Vicki Woodyard [Woodyard - Bigger Than the Sky

Bigger Than The Sky

Praise for Bigger Than The Sky

What a lovely, refreshing, honest expression of non-duality! With humility and compassion, Vicki speaks to the Knowing in all of us, reminding us of the possibility of finding grace and gratitude in even the darkest parts of our lives. A delightful and moving book of love and loss, seeking and discovery, pain and surrender. Highly recommended!

Jeff Foster, author of The Deepest Acceptance and Falling in Love With Where You Are .

I thought I was done with books, but this one is free of the spiritual ego that taints so much writing. It is refreshing, with an intimacy that is seamless and honest.

John Troy, author of Wisdoms Soft Whisper

This is a really powerful book; a delicate and artful balance between transcendence and humanity. I love the way it flows connected by a thematic thread yet non-linear. I am finding it an inspirational and very fluid read.

Reading this book is like sitting under a waterfall; Vickis words wash over you in a most purifying and heart-opening way.

David Newman, author of The Timebound Traveler

For her newest book Bigger than the Sky , Vicki Woodyard has selected the perfect title. Unlike so many books on offer today that only present the authors own expression of what they consider the truth, this one moves between two similar but somewhat different points of understanding, giving the reader a view of a VERY BIG SKY indeed. As we move between Vickis words and the words of her friend Peter, limiting beliefs of what one thought was true can dissolve. I highly recommend this book for anyone ready to stop thinking I already know to experiencing something far bigger.

Mary Margaret Moore, author of I Come As A Brother: The Teachings of Bartholomew

This book is an ongoing steady gaze into what is, as Vicki points out in her characteristically human way. Vicki has a rare gift in being able to take spiritual awakening out of its esoteric sheath and bring it into the everyday heart of human life, with all its ups, downs, beauty and ugliness. Having been diagnosed and then freed of cancer, I found her essays about her husband Bobs cancer so poignant and right on target. Everything in life is a gift, even death and cancer, as this book points out. As Vicki writes, we come to see the living experience of ourselves, no adjectives needed. Enjoy these little essay gems!

Scott Kiloby, author of Living Relationship: Finding Harmony With Others

Bigger Than The Sky

A Radical Awakening

Vicki Woodyard

Non-Duality Press

BIGGER THAN THE SKY

2014 Vicki Woodyard

2014 Non-Duality Press

Vicki Woodyard has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work.

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher.

Non-Duality Press | PO Box 2228 | Salisbury | SP2 2GZ

United Kingdom

ISBN: 978-1-908664-45-7

www. non-dualitypress.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Vicki Woodyards writing is about reality. She reveals the place beyond pain and suffering by being factual and direct, by looking straight at suffering. The magic of her writing is directness, humor, and artistry exacting a sweetness that transcends suffering.

How does Vicki achieve this? In this book it is by way of a literary relationship with Peter. Now Peters a whole other influence in my life. I didnt know Peter personally, but his website, sentient.org, inspired me to start nonduality.com .

Sentient.org was dedicated to Ramana Maharshi and consisted of a collection of writings from enlightened sages living and deceased. So heres what we have in this book. Two people facing every shape and shadow of sorrow. Two people seeing through sorrow, seeing what is real. Peter and Vicki emerge as a pair for the ages. We join them because we all know pain. We are Vicki. And Peter. And Laurie, Bob, Bessie, Vernon Howard, and three cats and a pup that gets put down too. Oy. At some point you have to laugh at it all. You have to see what really matters. Peter and Vicki do. I did. You will.

Thats what this book is: community. Like the old Nonduality Salon, its a community in which youre not safe. Sorry about that. You have to face pain and sorrow. Theres nothing to protect you here. How else to realize what Vicki confesses: In one sense, sorrow is the true guru, and when it burns away the dross of the self, only holy ash remains.

Jerry Katz

FOR PETER

I will meet you out beyond the breaking

but how will I know you?

For you have disappeared into your life

and come out no one, ho ho.

Perhaps a memory of you

will light the blueness of the sky

and I will recognize the taste of

conversation we once had and

then we disappeared into the fire.

Note to the Reader

The essays that make up this book are not in strict chronological order. They are more in kyros (Gods) time than chronos (clock and calendar) time. What I hope is clear is how Peter and I flowed together through a dark tunnel of time. As a result, this book was written.

Some of these essays appeared in Life With A Hole In It: Thats How The Light Gets In .

Vicki Woodyard

Peter

In a time of overwhelm, a man named Peter befriended me online. He had founded sentient.org, one of the earliest spiritual sites. He never gave his last name or where he lived. The facts about Peter are few; he preferred it that way.

Little did I know that Peters words, so simple at the time, would continue to bear fruit for me and others. I do not know when Peter died. He just grew weaker and less able to compose emails to me and his other friends.

Now his light emanates from these pages. Welcome to the story of Peter and me.

How It Began

You are the sky. Everything else its just the weather.

Pema Chodron

When my husband was dying, I began an email correspondence with a man named Peter who was ill from a series of strokes. He could barely get around and yet he told me he was bigger than the sky. After his strokes, he found that the old pile of adjectives around him did him no good. I am a good-looking man, a mans man, he told me once. And yet he found himself unable to walk down the hall to the bathroom for two years running. The new adjectives people were using were not particularly helpful. Strings of words like poor prognosis, stroke victim, unable to work were now applied to him.

Peter was barely holding onto life and my husband was dying. Neither Peter nor I had time to waste on concepts. Although we had both been on the Way for a long time, now we jettisoned any deep thoughts in exchange for the chance to hang out in the rarefied air of simplicity.

Peter had been to spiritual teachers and found them to be useless. They could not help me, he said. They simply did not know how. So he did the only thing he was able to do. He sat in the sunshine with a little cat named Alex on his chest. The cats purrs, in lieu of a nursing staff, conveyed to him the healing power of nature. He watched the robins run across the grass because they were what he saw. He was grateful in the most basic way. And he began to realize that what he had found was the living experience of himself. No adjectives need apply.

And so I sat in my leather recliner in perfectly good health, and remembered that I too was not who I thought or felt I was. I simply was.

By the end of the morning I had a wastebasket full of words that seemed to describe me. I was bigger than any of them. I knew what Peter knewthat I was bigger than the sky. I was bigger than anything that could be named or described. Peter is no longer among us and yet he lives within all who loved him. How does he do this? I was never sure how Peter did anything but feel the joy of the moment. When I am in pain, I yell. And when I fall down, I say ho ho. But he never latched onto anything. His own sense of I am became stronger than any stroke could ever be.