Where we are seen and heard….

“The places in which we are seen and heard are holy places.” ~ Rachel Remen, M.D.

I am feeling discombobulated this morning. My neck is stiff and my emotions are just as tight. After lunch I pick up “Kitchen Table Wisdom,” by Rachel Remen and I read the quotation above. I ponder the places in which I am seen and heard and guess what, it is right beneath my fingertips as I write.

The holiest places just may be within us if we but listen. Yesterday Rob drove me to Macy’s so I could return some things I had ordered online. Most of my shopping is done that way since I have quit driving.

Then I asked him to let me run into CVS to get some chocolate on sale. It was a Buy One, Get One offer, so I got 4 bags of Hershey Kisses and went up to check out. The clerk said it would be $10 and I realized I had left my credit union card at home. I checked for change and had nine dollars plus some change. Embarrassed, I asked if they took American Express, which I never use for trivial things. They did, and I waited while they rang up the purchase. I was asked if I wanted a receipt and already feeling embarrassed, I said no.

This morning I realized that since the bags of chocolate were BOGOS, it actually was five dollars, not ten! If I drove, I would have gone up there and told they I had been overcharged. Now I have to eat the mistake and believe me, it tastes bad, not at all like Hershey Kisses.

So as you read this, I will have been heard and thus I am on holy ground. The holidays instill a feeling of guilt in me and I know some of you can relate. For various reasons you are not up to shopping or gift-wrapping. I have to learn to let some things go. Rob and I have a quiet Christmas where we drive around looking at lights on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we have a simple meal and open presents. Loss has shaped us into beings who do not believe in the concept of “more,” and that is what Christmas has degenerated into.

So this is discombobulated Vicki pecking at the keys on her iMac. Have I been seen and heard?

Love,
Vicki

P.S.
I told Rob and he said,”The bags were probably $5 each.” I checked online and sure enough they were! Usually they are $2 a bag. So I whisper a soft “mea culpa” to myself.

To own one’s own truth is what life is about. To reach the place where all of the bells ring … to heal the godforsaken stretches of your inner desertions ….

Yesterday I heard Gavin de Becker say that if someone cannot accept your “no,” then they are trying to control you. After my husband died, I said three noes that first year. Two led to a desertion by the ones to whom I said no. And they each led to a deepening resolve to continue the practice of “no.”

“No” to the outer world is a yes to your inner world. And the inner determines the outer. It is daunting to go so deep into your own spirit that you understand that you are one with everything. It doesn’t necessarily make you any happier.

This morning as I entered the grocery store, one of the employees said a clear “I love you” into her cell phone. I told her it was so nice to hear her say that. She was speaking to her soulmate, she said, her husband of three years. I told her I was widowed…

Being alone is not the end of the world. For me, it is a time for going deeper into what I have chosen. I want to be with myself from now on. In a way that heals inner division, in a way that comforts and stretches me. For this I must say “no” to things that do not nourish me. I am facing myself directly, which is a difficult thing to do. I often prefer to nibble at the cheesy things of this world. Like a rat, I sample American Idol, and that makes me want more. The world is like that… making you want more of what can never sustain you.

So I sit here at the computer, wanting you to love me. But that is just another bite of cheese in the trap. What I really want is to love myself so clearly that I never say “yes” when I feel “no.” That is a big, big thing. The bigger the truth, the more it can change and heal you.

We are all waiting for you
 to strike that one chord
 in your own heart,

You know, the one you haven’t 
strummed in so long.


The one that will make us all
 stop for a moment and sigh…

For we have enough false notes up in our music benches.


We need to see your single finger


pluck the harmony and sorrow chord


so we will remember who we are.

Vicki Woodyard

*Only getting a few donations these days and if you have already contributed, please disregard this.

But maybe you are in the Christmas spirit—if so, click on the link below.

MAKE A DONATION TO THE BLOG HERE

This year my closet floor is full of confusion. Christmas stuff. We are heading into the home stretch of the holidays now and this is the hardest part. Guilt about inadequate presents is always a given. Guilt flourishes anywhere you find humanity, though. None of our feelings are really personal; all people have every known feeling.

These days the inhumanity in Ukraine is abominable. That one man could enjoy the killing of thousands and thousands of innocent people! That big oil and gas can turn a blind eye to global warming.

What is the good news? That there is something in us that is eternal. We have no proof; we must pay close attention to our own heart. We must feed it nourishment instead of starving it.

Goodness is godliness and the best thing we can do is to watch our heart very carefully to see how we abuse it.

Christmas puts me in an emotional bind; that is for sure. There is always the risk of sentimentality when clear seeing would serve me much better.

Vicki is crammed full of pessimism and bah, humbug. She knows the score and she doesn’t like it. I can’t blame her for being negative when insight shows her how dark the earth has become. Her job is to know consciously instead of to feel negatively.

Seasons come and go and so do people. Seeing through ourselves is important. Being conscious instead of mechanical is the true gift that we bring. Amen.

Vicki Woodyard

The holiday trap—yep, time to fall into it again and again and again. Why so many “agains”? Because lessons are learned oh, so slowly, are they not?

We are not Santa Claus and amazon is not a sleigh!

Gotta use a little irony mixed in with a soupçon of sadness, for human beings are not perfect. I watch the Publix ads where the little girl gives an old man a Christmas cookie and he makes her a snowman overnight to surprise her on Christmas morning. The only thing I get from Publix is a higher grocery bill.

Amazon is sleighing America right now. Can’t resist that pun because it is true. Bloated with convenience, its sleighs (plural), are dropping shit on porches and running away. Giggle. It’s not only convenient, it is soul-destroying on some level. I use it myself all the time.

The main trap for me is the guilt this holiday produces. Why can’t I give more creative gifts? Why do I always feel so inadequate on Christmas morning?

I say every year that my husband was born in December, he entered hospice then and he died the week before Christmas and was buried the day before Christmas Eve. Oh, and our anniversary was Dec. 28. By then, depression is in full flower for me. By January 1, I feel the chill of sorrow in my marrow.

But I am a survivor and you probably are as well. The holidays skillfully push all of our buttons, not giving us time to draw a breath that is conscious. It is a miracle that more people do not take their lives during the holidays.

I vow to give myself some emotional slack every year and every year I fail to do so. Instead I eat my feelings, as the saying goes. At first I am sensible at how much sugar I eat and as I head toward the new year, I throw caution to the winds and cram my mouth with unholy amounts of things that are not good for me.

Where is God in all of this? Right where He has always been, hanging out in my subconscious, waiting for me to remember myself. That is the best remedy for the Christmas blues. Truth delivers, even while amazon is a hard second away. Do the right thing, folks. When Santa comes down the chimney covered with soot you have to clean up, drink some egg nog and dream of sugar plum fairies with fat bellies and elves in AA. Nothing is perfect and the holiday trap proves that again and again.

Vicki Woodyard

This is the most important note I have ever written. It happened this way. I was lying down listening to the radio and heard the song, “Wish You Were Here.” I heard a line about thinking you could change and I saw clearly that the ego can never be enlightened.

Vicki has been trying to change herself for many years and for the most part she remains the same. That is because she is a machine. If you have gotten this far on the path, you can say the same thing about yourself.

Oh, I have my good moments but they never last. I am interdependent with the world, as we all are. I don’t exist in a vacuum.

So what good has it done me to try and change myself into a better person? None at all, for machines cannot change.

The persona was put in place by us automatically in order to protect us from abuse in one form or another. I put agoraphobia and social phobia in place when I was about 13. On some level I still have it, as I have lived a very, very safe life. And while I was trying to be really, really safe, my little girl died of cancer and many years later, so did my husband.

I managed to care for them while having agoraphobia and social anxiety; they were just suppressed for a number of years.

Vicki’s machinery clanks on and she has no idea that I am writing this. Shhhhhhh.

Jesus told us how it was, didn’t He? Read the New Testament and you will find that the Word speaks of all this ego chicanery we are engaged in. It has ever been thus.

Vernon Howard spoke of the False Self and the True Self and never the twain shall meet.

So go on with your mechanical life, because you have no other choice. Instead, continue to study truth because it is our only chance for deliverance from evil (mechanical) behaviors.

A true prayer is “God help me right now,” for we can never save ourselves.

Vicki Woodyard

I tried to write a cheeky little note today about the Christmas “blahs.” It sank like a stone so I put it in the trash.

It didn’t work because the essay began to write me; that happens occasionally.

I read what I had written and saw a strong note of self-pity instead of humor.

I haven’t liked Christmas for decades. Now global warming threatens us all.

The political scene is gruesome and the war in Ukraine devastates our idea of “peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

I pray to be easier in my judgement of myself and others. We are all tarred with the same brush.

We walk around with a good coating of public show. We want to look okay to others in the crowd. But there are no others, are there?

There is only the One and it resides inside us all.

The search for the Christ child is still underway.

We will find him.

We will kneel in adoration or we will die trying.

Every effort we make to bring peace to ourselves brings peace to us all.

I choose peace over war and love over hate and unity over political division.

Tiny Tim is alive; he is just hidden under a heart full of grief and loss.

Look up and look within. Do not succumb to the lie that you must suffer.

The Christ child is within; He will make you whole.

Vicki Woodyard

We are all the same, mechanical wind-up toys acting as if we were real. But there is a way to become real and that is to become conscious. Oh, it is hard to do and we can’t succeed for more than a few minutes at a time, if that. But we all have a chance to wake up and become who we truly are.

If I act and feel consciously, I rise above my mechanical behaviors. This is what Christ taught, after all. “My kingdom is not of this world.” One meaning of that is that His kingdom is a conscious one.

If I can become conscious, I can become genuinely able to love myself. And in that love, I enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which is spread upon the earth.

Consciousness heals us of our sins (being off the mark).

Consciousness never rats us out; it simply lifts us above the opposites where people are pitted against each other and cannot ever love truly.

Right now we are cowards behaving mechanically, never able to settle down and experience any lasting peace.

What if we just sat with ourselves without apology? If we could do that, we would experience a healing moment. And if these moments added up, perhaps we could see that we have the right to love ourselves after all.

I look at Vicki, this senior citizen who forgets things more and more easily. She has earned the right to love herself consciously and yet she still forgets herself.

She has written millions of words about awakening and yet she still forgets the power of self-love. You do not have to love other people; you only have to see that we are all the One.

And in that oneness we receive grace.

Grace is worth your whole mechanical life, is it not?

Grace is who we are when we are conscious. Let us revel in that fact.

Vicki Woodyard

Sometimes I get it right, but I get it wrong more often. Am I humble about my mistakes or do they breed insecurity in me? I admit to being a very insecure person and I have no idea how I got this way.

Life goes on, and on and on; sometimes it feels like an endless punishment and rarely, it feels like a magician showing me his tricks.

I dream at night about both good and evil, but evil dominates. That is because mankind is on the precipice of disaster. Not just now but always.

Who knows if anyone else is awake; I can only know that I am not.

Sleepwalking is an exercise whereby we avoid the reality of love.

Occasionally the sun shines directly into my heart and it is then that I write.

Dark days are waiting for someone to recognize the truth in them. Someone has to acknowledge that the darkness is always within.

I write because there is nothing better to do. When I am sleepwalking I am not a writer, but a consumer.

The world spins on and so do the lies.

Is there a way out of the mystery? I think not.

Stop shooting arrows into your own heart.

Stop now and then to replenish the energy that you are constantly losing.

Dream of reality and reality dreams of you.

When you run out of questions, you also run out of answers. Either way, you are emptiness itself.

Vicki Woodyard

The Solitude of the Soul

As we approach the Christmas season, the phrase “solitude of the soul” comes to mind. For any holiday brings apprehension to many people. I have never enjoyed celebrations of any kind. Why? Because they are inherently mental. Do you not spend time feeling guilty for not doing a good enough job in shopping and cooking and yes, looking good? If there is a fly in the ointment, it is always the ego!

Now I am too old to worry about such things. I have gone so deep into solitude that I can vouch for its aura of rest and relaxation, something the holidays don’t have.

Socializing may have been more meaningful back when people were isolated on farms, but now we see other people all the time. Having studied my own warts, I also see them in other people, for to see one is to see them all.

Every year Rob hangs the old wreath and puts a bow on the mailbox. That is IT! Oh, I have a few decorative items in the kitchen, which is where we spend our time. But no one comes to ooh and ah over them.

No one knows I am on the path. And I often forget it myself! It is then that feelings of guilt creep in and began telling me I am antisocial. It is a strange thing to know that the world can get along without you.

The world is a projection of what is within. When you are able to sit quietly, all of the nightmares evaporate, at least for a few minutes.

The soul is solitude itself and most of us know this, having been seekers for years and years. Why decorate the soul with extraneous emotions? It dislikes chaos and glitter on its fingernails.

End of rant. Beginning of more solitude.

Vicki Woodyard

Rob took me to Love Street yesterday and took this photo. It is an indoor/outdoor gift store and to my dismay, it is closing. It consists of 3 different stores and they are in 3 adjacent houses on Love Street, hence the name.

Rob says he guesses that someone will buy the property and raze the houses to build something else. That is the nature of this world. I did some Christmas shopping there and then we came home.

I slept well last night, having coughed less. Rob is doing Thanksgiving dinner and I am just mixing up the green bean casserole.

Life has many twists and turns and most of them are navigable. Even if you mess up, you can start over again. My suffering made me a writer and I am grateful for that, if not for the suffering. But then as some wag said, “All of life is suffering.” I agree with that.

My suffering has forged me in the fires of persistence, but it has also lessened my interest in human social activities. I much prefer the solitude and stillness of the soul at rest.

How does the soul find rest? Perhaps it is only by surrendering to what you truly and deeply want and what you are truly and deeply good at. For me, this is writing about suffering. Those still under the spell of this world will have no interest in what I have to say. But those of you who suffer may read what I write with interest.

I have learned that awakening must be a priority for me. Nothing else satisfies this obsession.

The fruits of my studies are ripening and some are still green. Others have fallen to the ground. I try to be honest about all of these stages and no one is interested unless they know how unawakened they are. This does not mean you are a failure; it just means that you are ripening. Good thing we are not avocados.

Vicki Woodyard