long time now; but so has yours. We are only, as Elton John said, candles in the wind. This is monumentally difficult to grasp because our fingers get burned in the very attempt. Fire is dangerous and all-consuming.

If we know that we are fire, what can we do with that sure knowledge? For one thing, we can remember that we are also water.

“Book knowledge is useful to some extent. There are books written by enlightened people, scriptures, and so on. On the level of the mind you will accept this and reject that. But to verify what is written, one has to realize. Then one will know the truth, absolutely, only then. But until this happens, one has to be content with books.” ~Bhai Sahib, speaking to Irina Tweedie

I went to a yoga class today at the community center. It seemed to last forever because I have lost so much flexibility. After class several people said that I was quite flexible, but I knew otherwise. What used to be easy is now hard. I having been reading Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s book, The Calling. In it, she suggests we find a word that we embody, the word that is calling to us. Her word is rest and that may well be mine, too. I love what Pamela Wilson says, “Rest and rapture, what else is there?”

I have a deep tendency to go too fast, to be impulsive, to hurry through anything I do. So rest is a great word for me to live. I see the salmon and golden colored leaves right outside my dining room window. I feel the stiffness in my neck. I hear a slight ringing in my ears. This is it. This is what I can rest with.

Right after Bob died, I realized that he could at last rest, and so could I. No more trips for transfusions, for treatments. To this day, I savor the resting I now can do. That is why I feel so little need for entertainment or travel. Just a good solid day at home fills the bill. I resisted getting in the car and driving to the yoga class. I got all bollixed up trying to find the right road into the center. Everything was one-way but I made it. I made it. And I plan to go back next week, resistant though I am.

Spiritual writing is a piece of cake for me. It comes so easily because it is my passion. In that passion I can rest. In that passion I come more alive. Yoga, not so much 🙂 But I need the discipline of it right now. My tight muscles need unwinding. My resistance needs to be met with awareness.
This life is always asking us what our word is, what our mission might be. On different days, we might choose different words, but our keyword remains the same. So I say unto myself, rest, and again I say, rest.