Wild and Raw


As a writer it is important for me to be wild and raw inside. This scratches the itch for the reader on some primal level. We have enough nonduality descriptions to fill a somewhat dull encyclopedia of the “I had an experience of unity” variety. What is lacking is the backstory, which is generally referred to, but not fully expressed. Juicy falls between the cracks.

So I get up in the morning thinking that I should lay off Notes for a while. But the wolf is scratching at the door, or as Leonard Cohen says, “the angels are scratching at the door to come in.” Either way, life is a harrowing experience on the archetypal level. And it makes no sense to the intellect that would describe its nondual experience.

So here is my Note for the day after Thanksgiving, 2012.

Bob dropped in for a visit, wings and all. He was huge and wild. His vitality wafted across the room as he touched down from the heights. He said nothing. My heart pounded. What was this visitation about?

His being spoke to mine and this is what I imagined that he said. “Drink your life up quickly. Don’t bother to savor it. The savoring comes later. Just gulp it down.”

His aura blazed. My heart telegraphed to his: “It’s almost gone. I’m seventy now.”

Then the most amazing thing happened. I became seven instead of seventy. From that point on the visit changed, for I looked at him through new eyes.

What I saw was Jesus beckoning me to come unto Him. Bob had undergone a transformation. I approached Him without saying a word. But He was the Word. I now remembered what it was like to be untouched by loss or age. To do this I instinctively knew how to drink life with a great thirst.

This is what I imagined, not what really happened. For what really happens is nothing like one would imagine. I sat alone in the room again, the keyboard still being used to write this Note. My fingers know what to do but they are not The Hand of God.

Serious Silence


It is said that one does not begin the true way for a very long time. At first there are many pseudo paths that jostle for one’s attention. That proves that they are mental. But one is made to follow up on each new hint that this might be “the one.” Books are bought, highlighted and discarded. Teachers are sought out and they may even be found. But the student’s being is still fooling around on the mental plane. This goes on for years.

Crushing blows may be administered to the searching ego but the time has not yet come for arrival. But hope is not a bad thing, for the unripe soul is gradually ripening. The tests are necessary and one can only plod along through bad times and bad….

The good times are generally rare and mostly nonproductive, for egos like to slack off whenever possible. So a fire under one’s feet is a good thing. Karlfried Gras von Durkheim spoke of the master always chasing the student back onto the path.

“The man who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive.

Rather, he will seek out someone who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a “raft that leads to the far shore.”

Lately I am getting hints of the true way. Threads like spun gold are being thrown out. They are small and mysterious inklings of the temple bell being struck. Perhaps the pagoda of peace is now within sight. I take refuge in the vow of Kwan Yin, which leads me into serious silence.

Mourning Cloak

Common Name: Mourning Cloak, Morning Cloak, Mourningcloak, Harbinger of Spring, Camberwell beauty – The name Mourning Cloak is due to the appearance of the dorsal surface of the wings, said to resemble the traditional cloak worn by those in mourning, which was sometimes draped over the casket of the deceased.

“And you who were bewildered by a meaning
Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost”
~Leonard Cohen

Sharon Robinson has been wowing the crowds with this at Leonard Cohen’s concerts. Having lost two beloveds, I know in my bones that this song is unassailable. It must be sung even though it further cracks the weary, wounded heart. Everyone sighs and bows to this song. Why? Just because….

And Bob speaks softly into my heart…”My love, I am here with you more fully in my absence. Do you think I could possibly desert you without good reason? You are thriving in your own strength now. You are carving out time to romance the moon and stars. And you know that they are loving you back.”

And I answer. “Sometimes my heart is too heavy and I just sit.”

“Just sitting opens the gateless gate.”

“I love you. Why are you always leaving?”

“So you know that love is trying to erase the word ‘you.’ There is leaving and there is meeting again in the Void. That is the place where the words ‘you’ and ‘I’ have lost all of their meaning. This very conversation is taking place in your head, not your heart.”

I could say no more. Wisdom had taken my breath away.

What Is Fashionable….


I sat at the keyboard this morning, wearing my wonderfully ratty blue robe. I had just written, “What is fashionable can never be dear.” How true. Consider the lilies of the media and how they are clothed. In lies and deception and glittering perfection.

My child died with her old yellow blanket by her side. She had named it Mookie before she learned to talk; Mookie was a nonsense name. For years I carried a bit of Mookie in a locket that Bob had given me. At some point she became like a dream and I no longer needed outward evidence that she had walked among us.

What is fashionable can never be dear.

Ageism is rampant; that is why I have decided to cop to being seventy very soon. My hair is silver and I wear bifocals. The angels don’t give a crap how old I am.

These days I find myself wondering how to grow old gracefully. To shit with that. The way out is through. I imagine I will have my share of stiff necks, leaky bladder, hideous liver spots and everything else that accompanies old age. Like Leonard Cohen, I plan to keep the show on the road.

What is fashionable can never be dear.

Today I will wear something comfortable to the grocery. I will push my cart around, smiling at the beneficence of the store’s employees. I will insult Gerald, the senior citizen that works there and he will respond in kind (but kindly.) I will come home and feel satisfied that there is enough food in the house for a week.

I will perhaps weep a moment as I remember Bob, a man so unfashionable that he kept his marriage vows and kept from killing me at the same time. He gave me a see-through black nightie when the children were small. He enjoyed seeing me go up in smoke as they giggled when I opened it.

As he lay in his hospital bed, he recorded the story of how he saw me in fourth grade, fell in love and vowed to marry me. And so they lived sort of happily ever after, even though she turned out to be flat-chested and a bit of a nag. He had a tendency to stifle his emotions. As the old line goes, “I loved her so much sometimes it was all I could do not to tell her.”

What is fashionable can never be dear.

I Could Write A Book


I could write a book about suffering. Oh, that’s right. I did. Apparently I have learned very little about it. I can be having a perfectly good day when pow! right in the kisser. An emotional riptide pulls me under. I try to fight my way out. Bad idea. Best to go with it. Welcome it. Sit down and invite it to have a cuppa with you.

But grief is smarter than we are. It knows all about us. Last night I had the evening to myself and grief would have none of that. It soon had me crying about being alone. Once it found a chink in my armor, the rest was easy. I ran right down memory lane, exaggerating the good times and mourning that they would not come again.

Tissues piled up in the pocket of my robe. Time does not alter love nor make the losses much easier to bear. The holidays are poking their nasty little heads around the door. Soon my birthday, then Thanksgiving, Christmas, my wedding anniversary and the New Year. Fast forward to January 2, any year. I am a waist-size bigger, I have bought stock in Kleenex and vowed to “get a life.”

But hold on a sec. After Bob died, I DID get a life. I became a published author. Not that anyone seems to have noticed—ahem. Life With A Hole In It, A Guru in the Guest Room…hello! Not only that, I have written well over a thousand Facebook Notes. Time for another exclamation point.

But the point is that the grief will always be there, just as the love. Actually the love grows…
“More today than yesterday, less than tomorrow” is the right phrase to quote. Bob gave me a charm with those words on it. He also gave me two children and 38 years of fidelity to our marriage.

So grief is an old friend. Not a welcome one, but a necessary ingredient in my life. I will never be Polly Plastic, healed over and sashaying forth into the world. But I do go to Tai Chi once a week and Part the Wild Horse’s Mane for all it’s worth. I know what my soul needs, which happens to be my own good company. I use the “n” word (NO) quite liberally. This extends to putting up with evil-intentioned parsers and those who would have me smile at my grief as if it were stamped with an expiration date.

Each loss is etched into my soul’s journey. Love is somehow dignified by them. I am not sentimental by nature. If you come inside my home, you will see a minimal amount of clutter. I prefer practicality and I subscribe to the less is more philosophy. A Scorpio with a Virgo ascendant, I don’t take kindly to emotional mess.

What I do is recycle everything. My sorrow has become a way of working through the artificiality that clogs my pores. It cleanses my skin and deepens my insights into what makes people tick. And I know what floats my boat and it ain’t faux cheerfulness. It is, these days, the sight and sound of Leonard Cohen on his knees, and the fact that he can get back up again! As the guru told his disciple, “Everytime you fall down, just get back up.” And each essay I write is another successful attempt at just that. Leonard Cohen and I rock!

The Voice, November 6, 2012


“Your life is very bitter only that you may come to know the truly sweet.” So the Voice went on and I, listening. At least I knew where the Voice was coming from—inside. It was the part of me that would eventually prevail. Meanwhile all I need do is listen.

“When your body has a bad day, know that your true life can be so peaceful as to comfort it. You know, let it breathe and rest and repair itself. For it is unknowing of how you love it unless you show it.”

“So I am more than the body? As yet, I have not been able to part company with it.”

“You leave it on the bed when you go on your night’s journeys. There it stays until you rejoin it.”

“Are some of my dreams real?”

“Dreams are where you go to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Life, love, death, grief are but a jigsaw of the Absolute.”

“When will I be able to leave my body consciously?”

“You already are; for the body is comprised of thought. Think yourself out of it and you are.”

And the Voice fell silent.

A Circle of Friends

I am gathering a circle of friends around me on Facebook. The days of artificial pointing are blessedly over. If I want to discuss spirituality, I prefer to go directly to the God of Silence. As I see it, there was a new frontier opened by Jerry Katz. It was called The Nonduality Salon and a better sheriff than Katz could not be found. The drinks were undiluted and poured straight from the heart. But before long, people were shooting from the lip.

Brawls broke out and the player piano was more alive than some of the players. People began wearing poker faces when discussing nonduality. They preferred not to talk about their real lives, the stuff of which life is made. They only spoke of being one with everything. Miss Kitty found that funny.

But I rode into town (in a stage out of Atlanta) with a story to tell. My husband was dying slowly and I needed to talk. Sheriff Katz let me do just that. Oh, some of the townspeople tried to shut me up. Tried to tar and feather me. Said I should get a grip, grow up, shut up, etc. I heard it all.

I contributed essays to the salon and begin to think I might have something of value to say. For I had a real teacher who taught the “I am” awareness. He just didn’t gussy it up with fancy words. He kept telling us that we weren’t worth shootin’ unless we woke up. He didn’t use phrases like “pointers.” He gave us the medicine of awareness and that was that.

Sheriff Katz gave me room to talk. He continues to do that. He knows that the new frontier is bigger and busier than ever. He leads with something called effortless openness. At times, I have wanted to shoot him, but I can have a pretty big mouth. I probably needed to dial it down a bit.

These days silence is looking better and better. Everybody that comes in the salon is wired to the max. No one has time to sit down and play poker unless it’s on their iPhone. The times are changing and nobody knows that things can’t go on like they are. The Jersey shore has taken a devastating hit. Mother Earth is drawing a line in the sand.

It is time for the nondual community to take a page from the book of silence. Look around you. The silence is everywhere. It’s getting a foothold even in the saloon. The pretty young wenches are flirting wordlessly with the men wearing those fancy vests. The stars are shining brightly in the desert without the words. Soon the very earth will be humming about the newest frontier—silence. I reckon Sheriff Katz knows about that as well.

*I have two books on amazon now. I have grown a great deal since the days of having a dying husband and a story to tell. I lean on what I know to be true and say it with as few words as possible. Don’t be a stranger. Every now and then the Sheriff allows me to tell one of my stories in The Nondual Highlights. I always look forward to that.

Vicki Woodyard
* Life With A Hole In It
*A Guru in the Guest Room