Sophia Bonnie Wodin

Breathe in.   Savour that sense of fullness. Breathe out.   Acknowledge that sense of emptiness. Do it again.   And now, do it again. Recognize that every day of your life you do this countless times. This is Life breathing through you. Now, at the time of Equinox the day and night, the dark and light are in balance.   For just this tiny space of time, it is as though Life holds its breath, waiting.   In fullness.   For what comes next.   The earth has given us of Her bounty.   And we give our gratitude in return as we harvest our summer crops, making way for fall plantings.   We pull out the finished plants and spread compost to ripen in the soil towards the return of spring.   We mulch cleared ground.   And we wait, savouring the fullness of storage crops, of root vegetables and cold-hardy greens.   Taking another breath, we prepare to enter the darkness of the year. But now, right now, it is th...

I come from thunder and lightening, from the silence at the edge of dawn from the moaning lovers’ embrace and the fear deep in their hearts. I come from the heartbeat of city nights and the low call of tug boats easing liners into the harbor. I come from the click of high heels on marble floors, and the vacant eyes of the vagrant huddled homeless in the doorway. I come from fragrant 5 a.m. bakeries and stale 2 a.m. beer joints. I come from the dairy restaurant with its white fish and white foods. And I come from the sharp smell wafting from barrels of pickles, olives, roasted red peppers. I come from pushcarts filling Sunday morning in Soho, Saturday morning in Union Square, Chelsea. I come from rushing traffic and taxi drivers, tired and rude, interested and caring; from lost tourists wandering Times Square wondering why they left home. I come from tall buildings graceful and old facing The Park; decaying...

In the gathering dusk of the New Moon we came together.   Women came from of many walks of life some singly; three generations from one family; fast friends from a far; local women with generations of roots buried deep in the soil; transplants seeking community; some claiming their womanhood, other questioning; some strangers, others old friends, we all gathered as The Red Tent opened its flaps. The circle was held in tenderness and compassion as one spoke and then another and another of their experiences of being Woman.   And so the Sacred Conversation we call the Red Tent was begun. It is a powerful time, whenever people of any gender gather to share their stories; a time when deep truths and honesty come forward.   In some cultures this is a time to pass along the teachings, perhaps centuries old.   In others it is simply a time to relax and grow friendships.   But in the semi-darkness, with or without a fire, we give ourselves permission to move thr...

As a teen, I read a then classic by Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again .  Despite its classic-status, from the very title, I read with resistance. It documents a young man, his relationship with home and his disillusionment with the changing world within which he lives.  The important part for me was not so much Wolfe’s deeply powerful experience as the concept that is may be possible to return to what once held dear. Home once found, is a treasure not to be taken lightly.   So each time love took me to the far reaches of the globe, I found myself eventually drawn back to the cradle that fostered me both as a child (Eastern Massachusetts) and as an adult (the hills of Western Massachusetts).   When love sent me into a new life recently, I accepted that I was leaving my true home for the possibility of a deeper learning than any that had been offered before.   And yet I struggled, attempting to keep a foot in both worlds: unable to give up the pote...