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Invitation to Community Lectio Divina: Honoring Saints & Ancestors

With November we offer a new invitation for contemplation. Our focus for this month is honoring saints and ancestors. The month of November is traditionally a time when the Christian Community remembers those who have died. And so we are inviting you to welcome in the wisdom of those who have gone before us. I invite you into a lectio divina practice with some words from the Letter to the Hebrews. 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 music). How amazing it would be to discern together the movements of the Spirit

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November 2, 2014

Writing Songs for Monks and Mystics (guest post by David Ash)

For the last several months, we have been embarking on an exciting creative project and collaboration.  It started with choosing 12 dancing monks to be a part of the original Dancing Monk Icon series painted by Marcy Hall.  These icons were meant to depict some beloved monks and mystics in a joyful and colorful way, reminding us of our call to dance through this life. I have been following with a series of poems I am slowly writing about each of these wondrous figures, choosing moments in their stories to illuminate. Then we had the inspiration to feature a dancing monk for each

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October 30, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Sam Troxal

I am delighted to share another beautiful submission for the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Sam Troxal’s wisdom on marrying Haiku with other contemplative practices: I searched for a lake or some other sacred place my own front porch I live as a monk in the world by listening—learning to listen. Maybe I really should say I want to learn to listen, hugging the words of Thomas Merton’s prayer that even when I am off course, “the desire to please the Holy does in fact please the Holy.” For the longest time

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October 30, 2014

Welcoming Your Multitude + St Brendan Poem (a love note from your online Abbess)

St. Brendan and the Songbirds Imagine the hubris, searching for the Saint-promised island, the stubbornness to continue for seven journeys around the sun. Each day on the rolling sea, his fellow monks jostled and tossed by waves. Brendan asks late one evening: How will I know when I find what I seek? Easter Sunday brings liturgy on the back of a whale, but as if that weren’t miracle enough, they travel onward. The ship is tossed onto sand and stone. they look up to behold a broad and magnificent oak frosted with white birds hiding the branches entirely, downy tree

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October 29, 2014

Invitation to Dance: Letting Go

We continue our theme this month of “Letting Go” which arose from our Community Lectio Divina practice with the story from the Gospel of Luke and continued with this month’s Photo Party and Poetry Party. I invite you into a movement practice.  Allow yourself just 5 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 this image of “Letting Go” as the gentlest of intentions, planting a seed as you prepare to step into

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October 26, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Mary Elyn Bahlert

This week in our Monk in the World guest post series we have a lovely reflection from fellow monk Mary Elyn Bahlert. Read on for her wisdom: ‘As if the sorrows of this world could overwhelm me now that I realize what we are. I wish everyone could realize this. But there is no way of telling people they are all actually walking around shining like the brightest sun.’ —Thomas Merton The world was always there for me – gurgling with joy, shining like the brightest sun, fragrant-full, slippery and hard-edged, colorful beyond belief – and there I was, walking around with my head in

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October 23, 2014

Miriam on the Shores (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 the

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October 22, 2014

Invitation to Poetry: Letting Go

Welcome to Poetry Party #80! I select an image (the photo above is by Alicia Dykstra) 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 include the credit link below it and link back to

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October 19, 2014

Monk in the World guest post: Shirley Cunningham

This week in our Monk in the World guest post series we have a beautiful reflection from fellow monk Shirley Cunningham on following the creative spirit. Read on for her wisdom: My calling in this world these days is to lean into the Creative Spirit and invite others to do the same. I knew the call long ago but wasn’t able to name it with clarity. It started with writing. Over the years, I’d written daily filling dozens of notebooks, reflecting on my life and the meaning of events, feelings, and relationships, my struggles, joys and confusions. Gradually, my closet shelves were lined with dusty

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October 16, 2014

Landscape as Sacred Text (a love note from your online Abbess)

Dearest monks and artists, It was such a joy to return from our trip to the States last week and feel as though we were coming home to Galway. We recently made the decision to have our small storage unit, which has been waiting for us in Seattle ever since we moved two and a half years ago, shipped over to us. It has mostly boxes of family photos and two pieces of furniture from my father’s side of the family, as well as an oil painting of my grandmother. I have missed these family connections. Making this decision felt

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October 15, 2014