Your Online Monastery for Your Spiritual Practice

Soul of a Pilgrim Video Prayer Cycle Day 4 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

Blessing Each Step*Journeying One,you help us to navigate the path, placing one foot in front of the other, even when the way ahead is not visible. We set aside our desire for maps, GPS, and guidebooksand surrender to an inner knowing and directionsparked by the deepest longings of our hearts. We know the desire for new life we feel has been kindled by you.May we surrender our need to steer the courseand let every step we take carry us into greater intimacy with you.Help us to see others as fellow pilgrims on the waywith their own fears and struggles.Compel us

May 26, 2024

Monk Manifesto

New Monk in the World Self-Study Retreat!

We are pleased to announce the release of our revised and expanded Monk in the World retreat! The retreat is an 8 week self-study that explores the principles of The Monk Manifesto. The new version includes: Registration is offered on a sliding scale and all payments for this program go to support our scholarships to keep the Abbey financially accessible, as well as the creation of our Prayer Cycles, and our Lift Every Voice Book Club. We are excited to offer the community this rich resource for study and contemplation. Learn more and register here.

May 23, 2024

Monk in the World Guest Post: Naimi Gonzalez

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Naimi Gonzalez’s reflection learning to be present through lectio divina. I am in the beginning stages of learning to be more contemplative in my everyday life. The impetus to be more thoughtful and present came after years of struggling with racing thoughts. From the moment I wake up to the moment my head hits the pillow the noise in my head has been fairly constant. I remember waking up one morning a few months ago realizing that

May 22, 2024

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

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Soul of a Pilgrim Video Prayer Cycle Day 4 ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

New Monk in the World Self-Study Retreat!

Monk in the World Guest Post: Naimi Gonzalez

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

Upcoming Programs

Recent Reflections

Monk in the World Guest Post: Rachel Grandey

The Year Ahead at Abbey of the Arts ~ A Love Note from Your Online Abbess

A Blessing for Creativity + Sabbatical Announcement

Monk in the World Guest Post: Teresa Calpino

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