The Ultimate Intimacy
News and Updates
Vicki Woodyard
There is no charge for what I offer, but
donations are gratefully accepted.
Thank you.
June 12, 2008--Bob Fergeson's Mystic Missal newsletter is about J. G. Bennett this month. A great read. And here is something funny from his humorous quotes...Blog Alert
The blogger is at work. Enter at your own risk.
Not through effort but through awareness.
August 16, 2008--I came out of meditation and wrote A Silken Quilt and posted it on Fishpond. I also posted it on Spiritual Sisters. Jane Mullikin, who runs it, wrote this:
"I love the visual it created for me; so then I listened to the new
audio, Dying to Oneself, and stopped to admire Bob's final leaf.
It all inspired me to celebrate the completeness of life's cycle. Thank
you so much."
I hadn't realized what theme I was portraying as I made the audio last night and wrote the essay today. Spirit speaks words we do not write on our own.
August 15, 2008--Dear Ones,
Apparently the month of August is slow for being online. I have been hard at work learning how my new Mac operates. I have also been organizing my audio files.
Is anyone interested in having an email conversation with me? I am always here...it's as easy as that.
At one time I ran a Yahoo list, but it took up a lot of time.
I just recorded Dying to Oneself and put it on Audio.
Love, Vicki
August 13, 2008--I made a boo boo when I uploaded the three new MP3's and accidentally loaded one twice. Please return to the Audio Page and listen to the first three. They are now in right order.
August 12, 2008--I am limping along on the new Mac. The learning curve is steeper than I thought. I have managed to upload three crisp and fresh MP3's straight from the orchard. Enjoy them here.
Our Entree into Ecstasy
A reader said my words were about “ecstatic self-awareness.” It has taken me a while to fit that into a meaningful framework to share with people. How can I embody such a loaded phrase? Only by being it. The same goes for us all. Being is our entree into ecstasy.
When you take to the spiritual path in true seriousness, your soul is delighting in itself. The world is not into this. Not at all. It is into separation. Self-awareness is about unity.
When you enter into a state of conscious self-unity, every problem is resolved. Of course, to do this requires every ounce of delusion that you are harboring. And our delusional state is called “thinking.”
Thought cannot enter the kingdom of self-awareness.
August 1, 2008--I am doing catchup work on the site. I just added two audios that should be listened to as a set. They are The Breath of God and A Fierce Silence on Audio.
They are both personal in nature yet, for me, contain a great deal of truth. If you are so moved, send an email to me and let me know if you are enjoying them and if there is anything you would like to hear me talk about. Writers and readers need to have direct communication and this is one way to do it...
July 31, 2008--My Mac crashed bigtime, which is why I haven't updated lately. I brought it home tonight, only to find out that the problem had not been fixed. So I may be getting a replacement for it. So on to catching up....
The Mac crashed again, but I was able to reboot it. It gave me a chance to use the audio below as a reconnection to myself. It appears that we are in a relationship with God, but it is really one thing. Only unity resolves our suffering.
Here is a meaningful new MP3 called A Blissful Relationship on Audio. If you understand the gist of it, you understand more about the importance of spiritual friendship. We are spiritual friends here. That means our understanding of how things really work in this world throws us back on ourselves. Relationships then are seen as mirrors of how close we are to the Self.
A new essay is below:
The Only Real Relationship
The only real relationship I have is with God. All others only mirror that. To know that is ecstacy. To forget it is to enter the hell of expectation. To think that someone outside of ourselves can fulfill us or cause us suffering. The bliss of the Self is everpresent.
The ego thinks it is capable of relationship and tries its best to create slews of new ones so it can be popular. Or it shrinks from them in the hopes that the pain will go away or not begin in the first place.
I often think of that prophetic phrase, “Every bed eventually grows narrow.” How true. But the psalmist David says,
“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.“ Psalm 139:8. His Friendship never falters. How do we gain it? We can’t and we shouldn’t try. It’s enough to take comfort in the fact.
Our support systems collapse on us by the hour. Our bodies are failing us one day at a time. But God has given us a way out and that is a friendship with Him. I can put away the mirror and rest
in this relationship. Beauty beholds itself only in the mirror of the Everlasting One. Drink it in.
*****
Read the reprise of Wounded Healer on Fishpond Thoughts.
Read the reprise of Summer with Swami Z on Satsang with Swami Z.
July 15, 2008--July 15, 2008
I am experiencing the deepest peace of my life (the deepest piece of my life as well). Thirty years have passed since the death of my seven-year-old daughter from cancer. She was torn from me, leaving a brutal scar on my spirit.
Recently I wrote Breathing Room. It was born in silence and was totally healing for me. As I hear the computer keys clacking away, there is only silence. As some sage said, “How can it be otherwise?”
Last night I took a walk and came back in and recorded it. A chapter has ended and a new one has begun.
Morning has broken.
July 14, 2008--
You don't have to have a cat to hear life purr...
or a weeping willow to hear it cry...
Breathing Room is also featured here: http://www.soulscode.com. Read it and leave a comment for me to discover. Thank you....and love, Vicki
July 10, 2008--Here is a new audio for you.....A Teacher Is A Doorway Through on Audio.
As in all of the MP3's, this one will take you through your suffering into awareness of it. Sounds grim but it's the only true way out....
July 8, 2008--
So I’m sitting in the ashes of my life this Monday morning. Lying, actually. I woke up early, ate oatmeal and went back to bed. Cried. Felt like Mrs. Job. Thought about the phoenix of awareness rising from the ashes of ego and decided to get up after all.
It’s muggy and boring and raining tears. My eyelashes are windshield wipers clearing the tears as I drive myself down the highway of “this hand I’ve been dealt.” It feels sucky. It really does.
Maybe God already knows this. Should I ask Him. He wouldn’t answer, now would He. And He is maybe a She or an It. Somehow life goes on, rumbling down the interstate of chaotic emotions or trundling down a quiet lane of somnolence.
No matter how you slice it, this is Life 101. Shall we take the course or postpone it until next time around? Whaddya think?
July 7, 2008--You can be it but you can't do it.
July 6, 2008--It's not about "me"; it's about "I."
July 5, 2008-A Remedy for Suffering
Seeing costs you the level on which you were wounded. Rise above it. How, do you ask, can I rise above my heartache or my hurt feelings? You were hurt on the mental/emotional level. When you rise into awareness, you have left the lower level behind. You can no longer get satisfaction from discussing the wound. Anyway, it's healed now! Of course you forget, but you can repeat the exercise over and over. When you feel hurt about anything, know it is an emotional wound that begs for awareness. Once you reach awareness, the hurt falls away of itself. No kidding. It's a miracle.
*****
July 1, 2008--I wrote something new for Spirituality Light. Enjoy. It's light summer reading. In the meantime, listen to some audio as well. I will be home over the long weekend, more than likely feeding my face....what are you going to do besides suffer?
June 26, 2008--I often fall victim to myself.
June 25, 2008--A true teaching is a LIVE WIRE. Listen to the whole story on Audio.
June 20, 2008--There is a new MP3 called The Void on Audio.
We are all alike. We can't just sit down and shut up. Too bad. God loves a good listener.
June 18, 2008--
"We must present ourselves to the world and we
must look upon it as an adventure." From Miss Potter.
I loved the Miss Potter movie and the quote above. On the personality level, she seemed quiet and yet she calmly spoke her truth when she needed to do so. I like that. It is far harder than one would think to represent the truth without quailing. Especially one’s quirky personal truth. I have spent much of life regretting my introversion, but alas, regret changes nothing. When I discovered I could write my quirks, I was a happy camper. Then Swami Z and the gang came along and I could project my truth onto them. These are heart teachings presented through Swami and they are as palatable as his cookies.
I haven’t written anything new about him lately. Should I? Here is a reprise of a Swami Z piece.
“Self-revision is an impossibility yet change happens. “
Vicki Woodyard
Swami Z is fond of pointing out my foibles. One that comes to mind is how resistant I am to change. It is no accident that the swami who came to live with me thrives on variety and spontaneity. He seems to be channel-surfing my mind and finding nothing of interest. He peers into my face as if it were a TV set. I am tempted to camp it up a bit.
“Swami, I vant to be alone,” I said. I smoked an imaginary cigarette and did a slinky walk, a la Greta Garbo. “I want to be alone, too,” he chuckled. He plunked down on the sofa and went into what looked like samadhi.
Undaunted, I sat down beside him. “I vant to be alone more than you vant to,” I said, ramping up my camp even more.
“You were born alone and you will die alone. And in between, you got me, babe.” My goodness, he knew about Sonny and Cher? From the beginning I had thought of Swami and I as a team, but more like Frick and Frack or Ethel and Fred. Nothing glam about either one of us. We favor the plainer things in life. Swami’s one extravagance is fresh flowers. He will buy them from almost any street- corner vendor. It’s a lovely thing, actually. I had never considered myself worthy of fresh flowers.
“Vicki,” he said, clearing his throat. I knew that I was about to hear something that would displease me. “I want you to tell me your New Year’s resolutions.”
“I haven’t made any, Swami. You know people never keep them.”
“Make one up,” he said with a mock sternness.
“I will change from an introvert to an extrovert this year,” I said, wondering where those words came from.
“Good idea,” he said. “Good idea. I’m planning on changing into a duckling.”
“Super,” I said, not knowing anything else to say.
Later, over macaroni and cheese we planned on how we would carry out our resolutions. I was going to charm school, but Swami was going crazy. That much was obvious.
" The very poor are strictly materialistic. It takes money to be a mystic.
" When the situation is desperate, it is too late to be serious. Be playful." - Edward Abbey
I asked Swami Z if he would agree with that last sentence. He said that living with me was a sentence. What kind of guru is he, anyway? Thank God he makes good cookies because he sure as heck doesn't make sense. If you want to read any of the drivel I write about him, click here, but only if you have time to waste.
June 6, 2008--Here is a playful little essay called God Is So Real....
God is so real He’s in the room with me. When I cook, He comes in to watch. As I eat, he looks on. Oatmeal, to God, is interesting. I like that about Him. He is even interested in what I think about. In the morning my thoughts are about Him and He loves that. After breakfast, I sit in my chair in the kitchen and meditate. That time is His and He gets real close to me and snuggles up. I feel His Breath as my own.
By lunchtime I have usually forgotten Him. That is because He doesn’t require much attention. He is content to hang out with me, as if He doesn’t have better things to do. I hear that He hangs out with you, too, which makes me a little jealous. This is not very Biblical, but I hear He digs krumping and reruns of I Love Lucy...I mean, who wouldn’t?
Actually we humans are comic relief for Him as well as His Beloveds. He spends days and nights in ICU’s of every description and get this, He even makes house calls. I know He hangs out with harlots and concubines, but He loves ordinary people like me as well. That is because I tell Him what’s on my mind. I want to know Him better, but He isn’t on Facebook or stuff. Some say His Face is on a shroud, but that has never been proven. To that, I say, so what. The best things in life cannot be proven. I am sure you don’t believe a word of this essay, for example. And you shouldn’t.
God knows what we need before we need it. That blows my mind. Sometimes we need to take on something new, so He sends us challenges. Some of them are horrific and others are small. I have experienced both and it is never good to reason with Him. He knows best.
He is the realest when I forget He is near. Sometimes I feel Him breathing down my neck when I am out walking. He wants me to share my delight with Him, to stop and thank Him for making grass grow greener in the spring. It has nothing to do with fertilizer...at least I don’t think it does. One time I tried to kiss God but I couldn’t see His Face. Now I am looking for His Face and seeing it everywhere. Sometimes He has a runny nose.
*****
June 1, 2008--I just uploaded a meditation on how to end suffering. I had no idea what words would arise, but I was feeling a powerful silence around them, which is a good sign. You may listen to it on Audio. I have been writing and recording more than usual. Enjoy....
Here is a small essay on Spirituality Light. It's called "God...."
June 1, 2008--I wandered onto Steven Crisp's wonderful blog while looking for a CD cover. I encourage you to discover his photographic eye for yourself. He did the one of those wonderful white stones below and was kind enough to let me use it.
Steven is what I call a Renaissance man...he seems to be able to do it all. Right now he is somewhere in his RV called Thistle Dew Too with his wife, Carol, and their dog, Frito. He "gets" the path intuitively and writes about his inner journey as well as his outer one. So a shoutout to Steven and a treat for Frito.
I twisted Steven's arm and if I behave myself, he may let me use a few of his wondrous photographs. Here is what he has to say about life:
Photo ©Steven Crisp 2008
To see the world, and find acceptance
To be grateful for what is, and what is not
Can you feel that peaceful bliss?
You must feel it, for it isn't just a thought.
Steven Crisp
May 29, 2008--
I am featured as a guest columnist in The Soul's Code. I made the Priceless MP3 on Audio to accompany the article I wrote there.
Photo ©Steven Crisp 2008
I am working on a Sleep CD. It will put even stones to sleep....stay tuned.
May 25, 2008--A comment after M. listened to In The Center of the Circle on Audio.
..."it was a moment of grace to sit with you in the center."
Finally, a new piece on Fishpond Thoughts. It's called When the Bottom Drops Out.
May 21, 2008--
I am very pleased to offer two MP3's made in the meditative state. They are In the Center of the Circle and Returning to Center. They offer an immediacy of relaxation into your natural state. And also new is You Are the Self. These are found on Audio Page.
As a bonus, I made Vicki's Recording Studio for you to listen to now. It's an introduction of sorts to my MP3's on the audio site. It cost time and money to make these. If you are willing to support my work with a small donation, let's say to buy a pack of batteries, hit the donate button above and Paypal does the rest. I have gotten only two donations for the entire year...can we make it three :) Thank you and love....
Some lines from David Whyte that speak to me and my chair....
....As if your place in the world mattered
and the world could
neither speak nor hear the fullness of
its own bitter and beautiful cry
without the deep well
of your body resonating in the echo.
Knowing that it takes only
that one, terrible
word to make the circle complete,
revelation must be terrible
knowing you can
never hide your voice again.
From Revelation Must Be Terrible
by David Whyte
May 14, 2008--May 5, 08
I just made an MP3 about painting yourself into a corner. After I made it, I picked up David Whyte’s book, The Heart Aroused. It spoke directly to the subject:
“The marvelous peculiarity about admitting to being lost is that we come to our senses. We wake up. We look around with a keenness we did not have before.”
We must look at life directly and realize the only help available comes from a higher level than thought. Thought is what paints us into the same corner over and over. But there is higher help. This help moves above us, beckoning us to simply see the dilemma. We do not know how to breathe. How can we know the entirety of life?
A contractor just came to look at the posts supporting my deck. Some are rotting and must be replaced. Inspection on every level is important. We are worse off than we think. It seems expensive to begin again, but what is the alternative?
Written May 15 to a friend. Here is the part of the email I want to share.
....we keep hoping someone will love us more than we love ourselves. Bob and I abandoned each other at the end. It had to be that way. He was focused on staying alive and I was focused on survival after he died. And yet we love each other still.
Since he left, I have wanted nothing more than a good night's sleep. That is a true gift. People would call that crazy. Not me. After years of sleeping with the dying, you know what you know. And he slept like a baby every night. Right before he went to hospice, I held the bottle while he peed. And checked his bottom for bedsores. After that, everything gets simpler. Really.
I think I will post that. Good writing leads to healing. At some point, we are all faced with pee bottles and wiping butts. And then whipping out Visa to pay the funeral bill. And coming home alone. And living with loneliness and homemade brownies where you eat the whole pan.
"I like the honesty of what you shared on your website from your letter, Vicki..."after years of sleeping with the dying, you know what you know..." Straight from your source of truth. And I'm glad you keep putting your voice out there.... I always feel connected to you when I hear your even, direct, intuitive voice." A.To listen: Click on Are You In a Corner on Audio.
May 8, 2008--I added The True Path on Audio. These five or six-minute talks are energizing and motivating. You don't have to hold on to them for them to be effective.
I need your feedback.
Send questions or comments, please.
May 1, 2008--The Plastic Ukelele new on Audio.
I have two more to upload soon. If anyone is listening and enjoying, please drop me a line with your input. Vicki.
--A Life Lesson
There is only one life lesson and that is to let go. Everything arises from that. The miracle of this lesson is that it leads to new life on every possible level. It is to be turned inside out. As the third Chinese patriarch said, “Cling nowhere.” I am reminded of static cling. When we cling, we get static.
I was born clinging, but then, aren’t we all? We are pushed into the world wet and screaming. Maybe that is why we gravitate to water slides. Or want to go to spas and be wrapped in seaweed and other clingy stuff. We are taught to acquire and share at the same time. Sweet.
Once we take to the spiritual path, things don’t change that much. If you are lucky, you will find a teacher who is smart enough to cut the cord between you and your attachments. By this time, most of us can’t fly very far because we don’t travel light enough. We have suitcases full of fear and compromise. Only a wise man or woman will jettison them in favor of freedom.
Let go by seeing that you can’t let go. That is enough to start with. Insight is non-attachment, believe it or not. Be aware of how you are clinging to your suffering. That alleviates it. Practice the medicine of surrender and something else will let go for you.
April 21, 2008--I wrote something called A New and Brighter Leaf on About Me.
"Hello, I Must Be Going"
Bringing consciousness to a dead world cannot be done. But you can always leave. The few have been trying to leave for a long time, but last-minute details keep detaining even them. Doesn’t that remind you of the old phrase, “Hello, I must be going”?
My teacher said that there are only a handful of people who will stick with the truth. I agree. There’s just not enough duct tape to do the job. So the masses move through the maze in a daze.
Happiness is always just around the corner. By the time you get there, the little Store of Success has closed and you are left with nothin’. Undeterred, you keep moving in the maze. Whizzing and quizzing, you bypass the true guide at the center of it all.
Maybe, if you are lucky, one fine day you will hear a call. It isn’t coming from out there but from within. Don’t do anything but listen. Everything else will sort itself out. Not quickly but essentially. All you have to do is nothing.
“Take away the distance and God is there.” Paul Williams
*****
April 17, 2008--I just made a new five-minute MP3 called The Mystery of the Mirror. Click on Audio and you will find it at the top of the page. The recordings are spontaneous and intuitive. I have to let go and be present with the unknowing....
Other that that, all is well. It took me a good while to rest up from my vacation. Then there was a new washer and dryer to buy and new gutters for the house. I figure that came with the vacation, so I didn't complain.
We are all in the same boat and I think we're all getting fatter :) Maybe it's the half and half or the truffles....whadya think? It's never the carrots or the celery, is it?
Stay tuned to the chaos....
Love, Vicki
April 11, 2008--
Sometimes less is more. Be still.
April 09, 2008--
what can you do
when everything
comes together
and falls apart
at the same time
April 06, 2008--
Conditions are always perfect
for what is within to be manifested
without
fail
success is just a word in the dictionary
and so is the word dictionary.
VW
April 05, 2008--You can't live next-door to yourself.
March 28, 2008--This is an essay that I wrote in 2005 while Bob was still alive.
Blame It All On Johnny Cash
I find myself living on the edge of an abyss and often that is all there is. Me skirting the abyss as much as I can, never knowing when I might step off the edge, like the Fool in the Tarot pack. It is good to step off knowingly, but I fear the fall may kill me (she says, semi-tongue in cheek).
Those who live on solid ground can never understand those who live teetering on the brink. I think they are the lucky ones, yet being me is the only chance I have at life. So I muddle on, always in fear, always praying to become better than I presently am.
There was a tribute to Johnny Cash on the Country Music Awards and I wept into my Scotties. There was a man who trod the edge so beautifully for us all. I never knew how sweetly one can sing from the bottom of the well. I snuffled and sank to my knees, asking God to use me before it was too late--I might not be able to get back up off the floor. But I did and as I brushed my teeth I remembered something else that made me cry.
Two little sea shells named Ming and Toy. When my daughter was about five, we were at the beach and my mother was with us. She let Laurie pick out two tiny seashells at a shell shop. “Let’s name them,” said her grandmother. Let’s call them Ming and Toy.” My daughter has been gone since 1978, but I still keep those tiny shells and look at them every now and then. More snuffles. More petitions. Blame it all on Johnny Cash.
*****
A few days ago....
March 27, 08
I travelled to an island and visited a Buddhist prayer tower. I left Ming and Toy on the altar. Having been nowhere in about thirty years, they must be joyful to have landed in such sacred space. They waited patiently together in a small white cardboard box, not knowing if they would ever be of use, if they would ever bring joy again. They blessed the child so long ago they could hardly remember the day they were held in small slender hands. They couldn’t forget the day her mother put them away in the box. And now they are on the altar of possibility.
*******
i offer up this stone of stumbling
for someone to sit and sigh thereon
if weeping it is quite all right
left best to meditate on valley steps
walking up i feel so down
terrors waking with vigor
threaten to dissolve even this stone.
but into what
i cannot know.
March 27, 2008--I'm back from vacation, but still have jet lag. Someone said they couldn't access Paypal when they clicked on the bowl. It works on my end. If anyone has time, click the Donate button and let me know if the Paypal site doesn't come up. Maybe there's a reason I don't get donations...
I told someone I didn't get much feedback on the site, even though I have been at it faithfully for about seven years. He said it must be like feeding a hungry ghost. So I composed the verse below :)
I have been feeding the hungry ghostsMarch 12, 2008--I am taking a much-needed vacation and will be gone about a week.
for far too long
and not one satisfying burp!
Here is an intuitive writing to eat while I am gone. And then listen to some Audio.
I just uploaded A Healing Meditation. It is the first one I am sharing and feel there will be more to follow.
On Becoming a Miracle
I became a miracle the moment
I asked to become one
and not a moment before.
I knew that I had been given
all power to raise the dead
and heal the sick in my own
psyche and I blossomed like
the rose
I rose the third day
and blessed myself with
a livelihood...I am become
myself and that is what I do
for a living.
March 8, 2008--Part IV of Vernon Howard has been posted on Audio Page.
It is called If This Is The Path
This just in:
I truly love to hear your voice, and what you communicate within the words - and the spaces around the words. Your tone and inflections, the pauses, and the smiles. Then there is the content! Off the chart ....
You came into my life at a time when I was in the grip of fear over J. and mourning for my dearest friend. Your stories taught me about hurt, and laughter, being willing to voice the feelings and confusions - and to trust in the ocean of Oneness.
For this
and because you are a teacher, to help open my eyes
I love you dearly!
~ K
Dear K,
Sharing my words with listeners as well as readers is what keeps me going. We must all share our passion and this is mine....Bob is smiling and a tear is in my eye. Thank you.
And another note:
Hi Vicki! As always I enjoy listening to you! I love the "I'm Calling You" story. I just listened to the song and it makes me want to sing it. Haunting. You have such an ease and peacefulness as you speak. Just letting it flow out. I look forward to your next installments about Vernon Howard.
Thank you for sharing your heart...Love,D
*****
I've downloaded and listened to your mp3s and I love them. They are so "personal"
inasmuch as you speak as a human - yet you speak *to* the heart
of the listener from your own centre.
T.
March 5, 2008--Here is a five-minute MP3 called Say No.
It is a little known principle that one must say no when one feels no. Saying yes when one feels no is to violate one's own inner truth.
I have just added The Thin Places on Audio as well.
Here is a written account of it, but listen to it as well.
And Elsa Joy Bailey, whose wonderful site is here, said this:
I LOVE your audios. They are authentic and gentle but don't veer from Truth. I love that.
I hadn't visited your site in a while, but I did just now and am impressed. The Swami is heavensent!The Thin Places
You are a magnificent Light, Vicki - and I wish we were in the same area so we could do a Starbucks together. Just keep doing what you're doing. God has taken note.
We're compatriots, you and I....releasing Truth the best way we can. If ever I happen to win the lottery, I would start a Teaching Center and invite people just like you to come out for a weekend and talk to folks.
Last Saturday my friend, Tallulah, and I had lunch together. Our sandwiches came and we launched into our usual intimate conversation. She is a dream therapist and the landscape of the thin places is something she introduced me to. In Ireland there are many places where one world touches another and they are called thin places. We were sitting in one.
“I miss John so much,” I told her. John was a dear friend and advisor who died in December. “The thing is,” I told her, “he never answered my last email. He died!” I listened to myself being emphatic when I said that. But the meal continued and we shared a piece of cheesecake with whipped cream.
I got home to find an email addressed to our old Yahoo list, of which John was a member. In it, Kathy reposts a letter that he wrote last year:
“When we live in finite bodies and contemplate the Infinite the
vastness of it all tends to make all things equal. I have been
playing a little game with myself: I look up at the sky and see the
clouds; then I ask what is beyond that, and what is beyond "that",
and what is beyond the beyond .....”
And he went on to say, “Speaking of movies, Bagdad Cafe is an art film and is a fantastic character study of all the characters. What a memory - from the 60s no less.”
And I replied, “I think it came out in the late eighties. It is nice to hear from you again, John. You don't post often enough these days. What's
going on in your world? I hope all of the bad stuff happened in a
bunch...?
As I read this old email from my late friend, I remembered an intuitive writing I had done the night before:
2/28/08
"this is your wake-up call
from the infinite
you asked me to phone
you in your room of smugness
so here I am
something cataclysmic just occcurred
and it is unfelt and unseen
it is now your turn
to call someone else
this is not a joke
but an actual message
from beyond
the borders of ego
as the old song said
i am calling you...."
Even though John is on the other side, I was able to bring his message through in this intuitive writing. Kathy took the next step of posting the reference to the Bagdad Cafe, in which the song "I am calling you...." figures prominently.
Lyrics are here:
*Desert road from Vegas to nowhere
Someplace better than where you've been
A coffee machine that needs some fixing
In a little cafe just around the bend.
I am calling you
Can't you hear me
I am calling you.
Hot dry wind blows right through me
Baby's crying and I can't sleep
But we both know a change is coming
It's coming closer
Sweet release.
I am calling you
I know you hear me
I am calling you
I am calling you
I know you hear me
I am calling you
Desert road from Vegas to nowhere
Someplace better than where you've been
A coffee machine that needs some fixing
In a little cafe just around the bend
Hot dry wind blows right through me
Baby's crying and I can't sleep
And I can feel a change is coming
coming closer Sweet release.
I am calling you
Can't you hear me
I am calling you.*
I was shaken to the core and called Tallulah to try and explain the odd sequence of events. “I told you that I never heard from John again because...he died....and when I got home, Kathy had posted a letter from him. In it, he refers to the movie, Bagdad Cafe. The theme song in it is “I am Calling You,” and I wrote something last night that ends “I am calling you.”
She listened to me but I hung up as puzzled as when I called her. I wrote another former member of our list, who lives in Belgium. This is what Ben said in his reply to me,
Ben: That's a song I often listen to...What is also strange is that I remember I dreamed I was reading this e-mail.And now you just sent it...
What I would like to say is that I can confirm your intuitions from personal experience. I usually don't talk or write about it this explicitly, and writing this is somewhat difficult.
The 'calling' is the divine, the Lord, the Mother, calling her children. I feel we live in prophetic times. I feel a strong urge to surrender to the Mother and my prayer has intensified considerably through her Grace. I feel it is safe to surrender to our loving Mother in these times of great changes. What can I say? You sure know what I am trying to say.
Love, Ben.
I do not know what to make of this strange sequence of events which affected me so strongly. It is important that I get it down on paper. You may also listen to an account of this on my Audio page. The MP3 is called The Thin Places.
Vicki Woodyard
*We are all being called to awaken. The way God engineers the circumstances is astounding. Put two women doing lunch and mix it with a voice from the past and a man dreaming of an email he got before he gets it....welcome to The Thin Places.
I am interested in getting feedback on The Thin Places. Like, did it resonate with you or confuse you?
This is a special MP3 called Words for Billy.
It is in honor of A's brother, who left us too soon. Jerry Katz said it's "a beautiful reading."
It appeared in the Nondual Highlights if you would like to read the words themselves. Here is the Nonduality Highlights link: My writing/speaking are blending together as far as I'm concerned. I enjoy both. Would love to hear from readers. Do you prefer print to voice or voice versa ;) Comment here.
Note: I have also posted You Don't Exist on the Audio Page.
This is a continuation of the Vernon Howard mp3....
Until next time.....and visit the blog.
There are five parts and each is just about five minutes long.
Feb. 23, 2008--
I had such a fear of being alone before my husband died. I have been alone for three years now and all is well, although I would prefer him to be alive. But I am on God's Plan and He would have me experience aloneness.
My mind says, "You have no support system." My heart knows that the universe is my support system. It also knows that if I don't know that, nobody does. What I mean to say is that I have to keep choosing to remember that. Otherwise, I am right back in the old self-pity trap. There is risk involved in growth. Everytime I sit and worry, I am entering the old stagnant, risk-free environment. I have to symbolically get up out of my chair and test the principle: God is my support. It always feels dicey...what if He/universe doesn't come through?
My son and I were out of town for his birthday and our family couldn't participate. So we went to an Italian restaurant and the entire room was suddenly family....singing Happy Birthday to him as if we were their own. And we were. I told myself, "Remember this. Remember this. The universe is your family."
Feb. 22, 2008--Here is a comment I made on the blog:
Thanks for dropping by. I apologize for moving house, as the Brits say. Please have some tea and relax. You will find it to be a very meditative space, all things considered.
If anyone is interested in dialoguing with me, the blog may work for that. I am always around. Ring the bell or knock....
Say what is on your mind/heart.
Here is what is on mine...
Be personal at your own risk. Divine love heals everything given to it. You say you surrender your pain and nothing happens. That is because you are using thought as a tool of surrender. Surrender your life to divine love. This is what changes the note that you strike in the hymn of life.
For years we struggle with wanting to be good and non-suffering people. But personal goodness is useless. It is self-divided hypocrisy disguised as love. We all know that.
We can lay down our burdens of thought.
What arises is not up to us....
Feb. 17, 2008--I have decided to return to blogspot.com for my blog home. Here is the link to
Vicki's Blog. It feels like Swami Z is going to be right there with me, so pay us a visit and leave your comments. He is jumping up and down with excitement. And if you've ever seen a skinny little swami on a pogo stick, you have some idea....sproing!
Feb. 15, 2008--Things are as slow as molasses as January and it is February. BUT, I have uploaded Part I of With Vernon Howard on Audio.
This is a personal remembrance and not in any way to be construed as official. I will put the rest of it up soon.
*****
When I sit down to write, I feel enlivened by the very act of choosing. It doesn’t seem to matter what I say; it’s that I try and communicate the living truth. This morning it is gratitude.
Energy is essential to spiritual work. Gratitude sharpens my senses and that leads to a higher quality of energy. As I watered this young begonia I got at a church sale, I saw that there was a tender young leaf. Green and veined with red, it was quite hairy and tender at the same time. Much like life!
I am no paragon of virtue, but neither am I hopelessly lost. Instead, I am an amalgam of the opposites. I can only witness this as the nonjudgemental whole. Energy cannot be fooled; it knows itself beyond our wildest dreams. I can tell you I love you, but if I don’t, there will be not one speck of energy infilling my veins. And the plant knows this on a cellular level. I talk to my plants, as many people do. I tell them how beautiful they are. They talk back in leaf-language...chlorophyll-fueled lovers.
Someone is grieving the loss of their husband. It has only been three weeks. I told her mine had been gone for three years. There is little difference, though. Now there is no human relationship to water, so I have to keep my own state of being as close to the sun of love as I can. I have drooped during the short cold days of January, but now spring feels closer. A lone daffodil has popped into bloom in my garden...an omen and a prayer.
Feb. 1, 2008--To Own One's Truth
To own one’s own truth is what life is about. To reach the place where all of the bells ring....to heal the godforsaken stretches of your inner desertions....
Yesterday I heard Gavin de Becker say that if someone cannot accept your “no,” then they are trying to control you. After my husband died, I said three noes that first year. Two led to a desertion by the ones to whom I said it. And they each led to a deepening resolve to continue the practice of “no.”
“No” to the outer world is a yes to your inner world. And the inner determines the outer. It is daunting to go so deep into your own spirit that you understand that you are one with everything. It doesn’t necessarily make you any happier.
This morning as I entered the grocery store, one of the employees said a clear “I love you” into her cell phone. I told her it was so nice to hear her say that. She was speaking to her soulmate, she said, her husband of three years. I told her I was widowed...
Being alone is not the end of the world. For me, it is a time for going deeper into what I have chosen. I want to be with myself from now on. In a way that heals inner division, in a way that comforts and stretches me. For this I must say “no” to things that do not nourish me. I am facing myself directly, which is a difficult thing to do. I often prefer to nibble at the cheesy things of this world. Like a rat, I sample American Idol, and that makes me want more. The world is like that...making you want more of what can never sustain you.
So I sit here at the computer, wanting you to love me. But that is just another bite of cheese in the trap. What I really want is to love myself so clearly that I never say “yes” when I feel “no.” That is a big, big thing. The bigger the truth, the more it can change and heal you.
Jan. 25--Sad But True
I just wrote a piece about my new chair and how it looked smashing. Poor choice of words. Yesterday I reached over to turn on the new lamp. My Kwan Yin statue is right beside it. Not being used to the new arrangement, I knocked Miss KY over and she fell forward. On the way down, she smashed a beautiful ceramic plate to smithereens. Oh, Kwan Yin, how could you? You, the goddess of peace and love, have done smashed something precious to me.
Knowing all about attachment and the dangers thereof, I promptly picked up the pieces and threw them in the trash. I knew I did not want to glue them back together and have to look at the imperfection. And then I remembered the Leonard Cohen song that says, “...there is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Nuf said.
Here's a poem I wrote this morning:
We are all waiting for you
to strike that one chord
in your own heart.
You know, the one you haven’t
strummed in so long.
The one that will make us all
stop for a moment and sigh...
For we have enough false notes
stored up in our music benches.
We need to see your single finger
pluck the harmony and sorrow chord
so we will remember who we are.
Jan. 21--Let's visit Fishpond Thoughts; it's been a while. Click on Silence Is What You Are. I wrote it a while back and am not sure I posted it on the site. Are you listening to the audios...I hope so.
Jan. 14, 08--Another new MP3 to listen to. It's called The Unstory. Click on Audio.
Jan. 12, 08--
A New Room
The room is shaping up at long last. First I got a dark brown leather couch that was too masculine, so I sent it back. But what would I put in the space that it occupied. I left it empty for a few weeks. My friend T. said to visualize the perfect couch materializing there. But I wasn’t sure. Not very good at that sort of thing.
I bought a green couch and the store designer came out to bring samples for the chair fabric and to measure the room. Turns out he lost a son to heart disease when the little boy was only three. We sat at the kitchen table listening to each other’s stories of children dying before they should have to. We drank our tea and discussed colors.
So today two strong guys brought in the new chair and ottoman, two pillows for the couch and a new blue lamp. It looks smashing. Just right. Perfect. I sit on the couch watching a video, My First Mister. It happens to be sad; the main character, played by Albert Brooks, dies of leukemia. Now the tears about my new life are easier to shed.
This new room is a new me, one sans husband. He, too died before he should have. His spirit pervades mine, filling this new beauty of a room with his peaceful presence. Tears of gratitude mix with those that fall because of a sad movie. Tears are tears; they need to fall or we grow steely and distant.
Tonight I am moved to write again. To say things that advance the story. But the story is circular and illogical. Makes for an interesting journey. Unbearably difficult; only made easy through the softening of the heart. Melted like ice cream left on the counter.
Jan. 11, 08-- Comment from A: I have been sipping coffee and listening to your MP3’s this morning, nicer than being at Sunday service...they point me to myself.
Give a listen to a brief MP3 entitled Vicki Woodyard:Confession....those who reply with an actual email will get a year's supply of.....a year!
And if you feel blue, listen to Vicki Woodyard: Abandonment on Audio Page.
Here is a nice comment from Steven Wingate. The Ultimate Intimacy is one of his featured links for January.
"....Anyone who is spiritually inclined will want to keep listening, once started. The inner exploration merging with the outer exploration -- this is how I would describe it my own words, this is what you have helped me to address today. Not only the heart, and yet not mere intellectual understanding.... the thinker behind the thought, but also internalizing the rituals of life, and finding greater meaning in them...
Blessings to you in your important and inspiring effort. Thank you for allowing me to spread the word and help you reach a wider audience.
Wishing you a happy, safe & healthy 2008.
Steven "
*Note: I have set up a blog here:
But don't expect much because it's still on training wheels.
Jan. 4, 08--
Big Oops! Sorry, but two of the audios didn't open. They are fixed now, so enjoy!
Emptiness is the truth of my being. I can only see this from the point of view of the witness. I am witnessing the void that I am. Only in this state is there peace. Struggle ceases and I enter the fullness and emptiness of who I am.
Everyday life is not conducive to emptiness. On the contrary, it is utterly full and tense with thought. The Christ consciousness knows this and moves toward the ego’s crucifixion relentlessly. Golgoltha is here and now.
But do not believe you must try and stop a thing. Remember that you are powerless unless you are a passive witness. And then love arises and fear subsides.
My new audio babies (Audio) are begging to be heard. Please listen and perhaps drop me a line about them. Perhaps you can suggest a topic. Are you interested in my personal stories, nonduality or healing.....what about asking a question to be answered in a podcast.
A quote from the poem, The Gift, by A. E.
"Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of all its pains."
January 1, 2008--You can’t do anything until you do it. I wanted to switch my website address to vickiwoodyard.com a while ago, but I didn’t know how. I tried doing it online and couldn’t figure it out. So I made a phone call to godaddy.com and now I am officially vickiwoodyard.com. Looking at godaddy.com, it could be “God addy.” I like that. But back to the subject....action cannot be accomplished until it is accomplished. Wow.
God’s timing is everything.
I have also changed the site title to Vicki Woodyard-The Ultimate Intimacy. That seemed appropriate as well.
I will be writing much new material this year. If you have friends who like this sort of thing, refer them to the website. I always appreciate new visitors.
I have added three new MP3's to the Audio page! I would like for those of you who have the time to send me an email with your feedback. If I continue to do them, it will be because there is an interest. So write already! Thanks....I will post your comments, so be kind... Write me here: Vicki Woodyard.
Love, Vicki
12/29/07
Be Yourself....That is Everything
At one point I thought that I had to learn about everything. No, I just have to be myself, and that is everything.
You have life’s permission to do anything you like. You will choose the good because you are choosing your true nature at long last. You will know intuitively why you are here. No words will whirr around in your head. Your heart will mirror itself, bringing what it needs right to your door.
The great saint, Ramana Maharshi, got exactly what he needed, whether it was a frying pan or a laxative. They just showed up because he had a simple need. Not a desire, mind you, but a need. A pure soul like that is attended by the universe. You can be the same. You are the same. Notice what you get, for it is what you need.
December 28, 2007--
Any truth stated consciously gives you back to yourself.
It moves you fro
