Becoming The Path

You don’t walk the path, you become it. After that, you are a walking, talking pathless land. You wind and curve and go up and down and around and around. You are an indescribable light to all those that can see. Most can’t, of course. This inner path takes a lot of false turns until you finally enter your heart and rest there.

I telegraph my feelings when I write. The words come out one after another and I usually don’t change anything except typos. I keep my essays brief and to the point. I know how my machinery works and I know when I am slacking off. If I quit writing for too long, I become out of touch with myself as a writer. And so I hit the writing road again on the keyboard of my iMac.

Those of us on the spiritual path are not conquering Everest. We are working on the many molehills that confront us in daily life. We watch ourselves getting too comfortable in our prisons, too unadventurous in our emotional ranges, too satisfied with our ego’s status quo.

But back to writing books. They are collections of my essays that automatically become books, for my essays are bookmarks of where I have been inwardly. We are all different and all the same. When I write of burning out as a caregiver, many of you have been there. Or when I say that these days all I need is to have a quiet day working around the house, you get that, too.

Most of the teachings have been absorbed by me. They’re running through my being like many rivers on their way to the ocean. They have become poems and dreams and everyday experiences. I have given the books away long ago, but the heart remembers the pain that led me to purchase them. I was seeking, always seeking but never finding. And then I realized that the ego can never find. It is the very definition of restless seeking. And so I approach the end of the spiritual trail. I have followed the breadcrumbs and reached my inner home. Silence is all around me. And still I write.

Vicki Woodyard