Woodsong Notes 

 By William Samuel (1973)

QUESTIONS, ANSWERS AND FRANGMENTS 

Words purporting to speak of the Absolute 

must be as honest as words can be. If they are 

well done, they contain both the precision that 

satisfies the intellect of us and the love that 

lets the Heart know they have been LIVED as 

well as written. This requires a dedication and 

intensity "the world" simply doesn't 

understand.

At least to this point in history, metaphysical 

writing is a veritable miracle of obfuscation 

and intellectual hogwash that says nothing in 

plain, simple words. The “metaphysics of the 

Absolute” is fast becoming the world’s new 

mysticism which allows one to read whatever 

he likes into its interpretation. That sort of 

stuff doesn’t “wake the dreamer. It only makes 

the dream more comfortable.

So, how to say what the Absolute discloses 

without the mystifying, muddling mess of 

metaphysical language? This what has me so 

long at Woodsong. How to write what cant’ be 

written with words alone? That’s what has me 

wandering the back trails and fields. Not 

searching for the Real but for ways to tell of 

it—for words that sing to the Heart and say 

there is noting BUT the Real—either to be 

seen or do the seeing.

Where are the ways to say such things? It is 

easier to count the stars in the night sky than 

find them. But they exist—and there are many 

of us with pen in hand.

“Bill, are you still prattling about a ‘perfect 

world’ now that it is falling around our feet” 

Do you still maintain that ‘God is all’ in the 

face of governments near collapse, crashing 

markets and economic systems, warfare and 

greed, murder and madness everywhere? Do 

you still insist there is nothing but GOOD 

going on even as we are haunted by the 

specter of shortage at every turn?…Do you 

still say there is no devil, discord, disease or 

death?…If you do, you are as mad as a hatter.”

Yes, Jack. Yes! I’m still singing the same song 

and my hat fits! I’m still telling about a 

perfect universe for which you and I are the 

AWARENESS And I’m not stating personal 

opinions or beliefs I simply wish were true. 

I’m telling of a perfection I KNOW about—a 

perfection that stands tall and straight right in 

the middle of the world's frustrations. 

Everyday more and more are finding It. I 

know There are hundreds of letters here 

telling me so.

“If one sees nothing but a perfect world, why 

DO or WRITE anything at all?”

I don’t write because I have an answer but 

because there’s a song in my Heart disclosing 

that I (you) AM the Answer.

I don’t write to heal someone or some thing, 

nor to make the world over, I write because 

there’s a song in the Heart disclosing I AM 

the world and all that’s in it—even as “you” 

are. We don’t write to DO anything, but, like a 

child full of gladness, we write to let the 

inside out and sing—to make the unsounded 

Symphony HEARD.

By whom? Myself alone.

It isn’t an “I” that sees perfection, but God 

who, as this Awareness I-Identity am, sees 

naught but that God is Everything. And it IS, 

by God JUST AS IT IS, perfect!

“Some teach that the Absolute is not material, 

therefore not finite in any sense of the word. I 

see material things all day long. Is there any 

reality in them at all?”

Is there any arithmetic in the number? Is 

there any Symphony in the printed note? Is 

there any tree in its shadow? We look for the 

Principle behind the number. We listen for the 

Symphony being the note. We look up from 

the shadows and find the Tree. What ever the 

“thing” we see, it is ISNESS being made 

plain. 

We don’t throw the thing out a mental widow 

calling it “unreal” or “just a part of the 

dream.” We learn to acknowledge that Light 

which is being the sight, sound or experience. 

We stop giving undue importance to the thing 

and acknowledge the Ineffable Symphony for 

which things are either chords or discords 

making the Symphony clear. But listen, listen: 

The Symphony, and the notes, that make it 

known, are ONE Symphony!

“A well known woman practitioner-writer-

teacher- has told me countless times I had 

better ‘get busy and know the Truth.’ That’s 

what I thought I had been doing but 

 evidentally not. After all these years in the 

practice I’m not certain of anything anymore 

and am feeling quite guilty about it. Precisely 

what IS the primary difference between 

‘enlightened thinking’ (knowing the Truth) 

and the ordinary thinking one is engaged in 

during the day?”

The “ordinary” thinking of the world begins its 

calculations from the position of a humanity 

with a problem, sinful and struggling, 

attempting to achieve a degree of wisdom. It 

begins from the position of an ignorant 

mortal, born in sin, attempting via an 

uncounted number of pathways to arrive at a 

“unitive knowledge of Reality.”

On the other hand, the “philosophy of the 

Absolute”when correctly stated and 

understood aright begins its statement from 

the position that Reality, God, is 

All—absolutely all in All and All is well. The 

Absolute “begins” with a real Perfection very 

much PRESENT—then, from that position 

EXPLAINS THE SCENE AT HAND, allowing 

the Heart to tell us what to DO about it.

The difference between “enlightened thinking” 

and the ordinary sort is precisely WHICH 

starting point gives rise to our thoughts Is 

God really ALL? Is Allness, God, actually 

omnipotent or is there another power outside 

Allness struggling to get back in? Is God 

really the omniscient, all and only Mind, or is 

there another mind, sinful and ignorant, 

struggling, striving and straining to educate 

itself? Is God really omnipresent or is there 

another place OUTSIDE Allness and Onlyness 

with in which Omnipresence is absent and sin, 

sickness and death present?

Ordinary thinking (frequently called “mortal 

mind”) begins at the bottom with the 

multiplicity of sense data before it and from 

here struggles to climb up to God. 

Enlightened thinking begins at the top AS 

God, AS Singleness, AS Allness, AS 

Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnipresence, 

and from THERE looks roundabout at ITSELF 

with gladness and signing and twinkle in its 

Eye!!

Now, listen carefully; listen softly: Both 

positions view the same Scene! The same 

mighty mountains and snow flowers are 

present to both views—the same children are 

tumbling in the same green fields and 

examining the same crawly things—the same 

events appear to happen “but only God can 

understand God,” as the bibles of the world so 

elegantly confirm, and “no man can 

understand the ways of God.”

As the top position, one looks, understands 

and knows. FROM the bottom, one looks into 

the face of a proliferating multiplicity to be 

smothered by it and ultimately forced to 

change perspective. AS the ALL and ONLY, 

 

one looks, and understands, is troubled for a 

time, then marvels and reigns! From the 

bottom, one casts his lot with the leaves and 

shadows of a far country.

Ah, but—as the TOP, even the leaves and 

shadows and mistakes are UNDERSTOOD for 

the grand purpose they serve. From the top, 

our choosing first one position, then the other, 

is understood. We are without GUILT and it is 

all “good”—even the husks and tares; even the 

Hatter’s madness.

“What does the Absolute have to say about the 

present energy crisis?”

There is no ENERGY crisis HERE. All that is 

ever “here” for anyone is AWARENESS, 

LIFE—and awareness is the functioning, the 

activity, the energy of MIND. Isn’t it?  Mind, 

God, is All.  Consequently, the awareness that 

reads these words is the only Energy around 

and It isn’t in short supply. Is it?!

“I understand awareness to be the energy of 

Mind but what is the short supply of oil, 

electricity and gasoline for my home and 

business all about?”

Oil, electricity, atomic power and all the forms 

of energy are the “out there” appearances 

that make the “in here” Energy that 

AWARENESS is apparent—just as the notes of 

the Symphony make the Symphony apparent. 

Just as the colors of the spectrum make white 

light apparent. Colors are subservient to 

Light. 

The images of energy are subservient to the 

Awareness that comprehends them and whose 

Energy they make plain. Oil is the EVIDENCE 

of energy, not Energy ITSELF It is the shadow, 

not the Tree it points to One doesn’t hit the 

panic button when the Tree’s shadow grows 

weak. He knows the Tree is still there, 

untouched and unaffected by the shadow’s 

wanderings. But, if one has been worshiping 

the shadow, glorifying the shadow, buying and 

selling the shadow as though SHADOW were 

the Value rather than Tree, then the shadow’s 

shortage is certain to become one’s necessary  

concern.

Why necessary? Comfortable as the shadow, 

the Tree-I-am remains unseen and unlived. 

Discomfort FORCES an end to the shadow’s 

reign and the false values we’ve given it.

For a moment, consider the world’s love of the 

sundry shadows that fall across its face. Does 

it contain a thought of the Tree at all? All the 

years of weighing and measuring, the 

shadows,buying and selling the shadows, 

possessing, struggling for and lusting after 

the  shadows hasn’t allowed the world even to 

understand the SHADOWS, much less find the 

Tree. What do the sciences of the world know 

of this very world they measure? Only that 

less and less is certain, and every “answer” 

turns into a dozen new questions yet to be 

answered. The shadow-study institutions move 

ever deeper into their own maze of 

multiplicity, birthing more shadow studies to 

ask still more question, to measure the reach 

of tectonic plates, ponder the problems of 

polarity and search for Black Holes in the sky 

already dark with night. Ever, the measure of 

shadows rises no higher than the ground they 

fall on.

Finally, humanity has arrived at the “point in 

time” when its shadow-study and shadow-

worshiping confusions have it allocating, 

rationing, fighting over and finally destroying 

the very sand foundation on which the 

sciences or mortal thinking stand.

 

Where does it go from here? One day soon, 

soon, to GIVE UP in its self-imposed agony for 

the split second of reflection and REST—the 

Sabbatical rest that lets one say, as God, 

“Behold, everything is good!” And, by dang, 

here is the Tree that has been here since all 

Eternity! Yes, yes Identity is “Tree,” not a 

shadow-limb trembling before a shortage of 

shadow-leaves.

Consider again From the position of shadow-

as-most-important, the human sciences can go 

no higher than themselves, whether they are 

political, religious, economic or whatever. Oh, 

but from the standpoint of TREE 

ACKNOWLEDGED, the shadow can finally be 

understood in its entirety! THEN mankind will 

discover things about the sticks and stones, 

flowers and bones, of nature never drempt 

before—and will know the difference between 

shadow-fact and non-fact. Identified as Tree, 

one can tell the wheat from the tare.

Be assured: Both the present shortage of 

shadows and the abundance of shadows 

the Tree of Identity called LIFE. Life is where 

the action is. Life is what the “energy” is.

The days ahead are certain to contain a 

mighty storm that casts new shadow atop the 

old, from strange directions, as the lightening 

rages roundabout. We will see many shadows 

come and go, human values change, human 

ideals altered, icons smashed. BUT IT WILL 

ALL BE HAPPENING “OUT THERE” WITH 

THE SHADOW-VALUES. We choose to hang in 

here as the Tree of Light and Life, letting the 

shadows take care of themselves. Lo, once the 

Tree is found, there is hardly a concern for the 

shadows that led us there—except to thank 

them.

Metaphysicians are not surprised by the 

strange and foreboding events happening in 

the world today. The present international 

drama, as well as every individual experience, 

is Truth appearing—and every bit of it is good, 

whether it seems so or not.

One is prone to view his own personal 

experience in one light and the events 

happening in the world in another. Only the 

metaphysical (solipsistic) outlook recognizes 

how closely related the personal scene and 

world scene actually are. Only the meta-

physical outlook discloses (to the thinking, 

rational mind) the wonders that are urs with 

the realization that both scenes live and move 

and have their being within the awareness 

that takes note of them. 

Within this realization, the personal scene and 

world scene are seen to be ONE scene—the 

Scene new-seen! Furthermore, the top-down 

metaphysical view makes a logical explanation 

to both the heart and intellect of us as to how 

and why this is so. In rare moments it even 

explains how everything happening is 

Good-beyond-human-good, no mater how 

awful it seems to the old nature of us.

The paradox so difficult for most to under-

stand understand and believe is this: 

Circumstances, personal and global, will 

continue as persistently, forcefully, and 

sometimes chaotically as is necessary to 

disclose the perfect scene already at hand. 

Events, however they seem to us, individually 

as a personal experience or 

collectively as international affairs, are the 

intellectual appearing of the irrepressible 

All-rightness which has been here all the 

while.
 

Metaphysicians are not surprised by the 

strange and foreboding events happening in 

the world today.  The present international 

drama, as well as every individual experience, 

is Truth appearing—and every bit of it is good, 

whether it seems so or not.

********