As I wind up the last days of 2011 I get more and more honest. This Christmas season has left everyone “screwed, blued and tattooed.” There is nothing merry about having to endure the endless ads and commercials for weeks. Being on the path is Christmas every day. We have to get up out of the manger and begin our mission again every morning. Sharon Annable has a great essay on that on her Facebook Page today.

Birth and rebirth require cleaning up the afterbirth. That sounds gross, doesn’t it? No one talks about that. Women are bred to let the baby come into the world and cover up the evidence that more is required. My first child had colic for two and a half months. Nothing beatific about that vision. I wore curdled clothes for months.

Oh, well, I am over any fantasies about anything, including enlightenment.

Join me in 2012 as I cast aside the swaddling clothes, walk on the water of what is and get stoned on a regular basis. (No, not THAT kind of stoned 😉 Everyone has a good juicy plot to live. Why not get a journal and begin making notes?

This business of honest communication can only be done on paper. Don’t try this at home! If I cast the pearls of truth among those at an Open House, they would cast me out. I just drink punch and stuff dessert in my mouth so not too much honesty will leak out. But here, I am among friends. I can trot out Swami Z in all his glory and not be called a nutcase. He just wandered in fingering his few strands of hair. He said to tell you “Pfffffffft.” I told him to take a number. I just love fantasy. It’s almost as good as Christmas.

I woke up this morning after a nightmare, the third one in a row. Many of you sent me love last night. Thank you. Love has a way of pushing its way in through the ego’s defenses, just as fear and negativity do. None of us are safe in our flimsy little structures of separation. We will be loved and hated no matter what we do.

As I said, I do not write for money. It is only my ego that wants my book to sell. I do not need donations; I really don’t. My ego tries to tell me that other writers get paid, why not me. Don’t listen to it, I say. Just keep writing. And I am choiceless in this matter.

I love getting comments, as all writers do. I especially like the honest ones; the ones where you say how human you are. For all of this neoadvaita crap is like eating piles of sugar with no salt. It has no savor. The savior arrives when we see this. “There is none good, no, not one.”

I wish you could see me. Sitting here in my black robe with its leopard collar. Furry slippers and my aging face. I ordered some Oil of Olay Definity from Amazon because I vowed to take better care of myself. I use Pond’s as a moisturizer. I wear no eye makeup and refuse to give up my bifocals. However, I do need to get trifocals for the computer screen. Ah, the wonders of being 69, such a rude age to be 🙂

I am one powerful old broad, all things considered. I have bent remarkably but never broken. Never made it to the funny farm stage. There is such an overwhelming sense of loss with me that it gives my readers hope that they, too, can overcome anything. The tears behind these eyes are real. Lately I know my daughter is desperate to reassure me that she is always with me.

What matters to me is these hints of heaven that are coming in through the grace of others. They are bent on helping me through this part of my life. A life that looks like one of increasing solitude; it is this I have chosen and therefore must embrace. For I have no interest in cultivating a social life. Never have, never will. I find myself the happiest when I am doing what I am doing now. Letting the light shine through fingers that know they are about their Father’s business.

“The Son of Man hath no place to lay His Head.” Matthew 8:19. Truer words were never spoken. I woke up this morning having had a corker of a nightmare. In it I said bitter, accusatory words to someone. Words I had been repressing in order to keep on being “a good girl.” But in dreams the truth will out. And then the scripture I quoted came to me. And with it came a sudden intake of pure air. An aha moment. I saw for the millionth time what all true teachers are saying. There is nothing that can be done on this earthly mental level. We simply have to remember that.

The Great I Am is not accessible to the ego.

The bread of life cannot be eaten by the unreal.

We live on the level of the devil when we dwell amongst our thoughts, our bifurcated minds.

All we have to do is know this. “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32.

And so I will go and eat a bowl of cereal and begin my day. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:34. Yes, I have evils to transform, but it is not I that do this. I allow the truth to enter into my state of sleep and awaken me to what Is.

I am not a Bible-thumping fundamentalist, neither am I without the Christ Consciousness. Esoteric Christianity is about the discovery of the I am within. It is about the Law of Levels and the absolute separation of truth and falsehood. Choose this day which you will serve.

There is a definite place for conscious suffering. This is spoken of in the Work of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I have been rereading a book by Ravi Ravendra in which he writes of his work with Madame De Salzmann. As I read, I gain energy because the truth is leaping off the page. That is one way to know if a book is helpful to you.

I know from direct experience that I gain nothing from watching Youtube videos of so-called awakened teachers. That is not my path. My path is esoteric Christianity. It includes the I am awareness but also focuses the student on the pairs of opposites and how we are caught within them. Only awareness can transcend this painful dilemma.

As I have said, I lose a great deal of energy during the holidays. My introversion and body type do not enjoy jubilation but rather a quiet and methodical life. I gain energy by going about my business and then resting at the still point. The world needs this kind of energy focus; if not for it, everyone would be quite mad.

Madame de Salzmann suggests that rather than force myself to “brighten up,” I would be better served by simply seeing my actual state. Seeing is the highest solution to any problem.

I was quite gratified to see that my daughter’s spirit is flying around and giving me lots of proof that she is wanting me to let go, to fly myself. If this sounds fanciful, that is as it should be. Only a mother who lost a child might find meaning in such statements.

I am meant for inner exploration, not outer. If something is needed, it will arrive quite on time. In the meantime, I am rocking the babe.

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Vicki Woodyard

Being a sensitive, December 26 is a difficult day. All of the fatigue and depression of the planet comes down like a blanket of heavy wet snow. I have felt this since I was a child. Everyone is creeping around feeling the inevitable affects of the post-Christmas letdown. There is nothing to do but let it pass.

I have so much to do, but today is not the day to do it. I long to clean up every last shred of evidence, but that would feel too Grinchy. So on the counter are goodies galore; there is an old wooden bread board filled to the brim with stocking chocolates waiting to be transported directly to my hips. They won’t have long to wait. My resolution now is to eat them slowly, but I am not of that disposition.

Where is spirituality in all of this excess? It is in the knowing what excess is and how one ultimately knows the uselessness of it. I told my son not to get me candy this year and so it seems to be raining from the sky! Kisses, peanut butter cups, marzipan, boxed chocolates, sugared pecans, candied popcorn….My own buddha belly is inevitable. The buddha is certain to have cavities.

I hope all of you take some time today to remember yourself. Feel free to come to terms with your own excess and the affects it has on you. Feel the guilt that you didn’t get someone “enough.” Grieve your losses consciously. Know that January is a p—-er of a month and you need to begin gathering energy to bear it. I would say Happy New Year, but Merry Christmas is still pressing on my cortex. Ouch.

I know someone who has two autistic children. They do not speak; she calls them her strange angels. That phrase comes to mind this Christmas morning. It is raining and I just had a cup of coffee and some goodies from last night. Who, I pondered, are our “strange angels” and how do they bless us?

I am learning that there is a far different world out there than the everyday rational one crammed with ego nonsense. This year I am having that confirmed. In the first part of 2011 an online friend dreamed something that would happen in my future; I have never met her in person. What she dreamed of was my meeting with David, the handyman with the ability to see spirits. I also dreamt of him. And when he walked through my kitchen door, he knew at the first look into my face that something powerful was happening.

This same online friend found me the perfect masseuse by Googling up someone in my part of the metro area. She didn’t have my street address but found someone about five or six minutes from my house. This woman is able to sense spirits and told me that my daughter and husband were both there as she worked on me. “They want you to know they are alive and happy and they want you to be happy,” she said.

That is just two examples of how linked up we all are on a higher plane. When I count my blessings, those are my greatest ones, the ones that prove I can let go and let God.

All I have to give is my ability to receive. And gratitude pours out effortlessly when such connections are made. I didn’t contrive or arrange them. They just fell into place. My strange angel was my little girl, Laurie, who left the earth plane at the age of seven. Her brief sojourn blessed many people and this year there is evidence that she wants me to drop any heavy load I may be carrying. She is saying that it is all good.

Some of us are burdened in order to let in more light. It makes no sense. I had a nightmare last night where my late husband was going to be returned home after being in a facility of some kind. He was having mental problems and I dreaded having to do this. I woke up feeling anxious and stressed. There is subconscious material that arises in dreams when we are overtired or in dread. That always happens to me during the holidays. I am ready for a holiday from the holidays. In the meantime I look forward to more strange unfoldings in 2012. I hope you have some, too. Pax.

Christmas Eve, 2011. On Christmas Eve, 2004, my son, sister, cousin and I sat with a total stranger at the Marriott Courtyard in Memphis, Tennessee. My husband had been buried the day before and an ice storm had turned the town into a skating rink, preventing us from returning home to Atlanta. I always thought it strange that we were at The Marriott Courtyard across from St. Joseph’s Hospital.

A kitchen employee by the name of Mary (to amplify the Mary and Joseph thing) had taken pity on us and offered to bring her Christmas ham and the fixings to the motel and feed us. We were deeply moved. Makeshift stockings were hustled up from a convenience store and a drugstore. A stocking cap that read “Mary” in glitter was placed on her head.

We five sat in the otherwise empty lobby and feasted. Death and rebirth were one.

I could not ever go back to that time nor do I think I will have to. For the past seven years I have known peace underneath my usual daily challenges.

Writing is now what I do. I have, for the most part, given up spiritual books and teachings. I have become what I needed the most.

I have become someone who knows what I need.

If some of you are still struggling with being kind to yourself, you are not alone. It took five years as a caregiver for me to earn the time to take care of Vicki Woodyard. She was overdue for a rest.

She is smarter than I ever gave her credit for. She learned one day at a time how to manage what needed managing. She just kept putting one foot in front of the other. The walk up the inner mountain is ongoing but she is now pacing herself.

I hope that 2012 finds her in an even deeper peace. That way she can offer the so-called world a bit of it. Otherwise, what’s the use? She is trying to see through the bushel over her head. What she sees is nothing less than herself.

This essay makes no sense; that is how it should be. Otherwise it would be just another treatise. Cue the star, the shepherds and the wise men. A child is born.

The One Necessary Trait

“What is the one trait necessary to maintain a relationship?”

I was asked this question in hopes I would come up with an answer. I was married to the same man for thirty-eight years. And I am going to tell you something that will make me blush. We were both virgins when we married. Not only that, we remained faithful to our vows. It was not romantic love that drew this partner to me; it was karma, destiny, fate.

But it had no happy ending, not at all. I married him only to discover that our young daughter was destined to die of cancer at the age of seven. He died of it himself when he was only sixty-three. I was the weak one in the family, which just goes to show you that reason has no say in the court of love. As he told it, he saw me running down the stairs of our elementary school wearing a red skirt and a white blouse. I was only eight years old, but he saw me as an angel. He always called me that when he was feeling romantic. Being an engineer, though, he was not the greatest speller. I remember one birthday cake that read, “Happy Birthday, Angle.”

Although I wrote one-liners for Joan Rivers, he never laughed at my jokes. He was proud, though. He bragged on me knowing someone famous. Later, I added Phyllis Diller, Jeff Foxworthy and Jay Leno to my “sold to” file, but I hung up my shingle writing comedy some time ago. I really didn’t know I was an essayist until Bob was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. I said to him, “I am going to start a website to support you.” Someone else had done this and I knew I wanted to do one for him.

I had no idea how to build web pages but I taught myself slowly and surely during the first part of his cancer. I soon realized the satisfaction I got from stringing words together to tell our story. He seldom read any of the copy—he was living it—and I was strengthening myself for the inevitable day of his death. And come it did. Five days before Christmas of 2004, this valiant man took his last breath. I was not even with him. Our son and I were at home resting. We knew it was a matter of days before he died and we were letting go on many levels, as was Bob.

My sister had driven nonstop from Pennsylvania to be with us. She sat with him that long last day. As she told it, “The French doors to his hospital room blew open and a single leaf blew in, as if the spirit had come to get him.”

He was buried during a sleet storm two days before Christmas. Few people made it to the funeral due to the weather and the fact that everyone was busy. I stood beside his casket touching the only life-like part of his body, the hairs on his hand. “Easy,” my son whispered, fearing I would mess something up.

This is a long way to answer the question of what one necessary trait is important to maintain a relationship. That is a no-brainer. Commitment. And commitment grows into love. And love flowers in the face of death. He is the one I want to meet me when I cross over. I guaran-damn-tee you that he will still call me Angel. And I him.

*Order the book or make a Christmas Donation to the website. Every time a book sells, I get a feather in one of my wings 🙂 Bob Woodyard has been gone seven years now. He would be so proud. Give what you can to support the site. The DONATE BUTTON is to the right. Thank you!

This has been a great year online for me. My readership has grown as I have added new Friends on Facebook. Do me a favor and subscribe to my Notes there. Think about ordering LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT. Know that an independent spiritual writer needs love and support to keep going in a world where commercialism runs rampant. If you can make a Christmas donation, please do!

If my notes have made a difference to you, consider buying the book if you haven’t yet done so. I don’t do this on my own and each of your comments adds richness to the pot. We are making tasty soup together. Oh, sure, tears fall in and may raise our sodium content but the heart is softened along the way.

A lot of us have learned that the script can be taken to a higher level. That is the challenge and the law. Grace arrives unexpectedly. The star rises in the east (inside of us) and awareness is born.

LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT is on amazon.com or on booklocker.com in paperback OR ebook.

Thank you for your presence in my life.

Vicki Woodyard