Lighter than air….


I was having an email chat with a friend with whom I have much in common. We have leveled with each other about needing large amounts of silence. I have a theory about this, but it is hard to put into words because it is not about words. Let me know if you resonate with what I say.

From the earliest age I had a sense of disquietude about being away from home. I remember spending the night with a friend before I was five. My father picked me up because I cried and said I wanted to go home. This has continued on some mysterious level for my entire life. You see, the soul knows what it needs. It will simply not be fooled.

By the time I was thirteen I had begun to have panic attacks and social anxiety. The only cure for me was “home.” I don’t accept that this was a disorder but an order—from somewhere deep in my soul. I had no label that said “introvert”written on my forehead, but it was nevertheless true. I need to be alone most of the time.

And out of this solitude comes my calling, the almost daily writing that I do, despite what is going on in my outer life. As Vernon Howard told us, “The inner life and the outer life are the same.”

My destiny is quite clear to me, and not one that I have always relished. I belong to another order than the social one. From outside the circle I serve the inside. Raise your hands if you understand. Higher principles require total dedication. Oh, we always slip and fall, but we manage to return to that solitary center. And from that center, which I call the still point, we heal ourselves and then the world.

My husband and daughter live in universal peace now; I can only hope to join them when I leave the body. In the meantime, just know that the words I write arise from stillness. I have little idea of how the writing is done; it flows from a place both above and below me. It just happens, like everything in life does.

I am filled with flaws and failings, just as we all are. I don’t care how many positive statements are pasted on the walls of Facebook, I know when it is time for me to go home. Home is that place you recognize by its deep quality of peace, the peace not found in this world. From that place healing happens all around you. The darkness that used to dog you has fallen away from lack of feeding. Now you float on something lighter than air.

Vicki Woodyard

2 Comments

  1. So beautiful and very, very true, Vicki. And I raised my hand!!! I always felt the same way about “home” and even as as child found such happiness and peace at home. Now, I realize that this inner peace must be found within so I can return to it even when forced to be out in the world. Your beautiful words that come from stillness are so healing for those of us who finally understand we are introverts in a world that has not understood us.

    Reply

    1. Yes, our assignment, if you will, is within this lifetime. Only by being true to that can we grow and then enrich the world. We can’t do it by force of will.

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