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Invitation to Dance: Soul Friend

We continue our theme this month of “Soul Friend” through the practice of dance (please visit our Community Lectio Divina practice, Invitation to Photography, and Invitation to Poetry which all explored this theme for February). I invite you into a movement practice.  Allow yourself just 5-10 minutes this day to pause and listen and savor what arises. Begin with a full minute of slow and deep breathing.  Let your breath bring your awareness down into your body.  When thoughts come up, just let them go and return to your breath. Hold the theme of soul friend gently in your awareness, planting

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Monk in the World guest post: Jason Jones

I am delighted to share another submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Jason Jones’ wisdom about listening with the ear of our hearts.: Hospitality of Listening “He listens,” is what a new friend told me when we were both on retreat together.  We both had daily times to visit with a retreat leader, and my friend asked how my session went.  “Good,” I told him.  “It was good.  How about you?”  “He listens,” is how my friend replied.  The two words he listens said there was hospitality, openness, welcome, and safety in that time.  My friend’s

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“Please can I have a God” (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Please can I have a God (after Selima Hill) not fossilized, hardened, stiff, unshaken, not contained in creeds and testimonies, judgments and stone tablets, but in the wound breaking open. Please can I have a God who asks me to worship at the altar of mystery, to lay aside certainty, and curl up in the hollow of a great stone down by the river, to hear the force of it rushing past. Please can I have a God with questions rather than answers, who

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Invitation to Poetry: Soul Friend

Welcome to Poetry Party #75! (Does that make it our diamond jubilee?) I select an image (*photo above by Lynn Weekes Karegeannes) 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

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Dancing Monk Icons now available as prints!

If you have loved the dancing monk icon series, you can now order prints directly from artist Marcy Hall of Rabbit Room Arts. The prints are made by a local printer in the town of Erie on archival quality mat board, so your purchase supports the artist, a local printer, and half of the profits go to support the Earth Monastery Project. Will you choose Mary Mother of God, St. Benedict, St. Hildegard, St. Brigid, or maybe one of each? (Discounts when you buy 2 or all 4!) Prints are 6 inches wide x 10 inches high and are mounted on an

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Monk in the World guest post: Valerie Hess

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community.  Read on for Valerie’s wisdom about signposts and ancient practices: This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16 I am a signpost. I am called to stand at the crossroads and offer direction and guidance to people. I share what I know of the ancient path to walk on, a good path,

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Love and Hospitality (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims, A few days ago I received an email from a woman who is writing her dissertation and asked me to respond to the question: “If you had to choose one spiritual practice that is a non-negotiable for spiritual growth in the 21st century, what would it be and why?” My answer was supposed to be short and succinct. Here was my reply: “I would choose hospitality, both inner and outer, because I believe the welcoming in all of the

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Invitation to Photography: Soul Friend

Welcome to this month’s Abbey Photo Party! I select a theme and invite you to respond with images. We began this month with a Community Lectio Divina practice with wisdom from St. Brigid.  As I prayed with this passage, I was moved by how essential Brigid considers the role of companions on the journey. She urges us to make finding those with whom we can share a deep kinship of the heart’s longings. With our overall theme of the year at the Abbey as discernment, I love the idea of listening for how we might build a soulful community to support us

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Monk in the World guest post: Patricia Turner

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Patricia Turner’s wisdom: My Practice of Being a Monk in the World: Photo Lectio – The Image as Icon Already I am being brought into a world where significant things are shown as images, and insight comes from shapes and patterns, from the visual rather than from the written word.   – Esther de Waal    To live as a monk in the world for me begins with spending as much time as possible in silent and solitary reflection.  I carve out

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Praying the Heart (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a free gift!) Dearest Monks, Artists, and Pilgrims, I have been feeling a bit weary these last few days, fighting something off I think, and offering myself generous hospitality by resting and nourishing myself well with good food and the gift of herbs. I think it might be the transition of seasons, but I am listening in for the invitation and being gentle with my body and soul. I received a book of poems in the mail today, Small Bird by Elizabeth Cunningham, and the poem below

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