This is a rough draft generated by Otter.ai. Someone is proofreading it, but if you would like to proofread others,
Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of interviews with spiritually Awakening people. Most of you for watching this know that I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now and there have been 520 Something of them so far. If you if this is new to you, however and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to bat gap comm and look under the past interviews menu where you’ll see all the previous ones organized in various ways. This program is made possible by the support of appreciative listeners and viewers so if you appreciate it and would like to support it, please go to bat gap COMM And there you’ll see a PayPal button on every page of the site. My guest today is Vicki Woodward, Woodyard, sorry, when I’m thinking of your your almost namesake Bob Woodward, different guy. Vicki is a spiritual writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a meditator or webmaster and has a lifelong interest in spiritual in the spiritual path. Her late husband Bob died of multiple myeloma in 2004. And they lost their only daughter to a fatal childhood cancer when she was seven years old. This equips Vicki to write about her path in an honest and humble way. Opening the reader his own heart to what is worth living for. The light of her path is tinged with humor, she lays down the bottom line, and invites you to consider what you are living for. Awakening is but a dream until you’re sink into the heart. When you’re caught in the dream, it just means you have temporarily forgotten. Here’s a little quote from somebody, Vicki catches one off guard waking people up to their mortality and infinite being at the same time. She’s the author of life with a hole in it. I have these books up here life with a hole in it. And bigger than the sky. And also, several ebooks. As usual, I’ll be linking to her website and also to her Facebook page and to these books from her page on bat gap calm. So welcome, Vicki.
Vicki Woodyard: Thank you nice to have a guest here.
Rick Archer: Yeah, good to have you, Vicki. And I have been in touch since shortly after I started back yet back in 2001. And she sent me one of the books life with a hole in it. And I never read it because I’d never have time to read books other than in preparation for the interview I’m going to be doing in the next few days. So finally, it was great to be able to read that and her newer book, which she hadn’t written when she first got in touch. And at that time, I think I asked her if she’d like to be on the show. And she said, I don’t feel ready and but now she says she feels ready. So I’m sure the timing is just perfect. I’m glad that you have finally come on. And Vic I didn’t mention it in reading her intro. But Vicki has a degree in what was in English and Philosophy was it psychology psychology, okay, from your university in Memphis. And she’s an excellent writer is as someone said in the intro that I read. Here’s an example of some of her writing, I just kind of thought I’d give you guys an example. Saying I do is not something that 20 Something does consciously when he came to me after his death, referring to her husband in a dream and said to me, your prayers are written on the wall of my heart every day, I realized what our marriage had been about. It was about coming to terms with what love really is. It is something we are and in the last analysis is better off undefiled by the egos touch, just thought that was a nicely written paragraph. And she’s also funny. Here’s an example of something humorous. I’m sure if Jesus had lived long enough, someone would have had to prompt him on the Beatitudes. Blessed are the what Buddha would have would have had to wear a Medic Alert Bracelet. And Krishna would have scooted around in a walker with a blanket over the basket. Sorry for the basket. Anyway, so as I was reading Vicki’s two books, I highlighted a number of passages that I thought would be interesting to talk about. And then this morning i i sort of organize them into categories and those categories are and we’ll we’ll probably talk about other things too, but I organize them into categories suffering, fear, healing, love, surrender and humility. Acting in accord with nature or accord with the Dow might, one might say. And also, of course Vicki’s personal experience of she doesn’t like to say awakening, but whatever it is. She says that for the past seven years that she’s been living in what she calls a great silence. It’s not always pleasant, but it’s genuine. So and so again, Vicki, those categories, I just read out, we don’t have to restrict ourselves to that, we’ll just have a conversation. And I’m sure it’ll go this way. And that, and people will probably send in some questions as we go along, and will take us down avenues that we wouldn’t have gone down otherwise. Okay. Okay. So, um, one thing about Vicki is that she makes these little YouTube videos and she’s made, but 250 of them or something. And I’ve listened to over 100 of them in the past week, they’re just 234 minutes each. And they’re really nice. I mean, just sort of a really got to know Vicki listening to these little videos, very authentic and down to earth and wise, you know, lots of good little tidbits in them. So maybe I’ll also link to your YouTube channel so people can easily find those.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, please do. Yeah,
Rick Archer: I will. So your life has been blessed in many ways, but has been very difficult in many ways. And so our first topic here is suffering. As I mentioned in the intro, your daughter died at the age of seven from cancer. And there were several years before that, where she was very sick. So that was, I can’t imagine it having not had children. But I’m sure many people listening, or some people listening could imagine such a thing. But it’s one of the things that it’s easy to be glib about and to say, oh, yeah, she went to a better place and all that stuff. But I’m sure that when you’re actually going through something like that, it it really rip you to shreds.
Vicki Woodyard: It does, and there is no outside help. Like that. I mean, that you realize quickly that you’re going to have to bring something forth from within yourself, because you’re the only one that has had that experience. And it, it affected the whole family. It affected my older son, Rob, he was seven when she was diagnosed, and she was seven when she died. So then he became an only child. And there were no grief groups for children back then for siblings, they didn’t exist. And there were four of us. And then there were three of us. And none of us could help the other. Bob was an engineer, and he was very intellectually oriented. And he was on his upward climb at a major airline. He became a workaholic. That was his way of dealing with the hole in my books, his life with the hole in it. And what I meant was in the picture postcard now of my family, there was a hole, or the person used to be. So he dealt with that whole by becoming a workaholic. My son is quiet by nature, he withdrew. And I withdrew. To the extent that my only brother told me he said Vikki, it was like your soul was bruised, and no one could reach you
Rick Archer: at that stage when your daughter was sick, and were your Were you already into spirituality in some form, or, or not.
Vicki Woodyard: Yes, my mother had been on the path and she was an AR, remember which it that’s the Edgar cage. Alright, Edgar Casey Foundation. And I remember she sent me the book Autobiography of yoga. And a Joe will go Smith book called, man was not born to cry. And so after my daughter’s death, I studied Joel Goldsmith fairly deeply and found him very meaningful. He also teaches the I Am awareness. Course I didn’t have it at all. All I had was broken pieces of who I used to be,
Rick Archer: like any kind of spiritual practice, or basically you’re just reading the book.
Vicki Woodyard: No, no, I didn’t. But Bob was quite spiritual by nature, and so was I. So we had that going for us. I mean, there was never any question that would we that we would do drugs have a break down or just run away? You know, we both had this deep commitment to hang tough. After she died, she finished the first grade. And after she died, her little friends were told that she had just moved during the summer. The grief, the loss went on acknowledged. And if I went to the grocery and saw a neighbor, sometimes they would turn around and go the take their cart in a different direction.
Rick Archer: Because he just didn’t want to have to face the discomfort of, of
Vicki Woodyard: exactly what to do. Yeah. So what I was already for, in Bob was You’re older than I was, coincidentally, or synchronistically. I ordered a tape by Vernon Howard. Bob had bought a book of his. And I wanted immediately to go to Boulder City, Nevada, and sit in one of Vernon’s classes. I had also had let’s just
Rick Archer: say Vernon Howard was a spiritual teacher. Yeah, based in Boulder City. What year was that? By the way?
Vicki Woodyard: This was 1984. Okay.
Rick Archer: I was just curious, because in 1977, I taught a couple of meditation retreats in Boulder City, and I was just wondering if he was there at the time, you know, I’d never really heard of him much until probably since talking, studying your your stuff.
Vicki Woodyard: Dad in 1992. Okay.
Rick Archer: And that was a bit of an interruption. So yeah, so you got tuned into him.
Vicki Woodyard: Plus, I had had a dream of traveling to the desert with my son and my husband and my sister. And when we got out there, in the dream, my sister wanted to go to the gift shop, and we had to ride the escalator down. So we went down. And then I looked over to the right, and I saw an elevator, and the doors open, and there was a woman guide, standing in the elevator. And I went and got in, and the door closed, and the elevator went down. And then she looked up and she said, You have to go down to look up. And I saw the cosmos. Wow. And she said two stars are not in right relationship to themselves. I’ve never figured out what that meant. But later, I realized that was dream guidance. I also gotten besides finding the tape and the books. And once I got out there, I knew I had found my teacher. He was very intimidating.
Rick Archer: I heard that listening to tucks YouTube videos, he’s a bit of a tough cookie. Well,
Vicki Woodyard: let’s see. I was too I needed that. Okay. And I drew a sergeant approach. I had grown up in the south where nice women just sort of repressed everything. But I was a warrior. inwardly I was a warrior. And he had a way of separating the sheep from the goats. And it was just to be really tough. And the people that were offended would hit the hit the road Jack. And then the those of us that were there, we were all called. And he just dealt it straight like it was.
Rick Archer: Yeah. It’s kind of a personality thing, I think as well as a teaching style. I mean, Nisargadatta was pretty gruff, you know, and really, absolutely people want for, and I think Rama could be that way. But from what I heard, he was more had a more gentle approach, you know, but obviously, different strokes for different folks.
Vicki Woodyard: Yes. As I said, this was a part of my life plan. Yeah, yeah. So I was with him for seven years. But not all the time, we will just fly out a couple times a year. But I listen to his tapes all day long every day. And you never got it. He never got to the the thing where and now I’m going to tell you what enlightenment is. In fact, once he said that none of you have gotten it. None of you have gotten it. And he spoke the truth. Enlightenment is not something you get.
Rick Archer: Well, in your book, you have a chapter entitled enlightenment is a dirty word. Yeah. Kind of like that is it sort of is for me to be just because it there’s a lot of confusion around the word and it has this sort of static superlative connotation that gives people the impression that they’re going to reach some aha moments and then things are going to be you know, perfect. Ever After that,
Vicki Woodyard: you’ll get something to wire on your breath so other people will know.
Rick Archer: And you can rest on your laurels and just relax and you know, have people feed you grapes or something.
Vicki Woodyard: But he said this, he said the hard way becomes the easy way. And the easy way becomes the hard way. And that’s so true. What do you think you meant by that? Well, I met people who make a lot of money and they spend it all at once. That’s easy, but then maybe in 20 years, they’re living the net of a dumpster, you know, because they didn’t have the wisdom to, to really learn
Rick Archer: to be to be responsible with it. Yeah, there’s a saying in some Vedic literature, something that just sort of talking about how certain things are sort of unpleasant in the short term, but beneficial in the long term. And other things are pleasant in the short term, but you know, deleterious in the long term.
Vicki Woodyard: That’s what he meant. Yeah. So.
Rick Archer: And we can probably all think of examples of that. I mean, you know, if you’re so inclined, it probably feels really good to take some opioids or something. But that that lasts a couple hours, and then things are worse.
Vicki Woodyard: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So sounds like you got involved with Vernon Howard Quinn, but before Bob got sick, is that true? Yes. And then yes, probably during those seven years, Bob got sick.
Vicki Woodyard: It I can’t even remember now, when you have already died before Bob did. Bob died in 2004, and Vernon in 1992. So but the study and didn’t help me one bit with the grief?
Rick Archer: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Because some people would say that they derive solace from spiritual study, at least that from the conviction, like if you read Near Death Experience Books, you know, you begin to have this. It’s almost like the veil between this side and the other side becomes more porous, and you’ll begin to feel like, you know, do we really die? No, we just kind of drop the body and we continue to live and, and most of the people who’ve had near death experiences say, Hey, I, I’m looking forward to dying. You know, it was it was a really nice glimpse, you know, not that I’m, you know, want to check out early, but it doesn’t frighten me at least anymore. So I mean, you know, sometimes you think spirituality will give you more of that perspective.
Vicki Woodyard: I had a good friend by the name of John Logan, who was online a lot. And he told me that this lifetime, I had not wanted to be in touch with the other side. He said, I can get in touch with it for you, I hear your dog now. But he said, by your own choice. And this is true, I don’t, I’m not in touch with the other side. I only had that one dream about Bob, when he said, your prayers are written on the wall of my heart every day. And that was it. But one
Rick Archer: doesn’t have I mean, I’m not touching the other side, either. But I just have this conviction that there is another side, which now people have I think absolute majority of people don’t have that conviction, or if they do, it’s, there’s a lot of doubt in there. And somehow having that perspective, as opposed to thinking that this is all we are and and when this dies, that’s the end of me. Seems to me it would totally change one’s orientation to life.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. Anything you received like that as a great gift, like a near death experience? Or like the dream I had about Bob, I have something interesting to share about. Another confirmation about Vernon Howard. Before Bob got sick, he saw an ad in the paper for the Oxford bookstore that a woman was going to be selling copies of her book. And I tell Bob, I said, you know, I’ve just got too many books. I’m not going. And at the last minute, I ran out and jumped in the car went with him. So when we got there, this beautiful blonde woman was sitting on the carpet, it steps at the Oxford bookstore, and there was nobody, she had a stack of books, but she didn’t have any interested people. So Bob, and I sat down there and began to talk to her. And all of a sudden, she looked at me and she said, You better be at the bus stop or it’s going to go on without you. And I said, How did you know about the bus stop. And then I told her and I’ll tell you, Vernon Howard’s last talk was about a girl taking an express bus back to her hometown. And that the analogy was if you want to really make progress on the spiritual past, you really have to get on board with it all the way and it will take you you don’t do this yourself. And so she told me she said last night before coming here, I heard a booming voice and I saw a giant silver bus covered with I In the voice said, She better be at the bus stop. And so after that Shelley said, You better dig in the hole that Vernon Howard started digging for you and keep, keep making that you’re in other words, don’t go off and study a bunch of other teachers.
Rick Archer: Okay. Yeah. So the old dig one deep well, rather than many shallow wells analogy, yeah. Right.
Vicki Woodyard: So that shot both up this. And the other thing was that after that Vernon after he had died, I had another dream, much of my spiritual journey has been led by my own dreams. And let’s see, I’m losing the thread. I had this second during. It’s just a little
Rick Archer: while you’re okay, what? And it’ll come back to you. The question came in from someone that I think is relevant to what we’re talking about. This is from Ruth, in trona. Dora Costa Rica, Ruth asks, Do you feel that you can still influence your daughter and husband from this side in your life presence in your in your work? And then from and can they influence you, however, connected with people on the other side? Are we especially we as mothers to our children?
Vicki Woodyard: Well, I believe that they influence me more than I influence them. I did have a session with a psychic. And she told me that they were very much with me. And she said, Vicki, they want you to cross the sea of sorrow and stand on the other shore with them. She said, You’re lingering in the sadness now? And you need to go on, they want you to be happy.
Rick Archer: Sure. Yeah, I mean, you know, I’m sure you know, the term spiritual bypassing where people use spiritual concepts to kind of bypass emotions and things that they would otherwise naturally feel right. differently. Yeah. And there’s some wrote down a quote here someplace that was, I thought, rather pithy about the Neo Advaita non duality scene and how I can’t find it at the moment. But in any case, so there’s there’s that and it seems to me there’s some kind of balance point, because on the one hand, one can sort of get real checked out emotionally and spiritually bypass, like crazy. On the other hand, one can sort of when suffering can be more can be more painful than it perhaps needs to be if we don’t sort of introduce the deeper perspective or broader perspective. And I don’t know, there’s something I’m trying to get out here that would, that pertains to finding a balance between those extremes that’s appropriate for oneself.
Vicki Woodyard: I, just by nature, a very practical person. That’s one reason I found a practical teacher. He said, You got to be practical on every level. You don’t. You don’t spend much money. He said, people that go out and spend all their money on expensive meals are lost. He said, That’s just we don’t do that. You know, and this there is a spiritual austerity. That’s right and proper. And you have to find that for yourself. Bob and I both found it quite easily. Yeah. I remembered that dream now. Okay, good. I
Rick Archer: need to remember it. And now I
Vicki Woodyard: was talking to Shelly, the mystic on the phone. She lived in a little town outside of Atlanta. And Shelly, I said, Shelly, I had a dream last night. And I was talking to Vern and on the phone and I said, Then he put his hand up. And then I put my hand up to his and he read me a contract. And all of a sudden, she said, whoops, I gotta go. And she just disappeared. So the minute Shelly did a minute or two, she came back, I said, what happened? She said, Vicki, the power company say the telephone was so bad, I got dizzy and my head started spinning. She said, I couldn’t handle that amount of power.
Rick Archer: What do you make of that?
Vicki Woodyard: Exactly what it was, yeah. And another, another quick story. A young man wanted to come and visit me on his way to someplace else. His he was very young. He’s very new to the path. And he sat with me for 30 minutes or so. And I could tell nothing was happening. And I went in and I got David flight book called The House of belonging and I read it to read in this poem, and then he started to weep and then I knew Okay, now he’s something shifted in. And we finished up and he left and an hour later he called way down the road. And he said, I just want to tell you that you really can transmit. And I laughed. And I think so I said three power stations went off, just boom, boom. After you left, and I’m just sitting here in the dark.
Rick Archer: That’s interesting. Yeah, that’s actually a thing that a lot of people experience where they kind of mess with electronics and stuff. Well,
Vicki Woodyard: spiritual energy is a reality for me. Yeah, it really is. And I think the videos that I make are, hopefully are imbued with that. I keep them simple Chop, chop, chop, it’s hard for me to elongate anything out, right? Or say,
Rick Archer: that’s okay. You know, there’s, there’s a, if you I’m sure you’ve heard the term sutras like the Yoga Sutras. Yes, it sounds like that. And that’s a very pithy little sayings. There’s a bunch of sutures in I don’t know about other traditions, but in the Vedic tradition, and there’s also an each one, it’s just this short little thing, but encapsulates tremendous wisdom in it. Yeah. And there’s a there’s a saying, said, for the wise, only an indication is necessary. So you know, the whole thing can be unpacked from just a really seed, thought.
Vicki Woodyard: And I recognize people by their energy field. That’s how I know what I need to know. And Bob would get frustrated with me because I can’t read maps. I’m a terrible driver. I have no sense of spatial anything. But I can read people just like
Rick Archer: that. That’s great. You’re human GPS.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. Except I can’t I can’t get anywhere with it, except in here. But I do believe that energy is the bottom line once you get rid of all the intellectual teachings about God, truth and reality. It’s all energy in what did somebody say? Gospel of Thomas, the kingdom of heaven is spread over the earth.
Rick Archer: But men did not see it or some such thing. Right? That was the that was the rest of that one.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. And Sufi. Here’s another thing I like about that Sufi, say, You’re the outermost out, and the innermost and there’s, there’s, it’s endless. But it’s very particularly
Rick Archer: interesting or particular. Yeah, there’s something from the Upanishads that goes, Uh, no Iranian Mahatama here, which means smaller than the smallest and bigger than the biggest. Yeah, simultaneously.
Vicki Woodyard: And it’s so easy. We were talking now on a wavelength, but after this is over, it will be very easy for me to go in there and start working on a crossword puzzle and thinking I’d like a peach. Yes, sir. Why not? Wait, we have to know that. It’s like this, you know?
Rick Archer: Yeah. Um, I don’t. I mean, it’s, it seems like your life if we had done this interview 20 years ago, or something, it would have been a very different story, because you were, when you read your books, when one reads your books, it’s, there’s a major emphasis on how, how much suffering you went through how difficult Well, the thing was.
Vicki Woodyard: You can imagine that having put the death of a child behind us now that Bob was just 57, when he was to buy our daughter lift exactly three years. In Fargo sick. Yes. Bob was told by his oncologist, you have less than three years. Now he made it four and a third. But you can imagine how I felt and he had been my rock, and now he was going to go. So I’ve spent about eight years or 10 years of my life being a physical caregiver to somebody that then died. And I had them to go through the grief process.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and it really wore you down. I mean, you talked about how kind of rubbed to the bone you were by the intensity of, of all this?
Vicki Woodyard: Yes. And to this day, I’m very careful about my life’s energy, I lead a very simple life. Satisfied with a minimum of interaction with people in the writing, I’ve done 1000s of essays. They’re all written not from my head. But from the spirit. They’re written like that, boom, I’ve got an essay.
Rick Archer: Could you could turn them into more books if you wanted to? Oh, I
Vicki Woodyard: could. Yeah.
Rick Archer: They’re on your blog.
Vicki Woodyard: Uh, uh, well, yeah, my blog. I have a lot of three books that are relatively new, and I probably have a fourth one.
Rick Archer: Here regarding energy. You quoted Vernon Howard is saying that one should work hard gathering energy when You have no problems.
Vicki Woodyard: This is huge. Yeah. Do you get? How do you interpret that? Um,
Rick Archer: well, it’s, Shakespeare had a trivial use of it when he said Gather ye rosebuds while you may. But um, I think life is all about energy, the, you know, the accumulation and the expenditure of it. And, and obviously, there are ways of squandering it that, you know, you, you waste the energy, and it doesn’t really get you anything of benefit. And they’re their ways of conserving it and, and their ways of gathering it also, which in turn spiritual practice in Yeah, kind of soaks you up more and more that energy we’re talking about? Yes. But that doesn’t mean that one should sort of, you know, not get exercise or not do anything dynamic. I see your energy. In fact, you gain more energy by doing those kinds of healthy things.
Vicki Woodyard: But most people are in a state of walking sleep. They’re not interested in the path. They’re interested in the day to day in the immediate. And they’re losing energy to try to be conscious for even five minutes just to gather energy. You know, it’s a matter of wanting to be present.
Rick Archer: Did you ever miss Carlos Castaneda his books? Oh, yeah. So he talked a lot about that. And his teacher talked a lot about that culture a, you know, energy.
Vicki Woodyard: Well, you know, I met a shaman about four years ago. And I told you about this or do you know, my
Rick Archer: I know about it from listening to audios? Yeah. Videos.
Vicki Woodyard: He worked on my body he’s occur and Darrow, a natural healer, you know, they work with plants and things like that, and energy. And when I lay down in this room of the darkened room, and immediately started to cry, and I kept my eyes closed, so it could have I said, it could have been rose, like rose petals. But he went like that, as he blotted my tears. There was no hurry, he waited till I had completely gotten cried out. And then he went on, and he finished adjusting me. And a couple of weeks later, I realized that he had lifted that 90% of my grief, it’s gone. That’s cool. I see him a couple times a year. And he is a person that he says, Don’t think just be just be
Rick Archer: you mentioned. He said, You say, in your book that spirituality is about silencing thought. And at one point in one paragraph, you say, and then the great silence began, I have experienced seven years of it now, it is not always present, but it is genuine, I have one my freedom, did it the hard way hung in there kept the faith, learn to know myself learn to know simplicity and Grace are the same thing. Here’s another paragraph that I want to read on this point, the only solace I have ever found is here, before creation starts up, not in this moment, which is, which seems a silly catch word amongst the non dual crowd, but rather than before this moment, before anything. So do you feel that you’ve kind of shifted from an active mind kind of trapped in the individuality trapped an ego sort of existence, to one in which you’ve, as you say, you’ve settled into the silence. And that residing there? Lies therein lies contentment, or freedom from suffering?
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. And I think I was born a solitary, I think my life’s pattern was to have things removed from me. And my son is a natural solitary, he loves to take his bike and go out to the silver comet trail and just ride for miles and miles and miles. And so we live a very quiet life as if our home was like an ashram, you know, it’s this very silent.
Rick Archer: That’s great. I get to go through some more of these notes here. Because there’s interesting points we could talk about. Here’s one, you feel free to comment on these passages that kind of jumped out at me as I was reading your books, even though suffering abounds, so does its remedy which is being whole. It takes no effort to behold just intention. My intention is to be what I need to have to rise above the opposites and live in paradox comments
Vicki Woodyard: Well, you know, people, I don’t go on discussion groups online anymore. Because the paradox is out the window, then there’s talking from the divided mind, once is something and some, some other person is just white and ready to this. Kick them in the rear and say, No, you’re all wrong. So I tell people on my Facebook page, so don’t come on this page looking for an argument or discussion. It’s not, you’re not gonna find it. You don’t get it here.
Rick Archer: So regarding being whole, you say, it just takes intention, I’m sure people would like to be whole. Did you find that when you had finally had the intention in the right way, then wholeness kind of flooded in or dawned?
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, and I lose it, I lose it, get it back, lose it, get it back. It’s, it’s moving. You know, it’s not the status, that the static I’m holding down. It’s more of like the dowel. And we have to remember that the dowel is everything. You know, every great religion speaks about that. That which we can’t capture that which we can’t control.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there’s a since you mentioned that though, here’s a quote from the Ching that you had in your book. One should rest when it’s time to rest. And act when it’s time to act. True resting and putting to rest are attained through the disappearance of the ego, which leads to the harmony of one’s behavior with the laws of the universe. Resting in prints resting in principle involves doing that which is right, in every position in which one is placed. Now, person might hear that and say, well, that’s easier said than done. But unless your pardon, sure. But I mean, the key point there is that if one actually is in tune with the Dow, then one’s life tends to flow just as that passage described.
Vicki Woodyard: Absolutely. I have a little book of Zen sayings with little emanate sketches. And one of the sayings is, when I put a foot wrong, the universe screams that’s great. And, and Leonard Cohen, who’s a great spiritual figure for me, wrote a poem for he says, sometimes all I do is help the daffodils to sway in the breeze, you know,
Rick Archer: again, this shouldn’t be misinterpreted as as a recommendation to be passive in any way. And just whatever happens, I’ll just let it happen. What No, no, go ahead. It’s hard work. Yeah,
Vicki Woodyard: waking up is It’s like somebody said it Vernon school, they said, this is like pushing a wheelbarrow full of lead uphill every day. And Vernon made it very hard. He set people to specific tasks. You know, we had to go to little work sessions where like, they’d somebody would put 500 envelopes in a stack, and they’d give you three different kinds of postage stamps, and then say, now put all these on, but make sure to get them all on straight, because somebody is going to come along and double check what you do. Well, after the first 100, you’d got you’d be going, I gotta get I gotta get out here. I’m starting to put it on, put him on Route. So there was there was he wanted us to see how much we were suffering. All these little daily chores showed us that we were just as pasted storefront commercial for who we really were that inside. We were just a nervous wreck. He wanted us to save that
Rick Archer: did he himself who was his spiritual teacher or influence.
Vicki Woodyard: He had a book he put out just like the sayings of like, the book was big about all the enlightened people all over, all over the world. So he did it himself. He was a self made man. He was very. I’m guessing he didn’t even go to college. He seemed relatively uneducated. his brilliance was in telling the stories that he never told the same story twice. And they were always stories that you could meditate on and reflect on but she couldn’t remember him. And one day he came through the hall and he said, is anybody remembered? You remember what I said? Like last night? I said no. And he said, That’s okay. It’s getting in. Now he’s getting in,
Rick Archer: huh? Well, I hope he wasn’t abusive in any way, you know, sometimes. No,
Vicki Woodyard: no, no, no, no, not a BS. In fact, it was said that he only gave strict teachings to those who have given him permission. Otherwise, he was a perfect gentleman. And he did not interact with the students. I did not know him personally. But his secretary said he knows all about Not all of us, but there was no personal. He had a box. And somebody said, if you have a question, you can write it down and fold it up, put it in Vernon’s box. Now, he didn’t answer, but it was there was a felt sense that yes, it was answered just not. He said never answer a question on the level of the question. And that’s brilliant.
Rick Archer: In other words, take it to a higher level.
Vicki Woodyard: Yes. Yeah. You know, there was a teacher, Rudy, I’m sure you know about Roman, the guy in New York who ran Yeah, I read it, or something. But it was said of him that if if a student came up to him with a low energy, he would not talk to them. And so they had brought their energy up to a high enough level. And Fernan also said, that he gave one talk about some people are at the bottom of this canyon in there that are wailing and they’re weeping. He said, Do not try to help them do not throw down. Bibles and food and all that, don’t throw it down. That won’t work. He said, You’ve got to encourage them to climb up about halfway. And when they get up about halfway, then they can grab a hold of the rope and you can push them out. And what he was saying was Don’t waste your time on people that haven’t gotten serious yet.
Rick Archer: Yeah. I think there’s something to that. I mean, there has to be a certain amount of seriousness and sincerity. Yeah. When one approaches a teacher otherwise, one won’t be receptive,
Vicki Woodyard: humility, certain amount of humility that you see you can’t make it by by your own ego strength.
Rick Archer: Well, synchronistically a question just came in about humility from Ivan in Bulgaria. He says, Does Vicki have any thoughts on humility versus humiliation? Both words have the same core from the Latin houmous. Meaning earth?
Vicki Woodyard: Well, humiliation is dealt to you from without email. It is your own inner self recognizing your emptiness, that you’re essentially nothing. That is everything so but humiliation. Vernon didn’t humiliate us. He was using shocks like Gurdjieff did. Yeah. He said, the soft touch won’t do that was his way. And I didn’t mind it at all. Because after all, I had buried a child, you know?
Rick Archer: But do you think that life circumstances which seemed to come from without, can culture humility, for instance, in a couple of places you quote, job, you know, Though He slay me yet I will yet I trust yet will I trust him? And if we know the story of Joe, he really went through it. Because God was testing him and probably whittling down his ego, to the point where he became completely, you know, open vessel for for the grace of God. So, again, the question would be when trials and tribulations happen to us, and they certainly happen to you, do you feel like in the big picture, there’s a sort of a, a mercy and compassion and beneficence in if we want to talk in terms of God and what God is doing, so as to help kind of crack open the ego and make it receptive
Vicki Woodyard: to it has to be cracked open, but as to answer his question, yeah, humiliation is completely different. And that’s more an ego thing. The ego can be humiliated, the soul learns humility through, going down into the lower places, you know, Varna had a lot of stories about him, going down into the cellar, he said, don’t hesitate to go down there. And look at what’s down there, that you can bring it up to the light and that’s Carl Jung.
Rick Archer: Yep. Here’s the quote from that. Going down into the depths is healing, no matter how hard it may seem. Once we choose a conscious dissent, everything is instantly transmuted into light. The truth becomes as clear as Aqua waters were everything we can begin to unite, uplift and recreate. That’s from your book. You know, I forgot. No, I forgot. All right, so much. You’re right. So well.
Vicki Woodyard: Well, you know, I was born to write and I was born to the path. I can’t think of anything, any other talents or interests I have. So it’s been all absorbing for me. And I have given up a lot, you know, you give up the world. And you can be lonely. Yeah, I can get lonely holidays are hard. My son and I just choose to sort of ignore them, you know, rest and eat but don’t decorate or anything like that. Yeah.
Rick Archer: We’ve been alluding to God and and I think the implication is that universe isn’t just sort of a mechanistic, meaningless thing if there’s some kind of intelligence involved in it. And the question came in from Jay and Victoria, British Columbia who asks, if everything is predetermined, why would there be a need for dreams or guardian angels? Because this presumes that everything is predetermined. Do you feel that it is?
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, pretty much. I think that as I said, over the course of my lifetime, dreams have led me and I’ve, there’s another funny story has led to a teacher in Hawaii. But when I look back, my soul knows things about the earth I knew about the desert. When Vernon’s group part of it moved to Arizona, I dreamed about dolomite. And when we got there, the natural bridge out there next to his school is the largest dolomite foundation in the United States. We’ll see. Vicki didn’t know that Vicki didn’t know that. But a dream came. Well. People in the Bible found they learned through dreams.
Rick Archer: Oh, yeah, a lot of people do. I’ve had some doozies myself. But um,
Vicki Woodyard: but yes. I mean, I wrote a letter to Ramesh bounce the car he the student of nice to Grenada. And he wrote me back, I had asked him about the same question that this man is asking. And he wrote back and he said, yes, everything is destined, but not to you to everything. In other words, we all move is a group. Everything is one.
Rick Archer: Yeah, he was big on everything being sort of predetermined by genetics and conditioning. And, yeah, yeah. And this is a question that philosophers have wrestled with forever, whether pre freewill or destiny. Personally, you know, you brought up the term paradox. And I think that a question like this, and many other questions are best dealt with by saying yes to both sides of them.
Vicki Woodyard: Exactly. Patricia Sun said this, she said, paradox is the point of power. paradox is, is what we need in this world. We don’t. It’s like the political stuff. I don’t get into anything political. Because it’s so intellectual and so emotional. We sit we needed the ability to go back and forth. I take Tai Chi, you know, I do Tai Chi. And it’s about getting with what is Yeah, go. It’s about keeping your balance. And there are another story I love is an adage is gaff falls down and he says, Ask his teacher, what should I do? And the teacher says, Get back up. And about after the seventh time, the teacher said, look, the next time you fall, just get back up.
Rick Archer: Don’t need to ask me.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, and so we as egos, all we do is fall down. Yeah, as egos. Yeah. Cuz if ego gets to right, and it’s full of itself, it’s like, then you need to get your ego pounded down.
Rick Archer: Yeah, here’s something you wrote. victory is assured when we choose humility over the egos height, you can’t think your way into wholeness, you’ll be broken in the attempt, who wrote that stuff?
Vicki Woodyard: It’s why I don’t do discussion groups. That somebody is wanting a determined winner to the argument, you know, and it’s like, Oh, enough, is enough, please.
Rick Archer: But I think I think the universe itself is we can say paradoxical, and maybe a better word would be multi dimensional. I mean, you know, if you look at different levels of it, there’s a level at which, you know, is ultimately very fundamental. There’s only quarks and electrons. And down there, it’s like, everywhere you look, it’s only quarks and electrons. There’s nothing else. There’s no cows, no bowling balls, you know, no, no, no dog poop, no pizza. And, and that’s a definitely a reality on that level of creation. But obviously, more manifests levels of creation, more laws of nature emerging, greater complexity emerges. And, and so we have all this diversity. And you know, you could, you could say that one or the other is absolutely true, but you’d be wrong. It’s both are part of a larger picture.
Vicki Woodyard: I want to tell you about this Hawaiian girl. Yeah, it’s a dream. I had a I had a dream before Bob got sick. And this lady guide said, you have to teach her that you’re going to meet a teacher. From Hawaii,
Rick Archer: this lady guide seems to change since it’s
Vicki Woodyard: different. Yeah. But she was living in an old fashioned motel court, you know, like you don’t see anymore. And in the dream bobbin, our driving along in Hawaii, and clouds came over the car. And a voice said to me, it will be like this until you reach the rain forest. And that’s when we went into the motel court. And the lady said, it’ll be like that. Anyway, so I tell Bob, it was our 25th anniversary. I said, Let’s go to Maui. I think I can find this teacher. I think he’s on Maui. Bob said, yeah, he was up for any spiritual adventure. I wanted he would not take responsibility. He would say it’s Vicki’s crazy idea. But Off we go. So we got to Maui, and we drove the whole house, Hannah Holloway, and Bob was terrified of heights. And it’s one of these scary drives. And I was looking for something that looked like this motel court mess. Finally I said, I didn’t find that. And he looked at me, I’ll say that we got back to this stuffers Hotel. Oh, it was fabulous. It’s gorgeous, plush. And I opened the Gideon Bible. In it said, Turn your heart to the highway. Turn again. Oh, daughter. And I looked at Baba said we got to go back. So we got out. And we went to I saw a bookstore. And I’m not making any of this up. And it said miracles unlimited. That was the name of the bookstore. I said, Let’s go in there. So we went in. And I bought a couple of secondhand books. One was written by a man lived on the Hana Highway, who was a guru. His name was John Ramsey. So we got back to the hotel. And I told Bob, I said, go for a walk or something. I’m going to call, I’m going to call this guy and Bob left. And I called him and I told him and he just died life. And he said, Yeah, you have to come. You have to come meet me. So then we had an address, but on a highway address, and we drove up there. And it was a little. It was like a 10 round hood he had built and he had some funny sightings on the outside. And we went in and he’s this tall, lanky Brian brown skinned blond guy served every day. He was on the bed, it was a circle bed, and he had a TV like in hospital up on the wall. And Bob moves his chair back. He was back in toward the back of the place. And I was up talking to this guru sitting on the bed. And he was a character, he was funny as hell. And we laughed and laughed. And he said, Well, you know, you’re, you’re the self. And I said, How do you think I found you? And he said, Oh, you just fell into the collective unconscious.
Rick Archer: Kind of amazing. I mean, you went all the way to Maui from Atlanta on the basis of a dream. And one thing led to the next and you ended up finding this guy.
Vicki Woodyard: Yes, it was so alive and easy. And Bob wasn’t he was uncommitted, and he didn’t say anything. But there are other synchronicities. I had bought a book on mudras. And as we were talking, John Ramsey said, from his reclining position, he said, Well, I know mudra when you point one thing or somebody else, you point three back at yourself. That’s a good one. Yeah. Also, Bob and I had been in a grocery before we went to St. John. And I saw Tamari almonds, and they don’t have those in Atlanta. And I was tempted to buy some and take them back. But I said, No, it’s too heavy to take on the client. What did John Ramsey have on his side table, but a dish of tomorrow almonds, and he offered them to me? And he said, Now look, he said, If you were going to pick up this, this dish of almonds, he said, You wouldn’t go oh, I wouldn’t lift it up like that. You would just reach over and pick it up. And he was talking about force versus effort. You know that so that was it? He said a whole visit with him was fraught the synchronicities just got to be ridiculous, you know, but it was very funny. So I went home and I wasn’t enlightened and we went back again after burn and died. I caught a virus on the airplane. It was so sick by the time I got off. I said, I don’t know how to do this. We’re driving Why and Bob said, look on that license plate in front of us. He said in that John Ramsey’s dress and I said, Yeah, start to laugh. We got back to the hotel, I was running a fever. I lay down on the bed and laughed, like you do when you’re, you’re spiking a really happy delivery. I have to lose. But I didn’t go back to steam. I ended up in an emergency clinic with a rapid heartbeat. The doctor said, if it doesn’t slow down, I’m gonna put you in the hospital. I said, No, trust me, I get it down. It did go down. And we we got out of there. The terribly sick. And I tell John rams and he said that was because you didn’t want me to tell you that Vernon Howard once your teacher that there’s no there’s not a t shirt? You’re Yes. So but what we kept in touch through the years.
Rick Archer: Synchronicities are an interesting thing, aren’t they?
Vicki Woodyard: They are. They’re God’s speaking to you.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I think so. The there’s a guy named sky Nelson, who gives a talk at the same conference last couple years about synchronicities and is this doing a scientific study on them? And I think they were I went to his talking at the conference, but I think that, you know, the fact that synchronicities happen, and in some cases in some people’s lives, they happen like you were just describing so frequently and so ridiculously, obviously, you know, that you’d be crazy to just dismiss them as coincidence, they just keep happening. And so it begs the question, Well, how did they happen? What what orchestrates them you know, what, there’s some kind of intelligence coordinating things that are making these things click like this? And like you just said, would you say it was God’s? God’s something? I don’t know. But but it’s definitely the, to my mind, there’s this there’s a sort of an intelligence that orchestrates everything. And if you’re in tune with that intelligence, then the orchestration becomes obvious. And it often is in favor of what you desire, because what you desire is in tune with what it desires, the bigot.
Vicki Woodyard: Carl Jung writes a lot about not Carl Jung,
Rick Archer: too, but a lot about synchronicities.
Vicki Woodyard: I’m thinking of the guy, Maurice Nicole, that was a student of Gurdjieff. And he said synchronicities frequently happened in their group, but a lot of times they were never figured out. They were just a lot. It’s you know, that they would remark on.
Rick Archer: Well, often, if you’re in a spiritual gathering of some kind, it becomes like a synchronistic mosh pit or something, if you know what a mosh pit. Is. That rock. Really all mushed together. Yeah. You know, because everybody is living a synchronistic life. And then when you get them all together in one place, it sort of multiplies exponentially.
Vicki Woodyard: When we would visit Vernon’s group out in Arizona after he passed away, I told her I wasn’t sleeping at all. She said, You made me stay up last night. I didn’t sleep either. And she said, None of if we’re, if I’m awake, she said everybody else in the group is going to be awake. And that’ll just go on for a while.
Rick Archer: Everybody’s in sync. Yeah. Yeah, you know, what often happens in in nunneries. And all is all the women’s menstrual cycle gets into sync. Right? They’re right there with each other. There’s some kind of group coherence, or or, or I don’t know what you’d call it. But would you say, Irene? Oh, pheromones? She thinks it’s because of pheromones could be pheromones? Yeah, hormones are like these subtle things that I wrote factory nurse pickup.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, that’s, yeah. A few. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Anyway. You know, one of the topics that’s very popular in spiritual circles is this issue of whether or not we have a self you know, people argue about that, or have the, you know, discussions about it ad infinitum. And so marry someone they marry from poplar Grove, Illinois, ask some. Do you still experience a self? Do you have a point of reference? Talking about me? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
Vicki Woodyard: I know. I know, my body mind, emotions and my spirit. I know all of it. I’m not I’m not some kind of zombie. Walking Dead. No, I mean, inverted talk. You know, you’d be very practical, you know, don’t make mistakes in your daily life. Be careful. Don’t Don’t fall down, you know, be mindful. And mindfulness is a yoga thing again, it’s Many, many mindfulness courses and mindfulness teachers out there.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, you know, on the paradox note, for instance, in in the Gita, there are verses which, you know, say you have control over action alone, you know, do your duty, be responsible, you know, take take charge, and all kinds of things, you know, saying, you know, get on the stick, and then there are other services, which say, you don’t do anything, you know, it’s all God’s doing it and the Gunas of nature doing it, you don’t act at all. And they’re in the very same chapter, sometimes these kinds of verses. And again, paradoxically, they’re both true. It’s just a matter of which frequency you’re tuning in to
Vicki Woodyard: watch, we started this conversation, it’s sort of out of our control, you know, it’s just happening. It’s happening.
Rick Archer: You know, you just said about, I have a spirit, I have a body, I have a mind I have this this. Do you sometimes feel as you’re going through your day, that, you know, there’s definitely a you and you’re making choices, and you’re doing things and you have initiatives and so on. And at the same time, paradoxically, you’re not doing anything? Nothing is nothing is happening. Yeah.
Vicki Woodyard: Well, my writing just happens. Yeah. I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know where it’s going. Sometimes. It’s really funny. And I’m by myself, Leia, you know,
Rick Archer: you often introduce your videos that way to say, I don’t know what I’m gonna say here. I’m just gonna say something and then you start talking, some great little thing comes out.
Vicki Woodyard: I think, I think that after Bob got sick, I wanted to make a tape about what I was going through in. He and I drove to Gatlinburg to attend a speaking circles, session, people that were very nervous about public speaking, like, with cancers kind of thing. Exactly. And legally mixing is brilliant. And he started it and he was comedian who was paralyzed with fright doing stand up. And so he found it speaking circles. But what I learned from Lee is that you should speak from your heart, your center, your gut, never speak from your mind, you know, speak from something deeper than that, and be spontaneous. And he told me, this is 2020 plus years ago, I sent him a tape and he said Vega, your natural, he said, You should be on the speaking circle. And that terrified me. And I knew that was not for me. But but words are my thing. You know,
Rick Archer: one interesting thing about you is you actually wrote jokes for professional comedians, you wrote, you wrote some fulfilling, for instance.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. And when my daughter was sick in her last year of life, I’ve been writing for Joan Rivers for years, and Joan got bobbin tickets to see Hollywood Squares. Never that show. Yeah. And so our whole family of four went out there. And a friend kept the kids while Bob and I went to the taping, and we went to Yogananda shrine and had Laurie blast spiritually, you know, we wanted to take her there. But when we got back, her cancer came back in a rush, she was six or she was still six. And it had spread to her lungs. And she entered the first grade, and she almost made it through the first grade, and she died. But we had that wonderful trip.
Rick Archer: It’s amazing that you were able to write jokes when you’re going through this tragic thing, though it was it was this writing kind of help you make it through the tragic stuff. Yeah. And
Vicki Woodyard: before she got sick, I was wanting to be the next Erma Bombeck. I was more interested in writing humor. But then I realized that wouldn’t work. And so I switched over and started where I found my voice. I have to say, this was on Jerry Katz, his non duality Yahoo site. And Jerry has a great sense of humor.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And
Vicki Woodyard: yeah, that’s how I met. My friend Peter. Peter came out there. And I had written one of my essays about suffering through Bob’s cancer. And Peter responded, and I wrote back and I said, it sounds like you might be sick yourself. And from that my book came, it just started happening. Start the letters, the emails just started.
Rick Archer: Yeah, if people listening end up reading your book bigger than the sky, it’s it’s mostly about your emails with Peter, you know, oh, it’s totally that. Yeah. And Peter was this interesting guy who you never met, and you didn’t even know where he lived or what he looked like or anything else. But you guys had this great, you know, spiritual friendship. And he was he was so sick, he could barely move he was he would have to crawl sometimes. And he would, you know, just sit in the sun for hours with his cat. It was very sweet to read.
Vicki Woodyard: It was a powerhouse. And Jerry was the one that told me that he had founded santi.org, one of the first spiritual websites. Were you familiar with that? Or was that before your time?
Rick Archer: Just before I never checked it out, I made up the other day when I saw it, it’s gone. It’s no, it’s a it’s a technology website.
Vicki Woodyard: I don’t even know when Peter died. He just wrote less and less. But many people who have read this book and far too few people know, it’s with new Harbinger press, and they don’t even put it put it up on paper buy back in Amazon anymore. I’d rather people get it as an e book for me. Yeah, you know,
Rick Archer: imagine you’ll get a little boost in sales when as a result, hey,
Vicki Woodyard: he was beautifully literate. He wasn’t he wasn’t the essence of simplicity. And numr.
Rick Archer: Here’s a question. You know, you’ve talked about sort of being conscious and then being unconscious and have shifting back and forth. And we’ve also talked about conserving energy and so on. And a question came in from Kranthi in Freehold New Jersey currently asks, Could you elaborate more on how one can perform his or her tasks more consciously? From an energy body perspective? What really happens when one behaves unconsciously?
Vicki Woodyard: Well, Vernon used to tell us to, he said, when you are walking across the room to turn on a light, no, no, that you are walking across the room, and know that you’re turning on the light. And he would say things like, if you have a lamp, and there’s something broken, he would say, get it fixed, do not approach it 100 or 1000 times knowing that it’s broken and make no effort to fix it. So he was very, very practical. So all spiritual teachings come down to being conscious, whether it’s being conscious that you’re the outermost out and the innermost in, or that
Vicki Woodyard: this is tea. And I just took a drink and it was good.
Vicki Woodyard: When you cry, know that you’re crying. I called his teacher after I had had a hysterectomy and had gotten the flu in the hospital was quite ill. And I said, What can I do? What can I do? And she said, No, that you were lying on the bed. She said, when you’re ill, the false self has a field day. So just know. And I said, that’s no. She said, Well, it’s the truth. It’s the truth. So we have to begin to notice everything that we can. And then you’ll see that most of your life you’re sleepwalking through. Most people don’t know that there’s a difference in just talking to somebody. And in talking to somebody consciously. And once you get to know that, you’ll learn who you don’t want to talk to, because they’re giving you negative energy.
Rick Archer: I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that. I know that, you know, a lot of people, for instance, do things in their lives and do things to their own bodies, which, if they were conscious, they wouldn’t even dream of doing you know, how could you do things so, and Jesus said, of the people who are crucifying Him, forgive them father, they know not what they do. So there was a sort of Oblivion that they were shrouded by. And they were doing things that had they been sensitive. They wouldn’t have dreamed of doing. Oh, here’s a great quote that I found in your writing. If I can find it quickly. Yes, here it is. This is from Dogan, the Zen master is having met with his own Buddha Nature Dogan seems to have become less judgmental, less demanding, asked what he had learned abroad. He had gone traveling someplace he said, not much except the tender spirit. This relates to the point I was just making this sort of tender, sensitive, aware, you know, perceptive spirit, and going through life with that as opposed to being numbed out.
Vicki Woodyard: My mother used to remind me that everybody is suffering. Even a rich man whose Cadillac gets din in it is suffering from that. But everybody I mean, Buddha said, All of life is suffering. And so here’s another final teaching. Suffer consciously. Patricia Sutton said you Jesus died conscious. Yeah.
Rick Archer: But I would parry that by a quote from your book where you say, at the very end of the path is a light that I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that it is at the very beginning. And at all points in between. I’ve also heard it rumored that we are on the path to light and each other, that we are the path, the light and each other. So even though in one sense, life is suffering, yes, but there’s sort of light, you could say, or bliss, permeating all along, and at every stage of the path, that it’s like, the goal is that every all along the path. So you know, because it could be quite, quite pessimistic thing to emphasize that everything is suffering without counterbalancing it with the fact that the bliss or the light of God permeates everything. Yeah. Yeah.
Vicki Woodyard: I’m not real, topped off with bliss most days. I’m just doing good to get through the day, you know, keeping it simple.
Rick Archer: That silence you mentioned, that has been predominant for the last seven years, or has always been the kind of the foundation of experience for the last seven years. Maybe we wouldn’t call it bliss. But isn’t there a contentment in that which wasn’t there before that became the norm.
Vicki Woodyard: When another trip I took Bob to was to visit Betty bethard. Still, she’s deceased now. But she told me, she said that you have a hugely peaceful aura. And I said, I somewhere certainly don’t feel like it most days. She said, Oh, it’s big. It’s big. So I do have a lot of peace around me.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And you get, you know, whatever our experience are in life, we acclimate to it. You know, you have no choice. Yeah, you get used to even if it’s, even if you’re in a prison cell, or whatever, you you acclimate. So,
Vicki Woodyard: you know, I often wish that I had a social life, that truth to tell truth be known. I have a real strong energy fail, and it’s not one people would particularly enjoy people that were just barbecuing and looking at sports, you know, it’s like, it’s almost like the price of kissing is your life as Rumi said, it’s like, I’ve kissed the teachings and the price has been my everyday and I’ll have a social life. I mean, this is, yes, I have a lot of energy and a lot of power, but also have a lot of fear about the future. Like, you know, it’s just my son and I. And when I die, that’s it, you know, don’t be any grandchildren. There’s no, no extended family. And I can let that bring me down a little bit.
Rick Archer: Maybe, I guess you could. I mean, I read and I don’t have any children. And even though my grandparents had four sons, there is no one continuing the line now. And my attitude is, so what you know, so why in the world,
Vicki Woodyard: maybe I can catch a little of that from you. Yeah,
Rick Archer: they don’t need to continue with archers necessarily. Want to continue on? When she said, she said, we wouldn’t want to continue our combination. I don’t know about that.
Vicki Woodyard: That’s what my mother said. She said, Really, it’s probably a good thing. My father was addicted to prescription drugs. He started with a pharmaceutical company in Memphis. And so he knew all the doctors in town, and his pockets were always full of what he called headache pills. He was an addict. Sure, addicted to prescription drugs.
Rick Archer: Regarding fear, you know, you’re just said, somehow causes you fear sometimes when you consider your mortality and your lineage and so on. Here’s something you said about it. ride the horse of fear consciously. Oh, yeah. Choose it. Resistance to fear is what perpetuates
Vicki Woodyard: it. Until I’m talking to Vicki all the time about that. And I’m talking to myself. Yeah. There’s something else I want to tell you. I had severe agoraphobia. From the age of 13. I don’t know when it eased up, and then it changed into social anxiety.
Rick Archer: So your phobia is being afraid of wide open spaces, is it?
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. And it just came on me suddenly. And Betty bethard is the one that was was telling. You said I had a peaceful energy feel. She said, When did your agoraphobia start? I said about 13. He said, puberty. She said that’s when mine started. She said, people tend to be psychic that sort of when they you know go like, get really scared. So that’s been a huge battle for me in my early earlier life, and now it doesn’t matter you know, I’m just like, doesn’t matter anymore.
Rick Archer: Sounds like reminds me of something Steven Wright said he said most people are afraid of heights he said I’m afraid of
Vicki Woodyard: I love one liners I’m one of one of my websites is straight is the way and narrow is the gate in the ego was a double wide.
Rick Archer: But you know, this whole thing about social anxiety and being a recluse and being a loner, and all that stuff. This I think there’s more pluses than that, to that than minuses. I mean, you can be you can be totally a social butterfly, and very much in the crowd and all that and be very lonely and very alone. There’s an old Bengali saying that says, if no one comes on your call, then go ahead alone. And obviously, the whole tradition of spirituality is full of characters who were loners. And who were, you know, just kind of focused on what they considered important and didn’t really care what the world thought about it. You know, and they’re kindred souls out there, especially with the internet status. And you’ve had you’ve met some and so you’re, you know, you might be sitting in your house, but there’s a whole network of people who are connected with you. Sure, yeah.
Vicki Woodyard: It’s a price that ultimately I don’t want to pay. It’s like, but it’s also my karma. I mean, I, I just believe that everybody has their own karma. In the midst of this world where they’re seemingly choices all around, you know, I was drawn to a particular teacher. And now with to the Peruvian guy. He’s just brought me that stage where you just sort of oh, what may worry approach to everything. You’re just like, I asked him, I said, some lady said, Well, you’re a writer, why don’t you help me I want to write a book about she was a chiropractor, something. And I told Teo about it. And he said, Just tell her, this is not for me. You know, and what was the other thing? Oh, I did have a dream about Vernon after he died. And he said this to me. He said, Don’t be so accommodating act a little tough. This is a message for women. He certainly did. Yeah. Yeah. And so in my writing and all of my writing, I am tough. I am. Bottom line. I’m being tough.
Rick Archer: And you’re tough. Yeah, you’re okay. You’re sort of sugar coated, tough. I mean, you’re very sweet and videos, it’s
Vicki Woodyard: I don’t know how my videos are influencing people. But I’ve to the point of stopping making them. I haven’t made one in a couple months. We’ll see. We’ll see. I don’t know if they’ll go on or not. I did lots of them. Yeah,
Rick Archer: just make it. Happiness doesn’t even matter if anybody watches him,
Vicki Woodyard: made him on my Galaxy phone. Right, right. Let’s see, I don’t use my phone. I don’t want the I keep the ringer off on my telephone. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Something a nice little quote from your friend Peter that I noted down, he said, there’s nothing that you that you can do to obtain grace, it either happens or it doesn’t. And I kind of wanted to take exception to that and see what you thought. And that is that, you know, there’s that saying, God helps those who help themselves. And like you were saying earlier about, you know, not sort of trying to teach people who aren’t receptive or who aren’t ready to learn, and that kind of thing. You know, I think that one can do things in one’s life to make oneself more susceptible to or worthy of grace. And then the grace will flow more, more readily. So there is something you can do to obtain grace, maybe not immediately or directly or anything but through, you know, through accumulating energy as Vernon Howard said, it makes one more and more grace prone. You know that that say you’ve probably heard that. Enlightenment may be an accident, but spiritual practice makes you accident prone. So maybe you can become a good way. Yeah. So maybe you can become more grace prone through Yeah, taking the right measures in anyone’s life.
Vicki Woodyard: And usually Grace happens when you’ve done something you’re terrified of doing. When you take a leap. That’s, that’s usually when grace will manifest. I’m taking leap by talking to use and maybe a lot of Graces kind of manifest. Yeah, just from this. It could as I was really, you know, really fearful about doing it.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I’m not so scary. I’m I know, I
Vicki Woodyard: think you’re delightful.
Rick Archer: And I mean, some of the stories you’ve told us today illustrate the point. Like, for instance, he took a leap and went to Whole went to Maui based on some dream, you know, and then all these cool circumstances on the fold, and from that, so, you know, you’ve I think you may have learned in your life that if you just sort of take a step, then
Vicki Woodyard: things unfold. But you’re being watched over and I have a huge story. The tale about what happened after we bury Bob Lester’s
Rick Archer: Yeah, please. Right now. Yeah, now’s a good time.
Vicki Woodyard: Well, he turned 63 On December the 12th. And I kept him at home and nursing him at home until December the 16th. When we took him to hospice in an ambulance. And there’s a little Christmas tree in the room and it just hated hospice. It was terrible. And he hated it so bad that he was going to it told us doctor to get him out of there. And his doctor said, Okay, we’ll just move you back to the regular hospital on Monday, but he died that Sunday night. So we didn’t have to go through that. But my sister who’s a devotee of Arma, and I see your up on your bookcase there that will figure when she heard that Bob was in hospice, she drove all the way through from Pennsylvania, to Atlanta to help Robin out. And she sent Robin a home when she got there, because we were just running on you know, we had nothing left. So she sat by Bob, the night he died. And she chanted, like the chant, she would chant. When she was with Allah, she chanted. And she said that night when they brought his dinner tree, and of course he didn’t eat it, but she said, there was one little Hershey Kiss, which is Alma gives out the Hershey Kisses. She said, she chopped it up into tiny pieces and put it under his tongue. And, and so they called in the middle of the night, the matron and she said, your husband has died. Would you like to come in? And I said, No, no, I don’t want to. So Laurie came home. And from that point, we had to get to Memphis really fast, because he died on the 20th. He was buried on the 23rd. And a huge ice storm was bearing down on Memphis. We were not really aware of that, because they had said, you know, we got to get this funeral. And, and we’re not going to have a viewing there was a viewing for like two hours before a brief service, and then we’re going to get up go to the grave. During the middle of that service, I started hearing sleet hitting the roof. And it was, I knew then we were in trouble, you know. So by the time we like, put us in the limo and seated us at graveside, they put big heavy blankets over us because the cemetery was beautiful. Then it was covered with white ice, and there were red poinsettias on the graves. So that was that got over. And we went back to the funeral home and my sister Laurie, who’s my daughter’s name was Laurie named after my sister. She said, Somebody has stolen my purse out of the car. And Bob Sister Mary Francis said, my purse has been stolen too. So we didn’t even get to go to a relative’s house for a meal because Laurie said, I’ve got to go and cancel all my credit cards immediately. By the time she did that, we were iced in at the Marriot courtyard. So the next morning, I was talking to this waitress that worked with starving us and I said, What are we going to do tomorrow is Christmassy, we’re snowed in here, how we’re going to eat. And she said, Well, I have to work tomorrow at Marriott’s going to pay for me to send me to come in for Christmas Eve and she said, You are going to have your Christmas dinner. It was my sister, my cousin and Robin. So there were four of us. And she said I’m going to she said Mary gave us a bake Tam with all the fix and she said, I’m going to bring it in and she said let’s all meet at five o’clock and we’re gonna sit down we’re gonna have Christmas dinner. So I was too tired to get out. I went to the bed and crashed but my son, my sister and my cousin walk on foot To find Christmasy goodies that they couldn’t find stocking, so they bought liquor bags because they were in the shape of stockings, and they crammed full of candy and silly, silly stupid stuff. And they got marry a hat and they put marrying glitter on our Santa Claus van. So even though my husband and my daughter were lying in the cemetery, like five minutes away, we were surrounded by grace. Across the street was St. Francis Hospital. I asked Mary, who had fixed this meal for us what her middle name was, and she said, Mary Frances Mary, Frances, Mary Francis had her purse double, and it was incredible. But we did not feel any grief that night, we feel only a great gratitude to this black girl that had given up her Christmas Eve. And I asked her about her family. And she said, Well, you know, my son was a patient at St. Jude’s too. Now how about that? That’s sweet. Yeah. Is it more than this sweet it was meant to be, you know, but we never forgot it. And then the next day, Christmas dinner, I had a pack of crackers out of the vending machine. We got the last seats on the plane going back to Atlanta. And then we got news, the huge tsunami that struck that year. Oh, yeah, Indonesia, though. At that point, 2004 2005, I felt my life had completely been obliterated. And I started all over. So here I am now. 15 years later, and I’m still riding like crazy. Yeah,
Rick Archer: you’re like a phoenix risen from the ashes?
Vicki Woodyard: I am. I’ve got nothing else to do. I got nothing else to do.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Here’s a saying from your book, alive. Your book only? Often. God only talks to us when he gets us so low that we’re willing to listen. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that that relates to something I jotted down previous to that, which is how could a loving God do this to me. And sometimes when people consider the horrors of the world, they think, Oh, God couldn’t exist, or if he does exist, he’s a sadist, or something, you know, all these horrible things happen to people. But, you know, it’s like, if we said this last week, I think if we zoom out enough, we can see or intuit that there’s an evolutionary agenda or trajectory to the whole universe. And you know, zoomed in too small, it might say you can’t see it. It’s kind of like them, they must be examples from I don’t know what like this peep the Flat Earth Society, people believe the Earth is flat, because it looks flat to them. But if you zoom out enough, you see that it’s a sphere, you know, so life can seem harsh, and cruel, and capricious, and arbitrary, and, and so on, if you’re just sort of looking at the small picture, that saying, you know, losing the forest for the trees, you just you’re not seeing the whole forest, you’re seeing a tree. But if you zoom out bigger, you realize that there’s this kind of divine play going on.
Vicki Woodyard: And you’re more able to forgive people who are sleeping this lifetime and are not interested in waking up. Yeah. And on that,
Rick Archer: you know, I think we also want to remain humble in the sense that we shouldn’t necessarily assume that because they appear to be sleeping. And we appear to be awake, that we are actually better or more highly evolved or even more spiritual. You never know, you know who it isn’t. There’s something in the Bible about that, that you you never know when you might be entertaining an angel in your presence and who doesn’t seem like an angel. Because that happens to I mean, here’s a, here’s a quote, from your thing, you say? I say how tired I get one sophists of sophisticated non dualism, the kind that turns you into a snob. It’s easy to sit in Satsang with people who have never really suffered, but those of us who have must tell it like it is. So they can be the sort of holier than thou thing that gets going when people get into spirituality, when they begin to kind of look down upon those who don’t seem to be into spirituality or into things the way they are.
Vicki Woodyard: I found that I enjoy keratins a lot, because it’s not intellectual. It’s just sort of everybody’s just in love, and they’re chanting, and it’s a lovely experience for me to have, because it’s not intellectual.
Rick Archer: When I’m a does her retreats, there’s one evening on the retreat where she does a q&a. And so people are asking questions, and usually she doesn’t do this. Usually she’s just hugging people all the time, but, you know, so for an hour, so there’s questions and answers. Question dances at the end of it. She always, you know, the top of hair pulls out the toddlers and somebody gets the organ and she starts clapping some drumsticks together and just sing some simple little curtains to get everybody back into the heart. And then then everybody goes to dinner.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, I like those. Yeah, I think it was the real deal.
Rick Archer: Oh, yeah. Do you see Have you seen her down there in Atlanta?
Vicki Woodyard: Oh, just what? Yeah, just once. But I dream I dreamed about her. And it was something about her taking me out and out, you know, but it’s a long time ago. My sister was really, really serious. She’s visited her Ostrom. And at her ashram, I will say she was a strict, according what my sister told me is Vernon Howard was she made makes these people work and work hard. Oh, yeah. She puts people on overload. I mean, there’s a method to their madness, they want you to be in overload. So something in you will crack just enough. That will soften. You are humble, you know?
Rick Archer: Yeah. And there have been spiritual teachers who have abused this kind of thing. But, you know, having spent about 20 years seeing them every year, there’s one thing that I read, and I noticed when we first went to see her and I still notice, I see the same people in many of them. They’re on staff who were there 20 years ago, and they work so hard, and they just have this saintly quality about them that’s developed over the years. You know, and it’s just it’s very sweet to see and the devotion and love between them. And Alma is also very beautiful to see
Vicki Woodyard: how that Krishna Das is a wonderful example to have somebody who stayed very centered as he travels the world.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And his master of course, Neem Karoli Baba was really into selfless service. Also, he had, you know, had rom das and others working to like these eye clinics to help prevent blindness. And yeah, and you know, various seva projects. So there’s definitely something about, it’s read in the theme that you just said, this selfless service tends to kind of mitigate the ego and by taking the focus off of it and onto others. And, you know, culturing a more giving, selfless attitude orientation. A question came in from Leyland from Cortes Island, British Columbia, Leyland says, I had an experience recently with sadness that I’ve been carrying as a feeling in the background, I felt that I could never cry out all the grief and sadness. Then recently, from a place of witnessing, I saw how I had been holding the sadness, and that it was itself a form of attachment. So much was let go of without tears. What are your thoughts on this? And on the value and meaning of grieving? From your experience? Is it mostly ego based attachment? Blessings, thanks and love?
Vicki Woodyard: I would say that I don’t have a ready answer to that. Because grief is such a powerful thing. I don’t think we know a lot about it. I mean, what I, what I have experienced about my own grief was that there really was no remedy. And my mother would say, well, Vicki, when you feel like it, get out and go the ball, you ride grief in waves. But there’s some truth to taking advantage of when you just had a good cry, and you’re all cleaned out and get out and have a little fun, you know, because the grace is going to be waiting for you. When you come back. I didn’t answer that question.
Rick Archer: We could take another crack at it. But you’re so you’re saying that maybe there’s times when you might want to just really, really feel it. And perhaps times when you might want to give yourself a respite by by distracting yourself or going to the mall or something watching a movie?
Vicki Woodyard: Oh, no. It’s a very lonely, isolating experience. That’s what grief is. You feel alone and you feel isolated. And it’s a matter of just getting through it as best you can. Whatever works for you. Riding has helped me enormously by interest in the path has helped me be a survivor. Because I do believe that I do believe in grace. I do believe that even in your darkest hours as you’re being watched over. That something something in us bigger than us knows. But this is the part of being human humans. Humans grief.
Rick Archer: There’s a couple of quotes from your book that I think are relevant consciousness is stronger than darkness. We are consciousness itself. Right? And another one, the real can never be taken from us. The Unreal was never ours to begin with. I like pretty good.
Vicki Woodyard: I like it. I like her. She’s good, right?
Rick Archer: That’s actually I would almost think you got that from the Gita because there’s a verse just like it it says the Unreal has no being the real never ceases to be.
Vicki Woodyard: Well, I have read libraries of books, but you know, I’ve got written look over my bookcase. Somebody said, Vicki, if you love books so much, how come you don’t have any? And I said, I just got I don’t read them anymore. I have a few that I may open up and to inspire me. But for the most part, I’ve taken them to Goodwill again.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So. So you just told us a little while ago that you may or may not keep making little videos, you, you have a lot of written material, which theoretically, you could turn into more books. So you could put on your blog. And there’s probably a ton of stuff on your blog, how many how many articles or blog posts are on there?
Vicki Woodyard: I don’t know. I knew. I know, at one time I had over 2500. Facebook knows Yeah, there. They were all car writing full essay form. So, but my books don’t say a lot to that. And he said, people have to be led to your books, because they contain the truth. And people don’t want the truth. With a good man. There’s some truth in that. Yeah, there’s some truth in that people are looking for easy answers. And I never wanted to write a book on like, how to be enlightened how to be a mystic, my path is just to write from the heart spontaneously, and keep it fresh?
Rick Archer: Well, I would say that for those who like to read. These are good little books to have. I mean, I read a spiritual book or two every week because of what I do. Yeah. And these were just refreshing to me, they’re, they’re every single little chapter is usually no more than a page or page and a half. And, and each one sort of draws you right in, it’s this great little story. And it’s based upon your experience, you’re not just sort of pontificating, you know, abstractly, and it’s quite, many of them are quite poignant with everything you went through. So I think, you know, people, and there’s, there’s small and you can just like read them one story at a time in one story, or something like
Vicki Woodyard: that. Some people use them as meditations, though, somebody said, I printed out your latest ebook, and I’m just reading it, like a daily meditation,
Rick Archer: right? It’s the kind of books that you want to just take in small doses, maybe not try to just plow through cover to cover, you can open them anywhere, you can just crack it open, halfway through,
Vicki Woodyard: I have come to the end of the line with publishing with publishing houses and agents and all that. That’s why I’m just doing ebooks. And they’re for sale on my sites like Amazon is pushing small publishing houses and small writers out of business. So they want the small writer to publish with Amazon. And so it’s really a headache that I don’t want.
Rick Archer: Well, thank God for the Internet. In my radical daisies, to say freedom of the press belongs to those who have won. But these days, we’ll have one
Vicki Woodyard: one might say too many others. Now, but I, I believe in what I do, I mean, I really think that there, I want them to be readable. I want people to laugh. You know, I want to be able to be sarcastic, terse, you know, whatever. I try to convey whatever mood I’m in to the reader. And usually they’ll write back and say, I feel the same way.
Rick Archer: So people do want to write back to you. Is your email address on your website or something? Yeah,
Vicki Woodyard: yeah. It’s on my website. Okay. So people, but usually, usually people, you know, I’ll only have a small blog, very few readers subscribe. But they answered, they leave comments there. But as is a rule, I really am not anybody that’s teaching anybody anything. I’m sharing the journey.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that comes across. And, you know, I mean, one of the the themes of this show is that we’re interviewing having conversations with ordinary spiritually Awakening people emphasis on the word ordinary. And part of the intention to that or for that is that we don’t want to convey the impression that spiritual development or awakening is something extraordinary, that you have to be some kind of glow in the dark, you know, Eckhart Tolly type two to actually experience that, you know, millions of people are experiencing it to varying degrees. Living ordinary lives. Important Yeah, that people think that they have to be super special than they’re never going to feel like it’s, it’s endless.
Vicki Woodyard: Look at the old Zen patriarchs, the patch row monks, you know, they were just out there, chopping wood and carrying water. And that’s just the live family going to the grocery cooking, what are by watching television, doing tai chi, walking, meditating. And in through all of that there is this mellowness, the silence of it’s what I love. It’s what I love.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Isn’t that nice? Yeah. And actually, you know, obviously, that becomes more it can become more and more evident for a person. And it might be a little unkind to just say, well, it’s just there, just notice it. Because, you know, people might not be able to notice it. But over time, you know, if we give our attention to that it grows stronger in our life as anything does to which we give our attention. So I always try to, I’m always sort of wanting to encourage people in case anybody hears so many stories of people feeling hopeless and heart, you know, heartbroken and having difficulties. And it’s, it’s good to get it out there that there’s there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train. You know, we can actually, if we have our attention in the right place and take the right steps, things generally can get better.
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah. But they do. But at the same time, we have to make room for the fact that this life on this planet is very difficult, very challenging. But the deeper you go, the more you realize that you are the whole thing. You You’re an approximation of the whole thing. Let’s put it that way.
Rick Archer: Yes. And in fact, you are the whole thing. It’s just a matter of coming to realize that and that’s a lifelong project, but you know, that which the all this all the sages say that that which we essentially are, is the totality is the totality, you know, that thou art Tomasi? Yeah. And none of us start out knowing that when we come into this world, and life is a matter of growing into that more and more, and there’s no time limit. Oh, no. That’s the thing, too. I remember one time I was teaching a meditation retreat, and I was talking about enlightenment and all that. And some older person who was there who actually also had MS or something, they started to cry because they felt like, oh, it’s not, I’m never going to get it, you know, my nervous system isn’t functioning properly, and I’m too old and all that. But as far as I know, from my perspective and understanding, it’s a continuum. And you could you could sort of wake up to the initiative to, you know, go deeper into spirituality on on your dying day. And good, the good start, you’ll keep going from there.
Vicki Woodyard: Remember, Brahm, don’t tell him the story about teaching, talking to a group of people. And he was talking about waking up and enlightenment and he said, This older lady kept nodding, nodding in this a silent agreement. And he asked her how she had learned it. She said, I need it.
Rick Archer: Yeah. So there’s very
Vicki Woodyard: simple ways to get into that. And nicely altered say,
Rick Archer: yeah, so knitting was like her meditation. Yeah, yeah. Eckhart Tolle, it tells a story about a monk of some sort who got awakened watching a cat looking at a mouse hole.
Vicki Woodyard: You know, just that sounds. That sounds like Peter.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Just the attention that he saw the cat giving to that little task of watching for the mouse, you know, I guess it’s sort of HID trained with that focus. And it will come up again, Sir, we’ve we’ve rambled on about all kinds of things. I’m been really enjoying this, is there anything that you feel like you would like to say that we haven’t covered?
Vicki Woodyard: It’s been a delightful chat. You’ve put me at ease immediately. We’re gonna thank you so much for allowing me to have this conversation.
Rick Archer: Well, thanks for having me witness back and forth and I sort of, I get to know people each week first by listening to them for hours and reading their stuff. And I feel like I already kind of know that mean before I’ve talked to him, and then I talked to him for a couple of hours and get to know them even better. So
Vicki Woodyard: it takes it takes a discipline on your part to go that deep. The shorter of an arc to what you do. Yeah, I
Rick Archer: guess you could say that, but it doesn’t feel like a discipline. I mean, discipline has this onerous quality of, you know, gotta be, you know, train yourself to do something difficult but for me, it’s just something I enjoy so much that I just naturally drawn to it.
Vicki Woodyard: Well, I enjoyed the whole process. I enjoyed the guy that in the Skype meetings show us how to set it up, Jerry. Yeah, I’m learning how to wear this first time I’ve worn earplugs. It’s all new to me.
Rick Archer: Yeah, the whole wonderful team of people. He was great. Yeah. So I read Jerry and Larry. And then Angel Angel does the video post production. And then there’s people out there who do some translating and transcribing and help with technical things and stuff. So it is kind of worldwide. Dan, Dan in London has been forwarding us all these questions during during our conversation. Oh,
Vicki Woodyard: it’s a huge thing you’re doing really? I mean, is it so you look at the list and like, I was laughing I saw Robbie said, Well, after this interview, I’ve got to return the equipment that turned back into if you got if you got one of my books you can hold up.
Rick Archer: Oh, well, actually, I’ve been I’ve been showing them. I have them in the computer. You can’t see them by luck. But that’s the show. Now I’m showing the cover of Life with a hole in it. Right now people are seeing it. And now I’m showing the cover of bigger than the sky. They’re beautifully designed covers who did your cover design?
Vicki Woodyard: Oh, the first one was done by book locker. The next one was done by non duality press.
Rick Archer: The real nice. I really did book cover design for a few years good shoes. And in fact, if anybody wants to look at her covers his book hyphen, cover hyphen, design comm you can see all book covers. But um, anyway she appreciates. A lot of times I get spiritual books in the mail. And Irene says I want a crappy cover can’t wait. Can’t these spiritual people get good?
Vicki Woodyard: Yeah, but it’s hard to get these online, it’s better to get a minute ebook really?
Rick Archer: Well, they can do that from your website. I’ll be linking to that. So do you I know you’re kind of a recluse. But if somebody is listening to this, and they actually feel like having a chat with you, are you open to having Facebook chat? I mean, Skype Skype chats with people or would you just assume not do that?
Vicki Woodyard: I’m not sure I might. If somebody wants to, I might consider it as it’s like, an ad or no thing? Oh, no.
Rick Archer: They can email if you if they really feel drawn to do it. And you could say yes or no, or whatever
Vicki Woodyard: they like, certainly. I would like for people to visit Vicky would your.com Because that’s where my fresh material comes from. And then I like to my Facebook page. I’m not on Facebook as much as I used to be. Yeah. But I am there at least once or twice a day.
Rick Archer: Okay, that’s good. I’ll link to that stuff from your page on bat gap calm. Well, thank you. Thanks, Vicki. So take care if I ever get down to Atlanta. I’ll give you a call. But I haven’t been there ever really? Well. Yeah. I mean, I went there. When we first got married. We were traveling around teaching a bit stumped in Atlanta, but we don’t do much traveling either. You know, you can accomplish a lot just sitting in one place.
Vicki Woodyard: I prefer it that way. First. Adios.
Rick Archer: Adios muchachos Thank you very much.
