A beginning

In a troubled time, the willingness to proceed like you’re needed is a radical act.

Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise

So I begin. Normal is no more. There won’t be a new one, no matter how many times the media tells us so.

I’m calling these diaries my Crusade of Encouragement. The modern world is a cardboard boat floating on an ocean of grief. The sides are soaking through, the bottom is sagging, people are falling in. Things are not going to get easier. I know this. I want to help. As a writer, stories are the main flotation device I can offer to those embroiled in the struggle of living in these turbulent, uncertain times.

Encouragement from a grandmother is a well that never runs dry. I’m not a mother or a grandmother, but I’m in my mid-forties, so I know I’m past my childbearing years and into my final chapter(s) of life. Grief has been one of my greatest teachers. I no longer want anything for myself. Just to leave behind some small wisdoms that I’ve learned, so they may be like luck stones for others. To plant beautiful ideas that might grow in someone else’s mind and bear fruit in the future.

My inspiration comes from those lighting fires for old stories, old folkways, old gods, and better ways of living in relationship with the earth. And of course from the big wide cosmos and all it’s mysteries.

My area of expertise in this battle for the human soul, is beauty. I specialize in sensual delight, sustained bouts of wonder, ecstatic revelations and feasting on small details. I believe in nurturing the rooted, local life over the scattered, borderless life. I think our collective sense of rootlessness contributes much to western culture’s spiritual ills. I have a thing for kitchens, witches, fertility goddesses and bearded men.

The world is in great need of elder energy. This lady of letters hereby dons her crone’s cloak and picks up her staff.

Your Omi in training

Sophia