Sophia Bonnie Wodin

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover. - Wendell Berry -   At the beginning of many of the trainings I offer, I ask some version of the question:  What do you bring?   I hope to get answers like: a questioning mind; an open heart; an adventurous spirit; resilience; my yearning inner child; my questing young adult; and the like. I ask because I am interested in how we recognize ourselves as resources. Through our days and years we have gathered vast and diverse experience. All too frequently we don ’ t recognize the value that these experiences offer. And we forget to honour them. Yet we are resources and the best resource for our own lives.   The responses I get are frequently something along the lines of: I am a teacher/parent/office worker/student, etc. You get the picture. We are used to responding with one or more of the roles that we carry ...

Sometimes our lives are pretty. Other times they bring us to our knees. It is in how we rise, get our feet back under us that opens the portal to Beauty. The outcome is never known as we travel our path. But we walk and keep on walking. In the end there’s not much else to do. Walking tall is Beauty. 

One morning in early spring, some friends and I walked along the river on one of our favorite walks. On the way back we turned away from the river to explore the uphill side of a flood plain* and plunged more deeply into the forest. The woods here were thick with both mature and young trees; some upright others tilted crazily, an outcome of wind and seasonal rains. The trees were so thick that even though they had not yet leafed out we could barely see the houses at the crest of the hill beyond. It was idyllic. Then I looked down. There was this plant newly emerging from the thawing earth. It covered the forest floor. It looked oh so familiar. As we walked along, I noticed that this plant was everywhere. Then, with a sinking heart I recognized it. Gout Weed, Bishop’s Weed, Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria)**. Whatever you call it, once it has entered your life you will work long and hard to extricate it. And, ultimately, you will fail. You will have to keep after it year by year. I...

As the days on Earth lengthen and turn towards spring, we find Queen Persephone in the Underworld with her lover, King Hades. She tends to the souls of those who wait for life to call upon them once again.   But even in this timeless place, time passes.  And Mystery has its way with us all. In this place of sameness the unexpected happens. A whiff of air drifts in and mingles with the mists and vapors of the Underworld. The sconces and torches flutter and quickly regain their steady glow.     A murmur arises among the Shades, “from whence comes this breeze?” A sadness of memory flutters through rushing from shadow to shadow until it is dampened amidst the fog and the vapors. But that freshness finds its way to Persephone. The Queen raises her head and sniffs.   “What is this? An aroma of newness? Here among the Dead there is no newness. All remains. All remains. No change comes to this place. All remains.”   Nonetheless, curiosity, a scampering child of Tim...

I was raised in a household in which Kindness was not a value. I had to learn it as an adult. That is not to say that there weren’t  other noble values in my childhood home, but Kindness wasn ' t prime among them.   It was when I found the poem  Kindness  by Naomi Shihab Nye that my journey towards Kindness actually began.   I don ’ t remember how or when I found the poem or who pointed it out to me. What I do know is that it stuck. It was similar to the time in the late 1970 ’ s when I was sitting regularly at Insight Meditation Center in Barre, Massachusetts. At the end of my 10 minutes meeting with the teacher, I made the statement,  “ This word  compassion , you use it a lot. I don ’ t think I know what it means.” The teacher just smiled. Although I didn’t recognize it at the time, finding the poem Kindness was a step along the path towards finding out.   When I found that poem, or when it found me, I was living in a ramshackle owner-built ho...