Bonja the Bodger

Somewhere beneath it all…

February 24th, 2026

We’re currently in the aftermath of a pretty heavy snowstorm. We ended up with about 12 or 14 inches, and so, I spent most of yesterday outside shoveling us out.

Currently, the temperatures are rising, the sun is out, and the roads and the sidewalks are clean. In fact, they’re almost bone dry. But it’s still going to take a long time for what’s left behind to melt. It’s going to be a good while before we see any green poking up in the backyard.

Looking out at that unbroken field of snow, especially when it’s this deep and heavy, it’s very easy to feel the oppressiveness and the inevitability of it all.

Winter’s a time of dying off – a time of silence, of solitude. And that can be a little hard to navigate for some of us. It’s obvious that we live in a time that’s pretty oppressive. Things are coming at us left and right. They seem to pile up. The world can feel cold and heavy. We can feel alone and isolated.

But there’s another aspect to winter that’s important to keep in mind.

Yes, there is a dying off now, but it’s a necessary dying off. It’s the removal of the old things, the removal of the things that no longer serve. And as those things fall away, they open up space for new growth.

Yes, it’s a time of quiet, a time of slowing down, but it’s also a time of contemplation – of taking stock – of allowing the blessings that we’ve received throughout the year to settle into our bones…
School for the gifted…

February 22nd, 2026

I’m going to ask you two questions right off the bat:

“What are your gifts?”

and

“How are you using them?”

Y’know, it’s pretty obvious that there are forces in the world right now that are doing everything they can to keep us divided – to keep us at each other’s throats – so that they can grab all the power and control that they can. If you look at them closely, you’ll see that their actions come from a place of fear; come from a very, very deep wound. And the results of that wound have been pretty fucking horrific in a lot of cases.

But here’s the thing: in the midst of all of that, it’s also obvious – if you look – that a lot of us are starting to pull together, and come into the world from a place of compassion; a place of inclusivity and love.

Doctors. Artists. Musicians. Social activists. Politicians. So many of us are taking the gifts that we’ve been given, and carrying them into the world to serve the greater good…
Liminal space…

February 18th, 2026

We didn’t really get the crippling snow that a lot of people had this year. We had about eight or ten inches, but it had a crust of ice over the top of it, and because of the low temperatures and the high winds, it took quite a while to melt.

During the heart of it, it kept us homebound for a while, giving us time for quiet reflection, some deep spiritual work, and taking care of some things around here.

It’s good when those moments of solitude open up, especially when you make up your mind to use them. Those of us who learn to feel deeply when we grow up really need those times to charge our batteries, to rest up, to take care of ourselves, and to deal with a lot of things we couldn’t deal with when we’re in the midst of everything else that’s going on…
Good grief…

February 13th, 2026

Those of us who’ve come up in households where addiction and emotional instability were the order of the day…we know a little something about grieving. We make a partner of our grief. We carry it with us. Often, we carry it down deep, where it hangs there like a feeling we can’t touch.

But sometimes, when we’re tired – when we’re triggered – it can come rushing to the surface. And when it does, it’s good to simply be in the midst of that…
The waiting room…

February 7th, 2026

One of the hardest things to do — especially for those of us who’ve carried a lot of pain for a lot of years — is simply to sit with it. Sometimes that pain shows up as body memories, sometimes as emotions or old stories that seem to rise up out of nowhere.

They can get into our heads, start pulling the levers, and before we know it, we can start acting out into the world in ways that might not be too nice.

And then comes the aftermath…
Under the snow…

February 6th, 2026

Today’s a day for knocking out a couple of writing projects. Tomorrow and the day after, we’re looking at windchills of way below zero. That’s far too cold to be out in the shop, when all that stands between me and Siberia is a kerosene heater and drafty old garage door.

So, it looks like a few days of laying low and tending to indoor stuff.

Lately, I’ve really been leaning into letting my life do its thing. I was joking, just the other day, that being retired is actually my job. And after these last few years, I think I finally might be getting the hang of it.

When I was in the 9-5, I really liked having an agenda. It was good to know the what’s and when’s, so I could schedule things accordingly. Now the work is typically catch-as-catch-can.

I won’t lie; it took me a while to acclimate to the shift. Not that my last position was the busiest job in the world. I was a trainer, so there was a lot of hurry up and wait. But I travelled some of the most congested roads in the Metro Philly area, so my days often ended up being pretty long. And I ate up a lot of tires and brakes on that gig.

Now my commute is two small flights of stairs, and the only thing I need to replace is my worn-out bedroom slippers. To be fair, though, I’ve probably gone through 5 or 6 pairs since it all started…
Simple, radical creativity…

February 3rd, 2026

When’s the last time you actually created something – just thrown yourself headfirst into the process of simple, radical creativity?

There are a lot of videos out there lately, and a lot of people talking about how necessary it is to make things right now—especially at a time when there’s so much turmoil, and so many people who seem to be bent on destroying things.

The act of creation is a balance to that…
Don’t just do something…

January 31st, 2026

“Are you as human as the rest of us?”

“Are you doing everything you can to keep your heart open in a world that seems to be going out of its way to shut it down?”

I’ve been praying really hard for clarity lately. I’ve been praying really hard for guidance. And in that, I’m probably not too different from a lot of us.

A good many of us feel this urge to do…something.

But not all of us are going to be called to protest. Not all of us are going to be asked to bleed to death in our cars or in the snow. Not many of us are going to be asked to write anthems; to energize millions of people.

For a lot of us, that calling is something simpler, but just as difficult. We’re going to be asked to go deep inside ourselves. To find our wounds, and to heal them…
Fix, save, and rescue…

January 19th, 2026

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately and talking a lot with others about the idea of being of service. Specifically, how do we assist those who come to us looking for advice or help of some kind, especially within the context of their own emotional recovery or spiritual healing? Where do we draw the line on our own involvement? When does “help” turn into “enabling”? When does our desire to assist turn into our own need to fix, save, or rescue the person that’s come to us?

If you’d like to see more, please check out my podcast, “Putting it on the wind,” on YouTube:
Still a hammer…

January 16th, 2026

I was talking with my teacher and his wife a while back, and I said, “Y’know, I feel like a hammer that gets hung up on the wall of the garage. If there’s a nail that needs to get banged down, I get taken off the wall, the nail gets banged down, and then I get put back up on the wall and just hang out and wait.”

My teacher’s wife started laughing, and she said, “Yeah, but a hammer is still a hammer even when it’s hanging on the wall.”

And man, that really, put the hook in me.

These gifts that we have, whatever they might be, they require us to live in a certain way. Those of us who grew up in dysfunctional households, who had to learn the skill of empathy – had to learn how to read the room so that we could anticipate what was going to happen next, we know a lot about how hard it is to live in the type of world that we live in today. This is not a place that takes kindly to those who feel. And sometimes we need to disappear for a little while, lay aside the things that get in the way, and just rest…

If you’d like to see more, please check out my podcast, “Putting it on the wind,” on YouTube: