I said I was a medicine woman, but what does that mean? It is obviously a metaphor, but one that I can relate to. I have been searching for the cure as long as I can remember. But as Leonard Cohen wrote, “There ain’t no cure for love,” so I am not looking for a cure for love. Rather, just like you, I am looking for a cure for my absolute terror. Yes, we are all terrified if we have any sense at all.

Nothing is working out here on earth. In decades, parts of the U.S. will be underwater. Nothing to be done about it. Climate change is real.

The middle class is in as much trouble as those that are poor and destitute.

So what is a medicine woman to do?

I’ll tell you what I do. I take care of my own state of consciousness as best I can. I allow myself to be trivial and wasteful with my energy part of every day or I would go nuts. The rest of the time I am hard at work watching Vicki fail again and again and again. She was destined to fail. Why doesn’t she get on with it?

Because of the terror.

I spend most of my time alone because that is my deepest inclination. I move out into the world to buy groceries and the necessities of life. I take daily walks. But mostly I am just taking care of my own consciousness.

I am decidely not a do-gooder. As Vernon Howard said, “Do-gooders are do-badders.”

When I go to bed at night, it is very rarely that I feel sleepy. Hours pass and still I do not sleep. When I finally do, I have bad dreams. I wake up looking like I have seen a ghost because my hair is standing on end.

Vicki is a mess. She is not the medicine woman.

Read between the lines of what I write. Never believe in anything other people say to impress you, including me.

We are all trying out for some play that we will never be able to watch. Creepy, isn’t it?

If you don’t believe me, why do advertisers pay beautiful people the big bucks to lie and say they use such and such an “age-defying product.” When age will not be defied.

Ashes to ashes, medicine woman says.

I believe her. Now if I could just get a good night’s sleep.

Vicki Woodyard