Visit the Abbey of the Arts online retreat platform to access your programs:

Invitation to Poetry: Sacred Ordinary

anneclaire leroyer - adirondack

Welcome to Poetry Party #78!

button-poetryI select an image (the photo above is by fellow dancing monk Anneclaire LeRoyer) and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your own poem. Scroll down and add it in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.

Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog (if you have one), Facebook, or Twitter, and encourage others to come join the party!  (If you repost the photo, please make sure to include the credit link below it and link back to this post inviting others to join us).

We began this month with a  Community Visio Divina practice with the latest dancing monk icon of St. Francis of Assisi and followed up with our Photo Party on the theme of the “sacred ordinary.” (You are most welcome to still participate).  We continue this theme in our Poetry Party this month. How might you bring reverence to an ordinary moment of your day through the gift of poem-writing? How might you see the sacred in the mundane?

You can post your poem either in the comment section below*or you can join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group (with more than 1800 members!) and post there.

*Note: If this is your first time posting, or includes a link, your comment will need to be moderated before it appears. This is to prevent spam and should be approved within 24 hours.

You might also enjoy

Monk in the World Guest Post: Michael Moore

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Wisdom Council member Michael Moore’s reflection on Sabbath and Silence. I am thankful to Christine and the Abbey community for this opportunity

Read More »

18 Responses

  1. Sacred

    Every hair
    on every squirrel’s tail
    Every baby’s eyelash
    Every battered pot
    Every drop of blood
    Every dog’s loving gaze
    All are sacred
    Let us remove
    the word “ordinary”
    from our minds
    seeing only only sacred

  2. Chase, chase,
    Who will be first,

    To the tomb?
    No, to heaven.

    Why go there?
    Heaven, or the tomb.

    Both are empty,
    ’til you arrive.

    The One Love
    Left an empty cave, twice.

    Each leaving,
    Leaving a space.

    For heaven,
    For you.

  3. yes, please

    pausing as presence
    every moment sacred
    present to the now

    all of nature shows it
    squirrels are even playing
    present in the now

    in my daily life
    every moment sacred
    how than will I be

    pausing to presence
    inhaling all around me
    present to the pause

  4. August’s Symphony

    Is full of dreams
    in the forest sunlit green
    red bells and purple trumpets
    winds through pines and oaks
    play harp like strains
    even stones sing out glory
    amid splashes of yellow, white and blue
    pine cones falling are the drumbeat
    with acorns tapping, too
    the chipmunk’s tail keeps rthymn
    and all critters join the dance
    squirrels do graceful leaps from branch to branch
    joining angelic wings hovering
    hummingbird ascends to the heights
    Caught up in the symphony
    I am one with the Cosmic Dream

  5. Sitting at the pond’s edge
    A quick glance to the still water
    How beautiful

    Racing thoughts
    To-do-lists
    Dreams of far away lands
    Should-ing
    Have-to-do-ing
    Exhaustion

    Suddenly a fleeting thought from somewhere
    Breathe!
    Listen!
    You don’t have to do anything
    You should do nothing
    Then was then
    Now is now

    And finally I can hear the music.
    A chorus of frogs
    An invitation to join
    In the celebration of spring