Sophia's Portico

09/04/2026

♀️✊🏼💜

“God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back.”

~ Gloria Steinem
(March 25, 1934 - September 2, 2026)

Art: Maggie O'Neill

09/02/2026

Tonight!

9/2 & 9/16 🪘Drum Circle🪘

09/01/2026

🧘🏽‍♀️🌍🙏🏽

"Before there was the Word, there was the Land, and it was made and watched over by women.

Stories from almost every culture around the world tell us that once upon a time it was so.

For many native tribes throughout America, Grandmother Spider continually spins the world into being.

For the Andean peoples of South America, Pachamama is the World Mother; she sustains all life on Earth.

In Scotland and Ireland, the Cailleach - the Old Woman - made, shaped and protects the land and the wild things on it.

Women: the creators of life, the bearers of the Cup of knowledge and wisdom, personifying the moral and spiritual authority of this fertile green and blue Earth."

~ Sharon Blackie, from If Women Rose Rooted
sharonblackie.net

Art: Tarn Ellis, “The Mountain”
Tarn Ellis

09/01/2026

"Let the ordinary become sacred.
Let silence become a doorway.
Let each breath remind you
that you are not separate
from the mystery unfolding around you."

Awakening to the Sacredness of Life

Before the day begins to ask anything of you,
pause.

Let the morning find you
exactly as you are.

You do not need to become
anything more in this moment.

Simply be still.

Feel the breath entering
like a small wave
returning to the shore.

Feel your heart,
that faithful drum
beating beneath all your stories.

You have survived nights
you thought would never end.

You have carried winters
inside your bones
and still,

here you are.

The light has found you again.

Perhaps awakening
is not opening your eyes,
but opening your heart
to the truth that life
has never stopped calling you.

In the gentle light
that finds you,
even after the darkest night.

In the tenderness
of a heart that has known loss
and still chooses love.
In the fragile places within you
that are slowly learning
to bloom again.

Everything is saying:

Begin again.

Do not ask the morning
to promise you forever.

Just receive this moment.

This breath.

This trembling, beautiful life.

Let the ordinary become sacred.
Let silence become a doorway.
Let each breath remind you
that you are not separate
from the mystery unfolding around you.

And when the sun rises within you,
stand gently in its light
and whisper,

I am here.

I have arrived.

Let me awaken
to the sacredness
of being alive.

~ 'Awakening to the Sacredness of Life' by Spirit of a Hippie

✍️ Mary Anne Byrne

~ 'Golden Awakening' by GoldenChiArt

08/30/2026

9/2 & 9/16 🪘Drum Circle🪘

08/30/2026

9/3 & 9/17 🪷Zen Discussion Group🪷

08/30/2026

9/5 🧘🏽‍♀️Meditation Group🧘🏽‍♀️

Doors open at 8:30am ~ meditation begins at 9:00am.

Following meditation, Christine Leggett is offering free 10-minute chair Reiki. No appointment necessary. If you attend the meditation, simply step next door for your Reiki session, at the Reiki Connection Center. If you come just for Reiki arrive around 10:30.
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Come and receive a balancing boost of relaxing, healing energy to start the weekend. ✨🙌✨

08/25/2026

"Some paths are not meant
to lead you back
to who you were.
They are meant to lead you
toward who you are becoming.

Let your pain
deepen you,
not define you."

Grow Through What You Go Through

Don’t just go through life,
grow through it.

Let every storm
teach you how resilient you are.
Let every goodbye
teach you to love more deeply, here and now.
And may every closed door remind you
that endings often make way for new beginnings.

You will have seasons
when you feel lost,
when the road beneath you
seems to disappear.

Keep walking.

Some paths are not meant
to lead you back
to who you were.
They are meant to lead you
toward who you are becoming.

Let your pain
deepen you,
not define you.

Let your mistakes
teach you,
not hold you back.

Let your failures
become the soil from which courage can grow.

Life is not asking you
to remain unchanged.

It is asking you
to expand,
to become softer without becoming weak,
wiser without becoming cold,
stronger without losing heart.

So don’t simply survive
the difficult chapters.

Embrace them.
Learn from them.
Grow through them.

And when you look back,
may you realize
that the moments
you thought were breaking you
were quietly
making room
for a stronger version of you.

~ 'Grow Through What You Go Through' by Spirit of a Hippie

✍️ Mary Anne Byrne

~ Art by Maglish Nima