October 20, 2018 – The Journey Home

The Iron Door

Dr. Bonnie Winfield
October 20, 2018
mass incarceration / prison reentry / Uncategorized / women criminal justice
1 Comment

The sound of the doors closing in the jail is very startling no matter how many times you go inside. The closed doors have two purposes: 1.) keep the “bad”…

Shattered…and still I rise

“I am trying to build courage now- draw on the wisdom of past events and experiences to help me move forward. “ (member of the life stories group) “I felt…

There is a Buddhist Koan about a person who is walking along in the mountains and falls down a cliff. She grabs a hold of some tree roots and holds on in fear of death. I told this story to the women in a group I facilitate in the local county jail. The story ends with the person seeing a delicious strawberry and letting go of the roots to eat the strawberry.

This story was about my difficult decision. As I explained to the women in my group, the tree roots represented my professional life at the time. It seemed that I was clinging to it and afraid to let go. The strawberry was, is the women, the work in the jail.

I chose the women and retired from my professional academic career. The women were thrilled especially to know that they are my strawberry. I wonder how many of them have truly been the strawberry in someone’s life?

A colleague listened intently to my story and suggested that the group is now “Bonnie’s Strawberry Patch.”

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