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Becoming Body-Words of Love ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists, Several years ago, before moving to Ireland, I completed a training to teach yoga. I began the program because I had practiced yoga for many years and longed to dive more deeply into it. I expected to fall in love with my own body even more in the process; what I didn’t expect was how much I would fall in love with other people’s bodies as well. As I walked around the studio and students are in their various poses I see the incredible variety in body types, shapes, sizes, flexibility, and bone structure. My training involves hands-on adjustments,

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Nancy L. Agneberg

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Nancy L. Agneberg’s reflection on entitled Winter Spirituality. I love winter. I prefer winter to summer and spring. When it is fall, I think fall is my favorite season, but then winter comes, and I know, for sure, winter is my favorite season. Oh, I am willing to join in with the usual February and March conversations about winter being far too long and will spring ever arrive? As I listen to the whining about the cold, the snow, the dark, I

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Feast of St. Gobnait – Patron of Bees ~ A love note from your online abbess

St. Gobnait and the Place of Her Resurrection* On the tiny limestone island an angel buzzes to Gobnait in a dream, disrupts her plans, sends her in search of nine white deer. She wanders for miles across sea and land until at last they appear and rather than running toward them she falls gently to wet ground, sits in silence as light crawls across sky, lets their long legs approach and their soft, curious noses surround her. Breathing slowly, she slides back onto grass and clover and knows nothing surpasses this moment, a heaven of hooves and dew. Is there

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Pat Butler

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Pat Butler’s reflection on entitled Abba Ice. “Out of whose womb came the ice?”—Job 38:29 January A monastery forms in this plane of all places, over New Jersey, as I fly north in the dead of a Northeast winter, in the grip of an historic deep freeze.  I am returning home from a short trip South, contemplating the icy lunar landscape below, pocked by crows, bridges, and ice-encased riggings. I’m startled to discover how much I’ve missed this purgatory, how eager

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Honoring Imbolc and the Feast of St Brigid ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists, I share with you a brief excerpt from our online self-study retreat Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year. February 1st-2nd marks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day! Imbolc is a Celtic feast that is cross-quarter day, meaning it is the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox.  The sun marks the four Quarter Days of the year (the Solstices and Equinoxes) and the midpoints are the cross-quarter days.  In some cultures

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Elaine Breckenridge

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Elaine Breckenridge’s reflection on Saint Brigid. I went to Ireland last year and met Saint Brigid: monastic leader and pastor, protector and companion, soul friend and healer. Oh, I had known about Brigid as there are no shortage of books detailing her life as a person in history and her tradition as a goddess of the land of Ireland. But on this sacred journey, experience expanded knowledge as throughout my two week journey, time and again I met Brigid. My visit to

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Dance with Miriam on the Shores of Freedom ~ A love note from your online abbess

Miriam on the Shores “All the women went out after her with tambourines and dancing.” – Exodus 15:20 Her skirt hangs heavy with seawater, staccato breath after running from death. She can still feel soldiers reaching out to seize her blouse before the waves caved in. Collapsing on dry earth for a moment, the impulse to dance begins in her feet, spreads slowly upwards like a flock of starlings rising toward a dawn-lit sky. So many dances in secret before, night-stolen movements after exhausting days heaving stones and harvest. She finds herself now upright, weeping. To stand here, face to

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Erin Marie Clark

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Erin Marie Clark’s reflection on conversing with the wisdom of the tarot. It was towards the end of my time training to be ordained as an Anglican priest that I was tackled by a mischievous and confounding spiritual practice: namely, reading the images and stories in tarot. Five months before I was due to be ordained, I stumbled on a blog post written by a tarot card reader. The warm, generous, pastoral tone of the post surprised me. It echoed the tone

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St. Ita and What is Most Essential ~ A love note from your online abbess

Dearest monks and artists, Today is the feast of Saint Ita.  She was a 6th century Irish saint and is the second most significant woman saint in Ireland after Brigid. Her hagiographer even called her a “second Brigid” and her name Ita means thirst.  She established a church in Limerick called Killeedy, which means Church of Ita. When she was young she received a dream in which she was gifted three precious stones. She was unsure as to its meaning and pondered it. Later, in another visitation, it was revealed to her that throughout her life she would receive many

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Monk in the World Guest Post: Keren Dibbens-Wyatt

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Keren Dibbens-Wyatt’s reflection Shining for God. I may not be a Catholic, but I have had the honour, once or twice, of adoring the Christ as he is held within the monstrance. One particular time, sitting in the Cloister Chapel at Aylesford Priory, this was quite overwhelming. It was heart-warming and awe-inspiring, and my soul sang inside me even as I kept silence and held gaze with the moon-wafer in the golden sun. It felt for those precious minutes like everything in the

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