Shodo has practiced Zen for over 40 years. Her practice has always been both rooted in the natural world and engaged with human society. She has joined two pilgrimages, led the 2013 Compassionate Earth Walk through the Great Plains, and came home to Minnesota to found the Mountains and Waters Alliance. Before writing Open Reality, she wrote Take Up Your Life, several essays for Buddhist anthologies, and edited Okumura Roshi’s The Mountains and Waters Sutra. She received Dharma transmission from Shohaku Okumura in 2012.

Shodo lives on a small farm envisioned as home for a spiritual, earth-loving, activist community. 

She has two children and four grandchildren.