I go on a long walk through the forest listening for the word calling to me. It is a form of lectio divina I practice where nature is the sacred text revealing holy wonders to my heart. I step further into the silence of trees and moss and ferns. The forest floor is covered with [...]
Posts in the Nature category
The Deep Muscle of the World
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As I began this year I had an encounter with a flock of pigeons which lifted my heart unexpectedly and then I found a feather on my doorstep. And so “Taking Flight” became my image for the year ahead. On my recent pilgrimage, winged ones – both avian and angelic – were significant symbols [...]
The Four Directions
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"The perceptions that the cardinal points have distinct qualities that can be called forth to shape the outcome of human effort has been common to societies throughout history. . . "But for those humans who do see the sun rise from the darkened bed of the earth in the East as they arise from their [...]
Sacred Mountain
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The great, gashed, half-naked mountain is another of God’s saints. There is no other like him. He is alone in his own character; nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is his sanctity. -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation These mountains — Mount Baker [...]
Notes from the Abbess
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The other day I posted about the great autumn to be found in the midst of spring. We are constantly immersed in the rising and falling of our lives, as close as our own breath. Tune, aka Abbess Petunia (or more commonly, "The Abbess"), will be turning twelve in June. We have had her for nearly [...]
In the Midst of Spring . . .
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. . . there is also a Great Autumn. What is being released within you to make way for summer's fruit? © Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts: Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
Life is the only way
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A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it's not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance [...]
Awaken to the Dream of the Earth
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Let us remember within us The ancient clay, Holding the memory of seasons, The passion of the wind, The fluency of water, The warmth of fire, The quiver-touch of the sun And shadowed sureness of the moon. That we may awaken, To live to the full The dream of the Earth Who chose us to [...]
Depths of the Divine Fecundity
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There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. The mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in [...]
A Prayer to Begin
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I’m the secret fire in everything, and everything smells like Me. The living breathe My sweet perfume, and they breathe out praise of Me. They never die because I am their Life. I flame out—intense, godly Life—over the shining fields of corn, I glow in the shimmer of the fire’s embers, I burn in the [...]
