Shodo Spring

 philosophy, and spirituality. She joined a series of political movements, finally focused on environment and environmental justice, what would be called deep ecology. 

Along the way Shodo started one of the first battered women’s shelters, worked as a community organizer in inner-city Cleveland, trained to become a psychotherapist, and explored spirituality including Sufism, Dianic witchcraft, and shamanism, practiced nonviolent social change, and finally entered the practice of Zen Buddhism, which unlocked her internal cage. Shodo has two children and four young-adult grandchildren.  She has practiced Zen for over forty years and taught for twelve. She still works part time as a psychotherapist. 

Shodo’s written work includes Take Up Your Life: Making Spirituality Work in the Real World (Tuttle 1996), editing Shohaku Okumura’s The Mountains and Waters Sutra: A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” (Wisdom 2018), numerous essays in anthologies, and an ongoing monthly blog. 

Shodo’s ordination name means “right way” or “true path.” That path integrates activism with spiritual practice and deeply nourishing engagement with the earth. Shodo has participated in long retreats, public sitting meditation as activism, and walking hundreds of miles, including leading the 2013 Compassionate Earth Walk along the planned northern route of the KXL pipeline. Mountains and Waters Alliance expresses her vision of humans working with the beyond-human world to heal and regenerate life on earth. She lives on a small farm which serves as a learning laboratory for growing those relationships, and as a residential community of practice.