Here I am, consciously cut off from social media. What a deep relief to be able to write that to the few who truly care about awakening. I am not talking about online awakening but about something far more vital.

I have eaten my cereal and drunk my chai. I have sat in silence until I felt I had something worthwhile to turn into a note to you. This note is about reality.

Reality arises from sorrow and from nowhere else. Jesus was “a man of sorrows.” I, too, can stand on that ground where lilies grow. Where tears irrigate the desert and thorns pierce the flesh. It is an inescapable part of the life/death continuum in which we live.

But there is another place where the opposites cease to control us. When all of the questions have dried up in your throat and you feel the freedom of your constriction—you taste freedom on your tongue.

The tongue that used to blame now praises. To quote Leonard Cohen, “the broken hallelujah” is as meaningful as it gets.

Follow me into the desert and be tempted by the devil of your own ego. It is a hurricane-force designed to empty you of all you held so dear. Your own power cord is cut and you are now in deep darkness. And it is more than okay, for the light was artificial.

Now you just wonder what comes next. That is where I am now.

Vicki Woodyard