Sharon Thomson was born on May 30 1948, in Brooklyn, New York, the only daughter of a working class family. After a childhood filled with intense and deep Catholic formation, a passion for reading and studying, while navigating the often unpredictable waves of laughter and drunken brawling on the family sea, Sharon left Brooklyn in search of a new life, heading for the social and cultural milieu of New York City, just a bridge away, but so distant from what she knew and had experienced.

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Soon her writing vocation, inspired, among other sources, by a very early encounter and fascination with a PBS TV program “Black Women Poets,” led her to join the alternative, socially progressive, feminist writers’ circles of NYC, where she started successfully publishing and performing her poetry at various venues around the city.

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Welcomed and embraced by the writer's community, she started teaching poetry in the public schools, offering her energy and talents to support the exploration and blossoming of her young students’ creative buds.

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In the late sixties Sharon married for some years, and gave birth to a daughter, Robin Sclafani, who also became a Grail member in 1998.

 

Longing for nurturing her spiritual yearnings, Sharon left the city and, encouraged by her Grail mentor, Jane O'Donnell, joined the Grail residential community in Cornwall on Hudson in 1977. She committed herself to the Grail in 1980.

 

From 1977 to 2019, Sharon lived and worked at Grail Centers around the US and in Portugal, living a life of full immersion in the activities of the various communities, leading programs and projects, covering many leadership positions at the national and center level, while continuing writing, developing and facilitating programs based on poetry, and creating Poetry Ritual Theatre, using the arts for spiritual deepening and healing.

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