She Was Always There

“Who, or perhaps what, is she?” Signe Eklund Schaefer poses this question as she leads us into a heartfelt exploration of the great mystery that is Sophia. Her book does not take an academic or theological path but one that is personal and full of warmth and genuine interest in discovery that goes toward living reality, well beyond mere names and fixed ideas. As Schaefer says, she decided to “forego the idea of a straightforward narrative and instead interweave musings, poems, saved quotations, and other assorted notes from my many years of living with questions about and to her.” The author tells us,

Sophia is rightly seen as the living, moving being of universal wisdom and the archetypal feminine, but Schaefer helps us to see her as more―as an expression of what humanity must rightfully become.

Signe Schaefer has been a long-time adult educator and was for many years the Director of Foundation Studies at Sunbridge College. She was the founding Director of a professional development training in Biography and Social Art. Since retiring, she has published three books: Why on Earth? Biography and the Practice of Human Becoming, I Give You My Word: Women’s Letters as Life Support, and most recently, She Was Always There – Sophia as a Story for our Time. She also co-authored Ariadne’s Awakening: Taking up the Threads of Consciousness and co-edited More Lifeways. A mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, she now lives in Great Barrington, MA, with her husband Christopher.