Sophia Bonnie Wodin

A dear friend and current student asked the question, "How can I remember who I am?".  The quest ion really hit home because  i t’ s a question I have  asked  myself for  years beyond counting . In fact, much  of my personal work, both spiritually and psychologically, is focused on being able to remember who I am -- Most especially when I have strayed in to  old habits of  heart and mind .  T hat’s when  our personal practices  step in . F or me , noticing that I am living an old script is   a call to  pause,  pay attention  and invoke the witness-self that mindfulness helps us develop .  Any number of meditation teachers will offer the instruction, “when you notice that your mind has strayed very gently, bri ng yourself back [to the breath ] . ”  This instruction is deceptively simple because it is so hard to do. My mind screams out,  “I f I can’t remember who I am, how the * explicative, explicative*  am I going to remember to bring myself back!”   And that is where daily p

I have found myself saying to a number of people lately,  “ Life brings us to our work…”  This is most certainly true of me, and perhaps for it you as well.   As I walk the path that lies before me I am supported by the skills and tools I have learned along the way. I think of these things as my *practices* and quite frankly, I would be lost without them.   Aside from the skills of Grounding (connecting myself with Earth and Sky) and Centering (staying in touch with the Core of my being, my most essential Self), I call upon the qualities of Courage and Compassion. I access them through the breath, a practice that I first learned from my teacher, T. Thorn Coyle.   The practice itself is simple: breathe in Courage, breathe out Compassion. Or sometimes I reverse them, breathing in Compassion and breathing out Courage. It works either way for me, depending on the circumstance.   But it is the definitions of Courage and Compassion that really matter here. Rather than trying to connect with

“ May the path unfold before you, even as you walk upon it!”                                                               Sophia, embroidered on a blue jeans patch, 1976   As we step forward in our lives we are continually faced with decisions, the outcome of which  is never fully and consciously known.  It is only when we look back that we see that there was a path. And that somehow, miraculously, we walked it.     Perhaps we created it. Or maybe we simply allowed it to unfold.   When I came to Canada 10 ½ years ago, following my heart and some unnamed impulse that one might call The Goddess, I imagined that I would continue landscaping. Instead I created myself anew. I leaned into the skills that I had assembled through formal education, trainings and mentoring, and decades of lived experience, and stepped into the role of Guide, Mentor, Counsellor and Teacher.  What had once been a  sideline  now  took cent re  stage.   The first iteration, Priestessing Your Life, a 13 month traini

I have been trying to write a blog post for the past several weeks now. Probably more than a month, two months, or more. I keep on writing and deleting. What I had wanted to write about was the way in which I work with Breath as a tool to support humans stepping into reciprocity with Life. And then I remembered Eric Gardner. I think about George Floyd. I am an older middle-aged white woman of privilege. I grew up in the 1950’s on the east coast of the United States. The safest person in my childhood was a Black woman. I am heart broken and outranged that people who look like me are murdering people who look like the people who nurtured me as a young child. This does not protect me from internalized or systemic racism. Or many other –isms. And so I work for justice in any way, in all of the ways, that I know how.

When all is said and done, life tends to assume its own path and we toddle along, making the best we can of the situation as it arises. But when CHANGE comes knocking, we sit up and pay attention. So COVID-19 comes along and suddenly the unknown, the specter of Death, peers into the window of our souls and as one being, humanity locks down. It was brilliant. A humble virus, with its ability to mutate at need or whimsy, steps into its power and its power is mighty indeed. It said, “Enough! You have taken this human experiment as far as I am willing to let you go. Now STOP.” And so we did. With astounding determination everything, well, most everything, ground to a screeching halt. And Nature, in her lovely and determined way, went into high gear self-repair. Perhaps it’s the cleaner air that makes the colors so saturated this year. The cardinals more red, blue jays richer blue, goldfinches more golden. Perhaps the cleaner air sends the bird song further offeri

A few weeks ago I wrote that I would begin teaching on line. There are those who have been encouraging me to do this for some time but I felt reluctant. I believe(d) that my effectiveness as a teacher is in the presence of the moment. But life, and COVID-19, conspired to send me on a journey seeking new ways to connect over distances. So I have taken the plunge. Or perhaps it ’ s more accurate to say, I have taken to Zoom. And let me tell you, it ’ s a steep learning curve. It turns out that teaching on line is a whole different critter than teaching in person. For one thing I notice how expressive my face has become. I find myself using visual expression like something out of psychodrama. As though I am giving permission for feelings-to-be-felt through my pantomime.  I didn ’ t know that about myself. I am more physically/facially more expressive than I realized. Maybe I have always been like this but, because I couldn ’ t see myself, I just didn ’ t notice. You learn

  Early on in the Priestessing Your Life training, my 13- month course in spiritual and personal empowerment, I invite the participants to do automatic writing about their relationship with  change . It has always proved to be illuminating. I offer automatic writing exercises to uncover the meaning underneath the words we use; what our unconscious mind is telling us; how the language we use serves us, or perhaps doesn’t . If we believe that our language creates our reality, we need to know what our words actually mean to us, personally. Sometimes I ask the participants to do the exercise again later to see if their understandings have changed.  When I introduce the writing exercise about  change  I frequently give examples including: Some of us face change head on; Some of us back into change; Other go kicking and screaming; Still others set an intention and move towards it; Some of us float in the winds of change, arriving where the wind takes us and then

That which has been  is coming undone And yet the form is held in the arms of Mystery the path forward is unclear and yet we follow it may the unfolding  be taken in love On the recent New Moon, just as COVID-19 began to make its presence felt here in southwestern Ontario, I drew a Tarot card. Some of you know that I frequently draw Tarot cards so naturally I would at this pivotal time. I used R. J. Stewart’s   Dreampower  Tarot. Here is a photo of the card. It is called The Observatory and is part of the major Arcana. The poem (above) is the beginning of my understanding about it. Here’s the some more….. A candle in the wind. How is it that I find myself in the far reaches of space and yet my light continues to burn brightly?  Am I a beacon? Perhaps we are all beacons.  We tend our flame to light the way so that others can see that they are not alone; so that they can find a way forward. We offer the message, showing our light rema