Ramana: “Water cannot be made dry water. Seek the Self; the mind will be destroyed.”

 

Rob is away for several days on vacation. This morning I went upstairs to see what needed to be done before my sister comes in a month or so while Rob has his kidney stone surgery. I noted that there were no pillows on the guest room bed and the blanket needed to be put back on.

Then before I knew it, I was sitting on the closet floor looking at old photos of us when there were four of us instead of two. The heartache is something that my son and I carry daily, seldom talking about it. Oh, we reminisce briefly in bits and pieces, but it remains, nevertheless.

The tears are against my eyelids as I page through several albums of when Rob and his little sister, Laurie, were very young. We had no idea that she would be dead at the age of seven. By the time I got to the album of her seventh birthday party, the tears were tuning up. However, I saw how illuminated she was, how joyous. She was dead in two months and she knew she was dying on the day the photos were taken.

Weeks later she would go on oxygen and then in July she was gone. And now the albums live on. I give her away to you over and over again, do I not? I have never shied away from writing about her or my broken heart. But hearts mend in time and life goes on.

But what about her older brother, Rob? He, like me, does a whole lot of suppressing and I totally understand why. No one talks about their dead child or only sibling. It just isn’t good form. So I give you these essays by way of keeping our family of four alive.

She and her father were the outgoing ones; Rob and I the introverted ones. It makes no difference whether anyone understands or not. At a counseling session that Bob and I had once, he said that Laurie was our spark plug. Truer words were never spoken.

I hate knowing that Rob will be the only survivor and left to deal with these losses alone at some point. Life can come down on you very hard. The scars are permanent and he has never wanted a family due to the medical history. I don’t blame him.

He and I are much alike, taking things one day at a time, one holiday at a time, until we will all one day just be memories in a scrapbook. Society discourages such sentences, but Rob and I have lived them.

But as I type, I also bear witness to the joy that little Laurie had. She scattered it in so many hearts while she was here on earth and that joy of hers also comes through my writing, just in a quiet way. I am a believer in love, no matter how long it may last or how briefly it comes to stay.

Vicki Woodyard

 

Jesus said, “ He that hath ears to hear; let him hear.” And for an instant I saw the inner meaning of this. When I listen intently to my inner being, I hear….the Silence, the music of the spheres, the permission to simply be myself by myself.

Tuning into the silence is the highest work that we can do as human beings and it is so simple.
Sit down and shut up!

Actual realization is had of the simple fact that silence IS golden.

Never mind if you fail to hear it. Silence never runs out. Keep listening to it.

Breathe silence in and out listening to its healing minimalism.

Drop all teachings in words and just listen and you will hear a symphony of silence.

Vicki Woodyard

What if we could love the characters that we play as much as God loves us? What if we could step outside of our personas and watch them act their asses off? Because that is what we are doing!

Yes, you are permitted to smile; the storyboard has you doing such selfish things and you always go along with it. All ads have storyboards and yours is no different than anyone else’s. It shows you meeting people, eating meals, buying stuff, all while you are in a state of psychic sleep. And the plot is always thickening (even sickening.)

You say you want to wake up, but how is that possible if you are just on a storyboard?

I see Vicki all day long and actually forget that I am just playing a role as her.

The rare flash of awareness occurs and Vicki disappears, but it never lasts long. Human beings are shrouded in the sleep of the Ages. We come and go, never doing much that matters.

I have made little progress in realizing that I am a dreamed-up character. Why is that? I think it is because everyone else is as asleep as I am.

Oh, we have studied truth in depth, but we have never been able to kill off the main character. Yes, you may giggle.

The catch is that we fear looking foolish when we are acting our roles. We are chewing the scenery all day long and we seldom get called out for it. “You’re bad at playing the role of Vicki. I’m losing interest in the plot of your story.” So we watch TV to see actors playing roles, while we are doing the same damned thing.

I could continue this rant but it is starting to make sense to me and that might ruin my life as a dreamed character.

Vicki Woodyard

P. S. We are all playing roles. It is a little sloppy, but the gist is that we all know that all the world’s a stage, yet we refuse to admit it. Our personas are old and stale but the show must go on.

My new assignment: Being the light. Wait, I am being told that has been my assignment for aeons. Me, mumbling to myself, where did I put the papers telling me that? Because I don’t remember much of anything during these perilous times. What’s that? They have always been perilous? Yes, I feel that in my bones. What’s that? I am not the body? I think I have to hang up now and freak out….

Vicki Woodyard

Since I have been studying myself and the world in detail for decades, I am always trying to pare it down. I mean, we never manage to do anything but barely keep afloat, right?

I have read bazillions of books looking for the answer. It is there, but I keep forgetting where to look.

First comes the question: How do I wake up and stay awake?

The answer: You can’t.

The reason that no one can stay awake is there is no one there to pull such a feat off.

Also, there is only One and we are all it, although we may look different, smell different, etc.

If we are all the One, who is the Two? Okay, I am being silly now.

I am a soul that has a temporary personality, which just happens to get nervous very quickly.

Also forgetful, also prone to rush to judgment.

I can’t stay awake for a minute; I certainly can’t do it forever.

We are all sleepwalking and thinking that no one is fooled by our zombie-like ways.

As Gurdjieff said: “Man can’t do.” True words were never spoken.

So the problem is seen, so what is the solution? The solution is to see the problem.

Capice?

Vicki Woodyard

These days I find myself taking a back seat to life. Senior citizens have that right, or they should have it.

These days I order most of my clothes online. I saw a cute top and decided to buy both a small and a medium, try them on and return the one that was either too small or too large. Yesterday I took the small one back and Macy’s refused to take it. I was puzzled, but they were firm.

The shirt is on Macy’s site, but now they are saying that some things ordered from Macy’s have to be returned to the manufacturer. In earlier days, I have would seen to it that if Macy’s advertises clothing, they should be obligated to take returns for the item.

But I have had a virus and simply don’t have the necessary fight in me. It just isn’t worth it.

Being meticulous sometimes isn’t worth it. It is better to lose some fights for your peace of mind.

I am giving up more and more, but in the right way. I have fought the good fight and now I much prefer not to fight.

Seeing clearly is enough for me.

The media is biased and it is enough for me to know it and yet not let it upset me.

Words of Jesus strike the right note for me. “My kingdom is not of Macy’s.”
No, that isn’t correct, but it is close enough for me.

I could go on and on.

I look in the mirror and think, “I should look better than THAT.” Not really. The image reflects back my age and I know what it is. I can let the mirror win and just be happy that I can still type.

Perfectionism is falling by the wayside, along with being right and insisting that I am. I am often wrong, as it turns out.

My plans go wrong all the time. My cure is often to eat chocolate and that’s okey dokey for this
Imperfect planner.

Being right is exhausting and totally unfulfilling. Be wrong and feel yourself quiet down. Just sit with being wrong and the feeling will melt away.

I write because my fingers are full of words that turn into essays. Although I have written thousands of them, each one is fresh and new to me. That is because I, the Writer, am writing to me, the Reader. (And she just doesn’t get it.)

We, folks, are dichotomies with decisions to make, hence the split mind. The mind is not where our treasure lies, however. Only the heart truly knows what it wants and it doesn’t speak the language of the mind.

Out of fear, we shove our true feelings down into the basement, which is filled with decades of true feelings already. They never see the light of day.

Upstairs, the bifurcated mind is spitting out thoughts a mile a minute. There is no beauty to be found—only duty.

So we are living in split level bodies stuffed with our hidden assets. Do we know it? Hell, no! And I use the word “hell” deliberately.

We don’t show them because they are socially inappropriate and also, because they are precious gems too valuable to be shown to the Sleeping Ones.

Vernon Howard appeared to show me the gravity of the situation. Situation seen. Next!
The next is the rest of my life, which I will now spend living between wants and needs.

My true needs speak without words, while my false needs blather endlessly on.

I shall stop here to let myself get a breath of fresh air. God knows I need it.

Vicki Woodyard

 

13 Jan 2011

Writing gives me a safe haven for all of my problems. I dump them into the  computer and wait for God to come and pick them up. God is a trash man if the truth be known. It is a well-known saying that if you give your problems to God, He will pick them up. Truer words were never spoken.

Of course, God is also a tough taskmaster. Hannah Hurnard, who wrote Hinds’ Feet On High Places, was called to speak for Him. Partly, or perhaps solely, because she had a lisp and spit when she talked. But so strong was the calling that she did it anyway. In the process she became a much beloved writer. I often refer to this book in my essays. She has a character called Little Much Afraid who wants to follow the Good Shepherd and get to the High Places. So He tells her to hold the hands of Sorrow and Suffering and they will take her there. The allegory is simple and powerful. She gets to the High Places only to find that now she must pour herself down into the valley like a waterfall. She must serve the Low Places. But she is given a new name, Grace and Glory.

That is what writing my book, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IN IT,  did for me. It is my journey, on paper, of going from the low places to the high places and back into the low. Only this time, I have a small light to share. I have learned how to write circles around my suffering because I know that in the center there is light. There can be ease on the edge, but only if God Himself leads you there. It is a perilous journey that not everyone is called to make.

Death is as certain as life. Life is as certain as death. Two ends of a stick. We can use it as a walking stick or beat ourselves to death with it. Sometimes the choice is clear. Sometimes the light shines and all we have to do is follow it.

If you doubt you can do it, according to Galileo, “Doubt is the father of invention.” It is okay to doubt yourself, the world and God. Just know you are and become a witness to your own ability to write circles around your pain. Let your light shine.

You are the light at the center. You are the scribe. You can describe, subscribe, unsubscribe.

Often humor is the tool I prefer to use. A good healthy rant breaks the spell of pain. And that’s what we are ultimately doing…breaking the spell of our miserable, whiny little thoughts that center around poor me. We are not poor little me’s. We are light itself. We are beacons of light, writing circles around our pain. Forget poor me. Empower yourself. Stay humble, stay centered and light will pour in from the center to the edge.

Vicki Woodyard

June 8, 2019 by Vicki

 

It seems only fitting that I should write an essay on my perfectionism. I took this trait on when I was too young to know any better and I have never gotten a handle on the “why” of it.

Social situations are the hardest thing for me. I always feel inadequate, underprepared and anxious.

I keep this hidden, so I muddle along as best I can. My life is designed for privacy.

I feel the most secure when I have no social obligations. But as I begin to see this more clearly, I see that I am anxious most of the time.

As a rule, I feel best when things are under control. I am never messy or anything less than insecure about everything. This leads me to act impatiently and immaturely with myself and others.

My enduring interest in spirituality offers me solace, not other people.

Other people seem more confident than I do. I only had one good friend since getting married to Bob and when our little girl died, that friendship no longer worked. Why? Because she was so happy and I was so sad.

Now I have the tremor that makes everything harder and harder to do.

I feel guilty about not wanting a social life and there is no free will anyway.

I want this last sentence to be a freeing one for me:

You don’t have to be strong any longer.

Vicki Woodyard.