This, folks, is my Peanut Gallery. Pistachio the Owl, Little Brown Puppy and Vicki. Who are they and why are they my totems? Well, Connie Caldes did a soul retrieval journey for me a few years ago and said this. I am paraphrasing, but in so many words, I left home— symbolically speaking— at about the age of three to live in the pine woods with a mother owl and her babies. So I ordered this little felt owl from Etsy and since it is green, she became Pistachio. When Connie called my spirit back, she advised me to listen to my inner child so she would stay with me. And I try to do that.

Little Brown Puppy is the dog I bought for Bob when he was first hospitalized and diagnosed with cancer. I bought him from the Cheer Cart and paid the princely sum of $5 for him! Bob melted, his heart bursting wide open. Such a gift! And first he lived on a shelf in the kitchen, and then went into the drawer in the hutch for a while. Sometimes I would take him out at Christmas and display him for a bit. But now he lives with Pistachio and the little felt handmade doll I bought at an art sale. She is my inner child, I suppose. So they reign over my dining table/cum desk and are my muses.

The next picture will show the latest addition to my desk. That would be my Yeti mic which I now call Swami Z. I speak directly into this mic as if it were his heart and he has some sassy things to say. Writing can’t be all serious all the time. The comic relief that Swami Z provides is priceless to me.

So there you have it. Whaddya think?

Visit me on Tumblr where the copy below is posted with my picture in the library at Cancer Wellness.
There is also a new MP3 on the Tumblr site right above that post.

Three things you know about me. I love Leonard Cohen. I used to write for Joan Rivers. I lost my youngest child to cancer when she was 7.

Three things you don’t know about me. I still have a waistline. I got rhythm. Sometimes I cry and try to persuade my late husband, Bob, to give me a sign he is alive and well.

Three things you will never know about me….

Because I can keep secrets.

Hi Folks,

Just a note to say that I am now on Tumblr.

Victor Zammit highly recommends my book, Life With A Hole In It. It can be ordered through amazon.com. Click the link below!

It can be ordered on amazon.com.

Victor Zammit’s weekly Afterlife Report is read all over the world. I was to learn this when someone read Life With A Hole In It and wrote to him about it. After he ran a photo of my book with her words, I was able to sell many copies to those who have lost loved ones. I am grateful to Victor for the chance to have my message heard. In my heart, Bob is alive and well and has managed to come through to more than one person who has the gift of seeing beyond the veil.

It is very difficult to let people know about independently-published books. I have worked long and hard to see this book into print. It takes the generosity of people like Victor to let people know that there is hope beyond what we may be able to see or feel at the time.

Order Life With A Hole In It at amazon.com.

“I am thrown back on my shabby little story.” L. Cohen in an interview

I, too, am thrown back on my shabby little story. We all are. That is part of learning humility, I suppose. Everything I say is a supposition of sorts. How can it be otherwise?

I have known true love and have lost it. In the losses I have made the most progress. In the dark nights of my soul, I have been humbled by a force greater than my story. I ache to regain what I have lost, but life is about letting go.

Paradox steps in at this point to say that nothing can be lost or gained; everything exists in its eternal fullness. And then I find myself weeping for the dearness of my lost loves. I want them back. Want to see the child on the swing again. So I do tai chi and let the child in me wave hands like clouds.

I want to make love to an absent husband. So I make love to God in all His Silence. I weep for every act I made against him, but there is no one there to say “I forgive you.”

I write to strike a chord within you, the reader, for surely you are vibrating to this note of honesty. Do not quote holy books at me; just sigh and nod your head. Give me your hand. I need that. Give me your frailties, not your strengths, for human strengths are false to the core.

Remember that the shabby little story reveals the greatness of the bigger picture, one we are painting day by day.

Thanks to the hard work of Renaee Churches, you can now subscribe to my Podcasts! Because she wanted to listen to them on her iPod, she took the time to set up a podcast channel for me.

I do not even own an iPod, believe it or not. I keep saying, “One day….” But I do have a new mic and plan to be making more podcasts.

So a big shout out to Renaee for helping me with my site. Without her, I would be lost when I log in to add essays or audio.

So give it a test drive. Just click on the new Subscribe to Podcast Link and let us know how it goes. Some of these are Oldies But Goodies; new ones yet to come.

Love,
Vicki

My book, Life With A Hole In It: That’s How The Light Gets In, was the hardest thing I have ever had to write. You see, the hole was ripped into everything precious I had known this lifetime. Just writing the words brings it all back. For in the akashic records, everything is recorded. Our finest moments, our darkest hours, our soul-shattering falls, our ascensions of grace. All is there pending review once we cast aside these weary bodies and return to ones of light.

Lately I have been mourning my husband as if he just left the planet. So strange. Maybe because I am beginning another 7-year cycle this fall. I feel there is time left for me to write lots and lots more.

Bob loved me since the fourth grade. I was not aware of this until many years later. He described seeing me come down the steps of our grammar school wearing a white blouse and a red skirt and looking like an angel. In fact, he always called me that.

This is a channeled writing from a dear friend. I asked her if she could get in touch with Bob. At her request, she will remain anonymous.

July 29, 2012
“Vicki, love…I am never more than a thought away. If you so much as think of me I am there by your side.

“I am so much bigger now than I was when I was alive…if you only knew what awaits us when we die you would rejoice. I am no longer tied to a body that refuses to function and it is an indescribable blessing. I want you to know I am happy and whole and my love for you is as strong as it ever was.

“We don’t die, Vicki…it was such a joy to realize this. I am still the same; only my physical form has changed. I am whole, happy and smiling. I can’t say this strongly enough because I want you to hear it.

“You think of me as being gone…please don’t allow my absence to imprison you like it has done. I don’t want you to cry for me now. I need you to know that I am happy and everything’s okay. It’s okay to go on with living. Don’t spend your life weeping for what was. It only makes you sadder.

“You don’t need someone else to bring me closer…I am already there with you. Haven’t you felt my arms slide around you when you are still? Haven’t you heard my whispers? This is not just your imagination or the longing of a grieving heart…I AM there. I always have been, and will continue to do so until we are reunited.

“I have never stopped loving you. Always know this. You are my own dear heart.”

Likewise, Bob, likewise.

Leonard Cohen on stage again in Ghent.
The curtain is rent.
Light staggering forth from every bow of the heart
towards the arc of the musical note.

The curtain is rent.
Split into atomic particles
of agonizing rapture.
What’s to capture?

Every stumble made by the master
informs the student
that there is no finer hour than
one spent on one’s knee.

After the curtain falls,
the heart wearied of so much joy,
must be carried off like a dozen
roses and placed carefully on
the altar of what is.

Vicki Woodyard

My son and I enjoyed an evening at The Mable House in Mableton, Georgia. The opening act was The Reluctant Saints. You KNOW I had to get a picture with them!