Sophia Bonnie Wodin

If that which we seek we find not within our selves, We will never find it without…..                                     (from The Charge of The Goddess, Doreen Valiente, adapted by Starhawk) I recently joined a local ‘sangha’ (a meditation community).   The circumstances being remarkable in their synchronicity.   I had had the thought that I wanted to meditate with others on a regular basis for only a few days when I mentioned it to a group of students celebrating their final gathering.   One of the women knew of such a group.   As luck would have it, they met the very next evening.   And I was invited to join. My spirituality is a personal mixture of many traditions, including Buddhist roots and Earth-centered, mystery-oriented practices and psychological training with...

Every ending is a new beginning.   And thus it is with Samhain.   The harvests have been brought in.   The grain is cut down, the last beans picked, flowers gathered and seeds brought in to dry and wait the time of replanting.    We have partaken of the harvest feast with gratitude, knowing that we carry this yearly bounty in our hearts and minds and bodies to keep us through out the long winter.   Persephone has welcomed the souls of those who passed beyond the veil, calling them home.   Home to rest in peace and wisdom.   That which has passed returns to settle into the arms of love. It may seem strange to think of approaching the longest darkness as a new beginning.   In our culture we are schooled to think that new beginnings are bright and shiny.   A new car or toy or dress….. But all beginnings start in darkness.   In rest.   In gestation.   And so it is with our year now a tiny seed held with...

“Everything is held together with stories: That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion”  Barry Lopez from an interview in Poets and Writers March/April 1994 I am an inveterate used-book junkie.  Anywhere I go I seek out used book stores and can spend hours in them.   I may come away with a treasure or leave satisfied but empty handed. While visiting a dear friend I noticed for the first time not one but two used bookstores in her neighborhood.  In the second one I found a volume by a favorite author that had as its dedication the Barry Lopez quote that begins this blog.  Like so many tidbits of wisdom, it struck me as both simple and true.  Yes, we all have stories.  Some of our stories chronicle our adventures and are the spice of our lives.  But some others of our stories step in and take over our lives.  Check out the 3-part series I did about Story in February and March of 2014. Some stories are teaching ...

Some of you know that I travel between my current home in SW Ontario, Canada and the family home in Massachusetts.  Time was when I did that quite a lot, but recent years have found me more settled in my Canadian home, only traveling for family occasions or to take care of my land. So when Monday morning found me hopping into my car and ‘flying low’ down the New York State Thruway I was somewhat surprised at the fierceness of my response. A beloved friend’s cancer had metastasized and another friend’s mother had gone into hospice. I made the trip in record time. Sliding into my former life was immediate.   Part of me can barely understand that I live a whole different life elsewhere. I remember and wonder about that old story of someone who woke from a dream to realize that they didn’t know which was their real life and when they were dreaming.   Were they the butterfly dreaming of being a human or a human dreaming of being a butterfly?   Sometimes I ask ...

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...