I watched my mind as she slept deeply. It was time for her to heal; she had no other way of doing that. When she was awake, she was busy creating havoc and discord. Like a two-year-old hurling herself into a tantrum, my mind knew no other way to get things done.

I sipped my tea and turned within. As the witness, I know all things. Not at once, of course. I know them as they are revealed. I am just waiting on that. But now I am here inside my own home, my nest. The little bird of my mind has her head tucked under her wing. She is not flying into tantrums now!

Silence is the medium in which I thrive. Diving deep, I am a creature of both air and water. A bird or a fish, either one.

My mind sleeps on. I hear an occasional murmur as she dreams of different things. She will never grow up. Did I tell you that? She will remain a child, just as I remain one myself. But she will remain asleep and I remain awake. There is quite a difference there.

There is opposition in the mind and never in the heart. She has no idea that there is anything above her. She lives in contradiction and that is the most tiring thing imaginable.

I tell her stories of princesses and dragons in order to hint of things to come. Sadly, she takes them literally. She takes everything that way. She takes her crayons and writes on the walls. I just do what I always do. I have to allow her to make her mistakes. It makes no difference to me.

I never said I was perfect, did I? I only said that I am a witness. Who knows where I came from and where I am going?

Here is a poem I wrote a few years ago.

Self-forgiveness

And I lay in bed
thanking God for
letting me forgive
myself for endless sins.

And I kept saying,
“I forgive you,
I forgive you,”
and the body
relaxed into the
arms of my own
forgiveness.

And I cried,
but soft healing
tears of yielding
to my own sweet soul.

And I got up forgiving
myself for not
forgiving myself
most of the time
because self-forgiveness
is manna I can eat
for breakfast
every day.

Vicki Woodyard