Sophia Bonnie Wodin

A new calendar year and a new moon.   When cycles coincide with each other in this way we are all invited to pay attention. Can you find the seeds of tomorrow in the darkness of today?   Do next year’s possibilities arise out of this year passing?   Invite yourself to be surprised! The end of this calendar year coincides with the Dark of the Moon and our beautiful new calendars burst us into a New Moon, a new beginning.   Darkness and waiting meets newness in our time-measured realities as well as in our energetic lives.   This past year has given us ample opportunity to dive deeply into the unknown, our own personal unknown and mysterious future of our beloved planet.   And then, having plunged into new territory, we wait for what answers may come.   We become a beacon, holding a candle against the darkness.   And then we lean into our light.   And we wait, wondering, what will unfold now.   There has been a certain satisfaction, a degree of maturity in sitting throug

Each morning brings a dusting of new fallen snow, just enough to make the world look sparkling and lovely all over again.   Soup bubbles on the back of the stove.   We fill bird feeders regularly and are rewarded by crowds of grateful sparrows and chickadees, goldfinches in their olive plumage and the redheaded woodpecker who lives next door.   As well as the intrepid squirrel population. We have settled in for winter.   During a recent surprisingly-warm-for-the-season midnight, unable to sleep we crept downstairs to watch the stars.   The neighbors’ holiday lights were turned off.   Even the streetlights seemed far away while the clear velvet star studded sky drew close and we felt held. And then we were greeted by a shooting star blazing across the skies.   The Solstice has come and been well celebrated.   Imperceptibly at first, the light begins to return.   Slowly, ever so slowly, a minute in the morning, one in the afternoon and the day begins to expand.   Time as we huma

The Year Turns.   We make ourselves ready, turning from the familiar towards that which waits to emerge in our lives. Tomorrow night is the Winter Solstice, the time of greatest darkness of the year.   Some will stand on a bonfire lit hilltop keeping vigil for that first crack of dawn, ready to toast in the coming year.   Others will stand in circles, declaring their intentions for this cycle to come.   Still others will enact the drama of being born into this life anew. No matter what our style of celebration, those of us who honor the cycles of the sun acknowledge that the time of resting in the dark Mother’s womb is ending.   When we nestled in here at Samhain it seemed as though we might live in darkness forever but now we make ready to re-emerge with the growing light. As I reflect on the year that is passing and my hopes for the one to come, I find that a deep sense of gratitude for what has been sits right along side of that sense of “come on, let’s get on with it

“Uh oh,” I thought looking out across the snow-covered yard towards the darkened house and the fence gate beyond.   My late afternoon client would have to pick her way through trench-like pathways we had dug in the foot deep snow with no light to guide her. Then we said “good night” and “thank you”.   She turned to face the walk, took three steps out into the cold night and looked up.   She flashed me a smile “nice sky” she said. I turned back to my desk made a few notes, gathered my datebook, clipboard, shawl and turned off the light. Stepping out into the darkened silent snow-covered world I, too, looked up. There, across the yard hanging just above the garden gate where I had never seen Her before, as a signpost to light the way The Full Moon hung in true glory shining the way home.

We have a new candle lighted on our kitchen-table altar.   In our household we light candles for many situations or people or causes.   The light of each candle carries with it our prayers, our hopes for that person or situation.   You might say, we pray a lot. When I came downstairs this morning in the light of half-dawn, This particular candle in its blue glass jar cast its light across the kitchen to greet me.   A beacon, a true light in the darkness. This candle is part of a worldwide prayer circle for the dismantling of the Fourth Tower at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant that was damaged in the earthquake and then tsunami in 2011.   For the past two years, while the world attempted to watch, nuclear waste has been seeping into the Pacific Ocean.    While the world watches, or tried to watch the waters from the above-ground cooling towers continually washing the still hot or used rods has been purposefully released into the pacific Ocean.   While the world tried to wat