“Relationships and the love I have for my family is what’s most important to me.”
When you walk into Mary Woods’ home, you immediately feel a centered energy. Her historic home, located in Woodmont, Williamsport, is nestled beneath four huge trees. They canopy her backyard in beautiful shadows that play with the light shining through them. She takes a certain pride in her home, “I love being home. I love my house and my backyard,” she says. She reigns with a quaint persona and gentle smile that invites anyone who enters to share in the same kind of positive energy she radiates. However, this mindset was not always a constant in her life.
Williamsport Healed Me
“I came here in the year 2000 to be with my sister because I was going through a painful divorce,” she said.”I came for healing,” she says, “I began working at FreshLife where I became a wellness coach and helped others to heal, while healing myself in the process.”
Williamsport became her grounding place, where she could rediscover who she was in order to move forward in her life. “Williamsport is on one of the major ley lines,” she explains. These ley lines go around the globe, and there is one that shoots up from the Bermuda Triangle, through Washington, D.C., and directly through Williamsport. She shared with us her personal maps that reveal a healing vortex historically founded by the Native American Indians who saw Williamsport as sacred land. “I came here for healing, so for me this idea of us being on a vortex is very significant,” she said, adding,”I even call this Williamsportal.”
In part with upholding those ideals, Mary and her husband, David DeFebo, hosted a Native American sweat lodge for many years. There, they combined meditation, intention and group prayer to create positive change. “I feel that as I evolve and work towards changing and being my highest potential, then I’m really helping others simply by being the change that I want to see in the world,” she says.
Not only is Mary involved in starting her own groups for change, she is also part of “The Beloved Community,” a group that commemorates and embodies the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr. he members conduct round table discussions and bring in guest speakers to create a qualitative change in the souls of residents, which then creates a quantitative change in lives. She also is active in the Heart of Williamsport, helping connect bridges and make Williamsport a more “equal and balanced community,” as she explains.
While sipping her homemade green tea, Mary reveals her hopes to remove the fluoride from our drinking water, rid consumers of the GMOs in foods, eliminate the overuse of pharmaceutical drugs in exchange for natural remedies, and replace fracking for fossil fuels with clean, natural energy. “I would like to see Williamsport expand its heritage as a healing center by implementing holistic practices to improve the health of both individuals and the environment, as it transitions into the new paradigm.
Story by Sophie Herzing
Video by Christopher Cizek
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Heart of Williamsport 