My throat is scalded. I took 4 pills this morning and thought they all went down. But then I took a bite of a muffin and it felt like they suddenly burnt my throat. I’ve kept a cough drop in my throat all morning and that helps to soothe the pain.

Rob met a friend for lunch and I just sat around fiddling with the Mac and cleaning a table top. The weather is cool and windy and I read about the Ukrainians facing certain death. We do not think it can happen here, but there are no guarantees about anything.

Yesterday Alma came by so I could show her some things that needed work in the yard. She is a radiant young Mexican woman that works like a man. She said her father is ill and so he and her mother have returned to Mexico. “I miss them so much,” she said. The family runs a landscaping service and she said she will come back with a few men to do the work next week.

I look through a folder with quotes I have saved. Today I am reading what Leonard Cohen said about having to act like you have control over your life, knowing that you really don’t. That is what he meant when he wrote the phrase, “A thousand kisses deep.”

Almost daily I think about why my life has been so sad and I will never have the answer to this question. My life is what it is and one thing I have done is to simplify it to a ridiculous degree.

Yesterday I worked on Book #7 again. It will take a while to finish it and it is of no importance whatsoever to anyone but me. I work crossword puzzles that are of no importance either. Just how life happens to all of us. We have to do some “filling in the blanks” of our lives on a daily basis. Allowing for the mystery is to see how unreal it is “a thousand kisses deep.”

Tonight we will each do our own meal thing and I will watch my wonderful new TV. I am easily satisfied, or so it would seem.

Vicki Woodyard

“I’m so glad the higher world only accepts Truth! What a relief to be without the BS. This is a reward for doing the “work”. Thank you Vicki for telling it like it is!”

Blessings,
T.S.

VW: BS-less sort of sounds like “Bless”!

“BS-less are the poor in spirit….and so forth and so on.”

I love writing truth in as few a words as possible, so that is a sure winner for me. To connect BS-less with blessed is a lot of insightful fun.

I have always sensed things about people in regard to how awake they are. It is the nature of man to sleep, for we are the fallen people.

To return to grace, we have to begin to stir in our sleep. Sadly, shocks are often necessary to accomplish this.

Right now, Putin is seen as a monstrous murderer. He needs to be caught, but he lives behind walls of power.

In our own country, Trump has succeeded in dividing the nation by way of hatred and bigotry. He wants to turn America into a “Whites Only” place, thus returning it to the pre-Civil War era.

He has also succeeded in lying to his supporters about the Democratic Party because he fears them keeping control.

Justice is slow, but it usually comes. I believe this is called karma!

Vicki Woodyard

Our daily work is to remember what needs to be remembered. This is a difficult job because we are sleeping human beings. We do everything in a state of hypnotism. This is what the Work teaches. If you do not agree, you are not ready to do any serious inner work.

The job of a teacher is to tell it like it is. That is what Vernon Howard did and I, for one, appreciated his dedication to honesty.

Writing is perhaps the only talent given to me at birth; that is why it is so easy to write of things which I do not yet fully understand!

I am just like you, thrilled when there is a teasing taste of worldly approval. It can just as easily turn into disapproval, because that is how the world works.

In the higher world, there is only truth with a capital “T.” Christ personified this and His Word is still alive today, but it is only alive within. The outer world will always be a hellish domain, make no mistake about that.

Most of my days are just alike. I do my work so I can sit alone in silence. Sometimes it is hard, but usually I relish this time. Words fall away and so does time. All measurements fall away in the face of eternity.

Yes, eternity is right now. Where else would it be?

Vicki Woodyard

We live in such dangerous and deadly times that it is hard to see clearly what our job in the universe is. We try to keep informed about the war in Ukraine and can see how Putin is ramping up the carnage. Who knows what will happen next? The Work teaches that everything happens in the only way that it can happen. This leaves free will out of it.

Maybe our job is to be present with all of it. That takes a bit of awareness but it is worth the insight to stop and breathe consciously for as long as you can.

The next step is to offer gratitude, whether it is justified or not.

Already things are changing in your little piece of the puzzle.

You can now let go of all negativity.

Alchemy sees to it that you are rewarded for doing these simple things.

Good Friday has passed and Jesus is in the tomb and we are grieving.

We sit and wait for the resurrection (our very own).

Tomorrow we will realize that we have been watching a passion play and none of it was real.

Life is one story after another and we are playing all the parts.

Breathe. That is all you have to do.

Vicki Woodyard

“Do not deprive yourself of the nutritional benefits of pain. You yourself – that which you call yourself – were forged in the fire of pain, upon the hard anvil of life. So if you care – and dare – to know the elemental makeup of yourself, the building blocks of you, what is there hidden within, but disguised as your persona, you’re going to have to submit to that very same fire once again. In that heat, form softens, melts, becomes liquified, and there you are: not the you in the mirror, not the you in your stories, but the you in your heart.” ~ Paul Goldring Kaufman

What happens if we stop resisting our pain? Paul hints at the answer and we become born again.

The fires in my life are leading me to my awakening as a child of God. There is no place to go but within.

The “you in your heart,” as Paul calls it, has been there all along.

This is the alchemy of awareness, the pain leading you through test after test after test.

After the test, comes a rest and then it starts all over again.

Welcoming ourselves home does not require a mirror, thank God.

The “you in your heart” knows the necessity of pain.

Vicki Woodyard

We think it is good to keep up with the news. If it is bad, we feel dismay and if it’s good, we feel better. But this is not the path of a sincere spiritual student.

We pride ourselves that we are on the right team and we call our opponents wrong. That is a sure sign that we ourselves are wrong.

Go back to the words of awakened men and women:

“My kingdom is not of this world.” ~Jesus

“I vow to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings.”~ Kwan Yin

I can’t remember what Buddha said, but I am sure he stood with Christ and Kwan Yin.

How did I get into this mess? By watching and listening to the media and right-wing politicians.

The mind is so easily kidnapped and then it becomes quite self-righteous.

That is the situation. What is the solution?

Sadly, it is not one we choose to use because we feel it will rob us of being right.

Above the opposites of right and wrong lie the solution to all of our judgmental minds.

How do we arrive at the still point? In only one way and that is by seeing how judging deprives us of peace. Clear seeing how miserable being right makes us….

Yes, there is a war and a deep political divide in our country. Should we let this destroy our peace?

If the answer is yes, we will continue to feel dismay. Did Jesus advice us to hate our enemies?

If you don’t know the answer, an uncomfortable silence will do.

Vicki Woodyard

I have been writing for so long now. I began writing about my own private heartache and losses. Now it feels to me like loss is the order of the day on Planet Earth. When one man in charge of one country can kill thousands of people and ruin thousands of lives all because he is a “dictator.” Is there not some way to stop the carnage in Ukraine? Is there not a way to save the planet from climate change?

I grew up in a more peaceful time on the planet. As time has gone by, evil has ascended until it is pushing away good. Evil is murdering the good. Mother Earth is weeping as her children die in bloody war zones.

Politicians are no longer concerned with better lives for their constituents. They have been bought by companies and thus people mean less and less to them. Once people had rich and interesting lives. Once a person’s word meant something. Once upon a time.

I have watched Donald Trump goad his followers into storming the Capitol while he walks free! He fooled them into doing it by calling them patriots. What a disgusting man he is and he, like Putin, is apparently made of Teflon.

The way I have survived my losses is by studying truth. And I am a seer of sorts. I see clearly that man is a machine. Like Pinocchio, he must become human; it is not a given.

I do not think that anyone wins when murderers prowl the streets, countries and continents. We have become “the most dangerous game,” as the story goes.

We can only wake up one by one and I for one choose a higher consciousness than the one we are handed at birth. Self-development is the only answer and few there be that seek it.

The words of Christ are simple and powerful: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven.” It takes a lifetime to become like a little child and it is not too late to start.

Vicki Woodyard

My life is ridiculously simple, yet my mind is easily swept up in puzzlements! Do I order pine straw and pay someone to put it out? Will anyone actually show up after I have hired them?

My friend’s husband is in hospice care. I spoke to her yesterday and she is fried! You get to the point where you cannot force yourself to function anymore. I know that state so well.

I am making a grocery list for Easter weekend so that we can go grocery shopping this afternoon. Holidays, for me, are about too much time on my hands. I end up tackling housecleaning projects to pass the time.

I am tempted to make the usual holiday fare for us—green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and some kind of meat. On top of that we will eat too much sugar and watch too much TV. I am loving my smart TV; I waited so long to get it that it makes me feel giddy with delight. So much to choose from!

My handwriting is getting shaky and I am second-guessing myself when I sit down to pay the bills. When your hands are shaky, it makes everything feel difficult, for some reason. I find myself feeling ridiculously grateful when I have paid them and put them in the mailbox. I pay most of them online, but there are a few I prefer to write myself.

I have made a good start on my final ebook, but for now I have put it away before I look at it again. You would be surprised how helpful that is.

Adios for now, amigos and amigas.

Vicki Woodyard

The war in Ukraine has blown the roof off of my writing and plunged me into a deep silence. What can one say in this time of great violence against a peaceful country?

My fingers sit in silence on the keyboard, as if paying tribute to the courage and calamity of the people now living in war.

My own life is not taken for granted. Someone said, “Don’t let the music in you die unsung.” If anything, my writing is my music and it takes various notes. I only have a finite amount left and that is true of all of us.

I consider how I came by my love of writing. It began in third grade. I have always loved the truth of simplicity.

What happens in war when the simplest things may be unavailable?

We often hide both our love and our fear lest we look foolish.

They remain, nonetheless. It is good to express them both. It keeps us in balance. However, most of us fear being vulnerable and so we sit on these two giant emotions.

In war, they come to the forefront and cannot be ignored.

May we rise above fear so that we may come to a deeper love on an impersonal level.

That is the only wise path to take.

Vicki Woodyard

A New Day

“I feel that we’re all lighthouses, and my job is to shine my light as brightly as I can to the darkness.” – Jim Carrey

I woke up this morning, had breakfast and came in here to the Mac. I’ve been off for ten days and have had time to consider which way the wind is blowing as far as the blog is concerned. Eighty-five people are signed up, but only about ten or fifteen percent actually read it as far as I know.

I have gotten to know some of you intimately over the years, but others do not comment or support the blog. This leads me to the conclusion that I shall post less as time goes on. I have said before that because the blog is not indexed, new readers do not come.

The war is raging and it may become World War III. At that point the planet will probably be doomed to mass murders anywhere and everywhere the war rages. Putin is a mad man and is not interested in peace, only brutal conquest.

You would think that if one man was the cause of so much carnage that he could be constrained; apparently there is no hope for that, so the war will rage on. He is Hitler personified.

I have come to know that I am the Self in all beings because we are only reflections in the eye of God. The persona, or False Self, is interested in shiny trinkets and vain struggles to be best and first in the eyes of others. Church is not where you find God; He is everywhere and nowhere, omniscient and all-powerful.

There is really nothing to do but watch the show and it is a horror film right now. I do not hold out much hope of this war ending without perilous damage to the planet. All we can do is live one day at a time as witnesses to the carnage.

We are not very good at love. If we were, this world would have changed by now. (My kingdom is not of this world.) Food for thought in the midst of what many are experiencing as their last days of freedom.

Vicki Woodyard