I stayed in all day today. Washed a load of clothes, made a grocery order and I really don’t know where the hours went.

I spent some time rereading Vernon Howard’s “Pathways to Perfect Living,” a book that I bought over thirty years ago. It now makes much more sense than it did originally. The wisdom was there all along; I just didn’t see it.

A common thread running throughout the book is the fact that no one will join you on this journey. Each man or woman travels alone to the Alone. We start out thinking surely we can change, but change is not under our control. It happens when we begin to take our hands off of the steering wheel. I believe this is called faith!

We also start out projecting our mechanical behaviors onto other people. It is only over a period of decades that we begin to slowly withdraw these projections and realize with a gasp that it is we that need changing, not other people.

I have grown old doing this work and I can still get surprised with how little progress I have made. My habits are so deeply ingrained that it may take more than one lifetime to erase but a few of them.

Truth is a rare and precious commodity, although it cannot be traded on the stock market. 
“Every man has rubies in his bundle” is an old Sufi statement. Anytime you study your bad habits, the rubies become more clear and more valuable.

“Vicki” is a thorn in the flesh that only light can remove. So I plod along the same old ground making the same old mistakes. Every now and then I feel a growing sense of surrender. I have health issues now that will only get worse. Since there is nothing I can do about them, I might as well focus on the small pleasures right under my nose. I have made truth my dominant interest and I am free to spend as much time as I like meditating, reading and writing.

Join me on the journey; we all travel alone, yet the knowledge that others are making their unique journeys provides a bit of comfort.

Vicki Woodyard