Dear Readers.
As the old song says, “Change is gonna come, some day.” It may come slowly or suddenly, but come it does. Instead of ruing it, we should rejoice in change.
I begin my spiritual studies early in life, due to my mother’s interest in all things spiritual. The first book she gave me was “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Yogananda. We took our little girl to his shrine in Los Angeles, then we went on to see Capistrano and both places were beautiful and peaceful.
A medium, the late Betty Bethards, foresaw Bob’s death and that shook me to my core. She said he was taken out of his job to protect his health and that I would go on without him. After hanging up, I rushed into the great room where he sat in his chair. “She said you were going to die,” I cried. I could not have kept this to myself because it was so ground-shaking.
He did retire because the management forced him out, along with lots of others. And he was diagnosed with a fatal cancer a few years later.
Rob has taken over the cooking, cleaning up and maintaining the kitchen. Since covid, he has been diligent about this.
We had a wonderful pair of maids, but when the pandemic started, we let them go. I have not traveled in ten years. “We’ll go no more a roving,” as Leonard Cohen says. Yesterday I called one of them to see if they could start cleaning our house again. If they can’t, the couple across the street have two woman who clean from them, so there’s always hope.
Vernon Howard was the teacher for me. His dream advice to me was: “Don’t be so accommodating. Act a little tough” Yes, we are all giving our lives away to people who do not care about us. If you can’t see this, you are a bare beginner. Actually, we remain bare beginners. After a lifetime of inner work, I daily betray my soul. All of us do, simply because we were cast out of the garden.
I still open books at random to glean any possible help; this is because as someone at Vernon’s school told me, “We are the fallen people.”
What I lean on these days is The Book of John in the Bible. I like the old form. When I sit down to meditate, it is often from a phrase or sentence from that book.
“Take no thought for the morrow,” encourages us to accept life as it is doled out to us one day at a time. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
If I don’t lose a follower or two regularly, it means I am lapsing into being too easy on myself.
I have done well typing this and I feel better than yesterday. The problem with my typing is with my right hand. I keeps wandering off to the wrong keys. But don’t we all?”
Vicki Woodyard