I walked along with her this evening. It was interesting to say the least because she has no idea I am there, always there. She was a bit more relaxed than she was early this morning. She woke at 4:30 and at a little after five she was proofreading her entire manuscript. Oblivious to everything but the screen. I floated around above her, sensing something greater trying to come through her eyes and fingers and heart. What do I know? I am just here to witness her struggle on the gravity-bound earth plane.

She drove to Tuesday Morning and had a nice talk with the woman behind the counter. They hit it off immediately. It was clear as day that the two of them were vibrating at a very high frequency. Like dolphins they were clicking some kind of code and it felt good as I watched the interchange. She left with a pumpkin biscotti candle and came home.

She’s eating too much junk food. Tootsie Rolls and Hershey Kisses. But I think the stress she is feeling is a minor thing. She is very excited about bringing her book into the world. It’s like a baby for her. She has just now pulled the trigger on it and paid her publisher to give it the green light. I hover around her, knowing wordlessly that she is never without an astounding support. It breathes her and laughs her and cries her.

This evening she took the long walk around the neighborhood. The September light struck her body lower than the August light did. She raised her head to look at magnolia seed cones and felt a bit sad. Then she saw the old man out raking in his front yard. “I haven’t see you in a while,” he said.

“I just haven’t walked much in August,” she told him. He said “I wish my wife could get out and walk like you. She’s having knee surgery in two weeks. She has a big thing behind her knee.”

She asked for details but he didn’t seem to know. He just said that he wished his wife could get out and about. Said she had fallen last year dragging a Christmas tree down the stairs. She said “I don’t even put up a tree anymore.” Then she said she would put the two of them in the light and she walked home.

Back inside she got reacquainted with the TV and the couch and the kitchen counter. I wish I could say to her, “You are so not alone. I am here to catch you when you fall.” 

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September 10, 2011

Dear Ones,
My book, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT, has been out one year today. I am deeply pleased about finally bringing it into manifestation. It has gotten great reviews.

Scott Kiloby, Author of Reflections of the One Life, Love’s Quiet Revolution, and Living Realization, says: “This is good reading. It made me smile and laugh. The words are drenched with love and a sense of humor along with reverence and awe for the mystery of life. I recommend this book!”

Greg Goode, author of Standing As Awareness, says: “A close-to-the-bone book about love, death, loss, and…love. Heartbreakingly honest, brave and inspiring!”

John LeKay, Nondualitymagazine.org, says “LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT is a must read for anyone interested in conscious suffering…written with brutal unflinching honesty, wit and wisdom and in the spirit of divine grace. This is the story of a brave woman’s journey of finding oneness in her own quiet inner voice.”

Word of mouth helps sell books and I am a tiny drop in the ocean of published books. If you can give my link to a friend, buy more than one copy, or if you have any other ideas to help me sell it, let me know. My little book will need some help in finding its way into the hands of those who will cherish it.

A first book is like a first baby: You want people to love it. Thank God I don’t have to feed it and burp it.

All reviews and comments appreciated. It’s been a year, perhaps since you read it. Any thing you’d like to add?

Almost at the end of The Art of Racing In The Rain. What a lovely sad book. It has put me into a melancholy fugue. It’s raining, the first soaking September rain and we need it.

I remember the sad unbearable days so well. I don’t live there anymore but this book allows me to visit again until I shake the sorrow off like a dog and go on.

You see, we all have our animal selves that like to communicate wordlessly.

Love and death are intertwined so skillfully that when we first love we miss the death part. Oh, we say the words, but glibly and youthfully.

But the piper has to be paid. For every step of love we dance, a backward step will be taken. Everything in eternal balance. For every smile a tear until we learn detachment. But love is not detached when humans experience it; it is wound tightly round bodies. Bodies that sicken and die.

Spirits thrive on love; human beings walk hand in hand with death. These days I cherish simplicity and favor solitude. For in solitude is my true companion, the Self.

I once loved a man and a child that went on before me. Now I stay behind and linger with the Self until it is my turn to drop the body. If I could not laugh, I would become brittle and bitter. As it is, writing softens me just enough to survive.

You will never find me teaching intellectual theories of enlightenment. If anything, I will offer up little stories and confessions. On the last day of someone’s life, something in YOU dies. If you are lucky, it will be resurrected on a higher level. That is all anyone can hope.

Because I was in the darkest night I had to find the brightest light. My story is in my book, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT. It’s been almost a year since it came out and it has found its way into individual hearts one book at a time. Word of mouth helps sell it; I am not a natural publicist and have no money alloted to hire one. Instead I write daily on Facebook and often here on the website.

I live an ordinary life steeped in awareness. I keep it simple and useful to me. Never mind saving the world. As Vernon Howard said, “You’ve tried that!” The Self is ever present and it is rooted in the real. I hope you find my words meaningful and nourishing.

If you are experiencing sadness or grief, just gently notice it and that you are unable to stop it. Let the tears flow; you will feel better. Be grateful that you have known love and one day we shall all know that we are Love itself.

Gentle Readers,

I am in the process of finishing my second book, A GURU IN THE GUEST ROOM. I am a small writer and not a business person, as most of you know. Nevertheless, I have to pay for the website and for book publications costs. I end up losing money!

If anyone values the website and can see their way clear to donating a few dollars to help defray publication costs, I would appreciate it. Every little bit helps. I will continue to be here as I have for the last ten plus years. Bob would want it that way.

You can hit the Paypal Donate button on this site or if you prefer, send a check to me. Just let me know how you can help. Perhaps you can spread the word once A GURU IN THE GUEST ROOM comes out.

Love and thanks,
Vicki

My book is something that gives me great satisfaction. Born out of suffering and sorrow, it
slowly evolves into a peaceful acceptance. That doesn’t mean I am rid of suffering, for I am only human. But as I write, I visit the memories with a higher and finer energy. That is what being a writer on the path does for one. It clarifies and sorts out the wheat from the chaff. It elevates first the writer and then, hopefully, the reader.

Last night I was gifted with a wonderful dream. I had moved into a smaller but shabbier house. There was a wise woman ensconced in the kitchen who was writing a book. I didn’t much like her being there, but before she left, she gave me the book. It was handwritten on pink paper and looked just like a small book I wrote years ago.

Two young women were in the house as well. They called out to me that there had been a miracle. Bob had taken some medicine and died and his body was on the floor in the living room. But his spirit body was lying outside, where he had been seen playing the cello. (In real life, Bob had a tin ear.) I am not sure what the dream means, but I can venture a guess.

My writing comes from the place in me that is familiar with the deep tones of the cello. I write to honor the place in us which is ever-beautiful and strong. To do that, I must also honor the breaking of the ego’s shell, which is never easy.

So Bob is in a better place and I move back and forth between the world of the opposites. I am quite sure he sometimes stands beside me as I write. He did this sometimes in life. My desk is our old dining table littered with computers and the miscellany that writing entails. He used to hit his head on the chandelier that hung above the table. Once when he was showing me how to use the fax machine, I asked him jokingly when I should hit my head on the chandelier. “Anytime you get ready,” was his answer. Ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

Life is, after all, about acting. We act for others, to keep them from knowing how wounded we are, or how scared we are of the dark. My writing begins in darkness, trailing the light along my fingers until something breaks open and I go, “ah”….

LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT may be ordered by clicking on the book cover in the right hand column.

I am a point of contact with infinity as infinity. This is something that the world deftly avoids. Being in the world but not of it is a living truth. Playing the game of illusion comes with the package called body, mind and spirit. The triune game is on. Awakening is simply seeing through the glass of the game clearly.

Someone who has lost a child just read LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT: That’s How The Light Gets In. Many of you have read it. Although it is a small book, it is powerful. It is confessional in nature and reveals the travail of my soul as my husband died. And our little daughter had preceded him in death when she was seven. I do not take life lightly and yet I am also a humorist.

Laughter winds through the trail of tears in the book. My mother used to say that we all have our grace notes in life and one of mine has been laughter. Others have been a loving husband and the desire to awaken from the dream of separation. It has been almost seven years since he died and I have an increasing sense that he is always with me. Love cannot be anything but everlasting.

I know every word in LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT and I know how the light gets in. We are all the same; struggling to overcome a sense of separateness and not being able to control ourselves as we would like. We project that onto the world and try to control it. Alienation sets in as we try to part the waters of the ocean of the all. The path is about seeing this. To see is to be free.

I am so grateful to each person who buys a copy and finds that it is a confessional for them as well. For who is not afraid of losing a loved one and having to go on alone? Who does not fail many tests as they struggle to let their light shine? Who is not in need of self-honesty?

I have said this before, but I get a real sense that the child inside of me has always been the strongest part. My job now is to surround her with peace and light. As she surrenders to the healing process, my soul gains the ascendancy. I hope you felt that the book ended with grace and hope, for the journey was a universal one indeed. A primer for those who have yet to face the death of a loved one. Or the loss of illusion. It is, as some wise one said, “a gift to those who can take it.”

It can be ordered at amazon.com or I will sign and mail you a copy from my home. It is difficult to get the word out about a book of this nature. Those of you who have read it, keep spreading the word. And if you haven’t ordered your copy yet, please know that I am grateful if you do. The link to purchase it is to the right!

“I don’t do anything but I do it well.” ~Vicki Woodyard

I posted the above comment on my Facebook page last night. Tony Cartledge said, “You are the Queen of No-do-ality.”

I do what I don’t do well, you might say.

Nonduality is a word that defies true description, as Jerry Katz will tell you. Concepts of nondoership are discussed by advaitans and others. Many teachers confirm us in our nonexistence. But I am The Queen of Non-do-ality!

I am a being that witnesses doing through the clean pane of awareness. That way, pain becomes the clear pane through which the Self can see.

I love wordplay, love to horse around with Ruin, the stick pony, and his ridiculous rider, Larry. They will soon appear in book form. If you listen to anyone but Ruin, they might steer you wrong. Sometimes Larry steers Ruin into a stream of traffic and then it is I wince.

I don’t do; therefore I am not what I think I am. Descartes is turning over in his grave.

Nondoership is on no cruise line. It is an empty boat on a shoreless ocean.

I write about my personal life, which is nothing special. It vanishes into the night with the sunset and rises when the body does. I don’t do anything, not even windows. But everything happens in the only way it can, including this essay.

Photo by Holly Lynn Danyliw

I saw this photo taken by Holly Danyliw today and it took my breath away. The language of light, of the numinous. For we are both new and old at the same time. We are shedding light wherever we go. If we could grasp this as easily as the hand grasps the baby’s foot, we would be set free. We would soar.

Wisdom cradles innocence; it has ever been thus. Innocence informs the spirit like nothing else can. I have a book of Zen wisdom that says, “If I put a foot wrong, the universe screams.” That is how interconnected we all are.

Thich Nhat Hanh says,

You are me, and I am you. 
Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?

All of us are baby buddhas and wise sages at the same time. A picture is worth a thousand words and in this case, the words lead to an enlightening silence. Ah….

When I asked Holly’s permission to use this photograph, she said:

“This is an intensely emotionally picture for me because the hand is of my dear friend who was dying from cancer when I took the picture. It was my attempt to keep her physical body a clear memory for her daughters and all who loved her. Please mention that the photo is of my dear friend Donna and her grandson, Benicio.” I looked up the meaning of the name and it means “benevolent one.” How appropriate!

I am honored to share both the photograph and the story. Thank you, Holly. This picture IS worth a thousand words.