Stories, Strategies and Surprises

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Intuition

The Descent

The plane had begun its slow fall toward the earth when a sharp ache pierced my ears. Half-dozing, half-aware, I surfaced into the moment just as the toddler in front of me woke with a scream that broke her open. The sound wasn’t defiance or misbehavior. It was pain.

I felt her small body struggling to make sense of something she couldn’t name.

Her mother bent over her with the tenderness of someone trying very hard to be a good parent. But her soothing came dressed in urgency, in the quiet pressure to behave, to use words, to be okay, to not disturb those seated around her. Her voice shook with the effort of managing her child’s distress and her own rising shame.

What If Life Isn’t Asking You to Become Someone Else?

Over the past several months, I have been immersed in conversation with women. In therapy sessions, Via Sophia circles, and at dinner tables. During walks, ceremonies, and quiet moments after gatherings have ended. I’ve been listening as stories unfold. Different women. Different lives, histories, and circumstances. Yet beneath the details, I keep hearing a remarkably similar story. Many women are tired.

Via Sophia Retreat in Costa Rica

There comes a moment when something within you begins to shift.

Not because life is failing. Not because you have done something wrong. But because what once felt meaningful no longer feels like enough.

Many women arrive at this threshold quietly. Others experience it more viscerally, through exhaustion, change, loss, longing, or the growing realization that the life they have carefully built no longer fully reflects who they are becoming.
You may already feel this happening within you now.

An Accidental Meeting, A Hand Held

A few months ago, when the world was cold and the snow came often, I left for work a little earlier than usual.

The roads had already been plowed, but I knew better than to assume they were clear. That kind of winter morning holds a particular deception. The pavement looks clean, almost dry, while a thin layer of ice waits invisibly beneath.

I was mostly alone on the road.

A Horse Bumped My Heart

I’ve always had a distant relationship with horses.

I once rode the pony a friend cared for at a local barn when I was a pre-teen. I’ve done a few trail rides, including what felt like a few death-defying adventures in the Colorado Rockies. I even calmly steered my horse back onto the trail after she reared and raced down a small forest hill. It was a natural instinct. After all, I’ve watched enough television to witness experienced equestrians deftly managing rearing horses.

Via Sophia. Modern Woman. Ancient Path.

I have been reading a series of novels set in the late nineteenth century that portray the social structures women were expected to live within.   Hardships were often hidden behind social niceties, beautiful homes, fashionable clothing, and the polite manner considered fitting for a lady of society. A woman’s ability to enjoy simple pleasures such as reading freely, choosing her friendships, or expressing her opinions was often restricted by her husband.