I wrote this for a dear friend this morning after he announced he had chosen a new path to take. I called it “And so….”

And so….

And so you close up shop
only to open up somewhere
else on the edge of the foggy
coastline of the mystery.

Your eyes clear and your
body calm, you open the book
of life and discover it is written
in an unknown tongue.

There is nothing to do but
be grateful for the mysterious cant
of the new language inscribed
so deeply in your heart that
you weep both in joy and sorrow.

It has come at a time when the
seas are coming together and you are falling apart.

Who is to say grace over this terrible bounty that will feed people scraps
of the ancient wisdom that fall from
nowhere and everywhere.

It doesn’t matter, does it?
It only matters that you remain
powerless and hungry for your own 
nourishment.
Only then can you feed the flock.

Vicki Woodyard

And Then It Hit Me!

I was lying in bed wide awake, my thoughts turning over the miles on my mental odometer, when it hit me. I am a medicine woman! I have written literally thousands of notes online in a period of about 17 years and they are all medicine. Metaphorically, there are cabinets upon cabinets of my notes waiting to be taken with a cup of hot tea and a bit of silence.

I am excited to be given this insight, for it has been a long time coming. I have always known that I have a calling, but was never quite sure how to use it. I told John LeKay of non-dualitymagazine.org in an interview that I did not consider myself a teacher. But I have definitely been gathering power slowly. Like a faucet dripping, my words have worn down a path into the psyche. One after another the words do their dance of healing.

I started with myself. I would write and cry and write and cry. The dance was desperate but sure. I never faltered when I wrote. The music of a broken soul was needing to be heard. So I made sure I stayed true to what I was feeling.

My books are out there waiting to be discovered, but only by the few. The few that are desperate for the medicine I have to give. I don’t give answers to personal questions. I just write the words that are meaningful to me.

I am feeling lighter these days. The old wounded healer is turning into someone whose calling is now more for others than for myself.

I know so much about grief and loss and I always say that I am not free of it. It comes with the territory of being human.

Being human is our assignment; most people are so anxious to transcend it that they miss the inevitability of it. It is our job, not to become sterile parrots of non-duality, but birds with plumage so beautiful it takes your breath away.

I dance like a medicine woman. What else could I be?

Vicki Woodyard