I have trouble sleeping, as many people today do. I went to bed at ten and slept until about one. Now I am wide awake. I want to say a little about decimation and how it is happening for me lately.

My writing is a living organism for me, something as natural as breathing. The deeper I go, the less I have. And out of that decimation arises a deeper freedom. It is not easy to go on living after the death of a child. It is not easy to live into old age knowing that the family will not go on. My mother even told me it was probably better. I believe she meant the cancer that runs in my husband’s family. We think my daughter had the gene and my son will have no children.

Ah, well. Here I am at 2:41 in the morning writing these things. As you know, I was a student of Vernon Howard and when I am in distress I turn to his teachings. They all point to this decimation. Some call this awakening, but for me it has not been that way at all. It is what it is for all of us. It is the recognition that since we are born, we will die. And when death destroys a family, the wound is rife with terror. And out of that terror I write.

I used to be sure that my writing would succeed. Now that I know it won’t, the decimation strangely brings a deeper healing quality for what I write. Now I know it is for the few that do not turn away from their own destruction. Positive thinking cannot cure the soul being truly destroyed in order to heal.

I have been given the gift of a strong soul but one that, as my brother put it, has been bruised. It will never heal fully but in that wound there lies the song. Some hear it and weep, so I use laughter to bridge the gap.

I will always be here writing and some of you will be here reading. I am not enlightened. I have a bit of hard won peace but it is easily lost. I keep it only by staying true to my introverted nature. I am not meant for this world, for sure.

Well, I am going into the kitchen now to have some toast and hot chocolate and then back to bed. Forgive me for this late-night honesty, but it has done me good.

Vicki Woodyard