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Reflections

Category: Poetry

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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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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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Corcomroe Abbey ~ 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 was inspired by one of my favorite monastic sites near Galway. Corcomroe Abbey was a Cistercian monastery founded in the 12th century and is a magnificent structure. There are dozens of these “ruins” within an hour’s drive from where we live and each inspires a profound connection to ancient wisdom. I always feel the presence of the prayers that thousands have prayed within these walls and

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A Letter to My Adolescent Self ~ 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.  In reading one of Kim Addonizio’s poems, her last line was “listen I love you joy is coming” and something about it shimmered for me in the moment. The poem was addressing her younger self, I suddenly felt connected to the young girl I once was. Like many of you, I had wounded parents and was in a very dysfunctional family system. I often marvel at my life now,

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I Want to Be the Kind of Woman ~ 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.  As part of my preparation to release this book into the world, I worked with my favorite filmmakers at Morgan Creative here in Galway to create a series of poem videos. I want to invite you into a meditative space with these poems and see what they stir in you.  The first poem I am sharing is modelled after a poem written by Jenni Fagan titled “I

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What She Does Not Know Poetry Video ~ A Love Note From Your Online Abbess

What She Does Not Know – Poem Video from Abbey of the Arts on Vimeo. What She Does Not Know (for unsuspecting Selkies everywhere) She does not know there is a reason she always feels out of place her life rigid and small, like living in a doll’s house a marriage more trap than longing and when she chokes on courtesy and convention the salt which burns her throat is not just tears. She does not know that when she stands on the sea’s wild edge and can finally breathe, dream, weep, her body strains forward seawater in her veins,

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St. Columba and His Horse (a new poetry video) ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

St Columba and His Horse – Poem Video from Christine Valters Paintner on Vimeo. St. Columba and His Horse The old man hobbles down the road toward the monastery gate, rests on a roadside stone, hears clip-clopping of hooves approach and his faithful companion arrive. The horse nuzzles Columba’s shoulder, shudders all down his white length eyes glisten round and brown, great teardrops pool and drop sounding like rainfall. Columba rests his forehead against the horse’s broad skull, closes his eyes and each imagines the other, galloping together across heather and buttercups. The horse knows his dear friend will soon

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