Posts by Vicki

Vicki Woodyard is the author of Life With A Hole In It and A Guru in the Guest Room. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and has been writing online for over ten years.

Turning Loose

A few days ago the microwave died. We ordered a new one online and it is sitting in the kitchen. Rob says he can lift it, but I don’t want him to. We are getting the yard mowed today for the first time since last summer. Maybe the man who mows the yard can put the new microwave on the counter for me.

Rob is going for his pre-surgery check in today and my sister will be here tomorrow night. His surgery is not until Thursday and he has to check in on Wednesday night. She will be with him at the hospital since I am not able to go. I can still do things at home, but in the main, I am too weak to do anything like I used to.

Lucky for me, I can still write to you. What is on my mind is how to be grateful for all the help that is given us. My sister is the best; she will do Reiki on him and be there when he is brought back to his room. I am guessing it will just be an overnight stay; it depends on how he feels after the surgery.

Yesterday I got my hair cut short and that feels good. I didn’t watch the Oscars or the news.

How does my lifetime on the spiritual path help me? I ask myself that question. And the answer is that I have always been choiceless. Everything just happens in the only way it can happen. When I was younger, I didn’t know that, but now it is beginning to sink in.

I am losing ground to the tremor, so I try to accept my limits gracefully. I do, maybe 75% of the time! Gratitude arises for all that Rob does for me; he is a silent backup for me in things I can no longer do. Doing is overrated when compared to being, but when you cannot do certain things, it is very, very important.

I have the luxury of pursuing my True Self, but as hard as I look, I cannot find her. The day is young and hope abounds. Once I find her, it will be a huge relief. She is standing behind me right now as I type. She is invisible so has the edge on me. I feel her presence when I surrender and I can be awfully stubborn about turning loose of my affairs.

Vicki Woodyard

When all of the teachings have fallen away….

 

 


When all of the teachings have fallen away, there is only the One and you are it. No one to learn from, no one to blame or excoriate, no decisions to be made, just mere being. And don’t say you always knew that; you didn’t. There is no more “you.” There is only “I am.” Then the will of God is your will. Sigh. You and I will forget, yet the “I am” cannot be uprooted by the fragile ego.

Vicki Woodyard

Silence

I wonder why I continue to write; I am getting shakier. The silence is all that remains, ultimately.
That is true for we human beings and we are barely even human anymore. The lies are covering up the truth. I was drawn to a truth-telling teacher because that was my fate. Fate and silence are almost the same thing.

We have seen that the planet is being poisoned and children are dying of starvation. We care only for what can distract us from the truth. Yes, amazon can cure us if we order enough treats.

I write for a minuscule number of readers. That is okay because I am connecting to you via a channel of silence. Can you feel it?

Can you feel how my fingers touch the keys?

More and more I rest in the nothingness of silence.

Who says that all of us are social beings? Jesus came to rattle a few cages.

I love to write things that touch people, that make them feel alive just for a moment.

The rest is disposable chitchat.

Vicki Woodyard

Something Is Missing

Time is an illusion, but so is everything else. That is why it is hard to live even 60 seconds consciously.

Rob’s kidney stone removal this month will entail him being admitted to the hospital, which is not close. My sister is driving down from PA and that is a godsend for us both.

Every day is a nightmare here in America, where democracy is dying. But elsewhere there is famine and wars aplenty.

My solution is to simplify everything in my life. And I will repeat what I just began with: time is an illusion. I still wear a wristwatch when everyone else uses their phone for a clock. Most people are late whatever they use to show up for appointments.

Wow. This essay is crumbling as I write it. It’s like water running uphill to remember yourself even for a moment. The rest of the time we are in the Nightmare Land where we know things are bad and don’t have any solutions.

All we can do is work on ourselves. The world is none of our business; we just think it is.

Need anymore helpful hints? Oh, yeah, right, we are so sound asleep that we think we are awake.

I have a gazillion things to remind me to wake up and they are all inside my mind. The problem with that is that the mind is an illusion, too.

We need self-compassion more than anything. And it doesn’t come in a box with a secret decoder ring.

Vicki Woodyard

March Marches On (And I am out of step)

It is March already and I am writing to tell you the situation. I get few readers these days, so the thought occurs to me to quit, or not post but once a week. I am going to any book on my shelf and see if I get some “random guidance” on the subject.

The Life and Letters of The Tofu Roshi by Susan Ichi Su Moon

“Dear Tofu Roshi,

How many Zen Masters does it take to change a light bulb?—Plum Blossom

“Dear Plum Blossom,

Two. One to change it and one to not change it.”

Laughter brings us closer to God, do you not think so? If not for laughter, our grief would kill us.

I write from my gut, quickly and often I am saying the same thing in different words, which is allowed in the area of enlightenment. But I no longer believe in enlightenment. If someone should tell me that they are I would laugh, thus coming closer to God.

Tears wipe the windshield of the heart and we wouldn’t want to be an emotional wreck. So venting is good therapy.

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The Heart Speaks

I have noticed that my cup runneth over when it comes to head knowledge. And I don’t have enough paper towels to mop it up, either. That would be a futile enterprise. Oh, I know, I have been quite disgruntled with online non-duality teachings for a long time. Some judge me for that, but so be it. I am just telling it like it is for me and for no one else.

My book, Bigger Than The Sky, goes into the story of my friend Peter and what brought him to the state of “no mind, I am the Self.” Due to a series of strokes, he lost his feeling of “me” and became bigger than the sky. Those were his words and he shared them with many people.

Peter and I were quite intimate with suffering. I was nursing a dying husband and Peter himself was dying a slow death. Each day brought its challenges to him and yet he still reached out to me. “For what it’s worth,” he wrote, “I hold your hand in this.”

The “this” was life itself, unfurling itself in a certain direction whether we liked it or not. Peter had found his peace before we connected via Jerry Katz’ Yahoo list (The Nonduality Salon). He was therefore able to share deeply with me. Since so few people could relate to my degree of suffering, I was grateful for his connecting with me so easily.

We did not talk about suffering as much as we skipped over it. He wrote of his cats, especially Alex. He sent me her picture at one point and I use it on my website every now and then. I only have one photo of Peter and in it, he is wearing a baseball cap. I don’t have it on my Mac, just a printed version of it. And that not even in color.

But back to the subject at hand. Too much book knowledge is an invitation to simply notice what is going on around you. Oh, true enough. My husband was getting transfusions and chemo. Peter was falling down on a regular schedule. I was crying my eyes out while working harder than I had worked in a long time.

But our minds were so in synch that they leapt the gap and found themselves in the No Man’s Land of the Heart. And there we remain, for the heart is timeless. I could go on, writing a few more paragraphs, but I hit pay dirt as I typed “they leapt the gap.” I know enough to quit while I’m not in the head.

Love,
Vicki

Too Much Going On

There is too much going on in my world. Been getting in touch with a painter and trying to find an electrician to replace our smoke alarm. Plus other small jobs that keep a big house going.

I find that my first resort is chocolate. Yesterday I asked Rob to drive me to Walgreens and CVS to buy some Valentine chocolates on sale. We were a little late—the shelves were almost bare, but I did buy a few bags and begin eating from them right away.

Rob’s kidney stone surgery is on March 14, so I have been trying to get a few odd jobs done beforehand.

Off and on I sit in silence, sometimes picking up a favorite book to read. The late Robert Rabbin’s “The Sacred Hub” is one of my all-time favorites. I open pages of it at random to soak in the silence. Works every time.

The older one gets, the less important words are in settling the soul. I profit more from sitting silently and breathing consciously.

“Don’t try and find a purpose. Just enter the stream of life.” ~Robert Rabbin..

I like that quote because it settles me down and I sit quietly on and off throughout the day.

Rest in peace, beloved Robert. You gave us so much.

Vicki Woodyard

Believing In This World

We believe in this world because we were indoctrinated into it by our parents. It seems so real because that is our experience!

At some point, if we are lucky, we begin to see how much we are suffering from the thought that we are in the world and have to make the best of it.

My mother was on the path, so when I grew up, I developed an interest in it. She was in an
Edgar Cayce study group that met for many years and I absorbed bits and pieces of things she believed.

In my forties, I “met” Vernon Howard through a destined coincidence. I found a tape of his and my husband found one of his books at the same time. To this day I have not met a more powerful teacher.

After Vernon, I begin to live a more conscious life and that is when I began to study the world rather than react to it. But my sleep is deep and I am constantly forgetting that who I am is not of this world.

There is nothing new under the sun, so knowledge is okay, but it is not helpful in awakening.

In awakening, you know that you are asleep. As Patricia Sun said, “Paradox is the point of power.” Amen.

Vicki Woodyard

Endlessness

 

A handyman is coming this Sunday and I am making a list and checking it twice. There are so many things wrong with an old house, not the least of which is shifting!

Our country could be compared with an old house; there are many things wrong in our legal system. We have been led down a primrose path when it comes to the two-party system. Only one party is playing by the rules. There are dark times ahead.

I, too, am shifting on my foundations, mentally and physically. What once was up is now down; thake that how you will. I am easily confused about what used to be simple things.Rest is the main spackle for me, when cracks appear in my state of mind or my mood.

I still take pleasure in writing to you all, since I am, at least, honest and even funny at times.
I do my best to keep on keeping on.

Rob continues to delight me with his cooking of the evening meal. I never was a good cook, but he is.

We go out to eat several times a month and that is a treat for both of us. We don’t spend a lot of money and just go to local places.

Adding the two maids has been working out, although I only have them once a month.

As far as my spiritual studies, they are ongoing. They include notes to myself about staying awake. That just refers to my early bedtime; the real notes are magically erased from my mind. The mind has no place in the higher realms and that is deeply comforting to me. The question “Who am I” is always changing if answered by the mind. Let the spirit roam the vast emptiness looking for itself. It just might be endlessness itself.

Vicki Woodyard