Light pours from my fingers at the keyboard. At work on the task of the moment, unveiling the mourning light. It is New Year’s Eve and a time for reflection. I am empty of all concepts, albeit only temporarily. I have a destiny from which most people would cringe. I write from mourning light. “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”

Not for me the normal life. It was yanked out from under me when I was 32. I found a teacher and that filled my longing for higher answers. Once he left there has not been another. His light became mine. It is not a sweet soulful one, but a boat-rocking wrenching away from falsehood.

I am a carrier of consciousness, the kind that is believed to be too hard to bear. The kind that comes from burying your child, your spouse, your hopes and dreams. I can only give it through my writing and to receive it you must be in dire need of it.

Oh, I can write things that are wild and funny and impossibly simple. I have two books that refuse to sell. More written that need editing. But I may not ever see that happen, for my destiny is barreling along on its own course. It seems to be carrying me to what is and not what I wish was!

For far too long I have denied the power of my mourning light. God gave it to me for a reason. So that I could stand in consciousness for those in need of receiving it. I do not apologize for my life nor my penchant for speaking the truth. It drives people away. That is a good thing for it leaves me free in God.

Dear Heart (and you know who you are),

This is my Christmas letter to you. It is not one of those falsely upbeat icky things that make you want to chuck it in the trash. I have no grandchildren to brag about nor have I taken any trips to “update” you on. But simple as it is, I wish you a heart connection to what is real.

I have learned that my job as a writer is to hitch myself to something higher and go along for the ride. Ironically, this also means that I get dragged through the mud, thanks to the law of opposites. Balance, my friends, balance. We are all teetering on the brink of exhaustion, bewilderment and surrender. This keeps life interesting.

Leonard Cohen spoke to a reporter about what “baffled” meant. He said something about life being baffling and that all we can manage is a hallelujah. So from me you will never get any tidy explanations about what it means to be “enlightened.” Neither will I mask my emotions to give you a kinder, gentler read.

My life is about living with an upset apple cart and rather than sorting it out, writing about it. Don’t you ever feel like you have fallen in the street and your most important papers are now blowing around so that everyone can see? That is something that my teacher said once. Oh, the shame and embarrassment of it.

I know who my real friends are. They are the ones who read these notes and feel like they are looking in a mirror. The ones that reveal themselves as broken and in need of a good bracing cup of words that transform into feelings that transform into a higher state of consciousness. But first one must limbo under the broom of gloom. Then you can stand upright in your humility.

I have no way of ending this except to say hallelujah that I have written my way through yet another challenging year. I did as Leonard said about the darkness, I “just drank it up.”

Love,
Vicki

Beloveds,

I hope that some of you will order A Guru in the Guest Room. It is such a great read! Here is where to order it.

Createspace.com

I am profoundly alone. Four words that go deep. Each one ringing a bell of recognition. This is the Way. Each one of us must walk the road of Calvary alone, must be born alone and die alone. This is not being dramatic; it is the simplest truth. Each birth and death is an initiation into Now. Who can say they were there when the rite happened? The Mystery decrees otherwise. Our inner lives are shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Evil and good both live in each human being. Who wakes and who sleeps?

I have to go grocery shopping. There I will smile, be affable and veil the pain. For that is how society rolls. False coin is exchanged; it seems the kindest thing to do. But “the law of otherwise” prevails. That man has had his heart broken by his children. That woman is a closet drinker. That child is abused. Yes, the one carrying the balloon. She is already learning to behave in public.

If you saw me writing this, you would see a woman in a pair of brown slacks and an ice blue fleece jacket. Hair flat from the cold and the electricity in the air. Skin pale from sorrow. And I will sally forth and bring the groceries home. Once home I will overeat and search the channels for something decent to watch on TV.

Off and on during the day I will sit at the still point and do energy healing for different people, most of all for myself. I will write and surf the net, letting myself be bored, amused, moved, etc. by the stuff thrown against the screen of my iMac. Media, thou art Lord.

If you have read this and are thinking that you are the lucky one compared to me, you are most welcome to feel that way. Out of my profound aloneness has come the urge to write the truth. Truth that is not palatable to most people I know. Many have sorrow-intolerant stomachs. For them, I offer up a generic Merry Christmas. Fa la la la la la la la la.

You are the Self

Below is a transcribed talk given by Vicki Woodyard. Vicki mainly writes, but she has also recorded a series of spontaneous talks such as this one, where she blends meditation, poetry and story line from her life and mixes it all up into a powerful, commanding, yet gentle as a breeze talk that is a pleasure to listen to and brings deep peace.

You can go to her website and listen to her talks there, so I guess I type them up here as a tribute really, because this is for the love of truth….

Renaee Churches

You Are The Self

You are the Self….
in the midst of multiplicity, neurosis, suffering, crisis —
you remain the Self that you are….infinite and eternally the Self,
Nothing you can do to not be who you are,
It just feels like that sometimes!

Yes, it feels catastrophic, and I speak as one who has been broken at least twice during this lifetime.
The first time was when my daughter died at the age of 7,
and again when my husband died at the age of 63.
We had been married 38 years and everyday of his illness I worried about
how I would survive such a devastating loss. As it played out, it worked out.

And I have been protected by the Self that I am every step of the way.
As we all are, as we all fear we will not be.
But what can remove us from the presence of God?
From the Self that we are?

The violent scary movies that we show on the screen of our mind that we project “out there….”
But they are really happening in the inner theatre called “I think I am separate from the Universe.”
No. We are the universe. We are the whole enchilada.

We are the animating force of the cosmos.
We are blue Sky
Green bough
Red blood
We are vibrantly here to give our gift.

And if you are wondering already what your gift is, then you are thinking.
And your gifting to us is never thought.
It’s always your being, your very presence, your wholeness.
That’s what we need from you.

When I begin overthinking things— like everybody does,
I know that I have forgotten just what I said at the beginning.
That I am the Self.
I am bigger than the Sky, as my beloved friend Peter used to say.

Peter was injured in an accident many years ago and had a series of strokes.
For a long time he didn’t know who he was; he couldn’t recognize friends and family.
He didn’t know how to read and he certainly could not walk.

One fine day, Peter said he realized he was as big as the sky.
He said, “I lost my me.”
Peter remembered himself, in a much larger way.

I haven’t heard from him in many years now,
because it was so hard for him to even compose a single email.
It might take him over an hour to answer and he had been a brilliant writer.
He embodied the Self.

He said when everything else was beyond him,
He would sit outdoors and watch the robins run across the grass,
Put his little cat on his chest and they would breath together.
The bliss of being became his.

He walked through those years of my husband’s suffering.
He told me, “For what it’s worth I hold your hand in this.”
And he did. And he always reminded me to just be.

He suffered a lot of pain,
And he said, “When it hurts I yell and when I fall down I go ‘Ow!’
And sometimes I lie there and look up at the beautiful sky and the tall grasses.”

That was Peter; that was my friend.
And Peter has vanished from my sight—as has my husband.
But other things arise and present themselves to me as the Self that they are.

This is the only heaven or hell that we shall know.
Both states are within us.
But hell is just mechanical thinking and feeling.

Vernon Howard said this: “You are already going through it—why not go through it consciously?”
There is not a lot to do to be! (laughter).
In fact there’s no doing involved at all!

It’s quite safe for us just to sit here together and Be.
Me holding my little microphone and you listening and us giggling together.
And thinking “Ah so— we know as much as the Third Chinese Patriarch!

Yes, we do. We just know it in a modern context.
But it IS knowing it.
So go forth and have a joyful day.
And thank you for listening.

Vicki Woodyard
Note: Click on my Audio Page, Vicki Woodyard Speaks, to listen to You Are The Self in an MP3

Christmas is a time for inner giving. If you give outwardly, in compliance with the rules, you will up your stress level. However, if you cherish your inner being, you will reap rich rewards. This is NOT self-pity but a gentle acknowledgement of the road you have walked in 2012.

It has been a rocky one for me on several fronts. Emotional backwaters overtook me and I floundered for quite a while. Out of that came some good writing, as always. God must have said, “I’m gonna give that one lots of tests and the ability to write her way through them.”

I sense that you have had your own rocky periods, as souls seem to have been thrown into the fire en masse. The first step in self-healing is to acknowledge that only you can minister to you. Just look within and feel your energy level. If it needs boosting, simply say this, “Work hard gathering energy when you have no problems.” Works like a charm. Came from my teacher, Vernon Howard.

The second step is to remember that if something is right for you, it is right for the universe. No ifs, ands or buts. If you feel a NO about something, then it’s a NO to the nth power. Likewise with YES.

There are two more things that work for me. “I vow to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings.” (The vow of Kwan Yin). The energy of the vow is the “how” of it. Just rinse and repeat as needed and you will have a lustrous heartful of care. (Gotta get my puns in while I can.)

The last one is this: “I am in God’s presence now.” And you are.

While I am on a rant about spirituality, isn’t it time that we used our own language? The word “guru” has lore sticking to it like lichens and yet it simply means teacher. Vernon Howard never called himself a guru and he spoke in the simplest language possible. Intellectuals hate that!

Pain is pain is pain. The sign at the exit to his classroom said “When the pain gets too bad, come back.” And we all knew he wasn’t talking about a medical trauma.

Yoga means union. Why not use the words we use in everyday life?

The mind loves to pretend all sorts of things. As Joan Rivers would say, “Grow up!” We know you’re not bathing in the Ganges and beating your clothes on the rocks. And if you are, excuse this essay. I wasn’t talking to you….

I am not a scholar but an acquirer of wisdom. I got it the hard way. I found my way to a teacher of the “Tough Stuff” school and immediately got roughed up by him. He beat me around the ears, metaphorically speaking. He removed the pillows from my head so I could hear him yell, “You don’t exist!”

He did not want me to take this personally, so he didn’t talk to students. As he said, “I have come to deliver the message, not discuss it.” I didn’t know this, but this knocks the intellectual outlook into a cocked hat. It’s good to feel the breeze on your noggin as the teacher screams into your heart, “Look up, look up.”

In another talk he said that there is no teacher and no student. That one day he would disappear. And disappear he did. That leaves me wanting more….

And so I traipse along trailing words not mine, revealing secrets yelled out loud by a disappearing teacher who manages to keep me in line. “Stop!” I can hear him say. “Let them feel the silence.” And so I do.

The suffering on earth is enormous. The lie is that the world can tell us what to do about it. They say we must move on, embrace the new normal. No, we must embrace our wholeness, which includes suffering. Suffering in itself is fuel for the fire of transformation. It must be experienced consciously before we can rise from the ashes. The rising is private and the world knows it not.