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Earth Monastery Project Update:
Dance Alchemy

Photo above: Dance Alchemists on the pier at the Frederick Douglass–Isaac Myers Maritime Museum, Baltimore. Photo top right: Alchemists peace sign. Photo bottom right: Lucy Zamora. The Earth Monastery Project is a partnership between the Abbey and carefully selected applicants, who will receive resources to complete a Project which nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness and cultivate a vision of the earth as our primary monastery. The EMP is a small grant project funded by donations, income from Amazon Associates program, and through a percentage of fees from Abbey online courses. Candice Tritch and Andrew Janssen are grant recipients for their Dance Alchemy project application. Dance Alchemy (click to

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April 9, 2014

“Soul Awakes and Sings” (a love note from your online Abbess)

“Even under its burden / the soul awakes and sings” —Trish Bruxvoort Colligan, from her song “Soul Awakes and Sings” off her just about to be released album Wild Acre) We must risk delight. . . We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. . . We must admit there will be music despite everything. —Jack Gilbert, “A Brief for the Defense” (excerpt) “I want / to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” —Pablo Neruda, Love Poem

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April 7, 2014

Community Lectio Divina: Song of Songs

With April comes a new invitation for contemplation. In the northern hemisphere, spring is slowly arriving with birdsong and blooming. Wherever we live on this beautiful planet, we can tend to the flowering that happens within after a season of fallowness. The outer seasons become a mirror for our inner experience. I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from one of my favorite biblical books: Song of Songs. How Community Lectio Divina works: Each month there will be a passage selected from scripture, poetry, or other sacred texts (and occasionally visio and audio divina as well with art and

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April 6, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: DG Hollums

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for DG Hollums’ wisdom on seeing the world more deeply: I’ve always been an outgoing extrovert. My soul is filled up by being around others and enjoying the smiles and love of others around me. As a child I was passionately quick to love and really did not know a stranger. I was always the one that would hug others. Even those who did not “appreciate” hugs, I would make a B-line for them just to make sure they knew that they

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April 3, 2014

Earth Monastery Project Update:
Monarch Butterfly Waystation

The Earth Monastery Project is a partnership between the Abbey and carefully selected applicants, who will receive resources to complete a Project which nourish an earth-cherishing consciousness and cultivate a vision of the earth as our primary monastery. The EMP is a small grant project funded by donations, income from Amazon Associates program, and through a percentage of fees from Abbey online courses. Rev. Dr. Martha Brunnell is one of our grant recipients for her project establishing a Monarch Waystation and native wildlife habitat among broad fields and winding roads in northern Illinois adjacent to the Mayfield Congregational Church UCC, where she is the

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April 2, 2014

Gifts of Slowness (a love note from your online Abbess)

To receive this love note straight to your in-box, subscribe here (and also receive a gift!) “The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.” —Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander Dearest monks, artists, and pilgrims, I didn’t write a love note last week because I gave myself permission to not send out a newsletter.

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April 1, 2014

A chance to pause and savor

At the Abbey we have weekly invitations to lectio divina, photography, poetry, and dance on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Sundays respectively.  With a 5th Sunday this month, I am inviting you to allow this week to be a chance to revisit some of the previous invitations and savor what has been shared there, as well as your own unfolding response to the invitation to “Return to me with your whole heart” we have been exploring. Consider stopping by these posts and see what kind of return is inspired: Community Lectio Divina: Return to me with your whole heart Invitation to Photography

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March 30, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Carolyn Ash

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Carolyn Ash’s wisdom about gardening and the gift of weeds: My Garden, My Monastery A day in my Southern California garden sparkles with peace, quiet, calm. Turning soil, tending plants, spraying a bit of water eases my spirit, energizes my body, and creates space in my mind. Repeated motions become a mantra for my hands and body. The mundane becomes sacred: sifting arid soil through my fingers, pulling weeds, feeling the heft of my tools, noticing earthy things with fresh vision. My

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March 27, 2014

Invitation to Dance: Return to Me with Your Whole Heart

We continue our theme this month of “Return to me with your whole heart” 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 March). 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 returning to

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March 23, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Asther Bascuna-Creo

This week in our Monk in the World guest post series we have two beautiful poems from fellow monk and artist Asther Bascuna-Creo who lives in Australia. Read on for her wisdom about silence and the contemplative path: Silence And in her middle years she discovers silence. Not the kind you find In a remote abbey nor on a grand cathedral, Not the type you seek in silent retreats nor in places of meditation. But the sitting down in the kitchen bench type The standing in front of the stovetop type The folding the week’s washing type While dinner sizzles over

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March 20, 2014