I am an introvert, not a “people person,” and I quite like it that way.

I have never drawn people to me, yet my soul drew me to Vernon Howard and the Work. I drew a teacher from Hawaii from a dream that I had. A woman spoke, “You have a teacher, but you will meet a teacher from Hawaii.” Those were cryptic words, but my late husband and I did fly to Maui. Once there I found the teacher, but that is a story that I have often written about.

If you have been given the gift of the Christ Consciousness, you will never be interested in this world. You will dwell within your own silent Self. Of course, you constantly forget that you are the Christ Consciousness, but mercy is also your inheritance.

On first meeting a shaman, he healed me of most of my grief about the loss of my husband. I saw him a few more times and then the pandemic hit. He lives in Peru and I will not see him again, but a good shaman works quickly, thank God.

Now I am an elder in the tribe (of One) and I must submit to my own Self. Why? Because my ego is in the game of betraying the true self.

The world is collapsing over us, underneath us and inside of us. We would be wise to know this and give up all hope of changing the world. That is not our job.

That begs the question, “What is our job?” And the answer will not be given but experienced. And all events come and go, so it is not to change worldly events.

Acceptance to what happens is the answer. Jesus was hung on a crude wooden cross with two thieves on either side of him. That is us in this depraved world of men.

“This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise,” He spoke.

Paradise is our true inheritance, but we have to fail again and again and again to remember those last words uttered as he hung there between the opposites.

Rising above the opposites is how we transcend our painful human experiences.

Oh, the wonder of the living moment!

Vicki Woodyard

While I was watching the Korean drama, “My Mister” for the fourth time, suddenly a sentence came to me. “We have all been seeking since birth, but we can never find.” That is because seeking and finding are opposites. Not only that, but if we should happen to find, we would immediately start seeking again. That is the nature of man.

By the way, MM may have been the finest Korean drama ever made (and I think it is), but the sentence that came to me had nothing to do with it.

I have spent this lifetime seeking and never finding.

No human being has a credible answer to why we are here and not there. Giggle.

It’s all one gigantic game of “Seek and ye shall find.” I hate to quote Jesus in this essay, but try to get over it.

The mystery of life is that it is both short and everlasting at the same time.

Most days I feel the everlastingness of it. I have created a permanent place in the sofa from sitting on it day after day after lifetime after lifetime. I am the Perennial Couch Potato, but I digress.

Type A’s are just more aggressively lost than Type B’s.

Sigh.

Always leave room for a sigh, whether it be because you are bored or facing the abyss.

Jesus said it first, at least for Christians, but if He is still saying it, we are still seeking it.

The dilemma of the opposites is that there is no one to rise above them.

It’s the sound of one hand clapping its forehead. Oy and vey.

Does it have to be so silly and serious at the same time? It does if it has my name on it!

I guess this is a “gotcha” essay on a Wednesday night in September when I realized how we have f…ed this planet up while thinking we are intelligent signs of life in the universe. Think again. Or maybe not.

Sigh.

Vicki Woodyard

Every day is a test for all of us. That is because we are mechanical beings playing mechanical roles. That is what the Work teaches. Everyone is walking in their sleep believing that they are awake.

Added to that is humanity’s collective need to survive in any way that they can. Jesus called that mechanical behavior “sinning.” He spoke simply because he needed to get his message across.

There is no such thing as mechanical love; love is a state of consciousness. There is no need to put five-dollar words on it. Love is love.

In the morning of our consciousness, love is pure and innocent. But by afternoon it is already covered up in lies. And by midnight, no one remembers love as a conscious state of being that we can choose again and again and again.

It is not easy, this state of awareness, and so we fall asleep so easily. It is then that we suffer mechanically. The Work and the words of the sages of all times throughout history, call us back home.

We are always in danger when we are asleep and the Work calls us back to self-awareness. You think that is easy? Thought is what keeps us asleep.

Few ever go through the eye of the needle. And I am not needling you 😉

Vicki Woodyard

Yesterday I hit the wall of reality and it did me good, believe it or not. It is good that I have readers that care about me. Thank you all.

Rob and I ate and then we sat and talked for about an hour. “It seems like you are worse in the morning,” he said and I agreed.

“I’ve reached a different stage with the tremor,” I told him. It is getting harder for me to do things like put on makeup or pluck the stray hairs from my face.” He told me that there are places I can go to for these things.

We kept on talking and talking and talking. We switched to memories we would never be rid of. I told him I remember nothing about Laurie’s funeral. He said he remembered standing across from the grave site while the service was conducted. A friend of my mother’s stood with him.

And then there was the miracle of Bob’s service, the freezing rain hitting the roof as the pastor spoke. Someone placed blankets over our knees as it was bitter cold.

Almost 19 years have passed since the burial of Bob. Times have changed; I will be cremated.

I do my inner work daily and I can tell you that I can be a real pill! But then so can Rob, because there are only two of us left and we experience a lot of emotional pain and fear.

Last night was like a therapy session, though. We shared memories of times gone by. We talked about my brother, Jimmy, that died less than eighteen months ago. He was so droll and quiet.

I have come to see that the advice I got from you all was right; stay here as long as I can.

I have ups and downs with the tremor; the last few days it has gotten worse. I need to get out more and fall is a good time to do that. Go to a nearby place selling small gifts and foods. Eat out, etc.

I have not traveled in ten years and that was to see Leonard Cohen for his last European tour. It was difficult. I was sick the next day after we landed and again when we got home.

I don’t miss travel or other things I can’t do easily anymore. A trip to the grocery or a meal out or to Macy’s satisfies me.

Those of you who have not watched “My Mister” better get busy and watch it. You know who you are 😉 It is about life and its constant challenges and it remains with you forever.

Again, thank you for continuing to read my essays. It is what I do and who I am.

Love, Vicki

I have forgotten the details, but I had a wonderful dream last night. Yesterday I told Rob that I wanted him to start writing checks for me because my handwriting had gotten worse. I have always kept a tight grip over things I feel are of vital importance. I definitely am weaker, muscle-wise and I can tell I am walking differently. So all day yesterday I had felt-self pity, isolation and worry. Luckily for him, Rob was out for the evening to play Trivia with “the guys.”

But, towards morning I had a dream that led me directly to my creativity. I had just made an appearance on one of the big talk shows. The emcee’s wife was there and they were both black.

I have no remembrance of what he asked me and how I responded, but it was about my life and losing a young child to cancer. I told him that I had written a book about it. After the show ended, I continued talking to the host and his wife, who was an actress. The main thing theyliked about me was my honesty and that it showed. He said he was going to some kind of event the next night and wanted me to come. His chat with Rob was wonderful, too.

I can still feel the hope the dream has given me. Not to be on a talk show, but to remember that God has given me a talent and someone somewhere will respond to my story told honestly.

Yesterday I had visited my neighbor. The funny thing is that neither one of us remembers the details of anything anymore. We just like each other. She is my opposite and that always helps. She is a people person and I am a people avoider. So here’s the detail. I got 4 donations when I asked for them. After I had that dream last night, I am emboldened to put it this way.

Yes, I write without getting paid, but it sure is fun to get the occasional donation. So if you, like that talk show host, enjoy what I say spontaneously, donate to my website. It won’t always be there, but my essence will remain. And this dream was about essence mattering more than your physical being.

Vicki Woodyard

(Five donations gotten, more needed to keep me writing this fall. Maybe my loyal Facebook readers will donate.)

DONATE HERE TO MY WRITINGS ON FACEBOOK AND MY BLOG.

Dear Friends and Readers,

I hope that some of you will consider making a Fall donation to the blog. It can be $5 or $50 or anything in between.

I always keep it fresh and original because that’s my thing….

Here is the PayPal link. It is ridiculously easy to click on it and put in the amount you want to contribute.

DONATE TO VICKI’S WEBSITE BY CLICKING HERE.

If you want one of my ebooks, I’ll throw it in….

Counting waves, sitting alone at the shore of an ocean is better than sterile intellectualism.” ~Surajit Basak

I haven’t been to the ocean for a long time, but I know how to sit alone, breathing in and breathing out.
The problems are erased when you become aware of your living breath, then dead and useless thoughts disappear for a time.
The shore is where the ocean comes to cleanse everything in its reach. Thus so, your mind can be cleansed of all fears and worries by this simple habit.

Vicki Woodyard

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

That sentence is from Surajit Basak, who is no longer available to me via Facebook. Elvis has left the building, so to speak, but so has God. Anyhoo, we find ourselves in a very fine mess, as Ollie said to Stan (or maybe Stan said to Ollie) They were before my time and I never found them funny.

I have quite a few pages of our conversations and go back and read them from time to time. He told me that my suffering was enlightenment. Just so.

What has this suffering yielded but an ongoing search for truth?

We seek reality in an unreal world. What craziness!

I used to feel guilty for not cultivating a social circle. Might as well grow yams on Mars.

I had agoraphobia for years and years and years. It has fallen away and in its place is peace.

This peace cannot be understood, only experienced in bits and pieces.

I woke up before dawn this morning, excited that today I would get out of the house and let Rob drive me to do a few errands and then grab a meal somewhere.

We used to war against each other; now we both see “the terror of the situation,” as Gurdjieff put it. Rob refuses to talk about spiritual matters. Having grown up with both parents committed to the path, I am sure he just grew tired of the subject. He rides his bike daily and stays in good shape.

Both his grandfather and father died of the same cancer at the same age, even at the same time of year. And he is named after them. Neither of us speak of that. When I die, he will have no family in town.

But we are all wanderers on this journey back to the Self, which thrives on solitude.

Suffering is a speciality of mine, so I guess you could say that I am enlightened. You could say that, but you would be lying. All I know is that you can run away from suffering for just so long.

One fine day you let it happen in spite of your efforts to avoid it. You suffer wisely instead of stupidly and mechanically. You sit in silence and breathe. Not in a class on breathing but by yourself. End of essay.

Vicki Woodyard

“I see a sacred conduit (Vicki Woodyard) being asked to keep the energy moving from Source to Vicki to the rest of us. In writing, videos, contemplation and a million other ways she energetically expresses herself.”

Those kind words came from Jerry Mesner and I am re-inspired, so here goes my early Sunday musing on happiness, which for most of us is a byproduct.

I had my usual breakfast, a bowl of payment (I had thought I was typing “oatmeal” and that
 wonderful Dark Roast tea with no caffeine. Now I am in here “talking” freely, letting my fingers do the work.

I dreamed that I was in a crowded grocery at Christmas. I had come with my friend from junior high, Jeanne. The store was crowded and I was drawn to a display of gingerbread cookies. Some of them were broken because of their softness. I deliberated before choosing ones that were the fattest. Everything in the grocery was different; the aisles had been changed up.

When I finally got ready to go, I realized that I had forgotten to buy milk and now Jeanne and her family were already outside. Their car was built like a wooden house with additions on the side. I got in and that is all I remember.

In life, Jeanne died of ovarian cancer almost a decade ago, but now she was alive with a large family.

This morning when I got up I faced the difference in how I get out of bed and how I walk. The writing energy remains the same. I am here “to keep the energy moving from Source,” as Jerry put it. I had several typos as the tremor gets worse and I have to go back and correct.

Here is what Source tells me. Your brokenness makes you softer and your writing more delicious. A large amount of suffering yields the sweetness of the light all around you. Move within this light as often as you can remember.

The light is always in proportion to the darkness of the ego, so avoid negative thoughts and feelings. Of course you notice them and that noticing is the light surrounding you.

The Planet Earth is doomed and chained to its inhabitants. That is not gloom; it is the simple truth. “My kingdom is not of. This world.” Ponder the cause of your own inner darkness so that the light has a chance to help you.

Vicki Woodyard