The Sweet Spot

There is an inner sweet spot to discover. It’s that place where you feel safe, energized and creative. For me, it is when I sit down to write. Once I am there, I can launch into waters as deep as I like. The creative high dive into the unknown happens.

Alchemy happens when we get that spring from our inner diving board. When we release the past as we uncurl from the tightly wound body and jack knife into the waters of freedom.

And then the magic happens as we stroke our way through the waters. The waters part and yet we are making effort for this to happen. We are not passive! We are doing our thing.

Here I discover a magic underwater cave. Inside are gleaming jewels, each one a facet of myself from another lifetime. Was I really this or that? Was I that beautiful, that rare?

Oh, now I am weeping as I look into the mirror of the sea. The dolphins know me, cry out to me. The coral is singing. There are anthems upon anthems. I am the audience of an aquiline choir.

At the bottom of the sea, I experience the dark night of the soul. Sudden black silence. Agony. Withdrawal. Confusion. Betrayal. Powerlessness.

I must fight my way to the top. The bends hit.

I may die in the ascension process.

No one will claim my body.

It wasn’t worth it, I think. Nothing is worth it.

And then I am pulled into a boat.

Back at the keyboard reality hits.

Me in my old black robe and my bright red slippers.

I must find this sweet spot again and again.

Do you know the way?

Vicki Woodyard
Life With A Hole In It

A Brief on Grief

It ain’t brief.

Now that the sarcasm is out of the way, let us take a deep look at grief. Western culture has a taboo against grief breaking its bounds and heaving up concrete bridges of falsehood. It must not topple the stadium of the staid. It must not crack open the head and thus reveal the heart. And worst of all, the heart must never speak at cocktail parties or neighborhood barbecues or church picnics or—oh, never mind.

We must instead turn to grief counselors, therapists and certified degree holders to tell us how to find our new normal. My new normal is changing on a daily basis, for grief washes me into canyons of chaos and renders me fit only to be carried on a stretcher of spirit into a cloudless sky of silence. I don’t qualify for disability. I don’t qualify for sainthood. I do qualify for the unpaid writing I do endlessly online.

God has been listening to my pleas and prayers for a good long time. Instead of supplying me with another husband or daughter, He has, instead, fitted me for a solitary life. My son lives with me, bearing the same losses that I do, fitted for his own stretcher of spirit. For we must fully surrender to what is, must lie on the ground lifeless, before God sends his EMTs to us. And they make sure we don’t understand what is happening.

We are dropkicked back down to earth with a sense that we might be of use but it is never clear what we are to DO exactly. In my case, I found that my grief was not to be brief but lifelong. I had to carry it carefully on my head like a clay jug of water. I have tried to be graceful about it and have been rewarded in small ways.

I know how to keep a low profile, keep silence and keep the prayer of Jesus going. And yet sometimes I cry and sometimes I rant and at other times I just appear to be normal. But I am decidedly not.

One person who helps me a great deal is John Fox, the founder of Poetic Medicine. He is that rare soul that encourages and allows people to write poems about anything. Under his quiet tutelage we all become poets and damned fine ones. We sit in a circle, reading aloud what we have written. But only if we choose. The group sits in a loving acceptance of each word falling from a bruised heart. Talk about being lifted up. Talk about profound appreciation for those we have lost. For what remains is sanctified.

We write of our losses in order to lift ourselves about the mechanical grieving that we usually do. We weep in words; we cry hallelujah in phrases that pop unbidden onto the page. I love John’s work and can scarcely contain my joy when I hear he will be in town for another Poetic Medicine Workshop. I will close with a poem of his:

When Someone Deeply Listens To You

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.

When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

— John Fox

Close to me in spirit….

I just made this comment, “Hard to get close to me except in spirit. But once you get close to me in spirit, it’s wow all the way.” I wondered what I meant by that, so I am writing this to see what I write.

I am not interested in personalities. I don’t like using mine; it never seems to work out the way I intend it. But Scorpios are like that. We are nitty-gritty people. And the Virgo side of me is persnickety as heck. That is one reason I can write daily Notes. I don’t let myself make too mistakes. Ah, you’re still reading….

Every now and then someone is drawn to me and I to them. It is always a spirit-led thing; therefore my personality draws back, says “I’m gonna keep my distance, but I’m interested as heck.”

My friend Betty is on hospice care at home. She and I have never met yet we have been soul friends for about 3 years. Why? We both avoid socializing. We prefer truth to lies and simple to complicated. Our emails are always to the point and confirming of the other.

My late friend Peter and I were so close that he appears in my book, Life With A Hole In It. Companions of the spirit we were. The same thing was true for the late John Logan, who mentored me online. Never met him in person either. I have learned much from connecting with people online. We don’t have to use personas; we can skip the chit chat and cut to the chase.

Most social conversations are trivial excuses for getting what you want. But when essence talks, essence listens. And the love is off the charts real.

Some of you are close to me in spirit and some are not. Spirit always goes before us to make the crooked places straight. Smooths out the wrinkles caused by the ego and lights the entrance to the heart’s true home. Such relationships are rare.

Leonard Cohen has learned how to hold thousands upon thousands of people close to him. What he has achieved and is still achieving is the wedding of spirit to matter and have it a joyous consummation. We can all learn from him.

Finding our passion draws our spiritual companions to us; that is one way to recognize them. Through my writing, doors to spiritual friendship have opened. Others have closed against me. That is just how it goes. The plan is bigger than we are; all we can do is surrender to what is. In the meantime, let us cherish our spiritual friends!

Vicki Woodyard
Life With A Hole In It

Let’s Get Naked

God said to me, “Let’s get naked.” And I said, “You already are.” And He smiled and I found myself naked as well. God apparently was not turned off by my appearance. He was actually delighted.

“What is this?” I said feebly, “the Garden of Eden?”

God said quietly, “No this is my dream for you.”

“Well, it feels like a nightmare,” I said.

“This is how it feels to your ego,” He replied. “In reality, you and I can work better as a team when you offer yourself up to Me without any coverup going on. And the ego is created as a cover.”

“I read the Book,” I said. “I know the plot line. But where is Adam? Because I presume I’m Eve, in the archetypical sense.”

“You just said a mouthful,” God said.

My sassy remark was “If you’re the Man Upstairs, how did you get down here where all the misery is?”

“The ego’s story is one of ups and downs,” that’s all, replied God. “I took the elevator to the Ground Floor. Terra Firma. Earth City, Disaster Land. Shall I go on?”

“No, I get the picture,” I said. “But You created this mess. You created the ego and the fall and the messes. I want a Get Out Of Jail Free card.”

God smiled. “But you’re naked. I have you where I want you.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but I was miserable. God looked at me and I looked back. We were having a staring contest. Guess Who won?

“Okay, I give up. What do you want me to do?” I said, beginning to suddenly feel better.

“I don’t want you to do anything,” was His reply. “I want to do things through you. You see, I’m not through with you.”

I was now feeling the love, like I was being defrosted after resting in the Ice Age. Suddenly the silence wrapped me up like a terry towel and it was then that I woke up from the dream of separation. God was gone and I was left here all alone.

I knew I had to stay naked if I was to be of service. Oh, I could keep my clothes. I had to dress the body. God meant something different; He was speaking in parables, for God’s sake!

Ye who read this essay with a grain of salt shall be the ones who profit from it. Go thou and do likewise. Dress well but stay naked on the inside….

Order Vicki’s book here.

When my husband departed this world and re-entered the mighty ocean, I did not cling long to his debris. I summarily cleaned the basement and garage and closet. Out went his shirts, pants and memorabilia. In came the Self that he was, for he had now rejoined the mighty sea.

Sometimes I sit on the sand and hope the waters will wash up a golden treasure. I, a beachcomber by nature, have been looking in vain for this key to myself. If I am wise, I will join the sea before I die, surrender my ideas of loss and gain. If I but dip one toe in the water, perhaps the rest of me will tag along. If not, at least I have bowed to this concept of letting go of myself as a container. I am far more than that.

In hospice, he fought against his confinement. I have spoken of that elsewhere. He wanted to remain here with me and our son, the loves he still had left. He saw me as needing him and I had always thought I did. It was only after he left that I stood firmly on my own understanding. I had been preparing myself for his death for over four years. He had already outlived his prognosis, which was less than three years.

He had been kept alive by transfusions for months. We were worn to a nub. I was pretty much in the fetal position emotionally. Turning in to prepare for the inevitable. But once in hospice, the blood was withheld and it was said he would only live for a week or so. He lay in bed with an icepack on his nose to staunch the blood flow. We took turns holding it. He didn’t need morphine until the last day or so. By that time I had gone home to rest and my sister had taken over his care. She did a beautiful and strong job of sitting with him. Chanting and praying, she prepared him for his final exit. My son said his father fought him physically the day before he died. As if he were battling his own child to keep death at bay. And then he lay back and fought no more.

I am glad I wasn’t there when he died. It was a mercy for me, for both of us. My sister witnessed his passing and spared us the details. She spoke of the French doors blowing open twice and a leaf landing at the foot of his bed. The agony of mercy had ended. I still have the leaf and know the meaning of losing a loved one. For I love him more now. He gave me a charm many years ago that said, “More today than yesterday; less than tomorrow.” That is where my love for him is now. Growing fuller as the days go by. The agony ushered in a time of great peace for me. That is enough.

You may read more in my book, Life With A Hole in It.