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#4020 - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
Nonduality Street radio will be live on the air today, Tuesday, September 21, with guest Dustin LindenSmith. We'll mainly talk about mindfulness and parenting. The 30 minute show streams at noon EST at
This issue features Vicki Woodyard's new book, Life With A Hole In It. Vicki's writing is well known on the Highlights and to have a carefully thought-out book of her writings is a gift. Here are a couple recent reviews:
I am on a week long vacation to Utah and before leaving on Friday
I
printed out the first 75 pages of your book. I reached the
airport three
hours before the flight. I sat near a huge window, on a black
rocking
chair with the view of the runway and huge white puffy clouds in
the sky.
The next couple of hours were beautiful with a combination of
reading,
admiring the clouds, introspecting my own life situations and
trying to
hold back tears. It was a beautiful experience and a great start
to my
vacation. I almost finished the first 75 pages by the time I
reached
Salt Lake City. Loved the way the book is written with
combination of
facts, truths and some funny pages. Thanks. - S.B.
LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT has a big heart.
Through stories of seeking
enlightenment and the sense of enlightenment as a "dirty
word," through
tales of a teacher and loved ones dying of cancer and the pain of
watching them die, to a sense of beautiful, quiet peace at the
end of
these stories, the book has all the gritty, earthly feel of a
personal
life transformed by a sense of the bigness of the
impersonal. This is
good reading. It made me smile and laugh. The words are drenched
with
love and a sense of humor along with reverence and awe for
the mystery
of life. I recommend this book! - Scott Kiloby,
Author of Reflections of the One Life, Love's Quiet
Revolution, and Living Realization.
Life With A Hole In It
Since the title of my book is Life With A Hole In It, I have been
led to
ponder all of its implications. And being an intuitive writer, I
am now
going to open up the forum to my writing self and let her speak:
A large hole was made in your life when your daughter died. It
felt like
a large asteroid had crashed into your spirit leaving a Crater
Lake of
Tears. And yet you knew in your heart that it would not crush
you. You
also knew that life as you knew it was over. The new one that you
began
to live one day at a time was about as appealing as a leper’s
kiss. Was
there a Christ in you that could embrace it?
It would take years and years to learn to do that. The professor
who
taught the course in how to survive the death of a child never
showed up
for class. Like an orphan yourself, you sat alone waiting for the
teacher to show.
Life went on in a terribly cockeyed way. Holidays came and went
with no
one being one whit happier. They actually made you sadder than
sad. Not
for you was trimming a tree with a seven-year-old’s favorite
ornaments
hung at the top of the tree. Too sad for words.
You found a tough spiritual teacher who drew you directly into
the fire
and you were glad to go. For you were used to fire. What you
weren’t
used to was light. But now you craved it and you would sit for
large
chunks of time absorbing the written wisdom and spoken words of
the
wise. Your teacher seemed to know his stuff.
And then your husband got his fatal diagnosis and for a second
time in
your life you went through hell. Your child and your husband both
had
about the same length of time to live and you knew that you would
be a
survivor yet again. But this time you found your voice and your
passion
to tell the truth yourself. And that is how you go on. Like the
Energizer Bunny, you run on the battery of the beyond within. It
is a
mystery and a blessing how everything works out when you
determine to go
the distance.
Vicki's book, LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT, can be ordered here.
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4931.html
Vicki Woodyard