I Am Here....

I am here to clothe my path in words to share with those who are interested. The path is itself silent and that is the paradox to be held in wordless awareness. There is a simple energy invested in what I write. I never write with anything but the intention to let it unfold anyway it wants. I accidentally typed “funfold” and had to correct it. But funfolding oughta be a word. I say that because following your intuition is following your bliss.

The door to the collective unconscious is always wide open, but who dares enter it? The price you pay for venturing inward is often great. The void is nothing but trouble until you let it do what it wants to with you. And what it wants is mysterious and golden. The mists of your past block its cry; so you must be adamant in your intention to just discover what is.

Right now a small bird is chirping outside the window. His sound sings of the mystery. One day he will fall from the sky and no one will be the wiser. That is a teaching.

Vicki Woodyard
http://www.bobwoodyard.com

August 20, 09--I just posted The Strongest Place on Audio. Give it a listen. I am certain that the truth is to be found there.

Are you willing to keep returning again and again to where you can never leave? If so, welcome to the select few who know that the game is worth the candle. Are you willing to be a total failure when it comes to “thinking your way out’? If so, locate your “I am” and become an iron filing to its magnetic appeal. It wants you more than Uncle Sam ever did.

By the way, leave a comment...

August 14, 09--The Imminent and the Transcendent is on Fishpond Thoughts. So what is going on with me, you ask? I was talking to the bagger while he loaded the groceries into my trunk. He was giving a talk on Numbers in the Old Testament at his church. I told him I didn’t know much about it and he told me briefly some of the things he had learned. All I said was....people don’t realize that they are being challenged daily just as the Biblical figures were. When you do your inner work, you realize this....

I had to go back for a diagnostic mammogram and am scheduled for an ultrasound on Monday. This happens to me every other year or so, but it always causes anxiety. Nothing I can do about it but try and relax...which is a spiritual exercise in awareness.

New Audio For You

I just uploaded You and Me Together on the Audio Page. I don’t know if you are tuned into my energy, but if not, this is as good an MP3 as any to experience it. It is how I enter the silence every morning and at other times throughout the day. Let me know if you enjoy it.

Seldom get comments on the blog....I may hang it up and just do the homepage. For what it's worth, writer's like comments and I am not set up to do then on the website...so this is your chance to communicate :)

Love, Vicki

Living Water

I want living water. What does that mean? It means that I must bring my own consciousness to every experience that I have. Nothing less will do any longer. There comes a time on the path when the call for living water is finally understood. It means I must allow God to be in me as me. This is not without a price. It comes with the loss of everything that is keeping you dead, or half-dead to the living reality of who you are.

There are many ways to keep drinking everything but living water. There are many ways to avoid looking at Christ in our own consciousness. If we looked correctly, we would have to follow the teachings of every awakened being that ever walked the earth. Each has said, in one way or another, “You are it.”

I can no longer ignore my own divinity because someone has a degree, a class or a book. I can no longer push down my desire to serve truth. I can no longer go in disguise as someone who is not devoted to truth. No, I must stand up and be counted in my own consciousness.

The mystery must be engaged fully. A great silence forms around these words as I write them. It is the silence of completion...of claiming my own part in the puzzle of life. The last piece was me.

Vicki Woodyard, http://www.bobwoodyard.com

No Third Choice

I have uploaded a new MP3 called No Third Choice on Audio. What’s going through your mind these days? Chances are it’s negative, limited and painful. I can say that because all personal thinking is. If you doubt it, spend a day watching your thoughts as they come and go, taking you with them. They are not taking you to enlightenment but to enfrightenment.

I spend a good bit of time in the silence and believe you me, there is nothing as opposite to ego-centered thought as silence. Apparently, silence has no problems ;)

In The Sorrowful Hour
No matter how one may have felt about Michael Jackson, watching the memorial service opened one’s heart chakra to an amazing degree...not unlike the service for Princess Diana. It is easy to see why.

In the sorrowful hour that we all face sooner or later, when a loved one has left the body, we face ourselves empty and alone. Tears fall and strangely enough, we are rendered kinder than we might have thought possible. Forgiveness rains onto the hard earth of the human heart. We need this.

Our culture does not know how to mourn; there is no tribal ritual until someone as famous as a Princess Diana or a Michael Jackson or an Elvis Presley dies. Then we unite via satellite hookups to shed virtual tears together. Strangely, they plop down our living human cheeks, and this is a good thing. A good thing indeed.

I don’t know what I thought about Michael Jackson and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I am a human living on this earth. Whoever takes us one step closer to each other is helping to heal the planet.

Our nature and our destiny are one. We are made of paradox and stardust. We rise and fall like waves and in rejoining the sea, there is somehow an exultation tied in with the tears.

Vicki Woodyard

By the Jugular

The piece below was inspired by this comment from Miriam Louisa (This Unlit Light)

“I have followed your work for some years - your writing in particular. It gets me by the jugular. I love the directness, the honesty, the humour.”

By the Jugular

The first time God got me by the jugular it was about my youngest child, my daughter. Seems He wanted me to give her back-soon. Tried for three years to keep her, but in the end it was His Call.

The second time it was about my husband, my mate of 38 years. Same vein, same reason. This time the trying went on for four and a half years, but in the end...time stood no chance against eternity.

These days I am aware that He is there with me, closer than my neck vein, as someone wrote. He wants me and He wants me now. Seems that was always what it was about. He is indeed The Hound of Heaven.

Why do I keep writing? Every now and then a vagrant wanders by and reads what I have written and it seems to make them remember something they have forgotten...that to be moved by the spirit one descends into the darkness so that he can look up at the stars.

Consider Everything as a New Beginning

Consider everything as a new beginning. Washing dishes for the first time. Sitting in silence as the world turns without any effort on your part. Do it with original mind.

You might see yourself for the first time when you look in the mirror or put on your shoes and socks. How about driving your car as if it were the first time. You would be slow and cautious more than likely. Would you be able to forget the past?

Beginner’s mind is something we have long forgotten. Try to have an empty mind.

See the world clearly with no judgement. Let it go on and on and on.

Listen to a fellow human being and let them go on and on and on.

Listen to your crazy mind and let it go on and on and on.

You are seeing and hearing it all for the first time.

Have you given up so completely that
you know you have....
that you know you are being blessed
by such surrender

The rose of awareness grows in the soil of surrendered thoughts.

There is a new MP3 called The Final Surrender on Audio.

June 13, 09--I’m uploading two more MP3s on Audio. They are Returning to I Am and Self-Damage Repair. I hope some of you are regular listeners by now. If you are, let me know.

So lately I have been going to a chiropractor for numbness in my right hand. Turns out I have thoracic outlet syndrome.That has caused me to lose some range of motion in my neck. When I am at the Mac, my hand tingles. I am hoping some exercising and time will improve it to some degree.

A feeling of lethargy has crept over me as I have spent two days a week at the chiro. I am exploring what can re-energize my creativity. I will begin with true confession. No matter how often I am advised to get out there in the world and mix it up, it ain’t gonna happen. I am happiest with my quiet life.

One question I struggle with is if I should be putting my essays into a book. But for that I would need an editor. If I could get a broom and sweep all of the essays into a neat little pile, that would help. As it is, they are strewn all over my Mac. Colorful scatter rugs of words everywhere. Macrame messages. Quilted quotes. Crewel questions. Embroidered emotions. Tapestry truths.... that's my Mac :)

A Mission Statement
Give Us What You’ve Got

“Give us what you’ve got” is the last sentence in The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

“Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

And that is what happens on this website week in and week out. Just me at the Mac decanting stuff from my psyche to yours. I consider this sacred space and have committed myself to its continuance.

It began as a trail of tears back and forth to the chemo room when my husband
was enduring multiple myeloma. It continues as my sole experience. But maybe it’s not. Maybe it belongs to each of us. I like to think so.


June 5, 09--It All Comes Down to Energy is on Fishpond Thoughts. I said it as succinctly as I could. What I am aiming at these days is brevity with the emphasis on an energetic understanding for the reader. You can't ever go over first principles too much. "I am that" is an example. You can mine for gold in that sentence till the sacred cows come home.

While waiting for dinner, I wrote this ;)

Stew bubbling on the stove
as I type letters randomly
assigned to have meanings.
as if I knew how to make
life a savory thing by
intention.

Potatoes are a peculiar kind
of offering to the body’s god of appetite.
Every lowly bite a prayer answered.

Vicki Woodyard

Somebody leave a comment and you get dessert :)

Thanks for your time.

May 29, 09--I just posted Your Body is Prime Real Estate on Fishpond Thoughts.
Connected with that is A Fruitful Darkness on Audio.

A new MP3 entitled Fitting In is on Audio. This week was heavenly. John Fox, of Poetic Medicine, held a two-day workshop at Cancer Wellness at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. This is my community and it has taken me a while to realize that. Even though I have only been a caregiver, cancer has had me up against the wall this lifetime. When we stumble, we are held in hope. When we falter, we are lifted up. To do that isn’t easy. Unless and until you have faced death head-on and been able to summon your inner child, you haven’t really lived. Wellness is about rebirth into your essence.

The Poetry Reading with John Fox was a highlight for me. Never have I felt so warmly welcome. In that circle sat a group of extraordinary people drawn together in a common cause. Not of fighting cancer but of healing into wholeness through our very own voices.

Each voice is heard at Cancer Wellness...not only heard but honored and encouraged....to say more. Listening is an art and John Fox’s Poetic Medicine is a master class in listening.

I am so happy to be a part of the family at Cancer Wellness. Here is a poem written there:

Come surrender now and it will
prove you wrong about why it took so long.

Not because you feared it but
because you feared the consequences
of love.

For love is just another word for letting go.
You think surrendered love is dangerous,
involving loss and loss and more loss.

You are right. It is the loss of everything
holding you back from the heritage of
the heart.

I have put my young daughter into the good earth
and then again her father when his time came.
I did not surrender them because I chose to
but because I appeared to be choiceless.

There has been no compensation
but the willingness to come raw
with my words to the ones who
can appreciate the sacrifice.

Vicki Woodyard

This is a public service announcement from the universe ;)

"There is only the Self. It is present in all beings. If you don’t get the message, relax. We are sending it to you all day long.

If you do get the message and forget that you got it, not to worry. We will resend it whenever you get ready to hear it."

Love,
The Universe

On that note, how is everyone doing? I am reading through some of my old archives and came across
that timely message. And I have correctly posted The Root of Suffering on Audio. Take time to listen.

Love, Vicki

How about a comment now and then....

I deleted The Root of Suffering (an MP3) when I saw that it wasn't opening properly. I guess you will just have to wonder what I said. But then again, maybe you already know.

Morning is green and dewy here down South. There's a mossy little bird nest on the front porch and a family of woodpeckers living in the cedar siding. I just paid quite a bit for a painter to come out and replace the cedar that a pileated woodpecker had lunch on. That sentence ended with a preposition and his lunch ended up being quite expensive for me. Such is life.

May 1, 2009--I am slowly getting back to my writing and recording. Sometimes we must take a breathing spell and this has been such a time for me. Everything comes up for review after the windstorm of loss has blown some landmarks down. What next, asks the battered and weary pilgrim, what next? The MP3, A Personal Update, speaks to that.
Love, Vicki

I just uploaded The Tightrope and The Guru’s Question to Audio.
Here is a one liner that came to me recently:

Illusion is not on my side.

Even when I think otherwise, there is nothing I can think that thinks me out of fear and illusion.
(You may have to read this again ;)

Would like some reader comments on my audios now and again. Anybody up for that?

I took a slow walk today and thanked all of the azaleas, irises, etc. for their true colors. Such beauty.

I think all of us are beautiful when we manage to show our true colors. It comes with a price, doesn't it?

I have never liked the world; it has cost me far too much. There is a poem that you probably know, The Hound of Heaven. In it, it says nature can be a hideout from God. Ultimately we go to Him naked and He restores to us all we thought we had lost. However, sometimes that is just a noble sentiment. And we need to mourn our losses as regularly as we give thanks for our blessings. Maybe that is how they become the same....just a thought.

Another line of Francis Thompson that I like says something like this...
"The drift of pinions, would we harken,
beats at our own clay-shuttered doors."


Thanks and love,
Vicki

Resurrection Morning

Sometimes those two words ring hollow to the human spirit. Right now I feel as hollow as a chocolate bunny. Had a virus last week that has made me feel quite weak. This allowed the grief for my mother and husband to gang up on me. I managed to cook a balanced meal and choke it down. Only the romaine salad tasted good. Suddenly I felt the tears welling up and there was nothing I could do to hold them back. My nose, red as a cherry, now swelled to comic proportions. Tomorrow is Easter and I am in mourning for lost human love. Yes, that happens to those on the path, believe you me.

The Masters is being telecast from Augusta; my husband and son went there together for several years. They even went after Bob was diagnosed with his cancer. Gently, son took father around the course. Hard to even type the words. Beloved family, cherished memories....it’s quite all right to mourn consciously. I smile upwards and cry for light as I go on alone.

If anyone out there finds this hard to read, they have never walked away from the cemetery alone. Oh, Easter will dawn again and again and life rebuds and bursts forth continuously. But there is a gentle Jesus in each of us who weeps with us even while He knows it is only a story.

Wow, was I ever hit by a bug. This is the first time I have been sick since Bob died...well over four years. My son had a virus and I picked it up. It started as a sore throat and has now moved into my chest. Yesterday I went to the doctor for some medication. First off, she told me that my blood pressure was too high. Then she gave me a short course of antibiotics and some cough syrup. Last night I was really scared. My trachea was so itchy I wondered if I was having some kind of allergic reaction. I took a couple of Benadryl just in case and slept sitting up. This morning I had lost my voice from all of the coughing. I called my neighbor and asked her if she would go to the pharmacy and get something else my doctor had recommended to break up the cough.

She got that and it began to work immediately. She also left some soup with it, so hopefully I am on the mend. I am pondering the imponderables, as usual. Wondering what else I need to know besides the fact that I am? That is the short course taught by the universe. Just look in, look up and......look out!

Until next time...when hopefully I will have gotten my voice back....

A Bonus Piece

Life is neither linear or static; it is evanescently eternal. So much for book knowledge about who and what we are. As I find myself recuperating from a dreadful little virus, I sit at the kitchen table and sip some warm milk laced with honey. I find myself saying to the space where Bob used to sit, “I’m sorry I wasn’t always sympathetic when you were ill.” Suddenly I am alive with compassion for the no-longer-living. Is that a waste of time; I don’t think so.

Each life is art contemplated in fragments from something cut from compassion (if we are lucky). I have draped myself in my grubby little neck warmer and am waiting for bedtime. So what if I contemplate infinity while appearing both mortal and more than a little miserable. Maybe someone in deep space nine is missing me tonight. I don’t know; I just made that up. Writers can take liberty with words.

Bob and I had a pretty good marriage. It had a run of almost thirty-eight years. Many of those years were concerned with death and dying. Had I known, I probably would not have married him, but then again, we haven’t any free will. So what is must be.

I have been plodding along the spiritual path for millennia more than likely. Little progress has been made unless you can count perseverance. I have loads of that. I know what it is like to shoulder the burden of the cross only because you are choiceless. It must be done. Let’s get on with it. This is not morbidity but design. And He who writes the script also writes the score and provides the wardrobe. My neck wrap is part of the plan. And so is my sturdy blue bathrobe and my solitary life. I would trade it all for Cloud Nine, but it’s probably already taken.

April 2, 09--Take a Stand for Healing

My words don’t fall into a vacuum but into the heart of the reader. That is why I let my intuition do the work. Maybe there is someone reading this who knows what it is to lose a loved one. I try to show through the skin of my words the body of wholeness that can survive grief. Not only survive but give the gift of survival to others. For losing a part of oneself leads to the discovery that everything is connected by love.

Often, make that daily, I fall victim to my mind. It tells me that I am alone and in need. But behind the mind is a power called awareness that goes before us to make the crooked places straight. I sit in the silence to let that power predominate. And it always does. Oh, I may have to sit for half an hour, but eventually I will come again to peace.
Take a Stand for Healing

My mother died last month and all of March has been a hassle. My house is reflecting her loss by offering up rotten boards and has been visited by a pileated woodpecker. So now I have to deal with that. But life is proclaiming spring to the weary spirit. Every tree is bowing down before the principle of renewal, offering their buds to those who are suffering failure, discouragement or loss.

It is time we shared all of life as one; we do this in order to take a stand for healing. Whenever we fall into a pit of despair, somewhere a prayer is going up to heaven. I don’t say this to be corny but to reveal how far down I have sunk into the pit. The very worst was when Bob was first diagnosed. He lay in the hospital doomed to death and I became his caregiver. I didn’t do such a hot job, truth to tell. My cancer experience was an emotional one, living to tell the tale of how we went through it all together. In the end I sat and slept alone, but determined to share my passion of writing as he wanted me to do.

So we are never alone; we just feel that way. So if you are reading this and nodding your head in any way at all, good for you. You are human and that is no picnic. Once you take to the spiritual path, it becomes a crucifixion of the ego and a rebirth into unity. And it takes the rest of your life. So that is the worst of it. The best of it is that you know when someone is using you, abusing you, ignoring or not loving you. And you want more from life than that. You want to serve love. The very desire moves you into action. Each word written in this essay has been straight from the place of truth. I found it in the midst of suffering and love prevailed.