Monday is looking good. Tired old August finishing up its run this week. Lots of political agitation in the U.S. Note to myself: Must practice Amor Fati (Love what happens to you.) As the Work says, “You have the right to not be negative.”

Being negative is ingrained in the personality but it never does any good as far as the soul is concerned.

Seek the good in your life today. Seek it in the small things and let the big things move into the background.

Love is conscious and seeks to do no harm.

Vicki Woodyard

I have been writing essays for so long now and yet I never run out of material. I put my entire life into each essay, for that is all I know. It has been a life that started out fortuitously and is ending quite lonely, having lost a daughter and husband. My son and I rattle around this old house and try to avoid quarreling or upsetting each other. The wounds are still raw somewhere down deep. They are made of love and so they deserve respect.

I took to the spiritual path because nothing else has interested me. I hope you know that the integrity of the reader keeps me going. If I remain unread, I remain misunderstood.

What we know about each other is that we have no idea what the path will demand of us; it is different and yet the same for all of us. Heaven and hell is what our lives are about and woe be unto him or her that does not know that.

We have to choose how we will live our lives and yet they are being lived for us. This causes us great consternation, truth be told. For no one knows on any given day whether or not we will rise to the occasion and love ourselves instead of the world.

There is a weariness of soul, for sure, and that is natural for someone on the inner way. I know how lost we all are and that the world is not where we belong. The world is an alien landscape without redemption. Only the individual can be redeemed.

And what is redemption but self-forgiveness? This may be the reason why we are living. The ego lives to survive in a world gone mad and self-forgiveness is not required of most of us. But if you are on the right path, it will be a matter of daily self-forgiveness.

Love yourself and everything will come right.

Vicki Woodyard

It is a privilege to be awake in the moment, aware of how deep your fear of life runs. Oh, yes, we fear life almost as much as we fear death. It is easy for me to say that because I have been living with anxiety since I was 13 years old and had my first panic attack. This turned into agoraphobia, which lasted for decades. Now all that remains is social anxiety. Whew! You see, I am getting better at being who I truly am, warts and all.

I gently suggest that is what enlightenment is, in the last analysis. I have seen through “the enlightened beings” pontificating online. They, too, are enjoying the privilege of being awake to just how bad off they are, if they should ever admit it. But then they wouldn’t be able to sell books about how to become enlightened like they are.

Life is “just one damned thing after another.” Today I am saddled with neuropathy and am limited to what I can do. But I am also free to be alone and happy about that. There are no more social rules for me and I see that no one cares about anything but themselves and those closest to them and that’s okay!

There are so many myths about enlightenment that have to be seen through before you can truly appreciate your situation for what it is: an ever-changing landscape of The Lost and Found. For when we are lost, we are found, and only then. We are not just a solitary mitten in a box at school. We are the universe!

Never mind how isolated or alone we might feel. Those playing the role of social beings are just as lost as anyone else. In solitude we find ourselves, not in group consciousness. This is not elementary school but an ever-evolving situation of being neither lost nor found.

We simply ARE the universal consciousness contained in these frail little bodies.
Vernon Howard once said that we are a part of Mars and when we know that, we are humbled by it.

I guess that’s enough for today. No one is coming to save you, by the way. You are already home inside yourself!

Vicki Woodyard

Reason has no place in the emotional living of life; instead a knowing arises that erases reason entirely.

When something sad or bad happens, the soul becomes the witness and reason retreats. This is neither good nor bad; it simply happens.

I have been through decades of emotional upheaval and I can tell you that it is important to conserve your strength when times get trying. One way to do this is to slow down the galloping mind.

Become the witness of heartache and thus ease the burden of your soul

Breathing into heartache as you witness it is one way to become more conscious of your soul.

The soul cannot feel jangled and bruised; it can only ask for more light, more light.

Light is always there; it is just that the ego has constricted, not allowing the light to come in.

Darkness may overthrow light temporarily, but the soul will come back to its balance point if allowed.

Our inner work is always the same; rest in the assurance that all is well no matter what you may be going through.

Sorrow is a time for waiting, not forcing. Let your emotions do what they must do.

Behind the dark clouds the light is always waiting for you.

Open the door just a crack and it will come in.

Vicki Woodyard

Life in the world is painful because we are learning our lessons day by day, year in and year out.

What can save us the sure knowledge that when we let go, we are carried by the winds of grace.

Grace does not mean you will get your way; it does mean that purification is underway.

Never question God or argue with the Devil!

P.S. Both are within you.

Vicki Woodyard

I don’t fly anymore on airplanes, but I am most certainly flying by the seat of my pants on a daily basis. (And this includes all of us all of the time.)

The world is in constant crisis and eminent threat of anarchism. The United States are increasingly divided.

Trump is not even the trump card; he is being played by wilier people. Yes, he is malevolent but not as malevolent as Putin.

The latest threat is on the nuclear level and against this we are increasingly impotent.

There is nothing that can be done about any of this, for everything is predestined.

While anarchism grows like a cancer, the greed of the rich is forcing us into perilous climate change.

We see daily footage of raging rivers and people fleeing with nothing but what is on their backs.

There are global food shortages which will continue and epidemics will continue to threaten the global population.

Is there a solution to any of these problems?

There are solutions only for the individual that turns away from the world.

What happens then?

That individual knows the truth that will set them free.

“I am the way, the truth and the life.”

The individual “I am” is always in a peaceful state. It can be discovered and visited.

Otherwise, there is only extinction.

Vickie Woodyard

These essays that I write are, in a way, to my lower self. They come from a different place altogether, for the Higher Self that is writing is not the one living in the world!

We are all in pain as we live our lives in this chaotic world and nothing is set in stone. The fluidity itself is confusing and it is this fluidity that keeps us living frantically in our heads.

The heart knows this and it is to the heart that I write.

The world is in terrible shape right now; many systems are breaking down, from the political level to the social one. This world cannot be set right! Let me say that again: This world cannot be set right.

As we get older, we get wiser. This wisdom is our true nature and the world does not recognize it. So some of us take time out each day to reconnect with our spirit. These essays are writing to your spirit.

We must choose to create a safe space for our higher selves to heal us of all of our worldly scars. These scars thrive on neglect. The more you suppress them, the more they hurt you and control you. But you know this….

These days I find myself fretting over all of the crimes on the political scene. I worry about how insecure I feel on the physical level. I know that my emotions are fragile and constantly changing. But the main thing is that I give power to the falseness we are compelled to put on before we venture out into the world. No one knows the complete truth; it is not given to Man to know that.

It is good to start the day off with confession and then ask for help. It will come, but it will only come from inside of you! This world is a mirror and nothing more. Look into it and know the truth. You are the Divine Self wearing a temporary human body and living a temporary human life. This is good news because your problems can be carried by your spirit rather than your ego.

The old adage, “I think; therefore I am,” can be changed. “I know my ‘I am’ is who I am. Thoughts just keep getting in the way.

Vicki Woodyard

A Small Leap (From my ebook, “Lotus in the Mud”)

“I have made a quite small leap into seeing clearly that I am a terrible person.”

I recently made that as a comment on a Facebook Note I wrote. It bears repeating, but first I shall clear my throat: “I have made a quite small leap into seeing clearly that I am a terrible person.” There, I have said it in front of God and everybody. But I am in good company. If you worship at the Church of Leonard Cohen, you know that is a confession everyone should make. Sometimes with huge sorrow and at other times with a tiny twinkle in the eye.

For I have had it up to here with the guilt and shame that comes with being human. It is SO last week. I have been around the guilt and shame block many times. I have met all of you as I rounded the corners. Oh, yes, you. I know that we are all alike. Just mirrors for each other.

Now that I have made my confession, you are all giggling because you saw it long before I did. You saw me fall from grace again and again. And I saw you do the same. We are all in the same boat and it is leaking. Forget getting to the other shore. I would be happy to make out a dim outline of it.

Along with being a terrible person, there is the accuser of that person, which happens to be the same person—me. Oh, goodie. A two-fer! Yes, I wallow in my sins, desperately praying for a buyout or something. Someone to purchase my deliverance so I can get off the hook. Maybe that is what church is about. I dunno. Heck, maybe I should start “The Church of I Dunno.”

I was listening to the Comedy Channel today as I was driving home from the chiropractor. As I pull into the driveway, some wag says that the Pope is actually a drag queen. He was, of course, being silly, and I love silly. Silly takes my mind off the terrible person that I am. But I am not terrible for laughing at that joke. I am terrible because I am human. Simple and terrible as that. We have all fallen off the seesaw of the opposites. We are children on a planetary playground called Earth. Is it time for juice and cookies yet? Only a terrible person would ask that question. Can I talk you into giving me your share, too?

Vicki Woodyard

Today is Monday and so far it is going smoothly and for this I feel grateful. The mystery of wholeness is my choice to make, for in it I feel good (God). I have no ready answers to any of life’s questions. I can’t even decide what is causing this world to go so wrong. Ultimately it is all out of our control. What we do control is our very own awareness of freedom.

Freedom begins within; it is never an outer thing. I am free to choose to accept my own small reality even when it is awry. Only I can accept the day and what it will bring. If I find myself getting upset, only I can fix it.

Gratitude is possible on the best and the worst days of my life. The in-between days are where I am apt to go wrong.

So I start this Monday with acceptance that life is a mystery and that I am as well. Who am I if not the wonderer? Can I stop the process of wonder? Only if I choose to stay hypnotized by this world. To be hypnotized is to stay asleep and that is the origin of all our troubles.

Vicki Woodyard