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Abbess love notes

The Restorative Power of Love ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Friday, March 13th we warmly invite you to join Wisdom Council member Felicia Murell in our mini-retreat The Restorative Power of Love. Felicia will lead us through an exploration of accessing inner wisdom as we join the Divine in the liberating work of Love.  She offers this reflection and excerpt from her book AND: The Restorative Power of Love In An Either/Or World: I am constantly challenged in life by one burning question: Do I trust Love? Do I trust that Love will lead me, and those I care about, into Love’s embrace? Do I trust the energy of Spirit to

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Camille Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Camille Thomas’s reflection and poem “All Things Sing You.” In my blog The Kingdom of Enough I ponder this question: In a crazy, consumer culture that is busy bombarding us with demands and desires, how do we touch the peace that reigns in the cave of every heart?Although I’m a churchgoer, I am just as likely to find the answer to that question in nature, including my own backyard — like Dorothy Frances Gurney I often feel that

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Abbess love notes

When It Feels as if the World Is Ending ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

When It Feels as if the World Is Ending*Holy Ground of Love,the world so often feels as if it is endingwith news of wars raging, children dying,fires burning, floods rising—so much suffering, so much cruelty.My heart feels like a tree rotting away,my throat is full of gravel,my gut a boulder,my eyes swollen with tears.With the future tangled with so much loss,it all feels impossible.Bless all those who are sufferingbecause of injustice, loss, and greed.Ease their painand grant them a vision of new life.Bless me with clarityto remember that your love is the foundation.Bless me with guidanceto be a vessel of

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Katie Bruckbauer

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Katie Bruckbauer’s reflection and poems on dance and poetry as a spiritual practice. Dance has always been a contemplative practice for me. Even as a child, I knew that dance was not just entertainment but a way to express what was deeper than words could convey. Dance as prayer was the most natural thing in the world and the most sacred and truest part of me. As I entered the second half of life and began “falling upward,” as

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Abbess love notes

Sacred Echoes: The Pathways of African American Visionaries ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims, This Friday, February 27th we are delighted to welcome back playwright, storyteller, and singer Dr. ValLimar Jansen to lead us in the mini-retreat Sacred Echoes: The Pathways of African American Visionaries. ValLimar offers the following reflection and invitation. Sit with me for a moment. Before I name any names, I want you to take a breath and remember: the God who called these men and women is the same God who is calling you. Right now. In your ordinary, sometimes messy, often beautiful life. That is where mysticism lives. Not in the extraordinary. In the surrendered ordinary. The

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Liz Coffman

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Liz Coffman’s poems on being present. The poems I offer are a reflection of my experience as a “Monk in the World” navigating the daily challenges of being present and being conscious of the holy charge I carry.  It is humbling. HOW IS ITHow is itThat I,The selfish selfI so often carryAroundIn mindless chatterAm the OneWho makes evidentThe Holy Light To unveil it’s glowTo be presentTo the Cosmic ConsciousnessIn the grocery storeNext to you CHANGED PLACESYour God

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Abbess love notes

Earth, Our Original Monastery Lent Retreat ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

To Hear Our Calling Through Creation* Holy One,bless us with the wisdomto live fully as the people you created us to be,with no doubt or hesitation.Help us to become people who know our sacred purpose like an oak tree possesses majesty,an owl owns the night, a stream quietly sings,and marigolds lift their faces with joy. May the fireflies light our way in the darkness,may the morning glory spark gratitude for a new day,may the witness of feather and hoof,leaf and light, reveal to us what it means to betruly, wholly, fully ourselves.Break open the sacred seed of your Spirit planted

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Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World: Mallory Morris

I am delighted to share another submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mallory Morris’ photo essay on breathing deep and paying attention. Breathe deep; now look around. Breathe deep again; notice what sort of light you have. Breathe deep again; see who or what’s around you. Breathe deep again; time to pick up the camera. In recent years, I’ve had the time and space to explore my love of photography, deepening not just my skills, but my love of the camera, as well. Part of why I’ve fallen in love with

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Abbess love notes

Kinship with Creation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

For Kinship with Creation*God of lavish fecundity,you overflow into nature in every moment,offering your gifts of beauty and nourishment.Nurture me with sacred rhythms of light and dark,rising and falling, fullness and emptiness,as the pulse of your loving presence animates every living thing.Help me to remember my own wildnessso that I come to knowevery bird, fish, insect, and animalas kinand to live in ways that renew and sustainearth and all her systems.Renew my vision so that I seebeyond the barriers I have constructed.Kindle my longing to join the great songof the sea, the trees, the mountains, and the flowers,which are already

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Jo-ed Tome

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 Jo-ed Tome’s reflection Slower. Softer. Simpler. I did not exactly set out to become a monk. If someone had told my younger self that “monk” would one day be part of my self-description, I probably would have laughed and then quickly apologized because I was raised to be polite. But over the years, this monk-in-the-world identity has slowly revealed itself, not through lightning bolts or desert visions, but through the gentle rhythm of days

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