The light of the soul is constant but it is obscured by all of our mental clouds. How do I know this? By witnessing my thoughts and emotions without judgement.

Today is dreary, the sky gray with clouds. I am also dreary. Vernon Howard gave a talk once in which he said that the inner weather determined the outer weather. Hmmm. He said so many things that would lie dormant in me for decades.

I would take copious notes of his talks. But when I closed the notebook I couldn’t remember any of it. He did walk through the hall once, telling us not to worry; that it was seeping in.

Vernon had little to do with his students. He was the sky and we were the clouds. That was obvious to me from the get-go. My emotional pain accompanied me wherever I walked and that was what I gave to people.

He was not interested in what kind of a social life we had. That was a relief, since I had never had one. Instead I had been forced to weather a life in which grief dominated. I would paste on a false smile and totter out into an uncaring world. These days the clouds are dispersing. Every spiritual law turns into grace once you begin to live it.

Just writing this has made me gather my unhealthy feelings and speak to them with the force of truth. “Get thee behind me, Satan.” Before you recoil from what I just wrote, Satan personifies the forces that keep us asleep, that keep us from being true to ourselves.

I know who I am now and it is not the darkness.

Vicki Woodyard