From Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger:

“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.”

I read this book when I was young and had not yet started on the spiritual path. I loved it, but I didn’t really get how deeply it strikes the human soul.

I have kept records that became my essays. If even one person learns anything from me, it is how forgetful we all are. Memories are selective and often dim, yet sometimes they routinely burst into our minds like bullies. We shake and worry, sensing that life hangs by a thread of hope on good days and a threat of despair right alongside it.

We are creatures made up of the opposites. We forget this at our own peril. Above the opposites lies Mount Redemption. It is a long hard trek over rocky ground. And we are always just a bit out of step. Nevertheless, Real I is watching over us as we travel one by one. This is no Club Med, but the truest route to self-realization. Climb on, climb on.

Vicki Woodyard

I have finally and suddenly become an old woman, no doubt about it. Yesterday I had an appointment with a new stomach doctor I told him I needed a stronger medication because I was getting heartburn.

He is in a huge practice in an old building. Rob had to hold my elbow while we winded and twisted our way to his office. It was a simple business; he did not even examine me. He doubled one of my meds and said to come back in a month or so.

We did go to Chick-fill-et for sandwiches and milkshakes.

At home I settled in to watch TV.

No more sun for me; that is an Ocular Rosacea guide line.

I am still able to type and we will see what I write, as my life is very curtailed now.

It happens to all of us as we gradually lose our powers.

You fumble mentally; you fumble physically and it is harder to sort things out.

The days of hard neuropathy pain are over; my feet are numb.

I am an old hand at writing my heart out; for now I can still do that.

Love,
Vicki

October 1, 2024

Tomorrow is October 1! This week I have a first visit with a gastro guy. GERD and Rosacea are apparently allied, due to secretions from the stomach mixing with secretion of the eyes. Sigh. It’s complicated. I have dry eyes and heartburn combo style!

One of my sticky notes to myself reads: Close. Pause. Open. Relax. Every 20 minutes 20 times a day. Squeeze lids often.

Frankly, being in your eighties is a full-time job for a lot of us. We get vaguer and vaguer in proportion to the medical complications. I can’t even remember how to upload an insurance card. Something about taking a picture of it on your phone….

I don’t have cancer or heart disease, I just have a…wait a minute while I close, pause, open, relax! Ah, I can tick that eye exercise off for twenty minutes….

The spiritual path was so fascinating for so long. Decades of earnest reading and listening. Thinking the penny would drop and I would be a different person. Turns out I am a different person, an eighty-plus know-nothing. I know nothing, not because I am enlightened, but because I am older now.

I think the gurus have the game figured out. Say you are enlightened and you can teach others. I think most of you have read my book, “Bigger Than The Sky.” Peter knew the truth and he shared it with me until he grew too weak to email me. He had found himself after a brain injury rendered him unable to walk. His memorable phrase: “For what it’s worth, I hold your hand in this.”

Then Bob died and ultimately Peter could no longer keep in touch with me. He is just a beautiful memory now. He never knew I wrote about him in BTS.

Now here I am, facing away from the sunshine.

I think I shall post parts of BTS (Bigger Than the Sky.)

“Sometimes people say they like the simplicity of my words. I had the complexity knocked out of me, thank God. Now the bare bones remain. But dry bones dance…now hear the words of the Lord, as the old hymn says.

Peter, dear Peter, in your absence you have become presence.”

Vicki Woodyard

I live in the ocean of awareness, as we all do. But we live there AS the ocean of awareness! Needless to say, we are full of crabs, tiger sharks and whales, as well as grains of sand and droplets of water. We are intensely busy doing nothing and that’s something!

We bump into deserted cargo ships and wee baby octopi. We shriek in horror and giggle in glee. We are so….so…everything and yet we are all wet.

I am having a mini-breakdown at the beginning of my eighties. Too many storms and not enough luaus! Too little fuss and not enough fun.

How long have you been reading my essays as I cross the Sea of Beingness? I have written thousands upon thousands. My two books are delicious, aren’t they? Both were allowing me to exist in troubled waters without ever meeting any of you except via the printed word.

I am a hermit crab and luxuriate in isolation. But I know the depths of the ocean like the palm of my hand. Like sand in my bathing suit. Like saltwater taffy without the taffy. I am a survivor.

My essays are droplets of the ocean. Meaningful yet void of permanence. There is no such thing as permanence, yet that is what human beings seek.

My words are grim and terrible and sometimes funny. I am a tiger shark…grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Just kidding. I am all of it and none of it. Makes me seasick.

Vicki Woodyard

I have been depressed after my ocular rosacea diagnosis. My eyes need attention throughout the day and the relief has not occurred yet. I still have to get an ultrasound of my thyroid gland as well. Understandably, at least on the human level, I feel as if suddenly nothing is working for me. I am going through the motions of eye care, ultimately it is what it is. So the word “acceptance” comes to mind.

Last night I had a quite unusual dream. In it, Rob and I were out driving, looking for a place to stay because the storm had hit. Suddenly, I told Rob to pull over because I saw an incredible tree in someone’s yard. It was taller than the others and my impulse to walk around this yard was strong.

We stopped and got out of the car. Here the details are murky, but I will describe it as best I can. An old woman came out. I knew we were in a very posh section of town. But as we looked around, we saw that she had turned everything in nature into a thing of beauty. She was a folk artist, but looked so very ordinary.

We were both exclaiming over what we saw. Rob was taking pictures of her art on his phone. She had taken many otherwise ordinary pieces of the landscape and transformed them into wonderful experiences for those that viewed what she had done. Yet she was modest about it all.

We stayed there for hours and hours. We met her sister and a granddaughter as we oohed and aahed at her remarkable ability to transform the ordinary into beauty. She remained humble.

At the end, I took a picture of Rob and realized that he was more artistic than I thought. He, too, was drawn into the amazement at the extent of her talent.

I woke up, still depressed and worried about making storm preparations if they were needed. Decades ago, we had to move into a motel after an ice storm. But then I was not on lots of meds and having to do eye care. I will make a list of all the things I need, should our house lose power and suffer damage. We have very tall pine trees and poplar trees in our yard.

This was a big dream, although I feel just as anxious about the storm. Human beings these days are suffering from sudden weather events due to climate change. May God help us all.

Vicki Woodyard

I am having trouble getting used to the new “me.” Right now my right ear is zinging shrilly, while the left is doing something completely different; it sounds rather like a man doing an American Indian chant.

I saw the doctor yesterday and I really like her down-to-earth manor. I poured out my heart to her and she listened. My blood pressure was through the roof. I said,”Right before I came in here, I went to the restroom and there was about two sheets left in the holder. I must have pulled at them repeatedly before I just sighed and made do with two. That’s why my blood pressure is up.”

I told her that I would agree to see an endocrinologist, who would then write orders for me to have an ultrasound/tissue biopsy of the node on one side of my thyroid. I have been putting it off for quite a while. I am quite sure it is benign.

So last night Rob got fed up with me and left. As soon as he left, the power went out. I felt like it was the perfect ending for a stressful day. Why is Rob fed up with me? Because I haven’t gotten a hearing aid yet. I told him the ocular rosacea was dominating my psyche right now.

Of course, I am waiting for acceptance to kick in; meanwhile the rosacea is kicking me in the teeth. Wash your face and let it dry. Apply ointment. Let it dry. Apply sunscreen. Let it dry.
Avoid the sun unless you want more pain.

There is one bright spot in my life and her name is Kamala Harris. Go team! We have all suffered from Trump’s tirades and we know when he loses, he will say “They stole the election again!”

Now my right ear is zinging even louder and I just may have to put Silly Putty in it or something. I am at the stage of falling for anything that will give me relief.

The left is ear is still doing this neutral, but not to be ignored, sound. If I can’t beat them, I might as well join them. Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya…..zing zing zing zing zing.

Vicki Woodyard

As If….

Writing, for me, has always been an experience of flying by the seat of my pants. I haven’t written an essay in a while and here is the thing that hit me in the eye while I was lying down with burning eyes!

Vernon Howard gave a talk once that I have never forgotten. In a nutshell, this man met a teacher on a mountain one day and they met again for, let’s say about thirty days, and then suddenly he didn’t see the teacher anymore. Gone, vamoosed, just like that!

Vernon’s voice became louder (or that is how I remember it) as he yelled, “No mountain, no student, no teacher!” And as usual he glared at us as if we were beyond help.

Some forty years later and this time it hits me right between my poor eyes. At some point the opposites disappear and there literally is “no one typing this for someone else to read.” It’s all been a foolish, impossible game of trying to become enlightened.

I have grown old in the search for truth, prayers did no good, logic did no good, the very best teacher in the world did no good. I remained caught between a rock and a hard spot, trying my best to “get it.”

Vernon had a good gig for a long time. He knew that we would never get it. That is the nature of the opposites. He kept playing the role of an old curmudgeon yelling at his stupid students.

I have been baking frozen chocolate chip cookies while I typed this essay. They sure smell good, almost as if they were real.

Vicki Woodyard

P.S.

I am going to try again to post on the blog.

Donations appreciated, btw.

Love,

Vicki Woodyard

It is time we brought the opposites together, at least inside of ourselves. As long as we don’t bring them together, we will be riding a fantasy see-saw. Actually, that is how the mind is; it gets energy from division.

I have been away from writing notes for a few weeks and it has done me good. The silence, like plain yogurt, is rather unappealing, but it pays off if we can sit long enough to benefit from stillness.

I have announced to the world that I am depressed, but that is a self-diagnosis. My neurologist’s nurse said he had no openings this month. I have a scheduled appointment with him in September, so I will just wait.

I had hoped that he would top off my tank of prozac, but alas, he didn’t.

You see, some people see spirituality as a cure-all, which it is decidedly not. I still have my own quirks, tics and unappetizing behaviors and feelings. I bet that you do, too! Human beings are pretty toxic creatures.

Recently, my opposites are: Do I increase my meds or just work harder to be still? There is no easy answer. I have a healthy distrust of psychological helpers. That is because the therapist that Bob and I saw after our daughter died went to prison for sexual deviance!

Never try to talk yourself into forgiveness; when the time comes, it will just happen. After all, life is a happening rather than a roadmap that you write.

I am 81 now and my corners are all dog-eared. I do not recognize this person in the mirror. She looks, frankly, like most old ladies look. When we are younger, we believe that surely the aging process will not effect us! Well, think again, dammit!

I am still a good writer; just haven’t been in the mood lately. Did anybody even notice that I was gone?

Vicki Woodyard

I have been away from Home for weeks now. Sliding downhill and caught up in endless worrying. Trying to protect myself from future harm, when the only harm is in being far from Home with a capital “H.”

My teacher is/was Vernon Howard, but I have read hundreds of books in the hope that I would wake up. I forgot how powerful his words are.

It doesn’t matter that I have had a relapse; the Entire Enchilada of Truth has always been available. Someone told us to seek in order to find. So we spend decades seeking truth where it can never be found. Where is that, you may ask me. That is the only question that I need ask.

The Truth can only be found within the Self that we all are. I have been obsessively worrying over future medical tests and frantically searching for a way for me to be comforted.

I will say that his words below helped me this morning in a fresh new way.

“What a relief to no longer give advice to others.”

“Does anything really matter except to have inner wholeness?”

“Fighting the scary situation is the same thing as fighting yourself.”

“Understand your reactions by slowing them down.”

So I ate a huge helping of humble pie. I have wandered away from his teachings, thinking that the words of others would surely help me, as his did not. But in a profound sense, I return to the “I am” awareness that Vernon so faithfully taught. And I am a grateful student. His gift was taking truth and putting it into powerful sentences.

The old hymnals ring in my ears. “Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.”

Yes, that is an old chestnut and at the same time, it is the wisdom of the ages. Before we can come into the understanding that we are all the Self, we must bow down to Wisdom itself. It never tires of teaching us.

Vicki Woodyard