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Abbess love notes

The Spiral Year and the Celtic Seasons ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, Join Simon de Voil and me for an online retreat next Sunday April 23rd hosted by OneSpirit Seminary where we will be exploring the Spiral Year and the Celtic seasons.  This is an excerpt from my book The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred: Sacred Rhythms of the Earth The unfolding of the seasons was an overarching template for the Celtic imagination and spirit. There are significant feast days aligned with the equinoxes and solstices, then there are the cross-quarter days, which are the midway points between them and were part of the harvest cycle. 

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Liz Hill

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post. Read on for Liz Hill’s reflection “It’s All About the Listening.” At a goodbye gathering for a friend who was moving to be closer to family, I talked to the son who was helping to pack her things. The task of deciding what to keep and what to discard was taking much longer than he’d anticipated.  “She wants to tell me the story behind every little thing,” he lamented.  I understood his dilemma. In my own experience with downsizing and moving, I have learned

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Abbess love notes

Easter Blessings! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We wish you radiant blessings of Easter and the joy of new life out of death! Next Saturday, Lerita Coleman Brown will be leading a retreat for us on the wisdom of Howard Thurman and the healing power of mystical love. Here is a brief excerpt from her wonderful book What Makes You Come Alive where she explores Thurman’s wisdom about anchoring ourselves in a radical trust in God’s love: *** One night in 1910, Howard Thurman’s mother woke him up and coaxed him outside. She wanted him to catch a glimpse of Halley’s Comet, which is only

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NEW YouTube Channel!

We have a new YouTube channel! This is another resources we are pleased to offer our dancing monks where you can follow new posts in our Lift Every Voice book club, our Prayer Cycle series, Poetry Videos, and Tea with the Abbess. Subscribe to the channel.

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Karen Kinney

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Karen Kinney’s reflection Joy in “What Is” adapted from her book Doorways to Transformation: Everyday Wisdom for the Creative Soul. “Whatever arises, love that.” —Matt Kahn My husband and I climb the ancient stone steps of the 17th-century church, reaching the balcony that overlooks the orchestra and choir below. I am excited because we are coming to hear the complete rendition of Handel’s Messiah, and it has been decades since I listened to the entire work. And, it will be

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Origins + Mourning Pages ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I am delighted to share I have a third poetry collection being published on May 9th from Paraclete Press titled Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty.  This poem is a series of questions that emerged from a moment of reverie and wondering for me. The whole collection is on the theme of love and in writing it, I found myself encountering love in all corners of this beautiful world.  What is the impulse for a robin’s song? What is the source of a flower’s fragrance? Where do my own words come from? And

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April Tea with the Abbess

I so enjoyed our Tea with the Abbess session. Since I can’t pour you a cup of tea myself I led a brief meditation then shared some of our programs for April and answered a lot of great questions. Such a joyful time with our wonderful community. We have a number of resources to support you in your contemplative journey including:  April Lift Every Voice Book Club Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness with Transform Your Faith by Mihee Kim-Kort Christine’s forthcoming collection – Love Holds You: Poems and Devotions for Times of Uncertainty Abbey of the Arts Prayer Cycles – a free

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Lift Every Voice Book Club

Lift Every Voice: Contemplative Writers of Color – April Video Discussion and Book Group Materials Now Available

Join Abbey of the Arts for a monthly conversation on how increasing our diversity of perspectives on contemplative practice can enrich our understanding and experience of the Christian mystical tradition.  Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations. Each month they take up a new book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation.  This month’s selection is Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith by Mihee Kim-Kort. Click here

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Dena Jennings

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series. Read on for Wisdom Council member Dena Jennings’ reflection Boundaries and Borders in Contemplative Life. I imagine that modern walls of monastic cells, perimeters of abbeys, and the spaces to which cloistered monks retreat are not meant to confine as a prison, nor to keep the  world out, but to allow recesses for spiritual nourishment and focus. They serve as  physical boundaries to remind one of the dedication to this life. Being a monk in the  world calls for a different kind of boundary

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Abbess love notes

The Meaning of Manna ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, We are delighted to welcome poet and author Nikki Grimes for a poetry reading tomorrow from her new collection Glory in the Margins.  For today’s love note we are sharing one of her poems below from this collection. It is a poem about what we need to be truly nourished and how so many of us are weighed down by the multiple and conflicting demands of life.  I invite you to begin by taking three slow deep breaths, let them out with a sigh and with each breath see if you can soften your body a bit more.

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