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Abbess love notes

Queering Contemplation + Soul of a Pilgrim Video Podcast Day 3 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Dearest monks and artists, Blessings on this Feast of Pentecost! To read a reflection on Pentecost and holy surprise from our archives, please click here. Today we release the Day 3 video podcasts for our Soul of a Pilgrim prayer cycle. The themes for morning and evening prayer are The Practice of Crossing the Threshold. On Friday we are hosting Cassidy Hall who will lead a program for us called Queering Contemplation. We invited her to explain what she means by “queering” and how everyone is invited to join us: Read the reflection below or listen to Cassidy in an audio version. Hello dear artists, monks, poets, theologians, wanderers,

May 19, 2024

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kate Kennington Steer

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Kate Kennington Steer’s reflection Heart of Stone. I arrived at February 2023 in a post-viral fatigue fug, feeling beset by depression, with my ‘tank’ utterly depleted. Thanks to the Abbey of the Arts scholarship scheme, I was able to join a group of monks making a Lent pilgrimage online, exploring what it might mean to make ‘A Different Kind of Fast’, led by our Abbess and a wonderful, multi-disciplinary team Each week ended with an invitation to practice a creative act

May 15, 2024

Soul of a Pilgrim Video Podcast Day 2

Blessing for Packing Lightly*Winnowing God, you ask us to release, let go, surrender, and yield all that we canin service of making space for what is most essential. The more we set aside that which burdens us and takes up too much spacethe more room opens within us for wonder and gratitude to flourish,the more we find the freedom to see the world as enchanted. Sustain us on the path of simplifying our livesand traveling on this Earth more lightlyso that we no longer live beyond what can be sustained.As we continue on the pilgrim’s path, unencumbered by so many

May 12, 2024

Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Camille Thomas

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Mary Camille Thomas’s reflection Sitting in Paradise. “Sit in your cell as in paradise,” St. Romuald says in his brief rule for Camaldolese monks. My desk may be the closest thing I have to a monastic cell. I loved it from the beginning, the ample size and solid feel of it, the sensuous, curved corner that saves it from being stodgy or businesslike. In a concession to technology a discreet hole in the top allows power cords

May 8, 2024

Soul of a Pilgrim Video Prayer Cycle Day 1 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Blessing for Our Yes to the Journey*Holy Traveller, bless our sacred yes to the call you have whispered to us,whether a call to new adventure or the call that arises out of loss,we know you journey with us, guiding us on the way of imagination to new paths. May we travel with intention, being conscious of encountering you in each step,in each stranger, in each moment of disorientation. We ask you to bless our feet, that they carry us forward in this season to new possibilities. Bless our hands, that they might help us give form to our creative

May 5, 2024

Abbess love notes

Abbey of the Arts Celebrates 18 Years!

Today we celebrate 18 years since Abbey of the Arts was created. In its first year it was a blog called The Sacred Art of Living where I was retraining myself to write for a broader audience after my highly academic training. A few months in and I realized what I was writing my way toward was a virtual monastery. In those first few years I was teaching theology at Seattle University and also served as Program Coordinator for the Ignatian Spirituality Center in Seattle, and while I did love that work, my heart was longing for something different. I

May 2, 2024

Monk in the World Guest Post Series

Monk in the World Guest Post: Starr Regan DiCiurcio

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to our Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Starr Regan DiCiurcio’s reflection and inspiration for writing your own prayer. Over the years I have spent considerable time in monasteries, primarily Buddhist and Benedictine ones. The rhythm of the days, the beauty of chant, the resonance with ancestors, the faith held in community and the deep solitude all nourish me. But the day to leave always comes with the challenge of translating the monastic experience into my daily life. As an Interfaith Minister my work includes spiritual direction, retreats,

May 1, 2024

Abbess love notes

Blessing of the Elements ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Blessing of the Elements*Wild Elemental One,bless us through your gifts of wind, fire, water, and earth. May we awaken to new life each dawnand feel your holy breath sustaining us.Let the breezes whisper their secrets and the winds strip away what is no longer needed. May we bless the sky with our reaching,the clouds a witness to our becoming. May we feel the living flame of loveburning in our hearts.Let the sun warm and illumine usand may the ash that remainsfrom the fire bring us new clarity. May we bless the fire with our passionletting all that sparks and blazes

April 28, 2024

Monk in the World Guest Post: Diana Turner-Forte

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Diana Turner-Forte’s reflection Healing and Mercy. The ordinariness of the elongated single story building belies everything that happens inside. The originally crafted sign in earth tones of green and tan ceramic tiles makes a bold statement: Monarch Gallery. . . where dreams take flight. The sign was designed by a young man who talks incessantly while punching the elements on his cell phone. Earle interrupts conversations and ignores most people, only conversing with a select few. He

April 24, 2024

Abbess love notes

St Patrick and Answering the Call ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Blessing for Coming Home*Godde of Homecomings,our lives are a pilgrimage journeyseeking the discovery of home in the world. We travel, not in straight lines, but in circles and spirals, revisiting old patternsand ways of being that need healing,trusting in life’s unfinished nature, but also our deep desires of the heart calling usto re-orient ourselves again and again. Magnify our visionso that each journey we make leads to expanded growth and wisdom.Help us to continue to dive into the refreshing river of life,allowing the current to carry us closer to you. Carve out in us a space for both grief

April 21, 2024

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Queering Contemplation + Soul of a Pilgrim Video Podcast Day 3 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Kate Kennington Steer

Soul of a Pilgrim Video Podcast Day 2

Monk in the World Guest Post: Mary Camille Thomas

Soul of a Pilgrim Video Prayer Cycle Day 1 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Abbey of the Arts Celebrates 18 Years!

Monk in the World Guest Post: Starr Regan DiCiurcio

Blessing of the Elements ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Diana Turner-Forte

St Patrick and Answering the Call ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

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Easter and the Journey to Joy! ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Lori DiPrete Brown

Ripened (S)aging: A Good Friday Invitation ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Monk in the World Guest Post: Amy Oden

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