News and Updates

Not through effort but through awareness.
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.

*****
July 3, 09--

The piece below was inspired by this comment from Miriam Louisa, who writes a lovely blog called "This Unlit Light." I am honored to be one of the Wide Awake Women she has chosen.

“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.

June 27, 09--

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 20, 09--

My spiritual teacher appeared to me in a dream after his death. These were his words, “Don’t be so accommodating; act a little tough.” I knew what he meant. I had spent my life as a people-pleaser. But that time has passed. I want to be a self-pleaser, a God-pleaser. And so staying with myself means
that I must choose to be conscious.

People-pleasing arises from ego. Choosing to love yourself is the same thing as consciously loving the world, for world and self are one. There is a touchstone for living the truth and it is this, “If it is right for me, it’s right.” That is because if something is wrong for me, it’s wrong, period.

Energy is neutral at its source and we are its source! As we turn within and refuse shelter from anything that is wrong for us in any way at all, we become channels of pure grace. Intellectual dissection and discussion do not move energy. Love is the prime mover and must not be discussed but experienced. Those that discuss don’t want to move with the intuitive wash of grace. They want to get their pant legs wet when they could be dissolving into the ocean of the all.

*****

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 :)

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.
VW

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

May 20, 09--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

*****

May 14, 09--Memo From God

I got a memo from God. “Move into the now immediately.”

I looked at the small slip of paper and wondered how He ever thought I was going to accomplish that. But I said yes. I forced myself away from the past and future and boldly stepped into now. The space felt much too small. I could hardly think; I was so busy accommodating myself to the present moment.

God smiled down on me. “Look, Vicki,” He said, “Now you are breathing and swallowing and seeing....and everything you need is right here, including Me!”

I was panicking at that point, struggling to return to the womb of yesterday. I was hysterically trying to get back to what I thought was home.

God smiled again. “Vicki, Vicki,” He said gently but firmly. “Where you are is home.”
I could go on and on about how God moved me into His Living Presence but you get the picture.
And it’s not on Snapfish. Or maybe it is. The last thing God whispered in my ear was that
paradox is just another word for paradise.

May 8, 09-- 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

*****
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. Go to Audio and you will find it, along with The Root of Suffering.

Love, Vicki

April 25, 2009--Please read That Chair and Written on April 25, 2009.

That Chair--*Written in 2006

My friend Jeanne has just had surgery for ovarian cancer. I am weeping as I write. Her husband Joe said, "I like being a caregiver, but I am going to have to let Jeanne tell me what she wants."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "for instance, there was a chair in the hospital room and before she tried to get out of bed, I wanted to move it out of the way for her. She said, "If I haven't tripped over it yet, I’m not going to trip over it now."

Jeanne can always make me laugh. She told me that she was going to fight for her life. She has had breast cancer twice and been cancer-free for over twenty years. We went to junior high school together and were best friends. We reunited this summer; not having seen each other in some forty-odd years. "Maybe we can be friends in our old age," she said.

"Do we have to have matching notebooks?" I asked her.

"Only if I get to pick them out," she said. It was a reunion made in heaven. She said that she would be here for me as I went through my husband's cancer. More tears. Like that chair, I am just going to let them be there.

Vicki Woodyard

*Written on April 25, 2009

I just got the call. Jeanne died this morning after a long battle against her cancer. I wept tears coming from the deepest place inside of me...the place where junior high school friends become what they now call“bff's"...best friends forever.

Jeanne always did it her way. As I wept into the phone, Joe told me that she wanted her ashes to be scattered in the backyard. At her memorial service there will be songs from the old Methodist hymnal she loved so much.

I told my son the news and these were my thoughts about my friend Jeanne. She spoke from her heart, which is a rare gift. She lived with boldness and was one of the most sentimental people I have every met. She celebrated eccentricity and thrived on the truth.

Each life gifts itself back to the earth when its cycle is complete. As my friend Lorin Roche says, “The earth takes dead bodies and makes trees and flowers out of them.” Jeanne knew that.

Vicki Woodyard

April 17, 09

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
of that thinks me out of fear and illusion.

I wrote and shared this with someone...

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

Yes....

*****

April 12--I posted a brief essay on Fishpond Thoughts. It is called The Eagle-An Intuitive Tale. Also, I am relinking you to The Bliss of Being on Fishpond. For some reason I never linked to it. Next week there will be two more MP3s. I woke up feeling much better today.

April 11, 09--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.

Love, Vicki

April 8, 09--The Short Course

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.

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.

*****

Mar. 27, 09--What I do isn’t important; it is who I am that counts. The world teaches us just the opposite. We are given gold stars for our good performances and minuses when we fail. But there comes a time on the spiritual path when the battle between being and doing rages. Something arises that puts our belief in being to the test. We are asked to do something we either don’t want to do or can’t do. The result is guilt. No longer innocent, we enter the arena of thought to help us secure some peace.

But thought is the weapon of unconscious forces, which are always divided. What do you really want to do? Chances are that you don’t know. That is the confused mental state in which we live. God calls us to come up higher, to the level of awareness, which is undivided.

True prayer is calling on being instead of thought. God, help me to see my wholeness. It doesn’t matter what I do when I am living in my head; it will continue to hurt me.

There is a set of two MP3's on Audio....Neverending Story and Light in Darkness.

*****

Mar. 23, 09--I uploaded The Death of Illusion on Audio. In it I reference what happened at the Marriott Courtyard. I have spoken of this before, but for readers who don’t know, I will tell the story in a nutshell. In 2004 my husband died and he was buried in Memphis, Tennessee, two days before Christmas. An ice storm hit the city during his funeral and my son and sister and cousin and I were marooned there until Christmas Day. After the funeral, I wondered outloud as we ate breakfast how we would get a Christmas Eve meal. Mary, who was a cook and server there, offered to come in and prepare and share a meal with us. So there in an empty lobby, the five of us ate a Christmas Eve dinner. It turned out that her son had also been a patient at St. Jude’s but he was alive. At that point, we all recognized the miraculous quality of the night. I think it only happened because everything had been swept away...we were in the void...and that is where miracles happen. So give it a listen...

March 20, 09- Picnic

When we find ourselves at a low ebb, it is important to let it be. It is human nature to fight against the current, but wisdom would have us rest within ourselves and let the tide come back in naturally.

I find myself in springtime feeling like winter. A sage once suggested that when we are low, we should embrace that very state. That is because effort and struggle backfire; hence the principle of tao.

Tao counsels us to yield and that is hard for the ego to “do.” It is much happier when it is in control. God calls us to yield to circumstance in the right way. Sometimes resting within one’s wholeness is the only answer that is needed.

I was getting a drinking glass out of the dishwasher last night and it shattered onto the floor of the appliance. I tried to pick it up piece by piece but that proved to be impossible. I am going to ask a neighbor if he can come over and use his shop vac to do it more efficiently. In the meantime, I went and bought some paper plates and plastic utensils.

Maybe a picnic is just what I need. Come back anytime to read and listen. I am here.

Mar, 13, 09- When You are Sinking in the Sea of Samsara (or when you have the blues)

People sing the blues to achieve harmony where they feel it has been lost. They riff rough notes of discord into the blue notes that heal them. This makes perfect sense to me. I have been doing this for a long time. When my mother died at age 87, I picked up the old guitar again and begin to sing the blues....in order to heal.

We will never escape disharmony while on the earth plane; it is inevitable. But when you learn the secret of singing the blues, you are David playing his harp. You are doing what God would have you do.

So let me pluck a few notes in order to regain my sense of harmony...

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child....I checked a book out from the library called The Orphaned Adult. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it is a book of wisdom and solace. Having come into this world via parents, we will more than likely outlive them. So as I placed my hand on my mother’s ashes, I was touching eternity.

Touching eternity, or the timeless moment, brings one into God’s time, kairos. Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment, as opposed to chronos--time which is measured by the clock and the calendar. That is one reason that people in grief lose their appetite and find they can’t fall asleep. Something is afoot that is not of their own choosing. God’s Hand has reached down and scooped up someone who gave you life. And you feel like singing the blues.

Now you are rocking yourself in the rhythm of love. You could be B. B. King or Little David playing his harp. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you come back into harmony with who you really are.

Suddenly, you know it is quite appropriate to sing the blues. When you are dancing with sorrow, the angels sing. I don’t mean clutching it to you, or carrying it too long, I am talking about wailing consciously....surrendering control in order to regain your balance. You might even take it out on the dance floor of the cosmos. Who knows...stars may give you the nod. The man in the moon might wink at you. But one thing I know....you have a right to sing the blues.

*****
Mar. 6, 09--I just made and uploaded The Crawl Space on Audio. Give it a listen and let me know if it was helpful for you. I’ve got more MP3’s in the queue, but this is the one I wanted to use today. It can be played whenever you want to unwind a bit.

March 4, 09--The Rising

I attended my mother’s funeral. Everything rose in love, was transformed and redeemed.
When it fell to earth again, it was soft like spring rain. Everyone learned that the circle is unbroken.

Johnny and June Carter Cash are singin’ the old songs. Elvis is alive and well and
the Prince of Peace showed up as only He could. How did He manifest, you may well
wonder.

He did it in sun and rain and shadow and pain. He did it in forgiveness, mercy
and remembrance.

The last supper at the Marriott Courtyard was held again, just as it was when
my husband died in 2004. We broke bread and drank iced tea. We told family
tales and wept some damned fine tears.

Hallelejuah. We are all risen.

Note: Believe it or not, we were marooned at the Marriott just as we were when my husband
was buried in 2004. Sleet fell the night he died and kept us close at the Courtyard.
This time we buried my mother and snow closed down the town and kept us huddled
in the spirit. I wrote The Rising as an exercise in faith and it manifested.

I am anxious to post an MP3 but I must rest up for a bit. Love to you all....Vicki

*****

Feb. 23,09--My mother died this afternoon. The following essay was written yesterday. I dedicate it
to her memory.

On Hold

My life has been on hold for almost two weeks. My mother is slowly leaving the body.
Her family holds its collective breath as she fights for hers. At eighty-seven, she is
quite ready to leave Planet Earth. As Lorin Roche said to me in an email,

"Honor each feeling, the rage and grief.

Know that as you pay attention to each uncomfortable feeling, no matter how
awful, over time the built-in love, within awareness, will gradually
transmute the emotion into something positive.

The earth takes dead bodies and makes flowers and grass and trees out of
them."

Our time here sometimes speeds by and often it drags or is suspended. It is in the
latter that we are touched with the deeper reasons why we took our human births.

We look inside and discover we have always been here for ourselves. We are
being fed by a pure underground stream of love. We dip our face into it and see our beauty,
perhaps for the first time. We hear our voice lift in love for we have found our essence.

It never leaves the body because it was never in the body. We just thought it was.

My sister speaks of a hurried meal of a burger and ice cream before she heads
back to the nursing home to sit with our mother. That is traveling food. What we want is
nectar of the gods. It is from within our own hearts that this manna falls.

If you would feed the multitude, become yourself. There is no hurry, but when it happens,
you will smile through your tears. Love is between us, around us and hidden in the mirror.
We are not the dust that covers it; we are immortals grieving for the loss of the temporal.

One prayer I leave with you might be this: Let me know myself before it is too late.
Let me bow down to the god within that needs my hand to serve it.

Feb. 20, 09--The Essay I Don’t Want to Write

This title may arouse your curiosity; it has mine. As I write intuitively, we are both reading it for the first time. It’s about facing yourself. Last night my son took me to hear Krishna Das. It was a lovely evening of kirtan...him leading the audience in chant and response. I had never had this experience before and it was powerful. It lasted almost three hours and at the end, as the last strains of his harmonium died away, a rich silence was felt. It rang with inner music.

The words that KD spoke were self-deprecating and far-reaching. He said he hung out at the back of the temple where his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, and his disciples were. He was, he said, “at the back of the temple in his inner darkness.” He said with a soft laugh that outer darkness is nothing compared to the inner. Everyone can relate to that.

At another point in the music, he also said that all of us have to be forced to serve God.

A truth like that needs lots of space around it.

He speaks of western culture teaching us to be too hard on ourselves. We have to let go and trust ourselves and our lives. Use the letting go muscle.

I read a few articles about him today about how he knew he had to begin singing in America to people who hadn’t known him in India. He offered himself up and the rest is history.

I called this the essay I don’t want to write because I know I haven’t really done this yet.

When I do, there will be lots of space around me.

*****

My mother is in the last days of her terminal cancer. I received a powerful message
from a sage today: “Forgive the cancer.”

Sit with that and be healed.

If you want to write me, here I am.

*****

Several days ago I learned that my mother has terminal cancer. As you can imagine, I have shed some tears. At first the doctor said she had less than a month; but today he sent her back to the nursing home where she lives. He told my sister to take it one day at a time. As some of you know, it was my sister who sat with Bob as he made his transition. My mother is in good hands, as Amma is her guru and watches over us all.

I spoke with my dearest friend about whether or not I should visit my mother. It is a long fly-drive and the weather is frigid. More than that, I saw her this summer and have lovely memories of that, which will turn out to be the last time I saw her in good health. She is 87 and has been the family matriarch for a good many years.

My friend said this to me: “You ARE sitting with the dying. You sit with it every day. And then you write. And then if someone is open enough, they read it and understand. The
work you do is for those left behind. Making the unbearable bearable.”

I love you all and will continue to be here....will you?

*****

Feb. 14, 09--Happy Valentine’s Day...I went to Dunkin’ Donuts for a dozen and obviously they are more popular than roses...because I ended up with the last few they had, practically. Bitterly disappointed to get only one chocolate one...and some I didn’t like especially. But then I never met a donut I didn’t like.

I didn’t see Larry and Ruin in there. It’s a sad day when you don’t see them at DD or Walmart...

I don’t have any new material this week. Visit your self consciously instead and be your own valentine.

Love and powder sugar hugs...Vicki

Feb. 6, 09--Someone asked me to talk about inner peace and the result is two new MP3’s. They are Part I: The Spiritual Snag and Part II: Mount "I Want To, But I Can't". Rather than me trying to explain them, why not just go to Audio and listen. If you have a subject you would like to hear me discuss, I want to hear from you.

I have been cooking my brains out-everything from Peanut Butter Bars to Chicken Tortilla Soup. It’s too cold to do much else. I have been reading through some old Swami Z material and I think it’s time to reprise him. So stay tuned.

*****

January 29, 2009--In Days of Great Peace is on Fishpond Thoughts and an MP3 by that name is on Audio. It's not the same copy, so give it a listen.

1/22/09--I wrote the essay below quickly, as I do everything I write. It always feels good to let the truth speak itself, even if it is against yourself. I am glad you liked reading a new essay on Fishpond. Well, you did, didn't you :) Here is my MP3 for the week: By Her Grace (A Hershey Kiss from Heaven). It's a look back at a spiritual memory. Taste it on your tongue.

Experiencing Resistance

I picked up The War of Art and began reading it. I had ordered it on the suggestion of a friend who knew I was experiencing resistance in regard to my writing. In less than ten minutes I was hit by an avalanche of understanding....about every negativity I had in relation to Bob’s illness. The author had explained it all.

Not only was I devastated by the diagnosis of “incurable,” I was devastated by my own reaction to my new job as caregiver. I didn’t want to do it. I was furious, rageful and downright disgusted. Surely I would not be asked to shepherd a second family member through a fatal cancer. But I had been picked by the Ironic Selection Committee to do just that.

I felt guilty almost every day at the fact that I was mad as hell about this cancer. Sometimes I would look at my husband and vow he was making it all up just to bring me down. Really. I was that distraught.

What I read in The War of Art is how every noble endeavor arouses resistance, and being a caregiver pushed every button I had so carefully hidden. Instead of feeling guilty, I should have felt the truth of what God was asking me to do....care for a beloved spouse when his time had come.

And so I began....and in that beginning I received my true calling....to write about the very experiences I was resisting so mightily. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I chronicled our experiences with what would turn out to be almost a five-year-battle with multiple myeloma. On December 20, 2004, the cancer won. I surrendered my husband to the good earth and walked on alone.

But now I am partnered with my calling, an inexorable march into the heart of fear. For only in that will I hear God saying to me, Well done.

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January 16, 2009--Finally, there is a new essay called The Bliss of Being on Fishpond. And when you have read that, I uploaded a new MP3 on Audio.
It’s called How to Forgive Yourself.

Traffic is down; don’t be a stranger...or don’t be any stranger than you already are.
Check back for more goodies or you will have to stay after class and clean my erasers.

January 9, 2009--Lizelle Reymond wrote a book called To Live Within. It is the master’s job to move us into our rightful real estate, which is inside. So I consider that a true calling...to let it be known that all problems must be resolved within. Joel Goldsmith had a list of “Wisdoms,” one of which said that all conflicts must be resolved within. Where else?

Within is where it all begins. Nothing grows from outside in. Nothing. Do you remember how, as a child, you were rocked to sleep in loving arms? If you do, you know that the feeling of comfort arose within your tiny soul. If you were not loved in that way, despair could have arisen in the same place. We are the ones who know the way home. We must travel the interminable distance between head and heart. We will know when we arrive. At that point, the teachings will have born fruit and the ring will be on your finger. The father inside will have blessed you and the mother within will have reclaimed you.

No fresh MP3 this week, but let me know if you have a subject you would like to heard discussed. In the meantime, be still and know yourself as the author of everything in your life.

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January 5, 2009--Three of my articles are featured in Kajama.com this week! Click on "The Little Things". Also, I am featuring my Sleep CD. It's very good if you have insomnia, even occasionally. Not to mention that you go to sleep listening to the voice of truth.....

January 2, 2009--I have added a new feature to Audio. It is a section called Questions where listeners may email with a subject they would like discussed. There are two waiting for you....

December 30, 2008--There is little that excites me outside of walking the path. Without the way, where would we be? But the path is difficult and exacting, until the moment that spiritual relief occurs. And this cannot be manipulated or artificially attained. Grace ushers us into the presence of God in its own sweet time. And we are trained to wait patiently rather than storming heaven.